MMA Fighting - HOAM | UFC 286 Aftermath, Leon Edwards Retains, Colby Covington Next, More

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

Leon Edwards was on the right side of his trilogy with Kamaru Usman and retained his welterweight title in the main event of UFC 286. Following the event, UFC President Dana White created quite the stir by announcing that Colby Covington would be next for "Rocky." On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck reacts to Edwards' big win, Covington getting the next shot and why it shouldn't be a surprise, Belal Muhammad getting skipped over and now being targeted to fight Shavkat Rakhmonov, and the timing of the announcement with Gilbert Burns and Jorge Masvidal being scheduled to fight at UFC 287. Additionally, listener questions include Justin Gaethje's big win over Rafael Fiziev, a potential rematch between Gaethje and Dustin Poirier, and more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 10 a.m. ET on the MMA Fighting Twitter Spaces. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With Amex Platinum, you have access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. So your experience before takeoff is a taste of what's to come. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. 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. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. It is Tuesday, March 21st, 2023. It is indeed a heck of a morning. We are live on the M.A. Fighting Twitter space, so you can hear the show in its entirety shortly thereafter. on the MMA fighting podcasting network. I am Mike Heck.

Hope everyone's having a great start to their week. We are coming off of UFC 286 this past Saturday, which emanated from the 2002 arena in London, England. In the end, Leon Edwards defeats Kamara Usman via majority decision to retain his welterweight title. What a moment it was for Leon Edwards, exercise the demons. anybody who said that the head kick was a fluke,

he kind of annihilated all of that. I thought it was a great performance from Leon. Camaro kind of, I mean, one of the big questions was his father time catching up with a guy like Camaro Ouspin. I'm not saying that that's why the fight played out the way that it did, but you can tell Ouspen has lost a little bit of a step, as Jedmishu likes to say, no longer. has his 98-mile-an-hour fastball, if you will.

But he still thought well. It was a competitive fight. And in the end, Leon Edwards gets it done prior to that. Justin Gaci, Rafael Fiziv, just beat the hell out of each other for 15 minutes for our entertainment. The fight was incredible. Justin Gachie's third round was really fascinating to watch, watching him move around and jab away and just beat up Raphael Fiziv.

What a performance from Justin Gachie. Silenced a lot of doubters, a lot of nation. sayers with that win and it was a fight to me that Gagy stock certainly rises with the win but I think Fiziv's stock rises as well. It's a very close fight, kind of a contentious one. I'm excited to go back and watch it again when I don't have a watch party going on behind me. But it was a great fight. I enjoyed it very much. Brian Barbarina submits Gunner Nelson gets it done. Jennifer Maya looked really good against Casey O'Neill, Hans Casey O'Neill, her first lock. Apparently there was some shenanigans going on.

According to Jennifer Maya, perhaps some greasing, which I was surprised to hear about during her post-fight scrum. And then first fight, Marvin Vittori defeats Roman Deleizze, gets a decision win. There was a pretty awful scorecard. One of the worst I've ever seen. 3027 for Barb Vortory is just atrocious, a horrendous scorecard. but I think to me the right guy won, but just a weird roundabout way to get there.

So good win from Arbitory. And then on the prelims, Jack Shore, submits mock one Americani in the second round. Kind of what we all thought would happen. Chris Duncan wins a splitting against Omar Morales. The man who was probably screwed out of a bonus, in my opinion. Janal Ashmos just destroys Sam Patterson, nasty counter left hand.

That was a scary knockout. I'm sure he'll get taken care of backstage, but that was a nasty knockout for him. But no bonus. Muhammad Baha'iath. Went through one of the most painful things I've ever seen with Jafel Filos' leg lock. I thought his leg was going to snap into two.

Hayf gets out of it. Ends up getting a rear naked choke submission. Crazy stuff. Lorone Murphy, Gabriel Santos, wins the Shane Burgos Billy Q Award. in my opinion from this card because what a great fight that was I told you guys that was the low-key

banger in this card and it delivered Laura Murphy remains unbeaten but Gabe Santos excited to see his future inside the octagon at 145 pounds unfortunate end to the Christian Leroy Duncan Dusko Todorovich fight with the knee injury to Dusko

CLD gets his first win certainly not the way he would have liked it to happen Jake Hadley nasty body shot knockout of Malcolm Gordon, Joanne Wood gets back in the Wood column against Luana Carolina. Jai Herbert, Ladova Klein, fight to a majority draw, kind of a weird one. And the show starts off with Veronica Hardy coming back after a long, long layoff. And she just dominates Juliana Miller. What a performance. Parlays were crushed right off the bat.

And a great win for Veronica Hardy. So that was UFC 286. A lot of storylines coming out of the main event. Leon Edwards gets it done. What a moment it was for him. And this is kind of a weird one, because the whole build to the card was above this trilogy fight,

all the questions surrounding it. And then on Friday, I wake up Friday morning, jump up, get ready to start my day, and I go to mhmapiding.com's Twitter account, and I see a video that Colby Covington had weighed in as the backup fighter for the main event. Nobody saw it coming.

Just kind of came out of nowhere. And the buzz from Friday into Saturday became about Colby. Where has he been? We haven't seen him in a year. Why is he the backup? What does this all mean? Does that mean he's next in line? Does he get the winner?

We're all trying to figure it out. Fight ends. Leon wins. And I remember New York Rick was joining us in the watch party. And we were discussing what this all means because we saw Colby's reaction in the crowd as the watch party is getting ready to end. They cut to a backstage interview with Megget O'Levy and Colby Covington.

And we were kind of debating where this would all go. And then about 20 minutes later, Dana White goes up to the podium and he announces that Colby is next. He will fight Leon Edwards next for the Welterway title. And Colby Covington has stolen the headlines once again.

Stole the headlines heading into the fight. and he stole him coming out because he is announced as the number one contender. And this has created quite the debate, quite the stir, two sides of the spectrum. It's been wild. It has been a wild few days since that fight ended and this announcement has happened. And what have I been telling you for the last few weeks on this show? Do not be surprised if Colby Covington is in play for this title. shot. Now, did I think we'd be talking on this Tuesday that Colby was already the dude? No, I did not

think that. I certainly did not think that would be the case. I thought we would see how the Jorge Mazadal Gilbert Burns fight would play out. If Mazdaal wins, it's a no-brainer. You just do Leon Edwards versus Jorge Mazadol. The story is there. You don't even need to promote the fight. Just keep showing the video of the three-piece in a soda. That's all you need. You don't have to do anything crazy. you just do that fight. And it would be gigantic. It would have casual appeal. It would do bonkers on pay-per-view.

But if Gilbert Burns would win that fight, like I said, Colby is in play. He's absolutely in play here. But again, I didn't think it would happen this quickly. So now what it does is it almost, and I think we talked about this on the next one and kind of on the watch party too, if they just go, them just going with Colby now, it takes so much shine. off of the Mazadol Burns fight. Like if you were going to do this,

if you already have the decision in play that Colby was going to be the guy, just keep it under lock and key. Keep it under lock and key. But now there was so much hype behind this Mazadol Burns fight, especially if Mazadol wins. Now it's like, what? It's just, the timing of it is what I have the issue with.

