MMA Fighting - On To the Next One: Matches To Make After UFC 261

Episode Date: April 25, 2021

On the 41st episode of On To the Next One, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee put on their matchmaker hats following Saturday’s UFC 261 event at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Fla. Future matchups were discussed for welterweight champion Kamaru Usman following his second round KO victory in the main event, Jorge Masvidal, new strawweight champion Rose Namjunas, now former champion Zhang Weili, flyweight champion Valentina Shevchenko, Jessica Andrade, Uriah Hall, Anthony Smith, 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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and use the money to fix your car. Bel Air Direct, insurance, simplified. Conditions apply. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Well, hello there, everybody, and welcome to a brand new edition of On to the next one. And it's a big one coming out of UFC 21. And it's a big one, not just because we have lots

of matchmaking ideas for all of you, but also because you have a lot of matchmaking ideas for us. And this is crazy. This must be the most responses, the most ideas from a matchmaking perspective that our listeners have had ever since we started doing this 40-something episodes ago. But a lot to digest upon when in regards to Saturday night, a lot to look ahead to from a matchmaking perspective. We'll try and predict the future for all six championship.

Chips fighters and much more. First off, I am Mike Hack, and joining me as always is the co-host, the co-matchmaker, the best friend, the Prince of Positivity, Mr. Alex Keeley. Two questions for you right off the bad, AK. One, how are you doing? And two, why do we do this? Why do what we do? My best friend, I am doing great to answer your first question. To answer your second question, after what happened to Chris Wyden yesterday, I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And by the way, that's a nervous laughter, by the way. That's the sort of thing. This happened when the injury happened, too. It's like I was shocked, disturbed. And then there was probably like a head slap and like a giggle of by no means any sort of enjoyment overseeing injury like that. But just like, gosh, this is absurd.

What we do, covering the sport is absurd, being involved in it even more absurd. So, you know, prayers up, obviously, Chris Wyman. And everyone else, Jimmy Crue, really anyone who got hurt at Saturday's show. It was just pure chaos. But, you know, Mike, look, I think you hyped us up last week as saying this could be one of our biggest shows we've ever done as far as the matches that NETU made, the listener contributions that we were expecting to come in. No disappointments anywhere. The card was rife with storylines. You could write 10,000 words about just the main card.

It felt like almost two separate cards because, I mean, when you look at the prelims, they actually were fairly eventful as well. and so there's a lot about we can imagine for so many people beyond just the mandatory picks we made this week but again listeners there to cover a lot of that I don't think any stone went unturned this week or we'll see

I guess I'll say it depending on the end of the show but yeah UFC 261 delivered one of the most memorable shows with the past few years no question all I have to say is I have not looked at one of these picks yet so I just see the DMs continuously coming in on Instagram so we'll see what happens

I might even let you go first this time, AK, just so I can play catch up, but we'll see what happens. But let us begin with the man of the hour, Kamara Usman. I mean, wow, this was, it's almost unfair to say this right now, but this was the official over-the-hump performance for him. You know what I mean? And it probably shouldn't have been, but I think in a lot of people's eyes, this was the one that took him to the next level. He absolutely colds Jorge Mazadol in the second round.

Nobody saw the fight ending like that, but it did. And off we go, my best friend. We heard Dana Waite throughout the week. We heard him at the press conference after that insane fight card. He's saying it's the rematch with Colby. No other fight makes sense. He shut down the other options, even though we have some big fights at 170 coming up over the next few months. But is that where you're looking as well, the rematch with Colby?

me? I mean, I looked at it. Is it my pick, Mike? I don't know. You know, for me, actually, the Burns fight was kind of getting over the hump, not just because, you know, he got it, he got it such a conclusive finish, but also he got hit. I like that he got hit in the Burns fight. I like that he got hit. There was a point where he looked legitimately shook and he bounced back. That's what I want to see from some of my champions. Like some, like, again, the guy we can, you know, we were going to be comparing to him to nonstop for the next couple years or however long he wants to compete, of course, George St. Pierre. So my favorite, my craziest moments was when he got the head kick from Conding.

and came back from that and like facing adversity for me is a huge thing for a champion insane dominus is great too we talked a little bit about this on the preview show with like habib um valentina who's who's the other champions we said like they're just they just never they've just gone on these runs and just never been challenged and and uh ozman for the most part hasn't been in trouble but i like like i said that little glimpse we soft and burns uh convinced me and even the little self-doubt he almost put on himself with like challenging mazvidal again just because he didn't finish him the first time. I even kind of like that. So, so I was sold after what happened with Burns and after the Mazadol call out, even though it wasn't my favorite matchup. But no, I don't, listen, Mike, I know

you've spoken to Colby many times. He's, he's done a lot. He's given our website a lot of time, and I appreciate that. But Colby Covington is a jerk. All right, I'm just going to, his persona, or at least his persona, whatever, he's a jerk. So no, I do not want to give him a title shot right away. I do think we'll see them fight again someday. It's a great fight the first time. So let's go with the NMF. Stephen Thompson. Wonderboy, I think he beats Gilbert Burns. I think you give him the shot.

It's a little too far ahead, which I don't like. It is July 10th. That's a long wait if Uzman wants to fight again soon. That's the tough part. And you have to imagine he would after a performance like that. So this is definitely more of a what I want to happen than what I think will happen. I think the Covington fight is obviously much, much, much more likely. But no, I want to see Wonderboy get it.

a lot of good reasons. One of our listeners outlined some good reasons later in the show, which I will read. But I'll just say Wonderboy from now, Mike, and then pass this pickoff to you. Yeah, like we said, there's two very interesting fights coming up at 170. We have Leon Edwards versus Nate Diaz on May 15th, the UFC 262. And then you have the aforementioned Gilbert Burns and the aforementioned Stephen Wonderboy Thompson fighting on July 10. And should Wonderboy beat Gilbert Burns? I'm with you.

His Wonderboy's next fight should be for the belt. There's no if, fans, their butts. He has done enough to get another title shot, in my opinion. And people want to see it. People want to see it. The problem is when his Stephen Thompson, when was the last time Stephen Thompson went through a fight and was able to like bounce back relatively quickly at all? Like I think this, this is seven months from his last fight. This is like his shortest turnaround in quite some time because normally there's injuries and,

broken hands and broken feet and like all this stuff. Like he just has like the worst luck when it comes out of, when it comes to like recovery from fights. So I can see Wonderboy fighting for the belt. If it happens in 2021, I'll be kind of surprised because that would be after he fights in July if he wins, he'd have to bounce back five months later. And I mean,

it could happen. I just don't see it happening. But I feel like Usman's going to be pretty active this year. I think you have to do the Colby fight. Like, I know. It's a big one. And when I say, like, this was the getting over the hump performance, I don't think, like,

fans look at it and say, like, oh, I didn't think Usman was that good until last night. I think this is the one where people are like, all right, like, we can get behind this guy. And you saw it in the build. Like, the UFC is trying to get Usman over to the best of their ability. Like, he was the ESPN magazine cover story throughout the week. and, you know, they put him on big shows, that they're putting him in matchups where they can try to get him over.

And I thought Usman, I thought the UFC, and even Mazadol as a foil, I thought everyone did a great job in the build. Like, they did such a good job with how they put this fight together and built it up. I actually picked Mazadol to win. Like, I talked myself into Mazadol beating Kamar Usman,

when literally the entire build from the time this fight got signed, I was like, there's no chance Jorge Mazadal wins. But they got me thinking enough to the point where I thought Mazdal could win. But get him back in there with Colby. Yes, it might get ugly along the way. So I'm not really looking forward to that all that much,

but there's still a lot of heat there. And this is the biggest fight that can be made for Kamar Uzman right now. So yes, I am in for it. I think it's the fight to make. And again, the same problem we had after Uzman, Burns, we don't have a number one contender right now. We don't have one. Like, Colby is the number one contender right now as we speak. So I'm in. I'm all, I'm, I'm all right with it, okay. Yeah, look, look, and as critical as I am of Colby's persona, schick, whatever people want to call it,

I remember distinctly after that first fight with Usman, I was like, I don't, I was like, I don't know if I would need to see this rematch right now, but I need to see them fight again someday. And it's been some time since that first fight, that everything really is lining up for that rematch right now. So, yes, I'd be surprised if it didn't happen. Again, the Wonder Boy thing is really, really a preference for me. You mentioned some of the lead-up to the fight, you know, some of the videos they built around Usman.

I'll say what video I didn't love, Mike, was the ode to the African champions that was done on Saturday. This may have slipped under the radar because, you know, there's a lot of videos that they deal with ESPN now. So whoever made this video, I'm not calling it offensive. It was corny and I think lame. I'm not blaming John Anick, who did the read. John Anick is a professional.

John Anick reads what he's the copy he's given to him. And the whole promo celebrating these fighters from Africa was based around lyrics from the song Africa by Toto. I know, man. This, listen, look, and you're friends with John. I hope you, again, it's not John's fault. John didn't write it, but I hope you bust his chops the next time you talk to him. I'm sure. I bet John had a laugh about it.

I bet John saw it. It was like, all right. This is my job. This is what I do, whatever, you know. Because this would be like, and I. I joke with us on Twitter. This would be like if the UFC was returning to Tokyo in 2022 and he was like turning Japanese by the vapors as like the music for it. Or if they go to China and did like kung fu fighting, maybe not quite that offensive.

But it was so, and it wasn't just the intro. Like they sprinkled in lyrics from Africa by Toto throughout the promo. People, I don't know if you know this guy. And by the I love that song. I love the song after Toto. Toto themselves have admitted when they wrote the song, they had never been. to Africa. This was like some, they just kind of wrote some song that they, of their concept of Africa. It is legitimately maybe one of the worst possible choices you could do for a video

promoting athletes from Africa. But I don't know. Maybe people didn't notice. This is the kind of stuff that drives me nuts. I hope they don't play this video again. Again, I'm not saying it was offensive. I'm saying it was lame. It was corny. And just stupid. There's no nice way to put it. Yeah, I don't, I have to admit, I heard it in the background. I didn't really know what was going on because, you know, when we cover these fights, like, people think, like, we just sit on the couch and eating popcorn and relaxing. No, there's like 5,000 things going on at once. We miss a lot. We miss a lot. So I heard it, and I was like, the only thing that popped in my mind because I didn't watch it was, is this Toto or is this the Weezer cover? And I, and why are they

playing this? Yeah. But, yeah, one of the points was like, the first, the first champion to feel the reins from Africa was, uh, so it was something that was, it was, right. They really went in deep. I'll say this. Whoever wrote, whoever wrote this is a big span of that song and really went in deep on the lyrics. So God bless him. But it just wasn't right. It wasn't right, Mike. This will kind of probably lead into our next pick, but I bet

Usmont, he's the BMF champion now, right? Yeah, I mean, second round. I don't think, like, dropped him. I think the ship is kind of sailed now. Like, he had his opportunity to become the self-recllaimed BMF champion and people would buy into it.

