MMA Fighting - Heck of a Morning | Booking UFC Heavyweight Division, Khamzat Chimaev's Future, Strickland vs. Pereira

Episode Date: March 29, 2022

On the debut episode of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck discusses the impact of Curtis Blaydes' big win in the main event of UFC Columbus on the heavyweight division and what future bookings could look like, then takes your calls about a number of topics, including the future of Khamzat Chimaev, Nate Diaz's current contract situation, Sean Strickland vs. Alex Pereira at UFC 277, and 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

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Tuesday, March 29th, 2020, and it is a heck of a morning here on MMA Fighting. And we are live on the M.A. Fighting Twitter Spaces. And I'm very happy about that as you welcome you to the very first edition of Heck of a Morning. I am Mike Heck. I hope you're all having a wonderful day. Wonderful morning, although maybe afternoon where you're listening,

depending on where you are around the globe. But you can pretend it is the morning if you like, throw on your slippers, your bathrobe. But this show is for the morning owls, for MMA fans, for fans of the sports that we all love so much, for the sport who has been tirelessly fighting, pun intended, to find their place in the sports world. That is long to be mentioned with the likes of the NFL,

the NBA, the NHL, Major League Baseball, all the major sports around the globe. And as everybody listening to this knows, the sport has grown exponentially over the last nearly three decades and beyond. But there's one thing that we haven't had, and it's kind of irked me a little bit. I mean, the NFL has that the NBA has a major league baseball. You go to various radio stations, various networks, they have their own shows, you know, the good morning footballs and the good morning MBAs. You know, not the exact titles, but you know where I'm getting that. but where's ours?

Where's our show? Where's the MMA morning show? Anytime this sport is talked about in the mornings, it's on some type of television debate show featuring people who have no freaking idea what they are talking about. And it drives me insane. Where are the phone calls?

Where are the MMA fans to get the opportunity to let their voices be heard on a morning sports call and show? Well, you have one now. So if you're up, having breakfast, having coffee, going for a run, walking the dog, driving to work, what have you, this show is for you. And if you have something on your mind about mixed martial arts, you will have your voice heard on this program. And if it's a little bit too early for you, if you're just checking us out and you're

like, holy crap, it's like three in the morning where I'm at, I can't listen to this whole thing. I get it. It may not be as interactive in that sense. But as soon as we are done here, the show will immediately, or as soon as we're as humanly possible make its way to the MA-Finding podcasting network and then this show is going to happen three days

a week, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, the plan will always be for it to go down at this time 8 a.m. Eastern right here on the Twitter spaces. Now, will there be times when the time changes or we have to mix things up for various reasons? Sure, but we hope it will

not happen all that often. But I'm very excited about this show. I hope you are too. Let's get into this thing because it is MMA. We have some things to discuss and we'll take some calls in a few moments. But I do want to head back to this Saturday because this has still been a pretty good topic here. UFC Columbus, what a night it was for Curtis Blades. And I have to say in regards to Curtis Blades, my tone has changed quite a bit. I've always said that Curtis Blades is a very effective fighter. And in the world of UFC pay

and two checks for 95% of the roster, the wind show awfulness that is still going on in 2022. I've said it many times, whether Curtis Blades went out there and landed 17 takedowns or went out there and bolted an opponent with ground and pound or does what he did on Saturday to Chris Dachus in the main event, it is all about the win. It's all about getting that second paycheck. Curtis Blades most of the time when he fights his fight, he gets that second paycheck. Sometimes it's not aesthetically pleasing. Other times it's pretty damn violence. And, And heading into Saturday with the state of this heavyweight division, I didn't think there would be a world where Curtis Blades could change his divisional position in the UFC's eyes.

And as most expected, Blades won the fight. And I thought, look, this guy might actually beat anybody that would be put in front of him in an interim title situation with Francis and Ganu on the sidelines. But the UFC would look elsewhere because of the narrative placed upon Curtis Blades. It doesn't necessarily light the world on fire with his promos and Mike work, but this guy is a really good fighter. And on Saturday, most people thought he would go out there and he would and wrestle Christakis to a state of exhaustion, maybe get a dominant decision win, maybe a late finish. But very few expected Curtis Blaze to go out there and do what he did on Saturday.

Absolutely devastated Chris Doccus with a big punch, dropped him, pounced, finished, and he gets a big win. and he was a massive favorite, Blades winning, with all due respect to Dacchus, was not surprising. But it was the way that he did it. And that's exactly what he needed to do. And in my opinion, Saturday could not have gone better for Curtis Blades. He got on the microphone.

He had a name in mind. Cyril Ghan. Of course, Daniel Corriott gets in there and he's like, no, man, that's cool. But see that guy over there? Right there? No, no, no, no, not there. He's right there. That's Steve Amiatchitz.

What about him? How about you fight that guy? And knowing how the UFC broadcasts work, I will say this. I blame D.C. right off the bad in the post-fight show, but I also didn't take into account that somebody was probably in D.C.'s ear telling him to do that, a producer or somebody else,

but Stipe completely no-sells it. But to be positive, the seeds are planted. So heading into that event, to me, the UFC looked at things for this interim title fight in this way. Top option, Steep A versus John Jones. If we can get this done, this is what we're going to do. But we all know the history between these two guys and the UFC. Steve A's not fighting unless it's something that excites him,

and he gets treated with the respect that he deserves, which absolutely 1,000% should do. Jones, a little bit of a different story, but with the same things in regards to the respect and whatnot, but also, John is not the most reliable guy to put it lightly, and if they can do that fight, they will absolutely do that fight. And they should. Then sort of in the on-de-deck position, to me, is Tai Tui Vasa. And I've talked about this a number of times.

What Taito Ivasa has done lately has been ridiculous. He's knocking guys out. He's been fighting the right fighters at the right times. His personality is getting them over in a big way. He's doing shooies and smashing beers. He's getting everyone smashing beers with him. Other fighters are doing what he does after big wins. This is Taito Ivasa.

