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00:00:00Welcome back to Against the Cage, your MMA home for all the fight previews, recaps, and
00:00:13exclusive interviews that I know you're looking for. My name is Jake Arie. I'm here with my
00:00:17esteemed co-hosts Scott Fontana and Eric Richter. And guys, I would love to come on this show as we
00:00:23normally would, talking about some great performances on Saturday night at the Apex
00:00:28card. And what would have been the biggest story would have been David Onama getting defeated by
00:00:31Steve Garcia. However, the card was marred with controversy in a few ways. Most notably,
00:00:38there have been some serious allegations regarding fight fixing and a betting scandal,
00:00:43particularly relating to a fight on the prelims that night. Eric, since you are our betting expert,
00:00:49I'm going to throw this one over to you to get us set up. We are so back. I'm happy to be back.
00:00:55First show in two weeks. Oh, yes. Welcome back, Eric. Welcome back, Eric. I wish that I was here
00:01:01under some better circumstances. Since I left in the last two weeks, the National Basketball
00:01:06Association has dealt with gambling scandals, and now we have the UFC. So let's dive into this a
00:01:11little bit. Prelim fight between Isaac Dalgerian and Yadir Del Valle was a prelim fight. And Isaac
00:01:19Dalgerian was a minus 300 favorite. You saw the old betting line really come down to minus 125-ish.
00:01:25Around fight time. Of note as well, the Del Valle to win in the first round went from plus 900 to
00:01:32plus 500. You know, the gambling integrity firm IC360 flagged this event and notified the UFC that
00:01:40this was a suspicious betting pattern fight. The fight went off. Isaac Dalgerian lost by first round
00:01:47submission in a pretty embarrassing fashion. And that is where we are at now. It is, you know,
00:01:54that Dalgerian was, Dalgerian was released by the UFC as a result of this. It is a tough look right now
00:02:02for, for Dalgerian specifically. Scott, I'll kick it to you. Did you watch the fight? What'd you think
00:02:08about the fight? And, you know, we're talking, you know, throwing fights here. This is, this is not the
00:02:13look that we're looking to have. Bad, bad sentence, but it was not what we're looking to have here in
00:02:18the UFC. Serious allegations here, obviously. Yeah, I did. I watched the fight. I did not watch
00:02:23it live. I, I, I didn't have it on at that point because this was, uh, I kind of turned it. It was
00:02:27right before the main card started. I turned it on for the main card. Um, and I was intended to catch
00:02:32up later. Clearly I had to catch up for this one. And when I watched it, I did already know,
00:02:37right? So I did have that kind of thing, but at least when you watch it through the first time,
00:02:41you're not, and you're not like looking for something, I don't know that if someone didn't
00:02:46have action on it or wasn't aware of the odds or how they moved or anything like that. I don't
00:02:51know that anyone would see something nefarious happening. It would just kind of look like a
00:02:55sorry effort by Dalgerian, especially to protect his neck. That's, that's the part of it. That's
00:03:00like, you weren't doing anything, you know? And, and it's like, well, why? Like usually we've seen
00:03:05fighters do that and like, they're just not equipped on the ground. But frankly, at this point in the,
00:03:10in the development of the sport, we see this very infrequently where they just don't know
00:03:15how to defend the choke, right? When you watch it again, now you're looking for some ways where
00:03:21this fight potentially was fixed as authorities are, of course, looking into, like you said,
00:03:26um, I see a fighter who immediately shoots a takedown, but is it maybe doing the best job
00:03:31of protecting his neck in the process, right? It's, it's not like hanging out there, but it's
00:03:36certainly available. Um, he's not trying to do anything different. Uh, later his back's taken,
00:03:41Del Valle is working for that rear naked choke. Dalgerian is, he's got a ton of time. He's, he's
00:03:47not really in as much danger yet because he was in, you know, a version of that choke for a good long
00:03:53time and he's not going out or anything. So obviously it wasn't in, but he's not attacking
00:04:00the hands. He's throwing a couple punches and they're not going to do anything. Um, it just,
00:04:06he didn't do enough to extricate himself. Right. And I think that's the part where we're like,
00:04:11well, what's the deal, dude? Like you weren't even trying in there, right? Like Eric, you,
00:04:15you, that's what you saw. So the one that, and you, you called it out, Scott, the way he was
00:04:19defending the choke, his arms were like in midair. And like, at one point, one of them was on the
00:04:24ground. It really made no sense to me. They called it white belt stuff on the broadcast and
00:04:30that is not commensurate of the prospect that I think we all had previously had talked or thought
00:04:36about Isaac Dalgerian being. So yeah. And you make a good point about the choke thing, um, as well.
00:04:44I think that if any fight, and this is all alleged, we have, there's going, if, if the, if we do get to
00:04:51a point where we can maybe say for certainty that this happened, then we can get there. But right
00:04:56now it's all alleged. And if anyone were to act out a fight, it'd probably make the most sense to
00:05:02lose by submission like that and not get knocked out. Right. I mean, that would be the way that I
00:05:06look at it. I don't know about you, uh, Scott and Jake, but that's the way I would do it.
00:05:10I would just add, I'm curious about Jake's thoughts too, but I would just add like, yeah,
00:05:14like when he shoots that takedown, like that's like, that would be the quickest way to just get
00:05:18caught the guillotine and all the beat over. Right. But it didn't just give me a sec. I do
00:05:23want to hear from you though. Um, but, but so he shoots that takedown, right. And he doesn't kind
00:05:28of, it doesn't really take the bait. If that is what was trying to be done. Um, it, that doesn't
00:05:33happen later on. He kind of flattens it out a little bit. He's throwing punches and I'll bet you
00:05:38if, if, and if, and if Dolgarian actually did what he is maybe being, uh, investigated into doing,
00:05:45I'll bet you he didn't intend to take about 30 punches on the ground or so from being prone.
00:05:51Uh, so probably was happier enough to at least find himself in that choke situation again. Right.
00:05:56But Jake, yeah. Tell, tell us what you thought. So I'm in my head, I'm replaying this fight. Uh,
00:06:01I watched it again last night and there are two takedown attempts. I guess you could say there's
00:06:05one very clear, it's an attempt to take down that gets stuffed. Uh, and then they end up getting back
00:06:11up to the feet. That first takedown in my mind was very strange because again, alleged let's call it
00:06:18a sorry effort of a takedown. There is ample time for his opponent Del Valle to kind of get his legs
00:06:25back out from underneath him. Whereas, and I paused the fight. If, if you, we've done jujitsu,
00:06:31all three of us, if you're going for a takedown and you're trying to maintain a good base and you've
00:06:35got three points of contact, you just go with the opposite one. You follow through on the point
00:06:42where there's only two, right? That then you can secure a takedown. That's what, what could have
00:06:46happened there. And he very easily could have followed through there. He pauses his legs come
00:06:52back out from underneath him. But then I'm assuming it's the second takedown that you're kind of
00:06:55talking about where his neck goes there up against the cage. His neck goes in there. That's where you've
00:07:00really run into some trouble of getting front choked. And I know that because I get front choked
00:07:03more consistently than any other submission. You look like a good front choke victim right
00:07:08there, Jake. I'm not great at protecting my neck in those positions, but yeah, absolutely. He gives
00:07:13him the underhook. He could have, it was. How about the back take? How about the back take where he
00:07:18kind of just led him into a body triangle? Yeah. It was just immediately there. It was pretty wild how
00:07:24that happened. Like the funny thing is too. Yeah. No, that's it. The body triangle was bizarre.
00:07:31Yeah. The funny, the funny thing about Del Valle is like, there were some, there were a lot of missed
00:07:38opportunities from Del Valle. I mean, it takes him a long time to get this rear naked choke.
