MMA Fighting - HOAM | What Fight Could Headline UFC 289 In June? Plus, Wonderboy Teasing Fight News, More

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

While a lot of the UFC pay-per-view schedule has taken shape, as of now, there is no main event on the slate for UFC 289, which is set to go down on June 10 in a location yet to be announced. What fight could take that slot? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck discusses the main event situation for the promotion's June pay-per-view event, and what could actually be in play. Additionally, listener questions include Stephen Thompson teasing fight news and who potential opponents could be, Jorge Masvidal's chances against Gilbert Burns at UFC 287, the art of the post-victory callout in the UFC, Gamebred Boxing 4, prospects to watch at Friday's Bellator 293 event, favorite WrestleMania moments, 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

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. The last day of March, and it is indeed a heck of the morning. We are live on the M.A. Fighting Twitter Spaces. You can hear the show in its entirety shortly thereafter on the M.A. Fighting Podcasting Network. Hello there. I am Mike Heck. I hope everyone's having a wonderful Friday, a wonderful week so far.

Yes, there is no UFC card this weekend, but there are plenty of combat sports, action. Bellator going down later on tonight. Pretty solid card. And then tomorrow is where all the magic is, apparently. We got Game Bread Boxing 4. We have PFL 1 to kick off the 2023 season. We have Night 1 of WrestleMania 39. We have Fight Circus, which is just, I mean, just go watch BTL or watch the Combat Preview show.

Jedmishu will sell you everything you need to know about the fight circus card. So it is, you will not be without combat, even though the UFC isn't going down this weekend. But that's okay. It's okay to have a little bit of a breather because then we can get even more excited for UFC 287, which goes down in eight days. That card is really, really good. The main card is outstanding. It is a tremendous main card.

Of course, we got the big rematch for the middleweight title between Alex Pereira, Israel, Adisania. We got the massive welterway fight between Gilbert Burns and Jorge Mazadol. Rob Favre versus Adrian Yanez. We have Raul Roses Jr., the 18-year-old taking on Christian Rodriguez. And we have Kevin Holland versus Santiago Ponsinibia. That is a damn good main card. And the rest of the card is pretty solid.

We get Chris Barnett. We get Chris Barnett in eight days, which I'm very excited about. We got middle-weighty, middle-wates, Gerald Mearshard and Joe Pfeiffer, Chris Curtis, Calvin Gasselm, Steve Garcia, Shilin, Nirdin Beka, the return of Michelle Waterson-Gomez

against Luana Pinheiro, Cynthia Calvillo, back to 115 to face Lupi Godinez, Sam Hughes versus the debuting, Jacqueline, Amarim, Trey Ogden, Ignacio Bahamantes. UFC 287 is a pretty solid card. 13 fights.

It's a pretty good number. It's going down to Miami. First card in Miami in almost two decades. So a lot to be excited about it if you're an MMA fan. But today, it is Friday. Do you know what that means on heck of a morning? It's a free-for-all Friday. So we can talk about M-M-A.

We could talk about what's going on this weekend. We could talk about UFC 287. We can talk about the big news in M.A. We can talk WrestleMania. We can talk whatever the hell you want. So let's go and Zach Leff will kick us off on this

free for all Friday. Zach, hello. Hey Mike, happy Friday. So like you said, you know UFC, but still got plenty of MMA content. So two questions for you. First, with the Bellator happening today, 15 fights, a lot of fights. But usually what that means, a lot of

prospects that they believe in, that they're going to put on the undercard. So who are a few on this card that we should look for, you know, that might do well. And then, you know, for future years, we can look at as possible contenders for Bellator. And then for the PFL, the one thing I noticed with it is not for this week's car, but Kayla Harrison not being in the season for the lightweight division for the women's. And what is their plan with her then? Because she fight any of those people like Larissa Procheco, if she's in the season still,

was curious there. I didn't know. I know that that pay-per-view model coming up, so maybe they try to do something with her. there but we'll be curious then who she would fight but have a good Friday Mike and I hope everyone's doing well today thanks man as far as Kayla goes I have no idea I have no clue maybe they're hoping to maybe PFL's hoping to get Chris Cyborg I think that's kind of what they're hoping for because Chris has not re-signed with Bellator she's still the champion they have not moved on with this division at all which is one of my issues

with this card. Marcelo Gold and Daniel James, I'm sure it'll be a fight, and I'm sure it's not going to go to the cards. I'm sure it'll be over pretty quickly, but to me, this is a perfect opportunity with a card like this and not having a lot of stellar options for headliners to just do Katzengano Leah McCourt for the interim Featherweight title. And then we can just go from there.

And if Chris comes back, Chris gets the winner, We can unify the belts. And if Chris leaves, then Kat Zangano or Liam McCord is the new featherweight champion. And we can move on. We can move forward. But all this like waiting and all this, it's just crazy to me.

It's just crazy to me. So maybe PFL is just hoping they can get Chris Cyborg. I just don't know what else they're going to do unless PFLA gets somehow signs Francis and Gano and they do a pay-per-view with Inganu headlining and just get Kayla in there on the card against somebody. Like, I honestly don't know what they're going to do. I didn't think Kayla would be a part of the season.

She kind of prefaced that because of the way her contract is structured. She only had a couple of fights left heading into that finale fight with Larissa Pacheco. But Larissa is part of the season. So I don't think they're going to fight, which seems like a missed opportunity to me. So I don't know. That's a great question. I have no idea what's going to happen. As far as this Bellator card with future prospects,

Archie Colgan's a good one. He's fighting fellow undefeated fighter, Justin Montalvo. I think Sullivan Colle. He's a really good, a really good up-and-comer, five-and-o, teammate with Ryan Bader. He's real good. He's going to be a problem at 205, fighting the nicest guy,

maybe in M.MA history and Luke Traynor. Joey Davis, I'm very high on. seen him fight in a long-ass time. I think this is his first fight since November 2020. Lucas Brennan is really good. After this fight, he's probably going to need a little bit of a

step-up in competition. I like Lance Gibson Jr. a lot. Randy Field sounds like somebody that Bellator will kind of put the promotional push behind. Bryce Meredith is someone they're going to push. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of interesting prospects on this card. Let me look at the betting lines.

bang lines will tell you everything you kind of need to know. Lucas Brennan is a minus 1,100, so eventually he's just going to have to get a step up. Joey Davis is a minus 1,600. Bryce Merritt's a minus 1100. I mean, there's some potential squash matches on this card, but this is a good card. The main event is pretty bad. It's going to end quick, and it's not going to go to the cards. It'll probably be an ugly fight at times, but the rest of the card is pretty solid.

I love the Aaron Jeffrey John Salter fight. I think that's good matchmaking. I think Aaron Jeffreys, I told him this. When I talked to him last week, you'll see that conversation I'm fighting later on today. But I think Aaron Jeffrey is the Chris Curtis of Bellator. Chris was just a guy just couldn't get over the hump to get into a big promotion. But once he got there, he was going to be off and running. And it seems like Aaron is off and running now that he has a stage to continuously compete on.

He doesn't have to fight for nickels and dimes on the regional scene. He's got a place to go. And he could be a win away from a title shot if he beats John. If he beats John Salter, he might get a title fight. I know we got Fabian Edwards and Gayguard coming up. But if Aaron Jeffrey just runs over John Salter, he's in the mix. And a fight between him and Johnny Ebel would be pretty fun, honestly. So yeah, there's a lot of good prospects on this card.

There's a lot of good prospects in this card. I'm a man of my word. So, Ani, you are up. Hello, sir. At some time, I'll think of a couple of questions, but, you know, you are. It's all right. So let me think. First things first, very quickly, I wanted to ask you,

the next fight as in Bobby Green versus as a Jared Gordon, is that Bobby Green's retirement fight? And like, that caught me off guard. is that actually Bobby Green's retirement fight? I mean, I'm not done. I still have a couple of questions. I'm just waiting for you to respond to this first, if that's okay. I mean, it's tough to say.

That's what he's saying. So for now, I'll take him at his word. But who the hell knows, honestly. That's what he's been saying for the last couple months since his fight was booked. So according to him, this will be his last fight. And that's, that caught me of God, to be honest. Anyway, so, I mean, we've seen that. And there's, I'll ask you a question about MMA and then one non-MMA.