And he's becoming a star. And he's becoming a fighter where it, doesn't matter who he fights, we're going to watch the hell out of it. At the same time, as dangerous as this man is, with his hands and as fun as he is, I don't love his chances against the Curtis Blades of the world or the Tommy Aspinall's of the world. Sierra Ghan might be interesting, but I'd still favor Cyril Gahn in that fight. So to me, at this point, if you get any sort of opening to get Taito Ivasa into a title fight, you have to do it, and you have to do it now, because they have something here.

and you have to capitalize on it. And because Ty is so fun and exciting, if he goes into an interim title fight and loses, guess what? Nobody cares. We will give him props for days about that incredible run that he was on, and when he has his next matchup booked,

we are in. We are absolutely in, much like the guy he just beat, Derek Lewis. But if he wins, if Ty Tuivasa goes into a title fight and becomes a champion, oh my gosh, what a freaking story that would be. So in the UFC's eyes, low risk, high reward.

Same for Tuvaa being in that spot. Then after Ty, I'd probably put Tommy Aspedal next because the guy looks like a megastar coming out of that UFC London main event. That's the card that is definitely going to be on the short list for events of the year. And he might just be good enough to be the champion right now. I'd like to see them slow roll him a tiny bit, but he could be the guy. He could be the guy in this division. Then it was gone. Then it was Blades heading into Saturday.

And I thought Blades couldn't improve his stock in this conversation, no matter what. Now I'm not sure. I think he's ahead of gone in sort of like the baseball lineup of contenders, but he was super smart to call for the Cyril gone fight. And furthermore, now you have Steep A in the back pocket. I hope he gets the gun fight. I think that's the fight we will get. And if the UFC heads to France, heads to Paris, like is being sort of rumored and discussed right now,

you do Gons versus Blades in the main event, right? Come on. I mean, that's perfect because Gahn gets the hometown rub. Blades gets to sort of expand on that massive chip on his shoulder. And who wouldn't want to go to freaking Paris, France? So great A night for Curtis Blades, in my opinion. But the way that I would book this division with Francis and Gano on the shelf right now after the knee surgery, Jones versus Stepe, if you can't do that, Taitoibasa is the best.

or the guy you slide in there. And I honestly wouldn't even book tie in a fight unless it's for a title, interim or not. If the UFC does do Joan Steepay, Ty should get the winner. Then you do Blades v. Gone. And it's kind of a weird name to take out of this equation because of what happened in London. But Tommy Aspinall is just throw them in there against anybody. Do it in the UK, a top 10 heavyweight. Throw them in there with Derek Lewis, whoever.

Let the man show. let him get some more experience, let him get these big wins, because when Tommy Aspinall fights for the UFC title, whether it be in a year, 18 months, 24 months from now, he's got a very good chance to win that fight, and the more experience he gets, the chances of him winning increases. So that's how I would book the division.

For those listening right now, how would you book this division? What do you think? Jump in on the request line. Let me know, shoot it in, raise the digital hand. We'll take a few calls on this. how would you, after Curtis Blades went out there and defeated Chris Daucus in the main event, second round TKO, how are you looking at this division right now?

Are you still doing Joan Steepay? Has Curtis Blades done enough in your eyes to maybe sneak into that interim title fight? Where does Ty Tuivasa stand? Where does Tommy Aspen all stand? Again, send your request in. We'll get you on here. And we'll discuss. All right, we got functionally crazy Chris coming on.

in here. I mean, this is the first call. This is the first call in the history of the show functionally crazy, Chris. How are you? I'm good, man. What's going on? How are you? Good. You know, man, it's funny you ask that question. With all the nonsense that John Jones has gotten into lately, it's very hard to stay a fan of his, and then you kind of have that duality in your brain where you're like, now I kind of just want to see him get hit because he was supposedly, you know, we all know the allegations and all that.

But that's the thing, right? He's one of the greatest of all time. It's putting on all this weight purposely for Angano, we think. It's just a little discerting because we don't know what's going to happen with Angano or maybe I haven't done diligence and I don't, you know, I'm not sure what's been going on. I know he's out of surgery. Everything went well. You know, but where are we at?

I mean, is he even still with the UFC? I mean, so imagine Francis leaves the division. Then it's kind of like, well, we're back to Jones, steep, possibly. Curtis Blades after that last performance, but, you know, we got Inganu learning wrestling now. And we already saw what happened between Blades and Angano. So, you know, it's like, are we even, ah, it's just hard, dude. Honestly, with John Jones doing everything he just did in the last six months, I feel like that fucked everything up. So how would you book it? Like, if you had the, if you had the mighty pencil right now, how would you book this division? It only seems fair to do John Jones

versus Stepe, whether it's for an interim and all that nonsense. I don't know, man. I mean, look what Ty to Avasa just did. It's tough, man. It's really tough. I would honestly go with Jones versus Stepe because everybody wants to see that fight. I mean, you have the supposed greatest of all-time heavyweight. Why wouldn't he fight the supposed greatest of all-time light heavyweight while the champ is,

you know, MIA? Curtis Blaze just called out Cyril Gone. I'm pretty sure I read. I'm down for that fight. But then you have the bangers like Derek Lewis and all these other people who are capable of these performances. But, you know, again, given what he just went through, it's like, where the hell are we with some of these guys? They were superstars. And now they're on either losing streaks or it's just wild, bro.

But isn't it crazy how John Jones being himself can literally like shake a division that he hasn't even fought in yet? I would agree with you. And thank you functionally crazy Chris. This will go down in history. This is MMA trivia right here. So who was the first call in the history of a heck of a morning? It's functionally crazy, Chris. Yeah, he makes a lot of interesting points.

Where's Francis Ngano seven or eight months from now? Is he still fighting in the UFC? Who knows? I have a feeling that cooler heads will prevail, and we will see him fight in the UFC again. But now you have to figure out a way to make this division move forward. And you have some options. Obviously, Stepe Jones is the biggest fight you can make for an interim title.

