MMA Fighting - Fighter vs. Writer: Matt Brown Fixes the UFC Heavyweight Division, Argues for Kamaru Usman Over Ian Machado Garry for Next Title Shot

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

On the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer, UFC legend Matt Brown and Damon Martin discuss the abysmal state of the UFC heavyweight division and what can be done to fix it. Could just a couple of moves actually fix what has become one of the worst weight classes in the sport? Plus we’ll talk about rumors that Islam Makhachev is likely to face Ian Machado Garry next and if that’s the right move for that division? Plus Brown previews his fighter Josiah Harrell making his UFC debut on one week’s notice. All that and more on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer! Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Welcome back to the Fighter versus the writer. I am Damon Martin. He is UFC legend Matt Brown, and we're actually going to open the show this week, Matt, with a couple pieces of really good news. People will get a little downtrodden sometimes talking about combat sports, right?

We actually have some good news. One, I want to mention you to throw it out there. Kane Velasquez, former UFC heavyweight champion, released from prison today, reunited with his family. I'm not going to sit here and ask you to place judgment on what or what did or did not happen, how he ended up there. But I'm just happy to report. He is out of prison.

and he's back home with his family where he belongs. I've talked to a couple people about it today. I was texting with Daniel Cormier about it. He's obviously very excited, one of his closest friends. So, congrats to Kane getting home, well-deserved, and he gets to reunite with his family. And also the other piece of big news, there is a member of the Immortal Martial Arts fighting in the UFC

in just a few days from him out. Your boy, we've had him on the show before. Josiah Harrell's officially a UFC fighter. Yeah, man. It's a good week of good news, right? Yeah, that's really cool You know, especially, you know, King getting out, man, you know, it's about time

That's really great Maybe he'll come back to save the heavyweight division Is that a possibility here? I mean, at this point, I feel like, Do you want to fight a game game? Is there any chance? Because I feel like you can do really, really well right now. Dude, I mean, it would be an epic story, right?

Even he doesn't have much of anybody to To beat not a ton of competition. Like, he could certainly do it, but, hey, that would potentially revitalize that division, right? Then you get Gable Stevenson in, I don't know, six months a year or whatever. And now you've got a real matchup on your hands, you know, could potentially be like one of those real rivalries, like if Tyson Ali, or who am I talking about Tyson, you know, Ali Frazier, you know,

or something along these lines? Yeah, so, man, but either way, good thing, it's cool. He's just good, he's out of prison, right? And then, like you said, with Josiah getting into the UFC, he's the first guy. You know, I guess I wouldn't call him homegrown, you know, because he does train at another gym too. He reps both gyms, Grove City, BJJ, which is actually my first gym where I started. And, you know, so he's trained out of there since he started. So they kind of raised him from the ground up.

But started coming to my gym for more looks and for better stand-ups, start working with me, right? And just more experience in the fight game, I think. And, you know, I mean, I guess you could ask him all the reasons. But so, you know, in a way, sort of from the ground up in terms of standup, because when he came in originally, his standup was kind of silly to me. And I was like, you know, you're a hell of an athlete and hell of a grappler, but, you know, we need to get this standup going. And that's one of the amazing things by him is he's very humble and wants to get better

and is willing to put himself out there and put in the work and earned a lot of responsibility. for him right away, man. He put him many, many hours and shows up on time, stays late, helps clean, you know, he'll teach classes if you ask him. I mean, he's just the exact type of guy that you want to have around your gym. 100%. I know we had him on the show before, obviously

for people who don't remember. He actually had signed with the UFC and he was going to fight Jack Del and Madelena on short notice a couple years ago, and then he had a brain situation, you know, something came up on the scan. He had to get that fix. Unfortunately, he didn't get brought back right away. Had to go out and win a few more fights. He did. We talked about

on the show. He almost said the mighty arm bar ends up getting a third round finish in his most recent fight. And now he got the call-up and Jacoby Smith. Main card, too, which is a pretty cool opportunity in your first UFC fight,

UFC Houston. Listen, no, I were going to be biased. It's your guy. Of course, we're going to be biased on this. But it's very exciting he's getting this opportunity. I know it's never easy stepping in on short notice, but this is what the UFC loves

when you can do that. And I think this is a great matchup. Jacob Smith, Undefeated 2-11 and O guys, I think. So it's kind of an issue matchup in that way. Main card. So, yeah, good opportunity. Yeah, yeah. Definitely not an easy first fight on short notice.

Not an easy first fight to begin with, right? Jacoby Smith is an absolute stud athlete and a really, really good wrestler, right? He was from a Oklahoma State. I think he was a big 12 champ. I don't know if he did he All-American. I'm not sure maybe you know. I think he did. I think he did. Yeah, I think he did too. And, you know, I mean, just a stud athlete. I know he's went and trained with Cormier some. And I know Cormier's big on him. So it'd be good to, uh, stop them and then go make fun of Cormier a little bit and say,

what's up, D.C.? Where's your boys at, you know? So, yeah. Yeah, either way, man, like, you know, it's a great opportunity for Josiah. And there's no one that I would trust more in this spot than Josiah, man. He's got such a good head on his shoulders for this stuff. Even when he got called up to fight Jack Del and Madelena,

I think it was less than a week's notice. I think it was like six days or five days or something. And we got one training session in. and I mean he was calm and cool like it was just meant to be you know like like there wasn't no crazy excitement or anything wasn't no nerves or anxiety it was just like like no this is my destiny and this is where I was I was meant to be the whole time and then you know through the moya moya which was the brain disease that he ended up having watching him go through that and you know I noticed he went through harder times than he showed me but I was so amazed that I never seen

seen any signs of like questioning himself or being down about it or or you know just any of the things that you would expect from someone whose life has been altered like that right i mean it's over a year you know had to have a brain surgery where he's under for nine hours you know under anesthesia for nine fucking hours bro and um you know it's over a year of recovery you know doing a therapy and you know running tons of tests all the time and you know so something that could have killed him. And I mean, this guy just didn't show a single sign of weakness or defeat or anything along those lines.

And I was just, that's when I, my respect for him really went to the next level. I mean, you and I know, and this is not a knock, but this is a reality. Like, you know, you get your dream kind of snatched away from him. You sign with the UFC. You get right to fight a guy who ends up becoming a welterweight champion and you get that taken away from you and you're told like, hey, you got a medical issue that could end your career. A lot of guys would just be like, well, I guess I'm done. Like, you know what I mean? Like I just, and I get it, right? Like you're like, man, your dream is there. You get

snatched away from you. And then they're like, yeah, we can't sign you. We can't keep you because of this brain issue. A lot of people would have said, you know what, I'm just going to cash my chips and walk away. The fact that he didn't, came back, got healthy, got the surgery, got healthy, came back. And obviously, I think he's won, what, three fights, I think since then. And obviously a big stoppage in his before. And he big stoppage in his last one. So it says a lot about the makeup of a person like that, that he was willing to kind of go through all that and come out on the other side. Now he's getting his opportunity, and this is a fun fight too. Jukobi's good. You're right. You're absolutely right. He's very good fighter. But I think there's a reason why they stayed

on the main card. Like, this is a really good fight. Yeah. And, man, you know, people quit for less injuries than that. You know, I mean, this is a life-altering injury. You know, this is, like, you know, not only could he have, you know, was he just out for a little bit and, you know, serious surgery and everything. I mean, he literally could have died at any minute. And especially if he would have got knocked out or choked out, like there would have been, which fortunately, you know, he's such a great athlete. And that never happened to him, you know, in training or anything.

