welcome to spinning back click where each week here at MMA junkie we take a spin through the biggest stories in MMA
I’m your host Gorgeous George and with me as always some of the sharpest Minds In The Biz the MMA Titan is back from
his world travels Mike Bond joins us here on today’s program how about our
International Superstar reporter fatah she joins us from overseas and of course
goes the creator of SVC and my MMA junkie radio co-host he’s here with us
as well wait till you hear about the mustache he’s got a girl I haven’t forgot folks and uh Kamikaze is going to
handle the ones and twos let’s get to it all right this past Saturday night at
Noche UFC we were treated to an epic Main Event between Alexa Grasso and Valentina shashenko the fight of the
Year candidate in my opinion win all five rounds and the fate of both combatants was left in the hands of the
judges judges Saul diamatto junichiro comigo and Mike Bell respectively turned
in scores of 48-47 cheshenko 48-47 Grasso and 47
it pains me to say this 47 and with that the split draw
announcement Grosso retained their title panel let’s hear your reaction to this amazing title fight and tell us how you
scored it uh we go to Mike for the First Take yeah this was a excellent fight like
these two more than delivered in every way you could possibly imagine uh it was
a step up from the first fight you know minus the Finish but extremely competitive you could tell they were
both very prepared for this and yeah I agree with you George definitely one of the best fights of the Year definitely
one of the best female fights of the year for sure and as far as how I scored it in the end I did think we were gonna
have a winner like one where or the other whether it was going to be shepchenko or Grosso 3-2 I could see it
really going either way but I did not really factor in the potential of a draw
there and that’s what we got because of that blatantly egregious 10-8 scorecard by Mike Bell which I just can’t wrap my
head around I’ve watched that fifth round back again and it makes no sense to me I mean there was of course a big
moment there for Grosso she had you know obviously the the biggest most definitive points in that round but is
it enough damage is it enough prolonged uh sustained control that stuff to
Warrant to 10 8 I just I can’t see it at all and I know there was a lot of rounds that were close round four seems to be
very pivotal as well as far as how it went but to me I had chefchenko one
three and four and you could even make a case for her getting round five if you wanted to I know Michael Bisping got a
lot of backlash and being like the first saying that I think chefchenko won and I think John annik kind of doubled down on
that too and re-watching and he said he thought chefchenko getting round five was more realistic than giving it 10-8
Grosso so I just don’t really see how we ended up with the draw here I personally
had it three two forchenko if you want to go 3-2 Grosso I would have been able
to stomach that just fine but the draw scorecard the 10-8 really just doesn’t make sense to me so it’s unfortunate
given what these two women did in there the effort they put forth that the neither of us neither of them got to be
the winner and that’s kind just the disappointment here I know we’ll discuss everything it spins into going forward
but I think right now it’s just uh kind of disappointing that we didn’t get a definitive result here
Big Time disappointing and not just the work they did that night those camps
that lead to these fights all the promotion to just kind of have this nothing Burger it sucks man all right
father your thoughts here your reaction what did you think when all this unfolded on Saturday night and then we
were treated to a split draw so like I always say I watch these
fights after pulling an all-nighter in the middle of the night so I’m not gonna ever be the best judge when I’m watching in the middle of the night but I think
regardless of how awake any of us were this was a pretty tough fight to score the way I look at it overall because I
just rewatched the fight is Valentina won most of the fight and I think Rosso
edged her out in in terms of more impactful moments when I look at the knockdown the way she finished the fight
it all came down to round four just like the majority think Tenney is insane
because Valentino was on her way to winning that round until that mistake so this is it’s the same theme from the
first two fights Valentina mistakes and it’s a fight credit to Alexa Grosso for capitalizing on those mistakes but I
think uh in the first fight it seemed to be that spinning uh back kick and then in this fight towards the end I feel
like if Valentino doesn’t make that mistake she wins the fight so overall when you look at each minute of the fight I think Valentino won more of the
fight I just think Russell capitalized and had more impactful moments throughout the fight round four super
close watching it back I gave it uh I think I’m being in Grosso so overall I
did score the fight three to two to Grasso but again totally fine if somebody goes uh Valentina three two uh
round five ten eight is insane uh Grasso did finish that fight strong body
language is everything and her having that full Mount pack position raining down punches on Valentina but she did
that in the final what minute minute and a half for the fight not four minutes and a half for the majority of the round
which is why 10 8 is insane so yes a great visual for Grosso the way she ended the fight not so good for
Valentina though Valentino was winning that round so yes round five is Grosso in my opinion but 10A is crazy and if
Grosso doesn’t get that 10A judges were gonna give it to Valentino so I feel for Valentina totally get her bitterness as
people are are saying she’s a sword loser and whatnot she’s just competitive and I think she made some great adjustments in the rematch just
unfortunate little things that happened in the fight and mistakes that Alexa was able to capitalize and overall my
opinion had the more impactful moments all right so we kind of have what was panning out that night a 48-47 for
shashenko 48-47 for Grasso how about you guys your reaction what was your score
well the fight itself was amazing I think considering the fact that a lot of people felt going in that maybe the
first fight might have been a little bit of a fluke right people were saying that these two proved that I mean these two Rivals were much closer in skills than I
think we we all anticipated and I think a little bit of it was Valentina shashenko coming out a little angry in
this fight you know she was a little bit more aggressive and you look at uh Alexa Grosso I think again she did she had
another Improvement in her game like when do we ever see people taken down Valentina uh the way she did knocking
her down the way she did you know if your name’s not Amanda Nunes we don’t really get to see that too often so there were improvements on both sides
um but you know to me the scoring was just crazy I I I had I had it for Grasso
at the end of the day but it was very very close and I’m okay if you were to score it for chefchenko but really it
comes down to round four for me that one was the really close one and um it’s so
close that honestly I don’t have a problem if you say Valentine but I knew
at round two that it was a fight that I wanted to see again and that was a great feeling you know I didn’t want to see
Valentina come in and steamroll her or anything like that I actually do think these these two Rivals are a lot closer
in skill set now and I’m excited to see what can come next from all this but it’s just unfortunate that we have to
have this conversation surrounding such a big fight surrounding such a big event you know these types of things really
really affect careers and it’s unfortunate that we’re in this situation yeah Mike I want to go back to you you
