MMA Fighting - HOAM | Could Conor McGregor vs. Michael Chandler End Up Headlining UFC 300 After All?

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler certainly planted a lot of seeds this past weekend in regards to their fight being shifted from June to April's UFC 300 event, but could the UFC be on the same page as the two former world champion competitors? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck discusses the current UFC 300 lineup, the possibility of McGreor vs. Chandler being the main event, and his opinion on if the battle between TUF coaches is the promotion's first choice. Additionally, listener questions include the UFC's middleweight division, UFC Vegas 85 this Saturday headlined by Roman Dolidize vs. Nassourdine Imavov, if Aljamain Sterling was the most disrespected UFC champion of all-time, and much more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 10 a.m. ET on the MMA Fighting Twitter Spaces. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

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Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster, the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, ghosts in the machine,

available now, only from Audible. To the Vox Media Podcast Network. Tuesday, January 30th, 2024, and it is indeed a heck of a morning. We are live on the NBA fighting Twitter space you hear the show in its entirety. Shortly thereafter on the Yenambe Fighting Podcasting Network. What's going on, everybody?

I am Mike Heck. Hope you had a fantastic weekend. And got to take a little breather from UFC action. I mean, O'One had an event and things got a little weird with the whole Sage Northcutt situation. But we did have the Royal Rumble, so you at least got to watch something. And now the UFC is back this weekend. And I guess there's good and bad with that because the good is you get a little bit of a reprieve.

You get a Saturday night off. You get to relax a little bit. But then in the same time, there's really like nothing to react to certain weeks. And this is kind of one of those weeks because there was no UFC event on Saturday. Yeah, I guess we could talk about the Rumble a little bit. But I don't think that's why a lot of people are here. and like all the dust has kind of settled from 297. I think all the takes are gone.

I guess there's still like UFC 300 chatter, but it's just kind of like one of those weird days because a lot of times you come on the show and there's things to react to. There's a big announcement of the night before. There was a fight card the weekend before, and we can talk about it. And now we're kind of in a weird place

where it's just like, what do we talk about? But luckily, it's one of those shows where it's a call-in show and we can talk about essentially whatever you want. So real quick, before we get into everything, fun little announcement, a lot of people over the last, I don't know, a year,

year and a half, maybe even longer. And it came up, again, it was more prevalent over the last few weeks when we did this show on YouTube. A lot of people were like, hey,

why not do like, super chats and things of that nature, super thanks, all that good stuff. And I'm here to tell you that as of right now, that is now a thing on the M.A. Fighting YouTube channel. We have the super chat. We have the super thanks. We have the super stickers, all that fun stuff.

We have no idea how do you really use any of it? I certainly don't, but we are learning. And now that is a thing. So there you go. especially with all the Q&A stuff, all the craziness going on. Give you guys the chance to skip the line a lot of stuff. We're going to try some stuff tomorrow with BTL. We'll do like a Q&A episode.

And then BTL will get a little more interesting as well because of this new feature. And if there's something you guys watched in the past and you're like, wow, this is really fun. Thank you for doing this. You can go ahead and do your super thanks or whatever. Again, I'm not really sure how it works. I know a lot of people asked for it. A lot of people are like, you guys should do it. So now we're doing it.

So thank you very much for the idea. And now you guys can stop bugging me about it. So that is a thing on the YouTube channel. You can go and do the super thanks stuff right now. And we can do some super chat stuff on all the shows. So get excited. And Scott's booing. I don't know why.

You don't have to. You don't have to super chat. You don't have to do any of that shit. But if you want to, you can. We have given you the option. We are listening to the masses, so to speak, but there's always one that doesn't like it. So, all right, let's get into the program. Let's get started.

Let's fire away here. Let's fire away. Let's get to a million questions today. Ani, go ahead. Sounds a little, what do you say, deeper? because I unfortunately for the first time in my life something to check off of the bucket list, I have tested positive for COVID-19. And this is the first time. But the symptoms are mild. And I think I should be fine in a day or two. So first off, I know that this is not a free-for-all

Friday, but you didn't mention the Royal Rumble. My one of the first question is what what what is this curse that's been following CM Punk like whenever there is this huge event or an event that is that that will really you know sort of get him to the mountain top you know he always gets injured like it's just the timing. I'm not I'm not saying that you know I don't mean it in a wrong way. I mean, it's unfortunate that he's getting injured. But it's just the timing.

I kind of feel bad for him, you know. Did you catch the segment between CM Punk and Drew McIntyre? So the WW style promos are not my thing because I feel they're really scripted. I prefer the AEW style promo. But I think this was really really. well written or maybe it's just that see a punk and drew mackinty are really really good at what they do. Did you check it out? If not, like there's this really nice part where it's like the conviction with which Drew McIntyre delivers that promo, the conviction with which he says a certain thing.