00:07:42He's kind of, he's got, got a neck there for taking if he goes for a takedown. So hilariously,
00:07:49the fighter who is on the, the winning end of a potentially fixed fight is someone who really could
00:07:57have done this done a lot quicker if, if, if he knew, right? Probably if he knew this actually
00:08:01plays out differently, but we don't know anything, but we don't know. It certainly looks like this
00:08:07guy had no clue what was happening on the other side. Yeah. That's true. Like winners and losers
00:08:12of this fight. Like obviously Isaac Del Valle is a loser, but so is Del Valle for it taking that long.
00:08:17It was, it was like, what is this rear naked choke? Why is it like you got to right here? Like you have
00:08:22to use this part of your hand. Like you're, it was, it was bad, bad form. There's a lot of things
00:08:27to work on from Del Valle. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of room for improvement, I would say. Yeah. Yeah. But
00:08:32I, like you mentioned to Eric, the broadcast team calling this out and you guys mentioned it,
00:08:37there's just like no hand fighting going on. Like, which is, and DC said it himself. He's just like,
00:08:43that is the literally the only thing that you're supposed to be doing when you're defending
00:08:47against a choke. Why would you throw punches? And he's gotten the coaching to know that
00:08:52at this point, that's it. This is, you know, sometimes, Hey, it's entirely possible. Someone
00:08:57could even reach the UFC without having been properly schooled on some of these things.
00:09:03I don't think it's very possible. I think it's still a highly unlikely scenario, but realistically
00:09:08is let's say you take like a, uh, not Alex Pereira, right. But like someone like an Alex
00:09:14Pereira who they're a striker, right? Maybe they're less versed in the ground game. Maybe they still
00:09:19make some of those white belt moves. That's not what Isaac Delgarian is.
00:09:22Yeah. And you guys would know him better than I do. I'm not as familiar with his work. He's touted
00:09:27as a, a, a good grappler, right? I outed as a legitimate prospect with seven and one coming
00:09:33in, lost a split decision to Charles Johnson. And you know, that, that decision was a little dicey.
00:09:38I thought that that was a really, really close fight that he could have won. So yeah, you can make
00:09:41an argument. If you got a little bit luckier on the scorecards, it could have been eight. No.
00:09:44Well, Eric, I want to talk to you because, uh, you've, you know, looked at some other examples
00:09:49of this. People throw around the word fight fixing a lot, maybe more in, in at the, being
00:09:56better at the end of a fight as a way as a coping mechanism sometimes. But in your eyes, did this
00:10:01look like a fixed fight to you? If it, you know, as much as one could look like, and what does that
00:10:07look like? What does a fixed fight look like? Given all the stuff that we know, I mean, it's hard
00:10:10to argue that it doesn't look bad. Um, now that looks mean nothing, right? It's what
00:10:15you can prove. And there'll be a whole process to it. It's all alleged right now. You know,
00:10:20this has the under FBI investigation still to this day, back in 2022 was, uh, obviously
00:10:25a pretty infamous fight. We'll say for now, Derek Minner versus Shiloh, Nerd and Becky,
00:10:31you know, Minner looks pretty clearly injured in that fight. I would say he kind of threw one
00:10:37kick, goes down to the ground, starts holding his knee, loses, uh, pretty early on, uh, by
00:10:43TKO. His coach, James Kraus sold at the time was selling betting picks. Um, and you know,
00:10:50that was a little bit bizarre, you know? Um, yeah, it's, it's weird. So James Kraus is under
00:10:56FBI investigation. Um, Derek Minner is under FBI investigation of note, Isaac Dolgarian did
00:11:03train with James Kraus, uh, back in 2022. Not to say that that's, you know, particularly indicting
00:11:09or anything. Um, but yeah, if I fixing can kind of go deep and it's an odd circumstance is what it
00:11:14is. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, and then, but when you, uh, and Scott, when you even brought,
00:11:20uh, brought in the choke, uh, discussion, super worth talking about, you know, some people even
00:11:24had said like the John Jones and not saying that this is even close to fixing, but you know,
00:11:29when John Jones submitted surreal gone, there was a lot of questions about what surreal gone taps.
00:11:33The commentary team was confused. Like where was the choke? Was it a guillotine? He wasn't
00:11:37fighting the hands similar. Um, I'm not saying that anyone would throw a title fight. Cause I don't
00:11:42even know there's an amount of money worth throwing for a title fight, but, um, you know,
00:11:47everybody has a price. Um, so you have that and, uh, you know, I mean, and people also throw this
00:11:58word around very loosely, like the Jake Paul boxing matches. Those are very, um, those are set
00:12:02in like different weight classes and different ages, right? Mike Tyson was 60 fighting a professional
00:12:07bout against Jake Paul, you know, who's in his twenties. Um, you know, Jake Paul's even, you
00:12:12know, suing Piers Morgan and other media personalities, uh, Pat McAfee or Shannon Sharp or one of those
00:12:17guys. Um, you know, they were implicated in this as well for saying that these are fixed
00:12:21fights. Well, Jake Paul was suing them and, and, you know, on we go, you know, Jake Paul continues
00:12:26to fight people out of his weight class and, and all that jazz, but again, that's all boxing.
00:12:30There have been examples of fighting. Um, and Scott, you know, those Jake Paul fights, like
00:12:36just to comment on that real quick, uh, they're not, they don't look like a fixed boxing match
00:12:43too. We have more than a hundred years of fixed boxing matches and history and that kind of
00:12:48thing. And, and of course, very legitimate ones mostly. Right. So there, there's a lot
00:12:53of, uh, a lot of evidence of what a fixed boxing match can look like versus a regular
00:12:58boxing match. We have less, uh, uh, of a sample size or MMA. Yeah. Right. But what do you
00:13:04were saying, Eric? Um, well, there was a fixed fight that I would, I would like to kick it
00:13:09to you because you're a little bit more well-versed in it. Um, but this is back in 2015. Uh, would
00:13:13you like to shed some light on that one for us? Yeah. Yeah. So this was, uh, this was a fight.
00:13:18I think you had it in your article earlier this week as well, when you were writing about
00:13:21Bulgarian situation here, it was, it was a Taeyong Bong was in a, uh, UFC fight at a UFC
00:13:27event in South Korea, his native South Korea, 10 years ago. He fought Leo Kuntz and he won
00:13:33a split decision. Well, in advance of that, he had been a participant in, uh, the planning
00:13:41or he'd been approached to and agreed to throw this fight. He was going to get seven, I believe
00:13:46it was $70,000 or the equivalent thereof in, in South Korean currency. And,
00:13:51uh, he was supposed to throw the fight. Well, he got cold feet. He ended up winning the
00:13:55fight. He returned the money. Didn't matter because he and three others had been involved
00:13:59in planning this thing and they were found out and they were caught. He was sentenced
00:14:03to 10 months, uh, I believe in prison, um, in South Korea. And so the judge at the time
00:14:09did in their sentencing factor in like, Hey, you did these things to try and remove yourself.
00:14:14So that was a mitigating circumstance in terms of the sentencing. So, yeah, I mean, that's,
00:14:18that's the one that we can actually talk about. That's the one that like really, and when I say
00:14:22talk about, I mean, it, it is, it is court, uh, decided fact, right? We're, we're working
00:14:29with that. Everything else, the Derek Minner, the, the Jason Krause, this Isaac Dolgarian,
00:14:35we're talking about things that are still under investigation. So that, that yet, yet to be seen
00:14:41in such a way that we can definitively say, but everybody knows what's going on. We see what
00:14:45we see and, and, and obviously it's troubling no matter what. Yeah. Your mind can't help but wander
00:14:50in, in this situation. And you just mentioned investigation. Um, let's talk about what happens
00:14:55after the fight. Um, after the fight, things kind of blow up on MMA Twitter. Uh, this gentleman,
00:15:01uh, Harry Mack, he kind of was the catalyst for this, not aware personally of his journalistic
00:15:07background or if he represents a media outlet, but he, for lack of a better word, breaks that the FBI
00:15:14is investigating this. Dana White later goes on to essentially corroborate that, that the FBI
00:15:20is looking into this. And since then other fighters, you know, this story kind of explodes.