mentioned that this thing and anik lean more towards a Valentina 10-9 than a uh
Grosso 10-8 similar to that I think Valentina is
more capable of Landing a 10-8 in round three then Grosso is landing a 10-8 in round five and I’ll explain because
father kind of touched on this in round five Grosso did have some dominant moments
I think she blocked a lot honestly and there was some strikes to the back of the head but Optics right like Eric
nick6 likes to say it does look like she was uh not intelligently defending herself but then all of a sudden she
exploded and kind of almost wound up on top of her and then I think uh there was a uh was that with the leg lock attempt
I can’t remember but there was something towards the end that didn’t that wasn’t that didn’t really matter too much but regardless she did kind of look like she
was sinking in a choke that choke was only held on for about 10 to 12 seconds guys and Valentina was already out of it
the inverted trying uh Guillotine was held on to about a minute I’d say about the first 30 seconds was well I had the
feeling that it could end so did the announcers so did the crowd and then obviously you could tell she was gonna be okay and it was just a matter of
Valentina pulling out of it making sure that she was okay but Valentina started all that with 3 30 left in that round
and basically after that Guillotine was unsuccessful it was still two and a half minutes of the body triangle taking your
back uh before I think with like 10 seconds like Alexa kind of Escape turned into her but not fully in Valentina hung
on to her that I thought had dominance and duration time and the fact that she
was in a dominant position not damaged that’s the key word sometimes I feel like if that’s one of the 3DS that leads
the 10-8 uh Alexa might have been having that damage or at least what many people
may have thought was I respectfully disagree I didn’t think it was that damaging um she didn’t have uh duration and she
didn’t have I mean I guess she did abdominus but not not as long I don’t know what do you think Mike I I sorry
for taking up so much time here but 10 8 in round three for round Tina versus ten eight for Grosso what’d you think of
that I mean I don’t think any of the rounds in this fight were 10-8 at the end of the day right I think that’s what
it comes down to all of them were close enough competitive enough and I know that kind of in the modern uh era of the
unified rules and how these fights are supposed to be scored they want the judges to be more liberal with their
10mates than maybe they were five ten years ago things like that but there’s still a fine line there and I think they
kind of crossed it a little bit with going into the 10-8 realm here I know that the way you just broke down those
rounds George was was very nice and as a judge maybe you want to distinguish
around like you calling all these rounds ten nines and something more significant
happens in a another round and you want to say hey this is a 10-8 because it wasn’t the same and that’s where people
will start making the argument for like a half point system and things like that so there is more tools at the judge’s
disposal but given the criteria they have to go off now the tools they have you know at their disposal I don’t think
any of those rounds should have gone into 10 8 territory and I think when you Circle back to that point that this
being an anik were making I don’t think it was necessarily that they truly believe that Valentina won that fifth
round 10-9 I think they’re just saying it’s so egregious to call it a 10-8 for Grosso that like if you’re wanting to
make a case for one or the other they felt there was a stronger case for a
10-9 for Valentino than the other side and uh just want to address a comment from zero respect in the chat here
saying you have to take the belt if you’re the Challenger Valentina didn’t do that no you don’t have to take the
belt every fight should be scored the same in terms of the Optics of it you shouldn’t say hey this because it’s a
championship fight I’m gonna give the person who’s the champion the 10-9 the benefit of the doubt just because
they’re the champion and the Challenger didn’t do something Mr fit of the belts and stakes and things like that should
not be coming into a judge’s mind or anyone else’s when judging if I I should judge the first prelim of the night
under the same criteria that you judge the final Main Event championship fight so that’s my take on that comment as
well all right uh goes let me give you this one because I think you’ve talked about this in the past when we’ve
addressed open Score you’ve been Benny in the chat says Hey guys do you think that if the judges feel like they made a
mistake in scoring one of the previous rounds do they then try to correct it in the later rounds in this case the 10-8
Progresso in the fifth you know how we’ve talked about open scoring if it flashed and the other two went one way
and everyone’s Moon you might feel inclined to go the other way so can you address Benny’s question here in the
chat yeah I mean it’s kind of like in basketball right the makeup call we see that all the time we see it in soccer
but I don’t think that that really happened in this particular instance and and that’s kind of like the most frustrating thing about this whole
situation guys is we always talk about accountability and that definition I think is different for a lot of people
when a lot of people say accountability I think some people think that means you gotta fire a person or get rid of of
them it’s not always like that a lot of it just comes down to tell us what you saw why is it that you were watching the
same fight as everyone else but came up with something else can you explain that to everybody and we don’t really have
any of that and that’s what I think is the most frustrating part of all this is it almost feels like sometimes they’re a
little too protected these judges um but I could see something like that
happening just not in this particular fight and in this situation it really is mind-boggling
folks as you can see we take questions from the chat Mike took one I took one I’m gonna send this one to fada uh the
the better the question you know lay it out for me uh the easier I can get to it if you want to sit there and be a
jokester or whatever hey at least be funny and maybe we can include you in the show this comes from purple Aki
there needs to be a total revamp of the scoring system and judges have combat experience but I believe you said you
think over the course of the fight Valentina was the better fighter was that you that said that yeah I just felt
like she was winning more of the fight is what I said like when you look at every single minute of the fight which
is not the way we necessarily Dodge things but if you do she was winning in my opinion the majority of the fight is
just Alexa would capitalize on specific moments and steal uh those rounds off of her which credit to her right because
Optics like you guys keep uh quoting Eric nixic like that’s what it’s about and that’s what round five for me was
her ending that’s why for me I couldn’t give Valentina round five I would definitely not give at 10 8 but that’s
why I couldn’t give Valentina around five because just ending the fight in that compromised position where the Alex
was very close to finishing her uh for me that’s difficult to give her the round now Valentino is doing good work
in that round up till that moment but just that visual of Alexa getting that
full Mountain bringing down punches and almost cinching in the rear naked joke switching it to a neck crank right before time wind down there’s no way in
my eyes you could give Valentina that round it’s just for me 10 8 are being thrown around way too easily I was just