But boy, you know, it shook me a little bit too. I was like, dude, like, I've hit the guy pretty hard before, you know. Like, I never knocked him out, you know, but, you know, it could have happened at any moment, you know. I probably wasn't choking him out. Like, he's a killer. But, but, yeah, so, I mean, so much respect for them throughout this whole process. And it's been amazing to see them.

Again, I've seen people mentally break, but far less injuries. You know, and you know, ACL's a big one, right? And you see guys that just don't come back the same, right? You know, that time off kind of dampen their fire a little bit. So it's cool to see, man. It's cool to be a part of his journey. And you'll be down there cornering him this weekend in Houston. So the Immortal show is going down to Houston for the EOC cars.

That should be interesting. Yeah, yeah, it's going to be a great time, man. I'm really excited to see this go down. Yeah, I look forward to it. I can't wait for Saturday. You mentioned injuries, and I want to bring this up because not a whole lot. Obviously, we're coming off a weekend with no UFC event. And one of the biggest news stories that came out of the last week is Tom Aspin.

I'm sure you saw had double eye surgery. And his doctors basically said, you know, working to get him back to full fighting health. And it's so crazy. There was this wild rumor going around. Like he was being asked to relinquish his title. That never happened, by the way. He just fought in October. I mean, does it suck?

You only got to fight for like two minutes or three minutes? Sure. But it was October. This is like, not even six months ago this happened. So let's slow down to the whole stripping of the title thing. But the reality is with the double eye surgery, we don't know when time is coming back. Like there is no estimated time. Like, we don't know.

Is it going to be two months? It's going to be four months. It's going to be a year. We have no idea. Now, if we start getting into October, November and we still don't get any updates, then I could see where the UFC might do make that move. But here's the problem. And I'm sure you saw this news too, Matt.

You know, Jelton Almeida got released. Now, he was going to go down to light heavyweight, but he was a heavyweight. Didn't look great in his last couple of fights. Very one-dimensional fighter. And this kind of brings up a bit of a subject now where we're at with, like, the heavyweight division is in shambles. I mean, it's just like in, like in any other era, like if Tom's out, just like when John, when John Jones was going to fight Steepay, and he got dropped out and Steve A didn't get pulled back in, they got Tom Aspinall and Sergey Pavlovich, who was on a huge win streak at that point. when we're like, you know what, it's not John and Steve, but that's a fight that makes sense, right? We don't, I mean, the division right now is just in bad, bad shape.

Like, you couldn't tell, like, I guess you could try to push Volkov in there against Gone again, even though I think he beat him the first time. Obviously, I know Sergey's still out there. He's obviously a very good fighter, and, you know, Curtis Blaze is lingering somewhere out there, but he's had a couple opportunities. It's just like, this division is bad right now. And we'll talk about Gable Steve's and he's guy in his fight coming up this week, and I assume he's going to be coming in soon,

but like we don't know that yet. We don't know their timeline. So he's not in the UFC right now. The heavy way, I mean, have you ever seen a heavyweight division this bad before? Like, it's really bad right now.

Yeah. And, you know, the heavyweight division is always one of those divisions. It's only going to have three, four, maybe five, like really good guys, right? It's just that type of division.

It's like in boxing, you know, there's been like up for a long time. Usually like that in wrestling a little bit, right? Like, you know, heavy weights aren't meant to be doing combat sports really you know they're not like built for it necessarily you know i think they're you know in the highest level athletes if you're a big guy like like you're probably you're doing everything you can to get to the NFL right that's a much higher

paying better job right yeah sure probably a lot easier i think right and um in some ways i guess it's you know just as hard in other ways but um you know i don't know what the answer is man like what do you do to attract big guys? I mean, you know, about the only thing we can say is like, you know, pay them more. But, you know, at the same time, you know, we've seen this with a boxing, you know, that's the sport's been around for very long. And it goes through waves like that all the time too, right? I mean, you had like the Ollie era, then it went down a little bit.

You know, like Tyson era went down. And, you know what I mean? It's kind of always been like this. And, you know, it was down. Well, Clitchco had it for a long time. And a lot of people might have considered it down at that point, right? because no one was really impressed with Klitschko, but he kept winning, like, crazy, right?

And then, you know, then you get Fury come along, and, you know, we had some potential hope with, like, Deonté Wilder, right, and Anthony Joshua, but then Fury comes along and beats everybody up, and now you got Usik, who's, you know, amazingly impressive. But, you know, it's, I think it's just a thing with heavyweights, man, it just kind of fluctuates and kind of goes up and down a lot.

I mean, you remember years ago when the UFC was kind of like, you know, when they were battling with pride and all the great heavyweights were in pride when O'Gar and Fador and beautiful times. Crow Cobb, all those guys. And the UFC had Andre Arlowski and Frank Meir. And then they had Andre Arlowski and Tim Sylvia and Tim Sylvia and Frank and Andre fall like 19 times because they had no one else for them to fight. I think they did five times. They didn't fall a bunch. Yeah, I think they actually did five times. But like that was probably the other time when it was really bad.

But see, even then, though, you could say, well, look at pride. Like, pride had the heavy weights. No one was saying, like, heavyweight was just bad. We just didn't have it in the UFC, and then they bought pride and we brought guys over. Like, you can't even say there's heavy weights outside of the UFC. Like, you look like, you know, and Ghana is the one guy, but he's 39, hasn't fought in two years. And it's kind of like, he's kind of out of side out of mind. We know he's not coming back to UFC.

That ain't going to happen. Right. You know, Hinen and Ferrer. Like, we know what he is. Like, Vidimim Kost legit. Like, that's one guy. But, like, even him. like he's really a light heavyweight he's just kind of

blown it up to heavyweight he's not really a big heavyweight but it's just like there's not even that like that was like even when we had Arlowski and Sylvia and and Mir before Mir broke his leg in that motorcycle accident like at least we had a couple like we had the idea that like we could see No Gary we could see Fador we could see you know semi-Shilts or whoever else was over there at the time who was like doing well or fighting over there guys who were heavyweights

I mean it's just bad right now like if you booked anybody against Gahn while Aspinall's out, it almost wouldn't make sense. Like, there's just, like, I think Volkov's probably the most likely candidate, but even then, like, he barely, I mean, he lost the Gond. I thought he won the fight, but it wasn't a great fight either way, and he has a really boring fight with Almeda. Granted, that's also on Almeida. He clearly tried to make that a very boring fight, but, like, the only excitement

we have is Gable Simpson, and that's a guy who's not even in the U.S. He's got two professional fights. Like, we're depending on him. Now, yes, you were absolutely right. he's a prospect of all prospects, and 100% I believe he could come in a rec shop right now. But still, he's 2-0. Like, you know, any athletes should be given time to develop and evolve.