It seems that Wonderboy seems to have a fight. By process of elimination, I think it could be Michelle Pereira, or has it already been announced that it is Michelle Pereira? And that's one question. And another question that I have, which is sort of non-MMA, but within the realm of the. MMA world is, you know, like you've interviewed loads of mixed martial artists. And sometimes, you know, when you have these off-the-record conversations where, you know,

you're just talking to them, like having a normal conversation, like, did anyone give you any life advice of sorts? As in like, did they say that, you know, that they appreciate your work and did they give you anything in any sort of good advice or a few quotes that just stuck with you because when I went to for the love of MMA in in Manchester I met GSP right and I had this really nice conversation with him and we were talking about nervousness in general like dude I still can't believe that I'm speak I had a 15 minute conversation with GSP like the consensus greatest of all time of of course, John John is there, of course, but I don't want to get into this whole Goat debate, man.

So when I'm speaking to GSP, he's the goat, right? So I'm talking to him about my research, about my PhD work. And I tell him, I ask him about, you know, how does he deal with nervousness or even when he's going on, you know, on the big stage. For me, the big stage would be, you know, for my review or for my Viva or for my presentations or wherever I show up. So he said that before each and every single one of his fights, he was nervous, like he was scared to death. The only one fight where he was not nervous and he felt like a world beater, he got knocked the fuck out.

So being nervous is actually a good thing. It means that you're doing something meaningful. And this is something I think will stick to me for the rest of my life. So similarly, did you have any open heart conversations with Mix? martial artists of the record where they gave you advice or any such discussions of so? Interesting question. There's a couple that come to mind. As far as the Wonderboy thing goes, I don't know.

I don't know what's going on there. It seems like Michelle Paheda would be a really fun option. It's one that both guys want. Neither guy had an opponent. I know Pahedda was supposed to fight Sean Brady and that fell through. and there's let me just look something up there is

where are we looking at here with Michelle Pada so from from what like the last conversations that we sort of had with Pereira

they were targeting getting him on the April 15th card and before Wonderboy tweeted that was kind of the hope that they were going to fight April 15th but obviously if they throw this Adam, that

I mean, that could be a fun one. I would love that fight. I honestly don't know who else really makes a lot of sense unless they give him Jack Delamadalena, which who the hell is going to complain about that? They could do RDA. That would be an interesting one.

I wouldn't mind that one. Sean Brady, probably out of the equation. I actually talked to Sean Brady. A couple days ago, he's hoping the summer he can come back, July or August, is something he was thinking about. So I don't, the answer to the question about if it's Thompson Perey, I don't know. It's still kind of up in the air right now. And then your other question about, you know, if I had any, you know, sort of off the record,

life advice conversations, there's two that I could think off top of my head. There's probably more. one is, and I talked about this before, when someone asked about, I think Anthony asked about the last referral Friday about getting into the space and I was telling the story about how I got to wear a mat. And there was a certain point in my professional life where I was going to stop covering MMA altogether because I was getting promoted in my radio gig and I was getting all these other responsibilities and I was starting to get burnt out and I'm like, well, I got to choose here.

I can't keep doing both. And James Lynch gave me some good advice to just keep sticking with it. And then I got a phone call from Mickey Gall who told me essentially the same thing. Like don't stop. Keep going. Like even if you have to do one interview a week or whatever, do it. And that meant a lot to me. The other one I thought, which was kind of interesting, the first time I interviewed Trashon Gore,

we were having a conversation. I forget, I think it was before the Brian Battle Fight. Yeah, it was before the Brian Battle Fight. And we talked for like 10 minutes before we recorded. And then we talked for probably like another half an hour after. And it was at a point where, I mean, I was just running at a million miles an hour doing a lot of different things. And I hadn't really taken a break in a while. Like I didn't take it a lot of days off.

when I was off like the schedule, I was still doing stuff. And Trayshan kind of like noticed at the end that, you know, as you look, you look a little burnt out. Because if I'm just being honest, like, I've never spoken with you before. Like I've never seen you before. Never like talked to you before. But you just seem like, you seem kind of burnt out. And that like really stuck to me.

And I was like, wow, you like, maybe you're right. So we talked and he gave me some like different advice about burnout and like how to how to deal with it. And I didn't feel burnt out. There were times where I was getting like a little grumpy. So maybe he just like saw something in my eyes. But I thought that was like a pretty interesting thing that he noticed that. And after that conversation like I immediately put in to like take a few days off. And turned out he was probably right at that point in time.

So that was a good piece of advice that he gave me. just like, dude, just don't burn yourself out. Like, do other things. Separate yourself from the sport. Do stuff. Go play golf. Go do this. Go do that.

Because my routine was pretty much the same every day, even when I wasn't working. It was just go get a workout in and just focus on covering MMA for. And I think at the time, I was putting one of those, like, massive features together, which just takes over your life at times. So I thought that was, like, pretty crazy. that he noticed that. And I'm sure there's others, but those are two that are at the top of my head. When I got a great deal on a great gift at winners,

I started wondering, could I get fabulous gifts for everyone on my list? Like this designer fragrance for my daughter. At just $39.99, how could I resist? This luxurious will throw for my sister. This gold watch for my partner? A wooden puzzle for my niece? Leather gloves for my boss? Ooh, European chocolate for the crossing guard?

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On link on Ciforah.com, or in magazine. Tristan, hello. Mike, can you hear me? Yep. Hey, I don't know what happened last I just couldn't hear you before. I don't know if it was on your end or mine,

but I don't know. The question I have is, so we see some the fights that were announced in books, and there's four fights that I got to say they're bangers and I'm just so happy that they're going to hopefully happen God, you know, God willing.

So you have Brandon Boydow versus Mateus Nicolao, Justin Al-Jash Emmett versus Ilya then you have Edson Barkbosa versus Billy Q and then I believe it's announcing confirmed Nate Landwehr versus um, uh, basis. Danige. Out of those four fights, what do you think is going to be the funnest,

funnest out of the four? Imagine that that was all on the same car. Like, that was just like, all right, it's going to be the fun. This is going to be all on the main car. Like, how lucky are we? And, you know, it goes back to just appreciating these fighters. Because it's just like, you know they're going to be dangers are going to be fun. Because a lot of them, they can't help themselves.

So what do you think is going to be the funnest out of those four fights? Thanks, Mike. Jeez, that's like trying to pick your favorite kid. They're all good. I think Royval Nicolao is going to be a little more technical than people think. I know Royval is sort of the king of chaos at 125, but it's something he's been working on trying to slow down a little bit. The last time I talked to Brandon Royval,

he was telling me stories about how Mark Montoya at Factory X would have him, he would set up lines around the gym and he would have Roy Val just walk and just follow the line all the way around the gym and he had to try to keep like a similar pace and try to slow things down a little bit and at certain points

Mark would notice that Brandon would start to rush it a little bit he's like what are you doing look at how fast you're going you need to slow down you just stay calm you stay patient And I think that's something that Brandon's really trying to work on. Because while that style has led to a lot of his success, it's also led to a couple of his losses as well. Just getting a little too crazy in there. And when you're at this level and you're fighting guys like Mateus Nicolao, you can't make a mistake because he will capitalize on it.

So I do think that fight's going to be fun. I think it's going to be a little more technical than chaotic. Like, Teporia, Emmett, it's a five-rounder. I think it'll be fun, but I think it'll start off a little slow. It's between the other two featherway fights. Billy Kuenots and Barbose is going to be ridiculous. And Nate Layware, D&E game is going to be a ton of fun. I reported that last night.

What's funny is like that, that, like, we report the fight and that we put it on in May fighting and people are like, Mike, is this confirmed? Yeah. Why would I put it out on the website if it wasn't confirmed by multiple people on both sides of the table?

I wouldn't, we wouldn't write it up and put it on the website if it wasn't confirmed. It is not signed sealed and delivered yet, but it is agreed to. And one side of the table told me it is a done deal. And the other side said, yeah,

we agreed to it. It's going to happen. So contracts await. but I was also told because that's happening at UFC 289 and there's been a lot of focus and a lot of talk about whether or not it's going to happen in Canada. I'm told that and I know there are other reports out there that maybe that could be up in the air a little bit. I'm told there's a little bit of smoke to that, but I don't really know.

