MMA Fighting - HOAM | Should UFC Want Henry Cejudo To Beat Aljamain Sterling At UFC 288?

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

We’re coming off a mega busy combat sports weekend with UFC, Bellator, boxing and yes, influencer boxing galore. Sergei Pavlovich continued his run to a heavyweight title shot, Patchy Mix confirmed that he’s one of the best in the world at 135 pounds, Gervonta Davis won his highly anticipated match with Ryan Garcia, and Nate Diaz got into all kinds of trouble. On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, guest host Alexander K. Lee reacts to the main event of UFC Vegas 71 and what could be next for Curtis Blaydes after falling short in another big opportunity. Additionally, topics include whether Garcia quit against Davis, if Blaydes has hit the end of the road in the UFC, the most disappointing what-could-have-been careers, whether the UFC should be rooting for Aljamain Sterling or Henry Cejudo to win the UFC 288 main event, the possibility of Bellator putting together grand prix tournaments for its flyweight and featherweight women, what’s the most exciting BKFC matchup this weekend, and more. Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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To the Vox Media Podcast Network. All right, everybody. That's right. This is heck of a morning. Well, I guess, you know, we talked about this. I got a lot of great suggestions from people sending me DMs, just adding me on Twitter. Great suggestions for what to call the show in Mike's absence. But first thought, best thought.

We said Lee of a Morning fits like a glove. You know, the wordplay just as good. So that's what we're going with. It is Lee of a morning for the next couple of days, hoping to do at least two shows this week, guys. I want to be with you on Tuesday and Thursday, while the beloved Mike Heck is on a well-deserved vacation. The man has not taken a real vacation in, I don't know how many years.

Even when he's taking time off, he's still done interviews, he's still done shows. I think he might still be doing an interview this week. But otherwise, Mike is going to be in full Florida mic mode. So feel free to, listen, you guys can DM him on Instagram. You guys can add him on Twitter. I don't know if he'll get a reply. He's off the grid, and I'm glad he is. And he's just enjoying his great New England sports teams being in the playoffs.

So, you know, it's good that Mike is having that time. So we are here at Lee of a morning. We got a lot of stuff to recap, really. I mean, I know it's Tuesday, guys. I know the weekend. already, you know, the Monday morning cooler buzz has already happened, but there was so much stuff to talk about. I think even on the May hour and some of the shows we've done, it was hard to get it all. We had a UFC Vegas card, which somewhat was flying under the radar, maybe not as much

as this upcoming card, but had certainly some implications for the heavyweight division, I think. We had two Bellator cards, Bell Tour making its annual trip to Hawaii. They had the show for, of course, the first responders and the military on Friday. and they had another show on Saturday. And those shows were eventful before they even went down. We had a lot of weigh-in chaos, which some people love. I'm kind of mixed on. It's always fun to talk about.

But there's also that part of me that just wants everyone to weigh in successfully and have the fights go on to schedule. We had, of course, a massive boxing match, Jervante Davis versus Ryan Garcia, which I imagine a lot of you tuned into, or at least saw the highlights, saw the discourse around the finish, saw some of the comments afterwards. words post-fight things like that a lot of the incidents and of course every hardcore m-ma fans favorite topic we had a lot of influencer boxing i'm sure again you guys saw the highlights of those events as well it wasn't just one event guys there was a misfits boxing event misfits boxing is the kSI led influencer boxing promotion and uh that uh that went on friday that was that was headlined by Libyan Bell versus J.M.X. Not 100% sure what a J.MX is, but that's what that was.

And then the next day, early in the day, it was a UK show. We had Kingpin boxing, Kingpin spelled K-A-N, K-I-N-G-P-Y-N, excuse me. We had Kingpin boxing, which was also a bunch of influencers, and headlined by Austin McBroom. And people help me with this. What am I? Listen, I, people should know. I'm almost 40 years old. And Ensign Gibb, excuse me, and Ensign Gibb, Austin McBroom, too. Of course, I should have known that off the top of my head because I'm so hip and with it.

So we got a lot of talk about. I was going to, you know, Mike usually does a recap of his personal life and what's going on with him. I have no life. We got a lot of fights to talk about. Let's get right to the request. Let me see who I can bring in first here. Oh, let's bring it. Let's bring in our pal.

On to the next one, veteran, one of the original, onto the next one, fight pick, submiters. a fine journalist in his own right. Tote Gertie Jensen, let's see if I can bring you in here and not blow up M.AFighting.com. Hello. I haven't checked. Oh, yeah, I should have mentioned. Thank you, Tug.

I should have mentioned. That's right. We have the draft, the 2023 M.A. draft, fancy draft we did. Last year I didn't do great. Now, I will check the poll right now and see how we did. But go ahead, Tuck. Please, go ahead with your S.

Google, MAPFighting.com, check that out, and our podcast as well. Yeah. I'm sorry, Toc. No problem. I enjoyed your draft. Your pick of Jake Paul was nothing. short of shocking and the right pick at the same time because you need to make people care about Bellator. How do you do that? Well, you get a guy who knows his audience and that is what Jake

Paul is. But my thing is this. So Curtis Blades, oh, windy. Okay, Curtis Blades is now out of options in the UFC as I see it. With him losing this fight, he would have to fight. To quote Benile Daryush, 10 more guys to get even a sniff of a title shot. So my question to you, do you think if Curtis Blades went to Dana White's office, if he's even invited, if he just went there and said, hey, can you release me? Would you have no use for you? Because the way I see it, there's no use for UFC for him because he can just knock off contenders. and Curtis Blades will never get a title shot.

So that's my question to you, A.K., and have a fun time being the host of Lee of a Morning. Oh, thank you, you talk. See, Siri, it's catching on, guys. It's catching on. I heard some people will say, you know, Lee of a Morning doesn't make, you know why, like, heck of a morning is called Heck of a Morning.

And I'm like, I'm not familiar with that phrase. I thought it was just because it's his last name. So Lee of a Morning, it's catching on. I think it might be trending by the end of today. I don't want to get too hyped up about it. But that's a, uh, took, that's a great question and suggestion because, yeah, listen, much of the talk after Saturday night is, where does Curtis Blades go from here? Because the guy has had so many near, uh, I guess you say near misses at a potential

heavyweight title shot. The card's never quite lined up for him. He suffered some memorable losses, knockout losses to Franciscanou, to Derek Lewis. And I feel like those really stuck in the minds and the matchmakers and the fans. And he really did need to go on some sort of run or at least knock off another contender. In this case, it would have been Sergey Pavlovich, who was just white-hot in the heavyweight division right now. I want to say he has the longest active finishing streak in the UFC in any division. I think it's now it's five straight, five straight knockouts, five-stream wins all by knockout.

So listen, he's got a lot of buzz around him. Curtis plays could have taken that away. The tactic's a little questionable. some might argue he wanted to show more you know he wants to mix the martial arts he wants to show why he's no doubt deserves a shot at the heavyweight title that he's not just a wrestler but he probably would have been served to do that uh without knowing what curtis blades makes you know without knowing his salary and i imagine you know he's been around long enough he's a heavy weight he's made an evented a few times he's definitely in the six figure range he's probably a higher

ticket item for the uc as it were and uh and in that sense i do think that there's there's a chance that were he to go to the front office and say, listen, it's just, we've kind of hit our natural endpoint here. I wouldn't, if you guys could release me and I could explore other options, you know, Bellator, one championship, probably wouldn't name promotions exactly, but he would explore other options, go do some boxing. I don't know, that's all the race these days, since he seems to love his stand-up so much. I could see them accommodating, because I would think they were in a similar situation

with Corey Anderson, who was doing well in the UFC. and, you know, whatever, they just went their separate ways. I can't remember if his contract ran out or if he did ask for his release. But I think Curtis Blades fits in that range. And again, this isn't like, I don't think the U.C. hates Curtis Blades. I don't think fans everything against Curtis Blades. I don't think Curtis Blades hates the U.S.

I'm sure if the price was right, he'd just love to stick around, you know, just because he can see still a top, I think a top five heavyweight. We haven't updated our M.A. fighting global rankings yet. But I think he's a top five heavyweight. I think he knocks off a lot of the names, a lot of the names, a lot of the potential matchups that are for him next. And, you know, I don't know if he'll be able to rattle off that 10 straight that you suggested he needs. But there's a lot of good reasons for him to stay in the UFC.

