MMA Fighting - Heck of a Morning | Ferguson vs. Chandler, Rothwell Released, Volkanovski's Ceiling, April Fools' Chaos

Episode Date: April 1, 2022

It's a Free-For-All Friday on Heck of a Morning, which means the show belongs to you. MMA Fighting's Mike Heck discusses what April Fools' Day means in the MMA landscape and what has happened on this day over the last several years, then takes questions discussing the upcoming fight between Michael Chandler and Tony Ferguson at UFC 274, what the UFC will do if Khamzat Chimaev dominates and finishes Gilbert Burns at UFC 273 next Saturday, Ben Rothwell being released from the UFC leaving Alexander Gustafsson without an opponent for May 21, Alexander Volkanovski's pound-for-pound ranking, and much more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 8 a.m. ET on the MMA Fighting Twitter Spaces. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. I hope everyone's having a wonderful start to their Friday as we embark on the final edition of the program this week. It is a free-for-all Friday, and I'll explain what that means in a moment, but I, Mike Heck, not quite fully caffeinated just yet. I do have my large black ice coffee from Dunkin' Donuts to my left, so I'm getting there. But like I said, it is a free-for-all Friday, which means for 95% of this show. it is your questions, it is your calls, it is your thoughts on the sport of mixed martial arts or

whatever the hell you want to talk about. If we want to talk about UFC 273, we can talk about UFC 273. If you want to talk about WrestleMania this weekend, we can talk about WrestleMania this weekend. We can talk about whatever you want. But before we get into that, a couple things to discuss. First off, it is April 1st. Let's get into the MMA birthdays right off the bat on this April 1st because I want to start things on a positive note when it comes to this date. happy 45th birthday to Vitor Belfort, by the way. We last saw him compete for Triller in a boxing match against freaking Avander Holyfield back in November.

I got to experience that event live and it broke my heart pretty much the entire week. He was supposed to compete on that triad combat two card a couple weeks ago in Houston before it got postponed. But I've talked about this many times before. He's a guy I want to interview so bad following the Holyfield stoppage win. the Jake Paul stuff. I've said it. I've talked about this not,

but happy birthday to the former UFC champion. Also, Derek Compos is 34. Longtime Bellator staple. He's also been doing stuff with Triller. Ramsey Nyjum is 34 also. He was in the UFC for a hot minute. Two seasons on the ultimate fighter. He's at the PFL for a little while and more.

And Mohamed Usman, the brother of UFC Walterway champion. Man, many consider the pound for pound best fighter on the planet. is 33. So happy birthday to everybody there. Shout out to everybody. So it is their day of birth. But we all know what else April 1st stands for, right? It is April Fool's Day. And I see a couple people in the MMA media space on here right now. And for those who work in this MMA media landscape, this day in particular, for lack of a better term, better phrasing, it sucks. It suck dittily ux. Because this is the day

where people come out of the woodwork, they create clone accounts, they put out fake news, they're trying to take advantage of wonderful fans like yourselves, trying to lure you into these false senses of security. It's a sucky day. And not only does the phony baloney news come out,

but it takes away from the actual real news that comes out because people just don't believe it when things happen on this day. They think it's phony. They think it's a joke. And oftentimes, that has not been the case. And I'm just trying to think off the top of my head because I know a couple of things have happened on April Fool's Day

that's stick in my mind over the last five or six years. And maybe there's more than this, but just kind of going off the top of the dome here, most of the stuff not good. Like two years ago, the pandemic is kicking off. Things are starting to get real wild and scary out there. Everything's starting to shut down. The UFC is like, uh-uh, everyone else is getting canceled.

Everyone else is postponing events. We're not doing that. So the UFC goes ahead and books a fight between Habibnurmaga Madoff and Tony Ferguson for UFC 249. What a crazy bill to that card because there was date changes and location changes and all Disney stepping in and shutting things down and all of that. In April 1st, 2020, that's what we found out that. We found out that Habib was not going to be able to compete on that car. There was a lot going on with travel and the pandemic and family stuff. And it was totally understandable why Habib didn't fight.

So that was the latest chapter in the Habib Tony Ferguson rivalry. When coincidentally enough, two years before that, two years prior, April 1st, 2018, again, Habib Tony Ferguson. They were scheduled to headline UFC 223 in Brooklyn. This time, Tony Ferguson is out of the fight. suffers the infamous tripping injury. And this is the day we found out Max Holloway agreed to step in on short notice. It was like three weeks maybe, maybe less than that.

But of course, that was the craziest build in UFC history, especially Fight Week, because Max didn't end up fighting either. And the great ally Quinta ends up stepping in to fight Habib Mimaga Madov on just a day's notice. And then two years before that, we found out that Daniel Cormier was injured and out of his fight with John Jones. that was scheduled a headline UFC 197. This was John Jones's long-awaited return. He ended up fighting Ovin St. Prue on that card at UFC 197 for the interim light heavyweight title.

And won a fight that did, to say it, as respectfully as possible. It did not age like fine wine, that unanimous decision victory for John Jones. Oh, yeah, and then I forgot. I think it was last year, right? Let me just make sure I had my dates correctly. Yes, it was last year. So last year, you guys probably remember this. This wasn't a UFC thing or a Bellator thing or anything like that.

But CFFC 94, Ketag-Pliev, the Canadian fighter, almost lost a damn finger in his fight against Devin Gooddale. And I remember April 2nd to this day because Keteg-Pliev goes to the hospital that night to get his finger reattached because it was basically detached from his hand. It hung on by a thread. goes to the hospital, gets his finger fixed up, hops in the car, and as soon as he leaves the hospital to go in the car and travel, I believe he's traveling to Cincinnati, he hops on a Zoom call with me

and talks all about the finger injury. So that guy is always going to be a legend and a savage and an animal for as long as I work in this space, that's for sure. But all I have to say is be careful. It is April 1st. Be careful of the tweets you see. make sure you verify them.

Make sure they had the old blue checkmark next to their name. Make sure you do your due diligence before you believe the stuff that comes out on this day. And if it does come from someone like Ariel Hawani or the great folks of them fighting or people that you know and trust, just believe that it's true because we're not just going to throw out stuff that isn't true. All right. So I just hope the streak of every two years something major happening in a bad way to these UFC fights comes to an end today. So, all right, it's a free for all Friday. We're taking your calls.

Whatever you want to talk about, bring them in. If we were out of calls, I'll bring them some other topics. I am ready. It is Friday. I am excited. I'm going to bring in Tito Little Bit Ortiz. I'm sure there's probably more to that name, but let's bring Tito in there. Tito, are you there?

Make sure you unmute. Are you there? Hi, I have everyone. I'm right here. What's up? How's it going? I just wanted to say hi to everyone. I'm going to think of Ed right now.

All right. Well, thank you. Good morning. All right. Everyone's just, I like it. I like it. I'm a morning greeting. Zeke has been waiting.

