MMA Fighting - HOAM | Is Ilia Topuria Now In a Must-Win Situation Ahead Of Alexander Volkanovski Fight At UFC 298?

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

We have certainly seen upcoming UFC title challengers enter a championship fight with a lot of confidence, but Ilia Topuria might be taking things to a whole different level as he feels he will run through longtime champion Alexander Volkanovski with ease at UFC 298 next Saturday? While a victory certainly sets him up for superstardom, what if he doesn't deliver under the bright lights in Anaheim? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck reacts to Topuria's interview with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, discusses whether or not the challenger has put himself in a must-win situation, and where he goes depending on the result. Additionally, listener topics include the fallout of UFC Vegas 85, Nassourdine Imavov and Renato Moicano's next moves following their victories, the UFC 300 main event still not being announced, and much more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 10 a.m. ET on the MMA Fighting Twitter Spaces. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

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Visit darktrace.com forward slash defenders for more information. Listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. 336, 24, and it is indeed a heck of a morning. We are live on the MN. MIT Fighting Twitter spaces. You can hear the show in its entirety. Shortly thereafter on the MMA Fighting Podcasting Network. What's going on, everybody?

I am Mike Heck. Hope you're all having a wonderful start of the week. Hope you all had a great weekend. Hope you all got to do what you need to do this weekend. Whether it's watch UFC Vegas 85 or hang out with friends and family, whatever floated your boat. Hopefully it floated with happiness and positivity. But we're back here.

program. And much like last week where kind of started off with a little bit of a whimper, kind of feel like that's how this week is starting off as well. Like I know it's Super Bowl week and everybody's excited for that. We got a lot of weirdness going on with WWE stuff, but this is an MMA show. We had UFC Vegas 85, but very little came from that event. In my opinion, it's already Tuesday and I feel like we're done talking about. about it in a lot of respects. So, but we could talk about whatever the hell you guys want to talk about today. Not a ton going on in the news.

I know Colby Covington did an interview with submission radio, talked about his broken foot. We kind of already knew that. M.M.A.R. was pretty stacked yesterday. Dustin Porrier entered that interview and delivered exactly what I expected him to do. If you listen to Heckwell morning on Friday. pretty much told you how that was going to go. Dustin wasn't going to sit there and dump on the UFC or get into particulars,

but I think we all know the score there. There's no doubt about that. Ilya just continues to talk a whole bunch of noise. And I think that probably was the biggest takeaway of the MMA hour yesterday was, man, Ilya Teporia needs to win next episode. Saturday. Talk about a guy with all the pressure in the world on him right now because he is talking a whole bunch of trash. And it's one of those situations where if he goes out there

and just obliterates Alexander Volkovsky, strap the rockets to him. He will become one of the biggest stars on the company. There's no doubt about it. They will go to Spain. He's already got very popular people who follow him and support him that transcend. MMA that are much bigger stars than anybody in MMA right now. So that could be real interesting. But if he loses to Volcanovsky, it's got to be a tough, tough stretch for him. Not saying he can never get back to a title shot or anything like that because he's still young and he's super, super good. But with all that noise he's talking, if he goes out in, as Volcanovsky said at the press conference in Australia last week,

If he goes out there and gets humbled up by Volcanowski, that is not going to be a good look for him. So the stakes of that fight have been raised tremendously. And as Volcanowski said during that press conference, it's mostly all thanks to Ilya hyping things up. So I was already super excited for that fight. I am so much more excited for that fight after listening to that interview with Ariel yesterday. And just a lot going on right now is we're on the road to UFC 298.

We do have one last stop at the world's most famous apex this Saturday for UFC Vegas 86. More middleweights in the main event. This time it'll be Jackermanson versus the surging Joe Pfeiffer. And we'll see how that one goes. This card very similar to last week's card where the top like three or four fights are really good. The rest of the card, not so much. But there you go. All right, let's see what you all have to say today.

Let's get into this and we'll begin with Four Corner Sports. Go ahead, Four Corner Sports. Maybe not. Not connecting Four Corner Sports. Bounce out, bounce back in. Maybe that will work. How about Absalia? What's up, Mike?

Good morning. Hope you having a great day. I just have a few questions to ask. Firstly, we're Elia Tuporia. I feel the same way as you. Looking very excited to that fight. And I just want to add on with your... Convo regarding what would happen if he wins.

I would definitely be convinced if he manages to get a round 1-K0 and finish Walk in very spectacular fashion and do so very convincingly, not only will, I think it will build him to being a star, but it will definitely get him that outside notoriety that he needs. And I'm really curious to see how his title reign looks like because, you know, I know he says he doesn't want to fight Yahia or Otega or Max, but I think those would really find matchups. And same with Mavzar.

That's a really fun matchup because both of them are quite similar, wrestler, grappling style fighters. You know, hopefully we get something like that down the line. Another question I have is, what do you reckon will be next for Nasda Dean? You know, I think that fight was very weird, but he did do quite well and showed that he's improved quite a lot in the last year or so.

