MMA Fighting - HOAM | Anderson Silva's Chances vs. Jake Paul, Response To Josh Thomson

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

Anderson Silva and Jake Paul's boxing match is going down in just two days, and while Silva isn't necessarily fighting to represent MMA, the MMA community will be rooting for the former UFC middleweight champion. On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck discusses the bout between Silva and Paul, and how he sees the fight playing out. Additionally, the show kicks off with a response to Josh Thomson's video about the MMA media and demanding to "do our f****** job" in regards to the upcoming Bellator vs. RIZIN card in December, along with listener questions regarding the rumored Khamzat Chimaev vs. Colby Covington fight, Francis Ngannou vs. Jon Jones, the fallout of UFC 280, and much more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 10 a.m. ET on the MMA Fighting Twitter Spaces. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You can hear the show in its entirety shortly thereafter on the MAA Fighting Podcasting Network. I am Mike Kack for those joining us live. Apologies for the short delay. Facebook on my laptop is just being strange and weird, but it is what it is because I'm on the desk right now, so I have to do multiple things. But hope everyone's having a great week so far. Hope everyone enjoyed the show yesterday, a rare Wednesday show. We still have a lot to talk about.

We're still fully in the hangover of UFC 280. a lot of talking points coming out of that. We have a very busy weekend coming up this weekend. Bellator has an afternoon card on Saturday. The UFC is back on Saturday as well at the beautiful, luxurious UFC Apex. Not the greatest card of all time. Not bad. The main event rules between Calvin Cater and Arnold Allen.

A lot of big-time stakes at 145 pounds in that particular matchup. tons of boxing for the boxing enthusiasts, yes, including the big one between Jake Paul and Anderson Silva, some sort of weirdness going on, Anderson Silva doing some interviews, said some things that probably shouldn't have said, but probably didn't mean to say in regards to getting knocked out during sparring sessions. And this thing's kind of taken on a life of its own, but Anderson said he was joking. trying to basically clarify all that. And apparently the Arizona Commission is going to have a special meeting about that later on today.

So we will keep you posted. Of course, we got shot al-Shadi, Jose Young's, and E. Casey Lydid, out in Glendale, Arizona, bringing you coverage of that event. So we have a lot to talk about. We talk about all of those things. But first, allow me to get something off my chest. let me start with something that I have to say because truth be told, if you are a longtime listener of this program,

in other programs as well, you are aware that I have been very critical of Josh Thompson, former fighter, now he's waving the Bellator flag, has his own podcast with John McCarthy. And I have to tell you, for a little while, I have said to myself because I haven't mentioned his name on the program that often

because I've been thinking to myself for a while perhaps I need to lay off a little bit. I don't need to put that much negative juju out in the air. I can have opinions. Like I can talk about the Henry Suhudo thing. And again, it's not ripping on Henry as a person and as a fighter. It's just the unreliability of the situation. So that's why I rip on the idea of Henry sliding into a title. shot. I don't rip on Henry Suhudo himself. I might just say that he doesn't draw a ton of

iron interest, but that's just the facts. It's, it's, it's all that it is. A human being is a great guy. All the times I've spoken to him, very nice guy, tremendous fighter. So I don't want to just come on here and rip people. Like, I don't want that negative juju in all that. Like, I don't need that in my life. So I was hoping let's just not have Josh Thompson's be said or have it said as little as possible. That is until yesterday when this man had the balls to call out the MMA media, to tell us, to tell all of you how media is supposed to be done, that it is our responsibility to quote unquote promote this Bellator versus Risen card

at the end of the year. And let me just say this. We at MAAfighting.com. fantastic website as Jedbissu likes to say we wrote the article announcing it we published it almost immediately after that press conference release and the announcement was made i retweeted it i love the concept i love the idea i have been a big proponent for doing this type of thing in the first place i'm glad the pandemic is mostly over and we can go back to doing these kinds of things because of all the events that i look forward to every year it is the rise in you

year-end event and I enjoyed very much getting Bellator in the mix. And it's very smart on everybody's part, especially in late December. This is a brilliant move for Bellator because at this point, the UFC is wrapped and packed for the rest of the year. And the card is stacked. I love the co-promotion. I love how they're going up against each other. All of it. You've got me. You've got me. I'm on board. I'm on board for this. And, the responses to this have been positive left and right from everybody fans media etc it's been nothing but positive and then this guy out of nowhere just goes on twitter puts out a video and tells us us the m-may media to quote do your fucking job he said that it is up to the media to do their

fucking job to promote this car. That's what he said. A guy who is in the freaking media himself, who works for Bellator and the networks that airs its programming is telling us how to do media when he is a media member himself. Now, I have thought a lot about this since I saw this ridiculous video. And before I give my thoughts at all this, let me first say, and I want to make this crystal clear. This is not

a Bellator issue. This has nothing to do with Belator. I talked honestly to many people who work for Bellator and for the company yesterday. What Josh Thompson said is not in any way, shape, or form how

Bellator feels about this at all. So I want to get that out of the way. Despite a guy who has featured so much on their broadcast, saying these incredibly wrong things into a live microphone. I will also say that among the many people I spoke with yesterday within the organization, I would say 100% of them are disappointed in some way.

Several were like, what the hell is this guy doing? Two reached out to me directly. Both in essence said, look, man, I know you're going to respond to this, but please do not lump us, do not lump Bellator in with these shenanigans. So I have given a lot of thought in regards to how I want to respond to this, considering how I feel about this guy as a quote unquote broadcaster. And immediately, upon seeing this video, I rub my head together and I was like, oh man, I cannot believe he's going to let Daddy off the leash here.

I cannot believe he's going to let the pit bull off the leash. because I certainly have the ammo to do so. And I have lots of it. And this is my plan. When I woke up this morning and I went to the gym, the gym session is a little harder because this is what I was going to do today. I was just going to unload on this guy about everything.

I was just going to just unload about how I feel about this man. Some things you've heard, some things I may not have said on this show. But then around 725 this morning, I had a conversation with my nine-year-old of all people, and I obviously didn't let him watch the video. But I told him, hey, there is this guy who is basically dumping on my profession, who dumped on me, who dumped on my friends, dumped on my colleagues. How should I respond?

What should I say? I really wanted to get his input. And he said, Daddy, just be nice. That's what you tell me, just be nice. and those words told me that column A of just unloading the way I want to is out the window. I'm not going to do that. Mostly because one, I mentioned earlier, I don't want the negative juju. And two, this guy takes enough of a beating that I'm not going to pile on with things that have nothing to really do with this situation in these comments.

But column B, I'm going to do some of that. but let's just say I'm going to be playing the middle ground here. Because let's be clear, me coming on this show and blasting Josh Thompson right now, it does nothing. All it's going to do is give this dude, this guy, a greater sense of righteousness. And I'm certainly not going to give him any more of that. If there is one person in this space who needs a greater sense of righteousness, it's Josh Thompson.

So I ain't giving it to him because that would be terrifying. Why give him more ammunition? And the other reason is, after doing some thinking about all this, this is what he wants. And the more I thought about what I was going to say, the more I realized that no matter how we as a media cover this card, no matter how MMA fighting covers this card, as great as it is, whether we cover it like we normally do, or whether we just say, you know what? and we would never do this, by the way. Let's just say that Josh Thompson's words just pierced us to the core. And we as a collective, we're like, let's just not even cover it at all. We would never do that, by the way, like I said.

No matter how you slice it, we would do far less damage than what Josh Thompson did yesterday. Josh is in the media. He's in the media. He has a show with John McCarthy, which, by the way, is not my cup of tea, but people like it and good for them, happy for their success. But he's in the media. He works for Bellator. He says outrageous shit on his show and on the broadcast.

And at the end of the day, that's okay because he works for the promotion and he works for the networks that air the promotion. And he's never going to ever say a bad thing about Bellator. He is biased towards them. And that's okay. He turned in his journalism card. He turned his reporter card. He is a Bellator dude.

But what he did is, a member of the media is he broke the card to rule of media. That rant, it wasn't about Bellator, it wasn't about rising, it wasn't about promoting the card, it wasn't about putting the card over, it wasn't about any of the fighters in any way, shape, or form. It was about one thing and one thing only, it was about Josh Thompson. He broke the rule. He made it about himself. Josh Thompson only cared and in all likelihood only cares about Josh Thompson. In this situation and in a lot of other things, he made it about himself. That is a no-no in this business.

Now I know what some of the friggin trolls out there may be thinking, Mike, you have this show. Your last name is in the title. You make this show about yourself. You give your takes. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's not true because A, I'm giving my opinion on something. I'm not making the show about me. I'm telling people not to write articles about stuff.