I don't really know for sure. So that's a freaking great fight. I don't know what's going to headline that card. There is no main event for the June paper review yet. Danny Gay, Nate Landware would be a damn good main card opener or a damn good featured prelim on ESPN.

I love that fight. I will go with that fight is the correct answer. I think Barbosaic, Billy Q, is going to be fun, but I think it could be one of those typical Billy Q fights where Edson just does his thing. He's very methodical.

He lands a lot of leg kicks. Billy Q probably loses the first round and then he just kicks into that second gear and turns it around. But I think E. Gay Landware is going to be kind of nuts from start to finish. So I'll go with that. But again, it's like choosing your favorite child. I think all of those fights are going to be bangers. And they're all going to be fun in their own different and unique ways.

Four quarter sports. Hello. Hey, Mike. So you said that there's no headliner for the June pay-per-view, right? Nothing, nothing yet. All right. So I don't see why the U.S.C. can't push for maybe like Amanda Nunes. I mean, I know that may not be like a sexy pick, but like she hasn't like fought since the Dallas car, which is in late July.

I mean, there's been no rumblings whatsoever as for her fighting anytime soon. I mean, I know there's speculation maybe about her and or any Aldana. But how come she hasn't been like talked about as somebody that should like push to be. fighting, you know, because the main reason that you guys always talk about the Bannerway Division, the Women's Bannerweight Division, not getting, you know, any traction, I would say it starts

from the top. She's not fighting actively enough, and at one point she wasn't defending the belt for like two years in that division. But I just feel like, you know, if it starts from the top, then you could get more traction and you don't have to you don't have to really

go months without having a a women's Bannaway fight. that's one thing um another thing i i sold a piece he put out there for uh ege versus uh landware love the fight i feel like if landward does get the victory over ege i think they're going to strap the rockets and you know what's the called um landward's and i um hit more more new heights than ever possible if he does get the victory i would love to see him fight max holloway i know that might be a stretch, but I think that could be a very fun fight. I think Land War is in fun fight territory.

And lastly, I wanted to ask you, what is your favorite WrestleMania moment? I've been to WrestleMania 20. I felt like that was phenomenal with the ending of Guerrero and Benoit celebrating. But Mike, I don't know if you've been to WrestleMania or not, but what's your favorite WrestleMania moment on TV? And if you've been to it in person, what was your favorite WrestleMania moment live? All right, thanks, Mike. Thanks, man.

So the Nunez thing, I mean, I don't know why people are surprised. She said after the Pena fight, she was going to take some time off. She was going to be out for a while. So, and to be fair, no one has really emerged. I mean, Arrini Aldana, certainly, and I know there was discussions about doing Nunes Aldana at UFC 285, but like I told you many, like I told you, you guys, even with the Shevchenko booking with Grasso, that wasn't done for a while. I know a lot of sites were reporting it, but it wasn't done.

Eventually got done. Like the day that Dana did his, oh, we got a whole bunch of announcements coming your way and started screaming fights that were going down. Like, that's the day we confirmed it because we put that out right before Dana made the announcement. So I don't know what's going on what news. I don't know. it also probably

kind of depends on like where this card's going to take place like a man of Nunes headlining a card in Calgary doesn't make a lot of sense you know what I mean so maybe that's up in the air and I don't know if she's like

I don't know if the Bannamweight Division is like a main event sort of division right now I don't know so that I mean you could do that there you could do that I know there's talks about maybe Mexico City and stuff, but Dana kind of was like,

well, don't really know if we're going to be able to pull that off this year with everything going on. Maybe do, I don't know. I don't know what you do there. They're going to have to scramble a little bit. Could do Colby and Leon,

but Calgary would be a weird place for that fight. I don't know. I don't know. It won't be John Jones-Stepe. We've got the middleweight title on the line already next weekend. could Jamal Hill maybe, but still, Calgary seems like a weird place for that. Islam's not going to fight till October when they go to Abu Dhabi. Volk, they're talking him and Yair for International Fight Week, not done yet.

But that's the direction they're heading with that fight. Sterling and Suhudo are fighting in May. Do you do Moreno versus Pantosia? I don't know. It's going to be interesting to see what's going to be. going to headline that one. WrestleMania moments. I went to WrestleMania 14,

which a lot of people feel is one of the best. I would agree. That was the night that Stone Cold Steve Austin won the WWF title. Sean Michael's final match for a long time. That was a fun-ass WrestleMania, man. That was a good time.

I think Austin went in the bell was pretty cool. I was a big fan of the rock. Everybody hated it. him but I loved them. This big rock guy. LOD came back. Came tombstoneing.

Pete Rose was a lot of fun. Pete Rose just ran down the Boston crowd. It was just a damn good rest of media. It had a freaking dumpster match with the Outlaws and Cactus Jack and Chainsaw Charlie. It was a good WrestleMania. It was damn good. I love the first scene of rock mania too. That was a good one.

I love the Michael's Undertaker matches before Michael's had to retire. I mean, there's a lot of good ones, but WrestleMania 14, I was there, and that was a fun time. And that WrestleMania still holds up. Still holds up today, for sure. But WrestleMania 20 would be a damn good one to go to.

Outside of the Brock Leicester, Bill Goldberg match. What's up, Babs, Wally? Sorry, so I just got two, three things to say and ask. My first question is, How would a fight between Tartuivas and Speevak Sound and regarding Hamzaa Chamaev? Like, you know, if Ardissani were to win and Hamzaa presumably get the top three win, well, they set that fight up in the middleweight division. And if Kobe wins the World War II title in July, do they make the Hamzaa fight with him?

Let me know. If Colby wins, no. If Arasani wins, no. No. I mean, they could do that. I don't think they will. I think if Adasani wins, they're just going to run back Pereira a third time, I think.

And I know some people would roll their eyes at that, but that's just kind of where the division is right now. That's a big money fight. Like if Adasani wins the second one with that rivalry and all that storylines attached to it, they're going to run that a third time. I'm pretty confident in that. So, yeah, I would say Hamzat,

I would say if Hamzat's going to get a title shot, Pereira probably needs to win that. that fight. Because there's already some beef there. There's those two going back and forth at each other. There's challenges. They both wanted to fight each other in January

at 205 on that Brazil card. There's something there. So I know Robert Whitaker would be kind of pissed about that, but I don't know. Spivak, Tuivar. I don't want to see Spivak and Tuivasa. Come on. Don't do that

to us. I don't want to see Tuivasa get tackled and grappled to death. No, no, no, no, no. There's other things we can do with Tai Tui Vasa. I don't know what those things are, but maybe they do Tui Vasa and Tommy Aspinol. Don't love that fight either for Tewaasa, but at least Tommy will stand there and chuck them for a little bit.

Spivak ain't going to chuck them with Tommy, with Tewaasa. He's got to shoot doubles and try to take him down. I don't know. I don't want to see Spivak Tewvasa right now. I just don't want to see it. I didn't want to see Speedback fight Derek Lewis. And that's the damn fight we got. And it would look exact.

I think that fight would look, if he fought Tuvaasa, I think the fight would look exactly the same. Let's go to Anthony and Mikey is on deck. Anthony, hello. Yo, heck of a morning. I just wanted to talk about something that Joe Rogan and Jorge Mosvedo all we're talking about in their little interview. They were talking about moitai.

and how, like, that, how Dana White should have made a moitai league instead of a slap league, and how, how, and they're all confused about why, like, nobody's tried to make, like, a moitai league. And the most guy, a moitai, like, the highest paid guy in that makes, like, not even 700K, you know. So I'm sure Dana White could scrap up a league together. And I was thinking about it even more because just recently my brother, who's, like, one of the biggest casuals I know and I watch more. MMA than anybody I know I talked to him about shit and he really doesn't give a fuck but then he went to go watch one of our friends fight and there was Muay tibouts and he was like obsessed and he was like going crazy he was saying that there should be just leagues of that

and then they were talking about that on rogue and so it kind of had me thinking about all that and besides that let me know what match you're most excited for this weekend and if it's WWE, give me some MMA to chew on. Thank you. Have that good weekend. I mean, they have, they do have moitai leagues.

