MMA Fighting - On To the Next One: Episode 8 | Matches To Make After UFC Vegas 9

Episode Date: September 7, 2020

In the eighth episode of On to the Next One, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Alex K. Lee put on their matchmaker hats following Saturday night’s UFC Vegas 9 event at the UFC APEX. Future fights were discussed for headliners Alistair Overeem--who earned a fifth-round TKO victory--and Augusto Sakai, co-main event winner Ovince Saint Preux, Michel Pereira, Brian Kelleher, Viviane Araujo, 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

With Instacart, you get groceries that over-deliver, like when you get groceries that are the same prices in-store. With no markups at select retailers, you get in-store products for in-store prices, and the only thing that isn't in-store is you. That means you could order in-store products at in-store prices while you're in sweatpants, in spin class, in stuffy work meeting, in anywhere but in store. So download the app today and get $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Service fees exclusions in terms apply. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Hello there, everybody, and welcome to another edition of On to the Next one, the podcast here on the MMA Fighting.com podcasting network as we play Matchmaker

for some of the notable names coming out of Saturday night's UFC Vegas 9 event at the UFC Apex. I am Mike Heck being joined, as always, by the Prince of Positivity himself, Mr. Alex K. Lee. Here we are normally best friends, but as sports fans, we are, uh, we're kind of against each other with the NBA playoffs going on, are we not? And a series between the Jays and the Red Sox also going on right now, which has been pretty close, pretty heated.

So, I mean, Red Sox came back last, I mean, they blew a lead, then came back to win it. But yes, I'm very happy the Raptors at least tied up that series. We were talking to Jose yesterday, both of you, of course, you know, proudly hailing from New England.

And you guys said you weren't confident to sell this to win the series. Somehow, I'm not confident the Raptors to win the series. So what a conundrum we have. But yes, very exciting. And, of course, people come to us to this show for the basketball talk, Mike. So I'm glad that we got it right out of the way.

That's what people will come forward. Please stick around. We're also, I think we're going to talk some of M.A as well. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Why don't we do that right now and let us start the way we normally start with the main event. Heavy weights collided as Alistair O'Reem put away a very game, Augusto Sakai in the fifth round via TKO. The Demolition Man has won two straight. he's won four out of his last five,

finished all of those victories. It was four seconds away from having five straight wins in the Jarazina Rosenstrike fight back in December. So huge win for the ream. He continues to evolve and win these fights at 40 years old. So, A.K., where do we go from here

now that we've had some time to digest this wild and crazy seven-fight card? Gosh, what do you book for the man who has fought countless times in MMA is very realistic about his sort of where he is in his career. He still sees a title shot in his future, but he also says could be two more fights left in my career, could be two more years left for my career. He's not going to answer, he won't answer any questions about, oh, I demand to fight this guy,

or I think if I beat this guy or in a title shot, he's been around long enough to know. I think nothing's guaranteed. So making a matchup for him is actually a little difficult. He's usually pretty open mind. As far as we know, he, like I said, he doesn't call people out, And I don't think his history of saying no to fights either. He really has fought pretty much everyone from top-ranked guys to guys coming out trying to make a name off him. I had a few options here, Mike. I'll play off here as a second before I lay out kind of the other stuff I came up with. So my first choice, I want to see him fight Alexander Volkov if, of course, if Volkov beats Walt Harris at UFC 254 on October 25th,

Volkov and him were supposed to fight in St. Petersburg, Russia last year. And I think it's that if he, again, if Volkov beats Harris gets back on the winning track, that's just the right name for Overheim to, again, get another top 10 guy and also have a reasonable shot to get a title shot, depending how the top of the division shakes out. When you've had the career that Alistair Overeem has had, and you sort of alluded to this AK, it's kind of tough to match him up. Like, I think you like the fact that he's open-minded and willing to take any kind of a fight. but in this current landscape,

it's very difficult to match him up, especially with how fights are being booked already. And I don't know if people are going to agree with me on this or not, but I know this fight happened like nine months ago, but with John Jones getting ready to make the move up to heavyweight, Steepay, getting set to face Francis and Ghanu, by all indications, Derek Lewis and Curtis Blades are fighting in December. Honestly, I think the answer is running it back with Jarzino.