He's 0 for two. Normally when we do these spaces, like the pre-limb pre-games, Zieg's like right there, ready to go. He's always like the first caller. And I haven't seen him for these past two shows. But he is here. He is ready.

He's got the first topic of the day. day. What's up Zique? Absolutely. Curve ball out of right field, changing up the times on me. The time zone, the eastern time zone, 809 I'm looking at. Mike Hackey, making me set my alarm. But here and nor there, I'm going to bring you to Tony Ferguson and Michael Chandler. And then I'm going to ask you another question about, I mean, arguably the people's

made event coming up on USC 273. But let's bring the energy on this, you know, heck of a morning on this Friday. I'm excited. So first thing's first. first obviously we're looking at chanler and ferguson and that line just opened up uh minus 200 now to minus 300 does tony ferguson weirdly have a fighting chance mike i have a feeling he does i think that if ferguson can think that if ferguson can survive the first round he definitely has a chance and then uh with that being said if with that being said if humzah chimeyaf

picks up Gilbert Burns in the first round and walks him over to Dana White. What do we do, Mike? So my first question is, what do we do with Ferguson if he does somehow beat Chandler or if the inevitable does happen and father time undefeated does take care of him against Chandler? What do we do next matchmaking wise?

And then of course, I honestly just want to talk about Humzat. I mean, the guy is just, he's so hard not to talk about Without being said, what do we expect? Do we expect to fight weak media hype to, you know, do what it does best? What do you think, man? I'm excited.

All right. Thank you, Zika. A lot to unpack there. The Chandler-Ferguson fight is interesting. I think it's the right matchup for both guys at the right time. I understand the line. I understand the line moving so quickly because people probably saw the minus 200 and were like, all right, they just have a lot of faith in Michael Chandler against the guy

who hasn't won a fight in a long time. And not only that, he hasn't even really been competitive in a fight in a long time for being honest. But that's what happens when you fight guys like Justin Gachie. Justin Gage could change your life. And I feel like Justin Gagey kind of changed Tony Ferguson's professional life in that fight at UFC 249, which you just talked about. Because Habib didn't fight. Justin Gachie comes in, interim title in line. Justin Gachie just kind of batters Tony Ferguson for over 20 minutes because the fight ends in the fifth round.

I mean, Ferguson is still a big draw. people love him. When he fights, the people come out in full force for him. They cheer the hell out of this guy. They love him. They love El Kukui. So obviously for his championship aspirations,

he needs to win this fight because time is not on his side, if we're being honest. But if he loses, it's not like the end of Tony Ferguson. Like, he still has fun fights. He can go up to 170. He can just do fun fights.

He could, you know, fight the, the sororough of, Tony's of the world and those types of fighters. He could go up and it just have fun fights. He could put other guys over. He could just have legend fights. Like these are the kinds of fights we'd want to see from Tony Ferguson.

Hell, you can go fight Jim Miller for all I care. Like these are the kind of fights you would book him in moving forward. If he beats Michael Chandler, unfortunately the road doesn't get much easier for him. I don't know what happens if he wins that fight, but he still would have a long way to go in terms of getting to a title fight or getting to, you know, one of those gigantic opportunities. who knows, even Connor is an interesting idea. If he goes out there, it is competitive,

and Connor just wants to come back and he can't get the Nate fight, and you want to try to give him just a fun matchup that people will watch and people tune into, even the casual audience, you can do Tony versus Connor. So, I mean, the options are there, win or lose, unless he just gets absolutely bolted by Michael Chandler.

Like, Chandler just 30-25s them or knocks him out in a minute. Like, I don't know if that happens, but I do agree that if this fight gets extended, and Ferguson is kind of an interesting underdog in this fight. I do favor Michael Chandler to win, but we'll see. That chaos comes through it. As far as Hobbes at Chamaic goes,

if he just goes in there and he picks up Gilbert Burns, brings him to Dana White, slams him and finishes him in a minute. I mean, this guy's fighting for the title. There's no doubt about it. And I will say this, and I know most people would say that Leon Edwards is next in line and all that, and he should be 1,000%.

But if I am Leon Edwards, if I am his management team, I am making sure that over the next seven days, we get that fight official, we get pen to paper, we get that thing on a poster, we get this thing announced. Now, we know Kamar Usman is dealing with an injury, but we need some, like Dana White at his word, we want to respect it, but at the same time, Dana has said lots of things that didn't end up happening. It's just the way that it is. I'm not trying to be a hater.

It's just the way that it is. History has told us that sometimes Dana White says things that don't actually happen. but if I am Leon Edwards, if this is 99% that is not enough for me. I need 100% guarantee that I am fighting Kamar Usman in July or in August or whatever he can fight. If we have some sort of UFC social media announcement, put these guys at a poster, make it official. Because if Hamzaa Chamaic goes out there and does what he did to Legion Liang to Gilbert Burns at UFC 273, I mean, who would, who would,

who would be surprised if the UFC just called an audible? It wouldn't be fair, and it would suck for Leon Edwards. It would be awful. But who would be surprised? The answer is nobody. So if I'm Leon Edwards, I am on the phone with the UFC. I am on the phone with the matchmaker. I'm on the phone with Hunter Campbell.

We got to get a date. We got to get something. Let's at least put pen to paper on something. If we got to push the fight back, if Kamar's injury is taking a little longer than expected, we'll just move the fight back a little bit. But we have to get this thing done because of Shabaiif does that. I'm still not 100% convinced that Leon Edwards will get the title shot unless something happens

and the UFC makes it official before that. So we'll see. Looking forward to that fight, I would say if you polled 100 MMA fans, despite the two title fights, I think the Shemiah Gilbert Burns fight is probably on the top of everybody's list right now in terms of what we're looking forward to at UFC 273. And I will be there. I'm very excited for that. I haven't covered a UFC event since UFC 244 in freezing cold New York.

So I'm excited to go to Jacksonville with my man Jose Youngs and just crush some coverage. Bobby, good morning. How are you doing, Mike? I'm doing great. What's going on? Just quick question. What the heck is up with Ben Rothwell's release? And do you see him possibly going to PFL to replace for Doom in their heavyweight division?

Interesting thought. That's a good question, Bobby. Thank you very much. Yes. So if you didn't know, M.M.A. fighting reported that Ben Rothwell was released from the U.S. And we talked about Ben Rothwell getting ready to fight Alexander Gustafson on May 21st. Alexander Guston is still on that card.

Opponent TBD. UFC is trying to figure something out. As far as why Ben Rothwell is released, I have no idea. I have no clue. No one's talking. I've reached out to multiple people about this. Nobody knows the real answer to this. I've talked to people from Gustafsson's team.

I've reached out of people from Rothwell's side. haven't heard anything back from them. The gust of since I, they have no idea what's happening right now. They have no idea. It just seems I don't know, but you would have to think that it's probably not a good thing because this seems very random. So I don't think it's just a simple like Rothel was injured. Oh, come on now.

