MMA Fighting - On To the Next One | Matches To Make After UFC 280

Episode Date: October 23, 2022

Islam Makhachev is the new UFC lightweight champion after a dominant second-round submission win over former champion Charles Oliveira in the main event of UFC 280, which extended his win streak to 11. Following the victory, Makhachev faced off with featherweight champ Alexander Volkanovski for a potential superfight — but is that ultimately the direction he'll go? On an all-new edition of On To the Next One, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee discuss who Makhachev will defend his title against for the first time, and where Oliveira goes after having his incredible unbeaten streak snapped. Additionally, future matchups are discussed for bantamweight champ Aljamain Sterling — who picked up a second-round finish in the co-main event — former champ T.J. Dillashaw, Sean O'Malley and Petr Yan after a controversial split decision win for "Sugar," along with other notable winners Beneil Dariush, Manon Fiorot, Belal Muhammad, 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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We are live following UFC 280 with a brand new edition of On to the next one. It is time to matchmake following a card that will have talking points and storylines to build on for the next several days at least. We have a new lightweight champion of the world. We saw fighters take some big leaps. We saw fighters take some tumbles. and we will discuss those for sure from a matchmaking perspective. I am Mike Eck still here in New York. It has been a day, my friends.

It has been a day. We won't get into it. But I'm here for a few more hours, and I am joined on this program, as always, by the co-host, the co-matchmaker, the Prince of Positivity, and the best friend, Mr. Alexander K. Lee, just the mere thought, just the mere talk of you, AK, got people here in the lobby of the hotel, just fired up.

So happy. How are you, Mike? I'm great. The comments are also already fired up on YouTube. We'll talk about that more in a second. I see people wanting me to issue some sort of an apology to the new lightweight champion is on Makachov. But Mike, I'm still kind of coming down.

This was a weird card. It was in a way, a good card. But it was weird in a way that one, it was kind of early. You know, normally you and I are pretty fried from staying up all night doing coverage and getting ready for the show. This time we had a lot of room to breathe before the end of UFC 280.

Of course, it was a pretty early time over here. in North America. And it's a process kind of what happened. We got a new champion. We had one of probably my least favorite title fights I've ever seen, talking about the co-main event. We got super controversy with the O'Malley-Yon fight. So a lot to process, a lot of people talking, a lot of stuff on social media, including

myself. I'm ready. I've been reading a lot of it. We've had some, Mike, you and I, I have to discuss two of the cringiest fighters out, quote-unquote fighters out there right now, McGregor and Sehudo, some of the comments they made. I've got, I'm still processing, but I think I'm ready to do today's show. And thank you everyone for tuning in so far.

Yes. So to open the curtains, so to speak, I still have a lot of crap to do before I have to fly home. So we're going to go for like an hour, maybe a little more. I still need to like check out of here and do the packing of the stuff thing and all that. super fun stuff. Like I said, it's been a morning. Had things gone to play and we could have just gone as long as we wanted to, but it didn't. And nothing really did this weekend. So we'll go as long as we can. We'll take as many listener submissions as we can at the end. And we'll likely just sort of pull them up. We'll pull the comments up and we'll make it up to you.

Like if you're a regular podcast listener, we'll make it up to you. But this is what we have to do today to get a show. So let's get into it, AK, Islam Makachev, and maybe this is the opportunity for you to apologize or say what you have to say. But he is the best lightweight in the world. He's the new lightweight champion. He dominated Charles Olivera. And this was the fight a lot of people expected on paper. This is what everything on paper told me this fight was going to look like.

And he just did the damn thing. Islam is a man of his word. A lot of talk about the confidence, not just for himself, but for Habib, his entire team. And Islam delivered in the cage. Him and Habib delivered an A-plus promo after the fight. He had the face-off with Alexander Volkadovsky. And I got to say, okay, from where I was, maybe Friday, to where I am right now, I mean, my mind has shifted on this fight.

It went from intrigue to all in. I'm all in on this. I'm all in. So to make my answer simple, we're just going to do this fight. Machachev versus Volkadovsky, February in Perth, main event for UFC 284. Lightweight title versus the number one pound for pound spot. Are you with me? Yeah, I mean, I listen, I shouldn't mince words.

I'm one of those people who always says when there's a super fight on the table, don't mess around, just do it. I will say I went in a different direction this time, maybe just because I expected you and everyone, including myself, the first inclination, just go with the Volcanoggi thing. And you certainly can't go wrong. I see your comments, Lee, on you. I say, sorry, this is me for the podcast listeners. Someone's just very adamant that I, that I, that I, that I, that I, uh, anoint Islam mockage. Listen, he doesn't. need me to anoint him. I'm the last

person that needs to give Islamist flowers because that performance was incredible. You know, that like it went exactly, like you said, Mike, sort of as we expected it, that wrestling, of course, he's going to go to it. And Charles Alavara welcomed it. He pulled guard within the first minute of the fight,

which I thought was bold, but not unlike what we've seen from Charles in the past. He believes in that his strengths are better than anyone else's strengths. He went right to it. we thought that Makachev's top game would give him a lot of problems. It did in round one. In my prediction, I thought that Charles would then turn it up in the second round

and find a way to finish Islam. But the second round was even more Islam, even more dominant. He finished the fight. If anyone's thinking like, well, maybe Charles should have just kept it standing, Makachov was doing really well on the feet too. I mean, it's not like, oh, Olavera was lighting him up and shouldn't have gone to the ground. It's like it was either 50-50 or 60-40 for Makachiev. Like he was landing some really good shots.

I think we talked a lot about how he has better standup than Habib, not that Habib needed to use it that much during his career because he could take down everyone. Makachev can too, but I do think he's a better stand-up fighter than Habib and is maybe as good again, or better a stand-up fighter than Charles Aver. He looks really good. If it had stayed in the feet, maybe it could have gone either way. It doesn't matter. Makachov was the one who dictated where this fight went and he looked great in the ground.

Amazing. Listen, he submitted Oliver. It's not like he's the first person to do that, but anyone who submits someone who I think is one of the best ground fighters ever in the lightweight division, amazingly impressive. So nothing but hats off to Islam Makachev. And Mike, as you said, just perfect execution of the post-fight callout, him and Habib. This is the start. This could be the start of a really special run at 155. I'm glad afterwards he was kind of like, you know, yeah, I may go up to welterweight someday, but let me defend the belt here a few times. So whether that means he's going to defend it two or three times or go on like a seven fight title defense streak i think anything's possible with this guy i would like him excuse me i would like him to

keep sort of defending against lightweights which is probably why i went with baniel der eelsch instead um there's also that part of me that's like well benil just deserves a friggin title shot the volkanovsky fight is so much juicier i think the only one more reason why i veered away from that is I think Islam will beat Volkanowski. And pretty convincingly, they're both great fighters, both great fighters. But I think size matters. I think that would be the difference here. If any featherway could go up and beat Islam, of course,

and Volcanovsky is the one I would consider. But I think Machinchev handles him. And I think that's just a bad moment for the Australian fans. I think you don't want to end up on a downer. So I would give Volcanowski like a featherweight title. Let him have a cool big moment where he just defends that featherweight title. and then you build up to him in Islam in like Las Vegas or something. That fight should happen someday.