I am not surprised at all that Colby is in this position. that's why I've been saying it for a while. And for a lot of the newer fans, this is how it works. This is how they do it. They have decisions in play. They figure these things out. And they saw the buzz that Colby got on Friday. And they were like, holy shit, we might have something here.

And it looks like they pivoted. So none of this should surprise anybody. Now, you can be mad about it. You could be happy about it. You could have your opinion about it. And that's cool. But to be surprised by this, you can't really be surprised by it. That's just how the UFC has been doing things for a while.

They're not in the, let's give the guy who deserves the title shot, the title shot. They're in the business of let's try to put together fights that people are going to spend a bunch of money on to come see live and spend a bunch of money at home to watch it on pay-per-view. That's the business they're in. And you've got to feel for Bala Muhammad right now. You got to feel for Belal Mohammed. Again, we've talked about this a lot. Not surprised that he's been skipped over here. I've been saying for a while, the best case scenario for Bilal Muhammad is that

Kamara Usman wins that fight and gets on the mic and calls him out. And then you throw Connor in play. And that puts a little bit of a wrinkle into the Bilal plans as well, especially if Camaro would have gotten on the mic, you just called out Connor and went all in on that, which I would have done if I was him. But now Balal is just, now he's going to fight Shafkat Rakhanov? Jeez, Luis.

Tough road for him. But again, I'm not surprised that this is happening right now. It's just the way that it is and it's been this way for a long time. So we cannot be surprised by this Colby stuff. We can have opinions on it, but we cannot be surprised by it.

This is how it happens. It'll be interesting if Mazur, if Mazadol just goes out in obliterates Gilbert Burns on April 8th. If he just has a big moment, knocks out Burns in like the first two minutes of the fight, cuts a scathing promo, who knows if they'll pivot again. But Colby's out doing the media rounds. I spoke with him yesterday. You can watch that on the MAFighting.com YouTube channel.

It's up, ready to go. Leon Edwards is on the MA hour yesterday, saying that he has a say in the matter. And if they offer him Colby, he's just going to say, no. No, let him go get a win against somebody. And then we'll entertain this. But Mazadol's right there. He understands the business and the position he's in. Feels like Colby hasn't earned it.

And a lot of people feel that way as well. And Colby kind of shut that right down, saying, don't cross your boss. Listen to, if Dana says something, you better take heed because if you don't take the fight, they're just going to strip you of the belt. And what a freaking world that would be if they offer them this fight. And Leon says no.

And they're just like, all right, we're just going to strip you at the belt. And again, don't be surprised if that happens either. So a lot to talk about coming out of UFC 286. We can talk about all of this. We can talk about some of the action that happened. We do have UFC San Antonio coming up on Saturday, which is really flying under the radar now with all this aftermath from UFC 286. So let's get to you guys in here.

what you have to say. Brian, hello. Are you there? You're breaking up like crazy, man, and it's really, really loud. Let's go to Abswalia. Hello. Can you hear me? Hello, sir.

Hi, hi. Yes, I can. So, I just want to, I might be a little bit long here, so just bear with me. The first thing I want to address regarding the Walterway Division, I reckon the reason this whole conundrum is happening because one, you know, Covington had been sitting up a whole year due to the Massfordal incident. Hamza, you know, we don't know what's happening with him.

He's, you know, we're not sure he's ever going to find this division ever again, you know, due to the way cut issue. If that fight between him and Corby Covington had been made last year, there probably would have been a clear number one contender. And if Bilal and Burns had not ducked each other and fought possibly the Abu Dhabi card, we might have had a number one contender. And, you know, seeing from how this whole situation is, Now, in my opinion, I think Leon should sit and wait it out until a proper fight happens.

But I can also understand, see why Covington wants to make this fight, because by right, you know, he has, you know, won a fight at least, and he's still a pretty good fighter, and he does make ruse. And I just want to ask another question. What do you think is next for Rafael Fizzov? Should he fight someone lower down like Matisse Gamrod, or should he try and fight the loser Charles Olivera and Dhaber? And should Dustin, Poria and Justin Gage, have a rematch? That's a lot to say, man. Thanks, man. Yeah, Walter Wheat's kind of weird right now. But I feel like, again, if we're living in a meritocratic world,

I think Bilal-Lahab has done enough. But this is not Bellator. This is not the PFL. This is the UFC. They handle their matchmaking a little bit different. So, again, this should not be a shock to anybody. This should not be a surprise. You could not like it.

Or you can love it. That's fine. But you can't say you shouldn't be surprised by this. What have we been saying on this program for a while? Something that Damon Martin told me like six or seven years ago. The word deserves strike it from your vocabulary because it doesn't matter in the UFC. None of it matters. None of it matters.

And that's why we were all saying like if Mazadol wins, he's getting a title shot despite having three consecutive losses. The merit doesn't matter a lot of the times. And Bilal, while he has done great in the cage and he has won all of his fights, he's made a bunch of mistakes on the microphone. Just a bunch of them. And people all reacted to them. He had the chance to fight Hamzad.

He had the chance to calm out a bunch. And he did. But he just didn't do it at the right times. He would get these wins and then he would call for a title shot when he was like, when they were like two or three guys, ahead of him or he was calling out Colby. I remember there's one specific incident. I'm like, I tweeted out right before

Belal had the mic in his face. This is after the Vicente Lucay went, I said, do not call out Colby or Usman. Don't call them out. Go right to Hamzot. Do it. And what does he do? He calls out Colby. I'm like, oh, what are we doing? Why? It's not going to happen.

And that kind of hurt him. Like, I really think that hurt him. It still doesn't justify in a lot of people's minds that Colby should get the shot over him. But it's just wild, man. It's just wild. As far as Vizib goes, I don't think he's going to get the loser of the Olivera Darius fight.

Maybe do Jalen Turner. Gamrod would be fun as hell. I would watch that one. Do Sirukion. There's options for him. There's definitely options for him. But I don't think he's going to get the Oliver

Daryerr, and then should we do Gaiji Porre too? Yes. Yes, we should. Sign me up for that. Four Corps sports. Hey, Mike, are you ready to hear me?

All right. So I blame a lot of this stuff why USC 2887 the San Antonio card is being, you know, being dismissed a lot because of Dana White. I'm really disappointed that he ended up just going straight forward

with Kobe Covington being the next contender. I love the fact that Leon, you know, dismissed him on the mic. That was great stuff over there when DC asked him, hey, you know, you got somebody in the crowd that wants to fight you. And it's true, you know, he ducked them. And I just find it very weird. You know, I think you said it that Kobe might, you know,

somebody may have told you that don't be surprised that Kobe drops the charges. I mean, like, how is that going to work out? Like, how is he going to be in line for a title fight? and he still has like an open case with this you know assault that him and mazel had in miami i i just feel that what's the cool like it's very undeserving like you guys talk about it all the time that you know these people at walterweight they just want on their on their rankings and i mean i'm not no big bala mahomet but i mean he does deserve it and if i'm balaamahmahad i'm fighting out i'm fighting out i'm fighting on my contract and i'm going over to belleter and pfl where it's

more, you know, he didn't get more of the deserving title shot that he deserves at that point. And I just think him against Shopcombe, Rachmanov, is not going to end well for him. But what do you think is going to happen? What's the called at the ending of USC 287 in the Coal Main event? You think that Mazuna might get it if he wins, or what's it called? Or do you think Dina is still going to be on the fence? I mean, he's still going to be, like, forwarding with the whole Kobe Covington thing. Thanks, Mike.

