MMA Fighting - HOAM | Which Fighter Has Most Pressure To Win At UFC 280?

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

On the eve of UFC 280, which is a blockbuster card with several high stakes matchups, which of the fighters has the most pressure on them to win on Saturday in Abu Dhabi? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck discusses what's on the line for some of the big fights at UFC 280, including the main event between Charles Oliveira and Islam Makhachev. Additionally, listener questions include Belal Muhammad's future with a big win over Sean Brady, the bantamweight title fight between Aljamain Sterling and T.J. Dillashaw, Khamzat Chimaev, Jon Jones, the impact of Katlyn Chookagian's weight miss ahead of her bout with Manon Fiorot, the MMA Fighting UFC 280 Watch Party — which takes place Saturday at 1:45 p.m. ET live on the MMA Fighting YouTube channel — and much 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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At these prices, could I find something for everyone at Winners? Stop wondering. Start gifting. Winners, find fabulous for less. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. It is Friday, October 21st, 2022. It is the eve of UFC 280. And it is indeed a heck of a morning live on the MMA fighting. Twitter spaces.

You can hear the show in its entirety short of thereafter on the M.A Fighting Podcasting Network. I am Mike Heck. Hope everyone's having a great day. How could you not be having a great day? Because we are a day away from UFC 280. Now we had the way-ins. There were some problems, one that took a fight off the card. The boat between Zubaira, Tukagov, and Lucas Almeida, no longer on the card due to weight cutting issues.

So that fight is off. And we had one mishap on the scale, and it was Caitlin Chukagian. She misses weight by a pound and a half for her. her fight with Manon Fioro. She will forfeit 20% of her purse to Manon Fioro, but the fight will go forward as scheduled. So we got 12 fights. Prelimbs kick off at 10 a.m. Eastern, main card at 2 p.m. Eastern. And don't forget, 145 Eastern, we go live. The first ever MMA fighting pay-per-view watch party. I'll be off to New York, first thing in the morning. Myself, Connor Burks, we're going to have some fun. We have some special guests, including a special guest fighter. I might even reveal

who that fighter is going to be before we wrap up today. And I think you guys will dig it. So very excited for this. It is also free for all Friday, which means you can talk about whatever the hell you want. And I'm jacked up. I'm ready to go. The news cycle's been a little wild. So let's get after this thing. And I have no idea who was first or last. So we're just going to go with the order I have it here. Toke, kick us off, my man. Let's talk about Tukugov, because this seems like the exact guy that you would want to cut bait with.

Like, the problems that the UFC has had with him doesn't really weigh up the upside. Like, him pulling out of how many fights at this point? So he withdrew this time due to a botched weight cut. He redrew against Nate Landware for no reason that we know, as well, I don't know anyway. Took a golf injury against Ricardo Harmos. He got pulled by the UFC when he was supposed to fight Adam Lobov ages ago. There's been so many cancellations because of him. And this just seems like, okay, just.

what's the upside at this point? Like, it's not even like he's close to being any sort of contender or anything. He's just not good at either making weight or at least making the walk. So why not just cut him at this point? What's the downside? Yeah, I mean, it's not a bad question. It's not an unfair question. We're just going to have to see what happens here.

He's been pretty much. everything you've said. And it's just, it's just unfortunate. I really wanted to see this fight. I have to pull up, I mean, again, because all this happened while I was, like, unconscious asleep.

Let me see here. Let me look it up on the great website, NMathfighting.com. The issue is, I don't know who was responsible. Because it never really said it. Like when Asker Askerov and Bryn-Royval's fight was pulled, when the UFC released the reasonings as to why, they said it was because Ascarov had weight management issues,

and they called it out. In this particular case, the official stance from the UFC is it's due to weight-cutting issues, and they don't single anybody out, whether it's Zubaira or Lucas Al-Meda. We have no clue. Now, from what I understand, just going through Slack, we had found out that the fight was off before the UFC announced it. But again, we had no reason as to why. There was no specific fighter, nothing. So I get where you're coming from, and I get sort of how the business side of it could look.

But again, there's just a lot of unknowns here. There's just unknowns. But if it is, in fact, that, then, yeah, I mean, it wouldn't stun me if they did release them or let him go. I think we're probably past that point a while ago. But, you know, he was still attached to the biggest storyline in the history of the company in a lot of ways. So I would say he was probably on a pretty short leash anyways. And if this is on him, then I'm sure that leash. will probably be off the chain.

I just don't know how much more they could do with this guy. They've given them chance after chance. But again, we don't know exactly where the issue comes from with this particular case. But, I mean, you're not a whack, that's for sure. Mikey, hello. Morning, everyone. Thank you, morning, too, everyone. Oh, man.

So tonight should be interesting popping off with John Lindner fight tonight. than trailing over to tomorrow morning, which of course would be one interesting card. Man, I just can't help let's run back what I was talking about the other day and like listening to the press conference and then seeing the way-ins. It's just like, again, man, UFC 281 is in three weeks. And I'm sitting there looking at Aljo and Dillashaw. And these guys are going full bore into like making their fight the most

interesting fight at night and I don't think it's going to get even half the attention that it probably deserves. Like it's obviously going to get garner attention. Make no mistake about that. No one's saying it's not an important fight that no one's watching it. But I just, right, I'm just still hung up on the fact that I'm like, I'm looking at the timeline going, this fight should have been massive squirt. Like, did you hear the way in? Like, nobody cared. I'm like, this might be the best Bannonweight title fight of the last two years. And nobody there cared. And or Manon Firo and Caitlin Jukagin are probably going to determine, well, now that Caitlin Chukagin missed weight, at least for one person, might settle who the next contender is

for Valentin and Sivchenko and, like, that crowd no sold any of it. It's so weird, man. Like, I get it. It's a stat card. But, like, you could have just made Peter Yon and Al Jame. You could have made Peter Yon in Shalomally five rounds and moved Aljo and T.J. to 281. and this card would have still been, at least from the pay-per-view side,

just as good looking in terms of how hyped everyone would be. You know what I mean? So anyways, that's all for me this morning, man. You guys have a great one. Be kind of one another. Yep. I mean, I don't think you're wrong. I don't think you're wrong.

But again, the whole premise of all of this is just to build this card for Abu Dhabi. This fight in a vacuum is fantastic, but it makes no sense. in Abu Dhabi and like you've been saying in the last couple weeks, this would have been perfect for MSG. It would have been. But the problem is we already get two title fights on there. I don't know. Maybe they just couldn't get it done.

Maybe, you know, there are fighters who don't want to fight in New York due to tax purposes and all these different things. So it's just, it's in Abu Dhabi, it's heel versus heel right now. It's just, this is just going to be, and I compared this kind of with the first, I use this comparison with the first Pejarderian fight. This is the intercontinental title fight of this card where it's all built around the main event.

There's rivalry pieces attached and then we just throw in this high level matchup that has a story but not based on the geography of it all. And that's where we're at right now. This is just going to be a great fight. And it's a huge reason why it's flying under the radar. But again, you have two guys who just aren't really likable in a lot of fans' eyes.

Like Sterling, to me, is, and maybe you think I'm crazy for saying this, but I don't think I am, and I think I'm actually probably playing the safe here. Al Jemate Sterling, to me, is one of the top ten most underappreciated fighters in the history of the UFC. He just doesn't get enough credit. And this isn't something that's been going on for like two years.

This is something that's been going on for his entire run. There were times early in his career when he was climbing the ranks, he was having great finishes, he was getting over with people. This dude just couldn't get on a main card. He was pre-lim Aljo. And it was crazy to see. And it took him a long time to get past that. And yeah, and then TJ is always going to have that attachments to him as well. And with the PEDs and all that stuff. And TJ looks absolutely ridiculous physically right now, but so does Aljo. And Aljo's always going to have that unfortunate attachment of how he won the belt,

even though I completely side with him. I completely side with him. Peonerreryon cheated. He deserved to lose the title that night. Is it the best way you want to win the belts? No. And Aljo will be the first person to tell you that. But at the end of the day, the fans created this guy.

The fans created this guy. Because it all happened and people just shit on Al Jermaine Sterling. And then other people, media members, myself included, I believe these words came out of my mouth, saying, if I'm Algebade Sterling, just lean into all of this. Just lean into it. And he did, and everybody hated him for it. It's just crazy how this sport works.

People just, I don't know what's going to take for either guy to get out of that hole that they're in, but we'll see. I can't wait for the fight, though. I think on paper it's just such a tremendous matter. Four quarter sports. Hey, Mike, I wanted to ask you, so I believe it was, in one of the embedded videos that TJ said that he's coming back for just about. Is it possible that if he loses that we may not see him come back, right anymore?

