MMA Fighting - On To the Next One, Episode 3: Matches To Make After UFC Vegas 5

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

In the third episode of On to the Next One, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee put on their matchmaker hats following Saturday night’s UFC Vegas 5 event at the UFC APEX. Future fights were discussed for headliners Derek Brunson and Edmen Shahbazyan, co-main eventers Jennifer Maia and Joanne Calderwood, Vicente Luque, Bobby Green, 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

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See your local Nissan dealer or nissan.ca for details. Conditions apply. You're listening to... to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Happy Monday morning, everybody, as we welcome you to a brand new edition of On to the next one, the podcast here on the MMA

Fighting Podcasting Network. UFC Vegas 5 is in the books capped up by Derek Brunson's third round TKO win over Edmund Shabazzian in the main event. So, it's time to play Matchmaker. And joining me on this venture, as he does each and every week, the Mick Maynor

to my Sean Shelby. He is Mr. Alex K. Lee. Alex, how are you, sir? I'm great. I'm concerned about today's show. I don't know if there was enough fights yesterday to do our usual schick, but I guess we'll try it. We'll try and piece a show together just like the UFC did on Saturday after a calamitous 48 hours. That is a great word right there. And I think we'll be a little more organized. We'll have a little more to work with than the UFC did. But they made it happen. And we are as well. This was as you wrote a column on that dropped on Sunday, one of the most chaotic events we have ever seen in the UFC. not because of the fights themselves, ultimately, but because of the lead-in and multiple guys getting scratched on Friday. A couple of fights were lost right before they're about to happen on Saturday for all sorts of different reasons.

It was an eight-fight card and a total of 12 switchups before the card came to an end. But it did end in a big way with Derek Brunson getting a huge victory. He looked fantastic. He finishes Edmund Shabazzian in the third round. He was the underdog, a big one at that, and he waved that flag with pride, Alex K. Lee. and in the end he gets his third consecutive win. First finish in almost three years for Mr. Derek Brunson.

So, AK, if we're up to you, what would be next for Mr. Brunson? I was going to say he got a big win and the illustrious positioning of first man up on onto the next one. I think the only real logical matchup, I'll have an alternate to offer in a second, but I believe it, it would have to be Jack Hermanson, given that Robert Whitaker is now occupied with the Jared Cannoneer matchup. And, you know, Hermanson wanted the winner of Whitaker Till. Obviously, he's not getting that. So, yeah, I want him to match up with someone who's also on a winning streak,

which is Brunson now, three-fight winning streak, longest streak that Brunson's been on in, I think, four years. So, yeah, that's what I'd like to see happen. But I have another option that I can bring up in a bit. All right. What is that option? Because I'm going with Hermanson as well. Oh, okay. I was going to wait until we got all the Hermanson talk out of the way.

But I mentioned this before. I think maybe that's a possibility for Hermanson. I'm not sure. But definitely talking about Brunson on some whatever shows we've done before, previewing Saturday's card. I would like him to get another shot at U.S. Romero, if Romero is able to beat Uriah Hall. I'm not as hot on the other way. If Hall beats Romero, I don't think Brunson would want to fight him again.

Brunson has a finished victory over him. But he has a third round loss to Romero. And I think it was Casey that reminded me the other night that that fight, oh, no, sorry, it might have been Jose. that that fight only turned around after Brunson was on the unfortunate end of a low blow. So I think it's been long enough since his first fight with Romero that, and again, it was a close fight at one I think Romero that Brunson was winning. So I'd like to see that one actually in an ideal world be run back, but Hermanson makes sense right now.

Yeah, either way, Derek deserves a big fight. I think Hermanson laid out this plan that most of us agreed with after he beat Kelvin Gaslam, and none of it happened, absolutely none of it. So I think the most logical thing to do is Book Brunson against Hermanson. It's not a number one contender fight, but it does put the winner in a position to potentially earn a number one contender fight. That makes sense to me. The other option I have, and he said it himself, Darren Till. Why not Darren Till?

If you couldn't get the winner, you can get the loser. It'd be a big fight. And Darren Till's injured, but it's not like he tore his ACL. He's going to be out for a year. He's probably going to be out, you know, probably the end of the year at this point. And Derek wants to take a little bit of time off. maybe come back at the end of the year, so that could line up as well. So I'm not opposed to either of those.