Like, it's just where the division is. You know, you can even put it on the same card as Lewis versus Blades. If we need to slot Overeem into fight Derek Lewis for whatever reason, if something happens with the Curtis Blades, it gets injured, or, you know, it is 20-20 after all. You can, and if not, you try and book off of that fight. Like, unless both Overeem and Blades win, they're probably not going to fight because they're teammates.

So I think you start with that, then go from there. But I think that's kind of the most sensical fight with where we sit right now. But I don't know how excited Rosenstrike would be. about getting that fight. But if Jarazinia wants to get to the belt, this would probably be the best step for him to do that since Overeem has a longer winning streak than Jarzini right now. And our Canadian friend Nick Baldwin agreed with that choice as well via Twitter.

Oh, you had to bring him up. Yeah, we'll talk more about young Nick Baldwin later. Yes, Jarzino, that would think was my second choice. I think anyone who saw that fight will tell you that, yeah, it looked like Overeem was the better fighter for whatever, four and a half. 4.75 rounds of that fight. Not that matters to M.A., there's a reason you fight the full 25 minutes.

So it's funny. It was the kind of matchup where I would say it was not a bad call by the referee at all. I actually thought the stoppage was fine, but I also feel like Overeem is also worthy of rematch. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You mentioned the Lewis Blades fight. That's on November 28th. I think the winner of that fight should get a title shot.

So that's probably the only reason I wouldn't want to see one of them fight Overeem. I do think he would fight Blades if it was like a number one contender. fight and over him has fought has fought for a number of camps right um and so yeah he would rematch it'd be weird he would kind of rematch him after joining force with him and then go me yeah so it'd be tricky but uh and as for lewis i think i feel like we'll see him fight louis someday anyway if he sticks around i can see this fight happening like 2022 those guys again they get around to fighting everyone so hopefully we still see that fight and the most boring option uh ben rothwell versus marchine tibura winner that's happening on october 11th i'm not even sure why i bother

bringing it up. It just feels like it could happen. So be a Rothwell rematch or a scintillating fresh matchup with the ever-present Marchine Tabora who uh, who people would be surprised that's fought like in the UFC like 13 times. I don't know if that's surprised people, but. See, it's hard to book for Alistair over here. It's just very difficult. But now let's, let's talk about Augusta Sakai because that was his first UFC loss. It was his first loss since dropping a split decision to check Congo in Bellator over three years ago. And this is a little bit easier to do since most names we throw out there are new and fresh for a guy like Sakai. So I'll say, and someone suggested this during the post-fight show, I like Sakai versus Alexei Olenic.

I think Olenic is fun no matter what. It's an interesting matchup, and it's a great test for Sakai against another longtime veteran of the sport. Because Augustus obviously very talented, he looked good for most of that. fight against Overeem, probably until like the last seven or eight minutes or so. But I think that's a good matchup for Sakai to try to bounce back. What say you? Well, again, you know, I was, I'm really on this Rothwell-Tuberra thing. So I think the loser of that October 11th matchup could end up. I actually think that's not the fight I would make personally. I actually think that's what could very likely happen. So I'm sorry

for people who have already fallen asleep that I keep bringing that matchup up. But I'm just saying they're in the mix. Our Rothwell-Tabre are in the mix from one of these two heavyweights we've mentioned, and that's just the reality of the situation. But yeah, Olinic would have been my first choice as well. Sakai, some deficiencies on the ground shown, so it's definitely intriguing in that sense. The other options, I think, this is something we mentioned on Saturday's post-fight show as well. Junior Dos Santos, I think is a certainly reasonable option,

JDS on a three-fight losing streak. And then kind of a, I don't know, I think this is likely, but one of the guys from the upcoming Sidial Gan, Abdur Akeemov's flight on September 26. And I wasn't even sure the winner or the loser of that fight, just one of those guys, I think, could fight Sakai. So just a couple other names throughout there. Yeah, I think all those options are fine.

Again, you know, Sakai being sort of relatively new to this division, opens things up for a lot of different options. You know, you get Tanor Posier getting ready to fight Andrei Orlovsky, so maybe the winner of that one. So a lot of exciting matches for Sakai as he looks to get back into his winning ways. But I think we like Olinic. I think you and I have both things. God, yeah. That's the logical choice.

