MMA Fighting - HOAM | How Dana White Was Right and Wrong At the Same Time

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

UFC president Dana White had a very busy Tuesday and made a lot of headlines, yet somehow found a way to be both right and wrong throughout the day. On an all-new episode of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck discusses White's interview with Pat McAfee where he addressed his gift of $250,000 to a member of The Nelk Boys, and how he blamed the MMA media for the narrative that he felt was spread. In addition, White's post-event speech on Dana White's Contender Series is discussed where only Joe Pyzer earned a UFC contract, while other listener questions include UFC 277 this Saturday, the disrespect Anthony Smith seems to be getting, the UFC 278 and UFC 279 lineups coming together, and much more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 10 a.m. ET on the MMA Fighting Twitter Spaces. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser 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. Everybody is Thursday, July 28th, 2022, and it is indeed a heck of a morning. Live on the MMA fighting Twitter spaces.

You will hear the show shortly thereafter. the MMA fighting podcasting network. I am my tech. It is the eve of the eve of UFC 277. There is a lot going on right now. I am currently doing the show outside on my porch in the backyard because you may hear some noise here. We have air conditioning units basically on either side of me.

And they are going to hum and they are going to probably make some noise. But if I did the show inside, command center 4.0 is getting a makeover right now. We're getting some sound absorbing flooring put down in command center 4.0, which used to be, I mean, it still kind of is the garage, but we're converting the garage into the command center. And it has been a process. And hopefully the process that has been very long and very tumultuous. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of the extreme makeover command center edition. So I got some Wi-Fi boosters installed in different points of the house, including in Command Center 4.0.

So all the Wi-Fi issues that you may have experienced on my end during the shows and the streams, all that stuff, that should be a thing of the past. I can run one of the boosters, a hard line right into the computer, which will be. hosting all these videos. So a lot of that stuff, a lot of those issues since we move the space should be coming to an end. Of course, it's still going to be like 140 degrees in there for the foreseeable future while I'm doing these shows, but that's fine. I can deal with that as long as I have good Wi-Fi for the rest of my life. So if you want to sweat me out of there, that's cool. I got no issue with that. As long as the Wi-Fi works, we don't have to deal with any audio or video or production issues. I am good to go. But we have a lot to talk about. It's a big week. UFC 277 going

down this Saturday. We got Giuliana Pena versus Amanda Nunes. Part two, we got Brandon Marino, Kai Kar, France for the interim flyway title. Derek Lewis is back. He decided that yesterday was going to be the day where he's just got to put the MMA media on blast in the fun

Derek Lewis-ish kind of way. It was hilarious. You can go check out that scrum on our YouTube channel. Jose Young's is in the Metroplex right now, getting you ready for UFC 27 We had the first edition of season six of Dana White's contender series on Tuesday. Dana White's been on one this week between his appearance on the Pat McAfee show,

pretty much reacting to his gift that he gave to one of the Nelke boys, $250,000. I can't wait until somebody tags me in on that so I can give my reaction to that. He also only gave one contract to Joe Piper on the contender series. He gave the sort of 2022 abridged version of do you want to be an effing fighter. It didn't even actually like say the words Joe Pfe or welcome to the UFC. Thank goodness for the great Loris Sanko for coming in and being like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. So Joe's in the UFC, right?

And he said, Joe's in, there you go. Real quick, before we get to the callers, it's a bunch of you lined up. I loved every bit of that. Dana White's speech, all of it, only giving the one. contract. I loved it. I thought it was fantastic because we've talked about it on this program. Maybe, maybe Dana is a heck of a morning listener. Maybe he has joined all of you. Maybe your comments, you jumping in here. Maybe he was like, you know what? Maybe he's right. The contender series has lost a little bit of that flavor. It's been chicken for five years. You can put seasoning

on chicken. You can put barbecue sauce on chicken. You can put hot sauce on chicken. But if you eat the same chicken for five years, you're going to get sick of it. And the one thing I didn't want for the contender series was that it was going to get stale, that it was just going to lose some flavor. And as the seasons have progressed, especially after last season and the season before, I feel like it got a little stale because all you had to do was basically win. And you got a contract. But the first season, the second season, unless it was like kind of a handpicked guy, like this is the guy. If this guy wins, he's probably in, no matter what.

You had to fight for it. Like, you had to earn your spot on the contender series. Now, were there mistakes made during those first couple seasons? Sure, there were. I thought Austin Vanderford should have been in the UFC. Brennan Locknade's another name that comes up that probably should have gotten a contract, even though he fought to a decision. Anthony Romero is another guy who probably should have gotten a contract during this stretch.

But the one thing I didn't want to see was like, all you have to do is go on the Contender Series and win and get a contract. I feel like to set the tone for the rest of the season. And I like that. I don't mind. I wouldn't mind watching a Contender Series where nobody got a contract.

Like, nobody went out there and fought their ass off. And they didn't give any contracts. Like, that's fine. Like, winning a UFC contract should mean a lot more than it meant the last two seasons on the Contender Series. So I loved everything about what I saw on Tuesday from Dana White. Joe Piper is an animal.

Those Philly guys just continue to do the damn thing. They just don't lose these days. They're just not losing at all. So good addition. Joe Pfeiffer is in. And we'll see what happens next week and the rest of the series. So the rest of the season. Let's get into this.

Let's get to the peeps. Let's go to Toke and get this party started. Toke, how are you, my man? I am just thrust into chaos. and I love it. Good to hear. So I have a slight problem, though. So do you have a napkin or a handkerchief?

Because I'm trying to get Ali Abdelaziz to stop drooling over a paddy pimplead matchup. Listen, Mark Madsen is not getting that fight. You can't even tweet like Mark Madsen normally tweets. You don't know how he tweets. You just tweet from Mark Madsen's account and just think, well, people are not going to know because it's Mark Madsen's official account. Listen, Mark Madison doesn't talk trash. He's never done that.

And he's called someone else out. But oh, does he see dollar signs, this, this sleazy manager, Aliabilities, who doesn't even think about how his clients are tweeting normally. Mark Madsen rarely tweets, and now he goes on a tweet rant for the entire of UFC London. Get the F out of here, honestly. I mean, it's so ridiculous. I'm sorry, I just had to get that out there. I couldn't be here on Tuesday. And let me tag you in then, because I saw all the Dana White stuff this week.

And I mean, the honest to God truth, it made sense what he said about the milk boys. Why shouldn't he just give whatever he wants? Like, it's kind of weird that I'm on Dana White's side on this because I'm never. but it's his money. He's not taking it out of the fight of pay. So what does it matter? Okay, that's all for me. Thank you.

Thank you, Tocke. I appreciate the tag in. I will get to that at a moment. Yes, I understand where you're coming from. We saw it from Uwkisbara Madoff's Twitter account as well, calling for the fight with Patriki Pitbull. We know where it's coming from. We know what's happening here.

It happens a lot. Just go to Henry Sohudo's Twitter's Twitter. page and just scroll on down. Just scroll on down. And you can tell which tweets are from Henry and which tweets are not from Henry. And there's a lot of that going around amongst the stable of clients. So I get where you're coming from. And by the way, I have zero interest in watching Patty Pimblood fight Mark Madsen because

why would you do that? Mark's just going to take him down and keep them down for 15 minutes. Like Mark Madsen, I was in Jacksonville after he beat Vince Pichel in a gritty little fight. A lot of people weren't thrilled with the third round from Mark Mattson or the Jacksonville crowd booed him a little bit. And that's like, listen, I've said this a million times. The way the pay structure is in MMA, your job is to go out and win fights. So you get the second half of your paycheck. And Mark Madsen was there saying, give me a top 15 guy.

