The Co-Main Event MMA Podcast

Sup, 2026. You gonna suck as bad as 2025 did? Not to start things on a pessimistic note, but if we had to guess … you know what, never mind. As it pertains to this show, 2026 means a lot of things — perhaps most importantly that the UFC has officially disembarked from ESPN+ into the unknown waters of Paramount+. The first Premium Live Event is just a couple of weeks away, and we all still have a l...

The Year of Our Lord 2025 was a weird one in MMA. Complete dogshit for the heavyweight division, obviously. You started the year with Dana White swearing up and down that he was going to get Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall done, only to have Jones quit the sport to monetize this amazing brand he’d built — then come crawling back as soon as he found out about the White House fight card. When they finall...

Petr Yan showed up looking shockingly prepared for everything Merab Dvalishvili had planned on Saturday at UFC 323. Yan had the takedown defense. Yan had the stifling striking game. Yan worked the head and the body as well as he possibly could have. And perhaps most impressive of all, Yan had the cardio — taking over down the stretch, during what is normally Merab Time — to secure a surprising vic...

CBS gave Dana White a grand stage over the weekend, letting him announce the first fight bookings of the Paramount+ Era during halftime of the Thanksgiving Day NFL game between the Cowboys and Chiefs. Perhaps that was a sign that the budding partnership between the UFC and Paramount–Skydance is actually off to a good start — but the fights themselves were weird as hell, man. Justin Gaethje vs. Pad...

Prior to Arman Tsarukyan’s win over Dan Hooker on Saturday at UFC Fight Night in Qatar, we figured Tsarukyan was still on the outside looking in at the lightweight title picture. He’s long come off as a fairly nondescript, vaguely dickish yet undeniably tough guy who wasn’t offering much in the puts-butts-in-seats department. He’d already blown one title shot by pulling out of UFC 311 on a day’s n...

Yeah, so, Islam Makhachev is your new UFC welterweight champion. Not a huge surprise, considering the former lightweight titlist was a solid favorite to dethrone Jack Della Maddalena at UFC 322 over the weekend. What we maybe didn’t expect was just how dominant Makhachev would be. Della Maddalena had no answers — and, from the looks of it, no plan B. By the end he appeared absolutely miserable out...

It’s November in the UFC, and you know what that means! We’re headed out to Madison Square Garden with a fairly stacked card. UFC 322 features a pair of championship fights in its main and co-main events, where two reigning titlists will try to fend off challengers moving up in weight and looking to become champ-champs. We still say that? Champ-champ? Is that still a thing? Your welterweight main...

What’s even real anymore? That’s the question we ended up asking ourselves after last weekend’s slate of combat sports chaos. For starters, Isaac Dulgarian’s first-round submission loss to Yadier del Valle at Saturday’s UFC Fight Night sparked yet another fight-fixing scandal. At this point, you couldn’t blame a casual viewer for wondering: Is this whole shit rigged? Also, there was referee Mark S...

How does Tom Aspinall still have an eyeball right now? Dude, Ciryl Gane went two-knuckles deep in Aspinall’s left eye (while pulling off the rare double-eye poke!) during their heavyweight championship fight at UFC 321 on Saturday. Gane might have Dundasso’d a little TOO hard, as his exploration of Aspinall’s cranium with his left index finger did get their bout declared a no contest, and yet, som...

Let’s be honest, if the current version of the UFC heavyweight title is going to maintain any shred of credibility, Tom Aspinall pretty much has to win this weekend at UFC 321. Even if that happens, we’ll still only really be ready to say that Gas Hands Tom is one of the three best heavyweights in the world — the UFC champion of active heavyweights currently on the roster, let’s say. But if Ciryl...

Chucky Olives pretty much wore Mateusz Gamrot around like a button during their main event fight at last weekend’s UFC Fight Night in Rio de Janeiro. It didn’t feel like there was a single second where Gamrot was winning. He got tagged on the feet early in the first, shot for a takedown, and then got dominated on the ground until Oliveira put him out of his misery with a face crank (which, OK, may...

Well, that was just disrespectful. Alex Pereira went out there at UFC 320 on Saturday with absolutely no regard whatsoever for Magomed Ankalaev. Bullied him. Dropped him. Pounded him out. Then did the “look at you now” hand gesture that is rapidly becoming Pereira’s touchdown dance. He clowned Ankalaev from start to finish, is what he did. Clowned him. So, now the Chama Era is back in the light he...

