MMA Fighting - HOAM | Dana White Hopes Conor McGregor vs. Michael Chandler Happens This Year — But Will It?

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler seemed to be on the same page this past weekend in regards to the rebooking of their matchup, but UFC CEO Dana White says he hopes it can happen before the end of the year. Will we see the fight happen before the calendar shifts to 2025? Will it happen at all at this point? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck reacts to White's comments about the fight on Monday's edition of The Pat McAfee Show, if December makes the most sense, and White giving more details about UFC 306 at Sphere in Las Vegas. Additionally, topics include Jon Jones vs. Stipe Miocic, how Tom Aspinall should handle his interim title reign moving forward if he beats Curtis Blaydes at UFC 304, Tracy Cortez's ceiling after her UFC Denver main event loss to Rose Namajunas, Nate Diaz's lawsuit against Fanmio, and much more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays 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

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You can hear the show in its entirety, shortly thereafter, on the M.A. Fighting Podcasting Network. What's going on, everybody? I am Mike Heck. Hope you're all having a wonderful start to the week. It is a busy week in the combat sports world. We got the UFC back at the world's most famous apex for UFC Vegas 94, I believe. Or it's 95, I'm not really sure. They all just sort of blend together at this point.

But we are coming off of UFC Denver. We have Jake Paul versus Mike Perry this week in Tampa, our own E. Casey Leiden, already in Tampa. He's our boots on the ground for that event. And as always, when we come back after a. busy weekend. There's a lot going on. And there's a lot of stuff we didn't really see coming. Nate Diaz suing FanMeo for his fight against Jorge Mazadol claims he's owed $9 million. A lot going on there. We've heard, saw the lawsuit. It's on M.A. fighting. From the Diaz side, we heard from the Fanmeo CEO who calls the claims,

a bunch of BS saying that he's already been paid seven figures. I say we didn't see this coming, but I think we should have saw this coming. I think we should have saw this coming when they first announced the fight for June 1st, which was one of the worst pieces of promotional awfulness, because why would you do it the same night as UFC 302? Didn't make any sense. They moved the date back. Fight ends up being real good. and then now we're dealing with this.

I have reached out to Mazadal's side. Nothing back just yet. But if we hear anything, we'll let you know. So I'm not really sure what's going on with that side of the equation. MMA hour was obviously very busy yesterday. Like I said, we're coming off of UFC Denver. Rosamie Unis gets a pretty lopsided win over Tracy Cortez. I think New York Rick said it best on the post-fight show is a solid B performance.

didn't blow us away, but she was very rarely in any danger in the fight. She just kind of cruised to victory, and it was a solid performance. I don't think it's a performance that Valentina Shepchenko or Manon and Fioro need to lose a ton of sleepover. I don't think she's going to jump the line unless something weird happens and there's injuries or something would scratch either one of those two women from a potential title fight with Alexa Grasso at the sphere. We heard more information about the sphere from Dana White. It's going to be a 10-fight card, which I got to tell you, I love that number. I think 10 is a great number for these events.

And I think a lot, especially the Apex cards, they should be 10-fight cards. You want to do International Fight Week or UFC 300, kind of ramp it up a little bit. do 12, 13 fights, even for UFC 300 doing like 15 fights like I'm cool with. But for the most part, I think 10 is just a solid, solid number. And I pretty much put that on on Twitter. I got a bunch of DMs commenting saying, oh, come on, 10's not enough fights. No, for this card, the sell is the fights, but it's also the venue and how they're going to pull it off and the production that goes into it.

And the fact that this is probably going to be the only time they do it, event at the Speyer. I think it's going to have all the bells and whistles. It's going to be crazy. And I think 10 fights is enough. I think it's perfect. So we'll see what happens with the rest of that card. Some of the fights have already been announced. We still don't have a main event. We still have a co-main event despite what was said on certain broadcasts on Saturday. Seems like Sean O'Malley Mara Barabavisvili is the favorite to headline. We assume Alexa Grasso will most certainly defend her title on that card, probably against Valentina Shepchenko,

maybe Manon Fioro, depending on who you listen to. So that is all coming together. So we can talk about those things. We could talk about other things that I'm sure I missed along the way. So let's hear from you all on this Tuesday, and let's get to as many of these as we can today for the next 55 minutes or so.

Tocke is going to kick us off. Good morning, Toke. With FandMeo, because if, Since the lawsuit or has come in so quick, I'm assuming they have like ironclad evidence. It's not something that they have to build a case over. It's just black on white or whatever. It's very, very clear. So fan mail, yeah, probably not.

I mean, that's a lot of money to not have paid. So I'm just assuming we're not going to see fan meo again. Good luck with that. And then I want to say one more thing. thing and I'm going to keep it sort of brief but I'll still say it. So you're saying that Tom Aspinol should ignore or say that he has the real belt. And I'm just going to say this. The way he's going to do that, the best way to do that is to say when he wins, hey, Alex Perreiro, do you want to fight for the real belt? Take John Jones, take that out that he has,

that's called Alex Pereira. Take it out of the equation so there's only steepay left for John Jones to fight. I think that's the call out that needs to be made because otherwise that fight is probably not going to be made. So I think this is the way. This is the way Tom Aspinall. Just call out Alex Pereira. I know champions are not supposed to do that. I don't care. Just call him out, call your shot, ask for the Super-Ferrera. fight and take it away from John Jones. That is the way. Thank you, Mike.

