The Co-Main Event MMA Podcast

Another relatively slow week in mixed martial arts means another #aintshitgoinon episode of the Co-Main Event Podcast. This week, Ben and Chad fill an hour, 15 minutes with almost nothing but your listener mail questions. Well, your listener mail questions and one episode of MasterTweet Theatre featuring the inimitable Sir Nigel Longstock. So buckle in for that. Per usual, you guys bring the heat...

Artem Lobov didn’t beat Cub Swanson on Saturday in the UFC Fight Night 108 main event. In fact, at no point in their five-round fight did it even look like Lobov was about to win. Still, dude did better than a lot of people--including Ben and Chad--thought he might do. Does that mean Lobov will be back in an Octagon main event again? Ehhhh … I guess that’s why they record the podcast. In addition...

Just in case you needed a reminder how comparatively shitty you are at whatever it is you do for a living, Demetrious Johnson fought last weekend. Johnson, the UFC’s inimitable flyweight champion, painted what might end up being considered his career masterpiece in a defeat of Wilson Reis at UFC on FOX 24. It’s kind of humbling to watch the dude do it, really. Johnson is so far ahead of his compet...

There was simply no end to the hijinks, controversy and out-and-out skullduggery surrounding Saturday night’s UFC 210. In other words, it was an event tailor made for Ben and Chad to discuss on the CME. From Daniel Cormier getting a little help from a beach towel at the official weigh-in to Pearl Gonzalez being ruled out and then ruled back in due to breast implants (WTF. SERIOUSLY, NYSAC?) things...

Muhammed Lawal and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson ran it back on Saturday at Bellator 175, renewing their rivalry of 2014 by putting on a second fight that looked nearly identical to the first. Except that this time King Mo managed to get the better of the third round and salt away a unanimous decision win. As another wrinkle to this already stimulating match-up, turns out this was the last fight on Ra...

Ain’t shit goin’ on, you guys. Aside from Tonya Evinger getting that sweet, sweet revenge on Yana Kunitskaya at InvictaFC 22 over the weekend, it's been a fairly quiet couple weeks in the MMA Bubble. You know what that means. That's right, Ben and Chad turn the programming of this week’s Co-Main Event Podcast over to all the little Co-Mainiacs out there. It’s listener mail for the whole hour on ep...

Will UFC Fight Night 107 be remembered as the evening in London when Jimi Manuwa stomped into the collective consciousness of the light heavyweight division and announced he wasn’t there to make friends? Perhaps. Perhaps. What is an undeniable fact, at least according to Ben and Chad, is that Manuwa did about as good a job utilizing his screen time on The Fight Pass Dot Com as anyone could have im...

At Saturday night’s UFC Fight Night 106, Vitor Belfort lost to up-and-coming middleweight Kelvin Gastelum in such lopsided fashion that even Belfort himself thinks it might be time to set an end date for his career. Maybe. Depending on how things go. On this week’s Co-Main Event Podcast, Ben and Chad look at Gastelum’s victory as well as Belfort’s loss and discuss where these two fighters may be h...

Yeah, that UFC 209 main event between Tyron Woodley and Stephen “Wonderman” Thompson pretty much stunk up the joint, huh? Just a couple of dudes out there walking in circles for 25 minutes. And this after the unceremonious, last-minute removal of Khabib Nurmagomedov from the card on Friday and the cancellation of his interim lightweight title fight against Tony Ferguson. Aside from that, though? I...

With an actual, honest-to-goodness interesting pay-per-view card coming on Saturday at UFC 209, the Co-Main Event Podcast has much to talk about. Tyron Woodley and Stephen Thompson prepare to rematch over the welterweight title, after their initial meeting at UFC 205 ended in a hard-fought majority draw. In addition to that, Khabib Nurmagomedov takes on Tony Ferguson in a bout that feels like a No...

The President’s Day episode of the Co-Main Event Podcast is exactly what you might expect: slapdash, thrown-together, even less organized than usual. See, what had happened was, Chad had to take his 4-year-old daughter to a birthday party Monday morning, so he didn’t have the chance to give this episode of the CME its normal, meticulous planning and brainstorming session. So, when Ben rolled in th...

Ooof, UFC 208, right? That was rough. This week the entire Co-Main Event Podcast Universe is likely reevaluating how it spends its Saturday nights after shelling out $60 for the worst pay-per-view fighting event this side of WFA: King of the Streets. You better believe Ben and Chad gots some shit to say. From the overall depressing nature of the fight card itself and what it might mean for the imm...