Not a ton. It's mostly kickboxing with some like boy Thai rules. Like I know all of these kickboxing leagues. Like some allow the moitai strikes and elbows and all in the clinch and all that. And some don't. But there are leagues.

And Lord knows they've tried to get them off the ground. It just hasn't worked. So I don't know. Maybe you get someone like Dana to do something like that. That would be something, I guess, but it seems like Dan is all in on the power slap and seems like he's going to try some sort of boxing thing.

At least that's what he said in recent interviews. So I don't know. You need the right guy and the right pull and the right network and all that. I know one puts on Muay Thai fights. And people seem to like them. But they just do such a bad job of, like, telling people about them. So it kind of needs to be the perfect storm.

Rogan's been talking about this for a long time, and I agree with them. But it's just, I don't know. It's just getting the right person involved, getting the right sort of push involved, the right networks, all that. And no one's been able to do it. No one's been able to do it. So, yeah, it's tough. best fight of the weekend

MMA probably the Rob Wilkinson Tiago Santos fight I think that's the one that one's interesting if we get fun Tiago Santos that fight is going to rule

but it's just a matter of are we going to get fun Tiago or are we going to get D1 Tiago and I think Rob Wilkinson's kind of a guy that can give us fun Tiago back we haven't seen Fun Tiago in a while since before the John Jones

fight, but I like that one. Mikey. Mikey. Try again, Mikey. Try again, Mikey. I couldn't hear you at all. We got you through, so that's a good thing. Let's go to Chi Gioch.

You're muted right now. There we go. Hey, what's going on, Mike? How's it going, ma'am? Doing all right. Let's fast forward to next weekend with the Izzy, proud out of fight. So the only thing I'm really concerned of is that Friday, what's the

percentage that Alex comes in heavy or, or what's the percentage that he comes in late and has to weigh in twice or any complications with that? Because last time, he wasn't, he was towards the end, weighing in, then the beginning. So you think, you think that's one thing they're concerned of in the camp or anything like that? I mean, I get the concern. I mean, he's a fucking monster. I mean, Jesus Christ, he's huge. Standing next to these, like, light heavyweights

and he just towers over all of them. But it seems like he knows what he's doing. He knows how to cut the weight. You know, and to me, like, you have a two-hour window. and if I'm a fighter, like I understand, you know, some people just want to get it over with

and get it done. And there are other people, it's like, well, if you're going to give me two hours, like, I don't use the two hours. I know for the,

for the viewer who are watching these way-ins, you're just like, oh, God, we're waiting for Alex Pereira for 90 minutes. Like, what the hell? Everybody else has weighed in, and it's kind of annoying. But to me,

it's just like, you got this time, use it. and he usually gets there. So until he misses, I will be concerned about it. But it seems like he's already cutting down and him and his team have it figured out. So until I see otherwise, I'm not really concerned. But I am interested in that fight, man. I can't wait to see it.

And most of the intrigue is on the Adasania side for me. I saw everything I needed to see from Alex Pereira. I think there's improvements he could make, certainly. I don't think he's going to have enough time to make those improvements. I don't think Izzy's going to be shooting a bunch of takedowns. I don't think he should. I just want to see what Izzy shows up. Is he going to be the Izzy we saw in the first round

who just went after Pereira and tried to get him out of there. And if he had like 10 or 15 more seconds, he would have gotten him out of there. If we see that guy, I think he's going to be. got a real good chance to win. But if we see the guy we saw at UFC 281 who showed signs of that, but let's Pereira hang around too long, then he's going to lose again.

So I'm very intrigued about the changes Adasani is going to make. And I know there's an argument to be made, well, he was winning all those other fights before he didn't. That's sure. But again, when you have somebody as powerful and as dangerous as Alex Pereira, all he needs to do is hit you once. That's it.

You cannot let this man hang around. So if Adasani can get aggressive and go after Pereira, I think he's got a real good chance to win. But if he has a kickboxing match with Pereira where he's staying at distance and trying to move in and out, I don't think that's the way to go. I think he's going to get knocked out again. So very interested in that fight.

I'm very confident that Adasani is the better mixed martial artist. But again, there are certain fighters where that does not matter. You let a guy like that hang around for too long, and he can get your ass at any point. So can't wait to see that fight. Very intrigued. Mikey, do we have you? Hey, I got you.

Sorry, because I was on Instagram checking my shit while I was waiting for you. And then I think what happened was when I tried to link back into you, it didn't, you know, it didn't recognize me or whatever's ever, so it kicked me out. But anyways, point of being, I just wanted to address the Amanda Nunez comment from four corners earlier. Like, I'm sorry, respectfully. Like, what the hell does, what does that mean? Amanda Nunez has never missed a year of fighting in her entire career.

Okay. Second, when she won the band, when she first won the bandway title, she, that was the only belt she defended for years. And then she takes off two years in 2020 and 2020 and 2021 to defend the featherweight title. Now suddenly everybody's like. she's not defending her title also that was i don't know the pandemic so of course she wasn't active i mean you know what i mean so i thought that that's an unfair thing to say about her because that woman has never listen she may have missed pulled out some cards you know famously of course we remember

in 2017 at international fight week she was supposed to buy valentina and then sinaitis and she had to pull out but she's never missed an actual year of fighting when she needed to fight she fought So I'm sorry, man. This unnecessary, like Chris, there's things to criticize about her, but that's not one of them. She's defended her belts. She's done what she's been asked to do year after year. Yet some fans are just like, well, she's not doing it. I'm like, you know what?

Most of your champions, listen, the newsflash guys, the average, once a person gets to championship level, the average champion will only fight about twice a year. Three, if we're lucky. You know what I mean? And just, anyways. And two, um, Book your surprises for mania. What do you want to see for mania happen?

And three, it's funny you just mentioned the Adasanya-Para thing. And I actually think that if Adasanya gets more aggressive, that would actually play more into Pahara's plans because that's what he wants to do, in my opinion. I think he wants Adasania to, like, not fight from distance and pick his shots because Adasana has always been a precision fighter, you know, and he likes to counter people. much like Anderson did.

I think if he deviated from that game plan and tried to aggressively brawl with Pahara, it might even play better into Pahara's hand because, you know, he wants you to come at him so he can hit you, you know? I think I'm not saying he doesn't need to switch things up, but I think he just needs to allow himself room to capitalize on his opportunities

when he is able to rock Pahara like he did. I think what he did in the first fight was he did a lot of things right i think there were just certain elements where because of pehara's power he slightly hesitated to co-in for the kill you know like he wants to make sure pehara is like almost out before he goes in for the kill because he doesn't want to get caught you know so yeah can't wait for that but right now thank god there's no ufc this weekend because all this wrestling is going to tear me apart and then of course we have the most random thing ever pedis is boxing roy jones junior tomorrow and

Penn has recently told Drake Riggs that the UFC was going to book him and Emerson Silva, which I don't, I believe Anthony, but that's wild. I, what? Anyways, that we all be kind of another. Have a great weekend, guys. Yeah, the game bread boxing card, I'm covering it. Like, I'll be watching it. I'll be working Saturday to do a bunch of stuff for the site with that. I'm very excited to watch it.

I understand as fans. This is a tough hang. with the weekend. I mean, there's just so much shit going on this weekend that I just don't, like,

this is not going to be a box office success. It's just not. I think doing it in Milwaukee was a terrible idea because it's just not a hub. Like, Milwaukee is not a combat hub.

Like, I know they have gyms there, but there's just not a ton of fans there outside of friends of the fighters. There's just, I don't know. And it's just such a weird weekend to do it with mania,

and we get the final four, all of that. Like, there's a reason why the UFC doesn't book cards the first weekend of April. There's a reason why they don't book cards on this weekend because they understand that it's too much going on. There's too much happening.

But I'm excited to watch it. I understand if you're not thrilled to spend $50 to watch it, but I'm interested in it. I'm definitely interested in it. Mania surprises? I don't know, man. Like, I don't know. I'm always, like, interested to see who comes back.