Again, primarily it's where he thinks the best competition is and if he can, you know, if they compensate him appropriately. But if he's determined to sort of get a fresh start and win a belt somewhere, it seems very likely it'll happen inside the octagon. And maybe he does have to pursue other opportunities. So definitely something to chew on there. Thank you, Toad. let's see what we can bring in next

remember to kick me off the stage as well how do I have no idea I thought you were taught this did not this uh okay listen I will I will figure this out otherwise you're your co-host I guess okay let me see let me see how I do this I think if I bring someone else in let me see

all right Nathaniel Nathaniel Stephen hello I think I might have you and took on now so I'll figure that out but uh please Nathaniel go ahead and and see your piece sir if you are there yeah can you hear me you are nope hey hey Nathan what's up uh yeah I just want to ask about uh Colby especially with um Balal and uh Gilbert Burns fighting do you think like the winner of that fight is going to be the number one contender in fight Leon or do you think uh Colby is going to fight uh for the belt no matter what that's pretty much oh sorry

Can you repeat that? I was figuring out how to do this, I did this change speaker thing. Sorry, go ahead. You're good. I just wanted to ask, do you think Colby is going to get the title shot against Leon, no matter what happens between Balau and Gilbert Burns?

Or do you think the winner of that fight is going to win the number one contender and get the next title shot? That's it. Thanks, man. Thanks, Daniel. Yeah, that's a great question. I want to say that there's a chance that, what happens with Balal and Gilbert

because those guys both deserve a shot more than Colby. Mike has talked about this. We've talked about this on our shows, ad nauseum. And I'll admit, listen, people know I'm not the biggest Colby Covington fan, so there's a little bit of bias here. But there's also

very strong reasons to give Colby the title shot. I don't think he's a massive draw, but to say that people don't talk about him, to say that he doesn't generate some kind of buzz, like even if it's not ratings wise, but on social media, probably website traffic impressions for for for the UFC the stuff that they keep track of and that stuff matters that stuff matters in today's day and age of course they love pay-per-view buys of course they love television ratings but there's so many other metrics by

which the UFC you know gauges success by which all kinds of entertainment organizations gauge success that those kinds of things matter social media impressions is huge and and I know for a fact Colby gets a lot of that whether it's because people are tweeting they they hate them or they love him he gets reactions right so so there is a good reason and and again i said sort of talking about curtis blades yes colby cummden has been inactive but i don't think anyone would argue he's not a top uh i i've got top 10 at worst and i would think most people would agree top five top i don't know if he's in my top five more personally but if someone puts into their top five hard to argue he took the former champion you know you know kamar usman to the limit a couple of times he's got he's got a strong

case. But if it were up to me, and I could wave a magic wand, yeah, I would love for Balal or Gilbert, too, to get that shot. What would have to happen is, you know, may, gosh, you'd have to have like a first round knock. It has to be an impressive performance. Even like a dominant decision win for either Balal or Gilbert Burns, it's just not going to convince, it's not going to convince the UFC to change their plans. Dana White has had a contentious relationship with Colby Cummington, but they do align philosophically and politically on some things. And Colby has been pretty reliable for him, again, other than having to sit out the last year, which, in fairness to Colby, we can say is for reasons outside of his control.

Maybe there's fights he could have taken, but also we know he was involved in a bit of a lawsuit where his team was claiming brain damage. So it didn't make a lot of sense for him to book a fight in the last year. But that's a really complicated situation. but no so that all that said i would be very very surprised if balla or gilbert can sneak in there i wish i wish one of them could but i do think colby you will see colby and leon next uh so listen we can keep asking we can keep wondering why this is happening but it seems pretty set nothing in mma is guaranteed but that i would go if i were to give you a percentage of that

happening that's like a 90% chance colby versus leon so but great question thank you let's go to Average avenues. Average avenues. What is up? Let's see if you can bring... Hello, yes. How are you, mate? I am great, thank you.

How are you? I'm okay. I'm okay. I'll leave a morning to you, my friend. A lay of a morning to you as well. So my question is, for you, is what's your opinion on Calvin Gasol and moving back down to 170 and how you think he'll go there? Yes. Amazing question. Thank you.

I saw that. Thank you, average avenues. Hold on. Thank you, average average avenue. Yeah, great question. I saw that, I saw that reported the other day. So I'm a pretty big Calvin Gasloom fan. Excuse me, guys.

You can ask the M.A. fighting rankings team. I had him hanging on for a long time in the top 15. Because, again, it was looking at who had he lost to at Middle Way. There was really no, like, embarrassing losses in there. Maybe some of them were quick. There was, like, a quick, jackramant submission. But I think Jack Her Manson is very good. That to me said more about Jackramson than necessarily how bad Calvin Gasselm is.

The Christopher Curtis fight was great. I think it reminded a lot of people how skilled Calvin Gasselm is, why for the longest time he was considered to be a future champion at 170, why he did fight for the title at 185, took Israel Adesnia to the limit. The guy is supremely talented. And I've always believed he to make 170. I've always believed it. I have no problem with the fighting at 185. It's clearly more comfortable for him.

Some people can question discipline, but I also think sometimes people just have body types where they're just, you know, you're a certain, it's like, oh, he's a certain height. He should be able to make 170. But he's a stocky guy. He's a stocky guy. He's made to 170 in the past, I know,

but you get older, the harder it gets. He's going to have to, I think, transform his body pretty significantly to avoid having to make like a weight cut that is just completely deleterious to his performance. So I love the idea of it. I hope Calvin Gassel and his team are really being honest about this as far as what changes that they are going to make.

Because Calvin, how old is he? I keep thinking he's old, but he started the UFC so young. Calvin's only 31 years old. He turns 32 later this year. He's got a lot of mileage on him, so he's a little bit older in fight years. But he was very, very young when he joined the UFC. I think he was the youngest American. I want to say ever to appear on the older fighter.

If I'm wrong, people feel free to correct me. I remember there was a younger fighter on an international season. I'd be an Australian guy. I think I Adisae, I think Edese was his name. But he was the youngest American. So it feels like he's been around forever, which he has, but in real life age, he's only 31. It really isn't too late for him to drop down.

We've seen older fighters go the other way. We've seen him drop back down, but never was such a complicated way in history as Calvian. because that 170 cut is really brutal for him. But listen, you guys saw him fight at 170. He looked like he was made a world title challenger someday. If he could just fix those problems with the scale. And then we saw it 185.

Again, he's had some struggles. But the guy is so skilled. Endless cardio. That takes you a long way. Great striking. And he's a really good wrestler, too. He doesn't have to use it a lot. He's the kind of guy who's really converted himself into a great, you know, a striker, grappler,

not the other way around. But he has that, too. He mixed the martial arts well. So I think, I really do believe, given how well, everybody is right now, if he can actually drop down there and not have trouble making weight, he can get himself to a title shot within three fights. Three fights. It'll be one fight down, you know, sort of tested out, and then a fight against like a top 20 guy, and then you give him a fight against the top 10 guy. And then, so 2024, it's possible. But listen, this is Prince of positivity talking.

I might be way off base here, but I would like to see Calvin Gassum give it. One more shot. I'd like to see one more shot. All right, let's bring in QP. QP at the QLP. See if we can bring. Hey, hi, QP. You are on, sir.

I think you just need to unmute you. Oh, it was good, bro. What's good? I thought I was a little late after I wasn't going to be able to ask the question. But I recently got a call to casual in the comments because when all the, when all the fights were coming out about international fight week, I said, well, where is the Jamar Hill? in an Izzy fight. So people said, oh, that don't

never happen. Oh, you're a casual. Why would you think that would even happen? And I said, well, if you watch all the interviews, that's literally the fight they can call them for.

Nobody in Light Heavyweight is book, or people in Light Heavyweight are a book, and Yeri still hasn't come back yet. Jamar Hill doesn't have a fight within the next six months. Izzy clearly doesn't have a fight within the next six months.

And then everybody in middleweight just got books against each other. So I thought that that was the UFC trying to, you know, basically, you know, move towards that direction, but what do you think? And do you think it's a possibility we see that fight? If not, international fight week, sometime, I guess, late summer or early, I guess, September. Okay, I'll think about it. Thanks, Kupi. Thank you for the call.

You know, I don't think I'd heard too much about that matchup. Keep in mind, I don't read everything. I don't see every, every comment. Maybe I have him keeping up, you can keep me up with Jamal Hill and Izzy's comments about who they want next. But I don't mind that matchup at all. I agree. Light heavyweights in a strange place right now with, we all want to see Yuri fight Jamal Hill. But that was such a bizarre situation with the injury and then immediately,

immediate relinquishing of the title. But then kind of later saying, I expect to be back, you know, sooner than, than, you know, people may have initially thought.

It was very, very confused. using. So if we don't get him and Jamal Hill, I'm not sure what other great options do you have at 205 at the moment. Let me take a quick glance at the rankings here. Ankleyev, where is this guy

right now? I want to say he's not booked yet. Let me, sorry guys, if you hear me click clacking away, I'm just doing my quick, quick research on the great topology.com. Jan Blahovic is also an option, but I think I've always wanted to see those guys run it

back. I'm sure they'd much rather just kind of move on and get Jamal Hill, but it would feel weird to give one of them a title shot off the draw. It could happen. Regarding Jamal Hill and Izzy, I think that's a very smart call-out by Jamal Hill if he's talking about it. People know, I'm critical of Jamal Hill. I really hated some of the comments he made following Dana White's, you know, domestic violence, New Year's Eve incident. Jamal Hill really made an ass for himself.

