MMA Fighting - On To the Next One | Matches To Make After UFC 292

Episode Date: August 20, 2023

Sean O’Malley flipped the UFC bantamweight division upside down following his incredible knockout win over Aljamain Sterling to capture UFC gold. After the stunning finish, where does O’Malley go from here, and where does Sterling go after losing his championship? On an all-new edition of On To the Next One, MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee attempt to answer those questions from a matchmaking perspective following the UFC’s return to Boston. Additionally, future matchups are discussed for Zhang Weili and Amanda Lemos following Weili’s record-setting decision victory to retain the strawweight title, Ian Machado Garry after his one-sided victory over Neil Magny in the featured bout, along with fellow main card winners Mario Bautista, Marlon Vera, 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

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian

in this follow-up to the audible original blockbuster, the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, ghosts in the machine, available now, only from Audible.

The Vox Media Podcast Network. Hello there, everybody. We are live for a very special and brand new edition of On to the next one, everybody. We are live on the M.A. Fighting YouTube channel. You can hear the show. shortly thereafter on the MMA fighting podcasting network as we are coming off of a pretty crazy ending

to UFC 292. We have a brand new UFC Bannamway champion. We're welcoming you to the program, but we're also welcoming you still to the Sugar Show. It is officially the Sugar Show and at the top of the Bandemway Division of Foshana Malley, shockingly, knocks out Al Jermaine Sterling in round two. It'll be one of the all-time moments

that we look back on. Crazy finish. crazy ending to a card. Let's be honest. Super fun prelims. Main card wasn't bad, but it was kind of dragging a little bit. And in this moment,

just kind of put it over the top. What a crazy ending to UFC 292. But I am Mike Heck and joining me as always, as you can see, the co-host, the co-matchmaker, the best friend, the man who is fully invested in the tough 31 finale fights.

So maybe we can consider this in a way the final episode of Tough Hang. Maybe there'll be some matchmaking. Maybe you'll do two wild cards. this week, AK. How are you? Are you looking at my Google Docs or something? What's going on? We can't give that away. Not that I would do. I would never just waste a wild card until to a fighter competitors. I'm doing great. Shoutouts to, of course, my boys, Celtic. You know, Boston, appropriate

enough, celebrating the only real Celtic team that matters. Celtic FC currently taking the pitch right now against Kilmarnock as they advanced towards another League Cup championship. But that's not important right now, right? U.S. 292. I thought that was a, I thought that was a perfectly booked card. Not to make it sound like too, you know, pro wrestling-y, but if you were the UFC, I don't know if you could have asked for, on paper they did a great job of the matchup.

So they set themselves up to succeed. And almost everything played out in perfect, maybe everything. I'm trying to think what could have gone better. Maybe a Chris Wyden win. But even the way that, played out was kind of like it kind of was for the better maybe so i i will i might get a chance to talk about chris i'll say when i say well booked i mean like the gave wideman

a beatable opponent he went the distance there was some uncomfortable moments in there but uh he loses if he this is the last time he fights at least he can say he got back in the cage one more time doesn't sound like he wants to walk away uh but that was a nice moment then we got finishes we got really inspiring i thought open fighter winners the main event obviously I don't know, I don't want to, you know, however you want to phrase the UFC, you know, their, their treatment of Sean O'Malley, whether you want to call it favorable or just, you know, that they, they like the kid. They could not, they are clearly, clearly super happy that they have this guy as champion. And why shouldn't they be? He appeals to a young demographic that every company out there is trying to grab.

and he did in a spectacular fashion, created a super memeable moments, a viral moment. This was, again, if this was a pro wrestling show, this is how I would have booked. This is how I would have booked the fights.

This is how I would have booked the winners. It was, it was great theater. It was. It was. And this, Sean O'Malley is a tier one star now. It's official.

He's a tier one star. We talk about like where, you know, the Charles Olivares, the Max Holloways, those types of guys are. They're, they're very,

strong tier two's, which is a very good place to be in today's UFC, but there are very few tier one stars. And Sean O'Malley is officially a tier one star after that win last night. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if we could put up now. He's going to take time to build up to become like I'm a Greg, like a crossover star, like I'm a Gregor, Ronda Rousey, Brock Lesnar. He's not there yet.

That's like tier. That's like S tier, if you want to go like the extra, extra level S tier. But he is in that I think John Jones, I was a tier one pretty convincing draw. Is he? Yeah, is he now, exactly, is he now? We'll see if he can get sort of the pay-per-view popularity of like a GSP or like Andrew Silva. And obviously, I'm not comparing their resumes.

But as far as mainstream recognition, there's a lot of people who are going to know who this guy is if they don't already very soon. He's going to be all over the place. I just know friends of mine who don't even watch MMA who just follow sports in general are going to see clips of that knockout, going to see clips of this guy. And be like, oh, this guy looks interesting. I want to know more about Sean O'Malley. So he's just it just reeks of marketability in this modern landscape.

And we really can't say enough how crazy it is that he lived up to the hype from that started what six, seven years ago, right? Snoop Dogg, Omalley, Omali, O'Malley, oh, Malley. And then O'Malley going to smoke up with him after and already people were like, wow, I got to keep an eye on this kid. The knockout was incredible. That earned him the DFC contract. There's been ups and down since, but whether he won, whether he lost, with who liked him, we were talking about all these results. We were talking about the highlight real knockouts.

We're talking about the iPod controversy with Pedro Munoz. We're talking about the loss to Marlon Barra. People still want to see that rematch. So everything has played out as you would want to play out for a controversial slash popular star, whatever word people want to use to describe him. He's just out there. How crazy is it that the UFC? They put the finish of the fight on YouTube.

You saw that? I did. It was, they're trying to, you got to capitalize on this. You got to capitalize this. And I was saying, I was saying it all weekend. I said it on the preview show, especially being out in Boston, which is super cool to be there during fight week and be back home and all that. Everything on paper screamed that Al Jermaine Sterling stylistically was going to run over Sean O'Malley. Everything about it just screamed that way.

But there was a, there was a absolute vibe in the air in Boston that it doesn't matter what things look like on paper. on this night, in this fight, in that building, on that date, Sean O'Malley's going to do something crazy and win the title. And the vibes were immaculate. And the vibes overtook any sort of stylistic breakdown on this fight altogether. It was incredible. Vives are tough to beat. It's hard to go.

And we've seen people fall flat. We've seen people soar. In this case, this kid soared. I mentioned you two. I just want to say eight hours, those were posted eight hours ago, 2.4 million views already. Smart. Maybe they're costing themselves.

a couple of pay-per-view replay buys, I don't think in the long run, it's going to matter compared to this exposure. Because one, I think it probably did a decent buy already. So whatever they get after is maybe a few extra thousand buys, right? Compared to the publicity, and this clip circling, I bet by the end of Sunday,

we're talking probably three and a half million views, maybe four, by the end of the weekend, four million views on a YouTube video for, you know. And again, they want people talking about it. People are talking about it. We're talking about it.

And I'm very curious to see what you want. next for him actually. It's, look, we're going to get right into the matchmaking. If you guys have thoughts on the particular fights we're talking about, please put your ideas in the chat. We'll pull them up on the screen. And then at the very end, we're going to make our wild card picks for somebody that we didn't matchmaking for

already. And then we'll go through like 10 or 15 minutes of just, we're just going to throw your suggestions on the screen. We'll discuss until you're going to get out of here. We'll go to about 11 a.m. We'll go for about 52 minutes before I have to check out of this hotel. And that's that. So let's get into it.