It's just, it's really, really bad right now. Like, we talked about, like, I said this for a while about women's, about some of the women's divisions, Banterway in particular, and I said until Kayla came out, I was like, my God, like, this division's really bad right now. And thankfully, Kayla came in and kind of stole the show. We thought Aspinall was going to be that guy. Now we're stuck with him dealing with his eye problem.

We don't know when he's going to fight again. Yeah, well, that's the thing. It only takes one person, right? Really to kind of revitalize the division because no one really cares who they're beating, right? They can kind of build up anyone good enough to come and beat him. So, you know, with that said, I think you're kind of forgetting about the one X-Factor guy too

and Alex Pereira. He comes up to heavyweight. I think that revitalizes that division a lot, right? Because him coming up for one, being a, you know, he was a 185er originally. He moves all the way up to heavyweight looking for his third, title, you know, he's not going to be the favorite even against some of these lesser ranked, so to speak, guys, you know, maybe lesser valuable guys, I should say, you know, like a surreal

gone or Volkov. I mean, there's some, you know, these are some tough matchups for him, right? And, or, you know, especially even like a Curtis Blades or, you know, who wouldn't want to see him fight Derek Lewis, right? I think that'd be funer in hell, you know, or, you know, there's, there's good, like, fights and good names out there for him that I think could pump up. And I think he's kind of X factor. Gable Stevenson coming through is obviously going to be the X factor because he's going to fuck everybody up, whether you like it or not.

And, you know, who knows? How old's Kane? I mean, does he actually have a shot at coming back? He's what, 38, 39 probably? He's 43. He's 43. Oh, he's 43. I didn't realize he was that old.

And I thought he was younger when he, maybe just time moved so damn fast, right? Yeah. Yeah, damn. That's crazy. I mean, I guess he was like around my era, huh? Like, he was, yeah, kind of champion then. Yeah. We're fucking old motherfuckers, Damon.

Well, yeah, but with that said, I mean, I think they'll find guys, man. I think it'll come around, you know? I think Aspinall will probably be able to come back. But the one thing about Aspinall is like, I think he's a smart enough guy that, like, if it's not, if his eye isn't where it needs to be, like, he's the type that would be like,

look, I'm not going to risk my, my my sight for this where where bisping's like I don't give a fuck let's go right he's a you know he's a crazy motherfucker right um aspinall seems to me you know i don't know personally but he comes across to me like a very intelligent guy with his head on his shoulders and um is more of a person than just a fighter right i'm not saying that that's who bisping is you know he's obviously like a great actor well i don't know acting i haven't seen his movies but great commentator great analyst great speaker so you You know, he has a lot going for him. But, you know, I think at the time he was fighting.

I mean, he only thought of himself as a fighter, right? And I think he didn't really have his mind towards anything else. So he was willing to make that red squares. I don't think Aspenol is that guy. Not knowing him personally, again, but he doesn't come across to me as that guy. Do you think, like, because I'm just throwing this out as an idea, but if Aspinel is going to continue to be out for a little while and he just had double eye surgery, I can't imagine he's going to be booking a fight by like May or June.

I'm guessing. I'm just guessing, but, like, you know, that's the timeline. If you're the UFC, do you book Cyril Gone against Alex Pereira in, like, an interim title fight just to keep the division moving a little bit? And then the winner gets Aspinall when he comes back? Like, would that be the move? Wouldn't you make that move? I think so, right?

I think that's totally the move, especially if Alex is actually wanting to go to heavyweight. I don't know if he, has he ever actually said that out loud? He has. He said he's talking about going to heavyweight, for sure. Because he was going to go to John Jones. He was going to invite John Jones in heavyweight. That was going to be heavyweight. Yeah.

I mean, I guess made my question, I know he said it out loud, but I guess my question is like, how serious is he really taking that? You know, there's a lot of guys talk about moving up and doing different things for publicity or whatever. Alex is certainly the type of guy I would do it. He's a huge son of a bitch, brother. Like I hung out with him way back in his glory days.

You know, glory of the promotion. He's actually in his glory days now, right? But, you know, and I couldn't believe how big that guy was, man. was blood i was like i don't know how you're making and he's not skinny either i mean he's very ripped and lean and but boy he is a big guy man so i see him fitting in the heavy weight well anyway so i just didn't know if he was actually taking as serious but sounds like he is and i think that's totally the fight that you make i mean the only downside is like how many title shots has this been for surreal now um you know if he fights Alex i think it'd be his fourth one his

fourth try and and it's like if surreal wins you're kind of like okay we had four tries to do it but I think here's the thing and you can disagree with if you want but I think when you get a division that's kind of a barren wasteland

for lack of a better word like it's just not good right now we all had our hopes pinned on Tom Aspinon and if Tom Aspinall had gone out there and wrecked Cyril Gaon that a lot of us expected him to do and it wasn't going out it didn't start that way anyways

we would still be riding high on Tom Aspinall Tom Aspinall could beat Jelton Almeda, Tom Aspenov could beat Alexander Volkov again, he could do that, but we had that one guy, right? Because, like, after John Jones cleared out light heavyweight, we weren't that excited about him fighting Tiago Silva

or Tiago Santos, whoever the hell it was. You know, we weren't excited by him fighting Dominic Reyes although that ended up made a much better fight. But, like, we were all enamored with John because John was the greatest of all time. I think right now women's bandway, it's the same way. Like, we had Kayla. Kala is the best. Like, she is the best.

And the excitement of a man to Nina is coming back, what kind of raised the level for that. But we had won, right? We had the great champion. You're talking about heavyweight. Like, when Tyson Fury became champion, I don't know that he was facing the best competition in the world at that point.

And it took a little while for guys like Usick and Deonté Wilder to kind of get in there and challenge them. It's just Deontay Wilder, right? Like that big rivalry is what you need, right? But like you just need one. Like it or not, you really just need one to get people excited about. And right now people are down on time of Amplandah. I don't agree with the idea that, like,

he's faking that. That's the dumbest shit ever. silly, yeah. But the reality is he's injured right now. He's out. So we kind of got to put him out of the side out of mind. All we're thinking about him right now is winter his eyes are going to be healed to allow him to fight again. And you're right.

Cyril Gahn has fought for the title four times. There's not really excitement there. But Alex Pereer coming in, you can sell that fight. Gable Stevenson coming in. You can sell. So like those two guys, if you get Alex Pereer and Gable Stevenson in the UFC Heavyweight Division, I think the entire narrative changes. Because now you got a real prospect, like a real prospect,

like a real legit prospect and you got, because look at Light Heavyweight. It's not like Light Heavyweight's the deepest division in the sport right now. Like who was getting like, but you had Alex Pereira. He was the Terminator. And even though he lost to Anka, when he got the rematch, he absolutely blew the doors off of him. And he has that great football roundtree.