But putting that aside, he had a great performance against Gopher to Shera. he really does have the potential to be the unequivocal, I think, number one light heavy in the world. He's not there yet. Some people might have put him up there because he is currently holding the undisputed title, right? It was vacated. This is not an interim belt. He is technically the undisputed U.C. champion. And again, it looked great.

I mean, that was a five-round dominant performance against Gloverd-Deshire, which to me was like justice and president of if he'd start Glover. If he starts Glover, we might be like, oh, you know, well, he's a younger, more athletic guy. He just kind of caught him. But to kind of outwork him and really, really, you know, show off his full skill set against Glover, surviving some situations on the ground. It was very impressive. Him and Izzy would be a super fun matchup. Depending who you ask, I always hear different things about what people thought of what people thought of Israel's fight with Jan Blahovic.

I thought he looked pretty good. I thought Jan was, you know, won a lot of the striking exchanges as well. Definitely uses grappling to seal the wind later in the fight. but Izzy did not look at a place at 205. I do wonder if he's one of those guys who, you know, you'd want to see him when he moves a 205, like permanently to make a real change, like real bodily changes, because he makes 205 now, like, no problem. Could he add on some muscle?

Could he make himself a more dedicated light heavy weight physique-wise? Probably. Probably. Would he do that for a one-off fight with Jamal Hill? I don't know. But yeah, I like the idea of that matchup. And Jamal Hill is a tall light heavy weight, but he's not, like, massively big. And I don't think we'd be worrying about him just, like, tackling Israel and, like,

using his size advantage to control him. So it'd be a fun striking battle. And not one that, like Israel is guaranteed to win. Because, like I said, Jamal Hill, I don't like him. I don't like him personally. But that dude has all the potential in the world to string together some light heavyweight tail defenses. And if he started off, his first defense against Israel, Adesnia, that get a lot of people

talking. And let me tell you, a lot of people say a year, he's still the number one guy. but if even I know, I know is he's a middleweight, but I tell you, if you get a win against him, your credibility goes up way, way, way, way, way high. So, yeah, cool idea. Again, I wasn't aware that that was really buzzing about, but cool idea.

Guys, I'm sorry, I have to bring this man in. I have to bring in the esteemed New York Rick. Yes, he's getting M.A. fighting slash M.A. Hour privilege. I apologize. I will get to more of the, you find folks soon enough. But I have to bring in Eric Jackson. Hello, Alex. how are you

New York, Rick, thank you for blessing Lee of a morning with your presence. It's a pleasure to be here. Let me just be the first to say what an incredibly good job you're doing.

Unbelievable job truly this morning. So thank you for manning the ship this morning. Happy to do. My question to you. Let me start with a statement. I feel like we're being robbed

of prime Hamzaa Shama of years. He's just been very inactive. now, I will grant, there's certainly been some travel issues. I know that he's notoriously hard to get around, and that's kind of like half rumor, half reported. Dana White has mentioned lots of things going on with that. But I also feel like there's the UFC kind of trying to like cherry pick some of these matchups for him, where eventually they either inevitably fall apart or there is some kind

of travel issue, and then ultimately we don't get Hamza at Shemaya fights, and it's very frustrating as somebody who's one of the founding members of the Hamzat Shemai of bandwagon. But that leads me to my question. You mentioned Calvin Gastilum. I think John Jones is an example of what I'm about to ask. But who's a fighter that you feel like you were robbed of some of their prime years for one reason or another or some of their fights or just wanted to see more and ultimately weren't able to kind of see for one reason or another?

Oh, wow. Thanks. That is a great question. All right. I'm going to have to think about this, but I will, I will, got to talk about a little hazmat first as well. Hamza, excuse me, thank you.

All right, everyone. I will get to some more questions. I don't want to, I won't muse on this for too long. Yeah, I mean, listen, Hamzat has to be up there. This guy went from fighting three times in what, in like two months,

looking like he was going to break the record for UFC wins, finishes every record in the book. And I think we knew it was going to slow down. We didn't know it was going to slow down so much. You know, listen, things beyond their control. COVID happened.

We forget the only reason he even went on this great, like this crazy debut for the UFC is because they're on fight islands. Just nothing was normal. Nothing was, I don't know if they would normally book a new guy to, again, you know, fight that frequently, no matter how impressive he was, if it wasn't for kind of the screwy circumstances

that was surrounding him and the early start of his UFC career. So it is unfortunate. He's definitely way up there. Oh, how could I, I was going to say, it's going to take me a long time to think of an answer. I'll say, I'll say two. I'll say two. First, a little bit less, a little bit less, but I was really sad with what happened with Chris Holdsworth.

I'm a big ultimate fighter guy, as people know. He looked great on Tough 18. That was a really cool season. That was mixed with women's bantam weights, I think. I think that was them. And I think Julianna Pena, McHennington was on that season. and then for the men's band, it was like Davy Grant. That season, actually people should know,

that season is kind of what helps me gain confidence as a writer and sort of gain like a little bit of traction in the MIG community because I was doing Ultimate Fighter recaps, you know, right when the show was definitely starting to sort of go downhill as far as level of interest. And I love doing it. And I was doing, I think, a couple of seasons before this. I was doing international seasons too.

And tough 18, there was a scene where, if people remember, Anthony, I think he's named Sharkbait, Anthony Sharkbait Gutierrez was struggling to make weight. It was a terrible, terrible situation for him. Ronda Rousey was his coach. He was trying to get him together. He started, he was in such bad shape and so far gone from making weight that when they sort of like, oh, can you go to the washroom and maybe like sweat something off or just take a leak, just try to lose some weight. He instead started drinking shower water. It was really depressing and sad. hopefully he fought after and did some of stuff

I think this from pro wrestling too but yeah that anyway that whole scene I wrote about that that was hilarious I got some great people responding to me and I was like okay maybe maybe writing can can work out for me so here we are now Ultimate Fight of 18 thank you

and the winner of that was Chris Holdsworth and Chris Holdsworth looked great he won he won the show Dominant submission grappler a guy out of team alpha male and fought once after the only fighter, he beat Chico Camus. And then that was it.

That was it, because as we all know, his career was derailed by a concussion and training. A lot of fingers pointed at T.J. Dilleshaw. I don't know. Listen, I don't want to get into, like, blaming people,

but clearly something happened. He hasn't fought since. This was back in 2014. I don't know if Chris Holdsworth was going to be a world champion. I don't know if he was going to, you know, be a top 10 guy. You know, a lot of these later season

ultimate fighter, competitors are all over the place. Some of them went on to be, depending the division, especially. Some of them went on to be top 10, top five guys, couple fought for, you know, challenge for titles. Others had two fights in their route. Others never came close to being top 30 in the U.S. in their division. So, and then Contender Series comes along and now it doesn't mean what it used to. But I had really high hopes for Chris Holdworth, and I felt a bit bad for him. The other obvious option, people know, I love me some Ryan Hall. This guy just can't stay healthy, which is weird because he's not like a he's one of those guys where you you think because of his style you know he's the

greatest grappler i've ever seen in my life it would be very conducive to longevity he's not like getting into wars he's not standing in standing and bang but he just cannot stay healthy and he's missed on a lot of big fights i'm just looking at his topology uh dan e gay would have been a great fight ricardo lamas would have been a great fight for him these are fights that legitimately could have moved him higher up in the rankings and it just didn't work out that way so i have felt very robbed of the the Ryan Hall experience. Another ultimate fighter winner, by the way.

And that was back in 2015. What he won? 2015, he's fought five times since then. Five times in eight years. I feel robbed. I feel robbed. Anyone else want to chime in? Please do.

But also, you know, please keep those questions coming. Let's bring in... Oh, I got to bring in Tristan Gordet. I got to bring in Tristan Gordet. I cannot do the show. Oh. I might have lost them. Tristan, I'm sorry.

Tristan, if you're out there and I missed your call, please, please try and chime in again. For Corner Sports, another heck of a morning regular. So here we see. Hey, hey, AK, it's actually nice speaking to you. What's the quote? I wanted to get your thoughts on,

so the main event that happened with Pavlovich and Blades. Do you think that Blades is suffering from the Kamara Usman effect? And what I mean about that is, is he got to the dance, he got to the UFC by wrestling, and I feel like he has possibly the best skill set in the heavyweight division. What I mean about the whole Kamar Uzman effect is that he fell in love with a striking. And I felt that I think Jed had possibly tweeted this out or somebody for Enamefledonleys.com as we tweeted this out, that if he would have used his IQ and just tackled what's it called Sergey Pappel.