Here's the thing about Sean O'Malley being the champion, AK. Meritocracy is now out the window. When you become a star, you get to call your shots. And the UFC is in the business of making the biggest fights possible here. So while meritocracy is not going to really be involved here, as I said, if you listen to a heck of morning, literally from the second that this fight was announced, I put this all out there. So I'm just going to say it. If Al Jermaine Sterling won, he was going to vacate the title, we're going to get Marab versus a Suhudo or somebody like that. It still would have been an

interesting storyline to see who was going to get put into that vacant title fight. But if shot O'Malley won the belt and this guy did what he needed to do on Saturday, they were one million percent going to book this fight. And guess what? The vibes are immaculate. It played out this way. We're going to get the highly anticipated rematch. This will be the biggest drawing fight in the history of the UFC Bannonweight Division, it is going to be for Sean O'Malley's first title defense, Sean O'Malley versus Marlon Chee O'Bara. That is the fight. That has always been the fight. And that was the hope for the UFC when they put this card together, because even when Henry Sehudo was injured and out of this fight, it was imperative that Marlon Vera fought on this

card. It was imperative that Marlon Vera had a media day. It was asked about Sean O'Malley. And it was imperative that both these guys stood near each other, sat near each other at a press conference and had a back and forth. Everything played out perfectly. It's going to be shot O'Malley versus Cheeto Vera. Whether Cheevera, quote unquote, deserves it or not, this is the fight they're going to make. It's the right fight. It's the right fight. It makes a lot of sense. I just said everything couldn't have played out better. I wish O'Malley had, sorry guys, campaigned for it a little stronger after it, but he did mention it. He did mention it right after the fight, post-fight interview. He was asked about it at the post-fight press conference he mentioned it.

He didn't say he didn't want the fight. He just said he kind of did the sort of cool guy's shoulder shrug, but did say it made sense to have that story. You have to think he wants to get that one back, even though he's long maintained. He always calls that fight a win or he calls that far or just says that fight was like it didn't happen. He just ignores it. It doesn't even count in his record.

It is a legitimate loss. I would think he wants to get it back. The history is there. It makes sense. Can I also say, and I preface this by, I think, people might know should know i'm not like a huge fan of o'mali personally just some of the stuff and decisions he makes but he could not have handled the promotion of this fight and the aftermath better like all along we kept saying it's important that he said how how good al jo is he never

shied away from that he always said two things i'm going to knock him out one and two i'll jo's the greatest band to wait of all time and he said it after he said it out in the post-fight press conference he said i i feel really good about this win because i beat the greatest and that's what a fighter should do. You don't go around saying this guy's crap and then actually was going saying like, I told you guys he was crap, I beat him, because then you did nothing.

Then you did nothing. So, Al-Malley, super smart in that regard. And yes, to keep Cheetos name out there, even if he himself, I think, I don't know if he's 100% sold on it. He talked more about Jervante Davis boxing match than he did Cheeto, which is whatever. But O'Malley has handled it really well.

His promotion game is on point. You're right, Mike. it should be Cheeto, but I have a weird feeling. And this, I have weird feeling they might run it back with Aljo if, and this is, Aljo has to get on this now, though. Aljo has to get on this within the next like two days. He has to say, I want to run it back. I want another shot.

He can't waffle between like, oh, maybe I'll still go up to 1.45 now. Maybe I'll stick around at 135, but someone, I don't know why he would do that if he sticks around at 135. It has to be for the rematch. He cannot waffle. He has to stay something the next couple of days because by Tuesday's matchmaking meeting, They will have moved on from Al Jemaine Sterling if he says nothing. They might still move on even if he does say something.

We know their history with him. They're not in the, let's give Al Jemaine Sterling what he wants business. I understand that. But if I'm Aljo, the way he went out, I feel like he could have fought better, you know. And hey, maybe Sean O'Malley could have too. I'm not taking anything away from Sean O'Malley. Sean O'Malley won. He looked great.

He proved everyone wrong again. I picked Sterling. Very wrong. Didn't get the fight to the ground. Lost his fight. That's how Sean NMally won. That's legit. So, but if I'm stern, I'd like, and I, Mike, part of me is curious of how a rematch would go.

Maybe it goes exactly the same way, but I'm a little curious. Do you have any interest in seeing the runback? Let me just say this, okay, because you are my best friend and I love you so much. But we talked about this in the Post-Vite show. Maybe I was a little groggy, a little tired, and I'm still kind of feeling that way right now. So I'm not backing off with this whatsoever. Al Jermain Sterling can drive a funk master. or bus to Sean O'Malley's house and just play air horns over and over again, have a bullhorn

and say a lot of stuff about Sean O'Malley. And the UFC camera people can be there to film it all. Sean O'Malley is never, ever, ever fighting Al Jemale again. That fight is never, ever going to happen. There is zero interest in that fight from Sean O'Malley. Sean O'Malley is going to treat this like Connor McGregor treated Jose Al-Doh, no matter what. Sean O'Malley is not fighting Al Jolmaine Sterling. The only chance that this fight ever happens again is if for some reason Al Jemaine Sterling goes to 45,

puts on a run, wins the title, and Sean wins like three or four title defenses, and Sean becomes interested in going up to 45 and winning a second belt. Other than that, Sean will never fight Al Jemaine Sterling again. It's done. It's over and finished. So would, would I be interested in seeing it again? Yes. from a

fan perspective, I am fascinated to see how fighters can bounce back from a really tough loss and that was going to be a really tough loss that is going to stay with Aljaband Sterling for the rest of his career. He is going to be known as the guy

that Sean O'Malley killed to lose his Banimay title. So I would like to see it. It's never going to happen though. It's just not. It would be super harsh too if Aljo stuck around. Let's say he did get the immediate rematch

because then they're doing that in O'Malley. They're probably finding a way to make Cheeto and O'Malley too have and still, O'Malley beats Aljo again. So then Aljo's buddy Marab is like waiting another year to maybe get a shot of the title. So it's pretty cold-blooded if he didn't get out of the way. But I don't know, a weird part of him just thinks that if Aljo acts, shows some interest in getting this rematch that they'll book it because they love immediate

rematches and they've given immediate rematches for less. But O'Malley does have a lot of options, right? He's in another tier of matchmaking choices right now. so it's probably won't happen. Yeah, the fight, it's just not going to happen. Aljo talked about the press conference. Shotomalley was asked about at the press conference, and he just goes, next question.

He just completely no-sold. He's not going to be able to do it better. He just won't be able to, so that's it. And the reason is, let's go to Al Jemate and Sterling, A.K., I'll have you go first. Does Aljo move to 45 now? Is that move going to happen? or do you think he does have a conversation with his buddy Marab and says,

look, Marab, now that Sean Amali is the champion, he's going to do everything in his power to not fight you because he's a prize fighter at this point. It's a big star. What's going to happen here? What's next for Al Javier and Sterling? Again, I'm sticking with what I said. I'm killing two versus one stone here with my Amali pick because I, and we don't need to dig further than this.

I just have a weird feeling that against Sterling can make this happen. Does the UFC want is their first choice? probably not again there seems to be a ton of money in the cheetah vera rematch uh everyone wants it but it's because everyone wants so badly and it makes so much sense is why i'm bearing away from it mike because the ufc has a tendency to drop the ball in these kinds of situations and booking an immediate rematch in a fight that you're right o'malley couldn't possibly top uh is exactly the kind of tweet that i expect to see tweet announced that i expect to see a couple of months down the road and people just reacting with raised eyebrows and uh and sighs and like uh i have

Let's do this one more time. It depends how much, I guess it depends how much this paper you did as well. Yeah. I didn't know if you had like another idea. But so the Al Jermaine Sterling Bannon, at least to my eyes, and this is kind of how I see it. Al Jal Jain and wait. That's it. As long as Sean Ovali is the champion, he's never going to fight for the belt again.

He's just going to have to go through a murder's row. He's going to have to fight. He's going to fight the Umar's of the world. Like this is his, this is what is going to happen if he sticks around at 35. So just go to 45. Henry Sehudo should go to 45. He should have gone to 45 immediately after losing to Al Jermaine Sterling because he wants the Volk fight and he could keep fighting at Bannamoy all he wants.

And even if he wins the Bannamoy title, I still feel like that Volkadovsky idea is just gone. It's just not going to happen. I don't think it's completely dead for Al Jermaine Sterling, but he's going to have to do something special to get that man's attention. So here's what I propose, A.K. He's going to take some time off. and there's a guy that is headlining next Saturday in Singapore. It's Al Jemaine Sterling versus Max Holloway. That's going to be his debut fight at 145.

