MMA Fighting - On To the Next One | Matches To Make After UFC 279

Episode Date: September 11, 2022

Nate Diaz ended his UFC contract with his head held high, and with a Performance of the Night earning submission win in the main event of UFC 279. But was that the final time the popular competitor competes inside the octagon? On an all-new edition of On To the Next One, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee discuss what is next for Diaz and Tony Ferguson following their welterweight headliner at UFC 279 to cap off one of the craziest fight weeks of all-time. Additionally, future matchups are discussed for Khamzat Chimaev after his terrifying performance in the co-main event, Chimaev's opponent Kevin Holland, Daniel Rodriguez and Li Jingliang following their competitive featured bout, Irene Aldana and Johnny Walker after getting finishes to kick off the main card, 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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Yes, we are live for a brand new edition of On to the next one. UFC 279, which went down last night at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Nevada, the main event was a different kind of main event. Nate Diaz wins again in a number of different ways. And no matter what was thrown at this man, he exits the UFC in the most perfect way possible, the most Nate Diaz way possible, at least for now, perhaps. So there's a lot to talk about from a matchmaking perspective and just an overall thought perspective from UFC 279, but I am Mike Heck, fear warning.

I didn't sleep very much. Not sure if I even slept at all, to be honest. So I don't know what kind of mood I'm going to be in. Luckily, the Patriots don't play till later on, so I can't get super angry because I have a feeling that's not going to go very well, but it could go hit or it's hit or miss here. I mean, they could be super grumpy or I'm just going to be super positive and fun. But we're here with all of you. If you have matchmaking, making suggestions for a certain fight,

that we're talking about, please throw them in the chat. We'll throw them on the screen. And at the end of our banter, we will go full on chaos with your matchmaking picks. We're just going to unlock the door. You guys are going to go bananas. And then we're just going to throw them all out and react to as many as we can. But joining me in this adventure, as you can see, the co-host, the cult matchmaker, the Prince O Positivity, the best friend, Wu-Tang, Wu-Tang, ain't nothing to F with,

a.k. Alexander Cayley. Hello, sir. What up, my best friend. Wu Tangs for the children, as we all know. Yeah, what a show. I mean, I know we're going to dip more into the main event in a second. But Nate Diaz, first of all, what an incredible and poetic finish, finishing 252 into round four with 208,

remaining in the clock. Shout out to the great state of Idaho, right? We all know Nate Diaz, strong ties to state of Idaho. So to have 208, you know, the number we all, the three-digit number area could we all associate with Nate Diaz, to have that, you know, as the official time of the stoppage on screen. Just amazing. Shoutouts, 208. What, what?

Show us to my people's in Idaho. So, good, great stuff there. Great stuff. Can we ban this person? No, no, especially their name. Russian spy. Your dolphin support is accepted and allowed here. Well, let's get into this thing.

This is kind of a weird and auspicious start to the program. We're going to start with Nate Diaz because from all indications, Nate has doubled down on this, probably tripled down on this at some point, told Joe Rogan this, and then he reiterated it again at the press conference. Last fight on his deal. Last night against Tony Ferguson, it was the main event. And these two went out and had a fun fight. This was Tony Ferguson.

It wasn't Hamzat Shemayev, which I think most of us are thankful for on the Sunday morning. But they went out there. They had like an OG. classic. It's what you want to see for both guys compared to the original matchups that they were in for last night because I just don't know how we're sitting here today with this feeling, this sort of sigh of relief that we have on the Sunday morning. The tone of this program, the post-fight show, the press conference, everything would have been much different had things stayed what they originally were supposed to be. They didn't. Nate gets Tony Ferguson. Nate heads into the fourth

round of this fight, up three rounds to none on two scorecards. He's down two rounds to one on the other. And then Tony shoots for a takedown. He listens to his team. Nate snatches the gilly. Tony taps. Nate rides off into the sunset as good as can be. And then he puts the company over on the way out. Eight plus night for Nate Diaz. He killed it. What do we do? Do we even matchmake for him here? Because I think he's gone from the UFC for now. I don't know if he ever comes back. I kind of of hope he doesn't in my heart of hearts because this is how you want to go out if you can in the UFC. Now he can go box. He can do whatever he want and just make all the money. So how do we handle this one on this show? Because this isn't a retirement. He's just done with

this contract and literally everybody knows about it. Yeah, I was going to ask, is this the first time where we might consider, you know, sometimes we do both people in the main event. We do the winner and the loser. I was going to say, is this the first time where we do the loser of the main event, but don't do the winner? My memory is terrible. Maybe it's happened before. But it does feel like, at least as far as MMA goes, it doesn't make a lot of sense to pick a fight for Nate Diaz. I don't think he's coming back to the U.S.C. right away. As he wonderfully put it at the post-fight press conference, I'm not not never going back to the UFC or something like that. He's like, he's like, I'm not coming back to the UFC, but I'm saying I'm not not coming back to the UFC,

which is, I mean, it's just really the best way to put it. You know, he's keeping his options open. And he has many now. One of which I think most of us assume he has a move into boxing. I think he is, that's just, listen, the Jake Paul fight is right there. I don't care, winner-lose versus Anderson Silva. It's there. But if I'm going magic wand in any fight I want, I think we, I'm more leaning towards

the McGregor trilogy. It's just a higher quality fight. I still think that drama, that history is there. I listen I'm not a cona McGregor you've been a big Connor Greger fan personally by any means but I think as we said many times the man is just never in a boring fight and his first two fights with Diaz

were just amazing I'd love to see them fight in M.A. again that's not possible but I think boxing could be great I think it's mostly going to be stand-up anyway first fight was amazing we saw you know we saw Diaz mixed the martial arts or or say McGregor tried to mix the martial arts and got choked out for it and that's fine that was great rematch awesome such an underrated fight i think like super famous fight but a lot of

people are like are just upset because i think they felt diaz some some ds robbery talk but i thought that was a pretty fair win for mcgregor and just an awesome back and forth battle anyone who has any sour feelings about that fight go back and watch it that was just an amazing rematch um so yeah let's do it again let's do it again uh i say we say ds mcgregor three as dyes corrected the brilliant hosea young's the press conference he was like he's like what do you mean what do you mean three. This is boxing. It would be one. It would be McGregor Diaz won. So,

listen, Diaz was roasting everybody on Saturday. It was an honor, I think, to be roasted by him. And Jose Young, so we've got to shout him out again. Amazing work on the ground in Las Vegas this week. So I think him getting me part of, a notable part, of

maybe the best post-flight press conference scrum ever is to Jose's credit. So thanks again, Jose for all the amazing coverage. Yeah. And if the fight we were supposed to get happened. We're probably not getting either of these moments. And we're just feeling like garbage this morning if we're being honest.

We're just feeling so sad and heartbroken. But I'll just throw out a suggestion. Nate, just keep fighting the fight that you got on the map to begin with. That helped bring you to this place that we were in right now. Nate Diaz versus the freaking world. Go box Jake Paul. Go fight Connor outside of the UFC. Make all of the money do you.

And if this was the last UFC fight, and like I said earlier, I really hope it is because you don't see this in the UFC. We don't get this feeling that often. But we're talking about the UFC. Normally guys stick around too long. They take fights that they shouldn't. And they go out on a really bad note.

This is difference. I, yeah, I kind of hope this is it. Like, I don't want, I'm not saying he should not fight anymore. You go do you. You want to go box. Paul make floppy jillion dollars you make that money you want to go fight Connor and make a billion dollars go do it but social gloves three social gloves three headline it do it need need go ahead

so for anyone doesn't know by the social gloves too if we're judging just by you know how the sausage is made judging by like whatever traffic metrics or whatever whatever numbers are that I don't even understand very high a lot of interest incredible a lot of interest absolutely incredible you people are all nuts. But for Tony Ferguson, a.K. The man wants to keep going. He said he had a lot of fun. He's ready to work on what he needs to work on. Learning is a very big thing for him. And he said he's hanging his hat, not just at 170, but the hat is still hung at 155. But a lot of people, and I'm seeing different things in the comments, and we've seen it throughout the show, while a lot of us

enjoyed this main event for what it was, a lot of us also left with the feeling. And this It's been a common theme thus far in this program. Relief. A little bit of relief here because Tony got to have his spotlight against another big star, against another Wiley veteran, and he wasn't going to get brutally knocked out, which I feel would have happened. There's a very good chance of that happening.

He fought Li Jing Liang last night. So how do we match make for Tony Ferguson? Because it doesn't seem like the man's going anywhere. I still, you know what? I like him finding 170. I like him not having to cut weight. I like him having as much hydration as he can to preserve what's left of his, you know, his battle-tested brain, to put it nicely. I don't think it's an insult to say that, you know, he's got his cage rattleed a few times.

Everyone who's been in the, he's 38, anyone who's been in the business that long has had their cage rattled and he's been some serious wars. So I've got a rematch on the on the plate for Al Kukui, Mike. Another lightweight who's competed at Welterweight. They fought before. Ferguson beat him in their first outing, part of his legendary 12-fight win stream. I think we've brought this up on onto the next one before. Maybe we wanted it at 155. Maybe we wanted it at 170.

But I think you can run it back with RDA. I think it's a fun fight. I don't know if people don't want that because both guys are losing streaks. And I am not framing it as a loser-leaves-town match, particularly for RDA. I think RDA could lose and still get a few more fights. Ferguson's going to be tricky. If he loses again, it'll be six straight. And I mean, listen, when you're losing to Michael Chandler, Nate, Charles Lever, Gaitie, etc.

It's not the worst thing. I think the UFC takes that into account, but he's also a big ticket item. And at some point, they are going to let Tony Bergeson go in favor of signing eight contender series, you know, prospects or people from that show.

So I like the RDA fight. I think it's winnable for him. I think it's entertaining. I think it's been long enough since their first fight. I'm looking now almost six years or whenever this gets booked to be six. Yeah, it'll probably be over six years. I know,

not a super sexy pig. I'm sorry, guys. But you'll find that, that might be the theme for me with this show because the storylines going in were super muddled, especially after Friday. And I don't know if there is any clear path for a lot of these guys. But, you know, my best friend, you might have a much clear path for a lot of these fighters than I've got.

I was kind of thinking a lot about this one. And this has been one of the toughest choices, honestly. And it was for a while. I'm like, what do we do here? Because I mean this in the most respectfully possible. any sort of option that popped into my mind, I didn't really enjoy. None of them made me feel good inside like the snate fight did. So I just couldn't land on anything that made me happy at all.

So that made me like gnaw my head and I'm like, eh. And then it just hit me. What we need to do is just keep Tony Ferguson in this role for a little bit. We do the vet tour. We do the OG tour. I like the RDA idea. That's a good one. The fun fight tour.

I'm going back a little bit in the rankings because it's still going to be fun. And I still think RDA is is pretty darn good. He might not be a guy that's fighting for a world title anytime soon, but he's still pretty good. Get me Tony Ferguson versus Joe Lozahn. I mean, this is, this is what I want to see for both guys. It's just fun, two guys who have historically had horrible luck in the build to fights. And maybe they're horrible luck will just cancel each other out. And they'll both bring it.