I love that idea. Makes a lot of sense. I know Perej had basically come out and said, I'm not fighting for the interim belt. But yes, treat it like it's the real belt. John does not exist. His belt is the fake belt.

At least this is what Tom should be saying. And just ignore John's existence. Like, stop answering questions about John. Stop calling him out. Stop talking about him. Just keep saying, if John wants a shot at the real title, he can come after me and we'll make it happen.

But until then, I'm the real champion. He's the interim champion. Alex Pereira, let's go. You want to make history, make history by fighting for the real belt. Love that idea. I also thought, as you were saying that, I thought I think it would be hilarious

if you just called out Steepay. Stepe, you want one last shot at the real belt? Go ahead and do that. Like, there's all sorts of things Tom can do here because it just doesn't seem like John is going to want to fight Tom. And it's not, again, this whole narrative of he's scared and all that stuff, it's just not true. But John doesn't see dollar signs with Tom Aspedal right now.

And that's the thing. John wants to make as much money as possibly. He wants to have the biggest fights possible. And Tom's on his way, but he could take a step forward if he goes out there and just melts Curtis Blades, which is not easy to do. going to be a really tough fight for him. So we have to be cautious when we start talking about the future of the heavyweight division because there is a very real world where Curtis Blades leaves Manchester with the interim belt.

And then, you know, Curtis is going to be either the interim champion or the strip of the title because they don't want Curtis to be the interim champion, which is a possibility as well because as my best friend AK always says, and he's here listening in. Belts are props. They aren't what they are. John versus Stepe doesn't need a title. They can still do the fight.

I'd be totally fine if they did that fight. I'd be totally fine if that was the main event for Madison Square Garden. But it doesn't need to be for any belts or just create a fake belt. So there you go. And then with the fan Mio thing, it's just crazy, man.

Like that whole event, was real sloppy in the build. There was already a million press conferences before the June 1st date. Then we tried to do another press conference before the July date. And it was just a mess. Like the whole thing was just a mess. And none of this surprises me. And Solomon Engel, this is his statements that I received yesterday.

Quote, Nate Diaz has filed a frivolous lawsuit against FanMeo, which claims that fraud and breach of contract were committed by FanMeo. Yet neither has taken place. In fact, Diaz has already been paid seven figures in connection with the fight, which if you listen and look at the lawsuit, Nate was paid a million dollars up front. There you go. There's your seven figures. I think that is such a crazy statement right there.

But we move on. I look forward to resolving this dispute through the appropriate process and am confident that justice will prevail, making salacious and defamatory statements to the media in order to harm my family and I has only strengthened my resolve to ensure that the truth will will triumph. So we'll see how this all plays out. Solomon Engel at the open workout for this card gets in the ring and does an interview. And at one point, and this is something that I remembered

throughout the entire build, and it told me everything I needed to know about the promotion of the fight. He was asked, what about this fight are you looking forward to the most? And he said, and I think I'm paraphrasing slightly, but he said something to the effect of I'm looking forward to it being over so I could go on vacation with my family. And I like to me that was like what is going on here? That's that's what you're looking forward to the most is for it to be done so you go on vacation with your family. Way to promote, bro. Way to promote. But we've heard from both sides and we'll see how

the court process will play out. Again, like I said, it reached us. It's a Mazadal's team. Haven't heard anything back. Developing story, my friends. Developing story. Let's go to four-on-sniper. Maybe. Perhaps.

The Wheel of Doom, spinning, and spinning a lot. Foreign sniper, bounce out, bounce back in, my man. Four-quarter sports, go ahead. Hey, Mike. So, Ariel yesterday ended up laying out, I guess the layout for what the U.S.E wants to do for the rest of the year.

I saw that he put Connor and Chandler for December. But I remember hearing on the M.A. hour that Pliny a Cruz said that Alex wanted to fight definitely one more time by the ending of 2024. So with the way that the layout, the area kind of constructed out there, does it seem likely that Alex, again, fights for the third year in a row or the fourth year in a row, him at MSG? just because the U.S. historically doesn't like to put any type of champions on any type of Conner card. Or do you feel like they might put him on ice just because of Conner's track history now that he says he won't be fighting unless he's 100% because he doesn't want to give his opposition any type of advantage.

And then the second thing I wanted to talk to you about is Montel Jackson. I just wish the guy can actually fight multiple times out of the year. Him and Mike Davis are under the same umbrella where, you know, the potential is, you know, supersedes the roof. But the lack of activity that they have is alarming because they could be, you know, getting close to fighting for a belt with the amount of time they've been in the UFC. But the fact that they just not active enough. I mean, he did quick work of DeMont Blackshare. I wasn't thinking it was going to be that quick. but the power of Montel Jackson is

it's crazy. So I just want to get your input on the first thing and then Montel Jackson's activity. Do you think he will fight one more time this year? Thanks. God, I hope so. I hope so. He's 32, so he's like,

in terms of his athletic prime and in terms of being a ban of weight climbing the ranks, like now's the time. He's got to do it now. and I've been saying forever that he is the dark horse of this division. It's just a matter of getting him in the cage. The amount of people who thought that this fight, like DeMont Blacher was just going to go in there and beat him, and DeMond's a good fighter.

