MMA Fighting - HOAM | Who Has the Most To Lose At UFC 291? Plus, Tony Ferguson's Wild Media Day

Episode Date: July 27, 2023

There's a lot on the line for many of the fighters on Saturday's UFC 291 event, including the headliners vying for the vacant BMF title in Dustin Poirier and Justin Gaethje — but do they have the most to lose on the entire card, or does somebody else have more on the line in the long run? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck answers that question, and makes the case why the main event competitors are at the top of the list. Additionally, listener topics include Derrick Lewis' future win or lose on Saturday against Marcos Rogerio de Lima, the welterweight title picture, Alex Pereira's explanation for the viral Walmart video, Tony Ferguson's wild media day scrum, where Kevin Holland could be ranked should he defeat Michael Chiesa on Saturday, and more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 10 a.m. ET on the MMA Fighting Twitter Spaces. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 Cadulian 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. The Vox Media Podcast Network. Thursday, July 27th, 2023, it is indeed a heck of a morning. We are live on the M&A fighting, Twitter spaces. I'm not doing the X thing.

Don't even try it. It's not happening. Twitter. Here now and forever. But you can hear the show in its entirety show thereafter in the NBA Fighting Podcasting Network. Hello, I am Mike Heck. Hope everyone's having a wonderful week. And how can you not if you are a combat sports fan?

Because there's so much stuff going on this week heading into this weekend. Obviously, we got UFC 291 on Saturday. Main card is really good. Some very interesting storylines. Main event is unbelievable. We get Spence Crawford. We get Bellator versus Rise and 2. We get the Rising card right after that.

Just a ton of stuff going on. And we got some exciting news yesterday on the MMA hour. It's going to be a very fun week in Dallas for Jake Paul versus Nate Diaz. Not only will I be there, but we found out that the entire. our crew is going to be there. Ariel, New York, Rick, G.C. Mysterious Frank. The whole shebang, the whole crew, all going to be there.

And it's going to be a great time. Lots of fun content, live shows. It's going to be amazing. So keep it locked to M.AFighting.com. Obviously this weekend and throughout next week. You can also head to M.A.fighting.com right now because our own Stephen Morocco dropped something

very interesting, something that took them a long time to put together. The how to judge an MMA fight piece is live on MAA fighting.

Like I said, it took a long time for it to put together. There's different scenarios. There's a couple, some quizzes, to learn more about the judging

and the craziness that goes into judging for mixed martial arts bouts. I highly recommend you check that out. go through it, see how you do, and it's just really good stuff. So kudos to the great Stephen Morocco for putting that all together.

I know what an undertaking that was, but I'm glad to see that it is live. So let's go to you all. Let's get this party started. And we're going to kick this off with Derek on a Thursday morning. Derek, what's up, man? Hey, how's it going, Mike? I saw Sean Strickland and an Instagram comment said something along the lines of the UFC didn't get a deal done with him fighting Izzy. Have you heard anything about this?

That's my question, man. Have a good day. So I have not. I mean, I saw obviously social media comments. I know Strickland mentioned something on Twitter as well saying that the UFC didn't want it. I don't know what that means. I'm really dove into it much more, if we're being honest. Izzy called out.

Strickland said that DDP wasn't going to be able to fight. Seemed to make sense, but who knows? Maybe DDP, maybe the UFC came correct with an offer that DDP couldn't refuse to fight September 10th or September 9th, whenever that card is. I have no idea. I will reach out more and see what's going on, but it just seemed like Izzy's going to fight in September

and just a matter of like, are they just going to convince DDP to do it and turn around real quick? I kind of hope that's not the case because I know DDP is dealing with some stuff and dealing with some injuries that he's dealing with heading into the fight with Robert Whitaker.

And I kind of don't want to see him rushed into anything. Like let this thing build. I'd rather see DDP 100%, but yeah, I'll dive into it a little bit more. I mean, basically what I was told a while back when Izzy, it was probably the day after Izzy made that post saying that DDPs out, Strickland's in.

I reached out to some people and they obviously thought that was very cool that Izzy would just call Strickland out like that, but there was no offer really made officially. So, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what the hell is going to happen in September, but we are getting real close. We are, what, six weeks away from that card happening?

And we have no main events? It's tough. So I don't really know what they're going to do. But I'll try to dive into it a little bit more and talk about it tomorrow. Barbarusa. Hello. Barbaruso.