And it'll be fun to watch. So, yeah, that's what I ended up with. And I was like, all right, I'm good with this. Yeah, I love that pick. I had a, I had Lazon as an option because I was checking like, um, the guys at Lightweight who have either like been out of action and might want to, like when they come back,

might want to not have to worry about cutting weight and just fight up a class. And I'm like, yeah. Joe La Zon, perfect. Good stuff. Love it. Big fight for both guys. Totally into it. So, uh,

I've only had gone that way. We could have had a live friends forever moment, Mike. But, um, yeah, there's still time. Yes. And how do we not love Ferguson versus hooker? Hooker is fighting. So we can't matchmake for Dan Hooker

because somebody are already did. Yeah, why don't you go ahead and who was that? Who was that? Who was that? Who was that? Who was that? Who was that?

Who was that? That is Ruben Dietz. Okay. Thank you, Ruben Dietz. If you're a regular listener of, on the next one, you're very welcome.

Otherwise, at first time, you're also, you're even more welcome. But yes, guys, please. We're going to ask, we're going to have a segment later where we're definitely going to focus on you and your pick. So, I mean,

drop them in now if you want, but I would definitely recommend also shooting them in second half of the show. That's what we're going to focus on reading those out. But please, you take like two seconds, two seconds and check topology, check Sherdog, check whatever news sites you normally check to see if matchups are made. And please don't recommend people who are already booked because those picks are doo-doo. Pardon my language. I'm my best friend. You know I get fired up sometimes after cards. That's do-do. That's straight do-do. So please try and vet your picks just a little bit.

I understand. It's hard to keep track. Plus there's rumors. Sometimes there's fights that aren't listed because they're just kind of rumblings or in the works. but Dan Hooker has been, has clearly been reported as books for like a while now. So that's our first little, that's not a huge doo-do pick again. That's a little sprinkling of a poop on the show right now. This is a little sprinkling.

Let's go to the co-made event. This was the fight that felt like the main event. This is where all the tension was after a crazy Thursday and even crazier Friday. And we can feel however we feel about one Hamzaat Shama after a horrendous fight week. I mean, this was one of the all-time bag fumblings in the history of the sport.

But in the end, the guy steps in the cage and he's an absolute friggin monster. And he just ragdolled Kevin Holland. And Holland did his damnedest to try to make something happen. And he just couldn't. He was just helpless in there.

He was totally and utterly helpless against Hamzaa Chamaa. And credit to Tony, or excuse me, Kevin Holland for like surviving as long as he did. But man, that was just a ferocious performance. That is the definition of destruction. For the fourth time during this run, AK, this stat is just mind-boggling. Hamzaa-Shimae have absorbed zero strikes in a UFC fight. In fact, Hamza didn't even land a significant strike in this fight at all.

That is insane. The question is, and I'm glad you're going first on this one, what do we do with this guy? Because anyone who is familiar with this program that listens regularly on the podcast network, weight misses is something that you do not take lightly. If the UFC is not going to penalize them, you will do it here on this program. And he missed weight by a lot. And he's been a bit of an issue outside of the cage for sure. But in it, it's going to be very, very tough to beat this guy. So what do we do?

appalling, disgusting, deplorable, Mike. That's my feelings on the weight miss. As thrilled as I was with the performance, yeah, I would hope going forward, we still always keep this incident in mind. I can't imagine him escaping it super easily. He did the most important thing. He took care of business in the cage, making weight hugely important, obviously. I'm not downplaying that.

Like you said, I love Wands. I think they should be taken very seriously, even though I think the whole process of extreme weight cutting is absurd and needs to stop. for now everyone has signed on and kind of agreed to that that particular social contract and we have to live with it and you should at least come close to making weight eight and a half pounds over uh seven and a half pounds over excuse me ridiculous um it uh it does feel to me like there was some idea he thought that well if i don't make it there's a fight there's Kevin Holland's coming in 180 uh Dale Rodriguez coming in 180 I could get one of those guys

we don't know that that's really speculation the official story from Dana White and from Hamzaa Shemayev, doctors did not allow him. Dana White said his body was locking up. Hamzat did not say that, but that was from the Dana White side. He said that doctor said that the body was locking up and he was not permitted to cut more weight. Again, people make of that what you will. The truth is somewhere in there. Some parts of the story are probably true. Some parts are probably embellished, to put it nicely. But yeah, if we want to find a good match of forum, I love the idea of the Polo Costa fight. I think I saw a lot of people throw that out there and I'm super down for it.

I think you could have it at 185. Obviously, I think you could do a catchweight if you wanted. If we're just going to like completely toss out, you know, divisions and wait, would you have it 190? Both guys back up to 205. Paulo Costa just did that with, uh, with, um, Marvin Vittori. He said, oh, yeah, we're going to do a 205 fight instead. And they did.

Um, this is kind of a weird thing, Mike, isn't it that we've had fighters recently kind of just called their own weight class during fight week. We had Nick Diaz do it with Robbie Lawler. He said, yeah, I'm not making what was supposed to be at 170, I guess. It's like, this is middleweight. We had Polokos to do it in Marvin Vitori, and now in a much less official way, we had Hamza Shemaya, just do it with Kevin Hall and saying, oh, yeah, I'm just going to fight at 180 now, keep me on the card somehow.

This is weird, right? I mean, this is, do we think, like, this is like a bad precedent? Or do we think, like, this is like a thing we'll look back on in 22 and be like, ah, it happened three times and hasn't happened since, you know? Yeah, I mean, no matter how you feel about it, Hamzat made this, hard way more interesting with all the shenanigans because and i mean even with nate and tony like for all of us it was just like cool this is our this is this was what mike tyson roy jones junior was a couple of years ago we're just like all right these two guys

these ojs these fun fighters who have given us everything over these years just get going there and have fun fight we're not going to be crushed by it but the tent like all the main event tension all the storylines, everything surrounding this card, was still on Hamzaa Chamaa, maybe even more so because he got Kevin Holland and not Nate Diaz. So it's, I mean, it's a double-edged sword. This is very bad. It's very bad.

But still, it's so interesting now because of this performance. And we talked about it a lot. If he just goes out there and just trucks Kevin Holland, do we forget about everything that happened? Probably not, but winning changes a lot of things. And the narrative is still, yeah, Hamsat still did these pretty awful things. But this guy might be the best fighter we've ever seen. It's very, I mean, we've never seen anything like this guy.

We just happens. So it's, it's, it's just a weird, it's a weird world we are living in right now in the year of our Lord 2020. I just want to say something. I'm sorry, I was looking at the comments, Mike, regarding him never, and we talked about a lot on the post fight show, um, regarding. comes out ever going back to 170. Let's just, I am using the old adage of fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

So I think, like, let me put this way. There is more evidence that he can make 170 than there's that he can't. This is literally his first miss. He has not missed weight competing at 170 or at 185, obviously. And at the same time, everyone questioning him could be absolutely right. Sometimes all takes is kind of one like super bad miss for us to like, you know, to realize, oh yeah this guy was killing himself to make 170 like it's a miracle he made it whatever how many times he did and should never do this again totally understandable very true but i'm just saying

for everyone's like for sure he's not coming back anthony johnson who we made a lot of comparisons to to chamsat last night uh anthony johnson missed weight by like four pounds five pounds twice i think maybe more than twice i think in the ufc when he was competing 170 and you know he wasn't he didn't have the same uh spotlight on him that hamzat has but you did not hear people going like oh there's no way he can make 170 again. No, he missed by four or five pounds and then went back and made 170 again. So, Hamza, again, it's a different case. I'm not saying it's a direct apples to apples comparison between him and Annie Johnson. But, you know, let's not, let's not, let's not have this knee-jerk reaction to everything where it happens once and like, oh, well, that's it. He's done.

It's like, no, he's made it multiple times. You've seen him making the O.C. He's made it before he was in the O.C. So you're not wrong. You're not wrong at all if you think he can't make it. But I say give him one more shot. And fully, shame on you. Pull me twice shame on me. That's it. That's old school wisdom, I say. Yeah, I see a lot of people, I don't know, like, defending Hamzad is the right way to look at it. Yeah, that's weird. That's weird. Listen.

I'll not defend it. Yeah, you can't, it's indefensible. No. It's indefensible. Now, the UFC step in the doctor stepping in and saying, hey, stop cutting weight. There's nothing. It's not like Hamzad was weighing 174. Like, they knew.

super early that he was going to miss by a lot. So at that point, you're worried about the fighter safety. If he still has seven and a half pounds to cut to make weight, what are they supposed to do? Hey, Hamzat, destroy yourself. Destroy yourself just so you can fight Nate Diaz for us. No, because what if Hamzat made weight and just like collapsed somehow? Like, what if that happened?

What if that happened? And the UFC's not going to take that risk. So I don't know, man. it's it's you can't just say you can't just say oh well the UFC and the doctor said it's cool like so homzac gets no blame he gets all of the blame here he gets all of the blame and if we're being fair the doctor is the one that like he's the guy who stepped in and said stop cutting weight dude like you're going to hurt yourself but it's just i don't know you can't defend it you just can't it's it's fine i actually to say this and then we'll talk about the actual matchmaking in a moment

I actually liked what Hamzat said at the post-fight press conference because he was asked about his attitude and he was asked about how he sort of handled it. She went up, he was smiling, he was laughing about it. And then he was posting everything on social media and people just destroyed him for that. But he said something that was a jic, he kind of, he went to some dark places at the post-fight press conference, but he also sort of took the mask off and he sort of opened up a little bit. He's very respectful of Kevin Holland, so invited Kevin Holland to go freaking train with him. after pushed, apparently push kicking him in the chest backstage randomly before the UFC 279 press conference that lasted like 15 whole minutes.

But he basically just said like, hey, listen, I wasn't going to make weight. It was over. It was done. They knocked it off. I mean, they said I couldn't cut anymore. So what am I supposed to do? Just dwell on it. Am I supposed to just cry about it?

No. Like, I'm trying to move on to the next thing. I have, there's nothing I can do to control this now. if they're going to keep me on the card, then I just need to move on. We just need to move on. So I actually agree with him there. And that's what you need to do to prepare yourself for a fight and remain on the card so you can fight and do what you need to do to take care of yourself and your family. Fine.

But still, to sit here and say he's blameless at all this and that we should be blaming the UFC and the doctor and not Hamzaa Chamaa is just a terrible take. And I'm sorry. But do we, what are we going to do here? Mike, I will say, I will say, I wish he'd had the doctor from the Chris Burnett fight. I think the doctor from the Chris Barnett fight would have let him keep cutting late. God bless the doctor in the Chris Burnett, Jay Collier fight, who was literally holding Chris Burnett's swollen eye open and asking him, can you see? Can you see?

Hold on. Can you see? Can you see? And guess what? He could see and he won the fight. So if that doctor was doing the Shemaya Wake God, he would have been like, can you still move? Do you still have, let me see you spit. Are you still have liquid in you?

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, again, we don't know the whole story like you said. Something doesn't sound right. And above all, you're right, keep in mind, the on Hamza Shabaya. 100%. He doesn't have to come into fight week weighing whatever he weighs. You know what I mean? He knows his body.

