MMA Fighting - HOAM | Would Israel Adesanya vs. Bo Nickal Be a Competitive Fight Right Now?

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

On Thursday's edition of Between the Links, MMA Fighting's Damon Martin had a hot take prediction that stirred up a lot of debate: If Bo Nickal fought UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya, would Nickal actually win? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck takes listener calls about that take, and puts a slight tweak on it by discussing whether or not it would be a competitive fight right now. Additionally, listener topics include Islam Makhachev's road to his UFC 280 title shot in comparison to Khabib Nurmagomedov's, what is going on with Jon Jones, Frankie Edgar's potential retirement fight booked for UFC 281 at Madison Square Garden against Chris Gutierrez, ONE Championship's reported financial struggles, what current Bellator or PFL champions would have the best chance to defeat a current UFC champion, and more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 10 a.m. ET on the MMA Fighting Twitter Spaces. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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. The Vox Media Podcast Network.

October 7th, 2022, and it is indeed a heck of a morning live on the MMA fighting Twitter spaces. You can hear the show at its entirety shortly thereafter on the MMA fighting podcast. Excuse me, podcasting network. Get a little scratch in my throat, allergy season, just crushing me in South Carolina right now. But I am Mike Heck. Thank you for joining us live. Thank you for listening after the fact if you're doing so that way.

It is Friday, which means we let our hair down, at least those of us with hair. I unfortunately have lost that battle a long time ago, and I have accepted that. But it's a free-for-all Friday. we're going to talk about MMA. We'll talk about whatever the hell you want. So if you have a question about whatever,

just go ahead and line up and we'll just have a good time. Few things have gone down since we last spoke. Uriah Hall no longer retired from combat sports. He's going to be boxing former NFL running back Levy on Bell, October 29th on the Jake Paul. versus Anderson Silva card. That is an interesting piece of news right there. We found out the fights between

Hafieldo Sanjos and Brian Barbarina is official for UFC Orlando. That card coming together. I think there's only maybe one or two more fights that need to be added. I know there's one fight that's sort of in the works. Looks like Penn has gone to paper. I'm hoping to get more information on that later on today. and when we gain one fight, we lose another. We found out that Danny Rodriguez has an elbow infection.

So now he is out of his UFC Vegas 62 fights with Neil Magny, which is a big bummer because that was one of the fights that was really the glue to this entire card. Very interesting matchup. It's probably the best fight on paper if we're being. honest and that one no longer happening. Not sure if Neil's going to fight. Doesn't seem like he's all that interested in competing. Looks like they just want to rebook that one and we'll see what happens there.

And then we found out a question that we have been pondering on this show for quite some time. We finally got our answer. We confirmed last night a report from the UFC broadcast partner, ESPN, that Frankie Edgar's expected retirement fight is set for UFC 281 at Madison Square Garden. In a little over a month's time, he's going to fight Chris Gutierrez on that card. So interesting booking. I actually like the matchup. It's good for both guys because it's a winnable fight for Frankie.

Chris does have great striking, some good power as well. he's an incredible leg kicker. So I think it's a fight that Frankie can win. And if Gutierrez wins, he's on a really good run right now, a really good unbeaten streak. This could be the kind of win that kind of gets him into the top 15, perhaps, and gets him into some bigger fights because I feel like he's deserved that. So that's some of the latest news that we got going on right now.

But there's other things that are being discussed as well. so let's just go to you guys free for all Friday we can talk about that stuff we can talk about MMA we can talk about anything else we can talk about the MMA media space whatever floats your boat Tristan kick us off my question is that I have for you today

I saw the chatter going back and forth between Shafcom and Rachmanov and Jeff Neal on the tweet and on the Twitter actually Jeff Neal had said all right be careful what you wish for i already had my team contact sean as we speak let's get this done and then um shuff con said respect my brother see you soon so i mean

hypothetically i don't know if that fight's going to be made we'll see but hypothetically how do you see that matchup moving forward um we already know i mean listen we saw jeff nil probably had one of his greatest fights against vicente lukeh um also a respect respect the coach that he has Saif, Sayyud. He's a great coach. He has great fighters that are coming up

very well and winning a lot of fights. Shafkaqqq Rahmano, again, I've expressed this a lot. He's my favorite fighter to watch, but there's still questions about him that we don't have answered yet. Yes, you know, he beat a great fighter

and Jeff and, excuse me, Neil and Magny, but, you know, there's, I think, around some people, in the MMA community, there's still questions about him. They're still not sure. You know, the potential is there. Like, this guy can be champion and defend it for a while,

but we still have questions about it. So how do you see that fight going, hypothetically, in your mind? And who do you think will win that fight? Thanks for everything, Mike. Have a heck of a morning. Thanks, man. Yeah, I saw the chatter yesterday. I was kind of out of the loop for a few hours last night

because I was playing softball and half our team decided not to show up. So we had to play like three infielder's. So usually I play shortstop for this team. So I basically had to cover like the entire middle infield. So it just kicked the living hell out of me because I don't think I've run that much in a long time. But that's neither here nor there.

But I did see this. And this is, I feel like Shafkatz just got such, an advantage over almost everybody right now. He's just so good. And Jeff Neal did look great against Ficcente Lucke, and, you know, Jeff's a great striker. He could wrestle a little bit if he wants to, but he's certainly not going to try to wrestle Shafkat Rachmanoff. And I don't even know if he has, like, a distinct striking advantage over Shafkat Rukmanoff.

So kudos to Jeff Neal, if he does actually take this fight. I actually liked the callout. I actually liked the callout of Gilbert Burns. Excuse me. I'm trying to do a million things at once, trying to confirm things at the same time. I liked the Gilbert Burns callout after the win over for Sente Lucke. I think it made a lot of sense. But it just seems like, it just seems like that's not going to happen. It seems like Gilbert Burns is going to try to get that, that Mazadol

fighting. Who knows if that's going to happen? I'm hopefully going to talk to Jorge Mazadol next week. in person, so hopefully we can get some answers there. But again, Mazadol is dealing with the court stuff and not really sure when he's going to be able to fight. I would say doubtful that he fights this year unless they settle this thing. So, yeah, I don't know.

So I think this is probably the best case scenario for Jeff Neal because if he beats, if he beats Scott Rahmana, that's a huge win. And I know there's still questions about the guy, but the hype behind him is real. And, yeah, but I think Shopkot wins that fight. I think he probably finishes Jeff Neal as well because he finishes pretty much everybody he fights.

So, yeah, good fight. Be a great test for Jeff Neal, and I'll tell you what, if he beats Shafcott, then he could probably get that Gilbert's fight. Or something big. He would definitely deserve it. Let's go to AA,

and then we'll go to Sentinels next. I got you. Hello. Yes, I have you. Okay, how are you doing? Good. Okay, my sister simple one. Where does Wonderboy go if he loses to Kevin Holland?

Does he possibly retire? What does he do? Have a good day. Cheers. I don't think Wonderboy will retire if he loses to Kevin Holland. Wonderboy, you know, he has a million things going on in his world. He is a he's a karate instructor before anything else. He helps his dad run that team and that business.

And that's his full-time gig. He fights because he enjoys fighting. And of course, if you compete in a professional sport, you want to be the best at it, you want to fight for a world title and all that. And I know that's something that Wonderboy would love to accomplish if he gets the opportunity. He's had a couple of chances to fight for the belt,

came up short. Heading into the Gilabird's fight, there was a lot of sentiment that if he won that fight, he would get a title shot. He ended up losing that fight, and then he lost up a lull. But, yeah, I don't, I don't, it just depends.

If there's fun, exciting fights for him, especially with fellow strikers, I think he'll keep going. But I just don't know if Wonderboy is the kind of guy. It's just going to be like, well, I lost a couple of fights. I'm just going to retire now. He just doesn't strike me as that kind of guy.

But what he just, for him, if he just stops enjoying fighting, then he'll stop. But again, this isn't his primary thing. He does a lot of content. He's now getting into the acting world. If you watch the latest season of Cobra Kai, you saw a Wonderboy on there. So I think he's going to be fine. And fighting's just kind of, it's not a hobby, but it's not his full-time thing. fighting is just something he loves to do.

And when that love fades, then he will as well. But I just don't think it has faded just yet. Now, if he goes out there and just gets brutally knocked out by Kevin Holland, maybe he has different discussions with his dad and other members of his team, people that he's close to. But, yeah, I don't think of loss to Kevin Holland necessarily gets him out of the sport. because there's still interesting names, interesting matchups for him at 170. It may not be with title implications, but there's still certainly some fun fights for him.