I'm ready for a top 15 guy. And now all of a sudden he wants to fight Patty. Like, come on now. We know that's not Mark. Mark doesn't want to fight. Like, if they offered a Patty, what's he going to say? No. But I can assure you, just from talking to Mark a couple different times in Jacksonville,

the Patty fight as the competitor that he is is not the one he's looking for. He's looking for the rank guys of 155. He wants to move up that ladder. He wants to prove that he belongs in the rankings and good on him. Now, the other thing, I'm so. glad that Dana actually responded to this because if you guys missed this, Dana was on the Pat McAfee show and this is a Pat McAfee type of interview where Pat, who I have a lot of respect for, I get where he's coming from, was asking questions such as Dana White, have you lost

weight and things like that, which is funny. He did the same Vincent McMahon. That's who he is. He's not a journalist. So I don't expect him to ask the hard questions. But one of his guys was tagged in to ask question. He asked, you know, what's it going to take to get a $250,000 cash gift like he gave to Kyle of the Nalkeboys? Now, when this happens, we wrote about it obviously because it was there for the world to see. And then I was asked about it on this show. And I said from the get go, I have no problem with it. Dana has worked his ass off and he can spend his money.

However, he wants to spend his money. all right and i agree with him he's not going to the to the state that says ufc fighter pay and pulling out a quarter million dollars so that he could give it to his friends or putting a piece of pay which says i owe you fighter pay funds 250 000 this is dana's money dana can do whatever he wants this money so the gift itself i like who like gives a shit like it doesn't matter the issue i had with the whole thing was that if i were to give somebody to which i'm not giving to anybody to and fifty thousand which i'm not giving to anybody to and dollars by the way so don't even ask.

Well, let's just say I had that Dana White FU money and I wanted to give a gift of $250,000 to somebody. I am not going to take my cell phone out and take a video of that and be like, hey, look at me. Look at this gift I'm giving. And I'm not saying Dana did that because data didn't take the video. The bad look of it all was that the dude from the Knopf Boys took the video and that Dana is like, yeah, man, here's the gift I gave you. And Dana allowed it to happen.

Now, I thought at first, like, data was going to be pissed about it. Like, if I'm Dana White, I'm like, dude, what the hell, bam? Like, why would you put this video out there on social media? You understand the type of backlash I'm going to get from this because we know how the media can be. And I've said from the get-go, Danny can spend the money however he wants. I just thought it was kind of a look, considering how prevalent fighter pay is in the conversation and stuff like that. But now, after hearing this response, which, by the way, if you missed it, here's what he's, said. Let me step this record straight. First of all, all these people on the internet, go

F yourself. I spend my money, however the F I want to spend my money, mind your own effing business, number one. Number two, if you look at what Kyle and the elk boys have done as far as hollerhead and a lot of other things they've done, those kids have never asked me for anything ever. Never asked me for anything and they couldn't be better people. Kyle has done so many things for me, and believe me, the $250,000 that I gave him for his birthday does not cover the amount of things that that kid has done for me. So don't count other people's money. Mind your own effing business, which by the way, no issue with that response at all. This is where it gets interesting.

A lot of this is driven by the scumbag MMMA media. So what happens is they act like there's this massive safe here at the UFC offices that says fight or pay on it. And I just go in there and grab whatever I want out of the fighter pay. No you effing pieces of ass. This is money that I actually have made over an entire career and I will spend it however the FI want. What drives them crazy is they don't know about our business. They don't like the fact that they don't know. They want to know effing everything like all these other sports.

You find out we're already hearing what's going on with the negotiation with the Boston Celtics and possibly Durant. I don't tell these effing people anything ever. You know what they know? What I tell them and I tell them nothing because I can't stand them and I don't trust them. So that's Dana's response to this whole thing. I'm not a conspiracy guy. But when this video first popped out, You could go back into the archives and listen to this.

I said, Dana's probably going to be pissed off about this video. Like, why would you do that? But then I thought to myself, Dana hasn't had a chance to rip on the media that often. So maybe this is an opportunity. Maybe Kyle was like, hey, data, you mind if I post this video? And maybe Dana was like, hmm, no, you probably shouldn't. And he was like, you know what? Let's see how the media reacts to this.

just so if it comes up again, I can blast them. Because Dana loves to do that any chance he gets. So at first, I was like, if I'm Dane, if I'm Dade, I'm probably pissed of this video has gotten released. But now at the end of this, I think this is probably part of the, not part of the plan,

but I think he was probably just like, you know what? Let's get the hamster real role and let's see how these people go. Let's see the reaction to this. And as you know, I had no problem with the gift. I just thought it was kind of weird.

And I thought it was kind of weird that it was made public. public because listen, if you're going to give somebody, I don't get, like Dana could have given the Nelfboys $5.7 million in a shoe box, and I wouldn't care. Like, Kyle could have just been like, hey, Dana, thanks for the great gift, man. What a relationship we have.

And, like, no one even, like, cared about it. Wouldn't have been the thing. But the fact that it was on video, the fact that he was like, oh, look at what my friend Dana gave me. He gave me $250,000. Like, that's a whole different thing. That's a whole different thing. And the look was kind of weird.

And that's why I got the reaction that it did. But again, to clarify my sentiment of the. whole thing. I have no issue with Dana giving gifts to anybody. Dana could give money. He can give whatever the hell he wants. He can buy the milk boys each a Ferrari if he wants. I don't give a shit. But at the same token, don't take

this as an opportunity to like just rip on the MMA media because it's a public now. Now we get to see it. Like people got to see it. It is because of the day. People reacted the way that they reacted to it. Now, if that video isn't released, we're not talking about this at all.

If Kyle just posted on Twitter, hey Dana, best birthday ever. Thanks for the cool gift, bro. Like, we wouldn't even be talking about this right now. But it was a public video. Here we are. Again, I don't really care. But that reaction, I saw it on Pat McAfee. I was like, seriously, dude?

Like, this is just, this is just dumb. This is just dumb. This is a story? Like, why is this a story? Why is this a shot at the NBA media? Like, whatever. And by the way, because it's my job, and I feel like I'm pretty good at this part.

the job. A lot of the things that you don't want to, quote, unquote, tell us we put out there before you do. So there you go. Soapbox. Let me hop down. Boom. Don. How are you, my man? We'll go to Don first. Let's see if we get him on here. Make sure you're unmute. Oh, there we go. I got you, man. How are you? Mike? Yes. Hi. Hello? All right. It is on you. It is on your end, I believe. because the audio is coming through on my end, according to the recording, to the recording.

So let's go to Ani, and let's see if Ani is here. Ani, are you there? Hi, Mike. I would first, I'd like to say an incredible monologue coming from you. How are you doing? I'm doing okay. How are you? I'm good. I'm good.

So, well, you know, we can go on and on about whatever, whatever happened between Dana and Nelke boys, but I actually have, you know, another question. If I can change the topic, if you don't mind. Please, please. For the love of God, change it. Please. Yes, yes.

