MMA Fighting - Heck of a Morning | Where Does Jiri Prochazka vs. Glover Teixeira Rank In All-Time Best UFC Fights? Adrian Yanez Joins the Show

Episode Date: June 14, 2022

Jiri Prochazka and Glover Teixeira put on an instant classic in the main event of UFC 275 this past Saturday. Some of the newer MMA fans believe it's the greatest UFC title fight they have ever seen, but are they right? On a brand new episode of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck answers that question and reacts to the incredible fight — which was won by Prochazka with a stunning fifth-round submission — as well as what could be next for the new champion following Saturday's card in Singapore. In addition, listeners submit questions about Valentina Shevchenko's split decision win over Taila Santos and who the long reigning champion could face next, the UFC 278 headliner between Kamaru Usman and Leon Edwards being made official, what's at stake in the UFC Austin headliner between Calvin Kattar and Josh Emmett this Saturday, and more. Plus, Adrian Yanez (1:35:27) joins the show to preview his UFC Austin matchup with Tony Kelley. 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

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-by journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. To the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is Tuesday, June 14th, 2022, and it is a day. indeed a heck of a morning here on the MMA fighting Twitter spaces. And shortly thereafter, this show will be uploaded to the M.A. Fighting Podcasting Network with the little bonus stuff. I know I mentioned last week that we had an interview with Adrienne Yannis coming up

on the podcast network. It was ready. I just didn't feel, I didn't want it to get buried with all the 275 stuff. So if you're listening on the podcast network, you will get that interview today. That is for sure. But I am Mike Heck. hope everyone's having a great day. I'm a little pissed off about the Celtics game last night for a number of reasons.

They suck. Continue to suck in the fourth quarter. They sucked pretty much the entire game last night. And just when things were starting to turn around, I thought the referees just killed them. Just killed them. Flipping and flopping between Curry and half the other team with these phantom slap in the face, golly. And then they just could not bounce back from that.

But again, the Celtics sucked. They didn't deserve to win that game. But the referees took any bit of momentum that they had, and they just could not bounce back from that. It is impossible to beat the referees and the Golden State Warriors. But the referees were not the reason they lost that game. But they were a big part of stopping the momentum they had, that's for sure. But we're not here to talk about the Celtics.

We're here to talk mixed martial arts. And we have a lot to talk about. UFC 275 was fantastic. Lots of storylines. Lots of good stuff. We had one of the best fights ever. If you ask most people, Anthony Smith might not agree with you.

He felt like both Yuri Perashka, the new champion in Glovertecara, had horrible performances. If you listened or watched the M.M.A. hour yesterday. We have Valentina Shukchenko, a little bit of a scare. But in my opinion, the judge has got a correct.

She retains the title. Close fight. The clash of heads may have changed the momentum of that fight. Maybe it didn't. Who knows? But Valenzhen of Chichen is still the champion. Zhang Wei Lee, incredible finish of Carla Sparza. She is next in, or not Carla Spaza.

I mean, I think I'm talking in the future right now. Of Yoadia and Jacek, she will move on to fight Carla Sparza for the title at some point. and you have to imagine that Carla is going to be a gigantic underdog in that fight. And then we saw the retirement of Yawani on J-Chek, just an incredible fighter. What a career she had. Greatest straw weight of all time, at least to this point. And she walked away with her head held high, and she plans on sticking around the sport. We also saw on the main card, great performance from Jake Matthews, great performance from Jack Della Madelena.

Prelims were fun. it was a really good card. It over-delivered. The expectations were pretty moderate, and this card just delivered in such a big way. This had, outside of the drama that happened, you know, over six years ago, this had UFC 199 vibes written all over it

where it was a fascinating main event, some really interesting fights on a card, had fans teetering on the fence, should I drop the 75 bucks, should I not drop the 7,000, I know back then it was a little bit cheaper, but inflation, yada, yada, yada. Should I buy this or should I wait for the International Fight Week card? And those who bought it were very satisfied.

Those who didn't buy it were probably pissed off. They didn't buy it. So good stuff. Yuri Prakashka, the champion. What a celebration he had in the Czech Republic, thousands upon thousands of people there. That's how it should be when you have a new champion. and I think the UFC has something in that area right now. So if they do this Janbovich fight,

could be a pretty big deal. It didn't realize how big of a deal it could be, but it could be a very big deal. But like I said, and on onto the next one, you can make a strong case to just run this one back. Look over to Shera. And I think that's what the UFC should do

because you just are not going to have a lot of time to pull the trigger on this. This is not a back pocket rematch that you could just make any time, willy-nilly. This is something you probably, you probably have a year to do, and that's it. Bovers 42.

He wants to keep going to the wheels fall off, but after a fight like that, you have to believe that the wheels are squeaking a little bit. And I don't know how much WD40 is out there to stop the squeaking. So I think you just run that back. Whatever happens, happens. Dubevich versus the winner of Anthony Smith

versus Magamette Ancolaev, number one contender fight. There you go. But we'll see what happens. But let's get to you because a lot of you are lining up. You want to talk. And I know Patrick was first in line. Maybe he's going to brag because Yuri won.

But let's keep in mind. Neither one of us are really correct, Patrick, were we? Oh, one takedown. That's all he needed. Well, listen. Hey, listen. But he's going to run over Glover. He didn't.

No, I didn't say that. We're both wrong. We're both wrong. I said that you need to put some honor. on Yuri's name. He had to prove it to me. He proved it to me. And what happened was

you broke the Bushito code and you got off, you went astray from the way of the warrior and what happened, the Golden State Warriors came back and avenged. You hexed the Celtics as well.

I'm gonna hang up on you, brother. I'm, I just think that you should have went, uh, you should have, have listened to all my hype I was giving yeary man no I'm on tall love man

I'm just kidding that was neither of us were really right that what played out in that fight was amazing and I think it was the best five round championship fight I've ever seen you know just how back and forth it was

there were so many times when I thought the fight was finished on both sides. And both sides made really critical mistakes. And I think really what was on display, and which is I really love Yuri because of that traditional, like, martial arts mindset, bringing the spirituality into it,

bringing the kind of humility into it. And not that Glover is not that as well, but, you know, Yuri is just, I think, on a little bit of a different wavelength. than a lot of people. You know, Dom Reyes said that fighting Yuri Prahaska was equivalent to enlightenment. He said that he was enlightened when he fought Yuri Prahashka. You know, how many fighters are talking about that after fighting someone?

So I just really thought that that's what Yuri was going to bring. And I think what we saw as well was it wasn't even a fight between two war each person was fighting with themselves. You know, they had to draw so deep within themselves to not get finished. And neither of them gave up until, you know, 30 seconds of the end of the fight. And I think, I think Dominic Reyes was right, too, when he said that, you know, Yuri just had that little bit extra. You know, the 42 years of Glover was just a little bit too much.

And Yuri just had that little bit extra, you know, his cells, the mitochondria in his cells were just firing a little bit, had a little bit more left to fire, and he was able to lock that up, and Glover just was done. But, I mean, I'm waxing poetically here on that fight. I think it was amazing. And I think it just goes to show that Eerie has really, like, improved as well.

you know i mean he doesn't have a lot of experience on the ground like there's not too many fights where he gets in those positions but nobody gets up from underneath glover to share up um nobody like he he fucking flattened out um young kutalaba and within 10 seconds kutalaba was done and kutalaba just rocked him literally kutalabar rocked him he um they kind of scrambled he was down on the ground and then glover was on top and it was done 10 seconds later after the fight was seemingly won by Kudalaba. And, you know, the, when he was mounted in the fifth round, did you think he was going to be

able to get up? You know, he spun around and fucking exploded off the cage. That was just such heart, man. It reminded me of the Izzy Gasolam fight a little bit as well, just in that both warriors just in that fifth round had to dig, so deep and and get out of their comfort zones and uh anyways and i'm that was the most charged i had to breathe during that fight you know not just because like you know there was all this back and forth with us on the heck of the morning over the last like few weeks but um it was just so back and forth man i was like i had to i had to i had to really calm myself down

and breathe and uh just imagine being in there and that's the Mario with those guys. So I love the sport. MMA is supposed to be fun. Uri brings fun and heart and spirituality. And he's my favorite fighter. And I hope we see it again. I hope they run it back.

Yeah, man. Thank you, Patrick. Yeah, incredible fight. Incredible heart, incredible grit, incredible will from both guys. Nobody's prediction was right. I mean, unless you were just like, yeah, Yuri's going to win.

I don't know how he's going to win. He's just going to outlastful. to share it and guess what nobody said that because everyone expected this fight was going to go no more than two rounds either Glover was going to get knocked out or Yuri was going to get submitted but it's just amazing because like I said in the bill up to the fight on No Bet's Bard and other shows it wasn't as simple as just Yuri just running him over if he couldn't get him down because if you watch some of Glover's fights when he gets in trouble, he just gets in that mode where he's willing to take those risks and go out on his

shield. He's done it his entire career. And to go in there at the guy like Yuri and go all that time and take his best shots and then, you know, put him in danger for the majority of the fight. It was just so crazy. I've just never seen anything like it wasn't the most technical fight you'll ever see. Absolutely not. But it was a friggin fight. It was a fight. And it's now on that list of If you have a new MMA, if there's somebody who's on the fence on whether or not they should watch MMA, which fight would you show them? That's one of them. That's on the list for sure. That's a top five.

Got to show the newcomer fight ever. Just because of the swings, the back and forth, you don't need to explain much. You don't have to explain the techniques. You don't have to explain the multiple syllable submission attempts or movements or anything like that. you just have to hit play and watch these two guys fight. And you're all set. Unbelievable stuff from both guys. I hope they do run it back just because you're not like we have to do it now.

If we want to see this fight again, we have to do it now. And 205 is pretty fun right now. It is. I mean, there's some guys coming up that are interesting. We got these two guys at the top. We got Blahovic. A Blahovic-Juri fight is pretty big. Angoliath could be the guy to slay all dragons,

and Anthony Smith could get back to a title fight after all this time as well. So a lot of fun at 205. We got guys like Jamal Hill on the way up. It's good stuff. And those two guys just brought it, and the proverbial cap goes on to both gentlemen and everybody who got to watch it. Let's get CRJ in here. What's up, man?

Hey, yo. Oh, I just dropped my phone one second. Okay. So good afternoon. I'm going to start with, you know, something important. So I jump onto the Twitter space, right? Well, we're getting ready to start the show that I attend every week, like a meeting. And whose face do I see him here?

Jed Mishu. He's got to show face. He's got to show face for the first five minutes. first person starts talking he's out of here i'm calling him out he better get back here and show more face or don't come at all wow how about that you know what i mean i will tell him we're building something here get in or get out that's what that's what i'm saying i love it c rj all right so this car is pretty cookie crazy if you ask me lots of crazy stuff going on here um but what i was really wondering about is I felt like for me I know we've had a lot of like

reffing conversations and I don't really want to rehash everything that we've done but is there a better way to handle clash of head stuff I'm not here to say that like you know valentine shouldn't have won or tallya should have won I just feel like we've seen a couple of fights, not even that one in recent weeks where they hit heads, refs are, you know, reffing and basically just taking random actions. What, like, what is the solution that's pretty unappealing to just draw the fight there? Is there anything better to improve this?

Because it always feels really weird, maybe even weirder than, like, when someone's fence grabbing and there isn't a point taken because it's just like visible. Like usually someone starts bleeding a lot or like they're completely dazed. And I don't know. I mean, there's also an argument that you could say it's just like, okay, this is just a thing that will happen.