Let's go to Sentinels. The wheel is spinning. Hopefully we can get them. I know Twitter is kind of wonky for some folks. There we go. I think I hear him. Sentinels. How are you?

I had a question, but I forgot it when you said, fucking Stephen Wonder Boy Thompson was in Cobra Cat. I must have missed that. Yeah, he doesn't have like a big speaking role, but him and Tyrone Woodley are both in this season. So I think you kind of notice it

when they're in the dojoes and stuff, but I mean, Tired Woodley gets like fingers chopped off and stuff, but Wonderboy doesn't have like a role that big, but he is in the season. All right. I'm going to have to leave that. I'm going to go watch that. You guys have a good morning. I've got to go find that.

There you go. Yep, he is in the season. A little salt and pepper going on up top. Wonderboy's the man. I have a lot of respect for Wonderboy. He is a guy that, honestly, when I was coming up in this game, and I was struggling to get interviews with bigger names, Wonderboy was one of the first guys who gave me a chance.

And he's a guy that I've been speaking to pretty consistently over the last six years or so. I remember the first time we talked It was before he got booked to fight Johnny Hendricks And then we had a lot of conversation sins He talked a lot before his title fights at Tyra Woodley Just a great dude Just such a good guy I'm hoping to try

I don't know if we're going to be able to do it this year But I'm hoping sometime in the next Six to eight months Maybe a year I want to play golf with Wonderboy and Chris Wyatman We've already discussed maybe putting something together and it's like a three-hour drive from where I'm at. So, yeah.

I see R. This dude R keeps trying to jump in. I'm trying to go to him because I know he was here early, but then he just keeps vanishing. So I can't, I can't go to him. Let's go to Latino Heat. Hello, Latino Heat. Hello, hello, hello.

Big fan of the show. I was just wondering that about the Wonder Boy Kevin Holland fight. Most people say that fight is a fight that most people don't want to see from my perspective. Wait, who said that? Who said that? Well, a couple YouTubers because they said that Wonder Boy, like they're using them just like how they were trying to use Nate, um, Diaz to hype up like,

he's on his way out, because he's in his, like, end of his stage of his fighting career, that they're just trying to use them to build, like, um, Kevin hauling up since he's been on the losing street.

Okay. I mean, do you feel that way? I'm not going to say 100%, but a bit because you got to be low-key, realistic. Okay. All right.

Thank you, Latino. You're welcome. I don't, I don't buy into that thing. because by the way, Wonderboy actually called for this fight. He had sort of had a list of guys that he ran off because there were reports out that the UFC wanted to book him versus Shopcott Rachmanoff, which would have just been a friggin nightmare for him. And he had done some interviews talking about how, listen, I pretty much fought guys who grounded me the last two fights.

I want to get in there with a striker. And obviously Shopcott Rachmanoff, who he can strike, but that's not his bread and butter. Wonderboy is probably going to get taken to the ground. and stopped pretty quickly in that fight. So he mentioned Kevin Holland by name, and when I talked to Kevin about it, he loved the fight too. So both guys wanted it,

and I think it makes sense. Now, it just depends on how Kevin Holland approaches this fight. If Kevin Holland approaches this fight, like, I'm going to stand there and strike with this dude the entire time, then it is an interesting fight. I think it's a competitive matchup, and I think it's a fight Wonderboy could win. but if Kevin Holland decides to mix the martial arts,

he's not a great defensive wrestler. He's not great at defending takedowns. He's getting better. Obviously, when you're fighting Humsat Shemayev, when you were preparing to fight Daniel Rodriguez, he did his damnedest to try to scramble out of that situation that he was put in at that fight last month, but Kevin can take Wonderboy down too.

Kevin's a pretty decent offensive wrestler. and once he gets on top of you, he's pretty dangerous up there. So it all depends on, like, how he approaches this fight. And it wouldn't stun me if Holland's like, yeah, man, I'm just going to go in there and have fun and strike with this dude. And then it's a competitive fight. Not saying that he can't go out there and stop Wonderboy on the feet, because Kevin Holland's a very good striker.

He's a powerful dude, but we'll see what happens. I like the fight. I think it makes perfect sense. And if Kevin Holland was... again, I've talked about this before. What Kevin Holland did with this quote unquote retirement, what him and his management team did with all of it,

it was frigging brilliant. It was brilliant. And now he gets the fight he wants and he gets to headline a card in front of a bunch people and yeah, I thought they did a fantastic job with this whole situation. So good on them.

For getting that done. But I'm looking forward to it. I'm hoping I get to go there and cover that event because Orlando is not that far from me. And I can just drive there and stay with my parents who have a house about 45 minutes from Orlando. So save the company some mullah. Viking. Hello, Mike.

There we go. Hello. CEO of MMAfighting.com. How are you, man? I'm great. How are you? I'm good, Mike. Mike, just tell me who decides the topic of BTL. I usually do.

Oh, I do. That's absolutely right, because last night you guys have made it absolutely banger, and I don't really get if Jed Mishu is there or not as a fan, because we still have you, Drake Riggs, A.K. Jose Young's, New York Rake, Damon, Martin. I knew it was your thinking. Nobody can think like that.

I didn't miss J. and do you have any do you have any news about Blythe Mitchell and Mouse or evil of fight has been cancelled and one more thing about Wonderboy is that he's going

to continue in next season of Cobra Kai. They've saved his role for the bigger appearance for the next season. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, sir. Yeah, maybe Wonderboy can take over Cobra Kai and he can he can lead the crew that that'd be something seeing Wonderboy play kind of a heelish role in a speaking part that'd be pretty fun it's very under Wonderboy like he'd have to really bust out the acting chops for that yeah BTL was fun yesterday we decided to mix it up a little bit because sometimes that show gets a little stagnant we had no UFC we got no big MMA card this weekend so figured we're about to hit a very pivotal stretch for the rest of the year.

This is when the UFC really puts the foot on the gas and some of these other promotions put the foot on the gas in terms of putting these big fights together and potential big performances and so forth and so on. So we figured let's just kind of lay out the final chase for the 2020 year end awards that we're going to have on MAFighting.com, which you'll find pretty much universally across combat sports website sites are around the world. and we just had some fun and laid some out. And we didn't need Jed for the hot takes

because Damon Martin dropped one of the biggest hot takes of the year on BTL when he said that Bo Nickel could beat Israel out of Sanya right now. He said a lot of people like took it out of context because you just saw the clip of it. But we were just talking about who could be the fighter of the year. And Damon was like, hey, just real quick, like let's just say Alex Pereira can't fight and they can't find an opponent for Israel

and Bo steps it on short notice. Beau would be the fighter of the year, and he feels like if Bo stepped down in short notice, he could beat out of Sunday. I don't know if I necessarily agree with that. I think we need to pump the break slightly on that whole thing, but, I mean, if Beau fought easy right now, it's competitive.

Like, it's a competitive fight. I don't know if I have the fortitude to pick Boe-Nickle to win, but there's no way that fight's not competitive. That fight is competitive, at least for a little while because Izzy's is just so durable and he's tough to get down, he's tough to put away, and yeah, I mean, it's competitive.

I'm not willing to go out on my shield and say that Bo would win that fight, but he's competitive with pretty much anybody right now, even with three pro flights. The Evloi of Mitchell stuff, I addressed this earlier this week, but for those who missed it, I'll talk about it. There was a report from,

from Georgia, someone in the, the Georgian media space who said he had, he was told and he had heard that Mazzar of Loyaf got hurt in training. And of Lovloev is headlining the November 5th card against Bryce Mitchell, which by the way is the right call. That is the fight that should be the main event. 100%. It's a great fight. I reached out to some folks. As of now, the fight is still on. I was told from the ofloyev side that it wasn't a false report, but Bovzar is fine, and as of now,

he is all, all in on this fight November 5th. So not in jeopardy from what I'm told. Was there some sort of slight injury? Yes, but apparently it's not enough to put the fight in any kind of serious jeopardy right now. As of now, the fight is going forward.

I was told, the exact wording for, from the source that I spoke to was it's not false, but he's fine. So I think we're good to go there. So hopefully that stays put because that fight frigging rules. 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. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ. Built for breakthroughs with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Lift with conference.

confidence while Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross-training Treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. Let's go to Zeke. Octagon blogs on deck. What's up, Zieg? Oh, then, Mike. I'm in the car.