Just either way, a step up in competition, an opportunity at a big fight for Derek Brunson certainly makes all the sense in the world. Darren Till just continues to fall upwards, doesn't he? I mean, he's one in one technically at 185, but that went over Gasolent went a long way. A competitive loss to Whittaker apparently went a long way. And I think you're right. I don't think anyone would object if Brunson, if that was the next fight for Brunson. Because I think technically, even when the rankings are updated, Till will probably be ranked ahead because of the win over Gassalam.

I don't know how much Brunson's win over Shabazzian moves him up. So in a way, it's funny on paper, it is a beneficial fight for Brunson. But for a guy who's been admittedly for so long, I almost feel like he deserves someone else on a winning streak, not someone else coming off a loss, despite how close it was. Yeah. I mean, when you say the name, that obviously gets the wheels turn in. And he did say Darren Till's name. He said Hermanson's name. And then he said the BMF title, which we're not even going to get into.

because it was such a ridiculous thing to say. No offense, Derek Brunson. You had a great night, but that was your one miscue of the whole thing. Tell's the bigger name. Let's be honest. It tells the bigger name if we're talking in terms of fan recognition. Brunson put a lot of good work, but he doesn't have that kind of mainstream cachet. He tells a little bit higher in that regard.

So it makes sense. So I guess you kind of got the easy question to start off if we're comparing the two fighters. Because now we've talked about Edmund Shabazzian, who was undefeated. He wanted to become the youngest champion in UFC history. he's only 22 years old, had a pretty good first round. I didn't think he won the round, but it was close. It was competitive. And one judge actually gave Edmund Shabazzian the first.

And he's been this buzzsaw, this steamroller throughout his entire career, but he comes up short in his toughest test to date. So in my opinion, this loss, and I alluded to this on Saturday night on the post show, this could be a really good thing for Edmund. But he has to take a step back, unfortunately. And this is a tough one because I don't want to see him go too far back. but it has to be the right kind of matchup. This might not be the most popular choice, A.K.,

but it makes sense to me because this guy has a name. He's been in main events before. He has highlight real knockouts, and he's coming off a loss. So I'm going to suggest that Edmund Shabazzian go up against your boy Eric Anders. Anders, probably a top 20 guy in the division, be a good test for both guys. If we're talking ranking, name value, risk versus reward, I'd say Anders eclipses the Marvin Vittories of the world, the shoe faces of the world. I think that's a fair step back to potentially regain some of that mojo.

What say you? Yeah, I love it. I'm upset that you said it because I thought that I had thought of it and you hadn't. But I think like myself, I think I should have known. You are an Eric Anders fan. I as am I. It's crazy. He has 10 UFC fights for a guy who got a bit of a late start in MMA.

He certainly has made up for lost time. And like you said, has already had the chance to headline cards. So yeah, there's a decent level of name recognition there. Style-wise, I think it's a good match-up. And as you said, not too far down the ranking. So that really for me would also be the best choice. I'll just throw out a couple of other somewhat random names because I like to think on onto the next one, Mike.

I'm the master of the realistic unsexy pick. That is my brand. That is what is in my online dating profile, real and unsexy. And that is what I bring to the show. So I'll also throw out a little, I'll also Carl Roberson, who lost a Vittory. And Tom Breeze. I think Tom Breeze would be an interesting one as well.

He's sort of around the same age. I think, well, no, sorry. I mean, Breeze and Roberson are both like six years older, but no one's in the middleweight is as young as Shabazzian. So there go. A couple of other names, but I think I agree with you. Anders really makes the most sense. Yeah, I don't.

I actually like the Roberson fight too. I think either of those works out great. The Tom Bree's one, not a big fan of just because I just don't trust that he's going to get to the Octagon. It's just, that's just what's happened in his, career at this point. So either way, I think we're all excited to see how Edmund Bons is back, whatever they, whatever they do. I just don't want to see them throw them, you know, another top 10 guy. And even a guy like Vittorri, you're just on a tear right now. I don't want to see a fight like

that. So co-made of it, AK, and this is a pretty boring start to the show because this one is so easy because Jennifer Maya and Dana White did our jobs for us. It's Maya challenging Valencia Chupchenko for the women's flyway title, barring a big setback or a huge injury, which we certainly hope doesn't happen. I hope I'm not jinxed anything. But barring that, this is the fight, is it not? Yeah. If for whatever reason they don't make that match up, like, I mean, I'm sorry, I'm so reeling

from Joanne Calderwood being bumped back in the contenders line and losing her shot, all of respect to Maya, who was just sensational on Saturday. I do think you have to give her the shot. Schenko hyped it up right away right after and just tweeted out her, say, it would be a pleasure to fight you. Maya was told about it in the post fight. And she was like, oh, yeah, of course. I want that fight.

