MMA Fighting - Heck of a Morning | Are We Really Saying Khamzat Chimaev's Stock Dropped At UFC 273?

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

Somehow, after defeating one of the top welterweights on the planet in an absolute war at UFC 273, a big portion of the MMA community seems to be writing off Khamzat Chimaev. Why is that? On this edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck gives his thoughts on Chimaev's win over Gilbert Burns in a memorable featured bout this past Saturday in Jacksonville, Fla., Alexander Volkanovski's near perfect game over Chan Sung Jung and where it puts him in the pound-for-pound discussion, Aljamain Sterling exercising the demons against Petr Yan to unify the bantamweight championship, whether Chimaev facing Colby Covington next is the fight to make, and much more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 8 a.m. ET on the MMA Fighting Twitter Spaces. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hope everyone's having a great week so far. Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend partaking in UFC 273 because it was a memorable event. A lot happened. And there is a lot to talk about. of course the night ended in just an incredible performance from Alexander Volcanovsky who at this point has to be in the conversation for the best pound-farm fighter on the planet in my in my eyes right now volkenovsky after that went over the Korean zombie I don't know if he surpasses

Kamara Usman but there is a conversation to be had that was a near perfect game over a really good tough opponent in the Korean zombie and Volkanovsky just ran through him. That fight could have been stopped after the third round. Volcanovsky and Zombie go out to start the fourth. Volcanovsky starts lighting him up like he had done for the previous 15 minutes. Herb Dean, terrific stoppage.

Volcanovsky gets the win, gets the finish, which he needed, by the way. He needed to get a finish, in my opinion, to move up those power-for-power ranking. So right now you can make a strong argument that he is maybe the third best,

second best. you can even make the case of these the best guy right now in the world pound for pound that was an incredible performance hopefully we get the max holloway trilogy fight next but that was some performance from alexander bolkinowski and then aljamed sterling defeats peter yon he is the undisputed unified ufc bandamweight champion split decision close fight very competitive fight this was not a robbery and if you want to know why you can go back and watch, or not watch, but go back and actually read my best friend Alexander Kaylee's robbery review because that's about as in-depth as you can get in terms of breaking that fight

down. And worst case scenario for Sterling, maybe you score to draw. Maybe you give Yon the first round, but certainly not a robbery. Very competitive fight. Algebain Sterling came out. Tremendous second round, tremendous third round. Those are clear rounds. Maybe you could give them a 10-8 in the second.

You could probably make the discussion for a 10-8 for a third In the third I wouldn't 10-8 second not going to argue with you if he scored it that way And then Jan clearly won four and five So the swing round was round one And super close round Very very close round But Algebain Sterling exercises the demons

Gets a just a gigantic weight off of his shoulders And gets a win over Piard or Jan I have a feeling we will see those guys Fight again in the next year or two I would like to see how a third fight played out because you know, Sterling has two official wins over Yan. A lot of people still feel like Jan won the first fight, even though he got DQed.

So I wouldn't mind seeing a third fight between those guys down the road. And then, of course, the story of this entire card and the story of the aftermath is Hamzat Shemlyev, who gets another victory. This time against Gilbert Burns. This time he didn't just run through somebody. Gilbert Burns came and played the game and was as tough as they come. But in the end, Hamzaa Shemayyath wins a 29, 28, unanimous decision across all three scorecards.

And the reaction to this fight in Shemayev's performance is actually puzzling to me. It's actually shocking to me because in my eyes, I was like, wow. I mean, he got tested. Yeah, he made some mistakes. Yeah, you know, maybe the youthfulness, maybe not having that Octagon experience against these top fighters. Yeah, did it come into play? Sure, maybe a little bit. But for people to say, like, this guy is not the real deal because he didn't run through a guy like Gilbert Burns, you're absolutely nuts. You are absolutely insane if you feel that way.

I was actually really impressed by Shabaya on Saturday. Yeah, he didn't go out and bolt him in 18 seconds. Yeah, he didn't take him down and walk him across the cage and have a conversation with Dana White like he did with Lee Jung Leone. But Gilbert Burns, Gillibirds is seconds away for becoming the champion of the world, knocking off the guy in many people's opinion is the best fighter on the planet. He had Usman hurt. He got a little bit, a little bit reckless in there, and that probably cost him the chance to become the champion. But Gilbert Burns is the man.

The guy is so tough, and he showed it in spades on Saturday night. And Shemayev went in there, overcame some adversity, was in big trouble in that second round. it looked like all the momentum. Every piece, every semblance of momentum was on the side of Gilbert Doreno Burns. And Shamaev just bit down on his mouthpiece. He got through it. Burns as well.

All time great fight. And people are saying like, eh, maybe we jumped the gun on Shemayev. Maybe he's not as good as we thought he was. What are you talking about? What are you talking about? I just don't understand it. I just don't understand why the guy beats the number two guy in the world.

It is like fourth UFC fight gets tested. Everyone talked about how big of a step up this would be, that this is the real test. Let's see if this guy's the real deal. And he goes out there and gets into an absolute war with Gilbert Burns and you question him. It's craziness. Now, can you ask the question,

is he the favorite against Kamar Usman? Are you confident up to pick him against a guy like Colby Covington? Yeah, there's questions now. But that doesn't mean he's not the real deal. We knew this could be a tough fight. But maybe the expectations for Shamiya were just, I mean, they were just super high. They were just super high, almost impossibly high.

And that was kind of the question heading into this fight. It was how does he get a fair against, like, the number two guy on the planet? And then in the aftermath, I was like, did we just expect too much from this guy? were our expectations just impossibly high? But I was super impressed.

And I think that fight in the long run does way more for Shamiya in his future than him just going out there and just ragdolling Burns and submitting him in like a minute and a half. He needed this fight. He needed something like this

and he's going to grow tremendously from it. Now, the Colby Covington idea, I wasn't into it. I really wasn't. But after this fight, I'm really, really, into it. I think Leon Edwards will get his title shot.