So, you know, first I would like to talk about Alexander Gustafson and then a quick question about the Amanda Nunes and Juliana Pena match. So, I mean, as we saw, Alexander Gustafson didn't look like himself. Unfortunately, he lost. And we've seen a lot of. of comments from people like DC and you know few of them are saying that he has to retire, a few of them are saying that maybe dial back, you know, let's reduce the position a little bit. I mean, what I think must happen is, you know, we know that Shogun Hua, he has one more

fight left on his contract, I guess, and I believe Dana said that they would honor that fight or something. I think this is the right time to run it back between Shores. and Alexander Gustafson to see who should retire and who shouldn't, as in who can still at least fight. You know what I mean? Because Alexander Gustafson didn't really fight in the previous match. So what do you think about that fight? And my second question is, would I be extremely disrespectful if I said that the only reason Amanda Nunes lost to Juliana Pena

was because of the adrenaline term she had in the round two? Yes, these are the two questions. I have. That's it. Thanks, man. Yeah, the Gus thing was kind of sad to watch just because you hate seeing guys who you have so much respect for just kind of lose their fastball, as Jedbishu likes to say all the time. And it seems like Gus has sort of lost his fastball. I hate, like, I don't like being that guy that says, like, this dude should retire, this dude should retire, because it's not my place.

Like, who the hell am I? But, yeah, if they wanted to do Gus versus Shogun, like one last fight, I'd be fine with that. And I think a lot of people would be cool with that as well. Let's just go out there and have a, just have a legends fight because I think both would be, at least in the sport categorized in that world, or at least like mentioned in the conversation. So yeah, if they wanted to do that, that's totally fine. I don't know. Like, I can't really answer your second question.

I don't know if it's disrespectful because at first view, I felt sort of. the same way. Like, she went out there and put it on Juliana and Juliana didn't go away and Amanda had a dump and yeah, there's probably a little bit of truth to that. But this is exactly, the thing is Julianna Pena said that's exactly what was going to happen. She's like, she's going to, she's going to hit me. She's going to try to get me out early. I'm going to survive it because I'm tough as hell and then I'm going to go out there and I'm going to beat her. And that's exactly what she did. So maybe there's a little semblance of truth to that, but maybe Julia like that was her game plan just like

it's kind of like the gameplay we kind of expected from Lauren Murphy when she fought Valencia Shepchenko like just be as tough as you can just be tough and weather the storm and Julianna said like I'm going to go weather the storm and I'm going to get in her face I'm going to beat her so we'll see how Amanda sort of handles this like if Amanda

if Amanda's patience and slows things down a little bit I'm interested to see how this fight goes but I don't think Julianna is going to let her do that I think as soon as Amanda tries to slow down and get her legs under her and try to be technical. I think Julianna's going to go right after her

and just get in her face. And how will Amanda respond to that? So I am fascinated with this fight. Like I said earlier this week, my head tells me Amanda Nunes is going to win, but my gut tells me that MMA is just MMA, and the most MMA thing that could happen is that Giuliana Pena beat her a second time.

So we'll see. We'll see. It's an interesting matchup. When I got a great deal on a great gift at Winners, I started wondering, could I get fabulous gifts for everyone on my list? Like this designer fragrance for my daughter. At just $39.99, how could I resist? This luxurious will throw for my sister.

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Find Fabulous for Less. Let's go to Kevin Larkin. Kevin, how are you? Hello, I'm good. How are you? Good. I have a quick question regarding the Anthony Smith fight. I noticed he's a plus 400 underdog.

Do you think this is fair? It's a little wide for me. It's a little wide. Like, on paper, I think Akelaef is like the more complete fighter. But Anthony is just a dog, man. Like, the guy's just a dog. get to these fights that people think he's going to lose and then he goes out there and wins.

Like, it's just wild. And I'm curious to see how he looks in this one because this is not going to be your typical Anthony Smith cornered fight. Like normally he's got Mark Montoya in his corner and a lot of different guys from different gyms. I'm not sure where James Krause fits in this situation,

but Chris Weidman's actually to be in his corner. Like Anthony Smith did do his camp at Factory X. He did a lot of his camp in South Carolina with Wyman and some, of those other guys. So we'll see how much freer he is in there. I love the approach he's got with this whole thing because Anthony's got an analyst's mind and, you know, a fire's attitude.

So he's probably watched a lot of Magumat Anklei's probably been studying him for a while. And maybe Anthony kind of takes the same approach that Juliana Pena is kind of taking where she's just going to get in there and get her face or getting Ankylaif's face and make them work a little bit. But this is a huge fight for Magamai, this is a giant fight, considering where this division stands right now, because you got Yuri,

you got Glover Tashira, I would think they're probably going to do that rematch. I would be stunned if they didn't at this point. But this is also the chance for one of these two guys to just be like, no-uh, don't do the rematch. I'm the guy. And Ankolaev, we thought he was going to be the guy coming into that,

last fight with Tiago Santos and it was just not a good performance. Like it just wasn't. It was a fine win. You got the job done, which I said again, it's about winning fights and getting that second paycheck. But it gets to a point where if you're going to, if you're going to fight for a title,

if you want to be, if you want to say that I'm the guy, I'm the guy that should fight for the belt, you got to do something more than just kind of walking through the motions and getting a decision. I'm not a fighter, so who am I? But you got to make a statement. I think Anthony's going to be the guy that's going to try to make that statement.

And this is a huge job. Magamad's got to go out there and finish Anthony Smith if he wants to be in this discussion. Either way, I think it's going to be the rematch. But it's whether or not the winner of this fight will fight the winner of that fight or if the winner of this fight has to fight Jan Blahovic first, which I think is going to happen unless you see something spectacular. So I feel like the winner of this fight is probably going to fight Jan. And we'll go from there.

but plus 400 seems wide. I mean, I love Anthony's approach, and I think Anthony, there are very few fights that I feel like Anthony can't go out and win. This is a tough one, but Anthony just always shows up in these types of situations for some reason, and he's great at weathering storms, durable as hell.

We'll see what happens in this fight. I'm excited for it. It's maybe the most fascinating fight on the end. entire card on Saturday. All right, let's try getting Don back in here. Let's see if this works. Can you hear me? Yes, much better.

Hey, you're doing my heck of a morning. Good, man. All that, jazz. Indeed. So I had two little short questions. So first thing is, if Giuliana wins, I predict that Juliana was going to win too. I don't know what it is about in the first fight. I don't know what it is about some fighters, man.

When they start drinking their own Kool-Aid, bro, that's the beginning of the end. and I don't know. I just felt like Amanda wasn't really taking her seriously. She was just all caught up in the aura of, I'm this, you know, I'm that. So, yeah, but my question is, do you think that Juliana, if Juliana wins this fight, what's next for her? Because you don't get no, you get starts twice, you don't get no more rematches after that. You've done.

You got to work yourself back up. You know what I mean? So what comes for Juliana after that? And then my other question is, Ty Toie Vossin, man. it would be crazy if that man won the heavyweight title that would be great like it would just be great fanfare if up we had you don we lost you but uh i think i got the i got the sense of the question anyhow uh and thank you so much um what would be next for juliana if she wins Catlin Vieira maybe.

Maybe you do Vieira versus Raquel Pennington or something, and the winner of that gets it. I mean, that's probably where we're at. And as far as Nunes goes, like she still has the 145 pound title, so we could do that. Maybe you could, I don't know. Like, honestly, both these divisions need a shot in the arm badly.

