MMA Fighting - HOAM | Does Colby Covington Have To Fight Khamzat Chimaev To Get Another UFC Title Shot?

Episode Date: November 18, 2022

With Colby Covington keeping the next move of his fighting career close to the vest, it appears the UFC is hoping to book a huge fight between the former interim champion and Khamzat Chimaev. In the current state of the welterweight division, does Covington need that fight to earn that third crack at undisputed gold? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck attempts to answer whether or not Covington needs a win over Chimaev to get to a championship opportunity, or if another Leon Edwards win over Kamaru Usman in 2023 could potentially slot "Chaos" right in there. Additionally, listener topics include the UFC's bantamweight division, where Michael Chandler goes from his UFC 281 loss to Dustin Poirier, what could be next for Arnold Allen now that an interim featherweight title fight is booked at UFC 284, Derrick Lewis' chances to get back on track in the main event of UFC Vegas 65, and more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 10 a.m. ET on the MMA Fighting Twitter Spaces. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Cudulian 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,

What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian 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 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. The Vox Media Podcast Network. It is Friday, November 18th, 2022, and it is indeed a heck of a morning live on the MMA fighting. Twitter spaces.

You can hear the show at its entirety show thereafter on the MMA Fighting. podcasting network. Hope everyone's having a wonderful week, a wonderful Friday. I am Mike Heck. Friday is one of my favorite times on the show because we can talk what we normally talk, which is MMA, the events that have come and gone,

the events that are coming up, or we can talk about other things as well. Whatever you want, the floor is yours. We'll get into this thing. And I just realized that next week, here in the United States. It is Thanksgiving week, so I'm not really sure

how the show schedule is going to work. We will certainly do a show on Tuesday. We're not going to do a show on Thursday of next week. Just not going to happen. We'll probably do one on Friday. We'll figure it out. We'll definitely do on a Tuesday. Thursday is not happening

because it's obviously Thanksgiving. And then Friday, I would say probably. but I'll let you guys know for sure. And who knows if we'll even have a space to do the damn show in with everything going on in the wonderful world of Twitter, right? I'm optimistic. We'll be able to stick around for a little while,

but who the hell knows at this point? And if that's the case, if this platform goes to shit, we'll have other avenues. We'll figure it out. All right. But in the meantime, let's get into this thing and we'll start with Four Corner Sports

who jumped in first. Hello, sir. Hey, Mike, one morning. Happy Friday to everyone. I wanted to ask you guys about what's the call. I wasn't in the space for yesterday, but I got to say,

I got to agree with you, Mike. I heard yesterday's a podcast. I think that PFO is going to have no other choice but to lower those prices. If not, they're probably going to have, I would say, maybe less than 5,000 pay-per-view buys. I wanted to ask you about yesterday's

fight, I think it was CES, MMA. I saw him a fight pass with Mitchiposo. Do you think he gets another opportunity to get a crack at the UFC? I know he was at Tuff. He was, I think he had the first fight in Tuff in last year's season. He lost against Jake Hadley and Dana White's

Contendor Series. I know he won the flyweight title. You think he gets another opportunity? And I see we have Derek Lewis on the card. We have Kennedy and Nisenjuco on the card. What's one of these fights on, you know, maybe

that nobody's really talking about that's sticking out in your mind. I think for me, maybe the Miles Johns versus Vince Morales fight in the prelims. I think that just might be fireworks, but I just want to get your input. And does Derek Lewis get the

W thing? Thanks, Mike. Thanks, man. So, yeah, the PFL thing is just stupid. I don't think anybody is, I literally have not seen one person say, oh, this is a great idea. Not like literally not one person. $50 is ridiculous. I couldn't even have imagined $50. Like I thought $2.99 was, would have been a little steep for it, but I would have at least been able to be like, all right, it's not like, it's overpriced, but maybe it's not the worst thing in the world, but to tack on an extra 20 to that, it's just

promotional malpractice. It makes absolutely no sense. it just makes no sense. There's no reasoning behind this. Like there's literally, there's literally no response that the PFL can give in defense of this that I'm going to be like, oh, you know what, maybe they're right.

There's just none. I don't know if this is the thing that comes down from ESPN. And if that's the case, just be like, you know what, we're not doing pay-per-view. Because $50 is insane. It's absolutely ridiculous. Mitroposo,

So just a filthy knockout last night against Flavio Carvalio at CES 71. He's now the CES flyway champion. I like Mitch a lot. I've been high on Mitch for a long time. I've been interviewing Mitch since he was an amateur fighter because I had heard that this dude was just a natural MMA talent. And he's just really good. And I know his team has been pushing. for him to get a shot at the UFC for a long time.

