MMA Fighting - Heck of a Morning | Devieson Figueiredo's Gripe With the UFC, Joanna Jedrzejczyk's Title Hopes With UFC 275 Win, More

Episode Date: June 7, 2022

Deiveson Figueiredo is not happy the UFC is moving forward with an interim flyweight title fight between Brandon Moreno and Kai Kara-France at UFC 277 in July and has made some interesting demands to remain in the division. Was it the right move? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck reacts to Figueiredo's recent gripe with the UFC and gives his take on what will likely be the outcome. In addition, listeners ask questions about UFC 275, Glover Teixeira's chances to defeat Jiri Prochazka in the main event, Joanna Jedrzejczyk's championship hopes should she defeat Zhang Weili, the negativity of a select group of MMA fans, the PFL's recent decision making regarding their regular season and their announced alternates, and much more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 10 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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The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Indeed, a heck of the morning in the dawn of a slightly new era here on the M.MA fighting Twitter spaces. I am Mike Heck. And if you are listening right now, you're either listening on the podcast network or you're live in the M.A. Fighting Twitter Spaces. And it's not 8 a.m. Eastern. So if you miss the announcement on Friday, the show, moving forward for the foreseeable future will now begin at this time.

10 a.m. Eastern, 7 a.m. Pacific. because a lot of people on the West Coast were like, what the hell, man? It's too early. I can't wake up at 4 or 5 a.m. and be live. I mean, I could, but come on. Help us up a little bit. So I figured this would be the right way to do it.

Spoke to the powers that be. We made it happen. And here we are. New Star Time. Thank you very much for joining us. This is an exciting time in the world of mixed martial arts because we have UFC 275 coming up on Saturday. There's a lot of events going on in Singapore throughout the week.

If you're into the prospects from the Asian region of the world, there's the road to UFC tournaments kicking off this week. You got media days, all sorts of fun stuff. We're going back to the old school weigh-ins where it's just basically the ceremonial weigh-ins are the real way-ins. You go in, you weigh in, you face off. There's no two-hour window. So I know my best friend, A.K. Lee, is a little bit disappointed.

We can't do a full show. But we'll still have some fun on that. And then the big card on Saturday with Glover Tashara, defending against Yuri Prakashka. For the light heavyweight title, that's the main event. We got Valentina Shavchenko looking to continue her reign of terror and dominance, defending her title against Tyler Santos. We get the epic rematch, three rounds between Yawani on Jacek,

the returning Yuanian Jacek and Zhang Wei Li, and it's just, it's just going to be fun. Those three fights are fantastic. There's some good storylines mixed in there. Andre Fialio is back against Jake Matthews. That's a pretty good fight. Jack Della Madalena is on the main card, and we got Hagerio Boncherine versus Menel Cap.

So it should be a fun card. And we're also coming off of UFC Vegas 56 this past Saturday, where Alexander Volkov defeated Jarzini-Row. thousand strike first round tk a of course herb dean was involved so the hokey pokey was done in terms of the stoppage actually being called but in the end had no issue with the actual timing of the stoppage i just had an issue with the hesitation of the stoppage from the hokey pokey king herb dean and as bad as that was as annoying as that was watching that all go down that was that was probably the third most egregious refereeing that happened on that card because Chris Tione just continues

to make me want to throw my television set across my house. How many warnings can you give these friggin fighters? It is so frustrating watching Chris Tione just allow these fighters to grab the fence with their hands, grab the hands with the fence with their feet. Here's a warning. There's a warning. Everywhere's a warning, but I'm not going to do a gosh darn thing about it. I wanted to say something else, but I'm going to go with that. It's a family show. Take points. All this talk about judging and open scoring and all of that when the bigger issue is probably the referees right now. You have to take points. Otherwise, cheat your ass off because it's not going to get called. Nothing's going to get called. It's so dumb. It drives the insane. It drives you nuts. Mark Smith is in that

category as well. How are we not taking points? Multiple fence grabs. Multiple fence grabs. Your first warning is in the back before the fighters even walk to the octagon. That's where you're going over the rules. That's what the warnings are given. If it happens once, sure, if you want to give another warning fine, but after that, you've got to start taking points. This is getting ridiculous. This is getting ridiculous. People are up in arms about the Tim Elliott story and him saying that he basically cheated. Why not? No one is going to call it.

The pace structure is the way it is. Win and show. But if the reps aren't going to call it, do what you got to do to win a fight. It's insanity. Absolutely insane. But we're here to talk about that. We're here to talk about UFC 275.

We're talking about UFC Vegas 56. Take it up whatever the hell you want. It's your show. Let's begin with four quix. corner sports. What's up? How's it going? You're breaking up.

Oh, you're getting better now? That's better, yes. Love the new start time. Feel great to be able to come out at 10. Usually eight a talk to a little bit pushing it, but I wanted to talk about Volka and Giardino. One of them ended up on the two-fight losing streak, and that was Giardinio,

is one of them going to be fed to Almeda or Alexander Romano, do you think? Like, will you think that Doreenia would take one of those fights? And I mentioned for my submission for Otno. I don't know. What do you think of this matchup between Volkov and Chris Zoccus?

I know Volkoff pretty much has fought everybody for the most part in heavyweight. And I think it should be an interesting matchup. I mean, that could be, like, a good, like, cool main event on a fight night, maybe on a main event for a main event. fight night. And I saw the news that they were in the works of making Marlon Cheevera for some Dominic Cruz. I'm going to get your thoughts on that. And your opinion, maybe on Yonan,

coming back. If she gets a victory, rolled the USC Caterpenter into a title fight immediately. All right. Thanks, Mike. Have a good one. I mean, look, that was the first call. See how fresh everybody is? Get that couple hours extra. Rest, sleep. if you will, ready to go. First question, I will address the aftermath of UFC Vegas 56. I would say that Alexander Volkov is going to be fed Alexander Romanov. That's how I would do it because, listen, it's a win and he didn't lose two in a row, but he also didn't go anywhere with that win, if that makes sense.

That fight was basically to keep the same exact spot that they were already in. So he doesn't improve much. He just gets his second paycheck. Jarzino loses two in a row. And I think you just got to throw him on off in there and just see what happens. Worst case, I mean, what happens? Volkov wins, beats a guy like Romanov. He gets the rub off of that because there's a lot of excitement around Romanoff right now.

Volkov gets to take a step forward in the eyes of a lot of people. And if Romanov beats Volkov, now you know, this guy can beat top 10 talents. let's push this guy. He might be a he might be a couple wins away from fighting for the title at that point. I think with Romanov, where he is now,

I know he's, I know he just beat Chase Sherman and Chase is a great guy. One of the lower ranked heavyweights in the world, if we're being honest, especially UFC fighter, but he treated him accordingly

as a minus 4,000 favorite or where the hell he was at the fight actually happened. But yeah, as far as Jarzino goes, I don't know. Eric Lewis loses to Sergey Pavlovich. I'd probably do Derek Lewis either way.

Win or lose. Everyone's been wanting to see Jarzini versus Derek Lewis. I think you just kind of do it now. Neither is close to a title shot at this point. So that's probably the way I would go with that. The Dominic Cruz Cheeto Vera news, listen, we tell you this all the time. If we haven't reported it, it's not done.

