No Bets Barred: Can Rafael Fiziev Give Azerbaijan Reason To Celebrate At UFC Baku?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
When I got a new car, I thought my insurance premium would increase and empty my bank account, like if Fetween won the lottery.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:06)
I've invested most of my winnings in chicken tenders because they're bomb. But bro, I bought a house and it's sick, bro. I'm thinking the floor is gonna be all trampoline, bro. With the helipad on the roof, the contractor said it's structurally unsound, but they're just being babies.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:21)
But switching to Geico saved me hundreds, so my bank account is safe.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:25)
It feels good to save some hard-earned cash. It feels good to Geico.
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**Jed Meshew** (1:24)
What is up y'all, we are back for another edition of No Bets Barred. My name is Jed Meshew, I am your host of mmafighting.com, but you probably already know that if you're tuning in, and certainly thank you for tuning in this week as we talk about Baku. We are headed back to Azerbaijan for a Roadshow Fight Night card before a week off from the UFC. Obviously, next weekend will be July 4th, for those of you either in America or American expats or just those who love freedom, like we all do after UFC Freedom 250 The UFC is taking that weekend off since they've already celebrated America's birthday. And so this is our last card for a couple of weeks. This is the functional go home show before UFC 329 and the return of Conor McGregor in two and a half weeks from now. So, we will have a bit of a break before we get to, won't be the biggest event of the year. I think White House is just gonna be the biggest event now, but Conor McGregor's return is obviously major. This is not major, but Baku has a couple of good fights on it. Certainly the main event. There are a couple of hidden gyms on this card, I think as well. You know, this is sort of our standard road show fair that we are looking at this day and age. I would not say that this is the greatest card of all time. And certainly once the UFC has started to build cards like this, right? They are going to Azerbaijan. They are closer geographically to, well, you know, they don't do events in Russia. I think that that's probably just not really on the table with what's gone on in Russia for the last, I don't even know how many years at this point. But this trip to Azerbaijan gives them an opportunity to put a bunch of, you know, Russian, Uzbek, Kazakh fighters from that general geographic area, painting with a very broad brush there. So give me some leeway on the card. And that is what they have done. A lot of ahs and evs on this card, certainly. In fact, does every fight have either an ahv or an ev on it? Fizz is one, two, three, four.
No, but there is only two?
Three fights that don't have ahvs or evs. One of those has an anko on it, and the other has a Bexat, you know? Oh, I guess there's a, no, no, Abdullahiyev opens it up. So yeah, I mean, a lot of ahvs and evs in this card.
And so you're going to get a relatively high level of overall quality. Most of the fighters here are at least what I would call UFC caliber, a couple of really fun fights. So let's get into it. Brief update on where we stand year to date. Heading into the White House event, I was basically dead even. I had been up for a minute and then I took a couple of losses. White House was a catastrophic card for me. We had a lot more fun than we probably should have, and almost none of those bets cashed for me. So I am now down four and a half units on the year. Also, The Climb, it died. Ilya Depoyer was our Climb, but at the White House, I have never been happier to see a Climb lose. And hopefully, we will get back on the train this week. We are going to do two steps. I considered up to five or six for this Climb action. We settled on two, and for those of you who are new here, you don't know what The Climb is, lock in. I will explain it to you as we get there. Let's start at the top of the proceedings. The main event, Rafael Fiziev takes on Manuel Torres in a lightweight contest, and quite frankly, a very good fight. I think there's just no other way to say this, but I am extremely interested in the main event this weekend. It is extremely closely lined, basically a stone pick'em. Fiziev, a very minor betting favorite on my book at minus 115 Torres minus 110