00:15:25Other fighters have said on, on their social media saying that they have been reached out
00:15:29to in the past about throwing fights or fixing fights. Some of them had walked it back saying
00:15:35that, you know, it was a joke and. Aha. Hilarious. So. Everybody's got jokes. Everybody's got jokes.
00:15:42Leave that up to you at your own distraction on what you believe, uh, in that regard.
00:15:46But noticeably. All of these is running their social medias.
00:15:51Reminiscent. I will say oddly reminiscent, but, uh, notably all of these fighters you would think are
00:15:56on the lower, uh, to mid end of the pay scale. These are the ones that, you know, we're speaking out
00:16:01on social media and coming forward. I have to ask, you know, Scott, I'm going to throw this to you.
00:16:05How much do you think that fighter pay plays an issue into something like fight, fight fixing?
00:16:12So kind of, but also kind of not, you know, cause I was to clearly, if you're making less money and
00:16:19you don't have another means of income, which a lot of the fighters on the, even on the low end of
00:16:24the scale, they walk away from a job. They don't do that anymore. They commit full time. Some of them
00:16:29don't, some of them still have real jobs for a little while. Right. But even at that, I mean,
00:16:34it's a means to an end where you can actually start making money. Right. If, if someone approached
00:16:38you and says, Hey, listen, you just got to do this for me. And we're going to make a look, we're
00:16:42going to make you a good amount of money. Right. Depending on how that figure sounds to you and
00:16:46your desperate situation, maybe that's an attractive kind of thing. If you're on a 10 and 10 deal,
00:16:51you got to split all that money with your team. Um, it's generally not adequately going to pay the bills.
00:16:57So someone's again, we'll take day on bomb, right? $70,000. I believe again, was the figure. Uh,
00:17:03if someone says you get $70,000 and you were just going to make 10, 10, you don't have to share that
00:17:08figure with anybody either. That just goes to you. Um, that changes your life. Maybe you can quit
00:17:13that job. Maybe you can commit yourself and say, I can win. I can come back. And after this people
00:17:17will rationalize anything, if they're desperate, it's, it's, it's a really sad and unfortunate thing,
00:17:22but yes, those people are more likely to be victimized. I said that, and I'm just going to
00:17:27couch this before I kick it to you, Eric, having said all that, realistically, we've seen in those
00:17:32other sports lately in the, in the national basketball association, um, someone like
00:17:36Terry, Terry Regier made like a hundred million dollar contract. Um, sometimes you just got to do
00:17:42it for one reason or another. Um, maybe it's the action. Maybe you just live it for the thrill.
00:17:47Maybe you do need the money. You got yourself in a bad situation. You got to find ways out of it.
00:17:51Or maybe you want to help somebody out either way. Sometimes this can happen to somebody who is
00:17:56not just making pennies, you know? So really everybody has a price, like we said, and like,
00:18:02uh, like the million dollar man once said many times that, you know, Eric, what do you think?
00:18:08Uh, so I think that fighter pay could, it could help, right? Obviously these are federal crimes and
00:18:14Dana White even made the, uh, analogy is like, Oh, so like if someone's going to come up to you and
00:18:17ask you to, you want to rob a bank, let's go do it. Now this is a little bit different,
00:18:21right? Robbing a bank comes in gun guns a blazing, right? And you're going to have to
00:18:24threaten some innocent people. This in theory would be a victimless crime in terms of the eyes
00:18:30of maybe the fighter where it's like, well, I'm the one that's going to get beat up. And then the
00:18:34sports books, which make a ton of money, they're going to have to pay some out to my buddy over
00:18:38here. Who's going to make a bunch of money as well. Now where this gets, you know, dicey is
00:18:43like the fighters, they don't make enough at the lower to mid card rate. I would hope slash assume
00:18:51that that is going to go up now with the new CBS paramount deal. Now I'm not in, I'm not,
00:18:58I'm not in control there. That story has kind of died, right? We talked about that back in what,
00:19:03when was the deal announced? August. We talked about it. I built that summer.
00:19:08There's been no update since then. So my hope is that a little bit extra money could come into
00:19:15those lower to mid card fighters. The only thing I would interject is I just did just see this,
00:19:20this morning, I believe on MMA fighting. And it was that there, there was reports that the UFC is
00:19:27working with some of the fighters who get pay-per-view points to try and find an alternative
00:19:32way for the contracts to work in a non pay-per-view point world. So that's one thing.
00:19:38That's just one element. It's not the thing you're talking about.
00:19:41Yeah. I could also tell you that I've reported on this in the past, but the pay-per-view points
00:19:45thing hasn't been real for the last like three years. You talk to agents around like in their
00:19:49contracts, they don't get pay-per-view points. The pay-per-view points has not really been a big,
00:19:53a big part of their contracts anymore. But I digress.
00:19:57The only, the one thing I wanted to throw out there too, just to, just to add onto your,
00:20:00your bank robber analogy here. Don't forget if you approach me on the street and say,
00:20:05Hey, you want to help me rob a bank? I don't know how to rob a bank. I don't know what I'm supposed
00:20:08to do, but I tell you what, you go talk to a fighter and say, Hey, I kind of need you to,
00:20:12to lose this fight. They're in a position where they're already there and they know how to fight
00:20:19and maybe they could find a way to lose. Exactly. There's some expertise there. So it is a little
00:20:24different, right? Very good point. Um, for sure. Gambling addiction is super real.
00:20:30Actually, I know people personally who have dealt with gambling addiction. It is super real.
00:20:34There is no amount of money that can solve gambling addictions. That's part of the issue.
00:20:38Uh, part of the weird way that you'll legalize gambling is a thing. And the, the online casino
00:20:43platforms that are, you know, available in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, very, very strange world
00:20:49that we live in now with gambling. So, you know, gambling problems, super real. And they are,
00:20:55they are not, um, they, they're, they're for everybody, you know, whether you're super wealthy
00:21:01or not, there's always a chase there in terms of, you know, money and, and, um, you just the way that
00:21:06the game is played with your brain in terms of like the enzymes and the, and the, the, the loud
00:21:11sounds and the colors and all that jazz, you know, gambling addiction is real. And, uh, you know,
00:21:17if you're an athlete and you, unfortunately, this is, this is going to be something that needs me
00:21:21get ahold of here. The FBI needs to get ahold of this in all sports, not just the UFC,
00:21:27not just the NBA. It's, it was a problem in soccer. We need to get ahold of this like ASAP.
00:21:32Otherwise sports is going to be a real problem for a while.
00:21:35I don't, I don't want to go too off track here, but you, you, you made a really good point about
00:21:40the, the, the gambling thing and all the colors and all this kind of thing, right? The bright stuff
00:21:44and everything that, that now you can get at home. You see it in video games too, with, with like
00:21:49children and stuff and, and all these loot boxes and all these things. I'm a gamer. I played all
00:21:54the games behind me. I've got a, uh, I've got the Def Jam fight for New York behind me, right?
00:21:58Not a, not a microtransaction kind of game here, but there, there are a lot of games that are
00:22:02especially targeted young children and they're, they're built on the, the kind of the, the quick
00:22:07wins and that kind of thing that you see in gambling. Uh, and, and it's something that's just so
00:22:12pervasive now and it's pretty dangerous to raise children in this environment. I try to not let
00:22:17them play those types of things. Yeah. And I, I'm not a dad, but I mean, you are like, imagine like
00:22:22Madden or NBA 2k where you have to buy packs to get, especially really bad with it, with the,
00:22:31my league and like, you like get a player and you have to pay to get your stats up and you play with
00:22:35your friends. It's, it is like, it's almost like that is like the gateway drug to online casino
00:22:42gambling in a weird roundabout way. And, uh, you know, unfortunately it seems like it can rear
00:22:47its ugly head and into situations like this where, you know, you're, you're fixing a fight
00:22:54for yourself. Terry Rozier did not need to do this. And whether, whatever reason there was,
00:22:58there was, he did not need to do it. Allegedly. Allegedly. He did not need to do that.
00:23:03That, that brings, um, I'm going to bring us back here, but that segues.