And I think if Giuliana wins, it could provide that. I think it kind of did anyways the first time she won. the belt. But again, we talk about this all the time. And it's such an understated point in MMA that to be the champion is one thing, to defend the title once or twice, three times, like that's an incredible feat. But to do it five, six, seven, eight, nine times, it is so difficult to do. It's so hard. And what Usman has been doing, what Adisanya has been doing, all these guys who are long-reigning champions

to continuously show up do the fight weeks, do all the media, everything that comes with it, the press conferences, the media days, the radio shows, all of that stuff, and then show up on fight night and take the very best that your opponent has to offer, someone who's been studying you

and getting ready to fight you for their entire careers. Honestly, like, Julianna Pani has been preparing to fight Amanda Nunes probably for since she was on the ultimate fighter. You know what I mean? Like this is a fight that Giuliana has wanted for a long time since UFC 200. That was like the first time that Giuliano was like, I want to fight Amanda.

I want to fight Amanda. Like she's wanted this fight for a while. She's been ready for Amanda for a while. And that's what's so crazy about being a champion. It's so hard to be a long-rating champion. So when you look at what Adasani is doing and some of these other guys, like it's really impressive. And that's why I feel like when we talk about records. and numbers and statistics,

I feel like Demetrius Johnson, Anderson Silva, those runs that we saw during their legendary runs as champions, I don't know if, I don't know if anyone's going to beat those records. Like, I honestly don't. It's just so hard to be perfect

or near perfect every single night. It's just so hard. Like, look at Valentina Shufchenko. It happens to everybody. It's just, how do you deal with it? How do you deal with it? How does Amanda Nunes deal with something she hasn't done in so long, losing a fight? Like, it's just very interesting stuff for a mental perspective, as long as, you know, as well as the physical stuff.

Let's go to, what did I just do? Let's go to my man James. I'm going to try to get to all of you. You guys are absolutely insane, and I love it. James, how are you doing, Mike? Good. A heck of a morning to you. I don't know if you saw the news that Khabib is going to take Mokachev.

to Abu Dhabi, 40 days before the fight. If you're Oliver's team and you hear that, do you do the same thing? So there's no jet lag and nothing. And I don't know if you hearing that news made you think differently about the fight. And also, I really need your help on this next one. Cubs Swanson going down to 135.

I need you to convince me that this is a good career choice for Cubs. He's always been a fan of mine. One of my favorite fighters. actually the guy that got me into the sport. So I'm wishing the best for him. I'm assuming he knows what he's doing, and I know he's probably trying to get his body ready for, oh, crap.

Sorry, Nate. October. That one, but the Hammond, there's, ah, God, dang, another name just lost my mind, but them two been going. Neighbor? Yes, thank you. Them two have been going at it.

Maybe they might do a fight down at California somewhere, So maybe his body's getting ready for that. I don't know. But I hope the best for him. And yeah, Mike, thank you for all you do. And have a heck of a morning. Thanks, fan. The first thing, don't think that affects Oliver at all.

I don't think it changes anything for Oliver. I don't think he's going to go there 40 days early. I think he'll just go. I don't think he'll go like the Sunday before. I think he'll probably spend maybe an extra week there. Maybe. But he doesn't need to go there 40 days. early. It doesn't need to adjust to the time

that much. But if Islam wants to go there 40 days early and Habib feels like that's the best thing for him, then good on him. That's his decision. But I honestly don't think this affects Oliver at all. I don't think Oliver is like, oh my God, he's going there 40 days early. I'm going to go there 41

days early. I got to beat him there. I don't think he's thinking that at all. So I don't think that affects much. The Swanson thing is kind of interesting because if he was to go to 35, I thought it would have been for the riah Faber fight. I didn't think there'd be really any other option for him, if we're being honest.

But to see him fight Jonathan Martinez at 135, maybe he's just gonna go there and stay there. Maybe that's his plan. I don't know. Jonathan's a tough fight, man. That's a tough first fight at 135. Not a lot of reward, a lot of risk. And Jonathan's not a rank guy. He doesn't talk a lot.

I call him the silence behind the violence. I've been calling him that for years. There's just a little reward here, but maybe just at this point in Cubs his career like he's done it all, he's fought for belts, he's made evented at 45, he's fought the who's who at 45. Maybe it's just something that he needs to do for himself.

Maybe just another challenge he wants to accomplish in the UFC. Maybe he sees a better path. I honestly don't know what he's thinking. I know the 35 thing is something he's thought about, but I thought it was pretty much solely for just the favor fight and doing like a WEC reunion type deal, but I don't know. Maybe this is a, maybe Faber's like,

hey, go, go make the cut once, and let's make sure you can make it, and then maybe I'll take the fight, I don't know. Both guys seem to want it. It seemed like a no-brainer, so I'm kind of stunned by it, but, hey, listen, guys've been talking about it, so good on him.

Let's go to Yasser, the boxing guy? Are you there? Mike, my friend, how are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm good. First of all, I want to talk about Morino and Figredo. Do you think that Morino has deserved the third fight between them?

Especially, he showed that he is very good at everything. You know, he was a wrestler, and, you know, I think he... He deserved the third fight between him and the other guy, Figuero. What do you think about that? And what do you think about Julianna Bina and Nunez? I think Mike Bina has the key to win in this fight. you know I mean that the wrestling you know she remind me of George St.pere and Habib. So I think she has the key, you know. She will repeat that the same thing.

She will take Nunez down and she will control the pipe. What do you think about this point, the wrestling? Do you think she will do it very well? And that's it. All right. Thank you, sir. Yeah, I mean, listen, I said after, this would actually be the fourth fight between Moreno and Figurato, which is crazy. Like, four fights in a row, like that should have been nuts.

I would have loved that. Did not happen. Figurato's hurt. Now you get the interim title fight, which I'm also okay with because now. especially after Kai Kar-France goes out there and beats Ascar-Askar-A-A-off. He has a compelling case to fight for the belt as well. And now we just have two guys, basically, in a glorified number-one contender fight with an interim title.

Both guys are going to make a couple extra bucks, which I'm always in favor of. I love it. Figurado didn't really like it. He thought he was being disrespected. But at the same token, like, especially in this division, where we're having these conversations, we're trying to figure out the number one contender is, he's coming out and saying, oh, no, Kai Kar-Franc is the guy,

but I think there's more to it than that. I don't think it's actually Figurato saying this. It's probably Sehudo and Captain Eric in his ear telling him to say these things. This is a huge, like, the winner of this against Figaro is like a much bigger fight. Like, Figgi can't fight right now. He's hurt. Can't fight till the end of the year. So now you do this fight.

It's not out of disrespect. I've come, like most people have just come to realize that interim titles are not, they're just number one contender fights. with like a number one contender belt and they're getting championship pay. And that's fine. That's fine. That's why there's a lot of talk about that at 145 right now. Volkadovsky just fought.

Just fought earlier this month. Like earlier the beginning of this month, Volkadovsky fought and defended his title. And now there's talks about Josh Emmett versus Jaya Rodriguez for an interim title. Some people are upset about that, the purist, if you will. And some people are like,

it's just a number one contender fight. We're just putting a title on. It's no disrespect to Volkodek. Even Volcanowski was like, yeah, do the interim title play. That's fine. That's fine. So that is what it is. I would have given it to Moreno if he could go.

And I think that's the direction they would have gone. But here we are. And now we get two bangers at 125 for the price of one. And there you go. I love it. The pain you knew. And I say like it wasn't the wrestling that one painting of that first fight is her ability to just take punishment and just be like, you ain't nothing.