I mean, I don't know because, I mean, he's getting up there and he's been away from the sport. He's only fought once in the last, what, two years and because of that injury that he had against San Hagan after round one. And I think, who was it? I think it was Damon Martin to put out the article that Balamah Muhammad won, was repeatedly asking the UFC for Hamza. How do you think Belaw versus Hamzaa would turn out, you know, stylistically, in a three-round fight? And also, I just wanted to say from the gymnastics scorecard that you and AK talk

about, how do you think this fight's in the turn on paper and how you think it's going to turn out realistically? All right, thanks, Mike. Have it going on. I mean, AK, we're going to have a preview show in a little over two hours, so I'll let AK sort of give his response to that because that's his thing. This is like a 9.6. Like this could be a 9.6 card.

And when we give the gymnastics score, this is like as good as it can get. Because the first, the final seven fights are spectacular. And their stories mixed in within the prelims as well. But there's some fights that it's just like, okay, they're there. There's fights.

These two guys are fighting. There's nothing really to it. You know what I mean? So I'm not going to give it a 10, but I'll give it a 9.6. because I just don't see a world. Like, I don't want to jinx anything, but I just don't see a world how this card sucks.

I just don't. I don't think this is like a UFC 30 situation where they build this whole thing up and the whole thing was a complete letdown. I don't think we're in for that at all. I just think it's so good. So I'll give it a 9.6. The TJ thing, I don't know.

Like, I don't think he's, even if he loses, I mean, if he gets the doors blown off him, that's one thing. But I don't think he's going to. In fact, I'm picking him to win. A little spoiler. I think he's going to win this fight. But even if he doesn't, like if he loses like a split

decision or a close decision or something, I don't think he's going to leave. Because T.J. Because of the emotion he evokes, whether it's good, bad, or you either love that guy or you hate him. There's no in between. There's no, he's an okay

guy. You either like this good dude, you don't like him at all. And he evokes that kind of emotion out of people. And he's still a big name and he's a two-time champion. And he's just the consummate heel. So even if he loses and he comes back and wins like two or three in a row, because Dilleshaw loses, he's not going back to fight Chris Gutierrez or Jonathan Martinez.

No, he's going to fight Rob Font or Cheeto Vera or somebody like that. So you go out there and or Marab, you go out there and beat guys like that, you're right back in the mix. So I don't know. It's not a question that I think is just completely out of the realm of possibility. However, if Aljo goes out there and like 50, 40 twos them tomorrow and just runs them over, sweeps the scorecards or somehow finishes them, there's probably going to be a discussion. There's probably going to be some inner dialogue. I'm sure it's a conversation he's going to have with his family.

He's got other businesses. He's a very busy guy. So he's got He's got irons in the fire, if you will. But I don't know. I'd be shocked if we see T.J. retire tomorrow. The Bilal thing, again, and I brought this up a million times. Balal can,

Bilal has done this thing where he has his fights and he has his great performances and people like, wow, Bilal Muhammad look great. And his status is real good. It's really high. And then he gets on the microphone. And then he just whiffs. He just whiffs on the mic. He shoots his shot way too high, just unrealistic callouts that he knows he's not going to get.

And I get like you want to shoot for the stars and stuff. Like I know you want to get there. But you have to know the room and you have to know what's around you. So him calling out Colby, Colby's not going to take that fight. There's just nothing to it. Colby gains very little from fighting a Bala Muhammad right now. Colby gains a lot from fighting Hamzaa Chimayef right now. Ton.

That's, I mean, that's the fight. And now that Paul Costa is fighting Robert Whitaker in February, Dana White spoke to Jose Youngs earlier today and said, they already know what they're doing with Hamza. They already know what they're doing. He wouldn't reveal what it was. There weren't any follow-ups because Jose only had, like, a certain amount of time with Dana before they had to go to ceremonials.

But Dana White said, Hamzaat Shemayef is in Abu Dhabi. but just to watch the fights because they know exactly what they're doing with him. And now that Paul Costa is fighting Robert Whitaker, maybe we're doing the Colby fight. I don't know. Maybe that's what we're getting. Time will tell. And who knows?

Maybe that's the main event for 282. Be a damn good one. But I don't know. Don't be quote me and saying, I said this is happening because I have no frigging idea. But it is interesting seeing Costa booked. But back to Belal. Blah will whiff on the mic when the time, I mean, the lights are brightest.

Most people are going to watch him. Calls out Colby, calls out Usman, fights he's not going to get. And then he does the interview circuit afterwards. And then he's calling on Hamza. Like when you had the chance two times to call the man out. So I'm not saying that he hasn't called for it. He just hasn't called for it at the right time. Calling forward on interviews after you already had the light shown.

upon you, especially after a main event, it does nothing for you. People are only going to remember that you called out Usman and you called out Colby fight you weren't going to get. So, and we'll see what happens. We'll see what Belal has to say. If I'm Balah Muhammad right now and he beat Sean Brady, if they don't announce Hamzat's next fight, go all in on it. Go all in. Don't call it Usman. Don't call it Leon. Don't call it Colby. You call Hamzat and you call out Gilbert Burns, those are the guys. You focus on those two dudes. And that's the plan.

But how a fight between those two guys would play out? I just don't know. I mean, I think Bilal is a little more defensively responsive. He's much more defensively responsible than Kevin Holland is. But I just feel Hamzaa still wins that fight. And maybe there's a third round in there where Bilal makes this tight if Hamzaa gets tired. But I don't know, man. That's just such a tough matchup for.

for everybody right now. Let's go to Stephen. Stephen, you got on mute. Hey, hey, what's going on? There we go. How you doing? Early morning. Early, early, early.

Yeah, man. So, yeah, this is just really intense. I agree with what you're saying in regards to Bala. And it's funny, I just tweeted something to tell Sonny and saying rankings me, nothing. And when I was on your show earlier this week, I said the same thing.

is all strategy. It's all about play. Rankings mean nothing. Bala obviously is going to go for number one or the chant. But like you mentioned, the name is Hamza. Hamza will shoot you straight to the top.

If you take the fight, call him out, and use the platform as the number one thing. As always, again, we have the number one, Shigashon, fighting, I mean, the number 11, Sugar Sean, fighting the number one, Peter Young. Just because Sugar Sean

uses the platform a thousand percent effectively. Everybody needs to take an outline of what he's done and just push it forward. Here's voila. He did good, but as like you mentioned, he had a call Hamza. Take it. Run with it. Hopefully he doesn't have knocked it on. But I'm hype.

I'm excited. I'm waiting. I'm going to be ready like 8 in the morning. He's your time here to start watching. Love to hear it, man. Love to hear it. Yeah. I mean, but here's another thing that's,

kind of in Ballal's favor. I don't know if you guys watch the press conference. I don't know if you guys watch Ceremony Awayans this morning. Balmah Muhammad in Abu Dhabi, he is over like Rover. That dude, they're treating this guy like a star over there. And oftentimes, and Dana White talked about this in the interview with Jose, that location can make stars, especially if you have people behind you. look what Hamza Chamaif did on

quote unquote fight island Abu Dhabi. That's how he was built. That was the beginning stages of what we're seeing with Hamza right now were that stretch of time where they were fighting in Abu Dhabi. He had the two fights in like 10 days or whatever. Two different weight classes made a huge name for himself.

And the people were behind him. I know there weren't fans in the building for those, but still the people in the area, they were behind the guy and the UFC was behind them as well. And we've seen how location can create stars. We've seen it a bunch. So if Balal Muhammad can go out there and finish Sean Brady

and just get this massive reaction, it could be huge. Like this is a huge fight for Balah Mahamad. Bilal could fight anywhere else like even in Chicago. Like in Balal is from Illinois, he's not getting this reaction even in Chicago.

So this is the time. If Balal Muhammad wants to be a star, This is the time. He's got to go out there and do something amazing against Sean Brady. He's got to go out there and dominate this guy. And if he can finish Sean Brady, the reaction that this man is going to get is going to be fantastic. And he will be over like, he'll be hugely over.

And the UFC can build something there. But now he's got to get on the mic and get everybody else on board. And we'll see what he does. We'll see what he does with it. But that fight with Sean Brady is super, super interesting. Super interesting fight. Or the three ensemble Cephora

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Oh, my guess I? Let's go to Kirkland. Hey, Kirkland. How is it going? Oh, my God. Mike, you have me laughing. Can I tell you why? Why's that?

