MMA Fighting - HOAM | What's Next For Max Holloway After UFC Singapore Knockout Win?

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

Max Holloway picked up his first finish in several years with a third-round knockout of The Korean Zombie in the main event of Saturday's UFC Singapore event. With Alexander Volkanovski still the featherweight champ, and still holding three wins over Holloway, where does "Blessed" go from here? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck discusses what could be next for Holloway, why a matchup with Ilia Topuria is not the fight to make right now, and whether or not Aljamain Sterling could be an option. Additionally, listener topics include Israel Adesanya's next move should he be successful against Sean Strickland at UFC 293, if Khamzat Chimaev can leapfrog Dricus Du Plessis in the middleweight title discussion, Erin Blanchfield's UFC Singapore win over Taila Santos, Anthony Smith's win over Ryan Spann and what fights make sense for "Lionheart," a quick review of AEW's All-In, 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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Audible. The Vox Media Podcast Network. All right, everybody, it is Tuesday, August 29, 2023, and it is indeed a heck of a morning. We are live on the internet, Twitter spaces, live at a local grocery store

because getting some work done our condo, getting some new flooring put down, so you can't really be there. So I'm just sitting in a grocery store lounge right now doing the show for all of you guys. So you can hear the show here. You can take part in the show here,

or you can listen to the entire show on the M.A. Fighting Podcasting Network. I am Mike Heck. Hope everyone's having a wonderful start to the week. I am not having a wonderful start to the week. As you can tell, I am not feeling very well. allergies are just clobbering me and we're right smack in the middle of where this hurricane slash tropical storm is going through. It's just been pouring rain. And I don't know, something hit me like five o'clock yesterday afternoon just running me over. But we persevere. We get on with it. We don't complain. We don't whine. We just show up and we do the show. And we're coming off of, A pretty fun UFC Singapore card this past Saturday.

We saw Max Holloway knock out the Korean zombie in the main event. Super fun fight. I told you guys that that fight was going to be much more fun than most people thought it would. In the end, it ended with zombie getting knocked out pretty brutally. But zombie went in there in the third round and said, listen, it's either you're getting God or I'm getting God. And I'm cool with either. and it's kind of just the way zombie wanted to end his career. Just went in there, got got, seemed okay, announced his retirement.

And one of the super fun action fighters that we have seen over the last decade or so is moving on to other things in his life. And we wish him the best. Max Holloway gets a victory. It'll be interesting to see where he goes from here. And let me just say this. So many people I've seen continue to say, oh, let's just do Max Holloway versus Ilya.

Stop that. Stop that nonsense. The only, I'm not saying that fight can never happen. But to say that fight should happen right now is insanity. Because Volcanowski should be fighting Iliate's poor. Ilyatiporia has, it should be fighting for the beltbacks. Now, if Iliate'sipater beats Volcanovsky, and Volk wants to take a little time for him.

himself and Ilya wants to get right back in there and Max happens to be available and we want to do Ilya versus Max for the title I'm fine with that like I'm cool but to say like hey let's let's delay Iliate Tuporia's title shots so we can go fight Max Holloway why why Volk wants that fight Volk finds it as a unique challenge so we're just going to tell Volk nah no title defense for you because we're going to send Tepore to fight Max come on enough is enough So my suggestion since UFC 292 was Al Jermaine Sterling versus Max Holloway, Ilya fights for the belt. And then after Max and Sterling fight,

if Volk retains against Ilya, then Hall can go do fun fights at 55. He can go fight the Poriers again or the Gauchies again. There's just so many fun fights for Holloway right now. And I kind of just don't want him really in the title picture right? now on 45 unless Volkanowski loses the belt so again all and all pretty fun event in singapore good win for anthony smith got it down deep to defeat ryan span who i think is going to be kicking himself for the next few years watching back the last seven minutes of that fight

got some good performances briny nakamore is really really fun to watch he's going to be a problem at 135 that garret arfield looked incredible at 135 junior taffo with maybe the upset of the century, defeating the just incredibly gifted Paca Pota, knocking him out in the first round. Paco Pocoda having a tough time with the Tafah family. Giga Chikaze, successful return, defeats Alex Kaceres,

who actually broke his forearm in the first round of that fight. First kick Giga through up top. Caceres blocked with his forearm, broke his forearm. So basically, Caceres fought Giga Chacazzi for another 12 or so minutes, which is one arm. And he gets back in the wind calm after getting thumped around by Calvin Cater last year. So it's good to see him back. And then Aaron Blanchfield, hard fought win against Tilos Santos.

