MMA Fighting - HOAM | Reaction To Ian Machado Garry vs. MVP Booking, Countdown To UFC 302

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

UFC 303, which features the return of Conor McGregor as he faces Michael Chandler in the main event, has added a much-needed bout to the lineup with surging contender Ian Machado Garry battling longtime Bellator star, now UFC welterweight Michael Page. How much does the fight help the card? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck reacts to the Garry vs. Page booking, and why the lineup certainly needed the new booking. Additionally, listener questions include the future of the lightweight division if Dustin Poirier upsets Islam Makhachev at UFC 302 and what it could mean for Arman Tsarukyan, Kevin Holland's middleweight return, Ilia Topuria vs. Max Holloway, the BMF title, and much more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays and Thursdays 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 Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian

in this follow-up to the audible original blockbuster, The Downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now, only from Audible. To the Vox Media Podcast Network. 24, I almost said 2028. That would have just scared the hell out of me. And it is indeed a heck of a morning. We are live on the NBA Fighting,

Twitter space. You can hear the show in its entirety, shorter thereafter, on the MMA Fighting Podcasting Network. What's going on, everybody? I am Mike Kack. Hope you're all having a wonderful start to the week. If you are in the United States, hope you had a great long weekend. I did. I'm sore as hell from doing MRF yesterday. I did a 5 a.m. workout today, and I'm actually like more sore today than I was yesterday, even after doing MRF. But we wage on. We battle through because it is

UFC 302 fight week. Yes, the time has arrived and it's coming off of a week off, which I think is so much better because we're coming off of a kind of okay, mediocre APEC show. Then we get the week off to kind of recharge the batteries, if you will. And now it's fight week.

And on a day that feels like a Monday, and then you actually look at your phone and look in the calendar, it's actually Tuesday. It's just so much better. It's just so much better. We're now four days away. From UFC 302, Islam Makachap versus

Dustin Porre. Will it be Dustin Porre's final fight? We will certainly find out on Saturday. Sean Strickland versus Paul O'Costa. The five-round co-main event, big one at 185 pounds. We have Kevin Holland moving back up to

middle-weight doing Kevin Holland things, taking a fight on kind of out of nowhere and not on a ton of notice, taking on Mikhail Olegzecheck, that fight's going to be absolutely bananas. Jeltsin Almeida versus Alexander Romanov could be absolute bananas for the first five minutes

or it could be just the funniest fight of the night if it goes longer than that. And then Randy Brown, who just continues to fly under the radar versus Elizu Zaleski, that is your main card. And there's some other good fights on here. Roman Coppulov versus Cesar Almei.

Grant Dawson, Joe Selecki, Phil Roe versus Jake Matthews. Nico Price is back against Alex Marono. Mickey Gall is back. He will take on Basel Hefez, Jocelyn Edwards, Eileen Perez. A lot of heat on that one. And then the opening fight of UFC 302 is what I will certainly have my eye on. Andre Lima, second UFC fight. We all know how the first one ended.

DQ win via Bites, taking on New England's own, Mitch Raposo, who makes his UFC debut. So that is obviously happening this Saturday. And since we last spoke, we discussed UFC 303 a little bit. Came on the show. I said the UFC has to do whatever it takes to put Ian Gary versus MVP on UFC 303

because while we have some decent fights and it is a Connor McGregor card, it is also international fight week. We need to juice this thing up a little bit. We need to add a little sizzle to the steak. And they did the thing. The UFC goes out and does the thing. Ian Gary versus MVP going down at UFC 303.

Dana White also announced that Connor McGregor and Michael Chandler will have a press conference in Dublin, I believe on Tuesday, next Tuesday. Maybe Monday, I don't remember. But it's happening early next week, and it should be fun as hell. A little throwback to the McGregor-Aldo World Tour, if you will. and it should be a lot of fun. We'll see how Dublin reacts to the whole thing. I'm sure they will be out in droves.