00:23:06No, no, bring us back, Jake. It's like, we're nicely into this. And I'm going to say something
00:23:11and it's, I'm, I just want to preface highly, highly speculative. Um, your mind cannot help
00:23:17but wander, but something that you said, Scott earlier, I believe you were talking about the
00:23:20Terry Rozier, um, aspect of it because he gets paid a lot of money. There are plenty of reasons
00:23:26other than money that, that maybe someone would do something like this. And I just, I can't imagine
00:23:34that after allegedly, allegedly Dulgarian, he, according to Dana White gets a talk from, uh,
00:23:42or Dulgarian gets a talk from Dana White, you know, saying, Hey, we've gotten a flag about,
00:23:47you know, this weird lied movement, what's going on. And allegedly Dulgarian tells Dana White,
00:23:53I'm good. Everything's good. If allegedly Dulgarian was going to throw the fight after getting a
00:24:01conversation from Dana White, being like, we know about this. I can't imagine he would do that
00:24:07just for money in situations like this. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility. Again,
00:24:13allegedly, if this was something that happened, that maybe there's some sort of blackmail situation
00:24:18going on. I, I, I just, I can't imagine that after knowing that they know and are suspicious of
00:24:24you, that you would continue to just go ahead and throw a fight that you almost definitely aren't
00:24:29going to get. Cause they, they're already suspicious of it. You know, I, I don't know.
00:24:34Who knows? Who knows what goes through a person's mind. If that is the situation that played out,
00:24:39I, I, you couldn't really speak to it. Who knows?
00:24:41Yeah.
00:24:41One thing that I can, uh, just shed some light on as well. Um, I've talked to I360, uh, gambling,
00:24:47the gambling integrity firm. I also talked to the books about how they interact with the gambling
00:24:51firm. I could just like kind of maybe shed a little bit of light on it. I360 is, is, um,
00:24:56paid by the sports books who aggregate all of the betting that comes in on in every individual event
00:25:03in every individual market. So, you know, say like fanatics is getting $500,000 bet in bets on this
00:25:11fight. And then DraftKings getting 3 million, all that's coming together. And then they, from there
00:25:16will flag it to a book with an alert saying, Hey, something weird's going on here. Are you seeing
00:25:22that too? Oh yes. I'm seeing that as well. Okay. Let's pull the market for it. And then I see 360
00:25:28goes to the league, like the UFC, the NBA, et cetera, and says, Hey, you know, this sports book
00:25:35and, uh, this sports book agree with us that this looks weird. What's going on. Can you find out?
00:25:40So just so you know, and also these, these flags do happen pretty regularly. Um, there's a lot of
00:25:47flags now that could also be a part of a bigger question. How often does this really happen?
00:25:50Right. Maybe they're flagging it correctly. Perhaps not. Um, there are false alarms.
00:25:57There could, there are exactly is my point. There could be a lot of false alarms. I had
00:26:01talked to one sports book that said that I see three 60 flagged them because the Simpsons
00:26:07had correctly predicted a super bowl or something. And everyone was betting the correct score of
00:26:12the game that the Simpsons had on their TV or whatever. I see 60 flagged it. I swear.
00:26:17That's not a lie. That is real. Um, but that was an example of a flag that wasn't really
00:26:23necessary. So no, thanks for telling us how the sausage you made, Eric. That's interesting.
00:26:29Ariel Helwani had said like, why don't just pull the fight? Right. I'm sure that the UFC gets
00:26:34regular, um, alerts from IC 360 is my point. Yeah. Yeah. I'd be curious about that too,
00:26:41Erica. Like as far as the UFC, like what, I wonder what the bar is for them to say,
00:26:46maybe we do just not go forward with this. Does that change in the wake of this? I don't
00:26:50know. Um, I get, get flagged. Yeah. I guess the difference is in this scenario and also
00:26:58the line movement, correct me if I'm wrong, Eric, but like just the movement on its own
00:27:03was like quite unprecedented besides the James Krause, Derek Minner situation. It was notable,
00:27:09right? For sure. Notable. The, the differences is that in this situation, it's like when the
00:27:16line moves like that before the fight, you're like, if this ends in the first round in a really
00:27:22weird way, then it looks really suspicious, right? So you might have some weird spikes
00:27:27in live movement, but it's when the fight ends in a result that is like, you're already
00:27:32sort of suspicious of that's when you kind of can look at it and maybe start asking some
00:27:37questions. I suppose for me, the line movement is more surprising because of when the shorter
00:27:42time period of which it happened, it was like, it started at like five o'clock or four o'clock
00:27:48PM Eastern time and went up to the fight time, which was about 7 PM. Um, that is probably the
00:27:55most bizarre slash, you know, probably what, uh, the sports books were like, how come there
00:28:01is not a single bet on the underdog who's now trending towards favorite. This is weird.
00:28:06Yeah. Any, I saw you very pensive looking Scott. Is there anything, uh, anything left you got
00:28:13to say about this one? You know, if we're putting a, if we're putting a bow on it, I
00:28:17got a parting shot I want to take. Sure. Yeah. So, uh, listen, I'm on social media. I don't
00:28:23really use it, uh, outwardly as much as I used to. Um, uh, I think I found a healthier
00:28:29balance in social media use, which is, which is nice. Um, but I see a bunch of people talking
00:28:34about their bets all the time, right? I follow different people from different walks of the
00:28:38MMA community and in general, and you'll see people who are betting and not betting and,
00:28:42and people who have, you know, advice to give and people who don't, and people are just playing
00:28:47and that kind of thing. But one, one thing that always makes me roll my eyes, like hardcore
00:28:53is when you have someone who's very enthralled in the betting of the fights and then they will
00:29:00say, Oh, these fights are all fixed. Why are you betting the fights? If you don't think you have
00:29:05a chance to win in a fair fight, what's the point? So stupid. You either believe they're,
00:29:11they're legit and you can bet them and you might win, or you don't think you can win and you do
00:29:17something different with your money. Come on guys. Yeah. And then also if they're, you know,
00:29:21an active social media person and they think that they're, you know, fixed fights and then they're
00:29:26giving those bets out for the public recommending them to follow their bets. That's like, what are
00:29:32you doing? Well, if they don't know which fight is fixed, that's one thing, but if they just believe
00:29:37that they could be fixed or they're all fixed, then what's the point? Well, the, the elephant in
00:29:41the room for me is where do we go with three bets in three minutes now, if all of these fights are
00:29:46fixed, can we even do them? Eric, I think morally speaking, you should not be giving that advice
00:29:51anymore. It's time to retire. Cause I'm not bad. No, come on now. Hey, we'll get, you get a fresh
00:30:00slate this weekend. You haven't done it in a couple of rest weeks. Yeah. I got two weeks to rest up.
00:30:06We out here. No, but honestly, I know I'll, I had, we haven't gotten a chance to talk about this. I had
00:30:13Sean Preplik over, uh, Drew Dober. And, uh, that's probably the worst betting loss I've had ever.
00:30:20Well, that was a weird, that was 7,000 years ago in MMA time. I know I hear you, but I'm still not
00:30:26over it. I'm like three weeks later and I'm still sick. Eric's an honest man. He will get you back
00:30:30when, when we get to talking about, uh, this weekend, we still got some more stuff from last
00:30:34weekend, right Jake? Yes, we do. So let's talk about what else happened on Saturday night. We're
00:30:40going to start by talking about an actual fight and then we're going to talk about some more
00:30:43controversy. How does that sound? A little break. And then we're going to go back to, you know,
00:30:47so guys, Steve Garcia defeated David Onama in the first round. I'll throw it to you,
00:30:54Scott. What did you think about his impressive win? Honestly, Garcia really impressed me here.