I feel like he's been close. The one thing that hurts Mitch, and it's not necessarily his fault, he's 24, so he's got time. He just hasn't really fought high-level competition. He just hasn't. The Zachary Burhan's win was probably the one that has aged the best.

let me just pull him up because he's like Zach Burhan's his record's four and five but he's he's fought like legit dudes uh some really tough guys in the scene but like beating Rob Fuller and I don't want to be a disrespectful to Rob Fuller but Rob Fuller is a guy that you bring in and he's just going to throw bombs and he's not going to win very much Raymond Yannas was 5 and 14 the Burhan's win at the time was good then he beat a one and three guy he beat a four and three guy he's got a three went over a three and two guy. Flavio Carvalio is probably his second best win, maybe his best, who knows. And then he was on the ultimate fighter, lost in his first fight on that. And then he

fought Jay Cadley on the contender series, super tough fight. I would just like to see him just fight tougher competition. I think if he gets, if he, and I don't know if it's just the New England scene is just kind of drying up right now. It's just a weird scene. I saw this post yesterday from Matt Bassett, who used to be in the UFC, probably the best fighter ever in CES, one of the more accomplished guys. He's like a New England legend, fought for Bellator a bunch. And he even talked about it, that the New England regional scene used to be a hammer, like literally a hammer. Every event you went to, there were matchups where you're pitting two guys together who could potentially fight in the UFC or in one of the major promotions.

You don't really have that anymore. And I understand it's a different time in 2022 because of the pandemic and all these different events that a lot of these fighters are coming into the UFC, three and oh, four and oh, five and oh, either they're coming in to the contender series or they're just getting straight up UFC shots to fill a slot. And because of that, and this isn't just in New England. and this is all over the country and in some cases all of the world, fighters who are prospects that are trying to make it to that next level,

they're not necessarily looking for the toughest fights. They're looking to just get their record to 4-0-5 and 0-6-0, maybe get some sort of finish that gets featured on missed fists or goes viral on social media, and then they get this opportunity well before they're ready for it. And it's kind of a double-edged sword because for that fighter, they get to the UFC, they accomplish their goal, but at the same token,

they're probably not ready because they haven't fought the right competition to get there. It's very, and I had like some managers say this to me, and at first I was just like, that sounds weird.

It's actually very, it's not easy, but if your goal is just to make it to the UFC, it's much easier in 2022 that it is now. Getting there is one thing, staying there is another. And we've seen a lot of these prospects come in you know, four and oh, five, and oh, and they come in and have two fights and then they're gone.

And it's just a different, it's just a different thing with the contender series and all these other shows now. It's not like they have to go necessarily through the LFAs or through some of these other bigger promotions to get the UFC call. They could just fight in their region, get a contender series shot, have a great night that night and make it to the UFC. It's just a difference. It's just a different thing now. It's not the same as it was. I think Mitch is definitely UFC caliber. Been high on him since before he turned pro.

I would just like to see him. Even if he has to get out of New England to do it, I'd like to see him just fight some better competition. Go fight some champions and other promotions. Go fight some other champions. Down in Florida, go fight for Titan. Go fight for LFA. There's, I'd be stunned if he's not on the contender series this coming year.

I think he'll get a shot. But I would like to see him fight some guys with some really good records to get there. And put him in a big spot. Put him in a big spot against a tough guy and we'll see what he can do. As far as tomorrow goes, I do think Derek Lewis is going to beat Sergey Spivak. I think this is kind of a tailor-made Derek Lewis matchup back against the wall. Let's throw him against a lower-rank guy. And I think Derek's probably going to knock him out.

In terms of fights lying under the radar, I mean, I think a lot of these fights are going to be fun. They just don't mean anything. The Muslim Salikoff-Andre Fialio fights are going to be bonkers. That'll be a good one. I think Jennifer May and Marina Moros is probably the fight on the card. It's on the prelims. That fight probably has the most stakes of any fight on the card, including the main event. But it's just, look, this is just going to be a fun watch.

And I love the fact that it's an early card. On paper, is it a great card? No. But are there fun matchups? Sure. Are we going to see any title contenders coming out of this? Probably not. But there'll be some fun fights.

There's worse things to do on a Saturday afternoon than watch this fight card. Let's go to JD. What up, J.D.? J.D., you there? J.D., I know. There we go. Are you there? Yeah.

Hey. Hey. Hey. man. My hook up to my car is weird. All right. So I got two questions for you, good buddy. One, where does pronunciation of people's names land in your priorities as a journalist? I know that y'all, at anybody finding, y'all do a pretty damn good job of pronouncing people's names. So if John Anick is the best in the game, who's the worst? And why is it Chale Sunnan? And then two, um,

Is it mean of me to not really care what Teddy Atlas has to say about MMA? Thanks a lot, man. Being in Orlando. Thank you, Judy. I'm hoping I will be in Orlando. Maybe I'll have some more answers over the next couple of days. I don't know why I wouldn't. I just feel like it's a no-brainer to send me there because they don't have to, I don't

have to go to a hotel or anything like that. I can just stay at my parents' house and just drive to all the events, which works out Fine for me, because I don't mind driving at all. I care. I mean, the pronunciation thing, am I going to slip up and mispronounce a name or two? Yeah, it happens to us all, especially when we're doing like live shows.

If I'm doing BTL, I mean, I have an idea of where I'm going, but certain times maybe I'll make a mistake here and there. It happens. I try my best to do the pronunciation. Of course, the landscapers come on a Friday during the show, because why wouldn't they? Man, I wish they would come at a level. that make my life switch easier.

