MMA Fighting - HOAM | What's Next For Arnold Allen? Reaction To Jake Paul's Victory Over Anderson Silva

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Arnold Allen and Jake Paul picked up main event wins on Saturday in completely different ways in two separate sports during a busy weekend in the world of combat sports. On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck reacts to Arnold's win over Calvin Kattar at UFC Vegas 63, where he goes from here, and thoughts on some of the burning questions following the bout. Additionally, topics include Jake Paul's decision win over Anderson Silva on Saturday, the UFC's latest slew of releases and fighters parting ways with the company, Josh Thomson's double down on his comments about the MMA media, Muhammad Mokaev's ceiling, 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

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October just flew by, didn't it? November 1st, 2022, it is indeed a heck of the morning live on the MMA fighting Twitter spaces. You could hear the show in its entirety shortly thereafter on the MMA Fighting Podcasting Network. I am Mike Hack. Hope everyone had a great weekend. Hope everyone had a great Halloween. I had a good time. Took the youngster out.

We drove to our in-laws house. So my kid got to trick-or-chee with all his cousins, a couple other kids. It was a lot of fun, some great costumes. My kid was dressed like sloppy from goosebumps. So if you're a goosebumps fan, you probably know who that is. So it was a good time. But no one's here to talk about that. We're here to talk about what is going on in the wonderful world of combat sports.

We had a very busy weekend. This past weekend, Bellator had an event. I will admit, I did not watch a single second of it, but I followed along on Mbathfighting.com. The UFC, which I did watch from start to finish, they had an event. UFC Vegas 63. Okay card overall. Some talking points for sure. The main events, not really one of them,

just because of the unfortunate ending to it all. I'm sure you all know what happened by now. Arnold Allen versus Calvin Cater ends in the second round. Injury TKO to Calvin Cater. It was bad. He went for a flying knee in the first round. You saw his knee just tweak. That right knee looked real bad.

Arnold Allen jumped on him. Horn sounds. We go to the second round. Cater gets up to his feet. Getting ready to start the round. He looks like he's moving around okay. Second round begins. Arnold Allen lands a kick to the left calf of Calvin Cater.

After he takes the kick, he puts weight back on that injured right knee, and he just falls in a heap. Referee had seen enough, and the fight is over. and this featherweight division just overall cannot catch a break. Algen of Okinawokinovokovsky keeps saying we need somebody to emerge, we need somebody to emerge. And it just seems like all these fights that are getting put together, these big ones at 145, they're either fall apart, they don't happen, or we get to the cage and something just bizarre and strange and unfortunate happens. We saw it in July with the Yahya Rodriguez win over Brian Ortega, and we just saw it this past. Saturday with Arnold Allen versus Calvin Cater.

And man, you just got a feel for team Cater. Still no word on the actual injury, the damage to the knee. I think they're going to go in today and get an MRI and try to get some answers. But just a tough go. Just a tough go. A lot of people were giving, I know on our post-fight show, Jed was giving a lot of heat to Cater's corner and

even Phil Haas's corner because earlier we saw his knee pop in a leg lock from Roman Delizze. Roman let him go. Thought the fight was going to be over. Fight continued and then Phil Haas got brutally knocked out. So a lot of people were questioning Cater's corner. I did reach out to his

coach, ask him if he wanted to respond and he feels like it's kind of a moot point. No one's really talking about it and he didn't want to make it about himself and I totally understand that. So there you go. So hopefully we have some answers sometime this week about where the injury sits and how long cater is going to be out for. Hopefully it's not something to need surgery or anything like that.

And we wish him obviously the best. But now what do we do with Arnold? We can talk about that on the show. And of course, Jake Paul versus Anderson Silva goes down. Jake Paul wins. I thought Jake Paul won clearly. Sealed it in the eighth round with a knockdown to force a 10. I scored it exactly the way one of the judges scored it 77 to 74.

I thought it was four to three Jake Paul heading into the eighth round. I predicted it would be a draw. I was feeling pretty good about that draw scorecard. And then the knockdown happened. I was like, well, looks like the draw is not happening. So Jake Paul gets it done. You could feel how you want to feel about the guy, but he went out there and he beat Anderson Silva. He took a fight that nobody said he would take.

He went out and took it and he won. not a lot of people are picking Jake Paul to win and he went out there and won and he sealed it in the eighth round with the knockdown so we'll see what happens next we can talk about that if you want but before we get to your calls I see some of you've lined up

I'm going to do something I have not done very much on this program a historic moment if you will a revelation that maybe not a lot of you expected on this November 1st but I'm going to go ahead and do it and this might be the first time I have done this on the show

For the first time, I am going to give at least some kudos a nice little pat on the back, not a full job well done, but slight job well done, to one Henry Sehudo. Henry Suhudo on Sunday, 8.28 p.m. puts out a tweet. And I quote, hey Dana White, since Denzel Sterling wants to work on his rap career, he could be called Little Power. I'm not giving him kudos for that, by the way. How about me versus Ronald Mephtonald, Sean O'Malley for an interim in Australia? I'm short, so I'm used to being down under in the three trophies.

Now, the tweet is awful overall, but the idea of it is a good one because he's being smart about this. Now, I can pick this apart in a number of ways. I hate the nickname. It's stupid. And I also don't like the interim time. title idea because Al Jemate Sterling just fought like two weeks ago, less than two weeks ago. So we don't need an interim title fight. But the idea that Henry Suhudo is going after the right fight is great. Because he shouldn't get the title show. I've talked about this enough.

His reliability has been atrocious. No one believes he's actually fighting. So to throw him into a title fight to me makes absolutely no sense because we already know what's going to happen. If he wins, he's going to vacate or he's just going to hold onto the belts and not fight anybody until he fights Volcanovsky or fights for the featherway title, whatever happens there. Or he's just going to leave again. So that's my issue with it. But the fact that he is actually calling out somebody that's not the champion, I give him credit. This is a smart move. This is what he should have been done doing the whole time.

And by the way, this callout with way less cringe is what Al Jermaine Sterling should have been doing as well. Now, I saw an interview he did with my man Nolan King of M.A. Junkie. I saw the clip where Al Jamein Sterling asked Nolan, hey, do you think Henry Suhudo is the big money fight? And Nolan's like, yeah. And I love Nolan to death. I totally disagree with him. And even Al Jameen Sterling disagreed with him saying, nah, I don't think so. I think Sean O'Malley's the big money fight.

And he's right. Sean O'Malley is the money fight right now. He is. It's not Henry Suhudo. It is Sean O'Malley. You got to jump on that. But Al Jermaine Sterling is also saying, and he's been saying it for a couple of weeks now,

he's not fighting until June. And Al Jermaine Sterling at this point, because if everything this guy has gone through, he had two tough title defenses. If he wants to take some time off and fight in June, that's fine. We don't need to do an interim title. We don't need to do that.

But if you want to do Henry Sehudo versus Sean O'Malley in February, sign me the hell up for that. Then we have an actual number one contender fight. And if Henry Sehudo beat Sean O'Malley, go fight Al Jemaine Sterling. I'm fine with that. You have no arguments for me. You beat anybody.