Like I don't want to, like, I'm not trying to, like, disrespect him. Dude's been in there with some good guys. But Montel Jackson is just on another level. I think he's a legit top five talent potentially. He's certainly a top 10 talent. But it's just a matter of getting him in there. Because when he's in there, he's winning. He's won four in a row.

I think he's won nine out of ten or eight out of nine, something to that effect. He lost, his two losses were to Ricky Simone. That was his UFC debut and he took that fight on like a week's notice. And the other loss was to Brett Johns, and that was like a big step up for him. And it's not like he just got off to such a really slow start in that fight. And Brett was able to kind of slow him down and get the fight. fight to the ground, but Montel knocked him down at a certain point late in that fight. So, like, he's super good, man.

It's just, he's just not active enough. So hopefully getting an 18-second knockout gets him back pretty quickly. And as far as who he fights, I like the Pedro Munoz idea. I would give him a rank guy and just see what he could do. He's not a do-the-thing type guy, gets on the mic, and there are certain fighters who just aren't that. I don't want to see Montel Jackson go crazy and start calling people out. I don't want to see that.

That's just not who he is. I've been interviewing Montel Jackson forever. He's very shortened to the point, doesn't call people out. All he wants to do is fight. So that's just who he is. He's a guy that's going to have to climb the ranks just based on his performances. And he just goes out there and finishes people very, very quickly in an emphatic fashion. If he keeps going out and doing that and finishing high quality of

opponents, he'll move up the ladder pretty quickly. So yeah, he's real good. As far as the Pereira thing goes, I said this after UFC 303. If he doesn't get the John Jones fight in November, if something happens, they announce a Steepay fight and Steepa gets hurt or something. Alex is probably the first phone call they're going to make. And I'm sure John would take that fight in a second because it's a huge fight, probably bigger than Stepe. But to sort of make it even easier and build the story, I think, even though Pereira is a star and he can certainly headline events anywhere, especially Matt's Square Guard, he's headlined a couple. He can be the cold main event.

Like that event is going to be massive because of John. It touches and checks off all the boxes because John has casual appeal. Even most casual fans have at least heard of Stepe. And you know what the UFC is going to do promotionally behind that because Dana is going to use this as a tool to anybody who hates this fight. the media, all of that, they'll break gate records and they'll, the UFC is going to put a promotional push behind this fight in this card more than anything else besides probably UFC 300 because they want to, Dana in particular, wants to prove a point that this is the fight that everybody wants to see and all that,

even though that is just not true. So, yeah, do Pereira Ancolaif is the co-main event? I think it's fine. I think that's fine. You can give Anklei of his shot and it doesn't have to, you don't have to put Ankleife in a main event. And I don't think Pereira is the kind of guy

that's going to be like, no, man, main event or bust. You know? So, yeah, I like that spot. And if for some reason Connor Chandler can't happen in December, just push it to December. It's fine.

It's fine. But that's how I would do it. is here at IKEA and the clock is taking on savings you won't want to miss. Join IKEA family for free today and unlock deals on everything from holiday must-haves to cozy at-home essentials, all the little and big things you need to make this season shine. But don't wait. Like leftovers at midnight, our Black Friday offers won't last. Shop now at IKEA.ca.ca.com slash Black Friday. IKEA. Bring home to life. 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. Let's go to Ani. Ani, what's up, man? What's going on with Misha Tate? I mean, is she injured? Are we going to get the Holly home fight? I mean, it's not like it's going to be a masterpiece

or a fight of the night. But, you know, sometimes I keep coming. I keep circling back to this. Veterans fighting, legacy fights. I keep bothering you with that. But what's going on with Nisha Tate? And Stephen Thompson put out a tweet or something on Instagram. I'm not sure saying that he has his fight booked.

Do you have any idea who it is? And yes, I'd say, Have a nice day. I look forward to free for all Fridays. Thank you, Ani. Misha, I don't know what's going on, Misha. No clue. But, you know, she's taking her time. She's got a lot going on.

She's a mom. She's doing a lot of things. So, yeah, when she's ready to fight, she'll fight. I love the Hollyholm idea. I think it makes all the sense in the world. I think it's a no-brainer, if we're being honest. But you can also use Misha's name to, elevate other talent.

I think Eileen Perez just got booked for a fight. If she wins that one, you could do Eileen Perez versus Misha Tate. If you want to bump her up, use the name, you could use Eileen Perez to fight Holly Holmes as well. But it just kind of depends on where these two are at in their careers because Holly seems like she wants to fight forever. And Misha, I think just kind of at this point just wants to keep the door open. to some degree. So, but Misha looked incredible in her last fight. She beat the hell out of Julia Vila.