I want to look back at some of the old fights I think that’s what I’m gonna have to do sometime and look at some of these dominant performances like I think
for example gay DS and Kane Velasquez now I don’t know what the scorecards looked like for that trilogy about where
Velazquez ended up finishing him but if we’re talking about that and what was that at 10-6 did they but they probably
didn’t give that right so now we’re seeing a lot more of these like 10A 10 7 10 6 and it doesn’t really warrant that
so I think how lenient they are with the criteria is kind of what’s ruining things right now and terms of scorecards
is that we’re so like we jumped to give a 10 8 or 10-7 so quickly when we’ve
seen rounds that are actually been absolutely dominant so when I look back at those fights like they were I know
for a fact they were not scored 10 4 or 10-5 right they’re probably scored 10A or maybe even 10-7 at best and if you
look at the 10A that we just saw compared to for example what Velazquez did with dos Santos then this is my
issue with it basically and I know it’s subjective guys but you know I in the MMA decisions website
um I went and checked out the other results right you know in the Knutson fight Bell the judge in question here for the
split draw he had a 30-24 for Knutson Derek Minor I
know Brian Miner believes his name he had 30 27. so both judges said oh yeah
Knutson gets the round but one judge said 10 8 10 8 10 8 while the other one
said 10 9 10 9 10 9. that is I mean I guess I can appreciate at least I’m
getting the right fighter compared to a 30-27 this way and 30 27 that way but the fact that maybe they’re not all on
board on what the the uh barrier is or the bar is for a 10 8 10 9 that’s a
little concerning you know we’re here in Nevada we always brag about kind of having the most experienced judges and
Saturday night was a little different for sure let’s move on um all right topic two as stated earlier
the UFC took over September 16th from the sport of boxing here in Las Vegas in
the past Mexican Independence Day has drawn many boxing fans to Sin City over the years but this time it was the UFC
that put on the show Noche UFC the event delivered in the eyes of many that were live in attendance and those that watch
from home with the UFC now supporting a healthy roster of Mexicans and Mexican Americans should this become an annual
event in Las Vegas which as most of you know is also the home base of the MMA leader father we go to you for the first
take care yeah I love it I I don’t see why not continue to do that stuff it’s it’s a
great opportunity for a lot of these fighters to get to to show off their culture to get get to have an event
that’s all about them especially that this card had some of the younger fighters that either came out of the
contender series or obviously phenomenons like Raul roses Jr but just an event that’s dedicated all about them
and them showing off their culture uh Gathering the crowd it’s just it it look
as you can see here in the crowd they were in stereo mask and or sorry the Luchador mask like all that stuff like just making uh these guys get an
opportunity to represent themselves something that we don’t often see in the UFC obviously things have been restricted we’re not their Fighters
aren’t allowed Flags anymore but now you know the Mariachi about all that stuff it’s just fun it gets it gives the
fighters an opportunity to show off some of their personality so yeah I’m all for it
all right how about you girls are you all for it I thought I thought it was a home run I
mean look the closest Sport that we have to compare with is boxing right and you see the impact that the Mexican Fighters
have had in in the boxing world and some of the big events that have that we’ve had here in Las Vegas even in Mexico
City there’s been some pretty amazing fights but it’s a huge impact that the Latino Market has overall and so for the
UFC to do this I thought it was kind of cool because it let them get out of their shell a little bit right we’re always talking about how every event
looks the same and this one kind of stood out I thought it was a great idea they they promoted it really well and
the the thing that I liked about it the most was it wasn’t a pay-per-view we didn’t have to go out of our pocket to pay again uh no pay-per-view however it
had a pay-per-view feel to it and that was a good feeling you know if you were in the arena the chance that the people
bring together the flags all that was insane great mixture of Fighters but if
you’re at home you know the vignettes that they ran even bringing Brandon Reno into the booth these are all things that
they don’t normally do and I like that they thought out side of the box so overall I thought Noche was a home run
and Mike you strike me as the type of guy that’s put down some modelos Coronas tequila in the past
um you have to be feeling it as well man my Canadian brother yeah yeah it was fun I mean anything the UFC can do to
differentiate their product when you’re doing you know 43 fight cards a year and make something feel special and unique
is more than welcome at this point I mean we watch all these shows and whether it’s happening uh you know at a
stadium in Brazil or Sweden or whatever the case may be ufca Apex anything like
that obviously the big distinction between these shows currently is like a UFC Apex Show with no crowd or a couple
hundred people or like an arena show and then to have this arena show with this extra layer on it was a lot of fun and
they did a great job you see the b-roll uh Kamikaze just dropped there with you know the mariachi band and the crowd and
just all the stuff that brought a unique element to it goes broke down the the list of things there really nicely so
yeah I would love this to see be like a yearly thing if they could do it maybe try to put some other things in their
schedule that are along the same vein but it’s really dependent on the roster right like this was circumstantial in
the sense that you have Alexa Grosso from Mexico able to carry this event as the headliner and the people are willing
to come out I mean for them to have over 18 000 people in T-Mobile Arena and nearly three million dollar gate for a
fight night in Las Vegas is beyond a home run for them I mean it is just
astronomical how on fire the UFC is right now to draw a crowd like this in a gate like that for a fight night not a
pay-per-view in Las Vegas where they get lots of shows and you know it’s hard to get people out there and sometimes of
the year so this was great all around more of it please as many of these types of things as you could possibly get
because it’s a lot of fun it makes just the viewing experience when these shows can be very monotonous at times a lot
more fun the UFC used to have more themed events on an annual basis basis like the Super
Bowl Saturday card the day before the Super Bowl the New Year’s Eve card which
was basically as close as they could get to the 31st but basically you know they’ve moved that up a little bit Memorial Day Labor Day uh now it’s
really more about International fight week versus Fourth of July but they kind of go hand in hand you guys want to see
more of that now that we’re all kind of buzzing and gushing over what they did with noshi Noche UFC and if so any
specific ideas in which what they could do fada yeah I mean we were talking about this
off camera like bestie day uh July 14th I know the issue is I don’t know if it would land on a Saturday which is
probably what the issue would be with a lot of these uh uh holidays national holidays but it would just be cool I
mean after being in Paris and seeing that type of environment now would there be that many French friends if it was in
Las Vegas or something like that no but they could make it themed and just when they go to London when they go to Paris
just Target the dates but again so many uh footballer soccer games and all that