Oh boy, that was amazing. This was the first time in a long time that I thought a WWE promo a promo battle was, you know, it was good. It wasn't CM Punk MJF levels, but it was good. I liked it. And another quick question that I have, everyone keeps talking about UFC 300. What do you think will happen in UFC 301? Is that the Brazil card? Is that where we expect Alex Pereira to fight and why do you think UFC is not announcing the main event is it because they want to build the anticipation or are they just plain and simple blueless well that's all I had thank you Mike heck of a morning speak to you so thanks buddy I hope you feel better yeah I did watch that segment on raw I actually watched all of last night and it was really good um one of the best episodes of wrestling tv in a very long time uh

even with it being three hours and get real sloggy uh this is an a almost an a plus show so yeah it was really good i thought punk and cody were great last week punk and drew were great this week i mean that means just on fire right now and that and that's it's tough like you wanted to see punk and rollins at restillmania but at the same time like it's all good they're on fire it's I mean, the Vince stuff obviously, the Vince McMahon stuff is obviously horrible. And all that stuff is crazy. But in terms of like the television product and the events, I mean, they're just home run after home run after home run. So good, good on them.

As far as 300 goes, why have they not an automated event? I think they, here's my guess. And I have no insight to this whatsoever. I think they want to do DDP versus Izzy. I think that's the one they want. I think it makes all the sense in the world. If they can't get it for some reason, like if Izzy's not ready to go mentally

or DDP's not ready to go physically, they're probably trying to do the Connor Chandler fight. I mean, they're teasing it on social media. But I think it's going to end up being one of those two fights. Dana keeps saying it's going to be crazy and we're not ready for it. I'm just not really sure what else it could be at this point, but we'll see. 301, my guess is, and I've been saying this for a while, I don't think Alex Pereira is fighting at 300.

I know everyone was like, oh, yeah, he's fight at 300. I never thought he was, especially if they're going to Rio and May. I am hearing rumblings that they're looking in that direction. It's not done yet. It's not even to the point where you could report anything yet. I've heard some things. That's all I'll say. But it's a little too soon to really talk about it.

But all I could say is like if the UFC has their druthers, Pereiro will headline that car, but it's nowhere near done. It's not something that can be reported. So it'll be like, oh, Mike X reporting this? No, I'm not. I'm just saying. I mean, we're talking like, if this fight is like you have to, to go from the kickoff all the way to the other end of the field.

They're moving the ball, but like very slightly. We're in the beginning of a drive is where we're at right now. But this is not like a shock to anybody. They're going to Rio. You might as well have the Brazilian champions fight on that card, right? Do Pereira on that card. Maybe Jamal Hill will be ready to go. There's videos of him training.

I was hearing like April, May, like positive. positive thinking, that could happen. It still seems kind of crazy that that would happen so soon after an injury like that. But we've seen fighters heal from pretty catastrophic injuries really quickly. Like, Tote Ferguson wasn't even a human being after suffering some of the injuries that he suffered and was able to come back in less of the year from catastrophic injuries. And then Pantosia is the flyweight champion. Does he fight the Moreno?

Does he fight Moreno if he beats Royval? Like, what do we do there? I don't know. So, it wouldn't shock me to see Pereira and Pantéch. Pintaget has already essentially said he's going to fight on that card. So that would make all the sense of the world to me. Get Pereira on that card, save him. You don't need them for 300.

Throw them on there with somebody. And Pantosia can be the co-main event. And we'll be off and running. that's kind of how I see this all playing out but who the hell knows the shit changes every day at this point so uh YVMZ go ahead Hey Mike heck, good morning uh I wanted to ask you a quick question uh I'm not sure if I'm getting too ahead of myself but um if to pouria uh beats Alex um on this you know upcoming uh pay-per-view do you think Alex would get an immediate rematch or do you think they're going to want to move the division along. I just wanted to get your thoughts on that.

And two, do you think Max Holloway will stay at 155? That's all that. Thanks so much. Will Vulcan immediate rematch if he loses? Yeah, he better. He better. Look, this isn't, I'm not a huge fan of immediate rematches, but in Volcanowski's case, yeah, you give him an immediate rematch.

I mean, the guy has had this belt for a year, He's put on incredible performance after incredible performance at 1.45. He's done everything the UFC has asked him to do. I'm trying to, like, do the math in my head, but he's probably the longest reigning champion in the company right now. Like, if anybody deserves an immediate rematch, it's him. It's him. You know, if you get to like four or five title defenses, you should probably get it, unless it's like a business decision or a fighter wants to leave the weight class.

But yeah, if Volk wants one, he'll get one. He's done the company a lot of favors. He stepped in on short notice to fight Makachev, did the company a favor. They'll pay, they'll give him a solid. But it depends on how it goes, too. It depends on how it goes. Like if Topori just wrecks him, just absolutely runs him over. That's bad.