I'm glad I'm glad Shavchenko, you know, I mentioned it. And Dana White says it's the one to happen. Yeah, it just makes sense. Let's not work. It's unfortunate. Maya didn't make weight her last two fights and that her UFC record on paper, I think, is like three and two, which doesn't look amazing. But it's all been competitive fights.

It's all being against high-level competition. And she's in former invictive champion. She clearly has the credentials to challenge Shepchenko to beat her. I mean, I don't know if I give anyone a shot at Shupchenko at this point, but that's another story. If for some reason that doesn't happen, again, Shepchenko misses time and they need it. Then I think you throw Maya in the mix with Cynthia Calvillo and Lauren Murphy. You have some combination of those two of them fighting and one of them getting the shot. I don't think anyone would complain.

I think that's you do something with those three. And again, possibly Maya fights one of them and one of them fights Shepchenko. Yeah, and you got a feel for Joanne. You just had to feel for her on Saturday night, whether you were a big fan of hers or not, stepping in on short notice with a title fight in your back pocket and then you get subbed in the first round. and that wasn't even the worst of it. She ends up fainting after the fight. And, you know, from all indications,

she's been released from the hospital. She's doing better. But we hope she's doing okay on this Monday morning. But we know, A.K., Jojo is a warrior. And as long as she passes, like, the essential medical tests and is cleared to begin training, she'll want to come back ASAP to try to get this bad taste out of her mouth. So you want to go first on this one?

Where does Jojo go from here? Was she flipping off the camera and the Instagram post She made. That's a little rude. That's a little rude. She is called, I mean, one of her nicknames is bad mofo Jojo. So I guess she's just living up to that name. But I have such a boring pick.

It's just not, well, I have two picks. One, I know you hate, which I'll mention as well. But I think if you want to be super boring about it, you match her up with Viviana Arrujo, who she replaced, who she replaced a fight Maya. Arrujo was supposed to fight Maya twice, called her word replaced her on Saturday's occasion. but yeah there's not a lot of cachet of that the real fight i think we want to see is the chivchenko consolation prize valentina's sister antonina i think that is the one uh michael is shaking his head right now uh as he did the first time i brought it up to him

look i i just enjoy the idea of uh i'm sorry you will not be taking home the grand prize but all of our participants get a lovely gift basket which in this case that's a very demeaning way to refer to nantanina shepchenko who's a very high-level fighter uh it's certainly behind much, much lower in the rankings than Joanne Calderwood. But I think it would be a fun fight, and Calderwood still gets herself a Schifchenko. I could not dislike that pick anymore, just because it's not that like, if this is like a year ago, this is like after the contender series and they made this fight, yeah, I'd be a little more excited about it.

But after seeing what the first three fights have been like for Antonina Schofchenko, she needs to take a big step back. Like, she needs to start running off these highlight real wins. She needs to get finishes like she had on the Contender Series so we can build her up. We can't just throw her in there with Jojo to get 30-26. I don't want to see that. Yes, we can. We can do whatever we want on the show. All right.

So I may have disliked your pick, but a lot of people disliked my pick from Saturday night. So I'm going to stick with it from the post-fight show. And let me just explain this a little more because it comes with a couple of caveats. I'd like to see Joanne sit back for a little bit and get her mind. right come back at the end of the year now without fights there's no money and i understand that so that's caveat one another and let me just throw this out there my suggestion is macy barber and i will explain why in a minute macy had knee surgery she tore acl she's hoping to come back at the end of the year she'll need to come back at the end of the year for this to be a possibility like if she comes

back in 2021 this fight doesn't happen at least right now now i saw and took a little bit little bit of a beating on this choice because people are all of a sudden, aka, I can't believe that I'm saying this, people are all of a sudden policing meritocracy in the women's 125 pound division. And if you want to do that for this division only, fine. But here's the thing. If you look at the rankings, and I'm pulling them up right now, here's what's there.

