MMA Fighting - HOAM | Colby Covington's Place In Title Discussion, Jon Jones' Return, UFC Re-Releases Media Hit Piece

Episode Date: August 26, 2022

While there are many options for new welterweight champion Leon Edwards for his first title defense, could Colby Covington be a realistic option as Chael Sonnen suggested recently? On an all-new Free-For-All Friday edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck gives his thoughts on the suggestion Covington should be the first challenger for Edwards, and where he stands in that conversation. In addition, listener questions include the heavyweight picture and who Jon Jones will end up fighting when he returns to action, the bantamweight title picture, favorite fights of all-time, the UFC re-releasing their media hit piece video that they dropped during the pandemic, Khamzat Chimaev's options if he beats Nate Diaz, the UFC 279 lineup as a whole, and 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're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. It's Friday, August 26th, 2020, and it is indeed a heck of a morning live on the MMA fighting Twitter spaces. You'll hear the show in its entirety shortly thereafter on the MAA Fighting Podcasting Network. So if you're listening after the fact, we appreciate that. And those who are joining us live, you're the best. I mean, the podcast listeners are the best, too, but you guys get a little carte blanche here because you're joining us right in the middle of things.

So I am Mike Tech. Hope everyone's having a great week. It's Friday. And on this program, that means we put our hats on. We lay back. We shoot the breeze. And it's officially a free-for-all Friday, which means we can talk about whatever you want.

We can talk about M.M.A. We can talk about not MMA. It doesn't matter. We can talk about whatever the hell you want to talk about. If you have just questions for me in general, cool, let's get after this thing. and let's have some fun. There's a lot going on in and out of MMA.

So let's talk about it. Trista was the first one in line. So we'll start with Mr. Gordet. Tristan, how are you? How are you doing, Mike? How's everything? How's how you've been doing your Friday? So far, so good, man.

That's good. I wanted to ask you these two quick questions. I saw a tweet from Jeff Neal, and he's calling out, because if Gilbert is, chasing Kobe Covington to fight. He said then, I think, I mean, I think he asked, I mean, not Kobe Coventon, I'm sorry, Gilbert is chasing Jorge Mousbado.

Then Jeff Neal said that he wants to fight Kobe Coventon and see if he's interested when we fight. If that fight happens, we don't know. But what do you think about that matchup, Jeff Neal versus Kobe Covington? I think it's a very intriguing fight, especially the fact that, you know, Jeff, Jeff Neal fights out of Fortecent M. with his coach, Seyahue, I think he's a really good coach. And I think they would, you know, strategically try to put a plan together for that matchup.

Just the way, also too, the way how Jeff Neal looked against a Vicente Lucre. So what do you think about that matchup? And then my second question is, what do you think about, because this makes a whole lot of sense, if Shopcombe Rockmana fights Michelle Piero, January 23rd in Brazil on that card, that makes a lot of sense to me. I don't see why either one would turn that. down that matchup, if Pieter wins, he moves up in the rankings. And then Rachmanov, even though he's fighting down, he wanted that fight after a previous

fight that he had because he wanted to show that, hey, I could shut that style down if we ever fought. So what do you think about those two matchup if they were ever to be made? Just to like to want to hear your thoughts about that, Mike. Thanks a lot. Thanks, man. So I'll address the Jeff Deal Colby thing. Like, good for Jeff Deal.

shoot your shot on Twitter. I have no issue with that. If he had called Colby out after he'd be Vescenti Lucke, I wouldn't have been overly thrilled with that. I wouldn't have thought that was a good call. I actually loved the Gilbert Burns call out. I think that makes, I think that fight makes perfect sense.

Gilbert's kind of in an interesting spot right now because Gilbert's a pretty active dude, and he likes to fight as much as possible. So if he wants to fight before, the end of the year. I actually think the Jeff Hill fight makes perfect sense because there's a story there. Jeff just finished his friend and teammate Vicente Lucke. I think that fight makes perfect sense. Completely perfect sense. On the flip side, the Colby fight, it would be an interesting matchup. I would favor Colby to win. It would be a very similar fight than a lot of Colby's fights.

I just think that gas tank, his pressure, I just think he would take Jeff Neal down over and over again and frustrate him and tire him out. And I think Jeff Dio looked better than he's ever looked against Spacetei Lucke. I just don't, I just don't like, like his chances in that fight. I get what he's trying to do,

and that's probably what he should do at this point with the social media callout game, but one, I just don't think that fight happens anytime soon. And two, I think Colby wins that fight. That's a 30, 27 more than likely. But who knows?

Jeff Diel could catch him whatever. Colby's just so durable. And that gas tank, the way he chains takedowns together, it's just, it's just hard for anybody. Colby's just that good. I don't think people look at his personality and don't really equate it. And they equate it to the fight skills and it kind of diminishes what Colby brings to the table. But I think that's a favorable match for Colby. And if I'm Michelle Pahanna, I am not going near Shafka-Rok-Bagh right now.

like I'm going I'm trying to get a wonder boy fight maybe Kevin Holland fight something of that nature shopcott's a nightmare matchup for a lot of guys at 170 I I don't see that fight going well from michel pehara and I think michel pehalla i think both those guys are in spots right now perjana especially like he's won five in a row the guy deserves a step up in competition he deserves probably a top 10 guy and shopcott might fit that role in a number of ways, but I feel like they're in similar spots right now, and I feel like both guys deserve a veteran name, something a little bigger to get both of them over.

Because Pereira, I think he's starting to get people on board, throw him in there with the Wonderboy. That's just a fun fight. Like, I know a lot of people want to see Kevin Holland fight Wonderboy, but if Kevin's going to fight in two weeks, which that fight's still not done yet, by the way, with Daniel Rodriguez. Maybe you can turn a Moradi

can fight Wonderboy at MSG or something like that. But, I mean, Wonderboy Pereira is such a good fight. That's the what I want. But we will see what happens. We will see what happens in this welterweight division. I don't know who the hell Colby's going to fight. But at this point, I would guess if Hamzat does what most people expect him to do,

if Hamzot just wants to fight Colby and stay focused on 170, I think that fight makes perfect sense for both guys. And maybe Shafkat will, not Shafkot, Hamzat will just go up to 185 and fight out of Sadi if he beats Alex Pereira. But we'll see what happens. There's a lot of questions that are unanswered right now when you see how things sort of play out.

But I like Shafkat and Colby in those fights respectively. Let's go to One Toro. Hello. It was going on, Mike. Can you hear me? I do. hear me? Yes, sir. Yep. Yeah, so my question was, my question is, would the UFC or MMA overall be better with sanction

belts? And I want to hear your thoughts. Well, my reasoning is with sanction belts being more to fighters, because with holding the UFC belt, you're only technically the best in that company. And I understand that the UFC has the best of the best competition. and I feel as if sinks and belts will mean more to fighters. And I wanted to point out that in boxing, there are sanction belts and have multiple sanctioned belts. And now that Ushman has lost, people like Jorge and Kobe who have clearly lost to Uzman,

now get to have another chance, but in boxing you only have one opportunity. Yeah. So I just want to hear your thoughts with sanction belts because when you have one opportunity, it just means more. thanks man yeah i guess it kind of depends like the boxing model there's there's sanctioned belts but there's like seven thousand of them and you can just create them you can create like the wBA north america title you can create the wba new england title you can create all these different belts and as long as they kept it interesting and don't oversaturate it it'd be cool like the biggest advantage obviously would be getting some of these cross

promotional matchups that we would want to see. Like if you wanted to see Leon Edwards fight Roberto Soldeach, then we could get it. And that would be cool. And that would be awesome. If we want to see Vicente Lucque fight Roberto Soled each, that'd be amazing. We'd get all these cool little crossover fights. I don't know, man.

Like, I feel like in a lot of ways, because, I mean, it would still be a sort of similar model because of the promoters and stuff. And Dana would still be the guy. And I feel like we'd still see a lot of the bigger match. matchups. There's a lot that needs to go into this from a production standpoint. Who would host these? How would that all work? So there's other questions behind the scenes just outside of matchup on matchup with titles and stuff like on how that would work effectively for all the fighters. And who knows like how many events there's going to be? There's a lot going into it.

But if we're just going to have fun with this and just do sanctioned belts for the the big motive of just getting the best to bite the best regardless of promotion, yeah, I think we'd be pretty cool. It'd be pretty cool. Some of these matches we talk about all the time. We were talking about A.J. McKee, Max Holloway for a couple of years. We were talking A.J. McKee, Volcanovsky before he lost to people. Those would be cool. Those would be fun. And that, if we're just going to have fun with it, cool, but

I don't know how it would all work with sanctioned belts. Because it's not just sanctioned belts, you have to change, the whole product changes across the board. Who's going to house them? Who's going to promote them? How is it all going to work? Is this going to be multiple production? promotions are we going to have fighters running their own promotions because you know that would be something they would want to do with guys with the money like mcgregor at diaz and such and such it says it could be a potential nightmare in a lot of ways but if we're just having fun sure sanctioned belts would be would be really cool let's go to don don hello i had good morning

with all that jazz you already know too sweet big um color good things good i had uh two questions for little small junks. You know, I got to ask my wrestling questions on Freestyle Friday. But so the wrestling question is, I heard you say that you watch every WrestleMania. You don't care what the product of WWE is at that time.

You just watch it. So what's your favorite restaurant mania? When I say favorite, I don't mean moment. I mean like your favorite restaurant mania like all the way through. Like all the matches was banger. The promos was banger. Everything was just a spectacle.

It did what it was supposed to do. And I'd cop out to the camera. say the first WrestleMania or any other rest of the rest of the main is that really had, I don't want to say that second part, but you just can't say the first WrestleMania. And then my second question is, I've seen that Rosenstrike and Dawkins are fighting,

and I remember you had said that you wanted Rosenstrike and Doug Lewis to bang it out. How do you see this fight going? I don't see it going any different there. How Dawkins went against Lewis going against Rosenstrike, but that's just my opinion. But, yeah, man, have a good morning, too sweet day,

all that jazz, man. Keep doing what you're doing, because you're doing it well. Peace. Thanks, man. Dawkins Rosenstrike will be fun. I think it's a good batch of both guys. They're just going to stand in there

and just to somebody falls. And I like that. I think that's fun for both guys. I favor Rosenstrike just because Dawkins has been brutally knocked out in his last couple of fights, like real bad. So I would favor Rosenstrike.