00:30:59I'm, I'm glad we got the chance to talk about it just a little bit because he fought like
00:31:03there was an impressive intensity to just the way he fights. And in this fight in particular,
00:31:07he, he was, he was locked in, in like a very rare way, I think. And so it's no surprise to me
00:31:14that he was able to get this done, you know, in what, three and a half minutes or so TKO victory
00:31:19with his hands. Nice job there. Uh, how fun a fight though. I want to think about this going
00:31:23forward with him. How fun a fight would it be? You put him against Gian Silva, right? There are
00:31:29two spots behind him now in the rankings, actually Garcia moved up enough, but I think Silva has
00:31:34enough name value more than even Onama does that. You can put that on like the main card of a
00:31:39premium numbered event, uh, in the new year. And, and I think it would be a breakout opportunity for
00:31:44potentially him or another good chance to get right for Garcia. And either way, we're going to
00:31:49get fireworks. That's, that's what I see. I, I like that. I like that. And I mean,
00:31:53Gian Silva, I agree. I think he's like, kind of like the A side, but he could bring Garcia up to
00:31:59like, like a main card on a, on a, what, premium numbered event. That's, that's the official
00:32:04premium numbered events, sir. Going to have to get used to that. We'll figure out what we,
00:32:08what nomenclature we go with, but that was the one I believe was in their emails, their press
00:32:11releases. Yes. And, uh, Eric, what do you, what did you think about, uh, the performance of Steve
00:32:16Garcia? Oh, Steve Garcia looked great. I thought David Onama looked bad. Yeah. I, well,
00:32:21he didn't look bad. But how much of that is one versus the other? I don't know because Garcia really
00:32:26was very good. Yeah. I was mind blown by what I was seeing out of David Onama. He looked
00:32:33non-competitive that entire fight. Again, Steve Garcia is now number eight ranked. He
00:32:36moved up four spots in the rankings. We just looked them up. That is crazy. Like
00:32:40in the UFC rankings. Yeah. He's number eight in that division, which I mean, I don't know
00:32:46who, like, I still don't really know who does these rankings. I thought meta was going to
00:32:49fix it, but apparently not. Um, they haven't gotten there yet. They're, they're worrying about
00:32:53other stuff. Ah, whatever. Everything's nothing makes sense. Anyway. Um, Steve Garcia looked
00:32:59amazing. I like the shout out of, uh, of Gene Silva, but like, I gotta think that Gene
00:33:05Silva, who is going to fight, like I was hoping would fight for a title would beat the brakes
00:33:10off of Steve Garcia. I gotta hope that like, I don't know. Gene Silva. This is his get right
00:33:14fight. That's what I'm saying. I know Steve that it should be his get right fight. Honestly,
00:33:18I don't know what the odds would be based on the rankings. Garcia would be favored if we
00:33:21were going off of that. Um, like dude, Steve Garcia lost to violent Bob Ross, you know,
00:33:27like I, he's won eight in a row since then. And that's the thing about him. I made a time
00:33:31ago. Come on. The thing about the UFC is that everyone gets so much better so quickly. That's
00:33:37hard to tell what's real and what's not. I was like, did Onama just look really bad or
00:33:41am I tripping? You know? Um, I don't know. I'm interested to see, I would definitely want
00:33:46to step up in competition for him next. Let's be very fair. Let's be very fair about some
00:33:51of these one lost kind of things from fighters that we've seen in the past. Let's think of
00:33:55Islam Mahachev losing to, Oh my goodness. I can't even remember anymore who he lost to.
00:34:00It's been so long. But, uh, so there was the, it was his debut, right? He've won everything
00:34:04since then. And you've got also, you've got Magomed Ankalaev who lost that, that heartbreaker
00:34:09in his, I believe it was his USC debut as well against, uh, Paul Craig. That fight didn't age
00:34:14very well, but obviously he went on and did great things. So let's not, let's not do the MMA math
00:34:19thing. I know. I hear you, but it's tough. I don't know. I don't, I'm interested to see where,
00:34:23where the rest of his career goes. Josh Emmett could be interesting. I need to see him against
00:34:28somebody with a little bit more punching power and just, just look better than David
00:34:32Wanama did. Honestly. Is it fair to say that Steve Garcia came out as the biggest winner on
00:34:36Saturday night? I would say so. Easy. Yeah. There was a lot of losers. Yeah. There was a lot
00:34:43of losers. Definitely a lot of losers. So I guess this is a good segue. I would also,
00:34:48I would also say Kevin Vieira probably put herself in a decent position because she won her fight
00:34:52against, Oh, and Norma Dumont, excuse me, won that fight. I mixed myself up here. Norma Dumont
00:34:56probably put herself in the, in the next in line for that title shot at 135. So there's that.
00:35:01There we go. And it's pretty notable to me. So, but let's, let's not beat around the bush.
00:35:06There's another big controversy, which this would have been Scott, as you mentioned in our planning
00:35:10meeting, like had this whole betting saga not happened, we, that the start of the show would
00:35:14have been us, you know, kind of ripping on this situation. So let's get into it. Um, in the
00:35:19Waldo Cortez Acosta fight versus Ante D'Elia in the first round, there is, uh, there's a,
00:35:26there's a flurry of punches that come from Ante D'Elia to Waldo Cortez Acosta. And it looks like
00:35:33the referee, I believe it was, um, Mark Smith, Mark Smith. There we go. Thank you, Scott. Mark
00:35:38Smith steps in. It looks like the fight's over and we're hearing from the commentary team.
00:35:44They're a little bit confused. They're saying he didn't wave his hands and did, was there an eye
00:35:49pulse? There's a lot of speculation. Yeah. Cause you could see that Waldo Cortez Acosta is holding
00:35:53his eye. And then all of a sudden we hear that there's a timer going, the fight's not over.
00:35:59We're on a timeout and they do and review the footage. The doctor comes in, checks him out.
00:36:04He says, I'm okay. The fight's restarting. Scott, what did you think about this whole situation?
00:36:08If there's anything I, I left out, please let me know. Cause there's a lot of facts.
00:36:12You left out what happened right after that, which is the fact that like within like 20 seconds,
00:36:17the fight's over and Cortez Acosta has a win. It's crazy. The turn of events.
00:36:21I needed to hand that off to someone because it's the timeline. I'm just like, I honestly can't just
00:36:26shoot this all off from the dome, but sure, sure. No, it was wild, man. Eric, we have to get your
00:36:33reaction to this because, uh, you, you waited till before the show. You were the last of us to watch.
00:36:38So we have, we haven't gotten your reaction yet. This is live. Uh, what we're, this is one of the
00:36:42funny, I, it was very rarely do I like some of the stuff that happens in MMA, especially at the
00:36:47thousand stuff. I get legitimately mad because I'm passionate about the sport. I want it to be
00:36:51serious. I want to take it seriously. I legitimately started laughing out loud because I had been saying
00:36:58forever that cheating is undefeated in MMA for everybody. I can no longer say that it's undefeated.
00:37:05Ante Delica accidentally cheats and he, you know, he pokes him in the eye, accidental foul,
00:37:11had it, what looked like to be a surefire TKO. And then he gets knocked out 30 seconds later.
00:37:17Even, even, um, who was, I believe it was Brendan Fitzpatrick with, uh, the commentator
00:37:22was like, what just happened? Oh, what was it? Fitzgerald. Yeah.
00:37:26Brendan Fitzgerald. Yep. Yep. Brendan Fitzgerald. He's like, what just happened? What is wrong
00:37:31with this sport? Uh, yeah, it's one of the, I've, I've never laughed after a result, but that was
00:37:38almost too good to even be real. Like it was almost too good. Yeah. I think laughter was appropriate.
00:37:47Yeah. Oh, I was, I laughed. I was just sitting, I was sitting by myself and I was laughing,
00:37:52looking at the computer. I was like, this really happened? Like, this wasn't fake.
00:37:57Like, get out of here. Oh my God. Imagine like, and especially being like deletes his T with,
00:38:03I mean, Tom Aspinall probably watching somewhere. Like, it's like, I just thought my boy won by
00:38:08knockout. And then he gets knocked out literally two punches after a three minute break. Unbelievable.
