MMA Fighting - Heck of an Afternoon | Will Khamzat Chimaev Leapfrog Leon Edwards To Title Fight With UFC 273 Win?

Episode Date: April 5, 2022

It's officially UFC 273 fight week and all eyes seem to be on Khamzat Chimaev. On Tuesday's special episode of Heck of an Afternoon, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck fields calls about whether or not an impressive win over Gilbert Burns at Saturday's pay-per-view event in Jacksonville will lead to Chimaev jumping over Leon Edwards into a title fight with Kamaru Usman, a reaction to the top-three fights on the card featuring heavy betting favorites, if Darian Weeks could upset surging prospect Ian Garry, what the bantamweight division will look like after the Aljamain Sterling vs. Petr Yan championship rematch, if Conor McGregor is being disrespected by fans and media, and more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 8 a.m. ET on the MMA Fighting Twitter Spaces. Show will return to normal time the rest of the week. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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2020, and it is a heck of an afternoon here on the MMA fighting Twitter spaces. Hope everyone is having a fantastic day. It is UFC 273 Fight Week. I will be there. I'll be heading to Jacksonville a little bit later on. I'll probably be heading over there in a couple of hours or so. I'm actually in Florida at my parents' house. got to play some golf with my dad and just enjoying the beautiful Florida weather as we get ready for just a massive fight week.

Card goes down this Saturday in Jacksonville at the Vistar Veterans Memorial Arena. And what a card it is going to be. And that's what we're going to talk about, not just today, but throughout the week. And as you're going to hear, some landscaping going on. So we just got to bear with that. That is what we get to deal with when we head out on the road. So before we get to UFC 2 at 73 and take C. calls and get to your questions.

Let's go through some MMA birthdays right quick. First off, happy birthday to former UFC fighter, Cole Smith. He is 33 years old. Former UFC fighter James Wilkes, England's own, is 44 years of age. His last UFC fight is last fight in general was in 2010. Bellator's Big Daddy, Kiefer Crosby, is 32 years of age. one of the brightest prospects in the sports Syed Nurmaga Madoff

is 30 today in Gilbert Urbina who you might remember from the most recent season of the ultimate fighter is 26 years of age as far as what happened on this day in history only one UFC event on April 5th in history and that was UFC Fight Night Stevenson versus Gullard

Joe Stevenson performance Kurt Pellegrino got a performance bonus as well. Ankle lock submission against Nate Moore during the prelims. Less than three minutes for that. And the fight tonight was Kenny Florian versus Dokon Janusuki Mishima. Third round submission for Kenny Florian on that card by UFC 273. That's what we're thinking about this week. Of course, the main event.

Alexander Volkovsky versus the Korean zombie for the UFC featherweight title. Al Jermaine Sterling versus Piotr Yan for the to unify the Bannonway. title. Sterling makes his first title defense. Peter Yan is the interim champion. A lot of meat on that bone, a lot of heat on that rivalry. The big one, Hamza Tchaimayev looks to get over that hump, looks to

prove everybody right. See if this guy's the real deal. Take it on former title challenger, Gilbert Burns. Then we got Mackenzie Dern Tisha Torres. We got Ian Gary versus Dary in Weeks. We got Jarzanio Rosenstrike versus Marche-Tiborah, Raquel Pennington, Mickey

Gall, Mike Malott, Vince Pachette. Marco Madsen, Alexi Olinic versus Jared Vandera, Anthony Hernandez versus Josh Fremt, Piero Rodriguez, Kay Hansid, Julio Arce versus Daniel Santos. I'm going to head inside for a second because you got some landscaping going on

and it's like right on top. So you guys want to talk to UFC 273. You guys get questions, you got thoughts, what's your favorite fight? What are you looking forward to the most? Raise your hands and that's what we're going to do. We're going to take calls for the next 30 or so minutes and we're going to talk about this fantastic card.

And we're going to kick things off with clearest values. So make sure you unmute that wheel is spitting. Clearst values are you there? How you doing, Mike? Good, yourself. I'm hanging in there. So I know you're not a huge betting person, but I want to ask you a question about the lines.

And obviously the non-indication of who Vegas thinks they're going to win. It's just, you know, based on who the public is betting. Are you surprised that Volcanowski is minus, 700 and yon is only minus 500 or do you think that's right i'm curious what you think about that yeah i mean some some very interesting betting lines here at the top three fights there's massive favorites and massive underdogs i think it goes to show you just how good people view alexander volkinovsky the people who make the lines and i know the public sort of veers them in the direction they go throughout the builds of these cards but wolkenovsky might very well be

the best fighter on the planet pound for pound. But he just doesn't get the respect that he probably deserves in those conversations. I have him pound for pound number four in my personal rankings. And you could make the argument that he's two or three.

I think Usman has kind of solidified that spot at number one right now until something happens or he doesn't deliver a great performance like he has over his last few fights. Maybe someone can do that. But I feel like Volkovsky just top to bottom.

is the better fighter than Korean zombie. No disrespect. I think zombie poses some interesting challenges. He's a very creative striker. And he's an interesting challenger because he's at the right camp. He's at the right gym. He's got the right coaches behind him to prepare for a guy like Volcanowski on somewhat short notice.

So this is a shot. I think it's going to be a great fight. I think it's going to be closer than the lines indicate. But that's just how the public views Volcanovsky. And I think Jan being a minus 500 favorite as the challenger here says, a lot about him too. I mean, for the most part, champions get, get the favors. They get the favorable things. And I know Jan's the interim champion, but this is being booked as an Al Jameen Sterling title defense. And Jan, the challenger, is a minus 500 favorite. So it just goes to

show you the respect people are for Yon. And then Shamiyev is just a massive favor, too. So you got some great champions, get some great fighters. And that's kind of how the lines skew. I think some of those lines might get a little bit closer as we get closer to Saturday. But we'll see. very interested to see how these fights play out and if they if these fighters can can fight to their lines Zeke what's up man good morning good afternoon i guess mike what's going on not much yourself doing all right i'm currently on the jersey parkway heading down home but uh i will be short and sweet i hope you had yourself a heck of a weekend that we were uh you know enjoying no fight sadly but uh first things first i have a you know future question and then i got to look in into uh ufc 273 this

Again, first I want to go to Leon Edwards and how fast he needs to get pen to paper and what the hell is going on there because if Humzad does what I think Humzad is going to do, is you just not going to walk into that title spot and Leon is, you know, going to inevitably become what Jed thinks he is and no one's going to take him seriously, sadly, because I think, honestly, if Leon is to get a title shot, this is arguably like, I don't want to say like a Darren Till type run, but this is probably his only hope. If not, he's going to have to, you know, regroup and I guess take main or main event or pay-per-view type fights. Secondly, what do we think about Gilbert Burns on the ground?

Do you think Humsat will be able to submit him? I think Hums out is going to try and show off his hands, of course. He's been, you know, kind of mentioning. I think I saw the Connor McGregor knockout in the media as well as a lot of sparring footage with TIL, but do you think he'll be able to submit Burns if he does get him down or do you think he's going to take him out with his hands? Thank you, Mike. I will shut up and listen. Thank you, Zique.