Okay. It's because Valah Muhammad is not going to be able to finish Sean Brady. I said if, I said if he could somehow do it. And listen, we just, Michael Kiesa almost finished him on the feet. So, I mean, I don't rule anything out of this. point. Right, but I don't know. I feel like everything from Philly now is on a roll, so I'm not from Philly. I'm just saying, like, I just see it happening, man. I don't know. Sean Brady's a minute. He's a minute's on the ground. He's a minute on the feet. There's a reason he's got that O.

So I don't know. And the thing with Balal is he's great generally on the mic. I saw him at the press conference. He was dressed to the knives. He looked great. He was getting that huge pop in the UAE like you speak of. The thing is, his fights, to me at least, in my eyes, are pretty fucking boring, man. I just don't... I don't know.

It would take to me like a UAE miracle for him to finish Tom Brady. But anyways, that's not my question today. Kind of taking advantage of the free-for-all Fridays. And I've been wanted to ask this for a while. It's kind of a bummer question, so apologies. But talking about it.

a lot about Chimae. And I read a lot of Kareem Zadon's work, who's a great journalist. And it was through him that I learned that definitively that Chameh was not stuck in Russia.

But he's got really direct ties, as do some other fighters, to Ranzan Kadyrov and Chechnya, who's just sent out his own three sons to war. And I don't really know what my point in explaining all this is, other than to ask, what, in your opinion, is the responsibility of the MMA journalist community to cover sports washing and make sure that there's a consciousness about what happens with fighters and

their tie and what they promote inherently by being superstars. Because we see a lot happening right now with Chechnya and after his last win Chamaia shot it into the mic Chechnya motherfuckers and that was you know as they were assisting Russia in the you know mass occurring of Ukrainian so anyways I was just curious what your opinion is on that or if there's an official stance from MMA fighting

but I've always been curious man because I think the implications are dire so anyway Cheers, y'all. Have a heck of a morning, heck of a Friday, and happy 280 week. Man, way to put a bummer on the proceedings. Holy shit. I'm just joking. I get where you're coming from, man. Look, we've talked about it a lot.

We are very well aware of who this guy is and who he has ties to and we've talked about it. And, you know, if you go back to, like, certain shows where you talk about Hamzaa Chama, if we have mentioned this, we have mentioned this. Now, have we dove deep into all of this? No, because I don't know, maybe somebody will step up and do that, but we all have, like to me, like for me personally, I have, I know my role and I know my lane and I know what I'm good at and what I'm not so good at. What I'm good at, I do a lot of or what I feel I'm good at I try to do a lot of.

Okay. So Kareem has done an incredible job putting this stuff out there and bringing it to our attention, which is why we do talk about it and we do mention it when we talk about Hamza Chamaif. It's part of the story. So there's, I mean, there's no official stance. Like we've talked about it. It is what it is. And people are well aware of it. It's up to the people and the fans to treat that information, how they want to treat it. They can be against this dude. They can ignore it and just be like, okay, I don't give a shit. I just want to see this dude fight other dudes like that. I mean, it's it's preference, really. It's how you feel about the situation.

To me, I know it's there. We have discussed it. But do I know enough about it to really get into it? Other than what Kareem has said, no, I don't. I don't know how many times they've hung out. together. I don't know what they're talking about. I have no clue. So to me, I'm not going to veer off my lane with something that I don't know about. Now, could there be a day where I am tapped in to dig into all of this? Perhaps. If that's the case, then I will dig into it more. But we know

it's there. It's not like we ignore it, but it's just not, we don't sit there and spend a half an hour on it every time we talk about it. And Kareem has done phenomenal work. He's one of the best journalists in the game. He's one of the dudes that talks about shit that nobody else wants to talk about. And that's what makes him such a special journalist. But that's his lane. He's good at it. That's what he does.

That's what he does best. So no one's doing it better. That's the same reason why I don't really cover the UFC antitrust lawsuit thing, because I don't know a lot about it. and those who do are killing it. Bloody Elbow has done an amazing job covering that story. I can't add anything to that. If I can, I will.

But as of now, I can't add anything to the reporting that's already been done. So it's just like the same thing. It's the same thing of like, you know, Dana White does the car wash, the car wash, so to speak, before these events. and Dana will say certain things to certain people. And you can only write about these things so many times, right? You can only get his thoughts about the main events so many times. But maybe there's a second interview he does and he says something a little bit different.

Now we're adding to the story. Or I get to interview Dana and I get to ask him something different about something he had previously said. Now I'm adding to the story. Me just diving into the story that's already been told and not being able to add to it, It's not much I can do. There's not much I can do. But we are aware of it. We have mentioned it.

We have talked about it. We mentioned it almost every time we talk about Hamzaa, if we're being honest. Maybe not on this particular show, but BTL, preview shows, et cetera. We talk about it. Let's go to H.JC. Hey, how's it going, man? Pretty good. I'm just going to get this back on track to UFC 280.

So I was reading that Charles Olivera, so he's calling for a first round knockout to end the fight. Obviously, he's just creating hype for himself. So do you personally, me, I don't see this fight ending anyway other than on the ground and someone tapping. So I was kind of curious, do you possibly see this fight ending on the feet? Or are you with me and there's just no chance it's going to end on the feet and it's just going to be on the ground?

So I've said this before. I don't have any technical analysis for my prediction for this fight because I have no idea what's going to happen. What's interesting about this fight is that each guy does certain things, I mean, better than anybody in the division. Charles creates chaos better than anybody at 155. And I didn't think I'd ever say that out loud in a division that features Justin Gachie. But you know what? Charles Oliver creates chaos better than Justin Gachie does. and Justin Gachie will be the first one to tell you that.

That dude hits so hard. Justin Gachie has been hit by everybody. And he will tell you that no one has hit him harder than Charles Olivera. Charles Oliver almost broke his whole face with one punch. And that's the difference maker in this fight. Like we had Brian Campbell on BTL yesterday and he was like, oh, Islam Makachaf, there's no way he's so disciplined and patient. There's no way he would enter a fight that's complete chaos.

What happens when Charles just lights him up with a right hand or something? I don't care who you are and how tough you are. That guy hits you. You're going to feel it. It's going to do something to you. And that's why I think chaos could be invoked in this fight. And if it does, Charles is going to win. It's just a matter of how Islam can deal with it for how long he can deal with it for.

he is a super disciplined guy he is incredibly defensive i mean he's one of the best defensive fighters not just right now but maybe ever go look at his stats this guy never gets hit but sometimes when he does get hit he gets hit and he's human like everybody else so a lot of people feel the same way that you do that this fight is ending on the ground one way the other. Whether Charles submits him or Islam submits Charles, it's ending on the ground. I don't

I don't fully agree with that. You know what I mean? I don't fully agree with that. And here's why. There is a notion that Charles Olivera is just this wizard off of his back. That he's like

prime Nate Diaz off his back. That he is just untouchable off of his back. He's freaking and Rhonda Rousey off of his back. He isn't. He's not. We've seen Charles Oliver struggle off of his back.

When he has full guard and somebody is on top of him, he struggles. Paul Felder beat the shit out of him in that position. Kevin Lee was finding success in that position.

It's not off of his back that Islam should be concerned with. What he should be concerned with is the chaos, the scrambles, him popping back up, him trying to create those scrambles. That's where Charles is dangerous on the ground. But I don't know if Islam is going to really buy into that. I don't, I don't, because Islam doesn't just shoot MMA takedowns. He shoots the Dagestan monster takings.

where he'll start with a single. He might move to a double, but eventually he's going to get his hands wrapped around your waist. And then you're going down. And what's so special about this guy with this takedowns is that if he wants to end inside control when he completes a takedown,

he can. And he could do it effortlessly. And it's crazy. So I don't, like, if Islam finishes his fight, it's on the mat. And it's late in the fight. It's after he just took Charles down,

beat him up for a while. and Charles just wears. And then when he has just, when that power level, that video game power level goes from green to orange, and now it's in red, that's when Islam finishes him. I think Charles could win this on the feet.

I think that's his best chance. Now, could he catch him into submission and a scramble? Sure he can. I don't see it happening. But I can't see Charles Oliver knocking him out. I can't see him landing a big shot. I can see it.

I can see it. My official pick, which I'll say again, and I'll say it on the preview show. And again, there's no, I'm not like breaking down all the tape. This is a complete vibes pick. I'm just done picking against Charles Alvara. I'm done picking against him. Everything on paper tells me Islam Makachev should win this fight. Everything.

Everything on paper tells me Islam should win. But I don't think he's going to. I just, I have vibes. I can't pick against Charles anymore. And I just need to see somebody beat this dude. When I see it, then I'll be like, all right, hats off. Hats off. But until that happens, because I feel like every fight he's in, he's supposed to lose.