It's a wash and they keep fighting. But that also seems bad. Seems like a hard thing to solve. Are we got any ideas, Mike? We got any ideas anyone else? What do we do? How do we fix things? Thank you, CRJ.

unfortunately there's nothing we can really do it's just accidental a fence grab is just straight cheating and that can be controlled you can just choose not to grab the fence like I understand especially if you're new to the sport like if this is your first amateur fight or something

and someone's trying to take you down your first instinct is just to grab the fence and grab whatever you can to make sure you don't get taken down but with something like that when it's just kind of a freak thing there's nothing he could really do Jason Herzog

paid attention to it made sure Tyler could still fight he didn't want to maybe take that away from her either because she had momentum but I mean listen he did what he was supposed to do he let the fight go things got a little crazy he could have stopped it

he called in the doctor which was one of the funniest things of the entire card because we're all sitting there like we're not even going to call the doctor in and check this out but Jason obviously called the doctor in And the doctor just kind of walks in, whistles, do-to-do-do-do. Oh, you have an eye?

Okay, fight. Didn't even look at it. Like, no flashlight, no nothing. It's just like, oh, okay, you have an eye. You're a person. Fight continues. And the doctor could have stopped it. And, you know, if they did, they would have gone to the cards and would have been weird.

Probably would have been a split draw. So, yeah, there's not much you can really do there. It's just a freak thing. accidental two heads collide no one wanted that to happen and it's a storyline in this fight just is toke you're up jimmy you're next clay you're after that talk it's up buddy this message or this um this talk is about leverage okay so let's start about uh with congratulating the box media union to secure race for every employee in the company that's one thing. And then I want to go on to the MMA side of things. Because some fighters don't understand

what leverage they don't have. So what I mean by that is we are seeing Carlos Barser saying, well, this is going to happen on my timeline. Well, it would if UFC actually wanted you as a champion, but it's obviously they don't. So it's got to happen on Shang's timeline or else there's going to be an interim title. It's that simple. And another thing with Glover, and I'm sorry to break your burst your bubble,

UFC is not interested in doing that. I don't think so. So the reason why is they don't want Glover to come back, win the title, and then just, you know, this was his last fight now. He's going to go with a time.

They've had that too many times. They're not going to allow it to happen with Glover. So they are going to give him another fight. They're not going to give him the title fight, no matter how great this was. So this is a misunderstanding of what leverage that all these fighters have. So I think you're all going to have your bubble burst. I'm sorry to burst it for you. But, you know, you can have a nice day anyway.

Thank you, Toke. Yes. the union stuff. Very happy with how that all played out. The union got a new deal for all the union members of the box media team. And that's the beauty of a union. They got a deal done at the 11th hour, a little more than 24 hours before the deadline.

And it's a good deal. Everyone's happy with it. And there we go. I am a lot less stressed. I enjoyed UFC 275 a lot more when I found out that a deal was tentatively agreed upon. Now, it's not 100% official, but it is tentatively agreed upon,

and it's probably going to go through. And great stuff all around. It's good to be part of this union in the WGA East. Kudos to everybody involved. Thank you very much. The Carla stuff is hilarious. She has no power here,

and she's actually very smart playing it this way. I mean, I know she doesn't have a lot of leverage, but she actually is smart playing in this way. because, I mean, I'm not going to say it's inevitable, because anything can happen in a fight, but you just have to imagine, and Carla probably is aware of this, she's going to be a massive underdog,

and what Carla does very well, Zhang actually does better with more explosiveness and with more athleticism. So I just don't know if, I mean, unless, I just don't know a way Carla wins this fight, unless Zhang just doesn't show up. But who knows? I didn't think Carla had a chance to be,

rose and wasn't a great fight. It was the complete opposite of Prakashka versus Tashara. But yeah, I mean, that's what you should do if you're Carla. Go out there and just put it on neutral territory. Like, don't make, if you're the champion, you want to avoid going to Abu Dhabi. You want to just do something close to home. Do something in the States. Make Zhang have to work for it a little bit more.

So I get where she's coming from there. I don't think it's like an avoidance thing. I just, she's just like, no, I don't want to, like, if I have a choice

to fight in Abu Dhabi or fight in Vegas or fight in the United States, like, I'm going to take that option. So I think that's probably more that comes from. But at the same token,

I think she's well aware that, I think she watched that fight on Saturday and was like, oh, damn. Okay. Got some work to do. But we have to take the advantage where we can get them.

And the Glover thing, like, it's not like Glover. I don't agree that it's, the same that it's a leverage thing. I think Glover did what any fighter in his position would have done. Just said, hey, good fight. Rematch, dude. I think any fighter would have done the same thing. And you might be right. Maybe they go a different direction. But here's the thing. Glover's in a great spot right now. There is no clear cut number one contender in this division. Now, July 30th,

that might change. Ankleev could emerge. Anthony Smith could emerge. Behoevich is there to be a cool moment for Europe and be a big fight for that region of the world. No doubt about it. Be a very big deal, especially after seeing the celebration that the Czech Republic gave to Yuri. That was awesome to see the videos of those things. But there's no clear guy right now. And even if, unless Ankelyev just goes out there, runs Anthony over and delivers a highlight reel, I hate to say it, there's just not going to be a lot of people clamoring to see Ankelaev fight Yuri. Yuri against anybody else, just seems like way more fun. But if Ankelya fights him, it's just, I don't know.

I mean, maybe it's a fun fight. It just doesn't seem like it would be that fun. I think Ankeliah would probably win that fight. He would just take him down and grind out a decision. And I mean, I think the UFC is probably going to look at this, like, how can we keep the belt on Yuri for as long as possible and just put him in fun fights? Because of that style he brings, I just don't know how long you're going to, he could sustain that. Maybe he's just some, maybe he's just a freak and he can do this for another

decade, which wouldn't surprise me. That's what I'm saying. If you're going to do it, just do it now, book it for the end of the year. Even if Ankleiver Smith win, no matter who wins July 30th, they can fight Jan Belhovic, you got a number one contender fight, you got a main event for a fight night, you got a pay-per-view main card fight, clear number one contender. Winner goes on to fight the winner of that fight. If Glover wins, you just do a trilogy fight, and that kind of sucks for the other guys. But if Yuri wins, we're good. We got a bunch of big fights out of it.

It's probably the best thing you can do a 205 to keep this as interesting as possible. But we'll see what happens. Who knows and both those guys can even return because they beat the shit out of each other. Jimmy! What's up, buddy? Jimmy Wangangang!

Heck of a morning, Mike. How you doing? Good. How are you? I'm good. So I just wanted to first say, it was a sad weekend because Yohanna retired.

That's one of my favorite fighters. And now, you know, it's not just saying her lose, but seeing her, no, I ain't going to see her fight no more. That's, that's said.

But then with Valentina and Santos, I think a lot of people, Santos won the first two rounds, of course. I think where they forget, the third round was, if I'm not mistaken, if I remember right,

it was more stand-up than it was on the ground. and Valentina controlled most of the round because it was more stand-up. I think Santos got her down with like maybe two minutes and 30 seconds left, but most of the round was on the feet, so you could give that round of Valentina

and then, of course, four, four and five. So while the fight was very close to it, I still think, like you think, Valentina got the duh, and I think she deserved it. Very close. I would like to see it again, but I think the judges got this one right.

Thank you. Have a good morning. Thank you, Jimmy. So here's how I scored it, what I was watching at live. I scored round one for Santos, round two for Valentina. Round three was a clear round for Santos in my eyes. There was the clash. But Tyler had her, had her back, almost submitted her a couple of times.

Things were tight. Valentina had a fight out of some really tough spots. I thought that was, I thought one and two were not clear. I leaned Santos had won, lean Valentina in two, watching it live, and I thought three, four, and five were super clear rounds. I thought Santos won round three, Valentina clearly won one round four and five. Before, on to the next one on Sunday,

I went back and watched it again because I was curious about the first round. I wanted to watch it a little more closely because people were screaming that the 49-46 card for Valentino was just, just one of the all-time awful scorecards. Now, watching it live and reacting after the fact, I didn't think that that 49-46 was all that egregious. I thought it was not great, but I've seen, we had worse scorecards on the, on the card before that fight.

The 3027 for Jocelyn Edwards was horrendous. The choice scorecard against Josh Kulabal was a horrendous scorecard. And then, so I was curious with that first round was like. Like, was this a terrible scorecard? And then watching it again, it wasn't. It wasn't a terrible scorecard. You could make the argument Valentina won the first round because not much happened. There was ground control.

There was attempted maybe submissions, but Valentina was thwarting him off. She was landing stuff off of her back. She was landing big punches while at a body triangle. She was impacting the fight in a pretty compromised position. And then she obviously landed on the first. I still scored it for Santos, but you can make a case that Valentina won that first round. So, yeah, I scored it for Valentina the whole way. Two of the judges agreed that Valentina won that second round.

It's not a robbery. The clash of heads is the only reason I think they should run this one back because that was such a difference maker. I don't think the judges screwed anything up, and I think Dana White would probably agree with that. If you bet on Santos, you're probably pissed and I can understand why you might be upset. because there was financial implications. But as far as actual judging and things like that, I didn't think it was a robbery,

didn't think judges got it wrong. I even understood the case for a 49-46 for Valentina. But Santos, her stock rose. She doesn't have the belt. But I agree with Jed on the post-fight show. I think it's clear as day. Tyler Santos is the number two 125er in the world, above Caitlin Chukagian, above anybody else.

in that division besides Valentina. Tyler is the number two gal, and I think she beats anybody else in this division besides Valentina. And if they do run it back, I'm picking Valentina to win again. But Tyler's good. Tyler showed me a lot.

And props to AK, who actually, uh, when he broke that fight down, he called it perfectly. Go back and look at his UFC 275 predictions. Nailed it. Absolutely nailed it. Clay, you're up, Tadjic Bay,

then clears values. you what's up hello mike a couple of morning uh it's my first time talking here uh i want to talk about uh valentina schofchenko and santo's fight and in a lot of ways these fights remind me of uh you know a sterling and yan fight where the sterling basically took him down for like a long time didn't really do much but uh eventually eventually he was able to get the knot from the uh from the judges but the difference was was like in my opinion that sterling had better ground control and like basically longer of obviously and that's why he was able to get the approval like you know get another from the judges but

uh i don't think neither of neither uh stirling or santos did much well they were on the ground like they were just holding i mean there were some submission attacks but uh there was there was not much going on there was no ground and pounding nothing like that so i was just I was just wondering if you have any opinion in this. Thank you, Clay. Yeah, that's actually a pretty good comparison right there. But the difference was Sterling got all that control, but nothing really happened before or after.

You know what I mean? Like at least Valentin was landing on the feet a little bit. Even when she was in trouble, she was landing shots. When she was on her back, she was landing shots. She was still very active. Jan, not so much. It was just more defensive on his part. I have to go back and watch it to really compare the two.

But I get where you're coming from. There are certainly similarities there. I felt watching it live, I felt that I felt confident Jeffchenko won. I actually didn't feel as confident Sterling won, watching it live, because, I mean, I was there. It was just chaotic. There was a lot going on.