A lot of people just ripping her for that performance. But I don't really understand why. I don't really get it. This is the toughest fight of her career. It's really tough to look good against Tilos Santos. Valentina Shepchenko certainly didn't look good. against Tyler Santos and a lot of other fighters don't look good against Talas Santos. But Blanchfield, after a tough first round,

gutted it out, and that's a great win for her. And to me, she should be fighting for the belts in her next fight. She should be fighting the winner of Alexa Grasso, Valentin, and Svchenko, too. Now, I understand how this world works, ladies and gentlemen. Rosnamu Yunus is about to fight Manon Fioro this Saturday at UFC Paris. And if Rosemunummi Yunus wins that fight, she's getting a title shot. Like I understand what we're doing here. I get it.

I totally get what this is going to be. But if somehow Manit Vioro beats Rosenami Yunus, Aaron Blanchfield should get the title shot, and on and on we go. So that was UFC Singapore. And now we're going to turn it over to you to ask questions and talk about the wonderful world of mixed martial arts. As we know it, we got Paris coming up on Saturday.

We're on the road to UFC 293, which is just not a good-looking car. on paper but who knows it'll surprise us but we'll start with the buzzer what's up the buzzer okay know the buzzer how about meran maran are you there hello uh yes hi man how are you okay good how are you good so i have two questions for you first uh if is when is you gonna win from sean or which one is a bigger fact for him him versus uh hamsa or him versus DDP. That's all.

Thanks, man. Look, to where this year has gone, I ain't counting anybody out of any fight, so I'm not counting Sean Strickland out of any fight, but stylistically on paper, this is a terrible match for him. Strickland's head coach would also say that, but it doesn't mean that they're not going to prepare,

and Sean's going to go in there and try to play the mental warfare game. And who knows? Like I said, the way this year is gone, nothing would surprise me. That would be pretty shocking if Sean Strickland wins his fight. But who knows? But I do think he's going to win. What's the bigger fight?

Hamzot's the bigger fight, but what's the road the UFC will probably travel? It's DDP. It's a DDP fight. There's heat there. DDP's more reliable. Like I know he's not fighting on this card next Saturday, but we kind of knew.

this is going to happen, which is why we all hated the timing of the DDP versus Robert Whitaker fight. But if I'm DDP, I'm going to Sydney, and I'm getting right into that Octagon and getting in Izzy's face and trying to steal his moment, much like Izzy trying to steal

DDP's moment. And I'm not saying that in a negative sense, because that's what you're supposed to do to build fights and to build prize fights. But, look, Hamzots is a way bigger star than DDP. so that would obviously be the bigger fight, but DDP has already done his job.

Hamzot has not done his yet. He hasn't walked to the Octagon yet to fight Apollo Costa. And who knows if he even does at this point. But if he goes in and just like just right, just runs over Costa, then he's going to be in line, but they'll go DDP first. They'll go DDP first because you can bring DDP anywhere without issue and he'll fight. and hums up I'm not really sure if that's the same

so not a bad problem to be in if you're a fan of middleweights uh j stat hello j sad are you there hello are you there you're breaking up like crazy can you hear me

yeah I got you now okay um now now that the Korean zombie is retired um who are your top five feather weights of all time and in no order Top five featherweights of all time. Aldo, Volk, Holloway,

I think you kind of have to put Connor up there because of the run he had. I think you kind of have to put him up there. And number five, that's tough. That's tough. I don't know. Maybe Faber?