Do you think it would make sense for him to fight something like Jarrett Kenyon in there next since he's kind of in the limbo, as we discussed last week. That's all I have. Have a great day. He's not getting the cannon air fight. There's no way. That performance did not warrant him fighting a top three to five guy.

It was fine. He went out there and won and I thought he won every single round. But it's not, it was just not a good fight. Like there was some weirdness and that made a little bit more exciting, but it just wasn't a great fight. It was a lackluster main event to say the least. outside of the shenanigans and the conversation about judging and scoring and refereeing and the Chris Curtis factor.

What's next? Two options. One, they will just run back the Chris Curtis fight. I could see the UFC just seeing that moment where Chris Curtis is doing the fishing reel middle finger. Emovoff coming back, even though Emov's like, no, I don't want to fight him. I was winning that fight. He has no say in this matter whatsoever. So I could definitely see the UFC trying to go that route.

that could headline an apex card. They will build it up as such. The other option, if Joe Pfeiffer beats Jackermanston, they go ahead and do that. That's fine. That's fine. That's a good little test for him.

So it's either Pfeiffer or Curtis in my eyes. I don't think he's getting candidare. Don't see that one happening. And with the Teporia thing, again, he will become a, he'll be on the precipice of becoming a massive, of star if he goes out there and just runs Volkanowski out of the building next Saturday. But I think if he wins, and I know he's like, oh, I'm not giving Volkovsky rematch.

Unfortunately, he's not going to have much of a say in the matter. The UFC will try to book that fight, see if Volk and get back. I know a lot. I know I'm not a huge immediate rematch guy, but there are certain cases where I think an immediate rematch is warranted. This would be one of them. Volk, I don't think he's the greatest featherweight of all time. He's definitely in the conversation.

He's top. He's probably number two, maybe number three. But he's had such a great run as champion. And I know he hasn't beaten everybody and all that stuff. But there's certain guys where it's undeniable that you have to give them an immediate rematch. And Volk would be that guy. But if this is something where the UFC wants to just throw it to Poria in there with, if they end up going to Spain sometime this year and Volk's not ready.

they could go a different direction, but if Loyov would be the guy for me. I think that went over Arnold Allen, as weird as it was. Dude's real good. Dude's real good. Him and Toporia would be ridiculous. That's a sick fight.

But he's got to beat Volk first before any of this stuff can happen. I know he's calling for Connor. I don't think Connor really has a lot of interest in fighting him right now. It wouldn't even make a lot of sense because I don't think Connor's getting to 50. or wherever to even meet Tuporia at any sort of a weight class.

And then he talks about Yair and Ortega and them. But I don't think either of them are in line for a title shot, even depending on what happens in Mexico City. I think of Vloyav is rightfully next against either of these two guys. If Volkovsky wins, he's fighting of Lovnax. And if Teporia wins, maybe they run it back with Volk, but if he's not ready, you do Teporia. I mean, you do Yvloev, and then Volk can get the winner when he's

ready and on and on we go. We have you now for corner sports. Go ahead. All right. So I wanted to talk about Hanato-Muikano. Now, I thought that, you know, the way that Drew Dober fights and the way that I felt that Mikeano's stand-up game is, I felt like Dober was going to have the, you know, the possibility of, you know, knocking him out. And I was strong. And I love the, I love the. the post fight, you know, interview, just like everybody else did. But how far do you think Moikano's, you know, ceiling can, you know, exceed?

Just because I feel like, Moeco, I feel like he's in, like, that Kevin Holland, you know, range where, like, doesn't need a belt. You know, you could just be put them on for fun fights. Second thing is Natty Ice, you know, really loved the performance. I felt like Viviana Arrojo. was a good test for her. I did like the Lauren Murphy suggestion that you put out there for Otno. I just feel like

Chukagian, I feel like is a better match just because she's like that gatekeeper for like top three or top five or whatever, you know, setting you up, you know, for, you know, next for like the belt. And I feel like that could be a really good test for Natty Ice. I just think that her movement

is, you know, I feel like she is moving, you know, three times faster than all than the other fighters that they have against her just because their footwork is impeccable. And then lastly, I don't know if it's been mentioned earlier,

but I noticed that Soporio, he put down that he's 15 and O and he's a world champion. I feel like I love that, you know, that, you know, what's the call, confidence that he's bringing out there. And I feel like he's really selling this fight.

But man, if he doesn't get this win, against Wokonowski, the downfall is going to be twice as bad than any reaction if he would have just, you know, what's the called, you know, just lost, right? But I feel like he has to win by knockout at this point. There's no, he can't win by a decision. He can't just win, you know, how he fought against Josh Emmett. I feel like he has to put out, what's the call, Volcanowski out, like the way that Josh Emmett ended up colding up Bryce Mitchell. Like, it has to be in that type of fashion just because he's been talking about. talking his shit, and I respect it.