Watching it again, I felt Sterling won the fight. Round one was just such a toss-up. round two you could have done a 108 but i understood why you didn't score it a 108 i don't know just one of those crazy things but i understand the comparison it makes a lot of sense and yeah good good comparison tagic pay what's up uh hello mike can you hear me okay yes sir okay great so uh we'll go maybe for with the main uh three fights just to understand the the dynamics here in terms of the matchmaking and in terms of how the fights have went. I think when I was breaking down Weyli Zhang versus Yohanna Jinjachec on my spaces,

is that it came down to me to a simple question when I was deciding who is going to win this fight, and that is who evolved more as a fighter, right? And so the comparison that I brought at the time was between Vicente Lucca and Bilal Muhammad, right? When Bilal fought Luca first time, Lukenov came out. And then they grew and racked up wins. But Bilal added wrestling and grappling into his arsenal. So when they met again, what happened was that he beat him pretty handedly.

I think in this case, when Willie fought Yohanna the first time, I think she attempted about eight takedowns, got one, about 12% takedown efficiency there. And then when she fought Yona again, it's three out of six. She had a great control. So she evolved more as a fighter. and that win is well deserved. As far as a situation, I think what happens now, Esparza wants to fight in her own time on her own terms.

So what's going to happen, in my opinion, here is that Whaley is going to get booked with Rose Namayunas for the interim title. And so after that, the winner of which is probably going to get Carlos Sparza next. So, and then talking about Valentina, I think Valentina fought well. I think Talia's power surprised her. But traditionally, Valentina always struggled with a fighter who are kind of bigger in size, who are more powerful than her.

We saw what Nunez did to her. And so it was pretty much kind of the same situation. I agree that Talia Santos is number two. But there's not going to be a rematch, in my opinion, for a simple reason that Talia needs a surgeon. She lost as a contender. They don't rebook contenders for the rematches, for the title rematches. Probably never. And so, and Manon Fioro, should she win, Caitlin Chukagin, is going to emerge as a title contender next.

And I understand Valentina wanting to fight Misha Tate, but in this case, Manon Fierro is probably next for Valentina, should she go over Caitlin Chukagin. And for Yiri Prohaska, I think the situation here is that he repeated the same mistake as Hamza Chimaev did and that he has this aura of invincibility around him and he thought he can walk through the punches of Glover to Shera. And Glover is a great boxer. He has a great chin. He has a great power. So he showed Yeri.

I think he humbled Yiriyah there. And he would have to adjust. Yiri would have to adjust his fighting style. but at the same time his best win condition is creating this kind of a dog fight, creating the chaos. And I don't know how he will show in his

next performance. Him, I think, is more likely to fight Magamette Anka Laif, because if Anka Laif beats Smith solemnly, he's the next title contender. And for Glover, finally, to wrap it up, Glover is probably

not going to get an instant three match. Because of, you know, his days are probably also, he has maybe a year, another year, another fight or two in him. I think what's going to happen, if Jamal Hill walks through the Santos here, they will probably use him as a stepping stone to a title fight. So Jamal Hill is probably going to be next for Glover Teshire. So, yeah, there is a lot to unfold. And yeah, and the final thing that I want to do, I actually want to invite you to my space. that we do. I hope we can coordinate that because a lot of fans who listen to MySpace also

listen to you, which is how I learned about your space. So yeah, that's all I have to have a lot of there to unpack and look forward to your thoughts on this. Thank you, Tadjik Bay. Yes, if I see the space, I will hop in. It's tough. It's tough being around and working and then all of a sudden, you know, I'll try to jump in. If I see it, if I'm available, if I'm not hanging out the family, and it's going on, I will jump in. You have my word. Yeah, you made a lot of good points there. That's a shit, I mean, I don't know.

Like, the Jamal Hill thing, I just don't think happens because I think that's just, I think that's kind of a rough matchmake for Jamal Hill, if we're being honest. Because if he goes out and beats Diago Santos and he's like a win, maybe two wins away, if he goes out there and fights Glover and gets smushed, which there's a very good chance that happens,

I would definitely favor Glover to win that fun. I think the guy is going to fight for a title. There's a very good chance he could be champion in the next few years. But to throw him in there with Glover at this point, I just don't like it, even if he beats Santos. I don't like that idea. Dominic Reyes would be a good idea because Dominic wants to come back like the end of the year. So if Jamal Hill beats Tiago Santos, I think Dominic would be a great fight,

even though some people would feel like rankings-wise to step back. But Dominic still has that cachet. He's still the guy in most people's minds who beat John Jones and didn't get the nod, but people still believe he won that fight. So I don't know. I don't know what happens. I feel like Angoliath is, from a meritocratic standpoint, if he beats Anthony Smith, he should be the guy. But from a which fight is going to draw better kind of a way, what's the bigger gate? What's the bigger this?

What's the more buzz we can get? I actually think it's glover then Jan then Ancolaev because I just don't think Angoliath I mean again he could change that July 30th he could just cold Anthony Smith and because we are part of a sport where it's recency bias

and what have you done from me lately if that's the taste on Goliath leaves us cool that'll get him a shot but if he goes out there just wins a decision and it's not that exciting I mean who's going to be clamoring for Ankylaiif I have to fight Yuri Prahashka. We want Yuri to get in there and have some crazy fun.

And I don't think he has that crazy phone. Now, there's going to be a time where they have to make that fight. But in the UFC's eyes, they're looking at as Glover. Let's see if we can do it. See if the old man can get it back. If not, we can do it. If he does, we can do the trilogy. And if they go the Behovic route and do it in Europe, cool.

But here's what will really piss me off. If the UFC does Jan Behovic versus, is Yuri Prakashka, if they give Jan the shot and they book this fight in Anaheim, it's the dumbest shit ever. Don't do that. Don't do that. If you're going to make that fight, you do it in Europe somewhere, let the fans over there get attached to it, make it a very big deal.

Don't do it in Brooklyn. Don't do it in Anaheim. Don't do it in Phoenix. Don't do it in Houston. You got to do it in Europe. For Haska, Glover, you could do anywhere. But that fight in particular, you don't do it. Random City in the U.S.

You don't go to Salt Lake City with that fight. That's dumb. All right. Clearst values, then Henderson, then Tyler. Clearst values, your thought. I came. I need to eat some crow. I told you, I believe, on Friday,

that I wasn't too excited for this card. Obviously, I was wrong. There were some absolute bangers. and I didn't think I would be here on a Monday saying I'm excited to watch Jake Matthews again because I feel like I've always kind of been let down. He has some great wins, but, you know, he's always kind of been around,

but he hasn't really been someone that I'm looking forward to his next fight. And I think that the UFC can do some really fun things with Jake Matthews. He's been on their roster a while, and I feel like, you know, he's either gotten someone too early or too late, and it either hasn't gone well or it's gone very well, but nobody really knew the names. I'm really excited to see what they do with him, as well as Jack Delam, Madelena.

I really want to see those two guys fight in Australia. I think it could be awesome. I don't know why the UFC isn't putting a show there. I think if they get Marvel Stadium sold out with Volk, maybe an Izzy fight as well, I think it could be awesome. And then you get Jack Delam, Madelena, and Jake Matthews on there. Yeah, man. Jake, if you listen to No Bet Spard, I told you Jake was a super live underdog in that fight against Andre Fiala. I know Fiala had a couple of big knockouts and he was the guy who's fighting every month and we're all excited about him. But it's just Jake Matthews, the dog money was just too difficult to pass up. It just felt like Jake even, and I didn't even expect this guy to show up. That guy who fought on Saturday is a problem. but I thought even the guy who fought Sean Brady was going to beat Andre Fialo.

I felt very confident in that. That was one of my surest picks on the card, and I sucked on my picks from top to bottom. I was not good. But that one I got right, I felt really good about it. And there you go. There weren't a lot of sure picks. That was one of them. And Jake Matthews, like I noticed on Instagram, which is another reason why I picked him,

is that he looked like a different guy. He was all jacked. He was a big guy. He was in great shape. Had a lot of time to really think and stew about that Sean Brady loss, did everything he could to improve and build upon that loss

and learn some lessons. He looked like a freaking light heavyweight in there. He looked sensational. If anybody saw, like there are a lot of rising stocks on this card, but if we're looking like under the radar stock risers, Jake Matthews is it. by a long shot.

And yeah, Jack Delamette, it looked good as well. To go out there and finish a guy like Ramazzan Amid, get out of a really tough spot, and then finish a guy who had not been finishing the UFC in several fights, that was real impressive. This guy is the real deal. I'm excited to see where he goes. And I'm excited to see Jake Matthews back in there.

That's for damn sure. All right, so we got Henderson, Tyler, and then James, and then we're going to keep on going, all right? I know a lot of you are waiting. I promise I'll get to everybody. Henderson, what's up? Quick points. A great card, of course.

Erie versus Glover, one of the best modern MMA fights, I'll definitely say for sure, especially title fights. And like, if I was showing somebody, hey, this is how far MMA has come, right? I'm going to show them, like, a fight like that, you know,

that has everything in it. I still think Volk v. T. City, Ortega, was like maybe a little bit better in terms of that, just because so many close submissions throughout, but they're both amazing. But what I really wanted to talk about is with Joanna retiring, I'm a huge fan

of her, and especially her promotion and everything. And I know she wants to become a manager, and I think that would be great. Like, God knows, these fighters need better management. So, she would already be an improvement over most of the managers out there. But

I think the best job for her would actually be, like, as the face of a fight promotion. Like if she was the like the face or at least like the face of the women's division of like KSW or Invicta or even Belvoir, I think, or even PFL, she could do a great job. But even better than that would be if the UFC started thinking a little ahead and started thinking of her as maybe a replacement for Dana White. How wild would that be?

UFC with the with the face of it being Joanna just causing all sorts of crazy promotions and stuff so wanted to know what she thought of that and maybe her future as a potential fight promoter thank you Henderson yeah I mean maybe I don't know if she she also has like aspirations of being like a business owner and a mom and all this other stuff so I don't know if her running a promotion is the best thing to do but I mean maybe if she if she did decide to go that route, she'd be damn good at it. If I'm the UFC, I'm already on the phone with her manager saying, how can we lock her up to some sort of ambassadorship kind of a deal?

Just use her. Like, what Forest Griffin's do right now, what Chuck did for a while, you just go and have her make appearances, you do different things, you know, I don't know, find a spot for her where she could be on camera and talk about the company. And on the flip side, if I am the PFL, if I am, God, if I'm Bellator, holy cow, if I am Belator, I am already, I've already made 50 friggin phone calls to her manager to get her on the broadcasts. That would be a great addition. That'd be a great addition. Josh Thompson can just be like, let's go to Josh Thompson in between rounds.

I scored at 10-9 for this guy because of this and this. in this and that's it you put joanna on the desk with amanda geera maybe you put like another guest fighter in there i mean that's just so much better than what they have right now that's exactly what i'm doing bell tory do that get yawanna on your broadcast tone down thompson more yawanna your broadcast immediately improves cool pfl same thing I'm on the phone with her manager, getting her on the broadcast, putting her in front of the camera. That's what I'm doing.

But I feel like if the UFC made some kind of an offer, I think you want to stick it with the UFC. But again, money talks. And if I'm Coker and the team over at Bellator, I'm offering up a lot to get you on on those broadcasts because that will be a massive improvement to what they have right now. Let's get Tyler, James and Terrence, and then Tob's a hid, Viking MMA, Jay, David,

Terrence or Tristan, we got all of you. It's all coming. Tyler, what's up? Hey, how's it going, Mike? Just quick shout out and props for the show. First time I'm ever getting to listen live just because of work and everything. But I was checking you out on the podcast. An M.M.A fighting podcast, man.

