MMA Fighting - On To The Next One: Episode 1 | Matches to Make Following UFC on ESPN 13, UFC Fight Island 2

Episode Date: July 20, 2020

MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Alex K. Lee give their takes on what should be next for some of the notable names following UFC on ESPN 13 and UFC Fight Island 2. 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. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the debut episode of On to the next one, the podcast, here on MAAfighting.com. Thanks for checking us out wherever you find your favorite podcast. I am Mike Heck. Hope you guys all had a great week. We had three UFC events over an eight-day span, UFC 251, UFC on ESPN 13, and then Saturday nights, UFC Fight Island 2 event.

And before I introduce my tag team partner in this venture, allow me to briefly explain what this is and why it is happening. So since UFC 249, we've been doing a matchmaker column on the site following UFC events. It was called aptly titled onto the next one. It's become a pretty popular segment on the site. And after UFC 251, we got together with the powers that be, came up with the concept of taking that matchmaker column and doing a podcast. So that's what we're doing. So nice and simple, easy, ready to go.

And joining me in this discussion. each it every week is the one, the only, Alex Kee Lee, AK, exciting stuff here, the MH and the AK, back at it doing the damn thing. How are you, sir? Oh, wait, each and every week. I thought this was like once every three months or something. Hold on, hold on. I need to, I got a look at my contract. I've really got to look at my contract before I sign on for these things. I just kind of nod my head and just, you know, respond to whatever's going on in our company chat. But I guess I'm here, and I'm happy to be here this week, certainly, and I'll be happy to be here in the future now that I know what's going on.

But yeah, as you said, man, three shows and eight days, but, you know, the shows are pretty good. It kind of, I think so, I've seen a bunch of people will say, and this is just kind of, I guess, how time is moving these days, but like, that Wednesday card feels like it was two weeks ago or a month ago, when it's really just days ago. But again,

that's kind of the quality, how the quality the fights have been, the storylines coming out of some of these cards, again, several of which we'll discuss today. So, yeah, I'm a happy I'm a fan, and I imagine quite a few people are right now. Yeah, we don't have a break from UFC action for a long, long time. So we have lots of matches to make over the next several weeks, but for this particular show, not only will we be taking a look back at some of the potential matchups coming out of Saturday's event, but as AK sort of alluded to, we're also going to take a look

at Wednesday night's card as well, which was UFC on ESPN 13, and that's where we're going to begin today, AK. The main event of that card was a fun competitive matchup between Calvin Cater and Dan Ege. Cater was able to get the victory via unanimous decision. So let's start with the Boston Finisher. Cater's been red hot since UFC 249, that finish of Jeremy Stevens. He takes this fight with E. Gay in a headliner spot. A guy ranked four spots below him at the time, a guy in Dan Igay who was coming in on a six-fight winning streak. It was a very risky fight for Calvin Cater, but the UFC did reward him with the main event and a new six-fight deal to boot. Cater gets it done, and now he's in a very interesting position and a very interesting division with Al-A.

Alexander Volkanovsky is the champion. We still don't have a clear-cut number one contender for the title right now. So Alex, what's next for an important piece of the New England cartel? Mike, I am somewhat anticipating what you will say, so I am already prepared to sort of counter that. I don't think anyone would complain if it was announced at some point in the next couple of months that Cater was the next contender for the Featherweight title. But there's a lot of certainly more recognizable names ahead of him, not necessarily more qualified. Cater has a solid a resume at 145 pounds as anyone. So if we're not going to give him the title shot, I think the reasonable thing to do would be to have him face the winner of a rumored but not

officially yet. Yayar Rodriguez versus Zabit Mago Manchere Pop out. It's targeted for August 29th. We'll see we'll see if that becomes official. I'm sure someone will think, well, why not Ortega Korean zombie? I'm on the record as saying I just kind of want, I want to see zombie fight Volcanowski now. So I'd be happy with him skipping the Ortega fight. know it's a really cool grudge match and a dream fight for a lot of people, but it's not, one's also not official yet. I'd be fine. I really want to see that style matchup of the Korean zombie, Chen Sung Jung, and Alexander

Volkhodovsky. Because a lot of people are saying, oh, Volkinovsky is a point fighter, which I don't agree with. He certainly wouldn't be able to be one against zombie. I don't think so anyway. So for me, I'm saying for Kater, Yaira Yir, Rodriguez, Zabit, my Megalmed, Cherapov winner, maybe get that, you know, get that revenge against Zabit. For me, I'm going to say the one name in this discussion that wasn't said at all. I think the Max Holloway fight is the one to make.

