MMA Fighting - Emergency Reaction: Kamaru Usman Steps In Against Khamzat Chimaev At UFC 294

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

UFC 294 has had another major change! After suffering a staph infection that necessitate another surgery, Paulo Costa is officially out of his scheduled co-main event fight against Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 294, and former UFC welterweight champion Kamaru Usman is stepping in. This massive change comes less than 24 hours after it was announced that Alexander Volkanovski will be stepping in on 10 days' notice to rematch Islam Makhachev in the main event of the same fight card. Given the enormity of this breaking news, MMA Fighting's Jed Meshew and Alexander K. Lee circled the wagons for an emergency reaction pod, discussing what just happened, what comes next, and whether these unexpected changes actually made UFC 294 a more compelling fight card. Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the audible original blockbuster, the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now, only from Audible. Breaking News, ever, more, more breaking news. How much breaking news can one fan base handle you're about to find out?

Ladies and gentlemen, I am Jedd Meshue of M.m.a.com. a terrific website and joining me now, Alexander Kaylee, also of this terrific website, because more news has dropped. I went to bed last night, A.K., everything was fine. We had a card this weekend that no one cares

all that much about, and then we've got 284 coming down the pipe. I wake up to a world where Alexander Volcanowski is getting a second crack at Islamakachev, and we think, man, the craziness has happened. But it didn't stop there, because moments ago, UFSIs,

CEO, no longer UFC president, UFC CEO, Dana White informed us of what had kind of been a rumor all day long that Hamza Chamaev will no longer be fighting Paulo Costa at UFC 294. Costa officially out, he released a statement. We'll talk about that in a bit.

In for Paulo Costa on 10 days, Nibus AK, his former UFC welterweight champion Kamau Usman in the taking on Hamzaa Chamaeimai in the co-main event of UFC 294, first things first a k what is happening and how did you react to this incredible news i'm so confused and scared right now i just i don't i was prepared but like already to be not like enthused about talking about uc294 not because it wasn't like a decent card on paper but we were getting

like a rematch uh we kind of already learned this weekend that something was up with paolo costos that was kind of scary but even that even if that fight had gone through it it was like interesting but not you know it was just sort of like well we're happy to see shemaya fight again and we've got a fun opponent in costa who's like a legit top 10 middleweight but nothing was electrifying me about 294 and now it feels like i have been struck but we have all been struck by lightning twice for better or for worse with two matchups that we did not expect to see one we did not switch to see again anytime soon one that I think a lot of us thought maybe the ship had sailed on.

And yet now we are less than two weeks away from both fights happening. Overall, I feel great about it. But I'm also still sort of recovering from this news. It's, uh, it's MMA, man. It's MMA. It isn't it? It doesn't feel like MMA is MMA'd in this way in some time. We've gotten a lot of craziness this year, but kind of hasn't been that much of the

marquee fights fall through. Something happens. steps in. We've largely kept our main events intact. At least it feels like recently those those have delivered. And now we get a full change on the main event and the co-main event. Obviously, the main event news is here. We're here really to talk about the co-main event. And I echo some of your sentiments there. When this happened, I was like, okay, will they, won't they with Chimae of Costa? We had the news last week. Costa goes on the MMA hour. Things seem a little bit up, but he's adamant that he's still fighting. I'm taking him at his work.

but knowing that, you know, there are apparently machinations going on in the background. I got to say, I didn't see this one coming because we talked about it all day on Slack, you know, private conversations. Okay, if Costa is getting pulled, what's what is happening here? Like, some names were floated. There were unsubstantiated rumors just flying all around the MMA Twitter universe. And in the end, it's Kamala Usman and like you. I didn't, I, I thought this fight was gone. a fight we talked about years ago and now

I'm suddenly more excited and so that's my next question for you AK because 24 hours ago UFC 294 was fundamentally different than it is today and I got to say we don't need to get into my thoughts on the main event I am less impressed

with that than many others neither here nor there this co-main event frankly I'm way more interested in this matchup like I care much more about 294 today than I did yesterday. And so the question for you, AK, is that the same for you? Are you more electrified by this? Or is this just shock at all right now? And over the next week, you'll settle down and be like,

well, I'm really missing a couple of these fights. The UFC's bulletproof, man. I mean, if you want proof that this promotion cannot be touched, nothing that goes wrong can hurt them in any meaningful way. UFC 279 last September, UFC 294 coming up. Last September we had, it was supposed to be Hamza and Nate Diaz, which were all kind of feeling a little bit squeamish about. It wasn't our favorite thing. And then, of course, it all gets shuffled around and Tony