00:38:16It's really weird. And what I'm, what I'm kind of just confused about, and you, you hear them saying
00:38:21the ref didn't wave his hands, which I mean, when a ref does wave their hands, like that is
00:38:27like, we know that they are stopping the fight, but I don't know if that's like a binding thing
00:38:33or not. I tried looking this up. And from what I understand, waving the hands thing is not
00:38:37necessarily binding, but also if he doesn't go in and say, you know, fights over, then he's not
00:38:43really, they say stop. That doesn't mean the fight is over. Right. And he never said, he never
00:38:49indicated in any way the fight was over. Yeah. But the weird way that they threw up the clothes,
00:38:54was like, there's no clock on, but like they pointed out on the broadcast, there is no clock
00:38:58on. And then rooms like the clock just turned on. What is this? That's when I really started
00:39:03laughing. That's when I was like, Oh my God. And then Scott, we didn't even talk about the
00:39:08people stepping into the octagon. As I understand that was something that you took a lot of issue
00:39:13with. Yeah. First off, before you do that, I just want to say just what awful irony it is
00:39:19that Delia's friend and teammate, Tom Aspinall, you mentioned before, he has that gnarly eye poke
00:39:24literally seven days earlier. And, and of course he comes out strong against eye pokes. Delia is
00:39:32saying, you know, you got to punish them. Absolutely. And you can't tolerate them. We can't have them.
00:39:37And then immediately does one himself. This is there. You cannot believe this guy was trying to do
00:39:44that, especially under the microscope he was in. I think it was just sloppy technique, throws the
00:39:49hand out there and it pokes him. I don't think anyone believes this particular eye poke had any
00:39:55ill intention, right? I think it was just sloppiness to get back to your, what was your question
00:40:01exactly? About the folks in the octagon. Yeah. So the way this whole played out was comedy is perfect,
00:40:09right? The fact that you're laughing at this, I think is absolutely appropriate because this was
00:40:13just a comedic farce. It's akin to like tornado of a mess of everything that's going on. I mean,
00:40:19he waves, he, he stops the fight. Mark Smith stops the fight. They bring in the, the, the stool for
00:40:26Coteza Costa to sit on, you know, they've got all these extra bodies in their horn. Normally you've
00:40:31got Delia interacting with his corner over the fence, which is not legal either. If the fight's still
00:40:37going, um, things are happening that shouldn't be happening. And of course they are able to
00:40:44start the fight again. And mind you, so this timer, like we never really saw the timer on the
00:40:50broadcast or anything like that. I timed it from basically the moment that Mark Smith stops and
00:40:55steps in. And from the point, the fight restarts and in those intervening minutes, and we're not
00:41:01counting when he agrees to go in there, that's already in there. When, when Cortez Costa says,
00:41:05I'm good to go. All of this did take place in just about exactly five minutes. So it's not like
00:41:10he even got extra time. So there, that was, that part of it was kind of handled, um, pretty okay.
00:41:15I think Mark Smith was like the lone voice of reason as everything's going crazy around him.
00:41:21Not surprising considering I believe he was, uh, uh, like a fighter pilot or something like that.
00:41:26He's now a pilot, um, commercial pilot, I believe. So the fact that he can handle all this stuff,
00:41:31not surprising to me. Um, but having said that yet, it was just such a mess.
00:41:35Like there's people in there that shouldn't be, I think what we have now as unfortunate it is,
00:41:41there's like the winner of the fight rightly was Waldo Cortez Acosta as it played out.
00:41:46But I think Dalia has real grounds for a no contest overturn here. I don't know if it's
00:41:52going to happen, but there's too much that went wrong. That was supposed to be handled correctly
00:41:56by all of the officials and not Mark Smith, but everybody else. And I don't think it was
00:42:01handled correctly. I think they have to overturn this, but I don't know if they will.
00:42:06That's a good point. I didn't think about that. That should be overturned though. You are right
00:42:10on that. It was too much. There's too much stuff that's not supposed to be happening. Yeah. Yeah.
00:42:15Yeah. And the clock never didn't come up for like a several minutes like that. Right.
00:42:21You can't just randomly choose when to put a clock up. Um, but again, funny enough,
00:42:25it was still about five minutes. They didn't really go over the time. I've seen worse. We saw worse a
00:42:30couple of weeks ago with, uh, with, um, Dan Mercado. Yeah. And Kevin Holland got more than five
00:42:36minutes. Yeah. Yeah. When he was like, are you good? That was, that was more egregious on a time
00:42:41scale. Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. Um, can I propose just a rule change? Can we like just do one point
00:42:47for every foul? Doesn't matter if it was. Oh, you missed our conversation last week.
00:42:52Yes. You were out of that one. So I, we were saying, especially with I coast, just to give
00:42:56you a quick summary with I pokes in particular, you got to, I think two points is what you could
00:43:00take for the actual poke. If it, if you're extending the fingers, you get one warning,
00:43:04you do a second extension of the fingers, one point. And if you start doing that and enforcing that
00:43:10you watch it go away. Exactly. They'll do it. If they do it, you knew they didn't mean to,
00:43:16because they won't get away with it. Exactly. All right. I'm good. All right. So let's,
00:43:21let's wrap up last week and move on. We will continue to talk about, uh, any controversy,
00:43:26you know, or the controversies that happened, uh, on Saturday night. Hopefully no more this
00:43:32Saturday. Can we just have like kind of a smooth ish UFC event? No more, you know, whatever
00:43:39going on with the betting stuff. No more, no more crazy line. We got content for our show
00:43:43and that's fine. But ideally I just want this thing to work. Right. I just, I also don't want
00:43:47to call IC 360 anymore. I don't want to talk to them anymore. Are they nice people? At least
00:43:53are they, are they good to interact with? No. Okay. Bunch of jerks. Okay. Got it. All right.
00:44:01Fair enough. Okay. So let's talk about Gabriel Bond theme versus Randy Brown taking place at the
00:44:07warehouse. This feels good, right? This is like, it's a normal show again. Um, taking place at the
00:44:12warehouse, uh, 4 PM, uh, prelims, 7 PM main card. And this one kind of feels pretty similar
00:44:20to last week in the sense that, you know, who is this card for? It kind of seems like
00:44:23it's for the diehards, but Scott, I got to ask you in this main event, what are the stakes
00:44:28for these two fighters? I don't think you're wrong. I think that I actually see a lot of
00:44:32similarities between this, um, particular event and really one of the fighters on it, like
00:44:37Steve Garcia and Gabriel Bond theme. You can draw a lot of parallels to where they are
00:44:42in their careers and what this opportunity represents, because it's kind of like that
00:44:46last stop before you might be able to move on to some of those bigger fights. And I think
00:44:51that's what Steve Garcia did. He unlocked for himself. This is what potentially Gabriel
00:44:55Bond theme can do. And if he wins against Randy Brown and Randy Brown's on a pretty good
00:45:00run of fights right here, you win this fight. I think you're start talking about him fighting
00:45:05some of these more notable welterweights and, and, you know, it's obviously it's a main
00:45:09event spot here in a, in a fight night in the warehouse, but there are other opportunities
00:45:13that might not be headliners, but also might be bigger steps for him. 28 years old, working
00:45:18his way up to the title shot on the other side, you've got Randy Brown. And I think this
00:45:23is probably his, his kind of last real run toward contention after just about 10 years
00:45:29in the UFC, right? He's 35 now. So he's not young guy anymore, but he's also on a good
00:45:34run. Like I said, four to five, uh, last five, or he's one split decision loss in there
00:45:40to, um, what was it? Brian Baker or what was it? Brian battle. Yeah. Brian battle. Thank
00:45:45you. I almost said Brian Baker. That's a different fighter. Um, and obviously that was a split
00:45:48decision in a fight where he, uh, egregiously missed weight. So that was kind of ugly too.
00:45:53Also won eight out of 10, that other loss. Do you guys remember who his other losses to
00:45:57him in that time? I know it too. Do you know? I don't. Jack Della Madalena, the welterweight
00:46:05champ. No shame there. Right. He is on such a good run here. I think this should give him
00:46:09a chance to finally be ranked and get some of those ranked opponents that have been elusive
00:46:13to him in his career. If he can win this one, but a loss to a prospect like this, I think
00:46:18it slams the door on his momentum a little bit. So there's some real stakes here.