Because Holloway, you know, despite how you've scored the last two fights, he's lost his last two. He's lost three out of his last four. Controversial judging or not, I have a hard time believing that they're going to run that Volkanowski fight back a third time, at least not in the foreseeable future. And when you got guys, like you said, with Korean zombie, Brian Ortega, which I actually think that should be the fight that's booked because we don't have a clear-cut guy. And then you got Sabid and Jaire. there's only one guy left. So Cater has done the UFC many of favor over the last year and hasn't asked for much in return. I mean, getting the new deal comes with getting a made-of-end fight, so it's not like, you know, it's nothing new there.

But it's time for Calvin Cater and fans of the UFC to see how good this guy really is. Like, is he a guy that can fight for the belt right now? Or is he just an exciting guy that's going to be fighting top 10 fighters for the next couple of years? If he could beat Max Holloway, we have our answer. If he's competitive with Max Holloway, we still sort of have our answer. But if Max Holloway goes out there and just, you know, 50, 45s him, then we kind of have our answer for that to me is the fight to make. But on the flip side, AK.

And I don't think, I was supposed to say, and I don't think Cater would say no to that either, even though Holloway is technically on a two-fight losing streak. Kater would love to fight a name like that. Because I think I would say the biggest name on his resume is Jeremy Stevens. I've seen as far as recognition. I'm not necessarily quality because I think Daniege is maybe his best opponent. But yeah, Stevens and Holloway is a big step up from that. So he definitely wouldn't say no, I think, to a Holloway matchup if it were proposed.

Oh, absolutely. And then we have Dan Igay on the flip side who made a pretty good showing of himself on Wednesday night. He was competitive with Cater, but in the end, Gavin was just the bigger and more complete fighter at the end of the day. And I know there's a lot of people who are out there in Twitter land who are suggesting that Dan Igay dropped to 135 pounds. And if that's what he wants to do, great. I actually don't think he's ever fought at 1.35, at least professionally. He's 28 years old, still a promising guy about to reach his athletic prime. So to me, AK, I think Danny Gay versus Shane Burgos sounds like a hell of a good time to me.

That works for me. Both guys coming off of losses against top 10 guys looking to bounce back. That makes way too much sense. What say you? Yeah, that was my number one name for sure. Style-wise, it's a good matchup, exciting fight. Both guys fought within the same. Again, that Burgos fight now feels like three months ago, but that must have just been

what last month i guess last month yeah yeah it feels like so long now everything you know but uh yeah first name that came to my head uh neither guy in like a big skid you know again just coming off a loss in both in tough fights right uh so so they still have very very very credible resumes and uh yeah it would just be an entertaining one to watch i'll throw it another name just for the sake of it uh cup swanson you know i know he's dealing with an injury uh but that's been a while now and he's probably being being very picky with his fights at the stage of his career as well but that's another fun what I'd like to see and kind of like what we said for Cater, you know, a good name, a good name that I'm sure Ege would be, would want to test himself against. You know, Barbosa was a good

name too. So I'm sure he wants to stay sort of in that top 15, top 20. And I'd also like to see how much Cubs Swanson has left as far as, again, being near the top of the ranking, top 15 in the rankings. You know, I know he's not fighting for a title anytime soon, but he's still a fan friendly guy and someone who, you know, has that has that reputation. Yeah, I think that's a good matchup as well. And then we go to the co-main event, actually. Tim Elliott gets a decision win over Ryan Benoit. I do not score for Tim Elliott, just laying all my cards on the table, but I'm certainly not up in arms about it. And Elliot is such an exciting fighter, Alex Win or lose.

So there's really no wrong answer here, in my opinion. So what would you like to see next for the awkward one coming out of Wednesday night's event? He's such a weird guy at a book because people just look at his UFC record and say, oh, five and nine. Like, why is this guy even still with the UFC? you know, and it's not like he has a huge win over a top contender. But the thing is, every time he's been in a fight with a whether or back nazzal name or top contender, he's always in it. I mean, he's so competitive. His grappling is just, we talk about us all the time when talking about Tamalia.