Because I know Faber made a lot of his hay. at 145 outside of the UFC, and then he went to Bannonweight in the UFC. But Fabor's a damn good featherweight before he went down to 135. So I think Fabor's a good one. I don't know. Chad Mendes is up there. Yair's up there.

I'd say zombies in the mix, but probably not in the top five. I would put him like seven or eight. But, yeah, it's, I mean, there's some obvious ones. Aldo, Holloway, Volk, Connor. And I'd probably put favor in five. I'd probably put favor of five. Patricia Pitbull's in that mix, too. But yeah, I think I'm good with that list right there.

The zombies on the all-violence team, that's for sure. Cole, hold on. Good morning, Mike. Just going off, like this Adasania thing, can we stop with Izzy, like, saying that the DDP fight is like a legacy defining fight. I just like I think

Izzy given Hamzad his first loss is more of a legacy defining moment for him but yeah I don't I think that's just such an easy fight for Izzy but yeah I just want your thoughts on Aaron Blanchfield like I feel like

the way that fight one was kind of the equivalent of Gilbert Burns versus Hans without like maybe the game plan abandonment that humzot did in that fight like she had to grind through that tough first round and then just it was a grimy clinch fight the last two rounds and she got it done so just your thoughts on how good she looked and what do you make of this connor chandler thing on ufc.com that's all i got to say have a good day Connor Chandler thing

like I said I've been probably I've been one of the more optimistic people that fight's going to happen and it could happen in December there's a reason why we don't have any of these December fights announced yet so I do feel like that is

still a possibility at this point the ISA DDP thing legacy defining probably not but you know it's nice to say that I mean why would you not say that. These are the things that champions

should be doing. They should be putting over their their opposition as strong threats so that when you go in there and you beat them, you look better. Notice how Sean O'Malley looks way better than Aljo did because Aljo said, well, this guy's

a decent counter-striker, but I'm just going to kill him. And Sean O'Malley kept saying, well, I'm fighting the greatest band of weight of all time. So you've got to put over your opponent. I think that's kind of what Izzy is doing here. Aaron Blanchfield, look, I've said this a million times. I don't understand the flak she's getting for this performance.

She won two rounds to one. There was no controversy. Zero. Valentina Shepchenko, who was on one of the all-time great runs, there was controversy with her fight. And I feel very confident that if this is a five-round fight, and it should have been a main event, not on this car, but on a different car.

I think Blanchfield gets her out of there. I think she just needs another two and a half minutes, and I think she was getting Tile out of there. So it's very tough to look good against Tilos Santos. But Aaron weathered the storm. Her chin held up. She got hit a lot. She had great strategy of,

I'm just going to block 100% of Tilos Santos's shots with my face. She got hitting an awful lot in that fight. And she didn't, like, it was far, from her best performance, but she's still won. And that's what makes her scary. And I said this, and I got a little flack on this for Twitter, on Twitter after the win, Aaron Blanchfield is going to get a million times better.

Like, she is nowhere near as good as she's going to be, and that is scary. And she's damn good already. So I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Right now, I would pick Aaron Blanchield to beat Alexigraso. I would pick her to be Valentin to shoot. Shipchenko. I feel very confident with that.

I think once she fights for the belt, she's going to win and she's going to be the champion for a really long time. She's going to be a tough out for literally everybody she fights. It's just a matter of when she gets that shot. Now, if Rose wins and she has to take another fight, I have no issue with that. It's just going to make her better by the time she gets to that title fight. So I would throw her in there with,

Do the Macy Barber fight. I have no issue with that idea. Them two have been kind of going back and forth with each other. But I don't understand the flak she's getting for this performance. Why, she didn't go out and run over Tilos Santos. Nobody runs over Tilos Santos. Nobody looks good against her. Aaron Blanchfield had a convincing victory over her.

So I don't understand the bad juju coming out of that performance. 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?

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Corma Stomberr for a major quality of price. OnLing C4.C. or I guess I'm going to say. Four on Sniper, hello.