I think he kind of whiffed on it, but Listen, Uzman's not that kind of guy. Like he's not there to rub salt in the wound, so to speak. He's the lineal BMF champion. Like, he's the lineal BMF champion in my eyes. Whatever they were. Mazvah can have the belts. Usman is the lineal BMF champion after that chaos.

Right. But I think Uzman also was trying to find a way to stay focused on the task at hand. He wanted to kind of distract himself a little bit. So he watched our pre-fight Q&A and heard us, give the suggestion that the BMF title should be equal to the hardcore title from the attitude error in WWE where it's defended 24-7 and he was like nope I don't want anything to do with that but that's a great idea I'd love to watch it he wants no part of that shout-outs by the way to Gerald Mirsharp for helping us out with the pre-fight Q&A people if you haven't watched that is there's it's still it's still a good show

to watch I know it's a pre-fight for 261 but we talk about a lot of stuff gerald gives some incredible insights on the fight before it happened and just other just MMA in general and he's just a great great personality to have on the air. So check that out, guys, our 261 pre-fight Q&A with GM3. Yeah, he nailed that Rosnami Unis prediction. And we'll get to that in the moment. But on the flip side, like you said, we have the BMF champion, Jorge Masvidal. First time in his UFC career, he was knocked out.

Second time in his entire career, he was knocked out. And that was the first time it had happened since 2008, 13 years between knockout losses. He's now lost two straight. He's three and four in his. last seven. But despite all that, A.K., he is still a massive star.

Like, I don't think his stock dropped very much in the eyes of fans. And the light bulb went from just being able to work. Like, if you flipped a switch

and it was, you know, the light could come on, but it went to being turned on completely. Like, you could clap your hands and the light turned on when it comes to Mazvedal.

There's only one fight to make. And it is Jorge Mazvado. versus one Nicholas Diaz because Nick wants to come back, he's in shape. This to me is easy. And the reason why it's so easy is, listen,

you can watch our post-fight show and Jedmishu being on negative like Nick Diaz is never going to fight again. I do think he's going to fight, but if he does, you cannot guarantee that we see him back again. I mean, it took him this long to even get this close. So if you're going to get Nick in there,

No, you don't throw them in there. I mean, I've seen some wacky suggestions already. I've seen Mickey Gall thrown out there. And I love, and Mickey's a good friend of mine. Like a good dude. I've known Mickey for a long time. You don't do that. Like, we're not doing Mike Perry.

Like, we're not doing... No, no, no, no, no, no. You give him the biggest fight he can have. And the biggest fight he can have is Jorge Mazdof. Main event, five-round co-main event. You can put the freaking BMF title on the line. This is a massive fight, despite what happened on Saturday. I mean, this is a no-brainer.

It's Mazadol versus Nick Diaz. There's a story there with Nate in UFC 244. This is the only fight that makes sense, A.K. Nick Diaz hasn't won a fight in 10 years. I don't care. Nobody cares. If you ask Nick Diaz fans, again, he's unbeaten, really. He hasn't lost a fight ever if you ask Nick Diaz fans.

No, Mike, I understand your passion for the matchup. It's a very sellable fight, not a single pro. I can't imagine anyone complaining if it was made. Like you said, it's not like Mazu dolls on like a five, six fight winning streak. And it's like, oh, he has to be matched up with a winner. He has to be matched up with another contender. It's like, not really. He really doesn't have to be.

As I was at this stage, which curve. That was his 50th pro fight. I mean, again, he's beyond, he's almost beyond rankings. He's beyond kind of like, you know, sensible matches at this point. So I don't mind it. I was looking more at the Nate Diaz, Leon Edwards matchup on May 15th. More so, of course, Edwards than Diaz. I'm not super.

I wouldn't mind if they did the Nate Diaz, Mazdaal rematch, should Nate, I think I said the loser here. Actually, I think I said that the loser of this fight. So should Nate Diaz lose to Edwards, I think he will? I'm not against the Mazadal Nate rematch either. It did suck that it ended with a cut, though I think Mazadol was on his way to maybe even knocking out Diaz cleanly

or winning a very, very, very dominant decision. But it was stopped by a cut. I know that left a lot of people upset. One of the nastiest cuts I've seen in recent memory. And should Edwards happen to lose to Diaz, which I thought would be a shocker? but anything's possible. I'm not giving it.

I'm a broken record on this. I'm sitting in so many shows, so I'm not going to elaborate any further. I still need Edwards, Masford all to happen someday. I just still feel like the three piece and a soda or whatever did not, they did not resolve things.

It was delicious, but it did not resolve. I am not full. I am not satisfied from that three pieces in the soda. I need a full meal. And the other thing is, the other option looked at, of course, Colby Covington.

But that's a fight that feels like it could happen like a year from now and still have so, so, so, so much heat behind it. It does not, can happen a year from now, 18 months from now. almost any time, other than like both guys going against some crazy losing streak,

which I don't see happening. But so that can wait. But for me, I'm still on the Edwards-Mazved al-Train. I need it. I need it. Yeah. I mean,

listen, I would still want to watch it. I mean, it's completely lost so much steam at this point. Oh my gosh. It's so exciting. This is one of the big whiffs. This is one of the big whiffs in U.S.

history in my mind that this fight doesn't happen. But we'll see what happens. And listen, and this just goes to tell you how big of a start. are Masdahl is. When, lose, draw, it doesn't matter. People want to see him fight. Every name you threw out there, they're all interesting, and people would watch it. But I think you just got to milk what you can out of Nick Diaz because I have a feeling no matter who he fights. Like, throwing him in there with Hamzaa Chamaif is silly. It is awful. You said it. You spoke

it. Stop throwing that idea out into the universe. I'm a little bumpy. I didn't get a lot of sleep this morning. So I'm throwing shade at everybody. Oh, boy. Yeah. Don't. Yeah. Come on. Mike, we got a lot of show to go, Mike. Let's, we got a lot of show to go. I know, we're just getting started. We're not even past the main event yet. But yeah, stop, stop throwing Hamzat in there with everybody.

Like, the man just had like a horrible bout of COVID. Like, I don't want him matched up with anybody right now until he's like 100% and like multiple doctors clear him to compete. Then we could start throwing out matchups. Stop. Just stop asking Dana White about Hamza at Chimaev fighting Fighter X. It does. Just stop. Just stop.

Wait till the man's ready to go. There's a soft ban on Shemai on the show. And I don't want to put a hard ban on it. There's a soft ban. He might be in Holland, Angela Hill territory for different reasons, but maybe the name that we had to not acknowledge as much. Right. Okay. Let's move ahead.

It was a happy moment for Thug Rose Namibunas. She is once again the strawweight champion, knocks out Zhang Wei Lee. Beautiful head kick. She becomes the first woman in UFC history to regain a title in her own weight class. She gets it done. It was phenomenal. Where does Thug Rose go from here, A.K. Well, this was an easy one.

I mean, I think did Damajunas, was her who mentioned her? Yes, it was Rose. Yeah, she was smart enough to say, she did mention the Yan Asparza matchup, right? Either in her post-fight immediately or the post-fight press conference. I know it came up. She's pretty savvy with these things. It just makes sense. Jan Shanan, fighting Carlos Sparza May 22nd.

That's, really that's it for me. There's a Zhang rematch. I'm sure we can talk about more. in a second, but my pick would clearly be the Janjanon. Asparza winner. I know there's a lot of people who are like, oh, yeah, like, Carla was Sparza really? Like, people have been like that for a while when you bring her up in the title picture, which is crazy. She was the first champion. She beat Rose. She beat a very young Rose to win that title. And it would be a great story for Namajunas. I think a lot of champions love to have that chance to erase those wins, sorry, those losses from

their record. GSP got to do it twice with his two losses. It's the reason why he's one of the greatest. And I think Namajunas would love to fight Collar Spars again, show how much she's advanced. I mean, I think Namajunas would be a huge favorite in that rematch, but anytime you have someone with a prior win, and a dominant win, by the way, if anyone goes back and watches that as spars, Namajunas, it wasn't close. They were just a very different stages of their career. It wasn't close. And I think it would be very much the opposite way this time. But I'd love to see it. Look, if you guys have been listening to this program from the beginning, and let me just preface this by saying you can call me lazy you can call me what you want but it's trying to

figure out your place in a show like this like what direction you want to go like what suit do you want to wear and i've kind of landed that on a place that i'm trying to someday get into the check the tapes hall of fame like that's that's that's where i want to go like i want to be right more often times than not and i have to go with like what i feel could be the correct answer more oftentimes than not so I try to go at the middle ground of like sensical fights and what I think the UFC will do. And what I think they will do is give the rematch to Zhang Wei Li. I think they end up giving her another chance. I think it will be a big deal.

Now, Janjonan versus Carla Sparza is a very important fight. And I think it's a really interesting fight. It's a very closely contested matchup on paper. But I think whoever comes out of that fight needs to do so in dominant fashion. Like this cannot be a split decision. This cannot be a 29, 28 on the scorecards. This needs to be a drubbing of some kind. Like whether it's a finish or like a 3026 on the cards,

whoever wins this fight needs to do so in convincing fashion or the UFC will go to the rematch. And I think they'll try to run it back. But listen, if they don't run it back, I don't know what's going to happen. But I mean, I feel like a win is not enough for these two ladies because the UFC, what they want to do, especially with the pandemic fading away a little bit slowly but surely,

they want to get back to China, and if they can somehow get to Zhang Wei versus Jan Janan, that's what they want to happen. So I think this is probably like the best road to get there. Now Gian could go out there and crush Carla Sparza, earn the title shot, and Carlos Sparza can go out there and crush Jan Janem. You never know.

All those stories are great, but I think this fight became much more important, not just for whoever wins gets a lot. the title shot, it's, you got to go out there and do something special, kid. And John, she gave them a lot of good footage to use for a rematch video. You know, she was very upset with the stoppage when it happened. It was the no-nonsense Keith Peterson, I believe, that called this one. And she was stomping around the cage.