And Forrest Pavlovich to try to get up and, you know, try to use defensive wrestling to try to avoid being on the ground. We would have seen a different fight and they would have favored Curtis Blades. But do you think that Blades are suffering from the Kamar Ustman effect from just falling in love with his striking? That's what it seems with a lot of wrestlers now. They get, they knock people out. I remember he knocked out Chris Dawkins and I was surprised about that though he was in a using a, you know, stretch it out. but I don't know. I just thought that Pavlovich had, what's the call?

We would have seen a lot of more questions answered if Pavlovich would have lasted, you know, going into the second round. I actually picked Pavlovich to win by round one, TKO. And I wanted to get your thoughts on the Ryan Garcia-T-Davis fight. And then lastly, I know you're a big NBA fan. I know your Raptors are not in the in the playoffs. Which team are you rooting for in these playoffs? All right.

Thanks, A.K. Thank you for corner sports. Thank you, sir. First, all right. First, I'll answer. I'm kind of rooting for the Denver Nuggets. I'm a fan. I just love Nikola Yokic.

I think it's always awkward when a guy who's won multiple MVP's not even made to the NBA finals. This, of course, happened to Canada's beloved Steve Nash. I don't think that diminishes Steve Nash's legacy at all. I don't think he diminishes Nikola Yokic's legacy at all. But it is nice for someone who's... And I don't think Yokch is going to win it again this year. But there's a chance he wins the MVP again. He's in the top three.

And to win three consecutive MEPs and not make the NBA finals ever, which again, there's still time. But it should be this year. This year would be really good for him. It would be shocking. So winning for them. Also rooting for the Phoenix Suns a bit for our beloved.

David, Shaheen Elshadie, who has been, he's been suffering quite a bit. He's suffering quite a bit. He's very hopeless. I think they have a strong chance, if not this year, next year. But I don't know if Shaheen Elshadie can take much more of what this team has been putting him through the last couple of seasons coming pretty close. And also having some embarrassing flameouts like last year. So Denver and Phoenix, anyone but Boston, New York or Philadelphia, those teams can get

stuffed. Davis versus Garcia was yeah so I was covering a lot of that for MMA fighting very cool fight I agree with a lot of the analysis that Garcia he was he won the first round he wasn't doing badly in the second round either it looked like you know before the knockdown happened it looked like it was a pretty even round Garcia probably if he kept up strategy would have won that round as well so you know did he get over aggressive did Davis just figure him out either way clearly that knockdown changed the whole complexion of the fight it was davis the rest of the way uh davis a great great great boxer um and the body shot i i can't stand

the the quitter talk uh i don't know again maybe i'm just being overly uh protective of a fighter but when you saw the replay i mean that shot he stepped right into that davis liver shot i mean and tank davis again this we're not talking about like Mixing the martial arts here. We're not talking about guys who were like some kind of strikers, kind of wrestlers. These are boxers, man. And those gloves, the impact really, those goals really drive the impact home with punches. So it doesn't surprise me that there was a delayed reaction.

We've seen that in MMA. You know, we've sent an M.A from Head Strikes. We saw that was Shane Burgos and Edson Barbosa. So anyone questioning like, oh, did he just feel like suddenly feel a wince of pain and decided he couldn't continue anymore? I think he got shut down. He's done with a normal body shot. But I was listening to Carl Frampton on the May hour on Monday.

And again, listen, he knows more about boxing than I ever will. And he went along with, listen, Ariel asked him, do you think that Ryan Garcia quit? Carl Frampton said yes. So, listen, that's the opinion of an expert. I can disagree all I want. I know he's not the only expert out there who thinks that maybe Ryan Garcia could have continued. He kind of sprang up right at like the count of 10. He kind of got back up.

I guess people wanted to see him writhing in agony. But for me, he's a fighter. I think if you know, you know, his legs are probably gone. Like, he probably could, you know, the pain is, it's just not, we can't imagine it as viewers. You know, so that's why I trust other boxers. I respect them. If they're saying they think he could have continued. But I think that's pretty harsh.

But yeah, very entertaining fight. Not a bad card overall, too. I think two of the undercard fights are really good. And then there was one stinker, but good night of boxing, certainly. And it's for Curtis Blades. first off hashtag keep the martial arts apart guys this is why i say this curtis you got to go it to brought you to the dance you're a wrestler uh has his striking improved a lot he had good moments on saturday i rewatch the fight i'm like whoa like he's tagging sergey with some of these shots he's got

some combinations going his hands are good but at no point in the fight that i feel like oh this should stay on the feet the whole time and and blaze will win or blades will knock him out i never felt that way i said he's winning these are some of these exchanges he's also getting hit himself and if he gets hit again, you know, one too many times, he's going down. And that's what happened. So I understand the need to, again, show off your all-around game to impress, to make a no-doubt case that he is the number one heavyweight. But these are the consequences, right?

Now we're talking about, we're talking about him leaving the promotion. We're talking about him never getting a USC heavyweight title shot. So if he wrestled his way to a decision or wrestled his way to a ground and pound TKO, I mean, would it have been, you know, maybe it wouldn't have made it. headlines, but he's still be winning. He's still, he'd still be in that conversation. So I don't know. Tough to watch. Tough to watch. Let you bring in Aswali. I hope you're still around. I know you've been waiting a while. Hopefully Oswalia is still with us. Regular heck of a morning caller.

Hey, I hear me. Hey, Azwai. I hear. How are you doing? I'm doing great. All right. So I'm just have two, three things I'll have asked. I'm making them really quick. My first thing is, what do you see next for Amman Saruki? Because we don't know. who's actually been the hit line this card this sat against uh renato but um is it possible they can reschedule that fight down the lines or you think it would be a good time for the uc to push him out and find the um the loser of the benille olivera fight um the loser of the benile olivera fight as he's the only guy outside jane lieutenant from the the next generation who's not been tested against the current top five um lightweight and just also regarding hamzaa chimaev um we know

his prime is actually getting wasted. He's probably screwed up his chance at getting the Walterweight title, even regardless if he were to go back down there. Because, you know, first of all, Benile, I mean, not Belal and Gil, but they're going to be fighting for the tower. And, you know, even if Gilbert were to win that fight in two weeks' time, he still lost to Hamza. And obviously, Hamzaat's in a position where he could still request for a title.

but I think it's best if he just focuses on middleweight because that's probably the better weight classroom anyway and if he wants to find the Wallyweight title, I think what I see the UFC doing in the future is Dana will probably want him to win that belt first and get one two title defenses, then fight for the Walthwa if he really wants. And just my third thing is,

what do you see, when do you see the Conn-Megregor and Michael Chandler fight happening? And there, that's it, man. Have a good day. Thanks as well, yeah. A trio of good questions. I'm just making a note here, so I don't forget them. Let's talk about Surukian first.

I would hope they just rebook the Moikano fight. I think it made a lot of sense for both guys when it was put together. I'd certainly like to see it happen. But you raise a good point that this could be a blessing in disguise for Surukian, because getting the loser of the Darius Charles Olivera fight would be huge for him. That's really huge. Those are two top five lightweights. Hanata Moikano, good lightweight, probably in the top 20, top 25 somewhere, very deep division.

And Sarukian, I think, would have been pretty heavily favored in that fight. I don't know what the initial odds were. So you wouldn't find anything here. Maybe they didn't drop, but he would have been favoring the fight, and that's fine, and that's fine. And a tough opponent would have looked great if he beats him, does his usual Surukian thing. But if he could get Oliver Adairjus, I mean, that would just be enormous. I don't think his team to try and hold out for that. If I'm them, it's just get him in there.

Mike, you say all the time, like, for a guy like Armin, you just need to give him exposure. You know, you just need to keep getting him in fights. But in this case, how old's Armin now? Armand's 26. Plenty of time for him still, but boy, if you could get him in there. And even if you lose a fight to a Darius or a Charles Lever, it's not the worst thing the world. It's not the worst thing in the world. You want to be in that conversation. And should that happen, then Armand's only UFC losses would be to Islam,

Matthias Gamrod, and then Beniel or Charles Olivares. So, you know, nobody wants to lose. People want, everyone wants to put together a long win streak, especially at lightweight. It feels like you have to do that to even get a snippet, a title shot. But I would rather they just rebook. I don't think he should wait around. I think it's a bit of a risk. But hopefully for him, blessing in disguise. But otherwise, if you're Mikeano, you want to get that money and get that fight and maybe take this kid's momentum away from him. The other, what were the other two questions? Hamzat, man, listen, he's closer to Alex Pereira in size than he is Leon Edwards.

The guy is just massive, and it's great that he can make $170 and 4. He probably still can now, but the way he mishandled his last weight disaster, I get it. They can blame doctors and blame whoever they want. The point is, man, you are just so big and clearly not within range. of the welterweight limit, that's a problem. That's a problem. It's great that if you want to stick yourself in a sauna for 36 hours and just completely destroy yourself and you can do it, awesome.

