MMA Fighting - On To the Next One: Episode 4 | Matches To Make After UFC Vegas 6

Episode Date: August 10, 2020

In the fourth 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 6 event at the UFC APEX. Future fights were discussed for headliners Derrick Lewis and Alexey Oleinik, co-main event winner Chris Weidman, Darren Stewart, Yana Kunitskaya, Beneil Dariush, Kevin Holland, 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. Everybody, welcome to a brand new edition of On to the Next One, the podcast, part of the MMA Fighting Podcasting Network of Programming. UFC Vegas 6 is in the books. So that means it's time to put our heads together and try to make sense for what is next for some of the notable names from Saturday Night's event in Las Vegas, which was capped off by Derek Lewis's second round finish of Alexi Olinic. I am Mike Heck, being joined as always on my cohort, my co-matchmaker in training, Mr. Alex K. Lee.

How are you, sir? Hello, I am great. I am great. And we had some exciting performances on Saturday. It's definitely some things that got the matchmaking mind churning, as it were. I would agree. I thought the card was very competitively matched, a lot of close matchups and a lot of big performances. So we have a lot to discuss, a lot of matches to make here. So let's get right into the winner of the main event, the black.

Beast, Derek Lewis, who did make it easy on himself, as he normally does in the first round. But in the second round, he was like, nah, I'm not smelling Alexio Lennox armpit any longer, AK, he dropped and finishes Alexia Lennox in round two. He's won three in a row. He's the number four rank guy in the division. And he did say after the wind of Paul Felder in the post fight chat that he wanted to lose a little bit more weight. He wanted to drop 15 to 20 more pounds before he got back in there, targeting possibly

December. whether that happens or not AK, that remains to be seen. But how do we matchmake the Black Beast moving forward after that big win on Saturday? Yeah, I certainly want to believe that he's going to make these long-term changes. But again, he's a whimsical creature the Black Beast is. I don't think many people would describe him that way. But he is a creature of whimsy. I feel like if they sent him the right fight offer, he's just going to say, yeah, two months,

two and a half, three months from now, yeah, I'm ready. So I think the one that jumped out right away because the man himself called Derek Lewis out right after. Curtis Blades. One of those matchups that I'm surprised, it has, it's never even been scheduled, right? This isn't like one of those bets that was scheduled for another card and was canceled for some reason. No, this never, yeah, never done. Yeah, it feels like they should have crossed paths at some point. But it's a good matchup as far as ranking.

I'm sure some people, you know, don't want to see Lewis necessarily fight such a strong wrestler's blades. But, you know, it's a good test. You know, I think Lewis is always improving. He does have that unique ability to kind of shrug off grapplers as. As Aaron Jose Young puts it, he kind of just throws people off. It doesn't work against everyone. You know, when you face an elite guy like Daniel Cormiere, it's not going to work that way. Is Blades on that level of wrestling?

Maybe. Certainly one of the best heavyweight wrestlers we've seen in recent years. And I think it's worth testing against Derek Lewis. So very obvious pick, but I think that's a good way to go. Yeah. I mean, it is pretty obvious, given Curtis Blades. I mean, it really depends on what Derek Lewis actually wants. Like, does he want to be a guy that just has exciting fights and makes money?

or does he want to be a world champion? If he wants to be a world champion, then he has to fight Curtis Blades to get there. I think that's the next logical step. If he just wants fun, exciting fights for himself and the fans, if Jarzini Rosenstrike beats JDS next week, that would be a lot of fun. I know they're both managed by the same team,

so I don't know if there'd be any kind of conflict there. Even if JDS wins, there's a rematch there. You can do that fight. I don't think anyone would be very disheartened by setting up that rematch, but I think it has to be Curtis Blades. It doesn't really matter. It is also very interesting to think about because if you do Blades, that's the obvious choice.

Lewis is three. Or, excuse me, Blades is three. Lewis is four. Winner gets the winner of Francis and Ghanu against whoever he fights, whether it's Steepamey Ichich after UFC 252 or, you know, if he wins, or probably Steve Amy Itch if he loses for the vacant title. So it seems like Blades is the front runner for Lewis, but, you know, it just depends on what Derek Lewis wants, but I'd love to see him get another shot of the title. How do you feel about Lewis versus the overream Sakai winner?