We're going to give Aljo a shot. If you can go out there and beat Max Holloway, he makes at least somewhat of a case to fight Alexander Volkanowski because we think Volcanowski is going to go ahead and fight Ili Teporia anyways. And worst case, if Volk wins and Islam beats Charles Olivera, maybe Volk just says, all right, I'm ready. Let's go rematch Islam for the lightweight. title, Aljo can sneak himself into perhaps a interim featherweight title fight.

So if I'm Al Jemaine Sterling, I don't go all in on, I mean, obviously you take a shot at O'Malley and try to get that big money fight because that's a huge fight. But if you can't get it, if you're going to move to 45, go after the guy. You got a beat to even get into the conversation of fighting for the belt. Go fight Max Holloway. That's it. So that's the fight for me. Win or lose next Saturday against zombie.

That's the fight. That's a good matchup. I don't like Al Jermaine's chances in that matchup, but it is a very, it's a high risk, but it's very high reward. If he wins that, I don't see how you can deny him a shot.

It's a huge. Yeah, it's a very high risk. It's a super high reward. There is no other fight for him at 145 that is going to give him the reward of beating a Max Holloway. If he loses,

you know, we kind of have to take a look in the mirror and see what we're going to do here. What kind of fighter we're going to be? Are we just going to be a fight night main event guy? Or we're going to be the guy, the guy who stops contenders, from getting to Volcanovsky, is he going to be sort of like the guy that gets in the way to get to Max Holloway?

Or is he a guy that perhaps could get to a featherweight title shot? Him fighting Mobzar of Lov or Bryce Mitchell or anybody like that, it does zero for him. It's a nice win, but he's still going to have to win. He's still going to have to beat a guy like Holloway to get there. So he ain't a spring chicken. He's still pretty good. Let's take the shot and see what happens at this. It's great match.

Two I think two, I think top 20 pound for pound guys in the world. Aljo was number six heading into Saturday, Max Holloway, number 12. That's going to shake up now with the O'Malley win. But yeah, two top, I mean, two top 15. I don't know how far, I don't know how far Aljo's going to fall in some people's eyes. But two top 15 guys, that's a huge fight. Tristan just said, Mike, I thought you wanted Max go to 55, sure. But I also thought Dustiporre is going to be Justin Gachy.

So I was hoping we'd get a Max Holloway, Justin Gachy fight. Justin Gachie is not going to fight Max Holloway right now anyways, because he's going to go ahead and fight for a world title against more than likely the, the Islam Olivera winner, even before Volk can make that decision. So, yeah, I still want Gaichi, and I think Gaichi will probably lose to Islam anyways. So we can still get Max Holly just in Gaichi. We're just going to get a little bit further down the road. So that's for Al Jermaine Sterling.

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who energize all the time? Mm, it's all right. The form of standard and mini, regrouped, that old ben. And the embellage, too beau, who is practically pre to donate.

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and other part of Vite Vite. Procurre you see form of standard and mini, regrouped for a better quality of price on link on Cifora.C. or in magazine. Let's go to Zhang Wei,

A.K., because you were on the watch party as this fight was happening. There was no finish from John Wei, but if you weren't going to get a finish, this is about as good as you could do it. This was the definition. of one-way traffic. Somehow,

Mandalayas got around from one of the judges. I just don't see it happening. This was pillar to post. It was a record-shattering performance in terms of the strike statistics. Go look at the stats on this fight. It's just the more you look at it, the more crazy it is.

But John Wei Lee is going to be very tough to beat. So this is a two-horse race, AK. It seems pretty easy, but it is a two-horse race. It's Janjohnan and it's Tatiana Suarez. So I kind of feel like this is easy. Are you going Yan or are you going Tatian? I'm going on Jan. And I don't even think we should get a friend's forever for this.

No, absolutely obvious. Last time I matched me for Tatiana, I said she's done more than enough to earn the shot. But the Jan Zhang fight just makes too much sense. So I gave Tatiana, I think Tabitha Ritchi. I'm like, Tabith Ritchie, it's a stay busy fight. Or Tabith Rishi upsets her. Hopefully that doesn't happen for the UFC's plans. But yeah, Suarez, I think, can afford to do one more fight before getting the shot.

It's Jan Shaunan time. It just makes sense. It's been, it's, they just, they, it's a fight that both women have been interested in.

They just needed Yon to get on that run. And it looked a little shaky there for a while. She got trucked by a Carlos Barsan. It was kind of this moment I certainly had where I was like, I don't know if Yon's going to make it to that number one contender spot. But a few good wins strung together, exciting knockout. They go,

it's all takes the UFC sometimes, right? So, yeah, this is the way to go. I'd like to challenge it for Zhang. Talking about the Lamoche fight, I'll just say, I was okay with giving Lemosch round four.

I wouldn't have. but she was on the way to winning it before I think Jean kind of won it back on the second house so it's not like the worst scorecard I think if you had a shut up for Zhang it definitely makes sense it was a great performance we talk about Mike we talk about Yawani at Jacek you know she won a lot of those kinds of decisions

and we call that death by a thousand cuts this is like death by a thousand like sledgehammers because she was punching and elbowing Amanda Lomuch's face in on the feet inside her guard from half guard from side control any angle she could find to throw a punch or an elbow into Lamocious face she was doing it.

So love the Zhang Wei-Lee finishes, but if we have more performance like this, because, I mean, Yan Shanan is pretty tough too. I can see that going five rounds as well. If we have more performance like this where she is just bludgeoning her opponents, I don't mean to sound sadistic, but it's going to be a really fun second title run. Yeah. I mean, that's the fight. There are rumblings.

Dana sort of winky-eyed confirmed this during his press conference last night. there are rumblings that the UFC is going to go to China before the end of the year. And if we can get Zhang and we can get Yan in there for that card, it's just going to be absolutely massive. One of the Chinese reporters had mentioned that Zhang's fight did like 1.8 billion views in China, which is something about her in regards to this fight, did 1.8, not million, billion views in China. So they'd be crazy if they didn't go there. if they didn't get there by the end of the year.

December could be a very interesting time. It could be a very, very interesting time. So we're going to have a pay-per-view. That will probably be a fight night event headlined by Zhang Wei v. Jean-Jana, which is absolutely incredibly massive. Yeah, that's the fight to make. But, A.K., you know what?

I like to give consolation prizes as well. Some people are like, oh, man, Tatiana Suarez, kind of lost out on all of this. My original plan, and it was thwarted last night, which completely flew under the radar. my plan after Tatiana Swarres' recent victory was Zhang Wei Li is going to win, she's going to fight Janjan. They do in a fight night main event,

an apex kind of a main event, which is a pretty solid one, do Tatiana Swars versus McKenzie Dern. I liked that fight. It was a win-win fight for the UFC. Tatiana is probably going to win that fight. But if McKenzie wins, they've been pushing McKenzie Dern towards this opportunity for years anyway,

so it all works out. We found out when they showed McKenzie Dern in the crowd last night, that McKenzie Dern is fighting Jess Gondrage at MSG at UFC 295. And that, I didn't even notice it until somebody screenshot it in our Slack channel.

I was like, whoa, that just came out of nowhere. So we got to keep Tatiana Suarez busy. She can go fight Amanda Lamosh. There you go. Give her the Amanda Lamoch fight. There's her fight. I mean,

a man's going to need some time. Swares can just kind of chill and wait for Lamos to be ready. This fight could happen maybe by the end of the year. Who knows? You could put it on the same card as the title fight. That wouldn't be a horrible idea either.

So, yeah, that's the fight for me. We do Lemmos versus Suarez. And if Swarres can pass this test, then it's a no-brainer. She gets a title shot. That's it. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's direction they're going to go. Again, I matched me for Suarez last time. So I just went with a different name for Lamosh.