She was, she was furious, you know. And I think she caught, you know, she did an Instagram message later. I think, you know, kind of a little more composed, a little more calm, congratulating Rose. And I'm sure when she looks back at the footage, I'm sure even her and her team would be like, Oh, yeah, I was probably out there. But for the purposes of selling a rematch, like I said, you've got this footage now. You've got this, you've got this quote-unquote controversy over the stoppage.

I don't think there's too much of it. But I think if you're a Zhang supporter, there's enough that you can go like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to see them fight again. That was two stoppage was too early, which again, I don't think it was at all. I thought it was a fine stop. But she was out. I thought when she hit the ground, I actually thought follow-up punch spoke her up. So yeah, it's certainly, I would say just, I don't know,

if I want to say more likely, I'll go 50-50. I think, like you said, it does been how the Yan Asparza fight shakes out. It could be a bit of a grind fest because Asparza is just so, so, so tough. And when she wins fights, it's rarely pretty, if we're being honest. So it's either going to be a very hard-fought win for Yan

or Asparza mucking things up as she always, and picking up another w-use. So, yeah, I like both options. I'm leaning towards the winner on May 22nd, but I mean, how can they shy away if Rose is healthy and Zhang is healthy and they both want it. Very sellable.

Okay. Now, if they don't run it back, A.K., what should be next for, Zhang Wei Li? I looked a little, I went a little bit down the rankings, and I said, why not Zhang and Michelle Waterson? Now, Michelle Watterson has been, okay, so she has been a very, I think, very good representative of Asian Americans. I think so. People, I don't know, I'm a fan. I admit, I'm a fan. I think she's been a very good representative Asian-Americans. Americans. She has spoken before many times about wanting to fight in Asia. She's a Thai descent, of course. So it would be very cool if she got to fight over in, like you say, if they were able to arrange a card in China or so like that. And she got to, she got to fight overseas. She's never had the chance to do that. And I'm not saying like, oh, this is a great matchup just because we're putting a Chinese person against a Thai person. But but I think there is some, some storyline there. As far as again, you know, Waterson getting sort of embrace her ancestral roots or her, you know, coming from Asia. And getting to fight. I also just think it would be a really good matchup.

And I know that probably a segment of fans that are tired of seeing Waterson, you know, get these kind of number one contender shots and keep falling through. But there's a reason. I think she's an exciting fighter. Obviously, very marketable person. Some of the UFC loves as far as the ability to handle media and doing interviews and everything. And I think it'd be a fun matchup to watch. And who knows if she beat Zhang, there you go.

Now she finally gets her chance at a title. Otherwise, solid fight for Zhang as well. to sort of keep herself in that title contention and a possible rematch with Namajunas if it doesn't happen right away. Yeah. Listen, those are all interesting options. It's a fun time at 115 pounds right now. But it was a wonderful performance from Rosabiyunas.

We have to head to the queen of the fly weights right now, Valentina Shavchenko. I mean, this was some showing against Jessica Andrade. Like, this is the fight that a lot of people were, a lot of people were picking. Valentina, but to see a betting line of like minus $450 for Valentina, it was just weird. Because normally she's like a plus $1,100 or like a plus $900.

A lot of people had faith in Justa Andrage, and this was a perfect game, A.K. This was a Valentina Shufchenko who, despite what she said at the press conference, trying to be respectful and nice, this is a Valentina Shepchenko a little bit of a chip on her shoulder.

She wanted to go out there and make a statement and damn, she did exactly that. How do you see this playing out for the bullet in terms of what is next for her. She is so good. Speaking of marketing, I mentioned Michelle Warrison being marketable. Speaking of marketable, I mean, Valentinino Shepchenko has it all. She speaks three languages. Her English gets better and better. The English promo she cut on Saturday I thought was outstanding. My opponents are always looking for my weakness. Don't bother. I don't have any. I thought that was so, so good. I loved that moment.

Yeah, so cutting a great promo is so important. Especially if you can do it in English and she's just nailing that these days. Yeah, it was a perfect game. And it's crazy that we mentioned, like, you know, it was strange to see that the fight was relatively close for her. Because minus 450 favorite for a championship fight is still, like, insane. Like, that's, right, like, but relative, I mean, she was like minus 1100, minus 1,500, minus 1250, I think, and sound for others. So I get what you're saying, like, it is closer, but minus 450 for any other champion, we'd be saying, like, oh, geez, this is like, they have no faith in the challenger. So that was the version of having faith in a Shevchenko challenger.

as close as it gets. I have to go with Shevchenko versus the winner of Lauren Murphy and Joanne Calderwood on June 12th. We've been campaigning for Lauren Murphy to get a hell of the shot for a while. She's certainly done enough to do it, even though she herself, I know she spoke to you on what the heck. She herself has kind of said, hey, you know, I will take it, but if it doesn't happen, I want it to be when I'm ready. I want it to be when people are demanding it. So I think she's right. I don't know if there is that like demand yet. She's kind of would be the mandatory challenger.

but John Calderwood, very popular fighter, a veteran, another fighter who was supposed to get a tell-a-shot, has been in that contention for so long. Impressive win for Murphy? I do think there would be, I don't want to go as far as to say, like, massive demand, but yeah, there'd be enough of a push from the fans. Yeah, you've got to go Lauren Murphy, Shcherichchenko.

And vice versa, of course, Calderwood gets to win in impressive fashion. Then you rebook that one. That fight should have happened already. So that was, again, easy one for me. Yes. Murphy, Calderwood, June 12th, UFC, 26. I think that's the frontrunner. But I think this is a three-horse race, A.K.

I think there could be a dog, so to speak, that comes out of nowhere, higher odds, that could mix things up a little bit. And let's be clear, Caitlin Chukagian is out of this equation. She is not the third horse in this race. Her opponent on May 15th, I think, is a very interesting wild card in this equation in Viviani Araujo. Even Lauren Murphy in that interview was very, very... honest about it and said, listen, if Arujo beats

Caitlin Chacon on May 15th, like, she could get the next shot. And I wouldn't even argue with it. Like, she's looked really good. So I tend to believe the UFC will go with the Murphy Calderwood winner, especially if it's like a fun fight. I have a feeling it will be a fun fight. Lauren Murphy, what she's been able to do recently has been unbelievable.

Like, this has been some story. Enjoying Calderwood as well. It's just such a fun fighter. It continues to get better. I think the winner of that will get the shot. but if Viviani Arruzo goes out there and just destroys Galen Chagin, this is going to be hard to get fans to not say, yep, Aruzo, let's go, let's make it happen.

Arrouzo versus Chivchenko. And I feel like in a way the UFC will kind of learn from the Adina-Al-Dana mistake of not giving her the title shot and just throw Ariruzo in there. So we'll see what happens. I'm leaning towards the June 12th winner, but if Ar-Rujo goes out there and does something spectacular, would not surprise me. On the flip side, we got Jessica Androge. And this is a very interesting place for her to be in because she could go back down to 115,

win one fight and fight Rosammi Yunus for the title again. Oh, a trilogy. Absolutely. And that is a very interesting fight. Like, I think I would pick, I don't know where I would go with this. Like, I honestly don't know how that third fight would play out. But five, if you gave Androge an extra two. rounds at UFC

251. We wouldn't even be having this conversation right now, and this is just a dangerous rabbit hole to start fluttering down. The third meeting would be really interesting. But I think with Araujo getting the fight with you K again, I would

like to see Androge stick her out on 125. I don't want to see her cut that extra 10 pounds she doesn't have to. You could do Jessica Androj versus Cynthia Calvio. Makes a lot of sense of this point. I think that's the fight to go. But again, if she wants to go to 115, if there's a path there with Rose being the champion again,

it wouldn't surprise me, and I wouldn't blame her for it, if we're being honest. Yeah, I saw a lot of people suggesting drop back down to 115. I would love to see the trilogy fight. Like you said, she slammed Rose in her freaking head in the first fight, and even though Rose was looking good up to that point. And then the second

fight, a lot of people are saying, I'm not even saying, if you watch the fight clearly Andrade was taking over in the third round, did a ton of damage to it. I would really, really hurt her badly. and yeah two more rounds would have been very definitely fun to watch so cynthia cavio easy choice yeah like you said like this this is another easy choice again if anyone keeps their own rankings you kind of just go down and see who's booked and who's

who's next cavio's right there she could sell the fight beautifully i think i think she would love to fight jesska andrash she again she's another person that's kind of been in the mix for a telos shop for a long time never quite able to get over that hump and drash could be the name that gets her there um she can beat her the only other name i looked at maybe jessica Jessica I and Oh my gosh, my brain is not working right now at Maya winner And they find July 10th

It's so far ahead That would be if And Josh wanted to take some time off But otherwise, Calvio's right there waiting in the wings Right in front of her And unless Calvio books someone else sooner I think Andge makes a lot of sense for both Well let us move ahead to One of the more unfortunate moments

We have seen in quite some time Uriah Hall on paper negates a loss the first of his career 11 years after the fact he defeats Chris Widman via first round TKO

the fight lasted 17 seconds and Hall did not throw a single strike you all know what happened we hope Chris Widman is okay I will say because people have asked on this Sunday morning as we record

it is right now 1230 Eastern Standard Time just around there. No update as of now. Dana White said at the press conference that Wideman was supposed to have surgery this morning and you got to feel for the man. I have reached out to a couple of people on his team. I have not heard anything back.

So you've got to feel for Wydenman and you got to feel for the team and his family. But let me just make this very clear. You got to feel for Uriah Hall as well. And here's the deal. Uriah Hall checked that kick. and it sucks how that fight ended. Yes, I know.

My kid was like, I heard that. Yes, I said sucks. I'm sorry, buddy. But that is a win. That's going on the jar. That's a dollar in the jar. That's a quarter at least. But that's a win for Uriah Hall.

And he should get a bump up if possible. Now, if something happens with the fight between Jackramansen and Edmund Chabazian, it is 2021 after all. You could slot Hall right in there on May 15th if needed. Otherwise, you can do Kevin Holland. But I think he will just want to get back in there against somebody with some kind of a name and do it as soon as possible. But again, I want to be very clear about this. Uriah Hall should not be looked down on this win for any reason.

