Mere weeks after Dana White said the UFC "doesn't do" gimmick fights, he's all up in the media talking about trying to book an actual cagefight between Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. First off, if you needed yet more evidence that White is frequently bullshitting us, well, there you go. Secondly, these rich nerds ain't really gonna fight each other. But wouldn't it be sad if they did?

Also, Illia Topuria is super good at fighting. Like, super good. And the PFL puts its finger on the scales in the worst possible way.

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Bellator staged the top MMA event of the weekend, with Sergio Pettis outdueling Patricio Pitbull in a compelling scrap for the men's bantamweight championship and light heavyweight titlist Vadim Nemkov reaffirming his greatness pitching a shutout against Yoel Romero. With both sides also confirming a Bellator-PFL merger is at least being explored, we'll take a look at what that might mean for combat sports.

Plus, Jared Cannonier set a middleweight record for significant strikes in his decision victory over Marvin Vettori. Is that another one of this double-edged sword UFC records?

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Amanda Nunes pretty much whooped-up on Irene Aldana to retain her women's bantamweight title and then retired in the cage, which was a nice moment. Canadian fighters went undefeated in front of their home countrymen in Vancouver, which obviously was a feel-good story. But you know who really stamped their name on UFC 289 on Saturday? Charles Oliveira, that's who.

Oliveira went out there and spoiled Beneil Dariush's big chance at lightweight contendership by dominating on the ground and on the feet en route to a first-round victory -- and he did so while being hailed as a hero by the Canadian fans. This seemed like the kind of performance that could well net him a rematch with Islam Makhachev and also one that confirmed he's a pretty big star for the UFC.

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Amanda Nunes returns Saturday to defend her women's bantamweight title against Irene Aldana at UFC 289. Should be a solid little scrap, though we're not sure there's any reason to suspect Nunes might lose ... except, well, she is 36 years old, recently left American Top Team to start her own gym and has been openly talking about retirement since her feud with Juliana Pena. So, can Aldana pull the upset here and is there any chance this is the last ride for The Lioness?

Plus, Dana White reminds us Jared Gordon is not a doctor and did Kai Kara France get screwed?

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Conor McGregor is "filling out the paperwork" to re-enroll in the USADA testing pool, according to Dana White, which means the biggest star in MMA is back! Almost? Maybe? Remains to seen. Despite the lingering uncertainty, it's clear at least one group of people is VERY glad to have McGregor in their lives again. Those people are the keepers of the MMA news cycle. McGregor hasn't totally done anything yet upon his return to active duty and somehow every other story on the websites is already about him. We talk the McGregor Phenomenon this week.

Plus, UFC on ESPN rolls out this weekend and Justin Gaethje says what we're all thinking about the BMF title.

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Bloody Elbow's John Nash has a new report out on the UFC's finances and, friends, it is mind-blowing. Once again in 2022, the fight company made more than $1 billion in revenue and, largely because it didn't have to pay superstars like Conor McGregor last year, total fighter pay dropped by around $32.8 million (to roughly 13 percent of total revenue). UFC profits were up in every category, while expenses and operating costs were down. So ... wow.

Plus, Mackenzie Dern went beast mode on Angela Hill and Dana White says he doesn't understand Francis Ngannou's new deal with PFL.

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Joe Rogan said some fairly innocuous stuff this week about what would happen in a street fight (or a locked-room fight, as the case may be) between Jon Jones and Tyson Fury. Fury did not appreciate Rogan's opinion and aired his displeasure on social media, and THAT essentially kicked off a round robin of internet beef between Jones, Fury and Francis Ngannou. It was, honestly, pretty ridiculous.

So, this week we discuss: Why did it make Fury so mad when Rogan was really only repeating an argument MMA guys have been making since the '90s? If no other important boxers will fight him (as he claims) why doesn't Fury get something on the books with Ngannou? And doesn't Jones appreciate the irony of talking shit to Ngannou when Jones himself was embroiled in a contract dispute of his own with the UFC recently?

Plus, in Power Rankings, the Conor McGregor reputational whitewash has begun, Alex Pereira vs. Janny Blackjacks (?!?!?!), and there are a lot of interesting personal style choices going on at this BKFC weigh-in.

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This week, Friend of the Podcast and Real Life Hollywood TV Writer Kevin Seccia was kind enough to come in off the picket line to talk us through the particulars of the ongoing WGA writers strike. Kevin is a great dude as well as an active patron of the CME. He's also former standup comedian and currently a writer on the animated comedy "The Great North," which airs on Fox. The WGA strikes is something we've all heard about but perhaps few of us know the details of what's really going on. Kevin does a great job bringing us all up to speed with the style and humor befitting a longtime CME listener.

Plus, in Kraken Up, well, it's over. Seattle sailed into the dark waters of the off-season this week, after dropping game seven to the Stars. Season wrap-up incoming!

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Rumor has it, there was some news this week. Just a lil bit. Just a lil bit of news happened over the last couple of days. As you may have heard, the biggest of homies, Francis Ngannou, announced on Tuesday that he is taking his talents to the PFL (and perhaps elsewhere) in a landmark deal that affords him what is almost certainly more money than if he'd stayed in the UFC as well as most of his out-of-the-cage asks, including the ability to go do boxing if he wants. So that's seems good.

Not to be outdone, however, the UFC -- totally randomly and definitely NOT related to Ngannou's announcement -- went ahead with a big Tuesday afternoon news dump of their own which included, among other things, BRINGING BACK THE BMF TITLE. Lol.

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What a tease this guy, Big Fran is. Here he is posting this video to his socials last week promising us that on Tuesday he's going to tells us (what we hope is) his final decision on free agency. We're not sure what he's going to say -- Will it be a boxing announcement? Will it be MMA? -- but that sure won't stop us from wildly and irresponsibly speculating.

Plus, Jailton Almeida tapped the Bigi Boy, Matt Brown had a record night and Ian Garry continues to be a problem.

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