You go to Perth and you fight anybody and you win, go fight for the belt in June. You will get no issues for me whatsoever. If you beat Sean O'Malley, you get the title shot. If Sean O'Malley beats Henry Sehudo, he gets the title shot. He should get it anyways, but if we're just trying to get action in and try to get a big fight on the books before Al Jamban defend the title. This one works. And Henry did it right. The tweet sucks overall, but the idea is the right one. I don't want the interim thing. But this fight, you can make it five rounds. I don't care. But the fight itself is exactly what Henry Suhudo should be doing. This is what you

should have done the whole time. You started to do it in July after the whole situation with the Pedro Munoz fight. You went backstage. You had that cringy running with Sean and It didn't go over well. Sean No sold it. But I think we might have something here. And I don't do it often, but at least a little bit of kudos to you, Henry Sohudo. Nice job. Well done.

That's what you should be doing. And I'm down for this fight. Kirkland, do we have you? Yes. Do you have me, Mike? Yes, I have you. Thank Christ. I'm really sorry for blowing up the space.

It's all good. It's not your fault. Cool. Let me take a sip of coffee before I get into this. Man, I owe you a big apology, Mike. The last time we talked, I started off by laughing. It was messed up. I learned my lesson.

Don't laugh at Mike Heck Jr. guys. When he says that Bilal Muhammad can finish Sean Brady, it's in the realm of possibility. In fact, it's probably going to happen. So anyways, please accept my sincerest apologies for that, Mike. it won't happen again. And on to my question, was reading m.m.afighting.com,

probably my favorite website of all the time. Definitely the goat. And Mr. Alshadhi wrote about Mr. GSP, who unbeknownst to me, has newfound freedom. And just my simple question to you is, what do you think is the best thing for a 41-year-old GSP to be doing

with this newfound freedom. And yet again, I can't reiterate it enough because I really felt like an ass. Do not laugh at Mike Hague Jr.'s, you know, situate, like what he says can happen because it's definitely within the realm of possibility. All right, happy birthday, AK. Thanks so much, Mike. Have a good one. Thank you, Kirkland.

I appreciate your patience. I appreciate our advice patience. but we have a working room and we can hear people. So that's awesome. Look, I saw a lot in that Michael Kiesa fight that led me to that conclusion. I picked Sean Brady to win, but like I said, I could see a world where Bilal just turns on the gas and just is able to sort of thump Sean Brady. And I actually, Sean Brady's interview in the MA hour yesterday was super interesting. and I believe everything he says.

I've known Sean for a long time. I've been interviewing him for years, even before he's in the UFC, and to hear him talk the way he did about the relief he has, now that he's no longer undefeated, that he mentally beat himself and all of that, I believe him. I believe him. And now he can do what he's always wanted to do.

He's wanted to travel to different gyms and do some cross-training, But fighters and athletes in general are very superstitious people. And if something's working for you for 15 pro fights, you're not going to want to make any changes. And I think this loss sort of will lead to those changes. And it will all look fantastic. But again, I saw things in that Michael Kiesa fight where I felt like Sean overall was probably the better fighter.

But it was what happens if Sean can't get that takedown. It's going to be a rough night for him. and he couldn't get that take down. I still thought Sean Brady won the first round. But you could see the momentum swinging in Belal's favor by the end of that round. And second round went the way that it did. And Sean Brady's 15 and 1 now. So we'll see how he bounces back.

But I just saw things in that Kiesa fight that gave me some pause when he came to that fight and the stylistic makings of that matchup. As far as GSP goes, look, it doesn't seem like I mean, maybe he goes and does a boxing match. Like, that's probably what he'll do if he does anything. But it just doesn't seem like unless the opportunity is perfect, I don't think he's going to fight at all. I don't think he really wants to fight.

He's talked about how, like, fights terrify him. He's just going to need to find something that's fun. Like, if he boxed Anderson Silver or something like that, like maybe he would do that. But I don't think GSP like needs the money or anything. anything like that. Like, the dude is everywhere.

He's probably getting paid a boatload of money to be an ambassador for karate combat. I'm sure Showtime paid him very well to be a part of this broadcast and the build for this Jake Paul Anderson-Silva fight. I don't think he needs to fight, but if he does fight, I mean,

it's going to be a boxing match against a Nate Diaz or somebody like that. Like, it's just going to be something fun. He's not going to box Jake Paul or anything because he doesn't want that kind of pressure and that kind of stuff. But I can see him doing some like exhibition fights, something like that, but that's probably it.

And to me, if GSP doesn't need to fight. He has nothing more to prove. And I kind of, in a way, hope he doesn't fight. Like, I understand he's an attraction, he's a big draw, and he's a huge star. But if, I mean, if it's just a fun thing and he just wants to go out there and mix it up and do that fight with Anderson Silva that everybody wanted and just do it in a boxing match, Like, okay, do it like an exhibition style. But other than that, I just don't see him fighting at all.

Because he doesn't need to. He's nothing more to prove it. I don't want to see anything happened to that man's legacy. Not at all. So I don't think he'll do anything crazy. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to Lux Beauty and Fragrance sets. Our special selection has something for every style and price point.

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Tristan, hello. Hey, Mike. Can you hear me? Yeah, I got you. So I want to talk about, you know, Saturday, UFC Vegas, 63. And to be honest, Mike, watching it, you know, the card was okay, was decent. I know A.K. on I know what's saying, you know, it was okay.

It was all right. He was trying to be positive. I'm not going to lie, the way you sounded. about it afterwards, you were just like, this wasn't great. And I kind of felt that too, in a sense. And it goes back to our conversation last week of like the UFC,

I understand they have a contract with ESPN and they have to put a certain amount of fights on. But starting next year, they got to really seriously think about expanding that apex and try to get more people in that venue expanded to five to seven,

maybe two to five thousand. just to get some excitement and get us excited talking about the card. And I know the matchmaking is really, really hard to do to get to, because, you know, like you said, you're looking for headlines. You're looking for interesting matchups to talk about. Because, you know, it affects you guys on the broadcast when we're talking about these UFC fight nights. I mean, like, you know, we're looking at December 3rd.

That is probably on paper, the December 3rd card in Orlando, and it's not in the UFC Apex. Probably one of the best fight night cards on paper looking at it. I know practically everybody on that card on the December 3rd for the Kevin Howland and Wonderboy matchup. So next year, they got to figure out a way. I'm not saying because like we said, they're not going to get rid of the apex.

They need it just to, you know. But Dana and the UFC, they've got to figure something out in a sense of like, we need to expand this venue here. We need to get me. more people just so you could hear a little bit of crowd and excitement. And as far as matchup is concerned, I mean, I know, again, I know Sean Shelby's a tough, tough task, but they got to figure out ways where when we're matching up these fight cards, these matchups, we've got to have some type of interest and story, you know, some headlines where people

can get really excited about, you know, that's the only thing I could think of is expanding the Apex venue to get more people in there somehow because, like you said, it's tough, man. It's tough. I mean, I watch every card and I enjoy each fight, but, you know, you're absolutely right about it. And, you know, we talked about it last week. You know, I'm with you with that. And then looking at this fight night card, this fight night card, UFC 6 Vegas, I believe, this is about 63 or 64.