And somehow he defies logic and wins. So until that streak stops, I can't pick against this man. So my official pick will be Charles Olivera by second round, K.O or TKO. And honestly, I feel if that fight goes any further, it's Islam's world. And it could be a rough go for Charles Oliver. I think Charles has got to finish him in the first 10 minutes of this fight. Maybe 12.

12 is the max. But I think if we get to a third round, Islam really starts to take over. And if we get to the championship rounds, it's going to be a rough go for Charles Oliver. Let's go to the AM. Hello, the AM. Good. How are you? I have two things.

first of how what did you make of the way i mean the wake did you notice any i mean did the fighters look healthy to you especially islam and olivera or do you see them drained and do you think was a hard uh white cat um and how does that uh affects the performance the second one is uh Zubaira being pulled off of the fight because he had a bad white cat too. And this happened many times with him. Do you think fighters should not take fights against him because he end up not fighting because of this? Or do you think he should move up or do you think he should be cut?

What does the UFC do with him? Because this happened many, many times, I think. Thank you and have good day. Yeah, I mean, we talked about that earlier. I mean, nothing would shock me at this point when it comes to that guy. So who knows? As far as Oliver and Islam on the scale, they looked fine. It looked fine.

None of them really concerned me when they step up there. Oliver was first of the scale, 154.5. We had confirmed earlier, like several hours, four way-ins, that Oliver was already on weight. So I'm not concerned. I don't think it's going to play a big factor into this. It was still a massive question heading in, though. after what happens in May,

that's why Volcanovsky was there. And Volcanovsky also looked good, because obviously he's a featherweight moving up, but made weight. And Volkanowski had said to BT Sport that he was told this morning that at one point, his team got a phone call asking how Alex was doing. And I saw some site said the main event might be in jeopardy,

or the main event was it jeopardy. or something and that's just not true that's just not true so you gotta be careful with that stuff we've talked about this before you got to be careful with that stuff because that's not what Volk said he just said he got a phone call and that's it

and you know maybe that means somebody was struggling but he didn't know and to say that that's the case is just wrong it's just like Dana saying that Volcanovsky is confirmed to be the next lightweight title challenger because he's the backup Dana didn't say that he said

it makes sense. That doesn't mean yes. It just says it makes sense. That's a fence answer. That's a professional answer. That's not a yes or no. That's a maybe. That's what makes sense.

It's a maybe. So we got to just take that into account. Let's go to Siveram. We'll try to get to everybody. I know there's a lot of people waiting. Siverram, hello. Siverm. All right, we need to move on.

Let's go to Yaya. Yo, yo. Yeah. What's up, Big Mike? How you doing, bro? How you doing? Good, good. Happy Friday, man.

You too. So I just want to just pivot away real quick just to ask about the heavyweight division. I know there's like a big question mark about Nagano, but I think he confirmed with the UFC that he'll be back in March, I think. So in terms of like December, do you think it's more likely, you know, Jones and Steepet happens or do you think like Blades should be given a shot against Depe? Thank you, bro. Thank you. So I talked about this a little on BTL. Here's what I know about the situation.

In Ghana, ain't fighting in December. There's no chance. There's just no chance. And even if he did, I don't even want to see it. Because it's like 70% in Ghana. What's the point?

We're going to build it all and then we're just going to throw him out there with like one and a half legs. No, I don't want to do that. So from people I spoke to with knowledge of this situation, the UFC had called Inganu's team and said, hey, realistically, when do you think Francis can go? Realistically.

And they said, March. And from what I was told, the UFC was like, okay, I like March. That sounds good. That's the plan. And they obviously, obviously everybody on Francis's team, everybody wants John. So from what I was told, they could just do this fight in March. At least Francis would be in if he resigns.

Now, I don't know what's going on behind the scenes with the business side of all of it. But from what I was told, it's more likely than not likely that he resigns. Not saying he's resigning. Not saying he's not resigning. But if we're looking at this from a scale, if we're on the 50 yard line, we're past midfield on him resigning. But it's not like we're not on the 10 yard line. It's not first and goal or anything like that. okay it's more likely he resigns and i think that's probably what happens because the

Tyson theory thing was a thing but now it's not at all like Tyson just no sells francis every time you ask him about him now so in fran like francis the biggest fight he can have right now anywhere is john jones is it the most lucrative fight he could get anywhere in the world probably not but is it is the it is the biggest most fascinating fight that he's he could possibly get right now. It ain't Tyson Fury, because Tyson will beat his ass in a boxing match. Like, he just will. It's no disrespect to Francis.

He's just not a boxer. Tyson Fury is a boxer. We've been down this road before. We know how this plays out. So we don't need to see that. Like, I'd be happy for Francis to get all that money, but I don't care to see it. I'd want to see him fight John Jones. So what they're leading towards, at least,

that's, we talked about it on this show, Ariel talked about it on Monday. The UFC wants to do John Jones versus Stepe. That's what they want to do. John is in for Ariel. It's just getting Steepie on board and then getting the finances good to go. Now, I've been very open and honest about this. I hate this idea. I friggin hate it.

I understand why it could happen. Who is going to say no to John Jones versus Steepa? It's great. It's a great. fight. It gives a boost to this UFC 282 card, which one of the things I'm working on this morning, I'm not going to tell you what it is, Jack, because we're still trying to work

on it, might need a little more of a boost. I'll just throw that out there. It's not the URI fight. That fight's happening. But they want John v. Steppe. And they could do interim title. They could do Don interim. It doesn't matter.

That's a big fight. The reason I don't like it is if we can get Francis Ingano versus John Jones in March, why not just wait three months to do it? Because what if John loses? I would pick John Jones to win, but what if he loses? What if he gets hurt? What if he tears his ACL?

What if something happens? And then we just pissed this fight away. And then we're waiting another year before we can get it. We pretty much, we have the best chance to get this fight right now with a certain time frame. And for some reason, they want to entertain this other idea. I don't like it. I don't like it.

Now, on BTL, Brian Campbell countered and said, what if you did John Jones versus Tai Tui Vasa. Now, I understand Taitoibasa's book to fight Sergey Pappelage. But I will say this. The more I thought about it, the more I thought to myself, I don't hate this idea. I hate it way less. I hate it way less than the Steepa idea

because I think John would win that fight. And Taito Vasa presents that power that could change things in a way. It at least creates some intrigue. should win that fight like nine out of ten times he'd be a massive favor in that fight he should be i'd be more okay with something like that than the stepey fight there is risk involved but if it's if the whole thing is just getting john on the card i would rather see them do that do a derrick lewis somebody like that where john fights somebody with the name probably wins gets over and then he can call francis we have this big thing and the fight becomes bigger i get that the steepy idea is

horrible. I just don't like it. It's way too risky to me. Especially with a guy like Stepe who just doesn't even seem all that interested in fighting. He just wants to fight John and and Francis. That's it. Like those are the only, I think those are the only two guys he would come back for. And I would not be shocked of Steepay down. And I would not be stunned in any way if we never saw Stepe fight again. It wouldn't stun me. The dude is loving family life. He's a full-time firefighter. The guys live in the dream. And I would not be stunned. And he's, that he wants to live.

He's always had these issues with the UFC. So to answer your other party of your question, there's no, I would say, I'm not going to say anything can't ever happen, but I will say it is a 0.000-000-1 chance that Steepa comes back to fight anybody but John Jones or Francis Ingano. He's not fighting Curtis Blades.

That fight does nothing for him. He's not fighting any of those guys. He's not fighting Tommy Aspenal, he's not fighting any of them. If he fights, he's fighting one of those two dudes, and if he doesn't fight one of those two dudes, he ain't fighting anybody. So maybe we'll get that announcement tomorrow at some point

of what we'll headline this card because the clock is ticking, baby. It's ticking. The only other option for that card, a hit, I know you're on deck, and I'm going to get to you in a second, is the one I hit and I have been putting out there, a hit especially.

Hamzaa versus Colby. That's a damn fine main event. I'm cool with that. And you know what? I don't think Glover and Yuri would be too upset about that because you're getting a big boost in pay-per-view buys putting that fight as the main event of that card. And now we found out Paul Koss is fighting Robert Whitaker.

So that takes an opponent from Hamzaa off the table. And like I said earlier, my guy, my man, Jose Young's, talked to Dana White. And Dana White said, doing with Hamzat. They already know. He ain't telling anybody, but they know exactly what they're doing with Hamzaat Shemayev. And it's not Paulo Costa because Paul is fighting Robert Woodaker. So this is all developing right now and maybe we'll get some answers tomorrow during the broadcast. And I really hope we get some answers because we need a main event for this. And this main event's fine,

but we just need more. This is, as Brian, as Brian Kable put it, the UFC has majors every year. They have like International Fight Week. They have the year-end card, MSG. Those are like the majors, right? And then maybe you can do like a March card or something that's like a major. But December as it is right now, it's fine, but it's not your typical year-end card. Ahead. Mike.