I mean, that's all up to Mazadol, honestly. I don't think Gilbert is going to jump Colby. I don't think there's really any chance he could get that. Mazadol, maybe, but it's going to have to be something. Like, if he goes out and just wins a decision, it's not going to be enough. He needs to go out and just obliterate Gilbert Burns. If he does that, and the Miami crowd just goes insane, and their social media views are through the roof,

and Mazdaal gets on the mic and cuts this, like, scathing promo. that will live on forever, maybe Dana will look at it. But here's the thing. I don't think this is a decision that was made like on Thursday or Friday or when they contacted Colby to come up and be the backup that you're going to be next in line. I don't think that's what the case was. I think what happened was, and if you go back and watch the scrum that Jose shot on Friday, I think Dana was just stunned by the reaction of Colby weighing in and nobody knowing about.

it. He played it off like, well, we don't tell anybody this stuff. Like, we don't promote it because we don't think it's that big of a deal. But just go look at the numbers. Like, anything Colby touched far exceeded numbers wise, anything Leon and Usman did throughout the week. Like, it was crazy. And I think, you know, even Dana's was saying like, oh, even my son reached out to me and was like, what the hell is Colby weighing in for? And I think Dana was just kind of taken aback by all of it. It probably didn't see that coming. And then at that point, because I asked

Colby yesterday, I said, when you went out to watch the fight, where you already told that if Leon wins, you're the guy and he said, yeah, on Saturday, they told me, if Leon wins, you're getting the next title shot. So I think him just showing up Friday and sneaking in under the radar and the buzz

that it created, I think that caused Dana and everybody else to be like, oh, okay, he's been gone for a while, maybe the absence has made the heart grow fonder, whether it's a heart of evil or a heart of good, because there's no middle ground with Colby. You either you either like him or you don't. And for good or for bad, him stepping on that scale, unannounced, the way that he did, it created a stir. It got people fired up. It got people talking. And I don't think Dana saw that coming and was like, oh, well, look at this. Maybe we need to

strike while the iron is hot. I don't know. I don't know. And maybe Mazadol can can do that himself inside the cage. But outside of him just obliterating Gilbert, I just don't know if this goes any other way. I just don't know. But I really wish they waited on this announcement. I really, I really do. 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 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 tread plus at Onepeloton.ca. 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. Italian leather handbags. Designer. Handpicked the finest sweaters from the rest.

Ooh, cashmere. Landed makeup pallets from the brands you love. Brushes too. And hustled all those wishless topping toys. So plush. Our buyers have got you covered. Marshals. We get the deals.

You gift the good stuff. Brian, hello. Sorry about that earlier. So I'm just curious when it comes to the Colby Ballals. obviously just kind of continue that. When it comes to your opinion, do you really think that Belal would have that much less of a buzz? I know the typical American audience is not going to know Belaw as much as Colby,

but Belal is somebody that does show up a lot. He is a social media presence when it comes to, like, UFC fighters. And he has that poll, especially from the middle of like the Middle East and such. Don't you think that the UFC can kind of spin it that way? or do you think Dana's just kind of sitting in what's comfortable? Like, I don't understand the Colby Covington craze he has for him. It's not like he's this $5, $6 million Instagram following UFC fighter. Like, it's not like he's running around with that biggest celebrities,

bringing in that many names, having that many connections. I just really don't understand at all the connection. And his fighting style is not at all what Dana's ever liked, because he'll go out and not give Sterling a title shot after it, after he chokes out one of the best guys ever that they love in Sanhagen. But Colby Covington will kill via rib injury, Tyron Woodley, and have to get a pay-per-view main event and a title shot after that. So I'm just curious.

I think I'm just ranting, but thanks, Mike. Have it going. Yeah, I mean, just kind of the way it is. The Wall's kind of getting hosed here, and it is what it is. I know I think Four Corner Sports said he should just fight out his contract and go elsewhere. I mean, he could do that. He could probably... Blal could probably ask for his release right now if he wanted to,

and I bet the UFC would think about it. It's awful to say, but I think they would... They did it with Corey Anderson. Corey was on the cusp of a title fight. He got knocked up by Janbojovic, but they just kind of let him go and do whatever he wanted. So, I don't know.

I might say, like, Belal and Shafkot. a really interesting fight. Like that is an interesting fight. I would watch the hell out of that fight. It just isn't fair that he has to get this fight right now. It's wild. And he probably should have been the backup too.

He should just went all in on that and just not even focused on a Colby fight or tough or anything like that. He should just been like, no, I'm not fighting Colby. I want to be the backup. And yeah, he's just in this weird position right now. But I'm telling, like, again, I don't think this is. a well, this is a long planned decision to have Colby be the guy. I think they just saw the buzz that Colby got on Friday when he weighed in. That's all everybody was talking about on

Friday. It's all we talked about on this show Friday. I got, you know, 15 to 20 questions. And I would say 10 of them were about Colby being the backup. It caused a stir. And I think Dana saw that. It was like, whoa, didn't, I had no idea. this is coming. So, like we say in pro wrestling, we can't miss you if you don't leave. And I think obviously the reasons why Colby was gone were unfortunate for all parties involved. Someone asked earlier also, like, do I subscribe to the Bilal theory that Colby dropped,

the UFC said Colby will give you a title shot if you drop the charges against Mazadol? I don't know. I did not ask Colby about that for multiple reasons. But as far as I know, the case is still, it's still open. And Mazdaal is set to go to trial in May. I looked at it yesterday morning, unless something has changed. But I just think they saw something there. I don't know.

It's a weird situation. But again, there's nothing to be surprised about here. This is not a shocking development. the only thing that was surprising to me is the timing of the announcement. Not that Colby's getting the title shot. It's that we just devalued the Burns-Mazidall fight.

Jose was in the room for this announcement, so interested to hear his thoughts on this. What's up, Jose? Welcome back to the States. What's up, guys? Jetlack has crippled me. I've barely slept. Going from Perth to Vegas to London has mentally drained me.

But here we are. MMA is fun as A. K Lee says. Mike, what you want to know? I'll let you ask me a question because I was there. All right. Well, what did you, what was your reaction to all of this? Like, I don't think you were surprised, but were you like me, just the timing of the announcement? Did that surprise you?

I'm, yeah, I was surprised that Dana doubled down like several times on Colby coming. Because normally he's like, what is the famous Dana White saying that he says at every single, post fight press conference quote we don't make fights on the day in the fight I don't know I don't make fights the day after like the day of the fight seems like he made this fight well I guess that's true because you seem to make this fight like a

month before the fight um I was sitting at official way in's uh we were like kind of like you know I was sitting next to Oscar Willis and just saying again Harry Davis of what are various other UK publications and I get a text message from someone that Colby Comington is walking into the building and I was like that's weird.

And then the next thing I know Colby Cofferson is getting up on stage, and there were rumblings amongst the media that Colby was indeed weighing in, but no one could confirm it. So once I got that text message, I said, it was strange. Maybe he's just doing it, you know, maybe he, for the paycheck or this and that, didn't think he would catapult him to a title fight, but I'm right there with you.