Obviously, he has several wins every year at Prohashka. Like we all, like Light Heavyweight's not the deepest division in the world right now, but you had Alex, right? Like you had the star. Yep. If you can bring in Alex and Heavyweight and you can bring in Gable until Tom can come back, then you kind of revitalize that division a little bit.

You don't need 10 guys. I don't know. There's ever been 10 great heavyweights in the division. You know, five is pushing it. Yeah. And matchup-wise, I mean, what a tremendous matchup. Obviously, like, I think most of us are going to be favoring Gable pretty heavy in that fight. But, you know, everybody's saying, well, Gable's problem is his experience.

That's the first thing that you hear. Well, it's like, okay, well, Alex has the experience. by a very, very large margin. But I mean, even if you do Alex and Gone, like, and you just let Gable come in and start wrecking number 15, number 14, like let him work his way up. You do Gond versus Pereira. There's excitement there because it's Alex Pereira.

Like, we're no longer focused on the guy who's had four title shots and not got in the belt. We're focused on Alex going to become a three-division champion, which has never been done before. Or if gone wins, you know, it's basically the same matchup for Gable either way, right? It's not a whole big of a difference. So, yeah, I like where your head's out there, right? Like, let them two fight. Maybe as Gable builds himself up, you know, they get one more fight by, you know, for somebody for them to beat because you want that Gable,

Pereira or Gable Ghan match up, you know, and, you know, keep building the hype of Ghan or Pereira. And let's just assume, you know, it's Pereira, right? And then Gable gets a couple wins. He only needs, what, two wins. you give them a title shot. I mean, I mean, I give them a title shot day one personally if I'm Dana, but, you know, I don't see them doing that.

But then you got Aspinall who could also come back. Then you got that. Yeah, and Aspenol could come back. Yeah, now you actually got like a little triangle thing going on, right? Maybe even a square at some point, right? Like you got some shit going on, right? Some different matchups. And that's, but that's, that's, that was.

was my point kind of from the beginning, right? Is these things, the heavyweight division is very circular. It seems to me, right? It's been like that in boxing forever. Like, everybody's like, oh, it's dead. Even boxing in general is kind of like that, right? Like, it kind of dies off a little bit,

and then, oh, another big fight comes up, right? And then it kind of dies off. Like, oh, the new star coming up, right? And there's, you know, like, even now, I mean, you know, since Floyd went away and Pachial went away, it's kind of everybody's like, who's the next guy, you know? And then Canello popped up, right? And then Bud Crawford worked his way up.

And now those guys are kind of on the way out. And it's like, well, who's the next guy? Well, he kind of got Usik out there who, you know, I don't know how much longer he has. But, you know, now you got Shakur Stevenson. You know, he's going to be a big star, I think. If he fights the way he fought Teofamo last week or a couple weeks ago and keeps doing what he's doing, right? I think he has potential for startup.

You know, and there's other guys, too. you know there's a there's always more guys and it's a little bit circular like that combat sports in these kind of i don't know heavy weight and sometimes a lightweight right like you know like now we got in a way who's you know finally starting to make some waves in the world right but he's like when was the last guy that was that small you know really make waves in the world right i i would say probably like god i can't even think of one Prince Haseem. Prince Nasim.

Prince Nasim. Prince Nasim. May Barrera. He was a Marales and Barrera. Like they're real small. You know, but it's been a while, right? It's circular. Well, I think, like, I think heavyweight boxing is a great example of that because, like, everyone loved Mike Tyson.

When Mike Tyson was winning and Mike Tyson was killing people, the heavyweight division was pretty dreadful at that point, really think about it. Like, you look at the record, the guys who are like Trevor Burbank and guys he was beaten. Like, they're not guys who, like, stuck around and they were, like, multi-time. champions, but they were getting absolutely murdered by Mike Tyson. People didn't care because Mike Tyson was just knocking them dead and absolutely knocking them across the ring. And that's all people cared about. And you mentioned Fury, like Fury beat Klitsko becomes champion, which was like very welcome because Klitsko is a very boring, you know, you know.

Long time boring. Yeah, long time boring fighter. He was a big star in Europe. He was. Like Europeans loved him. Yeah, but over here it was just like, oh, whatever, we don't care. He's fighting in Germany at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. We don't care.

Fury comes in. He has a little bit of that attitude. that little bit of that swagger. And then, like, he had three fights with Deonté Wilder, and it's not like, I mean, the first one was great. That was very close, obviously, the knockdowns. Somehow he resurrected himself off the canvas and finished the fight. But it was a one-sided fight until the knockdowns.

But then, you know, Fury comes out in the next two and just absolutely demolishes Deonti. And then, you know, out of nowhere, here comes to Usik. He had one more guy. And, you know, and then obviously he goes out and Bees Fury twice in a row. Then you had Dubois, had, like, the question about the first fight with Usick, Lillio, wasn't illegal. Then he comes out.

who just lays waste to him. And I like Joseph Parker. I like some of the other heavy weights, but none of those guys are really like of that level. Like they're like the, you know, they're the Volkov or the Derek Lewis or the guys who are fun to watch or whatever, but they're not probably going to be championship level material guys. But really you're coming down to just a couple guys in heavyweight boxing too.

You're talking about Fury. You're talking about Usik or at the time wilder, things like that. So like as much as we're all hitting the panic button and saying heavyweight is dreadful right now, It is. It is pretty dreadful right now. You bring in Pereira, you bring in Gable Steebson, the excitement goes through the roof. And it's not about having 20 guys deep. It's about having three or four really elite fighters that you can start mix and matching and putting them in there. And I think you bring in Pereira against Gond while Aspinall's out.

That's a really fun fight two strikers, two high-level strikers. You bring Gable and you let Gable beat the shit out number 15, number 11, number 8. and by the time Tom's back, then you got Tom waiting in the wings, you got Gable ready, then you got four guys. It may not be the deepest division in the world, but it's never been the deepest division in the world. But if you bring in those, and suddenly we're not talking about how terrible it is. Right now we just have two and one of them's injured.

But if you bring in him prayer, you bring in Gable. You're not talking about, you know, say Tom, I spent all of a son there. Like, we wouldn't be talking about, well, who does he fight? Nobody deserves it. Right. They'd be like, oh, this guy is the one that's going to give him a fight. this guy's going to be the one that gives them a fight and oh this is an interesting matchup but

what takes is you know what takes really two but you know you kind of want like a third and maybe a fourth in there too but it's all it really takes and um yes it'd be I hope Aspinall is able to come back and I hope this works the way that we're seeing it in our heads work out um unfortunately for everyone Gabe will fuck some all like like it's all it's all like fun because Gable would be in there just fucking wrecking them all. But that's, but that like, for now, you bring in Pereira, where he's talked about it. And, you know, I mean, I'm not, I'm sorry.