Can you hear me? I'll be short and sweet on this heck of a Friday. I can hear you. Very well. So let's go. I mean, I got what I wish for. I mean, I'm probably the only guy who will continuously come in here and talk about Thank you, Edgar, but here I am again.

All right. Chris Gutierrez, at the Guard, and absolutely love it. I don't think they couldn't have picked this fight better. You know what I mean? This is a guy who's a little bit relevant, a guy who doesn't really have that knockout power, and a guy I think Frankie should be able to handle. So I'm very excited for that.

And then you just follow up what the last caller, I'm pretty sure, was Viking came in and said. I love this of a boy of Mitchell fight. I really, really hope we don't lose it. Do you think, I mean, I know this is a bit of a betting question, but do you think the line is going to be a, afflicted now and we're going to see a big move after this injury. What are your thoughts maybe?

If you don't want to talk about the line, maybe just talk about the camp and, you know, their different fighting styles and matchups now that there is a, you know, an injury in this fight. Thank you, Mike. Have a heck of a week. Thank you, sir. I'm trying to, let me see if we have betting lines for that one yet. I'm looking on Giraff Kings.

It's nothing really listed. but let's go to my go-to, which is best fight odds. It doesn't look like there's any lines out for that card yet. Oh, okay, wait a minute. They're just like out of order. I'm not seeing any betting lines here. That's very strange.

Trying to give you the meat here. Let's see where we're at. Let's pull this up. maybe this maybe this has it maybe our friends at odd sharks have it um so Bryce a bit okay so as of right now it opened at Bryce Mitchell minus 122 mobs are of loyaf minus 109 so it's basically a coin flip fight and that's how I view it as well I mean this is a great fight this is a fight that kind of teeters on do we want to see it now or is this something we wanted to see down the road maybe a number one contender fight,

maybe a title fight down the road. But with the way this featherweight division is shaping up right now and with all the insurity with what Volcanovsky is going to do, is he going to stick around to 145, he's going to go up to 155. This is a huge fight. One of these guys has a great chance to break out. And this is a great five-round fight. This is a fantastic main event.

And it looks like Mitchell's a slight favorite, but I have a feeling by the time we get to fight night, I mean, we're going to be at a complete impasse, a complete pickum. Both their wrestling is exceptional. Their ground games are exceptional. Bryce's striking is getting a little better. Like a lot of people just look at Bryce as just a straight grappler, but he was hitting Edson with some shots when he ran over at some Barboza.

And if Lov can crack too, I think of Lov is the better striker. He's definitely the more technical striker. but it's the ground exchanges that we're definitely going to see in this fight. And it's just, I guess my biggest question is, can Mavzar of Lov's gas tank hold up to Bryce Mitchell's gas tank? Because we've seen the game change when it comes to wrestling a lot more with guys, Bryce Mitchell especially, which is why I favored him to just beat at some Barbosa

almost exactly the way that he did. He just doesn't stop. if he doesn't get the first take down he shoots for a second one if he doesn't get the second one he goes a different angle goes for the third one fourth fifth six and he's just gonna keep chaining them together until he gets you to the ground and when he gets you to the ground it is a nightmare with that man on top of you and he could do this we've seen him do it for three rounds without breaking a sweat i have a hard time believing he can't do it for five it's just a matter of kind of loyves gas tank hold up to his and that was the

a lot of, and that was, I still scored the Sarukyon Gammot fight for Surukyon. Again, it's not a robbery. If you wanted to score it the other way, I ain't going to be mad at you for it. But the big difference in that fight was Gamrot was a little bit fresher down the end. And I, down the stretch. And I think when some of those rounds, or they were really, really close, they saw Sirukion taking some deeper breaths. And they saw Gamrot, who obviously was taking some breaths themselves.

a little less gassed out. And I think that made an impression on the judges, if we're being honest. So that's my biggest question in this fight. I think if Loyav on paper is a more complete fighter, but what Bryce does so well can be such a problem for a lot of guys in this division. So can't wait for it. Five rounds is super fascinating. I'm ready.

I am ready. Let's go to Octagon Blog. I'm good. How are you? to discuss with you the following. Aspen led, she left the UFC, or she was cut, and directly she signed with PFL. I witnessed at the fight against Tonya Evinger,

and also back to back, I saw her against Shigerra Eubanks in Rochester. That's a couple of years ago. It seems that she has a very bad entourage. You know, it exploded in the fight against Norma, a couple of years later, racist incident. I like to hear your take on her coaching and her entourage because I think she is like, I don't want to say under pressure, but it seems that people control her. That's my opinion. I want to hear your opinion. Thank you and good luck. I mean, it's an interesting

question. I know Jim West took a lot of heat for the way he cornered Aspen Lad in that Norma Dumont fight. I honestly, I didn't have a big issue with it. I didn't have a big issue with it. I really didn't. And I talked to other coaches about this. I've heard James Krause yell way worse things to his male fighters, Grant Dawson in particular over the years, that were way worse than what Jim West is doing to Aspen Ladd.

No one talked about that. So, and I think if Misha Tate didn't tweet out what she tweeted that night, I don't think this is as big of a story as it became. Having said that, I have talked to Aspen about this. her and Jim West are together. They're a couple. So some people frown upon that. Sometimes fighters can thrive off of that. Others can't when you're dating somebody who is actually your head coach.

And Aspen's eyes, it's not that big of an issue. She didn't think if there was anything wrong with Jim's coaching because I've asked to point blank about it and the criticism that he got. And she defended him, which I'm not surprised that she did. and Jim would probably tell you the same thing. So I don't know, man. Like, I think it's, I think it's one of those things. Aspen Ladd is an incredibly talented fighter.

She's got the skills. There's no doubt about it. And when Aspen is on, she is very difficult to beat. We've seen it many times. I think Aspen's issue, and she'll probably say this herself, and she told me this with the Norma Dumont fight, she just wasn't there mentally. It's between the ears for her.

And maybe it's just her being in the UFC. and the pressures of all of that. And who knows? Sometimes when these fighters have tough runs in the UFC, they go on to other promotions and they find success. And maybe this is what's going to happen for Aspen Ladd. Now, if I am the PFL, I am not booking those two together right now. I know they have this pay-per-view model,

the superfight pay-per-views that they're going to do starting next year, and me feeling that the PFL is going to do PFL things, the first pay-per-view is probably going to be putting those two together. And I don't like it. I don't like it. If you're going to do it, because I know Aspen Ladd is going to fight at 145. If you're going to do it because that's the only chance you can get either fighter at 145,

then I guess we don't really have a choice here. But if they bring, if they're bringing Aspen Lad in to fight at 145, with the purpose of doing a featherweight tournament in a featherweight season, you can't match them up right away. That's something you have to build towards. Let Aspen do her thing,

let Kayla do hers, and hopefully the chips fall where they may, and these two can fight in the finals. You have to build that thing up. You got to build that thing up, because let's be honest. I think Aspen's a talented fighter, but there aren't a lot of people out there

who feel like Aspen's going to beat Kayla Harrison right now. So we've got to build this thing up a little bit. We've got to build it up a little bit. But we'll see how the PFL handles it. We'll see if they're going to do a featherweight season. We'll see if they're just going to go right to pay-per-view with this fight. I don't know. I don't know.

But I don't think she's changing her entourage anytime soon. Let's go to Yaya. What's up, Big Mike? How you doing, man? How you doing? I'm good. Question for you. we know there's like a lot of questions in the heavyweight division.

You know, we don't know when Stapia is going to come back or we don't know when John Jones is going to come back. And then we don't know what Nagano is going to do in terms of his contract and everything. Do you think that in John Jones's return, you think it's fair to say that he has a kind of like a just as just a first like good heavyweight bout before a title shot? or do you think that should be straight away? Because, you know, we're all waiting for him to come back and it's been like two years. And we see these training videos of his transition into heavy weight and everything. And we're just like, okay, when is he coming back? You know, so do you think he should have a two-no fight in that sense?

And also, who do you think would be a good first fight for Muhammad Usman? Let me see. So the Jones thing, no, he doesn't need a two-no fight. When you are considered the greatest fighter of all time, and you vacated your title to move up a weight class and have not competed in a couple of years, especially during the pandemic when the UFC really needed you. He is not going to be given any sort of a tune-up fight.