stuff that then concerts they have to weave around so it’s it’s fun it’s it’s it’s it’s fun it’s a good idea it’s just
going to be a little bit hard to manage but just the idea of a theme I think I enjoyed a lot how about you
guys themes you like them yeah I love themes um you know even if you go back to the pride eras right they
had their themes here and there I think you could sprinkle in some of that stuff um for as good as as Noche was I do
think there are things that we can improve upon and to start off with I think the name the name is just a little
Bland you know if you speak Spanish it just translates into night and I think there’s something a little better maybe
we can we could add to that I also think you know I love Bruce Buffer and I don’t want to get rid of them I think he
should be there but how about Joe Martinez what if we brought them both in have one announce one guy I have the
other one do the the Latino names I think that would be fun and then here’s another thing we have to consider guys
is we were lucky that you know we had three Mexican Champions we’re down to one
is it going to carry the same weight if we don’t have a belt on the line when we don’t do that when we don’t have a
Mexican Champion uh you know we got the BMF felt belt right why not create something for this noce right
they’ve already made the belt it’s already got it’s already got the the cool coloring and all that what if we
did that when we didn’t have a champion something you know there’s so many things that you could do that would make this fun but yeah like good on you UFC
for for figuring this out and and giving the fans something to you know turn on your TV and just not feel like you’re
watching the same product all the time this was awesome who would put on the first El maschingon
belt around the winner like the rock did the masadol can you think of someone off the top of your head you better be
someone pretty chingon It’s gotta be Julio Cesar Chavez I think that’s the dude you bring in he he does that uh
please don’t bring it not nothing against Danny Trejo or any of those guys but like bring in some of these guys that are known for this passion that’s
create that’s kind of crossed over from boxing right uh a Juan Manuel Marquez bring him in there you know there’s so
many guys that you could bring in uh Barrera he’d be great but uh I think
bringing somebody in like that would just be so cool Amanda to really pack onto that night I’ll tell you what Vince
Ortiz doesn’t want you to bring Mario Lopez to do it he didn’t even like the way Mario Lopez was rolling his ass he
said he was reading the ad and it was embarrassing I didn’t think he did that bad but I wasn’t paying that close of attention all right Mike I think we got
a kind of a feel for how you felt about it you gave a nice throw answer so we’re gonna move on here to topic three during
one of the prelims of the Noche UFC card referee Church Chris tyony put on uh put
a halt to the fight I should say and he thought Edgar shares had stopped Daniel lucerta via a standing Guillotine choke
though the choke did look tight the third appeared fine and did not actually tap to the submission however after
seeing lucerta’s arm grow limp that’s when tiony had stepped in to stop the fight and he immediately saw and heard
the disapproval of laserta and the crowd and probably the commentator Booth uh
Dom Cruz more specifically was not in any way fired up about this decision now
cave side officials they gathered afterwards they used the video replay to overturn the result and declare it a no
contest no one got the dub no one got the L and no one got the win bonus panel
in your opinion minus the stoppage was this handled correctly all I do
man this situation is so difficult you know because it’s hard to okay if you put them back
together you can’t really do it without giving somebody an advantage and if you do that at the end of the fight however
it ends somebody’s gonna have something to complain about right you can’t can’t put them back in the choke and just say all right make sure he’s in the choke
but don’t press too hard don’t choke them too hard like you can’t get you can’t replicate where they were at so I
think if you put them back together there’s just going to be somebody complaining about an advantage so at
this point not knowing uh the situation very well look we got out of it let’s figure out
what we can do going forward because this situation a lot of people have come down on Chris tioni and I get it it
ruined the fight but if you’re in a fight party and say there’s 20 people there when that arm goes limp like that
I guarantee you have that room is screaming he’s out we’ve seen broadcasters do that before right it’s
just unfortunate that he wasn’t and maybe there was a little bit more that could have been done but instead of
really coming down on this guy I think going forward let’s figure the situation out how do we how do we make it so that this doesn’t fight this doesn’t happen
again because this is a these are two fighters that are affected in the pocketbook because of it their standings are affected all the training camp that
went into it luckily they didn’t look too bad I think we can reschedule it but I would say moving forward you still do
the Hulkamania arm right if it drops if you’re the referee scream as loud as you
can you know give me a thumbs up do it a couple times because here’s what’s gonna happen if you only do it once people are
gonna say I couldn’t hear you the crowd was too loud so really make sure I don’t see the there’s too much damage if
somebody’s out from one to two seconds right and that’s all it takes to to scream that out but moving forward I
think we do have to address this all right how about you Mike what did you think of this whole unfortunate
sequence yeah it was obviously not ideal from uh Chris tanyoni there but I’m glad that
they at least got it right the ability to do replay review in Nevada and quickly Rectify it uh I wish though that
there was a path to being able to just restart a fight like this I know there is some complications there uh mainly in
my opinion like you know Edgar was celebrating and jumping on the cage and being lifted up from his team to go back
to a guy like that and be like hey you have to restart the fight now when he’s probably had an adrenaline dump of sorts
from the celebration that he’s thought he’s won and have to go back and restart the fight I know there’s some
complications there but I don’t think it’s like a timing thing they got all the stun this replay review and all that
through in about five minutes or less that’s no longer than a break you’re giving someone for a low blow for an eye
poke so I don’t think the side of it of being like Oh it might be too long until the fight is restarted I
don’t think that’s really an issue I think they can go through this really quick so I would have liked to see that I know that’s in a big adjustment and an
amendment to the rules that would have to be made but given the circumstances we are dealing with humans in there
there’s human error from judging or refereeing as we’ve talked about on this program from the beginning uh so you’re
going to have errors it’s not going to be perfect every single time in there but there’s things you can do to
alleviate it potentially and this was one of them and go into the replay review giving the fight the correct no
contests it deserved and then maybe you get a rematch in there but it was certainly interesting I think it made it
worse the fact that Dominic Cruz on commentary was like he’s gonna stop it too early he knew he had a perfect beat
on that whole situation and then the ref stopped it early and we had the whole
WTF face from lucera being like what is going on here and then the whole aftermath of it so it’s just It’s Tricky