He's cut. Something probably happened behind the scene. I mean, who knows? It could be like a career ending injury. It could be something else. I don't know. This is pure speculation, but it's something that is probably not a good thing. That's, and I have no insight to this whatsoever, but just seems so random and out of the blue that, yeah, I don't know what happened, but Gusson still planning to fight on May 21st and I don't know who the hell is going to fight. So, welcome aboard Air Canada.

Rocky's vacation here we come. Whoa, is this economy? Free beer, wine, and snacks. Sweet. Fast free free, Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land. And with live TV, I'm not missing the game. It's kind of like I'm already on vacation. Nice. Air Canada. Nice travels.

Wi-Fi available to AeroPen members on equipped flights sponsored by Bell. Conditions apply. See Air Canada.com. Let's bring in Garrett's Trammell on this free-for-all Friday. Garrett, good morning. How are you? Just make sure you unmute. Hey, Mike.

How are you doing? Good. I just got kind of a random question, general, on the UFC, Angiottra's lawsuit. Do you think that once that whole thing is done and taken care of that we're going to see some real change in the MMA world? I mean, personally, I think the UFC may have to take a step back and become not a second tier player,

but at least let Belator and one, you know, and potentially even Eagle FC step up and become more of first tier. Thanks. All right. Thank you, Garrett. Let me just say, and I am an honest man. I am full of integrity. I am aware of the antitrust lawsuit.

I have not dove into the antitrust lawsuit as much as I probably should have. Shame on me. The folks at Bloody Elbow have done a fantastic job covering the antitrust lawsuit. So anytime I have to even look at anything, I go to those guys because they have done such a tremendous job. As far as change goes, I mean, first of all, anytime that there is a lawsuit against a major, league or company or promotion, it takes a long time for it to come to its conclusion. So like payments and, you know, all that stuff. It could take a long time before you have a decision.

And even after that, it could take even longer to get restitution and things like that. So as far as the change goes, maybe I would say unlikely. I mean, it could happen, but I will say, don't hold your breath. I will be probably in my 50s before any kind of change could potentially happen. But even if this comes out monumental, I don't know if it changes the structure of the sports and payouts. I don't know if the Aliak comes into play. I don't know what, I mean, I have no idea.

I doubt it. I would say for those looking for positive change and looking for it quick, it ain't going to happen. You still need the fighters to come together and work this out. And we all know that that's probably not going to happen. You will read, I believe my interview with Joe Lozon is coming out today and you'll get his thoughts on it. And people might look at that interview and look at Joe in a negative light. Because even he even says himself, like some people look at me and they think I'm anti-fighter.

He's not. He's just looking at things from a realistic perspective. Like if Joe Lozahn wasn't a UFC lightweight and he was just a actual like fight analyst, if they brought him on Sports Center as an analyst for mixed martial arts, and they asked him about fighters and associations and potential unions and stuff like that, this would be the kind of answer that he would give, and he probably wouldn't get the same flack that he gets as a fighter. So I actually understand where he's coming from,

and as much as we hate to admit it, as much as we hate to read it, he's not wrong. And you'll read that a little bit later. So, yeah, maybe there's some change. I doubt it. And if it does happen, it's not going to happen for a little while. So let's bring in Patrick. Patrick, good morning.

How are you? Mike. You're in the car. I love it. Yeah, I'm commuting. I want to start off a little Friday morning flattery, if you will. I want to say, I started listening to the MMA podcast with Jose and Pizzi, you know, talking about crystals and everything, like 2019. Then when you came in, right during the pandemic, I just want to say thank you.

for, you know, getting us through the, getting me through the lockdown, lots of long walks with the dogs, watching all of those Saturday night every week, MMA cards, and keeping me in the loop. I just want to say thanks. That's it? No, no, I got more. I can, no, I'm going to. I just going to say, I appreciate that. I was like, uh-oh, this is this the compliment sandwich, or am I about to get a bash right now?

And then maybe you ended in, I love your bald spot or something? No, so I was going to chime in about the Walterway situation. Okay. So after Kamaru won against Colby, I got this sense that he wanted to take a step back. And I came up with this plan that somehow the UFC was going to try to force Leon out, you know? and that they would probably do something, Leon versus Luque, and then possibly,

oh, and so the injury thing played right into my narrative because I was like, okay, I think they're going to want to create an interim. And when Camaro got hurt, I was like, okay, this is perfect. They're going to try to somehow force Leon to fight someone else, get him out of the picture, because it seems like Camaro really just wants super,

fights. Like, Leon just does not fit into where he's at in his career, and he's chasing legacy, and, you know, that just seems to be the story with Leon. I don't think it's fair, but do you think that there could be any truth to that? That they're going to, maybe there's going to come out a story. There's going to be complications with Kamaru's hand, and he's going to have to sit out another eight months and that will force an interim.

I know it's a little conspiracy theory as 10-4-hout, but what do you think? I got you. I got you. Thank you, Patrick. I appreciate the kind words. I appreciate you listening in the car. This is kind of like what I want. This is like how I dreamt up the show in my brain, like people driving in the car,

listening while they work or on their way to work, on the way home, whatever. Like I love that. And thank you very much for the kind words. I really appreciate it. I will say I was kind of on the same page as you after the Colby fight. I thought Kamara was just going to take some time off because he's a very active champion. So I thought he was going to take some time off, spend some time with his family,

maybe wouldn't see him to like the end of the year. And then I thought my whole plan was an interim situation as well. How do we get Leon a title fight, but get Hamzat into a title fight as well? So I thought what they were going to try to do was let Usman just kind of chill out, take some time off after all that activity that he had, and the UFC would move forward with an interim title fight between Leon Edwards and Hamza Tchamayev. And then the winner of that fight, like if Leon Edwards stops the hype train of Hamzaat Shemayev, a Leon Edwards-Kamara Usman fight instantly becomes much bigger because Leon gets the rub and even the Jed misuse of the world who feel like, and I don't agree with this, but Jed could be a little harsh as you. you hear on BTL and all are the programming. He has the attitude that just nobody cares about Leon Edwards. Like he's not a draw like nobody cares.