I think she's, unfortunately, she's going to have to fight back because she's fought a lot of the ladies in the top 10 already, win or lose. So she has to keep going back, back. And then some of these women are already booked or at least women be booked. So I went as far back as Luana Pinero, three and O in the UFC, number 10 in my UFC rankings in this weight class. But yeah, I think Lemosch Suarez makes a lot of sense as well. But if Juana Pinnero wants to, if they want to give her a bit of an opportunity, then it could be her that gets the Lemosch fight. Yeah.

She's going to have to take another fight or, you know, maybe Tatia is like, all right, I'll just be the backup. But it seems like a lot of work to travel to China, be the backup and not fight. Yeah. You know what I mean? So I think, and I think Tatyatta sort of making up for lost time, right? Just might as well get another test and get that other win and get a little more octagon time before fighting that fight. God, man, Zhang Wei versus Tatiana Swarra is such a crazy fight. I can't wait.

1.8 billion? 1.8 billion is what he told Aidaway. Those are one championship. Those are Chatri Citadong, one championship numbers. Unbelievable. Low is hanging fruit. I had to, someone had to say it, guys. It's the lowest hanging fruit that you can grab an own maid in days.

Well done. Let's move on to another guy who was a big star in Boston all week long. His name is Ian Machado Gary. He took on Neil Magny. I was on No Bet's Barred, so I placed a couple of bets. There were a couple that really stung. One was Jean Wee Lee inside the distance, not cashing. The other was Ian Machado Gary by knockout.

I thought Ian Machado Gary looked fantastic. but if this was, if Ian wasn't who he was and a fight like this happened on the contender series and Ann didn't get him out of there, like this could be one of those ones for Danes. Like,

I'm not giving him a contract. Guys on one thing, I do not finish him. Oh, come on. Well, not the last two seasons of the contenders series. I mean,

all you have to do is make it to the cage and perform somewhat and you get a contract these days. But still, I think there's a, there is a, and I've seen it already, there's a contingency of fans

who are, like, dude, you couldn't get a one-legged guy out of there. But at the same token, this was an absolute run by Ian Machado, Gary, a 30-24 in there. It was absolutely wild. He made the call-out to Stephen Wonderboy Thompson, AK, and Dana White was asked about this at the press conference, and Dana White was like, we called Wonderboy, he turned it down. Just taking the dirt and bury it on top of the NMF. But despite what Dana White says, I feel like Wonder Boy is kind of stuck between a rock and a hard

place right now. And Jed made an interesting point on the post-fight show. If you are Wonderboy Thompson right now, I understand that you want the Kamar Usman fight. I get it. You want to get the quickest lane to that title shot if you can get it. But you're not in the good grace of the UFC. You got to find your way back. If you're going to fight Ian Machado, Gary, you have to fight this dude now. You have to fight this guy now. Get him before he gets better because he's 25. His game is evolving. He gets better every single fight. If you're going to fight this kid, fight him now. I think cooler heads are going to prevail.

I actually think this fight's going to happen. I think eventually we're going to get a conversation between Dana and the Brass and Wonderboy. Ian wants it. We could do a main event, fight night main event. I don't think it's an apex main event. This is in front of a crowd. Maybe we do it for the end of the year. I actually think this fight is going to happen.

I think we're going to get Ian Machado, Gary versus Stephen Wonderboy Thompson before the end of the year. Your thoughts. Yeah, do we even get a friend forever for this one? It's too easy. It's too easy. I took like maybe a minute to try and think of an alternate answer. And again, just based on who he's fought so far, who's ahead of him in the rankings, like what's left for Ian Machado, Gary, to climb into the top 10.

It's Stephen Thompson. I don't know how truthful Dana White is being about, you know, Wonderboy saying, no, it could have been they called Wonderboy's Management, and Wonderboy's management might have come back. Oh, like, let us think about it. And then Dana White kind of could take that as it. They didn't say yes, so it's okay for me to say they said no. If there's any truth to it, I hope it's because Wonder Boy is in some position to negotiate for,

I don't know, a better payday to take on such a dangerous opponent, but he's really not in much of a position to negotiate anything, is he, after turning down that fight, which makes no sense to me. He should have turned down that fight and have suffered no consequences, but I don't know. This game is so crazy. People are criticizing Wonder Boy of turning it down. Dana White, as you said, clearly not a fan of Steven Thompson not taking that fight. despite all that he's done for the company.

But yeah, it's a great matchup. It's a top, it's a legit top 10 guy. I think Machado Gary will probably, I don't know, does he sneak into the UFC.com's top 10 with a win over Magni? I think, because I think Magni was 11. I think he'll be in, I think he's going to be in probably by, I think he'll be 10. Magni was 11 in their rankings ahead of him as Lucke and Sean Brady. So I do wonder, will they jump Machado Gary over Luke A Brady?

Or even Jeff Neal, because he was supposed to, fight Jeff Neal and Jeff Neal unfortunately could not make it to fight nights. So I wonder if they're that high. When I say they, I mean the media, whoever it is that votes in these rankings, will just go as far as say, well, he was supposed to fight Neal. He didn't fight Neil. He beat the better of two Neal's, Neil Magny. Let's just give him the number eight spot.

So he could be as high as number eight. I don't think so. I don't think he's as high as number eight, but we'll see on Tuesday when those new official rankings come out. I know he's not in mine rankings. I still have just outside the top ten. But yeah, it makes sense. Dangerous fight too.

Dangerous fight. But he should win that one, right? He should just based on being younger and, you know, at a different stage of his career. But it's not like a layup. And if Machado Gary's smart, he's not going to sell it like one either. So that is the way to go. Charlie Weiss, last bell-loops said I want to see Gary versus wrestling. Not the Neil Magny is a wrestler, but he's definitely more of a grappling heavy fighter.

And he even chado, Gary kept saying at the press conference, he said he's, I don't know if he said he's the best jujitsu play. in the world, but he said something. He's like, you guys have no idea. He said he might mess around and go win a no-gee world title because he's that good. But we'll see what happens. I actually do think this fight's going to happen. And I think this is more of Dana just because Dana does this, right? He'll just say this to try to like get under the skin and be like,

wait, you don't think I'll fight him? I'll fight him. And I don't know if Wonder Boy is really going to fall for that tactic. But they might have just called Wonder Boy and said, hey, we want to just book this kid in the main event for the end of the year. Like we want to go to a place and let's just have this fight done. So yeah, I kind of like where he's at. Yeah.

Far and away, the second biggest star of this, like, as far as his stock going up, I mean, it's Sean O'Malley. You can't top it after that knockout. But Machado Gary separate himself from the pack as well. As he said he would. He was great on the mic all week. I thought stuff with Magnique got a little ugly, but I mean, that is what that is. And then he performed the way he did.

He didn't get the finish, but he provided a lot of sort of memeable moments. I thought. I thought there was a lot of like, you know, he got some good taunting in there. There's a middle finger. He gave the UFC footage that they can use to hype him up. Most important. And knockout would have been nice, but he gave him footage. Yeah, far and away.

I guess Zhang would be third maybe. Anyone else that just- John was the number two star. Oh, you think so. In terms of pop. In terms of pop. Yeah. In terms of pop, yeah.

In terms of pop, yeah. But I think Machia's stock is like, I think went way up is the second of highest riser. Shana Malli, the number one by far, Macha Garry number two. and I think everyone else is like a distant third. But yeah, it was, it was an eventful card and Machado Gary made the most of it. That's for sure.

Yeah. I wouldn't say he was great on the mic. He was kind of awful on Mike. I liked him after. I liked him after. I thought his post fight was pretty good. Yeah. The whole, for Boston, though, for the people that were into all the buildings he was at,

it was perfect because that's what Boston likes. They just, they like craziness. And Ian provided that for him. He had an open workout the night before the fight, and made that place was packed, packed with people who wanted to see him hit pads at a random pub in Boston. So good week for Ian Machado, Gary. We'll see if he gets the big fight.