You know, he's, again, we don't know the truth. We don't know the full truth, but we do know he was well, well, well overweight. all week. And maybe he's been this way before, but listen, he got away with it before. He didn't get away with it this week. That's on him,

not on anybody else. So what are we going to do? Like I said, I like, I like, yeah, I like Costa. Yeah, I'm sticking with Paula Costa. Yeah,

I'm not like in love with it. It's not my favorite thing. Again, in a perfect world, I'd wave my magic wand and get his ass back at Walterway comfortably against not, like,

I want to see Edwards, Usman 3, so I don't know who Shemiah could fight there. Again, Colby Compton, a great answer. but he's got his whole legal thing. Him and Mazadol are just, gosh, we've got this legal thing. And part of, you know, Covington's whole deal is that he was given brain damage by

Mazvedal in this alleged assault. So I don't know when we'll see Covington fight again. I think that like the wording of that lawsuit really complicates him getting back in there and fighting again anytime soon. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm not a lawyer. So perfect world. He fights Colby Covington.

I sincerely doubt this is going to happen. So I'm just kind of skewing midway between what I think will happen and what I want to see happen and just lending on. on Bojcacchina. Friends forever. Now, again, and I'm exactly with you on this. I think this is just the fight that happens. And why not?

And if Paul Costa is going to be a pain in the ass, which there's a very good chance that happens heading into the final fight of his UFC contract. Hamza could still be sort of put in a position to do the UFC a favor, although technically he's probably doing Paul Costa a favor because then Paul can trot his happy ass over to the PFL and make way more money.

have a much better chance of being a champion in my opinion. But if I am, if we're in Bellator, it's, it's pretty simple for me. And let me just start with this. I'm just so happy today that he didn't fight Nate Diaz because this would have been way, way worse. He would have launched Nate Diaz into the balcony. And that makes me happy that that actually didn't happen. But if he's staying at 170, if the UFC is going to give him another shot, Colby's the way to go. I think, I honestly think, Like, I don't know how Colby would feel now after Hamzot missed weight by seven and a half pounds because Colby is a pro at the end of the day. And he's, that would really piss him off for a professional standpoint. You can look at Colby in his his gimmick, if you will, however you like.

But deep down, Colby's a student of the game and he doesn't like any of that stuff. So I honestly think like in April, like I honestly, like what Dana was saying Colby versus Hamzot headlining an ABC card, I guarantee you, Colby would have taken that fight. If none of the stuff with Mazadol happened and whatever and the timing lined up, he would have taken that fight. It just, it was perfect timing for him to take it. Now I'm not really sure. I think everything's just kind of up in the air.

Dana White said the press conference he talked to Colby last week and Colby's ready to go. But for Colby's sake, trying to advance his career, I just don't think any other fight makes sense. If they're going to put Hamza out of 170, this is the way to go. because if Colby wins, if Colby somehow beats this friggin monster, he's fighting, he'll fight Usman a thousand more times because that's one that will stick with him forever.

That's one of those legendary wins that you stick with. If I had my druthers, and I've been saying this for a while, the fight to me to make is Robert Whitaker. That's the one. That's the one that makes me really interested. I don't think it's going to happen. I, like we talk about interesting things from that press conference.

that might have been the most interesting part of the press conference because Robert Whitaker was brought up to Hamza and he's like, I like Robert Whitaker. I want to train with Robert Whitaker. I don't want to punch this guy in the face. He's never talked any trash about me. So I want to go fight the guys who have talked crap about me and called me out. It didn't seem like he was all that in on the Robert Whitaker idea. But from a like fight fan perspective, from a meritocratic perspective, if this is Bellator, he's fighting Robert Whitaker next. And I love that idea. But it's not going to happen. He's going to fight Paul Costa, and it's going to be super fun. The build will be interesting. Maybe fun's not the word. I think there will be some fun mixed in there, but I think things could be, yeah, I think things could get crazy. But I do want to talk about Kevin Holland.

Mad respect for him. And he deserves a big fight either way. We need to give this man a reward for taking that fight with that animal on 24 hours notice. And by the way, don't let Data White fool you. These fighters got paid. Don't worry about it. What do you mean, Mike?

What do you mean? What a shame. What a shame that, you know, Kevin Hahn was posting videos and he was like, oh, I'm making it rain. I'm making more money. It's like, apparently, Dan White said he didn't. Dana White said, listen, these guys have contracts. Then they show up. They fight for what's on the contract.

We don't give fighters extra money. Fighters cannot have leverage. There's no leverage on Fight Week if things change. How silly. All these fighters just showed up for what they normally get paid. And none was the wiser, Mike. None was the wiser. There's no,

there's, we don't give extra money in these situations. Come on, stop it. Yeah. Dana White watched Bull Durham yesterday morning

before he stepped up to that press conference because everything was a very professional. Answer. You could tell. You could tell the frustration on that man's face. And he wanted to lose his mind. And he was just,

everything was on the fence. He didn't cross any lines. You could tell he was frustrated. What I, the one thing I truly believed he said was, I'm glad this fight with this this fight is over. I'm glad this fight is over. Yeah.

Someone saying Dana did not technically say that. Dana was asked if anyone got compensated more and he said they have deals. And then they followed up and they said, okay, so no one got extra compensation. He said, go back and watch the clip. Go back and watch the clip. But anyways. With AmX Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug. But your taste buds too.

That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ. Built for breakthroughs with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move.

Lift with confidence. While Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, live. flow and go. Explore the new Peloton cross-draining tread plus at OnePeloton.ca. Kevin Holland versus Wonderboy, MSG, let's go. They both want it.

Kevin can fight in November, one would think. The fight didn't last very long. Obviously not a good taste in Kevin Holland's mouth this morning after Hamzot just threw him around the octagon. But that's the fight. Give Kevin Wonderboy. That's his reward. It's a fun fight. He doesn't have to,

Holland doesn't have to fight a wrestler. Wonder Boy doesn't have to fight a wrestler after fighting wrestlers, two straight fights. Let him go in there, just have some fun. What do you think? Super fun fight. That's a fight night headliner. I mean, you put that, you know, UFC at Topeka, God willing, someday. What a great way that would be, you know, to have a card there.

I went with, I think something I've mentioned and a lot of onto the next one, listeners have mentioned in the past. Throw them in there for Jeff Neal rematch. The two fought back in the regional scene five years ago. So there's always going to be some heat there. I want, it's weird, I'm kind of wanting to reward Holland for taking this very tough fight against Hamzat. That would be a big, like, falling upward situation for him. I think Neil, after beating Lucay, is probably going to end up in most of our top tens. We'll see when the, the only rankings that matter, the NBA fighting global rankings come out later this week.

Look out for that guys, new schedule. It will be after major pay-per-views. We've had a lot of people asking, oh, it didn't drop earlier in the month. Yes, we had been dropping our rankings, articles, and podcasts. the beginning of the month normally, which was great. That was working out great. But we realized, you know, it might make more sense to just put it right after major UFC pay-per-views when there's that huge shake-up and storylines.

And everyone's really, you know, kind of wants to know, oh, where did the pieces move right away? So look for that, guys, after major UFC peer views, all of our rankings miserably taken care of. And yes, Jeff Neal probably be in the top 10 or at least cracking the top 12 after beating Lucia. I think he should take his spot. And I want to give Holland the chance to take Neal's spot. we'll see. Holland

won the first fight, I believe. And Neil, I'm sure, would love a chance of revenge. Neil won it, didn't he? Oh, Neil won. I'm sorry, hold on. Let me double check here. Sorry, guys. Neil, who won the first one? What is going on? No, Kevin Holland won. Sorry. Kevin Holland won. Oh, really? Okay. Yes, third round TK.

Listen, I didn't remember, Mike. I literally just looked it up. So you're not, I'm not, I'm not fronting here. Like, I remember, like, I honestly, I'm not seen that fight. I'm not going to pretend I did. But it definitely happened. And it's definitely something that I'm sure. Jeff Neal would want to avenge. So, yeah, run that one back. Let's steal Neil Holland, too. Doesn't have the cachet of a Wonderboy fight,

but I think could also headline, you know, UFC, South Dakota or whatever. Some interesting ones here. Yeah, Holland versus Neil 2 here. Holland versus Maasadol. Holland versus Randy Brown. I think Randy's booked, but still something maybe after.

Holland Neil Magny. I mean, Wonder Boy, Ferguson's not bad. Holland won. in a lot of ways, that's for darn sure. I did pick Kevin Holland. Yes, I did pick Kevin Holland, but, and I was wrong. I said it, trust me, I was wrong. But this is even, even my degenerate family members were texting me, not degenerate,

but ones who'd like to play the ponies like, is Kevin worth a dog shot? And I thought, he's probably not going to win, but if this fight gets out of the second round, Kevin probably will win the fight. You're taking a risk, but at those odds, like, if you get a bet on it, you're not going to take Hamzat straight. So take a shot, take a dog shot on Holland. It just seemed like the MMA gods, the way they were shaping up the rest of this week, it was, they were going to shine light on Hamzaa Chamaia,

just having the worst week ever. But it turns out they're like, hey, I mean, we can only give you so much. So Kevin, Kevin's big win is going to have to wait. And we got what we got. That's it. We move on. Randy Brown fighting Francisco Trinaldo October 1st. Yes.

So, and listen, Kevin could always step in if something. And would happen. And would. Danny Rodriguez returns after a year, over a year away. First time we've seen him since the Kevin Lee win. Multiple hand surgeries. The guy's been through the ringer. Returns.

Supposed to fight Kevin Holland. This is probably, which Kevin Holland is probably the biggest name that he's fought. I mean, Kevin Lee is a big name. But everybody was circling that fight on the card. Everything changes. He fights Lee Jingleon. pretty different style, different sort of striking. Lee can wrestle a little bit better than Kevin Holland can wrestle.

Should he go that direction? D. Rod gets a split decision win. It's a super, super close fight. I looked at it. I went and watched it earlier this morning. It was really close. This is definitely not a robbery. I know I made decisions.

The judges from the media landed heavily on the Lee side, but in the end, Rodriguez gets his hand raised, and no one should truly be upset about that. You feel for Lee Jingleong. feel for Lee, but what would you like to see for DROT after this win? Yeah, and let me say regarding the M.A decisions thing, check what a lot of those, like, journalists actually tweeted pretty much everyone said, like, I'm, like, even people who picked Lee were like, oh, I'm leaning towards Lee, but it was a close fight. So it sucks when,

it sucks for Rodriguez when you see just like, oh, how many people scored a 29, 28 Lee? Overwhelming. It's something like 20 out of 22, 23, 20%, like 90%. And like I said, considerable sample sample size. It was like 25 medium member scores and like at least 20, 21, 22 or something were for Lee. But again, if you go to their individual accounts and see the comments a lot of these guys were making, it was a lot of just like, oh, first round could have gone either way. And the judges were all over the place. The official scorecard, none of the rounds were unanimous. All the rounds were disagreed upon by at least one of the judges. So that shows you, again, I think really shows you how close this fight was. Statistics don't tell the story at all.