Again, kind of the same boat. It depends on what Derek Lewis wants. If he's just like, I don't care about winning the title, then sure, I'm down for that. But you have to think at some point, like if he's talking about taking things seriously, being a 245, 250 pounder, as opposed to cutting to 265, you know, 5, 10, 15, 20 pounds, you have to think he's got his eyesight on the belt. So I think Curtis Blades, and he mentioned Curtis in the post-war. fight scrum. I think Curtis is kind of the obvious answer here, but.

But Overeem has been a proven sort of, you know, gatekeeper to that title shot. A lot of people have beaten Overeem and then gone on to World Title Shot. Also, I just want to see him fight Overeem. I feel like there's a clash of personalities there. Striking, of course, it'd be a stand-up battle that everyone wants to see. The Oveream could, you know, take them down if you wanted to. We'll see. But that's another one. Like we said, I can't believe Blades and Lewis haven't been booked against one another. I can't believe Lewis and Overeign haven't been, you know, just a little stream just never quite crossed. So I'd be so into that. There's a lot of good heavy matchup, surprisingly.

If Overeem goes out there against Sakai and, like, head kicks him to the shadow realms in the first minute, then, yeah, I'm down for that. But if he goes out there and fights the way I kind of expect Alistair Overim to fight, a smart methodical win, this is the new, this is not Uberim anymore. Then I don't know if that fight's necessarily there. I mean, Lewis is right there. Rank number four, three wins in a row. He's got a lot of momentum right now. So, I mean, Derek Lewis against anybody's going to get eyeballs. He's just that popular right now.

Well, let's talk about Alexiolinic. Rank number 10. Now he has to take a little bit of a step back. And he's a guy, aka in this heavyweight division, it's kind of like a unicorn. You can sprinkle him into literally any kind of a matchup, any kind of a scenario. And it makes sense.

You can have him fight a top 10. You can have him fight a top 15, guy outside of the top 15. He's one of the rare guys where he fits in pretty much all scenarios in this division outside of fighting for the belt. So I have two options here. One is he fights the winner of Cyril Gan versus Shamil Abderahimov.

And I know we frown upon matching a guy coming off a loss against someone coming off of a win. But meritocracy-wise, I think this makes sense. The other option, and I got to be honest, now is it, now I think about it and say it, the one I'm actually leaning towards a little bit more, the winner of Andrei Arlowski versus Tanner Bozer. Either way, fresh matchup for Olinic as he looks for that elusive 60th career professional win. What say you? I also had multiple options on the mind, which I think will be a theme of this episode. Because like we said, there was a lot that, like, the performance of just so they really opened up a lot of possibilities for a lot of people.

So I think that'll be a theme. So for anyone hoping we have these like definitive, cool, like clear cut answers outside of blades, I don't know if there is one. There's a lot to talk about. I like, but I like the, what was your second suggestion again? I like the... Arlowski versus Bozer winner. Yes. Again, our Lasky and Arlenic, how have they never fought before somewhere down the road

for some other people, right? They have a million. And Bozer, that would be really fun too. The Gone one surprised me because you would be throwing a guy in there with 74 MMA fights and should Gahn win against the guy with seven MMA fights. And again, this is MMA. The records don't tell the whole story again. In the UFC, they would kind of be, the rankings probably wouldn't be too different.

You know, Gahn would be if he wins would be 4 and 0. he looked impressive as hell. He's a blue chip prospect. There's no question that he would probably be the favorite if he was matched up with Atlantic. But that would be some won't be some won't make. I'll say again, 74 pro fights versus seven. He's a unicorn. God's ranked, right?

Like he's what, 15? I don't. I would imagine so. It's a very thin division. I'd have to check. But I don't know if he's ranked, but if he is, it wouldn't surprise me. But again, he would be the favorite in a matchup. So for me to say like, oh, it's crazy for a commission to allow something like that,

it wouldn't be because the guy after last fights is favorites. Yeah, it's gone as currently number 15 in the official UFC ranking. So that one shocked me. I hadn't thought about that. I'm not against it. I wouldn't book it, but I'm not against it. Oh, I guess so she got my own answer. So mine is way more boring.