00:46:21Yeah. I totally agree with that. And you know, what's interesting is like, if you look back at
00:46:26Randy Brown's like, uh, entire like fight history, the last 10, his wins don't really age that well.
00:46:32Like it's kind of in a, in a bizarre way and it's not his fault. He beat, he beat a lot of the guys
00:46:37that were thrown in front of the guys that lined up in front of them. Yeah. He beat the guys that
00:46:41lined up in front of them. The split decision loss against Brian battle. Like Brian battle might be
00:46:45really good. We're not, maybe not, might not find out because he might not be in the UFC ever again.
00:46:49But, um, and Jack Della obviously fighting for the title and got, you know, knocked down the first
00:46:52round. Owns the title. Yeah. Yeah. And he was the current champion, but it's like, he got knocked
00:46:58down by chaos. Williams, Francisco Trinaldo was like kind of close fight. Wellington Terman isn't,
00:47:03I don't think in the UFC anymore. Muslim Salikov has had a dicey time in the UFC. He's on this card.
00:47:10Salikov's fighting this weekend. Is he? Um, well, I, yeah, it's, uh, I don't know. He wasn't my favorite.
00:47:17But let's talk about some of the other fights, uh, on this card. Cause we've got to move forward.
00:47:22Scott, what is your fight to watch? I'm going with Ricky Simone against, uh, Houni Barcelos.
00:47:28I think this is a really nice, uh, Bantamweight matchup as many of them are. I think we're in for
00:47:32some fun there. These are guys who can still kind of get back up into that, you know, maybe the
00:47:38contention level at Bantamweight. So I think we'll have fun as we find somebody who, who might take
00:47:44another step up in, in the ladder. Right. I like that one. And what about you, Eric? What do you
00:47:48got? Christian Leroy Duncan versus Marco Tulio. This should be action packed, right? Marco Tulio's
00:47:54seven strikes, seven significant strikes per minute. It's like one of the best numbers of
00:47:58the division. Um, I think this fight should be really interesting. And I think that, you know,
00:48:02Christian Leroy Duncan, super alive underdog. He's a plus one 60. I'm excited for that one. It's
00:48:06going. All right. And for me, what do you got Jake? What are you looking to watch?
00:48:09I'm looking to watch Jamal Emers versus Haider Emil. And that, that is literally just simply
00:48:14because both of these guys in their recent strings of fights for both of them are just
00:48:19not seeing the distance really that often at all. Like if you, if you look through, it's
00:48:23a lot of first round finishes and just inside the distance in general. So if you're looking
00:48:28for a finish, I feel like this fight has a decent bit of potential to, uh, to go there.
00:48:33But Scott, what do we have for our event rating?
00:48:35So this event rating, it follows up a strong, I believe it actually did end up being the
00:48:41highest rated apex, uh, card of the year. Um, but it follows that one. This is a 32
00:48:47right behind it. It's it's, this is a good deep, deep, deep card, right? The co-main
00:48:53and the main, they're not of the highest caliber in terms of rankings, respective bomb theme
00:48:58Brown, both outside of the top 20 world, just outside of that top 20 worldwide fight
00:49:03matrix, uh, Matt Schnell, who's in the co-main against, uh, Joseph Morales. He's outside
00:49:08the top 60 Morales is 27th at bantamweight. So, or excuse me, flyweight. So we're talking
00:49:13about at least, you know, there's some, there's some real good talent here, but maybe not the
00:49:16type we usually think of in main and co-main situations. Eight out of 24 fighters on this
00:49:21whole card are top 100. So there is a lot of real UFC caliber talent here. I think we've
00:49:29seen a lot more of the UFC moving on from kind of these like heavy, heavy prospect cards that
00:49:36they throw at the apex. So as much as maybe the fights might not be the most attractive matchups
00:49:41potentially from week to week rankings wise and quality of fighter wise, I think they're doing
00:49:47everything they're supposed to be doing. Alrighty. Thank you for that. Scott and Eric, we're going
00:49:51to tie a bow on this with three bets in three minutes. You ready to bring it back, Eric?
00:49:55I'm so excited. Let's do it. The gambling world went absolutely haywire the last two weeks that
00:50:02I was gone. Thankfully, I am here to restore order with three bets in three minutes. And here we go.
00:50:10We get started. Daniel Marcos versus Miles Johns. It's one of the first fights on the card. And I
00:50:15actually think this is a little bit of an underrated fight. I think Daniel Marcos, really solid striker
00:50:19with, you know, good chin, good volume, which is, you know, where I'm betting this one against
00:50:24Miles Johns, who doesn't have that volume, but he does a good takedowns and he has a good, you know,
00:50:29level of competition that he's gone up against. I'll take Daniel Marcos here to eke out a decision,
00:50:34maybe 29, 28, something like that. There is some bad lines out there. You can get on like
00:50:39that. MGM has a plus 350 hanging out right now. Hopefully that's still available by the time this
00:50:43podcast comes out. It might not be. My pick is still Daniel Marcos by decision. I like it in the
00:50:47plus 110 range. Plus 350 is an anomaly. I did hit it. Hopefully BetMGM doesn't kick me off their
00:50:52platform for it. But regardless, we're going to take Daniel Marcos here by decision, 84%
00:50:57takedown defense rate. I think that he's going to be able to stay on his feet and win the exchanges
00:51:01on the feet. And then we go to the main card. I believe this would be the first fight on the
00:51:06main card. I could be wrong, but depending if they change it, Christian Leroy Duncan versus Marco
00:51:10Tullio. These two guys are bonafide finishers. Christian Leroy Duncan, really solid kicks and Marco
00:51:16Tullio also really solid striker in his own right. You know, these guys for sure, like 71,
00:51:22percent of their fights end in, uh, end in finishes, I believe even higher. I believe
00:51:26it's 80% for Christian Leroy Duncan. Now two of his last three fights have of course gone
00:51:30to decision. I think that this one ends inside the distance. I think Christian Leroy Duncan
00:51:33could snatch up a submission. I think Marco Tullio could snatch up a knockout, but no matter
00:51:38which way you shake it, I'm expecting this one to not go the distance. Minus 125 is the
00:51:43bet on this fight, not to go to decision. We move on to the main event, Randy Brown versus
00:51:49Gabriel Bonfim. Now, Randy Brown, as Scott has alluded to already, Randy Brown, you know,
00:51:54he, his, this is his last chance at romance. Basically his strength of schedule isn't very
00:51:59high. I do not like a Randy Brown bet here. I'm not, not betting on rude boy, but I will
00:52:04go, uh, this to be a little bit more competitive than, uh, maybe the odds makers are giving credit.
00:52:09This fight to go to decision is plus 225. We haven't seen a main event go to decision,
00:52:12um, in a little bit. So I think that Randy Brown is going to be able to utilize a little
00:52:17bit of the striking. He's going to have to stay off his back. Gabriel Bonfim, obviously
00:52:20a savage in the grappling. Um, you know, it's not available at the time of writing, but if
00:52:25you can get maybe Gabriel Bonfim over, over two and a half takedowns or something like
00:52:29that, it's not available right now, but if you can get a two and a half on the, on the
00:52:32takedown prop, I would definitely take that. Um, but no, no matter which way you shake it,
00:52:36I'm going to take this fight to go to decision, uh, plus 225, two of Gabriel Bonfim's last,
00:52:41two of Gabriel Bonfim's last three fights have gone to decision. Um, and you know,
00:52:45Randy Brown also not a, not a super stranger to decision. Two of his last three and three
00:52:50of his last five have gone the distance. So those are your three bets in three minutes.
00:52:54You have two, two at plus money. One of them's a really bad line. Hopefully you can snatch
00:52:58it. Those are your three bets in three minutes and we're back.