Go to the stats. It's not going to help you. If you watch the fight again, it's probably not going to help you. Like I said, I had it for Rodriguez. I will do a robbery review. There's enough of demand for it. There was certainly a lot of fighters who were like, what the hell happened? I think Megan Anderson was out there saying like, no way Daniel Rodriguez won that fight. So, listen, if you listen to the fighters too, I mean, they're very strongly lean towards Lee. So I had it for Rodriguez, but I'll watch again. I'll watch again. I'll do a robbery review and I'll let you guys know. I'll let you know, of course, biased. I don't think it was a robbery, but we'll see how, we'll see how the review goes. For Del Rodriguez,

again i was convinced it was a good win i say move him up where's where's mechicaa where is he's he he's not booked he's hurt he's hurt he's kind of trying to come back but he's yeah he's he's hurt i think he's at the point of his career where he's not going to fight more than a couple times a year like he's a he's only faces tough competition very physical style a lot of grappling it's to be tough to get back in there but if he can get back in there before the end of the year or early 2023. I think that

Daniel Rodriguez deserves a chance to get a number next to his name. And I have him possibly taking cases. I love how people in here just hear something that happened on the show

but two days later didn't actually hear what I said when it came to predicting the Hamzat Shamaa of Kevin Holland fight. Never once did I say like Kevin Holland was the better fighter or anything like that.

I just felt like, listen, Hamzat's had a horrible week. He's been seen rattled all week, the weight cut. It just seemed like Rome was going to collapse. It just, everything was going to collapse with this man at once.

This is not a stylistic pick. This is a vibes pick more than anything. This is not a, ooh, let me watch the tape. There's no tape to watch. There's no tape to watch. Either Hamzat was going to do exactly what he did or Kevin Holland, who has been a survivor throughout his career,

terrible takedown defense. I think we all know this, but Kevin Holland has been able to survive with some pretty tough dudes on top of himself. on top of him for 25 minutes, it was able to survive most of those fights. So who knows? Like, Hamzot, go back and watch that choke

after all those exchanges on the ground. Go watch it. Hamzat's huffing and puffing. And if Holland breaks that hole, that's a totally different fight. It didn't happen. But listen, enough is enough. It doesn't matter.

My best friend, listen, you wanted to pick... You're picking the wrong day. You want to pick something magical and something chaotic. Never apologize for treatment. Okay. Don't you ever apologize for dreaming? And this goes to you, my best friend, and also all you, all you listeners, even you,

even the haters, even the haters, have a dream and never apologize for it. I mean, certainly acknowledge if you made a bad pick, but also. You all. Your reasoning was sound, Michael Heck. Again, I disagree with it. I thought it would, I said pick the most obvious answer, which was comms that runs to him and around. But that's a boring pick.

Who cares? That's a boring. You're the real winner. It doesn't matter. And by the way, you all shit on me when I picked Roman. Hopulov. That's right. And he won.

Hang your hat on that. This man picked Roman Coppil somehow to win by knockout. I'll never know how he figured that one out. And he nailed it. For D-Rod, this is not my official pick, but from a strictly want-to-see basis, taking star power and rankings and all that aside. The fight to make is D-Rod versus Jorge Mazadol. That's just a super fun fight to very similar personalities.

It just be super cool. But that's not going to happen. So for me, I'm going with the loser, Blah, Muhammad versus Sean Brady, going down UFC 280. He fights either Balala or fights Sean Brady. And I'm down for either of those fights. So there you go. And we got to talk about the lead, JK.

We have to. We have to. He deserves it. The man didn't get to wear the suit. He didn't get to wear the suit at the post-fight press conference. The man who got the short straw all week long, and even on the cards in a lot of people's eyes, I'm picking Vicente Lucke.

I'm picking Vicente Lucke. Okay. That's it. That fight absolutely rules. I like it. So what do you think? Yeah, horrible week for Lee, losing the Tony Ferguson fight, which he was really excited about losing the co-main events and just losing the fight on Saturday. Sucks, man. Sucks. This was, I'm glad he seems to have gotten a lot of good publicity,

but I wish it was more of the, you know, what a fantastic week he had publicity and not like kind of, there's a little bit of pity. There's a little bit of pity in there. It's just a reason since he lost a close decision in a fight that he performed very well in. He performed really well on Saturday night. Anyone who scored the fight for him, not wrong at all. He looked really good in there. In a fight where he was giving up eight and a half pounds, I think, which is just stupid, but he had to do it.

It pains me a little bit to make this pick for him, not for Lee, but for it means the end of a campaign that I've been pushing for, I feel like almost 18 months now. It's a powerful hashtag, which did not work out for who was originally made for, but perhaps it will work out for Armand Leach. He deserves to fight a legend. I don't care to see the rebooking of Tony Ferguson fight. It didn't make a lot of sense back then.

Again, good for Lee. I'm sure he still wants it. But I think we can do better. I think we can do someone who is a welterweight, someone who is a former welterweight champion, and who is an entertaining stylistic matchup. My apologies to Tim means. I just don't think the fight is going to happen.

So hashtag, we're going to continue to lobby for Robbie. But it's going to be, I want Li Jing Liang versus Robbie Lawler now. So, I mean, hopefully the Tim means. Is he? Yeah. If he is, I'm still lobbying for it. Who's Robbie Lawler fighting? Is he fighting in December?

I'll take the dude to hit here. I'll take the dude to hit here. Who is he fighting? He's fighting. Oh, Ponziabio. Win or lose? Win or lose? Don't care.

I want Lee Ching Leung to get that fight. So there you go. There's my, I don't, if he loses, he fights Lee. If he beats Ponzenibio, he fights Lee. That's where Robbie Lawler should be in his career right now. We're just finding fun fights for him. And him and the Leach would be freaking amazing. I mean, how much fun would be.

that be so and lee deserves it man he he wanted ferguson let's give him another legend instead let's give let's give him robbie lawler so you hashtag robbie lobby for robbie campaign it is now transferred over from tim means to lee jing lang people get that hashtag trending hashtag lobby for roby hashtag the pleasure man let's get those going on twitter and uh let's let's really get people talking hey let's give the leach nick de as how about that what do you think about that sure oh there we go Thank you. That's Tyler Burrell, on to the next one veteran. Teddy Capp's calling me out for the doo-doo.

I agree. Listen, that was a doo-do pick. But Tyler Burrell, another, another ought-no veteran. Well done. All right. So those are the big six names. We'll cover the rest of the main card winners. We'll go wild card.

Then we'll go to the peep. So we saw some of you don't see that all that often on this card. In fact, I've never seen it before. Eredi Aldana to set the scene. Great first round. Almost took Mesa Chesa's arm home with her. Second, Chiasan storms back, has a great. round takes Aldana's back, evens things out.

Third round is going on. It seems like the momentum was, was slowly going to the Chesson side of things. Arrini is on her back. And then boom, an upkick to the liver just abruptly ends the fight. And it was like a pride event. The kick lands and it's just silence. You could hear a pin drop in the building because nobody knew what happened. But then you saw the replay and we were like, damn, that was crazy.

crazy. So a lot of people, especially on the Aldana side of things, felt that there were title implications heading into this fight. And even though things got a little bit dicey here, we got this out of nowhere finish. Aldana has knocked out the other woman who people feel is the number one contender. This is one of the most unique stoppages in UFC history. Was this enough for you to get her to the front of the line to fight Amanda Nunes next? For me, no. Personally, no. Would I be surprised if she got the hell shot not at all um she has a strong resume it's a shame she couldn't get the holly home win um but outside of that yeah really strong resume even the rquel pennington loss was pretty pretty darn close super close we can go back and watch that one um i don't know i'm once again

wouldn't say a robbery but certainly competitive enough that you you wouldn't really hold that one against her the home fight a little more again um if you want to but listen holly home should not be getting a next hell show anyway it's all done i almost moves ahead of her by default and yeah that was a great win against Macy Chiazza. Totally wild shot. I believe they trained for it. But man, at first I thought, I thought Chyassen suffered some sort of leg

injury because when she went down, she was kind of holding her inner thigh or the inside of her leg. But no, when you see the replay, yeah. Very clean heel to the liver. That cannot feel good, which is when listen, she cuts a lot of weight. Macy Chastin clearly did not have a good time cutting weight this time. They had to change it to

140 pound catch weight. And again, I'm not a doctor. But it's not good for your insides, Mike. It's not good for your insides. When you have trouble, you know, when you're dehydrating yourself and not having a great time of it, and then someone, like, drives their heel into your midsection. And this was in the third round of a pretty exhausting fight, too.

This was a, this was not an easy fight for either fighter. You're going to go down. So, a really freaky thing and great finish for Aldana. But let's go with Magic Wand big time here, because we really don't know what is going on with my choice. Germaine de Ronde-a-Meh. This was just to happen Madison Square Garden last year. But GDR, listen, she's made a lot of money in this business.

She's taking her time. I know coming back, she missed that fight because of an injury. Probably could still be recovering from that. And if that's what she's doing, more power to the Iron Lady. She should take all the time she needs. Again,

she has spilled her blood and paid her dues in the combat sports world and then made kickboxing. No reason to rush her back. But if she can come back within a reasonable amount of time, let her on Aldana fight for the next Talas shot. Yeah. And I see some different things going on in the comments that, like, who else is there,

who else is there? Erina Aldana is a 35er. She's a 35. She's missed weight. I know this fight was at a catch weight. She explained it. It had nothing to do with her. She was a pound away when she got the call that Macy was not going to make weight.

And they were even concerned that Macy was even going to make the 140 catch weight. So she was like, all right, I ain't cutting anymore because I'm not going to give this woman any more of an advantage and she's already going to have. So the fight, I mean, she could go up to 45 and fight Nunes. If that's what Nunes wants to do. If you want to do that, that's cool. But if we're talking about where she's ranked, which is at 1,000. 35. It's a two-horse race right now. I mean, kind of three, if you want to really get crazy here, but you have Aldana and Vienna. If we're going to talk about fresh matchups,

it's these two that you could probably make the argument for more than anybody. But these two have been fought already. Aldana knocked her silly. But here's how I would do it. I'm not sold on Aldana versus Nunes yet. I think it's in Amanda's hands. She could fight at 35. she could fight at 45 and do whatever she wants to do. So I say, even though it wasn't the most, these wins weren't the most, like, unbelievable and we're not really talking about them. I say just give Caitlin Veer the shot. She's got wins over Holly Holme, over Misha Tate.

Just give her the damn title shot. She's probably not going to win. And let's give Aldana one more fight. I'd like to see a little more out of her. Aldana versus Juliana Pena. And if she wins, she's next. And if Giuliana Pena wins, Juliana gets her damn trilogy fight with Nudez.

This is kind of easy booking in my eyes. That's good logic. That's good logic. Damn you and your logic, Mike. That is, uh, what am I doing? You're supposed to be super irrational after having no sleep and having to get ready for the Patriots home. Are they playing at home today?

No, they're in Miami. Away start. Okay. Away. Oh, yes. Miami. Yes. They're in Miami.

Johnny Walker shut up a lot of us, myself included. Hand is up on that. I took some L's yesterday for sure and I'm okay with that. He got taken down real quick. I thought this was not Iwan Kutalaba. This is D-Wan Kutalaba. I thought we're going to get a decision here. It gets the early takedat.

I'm like, up, here we go. D-Wan Kutalaba is going to cruise to a win. This is a very smart game plan. But Johnny Walker, the heart of a lion, he turns things around. He gets control on the mat. He takes the back of D-Wan Kutalaba. And despite the Hulk's best efforts to survive,

Johnny Walker forces the tap at the end of the first round. And if you bet on Johnny Walker, by submission, you got paid. Plus 1,400 was the line on Walker by sub. This is an interesting one I came because 205 is jammed up right now. What do we do? Did I miss you doing this D1 Kutalaba bit earlier this week? Is this a new thing?