Can you hear me? How are you? Yes. Okay. Cool. So basically like so much to say. it's just like okay

it's not working for a way let me jump back in Mike it's not working for me one sec you know what I hid I mean I thought we were better than this I thought you were a professional what's going on what's going on

I know a lot of you are waiting I'm going to get to all of you I promise please stay tight AA hello good I don't know what's I don't know everything been said because I've missed the beginning.

Apologies for that. I completely forgotten that this was on today. Do you think that that Caitlin Shakadian has maybe ruined a chance for a title fight with this weight miss if she wins? And just a quick comment, I hope everyone enjoys this card.

Man, we've been waiting for this forever. So, yeah, just have a good time, guys. Have a heck of a morning, everyone. Yes, that is the attitude to have. Have good expectations, but we'll just go in there having a good time because this is what this card's all about. I completely agree with you. The Caleb Chican thing, I think, I thought her chances of getting back to a title fight anytime soon were very tough anyways. And she had, if she went out there and beat, if she made weight went out there beats Man and Fioreau tomorrow, she has a case.

because what like she lost the title fight came back in one she got bolted by jess goddraj but since then she has literally done everything you could have asked her to do she's taken on everybody you've thrown in front of her and she's beaten them this will be five in a row she has a case she has a better case than most of these other contenders do right now for being honest but we've seen we've seen it we've heard the song before we've heard the song before we saw how it no one's clamoring to see it again. But this weight miss, whatever chance she had is gone. It's gone for a while.

She's going to have to win like 12 in a row before she gets title shot. I thought she needed to win like seven or eight. That's for I got to have to win 12. Like she's that far away now. This is this is hugely catastrophic for her. And if she loses tomorrow, boy, oh boy, she falls way behind. But I don't think Kate like at the end of the day, Caitlin eventually.

Caitlin's been pretty realistic about stuff. She doesn't know how long she wants to keep doing this. She wants to eventually become a mom and start her family with her husband and power to her for doing that. So at the end of the day, if she goes out there and wins, it doesn't get a title shot.

Like, she might feel like she deserves it, but I don't think it's going to break her heart completely if it doesn't happen. You know what I mean? So I think that's where we're at right now. And yeah, this is a bad, this is a bad miss for her. This is a bad miss.

and a big opportunity for Manon Fioro to get herself into a title fight. Potentially. We'll see what happens with Valentina. Maybe she fights Amanda Nunes. Who the hell knows? Too many unknowns. Ahead. Okay.

Let's try this again. All right. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. All right. Awesome. Okay. Now, this fight is so important, Mike.

This fight is just absolutely crazy. The main reason is because of the... this. Like, it's not just the two best lightweights in the world. It's not just the modern Khabib and Tony. Why was that fight so important? Because people wanted to see wrestling versus Jiujitsu. And I feel like I agree with you, Mike, that Markachev, unless Charles Olivera knocks out Markachev in the first round, which could happen. I think that Markachev's going to just smash Olivera. The reason is because of this, like the graces, when they created Jiu-Chi's, when they created jih Tutsu, they cut corners. We all know they pick and chose fights, like that favored

their style, you know, and they, like in the 20th century. And when you cut corners, you pay the consequences later on. And the weaknesses of jih Tjitsu, you can see now, like, through wrestling, the way that Markachev controls the arms, controls the legs, how's Charles going to do anything? And I agree with you, again, like Charles off his back, he's not playing. perfect because the other neutralizer of jiu-jitsu apart from control is ground and pound. Okay, we've seen people sit in guard and just smash people, smash people's heads in. So I really believe that Markerchev can get it done.

Like you said against Paul Felder, Paul Felder survived as long as you can survive. Alexander Volcanovsky survived against Brian Ortega. As long as you can survive, you can then look to put the pressure on these jiu-suits guys. So I think that's what we're going to see. it's just going to be Markachev just kind of, and also Charles, by the way, he's thinking about this wrong. If you remember on the countdown and embedded, Charles brought in a wrestler, an Iranian wrestler,

but he's thinking about this wrong because Sambo is not just the wrestling, okay? That's sports Sambo. Markachev is combat Sambo. That's a full style of fighting, the submission wrestling and ground and pound, you know? And I really feel like Markachev will stand in the first round because he's not going to shoot recklessly. But, man, I think Charles has approached this the wrong way,

thinking, oh, wrestling is just taking someone down. That's not what wrestling is. And that's not what Sambo is. That's not what he's going to face with market chip. The pressure is going to be different. And the media thing, my God, was, Oliver never said he was going to fight Volcanozky in January and February. He never said that.

He said, oh, yeah, I could fight Volcanovsky for the fellow. title in February in Australia. And he didn't say back to bag. I agree with you. The media always look for a headline. It's crazy. Drop the mic, Mike. There we go.

Thank you ahead. Always great. Listen, I agree with everything you just said. To me, and again, my pick of Olivera is just, it's very, it's not a confident one. It's purely a Fully 1, shame on me. I don't even know what the whole freaking cliche is at this point. But I have picked against this man too many times. I've tried to find big time reasons why,

watch tapes as to why, try to figure it up from a stylistic perspective. And the way I'm just approaching this fight is like, those in America, those listening in America, we understand how, like, how big marches, March Madness, the NCAA tournament. We're all doing our pools and stuff. Sometimes you don't take it seriously.

Other times, and of course, landscapers come right now in the middle of the frigging show. Welcome. And it's the years you don't take it seriously. You just go off vibes that you do better. You just don't do research. You don't do tape. You just go off vibes.

And that's what I'm going with here. I have done so much research on this guy and have been so wrong on so many levels with things that he has done in these fights that you never really saw coming. and I just feel like eventually it's going to end. This man is defying logic. Eventually this streak is going to end. He's going to play with fire too much and lose. It's going to happen at some point.

But to me, until I actually see it happen, I'm not picking against him. But on paper, everything tells me, is though Mokachev wins. It wins, not easily, but it's a one-sided fight, especially down the stretch. I think Oliver is 10 to 20. 12 minutes to get this done or it's going to be a rough one for him.

Like really, I do. I think it's going to be a rough knife for him. But he can do it. He could still win in those first 12 minutes. He can do it. He can hit he can hit Machachev and knock him out. He can definitely do it. He has that power.

There's no doubt about it. He can do this. But it's going to take that. And if he finishes his arm on the ground, like if he actually finishes him off his back, Oh my God. Like I know that's not stunning to a lot of people, but to me that'd be really stunning to me,

especially with what we've seen from Oliver Offs's back and some of the troubles that that has given them over the years. That would be a surprising result here. Boating for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games

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means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of Amex. apply. All right, I'm going to give Siverham one more shot here. Let's see if we can get them in. Are you there, Siverham? If not, we're going to move on. Here we go. Hello. How are you? The ceremonial waitings, Mike. See the what? Ceremonial waitings, the face-off between the Chalels. Yep. Yeah, what do you think of the body language of, you know,

Charles and Islam? I know that you're not an expert of body language. I'm just asking curious about your opinion. And I already listened to your prediction that you always pick it against Charles Saliva. Now, you don't want to regret. That's why you are going with Charles. I'm also as a Charles fan. I hope to see Charles going to lift that belt around his waist. And my question to you is that so many people is, you know,

analyzing the face ops and the. the yesterday media conference and all sort of things and as of now what do you think of the the free fight events all that occurred for this couple of days and who do you who do you think you the have the upper hand is it uh chalice or is it as of now that's it mic thanks man yeah I mean, I didn't take a lot away from that face off, honestly. It just made me more excited for the fight. Just too good. My nose to nose didn't even blink at each other.

Both men are very confident they're going to go in there and do what they do best and finish their opponent. Like, this fight is everything we could possibly want. There's so many questions. There's so many storylines, whether it's in the fight, whether it's from a stylistic perspective, whether it's from just legacy, all of those things. Even though I don't think there's a chance in all hell that Habib and Mabagamadev fights again, it's still part of the story. Even Dana White, when he talked to Jose today, said, well, Oliver wins, then guess what?

He's one of the, you know, he's in the discussion for sure is the best lightweight of all time. But there's only one way to settle it. I'm going to try to have to get Khabel for that one. But we know it's not going to happen. It ain't happening. All right. but even that's part of the story. That just makes this fight so interesting.