Listen, Gilbert Burns' jiu-jitsu is tremendous and it's better than Hamzat. So Gilbert's got a good chance on the ground. The problem is Hamzat's top pressure is just unbelievable. When that guy takes you down, it's demoralizing. Like, look at what he did to Lee Jingle-Liang. Like he hoisted this man in the air, feet off the ground, talking to Dana White as he's gingerly walking him over to the other side of the cage and then slams him down and submits him. The guy is a beast. Once he gets his arms wrapped around you, you're going for a ride.

Now, what can you do off of your back? You just got to make sure that Hamzaat doesn't get those hooks in and doesn't get that big huge top control on top of you. Because if he does, it could be a problem. Could he submit Gilliburns? Yeah, I guess it's possible. he just wobbles him and hurts him real bad and takes him down it's possible i would say i would say no that's not how this fight will end but it's interesting and then i've mentioned this before about the whole leon situation i think leon ultimately will get the title shot but i think

the hold-up on this is not palms on i think it's it's on oosman he's got that hand injury had surgery he's recovering it's just a matter of when he's going to be ready to fight is it going to be one of the two pay-per-view cards in July. Is it going to be August? Is it going to be September? We just don't know. And while all signs seem to be pointing to Leon fighting Kamar Usman for the Welterweight title next, if it's not official and Hamzat goes out there and just smashes Gilbert Burns in like a minute and a half, and it's just uber impressive like every other fight he's had, I'm not convinced. I'm not convinced, and it would not shock me to see Hamzat sneak in there, which would just be horrendous. It would be an awful thing.

but it all depends on what Hamzaa wants too. Maybe Hamzat says, you know what, I'd rather fight Colby and let Leon fight for the belt first. He's not in any rush. He's still going to get big fights. Him and Colby would be interesting, but we'll see. We'll see what happens. All depends on what he wants.

We'll see how his media day goes tomorrow, what he has to say about his future, but he's got a very tough fight ahead of him. Let's go to Detest. Detest, how are you? Let's make sure you're on mute. Are you there? are you there oh I'm sorry

oh crap try again to test I'll get you in next uh Christopher good afternoon hey Mike how you doing my man good how are you not bad not bad um

okay quick question I know everyone's gonna ask you about Hamzai everyone's gonna ask you about Jan and Aljo and all of that so my big question for you today will Jose Young's get to use his 60 win graphic for an Xio limit that might be the question of the week right there i'll see jose i'm going to see jose in about seven hours from now i'm going to pick them up at the airport and then we'll kick off this fight week

but i i think so i think so i mean vanderra's a tough dude but i just don't know like ezekiel just needs to take him down once and as good as vanderas of his wrestling he's got pretty good jiu jihers too if alexi olin he gets on top of him it could be be it could be a rough night and it could be a very short night for Jared Vandera. So my gut tells me yes, but Vandaric very well could just punch his lights out. I mean, that's, we've seen over these last fights that Alexi Olenik has had, if you can just crack him on the feet, he goes down pretty quick. So Van Derrick can go in there. And one thing I worry about with Vendera is he's a student of the game. He's a fan of the sport. And I feel like when he fought, or Andrea Lovsky,

excuse me. I feel like he just kind of got caught up in the moment. He's like, wow, I'm fighting Andre Roloski right now. And I feel like some of these up-and-coming fighters, they feel that way. They get in there. They prepare. They have so much respect to this guy. And then when they actually stand across the cage from him and they see him and they realize that this guy's throwing punches at them, they're just, they're kind of awe-inspired by it. And I feel like Alexi Olinic can do that to some of these fighters as well. But I think Vandera learned his lesson. But it's just a matter of, Can Vendera stay on his feet and can he keep Alexiolanic from getting on top of him? And can he keep the Ezekiel choke off of him?

Because those are the big questions. I don't know. I think Alexiolanic will win. But the longer this fight goes, the more favors Jared Vandera. But we'll see what happens. And I have a feeling we'll see that graphic. And if we don't see it here, I don't know when we'll ever see it. Let's bring Joey T in.

Hey, Mike, how's it going? Joe, thank you. Good. Good. So there's one fight on the fight. card that I think is getting somewhat underlook, but mainly this fighter, because he is a decent

size underdog. Me and Ezekiel actually talked about it. I think Darien Weeks is actually a live dog against Ian Gary. Yes, Ian Gary has the hype, but if you show his last fight against Jordan Williams, he's shown that, for one, he's very hitable, and he saw how Darienes fought

against Barbarina, which to some people think Daring Weeks possibly even won, but Dary and Weekes has good power, he comes forward, and a good wrestler. So, at any point, do you think that fight could be close to a pick-em once the fight starts, or do you think Daring has any chance? Thank you, Joey. I mean, everybody has a chance what you get in that cage.

And I think Daryin-Weeks could be a live dog in this fight. I think Ian Gary has an incredible future ahead of him. I think Daryon Weeks is a good fighter. He's still relatively young in his career. He gave Brian Barbarina a pretty tough fight. But it's interesting when you fight some of these guys like the Patty Pimbals of the world, like the Ian Garys of the world when you have this hype. And now Ian's going to fight in front of a crowd.

And a lot of people know who he is. A lot of the fight fans are going to be up for him and going to be excited. Plus, now Ian Gary trains in Florida too. So he's going to have a lot of support from the Florida crowd. And it's kind of different when you're matched up against some of these guys. Fighting Brian Barbarina is cool. Guy's been around for a long time. People dig Brian Barbarina.

But he's not a star. He's not somebody that the promotion is. just going to try to push to the moon and build up. He's not a guy that promotion sees as a future world champion. They see that in Ian Gary. And I feel like this is the right fight on the build, on the build up to that. But it's just a matter of can daring catch him early?

Because we saw in that first fight with Jordan Williams that sometimes you got to get comfortable in there. It's a different cage. Things are a little bit bigger than the cages that he fought in front of before. And he fought in Madison Square Garden. So that experience in fighting a guy like Jordan Williams in front of a packed house, I think that was a really good experience, a good learning lesson for him. It's not like they threw Ian Gary on the first fight on the early prelims and he fought in front of 100 people. No.

The place was packed. It was the world's most famous arena. It's one of the biggest stages that you can fight in for your Octagon debut. And the UFC put that promotional push behind him and they put him out there. And sometimes that can become a little bit overwhelming for a young kid like that. And I think Darien is this is going to be his first fight in front of a big pack crowd. and sometimes that could get to him too, but he's a good fighter.

I think it's a really well-made match for where these guys are in their career. I think I'm looking at the lines on topology right now. Plus 260, Darren Weeks is an underdog. I mean, he's got a chance, but I'm favoring Ian Gary to win. It's just a matter of if Darren could catch him quick when he is not loose and comfortable yet.

Because Ian Gary is hitable, especially early in the fight, If Darren can crack him with a big shot out of nowhere, maybe that changes things. But I'm going to go with Ian Gary in this fight to at least get the comfort level, get those loose legs behind him. And once he starts cooking, I think he'll be off to the races. So good fights. A lot of people are going to be watching. Let's see featured prelim now on ESPN.