Birxen fights Nate Diaz, which we all kind of agreed was a cool fight. Hamza fights Kevin Holland, which still like a bit of a shrug, but also we got to see Hamza do his thing. And then Li Zhang Lang, ending up in a fight with Dan Rodriguez. It was so random, but so fun. We ended up with a great card. I remember us having

a similar conversation. When that shake-up happened, we're like, did we kind of end up with a better card because it's hard it's hard to deny this time with 294 that this is better i mean if just star power wise right i mean you just added the former ufc welterweight champion who we have not seen since he fought leon edwards in their second championship fight um and we all thought we well where is uzman going to go from here and it kind of seemed like he was good at the smart thing take some time off and wait for the right opportunity and boy oh boy here it comes here is a fight with Hamza Shemayo, I think a winnable fight.

It's intriguing for both guys. Whoever wins theoretically should become the number one contender at 185 pounds. I think Jukestay Placizzi is in there, of course, and other people. But people were already talking about that for Hamzat and Paulo Costa saying, you know, the winner can get a tell shot. Now, Usman, I think the winner has to get a tell shot, right? And that's something weird happens. So that's just so compelling. And it's a fight I want to see for so long.

I want to see Usman call Shemayev out when Uzman was. still the champion. You know, we always kept saying get him when before Shemaya reaches peak form. And I don't know what form Shemayev's in now. I don't know what form Usmat is in now. But I know that I, my wanting to see this fight has not diminished at all. And that we're getting it under these bizarre circumstances almost makes it better. So that and yes, now we get to see Makachov-Wokunovsky too.

I thought Charles deserved the rematch, earned three match. Would have loved to see it. But I will never complain about seeing Volkanovsky and Makachov fight. That was, I think, probably, is probably still my frontrunner, their first meeting back in February for a 2023 fight of the year. Definitely. And this one has the potential to top it. So how can you complain? Dana White, UFC, the matchmakers crew, they are invincible.

They have fallen upwards yet again. Look, I always say that the UFC is one injury away from doing the right thing. Because they're never going to do it on their own, but they are one fight falling apart from getting the right answer on the test. and they've done it again. You said something there. You took my next question. We'll talk about that. But you said something that I disagree with.

Technically, not actually. And what I mean by this is saying the winner of this fight, what's next to them? They're going to deserve it. They're going to be the number one contender. They're going to deserve that title shot. They are not. By any rational definition, they're not going to deserve it. But buddy, they're getting it.

They are getting it. This news just now was tremendous. news. If you are a lover of fights, if you are a lover of, you know, chaos, if you are like me, a guy who thought we were going to get Kamau Usman v. Hamza-Chimae two years ago for the welterweight strap. This gives you a sense of completion. But this news is the worst news that could have ever happened to my guy, Drickus DuPlessi. He is at best second in line for a title shot and probably third or fourth at this point because what you said was correct. Camaro Usman, we thought he'd wait for the, you know, wait for the right opportunity.

What we didn't say at the time, at least not many people said, was that that opportunity would probably be at 185 because I had thought that for a while that Izzy leaves the division. He can move up and maybe make a run at a middleweight, you know, get that second belt, do the new thing. Didn't see Izzy losing. None of us did. but if Usman comes in here and beats Hamzaa Chamaev, I don't care that Hamzaa Chimayev is an unranked middleweight.

I don't care that he does at least have wins in this weight class. He beats Chameh, and our current middleweight champion is Sean Strickland. Man, Kamar Usman is right there. Like, he is right in the mix for getting that title shot. I do not believe the UFC would have absolutely any issue with booking that fight. And why would they? Like, why would they? It's a rematch.

And Kamar Usman already beat him. Why not do it again? So, and by the same token, as you mentioned, if Hamzot be Paula Costa, I think he probably would have moved to frontrunner status if he certainly did it dominantly. And even though Usman is, you know, not a middleweight, it's still Kamar Usman, the cachet from this, the star power. The winner of this is leader in the clubhouse for the next middleweight title shot. So it has been a bad 24 hours.

if you were a guy who ostensibly should be fighting for a belt in your weight class, RIP, Justin Gaichi, title contender, we knew you well, Matush Gamrot, you also were in that mix, and y'all both caught it in the teeth, and maybe you can, you know, make a group text. Just make a group text with our boy, Drickis Dupus C, to lament the unfortunate breaks that have happened for you in the last 24 hours. Jed, I want to add to your, you know, the UFC is one injury away

doing the right thing. I think we can, another saying we can add to that is the worst, once you reach the top 10, the UFC, really the worst thing you can do, I think, is fight, is be active. Oh, it's an awesome choice. Don't be active if you're in the top 10. That's not what the UFC wants. You already have a certain level of cachet. Just chill for a minute. Be active with those Twitter fingers and just hang on. Just hang around, you know, get you a media outlet that you can interview with every other week and say ridiculous stuff, and you set. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what?