That's the fight. Speaking of veterans, how about Ovin St. Peru, who had a absolutely ferocious knocko win over Alonzo Menefield. Now he's got a two-fight winning streak at 205 pounds, two-fight finish streak at 205 pounds. Of course, he has the loss to Ben Rothwell sprinkled in between those fights. But a lot of options for OSP. What do you like for him? First of all say, our own Jose Young's had some interesting recommendations. He recommended several potential rematches for OSP, including a rubber match between him and Nikita Krilyov. They both have submission wins over one other. A rematch with Volkan Usdemir.

Volkan beat OSP by split decision, I think, in his UFC debut. And so there's some unfinished business there. And also potentially a rematch with Maricio Shogun Huah, if Shogun beats Paul Craig on November 21st at UFC 255. But as I thought about those matches, Mike, I reminded myself, Jose is always wrong. and going with his ideas would be a grave mistake. So I mentioned it because we're colleagues with him, so out of respect, but I certainly would not want to agree with any of those options.

So I will go with the most trollish option that I know will upset people. OSP deserves a big name still, and he just fought a guy who had three UFC fights going into it. I want to see him fight someone with one UFC fight Risen champion. I'm saying it, Yuddy Prohashka. I know if people want to see Prohashka,

just jump into the top five, which I guess he kind of did, by knockout is demure. But I think OSP is worthy of that fight, and I think it'd be a good fight for. I want good things for OSP. I think he deserves that fight, even if Yiri would be pretty heavily favored.

Listen, you could do good things for OSP and not give him Yuri Perashka. I think that's like kind of a slap in Perashka's face. No offense to OSP, but this guy just steamrolled. What? A former title challenger, steamrolled him.

He is, listen, they put him, the UFC rankings panel, whoever these missions, history folks may be, as you've, you spoke into most of them, so you know better than I do. Yes. They put him number six after that win. Which it should be, which he should be. So they're going to, so to reward him, you're going to match him up against a guy who's unranked?

I mean, by the way, in my rankings, you're going to be surprised. Yuri is actually number three. Wow. Okay. I have him just behind. This is also, by the way, John Jones is out of the rankings. Corey Anderson, of course, also gone. So this is like a couple of guys I think who were ahead of Yuri before they were taken out of the rankings

So I only actually have Reyes and to share ahead I actually have him ahead of Jan Blochbovich as well I'm probably underrating Yon a lot There's some MMA math going on in my rankings. I'm glad this is why I don't show them to people so I actually have Uri pretty high oh Vince OSP yes he's unranked he's 11 in my rankings so I still consider him ranked The disrespect Michael No it's not you're disrespecting Yuri Yuri has to show me more.

I don't go. 11 straight wins. Sensational knockouts. Rise and champion. 27 and 3 and 1 record. Whatever. Whatever. All right.

22 UFC fights for OSP versus 1 for Yuri. This is on paper for me a logical matchup. I love hype and I love Yuri Pratchika, but no, this is not. So what if what if the UFC matches up Menel Cape against a lot of? like Asker Asker Off and Cape just like runs through him. What are you going to do? Are you going to book him against Tim Elliott? I might.

I love Tim Elliott. This is not like this is just meritocracy based. Let's save that for a future episode. And by the way, OSP, well, now that you say it, I was going to say is not, is not the Tim Elliott of the Light Heavyweight Division, but now that you mention it. No, OSP again, I look, 13 and 9 record in the OCE, very strong facing, facing top shelf competition. I do not think this is a slight at Yiddy at all.

I think it's a credit to both men that this would be a quality fight night main event. All right. I like the idea of the Nikita Krilyov trilogy fight because that checks off some boxes. But I'm actually looking at a different fight that nobody's mentioned yet because I think it would be absolutely outrageous. And it would be bananas. It would be everything we want as MMA fans. A matchup between two guys who have finishing power on the feet. Plus, they're also known to finish fights.

on the mat in ways that we don't see all that often in our sports. So how about we do OSP versus Misha Circuit Off? I think that fight is excellent. It'd be a step up for both guys. I like that fight. A little can con. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Looking at Canadian content. We love our Mish Sikanov up here. An honorary Torontonian for sure. Yeah. And for some reason, as I was looking over, I was surprised that him and Misha had not even been books against each other? Nothing. Yeah.