Yeah, actually. Just now? It started last night. I just thought. I was, I was hitting up jet in the Slack chat. I'm like, oh, here's D1 Kutalaba. How does one man get to be so clever? It's not fair.

It's not fair. I like that. It's in my head now. This is the D1 Kutalava thing. Oh, man, that's good. Yeah, I had predicted Kutalava by decision or, oh, not, just a ground and pound or submission finish. I thought he was going to wear Walker down the ground and put him away there.

But that did not happen. Walker looked great. We saw a little bit, a little bit of classic Walker. He finally got to do a fancy celebration, which caused people a lot of stress, I think. Go like, please don't, please calm down. Did the worm. Did a bit of breaking. And as far as we know, no crazy wild injuries.

How has he not been matched up with OSP yet? I was looking at, I'm like, I was trying to remember, like, have they fought before? Have they at least been in Toxia fight and nothing? He replaced OSP once for a previous fight. I think that's the way to go. I'm kind of, I kind of had a weird moment the other day where, I'm sorry, after the fight, I just say, where, you know, Walker's like, oh, I don't think I'm done contending for a title. And I'm like, you know, he is only 30 years old. He hasn't even been in the business for a decade.

He's getting there. He's close, but he's not there yet. he's got some mileage on him, but I think the good kind of mileage he's got legit experience. I do think he's the kind of guy who can learn from some of these really, really rough setbacks that he's had over the past few years. So I'm not, listen, I'm well past predicting that Johnny Walker's going to beat John Jones someday, which is, God, people remember, that was a real conversation once in a while time.

But suddenly I'm not so convinced that he can't be a top 10 guy again and find his way back up there. We know he's talented. We know there's been some rough moments since he moved to train with SBG. Dewan Kutalaba, you know, not like the most amazing win, I understand, but a good win nonetheless, one that Johnny Walker really needed.

So could this be the start of something? I'm going to be super optimistic and say yes. So let's give him a contender. Guy's been around for a long time. I think could be a fun matchup in Open St. Prue. And if he can finish Open St. Prue, I mean, I'd be really impressed.

This is tough for me. I feel like, I mean, I see everybody saying the answer I'm going, I came up with the Paul Craig one just makes perfect sense. But let's just say, I mean, let's just say they can't make that one happen. I mean, a lot of times, especially at 205, it's very, very, it's very difficult. It's very difficult to get what we want in this division. So I didn't go the OSP route. I'm going with Paul Craig. That's the answer I want.

And that's going to be my official pick for the Otno point and everything. And if you're Johnny Walker, I think you need. this fight to be booked because the alternatives are not fun because the other alternative to me is azamad mersikonov and that is a horrible fight for him a horrible fight for him so i'll go with that and and and just hoping for the best i'm hoping we get paul crag that's just a fun fight we need to see it but if we don't get it it's got to be a rough one and i don't think it'll be osp i think it'll be one of these up-and-comers who, yeah, yeah, not good. So let's do the wild card.

There's been a lot to talk about. This has been a chaotic week. I don't even know how I'm speaking right now. But let's go to the wild card round. One fighter we have not matched made for yet. It will matchmate for them right now. But we should also say we should put over the great Chris Barnett, put over Huggy Bear. Beast Boy.

Let's put over the Beast Boy. Apparently, I have not seen this because a lot of people are throwing this up there. couple of things that had been constantly messaged to me and some things that I've seen here. One was the Johnny Walk, was the John Kavanaugh tweet in the John Kavanaugh thing where, oh, we got thrown out, no shoes, none of that. I talked to like other managers about what happened. And the managers that I spoke with basically told me what Dana White said at the press conference. Like since the pandemic started and since they went back to arenas, they don't really let,

And I know for a fact that some fighters have like snuck into the arena and we're able to avoid this. But for the most part, they don't let, they're not letting the fighter stay. You go in there, you fight. And then they send you back to the hotel. And then you can do whatever you want to do the rest of the day. You can't watch the fights in the back. You can't watch fights in the crowd. That's how it's been for like two years.

So this is nothing new. The no shoes thing was kind of a weird one. But from everybody I talked to, there was no like big conspiracy here. It's not like, hey, John. Walker, get out of here. But it's just, that's just the way that it is. That's the procedure because of the world being what it is right now. So just, just want to throw that out there.

But apparently Chris Barnett had to take him, like a fan. He guess he went on IG Live and a fan had to take him to the hospital or something. Like, it's just, it's just crazy, man. It's just crazy. Yeah, I, that was so, like, I'm glad I think, I see a lot of fans and things. things kind of commenting on it, but I think most of the media was pretty much like, we need to cure the other side of the story. Like, this is weird.

This just doesn't sound like we're getting the whole deal here. John Kavanaugh, with respect, I mean, it does feel like the kind of thing he would just kind of tweet off the top of his dome. Even as almost like a like a piss take, like I wonder like, he's like, oh, well, you know, we have this great picture of us leaving and, uh, and how funny it would it be if I tweeted this and said like, oh, yeah, we just, look at this. No shoes just kicked right out of the building. So, um, I don't know if he was caught up guard.

Okay, so just to clarify, just to clarify, because I honestly, yesterday was such a blur because we were covering multiple things at once. So a lot of the stuff just kind of like fell into the radar because I'm watching, I'm covering one event, but I'm covering another event at the same time because there's so many events. Apparently Chris was left. Chris was taken to the hospital, but no one like came and got him from the hospital. So yeah, that's, I guess that's the story. That's what he posts on social media. I'm looking at ESPN's Twitter right now, who is the freaking partner with the UFC. And they're saying, Chris Barnett did not let being left at the hospital after UFC 279 bother him.

And I guess he sang a song and took it very Chris Barnettie. And that's why we love this man. We do. Oh, by the way, ESPNMMA also just tweeted the 209, the stoppage of 209 thing. The official time of the stoppage was 208 remaining in the round. Stop this. ESPN, don't do this. Oh, come on, dude.

You're better than this. USPNM. Don't do this. Stop it. It's a cool story. It's a cool visual. I get it. It's not true. The official time of the stuff. But whatever. Listen, there was 209 in the clock, so again, I'm not going to go nuts about it. But yes, Chris Burnett, we love him. Mike.

You and I kind of talked about it last night. And even just before we started the show, like, it would have been a fun wildcard pick. But also, we just want to see him have fun fights. So there's no real reason to, like, kind of scour the rankings and go like, oh, who's above Chris Burnett? How does he rise up? Who cares? We said, Perfect World.

They re-signed Rocky Martinez, and we finally get Rocky Martinez and Chris Burnett, which I thought was going to happen, like, for sure, when they were both briefly in the promotion at the same time. But Rocky didn't have a lot of success and got released. Barnett, having just enough success to stick around and be his lovely self. That was so crazy. We can't talk about this enough. We were in the chat, like, Jed Mishouin mentioned, like, is he having a stroke?

Like, he was so, his face was so out of order, so disfigured. and like in such rough shape. He was, there was that, or was his jaw broken by like the neck crank that Collier was putting on him? That was a possibility. Again, we talked about the doctor in the eye. He could not see out of that eye, at least not for a little bit, until the doctor kind of helped him out, I guess. And he could see enough to win the fight, so it can't have been that bad.

But it is strange that that continued. I would have had no problem with it being stopped. But I am so grateful to everyone involved, the fighters and the physician, bad judgment or not, that the fight did. continue and we got one of the best I think one of the best most feel good moments of the year and one of the best feel good moments since the last time chris bartett won to fight that's just the the the brightness and the energy and the sheer joy this man brings to fighting so uh yes out of respect for him we mentioned him but don't worry about whatever who he's going to fight next just give him

a fun fight um no more no more martin bouda's please um i went with jilton jilton almeda man i mean Philly Millsing. Cole Conrad. I'm doing multiple things at once. For a minute, I was like, okay, continue, continue. And by some chance, people haven't read, by the way, Shaheen El Shaddy's Cole Conrad piece. Please go to Emma fighting and look for it or just Google it.

Or just Google it. If you Google, Col Conrad, it's probably the first thing that's going to pop up right now. Amazing, amazing catch up with the undefeated former Beltor champion. But yeah, I went with Jolts and Almeida. The closest thing we have to sort of like comparisons. to Hamzat, like we were saying on the show, we've never seen anything like how Hamzaat has started his UFC career. And I'm kind of like, we're kind of seeing it almost already with Jailton.

He is destroying the first three guys he fought. Yes, not top 50, even, you know, not even top 50 competition. But the guys are putting in front of him. He's running through them. It's ridiculous. His grappling is so dominant, fun to watch. He's an insane finisher. I'm ready to push this.

If he's insisting on staying at heavyweight, then let's not waste time here. I want to push him as high as he can go within reason. So we can't do Inganu, we can't do Cedilagan. We can't do Tidil Bha. Well, people might disagree. Maybe they can't do Taduvasa, but I wouldn't. And we can't do Curtis Blades. Those are my top four at heavyweight in the UFC right now.

One spot behind them, a man who just picked up a huge win and jumped into my top five, Sergei Pavlovich. I did kind of joke before I think in a previous show, whatever, run it back with Derek Lewis because people were whining about that stoppage, which I was fine with. but since I don't think that's going to happen I don't think they are going to rebook that let's go let's go Jelton push him up there

see him and Sergei let's see what happens I think I'll made it wins that fight I think he's going to be small compared to all these heavy weights I don't think it matters I think his grappling is so good I think he's such a powerful athlete and I think once it gets down there anyone who goes with him is dead I have not seen him in a long fight

I don't know what his history is before the UFC of doing like you know hard three rounders or hard five rounders So it's certainly possible that his gas tank isn't what it needs to be To be like a top heavyweight or top light heavyweight I don't know But I'd love to find out and I think a fight with Pavlovich wouldn't go five rounds anyway So yeah I'm going all in on this and listen Make him one two fights away from a title shot let's just do it

What are we waiting for? I like the pick at first you broke my heart because I mean as you know on Sundays We do this show and we're like running the site at the same time. So there's a lot happening. So I'm trying to balance both them, but also try to hear everything you're saying. I thought at first you said Al-Meda versus Chris

Barnett, and I was going to cry. Oh, my goodness. I would never. I would never. Don't do that. Please don't do that. Oh, by the way, Al-Meda has gone to a decision once in his career, and he lost three-round decision. This is a god. Sherdog, a hat-tipped a Sherdog. He fought Bruno Assis at a Shuto Brazil show,

January 2018, lost by unanimousition. So I'm going to try and dig up that fight. I'd love to see how that went. This was a long time ago. This was only seven fights in his pro career and it is the last time he lost. So probably a completely different beast now might not be very informative. But I'm curious. I also went with Jeltenameda. I went with him. I thought for a moment we might have had a Friends Forever moment because I do something that I typically don't do on the show and something you do quite often. So I thought this is what we're going to see. I have to say, you have to say, you have to C-278 changed things for me in a way where I have to do something that takes me out of my comfort

zone in terms of matchmaking. I am not a proponent of up-and-coming guys who are on surges or are flying through the ranks very quickly fighting each other at this point. But in this case, I think we have to do it now because we need to see who the guy is going to be. Now, I know we still have a lot of questions after UFC 278. And I know you might be thinking to yourself, Mike, this was UFC 279 last night. What the hell are you talking about? You should have got more sleep. But there is a guy who is talked about almost in a similar way who competed on that card.