00:53:01Alrighty. Thank you so much for that, Eric and Scott, I'm going to throw it over to you
00:53:04for quick hits. Yeah. Thanks Jake. So, uh, one week later, we already have a new
00:53:10bout order or, or let's say separation of the main card and prelims for UFC 322, which takes
00:53:17place finally next weekend. Uh, they have swapped the Bo Nickel versus Adolfo Vieira fight. That was
00:53:23originally listed as part of the main card. That's on the prelims. They have bumped up that
00:53:28Benil Dariush versus Benoit Sandini fight. Uh, they did what they did. I don't, I don't know. It's
00:53:34funny. We talked about that last week and of course they immediately walk it back. Maybe we said
00:53:37something wrong. I don't know. Uh, on the USC white house front, variety has reported that the
00:53:43event could happen sooner than that June 14th date that, uh, president Donald Trump had put out
00:53:49there. Probably going to be on an actual Saturday whenever this is all said and done, uh, instead of
00:53:55the Sunday that that would have been. Uh, then we've also got on the, uh, fighter front here,
00:54:00Yuri Prohoshka telling Michael Bisping, he would be interested in a drop to middleweight,
00:54:06provided he has gotten back that light heavyweight championship already. That is clearly a stated
00:54:12goal if he's able to do that. Right. Um, unfortunate news though, this is where we get to the bad
00:54:18stuff, right? Um, particularly involving BJ Penn. Once again, he has been arrested, uh, over an alleged
00:54:25assault in his native Hawaii. It is the UFC hall of famers sixth arrest this year. You heard that
00:54:32right? Uh, troubling times for the UFC hall of famer, former UFC bantamweight Casey Kenney
00:54:38has been sentenced to six months in jail over a disturbing domestic violence incident from last
00:54:46year. Uh, and then lastly, a little more mild news here, PFL, they have announced that they will air
00:54:5110 of their international events on vice TV next year. And that's it.
00:54:58All righty. Thank you, Scott. And let's move on to the final round. We watched Chuck Liddell
00:55:04versus Tito Ortiz too. Eric, did you get to watch the homework?
00:55:08I did indeed. Actually, um, I've seen this fight a couple of times.
00:55:11Yeah, this one was fine fight. Like I said to Scott on last week, I feel like these two guys,
00:55:16like at the time, at least in my mind, when I think of like old light heavyweight,
00:55:20I think of Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz, like those guys, I feel like were the pillars of,
00:55:25of that division at the time. And they, they had a pretty heated rivalry at the time where,
00:55:29you know, a good string of fights that they had. And, uh, this one was pretty interesting. I,
00:55:34if I'm not mistaken, it ended, uh, in a similar fashion to how their first fight went right.
00:55:39Somewhat enough. Okay. Yeah. Drastically different, I guess, but yeah. Yeah. So anyways,
00:55:44Chuck Liddell comes out like a, you know, bat out of hell and Tito Ortiz is not looking great
00:55:50in the beginning. And then he kind of rallies, uh, through, you know, later in the fight and
00:55:56it just kind of came to a point where Chuck Liddell kind of just put the foot on the gas
00:55:59again and, uh, finishes him. And I believe too much power in the Iceman's hands. Yeah. And it was,
00:56:04it was the flurry of punches at, you know, the, in the finishing sequence that was like, okay,
00:56:09that's, that's the iconic Iceman right there. Eric, what did you think? There's a scene in
00:56:13Entourage where, uh, Chuck Liddell has a cameo in the show and like, whatever, they're afraid of
00:56:19Chuck Liddell. And then they show the clip of him doing that to Tito Ortiz in the show. It's pretty
00:56:22funny. Um, interesting fight. I mean, obviously, you know, two legends going at it here. Chuck
00:56:27Liddell in his absolute prime, uh, couple of things from the broadcast. Um, Eddie Bravo doing the
00:56:34scoring in between the first and second round. That was the thing they used to do. Yeah. They used to do
00:56:39that for those events. I remember, and I remember looking at it really fondly up until today when I
00:56:45rewatched this fight and Eddie Bravo gets on there in between rounds one and two and Tito Ortiz nearly
00:56:52got finished, looked absolutely horrible at the end of the first round. Eddie Bravo jumps up there and
00:56:57says, you know, I was really impressed with Tito Ortiz in this one, the low leg kick, the jab. I like
00:57:02how aggressive he came out. I was like, his face is murdered. He's got so many cuts all over
00:57:09his face. Like Eddie, what are you talking about, man? Like I would like to bring that back, but not
00:57:16with Eddie Bravo. Give me someone else. Good luck. If you want to give that to Dean Thomas, I'd have
00:57:21no issue with it, but Eddie Bravo. I looked at back. I used to look back at that so fondly. I was like,
00:57:26Oh, I wish that they would bring that back. They'd give me Eddie Bravo scorecard. That dude can't score
00:57:31fights. I'm out. I don't want to cut you off Eric, but we're running up against the clock and I'm eager to
00:57:36hear our next homework assignment. What do you got, Scott? This is a fight that you guys would have
00:57:41no familiarity with. There's no way you watched it. Hazo Misaki against Jorge Santiago, their second
00:57:48fight in 2010 on a, on a Japanese promotion called world victory road. And, uh, it is, it was put it
00:57:57this way. I'm just going to tell you it was the fight of the year. Okay. All right. I'm very excited
00:58:02for this one. There was a lot of good fights in 2010. Heck yeah. All right. And to, uh, close out our
00:58:08history of MMA, uh, Scott, what happened this week in MMA? 16 years ago, November 7th, 2009
00:58:15Strikeforce made its UFC, uh, it made its CBS debut, uh, as Fedor Emelianenko, who was number one
00:58:21heavyweight in the world at the time. He won his debut with the promotion, beat Brett Rogers. Again,
00:58:26network TV. This was not a frontier that we saw MMA on very much at this point. Funny enough,
00:58:32it wasn't the first time that CBS had aired MMA, but, uh, now we're talking about, uh, CBS getting
00:58:38back into it with the UFC. So interesting time. Yes, there we go. And Eric, I believe this is
00:58:44your first time back on the show since we have introduced a new segment for those who want to
00:58:49watch one more fight outside of the major MMA promotions. Those combat sports addicts who can't get
00:58:55enough, uh, one more fight. Scott, what do we have for, uh, this weekend? I'm giving you ACA 195
00:59:03out in the Middle East. They fight on Friday, headlined by Kirill Kornilov. I'm sure I'm going
00:59:09to mess all these names up, but, uh, Alihan, uh, Ahayev is fighting. These are two top 30 heavyweights
00:59:15in the world. We're talking about UFC PFL level. Uh, if they were signed to promotion, it would make a lot
00:59:21of sense. Frankly, it's a much better, uh, caliber heavyweight fight than the one we have this
00:59:26weekend in the UFC. Go look that up on your own. Uh, also on this card, the second, the co-main
00:59:31event, my heavyweight prospect from the show we did, Zumso Zaryev. He is fighting Anton, uh,
00:59:37Visagen as well. So this is, this is a really good place to watch heavyweights. And if you care about
00:59:43heavyweights, you want to find out, just go on ACA-MMA.com. That's where you can find the stream.
00:59:49So check that out. If you're interested. All right. I can also add Scott, we talked about
00:59:53it in pre-production, Mohamed Bakaya versus Gerard Burns also happening this weekend. I believe,
00:59:59and I'm very, I'm pretty confident in this. If you go to bravefctv.com, you can sign up for an
01:00:05account, which I did. Um, and I was able to watch the prior card. So I'm assuming that I'll be able
01:00:10to watch this one. I've never watched one live on there, but I was able to watch, um, brave FC 99,
01:00:16um, brave CF 99. You will be able to watch brave CF 100, Mohamed Bakaya versus Gerard Burns. I'm
01:00:23pretty sure. All righty. There we go. Two more fights for you to watch at home. So go ahead,
01:00:28enjoy the weekend. I just knocked my mic. We'll end on that. I will see you guys next week.
01:00:34Bye.
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