MMA Fighting - HOAM | Should Dana White Call Jake Paul's Bluff After Alex Pereira Callout?

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

After stopping Mike Perry in the sixth round of their boxing headliner this past Saturday, Jake Paul called out UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira — which most believe is a brilliant callout because Dana White and the UFC wouldn't allow it to happen. But what if White showed up to the press conference after UFC 304 and gave a "be careful what you wish for" type response and gave Pereira his blessing? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck reacts to Paul's win and callout, and discusses what could happen if White calls Paul's bluff. Additionally, listener topics include UFC 304, Leon Edwards vs. Belal Muhammad 2, what the welterweight division looks like if Muhammad wins the title, what Tom Aspinall is risking when he defends his interim heavyweight title against Curtis Blaydes in Saturday's main event, and much more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays and Fridays at 10 a.m. ET on the MMA Fighting Twitter Spaces. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. It's just $39.99? How could I resist? This luxurious will throw for my sister. This gold watch for my partner? A wooden puzzle for my niece? Leather gloves for my boss? Ooh, European chocolate for the crossing guard?

At these prices, could I find something for everyone at Winners? Stop wondering. Start gifting. Winners, find fabulous for less. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. All right, everybody. It is Tuesday, July 23rd, yes, July 23rd. And it is indeed a heck of a morning. We are live on the M.A. Fighting Twitter Spaces.

You can hear the show in its entirety shortly thereafter on the M.A. Fighting Podcasting Network. What's going on, everybody? I am Mike Kat. Hope you're all having a great start to the week. It is UFC 304 Fight Week. Very excited for this one. It's a really good card. The top six fights are all really good?

I think they're the top six fights, because every time I look at the full lineup, it looks different every single time between the main card, what's the featured prelim, what is this, what is that? It always seems to change. But to me, the top six fights are all fantastic.

There's other really under the radar storylines that fascinate me as well. Of course, Leon Edwards versus Bilal Muhammad, the main event for the Welterweight title, the rematch. We have Tommy Aspinall versus Curtis Blades for the interim heavyweight title. Another rematch.

We have King Green versus Bobby, or Patty Pimbleet. Bobby Green changes the name of King Green just kind of screws up all my sentence making. King Green versus Patty Pimblitz. Fascinating fight. Muhammad McCoy of Middallup, Arnold Allen Gigate Chikaze,

Molly McCannis, back at 115. We have Christian Leroy Duncan versus Gregory Rodriguez. A lot to like about UFC 304. I am excited for it. Of course, the watch party returns. No, we're not stream yarding it. No, it's not going to be via Zoom. It's going to be back at the world's most famous watch party apex, the Michoud Mansion in Atlanta, Georgia, myself, Connor Burke's reunited once again. perhaps this will be the last time we are at the Michoud Mansion maybe we'll be back at the studios in New York for 305 still sort of up in the air

we'll keep you posting on all that but I'm very excited to head back to the ATL on Saturday for this card so not only is that in the news a lot of other things going on as well we had Jake Paul versus Mike Perry good out on Saturday night in Tampa. In the end, it was pretty much one-way traffic for Jake Paul. He just looked like a giant in there compared to Mike Perry, drops Mike Perry real quick. Mike couldn't really get his feet back under him. Mike wins the third round, in my opinion.

But then Jake just comes back and continues out-box him, out-quick him, and then eventually puts him away in round six, gets knocked down real hard and then tries to stand back up and he just can't keep his feet underneath him. Referee stops the fight, tremendous stoppage. And Jake Paul wins again. And then Jake Paul calls out Alex Pereira afterwards, which I'll say it again, brilliant call out, spectacular call out, because the fight's not going to happen. Although I've said this and took a little, you know, took a little bit of a beating on this. but I'll say it again.

If I'm Dana White, I'm calling his bluff. Because I truly believe Jake Paul is doing this, not because he wants to box Alex Ferreira, not because he thinks he can beat Alex Pereira, but because he knows that Alex ain't coming, that Dana's not going to send him. So wouldn't it be hilarious if Dana shows up in Manchester on Saturday and he's asked about this?

And he goes, careful what you wish for, buddy. Alex, you have my permission. to go box Jake Paul. I don't think Jake does it anyways. So this is a brilliant callout. It could lead to a brilliant response from Dana White. I don't think it's going to happen. And let me just be perfectly care about this.

The UFC gains absolutely nothing from this. I completely understand where New York Rick's been coming from with all this, that the UFC is trying to ignore them as an actual player. And by entertaining this idea, that ignorance goes away. You're giving credit to MVP. You're giving credence to Jake Paul as a. professional fighter, but wouldn't it just be something to watch Alex Pereira box Jake Paul? It would be something.

And if Dana was like, yeah, he can go, do you think Jake actually goes through with it? That's a question I would have as well. But good win for Jake Paul. And the amount of just bullshit I've seen in regards to Mike Perry since Saturday is just ridiculous. it's pretty it's pretty ridiculous it drives me a little bit crazy to see sort of this entire not the entire community but so many people just turn on mike perry and say that he sucks and all this stuff when the guy took this fight on three weeks notice he made a bag of money he sold the fight like a champion got over big and then he just lost to a dude who was

six years younger and 45 pounds heavier than him like i don't care what jake paul says he was 220 plus pounds in that fight. Mike Perry said he's about 190 once he got into the ring because he had to put on some size for the weigh in. Jake outweighed him by so much. It wasn't even funny. And for the amount of people that it's like, oh, Mike's not a, Mike's a terrible technical boxer. Yeah, no shit. What did you guys expect? Did you expect Tommy Hearn to go in there and box Jake Paul? Like, what did you think was going to happen? What did you think was going to happen? everybody who broke this fight down, including Michael Bisbing, who is flip-flopped on it, which I think is hilarious, is Mike's going to win because he's going to weather a storm. Jake's going to get tired from punching him in the face because he doesn't have great defense.

