MMA Fighting - HOAM | Which UFC Fighters Would Do Best In The BKFC Ring?

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

It’s BKFC’s world, we’re just living in it. Yes, UFC Vegas 72 happened and Song Yadong shined, but it was hard to beat the star power of BKFC 42, which featured Mike Perry, Luke Rockhold, Eddie Alvarez, Chad Mendes and, somehow, Conor McGregor! What’s next for the leading bare-knuckle promotion? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, guest host Alexander K. Lee ponders what other MMA stars would be an ideal fit for the BKFC and whether Gamebred Promotions’ upcoming event this Friday can benefit from the bare-knuckle buzz. Additionally, topics include where Kamaru Usman now stands in the contender line, whether Israel Adesanya reclaiming his throne takes the air out of the middleweight division, thoughts on the main event and potential sleeper fight at UFC 288, Paul Craig moving to 185, Amanda Lemos in the title picture, what’s going on with Francis Ngannou, media row randos, 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 Follow Alexander K. Lee: @alexanderklee 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original, The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian

in this follow-up to the audible original blockbuster, the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine.

Available now, only from Audible. What is up, everyone? This is not the voice of Mike Heck. This is still the voice of Alexander K. Lee. Heck of a morning to you all. Lee of a morning to you all, just for one more day, guys. I believe, I believe our beloved Mike Heck

will return as of tomorrow and of course won't do a show tomorrow but we'll likely be back on Thursday. I think he'll be doing a free for all Friday as well as normal. But as you guys know, UFC 288 pay-per-view week. That means Mike will be traveling to New York for the watch-along, hanging out with Connor Brooks, whatever other guests and master rope in. So the man comes back. He's going to hit the ground running.

We'll start the show soon. Tons of topics to talk about, again, paper views this weekend. I know the weekend, you know, the past weekend, we can still talk about that. We had a lot of some appearances on the M-May hour from a lot of the BKFC crew. So there's a ton to talk about. We'll be with you in one second. I just love this popularly a little bit.

All right, guys. Let's get this show on the road properly. Like I said, a lot of stuff happened this weekend. Let me give a big shout out first to the Toronto Maple Leafs. I'm not a hockey guy myself. So this is more a shout out to my friends. A lot of my friends, of course. I live in the Great Toronto,

Hardcore at Leaves fans. They've been waiting 19 years to see the Maple Leafs win a series. So if you're a Maple Leaf fan out there, congratulations to you. I'll be happy if they win it, of course. But again, I'm not a true blue Leafs fan. I'll be happy, like, in a more casual way. But I know a lot of people I know in love will be thrilled. And it'll blow my mind if Leifes actually even make it to the Stanley Cup.

So good stuff there, guys. And condolences to Boston Bruins fans, Mike Heck, of course, one of them. I will not shovel dirt on the grave anymore. That needs to be done. crazy upset there. We had BKFC 41, U.S. Vegas, 72. A lot of Connor McGregor talk. We didn't know he's going to show at that BKFC show.

But boy, the promotion got a lot out of that. Got a lot of about as much out of that kind of cameo appearance as you could. I mean, look at MNAFighting.com. We wrote like five articles about it. And some sad news as well. I do want to say, again, speaking of condolences. Condolences to the family of former UFC fighter, Felipe Colarez, who died in Brazil.

We found that out yesterday, first reported by Combace and Jeremy Cruz is on and making some calls and confirming it. Very sad. He was struck by a bus on his way to training, and Felipe was only 29 years old. He had fought just two months ago. He has made his debut for Francis Aries' promotion. He won by submission. And also in the story, we find out he had, he became a father, I believe, 11 months ago.

So a terribly sad story. hopefully him and his family and his loved ones are doing okay, but just really just the worst possible news. And also on a sad note, we learned Brian Keller, her who was supposed to fight on Saturday, was not permitted to fight. He's released some sort of tweets, some messages saying, you know, he's got to reexamine some things about career. There may be some injury issues. I think Brian is 37, I want to say. Sorry, Brian, if I'm aging you. Boom, boom. Big friend of M.A. fighting 36. Brian's 36 turns, he'll turn 37 later this year. And hopefully everything's all right. He did not say he's like retired, retired, but it looks like he's going to have to take a break

and hopefully gets his health straight. And whether that means he fights again or not, doesn't really matter. It's not important right now. Hopefully the dude is just doing okay. And we had Francis and Gano updates. We've got one championship saying now that they're out of the Francis and Gondon sweepstakes. A lot of people have some theories, but why that may have happened. So let's get to the calls right away. Tristan, I saw you first. My friend, what do you, what do you want to talk to about us on this fine day? There's so much

to discuss. Okay, can you hear me? I hear you. What up? Hey, I just, man, that was sad news to hear. Man, it was rough about that, so about just rough. I'm going to talk

in regards to Kamara Usman. I saw him, I guess speaking to Brad Okamoto on ESP, MMA on their site. And, you know, he's called out Hamzat Shemayv, hopefully having that fight, or I think he also mentioned a couple of other contenders in the Welterweight Division. But do you think Kamar Uswin is pushing himself too thin here? Like, we all know if all the time is undefeated.

I'm not saying he should retire, but, you know, because he just has that very competitive nature. He wants to continue to keep fighting. He wants to get in there. I think the words that he said was falling in love with MMA again. He feels like he could get the Leon Edwards fight for the fourth

time because he feels like he's still better than him. You know, I think it was last fight. A lot of people felt like Kamau didn't look right. He didn't look the same. I think he's probably dealing with some injuries. But do you think that he's pushing himself to, like the mind is sharp

but the body is what is the problem. You know, he's still dealing with those knees. Do you just feel like you've got to be aware and know when it's time to be like, you know, that's it. My body can't take it anymore or I just, I'm wondering if he's pushing himself way too far. I mean, maybe he could just prove me wrong.

He says, like, I can still do this at 36, 37, 38 years old. I mean, if that was him, I would have probably retired after, I guess the second time he beat Kobe. Comington. I probably would have called it a career. But, you know, he feels that he could still do this at a very high level, which he probably can. But, I mean, always, I always feel like the time to retire is like 34, 35 and then that's it because you push your body as far as it can. So just your thought process on that in general, of, in your opinion, when fighters should,

you know, time to step away, you know, fighting at a high level. Thanks, A.K. Great. Thanks, Tristan. Yeah, Kamar is an interesting case because, okay, so we see him lose these two fights to Leon. The first fight, he's winning. He's clearly on his way to decision and defending his title. If he wins that fight by decision, we're not even discussing, I mean, we're discussing this retirement talk because, as Tristan mentioned, he's up there in age. Of course, retirement could always be two, three fights away. But this certainly accelerated the talk. He eats that head kick and they gets the rematch. I believe he's still favorite in the rematch

and then loses his decision. I thought it was a pretty solid win for Leon. It was a majority call. Not to say that Kamara fought poorly at all. And again, that's another reason why if you're Kamara, you're like, I'm not out of this. I was winning the first fight. The second fight was competitive.

Maybe he lost, sure. It was competitive. It was a competitive fight. He looks at the welter rate roster. He can beat, like, I don't know how many guys run the roster. right now, something like 50, 60 maybe welterweight. He could probably beat 45 of them, pretty convincingly still.

I mean, I know there's a lot of up-and-comers. I know the fight game is unforgiving. Who knows? Maybe if he, you know, six months from now, he fought like Jack Delamadalena. Maybe they're at the point of their careers where Jack Delamadena blows out Karmu's run. I don't think so. I think if they fought anytime soon, Kamara would be a pretty heavy favorite.