It kind of does suck the life out of Jorge Mazur, and Gilbert Burns. Because if Colby was there in Miami, then it would be a lot more interesting. interesting, but I asked Colby point blank, I go, will you be at the pay-per-view? And he said something along the lines of, I don't know, I might, you know, I might be hanging out with some Mamasita's and my schedule might be busy. I'm like, oh, so you're not going. And you probably can't go because Jorge is going there. So if Colby was sitting Cade side at the Jorge Mazbel fight and Jorge Mazel won and then there was some sort of issue, then I would be all in.

That's not the case. It just kind of sucks the life out of. one of the more intriguing welterweight matchups that's coming up. But yeah, just a weird situation all around. And then when Colby was up there doing this thing, I'm like, oh, yeah, I remember this. Like, there's the Colby that we all remember. Oh, man.

Get some rest, Jose, for God's sake. You're the man, Jose. There he is. Jose was in London for all of it. Just, yeah, we're in a strange place, my friends. let's keep this train rolling Dami Lola try to get him in

Do we have you? I like this I have you guys as I join I don't know Maybe you can put me through Or we can I don't know

You were breaking up like crazy So I didn't really hear a lot of that If you want to try to jump back in We'll see what we can accomplish we'll try to get Mikey in it's been uh like oh no didn't work it just booted mikeie right out of there uh let's go to joe hey mike a heck of a morning to you um i actually the first time i called into this program i identified myself as one of the few ball mohammed fans and asked you about his title possibilities um obviously it played out basically how uh

I thought how you thought, but I think basically you should take this Shavkat fight. And if he loses, he'll probably have to fight JDM. If he loses, you might just want to duck out of his contract. But I would still put money on Belaw. I put money on Belaw for his last three fights. I think if there's a person who can win a fight who can figure out a game plan how to win a fight, that's Bilal. But I think the possibilities are pretty slim there. all that being said

sort of disappointed not surprised but disappointed in the Colby stuff I feel like we're just going to get power slap Dana from now until forever until he leaves the spot he's currently in

the company because he just seems like he's on autopilot he just seems like he doesn't give a shit it's kind of it just sucks the life out of me watching him answer questions now I'm really hoping

there's some change at the top in the next few years because it's just a bummer every time. But the question I had for you was, what do you think the UFC or what do you think is the next steps for Juliana Miller? I like her quite a bit. Personality-wise, I did end up watching the last season of Tough. And she's, you know, great, great personality. I think she could be marketable, but that fight was tough. And her performance was definitely a, a bummer.

So I was curious what you think the next steps for Julianna Miller would be. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, man. Yeah, I mean... Oops, I didn't mean to do that. So, I don't know what just happened there. I think we're okay. For Juliana, I think you just got to give her

a step back. And I think that's what the UFC was trying to give her here. But it's... I understand, like, there's... Juliana had nervous energy in that flight. There's no doubt about it. But the story shouldn't be her. It should be Veronica Hardy.

She looked incredible. I mean, she looked great. That kick to the face she landed was ridiculous. And she ate it like scrambled eggs and bacon. It was just, Veronica looked incredible. Like she looked really, really good. She busted out many parlayas like right up the bat. But Giuliani, you could tell there was just a massive moment for her, big crowd, big events, opening up the show.

And she just wasn't really ready for it. I agree with you. I think they have something there with her. It's just a matter of getting her the right fights. Tough. Tough is always just like a weird place to get yourself into the UFC, just like the contender series. But one of the things I liked about the contender series,

at least early on, we don't get it anymore, which fucking drives you crazy, is when you have fighters who look good but are green, they would just give them like developmental deals and they would have them fight on cards that are on fight pass to build some experience and get some wins and get a little bit of extra oomph under their belts and they don't really have that anymore.

You go on tough, you win the show and then boom, you're right on a pay-per-view or you're right in here. And we saw a lot, we've seen a lot of contender series fighters just get straight contracts that probably not say they didn't they didn't deserve it, but they just aren't UFC ready. And Juliana, I don't think is really UFC ready right now. I'm not saying she can't be.

She's got skills. I like her style. She wants to get in there and get out of there. But if her number one game plan doesn't work, like what do you veer off to? And I don't know. She's somewhat I would have liked to have seen get a little more work. on the regional scene, but, you know, she's in the fire now.

And she just fought Veronica Hardy, who was on one. I mean, that was, she was on one on Saturday. She looked spectacular. And Juliana looked a little green, but it's more because Veronica fought so well that it made her look that way. So I don't know. I need to see her back in there again.

I would give her a pretty lower-level fighter. and let's see how she does. Maybe she just ran up against the wrong person at the wrong time because I think Veronica was a live dog in a lot of people's eyes, but I don't think a lot of people expected that type of performance. She looked frigging incredible. She looked incredible. But I'm interested in seeing Juliana develop.

That's for sure. She's got personality. She's got some spunk. let's see if the skill set can catch up with the charisma New York, Rick. What's up, buddy? Mike, heck of a morning. I love to speak to you as always. I've already done my animated rant on the welterweight stuff,

so I'm going to pivot to a fight that's on my mind between Dustin Porier and Justin Gehche. To me, that's the fight I want to see most in MMA right now. I love that fight. I would see that fight headlining a pay-per-view over some of the UFC title fights. I could see that fight getting the Comain five-round, Nate Diaz, Nick Diaz, like, let's just make this five rounds for the hell of it type slot as well. But it's a fight I'm really intrigued by.

I'm curious, what is the one fight that you want to see made most? Like, what is the fight that gets you most excited right now? Thanks, Mike. That one is right up there. I can tell you that right now. that one is right up there. Jed has also sold me on Gaichi Connor as a fight that I really want to see

because that's just going to be insanity. Gachi against really anybody. I think Gaichi has like the top three or four spots filled and just kind of insert name here. The guy is just, we appreciate Justin Gachi, but I still, as much as we appreciate him,

I don't think we appreciate him enough. I don't think the community appreciates that man enough. Every time he gets in there and fights, it's a fucking barn burner. It's the fight of the night. It's a guarantee. Like how many people can you say that about?

It is a lock that this is going to be some sort of bonus winning performance one way or the other. Even the all-of-air fight. Like he lost that fight and got finished in the first round. But that fight ruled. That fight ruled for as long as it lasted. The man never let you down.

He never let you down. So Gaichi against Gachi against anybody makes that list, but Gachy Portia 2, golly, that fight is going to be fun. That fight is going to be fun. It's right up there. I haven't really thought about it,

but Gachi against fighter X, Y, or Z, I'm in. Dante, hello. Hi, so I just have a couple quick questions. My first one is, do you think Muhammad Mikhail's a little too early in his career to be taking those bigger risks with not tapping? And my second one is, what's your opinion on the Drew Dober Matt Frivola matchup? Thank you. Yeah, the Makai Fakh thing was scary.

I don't know. It's not a question I can really answer as far as Muhammad goes. Like, is it too soon? Is it too? I don't know. You got to put yourself in that man's mind. his mind is, I ain't tapping. I ain't tapping.