You have Caitlin Chukagian, and they just fought recently. You have Calvio, who's likely going to fight Lauren Murphy. Both of them are likely out because I just don't say. see another fight that makes sense to fight the winner of Valentina and Jennifer Maya. Jessica I is fighting Jessica Androge. Maya is fighting for the title. Roxanne Mada Ferry and Andrea Lee are fighting each other

on September 12th. So that leaves two options in the top 10. One is your was your first pick, Viviana Araujo, who was supposed to fight Maya or Macy Barber. Which one of these two is going to create more buzz and which of these two will have a greater impact in a victory? It's Macy

Barber and it's not even close. I think this is the way to go because you can't slow roll Macy anymore. You just can't. Like she's in the top 10. She said a lot of things, pissed a lot of people off. You have to book her tough fights at this point.

Jojo is a tough fight for her and vice versa. There's my explanation, AK. Mike, a compelling, compelling argument. And I have nothing to count. I'm not looking to counter at all. I think it's a great matchup. I just want to say, I know people come here for the speculation

and they stay for the caveats. If there's anything readers love, it is caveats on top of, with caveats to justify our picks. So, well done on that front, my friend. There we go. In the featured bow, we saw Vicente Lucay, who had a phenomenal finish of Brandy Brown. This guy is so underappreciated, in my opinion.

He is 12 and 3 in the UFC. He has 11 finishes. He lost his debut fight, and the other losses were to Stephen Thompson and Leon Edwards. I mean, this guy is legit as it gets. He's also in a really interesting and kind of tough spot right now with Walterweight being so loaded because he deserves a big fight. and I don't know if he necessarily gets the type of fight that he deserves here, or at least at the level he's earned based on the landscape at 170 pounds. So what do you do with Vicente Lucay, okay?

Has Vicente Lucke never main-evented a car? That can't be right. He's never main-evented a fight night or anything? No. That's absurd. That's not saying. Underappreciation. How has he never gotten like that Shabazzian push?

Like that kind of, that is, but maybe the timing wasn't right. Maybe the timing wasn't right for him to get us. slot into a fight night, a main event. Has he even been in a co-main? I would imagine so. Mike Perry fight? Was that not? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was, it was, it was. Okay, okay. And that was a great fight. That was a great fight. But this guy, my only, maybe it's because he's not the greatest speaker. He's certainly not a big trash talker, which again has been the foil of many, you know, many would-be stars. But that's ridiculous.

Because Shabazian isn't the biggest trash talker either. He had, again, some great hooks with the Ronda Rousey stuff and being only 22 years old. But Nico, Vicente Lucke is 28, which is young and in the prime of his life. Good looking guy. Man, big time finisher? Wow, why is he not? Okay, anyway, this is these be fixed. Whatever happens, the first thing that should happen is, whatever his next fight is, should be the main event of a fight night somewhere.

UFC, get behind this guy. This is absurd. I'm going to throw this out there. I think we're in agreement. And I'm just going to say it because I want to make sure it's said properly. Vicente Lucchay needs to get the winner of the upcoming event known to fans everywhere

as Neil on Neal. And if by some chance you don't know what Neal-on-Neil stands for, it is the upcoming welterweight battle between Neil Magni and Jeff Neal. So, yeah, the winner of that, great matchup for Luke. I'll also throw out two others,

which again, we talked a little about before, Robbie Lawler, whenever that guy decides to fight, and you want to talk about a fight-night main event, there you go. I'd rather see that as a fight-night main event, five round fight night main event than a you know a pay-per-view main card bout or something so luke lawler is a totally a dream match on paper and just sort of a random random one um a rematch with bala muhammad i feel like uh muhammad has gotten so much better since their first fight uh they're

both trending upwards and i think it would be a banger uh a longer fight the second time around and just an absolute banger i'd like to see the bala fight again it's definitely not gonna happen like it's just too far too bar back no offense to bala because he deserves to be you know a little higher ranked as well. And I think you said it best. I mean, the sensical thing is the Neal-Neil-on-Neal fight winner between Jeff Neal and Neil Magny. Winner gets Leuke. There you go. This is Neenal-Long-winned explanation. But I appreciate the Nate Diaz call out by Vicente-Lucy. I appreciate one of the MVPs of Saturday nights event, Gilbert Burns jumping on that wagon as well on Twitter, calling out Nate Diaz. I have a better chance of growing hair tomorrow before that

fight gets booked. I'm sorry. What do you think is more? likely Vicente luke and Nate Diaz or Connor Greger and Hamzat Shemaiah oh god that's actually I mean they're both nearly almost definitely not going to happen but if for some reason you had to pick which ones more likely I would say by like a nose hair Connor and Shemayev has a better chance of happening and this is like 0.0.0.001% to like 0.0015%. That's where we're at right now. Zero chance of either of these fights happening. I just had to mention Shemai.