UFC Fight Night 104 ended with decidedly divergent fortunes for main and co-main event favorites Chan Sung Jung and Alexa Grasso. Jung returned from three years away from the cage to triumphantly knock out Dennis Bermudez in the first round, while Grasso--yeah, we’re not totally sure what happened there. In any case, this week’s CME podcast takes a look at Jung’s return and Grasso’s tepid unanimou...

The Octagon touched down in the Mile High City on Saturday for UFC on Fox 23 and things went well for some people and … not so well for others. On this week’s Co-Main Event Podcast, Ben and Chad look at the surging Valentina Shevchenko and her presumed women’s bantamweight championship meeting with Amanda Nunes, after Shevchenko dispensed with Julianna Pena over the weekend. They also talk about t...

Tito Ortiz and Chael Sonnen had the MMA spotlight all to themselves last Saturday night at Bellator 170 and the two of them delivered a fight that can only be described as a complete stinker. Sonnen’s performance especially was so bad that some observers were left crying “fix!” though the Co-Main Event Podcast does not necessarily condone such heedless accusations. Ben and Chad discuss the outcome...

A new beginning for Yair Rodriguez, perhaps a sad end for BJ Penn and another weekly episode of the Co-Main Event Podcast. With Rodriguez’s second-round TKO over Penn still fresh in the minds from Sunday night, Ben and Chad spend a couple of rounds on this week’s show discussing each guy. Rodriguez seems like he has all the potential in the world, but is he also a fellow UFC matchmakers might have...

Naturally, this episode of the Co-Main Event Podcast was recorded just as the announcement that Tyron Woodley will face Stephen Thompson in a welterweight title rematch at UFC 209 was going down. Which is just about typical, right, you guys? Fortunately, this episode of the CME is also an #AintShitGoinOn installment, so while Ben and Chad discuss in passing what next will happen to the UFC 170-pou...

It was a weird weekend in the world of MMA, Universe. For starters, we saw perhaps the final fall of Ronda Rousey as she collapsed into dust under the pressure (and the fists) of women’s bantamweight champion Amanda Nunes at UFC 207. Where Her Rowdiness goes from here is anyone’s best guess. You know who else was surprising? Your boy Cody Garbrandt, that’s who. After spending a week or more lookin...

The world won’t be hearing much from Ronda Rousey in the final days before her UFC 207 comeback fight against Amanda Nunes. During the Christmas holiday we found out Rousey had been excused from participating in the standard media obligations prior to the event. Kinda weird, considering just earlier this year the fight company tossed Conor McGregor off UFC 200 for skipping a press conference. In r...

UFC on FOX 22 scored decent ratings but at least a few of the fight results didn’t pan out in the way matchmakers perhaps wanted. Ben and Chad spend the bulk of this episode of the Co-Main Event Podcast discussing those outcomes and arguing about what they really mean. From Paige VanZant’s first-round choke out by Michelle Waterson to Sage Northcutt’s second-round choke out at the hands of Mickey...

Finally, the UFC featherweight division has its (interim) champion. The good news? He seems like a likable sort, comes bearing hashtags and impeccable taste in reflective neckties. The bad news? He’s not the only guy trying to lay claim to the throne. Not even close, actually. Perhaps the very best thing about Max Holloway’s third-round TKO over an overweight Anthony Pettis at Saturday’s UFC 206 i...

Did y’all watch crazy-ass Tim Elliott give Demetrious Johnson a run for his money on Saturday night? Hopefully you at least DVR’ed the damn thing, Universe, because--hoo boy--that was some shit. If you did--or didn’t and need to catch up--then Ben and Chad are here with all the instant reaction you could ever want. If by instant, you mean a few days later and delivered via carefully recorded and p...

Well, Universe, Conor McGregor is no longer the UFC featherweight champion. Just like we always knew it would, the announcement that McGregor had “relinquished” the 145-pound title (totally willingly, we assume) came like three-and-a-half hours into a six-and-a-half hour UFC Fight Night event live from Melbourne, Australia. With McGregor now merely the UFC lightweight champion, the ripple effects...

Things get back to normal for this week’s episode of the Co-Main Event Podcast. Or, at least, as normal as they ever get in this sport’s unending news cycle. Ben and Chad spend the CME’s normal three rounds discussing last weekend’s fights and looking ahead to next weekend’s too. That means Gegard Mousasi’s big win over Uriah Hall takes center stage, along with Michael Chandler’s successful defens...

UFC 205 is in the books and it was a doozy, folks. The fight company’s debut at Madison Square Garden and first trip to New York since 1995 was so big that it throws the normal format of the Co-Main Event Podcast into chaos. There’s no way to break this baby into coherent rounds--whether it be 3 or 5 or whatever--so your dudes Ben and Chad have no choice to chuck it all and dive in anyway. Call th...