It's not about me. B, I'm answering your questions and see, I'm reporting on what happens in the sport. Do I go off on tangents? Sure. Am I passionate about my job? Yes. But it's never about putting myself over.

I don't care about that. It's about doing the best job I can. And what Josh did yesterday was trying to not put the card over. It was to put himself over. This is a look at me. I'm important too. Let's get a rise out of the media with this silly rant and let's trend on friggin' Twitter.

That's what you did. You did that, Josh. And to me, you hurt the promotion of this card way worse than anyone else could because you made a conscious decision to make it about you and not about this card. You didn't make it about Bellator, the promotion that gives you these opportunities.

The fighters you supposedly are trying to give rub to. No, all you cared about was Josh Thompson and how people could talk about Josh Thompson. You might as well walked into a cage before the first main card of this fight car was about to start, took the microphone from Michael C. Williams said, hey, follow me on Twitter. Listen to weighing in because that's what you did here. And trust me when I tell you, I'm not the only one that feels this way. So congratulations, Josh. You did nothing to promote this card. You got the media reacting to you. You have fans reacting.

And 95% of them think you couldn't be more wrong. Your producer had your back. What a shocker that is. But very few others did. You had a couple of fighters here and there. But most of them didn'ts. People in the promotion didn't. But you know what, Josh?

Mission accomplished, right? Because this is exactly what you wanted. This is exactly what you set out to do. You made it about you. You wanted people talking about you. It's all about you. It's not about this card, which is really, really great. It wasn't about A.J. McKee or Satoshi or Patricia Pettico Pippel or Warnartraltta or Belator versus Riser, Scott Koch, or none of it.

This is about you and you accomplished your mission, Josh. We talked on the UFC 280 post-fight show a lot about the thing. The thing. Do the thing. You didn't do the thing for Bellator. You didn't do the thing for this card. You didn't do the thing for everybody else involved. You did the thing for Josh Thompson.

So do better, Josh. We're going to cover it. We're going to talk about it. And we're going to be watching it. But you bet your ass we won't be doing the promotion for it. That's not our job. But the job we have is the job we are going to do to the best of our abilities. I just wish you did the same.

So my final message to Josh Thompson is, be better. Stop making everything about you. And just do the thing, Josh. Just do the thing. Stop making it about you. If you really want to push this card, then cover it. But stop making this shit about you.

That's my issue with the whole thing. And I could say a lot more, but that's what I'm going to say. I'm focusing on this thing. I'm doing the thing for me. I'm going to do the thing and just focus on your comments. you need to do the thing too.

Make it about the fighters. Make it about the card. Don't make it about you. Because that's what you did here. And you hurt the promotion with that video. 100%. So with that being said, I hold on,

off my soapbox. And let's get to you guys because that's what this friggin show is all about. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton cross-training treadplice. Powered by Peloton IQ. Built for breakthroughs with personalized workout plans,

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Stop wondering. Start gifting. Winners find fabulous for less. Toke, hello. Because I'm a journalist myself. So integrity to journalism is important to me and in media. So it's nice, my question was going to be about Joe's Thompson, but kudos to you, you did it all. But I have one thing, because my own integrity was brought into question yesterday.

When A.K. Lee, he decided to come on and say that I misunderstood that his gymnastics scale. Okay, I didn't do all the precursors that I should have with this was the score if everything broke right and it was pre the card, all that stuff. I didn't say that. I think people got my message anyway, but fine.

I got called out and I'm just going to say, I'm sorry, A.K., I misunderstood. Or I didn't misunderstand, but I mistold the thing. You could say language barrier and whatever else, but I'm not going to make excuses for myself. I made an error in how I you know, told about his method of ranking cards post-fight and pre-fight.

This was a pre-fight score 9.6, and I said that it landed on a flat 5, which might still be low. I'll agree. It's fine. But it was just to purvey that it was, the prelims were lackluster and the main card also missed in a couple of spots. and the ones that actually impressed, other than Sean O'Malley, didn't do their job on the mic. That was all I was trying to say. I'm sorry, AK, let's move on. I mean, how nice was that?

What a way to get this show back on the right foot. Let's go to Absalaya. He was waiting yesterday, and I didn't get a chance to get him in. So let's get him in right now, shall we? Hello, Absualia. Been a while, how are you? I'm good. So I want to discuss.

before I discuss about my thoughts on 280 I just I have a prediction that I think will happen I have a feeling that Francis and Gunnar and John Jones will be the headlining card for Africa possibly in April or May whenever that happens now on to business so I watched 280 I was a little bit

kind of weirdly disappointing with the card in general for how stacked it was but I will say a fight like Benil Darius versus Gamrodot is a very one-of-a-kind type of fight we really get nowadays. My thoughts on Sean O'Malley is, I think he actually won the fight regardless of what people say, and he's shown that he actually is a legit contender. I'm just curious on your thoughts, where does he go next? Does he fight maybe Chirovera or Corey Sanhagen or does he wait for a title shot?

And what happens with Charles Olivera? because, you know, he's also now, he's the number one brand contender, but I'm sure he has to fight, you know, someone down the line to get back that title shot. And is there even a chance he can come back from this loss or, well, he slowly started to decline himself from all the punches he took. And that's all I have to say, man. Thank you. Thanks, man.

Yeah, Francis and John in Africa would be sick. I don't know if it's going to happen that quickly getting to Africa, but I know the UFC really wants to get there. It's just a matter of logistics. and all of that stuff. So we'll see what happens there. 280, I mean, it's just tough. Like, it was laid out the way we expected.

Like, the prelims had Muhammad Makayev. He did his thing. Wasn't the greatest performance, considering how big of a favorite he was. But he did reveal he got really sick and his team was telling him to pull out of the fight and he ended up staying in. And, I mean, he dominated Malcolm Gordon.

Gordon had his moments, but he dominated Malcolm Gordon. And he finished him. So he's going to get better. I'm still extremely high on him. The rest of the prelims weren't great. Obviously, Blah Mohamed closed the show. I thought the O's Demir, Krilov fight was fun.

But the fights that were on the prelims, we kind of were just, they're there. We're just looking forward to the final five fights. The Eurochickega was the fight we exactly expected it to be. Darius Gamrot was awesome. O'Malley Yan was ridiculous. the co-main events. I mean, it is what it is. You could feel how you feel about it with TJ and the injury and stuff.

And then the main events, I mean, I think a lot of people expected a more competitive fight. It just wasn't. We were expecting Oliver's chaos to reign supreme. And in some way, it just didn't happen. Like, Islam was all over him from Jump Street. And you could see it immediately in Oliver's eyes after he took that first combination. He was like, oh. oh, this is not going well.

And Islam Makachev is as good as advertised, and he did exactly what he said he was going to do. He did the thing. He did the thing. Now, as far as what O'Malley does next, I mean, I talked about a lot on the show yesterday. Just give him the friggin title shot. Just give it to him.

Just let him have it. He did the thing. He fought Peter Yan. The fight was great. He won. and the more people who have gone back and watched it a second and third time, a lot of people are coming to the conclusion that, you know what, maybe Sean did win the fight.

I'm still not one of those people, but I thought it was a close fight on Saturday. I've watched it a couple more times. If you want to tell me Sean O'Malley won, I am going to listen to your argument, and I don't think you're terribly wrong. My eyes, I thought Yon won, but it's not a robbery.

there's a super close fight and Dana White said that the winner of that fight gets a title shot so he should get it what I would like to see is Henry Sehudo fight Cheeto Vera but I know that I'm not going to get everything I want and they're probably going to do Sterling versus Sehudo

and it's going to be dumb. It makes no sense and it's not because of again not because I don't like Sehudo it's not because he's not a great fighter I love the fight it's the aftermath of it all is he just going to quit again? Is he just going to leave and want more money is you get a whole two divisions up trying to get

Volkanovsky these are things that concern me about the whole situation i think a lot of people are misinterpreting where i'm going with this and by the way community agrees polon mfiting dot com 6040 shanomali should get the title shot over henry se hoodo so there you go the people have spoken as well as far as oliver goes we laid out many options on onto the next one i love the baneal derrius fight if they can make that happen if they could do it in brazil that'd be sick My other option is if they can't make that fight happen, we do Charles Oliverer versus Max Holloway too. Let's see the fight the way it was supposed to be.

I know Holloway is a featherweight, but he ain't fighting for any titles anytime soon himself. So let's just have those two guys get in there and just mix it up and have a fight. So I'm down for that. Let's go to Mikey. Mikey, hello. Good morning, everybody.