But I think if we're talking about the mixing of the martial arts, I think Docus is probably the better fighter. overall. Like if Dawkins decides to take this fight to the ground, which would probably be smart on his end, he'll probably submit Jarzino pretty quickly because Jarzino is not great on the ground. But if this is a purely stand-up battle, I think Jarzino can crack. The other question, this is simple for me. Actually, there's two. There's two. WrestleMania 17 is the best WrestleMania of all time, in my opinion. That's the one where I hated the ending of it because the stupid he, turn from Steve Austin, but the rest of it was amazing. It was, it was unbelievable because you had, you just had great stuff on, on that card throughout, throughout.

Like, Shane McMahon and Vince was cool. You had the Edg. Christian, Dudley's Hardy Boys, table ladders and chairs match, which is ridiculous. Taker, Triple H is great. And then Austin Rock was amazing until the end. So that to me is, one, I'll go back and watch many times, because I think it's just the most complete WrestleMania ever.

But the one that really sticks out to me is 14 because I was there. I was in Boston when Steve Austin won the title for the first time against Sean Michaels and Mike Tyson was there and Kane Undertakerrest for the first time. The Rock and Ken Shamrock did the damn thing. I was there and it was cool as hell.

Only WrestleMania I've ever been to, but I was there. I was way up in the noseblee. if you will. But I got super lucky going to that event because WWF at the time hosted a house show in Worcester Mass. I think it was in January or December before WrestleMania happened. And it was a brutal snowstorm that day.

And my aunt and uncle at the time, and my cousins lived in a little town called Shrewsbury, which is probably like half an hour from Worcester. So we didn't care. They didn't cancel the show. we just drove out in the blizzard and went to the event. And for those who went to the event, they gave you vouchers that when they do a pre-sale,

you get first crack of tickets. And lucky enough, we were there. And there was maybe only like 200 people there. So when the pre-sale came out, we got tickets. And when the rest of them went on sale to the public, it sold out in 90 seconds. So we were so lucky to go to that. And it was just awesome to be at a WrestleMania.

I would like to go to another one. with, you know, in the stadiums and stuff, but that was, that was pretty badass. As a 15-year-old kid going to WrestleMania, it was awesome. All right, let's go to James. Hello, James. Hi, Mike. What's up, buddy?

Hey, I just got to say BTL yesterday was one of the best you guys I've ever put on. Like if Jed and, I forget the other gentleman's name, but if they just want to hash it out two hours every single day, I don't think anyone will complain about that. But with us having an off week here for the UFC, I know one of my favorite things to do is always go on fight pass and kind of go through my favorites list

and kind of watch an old fight that I haven't watched in a long time. And when we have those conversations with our buddies about the greatest fights of all time, I always feel like Korean zombie and Dustin Porrier and the Josh Thompson and Gilbert Belinda's trilogy always kind of gets forgotten about. I kind of wonder what fights do you love that are close to your heart

that you don't feel like I get talked about nearly enough. And I kind of want to ask you a fun question that might be hard for you to answer, but since your time at MMA fighting, what brings more joy to your life hearing Mr. 3024 E.K. C. Leiden to his impersonation of the iconic voice of Esther Lynn

or a jem-a-shoe anytime mhmatfiting.com gets brought up he always adds to the greatest website in the world like always mike man thank you for what you do have a heck of a morning and a heck of a weekend thanks buddy thanks man so the first question my favorite fight of all time is robbie lala carlos conde i love that fight i think that's a bet i know a lot of people when they think of robbie lala they think of the roy or macdonald fight and if you actually like go back and watch both fights back to back, the Condit fight is better. It's just way better from start to finish. Now, there are certainly moments, like, things picked up midway through the fight, and we had the big stare down. Both guys just beat the hell out of each other, and Robbie's got, like, a hole in his face,

and Roy's just busted up, and they had that iconic stare down heading into the final round, then Robbie puts him away. And, like, that was a cool, I mean, it was a cool-ass fight. And I think what made that fight so special, than anything was just the atmosphere. Robbie's talked about it before I asked him which fight meant more to him. And he says it's the Rory fight because it was the co-main event to a Connor McGregor fight

and the Irish route and everybody like that arena was on fire. And I think sometimes arenas and crowds could just kill events at certain points. Like there are certain events where you go to a town and like they just boo everything. And you didn't get that here. You just had people who were hyped, start to finish. They were super hyped for that fight. They were obviously super hyped because they were knocking on the door of Connor. It was a great fight.

But to me, one of the best fights, it's just so good. Robbie Law, Carlos Condit is awesome. The technique, everything about it is just a war. And then the fifth round where Robbie really woke up. It's just amazing. And it's one of the biggest what-if fights ever, in my opinion, because Carl's Condit never got to be the understant. disputed champion.

And I will take this to my grave that Carlos Konda beat Robbie Loller that night. I thought he got robbed. I don't use the word robbery that often. It was a close fight, but I feel like Carlos Konda got robbed that night. I thought he won that fight, three rounds to two. The fifth round, obviously, went to Robbie. It was crazy. It was just an awesome fight.

That's the one. If I, if I'm out of Desert Island and I can only watch one fight for the rest of my life, I'm picking that one. that's just a great fight. It doesn't get talked about it up because of the Roy McDonald's fight. I think the Carl Scanda fight's way better for Robbie Lawler.

And that's saying a lot because the Roy fight was great. BTL was amazing yesterday. Bringing Brian Campbell on was awesome. Jed Mishu and B.C. just went after it. That was just so fun. But it's also very challenging for me because I want to let them bicker and I want to let him get after it. But at the same time, like, I can't have them bicker

in battle for 45 minutes. So I have to step in at some point and move things along a little bit, but it didn't matter. It was exposed from start to finish. It was a great episode. And one of my all-time favorites. I've had,

so before I came to M.A. fighting, BTL was a show that I hosted for another network. And it was a different kind of a show. It was very, I mean, it was a complete rip-off of Around the Horde. So when it was brought to my attention like what this show was, and I was kind of familiar with it.

They're like, you just take it over and do your thing and whatever. So there were more rules. There were time limits because there were four people on the panel, and we would eliminate people. Like after the third question, we would eliminate someone. After the fourth question, we'd eliminate someone, and then we'd have the final round like you see now on the show. And it was chaotic at times, trying to control four people.

So I like how we're doing it now. I would like to do like a multi-panel one at some point if we can get the technology to do it and make it look good. It's very hard to do. Because there are certain programs that will allow you to do that, but they just don't look good. And I don't want to do that if it's not going to look as best as it possibly could. But that was a great show.

I think it was probably my second favorite episode ever of being BTL. Aaron Bronsetter had two great appearances on the show, one in the old iteration where he did a Nick Diaz impression in the final round. And whoever he was up against, it was like Eminem and 8 mile. It was like pop a doc at 8 mile after Eminem went first. There's just no way you could beat him. It was just so good. It was after Nick Diaz did the interview with Ariel.

And the final question was the reaction to Nick Diaz. And Aaron just did a Nick Diaz impression for a minute straight. It was the best. It was hilarious. And then the other memorable episode of the program was it was the very last one I did before I started with M.A. fighting. It was just more of a, let's just shoot the breeze. They're not going to give any points kind of thing.

But the week prior, let me pull it up. It was the Brazil card. It was like the card in Brazil with no fans. It was like right when COVID started. And the week before, it was Johnny Walker, Nikita Krilov. were fighting. And one of the panelists, regular, who was on the show every week, his name is Davidson Baker. I don't, I like Davidson a lot. I don't know if he covers M.MA anymore, but he did for a little while for some different websites. But Davidson Baker was a regular panelist,

and he came out and said something that you should never say amongst people who like to bust each other's balls. And he said, the fight between Johnny Walker and Nikita Krilov, there's no way it goes the distance. I will bet anything that this fight will not go the distance. And of course, when you have a bunch of ball busting dudes sitting in a panel, we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you'll bet anything? And he goes, yeah. I was like, are you sure about that? And he goes, yeah. He goes, no money, though. And we're like, all right. So we made a bet that at that fight went the distance, he had to shave his head. And he had, like, long, like, kind of flowing hair. He had to shave his head to look like Larry David in Kirby enthusiasm.

And gosh darn, he did it. He wore a hat. We did like the big reveal. And he had his head shaved like Larry David. And he had the glasses. It was the best. It was definitely the most memorable episode. And it was the last episode I did before coming to M.A.

fighting and bringing the show over and changing the format a little bit. But that was the best. That was the best. the other question I'll answer real quick it's oh man that's tough I'll go with I'll go with the Esther impression because it's always a surprise

when I always say the iconic voice of Esther Lint takes you home I never know if it's Esther that's going to show up or if it's Casey just yelling just absurd into the microphone pretending to be Esther which either way it's a win I react glowingly if Esther

surprisingly shows up to close the show or if Casey does the Esther voice is just hilarious Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first... There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.

It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get a nice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver. deliver those. Goaltenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes.

Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Let's go to Viking MMA.

Viking MMA. We're connecting and normal. We got them, I think. Viking are you there? Oh, I got you. I think I got you. Yes. What's up, buddy?