I mean, you have to give it to him at this point. Let Shamiya do his thing. Now, if you want to bring Shamiya back and do the Colby Covington fight five rounds on ABC, which is something that Dana White and the UFC are looking at right now, sign me up for that. I'm very intrigued by that fight. Especially a five-rounder? What happens in rounds three, four, and five?

What happens if Shemayev can't just pulverize Colby Covey. What if it's the same kind of fight as Gilbert Burns? Now, maybe Colby doesn't have the punching power that a Gilbert Burns has, but he certainly has the gas tank. And if that fight gets deep, what's going to happen? What's going to happen? If Shamiya just had, if Colby has Shamiyaf up against the cage,

and he continues to try to chain takedowns, and he gets him down, and Shemir gets up, and he takes him down again. What's going to happen over the final 15 minutes of that fight? I am super fascinated by that one. So, in my opinion, tremendous performance. Stock risen for Hamzaa Chimae, despite him not running through Gilbert Burns. Good win for McKenzie Dern. Close fight.

A lot of people thought Tisha Torres won that fight. I would be one of those people, but very close fight. Mark Madsen gets the win over Vince Mitchell. He remains undefeated at 12 and 0. Ian Gary gets a decision win over Dary in Weeks. He's still undefeated 9-0. Great fight to Anthony Hernandez and Josh Fremt. Hernandez gets the win there.

Pettington, great performance against Aspen Lad. Julio Arce, good win against Daniel Santos. Unfortunately, he missed weight, Pierre Rodriguez. Good one over Kay Hansen, Alexio Lennox. Win number 60. We got to rock the 60 wins graphic. And then Mike Ballot, in my opinion, was probably the prelim story of the night. Without a doubt, he knocks out Mickey Gall, ferocious knockout.

And then he gets on the microphone, cuts a great promo, comes to the back with us. at the post-fight press conference, just an emotional scrum talking about his coach, talking about things he's dealt with with his own family, his coach's daughter, who's battling cancer, telling the story about how 10 fans in the crowd

at Vistar Veterans Memorial Arena pulled together a little over $1,000 in an envelope. So as he's walking back after knocking out Mickey Golf, fan just hands him an envelope with like $1,000 plus in there to donate to the, this cause for his coach and his 15 year old daughter who's suffering from cancer. I mean, I mean, you can't.

And then says, because Mike Bollett took to the cause, which she said was $10,000, Dana White comes to the back. I ask him about that. And Dana says, tell Mike to keep his money. I'm going to match his win and his show money. And we're going to donate that. And I have a feeling more money is probably coming that cause's way as well. So A plus effort from Mike Bollat.

I think he was the preliminary star of the night. And then just a very memorable. great for him Volcanovsky, great competitive fight between Sterling and Jan. Sterling gets the win. And then Hamzaa Chamaif

gets it done, he gets to give a burn. So I'm feeling this is going to be the Shamiyev show. As I'm blown away by all the reactions to this fight. So if you got some things to say,

we're going to go from a third shows. We will have because we have a lot to discuss. Let's get to. Let's see. with the peeps things.

I'm outside of my patio. So if you hear random vehicles or motorcycles, maybe in the occasional long that is Amnasser, are you there? Hey, what's up? We got you. What's going on?

I'm calling in all the way from Egypt. I just wanted to ask about Hey. You're good. You're good. Yeah, okay. I just wanted to ask about the perception of the Shimaia of result. I mean, in my opinion,

In Adisania, the current gold standard for top performances, him and Uzban, of course, suffered way more against Gastilum and possibly against Vittoria as well. And yet people remained quite high on Adisania as he went up through the ranks and got his title. Why do you reckon that Chimaev is, you know, is it because expectations, like you said, of his potential were so high? And regarding Shemayev, do you think that he would benefit from? I mean, his skill set and his strength are not in doubt, but do you think he would benefit by moving camps to somewhere like at Trevor Whitman where he can really plan his tactics and his fight game,

you know, fight by fight a little bit more conclusively? Is that something that you think he will need eventually down the line, you know, if he is to cement himself as one of the grades? Thank you. Thank you. Wow, Egypt. So this might be, that might be the first call we ever had from Egypt on this show. the camp thing, I think he's fine where he's at.

He's got a good team. He's got a lot of good fighters there. It's not like he's the big fish in the small pond. He's one of the bigger fish in a very deep pond. I mean, they got some fighters. They got some really good uppercummers. Darren Till is there. They got guys like Guram Kutatalatsay.

I mean, they got Alexander Gustafson is there. I mean, they got legit guys there. They have really good coaches. So I don't think it's a matter of camp. And then as far as the other thing goes, kind of comparing him to Adisani and stuff. Like I think at this point, when we see,

we understand who Adisadi is, right? We understand that sometimes he's a counter striker. Sometimes he's going to fight another counter striker. And sometimes maybe those styles, excuse me, don't match up very well. It's not as aesthetically pleasing as him fighting a Brad Tavarez or somebody like that where you can get off

and get in a rhythm and do his, thing. This is this is different. I just think you think about some of like the great movies that have come out. Like like first, I would say right now, because I've had a conversation with with a buddy about this recently, the Batman movie, the new Batman movie. And I went in high expectations. I thought it was good. I thought it was a little long from my tapes. And then I told a friend, I'm like, listen, it's a really good movie. I really liked he goes, oh, everyone's telling me it's the greatest movie of all time. And then he goes and sees he's like, eh, it was fine. but it wasn't the greatest movie of all time.

And I just think sometimes you go into those things, whether it's sports or movies or a television show, which is impossibly high expectations to match. And I think that's what happened here. And honestly, like, you could still have incredibly high expectations of Shamiya. I think he surpassed them in my eyes. I think he surpassed them my eyes because we got to see him tested. Because Gilbert Burns is no joke.