So there's obviously some things to talk about. There's other things to discuss as well. So let's go to you guys. So I could take all the planning off my plate and you guys could set the table for me. Four corner sports, go. Four corner sports. All right.

Bounce out, bounce back in four corner sports because you are not connecting, my friend. How about toke? My good buddy Toke. Listener in here will be asking about a UFC 302. So I'm going to go in a different direction. I'm going to start with saying, great interview with John Anick, by the way,

and I'm glad that you actually brought up the, let's say, subpar main event that still made the gate that set record for fight nights, right? So I'm glad that you brought that up to him, and he, of course, took the stance that he should. But the thing that I want to talk about is really... So, Chhatri, it's been a while since we've heard from him. And now today, he goes out and says, hey, we are going to expand into the...

And have our first UK show at Wembley with Jonathan Haggerty versus Liam something, I forgot. Shouldn't they focus on being profitable before doing stuff like this, just asking for a friend. And I don't know if you've heard anything about this. So I don't know how much you can comment. But yeah, that was it. Wembley, not Wembley Stadium, right?

It might be Wembley Arena, but still. Okay, I was going to say. But the headline just said Wembley. Okay, yeah. So, dude, if he was running at Wembley Stadium, I would have to, we would have to get his head examined. Because that, that just would be the most wild thing. I don't know what the man is thinking.

I don't know. Maybe him and Don Dapper Don Davis are like having group texts because I'd love to be a part of that thread. About like what to do when you think you're winning but you're really not. What new avenues can we explore? At least PFL could go to London. They could go to Paris. They could go to all these places and they could draw a crowd

and at least they at least have enough local talent to justify that move. But I honestly don't know what one is thinking. They need to go back to doing a lot of MMA stuff. Yes, some of the – I like the cards they were doing like at the beginning of last year, where, yes, there was MMA fights, like good ones. But then we mixed in some other things. Like, they kind of became their own thing. and there was like a lot of buzz around them.

The cards are very enjoyable. And then they just went back to, okay, now we're just going to do kickboxing cards. No, we're just going to do these cards. No, no, no, no. And then we're seeing very little MMA out of them. I don't know what the hell they're doing. I really don't.

All the financial reporting has not been good. So, yeah, I don't really understand what they're trying to do right now, but we wish them the best of luck and hopefully they can do something because they haven't done very much. Four corner sports, it doesn't look like your connection is very good, my friend. Try it again. It's not going through. Not going through.

You might have to find a different spot, my man. Left lane, do we have you? What's on, Mike? Can you hear me? Yes. Cool, cool. Well, obviously, we all know the top two fights of the card this weekend. and they're like the main attraction.

So I don't really need to talk about those. I think everyone's kind of on the same page. You pick an Islam. Like, you kind of got to look at the fight logically and pick Islam. I mean, if you want to go with the funny outcome and you think Poria's going to pull off the upset, that's cool.

Do your thing. Personally, let's don't see it. It'd be kind of funny. Or not funny, but it'd be kind of, like, ironic if Islam got a guillotine on dust. And what I could see happening is him getting like a von flu sort of, or like a head and arm choke,

as Dustin goes for the guillotine, which he inevitably will, and then Islam's going to make him pay for that. But the other fight that I'm looking forward to on the card outside of Strickland Costa is, he mentioned it before, Koppelov versus Caesar Al-Mada, a really good fight.

I'm sure anyone that's in this space right now, I'm not talking to any casuals, obviously. If you've been the MMA fighting Twitter space, you're a true hardcore fan of the sport. But if anyone's listening after the show or any of that, that is a casual, Watch this fight. It's not on the main card.

I think the headliner of the prelims. She's going to be a banger. Certified banger is what we call this one. It's going to be a sick fight on the feet. Koppelov, a really good striker. I picked him against Fluffy Hernandez because I thought he would be able to, you know, keep it on the feet, beat him up a little bit.