You know, this car is pretty good. I think it's better than Saturday's card on here. You know, but it's at the apex again. And then we just lost a fight. Jelton Al-Meda v. Mac Fischer, that's gone. So now we're down to 12. And, you know, it should be more interesting. But, you know, man, I wish this was like,

I wish this was like, you know, in front of a car or as well as in another venue, you know. So this might just secure all thoughts about. what I just said. Thanks for everything. Have a heck of a morning. Thanks, man. Now, look, I get a lot of people

want to like, and there are certain cards the UFC puts together on these fight nights that are just got awful and they were originally got awful. I'll give them a pass

on these next two just because, I mean, you can only book the fights and it's no guarantee that these happen. Just look at Saturday's card. We were supposed to get

not only this main event, we were supposed to get Iliate Tporia versus Edson Barbosa, which is a big fight. It was an important fight at 145. Barboza hurts his knee, he's out. This wasn't like the greatest fight of all time, but there's a story here.

There's heat on this. I'm sure there'd be some shenanigans during fight week. Jakar Close versus Mark Mattson. Interesting fight. Close hurts his ACL. He's out of the fight. There's only so much you can do. And then you're just kind of stuck.

and then you lose some of these other guys from some of these other fights. And I mean, Clintson Rodriguez had two different opponents. And then the replacement opponent ended up fighting a complete newcomer. So what this ended up being was just a on steroids, contender series card with a good main event that just didn't turn out well. And it's not the UFC's fault that the main event turned out the way that it did. And if the main event delivered the way we thought it would, maybe we're not feeling the same way about this card.

But overall, man, it was just, it was, it was tough. It was tough. It's tough watching heavyweight fights go the distance. I mean, we got some good finishes. Like, we got, and we got a really good fight. We got Khalil Roundtree, Dusted Jacoby. That fight ruled. We got maybe the most vicious guillotine choke that I've ever seen from Trashon Gore,

who I'm actually going to be talking to a little bit later on. We had some moments. It's just, it's just these moments end with cards like this. It's just a moment happens. We watch the video on Saturday, and then by Sunday we're just like, okay, next card. And this one, what do we have? One, two, three, four, three, three.

We have 13 fights. We were supposed to get Jeltsin Al-Meda, like you mentioned. The main event of this card was supposed to be Bryce Mitchell versus Bob Zara Vloyaf. Like, that is a banger of a main event. And if Loyaf got hurt, we lost that. And we lost Jelton Almeida. What we get is Marina Haudriguez, Amanda Lamos, a main event with some stakes. And this card, and I agree with you, like, night and day, this card is way better than this past Saturdays.

Main event has some stakes. I would, honestly, this is no disrespect. If this card had Bryce Mitchell versus Mobb Zara of Loya, still in the main event, it's a banger of a card. We got Neil Magny, Daniel Rodriguez. Of course, we get the heavyweighty, heavyweight fight, Josh Brees and Chase Sherman. Ula Mekkoff, Maynes will be fun.

Mark Matts and Grant Dawson is a crazy fight. Stylistically, and matchup-wise is actually a better fight than the Chircar Close fight, I think. Derek Miner, Shailin is going to be nuts. Miranda Mavericks's back. Benito Lopez is back. Benito freaking Lopez is fighting on this card. He hasn't fought in over three years.

years. He's fighting Mario Batista. Jake Hadley's, I mean, it's a good card. This is solid. This is solid fight night. It would have been even better if the main event stuck around. But hey, Rodriguez-Lamos isn't bad. And then this will lead nicely into UFC 281, which is a pretty solid card. So, yeah, this card is much better than this past Saturday's card. And I agree with you at the apex thing, but look, it's, it is what it is. is they're going to be hanging out of the apex a little bit. Hopefully they travel a little bit more than they did this year.

But again, I don't necessarily fully blame the UFC for this because beginning of 2022, we didn't know what the hell was going to happen. We felt like the pandemic was over. We felt like things were like completely, like we were feeling like the COVID was done. And then it ramped back up again. and you got to plan ahead. You got to plan ahead. So hopefully,

2023, we get more of these on the road cards. And we'll see what happens. Like some of this blame goes to the UFC for sure because some of these fight night cards are just not good. But I don't necessarily blame them for this past Saturday because it's not really their fault. And then this one is better top to bottom.

main event is still good. It's not Mitchell of Loya, but still a very solid card. So, yeah, injuries happen, things happen. I'd rather them happen on these cards and the pay-per-views, if we're being honest. We're going to go to Viking MMA in a moment. Hello, Viking.

How are you? I'm good. How are you? Wonderful. Okay. I just have a question. about Muhammad Mokhyev. I think he wants to be the youngest UFC champ, but he has time till March 24.

So how much he has to be active until he gets the title shot and will UFC fast-track him to achieve this milestone or they will refuse if he gets damaged in one of his fight chasing the title? And I just missed the latest episode of Altner. So I just want to know about what is the perfect match for Guram Kututaladez. Thank you, Mike.

Perfect fight for Guram Kutata Latsi. Let me pull up my rankings here. I think Drew Dover would be fun. That'd be fun. I don't know what's going on with Diego Faheda, but that'd be a fun one too. Something like that would work. I'd be cool with that.

As far as Malkyev goes, I mean, I'm still super high on him. He said he was sick heading in. His team wanted him to pull out of the fight, and he went in there and he fought. And listen, like, he didn't fight like a minus-12-favorant. He didn't fight for your money in that aspect, but Malcolm Gordon had his moments for the most part.

Mackay have dominated that fight and then he finished him in the third round. So wasn't a minus 1,200 performance. I think he just needs to humble himself a little bit. That's all. Just don't overpromise. Don't say I'm going to go out there and wreck this dude in the first round. Just say, hey, I'm going to go out there and dominate. Whether it goes 15 minutes, goes 15 minutes.

If I get a chance to finish, I'm going to finish him. I'm going to be looking for it. But don't just go out there and say, this dude's gonna, this dude ain't gonna last two minutes with me because then you look like an idiot. And I think some people took some of his words to heart. And that's it. I do think he's gonna be a champion.

I think he could be a two division champion. This kid is still super young. Like people just don't like get that. They think he's like a 27 year old dude and he's not. He's just eight no. I mean, he had a long amateur career. He's 22. he's only 22 he's only going to get better so timeline will he get March 24 or was it the end of

24 I don't know it's tough to say just because this feather way this flyway division is just insane I mean I love the Moreno figurato series and I'd love to watch those guys fight over and over and over again but eventually we're going to have to make some moves here and I'm curious to see what those moves will be but I said McAyev versus Medell-K. Medall Cop, excuse me, makes a lot of sense. Let's get him a rank guy. A.K. suggested Tim Elliott. I like that idea as well.