And anyone who says that Shamiyev is not the real deal, not only do I feel like you're disrespecting comments on Shamiya, I feel like you're disrespecting Gilbert Burns because Gilbert Burns, despite the loss, deserves all of our respect because that was a ridiculous fight. And at the end of

the year, when we're doing our award shows, that fight alone is going to be up there for fight of the year. There's like two rounds that can be up there for round of the year. I mean, it was an incredible fight. It was an incredible fight. One of the all-time great fights.

and we're out here questioning Shemayev and disrespecting him and disrespecting Gilberds. It's insane. Absolutely nuts. In my opinion. Maybe you think I'm not, maybe you think I'm crazy. But I think you're crazy if you feel that way. Let's bring him motivated Andy, who was ready to go right off the jump. Motivated Andy, what's up?

Hey, good morning. I know that you're surprised. by the nature of MMA fans, but them riding off Chimai of after a three-round war with a number two in his fifth fight in the U.S.C. I mean, Mike had come on. He's overhyped.

No, I mean, that performance, I think, was, for me, the second best case scenario for Chameo. A war proves himself. But imagine if he had gone out there and knocked out Gilbert Burns in the first. in terms of him fighting next, do we really want to see him against Kobe, though? Not saying that I don't have confidence.

Just the stages are getting magnified more. And even though it is an appropriate step, it might be fighting off a little bit more than he can chew just right now. I mean, we saw the war. Who knows? I'm in a position where it's a very close fight between him and Kobe, but maybe if he gets one right before, like the winner or loser, Bala Muhammad versus Luke Gay, and then a Kobe and then a title shot,

but I don't know. Am I wishful thinking? What would you like to see, Edithin? It's a good question, motivated, Andy. I mean, here's the thing, because I've been asked that a few times, because we obviously hosted on to the, me and AK did on to the next one, and this is a disaster many times of us of us. If, I mean, heading into this fight,

we were all like, Hamza Chamaif is about to leapfrog Leon Edwards and fight Kamara Ouspin. We all thought that. If he goes out there, wins and has a great performance. Forget Colby, forget anybody else. This guy is fighting for the title next against the top pound-for-pound guy on the planet in the minds of a lot of people. So I don't think Colby is a bridge too far because we're,

Who else is he going to fight? Like, Lucke Mohammed. Yeah, I just don't think you're just, I just don't think if you're going to put Shemayef on an ABC card, which is a massive deal in the United States, fighting on ABC, the history that combat sports has had on ABC, especially in the boxing world, wide world of sports, all that stuff. No offense. And I think Vicente Leuke is probably the most underappreciated fighter on planet Earth right now.

I like Belaw Muhammad a lot. great personality, great fighter, but who is going to draw more eyeballs? It's Colby by 20 gazillion miles. And again, I'm not trying to disrespect Bala Muhammad and disrespect Vicente Lucke, but I think just the interest is there. We're trying to get this guy into a title fight. Colby is the guy. Now here's the question.

Will Colby take the fight? Because is the risk there? Does the risk-reward factor line up for Colby? And Colby has done a great job at sort of getting the correct fights. Guys with big names, but guys that he's clearly better than in specific areas. I mean, just look at the resume. The guys did a great job sort of laying out his career and laying out these fights. Will he take this fight with Shemayev?

Will he wait and maybe find himself in a rematch with Jorge Mazadol because of everything that's happened behind the scenes? I've talked to Colby before. He has said he will take the Shemayev. If that's the fight the UFC wants to book, he will take it. And if I'm Colby, that fight is a lot more interesting now because he might feel like he could beat him. He might feel like he could beat Shamiya for right now.

And I'm sure he felt that way to begin with. But he might actually have watched that fight and been like, you know what? Maybe I should get this guy now. Why wait till he potentially wins the title to fight him? Let's get this guy now. Dude got punch in the face really hard a lot of times by Gilbert. he looked human, why not fight him now? And just think about this for Colby too, because he wants to get back to a third

fight with Kamar Usman. And the road to getting to that third fight seemed like it was a really long one. But now, if he goes out there and beats Hamzaa Shemayev, hands him his first L, does it on ABC, he's going to get that fight with Usman again, even though he's lost to him twice. He will earn that third fight. So if he wants the shortest path to a third fight with Usman, another shot at the Welterweight title, this is probably his best, this is probably his best chance. Probably his best chance to do it and do it as quickly as possible.

So matchup-wise, it's interesting. And I understand the question. But I feel like Shemai is in a position right now where he goes out there and loses to Colby. Yeah, some people on Twitter would be like, oh, this guy sucks, which I still won't get. but at least it's like all right Colby's really good and we've all been saying it

Colby if Camar Usman wasn't in the picture Colby's the best welterweight in the world right now so if he goes out there loses to the second best welterweight in the world in everybody's eyes it happens there's like a built-in thing for some people but I think it's got to be the Colby fight at this point

it just is what it is let's bring in Christopher Christopher what's up buddy good you Not too bad, man, not too bad. I've got two questions for you, and apologies in advance for breaking up for Hamzat Burns' conversation.

So the first one is, I was really excited for Pierre Rodriguez's debut on Saturday, someone I've been following for a while, and I thought she looked quite lackfluster and maybe she had those UFC jitters, right? So my question is, I guess, what happens to Kate Hansen at this point? I mean, Piero wasn't great and still beat her.

Does she go back to Invicta? Is she done at the UFC? That's my first question. My second question is with onto the next one, I've always wondered, how the hell does one submit picks? Like, are we tweeting you guys? Are we emailing in you? I'd just like to get involved with you onto the next one.

So that's my questions. Thanks, buddy. to address the onset X-Oin question you can either DM myself or A-K A-K his DMs are open on Twitter

and Instagram so you can submit your picks there you can hit me up on Instagram that's where most of the picks come in that I read

you can hit this up on Twitter AK usually leaves his email address as well I don't think we actually put that out there this week

normally we do at the end of every show because we just assume because we've done like 85 of these that people know by now but then we realize that you know

we're not Ariel We don't have the biggest show in the world. So those are the ways to submit your picks for on. The next one, just a quick thing. Just make sure you get them in early because we usually record those episodes like 10 a.m. Eastern Time. So just be prepared for that. Kay Hanson, yeah, I think it's probably best for her. I know she's young and she's taken, I mean, she's taken a lot.

She's also been through a lot these last 18 months, two years. She's been very open about some of the issues she's had. in her life. I did an interview with her that, I mean, just kind of shocked me with the eating disorder and, you know, everything that she's gone through. It's been a pretty wild road for such a young

fighter. But in terms of just developing as a fighter, I think I think the UFC probably just kind of cuts bait at this point and just like, listen, go off, go fight for Invicta, go fight for the Titan FCs, the CES, the LFAs of the world. Go fight for them.

Get some more experience. you know, get a couple of wins and we'll bring you back. Because I think Angela Hill is like a great example. Comes in super young, goes on the ultimate fighter, suffer some losses. She goes back to Invicta, becomes a champion,

just running through girls, and then comes up and comes back up, gets the call, and she's, you know, she's had some really tough fights and maybe a record doesn't show just how good she actually is.

But her going back to Invicta was like the best thing that could have happened to her. So maybe we look at Kay Hansen the same way. And then with Piera, yeah, we talked to her after the fight. She was definitely nervous. The Bruce Buffer announcement, you could tell. Like, go back and watch Bruce Buffer introducing her. You could see her emotions change.

Like, oh, my, I am fighting in a UFC fight right now. But then there's a certain point in that fight. Like, maybe they, midway through the second round, where she was like, all right, what am I doing? Let's go. And then she, the switch flipped. And then she got after it and beat Kay the rest of the way. So, yeah, for those who were looking at Pierre Rodriguez as, oh, I can't wait to see her debut, yeah, but I think sometimes that first fight just sort of gets the bestia, kind of gets in your mind a little bit,

and I think that's sort of what happened to her, which she sort of admitted, so. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything, like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 9-88, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime. 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada. Hack the holidays with the PC Holiday Insiders Report.

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mouth, all for just $18. Okay, okay. Try the season's hottest flavors from the PC holiday Insiders report. Please feast responsibly. Let's bring in our old buddy, our old pal, New York, Rick. Good morning, buddy. How's things going on this Tuesday? Heck of a morning, Mike.

Heck of a morning. I just heard you make an eloquent case for Colby Covington and Hamzaa Chamaev. I want to offer a bit of a counter proposal for you. If you're Colby Covington and leaking at Hamza Tshamayev and sitting on two losses to Kamaru Usman, one by TKO, one by relatively dominant decision, if you're sitting there looking at that and then trying to carve your path back to the title, maybe, maybe perhaps it could be better to be looking up at middleweight where Israel-Asania is looking for contenders, is starting to lap the division, fight guys twice. Guys who maybe wouldn't have been getting title shots in other divisions are now getting title shots at 185. If you're Colby Covington, rather than potentially go through the ringer with Hamzaa Shamaev, I have a little bit of a different take. I don't necessarily feel that if I was watching that Hamzaat-Shamea fight, I would think that Hamzaa look human or vulnerable. I'd be looking at that fight and thinking, damn, he just jumped up in his fourth UFC fight and put it on the number two guy in the division.

I don't know if I'd want those problems. So if I'm Colby Covington sitting there, perhaps maybe I'm looking at 185 as an actual quicker path back to the title. Or maybe easier path of least resistance. I'll hang up and listen. Your child agrees with you, New York, Rick. And that's always good to have the support of those close to you. Listen, I mean, if the UFC called him right now and said, hey, Canaanaires not going to be ready for international fight week.

you want to fight out of Sonny for the middleweight title he's going to say okay let's do it so yeah it is the shorter path to the title i don't i mean at the same time like i don't think it's the style i i don't with shemaiah i think one thing that colby probably saw that got him excited was as good as hamzat was in my opinion hamzac got a little tired down the stretch got a little tired he's winded i mean after a fight like that i think most people would but there's one guy you could probably put a couple bucks on that probably wouldn't get that tired in a fight like that. And it's Colby. So Colby's probably looking at it thinking, all right, if I can get, if I can push this guy

a little bit for like 10 or so minutes, if I can get this guy tired, then it's my fight. Then I can do whatever I want. I can take him down. I could just, he'll get up. I'll take him down again. I'll just tire him out. And then for the next 10 minutes, I'll just wear on him. Might not be the most aesthetically pleasing thing.

The crowd may not love it. But at least I see something there. Now obviously if Adasanya is there and there's an opportunity, sure, why the hell not? But I just don't know, like, unless they just give him a middleweight title fight, what's the path there? Does he fight Whitaker? Does he fight Vittaker? Does he fight Vittori after they fight?

Does he fight somebody else to try to earn that spot? Or does he just get right into a middleweight title fight? So I think if the UFC called him and said, hey, we're going to give you two choices. You could either headline international fight week and fight Israel Adasania for the middleweight title, or you can headline ABC against Hamzaa Shemaya, five rounds. And if you win, you go fight Kamar Usman. Yeah, you take the former. You go and get the title shot that's right there waiting for you.

And Colby's expressed interest in taking that fight because Chal Sunnan put that out into the universe. And he really liked that idea. So those are the two choices. But I would say, Cannon Air probably gets a shot. And then I don't know. Maybe Colby can fight Hamzad and then fight Whitaker. or excuse me, Adasanya, if he goes out there and beats Canaan Air. Who knows?

I mean, it's kind of too early to tell at this point, but I think right now Colby is probably going to want to stay at 170, get that big fight with Shemaya. But even if he loses to Hamzat, he's still got other fights. He can go fight Mazadol again. Anybody in this division will want to... So he's in an interesting position right now. Let's get to not the above-ground MMA Rino,

the underground MMA Rino. What's uh... Good morning What's up, man So I call him from Michigan What I wanted to say about the whole Comzat Love and Burns fight

Is the way I looked at it Is we already knew That Comzat was good I mean when you look at his background Who comes into you know MMA in these last couple years Mose the grass in the first round

On four guys straight And you know comes in Takes on a top contender he's mainly a very high-class grappler. And so I kind of knew that he was going to do good. What really I took out of the fight was, why did you take him down if you didn't want to actually go to the ground with him? Did you only want to take his back? Are you just scared of his, you know, jiu-jitsu, which I understand, but why'd you take him down if you were too scared to even attempt that?

So is that something that you're in the future? If you're a jiu-jitsu person, comes out. want to, you know, roll with you at all. You know, I mean, and the other part is, you know, going to a decision on that, does it really make him now the third contender with a decision or would that just have because of his height? So we're kind of getting the other side here from the underground I may write. I'm not as, not as extreme as some of the other takes that I've got.

But, yeah, I mean, listen, Hamzad is a monster on top. And if he took him down and got the positions that he won. wanted, he thought there would be easier. Who knows? And then maybe he saw that Gilbert was a little bit more scramble, a little more scrappy than he had thought and sort of changed course. Realize, hey, I'm hurting this guy on the feet a little bit. I don't want to get caught in any kind of a scrambled that puts me in a compromised

position. I'm just going to get back up. So maybe he just thought, like, I'll take him down. I'll get on top of him and I'll have my way with him. Maybe he underestimated Gilbert's ground game. Maybe he just thought, like, I'm the bigger, stronger guy. It is what it is. but Gilbert's the man.

Gilbert is super good. He's super good everywhere. And you can tell he's super good on the feet too, and he's got heart for days. It was just such a good fight. My whole thing is I wish we could appreciate the fight more for what it was, at least as a community. I think a lot of us do and realize how great that fight actually was,

but then it turned into, eh, Hamzaa was overhyped. Eh, the media made Hamzaa bigger than he actually was. Eh, he's human. don't really care as much about him. Usma would destroy him. I mean, these are just awful takes. I'm sorry.

They're all awful takes. What I favor Usen against Shamiah right the second, maybe it's close. It's much closer than it was. And that's not a knock on Shemai. Again, I think just our expectations for this guy were impossible to reach. And he did that.

But to say that this guy, that Ousser would run him over, that Colby would run him over, I think it's just it's just not true. It's just not true. They're closer line fights right now. But to think Shamiyev has no chance against either of those guys because he went to a decision with Gilbert Burns. It's just not true.

It's just not true. That's why I think the Colby fight actually makes sense right now because we'll see if he's there for Usen. We'll see. If you can go out there and beat Colby, I mean, there's no doubt. The vibe would actually change. if he went out there and beat Colby, no matter how he did. If you beat Colby in the decision, if you stopped Colby,

oh, I told you so. This guy's as good as I told you. I mean, everything flips. It's just, this sport is silly. It's crazy and it's fun, and I love it. Let's get to Patrick. We'll take a few more. Patrick, what's up, man?

Mike. What up? Heck of a sport we follow, huh? Heck of a pay-per-view, man. I was. You know, shout out to Rick's picks. He was the first one. He was so adamant by Aljo.

And I was kind of like, oh, this is a Homer pick. You know, he doesn't want to, like, get out of the good graces of that whole camp, you know, with Al and Aljo and Matt Serra, all those guys. You know, he's New York, Rick. He can't go against them. But then when you went down there on site. you started to actually open my mind a little bit to the possibility that, you know, maybe, maybe Aljo is in the right mindset to get this W. And Aljo just had to remember that he goes on someone's, he slips on someone's back

about as easy as a 1997 Jan sport. You know what I mean? He was just so, he just slipped on there, man, like a liquid. And then once he's on there, he's sticky. and so props to him, man. I was really impressed by that. And I thought a storyline

for the main course, the three main course meal was emotion. It was really interesting to see that I think in the Aljo fight, Piotr, Jan was

very emotional in the first few rounds. And those mistakes that he made by being emotional was what allowed Aljo to get his back and to swing the momentum to where he couldn't recoup

in the later rounds. He was down those three rounds and he needed a finish, I think in my opinion, to win in the fourth and the fifth. And he just wasn't able to do that, you know? And you can see he was loading up on his punches and he was

frustrated and he was, you know, I think maybe he just thought that after the first fight that he could do the same thing again. And then in the Gilbert Burns fight, I think the opposite happened where Gilbert Burns was like, I'm just going to kill this guy. Like, I had nothing to lose. Everyone's on the Hamzat train. I'm just going to like go all out. Like I literally act like I'm going to kill this guy. Do you see the soccer kick?

I don't really heard anyone talking about when he tried to kick his head off. dude. Like, that was an illegal strike, and he was just like, I don't care. Like, I'm taking this guy out. And in the way he pushed him off at the end of that round, just like, that was an amazing fight. And I got to say, it definitely took so much shine off of what Hamzaa has done in the sport. But, I mean, it was kind of like Hamzaa was pitching a perfect game. and going into like the seventh inning and he gave up a couple runs, you know what I mean? But he still got the W in this match

because he had such a big lead, you know, going into this match. But so I'm still, yeah, I think it proved a lot for him to get through that war. And I just got to say the last thing, I'm a big fan of Fluffy Hernandez, man. That was a great fight. I haven't heard anyone talk about that fight either. That thing was back and forth and he was doing some real slick, you know,

I think he's so confident with his grappling right now. He's doing a lot of slick submission attempts and got in some crazy positions and just kind of, it seemed like he was just feeling himself and having fun in there. And that's the other side of the emotional aspect of the sport that I think is underrated. that when people are having fun in there, it usually translates to success, you know, when you're not overthinking things. And I think maybe Humzaat was overthinking things a little bit too much, too.