And then Mike's just going to out-dog him down the stretch and win. And that just didn't happen. But anyone's shitting on Mike Perry here. Like, come on, man. Like, what did you expect? What did you expect? The dude went in there, battled, did the best he could, took the fight on three weeks notice. sold out an NHL stadium, an NHL arena.

This thing probably did pretty damn well on paper. We probably did 10 times better than Diaz Mazadol did. It was a professional operation. I just don't understand it. I really don't understand everyone just kind of turning on Mike Perry here. But even Connor McGregor threatening to fire Mike Perry, which is something else as well. I'm sure BKFC is thrilled about seeing Connor McGregor tweet.

sweeten up a storm when it relates to their organization. But there you go. We'll see what happens next from Mike Perry. Hopefully he takes some time off. Maybe we don't see him until the end of the year. Maybe beginning of next year, who knows? And hopefully Mike got paid handsomely for this. But Jake Paul moves on to Mike Tyson.

I don't know how I feel about that whole situation. But it is what it is. I saw Darren Till call for that fight. No one wants to see that fight. Nobody. I saw Luke Rockhold call for that fight. Nobody wants to see that either. If Jake's going to do the MMA thing, it's Pereira or Bust, maybe Connor down the line.

And I don't even want to see Connor because Jake's going to be like 80 pounds heavier than Connor. So, yeah, we'll see where Jake Paul goes. We'll see where Mike Perry goes. Congratulations to Mike on the new fighting promotion, dirty boxing championships. Good on them. Good stuff. And then, of course, we fly across the country. We go from a sold-out ruckus, 17 plus thousand people in the Amelie Arena to 17 people in the world's most famous apex for UFC Vegas 94.

And got to tell you, the card lived up to what I expected. It was fun. It started off real bad. It started off real bad. Probably about 75 minutes into this card. it was trending on being one of the worst fight cards in UFC history. Thomas Peterson, Mo Usum was, I mean, we had, we had expectations for that. It did.

It surpassed them. It surpassed them in the department of what we expected that fight to be. Lleana, Carolina, Carolina, Lucy Pulilova, decision. Trey Ogden, like Rajabobbub, decision. Miranda Maverick, Deoni Barbosa, decision. Then we get Cody Gibson, who kind of turns things around a little bit with the nice win. and then Hyder Emile, Hyder Amiel, who I told you all week,

guys, this is the fight to watch. This is the one. Hyder Amil versus Jung-Yong-Lee. This is it. This is the fight I'm looking forward to the most. If there's one fight to watch on this entire card, make it that one. And Hyder Amil just comes through with a 65-second,

38-punch combination T-K-O finish. Spectacular stuff. This guy's an absolute savage. And then Featherweight just continues. continues to have a good time. Do Ho Choi, stops Bill Algeo, great performance from the Korean Superman. Bruno Silva, great finish of Cody Durdon, bounces back from a tough start. Kurt Hollabo beats Canaan Kershouski. Good fight. Good performance. Kurt Hollabo gets a victory. Steve Garcia continues to do Steve Garcia things. And then Vernard Janjarova might have just punched her

ticket to a title shot. Her next fight has to be for the belts. She should not be fighting anybody else unless there's a title on the line. Question is, does she get it before Tatiana Suarez gets the fight with Zhang Wei Li? That's the question. I'd give it to her because it seems like the safer play. And either way, Zhang Wei is not headlining a pay-per-view anyway, so it truly doesn't matter. But availability is your best friend. It's been the rule of thumb in the UFC for the last two years.

If you're available, if Zhang Wei-Lie says, hey, I want to fight at Madison. and score garden in November. I don't care if there's two other title fights. I'll be the first of three. And Verna's ready and Tatiana's not. Verna's getting a title shot. Availability is your best friend. But what a performance from Verna.

She just dominates Amanda Lemoche. Tremendous groundwork. Arm bar was slick. She gets the biggest win of her career. And now she's going to fight for the belt. So good stuff. Good card. And now we're on to Manchester for UFC 304.

There's other things that I'm missing. But I'm sure you'll all talk about all of those things. things. So let's party. Let's hear from you all. Riley, go ahead, kick us off. The fighting question, but it's been on my mind ever since I saw the video. I'm sure you've seen the Leon Edwards soccer kick basketball trick shot thing. I need to know if that's real or fake, man. If you don't know, I beg you to ask, oh, what's his name, Jose, at the press conference if you can ask Leon because that was absolutely insane to see all right thanks Mike have a heck of morning I saw the video it has to be fake it just has to be um just a tremendous edit if it's not fake

it's the craziest video I've ever seen in my life and there's just no way that that is not going to be asked the media day tomorrow so I'm sure we'll get the answer I'm sure Leon will giggle about it it'll be a wholesome moment but there's just no way that's real I'm just going for a jog. Oh, there's a basketball court. Maybe they will throw the ball directly to my right foot so I can kick the ball into the basket. And then I do it on the first try because I drew it up. Can't wait to hear the response to that, but can't be real. It just can't. Unless it took them four weeks to film that. Lee, go ahead. And my heck of a morning.