Hi, Mike. How did you? Good. How are you, man? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. I know this question I have been asked a lot lately but I want to ask you about

the Walter Wade Division do you think if Bilal doesn't fight he he's going to fight for the title because I see Shafkat's coming up and Ian Gary and if

I think the UFC would prefer that one of the new generations come to the picture instead I know that Bella didn't fight for the fight, but he's been here for a long time. And it's not that he's a really marxable guy. Thank you, Mike. So if you asked me this question, and we talked about this the last month and a half, two months. But if you asked me this, like, right after UFC 288, I would have said, Bala was in a really good position, but I wouldn't count on him

getting a title shot because there was just so much unknown, like what was going on with Hamzot at the time and Usman, because if they had booked Hamzaat versus Usman, B'all was completely screwed. And I think there was a little more confidence that Connor was going to come back and fight Michael Chandler by the end of the year. I don't know how much wavering that confidence has gotten. So I would say the longer Connor is out of the picture, the best. The best, better it is for Belal Muhammad. And at this point, if you're Belal Muhammad, you want the UFC to announce

this Leon Edwards versus Colby Covington fight. And the further back it goes, the riskier it gets for Belal Muhammad. Because if Conimer, let's just say let's just say that everything goes to plan. Let's say

Leon fights Colby co-main event at MSG. And let's just say, I mean, it doesn't really matter who wins that fight. Well, let's just say Colby wins the fight. Let's say Colby wins the title. I would be stunned if Leon gets an immediate rematch unless it's like a controversial decision of some kind.

And if Connor fights Chandler in December, I would say Ballal's chances of getting the next shot, I had best or 50-50. Because if Connor wins that fight, Ballal ain't getting the next shot. Connor demands a welterweight title shot. He's going to get it. And that's just the way that it is.

So I feel, I would say I feel better about Ballal's chances now than I did after he beat Gilbert Burns. But I will not say with 100% confidence that Ballal is going to get the next title shot. I'd say 75, 25, but this all depends on Connor. If we find out that Colby Leon are fighting in December or something, then I think Ballal's chances are better, especially if Leon can turn around quick. If they go back to London in March, they could do something there

and have Leon headline if he beats Colby. There is some heat on Colby Blal, but I think Colby being the astute prize fighter that he is will probably veer into a bigger fight, or at least try. So I don't know. I don't know. Shavcott's coming, though.

He's definitely coming. Let's go to J.D. And let's not forget, if Wonderboy beats Michelle Pereira, he's in this conversation as well, even though Ballal just beat him. Wonderboy is just way more over than Balmah. He just is. Jadie, hello.

Good morning, Mike. How you doing, brother? Good. How are you? I'm doing really well. First thing I want to say, I've been meaning to tell you this for a hot minute, but the theme song for heck of a morning,

such a banger. I love it every single time I get to listen to it. It's great. I air drum along to it. It's great. It's wonderful. All right. So, I think you touched on it a little bit yesterday in the episode, but I don't think

anyone straight up asked, what are your thoughts on the Holland Kiesa fight? How do you think it goes? And does the winner, if Kevin Holland wins, does. he get a place in the only rankings that matter and then where do you think bobby green is in the uh bms like all-time bmps um anyway man thank you so much for everything you do i appreciate it do to look thanks man yeah theme song is a banger um i mean obviously when we put the show together and it was going to be a podcast i was like it's got to be cheesy morning show, like local TV.

Like imagine if this is a video show, a bunch of flashes of me, just doing weird arm crosses and drinking coffee out of the station's mugs. And just cheesy as hell. And I think that theme song just nails it. Do we have Kiesa ranked in our rankings? We don't, actually.

It's possible. I mean, Lorenz Larkin is fighting on Saturday, or Sunday morning, that is, fighting Andre Koreshkov in that rematch. If Lorenz loses, you know what, I'll probably, let me see what my rankings look like. Do I have Holland?

I wonder if I already have Holland ranked. Where is it? Hang on one second. Bear with me. I'm going to pull up my rankings. Real quick. Welterweight. Nope, I don't have either of them ranked.

It's going to be tight. Maybe he gets in over Ian Gary just because of the timing. But if Ian Gary beats Jeff Neal, then obviously that's a whole different ballgame. Right now I've Edward Shemayev, but he's probably going to be out. Oosman, Covington, Shafcott, Amasov, Bilal, Burns, Brady, Thompson, Neil, Luke, J.D.M. Larkin, Gary.

If Kevin just runs Michael Kiesa, I'll probably find a spot for him. It's a tough fight to call. It is. I mean, my gut is telling me that Kevin Holland's going to go out there and finish him. But mostly because of the time away, Kiesa hasn't fought in a while. It's been, what, 20 or so months since he's competed, and that was the Sean Brady

fight that took a lot out of him. he's lost two in a row he needs this one more than Kevin Holland like Kevin Holland is in that territory and he even talks about it himself where titles don't matter rankings don't matter people just like them and they feel a certain way about him and just want to see him fight so none of that really matters to him it's not about winning belts it's about just fighting and making a ton of money but if Kiesa gets takedowns and gets him early it's not going to be a fun night for Kevin Holland, but I think Kevin has been working on his wrestling.