His grappling and his scrambles are just almost second to none. He's so unpredictable. And on any given night, any given round, he looks like a guy who's a world title contender. So you can kind of understand why he keeps sticking around. I'm going way outside of the box, talking about awkward. I kind of, and I will touch upon this more later, I guess, when we talk about Saturday's card. I kind of want to see him fight Joseph Benavides. Now, him and Benavides are friends.

Benavides, I think, was his coach on the ultimate fighter, and they fought before, and Benavitas beat him. So there's a history there. But Ellie has said on more than one occasion that again, yeah, they're friends, but he thought Benavides would beat Figurato at some point, and they would get to fight for a world title. Obviously, that's not going to happen anytime soon. But it's something that it would be a cool bucket list thing for both guys to fight.

You know, have a respectful fight. And also, Benavita said after losing on Saturday that he still wants to fight until he gets a win. So I think it would be a real honor for Tim Elliott, not to like do the job for him like professional wrestling, but to potentially be his last, his friend's last opponent. And I think it's a very winnable fight for Benavita as well. Again, he already beat him. But I think it'd be a very winnable fight, very classy fight. So I'm going way outside the box and saying, hey, maybe we see Benavides and Elliot. Though I'll say something different later.

It'll make sense when I explain it. I mean, I like the idea. Like I said, there's no wrong answer here. But if we're going by meritocracy and why would we do that, I guess I won't think outside of the box too much. But I'd say maybe the winner of Jordan Espinosa versus David DeVorak when that fight happens at UFC 253. I mean, I'm good with that one. Tyson-Nams fighting Matt Schnell soon.

Maybe the winner of that fight. Again, when you have a guy like Tim Elliott who's just so exciting, there is no wrong answer to this question. in the featured bout of that card. We saw Jimmy Rivera return after a year away picks up a much-needed win over Cody Stamen. And to me, this all, this is kind of a tough one because it all depends on when Jimmy Rivera is ready to come back and fight again.

Like, if you wants to come back quick, maybe you do like a song you dong or something like that. But if he's willing to wait a little bit, say November, December-ish, I think a fight with Rob Fawn is the one to make. Because Rob is hoping to get back by a round. around that time, he's coming off that injury, he's coming off some surgery on his knee following the Ricky Simone fight, both guys on full camps, two guys in the top 10, that works for me. So it all depends on how quickly Jimmy wants to come back. But if he doesn't want to come

back to like the end of the year, I think fonts the fight to make. What do you think? I'll throw out as somewhat obvious names. Again, this guy fought on Saturday and won Brett Johns. You know, he's coming up there. Style-wise, it'd definitely be a little funky, kind of a a strikler versus grappler thing, though. There was very versatile, but definitely on paper, striker versus grappler. But the real intriguing name I would want for Jimmy is, and I'm actually really doing this for Aljo, to clear the past for Aljo, so there's no shenanigans. Jimmy Rivera, Cody Garbrandt.

For some reason in my mind, I thought this had been booked before, or at least in talks, or maybe there's some trash talk that's come on. I'm not sure. Rivera's called out a lot of people. So I think that would be, again, good style matchup. I think Cody still needs another win before he gets a title shot. I really do not want to see him jump the line. And I like Cody Garbrand.

I say this because he should have the chance to build his name back up, as opposed to keep getting thrown to these very, very tough title fights over and over again for a guy who's still so young in his career, but has had so many ups and downs. It's really difficult. So I think Rivera is a win-will fight for him, and vice versa. I think Rivera could really make his name off of Garbrand with a win. So I kind of would favor a Cody Gar-Brand matchup really just again, so we don't hear any more of this Gar-Brand-Yon talk.

Hashtag hashtag, give Alger the title shot, please. Long hashtag. Yeah, I don't want to see Gar-Bron in there either. to give Garbrand somebody up there, give him Marius. I think Marius recently said that he agreed to fight Cody in October or something like that. So I would be cool for that. But I think Rivera, you know, he's been out for a while. It wasn't like the greatest victory of his career over Cody's day. I mean, it was a good win, especially on such short notice. But I think we build Rivera back a little bit slowly. Fon's a good one. Even if you do Song You Dong, I'm cool at that as well.

