It’s happening. The Paramount+ Era is upon us. What surprises are in store? We’ll find out on Saturday, as UFC 324 goes down, featuring the interim lightweight championship fight between Justin Gaethje and Paddy Pimblett. How does Pimblett (more than a 2-to-1 favorite) beat Gaethje? We’re not totally sure, but maybe that’s why we’re dumb podcast hosts and the oddsmakers are the oddsmakers. Plus, Kayla Harrison’s pile-of-trash neck forced her off this card, which was kind of a big loss. And Conor...
Jan 21, 2026•1 hr 5 min
Just about 10 days before UFC 324, and oddsmakers still see Paddy Pimblett as a bit more than a 2-to-1 favorite to win the interim lightweight title over Justin Gaethje. I mean, damn. Does that seem right to you guys? Honestly, it feels super weird to us, but considering how bad we are at betting and how good oddsmakers are at, ahem, making odds, perhaps they are right? And if they are, are we all truly prepared for a world where Pimblett is the (interim) lightweight champ? Plus, Gaethje has got...
Jan 13, 2026•1 hr 8 min
Sup, 2026. You gonna suck as bad as 2025 did? Not to start things on a pessimistic note, but if we had to guess … you know what, never mind. As it pertains to this show, 2026 means a lot of things — perhaps most importantly that the UFC has officially disembarked from ESPN+ into the unknown waters of Paramount+. The first Premium Live Event is just a couple of weeks away, and we all still have a lot of questions. So, on the first show of the new year, we try to answer as many of them as we can. ...
Jan 06, 2026•1 hr 6 min
The Year of Our Lord 2025 was a weird one in MMA. Complete dogshit for the heavyweight division, obviously. You started the year with Dana White swearing up and down that he was going to get Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall done, only to have Jones quit the sport to monetize this amazing brand he’d built — then come crawling back as soon as he found out about the White House fight card. When they finally did set up a heavyweight title fight for Gas Hands Tommy, Ciryl Gane went two knuckles deep in Asp...
Dec 16, 2025•1 hr 12 min
Petr Yan showed up looking shockingly prepared for everything Merab Dvalishvili had planned on Saturday at UFC 323. Yan had the takedown defense. Yan had the stifling striking game. Yan worked the head and the body as well as he possibly could have. And perhaps most impressive of all, Yan had the cardio — taking over down the stretch, during what is normally Merab Time — to secure a surprising victory for the men’s bantamweight title in a fight-of-the-year–candidate thriller. In doing so, Yan pu...
Dec 09, 2025•1 hr 4 min
CBS gave Dana White a grand stage over the weekend, letting him announce the first fight bookings of the Paramount+ Era during halftime of the Thanksgiving Day NFL game between the Cowboys and Chiefs. Perhaps that was a sign that the budding partnership between the UFC and Paramount–Skydance is actually off to a good start — but the fights themselves were weird as hell, man. Justin Gaethje vs. Paddy Pimblett for an interim lightweight title to headline the company’s first PPV-turned-PLE at UFC 3...
Dec 02, 2025•1 hr 9 min
Prior to Arman Tsarukyan’s win over Dan Hooker on Saturday at UFC Fight Night in Qatar, we figured Tsarukyan was still on the outside looking in at the lightweight title picture. He’s long come off as a fairly nondescript, vaguely dickish yet undeniably tough guy who wasn’t offering much in the puts-butts-in-seats department. He’d already blown one title shot by pulling out of UFC 311 on a day’s notice — and the UFC still has Paddy Pimblett waiting as a more marketable and presumably far easier ...
Nov 25, 2025•1 hr 18 min
Yeah, so, Islam Makhachev is your new UFC welterweight champion. Not a huge surprise, considering the former lightweight titlist was a solid favorite to dethrone Jack Della Maddalena at UFC 322 over the weekend. What we maybe didn’t expect was just how dominant Makhachev would be. Della Maddalena had no answers — and, from the looks of it, no plan B. By the end he appeared absolutely miserable out there, getting taken down at will, while his corner seemed fresh out of ideas beyond, “Try to punch...
Nov 18, 2025•1 hr 8 min
It’s November in the UFC, and you know what that means! We’re headed out to Madison Square Garden with a fairly stacked card. UFC 322 features a pair of championship fights in its main and co-main events, where two reigning titlists will try to fend off challengers moving up in weight and looking to become champ-champs. We still say that? Champ-champ? Is that still a thing? Your welterweight main event features surprise champ Jack Della Maddalena trying to make his bones and earn his respect aga...
Nov 11, 2025•1 hr 8 min
What’s even real anymore? That’s the question we ended up asking ourselves after last weekend’s slate of combat sports chaos. For starters, Isaac Dulgarian’s first-round submission loss to Yadier del Valle at Saturday’s UFC Fight Night sparked yet another fight-fixing scandal. At this point, you couldn’t blame a casual viewer for wondering: Is this whole shit rigged? Also, there was referee Mark Smith’s bizarre stoppage in the heavyweight bout between Ante Delija and Waldo Cortes-Acosta — a mix-...