It's still somehow he found a way to get a submission out of that. Just absolutely insane. I'm still very high on Moham Makhayev. I thought that was a pretty tough fight for him. I thought the line was actually gave me a little bit of pause because feels really good. And I know he just kind of came out of nowhere, wasn't a ranked dude and all that, but good fighter.

and it showed. But he actually kind of woke Muhammad Makaya up. Because Mahama's just been sort of dominating all of his fights and we haven't really seen that that killer instinct from him unless he feels a fight is personal or if he finds himself in any kind of danger.

But I'm just waiting for the, I'm waiting for a Muhammad Makaya performance where he just fires the switch right away and just goes in kill mode. We haven't really seen it since the Cody Durdon fight. But he's got a ton of upside.

He's just, he's just so young. He's just so young. We have to remember he's, in the United States, he's just coming to the age where he could legally buy an alcoholic beverage. So the thing about him is the foundation is there.

It's just kind of lighting that fire under him when the lights are on. And he's, still, he's like seven or eight years away from even scratching his athletic prime, which is crazy to think about. It's just crazy to think about. But yeah, that was, that was scary. I thought his leg was going to snap.

Yeah, yeah. Hello. What's up, big Mike? How you doing, Matt? Good, how are you? Amazing UFC 286. My question for you is, so Leon was on the MMA out yesterday, area of Hawani, and they're going over the aspect of him fighting Colby, you know, for the title shot.

And he was saying that if he received the contract, he would deny it. And I guess what do you think will happen if that happened? You think he'll get stripped or do you think he'll just eventually cave and do the title shot? Like, what do you think that would happen? Appreciate you. I mean, kind of go back to what I said earlier, I wouldn't be surprised by any result. I asked Colby about it yesterday. I said, what if he says no?

Then Colby said, without hesitation, then they're just going to strip him in the bell. Which would be, it'd be pretty fucked if they did that, but they would do that, I think. So, yeah, I don't know, I don't know. And, like, it's a winnable fight for Leon. It's a winnable fight for him. I think I would probably pick Colby,

but I wouldn't be overly confident in that pick right now. And maybe my mind would change. Like I was on Oospen pretty much the entire build to the trilogy fight. And then the day before I switched to Leon to win. That's what the fight week did to me and all the intangibles and all the questions. And maybe that's what would happen here. But I get where Leon's coming from. Like if he can get that Mazadol fight, like, why?

That is prize fighting. That's the biggest fight he can get. he'd be probably heavily favored in that fight, and he would get a big fat bag of money. That's prize fighting. Colby does price fighting better than anybody. I mean, that's why he's in this position right now. He does prize fighting as well, if not better than anybody.

Just look at his resume. People have been bringing up the resume over and over again. What has he done the last couple of years? He's kept himself in the game, and he's kept himself relevant, and he's put himself in this position, regardless of what he does inside of the Octagon. he's gotten these fights. Some were a little too late like the Woodley fight.

It was still a big one. And then even him and Mazadol just like headlining a pay-per-view. Like it was somewhat short notice for both guys because they had lost the title fights that they were going to book on that card and push it back to April. But Colby saw the value of getting ready to fight Mazadol, the heat that was on that fight, the appeal that it would have to the casual audience. And plus Colby knew he would probably, like, Colby knew the fight would play out exactly the way that it played out.

So you could hate on Colby for a lot of things, but when it comes to navigating his career as a prize fighter, Colby is very good at it. He's very good at it. Lowest risk fights for the most amount of money. That's how you win prize fighting. Colby's very good at it. And now he's in this position where he could get a title shot.

And he's in a position where again, would not be surprised if they offered Leon that fight and if he said no, they just said fine, we'll just do a vacant title fight, which is ridiculous, but could happen. Not out of the realm of possibility.

But I think ultimately Leon will just be like, ah, screw it, I'll fight them. I can probably win this fight. And then depending on what happens, April 8th, I mean, if Gilwood Burns meets Mazadol, then none of this really matters anyways, if we're being honest.

Like, it still sucks for Belal Muhammad. But if Burns goes out and beats Mazadol, like he's heavily favorite to do, then none of this really matters. I think it's just, honestly, it's just, that it's the timing of it all that makes everything just so head scratchy

in my mind, especially with that massive flight coming up. And now it's just kind of lost a lot of its luster, if we're being honest. Let's see if we can get a future world series of poker bracelet winner Token Jensen on here. But Twitter spaces

continues to hate the man, it looks like. Damn. Sorry, Toke. You could chuck a comment in there if you want. And I'll read it that, but I'm sure you had a nice little rants ahead of you. CV, hello. Yo, Mike, I'm like a good morning. Quick question.

Speaking of backup fighters and title fights, for yours to speculate, who would be the backup fighter for 287's main event? Thanks. Who would be the backup for 287's main event? I would guess I mean Polo Costa would be like a really good one

just because he would bring some buzz but if they don't do that and it doesn't seem like Dana White is a big fan of Paula Costa these days Whitaker would be a good one but they might even go with like someone like Drickus DuPla C right now that wouldn't surprise me either

but Whitaker to me would be the guy and then DDP would kind of be second on deck. Four on sniper, hello. Four on sniper. You're muted. All right, try again. Ani's been waving his hand, so let's get him on. Let's try it anyways.

Any hasn't had great luck lately either. I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. It's the matcha or the three ensemble Cicot of Cephora of the FACC that I've been to deniches who energize over? Mm, it's the ensemble.

The form of standard and mini, regrouped, what abem? And the embellage, too beau, who is practically to give to them. And I know that I

should have the Summer Fridays and Rare Beauty by Salina Gomez. Mm, I'm just the best all the best all over the fairos

of the Fesferi New YearBews, Cifora Collection, and other part of Vite VIII, procure you these formats standard and mini

regrouped for a better quality price. On link on C for Siphora.com or in magazine. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion

to Lux Beauty and Fragrant Sets. Our special selection has something for every style and price point. Visit our Holtz holiday shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com. Let's try PJ. Can you hear me?

Yes, sir. What's up? What's up? I just have a quick question for you all. It's a little out of the way question not very on topic today but

who do you think is going to be the next fight for Jared Cananier and what do you see the future for him at least and do you think that Alex

Pereira if he does beat Adisania that he goes up to he goes up and tries to be double champ Thanks, Beth. No, I don't think he'll go up. It's just too soon. He hasn't even had a title defense yet.

I think he'll get there eventually, but just beating Adasania, winning the title and then beating him again, there's just too much for him. Like him and Whitaker is a big fight. There's fights for him at 185. We got guys coming. We got DDP coming.

We got guys like Brennan Allen come in. Arm Vittori is a fresh matchup. Chris Curtis is coming. There's guys for him. But, yeah, I think it's way too soon. 205 is kind of a mess, though. But I just think it's too soon. Like run off a couple defenses.

We're just seeing this way too much. I got to say, there's a lot of things that kind of annoyed me on Saturday with the, with this whole announcement and everything. But I got to say, nothing, like, nothing made me sadder than seeing Islam Makachov say, I'll fight you, Leon, in October. Are you shitting me, dude? Why?

Why even tweet that? Like, you're the lightweight champion. You're trying to tell me you don't have a ton of compelling fights in front of you, and you want to go up to 170 after defending your title against Volcanowski. Come on. I did not like that one. I was not a fan of it. I scoffed at it.