And that's the case at this one. that's all I could really say it is being discussed it is an option for August 13th but to say that that fight is done for August 13th that we could slot that in as the main event for August 13th would be premature from all indications from what I am being told

but it is being discussed it is what the UFC wants I know it is verbally agreed on one side the other side not really sure just yet so that'll be a good fight if it happens I'm in for that give Marlon that shot I actually would probably give Marlon something a little bit higher than

Dominic Cruz I like the Peotter Yon idea better but again I don't know if Marlon wants to wait until October to fight I know Marlon seems to want that August time frame and Domina Cruz seems to want that August September time frame as well so I think timing lines up for both guys I'd watch the hell out of it

let's do it if it happens. And then if you want to, of course, you ought to coming back first time since the Zhang Wei Lee war a little over two years ago, and she's fighting Zhang Wei Lee again, if she wins does, does she gets a title shot. Absa freaking lootly she does. And she will fight Carla Sparza and she will be a minus 300 favorite to beat Carla Sparsa more than likely after that first fight. And I just feel, I just, Carla being the champion is super cool. It's a super cool story. her coming back. I know the fight wasn't good at all. It was one of the worst title fights of all time from a stylistic perspective from a viewership and an entertainment perspective. But Carla,

after that vicious, vicious, vicious beating, one of the all-time vicious title fight beating she took from Yawani and Jacek to come all the way back to win the title all those years later is a tremendous story. But I feel, and I've been saying this is a while. Carla has deserved that title shot for a long time But every time she was The UFC was like nah, maybe not Nah, maybe not The fight to make was always the Yauta rematch

And I feel like if she if they booked that rematch And Carla Sparza beats Yadhi and Jacek She's good to go There's no more doubts, there's no more questions It almost erases the Nami Unis fight Not from forever and ever But it puts it on the back burner because I mean That would be just an incredible win

for her. Because I know how long it took her a very long time to get over that loss. So, but yes, if Yonah Beats Zhang Wei Li, 1,000% she's getting the title shot. And if Zhang Wei Li beats Yuanita and J-check, I'm not as confidence that she gets the title fight. I would say Jessica Androge, I would give it to Jessica Androge if Zhang Wei Li won, because Zhang's lost two in a row. So it's hard to, it's hard to justify throwing her into a title fight after snapping a two-fight skid. but Jessica Androge would be right there and I would heavily favor Jessica Androge in that fight as well

Let's get Tristed in here Oh boy AK's in here too Is this going to be, are we doing this again? No, no, no All love, all good There you go That's all love.

Good, you know, I said what I had to say Just gonna leave it alone and everything AKK, all love man All love, oh goodness All right But let me get to my point, especially after the card this past Saturday. Mike, you know, I know I guess you didn't have a chance to read some of my picks.

I'm not going to go through all of them, but some of them like I had Lucas Armada versus Nate Landware and then Corrine Silver versus Shana Young. And then I have Carolina, Keogier, I can't even pronounce her last name, I'm sorry, versus Ashley Yoder. you know I think that fight lines up because Yoder is coming off an injury but I think she's going to be she said on Instagram that she's hoping to start training she's just waiting to be cleared and then the guy I really want to zone on in is Benoit St. Denise. I have him I have him facing Mason Jones. That would have been great on the London card because Mason Jones is also from Wales so he has a fan base there. So that would have been pretty good to have those two fight match up.

but it's just too quick of a turn around for St. Denise. But speaking about St. Denise, my thing about St. Denise, he looks like he's a prospect, and I think he could do some things in this lightweight division. I mean, you know, the way he thought I was really impressed. He was so good with his transition as far as his grappling was concerned, and he's always going forward. Now, he almost got caught in knee.

So he did talk about that in this post-fight scrum, that he has to be, he's trying to be a little bit more patient instead of just like have this warrior mentality, just put pressure, put pressure and go after it. So I think over time he's just going to get really good and we're going to be speaking about him more and more. But my question also too is, do you think the lightweight is catching up with the bantweight

as far as deep prospects coming up? You know, I want your thoughts on that. Because, I mean, we're starting to see him pop up here more and more and more. So, you know, I'm liking this lightweight division more and more as the prospects are coming up. Hopefully at some point, the lightweight division, you know, the fighters on the top, like, that gets all situated. So, you know, a lot of the younger prosperous starts coming up. So, you know, just your thoughts on that. And that's all I got for you doing today, Mike.

All right. Thanks a lot for everything. Thanks, buddy. There he is. Tristan Gordette. Yeah, I mean, listen, if they, the matchups that you suggested, if they make those I probably wouldn't go the Ashti Yoder route. There's really, to me, there's two ways you go with it.

You either just throw her in there with other, like, fun vets. Like, I love the Angela Hill idea. I think that fight is a perfect fight. If that fight doesn't come together, if we're not going to vet route, then you kind of have to, and I hate saying this, you have to use, you have to lip-mist test her. And I know she was on a bad streak, It was such an emotional, great moment for her.

But you have to use her to either put herself over against a really tough prospect or put the prospect over against a former title challenger with the name and a little bit of momentum right now. So if they did, so if they did, my dog's going crazy again. I'm in Florida and the dog is still going crazy. So if they did Angela Hill, I'm fine with that. if they did someone like loopy godenez, I'm fine with that as well. Ashley Yoder, not really. I mean, Ashley's still in the UFC.

She's been in there for a while. But I just feel like, I don't know. I feel like, I feel like she's past the prospect line. But, yeah. Brianna 14-0, like when she gets medically, like when she's ready to go and she's not just booked, like she's ready to actually fight, and Yoder's ready to fight.

Actually, that's a good comeback fight for Brianna Fortino, FKA, Brianna Van Buren. Let's get Patrick in here. I know he's been waiting a little bit. CRJ, you're on deck. Patrick, what's up? Hey, Mike. What's up, buddy?

I hope you're having a heck of a heck of a. You know it. I guess I wanted to chime in on the, all the roughing stuff. I get really annoyed when the refs intervene. You know, they're inserting themselves into the action to, like, Chris Ione's literally slapping the guy's calf, like he's a nun in a Catholic school or something. And saying, stop it, stop it. Like, and Keith Peterson, um, a while ago in that Clayson Rodriguez fight,

that I was excited about. He, um, he went and he like, was grabbing the guy on the bottom. The guy was already on the bottom. And the person had secured top position, I think Clayson was on the bottom.

And, um, he reached across the guy on top's face. He basically cross-faced him to pull the fighter on the bottom's hand out. And it like, the, I don't think the, oh no, yo, was CJ, uh,

he was like, looked up for a second. and allowed the fighter, allowed Clayson to like scramble a little bit, like change. And I'm like, he totally just, um, intervened in that fight and like changed the outcome of a position.

Um, it's ridiculous that, that refs think that they should, um, they shouldn't even be in the peripheral vision of the fighters. You know, they should be on the outskirts and, um,

yeah, I just think that I liked the way that Toyoni took a point in the middle of the action, I guess. because at least he wasn't, like, stopping the fight. But, yeah, I agree, man. The rest need to actually do their job and take the points. That's why the rules are there.

Alexander K. Lee rules rule. But the other option, I don't know how they would do this, and I'm sure Dana White would be so against it, but is you just, you somehow change the cage. You know, you put up something so that it's not. not even available to because that that's a lot to ask in the middle of a fight you're in combat and you're supposed to mentally be remember okay I need to keep my hand at a 90 degree angle so that I don't stick my fingers through when I'm being like you know so like push with

with all of the force against it you know it's it's just a little bit of natural instinct to want to do that and to make the fighters use mental energy to uh to not grab a fence that like just physics wise your fingers are going to go through that no matter how like you would have to train these fighters would actually have to start to train like um that technique of like not grabbing the fence you know i just it it seems uh it seems a little rough uh anyways i just got wound up. I wanted to also talk about the new light heavyweight champion, Yeri. I'm going to hang up on you. What?

How dare you? How dare you go against my pick that I've been making for seven months ago? Come on now. It's Glover first round submission. You wait and see. You don't like fun. No, listen, you can still have lots of fun with Yuri Prasca. Remember, Glover's going to have his, he's going to defend the title, maybe one more, and then he's going to ride off into the sunset. And we still have lots more years of Yuri. Why can't we have both?