Again, I'm totally agree with that. Other listeners about BTL, it was awesome last night. I mean, both of the guys, they're awesome. Absolutely, this is why I like MNapiting.com, and you are the main reason for that. Apart from that, my question is, should Hamza take this? Adias fight as a tune-up. I'm in just high-level wrestling and try to find a submission

and go with the win in a good manner for the next fight, good vibes. Thanks a lot, Mike. Thanks, buddy. See, that's the interesting question here because if Shemayev just wrestles Nate and just takes it down and tries to ragdoll them

and just tries to put him away on the ground. Like, that's probably his best path to victory. However, as we saw in Jacksonville, sometimes, man, like, I've never fought in a cage, but I have been in front of large groups of people for different purposes, whether it was playing sports or, you know, just hosting shows. I just watched, like, a video on Facebook of when I worked in radio, we had a big summer giveaway every year we gave away a Toyota Highlander and we would do these broadcasts like up and down the region and then we would have one massive event at the ski ski in the Berkshires

and like thousands of people would show up and I would have to host it the entire time so I'd have a live microphone so people would show up and like register whoever one like keys to the car previously and then we would give away some more keys and then we would draw draw out people to come up and like test out their keys and we would give it up to it would be like a final five and then they would get key fobs and they would have to try to set the alarm off on the card if you did you want it and like I love that I love that stuff you put me you put me in front of a computer screen in front of a camera with nobody there like I'll do my thing but if you put me on a stage with thousands of people there I ain't nervous I love it I with the people are

into it and they're cheering and they're getting after it like it fires me up and it puts me in such a great place that's like why one of my one of my goals with my fighting at some point is when these pay-per-view broadcasts happen you do something like we do like a live btel sell tickets have fighters like do just do something like i would love to do that in front of a crowd like that's when you would get me at my best and sometimes when you have crowds and you feel that energy it changes you. Like look at the Hamzat Gilbert Burns fight. That fight became a war

and both guys heard the rumble of the crowd and I know fighters would say like, I don't even pay attention to the crowd. There's no way you couldn't have paid attention to the crowd in that fight. Clearly in a lot of ways changed the way Hamzat approached the fight because it turned into a stand-up war,

which wasn't the plan probably at the beginning, but because of the energy of the crowd, that's what happened. Now you're going to have a pretty ruckold, Vegas crowd. And I know this card isn't

like spectacular, but it's Nate's final fight on his deal. It's Hamzaa Shemiah for rising star in the promotion.

The fans are going to be into that thing by Saturday. Even if you think the card is crap or whatever and you don't think

it's that good. It's a low bar pay review compared to some of the other ones who've gotten this year. By the time that fight rolls

around between the media days and the press conferences and everything leading up to it, people are going to be ready for it. and the fans are going to be going banana when that fight happens.

So let's just see how Hamza handles it. Can he ignore the noise and just go out there and win? Or is he going to feel the energy of that fight and try to stand and try to knock Nate out? And if that happens and Nate can weather the storm, I've been saying from the beginning, if this fight gets extended, if this fight gets into the third, fourth, fifth round, they has a chance to win. He has a chance.

It's still going to be a tall order. but to say that Nate has no chance to win this fight, it's just wrong in my opinion. Do I favor Hamzaa? Yes. Do I think there's a world where Hamzaa could just pick them up, slam him, smush him, and tap him quickly? Sure. Can I see a world where Hamzaa takes him down and mounts him

and beats the brakes off him until the referee stops it? Sure. But could I also see a world where Hamzat feels the energy of the people and tries to engage in a stand-up war with Nate Diaz and Nate's durability could play out and this fight goes to the championship rounds, I could see that too. And if it happens, that's in that fight. It's really interesting.

So I am leaning Hamza to win. I'm just very curious about how he's going to approach the fight. And if the fans are going to play a factor in it, because five rounds are a long time to be in there with the guy like Nate when you are that big and you have to cut that much weight, that is eventually going to catch up with Shimaif because he's a massive human being. I stood next to him in Jacksonville at the fighter hotel, walked right next to him.

Didn't say anything to him, obviously, because I don't want to bother anybody, but he's humongous. If you told me he was a light heavyweight, I would believe you. He's that big. So it's an interesting fight. I think the betting lines aren't wrong,

but I'm not counting Nate out. I'm not counting him out. Let's go to Toke. What's up, buddy? Be free for all Friday. and there's no fights to talk about this weekend either. So I'm just going with, I just saw Brad Akamoto. I follow him on Twitter as everyone does,

but he just had an interview with Darren's Hill who wants to fight before the end of the year. If we are going to ignore that Durant's Hill pulled out of a fight and then trained hard the very next week, is he in the doghouse actually? is he in the Let's Not Matchmake for him kind of camp because it's been a while

since he's fought. That's number one. Number two, I want you to wax politically a little bit about RDA because he has announced that he has had his last title run

so he wants to fight legends now, right? He wants to fight some of the guys like Jim Miller and Jorge and Tony Ferguson and stuff. So I want you to talk a bit about his career because he himself, he is admitting that it has peaked now. So is he a future damn they were good contestant? Is he in the pantheon of best lightweights ever in UFC?

What are we thinking here? Those are my two questions and have a heck of a Friday. Thank you, sir. So to address the Darren Till thing, I don't know if he's in the doghouse. I don't really know what happened there. He wasn't cleared to fight, so he didn't. There's two options I would have for Darren Till. Actually, three.

There's three. It depends on which route you want to go. This is a, let's put over a future star kind of a rule. There's two options. One, you throw him in there with Andre Monez, and that's probably not all that exciting for Darren Till fans, because I am fairly confident that Munez will take him down and submit him within the first seven minutes.

of the fight. So that wouldn't be all that fun for fans, but if he is somewhat in the doghouse, that's a great name for Andrumanis to help get him over. Because I think the world of that guy, I think Andreemines will be fighting for the middleweight title in the next two years.

I think he's that good. You could also throw him in there with Jrikas duplase, because that's another exciting guy, and that fight would rule. Those two are just going to throw hams at each other until somebody falls, and that would just be a lot of fun. The other option you could go and I don't know if maybe August if you could get him in

Darren Till Paul Acosta would be a lot of fun Paul's last fight on his deal I don't know if they want to use maybe Paul to fight like I don't think he'll have him and Munez would fight maybe Drick's Duplicee I don't know but those are your options but something would tell me they would probably lean more towards the Monez duplice side because I would favor

I would definitely favor Munez to beat Till du plus C would be more exciting but that'd be an interesting fight or you do Paul Acosta who's going to complain about that one so yeah I like that one that should be fun

and then with the RDA thing will be it will there be a damn they were good for RDA they're damn well should be that guy I mean he's had a tremendous career had the belts I mean he when he won he beat the hell out of Nate Diaz

beat the hell out of Benson Henderson, beat the crap out of Anthony Pettus to win the belt. And this is when everyone thought Anthony Pettis might be the best fighter on the planet. And RDA just rolled him. Eddie knocks out Donald Seroni, gets stopped by Eddie Alvarez, loses to Tony,

and then he goes up to 170, and he gets some good wins. I mean, the Neil Magny win ages really well, and he went out there and submitted Neil Magne in the first round. Like, that is, that's an impressive win. then he beats Robbie. I don't think that was all that surprising at the time. But his only losses at Welterweight were to Colby,

Kamara Usman, Leon Edwards, that win ages extremely well, and Michael Kiesa. And then he fights Paul Felder in like a short-notice fight. He beats Boycano and then he gets knocked up by Fiziv in a fight that was fun and somewhat close, but it was pretty much Fizzeeb from start to finish. I think there'll be a Dan they were good on on

Fafiel de Sanjos. I think he is one of the, he is a very underrated career. And the biggest what if of his career is what would have happened if he had fought Connor McGregor? What would have happened if he didn't get hurt before UFC 196 and Nate Diaz had to go in and take his place? Because that was five wins in a row.

It was five wins in a row. And he would have defended his title against Connor. What would have happened in that fight? The Eddie Alvarez fight may not even happen. Like it's, there's a lot of, like, rabbit hole questions you can go down with RDA. But incredible career. The only losses that he has suffered are to, like, just super legit competition for the most part. And then before the Eddie Alvarez loss, it was Haber.

Glacin Tibah was a splitty, but it was a weird one. Clay Guida, it was like a weird injury. But it was just, Clay Guida was, this is Clay Guida 12 years ago. Jeremy Stevens, who was just bolted everything. everybody back in the, you know, before 2010. And then there was a time 2009 with like Tyson Griffin was like everyone thought this guy was going to be the dude. And Tyson Griffin beat him. And those are his first two UFC fights.

Loses the Stevens and Griffin and then wins three in a row and then flip flops and then goes on a really good streak. Wins, loses the Habib. Most people thought he could have been could have been done after that. Then he goes and wins five in a row. Wins the belt. Defends it. I mean, this guy had a great career. And if you want to throw him in there with Ferguson again, I'd be down.

You want to throw them in there with Jim Miller? Let's do it. Mazadol, sure. All fun fights. I have no issue with the – I don't think the Mazadol fight happens. But I can definitely see a Jim Miller fight happening. I'd watch the hell out of that. That'd be a lot of fun.

RDA Joe Lozahn would be a lot of fun. There's definitely fun fights. And I like the way he's handling everything. He's doing – he's a realist, and that's why I respect. that man. Let's go to Ezekiel. Zeke. What's that man? Good morning, Mike. How are we? Good. All right. I will be shorter and sweeter, I guess. I haven't been on here this week or honestly the last two weeks. So, if I don't know, it's been honestly too long. I do give you guys listen to listen to everybody's shouted out. I mean, I got to listen to this BTL episode today at work.

I'm actually excited now listening to everybody come on here and give their two cents. Two things for you. Me and you, we go back and forth. We go back and forth. We go back and forth about Nate Diaz. Hums on. I'm all Humzot, like I guess you could say Homer, but I'm also like a Kobe coming defense. So this is a great way to go about this. When am I going to get this fight, Mike? I feel like Kobe has to get that Infinity Stone past Humzat to then get back into title, you know, talk, picture. On the other end, I feel like Leon Usman in England, in London, wherever the heck they go about it, would be awesome.

You know what I mean? I think that that is a fight that is going to sell. the most pay-per-views. I think that is the fight that Leon deserves. I think that is the fight that Dana's going to go with. So with that being said, maybe matchmake for Humzad after this weekend. Is it Bilal? Is it, I don't know, Shabot?

Is it Kobe? Is it sit and wait in London for, you know, Edwards versus whoever it is, they give that belt to? And, yeah, let's just enjoy the vibes this weekend. No fights, but we got a heck of a morning to get ourselves through this week. Thank you very much, Mike. And yeah, let's have a heck of a weekend. Thanks, buddy.

And there are fights this weekend. We got, I mean, one's having an event right now. They're doing like a two-parter. But the one everyone's talking about is the Prime Video Card that starts at APM. And there's some good stuff on this card. We get the rematch in Adrianne Morais and Demetrius Johnson, but Chech's fighting. Like, it's fun.