Because one, it's not his fault. And two, he handled this thing so well. what he said in the cage to Joe Rogan after the fact, what he said backstage with the media, just an A-plus performance. A-plus. I feel like as bad as it was,

Uriahaw's stock rose immensely without even throwing a strike last night. And it was one of the more awful and gruesome injuries you will see in this sport. And it makes you question why you watch the sport to begin with. But seeing Uriahaw react to it, it kind of gives you some solace being like, okay, we're not completely.

insane. We're not completely barbaric. There's some good people in the sport, and I feel like Uriah Hall represented that last night in the aftermath. What do you think? His last two fights have been some of the best on-air moments of his career. Not just because of who he beat, obviously, two former champions, Chris Wyman and Andresovah, legend, his idol. But you're right, the way he handled it. The speech, Saturday was great. The, his reaction after beating Silva

was so emotional and so genuine. I don't know people, again, it's, you know, at May time, three months is like a year now. He, like, he beats Silva. He doesn't want to knock the man out, but he has to, and he has to do the damage. And he, he, like, gets on his knees after, and he's trying, you know, he's kind of embracing Silva,

and he's, he apologizes, you know, he's like, I'm sorry, I love you. It was, I think he said I love you. If I put, I love you in Ira Haas mouth, I apologize. But there's definitely a nice, I am crying, and then I'm sorry. That struck me. I'm sorry, I was like, oh my gosh. You were apologizing for winning.

This is a job. This is what you're not just his job. His path in life is to be a martial artist and competitive martial artist. And he's apologizing for being a guy. And you wouldn't blame him for doing it all. Again, if you know his backstory and his love of Anderson Silva and everything that's going into that fight. So I think Rahal is such a star. He's the star that they thought he was going to be when he came off the old

fighter. He also apologized after that Adam Chella headkick. If you don't remember, he was immediately, he was like, sorry, Adam. And he's the star that they wanted to be. Maybe not in the way they expected him to be. He's not a boisterous trash talker. He's not, you know, that's the guy who's going to but as far as a thoughtful and as you said,

representative of the sport, you really couldn't ask for anything better. This was the toughest, I think, matchup of all the ones we're going to discuss this week. Coming off two easy ones like I said, that Shochchenko was an easy pick. I thought Shoechonko was an easy pick. Hall, I settled on it, Derek,

Brunson rematch, both guys on win streaks, the first fight, September 2016. So it's quite some time. The only thing is, I can't imagine either guy wanting to do it. Hall, maybe to get that loss off of that win back. Brunson, doubtful, it would be really doubtful. I don't know if he'd want to fight Hall again, again. But this was a long time ago. September 2016, so we're talking over four years ago.

So that's what I landed on. I don't love it. The Kevin Hall thing seems possible. but if I were making a matchup, if I could just say, if I'm sending out contracts and saying, guys, this is who you have to fight, sorry. It's your eye haul, Derek Brunson, too. Yeah, and it's not a bad idea.

I think Derek Brunson will be all over the Paulos to fight. We'll continue to still be on the Paulosda fight because, you know, we found out Israel, Adasani's fighting Marvin Vittori. I get that. I know a lot of people are pissed off about it and they're not reading between the lines. Like, there's just no way Robert Whitaker could fight June 12th. It's just not possible.

So if Israel-Aisana, one of your biggest stars says, I want to fight June 12th, you let him fight June 12th. And we have options. And then Robert Whitaker can just fight the winner. Like, it's fine. Robert Whitaker's next fight will be for the UFC middleweight title. It doesn't matter, like who he fights. His next fight will be for the belt.

So there you go. Everybody kind of wins in this situation. Your eye haul deserves some sort of anything. I mean, literally anything. If he just like, get me in there and fight, let him have it. If he wants to wait for something up the rankings, fine. But it just kind of sucks for everybody at this point in a way. But finally on this adventure, AK, this crazy ride, we discuss what is next for Anthony Smith, who stops Jimmy Crute. It goes in the books as a first

round TKO, Dr. Stoppage. This is another leg injury. But for those five minutes, AK, this fight was awesome. I loved it. I loved every second of it. It was great. What would you like to see next for Mr. Lionheart, the former title challenger, who continues to just shove it in the faces of all the doubters? Including me. I think twice. I believe I also picked him to lose his most recent fight with Devin Clark. So Lionheart, you know what? I'm going to keep picking against you because I like you and maybe it's something to do with your success. I'm sure of it. Maybe a very, very minuscule amount. do but maybe if it helps it all then I'm happy to do it. Yeah, it was a great fight, you know, before that went down.

And man, it's just so crazy that we, that would have been, again, one of the more memorable moments of the night on any other card. Now it's, it was maybe the fourth or fifth or I don't even sixth highest, you know, ranking storyline as it were. But yeah, praise effort for crude. Hopefully it's nothing serious. I think that, look, the automatic pick for Smith has to be Ankelaev. I mean, look, I call for this one in February.

I'm not the only one. Several people call for this matchup. Several people this week did. It was the most popular listener pick. I think at least at least like 10 people said Smith versus Ankolaev. So yeah, Ankolaev has to fight Nikita Krilov. Oh, sorry, he beat Nikita Krilov. I'm sorry.

I'm looking at my notes and I'm getting them all jumbled up. Nikita, he beat Krilov in February. And I said then, let's make Smith happen. So Smith Ankulayev, let's go. I haven't wavered from that at all. That's the one to go with. Personally, I would like to see them run this back. I would like to see them run it back.

There's no conclusion. Of course, we need to see how bad Kruits injury is. But if this is something he can come back from relatively quickly, that's what I would do. And this could main event a card because that first five minutes was tremendous. So if I had my choice, if all is well in the world, if the MMA gods can bring us back to Earth. Like what happened to Chris Wyden was horrible, but if you want to try to even things out, maybe Jimmy Crute doesn't have a serious injury.

Dana White seems to think like his whole knee went out, and that would be awful. But if this is something that, like, he can come back from, this is just, you know, a sprain or a bruise, like a bone bruise or something. Weird nerve thing. Yeah, weird nerve thing, quote unquote.

Medical term. Yeah, then I want to see these guys fight again because that first round was awesome. And I think Anthony Smith would be down. to fight again. I'm sure Jimmy Crew would be down to fight again. If not, if we are to believe that bad things are in the works for Jimmy

Cruz's recovery, I like the rematch of Tiago Santos because I think Smith has done enough in his career to earn a chance to get that one back and they're both at a point in their careers where it makes sense. So I'm in.

What a story it would be to see Anthony Smith get back to a title. shot after all of this. Give him Santos. Then he has three wins in a row. Three finishes in a row? We have a new champion. John Jones isn't there anymore.

Can you imagine if he gets back to a title shot? There's nothing more I would want to see in the sport right now than see a guy like Anthony Smith get back to a title shot. That would be so wild. That would be unbelievable. You wouldn't have him fight Glover though if Glover beats Blockhovic, would you? Yeah, I mean, at some point. It wouldn't be any time soon.

All right. See, that's my only reluctance was that. Is that if it, I don't know. But you're right. I mean, but that has to do with a potential Santos matchup. Yeah. Wouldn't the story be even better if he fights Glover and beats Glover? That first fight was so ugly.

Oh, if he beats him. Sure. He won. But people, go back and watch that fight. Like, I'm telling you, guys, go back and watch that fight. I know that one left a bad taste in all of our mouths. How it ended. Go watch the first two rounds of that fight, though.

Anthony Smith looked excellent in those first two rounds. He just got a little too crazy, a little too overzealous. Got a little too volume heavy. So, yeah. The Manhattan fight well over three years old by now, February 2018. And was that middle weight? That's the thing. Was that middle weight?

So it would be a new, it would be sort of a new look at this matchup. Okay, yeah. I saw a lot of people suggesting it. At first, I kind of raised my eyebrow. But, you know, now that you've explained it to me and other, others, I've seen so many we call for it. I like it. They're right.

We just went through that main card. We're already 42 minutes into this thing. Now it's time for the wild card selection. On a wild night, a wild card selection, AK, UFC 261 in the books. Who's the wild card pick? Well, first of all, look, it's going to be a long one today. If we go over an hour today,

normally we'd like to keep the show tight around an hour. It's been a big show. Yeah, we're going over an hour. I think you'll don't mind if we go over. Brent, this is easy for me. I had a matchup for Brendan Allen in mind for a long time after my pick for him most recently fought. I think I said when Calvin Gaston lost, I said, oh, I immediately said, yeah, give him the

Allen Roberson winner. So I'm sticking with that. This was my suggestion from just a week ago. Brendan Allen, Calvin Gaston. It's probably one of the, I think it's the, it's the reason why I didn't necessarily think of Calvin Gaslam, your riah Hall rematch, because I think I want, I prefer it for Brandon Allen. So already done, that's in the books for me.

It's almost not even a wild card. The word wild here almost doesn't apply. This is my logical card. This is like the least wild card pick ever. But I get it. It makes sense. Oddly enough, AK, and coincidentally enough, I am also going with Brendan Allen. Because he is a really interesting contender at 185.

He looked really good against Carl Roberson. I like that he's with Henry Hoof right now. I think one of the things that really hurt him in the Sean Strickland fight is like, listen, when you do a camp with a guy like Henry Hooft, we're just like, striking things fun. Like, this is cool. Like, you're going to get better. Yeah. You're going to get a little better. So he goes out and kind of goes back to what got him to the dance to begin with.

Gets him to the ground, uses top control, very heavy on top, waits for his opponent to make a mistake. Carl Roberson made a giant mistake and try to go for a leg. and we knew what was coming. So I know he wants the Sean Strickland Christoph Jocko winner. I know that fight's coming up on Saturday. Brennan Allen probably wants Strickland to win so we can try to get that one back. You're going with Calvin Gaslam. Do not dislike that idea at all.

But I'm going to throw out a name that gets thrown out on this show an awful lot. And I'm ready for it. I think we found a fight that works. It's Brennan Allen versus Macmoon Muradoff. This is super interesting of a fight you can make outside of the top 15.