How are we doing? Listen, you may have come down from the fact that he wants to rip on Josh Thompson, but I am technically not MMA media, and I don't give a shit if I rip him, and I don't care if he hears this. The funniest thing about what that guy did is the unbelievable lack of self-awareness in everything he spoke about. First of all, he wanted it to be about two things. One, he went into business for himself to make it about himself, and two, to do this perpetual,

like, weird, almost tinfoil hat conspiracy about how everything revolves around the UFC. It's like, oh, you guys are going to get your credentials pulled. you know, I'm like, first of all, that's never, ever happen, ever, you know, he conflates all these things that have occurred and then tries to like make it about something because obviously, you know, six years ago, Ariel Hwani had gotten pulled from an event. Like, yeah, and you're too, that's what he's doing. He's trying to like do these things and then conflate them because no one's going to check him on it, right?

Like he's on his own show, no one's going to call it and be like, hey, Josh, that's wrong. And what it made me laugh about what he was trying to go about was like, the card is in three months, you know? And also, too, maybe look at the room, bro. Like, the card will be held in Japan. Bellator has to promote that, first of all. And if they're going to promote it, maybe don't have a shitty TV

deal. Second, you know, Ryzen and Bellator, they can come here, an American, hold the exact same press conference and tell, and invite everybody, you know, Scott Coker can invite them all out to San Jose and do the exact same press conference. Why don't you ask him about that? Like, everything he's saying,

he needs to ask poker first or Viacom. You know, people forget, the funny thing that a lot of MMA fans forget or don't realize, it's like, for all the money that the UFC has because of who they're owned by, Bellator can do it too. They're owned by Viacom. You know, Viacom owns like half of television. You know, well, not half, but you get what I'm saying. And they can put Belator on a better channel.

They can promote that promotion better, but no, it's stopped behind the paywall of Showtime. And one more thing about 280. I've been harbored on it for the last, ever since it happened. You know, everyone's talking about like it was a very underwhelming card. I'm sick. Like, I feel that that's true. But I think also, everybody fans need to admit to themselves that they kind of convinced themselves that the card was going to be great in its entirety when in the end, you know,

the prelim was a little mediocre. And when you look at who was on the card, it had that chance to begin with. And I think people just wanted to convince themselves it was going to be like exciting up and down the card. You know what I mean? And as for Sean O'Malley, listen, regardless of whether you think he won or lost, at the end of the day, everyone wanted to see him get tested

and he proved it. Win or lose, he got tested. He passed with flying colors. So that'll be all for me this morning. Always great guys. Sorry, happy birthday, AK. Be kind of one other. There you go.

Mikey bats. Again, I said this yesterday with 280. the expectations were just almost impossible. And I mean, this card was promoted for months. And sometimes overpromotion can sting. Most of the times it doesn't. But I mean, like, if we put the main card in a vacuum and go back and watch it like five years from now, just, I want to go back and watch 280. Was it really as bad as I thought it was?

I think it's going to age pretty well. Like, I honestly do. There's some unfortunate things that happen along the way, but I don't think, I just think the expectation were nearly impossible to reach, if we're being honest. But it is what it is. And then the whole Josh Johnson thing, back to that, like, there was not one negative thing said about that card.

Like, when the announcement came out, everybody was like, ooh, this is awesome. Like, no one said a bad thing about it. So that video just made no sense. Like, it literally made no sense. And then, like, the producer comes out, and he's like, I agree with Josh. All the media members,

went to Abu Dhabi to cover UFC 280 and get all the interviews out there, they should do the same with us. Listen, I love you. I love you, Bellator. I love the concept. But there is just no way in hell that you can compare these two cards because this ain't even close. The interest is so far beyond with UFC 280 than this card. It's not even funny.

It's not even funny. You can't compare the two. If you're going to compare this to anything else, compare it. it to the PFL card. Compare it to the PFL championship card. And even then it's not right. But you can't compare the two. It's just not true.

It's just bad takes all around. And I do agree. Josh decided I'm going to go into business for me. This is going to be the Josh Thompson show. I'm going to make it all about me. And that's who you did. You created a disservice for the card by putting out that video. You didn't promote shit.

You wouldn't help. anybody but yourself. That's what the whole rant was about. You woke up and said, what can I do for Josh Thompson today? And that's why you put out that video. It was not about the fighters. You could disguise it all you want. But that's not what you did. You made it about you, which is a no-no. You made it about yourself. You went into business for you. Let's go to my man, Brett. Hello, Brett. Oh, my, I hope you're having a heck of a morning. I got a 280 hangover. Did I want to kind of discuss with you.

How you feeling today? I'm feeling good. Yeah, a couple of quick things just to take out of it, you know. First of all, I just wanted to say, I had a three-fighter parlay of all underdogs. I had O'Malley, Darius, and Oliveira. So if all of Avares come through, I would have got myself a 50-1, three-fighter pilot, which would have been fantastic. I want to talk about Darius real quick.

He was impressive. that this guy has done everything possible in that division to be where he's at and um i didn't think gamrot was as high um on the on the prospect scale i felt uh then he was getting so i kind of had a really good feeling about dariush so i'm really curious to see uh what he got coming down the shoot and i would love to see him go versus olivera um after seeing olmealley i would love to see him go right back with chido vera i mean i would love to see that fight And hopefully there's no entry this time. And see if O'Malley can do it for three rounds.

Maybe they can give them a headliner for, like, even a UFC night or something like, they're a second card where they can get five rounds versus each other. And the last day I want to touch with you, Mike, real quick, is I want you to tell me a little bit of your view on Calvin Qatar and Arnold Allen. It looks like an awesome fight on paper, and it just looks like they're going to be throwing bombs. I just see what you thought. And it's always great to talk to you, Mike, and have a heck of a morning, bro. Thanks, man.

First of all, AK can attest to this. You don't parley underdogs. You don't parley underdogs. But you almost hit it, and that would have been a big shut up for all the haters out there. But I love Daryush's an underdog in that fight. And if you watch the watch party, the chat agreed. The chat made a bet for G.C. they picked Darius by decision

and they nailed it at plus 350. So well done to the chat. I got treated to lunch because of you and I appreciate that very much. Darius Oliver would be great fight. That should be it. I honestly just he just killed himself in the post fight interview.

Just, you know, not knowing where he was saying some of the things that he said, one, two, and this is the most important when it comes to the fight game, you don't say I'll fight 10 more guys. Stop doing that.

You should have called for all the winner or loser. If you don't want to call for the title shot, you don't want to call me about specifically because you haven't seen the fight, fine. Be like, I want the winner or the loser or the title fight. Nothing else makes sense. That's what I want.

And no one's going to be like, oh, that Benile Derriush. What a jerk. No one's going to say that. No one's going to say that. But yeah, they do him and Oliver. I'm in. For O'Malley,

I would like to see him get the title shot. I would like to see him get Al Jermaine. Because I just don't know, like, Sean's good. I don't know how much better he's going to get at this point. Like I feel like at times like he should be further along, but he's still really good. And I just don't know how much better he's going to get.

So I feel like if you're ever going, there's going to be a ceiling on him. And I don't know if we've reached it. It's still very, very high with the performance he had over a guy like Peera. on. So you want to strike while the iron's hot and just give them the title fight now and just try to make money. Or do you give it to Sohudo, which may happen. I'll feel how I feel about it, but I will watch the shit out of that fight. And if that's the fight the UFC ends up going with, then yes, I am in O'Malley, Vera, five rounds, whether it's on a fight night main event, on a pay-per-view card five rounds. That fight cannot be three rounds. It's got to be a five-rounder.

Jit number one contender fight. I'm cool with that too. Like if we have to do Sehudo and that's the consolation prize, I'll watch it. And that's going to be great. I just don't know if O'Malley wins that fight. I don't know. So it's a risk.

It's a risk at this point. Because he beat Pierre Young. Not a lot of people thought he would beat him. You have him there. You have him ready for a title fight. do you do it or do you risk not getting it because if he goes out there and just gets run over by Cheeto again he gets finished whether it's an injury or not the title fight i'm not saying it's it's gone forever but i mean it's a long road back considering what this division looks like and now with

suhudo back in the mix it could be a long long time before he gets back in this position so to me strike while the iron's hot go with the reliability factor pay O'Malley, give him a new contract, let him fight for the belt. He got to the dance. Let's see if he could do it again. Let's see if he could slay another dragon as a massive underdog. He's got to be a massive underdog against Sterling. Let's just build this story up.