Let's get him a ranked guy. Let's not go crazy. I know he's calling up Brandon Royval. Royval's fighting Amir Al-Bazi. I would probably stay away from those two guys for right now. I like Tim Elliott. I like Menlo Cop. Either of those work.

And then if you beat them, then we can go to those guys. But yeah, I don't think there's any need to just throw him into a top five matchup right now. I'm sure, I mean, he's already told us and he was on the MA hour after his win saying, like, I'll beat all these guys right now. But we don't need to rush him at this point. He's only 22. He still has time to get to his goal. And yeah, that's what I think. But I'm not less sold on him at all.

So we'll see where they go with this man. Let's go to AA. We'll go to Four Corner Sports next. Double A, hello. Good. That's good. So just a quick one. I'm curious as your thoughts, what happens with Andrea Oleski next.

Does he retire? Does he keep going? Because you know with Andre, you just don't know what the heck is because that guy's been around forever. And quick correction. I don't think Makayas can break the record for the youngest championship because John Jones broke it at 23

and since he'll be 23 next year I don't think he'd be able to do it. Okay, have a heck of a morning. Everyone, have a great day. Peace. All right, let me look this up. I just want to make sure I have my facts straight. Does it say like

youngest champion in UFC history? I want to make sure I have like the months right and stuff. I think Mohammed said like the end of 2020, agree he could still do it. Yeah, I think that's the case. I think that's the case. So yeah, he could do it. And he's active enough to get there.

So, yeah, I think he's going to do it by the end of the end of next year. And the way as active as this dude fights, he'll have a shot. It all depends on what happens with this division, though. Like, what if Moreno and Figure 8 will fight to a draw in January? Then we're going to have to do it again. Like, or what a Moreno wins? Like, what do we do? Do we just run it back again?

I don't know. So there are things in his way. I think from a talent perspective and as active as he is competitively, yeah, I mean, he can get there. It ain't going to be easy. That's going to be a tough record to break, honestly. As far as Orlovsky goes, unfortunately, he's probably going to have to be sacrificed to the altar of Romanov.

I mean, that's a fight I've been kind of calling for for a while, figuring the UFC was going to go in that direction. And I think now's probably the time. So they're just probably going to throw him in there with Alexander Romanov. And he's probably going to get trucked in the first round. And then we'll see where he goes. But he's in there having fun. And it was a tough matchup for him.

But again, like we talked about last week, that was a fight that if he could have weathered that early storm, he probably wins that fight but it's just surviving that early storm and he's going to have kind of the same problems with Romanov as well. So I mean, if he wants to keep going, keep going. I mean, he won four in a row,

but this one was not great. Four corners of a lot. Hey, what was going on, Mike? I wanted to talk to you about the mean event that happened. I think it was on the post-fight show. Jed was talking about how corners should be protecting their fighters. Now, I was wondering, how come the...

I forget who the referee was at the time. who did the main event for this past Saturday. But I remember it was against, it was on the Jacksonville car, Anthony Smith versus Jimmy Crute. I remember when Jimmy Crute, I think it was like his ankle, like rolled or whatever it was,

and he couldn't get it back into place. I think Mark Goddard had told I was on top of the situation and he called a fight off. How come they didn't call the fight off originally in between the rounds, the corner of Calvin Cater should have definitely really looked at that knee because it looked bad.

It looked bad on TV. I don't know what was there, an angle view on it. But I think if they would have called it off in between rounds, it could have definitely saved Cater the time length as for him being able to return back into the octagon. Now, I don't know if there's any reports as for him having, what was the exact injury on it and the timetable.

But I'm really hoping that the man is not missing out of full year. year. That's a full year without a paycheck and the man already missed a lengthy amount of time after him taking a weapon from Max Holloway. So I wanted to get your thoughts on that. And as for, I think a previous caller had said about talking about the apex, I think they should expand on it just because it feels like it's like a gymnasium, a high school gymnasium. If anybody has ever wrestled before, that's kind of the feeling of it. I know they had like the Vanderbilt baseball team there, but there really wasn't any noise. The card, honestly, it was kind of like a steroid, um, Consentary's card.

I can't really complain. I actually didn't mind the card. But, yeah, this Saturday's card is, you know, is night and day compared to this. But I just wanted to get your thoughts on that. All right, thanks, Mike. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if they're going to be able. I don't know how they're going to expand the apex. I mean, maybe they can.

We'll see what they could do. But I don't know. It's just the feel of it all. Like, it's just so, it's WCW Saturday night. That's what it looks like. like. And sometimes they deliver. Sometimes it's just the feel of it.

It's not the same. Like that Orlando card is going to be much different. And when we leave December 3rd and come back here on, you know, the 6th, we're going to say, oh, man, they're going to take the show on the road way out, way more often. Because that's a great card. The fans are going to be into it. They haven't been to Orlando in a minute. And it's a solid card.

It just makes everybody step up their game a little bit more. But yeah, I mean, we'll see. Like I said, I bet the first car to 2023 will be at the apex. It wouldn't stun me. But that's probably what's going to happen. As far as the cater thing goes, I mean, we touched on it earlier. No report on the injury yet. He hasn't had the MRI yet.

I think he's got to get it either today or tomorrow. I don't know, man. I know some people are very tough on Tyson Chardier right now. They were very tough on him after the Max Holloway fight. I talked to him a couple weeks after he gave his thoughts on everything. And we talk a lot about how coaches know their fighters better than anybody. And that is true. But in this specific case, Tyson Chardier and Calvin Cater are not just manager, fighter,

not just coach fighter. They're like very good friends. Calvin Cater is Uncle Calvin in Tyson Chardier's house. So when you say that coach is no fighters better than anybody, it means like there's more outside of like a parents coaching a child, Tyson Chardier probably knows Calvin Cater better than anybody else in the world besides maybe Calvin's mom or any, like even maybe more than like his siblings. Tyson knows Calvin better than them.

So I understand if you don't want to give them a pass, if you want to just say that. But again, if you go back and watch right before that second round started, Calvin was moving around okay. Like, Jimmy Crout was like hopping on one foot in that whole situation.

I'm like, they're going to let this guy come out and fight. Are you shitting me? But this one, Calvin's like bouncing around a little bit. He's walking. He's not even limping. and then he goes out there, he takes that kick. And it sucks to watch in hindsight. But again, Tyson knows this man better than anybody else. He knows if Calvin's full of shit, too.

If he's looking at Calvin, he looks in his eyes and Cal's like, I'm fine, and he's not. Tyson will be the first one to tell you, you're full of shit, and he'll stop the fight. I don't blame, I mean, I understand if people want to blame him, but I'm not blaming him here. I'm not. And maybe that's a problem. Maybe that's a problem. I had more of an issue with the Phil Haas one, if we're being honest, because Phil, Phil was wrecked.