So that's in his mind, is I'm not out of it. You know, he said he wants to fight Kamsat. That's where his confidence right now. This boogie man in the division, he feels pretty confident. He could fight him. and eventually work his way back to it under the shot at Leon. And it's hard to beat that mentality.

Sure, he's got a lot of years in the game now. This is his 11th year of M.A. competition. He is 35. He's had some hard fights, too. It's not like he was, it's not like he's dominated all these fights. The two Covington fights,

that's going to take a lot out of your life. I mean, those were hard, hard, hard fights. Covington brought hell to Camar Usman. And, but when you're at the top of the game, And you talk about in general, not just Kamarro, but I think fighters and also in sports, you only get to apply your trade at the highest level for a brief amount of time, for this window you have. And then once it's over, it's over.

Sometimes you can come back, you know, but generally in any sport, I always think about, for example, I don't know, Kobe Bryant, Kobe Bryant. Kobe near the end of his career, he wasn't that great. He was getting injured a lot. He could still play. I mean, he scored like 60 points in the last game. But he played zero defense, injuries would cost. costume time and I heard a lot, there's a lot of people saying, man, why doesn't this guy just

like hang it up? And it's like, sure, he's not the guy he used to be. He can't play as honestly used to be. But you only, imagine something you love. Not until what sports, any, any activity you love. And you only get to do it the highest level for this window. And once you close that window, it's nearly impossible to open it again. So if you're Kamar, that's something you have to consider.

When I decide to walk away from the UFC, again, combat sports is crazy. He could go to, I don't know, bare knuckle. He could go to boxing. I'm sure that's something he'd want to do. He could go do. He could become an influencer boxer. I don't know. He has options.

That's the wacky and fun thing on combat sports. But as far as competing in the UFC at the championship level, this thing that pushed him to be the pound for pound best part in the world briefly. Once you say I'm done with that, it's a hard thing to deal with. And again, we say he's 35. Okay, so he's old in fight years. Then he has the rest of his life to fill his time. And then we found with a lot of pro athletes, they struggle. They struggle with that.

And we'll see how this generation of fighters do, who have made a good amount of money, but not like life-changing money. So I understand him not wanting to retire. It wouldn't surprise me if Kamaro sticks around for another couple of years in the UFC. It wouldn't surprise me if by the end of 2023, he said, I'm done.

You know, he gets another fight. Maybe he fights Hamza. Maybe he loses that fight and says, okay, this is it. I don't want to go back in the pecking order. I don't want to fight my way back. You know, top 15 guys, top 10 guys. This is it.

I'm going to go pursue other things. May I go box, whatever. So my money would be on he does get at least one more big fight in the UFC and win or lose. I mean, no, I shouldn't say win or lose. It dramatically changes depending on whether he wins. If he beats Hamzat, you see him stick around for a while. If he loses to Hamzat, again, end of the year could be the end of Kamar Usman and the UFC. But he's still a great fighter.

He's still a great fighter. So it doesn't surprise me. He's hanging on. Sorry, guys, I know I'm trying to get to all these requests. JD felt I know you were second in. so JD let's get to you. I see you for Corner Sports. I see you as Walia.

I see you, yeah, yeah, just popping in. But J.D. would love to hear what you want to talk about today. If I can get you in the line here. Good to hear you.

What is up, Jaddy? What is up, Jada? Same to you. Oh, heck yeah. I hope it's as beautiful weather up in the, up north as it is down here in the south. Anyway, got a couple things for you, good buddy.

Please. All right. So people were saying when Alex Pereira won the belt that it made middleweight more interesting again. With Izzy back at the helm, is it less interesting? Is it more interesting? Is it just maintaining thoughts on that? And then I'd love to hear your thoughts on the main and co-main event that we have coming up this week. Sorry, this weekend.

Personally, I got Aljo. I kind of think he may smoke so who do. something just telling me about it, and then I got Belal. I think that Bilal's analytical mind and the way that he approached that Sean Brady fight, I think Gilbert Burns has another thing coming for him. But anyway, man, great to hear from you. And, yeah, I'll take everything off the air. You're the best, man.

Awesome. Thank you, Jady. Have a great way. Yeah, Izzy being in the top, boy, that's a tough question, because the fight was so exciting. It sounds, it sounds like unfair to say, like, well, We had this awesome moment, which is probably go down as one of the best moments of the year, maybe the best knockout of the year. I mean, a lot of months ago, a lot of time to come, but given the stakes, given the history

between the two, given the execution, the celebration, I don't know. That's the front runner for knockout of the year. It's really difficult to top. But yet, we do have to ask, what does this mean for the division? because now we find ourselves in the situation where we were before, before the Padetta fight happened. Because with respect to Poitan, that fight really only happens because some great matchmaking work by the UFC, you know, bringing in this guy who they know had history with Adesina

and said, let's match him up the right way and let's build him up. Let's get people talking organically about him. And of course, that clip had been, you know, was well known before of him knocking out Izzy and kickboxing before they were sort of on a trajectory to fight in the UFC. And then as Palletta kept winning fights, it just got, it came back, came back, came back, more viral. Awesome promotional work by the UFC there. And when he won, it did seem to make things more interesting. And you had the rest of the division licking their chops.

Really, anyone with any semblance of wrestling was thinking, I'm going to get in there and take this guy down. Robert Wittaker probably thought he had a very good shot of beating Padetta. But now we don't, it looks like that fight definitely is never going to happen. So now we have Izzy the top, and Izzy has beaten a lot of the guys already. He's fought Marvin Vittori twice, once for the title. I don't see that happen any time soon. The Jared Kennear fight, completely forgettable. Whitaker is in play if he beats Drickus DuPlacey.

Your mileage may vary on how smart it was to make that matchup happen. I know people want to see a press challenger. DDP made a lot of sense. There's a lot of heat there. Listen, maybe he beats Robert Whitaker. Paulo Costa, we don't know what's going on with him. I'd still like to see him fight Izzy again someday, but again, I've already mentioned several rematches.

it's it's hard it is it is worse in a way it is worse in a way for the division because you always want a fresh run of challengers and again it looks like we could be headed towards whittaker and is he three or is he having to kind of do what anderson sylva did and like jump up to two o five for the odd fight here or there but it doesn't feel like the right time for that it just feels like we're doing that because he doesn't have other options and if you're going to make a move like that that's probably not the best motivation for it so Again, I don't want to downplay that moment. It was so cool to see Easy Get His Revenge. And I wish really the best thing would have been for if Padetta had decided to stick around and we'd gotten the MMA trilogy bout.

But Padeta has other goals now, 205. So, yes, we do have to settle with middleweight, kind of becoming middleweighting again. And hoping one of these up-and-comers maybe makes that more of an immediate impact. Let's go to, I want to go mostly in order here. Sorry, guys, because I know Absuale, you've been waiting a while. Walia, come on down. Yeah, yeah, four corner sports. I see you.

I hope you guys can stick around. See if we can get some more questions in here. Hi, can you hear me? Hi, I have, yeah. Yeah, so I've just got a few questions. Two of our MMA, one's just for relaying basketball. I'll keep a short quick. So just regarding the Josh Emmett and Ila fight,

we know that's happening in June. What's really at stake for Josh Emmett? obviously if he wins, we know he'll retain the spot, but if he loses, it's there a possibility we can see him retire. Maybe he'll just remain the gatekeeper who could win fights here and there. And then also just regarding Jamal Hill, any update on when we will see him fight soon, because I know there was rumors that was recently saying he could headline

the Utah Jazz Card in July or maybe August. and my final question is do you see Denver Nuggets sweeping the suns and could Philadelphia possibly be the Celtics this time? That's all I'll have to have a good day. Thanks, I'll get to all those in one second.