Quick question. You know, everybody. You know, gassing up, not gassing up, but, you know, I want to say, I don't know how to word it, rooting for Tom, you know, Aspoena, you know, to pretty much complete this story, you know, go out, be undisputed, challenge John, you know, for that belt. But, you know, what happens if Curtis Blades comes away with another win against him? Does that make him have to fight? Well, obviously, he's going to have to fight lower, you know, back into the rankings. But where do you see his future if he does, you know, lose to Curtis again?

I know the first one was, you know, the injury, but yeah, I just wanted your input on that. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, you can make the case that you can make the case that there's probably more long-term stakes in the co-main event than there is in the main event to a certain extent because, look, if Bala loses, to Leon Edwards, he's never, ever getting another title shot. So I understand the risk reward here for Ballal. At the same token, I don't, I think Leon may get back to a title fight because they go to the UK so often. The good thing for Tom Asmanal is he loses the John Jones fight.

Like any chance, first of all, I don't think he's going to fight John Jones. I don't think that fight ever happens. But even if there's like a 3% chance that he fights John Jones in the future, if he loses on Saturday, that 3% chance becomes a negative 3%. 3,000% chance. Like, he'll never, ever, ever have any chance of fighting John if he loses this fight. But where does he go? He probably fights one dude and then he'll get back into it.

That's all. As long as Curtis is not champ, which there's a chance he wouldn't be at some point. Like he's a win away. Like the second Curtis loses the belt, Tom's in. and the UFC could just strip Curtis. Like it's not, it's an interim belt. They can just be like, nah, that's my dryer. It is the loudest dryer.

Listen to that. That thing. That thing just is loud. Can hear that from anywhere. But yeah, I don't think it hurts him too bad. But he's young and heavyweights awful. It's a bad division. It's really, really bad.

So, yeah. Short-term loss. He loses the John Jones fight, but it's a fight. He probably wasn't. getting anyways. So it'll suck, but not as bad as you may think. Calhoun City, go ahead. Real quick, super excited for 304. I think Nathaniel Wood Pineda is going to be fight of the night. Both of them always down for a scrap. But the question I have is Leon wins and Islam wins in October. Shavkat doesn't have anything lined up. Leon just made the comments that there's no

stars left that welterweight. You said timings everything. I think, you know, the Islam and Leon both win. I think they're on a collision course at 170. I think you could even do that in England, who has an enormous Muslim population. I think that that'd be a great headliner in London or somewhere over there. What do you think? And how does that one go down? If Islam's got to move up and go for the double belt here, man. Appreciate it. I don't. I don't. I don't. care. I don't want to see it. I don't want to see it. Both guys have a ton of work to do in their divisions. Like, Islam Makachev, you have to fight the dudes that are in front of you. I totally understand that. He's had three title defenses, one of which was a guy in his actual

division. And it was Dustin Porre. And it was the guy who, as much as I love Dustin Porre as, you know, looking at it from a fan's perspective. It's a guy who's journey who had been following last chance at fighting for a belt, the storylines behind it made it really interesting. But he was like the fifth most deserving guy in the division. Okay? He's got to fight Arm in Sarukian, and then just think of the other hitters that are on their way up.

The Matush Gamrots, so forth and so on. There's just so many fighters that deserve their chance to fight for the belt. Look at Welterway. Shafcott, certainly one of them. Ian Machado Gary, certainly another one. it is a fascinating division and there are so many guys

who are on their way up in both of those divisions. I do not want to see another champ versus champ fight. I couldn't care less. I couldn't care less. Now if Leon defends the belt two or three more times,

Islam beats Armin, and then he beats like two more guys, sure. Then we can entertain that idea. And I'll say this again. If Islam wants to go up and challenge Leon, like if he goes and beats arm and says, all right, I'm fighting for the welterweight title next.

I'm fine with it. Vacate the other belt. You do that? You got no argument for me. But we're not, I'm sick of this whole, well, if I lose, if I go up there and lose,

then I'm still the champion in this other division. No, you want to go up and fight for the second belt, vacate the other one. And people want to shit on John Jones and all that stuff, and that's five. But the one thing,

John did correctly before moving up to heavyweight was he vacated the light heavyweight title. Sure, we didn't see him fight for three years, but at least he didn't keep the division on ice for three years either. Because that's what happens when these guys go up and do the champ champ thing. Is that it keeps the division on hold. And then maybe we have to do an interim belt. And then we probably don't even get a chance to unify the belts. It's so dumb. I'm so tired of it. It's way more impressive. I'm with Jed on this 100%. It's way more. impressive to rattle off a bunch of title defenses than it is to go win a second title. It just is. It just is. To me, winning eight, defending your title eight times in a row

is way more impressive than winning a second though, especially doing it at 155, which is the best division in the sport. So maybe the timing lines up. watch it, of course. We'll discuss it, but I will not be thrilled about it. It'll just be another. Yeah, okay. Another fight we don't need. But we know why they're doing it because it'll make money.

Slito, go ahead. Do we have you, Sleto? So you know, you might have to find a better connection spot. It's not going through. King Cat. Hello there. Hey, good morning, Mike. How are you doing? Good. How are you? I'm okay.

Sorry for my voice here. I've been trying to ask this question for a couple weeks, but I've been at work, so I haven't been able to. But there's been a lot of talk about the Craig Jones Invitational coming up in August. And I was wondering if you all would be covering it all. We got Fion Davies, who is like a hot person right now in BJJ and Fighting McKinsey Dern, who is obviously a UFC star. And Luke Rockhold is going to be in it, too. I'm just wondering if MMA fighting is going to cover it, even just the super fights of that at all. It's a pretty big deal, I think, with it going up against ADCC.