Both guys handled it well. I'm ready. I'm ready. Let's go to Jack. We'll go to Viking next. Then we'll go to Tristan. Jack, hello. Yes, I can.

Fantastic. Heck of a morning to you. I'm getting a little tired of all the Mokachev- Charles talk. So I wanted to give you a question about a fight that's coming up a little further in the future, a week or two. wanted to ask about Khalil Roundtree versus Dust and Jacoby just got banger written all over it. No one's

talking about it, obviously, because there's a lot of other fights in the way, but any thoughts on this very interesting fight coming up could have some 205 contender implications. Anyway, have a good one. Thank you, sir.

Love that fight. It's going to be pure insanity. And another one that's flying completely under the radar. That might end up being the most fun fight on the card because those two guys just go in there and try to kill each other. But that's just going to happen. They're just going to go in there and just go for broke and then until somebody falls. And it's going to be great.

And we're going to be talking about that one on the post-fight show about how insane it actually was. And that makes me happy. But it's flying under the radar for sure. Let's go to Viking MMA. Hello, Viking. How are you? Good, Ariel. I just want to say something

that a crippled cow is smarter in a herd of cats. That's for Makachiev. I mean, come on, you guys. She's just a hype job and nothing. This Pakistani dynasty is going to end tomorrow. And then you're all going to say same things about Umanamakamado.

So just stop here. and just let me ask about the question. Binil Dario said that I'm not a beggar, I'm not going to beg for the title. And I think he, I think the reason he said that because of his feeling so much disrespected. So how one of the pathetic and shameless businessman, Dina White, going to take that sentence

who doesn't even care about the fighter's health? that's all and I'm going to tell you again the same thing you are going to you all are going to say about Umar Nirmagamuza when he's going to fight for the title that he's unbeatable and he's going to do

this and that and all the stuff and you know the pound for pound number one daghistani wrestler who just got beat beaten by American wrestler Snyder so they are beatable they are human beings, they are not God. Thank you, Mike.

Viking, just bringing the thunder today. I love it. I love it. Hey, listen, I'm with you. I'm with you. Like, from a betting perspective, I'm not, like, I would bet on Charles. He's a plus 160 dog. But again, I'm just at this point with Charles Oliver that I've just been wrong so many times. Like, I'm not saying he's like, when I say, like, when I say, pick against him, it's not because like I don't think he's good. I just feel like some of these matchups is a really tough style for him

to deal with and yet he comes through because he just finds ways to just become this tornado of destruction and just loves it so much. The risks this guy takes is just incredible. And I'm really curious to see how those risks can pay off

against a guy as patient and as mature and as defensively sound is Islam Makachev. And I'm with you. Anybody can be beaten. Islam has been beaten. He's been finished.

So it can't happen. It's been done. And Charles is the guy who can do it. But like I said, everything on paper tells me Islam should win. Skill for skill, Islam should win. What he brings to the table,

Charles has struggled with. And there's video evidence of that. But again, the chaos clause could reign supreme. I love everything about that. cannot wait for this fight. We're so close. We're so close, Tristan.

Hey, Mike, how's everything? I want to talk about, we just saw that Randy Costa got released by the UFC. Where do you see his future going? I mean, maybe he goes back to the regional scene or maybe goes to another promotion. But my thing is, too, when I listen to his conversation, it's interview. he had talked about he went to another team i don't know what team he went to but my my thing about it in my back of my mind i was like man i really wish he went to the new england cartel and joined that team i don't think tyson charnier would

had a problem bringing him in and um you know to work on some things because i think he's still i think he's still a good fighter i think and i could see him coming back to the uc at some point I really like him. He just has to, and his mistakes could be correctable. I mean, it could be fixed. So just your thoughts on that. And, you know, we saw it coming at some point. You know, he needed to win that fight.

It was a must one. He even said it himself. I got to win this fight or something to get cut. So, you know, just your thoughts about that. And then my second question, looking at the rest of looking at the other fight cards for the end of the year, that December 3rd card is probably. probably one of the better fight night cards in a while. And I'm just looking out of here.

Wonderboy versus Kevin Holland, Tuo Vasa versus Sergei, Matthias Nicolao versus Matchnell. I mean, this card is really good. Pretty much know everybody on this card. And the one I want to look into, as well,

is the fighter that is not getting enough shine or not being talked about, which is understandable because I think he's pretty much low-key, is the fight, Darren Elkins versus Jonathan Pierce, if you haven't been paying attention, Jonathan Pierce right now is on a four-fight win streak. If he beats Darren Elkins,

he's on a five-fight win streak at some point. Do you feel like he's going to need a, if he beats Elkins, he's going to need a bigger step up in the competition, may possibly fight somebody in the top 15. I don't know where you have them in your rankings. I know, I know AK usually does the rankings below from 15, from below 15th on the top 15 in the featherweight division.

but Jonathan Pierce has to get some type of love and possibly get a bigger step up if he be as Darren Elkins, the 7th 3rd on that Kevin Holland versus Steve Wonderboy fight. So just your thoughts on what I just said. Mike, enjoy the fights, can't wait to see the coverage and everything that's going on. Have a heck of a morning. And it's been good. Thanks. Thank you, Tristan, as always.

Yeah, JSP's great, man. he's he's on a nice run I have him I don't have like my list in front of me but he's like 35 probably is where I have him like right below Johannes and burrito

and like the Nate Landwheres the Bill Algeos like he's right there like a pro like with the win over Darren Elkins he's probably like upper end of the top 20 of the top 30s probably like 28 29 where like the Billy cues are and stuff. But like this division is so deep. It's such a deep division. I actually think

this is a good progressional fight for him because Darren's got to bring that dog out of him and I'm very excited to see how that fight plays out because Darren is taut to put away on the mat and that's where JSP shines. And I'm intrigued. It's a good fight. It's a good fight on that card. Randy Costa thing. Yeah, I spoke with him a little bit once I saw the Twitter bot said his name. He got it, totally fine with it. Knew it was coming. Fowse to be back.

I think he will end up on the regional scene. From what I understand, there's talks about possibly fighting for CES, although nothing's done. That's what he's kind of looking at right now. But, I mean, CS on FightPass,

so that's probably a good place to go. Here's the thing about Randy Costa. Randy Costa is an overachiever. He's a super duper overachiever. This guy got to the UFC at 4-0 as a pro. He had four wins in Cage Titans. He fought a dude that was 0-4, 0-0, 0-1-1, and 5-9. Finish them all in the first round.

And then from there, when he's just trying to get seasoning, he gets called on short notice to fight on a UFC pay-per-view. And fought Brandon Davis, hurt Brandon Davis in the first round, got finished in the second. comes back, gets back to back first round finishes over Boston Salman over Journey Newson and then his, I mean, the steps up in competition were just massive. Adrian Yanez, which is a great fight.

Randy looked great in that first round. Tony Kelly, which is a tough stylistic match for him. Guido Kennedy, and the problem is there's just, he's just got to develop more. He's just got to develop more. Like the guy is exciting, he's got skills, he could do very well. He just needs seasoning. and I think he's going to get that opportunity right now.

So I think there's a very good chance he gets back. He just got in a, to me, he just got it a little too soon, still had success, still had some big finishes, still had some cool moments. But, I mean, again, he's 4-0. Four-and-o fighting for Cage Titans. And the best record of a guy he fought was O-N-O. And then gets a UFC call. I mean, he's not going to say no to that.

And then one couple of fights. I mean, he's an overachiever in my eyes. He's an overachiever. When the UFC signed him, I mean, I didn't think, after watching the Brandt Davis, I'm like, damn, this guy's good. But like, I just didn't know how far he could go. And then watching the first round of the Adrian Yanis fight, I'm like, holy crap, this guy,

this guy's not just exciting, he's good. And then you kind of figured him out down the stretch. And that's what happened. So as far, I'll go quickly with this. As far as Costa switching teams, Costa was a Lozahn MMA guy. I covered UFC Boston.

That was the car already knocked up Boston Salman on. When they had open workouts, this is pre-pandemic, we all went to Murphy's boxing gym in Boston, which is like friggin awesome place to hold an open workout. I mean, just an old school Boston boxing gym. It was fantastic.

And Lozon's doing his open. and workout, and he made it a point to make Randy Costa a part of it. Because they were tight. They were tight. You even saw in Costa last fight, like Lozan was in his corner and stuff. The problem was the pandemic just killed him, because Massachusetts was one of the states that just wouldn't let anything

happen. And while everybody else was letting things happen, Massachusetts was like, nah, we're not going to open up anything. So this dude had nowhere train. He just had nowhere to go. So he packed up his shit and he moved to Florida because Florida didn't give a shit.