I'm glad commissions and the doctors, the medical team are trying to be your fighters away from that. So that's a tactic that, listen, it might have been favored 10 years ago. We're moving on now. We're moving on now. So comes up, you're serious 70. Kind of like we said with Gossum, you got to make serious changes. is 185, he's still totally contender.

I think this is the way for him to go right now. So, yeah, listen, Newark-Rick brought it up too. It sucks that the Kamsat experience has become so dreadful to talk about. We should be talking about this guy getting in there three times a year, just trucking people, just showing why he's arguably a top 10 pound-for-pound fighter. He just doesn't have a division right now. And it's very frustrating. So calms out, please get it together.

Matchmakers, get on the same, talk to this guy. Dana, like, talk to this guy, get this guy on the same page. No more waffling. None of this. Oh, I want to, this guy's at 170, I want to fight. This guy's at 185, want to fight. I want to be a two-division champion. Pick one.

Just pick one right now, please. Please. As fans, that's all we can ask for. And the last thing, oh, Chandler and McGregor, I have to know when Tough 30 is, oh, Tough 31, excuse me, is premiering. I don't think, I don't know if that has a, oh, May 30th. May 30th.

So, let's see. It takes about, what, 10 weeks for the show to go. So you can expect to see that. August feels like a weird month. But I guess they'll have to aim for August. We're talking about, yeah, end of May, June, July, August. So it'll be either end of August or early September. I don't think there'll be much of a delay, or I hope not.

I've said in the past that these ultimate fighter matchups do tend to get junked up. I think they've had good luck with them recently. but sometimes again it's such a long wait. There's so many things that can happen to both fighters, injuries outside the cage issues. I'm looking at you, Connor McGregor, that they delay these kind of things. So hopefully not, and hopefully we see it mid-August, no later than September. No later than September. That would be ideal. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats.

Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice, yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no, but chicken tenders, yes, because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly.

Product availability varies by region. See app for details. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Pelot. Peloton IQ built for breakthroughs with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Lift with confidence while Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress.

Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. Brian Gross. I'm bringing you in, man. What do you got for me, Brian? Brian, you are muted. Hopefully you're still there. I know you've been waiting a while.

I'll give you a second. I have apologies to my know I've been making some of you guys wait a while, maybe being a little long-winded with my answers. So, Brian, I know you're on mute right now. Oh, there you are. No worries. I was making you wait.

I was making you wait. Thank you. Nice to hear you on hackable morning. How you doing? Thank you. I'm doing great. I had a couple questions. I just wanted to touch on the Garcia thing.

I actually was super impressed with Ryan Garcia. I was not a big fan of his coming in. I thought the pretty boy, typical, like social media boxer kind of, obviously not Jake Paul's social media, but like gotten big off social media. However, I was super impressed with his aggressiveness. I think it's just a lot of technical stuff. I mean, Kustin's a great trainer, but I think he has to get with the big boys. The defense has to get better, but there's no doubt in my mind this could be one of the best

things that happened to him, because I think this really would turn him towards one of those elite guys that he needs to kind of pivot his career because he just needs more defense. His head movement's non-existent. But I want to get your opinion on two things. I just wanted to defend Garcia there a little bit. Two things when it comes to MMA. Blades and, like, heavyweights in general, especially like Volkov and those guys. I don't understand why they don't go to PFL, and I'd love to hear your take on this,

because I know you touch on the PFL a little bit. Heavyweight, you don't have to cut weight. It's usually the quicker fights, especially Blades. Nobody's going to be able to touch his ground game, let alone most in the UFC, let alone the PFL. So I wanted your opinion on that. And then I also wanted your opinion on what are you looking for to do most on BKFC this weekend, Rockhold Perry or Mendez-Alvarez.

I'm a Chad Mendez fan, so I can't wait for both of them, though. But just wanted to get your opinion on that. Thanks, A-KKK. Awesome, thanks, Brian. Oh, BKFC. Let me talk about the PFL first. I do love me some PFL chatter. I'm just looking at the PFL heavyweight standings this year.

Because I was going to say this whole thing about how, you know, everyone keeps saying these kind of in limbo UFC guys should just jump over to the PFL. It's an easy one million. And I was going to go, it's not that easy. You know, the season's difficult. So much can go wrong. You only get two fights, really, to prove yourself to make the playoffs.

The playoffs, anything can happen. But again, this is heavy weight. So the making weight, you know, multiple times in a short span doesn't matter as much. That's true. And there's also, this is the heavyweight roster. And I say these, listen, these are good fighters. But I'm pretty sure most people are not super familiar with these names. Right now, leading the standings at the end.

quote unquote midway point of the pfl season which is to say everyone has fought once Dennis Galtsov number one Bruno Capulosa and second Maurice Green former UFC fighter third and Danilo Marquez I believe also a former UFC fighter at fourth and then Reis van Coenyev coming in a fifth and then behind them Henan Ferreira Jorgon de Castro Marcelo Nunez Mathez Mateus Sheffel and Cesar

Is that former UFC middleweight saves our for Hannah? No. It is, isn't it? I'm out of the loop here with the PFL. But yes. And now I guess now that I've said all those names, it's pretty easy to picture

throwing Curtis blades in there and just walloping this group, isn't it? It's pretty easy. It's pretty easy to picture that. So, yeah, look, it's an option for a lot, it's an option you want to think is available for a lot of fighters.

Keep in mind, the PFL, they still negotiate with you will. I don't believe it's a full. rate necessarily. They still pay people per fight. I don't believe it's a flat rate. At least if you talk to Anthony Pettis, he certainly was saying he was making a good amount of money. He is making a good amount of money there, I think regardless of whether he wins

a tournament or not, and he has not really come close in his couple of seasons there. So they're still negotiating. They're still negotiated. There's still a cost to bring in a guy like Blades. And again, and same thing for Blades. For Blades, you still, yes, that million dollar prize tantalizing, but fight by fight, you still want to make a good amount of money. So fighters might be willing to take a little less than their market value to get to the PFL, again, with the promise of the million dollar prize at the end.

But like any promotion, there's organizations. There's, excuse me, negotiations that need to be done. So it's a very good option for him. It's a very good option for Curtis Blades. And, you know, if what happened that was suggested earlier happens that he does decide to go to the UFC or the U.S. goes to him and there's a very good option. mutual party of ways. Listen, that's a great, this is a great ostracrim. I would not be surprised if you see Curtis Blaz and the PFL someday, someday, maybe not soon,

but someday, it's a great place for him to go. As for the BKFC, I could tell you I'm a purist, and I really want to see, you know, the Eddie Alvarez, bare-knuckle fight Chad Mendez. Great, this sounds so cool. How can you not be fascinated by the train wreck? That is Luke Rockhold and Mike Perry. The trash talk, I don't know if there already has been some. If there has, they're probably been ignoring it, but I know I won't be able to ignore it for long.

Dreadful, I'm sure, wherever it is, or if there's more to come this week. The matchup, very bizarre. Not a fight. It's one of those fights. If it was proposed in the UFC, if someone said Mike Perry versus Luke Rockhold on an episode of On to the next one, my best friend, Mike Heck and I would call that straight up doo-doo. It would be like, it's a terrible fit. Why would you put Mike Perry in there with Luke Rockhold? but the world of the BKFC

it's a different universe, man. You throw two fighters in there. Suddenly, you know, suddenly anything is possible. Let me paint that in the nicest light I can. Suddenly anything is possible. And God help us.

We are getting Mike Perry versus Luke Rockhold. I think when this is made, everyone's just assuming Mike Perry's going to knock Luke Rockhold out. But look, he's kind of a smaller guy. Luke Rockhold is a good, I think he's a better striker than people. people think. He's certainly, you know, more well known for his grappling, but, uh, you think it's a better struggling than people think. And I think the size is going to matter. So I'm not making

a prediction. God help me, if you think I'm making a prediction on this fight, you're our, listen, you got it, you got another than coming because I'm not even going to try to say he's going to win. But I do expect randomness, chaos, and fun. And combat sports is supposed to be fun. So can't believe I'm saying this. But yes, I am leaning towards the Mike Perry, Luke Crocold fight as being the more must-see barrenuckle battle, but goodness me. What a tough question. All right, let's bring in, who's this young man?

Let's bring in this, who's this guy? Michael, Michael, Michael Heek? Mike Heek, are you there? Can you hear me, AK? Yes, is this, yes, Mike Heek, is this you? Yes. Am I pronouncing that right? You were pronouncing it right.

And let me just say right up the bat. you have a face for television and the voice of an angel, AK. You are just crushed it. Oh, thank you. Absolutely crushing it. Stop it. Stop it. I'm out running errands right now. But I did have a question for you, AK, because in a little under two weeks time, we have UFC 288, the return to Newark, New Jersey.