I respect it a lot. But if you talk your shit, you have to have to back it up. And the way that he's been talking, I mean, it's been reckless, but you got to respect it in a way. All right. So, a lot to digest there. Yeah, look, Boycano was just

one of those guys. You just want to see him fight, and more so you want to see a microphone in his face. So good on him. Good performance. Fight wasn't as like excitingly crazy as we thought it was going to be, but I thought it was very high-level stuff. And good win. It'll be interesting to see what's next for him. I shouted out the Patty Pimbled fight. He even said on the MA hour,

like he wants to take the long road to Patty, but I think you just do that right now. When they go back to the UK, just book that one. So win-win for the UFC. Either Moikano gets over on them, it gets a boost from it, or Patty gets a win over a rank guy, and you could do something there. So I don't hate that idea at all. I think that's a good one. Natty Ice, look, if Chukagin loses to Macy Barber, then that fight makes no sense to me. It really doesn't. I don't want to see Chichagian fighting Natty Ice if she goes out and loses the Macy Barber. Like I understand the gatekeeper perception, but quote unquote, I don't love the word gatekeeper.

It's more, I'm more of the litmus test kind of a guy. But if she goes out and loses to Macy, which I think she, I'm probably going to pick her, pick Macy to win that fight, then I don't really want to see Nattie Ice fight somebody who's lost. lost a couple. You know what I mean? I love the Lauren Murphy idea. You could do her and Macy. Like there's, there's lots of directions you can go, but your K-game would not be the one I would pick. And with the Teporia thing, I totally disagree with you. Totally disagree with you. Yeah, it's one thing if he goes out and just wrecks Volk and lands a big shot. And the way Volk is kind of playing this up is like, if I'm going to lose a fight, it's because I get

caught with something. But if you're telling me that if I'llia Teporia, goes out there and just washes Volk for five rounds. It just dominates him like he did Josh Emmett. Like, you think people are going to be like, nah, man, that wasn't that great? What are you talking about? Like, that would be way more impressive to me than him knocking out Volkovsky. He goes out there and just dominates him for five rounds. Like, that's nuts.

That would be insane. Absolutely ridiculous. So I don't agree with you there. but he just has to win. It doesn't matter how he does it. But Tepore is not a boring guy, and if he wins, it probably won't be in boring fashion. That Josh Emmett fight was crazy.

This was a crazy fight. But him winning is probably a must here, that's for sure. 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 the Phoenix Colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has

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Go to Betterment.com to learn more. That's B-E-T-E-R-M-E-N-T-T-com. Investing involves risk, performance not guaranteed. Mikey, go ahead. Listen, what is it with everybody always doing these absoluteest things where they're like, If the porter doesn't win, he's going to be ruined. He's 27. I doubt he's going to go on like a six-fight losing streak if he loses to Al-Zhevokanovsky.

I mean, I just... What's it with everybody being like these weird, doom and gloomers? It's like, everybody has to win now or else. I'm like, would it be... I don't even think it's a bad look for him to lose to Volcanovsky. It's like, people need to pick their damn narratives. Either Volkanovsky's so good that turning away a young contender is proof that's like, yeah, he's really fricking good.

or you guys secretly think he sucks. And you're like, man, Deport, you better beat him. I'm like, at this point, listen, man, Volcanowski had to win me over. And when he finally beat, I know it's not like the weirdest litmus test, but like when what really came around to me

is when I saw him fight Ortega alive and I thought he was going to get submitted and he got out of that, I was like, okay, he's the real deal. You know what I mean? And then the Yairi performs, all this stuff. I just, I don't know, man. M.

M.A fans are so freaking funny. They either hype up somebody as like, this guy's going to be the one that takes out the champ and then that they lose. They're like, well, they're a bum. I'm like, you guys can't be two-faced like that. It's hilarious. Like, you can support Tuporia.

You can think he's great. Plus, it helps Wokanovsky's legacy. You don't want these people to suck when they lose to a champ. Why would you want, why would you want Tuporia to go on a downfall if he loses a Wokkonofsky? Volcanochi should be looking at his record, be like, I hope everybody I beat becomes great outside of me, beating me.

You know what I mean? That's for everybody. It's just, anime fans, man. Anyways, have a good week, guys. I'll talk to you later. Mike, you bring in the thunder,

but I don't think you needed to. No one said that. No one said that, oh, Volk loses or Tuporia loses, like, I hope he loses six in a row. No. We're just saying he's talking a lot of shit.

And while we respect that, you have to back it up. Look at what happened with Sean O'Malley. talked a lot of shit before the Cheeto fight. Loses that fight. He got shot on for a long time. But you know what? Like Sean was back then and like DePore is now,

he's young, hungry, and very good at fighting. And has star potential. So while a loss of Volcanowski doesn't hinder him forever, it's going to be a tough short-term thing for him to deal with because he's going to get destroyed. by fans, mostly on that depending on the performance. It's just, that's just the way that it is. He is, he's doing the thing you don't do in like pro wrestling.

You don't sit there and say your opponent is not that good. And he has basically come out and said Volcanowski is not good at fighting. This guy stinks. It's going to be easy. Like these are things he's saying. And if he doesn't deliver, it makes him look bad. And I get the hyping of the fight. you want to try to generate papers and get that.

It's just the pro wrestling model. You've got to be smart about it. Because then if you lose, you lost to a guy that you said sucked. And it's just a bad look. It's just a super bad look. But he can bounce back from it. He will probably win the title at some point because Volk ain't going to be around forever. Volk's getting to that age right now.