They're just going to throw him right into the fire. And I've talked about this a lot. At this point, it's all on Francis and Ghana right now. It's all on Francis. If Francis resigns before the deadline, he's fighting John Jones. that's the one because any sort of resigning, renegotiation

is going to have two things. The number one important thing he's going to want is to fight John Jones. And number two is the Tyson Fury stuff, the UFC giving him a little more leeway to pursue other things. But if he comes back and he's not fighting John Jones, and what's the point of resigning?

That's the fight. That's what we're building towards. I mean, what else does Francis Ngano have to do? do right now. He's beaten and knocked out some of the biggest names in the history of this division. John Jones is kind of like, if he's got the Stepe fight, you can do the trilogy at some point. It's kind of a back pocket fight. Who knows what's going on in Stepey. But for Francis, Francis's team, his manager, his coaches, everybody wants the John Jones fight. That's the one. The UFC wants it. and the more the closer we get to the end of the year,

the more I feel like they're not going to do John Jones versus Stepe. And if they do that, if that fight is booked, then that tells me that Francis is not resigning. Because at this point, like, what are we doing here? We're building towards this big fight. Why book John versus Stepe unless you are just extremely desperate and you can't get another fight to headline December 10th or some of these upcoming cards?

but I just, I feel like the UFC should just wait, especially the guy like John, who's so volatile. He's so unpredictable. You never know what this guy's going to do, and you never know what kind of trouble he can get into and all that. It's so risky every time you put him on the card, especially when you create these posters with his face on it. You just don't know if he's going to show up to the actual fight.

So if we can get John and Steve, or excuse me, John versus Inganer right away, I think the UFC is going to try to get there. So no tune-up fight. I think maybe a year ago or earlier this year, I think the Stepe thing was an option, but the longer we go here, the more time that passes,

the less likely I see that fight happening. Now, I don't have a ton of insight. I just know that John and Stepe, December 10th, is probably not going to happen. And at this point, if it's not going to happen, then that means that the UFC is just hoping that they can get Francis locked up. and we can just go right to that big fight

because that's the one everybody wants. One of the biggest fights in the history of the company. Don, what's up, man? What's going on, Mike? How are you doing, man? I hope you're having a too sweet day. All that jazz is free fall of Friday. So you know, I get my wrestling question in there, but I'm also going to ask the MMA question.

Kind of like it's a spot-up one. I always believe that to be like one of the best MMA fighters, consider one the best. You got to be very well-rounded. Like Jones is a very well-wined fighter. He can beat you up on that. feet beat you up on the ground. Same whatsoever.

If you were an MMA fighter, what would you specialize in? You can't say that you would just be good at everything. Is there like a style that like, is it Samba? Is it a striking style? What would you base your style off of if you were a fighter? What do you think is the most effective way? And my second question is a question about heels and faces, man. We already know some people, some superstars were better as faces.

Some were better as hills. Hogan revitalized his whole career when he stopped saying, dude. and start calling himself the Woodmaster. So who for you is your top face of all time and then your top heel of all time? And they can't be the same. Have a good day, man. Keep stepping on that done again.

And yeah, man, heck of a morning, day, week, year, month, all that stuff, man. Hmm. I mean, the greatest heel of all time is Roddy Piper. There's no ifs, or butts about that. Roddy Piper is the greatest heel of all time. I don't think Roddy Piper gets enough credit for the success of WrestleMania. The success of that era, the success of 80s wrestling in general. Roddy Piper, people legit hated that, man.

And when he was in the regional scene in Portland, this guy was just the worst. And that's like the best thing you could be as a heel. So Roddy Piper is the best heel in the history of the business. I mean, it just depends on era. Hogan. To me, it's probably Steve Austin. And it wasn't meant for him to be a face. But at the time, Stone Cold Steve Austin came in at the right time.

the anti-authority dude when he basically spoke for the public who wanted the people that wanted to go into their boss's office and tell them that they're terrible and stuff like that and you know there are a lot of people who felt that way and that's why wrestling was so big a lot of people lived sort of vicariously through stone cold Steve Austin and to me just like with the merch and like the I mean the pops of this guy's

getting anytime wb came to boston during that era I was there and I had been a part of some major Stone Cold Steve Austin crowd reactions. And I've been there for, and I've seen Hogan wrestle live too when he was over in the late 80s, early 90s at the Boston Guard and we used to run there. And Hogan got big reactions, but nothing like Steve Austin got. So that would be, so I'm going to go Austin and Piper. If I was a, if I was a fighter, like, I don't have a really, look, have I gotten in fights, yes. I am the heart of a lying guy. I'm a scrapper.

So I would be the guy that I talk about on this show all the time. I'd probably grab the fence and look for ways to get over for being honest. I would take a beating and come back and maybe do some damage. I don't know. I don't like to fight. So I've trained a little bit. I was a pretty good wrestler. So maybe that's my base, but I'm just a wildest.

man, what can I say? Let's go to Beal. And then we'll go to Brett and then we'll go to Crypto. Maybe we'll go to Beal. We'll see. Let's see if that wheel can stop spinning. Oh, man. I'm getting just the record spinning round and round, Beale.

Not getting the connection here. Okay, try again if you want. Let's go to my lifelong pal. Brett Gilman. Brett, how are you? Good of a morning. I always enjoy listening. to you go my ride into work.

It's my best moment of my week right now, man. Just working all these hours. But I just want to touch on that wrestling stuff. I would say Stone Cold Steve Austin was definitely part of that era when the rock came out, Degeneration X, where it was everything was like entertainment for the fans and Triple H. And they just really, they were the faces to really take wrestling. into the world wrestling entertainment world and not just hardcore wrestling. And so that makes probably Stone Cold probably the greatest in my era as well.

And I'm a generation older than you. But it's all good. But real quick, I just want to touch a little bit on the heavyweight talk you would just have. And because we're not seeing these fights that we want to see, how about maybe sneaking in like a Curtis-blade Seroggan type of, heavyweight fight. I'm dying to see the heavyweights go. And that brings me out to my next question, my last question, actually, is who are the big heavyweight prospects that you like? I've seen like Almeida. I saw a guy in the contender series a few years, a few weeks ago. I think he was a

Brazilian guy. He'd be the guy from Africa. He just looked like a toughest nails kind of guy that I like to see going forward. So I was just kind of getting your thoughts. Just, just want to to say what's up Mike and I have a heck of him on and love you kids thanks man yeah um yeah I'm with you on Steve Austin like I think like Hogan was a huge star and he made the most of his time but again without Ruddy Piper he ain't as big of a star he just ain't hyper made him you need a villain and Austin had a villain as well with with Vince McMahon but I mean, that was just magic, man. I know somebody asked earlier, and I'll kind of tie it into this question,

looking at heavyweight prospects. I think a lot of people, a lot of people ask about Muhammad Usman, who is the brother of Kumar Usman. So to answer who he should probably fight, Dantel Mays, somebody like that, I think that makes sense. Maybe a Jake Collier. You do Chris Barnett. I don't know.

Somebody like that, I would say. Heavyweight prospects. I mean, Jailton Almeida is at the top of the list, especially if he's going to stay at heavyweight. He's back fighting Shemiel Durrheemoth. They rebooked that one for UFC 280. I think Jailton is just going to truck him. I'm still, even though I was incredibly disappointed with this performance

because he just gassed out so bad, I'm still very high on Alexander Romanov. I know he's not technically. It's tough to, like, put the prospect tag on a lot of these guys who are in the UFC, but guys who haven't been around, I guess, that long in this sort of landscape. Romanov's definitely one of them. Jailton Al-Bade is probably number one on my list. I think Martin Boudet is pretty good.

And then there's going to be other guys coming up as well. But, I mean, Waldo Cortes Acosta, I believe is the guy here thinking of. But he's already booked fighting Jared Vandera, October 29. So that's definitely a guy we can keep our eye on. And man, Jared van derr, he's just going to kind of get thrown to the lions for as long as he's under contract with the UFC, I believe. So, yeah, those are the few.

Those are a few that I like. And Ghan, I'll get to you in a second, crypto, but the Gond Blades fight just seems like if everything falls into place, the dominoes all fall the way they're supposed to. That's the fight we're going to see. That one makes the most sense. But again, if we can't get Inganu back, if we can't get Steepay in there,

I feel like Cyril Gahn will actually get the John Jones fight before Curtis Blades, which, I mean, you got to feel for Curtis Blades, man. You got to feel for the guy. The guy just has been so close so many times. He just keeps getting leaped over, and I kind of feel like that's what's going to happen here. Crypto, what's going on, man? Good. How are you, Mike?