Hey, heck of a morning. I just wanted to chime in real quick. Wanted to get your thoughts on the Billy Gough performance because I hadn't heard of him. I didn't do my research on him and I saw him fight and I'm instantly a fan. Just wanted your thoughts on his performance. Thank you. So I believe I'm the only one of the NBA fighting staff who picked Billy Gough to win by finish because I've seen Billy fight a million times.

And the fight you saw on Saturday is essentially a quintessential Billy Gough. golf fight. Dude just gets after it. He will take punishment. He'll walk forward. He'll get through it. And then usually get the finish. This guy is like a multi-division champion in New England. Did it for Cage Titans, did it for CES.

He's winning Banner. Fethaway titles, lightweight titles. This guy is just super fun. Is he going to be a UFC champion? No. But is he just going to be a fun addition to Welter Wade or White wait if he wants to fight a lightweight.

Is he just going to be a fun dude to have around and have fights like this? Absolutely. It's crazy that they didn't put Billy Goff on the 292 card, considering he's from New England and you had zero New England fighters on the card. But yeah, he's fun. It took a while to get him in there after the contender series win. But if you like that performance, that's essentially what you're going to get from Billy golf 100% of the time.

He's fun. he's super fun poor corner sports what's up like so for blanche's performance if she doesn't get a paddle shot if most went next week

when do you predict that we'll see Blanche will fight because I think you said in a previous interview that she rather say twice instead of just sitting around for a title shot but it keeps you more active

and it keeps them more in the group it's off from Brussels so I know that Blancheield was fought in February but and she's full of last week.

So it looks like it's, what is it, like a five to six-month layoff? So we've seen landfill fight maybe one more time this one, I mean, not this year, or you think it's going to be the first quarter of next year? And lastly, now, I have, for Otno, I have put Anthony Smith versus Dominic Reitz. I know we haven't heard anything about Dominic Reyes coming back,

but do you feel that Anthony Smith, maybe as about, maybe no more than three fights left in him in the UFC before he hangs it up. Just because I felt like the performance, but like he's on the back line of his career, and it just seems like the fights are going to get worse, and the performances might get worse. Maybe six year round, I'll be more a bit and a longer. All right, thanks, Mike. Thanks, man. I don't know.

With Anthony, I don't know. It could be five fights. It could be seven. It could be three. It could be one. I don't know. I also suggested the Dominic Reyes fight. I feel like it's just a good fight for both guys.

We won't be heartbroken either way. And I know Anthony Smith is like, well, people talk about that I'm done and I'm on the back nine, but I'm going to make a title run and all of this. I don't want to see that. I don't want to see that. I saw a lot of people suggesting Anthony Smith versus Colleo Roundtree coming out of this fight. I don't want to see that. I don't want to see Anthony fighting Collierreel Roundtree.

Dominic Reyes is fine. Like, this is a fine fight. Two guys who fought John Jones, two guys who, like, Anthony Smith could have won the title if he took the DQ. A lot of people thought Dominic beat John Jones. And Dominic just has been brutally knocked out in his last few fights. I just kind of want to see him fight somebody who's, like, might finish him, but it's just not going to bolt him like Yeri did or like Ryan Span did. or like Yombovich did. You know what I mean?

So I prefer that. And with Blanchefield, I don't know. I don't know. If Rose wins, all bets are off. All bets are off. But if Manon beats Rose on Saturday, everyone's going to fight for the belt, and we have to see kind of how this Grasso-Shifchenko fight goes.

Now, if you're Blanchefield and Manon wins, I think you're obviously an Alexa Grasso fan because of Valentina beats Alexa, I kind of have a feeling they're just going to go right back to that well one more time. And if Rose wins, she's getting the next shot, no matter what.

So I don't know. It's kind of hard to answer on the question until we see what happens on Saturday. And then ask me like September 18th when we're back on the show. September 19th, and I'll have a better answer for you. But we got to wait and see how those fights play out first.

Toke, what's up, buddy? Eight episode of them. were good. Of course, I want to compliment Jed on trying to keep reins on Brian Campbell, which is almost impossible. It was a great episode, man.