Timmy, you're on. What's up, man? What's going on? Mike, how you doing? Good hour you. Good. First off, I just wanted to congratulate you with, you know, all your growth that you've been having in the sport. I really, you know, enjoyed listening to you.

thank you very much so i just had a question about like the traffic that you guys been getting on your website because for some reason this fight week for me it's big but it seems like it's been very small like i'm used to a lot of my pals always bring it up like the ufc fights coming up this weekend let's you know have a little party or something but nobody's really speaking about this at all interesting so it's not it's not passing the the quote unquote mom test yeah i don't think so i mean i can see where you're coming from and sometimes especially especially you have as many cards as the UFC has, and they're putting out fights every weekend.

And normally there'd be a fight card before this, and not only would they have the fights, but in between, they'd be firing up this entire card through every commercial, every, in between fights, there'd be some sort of promo going on. And they kind of use that go-home show. And that's why I call it a go-home show, and it's a week before a pay-per-view.

It's because they use that not only to have the fights that they are contractually obligated to put on, but they also use it as a marketing tool to get people to watch. Now, tomorrow is when the fight week officially kicks off. We didn't have a fight card last week. I think there was the first weekend off for the UFC in like nine weeks or something like that. So I think absence, I think people are just kind of like getting their wheels spinning again.

But the coverage is going to kick off tomorrow. We got Media Day. It's going to be a long Media Day. You're going to hear from a lot of the big names. And from what I understand, Hamzaa Jamev is going to be the very first fighter to step up on Media Day. So once he gets going and starts talking and once Jan gets in there and starts talking and Sterling, and Sterling and Volkanowski and Zombie and some of these other guys, I think things are going to start to pick up a little bit more.

And then we get the press conference on Thursday, and we never know what's going to happen there. It's either going to be tremendous trash talk, or it's just going to be the awfulest thing ever, because that's what these press conferences are like between some of the questions that are asked and some of the silliness. I don't think this will be as bad as UFC 272. And Colby Amazidol, I think things will get a little testy,

especially from Sterling and Jan. Maybe Shemiya from Burns will get after. I think Volkovsky and Zombie will keep things pretty respectful. So, yeah, I think things will pick up. I think it's just not having a card last week. Everybody is kind of hitting the refresh button slowly but surely we're going to start picking things up. Watch see all the coverage and everything we're going to be doing out there because we're going to try to mix things up and try to do a million different things.

I think once all that begins and the fight week actually starts, I think the mom test will be, we'll start to get past here. All right, let's get to test in here. here now we tried earlier hopefully we can get him on now yeah hello sir yeah hey i'm just wondering what happened to the iron turtle the iron turtle remember that guy that asian guy that was like the iron turtle jung young park dung young park yeah what happened to that did he just get demolished and then let go i never heard about that oh was you let go uh i don't think so let me let me He's only lost one fight.

He lost in Gregory Rodriguez. It was dope. That was October. So he's been out for a while. Since six months? Oh, he's fighting Eric. No, I'm sorry. He's fighting Eric Anders May 21st.

Okay. There we go. All right. Iron Turtle. Iron Turtle versus your boy. So get some solid nicknames getting after it on May 21st, my man. All right. All right.

All right. Thank you to test. Appreciate that. The Iron Turtle. Let's get locked. Locktagon in here. Lockedagon. Let's make sure you on mute.

Hello. Locked up. Hey, what's up? Hi, so I was just wondering, Mike, with Drickis out of a fight, don't you think this is the perfect time to put Soleditch in against them for his UFC debut? Oh, love it. Love it. I mean, what a perfect time for that trilogy fight. The problem, like, I would love to see Roberto Soleditch in the U.S.

I think he's he's the real deal and I think people are starting to come around and seeing that. He's a massive star in KSW, one of their biggest stars. He does have one fight left in his deal, but that deal expires in July. But like I said last week, from what I understand, and I don't know this 100%. KSW offered him a pretty damn good deal, a lot of money. So it's just a matter of, did KSW match the offer that he presented them? Because he had a figure in mind, and if KSW said, yeah, we'll do that, then he said he would resign. But it just depends.

Like, I don't know what the UFC is going to offer him. I mean, I don't know if they're going to touch KSW's offer, but it's just a matter if if legacy matters and if it matters more than money because the UFC isn't going to pay him more than KSW does. That's for damn sure. But yeah, you could do the trilogy fight with Trichis du plase, and that would be a lot of fun. I don't know if Sild used to go to 170 or 185. I would like to see

the hell out of that but I don't know we'll see he's got to figure out he can't sign anywhere until the summer anyways so I know he's met with the UFC he's had conversations

other promotions but until his contract expires he can't make anything happen so July I mean if he fights in the UFC I don't expect to see him till the fall maybe late September October

but I mean that's that that might even be wishful thank you but we got to see what happens. But that would be a lot of fun. But we got to wait until July before he can even accept an offer from the UFC unless KSV just says, eh, screw it, you can go. All right, let's bring in Elroy Prepsin. Hey, Mike, how's it going?

I hope all is well. Random question, I was wondering about, you know, you've been to the BKFC cards, the trailer cards, fellow tour. Are you excited to be back at a UFC? event. Thank you, sir. I am excited. I have not covered a UFC event since UFC 244 in New York. That was the Mazadal Diaz, BMF title chaos. So it has been a long time since I've covered a UFC event. I kind of wish things were in terms of coverage like they were before the pandemic. What I mean by that is I miss the media days where each fighter had their own section and we could

go up and just do one-on-one interviews with them. I understand why there's scrums, and I understand with the pandemic and with the COVID restrictions across the country and promotionally and in sport, and you don't want to take any chances. Like, I totally understand why the scrum is there. And I'm looking forward to being a part of that meaty day and just being back in, because the UFC, better or worse,

they are a well-oiled machine. They are super-duper organized. Things just go and go and go and it flows. It's just, it's a well-oiled machine. So I'm looking forward to getting back into that machine and just experiencing that all over again. But I would be lying if I said that I love this new media day set up. I don't. I wish we were doing the one-on-ones and doing the, just have individual conversations.

I just feel like it's different content that everybody can put out as opposed to all the major sites, sort of putting out the same videos and the same content. And then it's up to us to ask different questions and try to get these fighters thinking in different ways. I definitely miss the one-on-one media day stuff. So at that point, that's the one thing. Other than that, I'm super excited. I mean, this card is ridiculous. The card is ridiculous.

This Hamza-Berns fight, all this stuff, everything about it. I think this is a tremendous card, and I'm looking forward to it. And I'm excited to tag team with Jose again. Let's bring Tim in. Tim, how are you? Let's make sure you unmute. Do you hear me? Yes, sir.

How are you? Good, yourself? Wonderful. What's going on? I had a question about what you thought about the state of the Bannamweight Division. So I'm going to go up the assumption that Coteryon is going to beat Al Jermaine Sterling. And I'm just wondering, and I don't know how far Dillishaw is in his recovery right now, but do you wait and get Dillashaw the title shot?

I would like to see Aldo in Dillishaw fight, but I just kind of wondered what your thoughts on the top end of the division are moving forward after this fight. Oh, thank you. You know I'm a big fan of the Bannamweight Division. I love talking about the Bannamweight Division. and so I will talk about the band and weight division all day long and twice on Sunday. I would also like to see the T.J. Delosha, Josie Aldo fight because let's be clear, TJ came back.

