Contrarian genius Zabit Magomedsharipov retired at age 28 right when he was on the verge of being the UFC featherweight champion and then played doctor until 34 and now he’s seemingly ready to come back, fresh out of his prime. At least so indicates Ali Abdelaziz.

That was extremely dumb. We’re glad to see him back, but that was really damn dumb. You only get one fighting prime and this guy blew it. What an absolute waste of talent. Here’s hoping he still manages to capture UFC gold.

He’s got the grift of gab and it’s coming back to haunt him. Chael Sonnen’s YouTube channel is still alive, but it’s now more of a content wasteland where Chael churns out video after video to squeeze every dollar he can. But clearly Chael has burned his bridges with subscribers and fans.

You can’t trust the guy to not waste your time with a long meandering story that goes nowwhere. Too many clickbait titles and too many wordsmithing shenanigans now mean that people won’t click his videos for fear of being looped into another content grift.

Chael had the potential to grow an enormous channel (1.2 million subscribers), but his content is another grift and so nobody watches him anymore.

Daniel Cormier is afraid that if he harshly criticizes Jones, he’ll come off as bitter or something along those lines. Cormier continues to be extremely gentle when it comes to covering Jon Jones. In fact, we say too gentle. Cormier understandably can’t stand Johnny Meat (Twitter), but now in his post-UFC media career, Cormier does things like insists Jon Jones isn’t scared to fight Tom Aspinall when he very clearly is.

And Cormier has a case that his losses to Jones aren’t as enormous as they’re remembered to be:

1. Cormier was leaving or out of his athletic prime when they fought. Jones was at the beginning of his.
2. Jon Jones was on PEDs. Cormier probably wasn’t.
3. Cormier was at a significant height and reach disadvantage.

5’10 vs. 6’4 is already an uphill battle. Jones had all of the physical advantages, including the artificial ones.

We wish Cormier would stop trying to overcompensate to appear as if he isn’t bitter (and we’re not saying he is) and just be more objective.

When a fighter won’t fight another fighter, they’re scared.

Johnny Meat (Twitter name) officially ducked Big Tom Aspinall for the last time and ran away from mma, leaving behind a decimated legacy in tatters. People think that people will forget about this stuff in 10 years, but they won’t. This is a different era because everything is recorded digitally.

Jon Jones won’t be known as the GOAT, he’ll be known as the Duck.

You know things are getting clown show when the event accredited media brazenly torches Dana White with question after question on Jon Jones ducking Tom Aspinall. In the UFC 316 post-fight press conference, Dana White relented from his entrenched stance that Jones vs. Aspinall would happen. He said we’d find out Tuesday and today’s Tuesday and we haven’t found out officially.

But we all know Jon Jones isn’t fighting Tom.

Everyone damn well knows that Francis Ngannou isn’t returning to the UFC, but Jon Jones has seized upon this opportunity to take his ducking up a notch.

Ngannou clearly had his coach put out the message so he could wait and see what happens without taking a stance, but this isn’t happening as long as Dana White is in charge.

Speaking of which… Guru also hits on a signal we’ve been picking up: We say Dana White is somehow compromised.

Guru: So they’re just… and with all of the allegations that have come out when it comes to what he’s doing back… crazier things have happened in certain industries, you know, [placeholder] stuff. Like, things happen in big companies, man. Things happen in big companies, and I wouldn’t [placeholder] be surprised at this point.

That’s what I’m starting to think, and I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of MMA fans are starting to think the same thing. Why on earth are they letting this man [placeholder] humiliate the company? He’s a wife beater, PED cheat. He’s done nothing but disgrace the name of the sport since his time as champion. All of the failed drug tests, all of the fights that fell through. UFC 200 [placeholder] ruined. They had to scramble. Think about what Jon Jones has done to the UFC. UFC 200 ruined. They have to bring Brock Lesnar back desperately…

The amount that Jon Jones has cost this company… for what? A head kick win over DC? It was a no contest. He dropped Machida from a guillotine. He left him on the canvas from a guillotine. A couple spinning elbows on the great Stefan Bonnar, rest in peace, but still, it’s just lame at this point. There must be something else to it. That’s where my mind’s going.

