Brendan Schaub

The episode opens just after a fight weekend. The conversation notes that most people want to discuss the Sean Strickland vs. Hamzot fight and the scoring debate, but it starts with Joshua Van. What impresses the hosts most is how little experience he has: by their account he has only been fighting for about five years, and he is 24.

The praise comes with caveats. The speakers say Van "has some holes" that some opponents have exposed, and that "He's not the best on the ground." They disagree mildly over his win against Tyra. One view is that Tyra's defense was poor, since he "was blocking punches with his face." The other credits Van's offense. They settle on "a combo of both," and add that Tyra is mainly a grappler who got Van to the ground but could not submit him.

The win is said to have "took all the stink off of the way he won the title," and it raises the obvious next question of how Van would do against Pantosia. The hosts frame that matchup partly in terms of age. Pantosia is given as 36, which is old for flyweight; the joke is that "In flyweight years, he's 67." One speaker predicts that Van is "going to be your champ for a very long time."

The conversation then compares how age plays out in different weight classes. At middleweight, 36 might mark "the beginning of the slide"; at welterweight it is a warning sign; at flyweight it is described as "crazy." At heavyweight, by contrast, fighters in their late thirties are treated as being in their prime. Francis is mentioned as "like 38 or something" and still in his prime. The hosts add that there are "some old cats at the heavyweight doing the damn thing."

When Volkov comes up, someone jokes that he is 59, and someone else replies that he is not as old as people assume. The hosts recall that he held titles in Bellator and M1. Most of the exchange is about a back tattoo he had when he arrived in the UFC: a stingray, or "Moana tattoo," later replaced with a Japanese mask or samurai design that both speakers like. One speaker jokes about having "bullied him into doing that" after talking about it "for like six years."

The tattoo topic leads into Sean Brady, whose body is described as almost fully tattooed, down to his feet, and whose recent performance is called "Phenomenal." One speaker admits feeling stressed when people ask for betting picks before fights, because "M.M.A's tough."

The discussion of Brady vs. Buckley mixes analysis of the fight with a betting controversy. One speaker says they told their brother to "literally put your mortgage on Sean Brady." The reason was an interview, given about a week before the fight, in which Buckley reportedly said he was not working on wrestling or grappling and planned to keep the fight standing. The other speaker points out that this could have been "a bullshit tactic" or mind games. Both agree it is hard to tell, because Brady's performance was so dominant either way.

The hosts also describe how such a loss feels to the fighter who loses. They imagine him returning to the locker room and thinking, "fuck, we're not even in the same ballpark," and looking at his coaches to ask what comes next after believing he was "a top five guy."

An online report is then read aloud. It cites "abnormal betting patterns": Buckley moved from a +150 underdog to a -220 favorite before the fight. The source also says this "turns out to be meaningless." The speaker's understanding is that money moved quickly, and that the UFC, already wary because of earlier fight-fixing cases investigated by the FBI, limited how much could be bet online. The speaker admits not knowing the size of that cap. The fight went ahead after the promotion confirmed that Brady was not injured. The worry was that inside information about an injury had leaked from his camp.

Abnormal betting patterns from highly monitored accounts.

The hosts ask what actually counts as suspicious movement. They doubt that a group of friends betting $100,000 would move the line much and guess the amounts involved are in the millions. Reading further, they find the flag came from "highly monitored accounts." They speculate these may be known high-volume bettors, people betting around "$200,000 a fight," whose behavior changed. During the same reading, they note that two judges scored the fight 30-25. According to the report, someone called Brady, and he said he was fine.

The speakers prefer this approach to an earlier case involving Alexander Hernandez. That fight, which they place against Michael Johnson, was called off amid betting movement even though Hernandez said he was fine and planned to win. Their accounts differ on whether it was cancelled or only taken off betting sites. They complain that no explanation was ever given and wish the UFC had been "a little more transparent," because without one, everyone assumes "Someone's being dirty." They recall that Hernandez lost his next fight, a close one, to Garcia, whose first name they are unsure of ("Rafa" or "Hafa").

They still see the UFC's caution as understandable. Until the earlier fixing issue is resolved, the promotion is "in a bad spot," and the problem is old: one speaker points to the Marlon Brando film On the Waterfront and its line "I could have been a contender."

The fight game has always been connected to fucking shady people. Always.

One argument is that betting helps explain why fighters now receive "so much hate." The example given is a fan who earns about $1,000 a week and puts $500 on a fighter. If the fighter loses, it costs the fan real money, which makes the reaction "so toxic now." The other speaker agrees and calls easy access to betting on anything a "big problem" for some people, mentioning prediction markets such as Polymarket.

You could bet on, you know, fucking anything.

The conversation moves to a soldier who "got busted" after reportedly betting that Maduro would be kidnapped. The hosts defend him half-jokingly. Their points are that he was betting on his own side to succeed, that special forces personnel are not well paid, and that the risk was real, since they "could have all got killed." They call it hypocritical to punish him while "the insider trading in Congress goes unchecked."