Like, I don't know what they're going to do with Cody and Roman. Like, Cody should go over. But I just, I don't know. There's a lot of people saying that Roman might go over. So they can get to the thousand days. I don't know. There's a lot I like about it. Some of the storylines have been great.

watching Ross sucks. Oh, it's so bad. It stinks. It's like promo after promo and then like 11 minutes of wrestling in three hours. It's insane. But mania will see a lot of matches and I'll be excited to watch them.

I'll be excited to see what happens. And yeah, I mean, with the Pereira, Adasani thing, I'm not saying like Adasani needs to go all Cody Garbrand in there. No, that's not what to do. but you got to do more than have a distance kickboxing match with Alex Pereira because when Adasadio was the hammer and he was pushing forward, he was doing well.

He was doing well. Me hurt Pereira. And then it turned into, all right, now let's just do the distance point fighting kickboxing style and try to mix in a couple of takedowns. And you just let the man hang around too long. Like, you got to try to get him. out of there. You cannot

extend this fight with Alex Pereira. It's way too dangerous. But yeah, I'm not saying like go Cody Garbrand on him or go Robbie Loller, Nick Diaz on him. Don't get fired up and just get reckless, but you got to do more. You've got to be more aggressive. You have to. You got to be

the hammer. Cannot let Pereira be the hammer. You've got to be the hammer. But do it in a in a meticulous way, but just do more. You have to do more. More volume. More aggression, but don't be reckless. You can't have a point kickboxing match

in this man for 25 minutes. Because you're going to get knocked out. It's too dangerous of a game. 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?

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Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton cross-training tread plus at OnePeloton.ca. Let's go to four-ounce sniper. Yes, I can. Hopefully you can hear me alright. I don't know if my connection is good.

But real quick, heck of a morning. And also, so we'll do a four-man tournament for the middleweight division. We'll make a middle-weightiest middleweight title. Who are your four? UFC fighters that you would put in that and who comes out to victory. Thank you.

Man, this is, see, these are the questions I live for. The middleweightiest middleweight tournament. Oh, I love it. I think Marvin Vittori has to be the number one seed. I think Martin Vittori is the number one seed in the middleweightiest middleweight tournament. That's a great pick. So, Marvin Vittori will be the number one seed. The number two seed, there's so many.

there's so many options here i will go with marvin vittory i'll go with brennan allen just because he's the champ and boy does he have a middle-weighty middle-weight fight him and jack her manson is is is the is the middle-weightiest middle-weight main event you could ever have so those three are in there for sure and the fourth spot's going to be tough like eric anders can be very middle-weighty Albert Dariah turned Cheity and Jokawani into a middle-a-middle-weight, which I didn't think was possible. God, there's so many options here.

You know what? I'll go Albert Dariah. I mean, if you can turn Cheaty into a middle-weighty, middle-weight, then you get the spot. There were a lot of middle-weighty fights at UFC San Antonio. Even the Trevin-Giles fight was a welterweight fight, but that was a middle-weighty welterweight fight. So those are the four in the UFC that, I would go with.

Yep. Top of my head, that's something going with. There's so many. Jacob Malcun is a great option. Jacob Malcun can be the alternate. Jacob Malcun can be the alternate. Let's go to Brian. Hi, Mike.

How you doing? I just wanted to touch on the UFC going back to Charlotte and a bunch of different places. I think it's sweet some of the main events. We're getting like Teporia and Emmett in June is just absolute bang-it. That's, we need to keep these lightweight and under main events. These are like the best fight night main events. But question for you, too. Personally, where was one place you would like to see the UFC go back to,

US or international? And then also, is there any way you would have any information on if they ever come back to Cleveland? I did not get to go to the steep A one, sadly. Been dying for them to come back. We have a brand new rocket mortgage fieldhouse. It's beautiful. So just curious if you heard anything about that and kind of the place you're looking at, because these are some great spots

and some great fights that are coming up. Thanks, Mike. Cleveland's interesting. Cleveland should have been, I mean, every steep me, every steep title fight should have been in Cleveland. Every one of them.

After the reaction that guy got, getting put over like a superstar, every steep A title defense should have been in Cleveland, all of them. So, I don't know, man, unless they have like,

just like a rando fight night with a bunch of Ohio fighters on it. I don't see Cleveland in play for a while. Honestly. Now, if Steepa goes and beats John Jones and he gets, it wants to keep fighting and they want to

because you, if Steepa beats John Jones, they're running that shit back. So that could be a Cleveland card? I don't know. Cleveland just, I don't know. Maybe they'll do a fight night card. but you would go there for Stepe, and even when Stepe was like Prime Stepe,

they only went there once while he was champion. And they should have went there every time you fought. As far as like other locations, I mean, I hope 289 ends up in Canada. Canada hasn't had a head of card in a long time. I don't care where. Somewhere in Canada. I think that's,

and I think Bellator should try to get to Canada too. There's a bunch of Canadian fighters on this card today. They got to get up there too. But you know what I'm going to say. You know what I'm going to say. I'm going to say Boston. Everybody wants to see them back in Boston. It appears the summer is a possibility.

Obviously, the Bruins in the South Dix are going to be in the midst of long playoff runs. The Bruins might be the best hockey team of all time. so they're going to the to the Stanley Cup final and the Celtics are super legit so they'll probably end up in the finals too so from what I was told like a couple months back if it was going to happen it was going to be like late August Septemberish uh it seems like August is kind of zeroed in right now but nothing is done but yeah

Boston seems to be like the most popular place that people are asking Dana said the summer. Dana was just there in March or earlier this month for looking for a fight. Calvin Cater's card, the combat zone event. But I would expect them in Boston this year for sure. I'll probably end up in Jacksonville at some point just because Dana is always going to have a soft spot for Jacksonville because they they were integral in the UFC success in 2020. So I would assume they'll be back there at some point. I would like to see them in California again somewhere

just because I want to see the disclosed purses and all that stuff. But yeah, Boston for sure is what I want to see. And let's go to Toke. How are you? Of fight circus. if you so I want to settle phantom weight

so I want a Siamese boxing match between Al Jemaine Sterling and Marab and then them against Henry Sehudo and Sean O'Malley who would you pick in that fight? And the other one is I'll keep it I'll keep my story kind of short

but not really because I just want to know which fight was the one that hooked you to MMA. Because for me, or the highlight, I should say, because for me, I was at a garden party back in, I don't even remember what year. And then the thing that got me,

I was checking Twitter for football updates. And then suddenly, it pops up. Thomas Almeida, who was supposed to be a lot of things. It was supposed to be very, very good. Thomas Almeida, knocking out Brad Pickett, And that was not the fight that was the main event at that night at all. But that knockout with Brad Pickett's face bouncing off the canvas,

kind of just turned to switch in my head and made me think, I need to watch MMA more. So what's that moment for you and then the Siamese boxing match? Thank you. So the moment for me really that, I don't know. I'm trying to think which fight got me

jacked I remember watching the Chuck Liddell Randy Couture 2 I was at a place in Somerville, Mass which doesn't exist anymore

which makes me sad called Good Time Billiards and this place was like before Davenbusters was a thing Good Times was like the OG of just super

places where you could do everything Like this place had everything. I had like birthday parties there when I was like 10. And this place had it all arcades, pool tables, they had batting cages. They had like indoor basketball courts. I mean, literally anything you could possibly imagine was in this massive space. I loved good time billiards.

And then even as a young adult, I loved it too. But I remember my older brother and I went there to shoot pool one night. and the second Couture Liddell fight came on, and Chuck knocked out Randy pretty brutally and won the belt, and that was all fired up. I was all fired up. Diego Sanchez is the guy who got me into it just because he was such a whack job on the ultimate fighter

that I just couldn't stop watching. I couldn't stop watching. And then obviously watching the finale, watching Forrest Griffin and Stefan Bonner beat the shit out of each other. I was pretty much hooked. Now, I wasn't like hooked forever because I think with a lot of fans, like until you go all in, there's kind of spurts with it all. You realize that there's a lot of other things going on in life and you can't really keep track of everything.