Nov 04, 2025•1 hr 2 min
How does Tom Aspinall still have an eyeball right now? Dude, Ciryl Gane went two-knuckles deep in Aspinall’s left eye (while pulling off the rare double-eye poke!) during their heavyweight championship fight at UFC 321 on Saturday. Gane might have Dundasso’d a little TOO hard, as his exploration of Aspinall’s cranium with his left index finger did get their bout declared a no contest, and yet, somehow, it still felt like Gane won the battle of public opinion. The crowd booed Aspinall (naturally)...
Oct 28, 2025•1 hr 6 min
Let’s be honest, if the current version of the UFC heavyweight title is going to maintain any shred of credibility, Tom Aspinall pretty much has to win this weekend at UFC 321. Even if that happens, we’ll still only really be ready to say that Gas Hands Tom is one of the three best heavyweights in the world — the UFC champion of active heavyweights currently on the roster, let’s say. But if Ciryl Gane wins? Forget about it. Gane’s already lost to both Jon Jones AND Francis Ngannou. There’s no wa...
Oct 21, 2025•1 hr 6 min
Chucky Olives pretty much wore Mateusz Gamrot around like a button during their main event fight at last weekend’s UFC Fight Night in Rio de Janeiro. It didn’t feel like there was a single second where Gamrot was winning. He got tagged on the feet early in the first, shot for a takedown, and then got dominated on the ground until Oliveira put him out of his misery with a face crank (which, OK, maybe that was miserable) in the second round. Then Oliveira jumped out of the cage and into the crowd ...
Oct 14, 2025•1 hr 7 min
Well, that was just disrespectful. Alex Pereira went out there at UFC 320 on Saturday with absolutely no regard whatsoever for Magomed Ankalaev. Bullied him. Dropped him. Pounded him out. Then did the “look at you now” hand gesture that is rapidly becoming Pereira’s touchdown dance. He clowned Ankalaev from start to finish, is what he did. Clowned him. So, now the Chama Era is back in the light heavyweight division, and the only remaining question is whether there’s anything meaningful left for ...
Oct 07, 2025•1 hr 10 min
The PPV era is (maybe!) winding down, and on Saturday, we’ll all celebrate by (maybe!) shelling out our hard-earned dollars to watch UFC 320, where Magomed Ankalaev will defend his light heavyweight title in a rematch against Alex Pereira. Doesn’t feel like there’s a ton of sizzle headed into that one, but hey, with Carlos Ulberg absolutely devastating “The Devastator” Dominick Reyes last weekend at UFC Fight Night in Perth, perhaps we’ve already got a halfway interesting challenger waiting for ...
Sep 30, 2025•1 hr 3 min
The money has finally started to roll in for fighters after the UFC agreed to settle that pesky class action lawsuit for $375 million back in February. Some are going to get millions. Some will only get a few thousand. Still, must feel pretty weird to get the bag after being owed it for more than a decade. To some, it might seem like free money, while others are having a more complicated time with it. Plus, it’s Carlos Ulberg vs. Dominick Reyes this weekend in Perth. It actually might turn out t...
Sep 23, 2025•1 hr 5 min
You know how, after they retire, some older guys go out and get, like, part-time jobs at the United Way or Ace Hardware or some shit? Not necessarily because they need the money — they just need to keep themselves busy, and maybe they like talking to people about paint colors and nail sizes and the best brands of epoxy spackle. Is that what Dana White is doing with boxing? Dana was at the big boxing match on Saturday, sitting at ringside next to Turki Alalshikh and Mark Wahlberg. After Terence C...
Sep 16, 2025•1 hr 5 min
Remember last year, when for about six months the UFC tried to pretend like UFC: Noche was a big deal — mostly because Dana White had to prove to the (almost entirely nonexistent) haters that he could pull off a fighting event at Sphere? Those times are gone now. This weekend’s UFC: Noche card (yes, it is this weekend) is pretty much being left in the dust by the UFC’s part in co-promoting the Canelo Alvarez-Terence Crawford boxing match on Netflix. In fact, UFC: Noche has been relegated to regu...
Sep 09, 2025•1 hr 8 min
Honestly, Nassourdine Imavov is pretty legit. He’s 16-4 (1) overall, riding a three-fight win streak and heads into Saturday’s UFC Fight Night main event against Caio Borralho fresh off a February victory over Israel Adesanya. He was the UFC’s No. 1 middleweight contender until voters recently had to make room for Dricus Du Plessis. So, why does nobody seem to know (or care) who he is? Good news for Imavov: if he beats Borralho this weekend, he’ll likely be one of only two men in line for a shot...
Sep 02, 2025•1 hr 5 min
So, Quinton Jackson’s son went on a crazy, uh, rampage at an independent pro wrestling event over the weekend. Raja Jackson — a person we’d barely ever heard of before — got into a backstage beef with a wrestler named Syko Stu and then jumped in the ring during the guy’s match and damn near beat him to death. It was bizarre and, honestly, it made us feel a little sick to watch it. Now, the whole thing has gone viral, due in part to Jackson livestreaming it on his own channel. So, ugh. Also, we t...
