00:00We were finally free. We were finally out of the clutches of John Jones's oppressive heavyweight championship run.
00:07Tom Aspinall, knocking everybody out, now had his opportunity as the undisputed champion of the UFC's heavyweight division.
00:16So obviously, everything went perfect and swimmingly, right? Maybe not.
00:20UFC 321 went down Saturday afternoon in the main event, a highly anticipated heavyweight championship bout,
00:33with Tom Aspinall finally named the undisputed heavyweight championship,
00:37claiming that throne in a way that everyone dreams of,
00:40by way of a retirement on social media and being handed it in a video on YouTube.
00:44He defended the title against Cyril Ghosn, and it ended very quickly,
00:49as Cyril Ghosn channeling his inner Captain Insano, or whatever the guy's name was from Happy Gilmore,
00:56as he went two knucks deep into the eyeball of Tom Aspinall ending the fight.
01:01I can only come to the conclusion that the heavyweight championship of the UFC is cursed.
01:07That's the only thing you can come to the conclusion of with this.
01:11You have Jon Jones come in, win, first of all, first of all, the UFC goes on an 18-month contract negotiation,
01:23basically spending the whole time telling Francis Ngannou to go blank himself.
01:28And he vacates the title.
01:30Jon Jones comes in.
01:31We get the moment we've all waited for.
01:33Jon Jones in the heavyweight division, and he dominates.
01:37And so now, it's this new, exciting era in Jon Jones' career, in the heavyweight division,
01:41and then he doesn't defend the title for, like, a couple of years.
01:44And then he faces Stipe Miocic for 15 minutes, spinning back kick to the guts, down he goes,
01:50and then he's never to be seen from again.
01:52And so we vacate the title.
01:54Tom Aspinall gets it.
01:55He has been knocking everyone out.
01:56He finally gets this opportunity.
01:58Big stage, pay-per-view, and...
02:01eye poke.
02:01And, fittingly, I got something in my eye.
02:03While that is happening.
02:04See, I can't even talk about the heavyweight division without there being a problem with it.
02:08To have all of this play out since Francis Ngannou,
02:13there's no other way to describe it other than cursed.
02:16They, like, Francis put some kind of a hex on that championship as he was leaving.
02:21Maybe he got one of those Etsy witches.
02:23And just, heavyweight, crown, no more.
02:27It has to be cursed.
02:29There's no other way.
02:29It sucks, because, like, this was an interesting matchup.
02:33I didn't give a whole lot of thought to Gon maybe having a chance to win.
02:39Looked fine in the moments we had.
02:41But I don't think that, like, we have to roll this one back.
02:46It just, the timing of it sucks, too.
02:47Like, it's, at the end of a pay-per-view, I've had a few decisions in a row.
02:51End of a pay-per-view, fight that we're all excited for, and then this happens.
02:55It just, bleh.
02:57Ugh.
02:57It just sucked.
02:58So, again, cursed.
02:59Cursed is the only way you can describe any of this with the heavyweight division.
03:03There was one title fight, at least, that went the distance.
03:06Mackenzie Dern, reaching her potential.
03:07She is a champion in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
03:11She was someone who was very hyped as a prospect.
03:15There was a lot of buzz about her coming in.
03:17And, like, she has obvious skills and obvious talents and high level in those.
03:22It was just, okay, can she round out the rest of it?
03:24And then she plateaued.
03:26Like, she was able to buzzsaw through who she was able to buzzsaw through, but there
03:30was a ceiling that she hit.
03:32And she kept bumping up against it, and it wasn't really happening.
03:34And then it looked like it would, and then it wouldn't.
03:36And then it looked like a baby, and then it wouldn't.
03:37And now she's been able to put it together, and now she's a champion.
03:42Is she the most complete fighter in the Ultimate Fighting Championship?
03:46She is not.
03:47But the things that she does, well, she does at an elite high level, and it makes it very
03:54concerning for the rest of the fighters there.
03:56Now, there's an obvious game plan to get around it, but she makes it difficult to get
04:00to that one.
04:01So, a huge shout-out to Mackenzie Dern, who finally reaches her potential as a UFC champion
04:08winning her fight at UFC 321.
04:11Otherwise, I mean, like, there are some noteworthy wins, and we'll get to those as the week goes
04:16on here, but not the most exciting of cards.
04:19It was a mid-afternoon one on a day where there's World Series baseball, college football,
04:25LSU's firing coaches, stuff like that.
04:26So, it was a difficult day to stand out anyway, and a difficult card to kind of stand out on
04:33a couple of weeks after you already had a pay-per-view.
04:35So, it was a weird spot, weird ending to it, but Mackenzie Dern kind of becomes the highlight
04:40of the show as she finds her way into championship gold with the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
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