I tried my best to pronounce. I was one of the people who said Alex Paheta for a long time. It wasn't even John that put that on my radar. It was one of Alex's coaches after his UFC 276 win over Sean Strickle, when he came back to do his media, he's like, hey, it's not Pajara, it's Pereira. And you're supposed to kind of like roll the R. So I ended up talking to him after.

I'm like, can you say like Pereira? like can you say like Alex Pereira without rolling and he goes yeah it's just not peheta or pehara or anything like that and John did a great job on Friday being like hey by the way this is how you pronounce it John's gold standard when it comes to the pronunciations chale's pretty bad he's just he's really bad he might be the worst but I don't think he cares it might even be part of the gimmick at this point and then the teddy I was like sure I care what he thinks. From a boxing perspective, like, I don't, Teddy Atlas talking about, like, Dustin Porre's boxing, it's fascinating. I like that. Do I want to hear Teddy Atlas talk about

Israel Adasania's ground game and taking the back of Alex Pereira? Not necessarily, but he's not going to give you that anyways. He's here to talk about the striking prowess, the boxing prowess, some of the stuff that, you know, just big time fights, the feelings that go into it, because Teddy's been a part of, I mean, hundreds of them. So it's good mindset insight, the striking insight, especially with the hands and talking about the boxing and stuff. Like, yeah, I think Teddy's a valuable piece for sure. Teddy's not going to break down jujitsu scrambles or wrestling scrambles or anything like that or clinches against the fence. But we're talking about boxing at space, even if you add a little kickboxing to it. Teddy does his homework, man.

The guy does his homework, and having him as part of your broadcast is a very big deal. Would you rather have Teddy Atlas break down the sciences of striking an M.A. Or would you rather have Stephen A. Smith break down the sciences of striking in MMA? It's a no-brainer to me. And if you're going to put one of those guys that are prevalent on these combat broadcasts out there in that space, I'll take Teddy Atlas over Stephen A any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Let's go to Abbs Walia, and then we'll go to Mikey. What's up, Abbas?

How are you? Okay. So the first question I have is, how would you feel about it at Justin Gagee versus Dustin Part 2? And who do you see winning that fight? And the second question I have is, does Hamzaat really deserve an immediate title shot at either Leon or Elyx? That's all I have, man. Have a good day. So, I mean, of course I'd want to watch Porre gave you two.

I would love to watch that fight. That fight makes sense. I think Pori would win again. But it would be, I mean, look, that fight's going to rule. Does it do much for the division? I mean, maybe if you're Porre. But I honestly think Porre is at a position right now where he could fight Darius in an Eliminator fight or

there is a world that Porre just jumps into a title shot after the Volcanovsky fight, which would suck for Benny, but that's a real possibility because it's a fresh matchup. There's a story there. Ariel posted a little clip earlier today of him interviewing

Dustin Porier, I think it was in 2015 maybe, and he asked Poria about his Lamakachev and Pori had no idea who he was. And he said, look, I'd love to, I'll be happy to whoop his ass too. And now eight years later, we might be able to get it. It's a cool fight.

Dustin Porre, man, this guy, hearing John Anick talk about Dustin Porreier was just, it's just really cool. And I feel like more people should be talking about Dustin Porre that way. I feel like even though Dustin has become what he's become and people give him credit for the rise, I don't think he gets enough credit. I really don't.

The dude is such a good fighter. He's such an incredible striker. His boxing is unreal. Just his heart. It's phenomenal. This guy is something else. John Annex's best quote was, let me pull it up because I literally just wrote about it this morning.

If you're in an alley, don't you want that fucking guy with you? That's who Dustipori is. And I tend to agree. But I'd love to watch him engage. fight. The thing for me is I just want to see, I want to see some fresh faces

in this division get their opportunities. That's what I want to see. That's why I was somewhat against the poor A Chandler fight. I knew the fight was going to be great, but we're at a position right now where lightweight is just so strong, but none of these guys are going to get the chance to fight in a big fight.

Gamrock got his chance because he was fighting Benile Darius, but if B'Neil D'arayush wasn't on the winning streak he's on right now, Gamrod wouldn't be getting a fight against a top five guy. He wouldn't have gotten that fight. And we got Sarukia. We got Jalen Turner and Grant Dawson and Isma Goulof and a lot of these other dudes who are just not going to get their chance.

And it's, I don't know how we can have our cake and eat it too. Of course, I'd want to watch Poria, Gagchi, too. I'd watch the hell out of it. But at the same token, there is a strong part of me at this point that's just like, we got to give these other guys a chance. We got to give these other guys a chance. And does Hamzaa deserve a title shot at either division right now? Of course he doesn't. But does that matter?

No. The fight to make, and I've been saying it for a while, you do Hamzaa versus Colby, that's the one. I know Hamzaat didn't interview with Brett Okamoto and he said he wants to fight Pereira in January and then fight Colby in March. I have no interest in that. I have no interest in that.