Did not win, but you could tell that the altitude truly affected this man in a weird way after throwing marching Tibera around the octagon like a friggin rag doll. Jelton Almeida versus Alexander Romanoff is the fight to me. Winner is the guy that we put the promotional push behind and that's it. And I think honestly, if you, a month ago, I'm feeling a different way about this fight. But right now, today, I think Jailton Ameta beats Alexander Romanoff, even though I think Romanoff is an absolute killer himself. But I want to see this fight happen. Only one guy can emerge and be a future title challenge.

You're not saying that neither guy can't get there, but it's the guy that we're just, we're throwing to the top of the division. So, yep, that's the fight I'm going. That is, you got to, you got to warn me when you're throwing, that is spicy. That's a spicy.

That was a hot pepper right down the, right down the pipe. That was, that's a spicy pick. Like obviously, I have Pavlovich ranked higher, but like stylistically and, and I think Ramonov is probably still more hyped than Pavlovich.

I don't know how people are going to view that to Burra fight going back. A lot of people thought it should really, like at worst been a draw. Yeah. But, yeah, very strange, very strange outcome there. And he can bounce back easily. If he took out Al-Meda, it'd be amazing.

So, that's a hell of a wild. That's, that's why. I mean, when we say wild card, like, that's wild card. Yeah, Jeltson's a monster. I would love to see that fight. Very intriguing, very intriguing. I mean, do we have any extracurriculars? I think we should just go right into the piece.

I'll just do a quick check the tape and say, our listeners were mostly on point with Angela Hill getting booked to fight Emily Dakota to UFC Orlando December 3rd. Again, once she lost it just like Penae and Angela Hill are best buds. It's the same way class. It just made a lot of sense

for Angela Hill to step in there and try and defuse this this Dakota hype train before it gets going. So yeah, that's a cool fight that's happening. More than one person mentioned it. And a point to all of you. I share this point with all of you. Okay.

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Disclamed. Okay. So I'm going to go to the peeps real quick that usually come to us. I'm just going to find some certain matchups. I'm not going to go through all of them because some people just send me literally every fighter on the card

and we're not doing that today. So I'm going to see if anything really sticks out. John Ray, who I think is in the chat, Barnett versus Taffa in the UFC's first super heavyweight fight. The only two men, The only two men to ever miss heavyweight in the UFC. Aldana fight up, move up to fight Dumont, featherweight title eliminator.

I mean, fine. Don't love it, but he likes Lee versus Rodriguez, too, in a full camp. Holland versus Brian Barbarina. Turned Ferguson. Hamzat would have absolutely destroyed Nate and Lee would have absolutely destroyed Ferguson. Nate Diaz versus the Jake Paul Anderson's silver winner, Shemaiah Colby, Daniel Rodriguez versus Luke A or Holland, Aldana Pena. Oh, we got doo-doo.

Damn it. No, already? Julianne Rosa versus Darren Elkins, booked versus JSP. Al-Atahaleigh, Bachelorette, Gravely winner. Oh, God. Oh, Mike, you just turned pale. I just saw the color. I saw the color.

Leave your face. Chris Barnett versus J-Lton-Almeida. You're suspended from making picks for like two weeks. John Ray, you're in the chat right now. No, this is a John. No, this is Terg Ferguson. Oh, Turt Ferguson is a troll. Turned Ferguson.

Listen, you're right. We need to suspend or ban Turt Ferguson going forward. He had the ultimate dude who picked like a few weeks ago, didn't? Oh, man. Just, no. Stop.

Craziness. Harry Dewaskin, do we have anything new here? Chris Barnett versus William Knight. I like that. That's a fine idea. Jailta versus Shamil, UFC 280. Apparently this, and you'll agree, apparently this guy is not a Juliana Rosa fan

because he picked Julianne orosa versus Ryan Hall when he returns from the knee. RIP, RIP, Julina Rosa. They were on the same season of the ultimate fighter, right? I'm not crazy. That's a thing, right? They were on the McGregor. Are they not in the McGregor?

You would know this way better than that. Let me. Actually, this is a season. I don't remember watching closely. They were on the same. Yes, they were team favor, team USA teammates, Julianne Rosah, Ryan Hall. I'm pretty sure they did not fight on the show. No, because Rosa was beaten by the goat, Artim Lobov.

So he would not meet. Rinald Pereira, Lee versus Stephen Thompson, Kevin Holland, Alex Barrono, no more fights for Tony. Marcus, Tony Ferguson, Matt Brown. Cool, I would watch that.

Nate, Nate Diaz, box, AJ McKee. What would the side difference? I guess AJ McKee's are pretty big. I mean, he's a lightweight, essentially. He's got to be cut in a lightweight. He says it's like 175,

175. I actually think that would actually work. Creative. If I could pull it, yeah, I don't mind that idea. Shemai of Kostat at middleweight. And I've seen this a lot, so he might as well address this right now. Hamzaat versus Shafkat Rakhanov is his selection at Walter Wade. I just don't feel like, I don't feel like this is the time to do it.

No. I think this has to be a title fight. Like if Hamzaat's going to stay at 170 and he'd be, if Hamza, let's, let's be clear at this point. And I was wrong with my pick and I was a little grumpy earlier and I apologize. guys. If Hamzaa Shamaev is staying at 170 and he can make the way consistently and he fights if he fights Leon Edwards, he's going to win. He's going to be the Welfaree champion of the world.

He's going to be Leon Edwards. It's going to, it's just no disrespect to Leon. What he has done, this moment will live with us forever. We'll be talking about that moment of Leon Edwards becoming the welterweight champion forever. Usman is interesting, but honestly, I think Shemaiah beats him too. Like, I just, I'm completely sold on the skills of this man. 100%. And Gilbert Burns is the man.

He's really good. And I think a lot of people may have forgotten that. But this is a title fight for sure. And I actually think, and I think Shafkat Rahmanov is the real real. I just don't think he beats Shemayev right now. I think we save that fight. Give him a couple more vet tests.

Give him a couple names. Let him build that confidence even more. And I know he's super confident right now. But when that fight actually, happens and it's for the welterweight title, it's going to be gigantic and it's going to be super intriguing. But I feel like if you do it now, it's too early. What do you think?

Yeah, I'm Mr. kind of like, oh, why wait, just, you know, don't protect prospects, throw them in there together. But when I say don't protect prospects, I mean, I'm, I'm super happy to, like, throwing guys who are, like, within the same range. Shavcott, I'm going to go to the MAFighting.com rankings real quick. I'm sure he's in there.

You have him pretty high. We have him pretty high. Okay, let me see. I'm jumping there right now. And we'll see how it'll be after this week. Obviously he'll be a little bit lower just because he's on Edwards. Oh, no, no, unless he's behind. Anyway, sorry, guys, I'm jabbering.

We had shopcott number eight. Goodness me. So, yes, and well deserved. Well deserved. He's an absolute beast. But I still feel like there's a when you, you know, Shamiya's in the top five and then there's a different tier, you know, from the next five. So they're not in the same tier for me.

If they were, I'd be like, screw it. Throw them in there together. I don't care. But Shamiov's such a unique case right now. There's just nobody in his situation. or who has been in his situation, like in U.S. history, it's a very weird moment where he could contend at two weight classes, but also there's just a lot of heat on him for not even showing that he could make weight for the one weight class this time that we all thought he would

inevitably become a world champion in. Strange situation to say the least, even by MMA standards. But yes, back to the Shavkov point. They're just at different points in their careers right now. If the fight happened, I'd be super excited. Very cool fight. I just don't see the promotional value in it. And even from a fan standpoint, I imagine most people wouldn't be super interesting seeing it now. But you know how we'll find out, Mike? What's the best way?

What's the best way to get the voice to people? I always say, put up a poll. It's poll time. Oh, no. We got them going. You sparked them. You sparked them. I'll tell you that.

This is an excited poll if there ever was one. I'll tell you that right now. Let's see. There you go. Should they book Shamaa versus Rachmanov next? Let me just make sure. I'm trying to check my spelling here.

Should they book it next? Yes or no? People let your voice be heard. Okay. Let's keep going. Drew Hilty. Decent night of fights. Good to see Nate get the W in his way out.

Nate versus Jake Paul is next. Tony, I am now with AK on this. All right. We're bringing it up. We're bringing it up. You have sold Drew Hilty officially. he is suggesting he is on team okay and chat i want you to chime in on this because this has been a hot topic is now the time to do tony ferguson versus patty pinbullet do we do it now i khan

let me see the comments throw in the comments people throw it up throw it up drew feels like it's time patty hashtag patty kakui i don't know we've got to work on the hashtag uh it's always time for that fight it's always time listen this is the right matchup let's make it let us speak this into existence we manufactured listen i'm not i'm not ashamed to say we manufactured this conversation a few months ago we had a whole uh a heck of a morning headline dedicated to it once in a time thank you mike for for giving voice voice to the voiceless who want to see this matchup uh what do we got here some people saying yes uh a lot of yeses i'm seeing a lot of yes purist noob nine patty kills tony okay let's settle down let's let's let's not we all want to

Scott McCraight, our pal, howl. Oh, by the way, big shout out to Scott McCrae, regular listener of all of our MMA fighting programming, very supportive. He posted on an MMAfighting.com in the comments, his topology picks. Mike, our pal Scott was one insane Chris Barnett comeback away from going 13 for 13 last night. That's the only fight he got wrong was the Chris Barnett fight.

And again, it pretty much looked like he was going to nail that in the first round. So, Scott, next time, that perfect card is coming. good luck with that. But yeah, 12 out of 13. And if a doctor had just done his job and stopped that Chris Brinette fight, Scott, you would have gone 13 for 13. So shout-outs to you. Mike, the people have spoken.

I'm seeing at least, it's not an insane thought. You're looking at the comments right now. I'm pulling them all up here. It's not great. 23 Danny T. Safest fight for Tony. Maybe it is. Maybe it is.

Shannon Roberson, hashtag batty and the boogie. I like that. Batty and the boogies. There we go. That's a great hashtag. Shannon. We got the dumb as F in there. I mean, people are really getting.

and people are really getting after it here. Pressor would be good at is. A lot of nose coming. I'm seeing a streak of nose and a Oz. Okay, I think a lot of these is people's using burner accounts. We all know the real people want to see this fight. Patty D-sharp shots, Patty versus Tony, London, let's go.

I love how Ariel gets credit for CM Punk score. For voice of the voiceless. That's the best. Listen, you like. Gary Freeman, you're our buddy, But this is how you know, put down the MMA. This is how you know you're watching too much MMA. Watching too much M&A, except our show.

Definitely keep listening to our show. But yeah, no, listen, I'm into it. I'm into it. All right. So I think we have enough here. It's 50-50. It's still another debate. Maybe this will have to part do this on the show.