I'm not trying to knock on the guys in division. Like, you know, Carlos Olberg, who's a very good fighter, but like, what would you be more excited about? Carlos Alberg, Alex Pereira, Alex Pereira versus Cyril Gan. Yeah, well, I, you know, I'm guilty as a mainstream watcher of combat sports where I just know Cyril Gan a hell of a lot better. Like, I've seen him fight a lot more, and I know what he's capable of, and I know what we're going to get. And I know his personality a little bit.

I know a little bit of the drama and, you know, things like that where Carlos Sahlberg, I mean, I've seen him fight once. And I don't really remember the fight that well. And, you know, I know he's a hell of good fighter, right? But, like, I know Saril God. Yeah. And it takes a little bit of that, right? Like, that's why they do build up fights. That's why they put you on the prelims first, blah, blah, blah.

You know, they can say he's done this and he's done this and et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, Alberg just, I don't even know his record, right? But, you know, he just happens to be in one of those positions. We're like, no one really knows his name. I mean, until you just said it, I forgot he was even, you know, in the top of the heavyweight division. Light heavyweight, yeah. But it's like. Or light heavyweight, yeah.

Yeah. But, but like, imagine this. And, you know, I'm assuming Aspenol's coming back. We're just not going to get him back right away. But imagine, let's just say June, July. June's the White House. We got obviously the international fight week in July. Let's just say hypothetically.

You book Alex Prair against Cyril Gaughan in an interim title fight. The winner obviously is going to get Tom when he comes back. And you put Gable as the opening fight on the main card. Now imagine how much more excitement there is about the heavyweight division all of a sudden. Like you've just fixed it. Yeah. I mean, getting Gable for the White House event would be a perfect move. Yeah.

The Olympic gold champion. I mean, bro, like, is that not a no-brainer? Like, bring this some bitch in. I don't care if you got six fights. Make two of them gable. Like, let him fight two people that night. You know, like, I don't care. Like, that's the guy to bring it.

You resurrect the division in just a couple moves because it doesn't take much. Like I said, you just need a couple of fighters in there. The problem is right now we have two and what I'm injured. So we're like, man, what do we do? Like, Gon Campo. But if you bring in Pereira, he's a legit star, big name. and really there's an intriguing story there because he's already been two division champion.

Man, talking about making history as a three division champion. And you get able to the Olympic gold medals, the future of the sport, like that suddenly your heavyweight's exciting again. And if you put Pereira and he goes in and wins and he becomes champion, now you've got an absolute ginormous heavyweight champion star, which is really what the heavyweight division needs, what the UFC needs, right?

having a great heavyweight champion that's a star goes farther than any other weight division and Alex could absolutely be that guy you know especially I mean he goes in fights gone I mean that's a very winnable fight for him you know yeah I mean you got to remember in the history of heavyweight division like there's always been at one or two guys so it wasn't like the division's always been that deep like when you know steppe was champion and then when daniel cormay finally went to heavyweight because we all thought man he should have been a heavyweight the whole time he just didn't because he didn't want to have a conflict with his boy came to lascas he goes up knocks out D.C., knocks out Miochich, and it's like a really exciting time because D.C. talks well,

he's a very, you know, well-spoken guy, you know, very well-known guy. He becomes champion, injects that excitement. That's all, you just need that. If Pereira becomes champion, that, that, like, changes the narrative entirely. And I'm not saying he won, by the way. Gone's an elite striker. I'm not saying he would go in and just run through Cyril Gond. Yeah. But imagine the other side of him, if Cyril Gond knocks out Alex Pereira, that's a huge win for him. Like, that's a massive win for Cyril Gond. Yeah, it's unfortunate that situation he would be in because he knocks out Alex Pereira. And I think it doesn't bring him up as much as he would bring up Alex Pereer if he won, right?

Because everybody's, well, he went up one too many divisions, right? Up to heavyweight. The guys is bigger, you know, and all that kind of stuff. But even the first thing I thought it was like when Couture beat Sylvia for the champion, I mean, he beat Tim Sylvia for Christ's sake. Like it wasn't like, you know, this was an amazing deep division or anything. Tim Sylvia was your champion, you know, and Couture come in and woped him for five rounds,

and I was there that night when it happened. I think you were there too. I was there too, yeah. And it was glorious and it was amazing. But, I mean, that wasn't like some deep division that Couture had to run through to get there. I think he was making a comeback, if I'm not right. Like, he'd been out for a while and he'd been a light heavy.

He'd just got the title fight because he was a light, yeah, he was a light heavy, right? and they just needed somebody and they're like, Randy, can you please just beat this guy? We don't want him being our champion. And he did. I remember when he got a knockdown early on, the crowd lost their shit. Like, they went nuts.

The loudest arena I've ever heard in my life, you know, for 10, 20 seconds of them, that 10, 20 seconds will be ingrained in my brain forever because I never heard an arena just blow up that loud before. I think every single person in that arena stood up and screamed. Yeah, so we have officially saved the heavyweight division, Matt. We just need to make two key moves.

Bring in Alex Pereira and bring in Gabriel Steveson, and suddenly you got excitement back. And then, you know, wait for Tom Aspernel to get healthy. You got four guys. There's barely four guys relevant in heavyweight boxing right now. Like, there's, you know, you got the young kid coming up, that Moses, the Tom is at his name. He's coming up.

Moise is kind of coming up, but like he's not quite there yet. But obviously you got, you know, Fury coming back. I don't know how legit that's going to be. But you got Ussick still out there. Dubois still out there. Like there's a couple of names. Because Ux's run through everybody. So he's kind of like standing on his own right now.

But, you know, you get a couple of wins here and there. But yeah, it's not like heavyweight boxing is like 10 fighters deep. There's like four or five. You know, you just need four or five. You bring in Pereira. You bring in Gable. Wait for Aspinall to come back. You get those four guys.

Suddenly you got some interest, some buzz moving again. Whereas right now we're just stuck because Aspinol's out and Gons is the only other guy. and no one's getting excited about Gon Volkov 2. They're just not. But gone Pereira, that's a fight. Gable Pereira, Gable, you know, those are fights. And like I said, and Gable doesn't need to fight anyone relevant for a while. It's just because he's Gable.

Steve, so he can come and just absolutely wreck shop against the number 15 guy, the number 13 guy, whatever. And just like Gable run, rough shot over them. And then suddenly it's like two or three fights. It's like, oh, man, we want to see Gable in Pereira, we want to see Gable and Aspenol. Whatever the matchup is, suddenly heavyweight. is saved. So it's not that hard.

Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I mean, that's what it needs. You know, we should be the UFC matchmakers and recruiters. I agree. We just saved the fucking Henry Division, bro. We did. We did. Real quick, before we get out of here, Matt, we're still waiting on some announcements. Obviously,

the UFC White House cars getting worked on right now. There was a rumor that came out a day or so ago that, you know, they're looking at what we predicted Justin Gage and Ilya being the main event for the White House. How exciting that's going to be. I guess we'll find out in June, but the other thing that came out was Islam McCachiev fighting a legit welterweight. His manager, Ali Abdelaziz, had tweeted recently saying, like, he's going to fight a real

welterweight contender, it's not going to be somebody blowing up from lightweight. I know because Islam said he would fight Ilya. I don't like that for Ilya chelior way, like maybe a lightweight when it was going to happen, but not now at welterweight, but that's neither here nor there. Ali had said, like, a legit welterweight contender. Now, it sounds like, and I haven't confirmed this, this is not 100%, but I've heard that Michael Morales is getting a fight against somebody else. I've heard rumors of Jack Della Madeline.

I've heard rumors of Carlos Pratchez. Point being, he's probably not getting the title shot. So the two names out there are Usman, Kumar Usman, and Ian Machado Gary. And the rumor right now is Ian Machado Gary. Now, it's not a done deal. I've not heard anything concrete. I'm just saying there's rumors floating out there. So let me play the hypothetical game with you, Matt,

because we talked about why Usman should get the shot, or we would have no problem with Usman getting the shot because of his resume. How do you feel about Ian Machado Gary, getting a title shot against Islam Akachev, if that's the way it goes. Well, when we talked about before, I mean, I've vouched for Usman. I think he should be getting the title shot. You know, I wouldn't be mad at Ian Gary getting it. I just, I do think that that's probably Islam's easiest fight in the division.

But not that, not that's not a winnable fight for Ian Gary. I think that's a very winnable fight for him. I mean, I think his stand-up is worlds better than Islam's. And if he can muster a way to keep it on the feet, I think he can win that fight, but I don't see any chance of him keeping that on the feet, right? I mean, I think Islam is going to take him down. And I think if it goes to the ground, I think it's a pretty easy fight for Islam on the ground. And, you know, hopefully Ian can prove me wrong on that.

But, you know, I like the kid. But, you know, you got to think that Ushman is the tougher fight there. So I want to see Islam fight the toughest fight they can. You know, Uzman's aging out too, right? I mean, he's only got so many fights left in him. So, you know, we talked about it before. I think he deserves that fight. So that's where I'm at on that.

Well, remember we were talking a little while ago, a few months ago, before Lorone Murphy fought Aaron Pico. And I was kind of railing on Lerone a little bit. I was like, Lerone is good, but every time he fights, I forget his fight five minutes later. Like, he fights, he wins, and I completely forgot about whatever he happened. And then he goes out there and has that incredible knockout against Aaron Pico. Now, granted, you got, you know, Pico's style kind of makes for those kind of opportunities. used to happen, but Lorone took advantage of it and he made it happen.

Maybe there's never going to be another Laurel Murphy fight that's as exciting for the rest of his career. I have no idea. But he did have that one, and that made a difference. The problem of him Ian Gary, he is a good fighter. There's no doubt that he's a good fighter. But the reality is they had that card in Qatar. And on paper, Ian Gary and Bilal Muhammad is a bigger fight than Dan Hooker and Armistarouk in. I mean, just based on ranking and former champion, first fight back from losing the title against a top five guy.

That should be the five-round main event But they didn't have faith in that being the five-round main event They put his co-main And made Dan Hooker and Armist Surruke in the main event Which ultimately that didn't really even matter Because Armand didn't get a title shot off of it Like that just was just another fight ultimately Whereas Ian Gary and Bilau was like

Former Champion, top contender, those kind of things The problem with Ian Gary is Is like Ian Gary is a great talker We know he likes to talk trash He's very vocal The problem is his performance is inside the Octagon while technically sound, not going to die, he's a very good striker.

He doesn't do anything to make you remember him in those fights. Like, do you remember any great moment in the fight with Balau? I don't. Like, I remember the eyepokes. I remember that happened. But I don't remember like, oh, man, he got him with that head kick or the jumping knee or, you know, whatever. And, like, Balau just showed incredible tough

and he didn't get finished. You can name for me the moments you remember about Carlos Prachis. You can remember the moments about Michael Morales. You can remember moments about Kamar Ustman. I don't really remember much about Ian Machado Gary when he fights. He's a very skilled fighter, very good fighter. But the problem is, he doesn't really stand

out to me, and I don't know there's going to be a lot of excitement about him getting a fight with Islam. Islam's going to be a heavy favorite. He should be. I mean, I just, like, I'm not saying he shouldn't get it. I'm just saying, like, I don't like his chances to win, and I don't like that it's even going to be a very interesting

fight. Like, I just don't see it being an interesting fight, because Ian has just not been that guy. Ian's the guy who talks a big game, and then goes in there and a 29, 28 decision or a 3027 decision and you forget it the next day. Yeah, that is unfortunate, you know, but what I do remember about his fights is his technical prowess, right? And or when he fought Chavcott and, you know, he was really hard to take down for

Chavcott. And, you know, there's things I remember. But yeah, and again, I know where you're coming at with that. And just being an athlete and a fighter, a former fighter, I guess, like, I haven't fought anyone in a while, you know. other than my kids or whatever, but, you know, but being, you know, looking at it from that side of things, you know, and I talk about this all the time.

Like, I want people to get title shots based on their ranking, based on the numbers, right, based on objective things, not on whether they please the crowd or whether they're, you know, and that's just what the sort of the more mainstream sort of sentiment is, right? you want to see the guy that does the most memorable thing get the next shot. I want to see the guy who's worked his way and done the proper things to get the next shot. And I would personally like to keep that in the narrative of the sport in general. But as we've said many times, you know, UFC isn't a sport, right?

It's a league of entertainment. So, you know, if you look at it from that side of things, yeah, you give Ian Gary the shot. In terms of, you know, where he's ranked and who he's beat, I don't think he deserves the shot. And that's why I have a vouch for Usman getting the shot there. But, you know, I mean, you can make the argument, you know, what he's done lately too, though, right? He hasn't, you know, I mean, he beat Buckley, but, you know, I think he lost two before that, right? Well, one to come out. To Leon.

And then Tremaya of a middle weight. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, that's, you know, that's where. all this shit gets complicated, and that's, that's why it makes such great conversation, because they keep it in an entertainment league, and it makes it a great conversation, but the, you know, there's no objective ruling on like, hey, you do this, this and this, you get a title shot, you know, you get up with guys like Sarukian who, you know, do a lot

of great things and then make one mistake. It's like, what are I going to do to get a title shot next from that mistake? Well, it's like whenever we feel like it, bro, that's, you know. Yeah, I mean, I mean, based on merit, like, based on merit alone, like, I have no problem with Ian Gary getting a shot. He did just beat Bilal Mohammed. He's won like three in a row, I think, since he beat Prochus, he beat he beat Balal, you know, he's on a couple

good wins. Obviously, the fight with Shopcott was very close. He lost, but it was a good fight. But, you know, and Shabkat's out of the picture right now. He's gone until next year, so we can't put him in the picture. So I, like, and based on merit, I have no problem to Ian Gary getting the shot. I'm just saying, like, I don't get excited about that fight.