But now that I'm covering it and it's not a big part of my life, I don't miss anything. And it's been like that for a long time now. But yeah, the first pay-per-view I ever bought was UFC 40 because obviously it was a big WWF fan. It was a big pro wrestling mark and Ken Shamrock left WWF to go fight Tito Ortiz. And I bought it and Tito beat the shit at Ken Shamrock for the first of three times. But I remember watching that card and a bill to that and the press conference where Ken Shamrock told Tito Ortiz he was going to beat him to within a living death. And then Tito just freaking laughed in his face. Oh, gold.

Shit was just gold. And as far as the Siamese boxing, dude, no-brainer, 100% it's Sterling and Marab. Mostly because Marab, I would be shocked if Marab doesn't already have like 25 Siamese fights under his belt already. He's probably 25 and O because he's a maniac. So give me Marab in any sort of weird matchup because I'm sure Marab has done it for many years and probably has dozens and dozens of all of those fights. So, yeah, give me marab and anybody else all day long. CV, hello.

CV, you're muted. Do you hear me? Yep, there you are. Hey, man, heck of a Friday. More of a general question. If I recall correctly, I think you covered, is it last summer? Yeah, 276, right? Yes.

Yeah. Can you just describe, like, the USC Fan Expo experience? Because I might plan to go there sometime in the future. But I probably know the answer. It's like, hello, overpriced. I was in Vegas last year, and it was crazy expensive. So, yeah. And, like, I'm from Canada, too.

So, like, our dollar sucks, right? And everything gets converted to USDA. So, yeah, just your thoughts on the whole experience and stuff. So, I mean, you see Crystal clapping? I actually met Chris Salone at International Flight Week last year, which is very cool. I met a few people out there. Sheila, who's in here, I met her out there as well,

some other folks in addition to. I think if you're going to, I think it's worth it, man. Like, honestly, I think it's worth it. To me, like, I'm with Helwani, because I know Helani gets asked about this a bunch. And, like, the experience of watching it on television and going to an actual event, I think everybody should experience going to an event once.

Even if it's like a local one, just go and watch it. But if you are just all in on the UFC and there's like, I got an experience like the experience when it comes to it. I think international fight week is worth it. Just like in pro wrestling, like if you're going to go to a wrestling pay-per-view, if you're going to like make a thing out of it, you go WrestleMania week because there's shit going on every day all the time.

It's just cool. And even if you don't go to the fights, like you will have shit to do. Like lots of it. There's live shows and like morning combat was doing a bunch of live shows. And where I met Crystal and Sheila and others was Halwani and Chuck Mindenhall, the ringer guys and Pee T. Carroll, they had a little meet and greet. So we went there and met a bunch of people and hung out with them for a while. Like there's so much shit to do.

The Expo obviously I didn't pay for because I, I was covering it. I was there on Radio Row to do a bunch of interviews with whoever was available and met some people out there as well. It's just cool, man. Like, it's cool. Like, there's all these different, like, seminars. There's all these different, like, onstage Q&As, different groups of people. I know, like, some people were kind of bummed about some of the meet and greets because, I mean, you only have these fighters that are on the stage for a certain amount of,

time. And some of, if you have bigger names, the lines can be like super duper long. So you might miss out by standing in line a bunch. So I think that's something that possibly could be improved on, but I don't know how you do it. But I just think it's a cool experience. Like the room is massive. There's just stuff everywhere. And you see people walking around. You see fighters everywhere. And everyone's taking pictures with you. Like, it's cool. Like, it is cool. I don't know what the price is. But I think, I think everybody should go check. out once. I loved it.

That was, that was, and to me, like for me, that was, I'd never been to Vegas in my life. And I had been covering the sport for six or seven years at the time. That was my first time ever going to Las Vegas. And I wanted to make that shit count. So I'm hoping to go back out there this year. The plan I want to do is fly out Tuesday, do Wednesday, Thursday, do Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and then leave Friday night and fly to New York on Saturday and do the watch party Saturday.

Like that's what I want to do. But I would go back. If I'm going to cover any events this year, if they go to Boston, you bet you're Bippy, I'm going to be there for that. But if there's any other event, they're like, Mike, which event do you want to cover? It would be that one for sure. And I don't need to be there on fight night because I love doing the watch parties or G.C. so I would fly to New York,

probably hop on a red eye Friday night and go to New York and get some sleep and then do the watch party. That's what I love the fight week stuff. I don't need to be there for the fights themselves, but I like doing all the other stuff. I love that. That's my fave.

Hoping maybe we could do something in Jersey as well. Things are in the works. Stay tuned for that. Maybe a little fan meetup the Friday before UFC 288. So stay tuned for info on that if we can make it happen Because I would love to do that Rather than just go to New York Saturday

Let's do something Friday I'll take a few more Let's do this D-Baby, hello What's up, what's up? Can y'all hear me? Yep Yeah man how you doing, man? I just wanted to get your thought on Jorge Mazeldaugh I've seen a lot of people saying

They think he's washed I wanted to get your thought on that. I mean, he's been talking a lot crazy. I don't know if he just hyping the fight or trying to cash out or do you think he really got a chance out? Because I've been watching his last couple of fights. I don't think he's watched. So I just want to just want to your thoughts on it.

Sure. So people have been listening to this show for the last several weeks. Right now the betting lines, Gilbert Burns minus 490, the comeback on Jorge Mazadol is plus 390. There is value on Jorge Mazadol plus 390. 100% in my opinion. I think this fight is a lot closer than other people think it is. I think a lot of people look to the Colby fight and they think it's going to be similar.

Gilbert Burns is not Colby Covington. He's not. He's not going to sit there and try to shoot 20 takedowns on Jorge Mazel. He's not going to do that. And if he gets Mazadol to the ground or they battle against the fence, Mazadol is pretty good there. Like he's vastly underrated. And if this fight plays out on the feet,

Corey Mazdal is a better striker than Gilbert Burns. So I don't think Mazdaal is washed. Do I think he's somewhat on the back nine? Certainly, because father time catches up with all of us. And that's just not a knock on Mazdaal. It's just what it is. This guy has been fighting for like over two decades.

This guy's been fighting for a long time. He's fighting in the streets, fighting in backyards. He's got a million fights in MMA. The dude's been scrapping for a while. he got brutally knocked up by Kamara Usman not that long ago that was the first time he'd been melted like that he learned a lot from that i honest i think this fight is closer i'm not saying like i'm not coming out and saying i'm picking horay mazadol i ain't there yet but if you're giving me mazadol in this type of stylistic matchup at plus 390 i think it's worth a look man i think it's worth a look i think mazadol is a live dog especially at that number. Holy shit. Like, I think this, if you want to give me, like, if you want to put Mazda like a plus

250, like I can understand that, a plus 390s, redonculus. Because I don't think Burns is going to, like, Burns is just not a chain wrestling kind of guy. Like, he's obviously exceptional on the ground. But Mazel is pretty decent on the ground, too. He doesn't get a lot of credit for that. Mazel is a very good defensive grappler, not a great defensive wrestler. there's a difference

and I don't think Burns is going to sit there and try to spam a bunch of takedowns on him and if this fight plays it on the feet Mazel's gonna Mazel's better he's just a better he's just a better striker so to say Mazadol has no chance in this fight

I ain't buying it I ain't buying it I think this fight is way closer than the lie I suggest and this fight is a lot closer than like a lot of people suggest overall like just

Shedbush, he said a lie, thinks Gilbert's just going to kill Jorge Mazzal. I don't think that's the case. I don't think that's the case. Now, if I'm wrong, I'd be happy to come on this show the following Tuesday and say, well, I was wrong about that one. But my read on this fight is, it is close. And Mazadol has a lot more to gain here than Gilbert Burns does. He just does. So this could be do or die for Mazzadol.

I don't think Burns is in the do or die. situation. But stylistically, this fight is not a minus 490 plus 390 fight. I just don't think it is. But I don't think he's washed, but he's on the back nine. No doubt. Tom, hello. That's one heck of a statement regarding Mazvedal.

I think Mazvedal is the Christian and Gilbert Burns is the lion in that fight. But the question I had for you was following the end of year show we did when said Talia Santos would shake up that division. I was a little bit wrong in a sense that obviously Grasso took the crown from Shibshenko, but we've now got four realistic prospects in that division by way of Shavchenko, Grasso, Erin and Santos as well. Where do you think the belt will end up next? Will it stay with Grasso?