And a little wrinkle we're going to put into this podcast, AK, as we're going to do for all these events. We're going to matchmake, you know, as you've just heard, the higher up fights from these cards. Plus, we're going to have a wild card pick from the fights that we don't really mention or give a lot of time to. So, AK, you're going to give the first wild card pick in the history of the show. So what is your matchmaking selection to put a bow on UFC on ESPN 13? Two notes. My first choice would have been Kamzachamayev, but he booked himself a first. fight 10 days he's fighting he's fighting this weekend after fighting on wednesday a dominant performance

against john philis where he was barely touched so understandable i guess but holy crap this guy's in a hurry so uh conzo chumaya is out of the question now he is fighting uh this saturday against uh rice mckee from cage warriors so that's pretty nuts and then my other option i was going to say laurent murphy because i think this is a guy who we keep sleeping on and he's been very competitive feather weights so far he just beat ricardo homo's is really really good uh and and now is one win, one draw on the UFC. But my pick actually would be another Cage Warriors guy. Modestus Bukowskis, who was expected to dominate his debut,

facing a short-notice guy, Nandreus Mikhalidis, and certainly did dominate. There's been a lot of buzz around this guy for a while. He's a light heavyweight, which is a vision in need of fresh blood, big fight finisher. And I'm going to throw out, since sticking with the wild card theme, I'm throwing out a wild name. Whenever this guy's ready to come back, go Kansaki. Oh, go Kansaki. I think that's a good name for Bukhasas to get a win off of. I don't know how good Saki is at this point in his career.

Again, we know he's strictly a striker, but I think that would be a really cool, just a cool matchup on paper. Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think it would be a good name for Modest as if he could beat Gokon Saki, boost him up a little bit, boost his stock up. But for me, I feel like the theme, at least for these fight aisle of events coming out of them, should be let's keep this train moving a little bit. We talked about this on the post-fight show on Saturday night.

We're seeing some of these newcomers step up and make names for themselves in their debuts, and one of which on Wednesday night was was Munir Lisei or Lazz. I should probably get to learn his name a little bit more. But my wildcar pick, and there's no need for any kind of an explanation because it doesn't warrant one, because it's so much fun. You do Monier versus Nico Price. Let's go, AK. Let's go.

That's the fight to make at 170. That welterweight division just keeps adding an exciting guy. Isaiah. It's like every other, I mean, a lot of the, you know, everything welterweight under, but I feel like it's welterweight that keeps adding these exciting strikers specifically. What a man, what a division. And, yeah, what a win over Al-Hasan, right? That was a good one. Big win. Not a lot of people expected it. He's got a chin on him. It's to be an exciting fight. Him and Nika Price will just throw bombs, and we'll see what happens there. I love that fight. But let's take a look at Saturday night's event.

In the main event, Davis of Figuerreiro became the UFC Flyway Champion, completely dominant performance puts Joseph Benavitas to sleep via rear naked choke after dropping him three times in that in that first round. This guy is a monster and he is a tough o for anybody at 125. Also, he had a very short night. So his first title defense could come rather quickly here. So what do you think should be that first title defense for the new champion? I think the right thing to do would be Alex Perez.

It's really unfortunate that Perez is much like every other flyway contender of the past. just isn't showcased properly. I think his last win over Juicy Formiga, I think was the curtain jerker, was it not? Oh, no, it was, oh, okay, I'm just looking at it out. Third fight, yeah, third fight on the early prelim. So not, not like, buried. But he's, he's one of those guys.

He's an exciting fighter. He's a rising contender. How are you not featuring this guy more? And we said this, I think we've said the sentiment also about Alexandra Pentosia, who fought on Saturday. So the right thing to do would be Alex Perez, but I'm suddenly leading a little more towards Ascar Ascarov. That win over Pantosia, I thought was so impressive.

He's now 2-0-1, I believe, in the UFC. So I think he's undefeated. He had that draw with the assassin baby, Brandon Moreno. And just from a skill set perspective, you've seen him, you've seen him sort of like how versatile he is and what a great opponent he would be. I mean, look, he has even less name value than Alex Perez. I get that at this point.