I'm good. Yeah, so, Mike, first of all, thank you for a great episode yesterday. BTL was amazing. I really liked it. And you mentioned this take from Damon regarding Adesania and Bo Nicol. But I think actually there is one thing that at least got me a bit... Well, I was just thinking about this. But what are your feelings about the thing that Damon said regarding Carla Sparza?

I mean, to me, that is... Like, if she really would become the female fighter of the year, I would be amazed because, I mean, the fight against Rose was just, I mean, there wasn't actually a fight. She just went in there. And in essence, the approach was basically that, all right, it's a coin flip. I'm getting married next week. I don't want to get hit in the face. I'm just going to stand here and let the judges basically flip a coin.

So I just want your take on that, Mike. And because I, like, I don't know, Molly McCann, for example, has done at least according to. to me way more and if she would win against Erin, I mean, she's miles ahead of Carla Sparza with regards to being the fighter of the year, even, even, Mike, if Carla would beat Jean-Wealy, to me at least. But just one additional thing, Mike, because I've been hearing, I mean, a lot of discussions about the Gilbert Burns and Hamzaa Chimae fight. And to me, Mike, I see this as the other way around. I mean, a lot of people say that this fight proved that Hansat is beatable, he's human and so on.

But I actually see it the other way around. I mean, here we have a guy that goes into the octagon and just throws caution, I mean, to the wind completely. He just ignores his coach. Andreas was so upset with him. I mean, in between rounds, he was screaming at him. He was just completely annoyed. And you can actually hear the disappointment in the post-fight interviews.

For example, he made a, yeah, had an interview with Aaron. Ariel and so on. So, I mean, Hamzat went in there and just basically did a Sean Strickland. He just basically went in there and just like, I'm not going to do anything that is optimal to win this fight. I'm just going to stand up and have a brawl with Gilbert Burns, a really bad idea. And even though he avoided the most optimal game plan and just like basically did a really stupid thing, he still won. He did, I mean, what Sean Strickland was hoping to do. But Hamzat actually went in there and was just, like, all right, let's see, let's see if I can just stand up with this guy and just have a brawl, and he still wins.

So this to me proves that Hansa Timaeus is actually better than I fought before the Gilbert Burns fight. If this guy doesn't even use his most powerful weapons and still wins, I mean, that is, that is crazy. Thank you, Mike. I completely agree with you, by the way. I felt the same way coming, I felt the same way coming out of that fight. Sure.

It was just one of those things where It was one of those things where I mean, listen, I was I was there I was there. I didn't get to watch the fight in the arena But I was backstage watching it with with a bunch of people And I

I felt it was like a scary thing Like you could tell like this guy got He got cracked by Gilbert Burns cracked And there were times where he looked like he was in trouble But he overcame adversity And sometimes you just need that to happen happen to show how good you are.

And to me, like, he had a bad fight. He had a bad fight. I'm not taking anything away from Gilbert's because Gilbert's took advantage of it and made this thing real competitive. But to me, like, you show, it showed that Hamzaa can have a bad night against one of the best fighters in the world and still win and take punishment and be able to overcome it. So I didn't feel like his stock should have dropped it all after that fight. this guy went from fighting Li Jing Liang, who's a fine fighter,

to fighting Gilbert Burns, who is seconds away from beating Kamara Usman. What a leak in competition. And with all the, I mean, every, like, all the pressure of the, like everyone talking about that card was not even talking about the two title fights. It's all about Hamzot. It was the Hamzat show all week long. And he went in there and won. Like, I didn't understand the, well, he's human.

guess he's not as good as he thought he was he'd be freaking Gilbert Burns Gilber Burns is a good fighter and hearing people who were kind of feeling that way changing course after watching what Hamza did to Kevin Holland it made people feel like you know what maybe Gilbert's not as maybe Gilbert's pretty damn good fighter those who didn't buy any Gilbert Burns I think they bought it a little bit more after watching the Kevin Holland fight I know there are some different factors

heading into that because of the style change and everything. But yeah, I felt kind of the same way. I felt kind of the same way. And then the other thing with the Carlos Sparza take, I didn't really think about that because of the bad taste that one left in everybody's mouth. But guess what? If Carlos Sparza beats Zhang Wei Li at Madison Square Garden

in a flight that no one is expecting her to win, she is a massive underdog right now. Zhang Wei Lee is a minus 315 favorite, the comeback in Carla Spars plus 260. By the time we get to that event, I feel like John's going to be closer to a minus 400 favorite. There is nobody giving Carla a chance

to win that fight. Nobody. And if Carla wins in somewhat emphatic fashion, she ain't getting my vote for Fighter of the Year? Actually, she... It just depends. But if she wins, she's in the discussion. There's no doubt about it.

Molly McCann, I'll take... take Damon's points to Damon has a point. Mott McCann is beaten two fighters who probably shouldn't be in the UFC this year. Now, if she beats Aaron Blanchfield, that's a big win. That's a

nice little tip of the cap. There's no doubt about it. I don't think she's going to win that fight. But if she does, that's a great win for her. I don't know if that's Luana Carolina and Hannah Goldie are not world beaters. They're just not. So to me,

I just think strength the schedule matters. I think stakes matter a little bit more. But if you want to say that Molly McCann is like top three in the conversation right now, I ain't going to fight you on it. But I have a feeling as the year progresses, I think like Chikagans'

resume is actually better this year than Molly McCann's. Especially if she goes out there and beats Bann and Fioreau. And if Carla wins, man, she's in the conversation. She's in the conversation. Hot tag time. Let's go to Ahead, we know he's going to bring the noise. What's up, buddy? Mike, can you hear me?

Yes, yes, I can. Okay, cool. A couple of points here. Firstly, continuing on from yesterday, I know, like, we already talked about, but I'm mad, Mike, because with one championship, the whole Eubank Jr. Ben situation, because there were some other things I left out. One was Chachry. He posted, amongst all the... this craziness. He posted that he still was posting this stuff like, oh, one championship's one of the most engaged promotions in the world whilst they're losing all this money. And I'm like, and then at the same time, I'm seeing, what's his name? The guy from Matrim, Eddie Hard. Eddie Hearn is just putting out a statement again trying to go after the board. It's like this man had,

that statement from Matrum was a 101 lesson in gaslighting. It really was. It's just so crazy, the stupidity, like the fraud from these people driven by stupidity. And do you think like one championship will collapse? I think pride did the same thing. Pride collapsed for financial reasons. I don't know. So that's the first thing.

But the other two is, I'm mad, but guess who else is mad, Mike? Jeff Neal. Jeff Neal was not happy getting provoked by Shafkat Rachmanov. He's like, and I think it's fair like what he said. Be careful what you wish for. Shafka, we're all putting this guy as this monster, but he almost got, there's a clip of him almost getting knocked out in M1. You know, like, and then Jeff is nasty.

He's got this karate stance now. He moves so well that what he did to Vincente was nasty. Yeah, Jeff could read, there's a good chance. Jeff could knock Shavkat out. And the other part is, the last part is I think, I really don't want to see D.C. commentate UFC 280. I know he's going to, but Dominic Cruz did really, well last week. I actually think Dominic and Felder would have been a good combination or

Rogan and Felder, Rogan or Cruz. Like, Cruz has actually improved a little bit because I want to learn that this card is about learning about martial arts. It's not, it doesn't have to be about the drama or anything. It's about some, from some of the best like Olivera and Markachev and Cruz explains it really well. But unfortunately, we're going to get DC just absolutely licking Markachev up like, ass licking badly. Drop the mic, Mike. Yeah, I think a lot of people sort of feel that way about D.C. calling this one, but we'll see what happens. He's definitely going to be there. I would say they'll probably go Anik D.C. Felder, but not 100% sure. That would be my guess, but I get where you're coming from. Chachry. Chachry, Chachry, Chachry, Chachary. I mean, so I listened to Ariel Hohani's interview.

with Tony Khan, who is the guy who runs AEW, there are some extreme similarities between the two of them. It's unbelievable. Chhatry and Tony Khan. Like, Tony Khan spent that entire interview speaking for 90 minutes, but saying absolutely nothing except pumping his own tires. It was, I mean, it was just, I couldn't believe it. I hit a burial after.