This is what I think will happen, not what I want to happen. I could see him getting matched up with like Blackboy Ivanov. Yeah. I'm sorry to all the listeners. And all the listeners just just fell asleep at the mention of that name. But it feels like the kind of matchup they're thrown into. The other option for me is sort of the result of matchup. You mentioned earlier, the JDS Rosenstrip fight.

I think maybe the loser of that fight could face Olinic. Again, I think him and JDS would be a great veterans battle. And Rosenstruck would be another test, almost another chance against like a Lewis-type kind of banger. So, yeah, lots of options for Atlantic. Like you said, he's a Swiss Army knife in the heavyweight division. Yeah, that is a great term. right there. Co-made event, we saw Chris Weidman get back in the win column.

Was it the most entertaining fight? No, it certainly was not. But Weidman dug deep. He found that second gear in the third round, and he 10-8ed, excuse me, a very tough guy who hadn't tasted a defeat at 185 pounds in the UFC in Omari Akhmadov. What would you like to see next for Mr. Chris

Wyman, Alex Keeley? The first thing I will say is not Marvin Vittori. There's some, we had some chatter about that last night. And then young Mr. Vittori himself led out a pretty nasty callout. May I read this on the air? Are there children listening? You read it.

It's a pretty ugly call out. I'll check the e-box. He said, this is a way to be a Twitter, Marvin Vittori. And again, I don't know if he's writing his own tweets. It could be his manager. I'm not sure. Wydenman looked horrible tonight. He's a former champion.

Let me whip his boring ass next. Guarantee you, he will hide like all the other guys. Me against Chris Wideman needs to happen. and then he adds McMaynard and the UFC. So pretty rude, a little rude. I don't want to see it. I know people are saying, well, you know, Wyman can stay kind of in that mid-range

after beating a lower ranked in the top of 15 guy like Akhmadov. But it just seems like a really bad fight for Wyman and like everything to gain for Vittori, not much to gain for Wyman. It would be cool, I guess, if he knocked out sort of this up-and-comer, or knocked off to say this up-and-comer, but it's just a really, really bad idea for Wyman.

And as is as he said, he only wants to face top-tier guys. But I would like to see him take a step back and face a guy who's a little bit closer to him and experience. Again, I'm going the boring route here, people. I'm sorry, Polish veteran Christoph Jotko. Again, not a matchup that leaps off the page. But I think that's sensible. There's some other options, but I'll let you go first, Mike. Yeah, I mean, when you have a guy like Wydman, who is a former champion, headlines most of the cards that he fights on,

or he's just part of these massive events. I don't know what the numbers are. It's Vegas, so we're not even going to know anymore. But he's probably making, like, a lot of money. He probably made more than anyone else in the card on Saturday night. That would be my guess. So as much as, and I've said it too, like I probably said it last night,

as much as I would love to slow roll Chris Wyden and let him build his confidence back up, you can't really do it when you're paying a guy as much as you're paying Chris Wyatman. It has to be a ranked guy, in my opinion, or someone with a big name. Now, last night we talked about Anderson Silva, the trilogy fight there, which I'd be down for. Casey Liden talked about a rematch with Luke Rockhold, and that works for me as well.

If they gave him an Ian Hinesh or somebody like that, fine. I don't want to see the Vittori fight. But I said this last night, and after I said it, I was like, eh, maybe, but I thought about it after we went off the air on the post show. And I was like, you know what? I think this makes all the sense in the world if we're going to do this. If we're going to play this game and give Chris Widman what he wants,

let's just go bananas, AK, Chris Widman versus Darren Till. That is interesting. I think we should do it because, listen, Darren Till has had some big finishes in his career. And I hate to copy off of Jed Michoud's paper here. Ugh, never do that. But Jed's made some great points. Like, Darren Till, Darren Till. Well, Darren Till is a very good fighter.

He's in every fight he's in for the most part, except for the Woodley fight and the Mazadol fight. And he was even in the Mazadol fight. He dropped Mazadol really quick. But he hasn't had that, like, violent finish in a long time. It's been a while since he's had that really violent finish that jumped off the page. The Soroni one was great.

When was the last time he's done it? I haven't seen it in a while. So maybe I think if we're talking about, Risk versus reward. I think this works for both guys. Two things. Disturbed me there, Mike. One, Jen Michue made a great point.

I've never heard anyone say that before ever. So let's just saying it myself now just made me nauseous. And the second thing is, are you saying you want to set up Till with Wyman so that Till could knock him the F out and get out of doing it? That is not what I'm saying. That is not what I'm saying. I think there's a perception that Darren Till is a guy who just violently. finishes everybody he fights every time he wins when that is not the case. So maybe Chris Wai- I mean, could that happen here? Could Till land something ferocious and not Chris Wybin out?

It's possible. But could Chris Wyman take Darren Till down and beat him up for three rounds? That is possible as well. I'm actually more intrigued about the matchup, the more I talk about it, AK. I think I will say it is, it is amazing how Till has found a way to position himself for like all these kind of great high profile matchups and they don't sound unreasonable like there's almost no there's very few matchups at 185 or 170 that you can mention for till when you back oh till would never why would till get that fight like like you just said you brought up wide men that hadn't really thought about it before yesterday i'd never the thought of widened versus darren till had not crossed my mind for us as half a second before last night

and then you brought it up and i'm like yeah kind of like till is in that range where he can get that fight and no one no one would no one would bat an eye no one would be like oh that's a weird matchup they'd be like yeah that makes sense for till that's that's where that's where the there and that's where so it's it's pretty cool for till that he has that he's kind of worked his way into there with both his fighting style and his his persona but uh yeah a lot of weird options for why i'll shout at the one i think Jose jones brought up last night too uh which i think might be the best might be a really good realistic possibility and that's uh if you're i hall uh lose to you well romero that's one hosea yon's brought up because uh hall and winem

did fight in the regional scene uh wyman beat him so that that was a like literally a lifetime ago for i think for both fighters and uh it'd be cool it wouldn't it wouldn't be bad to see them catch up again. But yeah, Till, there's a lot of, there's a lot of heat there should that happen. I'm surprised Till, Till's got to get into that Twitter. He should have been the Vettori vibe making that call out. Yeah, I don't want to see Darren Till drop in a 170. I think the Wyman fights perfect. He's got a name. If Wyman can be Darren Till, then he's back to where he wants to be. Then we get a, we're cooking with some fire here. But sticking with the middleweight division, Darren Stewart picked up a first round submission

win over Maki Pitolo. He looked great. Got a finish, got a bow. bonus and he wants to turn around somewhat quickly, it seems. So what would you think would be a suitable next step for the dentist after Saturday night, AK? I mean, there's some very easy matchmaking to be done here just based on who fought on Saturday, the other middleways to find Saturday. Kevin Holland keeps saying he's ready to fight within 48 hours. He's got some stitches to deal with, but he said he wants to get back as soon as possible, probably as early as two weeks.

Darren Stewart had previously said that he was hoping to maybe stay in Vegas and get another fight instead of flying back to England. I think he changed his mind a little bit after his fight yesterday, but I do think he would take the contract. So let's just do it. Kevin Holland and Darren Stewart, August 22nd or August 29th, two more shows upcoming in Vegas. If they're amenable to it, you throw them in there.

I think it's a good matchup. I agree with you on one aspect, is that we stick around with who fought on Saturday night. I'm going with a different matchup, though. How about we do Darren Till, I'm not Darren Till, Darren Stewart. Darren Stewart versus Andrew Sanchez.

That was my other option, yes. Both guys entering their respective fights, having two-fight winning streak snapped in their previous fights. Both have won three out of four. Both got first round finishes. Both got an extra 50 Gs. I think it's one of those things where even, I don't know what the AK official rankings look like,

but I would say these two guys are probably ranked right around the same, like in the overall grand scheme of things. I think it's kind of a stars aligning perfectly, kind of a fight with both guys having some momentum in the recency department. I like that idea. Where do you have these guys ranked in the magical AK rankings? They are right in the 25 to 35 range. Darren Stewart would be 29 and Andrew Sanchez would be 33 after last night. So, but again, once you're outside that top 15, it's kind of just a cluster together. So there's like, you know, there's barely any separation. So they're really right, right ranked around the same time. Yeah, it makes a lot

of sense. And also, it would still be a quick turnaround, even if I think they weren't necessarily able to do one more of these August shows, at least they're on the same clock. So if they wanted to fight in like late September or early October or something that, that would be a quick turnaround as well and not quite as dramatic. And I think both guys would be, I think they both seem healthy. We had to see the medical suspensions, but didn't seem like either guy was too banged up after last night. So yeah, they're definitely on the same timetable.

Outside of the Derek Lutis Curtis Blades idea, I feel like this next fight is pretty easy matchmaking. I have a feeling we're going to agree on. agree on this one, but uh, Yanukunitskaya got a one-sided decision win over Julia Stoliarenko. It was not the most, how can I say this nicely? It was not the most aesthetically pleasing fight of all time. But a win is a win. That second half of the paycheck is going to hit her bank account.

And I think that's great for her. I think we just set up the fight that was originally supposed to happen, Kunitzkaya versus Caitlin Vieira, because I just don't think anything else really makes a whole hell of a lot of sense. Now the only thing is, is Ketland-Bara not rebooked to fight Marion Renault? Is that not a thing? Oh, is she? September 26. I think. When I was doing my research, I believe Vyatta did get a new booking. Because that was my first, of course, that was my first thought as well. Was, yeah, you're right. You're right. How did I forget that? Now, now that's a little bit further down the row of the unfortunately now, because otherwise, if Vyada wins that fight, then, yeah, you make that fight happen. That's on September 26th, which is a bit of a ways away. This is why I had difficulty with Kunitskaya because there's a, I think she has to wait for a lot of the division to shake out now.

And by the way, for anyone criticizing performance, yes, it was not exciting. But I did see people saying, like, oh, her strategy wasn't working because I guess she wasn't getting like a lot of crazy offense. It was working because she was winning the whole fight. So it's not winning any fans, maybe. But, you know, that was a very smart strategy against Stolary Ranko, who's who, if anyone saw the fight, is like really dangerous and like really wilds and unpredictable. So if you can get one thing, a technique and just spam it and just make, it's working. the whole time, you stick with that. You do not deviate. The only person unoccupied that I think made a lot of sense, Panic Kayanzad, I think would be a good fight, former Invictus standouts,

you know, her and Kunyskaya. But then there's all these other matches coming up. Giuliana Pena, Jermaine Durandami, she could face the winner of that. So October 3rd, again, that's a little too far down the line. Julia Avila, Niko Montaigneo winner, September 5th, and also Macy Chiasan, Sejari U. Banks, winter September 5th. My pick, I know I just throw a bunch of names out there, my pick would probably be the Chiasen Ubank's winner if she's going to wait. Otherwise, Kianzad, but otherwise the Chiasan Ubank's winner, September 5th. But yeah, a lot of options for Kuna's Sky.

Yeah, I think she's, I'd like to see maybe like Carol Rosa. I think that would be a lot of fun, give her a test, because she looked really good in that Vanessa Mello fight. Or the other option of those matchups, she said, if Julie Avila goes out there and beats Nika Montanio, I think that's a nice appropriate step up. Because, again, you don't want to rush Julie Avila to a title shot or anything like that. You get a builder up slowly.

I think that's kind of a good next step. It would be a little bit of a different change of pace in terms of styles having a Yanukunitskaya. But again, you know, not in a great position right now. No. Really not. And I don't, she didn't take a ton of damage. So, you know, if something happens with Renault or Caitlin Vieira, maybe you could just slide her right in there. Yeah, that makes a loss.

sense. Yeah. I know Yana didn't get a bonus, but one guy who would have surely got a bonus had he made weight, the man who had not only the finish of the night on Saturday, but one of the best finishes of the year, B'Neil Darius. The man has won five in a row. And let me just correct something that I said during the post show. He did fight Drew Dover. And he fought him last year.