I think, I don't know if people will know, we have legally obligated to Shemayev now on all podcasts and video shows we do now. Yeah, you want to say, you're trying to start an argument, AK, because we know we disagree on this one as badly as we disagree on the Joank Haldowin next move. When we start our weekly Hamzat Shamaev podcast, we will, like 90 minutes of just talking about Shamaev, then we can really go over all this stuff in great detail. Yes. Talking Shamaif is going to be the name of the show. But now we come to my MVP of the night. One Bobby Green, Alex Kaley. This guy delivered with his performance, with his trash talk, what he's done with a microphone in his face, doing the Triple H water spit in a pandemic.

I liked it at first. And then I was like, oh, that's awesome. But I tweeted Triple H. A plus. And then I realized this is a pandemic. You probably shouldn't be doing that. Also, Triple H shoots a fine spray into the air. He is like a whale.

It's like he has mastered the art of shooting a fine spray. Bobby Green just hawked a water softened, thankfully, Lugie onto the cameraman right in front of him. There's some photo of it that looks really cool. Like I think they got the after spray and it looks perfect. In the moment, it was awesome and flat out disgusting. It's like he popped like 15 water balloons. There's just a burst of water.

And I think what happened was because Triple H will always take that sip before he hops up in the apron. so it's fresh. I think Bobby Green was sitting on that for a good minute and a half and it was just too long. It just kind of thickened up on him. But Bobby Green's doing the damn thing right now. I don't think he's a top 15 guy just yet. But I want to see him in these fight of the night type fights on the way up there. Like I don't need to see really anything else at this point.

Just keep giving them guys at around the same ranking that will give entertaining fights. So I said this in the post show. Bobby Green versus Hafeel Fiziv. Give me all of that wild. chaos. Give me all of it, AK. How good would that fight be, ladies gentlemen? I'll tell you, it would be hella good, as the kids say,

AK. So your thoughts on Bobby Green after Saturday night. Do kids still say that? I don't know. I'm not a kid, so I don't know. But I know that was a thing at some point. I have a kid. Has he ever? You got to ask him, we got to beef up some of the slang on the show. If you could just like, whatever he's

watching on YouTube or TikTok, whatever it is, kids are watching these days. Get his input and just put it in the notes later so we can throw out some of those Hot phrases. I like, you know, Bobby Green, he's been around forever. He has such an entertaining style. He just, he's so competitive in every fight he's in. He's only been knocked out, like, really blown out and maybe like one or two UFC fights.

So you could match him up with someone in the top 10. I wouldn't bat an eye. You could, again, kind of go back with someone who's a little less proven in Physio. So I like, I have three names. And again, it's all across the board. One of them, Drew Dober, entertaining style matchup. I'm not sure I'm interested either man being that matchup. Drew Dober is right around, excuse me, right around the top 15.

I don't know if he's officially ranked there, but he's certainly in my top 15. Leonardo Santos, who's on a eight fights in the UFC unbeaten, 7-0-1. He's 40 years old, I think, and I know, which unfortunately means he wants guys, I think, well ahead of him at this point. He's been dying for a top-ten opponent or just dying to stay busy because the guy cannot get in the cage more than once every 18 months for whatever reason. So, Lina R. Santos, I think, would be a really good style matchup. That's from my man, Guillermo Cruz. And also, if we're going to go even higher, Al Iaquinta? Ooh.

For some reason, I assume they'd fought. I don't know why. I think just because they've both been around for so long. I just imagine the fight had happened. That'd be a good one. What's up with Al these days anyway? No idea. No idea.

Yeah, no one's just an update. The last update I had heard, and this is before Fight Island happened, Paul Felder, I did interview with Paul Felder and he said that he was offered a fight with Al. Okay. Twice. Once was like in March or April and they couldn't do it and then they offered him again in June and Felder said no. So Iaquinto was like probably going to be pissed off finding that out. So I don't know if he like broke that in that conversation, but that's what he said. Well as far as we know, Rage and Al is healthy then. So yeah, I think I think of those three names, I bet if you asked Bobby Green, obviously he would say Iaquinto. That would probably be his pick. So and most fans I think as well. So

Maybe if I had to pick one as well, I'll say ally Quinta, but I agree. I think it's about time those two faced off. Yeah, because he's lost, what? Is it three in a row? Or is it two in a row, I think? And I think maybe like three of four or something like that. It's a little bit of a slump, but against really high, you know, really, really good competition. I enjoy, I mean, I'd like that fight.