I mean, I'm with you. I'm from New England. I got friends that live in Danbury, Connecticut. I'm literally about the same age as Glover. I'd like to think that, you know, we can have that old man power and, you know, do some stuff and compete with the young pups. But Yuri Prohashka is an alien demon. he's a freaking

shinigami he comes to collect souls dude he's not in there to just grind out a decision win he's going to just he's going to decapitate anyways oh but so my question with him is just a serious question is I know he trained at

fight ready for his camp are any of them cornering him and that's the one thing I'm a little bit worried is that they are going to to kind of make him slow down or try to be a little bit more safe and control his style, kind of like in the same way, Johnny Walker, ever since he kind of started to be more of a in-control fighter, a little bit more like technical. He just seems to have lost his mojo.

So I'm a little bit concerned that Fight Ready has somehow done that to Yiri. But do you know if they're cornering him? And that is it for today, my bun. Thank you, man, man. Thank you, Patrick. Yeah, I don't know. I think if anybody is going to corner him, it'll be Captain Eric. Because I know Captain Eric is mentioned he was probably going to Singapore.

Because I know he's kind of bouncing around and stuff. But I know Yuri is also bouncing. It's not like he did the entire camp at Fight Ready. he just did a little bit of time over there. I think it's helpful. Like, I think that's where you want to go if you're fighting a guy of Glover. But I honestly,

I honestly cannot get the vision of Dominic Reyes full mounting Yuri Perashka out of my head. And if Dominic, and this is, Dominic's got solid Jiu-Jitsu, but nowhere near Glover Tizera. Nowhere near it.

If Glover Tashira, I honestly believe if Glover takes him down once the fights, over. I honestly believe that. One time the fight is over. Now, it's, Glover's going to have to go through hell to get there. I mean, hell. He's going to have to deal with spinning stuff. He's going to have to deal with vicious punches, some kicks, maybe some knees. But what Glover Tashir did in that fight against Jan Boehovic, now he's not going to be able to do it that easily. But if he could

just weather a quick storm and just bulrush Yuri and take him down, there's a very good chance the fight is over quickly. Because Glover's not going to, like, if Glover gets full mount on Yuri, he's not getting up. Fight's done. He's getting strangled and submitted and that's it. But it wouldn't shock me if Yuri won't, it wouldn't shock me if Yuri knocked him on the first round either.

But we'll see. I'm very, like, I just, again, this is why that pick has been there since Glover won the belt. That vision of Dominic Reyes, full mounting Yuri Perashka. If Dominic Reyes can do it, Glover Tassur certainly can do it. And Yuri ain't getting up if that happens. I don't care where you train. It's just not enough time to improve that much

when you're preparing to fight a guy like Glover to Sherry. Glover can crack too. Glover Rock the legendary Polish power. So I like it. Yes, and the referees, I feel like Chris Tione and Mark Smith just left the UFC Apex and they flew to San Francisco to referee the Celtics Warriors game too. And I will say this.

The Celtics sucked anyways. we're going to lose that game. But Draymond Green running around like he's freaking like a right tackle for the New England Patriots out there, just running dudes over, no call, not getting a second technical because he got called for a technical once before. It's frigging stupid. I don't know who's worse. MMA referees or NBA referees.

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it. Want turnips that look light but feel heavy? Easy. Want honey crisp apples that are firm, green, and definitely not Macintosh like last year when you lost the fall bakeoff to perfect Penelope Johnson? Okay, a bit TMI, but we're here for it. So download the app today and get zero delivery fees on your first three orders. Instacart, groceries that over deliver. Service piece exclusions and terms apply. Let's go to CRJ. Hey, Mike, how's it going? How's it going? Good. Good, my man. You know, like I try to be fun and bring like the speculative questions and I have like so many in the tank that I think are fun like but I want to talk about something kind of serious and it's kind of been bumming me out and um

I guess it's like related to this Twitter space which I really love because for me I don't really have any friends that call MMMA like I am I'm from New York and I'm from you know just like I'm born and raised here and there's just not a lot of people I know who like MMA. I'm, you know, come from a like, you know, my friend group's more sort of like artsy fartsy type beats. And honestly, it's been, you know, it's already hard to like get people to watch with me. Like people will come like in the living room when I'm watching alone and they'll kind of cringe or leave. And I'm like, it doesn't have to be everyone's thing. That's fine.

But the thing that's been really bumming me out is, you know, kind of the stuff that Jeff Molino is saying about Pride Month and a lot of the way the fighters and fans have been reacting to the pride stuff. And I am lucky in my personality that I feel like I can sort of separate. You know, a lot of my fighters, they're like huge, you know, conservatives and that's not how I swing, but it's fighting. We don't really have to, like, get each other on that plane. But the pride stuff and just the way certain fighters have been reacting just seems really over the top. And the fans just hating any fighter.

who's like even a little bit buying into the UFC's, you know, like promotion of it. It's really like been like, you know, I don't know, like affecting me and bumming me out. And like, I don't know if this is like a loud minority. I think it's probably a loud like slight majority. I'd like to think most people just don't care. But it's a bummer. Oh, hi, Jason. Jason's a friend of mine.

But it's just like it's a bummer. and I don't, yeah, I want to get up here and be like, which fighter do you think is going to win three points in a row in space, no gravity, because that's, you know, like what I like to do in the space. But like, you know, like, I don't know, maybe I'm overreacting, but it's been bumming me out this week. Like, like, I don't know, in another world, like someone like Jeff, like, it's not even like Jeff Molina said anything or the other fighters,

and it's just hate and hate and hate. Like, am I overreacting? Am I being a snowflake right now? CRJ, you were the man. I loved so much about your honesty there. It was just great. And now, I mean, here's what I'll say. I don't want to get into the whole thing and the politics and all that stuff.

I don't know how long you've been an MMA fan. I don't know if this is something that is newer to you, if it's maybe the last couple of years, maybe. Because I've seen a lot of fans, especially ones that come on the show and talk. They weren't MMA fans until the pandemic. because the UFC was really the only thing going on, and luckily we were putting out just a redonculus amount of content. It was like right when I started when the pandemic happened,

and it kind of just worked out great. But I bring you back in real quick. I just wanted to home. You have been a fan of the sport. Yeah, like I didn't watch any MMA, and I got trapped inside, and I was doing my like honors thesis at school, and then I just like caught up on the whole thing. So yeah, sorry to interrupt.

I just, you know. No, it's cool. I was curious to that myself. CRJ, you're learning a valuable lesson. You're learning a valuable lesson. And I understand that this thing's bumming you out. And it should. I understand why I would bum people out.

But you also have to understand a very important lesson in being a fan of this sport. There's no gray area here. This room, 99.8% of them. We've had, I think, one person so far in like the seven weeks we've done the show who is just an awful human being but for the most part

MMA fans are great but there's great and there's just horrendous and there's really no in the middle if we're being honest and those people

who are kind of awful will get mad and upset about literally everything literally everything like I'm just throwing this example of Tony, let's just say Tony Ferguson went down to a $500,000 today. There would be maybe 10% of MMA fans who would come out and be like, this charity's stupid. Tony Fergus is just doing this to get shine.

Tony Ferguson's just doing this to get attention because he lost his last couple of fights. Like this would absolutely happen. That would absolutely happen. So I don't think you're overreacting. I think you're learning a valuable lesson. Most MMA fans like MMA and they like the fighters and they want everything to do well. And a lot of things are positive. And oftentimes, I am positive.

And A.K. is positive. He's the freaking prince of positivity. And once in a while when we cover the sport, bad things happen. Negative things happen. And we have to talk about them. We have to talk about the referee sucking. We have to talk about the judges having bad scorecards. We have to talk about a fighter saying dumb stuff.

and it's not fun to talk about and we have to do that, it's our jobs. But for the most part, we like MMA, we like the fighters. And there are fans of the sport who hate everything. They hate everything. You'll fight,

like if you went on Instagram right now, if MMA fighting put up like an Instagram poll about how great Yuania J-Tex, Zhang Wei-Lee was at UFC 248, I guarantee you there'd be a percentage of people who said that fight sucks. And that's just who they are. that's just who these people are.