And then I know this is an MMA show, but the Daniel Dubois thing, the Daniel Dubois thing, where he is trying to argue that

he won the fight with a borderline shot around a low blow. This thing, the two times Du Bois has lost. First time against Joe Joyce, he was arguing, hey, we should definitely run this back. This was some

shady shit or whatever. I don't remember what it was, but Frank Warren was in there talking about, yeah, he should get an immediate shot against Joe Joyce again. And now he loses again quitting with an eye injury after a jab. But because he had a what was considered by the ref, a low blow, now he's saying, oh, I didn't lose this fight.

What is this politicking in boxing? And I've just seen it a lot. I've just seen it two times where it really annoyed me with Daniel Dubois. and how did you see the low blow? Did you see it as a low blow or no? That's all for me. Thank you. Yes, I thought it was low.

I thought it was a low blow. Have we seen worse? Yes. But I'm trying to remember which fight it was. Like, because there's a UFC fight when we're talking about. There's a, I want to say it was a 291 where there was a low blow and it like hit the cup before it went up to the belly. And Rogan's like,

there's no way that's a low blow. There's no way. And it was clearly a low blow. This is what that reminded me of. I thought it was low. Have we seen, like, was this a Rick Flair dropped to the knees and get your whole arm under there? Kind of a low blow. No. But it was low. It was low. The initial impact was low. And then it kind of dragged itself up to the belly. It was a low blow. It was a low blow. the ref made the right call and that's it now if I'm Daniel Dubois

am I going to sit there and say no it was wrong of course not you got to be stubborn you're going to try to get that rematch you're going to try to win that belt so I don't blame them it was close but I feel like it was a low blow

so I didn't think to me there is no controversy but I understand why people think it might be because it was super close but the initial contact was low, so I have no issue with the call. Adi Pelo. Hey, hey, Mike.

How are you doing? I hope you're doing well. I have two questions. The first question is regarding somebody that we all know, but we haven't heard from since a really long time, and that's Greg Gillespie. Why is it that we haven't really heard from him,

and he's fought one time since, from 32, he's 36 now, and he's only fought one time in that period. So just want to know if you know, know anything about where he's at and whether we're going to see him fight anytime soon. And my next question for you is with Cyril Ghan, if Sirrigan wins this weekend, what do you think is next for him? Like, there's no clear path for him at this moment.

But if he does beat Spiewak, what's the next step? Is it Curtis Blades or where does he go from here? Thanks, man. If Cyril Gat wins, it's going to be cue the music. Tommy Espinall. Tommy Espinall. That's the fight. That will be 1,000% the fight that is made.

I have it on good authority that Tommy Aspinall is going to be in Paris. In fact, after his recent victory in London, he said, I'm going to Paris. I'm going to sit caseide. I'm going to watch Seargo Gond, Sergei Svivak fight. And then I'm going to fight the winner. So I don't know how much the Sergei Svivak fight will appeal to Mr. Aspinall. but if Cyril wins and I kind of think Cyril's going to win then you do Cyril Gond versus Tom Aspinall

and that's a big ass fight so if Cyril wins he fights Aspinall and round and round we go Curtis Blades are already fighting he's booked to fight Jailton Almeda on November 4th in Sao Paulo so things are going to get real interesting to heavyweight over the next few months because we got obviously this fight we got the Almeida Curtis Blades fight

We got John Jones versus Stebe Coming up I think a week after that fight So things are gonna be a real interesting heavyweight As far as Greg Gillespie goes He's someone who talked about on the show before After his last win he was like I'm only fighting dudes who are ranked ahead of me So he was offered

He was before they made the Armin Saruki And Batush Gamrod fight That main event from last year The initial plan was they were going to do Sarukyad versus Gregor Gillespie and Gillespie he's like, no, I'm not fighting him.