He's kind of welcoming that, feels confident that his game has improved enough, and I just think he's so much more athletic than Michael Kiesa at this point in his career at 35. Michael's been dealing with back issues and all sorts of stuff, but he seems healthy and ready to go. I like Mike a lot.

He's got a great future in this business when his fighting career is over. He's going to be on the broadcasts. He does a great job. on the desk. He's going to get a lot of color commentary gigs. I'm sure we're going to see him. Maybe calling some apex cards with Brennan Fitzgerald or something sooner rather than later. I'll probably going to go Kevin Hollins, some sort of finish. I don't know if he's, if he yeah, I'll probably go with Holland, but we'll see. Interesting matchup.

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That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. Toke, hello. You still want to call this Twitter spaces, but you know it's SpaceX, right? We are doing space shit up in here. But anyways, I want to talk about the media day because I'm kind of worried.

Not going to lie. Tony, Tony, Tony. So, listen, he said that he thinks he's entering his prime, entering his prime. And he thinks that he has five more fights than a title shot in him. And I'm just looking at his streak thinking where he has been, sorry, he's been, he's been a tough watch, a tough hang, if you will. and I'm just worried that he is surrounding himself with people that are actually telling him that this is a good idea. I want this to be a retirement fight, or if not this, I want the next fight to be a retirement fight.

I want it to be as soon as possible. And instead, we're sitting here listening to him saying that he has five or six more fights in him. That worries me. I don't know if you heard the entire interview, but he was very, All over the place. So could you talk a bit about that maybe? Thanks, Mike. So it was definitely very Tony Ferguson.

I will say I didn't watch the entire thing because there were a lot of Wi-Fi issues in Salt Lake City, which obviously I'm aware of. I'm not there, but I was on the Media Day circuit, if you will. so when we do that we are watching trying to watch live feeds and just see what's going on and think of how we're going to

put out certain videos if they're going to get articles if they're just going to get video posts that's sort of how we do it and by the time Ferguson jumped on all the Wi-Fi was just shit I know there are some people who had to do multiple streams

it was just it was rough and it drives me insane that when you go and cover a media day and you cover an event like that that you can't get pristine Wi-Fi in there. It just drives me insane. But that's obviously not the media's issue.

Hopefully there's ways around that in the future, but it just drives me freaking nuts. But obviously it's just chucking knives on the table and talking about hunting bears and also... I'm getting BJ Penn vibes, and I don't like it. I don't like it. this whole, I'm the best I've ever been. I'm in my prime.

Like, these are BJ Penn vibes down the stretch of his career, whatever. I was like, no, man, no more fights. Why are you fighting, yeah, you Rodriguez? Why are you doing this? And he just kept saying the same things and just kept getting absolutely run over and melted by everybody that he fought. I didn't love the explanation to the Nate Diaz thing.

Oh, you know, I wasn't taking. taking Nate seriously. What are you talking about? Like, you didn't even know you were fighting Nate until the day before. Like, you were supposed to fight somebody else. So I don't love that vibe from him. It just seems kind of naive. I will say this, like, the more I look at the matchup, Tony could win.

Like, I'm not completely counting him out of this fight. Like, the difference between Tony and BJ is, like, when BJ fought, you just knew he was going to get losing. and you were just hoping that he didn't get brutally chaoed. And while I still have those feelings about Tony Ferguson, and I feel like this could be a very sad moment in watching him compete, there are avenues to victory for him. Like Tony's not going to be affected too much by the altitude.

Tony just has insane cardio. He's a freak. And if Tony just comes out full bore and just puts a high-pay-pay-based, on Bobby Green and can keep it up, get him to the mat. He's got a chance. But I just kind of feel like he's going to get battered for 15 minutes and lose a decision. But yeah, I didn't love what I saw. This has been TOTE like the last few years of these media days.

He's just all over the place. One question leads into a bunch of crazy answers. And I hope like this fight could be fun. I just, I don't know, man. I don't know. We'll see. I just hope I'm not completely shattered when it's all over. Four-quarter sports, hello.

Hey, Mike. Yeah, I mean, I really don't want to see Tony fight five more times. I would say maybe two. No more three, but I just think five is just a ridiculous amount. And I would say three, including this fight against Bobby. green. I think it could be a very, you know, fun fight, but I just concerned of the fact that, you know, what you said he might, I think, didn't he say he ended up regrouping the same team that

he had? I guess when he fought Justin Gehie. If that's the case, I mean, I don't know, hopefully, you know, he has, like a second win, but hopefully that second win doesn't last him too long, so where he's extending his career to the point where he's just getting smashed and in Bruce. really hurt in fights, but yeah, I saw the interview, I'm like, man,

I wasn't really, like, too happy about what I heard. Now, I saw something on Twitter, and it was an interview that Bispink had. Now, Bispink had said something along the

lines of John Jones is incredible. He's one of the greatest of all times, but I don't think he could hold a candle to Tom. When I heard, that, I was like, you know, can we just kind of like relax? Because Tom and Tom Aspen on that are fighting Marcine Tibera. I know that he's a great prospect and stuff like that, but I just feel like, you know, especially like the UK fans, they're overhyping the fact that he ended up getting the victory over Marcyne Tibera in, what was it, like 73 seconds.