I know we all want to see it. But B'Neil deserves a shot, man. I mean, Benile deserves a shot. This is getting ridiculous. The guy is now, how many was straight now? Eight straight. Eight in a row. Like, this is absurd.

What is he? What is he now? 16, 4 and 1 in the UFC. I think now third tied for the third most U.S.C. lightweight victories. He's an exciting fighter. He won't advocate for himself, Mike. So I guess you and I have to do. He kind of mentioned that, you know, not Post-Fite interview, but Post-Pite press conference,

who else is there? And I'm like, even that's not as strong, like, even that's not a strong endorse for yourself. Don't say, don't say it, like, the UFC has no other options. Say it, like, the UFC has a bunch of options, and I'm the best one. So I'm pulling a magic wand here. I think obviously the Volcanowski fight happens, but I'd love to see Darius get his due because other than that, it's just more tough fights ahead for Daryus. I don't know what more than the man has to do to earn a UFC tellershot.

Yeah, I just saw, I pulled up a comment from a swell guy who said that Islam, yeah, it was a great fighter, but doesn't have personality and that's his problem. You don't need it when you have Habib who has it all. Habib has personality. And I thought the whole thing was brilliant. Islam was humble, showed that side of him. And then he just, DC, to his credit, too, nailed it too. Gave it to Habib makes the call out. He invites Volcanowski into the cage.

They have the face off. It doesn't matter what you feel about Mokachev's personality. So what if he's not going to get him. get in there and sell the fight. You know who is? Habib will do it. He's the mouthpiece. He's the mouth of the south. He's like Jimmy Hart, Paul Heyman, all the great managers. He's not just a coach, but he's like, he's the mouthpiece. It's fantastic. I like, I love where this is going. I thought they did a fantastic job, and this fight's going to be gigantic, and I can't wait to see it. So for Alvara, he vowed after the loss to get back to form. He's still going to be a guy

that people are going to be excited to see. His stock obviously drops here. I hopefully, hopefully, this incredible run he was on doesn't get forgotten. But to me, this one seems pretty easy, AK, because, I mean, I'll just get this one out of the way. My official answer is B'Neil Daryush, because Darius is not going to get a title shot. Like you said, Darius has done everything that he needs to do to get a title flight. He's just not going to get it. So it's unfortunate for Darius. I'm very happy to see that he actually got a win because the M.A. God's just completely don't hate this guy and that's always great to see but i think olivera be a very solid consolation prize one would think but i do have another option out of the box but i'd love to hear what you have

to say about what's next for charles olivera yeah i mean obviously i can't go benny i picked banyl derrush for makachev uh but again i went pretty simple here just picked another guy from the card someone who lost this is nothing to do with like oh who's going to get a title shot off this fight this would just be a sick as hell fight i would love to see charles olivera and gamrod fight. Yeah, that could happen later down the road. And I know people go like, man, just can we give Gamrod like an easier fight? No, Gamrod is friggin' awesome. And I want, and Charles Elever is frigging awesome. And I just want to see them in there rolling and grappling and just like throwing haymakers. Gamra has become one of the most exciting guys in the division

filled with exciting guys. I honestly, as far as entertaining fights go, he needs to build him over a resume. He's getting right up there with like Gaichie, Porri. Like the guy. just doesn't have a bad fight he's super fun to watch so well-rounded some of the scrambles of derrush were awesome um he really pushed derrush to the limit like this loss was it was a credit to derrush how how resilience and what a veteran he is because a lot of people would have wilted under the pressure that gamrott put on him so um yeah i i get it uh people probably look at this go like well one of these puts these guys on a two-fight losing streak doesn't matter at this point you know they're both veterans um charles and gamrott a loss isn't going to kill him and a win

you know could could do a lot towards pushing charles back to a teloshot or pushing uh gamrod to his first telly shot so i don't care about like again not super concerned about how a winner loss affects these guys i just want to see a fun fight people may notice that might that's going to be a theme with some of my picks going forward here i this is interesting doing fazeve versus all of it yeah i like it i like that idea as well although i'm kind of mad at raphael fizziv right now if we're being honest but it all worked out so it's okay okay um so here's my other here's my other option, okay. It's a little out of the box. It's a rematch. It's a rematch. One from seven years ago. I like we're going from a different weight class. But I would love to see these guys run it back again.

And I think we could do it. I think we can do it. I think we can line this up. I think it makes sense. Charles Olivera versus Max Holloway 2. I would watch the hell out of that fight. Dary is by official answer, but I'd love to see Olivera versus Holloway. Just get back after it at 155. It's just super fun. You're a brilliant and handsome man. Do I say that enough? I say, no, maybe I say handsome, maybe I say brilliant,

but I don't think I say both together. So you're a brilliant and handsome man. That's a great pick. And that's the kind of fights that Max Holloway should be taking at this stage of his career. Because if you're Max Holloway, there's obviously so many great challenges

of 145 and 155, but it's like you've been to the mountain top, you've had these marquee fights. It's hard to go back and fight like the number 12 ranked by their way, the number. He would, he would, but this is a much more exciting thing for him. Go back up to 155, dabble there, and take an awesome fight with Charles Oliver, you're right, and give us another chance to see that one. Because the first one ended with an injury,

if I'm not missing. Yeah. It's like a shoulder injury, yeah. And I'm not saying that like muddies up the results. Like I'm sure Holloway deserved to win that fight, but it was definitely a little bit of an unsatisfying end. I completely agree. And that's why I would love to see it again. That's a great. The UFC wants to have some fun. So, Machia or the three ensemble Cicot of Cephora of FACC that I've been to deniches that I'm energize

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and agents for long-term success, bringing all your most valuable resources onto one powerful platform so you can add value even faster. Workday, moving business forever forward. Aljamaid Sterling had some fun yesterday. He dominates T.J. Dillashaw. And we didn't get the full story of this fight told because of the injury to Dillashaw. And I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't think this fight, it's obviously more competitive.

But I think Sterling just trucks him. I didn't realize just how much bigger he was going to be than T.J. Dillishah looked like a flyweight and Al J. looked like a freaking featherweight in there. It was crazy. But what we learned the most is that this fight should have never happened. Jose Aldo should have gotten his damn title shot. But I am not here to beat that drum again because we could do this for another hour. We did for like 20 minutes on the post fight show yesterday. But Aljo gets it done, finishes Dillusha. He's, as the show states, on to the next one. And it's another cheap answer, but I'm just going to go with it. And I'm pulling another name off the board.

It's Sean O'Malley. And this is a no-brainer. It's the biggest fight that this guy can get right now. And I think Sterling could do very, very well in that fight. And I already saw some comments in here already. But because in this, I went off on a tangent on the post-fights yesterday because it annoyed the crap out of me, I heard the name that I didn't want to hear from Dana White.

It made me so angry to hear Dana White say it. And I'm not even going to say that name right now. But Dana and Aljo, Aljo, what are you doing? Aljo should have jumped on this full force. with O'Malley too. They didn't, but this is the fight. No matter how you scored his win over Peyote Rion, you've got to go all in on this.

We'll get into Peodor Yan in a moment, but what are we doing here? Why is Aljo not jumping on this? Like, because he matches up incredibly well with shot O'Malley. Like, he should win this fight, and it's the biggest fight he can get right now. This is bigger than Sohudo. This is bigger than Sehudo.