That's what was surprising to me as well. Wait? I just Googled, by the way. UFC 235, March 2nd, 2019. He was supposed to fight Misha? And then Misha fought Johnny Walker. Is this the thing that happened? Did someone make this up?

Does someone edit this Wikipedia? And am I reading fake news right now? Did this happen? I mean, it could have been like reported, but not true. I don't remember that Johnny Walker's Sarkinoff fight at all, playing 36 second TKO. I remember it. It's been too many fights.

There's been too many fights, Mike. Walker won that fight, right? Walker, yeah. Walker annihilated it. I think it was a flying knee. This was part of the Walker hype train. Yes. Which again, I only vaguely remember now.

People, we've watched 800 fights in the last like two months. And there's 800 more coming. So don't blame me. People know how my brain is when it comes to fight results. So I guess apparently there, so yeah, it makes sense. They are clearly once in each other's spheres and OSP is kind of been in that same sphere for the last like two years. So yeah, absolutely. The Von Peru choke versus the Peruvian necktie.

Oh, man. That thing just sells itself. But sexy. You know what, I know that we flip-flop who goes first typically on this. But with this next pick, now that I look at it, and as your best friend, I cannot in good conscience go first with this one. Because this is all you. This is Michelle Baheda after all. He gets a, you can't say.

see this because it's audio, but a submission win, quotes, quote fingers being thrown out there. Heavy air quotes. Controversial, sure, but he dominated a very game, Zalim, Emma Deaoff, which you said it during the post-fite show. This is excellent matchmaking by the UFC. But Pereira looked great. He's got to do contract, as David Martin confirmed, and some others as well. And a lot of people are suggesting, including Patrick Oge on Twitter at All Day Oge. And also, at Bobby Atkins on Twitter. Both suggested platinum Mike Perry. We talked about this on the post fight show a bit.

But you know what? The floor is yours, A.K., what would you like to see as you give a glowing review to Pahara and his performance? Also, at All Day Auger also recommended Mike Perry. There's definitely a few Mike Perry shows. First, I will say you will probably rarely see me match anyone up with Mike Perry. I'm not a fan of the man. He has, of course, outside of the cage issues that he has to deal with.

So, you know, he needs to get that. stuff started out. I don't like matching him up with people for a variety of reasons, including the ones I just mentioned. But anyway, so Mike Perry is a no-no is no for me. The other thing that's going first here is I feel like we're going to have the same answer because we did do some discussion on the post-fight show. And I loved, I've come back down to Earth from the Jorge Madsvedal call out. I've come down from down to Earth. I tweeted immediately that I want to see the fight now, which is, which I stand by. In that moment when he made that call-out, I literally wanted Jorge and Oswaldo to come out and fight him like last

night. Now that I've had time to think about it, okay, it does not make sense, even close to being sense from a ranking standpoint. With respect to Bejada, the guy he just beat in Medea is 0 and 3 now in the UFC. Very talented guy, but the results, if we're just looking at results, is obviously not a ranked guy. Danny Roberts, a great, very exciting fighter, not very high in the rankings for me either. So those are his two wins. He did not beat Diego Sanchez, even though we know he dominated that fight, but again, let's respect wins and losses here to some degree at least.

So even if you count, even if you count Diego, that's his best win. That doesn't put him into the line for a fight with Horri and Bosman. So I've come back down to earth. I would like to see the fight someday. I don't think it happens, but I would definitely still like to see it.

Let's let Hedda build up his resume first. And he can do that with a matchup that was suggested, again, we suggested it on Saturday night. I love the thought of him facing the Donald Soroni, Nico Price winner on September 19th. That makes a lot of sense. That one had to be explained to me. And I was like, once it was brought up, I'm like, yeah, that's the one.

Yeah. Wow. First of all, you're welcome for that. Yes, thank you, Mike. That was my selection. Thank you, Mike. Not Jose. See, I was scared it was Jose.