That's too bad knockout losses. Like if he gets knocked out, that's too bad knockout losses in what, four months? He probably takes a break and maybe they go to Poria of Lov in his first title defense and then Volk can come back and fight for the belt. Like, I don't know. Timing will be everything on that, but I'm pretty confident to say that Volk's next fight will be for the belt. Whether it's, they run it right back or he takes some time and then comes back, Volk will fight for the belt again if he loses. Max, I don't know. I don't know if he beat, I mean, if he beats Justin Gachi, he's probably getting a title shot.

He'll probably jump over the Olivera Saurukian winner. He goes out and beat Justin Gachi because that's just what the UFC does. So, yeah, I don't know. But if he just gets trucked, I don't know. Teporia being the champion would probably change some things too. So, yeah, it's going to be interesting to see. But if he wins, then he's definitely staying at 55 because he'll get a freaking title shot. Rafi Sports, go ahead.

Hey, Mike. I hope you're having a good morning. So my question is about the UFC 300, Armandt Sarukian, a fellow Armenian against Charles Olivera. I wanted to know, like, your prediction on this fight. So, like, I'll have to dive in a little deeper by the time we get to 300. but when this fight was announced, and I was asked like my early prediction, I picked Armand Sarukian knockout round one

in an absolutely chaotic and insane three minutes and 37 sections of action where these two are just going to drop hammers on each other. Siru Kyi might even hit the canvas at some point, but he might come back and I don't know, it's just going to be an absolutely chaotic fight, but I think Sirukian, And I just think it's this time. I am the only one.

I am the only one on M.AFighting.com. Tremendous website. We made our champion predictions for the year. I'm the only one with Armand Sarukian as my choice. And this isn't a, oh, I bet him at plus 1,600. No, no, no, no, no. This is me planting my flag. I am cashing in the money in the bank briefcase.

I'm going all in on Arm and Sarukian this year. No one is. in this space has been higher on this man longer than I. Then I've been talking about this guy since before he was in the UFC. Then the Makachaf fight. And since I got Dembe fighting, it's been the Surukian show. I've been putting this man over, ranked him, all the questions, oh, who's the guy to watch this year?

Always arm in Sirrucian. And now he's going to get his chance. And I'm cashing in in the briefcase. I'm cashing it in. There is no fight on plan. at earth that I want to see more than Islam Makachep versus Armin Sarukian, too. There is no fight I want to see more. I am completely fascinated by that fight. Of course, Surukian has to take care of business against a tremendously tough Charles

Olivera, but I think he could do it. I think it's his time. I think it's his time. What he did to Benile Darius was so impressive. I just think it's his time. I'm a lashing at all the chips. I'm pushing them all in the middle of the table for Serugian this year. So I'm picking him to win, but it's going to be an electric fight. It's going to have all of Eric Gaichi vibes. That's how exciting I think this fight's going to be. But I'll dive into some more tape and watch some stuff before 300, and I'll give, you know, a full-on prediction, but, you know, preliminary pick, Suruki and round one,

K.O. I don't think this fight gets around to either way because of what I think's going to happen. Saving and investing well is an art and a science. It requires high-level math, an intimate knowledge of economic history and theory, and a healthy dose of psychology. People have spent their whole careers and won Nobel Prizes, trying to figure out the best ways to do it. Betterment believes that you should be able to be a successful and sophisticated investor without having to get a PhD. They've spent over a decade creating and refining a platform that can help people who have, you know, lives invest like experts. And it's all because they have a simple mission to make powerful investing tools available to everyone. Their approach, which includes things like goals-based investing,

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Just real quick, I guess following up on what you were just talking about, Arm and Sarukin, become a champ. I'm assuming you believe he beats Charles Olivera, so I would like for you to sort of lay out how he does it. How does he get the victory over Charles? That's pretty much all I got for you. I just did it. Oops, sorry.

I just did it. These two guys are going to land absolute hammers on each other. Sarukian might get rocked at some point, but then he's going to come back and they're just going to keep throwing sledge hammers at each other. and then Charles is going to fall and Surrican's going to put him away. So there you go. But yes, I just think it's going to be an absolute freaking barn burner.

And then Serruki and just being the younger guy with less mileage. But it's going to be awesome. It's got to be the most chaotic fight on the card, I think. I think it might even steal some shine from the BMF title fight.

Like BMF title fight I think it's going to go longer. So maybe it has like a little more staying power. and it's going to be like at the top of our minds because it just happened. But this one is going to be absolutely insane. Like I don't think this is going to be like, I don't expect a lot of takedowns being shot in this one. I don't expect this fun to be on the mat. I don't expect a lot of scrambles.

I expect these two getting in there and just throwing absolute hammers at each other. So it should be fun. But it wouldn't shock me of all of Avaer one because he's just that dude. Go ahead, Absalya. So, Mark, Mark, okay, for the morning. just have two questions. First question is what do you think

the U.S. he should do with Jared Kahnir? He's a bit of a tough spot. I think it's both the best and worst time he has probably had no more of a higher ceiling in his career being still in the title picture but also where the division's changing a lot. And just to follow up with that question

just regarding the middleweight division you know with all these fights that's happening the next two to three months particularly with the next face of the divisions like Brandon Allen NASA Dean you know Iqar Malas Carroll and all these guys I mean if they win the next few fights how do you see the shift in the paragraph of the division happening maybe in the next year or two because you know in my opinion I think people like Robert Whitaker, Paula Costa, depending on what they do, win or lose. I could see someone like Robert Woodock moving up to light heavyweight like he said he wanted to do two years back.