especially Chris tanyoni has a bit of a track record of some of the stuff going on in the past couple of years so just
not a great look for him again but clearly the Nevada commission didn’t have too big of an issue with it or put
too much blame because he was back in there as a referee three fights later yeah and you know what’s funny is we’ve
all seen enough fights where when someone does drop their arm if the ref doesn’t get there in time the
commentators start shouting that he’s out there he’s out that he’s out and I’m not saying Dom’s on both sides of that
because we obviously have a ton of commentators so some might do this some might do that or whatever
um I’m with ghosts tioni did make a mistake I thought Dom buried him pretty well he pretty much said everything that
except that he stunk like what cigarettes and booze or something like that but you know he went in on him well
but he backed up this point because like Mike said he stated prior to the uh to
the stoppage that that’s exactly what was going to happen so I I do give him credit there for doing his homework uh
and and you know at least backing up his strong stance all right father what did you think of all this madness
yeah I think two things like just restart the fight and I think it would have kind of solved everything they
didn’t have to go back with half their paycheck both of them and also um
to give Chris Tony a little bit of benefit of the doubt La serta’s hand did kind of go limp but he just should have
checked one more time that’s all he needed to do because then I think nobody would have argued that if he kind of
shook his hand twice and didn’t get a reaction and stopped it I think people would have been okay with that but
that’s all he kind of needed to do just one more little nudge in the arm and that’s when that was the opportunity for
Alaska to go like no I’m good or put a thumbs up if you’ve seen the visual here like he kind of shakes his hand and it
kind of goes to him he doesn’t um move at all and then the second he breaks up the flight that third is
looking at him like what on Earth and the third is oh and four he’s essentially fighting for his job he just should have checked one more time is all
he kind of needed to do I think he was just quick uh to jump I think refs sometimes are probably a little worried
about the whole uh you’re letting him take too much damage we’ve seen refs get a lot of crap for that as well so I
think he should have just nudged them one more time and if they have the ability to review which they did just
let them continue put them back in that position maybe not in that gay team Joker because then uh would be a little
bit harder for him to fight it off but just put give try res the advantageous position and continue the fight I don’t
see why not um better than us having this whole discussion right yeah but you’re right the second time I
think would quiet probably the other 90 of complainers for sure that he went two times we don’t need WWE we don’t need
the Hulk Hogan third time um but yeah a second time I think definitely would help and I did want to
say this and I know Mike wants to chime in so maybe Mike you can take this but in the law learned asking fight didn’t we have something similar where
aspirin’s body language was one of um you know amount I think it was that we call it a school dog choke
um and um we had kind of a similar controversy but it didn’t blow up like
this one Mike yeah it was Lawler on the other side but yeah um I know that one
was obviously tricky and again these things are gonna happen it’s it’s hard sometimes you’re In the Heat of the Moment
um you think maybe someone’s unconscious for a second but when you’re talking about like it’s one thing
um when you’re talking about like a joint submission a knee an elbow something like that like how quickly it
can go from super dangerous uh you know long-term damage we’re talking about blood chokes it’s not quite the same
thing right like you can a guy can be out for an extra second or two of course you don’t want something you know
horrific like you’ve seen on like pre uh Regional scene Clips where guys are out
for 30 seconds before the referee acknowledges that you don’t want that but when you’re talking about a blood
choke I think it’s it’s better if you let the guy go out and he doesn’t tap and he wants to go out or girl uh that’s
their choice and then you kind of let it go from there and it’s it’s much easier to not have so much concern about the
prolonged damage there so yeah there’s plenty of instances of situations like this obviously aspirin versus Lawler was
one of those as well and uh just kind of is what is unfortunately you would hope that the referees at this highest level
of the sport would be able to have a little more assurance and have these situations minimalized but it’s going to
happen here and there I think far laid out the great point that you should have checked the arm you know again and again
to be super positive especially given the angle he was at Up Against the Cage standing those type of things but um I
also why I was putting my hand up there George was kind of to address this comment from Ryan Tomasetti in the chat
saying you can’t openly fight the refs in the commentary Booth Dan Hardy found this out the hard way well Dominic a
completely different situations Dan Hardy literally got in herb Dean’s face and started screaming at him from the
commentary Booth cage side for about a foot away Dominic just gave his opinion on the broadcast he wasn’t yelling at
the ref he didn’t make it a personal things so this is very different and that’s just you know one of the many
layers why Dan Hardy’s relationship ended with the UFC that was more of a slap on the wrist situation there was
another situation in Abu Dhabi with Dan Hardy and a UFC employee that happened that was ultimately kind of the the
backbreaker for his parting ways with the company and Dana White has talked about that openly and interviews and press conferences so if you want to kind
of know the UFC stance you can go look that up mm-hmm good stuff all right yeah and
Thomas Eddie and uh molatu Vanguard letting me have it as well I kind of
mixed like a DJ sometimes they call it a schoolyard and yes Bulldog choke you guys are correct I’ll take that L on
that one uh but I encourage more participation from the chat I’ll try to get to as many as we can so keep
bringing it now for this next segment I want to bring in uh Nick tilwalk he’s
the managing editor at wrestling junkie so that’s right pro wrestling fans wrestling junkie is the spot for you
hardcores that enjoy WWE aw aew excuse me and New Japan welcome Nick how are
you sir I’m good thank you for having me all right well thank you for uh being
part of this panel when we get to this topic here which was a little bit earlier in the week but still it was
Major news our worlds kind of came together as the UFC and WWE merged under TKO group Holdings Inc which is owned by
the Endeavor group Endeavor head Ari Emmanuel along with Dana White and Paul Levesque that’s Triple H they rang the
opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange and the new era began both sides have expressed excitement about
the union my question to you lot is which company has more to gain from the other in your view Nick why don’t you go
first I honestly think that WWE has more to gain from being merged with the UFC than
vice versa although I’m definitely open to your guys expert’s opinion on the other direction uh I just really think
that uh from the business standpoint uh analysts have said for a long time that WWE has a lot of corporate sponsorship
potential that they haven’t tapped into and obviously being under the Endeavor umbrella and what Endeavor has helped
UFC kind of unlock in that area uh can now be done for for WWE one of the