You want to know why? You want to know why, A.K.? Because nobody cares. Nobody cares about Harry Sito. This is the first time Dana White has said his name, name in two years. And now we're going to do it now after Sean O'Malley, just beat Pierre Yan.

Controversial or not, Sean O'Malley, the guy you build to get to this point and then when it's time to coronate him, when it's time to put this man over, you say Henry Sohudo's name. I don't get it. I know it's an obvious one, but I think this counts as a one, two, three.

Friends forever. Perfectly timed. As always. As always. We always nail it. We always nail it every time. I don't want to get the lobbyist show here. Oh, you're right.

You don't give him a free show. That's an evening thing. Yeah, let's hope the UFC does not complicate the situation. If O'Malley's healthy, if Sterling's healthy, if their timelines line up, just make the fight happen now. So hoodo is just brutal. I mean, he had a tweet last night. Let's bring the title back to America. Oh, God.

How old is? I don't even want to get into it. But I had to bring it up for anyone who missed it. What the hell does that even mean? I don't even know. Like, I don't want to, again, if I get into it, it's going to lead some ugly accusations on my part. I don't, you guys can see the tweet.

You guys can figure out what he's alluding to yourself. Our listeners and our viewers are smart people. That was a very strange comment to make and super dumb. So yes, no, he doesn't. Suhuda should not get anywhere near Al Jermaine Sterling right now. It is O'Malley. I guess I don't know if we want to talk about that now Mike you know I have some thoughts on that decision I will be doing a robbery review don't worry people I said online I was like it's not a robbery but but I will watch it again

I will watch it again with an open mind because I will say we say this all the time when we're doing coverage on fight night we're probably not scoring as closely as we could be we're juggling like you know five or six other things we're working we're writing so people were watching the fight more closely than me and a lot of people saying is a robbery certainly everyone in the media including myself, scored it for Yon. I would have scored it 29, 28, Yon. But I thought you could give one and three to O'Malley. And I saw a lot of media members saying the same thing, that you could have given one and three to O'Malley, that you could have given it, that you could have scored it the other way.

So I'll elaborate more on that in the robbery review, but I'll just say, guys, I know M-A decisions. We saw all the media scored it, but go find the individual comments you have almost just many people saying it was a close fight. So if you have half those people saying it was a close fight, how much of a robbery could it be? I'm not saying the judges didn't get it wrong,

but that judges getting a fight wrong is not the same as a robbery. I know it's a nuanced thing, and people will disagree. They got it wrong. It's wrong. Wrong as a robbery. Fine. I don't agree. Really great fight.

And O'Malley has, in my mind, earned that tell shot. Can he beat Sterling? I don't know. We had a lot of people saying he wouldn't even be competitive against Peoteryon. I has a fan base. The guy knows how to sell a fight, unlike Aljo, who like you said, should have started selling this fight already. He has a youthful. fan base. This is a fan base that the UFC

is constantly trying to tap into and for the longest time couldn't. And guys like Connor McGregor and, you know, and yes, now Sean O'Malley really did a lot to help bring in that audience. So there's just no reason not to go down this road. If everyone's healthy, if you can get all the contracts to line up.

I know O'Malley said he might want to renegotiate. We'll see how that goes. UFC's not in love, I think, with renegotiating after you've signed you know, you're in the middle of an existing deal. But if he does get a fight. They should make him whole. Same with Aljo because it could be a big one. I'm keeping. I have this up for a reason because and look, I, I'm a stubborn dude.

I'll be the first one to say it. I'm a stubborn dude. And sometimes we do these live shows on on to the next one. I get a little grumpy. I get a little grumpy on the shows, mostly because I didn't really get a lot of sleep. And I got to sleep a little more, but I didn't sleep at all like Friday. So I am kind of grumpy right now. But I will say this. I, could not disagree with this comment more. I could not disagree with this comment more. Algern jump on the bandwagon for O'Malley because he'll make more money fighting Henry Sehudo.

I just don't agree with that. I don't agree with that. O'Malley is the bigger money fight right now. No doubt about it. Everyone is talking about this guy. Good or for bad. They're all talking about this guy. And I'm not saying, and let me just clear this up again.

I'm not saying I don't want to see Henry Sehudo fight again. I do want to see him fight again. I would love to see him fight again. I'm not taking anything away from what this guy is done. But this guy screwed over the UFC. He turned his back on the company. They put him in this big spot on a pay-per-view. They gave him a very good matchup to style against Dominic Cruz.

And he did just that. And then right when they were trying to build him up, because he was getting there. He was getting to that star level. He probably needed another winner two. But he was getting there. And the UFC was putting him in that position. And he just says, nope, I'm out.

You're not paying me enough. I'm a star. Peace out. And that same night, Dana White said, okay, he's gone. Peodor Yan's going to fight for the titlebacks. They didn't care. They didn't care that he left, and the division has moved on without him. The Flyweight Division has also moved on without him.

The Bannamweight Division moved on. Featherweight Division moved on. Everybody moved on. Everybody moved on. All I ask from you, Henry Suhudo, is one thing. Go fight somebody. Not for the belt. Go fight Pejorie on.

That makes perfect sense right now. That's the fight I would book. That's the exact fight I would book is Peodor Yan versus Henry Sehudo. And guess what? If Henry Sehudo beats Peter Yan, give him his title shot. And then that's a big fight. But the point is, I don't believe he's fighting anybody. I don't think Henry Sehudo is going to fight anybody.

Because this whole notion of, I'm only coming back for a title shot, is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. Go fight somebody. Anybody. Go fight Dominic Cruz again. I don't care. go fight somebody in the top 10, win, and then you get a title shot. That's it.

That's like, no one's saying anything crazy here. Just go fight somebody and win, and then you can have a title shot. That's all. No big deal. And this is great. And if Henry wins that fight, this is very good for the division. It's great for the division. But right now, nobody cares.

Nobody cares. He's not coming back to fight. But he's never coming back. And you're right, Mike, nobody cares. He'll still maybe mention his tweets. every now and then. He's still an important, relevant figure in MMA history, two division champion, Olympic old medals, all that stuff. A great fighter, a great fighter, not a proven star or draw by any means. As you said, he kind of cut off his own legs before he got to that point. He was close.

He was close. And now he is talking as if again, now he tweets and he comments and talks as if he was this massive star in his prime. And he was a great fighter. Maybe one of the, maybe if you're just going by accomplishments, one of the 20 best fighters in UFC history. That's you. He's that good. 20 best fighters ever. But he's not one of the 20 biggest stars in UFC history. No way.

I maybe wouldn't even put him in like the top 40. There are so many people who are more famous, more well-known, bigger draws, have a, have a stronger fan base than Henry Suhudo. So again, with respect to a guy who has done so much in combat sports, an amazing combat sports athlete, not a star on the level that he thinks he is. And, you know, as soon as he's, I don't know if he'll ever stop talking about fighting again. But if that day comes, it can't come soon enough, Mike. So, yeah, I mean, we're all over the place because we're just pulling names off the board, left it right here.