But anyways, the freaking asymmetrical mullet that Fluffy was rocking with the, you know, tattoo accented into the hairstyle, dude. That was cool, man. So anyways, those are my little thoughts for the weekend. And have a heck of an afternoon, Mike. Thank you, Patrick. Always great to hear from you, sir. Yeah, Fluffy Hernandez is a badass.

He's only getting better. He's still a really young guy. Great performance. I knew that fight with Josh Shrempe was going to be good. And it delivered in a big way. And unfortunately, the rest of the card kind of made you forget about a lot of the other things that happened. and great performance of Fluffy Hernandez. The Al Jemade Sterling thing,

listen, I told, ever since I got here, ever since I got to Jacksonville, Algemaid Sterling made a lot of people believers. He meant, you could tell that this was not promos he was cutting. These are not manufactured things he was saying. He truly believed everything that he was saying. And that's a really good point, Patrick, as well, that normally in the first round with Peter Rion fights,

He goes out there and he'll land and he'll throw, but usually the first round, he's not ultra-aggressive. He usually uses that round to kind of figure out what's going on, try to work on tendencies and things like that. This is a different Peoria on the first round. This is a guy who got after it. He's much more aggressive. I feel like he sort of threw that game playing out the window. And maybe that's to his detriment a little bit. Maybe Sterling saw something because he took over in rounds two and round three, got takedowns, took

the back. Obviously, as Jan does, he got better as the fight progressed, but I think Sterling wishes out to too much to lead at that point that Sterling just realized, like, hey, I just need to go out here and survive and make it to the final horn. And I'm going to win the fight. So good on him. I mean, Tehertya Yian will be back. I think he's a super good fighter. One of the best. I mean, one of the best. Skill for skill, he's right up there. But just see a guy go through so much like Al Jermaine did. The way he won the title, fans are telling him like, lean into this thing, lean into it.

He does what you say, leans into the whole, I'm the champion thing, he's a cheater thing, just like everybody wanted him to do. And then he gets absolutely dumped on for it. Then the neck surgery, having to pull out of the fight in October, got absolutely crucified for that. And then the whole bill to this fight,

again, it was one of those things where everyone just thought Jan was going to run through him and Sterling showed that he's his game as to come and you just got to be happy for him. As a person, even if you're a Jan fan, he's going to be like, look, you're going to give this guy at least a golf clap after this long road to get back in there

and to beat a guy like Peter Jan. I mean, that's impressive. That was impressive. And if anybody deserves to go on a victory lap of sorts, it's 100% Al Jermaine Sterling. Let's bring Tristan Gordette in here. We're going to take like two or three more. What's up, buddy?

Do you hear me? Yes, what's up? Mike, speaking about what Hans-Ele-and-the-Burnes fight, this fight reminds me and it's in parallel with the Justin Gacy and Michael Chandler play. And I put Shemeyv and Chandler in the same boat in a sense of, remember, coming into the UFC, a lot of people felt Chandler didn't deserve to fight top five guys. It was like, how's this guy fighting the top five guys? Yeah, he went to, yeah, he's from Bellastore, but the competition isn't as good as the UFC.

And I would, I, this fight went very similar in a way with Shemaya Van Chandler because they threw strategy out the window. If you go back to the post-press conference with Shamiya, Shamiya was like, Shemite was just like, yeah, I didn't listen to my coaches. It's the same thing Chandler said. They just threw, through strategy out the window completely. And it was like, I'm ready to go to war. I'm ready to show that I am, I belong with these top five guys.

that and that's and this channeler and shemeyne was saying the same thing literally and both coaches from each camp like chanelanel's coach was screaming at chanler like dude y'all are you listening and like chanler was waiting over there get out the octagon dude get out the octagon man i'm ready to go i'm ready to go to war and this is the same thing with shemmaa shemmaa wanted to get into war and wanted to show i'm as tough as these guys too and that people was like you know You know, you're not as tough. You're not as tough of these tough five guys. You're like, I'm going to pool.

I'm top five. I'm not going to, I'm strategies out the window. And what was it happening? Like, Shamiya's coach was screaming at him. Literally just screaming at him like, you're not listening. What are you doing? You know, so I just felt like you threw strategy out the window. They wanted to show how they are.

They wanted to show that they belong here. And I think with Shamiya, Shamiya said, like, that's not going to happen again next time. When I fight up, that's not going to happen. Like, I'm going to really strategically do what I need to do to get that win because he wants to be champion. So it just showed me that, yeah, yeah, of course, you know, Samarka dropped.

You know, he got dropped and, you know, but he showed, hey, I got a chin. I could roll with these guys. You know, Dana White said it, man. When you get to the top five, people think it's easy. It's not easy, man. Once you start fighting the top five guys in the world, it's going to be tough, man. It's not going to be a cake walk.

You know what I mean? It's not going to be cake walk. So you've got to understand and put everything in perspective of where Shamiya came from, you know, to fight only have four fights and then actually, and then fight the number two guy in the world and it actually win?

That's an accomplishment in itself. So what do you, you know, what do you think the parallels between Chandler and Gaii and Shemayev and Burns do you think it's parallel as well? You know, what's your thoughts on it? Thanks, Mike. Thank you, Tristan.

Yeah, I mean, listen, there's some similarities, but here's the big difference. Big differences. Shami if won and Chandler didn't. That's a big difference. There are some similarities. They both threw strategy out the window, but Shamiya won the fight. And Chandler didn't. Chandler lost the last two rounds.