The winner will probably fight Francis, but you still have Tai Titu Yvasa. I think Tai Tuivasa, if you could get him into any kind of a title fight, you've got to do it quick. So if Steepa and Jones fight, let's just say they fight International Fight Week in July. Let's say they do it. Whoever wins that fight, you get Tai Tuivasa in there like three months later and give him his opportunity because the clock is ticking. If you don't get him in there now, you may not get another shot. Oh, no.

Oh, no. It's Jed Mushu. Jed, how are you? Hey, Mike. First time long. time. Really sad that I was not the inaugural call, but you know, sometimes you just can't beat functionally, I don't remember Chris. Functionally crazy Chris, there we go. A heck of a morning to you. Just wanted to give my two cents on the heavyweight title picture. It's absolutely garbage

that the interim title will supposedly be fought for by Steepa and John Jones, two men who don't have of a relevant UFC heavyweight win to their names combined. The one current relevant heavyweight that Stepe has a victory over is Francis Inganu, who we all remember how that happened the second time they fought. I recognize this won't happen, Mike. But if I had the power of the pin, I'm just going to go do the thing that's like the most fun and obviously the best interim title fight between Tai Tui Vasa and Tommy Aspinall.

I think Tommy Aspinall made the right call out. Taito Vos is a fun fight. Hell, do the interim title in England. That's fine. And like, both of these guys are the most fun people to put an interim belt on in the division. And, you know, they're also both reliable gentlemen who always show up and don't allegedly have spousal abuse problems or sit out for a year. a half because gosh darn it, they deserve a title fight and they are not going to fight

anybody else. So, you know, reward the guys who show up every day, who the fans like and who also, you know, are picking up relevant heavyweight wins day after day. No, it's not going to happen. That's my two cents, Mike. You have a heck of a morning, bud. Hold on. Before you go, if you're the guy booking this fight.

where is this fight happening? Is it happening in the UK? Are we doing it in Tye's backyard? I don't think you can, right? It's interesting. You do it in Vegas? I don't think you can do it in Ties backyard, right? Like, I'm not super up on the lockdown rules, but I feel like Oceania.

Is it? I'm honestly not certain. I just know Oceana's been very, a lot tighter about it than most. I think you can't have, I think Tommy Aspenall should never fight outside of England again. And that's just it. I don't think Ty would care. I feel like Ty would be down to go to England, especially if an interim belt's on the line.

Like, that seems, and that's just good vibes. So for sure, to me, that's the most obvious fight to do it. Like, people like both of these gentlemen, just put them in a title fight together. Like, who cares? That's great point. We will see what happens. Jed, you're the man.

We'll see you at some point. Maybe on the ranking show. We'll be both of the ranking. going to be on the rankings show that we're filming later or recording later today. So otherwise, I'm about to go work out. You have a heck of a morning. You too, buddy. Jedmishu, ladies and gentlemen.

So that is the heavyweight division. And there's a lot going on in the heavyweight division. It's very interesting. We will see what happens with John Jones and Steepay and Ty and Tommy Aspinall and Curtis Blades and Cyril Gahn and Francis and Gano, the most interesting story of 20. In my opinion, will he stay with the UFC? Will he resign? Did we see D1 in Ganu?

In the final UFC fight of his career? You got to go box Tyson Fury. I know Tyson's talking about retirement, but you know he'll take that France and Ganu fight because free money, got to do it. We'll see what happens. So we'll move on to birthdays in MMA. It is March 29th.

We get a few of these bad boys, including top of the list. But before we do that, let's get, we'll get Raymond in here first. Then we'll get some birthdays. Raymond, how are you? No, he's gone. All right, never mind. You want to try again, try again.

But birthdays, that, baby. Donald Cowboy Soroni, ladies and gentlemen, is 39 years of age. Happy birthday, Cowboy. He will face Joe Lozahn, UFC 274, Phoenix, Arizona. Very interesting matchup. Will it be the last fight for Soroni? Will it be the last fight for Lozon? will be the last fight for both guys.

I spoke to Joe Lozon. He said he's approaching this fight, just like he did the Jonathan Pierce fight. No decision made. We'll see how it goes. If it goes well, he'll stay. It doesn't go well. He'll have a decision to make.

So happy birthday to Cowboy Soroni. Remember Chase Bebe? If you were a W.E.C. Mark and used to watch W.E.C. events. He was a former W.C. Bannamweight champion. Chase Bibi, 37 years old today. How about that? Cody Durdon, UFC Flyway.

We just saw him compete on the UFC London card. Unfortunately, didn't go well for him. He got knocked out by Mohamed Mahayev very quickly, or submitted by Mohamed Maheimah, very quickly after the flying knee. He is 31. And Colby Northcutt, one championship fighter, the sister of Sage Northcutt, is 29 years of age. So happy birthday to all of you.

We're going to open up the lines to more of a free-for-all for the final segment of the debut show. but March 29th, not a lot has happened in the mixed martial arts history on March 29th. I look through it and I could be wrong. And if I am, please correct me for all you statistical wizards out there. But I don't think there's ever been a UFC event on March 29th, ever. Because I look through the archives. I mean, it wasn't a truly diligent look back into the archives,

but I don't think there's ever a UFC event on March 29th. So nothing there. Bellator, there was one event a couple of years ago. Brandon Grice against Sadawad was the main event of that one. Fine. But the most significant thing that happened on March 29th in the history of M.A. was March 29th, 2008, Strike Force, as they did many, many times, held an event in beautiful, scenic San Jose, California. This card was headlined by Kung Lee versus Frank Shamrock.

