If Israel Adesanya isn’t ready to retire from MMA just yet, what should the UFC do with him next? Plus, a suggestion to bring viewers back to “The Ultimate Fighter,” and a question from an actual pro fighter with big money to throw around.

All that and more in this week’s mailbag. To ask a question of your own, hit up @BenFowlkesMMA on X or @Ben_Fowlkes on Threads.

@nickj812: What are your hopes for Izzy's next career move?.

Whilst a trilogy against AP might have previously worked , IMO that ship.has sailed.

Hope he retires & stays retired. Nothing left to prove.

All I ask is that it makes some kind of sense but does not make me sad when I watch it. I realize that’s tougher to pull off than it sounds in this sport, but I think it’s doable for Israel Adesanya right now.

Give me a fight that has some narrative behind it. Ideally, it would be against someone he has some kind of history with. I don’t want to see him fighting another hungry young up-and-comer just to prove his career isn’t over yet. Make it something meaningful, preferably against someone his age.

As for whether he should continue, I just hope he asks himself the right questions and makes his decisions on that basis. Are you still here only to be a UFC champ again? Because, brother, that just isn't going to happen. Are you sticking around because you still love it and think you have a few good performances left in you? In that case, sure, I can see it. But don't let the UFC rush you into something that only makes sense for everyone but you.

@jaypettry: Has April Fools' Day lost its luster in the MMA community? Are all the jokes played out and expected to show up? Or are we just becoming jaded?

It’s honestly for the best that MMA fighters don’t try so hard with the April Fool’s jokes these days. So few of them were any good at it. They always had the same two ideas: announce a fake fight, or announce a fake retirement.

The problem with the first one is that nobody likes an April Fool’s joke that, when revealed, feels like you’re taking something away from us. It’s like telling your kids you’re taking them to Disneyland and then telling them it was all a joke, now go get ready for school. They are not going to find the humor in that, man. You want the setup to be something bad or disappointing — though still lighthearted and harmless — so that the April Fool’s part of the reveal feels like relief.

The problem with the fake retirement, as several fighters learned, is that you have a pretty good chance of accidentally hurting your own feelings. What if fans see that and are like, "Yeah good for you for knowing when it’s time?" What if they seem totally ready to believe that you’re done and apparently not even that sad about it? That won’t be a great feeling. Then the only April fool is you.

@CrisCyborg: Should @Claressashields accept my $2,000,000 offer to fight boxing?

Is there a bigger fight in the sport for her than an mma crossover against me?

I’d absolutely watch it, Cris. My question is: Are you personally offering her the $2 million? As in, that’s coming out of your bank account as a guarantee for her as soon as she signs the contract and steps in the ring, win or lose? 

Because if so, yeah, that sounds like a good offer for her, not to mention a legitimately promotable fight that I think a lot of us could get excited about. But also, wow, I didn’t realize you had cash like that just sitting around. Now that I know, let me fill you in on an exciting investment opportunity in the sports podcasting space …

@ihab23: Why’d they do the homie Niko Price dirty?

That was rough. He was pretty much a sacrificial lamb for Michael Chiesa’s retirement fight on home ground — why else would the UFC book Chiesa, on a three-fight winning streak, against Niko Price, on a three-fight losing streak? — and so his own retirement announcement became a complete afterthought.

I think he deserved at least a moment on the mic. That doesn’t seem like too much to ask after nearly 10 years (!) with the UFC. But maybe it just goes to show that, if you want a share of the spotlight in your final fight, it helps to win.

@LukeSpier_: Not so much a question, more so throwing s*** at a wall with a questionable idea. With TUF being so a**, in conjunction with heavyweight being so a**, what about a TUF season that’s entirely “former athletes from other sports try MMA”

I would totally watch that. Nothing but former NFL/NBA/MLB/rugby and whatever else athletes getting out there on the mats and figuring it out as they go? Hell yes. That’s good TV right there. The only problem is, how do you get them to fight in a cage for the pitiful payouts that “Ultimate Fighter” guys typically earn? Pro athletes from other sports are used to being paid like, well, pro athletes.

@NeedXtoseePosts: Surely The White House card can't go ahead as things stand in the world?

