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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? Plus, we discuss the super smart sharks in “Deep Blue See,” the origin of Mr. Orange in “Reservoir Dogs” ... and what the hell is a deuteragonist? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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! So, this week, we must ask: Is Dana White really getting royally mugged off in his desperate effort to insert himself into this fight? And is it at least partially his own fault? Plus, some scary shit happened to Raoni Barcelos at last weekend’s UFC Fight Night. And there are still plenty of good seats available for this weekend’s UFC 332 event down there in Salt Lake City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 F**K 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. Plus, Josh Van beat the man and, therefore, according to the laws of combat sports, is now the man. And … can it finally be you, Troll Boy? Can it finally be you? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The heavyweight title reign of Big Tommy Gas Hands Aspinall came to an end this week, with Aspinall vacating the title because he still can’t get a doctor to sign off on him participating in a cage fight. So, that sucks pretty bad. The most ironic part of it is that Aspinall giving up the belt makes Ciryl Gane the new “undisputed” UFC heavyweight champion — and you’ll recall, Ciryl Gane and his damn pokey fingers are the reason Aspinall can’t fight to begin with! There’s just no justice in MMA, we tell ya. Anyway, what is the UFC to do now that it has an “undisputed” champion who’s only champ because he damn near gouged the last champ’s eyes out and is carrying around a pair of baaad losses to the two previous champs (Ngannou, Jones)? That is the question. Plus, Scott Coker called a meeting to announce the details of his new MMA promotion and, man, it was the most Scott Coker stuff of all time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It feels like the sport of MMA needs a Salahdine Parnasse right now. You know, a charismatic young fighter with an exciting style and the goods to back it up? In these current days of the UFC just rolling out a factory assembly line of anonymous Contender Series fighters, people like this don’t come along every day anymore. Enter: Salahdine Parnasse, former two-division champ from KSW, who the UFC essentially nabbed out from under MVP (the promotion) after he showed out on the Rousey vs. Carano card in May. The UFC saw fit to give Parnasse a good test in his first fight in the Octagon, booking him against stalwart journeyman Dan Hooker in a main event bout in Paris, France. Well, consider the test passed. From the very limited UFC sample size that we have so far, it looks like Salahdine Parnasse might well be pretty good — and that feels pretty good, if we’re being honest. Plus, MVP (the man) seems to be wrapping up his UFC run after going 5-1. That’s way better than we thought he’d do. And yet, nobody had any fun at all. Looking back, was Bellator right all along to just keep feeding this guy cans he could KO in impressive fashion? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It was a weird weekend in combat sports, especially for the big betting favorites. Umar Nurmagomedov cemented his place as the Ziggy Sobotka of his family, getting his plug pulled by Song Ya Dong in their UFC Fight Night main event in Shanghai. The “next Mike Tyson” also lost — as Moses Itauma threatened to rename the Coleman Index after himself, getting more tired than he’d ever been in his life against Filip Hrgovic before his corner threw in the towel. And then there was poor Mike Perry, who dislocated his shoulder early in his fight against replacement opponent Brandon Jenkins (curse you Dillon Danis!) and coughed up his eighth loss in his last 12 MMA fights. Back to BKFC for Platinum Mike, it seems. Plus, earlier in the week, Bella Mir lost her Dana White Contender Series fight (where she was a -6000 favorite). So, that was bad, too. Seriously, you guys, who pissed off the MMA Gods? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Score a couple for the cybernetic organisms, because the biggest winners of the weekend were Gregory “Robocop” Rodrigues and Cris “Cyborg” Justino. Rodrigues went out there in a UFC Fight Night main event and beat up Anthony “Fluffy” Hernandez (who didn’t get on the automated humanoid train with his nickname, which seems like a mistake in retrospect). Cyborg successfully defended her PFL women’s featherweight title against Ketlen Vieira, in a fight that was supposed to be Cyborg’s retirement party — but it turned out Vieira was the one that retired. Also at the UFC event, there were seven first-round stoppages and just three decisions, 11 of the 26 fighters on the card were Dana White Contender Series alums, and 14 fighters earned $50K or less. At PFL, a couple of dudes scored Knockout of the Year-level stoppages. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is that a Tina Turner reference in the title of this week’s episode? Shut up, don’t worry about it. Anyway, Ian Machado Garry couldn’t quite get it done against Islam Makhachev over the weekend at UFC 330. Garry did a decent job getting up from the takedowns and, as the fight wore on, it actually seemed like Makhachev was the one who got ti-red. But Makhachev had the fight’s biggest moment — kicking Garry in his damn face during the second round — and otherwise was able to salt away the victory with his stifling (if not particularly dangerous) ground game. Could Garry have won it down the stretch if he showed a bit more “killer instinct,” as many (read: Dana White) are saying? Did the fact that he seemed to offer Makhachev head pats and bro hugs between nearly every round reveal something lacking in Garry’s ability to get mean enough to close the show? Is he too SAWFT to be a UFC champ? I mean, surely that’s b******t, but we discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is there any chance at all that we’re all sitting here next Monday saying, “Well, yeah, it’s obvious in retrospect that Islam Makhachev might struggle with Ian Garry. This was only Makhachev’s second fight at welterweight, after all. Garry is so long and rangy. If he was able to stop the takedowns, it was always gonna be a problem. They have weight classes for a reason, I guess. Also, ain’t that just the way, when it comes to these so-called unbeatable champions?” Any chance at all? Nah, probably not. But you can’t blame a couple of guys who’ve been meeting here every week to break down the action for 14 YEARS for not at least asking the question. If for no other reason than to keep ourselves occupied. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“We’re in a whole other f*****g stratosphere now. I mean, I’m competing with all the majors. Those guys aren’t my competition. So good luck to them all. I wish them all the best.” That’s ya boi Dana White talking to the media about last week’s news of Jake Paul and Nikisa Bidarian’s Most Valuable Promotions absorbing the PFL to create the world’s second-largest MMA promotion. No big deal, he says. And maybe Dana White is telling the truth. The UFC is in another f*****g stratosphere now from anybody we’ve previously seen try their hand at MMA promotion. Except ... hold on now ... if the UFC ain’t sweatin’ MVP, why’d they recently run out real quick and re-sign Robelis Despaigne and Salahdine Parnasse, effectively stealing away two of MVP's potential stars? And why is Dana White mischievously sending out smiley-face emojis when asked about brand-new free agent Usman Nurmagomedov? Does that seem like a man comfortably in another f*****g stratosphere than his opponents? We discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

Well, turns out Conor McGregor blew out both his ACL and meniscus when he tried to do that flying kick against Max Holloway at UFC 329. Pretty much broke his whole shit, which means he’s probably out until at least next summer. As Dana White is quick to point out to everybody who has asked, Conor’s knee is so “f****d up” (his words) that it’s not even really worthwhile discussing what might be next for him until he’s healed up and ready to go again. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Conor has decided it was actually GOOD that he destroyed his knee and lost to Max because, had he won, something much worse might have happened. No, we are not kidding you. Plus, Dricus du Plessis did pretty much what we thought he would do to Kamaru Usman en route to a unanimous decision victory Saturday at UFC Fight Night in Oklahoma City. Maybe the biggest surprise was it didn’t seem like it was Usman’s knees that cost him the fight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Things did not go well for ya boi Conor McGregor in his big return fight against Max Holloway at UFC 329 on Saturday. “Fight,” in fact, is probably too strong a word for what happened, after McGregor led off by sprinting across the cage, trying to throw a leaping kick at Holloway’s head and ended up blowing out his own knee on re-entry. Cue the sad trombone for the Notorious One. It goes without saying that this, at 37 years old, after already coming off a serious leg injury and five years of very ugly personal behavior away from the cage, casts serious doubt on McGregor’s fighting future. And you know what? Maybe that’s a good thing. This week we discuss all things McGregor, including the steroid scandal and sexual assault verdict nobody wanted to talk about during fight week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For being one of MMA’s all-time most talked-about fighters, it sure feels like Conor McGregor is a big, fat unknown headed into his return fight Saturday at UFC 329 against Max Holloway. Don’t know if you’ve noticed but up until about a week ago, the storylines surrounding McGregor have been almost exclusively TERRIBLE … and also NOT about fighting. So, as he prepares to come back to the Octagon for the first time in more than 1,000 days, let’s just say there are questions. Holloway seems like a bad stylistic matchup for McGregor under the best of circumstances. Will Conor show ring rust? Will he show the desire? Will he have evolved at all? Or will he show up looking like a 37-year-old guy coming off a major injury whose life has skittered into a tailspin due entirely to his own horrific actions? Keep in mind, he didn’t look great BEFORE the broken leg and becoming an adjudicated rapist. We discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Old guys seem to be having a renaissance in the UFC right now and, as gentlemen of a certain age, we frankly couldn’t be happier. Shout out to Mike “Bad To The” Bohn for pointing out this week that the older fighter has won the main event of every numbered UFC PLE so far this year (Volk and Gaethje, both 37; Chuckie Olives, 36; and Uhlberg and Strickland, both 35). That’s right, 2026 so far is the UFC’s Year of the Unc. But what's really goin' on here? Fighters aging better? The move away from USADA 👀? No decent young athletes want to get into this sport anymore? We discuss. Plus, how does the Paramount+ app suck so bad yet still somehow be better than ESPN+? And y’all see Rafael Fiziev kick that dude upside his head? Dang. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices