MMA Fighting - On To the Next One: Bellator 255 Recap, Pitbull-McKee vs. Volkanovski-Ortega, Leon Edwards vs. Nate Diaz, More

Episode Date: April 4, 2021

On the 38th episode of On To the Next One, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee discuss the fallout of Bellator 255, the promotion's first event of 2021, as well as the highly anticipated matchup between Patricio Pitbull and AJ McKee in the finale of the Bellator featherweight grand prix following Pitbull's submission win over Emmanuel Sanchez on Friday night. In addition, they give their takes on if the fight between Pitbull and McKee is more exciting than the UFC's 145-pound championship offering between Alexander Volkanovski and Brian Ortega, Volkanovski and Ortega being named coaches for the return of The Ultimate Fighter, Leon Edwards vs. Nate Diaz being booked as the co-main event of UFC 262, the ultimate wildcard fight for the rest of 2021, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. And welcome to a brand new edition of On to the next one here on the MMA Fighting Podcasting Network. I am Mike Heck. Thank you for checking out the program this week. And for the first time in quite a while, there was no UFC event this weekend to matchmake for. But we still, in our infinite wisdom, wanted to give you something on the program this week. And my friends, the co-host, the co-matchmaker, the best friend. And the Prince of Positivity was like, you know what?

let's do this thing. Give me the damn ball. Let's give these listeners a show because they rule and they're the reason why this is the fastest growing MMA podcast on planet Earth. And that's what we're going to do it. That's what we're going to do this week on the program as you say hello to my good friend, my best friend, Mr. Alex Kaley. How are you, my friend?

My best friend. I'm excited because, listen, the world does not revolve around the UFC. Certainly our show for the most part does, let's be honest. But I think it's time. I think enough stuff has happened. I think it's been a busy enough week. I think there's been enough news. And look, we're in the first week of April.

We're now entering the second quarter of 2021. I think we can kind of take an account of things. I think it's important to take an account of things in life. And I'd like to do that along with our listeners. Yes. And I think that is a very fair statement. There is a lot going on in the world, including Bellator MMMA. It was back in action for the first time in 2021.

Yes. Now, look, we're not going to tell people that we're going to start doing like full Bellator matchmaking shows. It's unlikely for that to happen. It is nice that they've kind of, we did see the debut of the official Bellator media generated rankings this week, which kind of, which, you know, if we wanted to talk Belator matchups, that does help us kind of sort out, you know, who's who, where everyone's supposedly at, at least according again to the media voting. I do personally do not keep Belator rankings. Obviously, I keep track of it, but I keep mostly just a UFC rankings. So I don't know. point I guess we can mix those up. But yes, we had Beltor 255 on Friday. Very solid show, I thought. Very solid show. Entertaining show. I love the intro. I loved the I acknowledge, you know, showtime, acknowledging, of course, the past was strike force. I thought that was great. And we got some pretty good fights. And we also got the benefit of this card being free, free to watch everywhere. I know it's geo-locked in some parts of Europe. So I apologize to any of our European listeners. Hopefully I know we have a lot of Aussie listeners. Hopefully they're able to watch it. But yes, you guys can find You can find that MAPfunding.com. You can find the whole show. There's highlights, but also the entire show for free. So, Mike, I don't know how much of Friday show you caught. Any initial thoughts on what you saw, at least,

or at least any of the highlights you caught from Bellator 255? I mean, outside of the obvious, Usman Nirmaga Madoff is a super prospect. I feel like each Nirmagamadae that we see, their striking is better than the previous Nirmagamatov. Usband looked good. Mike Hamill is a dog. And he was in there for the entire fight, but Usman is a very good prospect.

No doubt about that. We saw Mandel Nalo with an absolutely ferocious knockout. Magamad Maga Madoff is super duper prospect on his way up. I have a feeling that guy, no doubt. That guy's fighting for a Bellator title before this year is over, in my opinion. Big win for Jason Jackson. Can't help, but I feel like the judges got it right. It was a super close fight.

The judges did well there. Kana Watanabe Two of the judges got that one right But one decided to score for Alejandro Lauer But that was a good scrap nonetheless Especially the early going Lauer was landing some big shots But Watson Abbey got better and better

As the fight went on that third round I actually felt legitimately bad for Alejandro Lauer She was trying so hard to get up in a reverse position And Watsanabi was like The Kembe Matumbo of women's MMA She's like, uh uh uh not happening But some really solid performances No doubt above the prelims are fun

I'm sure we're going to talk about the main event and how special that was. But it was a fun card, fun returned and debut in 2021 for Bellator MMA. Look, this is a matchmaking show. So I want to emphasize the matchmaking. I know people, and I think this is one of the silliest criticisms you can have in combat sports. I don't like when Bellator takes some of these supposedly big prospects and puts them in there. Like, and what's obviously a squash match or someone they're supposed to be. I'm like, that's how you build up prospects, guys.

This is how it's done. A.J. McKee now is what, 17-0, 18-0? There's a reason he's one of the most talked-about featherweights outside of the UFC. It's because they built him up the right way. He spent his whole career with Bellator, and they never rushed him. They never rushed him in a match-ups, and they shouldn't. And you mentioned Uzman-Norma-Megamatta. Mike Hamill was the perfect opponent for Usman-Nermagamettos' debut.

The perfect guy. Super tough. He's going to stand and strike with him, which is, again, like you said, Usman is a very good striker. And Usman pieced him up. Usman got to show off his striking skills, which are very highly bunted. So that was a great matchmaking. I thought the Watanabe Lauer fight, that was one of those fights no matter who wins. Beltor has someone that can push towards a flyway title shot.

I liked what else. Oh, we mentioned Mago Medev. Just absolutely incredible. So another top guy at Bantamway, maybe, again, probably one of the biggest prospects in Bantamate outside the UFC. Mandelnaal looked great. So yeah, look, people can say, even Chris Gonzalez, I thought him getting adding Roger Huerta to his resume. It's a nice name. I know Huerta, of course, is past his prime, but good name to have any resume. So if we're just talking matchmaking, it was a great, great thing

for Bellator, a great night for them. And yeah, we'll talk about the main event. Of course, this matchmaking was the product of this tournament, this ongoing Fair of the Great Grand Prix. Mike, I don't know how you feel about it. I know some of the fans are like, oh, why do these grand prix take so long, which again, I don't necessarily agree with. But, I mean, how do you think things have worked out for Beltaire with now Pitbull going to the final to meet McKee. They couldn't have, they couldn't have matched me it better, right? No, this couldn't have gone any better. And this is like no disrespect to Emmanuel Sanchez, but their first fight, Sanchez versus

Pitbull was a very close fight. Like I thought Pitbull won. There was no like robbery or anything like that. But Sanchez gave Patricia Pitbull everything he could handle. So we were curious, like, can he do that again? Or can he get over that hump? Or are we going to see the Patricia Pitbull that? A lot of people feel is the best 145 pounder, not just in Bellator, but on the planet.

And good God almighty. I mean, one just doesn't do to Emmanuel Sanchez what Petitio Pitbull did to Emmanuel Sanchez. Like this is a special, special talent. This is a special, special fighter. He is the champ champ for a reason. He is, I believe, the number one pound for pound guy in the Bellator rankings. I mean, he should be. If he's not, then it's an absolute travesty.

But, I mean, this guy just gets better and better. When you think you can doubt him, he actually comes through in an even bigger way. So this fight with A.J. McKee, especially with what A.J. McKee did in the semifinal against Dary and Caldwell, that submission. Are you kidding me? Like, this is perfect. That face off between those two guys was unbelievable. Like, it was so good, just silently talking to each other, like, you know, verbally trying to assassinate each other without screaming. Like, it was just so cool.

Like, I cannot wait for that fight. Like of any fight we could see in 2021, I don't know if it's number one for me, but it's right up there, no doubt. Oh, we're going to be talking more about this matchup and where it sits, where it's going to sit in 2020. We assume, again, of course, that will happen in 2021. Yeah, we're going to talk about more of that later compared to some other matchups as well. But yes, when you're making a Grand Prix like this, you cannot ask for a better outcome. I'm just looking, I'm just looking back to the original roster. So this was a 16-man Grand Prix.

I thought it was very well put together. You had some, again, really good opening round matchups. I mean, you had Pitbull fight Juan Archeletta in the first round. Wanderthalda, of course, now the Bantamway champion. Manuel Sanchez, he got fighting Tom on Speedy Claxon was a good one. There's just a lot of good. Pat Curran, Adam Boritz, of course, Corinne, a former champion, Borat's guy who they've been pushing for a long time.

Darren Caldwell, former Bantamweight champion was in there. So they got all these intriguing matchups. But in the end, in the end, in the end, they got the matchup that they wanted and everyone wanted the most. It doesn't always work out this way. We know this. We can look at the Strike Force heavyweight Grand Prix back in the day, which made a star out of Dan Cormier,

but that certainly wasn't the original plan. It just kind of ended up working out that way. But this is like you make this tournament. It's like a movie. You have these two guys in opposite sides and you hope they meet in the final and they get it. So really, really just super exciting stuff. And as you said, man, Pitbull, Sanchez never submitted before.

Never. And still never tapped out. He can still say he's never tapped out. He certainly went to sleep, but he certainly never tapped out. He was asleep for like 30 seconds. That was scary. Scary stuff. That was scary. I thought the ref was going to do like the pro wrestling that lift the hand three times.

Then he was so slow to check. So yeah, it could have been a little quicker there, Rick. Could have been a little quicker. I think it was, oh, I don't want to say if I get the name wrong. But yeah, it could have been a little quicker. Yeah. We'll talk again more about Pippew McKee. Let's just take a quick glance.

I have them in front of me, like at the rankings were released this week. As you mentioned, Pitbull is number one pound for pound. Chris Cyborg on the women's pound for pound list, number one, of course. No surprises there. It's interesting to look at these rankings because obviously, Beltor does not have as deeper roster as the UFC. So people might look at these rankings and frankly kind of see some of these names for this first time. Like, they might not know who, what was the ones that really stood up to me? They might not be aware of like Sydney Outlaw, for example.

Sydney Outlaw is the number five lightweight. in in belator but he recently beat adam picolotti who's who if they had rankings in the past would have been high ranking would have been ranked highly so yeah it's it's it's cool it's i think the big one that got people talking was michael page as the number mike well well that that's interesting reaction like an instant instant chuckle michael benham page ranks number one in the uh as the number one contender in the world's rankings 18 in one record you know but of course it's been questions about his strength of schedule. So, Mike, I guess that's the first thing I'll ask you,

but how did you feel about that welterweight, how they handled that welterweight situation? Michael Venom Page, number one contender. The fact that Yaroslav Amosov is not the number one rank guy is absolutely insane. The guy is 25 and O, and he's beat, like, legit guys on the way up. Like, super legit guys on the way up. This is, you literally just spoke about how Bellator treats their prospects and, like, how they mold them.

And they did such a great job with Michael Page. and they continue to do so. And I know what they're trying to do. Like I feel like this is a combination of the media and Bellator and, you know, maybe the fighters themselves positioning Michael Page versus Douglas Lima that rematch, like making it more salurable, I guess, if they book that now. Because I don't, like, some people want to see it. I don't think Page is quite ready for that yet.

I don't think he's ready for that fight because we've seen it before. I don't know if it goes much differently. In fact, I think Lima's gotten a lot better since then, and Paige kind of the jury's out. And it's not all his fault because he's been set up with some of these matchups, fighters that he was supposed to compete against, pulled out of the last minute. So they had to, like, scramble and get for your guys. Like, Ross Houston's probably like the most talented fighter outside of Lima that he's fought on the way up. If we're being honest, I think that's a pretty fair assessment on my part. But Yaroslav Amoslav should be the number one guy.

There's no way. and if Amosoth thought Michael Page next weekend, I would bet if someone handed me $25,000 and said put it on one of these guys, I'd put it all without hesitation before you finish the sentence on Amazon. He'd be like a five to one favorite.

He should be. He should be. But Paige, I don't know. I don't know why he's the number one guy. I mean, I kind of get it because I have a feeling they're going to try to push that rematch on us. But I actually think Jason Jackson

after his win, deserves that fight with Michael Page. I think that's the fight to make. And that could be the number one contender bout. And you can give Amasop the freaking title shot. I don't know if he's booked or not, but he deserves the title shot more than Michael Page, in my opinion. Jason Jackson looked great on Saturday. After getting his eyeball raked against the,

in a freak kind of take down defense accident, his eyeball raked against the cage fence. And it was bothering from the, and I think he poked in the other eye third round. So that was wild. But yeah, that was, I mean, he looked great. I agree. I think him and Michael Page would be great.

And we do want to remind people, as we said before, these are media-generated rankings. So it's true. It does feel like they, of course, want to push a Pais, Leema rematch somewhere down the line. But again, it is media-generated. So I don't know. I don't know how I feel about it. I'm just looking down the lists here. At middleweight.

Number three, Austin Vanderford. Mr. Page Van Zant. Austin Vanderford is number three at middleweight. He's 10-0. You know, he's certainly got a respectable record. He's got some nice highlights. It's, but again, it just, yeah, and look, this happens to the UFC, too. You do kind of see in some of these divisions the lack of depth.

And for anyone checking out the ranks from themselves, if they're wondering where is like Vanessa Porto, where is U.L. Romero, where is Anthony Robble Johnson? There is a clear, one of the very first rules in the criteria is you have to have competed for Bellator at least once. So, you know, so these people are scheduled to fight. But they're not in the rankings yet. Ryan Bader is ranked in two way classes. As you can imagine, he is the heavyweight champion.

And he is the number one contender at light heavyweight. So, yeah, we're just kind of throwing out some, you know, our stray thoughts about these rankings. Because I think it's about time that Bellator made their own, you know, kind of because the U.S. has had them for so long. But we, you know, we've discussed ad nauseum sort of what's the right way to do it. You know, media generated, should have some other independent patent. If so, who would those people even be? Can fighters do it?

They have so many biases. Do we just leave it again to an internal, an internal Bellator panel? But then that raises all kinds of questions about, as we said, you know, trying to just manufacture match-ups. So anyway, I would just implore people. If you're curious about the rankings, check them about yourselves. They're on, of course, you can just look up Google Bellator rankings and they'll pop up in this lovely PDF file, which hopefully just becomes a tab on their website at some point. Yeah, it's there. They have their own page now.

Is there a tab? Is there a thing that I can just... Yeah, it's just like an article, but it has everything listed. Yeah, yeah, I see. But I want that article eventually get bumped down. I want a thing. I want a dongle. I want to...

Like, listen. I like tabs. There's a couple on here that are kind of puzzling. Like, and this is no... And I'm not saying that this isn't a talented fighter. Careful, Mike. Careful, Mike. Aviv Ghazali should not be a top 10 fighter in 10055 pounds.

Aviv could be. Like, he could be. He holds the record for the fastest submission in Bellator history. Yes. He's 5 and 0. He's 5 and 0. Like Georgie Georgie Caracagnan has 42 professional fights. And he's ranked behind Aviv Ghazali, who's 5 and 0.

And he's probably fought guys experience-wise, like combined probably aren't 5-0. It's, again, you know, there's probably some recent, like, there's some recency bias here. 100%. This is idiot. This is a media vote. You got a vote on what you've seen recently. So I don't, again, like I said, I don't even keep my own ranking. So I'm not criticizing any of our peers, certainly for their votes because I have no idea.

Honestly, I have no idea what my list would even begin to look like outside of top five. If you asked me to make top five for each division, sure. Top tens, I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. Again, I'd probably do what they did. They probably took a look at record, recent highlights. And I, you know, I don't know if I deviate that far, but let's, you know, the inaugural rankings are tough, especially with what we have in place.

Like, especially, like, until some of these fighters fight, they're not even okay to be nominated for any of these spots. So, like, that's why you don't see YOL or Anthony Rumble Johnson. But once they fight, like, and all these other prospects that they've sent, like the Brett Johns of the world and stuff, like, then they can get entered into this mix and things will look a little bit better. So for those who, like, complained about it, this is why give it like six months, wait for these newcomers to fight, and then things will look a little more normal. And look, they have two, two, two division champions. That doesn't make things easy either. So, all right. Now, but let's transition away from Beltor.

But while keeping in mind again, I want to talk more about the Pitbull-McKeague matchup. So again, matchup talk. I'm just going to ask you, Mike, is Pitbull versus AJ McKee more, I'll ask you, is it more highly anticipated in your eyes than Alexander Volcanovsky versus Brian Ortega? And do you think it'll be kind of viewed as a more intriguing fight? Those are two very interesting questions. Yes. Because in my mind, in my mind, Pitbull v. McKee is more fascinating than Volcanov versus Ortega.

Just because we've been building up to this for almost two years now. Like we had the Grand Prix, we had all the different cool elements to the Grand Prix, you know, the selection little ceremony they did, which is so awesome. And like everything just kind of built to this place. Like they did such a great job for like two years. I mean, of course there's a pandemic, which has delayed this thing a lot more. but when you spend two years setting things up and hoping that it would get to this place, you can't help but get more excited as time goes on. Volcanowski versus Ortega, kind of tough because, one, it was on the same card as Steve Amy Richards

versus Francine Gano, too, for the heavyweight championship of the world. Yeah, it was like a good co-made event, but once you lost it, I just felt like all the sizzle went away for a while. Like people were like, oh, now it's gone. And it's almost like, I'm going to say they stopped. caring about it, but it was just like, it just flew away. And now, did you say, did you say tough? Did I hear the word, I think you said the word tough in there.

Mike, what if I, what if I told you, Mike, what if I told you, would this sweeten the pot, Alexander Volcanowski and Brian Ortega coaching the revival of the ultimate fighter? How does that, how much does that sweeten the deal for you, buddy? It sweetens it zero. In fact, it unsweetens it. It's like taking lemon juice and pouring it all over it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

At first we're talking about Colby Covington and Jorge Mazadol being these two folks. Then we're talking about maybe Connemar Gregor and Dustin Pori. We're talking maybe Conner Greger and Habib Namauga-Madamato being the coaches of the Ultimate Fighter. And we end up with Alexander Volcanowski versus Brian and Brian Ortega is the coaches of the ultimate fighter. Listen, I'm not a huge tough guy. They have to do a lot to get me invested in this show, outside of it being my job to get invested in the show. But Volcanovsky and Ortega are not going to do it. me. If you're going to do it to build up a title fight, because now we have to wait

six months for this title fight to happen probably. Okay? I would rather than do Piotr, Jan, and Al Jermaine Sterling as the coaches, I will wait six months for that fight if I get to see those two coach against each other on the ultimate fighter, because there's heat there. You can see them bicker back and forth. Like, there's a legit rivalry there that I would love to watch play out on television on weekly basis. There's like no, there's like no heat between Volcanofsky and Ortega. None. Like it'd just be

it'd just be like a good coaching battle. Like who's the better coach heading into the title fight? Who will steal that little piece of momentum going into the title fight? It's just not great television. I'm sorry. And it's nothing against those guys. It's just like you need the coaches to add that extra like heat, that element heading into the fight. And this one just doesn't do it for me. I hadn't even thought about the possibility of Sterling and Yon for the ultimate fighter. Oh my gosh. That would have been so much fun. So much better. Oh, and Matt Serra as part of Sterling's coaching staff.

Oh, my God. Or even better, part of Yon's coaching staff. Can you imagine that? He putted him out of the corner. Stop it. They're all friends now. Everything's fixed. Stop it.

For anyone who has never seen Matt Sarah's work on the only fighter, he was amazing on the comeback season back in season four. He was a stand. He really made him a star, I think, that he had never, a level of stardum. He'd never reached before. He was such an obvious leader. And then later when he went to coach the show again, against Matt Hughes.

Both those seasons are so, so, so fun to watch. And Matt Serra is a huge part of that. So, Mike, I get your saying. I'm a huge ultimate fighter fan, but I have years that booking fighters, especially championship fights and making that six-month delay, is poison, promotional poison. I can't stand it.

And I think people will be surprised if they look back the last like 10, 15 seasons of the only fighter. Gosh, it's been a lot of seasons. How many of these fights didn't even happen? They just fell through because when you booked that far ahead, like six months, nine months ahead, look, a lot of stuff's going to happen probably that might derail the fight and it has happened multiple times.

So, yes, I would much prefer, and it can happen in two months span too, I understand, but I would much rather they just try and book it as soon as possible like these kind of fights. It's so silly and that they go, as I've said this on other shows, with some sort of, just go with coaches

and don't worry about them fighting again. Like I said, I would love to have Matt Serra as a coach, like you bring him in as a coach. I would love to have Chil Sonan, bring him in as a coach. bring me entertaining personalities. I don't care about the fight. Sometimes the fight doesn't happen,

and it doesn't need the hyperdial infighter, and it just delays great fights like Okunovsky Ortega. But, yeah, I'm kind of with you personally. That Pitbull-McKee matchup is so intriguing, and I hope people give it the respect it deserves. I know Bellator is going to push the hell out of it. And I hope people tune in. I hope, because there's just so often that stigma of,

oh, well, it's Belator. It's not as good as the UFC. This would be a huge, huge fight in the UFC. I mean, this is a fight night main event. This is a co-main event on a pay-per-view. It's so high level. There's so many storylines going into it. And as you said, even like a natural rivalry between the two, like they seem respectful,

but how can there not be a rivalry based on everything that pit bull has accomplished and everything that McKee is like coming to take? They've been essentially on a collision course for the last like three years. I mean, this has been building whether they realize it or not. So I think it's awesome in that sense. But do you feel like, Mike, that people are going to. are going to understand, like, why there's so much buzz around it and why we were saying that it's the bigger, we think it's the bigger featherweight title fight.

Yeah, I think more and more people are getting bought in at this point. I think people needed something to watch this weekend. They watched Bellator, especially, and I thought they were smart about it, putting it on their YouTube channel, you know, putting it on their app, making it easy to manage so, like, people didn't have to go and buy Showtime and get that monthly subscription. People got to watch it. And at one point, I remember watching it on, I was watching it on YouTube myself. There was like, you know, 30,000 people watching it at one time.

And this is outside of the people watching on Showtime, watching it on the app, watching it on the website, you know, different networks around the world. I think people see it. I think the visual of them two jarring back and forth at each other has gotten a lot of attention. I think it'll build and build and build. But it's up to Bellator to really push this fight. Get it on the books quick. Like find a date. You know, let's have a date in mind.

July, August, September. This fight is happening. By the time, like, by the time we get to Romero versus Rumble, that card, where those two guys headline in the Light Heavyweight Grand Prix, we need to have a date set. They need to announce a date on that card because you know everyone's going to watch it. Coming up, August 24th, whatever it is, live from scenic, beautiful Uncassville, Connecticut, yes. It's happening.

The finale of this Grand Prix we've been pushing for so long. A.J. McKee, challenges. Patricio Pitbull for not just the Bellator title, but for the, for the title of best fighter in Bellator, pound for pound. Sell the crap out of that thing, but have a date quickly. We cannot delay this for that long. By that, by the time we get to May 5th, 6, whenever that Romero Rumble card happens, we need to have a date ready to go. And look, depending who you ask, maybe the best featherweight in the world. All right. Look, I'm not here for the Volcanowski slander. I'm a huge.

Volcanoxi supporter. I think he's the best one for, I think he's the best 1,45 around the world. But there's a lot of people who feel like he lost that Max Holloway fight.

It was a super close fight. I don't begrudge anyone who thinks Max Hollowe won that fight, if I'm being honest. So it's funny. If Pitbull beats McKee and cements himself again is the number one featherweight

in Beltor, he might be, and then Michael Chandler beats Charles Olivera. But usually of Pitbull might go around saying, guess what, I'm the best featherweight in the world, I'm the best lightweight in the world,

weight in the world. And I mean, I don't think anyone would necessarily buy that, but it would certainly be a horn that he could, too. And I think of you a fun narrative to pursue. And let me tell him, he's up there. I would put him up there with anybody in either of those weight classes. Obviously, I think lightweight's a little bit tougher. I think once you get to get near the top, the size matters.

But featherweight, I don't know why you can't argue that he's the best featherweight in the world. He's as accomplished as anyone. And again, depending how you feel of Wolkenovsky, you might already think he is. I don't know. I'm curious to see what happens with Patricio Pipple if he wins this fight. Like, if he goes out there and just thrashes A.J. McKeigh and stops him in the first round like he does to everybody else. What is, like, what next?

Like, what else could this guy prove? Because what's fat, the thing that makes this fight so fascinating is that most people look at Aege McKee is like the guy that can beat this man. Like, A.J. McKee can do it. And if A.J. can't do it. Who can? You know what I mean? Like inside Bellator, who can beat this guy? So I'm curious to see what happens if Pitbull does to AJ.

I'm not comparing Patricia Pipo to Habibu Naragamayev, but I'm starting to get those feelings. Like, we have to search and find and dig for ways that Patricia Pitbull can lose. But like, even with the Emmanuel Sanchez fight, like, oh, there was a close fight the last time. But it wasn't like as close as people kind of advertise it being. Like Patricia Pitbull clearly won. But we have to like find ways that this man can. could possibly lose fights. We did the same with Habib.

I'm not comparing the two guys. No, we can't. But I feel like, at least for Bellator's purposes, this is as close as it gets, right? I'm looking now at the, first of all, you just got me thinking about a pit bull, Habib batheed, which, again, I think, obviously, I think most of us think Habib would win handily, but it would be fun to see either way. I'm looking at the rankings now. And so the problem is, obviously, featherweets kind of cleared out, not necessarily by him,

but by the tournament, you know, it kind of made this logical succession of challenges sort of sorted it out on its own. The only guy, the lowest ranked guy that wasn't in it is, sorry, the highest ranked guy, excuse me, that wasn't in it is Pico. And unless Pico rattles off like three straight knockouts in the next like six months, I don't think there's any interest in seeing him fight Pitbull at this point in his career, not yet. Someday, someday, but again, that's assuming pit bull is still around in Bell tour or even competing. So there's some intrigue there, but that's it. Otherwise, again, ahead of him is Daniel Michael, Pedro Cavalio, who pit bull fought already, Adam Borenz, again, who has to build his way back. So guys who win the tournament. And at lightweight, Brent Primus, number one contender, there's zero heat in a pit bull premise, with respect to Brent Primus.

There's zero heat in that. Patrici, obviously, his brother is not going to fight him. And then Goitiyamauchi, Benson, Henderson, Sydney, Allah. I'm just going by the rankings here. It's just not a lot of compelling matchups or anyone that I think could believeably beat him. him right now. So yeah, it's, I mean, it's a good problem for Bellator to have, I think, but it is a problem. But, you know, we won't know. We won't know until this fight is booked and resolved, which hopefully soon, soon, sometime this year. But, yeah, that's a lot of Bellator talk, Mike.

That's a lot of Belator talk. And I'm glad we did. I'm glad we did. It's well deserved is a great show. And I do think we should, of course, talk about the matches that are made in other promotions every now and then, not just the UFC. With Instacard, you get groceries that over-deliver so you can over-share your preferences. Want russet potatoes with no brown spots? You got it. Want turnips that look light but feel heavy? Easy.

Want honey crisp apples that are firm green and definitely not Macintosh like last year when you lost the fall bakeoff to perfect Penelope Johnson? Okay, a bit TMI, but we're here for it. So download the app today and get zero delivery fees on your first three orders. Instacard, groceries that over deliver. Service fees exclusions in terms apply. Let's do a little check the tapes this week.

Let's do a little check the tapes slash reader section. I think we kind of merge it this week. Obviously, we don't have our usual reader submissions. Mike, go ahead. You go first. You said you got some comments. You did get some comments from listeners this week. Let me go through and see what we have here.

Some late suggestions from last week. Some folks want to see Tyrone Woodley versus Santiago-Ponsonibio. Kind of give him a, you know, give Tyrone one last shot and see what happens. I'm okay with that. What else do we see? Lucas call it of Diaz is a throwaway O'Malley rematch versus Cheeto, you know? It was a throwaway, as it turned out.

It was. Alonzo Metafield versus Tyson Pedro. And there's like one other one. There's a couple of things that I have to like look into, Sean Brady versus Tyron Woodley. And then there's one other one that I have to do a little more research on. And then there's one that I'm going to reveal later. because it's something that's been on my mind as well.

An excellent tease, my best friend, an excellent tease. I do want to shout out Boston to Rich, who I said had one of the, well, I thought was one of my favorite suggestions last week who said that, why should John Jones get the heavyweight title shot against Francis and Gunny who went, Glover-Deshire's right there, and Glover-Deshire has been active. I mean, he didn't really explain it. I just assumed that's what his thinking was. And then he actually said that was a mistake.

He did not mean to suggest Glover to Jerry. He said, I'll just read this verbatim. This is from Boston Ridge on Instagram. God, I feel so dumb. Maybe I was still hungover. Glover isn't even in the same weight class. I'll make up for it next onto the next. I'll make up for it on the next, onto the next one.

Thanks, guys. Keep up the great work. And I just said, don't apologize. That suggestion ruled. So Boston Rich, no apologies. And we also, this happened a few weeks ago. I wanted to mention a previous show and just keep forgetting. that we had it.