In middleweight, as much as we like to dump on it, like if you really look at it, it is an interesting division. How it's been handled has been a dumpster fire and it's not the fault of any of the contenders

in this division. But Brandon Allen getting that win, you got Machmood Murdof, you get two guys, people are very excited about that. You feel like one of these two could break out. I think it's time.

man, I think we throw these guys in there and pun completely attended, I am all in on this fight. I'm all in my best friend, all in. You're all in versus Murdov? Yes. Was that intentional? Okay. Yeah, it became that way because I was going to say it and I thought about it. I was like, oh yeah, that's a big thing too. A poet and you didn't even know it. Yeah, Alan versus Murdov by far the most popular matchup for Alan from our listeners. Several people threw it out there. So yeah, look, that's a real thing. People are talking about it. So there we go. I like that. I like that wildcard pick for sure. Shall we move on to checking the tapes? Yes. Let us get the bag to fine glass and check the tapes. We're checking the tape. So we've got some. Liam Perry, one of our

regular listeners, Adesania Visitori 2, U.S. 263, June 12, not as official. I don't remember, I was checking the tapes, and I don't remember that many people calling for it. I think we all knew it was maybe a possibility, but I don't remember it being the choice of many. Liam distinctly called for this matchup. He said he wanted it. I'm just making to see his message here. If he said anything particularly fiery about the matchup. Probably others in more contention, Izzy was going to give it to Till with a win.

So just give it to Vittory. Fair enough. Holland's taking time off, probably working on state defense, dropped to Walter. Okay, that was some other stuff in the park. So Liam Perry, again, if there's other listeners I forgot and or people out there that call for this fight, I apologize. But I do know Liam call for that one. So check the tapes for you, my friend. we got a mic check oh shoot we got a mic check one more email boys awesome Deschamp a very positive nice young man

he says i had i just had to check the tapes to brag about this i suggested davy grant versus marlin vera too back in march right after davies chaos jonathan martinez now i see a book on the june 19th card mike disagreed on the fix stating it didn't make sense for vera at this point which is kind of true. Ha, ha, ha. But I think it has major potential to be a fight of the night. So they're a little mic check. Yeah, listen, I'm happy.

Once Davey Grant knocked out Jonathan Martinez, all bets were off. You know what I mean? Because that fight happened what? Did it happen? Oh, yeah. All right. So, you know what? You know what?

What is this young man's name? Austin Deschamp. Austin Deschamp. Let me tell you something. Oh, no. I support your mic check. I support it. I was wrong.

You were right. This is a great fight. I should not have dogged that pick once in a while. You know, I'm going to dog a pick now and then. And I'm mad enough to admit that I was wrong. So excellent work. Mike check approved. Well done.

You're such a man. You're such a man. I hope your son is in the room right now. It is learning from this moment. I watch your right. Maya Hall last night and I just, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm a better person because of it.

Absolutely. Marcus McGahey, this is more of a check the tapes question. Because there's a lot of talk about Arlofsky's next matchup recently and maybe having him versus Alexie Lennick. But he asked, do they train together at American top team? Do you know? I'm sure they have. I don't know if, I mean, I'd have to, like, go through Instagram and, like, do some

digging, but. Yeah. But listen, if those two guys fought, like, it's a good fight. Like, I don't think, I mean, ATT, here's the thing. Like, there's gyms. Like, you're not going to see Calvin Cater fight Rob Font anytime soon. Because, like, their team is, like, them two and, like, two other guys. ATT is, like, a mega team with, like, a bunch of branches of, like, medium-sized teams.

It's like a pyramid scheme. It's not, but I'm not, I mean, it's just, like, if you charted out what a pyramid scheme would look like, that's what ATT is. like and this is the most and take that as positively as possible there's like a bunch of teamlets so like those two guys like maybe ATT guys but they may not even like train on the same days at the same times in the same location in the gym so if they fought like I don't think anyone's gonna like I don't think it'd be like oh man we're like best friends and teammates no we can't do that I think like both guys are in positions we're like crap like if we want to keep our jobs with the UFC, we kind of have to fight each other.

Well, so Marcus, I think that fight can slam. Anyone else looking at that fight? It's still possible. We don't know. We don't know. We'll see. Like you said, dig to the Instagram. They could be best friends or something.

I don't know. But as far as we know, it seems like it's possible on paper. And then we had another special edition, a special sort of subsection, as to say, of check the tapes. We had someone offer their predictions for the show. And I warned them. I said, I said, I'm going to read this on Check the tapes. If you, we don't have people that we don't normally do predictions.

but four corner sports n y on instagram I don't know someone who's hit us up on Twitter sent in his predictions boldly and I said all right here we go so I'll just do a quick rundown he had Mazval defeating Usman second round TKO so that's that's a nay he did have Namajunus defeating Zhang by decision

but either way correct pick there so he had Rose winning defeating Zhang Shichchenko defeating Andraj didn't really offer a method but said he expected to be a tough fight so not accurate there was not a particularly tough fight for Shofchenko Sorry, I should say she made it look easy. I don't want to say it wasn't a tough fight.

She may look easy. But either way, correct pick there. So well done. Four Corner Sports. And Wydenne Tefeats Hall by decision, I mean, who knows? That might have happened if that injury had them, but obviously I missed there. And he did have Smith defeating Crute, though he thought it would be by third round submission. So three out of five, same as me.

I also got three out of five. I missed on, I missed on Zhang and Kruitt. Sorry, yeah, Kruit. I thought Kruit and Zhang would both win, so I missed on those, but got the others. So, Mike, how did you do on the main card, same? Three out of five? I was two out of five. I think it was two for five.

Oh, you picked Mazvedol. I picked Mazadol. I picked Zhang. I pick Kruit. Okay, okay. But I picked your eye haul to get a finish. Yeah, which he did in the worst way possible. And pick Chef Chaco to get a finish, TKO finish in round three.

So I was close. Yeah, okay. So you called a TK. Okay, so nice one. So, yeah, I mean, look, and I'm not making fun of this guy's predictions. Like I said, we're all making predictions in MMA, which is just senseless because as we saw 201, I mean, that's an anything can happen card if there ever was. Oh, my God. You're kidding me?

But that's it. Yeah, so a lot of little, a fun checks the tape this week, a little subsection. So it's, you know, kind of a popery, popery edition of Check the Tapes. All right. Let's just go to the peeps. Can I shoot out a disclaimer first? Yes, please. I don't know if you're applying this to your picks, but I'll just say in general, guys, this is my disclaimer.

Some people have messes like, oh, why didn't you mention? my pick and this time. Here's my disclaimer. I will try to run this down at the beginning of every episode if I remember. Emphasis. For me anyway, I like to emphasize winners. So I love you guys who send in matches for the losers. If there's a really good one, I'll mention it. But generally, for the sake of time, I'd like to focus on winners matchups unless they were in the main event or if they're in a title play. Emphasis on unique matchups. That's why I'll generally do a rundown in the most popular picks. So sorry, if you had a whole, if you're giving me like six or seven picks, but someone else, other other listeners also match those picks. Sorry, you might not get

read out. If the fighter was already booked, that's on you guys. Do your research. If the fighter was already booked and you don't seem to know that, I'm probably not going to read your pick out. You also just made a mistake. You may have gotten the wrong weight class that happened this week. Yes. They may have fought already recently and you just forgot. It happens. You might be matching up someone who's suffered a major injury recently and probably is not coming back. I usually probably won't mention those. And my last and maybe most important rule, your pick might just be do-do and I don't want to read it. So that's, keep all the... Keep all those factors in mind when you're sending in picks to Mike and myself.

Okay, we have reasons for not necessarily reading. So, sorry, Mike. How did you want to go about this first, the listeners? All right. I'm going to go through IG and just fire some of these off. Thickb, the underscore real bertha. Thick, but? Yeah.

I think it's supposed to mean something else. Sure. Cazula Vargas versus Yerosh Medich or Alexander Hernandez. Oh, I didn't see either of those. Okay. Jeff Molina versus Mateus Nicolao That is fun

Holy cow There's like a hundred Molina matchups That's a lot of Molina matchups And by the way Jeff Molina will be on What the heck this week So get excited for that Dina Baccariel versus Adrian Yanez

That's fun Although Adrian Yannes versus Randy Kost is the fight to make And you cannot convince me otherwise Ooh What do you think about this AK Pat Sabatini versus Charles Jordane Sabatini looked great in his UCDVU.

Brandon Allen versus Ian Heinish. I know there's some heat there. I think they trained together. I think Ian Hines spent some time at Stamford, M.A. But they were, oh, right. They were booked before he made the move. Correct. Right?

Oh, okay, they might be. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. Yeah, so I think they're trained together. Dwight Grant versus Carlos Condit. Randy Brown versus Max Griffin. That's fun. Anthony Smith versus Johnny Walker and Uriah

Hall versus Jared Cannonier. So there you go. Evan Rodriguez, Usman Covington 2, Nami Yuniz, Zhang Wei, Lee, too. It's either this, or you give it to the winner of John Annesparza. Yep. Valencia versus

Jojo winner. Uriah Hall versus Darren Till. It's hard to pick somebody for Hall to fight in a quick turnaround unless he gets an unranked opponent. So I gave him a top contender. Let's give him a shot. Of course, Darren Till, dealing with broken collarbone,

who knows how long he's going to be out for. Anthony Smith versus Ryan Span. Span wanted the winner of this fight. Let's give him his chance. And then, I mean, I think you can throw, even though he did win the fight, Jorge Mazadol versus Nate Leon winner. If Nate wins, Jorge gets his money rematch, and everybody wants the Leon versus George.

So kind of like... Yes, agreed. Kind of like agreeing with both of us, so... Yeah. Zach Andrews. What a crazy event. Usman Colby, Rose versus Asparza, Jan winner. Valentina versus somebody competitive, please.

Smith versus somebody. in the top 10 come end of summer maybe maybe the Hill Craig winner uh Uriahaw versus Edmund Joker winner and even some wildcard picks carnalosi versus Corey McKenna and Pat Sabatini versus Danny Henry

that's that's fun as well uh Robbie Ryan first time messaging into my new favorite MMA podcast onto the next one. Appreciate that my heart my heart uhsie underscore dad underscore bloke

uh I would like to see the Following, I would like to see these bachelors following UFC 261, Mazadol versus the Edwards Diaz loser. Thug Rose, Thug Rose versus McKenzie Dern. I saw it. I saw it. It's been mentioned. It's been mentioned.

Okay. I had the same reaction that you just did. Wow. I didn't even think about that. I thought about it, as in thought about as in that shouldn't happen, but I had thought about it. Anthony Smith versus the winner of Yuri Prakashka versus Dominic Reyes. Okay.

And then, uh, Robbie, you know, you know what just to write so I read it. He is suggesting Valentina Shvchenko take on the number one and number two contenders in a handicapped match. Oh, yes, of course. And I have no issue with that. And she can still be a two to one favorite. Yes. Matt Ravelli, he only had one pick. Brandon Allen versus the winner of Brad Tavar's versus Omari Ahmadine-off.