The PPV era is (maybe!) winding down, and on Saturday, we’ll all celebrate by (maybe!) shelling out our hard-earned dollars to watch UFC 320, where Magomed Ankalaev will defend his light heavyweight title in a rematch against Alex Pereira. Doesn’t feel like there’s a ton of sizzle headed into that one, but hey, with Carlos Ulberg absolutely devastating “The Devastator” Dominick Reyes last weekend...

The money has finally started to roll in for fighters after the UFC agreed to settle that pesky class action lawsuit for $375 million back in February. Some are going to get millions. Some will only get a few thousand. Still, must feel pretty weird to get the bag after being owed it for more than a decade. To some, it might seem like free money, while others are having a more complicated time with...

You know how, after they retire, some older guys go out and get, like, part-time jobs at the United Way or Ace Hardware or some shit? Not necessarily because they need the money — they just need to keep themselves busy, and maybe they like talking to people about paint colors and nail sizes and the best brands of epoxy spackle. Is that what Dana White is doing with boxing? Dana was at the big boxi...

Remember last year, when for about six months the UFC tried to pretend like UFC: Noche was a big deal — mostly because Dana White had to prove to the (almost entirely nonexistent) haters that he could pull off a fighting event at Sphere? Those times are gone now. This weekend’s UFC: Noche card (yes, it is this weekend) is pretty much being left in the dust by the UFC’s part in co-promoting the Can...

Honestly, Nassourdine Imavov is pretty legit. He’s 16-4 (1) overall, riding a three-fight win streak and heads into Saturday’s UFC Fight Night main event against Caio Borralho fresh off a February victory over Israel Adesanya. He was the UFC’s No. 1 middleweight contender until voters recently had to make room for Dricus Du Plessis. So, why does nobody seem to know (or care) who he is? Good news f...

So, Quinton Jackson’s son went on a crazy, uh, rampage at an independent pro wrestling event over the weekend. Raja Jackson — a person we’d barely ever heard of before — got into a backstage beef with a wrestler named Syko Stu and then jumped in the ring during the guy’s match and damn near beat him to death. It was bizarre and, honestly, it made us feel a little sick to watch it. Now, the whole t...

He done did it. Khamzat Chimaev basically pitched a perfect game against Dricus du Plessis at UFC 319, making it look EASY en route to one of the more lopsided decision wins you will ever witness in a championship fight. DDP showed up looking uniquely ill-equipped to stop Chimaev’s all-out takedown assault. And Ya Boi Borz? He looked so dominant people got mad at him for not doing more. So, now th...

Here’s something nobody saw coming: the UFC is taking its talents to Paramount. Not Netflix. Not re-upping with ESPN. Not even a late play from Amazon or Apple. In a staggering seven-year, $7.7 billion deal, the UFC agrees to keep its programming mostly in one piece (thank you, MMA Gods!). It will stream exclusively on Paramount+, with certain events simulcast on CBS. The biggest kicker here is th...

The big homies at Tapology this month revealed their own new computerized ranking system for MMA fighters — and, friends, they went big. The new Tapology rankings don’t just break down the Top 10 like your standard media rankings or the Top 15 like the UFC “rankings” do. Nope, they rank EVERY UFC FIGHTER IN EVERY WEIGHT CLASS. Can you imagine the potentially hilarious implications? Anyway, Very Se...

We had a lot to catch up on this week after missing last week’s show: UFC 318 and Dustin Poirier’s retirement fight; what the future holds now for Max Holloway; the recent booking of three UFC title fights — including Big Tommy Gas Hands against The Good Kid, Ciryl Gane; Jon Jones un-retiring to fight at the White House and being immediately told he won’t be fighting at the White House; whether it...

Dustin Poirier’s last fight is this weekend. You know, allegedly. All relevant disclaimers apply. Still, if anyone deserves to ride off into the sunset with his legacy intact and his chin held high, it’s Cool Dusty P. Call it cliché if you want, but they really don’t make them like him anymore. On this episode: hear our discussion of his upcoming third fight against Max Holloway this weekend at UF...

The doddering old man who also happens to be the most powerful person in the world made an offhand comment over the 4th of July weekend that he’d like to do some UFC fights at the White House. He wants 20,000 people there. He says Dana’s gonna take care of it. And look, we’d be inclined to dismiss this as the rumblings of a crazy old grandpa who might sit next to you on the bus except, well, the s...

Ilia Topuria called his shot — going out there at UFC 317 on Saturday and doing exactly what he said he was going to do to Charles Oliveira, exactly when he said he was going to do it. After a first-round knockout, Topuria claims the vacant lightweight title and becomes the 10th two-division champion in UFC history. He’s 28, undefeated, looks good getting off the bus and possesses an otherworldly...