It would be bread and circuses only the price of bread is also skyrocketing

I get what you’re saying, but after all this build-up how could they not go ahead with it? The UFC White House event not only has to happen, it has to be really, really good. Anything less will be a colossal failure and disappointment.

@RealFakeSamDunn: If MVP were to hold one more MMA card this year, which main event could they at least *conceivably* book to keep the casuals curious?

And what if they held two more events?

Anatoly Malykhin is out there, sure, but only hardcores know him. How do you thread this needle?

If we’re talking about real MMA fights, right now I’d have to say something like Francis Ngannou vs. Gable Steveson would get a lot of people excited. If we’re talking about just having fun in an attention-getting sort of way, then someone needs to get creative with Eddie Hall.

You know what would probably really work, though? Let’s get Jake Paul into a pair of four-ounce gloves and see how he does. There’s a genuine appetite among the public to see him get beat up, and the Anthony Joshua fight barely scratched the surface. If he fought someone like Nate Diaz in an actual MMA fight, you can’t tell me it wouldn’t do numbers.

@chasekeller54: What’s going on with Gegard Mousasi? Did he demand his way out of PFL to never fight again? I feel like I haven’t heard anything about him since PFL released him.

I reached out to Gegard Mousasi’s longtime friend and manager, Nima Safapour, who said there’s still ongoing litigation and they can’t discuss anything publicly yet. When I asked if Mousasi is still interested in fighting (he’ll be 41 in August), Safapour said Mousasi has been smart with his money and doesn’t exactly need to fight, but “if it’s an interesting opportunity that adds to his legacy, he would consider it.”

@jtbrinkman: As a Winnipeg resident who wouldn’t even consider paying the prices UFC is asking for a forgettable card, I guess my question is ‘wassup with dat?’ (And I drove to Minneapolis for a fight night card back in the day)

I just looked up ticket prices for the UFC Fight Night event in Winnipeg this month and, first off, seems like there’s still plenty of good seats available. The cheapest way in the door is a nosebleed seat for around $100, which honestly isn’t bad for the direction UFC ticket prices have been headed lately. Obviously, any seat with an actual view of something other than the arena jumbotron is going to cost you more, but still, we’ve seen worse lately.

If you’re asking when we’ll see UFC ticket prices in general come down, the answer is when TKO stops being able to sell them at these prices. We’ve seen some events lately with empty seats visible. But clearly TKO is testing the waters with both UFC and WWE event pricing to find out the absolute limit of what the market will bear.

@LCombatsports: Do you have anything you would like to see from newcomers in the combat sports media space? If so, what are they?

Tell me something that I can only know by hearing it from you. By that I mean, go out and do some reporting. Dig into a story. Get yourself on the scene and in a place to see or hear or learn something new, then come back and tell me about it.

We’re all stocked up on people who look at various fighters’ social media and then tell us what’s there. If I want to know what Alex Pereira is posting on Instagram, I’ll just go follow him. Tell me a story or feed me some information or even just give me an interesting opinion of your own. That’s what I’d like to see more of.

Whatever happens this time, Georgio Poullas won’t be surprised. It doesn’t matter if Arman Tsarukyan takes another swing at him on the wrestling mats. It doesn’t matter if their return match at RAF 7 this Saturday turns into a full-scale fistfight right off the bat.

After his last experience on the mat with the UFC lightweight contender, Poullas insists he’s beyond any capacity for astonishment when it comes to the behavior of Tsarukyan — during or after the actual competition.

“I can tell you, I’ll be ready for it this time, whatever happens,” Poullas told Uncrowned. “It was a coward move, what [Tsarukyan] did. He waited until I wasn’t looking. I mean, if you’re going to hit me, hit me when I’m looking at you. Don’t be a coward about it.”

In case you’re among the small segment of the population who somehow missed the viral video moment from their first encounter at RAF 6, here’s a quick summary of how things went down:

— Tsarukyan took exception to Poullas’ use of clubbing hands to the head early on in their wrestling match and responded with a blatant open-hand slap that cost him a point.

— Poullas kept at it, and was eventually penalized a point himself.

— Order threatened to dissolve entirely. Tsarukyan took a swipe at Poullas between rounds. RAF officials had to walk on the mats and try to cool everyone down.

— Tsarukyan won a narrow victory on points (5-3). Then the real fun started.