What else do we got here? Our friend Patrick Austin, Randy Brown, versus Robbie Lawler. Whoa. Wow. Wow. How about that? That's an interesting matchup. Almost done, almost done.

Harper, our friend Harper, Dwight Grant versus Tim Means. Randy Brown versus Jake Matthews. Dwight Grant is in that range now, and Randy Brown. They're both in that range now where they could get like a veteran name, eh? I saw a lot of that. Yeah, I could see Randy getting a big fight. Dwight Grant should not have won. Can I can I say that? He should not have won. It was a close. I'll admit, I was not watching super closely. My initial reaction was I was okay with the decision. I'd have to watch again. I'd have to watch it again. I do. I mean,

Seculitch definitely won the last round and then it's the second round I think would be would be the disputed one. But yeah, I'm obviously Randy Brown a bit further ahead than Dwight Grant in the ranking. So more like, I mean, so more like. likely to get one of those sort of veteran matchups. Yeah. Dwight Grant, congratulations on the win. Glad you got extra money.

But this is supposed to be like the showcase fight for Dwight Grant. This is supposed to be the one like, okay, not saying like Seckilich is a bad fighter, but this is clearly a setup for Dwight Grant to knock him out in the first round. And it didn't happen. And he, you know, good on him. And I thought he lost the fight. I thought he lost,

I thought Dwight Grant lost all three rounds last night. Wow. I thought he lost all three rounds. But listen, they were close rounds. It is what it is. Uriha-Haw versus Jared Canaanier. Mazadol versus Vicente-Luke. And then he goes, I don't give an F about George,

so it doesn't really matter. And then he followed up with another check the tapes. Yes. Screenshot an old DM. He called the fight between Jarzini Rosenstrike and Augusto Sakai, which is now the main event for June 5th. Oh. Good on you, my friend.

Nicely done. Well done. Danilo Collins, Jeff Molina versus Amir Albaazi. Like it. Pat Sabatini versus Jared Gordon? Whoa. I don't think that's going to happen. Jared.

They're friends. I don't know if they're friends, but they know each other very well. I thought for a second, I was thinking Jared. Not Jared Gooden. What weight class is a featherweight, though? Yeah, he missed weight in his last fight, but I don't know if those two guys would fight. Jared Gooden. No, he's a weatherweight.

Gooden. He's a well-to-wait. Oh, okay. I'm waiting on we out to lunch on that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so I don't think that fight happens. Another Hall versus Cannon Air Pick,

and then Usman versus Diaz, Edwards, winner. Wouldn't be mad at a Colby fight either, but if Edwards wins nine in a row minus a no contest without getting a title shot, that's not right. And if Nate wins, I think he gets a title shot no matter what. Also, would like to see Jimmy Crute versus Johnny Walker reboot, rebooked if Crute heals up. Jack Porter, Mazadol versus the loser,

Burns Thompson. versus Yohanna 2 Anthony Smith, Tiago Santos two, Uriahaw versus Kelvin Gassolm 2, and then Baccariel versus Jonathan Martinez. That is fun. John George, let's see.

First put some respect on Clay Collard and Randy Brown's name. Randy Brown versus James Krauss or Li Jing Liang. The man deserves that top 15 shot. I saw that. Uriahaw versus Luke Rockhold. That is interesting.

Where is Luke? Luke Rockhole, and I'm not saying he needs to rush back. That man is taking his time, isn't he? He sure is. He booking his next fight. And again, who knows? It might be what he needs. You know what I mean?

I've always said a fighters. When they start getting knocked out a lot, I'm not a doctor or anything. I don't know if you can ever recover once your chin starts going. But it would be nice if you had the luxury, you'd be able to take like a couple years off and then giving it another go. And again, it might not help at all. Maybe he comes back. It gets knocked down the first round again, depending who he's matched up with. But it certainly can't hurt.

I can't imagine it hurting, taking it. some time off. So Luke Rockhold, people want to see you fight again. People are matching you up. But again, I'm not saying, I'm not by any means by saying, oh, he should come back. Wait to take, come back next year. I don't know. Whatever. Whatever. I think he's, he can afford it. And if you can, fight when you want, that's much. Yeah. I mean, listen, if he's ready to come back like in the next couple of months, that's a really good fight. If he can get back to 185. I mean, that's, Rockhold's a big dude. I don't know. But if he can get to 85 and he's ready to go, I'm down for that.

I think that's a fight that makes a lot of sense. Uriah, three straight middleweight champions? How about that? If you beat him? How about that? That'd be a sick thing to have on your resume. And then lastly, we have Christian Lee. I don't know if I read this.

He said, let me just say, Gachy versus Holloway is the most beautiful matchup I've ever heard on the show. That was from a couple weeks ago. I think that was the Bellator Recap show that we did when we had a rare week off. he says Mazadol versus any money fight Diaz brother Leon possibly depending on how the fight pans out or McGregor if the stars align figure his ability to draw is likely diminishing at this point

and then he also likes Anthony Smith versus Tiago Santos too he likes Dinaab Bat Guerrille versus Journey Newson or Felipe Coleris if they don't intend on just rebooking that one so a lot of a lot of Dinaab Bat Garreal picks which is awesome and Jeff Molina and Jeff Molina Our listeners are, I was listening intently to, like, if you were reading off matchups that I got. You ran off a lot of matchups for Malina and Bakuil that I had not seen. And I got a lot of Malina and Back Real.

So I'm sorry, guys. I'm going to have to read out. I'm probably going to end up reading out a lot of these. But thank you, of course, everyone I, G's sending stuff to Mike, Mike and me. I'll get to my IG's in a sec. I'll run down quickly, sort of the most popular picks. The four most popular by far, I would say, people are just kind of throwing up their hands in the air and saying, Schenko Nunez trilogy about.

That's the way to go. As I said before, Smith versus Ankelyev, I think, was the most popular pick out of all, for all the fighters this week. Hall versus Cannoneer, that was the most popular one for him.

Though I like the idea on paper of Hall versus Till, we just, excuse me, we just don't know how long Till's going to be out for, but I mean, for me,

that would probably be my favorite choice for Hall. It's just that Till's injured and it could be a long way until he gets back. So that's unlikely to happen. And then, yeah, Brown versus Nico Price 2,

another rematch. It was also from three years ago. So that was a popular one. So, yeah, a lot of rematches were on deck. I'm just trying to see if there's anything you didn't mention or that we haven't mentioned during the show already. Bat Garel versus Mario Bautista was thrown out by a couple of people. And by the way, people, Bat Gareil, if they didn't watch, he called for Jose Aldo or Sean O'Malley. Good for him, man. I didn't see anyone, I didn't see any, look, I say call it whoever you want.

I didn't see anyone agree with those calls. I did not see one reader suggest Bat Gereil versus Aldo or Amelie, but, you know, whatever. Did you say Molina versus Manel Cape? Did anyone say Manila versus Cape? No, in fact, I didn't read it, but someone said Malina's opponent versus Minnell Cave. Oh, okay. I'm sorry.

This is something that I never thought I'd have to say, but we got clarification. It is Manel Cop, by the way. It is. I asked him, I asked him about it. Hold on, hold on. You were saying cop when you first interviewed him. I said I thought it was Cape all the time. Oh, you said Cape.

And then we had Annexate cop. And I came with Cop. Fitzgerald, who initially did. But then I would, yeah, then I interviewed him again and I introduced him as Minnell Cape. And I was like, wait a minute. I was like, by the way, I was like, are we calling you Manel Cape or are we killing you Monell Cop? It is.

Okay. It goes to that. It is actually cop. I'm like, why don't you tell me? I was like, I'm calling you Minel Cape for like six years now. We're a stickler for these things. We told Brennan Fitzgerald, he was an idiot for saying, no, no, I'm kidding. We love Brendan, and he's great to pronouncing things to you.

So we should put him up there with Anick as far as, like, pronouncing names. Like if Frist Gerald says or John Anick says it, I think he were pretty confident. That's how the name should be pronounced. There you go. Ariani Carnalosi versus Penny was the one I saw a few people suggest. Jessica Penne, I, she, Penny just rebounded with a win. I don't know. I mean, Penny would love to take that fight.

I'm sure the last thing she wants to be, you know, wants to hear it. Like, oh, I'm afraid of fighting like an up-and-comer. So she'd probably take it, but I don't know. On Instagram, I had a few. Dylan Schuett says Chris Wyatman, he thinks, probably retire. So, you know, Chris Wyman look like we don't know the diagnosis, getting surgery today. People were saying Andrew Silva came back fairly quickly from his leg break,

and I will say generally in sports, clean breaks, fingers crossed, have less complications and are quicker to recover from than from, like, ligament tears, things like that, which, again, I'm not a doctor. I don't know how those things work. but yeah if it is a clean break and he gets the surgery done today who knows hopefully he does have a quick recovery and it's not the end of his career he's 36 years old now

but again great athlete in great shape could continue fighting so but Dylan Shrews suggesting maybe this is it Crute versus Oostomere sure yeah we don't know what's up with Oostomere probably uh chilling overseas right now while during this COVID-19 situation but I'm sure whenever he's ready to fight that would be a good matchup

Matt Bradbury coming in hot with Vargas versus Joe Lazanne. Wow. You mentioned Batreel versus Janese before. Remember Ray says Backdreel should fight Costa for the right and the winner gets Yanez. So he's kind of with you. He wants to see

the Costa Yanez fight, but he wants Costa to earn it. So he has to earn it a funny back. I don't know. That's just silliness. Come on. I mean, You got to earn it. You got to build. Earn what? They both have two wins

the UFC. They gotta build up this anticipation for this cost of yannes. It's simmering. It's at a simmer. I don't know if it's quite boiling over yet. Boy, is that a bad thing when, I can't cook.

I don't know if you don't want to boil over. Sabatini versus Derek Minner for, you know, fun grappling matchup and Dwight Crant versus Brian Barbarina. Barbarina, another name in the show that always comes up and, you know,

which waiting him to recover from, from surgery you recently had to have done. I don't know if he has a fight booked or. Does he? I didn't look at one. He's a bout. Let me look this up I know he's

He is saying he's like ready to go I don't know if he's booked That dude isn't just yet He is not booked anything just yet But expect something soon I would say He just had like something about heart or lung related or something It was like got something with his gut His stomach

Yeah I wouldn't be fighting the I'd be waiting until 2022 if we're doing anything For going for a jog I'm just getting back inside the eye He's a madman Jamie Casey, first time contributor. I always like to shout out these guys. He likes Crude versus the Craig Jamal Hill winner, June 12th.