This leads to Pete Rose. One speaker remembers reading that Rose may have bet against his own team. A search read aloud on air says otherwise. It adds that John Dowd believed Rose "probably bet against the Reds at some point" but acknowledged his investigation "did not produce conclusive proof of such bets." The speaker concludes that the earlier claim must have been speculation.

No confirmed evidence has ever been produced that Pete Rose bet against his own team.

From there the hosts argue that athletes should be allowed to bet on themselves to win, whether in fighting or baseball. They then question their own position. If athletes can bet, it is hard to stop them from betting against themselves when they expect to lose. That "opens a can of worms." A fighter who bet on himself to lose and then won would lose money while still paying for his camp, trainers and manager, which they call a "Fucking nightmare."

When the Strickland vs. Hamzot fight was announced, the hosts say, they texted each other "good fight" even though Hamzot was the big favorite. One speaker says they had backed Strickland all along, describing him as someone who "knows how to go into deep water" and can survive there.

The tactical argument centers on Hamzot's usual approach: take the opponent down, hold him there and land strikes without spending much energy, as happened in a previous fight referred to as "Dreckas." The hosts argue this does not work against Strickland, who "is not going to sit still," is "very hard to hold down," and has "super underrated" grappling. As evidence, they say he nearly threw Hamzot late in the fight and ended up on top several times.

They answer the claim that Hamzot was weakened by his weight cut by pointing to Strickland's own injury: "Sean had one arm." They argue that the most significant punch was a second-round right hand that wobbled, or briefly dropped, Hamzot, and that this rarely comes up. One speaker describes Strickland testing his right arm's range of motion before and during the fight, the way a fighter checks how badly a shoulder hurts, while keeping a "dead pan killer look" on his face. They also credit him for fighting when "a lot of guys would have pulled out."

They connect the injury to a dirt bike crash before his second fight with DDP. They say his right hands sometimes looked awkward, both in this fight and in that one, as if he was protecting the shoulder. They allow that his punching style can be unusual on purpose, since he throws around the guard to land clean shots, so some of the awkwardness may be strategy. Their point of comparison is his fight against Hernandez after a suspension (estimated at six to eight months) for punching someone at a small promotion. In that fight he was healthy and looked like "a better version of the guy who beat Izzy."

Both speakers call Strickland a Hall of Famer and say this win will make him a bigger star. The core of the argument is his background. Fighters from war-torn regions are often described as having fought their way out of hardship. Strickland, they argue, faced long odds in America too: he grew up a poor, disenfranchised white kid with an abusive father. They add that a motorcycle accident left him with a bad leg and nearly ended his career.

His record is presented as beating two all-time middleweights in their own specialties. He beat Izzy Adasania, called arguably the best striker in division history, at striking in Australia. Then he beat Hamzot, called arguably the best middleweight grappler. They note he was the underdog in both of those fights and in the DDP fight. He lost that one, though one speaker thought he won it.

all you guys are closer to Sean Strickland than you are to LeBron James or Patrick Mahomes.

In this telling, he is a "blue-collar guy" without elite natural athleticism, who reached Hall of Fame level "through hard fucking work."

The discussion pauses for a paid ad for Ketone IQ. The ad describes it as a ketone shot that came out of a $6 million U.S. military research program on human performance. It promotes the product for focus and says it contains no sugar, carbs or preservatives, along with discount, retail and money-back guarantee details. These are advertising claims, not part of the fight analysis.

Coming back from the ad, the hosts accept that many people thought Hamzot won and that opinion seems divided among journalists. One speaker says they mostly read only headlines and prefer the views of former fighters. Their position is that "nobody was robbed" if Hamzot won, but that there is "a damn good argument" for Strickland.

One speaker, who was asked about the fight inside the octagon, called it "really close." They explain that live commentary is a different job from scoring. Commentary means finding the entertainment in moments and explaining them to viewers, while also listening to the others in the booth. DC is praised for explaining wrestling. One speaker says, "If you're judging, you'd be silent."

As an example of careful scoring, they describe Eddie Bravo's unofficial judging for the UFC in its early years. He split a page between the two fighters, recorded strikes, kicks, punches, takedowns and submission attempts, and also weighed damage. The speaker says they "never disagreed with him." The other speaker gives a similar account of commentating a fight of the night: they would not name a winner on the spot and would have to rewatch it, because close wars are "so hard to figure out."

They treat damage as the main criterion, "the number one thing they are supposed to judge it off." If Van vs. Tyra had gone the distance, Van would get the nod. A Pat Sabatini vs. Gomez fight is used as a harder case. Sabatini spent most of the fight clinching and trying for takedowns, but Gomez kept getting up, took no damage on the ground and was never close to being submitted, while landing more on the feet. Even so, the speaker is unsure that was "enough to win," because there was little damage overall.

They also suggest a pundit's background affects how they score a fight. Analysts with heavy wrestling backgrounds, such as DC, Kamaru Usman and Henry Cejudo (rendered in the transcript as "Kamar Usman" and "Henry Sehudo"), are said to mostly score the fight for Hamzot. Analysts from striking backgrounds mostly pick Strickland. The hosts take the wrestlers' view "with a little bit of grain of salt" when takedowns lead to little. They add that some people dislike Strickland for what he says outside the cage and do not want him to win.