What’s the worst kind of fight? A tough-ass matchup against an opponent nobody cares about. That’s exactly what Pereira has on his hands against Magomed Ankalaev at UFC 313 on Saturday, so much so that everybody involved (except Ankalaev) appeared put it off as long as they possibly could. But, here’s Poatan, at 37 and sitting on the brink of cleaning out the light heavyweight division, facing his fourth fight in just under 12 months against the man some say shapes up as his stiffest test at 205. Ain’t that just the way?

Plus, Rafael Fiziev seemed to surprise even himself by getting the call to step in for Dan Hooker in the co-main event fight against Justin Gaethje.  

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Doesn’t Henry Cejudo know that when somebody tries to go full Moe Howard on you (looking in your direction Song Yadong) all you gotta do is throw the hand up in front of your face to block it? Guess he missed that day in Greatest Combat Sports Athlete of All Time School. We kid, obviously. Still, though, shoutout to Cejudo, Song and Jason Herzog for reminding us this week that sometimes the shortest distance between you and winning the fight is just to gouge your opponent’s eyes out.

Plus, a ton of fight booking news! Topuria goes up! Hooker drops out! Volko and The Fallout Boy are in! That Boy Good can’t go! Muhammad gets Jackie Flat Nose! Oh, what a rush.

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Would somebody please get this goddamn Jon Jones a hobby already? You can just about set your watch to this shit. Give Jones a fight, give him something to train for, some structure, some direction in his life, and it seems like this man is unstoppable. Give him like EVEN ONE SECOND of downtime and he’s liable to get intoxicated and film an Instagram live video about how he wants to kill somebody. WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT HE DID OVER THE WEEKEND.

Who was Jones talking about? What precipitated this behavior? Was he speaking literally or figuratively? And WHY ON EARTH would he FILM this shit on Instagram?

In other news, Jared Cannonier refused to go quietly into the domain of the gatekeeper and stepping stone and, you know what, fucking good on him. Also, Henry Cejudo and Song Yadong are gonna mix it up in Seattle this weekend and the oddsmakers don’t LOVE Henry’s chances.

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UFC 312 seemed to signal a community-wide awakening on Sean Strickland. After watching him go out with a whimper against Dricus Du Plessis (again!) it felt like everybody had kind of had enough of his bullshit. Sure, the visionaries on this podcast have been saying for AWHILE that what Strickland advertises prefight (a bloodthirsty maniac!) is quite different than what you actually get inside the cage (a careful point fighter, who came into this bout apparently having made like ZERO adjustments). After this one, however, it felt like fans knew it, other fighters knew it and even his own corner sort of seemed to know it. So, that feels like curtains for ya boi Sean. The irony is, of course, that Strickland actually DOES feel like a psychopathic lunatic in all other aspects of his life. Just ... not when he's fighting.

Plus, damn you can't doubt DDP anymore. Except in his next fight against Khamzat Chimaev ... surely he'll lose that one ... right? Also, are Dana White and Ari Emanuel about to try to "fix" boxing by going after the Ali Act? Well, shit, of course they are! Why didn't we see that coming? 

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Sure, Dricus du Plessis’ middleweight championship win over Sean Strickland back at UFC 297 was a close one. Split decision. Could’ve gone either way, maybe. But, be honest, were any of us really sitting around trying to quench an unquenchable thirst to see them run it back? No. Nobody had that thirst. Nobody except one man. Unfortunately, it was the one man who makes all the decisions, so … here we are.

Plus, Zhang Weili and Tatiana Suarez seems like a pretty compelling fight, actually.

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Since we missed the Proper yesterday, we feel obligated to offer up today's episode of the Patreon Live Chat for free. We hope this satisfies your bloodlust for unfettered discourse on the wild, weird and occasionally wonderful world of mixed martial arts.

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Islam Makhachev and Merab Dvalishvili both retained their titles on Saturday at UFC 311. In truth, Merab stole the show in the co-main event, finally emerging with the unanimous decision win over Umar Nurmagomedov after an insane, exciting, back-and-forth fight. In the main event, well, it wasn’t totally Islam’s fault that he couldn’t put on a similarly inspiring showing, after Arman Tsarukyan dropped out with back issues at the last minute. Still, Islam made it look pretty, pretty, pretty easy against replacement fighter Renato Moicano.

Plus, with Jiri Prochazka suddenly showing something resembling some defense in a win over Jamahal Hill, are we getting ahead of ourselves to say light heavyweight is … back?

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Oddsmakers really like Islam Makhachev and Umar Nurmagomedov to win their respective title fights this weekend at UFC 311. Maybe that’s understandable since, along with ya bois Khabib and Usman, the former students of Abdulmanap Nurmagomedov are a combined *checks notes* 91-1 in professional MMA fights. That’s pretty good! Hold on, though. Arman Tsarukyan (who fights Makhachev for the lightweight title) and Merab Dvalishvili (who defends HIS men’s bantamweight title against Umar) are also both pretty good! So, what gives?

Also, uh, we sure this shit is gonna go down at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, UFC? Because the whole shit down there in that region is on fire. Plus, is Mackenzie Dern at risk of finally living up to her potential?

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Does Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall happen? Can Alex Peieria continue his run? What will the new UFC broadcast deal look like? Does Conor McGregor do anything MMA related, and do we care? These are the questions we wrestle with this week as we don our prognosticating hats and try to divine what will go down in the UFC in 2025.

Also, Dana White has joined the board of directors at Meta. We are well and truly doomed, aren’t we?

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It's the show where we honor the most notable achievements in combat sports -- for better and for worse.

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