You guys are killing it. The post-show stuff, everything out throughout the week. No one comes close for M.M.A. But regardless, I was just wanting to talk a few things. But first off, Gillespie, is there any news on him after? I think you broke that he turned down the Sarukian fight just before he got his removed from the rankings there. So I just wonder if there's any word on him,

if there's any talk of him actually taking a fight or not. And just your thoughts on the Saruki and Gamrodd flight going up, I'm so excited for that point, man, that's going to be a good one. Personally, I think Gamrodot's going to make it interesting, but I just see Saruki and just rolling through. What are your thoughts on that one? Thank you for the kind words, Tyler.

Thank you for the questions. It's hilarious. It's so funny that as soon as you said, the Siruqi on Gamrod fight, I smiled. Like, I literally smiled just at the sound of those two names. I cannot wait for that fight. It's going to be amazing.

Is it going to be a big ratings draw for the UFC? No. Is it a hardcore fan's type of main event? Yes. Am I complaining about it whatsoever? Absolutely not. This is the right decision. There are people who are like,

they should have just went with Rachmanna versus Magni as the main event. And I wouldn't have been mad about that either. But this fight, five rounds. This is legit. This is a number one contender fight. But this is like, who's going to be the next?

Like, who's going to be a champion first? Whoever wins that fight is going to be a champion. I feel, I've been saying for a long time, once Surukian gets to the UFC, he's got to be the champion. Went in there, give Mokachev a tough fight on short notice in his debut, has just been a wrecking ball ever since. And Gamrod, after that fight with Kutatilatse, he's been a wrecking ball himself. I can't wait.

It's going to be pure chaos, and I'm here for it. And I also think Syrukihan's going to win. But I think it's, I think it's going to be close. But I think Surukia eventually he's just going to smush him and be too much. And I think there's just, he's just a level, he's just a small step above Gamrod. But it wouldn't stun me if Gamrod beat him. I cannot friggin wait for that fight. With the Gillespie thing, I mean, Gillespie's basically said it himself that he turned down that fight in other fights.

He's very, he's got his feet down in the sand and he ain't moving him. I'm only fighting in front of me. I'm only fighting guys that are ranked ahead of me. One of the Tony Ferguson fight. I know there was discussions about that fight. I also know there was zero chance that fight was going to happen. I don't know what he's going to do. Honestly, I think he's probably going to have to fight the winner of this

Surukian Gamrod fight. Because whoever wins that is going to be, he's got to get jumped up there. And then, Gillespie is just going to have to fight the winner of this one. I honestly think that's what's going to happen. So, but nothing in terms of fight news. I would guess the UFC with everybody else in this division ready to go and not saying no. And I'm not blaming Gillespie for that either. I'm Greg Gillespie and they offer me on Sauru Kod, I'm not taking that fight either.

The risk reward is just not bare for him. It just isn't. So I'm not blaming him for that. It's a smart move. It's a prize fighter move to not take that fight. It's smart on his part. But if his whole thing is I have to fight, I'm only fighting people ranked in front of me. He's probably going to have, if Sirukion beats Gamorite,

he's probably going to fight Therukian next. And I'm here for that fight too. That's an awesome fight as well. But other than that, I just don't know what other fight he's going to get with anybody ranked in front of him. It's just not going to happen. James! What's up, buddy?

Hey, sorry about that. Oh, good. I just want to talk a little bit about the Glover and Per Shara fight. That was just amazing. But if we're going to do the immediate rematch, I feel like we need to kind of be nice to Glover in a way. Just let him take his time, heal up. I don't want a situation where we rush both of these guys back at the end of the year

or early next year. And we get just a two-minute war of Glover on his back unconscious. I just think we need to give the man time to heal up. You know, I think back to, you guys talked about on the pre-fight show about the Robbie Lawler and Curtis Condit of just masterpiece and how when they came back, I think it was like six or seven months later, both of them got finished within two minutes. And you could even look at Steppe when he just ate bombs from Francis and came back, I think about the same time frame, about seven months and just got knocked out by DC. I just, I want to give time for Glover to heal. so then we can have a proper rematch, just knowing that he doesn't have too much time left.

And before I go, Mike, I want to lift up your spirits a little bit on your Celtics. You know, if someone would have told you yesterday that, hey, Warriors are going to shoot 9 for 40 from 3-point land and Steph Curry is going to be 0 for 9, you would probably think that they would win, just on the road in that hostile environment. I know they laid an egg in the fourth quarter,

but, you know, keep your head up. You're going back to Boston. In Game 7, anything could happen. I think that's where we're headed. And, you know, I'm not a Celtics fan myself, but just because I like you so much and M&A fighting, I'm rooting for your Celtics for you. So thank you for taking my question like always, man.

And what you guys do? I see AK is in here. Happy birthday AK. And thank you. Thank you, James. And no, that did not lift my spirits at all. Here's the thing. And I'll talk about this real quick

and they will move on from Celtics talk. They sucked last night. They sucked. But they still should have won that game, and they still deserved the opportunity to at least make it close. And the referees took that from them in the fourth quarter. I understand the referees didn't. And what is, I hate, I hate Draymond Green.

How, like, what, what photos does he have with these referees? Marcus Smart gets a technical, but Draymond Green basically chases Jason Tatum back to the bench. all the reps are trying to pull him away he's pushing through all the referees and he doesn't get teed what the hell is that all about that guy sucks

in the Southics have no balls right now they're playing with no balls the Boston is coming out of me right now I was telling AK after we recorded on or after we did on to the next one that like a decade ago I was a much different Boston sports fan and this series is kind of getting some of that out of me

it's like Frank the Tank in old school. Sometimes these things happen and it comes out of you. But the Celtics have played like garbage. They've just not showed up. Like they have not even come close to playing their best game

at any point in the series. And they've gotten Golden State's best multiple times and they've been in all of these games. The Celtics are better than them. They are the better team. They're the better team. They're pissing it away. They're giving it up.

They're giving it away. with the turnovers and the miss free throws and the technicals and just constantly arguing with the referees. You're just pissing away this championship. You're giving it away. You're the better team. Go prove it. Kick their ass on Thursday.

Step on their throats. Win by 50. When you're up by 40 and they take their starters out, you keep the starters in and you just keep pumping up points. That's what you have to do. Show some balls. Win a frigging game. Score in the fourth quarter.

Terrence, what's up? Good. So I want to talk about a few things. I'm kind of like narrowed it down while I was waiting to speak. But I want to talk about like the judging. One thing that we aren't talking about is like a lot of people when they're thinking about judging, they're thinking about like the old criteria and like what the commentary say. like how, oh, if you get to take that,

you still walk around and all this other stuff. If you go in there and, like, show them, like, the judging criteria, let's say, for example, like on Facebook or Twitter, like people are arguing like, oh, this and that, blah, blah, blah, this is the way it should be, blah, blah, this and then you're like, this is the judging criteria, and they go and read it, and they're like, I don't care. Why do you send that to me?

So I think a lot of people literally just want to argue, just for the sake of argument. One of the other things is, like, when Val had one, both got clash heads. It was after she was doing damage on the ground, because if you go back and watch the fight again, the commentary is like, oh, her eyes shut and, like, what's that damage coming from?

It's like, oh, it's from the rubber punches from Valentina, like not settling for her having her back. And then you'll see people like making excuses, like, oh, look at her, blah, blah, blah. She knows she didn't win that. And now she's making excuses because her foot, blah, blah, this and that like when can a fighter like come into a fight perfect like no fighters come into a fight perfect i know somebody's going to say something about the whole foot thing um and that kind of like goes in the line of like

what somebody was talking about with you guys at box like you guys have leverage when you have like a union things like that a lot of fires don't agree with the scoring criteria um but they can't do anything about it like it went from you can get away with like wrestling the whole fight and look like we can miss meet at the end of the fight, but you got control for 80% of the round for the majority of the fights. So I think it's something that the fighters should be able to leverage. They're like, hey, this is not how we think fights should be scored,

and this is what needs to change. But it's an individual sport, and they're all selfish, and they just want what's best for them immediately, as opposed to what's best for them in the future, they need to take cues from team sports because at the end of the day, it's not a team sport. However, if you guys play ball together, you will be able to get the results that you want.

So that's it with that. Only other thing that I was going to, well, not only other things, but the thing that I was going to suggest, I never believe Aaron, he has, like, a video explaining, like, the criteria, but I think it would be cool if you guys had, like, a similar video.

but kind of like in like the countdown like situation like oh this fight was close however this is the reason why it's won based off of this criteria I know you guys don't really do like the countdown things coming up to fights anymore however I think that would be cool and bring people back and every time somebody's arguing on it you can kind of like post that and I guarantee that I get a lot of people reacting and then the last thing I was going to say it's more of a fun question kind of like a between a waste type question. So, Risen has financial problems. Like they bring it up again. I know they have the Floyd fight going on. But it made me think of like, what if like the UFC bought it out or what if Belator brought out the organization or one or anyone else like PFO for that matter?

I'm not asking who you think would be able to buy them out, but who would be like, able to utilize them the best and which ones will be like the most fun matchups. Thank you. Thanks, man. Yeah, a lot to impact. The judging video, I just honestly, like we could do the video, but because there's gambling in MMA now, like people bet on it and it has added this very interesting wrinkle to it.

I don't think anybody really cares. I think they're still going to argue about it because judges still don't understand the criteria. And on the flip side, even when they watch the broadcast, the cost. commentators and the color guys don't understand the criteria for the most part. I will say this. Anakin Fitzgerald have studied it. They know it.

They're great. Bisbing is actually getting much better on the broadcast when it comes to understanding the scoring. Cruz not so much, but I think he knows. D.C., I feel like he's not even trying. But it is what it is. The rise in things interesting. I think like I think Bellator would probably get first dib.

because they have a relationship, but I just don't know. I just, I don't know where Bellator would be getting the money. It's not like they're drawing big houses and I don't know. Paramount's going to like lock up Bellator for another five years or something and offering them a whole bunch of money. And they're like,

go buy this Ryzen company and absorb it somehow. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen with that. And then the whole financial thing, and then seeing Floyd in another exhibition fight over there.

I just don't get it. I don't get it. Tops and keyboard warrior than Kirkland, then a man, Ahid. Tombs, what's up?

Are you there? Unmute if you're there. Hey, Mike, how you doing? What's up, buddy? Doing the right, doing the right.

So thank you for having me. So I want to talk about a couple of things. So for Valentina, I do not know what people are arguing about it. Like, it's pretty clear. And we were told that if you get the takedown, you should do something with it.

And clearly, Taya Santos didn't do anything with it, right? We can see she took the back, but she wasn't doing anything with it. And Valentina was striking from the bottom position. So I do not know why people are making a big fuss about it, like Valentina clearly won. And another thing that I want to say is, why do people want to change? change um yi way of fighting that's what made him successful like you got to the top by fighting that way and i think he's a unconventional way of fighting is going to keep him at the top for a long time like he fights with his hands low he takes big shots but he doesn't go down so we should give him to

him just like let him fight that way and i think that's what's going to keep him to the At the top for a very long time. He took shots from Dominic Reyes. He took shots from Volcom-Houzimir. Like, the kids is good with his way of fighting. He got hot and we should just let him fight that way. And finally, the stars are lining for Zhang Wei Li. She's finally going to get the title that she couldn't take from Rose.