I can't believe I forgot about that. And got a submission win. It was in March of 2019. So my bad, There's just so many of these freaking fights that come together. But most feel a step up is warranted here. But he did miss Wade, AK, so I understand that, well, you can't reward a guy if he missed his weight, but this is the first time he's missing his career. So how much can we reward Benil Daryush? Wait, mate. Look, I hate people missing weight.

But like you said, it was such an oddity. He didn't make any excuse for it either. He's the kind of guy. If he had made an excuse, I would have believed it because I think he's got a lot of integrity. I mentioned this in the show last night. He said that they should give him. a bonus for that finish, which again, it would have gotten one for sure, and then take that bonus and give it to his opponent.

That's how, you know, contrite he was over, over a missing weight. It's just an oddity. And it's the rare occasion where I don't feel like he needs, his wrist needs to be slapped that hard over the miss. So I am okay with him, with them just booking him as they would have as if he hadn't missed way. I know, I know that's, you know, special treatment here, double standards, whatever you want to call it. But he, he looks great.

And that's four, sorry, five wins. in a row four finishes. Again, it would have been four straight performances of the night if he had not missed weight. So I think you got to put him up there. And I would love, love to see him fight a guy like Diego Fajara. I think that fight would just be outstanding, outstanding, and a top 10 guy that Deerioch has been looking for. This is one of those situations where I wish, like, Kevin Lee was healthy because I think that that would be like a perfect fight for Benaerioch. But apparently we're not going to see Kevin Lee for a while because he was recovering from one ACL injury and then towards other ACL. That guy just has the worst luck in the world. But I think we're in agreement

here. I think it's Faheda. That's an awesome fight. Two guys who frankly deserve a little bit more respect, in my opinion, in recognition than they have right now. Diego Faheda checks off a lot of boxes. He's ready to get back in there. And the only other thing that really makes sense is if you do Gregor Gillespie, I'm fine with that as well. But I think Faheda is the fight to make at this point. Where are you, Gregor, where are you? I know you're loving that fishing life out there. He probably you know as soon as that coronavirus outbreak happened he probably left society and he's like I'm gonna go fishing for the next nine months when this blows over call me back and I'll be ready to fight again and again I don't know I really we don't know what's up to Gregor Gillespie

but hopefully somewhere resting recuperating fishing and like you said ready to get back to big bites like a baneal der a use or something if there's one fighter like on this roster that people ask me about the most but I literally have no answer to give them it's Gregor Gillespie. Mm-hmm. It's crazy. Before we head to our wild card pick, let us talk about Kevin Holland. You had mentioned him earlier.

He had a pretty crazy road to get the Saturday night. As everybody knows by now, he's supposed to face Trevin Giles nine days ago. Giles feints before the fight starts, and he bounced back a week later and finished a very game, very aggressive Joaquin Buckley with a piston video game-like knockout and got a bonus. And to me, I think he's becoming a breakout guy. So let's give him a test. He's a company guy. He's willing to say yes to pretty much any opportunity, no matter what.

Let's reward Kevin Holland with the fight that he wants, that his opponent would want as well because there's a little bit of a, a little bit of a history between these two guys. So why not do it? Like, I don't think this guy is going to get the Chris Wybman fight as he called for on Twitter. So let's get Kevin Holland and Marvin Vittori sharing the Oxagon. There's some beef there. And I want to get a nice gauge of where Kevin Holland really is.

Let's give him a step up. There's some sizzle on the stake already. Paymar and Vittoria, a couple of extra shekels, maybe renegotiate his deal to take the step back if that's the issue. That's my pick. That's the fight I want to see. What do you think? Yeah, I said earlier, obviously, I like the Stewart fight. But I do think Stewart is going to change his mind about fighting again this month.