And the main event is Al Jermaine Sterling versus the returning Henry Suhudo. And nobody has been more excited about Henry Suhudo. coming back than I, of course. Yes. But I'm curious to get your thoughts on this. If you're the UFC right now, who are you rooting for to win that fight? Are you rooting for Al Jemaine Sterling to win that fight? Or are you rooting for Henry Suhuda to win that fight?

And I asked this because it seems like the UFC kind of wants the belt off of Al Jamein for some reason. But Henry Suhudo, if he wins, he'll probably fight Sean O'Malley. And then he's probably not going to fight anybody until. it's Volcanovsky or bust at that point. So if you're the UFC, long-term, who are you rooting for in that fight? Who do you hope comes away with the Bannamweight Championship of the world?

I will get out, I will listen, and you are just crushing it, my best friend. Oh, thank you, Mike. And thank you for still making this a heck of a morning. Thank you. God, that was lovely. Guys, I'm emotional. I'm sorry, I have to make a little note here.

And the note is not to cry when I hear my best friends voice. Yeah, look, Aljo's such a weird case because whether you like him or not, I feel like he should be a bigger star than he is. There was a huge issue when he was coming up as a contender where for whatever reason, the UFC refused to put him on main cards. They just would not put him on main cards.

You can make the case that this was, you know, as they were getting on ESPN, so maybe he was better serve being on, you know, ESPN prelims anyway, before pay-per-views. And that's fine. That's a fair argument. He probably did get some exposure that way. No complaints there. A lot of fighters are like going on earlier so they can, you know, they can enjoy the main card.

So they can go back, shower, whatever, get checked out, and then enjoy the get to be seen later on camera watching the main event. So I'm sure it wasn't like the worst thing in the world for Aljo. But it did feel like they weren't really behind him promotionally. I don't know what the reasons for that are the charismatic guy, I think good-looking guy. I think a pretty exciting fighter. I know there were some decisions in there that, you know, some forgettable decisions, but every fighter has those.

Every fighter has those. Comfortable on the microphone, definitely likes to talk a lot. Again, love him, hate them, agree with them, don't agree with them, likes to talk a lot. The UFC is usually down with that. And then he's had this really kind of strange championship run with the disqualification. And then I guess people didn't find the second win over Yon's that convincing. And then he beats a one-armed T.J. Dillishaw. And now they match him up with someone that we know the promotion does like in Henry Suhudo, which is a bit strange because Sehudo left them high and dry when he retired.

And Mike rightfully asked the question, who should the U.S.C. be rooting for for the U.S. 288 main event? I think, I think, I would like to say neither, neither man. I would like to say that the U.S. is impartial, but I'm sure internally they do have plans for one of these men. I think Sehudo. I think Sehudo. The fact that they're bringing. him back, I'm going to give the UFC the benefit of having foresight here. The fact that they even bring Sehudo back and giving this tel-shot tells me they've had

some discussion about him not just coming back and this being a one-off. It helps them if they want to push a Sehudo versus Alexander Volcanowski superfights someday. That's been talked about for a long time. Mileage may vary on that one. I think it'd be a cool fight. It's not on the top of my

list of dream fights, but it'd be cool. It'd certainly be cool to watch Sehudo very interested in becoming champ, champ, champ, champ, including his gold medal. So I think they're leaning slightly towards Suhudo. I don't know where they go with Al Jermaine if he beats Zah. Yeah, Sean O'Malley. And in that case, I'll probably be rooting for,

him, definitely be rooting for Amali to beat Aljo. But Aljo losing the belt also kind of solves the Marab problem. You know, Marab de Balas really is out there. He is not going to fight Al Jermaine Serling. They're very, very, very close friends. Should Aljo lose? He has mentioned going up to 145, U.S. would love to see that.

Again, a big star changing divisions. A lot of good things happen for the UFC if Henry Suhudo wins. And Henry also has just a little bit more mainstream cashier than Aljo. So if they're not impartial and Dana White and whoever's in the front office, whoever's counting the, you know, count the beans out there, has the best interest in anyone. I do think it is Henry Sehudo. All right.

I know a lot of you guys been waiting. Let me get to, oh, well, I got to bring in CB for a good reason. I got to bring in CB for a good reason. amazing. CV, I'll wait for you to load it, Mike, but before you go, CV, I believe it was you. I hope you listened to heck on to the next one, because I believe Mike credited you with giving him the idea that they would move the UFC Vegas 71 co-main event of Song Yadong, Song Yadong, and I'm blanking here.

So, song, what happened to Saturday? I did, I did, I did, I did listen to it. Thanks, thanks for the shout-outs. Yeah. Well, Lee of a morning to you. Just two quick questions for me. First off, how do you think patchy mix fares against the cream of the crop of the U.S.S. Man in Wade Division, like Aljo or even Marab?

And second question, non-MMA related. As a fellow Tarantonian, who would you like to be the next Raptors head coach? Thanks. Oh, thank you. Perfect question. Thank you, CV. Oh, there we go. Okay, two excellent questions.

Let's talk about Apache Mix. Let's talk about Patrick Mix. And by the way, I'm sorry, Song-U-Tong versus Ricky Simone. Ricky Simone's a great fighter. I've spoken to Ricky before. Ricky, I apologize for forgetting that you're the second half of this main event. That's a great fight going on this Saturday. But yes, Mike and CV both suggest this on heck of a morning.

I think a couple, oh sorry, onto the next one. Heckerman morning, they brought it up that the co-main of USC Vegas 71. We moved to this weekend to save the card, and lo and behold, it came to fruition. So, excellent call out guys, great work. Patchy Mix, boy, if you guys could see the internal discussion we had on our Slack channel

when Patchy Mix just unloaded a beautiful knee on Ruffian Stotz and put him down. I'm not exaggerating when I say some members of the NBA fighting staff were like, This guy is the number one. The number one fan to wait in the world. They're saying this guy could go up and take out anyone in the UFC. Maybe this, again, has more to do with how strong of a champion to think Al Jemian Sterling is,

how strong a contender like Sean O'Malley is, how poor, you know, Peter Yon's form has been recently. Maybe that's why we're sort of so enthusiastic to launch Patchy up there. But Patsy has also just looked amazing. Let's talk about him, just his own virtues first. he loses that fight to Juan Archoletta Big learning experience Warnar Choletta, a very good fighter

a bit more experienced than Pachi and there's you know when we see someone lose that first title opportunity there's always two ways you can go does that losing that title that first title shot define you or do you go from that and become a better fighter than ever

and we've said many fighters do that case they lose one big fight and they become go on to become one of the greats George St. Pierre of course Canada's own fantastic example he loses the fight to archeletta and then submission of alba morales submission of james galaher unanimous decision win over kioji horaguchi in the opening round of the bantamate world grand prix that to me at the time was a shocker even given the size difference even given how highly i think of patchy i still thought that was going to be a kioji win and patchy convincingly beat him that was great stuff chokes out magomed magomeda magomeda one of the guys a lot of people were avoiding you in the Beltaire Bantamweight Division, chokes him out. And I was picking Stots to win a decision on Friday,

excuse me, Saturday. On Saturday, I was off, beautiful knockout, 90 seconds in. Patchy's legit. Guys, I know a lot of us only have time to keep track of one promotion. That's fine. I'm not judging anyone who only watches UFC or only watches one or PFL, if that's a thing.

But if you're misnoughts in this Belator Bantameter Banterweight Division, and you're missing some good stuff because patchy is legit and so is Rofion's thoughts I don't want people to look at this like oh well he just you know Rofion now should drop out because he lost no Rofion was on a run before running into Patsy Rofi Rofi on top 15

bantan weight Is Patschia a top 5 bantan weight I think so I think so I'll give my personal ranking now I have him behind Aljo Marab and maybe just O'Malley and that's based on accomplishment

because I really value that O'Malley went over Yon a lot. If you're asking me who would win a fight between Patchy Mix and Sean O'Malley tomorrow, I mean, look, you've got to see the odds, I think, like, minus 200, Patchy, minus 250. I don't know. I'm not a great odds maker,

but he's a significant favorite in a matchup of Sean O'Malley. Sean O'Malley does have the name value, so I could be wrong. Just based on that, Sean O'Malley could open as the favorite. But if anyone who's watched both guys fight, patchy is just a super dangerous guy. again, well-sized for the division.

Great grappler. You know, we're talking about a knee knockout. He's an outstanding grappler. He's such a fun grappler to watch. I pick him over O'Malley. I pick him over the current version of Yon. We've seen, I don't know, Yon's just in a bit of a slump. I would pick him over a Chito Vera, Rob Font.