I got a new follow on Instagram and Mike already told you this. I got a new following whose name is literally, his username is literally just for Oteno for OTT onto the next one. So someone, he has not messaged me,

he or she has not messaged me with matchmaking suggestions yet, but I hope they do. Literally just for Otno, if you are listening, please. We want to hear from you because that is the greatest username we've seen.

So I hope that really was made just to message us for matchmaking suggestions. So that's exciting. Amazing. Yes. Our readers and you, Mike, did a good job suggesting Benil Daryush versus Tony Ferguson, which is now scheduled. UFC 262, May 15th, very logical matchup, great matchup for both guys.

So credit to you and the, I keep saying readers. One day I'll stop, Mike. Credit to you and the listeners on that one. That was on point. And no one predicted, as you said, the throwaway call out from Vigente-Luke. No one predicted Nate Diaz, versus Leon Edwards, also for UFC 262, our first five-round fight that is not a main event and not a title fight. Mike, what happened here? How did this matchup get made?

No idea, but Merry Christmas, Leon Edwards. I mean, this is as good as it gets. This is as good as it gets for Leon Edwards, not having to fight. Like, if you're not going to get the Mazadol fight, which you knew he wasn't going to get, if he wasn't going to get a title fight, This is the best case scenario, right? Like, this is one of those things that this is a number one contender fight without actually having to face the number one rank on the division. If Diaz wins, he's fighting the winner of Ouzman v. Mosadol. It's no doubt about it.

Sorry, that's just the way that it is. And if Leon Edwards beats Nate Diaz, this is the classic, like, we either get the star over or we give the guy who needs the rub the rub, the rub, kind of a fight. You know what I mean? This is what it is. This is exactly what it is. It came out of left field,

and it's actually pretty interesting. And the stakes are very high in this fight, very high. Yeah, yeah, I agree. It came out of nowhere, but it is intriguing. You're right. I think there's a good clash of personalities there. I think it's going to be a decent build on that front. I'm not looking forward to the trash tag.

I don't think that the trash talk itself would be very good. But as far as, I mean, their personalities and quotes they might provide, it could be useful. I have Nate Diaz in my rankings at, well-to-weight rankings, at 12th. I don't know why, and that's including the champions. So 11, if you want to say, number 11 ranked it. I don't even know why I have him that high. Probably some residual McGregor victory. Anthony Pettis, I guess, was a good win.

He's such a, he's really beyond the rankings. Like, rankings him is kind of pointless, which is why, you're right, I shouldn't be shocked by the Leon Edwards matchup. Like, based on my rankings, I'm like, how does he get that fight? And I'm like, he doesn't really, the matchbreakers don't really care what he's ranked at. I did not see this coming, like, since, since we started doing onto the next one. We've had Diaz's name thrown out a bunch of times.

I think for like Wonderboy. What I was? Kobe Covington. Vicente Lucke. Damian Maya, I think people have wanted to have mentioned it. I don't think anyone's mentioned Leon Edwards, Nate Diaz once. Even last year when Leon was looking for a fight for all that time, no one said, well, why not just throw these two together if they're both, you know, looking for something to do?

And yet here we are. Yet here we are. We've arrived at Diaz, Ediezer. which is highly anticipated now and yet again before before this week completely completely off the radar so if I'm wrong if anyone check you know check your own tapes and you suggest this let me know because you're a genius that's I know okay so I will say this I know and I don't know where I said this but I know for a fact that I said this when Hamzaa Chamaif got knocked out of the Edwards fight in March I said if I'm

Leon Edwards, if I'm Leon Edwards, I'm doing everything I can to call out Nate. I'm turning all my attention to this man. But then he didn't, and he ended up fighting Bilal, and I just forgot all about it. You know what I mean? Like, when he didn't have the opponent, I'm like, if I am Leon Edwards, you just take everything and you just, you say, Nate, you're the guy I want. Everything. Just every promo, everything, every tweet is about Nate Diaz.

And then the fight didn't happen. He ends up fighting Bilal, it ends in the eye poke. and then it just was like, now what? Now what do we do? Like all the sizzle just went away and now he gets Nate. It's just wild. Like it's so out of left field, but I love it. I love it.

I think it's great. I think it's great. We get to see Nate back. I feel like Leon's going to win pretty easily, but you never know. You never know. Mike, I'm glad you mentioned the eye poke because that, you're right. Not only did that set the stage for this bizarre matchup, which we're getting, but also is indicative of the bizarre first quarter, bizarre and extremely eventful first quarter that we've had for the

UFC so far. So we're going to do a quick run. I don't need to go into every storyline. But I mean, both from, we had some exciting results. I mean, I think he was kept, this first quarter was capped off in wonderful fashion by Francis and Ganu's absolute dismantling of Steve Miochich and his final, his long-awaited coronation of becoming the heavyweight, the true heavyweight king. but before that we had we didn't necessarily get a lot of we had some high profile fights and in unsatisfactory ways of course you mentioned Edwards and Edwards and Muhammad the Ipoke and the Al Jamein Sterling

Peter Young which you've also mentioned the illegal knee what to you was the weirdest again this was just stuff that happened in the cage you know what to you was the weirdest MMA related story that happened over the last three months or most notable I don't have to be weird. You know what? Most notable.

Could be something positive. I keep bringing up all those weird stuff. Maybe this is most notable. I mean, it's, I would say this is so ridiculous. We just had a guy lose a finger, by the way. Not in the UFC. We just had a guy lose a finger. Okay.

Because I hated everything about this, but it was probably the most notable story so far. The decision 2.0 with Habib Nirmagamada Madoff. Oh, yes. Like, that has to be the most notable story, right? And went literally nowhere. Like it was the definition of wolf tickets. Mike, that shouldn't even been a 2021 story. This was over in 2020.

That was over in 2020. And yet somehow, let's say one person, one important person did not accept that it was over in 2020. It went to like the end of February, right? Like beginning of March, like it just ended. It just stopped. Did you not enjoy the, I'm meeting Habib for dinner this weekend? Again. Well, we didn't really resolve anything.

But in two weeks, we're going to have dinner again in Las Vegas. I'll let you guys know. you didn't enjoy that, all those updates from Dana White? No, I hated everything about it, but it, and I fell for it every single time. We knew nothing was going to happen. We said it so many times, like, Habib is not coming back this year. Like, he's not. And then, like, he bought the promotion.

And I even went on our year-end show, and I was like, you know what? I got this feeling that, like, Dana will get him back for just one more against anybody. Not for a bell, not for anything. Like, he'll get him back for one more at the end of the year. I was wrong. It's not happening. but now we can we can we can move on we have a title fight books for may 15th between michael chandler and charles olivera so at least we move forward the story of habib coming back

comes to a close the end take the bookmark out and throw it in the garbage it's over yes let us hope that that is a first quarter story and is never brought up again for the rest of 2021 because we have a lot of we'll talk about this bit we have a lot of stuff to look forward to but i'll i'll give a shout out to uh again what would have been i think the most memorable story of normally over a three-month stretch. Otman of Zaita's briefly getting released for the now-wee supposed bag of potatoes in Abu Dhabi breaking protocol. Someone, Dana White giving this strange recap where he says someone tried to scale a building

or not scale the building, sorry, go go like travel across like in between rooms at one of these, you know, massive, you know, Abu Dhabi buildings, structures. Again, I'm babbling here, guys, because the story was frankly never resolved in a satisfactory way. Otman and Zaiter was brought back. Again, we don't know the exact circumstance of that. Obviously, as management, it spoke to the UFC and somehow it was sorted. And then later, they sort of just joked about, you know, during press conference, they joked about, oh, it was a bag of potatoes. There's nothing serious.

So what was in the bag? Still don't know. We still don't know. We'll go down as one of M.A's great mysteries. There's many. I'm going around. There's, I'm sure people wants to make a list of all the things in M. we'll never get the answer to.

Throw that one on there. That's a big one. But, yeah, again, we had new champions. New champion by dominant win in Friends and Gadda. New champion by disqualification in Al Jemay Sterling. I'm sure this stuff we're forgetting. So guys, yeah, if you want to send in those, your comments of what you thought was the most memorable, memorable, notable, weird moment of the first quarter so far. Please let us know.

Of course, you can reach me at Alexander K.K. K. Lee on Instagram. Oh, sorry, on Twitter. Excuse me, T's on Twitter. Alexander K. Lee on Instagram. I might have it backwards. You have it backwards.

No, I don't. Stop it. Definitely. I'm 1K on Twitter. I hope so, or at least I've been filling out things on our website wrong for a year plus.

I can look at this up. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm 1K on Twitter. Alexander KK Lee on Instagram. Alex. Dot Lee at SBNation.com for email. Hit me up on any of those. Mike, how can they send their thoughts and comments to you?

Twitter, Mike Kek, underscore, J.R. Instagram M underscore HECJR and yeah keep those things coming because I'm excited. Lastly, again, you guys, a little bit of shorter show today. We do want to talk about matchups. We can sort of expect to see going forward now that we've had some of these championship pictures cleared up in the first in the first quarter of 2021 and also kind of maybe a big wild card fight that we're looking forward to. We'll see.

But first of all, we also want to mention Kevin Holland, by the way, we'll be fighting on Saturday. And remember people, this is why he's banned from the show. Kevin Hall is banned. We said it last. I can't remember if we did out of courtesy,

matchmaking for him because it was a new year. And we're like, you know, it's a new year. Maybe Kevin Hall will have a reasonable schedule. No, he is banned from here. I don't care what I don't care if he...

I don't care if he wins the main event. But I guess he wins the main event. We have to match make for him. We'll see. We're probably still going to matchmake for him anyways. He's just going to fight again in like two weeks. What's the point?

At 170. We cannot predict this guy. Okay. All right. I'm sorry. Mike, let, what, what fights, what big fight do you see happening this year? Obviously, I guess I should ask, do you think Jones and Gandhi will happen this year? What other big fights you think, title fight do you think is having this year?

And what is this wild card matchup that you've sort of been teasing me with going to this? Or where do you begin wherever you like? I mean, I would like to throw some sort of out of left field fight. but we just got one between Nate Diaz and Leon Edwards. So I don't know what else I could say that can eclipse that. But I am optimistic we get Ingano versus Jones. I hope we get it done. But I think honestly, and I know it's only April right now,

but I think the clock's ticking. I think the clock's ticking on getting this thing done because Ngano wants to fight in July or August. So I would say they probably have like a week or two to get this thing done. Otherwise we're going to see Ingana versus Derek Luey. too and I'm fine with that fight as well. Derek Luce is just waiting for the contract. He's loving this drama.

He's sitting back and just wait. And as soon as they send that contract, he's signing on the dotted line. So he is just waiting. Yeah. And they just booked yesterday as we record. Sierra Ghan versus Alexander Volkov to headline the June 26th card. So that only leaves three guys at the top of this food chain right now.

We got Lewis, Jones and the champion, Francis and Gano. So we'll see how that all plays out. Of course, Jan versus Sterling. That rematch needs to go down. I'm hoping June for that one that they're kind of looking at

but it's not done yet I hope to be speaking with one Peotrean at some point this week and maybe get an update on that I was supposed to talk to on Friday but things happened so we had to rebook it but wild card fight the wild card fight that I want

to see is something that I've been thinking about for a few days now and then I actually got a DM about it on Tuesday from a gentleman on Instagram by the name of Stephen Haney Jr. Who says for on to the next one with the featherweight title being rescheduled who does holloway fight max expressed interest recently in going back up and somebody needs a fight it's a very exciting fight the winner could fight the winner between charles olivera and

michael chanler steven i agree with you my wild card selection moving forward max holloway goes up to 155 to take on the former WSOF lightweight champion, former UFC interim lightweight champion, Justin the highlight Gaichi. What? Oh my goodness. That's it. Parental advisory warning on this podcast.