I don't think it's to that extent, but you can't deny that Hamzaa Chamaev is a bigger star, is a bigger name right now than Leon Edwards. People care about Hamzat more than they, I guess, care about Leon Edwards. And maybe that's not fair with the work that Leon has put in. But the UFC has tried to give Leon the rub. They put them in there with Nate Diaz. you go out there and you blast Nate Diaz and you win that fight and you do it convincingly

and you don't have any awkward moments, you're going to get that rub. Unfortunately, it didn't happen because Leon won the fight and he beat him convincingly, but all anybody talks about was, you know, those final 90 seconds, that final two minutes of that fight. And it was the Nate Diaz show right after, after losing the entire fight. Nate Diaz lands the one big shot and all everyone's talking about is Nate Diaz. So I thought Kabbar sits out. Leon gets Hamza. If Leon wins, fight with Usen's massive. It gets Usen out of bed, gets him excited. And if Shamiya wins, no brainer. You throw Shamiab into a

title fight, that's a massive fight too. I mean, this is just kind of how it worked out. I didn't expect, even with the hand injury, I expect who spent a fight this summer, July, August, kind of too soon to tell at this point. But I expect to see Kabar Usman fight this summer against probably Leon Edwards. But again, like I said earlier, if you are team Leon Edwards, we have to get this fight on the books. We have to do something. We have to get pen to paper. We have to make this official. Even if we have to move the dates back, we have to make sure Leon is in that spot. Because like I said, if Hamza Atchamaya goes out there next Saturday and just destroys Gilbert Burns, like the odds makers, like the betting community is suggesting he will, it would not shock me one bit.

to see them call an audible. I hope they don't. Leon deserves to freaking fight for the title. And Shamiya should get the winner. No doubt about it. But again, we got to make that move happen right now. But yes,

I thought I was kind of on the same page. I thought Kamara would sit out for most of the year. We have an interim title fight. Have to have Shami if in there. Have him fight Leon. Winner fights Uspen in a much bigger fight. That was kind of the direction I thought was going to happen. It didn't.

And looks like Uspen's going to come back. and we need to stop this whole Canello thing because it's never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever going to happen. Let's bring in Stevie Ray. Stevie Ray. What's up? I'm my man. How are you?

Yeah, I'm good. I just wanted to ask really quickly. Obviously, we've been talking about Hamzaa a lot today and rightfully so obviously probably the best prospect in the game right now. My question to you is today, we spoke about two lightweight prospects yesterday. So I'm wondering, what do you think is next for World Oates, and the third biggest prospects being Shafkat Agmonov and Sean Brady. Oh, great question.

As many, you know, I'm very high on Shafkat Rakmanov. Brady, both guys are kind of an interesting spot right now. I'm not going to go, normally I would go to the only rankings that matter, the NBA fighting global rankings, but unfortunately the UFC doesn't use our rankings as much as they should. So Sean Brady is number eight in the UFC ranking. Then there's Mazadol above him. Mazadal, Thompson, Balal, Lucay, Leon, Gilbert, Colby.

I would say for Brady, he will likely get the loser of the main event on April 16th between Bilal Muhammad and Vicente Lucke. That's how I would look at that. Shafkat, Rachmanov, man, this is kind of a tough one because he's kind of in that Marab de Wallis-Willi place. in this division because we all know how good Marab is, and it's a terrifying matchup to fight that guy, especially coming off the Marl Mariah's fight,

where you saw how much damage he can take, but how much damage he can inflict on top of all the takedowns and all the energy and everything else that Marab brings to the table. But I've been saying this about Marab for years now. There's not one guy in the Banimate Taft 15 that is going to get an email from the UFC, with a contract to open it up and be excited to fight Marab de Walsh-Willis-Willi. It's getting to the point where Marab keeps winning fights,

you're just going to have to fight this guy, especially if you're in the top five. But I feel like Schofcott's kind of in that spot right now. I know Ponziubio's got a fight coming up. Maybe Li Jing Liang. I mean, I don't know. Michael Kiesa would be interesting. I know both guys are managed by the same manager.

But you know what? Neil Magny. Neil Magne. answer. Neal's coming off the win this past Saturday over Max Griffin. That's that's the answer. Magni versus Shafkat. That makes all the sense in the world. It's not Shemayev, but it's like almost Shemayev. It's like a AAA version of Shemaiah, at least in the annual. Shavkat is a tremendous fighter. And I don't mean that disrespectfully. It's just the way that people view him, you know, the drawing power especially, but Shafcott is, Shafcott's a scary man and a guy we could

be talking about for a championship opportunity in the next couple of years. I'm very high that guy. Let's bring in Connor O'Dowd on this April 1st, on this free for all Friday on heck of a morning. Connor, good morning. I want to echo, I think it was Patrick's sentiments. Absolutely loving the NMA fighting content recently and this show is a welcome edition. Interesting one for you. So something that we'll likely never see the UFC do, but organizations like Bellator have utilized is the Grand Prix. and I want to get your thoughts on if the UFC were to do a Grand Prix, what division do you think would benefit from at most

and what men or females would we see in that Grand Prix? Oh my gosh. Wow, what a question. Oh, boy, what division needs it the most? Really good question. We have to weigh in whether or not the champion would be involved because Bellator likes to get the champion involved. it's a cool addition to it,

but I don't, I mean, it's not the end of the world. I just wish, I wish Bellator presented the Bannamate Grand Prix a little bit differently because of,

you know, the interim title situation, like do we need it? I mean, I understand it could be potentially more money for the fighters, but just, we could just give them more money

and have them fight for the interim title and the million dollars at the end of the season. I think that would create a little more chaos. I mean, you could really do it in any vision. Bannamweight,

Bannamway for the UFC would be the one I would want to see. Welterway would be interesting. I know Oosman, but again, we got we got some big fights coming up at Walterway right now. Usman Leon potentially.

We got Hamzak Gilbert Burns and then we got Luke A. Muhammad. I mean, it would have to be Banimate. I'm just so high on that division. Although lightweight's interesting as well because you got guys, you have the mainstays. You got Gaichy, got Porier.

I mean, Gache is about to fight for the title anyways, but you got Islam Makachev, you got Banyl Darius, you got Chandler, you got RDA, you got Tony Still, who's ranked, I think he's number seven in the UFC rankings, Gregor Gillespie, and then you have these up-and-coming studs like Raphael Fizib, you got Armand-Sarukia,

you got Matush Gamrod, I mean, lightweight is super fun right now, and it's got some really interesting prospects, and if Olivera goes out there and beached us and Gaci, I mean, you got the, let's just say Oliver goes out there and beats Gachi and then he somehow beats his Lamakachev. I know New York Rick doesn't agree with anything even hypothetically speaking that suggests that Charles Oliver could beat Justin Gagchi in a fight. If you watch BTL yesterday, you know what I'm talking about. But I think it would be fun just to see like how Fiziv would stack up against some of those guys, how Sirukian.

Anyone who has listened to ranking shows or anything, you know how high I am on Armand Sarukian. I feel like this guy could be a lot of guys in the top 10 right now. I think everybody, I would pick him against the bottom half of the top 10 right now in a fight. From Chandler down to Fiziv, I would pick Saurukyon to beat all of those guys. Daryu should be interesting. Mokachev would be, and we've seen him fight Mokachev, and he gave Mokachev a tough fight in his UFC debut. but if you give Syruquian a full camp to prepare for Mokachev, that's an interesting fight. I would probably pick Mokachev right now, but give me two or three more fights from Surukeon,

and I might look at that differently. Surukian Poria would be interesting, and then Gaiji's just chaos. Lightway would be fun. I think I would go with Bannamweight if I have a choice just because I just, that division's so deep. I almost want to see like a reverse, like let's fill the bottom half of the top 15 Grand Prix at Bannamweight, because I just feel like it's been so long. We haven't seen like any movement really. Like Ricky Simone's up there.