Just wondering if that's something that you are considering covering. Thanks, Mike. Yeah, I think we'll be paying attention to it. I think we'll be paying attention to it. There's a lot of big games. Obviously, ADCC is going on at the exact same time. And the Craig Jones thing is just, it's sort of an unprecedented type situation. So, yeah, I think we'll be watching.

I don't know if we'll be sending anybody to either of these cards, but we'll be watching it. I don't know what type of coverage we're going to give it, but when is the actual date on this? August 16th and 17th. Wow, you couldn't have picked a worst weekend to do it, though, with freaking 305 happening that same weekend. But, yeah, I'm sure we'll be paying attention

to what's happening on that. All right, let's keep it going. Four on sniper, Sle-D, I'll give you another shot in a second, but go ahead, four-on-sniper. Not going through. Sleido, we'll try you again. Do we have you now? Hey, man, sorry.

You're good. So Mokai versus Kopp was originally on the main card. Then it got moved to the prelims, and now it looks like it's been moved yet again to the early prelims, like a third fight of the night. Do you think the UFC is anticipating another cop pullout. Yeah, that's it.

Thanks, man. Let me see what ESPN has it. Yeah, that's very weird. Yeah, because FightPass, the ESPN website, no, sorry, the UFC website still has it on the main card. We looked at it on Sunday, and it was the featured prelim. And now it's on the early prelims, potentially. I don't know.

This could just be a, let's get, people in the door type situation, putting Mikhailov on there. But it just seems pretty odd that that's the spot for, isn't it? But it's one of the situations that we'll kind of wait and see. Who knows? By like Friday, it could be back

on the main card. But yeah, it looks pretty weird. The SPN Fight Center has it as the second to last early prelim. Boy, there's a lot of fights on this card. Five early fights. 14. 14 of them. Let's kind of look and see what's on the ESPN pre-lilence.

Modestis Bukoskis versus Marchine Pratchino is currently on the ESPN 2 card. I don't love that. Jake Hadley moving up to fight Colin Lockren. Don't know if that should be on ESPN, too. Bolly McCann, yes, she should be there. Nathaniel Wood, Daniel Paneda. That's going to be pretty crazy. like Sam Patterson's going to ice Kiefer Crosby

in brutal fashion more than likely so like maybe you throw that on there but we'll see I'm a way to see what the lineup actually looks like come Thursday or Friday before I really give an opinion on this but as it stands right now it's it's weird looking menel cop needs to show up make wait and fight

he can't afford to not fight on Saturday Like that's real bad. That's real bad for him. So hopefully that fight goes through and everyone gets to see it. Ethan, go ahead. Ethan, do we have you? Yeah, I got you. Sorry, man, just on my way to work.

Took me a second to get my mic unmuted. Quick question for you. Of course, we've all heard the rumors about this Edmonton card coming up November 2nd. Do you have any insight on that and who do you think should be in the main event? Thank you and have a heck of a morning. Thank you, sir. I mean, I heard Jasmine, Jazz DeVizia just talk about it on the May hour. I've heard rumblings about Edmonton.

Don't know when that's going to happen. Who should headline? I don't know. It doesn't matter who headlines because everyone's got to buy tickets for it anyways. I don't know. I honestly don't know. Because the UFC could just throw any two people in there and that's it. It's not going to be anywhere from Canada.

They're not going to throw Jasmine into a fight night main event. Mike Milott's not going to headline. It would have to be, I don't know, rebook Rose versus Basie Barber or something. I don't know. It would be something like that. I don't think it's going to be anything spectacular. Four on Cypher.

Go ahead. No. Yes. All right. Finally. I don't know what's going on with my connection lately. Just a quick one for you. So I noticed Curtis Blades is a huge underdog against Tom Aspinall.

And my belief is that, or in my opinion, it's because of his low IQ moments in the off-gun. He tends to strike with the strikers, and sometimes he wins, sometimes he doesn't, and he doesn't always, you know, fight with the best IQ. I want to know if he went out there with a good game plan, tried to mix in the wrestling with his striking, how good of a chance does he have to win?

Like, do you think he has a really good chance? Do you think the line would be a lot closer? What do you think about that, Mike? So, oops, sorry with that. So with the watch party coming up, we obviously do the bets and all. As it stands, I'm probably going to bet Curtis. Bet on Curtis Blades here. Not because I think he's going to win, but I just think this line is insane.

Plus 280's ridiculous. I could be proven wrong. Tom could just go in there and run Blades over in 30 seconds. Like, it could happen. I just don't think it does. I think Curtis is way better than that. I do think Tom does win the fight, but if you're asking, I just think this fight's closer. I just think it's way closer.

So wouldn't surprise me of Curtis won. But like 50-50, I'm picking Tom, but yeah, plus 280 is great. Like, that's like 80-something percent win prop for Tom Aspinall in a fight like this. And just seems pretty high, especially what it's like at like 5.30 in the morning when this fight's actually. actually going to happen. So I'm probably going to have a better on Curtis Blades here. Unless there's some, because the line movement's been wild. It jumped up to plus 280 real quick. So something to keep an eye on, I would have to say. Roberto, go ahead. Hey, Mike, can you hear me? Yep. Awesome. So just a couple things. So I was watching the Apex this past weekend and there was just a funny moment that I

thought you might appreciate. Silva called out. Brandon Moreno. Brandon Moreno wasn't the Spanish transmission. I was watching the Spanish transmission, and he just completely brushed him up, so I just kind of thought it was kind of like a funny moment and somewhat of a bad callout. But kind of speaking about Apex events,

what do you think the UFC needs to do to have more Abu Dhabi-like fight nights or events like this? So we're not watching the Apex every other weekend or so. I think you have kind of touched on this, but I was wondering if you have anything like new more like different coming up. Thank you.