I think it's a cool matchup. The Vittori one, as he said on your show on what the heck, F, Marvin Votoria. Kevin Holland is not they have had some previous I think social media beefs So Kevin Holland is not amused by what he's heard from Vittori and Vittori is as we've seen is a willing talker himself So that there'd be a lot of heat there I think of all the Matchups that we've discussed today That one makes so much sense and I think it's the one I'd be the most upset if if we don't even just hear rumblings of it over the next week It's just ranking wise it makes sense while where they are in their careers

Again the ability to build up the fight the styles be a great clash of styles I think that's the one to me. Again, for some reason, unless they can convince Stewart to take another short-notice fight and Holland decides to do it as well. Vitori, if we're talking about a regular, getting a regular break for Holland, that Vittori fight makes a lot of sense. I think that that has to happen. He's got a lot of options because, as he said on that, what-the-heck interview,

he still wants to drop to 170 at some point. So there's some interesting fights. Can you imagine they both like Kevin Holland versus Nico Price? Like, how freaking insane would that fight be? So Holland's got a lot of options He's got a lot of momentum right now So but I think he deserves a test against You know, I thought Giles was kind of like a good step up for him

But I like to see him get at least if he's not in a top 15 fight With like the tip the end of the bottom half of the top 15 Someone like knocking on the door I think I just want to see where he's at You know what I mean? Yeah, no absolutely I am very excited to see Kevin Holland put again That's really all that's really I was not a huge fan of the guy.

I think when he first came on. I think he was a little too wild, a little too unpredictable, and I wasn't sure if he was just a flash in the pan. But last night, he showed, he looked super advanced in dealing with a very, very wild and exciting opponent. He's always talking about his Philly Shell and all that. You know, hey, you can talk about it. And then when you show it, man, that's a lot of points in my book.

So, yeah, whatever's next for him, I'm super jazzed about it. Yeah, that first knockdown that he had, I mean, I shouted way louder on the first knockdown that the knockout punch. That was just like, ooh, that was brutal. So very excited to see what's next for him, as you said. But now we head to my favorite part of these programs. We head to the wild card round where AK and I were each going to pick a fighter that we haven't discussed yet and see what could be next for them.

It could be a winner from the prelims. Could be a loser on the main card. A loser from the prelims. I mean, the choice is really yours, AK. So who is your wild card pick coming out of UFC Vegas 6? There was a lot of good young guys who put on good performances, and I was eager to match up. But when I started doing it, I was like, I actually couldn't find specific, think of specific names for them. I had ranges of names, but there was no one where I was like, oh, I definitely need to see this guy fight, this guy.

I'm not going to name names because I don't want to spoil whatever your pick is going to be. But I think, I doubt that you're going to pick this young man of someone who I just talked about. Joaquin Buckley, I thought was so intriguing. Again, anyone who saw that fight, he just came out throwing haymakers, which I love to see a guy do on when he takes a fight on less than like 10. days notice, especially against someone with so much hype is Kevin Holland. He wanted to steal that hype and he failed, but I think he built up a little bit of his own along the way. So I want to see him face another guy who lost his last fight. And this is a no nonsense. Someone's getting knocked out fight. That's all I care about making this matchup. John Phillips.

This also allows me to fit in the obligatory Hamzat Shemaya mentioned. Yes, guys, don't worry. We won't go a week without bringing him up. But yeah, I mean, Phillips, you know, he was supposed to be matched up with someone else. He faced Jemaya on short notice, which is a nightmare matchup for him. For anyone who doesn't know John Phillips, he called himself the white Mike Tyson. And all he wants to do is stand and bang and knock people out. So you throw him in there with Buckley. Boy, that fight might last 15 seconds because someone is going up and throwing a haymaker

and crushing the other dude. So that is a strictly, I don't care about rankings. I don't care about what would that win mean for their careers. It doesn't matter. I just want to see those two throw hands at one another. What are you going to do when Buckley shoots where it takes? down five seconds into that fight. That would be hilarious. That'll be tweeting you, no doubt. But I'll tell you what, A.K., in my opinion, and I think a lot of people would agree with this as well,

one of the front runners for rookie of the year in the UFC is Yusuf Salal. First fighter in the promotion to get three wins in 2020, all super short-notice fights. The guy's getting it done. And knowing Yusuf Salal, you saw his energy speaking with Paul Felder, he wants to continue this campaign to be said rookie of the air. So to do so, I like what he's doing, but I think he needs to get a little bit of a step up in competition. I'm not saying throw him into the top 15 or anything like that, but let's test the man against another wily veteran. He already has the win over Jordan Griffin on short notice, which was a good veteran name to have on the old resume. But I would like to see what the Moroccan devil can do against a guy who's been in the UFC