Phil was wrecked. Like, Cavett, at least before the second round started, he showed improvements. He wasn't hopping on one foot. He was walking around kind of normal. Phil Haas' leg popped out. Roman DeLidez let him go. He is literally hobbling on one foot.

He's hobbling. And Dan Mergley-od, I believe, was the referee, just looked at him and was like, all right, keep fighting. What? What are you talking about? And then he got brutally ca-oed. I had more of an issue with that than the Cater one. I did.

I had more of a problem with that. But if you want to look at it from that sense because you care about the fighter's well-being and something, I get it. I get it. But I know this team pretty well, and it's not me being a home or anything like that. Tyson-Chartier knows Calvin Cater better.

than anybody besides baby Calvin's mom. You know, like, it's a different coach fighter relationship with those guys. Their team is very small. There's only like five or six guys that train with them. It's Fon, Cater, and like a couple of amateurs, they have a couple of, a few different coaches, and then they bring in a couple of other guys that have to, like, earn their spot. It's not like American Top Team. It's not like Killcliff FC.

It's not A.K.A. where there's like 80, 90 dudes at a pro practice. They are a very small circle. They are a family. More so than any other team because there's such a small eclectic group. Again, Calvin's Uncle Calvin

in Tyson's house. That's how close they all are. This isn't your typical coach fighter relationship. Because I know that relationship so well, I'm willing to give Tyson a pass. But again, if you want to sit here and pass blame on them, sure. I mean, if you feel that way,

I ain't going to fight with you on it. But I'm just giving you my, what I see, like what I've seen from those guys. Because I've been to training sessions with them. I've seen how they operate. I've known them for years. I've known Cal before he's in the UFC. I've known Tyson since before that too. That's just how it is.

But if Tyson saw something enough to let Calvin fight, he knows Calvin better than anybody else. And that's just the truth of it all. one thing that's interesting that I'll bring up for I get to Eric who's going to be on deck and then we'll go to Mosso, go to Zeke. What do we do with Arnold Allen? What do we do with Arnold Allen? Now, a lot of different ideas have come in and I respect them all. To me, Arnold Allen deserves to be in the interim title fight. He does.

He's won 10 in a row. He's 12, he's won 12 straight. He's 10 in the UFC. I know that the ending of that fight wasn't great, but Arnold Allen's resume is better than Yayae Rodriguez's right now. And still, to my point, I think how the UFC should approach this is you do, you approach Yaya Rodriguez with the Arnold Allen fight.

Approach him with that. Yaya says, no, I'm only fight in Volk. You tell Yaya to screw and you do Josh Enoch. And that's how you handle it. I saw a lot of people clamoring for the Max Holloway fight. And in a vacuum, that fight is great. It rules. I'd love to see it.

But I hate that idea in terms of meritocracy. Because if Max Hawley beats Arnold Allen, you just screwed yourself. You just killed yourself. You just took away a potential opponent. And that's been a problem with this division. And this is one of the problems Volks having. No one has emerged. and the way you're trying to emerge a contender

is you throw them in there with the second best guy in the division who beats pretty much everybody except the champion. So I don't like the Arnold-Diomax Holloway idea. I don't. If you're just going to have these two guys fight, like if there's no stakes to it,

if this is like two or three years from now and Arnold has sniffed the title and didn't win it or something, cool, like I'm in. I'm in as just like a fun fight night made events with no stakes. but any fight Arnold Allen has is important and it has stakes. You throw him in there with Max Holloway and he loses.

You're stuck. You're still stuck. And Max probably beats Arnold Allen for being honest. Like I would pick Max to win that fight. I'm not saying Arnold couldn't win, but Max would be favored to win that fight. And that's why I don't like this idea. Now, if Arnold Allen fights for the interim title and loses and you want to give him Max, I'm cool with that.

But right now, he either fights. Yair or Josh Emmett and you do an interim title fight. That's cool. If you can't guy Yair on board, you do Alan Emmett, that's it. I think Emmett is number three on this list honestly. I know he's got

the wind streak and everything. But I don't think, I don't know. It's a strange situation. I would go Alan Yaiir. If Yaiir says no, you say, all right, good luck trying to get a title shot now. Josh, you're up. Go fight on Al Allen in the UK.

Interim title fight, done and done. Your champion has literally said, do an interim title fight. He's telling you to do it. So do it. But I think Arnold Allen deserves one of those spots. I do. Ten in a row, just give it to him. I think he deserves a chance, especially if you're going back to the UK.

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price. Yeah, well, my guess I. Let's go to Eric with the, uh, the CM Punk photo. Hello, Eric. How you doing? Demitore. Yeah, so I agree. But I think they should run a bad with Cater after Cater's recovered.

Like, that fight shouldn't, that round shouldn't have stopped. He was okay. That was crazy. So, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I, like, like we just said on on to the next one, I was not willing to match make for Cater, just because we don't know what the hell is. happening. We don't know how serious the injury is. Like, who knows? Maybe he just

tweaked something, doesn't need surgery, and can come back in six months. Or maybe Tordall and he's out for a year plus. I mean, we don't know yet. We just don't know. But I'd like to see those guys fight again in the future, that's for sure. Calvin's next fight's going to be interesting whenever and whoever that's

against. It's definitely going to be interesting. Go to Mosa, then we'll go to Zeeke. Mosa, hello. Good, how are you? The Al Jammins-Sailing situation. I don't know if you talked about it. I came a little bit late.

But do you think he's doing it in purpose to make haters in the UFC because he laid for a whole year in his first title defense and it was an injury, but it wasn't a new one? And then neither of his wins was decisive. And right now you have beaten T.G. Della Show. And it's not his fault, but he was injured. And now you're saying you are fighting once a year. I don't know.

What do you think about it? My second questions, I don't know if it's right. But I want to ask you if you know something about it. I have seen that GSP is set to fight KSI in January. Have you heard anything about it? Thank you, Mike. I have not heard anything about that and I don't even know what to say about that

I don't even know what to say about that I just don't know of like I would say it's doubtful I'd say it's doubtful like we just literally found out GSP was no longer under UFC contract and he has never like there's been like boxing matches that he's been interested in

I just don't know if KSI is the guy that's got to like that a guy like GSP is and be like, ooh, KSI. He probably has no idea who the hell KSI is. So I would say there's nothing to that. So yeah, I don't know if like, I don't even know where that came from, honestly. I don't know if, I mean, if you didn't see like any of us report, if you didn't see like Halani reported, then it's probably not true. The Sterling thing, this guy, I mean, there's a lot that Al Jemaine Sterling has done wrong in

this situation. And I think he's realized. that and I'm not going to be that dude like oh Al Jermaine's listening to the show but we've been I mean Al Jermaine has kind of screwed the pooch on this whole thing this whole I don't care who it is whether it's Suhudo or O'Malley or Cheeto Dorito whatever the hell he says no you should have and I think he's leaning into the right thing now where it's O'Malley like go for Sean That's the one. But now he's saying he's not going to fight till June. His title run is going to have questions.