They're never leaving the apex. Like they're never, ever leaving the apex. The only chance, the only way that they leave the apex is if whoever locks them down on this new TV deal says you can't do any more cards of the apex. And they lower the number of cards. they have to deliver every year. But other than that, like, why would they leave there? Why would they leave?

It saves them so much money to do that. They're getting paid so much money to even put an event on ESPN's networks, and they don't have to pay like any sort of travel production costs, like outside of their own venue. And the unfortunate thing is there's just so many events. You kind of have to go there. unless the other token is most of the places they're going to to host these events,

they're paying the UFC millions and millions of dollars to go there. Look at Saudi, look at Abu Dhabi, look at Salt Lake City, look at Houston, look at Perth. Those are just a few of many, many, many examples of areas that are in agreement with the UFC that they're willing to pay tens of billions of dollars. Anaheim, another one. And if they're not getting that,

like, what's the point of them going on the road? They could just stay at the apex, a big whole bunch of money without having to travel. But it's soulless. It's awful. Like, there was just nobody there. Nobody cared about this card.

And it just, it's, it kind of sucks. Like, if you're going to, like, if you're going to keep doing it, fine. But, like, you have to, you have to bring in people. You have to make it like a 1,500 seat or something to that nature. You have to make the tickets affordable. Actually, you probably don't. But, like, the only way you can go there now is if you're a family member,

and then you can only stay for that family member or friends one fight, and then you get escorted out of the building unless you buy tickets. If you buy tickets, you have to buy, like, sort of the VIP experience. It's, like, five or six hundred bucks to go to the apex and watch those cards. Like, that's crazy. Who wants to do that? but yeah their new TV deal is 43 fights a year get ready for

apex cards the entire time that they are part of this TV deal and honestly I think they're going to be there forever anyways because like I said why wouldn't they be let's go to Barbarossa yeah Barbara Rosa hello to you about the best case scenario

for the next card because I think the best thing for the sport is that Tom Aspinall wins and Bilal wins. Because if Tom Aspinall wins, I know it doesn't say that John Jones is going to fight him after a steep but if he loses, John Jones versus Berrera is going to be a very big possibilities and it's going to again put two divisions on hold. Because if the EOPSI think they're a champion and he's one, the biggest star, which is Pereira at the moment, is going to lose. Why not to lose to someone is going to retire after that instead of making him fight and Kalayev, which nobody wants

to see this fight except Ankaliv and his manager and a couple people. And about Bilal, because if Bilal wins, then Islam is not going to fight him. And we will have a lot of of exciting fights at the 150 fight and the 170 because he will have no title defenses and he's hated from the UFC and they will make him fight as much as possible to lose it as soon as possible. Thank you, Mike. First of all, I think Islam would absolutely fight Balaamahman. Why would he not? I think that is a very wittable fight for him. Someone had asked earlier who I would pick Leon versus Islam, I'd probably pick Leon right now.

But I would pick, I'd probably pick Islam to be below in such a weird way. Because Islam, why wouldn't Islam take that fight? Like I know they've trained together, but it doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean anything. Especially now. But totally, I mean, here's what I'll say about your first thought. Like I said earlier, if Tom Ashtonal loses, he's never fighting. John Jones. I think he's never fighting John Jones anyways, but he's certainly 100% never

fighting John Jones if he loses to Curtis Blades. I think the Pereira fight will happen. It's very possible if John beat Steepa. This whole notion that nobody wants to see Perera of fight, Ancolaev, I just don't think that's true. I want to see that fight. I want to see it. That's the only fight at 205 I want to see. I don't need to see him fight Jamal Hill again because he kills Jamal Hill again. There's no doubt of my mind that he kills Jamal Hill a second time. He's already brutally knocked out Yuri

well, one and a half times. So that fight's gone. I don't want to see him fight Anthony Smith. There's one dude. It's Ancolaev. That's an interesting fight. And by the way, Perr could win that fight. Peri could absolutely win that fight.

So that to me is interesting. And it should be the co-made event to John Jones versus Stipe. That should be at MSG. That should be the co-main event. You put John and Pereira on the same card. Sure, you're risking

it a little bit. But you could still do John Jones or Alex Perey, even if John loses, even if Pereira loses, who gives a shit? You've seen egregious title shots of the UFC with two stars, but I want to see Angolaev, for sure.

That's an interesting fight to me. It's the most interesting fight for Alex Pereira 205 without question. And it's a fight he can win because he's got the cheat code. All he has to do is hit Angolaev one time and it's over. He just has to hit him clean once and he's done. And Ankylaif can crack too, man. He can crack. That knockout he had to start the year was frigging brutal.

It was a brutal knockout. It took a sloggy several minutes. to get there but once it got there that was nasty shit that was nasty so yeah i want to see it definitely want to see it tv go ahead for morning um i know it's a 304 fight week but i do want to talk about um the dubi duba fight card uh next week um i feel like no one's talking about the the marlin vera and uh figurado fight um just want your early thoughts on that one and uh specifically for figgy like if he does win this is he like a fight away from the belt or could potentially be fighting for the belt like i don't think he'll be a ban on weight champion but i think it'd be cool for figgy to you know get a chance to be

double champ you know but yeah thoughts on that i don't know if he's a win away but he's he's he's on his way he's certainly on his way if he finished if he goes and finishes marlon vera that'll go a long way because that dude is uncillable. Shotto Valley did his best to try to kill that man. You couldn't do it. But if Figgie Small somehow does it, then that's impressive.