I'm like, I cannot wait till somebody asks you one on the nose to respond to this interview. Because it's just, I mean, it was just a complete self-tire pump. It was unreal. And like, like, you were, I kind of reminded me of trotry in a lot of ways with the way he tries to spin stuff. And, well, there's this, but look what we did here. And look at the numbers we did here. You know, it's the third highest ever. We got two billion people watching us.

Like, it's just, we joke about it all the time. And one has a little momentum right now. Like, they've had a couple, like, those Amazon video cards have been great. Like, they've been fun watches. They've done a great job with the production and everything. Their promotion is just garbage. Like they don't promote anything. Like they did a decent job with the DJ fight

because I think it was the first one they were doing. So they were like, hey, we're here. Hello. Make sure you see us. And then when this one this past Friday came on, there was like no promotion at all. There's no hype. The only ones that were really doing it were us talking about these cards.

You guys in particular were coming on this show. asking about the one card. When people were asking about what's the best card of the weekend. A lot of people were saying one. It was the fans that put this card over more than one did. The UFC, you know, it just, it all became about the Mark Zuckerberg thing.

Is he going to come? Why are people not allowed? Why is the media not allowed? And then Zuckerberg became the story. And then Bellator had their card. They actually did a great job promoting their card. They went outside of the box in some ways with Al Costa and the freaking liver king. But man, was that smart.

That was brilliant on their part. 100%. Getting Patrici up there. They're eating liver on the stage. Like, that was, you got, they got more eyeballs on their product for that one moment than anything else they've done the entire year. That was brilliant. And then one's just like, hey, we have a fight.

And then it was the fans that put it over. It's the hardcore MMA fans that did all the work. and the financials are what they are. I'm not tapped into that, but the fine folks at Bloody Elbow are familia, if you will, over at SB Nation and Vox. They've done a incredible job with this stuff.

They've done an incredible job with the financial stuff. They've done an incredible job in terms of the anti-trust lawsuit with the former fighters against the UFC. They've done a tremendous job covering the stuff that no one really wants to dive into I don't have any time to dive into that stuff. But they're, like, I don't need to because they're killing it. And they're doing the same thing deep diving into one's financials as well.

So if you haven't checked it out, go to Bloody Elbow, check out their latest on the One Financials. And they do a spectacular job of that. Let's go to Toke. Hi, pal. The only, as it is free for all Friday, I only have one question. And it's very, very simple. which champion in either in PFL and in Belator

do you think would have the best chance to beat the UFC champion? That's all I got, dude. Wait, say it one more time? You broke a couple of it. Oh, yeah. So which champion in Belator and which champion in PFL has the best chance against a UFC champion in like a hypothetical matchup?

Yeah? That's a good question. that's a good question I mean, Kayla Harrison has to be kind of like the obvious answer but even then it's not a Dundale

let me look at Bellator let me see if there's anybody maybe Chris Cyborg if she fought Nunes again I don't think Sergio Pettus beats Sterling or Dillisha Pitbull Volcanowski

I would go Volcanowski although that's probably more competitive than people give a credit for I think Charles Oliver destroys Patricki Pitbull. I think Islamakov destroys Patrici Pitbull. You know what? I think Yaroslav Amosov could beat Leon Edwards.

Johnny Eblen, no. Vadim Kemp Khan. Maybe. Ryan Bader, no. Liz Kamush, no. Yeah. So, yeah, there's some interesting ones. Not a ton from the PFL that I think would do very well,

but Kayla would, Kayla's probably the front runner there, for sure. But good question. I like that one. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea.

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That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. Let's go to Swap and then we'll go to Kevin. Hi, Swap. How are you? I'm good. I'm so busy with the box. It's my day off today, so I jumped in.

Okay, so my question is, if Pioro wins against Chukyguyen, she's going to call out Valentina. And Valentina herself told Ariel Elvani that she wants to continue with the 125. So when do you see that fight is going to take place? Thanks, Ma'i. Thank you very much.

We also have the big one next week, too, between Alexa Grasso and Viviani Ara Ujo. That could play into this conversation. as well, depending on how that fight plays out. Like, if Lexa Grasso goes out there and has, like, a sensational finish, then she becomes a major player in this conversation as well. But I think of Manon, I think of Manon beats Caitlin Chikagi, and she will get the shot.

The problem is Valentina says she wants to stay at 125, and personally, for me, I want her to stay at 125 for a little while longer as well. You could tell she's a little outsized, a little out-powered, a little out-strength by Tyler. Alessantos, Valentina talked about not being able to put on the kind of weight she typically does. So that's something she has to work on. But it would not stun me in the slightest if the UFC tries to do Amanda Nunes versus Valentina Shepchenko at UFC 283 when they go back to Brazil. Because they don't have the main event for that card yet.

And again, we still have to wait and see how some of this heavyweight stuff plays out before we could start talking main events. but that would not son me if the UFC went to that well. That's a big, big fight. And we don't know how much longer we have with Amanda, if we're being honest. So it's the biggest fight Amanda can get right now. There's no doubt about that. So let's just say that doesn't happen. Amanda wants to take more time off, which is possible.

Maybe March, April-ish, somewhere around there, I think would make sense. I think if the UFC went back to Paris, that'd be something to think about. And then again, if Chichenko goes up to 135 and fights Nunes, you could do an interim title fight. But big stretch for that women's flyweight division, that's for sure. And this is going to be an interesting division to keep an eye on over the next few years, because it's not just, I mean, we've seen Manon just kind of surge in such a quick, rapid way. But she's just one of many that are on the come-up right now. When we talk about Grasso, she's not really on the come-up,

but she's finally reaching the potential a lot of people had for her. Aura Ujo, I've been very high on for a while. I know she lost Chukagin, but a lot of people felt Arr Ujo won that fight. I am one of those people. I am one of those people. Casey O'Neill, I'm very high on. Macy Barber is starting to find herself.

Aaron Blanchfield is going to be a freaking problem in this division. and she might already be there. Like, she might already be, she might already be, like, a giant problem. And the scary thing about Aaron Blanchfield is she's only going to get better. That's the scary thing. She's still super young. She's so talented.

And I just can't wait to see where she is two years from now. She got a big fight against Molly McCann. I'm picking her to win that fight. But it's a tough, it's a big, it's a good, test for Aaron. This is like the right kind of fight to make. And it's a win-win fight for the UFC. So this division, I mean, this division is just really good. Tracy Cortez is another one that's

starting to find yourself. I mean, I mean, De Hebas has a lot of talents. A lot of people thought she beat Caitlin Jekagan as well. I didn't, I thought Chikagan stuck it out, but it was close. And then it's just a talented division. It's going to be really interesting in the next couple of years. That's for sure. Valentin is going to have some, some challengers. Let's go to Kevin. Kevin, what's up?

I unfortunately hopped on a little late, but I wanted to ask this question. I don't know if it's been covered already today. With the Yeree Glover fight happening, I mean, I see quite a few guys at light heavyweight who are not booked, and I'm curious with Yeri not being necessarily the most active fighter, and Glover's getting up there in age, so I don't know if he'd have a quick turnaround if he were to win it back. I'm wondering what you do with the guys like Jamal Hill and Rockich and Blahovich and now Ankawev up there knocking on the door. What do you do with those four guys kind of in that little quad step of fighters there?

And also, the question I was asked earlier about other champions coming over and beating UFC champions. It made me think of Mighty Mouse. And is there a world where Mighty Mouse might ever come back and compete in the UFC? I'd love to see that match up with him and Brandon now that he's matured and become the fighter he is. That'd be a great fight. Anyway, that's all I got. Thanks. So the second question, absolutely not.

DJ will never fight in the UFC again because why would he? He got treated like shit while he was there and didn't get promoted at all and it was probably, he was vastly underrated even though a lot of people feel like he's one of the five best fighters ever. And now he's in one. He's kind of like, you know, he's a big deal. One of the faces of the company, he's probably getting from, I don't know exact figures,

but he's making a ton of money, like way more than, the UFC would ever pay him. So there's no reason for him to leave. So no, I don't think you... It would be cool. It'd be cool to see him fight figurato and Moreno and Brandon Royval and like some of these up and coming 25ers, but there's just no chance he's going to leave that. And plus it doesn't seem like he wants to be a 25er anyways.