Now I think he's the latest guy to jump in there. We see Sean O'Malley in there. But for the most, Song-e-Dongs in the top 10 now, but he's been ranked quite a bit. But now we have guys like Chris Gutierrez. We have guys like Jack Shore. We have guys like Adrian Yannas who will be in that conversation if he gets another victory.

And no one's really moving up in the rankings. Like no one's entering that top 15. so maybe just do like a bottom half in the top 15. There's a lot of fun stuff you can do at Banimate and wait. But yeah, it would be interesting if the UFC would, you know, have some fun with some things. Toke Jensen, how are you? I only have one question here. And it's because on the 9th, we have Ardain, Michael Madsen, who's going to fight.

But how do you see the prospects of a 37-year-old who's still a. only three fights into his UFC contract, actually having a chance of going into the rankings. It seems like it's a bit too late in his career that he came over. That's basically good question. Yeah, I'm not surprised by that question at all. Toke, thank you very much. I mean, with a guy like that,

I would say it's never really too late. He could get up there eventually, which is 3 and 0. He's got to finish. Vince Mitchell is a tough. Like this is a really good, this is really good matchmaking right now because Vince Pichel can give anybody fits. He's just a grueling fighter. You know you're not in for an easy night when you fight a guy like that.

The dude is just crazy. He's, he's a, how do I describe Vince Pichel? He's like, Nico Price, but a little more complete, if you will, like he can grind out things in a different way. But Nico's like really never out of a fight. And Vince Mchel is really never out of a fight. against anybody he takes on. Marco Madsen is fun, and I have heard from Eddie Cha and

Captain Eric and many of the fine coaches over at Fight Ready that this guy has been a welcome addition to the team. Not only is he just a great addition as a fighter, he's a great addition as a coach, as a guy that some of these up-and-comers can learn from, especially from a wrestling standpoint and a grappling standpoint. So I love the fight.

It's going to be one of those fights where you are watching this next Saturday, between Marco Madsen and Vince Pichel and you're thinking to yourself, my God, how are these guys doing this? Because this is just a pace that it's just not fair. It's just insane.

And it's just to be such a grinding, grueling fight. I'm really intrigued by it. It's a sleeper fight on this card for sure. But Marco Matson in the rankings, Vince Pichel, and I know how the UFC sort of views a guy like Vince Pichel, he's going to be getting like a top 20 matchup next. So to say it's too late for top.

15. Don't necessarily agree with that, but if he wants to crack the top 15, he's got to be Vince Wichelle, and that is not going to be an easy night at the office. I know Joey T. has been very patient here. Joey T. Good morning. Happy April Fool's that. Yes, sir. How's everybody going? How's everybody going? So I kind of have a question. So with the pay-per-view coming up, Arlowski's fighting Korean zombie, which I do feel majority of us do feel that Volcanasi is going to win and contain. So after he was, I kind of... wins that. What's really next? He beat Holloway twice. He beat Ortega. The only other two options I really think of is maybe Yair, or the winner of Cater and Allen, maybe, if they ever fight?

We'll see. Thank you, Joe. I appreciate you listening. I mean, it's got to be Max Holloway. It's got to be Max. Max is the original fight. That's the one. That's the money fight in this division. Unless somehow you can get Suhudo back, but I don't even think that that is interesting. as I would be in seeing Suhudo fight Volkanovsky. I would pick Volcanovsky to win that fight, and I don't think it draws the same amount of interest as a Max Holloway trilogy fight would be because there's a story there.

There's a lot of people out there who felt Holloway won the second fight. I am not one of those people. I've watched the Volcanovsky fight many times. I got crucified for saying that that fight was not a robbery. I thought Holloway would win. Volcanowski won. He lost the first two rounds. I thought Volcanovsky 1, 3, 4, and 5.

Not a robbery. Super close fight. And it's one of those fights that is just not appreciated enough for how great it actually was. Go back and watch that fight. Go back and watch it again. It doesn't matter who won or who lost. That fight is phenomenal. That is the Jose Young's MVP, high-level martial arts showcase.

Go back and watch that fight. If you want to show new fans, you want to show your, if your girlfriend, or your wife is like, why do you watch MMA? Show them that fight. Show them that fight with those two personalities. That's the one you show them. It's so good and it doesn't get talked about enough. And a lot of people thought Holloway won that fight.

I thought Volcanovsky. There's people out there who thought Holloway won the first fight, which I don't agree with at all. Like, in my eyes, you have no argument there. Second fight, yeah, you do have an argument. But I don't think we know who the better fighter is right now. It's close. And a lot, like, if you ask 10 MMA fans, who the better fighter is between Alexander Volcanovsky and Max Holloway, you're probably going to get five that say Volcanofsky and five that say Holloway.

To me, it's Volcanovsky, but by a nose, but that's what makes it so interesting. Because Holloway made so many great improvements between the first and second fight that I'm curious to see what it would be like the second between the second and third fight. Because Holloway bounced back from that second Volcanovsky loss, and we thought his head might not even be in the game. he kept talking people kept bringing it up and he kept saying i wasn't over it i want that fight back he's getting ready to fight calvin cater and then he goes out and puts in my opinion top three greatest individual performances in ufc history against calvin cater i mean what a performance that was and then he has that crazy fight with yahia rodriguez it's got to be max holloway it has to be i know max was there were there were some preliminary talks about maybe doing max holley versus

Josh Emmett to headlight that Columbus card this past Saturday. It didn't come to fruition. Halani said it best. It was a Hail Mary. They tried. It didn't happen. But now Holloway gets the winner. And yeah, I think that's what you do at Featherway right now.

I mean, there's other guys. Cater Allen, I like. I think that's the fight you make. And there is talks, preliminary talks right now, a Yaya Rodriguez, Brian Ortega fight sometime this summer. I mean, it's being discussed. That's as far as it's at right now. But that fight is being discussed.

Let's get Kevin from Duval. Oh, AK is going to love this. Kevin, good morning. Hey, hey. Can you hear me? Oh, great. Okay, so I always had a quick question about Roberto Soldich. I haven't heard anything lately.

I know Ariel said that things were tracking in the right direction going forward. It looked like he was potentially going to sign after he's got one more fight. summer. But I was just kind of wondering, I know he fights at 170, 185. He's got a future pending trilogy with Dracus Duplus C in the future potentially. I just kind of wonder what your thoughts on his potential were going forward in the UFC, assuming he signs there later this year. And then what you think, 170, 185 going forward. So appreciate your time, man. Great show. Love it. Thank you. Love the question, by the way. Roberta Salditch is the guy is the real deal. He's super legit. Ask Gaygard.

Susasi about Roberto Soldez. And he will, he will speak a book about how good this guy is. And I agree with him. This guy is incredible. He is a massive star in that part of the globe. KSW is a huge promotion, a huge promotion. May not get the love it deserves here in North America, but KSW is massive over there. In Poland, that part of the world, that is a gigantic promotion. And Soleditch is one of the faces of this promotion. He is a huge star, and his performances speak volumes to how people who are familiar with him actually view this man. Here's what I know. I spoke with Soleditch.