We get a couple of title fights. We get the Bannamweight title. We get the boy tie belts. We got the MMA belts. It should be fun. Adriano versus DJ is fun. I'm intrigued by the rematch. I'm kind of surprised you're going back to it so quickly, but alas, here we are,

and DJ deserves that opportunity. We also have BKFC tomorrow, which should be an interesting event. We get John Dotson, M.Ot, fighting each other, not in the UFC, not in MMA. Intrigued by this Christine Ferrier versus Taylor Star. There's an interview I have with Taylor that's on our YouTube channel and go check that out. And I guess KSI is boxing twice. I'm not going to watch it, but I guess it's happening. So there are fights if you really want them.

As far as Hamzat goes, it's interesting. I feel like I still stand by this and I said this on Saturday. And Jed makes a great point kind of countering it, but I still think I'm right. Okay. I see everybody laughing. I'm like, what am I saying that's so funny? And that I realized that the car in my driveway started and the Bluetooth connected to it.

So if you heard something weird, my bad. Maybe you heard my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law getting at it, getting after it, fighting or something. Sorry about that. I don't even know where I left off. But I was saying before, oh, so stupid. I hate Bluetooth sometimes. What I was saying before, and I stand by this,

I think Bala Muhammad is the biggest loser in the whole situation. me Zeke. I'll bring Zeeke back in. Help me out, Zeke. What the hell happened? What did you hear? Mike, it was absolutely hilarious. Your wife was a little bit confused. Nothing out of the ordinary, however, perfect peak. Heck of a morning content. I hope you have yourself a weekend. And yeah, Hums out matchmake, if you could. Thank you. Okay. So that is my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law there, staying with us for a little while. So that is my mother-in-law's got. My wife has my car. She's at her. her other job right now, so it's not her. So I just turned the Bluetooth off. So that won't happen again. I should probably do that more and more. So apologies for that. I feel like, I'm going to go back to what I was saying before.

I said this on Saturday. I sort of stand by it. I know Jed had a pretty good counteroffer with Hamza. But I feel like Bilal Mohammed lost more than anybody on Saturday. Because he was, he was probably two wins away from fighting for the belt if Usman hit beat Leon Edwards. And now he might be like five fights away. depending on how this all plays out. So it's rough.

And I feel like Balaal kind of shot himself in the foot. And I've talked about this a lot. And I don't want to go down that rabbit hole again. But after Balaal's last two wins, he should have called out Hamzat with a live microphone in his face. He didn't. He called out Oosman after the Wonderboy win, which there's zero chance of that fight happening.

And then I remember that one of the tweets that I remember sending in my MMA fighting career was after, be Vicente Luque and I said please don't call it Usman or Covington go all in on Shemai F and he calls out Colby and I was like no what are you doing and the issue I have with both of these callouts is that he did a whole bunch of interviews after that fact and called out Shemai F and at that point the ship had already sailed and I just thought it was such a flub from a guy that I like a lot like when I interviewed Bilal before he's in the UFC before his MSG fight we did like week weekly content. Like, I like Bulla a lot. I haven't talked to him in a long time. I think you all

know why because of who his manager is. And apparently I'm not allowed to talk to those guys anymore unless it's through a sponsor or something like that, which is fine. I'm okay with that. But I feel like even if Bilal beats Sean Brady, which is going to be a really tough fight for him, even if he calls out Hamzat, I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think it happens. Like I know Hamzat's not going right into a title fight because they have to do this trilogy fight and that's what's going to happen, folks. Like I know we want to talk about different things. That's just going to happen. We're going to see Leon Edwards, Kamar Usen 3 in London before April more than likely.

That's what we're going to see. But if you're Hamzad and you beat Nate, you have options. There's two. One, you could go after Colby and just be like, I want to stay active and I'm focused on Walterweight. I'm going to fight Colby Covington, which is fine. And that's a smart move on his part. because that's a big fight. Or he could just say, screw welterweight.

I'm going to try to go to 185 and fight for that title. And who's going to complain about that? If Adasani beats Alex Pereira, like, who else is there? There's maybe Strickland. But other than that, like the biggest fight Adasani you can get at 185 if he beats Pereira is Hamzad. And Hamza could, the UFC would definitely entertain that idea. So it'll be interesting to see what Hamzot. decides to do. Does he or or he could just wait, but I don't think he wants to wait that long.

Could be a year before he gets a title shot. Does he want to sit out that long? So he's got, if he beats day, he's got some really good options. But I think the Colby, the Colby fight would make a lot of sense. And I, I know people say like Colby's docket him. That's just not true. Colby would take that fight. Colby would take that fight and he would have taken it after Jacksonville. There's no doubt of my mind. Like if the whole thing with Mazadol and Miami, alleged, allegedly didn't happen, I think we would have already seen those two guys fight. I think they would have done the ABC card headlined by those two guys. And I think Colby would have taken it.

And I think Colby would still take it. Colby would, Colby is a prize fighter. Him fighting Jeff Neal doesn't make a lot of sense. But him fighting Hamzat Shamiath would make a lot of sense. That's the biggest fight he can get right now. Unless they run a bag of Mazdal. And you know that's not going to happen with the history there. Horier's cool, but it's not nearly as big as Shemayev would be.

So I think Colby would take it. I think Shamiya would take it. And I think it would be a pretty awful build, if we're being honest. But it'd be a really fun fight. It'd be a really interesting fight. I'd be curious to see what the opening betting lines would be for that fight. But if you have to see how Hamzaa looks before I make, like on September 10th before I can gauge it. But I think Colby is competitive with Shemaiah for sure.

For those, I've heard a lot of people say that Colby's just going to get run over. I don't know if that's true. There's a chance that happens, but I think, I think Colby's style matches up really well with pretty much anybody. But I don't know. Good place to be for Shmaif. Let's go to Four Quarter Sports. Hello. Hey, what's going on, Mike?

What's up? So I was talking to a couple of my coworkers, and one of them is from Jamaica. and I didn't know that maybe this is only like in certain parts of Jamaica but he was telling me that England has like a large population of Jamaicans either the majority will move out to like the east coast here in the States or into England so I was wondering like you know how would how would this look

you know I had like these two different scenarios like the USC should really go with these two scenarios in my opinion like like the whole like England versus the world for the Usman versus Leon fight, the trilogy, or how would you think about, like, the USC going with, if Al Jamaican defend a title against TJ, and they put him on Dakkar and Wembley, you know, two title fights in a stadium, you know,

obviously they're not going to have, for some reason he just won't sell, but having him as a home meeting event, you know, with him, with his Jamaican background, and with England having some type of, you know, a decent amount of Jamaicans in that area. Like, how do you think about that? And what card, like, obviously, you would have to have Patty in there, Molly, right? But do you think that Darren Till, since almost the last time he got to win, Kelvin Gaslam?

Like, at middleweight, do you think Darren Till is sufficient enough to be put it on, like, anywhere, like, within, like, the top three slots of the main card? Or is he starting to fall, like, maybe as, like, a main card opener, a pre-lum, a feature prelim slot. I just wanted to get your thoughts on that. All right. Thanks, Mike. Have a good one. Thanks, buddy. Yeah, I just, I'm not really all that familiar with the UK.

If that's true, then sure. I wish there was like a UK banam weight, like really solid title contending prospects. That would make that even more interesting. But maybe they would do that. I know Oosven, when he talked to TMZ, said that there's a lot. There's a big Nigerian population out in England as well. He said it's like a little mini Nigeria out there in London.

And that's cool. So but to me, like I think this is a this is a loaded up. You try to shape it as like a UK versus the world type of scenario. Because those are always fun. Those are always fun. And you just load it up with if you can get there until because if you wants to fight at the end of the year and he can bounce back, you know, four, three, four months. months later, sure. If you can get him on the card, you got to put him on it. He's a big star. Maybe he's lost a little favor, but he's still a big star and people would watch him fight.

You do Leon Hussman, you get Patty on there, you get Molly on there, you get Mahiaf on there, Jack Shore, Nathaniel Wood, you get the whole gamut in there. You get them all. You get them all and you match them up against fighters not from that area. It would be a lot of fun. It would be a lot of fun. So that's how I would book it, but we'll see how it plays out.

Let's go to CNN sticks. Maybe cinnamon sticks, a little play on words, perhaps. Hello. You just got on mute. Hi there. Can you hear me? I got to.

How are you? I'm great. Thank you. I love the show. So first time caller, long time listeners. So happy to talk to you. And yeah, I want to agree with everyone that BTL was in rare form yesterday. You know, once Brian got warmed up, him and Jed totally went at it.

It was great. So what I wanted to chat about real quick is I was on YouTube, obviously, yesterday. And I also noticed that the UFC released the UFC versus the media. Yeah, I know. Like, I don't know. I think they maybe released something like it previously, or maybe they're just doing it again, something else that's similar to kind of coming for the media.

And it's just total propaganda. And I just don't know why they keep releasing content like this. It's just like stirring the pot and kind of makes them look really kind of ridiculous, you know. So there's that. And then also another thing I saw last night that I thought was really cool was speaking of Balal, You know, he did his remember the show, the show he has was an annex sibling. And it was really actually one of the best ones they ever did. They had Jared Gordon on and they had Boe Nickel and they had Mike Perry on also.

And you really got to see like Bo Nichols personality. He was really relaxed. So that was cool. And it was oddly wholesome. You know, it's just like they were all just like chilling and hanging out. And it was like the best, the most fun. version of that show that I've ever seen. So my question, stemming from that is, so is when a fighter goes to BKFC, is it really the point of no return? Do we think that maybe at some point,

you know, they could go back to MMA or something, or is Mike Perry kind of lost in the sauce, so to speak? And that's it for me. Happy Friday, everyone. Thanks, Mike. Thank you very much. I do, watch remember the show from time to time. I like the law a lot. There are people like I get messages all the time like why do you hate Bala? I don't hate Bala. But I am an honest man. And if I feel like a fighter made a mistake on the microphone, I'm going to say it. And I've said it about more than just him. But I like Balaa a lot. He's a great guy. He's helped me. I feel like I've helped him in some ways when he was breaking in. And we had a great relationship. And then that relationship changed. And it had nothing to do with him.

him. So we're cool. So any, you know, anyone who says I don't like Bilal, it's just not true. But whether it's anybody making a bad move on the mic, I'm going to talk about it in the show, no matter who you are. Like if Sean Brady beats Bilal and then calls out Oosman, and I like Sean Brady a lot, I would call, I'd be like, Brady, what are you doing? Why? You're not going to, you're not going to fight for the belt. Like, like, you're still going to get another couple of wins, baby. But I think John knows that and I don't think you'd make that call. But anyways, I'll have to check that out. Jared Gordon is the man.