So to me, I would love to see Jan versus Sohudo, but we're not going to see it. So who does I got to take that fight? So give me Jan Chito Vera. I'm cool with that. I'm cool with that because Chito's not going to get a title shot. If you want to do Jan versus Chito, I'm fine. But Jan's just in a way position. This is really no wrong.

answer with Yan. I mean, the right answer is Zahudo, but Zahoodo is not going to fight him. So if you want to do Jan Cheetah, I'm in. And yeah, what do you think? I was selfish with my, I feel like I was selfish with my Oliver Camrod pick, and I'm doing it again. I'm doing it again. And this is a fight where I don't care what it means for

either guys ranking or losing streak. I need to see Yon and Yanez. I need to see hashtag Yon Yanez. I think Yanez is the best boxer in the UFC. I have said, I have written this down in an article when we discussed who's the best box in the UFC. We did a roundtable. I picked Yanez.

Yon is right up there. I think someone else picked Piotr Yon. And quite logically, I think Yon was the champion at the time or the interim champion. So you can't go wrong with that. But guess what? This is the beauty of MMA. You can throw them in a cage and they can figure it out. Hopefully, Jan would decide not to mix the martial arts.

I do think he's a little more well-rounded than Yon is. And we just got kickboxing with four-ounce gloves, as it were. that's that's what i'm and with ground and pound that's what i'm looking for i need to see these two guys fight someday i'm impatient it was up to me i would have them fight next i think yanez deserves a big fight um and i think piotr yon would be a great option for him so mike i'm just going all in man i'm skipping steps i'm i'm not i'm not thinking straight i just want to see big exciting fights now and uh and yanez would be my pick for yon someone's mad about a take being ridiculous someone i mean we just yeah you got to narrow it down we say

We make like half a dozen ridiculous takes every hour. So you got to narrow it down, guys. If you're saying it's a Suhudo take, you're incredibly wrong about you saying that's a bad take because it's a tremendous take. And it's correct. It's the right take. It's right.

Mike, we didn't mention, we didn't mention T.J. And I'm not sure we should. I don't know. Like, this might be the most, this might be the most difficult person to match right for because this dude shouldn't have fought. He shouldn't have been fighting. He should not have gotten into this fight.

Aldo should have got the fight. And then hearing that he's been injured since April and his shoulder was jacked up the entire time. The fact that this dude took this fight is ridiculous. I don't care that he apologized to this division. It was just, this fight shouldn't have happened. And we were right all along when it comes to the Jose Aldo thing. However, I don't know how to matchmake for this guy. Because I don't know when he's coming back.

And to me, like, if he was coming back in like five months, I'd give him like Ricky Simone. Like, that's who I would give him. Somebody like that. A young whippersnapper who is just a tough fight. Like, it's just a really tough fight. I'm not giving, I'm not doing T.J. Disha any favors here. He's getting the toughest, highest risk, lowest reward matchup in my eyes because of all of this.

So I would do that, but I just don't know how to match make for him right now because I don't know how long he's going to be out for. I don't even know if this dude's going to fight again. Like, I have no idea where he goes after. all of this. So I'll, I literally have no clue. So what do you think? What did you come up with? Because this is, this was the toughest one for me because I just, nothing really makes sense because we just don't know anything right now. Again, I'm going with with fantasy matchmaking here. I want to see that Cruz rematch still. I want to see that Cruz rematch forever. I thought TJ, I thought TJ won the first fight. Given the state of his shoulder, I don't know if he could win the second. On the other hand,

Dominic Cruz isn't exactly a spring chicken and he's pretty much tied together by by string at this point. it might be a little sad. It might not really capture the magic of the first one. You do have two guys who are shop-borne who've had a ton of injuries in their career. Again, one with TJ now super notable right in front of us. That played out live on pay-per-view. Very depressing to watch. But if we're going to have PJ fight again against a somewhat notable opponent,

it should be Dominic Cruz. Domino Cruz could. I mean, Dominicru, if he thinks that shoulder's wonky, he could wrestle too. We talked about before Aljo, the only guy to, like, take TJ down and control him for even, like, 30 seconds was Dominic Cruz. So maybe he would go that route. But I'm willing to take that risk. I want to see them fight again.

I don't know if it happens. We were saying with Dominic Cruz, like for some reason, they seem very adverse to booking him in Legends fights. We wanted to see him fight Frankie Edgar. That felt like that was out there forever. We wanted to see him fight Josie Aldo. We felt like that was out there forever.

Maybe Dominic Cruz doesn't want it. Maybe he's, maybe Dominic Cruz is thinking, no, I want to keep fighting up and coming guys so that I can stay relevant in the rankings. but I don't know how I feel about that. I'd love to see the cruise rematch. I want to take a comment here from Dark Cloud and see.

Just talking about the O'Malley fight. Sean was taken down over and over again. If damage is what matters and not control, then why is Aljo currently champ? First of all, I will say, like, when I do the robbery review, people will see how much I'm going to factor out a lot of those takedowns that Jan did.

They really did not matter. Aljo, the round that people always talks about, where he had, excuse me, Jan's back for like four minutes. He actually did, there was one moment where he had a huge burst of ground and pound, where he was really laying it on, on Jan. It was not prolonged. I will say it was not very long, which is why people say it should have been a 10-9, not a 10-8.

I kind of understand that. But it's also a round where, unlike all the rounds with O'Malley and Jan, like, Jan literally did nothing in that one round. I think it was the second round, sorry, second or third round of the rematch with Aljo. So why is Aljo currently champ? well, one, illegal knee in the first fight, second fight, he did actually do damage. It was not just control. It wasn't a lot of damage, but it was more damage than Yon did on the ground to O'Malley at U.C. 280,

except for like a nice burst at the end, kind of like some hammer fist at the end of the fight. But again, I'll look it over, but I think people need to start harping on the takedown thing so much. Like the takedowns in the O'Malley Yon fight really shouldn't factor in. Yeah, like I said, I'm going to go back and watch it again. I actually, I scored the first round for O'Malley just because I thought he did. Yeah, I just thought his shots were more impactful. And that's not a stunning revelation. Peter Yon loses like every single first round.

That was our concern. That was our concern going in about a three-round fight. We said, is he going to give up a round? And then all that has to happen is O'Malley has to win half of another, not even a full round. He has to win one round and then half another round. And that's how you end up possibly stealing a split decision. right this was the concern for a lot of yon betters and a lot of a lot of people being yon was this is not a five round fight he doesn't get to turn on the you know turn on the machine uh late in the second and then just and just truck his opponent for the next three rounds he actually had to like fight with some urgency and i thought yeah i mean and by the way yon fought amazing obviously good enough to win on all the media score cards a lot of fighter study won um but uh i i just don't think there's any problem with no mallee score uh i see sexib sexib uh going he's throwing with uh not trolling, but he's, he's, uh, spamming with the, what did we make of Habib and the callout?

We already addressed that. It was brilliant. It was brilliant. Yeah, so smart. Yeah, nothing but respect for the post-fight shenanigans of, uh, Makachab and the Margar Meadow and their team. It was perfect. They should do this all as much as possible.

So good. Benil, get someone who can help you with this stuff because it's, and by the way, Benile, I get it. Benile has greater concerns. He, he's, he's always kind of shouting out important causes and he's very politically oriented. That's fine. Um, but at some point. Benile, you got to go into business for yourself.