Like, sure. Ian's going to talk a lot. He's going to talk a lot. He's going to go in there and try to stand on the outside and kick away Islam and I'm just waiting for Islam to get to take down. Usman, like, the whole Ushman is like... It doesn't bring a lot of hype to the fight, right, outside of him talking. Yeah. Right?

Because, I mean, on paper, I think everybody has an idea of what's going to happen. There's going to be no money coming in on Ian Gary. Yeah. And, and with, like, Usman, yes, I agree. Like, he had three losses in a row. And, you know, I'm like, you're all your revisionist history. No, I mean, he was winning in the fight. against Leondi got caught in the fifth round with the head kick knockout.

He was winning the other fight went down to, I think, 48, 47, very close decision. And he took Hamzot further than anyone's taking Hamzot on 10 days notice. Those things matter. Context matters and now those fights played out. And he goes out there and just whoops Buckley, like absolutely whoops Buckley, who was on a great run at that point. But Usman, you were talking about legacy. Just like we talked about Israel when he came back near like, dude, give him the title shot. Now, it didn't work out.

He lost to drink us, but he got the title shot. And I don't think anyone really complained about that because it's Israel out of Sonia. probably the second greatest middleweight of all time behind Anderson Silva. Okay, cool. Usman's kind of in the same situation. He's like, what is it, the second greatest world's weight of all time behind George St. Pierre? Like, and he's, you know, you're right. He's getting older.

There's only going to be so much time he can actually get this opportunity. And because of his wrestling, because of his pedigree, he could, could give Islam problems that other people can't. Whereas, Ian, we're just saying, like, can you stop to take down? How long can you stop to take down? And can you work on the outside long enough to win a decision? because I don't think he's going to knock out Islammaqa. I mean, anything's possible, but I wouldn't bet money on him knocking out Islammaqa. And Islam's going to be a five or six to one favorite.

I don't think he'd be that. I think he'd be favored to beat Uspin, but I don't think he'd be like a six to one favorite to beat Uzman. Exactly, yeah. So it's like. Like two to one, based on merit, like, yeah, you're right. Like Ian Gary's done it. He's earned it.

But like, I don't really, like, my excitement level is not very high for that fight. Whereas with Uspin, I'm like, oh, you know, it's kind of intriguing. You know, he's been great in his last fight. He's a dog. He's been there for Mshaman, five-round fighter. Yeah, it could be interesting. Whereas Ian Gary, I'm like, eh, I'm pretty much expecting Islam to take him down and mull him on the ground.

I just, that's pretty much what I'm waiting to see happen. Yeah, and I think we probably feel the same way about most of the people in that division, right? And that's why people, me and you, and I'm sure some other people would vouch for Islam getting that shot because we're like, okay, well, I mean, Usman getting that shot. Okay, like here's a guy who at least might give him a hard time, if not, you know, even have a good chance at winning. Again, he'll be an underdog. Like, I would pick Islam to win the fight, but I could see who's going to do it.

Like, there's a world where I see him getting that done. It's just hard to imagine a world where, you know, when you got protests, Morales, Ian Gary, these strikers come in and give Islam really any problems at all outside of, you know, maybe for a couple minutes on the feet, maybe, you know, just until Islam grabs them, right? And when Islam grabs any of these guys, I mean, I don't see them giving him any problems. And I think, like, the one guy, I think is the X factor in the long run, I think is Morales, because Morales has such tremendous power.

Like, he can knock you out with one shot, and he's just a really nasty, powerful dude. Now, if he's on his back with a turtle and he's got Islam on top of him just mulling him, and he made it go the same way. But the difference between, like, a Morales and Ian Garry, you could see Morales having that one shot and maybe the Hail Mary shot maybe he's only shot but at least he's got that ian doesn't have that he doesn't have that one punch knockout power he just needs to catch you you know i mean like prochus same kind of thing like he's got that power like you know he did lose i and gary one a particularly great fight but like he's got that power he's got that that x factory

he can throw in there where it's like man he could he could he could he could and protest this fights unique too, right? Sure. And Morales also, but I think Pratiss is even more unique, right? He's very long and moves in kind of awkward ways, right, that could potentially give Islam some problems where Ian, Ian, Ian is really a little bit more conventional, right? And he's really clean with his technique. I love watching him.

I've said it before. He's got championship level technique. But I said that stuff before Islam came into the division. And when Islam came in, I was like, yeah, you do have championship level technique. and any other day and age. Like, Islam has shown, like, you know, he's going to be very, very difficult guy to beat. If Ian was fighting Jack Delamadalaya, if Ian was fighting Leon Edwards, I'd have a different opinion, but he's not fighting those guys.

Yeah, like the lines on those fights would be very close. But he's not going to be favored to beat Islam, and I don't see him having that, like, yes, anything can happen in a fight, but if you're asking me to bet on it, would I bet on him catching Islam and knocking him out with a shot? probably not you know so it's like who actually has a chance well ozman's like that's why shavkat was so interesting because he does have the wrestling he's a very good yeah and obviously he's just out of the picture right now but usman's got that pedigree he's got the wrestling background he's a very big guy for welts

you know islam's still kind of like working his way into becoming a true welterway so it's like at least there's an intriguing factor there and you can't say that ozman doesn't have a name with he and gary like like with morales and proctor the same kind of thing like oh well they're probably not going to win but at least you know they got a shot because they got that one punch knockout power they could clip him. You're right. Ian Gary is incredibly technically sound. He's a very technically sound fighter,

but nothing stands out about that. Like, oh, man, he's got this incredible uppercut. He's got this incredible power. He could catch him coming in. No, I mean, he could win by just, you know, if he can stuff to take downs and outpoint him for five rounds, but that's a hard gamble against the guy like Islama Kachia. Or fly a knee.

Yeah, fly knee or something like that. But, like, yeah. So, I mean, the reality is like, if Ian got it, would he deserve it? Sure, I can understand that, but would I be excited for that fight? Not really. Now, you give me Oosman. I'm not saying Ousman's done everything to earn it, and he's on this incredible winstreet.

He's got one-fight win streak. He mauled walking Buckley. But Buckley is a very powerful striker, too. But Buckley does have that kind of one-punch knockout power. And Ousman mauled him. There's intrigue there. There's a little bit of intrigue. It may not be the best fight in the world, but there's intrigue there's a chance.

I don't give Ian a great chance of beating Nizlama Kachach, outside of like the, you know, it's a fight, anything could happen kind of thing. Yeah. That's his best chance. It's a fact of his fight and anything can happen. So, yeah, I think we're on the same page there. Yeah, I mean, I guess we'll see what happens, man. You know, I'm going to vouch for Uzman because I think, you know, like I said,

I think like once you build that kind of legacy, I mean, that legacy should mean something. It should mean something for a long time. And, you know, unless they've had the conversation with Usman and be like, look, like, we think you need to be retired. and we don't want to be giving you these big fights. You know, maybe they've had that conversation with them. But outside of that, I mean, you know, unless you're, especially like when he stepped up and fought Hamzada, 185. I mean, he didn't need to do that.