If he loses his fight to cost him, Polar Costa, I mean, let's be real, the guy's not really in any position to be in the title picture, and he's barely won a single fight since 2020. So, yeah, I'm just curious to me, your thoughts on that. Thanks, man. Have a great day. Thank you, sir. Sorry, a million things happening. I will answer the Canaan Air question and probably just combine them.

I think Cannoneer, I think it was very smart that he called out Hamzaat Shamaif. I think that makes all the sense in the world. He's not getting a title shot. It's just not happening. Hamzad is a great callout. I think it makes a lot of sense. If they don't do, like, Strickland Hamzat, which I think is to fight everybody would rather then sure

add that to 300 if Hamzat's ready to go and Strickland's just like nah dude I ain't fighting that guy then you're good then you're all set if he doesn't get Hamzad it's going to be tough man

it's going to be tough he might be fighting Brendan Allen he ain't getting a big name they might even throw him Micromalaskaroff when he comes back from whatever his injury is so it's kind of of like Hamzat or bust for him. I don't think he's going to get DDP. I don't see it happen. I think he's probably like from how the UFC views him right now and him being out for as long

as he's been out. He's like maybe third or fourth on their list right now of guys they would call to fight DDP. It's Izzy. It's Hamzat. It's Strickland and then him. So he's still got work to do. And I end like all these episodes talking about the middleweight division and I'm just like, man, I always like forget to mention Jared Cananir. So he's in play, but sometimes absence makes the heart grow fonder. But when you're in a title hunt, sometimes it doesn't. And I think in Canaaner's case, it hasn't done him any favors. So yeah, I like the strategy.

Go get Hamzat, see if you can get it, because that's his best chance of getting a title shot. But I don't know if they go that route. And if he doesn't get Hamzat, then he's going to have to fight a high-risk, low-reward guy to stay in the position he's at. So he's in a very weird spot. Very weird spot. Let's go to CV. Hello, CV. Hi, Mike.

Heck of a morning. Happy Tuesday. Yeah, just to add on to Azulia's question. Let's talk about this Saturday's Apex main event, like the Leedsay and Imobov, just like your early thoughts in the fight. And yeah, speaking of the middleweight division, it seems like at the top, you know, obviously you got DDP, maybe Izzy fights him. You got Strickland and play, obviously kind of near and Hamzat and Whitaker and Costa.

Like how about like between the 7 to like 15 range? Like, is Roman Delita going to become a thing this year if he gets, like, an impressive finish over Imovov? And likewise with Imov, like, he's been kind of, like, underwhelming because, like, I remember when he first came in the UFC, he had, like, a promising start. But, like, he had, like, a couple, like, middle-weighty fights. Like, they're not really, like, good fights to watch. But, but, yeah, just your thoughts on that. I don't know with this one, honestly. Like, Delead, like, is Delead's, like, it become a thing?

I think he became a thing in 2022 with the year he had. Going out there and just knocking out Kyle Dawkes, knocking out Phil Haas, and then that crazy finish from back control against Jack Her Manson, like, he, like, arrived. And then he went in there and fought probably the middleweighty, middleweight goat, Marvin Vittori and lost. But it was a close fight and there were people out there thought Roman won that fight.

So, and then he just kind of dealt with a lot. We haven't seen him in a long time. So in this division, like, you just can't miss a lot of time because people sort of forget about you and you certainly can't do it when you're coming off of a loss. And for Roman, he's getting up there in age. He's got to be 36 this summer. So it's kind of like if he's going to do it, he's got to do it now.

And then I'movov is like, Imovov's one of those guys that I think as a whole, a lot of us just got super duper high on. Andre Mnizish sort of feelings about him. Goes out there and loses a tight one to Phil Haas. Goes out there and just runs over Ian Hinesh, goes out and runs over Edmund Shabazzian, goes it beats Joachim Buckley,

in a fun fight in a win that has aged pretty well. And then he lost a dominant decision to Sean Strickland. Yeah, it was on short notice. And then he was doing good against Chris Curtis and the clash of heads happened and haven't been able to get him back since. So both these guys, I mean, it's been almost a year since, it's been over a year since the Strickland fight.

It's been June. It was 289 when he fought Curtis. So it's been a hot minute since you've seen him in the wind column. He has been once in September of 2022. And Deleague has been out for a minute. So it's an important fight for both guys. Like one of these guys is going to be like,

you know, top five, seven-ish kind of guy that's like knocking on the door, but it has a long way to go. And the other guy's probably just going to be a back end of the top 15 guy for a while. And there's nothing wrong with that. You can make a really good living doing that. So it's, you know, we say this kind of jokingly, but this is just one of those things where it's like, especially when you talk about the middleweight division, like no one's mentioning either of these names right now at the top of the conversation when it comes to titles and moving up the ladder and things of that nature.