Mara Batista was on this main card, AKA. I feel like he's going to be kind of passed over in all discussions when it comes to all of this, because it was just kind of a random fight to have in the main card with some of the action that had, you know, some really interesting matchups on the prelims that you could argue deserve the bump up. But Mario Batista gets it done over Daman Blackshare, DeMond Blackshare, try to make history, try to win two fights in seven days, did not happen.

But Mario Patista gets a decision win. Where are we going with young Mario here? I think I just settled on Pedro Munoz. I was trying to think that. I don't care about rebooking the Cody Garbrand fight, frankly. That would be an easy way to go. If they do that, would not be surprised. No issue with it.

You want to give him a veteran name. But again, now he was on five straight wins. in one of the toughest divisions, and I just don't think, that was already a fight back. Now it's like a little further back. I'm hesitant to match him up with some of the other streaking phantom weights.

Again, any of those matchups would be fire. So I'm going to go with it. I think he's earned, if that's the right word for it, a fight with Pedro Munoz, who for me is still kind of holding on to a top 15 spot. I know if we're going to look at his record and be like, well, he hasn't had a lot of actual wins,

but look at his level of competition. I thought he was pretty competitive against Cito. So I think that's a nice win for Mario to potentially have his resume. And for Pedro, again, as a veteran, you respect, you should be giving him good fights. You know, you shouldn't just be trying to set him up necessarily to be knocked down by these younger guys. And I don't think that's what I'm matching with Batista is. I think it's a competitive fight. And win or lose, I don't think it hurts Mario Batista stock too much.

And, you know, you keep Pedro busy. He's a guy who deserves to keep getting good fights. Yeah, again, this is not even a friend's forever. This is the fight. This is where Pedro is right now. Good fighter. This is the test, right? He is the Bannamweight Division's litmus test.

If you're going to be a top 15 guy, you've got to go and beat Pedro Munoz. They try to curse Guadierrez. Pedro Munoz is able to win. Batista versus Gutierrez, excuse me, Batista versus Munoz is a pretty interesting fight. So let's see. But I like that one as well. Who do you have from Marlon Verre, okay? If you're pushing for the rematch between O'Malley and Aljo, I already

have my Vera pick because he's 1,000% going to fight for the title, but where did you have him? Where did you have him? If he doesn't fight for the title, I think the only fight that should be really being appealing to him is a rebooking of Suhudo. That's probably the way to go. Big name.

Again, it would suck if he lost, but if you're the UFC, you're kind of happy either way. They definitely know the Cheeto fight is big, but if you think they wouldn't love to promote Sehudo and O'Malley potentially, I mean, that's it's a fight both guys talked about i mean they both talk about why to smash each other so um yeah that's just that's just a

if if chito doesn't happen and they just don't want to line up another compelling title fight next you get chito you get se hoot in there i still don't know where corey sanhagan fits in all this mike i don't know i don't know how you i think he has to fight again right honestly he has to fight again which sucks i and that's fine i think honestly i think this all worked out for cori sanagan i really do i think it worked up because he is hurt like a lot of people are like oh cori's going to get passed over. He's the biggest loser. No, I don't think he is. I think he's an appeal. I think he ends up being an appealing matchup for Sean O'Malley when this is all said and done. And the fact that, because even Corey, Corey showed up to head of the small media day, he had a huge cast in his arm and said, he's not even clear to train, like not even train for six months.

And then he's going to get into, he's going to book a fight and go through a training camp. the earliest, I think we're going to see Corey Sanhagen is like July of next year. So by the, like this division is going to shake out a bit. And I think people are going to be kind of, even despite the Rob Fawn fight, which I don't think he deserves all that flat for because he tore his freaking tricep, like off of the, like completely tore it and still dominated Rob Fon, which is a really good win. I actually think he's in a pretty good spot here.

I actually think he's okay. He's not going to get passed over. It's, it's, it's not really a meritocracy thing. He's just out of the mix right now. So I actually think this kind of worked out for him. Him getting a rematch with Aljo is going to be much tougher than getting a fight with Sean O'Malley. So I actually think this kind of worked out for him.

I don't think he lost anything on Saturday. I like that. I like that. I hope so. Corey deserves a shot. It deserves another shot. He stepped in on short notice at one time to fight Jan in a title fight. And that was an amazing fight.

But after that fight was over, I remember I'm thinking this is not the last time Corey Sanhagan will fight for UFC belt. And I hope that's true. Yeah. I know he's going to be pissed what he sees. Cheeto's going to get a title shot, though. He's going to be so mad about that. Because that was not a controversial fight.

I mean, sorry, a not an unsatisfying fight. Like, I know people are pooping on the Rob Fomp fight, but let's not forget. Before that, he also won a convincing decision over Marlon Vera that was inexplicably judged a split, but anyone who watched it knows that should have been unanimous. One judge was just out to lunch. So he's done more, he's done enough. He's done enough to earn it. It's just a circumstance right now.

Like I said, right now aren't in his favor, but in the long run, maybe so. Welcome aboard Air Canada. Rocky's vacation, here we come. Whoa, is this economy? Free beer, wine, and snacks. Sweet! Fast-free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land. And with live TV, I'm not missing the game.

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Visit canadalif.com slash business protection to learn more. Canada Life. insurance, investments, advice. All right. Well, it's time to go to the wild card round, A.K., and there's lots to choose from. It's not very wild for me. It's not very wild.

All right. So we're going to, we will matchmake for a fighter we have not match made for yet. It could be someone who lost on the main card, could be a prelim winner, could be a prelim loser, could be a tough champion, maybe a non-tuff champion. There's a lot of different directions we can go here. And you guys could start throwing in your suggestions once you run. wrap up here and then we're just going to go bananas until the end of this. But AK, who is your UFC 292 wildcard selection?

First of all, like everyone who appears on the ultimate fighter is a champion. So there's no such thing as a non-tuff champion. They are champion by nature. Shout out to Brad Katona because two fights in a row. The Multimit, the ultimate fighter, the ultimate fighter, the only two-time ultra-fighter winner in MMA history, probably one of the most backhanded. columnist that you can give someone but yes he's been on the show twice uh yeah i pick for him i pick for kurt hollabah i love the ultimate fighter i i have a pretty strong feeling on who's going to be next

even though it can go in a number of different directions i think catona has a little bit more of a future as a potential contender he's just younger um he's he's fought decent competition in brave uh one of a title out there uh fighting for brave a combat federation so i still think he's you know just in his prime i think he can get cody's statement i don't sure i don't know if you think that's too high. I got Cody somewhere in the top 25. I think Brad could get that fight. And for Kot Holabaa, he goes up against another Ultimate Fighter veteran,

ultimate fighter Brazil contestant, Wachim, Selva Netto BJJ. So there you go. Just a little veteran veteran fight. They're around the same age. They're probably around the same spot in the theoretical rankings that anyone would want to make. So there you go. I've got it already lined up. I hope they're watching the matchmaker meeting.

You guys can cross this off the docket right away, Katona Stamen, Holliba. Wachkeeps over. Shout out to Cody Gibson as well. What a freaking fight, man. That was awesome. And it appears, yeah, it appears he's going to get himself a contract.

So it much deserved. That fight was really, really good. I like the Kurt versus Waukee fight. I'm surprised you didn't go with the, um, I'm surprised you didn't go with Kurt versus Patty, AK.

I didn't know if he, if Kurt had leaped over Tony Ferguson for that fight. He only became the 71st lightweight to call for a fight with Patty. Someone asked him to the points like show. It's Patty Pimba, the only lightweight. to not call out Patty Pimble. And I think it would be so funny,

Patty just called himself out. Yeah, he should. Unanimous across the board. My only other thing I wanted to do was reward Silvamania, Italia Silva and Karine Silva because they showed out. I mean, they got great matchups. They showed out. But I went with my tough voice.

It was a great star from a betting perspective because I had the Silva, the Silva parley. If you were listening to No Betts Bard or even our previous show, and you guys didn't do the Silvomania parlay, you missed out on easy money, whether you would have wagered $5, $10, $100, that was easy money. This silver, this silver made it is real.