It was not. No, it was too good to be, it's too good to be Jose a Jose pick. Okay, that was definitely a Mike pick. Yeah, he said, I don't even know what he said. I don't want. I'm sorry, I brought it up. And Pahedison is like such a good position because if, if you wanted to go with someone like a Sean Brady,

I would understand it, but I understand why you wouldn't more because they're both like emerging fighters in this division. And Brady probably like Baheda. Like they both want that, as Brady eloquently explained on what the heck, that veteran fight. Like, Prairie is certainly a veteran in the grand scheme of things and in the sport, but like a UFC veteran with a name and some cachet. So I think Seroni versus Nico Price is an absolute no-brainer. And Sean Brady wants to fight either Robbie Loller or Anthony Pettis. So I think that works out great for for Sean Brady as well. But those kinds of matchups is what we're looking for across the board for both of those

guys. But yeah, I mean, especially, like, even it, it could be the winner or the loser of Price versus Sorodi, like either guy. So one of those two, there's no, oh, excuse me, there's no other option. I'm so excited. I'm not the microphone off the table. Settle down. But yes, that is the only option.

There's nothing else. Did you have other suggestions? I want to go to the readers. Did you want readers suggestions now? should we save that for the end of the show? What? We can do it for like this specific threat. I don't really have any of this for the end of the show.

So readers, this is your only chance of time. I'm going to mention you. Oh, no, I should say, oh, I saw a good recommendation in the comments too. But anyway, I'll stick with Twitter for now. So yes, we specifically, I was handling the, I was handling the MA fighting Twitter account yesterday. I did specifically put out a post asking, guys, what do you want to see next for? Excuse me, Michelle Paheta.

So this is also a fun second. segment called I try to read Twitter handles as actual names. Joshua Ali, 53, likes Wonderboy. Again, I love it stylistically. Maybe a little further down the road, Stephen Thompson for sure. This one was mentioned after I think Bahad has UFC debut, I remember, because he previously fought at Middleweight. So Real Angel Lee wants to see him fight Izzy, Izzy Addisnia someday.

Again, I don't think that fight ever happens. If it does, it's way, way, way, way, way, way, down the road. O'Ford X, Bilal Muhammad. You and I think have matched the ball a few times. I don't know if this is the fight we want for him specifically. Again, I could see it happening, but I think you and I had other plans for Balal in the past. Of course, Dichald Online had to throw in Hamzaa Kimaev

because again, we have to throw him in every episode of On to the next one. Babu Botafogo wants to see the Diego Sanchez rematch. I'm sorry. Pahara kind of shot that one down. He said he really hasn't interested in fighting him again, and I don't blame him. And then here's a fight that I definitely actually see something happening in the near future. Jason O'Neill, 1992, wants Alex Cowboy Oliver.

So another cowboy, again, I could see it happening, but I think I'd like to see the American cowboy or Nico Price first. Yes, I would agree with that. And listen, if, like, Paheda wants to, like, turn things around quickly, like, if he wants to go up to 85 again and just take a short out of his fight, I'm totally down with that. And I'm sure they could find something excited. They're not just going to throw him in there.

Yeah, he's a monster. I cannot believe he's 170 pounds. That makes it crazy. He's a monster. It's just crazy. But he's in a great spot, right? now after that performance like he still did some of the showcase things like my little brother watches very casually was just laughing his uh hysterically watching that prepared his performance even

my father was like oh my god he goes he goes he goes i don't like that guy i was like why he goes he goes he's just he's just running around he's talking trash he's you know we would in my day in my age we would never do that in a fight we just go outside that we'd have a beer afterwards like it's like just laughing the slapping yeah it's showmanship i tweeted that my mother said uh my mother said Slapping is so humiliating. She was disgusted. She was disgusted. So, but pair, good spot.

Now, speaking of guys in a good spot, how about stone cold Brian Kelleher? I mean, do the glass break. I'll start here. Ricky Simone seems to be the clear choice here. If they went back to that well, I'm totally fine with it. It's what Kelleher wants. And damn it, AK, Kelleher deserves a fight that he wants. but I said it before and I'll say it again

and I'm not going back on what I said like a little over a month ago the fight to make is Brian Kelleher versus Sean O'Malley like it's the it is the absolute fight to make like it's a tough fight for Sean to bounce back and fight a guy like Brian but Brian's a veteran

Sean's coming off the loss Kelleher thinks that Sugar Sean's like lost some mystique since the Marlon Chito Vera fight but I think there's a ton of heat between Kelleher and O'Malley there's enough in the can to promote this fight and I think this is the one to make.