You know what? Listen, I like to go to the peeps here. I like to go to them a lot. I'm going to just going to dig through. I want to go to the people that are here. We've made this pretty clear that on these live shows, we like to go to the chat for these picks. I'm just going to look real fast

and see if we have anything here. I'll mention some other stuff later, but yeah, hit him up. Holland, Demolador, D-Rodd versus Kiesa, Walker versus Jacoby Roundtree. Winner? There's an interesting one that I saw in here. There's Dad Jackson, who has had some rough picks. Okay.

Let's see, he's got some doo-do. Johnny Walker versus Volkan Ozedamir, who's fighting literally a month from now. Barnett, Chris Barnett versus the ultimate fighter. Mohamed Usman. Oh, I saw something recommend that. People are kind of like, oh, they want to see the difference in physiques. That's fine.

I love those contrasts here. But let us just say, by the way, Chris Burnett, you're a beautiful man. They're a beautiful body. Never change. Never let anyone say different. Mohamed Usman. Also, obviously, great athlete. Looks great.

But I don't want to make this some ha-ha thing. Oh, look how much more muscular Mohamed Usman is than Chris Burnett. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. We're not shaming anybody here. Chris Burnett, you do you, Mo' Usman, you do you. That'd be a fun fight. Actually, I'm actually kind of into that.

Our pal Viking is spamming. A Viking, please, stop spamming this. I will acknowledge it. Patty versus Guram. It's a terrible pick because Gurum would probably kill Patty, and that is not what the U.S.D is trying to do right now. So I understand, I get, I understand the motivation behind the pick, but let's push that one somewhere down the road

when they've kind of squeezed all they can out of the initial Patty Pimblet, sort of high front. He's on a hell, he's on a hell of an upward trajectory. And at some point, that is going to end. This is combat sports. No one goes up and up and up forever. Everyone hits a ceiling at some point. It comes down.

On the way down, you make the Gorham fight. But we don't need to do that next. And a lot of, I mean, just a lot of Julian orosa fun. Julian deserves him shine to great win over Hakeem Dawadu. A lot of different matches to Julian Orozah and I like all of them. So go do whatever you need to do. D.Rod versus Luke Jay. Jee.

J. Somehow not the most objectionable nickname on the card. I can't believe it. Some Hobbsat, Rob Whitaker's. I'm going to be done with the readings here. A lot of them are very similar and the same. We're just going to go to the peeps here. But do you have any, like, consistency? Just some nice comments here.

Our pal Casey Carpenter, regular Otno contributor. Great job by all you guys this week, especially Mike. No, other way. Mike and Jose. I'm usually good at that. Casey says, I think we need an open-weight triple threat fight between Roy Val to Cali and then re-signed Dakota Bush. And the guys, I love the suggestion so much.

It's the only time you hear me say this. That would be raw dog versus the pleasure man versus Harry. Hear me out on this one. Do Beast Boy versus Ty. No, come on. We can't. I mean, that would be amazing. And I hope we see it someday.

That's just not next. But, yeah, I've obviously a very fun, very fun suggestion there. They would do a shooey at some point afterwards. Yeah, they definitely would. Ameta versus Spivak, JuciJ versus Sodiq-Yusuf, Walker versus Craig. Polkig. Aldana versus GDR. If GDR ever wants to fight again,

I 100% agree. Homsa versus Kasta. So simple. Hamsat and not a welterweight, like I said last October, and after last month, Costa, a baby phase. I guess so.

Super entertaining build. They should send Tony to Eagle FC. All respect to Tony, let him go to Eagle and fight Diego Sanchez. Mike, you're not repulsed by this idea. I mean, it's never going to happen, but I mean, if somehow they did some trading,

Let's trade some talent. If UFC had fun in that regard, I would be okay with that, but it's not going to happen. And then get some closer to that Kabib fight, finally. Our pal, Tristan Gordet, Johnny Walker versus Tyson Pedro. He's always got some weird random deep cuts in here. Dennis Tallulin versus Dusko Todorovich. Dennis Thulun, a surprising. That was a popular.

Yeah, I know there's a lot of controversy with whatever, the low blows and stuff. But, hey, listen, he got his point taken away, and he was still anyone. So just serves, I guess. Things worked out. You know, he got the point. What else? One more can you do? Dan Rodriguez versus Neil Magny, good fight, tough fight.

And juicy J versus the winner of Coronillo versus Alexander Hernandez happening December 10. So thanks. So Mike, I'll go back to social media after. But let's, yeah, let's hit the YouTube for a bit. Let's let's see what we got going on in the live. All right. This is what we're going to do. We're going to do this.

We're going to do the show for like five more minutes, okay? Oh, okay. We're going to do this show for like five more minutes. So for the next five minutes, if you have picks that we've not put up on the screen, I'm not telling you to like put up 100. thousand times. Yes. If you put them up before, we haven't gotten to them, if you had good matchmaking suggestions

that we didn't put up, put them up now. We're going to five minute free for all. Okay. We're as many as we can. Yeah. We're going to talk about them. Yeah. My social media guys, I will keep track of your picks and I will credit you.

I'll give you guys credit down the road. But right now, let's focus on live, live comments. What do you got, Mike? Here we go. I love that. Back to back. Tony versus Bobby Green at 55 or whatever, wait. That was my pick for Tony after the loss to Michael Chandler.

Actually, I think I said I wanted to see him. fight or one of his recent, I believe after the Chandler fight. I said, yeah, Bobby Green. Love the pick. Still works. Again, put him at 170. Forget this weight cutting bull crap. Yeah, I think they'd agree. I like it too. Al-Tang-Haley versus Davy Grant. There's no way that that's not a freaking yeah. Awesome fight. Davy Grant has looked great over the last few years. Al-Tang Hailey, four one and one in the UFC now. A little bit of a sleeper, a little bit of a sleeper at 135. So that's a good step up for him. Kans, neither of these guys fought on the card. It's fine. I think Jack wins up.

that fight easily. I mean, I like Ian a lot. I think Ian's going to be very good, but you got to build Ian slow. He's a young guy. Jack's real good. Jack's real good. Jack versus Jake Matthews.

I saw Jake's name thrown out there. Jack versus Jake Matthews is fun. There's, I mean, there's all sorts of different things we can do. I don't think we need to match those two guys up right now. But that's just me. Jake Paul versus Mark Zuckerberger, okay?

Hey, look, Zuck, say what you want about business practices and how Facebook's destroying society. But you look pretty good. Look pretty good. Training with Kai Wu in that viral video. Unfortunately, Kai Wu did not win his fight at Uriah Favors A1 Combat Show.

But I'm sure he got a lot of Instagram followers that weekend. Sure did. Matthew Rovelli wants to D-Rod versus Paheta. Also want Julianne Rosa versus Svique Houston. Great picks, Matt. Very logical. Solid matchmaking. I like it.

Shemai versus Pereira. I think Alex. Okay, Alex Pereira. Yeah, yeah, Alex. Perrera. Forreya. Shamiya versus Alex Pereira, regardless of outcome versus Izzy. Would you like that idea?

I don't like it as much as Robert Whitaker versus Alex Panetta regardless, but you certainly Shamaic could slide in there. But I do think Shamiyev is like, gosh, I wonder how close they are to just giving him. No, he'd have to win a fight at middleweight. So yeah, no, the Padeta, yeah, makes a lot of sense. Hamzaa versus Colby, very popular one. Again, magic wand, if we could do it. This is fine.

I know they're both managed to have the same company. I'm sure they know each other, but they would just be like, okay, let's just go in there and beat the hell of each other. This is why we didn't do wild card for Chris Burnett because guys matches ups like Chase Sherman are perfect. Yeah, perfect. I mean, they're not. They don't need to be elaborate.

William Knight. They don't need to be elaborated on. Throw someone who's going to stand and have a fun fight with them. And that's all we want to see. For sure. A lot of Tony Ferguson versus Jim Miller. I like it. A lot of Paula versus Hamzot like it.

Johnny Walker, Anthony Smith. Anthony's, I don't know how long Anthony's going to be out for. But he was, he had a pretty. It looks like things aren't great. on the injury front for Anthony Smith. Could be a minute. Again, that's a guy who should... My dog didn't like that pick, but I don't mind it.

I don't mind it at all. But that's a guy who needs to take his time picking his fight to the stage of his career and making sure he's as healthy as he can be because Anthony's been fighting forever. And the last few, like four or five years of his career have been the toughest on his body. As he's gotten older, I've been the toughest on his body because he's facing insane competition. So I just wanted to read, sorry, someone just sent me this hilarious meme. You respect those morning, Queen Elizabeth. But they did a graphic, a very strange graphic at the UFC, you know, in memory, Queen Elizabeth the second at the beginning.

And 1926, 2002, her, obviously her lifespan. And someone tweeted, that is an insane win-loss record, 1926, 2002. I don't know why it just made me laugh. So that's at, at Boss Moes on Twitter tweeted that. And I laughed. So that's good. Call me disrespectful, but I'm laughing. Vikings going back to Chandler Dustin versus Fizziv.

I mean, neither this guy's fought on this card. So we're going to try not to really focus on that. It would be a fun fight. I think Viziv wants Gaci. I don't know if that's going to happen, but we'll see. Till v. Holland would be fun. Yeah, that was before, right? I mean, Till versus Holland is one of the ones, like, we've been trying to get that together for a bit.

Hey, they were supposed to fight. This is not a thing? Am I making this up? Did he replace, did he replace Tillis have been booked with like most guys, so it wouldn't surprise me? I think he replaced Till. Maybe he stepped in for Till or something. Anyway, was that Fittori or could have been. Was that Marvin or Brunson?

It was one of those two, maybe. I don't know, probably. Or Till stepped in for him. I don't know. Pereira came from nothing and we'll fight us on you. So why Hamzaa can't, so why Hamza can't fight for the belt? He didn't come from, he didn't come from,

yeah, he came from nothing. Oh, yeah, no, it's not like he had some history with Israel Adesania, some notable history with Israel Adesania, right? That everyone talked about before he signed with the UFC. That's a pretty big, uh, did we read the comment, sorry, for anyone in the podcast. said, yeah, oh, yeah, you said it, that Alex Palletta came from nothing. No, there was a notable history with him and Izzy.

He won the fights he needed to win in the UFC. Yeah, I mean, look, he got the fast track to the title shot. That's true. If you want to say he got the fast track, 100%. Favorable booking, yeah, but didn't come from nothing. I mean, it's definitely a different situation. Listen, Hamzaa Shamaif, if they book him against Adasanya or Pereira, no one's going to be like, oh, this is a travesty.

No one's going to say, we'd be like, okay, that's an interesting fight. and I got to be honest with you, I'm picking Hamza to beat either of those two guys after seeing what I saw and what I've seen. Like, I've just, I've been super impressed in this guy. Yeah, I didn't pick him to win just because it was just, I just thought all the dominoes are going to fall against him. It just felt like the vibe was going that way. I definitely wasn't disrespecting this man's skills at all. He's a killer. We've never seen anything like this in the sport.

We've seen Meteoric Rise. We haven't seen a guy like this. We haven't seen it. And I think he has a very good chance of beating both of those guys. But he has to be, there has to be some kind of punishment. Like there just has to be some kind of punishment. Fight one more time. And that's not even that bad of a punishment for a guy like that.