He'd be on his way. He'd still have work to do. Probably have to win one or two more. Because that's just not a big, huge fight for O'Malley, because O'Malley's about to fight Marab. He's probably going to fight the winner of Sandhagen versus Umar. So what do you do

with Figgi? Do you just throw him in there at the loser? that fight, I don't know. But yeah, Figgies at least a win away, maybe two, probably two, I would guess. But yeah,

beating Maro Mvara is a big feather in the cap, so, like it. Love that card. I'm actually going to be on vacation

next week, so I'm probably, I'm actually going to be at a wedding as that card is that card. It's an afternoon card. I probably watch some of it. I don't know if I'll be able to watch

like the main event live. But after 304, I think I work like the next couple of days and I'm off for a week. But that's going to be fun. I can't wait for that card and that fight. And it's a good one. And then it's back to the world's most famous Apex the week after that. Four quarter sports, go ahead.

Hey, Mike. So I know that we had the Apex card, but to be honest, really didn't care about it outside of that crazy 30 punch combo by Hyder Emil. I saw you guys ended up announcing that Mazar Evloyaf was fighting Al-German Sterling. I believe that's the Utah card. I wanted to get your thoughts on how do you feel like that fights going to play along, especially in high elevation, and who do you think cardio is going to be able to withstand longer? And then for the main event for USC 304, Bala Muhammad, I feel like he has a pass to victories to win. I know that he said that Khabibu ended up drawing out a game plan for him.

If Balao somehow gets this done, which I'm going to put some money on it, do you feel like they're going to do the trilogy match and spin it around for the Abu Dhabi pay-per-view in October? I could see them putting that as the co-main event bolstering up that Abu Dhabi card as Islam is fighting in the main event against Armin-Sirukin. So we wanted to give your thoughts on those two things. Thanks, Mike. No. They won't put that on the card because, as we've learned, cool for Abu Dhabi to get B'Law on there,

that fight doesn't add a single pay-per-view-by. It just doesn't. Just like doing B'Law versus Gilbert Burns is the co-main event for that New Jersey card. Didn't add a single paper-p-by-bye. We're just throwing shit at the wall and hope that it sticks. and there's no need for that fight to even happen on that card. Just like there would be no need for that fight to happen on this card.

And I don't think Leon's going to get a rematch if he loses. I think they will throw a ball right in there with Shafcott. And I think a lot of people know how that fight would probably go. So, yeah, I think they would probably try to get the belt off the wall as quickly as possible. So, I mean, could they throw them in Abu Dhabi? sure, but it wouldn't be against Leon Edwards. I'll tell you that right now. They throw them in there with Shafkat.

1,000%. That's what they would do. And then if you're going to bet on Ballal, I don't think it's juicy enough, man. I think there's value on Leon Edwards at minus 250. It's not juicy enough. Get Balala like plus 240, plus 250? I think you

got something there. I just don't think there's enough juice there. I don't think the juice is really worth to squeeze. I might bet Ballal, with the points because I don't think I think this fight's close I think Leon wins

I think Leon probably like the way I see this fight is that Leon kind of dusts up Bilal for three rounds but doesn't put him away and then Balal comes back and gets some momentum and wins the next two rounds

you know maybe a 49-46 mix in there somewhere 48-47 um Balmohamaam and plus five and a half points is minus 110 I might just go ahead and take a shot there because I do think because I do think this fight is competitive

but I do and I think Leon wins I think Leon wins all right we got like five more minutes so let's rush through these next few and then we gets to go uh left lane go ahead Mike can you hear me yes

uh cool I mean everyone is obviously looking forward to the main fights this weekend they're going to get talked about enough I think there's a pretty clear narrative going around all of the fights. So I don't know. I'm not really going to talk too much about everything else. But one fight I did want to get your, I guess, pick or maybe your opinions on is Christian

Leo Duncan versus Gregory Rodriguez, because that's now on the main card. As it seems, McIv and Cap is just forever getting moved down the card. Apparently now it's on the early prelims. I guess Mohamed McIv will forever be a prelim fighter. but what's your prediction for Gregory Rodriguez and CLD? Duncan's actually a slight favourite, which is kind of surprising to me. Even though I think he might win,

it just seems a bit weird that he's a favorite given that he hasn't really beat anyone that good. He lost Darwin Petrosian. Robocop's been looking pretty good recently. So yeah, what's your pick on that? And also, I don't know if you mentioned it because I just hopped in like five minutes ago, but I don't know if you saw the new custom shorts

or whatever for Leon and then pay. Paddy's got the orange shorts. So I guess, yeah, if you like those yes or no, fire or trash, let me know. Peace out. I mean, they're fine. I saw the Patty ones, which leads me to believe that he resigned with the UFC already because they're not just going to give him custom shorts if he is not under contract with them. So I fully expect Patty Pimblech to show up at Media Day and reveal that he signed a new deal.

And if that is the case, that is horrific career. management. Horrific career management. Real bad. But, you know, it's, yeah, I think that's honestly what it's going to, I think that's honestly what happened. I think that's what happened. He's probably resigned. I don't know this for sure, but they're not going to give somebody custom shorts on the last fight of their deal. I just don't see that happening. But they're fine. They're okay. Just, they're very okay, just like the rest of them. I liked Pereiras. Those are pretty cool. I did like the Max Holloway ones. Poria ones I was not a big fan of. But these are fine.

Like, they're acceptable. And in the middle-way fight, just looking at the lines, I'm probably going to bet on Gregor Rodriguez, because one, I don't think you should be the underdog, and two, that's really it. I mean, revert back to one. Gregor Rodriguez should be the favorite here. He's fought way better dudes.