So you just got to deal with it, man. You just got to deal with it. But understand when you come into a room like this, for the most part, we're just going to have fun. And we're going to talk about which MMA fighters would have free fight winning streak in space in no gravity. Or fighting in fire, literally. Which, by the way, towards the end,

because you guys are the best, I just got a little distracted. My little brother just sent me a text message that kind of threw me for a loop. And I will let you guys know about it at a minute. Because maybe we can help the situation because it's pretty gnarly. And I know both of the people involved in this. And it is horrible. I'll save that for the end of the show.

Squillet MMA. Squillet it on me. Let's go. How are you there? Thank you so much for, letting me speak. I don't really have a bit for you. I just wanted to give CRJ a shout out. I'm from New York. I have definitely felt the way that you felt about not having homies to watch this with. So what I did was I sent you a DM and I know of a New York meet up and we

meet up in the city. And I think the next one is this weekend at Printers Alley. I have information if you want to go and be around other New York MMA fans. I might actually go this weekend. You're Not alone, bro. So if you're interested, just check the DM and then we can, you know, you know, chat or if you want to meet up with other, you know, fans in New York. You know, I got you. Thank you. Wow.

I mean, I'm telling. See, we're bringing people together. We're making a tight-knit MMA community here in the MAA fighting Twitter spaces. It's an amazing moment. Hopefully, CRJ can head on over to this meetup and meet like-minded folk. I love it. That's amazing. Let's get Jimmy Wang Yang,

not former WWF wrestler Jimmy Wang Yang here. Just the fan. How you doing, Mike? What's going on, man? So I just wanted to say two things. Just like Squillade, CRJ, I went through the same thing. Didn't have a lot of people.

I knew that watched them and made. And I've been watching since I was like 14, maybe 13. So I've connected with people on Twitter. like I know people from Texas personally and we only connected over MMA so hey use Twitter talk about it in the the hashtags like that's how I connected people hey send me a DM I've been watching USC for years I talk about all day and then Mike how do you feel about what do you think about your honor coming about coming back after you know over to your layoff against way Lee like and then rose

I remember she asked if she wanted to train her. What do you think about that? I help her train for a way. Thank you. Yes. By the way, let me just say this. I love this. I love what's happening here.

And two, Yuania Jacek fighting on Saturday. And this is no disrespect to Glover Tashira, Yuri Pyrashka, Valentina Shepchenko, and Talasantos. Yuania and Jacek fighting on Saturday is the most interesting thing on this card. And that just goes to show you

how good this card is, in my opinion. Now, is it top heavy? Yes. Is the main card? Is this like a main card loaded type of event? Yeah. I mean, obviously the Andre Fialio, Jake Matthews fight on the prelims is good

because Andre is starting to make a name for himself. He's becoming Seroni-esque, Kevin Holland-esque, where he's fighting every month, and he's just staying active and busy, and he's getting on Dana White's radar, which is very smart on his part. But Yawani and Jacek returning after over two years is the most interesting story on this card. And she's getting Zhang Wei Li, who has lost her last two fights, got knocked out viciously by Rose Namibunas,

and then lost a very close split decision in a very competitive fight where she basically changed her entire outlook on fighting, where she changed a lot of things. Her entire game plan changed. And I will have you know, I have not gone back and watched this a second time. watching it live, I thought Zhang Wei Lee beat Rose Diamond Eudis. Now, don't hate me on that. It was a super close fight, not a robbery or anything like that.

Just watching it live, I thought Zhang Wei Li won. I will also say this, watching it live at the time, I was not working for M.A. fighting, I joined M.A. fighting shortly thereafter. But watching it live, UFC 248, I thought Yon to beat Zhang Wei as well. But I was also working for another website

and I was trying to do a live recap of the car. I think it was actually like live blogging the fight, which was insanely difficult to do. But I just can't wait to see it. Three rounds. I know a lot of people want five rounds. I'm happy with three rounds. Those two women beat the ever living hell out of each other for 25 minutes. Let's have hearts. Let's have souls. We're going to see these two beat the living hell out of each other again, but just for 15 minutes. And it's going to be super fun. And then we're going to be right on to the title fights. So this is a, this is a good situation for both. And if Yawanna and Jacek wins, she's fighting for the belt. So this is a big

story. This is a great story. And it's a good spot for Zhang Wei Lee as well. She's already got a win. They've seen each other's best. What can they do differently? I'm very intrigued by this. And I'm curiously what Yowana looks like after two plus years away. I actually think the time away, I know there's a lot of questions in these types of cases about ring rust and things like that. Actually for Yohanna, I think this time off came at the right time. Sure, she took a lot of punishment in that fight from Zhang Wei, but I think maybe from a mental standpoint, just kicking away after a long title reign, the two fights with Rose right into this war with John Wei Lee. I think time off was the best thing for her. So I'm curious, I'm really curious

to see what she looks like when she comes back. Like, what's her style going to look like? Are these two going to get in there and just brawl it out again? I have the feeling they will. I I don't know. It's not going to be as epic as the first fight, but what can be? If we're being honest, it'll still be a great fight. I was talking to Annick about the card. You'll see that John Anick interview on YouTube later on today. But, yeah, we talked a lot about this fight. And I'm with him.

Happy it's three rounds. I think it's going to be tremendous. It's got more a Chandler-Gaichi-fe-fe-fe-feel to it than Janjajek, Waley, too. if that makes any sense because I just you got to go in there and try to tamper your expectations because I think the fight's going to be fantastic

but if you're expecting a fight that's better than the first I mean if it happens holy crap but let's just go in with this fight's going to be great let's tamper our expectations slightly I feel think it's going to be awesome

let's say deny in here am I out hey what's going on Mike how you doing bad man don't pretty good waiting for game three you know let's go dude that's why i like you man i first called in uh what was it like went for the aljo sterling fight like that week man i know you're from mass so or new england that's pretty cool red sox are rolling celtics are rolling connecticut's about

to be rolling um to c rj yeah i feel you i am pretty much uh the only m mma fan that i know but I'm also a die-hard Red Sox fan So try watching 162 baseball games So and I'm also an NBA fan In an area that, you know, is kind of Primarily a hockey town, if you know what I mean? And, yeah, no, so just try to just stay positive Stay off Twitter as much as you can

But try to find Twitter and use it for the right things Like joining spaces or whatever But yeah, Mike, what I was trying to get at is Why is this in significant? Singapore. You know, if you get a main event with a guy from Europe and a guy from Brazil, who's defending his title for the first time, you know, it's kind of like how, like, Rose had a defender title for the first time in Brazil. It's just kind of strange. I know Wei Zang's on the card, but I was looking through the, like, who's on it a few minutes ago,

because I have really been up to date this past few weeks, but not many, not many Asians, a lot of Europeans, but I don't know, I just don't see why you go out to Singapore now. Thank you, sir. Well, I think the road to the UFC thing kind of played a factor in this as well. You wanted to cap off that week with something big. And I mean, who doesn't want to, like, I know most fighters that I've spoken to, at least earlier on in their careers, their goal obviously is to become world champions and do the best they can and make as much money as possible.

But a lot of these guys and gals, they just want to travel the world and go to cool, places. And I feel like Singapore is one of those cool places for a lot of these fighters because of the rich history of martial arts in the area. Singapore indoor stadium. It's not MSG, obviously, but there is a lot of history in that building. So for a lot of these fighters, it's a very cool experience for them to travel to Singapore and compete like this. And this is a very big deal. It's first pay-per-view in Singapore. To be a part of the first anything in any place, is very, very cool. So, I mean, and listen, a lot of times these things don't make any sense.