I just realized I forgot to answer the second part of that last question, but I'm sure listen, you'll hear me talking about it a lot more this week. I believe I'll be on the preview show. If not, I'll probably pop in heck of a morning. You'll hear my prediction or you'll at least read it on M. fighting.com. Don't read my predictions for UFC Vegas 72 anyway, by the way, possibly

my worst set of predictions ever. Easily the worst of the year. But I'll say quickly, I'm leaning towards Aljo. There was that stat, if you remember before, the Dillasha fight that Shahi kind of threw out there. It was an age thing. It was like no one in the lighter weight classes. I think it was like 155 or under within a certain age. Let me see how old Suhudo is now. Sohudo is 36. I think he's right. at the limit. So lightweight, featherweight, bantam weight, flyweight.

It's generally a younger man's game. Suhudo's such a unique case because he took this time off, and that's probably good for him. He probably saved himself a lot of wear and tear. But also, he has a lot of wear and tear from his life before MMA. So I am going to lead, I am going to lean towards Al Joe. I've also picked against Al Joe so many times, and I think I have to learn my lesson at some point.

And I think, and there's nothing to do with Sehudo, by the way, like necessarily being over the hill or ring rust which some people don't believe in i think i'll just just really good and i think we've kind of always undervalued him as a fighter like i think the second yon fight he legit won i think the dillashaw fight it sucks the dillishaw was injured but i'm pretty sure he beats dillishah anyway and now this is his chance to really make a statement so it's so intriguing because he either makes a statement or he loses his hoodo and gets more crap than ever So I'll be happy to break that one down more. I'm sure other people will be asking about it.

As well, I had to get to your questions. Josh Emmett, Ilya, the stakes for Josh Emmett. Yeah, it's, gosh, all this retirement talk. So Emmett is 39 in a few days. It looks like in two days. Josh Emerald turned 39 years old. That is quite up there in fight years. and he's been fighting since 2013, so he's a decade in.

If he wins, it's, listen, it's huge for his career. Toporia is just a guy that nobody wants to fight. He looks like a future champion. If Emmett can pull off the upset here, it's big, man. He's not getting a tell shot right away. He's probably not one fight away from a tile shot. He probably has to beat Toporria, then beat someone else to get another crack.

But the fact that they gave him that interim shot at 284, that's a big vote of confidence for him. That to me was not a like, we're trying to get Yair over or we're just giving Emmett a shot because he's a veteran and this is closer to the end of his career. That told me that they feel like he does belong

in that sort of top five contenders shuffle. And it's a good place to be. It might not mean they're fully behind him. It might not mean they believe that Josh Emmett can actually be the world champion, but it does mean that they won't shy away from putting him in title shots. They see him as someone who is,

we can line him up in a pay-per-view, a main event, whatever, whoever he's fighting. Like, they would not have a problem with putting him up against Volkanowski. He'd be a huge underdog, but the UFC matchmakers wouldn't be like, oh, we can't match up Josh Emmett with Volkanowski. No, if he beats Topori and then beats another top five guy, there you go. And if you're Volcanowski, you finally, he's always telling guys to step up,

they'll be a big step up. So there's a lot on the line. There's a lot to be won there for Emmett. Jamal Hill, I don't know. I'm not going to pretend I have any inside knowledge. I do expect him to booking to happen sooner rather than later, as in like we'll know before International Fight Week, who he's fighting. I think we'll have that announcement.

He was very smart to say, hey, bring on Pereira because dangerous fight. No one should want to fight him, but Jamal Hill, we don't know what his ceiling is. He looked incredible against Gloverd-Deshire, very skilled guy, had been projected as a potential champion and just got there a lot quicker than we expected. So we don't know. But yeah, I would expect you'll hear before the summer when he'll be, when he'll be booked. And Denver sweeping the suns, I can't answer that question. Shaheen Al Shadi might be out there listening.

So, no, I think it might be a gentleman sweep like with the first round, Minnesota. I don't know how the sons win this series, to be honest. They just have no depths. Maybe if they can play all their guys, their starters, 46 minutes a game. But they just lost Chris Paul. It's a huge hill to climb. So I think they can get hot and win one. but it would shock me if this goes beyond five games.

So congrats to all you Nuggets fans out there. Okay, let's bring in Yaya. Yeah, yeah. I know you've been waiting for Corner Sports. I'll try and get you in next. I also see you, New York, Rick. We will get you, sir. But, yeah, yeah, let's bring you in here.

Alex, what's going on, man? What's going on, yeah, yeah. Good, good, good, man. Yeah, you've been doing great hosting this, man. I just wanted to give you a shout out on that. Thank you. So I know you mentioned Kamar earlier. I guess I was kind of confused because I thought he was, I think, or I think the UFC mentioned,

he was going to be moving up to be in 85 right now. So, like, I guess that matchup kind of confused me in terms of like how much the weight cut, how hard it would be for him. And then, you know, if that doesn't pan out, like, what is the scenario if, you know, Leon loses to Colby and then, you know, between Balal and Doreno? basically like if if he how does that whole pan out for him i guess is it just seems like there's like a logjam in terms of the path for kamar getting another title shot so i just wanted to clear upon that but appreciate you man thanks yeah yeah uh there is a bit of a log jam but honestly

i i've said i i've kind of said this oh this just went out today we did a little uh round table primer for uc 288 uh shaheen el shaddy damon martin and myself and the main topic is oh sorry the second topic was our Gilbert Burns or Bilal Mohammed guaranteed anything with a win on Saturday. Keep in mind, this fight was thrown together because Charles Olivera fell off the card, so they needed a more compelling comane. And they put together this well-to-a-a-a-a-mate. Great fight, great fight, but on somewhat short notice for both guys, it's not something they asked for. It's not something, I mean, it's a certainly a fight that was always possible for both guys, but it wasn't like, it's not

like we all thought, oh, Burns and Mohammed need to fight to get, you know, to be number one contender. It looked like that other option. It looked like Balaw was going to be forced to fight Shab Khan. So maybe he dodged a bullet there, not that fighting Gilbert Burns is easy. But I don't think either guys guaranteed anything. That's why I think Camaro is smart to keep his name in the 170 mix. Because he has a bigger name than both those guys.

He's beaten Gilbert Burns. He's really not that far away from another title shot, depending what happens. Colby beats Leon. I mean, Usman has two wins over Colby. I don't necessarily feel the need to see that fight again, but how can you not make a case if you're Camaro and you see Colby win? How can you not make a case to say, I have this guy's number. Give him another tell the shot.

I can be championed again. And then if Leon wants to fight again, we can do another teller shot with me as champion again. So I like him. I like what he's, it looks muddled, but at 170, there's still veteran names that they value over Gilbert and Invaloa, which is so unfair. because Gilbert and Balal are also veterans, but I just don't believe that they have guaranteed either guy anything. So I don't think they're part of the equation.

I think Uzman is, like, really not that far behind. He might even be ahead of them in the pecking order. They like Kermar, and they should. He was a very active champion. He defended well. He beat a lot of big names, and he's always been good to the company. So as for the 185 talk, I think that's just talk, again, because he's fought everyone at 170.