If you're going to be a welterweight, be a frigging welterweight. weight. Like just be a welterweight. Go focus this next few months on getting down. So by the time you get the Colby fight, which will probably be a five-rounder, you can step on the scale at 171 or better whenever that fight happens. Don't focus on 185. If you want to be a middleweight, be a middleweight. If your whole thing is fighting Pereira for the title, then just say, I'm done with welterweight and be a middleweight. But no, it's, it's just, Hamzaat's a huge star.

And let's just say at this point, Pereira is like, you know what? I'll fight Hamzot in January. The UFC's going to make that fight in five seconds. I love Moreno and Figurato. Love the fight. I hope these guys fight five thousand times.

I will watch it every single time. But it's not a main event. It's not a pay-for-review main event. It's not. I know it was before, but they had no other choice because people were hurt and they had to fill spots.

So, of course, if they can get Pereira Hamzad to headline that car. It's going to do bonkers numbers, but I don't think the UFC is going to do that because that's super risky. And as far as the UFC looks at it, they want to get back to the Sadasania rematch.

And if they could do it before the summer, they'll go back to that well. So no, he doesn't deserve it, but Hamzad is beyond deserves at this point. He's a star and he's a draw. And people want to know what he's going to do next. Let's go to Mikey. Hello, Mikey.

What are they doing? Wow, Twitter's still here. Go figure. I'm just kidding. Yeah, man, just there's some pretty good cards today. It's almost kind of fitting how we come down from like a big pay-per-view and then we get this, you know, for all the purposes, remedial fight night card. But what kind of makes it cool is that it's unintentionally supplemented by a solid Bellator card

and the one championship card tonight. So I just want to get your thoughts on if Corey Anderson wins tonight. What do you think Belator will do with that light, heavyweight situation? It's just, it's funny because Corey Ernst has been itching to get that title for however long it's been. It feels like it's been forever since he left the UFC for Belator. And for the Strawweight Championship, who do you think should get it next? Should it be Jessica Androge if she stays or, I mean, I heard she's going to take a flyweight fight. Should it be Lemos?

And for Rose, who do you think she should get next? Marina or Yon or maybe even Yon gets a tile shot. So that'll be off for a day. Be kind, guys. Have a good day. Thanks, man. I still think Rose is going to get the shot. I think there's a story there.

Rose is probably the biggest star in the division. And I know she's coming off that kind of stinker with Carla, but she does hold two wins over Zhang. And I don't expect that fight to be a stinker at all. And I think that's one of those demons that, Zhang will probably need to exercise if she wants to go on this, go on a long title run.

But if they gave it to Lemo, I mean, who's going to complain about that? I think I'd love to see Andrage get in there at some point, but she is such a wild card right now because she is fighting Lauren Murphy in January. Who knows she's going to stay at 125 or move on? The one card is fine.

I probably, if I'm going to watch one, I'm going to watch the Bellator card. I mean, Coswell, Alexander's fighting. for the first time in a long time. It's a Muay Thai fight, but at least he's fighting. Christian Lee, chance to become the middleweight champion. When extra belts, cool.

I mean, it'll be fun. It'll be fine. But I think the Bellator card is more interesting to me with the two title fights. The rest of the card is okay. It's not great, but it's fine. Rowan for all those fighting gets a nice little step up on competition, so I'm excited to see what he does. I think Usman Ramaga Madov,

is just going to wax Petriki Pitbull tonight. I don't think this fight's going to be even slightly competitive. I think Usman's just going to truck them and win the title. I've been saying this for a while now, but saying Uspin won his last fight.

And I think Corey Anderson will beat Vadim Nemcoff, and he's probably going to fight. It's probably going to fight U.S. Romero. I mean, that's probably the fight they're going to make because it's probably the biggest fight they can make for Corey. Could they do Gayguard maybe, perhaps?

But I'd be more shouldn't you well at this point just because the clock's ticking on I mean the clock's technically ticking on both guys but yeah I think it'll probably be you well that would be my my guess if Corey wins

and even if Nemcoff wins I think they might go that route also I don't know with MX Platinum $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug but your taste buds too that's the power

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let's keep it in order here. We'll go to Noel or Noel. Hello. Noel, you're there. Yeah, do you hear me? Yeah, I got you. What's up, man? I have two questions. First question, Patty fighting the next card right now. What do you see him fighting? If he takes this, when do you see him getting a rank person for his next fight? Or do you think

he still has to develop his as a fighter and then second question is uh arnold allen uh tweeted about you know he was supposed to be the uh the one fighting for the interim belt i know yeah i met are set for next year but where do you see him uh for his next fight do you see him waiting for the title shot or do you see him fighting max holloway for the number one contender thanks man uh thank you sir I hate the Arnold Allen Max Holloway idea, not because I don't think it would be a fine fight because it would be a good fight. I'm keeping Max Holloway away from all of these guys

because I think Max wins that fight. And why would we do that? Why would we put Max in any position at this point to become the guy again? You can't just use Max to knock off all these contenders. You can't do it. You can throw Max in there with anybody else, and I'm okay with it.

Send him up to 55. Let him have fun fights at 55. Like him and Porre doing it again, or him in Oliveira or him and Gaichi. Like, all those fights are awesome. Max doesn't need titles. He doesn't need to be a number one contender fights. He doesn't need any of that stuff.