He had a big moment in the first, but, I mean, Justin Gaiti took over at that point while Shamiyaf was able to just get through a really rough second round and come back and win the third. So that'd be the big difference. Shamiath got the Duke. Chandler got a lot of praise for being as tough as they come. But in the end, Shemayev gets the wins forward. All right, we're going to get through these real quick.

Hendo slice. What you got? Huge fan. I've been listening. I love it. So I wanted to. Appreciate that, man. Yeah, I wanted to talk, actually.

It was a huge night for MMA. I think, you know, like Volk, my boy showed, he's one of the best in the world. The Shemaya fight is going to be legendary. Everyone's going to talk about that forever. But I wanted to talk a little bit about the Sterling fight, and Sterling deserves all the credit in the world for that upset. But just a little sliver of credit I think should go to Ray Longo, because I just always been a fan of his, like, wacky energy and just a rational, like,

confidence, but also his game planning. And if you look at his history, right, like he, he, he was the corner for Sarah beating GSP. He was the corner for Wyden beating Silva twice, you know? And now this one, too, like, do you think there's something to his coaching style that allows him and his fighters to pull off huge offsets in particular? Or is it just like, it's, that's how MMA is, you know? It's a good question.

Ray Long was the man. And that scene after the second round, he was like, look at him. The MFer. It was just amazing. It was just amazing. And he was also really smart. Like gave Aljo like that big boost of confidence. Like look what you did to this guy.

And then he also, as soon as he sat down, he goes, all right, you demoralized him. You humiliated him. Now he's going to come back and try to knock your head off. He's just really good at that, man. He's just so good at that. Like getting the best out of his fighters and good at strategize. And that whole team. And on top of that, like, Alger's doing such a good job.

Like, he led with Longo, had his guys. Like, he had his guys in this corner. But also during his build to the fight, he's out in Las Vegas. He's training with Extreme Gatorre. He's training with Eric Nixon. He's getting different looks and different feedback from some of the best coaches in the game, working with some of the best fighters in the game. But then when it's game time, he realized, I got to go with my guys.

I got to go with my guys. And Ray Longo is that guy. Tremendous job coaching. Tremendous game plan from Aljo. Tremendous from everybody. Aljo was fantastic all week. He made himself believe that he could be Peter Yon. When everybody else thought he was going to lose that fight,

except for New York, Rick. Al Jermaine Sterling believed. And he made other people believe. And I believed him. I believed him. I believed him all week long. And that's why from Tuesday to fight night, Al Jemaine Sterling made that fight more interesting to me.

That was that fight grew on me as the week progressed, mostly because of Al Jemaine Sterling. And Ray Longo did his job. Ray is, is fantastic. KRL, what's up? Hey, Mike. Can you hear me? Hey, buddy.

Hey. Yes, sir. I have two quick things. The first thing regarding the last Kay Hanson interview that you did, I think that if she wanted to, she could put her notes to the ground, work her ass off and become a lot better and have more success, maybe an in an evictor or elsewhere. But I know a lot of people with eating disorders. I was talking to them about this, but we're watching on Saturday. And they agreed that, look, having an eating disorder in a sport that so strongly focuses on your body, on your weight, on your

BMI is only possible if you are going to let the disorder get worse. And I almost feel like she would be better off in the long run mentally if she did something else. Now, it's not my place to say what she should or shouldn't do, but eating disorders can kill you. Like, there's no joke about that. Like, they can be really, really hard to deal with. And I wish the best for her.

but I just wanted to say that. And then secondly, I was listening to the first half of fighter and the writer this morning, and Josh Emmett and Matt Brown were talking about open scoring and everything, and they both scored the first round of Peter Jan versus Sterling for Jan. And Matt Brown was so pissed

that anybody could ever see for Algeman Sterling. But the way I see it is, and it's okay, like you can score it for Yon, but at least do it for the right reasons. Say, I think Peter landed the harder strikes. Fine. But what they kept saying is like Peter had better cage control. And I'm like, that doesn't matter unless they threw the exact same strikes,

the exact same amount of times. Cage control does not even factor in. So I just wanted to say that I think that it's okay to score it for Jan, but you've got to at least give a reason that follows the scoring criteria because they think that cage control is still a predominant. part of the scoring criteria. A huge fan of the show, and that's all I got. Thanks, buddy.

Yeah, I mean, I'm with you. And I will tell people, go back and watch that first round a couple more times. I'll say watch it twice in a row, just normal like you were watching on pay-per-view, and then watch it a third time on mute. I think the more you watch it, the more you side with Sterling.

But if you still want to give it to Yon Shore, I mean, it's a super close round, super close round. But I think at least to me, the more I watch it, the more I scored for Sterling. All right, we're going to take two more super, super quick, because I got to get out of here. Four quarter sports, it's up. Four quarter sports, you there. All right, we lost you. I don't know what happened there.

We'll get a heed in here. A heed, what's up? A heed. There he is. What's up, buddy? How are you? Two, bye. So how is it going to go like a gold rats for?