And it was a crazy night. It was a crazy night. fight if you're bored and you're like what it would be a fun fight to go watch go out of your way to to watch this fight or rewatch this fight between Cung Lee and Frank Shamrock it was just a crazy fight the third round is wild because Shamrock drills Cung Lee with with a big shot and Lee was wobbled and he's in big trouble and Shamrock's trying to battle back he's getting super tired his mouth piece keeps falling out and he's just trying to land these shots and all of a sudden out of nowhere

Cung Lee lands this ferocious, like, roundhouse kick that just, it looks like it rock Frank Jamrock, but actually broke his arm. Like, the kick breaks his arm. And Jarek just kind of falls back to the cage, and Lee just starts battering him until the round ends. And, of course, Frank Shamrock is a broken arm, so he ain't going to be able to keep fighting. So the fight was stopped due to the injury, and Kung Lee became the Strike Force middleweight champion. So that's what happened 14 years ago. Strike Force, Lee versus Shamrock, Kung Lee becomes the middleweight champion.

What a crazy fight. If you haven't watched it, definitely go check that out. If you have watched it, it may be a while since you have watched it. So go back, check that out. And happy anniversary to Kung Lee becoming the Strike Force middleweight champion. So we're going to open things up. More of a free-for-all. So if you guys want to jump in, you have any thoughts, any questions about sport and

make special arts, hop right on in here. I do want to go to Instagram real quick, because I did get a message, something that I did wanted to break down because someone actually reached out. This was Dax from Instagram, reached out, I said, hey, Mike, can you please talk about this insane move by the UFC to book Sean Strickland versus Paheda in an obvious number one contender fight on the first episode of your morning show? So that's what we'll do that right now because in case you missed it on Saturday, we confirmed a report from ESPN that at UFC 277 July 30th,

big middleweight fight between Sean Strickland and the right now unranked Alex Beheada. And we know that Alex Beheada has a history with the current champion Israel, Adasania. I mean, anytime this guy fights, you know it's being brought up. It's being discussed. He's got the two wins over Adasania. He's got the NACO winner of O'Donia. You know what the UFC is trying to do here.

So third fight in to his UFC run, he's getting a fight with Sean Strickland, who is just on a tear right now and is looking for a big fight. Him and Paul Costa have been going back and forth, and we were wondering, are they going to try to book that fight? I'm not surprised he didn't book it.

First of all, the build to that fight would just be horrendous. I mean, maybe it's fun for some of you and you like that stuff, but the build to that fight, the trash talk would just be absolutely. awful. I would have hated every second of it. Plus, I think Paul Acosta is not going back to 185. I think he should fight at 205, and that's what you should do with him at this point. I think you should go in there.

I know Iwan Kutalaba is booked against Ryan's fan, but you book Paul Kost against Iwan Kutalaba and how much fun will that fight be? But going back to Strickland v. Paheda, a lot of people are kind of puzzled by this. I am not surprised by this booking at all. From a meritocratic standpoint, it makes no sense whatsoever. if we're going by rankings and numbers, if we're going by Belator booking, this fight makes absolutely no sense at all.

But from a business standpoint, what you're trying to do in order to make this division flourish, trying to make the biggest fights possible, while you have Adisanya at this division before he's eventually going to move up to 205 because he's talked about it before, I think this fight makes all the sense in the world.

I like the matchmaking a lot. I have a feeling we're going to see D1, Sean, Strickland in this fight because that would be the smart thing to do because Alex Behead could just absolutely crack. We all know this. I like the matchmaking. And it's pretty clear to me that whoever wins this fight is going to fight whoever the champion is next.

I don't know this for a fact. I have no insight to this at all. But you have to assume that the UFC will probably be looking at Adisona canineer for the same card because in my mind, this is the number one contender fight. If we're doing a press conference, we want to try to get all these guys up on stage at the same time, try to plant some seeds for a future fight. So I'm fine with it. No issue with it whatsoever.

It's super interesting. Maybe you just crush Alex Paheda as a title contender right off the bat, but who knows? Maybe he goes out there and just knocks out John Strickland or beat Sean Strickland. It's a three-round fight. It's not a five-round main event or anything. So I think it's worth the risk. And if Paheda wins, you get to tell the story as many times you want about the kickboxing. do the two kickboxing fights and the two wins over the champion.

Like you can build this up and try to turn it ahead and do a monster in the build. And then Adasani gets to try to get some revenge. And yeah, and if Strickland wins, you do the Strickland fight. The build to that fight might not be tremendous either, but it is what it is. Let's go to Mr. Triple Stripes jumping on in here. Good morning, Triple Stripes. Make sure you unmute. triple stripes you there yeah can you hear me yes what's going on what's going on man uh so next

week we got burns in chimaev um so i was watching yesterday on chimaev's uh youtube channel and if you haven't checked out his content you should is super awesome quality is great as well um but something i noticed about him is just like his work everything is so crazy um and he kind seems to motivate and inspire everybody on his team to push hard as well. And I thought Tamaya was a little bit overhyped, you know, going into this fight, but after watching those videos on his channel and seeing what his regimen looks like, what his mentality is like, what the people around him are like, I kind of feel like he has a chance of walking through burns as crazy as that sounds. What do you think? I mean, it's very possible. This guy

looks pretty real to me. I'm trying to find, I don't know why it's not here. I'm trying to find where the betting odds are for this fight right now because I think Shamiyaf is actually a really big favorite. But I'm curious to see how big of a favorite is he? It's not showing up on like any of this. Oh, there it is. Hamzaa Shemayev right now, according to Draft Kings,

is a minus 510 favorite over Gilbert Burns. And the comeback on Gilbert Burns is plus 375. I think Hamzad is the real deal. I truly believe that. It took a minute. I mean, I always wanted the UFC to put him in these kinds of fights, like, right off the bat. As soon as he got that first win, these are the kinds of fights, especially after the second win, when he got the two wins in a week and a half or whatever it was.

Like, these are the kinds of fights that I wanted, like right out the gate for him, just to see how good he was because he's one of those special guys. You could kind of see it. And then the Lee Jingleong fight, you just look at it and you're like, oh, my God, this guy. is terror. But do you agree with these betting lines? Minus 5-10. Hamzaa Shemayev hasn't fought a ranked guy yet in his octagon career.