It's a great fight with Corey Sanhagen after the long layoff and the suspension. But most people feel like T.J. lost that fight. And I know T.J. feels like he can get in there and fight for a title, especially if Yon wins. There's a little bit of heat. These guys have gone back and forth and said some things about. each other. I know Pierre R Rion, if it was up to him, if he goes out there and beats Aljo and the UFC goes to him and his management team and they say, who do you want to fight? He's probably going to pick T.J. Dillishaw. I just don't know. I would rather see this division kind of play

itself up because you got Rob Fon, you got Cheeto Vera coming up. They're about to fight. You got Sandhagen coming back at some point. I'd like to see Aldo and T. And T.J. do the damn thing. But I understand how T.J. can come off as kind of healish and people sort of want to pay money to see him get punched in the mouth and it can kind of put yon over in a big way and stylistically i mean that is just i mean the t j dillosha that was going in there and just beating people up and just running through a lot of fighters that guy against pieter yon is super intriguing but to me it's just maybe it's just the the josea aldo stand in me and just being so awe inspired by this run that he's on right now that i don't think they would give aldo the title fight but i think the ufc would

would take a long, hard look at Aldo Dillashaw and see what happens. Maybe offer it to T.J. And if TG just says, nah, I'm going to sit out and wait. Maybe just give Aldo the title shot. Like I would,

I know Jan beat Aldo in 2019. I get it, or 2020, excuse me, it wasn't all that long ago. But I would like, I would watch that fight again. I would watch that fight again.

It was very competitive for a while. Jan pulled away down the stretch, but I think Aldo has improved and evolved his game so much even since then. After all these fights that he's had, all these incredible. performances, all the title defenses, he had at 145 pounds. I actually think Aldo is better now than he's ever been.

I really do. I think he's 135 is as scary as this thought process was early on. I mean, I think he's looking better than ever right now. And I would really like to see what an Aldo Dilloshal fight would look like. And if I'm T.J., why wouldn't you take that fight? It's a risky one for sure. But if you go in there and you beat Jose Aldo, that's huge. And there's no denying you a title shot now.

There's no conversation. There's no debate. You're in. And what a legacy fight that is to have Joseo on that already incredible resume. Let's go. I would love to see it. I have a feeling T.J.

will get the winner. But we'll see. I mean, this fight on Saturday might end in a weird, crazy way too. And we get no movement in this division. I hope that's not the case. Let's get a heat in here. I know he's been waiting patiently. Good afternoon, sir.

What's up, buddy? So I wanted to talk about if Hamsat Chimayev gets to Gilbert Birds, I think we've talked about before as in, like, that unless they announce Leon Edwards and Kamara Usman during USC-273, like sometimes they like to announce upcoming fights and whatnot, unless Penn's put to paper, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, Leon is, what wants to see this fight. everybody wants to see this fight and even I'm British and I actually feel the British fight fans are not going to care if Leon gets snubbed for someone like Hamza right and the way you can tell

the way you know this for sure is because the guys at BT Sport Adam Nick and Michael like they did the preview show and they talked about it and you could tell like they talked about how Hansa could jump the line and they were like oh look we want Leon then was to get the shot you can tell

they're all four. full of shit. You can tell they, they, you can see that they want to see that fight more than the Leon Edwards fight. But it's more like, you know, when your friend, you want your friend to do well, so you tell like a white lie to try and be nice. And you can tell that's the type of language that's coming off from them too. So I feel that, yeah, if Humza gets the business done, that's the fight. And also one more thing I want to add as well. I saw Izzy on his YouTube channel picking Gilbert like over Hamza saying I think Gilbert can pull this

out the bag and I'm watching that like yeah you better hope you better hope because if Hamza gets through you're in serious trouble even more than Usman and Usman too one last thing if you let me say this Mike is that Usman Usman's saying about Hamza oh

he needs to win one or two more after Gilbert which I find very interesting because Usman's trying to go for Canello and we all know that's for payday because he's open to fighting Jake Paul for 100 million. He's open to fight Israel Adisania for 100 million. He wants that huge money and he deserves it. So if it's all about money, surely he knows that all the welterweight contenders,

Colby Trilogy, Vincente Lucke, Leon Edwards and Hamza. Hamza is the biggest fight that will bring the most money, pay-per-viewpoints-wise. So we all know why he's saying, like, oh, he needs a couple more. Like, let's be real. I mean, that was just a passionate speech right there, I'd. And I'm not, I wasn't going to stop you. Even if you had two more points, it wasn't going to stop you.

Yeah, I mean, I've said this since Uspin beat Covington. You got to get this fight on the books. I understand that Ousman's injury and him having surgery and the recovery time being sort of up in the air hurts things a little bit. But at the same time, you have to have something in writing saying that it's Kamar v. Leon sometime in the summer. or sometime in the early fall. Like whenever Usman, we need to have ink dried on a piece of paper

because otherwise, if Hamzaa goes in there and just steam rolls Gilbert Burns, it's a business. This is about making money. It's about drawing pay-per-view interests and as much as the technical, pleasing MMA fan would like to see

a Kamar Usman Leon Edwards fight. We all know that a Hamzat, Leah, or Kamar Usman fight, is going to draw, it's going to do 500,000 more paper views, easily. Easily. So for the UFC business-wise,

short-term, this is it. And if Hamza goes out there and beats Oosman, now you have a champion that will draw against anybody. I mean, he'll be the biggest drawing champion at 170 since George St. Pierre.

He just will. And anybody he fights becomes a much bigger deal. So, yeah, I've said this many times and I'm with you, man. Leon needs ink on paper. If I am his management team,

if I am Leon Edwards, I am on the first. phone with Hunter Campbell 12 times a day saying, okay, I know we don't have a date. Maybe Usman still hurt and recovering and so forth and so on, but we need to have some sort of promise where I can sign something that guarantees to this title shot because if Shamiyaev wins, things are going to be real, real interesting. And the post-fight show, all the coverage afterwards is going to be that question. Did Hamzaa jump the line? Should the UFC just say, sorry, Leon again, and just jump right to Shemayev? And most people,

would probably have a resounding yes, if we're being honest. Let's get Patrick in here. And I'll see you, Dax. I'll get you in next. Patrick, how are you? Mike! What's up? Brother, calling in from New England.

Excellent. It's a heck of an afternoon here in Vermont. What's going on? I mean, I guess I'll just keep hopping on the Humzat train. And he is a... a superstar. He is the type of fighter that his fighting style

is all that he needs to communicate to the public. I called in last week and I was going to share this little anecdote of that. A couple of my buddies wanted to have a guy's night, fight night, you know, and I was trying to get him to watch the London card,

but they, someone couldn't make it so we rescheduled for the last fight night. And I was, I brought up Homs out and no one knew who he was. And I'm like, oh, you guys got to see him. And they all like simultaneously Googled, you know, and they're all watching highlights at him. And they were just like, oh, oh, like it was immediately just he jumps off of the screen, you know,

with his style, you know, that one punch knockout. My girlfriend calls him one punch because she was sitting there while he completely, you know, ethered Gerald Mearshire into a different just knocked him into the astral realm and so I just think

that you cannot deny that he is a superstar and it just you got to give him you got to if he goes out there and does something like that to Gilbert Burns

I'm just I'm on the I'm on the record with you know the majority of people that Leon doesn't have that same style he has a style that is dominant

in his own way. I completely respect how he fights and he controls fights in a very intelligent way, a GSP kind of way. He's top, you know, probably top five welterweight in the world. But, you know, he doesn't have

because his style doesn't jump off the screen and make people go oh, he's going to have to bring it on the mic and he's going to have to bring it with other things to give him hype and he just doesn't quite have that. He needs to brough it up. You know, he needs to kind of get a little more nasty.