That was an unbelievable performance. That was one of the best performances of her career. So I actually think Bisha would kind of handle Holly Holieholm at this point, but I think not going back to that is kind of wild, especially considering how good their first fight was. I think it is an underrated classic. I don't think it gets enough credit because. that fight happened before Connor McGregor and Nate Diaz and it was an incredible fight

it was an incredible fight incredible moment for Misha Tate to get the finish in the fifth round it was awesome underrated fight does not get enough credit so yeah I'll be interesting to see where she goes and how this all plays out for Misha Tate

and Stephen Thompson I don't know I don't know So I'm trying to think Like where they put him I'm looking I'm trying to figure out Like he's not going to fight in Perth

I don't think I think if he's going to do a fight night He's going to probably headline it Let me take a look at the calendar And what this all looks like Let's see What is the calendar looking like So Apex

304 Abu Dhabi the world's most famous Apex again Main event is August 10th it's going to be Marching Tybor versus Sergei Spivak Good freaking grief Um

August 24th doesn't have a main event Right now But that's kind of quick September 7th is Burns versus Brady I don't think he's fighting on the sphere I don't think he's fighting in Paris I would assume

I would assume he'll probably headline an apex card. And if I had to venture a guess on who he would be fighting, I would say, I think they might give him Buckley fight? Like that wouldn't surprise me. Maybe they do Wonderboy versus Buckley in an apex main event. I'd be fine with that. Unless they book him, unless they book Wonderboy and Colby or something. I'll guess, I have no insight to this whatsoever.

but I'll guess they're going to do Joaquin Buckley. But this is, I mean, again, total guess. No aggregation here. I don't want anybody like, oh, Mike Hexing, he's playing walking Buckley. No, I have no fucking idea what's happening. That would be my guess. I'm trying to put

myself in the UFC war room, put myself in the match baker's shoes. And I think if you're Wonderboy, I think you look at that fight and think to yourself, yeah, I could probably win that fight. And I would assume Wonderboy be the underdog in that fight. And I would assume that I will probably put a bet in on Wonder Boy Thompson.

Because these are the kinds of fights he wins. But no clue. That would be interesting. That's just a hunch. Yes, four-out sniper. We have you. The connection is rough. All right.

I'll make this quick. I sort of just wanted your thoughts on this past weekend's fight between Cody Brandage and Abdul al-Hassan. I forget how you say the whole name. So I wanted your thoughts on the referee's decision to not award Cody the DQ win because I watched a fight back and I saw after he shot a takedown. This was right after being rocked. Shoots a takedown, takes a couple punches to the face, but then starts getting hit into the back of the head. And I would think, even though Cody, it looks like Cody quit, I would think enforcing the rules and giving him the DQ one. win would have been the right decision but i just wanted your thoughts on that mike thanks yeah it's

to me that's a dq to me that's a dq it's not like it's not like abdul was just like he just battered him on the feet a bunch like cody was standing up against the fence and he's just unloading on him and then cody drops to the ground he lands like one elbow to the back of the head and there's no warning and cody can't continue after that This is multiple warnings, multiple warnings. Don't hit him in the back of the head. Don't hit him in the back of the head. And you just kept doing it.

And it wasn't even just the shots of the back of the head. It was the elbows to the spine as well. And it's just a lot, man. Like, to me, that's a DQ. Like, how many warnings do you have to give somebody? It's the same thing with the taking a point and not taking a point. Like, how many times can you allow a fighter to kick a guy in the balls? How many times can you allow a fighter to poke somebody in the eye?

how many times can you allow a fighter to grab the fence and the takedown attempt and have it be no punishment? Like what are rules? And I know it's up to the referee and his discretion. And technically, Dan's not wrong calling it a no contest. Like he's perfectly within his rights to call it a no contest. But like, come on, man. You can't just sit there and yell. Don't hit him in the back of the head after he clearly hit him in the back of the head.

and then just continuously does it, there's like three or four illegal shots there. That to me should have been a DQ. Now you can feel however you want about Cody Brundage. The fact, and I honestly think, and I said this on the post-fight show, and I truly think this is how this is how this would have played out. Immediately, when they stop the action

and the referee goes over to Cody, Cody looks out to lunch. He looks like he's on another planet. And Dan's asking him like, all right, take your time. And the first thing Cody says as his eyes are glazed over is what happened? How did I get here? And at that point, you have to stop the fight. Like, don't give him the five minutes.

When a guy doesn't know where he is and how he got there, you have to stop the fight. And to me, I think had Dan just stopped the fight right there or had the doctor come in immediately, like seconds later, and they just stopped the fight right there, I think the narrative this changes completely. I don't think it's Cody's a quitter. I think it's, yeah, it's the right call. It's unfortunate. But the thing is, you gave Cody five extra minutes on top of everything, and the narrative

completely changed from, okay, those are clearly illegal shots to, yeah, Cody just quit. He's trying to get a cheap win. dude looked fucked up man like he looked wrecked and some of it had to do with the punishment he took earlier but he also took a bunch of illegal shots in the back of the head this is the same thing

it's not exactly the same because this was unprecedented but it's the same people like a lot of the people that were giving Al Jemite Sterling shit for not continuing and winning the belt against Piotr Yan after taking a clear illegal knee

while he was downed no one blamed Piotr Yon Everyone blamed Al Jermaine Sterling when Peotrion unequivocally broke the rules and by the rules of the sport and by rules of the commission, a title changes hands on that. And everyone's calling him an actor. Oh, he should win an Academy Award. No. Peter Yan broke the rules. He should have lost the belt.