But I think I'd like to see Alex Perez be built up. a little bit more, I guess is what I'm saying, and then have Ascroft kind of hot shot it to the bill. Just to see, just to see what he has. So I'm contradicted myself a little bit, but, and again, a recent C bias, we just saw Ascroft fight. So that's, that's a huge part of it. So I'll lean towards Ascarov for now. I'm going to go with Perez. And look, I think Moreno is probably one B in this discussion right now. And Ascroft certainly has, has a claim for it. But I think he's a guy that I would like to see him build a little bit more, too. But if they gave it to Moreno, I'm all for it because I think Brandon Moreno is going to be a champion

at some point. I think Ascaroff actually needs another win so he could fight the odd man out, but this is a what have you done for me lately kind of a sport, A.K., we talk about this all the time. Both Moreno and Perez fought the same guy in their most recent fights. Both guys defeated Juicier for Miga. Perez actually finished the fight in the first round, and Moreno got the decision. So give me Perez challenging for the title. And then you can run back Moreno versus Ascaroff since they fought to a draw, even though I for sure thought Moreno on that. that fight and I thought he got hosed big time, but I think you run that one back. Winter fights the winner of the title fight.

And we have our, you know, our next few months in the flyweight division sort of laid out. Now, for Joseph Benavides, he was obviously heartbroken after the loss, but as you said earlier, he's not done yet. He doesn't want to go out like that. And I think he needs, as you sort of talked about the Tim Elliott matchup, to take a step back, take some time. So my pick for Joseph Benavitas, AK, Benavides, against the. winner of

Rogerio Bontoran and Manel Cape at UFC 253. You got Bontoran, number nine, Cape wins. He's got the resume, former champion with Risen. He's immediately a top 10 guy and he becomes somebody like a like a Yeri Perashka that

we don't need to slow roll him at all. We could just put him in a sink or swim type opportunity. So that's my pick, especially if Cape wins, give him that big step up and see where he's at. Mike, you just saw Joseph Benavides knocks down, and I would estimate, like, I mean, I'm exaggerating out, like, 20 times in one round. You really want to throw him in there with those heavy hands of Manel Cape?

That Mennel Cape is a killer. And look, Joseph Benavides is a grown-ass man, all right? We don't need to protect him. He's not the kind of guy that's going to ask for an easy fight in what could potentially be his last fight. I understand that. But, you know, obviously, I suggested the Ellie thing earlier because Elliot's a grappler. I wouldn't expect him to have quite the concussive force as Davidson Figurato, as we saw in that title fight.

But my other option would be, again, again, this is an easy thing to do because they fought on the same card. Pantosia, you know, two guys theoretically coming off losses of different weight, but certainly coming off losses. Another guy that he had somewhat of an interaction with on the ultimate fighter, Pantosia was with Team Sehudo, not Team Benavides. But there must be, you know, just a touch of history there. And again, I think it would be a competitive fight, a good step up for Pantosia. I think he needs to rebound from this ASCRA performance. It wasn't bad by any means, but he was certainly outclassed. So I would like to see what he has for Joseph Benavides.

So if we're going to give Benavides another tough fight next for what could potentially be his last fight. So to summarize, I think Benavides is right for Elliot. But I don't necessarily think Elliot is right for Benavides. I think Pantosia would be a good fight for Benavides. But again, you kind of mix those names together and you'll come up with something good. Again, when you're at 125 and you're talking guys like Benavides, there's really no wrong answer. So it just depends what you want to do with them. If you want to try to potentially build up another contender, you could do that.

But that's very difficult to do against a guy like Benavitas. So there you have it. Co-man event, Jack Hermanson submits Kelvin Gassum a little over a minute. It's beautifully done. Jack said sort of laid out the way he wants to do this all. He wants the winner of Whitaker versus. Mike. I disagree with him, AK. He wants the winner of Whitaker

versus Till, and that makes a lot of sense with Cannon Air being there and Adasania, getting ready to fight Paulo Costa. But if Darren Till goes in there next weekend and steamrolls Robert Whitaker, which is not easy to do, but if he goes out there and finishes Robert Whitaker, all bets are off.