He's fighting a guy who just fought for the title 13 months ago and was seconds away from beating Kamara Usman and becoming the champion. And Shemayev is a minus 5-10 favorite over the spam. Yeah. So that's where I'm kind of stuck, right? Because Reese McKee, John Phillips, Lee, J. All of those guys, they're good guys. they're not bad and they've had success in their own right.

But Burns is, you know, another planet away from those guys. And if Hamzak can walk in there and do what he's done to those guys to Burns, I don't know, man. I think, I think Usman or Leon Edwards, whoever's the champ at the time, is going to have their hands full. Yeah. I mean, it's a super interesting fight. So we'll see, man.

I'll be there. I'll be there live. So I'm looking forward to seeing what we, what we have in store. Thank you, Triple Stripes. Appreciate you jumping in. UFC 273, since you're talking about that, took a little, got a little bit of a change yesterday. We found out that Nasardine Imov had visa issues. He will not be fighting Kelvin Gasolm. The UFC, when they made this announcement, said the fight is canceled altogether. He's supposed to fight Kelvin Gasolum. And then they replaced it with the rebooking of the fight we were supposed to get this past Saturday,

a UFC Columbus between Alir Latifi and Alexi Olinic. That fight is happening at UFC 273. But Calvin Gassum just took to Twitter last night a little after 11 p.m. Eastern time and said, we found a fighter to fill in last minute. Now, I will say this, Phil Haas did jump on my social media

and say, and raise his hand. I don't know if that's the fight. No idea, but it looks like Calvin Gasselm is going to stay on this card. Against who we don't know yet. But we'll find out. let's get to Christopher here on heck of a morning

8.30 Eastern. Hope you're all having a wonderful day. Christopher, how are you? Yeah, not bad, dude. Hello from the UK. It's half one in the afternoon. There you go. Yeah, so, yeah, first and foremost,

loving the show, loving the format. We had a chance to speak on the last card, so it was my first time talking, so it's my second time, so happy days. Yeah, I think the first thing I wanted to talk about and pretty much the only thing is the flyweight division so on Twitter there's been a lot of debate

about how would DJ do right now in the flyweight division how would Horoguchi do how would Petis do and I guess I kind of just want to ask you like what is your opinion how would those three guys fare in the current state of the UFC flyweight division

that's a great question so we're Petis Horaguchi and DJ in the current flyweight division. Yeah. I think Pettis and Hora Gucci are better served at 35 right now. And I think DJ is probably the same. But let's just say like these guys are 25.

Yes. Let's say let's put him in that position. I think DJ hangs with a lot of guys. I think Hore Gucci can hang with a lot of guys. The one I would be concerned about is Pettis because we've seen it. We've seen him fight at 25 in the U.S. And he's gotten some good wins, certainly.

But could he beat Brandon Moreno right now. Could he beat Davis and Figurator right now? Could he beat this version of Kai Kar-France right now? That's interesting. And even on onto the next one, I said, like if we were booking for Kai Kar-France and we could somehow trade back for DJ

because especially if the UFC is doing this fourth fight, which apparently they are between Figy and Moreno, do Kai Kar-France versus Demetrius Johnson? Like that would be perfect opportunity for that because Kai has talked about he's not in a giant rush to get to a title fight. He feels like he's the guy. He's willing to be the backup if one of those guys can't make it.

Davis and Figurato's going on on Twitter saying that he's bumping Moreno for Kai Kar-France. I don't think that's going to happen, but good for trying. But that would be the perfect time. Like Kai Kar-Frens versus Demetri's Johnson would be super interesting. I think that would be the fight to make, but not possible. But I think they would do okay. I just don't know if they're better than the top three guys in this division right now. It's close.

Good question. Yeah, man. Sounds good. All right. Thanks, man. Cheers, dude. All right. There's Christopher. Always a good caller. So we'll kind of do a two-minute warning here. If you want to jump in, have at it. If not, all good.

But we're trying to figure out what's going on with Kelvin Gassel. Looks like he's still going to be on the card. So right now, UFC 273, if we are to believe Mr. Kelvin Gasselm, we'll have it started the day with 13 fights because we lost one and maybe got one back so it looks like Calv it so we're going to have 14

fights with Gasolm versus TBD we'll see all right let's take a couple more calls here we'll get Artem's Reach what's up Artem's Reach are you there Artham's Reach oh you get on mute but there you hear me

Yes, let's go on. I have an unpopular M.MA opinion that I want to air out. I work with Jed Mishu, so I hear him all the time. Basically, I think Yeri Prahashka, I think he's super exciting, but I still think he has like somewhat of a fraudulent run to the title. Seeing as Reyes is coming off of a K.O. Loss to Yan, he was called out by Rockets so many times, and he just waited, you know, in the whims.

He could have fought Rockage on the Glover Yan card. he wanted to just be the replacement. What are your thoughts on Yere's claim and his run, two-fight run to a UFC title? Wow. Arms reach. Thank you, sir. Fraudulence is a big, powerful word that I don't necessarily agree with. I mean, these are, the Dominic Reyes fight, I think, is one of the more underrated fights ever.

That was my fight of the year. That was my knockout of the year when we did the MA Fighting Awards. That fight was ridiculous. Absolutely insane. And if you are a newer fan, like, if you started watching the UFC, like, in the summer of last year, and you have not seen that fight between Yuri Perashka and Dominic Reyes, you need to go watch that fight because it's absolutely bananas. Yuri Perhaska delivered one of the scariest knockouts you will ever see in your life. It was one of those knockouts where you were like, wow, this Uri's guy's the real deal, but you were so concerned for Dominic Reyes.

I thought for a second that he killed him. that's how ferocious this spinning back elbow knockout is. It's absolutely insane. The whole fight is insane because Dominic Reyes had Yuri hurt too. And then Yuri comes back and battles through the adversity and gets one of the best knockouts of the year. So, of course, Yuri Perash is getting ready to challenge Glover Tashir for the light heavyweight title in June. And I've said this many times and I'm going to stand by it the entire way. Yuri Pajshka is not going to win that fight.