And I had another question, and it's kind of off the Hansat train. But when Al called in, I really liked the kind of energy that you guys had. And I was wondering if you had, like, a scouting report of fighters, you know, potentially fighters are towards the end of the career that want to transition into broadcasts and the media. If you had a scouting report of fighters that you kind of know, I feel like you kind of know the fighters that are interested in maybe transitioning. What's your scattering report for fighters that you would want to sign to MMA fighting.com as a contributor? A lot to unpack there. Patrick, you're the man.

Thank you very much. Hope New England is treating you well. Yeah, I mean, the Hamza train continues to roll on. That Gerald Mirchart knockout was one of those like, that was just one of those. moments where you just shake your head. You're like, you've got to be kidding me. That was one of those defining you've got to be kidding me moments. Because Mirshaw, I actually thought Mirchard was going to be a pretty tough matchup because

of the experience, because of, you know, all the fights that he's had, the submissions. He was on a pretty decent run at the time. I just felt like that Mirshaw could present some interesting problems. And then he just walks up to Gerald and punches him in the face and knocks him out. Like just not just dead at him. It was an amazing moment. And then the Li Jing Liang fight, just, I mean, again, the way he just picked this man up like a child and just is having a conversation with the president of the freaking company while he's got this man hoisted in the air. And he's trying to get down.

He's trying to plant his feet down. He can't do it. And Samive just slams him and punches him a couple times and then just chokes him unconscious. I mean, that is just freakish. It's ridiculous. So I understand why the hype train is rolling on. I think this is the fight everyone's looking forward to the most, even above the two title fights, just to see if Hamzaa's. the real deal. And I'm curious. I really am curious to see how far along they are with this

Usman Edwards conversation. Have they? Because you can say it all you want. Yeah, you're in. Yeah, handshake agreement. We've seen this in MMA. We've seen in the UFC for years. How many times has Dana White come out on a press conference and said things more than once? And then it doesn't happen. It's happened many times. And I'm telling you right now, if Shemeyev goes out there and just bolts Gilbert Burns in two minutes. if that fight's not done, he's going to sneak in there. It's just, I just don't see a world where it doesn't happen. And then, yeah, I mean, I think I'm going to, hopefully, me and Al are going to co-host one of these while in Jacksonville.

Because I know he's going to be there, cornering Al Jermaine Sterling. So we're going to try to work something out. We're going to try to figure something out, some sort of content between myself and Mr. Reginald, Quinta, while we're out in Jacksonville. So I don't know if it's going to be on this show, if we're just going to do a little sit down and do maybe a preview, a little predictions thing. on his end to see how he's viewing these fights. But in terms of who could be good broad... I actually think Gerald Mirshar

would be really good on the broadcast team. I like how they brought the Lalamut up. I always thought Michael Kiesa had a tremendous mind for the sport from an analytic, analytic perspective. I'm glad that he's there. Anthony Smith's another guy who is very smart, very intelligent. So I feel like

the UFC scouts these guys very well and brings these fighters up at the right time. I'd like to see some of the ladies get an opportunity up there. You know who's actually really good is Lauren Murphy. Lauren Murphy does a really good job at breaking down fights. I think she'd be great on the desk. Be a nice little addition. So there's a few fights.

Randy Costa is another guy. Really analytical, really good. Very good of breaking down fights. Student of the game, just a super fan, but very respectful about what's going on. I mean, the UFC, not only they have talents of fighters, but they have talents of personalities. And they actually have a really good roster of fighters that could do really well on the desk. and those are just a few of the names that come to mind. Let's bring in the very patient Dax.

How are you, sir? Hey, Mike, I'm good. How are you? Good. So two questions, kind of related. But first, there are four big favorites, you know, plus or minus 300 plus on the card this weekend. How many do you think lose? or maybe some weird DQ with, yeah, I'm Sterling again. And kind of related to that, do you think Sterling's neck surgery

and how different he says his training is will come into play here, or is it just going to be kind of what we saw last time, do you think? Thanks, man. Let's see. Let me look at the draft Kings odds. So Volcanowski is, I mean, just a massive favor right now. at minus 720. I don't know where the...

I'm trying to find what the Hamzad odds are right now because I'm not seeing it on this. Let me pull it up. Thanks for being patient as I'm talking myself through going through this thing. Hamzat's a minus 550 right now. Piotr Yan's a minus 525. Volkanowski at minus 720.

I don't think any of the favorites lose that fight. If we're being honest, I think Jan will win. And I think Sterling might have the best chance, but the thing that worries me is kind of the second question you had is how that neck surgery, everything that he's dealing with with the recovery, how that's going to affect him in the cage. And our own Damon Martin talked to Alan Joban on Fighter versus Rider, you could actually go listen to that conversation right now on the podcast network.

And Alan Joband talked about that injury and that recovery verbatim. That was something that Alan has had to deal with in his career. And from a personal level, he doesn't think Al Jemaine will be the same. He doesn't think that his entries, his takedowns, his offensive wrestling, they're going to be the same as they were before. And this is the same injury that Tristan Connolly had to deal with. This is the same injury that Chris Wybin for a time had to deal with. And we've seen those styles change from both of those guys.

So that's a very interesting question because if Al Jemate's neck is still compromised, if he isn't able to chain together the wrestling, if he isn't able to overwhelm Peyoteur Yan with his grappling and his entries and his offensive takedowns, because that's his path to victory. It's just going in there, sort of Bryce Mitchelling Peodor Yan.

And Peyoteer Jan's a really good wrestler, too. We saw it as that fight progressed. He was the one taking Al Jermaine Sterling down in that first fight. So can Aljo get the takedons going? Can he start to wear on Peodor Yan early? Can he get on top and stay on top and inflict damage and make Peodorian work?

Because if he can't, it's going to be a long night for him, I think. Whether it's a pair of running shoes or a new car, you check how well something performs before you buy it. Why should investing be any different? At Fidelity, we get that performance matters most. With sound financial advice and quality investment products, we're here to help with accelerating your dreams. Chat with your advisor or visit Fidelity.ca slash performance to learn more.

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We'll take a couple more. We have, I mean, Mac the Mallor. Been waiting for a while. I don't want him to get mad at me. Mac the Mall. All right. How's going? So I got two things to talk to you about, man.

So firstly, I just want to say, I think as a community, I feel like we've kind of abandoned McGregor in that we're acting like he's not really a great fighter anymore. They're sort of a joke, a paycheck washed up. And I'm really against that. And honestly, it's just started recently because, I mean, if you look at his last couple of fights, he's lost, people say, oh, he hasn't won in this many years.