But you've got to be, you just got to be a little bit better with your words. He'll be back. Like if Volk beats him, he'll be back. There aren't a lot of feather weights that I would pick against Toporia right now. He's that good. He's young. He's hungry. He hasn't even gotten to the best of where he's going to be.

But at the same time, no one that I've, like most people are agreeing with me. Like, dude, you've got to go out there and deliver. If you're talking all this shit, you're building all this up, but you've got to back it up. And we say that about every fighter who talks that shit. We'd say that about Connor, but Connor delivered. And Toporia could become a massive star. if he delivers. But if he doesn't, he's going to have a rough road for a little while. He'll get past it, more than likely, but the short term's going to suck for him.

And that's all people are saying. I don't think anyone's asking for the demise of Billy to pour you if he loses. But he's going to have to eat a cucka sandwich for a little while. And that's okay. That's the sport. He put himself out there. He's got to deal with the aftermath. There's consequences for the actions. Let's go to Saul Goodman. Hi, Saul Goodman. Hey, my question is, what do we have on the UFC 300 main event? Like, Dana has been saying, like, he'll announce it now, now, like, every week it's some other thing. So do you have any leads on that?

I mean, that's the trillion-dollar question right now. I got no leads on that. I got no leads on that. to me it's it's it's it's a two horse race we're either getting ddp easy or we're getting connor chanler like that's what i think we're going to get i know a lot of people are like oh we're going to do connor versus nate no word again that would be of all the things that could be announced by dana white nate dyes being involved at ufc 300 would be the one i'd be like holy shit really i didn't see that one coming i know a lot of people don't agree with me on that

but trust me what I tell you, it doesn't appear that Nate's going to be fighting in the UFC. Not saying he'll never come back, but he ain't fighting this year. Not for the UFC. He'll do other things. But he's been trying to get out of there for so long. Why would he come right back?

Connor's only got two fights left at his deal. So you have to believe that there's part of Nate and his psyche that's like, all right, let's get Connor through these next two fights. And then we'll do this fight. It will do it on our own and we'll make all the monies. but that's what I think and I have no insight to this but it seems like DDPAZ

is something they're trying to do and if they don't get that I could see them doing Connor versus Chandler and just bumping that up a little bit move DDP as E the International Fight Week dual swap but I don't know I don't know what's going on maybe we get it this week

maybe look the Super Bowl's in Vegas so data's going to be doing a shitload of media more than likely so maybe he announces it with one of these like massive media conglomerates during Super Bowl week. Who the hell knows? But we shall see.

Maybe you save it for 298 week? I don't know. Lee, go ahead. Hey, Mike, I come of a morning. Just two quick questions. Vogue, you know, they just did the press conference in Australia. Australia. What's your take in your opinion on how Vogue's looking, feeling, you know,

after coming off of that loss and, you know, getting back into it? I think he also could have waited, like, another month. Then second question is if Izzy loses when he, if he fights DDP, what does that do for his legacy? You know, what is he? I think he would have lost like three. You know, you got the one that Alex or, you know, just in general, Izzy's legacy, you know, coming off those two losses after getting

the belt or not two losses, but you know what I mean. But yeah, just those two questions, Mike. Have a good rest of your day. Thank you, sir. I'm trying to remember what the first question was. As far as Izzy goes, if they do DDP, he loses, well, hurt his legacy, sure. You can make a strong case,

and even John Anick told me this after 293, losing to Sean Strickland hurts his legacy. And this is not a knock on Sean Strickland, but no one expected Sean Strickland to win that fight. Not only did Sean Strickland win that fight, Sean Strickland put a whoopin on Izzy for 25 minutes. So that one stung. That one definitely stung.

You go out, you lose to Pereira. You at least can say like, maybe the stoppage is a little soon. Then he comes back and just ices Pereira, gets the knockout of the year, and then he rolls into the Strickland fight and just gets dominated. And I think it's fair to say that Izzy wasn't himself in that fight,

but it doesn't matter. You've got it, whether you're yourself or not, he's still lost to Sean Strickland in dominant fashion. He goes out and loses to DDP. Yeah, that's three out of four. He's lost. It's tough. It's tough.

The way I look at it more than anything is just like, hey, this guy is one of the more active champions of the modern era. This guy fights all the time. And let's not forget, he's out of his athletic prime right now. He's about to be 35 years old. Like father time is undefeated. Catches up with everybody.

We're having that same conversation about Volcanovsky right now, who is, I think, like a year older than Izzy. So if we're going to have these conversations about the Volkss of the world, we think it's only fair to have the same conversations about the Adisanias of the world. So, but unfortunately, like, that's how the sport is. It's what have you done for me lately? And what Izzy has done throughout his career, it'll be brought into the conversation. But the way that it stands right now, if he loses the DDP,

That's four losses and six or seven fights and then three out of four. Stuff. And that's just a matter of like, does he still have the hunger to do this? Where does he go? Does he want to fight the Icram Alaskarovs and the Brendan Allen's of the world? Or does he just want to take a break? For a while, I don't know. So we'll see.