I mean, Marcyon Tibera has never been anybody of the ilk that we consider as a top five, top three heavyweight in the world i would just i would hold that sentiment if you know that that bisman if he stopped somebody of a surrogon or somebody inside the top five that way what's it called right now we can get more hype but i have a feeling that bismic is just saying these type of things just to try to you know juice things up and possibly get um john jones's um what's it called um attention but uh last thing is um I wanted to talk about was Alex Vera. I thought it was really funny.

But the whole USADA thing about he saying that USADA ended up following him. I really thought it was a Walmart, what's called employee. But that's really shitty of USADA. I mean, like, can't give the guy any privacy whatsoever, not even shopping at Walmart. And for him to be videotaping him around, just thought it was pretty hilarious. But that's all I got to say. Thanks, Mike. Yeah.

Look, I'm with you. Like, I feel like Asmanal has a really good chance of getting a John Jones fight in the future. I feel like he can get over way more than Pavlovich and Jailton can. I think he's got a personality. I think he's, I think he obviously is huge in the UK. I think that can translate over here in the United States, which is obviously very important for the UFC.

I think he could be a guy that gets John's attention. But to say like, I'll just throw him in there with John now. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. John is intrigued slightly. but John isn't going to be like, isn't going to beat Steepa and be like, you know what? I'm staying and only to fight Tom Aspinall. No, Tom's going to have to do some more work.

He got John's attention, which is good. That's part of the battle because Sergey Pavlovich did not. Was John asked about Pavlovich later on when he was about to go visit Australia? Sure. But John didn't tweet out a single thing after Sergey Pavlovich. which one. He didn't tweet out a single thing after Jeltsin Almeida tap Jarragini Rosenstrike. But he responded to Tom Asperol, and that's a good start.

But yeah, to start fantasy booking that fight right now is a little premature. But we'll see what happens with Tom next. I like the gone Spivak callout. If you want to do Pavlovich, cool. Either way. But he's got to be one of those guys. And if he does the same thing, great. He looked better.

like he looked in better shape, he looked more athletic. Like, he looked good. But that fight, no one was picking marching Tibera to win that fight. No one was picking marching Tibera to get to the second round in that fight. But I think a lot of people expected Tom to kind of just take him down and maybe submit him, but he just, he looked, he looked real good. That's what, it's exactly what you wanted to see from him. It's exactly what you wanted to see from him.

It's exactly what you wanted to see from him. And the prayer thing is just, again, this is why the fighters need to come together because they didn't have a say in this USADA thing, didn't have a say in, we could get you anytime, anywhere. They didn't have a say in any of it. So, but, yeah, crazy-ass video. I'm glad we got a little more,

a little more of an explanation. What's up, Blumen? Good morning, Mike. Have a heck of a morning to you. Thank you. So I just have a few questions. First, who do you think has the most to lose on Saturday? I was thinking maybe the winner of the, or sorry, the loser of the main event.

Because then they'll be out of the title picture. But Derek Lewis and Tony both have a lot to lose, also being on such a losing streak. And Michael Keyessa, as you mentioned before. And I wanted to know since on the MA hour yesterday, G.C. mentioned that Rick's Picks was your favorite work that you've done. So I want to know any other work that you're really proud of. And also wanted to know if you could tell us who, if you're allowed to say right now, who's going to be on BTL later. And yeah, that's it. Huck who are warning to you. Love from Kurosam. Bye. Thanks, man. So I'll go backwards. BTI is going to be me and Jed today. Everybody's like super busy.

So I couldn't get, I literally couldn't get anybody else from my fighting on this week because of everything going on and people being on vacation. So it's not going to be like, we're going to take some questions I think at the end of time allows,

but we're going to just debate, him and I are just going to chop it up. Both the main event on Saturday. Everything going on. Saturday. We'll talk more about Aspinall and a potential fight with John Jones and all that stuff. So 1230, Jed and I shooting the breeze. Mike and Jed sing the blues. It'll be a good time. So join us and we'll try to get some questions that at the end. I mean, the Ricksvix theme was awesome. That was fun. I put that together. I was really into

production back then because I worked in radio. So you don't just, when you work in radio, you don't just go and do a show and then go home. You have to do other things, including production. You have to work with clients to help record commercials. Sometimes the salespeople have different takes on what the message is going to be. So I learned real quick how to do production and put everything in. And I somehow had some extra time one day and I put together the Rick's Fix theme after hearing like Ariel kind of spitball what he was saying like the week before

and then I put it together and played it for Rick while I was hosting a different podcast he was like oh my God this is it and this is like in 2016 I think I made that and to like hear it on the MMA hour and then have like friends of mine who are M.A fans like just text me out of nowhere being like oh my God they just said your name on the MMA hour was pretty cool. That was pretty fun. Yeah, I was pretty proud of that one. I've won some awards for production.