And of all the middleweight fights that are booked right now that feature ranked fighters, this is probably the bottom of the list in terms of excitement and where either guy could go just on paper right now. So this is just one of those apexe-made events that it's like, yeah, it's a fight. Stakes aren't all that high. It's a fight. That's kind of where we're out here. But I think it could be fun. Both guys need a win. Both guys need to do it impressively if they want to get in that discussion.

So I don't think this will be middle-weighty middle-weight. D'Leese is not really that guy. well we'll see and then we get pipe for a lot of middleweight apex made events a lot of them coming up this one next week we have one brendan allan martin vittories another one coming up in april so yeah middle weights are going to get made event spots a lot this year i think but yeah it'll be a fine fight rest of the card's pretty solid it's not a bad apex card so yeah we'll see what happens park Go ahead. What's going on, Mike?

So I just had a couple questions about a couple of fights that, you know, should be coming up. You know, despite all the shit that Belal gets, you know, for whatever reason, you know, boring fights, whatever. You know, assuming that's obviously the next fight to happen. You know, with Belal being kind of like a master of game plans, he's very good at shutting people down, you know, at their own game. How do you see that fight playing out with him and Leon? You know, I'm just very curious because I think it's closer than a lot of people think, you know, even in the first fight. he showed he's able to hang in there with him. And then the next one would be the McGregor Chandler fight.

Chandler's arguably the most explosive guy in the roster. Connor coming off of, you know, it'll probably be three years just about since he last fought and, you know, it didn't go his way, obviously. And, you know, with that injury and everything playing into it, I feel like, you know, Chandler's being heavily overlooked. I really think, you know, his athleticism and power could pose a real danger for Connor. And I kind of see Connor getting leveled in that fight. So, you know, let me know what you think about Belaw Leon and Chandler McGregor.

Well, I'll start with Chandler McGregor. I mean, right now I'm picking Michael Chandler. I'll pick a Chandler. Would it shock me if Connor came out and just busted Chandler up in round one? Sure. That wouldn't surprise me at all. I could see it happening. Connor's done that to a lot of guys.

But there's just so many ways for Chandler to win this fight. Just so many of them. He could just take Connor down, which I don't think he's. he's going to do. And if he could just get to round two, he wins. If he can weather the early storm, Chandler's going to win. And you're asking a lot because Connor hits very, very hard, even being out three years. He's obviously put on some muscle and some size so that isn't going to take anything away from the power. It's not going to have to cut a lot of weight, one would assume. So, but to me, I just think, like, Chandler just,

just needs to get to the second round. Honestly, I think if he gets like the four-minute mark of the first round, it's his fight to lose. So I would pick Chandler for that fact because that fight's going to be 25 minutes. And you're giving Chandler 21 extra minutes to fight a guy like Connor who's got to be fading at that point of the fight. So I think the smart money is on Chandler. But again, if Connor won, it wouldn't surprise.

week. Well, let's see what Michael Chandler shows up. Do we get Bellator Michael Chandler? Do we get Belator lightweight champion Michael Chandler who just wins at all costs? Or do we get UFC Michael Chandler who would rather be in a fight of the year contender than win a fight? And still, I think Chandler could still win that style of fight too if his chin can hold up for more than three and a half, four minutes. So, yeah, I would pick Chandler, but who knows by the time we get to june or 300 whenever that fight actually happens maybe i'll change my tune but it's tough to say chaw connor has a fought in a long time and he hasn't looked very good dusted like ate him alive before the leg break i mean it was all poorie very close to getting

him out of there porre weathered the storm in the in the second fight and then put him away we'll see we'll see how it works then the Leon Belal fight. Look, Belaw could win. He could. I wouldn't pick him to win. I would pick Leon to win. But it's going to be a close fight.

I don't think Leon's going to blow the doors off him. I think it is going to be just a grimy, competitive championship bout. That should not be at UFC 300 because it just shouldn't be a UFC. You can't end UFC 300 with this fight. You just can't do it. You can't. You get to end it with some excitement and all that stuff. And this one, while it's going to be close and competitive,

I don't think it's an exciting fight. I just think it's going to be kind of a grind. It's going to be like Sterling Zahudo-ish in some regard. Like, it's going to be like that. Where it's like, okay, this is close. Could go either way. Let's see how the judge to score it. But it's not one.

We're going to go back and rewatch again. It's not going to be a fight of the year contender. This will not be Strickland DDP. The fascination of Strickland DDP will not be the same as this one. It's just going to be a different kind of competitive fight. But yeah, Blal could win. But I would pick. Right now, I would pick Leon to win.