They should, I hope they always put them on the same card. The, the, the, the, the, the, big parlays I had were, like, the least sweaty of the night. Like, and that was like the least sweaty parlay ever. And then the other one was Natty Ice, Ian Gary, and Zhang Wei, and that wasn't very sweaty at all either, which is nice. Speaking of Natty Ice, that's where I'm going with. I'm just so high on her. I've been high on her from Jump Street. I have deemed her Natty Ice.

And it's starting to catch on. I think everyone should just call her Natty Ice. Because that's how she fights. She's just ice cold. The twitching, the movement. Everything about her is just violence. And she dinged up Andrew Lee something proper. Andrew Lee is just incredibly tough and incredibly durable.

It was a good next step up for Natty Ice. And I am ready to see her battle somebody inside the top 15. I see the Lauren Murphy idea. I thought about that, but I don't think that's the direction they're going to go. Natty Ice versus Casey O'Neill is the fight to make. Right. I know throwing like sort of up-and-coming contenders against one another is not ideal,

but in this case, I think it works. Throwing there with Casey O'Neill. Casey was supposed to fight on the Sydney card, but it's a broken nose. It's something that's only going to take, it required surgery. From what I understand, from the time of surgery, it should only take like six weeks to recover.

So knowing Casey O'Neill, I kind of feel like she's going to want to get in there as fast as possible. And I think that's a fun fight we can do at the end of the year. So Natty Ice versus Casey O'Neill. Let's get her a ranked fighter and let's go. If she beats Casey O'Neill, let's strap the rockets to her. There is something about Natty Ice.

There's something about her. The English is getting a little bit better. There's just an aura about her. She used up a lot of mic time. Yeah. I think she's responsible. So for a lot of fighters later, not getting much. She used praise B. Praise B and Italia Silva.

But boy, she used up a lot of that mic time that I feel like for Andre Petroski at the end of the prelims was like, what? What the hell? I don't know. No mic time for me? It's like, well, sorry, Andrea, you know where it went. Yeah. And Andre, yeah. Well, they also said too because I don't even really blame Natty Ice for that.

I blame the judges and the commission for that. Oh, that too. Because they took them so long to the scoring. Forever. That may be the longest split I've ever seen. I think if Natty Ice hadn't held a little mini sermon in there, there might have been a little time for Petraski Day. Because he's a great, he has a great story.

He has a great story. He saw in the M.A.R., which he got to put out a little inspirational message out there. Certainly. I did want to ask, we should get move on, but where would you rank Natty Ice right now, Mike? And I'll make it easier. I don't know if you had time to look at your own rankings. So I put her, I had her like borderline top 20 outside.

She leaps in the top of D now. So I put her over Tracy Cortez And that's pretty easy Jojo I put her over Casey O'Neal already Would you put her over Casey O'Neal already Or do you want to see them fight first? Where did I put her?

I have her Natty Ice at 12 I have her over Casey O'Brien This is a Friends Forever moment Exactly the same Yeah exactly the same She is at 12 It's number 8 Chakia

Number 9 Lauren Murphy Jennifer Maya Macy Barber Natie Ice Okay so you do have her ahead of Casey You are Neal right now. I have three spots. I have Casey number 15. Okay. I have Casey one spot behind, just right behind. So, yeah, good fight. All right. So at this time, go ahead. It's wild card time. Oh, Mike, sorry, let me shout out quickly. Let me shout out quickly. South Poppix. I'm giving you a live show. Otno Point. He called for Chase Hooper

versus Jordan Levitt, which looks like it's going down November 18th. He called for this fight back in May. So, sir, take your live point. South Poppix. I am, congratulations on that. I will let people know now send in your picks people it was wild hearing joe lozahn at that q and a say that he wanted chase hooper and the ufstead basically told him like your services aren't required on this card like what how the hell like joe lozahn i'm upset jesus christ craziness craziness all right let's go uh you want to just do the the quick rundown of the rules and regulations what constitutes a dodo pick and what i'll just let people know uh please try not to match up people who have already fought But the easiest thing to look up is, are you picking a name that is booked?

I know we're doing a live show now, Mike, so we've got to be a bit fast and loose. People are just going to be thrown out names there. But it's really easy to check. You have your phone next to you. You can go to Tapology. You can go to MAPFlighting.com. You can go to Sherdog, whatever resource you want to use. Check out these people have already fought.

There might be notable injuries. There might be someone pregnant. Don't send us a name if someone's pregnant, please. That's not hard to look up either. And sometimes, Mike, there's just some picks that we're not going to want to read out because they're due-do. Fair enough. All right, let's see what we got here. Toby.

O'Malley versus Cheeto, Jean versus John, Gary versus Brady at MSG, Mario versus Cody. Rebook it. Sure. Yeah, it seems like Mario's already passed that at this point. And if I'm Mario,

I'm not interested in booking that one, even though it's the name. It's just, you can't really rely on Garberant at this point. Pedro versus John. I like that one. Robocop versus Tavares, Katona versus Stamen.

Wow. How about that? Friends Forever. Kurt versus Miller, Natty Ice versus Lucky Lauren Murphy. Murphy. Kurt, I assume they mean Jim Miller. Jim Miller, yep.

I don't land that one. No, I don't mind. That suits the Jim Miller current career arc right now. Yeah, I'm totally doubt with that. Wyden versus Dominic Reyes, double retirement. So, yeah, Wyman's in a tough spot. Banged up. Vaina White said an MCL tear, perhaps.

Wyman on the post-fight show with the UFC said, I'm going to be back better than ever. I only want to see one fight for him, AK. and what's just re-signed good old Lukie Rockhold for one-fight deal, and let's just close the book on that. Like that, I don't want to see Chris Wyman fight anybody else besides Luke Rockhold. That's it. I don't want to see him fight anybody else, period.

I'm a huge Chris Wybman fan. I think this is like the best possible way he could have gone out. I agree. A valiant effort in front of a super supportive Boston crowd, class opponent in Brad Tavares. You could not ask for a classier opponent in middleweight. and the fact that he made the distance. I thought when he started limping in round two,

I'm like, oh, this is going to get stopped. It's going to stop. But worked out the kinks, adrenaline kicked in, I don't know, got a second win, battled back. Some people said he, I think he, well, there was a 29, 28 in there, right? No, it's 3027 across the board. Okay, I think he thought he might have won the second round.

And that's the way he should go out. He should go out with positive feelings, thinking I performed well, but I didn't do enough to get the W. I am satisfied. But hey, I'm not Chris Wydenman. I don't know the mentality it takes to get where he got to. I understand if he wants to fight again.

But this was a very nice way. If we don't see Chris Widman fight again, this will be a nice memory. Yeah. As I said on the preview show, this was the best case scenario for everybody. Was that Wydenin got back in there, went to a somewhat competitive decision, didn't look completely out of place, got hurt, but didn't get, like, badly, badly hurt where it affects the rest of his life forever. And I think the last entry probably did that,

but it just didn't get too terribly worse. And then Wyman could just be like, all right, I tried. I came up short. Now I'm done. And he goes out kind of on a high. Because if he goes on wins, he's just to be like,

I want to fight. Hamza Tchaima if at 185. So I can get that title shot. Like, that's just how the man is. It's just how he is. Yeah, don't do that. So,

no, this would be a good exit, but it doesn't feel like Wyman's going to go. So if he's going to, fight one more time. Just sign Luke Rockhold and let's do that rematch that we're supposed to get a couple of different times. But I would be okay if this is it for Chris Wyden for sure. J. Fish Robocop versus the action man. There we go. Chris Curtis no longer fighting on September 16th. Ian Gary, after he beats Wonderboy versus the JDM Kevin Holland winner. I feel like if he beats Wonderboy,

he's going to be so far ahead of both of those guys. Oh, really? In the way people view him. be. Mario Batista versus the Chris Gutierrez Montel Jackson winner. Like that as well. We already got some, that one. Joe Lodon versus Patty. All right.