I think the interesting matchups are Aljo, Sanhagen, and Umar. Umar, I'd pick almost to beat anyone. He just needs a few more for me to put him higher in the rankings. But yeah, O'Malley, Piotr-Yon, Cito Vera, two highly respected UFC contenders, I'm fine saying Patrick could beat them, or at least be in the mix with those guys. That's how impressed I was. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe it's recency bias.

Maybe it's both. And as for the Raptors, I'm really looking at Kenny Atkinson. Kenny Atkinson currently serving as the assistant coach, excuse me, for the Golden State Warriors. And I like the words. I don't want to see him go out in the first round, but should they get eliminated by the Sacramento Kings. I'm just saying, Kenny, you're going to have some free time in your hands. Come up to Toronto. It's getting beautiful up here. We've got a beautiful sunny weather, sunny spring weather now. Come on up. Take a look. See if you like it. I've seen other suggestions. I was glad

they didn't get Emu Doca. I think that front office, I think his baggage is a little too much for me personally. Not to speak on as coaching skills, but really, again, we got a good culture up here. I don't know if I want to bring that elements in. But Kenny Ackinson has done a great job with teams that are sort of in between. He kind of had that force upon him the last time he was coaching the Nets before they brought in all the second wave of stars. He was kind of in limbo and they kind of said, do what you can with this. And he did a great job developing a team that wasn't quite rebuilding, but wasn't quite

contending either. And I think that's where the Raptors are going to be after this offseason. It's going to be going to try to rebuild. It's be hard to do it. So, but anyway, enough Raptors talk. Can he have content to be out there, please come visit Toronto. Terence Lavrette. Terence Lavrette, I know you've been waiting a long time.

time, my Twitter friend. No jokes about the Raptors going back to Disneyland, please. But go ahead. So, yeah, I appreciate you bringing them. So, if I was calling to ask you questions and advice too. Like, he just asked one of the questions about Bellator. But one of the other ones I want to ask about is Elmore, requesting, he's been doing this for years,

the question is tournament and cyborgs as well with being out. It is time to still pray when you get a Grand Prix on that. Terrence, sorry,

it's a little bit hard to hear you. I don't know, are you on speakerphone or are you on, it's a little bit, you're asking you about Alima?

Yeah, can hear me better? Oh, much better. Okay, it's a headset, sorry. So, yeah,

with Alima being out or, or not being out, because with her being retiring in a little bit, is it possible that we get that grantee before she leaves?

We haven't had a woman's Grand Prix yet, which I think is sad. In regards to Cyborg, she hasn't fought in a while. Would it also be beneficial for them to have a featherweight grand prix so that way you can sort that out? And the last question I had was in regards to, I know you kind of were trying to be nice about it, but I mean, it would be a little bit less positive when it comes to, like, grayboard and then messing up the Hortcichie fight.

Like, who's in charge of that? Is this to start or something? Like, are we about to see a start of a, a, flyweight division and now it's supposed to be the start of it and who you think would be good in that decision or will they have to bring other people. That's all I got. Thank you. Okay, thanks, Terrence. I'll touch lightly upon the flyway thing. Yeah, listen, too bad for Ray Borg. It's on him as well. I know it's his responsibility. You signed the contract for 125. You should make it. But I've harped on about this. He shouldn't have been in position to have to have to do that in the first place.

he's not going to say no to fight with Kioji Horiguchi. It's a great fight to get his career back on track if he wins it. And if they say, well, listen, you've got to make it 125. Kioji wants 125. He's going to say yes. But it's his management's job. It's Belator's job to negotiate away from that to say, no, we are not having our guy fight at 125. He just can't make that.

Let's go for 130. And I know I heard rumors that during fight week it was changed to 130, but it was not it was signed as a 125 fight. If there was going to be 130, they should have aimed for 130 when it was signed. or even better, 135. Kioj is a former Bantanweight champion. They don't have a flyweight division. Was this fight supposed to start a flywood division, as you suggested?

We don't know it wasn't billed as that. So it wouldn't even serve that purpose if that was the point, because they didn't even hype it up as such. If they were, that would have been a good idea to saying, yeah, listen, this is how we're going to start our flyweight fight with one of the greatest of all time, Kioji, and a guy who said so much talent, you know, everyone said could be a champion at 125.

it wasn't billed that way. It just wasn't billed that way. So very frustrating for me. I hope Ray Borg is okay. I hate how his management treated the situation. It was absolutely grotesque. Ray Borg, for sure, responsible for his own decisions and his mistakes. But, man, you keep putting this guy in this position to make those mistakes, and you take responsibility for that as well.

Very, very frustrating to see. Bell Tour Grand Prix at Flyweight and Featherweight. Boy, I'm a big Alima Leigh-McFarlane fan. She's only 33 years old, but she's smart. Listen, she wants to get out of the business before she takes damage, before she takes damage. She's very smart about it. I think she's made good money with Belator. And I hope that when she decides to retire, we see her in the commentary booth.

We see her, you know, do it on social media and hanging out with fighters. But she doesn't want to fight anymore. She doesn't have to fight anymore. And that's great. Grant P would be awesome. It would give us, you know, a chance to see Elimus some more, to see, you know, assuming she advances in the tournament, at least two or three more fights. That'd be great. her ideal matchup now is to fight her as she put it her sister wife

Liz Carmush maybe you make that maybe you make that potential second round matchup to make sure it happens I think you're playing with a lot of fire if you try and set them up on opposite sides of the bracket to meet in the Grand Prix Women's flyweight is a pretty good division and there's really no guarantees that Alema makes it to the final or Liz Carmush for that matter so I don't love the idea of that Scott Coker addressed

sort of the complications of just making that fight straight up happen especially in Hawaii, which would be awesome. It's just hard to go back there sometimes. The Neil S. Blysdell Center, according to Coker, is undergoing renovations after this event. So it's going to be that location

where they've been going every year is out of the picture for now. Then he mentioned the Stan Sheriff's Center, which I imagine is a smaller venue. He said they're going to talk about it. They're going to talk about hosting something in Hawaii at the Stan Sherr Center. They usually only go once a year. So if they can

make something happen this year, that'd be great. But he said a lot of their calendars booked as well. So fitting in another Hawaii show is just kind of logistically difficult. So does that mean if Alima wants to fight Liz Karmush for the title in Hawaii, you'd have to wait another year. And Karmush has to wait a year.

I don't think Karmouche wants to do that. Elima maybe would be willing to wait if she can guarantee her last fight is in Hawaii. but I think the best the best thing to do would to book her in a Grand Prix and listen

she can always have her last fight in Hawaii that can always happen next year it just might not be against Liz Karmouche it might not be

for the flyweight title but I think it'll still be worth it for her to do it. That is always on the table so one year from now if she really is confident of retiring

there's a fight they can make for her and that that go away can still happen but this ideal dream match is a bit sketchy and the featherweight grand prix

the only problem with featherweight is man it's just I always say there's just not enough talent But, listen, Beltaire brought in Katzangano. They brought in San Bernard Mann. They have Leibokor. They can always bring in other fighters.

They're smart. They don't have a women's phantomweight division because why have one when you can just have these women fight at 145? We joke a lot about the UFC's women's bandaway division, how it's kind of a dead zone. And we just saw Carol Hosa, a top 15 women's banditweight go up to featherweight for almost no reason and lose the decision to Nomewant. So what are we doing over there in the UFC? So good for Velasor for essentially saying, yeah, why do women's vansomweight?

We're just going to make them fight it featherweight. So a grandfrey, not against it. I'm not like super in love with it. We don't even know a cyber worth coming back. You absolutely cannot do a grand prix without cyborg. I think that's senseless. But we don't know what her situation is. So hopefully they get her sorted out.

But I love the idea of Flyweight, Grand Prix, featherweight. Not so much. All right, guys, I'll take a couple more here. Marshall's buyers travel far and wide, hustling for great deals on amazing gifts. So you don't have to. They've bagged this season's Italian leather handbags. Designer. Hand-picked the finest sweaters from the rest.

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You gift the good stuff. Let's go. So if you're in there, I'm going to get to you. I see two more requests. YVMZ. I'm going to bring you in, and then CNM sticks. I think you're going to have to be the last one. Apologies to everyone else who called in.

I'll try and get to you tomorrow. I'm working on juggling this Twitter machine. Okay, a heck of a morning. Just two quick questions for you. With the arrests warrant out for Nate right now, do you think the Jake Ball fight happens? Seems like yesterday he was telling him and Jake and KSI to just fight without him. So I wanted to get your thoughts on that.

And two, what should be next for Jared Gordon and Bobby Green? That disqualification obviously hurt both fighters. And so I just wanted to get your thoughts on who you think should be next. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Thank you for the questions. Boy, that Diaz one is a whopper. Thank you, YPMZ.