I think Glover Tashka is going to win that fight. and I think Glover DeSherra is going to end the year as the light heavyweight champion. I know on paper, a lot of you think I might be crazy for saying that, but I think Glover just needs to take him down once. I think Glover just needs to take him down one time because Dominic Reyes took him down, got on top of him. If Glover takes him down, even if he's training a fight ready, even if he's training with, in my opinion, one of the coaches of the year in Henry Sehudo right now,

if Glover gets you down and gets on top of you, you're not getting back up. The fight's going to be over not long after that. So Phrashka can knock Glover out. There's a very good chance he wins that fight. But to me, Glover just needs one takedown. He's not going to play with that kind of fire. And the first chance he gets, he's going to take him to the ground. So we'll see what happens.

But I don't think it's fraudulence. I think that's a little too strong. It's got two good wins. The Reyes win is great. We got to see him battle through some adversity. This is the fight to make. I'm fine with it. And fraudulent is just not the right word.

We'll bring in Abraham. Hi. Dana. I have a question about the heavyweight division. There are rumors about interim title shot. Who did you give, like, in your opinion, what's the fight to make? Thank you, Abraham. I mean, if I'm the UFC, we're looking at John Jones versus Steve Amyichich.

That's the fight you make. If you can do it, you do it. If not, let's just say you only get Steepay. Stepe's in. John Jones is being John Jones, and he's like, nah, dude, I want $48 million to fight for an interim title. And the UFC can't come to terms with him. You do Stepe A versus Tai Tuivasa. Or, you know, if you get Jones and you can't get Stepe, you do John Jones versus Tai Tuivasa.

Either way, those are the two guys, and Tai Tuvaa is on deck because you've got to give Tai Tai Tuva an opportunity the first chance you get. we'll take two more calls. Let's get Dax in here with the two thumbs up. I don't know if this is the same Dax that submitted on Instagram, but maybe it was. Hey, Mike. It is the same. Just a quick question. What are the odds that Nate Diaz gets his wish in his tweet and the UFC releases him before another fight?

What are the odds that he gets released? Yeah, before he gets him. Oh, sorry about that. Before he gets his last fight. So I think what you're asking was the odds Diaz gets his wish and he gets released. The odds plus 77 million. Like that, those are the odds. There's no chance the UFC is going to release him.

This is just, I can't add much to what Ariel said to begin the MMA hour. I really can't. So if you haven't listened to it, go on our YouTube channel. listen, it's like a seven-minute clip of Ariel talking about the situation. He, I couldn't have said it any better. So if he can't say it, just don't say it because he did a great job doing that. And it's stupid. The way the UFC handles this kind of stuff is horrendous.

You don't see this in any other kind of sport. You only see it in the UFC. It's just dumb. Like, it's just dumb. If the guy, like, if he doesn't want to fight for you, you're making all this money. Yeah, Nate's a star. Just let him freaking go. Like, book him.

a fighter, let him go. Like, if you're that great and you think you can keep him, then book him a fight, let him fight. And if he leaves, so what? He goes somewhere else, goes and fights Jake Paul. Like, it's not going to kill your business if Nate Diaz leaves the UFC. It's a shot, no doubt about it. It's a punch in the arm, and that punch in the arm is going to hurt a little bit, but it's not going to cripple your business if Nate Diaz goes to Bellator or goes to PFL or goes to one or goes to boxing and boxes Jake Ball. Like, that's not going to hurt your business. It's not going to hurt your business.

So either let him fight or let him go. Enough's enough. It's stupid. Is this, uh, my man, Stevie Ray? Stevie Ray. How you doing, mate? This is the up and coming MMA encyclopedia? Hopefully, mate.

What's up, man? Good speech again, Nate. Yeah, what's going on? Nothing much, me. I was just wondering, uh, your opinions on the fight between Charles Oliver and Justin Gache at UFC 274. And as well as that, I was wondering if you could give us your opinion on a, I've seen a tweet. It's kind of a thread going around recently a while back on people arguing who's higher

in the Palfe Pound rankings, Piotty Ann or Kobe Coventon. And obviously, we all know is Piotr-A-N, but what's kind of your opinions on that as well? Great question. So the first question, I mean, come on, Oliver Gachie rules. I can't wait for that fight. Very intrigued by it. My gut is telling me to favor Charles Oliver right now, but Gage is so chaotic that it makes things so interesting.

But that is a really fascinating fight. There's a lot of fights that I'm looking forward to this year. That might be at the top of the list as we speak, so I'm really looking forward to that. Pound for pounds, I hate these conversations. I really hate them because it just, it just depends on how you view pound for pound. There's so many different ways you could view it.

You could view it as, what have you done for me lately? You could view it as, like, if these guys fought each other who would win. I think Jan clearly, Jan is the more complete fighter, obviously, because he can do it all. He could do the takedowns.

His wrestling's getting better. His takedown defense has actually gotten better. His offensive wrestling has improved a lot. The striking's tremendous. Like, he does. so many things well but does what Colby

what Colby does so well is does that negate everything that Peonorneum does because Uspen I mean Uspen's so good and you have to think right now like maybe Shamiab

is a different level but I would favor Colby to beat anybody in this division besides Usman Shemayev's an interesting one I don't know man that's a really good question I hate these pound for pound debates.

It's just a matter of if Colby, if we got like 170 Yan and Colby started chaining takedowns on him, Jan's probably going to get tired, but Jan might be able to stay on his feet. So that'd be the big question. Can Peter Yan stay on his feet if they ever fought each other if we ever got like a welterweight version of Covington versus Jan? But I think if the question is who's the better,

more complete fighter, I would say Jan is the better, more complete fighter. But Colby's not far behind if we're being off. honest. We're getting some requests. So let's keep this party going. We've got a master Rosvan. I think that's what, right? Master, how are you? Master. What's going on? Can you hear me? You there. I had you. All right, if you want to try again, try again. let's get

Smith underscore Irwin hashtag T-O-B-S are you there? Just got on mute Hey Mike, how you doing? Good, how are you?