Till is white hot. His social media game is unbelievable. I think he jumps Cannon Air in the queue as well if he finishes Robert Whitaker. So, It depends solely on how that fight plays out. And if that does happen and Darren Till finishes Robert Whitaker, you could still do Hermantso versus Whitaker. But that's where I'm at.

What do you think? So I'm sorry, Mike, I want to run here. So you think that he doesn't get the winner of Till Whitaker? You think if Till wins, then Hermanson just might be out of the equation. I think for now, for now. It all depends on what happened. Like if Till wins a decision, then yes, that's a fight to make. If Whitaker wins a decision, yeah, that's a fight to make.

But if Till goes out there and smashes Robert Whitaker and finishes him in the first or second round, Till's getting the next title shot. Yeah, you're right. I'm also going to disagree with Hermantin. If only because, guess what, Joker? It's not easy to do our jobs, okay? I know you think, oh, I can just do it post-b... After beating a top five middleweight in the world, you can just go out there and do a live interview

and do this incredible bit of matchmaking right on the spot. No, it doesn't work that way, all right? This requires a lot of research. It takes a lot of time to do what we do. We're in the lab. We're mixing up names, mixing up matches. So someone on Twitter said to us, Mike, like, wow, that took him 20 seconds. How long is going to take you guys to do that?

And I'm just like, oh, you smart asses on the internet. I think you're so, oh, I'm sorry, yes. I like, in fairness, he is right. I do like the idea of him facing the Till Whitaker winner. And then he even said, oh, Jared Katnir is ahead of me. So Jared Katnir would face the Edisonia Costa winner. And then he would face the additional Costa winner, who he expects to be Costa. He said he thinks Paula Costa will defeat Israel at Disney.

So that was an interesting part of his post-fight comments. But yeah, if not that, like you said, you know, we have this matchup with Edmund Chabazian and Derek Brunson coming up on August 1st. And certainly the winner of that matchup would be a good next opponent for Hermanson. I agree. We got another potential breakout guy in Raphael Fiziv. He looked tremendous in his fight of the night, went over Marcia Casey. The defense, the offense, the whole nine.

he was absolutely outstanding and he's in line for a step up in competition so what do you do with him after that great performance on Saturday? The guy, gosh, he put on the kind of performance that like it makes your imagination run wild, the potential matchups. We talked about a little bit last night on the preview show and this is the first thing that came to my mind and it's kind of stuck with me now. I would like to see Fiziev and Kama worthy. I think that'd be a really fun matchup.

I'm not sure if Kama's striking is on the level of Fiziev, but again, that's why I'd want to put him in there and find out because Coma's a super exciting prospect. And I'd love to see how he matches up with a more experienced kickboxer, Muay Thai kickboxing. There's a lot of fun options for that guy. And Jaci, you know, we usually, when we look at the UFC rankings, you only see the top 15 guys. But I would, I would have put GiaciCCC probably top 25, top 30 guy at 155 pounds. I think that's fair.

So his next fight should be in that top 20 to 25 range. So I would go with maybe a fight with Bobby Green because that would just be a blast to watch. Or if you want to test him in a different way, kind of like what you did with Jacasey when he was running off his wins early on in his career, match him up with a guy like Drkar close, because I think that sounds like a good test. Jirkar can bang. You saw that fight with Benil Darius. Jekar's not afraid to throw leather, but he could test Fiziv in the wrestling department, too, to see where he stands there. So either of those two guys make sense for me, but I don't really care. I just want to see Fiziv fight anybody at this fight.

Our own Jose Young's also had a very strong suggestion, Lando Venada. So Jose and I just want to see him just do more striking. Mike, you actually want to see him tested as a prospect, which is like, yeah, whatever. But no, we just want to see, Jose and I just want to see more fun Matrix moves. Yeah, I still think we'll see them either way. But finally, AK, the wild card selection from this card featuring one of the combatants that we did not mention from Saturday Night's event. Well, I mean, the first thing that came to my mind had to be Ariani. Lipski. That knee bar was disgusting and hopefully we'll be, you know, edited out of future replays