And, you know, he took a big risk. And, you know, it just didn't turn out his way. But it actually turned out great in terms of like, you know, he won the third round. And, you know, a lot of people said, you know, if it would have been four, you know, might have been Usman or five. And so I think you got to take those things into account. And beating Buckley, I mean, that shows, okay, you're still a championship level guy. You are. Like, you still have it.

Like, are you still champion level? I don't know. But you're still, you know, a top five guy. Well, it wasn't like he came back and fought the number 15 guy. Like, Bucking was top six or seven when they fought. You know what I'm saying. You know, like, it wasn't like you fought a bum and, like, you beat the number 15 guy. And you're like, why are you giving it?

It wasn't a two-up fight. Yeah. I know. In no way, Shaper Horv is at a 2-0 fight. Buckley was on a run. He beat the shit out of Colby Covington, who at one point was a very good welterweight, maybe not so much anymore, but he was. And obviously, he beat Wonderboy. He beat, you know, he beat good fighters, earned that number six, seven ranking, whatever it was. And then Ushman just went out there and absolutely mauled him. So, I mean, it didn't like he just beat nobody. Like, he beat a good, a really good welterweight. And, like, I remember more about Ustman's fight over Buckley than I do about Ian Garry's fight over Bilal.

Like, I can tell you right now some moments in Uzman. And so, yeah, like, and I get, like, and I get me or say about meritocracy, like, you know, those new wins and rankings and those things should matter. But the reality is they don't in the UFC. Like it or not, they don't. I mean, we consider and bang the drum all day and say it matters, doesn't matter to them. And they're going to look at, they're going to say, what fight would more people get excited about or actually have a chance of beating Islam, a better chance of beating Islam? And I think that's Usman. Yeah, and even on that point, I mean, I guess if you're the UFC and you're looking at like who, you're, you're, you're looking at like, who, you.

who's going to get more excited about him fighting Usman or Ian Gary? Keeping it real, the mainstream everyday crowd might get every bit as excited or more excited with Ian Gary because he's going to talk the game. You know, they can pump up, you know, his win streak and, you know, the things that he's done. Like, it won't be hard to find highlights, even though it may not be like one-punch knockout highlights, a ton of those, whatever. Whereas Usman, you know, to the mainstream, they're like, like, ah, he's old, you know, his knees, you know, and stuff like that, right? there's because he's been around right so there's there's just more dirt on him right i think that's kind of the way it is right like you know even i guess if you if you listen to joe rogan

you know people can the guy talks four hours of fucking day like you can find shit you know i mean that he's going to say the stupid or are off the wall or off cuff that doesn't make sense right even though he's you know the master and it's actually hard to find that shit because he's a sense of talking, right? But, you know, that's, so that's kind of like with Usman, right? He's been around. We've seen all of his ups and downs and we know his flaws. We just haven't seen as much with Ian Gary outside of, you know, Shavkov beaten him. And, you know, and we know who Islam is, right? So we know, like, it almost doesn't matter who you are. He's going to take you down and he's going to hold you and pound you until he subs you. Yeah. And I, and I, and I, and I,

I think he has less of a chance to do that against Oussman he does against Ian Gary. That's my opinion. Like, there's less of a chance that happens. It may still happen the same way. He may take down Ousman and Malm underground. But at least I know there's a chance it wouldn't happen. I don't have a great feeling if he fights Ian Gary that that doesn't happen. Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more.

So I guess we'll see what the UFC does with it. It sounds like it's probably going to be Ian Gary, though. Yeah, well, we rescued the heavyweight division tonight, so we've done our good dude. So UFC matchmaker, Sean Shelby McManger, on the eye camera who match makes us heavyweight, but whoever it is, listen to the podcast, we just saved your division,

bringing in Alex Pereer, bringing in Gable Steveson, and we'll see what happens to Welterway. Matt, you were headed down to Houston a couple of days. Your boy Josiah Harold's fighting on Saturday night. Cannot wait for that walkout. What was the last time you,

I know you've cornered plenty of fighters in the UFC? When was the last time you corner got in the UFC? No, it's been a couple years. I think Mickey might have been the last one actually. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I know you've cornered a bunch of guys. I've been focused more.

I've had guys asked me. me and, you know, I don't have a ton of interest in it. You know, nobody that's been close enough to me that, that it wouldn't, wouldn't have been awkward turning it down or whatever. But, you know, my goal has been more to build somebody, you know, come from my gym, right? And then I said, Josiah is like half my gym, but enough, you know, like I work with them on a personal level very regularly. And that, it just excites me more. Like, I'm not excited to just go corner someone just to be there, you know, and just show my face and, you know, hang out for a week and talk to UFC people. Like, I've done that shit, you know what I mean? Like,

I've been there, done that enough time. So, you know, I like being in the trenches. I like, you know, working towards a goal with someone and building a purpose and seeing someone succeed with, you know, things that I helped them succeed with, right? So, um, that's, it's going to be a great time. And Josiah would be the first guy that, again, we didn't build them from the ground up, but, you know, more or less come, you know, from the ground up. Not in my gym. I don't know a better way to say it. Yeah, I know.

Columbus born and bread. And I think it's really cool. Like I said, it's going to be cool to hear him come out there and hear from Columbus, Ohio, and hitting the walkout and so always get a little jazzed about that kind of stuff. So, man, very good luck to your boy, Josiah. I think he's going to do very well this weekend. Obviously, we'll be rooting for him. And we'll talk about the aftermath on next week's podcast.

Obviously, you'll be corner him. and you'll be able to tell us the good, the bad and the ugly what comes out of that fight, and I'm sure we'll talk about our next week's podcast. Matt, where can people check out? I'm assuming you're probably going to be, you're going to be Instagramming down in Houston while you're down there. I'm sure I have some photos and videos down there while you're there.

You know it, bro. I am the immortal Instagram and Twitter, the Immortal My Brown on Facebook, and the Immortal 513 on YouTube now. Oh, look at that. I'm going to try to actually get on the YouTube a little bit here and there. There you go. There you go.

And obviously, a big thank you to everyone to do. into our show. Make sure you check us on all your favorite podcast platforms, Apple Podcasts, Spotify. And of course, over on the best website in the world, MMAfighting.com. For Matt Brown, I am Damon Martin. We will see you guys next week. It makes you tune in. Saturday night, U.C. Houston, Josiah Herald, taking on Jacoby Smith. We will have full results and everything on MMA fighting as well. And of course, Matt and I will talk about the fight and everything else going on the sport on next week's podcast. But as always, we want to say thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Fighter versus the writer. We'll see you

next week. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you then. network.