That'd be pretty freaking cool, man. I feel like we've mentioned that on a show before. I don't know if the ship has sailed on that, but I do feel like that was one movie. This makes a lot of sense for where Patty was at the time that he brought it up. But I don't know. That would have been great.

The right fight for. Joe Loz-on is, it's Joe Lozon, it's Joe Lozon versus Tony Ferguson, the UFC 300. That's the fight. Tristan, Aljane Sterling versus Brian Ortega, Brad Cotona versus C-Rod. I think C-Rodd has a fight booked. I don't know if it's been announced yet, but he is saying that a contract has been signed, I believe. Mario Batista versus Ricky Simone, Shore.

Kurt Hollabo versus Alex Munoz. Alex Munoz booked? I don't know. He just fought. What was the first fight on that that you just read out, Mike? Sterling versus Brian Ortega. Brian Ortega. Yeah, it's not terrible.

I don't think it has served quite the same purpose as him fighting Holloway. Like you said, if he beats, because even if he beats Ortega, it doesn't feel like that's guaranteeing him a title shot. It's a cool matchup, a very tough fight, but it's not like you suggested Mike with Max Holloway, where he gets that win, boom, number one contender. People want to see him fight Volcanovsky. He beats Ortega. There's some intrigue there, but it's not automatic.

There's another Aljo versus Otega. Wow. Yeah. Calvin Cater at his Q&A said that. that Brian Ortega was interesting to him. I don't mind that fight. Ortega's been out for a while dealing with some injuries. Cater dealing with an injury of his own.

He thinks he gets a fight by the end of the year. And if somehow Ortega can get back, I don't mind that piece of business right there. What about Mario Batista versus Dominic Cruz, A.K. I think Mara Batista would love it. It's one of those fights I think Cruz's not particularly interested in. He's a really good at, I don't want to say avoiding fights.

I don't think he avoids fights because I don't think he gets sent all these contracts that, you know, we suggest in fans. suggest but I think he's very good at angling and letting the UFC know like I might not be ready to fight you know this time this time this time so you know send me the right opponent I might be ready to fight a bit sooner would you say Chris Widman had that dog in no I would not I would not not I would not Aaron Bronstetter if you're out there I don't know if I saw Aaron did you see Aaron's tweet I did not it's like it was kind of funny it was just like oh it's like a million dogs inside of Chris Widman I was just like no I'm not even acknowledging that someone said to me

and I was like, well, thanks. Now both our nights are ruined. So screw you. This is literally the name. I was saying, hey, you take it easy. Gary versus Thompson, then Gary versus Burns,

then Gary versus Covington sees me the path. Ian will probably have to. But Gilbert Burns was in Ian's corner, so I don't think they're ever going to fight each other. He joked about it. He joked about the post fight. He was like, I thought I would just call him out as a joke,

but no, they're not going to fight each other. their boys. They're very, they're pretty tight. Rudy likes Gary versus Neil at MSG, then Gary versus Wonderboy, quarter one, 2024, 24, to headline UFC Dublin,

if they go back there. Can I just say this is what I mean when this man's stock is rose is people are, when people are booking not just your next matchup, but like your arc, when they're booking an arc for you, that is when people are super invested in your career. Like they can see what you see. You know, these guys like Machado Gary are like they have a plan. And for a lot of the fighters,

these plans don't work out. So far his is going well. And the fact that he has people buying into it and also trying to help like map out this plan, he's legit. We saw, again, we saw the ascension of two. stars on Saturday

to different levels for sure O'Malley on a level of his own now with some other people that made no sense I was in oxymoron but you know what I mean he's on level with a he's in rare air but Machada Gary also I think stepped up to maybe that B tier of stars and

that's a big deal considering he's not even fought for a tell yet. Monterey Sean versus Cheeto Henry versus Marab on the same card at both they're healthy enough Jean versus John put Tatiana on the card to set up the next fight Ian versus Wonderboy at MSG featured fight or pay-per-view opener. I kind of feel like that's a five-round main event.

But that is interesting, though, because I think if they offered Ian Gary to Wonderboy at MSG, I think Wonderboy would probably take that fight. Three-rounder at MSG, I think he would do it. Yeah, Machado Gary said he doesn't want to fight in New York because of the taxes. I mean, a lot of fighters are kind of taking their attitude. So I think that's the only thing that they would have, they would have to maybe sweeten the pot a little bit from Machado Gary.

And he does have leverage, I think, at this point. Probably right. Someone had asked earlier, why does Cheeto Vera deserve a title shot? And this is very simple. He doesn't necessarily, from a meritocratic perspective, deserve it. But this is what the UFC does. This is the biggest fight, probably in Banimoyt divisional history. It will have the most amount of eyeballs.

Sean O'Malley is going to be a big star. And everybody loves Cheeto as well. This is going to do like 800,000 pay-per-view buys if they can get this fight together and do it by the end of the year. because of the casual appeal of both of these guys. It's a gigantic fight, and there's a story there. And we're going to get the payoff, eventually. So it's not about deserves. It's just about what puts butts in seats and what makes people say,

I'm going to spend $79.99 plus implicable taxes to purchase a pay-per-view. And that fight will absolutely do it. And listen, he beat him. I mean, Cheeto beat him. There's a history. That's the one loss on O'Malley's record. I think O'Malley would a lot of great champion. Look at the GSP.

He has two loss on his record. He avenged them both. A lot of champions don't get that opportunity because the timing just doesn't always work out. O'Malley has an opportunity. And I'm digging way back here. Why did Jeremy Horn get a title fight against Chuck Liddell back in the day? Because he beat him. He beat him once in a time.

Was he the number one big time number one contender when they rematch? No. It was years later. But you have the history. That history means a lot. That's a very easy way to sell a fight. And the fact that O'Malley has talked about that fight, you know, I feel like he won the fight and that doesn't or that, you know, invalidating Cheetah's performance,

I mean, it's still fresh in people's minds. That fight has never gone away from being a topic of conversation for either guy. And it's an easy sell. So, yeah, it's not my number one choice. But if you're the UFC, you see dollar signs there. A lot of Ortega versus Aljo suggestions, Mario Gutierrez, Jackson winner, from Brandon Lemma Chorres. You know what, A.K.

There is one fight at Banimate that involves Al Jermaine Sterling that is somewhat intriguing to me. And I think it would be somewhat intriguing to him as well. And it's not a title fight. Logan Sheets opened my eyes a little bit. I don't think this is going to happen. I still think he's going to go to 45. However, if he stays at 135, I think this fight makes all the sense in the world. Yeah.

I saw a couple of mentions and if you're Cruz I was talking about I was talking before and I feel like Cruz has some you know ability to strategically get himself big matchups how can it get bigger than this right now he's this

the number two bantamweight number three bantamweight in the world wherever you want to put Aljo now I don't know if people feel like putting Maraub above him or Sergio Pett or something like that I think he's number two how can you go higher if you're cruz you do it you cruise you win

screw you set up some weird random ass title shot with Sean O'M out You lose. It's so easy to sell. Aljo, yeah. So, Donner Cruz, if you're out there, start politicking, man.

Use whatever favors you have. Tell Dana, you know, he owes you one. If that's even a thing, try and get this fight because it totally makes sense. Who's the greatest band-in-weight of all time? That's how you get to do it. It's a two-horse race.

Let's settle it. Let's settle it right now. Mike, you're making too much sense again. You're making too much sense again, Mike. You're making too much sense again. It's not going to happen, but I would,

if he's going to say $135 for why. more fight and doesn't get him Marab's way, that would be a good one to just kind of settle the debate. So, Wydenman versus Mearschart as his retirement fight. That's not terrible. That's another recommendation from Screw You. Thank you, screw you. That's not terrible. That's really not terrible.

If I have to see Chris Wyden fight again, seeing him in fight Gerald Mirashart would be pretty fun. Ashutosh, Cheeto Marabti Eliminator. If this is Bellator, that's the fight we're getting. But it's not getting that fight. He knows fighting for the title. He's fighting John O'Malley. Yeah. Let's see what else.