He should have lost the belt. And the blame goes to Aljo. And in this case, the blame is going to Cody. from a lot of the reactions that we got. But again, had the referee when Cody said, where am I? How did this happen? If he just stopped the fight right there, I don't think we're getting the same reaction from everybody.

I think there's a few people who might say that. But for the most part, giving him the extra five minutes to try to recover and build that doubt sort of hurts the narrative there. So just Cody's had such a weird run, man. Because he got a DQ, went over Jacob Balcoun. Then he gets a power bomb knockout.

Then he gets Bo Nickel at UFC 300. And now we have this situation. So it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate. Cody's a guy I've known for a long time. I've known Cody since he was a regional fighter, since he was fighting in Michigan. This dude is not a quitter.

I'm telling you. He has been, go back, if you can find some of his regional fights, like with WXC and stuff, that dude has been in, wars like he's been in wars like bloody battles and has been hurt in fights and continued to fight so this i i don't if you want to call him you want to say you try to take an easy way out like i'm not going to sit here and have a big fight with you but to me i don't think that's the case i think

it was a guy who took a bunch of illegal shots and i think they gave him way too much time in order to try to get back into it at no point at no point throughout all of that, did I look at Cody Brundage and say, oh yeah, he might come back and fight. We knew the fight was over the second he looked up at the referee and said, what happened? At that point, Big Dan should have been like, all right, he's fucked up. Either stop the fight there or bring the doctor in, and then have the doctor stop the fight. It just took too much time, and it shifted the narrative at a place that I don't think it should have gone. But that's my opinion on it. And it should have been a DQ. It should have been a DQ. Nicholas, go ahead.

Can you hear me, Mike? Yeah, I got you. Yeah, just two quick ones. A little bit on Tracy Cortez. I asked a week back if she had what it takes to become a champ. Eye lashes is okay and all that, but some other comments after the fight, she was saying that she was close and started too late and all that. My personal opinion is that we should just blame it on Pat Berry.

And my second question is about Cyril Ghan. Why on earth is he talking like a guy who didn't get a crack at the belt two times? Not one, but two. My man needs to chill and just fight because he sounds deluded in some of his interviews. Regards from Norway. Thank you, sir. Yeah, honestly, and I've said this about Zero Gahn before, I think he has mishandled everything in the past year.

ever since he won at UFC Paris everything has been a fumble every single thing from dude you had Tom Aspinall in the building Tom Asmanal flew to Paris so he could get a face-to-face

with Cyril God which should have been a great opportunity for him and he no sells Tom he no sells Sergei Pavlovich because he feels like he deserves a title shot if he had just called out like to me the call out was not Tom like Tom was there would have been a cool moment

Cyril Gun should have gone on the microphone and said Sergei Pavlovich you think you're the best striker in this division you're knocking out all these guys let's see what you're really made of I'm the best striker in the division let's fight let's find out and not only is that a great fight

it's a winnable fight for Cyril I think Cyril would have a really good chance against Sergei because one, he's pretty damn durable and two, he hits like a truck and moves like a fucking middleweight. And he would have been a really good fight for him. And I also think had he done that, he probably would have got the interim fight against Pavlovich

and not Tom Aspidol. And this division looks entirely different. But he didn't do it. He's just going to sit there and wait. And now look who he's going to do. He's got to fight Alexander Volkov for a second time. He's going to do it in Abu Dhabi,

and he's fighting a guy who has looked real, real good since their first fight. A guy who just beat Sergei Patovich up pretty convincingly. So, yeah, he is just kind of bungled all of this. And he continues to say, oh, I should have got tested. No, you shouldn't have.

And by all accounts, he was offered the Tom Asmanov fight for Manchester. And now I guess he's got a good opportunity to do movies or whatever, they offered him a title fight and he couldn't do it. Like, what else does he need? What else does he need? So now he's going to go fight folk off again and we'll see how he does. It's going to be a really tough fight for him.

As far as Cortez goes, like I said, I didn't, when you asked last week, probably not a title challenger, but I said ask me on Tuesday. and I because we'll probably have our answer. If Tracy had gone in there and beat Rose, we're probably having a little bit of a different conversation now. But Tracy's just going to, Tracy is going to be a solid fighter. She's going to be a ranked fighter for a while. She's going to beat a good chunk of women that are kind of right in her threshold.

But she's not going to be able to beat the best of the best of the division. And that's fine. She had moments in the fight. She just, her strategy was very strange. It was very strange. And she's not lying. It took her forever to get going. When she got aggressive and stayed aggressive, she was very successful.

I thought she could have grappled a lot more. I thought she should have tried to hoss, rose around in that first round and try to steal round early. She didn't do that. She decided to have a striking battle. The only real three. She had with takedowns. She would fake them. She'd do little feints.

And then she got dropped. And the round was done. She was cooked. And then from there, Rose just kind of circled around and just jabbed her face off. It was Landon left, that saw a left hook over and over again. And Rose just is able to keep her at range. That movement, Trace couldn't get near her. So, yeah, she's, she'll be fine.

