 Two men walk into the octagon. Only one will walk out. Well, unless you count the referee, and if there's a big old melee at the end of a brawl, there's more coming out. Hello, welcome to Octagon St. Leveau. I'm your hostess, Betty St. Leveau. On this show, we talk about all things MMA and UFC. Even though there are a lot of fight promotions out there, I'm really entranced by the way the UFC does their thing. The next UFC event is their fifth hundredth event. Go UFC and go Dana White and his partners. Okay, so let's go into a little bit of MMA lore and facts. Now, I think I'm going to start off with the pound for pound weight classes. And instead of going by each division, I'm simply going by fighter, their division, and their statistics. So this is ranking is from Fight Matrix, I believe. Oh, I think the males is typology and the females is... No, the male pound for pound I got from Fight Matrix and the females from typology. Let's go into it. John Jones, light heavyweight. Must be a 21-1-0. That's his statistics for a fight. Henry Sejudo, Bantamweight, 15-2-0. Demetrius Johnson, Bantamweight, 29-3-1. Khabib Namagadov, light heavyweight, 28-0-0. Stipe Mikovic, heavyweight, 19-3-0. Max Holloway, featherweight, 21-4-0. Kamuro Usman, welterweight, 15-1-0. Tony Ferguson, light weight, 25-3-0. Daniel Cormier, heavyweight, 22-2-0. Joseph Benaviniz, flyweight, 28-5-0. Alexander Volkanovsky, 21-0. Francis Gananu, heavyweight, 14-3-0. Kiyoji Huriguchi, Bantamweight, 28-3-0. Tyrone Woodley, welterweight, 19-4-1. Kobe Convicton, welterweight, 15-1-0. So when I say Kaminov Gadov, light heavyweight, 28-0-0. It means he's, like, 21, oh, pardon me, 28 wins. Zero and zero losses. And I can't remember what the other number is. I'm still learning. Okay, so for the women's, pound-for-pound rankings. Here we go. Amanda the Linus Nunes, 18-4-0. Valencia the Bullet-Chevenko, 18-3-0. Chris Cyborg, 21-2-0. Thugrose Nomenunus, 8-4-0. Jessica Basha Estaka Andrade, 27-0. Magnum Wili Zhang, 21-0. Joanna Jusevix, 15-3-0. Jermaine the Iron Lady the Randme, 3-9-3-0. Holly the Preacher's Daughter-Home, 12-5-0. Tatiana Suarez, 8-0-0. And Jewel the Jewel Bud, 13-2-0. All right, so there's our pound-for-pound rankings. The women's as of yesterday. The men's as of September 15th, 2019. Right on. Now, this big fight that's coming up is a very intriguing... It's one of the fights of the century. To me, it's even bigger than Kona and Ney, or Kabebe and Kona. This is Nate Diaz-Hohe-Masville throw-down that's going to happen in Masquin Garden all Saints' Day. Well, I think it's Day of the Dead, November 2nd, this year. Now, my siblings aren't really into MMA, but I cleverly asked my sister, Laura, to identify a James Brown song for me at the beginning of Mick Smolley-Woppery's excellent video, Grand Theft Hype, involving Torre Massival and Ben Askren. But Mick Smolley-Woppery makes some of the finest videos that you'll ever see about MMA. I love his work. I'm an eager student of his. We end up watching the video with volume down, but I could see me, sister, Laura, as eyes keep glancing over. The Hohe Massival and Ben Askren fight was a... It was heartbreak for Ben, and it clinched Hohe's reputation as a bad bleeper-bleeper. Words... I mean, this basic cable, I wish I could say those words, but I don't really feel like cursing on the air. At any rate, Nate came out of retirement, Nate Diaz fought Anthony Pettis in the unanimous decision, and then said to Dana, we need a bad... a BMF title, meaning Bad Mother Bleeper Belt. So this event is actually called the Bad Mother Bleeper Belt because both these guys are incredible scrappers, and I'm using Hohe's term. Now, let's talk about both Nate and Hohe for a hot second. Nathan Donald Diaz was born on April 16, 1985. He has fought for World Extreme Cagefighting, Strike Force, and Pancras. He won the Ultimate Fighter No. 5, and he has tied with Joe Lozon for the most UFC bonus awards. They both ranked second in that. 15 total, and he's also had the highest pay per view until the UFC 229 event, which featured Khabib and Connor. He is... his ranking is No. 6, Welterweight, as Welterweight. He went to Tokei High School, and he started training at 11 with his older brother, Nate Diaz, who are featured on my episode of Achton St. Leveau called Leo Time. He returned to the UFC this past August 17th, UFC 241, where he fought Anthony. He went to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu School in Stockton, and he's been a vegan since he was 16. He has won 30 matches. He's had 30 matches, won 20 of them with 11 losses. Connor, the guy by being one of those losses. He's 6 feet, weighs 170 pounds. He has fought Lightweight and Welterweight. His reach is 76 inches. His stance is soft-paw, and his mode of fighting is boxing and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and he's trained with Cesare Gracie. Now, let's look at Jorge Masvidal. He was born November 12th, 1984. He has fought for the Fight Franchises Bell Tour, Strike Force, Shark Fights, and Victory Road. His nickname is Game Bread. He's a Welterweight out of Miami, Florida. He's Cuban and Peruvian. Went to St. Brendan High. His style is kickboxing. He's been with the UFC since 2003. He has had 47 matches, 34 wins, 13 losses. One of those