I would pick Leon to win. It's going to be really interesting to see how this all plays out. I'm telling you what, man, the more time goes by, the more you might be worried if you're a Bilal Muhammad fan. But I don't think this fight happens to 300. At this point, I don't think it happens at 301. I think you have to just wait. Like if you go into London in June or July or something,

you have to do it there, right? Or do you, is that the main event of Saudi Arabia? Leon versus Bilal? I don't know. But I don't think it's happening in 300. And if they're going to Brazil, Leon Edwards versus Belaw Mohammed makes no sense of Brazil. But all you're doing right now is you're giving Shafkat time to heal up.

But I think it's kind of ridiculous if Blah doesn't get this title shot at this point. Let's go to MMA pastime. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Japanese MMA fan. Sorry, if this is the,

Same question. Do you think can with San Dini, Poir-K-O, or win? Question. Can you say that one more time? I'm sorry.

I may pass that. Are you there? Yes. Poiré, San D. Oh, Pori-Sat-D. Okay. Yeah. Oh, thank you, sir. Yeah, poor dude.

Pori-Sant-D rules. That fight is so good. I'm so excited for it. and with, I'll tell you, like, and I said this after they announced the Gaichi Holloway fight, the stakes have risen immensely for Dustin Poria versus Benoit Santini. Because we just all assumed that Gaichi was going to get the title shot against Islam. And now we don't know what's happening with that situation. So for the next, I don't know, three months,

we're going to get ourselves like a little, a little mini Grand Prix. It's going to be like not a tournament, but it's going to be like, all right, who's done it best? And Dustin, Porey could definitely win this fight. Sonson, he's an animal. And then for a guy like Matush Gamrodd, he's fighting a former champion in RDA. He goes out and has an impressive performance. What will that do for his title hopes? And then we get to 300 and it's all this craziness going on.

So, yeah, the stakes are very, very high for Porier, BSD. I have no idea who's going to win that fight. But I think if you're completely under, like, if you're just like, yeah, Porre has no chance, I think that's probably the wrong way to approach this. But love the matchmaking. Love that Pori is taking this fight. Love that BSD is getting this opportunity. Love everything about it.

Cannot wait for that fight. Top five, that's a top five fight on the books right now. for me of what's actually at stake and what's on the table right now. Santino, go ahead. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. What? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea.

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That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. It's not connecting, Santino. Try again. Maybe bounce out and re-request. Mods, do we have you? Yeah, to be fair, just to sort of jump on the back of what you was talking about, because that fight for me, I fully agree with what you're saying.

That's a massive fight for both, for both gentlemen. I just wanted to, like, to be fair, you was wrapping it up as I was requesting it. So, yeah, just your sort of take on that fight. But you kind of answered it before. I even got the chance still. But yeah, big you up anyway, by the way. I'm enjoying this space. First time I stopped by here still, so I'm going to make sure it happens a bit more often when I see this.

But yeah, no, I'm really looking forward to that Porre fight. I think it's a very dangerous fight for Porreier. I agree with you. He has the skills, as we all know, to win. And it might be the fact that his experience and the veteran sort of nature that he has is what navigates him through it. Is that a three-rounder, or is it five-rounder that one? Just out of curiosity.

Five. Ooh. Five-rounder. Interesting. Am I right in thinking, the other man's only ever gone free? Yeah, I mean, to me, like, that makes things super fascinating that it's five rounds because Pori has been there a million times. Now, Santini is a wrecking ball, but he also brings something to the table that Poria has not dealt with a lot in very good fashion. And that's a guy who can just wrestle his ass off.

Not that Poria is like a fish out of water, but Santini can take him down. And if he gets on top of you, it could be a very bad night for you. But can he do this for 25 minutes? Because Porre is durable as shit. He's just so game. And he's really defensively sound. And BSD does like to wrestle and that's in his arsenal, but a fight this big in Miami on a big card like this, sometimes that adrenaline just gets you.

And you just want to get in there and chuck them. And if that happens, like, yeah, sure. Could he land something big on Poria? Absolutely. But the longer that fight goes, the more live Pori, it gets in my opinion so it's so good um interesting announcement here or at least a report we have not confirmed this just yet uh from ariel hawani you may know who he is uh the first new era bellator events at least by this report march 22nd belfast and the main events will be corey anderson

versus Carl Moore for the now vacants Bellator light heavyweight title. So we'll see if we can confirm this news. Something tells me if Ariel's reporting it, then it's probably a safe bet that it's happening. Maybe we get Chris Seiborg versus Liam McCord on this card as well. I think that would make sense, especially in Belfast. But yeah, looks like Bellator is officially back, baby. March 22nd.

So we'll see where that's going to air and all that fun stuff. But yes, Corey Anderson versus Carl Moore, the first main event of the new era of Bellator. What a world we are living in. So there you have it. We'll see if we can confirm this news, but there we go. Santino, do we have you now? Yeah, yeah, sorry about that. How's, how you doing, Mike?