Way higher level experience. Christian Liori Duncan's good. I've been impressed with him. He seems to be getting better and better. It's a tough ask, man. It's a tough one on short notice. Gregory Rodriguez should be the favorite to me, so I see value of plus 120, so I will probably bet on that.

But wouldn't surprise you if CLD won. Dude's good. Nicholas, go ahead. Yep. Okay, just some quick ones on Belal's comments. I mean, how smart is it from a PR perspective? You can easily hype it up, my dude, but maybe get the job done before you start talking shit. It's not like you are beloved or anything.

And the second thing about King Bobby Green, I'm going to just call you Bobby, because your mother named you Bobby. It's pretty simple. I'm just wondering what you are going to call him, Mike, regards from Norway. He's going to be King Green because that's what he wants. So he's legally changed the name, so he will be King. It's going to take me a minute to get used to it. But I honestly think Bobby should be his nickname.

It should be King Bobby is the nickname Green. Instead of Bobby King Green, be King Bobby Green. But, I mean, look, man, like if you don't want to call him Bobby, if you want to call him Bobby, call him Bobby. I don't give a shit. but for us we work in a field where we talk to these fighters and if they want to be called king then you're we're calling him king we're calling him king yeah well i mean look i i kind of get what ball is doing because he's he's not an idiot he knows this is it if he loses on saturday that's his only chance of the title shot it's never going to happen again so you

might as well just put all that shit out into the universe and if you pays off you win the belt, you can go back to all those comments. And you look like kind of a hero doing it in a lot of respects. You get to go on enemy territory. You win the belt. You shut up a lot of people. And you revert back to those comments. Especially if he goes out there and dominates.

But some of the, I mean, his confidence is unbelievable. This whole, yeah, man, I'm going to take him down and beat him up. And as I'm beating him up, I'm going to look at his coach Dave LaVelle and say, hey, shout out some advice to him. I'll sit back and wait. And then he's going to shut out some advice. I'm just going to hit him a whole bunch. And then the round's going to end. And I'm going to yell at him again.

Give him better advice. And then I'm just going to take him down and beat him up again. I'm going to keep yelling at his coach and telling him all this stuff. He's like, all right, dude. Like, you better win. You better win. It's pretty wild. Leon just looks so calm, cool, and collected with the whole thing.

Blal's just incredibly confident. So this is going to be one of those shows that I look past. Like, this is going to be one of those fight builds I'm going to look back on, like, the things that I say and wonder, like, I might have to be like hand up. I was wrong. Because I do feel like Leon is going to win this fight. But who knows? Sometimes that just unwavering confidence. It's not like the nervous, almost somewhat nervous, Jamal Hill confidence.

Because, like, you can see it in his face. Like, he did a good job of, he did a good job of, like, building anticipation to the fight. But you never truly believed Jamal Hill when he was like, I'm going to stand up with this dude and I'm going to outstrike him, and I'm going to knock him up. This would be the easiest fight of my career. But like when Ilya Tuporia said it,

you're just like, all right, this dude truly believes this. Is Belaw more Jamal Hill or is he more Illy Teporia? We'll find out. We'll find out. All right, we're about to wrap up here, but I want to get a couple more in. Tadjik Bay, real quick.

Go ahead. Wow, Mike. Hello. It's been a long time. You hear me okay? Yep, I got you. Yeah, I think a couple of thoughts on the 304. Belal Leon, I think the issue here is that regardless of who wins, like the sport loses, right?

It's like one boring fighter against like the more boring fighter. So I don't think it makes any much, like in the UFC universe, it makes much difference, who wins. and I think it's whoever wins is a big loss for a division and for organization as a whole. And inside of that, I don't understand the people's obsession also with Anka-Lyev versus Pereira because we're far from the sport of meritocracy, right? Maybe Anka-Aev deserved it, but I don't think he fights in any way, shape, or form entertaining fights. why you put him against one of the most entertaining, most recognized figures in the sport, I absolutely don't get it.

Maybe give him like three, four more fights atop of the echelon and never give him a title shot. I don't think just based on the levels of entertainment that Anka Live brings that he should ever get a title shot. So, yeah, that's all I have. Cheers. I think that is an insane take. Just an absolutely insane take.

Because there's nobody else for, there's nobody else. Who else is there? that is any way interesting. You want to just throw him in there with Anthony Smith and watch him kill him? Like, that's not entertaining to me. You want to see him fight Roman DeLizze?

Like, come on. Like, who else is there? Who else is there? The other interesting dudes are, like, either have no chance of winning or he's already dusted him up. Cleo Roundtree would be fun, but, like, he's got to win a fight

against a top dude. Throw Cleoleon Rountry in there with, I don't know, throw Killeel in there with Volcanozimier. And if he beats Volcanozumia, sure. If it's all about that, then cool. But, like, I'm actually fascinated by this fight. They can't all, it's the co-main event.

It'd be the co-the way I would see it, it's the co-main event of John Jones v. Stipe. And I think, I would pick Pereira to beat Ancolaif. I would pick Pereira to win. Because he just needs to touch him one time. But, I mean, there's just nobody else. Yon's hurt. Jamal Hill hurt.

Volka-Ozabir? No. Rackich, no. Johnny Walker, no. Cleo Roundtree has to win another fight. Roman Delizze? No. Anthony Smith? No. Bogdugoskov? No. Ryan Spann? No. Do we give Dominic Reyes his title shot? Like, who else is there? There's nobody else? Yeree again?