That's kind of how I'll view it. But Izzy's been an incredible, I don't know if overachiever? is fair, but I think you can make a case for it. I see Charles Johnson in here, and let me just say, something that I reiterated that I said on the post-fight show, and I set it on to the next one, because one of the big questions heading into UFC Vegas 85 was, who is going to do the thing? Who's going to be the A-plus do-the-thing All-Star? Number three for me is Molly McCann. Number two, it's probably Charles Ratky, but it could be Muddy Moikano. And number one on the Do the Thing All

Stars is Charles Freaking Johnson. Because the guy goes out, takes an O, fun fight, had a realistic and damn good callout ready to go against Josh Van. That's how you do the thing, ladies and and gentlemen. So the inaugural three stars of the Doing the Thing All Stars, Charles Energy Johnson, congratulations, my man. That's how you do the thing. You go out and you deliver a performance and you make the call on the mic. Josh Van already like verbally agreed to it on Twitter like seven minutes later. That's how you do the thing. That's how you do the thing.

And he did it. Good for you, Charles. Well done. Let's go to four-ounce diaper. What's going on? Mike. Can you hear me? Yes.

All right. Hopefully you can hear me. All right. I messed up my phone real bad this weekend. But anyway, yes, congrats to Charles Johnson. You know, fight a number. night performance, well earned, very entertaining fight. Glad to see him in the wind, call him. But my question for you is, Anato Moikano, I look at him, like I look at,

what's his name? I'm having a brain fart already. What is his name? Nashville guy, featherweight. Bryce Mitchell? No, no, no, Nate Landware. Oh, landware. Okay. Yeah, I look at them the same where I look at it as when you see them fight, you know, you got to see them fight live. I've got to put them in front of a live crowd, and then also the post-fight. Post-fight interviews are always entertaining. So, I mean, I was curious why the UFC put them in the apex. I thought it was a mistake.

Then again, looking at how the fight played out, maybe it wasn't the biggest mistake, but hopefully, you know, after this recent card, we get to see him on the Brazil 301 card. And I wanted to know who you match made for him, because I haven't checked out Adno. So if you could, just let me know who you match made for Hanato. And that's it, Mike. Thanks, man. Yeah, I mean, look, the apex is just the thing right now. I know Charles talked about the apex as well.

It's not going anywhere, unfortunately. The only way this changes is if the new TB deal comes up and it's like, let's just say like they stick with the SvN and they're like, hey, we want you to keep doing the same things, but we don't need 42 cards anymore. Let's do like 36 and we want you on the road as much as possible. Like if that's what it comes to, then I still don't. think it goes away forever but at least we'll have far less of them if that makes sense there's just there's just an energy level that isn't there and it's tough like it's just tough to watch now

like even like the best fights possible it just doesn't feel the same inside the world's most famous apex it just it gets sloggy and it's like the event is slow and it's like after the first couple of fights on Saturday, it was like, man, like I feel like I was watching a PFL card for a little while. Things picked up a little bit, and, you know, we mentioned the Charles Johnson fight. Good, real good scrap, picked up the energy levels a little bit, and then we got a little bit weirder in the main card, but still, like, it just doesn't feel the same, especially when he do Moikano in there, and he's cutting that post-fight interview, compare the two. Madison Square Garden, where people are, like, going crazy and Joe Rogan's laughing his ass off.

compared to the apex where it's just like DC standing there, still kind of snickering, but it's like eight people are responding to it. It's just not the same. Having said that, from Wicado, yeah, if you want to do 301, fine. I like the Daryush call out. I would not hate it if they did that.

Makes sense. I went with Patty Pimbleau. Just wait a month or two and do Patty in the UK. Win-win situation for the UFC. Patty wins. He beats a ranked dude. I want to see Moycano gets a guy who's big, strong, and can grapple a little bit. Love them or hate him, Patty can definitely grapple.

And if Moikato beats him, he gets a butt. He gets a little bit of a push from that. Like, I know Patty's not ranked, but this isn't a meritocracy. So I like that idea. If they go, Darius, fine with me. I'll watch the crap out of that fight. It's a damn good one. So I don't think there's really a wrong answer for that,

but I think those are the two options I would go with if you're the UFC. Cody go ahead Hey Mike how you doing Hey buddy Hey so I've seen some rumors circling around about a possible Seattle show UFC Seattle and June

Have you heard anything about that That was my first question My second question was You have said in the past that UFC fandom Usually only lasts about five or six years could you explain why you think that is? That's it for me.

Very good questions right there. I've not heard anything about Seattle. I've seen the rumors as well. We'll see what happens. I don't remember the last time they were even in Seattle. But yeah, be pretty cool. Good for them. But I've heard nothing about that.

So maybe when we start seeing fights booked for, like more and more fights booked for June, maybe we'll get an answer on that, but I haven't heard anything when it comes to that. Why does fanhood last five years? It's a good question. It's just kind of how it is.