I got a couple of mass broadcasters award plaques for commercials I put together, so I was pretty proud of that. Some heavily produced stuff with a lot of sound effects and imagery, like when you can see things that you hear. I love doing stuff like that. So those are pretty cool.

Most to lose on Saturday, to me, it's got to be either Pori, Gagchi because I feel like the loser of that fight is just cooked from title contention. Not saying they could never get back, but it's just the timing of their careers. Like this kind of seems like the last chance for either of these guys to become a world champion. So I would say that's on the line. Not to say that they can't still have like big fun fights and make good money, but I think that dream of becoming the undisputed lightweight champion of the UFC is on the line for both.

these guys on Saturday. I would say Stephen Thompson has a lot to lose for that same reason. Like, he's clearly not high up on the championship ladder, but he's not out of it. But if he loses in Mitchell Pereira, he's probably out of it. Like the championship dream dies. Derek Lewis, again, I mean, if he loses, it's tough, but a win here doesn't do a Let me just gets him back on track. Maybe get a fun post-fight interview,

but he's not fighting for the world title anytime soon. And people just love Derek. So I don't think he's got a ton on the line here. And you can make a strong case for Alex Pereira too. Just lost the middleweight title. Could have gotten that third fight with Izzy, but decided I'm going up to 205. I'm going to take this chance.

He goes out there and just gets run over by Janbovovich. That is not good. But short answer, it's the main event guys. They have the most to lose for sure because the winner's going to get a title shot probably for the last time ever and the loser may never get back there again

unless something crazy happens. The only other thing I'll say is if let's say Gachi, I'll get to you in a second, let's just say if Gachi beats Porier and Gachi beats Mokachev, like let's say Mokachev, like let's say Mokachev beats Olivera and GaciCi somehow goes out there and runs over his Al-Machachev and wins the belt. I can see Poria Gaii three happening for the title. Other than that, it's going to be tough.

What's up, Viking? Great take, Mike. I think Justin Gage is going to beat Dustin Poree. Dustin Poree looks very, very stagnant against Michael Chandler, in my opinion. So Justin Pocer gets the job done, I think. Who's going to be on the panel of BTL tonight? And pray for my cat. He's injured. Thanks a lot, Mike. Sorry to hear about your cat.

So, yeah, it's going to be Jed and I today, just the two of us, just debating back and forth. So it'll be fun. The debate event's just a tough call, man. It's a tough call. I am leaning Dustin Porre. myself I just think when you have a war like that

one time the winner just gets there's just something to the winner you know like the confidence there like you know that you can beat this guy and you did it five years ago before you were at like your absolute best

and now I feel like Porre is way better and so is Gagie obviously and Gagchi took a lot away from that Porre fight his style overall, like still chaotic, but a little more controlled, it all changed after he got stopped by Dustin Pori. It all changed. I think from a betting perspective, I think you have to bet the dog here.

Like if you're just going to pick a straight up money line pick between these guys, I think they are evenly close to evenly matched. So I think there is value on Justin Gaichie plus money. But if this line flipped and Gaichie became, the favorite and Poria was the dog, I would say Poria is probably the better bet. I just think Poria is better defensively,

even though Gaetje's like shored some things up. And I think Poria is going to kick the legs a little bit more. I know Gaetia's obviously going to kick Poria's legs, so I think we'll see a lot of leg kicking. Poria has a chance to go to the body a little bit more. And I think honestly, if this thing

turns, I think if anyone gets a takedown this fight's got to be Dustin Porre. And if he does, I don't love Porre. I don't love Gaetia off of his back. I really don't. I think Poria has more ways to win this fight. And I just don't know, like, I don't know if this is going to be a complete car wreck,

like the first fight. I think with what's at stake for both guys, is it going to be super fun? Sure. But I think it's going to be a little more calculated than the first one. I think both realize that whoever wins is going to get either Charles Oliverer who has finished both these guys or they're going to get his Lamakachev, who is a tough matchup for both guys. And you want to get into that with your wits about you as best as you can.