He just needs fun fights, Holloways of Stars, beyond titles. Keep Arnold far away from that man. as far as what we could do with him Korean zombie I'd be okay with that's probably the best answer right now honestly the only other option is it's not a great one it's a tough one

they'd be cool fights but Bryce Mitchell I'lliott's a pouria the winner of that but if I'm Arnold Allen I'm going all in on the zombie fight if you got to go to South Korea to do it and go to South Korea to do it. But the names that are available, that's what you should probably go for. And Arnold probably wins that fight.

And then he's a lock to get the next title shot. As far as Patty goes, I think this is definitely a step-up in competition. I think if he beats Jared Gordon, I honestly, I think the fight to make is Jalen Turner. We do the same, almost the same exact thing we just do with Molly McCann. where it's a win-win.

Galen gets the rub if he beats Patty. If Patty wins, you now know you have something here in terms of how far this guy can go. Can we build him as a title contender? And if he loses, nobody cares. Because he's going to be a massive underdog in that fight. He's going to be a huge underdog in that fight, and he's going to be expected to lose.

And if he loses, not the end of the world. Because he can just go back to the UK and win and be a star and get the huge pops and still have a lot of interest towards him. And if he wins, it's a very big deal. But that's what I would do. I would say of all the guys of 55 who really need that rub, it's probably Jalen.

Jalen's a good fighter. Does he have the most eclectic personality in the world? Not necessarily. But that's okay. Neither does Aaron Blanchfield. And Aaron got a huge boost. from beating Molly McCann the way that she did. And I feel like Jalen could get a similar boost

beating Patty. But he's got to beat Jared Gordon first. That's not going to be an easy fight by any stretch. But if he does beat Jared, I'm not going to say my tune has changed, but I will look at him a little bit more seriously if he beats Jared. But yeah, I would give him Jailen Turner next

in kind of a win-win situation, at least for the UFC. Let's go to Crypto. Hello, Crypto. Yes. This card this weekend, Mike, it's the ultimate vegan card. There's no stakes here. It's one of the absolutely worst cards ever.

I'm looking forward to seeing Derek Lewis, but I mean, it's really a tough sell. So I'm actually going to ask you about something else. It's about Colby Covington. I know they're trying to make Colby against Hamzat, but if I'm Colby, and I know there's a lot of people saying that he doesn't want to fight Hamzat, that he's, I don't want to say afraid, but that he doesn't want that fight, and I believe that he would take that fight. But I'm just thinking about this from a different perspective.

Isn't it better for Colby to wait and see what happens between Leon and Usman? because if for some reason Leon Edwards would win again, which I truly don't believe he will, but let's say he does that. Colby has a strong case to become the next title contender, right? I mean, in a parallel universe where Usman does not exist, Colby Covington is the title champion. So I think that the best option for Kobe is to say,

you know what, I'm just going to sit this one out and see what happens between Usman and Edwards. And in that case, the fight to make would be Hamzat against Belal, which would be a very interesting fight. And we know that Belal is interested in that fight. And for Hamza, it actually doesn't matter. I mean, he has one more fight and then he will get a title shot. It doesn't matter if it's against Belal or Kobe.

So I want your take on that. And not because, I think, once again, that Kobe is afraid to fight Hamzat, but I just think it's a bad idea for him because if Leon wins I would love to see Colby against Leon and I truly believe Colby would beat Leon. I don't want to

say easily but it's probably going to be convincingly to some extent. So yeah, thanks Mike. Interesting. I mean I wouldn't rule that out altogether. Colby is Colby's going to be 35

in February. The clock's ticking, man. The clock's ticking. He's only got... He's only got a few more trips around the sun as a fighter, in my opinion. So, I think in terms of just setting himself up

for the rest of his life, I think he's got to take the biggest fights he can get. And waiting for Leon is probably not the best idea, especially in a world where Jorge Mazadol exists if Leon beat Zussman. Because a Mazdaal gets in there and fights literally anybody, they're going to make that fight. It's the UFC way they're going to make it. And we can argue until the sun goes down,

but that's what they're going to do. Colby versus Hamzad is the biggest fight he can get right now. It is the biggest fight that Colby can get. And I do think Colby would take it. I do think Colby would take it. Well, there's just so many questions. Like when Dana says, yeah, Colby's ready to fight. It's not that I don't believe him.

It's just so strange that it's all public. You could just go and look at all the documents from this whole alleged Mazadol-Covington assaults thing, where there's talks about like head trauma and brain injuries and things like that. I just don't know how any commission could look at those public records and be like, you know what, let's allow this guy to fight when he is publicly stated, or at least it's in documents that he has a brain injury. I don't know. I honestly don't know. And Colby has not talked to anybody.

He has not talked to anybody. There's only a few people he talks to these days outside of just regular going through the car wash on Fight Week. It's submission radio, myself, and James Lynch. We're like, that's it. That's who he usually does the interviews with outside of the fight week obligations. He ain't talking to anybody. So I don't know. But I think he would fight Hamza.