Like, take me, for example, I'm like one of those people where to me, like, watching the UFC, and this is probably like the mid to late 2000s for me, or even like a little bit earlier than that. It was probably like late 90s, early, 2000s where like I knew what the UFC was I understood what it was but like the only time I really watch it I think I ordered one of the earlier ones on pay-per-view and I think like the first

one that I bought of like the Zoufa era was when Kent Shamrock came back at UFC 40 to fight Tito Ortiz because I was a huge like pro wrestling fan at the time and Ken Shamrock was obviously I knew who he was from the UFC and you obviously had like a very big pro rep a pretty solid pro wrestling run with WWE during the attitude era. And I was like, oh shit, like rivalry. Let's go. Let's watch this. And then Tito just kind of wrecked him.

So it was just one of those kinds of things. And I was like, okay, this is kind of cool. And then for me, it was just like I would go with my buddies. And if like one person liked the UFC, like we'd all order it and watch it, but we weren't like super duper into it. If that makes sense, like we would just watch it if it was on. And then tough comes. The first season of tough.

And that's what got me. That's a really hooked me. Because we got to see more of like the inner, like the insides of like being a fighter and like what they have to go through. We got to see some of the personalities. And I'll be honest with you, Diego Sanchez was the guy that really hooked me. I had to see what I thought he was like, and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, I thought he was a weirdo, but in the best possible way where I could not, not,

I had to watch every week just to see what this dude was going to do. He was like Frank Dukson Bloodsport. He's just doing splits out on the freaking balcony by himself and he's just singing songs to himself. And everyone else is looking at him like, what the fuck is this guy? And Diego didn't care. He was just that dude. And then he went on and won it. And then of course, the finale and all that.

And then you get into it a little bit more and then you realize like, there's other things in life. And you leave for a while. And then it wasn't until I started like interviewing fighters that I really got back into it. And I started and they really, I really never left it since. So again, this is a high level niche sport where like if you love it, you love it. But it's also there is like at least slight casual appeal to most people because as Dana said a million times and he's not wrong that. If you're driving down the highway or you're going for a jog and you see two people fighting, you're not going to be like, oh, let's keep driving.

You're going to either pull over or you're going to at least look in the rear of your mirror and see who wins this fight. So there is like an art to that. But I think the business dealings and all that stuff, like, and plus like it's a little oversaturated right now. It's just really hard to keep up with. And that's the kind of hurt pro wrestling for a while, too. It's just so many shows, so many things that you had to pay attention.

to that's just like, well, I just don't have the time and energy to do it. And at this point, where MMA is, like, if you're in, just think of how much a money you have to spend, because that's another big aspect is you have to, you have to financially invest in becoming a fan of the sport. You have to pay like eight bucks a month for ESPN Plus. You have to pay 80 bucks a month for the pay-per-views. And then on top of that, if you want to follow the number twos and number threes, et cetera, like even when Bellator was self-run, you had to buy showtime to watch all the Bellator events. And that was like $10 a month. It actually cost you more to watch Bellator than it was to watch a month of UFC Fight Night events. And then you put on top of that,

the crossover boxing matches and all that. Like you, if you buy everything as UFC fan, you're spending 1,200 bucks a month right now, or not a month, $1,200 bucks a year. $1,200 a month would be even more ridiculous, but $1,200 bucks a year.

Like, that's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. And you could follow along with, like, M.A. fighting and stuff, and we'll tell you what happens. But it's just, it's not the easiest sport to keep up with. and each event it's like an all-day affair.

Just look at what February 24th is going to be like. And again, this is not being complaining. I'm actually looking forward to February 24th. If you want to be tapped into everything that's happening, February 24th, you have the PFL Bellator champs versus champs card, which there's a lot of fights. And then as soon as that's over, you get like an hour break and then it's right into the Mexico City card.

That's like 12 hours of MMA for one day. And it's just not everybody has that kind of time and energy. So it's just one of those sports where, you know, and then just look at the wave right now. Like Sean Strickland, what this man has been able to do is he has brought on like a newer, a newer audience casually to some degree because they're newer fans, but they're seeing like who this guy is. and what he stands for.

Whether you agree with them or not, he is attracting people as well. But once Sean Strickland is not in the limelight, are those people going to stick around? Probably not. Maybe some will, but not all of them. It just comes in waves and it comes in cycles. Just look at the era of fan.

There's, hey, man, I've been watching since the first UFC. And then there's, hey, I started watching the first season of the Ultimate Fighter when they were on. spike and they followed Monday Night Raw. And then there was, oh, I came in because Connor McGregor and Rhonda Rousey came along and they were big stars. And then that era ended and it became, I came in when the world shut down and the only sport in town was the UFC and they got just this huge surge of fans. Not all of them stayed, but a good chunk of them did. They learned about the sport. They found out a little bit more about it. They learned about

some of the personalities and some of them stuck around. But now everybody else is back. The NFL is back. The NBA is back. The NHL's back. Major League Baseball is back. They're doing the full seasons, full stadiums, et cetera. Chunk of those fans who jumped into the UFC during that era, they ain't watch it anymore. Some are. And there's got to be a point like a couple years from now would just be like, all right, I'll do something else on Saturday. You know what I mean? So that's why it comes in waves. But what the UFC has done brilliantly is they've capitalized on that.