It'd be cool if they can make it happen. High Quinta is, you know, he's a guy who likes to fight ahead as well. I don't know if you'd want to go that far outside. But I dig it. I dig it. I dig it if they can make it happen. But now we've come to the wild card portion of the program. This is my favorite part of the show where Alex and I will choose one fighter that we haven't discussed who competed maybe on the prelims or lost in their main card bout.

We're going to match them up for their next fight. So, AK, we're going to start with you. Who's your wild card selection coming out of UFC Vegas 5? I'm actually going to go back to the main card and take one of the, you know, one of the people who didn't see their hand raised on Saturday. I'm so high in Randy Brown. I loved the matchup with him and Lucay. He was outclassed in the situation. We talked about overlooking Lucke before.

I actually thought just from what I seen from Randy Brown lately, that he was kind of trending upward. And I actually thought he was going to beat Lucke. But no, Luke A very one-sided performance before winning in the second round. But that hasn't made me think less of Randy Brown. The guy is still a fantastic prospect. Maybe it's unfair to state prospect at this point. It's still a fantastic potential contender at 170.

So, I love. like the thought of him and another guy who had a little bit of his hype kind of slowed down lately, and it was tough because he's coming back from a long layoff. Abdul Razak al-Hassan versus Randy Brown, I think would be interesting if they could put that one together. There's a lot of names at 170, sort of in that middle cluster from like 20 to 50 that you could find for Randy Brown, guys who are good fighters who just haven't lost their last fight, that would be good matchups.

So that's just kind of one I'm peeking out because I think it would be a good striking matchup and good for both guys, just to kind of see where they are in their development. Because I guess I couldn't quite gauge Randy Brown properly, and I think that fight would be would kind of let me know okay well how far long is he really i like that one there is a guy that i've been impressed with for a long time and he had another impressive showing last night albeit against an opponent who jumped up a weight class on a day's notice but regardless i think jemal emmers is going to be a tough out for a lot of guys at 145 pounds he's really really good and i thought the the fight with giga chikaze was really really close he looked outstanding on saturday

night against a very gritty, a very game, Vince Cicero. I'd like to see him get that vet step up that's going to give him a dog fight. So my wildcard pick, AK, in the UFC's featherweight division, we match up Jamal Emmer's versus Boston Strong Charles Rosa. Let's go. Let's go. What do you think? Oh, I hadn't even thought of that.

I agree that Emers needs to step up. Charles Rosa. Okay, I'm just looking at my own ranking. here. So I rank everyone. So I have 80 feather weights ranked. And at some, there's obvious, there's obvious clusters where guys were like, oh and one in the UFC and you could, you know, make them interchangeable, essentially like a block of 10 and do whatever you want. So I have Emmer's after last night, uh, ranked number. This is going to sound harsh because as you said, the fight with Chikaze was very close. He could very easily be two and oh, uh, in the UFC. So I have him

ranked 60 seconds, which sounds bad, but keep mind, featherweight is very deep. That's, there's nothing wrong with that. Um, and again, if the fight with Chikaze had gone a different way. And I have rose considerably ahead. And you did say it would be a jump. I have rose on the top 40. I rose at 38th. People will never see these rankings, by the way, so I could literally be just make, I could be saying anything I want. People will not see these rankings. These are my own personal rankings. Ryan Hall is number one pound for pound at the top. So again, you know, take all these things with a grain of salt. Ryan Hall number one, pound for pound, Michelle Pareda, number two and so on and so forth. So I like that matchup. Yeah, no complaints there. I, you know, I know you had to

get in the obligatory New England reference. You snuck it right in there at the end. Well, done, sir. So I applaud you for that as well. Well, there you have it. Episode three of On to the next one in the podcast is in the books. My kid is going bananas upstairs. You may have heard a big crash.

He's probably jumping off the bed pretending he's a professional wrestler. Like, he's the late great macho man, Randy Savage, dropping an elbow on the hardwood floors. But join us next week as we'll try to make sense of bookings in the aftermath of UFC Vegas 6, headlined by Derek Lewis versus Alexio Linux. So make sure you subscribe to the network to get this show and the plethora of other content

that we put out each and every week on M.AFighting.com. For Alex Klee, I am Mike Hack reminding you, do not take this too seriously. We're just a couple of fight fans and fantasy matchmakers trying to make dreams come true for fans like us everywhere. Or just for ourselves. Maybe we're being a little selfishie, Kay.

But thanks for listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Thank you.