but I've got an idea, great idea for Colby and Hamza. Is that enough or, like, are we going to go over time? Like, as in... Go for it. Okay, but we'll just go with... I just quickly need to say with, like, styling and yarn, before I go for the idea. Stirling and yarn, I've watched that round

because BT Sport put it off, and I've watched it again and again and again. And someone said about, like, cage control and about, like, oh, some... Sterling, Lydid, more striped, listen, listen, you can't just start, unless it's like, it's somewhat like, you can see it very clearly who landed the more strikes. You can't like just suddenly go to strike counter and try and play like a John Anick or something and just say this person landed this like five more

strikes and that's, no, that's where Optagon control would count. We can't like we can't keep playing this game, bro. Like it's a sport. It's like also a fight. We can't start playing playing this game or someone landed two more jabs and that's recorded in the stats but we can't do that like this that's silly i think it was a draw like to be honest i could even give that round like um i would have given that round to like piota but then like it's like round two you have to give that like a 10-8 just because like i get what people are saying about damage and stuff but here's the thing like how can that round like sterling winning that round by that much be the same as like yarn winning round five you know like if you're saying that's a 10-9 so

it can't it has to be 10 it was much more dominant and i think it's fair so i think it draws fair you could even give that first round like a 10 i'd give like a 10-10 and then the set two and three 10-9 to aljo and four and five 10-9 to yarn but it draws draws seems fine now on to my idea okay for colby like you do colby and humza okay that's the fight to do Now here's the thing Everyone's someone by ABC I'm British So I don't really know how big that is

Apparently that's a big thing I'm assuming that's like a fight night Main event like Holloway and Cater No you can't do that Kobe just headlined Madison Square Garden And then he had Vegas all to himself numbered cards for both You need to keep him on a number card

But here's the problem You can't put Kobe and Humza as a main event Of a numbered card Because that's too weak Like people are still upset over 272 that card they'll say oh well that card isn't as strong as it could be but you know it was just like

it was a crazy beef a backstory so everyone just ran with it you can't do that again so here's what you do okay this is what you do Johnny Bones Jones is coming back Henry's saying he's coming back I believe him as long as he doesn't get arrested and that's a big if but let's

say John comes back okay John's coming back for the interim UFC heavyweight title now the only other person that's fighting for that title is Dipe Amioch So that's the main event, okay? So, and you have John and Hamza. Co-main event, you have Colby, Humza, five rounds. Now, that's just a crazy fight card on its own.

But think about the press conference. That'll be one of the greatest things on the internet. Like, imagine Jones and Hamza on one side, Dana all red-faced in the middle, and you've got Colby in his like flamingo suit and Stepe and his bow tie. Because, like, forget Colby and Hans up for a second. Kobe and Jones has history. They have history.

For people that don't know, Colby and Jones, you can't make this stuff up. Colby and Jones shed a room for one semester during university. And what it is is that Colby's talked so much about John, like absolutely cracked on John.

And he, like, I always wanted to see them in a press conference because I want to see Kobe just go off on John, especially with John's recent infractions of, domestic abuse, Colby is going to absolutely brutalize him on the mic, as he should, as he should.

But, you know, Kobe's going to have an absolute field day. And obviously, John's not going to sit there and take it. John's going to give it back. So that's going to be entertaining. Hamza on the side is going to just,

like, starts getting, brother, brother, are going to smash you. Like, you call the Cups, brother. And Kobe and Humza, Kobe has a certain name for Humza.

Like, Mike, I'm sure you know what it is. And anyone who else who doesn't know what it is, like go look it up. I'm not going to say it on here. So those two are going to go back and forth. That's going to be funny. And then Stipe is going to sit there.

And no one's going to understand a word that he says because it's all like inaudible, like static noise, like jumbled up together. But it's all good because he's a good guy, like got nice hair and everything. Just to imagine, like if you thought 268 was funny with Usman, like Kobe and Gae, this will be like something.

This will be comedy special because we need this. Like I wanted. Masvedal and Colby, the 272 press conference, to be funny. That was terrible. The audio was bad. Those two were acting like 12-year-olds. Masvidal was acting like a five-year-old going, ooh-woo-woo, so that was poor. We need like another entertaining one, and this is it.

And the co-co main event, don't put him on the press conference, but the co-co main event, Shafkat, Rachmanov, Neil Magny, you do this in like August, that fight's happening. Come on, but that's a pretty good idea. come on. I should replace Sean Shelby right now. Ah, Heed. This is why we cap off things with you. I don't think it would, I mean, it would be interesting and there'd be storylines attached to that press conference, but you know, it's just awful.

Like, it's got to be really terrible and awful and not fun. So that's that. The ABC, like, listen, if you can build up International Fight Week and put those on there, Obviously, everyone's going to be excited about it. What I think International Fight Week, especially that Art is going to look like, if you do it in July, I think it's going to be Adasani-Canineer. I think maybe we get Volcanoffsi Holloway three on that one. That's what I would like to see.

I think that's a great sort of one-two pop right there. ABC for Colby, I think he'd be into it, honestly. Obviously, it's the American Broadcasting Corporation. So Colby would eat that up. But Kobe is also well aware of the lineage and history of combat fights and events that have taken place on ABC. And if they do it on ABC and John Anakin Company, you're not wearing those gold blazers that we riot. Because we need them rocking the ABC gold blazers. So yeah, I mean, and then with the Aljo scoring, listen, if you want to give the first round to Pierre Jan, sure.

I mean, again, it's super close. the more I watch it, the more I lean for Aljo. If you want to score that fight a draw, I'm fine with that too. That first round was super close. But the whole cage control conversation is just silly. We're like three years beyond that at this point. So that's it. But I got to get out of here.

I was supposed to be out of here like 15 minutes ago, but we're taking my kid on a dolphin sightseeing tour in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. So I'm going to get out of here. Thank you all for chiming in. Thank you all for listening. missed most of it. It's going to be heading to the podcast network in about 10, 15 minutes. So you can enjoy the rest of the show there. We'll be back here on Thursday, 8 a.m. Eastern.

We get BTL going down Thursday afternoon, 3 p.m. Eastern, M.A. Fighting YouTube channel. And then Friday back here again with another heck of a morning, 8 a.m. Eastern. I'll be back in Florida, actually recording Thursday and Friday show. Thursday might be interesting. All right. Thursday might be interesting. It might be another heck of an afternoon. I will keep you guys posted. But in the meantime, in between time, thank you all for listening. Have a heck of a day. Enjoy the rest of it.

The Vox Media Podcast Network. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first? There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.