Not fighting them. He's not ranked ahead of me, so I'm not fighting. So he's just been kind of waiting for an opportunity to come, and I think he's realizing that he's just not going to get those names that he wanted. Like I know Tony Fergus

it was a name that he wanted, and I know there are some other dudes that he was interested in fighting, but UFC was like, no, you're going to fight Sarugan or Fiziv or somebody like that And he was like, no, I'm not fighting him So it seems like he might be on the comeback trail

From social media posts But yeah, he's kind of wasted some time And same thing happened after the Kevin Lee knock out He's on a good run got just annihilated by Kevin Lee And then he was out for a while And now he's out He's coming off a win and he's out for a while So

I don't know, seems pretty content. tent like fishing and living the outdoors of life but yeah I don't know who he's going to fight honestly he's in a weird situation he might be fighting like a grant dawson or something C. B hello yo Mike I'm like a heck of a morning um first off I want to apologize um I think I'm on a two-week do-do streak on no now so I don't know man something about that morning card kind of threw me off so uh apologize for that I'm gonna bounce back good not like doo-doo though but Anyways, I know you mentioned that Toronto's a possibility as like the first, I don't know, maybe like a pre-per-view or maybe even like a fight night event in January. So I just want to know like off the record, like what are your predictions for like the headliner for that?

Like my dream scenario would probably be Volk and Tuporia. But my prediction is in 294, I'm rooting for charge. else but I think Islam wins and after that fight I think Islam calls for the rematch so that means they'll probably do all the way to Poria I could totally see that just because I know the last time Holloway like headline like a pay-per-view I think he did it here in Toronto against Ortega so and I know he fought here a couple times here already so what do you think thanks yeah so I know people are reporting the Toronto thing. Just remember where you heard it first.

But that's not done yet, just by the way. But it seems like that's the direction they're heading. We'll get headline that. It's tough to say. It's tough to say. I think Yuri and Alex would be a pretty good headliner for that card. But again, we don't know what's happening with Connor and Chandler. If that fight happens in December, then sort of all bets are off.

So it's kind of up in the air But I would say Voltaporia would probably not be on that card Because if they go to Australia in February Like they did last year like maybe they go back to Perth again You bet you're Bippy that Volk will be headlining that card Maybe you do I don't know

I'll say it's a light heavyweight title fight That would be my guess Because if it ain't Connor I think they will do the Sean O'Malley Cheeto fight is the main event for December, which is a massive fight and a massive main event. So go ahead and just do that and then do Yuri and Alex in January in Toronto and cook it with gasoline. It's going to be a very interesting time for the UFC.

That's for sure. King Cat, hello. Hey, Mike. You got me? I got you. How are you? I'm doing really well. How are you?

I'm doing all right. Good, good. So, oh, yeah. So I was looking at the women's pound for pound. And they have Wiley and Alexa Grasso tied for number one. I wish I would put Wiley Zang as number one. So I was just curious, what is your women's pound for pound top? You can do five or ten.

I really do think that with that dominant win that Wiley just, had that she's number one. I know that Alexa, you know, finish the number one after Amanda Nunes left, but I really just feel like Riley Zane has really showed her athleticism and should be number one. But what do you think? Like I say, you do five or ten. Thanks. Thank you.

So, yes, while there's a tie up the top on the UFC rankings, unless we forget, the only rankings that matter, the NBA fighting global rankings. Zhang Wei Li comfortably at top the women's pound for final list at number one. Grasso is number two. John got seven first place votes. Grasso got none. Izawa got the other first place vote, which is kind of shocking to look at. Zah was really, really good, but kind of don't necessarily agree with that.

So here's mine. I got... uh, Jung, Grasso, Shepchenko, Cyborg, Aaron Blanchfield

are my top five right now. And maybe some people think Blanchfield's a little too high. I don't. I've been pretty high on her for a while.

And I'm not, I don't have her the highest, even at five. There are some people who have her four in her rankings and have Janjohn, and Carlos Sparza, Rosamie Unis,

Juliana Pena, Tila Santos at 10, although that's probably going to change after this loss. And then we got Myra Boe de Silva, Liz Karmoucheco, who I think is going to get a bump, Harrison, Jessica, Zazawa, Lauren Murphy, Raquel Pennington. Those are my top 20. But, yeah, Zhang should be number one with the bullet on, like, everybody's list. Grouse is really good. Win over Shavchenko was really impressive, but Zhang's on another level right now.