I don't know why we have to go right to Suhudo without Sehudo proving that he's serious about actually fighting. We could do Sehudo Vera. That's the fight I've been saying. Like, I feel like Suhudo would win that fight. So just do that, and then that's it. Like, I will, Suhudo can fight for whatever belt he wants. He goes out and fights one dude and wins. He can go fight Volk.

I don't care. Just show me something. Just prove to me you want to do this. And then you're going to stick around. Hello, Mike. Good morning, too. Hello, Michelle. I just wanted to look at your opinions on this Saturday's fight between Jake Paul and Anderson Silva

and the comments that Anderson Silver. apparently said that he said that he got knocked out in training but i think he meant to say that he got knocked down but his english is not the greatest and it's kind of create like a conspiracy that obviously might be fixed because he apparently said that well i don't believe that what he meant i think because his english is not the greatest thank you yeah i mean we can't touch on that earlier i i think it was just kind of there's just a miscommunication maybe a language barrier English has gotten I mean incredibly

just so much better over the years but I think he just kind of misspoke and then people ran with it and you know apparently that interview was done over a month ago and didn't get released till recently so I mean there's kind of a lot to it but I guess the commission's going to meet

about it today and hopefully he's good to go and we get this fight I don't know as far as the fight goes I'll have my prediction on in M.Afighting.com over the next couple of days. I literally have no idea how it's going to go. I literally have no idea how it's going to go.

But I'll look into it a little bit more. I just, the realist of me thinks that Jake Paul is going to win. But like the MMA purest in me just doesn't want to see Anderson's civil lose to Jake Paul. And I certainly don't want to see him get knocked out by Jake Paul. So I guess maybe I'll play Switzerland on this because what, it's eight rounds. We could go, we could have ourselves a little draw. You can have ourselves a little droskey. And I'm cool with that.

And I know Brett asked you earlier about Calvin Cater versus Arnold Allen. That fight is awesome. It's a fantastic fight. I know you don't want to hear me dump on the apex, but that fight should not be at the apex. There should be thousands and thousands of people on hand to watch that fight. It's a 50-50 fight. You can make compelling cases for both guys. I am leaning Calvin Cater for one specific reason.

and Arnold Allen's not wrong when he says that eventually the mileage on Calvin Cater is going to catch up with him. I just don't think it's going to catch up with him on Saturday. I think for Arnold to win, he's going to have to finish Calvin. I don't think Calvin's going to go out there in like 50, 45 him. But I think the five rounds is going to favor Calvin Cater.

I think he will last longer. I think he'll have more energy down the stretch. We saw Alan fade in the Sotomayor fight down the stretch a little bit. I just, this fight didn't come. It wasn't like these guys had like 15 weeks to prepare for the fight. They didn't have a ton of time to prep. Calvin's training every second of every day.

Dude's an animal. And I know Arnold wasn't sitting on his ass eating Cheetos. But this is what Calvin does. This is what he does. He fights five round main events. And he does it all the time. And he doesn't fade, doesn't get tired. Even when Max Holloway was beating him up, he kept coming.

and kept pushing forward and kept wanting to fight. To me, I think that's going to be the biggest difference. If this is a three-round fight, I would probably pick Arnold Allen to win. But I think these rounds are going to be close. I think Allen could take two of the first three, but I think down the stretch, Cal is going to win. I think he wins a decision.

We might be going to Splitty City, but to me, the big difference in the fight will be the extra 10 minutes. but I just have no idea. I mean, that's, to me, that's the way I view it. This is not Homer me, because I'm one of the dudes who picked Giga Chikazza to beat Calvin Cater, and Calvin heard exactly what I said and gave me a bunch of shit for it. So I would, I have no problem picking against anybody if asked, but I do think the extra two rounds are going to help Cal more than it will help Arnold Allen.

But I could be wrong. I could be wrong. Maybe Arnold is just on this wave, and he is just on the rise right now, and he's beating Cal at the right time. But I can't wait to watch it. That fight is awesome. That makes this entire card worth it. Let's go to AA.

Hello, AA. Good. You sure? After that beginning, mate? You sure you're good? I'm good. Listen, it could have been a lot worse. It could have been a lot worse.

Okay. I'm just messing with you. Okay, so first off, I've got a comment. I've got a quick and simple question for you. My comment, I read the Uriah Hall thing that just came out recently. And I just want to say that although it sucks to hear that someone went through that, I just think I really applaud him for having the guts to speak out publicly about something like that, you know, someone who has struggled all my life with stuff like that.

I think it was like really, really cool to see. And my question for you is Trace on Gaw's fighting this weekend and he's 0 and 2 in the UFC if he loses, do they cut him? All right, everyone, do your best to have the best day possible. All right, cheers. Thanks, man, yeah, your eye haul, man. That was something. That was something.

You could check out the scrum on our YouTube page. I think we wrote it up already on MAAfighting.com. Just here's the thing about your eye haul. And I've talked about it on the show before. He hates the media. But if you can get him talking, he is a super interesting guy. And I got the chance to interview him. I forget who he was fighting.

Or maybe it was just like a random fight. Or he didn't have a fight booked. And we had like a 45 minute chat. And he was into it. And he talked a lot about a lot of different things. This dude is, you can get him talking. He is a very fascinating and honest individual. And that was some pretty telling stuff, real powerful stuff.

So yeah, hopefully this new chapter is good for him. And hopefully he's getting a lot of money to box Levi-on-Bel and hopefully more paydays will be coming his way. That's for sure. Yeah. That's what I think. I'll be honest. I forget your other question.

It's been a day. You threw the your eye thing at me and I got lost. Let's go to the AM. Another person who was waiting yesterday. Let's get the AM in here. Hello, the AM. Hey, good morning, Mike. Good morning.

How are you? Good, how are you? Thank you. So my first thing would be about USC 280. I say a lot of people shooting on the car. They go to the premiums. I didn't deliver. Yes, the prelims didn't deliver.

But the main card was great. I don't know why they are trained to take the train from the mine card. fighters of I did great Islam did great I say he proved people who are he's wrong, he's just a hugger, he's just a, he does that.

He also struck the scariest guy in the division. He outfled him and he made him look like he didn't even prepare for this fight. That's about this card. Also, what do you think? A lot of people

keeps coming out and saying that the media is afraid of the UFC, the are afraid of the OBITAN access, just like aerial. Is this true? I'm asking you as a media guy, like, in all fairness, do you think this is true or people are just picking this up? And also Dana is always shitting on media and criticizing them whenever they speak up against, say something about the UFC. My last thing is the news about Colby and Hamza are being targeted for U.S.C. 285.

Do you think this is true, or do you think it's going to happen? Is it going to be five rounds? And why do everybody is asking to, when they are asked to fight against Hamza? Why do they keep asking for five rounds? Are they banking on his gas tank? Do you think they don't believe they can beat him in three rounds? And that's why they want him to tire the last. the later round and maybe

have a win against him. Thank you so much and have a good day. Thanks, Ed. So, yeah, we touched on the first question a little bit. Yeah, 280. Like I said, we'll go back and watch 280 a couple of years from now and we'll feel like it wasn't as bad as a lot of people

are making it out to be, and it wasn't a bad card. I mean, I watched it live. I had a lot of things going on, but I enjoyed myself and it went by very, very quickly. And maybe it was just the card, maybe it was just a combination. of things because you're doing the watch party, but yeah, it is what it is. The whole, God, the whole thing about the media not wanting to be credentialed by the UFC.

Again, this is Josh putting himself over and going into business for Josh Thompson. This is not about promoting his promotion. It's not about promoting the card. It's about promoting Josh Thompson. Watch my podcast, everybody. Here's my takes. Blah, blah, blah. It's all about him.

But that whole notion is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Now, have there been reporters banned from covering UFC events live? Yes. Josh Gross is one of them. Ariel for like a day or two was another one. There are others who are banned, but they kind of were unprofessional and deserved to be banned. So it's, it's, and not unprofessional as in like talking bad about the UFC, just

unprofessional in other ways. Like they have like certain guidelines that way you have to follow when you cover events. And if you don't follow those, then you're done. And the UFCPR are a great bunch of people

and they will give you chances. And if you keep screwing them over, they're just going to say you're done. So have they banned people? Yes. Is it because people talked bad about the UFC or covered Bellator? No.