because it was absolutely not for children to watch. But she looked incredible. She came into the UFC with a lot of buzz and then faced some very tough competition. So that, you know, we know how Amaya's, you lose those fights, boom, that buzz goes away. And it's not like she lost like super exciting decisions. It was like they were competitive fights, but not particularly memorable. So she really needed something. She won, she beat Isabella de Padua, which was, again, a solid performance but not quite what people were expecting from the the violence queen and then she does that knee bar against uh last night against um oh my gosh against dread i'm sorry her her name is escaping me at the moment aluana carolina thank you and um and it has that reputation back so i want to see her fight another

sort of young fighter on the rise sabina mazzo uh from lFA champion i like that i mean you could be boring and look upwards and go like ah montana deloresa julian robinson but no let's go with another up-and-comer someone who I think is going to help her put on a potential fight of the night performance. Sabina Mazzo, let's let it rip. I think for me, you have to agree with this. Everybody does at this point. One of the biggest stars to come out of that event, if not the biggest star, was Armand Sarukian. Everyone singing his praises throughout that great performance against Davy Hamos,

and I'm not ready to shoot him into the top 15 just yet. Although people are clamoring for it, he's very close. I say AK, and I don't know if you're going to like this or not. but I say we give him another step up against another wily veteran who is bred for these types of situations, a man who loves to derail hype trains right in their tracks. You're shaking your head, but I don't care. They can't see me. I'm shaking my head right now because I know what's coming.

My wild card pick, Armand Sarukian versus Jim freaking Miller. And I wanted Miller versus Alexander Hernandez, but forget that. Now I want Miller against this 23-year-old phenom. It's a win-win because Miller is so popular. If he loses, he gets that Mazadol. He's a G for taking a fight like this rub. And if he wins, this guy is a prospect-killing man-beast. Sarukin, either way, is going to gain so much experience from that fight, whether he wins or whether he loses.

I want that fight shot right into my veins, AK. If people heard that noise, that was me shifting uncomfortably in my seat at that suggestion. Why? Well, first, I thought you were going to say Cowboy Soroni. I turned to 155 and I was like, that's insane. But I'm almost more disturbed by your Jim Miller. This is three UFC fights versus 35 UFC fights. Oh, but it was cool for Roosevelt Roberts to fight Jim Miller.

I think he had one, one extra fight. I did not say I approved of that such matchmaking either, you know? Yeah, certainly on, you know, I mean, now that you've, now that you've spoken it into existence, I am intrigued. I will not lie. It's stylistically a very good fight. And I think a very winnable fight for Sarukin, if I'm being honest, I think there's an athleticism gap there. And I think his wrestling is at such a high level that, man, I can see him being competitive with almost anyone in the division at this point. That's how high I think we are off of that win on Saturday night.

So I'm not against that. I'm just, I'm just, didn't see it coming. I apologize to everyone if I was rendered speechless and just rocked there by my suggestion. I just didn't see it coming. That's why it's called the Wild Card. So there you have it, the inaugural edition of On to the next one. What a way to end the show. Wow.

On to the next on the podcast. Episode one is in the books, AKA, any final thoughts before we say goodbye here? I don't have any final thoughts after that bold matchmaking decision by Mike. Watch what the heck later this week, I guess. If you want more of that, if you want more of that sauce, watch what the heck later this week and tune in every week of that show because it's too much for me. I'll tell you that much.

There you go. And we got between the links coming up too, AK, you get your first title defense, which I just thought of two seconds ago. Too much chaos. I got to recover for tomorrow. I don't even have an opponent for you yet, so I have to go scour the landscapes of MMA media to try to find you a challenger.

But as far as this show goes, it's going to happen every week on this network. It's podcast only. So subscribe to wherever you're listening to this here page, and you'll get to hear it. On the site page where it's located as well, I want you to leave your thoughts and comments.

Hit us up on the Twitter, AK is at Alexander K. Lee. I am at Mike Heck underscore JR, and we are out of here. Have a wonderful week. Stick with us for coverage for this coming Saturday nights event. What a card, that is. Fifteen fights, headlined by Robert Whitaker versus Darren Till and one heck of a main event.

For Alex Keeley, I am Mike Heck, and listen, we are just a couple of fantasy matchmakers trying to make dreams come true for fight fans around the world. We'll see you next week right here on onto the next one, the podcast. Listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.