He's happy being a one championship flyweight, which is essentially a 135er. The other question, light heavyweight, I mean, there's rumors out there that the UFC's working on Janboehovich Ancolaia for December 10th. We have not confirmed any of that as of yet. We saw the report, trying to confirm it, not seeing anything. Jamal Hill, unfortunately, is kind of the odd man out here because, while it would make sense from a rankings perspective to put him in there with Rackich, Rackich is also suffered a pretty gnarly injury against Yombovich. We don't know how long he's going to be out for. So, I mean, he's kind of in a tough spot, really.

He's kind of going to have to be in a standby spot, really, at this point. And just hope something comes to. Let me look at the UFC rankings and see. Because Jamal's right there. He's a guy that the UFC should certainly push. He's a good fighter. He's number six right now. Anthony Smith's heard.

I would, I mean, Dominic Reyes is fighting. Ryan Span at 281. So I think if Dominic Reyes beats Ryan Span, I mean he's right back in the conversation. Like you just need to get a win to get back in the mix and that's probably the fight they look at.

Because this is not much else available. Like Vulcans booked. Krilov's, I mean, they're fighting each other. Jacobi's booked against Roundtree. I wanted Jacoby versus Dominic Reyes. That's the fight I wanted. I mean, I'm fine with Ryan Spam, but I wanted Jacoby to get that opportunity

because I think he deserves it. But Jamal's kind of the odd man out of this equation, but if he waits a little while, then I think he's going to be okay. And kind of hope, I think he's kind of a Dominic Reyes fan at this point. Dominic wins. He gets to fight the dude that was a two-time title challenge, the guy that a lot of people felt beat John Jones.

That's a good name to have on the resume. All right, Beale, do we have you? Hello. Hello. You got me. I just got a quick question. We're talking a lot about Bo Nickel and him potentially beating these top guys like Comzat and Izzy. But who do you think would give him the toughest fight in the division?

because I feel like guys like Andre Munez and Gilbert Burns, I feel like they have the defensive wrestling and the jiu-jitsu and just overall physicality to give him real issue. So that's all I got. Mike, thanks. Have a great weekend. Yeah, I mean, I think he's a tough matchup for him. Not saying, I mean, Bo is just a freak athlete

and athleticism is kind of a cheat code in a way. So I think it's competitive. I don't think he wins that fight. I think Robert Whitaker is a really tough fight for him. I think Bar Vittori is a tough fight for him. Because Marvin's a tough fight for everybody, unless you're Robert Whitaker. Even Israel, Adasani, he'll probably tell you that it was not fun fighting Barton Vittori because Vittori just doesn't stop moving ever.

Yeah. I mean, those guys, like, even like guys like Imovov are so well-rounded. DDP. I mean, like, I think, I think there's a few matchups that would give Bo problems. But doesn't mean he can't win them. Monez is, Menez is interesting. I just, things get to the mat. Like, he couldn't submit your eye haul.

And, like, your eye hal's got great submission defense. So I'll give him that. But Menez is a terror, man. He's a tough match. Like, there's definitely tough matchups for Bo. But when you look at him stylistically, I guess the real question to ask is, like, which fight? do you feel in the mix would not be competitive? And I have a hard time finding one

that wouldn't at least be somewhat competitive with what I've seen so far. Now, I'm going, and I'll say this, I'm fine with the Jamie Pickett booking. This is what I wanted. Get him out there. Make him a big favorite. Let him style.

Let him do his thing. Jamie's a step up in competition for sure from the guys that he has fought as a. pro it's in the ufccgons front of a big crowd it's on it's on a paperview event it's a good first test and now if beau goes out there and just rolls jamie picket then we can start talking steps up we can start talking about the steps up we can start talking about the i don't know throw out some names the eric anders of the world the punasoriano's of the world and then from there you go to like the Anthony Hernandez's of the world

the Ian Heinish's of the world and then we just we just progress him like he's he's gonna get there like I if he does not fight for a title I will be completely stunned but it's not something that we need to just throw him into a top 10 fight right away now if they threw him into a top 15 fight right away cool like it's it's fascinating but again you don't want to they've made a lot of mistakes the UFC more times than not, they have built talents very, very well. Look at what they did with Alex Pereira.

I mean, this couldn't have gone any better for them, the way that they put him, the way that they built him up. And I think they'll do something similar with Bo. They threw Alex in there with the guy they figured he would knock out quickly, he did. Then he got to step up, pass that test, get Sean Strickland,

stops him in the first round. and now he's got the fight that, now the UFC has the fight that they've been building towards since they signed him. The reason they signed Alex Ferreira was to get to the point we're getting to on November 12. And they've done a great job. But they have screwed it up many times too. They screwed up with Johnny Walker, throwing him in there with Corey Anderson so quickly.

That was just a baffling piece of booking 100%. They screwed it up with Edmund Shabazzian, throwing him in there with Derek Brunson and then Jack Herbanson. and they're like, you know what? We'll give you a step back and throw you with Nasardine Imovap. Like they booked him terribly. Now he's fighting Dalchalongam Bula at 282, and he should probably win that fight.

There's a reason why he's fighting Dalchalant Lungambula, but they're hit or miss when it comes to doing the baby step thing and trying to build these prospects and getting him where they need to go. Bo, I think he's got to step up on a lot of these guys, but yeah, there's no need to just rush him. He's got plenty of time. He's only 26. He's got six good years for sure.

Crypto's back for more. Take us home, my man. Yeah, so Mike, I was just thinking about this because one additional thing. There's a lot of hype now before the market share of Olivera fight. But I'm a bit worried about it. one thing and that is that we might end up with a really long fight where basically makachev just grinds olivera down i think like the hype around this fight is is of course

real and it's huge but i was just thinking about this is there a actually quite a big risk that we end up having a boring fight where this market chip tries to pin olivera down and we just see some ground and pound and basically Olivera is, of course, a master on the ground, so he's able to defend himself. But basically, yeah, a long fight, but without, you know, the most explosive exchanges and so on. Thanks, Mike.

Yeah, I don't think you're alone in that sentiment. I think it's going to be a great fight. I think we're going to see Islam get after a little bit more. I think the ground exchanges are going to be interesting. By the way, Islam is not the worst striker in the world. He's getting better. He's got great counters. He's got a great counter left hook that could actually give all of errors some problems.

There's a lot about this matchup that I like. But even, you know, just for an example, I talked to Justin Gagchi about this fight. On that interview for MAAfighting.com, you can go to the YouTube page and watch right now. And he's sort of leaning Mokachev, it looks like. He's not giving an official pick, but he's sort of leaning Mokachev. He said probably Machachev by decision, but he's looking at this as a no gray area fight. It's either going to be an incredible fight, battle of wills, or it's going to suck. It's going to be extremely boring.

There's no sort of in between. And I think if Gach is feeling that way and you're asking that question, I think other people are as well. I'm hoping for the best. The most intriguing fight to me of the year from a stylistic perspective, there were two. Sarukyana Gamrot and Tashara Phrashka. And those two fights delivered, and in that same realm, with the build and how close we were getting there, the approach of it all, this one's right up there with the two of those. Maybe even higher, I don't know, but somewhere in the mix of those three. And so far, so good.

So hopefully we can make it three for three. And we're going to do some fun stuff at UFC 280. announcement forthcoming as well yeah how are doing good so um i just have uh three quick questions i want to ask the first one is um with bryce mitchell's fight against uh arnold ellen coming up who do you see winning um and what do you reckon could be maybe let's say the potential outcome for either fighter um this is a little bit off topic and weird but hold on hold on wait You said Bryce Mitchell versus Arnallon. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's Bryce versus of Loyaf and Cater versus Allen. Oh, okay, okay. Now, my one had got it mixed up. Yeah, okay. All good. All good. Okay, yeah. I mean, I just wanted to ask you on that one, like, how do you see that fight playing out?

And, you know, what could be the potential, I guess, future for whoever wins that fight? This one's a bit off topic, so bear with me. But I don't know if you just saw, but Jake Paul, he just, tweet some shit about Draymond Green. I just found that really funny because that guy has been chasing some weird cloud for a while now and I think

it's very clear he knows how to play the internet game marketing where I just thought I pointed that out. Another question I have is you know, UFC they just announced they were going to Perth, Western Australia now for an event next year.