losses to Stephen Wonderboy Thompson, who we will at some point feature on the show. His style is kickboxing. He's 5'11", and his reach is 74 inches long. All right, so now we know a little bit about these two very interesting fighters. There's no trash talking here. It's all about the scrap. There's a mutual respect between both of them, which, did it bring tears to my eyes? I guess it did a little bit. During the presser, Nate came out first and stood until Jorge came out and they both sat down together. Jorge was dressed fantastic. I mean, he looked great. White suit, red shirt. Nate, in his own way, looked great, too. He had black t-shirt, black jeans, and a baseball cap, but he still looked awesome. However, Jorge's outfit took the cake, okay? So they'll be fighting in Masson Square Garden. The presser's sound was horrible, and I really enjoyed the YouTube comments because everyone was like, as usual, the mics aren't working, and someone else wrote, I need a job. UFC, I'll work for you. I will get your sound right, okay? But that was a huge space that the press conference was in. In the background, I saw the Brooklyn Bridge. It looked like they were actually on a platform outside of the bridge in the back of them, and it was just special effects or something like that. Now, Jorge is up for Fighter of the Year, and in my next episode, I want to talk about great moments of UFC and who is Fighter of the Year. It's funny that he's up for it because I keep thinking about how Chris Cyborg helped develop a couple of villages in Africa. Jorge's flying kick to Ben Asperin's head, Nate coming out of retirement, and the downside too. Connors McGregor's whiskey business, and there are a couple other fighters who are just... Oh, Max Holloway and Tony Ferguson. So for me, right now, how I feel about it personally, Jorge is my Fighter of the Year, but that's only because he was coming off that win with Darren Till, the fighter who wanted to fight him, Ben Asperin, talked a lot of trash talk and insinuated that Jorge was a chicken, a coward, yellow, you name it, it was it, and then Jorge made UFC history by knocking the man out in a record-breaking knockout. It was, if you blinked, you missed it. So at this particular press conference, both fighters, again, stress the fact that it's not about trash talk, the journalists who were asking the questions, they didn't really ask that great question. Some of them, I thought you can't, you all are repeating yourselves, and check out the press conference. I'm not going to go into it on air, but the gal with the leather and the nails, if I ever make it to the show, I'll make sure that I'm dressed to my nine, she'd look fantastic. Okay, so... the fact that Nate has created this bad bleeper-bleeper belt, the Dio's brothers, they make history in my eyes to me. They both are vegans. They both are cannabis smokers. They made 2018 and 2019 a very interesting for me as an office MMA fan, even though Nick has retired. I will say that at the press conference, one of the journalists got booed by asking Nate, how can you say you're tough when you're a vegan? The guy got booed. I don't blame the people, but I wouldn't have booed him, but that was... it was inappropriate. I was raised vegan throughout me, my siblings, and probably some, most of you all were also, and you're very fit without the extra protein on your body. That's how I look at it. For me, eat what makes you feel good, eat what you eat. I just got into lamb. I will probably not give up meat anytime soon, but I can totally respect a vegan stance about not eating meat number one, and if they're a fighter, that is incredible. So, at the press conference, the fans and the press, everyone looked happy. Everyone is happy to see these two guys, the consummate professionals. They just fought and tweeted with the UFC for years about getting paid the way he should, and there's a very famous video clip of when a wrestler there, CM Punk, went into his MA debut, and the soundbite went viral. Later, Nate was seen as a prophet because he said, look, this WWE guy is coming into our turf. I've been working here for peanuts, fighting for peanuts, and this guy's going to make more money than anyone in the room because he's a big draw, and it's not fair. So, I think that's one of the reasons why the Diaz brothers retired a bit. I'm not sure it might have been other reasons, but I'm glad that he's going to be at MSG, Madison Square Garden this November, fighting another man who doesn't really care about the trash talk. He's there because he means business, and it's for the business. So, kudos to both of them, and I wish them both of luck. Both guys are so well-liked by the fans that, yes, you can root for two fighters at the same time, but only one will win. One man walks in that octagon, but one will walk out the winner. May the best man win. And I think that that is just about it for me. Today here at Octagon St. Leveau, I'm your hostess, Betty St. Leveau. I'll be seeing you soon. I want to thank Orca for their continued support of the show. I want to thank Nix, Molly Walpere, Kredak, Mind Smash, M.A. On Point, and of course my man, Al Paco the Sorus, for helping me travel the path of MMA, UFC, Fever. Until next time, love you all, and love everybody. Ciao.