Well, first of all, he took a break, right? And he lost the Poirier twice, one of them when he snapped his leg. But, I mean, people don't give Poirier enough credit. Every time he wins a fight, it's the story of the other guy, right? I mean, I think Poirier is one of the greatest fighters in the world right now. Sure, he lost to Olivera, but, I mean, Oliver looks invincible. Right now, people are saying Oliver might have had a shot at beating Prime Khabib. So I just think people need to stop clowning McGregor so much and realize he's still a talented fighter.

He lost to Poirier, who's excellent. and I think he's going to come back and make a big statement in his next fight. I understand. Yeah. I mean, I get where you're coming from. It kind of goes back to the old burbiage of heavy lies the head that wears the crown. And that's what happens when you are the biggest star in the sport. People look at you in a different way.

You're under a massive microscope. And it's not, I don't think people necessarily clown on Connor the fighter. They're clowning more on Connor the, very rich guy who continues to get himself in trouble and then just doing kind of dumb things as a professional athlete. Now I understand that in the NFL and the NBA and Major League Baseball and NHL, etc. For decades, there's dumb athletes. You get all that money. You haven't seen it before. You come from the places Connor McGregor came from and you think to yourself, wow, I didn't think I'd get here or maybe I did think I'd get here. Now I have all this money. What am I

going to do with it and it kind of goes to your head and you just do some silly things and that's what it is but at the same time you can't take away what connor's done and even then with connor on these on the losing streak or whatever he's still much watch must watch television his next pay-per-view will draw million buys plus no matter who he fights he can fight anybody it's going to do a million pay-per-view buys the guy's still a major star has his game has the evolution of the sport kind of pass him by. I don't know. I don't want to go that far,

but he seems just like the same fighter he's been since the come-up, and we've seen the sport change in a multitude of ways. At the same time, Conn-Regger's performance against Eddie Albares, the UFC 205, was one of the all-time great performances in the history of the sport,

especially in title fights. You will not, I don't know, I mean, it's very rare that you will see a title fight that goes the way that that one did. Connor fought a perfect fight. That was one of the greatest performances I've ever seen. Right up there with Holloway versus Cater. I mean, this was, I mean, this was a one-way drubbing.

He beat Eddie Alvarez, the entire build to the fight. Fight Week, the press conference, the face-offs, the way and stair-downs. He beat Eddie everywhere. And by the time both guys got into the cage, Connor just whooped that dude. And nobody saw that coming. No one saw Connor going out there and having a performance like that. That is an all-time great performance. now it is it is very it's i'm very curious to see who they do match connor up with next because he's

calling for fights with kamar usman i think we all understand that's probably an awful idea yeah could he land a big left hand sure but camaro has a very good chin and if connor doesn't put a guy away quickly kamar just has a style that could really make mcgregor just really uncomfortable and it could be a rough night the charles olivera fight they might do something like that. If he beats Justin Gachie, just to give Olivera the rub and it's just probably the biggest fight you could possibly make for Charles Olivera outside of maybe Habib comeback,

which I don't see happening anytime soon. And I hate that matchup for Connor too. So I don't know, man. We got to get Connor a win. I mean, he's got to get in there and get a win against somebody. So hopefully the UFC matches them up wisely. Maybe get him in there with Nate. Who knows?

I don't know what you do with him. I understand where you're coming from. I feel like a lot of people say it's the gym. Like maybe he needs to get out of SBG and just get some different looks. And there's nothing wrong with that. You're not turning your back on your team. Fighters do it all the time.

They go to different gyms. They get different looks and the game changes a little bit. There's evolution in it. And I feel like just with Connor, what he did so well on this come-up, I think a lot of guys have evolved their games in different ways. and the sport just changes all the time. So, and I don't know, if Connor was more like a Chris Wydenman

and just going out there and just being, like, you know what I mean? It's just him getting in trouble and him punching old dudes at the bar and getting in trouble and doing all these things and the allegations and everything. It's just, it is what it is. And I think it's not necessarily clowning on Connor the fighter more than just kind of Connor the person. And maybe that's unfair on some people's parts, but I'm just trying to put myself in their shoes

because, again, what Connor did at UFC 205, all-time great performance, and you'll never be able to take that away from him. Toke, we'll take a couple more. Toke, what's up? Time Oglow comes tributor, which will be relevant in a second because I want to talk about placement on cards.

And because what has happened is that after Dracquist de Placee got dropped off the card, Margot, Matt, and Vince Bichel has been, elevated to the main card. So what I think is this actually makes the stakes in this contest more significant. And I think that this will mean that the winner will get a top 15 fighter next, like Brad Riddell, for example. And that's my odd no pick for next week.

So what I want you to talk about is kind of wax poetically on what it means, what UFC is trying to tell the fighters about the fighters with the placement on cards. Thank you. Thank you, sir. So this is an internal debate amongst the MMA fighting staff members. We talk about this all the time. And a lot of times you don't bring it up on like the pre-fight show or the pre-fight Q&A because we don't want to just get into an argument on there.

But there's sometimes when the card placement comes into play, and oftentimes I'll defend it more than some of my colleagues will. And I understand where my colleagues are coming from. Like Casey Liden is a perfect example of this because there could be a fight between, you know, a man of he boss and like Verna Janda Janda Roba. And it's a cool fight. And a lot of times those fights will get put on the prelims. They're like a women's strawaway fight with high stakes.

Like Marina Haudriguez, Janjan, Janon, perfect example. That fight was on the prelims. A lot of people were upset that that was not on the main card. And then we get to these pay-free main cards and we're seeing Greg Hardy on the pay-frey-made cards. And some of these other fighters were just like, what? Why are we doing that? I mean, honestly, what they're trying to do is the UFC is trying to get either a fight they feel is the most exciting right off the bat, like a really good scrap, or they're trying to find a fight that's going to end quickly and violently.

And that's sort of why I felt the Greg Hardy fight was on the pay-per-view main card before, because there was no way that fight was getting out of the first round. It's going to end quick. It was going to end emphatically. And it's going to end with either Sergei Spivak knocking out Greg Hardy or putting him away quick or is going to end with Greg Hardy knocking out Sergei Spieback. And that's just the way that it is. And you can make the argument.

And sometimes I'll make the argument as well that some of these fights that are on ESPN, it's actually a better spot for the fighters because while it's cool to be on a pay-per-view main card and you want people to spend money to watch your fights, more people are going to watch you fight on ESPN than they are going to watch you on pay-per-view because not a lot of people, especially with this price hike, you're asking people to pay 75 bucks for all these cars

and in July, you're asking these people to pay 75 bucks twice on two different occasions. That's 150 bucks. It is not cheap to be an MMA fan. So it's almost better for some of these fighters, especially when the stakes are high or you have exciting matchups or you have up-and-coming stars.

There's a reason why Ian Gary is not fighting on the main card. He's fighting on ESPN because the UFC is trying to put as many eyeballs on them as possible so that people know who they are so they can build them up. And it's interesting how they do that. I'm starting to sort of figure out the methods of this madness. But I think Vince Fichel, Marco Madsen being in the spot as the pay-bvre main card opener, it says a lot. It says to me that the UFC feels like this fight is going to set the table for the rest of the card.

This fight will be super exciting. it'll be really grueling, and it's a very evenly mashed fight. And the styles are just going to create a lot of excitement, a lot of scrambles, some chaos in the feet at times. I think it's a really good fight. It's a potential fight of the night. And I think the UFC is putting this one there to sort of set the table. And then McKenzie Dyrne Tisha Torres will be a good technical fight.