The problem is there's some logistical issues because Kelleher, knowing him, he only fought for 39 seconds on Saturday night, he's probably going to want to turn right back around. And O'Malley's not a guy they're just going to throw on an apex card

that doesn't cost the fans money. So like, they'll probably want to stick them on pay-per-view, which by the looks of it, 253 is probably out of the question for the end of the month, 254 is looking pretty stacked. 255's coming together. All of those cards are in Abu Dhabi.

So it might not be until like December that we see Sean O'Malley again. So if there's any issue, that's the issue. But I mean, the choice for me, it's O'Malley number one, but Simone number two, and I'm fine with either. Your thoughts. Yeah, O'Malley has to be the top choice. Like I said, we've made that matchup before. And I don't want to go back on that. I think it makes the most sense.

I think it still makes sense. Ricky Simone is the thing I fight I think will happen. So I don't know much more to add to it. Other than to ask, do you think as long as this sort of he's taking these fights this frequently, do you think he's going to keep taking these as featherweight? Like, I don't think anyone considers him a featherweight. He's the other guys he's fought at featherweight are bantam weights. Cody Stamon's in there, Hunter Azure.

So, but it's kind of weird that he's fought three straight fights at featherweight. And again, I have not taken him out of my bantam weight rankings. I've kept him in the bantam weight rankings. Do you think that this is the new normal for him for at least the next six, maybe even the next year, again, considering the circumstance we're living in. What do you think of him as a quote-unquote featherweight? He's like a bantther weight. He's like right in the middle of both. It all depends like, it just depends like how long the camp is.

Like if you give him a fight that's like eight weeks down the road, he'll fight at 35. But most of these fights he's taken on like three weeks, a month's notice. I mean, crap. I mean, the fight he actually fought on Saturday took on less than 24 hours notice because Ray Rodriguez snuck in there for Kevin to tivide. Like, I don't think he minds either as long as he gets a proper camp,

but he calls it the quarantine weight class, and he's happy being there. But he's getting some good buzz. This has been a massive year for Brian Kelleher. This has been great. Coming out to Steve Austin's music, I really wish I saw that on the broadcast. I didn't get to see it.

No, not a pretty good. We had on TSA. We didn't get the walkout up here either. But, yeah, I mean, he's in a good spot, but I think those are the two only options. I think the Simone fight gets rebooked. I bet it gets rebooked maybe on the October 31st card. That's what I'm thinking.

And he will be on the A-side live chat this week, I believe, with Jose Youngs and Alex Savas and EKC, I believe. I think that's the line up. Yes. So tune into that, folks. What about Viviani Araujo, A.K., she had a nice bounce-back performance against Montana de la Rosa. She looked great.

She looked like the contender. We thought she could be heading into that Jessica eye fight, which she lost. But there's a lot of fun options for her. What do you think? We seem to say this about most of the women in the Flyweight Division every week, that they have to wait. They definitely usually have to wait to see how things line up. Because the matchmakers have done a great job of keeping this division moving.

So I think the most logical option would be the Roxanne Modifari-Andria-Lee winner, which is happening this weekend. So there we go. I mean, the ranking-wise, it seemed to line up, timing seems to line up, style-wise. I think she's a good match-up for both. And I think, again, any of those fighters, maybe one or two fights away from getting a title shot against Valentina Shepchenko. Again, it's not the deepest division. And Valentina fights so often, she's always looking for fresh challengers.

So I think from those three names we just mentioned could be one of them. Yeah, and I know we like to bury Jose on the show, but I think you actually had the best idea on the post-fight show Saturday night. The fight with Alexe Grasso, that's an excellent idea. I think that's a great fight. I do agree the winner of next weekend's fight between Andrew Lee and Roxham Mataferri is a good one. Jojo Calderwood is a good option. We have Caitlin Chagin getting ready to fight. Jessica Andrade, the outcome of that could ever be in her next fight.