So I think that she's on a good path. And that was me. Thank you for having me, man. Thanks, buddy. Yeah, I mean, Yuri is special because he's Yuri. When you mentioned Yeri, he's just chaos.

And that's why I think a lot of people wanted him to win the title. It's because how fun of a champion is he going to be. And I think he beats a lot of guys in 205. Anka Laiap's a terrible matchup for him. But I also thought Glover was a terrible matchup for him. And he proved me wrong. He went in there,

took Glover's best shots was mounted like 48 times and still somehow survived I mean how could you not take your hat off to this guy unbelievable stuff from Yuri Perashka and the Valentina thing like

I know I think Terence brought up earlier people talking about the foot injury and stuff I believe her I believe her she was off for sure she didn't dance which I mean Valentina is not going to lie about that

stuff. She just doesn't seem that way. And it wasn't an excuse. She said, this is what I needed. I needed this fight. This is what I wanted. I wanted to be challenged like this. And she comes through and gets the win. And I loved the Musa Tate thing. This is prize fighting. That's the biggest fight she could get right now outside of 135. So she's planting the seeds. If Pena wins, I guarantee you she's going to be shouting out Juliana Pena's name as well as she should. If Nunes wins, she'll probably chirp, but she probably understands,

yeah, they'll probably go back to that well a third time. And if Misha Tateech beats Lauren Murphy, how can we get, how can we maximize this year? If Misha beats Lauren and does so, like she goes out and finishes her quick, they can turn that fight around, maybe do it in September, headline that pay-per-view

or headline something down the road, that's a big fight. Misha's a star. That's a main event. You could headline a pay-per-view with that fight. And Valentino would be a giant favorite to win, and she probably will win it. So I dig the move.

It's very smart on her part. This is prize fighting. Make the most amount of money with the least amount of risk. And I'm not saying Misha is not a good fighter. She's a very good fighter. She's a former freaking champion. But that's the biggest fight,

you get right now. You could headline a pay-per-view with it and she would get more money and pay-per-view points and that's the right way to go. Keyboard Warrior. Mike? Keyboard. Back of a morning from Ontario, Canada. Let's get the formalities out of the way. Happy birthday to your best friend. All right. We'll get that out of the way. So let's get to 275. I just wanted to quickly mention. I give you all the credit in the world ever since I started listening to you. You definitely you died on the hill of Glover. But man, I was nervous every year. single time. Now here's my question. I'll keep it quick today. What is more impressive the fact that he that he stuffed 12 takeout, take down attempts, or that he actually

got up five times from the times that he got down? Now, the question is to you, Mike, is I listen to all of your shows and I've listened to Ariel and no one has said it. Who is the real champion here? Henry Suhudo, the man who brought him in and taught him how to wrestle. No one has brought up Henry Sohudo's name, and he deserves all the credit in the world. And no, Henry Suhudo. I'm leaving you with that, Mike. Happy birthday, AK, and I'll talk to you on Friday maybe. Take care, man.

Thank you, keyboard warrior. I'm not giving Henry any credit for this. I mean, maybe a spigion of credit, but it's not like Yuri spent the whole, it's not like he went to fight ready for a year, and Henry just whipped him in the shape. he went for like a cup of coffee over there he went there for like a month oh i'll work with these guys oh i think john jones might be here i'll go and work with those guys it's not like he was there for eight months it's not like he did what jang we lee didn't and davis and figurado did like figgy and john really like changed their entire lives they left their families behind and just

stayed there for entire camps there he didn't do that so i'm not giving sehudo any credit maybe I'm sure Sehudo taught him a couple things, but listen, I think even if he went, if he didn't go to fight ready, I think the fight plays out exactly the same. Because Yuri has, like, Yuri's been able to escape these spots before. He did it with Reyes. He's done in the past.

I just didn't think he'd be able to get it with Glover. He's always had pretty good wrestling defense. He's not, he's, it's just, it's just, when he gets on his back, he had a hard time. Now, he did great in this fight, mounted multiple times, somehow survived. Amazing stuff. I was way more impressed with him the ability to get back to his feet than I was at the takedown defense because he's had decent takedown defense.

Not tremendous, but he's had decent. He's shown signs of it. But him getting out of mount and getting back to his feet five times, reversing position, especially in that fifth round, to me, was the most impressive thing. Just incredible stuff. Kirkland, Ahid, Zeke. That's the order. We're going to get everybody that's requested right now, all right? Kirkland, what's up? Hey, how's it going? Heck of a morning. I just wanted to say, happy birthday, AKA, it's also my birthday today. So, happy birthday. Thanks so much. Just

wanted to say, Jim and I love, and yeah, I love that you all do. So anyways, all the more reason to celebrate. I feel like 275's been covered, pretty thoroughly and I wanted to talk about this next card coming up. And really, all I wanted to say is people should have eyes on Josh Emmett, Purple Belt, and Jiu-Jitsu by submission. That line is very good. So anyways, happy birthday, AK, heck of a morning. All I wanted to say.

Thanks. All right. I mean, look at that bold betting prediction right there. Emmett by sub? How about that? I like the gusto. I love this card on Saturday. It's going to be tough to top 275 and what that brought.

But if we're looking at fight cards on paper, if we're comparing the two side by side, this card's better. Saturday's card is better than 275. There's title fights obviously. It's Zhang and Yowanna. I get it. The top three fights there were better than the top three fights here.

but top to bottom, start to finish, this Austin card is better. It just is. This card is ridiculous. Cater Emmett is a great main event. We get Seroni Lozon, maybe the final fight of those two guys' careers. Kevin Holland back against Tim Means.

Joachim Buckley, Albert Dariw is going to be nuts. Julian Marquez, Gregor Rodriguez, great fight. Adrian Yon is back. Tony Kelly. But Demir Isma Gulov versus Gurong Kutatilat is ridiculous. That is a ridiculous fight. I love it. Love it.

It's a really good card. I can't wait for Saturday. And what I love about that card so much is that it starts at 4 p.m. Eastern. It's a 4 p.m. Eastern start time for the prelim. 7 p.m. main card. Excellent work. So every fight night card should be.

All right, I hid. Go ahead. What I did to say? Listen, wait, wait, wait. Do you know, actually, like, save me for last because I've got a hell of a point to make. It's like a hot take. I'll let Zeeke go before me.

If that's okay, Mike, I don't want to tell you what to do. But like as in... You want to go last? Yeah, we'll go last, all right? All right, so hang on for a minute. Thanks. Just jump back in. I'll get you in.

Where's Zeeke? All right. Zeke, Viking MMA, J. Go, Zeke. All right, I know it's not baseball, but we can't just change up the lineup mid-order. I was chewing bubble gum and the dugout of heat. All right, here we go.

First thing first, sorry about the Celtics, Mike. you guys are going to go back to Boston and do your jobs. This has nothing to do with the fact that it is A.K. Lee's birthday. Happy birthday. A.K. Lee, thank you for on to the next one after every single UFC card. They could be chickens fighting in there, and you guys are going to matchmake for us. So thank you. Lastly, oh, my Lord, I am a young aspiring.

What is it? 22, 23. Now, who gives a shit? That was the best fight I've ever seen with my own two eyes. The up and downs, the changing of, you know, momentum, the transitions on the ground. Yuri rolled with JJ and Glover's, you know, backyard and survived and did what he need to do.

So that being said, I want to know what you think about Anthony Smith and Ancolaev and what is next for the light heavyweight division. Thank you, Zeeke. Yeah, the fight ruled. It was tremendous. I don't know what's going to happen to 205. I feel like with Yuri, I feel like with Yuri, I feel like with Yerri, as the champ.

They're going to go either with the Cher rematch or they're going to go with the Yom fight just because of what it could mean for Europe and that'd be a very big deal over there. So I think those are the top two options. Ankiaheuf, I mean, honestly, I think Angolaev's going to have to fight again. I think he's going to have to fight again,

even if he beats Anthony. Unless he just runs him over and people are just clamoring for it, I just feel like the UFC from a business sense, they got something with Yuri. I don't think he's broken through like where this is like we have to we have to spend 75 bucks

hardcore fans absolutely but the casual fan they're going to be intrigued by this guy but is he a million pay-per-view guy? I don't know. You do the Glover fight that's big business you do the Yon fight

that's big business Anthony Smith's interesting Ankelyaf I think I just feel like he's slow he has the kind of style that can make Yuri not all that fun. And I think you're going to have to do that fight at some point, but I think you have to milk this eerie chaos for as long as you can. So that's how I feel. But we'll see what happens.

I could be completely wrong. 205 again, compared to a year ago to where we're at now, 205 is in a much better spot. Who would have thought 205 would have been one of their most interesting divisions? And it has become one of their most interesting divisions. Viking MMMA, then Jay, then David, then Tristan, and then Ahed, we'll wrap with you. Viking M.A. All right, try again, Viking MMA. Jay. Hey, Mike.

What's up, buddy? Good morning to you. Back in morning to you. Hold on. Viking M.A. Jump back. Request again. I'll get you in next. Jay, what's up? All right. So someone mentioned the Emmett and Cater fight, and I kind of wanted to bring up a hypothetical to you.

So if Cater finishes Emmett and also Yaiir finishes Ortega in his fight in a couple months. Who do you think is more deserving of a title shot? In my opinion, I thought it was Cater at first if he got this finish. But when I was looking back at both their hallway fights, Cater got ran through and Yairir actually put on a really good performance. So I wanted to get your opinion on who you think should be the next featherway up. And then another question I wanted to ask is,

we saw him in Singapore, but where is Duhu Choy? does he have a fight coming up next or is he like taking a really long break again like do you guys at mima fighting know anything about him and his next fight coming up so thanks for letting me talk and have a heck of a good morning man thanks jay um do ho choy do ho choy do ho choy uh he was supposed to fight the last time he was booked was in july of last year supposed to fight danie shavez and then Choi got injured. So, yeah, he was out for a minute and he was trying to get back. And for some reason, he just couldn't get back in there. So as far as the featherweight discussion goes, honestly, I think if Kater went, I think the winner of that fight is probably going to get the next title shot. And then Yair will be kind of on deck.

Because Yair is not the most active dude. But I think it's hard to ignore what Kater had done leading into the hallway fight. Yeah, he took an all-time vicious beating. but his stock rose tremendously from taking that all-time vicious beating and then the performance he put on against Giga Chikaze Unreal. He's the comeback

he's probably the comeback fighter in the year no matter what happens in this fight because no one's very few pick out of Kagan to win that fight and Kater whooped on Giga-Chicade. That was a beat down for 25 minutes. So yeah, I think the winner of that fight gets it. I love the matchup. And I favor

I'm not making an official pick yet. I don't want to hear any New England bias or shit. I think Cater, I favor Cater to win this fight. I just think his volume is too much. And I feel like if he, and his durability,

I think he's going to play a major factor in this fight. I think if he could just not get knocked out, he'll win. It'll be super competitive. It'll be close. And Emmett's going to be there to the end. But I just don't, like Emmett could,

wrestle, but Cater could wrestle too. Gator could wrestle if he needs to. Emmett's wrestling's better. I just don't see these two guys getting into a wrestling match. I think he's just stand there and brawl it out. And I think Cater's the better boxer. The volume is there. I think he's not have a good game plan, but Emmett has

that power that can turn your lights out. And it's really hard to knock out Gavin Cater. Really, really hard. So I favor Cater with the volume, such a good fight. Love it. All right. Let's see if we can get Viking MMA in here now.

Let's try us again. Wheel is spinning. I don't know why just with Viking MMA it takes a very long time to connect him. I don't get it. There we go. What's up?

Viking. Yes. What's up, buddy? I'm good. How are you? I'm good right now. I'm in India. I just wanted to

speak about Valentina Shevchenko that, you know, she was coming out of so much bigger name than Talia Santos and she was, you know, about to make a record of seven successful title defenses and after that burden, I think. That was a heavy on the shoulder and then UFC made But Talia, I'm not discrediting Talas Santos. I mean, not at all, but UFC made her so much bigger. And that's why her odds was 600, I think, minus 600. And other thing is that Talia Santos was a bit of a lazy on the ground when she had Valentina's back.

And, you know, she was busy just having her back, that's it. But at the same time, Valentina was successfully defending three of her ear-naked chokes and everything and beating her head. That's it. You know, I'm quite, so I'm not discrediting Talia, Tyler Santos. Not at all, but, you know, Valentina got it done. I mean, she is the champion. She has the most title defenses in the active fighters, right? So why are people so much speaking about Tyler Santos? And, you know, every, if you have came out so far, then, you know,

you're going to meet someone like, you know, Valentina met Tyler Santos. And, you know, I'm quite agree with the Bay. day guy that, you know, Manon Firu is the best fight for Valentina. I mean, or you can say a matchup for Valentina. And I just want to know how good is she against Valentina. And other, and the one more thing, people like Henry Saudo, they will always spit venom from their mouth against good fighters. Henry Saoudo is one of the worst

fighter as a human being. He will always spread venom on the other fighter's names. And said, that was my question. Thanks, buddy. Appreciate that. By the way, I'm gonna be Viking, I'm sure, you're Viking, I'm sure you're happy to know

the UFC mentioned India as a place they want to come visit. So it's on their radar. a very good thing. I know you asked about that before. So it's a very good thing. So, Hudo, like, it's the character. I think he's a fine human being. Just talk about a guy with the definition of a fighter who doesn't understand that he has no leverage. Henry Sohudo, like, if you put that statement in a, in a dictionary or somewhere not knowing leverage, So Hudo's face should be right there Because he's a guy who does not know leverage at all

He thinks he has it all and he has none But the Valentina thing, listen, we've talked about this at Dazia And we talk about this all the time It is so hard to have a long title reign In the UFC Because you got to be perfect And all these fighters that are coming up

The Man of Fioreos Casey O'Neils, Aaron Blanchfields And all these fighters that are coming into the UFC right now In that division They're all watching Valentina they're all studying her right now because they think someday they're going to fight her. So some of these fighters

have been watching Valentina and studying her for years. And I'm sure Tyler Santos is one of those fighters. It's so hard to continuously defend your title and be perfect. It's so tough. And Valentina was banged up in this fight for sure. You could tell she wasn't all there.

Not taking anything away from Santos. Santos gave her hell. Valencia made a lot of mistakes in that fight. She kept going to the judo throw that little hit toss thing. She kept going to it. I didn't get it. I didn't understand why.

Maybe it's because of the foot injury or the leg injury. Maybe it's because of the injury that she kept going back to that well. But it didn't work. It just kept not working. It almost cost to the fight. But again, that's what champions do, especially great champions. They battle through adversity. They battle through the tough times.

And they get their hand raised. And that's what Valentina did. Man in Fioreau, I don't like her chances against Valentina at all. but at the same token, I don't like anybody's chances against Valentin in this division right now. I think Amanda beats Chukagin and Murphy beats Tate.

They will go Manon for sure. And I think Valentina is a gigantic favor in that fight. Bannon could strike her ass off. She's shown improvements in the grappling and the wrestling. I just think Valentina is just way better, way more experience than her. in the mixing in the martial arts

and I think that'll be the difference in that fight. But we'll see what happens. Misha beats Lauren Murphy. Manon's not fighting for the title next. David Koster, then Tristan, then Ahid, and then we're done. David, what's up? David, are you there? All right.

Try again. Tristan, you're in. What's up, buddy? Hey, Mike. Can you hear me? Yes, sir. Hey, Mike. Just to clear something. up yesterday on the Otno, I think

AK was talking, I brought up Edmund Shabazzian, and he was like, what's going on with Edmund Shabazzian? I think he probably forgot. Edmund Shabazzian switched camps. Sorry about that. I'm outside. He switched camps to Extreme Couture, and now he's managed by Ali Abediz, and

Ali wants to make sure to rebuild his career very slowly, and Edmund Shabazzian is good with that. So he may not be fighting for a while, probably until next year or so, because they want to rebuild this career. So that's going on. I stole a little bit of my thunder of that conversation about Valentina, but I want to add to it a little bit. You know, I saw the conversation that Ariel Hohani was having with Misha Tate,

as well as with Anthony Smith, about Valentina. I was pretty surprised that Anthony Smith felt that, you know, Charlie Os Santos won the fight three to two. I was like, well, I was like, oh, wow. And the thing was, you know, he fell for Santos and he was like, now if they rematch, he's expecting Valentina and the smoker. And that's the thing about it. It's like, it's so hard. It's so hard to keep defending it year after year after year. And Jed Mishu keeps echoing that every time.

So, you know, and it's going to be weird for Valentina. I mean, this scenario, this thought of invincibility just doesn't happen, man. That's why Anderson Silva and George St. Pierre, what they're going to do. did was rare. It's so rare and it's so hard. It's so hard to keep defending it year after year after year because at some point you could get God. And like you said, with Valentina, she made a lot of mistakes and she can't make those mistakes again because if she makes another mistake, she's going to lose the belt or she makes those type of mistakes again. There's nothing to it. I mean, it is what it is. So, but the thing with Misha and Misha feels like,

you know, this is what I can do. as far as my grappling, which is true. Her grappling and her wrestling is really good. But I'm saying to myself, actually speaking, I was like, oh, you haven't really assessed your fights since coming back to the UFC. You have lost two straight, and yet being on the feet wasn't great,

and you couldn't take Caitlin Vieira down. So now you're dropping the 125, which you have never actually competed before, and you think you're going to just roll over and smoke, you know, Lauren Murphy, and Lauren Murphy was on with Damian Martin on his show, on his episode, I mean, his podcast. And like, Lauren's just like,

all right, keep thinking that way. Good luck. I like when you think you're that confident. Good luck. And Misha just needs to focus on, I just got to get one here. I've got to win this fight against Lauren Murphy. I've got to get the finish.

And then we'll, down the road, then we'll start speaking about Valentino Shetchenko. But for her to be like, you know, if I meet her, I'm going to be the one to beat her. I'm going to be the one. I have the tool set, which you do, but you haven't looked great either. So that was the confusing part.

I just want your thoughts on what she was talking about there. I don't know if you were confused when she was talking like that. Well, you're just like, yeah, you might have the tool, but you haven't looked great. You know, so all right, that's all I got. Thanks, Mike, and have a heck of the morning. Thanks, buddy. Listen, if you're Misha Tate, that's how you got to act.

You got to act like you're the kryptonite. Because that's how you get the fight. Because she knows, Misha's very smart. She's well aware what this division looks like right now. You got Manon, you got Chukagan, you got other fighters. Alexa Grasso right there. Viviana Arrugio, you got a lot of fighters trying to stay claim to this title shot. So if you're Misha, you're doing everything you can to make people believe that this is mine.

This is my shot. And guess what? If she beats Lauren Murphy, by finish, by split decision, Lauren slips in a banana peel, anything. Misha's getting the fight because she's the biggest name. And you don't have to co-main event this card, that fight on a card. That could be the main event. Valentina Shepchenko versus Misha Tate could be a main event because Misha is a star.

And everybody knows who Misha Tate is. So that's how you should act if you're Misha. Lauren Murphy's going to be a tough fight for her for the reasons you just mentioned. Misha is a tough tough fight. type. She looked good against Marion Renaud. She didn't look great against Caitlin Vieira. But you know what? That loss kind of aged as well, doesn't it?

Because Vieira just went on and beat Holly Holm. And is very close to a title shot now. So we'll see. Maybe the move to 25 was just with the doctor ordered. We'll see how she does getting down there. She seems healthy, looks good. We'll see how she does against Lauren Murphy, who, I mean, that fight is going to be a tough, competitive,

grueling brawl that's going to go to a split decision more likely than not. But we'll see what happens. If Misha wins, she's fighting for the belt next. All right, David, I'll get you in real quick, and then we'll let Aheed wrap up. What's up, buddy? Unmute, David.

There we go. Costner, remember that one? That's right, man. How you doing? Yeah, I know Jake Paul went in there and there's a UFC fighter and did pretty shitty. He got knocked out real quick.

You know, I challenged a couple people. Diaz, because I know he's out of shit. eight one. McConnell McGregor, you know, he's more showboating what money he has than I think really

trying to make an effort to come back quick enough. And, you know, I'm just trying to get my opinion on trying to budge these guys for like their comeback is like a warm-up fight. Kind of like to throw my hat

into the game. You? Oh, yeah. Most definitely. Against who? Jake? No, Connor or Diaz. I guarantee you I will do 10 times better than Jake Paul every day.

I like it, David. I like the gusto, my man. Thank you very much for the call. David wants to fight Connor McGregor or Diaz. Or maybe he just would fight Jake Paul better than both of that. Campaign it, David. Get it done. Get social media to back you.

All right, Aheed. I know you. You're great. but we are in a time crunch so I'm going to let you go but please keep in mind I got to get out of here in like two minutes oh okay fine after I was gonna or three minutes okay okay so

I'll just like quickly say that 275 best fight in MMA history I said it I laid down the goldblatt showed everything in MMA that you love now onto my super hot take that you're gonna end up using us the headline for this article probably like

I know I see the article that you write we obviously saw Leo and Camaro that's scheduled for 278 like I still believe Leon never deserved the title shot

and like Mike me and you should be like advisors to the USC Mike you knew what you were talking about it was Hamza and Leon that should have been the fight what are they thinking like putting this in Utah

is that where like the hillbillies and aliens are I don't know but like at the end of the day right as I stole this take from someone in Facebook comments I really think there's a good chance

Kamar Usman might pull out this fight and Leon is going to have to fight Hamza because think about this, we knew about this fight six months ago six months ago we knew about this fight a month ago Ali shut down Arrow and I know Ali and Ariel have this little petty beef or whatever

but don't you think it's all so sketchy that's two months later it's being announced a month ago Usman was still healing up from her hand injury you know and you want to take Leon seriously. Usman's not stupid.

And he knows that. I think this is some little ploy, a little game. I really do think that Usman is not making it to the fight because this has worked out way too quickly. And Usman deserved a break. I don't know what has happened. And yeah, I mean, Leon never deserved

the shot anyway, but I think it's going to end up being an interim title fight. Humza and Leon in the summer short notice. That's it. Ahid, you are the man. And yes, my idea from November of 2021 was always the correct choice. The fight to make for the UFC

interim welterweight title was Leon Edwards versus Hamzaa Tchimaev. That was always the fight. Always the fight. Now they went ahead and did Shimae v. Gilbert Burns and the MMA gods of the community thanked the UFC for that because that fight was frigging awesome. Fight ruled.

But after that fight, I mean, it was right there for you. It was right there to make that interim title fight. Now, I know what you're thinking. Why would we do that now? Ousband's hand wasn't hurt that bad. Do you understand how much bigger Ousman's next title defense would be if the UFC went ahead and did my idea? If Shamiya beats Leon Edwards,

Shemaiah was already big. It's actually bigger. How do you make this fight bigger? Ousman versus Shemayev? You put an interim title on the line before that. He beats Leon. It's a much bigger fight. It's huge.