You got to go into business for yourself and get that. Because maybe you become world champion. You have a bigger platform to espouse your political and religious views and all that. So anyway, but that's a whole other thing. Yeah. And the case against that is that, oh, Benil's not a trash talker. You don't have to be a trash talker. Just say, hey, hey, Islam, great performance, buddy.

Great performance. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. You are the best lightweight in the world. And much like another man I respect, Habib Narmaga Madov, off, the guy who laid down the challenge to Alexander Volkadovsky. Habib is a man of his word. When he says something he means it, when he says he's not fighting again, I believe him. Are you a man of your word, Islam? Because you mentioned my name. You said

you would love to fight me. You said you would love to give me a title shot if I won. Habib's a man of his word. Are you a man of yours? I believe you are. So let's do it. Let's do it. You said my name. Let's do the fight. Like you just say that. You don't have to be like, Islam MFer. You took everything I worked for. That was my title shot. You don't need to say that. But he's got to get there. He's got to get there. But even that little bit you suggested, Mike, is too much for him. Yeah, he just, he won't, he won't do it. He won't do it. I know, he won't. Did Manon Fioro do enough to get a title shot? Yes. Moving on. She's fighting for the title. Okay. I just like, Valentina likes to stay busy. She likes to stay busy. And we can keep talking about the Nunes rematch.

It just doesn't, it just never feels like either of them is super, motivates do it. It doesn't feel like Dana White is super motivated to do it. It's really hard to get the memory of that second fight, I think, out of people's minds. So I would hope enough time is passed, and we can kind of safely assume it won't go the same way because that second fight is real bad. It's not like Asparza Namajun is bad, but I don't think people remember how bad it was. I think people are a little more outraged that they thought Shepchenko won, and that's kind of like when people look back at that fight, that's why they want to see it again. They're like, oh, we'll give Valentina one more shot. But I don't think people,

realize, like, what a bad style matchup they are just from an entertainment standpoint. They just are both, like, really, like, Nunez, Valentina of Tchonko, top shelf technical fighter, very patient. Nunez has a lot of respect for her, so she just won't, like, rush in and attack her as she would some other opponents. And that was kind of true of both of their fights. The first one, a little more ventful, but the second fight was horrible. So I don't know if we see that one, and I love Valentina just racking up title defenses.

Manon didn't, like, blow the doors off. with her win. Don't get me wrong. But listen, you take a decision from Caitlin Chuggan. That's actually super hard to do. She is the decision. Chuggan is the decision like master. So if you can win a decision, I don't care what the circumstances. And one that's pretty free of controversy. I'm not saying it was dominant, but like I think everyone agreed Meneufiro won that fight. Again, this is almost like what we said sort of the top of the show, not quite the level of Okunoski-Machachev, but you've been building Mano-Filro for this moment. She is ready.

She wants it. I think she wants it a little more than Alexa Grasso, which is probably smart on Grasso's part. I don't know how much more upside Manel has, if we're being honest. I think she's a pretty finished product despite only, you know, being 11 fights into her career. This is who she is. And I don't know if we need to see more before we throw her in there. Schiuchenko is going to be probably a minus 1,200 favorite, but that's fine. It's Chvchenko.

It's what she does. I don't mind people wanting to see Firore get some more. seasoning but if the champ wants to stay busy and the champ wants to keep collecting champ paychecks you got to just give her an opponent and mannol's the one there we go yes wasn't that an enthusiastic endorsement for a uh fero uh shepchenko title fight like she's got to fight somebody yeah ucc uccdbcdbcci she's got to fight somebody she does have to fight somebody and it's got to be mann fioro if she beats alexigraso because that's where i'm going let's just do it i mean at this point like what what's what's a few more months just I this wasn't a performance that that blew the

everybody away so if it in Alexa got the main event win I'm fine with them doing it if they give her the title shot cool but I just don't know what valentine is going to do I don't know what she's going to do but let's talk about a guy that everybody wants to talk about and if you told me this was going to be the case heading into this card I wouldn't say it would be like completely shocking but blah mohammed got over with everybody and i think a lot of people owe this band at apology because no one was picking him to beat john brady no one that i saw was picking ball mohammad to win we thought it was an intriguing matchup we thought bala had more pressure on like you can make a you could have made a strong case that balaamahad

had more pressure to win than anybody else in this card including the main event and the co-main event like he had it was all in it's all in for Balal from here on out until he gets a title shot. He's got to beat everybody that's in front of him. And Sean Brady was a tough test. Not only did he beat him, he finished him, and he did it in a way and in a location that he looked like a star doing it. So this is a huge moment for Blal Muhammad. I picked against him. I'm done doubting this man. My one concern with Bilal was never the fighting style. It was never his skill. It was the mic work. The mic work has been horrific from this guy. and he almost went down the road again.

I was about to yell and get so mad at Bilal Mohammed because he called out Leon Edwards. I'm like, what are you doing? What are you doing? You're not getting that fight right now. It's not happening. And then he was like, uh-oh,

beep, back up the truck. I got to do a U-turn. And then he went and did the Shemiath call out without saying the man's name. He could have done it better. But Belal's getting better. He realized, uh-oh,

I shouldn't have said that. backed it up, hit rewind, called out Shemayev, and if they can't get Colby to fight Hamzat, I think this is it. I think he's getting it no matter what. Like, all the chips are in the middle. And if Blah wins, this is the fight for him. If he wins, he's undeniable. It is a risky fight, obviously, but this is the path to a title shot.

If he wants to fight for the belt in the next few years, he's got to fight Hamza. He's got to beat him. I do like the Giliburn's idea as well, but I think if you have a choice here, if the UFC's like, here you want to fight Gilbert Burns and you want to fight Hamza Tchamayev, you jump on Hamzaa Chamaif,

1,000 percent. Are you here? Is this the one we're doing? Mike? One, two, three, four, Friends Forever. People are literally looking at me right now. Good, let them.

Let them. I bet they wish they had a Friends Forever moment. You're all jealous. I got the voice, I had the voice of an angel. They're so jealous of us. I have the voice at Casey Leiden. Yeah, listen, Shamiya's a great fight for Mohammed.

And it's a great fight for Shemaya. Shemayev has to do some reputation rebuilding right now. I mean, listen, we all, and he got to some weird brawl at 280. Like, people are just kind of looking at them as some can't make weight jackass right now. When six months ago, we're saying this dude's the welterweight champion. Like, oh, Ouzman's just holding the belt for him or whoever, you know, after Edwards won the belt, people were like, well, Usman's going to, I mean, I mean, if you thought Shemiah was going to truck Usman, he's going to, he's going to frigging wreck Leon Edwards. This guy was anointed. He was in the same position. Makachev was,

you know, at the beginning of the year, if you're Jedmishu, we're already calling him the number one lightweight in the world. A lot of people think Hamza's the best welterweight. He has to prove again he can make 170. I saw so many comments after he missed that he's never making it again, which I disagree with, but I mean, look, he missed really badly that you're going to get a reaction like that from people and saying like, I hope you missed by that much. Again, the miss is always worse because you know he kind of stopped cutting at some point. If he had chosen to completely destroy his body and end up in the hospital, probably could have gotten down to like, what, 173, 174, which is still horrible. So he has to prove that he can make 170 safely