Aug 26, 2025•1 hr 1 min
He done did it. Khamzat Chimaev basically pitched a perfect game against Dricus du Plessis at UFC 319, making it look EASY en route to one of the more lopsided decision wins you will ever witness in a championship fight. DDP showed up looking uniquely ill-equipped to stop Chimaev’s all-out takedown assault. And Ya Boi Borz? He looked so dominant people got mad at him for not doing more. So, now that the long-heralded Chimaev Era is finally underway at 185 pounds ... shouldn’t we be more excited?...
Aug 19, 2025•1 hr 5 min
Here’s something nobody saw coming: the UFC is taking its talents to Paramount. Not Netflix. Not re-upping with ESPN. Not even a late play from Amazon or Apple. In a staggering seven-year, $7.7 billion deal, the UFC agrees to keep its programming mostly in one piece (thank you, MMA Gods!). It will stream exclusively on Paramount+, with certain events simulcast on CBS. The biggest kicker here is that, despite some conflicting reports, the traditional pay-per-view model might be going away. So … i...
Aug 12, 2025•1 hr 1 min
The big homies at Tapology this month revealed their own new computerized ranking system for MMA fighters — and, friends, they went big. The new Tapology rankings don’t just break down the Top 10 like your standard media rankings or the Top 15 like the UFC “rankings” do. Nope, they rank EVERY UFC FIGHTER IN EVERY WEIGHT CLASS. Can you imagine the potentially hilarious implications? Anyway, Very Serious Journalist Ben Fowlkes caught up with Tapology’s Gregory Saks to talk about developing the new...
Aug 05, 2025•1 hr 5 min
We had a lot to catch up on this week after missing last week’s show: UFC 318 and Dustin Poirier’s retirement fight; what the future holds now for Max Holloway; the recent booking of three UFC title fights — including Big Tommy Gas Hands against The Good Kid, Ciryl Gane; Jon Jones un-retiring to fight at the White House and being immediately told he won’t be fighting at the White House; whether it’s time for Bobby Knuckles to walk away and most importantly: if you attack Yoel Romero with a sword...
Jul 29, 2025•1 hr 6 min
Dustin Poirier’s last fight is this weekend. You know, allegedly. All relevant disclaimers apply. Still, if anyone deserves to ride off into the sunset with his legacy intact and his chin held high, it’s Cool Dusty P. Call it cliché if you want, but they really don’t make them like him anymore. On this episode: hear our discussion of his upcoming third fight against Max Holloway this weekend at UFC 318. Plus, Derrick Lewis out here: Throwing. Them. Bungalows. And how did we know someone would co...
Jul 15, 2025•1 hr 1 min
The doddering old man who also happens to be the most powerful person in the world made an offhand comment over the 4th of July weekend that he’d like to do some UFC fights at the White House. He wants 20,000 people there. He says Dana’s gonna take care of it. And look, we’d be inclined to dismiss this as the rumblings of a crazy old grandpa who might sit next to you on the bus except, well, the scariest part of this whole fever dream is how utterly POSSIBLE it all actually seems. So … I guess w...
Jul 08, 2025•1 hr 10 min
Ilia Topuria called his shot — going out there at UFC 317 on Saturday and doing exactly what he said he was going to do to Charles Oliveira, exactly when he said he was going to do it. After a first-round knockout, Topuria claims the vacant lightweight title and becomes the 10th two-division champion in UFC history. He’s 28, undefeated, looks good getting off the bus and possesses an otherworldly calm and confidence in himself. He could be something special … … and the UFC’s apparent willingness...
Jul 01, 2025•59 min
So, Jon Jones is out. Like, OUT out. As in Jon Jones is retired. Or … should we say … “retired,” because ain’t nobody thinks we’ve seen the last of this dude in a cage, a ring, or a dusty circle of dirt at some county fairgrounds. In any case, Jones’ career ended (for now) the way all the great ones go out — with Dana White making a halfhearted announcement at the postfight press conference for UFC: Baku. Oh, and Jones has once again been charged with a crime — this one stemming from a February ...
Jun 24, 2025•1 hr 12 min
So, there’s still some fight left in this old dog, Kamaru Usman — as Joaquin Buckley found out the hard way in their UFC Fight Night main event on Saturday. The 38-year-old Usman defied the odds and many expectations with a vintage performance that saw him use the ol’ wrestling game to take a unanimous decision over the seemingly incredibly ill-prepared up-and-comer. Then Usman got on the mic and hilariously called for a title shot. Yeah … no … that’s not going to happen. At least not yet. Usman...
Jun 17, 2025•1 hr 6 min
Not sure how you’re supposed to beat this guy Merab Dvalishvili at this point. Poison? Blow darts? The Dark Arts? Regular-ass fighting ain’t working, as Sean O’Malley found out at UFC 316 on Saturday. Looked like O’Malley was trying to do the right things — stay off the cage, work the body, show improved takedown defense, get up when Merab put him on the mat. Didn’t matter. Merab is just too good at what he does … and it seems like he’s getting better at it. If he’s gonna start throwing out nast...
Jun 10, 2025•1 hr 5 min
