Show Notes
Just a few months ago, it seemed like we had a lot to look forward to in MMA. You had Ronda Rousey and Gina Carano set to do the damn thing in MVP’s inaugural event. You had the UFC getting ready to go big at the White House. You even had the much-anticipated, loooooooong-awaited return of Conor McGregor. Today? Well, you’ve got Islam Makhachev vs. Ian (whispers: Machado) Garry and Mackenzie Dern vs. Gillian Robertson coming up in mid-August but, other than that, there’s just not a lot on the schedule.
Last weekend, Magomed Ankalaev went out there and did Magomed Ankalaev stuff (which is to say, not much) to score a potentially meaningless win over Bogdan Guskov (who did even less!). Next week, you’ve got Uroš Medić vs. Daniel Rodriguez and the week after that it’s Mateusz Gamrot vs. Quillan Salkilld. So, this episode we discuss being mired in the dog days of MMA summer and what we might have to look forward to coming up in the fall and winter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from The Co-Main Event MMA Podcast
Alexander Volkanovski turned 38 last month. That’s like 150 in men’s featherweight years. This weekend, he’s gonna go out there and defend his 145-pound title against Movsar Evloev, who is undefeated, 32 and has one of those beards that tells you everything you need to know about him. At this moment, the fight’s being deemed a straight pick ’em (both guys going off at -110). If Volk shows up once again looking ageless and dangerous as ever, he’s probably got a good chance to win. If he’s lost a step? That’s gonna be a tough night at the office.
It’s amazing how often this happens: A UFC fighter who was once just happy to be there gets some age and experience under their belt, gains a little notoriety, maybe wins a championship and then suddenly realizes, “Hey, wait a minute, I’m getting screwed here.” Middleweight champion Sean Strickland reached this part of the UFC lifecycle last week, when he started comparing his own paychecks to the big money deals given to dudes like Conor McGregor and Conor Benn. Now Strickland — always one of the UFC’s strangest and most frustrating minds — wants out of his contract, figuring maybe he can go make some of that Jake Paul money in boxing.
Bunch of people got separated from consciousness on Saturday at UFC 332 — just as the good Lord intended. Eleven T/KO finishes in 13 fights. Nine first round stoppages. Not too shabby, if you’re into brain trauma (and if you’re reading this right now, you know who you are). Immediately afterward, the UFC broadcast team, and some of their sycophants online, went pretty hard trying to convince us that this rash of knockouts alone made UFC 332 one of the greatest shows of all time. Could that be true, though, considering how much flak the UFC (rightfully) took for this event looking like one of the weaker PLE events in recent memory? How many KOs does it take to make a bad card good?
As many of you know, the big boxing match between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua is finally official, with the two set to meet on Dec. 11 at Principality Stadium (granddaddy of them all) in Cardiff, Wales. The card will air live on Netflix. Somehow, this news only intensified the war of words between Eddie Hearn and Dana White, with the British boxing promoter quipping that White got “royally mugged off, pants down, bent over, butt cheeks spanked.” GASP!
Things … did not … go … great … for ya boi Gable Dan Steveson at UFC 331. You could feel the vibes start to shift early in the week, when Sean Sharaf called him a rapist to his face and Steveson’s only response was to smile awkwardly as if to say, “Yeah, I (allegedly) did that shit.” Then, during the actual fight, Steveson caught a hot left hook right on the off switch from Sharaf and got knocked the FUCK out in 12 seconds flat. THEN, as if this wasn’t bad enough, he left the cage before Sharaf even got his hand raised. So, suddenly, MMA en masse seems to have decided Gable Steveson is a bad guy, actually.