But, like, let's look at the division right now. I mean, she beat Jasmine. Casey O'Neill's fighting in Perth. That's not a bad one if Casey wins that fight, and I think she probably should. Ariana De Silva, fun. Let me kind of take a look at who Tracy has actually fought because I don't want any doo-do picks.

She's beat Justin Kish, Melissa Gatto, she beat Jasmine, Giusebizius, fun fight. You know, like throw her in there with Arruzzo, if you want, if you don't want to give that to Jasmine. Other than that, like, I just don't know, I kind of feel like Casey O'Neill is, sort of the only or Ariani De Silva, like those are the two.

I think Casey makes a lot of sense because Casey doesn't fight till August. So maybe end of the year we get those two in there fighting. But like she's not going to fight Valentina. She's not going to fight Manon. I don't mind Aaron Blant, running the Aaron Blanchfield

fight back. I know, I mean, Aaron's just ranked super high, so maybe that's tough. But if Aaron fights somebody else and loses, like that's a fight you could always go back to because Tracy holds a win over Aaron on the books, but most people feel like Aaron won that fight in Invicta. She's not fighting Macy Barber.

She's not fighting Jessica Androge. She just fought Rose. Maybe you throw in there with... Caitlin, don't call me Chukagan, Cermanara. Natty Ice is just cruising up the ranks right now. Reportedly is going to fight Jessica Androge in September. Maybe Amanda Hebas? I don't know.

but yeah this is kind of her range right now bottom end of the top 15 probably the 10 through 15 range she'll win some she'll lose some she beat yeah case is a good fight i think that's a fight she can win aryani is a fight she can win carini sylva will be a tough one because she's an absolute savage that'd be a fun one actually in the future so yeah we'll see i just don't think i don't see championship potential there. But again, maybe if she's more active, maybe if she's in there two, three times a year consistently, maybe she can get there.

But it's just a long layoffs. You know, at best she's fighting like every nine, ten months, like nine months removed from her previous fight, and then she was out for a really long time before that. Just activity matters. It definitely matters. I mean, look at, yeah, we talked earlier about Montel Jackson. And like, I'm looking at the top 15 at Bathamweight.

I like the Pedro Munoz fight. Munoz is 15. I would pick Montel to beat Jonathan Martinez. I would pick him be Dominic Cruz. Batiste, it would be tough, but it wouldn't shock me to beat him. Kyler Phillips is a fun one. Umar, like Montel versus Rob Font would be real fun. That'd be a tough one to pick.

Like Montel is competitive with a lot of these guys. A lot of them. Montel Marlon Vera. I think Montel can hang with Chito. He's got the skills. There's no doubt about it. But activity matters, especially when there's 600 fighters on the roster. You have to get out there.

You have to make a name for yourself. The fighters who have become kind of from the unknown to stars, or at least popular fighters, are the ones who were active. Look at what Kevin Holland did in 2020. No one knew who Kevin Holland was in 2020. There weren't a lot of big outlets interviewing Kevin Holland. I was interviewing him, but I was interviewing him before that. Kevin always had that personality.

He was always tremendously fun to talk to. But no one knew who he was. And then he went five at O in 2020, and he created, there's a lot of conversation. Is he the fighter of the year? I remember there were people who hosted podcasts that were out there who thought I should have been fired because I wrote the article for

the breakthrough fighter of the year in 2020 and it went to Hamzaa Tchamai if and not Kevin Holland because I wrote it. Even though it's a team collective effort on voting, it was people are calling for my job because I wrote that Hamzaa Shemayev was the breakthrough fighter of 2020 over Kevin Holland, which is crazy. That's how this all works.

So, all right, who's got questions? We're open here. Let's go. We'll go for another few minutes. We'll go for another few minutes. So if anybody's got anything, let's see, rumors. Hi, I'm Sophia Loper Carroll, host of the Before the Chorus podcast. We dive into the life experiences behind the music we love. Artists of all genres are welcome.

And I've been joined by some pretty amazing folks, like glass animals. I guess that was the idea. was to try something personal and see what happened. And Japanese breakfast. I thought that the most surprising thing I could offer was an album about joy. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, and remember, so much happens before the chorus.

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Go Twitter. Everything boxing. Rumors that Ryan Garcia has been granted permission to do an exhibition in December in Japan with Ryzen by Golden Boy promotions. Garcia is apparently now being advised

by Kevin E'sbag after cutting ties with longtime advisor Guadalupe Valencia. So maybe Ryan Garcia is going to have an exhibition match for Horizon? I don't know. There's been other fight announcements that have happened. We did confirm the Dan Hooker and Batush Gamrot fight for UFC 305.

Good fight. Great opportunity for Dan Hooker. No doubt about it. It's going to be a tough one for him, I think. But Dan Hooker can go in there and beat Matush Gamrott. He's a top five freaking lightweight. Well, probably top six because Michael Chandler dusted him pretty appropriately. What was the other one we confirmed?

Who was the other one? I don't remember. There was another one. There's another, like, pretty decent one. Where is it? Let's scroll down and find it because now it's driving me freaking crazy. Oh, Brennan Allen and Masterdeen Move Off for Paris. That's what it was.

Which is hilarious. considering Brennan Allen did a video. It was like, I'm not fighting in Paris. Let's a main event. And now he's fighting. Emova. It's just some gamesmanship right there from good old Brennan Allen. But that's the fight to make.