You know, he was looking good in round one, but Flakey Hernandez just got cardio for days, kind of tough to deal with. And then, Cissela Lemaida, we haven't seen much from him in Gloria Kipbox, so obviously Fort Pereira. But his debut, I mean, he got taken down and stuff. I don't think Coppulov's going to take him down.

So I'm really interested to see how that fight goes on the feet. I'm wondering who you're leaning towards in that fight. And one other fight, just quick mention, Jake Matthews v. Phil Roe, wanted to get your prediction or lean for that fight too because that's a pretty interesting one as well, in my opinion. But thanks, Mike. Enjoy the fights, everyone.

Peace out. Coppola, Alameda should be fun. Let me look at the betting odds. Man, somehow Al-Meda is the favorite here. I mean, it's pretty much a pick-em, but Omeida minus-11-18, Coppul-off minus 102. I mean, I'm definitely leading Copulov. He's just, like, I know Al-Meda has, like, a lot of, like, combat experience, but high-level mixed martial arts experience, it's, I mean, we lean copul-off all day long.

It's not even close. So I'll probably lean him, and I think he can win a lot of the exchanges as well. especially this boxing. I think he's probably a little bit longer and leaner of a striker. And it's going to be interesting. Can he just not kick kicked in the legs a whole bunch? I think that's going to be huge. And if Koppulov does decide to wrestle,

the gas tank does come into question. But I think Koppelov could do just fine striking with Sazar O'Meda. But I don't know. We'll see. I think Koppelov mixes the martial arts a little better. I think he maybe, I don't know if he goes. For takedowns, but I think we see a lot of clenches, a lot of inside fighting, if you will. Maybe some knees up the middle, things of that nature.

So I do like Koppeloff, especially at slight dog odds in a fight like this. And then Phil Roe, Jake Matthews, I just never know what to think about Jake Matthews. Because there was a time where he went in there, got a big knockout win. And we're just like, man, Jake Matthews, the boy has become a man. Like he's filming out. He's getting big. He looks athletic. he looks strong and then it's just been kind of

Jake Matthews-y stuff ever since and Phil Roe Phil Roe's got skills and he's huge for the weight class but I don't know he's such a mystery it's like he for some reason when that bell rings he just kind of takes a beating and then eventually just weather's a storm

and is able to come back and win that fight with Neil Bagney was rough That was a tough hang. That was a very tough fight to watch. So, I mean, just kind of looking at the betting odds right now, Matthews is a minus 162 to come back on Phil Roe is plus 136. I would probably take a bit of a dog shot on Phil Row because I do think this is kind of a 50-50 fight.

But I don't know. My first thought is it's not going to be the most fun watch of all time, if that makes sense. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Phil Roe-Jake-Bathus is just, it's kind of a fight. And who knows? Maybe Phil Roe and sort of the time off he's had and the work he's putting in,

perhaps he has improved. Perhaps he'll be more inclined to pull the trigger early in a fight. Because if he does that, this is going to be fun. But usually he likes to wait and takes a little bit of a thumping before that can all happen. So we'll see how it all plays out. Let's go to Brent. Brent, hello. Yep.

Okay, cool. Storming here in Fort Worth. My power has been out for a couple of hours. That's fun. So Islam and his team are implying slash teasing that they're not really going to grapple, that they're going to just stand with Porier. If that is the case, how or what do you think that that fight looks like if it's just a kickboxing match? that's all I got. Thank you.

I don't, I mean, I don't think that's going to happen. I know, like, Javier Mendez, and I know a lot of them are confident that Islam can stand with Dustin. And I don't think they're necessarily wrong, but why even bother with that? Like, honestly, you have such a distinct advantage in this fight. Because Porre is just not a great grappler. Like, he's tough as shit, and he's a dog.

and he can survive different scenarios just based on his durability and toughness and just sort of the veteran savvy. But skill for skill, I mean, Islam could just hoss him around. And that's why this fight seems like such a tough, stylistic matcher for Porier because, I mean, we saw it Michael Chandler did the Dustin Porre. He was able to take him down and hold him there and just kind of beat him up. But he was able to survive and kept it going and just kind of. out-dogged Michael Chandler down the stretch. I don't know if he can out-dog is on Machochev.