Also, we have Cynthia Calvio and Lauren Murphy. Yes. Ready to fight at UFC 254 in October. The winner is likely going to get the next title shot between Valentina and Jennifer Maya. So maybe the loser of that. But I think Grasso is probably the best choice. But the point I'm making is that she's in a really good spot right now because, one, she's new-ish to this division. And she's getting, she's pretty highly, highly touted, which gives her even more options.

Like she could fight like a number three or a number four, even like a number 14, and all of them are fine. There's nothing wrong with either of them. I also think she has a fan-friendly style. I thought the, I actually had to fight with Delorosa, even though it was pretty one-sided. I thought it was very entertaining. I thought it was a really good early prelim fight. Well, I mean, there were no prelims yesterday. It was a seven-fight main card.

I'm like, you didn't think the UFC could do it, but they pulled it off. What if they did a card? That was all main card. And they pulled it off last night. Incredible effort from the UFC there. Well done. But yes, the second fight, a very good early fight to get people excited, I thought. So crowd-feezing style stand-up fighter, which I would say matches up well with Valentin and Shepchenko.

But that's really putting it probably exaggerating her chance. if we're being honest here. But again, I would certainly, like, see the matchup in the future. Yeah. And she's, I mean, she's really good on the ground, too. She just doesn't need to show it. It's just there if she needs it. So, but now it's time for my favorite part of the show.

And I know yours as well. It's time for the for the wild card rounds here on, on to the next one in the podcast, where AK and I will select a fighter that we have not match made for yet. And we will do it now. Could be anybody, a winner of, again, there were no prelim fights. But a winner we haven't discussed, a loser we have. discussed and we can make that happen right now. So AK, we'll start off with you.

Who is your wild card selection coming off of UFC Vegas 9? Well, regular listeners will know we usually do pick six names and then we have the one wild card. So like seven names, oh I guess with you eight, eight names out of whatever

20 person, 22 fight card. We only had 18 fighters compete on Saturday. So we've done almost like half the card. We'll have done almost half the card and we both give our wild card picks. So I say this to say it was slim picking, so let me put it that way. I would like to help out our, I would like to have Alonzo Minifield, who I think is in a tough position in his career right now. Such a promising guy at 205 still is, back-to-back losses does not derail him as a

prospect. Okay, he's only had 11 pro fights. He's shown a ton of promise. The guy is an absolute specimen. And I think OSP was a big leap up in competition. Especially coming off the loss. I didn't understand the matchmaking there. He loses Devin Clark. And then they move him up the rankings against the guy like OSP. That was strange. I think he was replacing Gamzatav or something. I think it's something. There was a weird, yeah, OSP was supposed to write.

Gamzatav, then Menafield and Gamutov, I don't know what happened there. But so I think to help out Alonzo, this isn't going to be a sexy pick people. I'm telling you in advance. But I want to see him go take quite a bit of a step back in the light heavyweight rankings, which are fairly thin. So a fight that was announced on Saturday, William Knight versus Alexa Kamer, they're fighting at UFC 253 on September 26th. Night is a hell of a prospect, and Kamer also very undefeated guy coming off Contender Series,

both guys, contender series contract winner. So that's where I think Medafield needs to go back, is back into that contender series pool where he also came from. Yeah, and get some experience that way. I think this kind of fight with those P, honestly, is bad experience. I know people think it's like,

oh, you get reps against high-level guys. You can be outclassed in such a way that I feel like that it's not helpful to you. And I think that's kind of what we saw on Sire Night. So Alonzo, yeah, it just needs to get more experience. He was a victim of his own success, I think after the Paul Craig win. You know, Paul Craig is a top 15-ish guy in the light heavyweight division. And he beat him a very exciting fashion.

And I think that made the matchmakers view him in a very, very bright light, which he, again, still is. But let's pull it back for Alonzo. Yeah. And I think people saw that Paul Craig fight and we're like, all right, we just need to get through that part of it. And then I think you'll be okay. and we saw that in the last two fights. I'm kind of surprised by that pick, but I actually picked two

because I thought for sure you're going to choose the fighter that I'm choosing. I feel like Andre Munez made a lot of noise on Saturday night, A.K. People want to see more after that quick and very slick submission win over Bartos Fabinski. This guy is super legit

coming out of not just the U.S. contender series, but also the Brazil contender series. A lot of high hopes for this guy. and then kind of going back and looking at him a little more. He's 20 and 4. Like this guy is legit. Like, he's, he's super legit. So let's get him a step up against a veteran.