Crute Craig won. I mean, they fought before. It went to the third round. So it was a pretty decent fight. And that was December 2018. So I'm not against it. Not against that rematch should Craig beat Chmall Hill. And if Jamal Hill wins, then yeah, sure, I'd love to see Hill and Crude.

An Instagram account called MMA Heads. Mazvedov versus Nick Diaz. You know what? Yeah. Yeah, all right, M.A. Heads. You know what? You and Mike are a couple of Mayheads, so you're on the same page.

Jacob Best was one of the... Oh, shoot, I should open this stuff. I said I had to read this message. Jacob Best was one of the people who threw out that, to us, seemingly bizarre, McKenzie Dern, Rose Namajunis suggestion. But I said I would read his message. I can't... Hopefully, there's a good reason.

Oh, okay, just reasonable. Exciting clash of styles during the most exciting prospect. He says, Zhang doesn't deserve an immediate rematch, and Rose has beaten Yats Chich twice. So just kind of process of elimination. Okay, all right. I'm not, if it happened, I wouldn't be against it. I do not think it's the right time for it at all.

I'm not against it. I think Namjeun, this is a little too much for Duren right now. But Duren's made some big strides, so whatever. Here's, you know what? If that fight, and listen, Rose is great on the ground. But if that fight goes to the ground, McKenzie's submitting her. There's just no ifs ands, her butts about it. Like, if McKenzie gets any girl, then that weight class to the mat is done.

Dunzo. The fight is over. So I get it from that aspect I'd like to see you get another win though She hasn't gotten that And listen Nina Nunes is a great fighter She was off for quite some time The fact that she stayed in the top five

During that extended layoff is kind of weird You know what I mean? It's just kind of weird So I mean if McKenzie Dern gets the Yawani on Jacek fight And at this point even though she didn't call Yuana out I think that's the fight to make. Like, I really think that's the fight you do. You do McKenzie Dern versus Yvani and Jacek.

Yeah, yeah. And then McKenzie Dern wins that fight. Throw in there for a title shot. But I'm telling you right now, as good as Roses on the mat, and I kind of would like to see what would happen if they got down there, I don't care who you are at 115. You're getting subbed by McKenzie Dern. You're at least getting controlled down there.

It will be a long night if she gets you to the mat, no matter who you are. So it's not, I'm not saying it's, like inconceivable that McKenzie Dern could finish Rose Damiunas, like it's very possible she could. I would just like to see her get one more win. Like get a

top five win, like a really quality win. Feeding someone like Yuana absolutely gets her there, but I'd like to see her get one more and I think she feels the same way. And look, even in terms of notoriety, I think Dern, look, she's been thought of as a potential star for the O.C. for a long time. I think she's just starting to get there. I think she's

just starting to potentially, you know, become someone who become a mainstream star for you so don't rush that you know don't rush that if you can avoid it let these things take time you can't they can't be forced they cannot be forced I think she's on her way I'm not saying she become again like a rousy level star but like a like a second tier star absolutely she has all the potential for that and and many have wanted to for a long time max block just I just want to mention it because he's got my back on on on holler's brunson two so I'm not completely crazy we've got a question for you Mike phone one mr. Brandon Haley he says

Not on to, I shouldn't bring this up because this could be a whole other hour of chatter. Notting on to the next one per se, but can you guys talk about the record James Krause has as a coach? If there's ever a pick-em fight, I learned this the hard way last night, Mike. If there's ever a pick-em fight and Krause is on the corner, bet the house on whoever that is going to be. She, dude is a beast coach and fighter. Unbelievable. So, yeah, I want to say we were doing our picks. And I was not, even though you had mentioned on a couple of our shows that Molina was in.

a Jeff Krause guy. I must have gone over my head because I picked Oriichi Lang to to beat him. And then on fight night, I was soon as I saw him walking out with Krause, I messaged you and I was like,

whoa, whoa, whoa, he's got the cheat code. He's got the cheat code. I wanted to change my pick immediately. And Eori-Lang, it wasn't bad, but boy, when you've got that, you've got that James Kraus coaching.

If it was, like Brandon says here, if it was a close fight, look at who's in the corner. And if it's James Kraus, you tilt in that direction. I'll tell you, I mean, as soon as that matter, was made I was like this fight absolutely rules and and the fight went pretty much the way

I thought it was going to go like Molina was going to have the jitters early on and um Kreechie Lang would kind of do his thing early on and you know but and plus Kuiji Lang has that that incredible heart and you saw in that third round because Molina was lighting him up like a Christmas tree I think I think was the third most significant strikes landed in a round in the history of the UFC like where he was approaching Max Holloway Calvin Cater levels with that third round

and then Lang drops him and then he gets, the Malina gets dropped at the end of the round and almost gets stopped. I was like, oh my God, this is insane. That fight was amazing and if they didn't get 50 Gs, it would have been a travesty.

I know. Thank goodness they got the fight of the night. That was, uh, congrats on both guys. Amazing fight. I can't wait to see either guy again. I think I think they're super exciting. So, uh, so Brandon, yes. We love James Cross. Is there anything else you'd let's say with James Cross?

And again, I know you've spoken to him many times. And I know you've been a big proponent of him as a coach. And certainly you haven't been wrong with him. That dude is. I mean, he is just great. He just knows what to say. And like he knows fighters so well. And like even talking to Grant Dawson after the knockout win that he just had,

everyone was talking about the speech. Like the speech went viral in the third round. Like, listen, MF her? You got to go stop. And I just yelled at it. and Grant's just like, dude, that's a Tuesday. Because that means, because you know how many times he's talked to me like that?

Probably a thousand times. He goes, so this is nothing new. He's like, it's not that it's not that I ignored it. It was just like, okay, I know, like, I know what he's going to say because he said it so many times to me. So, yeah, Krause is such a great coach

and he's only going to get better. And I think the only loss he has this year is the Megan Anderson fight, right? I think he's won the rest. I mean, don't quote me on that, but I think that's the case. It feels that way. I'm saying it feels like every time I've seen Krauss in the corner, his guy.

Julian Marquez. Twice. Come back. The comeback. The comeback. Dawson. Molina. Who else?

There's, there's, oh, Derek Minner. Another one. So there's, I mean, there's at least five. He's at least five and one right now. It's, it's incorrect. Again, he's the cheat code. He is the cheat code right now. A lot of great coaches out there.

Saif Su, you know, certainly someone who, there's a lot of mention. But right now, man, I think Krause is just that dude You want your corner A couple of quick email shoutouts I'll go to, of course, I gotta go to our regular email guys, Harry Duoskin who liked Bachariel versus Iman Zahabi Pat Sabatini versus Daniel Paneda It's going a little more veteran and Brandon Allen versus Duran win

I'm down for all those. Tristan Gordet, he would really like to see Schuchenko versus Arujouzio if she beats Chukigian in impressive fashion as we said before. Hall versus Gaston. That was his number one pick for Hall. and Beckerreal again versus Hauny, Barcellos

win and he said win or lose, win or lose against Timor Valley of on June 26th. He thinks that Barcellus is the next matchup for Becker. I like when listeners do that when you think about like, it's this guy and it doesn't matter, you know, it's not dependent on, it's really they just like that particular matchup. That's interesting. Yeah, I like it.

So, all right, I got a ton of Twitter. So I'm going to, sorry, my Twitter guys, you are getting you are getting the shorts, well, I shouldn't say the short ends. There's just so many of you. I'll try and run through some of them Real quick. Back Grill versus,

sorry, from Barry O'Reilly, Back Grill versus Ronnie Lawrence, Pat Sabatini, Marcelo Rojo. Ooh, that's a good one too. Again, you can't have bad matchup

for Backeril, Sabatini, Malina, a lot of these guys in the bottom of the car. They really, I think, opened up a lot of eyes.

Randy Brown versus Michelle Paheta or man we just mentioned, James Crouse. Yeah, I got, yeah, I've seen Brown Crows quite a bit.

I'm Krause doesn't care. I'll fight anybody. As long as he's got enough time. I mean, it interests them and he's compensated at the right length. Yeah, I mean, both those are interesting. Marcus McGehee, who I mentioned before, had some of my favorite match for this week. I like Randy Brown versus Daniel Rodriguez. I like Dwight Grant versus Impa Kassanganai.

Now the Kassanaganai is down at 170. Pat Sabatini, this one I didn't like. Pat Savadini versus Chase Hooper. I think Sabatini whoops him right now. Oh yeah, you can't do that. Chase is teasing a fight right now. I don't know with, I've tried to try to figure it out, but Chase likes to kind of go, he's got a thing with fight pass. He likes to do like fun things to him.

Right, right. So, yeah, I don't want to see that fight. And then McGahy did this insane deep cut of Molina versus Alexander Doskalchuk. Wow. Do you even know who that is? One name I did not expect to hear. Do you know that you, I had to look at it. I totally, I've heard the name.

Maybe I've heard the name, but he was booked to make his USCD debut twice. Yes, against Ulaan Bekov and Malcolm Gordon. Last year, the fights fell through. So, McGehee, dipping into the roster of someone who hasn't even fight. It's not the first time he's done that, has he? McGahey, this guy knows his stuff. Yes. Fred at Sep underscore Fred with 2Ds on Twitter.

I have to shout out because this is our man from Brazil. I think he's our Brazil guy. And I forgot to mention he was from Brazil last time. What do I like that he did here? as you oh Andrage returned to Strawway to fight the Jan Asparza loser

Sure I can see it And again this makes sense With a lot of the other picks We fit so that fits And he thought You know he wanted to shout out One of his fellow Brazilian

So he said Why not Shevchenko Versus Davidson Figuerado You know, why not The two best flyweets in the world You know If Figurato beats Moreno convincingly In the rematch

How about that? That's fun And number one Let's put it in there Gerald McNulty, another first timer. I wanted to read this out. Oh, okay. So, Schichenko Nunez three,

Mazvedal v. McGregor. Now, Gerald, apparently, is from Ireland, and I didn't understand this mission first. He says, I'm from Ireland. So when Connor wins the trilogy against Dustin, and at this point, I assume he's a huge McGregor fan, then he says, Connor wins the trilogy against Dustin,

and then I would love to see Jorge smash his face in as I don't think Jorge will win. later. Conner doesn't seem to care about the title anymore. So I think he's... What? I think like as many folks in Ireland has kind of soured on the McGregor experience. I know our palpice Carol has said that there's a large

contingent of Ireland fans who are not as fanatical as people would assume about McGregor. So there we go. Love the show. You and Mike are brilliant and both have great names apparently. Sure. I mean, people like to make fun of mine. Keep up the good work. You make me more interesting.

in MMA every podcast. Ah, dude, you're getting all your questions read on the show forever. He knows the secret. He's listening to the show. He knows the secret. That's not even the most emotional. I'm building here. I'm building up here.

