It’s November in the UFC, and you know what that means! We’re headed out to Madison Square Garden with a fairly stacked card. UFC 322 features a pair of championship fights in its main and co-main events, where two reigning titlists will try to fend off challengers moving up in weight and looking to become champ-champs. We still say that? Champ-champ? Is that still a thing?
Your welterweight main event features surprise champ Jack Della Maddalena trying to make his bones and earn his respect against former lightweight king and unstoppable juggernaut Islam Makhachev. The co-main, meanwhile, features women’s strawweight great Zhang Weili moving up to try to take women’s flyweight gold from the legendary Valentina Shevchenko.
It’s gonna be a good one, kids — and it’s the second-to-last pay-per-view before the UFC moves to Paramount+ and (allegedly!) into the PLE era.
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1:07:41
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1:07:41
Episode 669: The UFC & combat sports enter ‘Plato’s Cave’
What’s even real anymore? That’s the question we ended up asking ourselves after last weekend’s slate of combat sports chaos. For starters, Isaac Dulgarian’s first-round submission loss to Yadier del Valle at Saturday’s UFC Fight Night sparked yet another fight-fixing scandal. At this point, you couldn’t blame a casual viewer for wondering: Is this whole shit rigged?
Also, there was referee Mark Smith’s bizarre stoppage in the heavyweight bout between Ante Delija and Waldo Cortes-Acosta — a mix-up that led Delija to believe he’d won, only for the fight to be restarted and Cortes-Acosta to immediately score a knockout victory. Whoops!
And that’s not even touching the boxing world’s latest drama: Gervonta “Tank” Davis getting booted from his fight with Jake Paul after new domestic violence charges, followed by Paul acting like he was just now discovering that Davis might be a terrible guy.
Oh, and Andrew Tate is apparently the new CEO of Misfits Boxing, a move that might be real, might be trolling, or might just be setting up a future fight with KSI.
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1:02:26
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1:02:26
Episode 668: UFC 321: It doesn’t get any more heavyweight than that!
How does Tom Aspinall still have an eyeball right now? Dude, Ciryl Gane went two-knuckles deep in Aspinall’s left eye (while pulling off the rare double-eye poke!) during their heavyweight championship fight at UFC 321 on Saturday. Gane might have Dundasso’d a little TOO hard, as his exploration of Aspinall’s cranium with his left index finger did get their bout declared a no contest, and yet, somehow, it still felt like Gane won the battle of public opinion.
The crowd booed Aspinall (naturally). A bunch of shitty MMA meme accounts made fun of him (naturally). Some former fighters came out and said THEY would’ve kept fighting (naturally). Dana White is talking about booking the immediate rematch (because of course). So, sorry, Tom, you got Three-Stooged and now a lot of idiots think you quit.
So, yeah, we thought the worst thing that could happen at UFC 321 was a Ciryl Gane victory, and then heavyweight basically laughed in our faces and said, “Hold my beer.” Plus, in the other two heavyweight fights, Jailton Almeida lost by forgetting to fight and Chris Barnett (literally) showed his ass.
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1:05:38
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1:05:38
Episode 667: UFC 321 is a must-win for Aspinall, the UFC & the world
Let’s be honest, if the current version of the UFC heavyweight title is going to maintain any shred of credibility, Tom Aspinall pretty much has to win this weekend at UFC 321. Even if that happens, we’ll still only really be ready to say that Gas Hands Tom is one of the three best heavyweights in the world — the UFC champion of active heavyweights currently on the roster, let’s say. But if Ciryl Gane wins? Forget about it. Gane’s already lost to both Jon Jones AND Francis Ngannou. There’s no way you’re making the case he’s the “undisputed” anything. So, let’s go, Tommy!
Plus, Mackenzie Dern will vie to win the vacant strawweight title against Virna Jandiroba, who she has already defeated and is currently the betting favorite to defeat again. Almost as though the UFC has a rooting interest in this shit.
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1:06:20
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1:06:20
Episode 666: Charles Oliveira is the new king of Rio!
Chucky Olives pretty much wore Mateusz Gamrot around like a button during their main event fight at last weekend’s UFC Fight Night in Rio de Janeiro. It didn’t feel like there was a single second where Gamrot was winning. He got tagged on the feet early in the first, shot for a takedown, and then got dominated on the ground until Oliveira put him out of his misery with a face crank (which, OK, maybe that was miserable) in the second round.
Then Oliveira jumped out of the cage and into the crowd on some Jose Aldo shit. Long live the new king of Rio! Man, the UFC security dudes must hate that. Also, Charles — next time, maybe more than just a pat on the shoulder for your wife and kid before you start partying it up with the boyz.
Now that that’s settled — Oliveira vs. Max Holloway? Give it to me. It’s mine!
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An irreverent and unscripted look at the week's mixed martial arts news from longtime MMA journalists Ben Fowlkes and Chad Dundas. Topics include the latest happenings in the UFC, Bellator and other promotions.
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