And then obviously we head to the three big ones. But I think it's just we're kind of setting the table. And I like the spot here. And oftentimes when the card's not as strong, they'll just put the heavyweight in there, especially ones they feel these fights are going to end relatively quickly. So, all right, we're going to take two more. We'll get

Aziz in that we'll get... Actually, we'll do three more. Aziz, Viral, Nico, you're on deck, and Gagi, you're in the hole. Aziz, what's up? Aziz. Just get on mute. Oh, my God, I was muted. Yeah. Mr. Mike, hi.

How you doing? Good, good. I want to get a pulse check from you about... Are you at the athlete hotel? Or, like, next to it. What is sort of the buzz like? Because I see, like, they just posted the embedded. I see Volkanavsky's at the hotel. I think Korean zombie is also there. And can you give us the predictions now since you really got us engaged? Because I was like listening and I listened for like the first five minutes. I was like, okay, this might be cool. But I'm hooked now. So I've

been listening since you started. Who do you think, who's winning the thing? first like the three main fights. Can you give us that or is that's for the YouTube? But, oh crap, Aziz, check back in. Sorry. I will answer that while you check back in. I know any other question. So request again, I'll get you back in.

So I'm not in Jacksonville yet. I will be there. I'm probably going to drive there. I'm not my parents else right now. So between where I live and where my parents live, Jacksonville is like right in the middle. So I'll be heading back about a two and a half hour drive. I'll probably leave here in a couple hours.

So I'll be there tonight. Jose will be there tonight. I don't think we're going to be staying at the fighter hotel, but we're going to be very close by. We're obviously going to be spending a lot of time there because that is where the action is going to be happening. The media day, some of the other stuff, the way ends, etc. So I don't really know what the vibe is in Jacksonville.

I will know tonight and I will know the rest of the week. So I will fill you guys in on Thursday show. as far as the top three fights go, I mean, I'm going with the favorites right now, but that could change. Maybe I see something in the media day, something they say, the demeanor, maybe when they weigh in, things might look a little fishy. So I will say this, knowing that my pick could change come Friday or Saturday, but right now I look at Shemaya, if I look at Peodoriano, look at Alexander Volcanowski. I think Alexander Volcanozki. I think Alexander Volcanowski could make a strong argument two fights from now that he is the number one pound for pound fighter on the planet. I think he is that good. I don't think he can. I don't think he gets the respect he deserves. I think I'm disrespected him. I have him number four pound for pound on my rankings, and I don't even think that's high enough. He could be two or three.

I'm almost ashamed to have him at four, because that's how good I think he is. And I think Peter Rion is right there, and Sterling creates an interesting test. I mean, the chip on Al Jermaine's shoulder right now is massive. It is gigantic. And I can't wait to see how that fight plays out, because there's a lot of meat on that bone.

And then, of course, Shamiab, I mean, this guy is just, I mean, the whole show has been about Shama. 95% of the questions have been about Hamzaa Chimayev. And there's a reason for that. But Gilbert Burns might be the most slept-down fighter on this entire card. And the dude's ready for it. I mean, not a lot of guys said yes to this fight. Gilbert Burns, in a very high-ranking spot, said, bring this man on.

I will fight him. And he's doing it. So my respect to Gilbert Burns. Aziz finish up, my man. Sorry about that. You're good, buddy. You're good. That's all good.

That's all I had. So I'll be looking for it for the content. on the YouTube later the night. And you should just see Al Jemaine, no freaking beard. He shaved his mustache, trying to look like standing. That ain't gonna help you, bro. Just say it. Who knows, man.

We'll see. We shall see. That's why we have the fights. All right, two more. Viral Nico. What's up? Mike, I'm glad that you're having this space. I wanted to come in,

But I'm happy I got the platform to speak. I got a question. I don't know if you talked about McKenzie Dern. What do you think a win can do for her career? Good question. That's a great fight. A fight that's being slept on quite a bit. McKenzie Dern versus Tisha Torres.

And how about Tisha Torres? She's been looking pretty damn good lately in her fights. The technique is catching up. I feel like her game is starting to evolve, the striking the in and outs, what she's been doing on the feet has been really good. She's on a nice run right now. Brianna Fortino win at the time has aged very well.

Sam Hughes, that fight, I mean, she put a beating on Sam Hughes in that fight. And then Angel Hill is always a quality win when he could beat her. This is a big fight for McKenzie Dern. This is a very big fight for her. She's got to win this one, especially coming off the Marina Rodriguez, Lawson. I mean, as much as, as bad as this would have been for Carlos Spars, as unfair as it would have been to Carlos Sparza,

at least in my opinion, had McKenzie Dern won that fight, she'd be fighting Rosnami Eunice in May, and it wouldn't be Carlos Sparza. And that'd be a travesty. It'd be shame after everything Carlos Farser has done. But McKenzie needs this one. She needs to get some of that buzz back.

I think Marina Rodriguez sort of opens up some eyes in terms of, because McKenzie was just running through people. And I think Marina Hodriga showed that she's a legit contender, too, and she's really good. and she was slept on it a big way in that fight too. But from what I understand, McKenzie had a knee injury heading into that fight. She's cleaned that all up.

She seems to be as healthy as ever. And what I'm happy about is, I don't want to hear anybody ask McKenzie Dern about her weight cuts ever again. She has proven time and time. She had her hiccups. She's fixed it. I don't want to hear one question

to McKenzie Dern about her weight cut. She's probably like at 170 pounds. She could probably hit the scales tomorrow at 115 pounds. Those questions are over. No more asking her. No more asking her about the weight time because she's got that all figured out. And since she became a mom, she's like jacked. She's in great shape. So it's a really good fight. If McKenzie can get this to the ground, how can Tisha Torres deal with that? And if Tisha can keep it standing, how will McKenzie deal with a 15-minute striking battle? You have to think it just depends on whose world this fight stays in.

If this fight stays standing, I like Tisha's chances a lot, although McKenzie's striking has improved quite a bit. but if this fight gets to the ground, that's when things can get really hairy, because as you've seen in a lot of McKenzie Dern's fights, outside of maybe the Marina Rodriguez fight, but even it got Harry there. When McKenzie gets you down, she gets on top of you,

the fight could be over shortly thereafter, so I'm looking forward to that. I'll get Nico in real quick one more time, then I'll get to you and Gaggy. Did you have something else? Oh, yeah. I was going to ask about that 135 fight. Like, I've been noticing, like,

we have to talk about this 135. division in like all promotions. It's like you have like crazy dog dog fights like how do you feel about Helio Arce? I don't know how to pronounce his last name.

Yeah so I think that's going to be a good fight too because like I remember I think he was at 145 and then he made the cut to 135 right? Yeah he's a yeah he was a featherweight when he came in to yeah because I think he can cause some noise in this 135 I think it's 135 is really deep.

And also, I'm just telling people in this space, I think 125, too, is going to be, it's going to catch them, they're going to get some prospects and, like, it's going to be scary. Like, there's, like, one prospect that I follow, um, um, fool me.

I don't know if you know him. He's like, um, he has the belt at one of the smaller, um, promotions. He fights with, uh, Ray Longo's part of Ray Longo's team. Oh, And got to? I know what you're talking.