They understand that. And that's why they market more towards the casual audience as opposed to most of the people that are in the space right now. Because they know they have us already. They know they got us. They know we're buying all the pay-per-views and we're watching and we're talking about them. and we're trying to convince our friends to watch with us.

But it's the other people who aren't here that they're trying to get, which is smart. Just look at who they're giving more media access to. This is more of a influencer type of thing for the UFC to try to bring in more people as opposed to let's let the media bring in more people. I'm not saying that the media isn't bringing in more people as well, but, and this is all smart from the UFC. That's why they're partnering up with Barstool and, you know, the Nelk boys and things of that nature,

because they bring in a different, in a newer type of audience, which is very smart on their part. And I've been saying since day one that this is very smart. So that's part of it, but it's just, it's just a lot. It's a lot to, especially nowadays, it's a lot to keep up with. And it ain't cheap to be an MMA fan. It's way cheaper to be an NFL fan than it is to be an MMA fan right now. Boarding for Flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what?

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Ontario.ca. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first, there, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. Leo, go ahead. Hey, you got me?

I got you. All right. Great to be here. I just wanted to really quick say that it's funny, the middle-weighty middle-weight culture has kind of seeped in. I was watching Luke Thomas, and he was talking about the main event of this weekend, and he called it an extremely middleweight fight, and he kept saying that. So it looks like it's, no, it's spreading. But anyway, I was going to say, it's really hard

to watch Ilya on Ariel yesterday, because I appreciate him, and I'm a fan, but the way he was just talking, basically naming every single, like, kind of notable contender, I guess besides Moffsar and saying, you know, they're never going to get a time of that. I'm never going to fight him and then calling out the McGregor fight. It was just, it was hard to hear as someone who like Jed just wants someone to defend their title over and over and over again. And really quick, do you know what's going on with, I'm in Jersey. So I was wondering about UFC Atlantic City and because it's still listed as, you know,

Lucke versus Brady, but I know that's pretty, pretty much not at all going to happen. But yeah, thank you so much, Mike. appreciate you and good to see all you guys in here. Have a heck of a morning. Thank you, Leo. Nice. I mean, I love the positivity on this Tuesday. I love it.

Yeah, the Tuporia thing is caught a little bit of buzz, but he's been doing this the whole time. He's just no-selling Volk, and he's like no-selling everybody else in the division. And this sort of thing, like, it's one of those remains-to-be-seen type situations because, again, if Toporia goes out there and just annihilates Volcanovsky, if he goes out there and dominates him, they are going to strap the rockets to this man.

I mean, just look at them. And it took me, like, I covered the Jacksonville event in person, so I got to watch Toporia fight live and see some of the people who came out just to sit front row to watch him fight. and the reaction he got. And then, like, after he just dominated a guy like Josh Emmett, which isn't easy to do, waiting for him at the post-fight press conference in the back,

this dude came in dressed like the rock in 1996. He had the sunglasses on. He had the $500 shirt, surrounded by just a big group of people. They're all singing him to the press conference. And he just, you just watch him come in? And you watch everybody just the aura of the entire room change. And you're just like, damn, this guy could be a big star.

It walks like a star, he talks like a star, he dresses like a star. He's got the girlfriend who looks like a star as well and she just feeds all into it. Like he looks apart. But in this sport, you have to deliver as well. And of course, in that fight, he delivered. He put a whoopin on Josh Emmett. but now it's a whole different ballgame he's fighting one of the best pound for pound fighters ever like one of the best fighters to ever walk into the octagon like skill for skill

fight IQ all of it Volk has it all and he has it the only times he hasn't was when he went up to 155 in the UFC and fought right now the current number one pound for pound fighter on the planet and he's coming off of a bad knockout from a fight he took on short notice and while this isn't exactly the same this feels eerily similar to the feeling heading into UFC 290

when Volcanowski fought Yayae Rodriguez the amount of confidence people had in Yaya Rodriguez to go in there and thump Volk up it was a lot a lot of people on this show were saying that same thing and Volk went out in perfect games, Yayao Rodriguez. Just perfect gameed him. And he's done that to freaking everybody at 1.45 at the last couple of years. Did it to zombie, did it to Max, and he just did it again.

To Yair. Yes, he's got the two losses. But Tupori is just like, I don't care. This guy's not even, he's not that good. It's wild. But it's going to be so interesting because the stakes are so much higher for Ilya to Poria now because in this sport you want to run your mouth you want to talk all that trash that's great and if you win it pays off in a big way but if you lose you're going to have to deal with some shit for a while and honestly I think to Poria can probably deal with it pretty damn well but he's gonna he's gonna like I say he's gonna eat a crap sandwich for a little wild and then he'll come back and beat somebody else and we'll go from there but the things he wants he's not getting like he's not

getting he's not going to fight connor why would connor fight elylyne teporia he's not going to fight any of these guys he's going to fight volkovsky again or he's going to fight mobs are of loyov that's it those are the fights he will have it's not really going to have a say and as much as a win over volk it's like a sort of a let's prepare to strap the rockets to a moment none of that really matters until you go out and defend like sean o'malley is they got the rockets to him they have the matches sitting on the table but if he loses to cheats he Orira, they take the rockets off of them. It's a whole different ballgame.