Jared Gordon doesn't get enough credit for how hilarious he is. And I will say this, one of my favorite, I don't want to do a ton of interviews anymore because Ariel's back. And by the way, I'm cool with that 100%. I like doing interviews and when I can get them, awesome. And when I can't, it's fine. I host 5,000 other shows. So it works out great.

But I interviewed Jared Gordon in 2020 at some point. I don't know why, I don't know if he was coming off of a win or he was about to fight somebody. But he told, I asked him about his friendship with Bilal and how close they are. And his response for how good of a friend Bilal Muhammad is is the greatest, most hilarious thing I've ever heard in my life. I'm not going to say it here because I don't want to. But there are certain videos, if you go back to the MA Fighting Archives, you could either search for Jerry. Jared Gordon, uh,

it was just interview me and him did on, on Skype, I think. Uh, or there was like a best of, like, funniest moments of the year video, whereas like clips from 2020.

And I think Jared Gordon closed it out because it was the funniest thing in the entire world. But that guy's the man. Uh, and to sort of address the BKFC thing. I, it's, it's weird.

Like a lot of it is just getting the bag. A lot of people on the tail end of their career, she's trying to get the bag who have names. Like I'm sure John, Watson's being paid very well to fight for BKFC. I'm sure Perry's getting paid extremely well, probably more than he's ever made in his career. Page is making ridiculous money.

And there's just certain people who are made for the sport. Like I agree with Brian Campbell on BCL yesterday when he said that there are just certain people who are just made for it. And Mike Perry is one of those dudes. Mike Perry is one of those guys. And like Perry could be, Perry could be the face of BKFC for the next five years. I'm totally convinced of that.

It's just made for him. He's just a tough son of a bitch. Like he doesn't need to mix the martial arts. He can, but if he just goes out there and this is probably like Mike Perry did through his teenage years. He just went out and punched dudes in the face

without gloves on. Like he just seems at home in there. It's just crazy. Even like a technical striker like MVP, like fighting a guy like Mike Perry in a bare knuckle type of situation, that's tough, man. That's real tough.

So point of no return, perhaps for certain fighters, other fighters, they're just at home. Mike Perry, other fighters who had MMA backgrounds, went to BKFC like Britain Hart, Taylor Starling. Their records in MMA were not very good, but they go to BKFC and they can potentially become stars. It's more who they are. They fit that mold. Christine Ferry is another one. Perfect for BKFC. Perfect for the sport.

personality-wise, style-wise, just grimy-wise in a lot of ways, the grit that you need, the determination you need to fight in that kind of an atmosphere, it just made for people. It just made for people. But yes, and also BTL was the best. It was so fun yesterday.

Campbell and Jed got after it, and it was great. It was a lot of fun. I'm not going to address the media video question because AK and I are going to record a Ask Us Anything edition of On to the next one

in like an hour or so and I've already looked at some of the questions that I've gotten and since AK is featured in that video I will get his response to it but it's just stupid

like it was stupid the first time that they released it and it's just ten times stupider now what is the point? What is the point? What is the point? What is the point of releasing that video and dumping on the media,

which, by the way, shows like this, shows like BTL, preview shows, all the stuff we do. We're going to be honest about things. We don't think a card's that great. We're going to tell you. Just like if football analysts would say this Thursday night football game

is not all that exciting. And even if the Thursday night game that's not all that exciting produces a 90-point shootout still doesn't make it a good game on paper. It just may have turned out that way. But we're promoting your show show. That's essentially what we're doing. We're talking about your product. Good or for bad,

mostly good, sometimes not so good, but we're talking about your product. The media and the UFC is killing it right now. But if all of us are just like, nah, we're not going to cover the UFC anymore, they would do fine, but they would take a hit. They would take a hit. And without the media, the UFC would not be in the position it's in right now. During those early days before tough, The media was the only ones, like the MMA media, the MMA weeklies, the Shur dogs back in the day, the UGs, they were the ones keeping the sport alive when they had no distribution, when no one could find them. We were the ones telling you about it, not me, but those guys, the OGs, the OGs. This is before tough. It's just so stupid.

It's just so dumb. The relationship between, I don't. just don't understand why Dana just feels like the media is trying to shut them down. Oh, they tried to shut us down during the pandemic. No, we didn't. Did we have questions about why you're hosting shows and about some of the things you're going to do to ensure fighter safety and the safety of media members who are in attendance? Of course.

Of course. It's not badgering you. It's not saying, screw you, data, you shouldn't be doing this. But come on. come on I don't understand the relaunch it makes no sense and I can't wait to hear AK

I think AK was probably the most AK got more notice being in that video than anything else and to AK's credit and Brian Campbell's as well both of them have taken it in stride and just had a lot of fun with it so

stupid I don't know I just don't get it I'd love to ask why hopefully Tuesday night on the Contender series when Dana White sits down with the media, someone asks him about that. Because I'd love to get his response.

I would love to hear why he felt, because this is a Dana calls, no doubt in my mind. Ani, hello. You hear me. Yes. It's been a while. Have you been? Good.

What's going on? Yeah, so, I mean, I have a couple of things to talk about. I'll try to keep it short. So first, I want to talk a little bit about, you know, the Leon Edwards situation. And everyone has been, you know, really celebrating the victory of Leon and rightly so. But I want to see, I want everyone to see the other side of the coin as well. Trevor Whitman's camp, they've had a rough year, man.

You know, if you compare it with their last year, they had two devastating finishes. As an, I mean, amazing knockout of the year contenders with Kamaru knocking out Masvidal and Rose knocking out Zhang Wei to win the champion. friendship, of course, and then the fight of the year contender with Gai Chi and Chandler. But this time they had two devastating finishes with Gaiji getting finished and Usman getting finished and an underwhelming fight with Rose and Espasa. So, you know, I have seen a lot of interviews where, you know, you've interviewed a couple of coaches. Ariel has interviewed a couple of coaches and, you know, sometimes they give their insights after what has happened. And, you know, I think Trevor Whitman's mind is something that is worth to be picked.

I mean, I was disappointed with the result of Camaro versus Leon. I mean, not because I hate Leon, I love Leon, but because I'm a huge Trevor Whitman fan. Tell me, like, isn't it joy to watch the UFC 251 cornering by a Padbury and Trevor Whitman, the way they were interacting with Rose? That was joy, wasn't it? You know, when they said, all day, all day. wasn't it you know i i get pumped up when i listen to that i think Trevor Whitman is the best coach bar none and i think it'll be nice if he could get his thoughts on what transpired this year and

according to him what's going on because the interview that Ariel did with pat barry i mean it was all right but honestly from padbury i think i saw a lot of more open eyes than an open mind i mean I love Pat Barry, but I don't know what he was talking about in that interview. So this is one thing that it'll be nice if you could get Trevor Whitman, you know, you if you could interview Trevor Whitman. And quickly, two more things. I think the fight for Tony Ferguson should have been Robbie Lawler and not Li Jing Liang. And I think the fight that Alder should have had recently, it should have been Dominic Cruz.

Dominic Cruz versus Joseo it should not have been Mirab de Valishvili it should have been Marlon Vera you know at where all the four parties are in their respective careers I think I've given you a lot of content to digest Mike I'll keep my mouth shut now thank you

thanks man yeah I mean I've said this many times some people agree with me others don't and that's fine although should have been fighting for the title I thought he deserved the title shot over TJ I know T.J. was the champion. He didn't technically lose the belt. But to me, all those three wins meant more than Dillishaw's one questionable win over Corey Sannhagen. And you have Alda, you have Dillishaw had one more fight or just, or you just did, or you just should have done Dillishaw versus Aldo.

And we have a clear number one contender. I would have been totally cool with that. But if you're going to make although, if you're going to go that direction, I get it. You're going to go Dillishaw, although for the belt. there's a story there, cool, I get it. But if you're going to make Aldo fight, putting him in there with Marab was just dumb. It was just horrible matchmaking. And especially if you're going to do it in Salt Lake City, of all places.

Like, do it somewhere else where altitude is not going to play a factor in the fight. Like, I felt like Aldo got done a little bit dirty there. And if you're going to put Aldo in a fight with anybody, like you could have just pushed him back three months. He could have fought Frankie Edgar. What's the problem there? It's still a legend name. It's a great fight.

I'm sure it's a fight that Frankie would have been happy ending his career with. Like, it would have been awesome. And that would have been fine. If you did cruise, that would have been fine as well. Like, if you're going to make all the fight one more time, put him up against one of those guys. Because he already beat Marlon. I hated it.

I did not like it at all. He deserved better 100%. And that's it. Ferguson, I don't like the Lee-Jing-Liong fight. I understand why this fight's on the card. In my opinion, this is a backup fight. This is in case something happens and one of those two guys can't make it.

Probably more so on the Shamiya end. Then you can bump Tony up to fight Nate. No one's going to complain about that. I get it. And then the Trevor Whitman thing, Ariel's talked about it before. I will reiterate what he said because I've tried as well.

He doesn't do interviews. You could talk to Trevor. Like if I reached out to Trevor and sent him a DM, he'd respond to it, but he doesn't do me, he doesn't do interviews, doesn't like doing it, doesn't like being the center of attention. And it's, I've tried for like two years trying to review him. He just doesn't do media anymore. He used to, but doesn't do it anymore. So I would love to get his insight. I love talking to the coaches. I like talking to Tyson Charterier, love talking to Eric Nixick, even like Dean Thomas, who I interviewed the other day, it's on

our YouTube channel. The guy's been a coach for 25 years. So he's got a lot of insight into the coaching aspect of fighting. I love talking to the coaches. Really do. They're great. When I got a great deal on a great gift at winners, I started wondering, could I get fabulous gifts for everyone on my list? Like this designer fragrance for my daughter.