That's, when that happens, like there's something that goes on in your mind as a fighter where it's just like, oh, damn. Like, I just threw the kitchen sick of this girl and she's in my face,

throwing punches, and that's a pain you did. She got out of that second round. I remember that fight. I remember the thing that really stood out in that first fight was the corner advice to Julietta Pena.

Where she's like, hey, we knew this is going to happen. Now just go. out there and be you. Just go out there and go crazy and be you. And Juliania Pan is like, okay. And she went out there and just went bananas and won the fight. Like, we'll see what happens.

Like, I just, Payne is going to push the pace on this fight. This fight, it's going to be a quick pace fight. I think Nunez is going to try to slow things down. If she does, Payne is going to try to get in her face, which is probably the best thing she could do. If she wants to have like a stand-up, like technical, slower-paced fight, Nunes is going to win that all the time. But I think Panya learned from that first fight,

I think Pena's team learned from that first fight that we got to try to get Amanda into deep waters. We got to take the floaties off Amanda and just make her swim for miles and miles, swim as fast as she can. And we'll just see if she can hang. Let's see if she can keep afloat. And I think that's the best way.

We didn't really see the wrestling until after Juliana had Amanda badly hurt and exhausted. Then we saw the take down. and then she knew Amanda was pretty much cooked at that point and choked her and that was it. So we'll see. There's a lot of factors in this fight. We'll see how Juliana sort of handles Nunez's pace.

Is Nunez's going to come out aggressive? Or is she going to try to slow things down and try to make it her fight? Either way, I think Julianna Payne is going to be super aggressive in her own right. I'm curious to see how it all goes down. All right, let's go to Brian. Brian are you there? gross. Make sure you

unmute. Sorry, Mike. Sorry about that. All good, man. How are you? How are you? What's up? A couple questions here.

Wonderful. Good to hear. One, do you think this pay-per-view, super generic question first? Paperview is just worth the money because there are like a lot of big names on like a UFC fan perspective. I mean, obviously the goat. Moreno. KKF has been big.

Obviously, Derek Lewis, Anthony Smith. But like, God, the rest of the card is tough. I love Semmelonsberger. Marano, but the rest of it's kind of tough. But that also kind of plays my next point of, do you think they're kind of stacking fight nights almost too much now because of the rare of, like, the rareness of them going to actual cities and going to arenas now?

Because, like, for instance, France is, like, stacked. I mean, they have, like, Cedric Dumbay who's, like, a sick kickboxer on the prelims. I mean, that card is, like, basically a pay-review. So do you think, like, with the amount of Apex cards, it's kind of watering down paper views in a way because they seem to be stacking the fight nights so much. I might be looking too much into it. But thanks, Mike.

Hope you have a good day. Thanks, man. Yeah, listen, it's tough. It's super hard because the UFC has this deal with ESPN. They have to stack, they have to put 43 cards together per year. And you have all these fighters and you have to try to balance them out somehow. Because you remember going into 276, we were like, okay, like 275. like 275

ended up being 275 over exceeded expectations no doubt about it like we had a certain level of what about 275 was going to be and it ended up over over delivering no doubt about it 276 on paper we're like holy cow like this is

this is a stacked card this is a loaded up card and it was a fun card the main event sort of left a bad to people's mouths audacity gets the win and I I don't necessarily, listen, I don't necessarily agree with the, and I've said this before. I don't think he was really to blame for how that main event went, but it is how it is.

That's how people, we have to remember it coming from the perspective of you guys who have to spend $75 on these cards. And especially this time in particular, because think about it here. 276 happened earlier this month. Now we're asking you four weeks later in the same month to spend another $75 on this card, which Pena Nunes is great. There's a story there. Moreno Kai Kar-France is a banger, but like it's not going to sell.

I mean, the main card is great. Like Derek Lewis is there. The matchup of Sergey Pavlovich is interesting. Pantosia Alex Perez is going to be a banger. And then Anklea, Anthony Smith might be, might be like the most intriguing fight on the entire card. But that's those five fights of what we're asking you to pay $75 for,

or what the UFC is asking you to pay $75 for, pay $75 for. The rest of the prelims, you don't have to pay for that. You have to pay like the monthly subscription to ESPN plus, but most of us have that anyways. So you're getting those fights just kind of in addition. Plus you get, they're going to be on ESPN as well, the final four prelim fights. So, I mean, it's fine, but now you're asking 75 bucks here. There's 75 bucks there. And then three weeks later, we have another pay-per-view with Kamara Usman versus Leon Edwards. that's a that's like a fine card

it's not great let me pull up 278 right now I know somebody asked earlier what I thought about 278 as a lineup and I feel like this one needed some help and it's got 35th

we got Paul Costa to Luke Rockhold I mean listen it's a fine fight it's a fine fight but you have two guys who let's be honest not the most reliable

of folks in their fighting each other. So I'd love to see it if it happens. Jose Aldo Marab Duolos really is a great fight. And then we got Marcin Taibora, Alexander Romanov. I'm very high of Romano. But then from there, it's like, it's, and I'm not trying to be a dick here. I'm not trying to be disrespectful. Sean Woodson, Luis Al-Danya, Eriji Lang, J. Perrin, Tyson, Pais, Tyson, Pedro, Harry Hunsucker, Victor Alta Marano, Daniel De Silva, Lucy Pudolova, Wu Yanan, A.J. Fletcher, Ang, Amir al-Bazi, Francisco Figurado,

Jared Gordon, Leonardo Santos, Miranda, Maverick, Shanna-Young. It's not great. It's not a great card. Like, for 75 bucks. And then, three weeks after that, we got Hamzot versus Nate Diaz.

And we know everyone's going to buy that because you don't want to miss what's going to happen there. And they're going to... That one needs a co-main event, and I think the UFC is well aware of that as well. So... There you go. It's hard, man.

Listen, it's expensive to be a UFC fan, especially in the United States. It's expensive to be an MMA fan. Here, it's going to cost you $1,200. Like, if you just want to watch the UFC in Bellator and you watch all the pay-per-views, it's going to cost you $1,200. That's what it's going to cost you.

A lot of these other sports don't have that problem. But the ones who love MMA, we freaking love it, right? and we're willing to invest in it. But it's tough. It's just a tough hang, man. It's tough to ask 75 bucks for all these pay-per-views. And it's tough for the UFC, especially in the world we live in with COVID still lingering and all this stuff. Like, it's tough.

It's tough. And injuries happen. Like, card subject to change, man. It's hard. It's hard for both. Like, I don't blame the UFC at all. They're doing the best they can. They have to put 43 cards on.

deal they have with the SPN. So they're trying to fill cards. And we've seen some of these fight night cards that are like, oh boy, like this is the main event. This is the rest of it. And we go in and we watch everything. And I know us at M.A. Fighting, we try to find positives in everything.

We try to find low-key bangers. We try to find all these different things to make these cards a little more enjoyable, just to get us up a little bit more for it. But it's tough, man. It can be tough, especially when you have to look at it from a perspective of just a fan who's like, Man, $75

here. And then later this month, you've got to pay another 75. And then three weeks later, another 75. And then three weeks later, another 75. And then 278 is ridiculous.