The part of the video that spread far and wide on the internet was Tsarukyan shoving Poullas onto his back after the match had clearly ended, then getting on top of Poullas and punching him in the head before outside forces could intervene. Tsarukyan also attempted a knee strike on Poullas as bodies came tumbling onto the mat, but by then the chaos of the moment had gotten in the way of any effective, targeted violence.

If you go back and watch the RAF broadcast on FOX Nation, you’ll hear commentators expressing regret and disapproval at this display. Won’t someone think of the children watching and the example we’re setting? That sort of thing. But honestly? The moment was perfect for the viral video age. It takes a lot for a clip from some freestyle wrestling event to break containment and find its way into the open waters of social media. A post-match brawl will do it, though. And when it includes a notoriously hot-headed UFC title contender, even better.

Many of the initial reactions focused on that part, on Tsarukyan himself, and on the question of what exactly his problem might be. This is the same guy who, while making his walk to the cage at UFC 300, paused to attack a fan who directed an unkind hand gesture his way. More recently he head-butted an opponent — and seemingly injured him — during the ceremonial weigh-ins the day before their fight. Now it seems he can’t even get through a wrestling match without misbehaving in some memorable fashion.

Poullas, of course, has his own theories about what set Tsarukyan off in their match.

“I think when he gets a tough opponent who frustrates him, he acts out,” Poullas said. “He obviously doesn’t have respect for his opponents. I think when he’s challenged or frustrated, he doesn’t know how to handle it.”

But especially for someone like Poullas, this was not all bad news. He’s a guy who knows a little something about self-promotion via viral video. If you’d heard of him before this, it probably wasn’t as a mid-level college wrestler at Cleveland State or Rider University. More likely it was as the guy from social media promising $1,000 to anyone on the street who could take him down.

“Take me down, get $1,000” is exactly the kind of gimmick that Instagram and TikTok are made for, so this worked well as an attention-getting routine. (Poullas claims he was never taken down in these impromptu challenge matches, though there are dissenting opinions on that.) Even now, if you type his name into Google, you’re less likely to see Poullas identified as a standout wrestler than as a “social media influencer.”

It’s a job title Poullas doesn’t shy away from, in part because it arose out of necessity.

“It doesn't bother me. I mean, I am an influencer and I am a wrestler, but why do people know me? Because of social media, because I post my wrestling clips out there,” Poullas said. “The reason why I did what I did was because there weren't many social media wrestlers. There was no one doing what I'm doing. There wasn't money to be made in the sport. I enjoyed wrestling. I wanted to grow the sport. So it was a win-win for me. Make some money and promote the sport of wrestling and have fun with what I'm doing. Ultimately it all worked out for me.”

You can see how a guy with that approach wouldn’t mind a viral moment on the wrestling mats opposite a top UFC contender. In the attention economy of the internet, getting into a brawl with Tsarukyan was arguably even better than beating him would have been. Poullas’ only regret is that Tsarukyan got his shots in and then disappeared in the throng of bodies on the mat before Poullas had a chance at payback.

“Anything that happens like that, a brawl with two high-level guys, it’s bound to be viral,” Poullas said. “I'm not upset at the fact that it happened. It brought a lot of attention to this sport and I think it did great things for the sport. In the heat of the moment, yeah, I wanted to fight the guy. I was looking for him, but there were just so many people out there so quick that I didn't get a chance to throw a punch back. But I think for the sport and just the virality of it, I think it was a good thing.”

It did earn Poullas the rematch on Saturday, just one month after that first meeting. And it has successfully kept his name in headlines. It might have even helped him open the door to some opportunities in MMA — Poullas told Uncrowned he has agreed to a contract for an MMA fight, but said he was unable to discuss specifics yet — now that even more fans from all corners of the fight sports world know his name.

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But now comes the part where he has to deal with an angry pro fighter who has a reputation for lashing out violently even when it costs him. You just never know what you’re going to get with Tsarukyan, or when you’re going to get it. He’s proven that he doesn’t mind straying outside the rules or well beyond the bounds of competition. And now he has even more motivation to do so.

“I won’t be surprised if there’s another brawl,” Poullas said. “I’ll be ready.”

And if it does come to that, Poullas added: “I’d love a chance to punch that guy in the face.”