This is the perfect fight to make. And if Brennan beats Emovap, then you got to give him a big name. I think you, at that point, like, it's undeniable. Tyson, go ahead. Close us out. Hey, what's up? Mike. Can you hear me?

Yep. Hey, sorry, I joined really late, so I don't know if you kind of spoke on this already or not, but Dana White went on the Pat McAfee Show, and, you know, he was saying that the McGregor-Channeling fight needs to happen. He's not sure if 2024 is going to be the date of when they booked that one. We did have Michael Chandler that, you know, 2024 was looking good. You know, I just kind of wanted to hear your thoughts on that. That's all I got. Appreciate it. Thank you, sir.

Yeah, look at Connor and Chandler coming together over the Donald Trump thing on Saturday, which is wild, man, like wild times. I was having a conversation with my son about the assassination attempt. And I was just like, yeah, this just doesn't happen all that off. It's only happened like a few other times. and it's just like the divide with all of this like I'm going to get on a political ramp but like it's just it's just crazy like anybody aero said it best like anybody who was happy about this is just off there they're just out of their minds like no one should be

rooting for that even if you don't like Trump like it's just so dumb um but yeah it's just unfortunate and I'm glad everyone like I'm glad he's okay uh it's unfortunate fortunate for the firefighter who lost his life. Like, that sucks, man. That whole situation sucks. It's awful. It's truly awful. But Connor and Chandler sort of bonded on Twitter in support of Donald Trump.

And Connor tweeted out, hey, talk to Dana White. Looks like it's going to happen in 2024. Chandler was like, yeah, bet, let's do it. And, you know, Dana just continues to kind of no-sell the fight. to some degree, and he had been doing that before that. You remember before they had Dana officially, like, let it go and announced it after 300. It was all, well, you know how it is with Connor. You know how it is with people who make money.

You know how it is with people who are rich. They don't want to fight. Or it's hard to get them on board or something to that effect. When we all sort of knew that they were looking at international fight week, fucking Connor announced it. Connor literally announced it. I saw some people out there that were like, well, I broke the Connor fight first.

No, you didn't. Connor broke the fight New Year's Eve. In 20, like the last day of 20203, Connor McGregor broke the fight. And we all talked to everybody involved and confirmed that June 29th is what everybody wants. So no one broke it.

Connor broke it. That's beside the point. But the whole bill was like, well, maybe September, maybe October from Dana. Hopefully 2024. And I think it's kind of more of the same. And I think part of how Dana handled that was,

I think you all know to this point, how the UFC wants to handle breaking the news. They want to do it themselves. Dana wants to make the announcement himself. But it just seems like December is what everybody wants from conversations we continuously have with the camps. And just kind of looking at the current state of the UFC calendar year, December makes the most sense.

They're not going to do the sphere. For obvious reasons, because that costs a million, a trillion dollars to put together, and they're not going to pay Connor and Chandler, the type of money that they would merit for a fight such as that. And that's just Business 101. They're not going to do Connor versus Chandler in Salt Lake City in October, because no.

Like, we love you, Salt Lake City, but you're not getting Connor McGregor's return. It's just not happening. They're not going to do an Abu Dhabi. they're not going to do it MSG because of John Jones and SEPA, which is probably what is going to happen. So that only leaves one card if it's going to happen in 2024 unless they add another pay-per-view,

and I don't think they're going to do that. So, yeah, it seems like December is what everybody wants and just kind of looking at the landscape of everything. Like we know what's happening in August. We're getting Izzy DDP. September, the sphere. Looks like it's going to be Sean versus Barab. Not done, but that seems to be the direction everybody wants to go at this point.

Ilya Max, probably Salt Lake City. Probably get Giuliana Pena, Raquel Pennington on that card too. That's what it looks like. Again, none of these are done deals, but this is just sort of what's floating around. November, we know what we're getting. Or up, I'm sorry, Abu Dhabi for 308. It's going to be Islam versus Armin Sarukian, more than likely. And then we go to November, Joan Steepay, December, you do Connor versus Chandler.

And it's a pretty good way to end the year, right? Pretty solid way to end the year. December needs to be big. December needs to be big. It's been a tough run for those September cards the last couple of years. Let's kind of go through the timeline. So December was December 2020. was 296

and that was the Leon Edwards Colby Covington card that main event was not very good we got Pantosia Royval good fight Shafcott Wonderboy good fight we got Patty Tony Ferguson

that made everybody sad Josh Emmett obliterates Bryce Mitchell but that was just one of those cards that just ended with such a just ended with a thud and not the good kinds because of how that main event was. And then the previous one was 282,

which is incredibly forgettable card. That was the, you know, they had a scramble a bunch, but that was the Janbovich Maghamed Ankolaev main event for the vacant light heavyweight title that ended a draw that fight that Dana White absolutely hated. We got the controversial Patty Pimblit Jared Gordon fight. The featured bout for the December pay-per-view in 2022 was Santiago Ponziadibio versus Alex Baroneau. We got DDP versus Darren Till, Ilya versus Bryce Mitchell,