I see two. Okay, I see one more for that. I'll try and get to these last two. I see how Mike has such a difficult time logging off now. I always think, I'm always listening to the heck of a morning, and I'm always saying, man, Mike's just got to cut some of these guys off. But you keep seeing people come up. They keep bringing great questions and great comments that you want to just keep going. So, okay.

Nate Diaz, first of all, so let's read this out here. He was an arrest, an arrest warrant was issued on suspicion of second. degree battery after, of course, a Bourbon Street brawl that saw him choke a Logan Paul look-alike unconscious. Again, I've didn't, you know, I actually haven't watched the video myself, but I don't think, let's see, it is now, as today is April 25th today, and their fight supposed to be August 5th. I want to say, best case scenario, listen, again, I want to repeat, suspicion of second-degree battery, there is a possibility Diaz, you know, again, shows, gets arrested or at least, you know, turns

himself in. Sounds so weird to say turn himself in. And then the battery, the charge can always get reduced. I'm sure I'll have a good lawyer. The charge can get reduced to something else, some sort of misdemeanor. He pays some sort of fine, does some sort of community service, gets some babies, shake some hands. He's not, he's not going to jail. Obviously, I don't think anyone is concerned about that. If I'm wrong, that would be, I mean, not shocking at all. I'm wrong about a lot of things. But I think he pays the fine. I think it's some bad PR. Um, but otherwise, I think we're far enough away from the fight that he'll be okay. I would be surprised if it's canceled. Him saying, you know, whatever, just go on without me. Uh, you know, listen, Diaz isn't,

isn't an expert either. Uh, I'm sure his lawyers are sort of talking him down from that notion. I do think we see this fight happen. It's, it's a bit, uh, I hope we don't end up in a Tommy Fury, Jake Paul situation where all kinds of little weird things keep pushing it back to the point where like the interest is kind of waned. I think this is a much more intriguing match at the time period, obviously. So I don't think that's going to happen. But again, this is combat sports.

This is the relatively untamed wild west world of influencer boxing. And this isn't, this is, as you mentioned, there's a possibility, who knows, it doesn't happen, and we just lose this fight. Maybe it just never happens at all. But if you're asked, but my money is on, he's getting a fine, no jail time.

again, make his apologies, and we will still see the fight happen. If not August 5th, sometime this year. So it could be postponed. I don't see a cancellation. And Gordon and Green, as regular onto the next one contributor, Hayes Bethard always says, run it back. Well, he says run back draws. I think you run back no contest as well.

It just makes a lot of sense for both guys. Jared Gordon was looking good in the fight. I was predicting like a pretty easy win for Bobby Green, but it's competitive, competitive until Bobby Green went left. way on him and hit him with a torpedo headbutt. So, uh, and for anyone who wants to hear more from Bobby Green,

he wasn't in May hour on Monday and completely unhinged. Um, it was a very Bobby Greenish and it was 10 Bobby Greens that, you know, there's 11 Bobby Green interviews, uh, the interview scale for Bobby Green interviews. So, uh, uh, kudos is always to my man, Arah Hawani for, uh, for navigating that conversation as best he could and Bobby Green for being his

usual entertaining self. All right. Last caller, CNM sticks. I'm bringing you in. and then I do got to get out of here. CNM, you are on? Are you with me? Did I wait too long?

Let's see if we can get CNN. Hi there, Mr. Lee. Hello. Hi, how are you doing today? I'm so happy that you're doing the show today. Thank you, thank you. I love it. I would go on.

I wanted to just jump on. I'm actually trying to get ready for a meeting simultaneously, but I had to jump on to support you. You're one of my favorite and my analysts. I think you're amazing. And I just wanted to very quickly, two questions, well, actually one question, I guess you can say. But the Pennington and Aldana fight, pardon me of us coming down the pipeline, no one's talking about. I just wanted to know your thoughts on that.

And also the Hermannsen versus Allen fight. I feel like this is really important for maybe both of them, actually. But especially Hermanson, he just kind of needs this win pretty desperately. So I just wanted to know your thoughts on it. And you take care of yourself, okay. You too. Have an amazing day. Thank you, C&M, thanks.

Thank you. Thank you. All right, I definitely have to end there. Sorry, I see another request. I'm definitely going to end. Thank you, Amelia. I will see if I can get to you on Thursday or cross me fingers. I'll do a show Friday as well, but I'm going to have to take a stop here.

So let's talk about Raquel Payton, Irina, Aldana. A rematch, I think a lot of people maybe don't remember their first fight. Very competitive. excuse me very controversial not i don't say very controversial but it was a split call that definitely excuse me guys that definitely was not a a resounding win for o'kell pennington but she does have that w uh over aldana which adds intrigue to this this rematch especially since aldana is someone who so many people want to see her get a title shot uh we as as much as i've just criticized sort of the women's 135 division in the ufc because some of the fighters you know are kind of

Kind of nondescript. Irene Aldana is very well known for being an exciting striker, a great power, great personality. She's just really out there. She's, you know, she's part of this wave of Mexican fighters, another one that people want to see her at least compete for a title. That liver kick of Macy Chyazen was one of the strangest, best knockouts I've ever seen. It was truly bizarre. But this matchup makes a lot of sense.

I know people would just love to see Irina get the title shot right away. She did miss wait for the Chiasen fight. that doesn't mean they couldn't have given her a title shot. We've seen fighters get title shots under weird circumstances. I want to say Tiago Alves, which is probably a more recent example. Tiago Alves, I think missed weight for Matt Hughes and then got to fight GSP.

He did win by flying knee knockout, though. So this fight makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I get it. People aren't talking about it. People don't remember the first fight. Raquel Pennington, I don't even know if people know that she's on a five-fight win streak.

I think a lot of people maybe just don't, are a little worried that Pennington wins and we get a rematch with her and Amanda Nunes, because it would be undeniable at that point. It would be undeniable. If you think Aldana deserves a tell shot and Pennington beats her, how can you deny Panning the telosot? Six straight wins, two wins over Aldana. I know the first fight with Amanda Nunes was not close. It was uncomfortably not close at times. I mean, Amani Nunes really put the gloves on her, but that was five years ago now. and I think I'd be fine with

McElowne getting another shot. Listen, you never know. You never know where Amanda Nune is at this point in your career. We'll see where her motivation is if she beats Juliana Pena a second time, moves off from there. So I'm fine with that.

And if Aldado wins, of course, we're all in. Make the wait, win this rematch, avenge this loss. Viva Mexico. This is a hell shot ever wants to see. So I'm glad they made this match up even if, as you said, it's not initially being talked about that much. And Jack Kermanston and Brendan Allen, of course,

an important matchup because we are talking middle-weighty, middle-weight stakes here. I wish Mike were here because I have lost track of the lineage of who is actually the middle-weighty, middle-weight champion. I don't think Jack Kermanson really even fits that bill. I know we're always kind of fudging around the definition of what is the middle-weighty-middle-weight, but I feel like you have to have been like more sort of blissless odd decisions and not have a distinct style and no like very few signature moments. Jackramansen has way too many of those like, you know, interesting fights win or lose. So I think he's out of there.

But Brendan Allen, I get it. I get the middleweighty middleweightness. And good for him for that upset of Andre Munez. And by the way, he put me on blast on social media as one of the people predicting that he would lose. He would get handles for Antrimanese. been my wording, I don't know. But yeah, very cool fight with Jack Hermanson. Yeah, so these are flying under the radar.

How close would this put either man to a title shot? It's hard to say. It's hard to say we have the DDP Whitaker fight coming up. Of course, that's your number one contenders fight. If Whitaker won, I suppose there's a case that they wouldn't be thrilled to give him a third shot at Izzy right away. I think they'd be fine with it at this point, but there's a chance they don't. And then you have Hermanson or Brendan Allen maybe one fight away.

way. But Brendan Allen going for his fifth straight win. That's a strong case. I can't believe how I'm saying this. I've just, Ben Allen's a really good fighter. I've just never viewed him as a top five guy. And beating Hermantin doesn't make him a top five guy.

But it might jump in the top five of names that the matchmakers are looking for if they're just trying to keep Israel out just in your busy, depending where he goes next to his career. That's funny. Man, I hadn't looked at that. So thanks for pointing that out to me. But guys, that's it. Listen, I, I, I, This has been amazing to do. I will be here again on Thursday, and again, I hope to do an effort Friday, as Mike always does,

where we can talk more about M.A. and other topics, but this has been fantastic. Thank you for everyone who called in and who got in, for everyone who missed out. Again, I will make sure to try and reach you on Thursday or Friday the next time I'm on. Let's get, but keep it coming, guys. Amazing questions, amazing comments. Great energy. What a way to start the day. I'm filled with life.

I'm filled with life right now. So thank you, everyone. And this has been Alex Lee, serving as your guest host for the wonderful Mike Heck on Heck of a Morning or this week, Lee of a morning.