No. I've covered. plenty of Bellator events since I got to many fighting. My man Nolan King has covered like 26 Bellator events since the pandemic started and he's covered like one UFC event. What are we talking

about here? That whole thing, like that whole argument is frigid stupid. I don't even know why anybody says that. It literally is dumb. Anyone who's banned deserved it. End of story. End of story. It's not easy to get credentialed

to UFC cards. But what makes Bellator a very good promotion is that they're willing to give people chances. And I'm sure there's people, Bellator is banned too for being unprofessional. Like it happens. But you coming on, you talking bad about the UFC is not going to get you banned. Are you going to cover a Bellator card isn't going to get you banned? Like, again, this is Josh going into business for himself. This is not Josh telling the truth.

It's Josh putting Josh over 100%. So yeah, that whole thing is just dumb. and it makes no sense. Let's go to Jero. We'll go to Tristan, we'll go to Viking, and then we'll go to Milo. Jero, hello. Hi, can you hear me?

Good morning, man. Thanks for having me on. I know a guy here earlier talked about Ngano Jones in Africa, and I think that's an amazing idea, but like you said, I don't know how advanced that is. So assuming that doesn't go ahead and happen in that timeline,

I would assume since 285 got announced or reported to be in Vegas for March, I assume that's the Angano Jones headliner and Chimai of Covington has a co-man and I just want to know your take on that. And one more thing, Jalen Turner, he cracked into the top lightweight rankings. What do you think is next to him? You think we'd give him Gamrod or Sarucan or someone like that? Thank you. Thanks, man.

So the March card. Yeah, March 4th is what it's what it's looking like. as we confirmed late last week, that's when the UFC is targeting the Bo-Nickel, Jamie Pickett fight, because Bo is out of the fight December 10th. Undisclosed injury, it's not a serious thing, but something that's going to keep them out of December.

So March 4th, I assume that's going to be in Las Vegas. And like I've been telling you for months now, Ngano Jones is the fight to make, and as we've been getting closer to it, the closer, like the longer we will, went with this whole thing, more made sense just to wait to do in Garner v. Jones. And that's a great main event for that card.

Everybody wants March. Ngano wants it. His team wants it. I've been telling you this for a while now. That's why I hated the steep ad. I hated it. Because you're right there. You waited three years for this guy.

Just wait three more months. And we get the fight we wanted in the first place. So what are we doing? What are we doing here? And then let me talk about the Shimae of Colby. I talked about this a little bit yesterday. To say that this fight is targeted is just wrong, it's wrong. Targeted to me, like there's different things.

Like when you look at headlines for fights, if it says sets or on tap, that's like we're in. This is happening. Everyone's in. Penn has gone to paper. The contracts are signed. The fights all but done. Like all we need is the fighters to actually walk in the cage.

fight. Targeted or in the works means that, at least to me, this is how we would report it. Like if you go to M.A. fighting and we have an article that says for blank versus blank in the works for UFC 282. That means that the promotion is targeting the fight that both fighters are in. We just haven't signed contracts. That's what that means. To say that this fight is targeted or in the works is just wrong because it's not. Is it being discussed? Yes. Are both fighters on board?

Have we gotten agreements from both sides? Not that I know of. But I do know what's being taught. I do know that we are the early, early, early stages of it being talked about. There's no word whether both fighters are in. It seems like Shemayev and his team are, that's what they want. No word on Colby yet. But I can tell you from the conversations I've been having that it is being talked about.

But that's it. No one, we don't have agreements in place. We don't have anything right now. We have nothing. But to me, that's the fight to make. And I don't think it's the five round thing. I don't think it's because, well, I'm like for Colby or anybody else. I don't think it's like, well, I have to fight this guy five rounds or I'm not fighting him.

I just think Hamsat's a massive star right now. And just billing him in a fight that says five rounds is just bigger. And if you're going to do Inganu Jones and then Homsat Colby, I mean, might as well do a five rounds, right? I mean, that's a hell of a co-main event. Might as well just put the five-round tag on it because that fight is interesting with five rounds. Colby's got to survive just that absolute tornado of destruction.

But if he can, he can get this extended. It's an interesting fight. So, yeah, I think if you're Colby, it's a fight. five-round fight. Colby thrives in those fights because he doesn't get tired, ever. No matter what you do to him, he doesn't get tired. We've seen Shamaev get tired against Gilbert,

but that was a totally different fight that we'd probably see against Colby, so I don't know, I just think there's more entreat that way. At least in my opinion, but yeah, to say that fight's anywhere near done is just wrong. It's the matcha, or the three ensemble kadocephora of the ftes that I just

energize Autans? It's the ensemble. The format standard and mini regrouped, what are in

the abelabend? And the embalage, too be pretty to do you. And I know I'm going

these offriars, but I love the summer Fridays and Rare Beauty by Salina Gomez.

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for a great for a great free. OnLing on C4 or a magazine.

All right, I'll get you in New York, New York, Rick, I promise. Justin, hello. Hey, Mike, how's everything? How are you doing? I'm good. From the last caller, I think the question that he asked is about Treshing Gore this Saturday, like if he loses, do the U.S.

he cut him? I think that was, yes. So that was that was that. In regards what you had to say about Kobe Covington, this is what I understand you guys were really passionate about. I think when I was listening on podcast network. about Bala Muhammad. Like now,

Bala, you're hearing this, they're starting to talk about Hamza and Kobe. Like, literally, Bala should be on the phone, like, yo, no, no, no, no,

I got to get in this. I need to crash the party. I got to do whatever I take can to get that Hamzaa Shamaa fight. You know, and this is why I understand. You guys were very upset that he didn't call him out by name

after his fight against Sean Brady. And I get it. I understand it. You know, It makes a lot of sense. Call out your fighters, man. Try to get that fight. Because if that fight happens between Kobe and Hamzat,

you're pretty much sitting on the sidelines. Are you going to sit and wait? That's the risk, because if Shemai of wins, most likely he'll be next up for a title shot. And if Kobe wins, he ain't giving you that look. Now, maybe you could get the loot. Maybe if Hamzat loses, then maybe you could get Hamzaa finally. But it's just, it's a big risk.

Or are you going to sit and wait? And then, oh, I'll just get the winner of Shopcompt Rockmane versus Jeff Neal happening on January 14th. Good luck with that. So, you know, he's got to crash that party, man, and somehow figure out, I don't know what he's got to do. Do gnats the scales. I don't know, like get into the UFC's headquarters meetings. No, no, no, no, you can't make this, you know, do whatever you got to do to get that arm draft right. You had your opportunity and you kind of blew it.

So, you know, blah. And, you know, also, too, I want to talk about the ranking show yesterday. You guys had a spirited debate between Shotom Shadi and you about where you rank Kobe Covington, Below. And I get it from both sides, you know, and Jed shined in as well. I get it from both sides. It's like, with Kobe, it hasn't fought very often, you know, only fought once a year. And besides the two Kamara Usman fights, the fighters that he fought kind of cherry-picked them, which is smart on his end because it's a business move.

You want to, you know, make sure you benefit yourself in picking your fights. But, you know, for once a year, a lot of the guys that you fought were on the way out anyway. So, but then I understand it from your point of, and I forgot, you didn't mention this in your argument. I thought you were going to say it was, you do know, realize Kamara Usman called Kobe Covington the second best weltsweight right now. Like, you have to get through him if you want to get to me. So that holds a lot of weight, you know, to say, Kumar Usman to say that. And those were very competitive. And like you said before, a lot of people felt Kobe won one of those two fights that they, you know, had.

So, you know, it was very spirited. I know, Shaheen was like, you know, in a disrespect on Bilal's name. But listen, you know, I get it. I get why you felt that way. And I get why he felt that way. I saw it from both sides. So just my, you know, just your whole explanation about that and everything would be good. to let everybody know what you were thinking at that moment.

So thanks, Mike. Have a heck of a morning. Thanks, man. So the debate we had was, and I was mostly, I meant what I said, but I also agreed to a certain extent with Sean, but I had to jump in and play devil's advocate. And the whole thing was we were talking about, like, who's squatting on rankings and stuff like that.

And Sean brought up Colby as, like, the biggest defender. And if you go through the resume, sure, there's merit to that. But he also fought in March and he also fought twice in four months. So it's not like this dude fought, fought, sat out a whole year, fought sat out a whole year, no.

He fought Kamar Usman in a really tough competitive fight. A fight some people thought he won. And then he came back because the UFC needed a main event and they called him and Mazal up. What's he going to do? Say no. Nah, I don't want that paycheck in a fight that I'm probably going to win.

that's going to have a lot of heat and probably do very well on pay-per-view. Nah, I'm not doing it. Of course he's going to do it. Of course he's going to do it. And by the way, before that second Usman fight, it wasn't just Kamarro that was saying these things. It was Dana White saying these things. Dana wanted that fight.