Will the fight go to Erin or Santos next? or will Shavchenko come back and rule the roost again? Where did you see that division going by way of those four fighters? I know Erin's had a recent outing, as has Grasso. Santos has not had a fight called yet from what I believe. So I think she needs to fight another fight before she gets a title shot. But where did you see that melting potting up, Mike, in the coming three or four bouts? What I'll say is, so I'll frame it as like who,

who's going to be the champion by the end of the year? And my answer is Aaron Blanchfield. I think the seconder, I think when Aaron Blanchfield steps in that cage and fights for the title, she's going to win. Whether she fights Alexa Grasso or fights Valentina and Shepchenko, I think Blanchfield beats both of them. I really,

I do. I do. And I think she would be Talas Santos too. So we'll see what happens with Blanchfield. We'll see how this all plays out. but you would have to imagine she's going to get another fight. And I mean, they'd probably do Manon Fioro. That's probably what they'll end up doing, Blanchfield versus Manon Fioro,

in a number one contender fight of some kind. And I would pick Aaron Blanchfield to win that fight. And Aaron will go on and fight for the belt, maybe at the end of the year, early 2024. And honestly, the second she fights for the title, she's going to win. I'm that confident in her. After people downplay the Jess Gondroge fight because it was short notice, but go back to the reactions on Twitter when that fight was announced at UFC

whatever pay-per-view that was. 284, I think they announced that. Short notice, they're like, oh, man, RIP Aaron Blanchfield. I saw that everywhere. And then Aaron just ran her. Just ran her. She's a problem, man. She is a stylistic problem for all of you.

these women. And the big thing about Aaron Blanchfield is her physicality is just incredible. I think she's a nightmare for a lot of these women. So Blanchefield is like my favorite to it too like we could be in for a very long title reign once Blancheville gets her shot. It's just a matter of when Chivchenko and Grasso fight again. And I don't know. I don't know how that fight's going to go. I don't know how that fight's going to go. I don't know how that fight's going go. Because if Shepchenko wins, like, what are they going to do? Are they just going to run it back again? Or are they going to give Blansfield her shot? Interesting times. But I think Blancheville wins the belt whenever she gets the crack at it. I'm that high on her. Cole,

hello. Good morning, Mike, from beautiful Ames, Iowa this morning. Nice. Got a question. I'm wondering if you saw Wonderboy's tweet yesterday about him getting a fight before International Fight Week. Just want to pick your brain on who you think that might be lying up to listen, thanks. My guess is Pereira RDA, one of those two guys. We're trying to figure it out, but it seems like Pereira makes a lot of sense. Perey doesn't have a fight.

There were talks about maybe getting Pereira on that April 15th card, and he kind of seems to want to stay there from like our last conversations with their side, but Wonderboy Pereira is a banger. But if not, we could do Wonder Boy RDA. It's a nice little fun, a little legend fight right there. I like that idea. But I think it's one of those two guys. Do they give him Jack Delam Adelana?

Do they go that route? I know there are people reporting falsely, by the way, the JDM Vicente-Luke fight, which was not true. But J.D.M. Wonderboy would be a fun fight, too. I'd be down for that. But I would go with Pereira RDA, one of those two. JSTAT, hello. You too.

So I got a random question. Do you believe pineapple belongs on pizza and that'd be all? Not my first choice. Don't hate it, though. I will say that. But you can't have pineapple by itself. You can't have it by itself. You got to have it with other shit.

So it's got to have some sort of either bacon or pineapple and bacon is a good time. I got to tell you. It's not my first choice. It's not something like I would order right away. But if I went to like a party at somebody's house and they ordered pineapple and bacon pizza and eat that shit out of it. But not something I would order. I'm very old school. I like pizza cheese pizza.

Pepperoni pizza. You don't throw a little hamburger on there. I party with that too. A very underrated pie is a little halpeno on there, too. Some bacon jalapeno. It's a good time. It's a good time. YVMZ.

Hello. Hi, I have a morning, Mike. Two questions for you. I just wanted to ask, what was your thoughts on Patty Pembley calling out Jared Gordon again, considering that he's fighting Bobby Green? I wanted to get your thoughts on How do you see that one playing out again? Do you think Patty wins or would he lose?

And also, I was seeing on Twitter today that Logan was trying to fight Nate And looks like he's ducking him right now. I just wanted to get some insight on that. Thank you. I mean, Logan says it. So we haven't heard from Nate's side so we don't know what's real and what isn't really.

That's just kind of his side of the table. So I'll just kind of leave that for what it is for now. But look, if you're got to get Nate to sign the line, you do an interview like that and you make headlines, it's a good way to do it. People are going to give a shit about that fight. They're going to watch it. They're going to watch it.

Logan's not wrong. Logan's not wrong. But I think we have a better chance of seeing Nate versus Logan than Nate versus Jake. But now there's reports out there that KSI Tommy Fury might happen. So maybe Nate's in play for Jake.

I don't, I have no idea. I have no clue. I forgot your other question. Damn it. Daniel, hello. Hey, Mike. Talk of the morning. See you. A heck of a morning. Heck of a Friday. I know there's no UFC, but I hope everyone's enjoying some fights this weekend.

Just got a real quick one for you like always. man what division in the next five years do you think will change champions the most just which one you think just has a chance to just pass around the belt the most thanks mike jesus um probably bannam weight bannam weight seems like uh like a safe choice there's just so many good fighters in that division

and so many fighters that probably won't have long title reigns like if that should beat sehudo he might fight o'malley and then he's gone if sehudo wins he'll fight o'malley and then he's gone so and then a lot of these matchups are just really tight they're really closely competitive so yeah i'll go with bannamweight top of my head i'll go at that but who know i mean five years is a lot a lot can change there's probably people who don't even freaking know about uh that could be fighting for belts the next five years eric hello guys. If if Bredil beats Charles Olivera, is he the next title challenger for Islam or does he have to do one more fight? He better

be the next title challenger for Islam if he wins that fight. But look, this all depends on Benny. It's all about him. He needs to win and then he needs to say something interesting on the microphone. He cannot

come out and talk a bunch of nonsense and then say, I'll fight 10 more times. No, don't do it. I've been on this diatribe a million times already. Don't do that. You say, hey, I did my part. Let's go, Islam. I just beat the same guy you beat. Let's do it. And then that will be the fight. They'll do that in Abu Dhabi and that's it. So yes, as long as Benny doesn't fumble the bag, he will get it if he wins. if he loses, that some things get real interesting. Because it could be anybody at that point. Could be Porier, could be Gaichi.

All fresh matchups. But yeah, I'm, it'd be criminal at this point if Derrhus doesn't get a title shot. Criminal. Like people talk about Belal Mohammed. He's in a tough spot too. And I feel for the man. But Benny's like three, five. fights ahead. Benny's like two notches ahead of him and the I feel bad for him department.

But both guys have like shot themselves in the foot on the mic. And that's hurt them both. That's hurt them both. Well, at least like to his credit tried to shoot his shot. He just overshot every time. When there's like obvious things in front of him that he should have gone for. But instead called for fights, he just wasn't, he had no chance of getting. none. But at least he tried. Penny didn't even try. I feel like I'm never going to get a title fight. I'll fight ten more times.

No, no, no, no, no. That's not how you get title fights. I'm not saying you have to go out there and be disrespectful and cut an eight D.S for a moment, but just be like, hey, Islam, let's go. You said you were going to fight me if I won. I won. Let's fight. There you go.

You don't have to do anything out of the ordinary. You don't have to not be yourself. but don't not say the man's name. You got to do it. So as long as he wins, it doesn't fumble the bag, he'll get a shot. Edward, hello. Hey, Mike. I hope you're having a great day, morning.

I was going to say, so with the Logan Paul, somebody asked this previously, but I wanted to see what did you think draw more pay-per-view buys, Jake versus Nate or Logan versus Nate? Because he said he does like 750K, but I don't know. And number two question, if Adrian Yonis beats Fon, who's ranked number six? Who's next for him? So just going by the onto the next one formula. And I know Chito could be in play for this as well.