No. Give me Ankleif. I want to see it. Ankle Ave has had some boring fights. No doubt about it. I don't think the Beulovich fight is that bad. I don't think it's that bad. It was actually kind of interesting to see him dig down deep after basically beating Jan Belhovic on one leg.

That to be was pretty impressive. That Johnny Walker knockout was fucking brutal. That was a brutal knockout. The Tiago Santos fight was bad. No doubt about it. It was bad. Like the Kuchelaba fights are great. You beat the shit out of Anthony Smith, like real bad.

I don't know. Look, he's not the most exciting guy. Like, honestly, the fight that ruined it for everybody was the Tiago Santos fight. The UFC gave him a gift. They handed, gave him a main event against a guy that he could, he could just get him at any point. All he'd do is just go get him. And instead he wanted, he fought a tepid 25 minutes. and did just enough to

like he won dominantly but it was just a guy fighting to not lose as opposed to going out there and having a fun fight and finishing this guy that to me is what kind of took some

some luster off of ankle live but I mean there's just nobody else there's just nobody else sometimes you just have to give the next like the next best dude a chance you just have to and I think or you just

He just vacates the belt and goes fights and heavyweight. Like, go on to do that, fine. I'm okay with that. But vacate the other belt. Yams, go ahead. We have to fly through these, like real, real, real, real quick. Hey, Mike. A heck of morning.

Sorry, I got here a little late. I just wanted to see if he knew who's going to be fighting in Salt Lake. That's all I had. Thank you. Oh, I didn't mean to do that. I mean, we know Algebraed Sterling v. Bob Zara of life's happening. That we have officially confirmed. Someone asked earlier how I think that fight's going to go.

I'm going to avoid until I see otherwise. But it's the perfect fight. Like, it's perfect matchmaking. As far as the other fights, I mean, nothing is like signed, sealed and delivered, but if I had to guess, then this isn't like breaking any major news. This is just what is out there.

And these are the talks right now. It's probably Iliots-Pory versus Max Holloway, is the main event, and we're probably going to see Raquel Pennington versus Juliana Paney and the co-maintenham. And then Sterling and Movs are, and we'll see how the rest of the card fills out. But yeah, that's

what I, that's, that's what's trending right now. It ain't done. We got to figure out Noche, too, because we're like just over a month away from Noche happening. Like six weeks away from Noce UFC, or UFC 306, whatever we're calling that.

and we expect Sean O'Malley Marab and Grasso Shepchenko to be on that card. And some of the fights are getting announced. There's one that hasn't been announced yet. I mentioned on the watch party. It's not done done yet, but it seems like we might see Daniel Zell-Huber versus Esteban Rievovich on that card, which let's go. That fight rules. That's what everybody wants right now.

But I just don't think we put pen to paper on that fight just yet. But yeah. That's where I think we're going. All right. We'll end with Ani. And then we have to go. If I don't leave, if I'm not out here by 11, I might get in trouble. Ani, go ahead.

Hello, Mike. It's good to talk to you again. UFC 304, I think this is a card of narratives. I'm not sure if you've been following WWE, and I know this is not free for all Friday, but I keep missing them, so I'll shoot my shot anyway. CM Punk just got cleared. CM Punk is from Chicago.

That's a win for Chicago. And both the co-main event and the main event is Chicago versus the United Kingdom. And Drew McIntyre is from United Kingdom as well. What's going on, Mike? Do you believe in these signs? Do you think everyone from Chicago is going to get their retribution? that's one question and actually I just stop with that thank you Mike maybe it's possible it's possible someone asked like last week if those two guys wins that mean the UFC is going to immediately

go to Chicago no no if that if the city of Chicago wants to pay the UFC tens of millions of dollars to go there, then certainly they'll go. But we'll see what happens. Blal winning, we're not surprised me. Curtis winning, we're not surprised me. It'd be a, it would be a pretty fascinating landscape if that's what happens. And both those guys win. It would be really interesting, intrigued by it all.

But this is what makes this card so good. I'm vastly intrigued about the green Pimblit fight. I'm more, I'm more interested in that fight. Patty has not resigned. But I would guess with the custom shorts that he probably did, and that's just going to hurt my soul. Like, I hope he's still a free agent. I really truly hope he did not resign just yet.

I think he'll be back. And I think his best place is the UFC, no doubt about it. But like, you have an opportunity here. You have an opportunity to go into free agency when negotiating power with a ranking next to your name in the, Best division in the sport. Why not take that? It's a very winnable fight for Patty Pimplet.

If he gets green to the ground, he wins. If he gets takedowns, he wins. If he can, he loses. I actually have a, for the first time ever, I have a bet on Patty Pimbley. I got him at plus 1.15 the other day. To me, that's a doggar pass fight. and I feel like after the presser and media day and all that stuff I kind of feel like money will come in on Bobby Green

but I think Patty I think Patty will get takedowns I think he wins I think he's going to win the fight but we'll see all right we got to go thank you very much we'll be back on Friday we'll do it again kind of a weird setup with the card being in Manchester and being at different times not really helping out the fine folks of Manchester, especially with the pay-per-view card,

but meeting day tomorrow, I think it starts at 9 a.m. Eastern. I think we're going to try to stream that if Jose can get to Manchester. He, dude just has such bad luck traveling. I believe the pressers at, like, noon Eastern, which means BTL, we're going to delay BTL. We're going to push it back a couple hours

to react to the press conference and all that. stuff. And then we'll be back here Friday to continue the preview for USC 304 and beyond. So thank you very much. Have a great rest of your Tuesday. Have a heck of morning, everybody.