Right, doing the right. So my question is, what to do with Hamzaa T-Meyers? Like, if he goes on to win the title against Camaro, do you have him fight easy right away, or you make do his trip throughout the middleweight division.

Thank you, sir. Yeah, great question. If Hamz, I mean, Hamza, that's got to be Gilbert Burns first. And I think he will beat Gilbert Burns, but it's a tough fight. It's a tough fight. I can't believe he's a minus 5-10 favorite in this fight. Mind-boggling, but he has done so much to sort of warrant that kind of a line. But yes, I will say this.

If he goes out and beats Gilbert Burns and does it impressively, a lot of people are saying that he should fight Colby, number one contender fight, what have you. And sure, you could do that, and people would watch the hell out of it, but you have to put him in a title fight. Like if Oussman, we imagine Kamar Uzman is going to fight Leon Edwards, but that fight is not official yet.

Penn has not hit paper. So if I'll say this again, if you are Leon Edwards and his management team, you get this fight announced tomorrow, because you do not let Hamzat-Chimaia fight Gilbert Burns before this fight is official. Because I don't think the UFC, I don't think they will do this,

but if you leave the door open at all, at all, to sneak Hamzad into a title fight with Kamar Usman, it's not out of the realm of possibility. It just isn't. So if you are Leon Edwards and his team, you are trying to get that ink to drive as quickly as possible. Otherwise, Hamzat fights the winner of that fight,

which you probably go with Kamar Usman. is going to be the heavy favorite in that fight. You do Usman versus Shemayev. I don't know if he goes right up to 185 in fights Izzy. You could do that if you wanted to and just strike where the iron is hot, where the iron is hot. But you could also do the Colby fight for the title. Like that could be his first title defense.

He goes and fights Colby and there you go. And who knows it's going to happen with Colby and what's going to happen with Mazdal. There's a lot of unanswered, a lot of unanswered questions, a lot of unknowns. But I think Shemaiif will get his chance to fight for the second title. I just don't think it'll be that quick, but we'll see what happens. I could be completely wrong.

The UFC just shoots into the moon. Maybe fights for the middleweight title. Hell, maybe it fights for the light heavyweight title as well. Let's see if we can get Rozvan back in here. It's connecting. We're trying. The wheel is spinning.

Big bucks, big bucks, no whammies, no whimmies. All right, try one more time. All right, we'll take two last ones. Triple stripes. You're back. Hey, so I want to talk. about Sugar Sean O'Malley real quick because I feel like this man is he has so much hype, so many eyes on him. He talks such a big game, but he kind of refuses to fight the top

level guys and lets his Dominic Cruz. And I'm looking at the rankings. Ricky Simone is ranked 12. Ricky Simone has called him out various times. Is that a fight do you think that gets made? or do you think he fights somebody who's unranked like Muhammad Makayev or Saeed Narma Gometov? One of those guys, I feel like all of those are tough challenges for him and we haven't really seen much from Sugar as far as fighting, you know, rent competition or guys that you look at and say, wow, that's going to be a tough fight other than Cheeto. What do you think? Yes, John O'Malley is an interesting case. I saw Mohamed Baha'iakia call him out that Bill will never make that fight. because one, Mahayev's not even the same division,

and you don't want to, you're having two guys that you're trying to build into future champions from two different divisions fight each other. It doesn't make a lot of sense. Good on Maheuf for keeping his name in the headlines. Good on him. But that fight doesn't happen.

Sayyana Raghabanov absolutely does not happen in a million years unless it's for the title. Sean O'Malley doesn't want that smoke, and why would he want that smoke? That's a terrible idea if he says yes to that fight. He has called out Pedro Munoz. I think that is a fight that could happen. I'm surprised I didn't try to book him on this 274 card in Arizona, in his hometown.

But maybe the UFC is just going to save him for July, save him for that international fight week car, which doesn't really surprise me. But he called on Munoz. I like that call out. The Cruz fight, I don't think happens. I think Cruz will either fight Aldo or Edgar. But O'Malley versus Munoz, usually when O'Malley asked for something, something, he gets it. But I give

O'Malley all the credit in the world for how he's handled his career and has handled himself. And, you know, he's kind of changed the way a lot of fighters think about development and pay and all that stuff. And, I mean, look at Patty Pimbled. Patty Pimblech. He's like, I ain't fighting a rank guy unless

you pay me more. And that's the way it should be. So good on him. Get the Pedro fight. I think he would have a good chance to win that fight. So, all right. Two last quick ones. functionally crazy Chris to get you back in here

maybe perhaps all right try one more time all right let's see if we can get Raymond's oh there you go yeah I'm fucking driving a word pro with dead zone you mentioned the last name that I wanted to see what your input was

Mazvidal I mean where are we now with him I mean we all know the losses he's come off of I mean Colby's a ridiculously good wrestler but we all knew how that was probably going to go down. And then he does this crazy shit outside the restaurant, whatever, Mr. Big Bad Miami.

I mean, I would assume that that definitely hurt his stock pulling that bitch move outside the restaurant. Again, I don't know all the ins and outs of the trash on and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's irrelevant, I feel like at this point. Well, what happens to Mazvito? And my other question to you real quick was, what the hell happened to fucking Alex Gustafson, man? He was one of my favorite fighters, the mauler.

Does this heavyweight debut, loses, and gone. that's just i just wanted to bring those two up to you bro all right uh thank you sir the the mazadal thing it's it's hard to even say because we don't know what's going to happen i know he's scheduled to head back into court i believe it's april 21st so it could be who knows i got continues to tell me and maybe it doesn't happen maybe mazal's like nah dude i'm not going to give him the rub but i said like before the charges were pressed i was convinced we're heading towards a rematch it was It was a fight that nobody really wanted to see a second time after seeing it the first time. But after this whole, you know, fight on the street and the attack him in Miami thing,

the mean streets of Miami Beach, I thought for sure that this was the direction we're going to try to go. When out with the charges being filed and all that stuff, I don't know. We'll see. It's got to go through the courts and everything. But we already know what the answer is going to be to this question when Dana White starts doing the media. He's going to be asked about this by every single person that he does an interview with. And he's going to say the same thing. Look, we get 700 crazy assholes on the roster.