I think Piotr Yan for either of these guys. Who wins that fight, I think Jan should fight the winner. Because that's just fun as hell. That's just so fun. It's not going to get taken down. No one's going to shoot a bunch of doubles on him. he's going to get in there in scrap. And Jan versus Fon is super fun.

Jan versus Yanez is a lot of fun. Yeah. I like the Peyter-Yon matchup. I like Cheeto too versus Adrian Yonnas if he beats Rob Fon. Good options either way. And what I think does better? Jake Nate or Logan Nate? Probably right around the same.

I mean, Logan Paul's last fight like broke our website. I mean, it literally broke our web, pretty much broke our website the Logan Floyd-Mayweather fight for as ridiculous as that sounds. That fight like broke MMA fighting, which is insane.

Terrence, hello. Hey, Mike. Since it's, I forget what you call it, but like Friday, like a free-for-all Friday. I was thinking if you're in charge of a MMA United like organization to where once a year I'll say

it's like a wrestling media you had to have the five fight main event that'll break the pay-per-view record of Kabead and Connor and all organizations have to be used. You only can have one fight where it's USC versus USC fighter

the rest of them can be like missed up. What fights are you making and why? That's it. Jesus. Oh, man. There's no way I'm going to be able to answer all of these. I will go Franci Ngano John Jones in the main events.

Connor versus Justice Gachey. Hmm. I don't know. Those two for sure. Those two fights on the same car would be pretty fucking fantastic right now, if we're being honest. Those would be massive draws and those are like the fights everybody wants to see. I would put Hamza.

Hamza versus Colby, I'll put on. there because I still want to see that fight even though I don't know if Pomsa can make 170 yeah those three for sure I'll think about the rest but I mean you're getting a ton of buys of those three fights alone right there I'd probably put Brandon Moreno on there because I have a soft spot for him and I just want his name attached to the biggest paper view of all time Brandon Moreno versus Demetreus Johnson and yeah I'll figure out the last one that that's a banger of a card right there. Matt, hello. So with all the talk earlier about like Balal Muhammad and Benny, what fighter do you think has the most work to do on the mic

that would benefit them with like title shots or just future fights or just fighters in the past to have just straight up shit the bag with the callouts on the mic? I mean, those are the top two guys in my mind. Those are the top two guys. And what's interesting, about both of them is they're both very compelling, entertaining guys. Like, if you watch them do interviews after these callouts, like, they're just fun listens. Like, even the Benil Darius callout of, like, Elon Musk was great. That shit was great. All good stuff.

But when it counts, like, they both just whiffed. Like, Bilal had, Bilal could have called out Hamsat, like, his last three wins, and he didn't do it. the last it was uh he first first belal called out ushman i think it was after the wonder boy fight and i'm like oh my god what are you doing and then i remember after the lukei went i tweeted out literally right before i'm like great performance from belal please don't call out colby and usman go all in on hamzat and he called out colby i'm like what are you doing and this is literally the week after hamzaa fought gilbert burns and that fight was so close like if you were going to fight hamsat like that's That was it.

That was it. And what hurt me the most was that after that, Belal realized his mistake and then he did the media car wash. And then he focused all the attention on Hamzan. In that point, like, you already wasted it. It's gone. It's all over. It's all over.

And then Benil was just like, eh, whatever the UFC wants to do, I'll fight 10 more guys. No, can't do that. Can't do that. Because they're both like very interesting guys. They're both really good fighters, but boy, you cannot, like, that is such an important skill to just know what you're going to do ahead of time. Like, Corey Sanhagen should teach a course on this because Corey Sanhagen, Corey Sanhagen talked about maybe calling out Sean O'Malley. But when the mic was in his face, when it was in his face, what did he do?

made the perfect callout, A plus called out Marab. Realistic fight. Best fight he can get. Maraub's in the news. Maraub's making headlines. Maraub's getting over. That's the fight. Perfect callout.

The way he presented it puts Marab over like a million dollars. This guy is a killer. I would never ask for a title fight over this guy. So let's just fight. Beautiful. It was beautiful. Realistic, made sense. Tough call out. Tough fight.

A plus. We would be looking at Bilal Muhammad a lot differently if he called out Hamzat after the Wonderboy win. And especially if he called him out after Luke A win. On the mic when it mattered. And then even after he beat Sean Brady, he almost didn't call him out again. He almost didn't call him out again. And then he was like, oh shit. Here we go.

And then he didn't even call him up by name. He called him up by the nickname. He's getting better. Belah's getting it. Like he's learning his lessons. He's learning his lessons. Al Jermaine Sterling is another guy who fumbled the bag. UFC 280.

Sean O'Malley just beat Peter Yan. No matter how you felt about the decision. Literally, a fight before, like two fights before. you have a chance to call out the biggest star in your division, a guy that is going to make you more money than anybody else in the division, including Henry Sohudo, the guy who just beat Pieter Yan, the guy that you beat, and you called out multiple guys,

especially when you have a foot out the door of the way class and you want to move up in lieu of your teammate. You should have went all in on Sean O'Malley right then and there, didn't, and now he's fighting Henry Sehudo, And he did the same thing. Soon as he realized the mistake, did the media car wash, did his podcast, realized Sean was the guy. That's prize fighting. Went back and focused in on O'Malley.

But he didn't do it when the moment counted. And Dana White saw that. And Dana White said, ooh, Al Jamein just opened the door for Henry Suhuda to get in. Now, had Aljo went out there and just called for O'Malley right out the gate, that's probably the fight we're getting at UFC 288 but instead he didn't he was too late on it and now he's going to fight Tehudo which is a fascinating fight

I'm interested in it but you missed out you missed out on the O'Malley bag and now you might not get it because you might not beat Tehudo but it is what it is it's a skill it's not easy to do it's not easy to do but when you get to this

point where you're in title contention or you're trying to get over that hump, you got to make those moments count. You just have to. You've got to make them count. Hamzat knows how to do it. Hamzat knew how to do it. Habib learned how to do it. It did it well.

Conner's always been great. Nate Diaz got really good at it. Nate Diaz got the Conner fight because of that when you had the micro-examination. phone in his face during that Orlando car, would he beat up Michael Johnson? No one thought the fight made any sense. No one thought it. But it wasn't like out of the realm of possibility. Nate set it up, compelling promo.

And when RDA could not fight, Nate was the first phone call because of that promo. You just got to be smart. If you want to overshoot, cool, but you need to have a plan with it. A plan of action. You need to plant seeds. and there are guys who are great at that and there are guys who will learn how to be great at that I think Bilal has learned

Belal's getting better after the whole Colby situation and the whole Anak thing Balak picked up that ball and he fucking ran with it as he should have done that was very smart Bilal is Balah Muhammad has more support in buzz now that he's ever had

and it's mostly because of Colby saying weird things that he shouldn't be said But Balal, very smartly, very wisely, took that ball and sprinted down the field with it. And now we'll see what ends up being next for him. I know we had the meeting with Dana. We don't know what came out of it. Is he going to fight Shafka, Rakhmanov?

Is he going to fight somebody else? Is he going to fight Gilbert Burns and Burns beats Mossadol? That's why it makes sense. Is he going to fight Hamzad? I don't know. But Balal is in a much better position today than he, he was a couple months ago, that's for sure. But yeah, it's an important skill.

Chale Sownan's been preaching this forever. Sondon's been preaching this forever. The next fight starts as soon as the previous fight ends. As soon as it's over, you're already getting ready for the next one. Name and mind, make it compelling, set it up. That's how you win prize fighting. That's how you win. There you go.

All right, we're done. Thank you very much. Bellator tonight. So get excited. I know the main event isn't great, but still, pretty good card. And then tomorrow we're just off and running all sorts of things. Mania, GFL1,

game bread boxing, fight circus, all of it. Should be a fun weekend. And then by the time we're back here, we are getting ready for UFC 287, which is pretty exciting. So thank you all very much. enjoy this very busy weekend in the combat sports world.

Have fun. Enjoy it. And as always, have a heck of a morning, everybody. Have a great weekend. The Vox Media Podcast Network.