Happy Friday everyone. I hope you have lovely weekend plans waiting for, which may or may not include, watching UFC 333 at 10 AM ET!
Here are our answers to the questions you posed us this week (and a few from further back). Despite a very cool card coming down the pipeline, we actually had more questions about the others guys this week (PFL and BKFC). I think that might be a symptom of us all being desperate for a good Pepsi to combat the UFC’s Coca Cola, even with such a great card waiting for us on Saturday.
Scroll down to see our takes on ‘Piffle’, BKFSeaand a few other things.
Jake Paul Under Fire!
Question: Piffle had a card this weekend, and my first knowledge of it was seeing the result articles on Saturday morning, after the event concluded. Is it safe to say that the partnership with Joke Paul’s Most Venomous Parasite did sweet fuck all to help them? (Igl00Man)
Ryan Harkness: Snake Paul and the Warlock can’t be expected to help PFLOL out yet, their merger doesn’t go through until 2027. And I’m still not convinced they really plan on taking PFL with its 10 tons of bloat and running with it. If I was Fake Paul, I’d strip the promotion for parts and focus on four big events a year on Netflix. And I’d use how invisible the promotion has been these past few months as justification to the latest round of investors that they’re better off not holding 24 events (!!!) a year.
Jesse Holland: These are fantastic nicknames, let’s start there. Jake Paul did nothing to help PFL last weekend and will do even less when the (cough) “merger” happens in early 2027. Remember the blockbuster merger between PFL and Bellator MMA? Now it’s PFL’s turn to sleep with the fishes.
Tim Edwards: I feel like I should bring some optimism to try and balance out these takes. I thought MVP MMA showed great promise, though the execution was maddening at times (what was it an hour between fights?). I think there is enough talent out there to make big spectacle shows and that’s what Paul’s bread and butter is. If PFL can become big and dumb like everything else Paul makes then it can rival UFC for our attention. You’d have to reshape PFL from the ground up to do something like that, though. If Paul and his promotion committed to one fight deals, then they might be able to do some interesting things. I think there are lots of fighters out there would love to take a milly for a fight without any strings attached and can then decide to either re-negotiate for another fight or sign with UFC (and get locked in for life).
Proper Expectations
Question: Mike Malott delivered a very solid performance this weekend. How high is his ceiling, and who should he be matched up with next? (Igl00Man)
Ryan Harkness: Malott has done a lot to erase the embarrassing Neil Magny meltdown from a few years back, but it says a lot when even the Canadians are matchmaking him against perceived downturners like Jack Della and Belal while not daring to speak the name Michael Morales. Any of those names are tough, very tough. But at this point, he’s convinced us he might be able to scrape into the tippy top of the top 5, no further. As a Canadian, I’d love to be convinced further. We’ll see what’s up in January.
Jesse Holland: The jury is still out as far as I’m concerned. He crushed an old, washed-up Gilbert Burns and starched a mid-card welterweight coming off two straight losses. It would be great to see him against a Top 5 guy like Jack Della Maddalena.
Tim Edwards: Malott is a great fighter, but at 34 I fear he’s missed his window to reach the top of the division. There’s still lots of great fights for him, but I can’t see him getting past that killer top five we have at welterweight.
Size Matters
Q: With Dave Feldman officially killing off the BKFC 125-pound division and retiring John Dodson’s belt, can we finally admit that bare-knuckle fans have a weird size fetish? Why is it that watching two 265-pound divorced dads with HGH gut and felony records bleed on each other for 90 seconds is considered ‘peak masculine violence,’ but watching two jacked 5’3″ guys do it makes the crowd feel like they’re about to get raided by the FBI for running an illegal toddler fighting ring? (The Sassing Machine)
Anton Tabuena: This is a common thing with combat sports in general, from MMA, to boxing – gloved or ungloved – and even in jiu-jitsu. Technique generally drops as the athletes get much larger and slower, but I guess more people just prefer faster finishes than higher level, technical bouts. Also, my theory on the crowd behaviour you described is how most men grossly overestimate their fighting/sporting ability despite never really training, and tend to not respect or appreciate smaller athletes thinking they can beat or at least do well against them (lol). It’s probably also why one of the most common scenarios for female pro athletes is having untrained or hobbyist dudes asking if they can actually beat them (lol).
Ryan Harkness: I’m so dusty that I remember when UFC didn’t have a lightweight division. And it wasn’t so long ago that the UFC flyweight division was almost nuked because of a perceived lack of action and finishing ability. Crazy. Just crazy. But unless you’ve got 600 fighters on the roster like UFC, do you really need 12 divisions? At a certain point you’re just splitting up your roster so they can’t fight each other. BKFC doing the right thing for the wrong reason. Let them 105 pound dudes bang, bro!
Jesse Holland: This is a combat sports problem, not a BKFC problem. The heavyweight division is (and always was) perceived as the premier division in boxing and I think that mentality has carried over to UFC and BKFC, even though most of the best fights happen at the lower weights where combatants are faster and more dynamic.