But this guy is, I mean, he's freaking good, man. He's good. Like, I know he won the belts in a way that not a lot of people liked. And then he actually listened to everybody. He listened to all of us after the whole thing. You know what Al Jemaine needs to do? He needs to lean into this. He used to lean into it.

And he leaned into it and you hated him for it. And then he went out and fought the dude again and won. like I know it was a split decision, but I thought Sterling won that fight. Goes and beats Peter Young, beats the guy that everyone feels is the best guy in the division. And then he goes and beats T.C. Dill shot. Like, I understand the shoulder injury or whatever, but I'm telling, like, I didn't realize, like, how different these guys look in front of each other. Like, Sterling is a giant compared to T.C. Dill Show. And I didn't even notice it until the fight started.

I had no, like, I didn't really realize it until I saw them in the cage. And I felt very strongly that after seeing the size discrepancy and seeing like the first 30 second, the first take down and everything, and I know the shoulder popped out, we don't have all the answers. But I felt very confident that Sterling was going to win that fight. I didn't heading in,

but after, you know, that first exchange and everything and just seeing how much bigger Sterling was, I just felt like it was going to be a bad night for TJ either way. So it's not his fault. He's kind of screwed the pooch with the aftermath of the, all. But again, you missed something historic. I gave Henry Sehudo credit because Sehudo called for Sean O'Malley. And if Sterling ain't funny until June, do that. That's like Sehudo tried to do the thing. He didn't do it well, but he tried to do the thing. And the tweet was horrendous. It wasn't

funny, wasn't clever. But the idea was right. Let's go, Sean. Let's fight. I hate the interim title idea. I hope they don't go that route. But I hope the UFC is paying attention and saying, let's do it. Do it in Perth. I don't care. Do it wherever. But that's the fight. It's either Sterling O'Malley or Sehudo O'Malley. And if Sehudo beat Sean O'Malley, give him the title shot. You will get no argument for me whatsoever. But yeah, Sterling's title reign is going to be a great 30 for 30 someday. That's for sure. Let's go to Zeeke. Mike, how are you?

Good, how are you? I'm right. I got a couple things for you. Just going back to our last caller for two seconds. I don't think Al Jermaine's working on anybody hating him. I think he's got enough of those already. Moving forward, though, I don't know if you listen to the show, man. I already gave that reaming.

Him fumbling the bag and not just focusing it on Sean. And should have just left Henry alone. He's not even under contract. But now it seems to me that Henry might walk into that Perth Sean fight. that looks to be the headline. Hopefully it's all hype. I mean, Sean versus Cheeto in Perth for an interim would be super dope, but it's also super early. So maybe I'm just hyping that up.

Talk me about Sean's next fight, not Aljo's, if it isn't Henry or Aljo. And then, last but not least, we lost Charlton Almeda. We lost him Saturday against Max Grish. I'm done with this catchweight stuff. I'm done with this unranked fighter stuff. I'm done with him just getting, you know, the next guy that they could possibly find not ranked in the ring with him so he could just sacrifice them. Get him a top 15 guy. If it's not on UFC 281, it's got to be in December or maybe even in Brazil in January.

Let's get this done, man. I'm made as the man. All right, Mike. Have a good day. All right. So first question, what do we do with O'Malley? Look, I want to see the Cheeto fight as much as everybody else does. but if Sean somehow wins the title,

him versus Cheeto for the belt is so big. It's so big. So I don't think there are, like, though, it's, it's, it's, to me it's Sehudo. If he's willing to wait, then he can fight Sterling, like, and not fight Sehudo. Like, I think it would be kind of hilarious if O'Malley just no sells Sehudo and just waits for the title.

Like, that'd be great and then gets it over Sehudo. I mean, the amount of tweets and response from that would just, be unbelievable. But if they do go the bad route and do Sterling Sohudo without Sohudo fighting somebody else, then you probably do the Cheeto fight. That's fine.

But you could do... Sohudo Cheeto's fine. Like, that's the one I liked. Sohudo Sanhagen's fun. Like, these are all fights that I would love to see Henry take. And if he wins, then go fight for the belts. Like, show us you care and that you're serious about.

this and that you can be reliable and then go fight for the belts. That's all we're asking. We're not asking much. You want to come back and fight. Go fight. Go fight a top dude. And then if you win, you get whatever. You get your damn title shot. Like, what's the problem with that?

The Jelton thing is just weird and there should be no blame on him whatsoever. And to your point about giving them top 15 guys, they tried. They gave him Shamiel Durahimov like two different times,

and Shamil couldn't make it to the fight. So we had a fight at catchweight, and then they booked him with Maxim Grishen, because he was supposed to fight at 280. Remember he supposed to fight Shamil? Top 15 guy. Jamil, whatever happened, he's out of the fight. Jailton gets pushed.

Maxim Grishen takes the fight. And from what I understand, Jailton flew all the way to Las Vegas just for him to find out that the fight was off, and then he turned around and flew back home. The fight being off is not Almeida's fault. Apparently, there's Visa, Grish had visa issues and couldn't get over,

but Jelton flew all the way to Las Vegas and then landed, either found out on the way or found out after he landed and then flew back home. This is none of, like, it's not his fault. None of this is his fault. What a year this guy has had. Golly. He's got all these aspirations. Everyone's just wanted this guy to fight, and I get it.

I'm excited too. But he just had some. really bad luck. And the bad luck train continues. It'll be interesting to see where they go from here. Just don't book him against Jamil again. We've already played this game. Give them somebody else.

And we'll see what they do. We'll go Hunter, the Am, and then Terrence, and then I got to go. Hunter, hello. Can you hear me? Okay, yeah. Yeah, I got you. I just had one quick question. How do you, what's your stance on, like, injury rematches?

because I haven't seen it a lot, like a lot of reporters talking about it or anything, but like in situations like Rockich or like Ortega or what we just saw with Cater, do you think the UFC should try rebooking these matches that are based off that end in like freak accidents as opposed to like injury that was caused by, um, what's the word? Like, get dominated basically. So like in the case of the Haws fight, um, The lead Zay had incredible ground game, and that was just all skill. I don't think that really factors into it because that was a different situation.

But, yeah, in cases like Ortega, and the Ortega and Yennair fight especially, because those two are kind of like neck and neck as far as contention goes. Ortega obviously had his rematch, but he still got tons of stock. I mean, the only people he's ever lost to is Holloway and a Bull bulk. And obviously yeah, yeah, yeah. Just wondering how you felt about that if you think UFC is trying to make those rematches or if they should

just keep going past them and just move on from there. Thanks. I mean, it's almost impossible to say just go right to a rematch because, I mean, Ortega's still hurt. We don't know how long cater's going to be out for. Rackett. She's going to be out for a while. So you can't

just be like, nope, you got to wait for these guys to come back. So that's not really fair to the guys who won and didn't get hurt. and I'm not blaming the guys who got hurt. M.A's tough, man. It's a tough sport. Sometimes things happen. But what you could do is just these are back pocket fights.