The CFSC champion? Yeah, the CFC champion, yeah. He can be potential. Yeah. Yeah. He's pretty good. And he's pretty good on the mic, too. I'm like, he could be a problem in the future.

I agree with you. He's a very good fighter. I would like to see him on the contender series. I think he's ready. I think he's that. I think he's a super legit prospect. I've been hearing about him for a while since he was an amateur. He's just running through guys.

He's really impressive. He has the whole package, like you just said. I would like to see him get on the contender series. He might get one more fight with CFFC, maybe another title defense, but I think he'd be a tremendous prospect for the contender series. And someone that could get Dana White and the matchmaker's very excited, honestly. Ingagi, you get the final word, my man. You, I hope you're doing well.

How are you? We're doing wonderful. Fantastic. I had a question about McKenzie Darren's weight cutting. No, I'm just joking. I'm looking at this. I'm looking at this bantamweight division. And the champion, sorry, the title fight is very exciting.

But I'm just looking at the whole division in general. And it's looking stacked. I want to know what you think about Jose Aldo in particular. We have lower in the rankings. You have Sean O'Malley's looking to come up. Marlon Mariah seems to be, you know, a problem too, although, you know, a few hiccups here and there. You have Cito Vera and Rob Font, who also just came up. of a loss, but I think he could also be a problem.

But I want to see what you think of Jose Aldo, given Jose Aaldo's recent, his last three fights, and T.J. Dillishaw's most recent fight, the one we've seen how, you know, he's still quick and all that. What do you think? Do you think T.J. Dillashaw and Jose Aldo could make it happen? Thank you, Ngagi. I mean, like I said, I love talking about the Bannamweights.

That's the fight I want to see the UFC make. I want to see Jose Aldo versus T.J. Dillishaw. because here's in my opinion, and this is my opinion, some people don't agree with me. I feel like Jose Aldo has a better case fighting for the title than T.J. Dillishawar does right now. T.J. was the former champion, was stripped of the title for mistakes that he made. And perhaps in the way T.J. owned up to those mistakes, he didn't deny it. He didn't try to make excuses. He took it on the chin and dealt with it like a man. And I respect that. What he did was wrong. and it's going to make his legacy.

People think about it in a different way, but that is what it is. But Jose Aldo the run this guy has been on. The win over Marlon Vera, the win over Pedro Munoz. I mean, the Pedro Munoz performance is unbelievable. The Rob Font performance was just unreal because if you, like, if you didn't watch

Jose Alto, Rob Fon, and you just went to the numbers, you just went and looked at the numbers that fight. I'm going to pull them up right now. Real quick, bear with me. Should have been. I never know what we're going to, what kind of question we're going to have.

All right, so let me look at the numbers here. Okay. So if you look at the numbers, the striking numbers for that fight, Rob Font in the first round, outlands Jose Aldo, 36 to 26. These are significant strikes. Round two, Rob Font, 48 to 23.

Round three, 37 to 12 for Rob Fon. Round four, 10 to 10, round 5, 18, 15. Rob Fon didn't get out struck, statistically. in any of the five rounds. None of them. But Jose Aldo knocked him down and landed the more impactful strike. Now, if you want a lesson on how judging works in 2022 MMA, that is a fight you go back and watch. Because Rob landed more, but Jose's landed just way more impactful.

Significant strikes. Jose Aldo strikes were way more significant. then. Rob was winning that first round. He was cruising. And then Jose rocked him at the end of that first round. He dropped him, had Rob hurt real bad and won the round. And the whole momentum of that fight changed. Rob had a good second round, as you saw, but then Jose was mixing in the takedowns. He was mixing things up. Rob was kind of off of his game after that first knockdown. And that's what Jose Aldo can do. And I said this earlier, I think Josealdo, despite what he did at 145 in that run he was

on, I think this is the best he's looked. Just the wins he's putting together, the performances. If you want to just look at a guy, if you want to just see how good Josealdo is, go back and watch that Pedro Munoz fight. Go watch that Pedro Munoz fight. The movement, the way he was landing, the leg ticks were there.

Not as often, but they were there and they were effective when they needed to be there. He's just looked so good. I want to see Dillishalo. That's the fight I want to see, and the winner gets a title shot. That's a massive fight. I do understand

that a lot of people want to see Jose Aldo fight Dominic Cruz and yeah, that's a cool fight. If the UFC went ahead and made Aldo Cruz, I'm watching it. I also would like to see Dominic Cruz Frankie Edgar. Like that's a fight that has always been on my bucket list. That'd be a cool on the watch.

And then Bannon Wade as a whole, I mean, you got Sean O'Malley, you got Marl Mara, he's on a little bit of a skid right now, I'll be interesting to see where he goes from here. But then you got guys like Ricky Simone, you got Jack Shore. who's on a nice streak right now. Undefeated, 16 and 0, huge win in his last fight.

You got Kyler Phillips. You got Umar Namaga Madoff. You got Victor Henry, who's finally in the UFC. He beat Hione Barcelos in his Octagon debut. You got Saeed Naramaga Madoff. You got just some of the guys coming up. You got Douglas De Silva Day Andrade who's looked really good. Ronnie Yaya.

Where's the love for Yaya? My gosh. And then those who have listened to my shows, very high on Montel Jackson, very high on Chris Gutierrez, very high. and Adrian Yanez. Then you got guys like John Castaneda, you got Jonathan Martinez. Javad Basharad is going to be a super prospect for this division.

And the list goes on and on. Bannonweight rules. It rules. It's the deepest division they have. And if you want to take another deep dive at another division in terms of depth, 145 is another one that has a lot of incredible depth. A lot of really talented fighters. But Bannonweight, I mean, it's just even guys like Ricky Tersios,

It's going to be exciting when he gets in there and starts fighting and starts running off wins together. It's just such a good division. It's just such a good division. It's amazing. I'm a big fan of Bannon Wade. I think Lightweight is the marquee division right now. It's kind of the headline division just because of the bigger names and the top five. But if we're looking at depth, if we're looking at that Big Three Celtics team that won a championship,

they didn't win the championship solely because of the Big Three. They won that championship because they had Eddie High. house coming off the bench. They had Brian Scalabrini coming off the bench. That's what Bannonweight is like. They got guys in the starting five. They got guys coming off the bench. The whole division is just loaded and they can all fight. It's just super fun. Just like UFC 273 is going to be. I didn't think we would go this long, but you guys just kept coming with the thunder with these calls. And I appreciate that very much. So sorry that we started a little bit later today, but Thursday, Friday, live from Jacksonville, we will do the show 8 a.m. Eastern time.

So we'll get you ready for all things UFC 273. I'm looking forward to covering my first UFC event on site since UFC 24. So I'm very excited about that. I'm going to take off and drive you Jacksonville in a couple hours. We get the media day tomorrow morning. So, hey, stay tuned to m-Afighting.com for all of your UFC 273 coverage. And if you just came into this space over the last, I don't know, 20 minutes or so, and you were wondering what the rest of the show sounded like.

Don't worry. We get your covered. Show will be up on the M-A Fighting coverage. podcast feed within the next 30 minutes. So thank you all very much. We will see you Thursday morning. The Vox Media Podcast Network.