I don't like the move personally. I'm sure he could be competitive there, but again it strikes me as sort of what I was saying with Izzy earlier he'd just be doing it to get a fresh set of opponents and because he doesn't you know if he's not getting a towel to shot at 170 he doesn't want to fight anyone else there besides Hamzot and if it doesn't get that bite he definitely has no interest in fighting anyone else at 170 so this is fresh matchups at 185 um but I don't like I don't know if that's his ideal weight class and I just don't I'm not super jazzed about it unless he could do with John Jones like full 18 months off you know uh change his body and become a 180. but I don't really think he has that time in his career right now. But all right. Let me get to New York, Rick. I see you, but I have to get to four-corner sports

waiting so patiently. And we'll get to the esteemed New York, Rick, next. Four-corner sports. Hey, AK, so I wonder to ask you. So I know Adisania and her had a little bit of beef, like a little IG banter. But one thing that sucked out to me was when Israel said, it's quality over quantity

quality over quantity but Israel I feel like is acting as if like he didn't get slept by Alice Pereira and kickboxing they both got slept both vicious knockouts

and to me it's one one I mean might as well just you know do the rematch at 205 I mean I don't know how many more fights on Astanae plans I'm having at 205 I mean at 185 just because he

is the only person. I feel like they're cleaning out their prospective division. No disrespect to any other champion. But I just think that at some point he's going to have to seek more other, I guess new challenges. And

maybe him saying that, I don't know if it was just because he just wants to be done entirely with the rivalry, but I just think that what's it called, you know, if I'm Israel and Asana or Alice Guerrara, I want to make sure that I'm going to get the better of of and put him to sleep

just so I could have that in my resume I put you the same not on one occasion but on two of the occasions and lastly I want to ask you I know the main event is Alan Joe versus Suhudo and kind of leading up

who you want who you think is going to be the winner but who like what's a sleeper fight because I don't know I mean Bryce Mitchell versus Mazver Aloia that's a great fight but like what's one fight on the main card that

you'll tell fans that don't really watch MMA to look at and what's one fight on the prelum you'll tell them to look at. All right, thanks, A.K. Thanks for CornerSports. All right, yeah. Yeah, 288 Sleeper. I wish I hadn't quite dug into taking my notes on this card. And there's a lot more unknown names that I remembered

when I first looked at the card. So I'll have to dig into that in a bit, but I will answer that. As for, Izzy's sort of calling game on the Padetta feud, Listen, he's picked the right business to do this in, because MMA, sports short overall, but I see MMA is one of the most, what have you done for me lately, forms of sports entertainment. If you win the latest fight, you get to say whatever you want. You know, we always say winners write the history. And Pareda, excuse me, Adesania won the latest chapter.

So he gets to write that chapter. By no means has he definitively won the series. He could argue he has the best moment. argue that. I don't know. I thought Pareda's knockouts of him were also quite fantastic and memorable. But if you're Izzy, this is the narrative you want to push. Because either

in the chance that you do have to fight him again or the chance you never fight him again and then because Pareda's moving up and maybe Izzy doesn't want to move up to a 5 and do that fight up there, then you want to say, you don't want to leave any questions. Izzy is pretty good at marketing himself.

He says a lot of stuff. Some of it hits, some of it misses. But when you're when you're talking about it again, a fight you may, that may never happen again, you just say, it's done. It's over. I won. What do you guys mean? I won it.

I won the best way. I won the latest one. You know, he can argue, I have the better resume in M.A. I don't need to prove anything. I was doing very well in the first fight. So it's totally expected that he would do this this way. I have no issue with it, but I don't agree with that. I don't think everyone has to accept this narrative just because, as he says, the view it is

over. It's over because it's not going to happen again. It's not over because he cleared Alex Petita in such a way that there's no doubt who the better fighter is. I think if you match them up 10 times, you're going to get a mix of wins, 6, 4, 7, 3, anything, but no guy is, he's not beating like Padetta 10 out of 10 times. That's just not a thing. So good for him for pushing that narrative, but it's, I mean, it's just not true. And UFC 288 Sleeper, again, I've talked about, I did this, wrote this in the roundtable. I love, it shouldn't even be a sleeper. Jessica Andraj returning to Strawway to fight Jan Shaunan.

This could give us our next title challenger because where is Rose Namajunis? I mean, that fight with Zhang Wei Li is there. I think if she wants it, we just don't know where she is. Again, that's her business. She's recovering, just loving life, not fighting. More power to her. I'm not jazz in that. But I would like to see the winner of this, get that title shot.

Jessica Andraj, her first fight with Zhang Wei, so few people saw it. It was in the middle of the night because it happened in China. And I would love to see either Andrage avenge that loss or Zhang get to have that another moment and maybe beat Androge again and really show people. If you want to talk sleeper, she's a great fighter. And she's usually in pretty exciting fights at strawweight. 1-15 is, I'm telling people, it's underrated for bangers, man. I don't think people talk enough about the strawweight division, how good some of these matches have been and how competitive the fights are. It's got a good title scene, too, I think.

So I love strawway. I love that fight. It probably doesn't even qualify as a sleeper. third fight from the top but prelims man listen drew dober and matrevola if we're doing the if we're doing the all violence award drew dober might have been the one of the you know the the winner of 2022 i mean the guy every fight he was in was exciting whether he was you know uh dominating whether he was getting clown before it landed some big ass shot he was so entertaining he made my top five list of fighters of the year and probably like based on level of competition and accomplishment

like i probably there's more deserving people but i I didn't enjoy watching any fighter more in 2022 or very few people than Drew Dober. And I expected to pick right up where he left off with Matt Favola because that's just a great matchup. Amazing matchmaking. So love that matchup. Guys, you've waited long enough. Let's bring in New York, Rick. With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too.

That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no.

But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too, along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. New York, Rick, what do you have for us? Good sir. Good morning, Alex. I just want to say you've done a hell of a job.

I'm feeling for Mike. So thank you for your hard work over the last couple weeks. Yesterday, we seem to be an alignment that Nate Landware would be the best port from UFC over to BKFC. outside of Nate, who would you like to see in a bare-knuckle boxing fight? Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Rick. People don't know. I tweeted it right after, but first I had to say it on Slack because just sort of offhandedly during a conversation on the MMA hour, they were sort of suggest, they were talking about

how BKFC is, it's not about like, being a good BKFC fighter. It's not necessarily about like, oh, you're the best boxer, the best fighter, most of the best fighter, skill guy. There's a mentality and there's an attitude and like a toughness you have to have to be in there. And just on the top of his head, New York Creek just goes like, ah, who was like, who would be a good UFC fighter? Could you make the jump to BKFC? And Nate Landwer. I don't know if, New York, Rick, I don't know if you've been thinking about that for a long time, but as soon as you said it, I started just shaking uncontrollably. People know me. I love me some Nate Landwer, the human embodiment of Tennessee, Nate the Train, amazing fighter. And just

Now, you said it, and I've, like, he is wasting his time in the UFC. Because he's a good fighter. You know, he likes, he's, he has, well-round. He's not just a brawler. But he should be just throwing down no gloves with other human beings who have no good sense. Like, that is, God, that is just the dream. I just mentioned Drew Dober, of course, listen, would be an amazing BKFC competitor. Yes, he's a super handsome man.

I don't know if he'll want to see him get rock-holded. Those post-fighting images and video of rock hold after. Boy, that's going to, he won't be taking any modeling gigs for a few months. Let's put it that way. He's going to need some. I might need some caps on those teeth. My God. So people who love Drew Dober, the Mega Chad, I don't know if you want to see him in that environment, but he would be sick.