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I'm not. Nothing is certain at 185. I still feel like if Izzy comes back, like just pops out of his hibernation and says, hey, I want that rematch. The UFC will gladly give it to him. It would be, I'm not interested in that. As much as I do want to see him in Strickland fight again someday, if they never do, I won't cry about it. and I certainly don't want it to be next. So nothing guaranteed when.

Again, Drick's fingers crossed, but you're right. The timing has just been so wrong for him to get that shot. It is so wrong. No fault of his own. And yeah, Kamsa is a name like they wanted to push this guy to the moon. He had the belt with COVID. He had the weird weight miss of 279. He's had, you know, who knows, other injuries that we don't know about just visa,

maybe visa issues with, you know, being able to fight in the U.S. every sort of little stumble that you can hit on the way to becoming a contender onto a start, I feel like Hamzat has hit those stumbles. But all they want from him, his highlight real is still so good. All they want from him is one dominant win over a name, and they will shuffle him right into the middleweight championship picture. And then we've already said, yeah, Usman, one of the greatest welterweights of all time, one of the best UFC title runs of all time.

and he's said before, you know, he would consider moving up to 185. His boy easy was there. Now his boy easy is not. So from promotional standpoint, everything is just coming up Millhouse for the UFC. Next question. What does this mean for Paulo Costa? Because I do want to read, he sent a post out. It's quite long, so I won't do all of it.

But like we mentioned up at the top, we sort of there were inklings of something here happening, things getting weird, having surgery. Costa's post essentially says here I was doing everything I could to fight Gorme-Chinchen, his affectionate name for Hamzaa Chimaev in Abu Dhabi, but it's impossible. He has staff, his staff infection in his elbow. He had it eight weeks ago in Brazil, took antibiotics,

had surgery a few weeks out, had it drained, it is still resistant, and apparently doctors want to open his elbow up again for the due to the staff and thus there is no way to get cleared uh one shouts to paula costa for not pulling out of this fight um and really just doing hero's work to not be the guy who who ducked this fight put the onus on other people as the as the fail sons here shouts to you paula costa you're a hero but what does this mean for paula costa because he's been on the outs with the uc to some extent there's been back and forth play with him

over the last few years. This fight, there's a built-in animosity here, there's a storyline. This fight made so much sense on so many ways and was a quick line for Costa back into title consideration. And now, 10 weeks out, he's doing something like this. How, what does the next 10 months look like for Paulo Costa? The good news for Paulo Costa is that the top 15, top 20, middleweight has actually like been somewhat intriguing, at least compared to prior year.

So there are names for him to fight when he comes back. It's not like the end of the world. But I was just looking at his sort of, I think we know it's been well documented. He's not the most active fighter. And since 2018, including 2018, he's only fought once every time. So once in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2020, 2020, 2021, 2022.

And there's always a buzz around his fights. It's always notable when he fights. It's always a top 15, top 10 guy. That's great. I think his next opponent, I'm sure, will also be a top 10, top 15 guy. But it is hard to keep to keep yourself relevant with the matchmakers.

And he's done an amazing job on social media. Him and his girlfriend, fiance, wife, him and his partner, whoever helps him with all the social media stuff. They do an amazing job of keeping his name out there. It's just a shame that he keeps running. We talked about with Shemaya. And Costa on some level has had these problems as well. Just keep injuries, little things here and there.

Matchups just not materializing when they could. I think some of these fights that he's been that have been canceled weren't his fault. That's a fight game. He's had some bad luck. So we don't know when he's coming back. I assume he gets another surgery and it is just for an infection. So it's probably not out for too long. But if it's,

if it goes past first quarter of next year, he'll be 33 years old by the time he returns. Again, not super old, but for someone who hasn't fought a lot, at that point, the clock is going to start ticking on you. So I think he's not in the worst shape, but we are in a situation now where fans,

you know, just they just don't view you as reliable. and the matchmakers are certainly not having you at the top of their plans when it comes to putting these together for, again, for what could be really busy 2024, we just don't know if Bo Hacchina is going to be a part of it. And as you did mention previously, maybe the best thing you can do as a top 10 fighter is simply not fight. This is true. And Paul Cost is doing a great job at that. I just contradicted myself. Maybe he comes back into a number one contentioned fight.