Who could you see headlining that event? The Australian card? Yeah, the Australia caught Dixir. Thanks, man. Yeah, I mean, as you were talking about Draymond Green, I kind of threw up on my mouth a little bit. That guy sucks. That guy sucks. And I'm sure you saw the video by now of him just sucker punching Jordan Poole, his teammate,

throwing a freaking Superman punch at him as teammates are trying to separate the two of them for a little practice skirmish. And he throws a freaking Superman punch at him and knocks the dude silly. so dumb. That guy sucks. He sucks. He sucks so bad. And to watch him celebrate a championship over my Boston Celtics, maybe sick to my damn stomach.

Maybe sick to my stomach. But yeah, Draymond wants to get into a boxing ring and box somebody. I will pay for that. Anytime I can watch somebody, even if Drayma wins, anytime I could watch and pay for somebody to punch Draymond Green in the face, you've got my money. you've got my money. Jake Paul is just very smart

at jumping on these things at the right time. But yeah, that video is pretty bad and, you know, pushing and shoving and stuff happens at practice and I get that

and there's a little skirmishes, but that was a sucker punch to the max and it was bullshit. Garbage. Dr. Martin sucks. Sucks. Sucks.

Sucks, sucks, sucks. If Loy of Mitch I don't know, I'm torn on that one. You get asked me a little bit closer as I dive in a little bit more. Of course, the landscapers come right now. I'm leaning of Loyav, but again, this is five rounds, and I'm curious to see what have Loyov's gas tank

is going like in four and five, because I don't think Bryce is going anywhere. It's just a really good fight. And then maybe they get the winner of Cater versus Allen. I'm fine with that. I'm definitely fine with that. and then for the Australia card I've reached out

I'm trying to get some confirmation on this I know one of the local websites wrote about it but I'm trying to confirm this information but if it is Perth I'd be stunned if Adasani is on the card I don't know it's probably going to be Volcanowski or Adasania

maybe we get both of them but it's going to be one of those two all right MMA locker room we'll get you in there and then I have we'll see how much much time we have for a head to jump back in again. You got on mute. Hey, what's going on, everybody? What's up? This is my first time in the Twitter space with you guys, but I got a big comparison

with this Islam career, kind of like Kabib. When Kabib was in the UFC, you know, he was on that nine-fight win streak before he actually got that title fight. And you can actually look at his two opponents that he fought before he got that title fight and say they weren't in the top five. It was over Edwison, Barbosa, and Michael Johnson at the time. And then he gets that title fight because Tony Ferguson had to bake it because he got hurt. Same thing kind of like Islam right now. You know, they're looking at the opponents that he fought and saying that, you know, nobody's in the top five.

But I do think that he can have the same run as Khab did because after Khabib did get the title, who he defended his belt against was everybody. in the top five, Dustin Porreier, Connor McGregor. And, you know, so I think actually Islam could do the same thing and Justin Gagee. So where after he wins the belt, imagine Islam defending the belt against Dustin Porreier, Justin Gaci, you know, and pretty much implementing the same legacy that Khab did. So I think we just need to hold on horses and saying that Islam hasn't beat anybody yet in the top five. because if we look at the people in the top five,

I think Islam could actually get some wins on some of those people as well. I get where you're coming from. I also understand people looking at the resume, the way that they do. And again, I don't blame Islam Makachev for that. Because it's not like he hasn't been offered some of these guys because he's been matched up with some of them already. And the problem was that his opponent, just didn't make it to the fight.

He got some sort of replacement, and he treated them accordingly. That's just what he did. He was booked with... He was booked with B'Neil. That fight didn't happen. He gets Bobby Green. He was booked with RDA. That fight didn't happen.

He gets Dan Hooker. Booked with RDA, two other times before that. Fight got called for whatever reason. One was a COVID-related issue. One was Mokachev getting injured. At one point, you're supposed to fight. freaking Alexander Hernandez. I mean, there was just a lot of,

just a lot of, like, tough runs for him. But let's look at this windstreet. Chris Wade, Nick Lens, Tebow, Cajun Johnson, Surukion, short notice debuting fighter, and that was a good fight. Hamos, Drew Dober, finish, Moises finish, Dan Hooker, finish, Bobby Green, finished. There isn't like a single

ranked dude in the mix. Like Hooker was ranked at the time. Dober might have been, but I think he was just outside of the top 15. But again, not really his fault. Then we look at what Habib did before getting to the actual title play. That RDA win,

I mean, that was just, when Habib beat RDA in April of 2014, you were just like, oh shit. This guy is the dude. Because we knew how good RDA was. We knew how good this guy was, and he ran him over. Darrell Horcher was supposed to be Tony Ferguson. The Michael Johnson win at the time actually meant a lot.

And the Edzimbarboza win at the time sort of meant a lot as well. But again, both those guys, it's just, it's, the risk reward in fighting. It's tough. Like who the frig wanted to fight Habib on the come-up? Especially after watching that RDA fight. Who was like, oh, Habib, I'll fight him. The only one that was like calling for a fight with Habib was Kevin Lee.

No one wanted to fight that dude. And I kind of feel the same way with Islam right now as well. But I get it. But even after the Bobby Green win, some people are like, eh, he doesn't have the win on his resume. And some people just felt like Benial deserved it more. But you can't argue that the more intriguing fight is Oliver Mokachev. Like, that's the one.

I think the fans kind of made this one happen with all the debates and all the conversation. There was a big thing that had to do with it. But there's no doubt about it that this is the more intriguing matchup. 100%. So we'll see what happens. See if we can continue this sort of mirror legacy. All right, ahead. real quick.

Okay. Can you hear me? Right? Now I can. Okay. So just three points, Mike, to finish off that, can you talk about Shavka and Jeff Neal? Because people like Shavkat's this monster,

that Shafka almost got knocked out in M1, if you remember. Jeff Neal is nasty with that new karate stance. And secondly, it was like, do you think one championship will collapse financially? And what will that do for like Muay kickboxing and for people like Angela Lee who are superstars, Demetrius, will they move over to the UFC?

And lastly, glory kickboxing. Everyone's talking about how the ovary? No. Like watch Tiffany Van Soiss the champion because she's a bit weird, quirky, but her footwork is outstanding and her shop selection is outstanding. That's it.

Drop the mic, Mike. All right. Yep, Tiffany Time bomb, always fun to watch. I already, I mean, I dove into the Jeff Neal, Shopcott stuff, like right off the bat, so I didn't really dive into it much. But I think Shafcott still wins that fight. Jeff's competitive, and Jeff takes it.

I give him a lot of credit for that. But Shafat will just take him down and smush him, like it does to everybody else, honestly. And then one, I don't know. It's not looking good. I mean, if we are to believe these reports, then it's not looking good. I don't know how much, how long you can sustain,

nine-figure losses per year. That just seems like an awful lot. I don't know how long you can sustain that. But we'll see. We'll see what happens. Depends on who you talk to. We talk to Chotry. Oh, we're the number one promotion in the world.

We got 17 billion people watching our shows. But we'll see what happens. We'll see what the future holds for one and everybody else. But to answer the other party question, Angela Lee, I think the UFC would take a shot on her. DJ will not fight in the UFC again. He just won't. DJ would go to PFL or

PFL would like build a division or a season around him. They put him in super fight, pay-per-view. Belator put him at 135. Like, it'd pay him way more than the UFC will. Because you know how the UFC is. If they're wrong about something, they double down on how wrong they are and they will try to stick it to you to prove that they're not wrong.

That's just how they work. All right, I have to go. Terrence, I'm sorry, my man. But the good news is Terrence, why don't you join us on Monday. Yes, bonus show number two. Monday, 10 a.m. Eastern, and we'll do it again. No MMA hour. Canadian Thanksgiving.

It's also Indigenous People's Day in the U.S., formerly. It's Columbus Day. So a lot of people have that Monday off. It's company holiday for a lot of people. And Ariel's back on Wednesday. And yeah, so we'll do four shows again next week. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Normal BTL next week.

We'll have a preview show. It'll be like a normal week next week with everything coming back and all sorts of fun to look forward to. And maybe we'll be able to give you the announcement for what we're doing for UFC 280. But I don't know if it's going to happen next week. It might happen like the way. week after. And perhaps that'll be an announcement that couldn't be made here.

Maybe it'll be made on some other show on the MMA fighting network. Perhaps the MMA hour. I don't know. But we'll see. We'll see when it all comes out. You will know soon. Just know that something cool is happening. But have a great weekend, everybody.

We'll see you back here Monday, 10 a.m. Eastern. Have a great rest of your Friday. And as always, have a heck of a morning. You guys are the best. The Vox Media Podcast Network.