I was like, and I'm not saying, like, he couldn't beat Leon Edwards because maybe he could. I would probably pick him to win, if we're being honest, but I don't know. But I just,

come on, man. Like, if there's any divisions champion that doesn't need to go up right now, it's his Lamaakov. It's 155. He will have compelling matchups for years. If he's the champion for like four years,

he will have a compelling fresh matchup every single time. I was not a fan of that at all. I mean, shoot your shot, bro, but boy, did I not like that. I did not like that. As far as as Canon Air goes, maybe they do Vittori.

Maybe they do DDP. It could do Brennan. One of those three guys, probably. Yeah, probably one of those three guys. His future, I don't know. He wins a bunch of fights and prayers to the champion. Maybe he gets a shot, but I don't think him and out of Sonia are ever going to fight again. Viking, hello.

Hello, my man, Mike Heck. What's up? So, do you watch Power Slap? No. Then I'll take that back, my man, my man, like. So I'm kind of agree with you about what you have said in the post-fight show of UFC 286. that Dana decided that Kobe fight after watching views on his way in video. But tell me how many paper views that the fuck a dog shit fighter could say,

I'm calling him by names because he likes to call people in the same ways. And last time I checked Addisania sold most paper views every time he fought in 2020. And Bilal Muhammad, he just ended that Sean Brady, high train and still fighting, Shao Kajakmano. It's too sad for him, and it's over the neck if Kobe gets the title shot. What's your thoughts on that how many? My main question was how many paper you Kobe Covington could sell. thanks a lot and shout it to New York Big friend

Thanks man How many will that sell? I think it's gonna I think it would do better than 286 I think it would do better than 286 It's not going to do like Bonkers better but I think it would do better than 286

I think it would do better than 286 But it depends on when this one happens Colby wants to do an international fight week And if they do Jones versus Steepa I even asked Colby about this. Would you be cool being the culminate events to a John Jones fight? And he said, yeah, I'd be fine with that. He understands, like, the extra buzz.

And plus, you get Colby on the stage with John Jones, after those two have had so much to say about each other. So maybe they do that. Maybe that's second title fight. Maybe they do Volk-Yair on that. And just go bananas or three title fights? I don't know. But if they do that, like, if they decide just to do that in August,

August or something. I don't know. I think it would do fine. It's not going to do a million. It would do nowhere near a million. But I do think it would do better than 286. I think Colby just, Colby would generate more buzz to me over Hoosman.

But who the hell knows? But I think it would do all right. It would do better than most guys that Leon could fire now. The only one that it wouldn't is, is Mazadol. Like if Mazadol Be Spurins, Leon Mazadol

would do bigger numbers than Edwards Colby for sure. But of all the options Leon has available to him, outside of Connor McGregor, of course,

if that ever happens. Colby's probably the next best bet for him currently, I would say. I feel pretty confident in that take. uh m m m locker room hello are you there sir hey what's going on everybody welcome to one of the best twitter spaces out here hosted by one of the best uh after party host mcconner burks how are you guys doing today good man what's on your mind uh so hearing me out chasmath shamaia versus ddp after that title shot winner what do you think dude i'd watch that fight emma's i would just be nuts

That'd be a fun one. Sure. Why the hell not? I don't think that'll happen, but why the hell not? They might do Homsot Whitaker. They might do that fight, which I am, Jesus, am I interested in that fight? I think that might actually be the answer. Gachi Pori 2 is right up there, but if there's a fight I could watch right now that I'm just incredibly fascinated in,

Robert Whitaker versus Hamzat Shemayev is one of those fights. Man. Oh, man, that's a great fight. Holy shk. I would be super fascinated in that one. But yeah, do you want to give me DDP Hamzat for the chaos factor? You may not find a more chaotic fight at 185 than those two guys. Jack, hello.

Mike, heck of a morning. First time, long time. I don't know what not no point is exactly, but I'm going to shoot my shot at it. I think you are off. on what you just said about Hamzat, I think he is the next contender for Leon Edwards. Why is he going to take a contender's fight at middleweight if he can now have the open shot at Welterweight?

You tell me. But he doesn't have an open shot. Who's going to say no to that fight? The U.S. The U.S. The team have said they want that shot. They'll cut to Walterweight to make that fight. I think Danny goes for it

because the interest for Colby isn't really there. I don't think that's necessarily true, man. I don't think that's necessarily true. And why would you, and here's the thing. It is incredibly risky to do that. And I'm not saying, like, dude, obviously Hamza fighting for a belt would be huge.

But they gave him Nate Diaz, and we all know why they gave him, of him Nate Diaz to headline a pay-per-view so that the UFC brass could sit back and smile as Hamzaa Chamaa just runs over Nate Diaz and he missed weight by nine pounds. And then like, can you imagine, like, can you imagine the outcry if they just gave Hamzaa a title shot after missing weight by nine pounds for Nate Diaz? like I would love to see Hamzaa fight for the Walterweight title I would love to see Hamzaa fight Colby

I would love to see Hamzaa fight Robert Whitaker but it seems like I don't know if you've seen Hamzot on social media recently that dude ain't making 170 he ain't making 170 he's in a similar spot either division like he's just not getting a title fire right now it's way too risky it's way too risky Now, if he has not, if he missed weight by like a pound and a half or two pounds, that's one thing. But he missed weight by nine pounds.

You can't just throw him into a title fight after that. It's way too risky because what if he misses weight again? Then he can't win the belt. So I have no issue if they want to give him a fight at 170 just to see if he makes it. And if he wins, give him a title fight. That's fine. But can you imagine like they put him in another main event this time for a title fight? and then he misses weight, and then he wins?

Then what? Like, it's just, it's too risky. 185 is a safer bet. He fights Robert Whitaker, which is a huge fight. And if he wins that, he gets to fight Alex Pereira. Those two guys have heat. That's, yeah, I don't, I don't think it happens. I don't think it happens.

It's way too risky. I get where you're coming from, from like a pay-per-view by standpoint. Sure. but it has to be in the back of the UFC's mind he might miss Wade they would be they would they would be nervous as hell the entire build to that fight until he stepped on the scale and if he wasn't 170 on the nose then you lose it it's gone and I think they know that give me 170 185 fights Whitaker he wins that he definitely gets a title shot hey hello yeah

I don't I don't know what the other guys talk about Dana already came out and said Hamzat's fighting at middleweight his next fight. But I like the Hamzot versus Whitaker idea. Would you, if you were the matchmaker, would you make it a main event five rounds or put Hamzah on a co-main of like a big pay-per-view? I think you have to do that on pay-per-view, but you could still make it five rounds.

Like if you want to do a five-round, you could still do it. They've made exceptions in certain fights. So they could definitely do that. So that's a paper you fight. Homestat's a draw. Homsat's a pay-per-view draw. So, yeah, that's a pay-per-view fight, for sure.