I definitely do. It's just a matter of can he get cleared? Is this a possibility? Is he worried about Hamzaa making 170? Like if Colby goes through all this to prepare for a guy like that and then Hamzaon misses weight by five pounds, it's tough, man. It's kind of in a tough spot. So I don't know what, I honestly don't know what's going to happen.

I would love to see that fight. That's the fight to make for both guys. I actually, Colby has a chance to win that fight if he could survive the early onslaught. If he can get this fight extended into rounds three, four, and five, I think Colby's got a real good chance to win that fight. But it's just, that is a huge if you can survive that early storm with Hamzaa, because once he gets his hands on you, he doesn't like go, yeah. And then who knows what's going to happen with the rest of this division? Like if they do Bilal Hamza, I ain't going to hate it. What's Gilbert Burns going to do?

Is he going to fight Balal? Are they going to wait until March or April and do the Mazadal fight? Because Mazdaal seems to want it for that England card as well, which is a smart move on his part. I don't know. This division's very strange right now. A lot of questions. Don't have a ton of answers right now. We'll see what happens.

Ani, hello. Good. And I would also like to take. a shout out to Aaron Bronstetter, who is listening. It's really nice. So the other day, he had this tweet when he said, asked me any question you want. And I asked him about his motivation to become a journalist and he talked about. And he just mentioned patience and a few other things. And it was nice too. And I really like it when two journalists are over here together. I feel like the two of you can have really nice discussions about, you know, bringing in an

an MMA community hall of fame, something that is not controlled by the UFC, something that is, you know, controlled by media and public because you actually listen to us. But before I given my question, I actually wanted to ask you, if you remember a couple of weeks ago, we spoke about A.W and WWE, how far have you come with the pro wrestling side of the things? And don't take me out. I still have an MMA related question. I just wanted to ask you about WW first and then I'll I'm pro wrestling first and then I'll go into the MMA side of things. So how are you finding

pro wrestling? I'm trying. I think WW is slowed down quite a bit. I did watch Crown Jewel. I thought some of that was great. I think AEW sucks right now. I think it's really bad. If MJF doesn't win the title tomorrow, it is a travesty.

They're just I just don't understand the decisions they make. They're just tough watches, man. They're really tough. Every week I watch and I'm just like at the point last week I was like please have MJF on first so I can stop watching and of course he was the last thing on the card and I was like annoyed to no end that I had to wait till the very end of the show. They're bad right now man. They're really, really bad. It's the Chris Jericho show. I could go without that 100%. It's just bad. Now we're going to get the frigging elite back. I just, it's awful. We're just going they're going backwards. It's sucks. But M.J. Hopefully we'll

get crowned and that'll be something good. I think you will like full gear if you watch it, though. But moving on to the question I had about MMA. So it's about, you know, we always talk about retirement fights and how UFC treats these, you know, treats the legends. I think there's not enough thought given into making these matches for legends. And this is a problem with the Bantamweight Division, specifically that I've had for a very long time. As it, just think about it.

For Marlon Vera versus Dominic Cruz, and you have Joseo Alto versus Mirab Diwali, if we are in Marlon Verra's position, do you think beating Dominic Cruz who, I mean, I'm not going to say Dominic Cruz is out of his prime. He looks really good. But Dominic Cruz, who hasn't, who has, who has, who had a 50-50 win loss in the past few years and he's not really very active? Or do you think a win over Mirab de Valishvili, is a better scale. You see where Joseo and Dominic Cruz were at the points in their careers, they were knocked down and now they are building back up. They are building back up and they needed to be given a fair chance. I mean, I'm not saying the matchup was unfair, but they needed to be given a chance at the bantamweight title. And even if you think from a business standpoint,

we have no main event for UFC Rio de Janeiro Brazil, Brazil, and the king of Rio Josei Aldo has retired because of the matchmaking with Marab Diwali Shuli where he just got outworked. He didn't get destroyed. He didn't get outclassed. He didn't get beat. He just got outworked. That's the whole reason Marab de Valishvili won.

And what is the one thing that Marlon Vera is like an Achilles of his, that he tends to get outworked? I think Marab de Vali versus Marlon Vara was the fight. for each other. They needed each other. But right now, you know, look at how UFC have booked themselves into a corner. Not even a good business decision, not even a technical decision. It's just a bad decision.

And I think the decision to book Frankie Edgar versus Chris Gutierrez, first of all, why did Frankie Edgar have to cut down to Bantam wait for his retirement fight? It's a retirement fight. He needs to be given more options. If it's a retirement fight, it's not just a. fight. It's a celebration. I think he needed to be given more options, you know, like he started his career at 155. Is there a possibility of him maybe get a legacy fight and 155 or even 145? Or, you know, there had to be many options. And even in Bantamweight, I personally thought that

Cody Garbrandt, right, he's trying to find his mojo back. He's trying to get back into the rankings. I think that would have been a better fight that, you know, Cody Garbrandt will take France. Ranking Edgar's place in the rankings. Rather than, you know, do you think Chris Gutierrez gets the rub? I don't think he gets anything. So these are my thoughts. I'm sorry I went on for a while, but I just, you know, I've been waiting for a very long time to share this.