again. And yes, he has to beat another tough opponent. He really, he really dropped the ball with not making wait for that Diaz fight, because that was a freebie. That was, I think he, I think we all agree he would have annihilated Diaz. And does he deserve a tell a shot? off that i don't know but they were going to give him one he was going to get leon edwards now now he has to fight a really tough guy and mohammed a guy who i think he'll go in big favorite minus 300 minus 400 that's fine um but like this is this is a fight shamiab needs as much as mohammed does and as you said mike if mohammed can can end the shemaiah hype train i mean we'll be talking about him as like as one of the most like unbelievable runs to a title shot that we've seen because he's just

kind of been consistent. He's been, he's starting to put on more exciting performances. I don't know. People agree because, you know, the way he controlled Lucan Thompson. For me, that was exciting to watch just because, like, I didn't think you could do that to those guys. So, yeah, I'm all in, Mohamed Shamiyev. I don't know where we need to make this happen, but you can do Las Vegas. You could do an international show. Let's do that fight. It's a great fight. Yeah, Blal's next fight needs to be a big one. So if it's not Shamaif, and I know go with Burns will hate to hear this, but I wouldn't mind him, them do them. I don't think Mazadol would take the fight, but it'd be a good little reward for Bala to fight Horya Mazdal,

because again, it's the name value of the win. I know he's on a losing streak. I know people have kind of turned on Mazadol. I understand that, but Mazadol is still a name. He's still a draw. People obviously care about what he has to say and his fights and all that stuff. So, yeah, I mean, Bala's a great spot right now. He's in a great spot, and we'll see how Sean Brady can bounce. Boarding for Flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time.

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Are we about to have a wild card Friends Forever Moment, possibly? Have we ever had one of those? I think I know where you're going. I think we might have. I saw people throwing this name out in social media. And immediately I was like, yeah, that's the way to go. It's a perfect. It's a veteran guy.

It's a great grappler. It's a ranked guy. I want to say he's in our rank. We're not going to have a Friends Forever moment. Oh, we're not going to have friends for him. Okay. Because I am ready to give Young Makayev a ranked opponent. He is, and brother, he himself is ranked in our rankings.

He is tied for 12th, I believe. He's tied for the number 12 spot. And the person I'm matching up with is our number 15. Well, Mr. Tim Elliott. Great grappler. Yeah, it's been a title. He's fought for the title. He's just always a tough out.

I do think we didn't see the best of Makayev at U.S.280. And I also thought Malcolm Gordon was a really game opponent. So shoutouts to my fellow Canadian Malcolm Gordon. But Makaiev, he pulled out a win. He got the finish in the end. So still a good night. He's 22 years old. I keep telling people, you're going to see these things with guys like him and Aaron Blanchfield and Tatsuo Taira and whoever, any of these under 25 people.

You're going to see inconsistent nights. You're going to see off nights. What were you doing when you were 22? You probably weren't, not you, Mike, but the listeners, the viewers. You probably weren't Mr. and Mrs. super reliable. You probably had weird days where you just weren't at your best. You didn't perform. Now imagine doing that except you're a cage fighter.

and there's all these like a million other variables that affect your profession, you're not going to have your best nights. And guess what? He still, I would say, won every round and finish the fight. So not too bad. But I think he's ready for a step up. I think he could beat Tim Elliott. And if he doesn't, I wouldn't be disappointed.

It's okay. This young man's got to take a loss someday. Maybe it's better he takes it now before he's on his true charge towards a title shot. I like it. I mean, it depends on how you look at this, whether or not we're taking a little bit of a step high. or right around the same? I don't know. It depends on how you look at it.

I also picked Mohamu Hayef, and I went, there are a couple of dream matchups at this division that we've had to break up, unfortunately, due to time. Okay? So Tyson Nam has a new opponent in my eyes. Do Tyson NAM versus Tatsuro, Tyra. Yes.

I'm cool with that. Brennan Royval is about to fight Albaazi, and I think Royval is, I don't want to do Royval. versus Mekhyap. I don't want to do that. I think we need to see a little bit more. This is going to be a tough test for him. And his name is Monell Cap. That's the one. Like, I'm ready to see it. Just do it. Let's just do it. Put these two dudes together. And let's just see what happens. Because we got to get Monell in the cage, man. We got to get this dude of the cage. We have to. We have to.

And I want to see it. I want to see what happens when these two fight each other. And I think Mikeyaf can beat him. Like I think Macaev could beat him. But Manel is just a super powerful dude and it just takes one with this guy. But I would favor McCoyev to win that fight. But I just want to see what would happen at those two guys fought.

And I'm ready to see it right now. Maca McMeuf number 11 in our rankings. So one spot ahead of Makia functionally. I wonder after when the new rankings come out this week, people look out for those. I wonder if Makaya will leap over him with the win? I'm not sure. I'm not sure how much that performance affected it. I think I did move

Makayev up. I might not have had Makaiev ranked. I'm not sure. Again, I've been very slow rolling with my Makaiv hype, but in some ways, I was impressed by Saturday performance. In some ways, again, felt he has a long way to go. I like it. I like it. That might be one of the most rison-y, non-heavyweight, risony matchups that you can make in the UFC because that's exactly, like if this was in Risen, they would have no hesitation throwing Makayev into the cage or into the ring, excuse me, with Minel Kopp. That's the kind of just kind of stuff they do. kind of just how Japanese MMA works. It's like if they think a fight is intriguing. They don't care if you're ready for it or not. It's like just get in there. And also if you lose,

it's, you know, the culture is a little different over there. They're like, okay, you lost. We're just going to book you again on our next show and you'll get right back on the horse. So yeah, I love it. I love it. Mike, it's a big risk, big risk for both guys. Again, Manel Kopp could hand Mokkaio's first loss. Mokkao could make Kopp look really bad, maybe worse than anyone we've seen. Just his wrestling is so friggin dominant. So good. His grappling is so strong. such an explosive young athlete, but Capp's explosive as well.

So, yeah, I love it. Man, flyweight, again, we keep saying it, flyweight, not the deepest division, but so many good matchups, so many good potential matchups. I love it. Yeah. Yeah, the guy's a problem.

I love Jed's take, and I completely agree with him that Kive just needs to go in there and get mad at somebody. Just get mad. He's always smiling. He's always smiling. I'm a young guy.

I'm having a good time. That's great. That's great, but you're ready to punch in the face, bro. Yeah, and don't ask Dana for 50 G's when you're on minus 11. He hit all the, he did the 50 G's and then he did, he did two like cliches. He had a lot of cliches. Again, he's a young guy who pretty much when he does interviews is just kind of, you can

tell he's doing the playbook of other people he's heard talking. And this isn't just M.A. This is every sport, every sport, watch young guys who come up in the, like the rookies and young players. Like they just kind of repeat the talking points of guys before them. You know, they've had the kind of media training. And May fighters don't have that training. Their media training is YouTube, Kabib, Kahn of McGregor, depending.

who you want to emulate. Maybe George St. Pierre, if you're a Canadian guy, I don't know. But yeah, he's not, he's still, he's still figuring out who he is. Again, 22 years old. Turn 22 in July. He's not even close to 23 yet. All right. So I probably, I probably like seven minutes.