Find him somebody who has talked bad things about him. Let him go in and beat that person. And then he can fight for the title. What's the big deal? And he keeps saying, I'm going to kill everybody. I'm going to kill everybody. I don't care who they put in my way. Okay, great.

You don't care what they put in your way? Yeah. Look, then just take whoever the UFC throws. you yeah i mean i him and his team have not been like going hardcore like oh we need to fight for the title next they've saying they will they will win titles in 171 85 but they have not been like rushing towards uh getting either those fights yeah homza versus brady we'll see what happens with ball walker ozdemier folk is both we just talked about vulcan he's booked yeah we already talked about like it's yeah this is this is how you know we're getting to the end of the show like

Never. Lucas or seven new Caz, whatever. Mike Heck versus Alex Cayley, never. We're like the Klitschko brothers. That shit just, that shit ain't happening. Talluland versus Coppulaf. Let's do it. Mike's favorite fighter, yeah, for sure.

Football's about to start, so we'll go through this real quick. Holland versus the Chumpeheda. Zuckerberg versus Brennan Shob. Viking, we already went to that. Shemai of Holland, too. Give him a full camp, baby. Yeah. Jeez, Louise.

Yeah, I just don't think that goes well at all. Maybe rebook D. Rod Holland. I wouldn't be upset about that. I'm okay with it. Dowadu versus Tucker, a little Canada in Canada. No, Denny Caps, we don't want that. Stop it. No, we don't need that Canada and Canada bounce.

What about Shamaa versus Michelle Paheda? Yeah, listen, I thought about that, for sure. I thought about that. I think, Michelle, Demolador needs a big fight. He deserves it. I just think, but I just think Shemiah just smashes him. Again, and if we're talking about what we're talking about what we what were we just saying like we just want to give shamaia have a fight we want to see if he can

make 170 again that's the way to go um michelle podetta also like an enormous um welter rate i'm that's another guy who i don't know how he can make keep making 170 though he has for like a long time even before the ufc so he's fought a multiple weight classes but um i don't know how he keeps make 170 michel put out is massive viziz hamza let's see where hamzat is and get vittoria a fight he can get his name back in i mean i that's that would be okay i just feel like cost i feel like costa if you're going to go that route although vittory's an interesting matchup he's coming off of a really lopsided loss to roba whittaker i don't think it does much for the homzot stock it's a

i mean it's a good opponent for 185 if he's just like hey i'm bored i want to fight somebody and they just need a fight nightmate event and there's really no implications other than just winning or losing i'm cool this like anderson's silver going up to 205 and fighting whoever and just James Irvin and just a fun made events for no stakes just to do something and stay active I'm cool with that but if we're gonna go to 185 you just do Costa

or Whitaker I'd rather do Whitaker yeah I'd rather go with the guy who beat Vittori than necessarily just throw Vittory in there yeah J versus Nathaniel Wood AK I just feel like this is from Chris Markham I feel like this is like a dirty joke in here somewhere so I'm not biting I'm not taking this bait I'm not taking this bait

I'm trying to I don't I don't need the juicy j would match up no you you wanted me to say it on air there you go i did it you're happy now you're happy now chris markham barnet versus tank abbott once in a time let me just say regarding chris brunette the tank everything it is a shame that it took the uc so long to sign chris brunette and i can understand why they probably i'm sure people in the uc were aware of him i'm sure they looked them like oh he's a short heavyweight we don't need that guy in the oc but the guy has been fun for a long time well before the ufc he's just been doing fun shit around the world.

They could have signed him five years ago. We have missed out, I feel like, on Chris Barnett memories. But yes, guys, you love Chris Barnett. Go on YouTube. I think there's a ton of free fights out there because there's just promotions that don't have like North American TV deals. So if anyone who has thrown up his fights, they're just still there. Chris Barnett is so fun.

He should have been with the UFC a long time ago. I'm glad he's here now. I'm glad he's here with us, my best friend. Resend Rock. Everyone wants this. I see Saw so many Rock Night. We wanted it when they were both. the UFC, there's still time. There's still time. Rocky Martinez, if you're out there,

or if you're Rocky Martinez's manager, you're out there, please call the UFC. This is your way back in. This is a, this is a, this is a co-fight night, co-main event. Please. Patriots versus Dolphins, how does the game go? I'm viewing this, I'm viewing this game the same way I viewed Hamzaa Shimaia versus Kevin Hollins. I'm picking the Patriots, but the Dolphins are way better, like, and they should win. And there's, but this is different because I don't feel like the Patriots have like any good vibes and the dolphins have any real bad vibes going for them. I just think Miami is going to the what there is supposed to be like redonculously hot in Miami. So it'll be interesting to see how that that factors.

But yeah, I don't think Patriots are going to win like with my brain. My heart is saying they're going to win 146 to 3. But who knows? Hamza versus Islam a 170. That'd actually be really interesting someday someday someday Walker versus Ray. Reyes is booked. Rias is booked. Is he versus Boe Nickel?

Someday. We're going to see that fight someday, I think. Bo Nicol is, boy, again, we're talking about super boss. That's funny. Mike versus A Hid. A heck of a morning. One of the best regular heck of a morning callers. My gosh.

He always has a rant ready. And I will say, I hit. I'm sorry. I know he has his own, he starts his own Twitter spaces out there. I've never joined in one. But shout us to a Hid. If you guys want to hear him on heck of morning all the time. The guys rants are great.

So check out a hit. and see how his Twitter spaces are. Yeah, I'm not going against a hit. I'm hiring a hid to be like my Paul Heyman. He is great. After a week like this when I've talked on air for like 100 hours, I'm just going to like sit back and let a hit do all the talking for me. Vittori asked the questions I want answered from Hamza.

I mean, he would. Sure. That'd be an interesting press conference. We'll take a couple more. We're all but just about the end of the road here, I feel. shopcott said he wants next he's not going to get him right now i don't think he's going to get it right now i don't want to see that right now build that baby up build that baby up is a hot dog a sandwich okay no no i don't listen on the wrong i don't get into food debates i just eat food uh i don't get into debates about what is what and what

is except how a how a steak should be prepared as we all know uh aero hawani is super wrong on that but other than that i don't really have opinions on on food so uh wrong person asked but just just my my gut instinct is no. Hamzaa versus Colby is still really interesting to me. Like it is. I mean, Hamzaa would, I think Hamzaa is going to be pretty much everybody he fights. But I mean, the same way I view, it's probably the same way I'm going to view most Hamzot fights moving forward that have any sort of interesting perspective from, from the stylistic side. Because Colby, like, Hamzaa could do to Colby what he did to Kevin Holm. like Colby is not the best defensive wrestler on the planet. He's a tremendous output wrestler, tremendous offensive wrestler.

That cardio is unbelievable. And it's just, we'll see what happens when like Shamiya is just picking him up and heaving him around the octagon. And if he could extend the fight and Colby starts to get comfortable and put that pace on him, if Hamzat slows down at all, that's when things get real interesting. but I just, Hamzach is such a different, friggin animal. And even when like he has the worst week ever, one of the worst weeks ever in UFC history

and you think that this man is rattled, he comes into the octagon smiling. And he wants to like go right to the cage and like shake Kevin Holland's hand before the fight even starts. And then he just goes out there and kills the man. It's, I have no more questions about this guy. The only question I have is like, can he make 170?

In terms of his skills and his mentality, maybe I have questions about if it's a five-round fight and we get to like round four. But those are questions I don't need answered right now because I don't think it's going to get that far. But as far as skill goes, I just don't know anybody that beats this guy. I would confidently pick him to beat Colby. I would confidently pick him to beat Bussman. I would confidently pick him to beat a lot of people. Whitaker is real interesting, though. Like I just want to see that fight because it would just be a real.

Like, Whitaker's fight IQ is tremendous, and he is very skilled in a lot of ways. I just, I don't know. Eventually, Hamzat's going to get his arms around that, man. And he's going for a right. It's just going for a right. It's the same way I felt about Habib for a certain point. I'm like, if Habib just gets his hands class, you're going down. There's nothing you could do to stop it.

So crazy. I think we're good. I'm going through a lot of, I'm seeing a lot of, uh, a lot of the same stuff. so thank you everyone for tuning in though i mean this was uh this was a again this was a weird it's this was a weird uh to put it really there's i'm underselling it i'm probably underselling it um again hosea yon's an amazing job on site and our whole team again props props to us props to us for having to call like everything on the fly from like thursday to friday the press conference the way ends the chuff the card shuffle uh props to the fans

props to you guys for keeping up with all this, for putting up with all these changes. I mean, I don't know how you guys deal with it. Listen, Mike and I are in this industry. We're in this till we die. But as a fan, I don't know how fans put up with this

and don't just tune out and go like, I'm never watching me again. This stuff is insane. You guys, you know how to roll with the punches. And I don't know, sometimes fans, you guys don't get enough credit for it. So thank you, fans. You guys listening, whoever it is out there that reads our stuff,

that just follows this crazy, crazy crazy, crazy game. And Mike, I can't, I'm actually just looking forward to you doing the rundown for next week because I feel like. Yeah, I feel like it'll be a bit, I feel like it'll be a bit calmer. I'm just kind of taking a quick look ahead here. I think. All right, here we go. Next week, it's a fight night.

It's like a normal fight nighty start time, which I'm very excited about. A lot of fights on this card, though. A lot of fights. 14 fights. Corey Sanhagan, Song Yodong, the main event, really good fight. Chidi and Jokawani, Gregory Rodriguez. So good. Tremendous.

Tanner Bozer, Rodrigo Nassimento. I'm actually supposed to be speaking to Tanner Bozor this week. His team reached out to me. Apparently, he said some things that may have been misconstrued to other websites, and he wants to clear some things up. So I have to, I have no idea what he's talking about, honestly. So we'll have to look into that. Alan Amadowski versus Joe Piper.

Everybody be Joe Piper. Andre Feely, Bill Algeo. It's got to be fun. Trey Ogden, Daniel Zaluber, Nicholas Mota, Cameron Van Camp, Trevin Giles, Lewis Cozy, Damon Jackson, Pat Sabatini. Anthony Hernandez is back against Mark Andre Barrio.

Jillian Robertson, Maria Agapova, former teammates getting after it. Aspen Lad, Sarah McMahon, Troney Graveley, Javid Basharath, and Loma Lekbunmi versus Denise Gomez. That's the card. That's a card.

That's a card. Again, I'm looking for some relative calmness here. I mean, I don't see how anything could happen that matches whatever the hell just happened over the last 72 hours, Mike. But there we are. Now that I said that, Lord knows what could happen to this card this week. But yeah, looking forward to good old UFC Apex action. All right.

We've done. We got to go. By the way, the great Shaheen Al-Shadi just dropped his day after feature. Go check that out. It's really good stuff. That's it. Thank you all very much. I hope you guys enjoyed such a chaotic week.

I love all of you. I have like four brain cells left and my voice is about to collapse. So if you are an NFL fan, enjoy the first Sunday of the NFL regular season, 20, 22, 20, 23. Go Patriots for A.K. I am Mike Heck. Always remember. And this is something I could share with some of you in this chat right now. Don't take this stuff too seriously.

MMA is supposed to be fun. Join us next week on the podcasting. Network. We'll have more fun right here and on to the next one, the podcast. Good day, you're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.