I think Macha-Chief is just so smart and calculated and cold in there. So, I mean, my biggest concern from the Makachief side is kind of, I guess, sort of, based on your question to some degree, and it's not that,

like, if the strategy is just to stand with Dustin, it's that, and I don't think he would do this, is he overlooking Dustin Porier? Does he think Dustin's is an easy out? Is he approaching it in this kind of a way? And like I said, I don't think he would do that. That's really not in his,

that's really not how he's made and how he's built as a competitor, but make no mistake about it. If he goes in there thinking this is going to be an easy night at the office, he could be in for a rude awakening. There are very few things more dangerous in this world than

facing a guy with very little or nothing to lose. And to me, Dustin's got nothing to lose here. Yes, this is his last chance to become champion. But there are certain fighters where a title does not define

the legacy of the athlete. And we talked about this with, and I talked about this with John Anick, which you can watch on YouTube and get here on the pod network as well. And I said this in our little roundtable the other day. Dustin's legacy is rock solid. It's ironclad.

Even if he goes out there and just gets dusted by Iszel Mokachev. That's what everybody expects to happen anyways. This is just him getting one last big payday, one last shot at the belt, face on the poster again at the tippy top. He's got nothing to lose. He's got nothing to lose in most aspects of the fight. Now, Dustin's obviously a competitor, and this would eat him if he just goes out and gets clobbered. But if you look at the legacy of what this all means for him, a win is just cherry on top of the Sunday.

But a loss is just like, okay, no big deal. This is what's supposed to happen. What is it? Let me look at these. What is he? He's a plus 500 right now. Islam is a minus 675. It's like 85% win prob right there.

Like, this is, of course, according to the betting odds in the betting community, this is, like these two just needs to get into the cage and the rest is just going to write itself. So, yeah, I mean,

if his only wants to stand with Dustin, it's going to make things a little bit more exciting, I think. But I think that would be crazy. I think that'd be crazy on his part. When he's got such an advantage, just taking Dustin down and beating that shit out of him. But we'll see if he actually does that.

I don't necessarily buy it. maybe that's what he's going to do i don't know if that's the smart choice though barbara rosa go ahead despite do you think the outcome that dusting winning is the worst outcome for armand syrucan because i don't know a world where dustin beats a heavy wrestler and wants to do defense uh defend his title against another heavy wrestler especially if you have the mcgregor fight right there and even if Michael Chandler wins and make a spectacular call-out. He's going to get the title shot before him.

And also you have Max Holloway or Justin G., every name out of these. I would think that Dustin is going to go to this direction. My second question is about Max Holloway and Tobler, and Tobler, talking about the BMF title must be in the picture. I don't know about you, but I think the BMF title right now is very hot and there is a lot of fighters. You could put them in a pool. They are a high-level fighter, but at the same time, I don't think they can win an undisputed

championship anymore. You have Volkanowski, you have Max Holloway, you have Connor McGreg, Michael Chandra to some degree, Justin Gage. I don't know, put them all on Charles Oliver. I know some of them could win another title, but they have done it all. They have a great resume. Why don't you make them fight each other? Because if you put it in the line against Povera,

and he wins what you do after that, is it a legit title? is it I don't know if he wrestles in this future. Thank you, Mike. I mean, that fucking fight doesn't need the BMF title to be on the line. Like, BMF title is just like a fun thing you can do. Like, there's no real prestige to it. But, I mean, you could also make the same case just based on some of the booking over the last few years that a lot of the UFC titles don't have a ton of prestige.

I mean, Dustin Porre, God bless him. He is, I mean, he's opportunity knocked. He answered. Availability was his best friend, but he's clearly not the guy that should be fighting for the belt right now.

Clearly not. I think we're fine with it based on the story and based on Islam was like, I'm fighting on this date no matter what. So whoever just emerges as the guy I'm fighting, like that's who I'm fighting. But I don't know.