Raoul Roses Jr. versus Jay Perrin. I mean, just not what you typically see for a December fight card. December is usually one of the big ones. It's usually like March international fight, week, MSG, December. Those are always the big ones. Brian Campbell always calls them, like, these are the majors, the major pay-per-views. And, you know, when you compare it to what 281 was, and you compare it to what 295 was,

you know, having to follow MSG is not easy. It's not easy. But you get Connor and Chandler in there. I mean, you get John Jones and Connor McGregor, November, December on pay-per-view. you're going to sell a bunch of pay-per-views. And what a time is you're going into nearing the end of the TV deal, which is going to be super fascinating

to see how that all plays out because they're going to make a whole bunch of money with that TV deal. But all right, that'll do it here, everybody. Thank you all very much. Of course, it's going to be a busy week. We had the Jake Paul Mike Perry fight coming up on Saturday,

which, by the way, I know people roll their eyes when we talk about Jake Paul and stuff. I get to tell you, I am freaking pumped for it. I'm all here for Jake Paul and Mike Perry. I'm here for it. I think I know how the fight's going to go, and I still don't care. I still don't care.

I'm still hyped up for it. He's got a good dance barter. Mike Perry knows what he's doing. Mike Perry's going to sell the shit out of this thing. Mike Perry's going to punch Jake Paul in the face a whole bunch. Jake Paul's going to punch Mike Perry in the face, a whole bunch. Mike's going to shake it off and laugh at his face and keep moving forward. And it's just going to be fun.

Like, it's going to be fun. And by the way, I've got some people asking about this. So I'll just, I'll break the news here. We're going to do a bonus watch party once again for this fight on Saturday between Jake Paul and Mike Perry. We will have a watch party next Saturday. We'll be back in the ATL. back at the world's most famous

Meshu Apex once again for UFC 304 the quality of the broadcast will be better this time I have purchased some equipment out of my own pocket to make sure of that so that's gonna be fun

but we are gonna do a similar thing that we did for Diazsmas at all won't be like both of us in the same room or anything like that but it'll be myself in New York Rick How about that?

How about that? Myself and New York, Rick, for the Mike Perry versus Jake Paul bonus watch party on Saturday. Not sure how long we're going to be doing it for, but I just want to kind of see what the card looks like. Oh, there it is. Let's see. Let's see what this card looks like.

Oh, damn, your eye looks like. is the first fight of the main card. Shit. TBD on that. I was hoping your eye haul Polio Cesar Savage Jr. was like the featured bout. But yeah, we'll be watching it.

We'll be watching it with all of you, and it's going to be fun. We'll take one more quick one from CV, and then we'll get out of here. Go ahead, CB. Just a quick question for the 304 watch party. Any way we can get mysterious Frank in the watch party, too. I do miss his

well-time jabs. you guys while you guys do to watch party well it's it's tough it's tough to do that because you know we're in new we're in new york we have the earpieces and all that stuff we have the high quality equipment as you know uh and when we're doing like we're in the at l like i don't want to wear an earpiece you know what i mean so like if we got frank in we'd have to get we'd have to do ear pieces and all that stuff and it's a pain in the balls uh but if you guys are make sure you like to just subscribe and be a member of the channel or whatever

Frank is in there though in the chat the whole time he's in there the entire time so if you want to talk with Frank you could do so and then we'll see what happens next month we'll see what happens for August whether we're in the ATL again or

we're back in New York TBD but it's got to be It's going to be fun on Saturday. We got some cool little lapel mics, so we don't have to do the handheld mics, so the audio quality should be much better. We got a new camera that we're going to test out.

I think the mics are coming today, so I'll play with them today. I think the camera's coming on Wednesday, maybe coming today. So you'll get a sneak peek of the camera before the watch party, because I'm going to hook that shit up immediately. But it's supposed to be like the best streaming cam.

there right now. So I just sucked it up and got it because you're going to need it. And then at least like with these these mics that I bought makes doing swing rounds a lot easier too when you go back to doing those because we can just clip those mics on and they're easy to connect to the camera. And it's just so much easier than doing it the other way. So yeah, lots of cool stuff coming. Equipment upgrades in the heck household. Command center, I think it's going to be 6.0. under construction, by the way. Right now, since we bought this house, this new house, my setup is in the kitchen.

Like, I'm basically in the kitchen and the dining room. So I'm looking at the kitchen right now. And then we get the background and basically in the dining room, which drives me crazy and it also drives the wife crazy because she doesn't want, she wants like the dining room back. So what we're going to do is we're, turning this back porch area into the new studio. So we're going to be able to do some cool stuff.

Maybe we'll throw a couple of couches in there. Maybe we'll be able to do watch parties here with the new setup. But that's got to take some time. Finally got the permits approved in order to do this. And then we just got away from the materials and get the job going. So I would say by the fall, the new command center will be ready to go. And it's going to be pretty awesome. So lots of cool stuff.

coming your way. Just like on this show, back on Friday, get you ready for UFC Vegas 94, get you ready for Jake Paul versus Mike Perry. All things Jake Paul, Mike Perry, stick with us, MAFighting.com, the great Casey Leiden on site to provide you all the coverage. So thank you all very much. Have a great rest of your Tuesday. And as always, have a heck of a morning, everybody.