things that we talked about on the wrestling junkie slack over the past week was if you look at the Octagon uh
it’s it’s filled with advertisements obviously UFC is an expert on getting corporate sponsors to buy into their
product and WWE is just really kind of scratching the surface of what they can do they’ve had some big uh in event
sponsorships over the past year with things like Slim Jim and Mountain Dew and cinnamon toast crunch but those are
those are really they they’re they’re not the experts at that yet and one of the things that everybody involved in
this has said is hey in-depth can help WWE unlock this potential that it has
now is every corporate sponsor that sponsors UFC going to want to sponsor WWE no of course not so it could be some
overlap and some new sponsors but that’s something that that WWE can certainly learn from UFC and I think uh something
that we’ll see very soon all right well we’ll definitely come back to you good stuff there to start things off uh let’s go to a cinnamon
toast expert like goes uh who can maybe chime in do you agree with Nick are are
they going to benefit more from us or are we going to get them easy George Don’t make me snap you like
a slim jim um look I think when you look at World Wrestling Entertainment you have to
focus on one word in there and that’s Entertainment that’s something that the UFC has lost a lot of over the last
couple years with the Reebok deal now Venom coming along every fighter looks the same nobody really stands out a few
a few are able to do that but not all of them and I think what WWE does a really good job of uh behind the scenes with
their athletes is the pr side you know they really work with them really well whenever uh sometimes I help out here
with pro wrestling junkie and the way they approach their interviews they you
could just tell they have that training they really know how to get their messages across I think something like that can benefit the UFC fighters I know
they’ve had their Summits before and kind of talked about that a little bit I think that’s one thing that could benefit the UFC fighters and on the
other side you know you look at what is WWE known for right those big events SummerSlam Survivor series Royal Rumble
WrestleMania we’ve already seen the UFC kind of do something similar in this noce card maybe we could add to
something like that maybe on those cards you can jump out of your shell a little bit more maybe that’s where you bring
out the ramp you bring out you know all the theatrics the the fireworks that’s something that I think uh can cross over
right in the right situation and if you look at the other side of the coin WWE
where they could benefit is you know not every UFC fighter wins a belt a lot of them do but a lot of them don’t make it
that far and some of them just get tired of it and I think they could benefit from giving these athletes somewhere to
go afterwards or if their career just doesn’t pan out they could have life in pro wrestling we’ve seen Shayna Basler
Ronda Rousey Matt riddle all very successful over in WWE and that’s just a few of them I think that’s a way that
WWE can maybe benefit from this yeah good stuff goes all right next up
here on our panel is fada what are your thoughts here about this merger who can benefit more from the other or is it
maybe even just you know even Steven thing yeah I mean I think they both can benefit to add on to goes as points and
we were talking about notche UFC just this Saturday and how maybe Julio Cesar Chavez could have wrapped the the belt
around uh well Alexa retained her about so yeah wrapped around the belt around Alexa maybe it could have gotten Rey
Mysterio or something like that if we’re talking about Crossovers and stuff like that we have the rock to it for the BMF
boat so it’s just in in that regard in terms of the entertainment aspect that goes was talking about uh just having
them cross over and yeah there are a lot of MMA fighters that don’t necessarily become Champions but benefit from the
entertainment aspect I can think of like a Mike Perry who’s thrived in in bare knuckle and all of a sudden he’s winging
as a backup for influencer boxing I could imagine him going over uh if he was still under contract um to the WWE
just there’s benefit for both parties in in that regard where you can just incorporate it to just uh the
entertainment aspect uh like ghost said and also WWE can benefit from some of these popular uh MMA fighters that may
not be in the title picture anymore but still want to be part of are marketable enough to be part of big events and have
big stages and that’s where they could uh you know go on to appear even don’t even have to compete
just appear in the WWE so yeah I think both ways although Dana did seem to shoot down the the notion that the the
the crowds the fans the fan bases while Maxi shot that down very aggressively
but I I don’t see why not because then if you’ve got USC Fighters that appear in WWE shows and vice versa it kind of
will cross over the fan base in a way especially the die hard ones all right Mike how about you man what
are your thoughts on who benefits more let me put one more on your plate because I was just thinking as father and girls were thinking you know the WWE
does these stadium shows right Sophie stadium for Wrestlemania that was impressive and Dana White has always
said the production the rigging you know getting something together it seems to be resistant to it all I’ve always
thought that once we got this new stadium here in Las Vegas we could knock one out of the park so what are your
thoughts yeah I guess I can answer that first one or a lot yeah last one first and that’s
more so just I think it’s just kind of a difference in philosophy like Dana White has always really embraced the arena
Style Show he thinks it’s the best viewing experience where his like massive stadium shows have kind of been
an institution of WWE since like its Inception very early on with the wrestlemanias and stuff so they’ve kind
of accustomed their fans to that maybe knowing that you might get in the door for like the furthest away seat and you
might look like you’re watching two ants wrestle on a matchbox from far away but it’s still all about the environment and
the atmosphere and being part of those walkouts and big moments and stuff so I think the WWE fan is more conditioned
but I think it all kind of ties together right like the biggest thing to me with
this whole thing is just like the brand Synergy behind the scenes and how the
Endeavor is going to try to sell this TKO group uh you know combined to
whether it’s television rights coming up in the next few years when there’s going to be similar alignment to when UFC’s
ESPN deal is up and when the WWE rights are up and they might try to package them together to a network to a
streaming service maybe go into the Venture on their own type of platform that combines both there’s a lot of
possibilities here and they’ve talked a little bit about too like selling uh you know on the road events you go to xcity
in whatever country and say hey we have a full weekend of Live Events here we
can do a snack down on Friday night a UFC show on Saturday night and maybe a WWE pay-per-view on Sunday you give us
the site fee for the whole weekend a huge Dollar in the UFC’s pocket and or in diverse pocket rather and they bring
this whole weekend of show the elevates the economy of your city and brings people in staying in hotels restaurants
all that stuff so to me it’s more like behind the scenes stuff I know someone asked here in the chat like could we see
hybrid events I don’t think we’re gonna see hybrid events where it’s you know an MMA fight one minute in a wrestling
match the next minute but I think you might see hybrid weekend that I kind of just explain there so there’s a lot of
layers to this but I think most of all it’s going to be like Aria Manuel showing what he is really best at