And there's another 75. You don't want to miss that one. So, I mean, it's tough. I feel for you guys. I do. I really do. Let's go to... I mean, it's the Sean McNeil,

like the James Krause. Sean, how are you? Hey, Mike. How's it going? Big fan. First time speaking. I guess I have just two quick questions. here. The first is I was just curious if you had any predictions or what you think might be the

co-main event for the Nate Diaz-Homsok card. I really thought that would be a great co-main event for the Ouzman card, especially that press conference would just be unbelievable with those four fighters on the stage. And the second question is just around Alderman. He's talked a lot about going up to 145 because of Marab. And obviously if Marab beats Aldo, there's a good chance that he might become the number one contender. So I guess my question for that is, do you think Al Jemaine, after just one or two title defenses after T.J could go right into a title fight,

especially with how kind of stacked 145 is? And then, yeah, just to add on big fan, Mike. Just have to get a little jab in there. I know you're a big Boston fan. I'm from Toronto. So seeing that Jalen Brown SMH tweet just made me happy, all that dysfunction. But no, once again, Mike, big fan.

But sorry to hear about Jalen Brown getting. a bit angry about that KD trade. I listen, you know, being in South Carolina, I took my kid to a golf lesson yesterday, and I don't have hair on my head, so I don't have a lot to protect the old dome piece. So I wear a hat, and I wear my Red Sox hat, and I mean, I got to tell you, ages 10 to 90, everyone had a comment. Oh, man, you're from Boston? Oh, it sucks to be you. Oh, how are you feeling? I heard 26 people try to jump off the bridge in Boston early

but like the old people telling their old jokes, it's hilarious. And you just kind of take it in stride. Like 10 years ago, 10 years ago, you could ask my wife about this. I was a much different Boston sports fan that I am now. Like I am invested and I care and I want them to win. Like I was fully invested in the Celtics playoff run. I was fully invested in the Bruins playoff run. And I watched the Red Sox and all that stuff.

But it's not like, it used to ruin my week. It used to ruin my week, my day, my month. if the Red Sox got knocked out of the playoffs or the Patriots lost the playoff game or all that stuff. But now I'm just like, yeah, it sucks. And then I get mad for like 10 minutes. And then I just turn the page and go to sleep and move on to the next thing. Like, that's all that it is.

As far as the other stuff goes, co-main event for 277 or 279, excuse me. I have no clue. I would feel like a perfect spot for Chandler Poirier, but it's, I mean, we're not that far away. I mean, that seems like that'd be a great spot. The other thing I would ponder is maybe you try, and I don't know how this is going to work,

but you find a way to get Colby on that card, just in case something happens. Like maybe you put a welterweight fight on there. I don't know. I'm trying to look at like what could be available because I don't think they're going to put a title fight on there. and like Chandler Pory just seems like

the best option. I just don't know if they're going to both be ready for September 10th. I don't know. I've no clue what they're going to do, but they're actively looking, that's for sure. I'm curious to see what they do.

I would guess maybe some welterweights would be involved just because you got two guys like Shemai F and Diaz and like what happens if one of those guys don't show. You need to have, you need to be able to fill that spot. Maybe Mazadol finds a way on that card just in case. Like, I don't know.

Like, honestly, I literally have no clue what they're going to do, but they got to do something. They got to add something to it. Even without it, but actually, maybe they don't need to do anything because that fight with the card as is is going to do close to a million pay-per-views just because of that main event, because both those guys are big stars.

As far as the other thing goes, I don't know what they're going to do. I don't know what Aljo's going to do. 145 is a mess right now. So I don't know what they're going to do, honestly. But I love that fight. Aldo versus Marab. There's a part of me that just wanted to see Aldo

in that title fight to begin with instead of T.J. Just because what a story that would be. But if Aldo goes and beats Marab and then beats Aljo and wins the title, holy crap. What a story that would be. All right.

We had an anti-Boston talk. Let's get some pro-Boston talk with Luke. Got the Bruins jersey on, so I'm feeling positive about this one. Luke, how are you? What am I? I'm doing good. Hope you're well. Yes. Yeah, I guess you already touched on it a little bit, but I guess I just wanted to talk about Binhart Smith a little bit.

I don't think he's getting any respect at all. He's on a three-fight winning streak, all first-round finishes. sure one of them was a was an injury but that was that was stemming from a leg kick from him I think if he beats Ankleyev in any way he should be

he's head and shoulders above Yomboovitch or the next up in line um secondly I just wanted to talk about um about uh Jackermanson he's getting a lot of crap

or for his fight last week against Chris Curtis I do not understand why I thought his striking looked amazing I thought I thought he he fought it against a good striker and a short notice opponent I I didn't think he was running at all and yeah I guess I just comments on Curtis's post antics and it's crazy Twitter interactions lately all right thanks Mike thanks buddy so yeah I

I feel like Anthony Smith's not getting enough love. He typically doesn't. And let's not forget, a lot of people go back and they look at the Glover to share a fight. And they look at how that fight ended. And they look at how, let me just pull up Anthony Smith's current run just so I can look at it. Because you remember that, like, there was a lot of crap about his corner and his team and his coaches and the referee didn't stop that fight. Let's not forget, before, like, the third round, Anthony Smith was looking. tremendous.

Like, go back and watch the first two rounds of Anthony Smith versus Glover to Chera from May of 2020. Anthony Smith looked sensational. He was moving around like a freaking lightweight out there, landing at Will. And then he just got tired. And Glover, you can't get tired against the guy like Glover because he will just sit on you and beat you down. And that's exactly what he did. So maybe the gameplay. The rackage fight wasn't great because rackets just took him down and,

and won. But look, he's come back. Devin Clark was impressive. Jimmy Crude's impressive. The Ryan Span win was impressive. Ankle-Live's a different level than all of those guys. But Anthony loves this stuff. Go back and watch his fight with Hector Lombard.

That's like one of my favorite Anthony Smith fights. Whole time he's talking to Hector Lombard saying, you know my name now? I'm going to get your respect by the end of this thing. And I feel like Anthony's going to go on with that kind of chip on his shoulder. Anthony Smith's got nothing to lose here. he's got nothing to lose. After the Glover-Teshire Alexander Rackage fight,

like if I said, hey, guess what? Three fights from now, we're going to be talking about Anthony Smith fighting for the light-heavyweight title again. If I did that on this show after the Alexander Rockets' loss, you would have laughed in my face. And look what this guy has done since then.

So we'll see what happened. If he beats Angolaif, man, like at M.A. fighting, we are very high on Ankylaif. Like, Jed Bishu feels like Ankylai is the best light heavyweight in the world. And maybe he is. but this is a great test for both guys.

I love the matchmaking here. We have two title fights, but I feel like in terms of intrigue and just pure matchmaking, this is the most intriguing fight on the entire card, in my opinion. I can't wait to see it. All right, we'll go to Tito,

Derico, Kareem, King Cat. We're trying to get to everybody, but we're running out of time here. There's a lot going on, like I said. The precursor yesterday, chaos is ensuing in the heck household. So, Tito, we will go to you. How are you?

As a guy, Mike, I'm a second time listener, talker. I was here last pay-per-view. I was actually the one who said, Jaylon, was going to guillotine Braddell early. I don't know if you remember that. But I'm actually excited for the fights for having this weekend, unlike most people. Sergey Pavlovich, do you have any idea, you know, on his movements forward? I actually think he's a massive heavy weight, and he punches massive two. He actually has comparable reach to John Jones,

obviously as thick, as you can imagine, you know, heavyweight. And I think Debrchus fighting at home again is going to come under the pressure and Pavarvich is going to make a name of him. Maybe, man. I like the matchmaking here as well. Pavilich is a mystery. I remember, you know, when AK and I started on to the next one,

after every, like, heavyweight fight that involves a guy somewhere near the top 15 it was always like where's Pavlovich where's Pavlovich where is this guy and then he was gone for a couple of years he had a bunch of fights fall through for various reasons

and he goes out and just bolt Shemil Durahimov I feel like we kind of know where Shemirahs at this point in his career but Derek Lewis is just listen the Derek Lewis thing is just a fine it's just a fine fight

it's a fine fight it makes sense And we'll see. Not a lot of people are expecting Derek Lewis to win this fight, but if he did, it's just awesome. Because we just love Derek Lewis. He's just a personality. His media scrum yesterday was the best.