Said it was the greatest title fight of all time or one of the greatest title fights of all time. He wanted it. He's the one who got that fight going. It wasn't Colby. It was Dana. And Colby got his shot. And it did very well on pay-per-view.

And it drew a massive gate at a Madison Square Garden. And Colby almost won. So I was playing devil's advocate for sure. Now, we obviously understand what's happening with this whole alleged incident with Mazadol. So we don't know what's going on. So to say he's like squatting on a ranking, we literally have no clue what he's doing. It's just kind of unfair. It's just kind of unfair.

And I've been saying for a long time, I think Colby takes this fight with Hamza. Like if he is available to fight, and it's a big spot for him, I think he takes it. I think he takes it. I do agree with the Bilal thing. He needs to come out and be a little more aggressive on the mic.

He did a little better this time around. He was going to call Leon. He said, Leon, where are you at? And I was like, oh, what are you doing? But then he was like, nope, you turn. And then didn't say the name. We'll see what happens. But I think he's got options.

He's in a much better spot now because if he doesn't get this Homsat fight, Gilbert Burns is right there. And I like that fight too. So either way, I think he's going to be all right. Let's go to Viking, New York, Rick, Milo, chorizo. That's what we're doing. Viking, hello. Hello.

How are you, Mike? I'm good. What's going on? Nothing is Duwali and all this. of in India. You just have covered a technical part of Josh Thompson.

It was very good. I just want to I just want to tell people how gross is that man. I call him but skin disease because, you know, in his podcast, he spent more

time to scratch. He spends more time scratching his hand. his back, his chest, stomach. And he spends more time scratching his body parts. And then whenever he drinks his drink, every time he spits that ice in the cup back

at front of everyone, his audience. Then he just do that. I don't know how to say that in English, but that sort of thing and then swallow the fuck out of it and at front of his audience. Again, that man is having gross. And the other part is he always criticized UFC every time by saying, I watch PPC by using, I watch PPP by using, you know, illegal trips, illegal links.

And he said in the past that Nate Diaz, Nate Diaz helped UFC to make more than $800 million, and still UFC is trying to affirm that's not good. and then Josh Emmett was unhappy about that incident, that UFC did not let him sit at the front row or maybe two rows back from the front row. And even then he said that, you know, they always do same things with fighters

and gave some example of ex-fighters that UFC did that in the past with those fighters too. So that's George Thompson just criticizing UFC all the time and I was listening to that podcast and then John McArthur

said that you know the Japanese are going to cheat to get their fighter at W so that's one of the things then why they are going to the Japan in the first place

for the crossover I don't know happy Diwali, Mike. And one more thing about New York, Rick. New York, Rick, should join the Mike and the gang, because he's really good at his job, too. So please, New York, he is. Try to join.

Shoot, I didn't mean to do that. But thank you. Appreciate the kind words. Yes, New York, Rick should join us for everything. He's the man. And he's going to join us here in a moment. but listen you said everything you need to say now i don't watch the show it's not my cup of tea so i don't see the scratching and the backwashing and him spinning back out his drinks and stuff like

that i mean good on him but look like you can't have a show like that but be complete like i understand you are you are under contract and like bellator and the networks pay you and stuff but like You can't just be straight bias and then call yourself like a host of a show. Like it just doesn't work that way. And again, I'll say it again, for those who didn't listen to my rant earlier, I could have dropped a massive bomb on Josh Thompson, just ripped him to shreds. But I didn't. I just focused on this one video.

And again, this is Josh putting Josh over. That's it. This is him putting over Josh. That's why he posted that clip. Because he wanted a trend on Twitter. He wanted people to watch his show. That's what this was. This wasn't a, hey, media, promote this card.

It was, hey, media, pay attention to me. I'm Josh Thompson. How dare you not talk about me? That was the whole thing. So let's bring in the aforementioned New York Rick. Hello, New York, Rick. You're muted. Oh, no.

Jump back in, New York, Rick. I can't hear you. you. Let's go to Milo. Hello, Milo. Hey, Mike. I'd have a good morning, too. You too.

Yeah, some couple of takes, right? Like, maybe first one, I'll start with the matchmaking. I think in terms of the great question was posted by somebody in the audience about the Jalen Turner. I think with him being in the rankings right now in the top ten, he should probably fight the winner of Armand Sarupin versus Damiris Mouloff. right armand is uh i think one notch top and the mirror is uh one spot below so the winner of this fight is probably going to be ranked somewhere in a uh like a nine spot and so i think it

only makes sense that uh jalen turner fights the winner of uh tsarukin versus is magulov then in terms of uh calvin kater versus alan you know like a prediction there to beat kater right like you either need to outstrike him or you need to land a powerful punch as significant enough, like Josh Emmett did. And I don't think Alan, like on the paper, has

neither of those. Like for him, I just don't see a viable path to win and he's not a profound wrestler either. So it's just, in my opinion, Kelvin Kater is going to stop him somewhere in the fifth round. And

the final one is the question that I have for you, because I thought about the Bellator like comparing it maybe closer to Deno White Contender series type fight but lately I came to a conclusion that it's more like ultimate fighter level fights, right?

Very low level matchups and do you think that maybe Bellator fights should be maybe classified as an amateur fight or exhibition level fight? I know it doesn't exactly meet the definition of

of an exhibition fight, but I think in terms of how their matchups are scheduled with a low-level fighters and who barely have any fights, maybe it makes more sense to classify those as exhibition matches. Thanks.

All right, so the Jaylen Turner thing, I don't hate that idea. I'd like to see Jalen get a veteran, like RDA's fighting Brian Barberena December 3rd. If RDA wins, I would like to see that fight. Like somebody like RDA, that makes sense.

I think Jayonne Turner, let me just pull up his Instagram real quick. I want to say he just had surgery or something. I just want to like make sure I wasn't just making that up. Okay, what is this? Surgery went smooth. December 17th. I'll be watching close. Yeah, he had surgery.

Looks like maybe a shoulder. I don't know exactly what it is. but, so I don't know how long he's going to be out for. I mean, if he's saying he's watching December 17th very closely,

then, you know, like, I, I would like to see him fight a veteran. Like, I,

like, honestly, like, this would never happen. This is not going to happen. But what I would like to see is him fight the loser of Chandler Porier.

Like, that would make perfect sense because we have to move this along here. We have these poor guy, like, I mean, we get him, Fizziv,

Sarukyan, Isma Gulov, guys like that, they're just sitting there and like can't get big names. It's just tough. Like we gotta move these vets along a little bit. Like I would do Fiziv Gaci,

I love that idea. And then if you want to do Turner versus the loser of Pori Chandler, like I'm in for that too. Like I don't know how realistic that is, but that's what I would do. We got to move this along.

Like where in the hell is Greg or Gillespie? That's what I want to know. Like what the hell is, is he doing? Turner Gillespie would be fun. Like there's fun matchups that are there, just getting these guys in the cage of them. It's just not easy to do.

But I like that idea. Real quick, New York, Rick, before we get to you, the Bellator thing I just don't agree with. Like, there are some good cards for Bellator. I thought the Long Beach card was great. And oftentimes when Bellator has cards the same weekend as the UFC, we always play the which one would you rather watch game.

And more oftentimes than not in 2020, if it's a Bellator event versus UFC fight night, Bellator is won. Belator has the better cards on paper. Now, do they always deliver? Not necessarily. The problem is just a lot of people don't know about it. Like this Milan card is not good. It's just not good.

Let's be real. It's not good. The November card is good. The December card is good. This Ryzen thing is good. This card is not good. This Milan card. Like, I'm sorry.

It's just not a good card. But they have had some bangers and they got some coming up. So I'm not willing to go the exhibition or the amateur route with them just yet. They need to do a better job with the promotion and letting people know that these fights are actually happening. But they have a pretty decent product. Just nobody knows about it. And that's the problem. All right, New York, Rick, you're in.