When did I speak with him? February? Mid to late February. Maybe it was late January. I'm not sure. But from all accounts, here's what he told me. Not this past event, but the event before that, Solich, was sitting down with KSW after that card.

He had a number in mind. He was going to present with his management team an offer to KSW. If you want to keep me, I have one fight. And first of all, let me just clear one thing up. Soledish has one fight left on his deal with KSW, but it's one of those situations where it's kind of like Chris Cyborg and Bellator, kind of what's being rumored and discussed in terms of France and Gano. He has one fight on his deal,

but come July, I think it's like July 15th, it's sometime in July. If he is not booked two fight, if he does not have a fight on the books, the contract expires. So the way Soldich approach this entire situation was I understand that the best competition I can have, the best place to cement my legacy is in the UFC, right? If I go and fight those guys, that's the best place for my legacy. from what I understand the conversation between Solich and KSW was a very good one, was a very good one to the point where they made him a tremendous offer. I don't know, like, so it just depends on what he wants because Solich had told me that

if he goes in there and says, here's what I want and KSW says, okay, he was going to re-sign with KSW. And there's, I still think there's a chance he will resign with KSW because if the numbers and the terms that I am hearing are accurate, I mean, I have a hard time believing he will turn that down unless Legacy just means that much to him. If it's about money, if money is number one, I think he will stay at KSW, but if it's a combination of of everything and Legacy maybe outweighs the wallet, maybe he goes to the UFC. But you best believe Bellator is going to be a player, one championship is going to be a player,

all the promotions are going to be players for this guy. And why wouldn't you be? This guy is that good. he might be the best welterweight in the world. He's one of the best welter weights in the world. One of the best middleweats in the world. And I will say that it's just kind of as good as KSW is, the level of competition is not to some of the guys that are ranked in the MA fighting global rankings in the top 15. Who knows? Maybe they are. But I think Solich in the UFC gets a big fight right away immediately

because it's going to cost you some money to sign that guy. If the UFC is super interested in Solich, they're going to have to pay for him. And if they pay for him, what I think it will take to get him over, he's going to get big fights immediately, right out the gate. But I'm excited. I mean, wherever this guy ends up, he ends up Solisian the UFC is fantastic, but he's going to do its best for him.

KRL, good morning. Hey, Mike, how's it going? Good, good, good, good. So I was looking at you guys' rankings, which I know are a combination of, you know, a bunch of different staff. One, I'm curious how you combine the rankings from each staff member, but that wasn't the original question.

My question is, in general, I see the number one pound for pound is Kamara Urisman, and it's kind of been thrown around as a given. Why not Mokanovsky? Why not, like, how has Kamaro been any more dominant than Volkanovsky? I think, of anything, Volkanovsky has, how? had to face more difficult competition in Max Holloway than Kamara has in Jorge Masvital and Colby Covington. What do you think about that?

Thank you, Carol. First off, let me just say that is a tremendous question. And in my opinion, is a question a lot of people should be asking. Because I actually, I don't think Volkadovsky gets enough love. I don't think he gets enough respect. And let me see where I have Volcano. I have Volk, I currently have, in my rankings to peel back the curtain, I have Volcanovsky fourth, pound for pound.

I have Usman, Inganu, Adasanya, Volkanowski. So he is number four in my eyes. And you can make a strong argument that he could be three or two. Or I mean, I don't think we could put him at number one yet. I think he's super close. He's very close. He's that good. But the fact that he's in, he's above all.

Levera in my rankings. He's above, he's above steep. He's above a lot of guys. And I hate the pound for pound discussion. But I think if we look at top five, top 10 pound for pound, I think you can kind of interweave. I think it's pretty clear. I think the top five is pretty clear.

I think Ousband and Gano, Adasanya, Volcanovanovsky, Olivera, those should be the five guys and then just kind of mix and match between them. And then the rest are just kind of playing semantics. You're just kind of figuring out like, where do we, put this guy, where to put this guy, you could flip-flop a lot of different guys. But as long as Volcanovsky is in your top five somehow, I don't think it's that disrespectful. But him not being in your top five, I think it's super disrespectful.

And let me just look at the ranking. I'm not going to call anybody out by name, but there are a few people who do not have Volcanovsky in their top fives right now. There are people on our rankings who have Max Holloway ranked above Volcanowski. We have people in our rankings who have Volcanowski ranked 15th pound for pound right now. And I'm not going to call this person out, but that is egregious, and you should be ashamed of yourself. Let's bring in no-name MMA. Good morning.

I have a quick question. In the next five years, what do you see being a better weight class in terms of matchups? Like heavyweight or heavyweight? Now that we got all this new blood coming into heavyweight recently. Five years from now, great question. I don't even know what I'm doing five minutes from now, but let's, let's, let's, Let's take a gander. Let's take a look here.

I mean, I think, I'd say heavyweight. I mean, I think heavyweight always will win that argument just because it's heavyweight. It's the flagship division for the UFC. It's the reason why sometimes when you look at these fight night cards that even though there's like 17 better fights on said fight night card, that the co-made event is a matchup between top 40 heavyweights, it's just the way they look at the division. but I mean you got guys like Tai Tuivasa, you got Curtis Blades who's still pretty young.

I think we still see him around in five years. Tommy Aspenall is on the way up. And as long as you can throw Tommy Aspinall in a fight in the UK and have him in main events for the next five years, I feel like heavyweight will get a better spotlight upon it. Light heavyweight, I mean, you got some good guys in there. Like Jamal Hill is a guy you could certainly watch. Paul Craig's making moves.

But then it's just, I mean, I don't know. I'm going with heavyweight, but I see where you're coming from. Like Yuri Pajasca is super exciting. There's a lot of other exciting 205ers. Jamal Hill is probably the guy that could be the flag, the flag holder, if you will, in terms of young guys trying to make that leap up the top of this division. But I feel like heavyweight will always win out in these types of discussions.

So we'll take a few more. Joshua. Let's bring Joshua in. What's up, Josh? Just make sure you're on mute. Are you there? All right, I'm here. I'm here. Sorry about that. It was Bluetooth issue. All good, man.

All right. So I want to talk women's straw weight. I do not understand why nobody is talking about Marina Rodriguez and why and how she should be fighting for the title next. So my question is, is after destroying McKinsey Dern like that, having such a good fight with Jan Shaunanon, which came down to a split decision, you could say, that Jan won. I mean, you could argue that side, but Marina wins the fight, and everybody's talking about Carla Esparza right there, and obviously that's the next thing,

but I feel like Marina's not getting the love that she deserves. So what do you think? Do you think that she should be fighting for the title next, or what do you think about that? Let me ask you this. If you had the mighty pencil, Joshua, are you booking Marina Rodriguez over Carla? No, no, no, no, no.

pros, right? No, no. I'm saying she's next. And she should not fight again. Yeah, before fight. Okay. So, thank you. Yeah, I completely agree with you. Marina Rodriguez, her next fight should be for the belts. I mean, if she wants to take one more fight and just stay active and stay loose and, you know, build her confidence up, sure. But there's some dangerous matchups. You would have to think, like, if she fights again, she's going to fight either Jessica Andrade or Amanda Lamos because those two are both to headline a card.