Kimura Gang
Q: Two kimuras? in a row? You almost never see a kimura in high level MMA at all anymore were they just a big mismatch? low level people? just one of those things that happen? (LoneCowboy)
Anton Tabuena: On the contrary, a lot of high level grapplers today use kimuras and built entire systems around it, so finishing, sweeping, pinning, transitioning from a kimura trap is actually not at all an obsolete or “low level” technique. Flowing into T-kimuras, backtakes, crucifixes, or other submissions – I can nerd out on everything involved with it, but basically, it’s a myth that kimuras are just a low level “strong man move,” as the grip is insanely strong and versatile, it opens a myriad of options where even weaker people can control/sweep/submit much larger opponents. If anything, it’s just easy to miss since good grapplers can use kimuras to transition to something else, while low level MMA grapplers only focus on cranking the arm.
Ryan Harkness: Kimuras certainly earned their reputation as a low-success submission in the major leagues. It’s been like 20 years since they’ve been used to regularly tap people in UFC, which I think led to less people going for them. Armbars are almost in the same category and often require giving up position which is a big no no as far as most coaches are concerned. But every so often a Ronda Rousey arrives who reminds everyone what a slick armbar can do. See also: Valter Walker with his heel hooks. The Kimura doesn’t have a champion right now, but it could. Same with the neck crank. At this point fighters are being so dismissive of them that it leaves an opening for someone to drill the hell out of it and pull a fast one (or two).
Jesse Holland: The golden age of MMA featured a lot more grappling and submission work, so when you see a statistic like that now it stands out. There was a time when nobody would have even noticed it.
• Early Era (1990s–2000s): Submission rates were 30% to 50% of finishes
• Modern Era Peak (Mid-2000s): Submission rates were 27% to 30% of finishes
• Recent Years (2010s–Present): Submission rates are 16%–20% of finishes
So what happened? We let them bang, bro
Andrew Richardson: Agree with Anton, kimuras are great and can be seen as much as a position as a submission. In the case of UFC Edmonton, however, those were just low level fights …
No More Champ Champs
Q: How do we stop contenders/fresh champs from seeing the belt as a free title shot ticket for a second division? It’s nothing new by now, but it almost always sucks and it always throws a division into limbo. What has to change? (Casual_Monk)
Andrew Richardson: I think the move towards making champions vacate their original belt is a great step in the right direction. Continued fan resentment towards the concept of double champions probably helps too! It should be reserved for the Anderson Silva’s and GSP’s of the future …
Jesse Holland: I think UFC hates it as much as fans do at this point, which is why champions are forced to abandon their belts and commit to a higher weight class. Much bigger gamble. Honestly, a long title reign is far superior to a pair of belts with one or two title defenses.
Tim Edwards: The UFC have always seemed very selective over who they will and won’t let do this. I remember when Jose Aldo was featherweight champ and Anthony Pettis was lightweight champ and the two were jawing about a fight (count that as one of the best fights to not happen, by the way). And I remember Dana being adamant that Aldo would have to vacate the featherweight belt in order to go up and fight Pettis. If that was something written in stone, then I think we’d have avoided a lot of the division stalling we’ve seen over the years.
Quick hits
Q: Is 125 or 155 the more exciting division right now? (cavemancomputer)
Alex Behunun: 125 has the better fights — 155 has the better names, in my opinion.
Tim Edwards: 125. Every week we see a new kid who looks like they could be a champ.
Q: Kavanagh vs Temirov Best underrated fight on the card right? Who you got? What should we be looking for? (damn flyweight is just loaded!!!!!!) (LoneCowboy)
Andrew Richardson: I’ll be looking to see how Kavanagh reacts to the big swings. If he pulls straight back, he’s in for a rough time.
Tim Edwards: Uzbek Linekar vs. Josh Van has to happen. I think Temirov gets past Kavanagh this weekend. The pressure he puts on is immense and I think Kavanagh’s lapses in concentration will be his downfall. (again)
Q: Yan or Merab? (LoneCowboy)
Andrew Richardson: I wrote like a thousand words on this fight because it’s my favorite bout on the card. I’ve flipped back and forth several times but ultimately landed on Yan winning a close decision in the first truly competitive fight between the two.
Tim Edwards: I also wrote about a thousand words on this one, but I landed on Dvalishvili. I think Merab ran out of steam last year (when trying to defend his belt for the fourth time). ‘Rested Merab’ just might be our next ‘Sea Level Cain’.
Q: Am I crazy for thinking that PFL Dubai and Lyon are stacked? (SRShelton)
Jesse Holland: A lot of these PFL cards are stacked with strong talent. Unfortunately, there is MMA every weekend and fans don’t have the bandwidth to branch out into fight cards with talent they never heard of under a promotion they perceive as second fiddle.
Q: Why won’t CBS release the viewer numbers for ufc 332? (SRShelton)
Ryan Harkness: Because they weren’t impressive, same reason why Paramount didn’t release the Garcia vs. Benn numbers.
Jesse Holland: CBS won’t release its list of UFC numbers for the same reason I won’t release my list of 2026 conquests. Bagging five 2s is not the same as bagging a 10.