If the timelines and the roads lead to a rematch, then they're there. You have a story. You got a story. So I would love to see Cater and Allen do the damn thing for 25 minutes to see how that really would have gone. But here's the thing. Like the Yair one, like you can make a case that Yair, what Yayae did led to Ortega's injury. Like you could watch the tape and come to that conclusion.

And that's fine. Like it wasn't just he just slipped and fell and hurt himself. Like this was due to Yair, you know, torquing the body part. Cater's is a little different because he was trying the flying knee. And but Allen still evaded it. And his defense kind of led to that. With the, you know, the racquetron zone was kind of,

kind of a freaky one. But these are back pocket fights. You can't just punish Aaron and say, hey man, this wasn't definitive. You got to wait for Calvin to come back and then you can fight again. No, you got to move forward.

And that's just kind of where we're at right now. And you can't treat them all the same. Like some are just freakish ones. And, you know, some happened because of what the fighter did and others didn't. And I agree with you with the Phil Hoswell.

And that fight should have been stopped immediately. Like, Hawes is done. Like the leg snapped. DeLizay pointed it out. The dude couldn't walk. He was hopping on one foot. And the refter was like, okay, keep fighting. At least Cater was like moving around a little bit. And you were like, okay, looks like he's better. I mean, it sucks the way that it ended, but it looked like he was better. So, yeah, the immediate rematch thing you can't do just because it's just not fair to the guy. He won. But they are back pocket fights. If you ever need They're right there.

Let's go to the AM. Good. How are you? I'm sorry. I joined late. So I don't know if you touch on this subject or not. But I heard the news about Ascar Oskarov. He requested to be released, and I think he got that.

Do you know, do you have any lead, like what happened or why he asked to be released and why he was okay with that? Thank you. No insight at all. I'm not surprised, honestly. I mean, I think he was kind of on his last legs anyways. Mr. Wade a couple different times. He had the issues with Royval. And honestly, that was the best fight on that card.

And fights gone. And yeah. So, I mean, I would say his title hopes are gone for a while. So, I mean, if there's other opportunities for him, Asker Afscraff's not a star. he's not a guy that's going to fight for a title anytime soon. So I think it's fine for both for both sides, honestly. I don't know why, but I think Asker probably saw the writing on the wall.

They're probably going to make him go to 135. And he's just like, nah, just let me go. And looks like they did. We haven't had full confirmation yet on that. But Asker said in that social media post that they asked for the release and it was a positive conversation but I know the roster bot I think they X him out of there but we haven't confirmed that list just yet so yeah I don't have a problem

with him going there but I have no idea why but that's that that's my hunch Terrence hello hey Mike happy November to you all me too um so I was calling in regards to nobody else I came here like a few minutes late like right after the call dropped originally so I don't know if you guys talked about Miranda Maverick just yet she's fighting Sheen Young of course

and with that being said she's taking like a step down in competition like the last few fights I was wondering do you guys think that's wise for her like in regards in retrospect to like the hype she had when she came in like do you think it's for you and I can because I know you guys are like the matchmakers

do you think it's wise for her to go ahead and like take these fights but it is a fight while she already fought Shane like an Invicta and won well she lose one of these fights and then she winds up way farther back. Do you think

it's wise for her? Like if she went to this next fight to call out Cynthia Calvillo or somebody, where it's still like a perceived easy match, but she'll be back in the rankings and then she can start calling out some of these other people's because I've seen in the past her calling out like Molly and stuff like that

and she wants to steal her hype and it's kind of cringy and stuff like that. Like what do you think it's next for her to get her back on the same hype train that she was on when she was leading in and people talking about her being next up. I think what messed her up is her fight in Aaron Blanchfield

that completely stole everything from her because she still had an argument that she won the Macy fight and then she had that in her back pocket. But her Nets fight was against Aaron, who people are super high-owned. Just want to know what you two think would be Nets and if you were leading her career. That's it. Thank you. It's kind of tough to answer.

I don't know if she's going to go out there and call people out but she just needs to do what she did when she got in just perform like people expected to go out there and finish fights like she should go out there and finish jana young she goes out there and like just go out there and dominate and finish and that's that's all she needs to do i think people just need to be reminded about how good she was so that's probably it then you don't need to call people out i mean i remember after her first her first ufc fight she was talking about hey i'm not i'm not fighting Valentina next, but I see holes in her game and I could beat her someday. Like, don't do that.

Like, maybe just veer back from that. Just go out there and win. Go out there and do your thing. And then you'll get your chances. Look at Casey O'Neill. Casey O'Neill wasn't really calling anybody out. She just went out there and dominated and finished everybody she fought and got big fights. And I think that's what Miranda needs to do as well.

I mean, this is what an occasion. Oh, hello. the best friend hello uh i just wanted to chime in on the askar askraf that you mentioned the instagram post um in that post again this is not you know this is a a automated instagram translation but he did mention something about health actually there's health reasons i think that he said he wanted to um take time away so that i think that is uh so beyond just possibly seeing the writing on the wall and kind of hitting that hitting that wall as it were uh with the kai kair franzloss it does sound like there is a health

concern, which good for him. If he's able to take time off, he can afford to. He's only 30 years old. He could probably take two years away from the sport if you wanted to. Again, if he can afford to to, it has other things, you know, other interests and other financial stability.

So yeah, he is a young guy. Hopefully we see him fight again. I'd love to see Ascar. But yeah, a little crazy because he was number seven. He'll still be number seven in our rankings. on the MA fighting global rankings. So I guess we'll have to discuss that.

I don't know if we treat this as kind of like a retirement as opposed to letting him, you know, as opposed to letting him kind of squat on that spot for however long he's out. Then again, I don't know. Maybe he's with another promotion in six months, right? We don't know. That's a whole other thing.

But hopefully Oscar Rob's all right. But, yeah, there are health reasons. And he was number four. He was number four in the official rankings. We did, as of this morning, I believe, the man, Giermey Cruz, I think, has confirmed. with UFC officials, the Ascrov was released.

Sadly, Mike, we also got confirmation on Christop Jocko. That was mentioned by UFC roster watch over the weekend. It does, apparently, yeah,

Christop Jocko, the former middleweighty, middleweight champion is no longer with the UFC for now. You know, at least he passed the torch, Mike.

He passed the torch to Brendan Allen. And, you know, that we can take some solace in that. But other than that, there was a bunch of releases. So if anyone, if you saw the UFC roster, this was like late last night, yes, pretty much all those had been confirmed.

This Maga Men Mustafaai was in there. A few people who weren't able to get a win. Jason Witt, of course, who announced his retirement. That's official. Misha Sarkhanov. Misha Sarkhanov was a big one. He was a formerly top 10 ranked, or top 15 ranked light heavyweights.