We got Yaira Rodriguez fighting Brian Ortega on Long Island. I mean, great fight, but you couldn't do this in Texas or Phoenix or California or, I mean, you can't go to really, can't really do a UFC event in Mexico right now, but that would be freaking cool too. But Long Island just seems like such a kind of weird place to have a main event like that. But again, some of that stuff doesn't really matter when you're on a car like this, but you get the road to UFC, so you're going to get a lot of local talent, trying to earn their way up and try to get themselves a UFC contract.

Let's get a surloin take. So I guess, like, what I meant was, obviously, Singapore is crazy, and you definitely want to go there, and a lot of people want to fight there. But if you have the option to fight there now, like as in the UFC, to host an event there. Why wouldn't you headline it with somebody from the Big East, you know? Yeah.

Well, I mean, listen, Yuri has a lot of history in Asia, fighting for Risen, being a champion for Risen. So, I mean, I'm sure he's going to get a lot of love on Saturday, or Sunday, as it will be there. Let's get Saws Betts. What's up, Mike? Heck of a morning.

First off, I want to say thank you for the hours and hours of entertainment you've given me while I work, being able to get through the day. I appreciate it. Second off, I was kind of thinking about Andre Fialo this weekend. It seems like he's kind of one of these up-and-comers who the UFC might be trying to push a little bit. Like along with the Aaron Blanchefields, the Mohameda Mikhail's, I was just wondering if there's anyone else who you think is kind of like on their start in the UFC. who might be a future, like, champ, or that the UFC might try and, like, push a little bit. I'm going to hang up and let you talk.

Thank you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate the kind words. I mean, there's a few that I could think of. I think Raphael Fiziv, especially if he beats RDA, I think he's got a great personality. I can see them pushing him. Armand Sirukian, I mean, I'm super high on that guy.

Anybody who's listened to anything I've done in the last five years, you already know I was going there. He's also super interesting, so I like that idea. Yeah, I mean, I think Casey O'Neill is going to get a big push when she comes back. I think she was already kind of getting one. There's Alexander Romanov's another guy. I think he's a super interesting guy.

I'm trying to look at the betting lines for this Fialho fight. Fiala is a minus 140 favorite. I think there's some serious live money on Jake Matthews, some live interest in Jake Matthews at plus 120. I think Jake's the better fighter here. I think Andre is the more powerful. fighter. And I think Andre is probably the more exciting guy, but Jake's the better fighter, in my opinion. So I think if you're looking for maybe a sneaky dog play, it's a mean, plus 120 is not a sneaky dog play. But I think, I think Jake, especially if you can get this fight to the ground,

I think he's got a very good chance to win this fight. So I know we're all excited about if y'all, we're all excited about watching a guy fight every month. It's super cool. We like that. But at the same time, I think there's a lot of value on Jake here. I really do. Let's get, I want to get somebody who's been waiting a little while. Julio, what's up? Hey, Mike, how's going? Good.

Good, good. So does Jerry Prohashkin mask seem like the liver king of MMA? It just seems like a primal yelling in the woods type of individual is an interesting character. I agree with you. Even though I think he seems to be the favor, it seems to possibly, smash Glover, I think Glover is going to impose his experience and tap them out and, you know, give them that, give them that humble pie. But my actual question is, so I'm from California.

Paperview starts at 7 p.m. It's great. This weekend, I'm going to be in Virginia. Paperview starts at 10 p.m. The fight, the main event probably won't start until, like, what, midnight? Like, how the hell do you all do it? I'm not looking forward to it at all. I mean, you just got to deal with it. I'll be up. We'll be up work. AK's with me here. We're going to be up working until like 6 a.m.

And then we're going to sleep for an hour and then we're going to wake up. We're going to do on to the next one the next morning. I mean, that's just what we do. That's how it is. And we love it. But yeah, last week was awesome. 1 p.m. Eastern prelims, 4 p.m. Eastern Main Card.

Excellent. It's a way it should be. You want to mix it up like that October pay-per-view? It wasn't even really previews on ESS. spm plus ufccccc 76 i think that started like 10 a m eastern let's go let's go mixing those once in a while they go when they go back to abo do borgia in october i truly hope they do the same thing i love it no problem mixing in that every once in a while terence you're on deck we're bringing in the uh the gm of the yanks brian cashman

What's that, man? Unmute. Oh, sorry I was muted, my bad. A heck of a morning, Oh, good. Indeed. All right, quick thing. So how much of a disadvantage are these female contenders coming up when they're getting

their first five-round fights in a title fight against, for say, Valentina Shevchenko? I mean, mix in maybe a couple more lower-name five-round main events for females. And then another thing, I got to. a parley going for this Saturday. I got Glover de Chera. I got Yonah Young J. Chek, Andre Fialo, Ellen Allen, Manal Kemp.

Manal Kopp. How do you think about that? Wow. So, here's the first thing I'll say. A little plug, a little plug. As you guys have probably seen, if you were MMA hour fans, G.C. in Paris for the French Open. So I will be joining for No Bet's Bard.

I have no idea what we're going to do. because I'm not going to actually place any bets on this card. So he said we're just going to go and do some silly stuff and get a little crazy. And that's what we'll do. One thing I will tell you is that parlaying with underdogs is a horrible idea. Maybe it'll pay off for you. Maybe you'll rub it in my face. But rule of thumb, it's like when you're playing blackjack and you get two eights or two aces,

you split them every time. You double down on 10 and 11. You don't parlay underdogs, especially multiple underdogs. but I wish you very I wish you luck um Glover's a good pick I don't I'm telling you I think Jake Matthews has some value but that's listen that's a that's a parley piece Brennan Allen's good parley piece Manel cap good parley piece Bonterine's really good man I think he he's getting slept on a little bit but I think Manel if Menel fights like Manel he'll win but if he fights like he did his first couple of UFC fights where he's trying to

just outpoint guys, he's not going to win. But if he goes out there, just slings those hands, man is a problem. And I think there's a very good chance he can fight the belts very soon. We know you love the thought of a vacation to Europe. But this time, why not look a little further to Dubai, a city that everyone talks about and has absolutely everything you could want from a vacation. destination. From world-class hotels, record-breaking skyscrapers, and epic desert adventures, to museums that showcase the future, not just the past. Choose from 14 flights per week between

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All right, Terrence, maybe. The wheel is spinning. We got them. Perfect, perfect. I'm ditching a meeting at work. So I was more or less trying to like follow up on a question that I asked and you like answer part of it, but you like skipped over the other part. I do that. So and I think it's because it sounded aggressive, but I wasn't really trying to be aggressive.

Like the question was about like rushing other people to the front of the line and then like slow playing the other ones. And you answer that part. But the other part that I was asking about was the other end of the coin. It's when you have, like, let's use Carolina, for example. You have somebody like Carolina. And then you're like, oh, the hill, it makes sense. However, if you want to put her over, you'll put Lupy in. What makes you pick people where you're like, oh, this person needs to get a win?

For example, trying to say, like, Connor or Tony or somebody like that versus like, oh, no, that's a net spit thing. Like, when you want to feed, like, the person who's coming up to somebody who possibly could give them trouble, more or less because of the fact that, let's say, for example, they beat somebody who's ranked, but it's like a favorable matchup. Once they're in those rankings and they wind up losing half of the facts because they fight somebody who's not favorable anymore, then be, like, Edmund and Shabazzian, I appreciate them for the last name room. And then they're just kind of stuck there. and then like that messed up that trajectory. Because once you're in the ranking, you can't really pick your matches per se. So that's one question. The other one will be, do you think it would be a cool idea if arrests and judges were known beforehand?

Let's say, for example, you have, like, a rep that is known for, like, pulling fires apart pretty quick, like when you're in grappling exchanges and things like that. Some that, quote-unquote, stop stuff early if they don't see something. And then as far as judges, like if you know, like, you have a particular judge that scores the round for people who have ground control or they score more for damage. Even though I know all these things are supposed to be universal, they aren't always. So wouldn't be beneficial for the fires to know like two weeks in advance or even when they're being assigned their fights. And then the last question, I know it's a lot. Sorry.