historically and not being able to package certain things like this and being able to sell them to whether it’s
sponsors Live Events television all these different things that um maybe the the Casual fan doesn’t
necessarily care about because they’re not seeing it in front of their eyes as much it’s more the business side
all right Nick you brought up names like Shayna Basler and or sorry they were
brought up like Shayna business Basler and Ronda Rousey Matt riddle a few others um
how big were they you know we kind of observed from a distance and see maybe one of them get their hand raised and
you’re not the answer on Rhonda’s behalf because even though she was a star but how about some of the other ones like they can’t all be slam dunks on the
Superstar level right no I don’t I don’t think that being a star in UFC is automatically going to
make you a star in WWE I’d actually argue that Ronda Rousey has been overall
maybe a little bit of a disappointment in that respect I I think that that WWE expected uh and certainly when she was
first brought over she was a big deal crowds reacted to her very strongly but I think as time went on uh that kind of
wore off a little bit and and I don’t think that she might have been as big a draw as uh WWE is expecting of course
the gold standard is kind of like Brock Lesnar right because Brock was a huge star in both and I don’t think everybody
can get to that level that being said I do think that there is a certain amount of notoriety that any successful UFC
fighter is going to bring to WWE get some extra eyeballs on them that that
might not care about them if they were just brought up through pro wrestling so I think it’s always worthwhile and I and
I definitely think now that the merger is in place uh those kind of things are going to be easier going going forward
Nick I got a question from the chat uh from Ryan Tomasetti I think it’s a good
one back in the day when I was growing up the TBS channel was launched and they
would have I think it was either NWA or WCW can’t remember but it’d be kind of in a small Arena he was saying could you
see the UFC maybe doing stuff at the Apex have they gone that route or are they mostly Arenas and stadiums
no I think for WWE they’re they’re going to be all in arenas and stadiums and actually they’ve been making a push
toward more stadium shows that SummerSlam is now exclusively in football and baseball stadiums um some
of their other pay-per-views are going that way uh sorry they call them premium Live Events now but but they’ll always
be pay-per-views for those of us who have been around for a long time and uh I don’t think I don’t think I can see
WWE doing things small they’re they’re always going to be pushing to go bigger from now on Nick tell us a little bit more about
wrestling junkie before we let you go you know I mentioned you guys covered WWE New Japan wrestling aew what else
does the site have to offer a pro wrestling fan I think that along with like news and
and reports on the the latest weekly shows for both WWE and aw one of the things that I think that we’re very
proud of having just launched last year is that we helped put things in perspective we tell you why things are
important why things are happening that the way that they are uh some informed speculation on things we also offer the
under the ring podcast with Phil strum as host Phil’s been covering wrestling for over a decade has a lot of good
connections talks to top stars from WWE and aew and the independent circuit all the time so we kind of try to provide uh
we’re a small team but we’re trying to provide a lot of different ways of looking at pro wrestling and and we
think uh a lot of people will uh have fun checking it out well I know I have and again thank you
very much for what you guys are doing over there there’s I think a lot of crossover I think at first maybe there
was more of a dividing line same thing happened with boxing but I’ve seen a lot of pro wrestling fans merged over to our
site and I know a lot of our sites are a lot of our fans uh the MMA junkie fans have been excited about wrestling junkie
I want to thank you for stopping by Today’s Show hopefully we can do this more often because I anticipate more of
this crossover type of news happening in the future yeah thank you very much thank you UFC and WWE for merging and
letting us have a reason to do this legitimately oh by the way hey who do you think is
the next superstar in our sport Nick
I walked right into that that’s right thanks Nick see you man all right thank you all right and folks we
continue here with topic five man Nick’s gonna hate me all right it’s been a few weeks since
UFC 292 in Boston where Sean O’Malley defeated algeman Sterling to become the
dance on Weight Champion Sterling has continued expressing his desire for an immediate rematch in the Stacked
bantamweight division however recently saddled up to former uh former champion in the middleweight division Israel a
lot of Sonya his similar status you know lost his title at UFC 293 a few weeks
ago but he’s kind of received support from Dana White in terms of the possibility of running it back what do
you guys think of the funk Masters position fair or foul fada it’s up to
you I get where he’s coming from when saying that if arasania if the UFC give
arasania an immediate rematch why not him because if you look at it in terms of credentials I mean people were
talking about Aldo potentially being the bantamweight goat he’s got most title defenses in the division’s history
um he did get caught I think it was a good performance from Sean O’Malley it wasn’t like aljo was like dominating
then he got caught I think overall we can’t take anything away from Toronto Valley’s performance arasani on the
other hand it was a pretty lopsided loss to Sean Strickland I think from a business perspective I get why the UFC
would say uh at a sign of potential rematch even though Dana seemed to walk that back a little bit he said I didn’t
say that necessarily I said there were options blah blah blah but in my opinion respectfully I don’t think either uh
should get an immediate rematch just because we’ve got a clear cut number one contender in both divisions in Rico
Street plessis and in murab developes really so when you’ve got a situation like that where these fights were not
talking about Grasso and Chef Shinko because then we’ve got manofio and Aaron blanchfield who are clear contenders
that have to potentially await I don’t hate the idea of a trilogy there because there’s a lot of controversy there’s no
controversy in these fights and we’ve got two guys uh potentially more contenders even waiting in the wings for their shots so I get where aljo’s coming
from and saying well if you give it to arasania he just did recently get his immediate rematch in his pajera why not
give it to me but respectfully I don’t think either necessarily warrant an immediate rematch I think the divisions
both of them need to move on okay girls how about you fair or foul
I think what he wants is fair I think the way he went about it is foul um you
know we say this week after week here on the show it’s consistency we want that across the board in all situations for
me that post-fight interview is so important and I wish you just would have started to lay the foundation for that a
little bit sooner I think he would have had a stronger case and we wouldn’t have been jumping around to everything else that kind of makes sense at this moment
like I get it you can’t discredit aljo what he did was amazing and probably one
of if not the toughest divisions in all of mixed martial arts so I get where
he’s coming from but the way he went about it is just wrong and he’s confusing people you know one moment
it’s it’s morale but the next moment it’s him and and so when Dana White says he’s kind of a little difficult to deal