It was just so funny. And that's the thing about Derek Lewis. He says, like, the NBA media, like, rips him to shreds and stuff like that. I don't think that's true at all. I don't think that's true at all. We all, I think we all agree that we all love Derek Lewis. and we all agree with Derek Derek says like

I just do this like this is fun like I don't take this stuff seriously I don't watch fights I don't study fights I just go in there and try to punch people as hard as I can in the face and we love and respect

the honesty of Derek Lewis like we love that about him so yeah this is just a either Derek's gonna lose or Derek's gonna get a highlight real knockout and like none of those things

will surprise it like Derek is such a wild card versus wild card matchup and I love everything about it we'll see he is being slept down a little bit but because pavillich is just kind of such a mystery it's just what it is all right derico then we'll go to koreen they'll go to king cat that we'll go to kevin derico good morning mike uh just rewatch the kai car france brandon merino fight last night hell of a fight by the way i was just wondering and obviously both guys have come definitely a long ways since then they both looked like babies in there

um do you think the five round uh this time around do you think that favor is Moreno or does that give Kai like more opportunity to land that right hand? Because he definitely cracked Moreno a bunch in that fight. But Moreno just did his thing, dancing around. I don't know. I think this is going to be a hell of a fight and it's definitely going under the radar a little bit. But who do you think the five rounds favors more? Probably, probably Moreno because he's been there already.

He's done it a couple of different times. but I don't think it's going to play that big of a factor with either of these guys if we're being honest. I think both are very serviceable 25ers. I think Kai Kar-France is waiting for this opportunity for a while. I think Kai Kar-France has been sort of readying his body for five-round opportunities. So I feel like both these guys are going to be ready. What I'm curious about is how Brandon Moreno looks no longer being at Entrum.

Now working with James Krause and the crew over Glory MMA, like, is there going to be anything different from him? is he going to have a new approach is he going to like how's his mentality like we saw the media scrum typical Brandon Moreno good stuff that that I'm very curious

to see what kind of approach Brandon takes to this fight leaving the comfort of the gym he's been at for so long and then Kai Kar-Franch is on a roll like there's just certain fighters and certain runs people are on where you look at their resume

and you look at the guys they fought and you look at the situations they're in and you're just like man this guy can't lose right now. And I feel like KKF is just one of those guys right now. Just like, it's going to take something special to beat this dude. So we'll see. I love the fight. It is kind of flying under the radar as most of these flyway fights fly out of the radar. But I reflect back on when they're going to get rid of this division. Why? Why are we going to get rid of this division? It's so fun. It's just so

fun. And now look at what we're getting right now. I see Jay Cadley on here, another 20, if I were to get excited about. Five weight is the best. Well, it's not the best, but it's great. It's a great division. Kareem, how are you? Hey, Mike. How are you?

Good. How are you? I'm good. I'm great. Thank you. Good morning to everyone. And I wanted to ask you a question. It's not about UFC 277, but earlier, a few questions ago.

You touched on something. So it's a great segue that I wanted to talk about, which is UFC 279, right, in August. less than a month from now. So the main event is obviously Usman versus Leon Edwards and there's also Paulo Costa versus Luke Rockhold. Another fight that you also mentioned

was Aldo versus Marab. And, well, obviously this fight is a banger. And I'm sorry, I will be annoying. I'm that annoying Jose Aldo fan. I wanted to talk to you about, I don't know if you addressed this piece

of information, probably did in another heck of a morning. recordings, he had an interview with Combati just a few days ago in which he basically talked of his career and his plans. And he said that he wanted to be the champion to win the belt and retire. So two questions. The first one is, I don't know if it's too early to say that, but just to reflect on the incoming retirement of, honestly, one of the last dinosaurs of an era that is gone now, you know, that. sort of a golden era, you know, with John Jones and GSP and Anderson Silva and Dominic

Cruz when they were really at their prime. So that's the incoming retirement of a giant, which I don't think we talk about enough because, you know how Jose Aldo is, you know, he's very, very like Brazilian-located. So it's much more difficult for, I think, US and maybe European fans to latch on to him. And the second question beyond the reflection is, let's suppose, hopefully, I hope it doesn't happen. Let's suppose that Mara... By the way, Maraub... Could we imagine in UFC 278, given what he said after the fight, do you think he could retire?

There. Thank you, Mike. Maybe. Ah, man. I just hope. I hope not. God, I hope not. I don't want to think about that.

if Joseoaldo retires and never gets to fight for the belt again, that might crush my a little bit. So there's a possibility. I hadn't really thought about that, but I mean, if this is a, if he goes out there and gets, like, marobbed, like a marob just takes him down and just, like, it just marubs him and just takes him down 30 times

and just smushes him the entire time, I don't know, man. It's got to be a rough night. And that'll be kind of a rough taste for him to have in his mouth moving forward. But I feel like he is in that sort of Rick Flair-esque territory where it's just like, I'm going to go until I'm going to go until I lose. I'm going to go until the wheels officially fall off. I didn't love this matchmaking.

I actually feel the matchup favors Aldo. I know Marab is just a really tough out. Yeah. Sorry, they had me, like, running the website, too, which I don't understand what they do that. And, yeah, I don't know. There's a chance. I'll say that.

All right, Kevin, I see you. I see you. I see you. What's up, buddy? How you doing, man? Oh, man. We call him Marab the Marauder. That's what he's going to do,

to Olaudeau, though. Marra. the Marauder. As far as the Polish fighters, my Polish kinfolk, Matush Camarot and Jan Blahovic,

I say like Janbovich, he's next in line. What's this dude talking about? Anthony Smith is head and shoulders. I mean, Anthony Smith lost the wreckage. Janbovich just got a win over rackage. So I feel like this idea

Anthony Smith is head and shoulders, That's ridiculous. And as far as Gameron goes, I feel like him and Darroos, they're the next time. That's the number one contenders fight right there ahead of, because I'm getting tired of these old guards. I'm getting tired of the Justin Gates and the Dustin Poriase. And it's time to let these other guys get their opportunity.

I don't even want to see Dustin Porriate and Michael Chandler fight. I want to see Dustin Porriate fight someone like Fizier. I want to see Michael Chandler fight someone like, I don't know, a top 10 guy. That's what they do. They keep feeding these guys the same people at the top because they got a big name and they're just feeding off their star power. They don't want to give these foreigners the opportunity to get their title shot because they know it's inevitable.

They know these guys are coming. And that's what I want to see there. But what's your thoughts on Gamrod and Boehovich? Thanks, Kevin. Yeah, I don't know if I completely agree with all that. Like, I think, I think honestly, unless something, like I said earlier, unless something spectacular happens in that fight, I think the winner is going to fight.