Good, how are you, ma'am? Awesome. Got a couple of questions here. The first one is the lightweight division. You all are touching on it a little bit. It's going to get packed in the next couple months with Porreier. You have Gaichi, Olavera, you have Serokee and all these guys going at it. BSD, possibly Chandler, possibly Connor.

Do you think the whole BMF belt, how we have Gaichi now defending it for the first? time is set up somehow for Connor McGregor, possibly maybe he does make his return because going on another question. The only two things I can see main eventing over the BMF belt would realistically be if Connor gotten that card or is he on one of those two title fights with Pereira or Dracus. So I don't really see anything else. Like Leon Blal, I think if it got on the card, I don't think you can end the night on that. And I know you've touched on And it just doesn't make sense to end the night on that card with those two fighters. But do you think it's possible that they're trying to get Connor back, hope he wins,

and then set up that dream match with Gagey versus Connor for the BMF belt, and then make Connor, and then they're going to probably push that BMF belt even more, making me a quote-unquote three division champ? Is that something that you can see Dana doing? And what would you think about that? That's it. Maybe. I mean, it's Connor's world, they're all just kind of living in it. But we have to remember something about Connor McGregor as well.

It's got two fights left in his deal. So let's just say Connor Chandler happens, whether it's 300 or International Fight Week. If you're a guy like Connor who makes as much money as he does and knows what types of money can be made outside of the UFC are available to him, which asked Nathan Diaz, there's a lot. Is it going to be tougher to book him without an extension? Are they going to sort of handle him like they handled Nate? Where just impossible types of matchups and schedules and just kind of keep letting the clock run out,

keep delaying it, keep delaying it, keep delaying it, hoping he resigns, just not booking him until he resigns. Do they do this with Connor? Or do they look at this short term and say, hey, let's just give the man what he wants and hope he resigns. So this is going to be a really interesting story when this first fight is done. How is Connor going to handle it? Is he going to resign? Does he do the extension?

Does he test free agency? Because Connor can make a lot more money outside of the UFC than he can. He can make a shitload of money in the UFC, but he can be more out of it. Can you imagine if Connor and Nate set up the trilogy themselves? without the UFC, it's going to be frigging gigantic. And they get to keep all the money. So Connor's going to have so many options. Having said that,

Justin Gaichi versus Max Hawley was always like the fight I wanted to see. It's always like the dream matchup. The Vice Dream matchup is Justin Gagey versus Connor McGregor. That's the Vice matchup. It's basically like Gachi and Holloway, you're drinking, you're drinking like IPAs. Like you're out, you're having a good time. Like, it's going to be a good night.

We're just enjoying ourselves, right? Sitting at the bar, eat good food. Just having a good night. And then Connor versus Gaichi is like, I'm shotgunning 184 locos at the same time. And I'm out, and shit's going to get real weird. That's what that fight is. And I'm here for it.

Here for it. So could it happen? Sure. Would Justin Gage say no to that? Probably not because he'd make a floppity trillion dollars. Make more money fighting Connor than he would fighting is a Machachev right now. But is it about money? Is it about legacy? I know how much Justin Gagey wants to wear that title, wants to wear that lightweight title. But kind of hard to turn down the red panty night as well. So there's there's some beef here. There's some beef there between those two guys. So we'll see what happens, but I'm down. Cole, go ahead.

Nope. Now you can go ahead. I was about to bring David in and then something happened and I lost him. So we'll bring Cole in, perhaps. Getting the wheel of doom. Got me, Mike? Yes, I got you. All right.

So this morning I was just kind of thinking about like some of the more underrated wins and like hindsightly underrated wins in UFC. history. And I'm looking back and just remembering how Francis knocked out Cain Velasquez and no one still gives Francis any credit for that win, really. Like, they assume that whole fight was just Cain tearing his knee and 40-year-old Cain. It's like, okay, like, people forget the lead up to that fight. That was a big deal. And thinking of that fight and thinking of looking at Stipe's res, I truly think it's between Stepe and Ganu for the top two best

UFC heavyweights of all time. If Stepe can somehow beat John Jones, I need, like, this sounds crazy, but I need Francis versus Stepe 3. Is that crazy? Like, I think that the stakes

around that fight, hands down are for the greatest ever, but maybe I'm just tripping. What do you think about that? Hands down? Have you forgot about Fedor? Come on now. Come on.

Did I even put Fador in the conversation? Is a little crazy. Like, I have no interested watching Francis fight Steepa again. Oh, there's just no way that goes well for Steep A at all. None. Now, I'll tell you what. I would be interested only for the fact that if somehow, some way, PFL was able to get Steep A over there,

like, that'd be a big deal. Like, that'd be a headline-making move to put that fight together. But I think Steve-Bey's going to fight John later this year, and then he's going to be done. Steepa doesn't need to fight. Doesn't even seem like he truly wants to fight. But if he's going to do it, he's going to fight John, or he's got to fight Francis, but he's going to go to PFL to do it. I don't know what his contract looks like.