Now, are they going to take a little piece of each other in this fight? More than likely, yes. But I do think there's going to be some calculation to both guys' styles. Both guys sort of talked about it at Media Day. Both guys talked about it on first take and ESPN. It is going to be a really fun fight. I just don't think it's going to be an absolute maniacal, just crazy-ass fight.

I think it's going to be really, really, really good and really interesting. But I think Dustin's going to win. And I think it's going to go deep. Could go to the cards. And it's going to be competitive and close. I'm leaning Dustin Porre. I have zero confidence in that pick whatsoever. Because you're dealing with two guys.

Like, Gaichi, like, go back and watch Gaetchi Viziz. Like, Gaichi was more calculated in that fight. Yeah, he got a take down. But there was a point in that fight where Frizeeb, like, hit him. And Gagee didn't love it. And it was like, all right, mofo. You just woke me up. And we got to see, like, kind of the crazier Justin Gachie come back out.

And I think if Dusted Porre can bring that out of him, I think it favors Porreier in a big way. So, boy, it's so interesting, but I'm leaning Porier. But Gatia wins. It will not surprise you whatsoever. Jay Stad, hello. Hello, Mike Heckup from morning to you. You too, ma'am.

How do you see the Jake Matthews fight playing out and also thoughts on Matthew Simmonsberger versus Euros Medi? that'll be all. So, I mean, Jake Matthews probably just going to win a decision. It's kind of how I see it. I just think he's a better fighter than Darius Flowers. He's obviously fought way better competition than Darius Flowers.

I just think it's going to be a veteran savvy decision win. Not a fight we're going to go back and watch again. I don't know if Jake finishes him, but I feel Jake Matthews decision is a fine play. Matthew Sem, look, I like, Eurosvatch is fun. I just think he's got to be completely undersized in this fight. I think Semmelsberger

is the way better athlete in this fight. And yeah, I think Semmelsberg gets the win. I don't know if he gets him out of there. This might go to the cards, but yeah, I like Semmelsberger on that fight.

It should be a fun one, but I just think Semmelsberger is just too big and too powerful and too athletic for Euros manage. Let's go to Cole. What's up, Cole? Good morning, Mike. I completely agree with your assessment of, like, not guaranteeing a total car crash in the main event.

Like, I think people kind of forget about Porier in that first, or that second McGregor fight. And that first round, he kind of, like, went for some takedowns. And there's about three minutes of clinching in that whole first round. So I wouldn't be surprised if Porreux tries to kind of slow it down a little bit. But I just want your thoughts on if Derek Lewis loses this and at Derek Lewis, fashion manner. I don't know. I was listening to BC yesterday.

I don't know how you can matchmake this guy in the UFC anymore. Like that's a real problem. And I just want your expectations. Like what are you thinking for today's press conference? Are we finally going to get like a decent press conference? I used to be super excited for these like every pay-per-view. But I feel like recently it's just been a little lackluster. Just want your expectations on that.

Have a good day. Thanks, man. Um, look, I don't expect anything from these pressors anymore. I don't think Corey and Gaichi are going to, like, start trash talk at each other. Kevin Holland and Kiesa might trash talk a little bit. I think it'll be kind of subdued. I don't know how much, like, I don't know how many media members that kind of go to the pressers and ask weird questions that pissed Dana off.

are going to be there. So this isn't like a Vegas one. So I think it'll be fine. It'll just be like a, the thing I hate about the press conferences now is that these guys just had media day yesterday. So like what else can you ask them that you already haven't heard yet?

You know what I mean? That's what kind of, that's what's kind of tough. Like I miss, I miss the old media day structure. I long for the, the days where we can go back to that, where it's just like the fighters are sitting there, you can just go up and do one-on-ones and have like different kinds of conversations with them.

I got just, we're just getting the same shit. So, and then the press conference is going to be more of the same. Honestly, maybe we'll try to get, I think Holland Kiss, Tony Ferguson's going to be a weirdo.

Bobby Green will probably just kind of go after. We'll kind of just feed right into it. Ferguson Green will be, probably steal the show, but it'll be fine. I don't know. Where does Derek Lewis go if he'd lose? I'm actually, I actually think Derek Lewis is going to win this fight. Like if I, like, if I'm looking money line here, like Derek Lewis is back to plus 185,

I think there's some serious value there. Derek seems healthy. He told a pretty scary story at the media day yesterday about blacking out before he weighed in for the Sergei Speedback fight. Like, if that's true. and I have no reason to believe that Derek Lewis is a liar. Like, how could you allow him to fight? Like, how are you not aware of this?

How could you say, oh, yeah, let's just go ahead with this one? It just seems really strange. And I get where Derek's coming from, from a business perspective, like the fight fell through, like on the day of the fight. The last time they were booked. And then they finally put them back together. And dude's passing out before Wayans. He didn't want to like let the UFC down again and have to pull out the day before.