So you'd have to think that would be the direction they would go. And maybe she does take that fight. Who knows? We have to remember also that Rose has been a little more active, but she's not the most active fighter. You're not going to see her for the most part fight three, four times a year. If you get her twice, that's a banner year for Nami Yunus fan. And this fight is happening in May. So maybe you get one more out of rows.

So I mean, I would, listen, I think, I think Marina should fight for the belt. In fact, I said if you listen to our on to the next one prediction show where A.K. and I went through each division and predicted the champions would be. I predicted Marina Rodriguez would end the year as champion. So, I mean, maybe that's a bold pick, but that was my selection. I feel like, I feel like after watching. the Janjanan fight, if I could make that pick again, I'll be honest, I probably wouldn't make it. But I do stand by it. I do stand by it.

But Marina winning that fight, I can understand why people kind of questions the decision. But I scored it for Marina. I didn't think it was like a big robbery, but it was a super close fight. And it was a fight that she needed at that time. So, and for Carlos Sparza, she is super lucky because if McKenzie Dern had beat Marina Rodriguez, or be fighting for the title right now, not Carla Spars. That is unfair, and it's blasphemous.

It's a bunch of BS, but Carla gets her title shot, and we'll see what she does with it. Let's bring Tony in. We'll take a couple more. This has been a hell of a free for all Friday, everybody. Thank you so much. Tony, good morning. Hey, good morning. How's it going?

Good yourself. It's going pretty well. What's up? I'm just hanging out. You got anything? Not really. Anything? All right.

Well, thank you, Tony. I appreciate that. positive vibes on this April Fool's Day. Oh, boy. All right, let's bring him in. Let's bring him in. Speaking of robberies, this man feels he might have been robbed by the people on BTL yesterday. Let us welcome in our good friend, New York, Rick.

Good morning, Rick. Good morning. How are you doing? Wonderful. Yourself? I'm doing well. I'm loving the show. It's been great this week.

I wanted to get a little insight. You're our fearless morning leader now. What's the Mike Heck Daily. routine. Like how do we start this morning that gets us up to this moment right here? And then I also, I'm going to hang up and listen in a second, but I also want to say, I want to continue the train of kudos to you. Really, really nice touch yesterday with the early April Fool's joke of pretending that Connor won. That was a nice thing to do for a debut rookie on BTL. So I appreciate you doing that. Hanging up and listen. Thanks, buddy. That's hilarious. All right. So the mic had

daily routine. So this morning would be a heck of a morning, kind of a morning. So my ass was out of bed, alarm going off at 4 a.m. 4 a.m. I am up. I am getting ready. I am getting dressed, and I am hopping in the car, and I am driving to the gym. And then I go and get an hour, hour and a half workout in. It all depends on how much time I have because I do have a almost nine-year-old that I have to come back at a decent enough hour to get him ready to go to school. So I will come home, I will make his lunch, I will wake him up, make his breakfast, sit him down, I will take a shower, and then I will walk him and the dog to school, and then I will walk the dog back, and then I will come in, and I will get everything ready for the show. So that's how it

works. I try to get to bed around 9, 9.30. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes it does not, especially working in this space, but that is usually the plan. It does change. Like if I have a day off or it's a day before a fight card and I'm doing preview shows and stuff like that. Normally my shift starts a little bit later, but with this new show now, that's probably going to be my Tuesday, Thursday, Thursday, Friday routine. Next week will be interesting

because the Jacksonville will be on the road, but I would assume it's going to be pretty much the same. Wake up at 4.30, get a workout in, get ready, have some breakfast and get your coffee ready. Oh, yeah, forgot the Dunkin' Donuts trip. 6 a.m. I go to Dunkin' Donuts. Donuts, 615.

Get the mobile order, pull in, grab it, get in the car, go home, and get my kid ready for school. All right. Taking two more. Above average, Dave. Hey, good morning, Mike. Thanks for having me on. So, quick question. So aside from fighter pay and judging, what's something that you think could really use some

updating or something you'd like to see changed in the MMA landscape? Good question. I would say, I mean, I will go directly to the UFC and allowing fighters to show their personalities. Like, just be yourself. I hate the uniform stuff. I get why they're doing it. It's a business thing.

And if you want to do the sponsored uniforms and all that stuff, tremendous, that's fine. But you have to allow fighters to showcase their personalities. It's just so vanilla. It's so vanilla. Like, you come out, you're, walk to the cage, you're wearing the same stuff. And, you know, it's open things up a little bit more.

That's, that's my thing. I know I'm not alone on that, but that's, that'd be a big thing for me as far as the UFC goes. And obviously, the stuff that you just mentioned, fighter pay and things like that, those are obviously one and two. But if the, the UFC just, you know, throw on some chocolate chips into that vanilla. Let's have some fun. Let's do some interesting things.

Like, the ultimate fighter, come on. It's the same frigging show. It's the same show. It's been for 20 friggin years now. We're still wearing basketball jerseys on the Ultimate Fighter. Come on, dude. Enough is enough. Let's open things up.

Let's have some fun. Let's do a Grand Prix every once in a while. Let's just have some fun. I think that's the thing. M.A is supposed to be fun. The UFC is the flagship promotion. Let's have some fun. All right.

I'm going to take two more. I lied. Daxe, you've been waiting for a while. What's up, man? Hey, Mike. So, quick question. about Eagle FC. So I know that Ali has a pretty heavy involvement

with matchmaking and recruiting and all that. I'm just curious, is that, from Michael, not even ethical, but a legal standpoint, is that something that's allowed in sports management? Interesting question, Dax. I mean, I've had, I have a lot of questions about Eagle FC. I like the production. I like what they're trying to do,

especially bringing it over to the U.S. They're bringing in big names and so forth and so on. I do have questions, especially on that standpoint from an ethical side. But again, this is MMA. It's not boxing. Nothing. I mean, we saw it in the world series of fighting. We saw it in, we're seeing in the,

we're seeing in other promotions as well. Ariel talked about one particular instance on Wednesday's M.A. hour. It's just, it is what it is. No one's doing anything to stop it. So whatever. I mean, there's certain things that I would like to see. Like, if Ali is involved, I mean, whatever.

I'm just, I'm curious to see how that affects pay in the promotion. Like, what's the difference between the fighters that are on the dominance MMA roster compared to the fighters that they bring in to compete against the fighters and the dominance roster? That's what I want to know. Because in Florida, we used to get those payout structures, but now we don't. You could say, like, that is in, you could say it's private and they won't release it. So, and I have requested the last two cards to get payouts, and I've gotten the same response from the commission both times.