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of the video. Procurrevees for a better quality of price. On link on ciphera.com or in magazes. All right. Whoever's in line now, we're going to talk to all of you and then I got to go. Clear's values, hello. Oh, I was muted. Can you hear me now? Yeah, I got you.

So first, in foremost, it's mostly why I called. I wanted to compliment you on the last episode of BTL. It was awesome. I really, really enjoyed it. The media shit, you know, I think it comes from a weird political place, and I don't really want to get into that. I'm sure you don't necessarily want to get into that. But I think it is very, you know, evident based on data, whatever.

And I think, like, just in regards to the Ferguson matchup, you know, it seems like the UFC is kind of in the business of risk mitigation, where they're, you know, for this one, you know, if Ferguson loses, you're bumping up Li Jing Liang and you're getting the Chinese market. if Ferguson wins and you have, you know, still a welterweight fight for Tony. And I kind of think that's why they didn't do Jose Aldo Frankie Edgar just because, you know, if Frankie wins, Jose loses and, you know, he still may want to fight. You're not mitigating risk.

And that's all I really had for you. Great episode of BTL again and I'll talk to you later. Thanks, ma'am. My argument against that with the Aldo Frankie Edgar idea is that, I mean, if all the loses were in the same position we're in, but Marab didn't really gain a whole lot from that win. Like, he's still in the discussion because he didn't lose, but he didn't blow the doors off anybody.

He didn't open anybody, any eyes really. He just won a fight. And Marlon Vera was the biggest winner on Saturday in the band-of-weight division, in my opinion. Marlon Vera won. He's the front-runner right now. And if Piotr-Yan beats Sean O'Malley, October 22nd, Marlon Veras fighting for the belts. Marlon Veras get a title shot.

No doubt about it. He should. If it doesn't, that's just wrong. But that's what should be happening. That should be happening. And the Ferguson thing, I don't necessarily agree with that. I just, Li Jing Liang is a fine fighter.

And yeah, maybe you tap into that market a little bit more. But I just don't see, like, I don't see, like, I just don't see him, like, becoming a breakout star. I just feel like they kind of just put it out there and was like, okay, Lee's available, let's do it. This is nothing good about it, my opinion.

Like, Lee could get a win, but, I mean, this is against a lightweight. A guy who's lost four in a row and, like, hasn't been, I mean, he was competitive against Chandler in the first round, but I don't think it does a ton for Lee. And if Tony wins, it doesn't do a ton for him. gets a win and he breaks the losing streak, but I don't know, man. And back to the Aldo Edgar thing.

If Aldo fought Frankie Edgar, again, we're in the same position. But we still have the great story of Frankie Edgar going out with a win over Jose Aldo. Like, it would stink for Aldo fans, but still a very cool moment. You at least gain something out of it. I don't think he gained a lot here with Marab winning the way that he did. No one's screaming for him to jump the line right now. And that's just it. And that's why he's had such a hard time getting these big fights.

Because it's just a tough fight. He's just a tough fight. Let's go to Brett. Then to Brian, then we'll go to a hit. Brett, what's up, man? Some weekend. But I just want to give you a couple of quick statements. And then I'd like to really get your opinion on the heavyweight division when it comes to what's coming down the line with the whole, how this all pans out with Cyril Gain, Nagano,

Maybe you got Blades, you got Twyvasa, and then you got Miochik in John Jones matchup. So I'd like to hear your take on that. But my quick point was, the first one was the ultimate fighter, if it wasn't, I honestly, my opinion, I'm such an OG when it comes to MMMA. If it wasn't for that Forrest Griffin, Stephen Bonner fight, I really feel that Ultimate Fighter wouldn't have taken off like it did in the UFC wouldn't be catapulted to the media mainstream that it is today. And the one last point I wanted to make is last week, there was a caller of yaws that when he got on, he was asking you how you made it in this media and how you've been doing it and how you got noticed. And your response was like epic. Like you just got to put in the work. You've got to put in the work.

And if you work 30 hours a day, you got to work 31 hours a day. You work 80 hours a week. You work 81 hours a week. But what they really need to know is your mother and father were like really phenomenal. phenomenal people. They were consistent. They were firm. They were fair with you. And they taught you guys some values that I can completely see with the way you are successful in your career right now, that they just bred that into you.

And I just want to congratulate you, Mike. And I love listening to you. And I am completely ruined for you to go all the way of the top. So you'll be the next John Anick. Thanks, buddy. Thanks, man. I will never be the next John Anick. There is only one John Anick. and as John Attic himself, the best in the world, in my opinion, in that call. Leon Edwards win. Just put the exclamation point on that. I appreciate that.

And Brett would know. Brett would know. Brett knew, like, little kid Mike Heck who wanted to be a game show host. Like a little eight-year-old Mike Heck running around. Brett knew. Brett met my parents. I grew up knowing Brett because he was really good friends with my oldest brother. So he would know.

And he's not lying. My dad is a work machine. He is one of those guys that even when he retires, he still has to work, still finds a way to stay busy because they just get bored. He just wants to work. That's how, like, they all are. It's incredible. And then my mom, like, didn't really start working until later in my life.

But she also had to run the household with four asshole kids for being honest. Like, my oldest brother was tough. My other little brother was tough. I was a pain in the ass. And then my little brother was a pain in the ass too, but he was the little brother so he never got in trouble.

But my mom, God bless her. I don't know how she did it, but damn it, she did it. And yeah, completely great. The heavyweight thing, I'll focus on that here.

I have no idea what's going to happen because it seems like things are going okay with the UFC and France and Ganoo. And then Luke Rockhold did his media day last week. week and Francis started tweeting out stuff and who knows how that conversation's going right now. So to me, like, Francis is the, Francis is the key to everything. Because if for some, if between now and, I don't know, the next couple of months, they come to terms on him residing, then they're going to do John Jones versus Francis right out the gate.

And they should, because Francis says it's going to be ready to turn probably by the beginning of next year. and why not just wait another month or two to just do the John France fight? That's the fight everybody wants anyways, right? That's the fight everybody wants to see. That's what we're building towards. And even if they do the interim title fight, the winner is going to fight Francis, at least that's the goal here. So Francis resigns, I think they'll go right to that well and just do the title fight.

If Francis is up in the air or he's not going to resign or it doesn't feel like he's going to resign, they'll go Jones-Stepe and they might just do it for the actual belt. Because at this point, at this point, if Francis is going to become a free agent in January anyways, if Francis isn't talking about resigning, just strip it with the belt. Who cares? You let them out of the contract a month early. So what? And then you just do John Steepay for the actual belt.

There you go. That's fine. Now the rest of it, you got Blades, you got gun, who's getting ready to fight Taito Ivasa. The winner of that fight probably fights Curtis Blades. and then we just kind of go from there. That is unless Taitoivasa just goes out in Paris and just puts the boots to Cyril Ghan and knocks him out quick.

Because I have been saying this since you knocked out, Derek Lewis, you have to fast track this guy to a title fight because you just don't know how many more of these performances you're going to get out of him. Because it seems like on paper that Cyril Gahn is a horrible matchup for him. But if Ty somehow goes out in Cyril's

home city and knocks out Cyril Ghan? I mean, come on. Everybody likes Tai Tuivasa. He'll become, like, he will become a much bigger star if he goes out and knocks out Cyril Gond. A lot of people aren't giving him a lot of chance to do so. But to me, Tai Tui Vasa is, if we're going to, if we're going to front load any of these guys, I'm front-load and tie.

100%. If they do, let's see, I know the UFC is looking at. at December for Joan Stepe, maybe they're trying to figure out the whole Francis situation before they actually make it official and figure out what the stakes of that fight actually is. But if Tai Tu Uvasa knocks out Cyril Gan, Tai Tai Tuva

you should get the winner of that fight. Or you should fight Stepe. But I would just push Ty to the moon and give him his chance because it's probably only to get one shot at it. And you've got to do it now. You've got to capitalize. All right, let's go to Brian. Then we'll go to a hid.

Brian, hello. Hey, Mike. How are you? two things one i've been asking i think for like a month about that 279 card and it actually ended up being okay i don't know if that's just me being half glassful but um i don't know if someone mentioned this earlier i hopped on a little late but i just think kevin holl and tony ferguson would have just been the perfect co-made event you could have done lee and daniel rodriguez still if you still wanted to oh i lost your brian sorry you'll break it up uh i'll address that though um I mean, are we going to categorize this card as okay?

Maybe. And by the way, the Daniel Rodriguez-Kevon-Fight is not done yet. So to, like, add that to the mix right now would be a little premature. It'd be a great addition. It needs it with this Ferguson fight. But, yeah, it's a tough hang. I mean, there's some, okay, like, Jelton Amé is on the card. He's fun.

Aldana's fighting chasse on. Coutelabo, Johnny Walker could be fun. Norma Dumont's fighting 1-0, Daniel Wolfe, Jamie Pickett. It's just not great. It's like there'll be some fun. Like Chris Barnett's on the cards, that's always fun. Like him and Jay Collier will have a good fight, but like,

I don't know. It's fine. This is a main event heavy fight, and Tony is a smart person to put on this card. I would have liked to see him fight Kevin Holland, too. That actually makes a lot more sense. I don't like Tony's chances of that fight, but I like it better than Lee Jingleon

because Kevin Holland is the potential star in the making. He could get the rub off of Tony Ferguson and do it in a very respectful way. Well, Lee Jingleon, I just don't know if he gets that same rub. I just, I don't know if I see it. I mean, I could be wrong, but I just, I don't know. But we'll see. We'll see if we can get that Holland Rodriguez fight.

But I was told yesterday afternoon, not done, no movement since the other night, which was very little to begin with and reached out again yesterday and nothing changed. So hopefully we get that fight. I'd like to see it. But yeah, it's a rough one for 75 bucks.