So yeah, it's tough. Seems in a good place. But if he loses, sheesh. I don't know why we haven't gotten Derek Lewis Jarzino yet. Like that one just seems like it could happen at some point. You just chuck them in there with like the Romanov's of the world? Like I don't want to see that. I don't know.

I do feel like Derek Lewis is going to win this fight though. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? 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. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here.

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What's up, CV? CV are you there? All right, I'm not getting you. What about Chase? What's up, Mike? Can you hear me? Yep, what's up? So I've got a question about the elevation in Salt Lake City was a big talking point during

the card last year. Do you think that's something that camps and gyms are going to be preparing for and have it at the front of their mind going into this car? that is all. Thanks, Mike. I'm sure some of them are. I'm sure that's something that people have discussed. How can you not?

I don't think it's going to have a huge factor on the main event just because, I mean, look, Gaiji trains in Denver. Dustipori is, like, he gets it. It's not like, well, I'm not going to take this seriously. He talked about sleeping in those sort of high elevation machines or whatever that somebody sent him and he was sleeping at 5,000 feet. Like, I know it's different when you get in there and fight. I think these two are just going to sort of weather each other's storms for a while.

So whether it's in Salt Lake City or Vegas or wherever, I think how they're going to be down the stretch is going to be kind of the same. I'm not sure if it'll affect the co-meant events. It could certainly affect the Stephen Thompson-Michel Pereira fight. I'm curious to see what Pereira does. because obviously his best path of victory is to wrestle Stephen Thompson and just take him down. But even like if he does that for seven or eight minutes and just spends all his energy trying to keep Stephen on his back, like how much is that going to take out of him? So I do think there could be a factor there.

Could be in the Ferguson Green fight down the stretch. And it'll certainly play a factor in the Derek Lewis, Marcus, Ruggiero, to Lima fight if it gets out of the first round. So, yeah, I think the fighters are somewhat prepared for it. The ones that are like the wily vets, the ones that it could affect, I think they're ready for it. But there are certainly names that I'm curious about it. It certainly affected Jose Al though when he fought Maraub de Wallis-Willi. But even Poria said, like, look, I've trained here, I've ran, I've climbed mountains and all that shit. And I don't feel any different at all.

So some people deal with the different. Some people don't feel it. Some do. some do i would uh i did a like the crossfit workout today uh one of the the women that does did the class this morning brought in i think he's like 12 years old he's a wrestler travels around the country and does a bunch of wrestling tournaments um his he wants to be a ufc fighter so his mom is like oh you know what mike does for a living he does this so he asked me like a million questions uh and he told me that he traveled a salt lake city for wrestling tournament

tournament and he had to cut like four pounds for his matches and said even just cutting the four pounds he felt it he felt the difference I know he's young but even cutting four pounds for him just going for a run he felt it in his chest he felt it a little bit more he felt it a lot more than in other places so I think it just affects everybody differently but I don't think it'll be for the major matchups here I think Pereira is a big one I think Kiesa will be an interesting one. Maybe Bobby Green. I don't think it'll factor the main event at all.

And maybe it affects the cold main event. Maybe, I don't know. I guess you're going to have to wait and see. But I'm sure the fighters are well versed on. Oh, crap. We're fighting an altitude. TV, do we have? Oh, Mike.

Can hear me? Good morning. Good morning. Heck of a morning. I hopped on this league. Have you guys talked about Vicente Leuke yet? Yeah, it's kind of a weird one. We haven't talked about it.

Yeah, no. I just want to comment on that. I know, like, we're heading into Fight Week. I mean, I'm into Saturday. We've got some big fights coming up. But you guys, I don't know if you guys seen in the news, but, like, he had a brain average. He suffered from that Jeff Neal fight last year.

And he's fighting in, like, a couple weeks, too. And, like, I'm kind of surprised they didn't retire after that because, like, that's some pretty scary stuff, man. But, yeah, I just want to get your thoughts on that. I mean, yeah, I'm sorry. he wasn't even aware that was happening. Because obviously we when we know these commission meetings are coming up,

we saw Luke A's name on the list. And I was like, the hell is this? Is this, did he test positive? Like, what was it? Then we found out what it was, but he was cleared. So, I mean, look, we've seen fighters come back from moya moya. Josiah Harrell's kind of dealing with that right now.

I don't think it was this. I just think that's something that just accumulated over time. he got cleared. So, yeah, it's a weird situation and hopefully he's okay. Someone did comment when I was talking about the Derek Lewis thing. I'm sure the doctors cleared him.

Not Dana. Well, obviously. But still, you have to, at some point, just be like, yo, this dude shouldn't be fighting. He's falling down. He's blacking up or passed out before weighing in.