And then, just as someone else who I already mentioned, when we did our recent M. M.MA fantasy draft, Jed Mishu had the number one. he was he was put as the sort of fantasy general manager of bkfc he made some great picks you go connor regregor number one obviously him making that pick may have manifested mcgregor appearing at bkfc 41 i don't know it was actually kind of freaky when it happened uh and then later down the road i stole the alex padetta pick from i i took alex peddra for bellator i was i was i took alex peddha for belator boss and i think i was i was if it had gone back to jet he was going to select Alex Padetta. Can you imagine Alex Padeta with no gloves of any sort on, just bashing people's

brains in? No gloves on, no fear of takedowns. I know some of them are thinking, you know, he's a kickboxer, right? He's been doing that. I get it. I get it. But I'm saying no kicks. No kicks. And again, no gloves, no, really no protection whatsoever besides wraps. And just going in there and slugging it with people.

Heavyweight, light heavyweight, I don't know, whatever. Whatever weight classes they have, catch weights. I don't even care if you fight. it's another big name. Throw them in there with, you know, the meanest dude you can find in Biloxi, Mississippi. I don't know if any of these fights could be sanctioned because Alex Fed has just scary as hell. But if him and bare knuckle, I'm almost sad now. Nate Lander on him, if they don't do bare knuckle at some point, I would be like a little sad.

And I won't believe that we're living in the best of all possible worlds if that doesn't happen. Apologies to some of the guys, I'm sorry King Cad and Natural Grappler for out there. I hope you're listening and I hope you can come back either later in the show or come back from Mike later this week. But I do see Terrence Lovrette, our old friend. Let's bring you in, Terrence. Terrence, what is going on, sir? Hey, how you doing, A.K.? Hi, what's going on?

I'm doing great. Did you like my, you should make an article with the name that I gave this show. We just make the article, Born and Tea with A.K. Lee, where you just gossip and stuff like that all day. There's been a lot of great suggestions. but it's Leiafart sticking with it. Nope. Do you have to kidding. So Paul Craig announced that he's going to 185.

Oh, yes. So what's your thoughts on that? What interesting myself do you think could happen? I actually think he can do one good rather at 185 being that he's great at Jiu-Soo and he's great in the chaos and all that. And then the other one that I had was there is on Gracie coming back this weekend. It's just like win or bust

for him. Like, I know last time like his people were given a hard time because he didn't use jihitsu in that matchup. But do you think

that's pretty much what he's going to be doing like looking for submissions and just getting it over with the gracey way? That's all I got for you. Okay. Thank you.

I hope you have a good day. Thanks, Terrence. Yeah, I would certainly hope so. Corona, the Cubs wants some fight. Yeah, it was a little bit befuddling. but let's give Cub Swanson credit. I think he's a difficult guy to take down.

The fight is a little blurry in my mind. I do remember Cub just pummeling him on the feet. I don't remember how much Crone actually tried to take the fight to the ground. But, you know, sometimes those things are easier said than done. So that's why this is MMA and not, you know, not just combat grappling or jiu-jitsu, is you're facing guys who are trained and have this ability to stifle your style, and Cub Swanson has seen it all. So could it be more, you know, focused on getting take down shore?

would that possibly have expedited his demise? It's possible with that as well. Same with Charles Rodin. Charles Rodin is pretty well-rounded. This is the young Canadian man. He's fighting on Saturday. And of course, you imagine his camp is nothing but sprawl training, get-ups, anything to create stalemates on the ground,

just anything to survive should the fight go to the ground. But I would hope that Cron is, yes, newly motivated to just show off that Gracie jiu-jitsu. But I'm more intrigued by, like, the first part of your question is this sort of a do-or-die fight for him. The modern graces in MMA, I'm trying to be, I don't want to sound mean here. They're a little fanciful. They're a little when one sort of things don't go as they had hoped, you don't see them necessarily compete for that much longer. It's like it'll be too

losses and then it's like they're just done with mMA a lot of a lot of them have options outside of outside of mma right so it's it's it's somewhat understandable um that some of these guys might not you know they don't need i don't need to keep getting into the cage and getting my brain bashed in you know i have other options i'm part of the celestial family i've i've assumed that gracy family has other sources of revenue um you know they're all going to piece of that pie the fame gracie training program, right? So I'm looking at I'm looking here at Hollis Grace.

So there's Hollis Grace, he fought for one championship, remember him. And he did well, and then he loses a few fights, losing KSW, World Series of Fighting. This was back in 2015. Oh, this is the guy who lost Troy Beltran. I'm trying to remember the gentleman who actually won, who was the Grace who actually won a title? I'm struggling to remember

bear with me here guys but but my point stands that um i don't want to say that if crone loses on saturday and if it's like a disappointing performance again let's say he just a lopsided another lopside decision or god forbid gets knocked out i don't want to say that he'll necessarily retire but i would be very surprised if he doesn't say i'm good i did the m mhm a thing i beat a few people i showed uh the power of grace jitsu briefly and i'm good i'm going to go back to grappling. It's just not, there just hasn't been at Gracie who's really just gutted it out and stuck around and had a normal MMA career. There's no other way to put it. Cron's 34, it turns 35 in July. So again, can you make just, can you make more money elsewhere probably or comparable?

I just don't know how much it makes sense for him to keep getting punched in the head. A lot of the Tracy's dream of becoming M.A. World Champions, again, I apologize. I remember the one who did win for one championship. But once the, once the, for the, for the, for results sort of start going against them, they have a lot of reasons to not continue. And that just happens. That's just happened a lot. So hopefully he gets a win. And Paul Craig at 185.

I love it. I don't think he's like a massive light heavy weight. He is tall. That always worries me. He is tall. And like it doesn't look like he had that much weight to cut. I didn't see him at 205 and think, oh, yeah, this is a guy who, like, you know, if he shed some extra poundage, could look really like swole and spelt at 185.

But we talked about it earlier. The division's kind of wide open as far as needing new challengers. And if you're a Paul Craig and you can bring the same exciting style that you had it to a five, he's a fight finisher. Listen, the UFC loves fight finishers. If he gets the right matchups, finishes two, three people. I say three wins away with at least two of those fights being finishes. There's a chance he's up there.

He gets up there to face whoever is the middleweight champion by the time he, you know, he gets the number one contender spot it might be izzie but three fights i just said three fights that's a long time from now we don't know where is he's going to be we don't know where the division is going to be um but i like the move um kind of like what it said for camaro is this his ideal weight class i don't know it's hard to say uh but if you can make the weight comfortably i don't see why he can't compete or the very least become a middle weighty middleweight um maybe that is his fate uh so we'll see middleweight does strange things to people guys middleweight does strange things to people Mike, heck, I see you, but I do want to bring in King Cat.

I did ask King Cat. I'm big-timing my best friend now. I apologize. But King Cat, I know you've been waiting a long time. Please, King Cat. I would love to hear you chime in. Great thing. I'm hosting the show.

So I jumped off because you kind of answer my question, but now I have an addition to it because I was going to ask if you thought that, excuse me, the winner of Jan and Jessica Andrage would get the title shot. And you answered that. But I guess my other question. now is, you know, what do you do with LaMosch? You know, she's ranked technically higher than them, even though Jessica has a win over her. Do you wait, you know, for Roads to come back, or what do you think happens with her? Because I agree with you. I do think the winner of Saturday's fight gets

the title shot, and that kind of leaves LaMose just kind of, you know, without an opponent. So what do you think happens with her? Thanks. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, great question. Yeah, I should have mentioned Lamosh before. Yeah, she's listen, she's totally in play. She's totally in play. Getting beaten by, you know, pretty soundly and memorably by Jessica Andrage, you know, submission of the year, candidate first ever starting standing arm triangle in UFC industry. It's a blemish.