And I want to see him against a guy who's going to bring that. And it seems like a cliche thing for me to say these days. But I want to see this guy. I want to see the dog come out of this guy. So my pick is Andre Munes versus young Zachary Cummings. Oh, again, you have dipped into my rankings. Andre Munez, after last night's win over Favinsky, is 28 in my middleweight rankings. And up at 27, one Mr. Zach Cummings.

Wow. I have not seen these rankings. I think I've seen them once a long time ago. No one has seen them. I know. No one has seen them. My other choice, because I thought you might have picked Munez, and I was like, he's probably going to pick the same matchup, was Hunter Azure versus either Miles Johns

or Kyler Phillips, which I would have been fine with. My, all contender series guys. Azure and Phillips used to be teammates at the MMA lab before Azure went on to work with Eddie Chah at Fight Ready. So there's a story there. But Munoz versus Zach Cummings would be just so much fun. I think we did we match up every, this is the first week. I think we've matched up every winner. I think we, now that you've done that, we have now matched up every winner on the card.

Well, yeah, yes. Now that I threw that out there. You just got Munoz and Ezra were the only ones who were missing and you just got them both. Wow. I actually was thinking about it and felt kind of bad. I was like, man, Hunter Asgam, be the only guy we don't talk about. But there you go. There you go, Hunter. Don't get used to a field.

We are not matching up 10, 11 winners every week. All right. This is a unique week where we got a somewhat refreshing seven fight card, again, for some unfortunate circumstances. So we wish the best for the fighters that could not compete on Saturday. But for us watching, it was a different look. And I think us and some of the fans kind of appreciated it. Yeah, I dug it.

I was happy. I woke up this morning and stayed at my parents' house for a couple of days before they moved back down to Florida. And mom was like, what time did you go to bed? I was like 1.30. She goes, oh, my God, that's so late. I said, no, that's like three hours earlier than I normally do because of these events take forever.

So I was happy with it. We're going to close out soon. I know, but I do want to mention, I said, we're going to talk about our buddy, Nick Baldwin Moore, a fine young man who's currently working for the score up in Canada. Yes, he did respond to our call. matchups. As you said, he wants the Overeem Rosenstrike rematch. He's interested in the OSP Krilov trilogy as

well. And his third one, I love it. He dipped right into the fight circus pool here and said three, he wanted to see a handicap match, I think, of three people he didn't say who, against Brock Lesnar and John Jones. Oh, sorry. Yeah, the rest of the winners on

tonight's card, I'm sorry, so against Brock Lesnar and John Jones. So, I guess he means like Michelle Pereira, oh, Michelle Pereira, Brian Kelleher, Viviana Arrujo, Hunter Asger. Oh, yeah. Yeah, okay. All right.

I like where Nick Baldwin's going on with this. So that's our reader submission of the week. Nick Baldwin, thank you very much. And keep up the great work, my friend. Yes. But A.K., we have to mentally prepare for this week ahead. We got contender series on Tuesday. Two Bellator events this weekend, one on Friday, one on Saturday.

And of course, the UFC continues on the road to fight island with UFC Vegas 10 on Saturday night headline by Michelle Waterson versus Angela Hill and that card is very very solid as it looks right now. It really is. So AK and I will be back next week for matchmaking ideas from that event

which should be a ton of fun looking at the matchups on paper but that's it for this week. Please make your suggestions even after you listen on Twitter. AK is at Alexander Klee I am at Mike Eck underscore J.R. No new reviews this week AK to read off but it is what it is. So if you want

get shouted out on the program. Go to Apple Podcasts, subscribe to our network, and shout out the Prince of Positivity for doing such a great job. And maybe demand that his rankings be the new official you have for rankings. You don't want that. Nobody wants that.

But thank you for listening, as always. And just a reminder, this is fun. Don't take it too seriously. We're just trying to make great fights. And quite frankly, trying to make dreams come true for fight fans around the globe, but mostly ourselves. So we'll see you next Monday right here.

On onto the next one. one, the podcast. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.