When is the charade going to stop? Every time a known figure in the MMA media is confronted with MMA Guru reality, they have to feign like they’re not quite sure if they’ve heard of him.

Guru’s channel has over 141,000,000 views and he’s by far the most powerful voice in MMA media. Come on guys, of course you know who he is. It just makes you sound stupid because it’s so obviously a lie.

Ironically, Josh Thompson, who is far, far, far less relevant than Guru tried to pull this act and then immediately knew everything about him.

In the clip above, Daniel Cormier also exhibits this behavior, going out of his way to say how unaware of MMA Guru he is which only shows that he is completely aware of who he is. Here’s the sequence where Guru addresses the act:

DC: So MMA Guru, who I really don’t know who that is, but the way that Air (spelling?) said it to me today, it means that this person’s somebody…

Guru: I don’t know who MMA Guru is? Are we pretending again, Daniel? Is that what we do? Are we pretending again? “I don’t know who MMA Guru is.” I mean, I’m not trying to be egotistical here to kick things off, okay, but I said, “Are we pretending again, DC?” I know you watched this entire saga about Jon Jones with a hot box of Popeye’s chicken on your lap in your dimly lit lounge after your wife went up to bed and the coast was clear. Maybe I’m wrong on this, okay, maybe I am, but even still, and I like that DC had to chuck out that he had no idea who I was.

DC: But the way that Air said it to me today, it means that this person’s somebody.

Guru: It’s good to know that I’m on the minds of UFC staff members. Okay, I’m glad I’m a somebody to the UFC staff members that are putting out these ideas for what’s going to be on the show. It’s all good.

DC: Because she goes, “Did you see what MMA Guru said?” and I’m like, “Well, I have no idea who MMA Guru is.”

We previously wrote about how we think Dana White is compromised. And his no-showing at UFC 316 pre-festivities only flans the flames of doubt.

Dana White was always a staple at UFC events and now he’s mysteriously absent. Dana White has quite literally been the face of the UFC for two decades and now he’s fading into obscurity amidst a powerless Power Slap push and a failed venture into boxing.

And, judging by the fact that he went on a Jon Jones complement tour for a year and now won’t strip Jon Jones of the heavyweight belt, we think Jon Jones has somehow gotten to the UFC president.

Given the trajectory of events, it won’t be long until major Dana White news breaks open.

In the unlikely event Jon “Duck” Jones ever fights Tom Aspinall, MMA Guru will be there for mental warfare and a face-to-face encounter with the Duck.

In other news, UFC fans are officially and formally disgusted with the UFC not taking action. Jon Jones is ducking Aspinall and the UFC won’t strip him on the title so Tom can move on with his career.

Ariel Helwani just reported that, “He (Jon Jones) gave them a number, they met that number, he said ‘Thanks, but no thanks’. That’s what happened.”

As much as no one likes Ariel, when he reports, it’s usually accurate so that cements Jon as a scared duck (sorry DC, we know you want to believe Jones isn’t scared, but just because he beat you doesn’t mean he isn’t scared).

The UFC is going downhill fast and everybody knows it. Sure, there have been some nice moments over the last year or so, but the UFC used to churn out entertainment on a monthly basis and now it’s an MMA desert.

A few familiar explanations:

• the don’t want another McGregor situation so they’re not promoting the fighters anymore and trying only to promote the UFC
• they’re only trying to maximize profit since the TKO buyout
• they’re holding out for a new media rights deal and then they’ll really start putting together some fights (right now it’s bare minimum contractual obligations)

And, of course, Dana White is off in a galaxy far, far away. For a while he was really into his Power Slap (which of course is a complete loser) and then he went hard into boxing (until he got dropped from the Crawford promotion).

Also, we have a theory that Dana White has been compromised by none other than Duck Jones and it’s really affecting him — even beyond not putting together the Jones – Aspinall fight.

Take all of the above combined, and you’ve got the UFC’s current state of affairs. We’ll still keep track, but a lot less people are ordering PPVs nowadays.

The cards are just so weak. We maybe get 1, 1.5 good fights and that’s it.

That DuPlessis vs. Strickland card was historically embarrassing (no offense to the main eventers).