That's it. That's the one, especially now that we get the ultimate fighter for the featherweight title, who is that is going to fight? That is crazy. Well, I was about, I thought you were reading my, mind because I was actually not throwing a

match up for Max but someone that I think should be competing this year but let's before I get that Max Holloway Justin Gatesy good God Almighty give it to me give it to me the Max Holloway Justin Porre fight was so good and people forget it

because it was on the same card as not forget it but definitely don't remember as much as they remember the Adisania Gaslam fight this fight I think obviously should get either man it's hard for it for one thing, if it's not a fight night main event, because it is certainly pay-per-view worthy, now that they've started this precedent with Edwards and Diaz five-round non-titled non-titled non-main

events, that has to be five rounds. 100%. I don't know where it is on a car. If that fight is not five rounds, you are doing, again, promotional malpractice, you are doing disservice to the game. You're doing the service to the fans. Yes, this is why, again, I know everyone's like, oh, why is Diaz, Edwards being, you know, the first, whatever, the first fight being set up like this.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Some fight has to be the first. And now that they've done it, we can go forward. Hopefully this, my only thing is hopefully this means greater compensation for the fighters. We always bring this sort of thing up. If they're being made to fight five rounds more often, they should get paid more, frankly. I don't think that's going to happen.

But let's just hope that's, again, is at least in just being discussed by managers and the UFC. So, but yeah, man, I hadn't even thought of that. My only thing I was going to say was when you mentioned Max, I was like, Max should fight Zabit Megamat Shrepo at some point. But I just want to see Zabit back in action. He's just been gone for so long. long. And it's crazy because again, he's a guy who I would think, I think is one of the top feather weights in the world. I think people have always viewed him as if not a future champion, a sure

fire title contender. So yeah, I don't have any big matchup predictions for the rest of the year. Just hoping we see him come back at some point. I'm sure, I'm sure there's reasons. Again, you know, of course, with COVID and everything, it's screwed up everyone's schedules and ability to take fight bookings. But we got to get as a beat back in there. We've got to get him back in the featherweight mix. That's it. That's my only, my only thing going forward. Yeah, this would just be a This would just be like a legacy fight for Max because his next fight of 45, 1,000% should be for the belt. Yes. So if he goes up to 55, he goes out there and has this fun scrap with Justin Gaichi, unless he gets knocked out in five seconds, which by the way, nobody knocks out Max Holloway.

So I don't see that happening anytime. No way. Not even Justin Gaichi, I don't think can knock out Max Holley because of that shit of his. So I think Max would go the distance. Win or lose, he still can go back down to 45 and fight for the belt. So this would just be like a fun legacy fight against a guy that. Holloway would consider a fun challenge. Gachy needs a big fight.

He's been kind of left out of this whole puzzle at 155. And if he beats a guy like Max Holloway, then yeah, he could absolutely fight the winner for the lightweight title. In fact, even if Max Holloway wins, he can fight the winner between Oliver and Chandler for the lightweight title. So why not? I think it makes sense for everybody wins here. Mike, I love the way you think.

Max Holloway has nothing to do. So what should he do? Go up and fight Justin friggin Gage. Yeah. And a fight that could take years off of his life. What a fun thing to do. Fun for us, certainly. Could take years off of Gage's life too.

Oh, I mean, definitely both of them. Could take years of our lives watching, if we're being honest. That's going to be a rough one to watch. I can't wait. That's great. Well, that's it. That's it. That's it.

Mike, no, I'm stopping there. I'm stopping there. I'm glad we did the show. I'm glad we did the show, even though there was no UFC card. This was super fun. Yeah, hopefully again. Guys, I don't know when the next time, well, we won't have a show. Are we hitting another patch of consecutive UFC weeks?

Like another two-month patch? No, right? I think we're, what, April 31st, there's no card, right? Oh, 30th? Oh, okay. May 1st? Is there a card May 1st? There is a card May 1st.

Oh, no. Okay, so we're on a big stretch. Oh, well, okay. So, guys, we won't have to worry about alternative programming for a while. Yeah, from the 10th to, oh, okay, no, no, last week of May. Okay, so yeah, two months, two months, or seven, sorry, I should say seven weeks. So last, next time we'll do something of this. It'll probably, if we do it at all, we'll be the last week of May.

But this week, there'll be plenty of stuff to watch, too. We got one T and T1. Yep. So Demetrius Johnson and Adriana Maris, about a lot of people looking forward to for a long time. So that'll be on Wednesday, guys, and you can watch that. Again, it'll be taped delayed, but you can watch that in prime time in North America for one. So that's a good, that's a good thing. That one won't be.

That one's not tape doing. No, that one's not tape to lead. No, that one's not okay. That one's live. That one will be live. Okay, that one will be live. And then we also have Bell Tour continuing to roll, starting and beginning the light heavyweight Grand Prix on Friday. Ryan Bader, Lioto, Leoto, Machita, and the Bell Tour debut of Vanessa Porto.

She's going to fight Liz Carmuch. So, yeah, a lot of fun stuff to watch, Julia Budd, former champion back in action. Guys, you got stuff to watch this week. And then we have the UFC, of course, a UFC fight night on, UFC on ABC 2, excuse me, on Saturday headline by Marvin Vittori and Kevin Holland. Any other big matchups you're looking forward to from that card, Mike? I'm just excited for it. We're going to be talking all about it this week.

I know that about that. So make sure you join us next week. We'll be back to matchmaking. We'll discuss the fallout of UFC Vegas 23 or UFC on ABC 2, whatever you want to call it. Martin Vittori versus Kevin Holland, the main event for that one. 185 pounds. And then the following week, UFC Vegas 24.

Again, main event, 185 pounds, Robert Whitaker versus Calvin Gasolm, and then it's on the Jacksonville Florida, three title fights. UFC 261. We're going to have a lot of great content, a lot of great programming. On to the next one is going to be fire for the next several weeks. So for AK,

I am Mike Eck. Remember, don't take this stuff too seriously. MMA is supposed to be fun. We will have lots more fun right here next week on on to the next one. the podcast. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.