Thank you so much for listening to me. And shout out, Aaron. Thanks for replying to my tweet. Yes, shout out to Aaron indeed. Multi-time BTL panelists, by the way, in multiple iterations of the show. look i've been very public about the jos aaldo marab booking i thought it was promotional malpractice it was horrible jose should have been fighting for the title and then watching how everything went down with tj just solidified that idea matching him up with marab is one thing

but matching him up with marab and freaking altitude is another it's just horrible matchmaking the fight that i've been saying for a long time now and i know he wasn't fully cleared but I've been saying the UFC has their abilities to move these things along quicker. It should have been Marlon Vera Henry Suhudo. Now, Henry's not going to take that fight. I understand that. But that was the one for me because if Henry takes that fight and wins, that's enough for me. But we all know how I feel about this Henry Suhudo comeback.

It's literally one of the worst comebacks in the history of combat sports or sports in general. It started with one of the worst retirements in the history of sports. and this comeback has been awful and he's not going to get what he wants. It's just not going to happen. And because he's in the mix now, the division has become the Wild Wild West. I like what Marlon's doing. I had no issue with the Dominic Cruz booking because if you look at Marlon's resume right now,

he's got some really good wins that are going to age pretty well. But at the same token, Dominic's the biggest name on his resume right now. Dominic is the biggest name on his resume. And it was a fight that was really competitive. And then Marlon does what Marlon does, comes on strong, brutally finishes his opponent. To me, if this is Bellator, Marlon Verra is fighting for the Bannamway title next. But this is not Bellator. This is how can we get the highest selling, most interesting matchup for not just the hardcore fans, but the casualists as well.

And I think Aljo is starting to understand that game more so than ever. He started off after the Tijo in with, whoever the UFC wants to give me, I'll go with. And then he started to entertain the Suhudo idea. And then after, I don't know if he's like listening to different shows. I don't know if he listens to this or not. I don't, I mean, if he does great. If not, it's not the end of the world.

But his stance has changed completely. And he's 100% right. Sean O'Malley is the biggest fight he can get. It's not Henry Suhudo. And he just wants to see, like myself, that Henry actually cares. that he actually wants to fight. Him getting right into a title shot and winning,

we know what's going to happen. He's just going to retire again, or he's going to be like, nope, I'm fighting Volcanovsky for a floppy trillion dollars and nothing else happens. And the UFC isn't going to play that game with him. And he knows that. So Aljo's playing the smart.

Go all in on O'Malley. He dropped the bet, he fumbled the bag early, but he's getting it back. Hopefully in the next six, seven months, we figure this out a little bit more. Garland gets a fight. Maybe he's tweeted maybe a fight with Piotr-Yon.

I don't know. But maybe I'll just say maybe we'll fight in March now. Do him in O'Malley March? I don't know. The Gutierrez booking I hated from Jump Street because I didn't think Gutierrez could actually gain a lot from beating Frankie Edgar. But I have to say, the way he did it,

the way he reacted to it, and it's kind of stinks that he didn't really get to celebrate the biggest win of his career at all because it was all about Frankie losing and not about Chris winning. I actually thought it went about as well as it could for Chris. He got a little more over than I thought. Didn't get like a huge jump,

but I think he got a little more over than I predicted he would. But Bannamweight just has a lot of contenders. And as much as I have praised a lot of the UFC matchmaking, they've screwed the pooch a few times with the Bannamite division. I will say that. We'll go to Naga Land and then we're going to go to Tristan. Nagaland are you there? I don't hear anything.

Yo, yeah, my question is... Oh, there we go. What's up? About Chandler. He said that he'll be his one fight win away from a title shot. So, but I don't think that's the case. So since he's ranked number five now, and I think he should be fighting guys below him so that they can get on top of the rankings. So that's my question.

Who should Chandler fight next? who should Chandler fight next? I just got to let my dog go for a second. Connor? I'm all in on the Connor fight. It works for me. Give me that one. I'm cool.

If not, we kind of have to wait and see where we're at that point, but it's probably an up-and-comer. It's not going to be a gaugie type or anything like that. It's Connor or busts. But if it's not Connor, then he's got to fight, you know,

someone like a Sirukion or an Izma Gulaf or whoever comes out of that fight, one of these up-and-comers, a Grant Dawson, a Jalen Turner, somebody like that. Shiloh, come on. Being a dog dad right now. Shiloh, come on. Come on. Come on, treat. Come on.

Got a bribe with treats to get him back. second. Good boy. Let's go to Tristan. Tristan, what's up? My question is for Bellator 288, focusing on Vadim Nebkopf versus Corey Anderson. Do you think this is going to be

such a different fight? Vadim said this is going to be different. We may see Nemcov as the fighter before his first fight with Corey Anderson where he was dominant with his wrestling and then was able to finish his opponent. So do we see a different Nemtom in this fight against Cory Anderson where he could most likely possibly win? Or do you

think this is going to be one-way traffic with Cory Anderson against Nemtompe? I know you guys were talking about it a little bit on BTL. My other question is to, how familiar are you with Tamir Hizria, who's on the main card? He's 11 and O. he's fought on other Russian organizations. Looks pretty good. I watch a couple highlights videos on him. I think he looks pretty good. So just a little bit of information about him and where you think he is.