Who knows? But it feels like that won't be the case with Paula Costa. Well, we certainly wishing the best per a tweet that just went up from him. He is having a third surgery scheduled on Friday, so he cannot be medically cleared for the fight next week. Abu Dhabi, where he is still in, he's very pleased with it otherwise. So shouts to him, and we are going to end here, AK, we're going to end on the most important question of all of these.

No, it's not how many Mashulin stars does this card now get? We'll get to that later. I haven't brought it to committee. The question is this. We now knock on wood. We now can be confident to some extent what the co-main event is going to be for UFC 2-94. Early impressions, how does this fight go? Oh, I am still convinced.

Just firing from the hip. There's no prep on this one. No, no. Just saying it with your chest. I am still convinced, Khazushma'am is one of like the 10 best pound-for-pound fighters in the world. people can see our pound for pound rankings Hamzat's on there

I think he's right at the bottom or the top 20 at the very yeah I think he's still in there and that's because some of us haven't ranked super high some of us don't have him ranked at all among the eight panelists who make the M.A.Fighting.com

pound for pound rankings and I've seen a lot of the comments are why has Hansat even on there when this guy fights he is an absolute beast that Gilbert Burns fight I don't care. One person has punched him in his career.

And that Gilbert's fight was awesome That to me showed how tough he is. Like, he got, that's a legitimate war. This is not a guy who just has to, like, dominate people. He can win a back and forth fight. Like, and when he dominates people, it is fantastic. I don't think he does that to Kumar Usman, but I'm going, I'll tell you right now, my early pick of Shama, how does the fight go?

Man, I don't know. I don't know if I can say Shamaev dominates him with the wrestling. I think that's a bit out of the question. But I do think it's striking his brother than people who give him credit for. I think Shemai was really good. I think he can stand. I absolutely think he can stand. bang with Usman and if they do, I think Shemayev wins that one by knockout.

And I also have some confidence as well that if it comes down to it, he can take, he can win a wrestling battle as well. So I'm not counting Usman out at all. The short notice, I think, is also works against him. But even if it wasn't, when this was talked about two years ago, like you said, Jed, I was picking Shemayev. I'm going all the way on the Shemayev train. So I think he not only fights his mind. I think he, not he beats him, excuse me, I think he finished. banishes him. That is, I love this. It's so bold.

That is, that's fantastic. I, my early impressions on this, I'm going back a lot to what I thought a couple of years ago and then just sort of extrapolating out. I think I'm going to take Hamzaa Chamaa. I think that this will be one of the more competitive fights of his career, a la Gilbert Burns, because Kamar Ustman, I would not say he's a great striker, but he is a good striker. and he knows what he can and can't do. He doesn't get out over his skis. I think his jab is going to be a problem. And if Ushman can just do the, you can't take me down,

and I'm going to out jab you and have a little bit, enough power to make it real like he did to Colby Covington, won't be super shocked, but I've been thinking Oussman was falling off physically for a hot minute here. And I think that that's just going to be a big difference, particularly against a guy and Hamzat who probably wasn't ever realistically a welterweight. And Kamala Usman, certainly by no means a small welterweight, but man who never, never had issues making championship weight. I think that size probably does play a difference here. I don't think Hamzat runs him, but I think he's good enough to get the job done, particularly

because, I mean, I don't know what Usman's been prepping for, but I would assume it's not a fight with Hamzaa, I have. So either way, I am, I'm more excited about this. The Costa fight made sense, but it wasn't a fight that really got, you know, got me up for it. This fight, even on short notice, super interested. And then the main event, I mean, it's the fight of the year right now. And frankly, the only thing that's going to knock it off a fight of the year is if this rematch is better. And if this rematch is better, then holy heck, we're doing some things.

So 2.94 has spiced up in the last 24 hours. What the hell happens? I say it all the time. I want to make sure everyone knows it. USC is one injury away from booking a good fight card. Every week is one injury away from a good thing happening. So this time, two injuries away from an amazing fight card. Two injuries away from at least a Musul and star worth of difference here.

At least a musuelan star worth of difference is what these two injuries got. So that is it. AK, thank you for joining me on this quick emergency react pod. But big things happened. We had to talk about it. I don't know what's coming up next to you guys. Maybe we'll be doing another one of these in, you know, three hours because Magrana and Goliath has done something insane. And Johnny Walker's now facing, I don't even know who it would be.

But if until. Daniel Cormier is coming out of retirement. I mean, he is in Abu Dhabi. He's ready to step in. I don't know if he left the thing. but hey, Johnny Walker, D.C. If that's coming, things are going to get out of hand. But until then, thank you for tuning in.

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