Okay. Before I have to wrap all this up. So we're going to open the floor. We're open on the floor. Let me tell people in the comments. Send. All right. So we got matchmaking thoughts, something fun, something serious out of the box.

from this card. Let's get after it. Let's get after it. So put them in the chat. We'll pull them up on the screen. We'll discuss. Unless I won't read the usual disclaimer because we'll have time. I'll just add on. Let's not, you know, guys, you know, listen, anyone who has any wild ideas about Habib coming back. He's not coming back. I don't know why anyone would suggest that. It's just stupid, Mike. It's just stupid that anyone would say that like, oh, Charles Oliva is going to beat Islam and obviously which didn't even happen. And that's going to motivate him. There's no scenario where Habib comes back now. And for anyone like ahead of the, the fight to even suggest it ridiculous and embarrassing i can't i don't know i'm not naming names i don't

know who would suggest such a thing but just absurd hilarious okay uh there's i mean there's match ring and there's other questions as well so let's who has the best chance to feed is on mackachachep right now i okay oh god uh nobody um uh uh kamar usma i don't know someone at welterweight i just i don't think there's anyone at one 55 who like i think let let's let's let's let's Let me get back to him on that one. I'm just looking at my top of dean. I don't like anyone's chances to beat this guy right now at 155. I think Volcanovsky.

I don't think Volcanovsky beats Islam, but I do think stylistically it's on paper. Like I said, and I picked Oliver to win, but it was more of a vibes thing. It was more of, and I just need to see this guy lose. And then once I see it, then I know it's like actually realistic

that it can happen because Olivera has defied logic with the streak he was on he's and Machachev's just been near perfect throughout all of this so everything on paper told told me Machachev was going to win this fight I still believe Machachev beats Volk but I think stylistically I think it's a more competitive fight on paper than the Olivera fight if that makes sense yeah but I love I love the fight I would pick Islam but yeah, I'm into it. Like, I think it's a, I think it's more competitive on paper, for sure. I'll say maybe a Hamzat, if Islam goes up to a 170, there you go.

If Hamzat can still make 170 and Islam decides to go up there, yeah, maybe I'll go. I'll pick Shamaa. I mean, we don't, we'll counterfeit again, probably. I mean, do you want to respond to this? Because we talked about it, we were reacting to it live on our. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if I missed A Ha Ha ha to watch closely.

Were they that blatant? I wasn't, I don't know. I don't know if it was that many times. I know, so the question was thoughts on O'Malley for the podcast listeners. Thoughts on O'Malley grabbing the cage six plus times. And maybe it was that many times. It was a few for sure that that we saw. And I reacted at the time.

You know, you know what I said, AK. Yeah, good. Do it. Do it. Keep grabbing it. Was he even warned? Was I don't remember. I don't, maybe that's why I missed it.

I don't recall a warning or a slapping of the hand. There was like 11 warnings. And yeah, a moving of the hand. But no penalty, no stopping of the action, no repercussions at all. So, yeah, if thoughts on grabbing the cage six plus times, grab it 12 plus times because they ain't going to call it and they ain't going to stop you. Yeah, listen, if you're not cheating, you're not trying. You know that.

You're a Patriots fan, Mike. So, yeah, we support it for sure. We encourage. Okay. It's going to be one of those days. You're a prick. I mean, some, some Iron Petrosian love. versus Puna?

Yeah, I like that. I saw a lot of listen suggestions with like throwing him in there with like brawlers. Because yeah, I want to see people, someone bring out sort of the beast. Armin is if he wants to, he can pick you apart for three rounds. No problem. That's what this guy does.

He's very technical. I need to see someone kind of, because I saw another one, Blendado Silva. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, someone's just going to get in his face and make him fight. Maybe draw a knockout out of him.

I don't know. So I like that. Sean Brady versus Vicente Lucke. I like that fight. It's going to happen. It's going to. I don't know if it happens next. I feel like those two are definitely going to share the cage at some point.

Very nice. Very good pick. What about O'Malley versus Sududu? First of all, Sudu was a sick burn. Aljo, well done. I don't know.

I can't remember. Was Cheeto cheddar cheddar? I don't know what do you say about Cheeto? Dorito. That was terrible. Saddu is kind of funny. Sudu-do is just that right level. I think,

I feel like Esther Lynn would find that hilarious. She loves that kind of stuff. Very scatological. What was that? Mike, what was that who what was even the pick? Oh, Amali versus Sehudo. We kind of talked about this.

Yeah, listen, that's a great fight pursuit. If he beats O'Malley, then we can talk about all this other stuff. Just come back and beat someone besides asking for a title fight. O'Malley would be fine. Dillashaw versus Gar-Brand 3. I don't really have any interest in Zingland. I would rather see, because I pulled this up earlier. Uh-huh.

I would not, and I mentioned this should have been the fight for his return from the USADA suspension anyways. Yeah. What about Dillishaw, your eye favor? I'm okay with that too. Yeah, of course. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. Again, guys who could wrestle and maybe mess up that shoulder even more, but that's fine.

At least you can sell it. It's sellable, the name value, the history. I like it. I saw some people like Marab versus Dilleshaw, and I'm like, what the f is wrong with you? Why would you, did you not just see what the hell happened when Aljo got his hands on him? Marab might rip that arm off. What are we doing? What is what is what is what is going on here?

Let's see. Aljo, Chito, Jan Marab. versus Sanhagen, T.J. Cruz, too, Blal Burns, Krylov versus Lionheart. That's going to happen, yeah. I like that one. Wow. I mean, Kyle versus Brendan Allen.

We're already pushing him to the middleweightiest middleweight title fight. My goodness. I mean, listen, that is a, that is the most coveted spot in this division outside of the title is the number 16 spot. I see, I think somewhat jokingly, spiritual Ed asking was Charles Rattle on the way to the Octagon. Some fans seem to grab him and say something to him. He looks spooked. I don't know. I didn't notice that.

And I don't think he was rattled. No, Islam just beat. Islam just beat his ass. Let's just be honest here. Isln't just beat his ass. I think Charles was rattled the second Mokachev hit him. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, that's what rattled him.

Macachov punched him in the face. He was like, whoa. Okay. He was like, this dude's better than I thought. That'll throw you off real quick. Like, I want to read one thing about, I know I said no Habib talk, but I, someone has my back on my stupid theory that I had before the fight. And a first-time contributor, so I'll shout him.

Alex Gwyn on Instagram said, book Abu Bakar versus Hamza They had a scuffle They should settle it This is to plant the seed And lower Islam up to 170 By the time this happens Hamza will have the 170 strap

After Hamzat obliterates Islam And teabags his unconscious body He will fight Habib at 185 Habib will be a stepping stone On his 185 pound title run I don't know if any of that made sense Mike But that's just kind of where Those of us who

Are the Habibana People who think Habib's going to come back That's where we all are mentally right now. We're in shambles. We are in shambles. We're not in a good place. Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there. I heard the the teabag thing and I was like, oh, Patty Pimble's fighting Jared Gordon. So there you go. I saw that. Put that to rest. Yair Yair versus Emmett for the number one spot. I think, like I said, because I'm in favor of Volcanowski just getting a featherweight title fight, I think next week, I think the cater,

Arnold Allen winner could get it. I think Yajir, who's had a habit of kind of like not fighting and getting big fights could just fall into it after the Ortega non-fight. So there's a lot of options for Volcanovsky's title defense. But certainly Emmett is in there, of course, he won that controversial fight with Kater. So all of this is reminding me, just let Volcanowski defend his title in Australia. We don't need to see the Makachev fight there because I think he'll lose. Do you think Blal will have to fight Shafkat if he beat Jeff Neal? No.