There's no way that UFC does it. There's just no way. There's no friggin' way. And while Ilyle Tupori is really good, and he certainly has the makings of what, I guess, fans in the promotion would call a BMF, I feel like you have to have at least a dozen fights in the promotion before you can start fighting for the BMF title.

I don't think you can just walk in and, like, be 7 and 0 in the company and win a belt, not even have a defense, and all of a sudden you're fighting for the BMF title. No, I don't think it works that way. I think you have to have some 10-year under your belt and at least 12 fights. I think there has to be some sort of thing. And the UFC is not going to put both belts in the one.

They're just not going to do it. So I fully expect Max Holloway to elites Porey to fight each other. Could they go Volk? Maybe, from what I'm hearing, it doesn't seem very likely right now. If I had to place a wager, I'm probably going to pick Holloway on that one. I think that's the fight people want to see. But no real insight to it. We'll see how it all goes.

And I think that fight happens, whether or not BMF titles on the line or not. And if Max loses, so what? You still will be a MF champion. There's still big fights. And Max is a big star. So you can still headline pay-per-views if you need it with that. Still be a good co-main event for a big card that needs a little bit of juice. There's no way they're going to put both belts in the line.

There's just no chance. Poree wins. Is it the worst case scenario? I'm going to say no. I'm going to say no. I don't think, I know there's a lot of talk about in the big, D.C. talked about this too, and I kind of agree with him on this. Is that when the retirement quotes come out,

when fighters start thinking about it and they're asked about it, and Poy's been asked about it in every interview the last fucking three years. Let's be honest. And the answer is always the same. I don't know yet. I haven't decided. We'll wait and see after the fight. It's that in every single interview.

And the same goes here. But my heart of hearts tells me that Dustin Porier is going to fight for the final time on Saturday. Whether he wins the belt or not, I think he's done. I don't have any insight to this. If he wins the title, like what the fuck else does he need to do?

Honestly, and I know the UFC kind of hates on, you know, hates and that shit happens. But think about it from this perspective. If Dustin goes out and beats his Lamakachev, let's just say that happens and he retires. This is not a, this is not a situation like GSP where we kind of just realized he's going to go no matter what he says. This is not like your typical fighter wins belt and retires type situation because the UFC, we already know where Islamachchev is probably going to fight next, right? It's probably going to fight in October. It's probably going to fight in Abu Dhabi.

If Porier wins and retires, guess what? Islam can still fight in Abu Dhabi. He could still fight for the belt, and he could still fight Armin Saruki in for the vacant title, which is totally fine. That's totally fine. And then it makes it a little more interesting because you can ask questions such as,

is Islam right for the pickings now? Did Dustin Porier expose him? All these questions we know we're going to get. Is Islam a fraud? Like, we know we're going to get those questions if Dustin somehow beats him. but I just don't know what else there is for Dustin to do if he wins the title. Him fighting Arm and Sarukian outside of just guaranteeing that his teammate and a guy that he

has publicly said deserves to be next in line or the same with Matush Gamrott, same exact conversation. Dustin's already said like I don't want to fight Connor again. Why would he, like, it's not like he needs the money. The dude has made a ton of money over the last several years. he's about to get a whole big bag now to go fight his al-Machachachia. It's not like he needs the money. Is the money worth the heartache of dealing with Connor, which Dustin has experienced?

He experienced it the last time. He's already beat him twice, finished him twice. He's won the series. What else does he need to do? He's accomplished everything. He wins the title. He's done it all. He can look himself in the mirror and say,

I don't need to do this shit anymore. And if he loses, I don't think he's going to fight again. I just don't, there's no need. I think he's willing to accept whatever happens. Now, I could be dead wrong on this, but it just seems like there's certain points in fighters' lives and all the vibes just tell me that this is,

this is his last hurrah. This is his last hurrah. If he debunks the stats, it's been saying since the fightville doc, I'm going to fight till him. 35. I just think everything kind of lines up for this being the swan song. John Anick doesn't agree.