with I kind of get that a little bit I think it’s just the way he States things sometimes he’s just not clear enough but
you already know that Dana White’s probably not his favorite fighter the whole murab and Al Jones situation
probably doesn’t help at all and then you just have these built-in story lines you know you have Cheeto Vera waiting in
the wing that that just seems like something that can happen and I think Sean O’Malley probably has a little bit more power than we all think and he’s
done a good job of playing his card so right now all signs point that it’s going to move away from Alger main
Sterling but I don’t hate him for trying that’s what you have to do all right Mike Bond what are your
thoughts on this one yeah I mean his request in a vacuum is fair right like
you look at he in this current Reign uh was a more long-term dominant successful
Champion than Israel adesanya was in this current reign of course this was Izzy’s second one and he never defended
the title after reading it for Perez so if you look at him and be like hey why does he get a rematch with zero title
defenses uh after losing very lopsided fight aljo can make the case I just got
caught with a punch and hurt we know he thinks it was a bit of an early stoppage things like that
um but in terms of like one to one obviously the situations are different I mean goes laid it out pretty well there
aljo’s constant flip-flopping on I’m gonna step aside and let marab Divas Philly have the title shot to I want the
rematch it’s like a daily thing right and he says a different thing has a different take on it and it’s just
become tiresome to the fan that when he comes out and makes maybe a fair and astute Point like this they’re just like
ah give me a break another Al Joe comment where he’s not sticking to one lane here so I think he needs to pick
what he wants to do at the benefit or harm of his relationship with morob and
try to pursue it that way because it’s going to be a lot more palatable in terms of seeing but yeah the most successful bantamweight champion the
most wins in divisional history could rally off all of algeman Sterling’s accomplishments of why he does deserve a
rematch but it just depends as the UFC want him as Champion do they want to put him in that
position I’m sure there’s other people at bantamboyant they prefer Sean O’Malley obviously probably being the
top of the list but then there’s a Cheeto Vera and you know Umar and mega Madoff Corey sanhagen these names that
I’m sure they see is more marketable so I don’t think they’re going to be rushing aljo back into another title
fight uh until he maybe gets a win whereas Izzy we clearly know how they feel about him he has documentaries
coming out he’s on the cover of the video game deluxe edition and is clearly one of the UFC’s Marquee stars and a
pay-per-view draw for him so for him to get shoehorned into a rematch where for the reasons far I explained he probably
doesn’t deserve right now given the length of his Reign and how expandably
he was beaten by Sean Strickland it just doesn’t add up so two completely different situations I know aljo sees an
easy opportunity to make the connection here but we know the UFC if you’ve been
watching the sport long enough if you’ve been following the decisions they make they are Case by case there’s no
consistency and it just completely depends on who you are and the circumstances around you at the given
time the UFC is definitely inconsistently consistent for sure uh Ryan Katic in the
chat says Izzy needs a break Arturo Mt he brought up a good point he says Anderson is making history that’s the
difference and like Mike pointed out so Dojo aljo had a historic run but Izzy’s
making history I think when you package in the whole brand of that fighter good
stuff there if I can get to some more I will I do ask one thing of you though those in the chat those are the listening those that catch this on a
replay hit the like And subscribe button it triggers the algorithm which gets us in the eyes in front of more eyes and uh
allows us to continue blowing up this show so please hit the like And subscribe because it’s an awesome
Channel with a lot of content and by the way in about in less than five minutes as we end this show on a separate stream
you will catch the Dana White Contender series weigh-ins for uh this week let’s Hammer some quick ones here guys this is
like a speed round pfl in Bellator both had big announcements this week the return of Kayla Harrison who faces Julia
Budd in their uh their their final that they have here coming up in November versus bellator’s return to the window
Windy City with two title fights and I believe that lightweight Grand Prix continues who caused the biggest wave
goes uh don’t get me wrong it’s great to see Kayla harrisoning back in Action anytime
you hear that it’s great news it’s just the opponent you know just kind of Falls a little flat uh with Bellator titles
Grand Prix I think that just carries more weight I think they won that announcement all right uh Michael what
do you think I don’t know if either of them cause waves to be honest I think maybe you’re in a lake and you just got a little
splash on the shore oh all right how about you father I mean if I had to pick one just because
I think the Apache mix in Sergio perisphere is going to be a really good one so I’m excited about that one so I’m gonna go Bellator yeah I like that one
that one too all right Kevin Holland he stated he would have fought in Australia the week prior at UFC 293 if the UFC
paid his taxes and after seeing John mcdessie’s post uh regarding his financial statement pertaining to UFC
293 was Holland Wright Mike what’d you think man I think maybe that and now I’m
back Holland yeah I mean this is a much more complicated topic but uh people
were criticizing that card in Australia for being a little bit thin on the name value You Now understand why it is uh
not a desirable location for any of these fighters to travel to Kevin Hall May say one thing
um yeah I don’t know but I think if he really wanted to fight there and was open to it he would have fought there I
think I could have sworn I seen like a 45 deduction man yeah and I mean there’s different tastes I saw you know Ali
Abdel Aziz For Better or Worse what you think of him as a manager he did respond saying you do this correct or you fill
out this stuff uh you should be able to get a lot of that reimbursed so maybe it was the UFC failing to communicate
exactly what John mcdessie had to do maybe it was him his management team failing on how they need to work things
out hopefully he can reimburse some of that money because that is a devastating tax all right we’re up against the clock so
I’m just gonna give this last one Nevada the reaction to Sean Strickland his win it just kept rolling all week Ben Askin
had an interesting take though he said Holly Holmes up said Ronda Rousey is the bigger upset than Strickland over
adesanya do you agree fada yes I do because just for the simple reason that Rhonda had that aura of
anything disability at that time and we just never saw that outcome coming whereas arasani had already lost
multiple times so I’m not going to act like I wasn’t surprised by that outcome I was very surprised but I just think
the idea that Rhonda what were they talking about her beating Floyd Mayweather that’s right the correct answer is still
GSP and Matt Sarah yes yes I agree I agree well good stuff there all right
you guys knocked it out of the park as always and again thank you to Nick to
walk from uh wrestling junkie folks on a separate stream you got the Dana White
Contender series starting right up here in about five seconds so we bid you a do and don’t forget you can catch us every
week here at 11 A.M Eastern 8 A.M Pacific for spinning back click please hit that like And subscribe see ya