There was no COVID in Florida. They didn't care. So he went down and found gyms to train at down there. And that's why he left. Now, it would be cool to see him. I think it would actually be a really good thing for him to give Tyson a call and work with those guys.

I think that's a great idea. If he decides to move back to Massachusetts, I know he likes being in Florida, but if he decides to move back up north, I would, I think Tyson would have a conversation with him. especially in the division working with a guy like font and cater he'll definitely get his mind right that's for sure small space small team same goals very disciplined i think it'd be good for andy well we'll see what happens

let's go to abdelphita i think i got that right maybe i didn't and if i didn't i apologize hello are you there no you are not all right let's go to annie Hello, Ani. How are you? I didn't realize that you jumped to me. I did, but nobody answered, so now you're up. Yeah, anyway. So I would like, you know, today I come to you with pity, Mike. I pity the co-main event that it's not getting any attention whatsoever.

If you remember the last time we spoke as well, I said that no one is mentioning DJ and Al Jemaine Sterling. So I will talk about the co-mainan event first, but I mean, before I talk about that, I seriously don't understand what Ahead means by cutting corners with Brazilian jiu-jitsu. I seriously do not understand that. But I do agree with a few of the points that he mentioned that, you know, I maybe I'm wrong, but I seriously don't see Olivera do. anything. Maybe he'll defend himself, but he can't do anything if Islam is on top. But having that said, I think in transitions on the feet, Olivera is better than Islam. And I think having the advantage just on the ground, as opposed to Olivera's transitions and Olivera's advantages in transitions and on the feet. Olivera has more advantages, so I think Olivera might win. back to the co-main event, would it be an outlandish comment or would I be wrong to say that this match doesn't feel like a high-level matchup at all? T.J. D.J. D.L. Shaw, I mean, he is skilled, but he, to me, you know, when I look at his fights against Garbrand, even Dominic

Cruz, even when he lost to Dominic Cruz, he looked more like he was in his prime than the Corey Sanhagen fight. And I scored the fight. for Sanhagen myself. And Al Jermaine Sterling, you know, like Dan Hardy says, he just doesn't seem like a fighter, to be honest. I mean, he is skillful. He is really good on the ground, but, you know, this is such a low-level matchup, to be honest.

But I seriously hope T.J. Dillashaw wins, because, you know, when everyone says that the Bantamweight Division is stacked up, they mention each and every single name except the champions. And I think having T.J. Delashaw as a champion, as a beatable champion, would be better. I know I've made a lot of outlandish comments, but it is what it is. Thank you, Mike. Thanks, buddy. So I think a hit meant the cutting corners thing was just basically like early on in the sport.

If you watch like some of the old UFCs, the graces were a part of that process. And they were also the matchmakers. in a lot of ways. So it was just kind of favorable matchmaking. That's I think what he meant by cutting corners early. Not like not current day, but back then and to, and it

attempts mostly to just get the skill over because that was in a lot of people's eyes the time that that was introduced to them. And they wanted to show the dominance of Jiu-Jitsu because people look at Hoys Gracie and he's fighting a 300-pound dude who could throw five punches before

gassing out. And to the, to the to the eye, no one's going to think Hoyst Grace is going to win that fight. And then Hoyst just goes to his back and you're like, oh, he's going to lose and then he just breaks an arm.

Like, Fayetteville matchmaking. That's what you truly meant by that. Maybe we'll try to get back on it. I don't know. We're on that time here, but I disagree with you in a lot of ways with the levels.

I think it's a very high level fight. Like I said, I think Al Jermaine Sterling is one of the most underappreciated fighters in the history of the UFC. I think he's much better than people give him credit for. Is his style the most aesthetically pleasing at times?

No, but it is very effective. And it's very chess matching. Here's how I view this. Teaches really good. The problem is no one has an emotional attachment to these guys at all. People just don't like either. They don't like them. They don't like Sterling.

They don't like T.J. Sterling for some of the things he says, Sterling for how he won the belt, which I don't necessarily agree with because Peter Yan broke the rules and should have lost the belt. Like that's the rules. You cheated.

You, that's how it should be. Call him an actor, all that stuff. It's always going to be attached to him. And TG has always been real good, but the PED pop and it calls him the question the rest of his career, and he hasn't been able to escape that at all. but the skill set is incredible.

Here's the one thing that makes this interesting for the Aljo side. Because by the way, I think T.J. is going to win this fight. I just don't see a world where Aljo wins.

I think if Aljo can somehow find his back and can do what he did to Piotor Yan and just kind of just steal a couple early, maybe sneak in a 108. That's his best chance.

I just don't see anywhere else where Aljo's better than him. I think T.J.'s Wrestling doesn't get enough credit because he doesn't really need to use it all that often because he just punches dudes in the face. T.J. is absurdly better striker, which I thought was interesting. When they had that final face off, Aljo just kept saying, no, no, no, no, I'm going to do what you want me to do. I'm going to give you what you want. We're going to strike. Good luck, T. Aljo.

I just, the one thing, the one thing that maybe be concerning, it's not the layoff specifically. specifically, it's the layoff at 36 years of age. What kind of pace is Aljo going to put on him? Because we've seen Aljo fade down the stretch in fights too. We've seen him fade. We saw him in both Piadriyan fights. Side him both of them. Can he outpace T.J. over the course of 25 minutes?

How will T.J. react once it gets to the championship rounds? T.J. did well against Corey and he did it on one leg. A lot of people forget they got hurt in that fight. But that's a fight. I even going back, I went back and watched that fight again like two weeks ago. It's a great fight. And TJ, I took a lot more away from TJ

and the rewatch that I did the first time I watched it. Having said that, I still think Sandhagen won. But after the rewatch, I understand to some degree why people thought TJ won. but I took a lot more away from Dillashah a second time around. Dillashaw's good, man, and San Hagen's real good too.

This division's great. And if Dillishaw wins the belt, you might be right. It might not be, T.J. might not match up well with a lot of these guys in this division, but I think he matches up exceptionally with Al Jain Sterling.

Like if T.J. fought Sanhagan again, I don't know how well that goes for him. If you fight Cheetah, I don't know how well that goes. Like, I don't know how well that goes. know. I think there's really tough stylistic matchups in this division for TJ. I just don't think Aljo's one of them.

And this is not me, I'm not trying to disrespect Aljo, especially when I'm saying he's one of the most underappreciated fighters. But this is to me, it's just, I just feel like TJ's better than him almost everywhere. And if I'm looking at this from a betting perspective, how can you bet on Alchabane? TJ's a plus 150 dog with that skill set he has. I like T.J. to get it done.

But we'll see. I'm happy to be proven wrong. Crypto, hello. Hello. I'm good. Looking forward to the show tomorrow. It's going to be going to be a lot of fun to follow you and have the watch party. So, Mike, two quick reflections and one question. First of all, this whole Peter Jan shoving Sean O'Malley situation, how the hell did the security team miss that just like basically maybe 20, 40 seconds before going up on stage, Peter Jan tapped his, I don't know, colleague, friend, teammates, whatever on his shoulder and handed over his phone.

Like that is literally like the universal sign of some shit is about to go down. I mean, no matter where in the world you are, if you see a guy hand over his phone and things in his pockets, you know something bad is about to happen. Like if I'm security, yeah, I would be like all up in Jan's face asking him

if there is a reason why his pockets suddenly couldn't fulfill their obligations of holding his stuff. I mean, that was just, it was so obvious. When I was watching it, I just told my wife, I was like, oh, look at that. He just handed over his phone. Some shit is about to go down. And yes, of course, he pushed Sean O'Malley.

And you can actually look at the press conference footage, official coverage, and you can literally see Jan just tapping his friend on the shoulder and handing over his phone. The reason why I bring this up is, of course, Dracar Klosa and Jeremy Stevens and so on. I was just wondering if you think that there should be some type of penalty for that. Because I understand it's rare. It's not very common that something goes wrong.

But at the same time, when you get shoved, when you do not expect to get shoved, things can go bad. So reflection number one. Reflection number two is, I mean, I just can't stand to see how passive Benil Darius is. I think it's just so sad. It has this amazing opportunity, Mike. amazing opportunity to basically go out there and say that if I win against Mateus Gambro, I will fight for the title.

End of story. Just, I mean, grow a pair of balls, dude. I mean, it's just ridiculous to see him basically just, I mean, he looks miserable. He doesn't seem to enjoy this. He's just, like, I don't know, there's just something off. And I know that Benil isn't the most, you know, like, yeah, active guy when it comes to media and so on. But I mean, this is a golden opportunity for you. Like, why the hell would you be so quiet, so passive?