The last question. what other fights besides, let's say, Aljo and then as well as Esparso, where Dana refused to, like, put them in the title fight until, like, the fans kept asking about it, and then he wound up putting them in there. And then they win, but they win in, like, a controversial fashion. So that's all I got for you, Mike. Thank you very much. Thank you, Terrence.

Yeah. So the first part, I mean, it depends. like comparing, I'm not saying you're doing this, but comparing the Carolina Colvo Kavich's of the world to Connor and Tony Ferguson or Lupi or whatever, it's apples and oranges. Connor, you just,

Connor draws interest in a lot of money. Tony Ferguson draws interest in a lot of money. Carolyn Colvukovic, not so much. Lupi Godinez, not so much. But Loopi is somebody you can build. Like, listen, Carolina, great win, great moments. Happy Trails for Lille.

Awesome stuff. But Carolina is not fighting for the title again. She's just not. She's so far back. She lost like six in a row heading into the Felice Herig fight. And Felice Herrig had won. Like Carolina had a previous win before Felice Herrig did. Like Felice has fought a lot.

She's had some success. But Felice went into that fight basically knowing she was done. And it was a great win for Caroline in a great moment. I love seeing it happen. but this is, I mean, I'm pretty sure that this is pretty much it. Like, these are the kind of fights that she needs to have. Like, Angela Hill's, I would favor Angela Hill to beat Carolina Colvacavich. I would.

I don't care. I mean, I'm not trying to disrespect anybody. I just feel like Angela Hill has been there with just recently much better competition and has performed much better than Carolina has. Like, I know Angela, Angela's been on the wrong side of some tough split. She's been in main events with really good fighters. Carolina has lost to pretty much everybody, and she beat Felice Herrick, who had one foot out the door.

So now we see. Like, is she back? Like, could she get to a title? There's only one way to find out. You put her in there with Angela, or you put her in there with someone who will probably be a heavy favorite over her that you're looking to use her name to build off of. Lupi Godinez would be a great example.

I like Lupi. Lupi looked phenomenal in her last fight, and she deserves an opportunity to to fight somebody with the name, in my opinion. I think she's one of the more interesting prospects in this division. She might be the most interesting prospect in the division. There are people talking on the fight card, I believe it was on the broadcast about if Lupy fought,

if Lupy fought Rosa fought Carla. Like right then after watching her beat Ariani Cornerloosie. I'm not ready to anoint her that, but hell, let's go. let's give her a test to see what she can do let's get toke gerting jensen here toke what's up morning afternoon as it is now for me

so what I'm wondering here with the bonsarine cape fight I'm I'm seeing bonserin on this slide down with losing three of his last four and seeing cop

actually finding his feet in the UFC this seems like the perfect matchup in one way, but still something that actually brings Boncerin in danger, as I see it, because if he loses here, he has lost to almost everyone at the top of the division, right? Or not everyone, that's not what I'm saying,

but he's falling a lot, like losing to Kai Karo, France, Brian Roval, and Ray Borg as well. So with a loss here, how far back does he go? Because this seems like, I'm not saying he gets cut, but that seems like he is going to go way down in the rankings as opposed to how he is now. Good question. Yeah, I mean, I don't think he gets cut.

I mean, just look at the guys he's losing to. He's losing to Kai Carr-France. And that fight was insane. He had Kai big trouble in that fight. And Kai came back and won. I think a lot of people forget about how wild that that round was. And then the Brandon Roy Val fight, I want to look this up real quick because that was a super close fight.

I'm curious what NBA decisions scored it as. Not that this is the end-all-be-all. I scored it for Royval. Okay, most scored it for Royval. There are some people who scored it for Boncerine. And there are people on Twitter that I remember scoring it for Boncerine, but I thought Royval won the fight. Close fight.

blitty. So, I mean, it's not like he's getting the doors blown off of him out there, although Manel is the kind of guy who can blow your doors off if you get him going. So we will see. I like the matchup. I mean, Bontrine's title hopes, at least for the foreseeable future, are probably on the line. But let's be honest, if he goes out and beats Manal cap, how close is he to a title shot? It's probably still really far away, considering what this division looks like. So I don't think a loss completely crushes him. And the wind doesn't do a win's like a nice feather in the cap but considering where this division is right now we have a champion that is now saying that which by the way davis and figurato's

reaction to this interim title fight is probably the dumbest reaction i've ever heard of anybody this is just so silly the ufc is giving is doing an interim title fight basically to make your next title fight way more interesting because at the time we had a two horse race. We had, do we do the brand of Moreno fight again? Do we just go right back to that well? Or do we do this new contender in Cairo, France? And the plan was, let's just do the Moreno fight because I was in on the Moreno fight. If you want to do the Moreno fight 500 times in a row, I will watch it every single time. It's a great fight. So now he's hurt. He's out till maybe the end of the year. And I told you on the show, like, I think in Jacksonville that the UFC was talking

about doing an interim title fight between these two guys. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with doing an interim title fight in this situation? The division continues to move forward. It's a glorified number one contender fight. Props for Moreno for even taking this fight because he didn't even have to. And he took it anyways because he wants to fight in July. This is a great fight.

And the winner of this is going to fight Figurato in a fight that's way more interesting with way more stakes and it's way more compelling. Which means he makes more money. I don't understand the problem. I don't understand his issue with this whole thing. But that's why Boncerine is very far away from a title shot, win or lose on Saturday. While Mano caps is a little bit of a different story,

came with a lot of hype, he lost his first two fights, came back, vicious knockouts in his next couple. He goes out there and just starches Boncerine, especially in Singapore, because again, he's got a lot of fans in that are fighting for Horizon, having a presence. in that part of the world. It would be a very big deal.

He will look like a star if he goes out there and starts his Bonturian, which is there's a very good chance he can. So, yeah, I don't think there's a ton of stake for him. Lots of sake from an L cap, though. We'll take a couple more. Semi-casual MMA. You're out. Hey, Mike.

I was just wondering if you've heard anything else about the PFL situation with Carlos Leal. I know that that was a pretty big story last week, but then I didn't hear anything else about it. Oh, my God. Thank you for bringing this up. Jeez, Louise. I mean, literally some of the dumbest promotional stuff

I've ever heard in my life. I'm trying to think there's another... Corey Hendricks is another one. Corey Hendricks, I'm just trying to pull this up real quick because I want to make sure I'm on the money. So if you miss between the links, we talked about this, Carlos Lial, who fights for the Professional Fighters League, who stepped in to fight

their welterweight champion Roy Cooper stepped in as an alter did essentially to fill in for somebody else fights their champion who missed weight Ray Cooper missed weight by like an obscene amount

like six pounds and Liao went out there and just beat his ass whooped on the champion who missed weight he goes out there and beats him So you're thinking to yourself, Carlos Liel could find himself in the playoffs. It turns out he's not even on the roster right now. Carlos Liel, who beats the champion and beat him convincingly after the champion

missed weight by a ton is an alternate. He's not even in the season. So he's going to go to Atlanta for this card. and if somebody falls out, they will let Carlos Lial back in. What is that nonsense? Are you kidding me? This is, I mean, this is just horrible. TFL is shooting themselves on the foot.

You know what's crazy about the PFL? There was actually a legitimate case a month ago. A legitimate debate on whether or not PFL had jumped over Bellator as the number two organization, especially amongst like the mindsets of the North America. American fans. It's UFC for a long time. So UFC, Bellator, I mean, maybe you throw water KSW in there depending on who you are. But PFL was in the discussion, but at best, PFL is three. Then you get to a point where Bellator's had a really bad year. I mean a really bad year.