And then an upcoming fight that I think it's ruined or confirmed, I'm not really sure, is Abuss Magomed versus Gerald Milshott. it's slated to fight I think in February 18th next year I gotta give shout out to Gerald Mershub taking tough fights but where do you see his future do you think in the middleweight division you think he just needs a couple of fights and then

he might be in the title pitcher very soon so that's all I have Mike thanks for everything yeah Gerald Mershard is is a G man this guy just doesn't care doesn't care and I think he's he's great in that spot.

Not like, not quite Neil Magni-ish, but maybe like a step outside of that. But if you want to see how good a guy is, you throw him in there with GM3. And if you beat GM3, it means something. And if he beat you, then just shows you how much of a G that he is.

Honestly, Timor Kisriev. I know a little about him. from his ACB days I mean not a ton and unfortunately that's one of the problems

Bellator has is because if this guy I mean he's 11 and O seems to be a pretty fun fighter he goes to a lot of decisions he does have some finishes but if he's really that good I'd like to know more about him

and that's one thing Bellator needs to do better is letting us know more about some of these undefeated prospects that they have. They can't all be Usband Narmagam Adolf where Habib has already sort of told you about him years before they went to Bellator. You know what I'm saying?

So, uh, Bellator's got a lot of problems from the promotional end. And that's as far as the main event goes, will Nemcoff be different slightly? But I think Corey wins.

I think by the time, I don't think Corey finishes them. I think it's going to go all five. I think Corey's going to win a decision. D might win the first, maybe the second, but I think Corey's just going to do Cory Anderson things. Down the stretch, take him down, beat him up.

Take away that energy, take away that gas tank, and then by the time it's over, we're going to be like, yep, Corey won at least 48, 47, maybe 4946. He's the new champion. Scott Coker should jump on his post-fight press conference and say, hey, this guy, Corey Anderson, that the UFC let go, it's the best light heavyweight in the world.

And that might not be true. But this is one of those times where Bellator and Scott Coker can say that. And there's a discussion to be had. There's a discussion to be had. A.J. McKee, when he was going on that run, I don't think there was a discussion there. It was a good statement. It's something you probably should say as a promoter.

it probably wasn't true. But at least with Corey, I think you got a conversation. But I think Corey wins the fight, and I think Usman and Armaghamatov is just going to completely rinse Patriki Pitbull. So I think we're going to have two new champions tonight. Corey will have to work a little bit harder. I think Usman wins that fight whenever he wants. Because I've just been that high on that kid.

And it's going to pay off. This is a horrible matcher for Patriki. Kurt, hello. Kurt, are you there? I hear nothing. The Kurt Phillips. If you want to try again, try again. Zeke was hanging out for a minute.

I don't know where he went. So I'll give Kurt another 10 seconds. If not, we're going to wrap this thing up. Dog is like just staring at me. Thanks for letting me outside, bro. But we got to go for a walk. So I'm going to give him that in a moment. So all right, I think we're done.

Bellator 288 going down. on the wonderful Showtime Network here in the United States. Freelims at 6 p.m. Eastern, we get the two title fights. I'm excited to see Roman Ferraldo on this card. Guy I've been pretty high on. Get a nice little step-up in competition with Levan Chorkelly. Who else from these prelims am I excited to see? Archie Colgan's fun.

Sullivan Collie's fun. although Sullivan Calley was part of one of the worst Bellator matchmaking instances I've ever seen with the whole big tuna situation literally one of the worst

all-time Belator matchmaking ideas but listen Belator card should be fun one card should be fun UFC card look it ain't great on paper there's not a lot of stakes involved, but each matchup in a vacuum should be fun.

I think we'll come out of it around 7 p.m. Eastern, which I'm very thrilled about, and be like, you know what, that was fun. That was a fun card. And then the UFC's going to take a little breather, and then we come back with UFC Orlando, which should be a lot of fun. And then UFC 282, the following week, should be a fun stretch for the next several weeks to wrap up what has been a pretty crazy 2020. to in terms of the in cage products for a lot of these promotions.

And of course, at this point, we should probably get a second job so we can watch the PFL pay-per-view next week. So get excited for that. But we are done. Preview show for UFC Vegas 65, 3 p.m. Eastern, M. A. Fighting YouTube channel, join us for that. We'll take your questions and all that good stuff. And then we'll be back 12.30 p.m. Eastern for the People's Pre-Fight show.

So get excited for that as well. and by the way, if you are on to the next one listeners, you like to chime in on the podcast with your matchmaking suggestions, my piece of advice to you is get them in early because due to the early start time, AK and I are going to record onto the next one like right after we do the post-fight show on Saturday. So we're going to record it Saturday night.

So don't wait until Sunday to get your picks in. get him in on Saturday night, and we will go from there. But enjoy the rest of your Friday, everybody. We'll see at 3 p.m. Eastern for the UFC Vegas-65 preview show. Have a great rest of the day. And as always, have a heck of a morning.