It's a million paper. by card, 100%. And by the way, Shemiah Leon, even though Leon is, you know, a lot of people don't really necessarily care about Leon, if we're being honest. Even that would do fine on pay-per-view. And Leon would

get pretty good pay-per-view points. I guarantee you that that interim title fight would do better on pay-per-view than UFC 278 will. Unless, unless they get Porre Diaz on this card. They have

to get that fight on this card now. You want to talk about leverage? I think Nate's got it in spades right now. And I think Porre does too, because 278 needs Poria Diaz badly. Usman Edwards is a fine fight, and in an Ameritrocratic world, it was the right fight to make. But who's going to buy that? Who's going to buy it? How many people out there think Leon's going to beat Camarro?

There's probably some, but it's just not that great of a fight. It's just not that compelling. how are they going to sell this? A rematch that everybody's been clamoring for? No. No one was clamoring for it. It's just here. Like you just,

you can make it. You didn't even have to make it. You could, it's just here. Shami if Edwards would have done better on pay-per-view than Usman Edwards, 100%. And then in turn, if Leon B. Tom's at, then his fight with Usman becomes much more interesting, much bigger, much more lucrative. And people would really be bought into Leon Edwards. if he beat Shemayev.

But they didn't do that. They didn't listen to me. And now, in the rolling hills and sprawling landscapes of Salt Lake City, Kamar Usman is going to fight Leon Edwards in the main event of UFC 278 for the welterweight championship of the world. This card needs help and needs it bad. So, I would, Poria Diaz has to be on this card.

I know Shemayev said, yo, Nate, I'll fight you in August. Either one of those two fights. But Nate has to be on this card. They need it. They need a boost. And I think Nate's got to be smiling right now. He's got to be feeling good about it.

He's got to be feeling good like he's going to get what he wants because they need them. They need them bad. But that's it, everybody. Wow. We went for a long time, way longer than I was supposed to. What's up karate combat? Thank you for joining. You jumped in a little too late.

We're done. But the good news is we'll be back on Thursday. Same time, 10 a.m. Eastern, 7 a.m. Pacific. We'll do this again. And then Friday we'll do it again. Right before UFC Austin. So we're going to have a lot to discuss. We got all our other shows coming up this week as well.

So stay tuned for that. But until then, everybody, enjoy the rest of your Tuesday. Have a wonderful day. and as always have a heck of a morning. Thank you very much. All right, let us say hello to one of the bright prospects at 135 pounds in the UFC and around the globe.

He gets ready to take on Tony Kelly. In a little over a week's time, UFC Austin capacity crowd. He finally gets to fight in Texas and Adrian Yannis joins us and look at this little setup here. You get the headphones, you get the microphone.

Look at this. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, man. Try and try and try and make interviews a little bit more, you know, professional and all the stuff, minus the stuff in the back, you know, being all over the place, you know. I had a party recently, like, a baby shower recently. So everything just kind of just got thrown into the office.

I'm like, damn it. But no, yeah, I got the good old Yeti mic headphones, trying to do like that Twitch streaming, like religiously, you know, it's been hard, especially being in camp. So, but yeah, no, yeah, I'm trying to get a little bit more professional on my stuff, man. This is, this is impressive. When did you start the Twitch streaming? I started earlier this year. I got everything at the end of last year,

and I just started slowly with Shirley building, building everything up. And now, like, if, like, still tweaks, still little tweaks here and there. And now I'm still learning, trying to, trying to build, build that actual channel up.

But yeah, no, everything's been running really, really smoothly. But, you know, it's all still a learning process for me. So I'm,

I'm still in that, oh, man, the learning process, there's one, one time where I just, the audio just completely just shut off. And I was like, I had no idea what happened.

I was being my own technical support for, for a minute. And then I finally figured it out. I was like, oh, this is the stupidest thing. It's not the worst. You just freak out and you're like,

what the hell's going on here? And all these people are wondering what's going on. And you're trying to get back to them. And it's so frustrating, right? Yeah, I was just sitting there. Everybody's like, oh, man,

I can't hear you. I was like, what? And it's like, I looked, I'm doing everything. And it's like, yeah,

they just can't hear you. I'm looking. I checked the actual stream itself. I'm like, yeah, that's weird. Everything else is like, and then like, it was just a muted. It's just me just talking like the games going on and everything. We're like, damn, all right, well, that sucks. Well, you are growing, you're evolving as a professional athlete in more ways than one,

not just athletically, but on the, you know, the branding side and things like that. But we do have a fight to discuss June 18th, not long from now in Texas. Tony Kelly. I was kind of surprised by this one. Like it's a good fight on paper, but considering the back and forth you have with O'Malley coming off that great win over Davy Grant, which was just an incredibly durable,

gritty, tough fight for both of you guys. Were you surprised Tony Kelly was the guy? Yes and no. I told me and my management, I told them I was like, hey, look, I'm going to take three months off right after my Davey fight because I was like, I wanted to be there for every possible second

that I could be there for my son, you know, when he was born. So I took a little bit of time off. February came around. I was like, hey, look, let's start looking. Let's start looking. I'm training. I'm full on training now. After I came back from New York at the beginning of March, I was like, no, I'm in the

full swing of things. I started looking for something end of April, beginning of May. And I wasn't hearing anything like for like weeks. I wasn't hearing anything back. And every week I'd be consistently asking what's the update what's the update what's the update I didn't hear anything back for a very long time next thing you know someone had tagged me like in a little Facebook thing and Nate Manish's things and in Nate Manish's a post saying that he hasn't gotten out for a fight

and they're like you and yonnas are because like yeah like man I had actually you know it's crazy is I actually haven't like they've got to me the runaround for for like seven to eight weeks too so i was like hey hopefully that sparked something i immediately messaged uh my management i was like hey like how about that nate how about a nate manas fight because he's on a role he's on a role and like he's like finished some really good guys i think that'd be an awesome fight because i feel like we're really close like we're both up prospects and whoever wins you know obviously gets the push i was like i want like i want that i'll take that uh And for some reason, even whenever we're going through everything, like O'Malley was in the talks, but the UC didn't want to do it.

For what reason, I don't know why the UC didn't want to do it. I think it's more along the lines because now he got the Petrimunio's fight, which I feel like is a, it would be taking a step back to fight me than him fighting Petrimunio. So I completely understood in that sense. So as much as I would have loved that fight, I think it's a better. option for him to fight someone like Pedro Moos. Because if he gets, if Sean O'Malley were to step in the cage with me, I knock him out. It would not look really good at all. Like he fights, he fights Pedro Munoz.

He gets knocked out. There's not really too big of a knock. He was like, if he fights me, he gets knocked out. Man, everybody's like, look, he's like, oh, we knew it. But if you fight someone like Pedro Moos, they're still always like, even if he loses, it's still kind of like, oh, he fought one of the best out there. So it's give or take, you know, the options way. heavily in his favor with like a Pedro Moone's fight win or lose. It's a lose-lose situation

on my on his end to fight me. It would be a fan, it'd be fan friendly but you know if he loses it's it's it's a harder fall than a Petra Munoz fall. So then the Nate Manus ended up getting busy for some reason like we were trying to get that fight and then that fight ended up kind of just I don't know what happened coming to find out the day that Tony Kelly's name gets mentioned because he was free was uh yeah pretty much like like yeah Nate Manish is booked up I don't he was booked up to fight somebody else they told me he was fighting I said okay well that makes sense for him and then next you know Tony Kelly's name comes up and I was like yeah I'll take that fight that's one of the guys that's been calling me out so the three people that I was trying to fight all have called me out so

I was like yeah fuck it you know Tony Tony Tony's a guy then the last man standing right Tony Kelly gets that shot and what's amazing is you were probably going to be the baby face in this fight anyways because it's happening in Austin not too far from Houston. It's not Houston. It's not the Toyota Center, but this is probably the next best thing for you. It's not that far of a drive. And Tony Kelly made you even more of a baby face

because he was cornering his girlfriend, Andrea Lee, said some things in the corner between rounds one and two that we didn't see on the broadcast on my end. I didn't know what happened until I saw it on Twitter. All the comments he made about Arojo cheating and

some of the other stuff about her bring Brazilian. I'm sure you saw that all. What is the support been like since then? It must be nuts for you right now. Yeah, man, I didn't post for about a couple weeks. Once I made the actual like post about like me fighting him. That happened like about the same week that the same week that that fight was made. I guess Andrea was fighting that Saturday. So like I didn't post anything. Next you know, that's like like the most amount of comments. I've got my stuff to start. blowing up, like, and everything, like a whole bunch of Brazilian flags in my, in my DMs. Like, dude, like, it's, it got nuts for the whole bunch of Brazil, Brazilian fans coming up

and supporting me and everything. So, you know, it's, it's cool that, like, a lot more people want to watch me do what I already wanted to do to the guy, and that's knock him out. So it's pretty cool. Uh, sucks, sucks for him on his end, but, you know, it is what it is, you know, uh, you know, in the heat of them, in the heat of the moment, that guy, you know, just went to that really quickly. But I, in some, in some capacity, I understand because he's watching a significant other going there and fight somebody else. And that itself brings a lot of emotions with it. But, you know, it is what it is. And I'm just happy that I get to go out there and knock him out. And then I get even double the fans on top of that for wanting to watch me knock him out anyway.

So yeah, a lot of people reached out because we did the matchmaking show and they mentioned Tony and they're like, oh, this is supposed to fuel D' Adrian even more. I'm sure this did like, like, the comments alone didn't really, I mean, the support obviously is great, right? But I'm sure the comments didn't change the way you feel about him or the fight itself doesn't change the narrative that you're trying to write, so to speak, while you're in there. You want to go in there and knock them out anyways. This sells just cherry on top of the Sunday. There's nothing more really, right?

Oh, yeah, no, 100%. Like that, it never changed my, like, my motivation for a fight. It never changed anything. because if you had to find something that gets you motivated to fight the guy or knock somebody out or like do whatever you want like you already you already had feeble emotions already like I already wanted to go and knock him out I already wanted to go in there and fight him like he already had called me out so I was like yeah you call my name I get like I'm gonna go beat you up so to me like it was just cool that I had like another like big like support system from Brazil and all of stuff wanting me to go out there and finish them so I think that's pretty cool uh Like on the other hand, you know, it sucks for him. You know, it sucks for him. But at the same time for me, it's just like, yeah, I think it never, it never cost my mind for it to be like more motivation.

I'm going out there because at the end of day, you're going there and fight. Like, I'm fighting for myself. I'm not really fighting for anybody else, you know. And that's kind of the biggest thing of, that's the biggest thing in my career is before, like, like there was before I got into the UFC, I was always fighting for somebody else. Like, I was always finding a reason to try to fight, finding a reason. And then after my last loss against Miles Johns, I was like, no, like, if I have to do this, I have to do this for myself.

I had to go out there and fight for myself and nobody else. And next thing you know, like, everything took off. Everything's been amazing. I never had to find motivation, like, anywhere to go out there and train, go out there and, like, go out there and try to knock people out or anything like that. So, like, it's still the same concept here. Like, I, you know, I love all the support, but it didn't give me any more motivation. It's just probably going to be a little bit more satisfying.