And I think if Zhang fought Grasso right now, I think Zhang would dominate Alexegraso. So I feel very confident putting Zhang the number one. Dylan, hello. Hey, I was wondering if you could talk for a second about what you think the Lazy King is going to look like in the PFL. I'm super excited about this guy. I was kind of hoping he would come to the UFC

and maybe even make it on his Paris card. But even though he's going to PFL, I think he can make a pretty good name for himself there. And then I also was just wanting, if you could, make a note to Friday, please talk about All-In. I'm not going to be able to listen live, but I had a blast watching it this weekend, but that's all, Mike. Thanks. I was hoping somebody asked me about All-in, so I'm not even going to wait until Friday. I'm going to talk about that today, since something brought it up.

Lace King said, do very well. The UFC ultimately made a mistake, not signing him. he's just super fun and super good and just finishes everybody and being in a pretty weak middleweight division he's a guy who could probably win the Millie multiple times so yeah

UFC's lost is PFL's gain and he's going to go in there and do work on September 30th and yeah it's great signing great signing. So I watched all in I didn't watch it live and I'm kind of glad I didn't because there were, I mean, just looking at Twitter and just seeing how people were reacting to All-in. Some were calling it the greatest wrestling pay-per-view of all time.

Some were calling it the best wrestling pay-per-view of the year. Every match was excellent. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to separate myself from this and I'm going to go ahead and watch it. So I watched some of it on Sunday night, and I watched the rest of it. and I watched the rest yesterday morning. It was, it was fine. It was enjoyable. I think the crowd made it what it was.

I didn't, like, honestly, I didn't think it's, I think people overrated it. I think people overrated it. You put that show, if you put that show at, if this was, if All In was next Sunday in Chicago, win that because that's gonna be a hot crowd too if you take that show out of Wembley

I don't think it's that great like it's good but I don't think it gets the same love like C.M.Pung Samojo was like was fine but it just seemed like such a weird opener you know what I mean and there were some fun matches the stadium stampede thing

was horrendous like that sucks enough is enough I'm John Moxley out at this point that match sucked it was awful the women's match the women's title match it was fine

it was a cool moment obviously with Saraya winning it but it just felt like rushed and I didn't love that I think like those two matches just kind of like slowed everything down I will say

I thought Jericho Will Ospre is really good that kind of like pick things back up FTR Youngbucks was good I'm stunned that the Bucks put FTR over on that card. I didn't think that was even going to be a possibility. So that was fun. And the main event was excellent. MJF and Adam Cole was excellent.

This was not the best pay-per-view of the year, though. It was good. I enjoyed it. The crowd was everything for me. The main event was tremendous. Sam P was awful. Good moment for Soraya. But again, like, this was a, this is a short-term poppy type of booking.

Because Saraya being the champion, like, what are you going to do? You're going to put her in there next Sunday and let her lose it because she's not going to be able to carry this division. So, like, I don't know. I don't know. MJF is the best five-tool wrestler on the planet right now. is he will is he will osprey or kennie omega is he going to flip and fly and all that stuff no but we're talking like five two player mjf is the best in in the world right now that matches was awesome storytelling was great uh and to me that was far and away the best thing that happened on on this pay-per-view on sunday but it was good it was good one to ten i give it like an eight point one and that's pretty good

That's pretty good. I'm a pretty harsh critic. But to me, this is not the best wrestling event of the year. I thought night one of WrestleMania was better than this. And I think if I, and I don't even know if this is the best AEW pay-per-view of the year. But I think it was just the moment and everything like that. I'm stunned they're going to try this again next year. I don't think that's a great call.

I think you get to spread the wealth a little bit. and if I'm WWE, I'm doing like two shows in London next year before All In happens. Burn out that wrestling crowd before Allent goes again because they ain't doing $81,000 next time. It's not, then there's no way. There's no way. Most of the tickets bought for this one were just intrigue. Like what are they going to do? How are they going to do this?