Anything that could go wrong has. Their main events have been horrendous, just bad stuff all around. PFL gets a little bit of momentum. And then they come out with this pay-per-view. you idea, which is just horrible. Then they come out with this silliness with Carlos Leal. Corey Hendricks as well who steps in, fights Emiliano Sordy

in the first round of the PFL season, who lost to Antonio Carlos Union last year. Corey Hendrish is a second round TKO, a super impressive performance. He's not even in the season. Like, it's just silly. It's so confusing

trying to keep up with this. The PFL, you have to spend, I mean, you have to literally set aside hundreds and hundreds of hours to not only watch the PFL product, but to try to like keep up with the PFL product. It's just way too much work. It's way too much work. It's already enough work trying to be a UFC fan and watch cards every week and try to get it in touch with everything. It's not easy to do. Throw in Bellator. Yeah, what's cool.

Gayguards fighting. Yes, I want to watch it. Yoll Ramirez fighting. Cool. And now you put the PFL in there. It's just so much work to watch the PFL. And just when this door opens, Bellator literally, the Bellator brass, they literally are holding open the double doors. PFL walk right in.

We're handing it to you. A silver platter. The silver medal. We're handing it to you. And they won't take it. It's like they took it and they threw it on the floor. And they threw it in a dumpster. What are you doing?

God. so horrible I don't know why they do this I don't know why they do this let's get Andre in here I'll take a couple more I do want to like let you know something maybe we could help out in a couple of moments

but let's see if we can get Andre in here Andre are you there Andre okay I try again Andre let's get Tadjik Bay in here and we'll get Jay up oh we get a Z in here too okay

all right Tadig what's up Not much, heck, great joining and another great space from you. Just wanted to quickly comment on the Davidson figure-ed a situation. I think we have to look, we should not look at his statement just in the vacuum because it's clearly when you read him and when you hear him, you can see Henry Sejudo's influence. And I think it's going to put Davidson into this turbulent times and not maybe the best relationship with the UFC because this contract stuff, more money stuff,

I'm not going to fight in this division, unless I'm paid more. It's kind of a lot of what I think what Henry Sejudo is whispering him. So I think we should consider that a little bit more as far as how much influence Sehudo has on Davidson right now outside of just, you know, his fight style, his training and whatnot. And I think this is what we do not talk about enough.

And I think it's not the best way to go when Henry becomes the part of your management or a financial decision type of conversation. Because obviously we see that his retirement didn't end well. And nobody, frankly, just like Brandon Moreno, said nobody cares about, you know, what Figuerdo says. Nobody cared about what Sejudo is saying, whether he wants to return. or not. So unless, you know, Figuero wants to be this irrelevant as Cicudo, he would have to kind of get back into the orbit

and regard his relationship with UFC in my opinion. Nice. That's a great call right there. And absolutely 100% accurate. Yeah. You know who we're going to take advice from? We're going to take advice from the guy with the most botched retirement in MMA history.

That's a good idea. That's so smart. We'll take a page from the book of the guy who got to finish over Dominic Cruz in a huge event for not only the UFC, but for sports, because it was the only thing cooking in the middle of the pandemic. And he retires. And then three hours later, Dana White's like, okay, we'll just have Peoria and fight for the title. Next. It's the same reaction with all of this. Like, did you read these quotes?

Like, our own gear, it all came from us. Our own gear made crews talk to Davis and Figurato. It's literally, I've said literally a lot today. It's, I mean, this is, what do you think the UFC's doing right now? You think they're like, oh my God, we need to talk to Davidson right now. They're like, okay, go to 35. We'll pay you the same money. So you're telling me to be at 125 and be the champion,

which you're getting more perks on as the champion, the option is pay me more money on top of the championship money, or I'll go to 135 and, make a money. Yeah. They will drive you to 135. They'll send you a private jet

to fly to 135. Are you kidding me? Of course. Go ahead. Go to 135. What do you think's going to happen to 135? You think they're just going to

give you a title shot? This is just a horrible take. If he's expecting this to work, it's not going to. Davis invigorated was going to fight the winner of this fight for the same amount of money in a co-main event spot probably in December.

That's what's going to happen. He might even make less money. Give him less money. It's like Jerry Seinfeld, George Costanza, pitching their show to NBC. NBC gives them an offer. They say no, George goes back and begs them, and he makes like $5,000 less.

That's what's going to happen in this situation. It's hilarious. And Tadagabay is absolutely right. This is probably Sehudo saying, you know what's a great idea? Do this. He's like, and figurators like, you're a genius, Henry.

You're a genius. Everything you've touched turned to gold. God. Silliness. Clearst values, then his ease. Then my announcement. Then we're getting out of here. Clearst values is up.

First of all, Mike, thank you for moving it to a very manageable time. 10 a.m. I can do that. 80 a.m., I love you, Mike. Can't do that. I hear you, man. I hear you. All right.

So my question for you is kind of a little bit off topic. but I'm curious to hear what you say. All the outside organizations, KSW, Belator, PFL, all those guys. What are some of the fights that you're most excited for? What's the fight you're most excited for in total? Curious to hear your answer? Oh, dude, this is, this is easy.

This is easy. Because the correct answer is the guy that has really made a move, not just in Bellator, but in the sport. The correct answer is Danny Sabatelo versus Leandro Ego coming up June 24 at the next Bellator card. I think it's Belator 278.

That's the fight I cannot wait to see. Danny Sabatelo, I've been telling you guys about Danny Sabatelo for a while now. When I was doing, what the heck I had him on? And people were like, who the hell is this guy? And I told you then, keep an eye on this guy. Before I'm a May fighting, I told you, keep an eye on this guy.

And here he is. People are starting to understand who he is. and his whole mentality, but the whole boring thing, like that performance gets Jordan Al Lugo opened up everybody's eyes. They all, everyone thought Danny Sabatelo was a super boring lay and pray guy, and there was some truth to that,

and he loved it. He loved it. He loved when you called him that. Love it. He's like, you get a problem, get up. And if you can't get up, then I win. He's, I mean, this guy, I'm telling you, this guy can be a star. He could be a big star for this company. And I think they got something with him.

They locked them up, very smart. It's a good move on their part. But yeah, that's the answer. And you may have seen the clip. And I'm fine with it. I stand by it. Before, about a week before Sabatella Lugo, I said Sabatel was not only going to beat Jorna Lugo,

which a lot of people gave me crap for, and you went out there and just ran them over. But I said Sabatel is going to win the entire Grand Prix. And I feel, I still feel very good about that pick. All right. Let's go. How you doing? Good morning.

Mr. Mike. Hi. I actually was, like they say, a long-time listener, first-time speaker, but I'm not. I used to talk, but my other account got jinxed from Twitter. So we got the backup here. Nice. Yeah, I like the 10 a.m. set up. I had, I've waited a while.

So that's a commitment. But I had a really curious question, because I know you do, he did some, like, fighting weeks, coverage and whatnot. Who was the, would you say, most intimidating fighter to, like, get close to an interview

and just, like, see the energy from, or who would, like, give you a star strike, as they say? And I know you've been talking a lot, I just have another thing that I want to ask. So I'm going to my first UFC event in July for the July International Fight Week for the design card.

And bro, like how expensive it is to be a UFC fan? It's ridiculous, Mike. Like, have you, do you, have you noticed the increase in the last three years or what has happened? to the UFC brand because it's like now it's just crazy tickets are like 500 and that's like even if you try to get the ticket like two months ago or something but cheers man thanks man yeah um so two things one i'll announce this right now uh i will be in las vegas never been to las vegas in my life.

I've been covering this floor for a long time. I've never been to to Vegas, never stepped foot in Vegas, didn't even have a layover in Vegas. But I will be there for International Fight Week. I'm going out there the Tuesday before. And I will be there. I just found out yesterday that I will be going.