That's a me. You need that main event to deliver. I had, what's up, buddy? What the greatest idea for regards to Leon Edwards. It's like an epiphany. You're ready to hear it, right? Let's go. Okay, so what's going to happen is his coach

needs to calm down Dave LaVelle he's like doing the media rounds which you don't see a lot of the cut like it's just he's just rubbing off and he deserves it but like he needs to calm down and shut up because the

Mazhidal thing is actually a perfect next fight not the Usman trilogy because you can get the same amount of money actually you can possibly get more money from the Mazvedal fight but for there's less risk

you know, like, and it's a better matchup. I've said this before, like, Usman, he got, yeah, he got knocked out by Leon, but we all saw what happened round two, three, four. I said this before. And Leon is blaming the altitude, which was only part of the problem. The other part is, again, UK fighters, unless it's, your name is Mohammed Makayev or one of these Russian or Uzbekistan, like one of them type of fighters and based in the UK, a lot of the UK fighters disrespect wrestling.

A lot of the UK pundits in MMA disrespect wrestling. They talk about wrestling as a change of position, not a martial art. So when you have someone like Usman who's practiced this, and this shows like wrestling

is one of the most pivotal martial arts in MMA, which is why people are talking about bow nickel beating Adisania. Why just purely because of the wrestling? Right. So I feel that Leon should take that mass without fight, make that money,

and then look for the Usman trilogy or even the Mutt, like Khabib's talk about Markachev, winning the bell and then moving up, you know? So even do that one. Whatever comes after that next Masrida fight, that's what you do. And also with regards to the media thing, I think some of it was a little warranted from Dana

just like that you mentioned the COVID-19 thing. I saw that video. Was it a little narcissistic from Dana to include shots of him? him like doing the walk and making him look like a hero. Yes. However, like, he has the right to go. He was proven right.

And like there were multiple compilations of journalists. It wasn't necessarily just a little questioning. It was like some criticism. And like, yeah, like he was proven right. So he can blow a little bit. Again, whereas the journalists were fearmongering. And it's led to this situation now, cost of living and all the rest of which I'm not going to get into.

But yeah, it's all I've got for you today, Mike. Thank you. And I don't agree with you on the Mazadol thing. Excuse me. I think that's the worst of the options. Look, there's something going on that. Like, listen, it's a fight. It'll do okay.

I don't think it's going to, like, blow the doors off of what the trilogy with Usman's going to be by any stretch of the imagination. I think it's right around the same. Oostman might be more at this point. All Mazadol's to do is fight somebody and get a win. Just go fight and get a win. you're good. And if Leon beats, and either way, if Leon loses, he could still fight Mazadol. If Leon wins,

he could fight Mazadol. Like, that's all there. The other thing about the Dana situation, and yes, it is a little narcissistic. Let me just say that we have all praised Dana for what he was able to do.

Sure, there were questions. Sure, there were New York Times articles written about what he was trying to do. Everything that was happening, we were very well aware, everything that happened in California at that casino that they never went back to, by the way, all of that, it's just Tachi Pals. That's what it was. Tachia Pals. They didn't go back to Tachia Pals. A lot of those clips are taking completely out of context, and they were also, those are things that were said, but what was missing was things that were said before and said

after. You got to tell the whole story. I understand you can't put out a two-hour video posting all of the clips. But a lot of that is just like, before that I was like, hey, listen, if they could do it, cool, but we have questions. Here's the questions. And it was like,

click. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Negative, negative, negative. But then at the end, it was like, but I hope they can do it. It'd be really cool. And we gave Dana so much credit for pulling it off.

We did. We did. Now we're not going to like, I'm not going to go to a press conference, like some people in the media space. It was like, Dana, thank you for being the hero. sports is always needed. Because that's just stupid.

That's just kissing ass. That's puckering up. And I ain't doing it. And nobody else should either. But he does deserve credit. The guy had the balls to do something that nobody else would do. And he did it. And he did it.

And he should be swagging around. And the media did have questions. And we should have. I don't mind that the video got released earlier. Like you want to sit there and you want to pat yourself in the back at the media's expense. go right ahead. But then they pulled the video for like a year.

And then yesterday they just repost it. Why? What is the point? COVID's like not over, but it's like the worst of it is behind us. Like we're living somewhat normal lives now. Was it necessary to re-release the video? Why would you do that?

Like what's the point? What's the point? I thought we were already passed all this bullshit. You prove people wrong, Dana. That's great. But everybody's rooting for everybody along the way. You think we wanted the UFC? You think the media didn't want the UFC to put on fights?

You think we wanted to watch the fighters sit in home and not make any money? That's bullshit. We wanted this to happen. We were rooting for it to happen. We wanted to make sure it was safe and done the right way. And they did it. They did a great job. They set the table for everybody else.

They nailed it. They killed it. And they had probably their biggest year ever. because of that. They got so many fans based on what they did. This was a turning point for the UFC. And they were already in a great place. But that pandemic brought in so many new fans

because they were the only game in town. I saw it right away. I joined MMA fighting, did a couple of videos, did some stuff, and then we started adding more content and adding different things to it. And we saw how many, new fans that were. And it wasn't because, like, of great, new and exciting content that

M.A. Fighting was putting out. It was because the UFC was doing, getting shit done. They got shit done. And they brought people along because sports fans needed an outlet. And they didn't have one. And they deserved to be commended for that. But not at the media's expense. No one was rooting for them to fail. You can put us out clips of like, oh, maybe this isn't safe. I think they're making it and a mistake. But no one was like, I hope they've plummet. I hope they fail. No one said that. And if they did, put it in a clip. But I don't remember anybody saying, I'm rooting for them to fail. And that was the whole thing. That was Dana's thing. Like, the media in this sport was rooting for us to fail. When did anybody in a respected media place say

that? That's my issue with the video. No one rooted for you to fail. We all rooted for you to be successful. Not for you per se, but for the fighters. We wanted the fighters to fight and get paid. We didn't want them to sit at home and not get paid. We're rooting for this. So that whole thing that the media was trying to shut us down and close the door and they're rooting for our demise. That's bullshit. It's bullshit. I'll take a few more. Swap. Hello. Nice to have you back. Yeah. Just a small question from my side. Like what are the top five perspectives? in the UFC in all division right now. Thanks, Mike.

The top five what? Best fights. The five prospects. The five best belts or bouts? Prospects in the UFC. Oh, boy. That's a, man, that's a loaded question. I will have to think about that.

I will have to think about that one. I will have an answer for you. I will have an answer for you next week, I promise. I guess that's one of those. AK talks about the six P's. And yeah, let's go to average average average. How you doing? Can you hear me?

Yes. Okay, I'm well, I'm well. So I've got two for you. Which division, current division in the U.S. Would you like to see them do a tournament with? And there's a, I've got a, the second one is the two paper, two pay-per-views after 279, 280, and, 281 people seem to be looking forward to.

But I'm going to, I'm going to make you do it. Which one is going to, if you had to choose, which one's got to be the flop? All right. Thanks, man. Have a heck of a morning. Cheers. Which one, man. Which one is going to be the flop?

I don't think either will be a flop based on like what it means. But if we're talking about like which, if we're talking about which one will be in the event of the year conversation, it has to be 280. It has to be 280. That card is ridiculous. There's no way that card's not going to be good. And I know sometimes when you say there's no way it's a kiss of death, there's no way that card's not going to be good. Islam Makachev versus Charles Olivera is the fight I am looking forward to the most? There's no other fight on planet earth that is going to get me more intrigued than that one for 2022. I'm very intrigued about Edward Zusman 3. But for this year, that is the one. That is the one. It was for me,

Glover Tashir versus Yuri Parashka. But now it's this one. This one superseded it. And then just everything else around it. Like Aljo Dilloshah is a great fight, even though I felt Jose Alas should have been fighting for the belt. Benile, Darius versus Batush Gamar. All those fights are great. 281.

I'm interested in Adasani Pereira, the story. Ken Pereira get it done. I'm intrigued by it. But there is a very real chance that that could be a snoozer. that we see, you know, a typical, and this is not, again, there's nothing wrong with this, that we see an Adasania like 50-45 mid-range kickboxing fight. I think Pereira is going to be a little more aggressive than Canada was, but there is a very real chance of that happens.

And then Carlos Spars is Zhang Wei Li. I don't know, maybe I'll be, maybe it'll end up being just this incredible war that we never forget. but I just feel like stylistically this is a really tough one for Carla and we'll see how the rest of the card plays out. If they had, if they had Porriy Chandler to that card, it's going to make it a little more interesting, but 280's got to be the one. And why I like 280 better because it's going to be an early start time,

and I love that. And we'll see if the UFC gives it away for free again, like they did last year. Remember the Abu Dhabi pay-per-view? They gave it away for free for ESPN plus subscribers. I'd love to see them do that again. That'd be amazing. for that freaking card my god

that'd be sick I'll take it two more and I have to go because I'm going to get yelled at B'O hello so first of all I want to apologize for my do-do pick yesterday I said Marav should fight Ricky

Simone and I did I did not know that they had already fought and I just wanted to say there was a point in RDA's career where he was I think in like back in 2010, whatever UFC video game was out, he was literally the worst rated character on there. And then he made his way all the way back to the championship.

So if he doesn't have a damn they were good episode, it would be criminal. And just a little free for all question for you. I know you're a big Duncan guy. What is your thoughts on the Dunkuccino and any of the other drinks at Dunkin' Donuts? I'm over here on the West Coast, but I grew up on the East Coast. So I miss my Dunkin sometimes. And, yeah, have a heck of a weekend, man. Thanks, man.

Yeah, RDA should definitely get a Dan. They were good. That would be stunned if he didn't. Duncan, I don't, I mean, if you're a Dunkuccino person, have at it, I ain't going to judge you. I am a very boring coffee drinker. I like, I drink black coffee. Hot, iced, I get a black ice coffee every single morning. I go to Dunkin' Donuts, I go to the mobile app.

I cut the line, get my ice coffee, and I go on my happy little way. Once a year, and you can make fun of me if you want, I don't really care. I think it tastes delicious. One time a year, I get a pumpkin ice coffee. When I see the leaves change and, you know, fall is in the air. I like to, one time a year, I get myself a pumpkin ice coffee with extra milk and two sugars. makes you feel a little guilty after, but it's delicious. But I'm a very, very basic coffee drinker.