So had a lot of bad luck over the last few years. He couldn't get a win. So, Mike, I'll end with a question just to keep the show. show cooking. Louis Cozy was another name. I think he's the only contender series guy on this list. I want to say a guy who won a contract. Are we like, do we feel like people are starting to realize how little security these

contender series contracts have? Like, I'm not saying Louise Cozy is some, you know, blue chip prospect that needs to be protected. But man, to just go O and 2, the excitement of getting signed last year, you go O and 2, you're gone. I mean, this is messed up, right? I don't even know if I have a question here, or this is more of a statement,

but feel free to go off, Mike, on a contender series if you'd like, or disagree. I don't know, I don't know. But great show is always my best friend. And hopefully we'll see Christop Jocko somewhere, middle waiting about for another promotion soon. Thank you, A.K. I mean, again, we don't know.

Like, I would say of this list, some of these names were, like, all-out releases, and some of them just could have been, they fought out their deals and they haven't resigned yet. It's very possible. I think the name that was the most surprising on this list was Nick Maximoff, but

even then, he's lost a couple in a row and maybe just needs more seasoning. I don't know. But again, this is what the contender series is all about. They come out, Dana White gives the speech after the first episode, be Joe Pfeiffer,

be Joe Pfeiffer. And then they go out and sign a record amount of fighters off the contender series after only signing one the first week tells you everything you need to know right there they are replaceable they are replaceable with 30 other guys that they signed off the damn show so you got to have you got to have places for these guys and we knew this purge was coming at some point after the season and here's the purge Darren Weeks gone, Cameron Van Camp gone, Jesse Bronson gone, Antaver. I mean, Anteverroes, I think that's just probably for his own health.

Exciting guy, but he's just getting brutally finished at all these fights. I mean, Louis Cozy's brother's still around, I think. Misha Serkenoff, I'm not surprised it. He's been getting brutally finished in all these fights too. That's just what it is. I mean, these contender series cards are, I mean, we're signing guys who weren't winning. guys who lost fights were getting signed.

And from all the people that got signed off this past season, they weren't all Joe Pfevers, my friends. There were people winning decisions. And I just wish we would go back to like the first two seasons where, I mean, you really had to earn it. But now, like, we see the writing on the wall. We know what the show is all about. It's a business.

It's a business. Misha Serkadoff is probably making 40 and 40. Now he's not. Maximoff was probably making a little more than most. And then a lot of these other guys are making 10 and 10, 12 and 12, whatever it is. And you just place them with other guys that are getting 12 and 12. But yeah, that's a route. Crypto, take us home.

Crypto, hello. Hello. You hear me? Yes. Yeah, I got you. Okay, hi, Mike. So two points, Mike. First of all, I was just wondering, just to make it clear,

I didn't feel that the Khalil Round 3 win was a robbery. I was just thinking about this because, I mean, I've been to different MMA events myself before and so on, and I get the point that maybe you should have the judges watching the fight on Atili screen with different angles. So I just want you take on that because I truly understand that if you're just sitting down and seeing the fight from a specific angle, there might be different interpretations, depending on what happens, if a fighter has his back to that specific judge and so on. So I just want you to take on that. And secondly, I don't know if you have heard the reply and answer from a certain individual about his take on the MMA media.

but he did make one good point, Mike, where he basically said that his podcast and the things they are doing, it's actually not media. And I kind of agree with him. I don't see him as media. I mean, no one cares what they say. True, like, no one within the MMA world gives a single F about his opinion if it's a person that matters.

It's just like rambling, just crazy thoughts, just, I mean, it's not my cup of tea. So it does actually make a point there that I don't think we should take the things that are being said on that podcast seriously because no one that is serious takes their points and actually thinks that they are credible in any way. So yeah, just want your thoughts on that as well, Mike. Thanks. I mean, he is, you can say whatever he wants, he wants, but he is in the media. He's in the media. Now, if weighing in

was a Bellator podcast, I would give him a pass because, you know what I mean? Like, I would give him a pass. If this is a Bellator, if this is a Bellator show and it was just about Bellator,

cool. Like, I'll give you a pass. Like, you, here's the thing. John Anick says it all the time. He's in the media, but he's not a journalist. There's a difference between being in the media and being a journalist. John Anick says it all the time. Me taking this job with the UFC, I turned in my journalist card. So I can't pick fights. I can't do this and that. Like there are certain things I can no longer do because I am in the media. But I'm not a journalist. Josh is not a journalist, but he is in the

media. He talks about the UFC. Okay? That makes him media. He's giving his opinion on a show that people watch about the UFC. He's in the media. I don't give a shit what he says. It's not a Bellator show. It's an MMA show. He's in the media. Sorry. When you have a name and people watch your stuff, you're in the media. Now, there are certain people who have opinions about UFC who are not in the media, but Josh is. He's on television.

He's a broadcaster. He's in the friggin' media. He's in the media. His show is not good, but he's in the media. He's giving opinions outside of his work. That makes him a media member. He's not a journalist, but he's a media member. I'll have to go back and watch it because I'm curious.

I didn't see a clip on it on his whole thing. But again, and I'm not changing my stance on anything. He can come out and say the whole long. I'm not in the media thing. But that's not the issue. The issue is he took something and was super hypocritical about it. Hey, MMA media, do your fucking jobs,

telling us how to do our jobs. Yet he's putting up this video about trying to promote this card, but yet the only clip he puts out is the one that he knew he would get the most reaction from from members of the media and fans. Which meant Josh Thompson

went into business for Josh Thompson. This is about him. It's about getting himself over. It wasn't about getting the fighters over. He was trying to get people talking about Josh Thompson. That's the issue I have with it. That's the issue I have with the whole thing. Now, if he doesn't put that clip out,

like if he just goes on his podcast with John McCarthy and just says these things and doesn't put out that clip, I'm probably talking about this differently. but he himself chose to put that clip out there. And he made the choice. So now you have to deal with it. You have to deal with the follow from that. You could have put on a clip just promoting the card.

Hey, did you see this? This card's awesome. This guy's fighting this guy. This guy's fighting this guy. I can't wait to see it. This is a great card. Make sure everybody watches it. I'm telling you, it's going to be a great event.

You put that clip out? We're not talking about this, but you chose to put that clip out on your own. This is on your page. It wasn't on the weighing in page. This is on your page. You did this. So I have no sympathy for you.

None. The absolute visceral beating you're taking from fans and media, other media members, I have no sympathy for you. You made that choice. And you're doubling down on it. I don't care what you say, bro. You made it about you.

You broke. the rule. You broke the rule. Broadcasting, media, all of it. You made it about yourself. You can't do that. You can't do that. And that's what you did. So that's why I have a problem with it. You're telling us to promote the card, but yet

you're promoting you. It's just super hypocritical. But that's it. All right, we're done. I've got to get out of here. I'm going to be speaking to Trayshon Gore at the top of the hour about the most violent guillotine choke you've ever seen. And we'll be back here on

Thursday, hopefully we have no more technical difficulties. I'll have some work to do on the production end to fix what my Wi-Fi screwed up to start the show. But back Thursday, 10 a.m. Eastern, we'll do it again. M.A. hour back tomorrow. We might have some good news in regards to UFC 281 as well. So stay tuned for that. But until that, everybody, have a great rest of the day.

And as always, have a heck of a morning.