Yeah, so just a reflection. But my question, Mike, who do you think will be the next champion in the UFC fighting under the US flag? Because I know that, yeah, Sterling, for example, I know, I mean, he's American. Same goes for Kamaro Usman. And yes, he will take the belt back against Leon. But they're still fighting under other flags. So the Jamaican flag for Sterling, Nigerian flag for Usman. So my question is, Mike, who will be the next champion?

It doesn't matter which division. It doesn't matter if it's a woman. If it's a man, who will be the next fighter that is the champion that fights under an American flag? Thank you, Mike. I mean, it's probably a cheap answer, but T.J. Doleshaw, because I think he's going to beat Al J. Sterling. But I don't know if I, yeah, T.J. Doloshaw, I think he's going to win. other than that

I don't know the Bineal thing is tough I just think Bineal is such a realist that he doesn't want to get bogged down by this title idea he can sit there and talk all the crap he wants but he understands where he's at he understands that even if he beats camera

he's probably not getting a title shot he gets it he gets it but he's also seen fighters before him have to do a hell of a lot to get the title shots including Islam including Charles Habib

Ferguson. I mean, this isn't the heavyweight division. This isn't 205. This is the Cadillac division. This is the Cadillac division. It ain't simple. It ain't simple.

But, yeah, I get where you're coming from. And then the on thing. First of all, I love John Anick. Love the guy. One of my favorite people in the sport. But why is John Anick up there doing the doing the face-offs. I mean, come on.

John doesn't want to be doing that. I mean, I'm sure it was a cool experience, but he's just like, okay. I mean, he stepped right in there, quick as a cat, but it was too late. John doesn't want to put hands on these dudes. No, a tough spot for him.

All right, we got like four minutes, all right? Jay, you're up. Hey, Mike, what's up? Can you hear me? Yep. So the first thing I wanted to ask is, I was listening to No one's that that spark with Jevo's shoot, and he brought up a really great point about Aljo with his striking

and that he looks very uncomfortable striking with pure strikers, especially laying around this. And with Peter Yon, in the second fight, too, with the last two rounds, when you see that he couldn't really take him down anymore and he had to stand up with Peter, he was really looking uncomfortable in that situation. And so I'm kind of wondering if that same situation might happen with T.J. and is he going to sort of have to use the same game plan

and take him down and just hold him down there for the whole fight for the whole 25 minutes? So I wanted to ask, do you think he's going to have to go in there with the same game plan that he had with Peter Young? And the next thing I wanted to ask is, I've been seeing online that the UFC's actually booking a fight night in South Korea,

and I want to know if that's actually official or not. So thanks, Mike. Have a heck of a morning, man. It's official. Pretty much, yeah. It's pretty much official. I don't think the UFC is like officially, officially announced it, but from all indications, all people I talk to,

that's more than likely a strong thing that's going to happen. It's going to happen. I like to tiptoe the line if I can. But yeah, that's happening. The Aljo T.J. thing, yeah, he judge right. Aljo looks super uncomfortable striking. But he's had fights where he's done okay striking. and landed some shots.

She's a good kicker. But here's the thing. If you take T.J. down, he doesn't stay down. T.J. is a great defensive wrestler, and if you get him down, he gets right back up, right back up. Another thing Jed said was, in TJ's entire UFC run, he has been on his back for 88 seconds. 88 seconds, total, total.

And Dominic Cruz had like 30 of those seconds. in that one fight. And Dominic took him down, I think, like, four times. That's insane. It's so hard to keep this guy down. If you can do it, kudos to him. But that's got to be very tough. It's going to be very tough.

All right, we could take two more. Let's go to Gratwick. He's been waiting for a minute. Gratwick, what's up? Oh, hello. Hello. Hello. How are you?

Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Thank you. So I have, like, two questions. With the pressure of non-Muslim and non-Russian fights fighting in Abu Dhabi and not having the majority of the crowd behind them, do you think it may seriously affect the performances on the night? As at the pressure, many of the Western and non-Muslim fighters were getting more booze than her cheers,

even despite Islam-calling Abu Dhabi neutral territory. And also, you know, what is your opinion on Abu Dhabi as a venue because a lot of people don't think the crowd is very lively on most of the nights? and my other question is with the bantam weight fights going down this Saturday what do you think is the best possible future matchup to come out of you know for the bansom weight division whether that's tj gaining the title or aljo retaining it

you know and the same with shan winning or yan winning like what do you think is going to be the best matchup would it be like t j v z yan in the future or aljo v z yan 3 like what would be the best one basically. And also, quick shout to UFC shit posting. Hashtag drink the piss for us. Thank you. There you go.

Listen, no matter how you feel about the Abu Dhabi crowd or whatever, they're going back. They're going to be there every year for probably as long as I'm covering the sport. It doesn't matter what the crowd sounds like. They got money and lots of it, and they're giving it to the UFC. and the UFC is going to keep going.

I will say this week, they've been a little more rambunctious, but part of the reason is a lot of people have been traveling. I was talking to Annick about this, and I think he mentioned this at the press conference too, that he was told, and this is like probably a month or two ago,

that a lot of people from the U.S. were going to travel to this one. So you got some travelers. They seem a bit rambunctious this week, and I like it. I like it. To answer your other question, then we're going to go on to MECD,

Max, before I get out of here. Eany me, and I need it, by the way, so don't be mad. It's still a shot versus John.

That's the fight. That's the best fight. Maybe not for the UFC, but for me, personally, that's the one. All right, Max,

I didn't realize it was 1135. I got to get out of here, get this ready, and then we got a preview show at 1230. What's up, Max?

Max. Hello? Hello. All right, we got to move on. We got to move on. Zeke, take us home. Zeke, you're killing me. Whoa, whoa, whoa.

AT&T, call to the bullpen. Are we here? We're good. All right, perfect. So I'm going to leave you off, hopefully on a positive note. I got work tomorrow, so I can't sit on the couch

and enjoy UFC 280 the way I want to. I got to enjoy it with you. So thank you for putting together this preview show. If you're in here, you guys got to check it out. Lastly, I just see it all over Twitter. I know it's, you know, not real.

I know it's maybe hype. Looks like London's co-main events. Looking a little busy, Mike. You want to talk about Humzaa Kobe maybe? I hope you have a heck of a week. Let's enjoy this fight weekend, man. This is awesome. Yes, so I just saw this myself.

Dana, I'm working on something else right now, too. Trying to confirm some news. Dana talked to Oscar Willis of the Mac Life and said there's a possibility of Hamzaa versus Colby co-made event in UFC London. And that's the fight to make. I just don't know if I ought to wait that long for it. But I mean, sure, that's the fight.

That's the fight to make. I'm in, let's go. I'm hoping maybe that could headline December if we couldn't get John in there. But Hamzat needs a few more months. Give me a few more months to make 170. So, yep, that's that. All right.

So I'm going to go. So you guys have been great. I will say this because I'm going to plug the watch party again, 145 Eastern, me and G.C. In the, in the studio, in the same studio where magic happens twice a week, the M.A. hour. From what I understand, today, they are shifting the studio around, building the sets, and it's going to look very cool from what I understand.

and I am very excited for this. I have to maybe get some shut-eyed nice and early. I got to wake up at like 3.45 and get ready to travel to NYC. You got a very early flight. Should be in New York by 8.30. Go right to the studio. And then we are, excuse me. And then we're off.

We're going to have some special guests along the way. We're going to have some fun things to do in between the fights. I can reveal a couple of special guests. New York Rick, I believe, is going to join us at one point to watch a fight with us. I know a lot of people are like, got to get New York Rick on. Don't worry, we got you covered. I believe we're going to have Drake Riggs joining us to join us for the bloody elbow slash MMA mania side of things.

He's going to join us for a fight. And for the main event, breaking news, main event, we're going to be joined by Raphael Fasiv, everybody. The hilarious, exciting, rambunctious, very interesting, interested party in this main event. The surging Raphael Fiziv will join us to watch the entire main event for as long as it lasts. It will get his thoughts on when he's ready to come back. What's going on with this whole Justin Gachie rumors, all of that stuff? And I can't wait. We're going to have fun. Maybe some other things are going to happen as well. But I feel like the chaos car. is going to be invoked for this as well.

And yeah, there we go. So I got to go. Preview show 12.30 p.m. Eastern, myself, A.K. Shaheen Al Shadi, it's going to be fun. Thank you all. I didn't realize it went for an hour and 40 minutes. So if you're left on deck, I apologize. Back on Tuesday, we'll react to everything going down this weekend and beyond. Thank you.

Enjoy the fights. Enjoy your weekend. And have a heck of a morning.