It's a blemish. And it wasn't that long ago. But she did the smartest thing she could do and just got back in there. Maybe she didn't have any other choice. Maybe she's, you know, wasn't that injured from the Andrage fight. And it's like, I'm fine. Just keep me, you know, keep me in the loop. as normal. But yeah, she fights two months later in July, beats a big name Michelle

Watterson. Listen, I know it feels like Michelle Watterson's been around forever. It feels like she's kind of been hanging around the top 10, you know, never quite top five, but she is one of the more well-known fighters in the division. I'd argue someone with a little bit of mainstream cachet. I think she's well-liked and popular and a company woman through and through. So beating her was huge. And then poor snake-bitten Marina Rodriguez, I mean, just talking about someone who should have gotten a title shot, just could not quite sneak into that title picture and now found herself getting beaten by Lamoch.

So that's enormous back-to-back wins. And then Angela Hill was before Jessica Androsh. So three of your past four wins, Marina Rodriguez, Michelle Waterson, Angela Hill. That's number one contender resume, man. I mean, that is, you could easily throw her in the mix if for some reason this Andraj Jan Shaanan result is unsatisfying, Um, maybe they don't, like if Yan wins, I think the ideal thing, of course, would be to try to make a fight happen in China with Zhang Wei Li.

And if that can't happen, maybe they'd want to hold off. Though I think, again, listen, you put that on a pay-per-view card. You're going to get numbers in China anyway, but it would be cool if they could do it in their home country. Um, so maybe you hold off on that. But Lamosh, if I'm Lamosh, I hopefully don't have to fight again, but I get the feeling, uh, because I got to being optimistic about the Andrajian fight that the winner will get the next time. a shot. Lamose does have to fight again. I think Lamose does have to have to take one more tough title shot.

Title, excuse me. One more contender fight. Who is she going to have to fight? Let me do a little on the spot aught knowing here. Who's in play for it? Because she's again, she already beat. In a perfect world, listen, you'd make Rose have to come back and fight

someone and it would be Lamosh. But I feel like, I still feel like Rose has enough cachet to stroll back and but I'll say that. I'll say there's an outside shot. Lamosh, um, Lamoch gets a rose fight, and then the winner of that gets the next after, um, Andrage or Yon fights and shung. So great question.

All right, Mike. All right, all right. You're on vacation. You're on vacation. What do you do? My best friend, I always love to hear from you, but, uh, you are on vacation. I hate to trouble you. Uh, I hope we have. Hello, Mike. Hello, my best friend. How are you? So great to hear. So great to hear from you. I'm great.

Yes. I'm glad you big time me. King Cat is a great caller, and that was a great question. Unfortunately, I feel like Lemosch might have to pass the Tatiana Suarez test if she doesn't get the title shot. So that's kind of a tough road to take. But I want to ask you about this, A.K., because obviously the last several days, even most of last week, it became MMA fighting. We're a NBA fighting, but it was like BKFC fighting.

for a lot of it because it obviously stole the headlines and the bare knuckle sport obviously got a got a big boost and this friday mazadol is putting on a bare knuckle mma card in florida it's the first one ever sanctioned in florida and one of the things we talked about the game bread boxing card was great concepts but the timing of it was just awful with the final four and some of the other events that were going on it was just a really tough weekend to put on a card like that this This weekend, yeah, we get UFC 288, but it's on Saturday. One is on Friday. And what Mazadol is doing this time around is they're airing the card for free on YouTube and on Facebook.

So you don't have to pay the $50 price tag to watch it or anything like that. So I'm wondering, do you feel like with the momentum that this last BKFC card got, do you feel like the timing is good for this card? Or do you feel like because one is making their U.S. debut and there's so much going on this weekend that it's kind of going to be tougher for people to tune in with so much going on. I will hang up and listen to my best friend. You're doing an incredible job. And I miss you like crazy.

And I'm excited to get back after it tomorrow. Thank you, my best friend, Mike. I miss you. And the people miss you. They want their Mike Heck back. It's been awesome to do the show. It's been awesome to the show. But it's a lot of work.

It's a lot of work. Man, Mike is always in the good. This is one thing Mike does. And I've been stressing about it for like a week. enjoying it thoroughly, but stressing about it, Mike is the best. Yeah, I don't, listen, I don't know if Mazvedal's a little snake bitten with the timing of these things. It's like we said, that the last boxing event apparently, like, didn't, I don't know, maybe didn't pan out as they hoped. And now you have this bare-knuckle MMA event.

I think, did we even mention, I think we have Canelo this weekend, too, right? Canela Alvarez, I believe, is fighting this Saturday as well. this is a busy weekend man this is yeah he's fighting in john rider super middleweight all his belts title defense on

Saturday so I love that Mazvedal's event will be free so listen to we'll give a little promotion here guys and this is on Friday the Canello fights on Saturday UFC Saturday the social Saturday the game bred

fighting championship for Nelson versus Kleckler live from FLA Live Arena in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We'll be free. We'll be free as, as Mike just mentioned. 7 p.m. start time, I want to say. So I'm pushing as much as I can because, listen,

the more all these promotions do well, the more options we have as fans, the more options fighters have, it's good stuff. Headlined by Roy Nelson and Dylan Kleckler and Co-Maine, former, I shouldn't say former, whatever year he won, PFL champion

Emiliano Sordi, facing former UFC fighter Marcus Perez. Sean Soriano's in the card. I'm just looking at it over now. What are Anthony Anjo-Kawani's on there? Okay, this is cool. Charles Crazy Horse Bennett. Oh, my Lord.

How did I not know that that was happening? Jed, where are you? Jed, we got to talk about this. Jed, we have a Charles, we have a crazy horse sighting. So this is a cool card. It's, I don't know, honestly, if there's any, if it benefits at all from the huge BKFC event that just happened. I want to say, like, in a perfect world, that's the way it would go, right?

You have all these people tuning in to BKFC 41. They go like, man, I want more of this bare knuckle action. I want to see more. And then you just, you know, you do a quick Google. Oh, bear knuckle, what's the next bear knuckle thing that's coming up? Less than a week later. Six days later. Game, I know Jorge Mosbytall.

I remember Roy Nelson from the altered fighter in the UFC. He's the hard-hitting fat guy with the great grappling. Listen, he calls himself fat. I'm allowed to say that. He came out to fat by weird albums. I'm allowed to say this. This is part of his brand, I feel. He's still beautiful in his own way, by the way.

I'm not making any judgments. But yeah, you've got name value here. You've got, again, sort of the novel idea of bare-knuckle MMA. But I just feel like I think that BKFC event was so strong. It's going to, if anything, overshadowed this. I feel like we're still, I feel like as of this weekend, we might still be talking about some of the implications, especially with, again, great job by BKFC, David Feldman, to get himself.

and a lot of his fighters onto, you know, making sure they appeared on the M.A. Hour. Great job by Ariel to get them on there. Because it felt like a big deal on Saturday, and it still feels like a big deal. Like the storylines coming out of it. Connemar Gregor, what's he going to do? Mike Perry, free agents.

Presumably they're going to resign him. Eddie Alvarez, like fantastic. We're not talking about Eddie a lot. What's next for Eddie? Eddie's going to have a great fight. Can we get Darren Till to fight Mike Perry? David Feldman dropped a bomb saying, listen, they're going to expect to have a TV deal.

So if we're talking bare knuckle this week, we're still talking VKFC 41. Maybe again, it's Tuesday. The news cycle was fast. Maybe by the time Mike comes back and hosts heck of the morning. You guys will all be talking about asking questions about Gamebred fighting for. But again, there's the UFC. There's one championship. There's Canelo.