for a little while. I know Yusuf eventually wants to drop to 35, but not yet. So for me, and I am just milking this for all it's worth, my pick is Yusuf Salal against a gentleman who successfully returned to 145 pounds last month, a guy who had a crazy, crazy road to get to that fight, and get the victory in dominant fashion. Let's do Yusuf Salal versus Jared Flash Gordon. How about that, A.K. I like that matchup a lot. I have them very, by the way, for anyone who was listening, I was wrinkling my brow and scratching my head. I had no idea where Mike was going with this. And yet I do think that is a very good, Mike, I don't know if you've been hacked on my computer and seen my rankings.

I have Yusuf Zalal at number 48, which I know seems low, but by the way, people are there's like 100 feather weights. Uses Zal at 48 and I have Jared Gordon at 51. So they're right next to each other. And I know what you mean is even though Gordon's lower in my rankings, he's definitely the more veteran fighter. He's been around longer. So, yeah, that's pretty good. I didn't know how to matchups a while. He was one of the guys.

He was one of the guys who, again, I said, I know he needs an exciting matchup, but there's so many options. Gordon were certainly in there, but he wasn't my number. Part of me wants to see him become the New England killer, just for you, buddy. And take on Charles Rosa next. That was kind of a name I thought about a little bit, but that was strictly out of spite. for you, not necessarily out of what I think is best for Salaal's career. We can't do that for Rosa because they're already going to fight Jamal Emers, like we discussed in the wild card pick last week.

Oh, fair enough. He's booked against Emers. He's mentally booked. Yeah. Okay, fair enough. Have any of our fights that we picked since we started the podcast actually been booked yet? Since we started the podcast, no. But to bring this full circle, I believe we did nail when we were doing the written version.

We did nail Olinick Lewis. I don't remember if it was you or me who picked it. But one of us definitely said, oh, Linux should be next for Lewis after his last fight. And when the fight was booked, we were like, yeah. We were like, yes. The system works. I know that was you because you got to write that, like, first sentence that you love writing. Be like, you want to get weird?

Let's get weird. It was like what I was. It was perfect. Yeah, I think. Yes. So you re-nailed that one. I was excited for you for that one. So we have to keep tabs of this because I don't know if any of these have been booked or not.

But there you have it. Next week, AK, we get to do this show coming off of a pay-per-view event. for the first time. We've done write-ups. We haven't done an actual podcast coming out of a pay-per-view. UFC 252 is coming up on Saturday. One fighter, we will not matchmake, is Daniel Cormier, as he challenges Stepe Meitchitch for the heavyweight title in his final fight. Something tells me, we may not even match up Steepa here either, because, you know, even if he wins, you have to imagine win or lose, he's fighting Francis and Ganu after this fight, unless he gets, like, badly injured or something. So who knows? This might be a wacky.

on to the next one without talking about any of the main event participants. I was going to say, way to build up the next episode, Mike, by telling them that we may not be talking about two of the biggest names on the card. Tune in next week, everybody,

so you can hear what I have to say about who should Magamette Ancalaia fight next. I want to see the trilogy fight. Just run those guys, him and Kutalaba back a million times. I'm fine with that. Don't let him fight anybody else.

But there's going to be some really interesting ones. O'Malley versus Vera, you know, DeWalish Willie and Dotson's fun. I mean, it's just a really fun card. I'm very much looking forward to it. It looks good. Veteran names on the prelims.

Joe's always like to see. You got Jim Miller on there, police Herrick. Oh, man, man, the return of Herbert Burns. Oh, man. This is good. Ryan Hall will definitely be said next week at some point. But that's it.

Until then, give us your thoughts on fights to May coming out of UFC Vegas 6 on the Twitter. he is at Alexander K. Lee. I am at Mike Heck underscore J.R. And we are out of here. Remember, everyone, do not take this too seriously. We're just a couple of fantasy matchmakers trying to make dreams come true.

We're fight fans everywhere. Probably just ourselves. Who really knows? We'll see you right here next week for another edition of On to the next one, the podcast. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.