Sometimes things like this happen. That's the answer we're going to get. What it does for Mazadol and his career and who he would fight. I don't know. But let's just say charges are dropped and Mazdahl was free and clear. I still think there's money to be made with this Colby fight if they could do it. But if not, I like the Wonderboy idea. I think that's a fine fight.

And you have the NMF versus the BMF. We get to take Mazat all away, like literally the opposite of a Colby fight build. Throw them in there with Wonderboy. It's going to be super friendly and fun and all that stuff. As far as Gustafson goes, fear not. May 21st, he is back, back at the heavyweight division. He's going to fight Big Ben Rothwell. So there you go.

For the Alex Gustafson fans out there, you're going to see him soon, it looks like. So I'll try to get Rabzan back in here. And then we'll take one more. You guys rule. I didn't think we'd be taking this many calls, but here we are. Come on, Ravzan. I don't know why we're having such a problem here. I see Rage and Al here.

If you need to buy a house, you know who to go to. Okay? It ain't me. Go to Reginald. He'll take care of you. All right, let's get Wally in here. Wally, how are you? I'm doing well.

How are you? Good. Hey, so here's my question. I'm starting to think, the 205 division that Jan Belhovic is done. I don't think he's going to get the title back. Do you think there's a way for him to go back

and get the title with the people that are out there now? Interesting question. Wow. A lot of 205 hate today. Not hate, but maybe some big words here. Yombovich done? I don't think so. He's supposed to be fighting Alexander Rackich.

Five round main events. I believe we're going to do that in May. Not official yet, but I think it's being targeted. Yeah, I mean, listen, if you're, obviously, if Yomahovych beats Rackich and Yuri Perashka becomes the champion, Jan will fight Yuri Pajaska. It just seems like that's what they'll do. So I don't think he's done. I don't think he's out of the title punts at all.

But he's got to win his next fight and Yuri's got to win. They're not going to run it back with Glover right away. But I don't know. I don't think he's done. All right. Final word, going to the man, the myth of legend. One half of the BTL grudge match on Thursday, a little breaking news for you. You know him from the M.A. hour, Mr. New York, Rick.

Hello, Eric. Good morning. Good morning, Mike. Heck of a morning. A great debut show. First time, long time. Have one question for you. Where does Hamzaa Chameh and Darren Till rank in the all-time M.MA bromances?

I'm going to hang up and listen. Thank you, New York, Rick. It's got to be up there. If there is not a UFC fight pass show at least in the next six months between those two guys, then the UFC is just terrible at their jobs. You have to milk this thing for all it's worth. There better be a weeks full of content between these two guys in Jacksonville, Florida, because I love it.

I love every second of it. And I loved the MMA hour drop in where Hamzat just kept asking for money. I mean, these two guys just help each other out in so many different ways. Like, Hamzat's going to make Darren Till a better fighter. He's going to make him a more driven and more determined fighter. And Darren Till is going to take his personality and take those little nuggets that we love about him so much and drop him into Hamzat's brain. It's just, I mean, those two guys, this is a combination that nobody ever thought we'd see. And now that we have it, I never want to see anything else.

I never want to see anything else. They should have a daily show. Jose, how are you? So, man. I'm all the way in New England, and you're not here. What's happening? I know. I'm like 14 hours away from you.

What's going on? It's cold, man. It's about 15 degrees, and the windchill just cut my skin in half when I walked outside. Don't miss this whatsoever. It was a nice balmy 95 in Arizona when I flew all the way out here. But I flew out here to Rhode Island just for the heck of a morning, and I realize you're not even here.

It's kind of tomfoolery. I'm not going to lie. I'm sorry. It's 65 degrees where I'm at right now. I'll trade you. I'll trade that back. Anyway, I'm unrelated to M.M.A. How many games the Red Sox winning this year?

And why is it 117? I'm going to hang up and listen. I was going to give a number that I thought was going to be probably too high, but I wasn't going to say 117. I think the socks will win a solid 94 games, make the playoffs and have a good run. I think this group is going to be good. But ladies and gentlemen, we are done. The first show is in the books.

I didn't think we'd even go this long, but you guys absolutely rule. So thank you very much for jumping on here. The debut of heck of a morning. And the beauty of this show is we're going to be here three days a week. So we'll be back on Thursday. We'll be back on Friday. We're going to do exactly the same thing. We'll have a little topic of the day.

We'll do the birthdays. We'll do the history and we'll do all this different stuff. We're going to have ourselves an MMA community morning show because it's not done anywhere else. There's no, you listen to the radio, you go on television, there's no morning show. We deserve this. And maybe I'm not the guy to bring this into the future, but I'm the guy that's at least going to get this thing started because we deserve it. We have worked our asses off for this. And we deserve to have our voices heard by you guys.

fans, the people who are knowledgeable about the sport, not going on a national debate show where you talk about the MMA with guys who have no idea what they're talking about. So this is for you guys. We'll see you on Thursday. And if you're just listening right now and you're like, what the hell happened in the previous 45 minutes? Don't worry in a matter of, in a matter of moments, probably the next 30 minutes or so. This will be up on the M.A. Fighting Podcasting Network.

Some bells and whistles. The podcast ones in particular. Some bonus coverage. not today, but there could be an interview or two that have been done that will add into the podcast show. So first show in the books, we're trying to get our sort of feet under us and appreciate all of you jumping on and taking part in the program and jumping in, especially the real estate mogul, Mr. Ally, Quinta, an honor to have you here, sir. So thank you all very, very much for checking out the program. Going to the podcast network at a matter of moments. Thank you all. Have a heck of a morning.

Enjoy the rest of your day. To the Vox Media Podcast Network.