But, yeah, if he's going to fight at 185, you do that fight. Both guys are open to it. Let's just do it. Yeah, Dana said he's going to fight a top three guy. It seems like Whitaker's the guy. Taryn, hello. Hey, what's up, Mike? Just move on something quick and simple.

are we seeing the downfall of Ali when it comes to like management like what's happening right now is like he's not having any pool when it comes to like anything that's happening in UFC he used to have like so much pull because he had so many champions and different things of that nature I'm thinking that we're seeing like a fall from grace right now

and will we ever see any other manager have as much power or as much pool in the UFC as we've seen in the past with him that's it I mean, I think he's still doing fine. Henry Sehudo is getting a friggin title fight after turning his back on the company and just saying and just beating feet out of there. So I wouldn't say that. I don't blame.

I don't know. If you want to blame Ali for you can. I don't necessarily blame him for that. It's Balala is a fighter people like, but he's not, he's just not a star. He's not a star. and it shouldn't always be that way. I mean, look at what Leon had to do to get a title fight. They gave him freaking Nate Diaz.

And people still weren't ready to give it to him. And it's funny because I saw a lot of people tweet something like this out where it's revisionist history, right? When Leon Edwards beat Nate Diaz, everybody was saying that Leon didn't deserve the title fight. And I've seen that narrative a lot. That's not true. Nobody said he didn't deserve it. Everybody thought Leon deserved it. They just felt like his star power was going to hinder him from getting a title fight because that's what today's UFC is like.

It's not about winning fights over and over again. It's about can you get over with the people? When you show up on the UFC social media feed, are you going to get a million views or more? That's what they care about more than anything. They care about stars more than merit. And Ballal just isn't a star. The resume's fine. The resume is really good.

He's got a damn good one. But he's just not over. He's not over in that way. And it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate. But I don't think it's like an Ali thing. Because Henry Suhudo is about to main up, not only get a title fight, he's headlining a card.

He's headlining a card. after telling the UFC to kick rocks, I'm out of here. Comes back, gets an immediate title fight. When Bannamweight, there are far more, that might be more egregious than this, if we're being honest. If we're looking at resumes

and where this Bannamweight division is right now, so Hudo getting a title fight might be more egregious than Colby getting one, considering what Marlon Vera has been doing, where Sean O'Malley is right now, where Corey Sanhagan could be, where Maraub de Wallis-Willi is right now. There's like three, four, five guys

who have cases at 135 for title fights. 170, there's one. So I don't think it's that dire, honestly. I really don't. I understand the question, though. But, yeah, so Hudo's getting a title fight after kicking the UFC and the balls on the way out. Ovalho, what's up, ma'am?

So the oldest fighter to win the Welterweight title is Tyrone Woodley. He won it when he was 34 years old. And when you take the rest of the current rankings, Kamur Usman is 36 years old, Kobe is 35, Hamza is not in the division, basically. Belal is turning 35 this year, Burns is 37 this year, and Mars Vardar's 13.

turns 39 this year. So basically, if any of these guys manage to win the World Trade title, they'll be making history, do you think any of those guys could make history? And yeah, that's the question. Probably. Probably. How old's Colby?

35? Yeah. Just turned 35? That's a good point. We forgot about Wonder Boy. Wonder Boy's 40. Wonder Boy's 40. yeah it's definitely uh it's definitely an older division is sean brady like the young or schofcott too

um Brady and rock mana for like the two youngest guys kind of in contention right now is that is that true what's how old shop cut he's pretty young 28 yeah well to he probably needs a youth movement at some point but a lot of these guys are still still doing the damn thing anthony how's it going good morning mike I'm sorry someone asked us already, but where do we go with Roman DeLise? He was able to go like 15 minutes with Vittori, but he didn't look the greatest strike. He looked a little one-dimensional. I was high on him before, but I'm still a fan. I think the grappling is legit, but where do you think they go next with him?

Thank you. Let's see. What do we do with Roman Deleizzi? Nemovov. That's fun. Yeah, I like the Imovov fight. I think that makes sense. Could do Brandon Allen, maybe Kyle Barallo if he wins his next fight.

But yeah, there's some options for him. Yeah. What's up for on Sniper? So this past weekend, obviously, Leon Edwards defeated Kamarouzman to retain his title. I picked Leon Edwards to win, and I also was rooting for him, obviously. And I say that because so during the fight, he committed a good amount of foul. I was like he had multiple nut shots. He had the cage grab.

I think he grabbed the cage like twice. And I'm just going to get into my question. So round three, Camaro had his back and he grabbed the cage and it prevented him from being taken down. The ref took a point. Why did the ref not offer Kamaro Usman to take the option of position over the point

or the point over position? Because I believe, even though I was rooting for Leon, I think that round was Camaro's and I think Camaro could have potentially had a 10-8 round. So my question is, what do you think about the rep, not giving them that option to, you know, get his position back? Thank you.

Yeah, it's a weird one. Because they even looked at the, he even looked at the replay and was trying to maybe justify not taking a point because her, Herb Dean has done many interviews and he doesn't like taking points because he feels with the current scoring in MMA that taking one point changes the tide of an entire. fight. Basically, when you take a point away from somebody, you're basically more off than not giving the fight to the other person.

So he tries not to have a hand in the actual result of the fight. Having said that, he was like, all right, well, I'm going to look at the replay and see what it is. He looked at the replay and was like, eh, it didn't really complete the takedown and you have to take like an educated guess.

Like, would he have gotten the takedown? And if you go back to the rest of the fight, anytime Usman got Edwards down, he got back up pretty much immediately. So the only like clear, concise decision he could make, and he even said it was, look, I can't award him position for this, so I have to take a point. So I think if he could have awarded position, he probably just would have awarded the position and not taking the point.

But in that case, because he didn't complete the takedown, he just took the point. So it's weird. Like a lot of those rulesets, and we talk about it all the time. Like people are like dog and Leon for cheating. They don't call it ever. And even, like, losing that point, like, you could say that was, like, a veteran savvy move. Because he won the rest of the fight. He's like, eh, I'll just lose this moment.

And I get the fight back on the feet. I lose a point. Who gives a shit? I don't know. But I'm telling you, we got to change this fence scrap thing. Like, you don't have, I'm not saying you have to take a point every single time. But, like, so often it just doesn't get called. Like, I'm glad the point got taken.

There are enough fouls up into that point where it's just like, all right, we got to take a point. point. But I wish they would just kind of reward the position over the point, especially in that moment. They should be like, all right, stop, you get down, you're on top, go. That's the first time. Second time, you take that same position, but you take them off the fence, put them in the middle of the cage. That's number two. And if it happens again, you go back to the middle of the octagon, then you take a point. But it's just that rule in particular drives me nuts. because what is the movie saying we've been saying this for two years on all of our shows just cheat just grab the fence kick him in the balls poke them in the eye because they're not going to take

points very rarely do they take points we've seen points taken in the last couple of events but before that like we never saw points getting taken away Joe selecki's like two fights ago saw the dude that kept grabbing the fence over and over again before takedowns even after he even when Slecky's opponent was on his back, he was still grabbing the fence, still wasn't getting called. And then after like the seventh grab, the ref finally took a point in the middle of the action,

which I appreciated. But yeah, man, it was crazy. That point deserved to be taken. But with that, like, you have to make a judgment call. Like, would you have 100% gotten that takedown? If you can't say that, you just take the point. I've been pretty tough on Herb. I call him hokey pokey herb.