It's a rough spot. It's a rough spot for Gamebred. But guys, you're out there and you want to support different forms of combat sports and support these fighters again. That is free Friday 7 p.m. So check out where you can. Hopefully, I don't know. if it's on YouTube or whatever. Maybe we can host, I don't know if we're hosting the

stream of May fighting, but keep an eye out for that guys. Support different combat sports, but it's a tough go. That might be some bad luck here for Masvedal and Gamebred approaches again. But thanks for that question, Mike. And then Crying Belly. Crying Belly, and I see you pain. Pain, M&A will try and get you in next. Crying Belly. I hope I'm saying that right. Crying, you are on, you're muted. Oh, there you go. I think we have you.

We'll see if we can get you on. It's possible I might have caught you in the middle of a drive, middle of a meeting. I don't know. Maybe you're having lunch somewhere. Crying, are you there? All right. No worries, crying.

Try and get back in. I'm going to bring in pain, MMA, but crying, I see you. We will try and get you back in. But I'm going to go to... Oh, I lost, well, I lost, I lost pain in M.A. All right, guys. So, call in now. The line is now clear.

Hopefully we can get Paine M.A. Or we can get crying back in here. But glad to see so many people listening. I'll hang around anyway for another 10 minutes or so. Like I said, there's a lot to talk about. Surprise. No Francis and Ganyu questions. So I guess I'll prompt myself here.

I'm going to repeat a lot of the talking points that we had in the M.A. hour because New York, Rick, and Ariel and G. And G. G. were on points okay i'll get back to that crying let me try you get back in here otherwise yv m z i do see you crying let's see if we can get you in crying you are on hey hey can you hear me now hey there we go yeah what is up hey quick i just wanted to ask uh i liked how you pointed out the israel out of sonia comment earlier so i got totally agree with what you're saying and i've never heard anybody really

explain it that way. So I feel like if Izzy, you know, it's just like it's beating the dead horse at this point. You know, like if they fight again, like what's what's good going to do for that? You know what I mean? Because regardless of how you feel how the record is in MMA, it's 3-1, you know what I mean? So also I wanted to ask you about earlier in the show, I think you said that you were going to talk about how you felt about Francis Nenganu and what? what was going on with why nobody can really get a deal done with him.

So I was just going to see if you can just give us your thoughts on that to hear that. Thanks. Thanks, crime. Perfect timing. Yeah, exactly. I just wanted to get into that. So perfect timing. Thank you for the call.

As I said, they covered it beautifully at the beginning of the MMA hour. I'm sure a lot of you guys watch that. If you haven't, go check. It's within the first 10, 15 minutes. Sort of one of the first important topics of the day is what is going on with Francis. because we just had one boss, Chatsri Sitchadong, say, you know, reveal that statement. Like, listen, we had a meeting with Francis, but we didn't really give a final offer. We kind of realized we weren't going to end up on the same page.

Was not a financial thing. We're just not in alignment. We're not in alignment. Very interesting PR speak there. And I believe that, too. There's two sides of the story. But I believe that. I don't think it's necessarily a monetary thing.

We know that Francis, when he was negotiating with the UFC, was asking for things beyond just money. right it was you know uh some you know some you know some vague uh power at the negotiating table was a little hard to pin down what he meant there but he was very clear that he wanted to box that that we know he wants to do we know we know we know he wants to box and when the when chatry brings something like that up the not in alignment i assume he means um either francis didn't want a long-term deal or wanted some sort of deal that would allow him to pursue other things and in addition to the you know how much what a big ticket um uh uh purchase he is you got to got to go along with that stuff. And if one, you know, wasn't comfortable with it, they weren't comfortable with it. But, um, again, it's, we, we know why promotions are releasing these statements,

BKFC did it too. They want to get ahead. New York, Rick, again, he's worked in PR. He talked about it on the email hour. Um, this is, this is a PR move. You get ahead. It's, it's, it's you. It's not me. It's you. It's not me. It's not you. It's you. Yeah. It's not you. It's not you. It's me. We, we are the ones who, who walked away from the deal. You know, we are the ones. It was our choice. It was our choice to walk away from the deal. And that way, you keep your, you know, you keep your promotion looking good, looking professional. You know, we could have, we could have had Francis and Gano if we were willing to take that extra step.

Dave Feldman, I think, was a little more sort of realistic about it on the M. M. M. M. Hours. He's speaking to Ariel. He said, he kind of threw a number out there, like 20 million. He wasn't saying that's what Francis asked for, but like, you know, that's sort of up in the range where they might have had to pay. And that his promotion just at where they are can't take that risk. if by some chance in Ngano fight flops and they're 20 million out that's legitimately a

promotion changing contract he just said he had to refinance his house before he did BKFC 41 so it doesn't sound like he's in position to be thrown around 20 mil even for I think a very very good draw in Francis but someone who's below that Connor McGregor Brock Lesner

Ronda Rousey John Jones tier it's hard it's hard to make that kind of risk so I would I do want to tell people And again, shout out to the M.A. for covering a lot of this. It's be wary of the people who are so vehemently sided against Francis. I admit I'm biased. I'm a big Francis fan.

Generally, fighters, I'm in favor of them. I want to see them do well. I want to see them have freedom. I want to see to have them options outside of the UFC, outside of Beltaire, outside of whatever. But be wary of people who are so aggressively, like, wanting to see him fail, or have already declared him having failed, even though we don't know the end. We're not at the end of this story yet. And saying he failed in free agency is absurd. Maybe he goes back to the UFC is a chance. There's a chance. Maybe he, he, he, he's boxing, this boxing match just doesn't come around. He goes back to the O.C. by the end of the year.

We've talked about it as a possibility because we want to see him fight John Jones. This is an amazing, I'd love to see France is going to go back to the O.C. Maybe he goes back. If he goes back to the Oc and gets a comparable deal to what they were offering, offering anyway, then it's fine. That's not a loss. If he gets, if he gets, whatever, he said like $8 million, $8 million, let's say they still pay him that. They say, just come back, we're going to give you. Then that's not a loss. He got to explore his options. Maybe

lost some time in fighting, but that's fine. He's not in a rush to get back in the cage anyway. That's not a loss. If you test your options and then came back and got the same deal, only if we find out he comes crawling back to the UFC with no boxing options, no, you know, no other negotiating stuff and somehow ends up

with less money, I'm fine with people coming on saying, you know, France, yeah. up the France stepped up because yeah that that's a loss that that means you lost that means you lost if you came back and you made less money and you lost all this time and you didn't get what you wanted but we're so far from that and Ariel has said that it looks like there there is some sort of deal on the horizon which is why he maybe didn't you know why he couldn't get on the same page of some of his other promotions because it seems like he may have advanced in talks

with others so he hasn't lost yet the story's far from over be wary of people who are against him in this. Those are not, I don't think those are good fans, personally. I just got very judgy. So let me move on. I got very judgy there. YBMZ, let's bring you in, please. But let's, let's brighten up my mood here. Take me off my high horse, YVMZ. Take me off my high horse, please. Hi. Hi. Two quick questions for you. Yeah. I wanted to ask, who would you favor in the fight between Anthony Smith and Johnny Walker? Do you think that would be a, you know, that's a good stylistic matchup? And two, do you have any news on Kost and Hamza?