But if he beats him, then we're light in the match, and he's off to the races. And it's going to be the same thing for Ilya. That's how it works. You win the belt, great. Unless you're Sean Strickland. Then it's a whole different ballgame because Sean is more popular now than he ever was. He's more popular now than he was when he won the belt, and he lost the DDP. And he's still super popular.

So, but for the most part, that's how it works. So we'll see how it plays out. I mean, I respect it, but he's got to deliver next Saturday. That's for sure. CV, go ahead. Hey, Mike, heck of a morning. My question is actually a perfect segue regarding what you just talked about. So I do want to talk about the Bannonweight Division.

I feel like nobody's talking about the Marav versus Henry fight next week. Just your early thoughts on that one. And like you said, is everybody, everybody, everybody in Bantamweight rooting for Cheeto to beat O'Malley. Because like you said, if O'Malley beats Vera, he probably wants a super fight against Teporia, right? And if Cheeto wins, it seems like Cheeto's the type of guy to like fight anybody anytime, you know, it doesn't matter who it is. But like, again, you never know, once you become a champion, you know, you're going to go for the money fights, right? So just your thoughts on

everything. Interesting question. It's tough to say. If Marab goes out and beats Henry Sehudo, which I'm probably going to pick him to do so because it's just a wrecking ball. But it is a really interesting fight. Like it is a super interesting matchup. I'll tell you what, if Marab wins, he will absolutely be the biggest Marlon Vera fan on the flam. Because if Sean wins, I just don't think he's going to fight Marab. And it's not because he's scared or anything like that.

He's just not going to fight him. He's going to go try to do something else. Maybe he does go up to 45 or tries to go get a boxing match with somebody who will just absolutely annihilate him, but he'll make a whole bag of money. This is what he's going to try to do, I think. But if Henry Suhudo wins and Sean wins, I think Sean would be like, yeah, I'll fight Sehudo. Because Sohudo will try to sell the fight and do whatever to try to hype this thing up. I just don't know if he gets that from Marab. And by the way, I love Marab.

I love what he's trying to do right now. The dude is hilarious. Love the Dr. Marab videos or Professor Marab, whatever it is. It's hilarious. He is trying his ass off and I respect it. So I just don't know. I just don't know. If Marab wins, he will 1,000% be chairing for Cheeto.

And if Sohudo wins, I don't think he cares. he'll probably be cheering for Sean O'Malley because he probably thinks that's the bigger fight and then the rest of the divisions are going to have to wait and see what happens. So, yeah, it's going to be a fascinating year at 135. I don't know what's going to happen. Let's look at 298.

Let's take a look at this card. We got Voltaporia. That's the main event. God, I can't wait for that fight. Whitaker Costa. That one's flying under the radar as well. We got Marab SaHudo. Main card opens with Fluffy,

Hernandez versus Roman Coppulov. That was supposed to be Fluffy versus Icramal-Scaroff. And then by the time, when we get to like the Thursday show next week, I guarantee you 90% of the questions are going to be about Jeff Neal versus Ian Gary. That one's going to steal all the headlines by the time we get there. And then the rest of the car, we got Ruggiero DeLima versus Justin Taffa. We got Min Yang Zhang versus Brenson Ribeiro, Andrea Lee versus Miranda Maverick, Val Woodburn. versus Oban Elliott, A.J. Dobson,

Tresang Gore, Josh Quinlan, Danny Barlow, Amanda Lemos versus McKenzie Dern. And then the very exciting, Rinya Nakamura versus Carlos Farrell. This is a very good main card, a couple of good fights in the prelims. This is a main card, like heavy card, for sure. This is not $2.99.

This is not $300 as it stands right now. But it's going to be fun because that main event, by the time we get to that main event, Holy moly. The anticipation is just going to be through the roof. And I'm excited to get back to New York next weekend for another watch party. Just by the time Voltaporia happens, I'll be like three energy drinks in. I'll be ready to run through a friggin wall, which would be exciting.

Some big news about the watch party coming up as well. It's going to be a very busy couple of months for the watch party. So stay tuned for that. Announcements to come. Yeah, I am looking forward to it. All right. I think we are, I think we're done here. We talked about a lot on a week that's kind of slow on the news cycle. But we'll be back on Thursday.

Hopefully we'll have a UFC 300 main event to talk about. That would be fun. But I don't know if that's going to happen. And then we're knocking on the door of UFC Vegas 86. We're knocking on the door of the Super Bowl. Shout out to Bruce Buffer for doing the UFC style intros. for the Super Bowl. You officially introduced the Chiefs and the 49ers.

It was good stuff. And then we're going to be on the road to UFC 298. And Ifu won and very excited about that. So thank you all very much. Appreciate you. Back on Thursday. Until then, have a great rest of your Tuesday. And have a heck of a morning, everybody.