Like, sometimes he's just got to put your corporate foot down and be like, yo, just doing any fight. And this is just like a big fight between like the fighter and they, I don't know. It's just sometimes you just get an air on the side of caution. Like was anybody hankering to watch Derek Lewis fight Sergei Spiebac at 2 o'clock in the fucking morning? Like that's that, because I believe, wasn't that the card where that was supposed to be

in like South Korea, all the road to the UFC cards? All of the road to the UFC fights, right? and then they ended up fighting like 2.30 in the month like that card was trash anyways and it was like a slog to even get there. So it's not like you were losing a whole lot

losing that fight but I don't know maybe it just it was concerning hearing Derek talk about it because Derek is not the type of guy that shows a lot of emotion but you can tell like that whole thing freaked him out. I just don't know

and I'm I don't blame. I don't know. I blame a lot of people for that. The dude shouldn't have been fighting. The dude's passing out as a heavyweight before getting to the scale for a five-round fight. He shouldn't be fighting.

But that's just by two cents. Luckily, Derek says he's already on weight now. At least he said that yesterday. And we'll see how he does tomorrow morning. But, all right. Last call for calls. And then I got to roll out of here. So the card is Morena Maverick, Priscilla Cacrucciua, that's going to kick things off.

Matthew Semmelisbury, Yoros Mnich, Sergei, Vergara, Venetia Salvador, Jake Matthews, Darius, Darius, Dario, and then we get Derek Lewis, Marcus Jury de Lima, featured prelim, Gabriel Bonfim versus Trevin Giles. And then we get to the main card, which is real, real good. Kiesa Holland, Ferguson Green, Thompson Pereira, Bohovic Pereira, Poria Gaei, Gaei, too. It's just going to be a fun-ass main card. I get why Derek Lewis, Marcus is not the featured prelim, because that could end very, very quickly,

or it could be just 15 minutes of pain. But it's heavyweight, so it's kind of funny. But I don't know. Hopefully that fight is super-ass, super fun. Yes, 4 on Sniper. Hey, heck, good morning. Two things. What time is the watch party going to be starting?

on Saturday. I guess if you guys are Eastern time. Yeah, just what time, Eastern time for you guys? And then assuming Islam beats Charles, who do you think has the better shot of beating him? Would it be Dustin or Justin? I feel like Dustin Poirier has the better skill set. But then again, I don't know if you can really compare it to Justin's grit

because I don't know. I don't even know how to put it in words. Justin's just tough, and I can see him finding a way. to get it done against pretty much anyone at 155. That's what I make. All right. So watch fire is to start 9.45 p.m. Eastern.

We usually do like a five-minute countdown at 9.45 and then we go live at like 9.50. Sometimes there's a fight going on. Sometimes we're reacting something. Like the last one we got to react to Robbie Lawler retiring with like the best retirement ever. So that was a pretty cool way to start it. So it'll start. We'll probably go live at like 950 and put the content will start.

around 945. As far as who is the better chance of beating Islam? It's probably Porier. I mean, I'm picking, honestly, I would, I would pick Islam to be both of them. I think Porre is better off of his back.

I think he's a better grappler than Justin Geish. Like, I understand Justin is a, you know, a highly-tarded wrestler. He's got really good takedown defense, but if you take Justin down, he is not great at getting back up.

So it could be one of those situations where if Islam takes Justin down, like early, within the first seven minutes, it could be a really, really rough night for him. I would pick Islam to be both, but I would, I'd give the slight edge to Porre. I just think he's just, he's a little more defensively sound. It's better getting up off of his back when he gets taken down, more of a submission threat, not that Islam's going to really have to worry about that, but at least Porier is

a little more squirrel. off his back to be able to at least get back up to his feet and get to his striking exchanges. Gage is not as good as that. It is very difficult to take Justin Gagey down for sure. But if you do take him down, he's not great at getting back up. So that's why I slightly lean poor, but I would pick his on my good side of them. And there you go.

All right, everybody, we are done so. Thank you very much. We'll be back tomorrow. 10 a.m. Eastern, we will do it again. A quick programming note. There will be no show on Tuesday because I will be traveling to Dallas. So can't travel and do the show at the same time. So we'll figure out something.

I might just like, I might like pre-record something on Monday. Like I'll solicit some questions and I'll just do like a read them off Q&A. I'm supposed to be talking to the great Kenny Florian on Monday as well. maybe I'll just parlay your questions and that interview into some show we can drop on Tuesday and then we'll come back on Thursday and Friday and do shows while I'm in Dallas. That'll be fun. That'll be fun. And then BTL today at 1230.

Hopefully BTL is extra fun next week. We're going to try to work on some details this weekend when I'm in New York. But hopefully BTL can be like really, really cool next week. But thank you all very much. Back tomorrow, 10 a.m. Eastern. Have a great rest of your Thursday. And as always, have a heck of a morning.