He's had his days where he hasn't been great. I thought he was pretty damn good in that fight. I thought he was pretty good in that fight. And it was a pretty good explanation for why he took the point, too. It was nice to hear it in real time and see how it all worked out in his mind. SV3. Hey, man, what's up? So first of all, you say the Sehudo situation is similar to the Colby,

but Sehudo was champion before, you know? So I think that's why he got the title shot. Also, how big of a draw is Colby really? I mean, I know that the Mazvedal versus Colby fight did not sell more than Oliver Gagchi, because I think it was reported somewhere. And Oliver Gagee sold like 400K. So is he really that big of a draw, pay-per-view-wise? The Sohudo thing, look, I understand that Tehudo, and things that I say about Tehudo are not badly reflective on his resume.

and like who he is as a person. Because I've heard he's a great person when he's just him. And he's not doing the gimmick and all that stuff. But this guy showed up at a pay-per-view as the champion was just about to become a star. Like he was not a star when he left. He wasn't.

He was getting there. People were starting to buy into Suhudo a little bit. He was getting there. The momentum was in his favor. And then he gets on the mic and he retires. And just as I'm done. And it's not that he retired. It wasn't a, well, I've done everything in this sport.

I'm the greatest of all time. There's just nothing left for me to accomplish. It was no. The UFC doesn't pay me enough money until they do. I'm out of here. And made them look foolish. On their first major events post-pandem, like in the middle of the pandemic, try to put this pay-per-view card together.

And he kicked them in the night. sack on the way out. And what did Dana White do at the post-fight press, at the post-fight press conference? What did he do? He said, okay, Pierre Jan's getting a title fight against somebody else. They moved on from Suhudo

three hours later for that exact reason. And then he came back. And we were wondering. And it's the same thing. It's the same argument, though. It's the same one I had. where it's like, okay,

the whole concern about Sohudo for me wasn't that he doesn't deserve it. He's one of the best combat athletes ever. He's up there. His resume, it's hard to compare it. The problem is he has already screwed them over once. He's going to fight Al Jemaine Sterling. If he wins that fight and wins the belts,

guess what he's going to do? He's going to fight Sean O'Malley because that's what you should do. Get the bag. Go get the bag. And then if he beat Sean O'Malley, we might never see him again because we know what he's going to do.

He's either going to, A, hold out for more money again, or two, he's going to be like, I ain't fighting anybody unless it's Alexander Volcanovsky. If you don't approach me with more money or the Volcanowski fight, I ain't fighting. That's my concern. All I wanted to see for Sudo is just to fight one dude. Just fight anybody.

You win, you get a title fight. But to come back like this and just get an immediate shot, and I'll blame Suhudo for this. He bided his time. He actually did it right. He let Aljo grab the bag and fumble it. And Aljo fumbled the bag. As soon as he p.J. J. Dilleshaw,

Aljo should have been all in on Sean O'Malley, and he didn't do it. He got there. Eventually, he realized, oh, shit, Sean's the biggest fight in this division. It favors me really well. He'd be a minus 200 plus favorite in that fight. And he'd probably win, and he would be the biggest fight he can get because Sean Amalley's the biggest name in the division, the biggest star of the division.

But instead, he threw out the, well, maybe I'll fight Sean, or maybe I'll fight Cheeto, or maybe I'll fight Zahudo, or maybe I'll fight this guy, or maybe I'll fight this guy. And you let the promotion make the decision for you. and that's why Henry Sehudo's getting this fight. But it's not like Welterweight. It's not like Welterweight. Like you could slide, you could slide Colby in there.

And you may not think he deserves it, but it's Belal right now. Like it's him or Belal. What's going to do better? And with all the reports of pay-per-view buys, nobody knows for sure. Nobody knows for sure. This is an ESPN plus streaming model.

We don't know the numbers. That's the same reason we don't know what the PFL pay-per-view numbers were. Same reason we don't know what half of those paper views are. How do we get reports on one pay-per-view but not another? I don't know. We go by what the promotion tells us, but we don't know what's true and what isn't. We don't.

Colby's not a million pay-per-view by kind of a guy. But he's going to sell more. It's going to sell more than Leon versus Belaw by a lot. It's not even close. but Leon versus Mazadol would do bigger than Leon versus Colby and it all depends on where they want to put this fight if they put it on international fight week

and they do Jones versus Steepa with that fight, that's a million. That one's doing a mill. For sure. I feel pretty good about that. But I still feel like Suhudo getting a title shot. Like if we're mad about Colby getting a title shot, we should be just as angry about Sehudo getting a title shot.

And Suhudo is jumping like five guys right now. Colby's jumping ball and that's it. Again, this is the UFC we are a part of, my friends. This is the nature of the beast. And this is how it's going to be forever. Yep. Trying to get Ani in and it's just not happening. I don't know why.

Let's go to Zayland and you can take us home. Zaland, hello. It's not working here either. All right. All right, well, I guess that's it. Yeah, I don't know why some people can't get through. It's weird. My internet's fine, so it's a Twitter thing.

So hit up Elon Musk and be like, what the hell, bro? Fix your Twitter spaces. Fix it. But I'm sure we'll be talking more about this throughout the week. If you want to get Colby's thoughts and everything, go to the MA fighting YouTube channel. I spoke with him yesterday evening. First time I've talked to him since after the win over Mazza. it all.

So yeah, you can check that out. He gave his thoughts on everything and did so in ways that only Colby Covington can do. But we'll be back here on Thursday. We'll do it again. 10 a.m. Eastern. We'll have a BTL on Thursday as well. And then Friday, we'll be back here again. And then we'll get you ready for UFC San Antonio, which I hope gets a little bit more play

by the time we get there with all this news in the aftermath of UFC 286. I feel like this hangover is going to linger. for a little while longer, but I hope we hydrate just enough philosophically to move past UFC 286 and get ready for Marlon Verre versus Corey Sanhagen, a fight that absolutely rules

and has just incredible stakes attached to it. Very much looking forward to that fight. And we get a rare break from UFC action. How about that? Let's see if we could, get Zeland in one more time. We'll give it a shot. Let's see.

That wheel is just spinning. That wheel is just spinning. And we tried. Try again Thursday. We'll try to get you in right off the bat. But thank you all very much. You know what? Screw.

Screw it. Let's do you one more. Let's take a trip to DeGenerate University. D.U. Hello. Hey, Mike. Really quick. I just want to say, I don't know who had to take, but they were right on the whole Justin Gagey thing. I remember we were all outraged of him going to that birthday party and shooting those guns and everything like that.

But we said the moment that he fights, we're going to forget about all of it and just relish in the moment of how crazy and chaotic he can be, how he bloody his opponents and how he just kind of brings us back to that old school UFC where it's just pure chaos in the cage. So damn it, he got us. Yep. That's how it works. It's not just an MMA. It's in all of sports. Winning and performing, it's like none of that stuff ever. Like, we don't forget it, but we put it way in the back burner. That's what happens. The Tiger Woods effect. Tiger did some heinous shit. And then came back and won a golf tournament. And it's like none of that stuff ever happened. That's sports. That's just how it is. But what else is how it is? Back here, Thursday, boy. 10 a.m. Easter, we'll do it again. Thank you all very much. Have a great rest of your day. And as always, had a heck of a morning, everybody. Listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.