I think the winner that fight's going to fight, Jan. So I think that's just the easiest way to do it. Fiziv isn't going to fight for a year right now because Poree just wants to fight, and Faseve's not going to be able to fight to the end of the year. So I don't think that happened. Like Fizib wants Justin Gage, Jesse Gaetchi got no surgery Faseeb got no surgery like let's just do that

Let's just do that Cori and Chandler is a fine fight Like neither Like Porier is not really in the title hunt right now Chandler kind of is But not really in a lot of people's eyes So like this is just a fun fight between two dudes

Who just kind of don't like each other You know what I mean? So that's kind of where we're at there I understand what you're saying about 155 But like, look, the game gamron I'm freaking B'niel Derriush they gave him Baneal. They gave him the guy that everyone thinks should be fighting for the belts.

Or a lot of people feel should be fighting for the belt right now. So obviously they're very high on Batush Gamran. And you should be after that fight with Armand Sarukyan. Because at least I am. You know, like, I think you all know how I feel about Armand Sarukian. Like, I'm extremely high on that guy. And I feel like that guy's definitely going to be a UFC champion in the next two to three years. That was a great fight.

It's still like my favorite fight of the year. It's the fight I've watched the most this year. In fact, I'm probably going to watch that fight again today. Because it's so damn good. All right, I got to go. But Tristan, I'm going to let you in. You've been here the whole freaking time, waiting patiently. How are you?

Hey, Mike. Can you hear me? Yes. Mike, just to add on to the Magul Anka Lai versus Anthony Smith fight, I don't know about Enkola. man because I don't know which ankle I were going to get in this fight I was listening to um no best barred and um you know I know how Jedman Shoe feels about my ankle I've and he feels that ankle I was the best like heavyweight champion in the world but I'm I'm saying to myself man yeah I don't know he's been doing a lot of mr. jackal and hot so I'm just I'm very curious about him

I want I want your thoughts on that of like you feel the same way we're like which ankle like if we're going to get. I mean, he's come off, what, three decisions? Where those, um, that rivalry that he had with Ian Kutelabob, where he was just, just was just destroying people and just like, really finishing them.

And I'm, I'm really wondering about Incalab, you know, and I'm not, and listen, we, you guys already touched about it about Anthony Smith getting disrespected. And he's looked rejuvenated. He looks impressive in his wins that he has had coming off

of that law study previous that I don't know if I think it was against Rockets so just your thoughts on that about Ankleiver and worried that and then my second and then my second my second thought too you're spot on on the Dana White

Contented series a lot of those a lot of those fighters I am surprised they didn't come out with a more sense of urgency to try to get finishes man and you know Dana set the tone and was like listen man I'm on finishes you're not going to

show me finishes or you don't really want it you're not getting a contract. So, you know, that's my thoughts. And I'll leave it up to you, Mike. Thanks for everything. Bye. Thanks, man. Yeah, I mean, it's not even that.

In Dana's eyes, it's not just about you have to finish. It's you have to, like, go out there and try to finish. And I feel like, and again, it is what it is. Like, in fighting the way the pay structure always works, like, you get this. And if you win, you get this. So your job is to go out there and win at the end of the day. But I do understand where Dana's coming from his way. well. The thing about the first two seasons of the Contender Series was you never knew who's

going to get a contract. You just never knew. There were certain performances who you're just like, all right, that dude's definitely getting won. But then there were certain fights where you're just like, hmm, maybe, maybe he gets one. And then it became kind of like season four, season five. Like, all you got to do is win and you get one. And it was still fine. I still love the Contender series. I still love watching it. I still loving, because I mean, I've been high on a lot of the guys that are on the Contender Series anyhow. But now, seeing because we're doing it so many times that we had like extended seasons in 2020 and 2020 and 2021 like there are certain names that like I was seeing for the first time that I'd been hearing

about and now we get the the chance to see them which is great but I like that I love the speech I really did. I loved how the tone was set like come in here like I don't care what you did the last five years I care what you did on what you do on Tuesday night and there are a certain got like the Costa from the first fight I think that dude you havec ready like I think he's really good I thought we'd be seeing him in the UFC. He won. It wasn't like a bad fight. It wasn't like a great fight.

But it wasn't a bad fight. But Dana just went in there and set the tone and saying like, hey, the days of you just coming in here and winning and getting a contract, they're over. And I was, I liked it. I liked it. It brought me back a few years when a lot of us fell in love with the show. And I was saying, like, got to watch this Contender Series show. Like, this is the best. This is like what I was hoping for for like three or four years.

And we finally got like, I know we had the ultimate fighter, but this is different. This is a whole different thing. This is what the ultimate fighter, like, were we hoping the ultimate fighter would become. So I thought the tone was set beautifully. With Ancolaia, listen, they set, they put that Tiago Santos fight together for Magamad to go style on them. Like, go out there, just put them away quick and, you know, do excited. Like, go out there and be exciting and win. And like you get a title shot.

And he just went out there and wasn't exciting. Went out there and won. And he dominated and it was a win and he gets second half his paycheck, which means a lot. But to go out there and just like kind of like what we just talking about the contender series. When you have a title shot potentially up for grabs, like you got to do something to show that you're the guy. You got to do something. And Angola just he did. He won, but like that's it.

Like the headline is like he won. It wasn't that he went out there and impressed. He didn't do anything. Like, he won. So I know I got a lot of crap for saying, like, he needs to win another fight, but that's exactly what was happening. That's what's happening right now.

It's why he's fighting Anthony Smith on Saturday. And the fight is intriguing because Anthony's got really nothing to lose here. Got a big chip on his shoulder. And Anthony Smith, the chip on his shoulder is just a lot of fun. And Ancalaif is super talented. Like, the guy is super talented. On paper, he might be the best 205 are on the planet right now. And if he fought Yuri Parahashka tomorrow,

or if he was fighting Yuri on Saturday, I'd pick Ankleife to beat Yuri Prasca. I would. I would pick him. I don't think it would be the most exciting fight of all time, but I would pick him to beat Yuri, and I would pick him to beat a lot of guys. But Anthony, when he has that chip on his shoulder,

and he feels like he's flying under the radar, and he feels like he's disrespected. These are the times that Anthony just goes out and shuts a lot of people up. So I love the fight, love the matchup. And like I've said a few times already, there are two title fights. There's some bangers on this card,

but as far as like actual intrigue, this one might be the actual most intriguing fight on the entire card. All right, I got to get out of here. Like I said at the beginning, so much chaos going on. Command Center 4.0 getting the new flooring. So I got to make sure that's good to go. And supposedly I have a big interview coming up at the top of the hour. I will not tell you because I don't want to jinx it.

But I think you guys will dig it. But we got BTL going down 3 p.m. Eastern. Matchup, TBD, still working on that. hence the chaos. And then tomorrow of The Wayans show. We'll be back here tomorrow as well. I'm not sure what time. We might go on before the Wayans,

before the Wayans show for UFC 277. They'll have your preview show. We'll have the People's Pre-Fight Show on Saturday. All your post-fight coverage on Saturday night after the event. And that AK and I back on Sunday for the matchmaking extravaganza on to the next one. And let me just say it real quick. Big shout out to M&A fighting for getting the NOM for Best Media Source.

for the Fighters Only Award. And big shout out to Ariel Hawani and Shaheen Al-Shadi, my colleagues, for getting the nod for the journalist of the year, nomination as well, and shouts to everybody who got nominated. Great stuff.

And who knows, maybe we'll be out there in Las Vegas and I get to dress up and wear nice tucks and take that all in. But all right, everybody, thank you very much. Have a great rest of the day. And as always, have a heck of a morning, everyone. Thank you.