I know there's others who don't. I just don't know what else is there for him to do. Win or lose. Except maybe if I just at Gaci one more time, but Gachi's going to be out for a hot minute. He's even said it himself. He might go and train and hit the bag and stuff, but he's not going to spar for a long-ass time after the beating he took

at the hands and feet of Max Holloway and that was not that long ago. That was a month and a half ago. We may not see Justin Gachey till the end of the year. So, and it'd be hard-pressed, even with the story

and even with it being the UFC, it'd be a tough sell to throw Justin Gachi into a title fight, even if it is Dustin Pore, coming off of that kind of a loss to Max Holloway. Like that would be, even though Gatio,

deserved to fight for the belt before he booked the Holloway fight, it would be one of the more egregious title shots we've seen. It just, I mean, it just is after a knockout loss like that. I mean, he got, he got dominated. That fight was not, it was fun, but it was the Max Holloway show. He won pretty much every, he won pretty much the entire fight, pillar to post. I think there's one round he lost that I had it scored. But, yeah, I don't think it's a,

as bad as you think. I think if Porreya wins, he's going to be done and Islam and Armand can fight, and that's that. Let's go to four-out sniper. Go ahead. Sniper. All right, try again, four-on-sniper. I'm not hearing you. Riley, do we have you? I got two quick things for you. One, I just wanted to know what you think in the Islam versus Porriere fight, the longer it goes, like should it get the championship rounds? who do you think that favors?

Because we've only seen Islam go five rounds once. And obviously the fifth round was not very good versus Volk. And Porre has gone the distance or five rounds a bunch of times. So if it goes late, I'm just wondering who you think that favors. And secondly, I want to ask you, do you think Costa and Strickland is going to go to the scorecards or do you think there's going to be a finish? Thanks, Mike, and have a good one. I think the comane is going to the cards.

Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I mean, it could be wrong. But I will be placing a bet on that fight going over the four and a half at plus 120. So I do think it goes to the cards. Strickland's very durable. Costa is very durable outside of the easy fight. So, yeah, I kind of do feel like that one's going to go to the cards.

And then if the fight goes late, that probably Dustin probably Dustin I mean I don't think it honestly I don't think

it's going to affect Machachev all that much but it's just one of those situations where the longer

Porier hangs around the more dangerous it becomes I think with a guy like Dustin just looking at his resume

and looking at his career some of the fights he's won the way he's able to dig deep. There aren't many like them. And I just feel like you just, you just want to get them out of there as quickly as you can. And I think Machachev's got to have a very good chance to get

Poria out real fast. But if we get to round four, I mean, things are going to get real interesting because Poria can dig down deep. He's been there many times. And it's not like Machachev is a fish out of water there. But we did see in the Volk fight, he did start to gas a little bit. And that's when Volk had his best success. Now, Volk is not the type of finisher that Dustin Pori is. And if Poria gets Machachev hurt, he's not going to let him off the hook. So, yeah, I would say Poria, but I don't think it's like, it's only just because Pori is such a dog and the elements of where that fight could go if Makachov gets tired

and Poria has to dig real deep and he gets real desperate, weird things can happen when that becomes the formula of a fight. So I don't think it's a huge difference, but yeah, it's just one of the situations that why keep this man around longer than you need to? For On Cyper, do we have you now? Yep, I got you now. All right, good, good.

Heck of a morning. I saw you posted yesterday, actually, that it was your anniversary. So I went to hop on and say, happy anniversary. You know, congratulations to you. And also just wanted to ask you real quick, your thoughts on Grant.

he's taking a little bit of a step down. I think he would have been ranked or he was just outside the rankings. You know, unfortunately he got knocked out by Bobby Green and I just wanted to get your thoughts on his step down and what he thinks next after this, assuming he wins. Yeah.