Hello, buddy. Heck of a morning, Mike. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing well. There's two things on my mind. Oh, first of all, let me say,

shout out to Viking for saying I should be on more things because I agree. I should be on more things. Now, two things weighing on me this morning, Mike. The first is I'm wondering and don't quite understand the fan investment in rankings. You're going to have to maybe help me out because I think it boils down to this tribalism thing. You know, my fighter is better than your fighter, but I can't quite understand it from the perspective that this is, isn't boxing and there's not mandatories and ultimately the rankings are kind of some kind of

outlined but the UFC as we'll see when they put henry sahudo in a fight against al jamein sterling it doesn't really matter that sean o'malley is number one um so i don't really see the purpose of them i don't really understand why fans get so invested in them i understand why the fighters might be invested in them because it's a potential path to more money um and i understand why josh thompson voice the media might be invested in them because it generates interest but as a fan why should i personally care about the rankings that's that's i'm having trouble coming to grips with that number two um when not if when anderson sylva uh finishes jake paul this weekend i'm wondering is the jake paul experiment over in your mind do you feel like the stock will take such a hit

um that people won't be invested in jake paul anymore can they heat it back up for an has fight or has the this version of jake paul being a pro boxer gone by the wayside and maybe he pivots over to exhibition fights against kSI and some of these other influencers um but never really gets it back up to the same level thank you mike great questions i mean we talk about the ufc rankings all the time no one cares they make no sense i don't even know why they're there i mean just look at who just look at the list of people who are are a part of it. Like half of those websites don't even exist anymore.

Like, they're not real. And my man, Eric Kooff from Miami News, kind of opened up the blueprint on how some of these are done. And basically it's the UFC being like, hey, this is how I want you to vote if this happens and if this happens and if this happens. And they do. The rankings don't mean shit in the UFC, which is why my man AK is in pushing for M.A.

fighting rankings for a long time since I've been there and we finally have them. This is like the way to do it. It's global rankings. It's the only rankings that matter for looking at the sport as a sport. But as far as the UFC rankings go, they don't mean shit. They don't mean shit. And I can guarantee you that no matter what happens, just to put this out there, maybe not guarantee, maybe guarantees a strong word.

But I feel very confident that no, no, no, matter what happens at UFC 281 between Israel Adasania and Alex Pereira that before if they booked this fight between Machachev and Volcanovsky Machachev will be the number two guy

so that they can promote it as who is the best fighter in the world pound for pound that is exactly what they're going to do even though like even if Izzy goes out there beats Alex Pereira that's how they're going to present this fight they're going to give they're going to bump

Mokachev up a spot. It's going to happen. We've seen it a million times. The rankings of the UFC don't mean anything. It's just a number. It's just to make the graphics shine a little bit. So don't, like, if you don't want to see a certain fight because of rankings, like, you've got to stop that. We say it all the time. Strike the word deserves from your vocabulary. Now, there are certain cases where I just don't agree with things. Case in point, the Henry Sohudo fight. I just don't think he should get the fight. It's not because of merits. It's not because his resume isn't great. It's he's unreliable. He's unreliable. And you are taking a massive risk putting this guy in a title fight because if he wins, he might just say, thanks for the cheese, I'm out again. Or he might

just say, I ain't defended this title until I fight Volcanowski. And then what are we doing? Like, that's my issue with the whole thing. When you have Sean O'Malley right there and who knows how many more opportunities you're going to get. Strike while the iron's hot, baby. Let's see if Sehudo's really serious. And this is, again, why rankings don't matter. A lot of people didn't like Sean O'Malley being the number one guy. I mean, what are we doing here?

What are we doing here? Hold on, Trito. The last thing, the Jake Paul thing, I don't think it kills it. It definitely takes a hit. If they could do him versus Nate, it's still going to be massive. It's still going to do big numbers. Probably a fight Jake will win.

So it gets him back on track over a big name. But I don't know. It'll take a hit, but I don't think it kills the experiment altogether. I don't. Unfortunately, he's here to stay. Unless, I mean, if Silva just comes out bolts him in the first 30 seconds with the first punch he throws, maybe that's a different story. But I don't know.

I have a feeling we're going to a draw off, New York, Rick. I'm Switzerland, baby. We're going to a draw. All right, you're up. Sorry. Is it me? What's up, Mike? You're up. How you doing? Good. I got two things. Real quick. I'm not doubting Islam, but I really do think that he should fight someone in his weight class

defend the belt once before he fights Volcanowski. I know that feels like I'm hating on him and doubting him, but I think it would prove to a lot of people that he deserved the belt in that he's the most dominant fighter. And then second, who you got this weekend, Jake Paul or Anderson Silva. That's it, my thanks, man. Got you.

As I said, it's going to be a draw. It's eight rounds. That's where we're going to get. Because that's how the world works. And I'm okay with that because I don't want to see, I have this fear that Jake, she's going to knock out Anderson, and I just don't want to see that.

So if I have to sacrifice an Anderson win so he doesn't get knocked out, for nobody losing, I'm okay with that. The Volcanowski take, I mean, I get where you're coming from, but I also don't agree with it in a certain way, because who has emerged? That's the question. And Volcanowski said it best.

I'm not holding up the division. The division is holding up the division. Because no one has emerged. No one has emerged. The Ayer Rodriguez got the win over Brian Ortega. It was unfortunate, but he was also coming off of the lost of Max Holloway. You can make a case, but you don't want to sit, like, you don't, you don't want to be in a discussion where it's like you can make the case for this guy.

Like, Volcanowski for two years has been saying this. I just want someone to, like, come through the smoke and be the guy. And no one has done it. No one has done it. The only guy who's done it is Max Holloway. Max has done it and Volcanowski beat him twice. Max beat Calvin Cater. I mean, that was just as one-sided of a vicious beating as you can get.

Incredible performance. And he still took the fight with Yairair and got it. Like he was the dude. But no one, there's nobody right now. Yair, you can make a case. Josh Emmett, most people felt he lost to Calvin Cater. So no one is clamoring for Josh Emmett to fight for. for the title right now.

Arnold Allen can make a case. If he beats Calvin Cater, he finishes Cal, he's in the mix for sure, but I still don't think he's the guy unless he beats Yair or Emmett. He just has nobody, no one has emerged. So if Volk's going to do it,

and think about it this way. If Volk's going to do it, do it now, because look what's coming for him. Let's just say he loses and he comes back. He's got potentially Yairierre, maybe Josh Emmett, maybe Arnold Allen, and then we got Bryce Mitchell, Mavzar of Loiav,

Seneke Yusuf, Ilya, guys like that, on the way up. So he's going to get what he wants. It's just not there yet. Eventually it's going to happen. He's going to have all these killers on the way up.

But he has no one, this is just a weird division where nobody has emerged. We don't really have that anywhere else. Like, Flyway, it's weird because we're still, And listen, if you want to do Moreno Figurado a thousand times, I ain't going to hate it. If you want to do like,

if you were just going to add a second title outside of that, if you just want to create a Moreno Figurado belt, cool. And then Crown of Flyway champion, I'm in. Bannamweight, we have guys. Like, Sean O'Malley, you could do that fight. No one's going to argue with it. If you did Cheeto, no one's going to argue with it.

Even Ceuto. That makes the least amount of sense to me. From a competitive standpoint, it's a great fight, 100%. And then lightweight, you got B'Neil, but Volk's the bigger fight. Walterweight, we know what we're doing here because we got Leon and Camaro. Middleweight's interesting. We have a title fight. Light heavyweight, we have a title fight.

Heavyweight, hopefully we have a title fight sooner rather than later. And then like the women's divisions are interesting because maybe we get Chichchenko going up to 35. inviting Nunes, Straway, we have a title fight. So, like, it's, Volk just doesn't have, there's just not a, like, he could fight dudes.

Like, you can just throw Emmett in there, throw Yaira in there, but, like, no one has emerged. That's the problem. Soon they will. And it's got to be super fun when that happens.

Let's take a few more. I'll take these last three and I have to go. Yeah, yeah, hello. What's so, big, Mike, man. Happy Thursday. bro. What's going on? Question.

So, you know, UFC 280, we saw, I think, our first display of what Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu versus Dagestan wrestling looks like. Do you think right now that Dagestani wrestling is superior to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu based on, like, what you've seen? I know they're up 1-0 right now, but what do you think that looks like, moving forward? Appreciate you, Mike. Thanks, Ben. I mean, it's tough to say.

It's all. it's all matchups and styles. Like there's different levels and there's different, like, like, Jiu-Jitsu could transition to fights in different ways against certain opponents. But I mean, it's, the wrestling in what we've seen over the last couple of years,

not just from, from Makachaf, but we've seen it a lot from, I mean, like we see it with Bryce Mitchell. We've see it with Colby and his ability to chain takedowns together. And there's other examples of that as well. And to me, and we've talked about it on the show before, I feel like,

whether it's against jujitsu or striking or other wrestlers, the dudes are the gas tanks that just keep shooting takedowns and just won't give up on them and get them. I mean, that's just, it's just a tough night at the office, man, against anybody, against anybody. And I feel like the Charles one's a little unfair because I think he got a little overrated in a lot of ways when it came to the jujitsu, like especially off his back. Everyone was like, oh, man, Charles off his back's going to be super interesting. Well, yet there's plenty of evidence to negate that. There's plenty of evidence telling us that he's not great off his back.