I got to knock him out and just be like, hey, for the Brazilian fans, for you dogs, for you, my homies. But now the, I mean, motivation comes from different places, right? Oh, yeah. And I mean, now it's, you seem, you seem different already. Like you, not that you weren't like a calm, cool, collected, well-spoken young man anyways, but you just seem way more chill, way more relaxed right now. Is that, like, do you notice that yourself?

Because I see it right away. Oh, yeah, no, 100%. Like, it's made me. a lot happier and a lot, like, it's made everything a lot easier on my end just to even do. Like, man, every time I wake up and I get to see him, I get to take them to daycare and everything. Like, starting off my day just with him being there, like, it's already made everything else so much brighter for me and made it so much easier. Yeah, going to the gym, you know, it's like, there's some days where he's just like, man,

I don't want to do this shit. But seeing him, it's like, hey, you know what? like there's another there's another little pep in my step to go to the gym like hey a little little bit more of a pep and everything you know so it's it's really really cool and yeah but i have noticed like myself getting a little bit more chill every any problem that's that's going on everything just kind of goes like over my head everything is just kind of just like i really don't care like yeah you know you know he said what he said i would go out there and knock him out anyways or like just any problems like i just immediately just started looking for solutions i don't

ever really worry about the problem anymore. I'm just like, no, I got to be solution-based. I can't. If I think about the problem, that's when you start like freaking out in your own head. He goes like, man, this happened. Man, that really sucks at this happened. Like, you start overthinking, you start doing all this stuff instead of just looking for the solution. And for me and now, I'm just more like, ah, solution guy, you know. A.C. went out just a, just a, just a, actually just a couple days ago. And, you know, I had pretty much, I was just like, all right, cool. Like, just get an AC guy out here instead of being me being, oh, man, AC went out.

Oh, I got to do something like, I got to make sure my baby's got to do this. I got to do that. And like, no, get the AC guy out here. Well, there's get them out here now. And if, you know, if it takes them, if it takes them a day two, we got a place we can go, you know, we'll go get a hotel. We can go stay at my mom for a little bit, you know, everything. So it, everything is now just a little bit way more calm.

Yeah. I mean, literally after the first sentence, I'm like, look at this guy. You know, you're already pretty mature, but I feel like you're just. much more patient now. Yeah, I feel like that's, that's what stands up the most. Oh, yeah, especially, like, because especially the first, like, the first couple weeks, just even putting him to sleep on his own, and he would get fussy and everything. Like, it really had to make you, like, just sit down and actually just stay, like, calm yourself

out because, like, being a first time dad, like, and just, like, getting through that phase of, like, he's not always going to be easy to put to sleep. he's not always going to be like, like easy just to like to figure out what he wants or what he's doing. Like it's a learning process. And after that, after that little bump and little bump like of me figuring him out, like, oh, okay. I was able to figure that out. Like, oh, like, I actually like after an hour of crying, you finally get him to like get him to go to sleep. And it's just like, it's so relieving.

And he's like, oh, this is all I had to do. Or this. So it makes everything so much more easier. And I was like, all right, yeah, I got it. And I kind of just took that approach all over in life. Is the fam going to come to Austin for the fight? Or do you get it? Yes.

Yes. Yeah, they're going to be in Austin. And, man, to me, all right, like, I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I was talking to my turning partner, Rafion. Rafion. I was like, man, like, so how was it whenever, like, your son came to your first? And he's like, bro.

Like, it was just amazing. Like just like after the fight because like fighting fighting at the apex is cool and everything. But like my family not being there like that kind of bothered. Like it was always kind of just like, oh man, I can't wait. Like I got to go like I go home and feel my family. I got to take a flight. But the fact that they're actually going to be there right after the fight, I get to like be with them. I think that's going to be the coolest part.

And especially now like I don't get like me actually like being there for my son during the weekdays is so hard. because like I take him to his daycare and pretty much his mom picks him up. So depending on the training schedule, like I get like no time with him. So it's like as soon as I get home from training, as soon as I get home from training, he's already asleep. So I'm like, yeah, it sucks, but it sucks. So like being there at the fight, the fact that he's going to be there to me is going to be like a little bit like, like it's going to be a lot more worth it that like must

this fight happens, I go out there, be able to, like, hold my son and just everything. Because, like, usually after, like, training sessions, like, cornering a lot of my fighters and just being able, like, being there, like, every time I come home, he's asleep. So I get a lot of, I get a lot of time away from him. And I, like, it, it bums me out so much. But, like, whenever I get my time to be with him, man, like, I'd cherish every moment. And, like, the fact that he's going to be there for this fight. my first fight in Texas, like I'm like, I'm just like, man, like, yeah, like I can't, I just can't

wait to after I can get my hand ready just to be able to be like, go straight to my son and just be able to hold him, be with them and just chill with them, you know, that's, that's what, that's what the most I'm looking forward to, man, because it, he's, man, yeah, like, every time I, I see a picture of them or I see, like, we just took family pictures not too long ago, and I, I can see myself like I see the pictures where I'm with them and I see them smiling like god man it's like at times it gets me a little bit teary I'd know like man I didn't know that I didn't know I had these type of feelings oh yeah man oh yeah you wait till they get older too I got my my kid just turned nine so it's like oh yeah it's crazy man and they become little people and they start

talking and then they start saying no to you and then you have to learn a whole new level of patience Adrian. Oh, man, he's teething right now. So, like, I'm like, I'm, I'm now in that other sense of patience to where his, like, he had a little bit of a sleep regression, but I was getting back to normal. But yeah, I see him. I'm like, man, this is a little human being. This is weird.

He wasn't here just like, like five or six months ago. But he's here now. I'm like, damn. Yeah, they just come. And then they just kind of take over in their own way. So you're just, like, surrounded by champions these days. aren't you. Aljo winning in Jacksonville, which is a very cool moment. Rafiard, as you mentioned, just out there. What a performance against Warnat Truleta, just stopping a man that typically

doesn't get stopped. Actually, it had never been stopped in that fashion. Now he awaits maybe a Danny Sabatello fight, and apparently he seems very excited about that. So what does that all been like for you? Just seeing Aljo win a title, seeing Raphaon win a title. I mean, that's got to get you motivated, is it not? Oh, yeah. It absolutely gets me motivated. It's like it helps me see that it's all possible because I used to kind of just look at it. Just even getting into the UFC like I never thought I'd be here. Like I never thought I'd be here. Like I always kind of looked at it as a pipe dream, but I just never stopped working at it.

So like seeing like the people that are at the top and just seeing how like kind of like far away I am. And I'm looking at like, man, that that is like super, super possible for me. if I just keep my consistency. And that's pretty much the key that I've been taken away from the both of them. Both of them have been consistent with what they do and how they go about things and having that like that mentality just to keep on going, man. And I've been taking what they've been saying. I've been running with it.

And also just being around them training with them is like it's super, it's super bad ass, super cool because like you get to see it like, mentality and how they go about things and like everything man it like it it it breeds like if you're if you're just hanging around like people who are bums you know you're gonna be a bum but if you hang out with people who are champions you're gonna end up being a champion so to me like I'm like man I hang out I'll keep hanging around with y'all man this I like this a lot because uh man uh rapion even though he doesn't have a fight like the week after he fought like that Wednesday he was already back in the gym training and he was like he was already back on it like he didn't

stop. And, you know, so to me, I think that that's another thing, too, is that man, that man, Raffion, like, he just doesn't stop. So to me, like, I take that and I look at that as inspiration, you know, I see what he's done and what he's accomplished and everything and see how he's going about things and how he's accomplishing it. That makes, that gives me so much motivation and like that, like, man, I can go out there and I can change my own life, like how he's changing his. I can do, I can do the same thing. I feel like you're the perfect middle ground between the two of them. because Rafion,

Raphaon trains his ass off. The dude is a super athlete, but he just rolls with everything. He's so loose. Like, you know what I mean? He's loose. He just has fun all the time.

Yeah. And then Aljo is a guy who is super serious. But he jokes around, but he looks for the biggest chip on his shoulder. And he tries to inject, like, fake steroids into it to make it as big as possible. And I feel like you're,

like you are the, you are like the middle pieces of both of those guys. Do you see that as well? Mm-hmm. I feel like I am, but at the same time, like, after talking to both of them, like, they're, like, the biggest thing is that they're just both, like, they have a really good, like, uh, like me, like I am like a lot more conservative. Like I don't really go out there and like talk or anything like that.

Like I'm just like, and I am trying to take like a little things like a little, little, little little things from them every now and again. Because I'm just like, man, dude, I kind of wish I'd just be able to talk a little bit of shit, but I'm just not that guy. But no, it's a, it's cool. Like, it is like, I do feel like a pretty good middleman because I'm like, I am the guy that kind of just like kind of just sits in the corner, just chills and waits for more opportunity to go out there and fight.

And then after that, you know, I get a little bit of recognition from that fight. And after that, I just go back in my little corner. Yeah, man. I mean, every, it's, it's so funny to see, you know, guys like you, guys like Jeff Molina, guys like other guys as well like the Sean Brady's of the world who you know you guys just coming into the UFC you're doing interviews with like me and Lynch and JHK and guys like that and now we're seeing you in the freaking MMA hour and you're doing interviews like that like what a trip is that like was that crazy for you like being on the freaking MMA hour that was that was so cool when I

see when I see you guys on the come up and you get something going and you get the Helwani rub it's always great to see yeah no it was actually really really really cool, man. It was like, because I've always watched a lot of those interviews and like it's kind of always been like, yeah, the whole like, just the overall, just the Helwani spectacle. Like,

just overall, like, like the whole USC Hingin kicked out the president. All that sort of stuff that went on. It's kind of like, oh, I'm like, yeah, like I'm doing an interview with that guy. That's pretty fucking cool. You know, that was pretty cool. You know, the only step above that is the JRE.

So maybe one day. Hey, listen, you're going to be local. If you go out there and you devastate, maybe just a drive right down the road in Austin. Go right to the studio. Oh, yeah, man. I'm from Houston. I'm in Houston too. So, like, hey, I don't mind driving either.

Easy. Half a tank of gas. Yeah, man. You're there. So what's this headline going to read? I'm sure there's a chance I might be recapping this thing. So what am I going to be writing at the end of this fight with Tony Kelly? Shoot, honestly, it's going to be, it's going to be a barn.

burner, but it's going to end with the K.O. It's going to be, because like I said, he, whatever he said is what he said, but I do not diminish his skills in any type of way. He's a come forward type of guy. And he's a fighter. He's a brawler. And he's really good at what he does. But I know I'm better. And I know I'm a lot more tactical. And I know I hit a lot harder. If he can take, if he can take the shot, it's a, it's a fight of the night. But if he can't, he's going out in the second round. The Randy Costa Invitational goes down June 18th. The last two guys to fight Randy, man. Maybe, you know, you got to get one back for your boy. Oh, absolutely. I got to get payback, man. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing it. Finally, you got to fight. I remember you jumped

on the Twitter space of show and you're just like, I can't get a fight. And it happened. But, you know, I'm glad we're going to see it next Saturday in awesome. Glad you get to do it at home. Like, I got to do it in front of a crowd. Glad the family's going to be there, which is super cool. You get to do it against Tony Kelly and hopefully, do we have a call out in mind after the victory? Oh, no, not necessarily. Everybody who I want to call out has a fight book. So, you know, it doesn't make sense for me to call anybody out right now. All right.

Fair enough. Just still tune in for the fight. It's going to be damn good. Adrian, I appreciate it, man. And congratulations on fatherhood, man. That's amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much, man.

Thank you. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.