This is, it's under lock and key, and they've chosen to keep a private, and we will respect that. So, yeah, there's questions, tons of them. The matchmaking is another thing, but, yeah, I mean, but this is MMA, and this Eagle FC is not the only promotion that's, that does this stuff. So Tristan Gordetz. What's up? Hey, I'm here. I'm here.

Sorry about that. What's up, buddy? So let's go back to an episode on to the next one. This is after matches have to make UFC 272. Okay, I'm watching it. You're going. You were talking, you know, you were giving the fight suggestions. And one of the listeners suggested Miranda Mara

versus Aaron Blanfield. I'm like, that's a good fight. Well, let's do this. And A.K. Lee, oh, my goodness. It just felt so disrespectful when he says, yeah, I don't think Blanchfield is ready for Maras. I think she needs, and I understand, I understand A.K. Lee, slow build, you know, very conservative at that point. But if he can't see Aaron Blanfield for what she is, like, that woman, I know you're high

on her. I'm very high on her. I think she could be a lot of those girls and that's flyway division from 10 to 15 at most. And for A.K. And mind you, I went, like, after that episode, I direct messaged him on Instagram and let him know how I fell about that.

I think the next episode he actually mentioned me about how I went after him about Aaron Blanfield. And he's like, well, I've been high on Aaron Blancho episode, but I'm like, the disrespect, though, that he, it just came off. Like he was, like he dismissed the Miranda Maverick fight. I was like,

I went back and I watched that fight again. And I'm like, to do that to, to do that to Miranda Maverick, Miranda Maverick was on the stool, frustrated dealing with Aaron Blanford. Blentford was like, after the fight was like,

oh, that was easier than I thought. And I'm like, excuse me? I'm like, you know, this girl is no joke and she's going to beat a lot of your favorite fighters in that five-weight division. And for A-K for the disrespect. And this is the,

and listen, I know I bring this up all the time. I think I've asked this question to you of like, who do we decipher that is going to, that you put the rockets on and shoot them up and feel that, yo, this person is special. I think they should be fighting rank fighters. And then who actually needs that slow bail?

So I put the question that you like, you just got, isn't it just more of like, you know, when you look at a fighter like, this girl, I don't care, she's got three fights. I want to fighting rank fighters. And then others, yeah, you need that slow. Bill need a little bit more seasoning. So just tell me, Mike, that how do you, you know, decipher which is, that needs the

rocket ship shot up and which is like, okay, a little bit more seasoning. I know we talk about this all the time, but I'm like, hey, man, if you can't see the specialist in Eric Blancher, I don't know what to tell you up this part. I'm done with my writing. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Mike. Damn, Tristan, bringing that heat. Dig it.

I mean, it's always tough. I think there's super special fighters that just have the entire package. It's not just the ability to compete in the cage. It's the ability to draw interest out of it as well on social media, things like that, personality and interviews and things like that. And we can all sort of agree that Hamzat has that in his own special way. Not only is he going out there and just drilling these fighters, he's not getting hit at all.

He's doing it in such dominant fashion. and then he goes out and does interviews and he does all this YouTube content and people just are interested in this man. They have, they want to see what he's going to do next. That's one of those special fighters. I would put Muhammad Mahayev as another guy

that I think is in that boat as well. Great in the cage. Built a platform outside of professional MMA, multi-time amateur world champion. He's got a great personality. That's a guy I think is a super special fight. I think Aaron Blanchfield is a very special fighter as well. I think she will fight for a UFC title.

In fact, I think she will be at some point a UFC champion. I think time is on her side. It's just a weird time in this division right now because you have this almost second generation of women's fly weights. You have the Casey O'Neills. We're seeing Manon Fioro, who's going to be a top five, 125. I think she came in at like number six or number seven. I actually think she's ranked behind Jennifer Maya

after just beating her, which I felt was kind of weird, but okay. And then you have Aaron Blanchfield, Miranda Maverick. Aaron, I think, just has to, I don't know, like she's just, she's all business. And there's nothing wrong with that. She's all business. I think you just kind of build her up. She's still super young.

She's still super young. So like that personality will develop over time. And I think the more she wins, I think it's just kind of getting her out there and getting those reps in because Miranda's a great win, but now we, I think now you get a vet tester. Throw in there with someone who has been in there five or six times. Like, for instance, if something happens, let's just say Casey O'Neill can't make it, something happens and Jessica I need to do opponent. I think Aaron Blanchfield slides right in there.

I think that's, that's a fine matchup of a veteran that she could do very well. but it's also a risky thing because if she loses, then you kind of take her back a little bit. We saw what happened with Miranda Maverick. People like just kind of lost. They didn't feel like maybe she's not as good as we thought she was. She's lost two in a row. I still thought she won the Macy Barber fight.

But I don't know, man. It's one of those things. It's a good problem to have when you have all these contenders and you have a dominant champion, but you still have veteran names in the mix too because Misha Tate now going to 125, kind of mixes things up as well. Because if she goes out there and she beats Lauren Murphy in July,

you best believe they're going to throw Mishi in a title fight with Valencia Shipchenko. And if Lauren Murphy wins that fight, that tells me Valentina Shepchenko will probably not defend her title again. If she beats Talas Santos, she probably goes up to 135 and tries for the second title. At least that's how I would book it. And she has a chance to become a two-division champion. All right, I'm going to take one more because Dana Spite wanted to get on last week.

We had some technical, last show, we had some technical difficulties. We couldn't get them in. and now he's out again. Unfreaking believable. Oh, well. All right, listen. I've given you a lot of time. Oh, wait a minute.

Dana Spider, are you there? Come on, dude. No. Five, four, three, two, one. Dana, we will try again, unless you just try to April Fool's me. And if so, well played. All right, it is 907.

I've given you a lot of time this morning. And we are done. So thank you all. Apologies to Eli. Zach in Four Corner Sports. Casual Fail will get you in on Tuesday. I promise. Tuesday show, I don't know when it's going to happen.

It's a travel day. We'll make it happen at some point. Okay, we will have a show on Tuesday. And then I will be in Jacksonville Tuesday nights. And then I'll be there Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Obviously, we will do shows on Thursday. We'll do shows on Friday before the way-ins on Friday.

And we will have some fun, some interviews, all sorts of fun stuff. And even Al I Quinta said he was up for doing some co-hosting for one of these shows. while or in Jacksonville. So stay tuned for that. What a week it has been. It has been a heck of a morning. It has been a heck of a week. Thank you very much for listening.

Thank you very much for participating. If you just came in late, the show will be up on the MA Fighting Podcasting Network very soon. And once again, a reminder from the beginning of the show. It is April 1st. It is April Fool's Day. Be careful what you read on the internet in terms of MMA news. Make sure you verify who it's coming from.

If something's fishy, don't believe it. If it comes from a credible source, believe it. Don't let the day fool you. So have a wonderful rest of your Friday. Thank you very much. Have a heck of a morning. Fox Media Podcast Network.