Thank you so much. Thanks, Yv MZad. Yeah, listen, I don't have news on Kosta Hamza. Costa, those are the two most unpredictable guys in that division right now. I'll say this. If they want to make that fight happen, can we not just make that a 195-pound catch weight? look what's the issue because we care so much about oh they have to make the weight so we know that it's an official middleweight fight and you know we care about the ranking so i just want to see that

fight it's an awesome fight i mean did we care did we care that the the marvin vatory fight was changed to like whatever light heavyweight the week of yeah it was it's a silly thing to do it's unprofessional but we got a great fight out of it do we care that you know that luke rock hold and costa was at 185 no that could have been in light heavyweight it would have been the same thing. And that was a great fight. That's, that was two ridiculous, two fun fights back to back. Right. And we did. So who cares? Who cares about weight? Him and Hamza, the last thing I want to worry about is wait. So I don't know where, again, I don't know where it's going with that. Hamza is so unpredictable. I think we're all saying he's going to do 185. That seems to be

where he's at, but it's, it almost seems so dumb to close the door on 170. Because that's where just a lot of us predicted he would become champion. But after that last, way in debacle. I mean, there's no other thing to call. That was a debacle. I don't care that he still ended up fighting the card. I don't care that UFC found a way to reshuffle the top three fights and make something cool happen.

You just can't have that happen again. You just can't have that again. So I say stop screw around with it. I'd love to see Paul Ocasa and Hamzat. It's a great fight. It should happen. Just make it 195. Just make it 195.

Divisions are Fugazi, belts or props. This is how I feel about it. So, yeah, I don't know how close that that is progressing. But I'll tell you, it would get closer if you just told both guys, yeah, $195, no worries. It would heighten the chances of that about getting put together. And lastly, Anthony Smith and Johnny Walker, gosh, why do you come to me, the worst person?

I will say this. I've said this pretty confidently. And there's some bad fight pickers out there. I might be the worst person that predicting fight. in the MMA media. I might be the worst. I'm very bad. You may be asking,

Alex, why do they trust you to do the MAPfighting.com predictions for every card? I think I'm a okay writer. I think I'm, like, decent at breaking things down. Like, when I finish making a prediction, I'm dusting my hands off, and I'm kind of like,

I feel good about this. Like, I broke this down in a compelling and logical way. Or sometimes I'll write something funny. I'll write something sort of more, more poetic and like to break down a fight because it's like harder to you know it's just like a brawl or something i think i'm pretty good at that putting any other predictions but as for actually like picking the winner the right winner i am terrible i don't know what it is i told people not to read my predictions for last week go ahead go back mfiting dot com uc vgas uh... 72 predictions check them out

i stand by a lot of the logic i had there but the only fight i picked correctly was the hidalpha veda cody brundage fights and i picked that on the spot second round submission but that like anyone could have picked that. Any Joe Schmoe off the street could have picked that fight correctly, who's seen Bayetta fight once and seen Cody Brundage fight once. So I take no pride in that. I was wrong on everything else. I thought Ricky Simone was going to step up.

What else happened last week? I thought Julian Orozes experienced me too much for Fendendro Padilla. I thought Josh Quinlan could put the pressure on Trey Waters. That's literally the exact opposite of what happened. Trey Waters just enormous welterweight just killed him from range. Quillan could not get inside. It was rough, guys. is rough. So you asked me to pick the winner between Anthony Smith and Johnny Walker. I reserve the

right to change my mind before this fight actually happens. I'm going Johnny Walker. I feel like Johnny Walker has turned a corner. He took a lot of crap for some of his previous antics for going to SBG Ireland where it seemed like a bad fit. But he's looked good. He's looked good in his last few fights. I think his physical gifts have sort of fallen in line and he's on the same page as this new team. And I think I think we're seeing big things in for Johnny Walker. So that is my prediction, which means you should put all the money in the world on Anthony Smith by first round, knockout or submission. There you go.

So I've given you my prediction, but if you're gambling, you know to always go the other way as AK. There you go. That's a good way to remember things. All right, guys, I will log off here. I don't see any pressing incoming calls. Thank you so much. This has been so awesome.

I said this last Friday. I said there might be a chance I'll be back. I'm pretty sure our beloved Mike Heck will be back on Thursday. And he's, listen, he is ready to answer all. He has so many thoughts, I think. He's ready to answer all of your questions. Oh, we got one request. All right, this will be the last one from DeGenerate University.

I am so nervous right now. All right, DeGenerate University, please be nice and send us out. Help send us out on a positive note. Let's see if we bring Degenerate University in here. Hello, hey. So I was just wondering, when we think about, Meteor Ro seats being so close, how many times do you think just random guys try to apply for a media pass to a UFC event? That's a great question. Thank you to Jenner, Universe. Thank you for calling in.

I will, I will answer. Okay, thank you. That's a great question. Okay, this will be the last call, guys. I'm not going to take anymore. That's a great question. I'd love to end on that. I don't want to call anybody out because, listen, I've been on media row before and I consider myself pretty professional. I feel I've conducted myself well in these situations. You may see me in Vancouver. We'll see. But certainly, you do have Randos, for lack of a better phrase. You do have some people who are just there to have a cage-side seat and not necessarily do any actual reporting, not necessarily do any actual work. This happens a lot, of course, depending what cities you go to because you get a lot more local media. You know,

you get a lot more local media. You get guys who are some people very invested in M.A. I've met some very nice people like in Ottawa from local outlets. So I'm like, oh, these are like just waiting for their so enthusiastic that like they finally got a UFC event, you know, kind of coming around. And that's awesome. That's awesome.

And you see that. And you know, you know, they're just reporting it for their whatever, the local, I should say local paper, but you know, whatever the paper is in that area or the website or what have you.

But yeah, we've, with the, as M.A. grows and grows and grows. and people, listen, social media is the way it is. You're going to get people that are just showing up to say they were there to get clout. It happens a lot.

It happens a lot. I think I want to say less than Las Vegas. I can't speak for it. You know, Jose Young's no fair than me. But of course, Vegas, a much more established site for the UFC. You have your usual. You know, you watch any press conference. By now, your fan recognizes most of these voices, even if they don't know who these people are or know their names.

You've heard the voice of John Morgan. You've heard the voice of Jose Young's. You've heard the voice of Oscar Willis. You know who people are. But now that they're kind of beginning back on the road and they go like, I don't know, San Antonio, they go to Charlotte. Yeah, you're going to get some people who you're not familiar with. And it does happen a lot. Guys, I'm not going to lie to you.

You get a lot of unfamiliar people. But Prince of positivity here, glad the U.C's back on the road. And always, listen, always hoping that we get some new exciting voices out there on Media Row. because, listen, I was a rando once, Mike Heck was a rando once. New York Ricks, still listening. I see you there. I love you, buddy.

He was a, well, I don't say he was a rando. New York Ricks just born special. But we were all, we all started off as just sort of this, you know, when we got our first credential. So, yeah, I'm not, you know, if you're out there and you're one of those sort of randos that I'm talking about, I look forward to you, you know, seeing you on MediaRoe, getting those reps in, and, you know, just doing it for the love of the game.

It's it really is a privilege to be able to cover a sport to be able to cover M-May and certainly to cover the UFC You know the the the top name in M-A right in forever possibly until for eternity So it really is a privilege so we see a lot and definitely see a lot of a newbies More so than ever these days, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing That doesn't have to be a bad thing so I'll leave on that on that positive note looking forward to the next generation And current generation guys out there guys and gals out there who are just on that grind and I'm just trying to make a name, just trying to cover this business that they love because it's great. And again, thank you again, everyone.

I'm sort of just continuing my sign-off later. Thank you again, everyone. Mike will be back on Thursday. A lot of MMA this weekend. I'll definitely be talking about it on some of our shows and writing about it. And I'm really, really excited. Pick your poison people. There's a lot to do.

Again, we got Connello 2. We got UFC 288. We got one championship. It's giving me a great, great, great week and a great weekend. So take care, everyone. and I'll see you again sometime on Lee of a morning. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here.

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