I don't know any of that shit. But, yeah, if they somehow bought out Stepe's contract, and like brought him over to PFL to fight Francis. Like that's, that's a co-leader move right there. That's a big move. I don't think it would ever happen, but, yeah, I mean, I'll watch it,

but I think you have to put Fador at least in the discussion. Even if you don't think he's, even if you're not confident enough to put him at number one, he needs to be in the conversation. There is no hands down in this discussion without Fador being a part of it. At least that's how I feel. that's how I feel

David do we have you now you're muted I think you've connected but you just got on mute yourself all right I'm new to this a long time listener second time caller man I just got one thing for you is Al Jermaine Sterling the most disrespected champion

in UFC history nine straight wins three title defenses he's going up a weight class and he's got to fight in the prelims I get it's UFC 300 but they just they just take it behind the barn every step of the way it seems just irks me man i'll hang up and listen

look i i of everything on the lineup right now i am incredibly fascinated with this fight like incredibly fascinated by it because as i said pretty much immediately after he lost the belt to shan o'malley go to 45 go all in on max holloway nobody else Do not call for a rematch. Do not call for anybody else. Call for Max Holloway. Do it now and keep doing it. He didn't listen.

He eventually got there, but it took him like three months to get there. And it is so important to plant that seed immediately. Enter Calvin Cater. Now, there are a lot of people who were not very confident that Al Jermaine Sterling would A beat Max Holloway. but there are a lot of people who called into this year program when I suggested this and said, dude, Hallway's going to thump him up. And I was just like, I don't know if that's all the way true. But if you're going to make the move to 45, you're not just going to just do it.

You're going to go up there and fight for a belt, right? Like, what's the point? Otherwise, screw friendship. Just go win a fight and you're probably getting a title shot at Bannamweight again. Or you could just fight. fight Marab for the belt. But if you're going to make this move, like you want to try to fight for the belt.

If you go and get the hallway fight and win, you're getting a title shot immediately. I don't think he gets that if he beats Calvin Cater. I think he still will have work to do. I think there's still going to be guys ahead of him. I think Bob Zarr will be ahead of him. I think Max Holloway will still be ahead of him, even with Max going to 55.

But if it wasn't Max, in terms of like tough stylistic matchups, Calvin Cater is super interesting. Super interesting fight because Calvin can wrestle. Doesn't get a lot of credit for his wrestling, but he can wrestle. Not to the level of Aljo, but he's a very good wrestler. He's a very good defensive wrestler. And he's huge.

He's a big, big featherweight. That fight is super interesting. Having said that, as soon as that fight was announced, I was like, damn, that's a good prelim fight. It's just Calvin Calvin's not a big star Aljo's like Aljo was a former champion

but he was never like a big star so this is like it doesn't surprise me that it would be a prelim fight it's not going to be an early prelim fight it'll be like an ESPN fight and you can make a strong case that more people are going to watch Al Jermaine Sterling versus Calvin Cater because it's on ESPN

and it's not going to be on ABC as well way so I'll even say this way more people way more people are going to watch Algeman Sterling fight Calvin Cater than watch whatever the UFC 300 main event is going to be by a lot by a lot

maybe double the amount of people it's not a bad place to be not a bad place to be to answer your other question is he the most disrespected UFC champion ever he's right up there he's right up there tired Woodley is right up

there as well and he probably has the strongest case of all because Dana had said a lot of not so kind things about tired woodley over the years and he said a lot of not so kind things about aljavean sterling over the years as well so they're right right up there but yeah and as i said like sterling's not going to have an easy road to get to the 45 pound title they're going to try to avoid this at all costs giving him a title shot but cater's a tough fight and And if he wins that, he's still not going to get it. He's probably still going to have to get one more win. Can you imagine like Volcanowski beats Toporia?

And Aljo beats, like, they're going to have chuck him in there with the alien Seporia. Who would you pick in that fight? The road's going to be a tough one. But yeah, I get where you're coming from. I get where you're coming from. We will go to EM and then that's it because I got to go. Maybe. Getting the wheel of doom.

All right. Maybe we'll get EM through. I'm not sure, but we'll start the wrapping up of the program. Thank you all very much. Jake Paul's opponent just announced, by the way, from March 2nd. He is fighting Ryan Borland, who is 17 and 2, I believe, with six knockouts. And that will be the co-main events to Amanda Serrano versus Nita Minky. March 2nd, Puerto Rico.

There you go. There you have it. Jake Paul's opponent officially announced. So thank you all very much. I appreciate you. Guts to go. A lot going on. And we're done.

So see you Thursday. We'll do it again. Maybe we do it here. Maybe we do it on YouTube. But we'll have BTL on Thursday as well. Special Q&A edition. And then Friday we'll have a preview show. There will be a UFC event this weekend.

So get excited. So thank you all very much. We'll see you on Thursday. Until then, have a great rest of your Tuesday. And have a heck of a morning, everybody.