He's good in scrambles. He's good when the chaos goes. But when he's on his back and you get a dude on top of you who can deliver punishment, it doesn't really go well for him. It just was a bad stylistic matchup. Like I picked Olivera, but again, it was a vibes pick. It was just like, it was the Rick Flair scenario. until I see this dude lose,

I'm not picking against him anymore. And I saw him lose. Mokachev's the real deal. But as I said many times heading into the fight, that fight on paper just screamed Mokachev was going to win. But a lot of fights Olivera had screamed that Oliver was going to lose. And he somehow found his way to victory. And this run is just, it didn't make sense.

Like it just didn't make sense. It defied logic. it defied logic so I don't know like it would probably have to defend on certain matchups certain skill sets who they are

to really dive in a little deeper but yeah it was definitely a win for dagestani wrestling that's for sure but wrestling you know early on when mb may start to get popular it was like wrestling's the best base

but it's not just wrestling it's just the offensive juggered out of it all it's now they're adding layers to it where you have guys who never get tired just continuously shooting on you. It's just so frustrating.

Like you see the frustration in these fighters' eyes where you feel like you've defended a takedown, then you feel like you defended two or three or four or five, and you're like, all right, this is the fifth and one in a row I've defended. And then he shoots for the six and gets it. Like, that's so frustrating. God, that's that frustrating.

Let's go to Chiji Oak, and then we'll go to Vizdu before we get out of here. Hello, sir. You got to unmute. Yo, what's going on, chat? How you doing, man? Doing all right. What's up, New York, Rick?

What's up, Alex? Love you. What's up, Mike? How you doing? Doing all right. So my first question, my only question is Dana White's always talking about that, you know, the fans make the rankings or the media makes the rankings.

Who actually makes the rankings? So if you go to, let me see if I can pull it up right now. So I'm pulling up the rankings. Do they actually tell us? who it is. I saw a screenshot of who it actually is. Oh, there we go. How are rankings determined? Rankings are

generated by a voting panel made up of media members. Media members are asked to vote for who they feel are the top fighters in the UFC by weight class and pound for pound. Fighters only eligible to be voted on if they are an active status in the UFC. A fighter could appear in more than one weight division at a time. The champ and

interim champion are considered to be in the top positions of their respective divisions and therefore are not eligible for voting by weight class. However, the champions can be voted on for pound for pound rankings. So they have, they list them. They list who they are. KHON and Honolulu, M.M.A. Oddsbreaker.

There's some radio stations. There's websites that don't exist anymore. There's media members who I don't even think have covered MMA in the last few years that are in the list. Like, it's just a very strange, it's a very strange layout. It's a very strange layout. And the Bellator rankings are the same way. It's just there's a group of media members who were asked to do it.

They do it. They determine the rankings. That's what it is. That's why they don't matter most of the time. And like I said, if you go back, if you Google like UFC rankings and my MMA news, like Eric Kowel was on the rankings panel for a while, ended up like leaving it because the UFC is basically telling them how to vote. If this happens, we won't.

want you to vote this way. And you put out screenshots and lots of stuff proving that. But yeah, that's how they're determined. It's there is a rank there is like a fan rankings panel. So you can go on like and rank them yourself and get out like your own specific rankings on the website if you want to do it that way. And maybe they look into those. I don't know.

But that's how their rankings are done is those people. those sites some exist some don't um like a lot of these i've never even heard of so yeah it's like i said they don't matter our rankings matter if we're looking for meritocracy but the fc don't go by those rankings unless they have to and you'll see them shift i'm telling you if no matter what i'm telling you by the time mokachev and vulcanovsky fight when and if that happens. Mokachev's going to be the number two guy. And they're going to bill it as number one versus number two pound for pound fire. It's exactly they're going to do it. All right, Vizdu, hello.

What's so, Mike? You can hear me? Yes, sir. All right, bro. So, man, there's been a sad week for me, because of all the barrel loss. Man, it was sad. I've been sad this week. Listening to everybody talk about Machachek winning and stuff, it's been sad. But on the. the bright side. I'm going to my first UFC event, the Orlando one, on December 3rd. And I wanted I wanted your opinion on how

on how, like your rate of the whole event. What you're rated from a scale 1 to 10. How good do you think is going to be? You know? Yeah, I'll be all right. Thank you. Where are you sitting? You got good seats? Man, I'm sitting on the top. I got some cheap seats, some cheap seats honestly. It was my first one and The ones down there were too expensive. You know, I got some on the top.

Like, I don't know what I wrote, but it's on the top. It's not that, that, that, no way. But I want to hear, like, your rate on the whole event. Cool, man. Well, enjoy that. Hopefully, I'll get the hot tag from the fine folks at inmate fighting to go out there because I could drive to Orlando in, like, three and a half, four hours. And my parents just happen to have a house, like, 45 minutes outside.

of Orlando. I don't mind driving. So let's pull the card up. Let's see what we got. Stephen Thompson, Kevin Hall, Bangor. Tai Tzu Ivasa, Sergey Pavlich. Bangor. Mateus Nicolaauchnell.

Bangor. Eric Anders, Kyle Docchus. Interesting. Derek Brunson, Jack Hermanson. Good fight. RDA, Brian Barbarina. Good fight. Tracy Cortez, Amanda Hebas.

Great fight. Then we got Francis Marshall, Marcello Rojo. That should be fun. Natan Levy, Gennaro Valdez, Michael Johnson, Marche Casey, Clay Guida, Scott Holtzman. That's going to be insane. Big one at 115, Angela Hill, Emily Decode.

Love that fight. Darren Elkins, JSP, that fight rules. Yasmin Yerigee is back against Estella Nunes. Of course, Yasmin had that great performance at UFC San Diego. And then flying way under the radar is the return of Nico Price. Fighting Phil Roe. So this is, the card's great. This is a quality fight night card.

This is a quality fight night card. Good main event, good co-main events, good other battles sprinkled in. And you know what's the best thing about this is that it's happening in front of a freaking crowd and it's not at the apex. Like this card, let me pull up a, so that's that card and let's pull up Saturday's card. Calvin Cater armed out. That fight's frigging awesome. Tim Means Max Griffin should be fun. Waldo Cortez Acosta versus Jared Vandera.

Mind you, Jared Vandera's four straight losses. Trayshon Gore versus Josh Friend. Probably a Josh Friend coming out party. Dustin Jacoby, Colleen, Clio Roundtree is a great fight. Roman DeLides, Phil Haas. Good fight. We got Andrea Olavski getting back in there against Marcos Ruggiero de Lima,

Joseph Holmes, John Young Park, Chase Hooper, Steve Garcia. Cody Dirted against Carlos Mota, Josh Weems, Christian Rodriguez. I mean, come on. Let's compare these two cards. Which one are you watching? You're watching Orlando. Orlando's a great card.

This card is fine. But the main event's... The main event is completely carrying it. There's no doubt about it. All right. It is 11.30. I got to go. We do a BTL at 1 p.m. Eastern.

Now, I guess we're going to have some breaking news in regards to, hold on one second. Okay. We have breaking news. Jed Bishu is now the Kevin Holland of BTL because he is officially coming out of retirement for BTL. We had this like great plan in place where me and Jed were just shooting the breeze and we were like, he's like, I'll step in, but he was going to pretend to be. be his long-lost French cousin Ted Michoud, and Michoud was spelled in a whole different way. And he was going to do a disguise and a costume and stuff and just try to do a French accent for the entire show.

But not the case. He could not get the appropriate costume. So Jed has let us know it'll definitely be him. He's coming out of retirement for his Islam Makachev's victory lap. So Jedmishu versus Drake Riggs, the battle commences. So 1 p.m. Eastern, we'll do that. And then the next couple of days, you're just going to be insanity.

With UFC Wayans tomorrow, we got Jake Paul Anderson Silva Wayans tomorrow. We got preview show. We'll do that live 3 p.m. Eastern for the UFC card. Sean, Jose, Casey, they're going to have an Anderson Silva, Jake Paul preview show, which they're going to shoot in Glendale. And then all your fun shows, pre-fight show, the Q&A, right before the UFC begins.

We're going to do a second pre-fight Q&A for the Anderson Silva-Jake Paul fight card and then post-fight shows and all that fun stuff. So strap up. It's going to be a very busy couple of days. But we are back here tomorrow as well. 10 a.m. Eastern, we'll do one more time.

So thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of your day. We'll see at 1 p.m. Eastern for BTL. Have a great rest of your Thursday. And as always, have a heck of a morning, everybody.