I, I, no. No. No. Heading into the card, if you told me that. Bilal was going to beat Sean Brady, I would have said yes to this question. But the way that Bilal did it, the reaction that it got, the reaction from the fans afterwards, no, he's not going to fight. That was awesome.

And great stoppage, by the way, great stoppage by who was the referee in that fight? Let me just look at. I want to shoutouts to Lucas Blasaki. That was a great stoppage. I know people kind of hate standing stoppages sometimes. Brady literally was not throwing back any. He wasn't, his hands weren't up. He wasn't throwing back punches.

I get it. He's a super tough young guy. He can take the shots. He shouldn't. And people are saying there was like whatever 30 seconds left in the round. It is not the referee's job to consider, oh, can this guy make it to the bell? They have to assess it literally as just like, okay, is this guy getting effed up? And is he not defending himself?

I don't care if there's two minutes left in the clock or 30 seconds left in the clock. Is this guy in danger? Sean Brady, I think he saved Sean Brady some brain damage there. So Lucas Buzaki, very good stoppage. Amarats are going to down to sign me the hell up. It ain't going to happen. It'll happen someday. It'll happen someday.

I would watch crap out of that again. I've watched the first fight 30 times. It's so good. People send in those. Keep sending them in, people. Keep sending them in. What else we got? What else we got?

We got a couple minutes. What we don't have is time. So I'm trying to pull up a few more. Yeah, we got like maybe another minute. I'll see if there's any, as you're reading. I'll see if there's. But a lot of people agree. Brady was dear in the headlights.

Brady got saved, good stoppage. I agree. Brady was not. Mike, How do you feel about, how do you feel about this is from, who is this from? I should say who's Matt? No, who's this from? I had this great pick and I just totally lost it.

I was multiple people. Boraljo versus Mirchert, put him in there with another grappler. What do you think of that? I'm down for that. That's fine. That's fine. I like it. I like it.

I mean, these are the kinds of fights that Mearsharic gets and loves and is probably, is like a plus 450 underdog and then wins and gets a submission. I don't know what we have with Kyle yet. I really don't. I still don't know what he is. He's good. He's very good. He's an effective grappler.

I don't know if he's like a top 15 guy. I don't know. I think they believe in him. I think the UFC believes in him. I think they're booking him really well. I think whatever he is, they've done a great job with positioning him. I just myself have no strong gauge for what his future is. All right.

I'll take one more. All right. What's next from Marab after Aljo successfully? Yeah. That's a great question. What's next? Okay, not T.J. Dilleshaw. I'll say that much.

Again, anyone who sent that in, who DM me that you're a sick person, what's wrong with you? I'd like to see him maybe get a rematch with that six four four kickboxer lady who was throwing him around earlier this week. That was a bad look for him. He was getting flipped head over heels.

Katerina, what was, did you see, you saw that, right one? Yeah. Sorry, I should say her name. I forget the name. I will say, Katerina Kaba Lava.

That was a hilarious. I thought that was lovely. Maybe he wants to get that one back because I would consider that a 10-8 for a catarina. What's next? Oh, say I'm course anything. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I think that's the way to go, right? Yep, I like that fight.

All right, listen. I know this isn't the typical on 10-10-off. I wish we had more time. I wish we had more time. Me too, me too, but I got to get ready to roll. I got to check out and pack and all that stuff. I'm actually going to meet GC and some of the MM-hour production. dudes watch a little football in a little while before I have to go to the airport.

So, so thank you, AK. Thank you for everybody who joined here. And thank you for anyone who hopped into the watch party yesterday because that was just ridiculous and it was chaotic. And I was mad at Raphael Fazeve for a little while because he no showed us. And I was not, it was tough. But listen, things happened. And then we got another special guest and then he bailed on us.

So, but luckily, the great anime, fighting staff stepped in short notice made it happen new york rick she he had to stick around for a lot longer than he anticipated uh shout out to drake riggs a k we'll have to get you in for the next one for some positivity and uh just it was just so cool to to be in that studio and you know just being in the maryr studio now it didn't look the same the desk was out of there by the way ariel if you're watching this right now i looked at it yesterday it's all fixed all fixed up buddy so when you walking for the M.A. hour, you are just ready to go. Nothing needs to be moved. Nothing needs to be touch. You're all set, my man. You're all set, my man. So thank you for the lone

studio to us. But we are done. A.K., you're the man. We'll be back. You're the man. We get a card next week. We got a card next week. And thank you everyone watching. Thank you everyone watching and who listens to this on the podcast network later. Yes, normal show next week. Podcast audio. You want to run it down real quick, Marker machine style? Yes, hold on. Let me pull it up. Let's pull up this card. Cater versus Allen. The main event, that main event rules. Right now it's 11 fights, which is perfect, which is perfect. And normal day MMA, 4 p.m. prelims.

So I'm cool with that, right? Or is it earlier than that? Let me see the ESPN schedule right now. Go ahead, can you just run it down? I'll go. So main event, this is Vegas 63. Calvin Cater versus Arnold Allen, fantastic main event. This fight should not be in the apex.

I'm sorry. Tim Means versus Max Griffin, good fight. Dustin Jacoby-Coliel Roundtree. Great fight. Waldo Cortez-Akosta versus Jared Vandera. It's a fight. That shouldn't be in the apex. That shouldn't be in the UFC.

Trashogh Gorgh, Josh Fram. That should be pretty chaotic and crazy. Andre Arlowski, fighting against Jura de Lima. Chase Hooper's back. They better move our Lovsky. I know this is not the finalized lineup. They better move Arlowski

Pazzo onto the main card over Vandera and Cortez-A Costa. What's going on? What do we do? Yeah. But if we had to take a, if we had to take wagers on which fight's going to be more exciting, it's probably not the Arlofsky fight. Can we respect the heavyweight goat here? Jesus. Chase Hooper's back against Steve Garcia, Joseph Holmes versus John Young Park, Roman Delizze, Phil Haas, good fight. We could see Garrett Armfield fight at Bantamweight this time around against Christian Rodriguez, Cody Darden versus Clitz of Rodriguez. So not too bad. We lost a couple of fights. We lost Dr. We lost Drak Close. versus Mark Batson. Mark Batson is going to fight,

but not on this card. He's fighting Grant Dawson, November 5th. So that's happening November 5th. We also lost Ilya Teporia. Ilya versus it's a Barbosa. That's a bummer. That's a bummer. And there's like all these different reports of like what's happening with this featherweight division.

And none of them are like done. So it's very strange. It's very weird. I don't know what's happening. I'm calling it. I think the winner of the. this main event, if they win in impressive fashion, and say the right thing, they get Volkanowski in Perth. I'm just saying, I'm calling it, I'm calling it. I've had some pretty bad predictions

lately, and you guys can add this one to the pile. All right. Well, that's the end of the show. Back next week, we'll recap Vegas 63 from a matchmaking perspective. But until that, everybody, always remember, don't take this stuff too seriously. I'm made supposed to be fun, and we'll have more fun right here. On to the next one, the podcast. Goodbye, everybody. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.