Honestly, like, it's not that big of a step down, though. It's not that big of a step down. Like, I know he's coming off, I know Seleki's coming off that crazy fucking loss to Jakar Close where he got like, power bombed, unconscious, but he's good,

like he's good. Like, So like he's right around the same. Top 25-ish, 30 lightweight. It's got to be an interesting fight. Like, Selecki is quietly really good.

Yes, he's like a soft-spoken guy and he's not like the best striker in the world, but the dude can grapple his ass off. And his jiu-jitsu is so good,

especially for MMA. So, yeah, it's an interesting fight. I got to, I mean, Grant's a huge favorite. Minus 410? There's a part of me kind of lean in Seleki a plus 320.

Unless Grant, like, straight knocks him out. I don't know. I think I'm going to wait to see what the point spread is on that fight. because I do think Selecki can be competitive here. And if we get like a, like if it's a three and a half here, like I could see Selecki, I can see Selecki dropping 29-28s across the board. I could definitely see that happening.

So yeah, it's a good fight. Grant needs to win this one. I mean, this is kind of do, and it's tough to say for a young, you know, hungry fighter like Grant is, but this is fucking lightweight, man. This is the lightweight division. This is the toughest division in MMA.

This is one of the toughest divisions in all of sports. You go and you drop two straight and you lose to Joe Selecki. That's tough, man. That's a tough place to be in when this division just continues to churn out just hungry fucking killers left and right. So interesting matchup. I like the fight. And let's see if Grant can come through.

But Joe's tough. I'm surprised the line is honestly, this this wide. I can see Grant being like minus 320, minus 300, but that's that seems really wide. So we'll see what happens.

Aswaalya, go ahead. So, Mike, a couple of morning. Firstly, if I carry on with any MRA questions, just want to say congratulations to your Boston Celtics in performance today. And, you know, fuck the haters,

whatever they say. You know, every team is going to have, you know, it's out of deck If other teams are injured, they're still an amazing team. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing how the Western side plays out and who they will end up facing the finals But now to the anyway question Firstly, with the Dustin Poirier Islam stuff, I know you just discussed earlier about Dustin retiring I do want to say this though say he wins the title and say maybe he does decide he wants to still maybe have one or two more fights with the belt on on the line could you see him maybe looking to get a rematch against Oliveri and though I guess that fight would do much for him because for me if I'm looking at as a fan yeah Islam's a good win but wouldn't

be better for him to try and event that Oliver loss because that loss really looked horrible in my opinion on his resume considering that it was a very win-ball fight I'm not sure what what do you think about that and another thing I just want to ask is with the Saudi Arabia card that's coming up and end of next month do you see the UFC kind of doing a little bit of a special marketing promotion for this particular fight now since it's the first time they're heading to that particular location

and with obviously the deal they have with the Minister of Saudi and also how it comes out is a relatively big star compared to some of the other you know fight night headliners that have obviously headline multiple tutor cards this year

that's all I have a great day thanks man yeah sorry that fight makes absolutely no sense like no sense No sense at all. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time.

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2-6-00 or visit comex ontario.ca. With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. All right, we're back. We're good. Just had to get out of there and re-jump back in. Brian, go ahead.

Oh, shit, what's on like? How are you doing? Good. are you man good uh i've been listening a lot i can just never join with my new freaking work schedule but uh i'm just bouncing to ian gary quick being on the connor mcgregor card i'm an ian gary fan i like him i i think he's fun think he's really good fighter but uh i honestly think this is really bad for him to be on this card because he's just going to repeat a lot of things that connor says like give us the old connor hits and i feel like when connor says it and then he's

Ian says it's just going to come off like not that good at these press conferences and stuff. Like he's going to be like, shut your fucking mouth. And then Connor is going to be like, shut you a fucking mouth. I don't know. It's just going to be, they're going to be saying the same stuff and Conner's better at it than him. So I think this could be bad for him. I just wanted to hear your thoughts on that. Well, there's, I mean, look, there's a couple of ways to look at this.