So it'll be myself. It'll be Jose Young's. There's going to be a radio row out there, like kind of like the Super Bowl, where you have like your own area to do stuff. We have a spot. and we're going to do lots of stuff. I can't frigging wait

to see what we could do out there. So I will hear with Jose. I'm super pumped. As far as the other question, have you felt like the aura, the energy? Interviewing fighter, I think Vitor Belfort was kind of an interesting one before the Evander Holyfield fight

because, I mean, he took this fight so seriously, but we weren't sure, like, what it was. And the Vitor interview is weird because I asked him, before he fought Evander. It was like right after the Tyrone Woodley Jake Paul fight. And he said, he got like kind of mad at me for asking him the question. And he was like, do not compare me to those guys.

Don't compare me to those guys. He was not happy. And then what does he do after he knocks out Avander Holyfield? 59 year old Avander Holyfield. Who does he call out? He calls out Jake Paul. So I couldn't believe that. And that's like the dot, like if I could interview one person,

it would be him because I have to call him out on that I didn't get the chance to interview him it was between him and Anderson Silva that night after the card was over they're like you have to pick one and I chose Anderson because Anderson's Anderson

he's the freaking man but like the rest of them I don't get into it like UFC 220 I covered in Boston before MMA fighting Jose was working for the same side I was working for the time we were both at fan side

the glory days of fan sided and Daniel Cormier was getting ready to fight at Volcano O'Semere and never see a kid him and I got the chance to get in kind of like a scrum type style and got to ask him a couple questions he gave me some really insightful answers

so that was a pretty cool moment for me being able to talk to him and even interviewing Holyfield like as scary as that interview was and it gave me so much pause it was still kind of cool to like just be in a road and conversing with a vander friggin' holy feel.

Like, this is nuts. Craziness. So, but I am pumped. I will be out there for International Fight Week. We'll get Jay in here. Last call. Then I'm going to read something very important. And hopefully you guys can help out with this.

What's up, Jay? Hey, Michael, what's up? Can you hear me? Yes. My fault also, if you kept seeing a bunch of requests, for some reason, every time I would go to, like, the ESPN app or Instagram and try to listen to it, they would cancel my request for some reason.

So sorry about that. He kept seeing it. It's okay, man. You're good. But I just want to talk about two things real quick. Well, first off, I'm with you, Team Glover all the way. I think he's going to get round one. But I'm going to take it a step further.

And I think he could probably get a TKO. If he does the same game plan like he did with Yon, take him down and flatten his back. I think he can definitely ground and pound in panier again. He might not be able to get that lock that he's in with Glover on top of him. And so the first thing I wanted to bring up was with Gilbert Burns interview with Damon Martin, I really think he brought up a great point about Kamsat and talking about his IQ and how it compares with Usman. Because Usman was able to put away Gilbert.

And he actually fought really smart with how he was. And he wasn't like Kamsat brawling and trying to like scrap it up with him, which is one of the main points that his coach was telling him at that end, like stop brawling with Gilbert Burns. And so when Gilbert Burns brought up that point in interview, saying how Kamaru was levels above him with that, I think that actually is like a really good point. And

for all the Kamsat fans, I think he was probably going to beat Ustman. And I was one of them. I really thought he was going to probably run through Usman, but after listening to that, and I was thinking actually Kamaru probably could definitely be Kamsat in a pretty dominant way, as long as he plays smart. Because his wrestling is

pretty sure it's probably the same or maybe better than comes up. So that was my first thing. And the second thing I want to bring up is Dominic Rays is actually not retiring and I'm happy for him and I'm glad to see him come back. And so who do you think would be like the good matchup for him to when he steps back into Doppagon? I was thinking maybe either the winner of Craig versus Krilov or maybe the loser versus Uncle Ivan Smith. I think maybe those two matchups might be good for him when he decides to step back in. And so thanks Mike for having me on. have a heck of a morning, man.

Thanks, Jay. Appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, I'm with you in a lot of ways on the Glover stuff. The TKO is interesting. I think it's like a plus 800 line on that. So if you're going that route, go with it. Glover by submission on draft kings right now is plus 350. So just betting on Glover.

I don't know, betting on Glover straight is a dog. It's cool and all. But if Glover's going to win, he's going to win by submission. more than likely. So, I mean, good Lord, plus 350. It's pretty awesome. For Dominic Reyes, I would say maybe the winner of Jamal Hill, Tiago Santos. I think that kind of makes sense.

Yeah. Yeah, I'd go that route. Good Dominic coming back. I'm glad he took a lot of time off after that crazy fight with Yuri. But, yeah, I like that idea. Dominic versus I mean it just really can't really can't

can't go wrong here you can do Ryan Span that's not a bad idea you could do like OSD you could do something weird like that we could we could get all weird with it if we want to all right so I gotta get out of here

before I get in trouble but before I do that as we were doing this and this is not really MMA related but we are we have built ourselves a nice little community here and I want to just kind of read this because

so I grew up in the Boston area when I was 14 right before high school I moved to a town called Burlington which is probably 15 miles outside of Boston and very close to it

community I was with a lot of cool people and I've DJed weddings for like my little brothers friends and all this stuff and like people just kind of know everybody there. It's one of those type of areas. So on Sunday,

my little brother's friend, Corey, his fiance, and his older sister, were walking across the street. It's not really like the busiest street in the world, but it's got a little bit of traffic. So they're walking across the street on a Sunday night, and a car just ran them both over. Like literally ran them both over.

They flipped upside down. over the car. The woman who hit them was devastated by it. It was just, I mean, it was like the legit definition of an accident. There was no drunk driving or anything like that involved. But both of them are in ICU right now.

Both them are in big trouble. The fiancé has a traumatic brain injury. She's got a broken wrist, broken lumbar. She's intubated right now. and the older sister has a broken pelvis, broken ribs, the same lumbar fracture. She got a really nasty concussion, but no brain damage. So, I mean, both of them are in very interesting spots right now.

Both need a lot to happen to kind of change their luck. So they have a goal on GoFundMe of $45,000 so far, a little over $13,000 has been raised. So I'm going to throw this out there. I'm going to challenge the MMA community, this MMA fighting community, if you will, to help these ladies out. Let's help this family out a little bit because of this one thing. I know there's a lot of talk. CRJ was in here talking about sometimes this is a very negative space.

Oftentimes when there's things like this that happen and it gets brought out to the MMA community, the MMA community comes through like nobody else. So my little brother asked me very nicely if I can share this. information with all of you, with Twitter followers, et cetera. So that's what I'm going to do. So in a matter of moments, I'm going to post this GoFundMe link to my Twitter. You guys can read it and check it out. It's all legit.

My little brother hit me up this morning. He's devastated by all this. He's very close with both of them. And it's just a rough situation. So anything we could do, five bucks, ten bucks, whatever. Let's make it happen. I will shout you all in the show. I'll give you like first priority for calls.

If you do donate, we'll make things happen. But look for that on my Twitter. At Mike Eckhart underscore JR. Let's help these folks out. Great people. And yeah, let's make it happen. So we're done. A lot going on this week.

Jed and I doing no bets barred a little bit later on. So stay tuned for that. Thursday show for the podcast network. Adrian Yannas will join us. I'm going to talk to him in a little while. He's getting ready to fight Tony Kelly, UFC Austin next Saturday, June 18th. Should be a great fight. So looking forward to that.

And of course, we'll have BTL. We'll have all the other stuff going. I will be back here Thursday, 10 a.m. Eastern, new start time. For a brand new edition of a couple of the morning, I think we get closer and closer and closer to UFC 275 in Singapore. So thank you all very much. I appreciate it. Again, look on Twitter for that link.

And anything we can do to help these folks out, it would mean the world to not only me, but my little brother, who's the man, and the families, everything going on, it's freaking crazy. And it's unfortunate, and no one should have to go through this stuff because it's just horrible.

But thank you all, everybody, very much. Have a great rest of the day. And as always, have a heck of a more. 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.