I love to taste Dunkin' Donuts coffee. But yeah, they do a lot of weird things that I would never try, and it's just not for me. But, yeah, I just like large black ice coffee, call today. Crypto, we go to you. Hello. You got on mute. Hi, Mike. Can you hear me?

Hello. Yes, I can. Hi. So first of all, I know it's been said many times here today, but BTL yesterday, that was the best episode ever. That was the Yiri Pohashka Glover of BTLs, and you have to bring BC back. Just the comments at the end about lightweight being not the best division, not the second best, but the third division. I mean, that just got my blood pumping. It was so, yeah, it was so much fun.

Okay, Mike, so I actually have a question because I was wondering about this. We usually hear about the concept of money fights. So a lot of people want to fight Connor McGregor, due to obvious reasons, of course, him being a legend and so on. But I was just wondering if you would have a fighter like Fiziev, for example. They had some back and forth on Twitter and so on. There was like a brief two-hour window where people thought that they might end up fighting each other. But I was just thinking about this.

Would that actually be a money fight for Fiziev? Because I understand the pay-per-view concept with champions and so on. But I was just wondering, like, if he has a regular contract, do you renegotiate that? Is that a money fight for anyone? or is that something that is, yeah, discussed prior to each fight? And the reason why I'm asking is this Olivera situation. If he would lose to Makashev and he's no longer the champion, he doesn't get pay-per-viewpoints, is that still a huge money fight for him or not?

So that's my question. And also, Mike, I just really need to ask you this question. because I don't like the Ferguson matchup with the leech. So my question would be, if you would have a magic wand, and it's a crappy magic wand, but still a magic wand, where you could exclude the leech from that matchup,

but the only person you're allowed to exclude or change for the leech is Paddy Pimblet, would you do it? Which one is a worse matchup? Thank you, Mike. Oh, man. I think Patty's probably, I mean, Patty's the bigger fight. You would get more attention, but I just think Tony beats him right now. I just, I just think Tony wins.

And then you're just kind of, you're not killing Patty, but you're halting his momentum. So you're basically, you're basically going to stay where you're at or you have the possibility of just halting the momentum of one of your breakout stars. And to me, I think Tony beats Patty. So, yeah, I mean, I get why people want it. A.K. is, like, firm. This is the fight to make. I just, no. I just, I guess Lee, but I don't know.

I really don't like either of them, if we're being honest. I'm not a fan of either of them. But that's kind of where I'm at. All right, we had two other people waiting for a while, someone gets to them. Tony, hello. Hey, what's going on, guys? Have a heck of a morning.

Hello. I got something for you. So one championship that's coming on on Prime today, just curious, if you got any fights that might be worth watching to you. But I got another thing. So UFC is dark. And I've been running this thing that I wanted to share with the folks on the line. Like that might be cool. Like what I've been doing is I got on Tapology and I copy, I went to the annual fight of the year list and went back to like 2015, 2014, copied like the top 10 into my notes on Apple. And then you can copy the last name versus last name into the UFC FightPass, get them onto your favorites, and then watch the top 10 for whatever year. And I've been doing that because I've been out of the game for years until the pandemic. And it's been really cool watching bangers that, you know, tapology has as ranked as top 10 or whatever over the last years. I'm on like 2018 now. So that's my question and my suggestion for the guys and gals out there.

I like it. I like it. Take note, everybody. Definitely do that. You probably get some good ones. Had some frigging great fights over the last seven years, even before that. I want to get to Kurt before I get out of here. Kurt, hello.

Hey, how's it going, Mike? Good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Hey, I just wanted to know, what is the holdup with the Kevin Holland fight? I mean, I keep hearing like it's not done. It's not done whenever it's brought up. And people are really kind of quick to bring that up. And so I'm wondering if you have any insight to the holdup on that.

Also, I just saw something. They're working on Gaichi and Fazi for December 10th. I'm not sure if that's true or how close that is. And if you know anything on that, also I'm with you on on on the whole thing with with George I think that I heard you earlier talking about the whole thing that happened with Colby and getting assaulted and kind of we kind of forgot about his win over George and I heard Chale talk into Ariel this week and he just mentioned something that I never thought about about

Colby possibly going up to middleweight and fighting Israel but I think that with Leon as the champ I don't think that they I don't know I would If I were the USC, I'd want to capitalize on Leon being the champion. And, you know, Uzman is just not a good matchup for him. And so I would think that they want like something fresh or something to get people more excited. And I think I think Kobe would be a good, good option to fight Leon as the first defense. So yeah, I thought that was very, I think that's very interesting. So, and one last thing, I think I talked to you.

recently I kind of mentioned that thing about, you know, Connor not getting tested or anything like that. And I actually followed up with that. And I did talk to some media members that were at the pay-per-view last week. And from what they told me is that a lot of the media members do know that he hasn't been tested. And so did the UFC. And they actually asked Jeff Nivinsky about it. And he replied with no comment. And so I don't know if that maybe seems like a big story to me.

But I don't know. It could be something, you know, maybe he's his injury and he's on some medication. He's exempt from testing. But I just thought that was also interesting. Thank you and have heck of a morning. Thanks, man. Yeah, I know a lot of the international fighters get tests a little bit less. You can just kind of go through the metrics of it all.

Yeah, I don't really know. Jeff's a no comment kind of guy. Like if it's something he's familiar with and something that the UFC is like completely involved with, like the Rob Font situation. which he still says is like one of the weirdest ones he's ever seen. We had one not long ago where a fight got rebooked because of the metabolites, the John Jones thing. But he doesn't like he works with Usada.

He doesn't work for Usada. He works for the UFC. So there are certain things like if you ask him questions about certain scenarios, like when Henry Suhudo was talking about coming back, I asked Jeff. And Jeff's like, I can't comment on that because it's only Usada or. the fighter themselves can reveal that information. So I think that's probably why he was so quiet about that, because he's very safe.

He's very safe with that kind of thing. So I did, I mean, Colby would be an option. He'd definitely be a super villain in this fight with Leon Edwards. But I feel like it's just, it's just not going to happen. I'm still shocked to hear Dana say, like he's ready to come back.

But you go and look at the court documents. He's talking about brain injuries and things like that from the attack. Like, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. We'll see. D-Rod, Holland. I don't, like, no one's, I don't have any specifics on why it's not done. I just know it's not done.

That's it. You know, when I see things pop up, I reach out, try to get confirmation. Ask one side, is this true? Is this legit? I was told no. And then I asked another person. They said, it's not done yet. And then same exact thing yesterday.

So I have no reason why. Maybe it's, I don't know. Maybe it's just too short notice or maybe they just one side wants to do it 85 or I don't know. I don't know. We'll figure it out. Hopefully we get that squared away and we get it done. I mentioned, I'll end with this because I mentioned this the other day, but there are sites and there are people who prematurely report fights as done or quote,

to being finalized in a number of ways, whether it be on social media with accounts that have big followings or even on the on-the-no segment, someone said that I'm told that Adrian Yanna's Rob Font is a done deal, and that is not true at all. That fight is not done. Rob is nowhere near close to returning from what I was told, and the earliest we will see Rob Font back is March, which is smart, because if you remember after Calvin Cater lost him, Hallaway, those New England cartel guys are very careful. They're very careful. They're not

going to rush back at all. They would rather take too much time than not enough time. And Rob took a beating in that Maro and Berra fight. He took a beating in the Josealdo fight. He had back-to-back fights where he got beat up pretty bad. So he's going to take some time off. And he should.

So the earliest we're going to see Rob Fawn is in March. So there is no talks at all. And I was told specifically, the UFC has not reached out about a Rob font fight at all. So if you hear any rumors about that, it's not true. The Fizim Gathe one, I'm trying to see what I can say about it.

All right, here's all things. To say that it's close to finalize is wrong because it's not true. To say it is, at one point was being discussed for that card would not be an inaccurate statement on my part. It was being talked about, I don't, I think whatever talks have sort of fizzled at this point from what I gather. But I will say this, was it brought up at all?

Yes. Is it close to being finalized? No. Should you mark it on your calendar for December? No. Could it happen in 2023? Maybe. But could it happen December 10th?

I guess it could. as of right now from the conversations I've had, I'd be stunned if it happens December 10th. I'd be stunned. And I don't know from whose side that it's not done. All I know is that it was discussed. And as of right now, it's not happening. If I'm on the Gaichi side,

if I'm on the Gaetchi side, I'm probably looking for Connor first. I think that would be smart on his part. Wait to see how things play out October 22nd. Like if Islam Makachev beats Charles Olivera, if I'm Gaethe, I'm going, I'll win on Connor. If Olivera wins, maybe you pivot somewhere else. But yeah, so I hate to be the bearer of bad news. Was it talked about, is it still being discussed potentially?

Probably. Is it close to being finalized? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. So, okay. I got to go. I got a lot going on here. Me and A.K.

are about to tape a AMA edition of On to the next one. We got some great questions. If you have other questions, you have like 10 minutes to submit them, wherever you submit you're on to the next one's suggestions. So you can go ahead and do that right now. And then I think the electrician is coming to replace a light in my house. So I've got a lot going on in the heck household right now. But thank you all.

This has been the biggest week in the history of the show between live viewership and the podcast downloads. We appreciate that. I appreciate all the kind words about the BT. episode with Jed and Brian. Go back and watch that if you haven't, or you can listen to it on the podcast network. It's ridiculous and unbelievable and incredible

and all those great adjectives. And if you're looking for interviews, two just popped up over the last 18 hours or so. Taylor Starling, one half of the BKFC main events, fighting Christine Faria for the Flyway title. That is up there. And my interview with Dean Thomas

about the Leon Edwards fight, the comments, et cetera. that is up on YouTube as well. Awesome stuff from both of them. Dean especially. It was really insightful stuff from him and him taking a beating for the Leon looks broken comments and him not moving an inch on what he said

and he ain't wrong, ladies and gentlemen. So thank you very much. Back on Tuesday, 10 a.m. Eastern for another edition of the show. Have a great rest of your weekend. And have a heck of a morning, everybody. network.