one is we need to thank our lucky stars that he's not fighting Colby because that would get real pretty fucking, that'd be pretty awful. It'd be pretty terrible. At least with MVP, like you might get a little bit of trash talk,

but at least for the most part, it's going to be mostly kind of dial back. And I think the other thing to think about is that even if Ian says a bunch of dumb things, and it's very possible that he does. Connor's just going to put them over the entire time. And when you have the biggest star in the sport on a stage, putting you over and, like, reacting positively to everything you say,

it can't hurt you. It can't hurt you. So, yeah, there'll be some people who are like, oh, he's just trying to be Connor. It's Connor, senior, and Connor Jr. and all that stuff. And I understand why people would feel that way. But I don't think it's going to be that bad. I don't think MVP is the kind of guy that's just going to get real cringy and weird.

So, yeah, I think it's going to be okay. I think it's going to be okay. And this car really needed it, man. It really did. Like, there's some good fights on 303. There are some good fights on 303. There's some fights that I'm looking forward to. There's some low-key bangers everywhere.

But for, like, the casual audience that you're trying to grab here because Connor is fighting. boy, you needed a little bit of extra thump here. And at least you got it with two guys that are going to at least bring something to the table. So yeah, for an international fight week, you need something like this. You need it. And from all the things I was being told, either Ian was fighting on this card or wasn't fighting for a long time. He wasn't going to fight Manchester.

Probably wasn't fighting until like the fourth quarter of the year. And while some people just don't like Ian Gary, he's very, very good. He's a very good fighter. And this division could get real weird and interesting after UFC 304. So you're going to need guys like him to continue to rise the ranks, guys like Shafcott to get their opportunities, guys like JDM, because there's going to be some pretty fucking grid fights coming down the pipeline. And if he can go out there and look, the way I kind of view this too, I don't think the UFC really likes Michael Page that much.

I think they're fine with them. But I don't think they're treating Michael Page as like this big star that they're going to put over. I think this fight is mostly booked because they think he and Gary is going to be MVP. But at the same token, it's actually brilliant matchmaking because if for some reason MVP goes out there and beats him and Gary, then you'd be like, okay, it's not a loss. It's certainly not something that's going to put the UFC in a tough spot. They could do something with him.

But I think if the UFC had their druthers, Ian Machado, Gary goes out there and beats the hell out of Michael Page and gets a big win and takes them out of title contention like all together. I think that's kind of what they're hoping for. you can tell by the way they announced him signing with the company and you can tell by the way they've kind of talked about him coming out of that first fight with Kevin Holland they're just like okay yeah he's here

but they're not like putting him over if they really wanted to put him over in a big way they would just book him against anybody else on the Manchester card but that's not what they're doing so we'll see how it all plays out at UFC 303 but this fight was needed. And it's a nice little addition to the card. It's an interesting fight.

And it's going to be a busy month of June. Lots going on in the month of June. The next like two months are going to be insane. They're just going to be absolutely insane. We got this 303. Anderson and Chale. We got Louisville. We got Saudi with Hamzat and Whitaker.

And then we head to July and we got Mazadol and Diaz. We got 304. We got Jake Paul and Mike Tyson, if that fight even happens. I don't know. It's just going to be a weird-ass couple of months to begin the summer of 2024. So, all right, we're going to get out of here. Thank you all very much. You guys rule.

Sorry for all the choppiness earlier on. People were calling, and I had to answer on one of them. So there's basically people calling and I'd hit the red button. And usually that's a hint like, oh, he's busy right now. So I don't need to call. And they just keep calling. And you have to answer at that point. So I think we'll be back Friday.

BTL, of course, on Thursday. We'll do something Friday. They actually gave me like a rare day off, which is pretty wild. But I still think I'll do the show Friday for all of you. And then we lead right into Saturday for UFC 302. And we'll see if Dustin Porre can do the damn thing. and pull up just a gigantic upset against the boogeyman himself is the Lomakov. So thank you very much.

Back on Friday. Have a great rest of your Tuesday. Have a heck of a morning, everybody.