And I think it was just like the curiosity factor. And now they don't have it anymore because they just didn't. the show. But all in all, if you are Tony Khan, if you are AEW, if you're on that roster, you should be very proud of yourself. You should be very proud of yourself. You did it. You did the damn thing. You had a darn good wrestling show. And it was fun. But I think people were,

I think it was a little romanticized, a little too romanticized compared to what it actually was. But it's still really, really good. Latino heat. Go ahead. Latino heat. All right. No Latino. All right, we're going to go for a couple more minutes. As you can hear, not feeling too spectacular. Let me pull up this Paris card.

This one is taking a bit of a beating. We're down to what? Are we down to ten fights? We got Ghan Sviwak. We get Fioro Namiunis. I love the Santany, Tiago Moises fight. Ojdemier Gusskoff. What did we lose?

We lost a few flights. What do we lose? We lost Mouin Gaffer off against Taylor, Lappalus. We lost Lucas Almeida, William Gomi. Might be able to get those back if we can get some new opponents. But, man, this is a tough one. This is a tough one. This is a very, like, this is a very local card.

A lot of debuting fighters. Yeah, it's a tough one. I'm glad it's early in the day. Yeah, this is a tough one. Latino Heat, do we have you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good morning, first thing, foremost. But do you think PFL should add two other weight divisions, like 165, 195,

for example, so they track and add more fighters to their roster and be more of a competitor to the other, like, Bellator, one in UFC Maybe someday, but not now. They barely have enough to like They barely have enough to like fill their rosters as they are. And you have definitely more women's divisions, that's for sure. Just having featherweight is not

Or having lightweight and then featherweight, it's just not doing the trick. So I think the first thing you got to do is get to add more women's divisions. maybe throwing a 15 or a 25 do an atomweight division. That's something like the UFC really needs. So if you want to take a shot at the UFC and do something they don't have, atom weight's good.

The tweeter divisions, maybe, but I mean, like a lot of the fighters who come home from the UFC are fighting up a class anyways. Like Berger's fighting a lightweight, Pettis is fighting a welterweight. Stevens is fighting a lightweight, I believe, as well. I don't think they need that right now I think they're trying to do too much anyways

with all the different things and the paper review model and all that there's just so many questions when it comes to the PFL it's not even funny I'm just looking at the comments right now so yeah maybe it's something they think about in the future

but they get a lot more they get a lot more stuff to worry about that adding a 65 or 75 or a 225 weight class, anything like that. So they get enough issues, enough problems right now. Someone asked, where's Yawani and Jacek gone? She has gone into the podcast archives. She officially informed the UFC of her retiring a couple weeks ago.

She announced her retirement after the Zhang Wili fight, but there was a chance maybe she could come back for one more. But I think that door has been shut on that altogether. We did a damn they were good on Yawani and Jacek. It is on the podcast network as we speak. I believe it dropped yesterday. And it is fun. I've done a few of these dams.

This is probably my favorite one to do. It was Jed, myself, and Brian Campbell from Morning Combat jumped in. And we just talked about the great career of Yonni and Jacek, one of the fun action fighters. The woman who built the strawweight division, made it what it is today. It's just super fun. just super fun my favorite category was the the cole conrad award where we had to be like if this fighter wasn't a fighter what other

profession would they take on and i think i think i nailed it i think i might have the best answer in the history of the show when it comes to that one so go check that out you get a long drive ahead of you uh go listen to the you want to get j check and they were good so all right i'm gonna head on out of here uh you guys are great but I just don't have a voice right now. I am losing it, and we'll be back on Thursday. Hopefully, we'll be good to go. 10 a.m. Easter, we'll do it again.

It'll be a very busy day, as always. And then Friday, we'll be back at 10 a.m. as well, and we'll get you ready for UFC Paris. So thank you all very much. Back on Thursday. Have a great rest of the day. And as always, have a heck of a morning.