As Mike usually takes us a journey, the listeners are helping us take us on a journey here because I'm building. Triple B, Koot versus Spahn, you mentioned, Hall versus Kahnier, I said, one of the most popular picks. Zhang versus Suarez. Yes, I think we'd like that if whenever Swares comes back. Yeah, again, we just don't know when she's been dealing with injuries for a while. so she'll come back when she's ready.

Hayes Bethard. I apologize. I have mispronounced his name. Last time, Hayes Bethard. Brown rematch versus Price or Neal-on-Neal loser. Yeah.

Sure. Yeah, not against it. Usman. If he wants a note for Usman, if he wants to fight in the next three months, do the Colby rematch. If not, do Wonderboy Pete Burns and have Colby get another win,

so we're down with that. Okay, there was a random comment. I'm going to skip because I asked him for clarification didn't get a response. Jack O'Hara, as we said, Alan versus Heinish, but we do wonder, are they training together now? I'm sorry, we know they've trained together now. And unfortunately, that ship may have sailed on that matchup, which I think we all wanted, really want to see last year.

Sabatini versus Jamal Emmer's. That's a good fight. I like that fight. That makes a lot of sense. Shout out, Jack O'Hara. I hope we can check the tapes on that one and say that you called that one correctly. Michael Birgini, always bring in a ton of fights. I'll just read a few of the.

He wants to see the Smith versus group rematch. He said, hey, that's a freak injury. He really wants to see that one again. Brown, Randy Brown versus Elezu Zelisky. Does the winner get, would the winner get in the top 15 of that? I don't think so, but only because Walter Wade is so deep. I think both guys have top of dean talent. Would they be in the top of that?

No. Dwight Grant versus Munir Lazez, Malina versus Bruno Silva. And one fight, which I really liked, and I don't know, maybe they're not at the right stages of their career for it. Carnalossi versus Kay Hansen. Huh. Hmm. I don't know.

Maybe too much too soon for Hansen. I don't know. I mean, she's got to fight somebody, right? Yeah. Yeah, and I'm saying that's, so that one works for me. Ain't no expert on Twitter says Guana Carlonesi versus Levina Suza. Allen versus, did I say this before? Alan versus Holland two?

We said this before, right? We were just talking. We might have, yeah. We might have. Grant versus Chaos Williams, another guy. We're kind of waiting to see him get booked again. And Randy Brown versus Jake Matthews. I like that.

Yeah, that's a popular one. Winding down here, guys, just three more to go. Toad Gertings and our man from Denmark. I want to read what he said about Wonderboy. He says, the pick. Kumar was amazing. Colby should be guaranteed a touchdown shot to do his activity.

If Wonderboy beats Gilbert Burns, I think Wonderbore should get the title shot. Activity, Strength of schedule, fresh matchup. So there you go. So kind of stuff we all touched one before. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

You kind of broke up a little bit. Did he say Colby should be? Colby shouldn't get it due to lack of activity. Did I hear that correctly? I mean, he's only fought. He just fought in September. It's not that long ago. But that was once.

That's his only fight since the Usman fight, right? Wonderboy fought three months later. He's fought. Fought once. Well, look, take it up with Toke. Toke. Tocke. I don't agree with you.

And the wonderful nation of Denmark. All right, you take it up him. Thank you for listening. Mazvedal versus Luque. Someone else to mention this word because Luca had called for this and said that Usman took the Mazvedov fight for him. And he said, and I'm sorry to mention this name again,

he said that that clears the path for Shemaya versus Nick Diaz. So he has an ulterior motive. I'm sorry, Mike, he has an ulterior motive to want to see Mazvedal fight someone besides Nick Diaz. He wants Nick Diaz shemaya. And Molina versus Sumudairji. Thomas Collins,

I'm going to read this one out. He likes Alan versus Jacques'Ey, if Jacques'Arette beats André Munis on May 15th, Bakariel versus the veteran of veterans Johnny Eduardo, who's been fighting since 1996, that is not an exaggeration. His Uzman versus Edwards 2,

I want to read his message here. More Covington slander. Maybe this is why I made a note to read these. In my opinion, Covington is less deserving a shot than champion. Covenant needs to beat someone else to get the next title shot. Edwards deserves it based on length of the windstreet alone, so beating D.S. Solidivizer.

Plus, I want to see a UK fighter get a shot of the title. So I guess a little bit of buyers there from Thomas Collins, who I assume it's from the UK. So that would be a fun rematch. Are you ready for the emotional finale? Yes. Okay. So Nate Andrews, who has chimed in recently, I got to look this up.

I'm not going to be out of this whole match. It's very long, but it's very heartfelt. So Nate, thank you for sending this. First off, I like one of his matchups. He said, prospect of the night goes to Bat Gareal he feels and wants to see him face Andrew Ewell next. He says, truly bring up the ladder. I think Backeriel is that good. But what I wanted to read from Nate was he was particularly devastated by the Chris

Widman injury. So I'll read some of this. I'm going to skim this a little bit. He said, I've always been a big fan. Watch that injury hurt me deeply. He says he had a similar injury due to a free accident that happened two years ago at the University of Maine. He was running on the field.

He said he suffered an open compound fracture of his tibia following a routine surgery. Doctor said there was a one in one million chance of this injury happening to him. He said he suffered a lot, not just physically, but of course, mentally, very devastating. Watch, he said he's heartbroken for Chris Wythman. He had his, Nate had his last procedure to remove hardware just four weeks ago. So this injury happened two years ago, and he's still having procedures to kind of take care of it. So just a month ago. And he said, ended nearly every athletic pursuit I had in college.

It decimated my psyche, and I'm just a band kid from UMaine. Suffering that as a professional athlete, my heart is just shattered for him. he said I need to kind of get this release out in the background as someone who cares of MMA in the way that I do as not many others in his circle care for the sport so he's just he's sharing this with us Mike

because he says friends that he can't necessarily won't necessarily understand what he's talking about here this is my first time since I delved into loving this sport during my rehab that I've truly felt heartbroken for a fighter like this I'll be praying to remember he's willing to listen

that Chris makes it through the night to his surgery tomorrow and that he'll be okay and that's that's a great sentiment from from Nate so and of course had nice things to say about us as well but thank you Nate for sharing that with us I know that sounds horrible I hope that that you are at the end of this this experience and that you can come back strong and get back to doing whatever it is that you want to do but thank you always Nate for listening and for sharing that story yeah well yeah well said I think he kind of speaks for everybody at this point just you know just the whole thing is just weird. And I demand Gerald Mearschart come on one of these programs and apologize to me for calling me

the Alex Jones of MMA because I said, I'm telling you, something weird's going to happen tonight. And so much weird happened. So I am not Alex Jones of MMA. I just had a feeling and my feeling was true. It just went in different directions than I predicted they would. And Nate, props to Maine. I'm a big fan of Maine. really, really like it. Used to frequent Maine quite often as a youngster. I enjoyed hitting the slopes as a young man. Spent a lot of time in the Bridgeton, Maine area, doing some skiing at Shawnee Peak.

So shout out to Shawnee Peak. Bridgett & Maine's in the middle of nowhere. A great place. Maine is just salt of the earth people. So thank you, Nate. I appreciate you. New England for life. Yeah, look, you know me.

I love to slander New England, but I will, for the sake of you and for the sake of Nate, I will hold off on that slanted today. I'm very, yeah, I'm very excited if he would share that with us. And yeah, we're all hoping that Chris Wydenman is all right. Again, whether he fights again or not, that just that there's no, you know, no serious long-term damage that leg. And just, you know, he can go back to live in his life whenever he does decide to be finished fighting.

Yes, well said. Anything else, A.K. That's it, man. I'm not topping that. I'm emotional now. Nate, reading it again. I was emotional when I saw the message. I'm emotional again reading it.

So before the damn breaks, I think we've got to wrap this up. Yeah. And at this point, we don't need to give out the handles. You know where to find us at this point. Like the amount of DMs I saw this morning when I'm barely on Instagram is ridiculous. So we appreciate you finding us. Continue to do so. And we will be back next week because the UFC is back at the UFC apex.

It's just going to be so weird. It's going to be so weird after hearing that crowd and like getting those goosebumps back going back to the apex. next week. I believe this is UFC Vegas 25. Main event is a good one. Dominic Reyes versus Yuri Perhashka. Really looking forward to that.

The co-main event, really good. Cubs Swanson versus Giga Chikaze. That is a great fight. Light heavyweight, Ewan Kuta Laba versus Dustin Jacoby. Someone's going night night. Sean Strickland versus Christoph Jocko. Pollyanna Botelio versus Luana Carolina,

Carolina. That should be fun. Marab Devalis Willie versus Cody Stamen. This is a good card. Do not sleep on this one. Let me look at the prelims. I haven't looked at them in a while. Random Marcos. Why do they not? I feel like Mirab needs more hype. I feel like this year. I know there's so many cards they normally don't hype like that far ahead of time if it's not a pay-per-view, but man, they should be like telling people about three weeks ahead that Marab is coming. Yeah. And I like the matchup too. It's a great matchup too. But I do

think, but I do think Marab is one of the next dudes at 135. I'd love to see him getting just a little more of a push. Ranne Marcos versus Luana Pinheiro. Mowgli Benitez is back against Jonathan Pierce. That should be a good one. Kai Kamaka III versus T.J. Brown.

Luke Sanders versus Felipe Kalaris, Andreas, Mikhailitis versus KB. Buller. And Loma, Luke Boonee is back in the Octagon, taking on Sam Hughes. So that should be a Should be a pretty fun card.

It'll be definitely weird. But we will be here breaking it all down, discussing it, the aftermath of UFC Vegas 25. So we know where to find us for a K.kai and Mike Kack. Thank you for going on this journey with us after a crazy event. UFC 261. We appreciate it very much. And always remember, don't take the stuff too seriously. MMA is supposed to be fun.

We'll have more fun right here. Next week on on to the next one, the podcast. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.