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Ya boi Ian (Machado) Garry commands a lot of attention in MMA. If the most difficult thing a UFC fighter can do in the year of our lord 2025 is make people care about your fights, well, Garry's got that part down. Take Saturday’s scrap with Carlos Prates, for example. What otherwise might have been a fairly run-of-the-mill Fight Night main event felt like appointment viewing with Garry and Prates involved. As it turned out, it was pretty much a cakewalk for Garry … except those last five minutes.

Plus, Anthony Smith had the classiest retirement possible when you’re bathed in your own blood and flipping off some rando in the crowd.

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The two-night extravaganza that was Wrestlemania 41 went down over the weekend in Las Vegas, much to the delight and consternation of marks and smarks everywhere. Yeah, yeah, we know the CME ain’t a rasslin’ podcast, but one thing caught our attention that may be of interest to the combat sports audience: Dana White got booed. Yep. They showed Dana White on the broadcast and on the big screen inside Allegiant Stadium, and they booed that man. Twice! In his hometown! And the face Dana made as it was happening? Clearly a guy who didn’t love that it was happening, but was trying to be cool about it.

So, what gives? Dana White is used to being received as the conquering hero and No. 1 big swinging dick by MMA crowds. And yet here he is at Wrestlemania — probably doing a solid for the TKO brass just by showing up — and the live crowd ain’t having it. What, if anything, does this tell us about the difference between the UFC audience and the WWE audience?

Plus, the Netflix CEO doesn’t sound OVERLY thrilled about the idea of landing the UFC, and Ian (whispers: Machado!) Garry fights Carlos Prates this weekend in a fight with some actual stakes for both dudes.

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Your boy Alexander Volkanovski is champion again, besting a fairly valiant effort by Diego Lopes at UFC 314 Saturday to claim the vacant UFC featherweight title. Volk looked pretty good, too, beating Lopes at range and mixing up the takedown attempts en route to the unanimous decision win. For The Fall Out Boy, well, it seemed like he just got started too late — spent too much time fighting Volk’s fight early on. Maybe if this one had been eight rounds instead of five, things might have been different. Alas.

Wait, though. Now that Volk’s 36 and has already defeated most of the bankable top contenders in the division, what’s left for him to do? Is he really gonna fight Movsar Evloev? That seems … anticlimactic.

Plus, Paddy Pimblett beat the shit out of Michael Chandler … and other listener mail questions!

Also, right now through May 1, get 15% off a VOLKAMANIA T-shirt by using the discount code VOLKBACK at: https://comaineventshop.bigcartel.com/

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Look, we’re just being honest. After back-to-back KO losses to Islam Makhachev and Ilia Topuria, and a 1-3 record dating back to 2023, we couldn’t help but wonder if we’d already seen the best of Alexander Volkanovski. Then, lo and behold, Topuria moves up to lightweight, and suddenly Volk is right back in the mix — going off as a slight betting favorite against Diego Lopes in their 145-pound title unification bout at UFC 314.

And yet, the former champ is 36 … and we all know what happens to guys in these lighter weight classes once they hit 35. So we’ve gotta ask: How long can Volkamania really be expected to run wild?

Oh, and Michael Chandler vs. Paddy Pimblett? Yeesh.

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Joe Pyfer got food poisoning — or maybe it was altitude sickness — and now he’s, like, furious. He had to call off his fight with Kelvin Gastelum because his tum-tum hurt, and he’s pissed that he slept in a tent on the floor for nothing. In a tent! On the floor! Obviously, this is Mexico’s fault. It’s a shithole, Joe Pyfer says. Joe Pyfer is never going back to Mexico. Mexico can suck Joe Pyfer’s balls. Literally.

Hey, you know who didn’t call off her fight because she had the tummy troubles? Loopy Godinez. Loopy Godinez just went out there and defeated Julia Polastri and diarrhea all in one night— and she didn’t even tell any nations of 130 million people to suck her balls. Though she did tell her corner that she had to poop. God, what a stupid sport.

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Big Tommy Gas Hands brought his rubber ducky to UFC London. See what he did there? That’s a little elbow to the ribs of Jon Jones, who we know Aspinall has been chasing all over God’s green earth trying to get a shot at unifying the heavyweight title. That’s got to be frustrating. Weirdly, however, Aspinall emerged from a meeting with UFC brass last week saying he was excited, that he felt great, that “big announcements” are coming soon. Yet, he also didn’t specifically say those big announcements had anything to do with Jones.

So, is he just messing with us, or is something else on the horizon?

Plus, Sean Brady jumped up four spots to No. 1-contender status on the UFC’s official welterweight rankings after defeating Leon Edwards. Yes, you read that correctly. Brady now officially outranks THAT BOOT GOOD. SAY WHAT???

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If we told you going into UFC 313 that Magomed Ankalaev would go 0-for-12 on takedown attempts in his light heavyweight title fight against Alex Pereira, would you have thought that shaped up as a win for Ankalaev? Yeah, we wouldn’t either. That’s what happened, however, with Ankalaev using a surprisingly effective striking attack coupled with a suffocating clinch game to take the strap from Poatan.

And look, we get it. Everybody loves Pereira. We do, too. Literally nobody (besides his friends and family) is excited for the Ankalaev Era. But was Ankalaev’s performance really as boring as some people are saying? Or is that just our sadness about Pereira getting the best of us?

Plus, Dana White says a rematch is probably next for both guys. Is it, though? And we all know Justin Gaethje’s got that dog in him, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that he’s also really, really, really good.

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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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