Another Aljo versus Artega. Let's see if I have any thing. Brad Tavares versus Paul Craig, okay? Sure. Sure. I feel like we're not talking about Brad Tavares enough. Great effort. Yeah.

Was being trotted out there, essentially not to lose, but there was definitely a chance he would lose and did what he does. He Brad Tavaresed Chris Wybman for three rounds. Got another decision win. He's the decisionator. And guess what? There's nothing wrong with that because he's been fighting in the UFC for over 10 years. So keep those checks coming in, Brad.

Aljo versus Arnold Allen. I don't think Alito takes that fight. Sugar versus Marab to avenge Aljo's lots of videos go up. I think they're going to do Marab versus Sehudo. And I think O'Malley will probably want Sehudo to win that fight. This is going to be a very interesting title reign because O'Malley is going to treat this as a prize fighting. thing. And he was, it seems pretty clear, like, there's only one fight in this division that gets him excited at all and it's Cheeto. Because he just wants, he wants to draw and make a ton of

money. And the Marabon would be really interesting. But that was like the one name that O'Malley didn't say at all, whether for good or for bad, he did not mention Mara's name at all. And he shouldn't. The other name he shouldn't mention it. And I want to ask, how long do you think is going to take this guy to get to the shot, to get a shot, Umar. How long, how long can he avoid Umar for? Yeah, Sean O'Malley's never fighting Umard-Mir-Madeoff. He should have. I think, I said this after Umar's last win, I would pick, I would legitimately pick him to beat anyone, any Bantam win in the world.

I think he is, I'm not ranking of number one because I think there's some achievements I need to be done. But if you're just asking me to pick one, who, who, which Bandaway will win will beat Alamara, be able to win, Stirling, be O'Malley, be whoever he's been in front of him. I think it's Umar. I don't know how long it takes me to get to the title. I don't know if he has to fight Marab, fights Corey Sanhagen, fight Cheeto at some point,

I don't know. This dude is going to get that title. And you're right, Mike, maybe O'Malley should get out of there, whether it's move up or vacate the title, go box Javante Davis. Oh, God. Before Umar comes to knock it.

Oh, my God. I mean, if there is a legit number less than zero when it comes to percentages, find me that in my interest levels for Sean O'Malley with Javante Davis, like absolutely zero. Terrible.

terrible. No point of rankings. Look, there have been no point in the UFC rankings forever. No, just marketing. They're just there. Oh, just,

oh, number three is the first fighting number seven in this fight night event. So you have to tune in. They don't mean nothing. Jean versus the winner of Grasso-Shiftchenko. I don't want her to move up yet. No, me neither.

There's two huge fights for her. Straw weight is rocking right now. Straw weight is, I'm a broken record, but I'm going to say it until I see everyone talking about it, straw weight is so good. It's not deep.

It's not deep. but it is really good. Even some of the lower tier fights have been competitive, have been exciting. We've still got a lot of fun veterans hanging around. So it is, I love Strider. I honestly think it's the third best division right now behind lightweight and advanced weight.

I will make this case right now. I've been making, I'm sorry, I'll continue to make this case. I think Strave is the third best division, at least in the UFC right now. If you want to go to other promotions, maybe some others can leapfrog, but I love what I'm seeing straw weight. And I want to see Zhang fight all these, all these contenders that are that are hanging around. All right.

A few more than I'm going to get out of here. Robocop versus Bo Nicol. Seems like Andre Petrovsky really wants the Bo Nicol fight. I kind of like it. Someone, someone did me and said, why not, oh, why not Tavares for Bo Nicol? And I'm like, that's actually such a perfect like Brad Tavares fight. That is what you keep Brad Tavares around for, right?

That's the next step. I think Bo gets one win and then his next fight is. is Brad's of ours. Oh, okay, okay. Then he gets into the top 15, and then we could start really getting after this thing. There's legit no reason to rush Bo-Nichol right now. He's four wins away from probably fighting for the belt. Let's just go crazy.

Yeah, just, I like the Petrosky fight. I like that one. Yep, love it. That makes perfect sense at this point. If we have anything else. Petrosky doing all the promotional work for the UFC. That's why the UFC should book matches like that is because they don't need to even need to do anything.

He's called him out in interviews. he's called him out a fight night. All the clips are there. Just put the clips together. UFC has to put zero dollars into promoting a Petroski bone nickel fight. So that's the way to go. And like I said earlier, I don't think Corey Sanagan lost a whole lot here. I do think Sean O'Malley and Corey Sandheng would be a really fascinating fight.

I think it's a fight that Sean O'Malley would take. So it's, again, we're not going to see Corey Sanhagen until probably the summer of 2024 at this point with that injury. So I don't think he lost a whole lot here. I think he's going to be kind of. to piss that to see chito fight for the belt after he just kind of ran him over but it is what it is lemos versus verna i want to say terence leverett was saying uh cori's gonna beat him i see vje and that rajan also saying san hagen's gonna get that belt uh i'm not i'm done doubting uh sean omalley unless he fights umar if he fights umar again i'll i try i pick umar to run over anyone but i shot o'malley i thought he's

lose to yon i thought he can lose to aljo uh i guess i would doubt him he fought marab too but now even then even then mike i think i have to stop doubting him i think there's something to this kid uh as far as being a legitimate top tier champion um so if he fights if he fights mara guess what i'll tell you right now in advance i'll pick omali only because i've been so wrong being against him um so anyone but umar that's my hashtag for for shot o'm al mary anyone but um i i'm I'll pick Sean Valley Boy. Well, all right. I think we're going to wrap up here.

Thank you all very much. We'll be back. And next week, for those who like early day MMA, it is early day MMA next week. I believe the prelims start at 8 a.m. Eastern or UFC Singapore. No, 5 a.m. Eastern.

I'm sorry, 5 a.m. Eastern, which is even better, in my opinion. I like that a lot. We're going to have a full day, dude. We can record on to the next one at lunchtime. Do we have PSL on Friday? on Friday? I think so. And who,

and you know, it's perfect. By the time PFL ends, the UFC car is going to start. No, by the time, what do you mean? By the time PFL's

third main card fight is up, then the UFC will be starting. Yeah. The UFC will be three fights in before PFL ends. With that, increasing, but God,

this Singapore card is actually sneaky good, especially up the top. We have Max Hollowe versus Green zombie. I know some people like, oh, why is this fight happening? Zombie wants it. It's his last fight. Holloway wants it.

I don't know. Max is just going to kind of, he's just going to punch him a lot for five rounds and it's going to get ugly at times, but this is what zombie wants. This is a retirement fight. There you go. Oh, PFL's on Wednesday.

Yeah. Yeah. That makes the pacing joke even funnier. Yeah. I mean, still, there is a very real opportunity. There's a very real chance that PFL will still be happening by the time the UFC card starts three days later. So we get hallway zombie.

We get Anthony Smith versus Ryan Span 2. We get the return. of Giga Chakazze against Alex Casaris. We got Rinyan Nakamura versus Bertie Garcia. That fight is going to be a freaking chaotic banger. Aaron Blanchfield versus Tila Santos is a huge fight at 125. We got Waldo Chortez-A-Costa versus Lucas Bresci. We got Chidi and Joki and Jokawani versus Mikhail Ozecich.

That fight's going to be insane. Kanan Song versus Rolando Badoia. Naliang versus J.G. Aldrich. We got Toshiyamiami. Kazama versus Garrett Armfield Usako Konashita versus New England's own, New England's own Billy Gough. We got Siongouy

versus Jarno Arons. And yes, I know we said Max Holland versus Green Zombie is the main event, but the people's main event. Beyond the shadow of a doubt is Junior Tafa versus Paca Porter. I mean this is such an opportunity for Paca

Porter and then he can call it John Jones for the rematch. I love everything about this. We get Paca, Singapore. Singapore, congratulations. Congratulations. You get Paco porta on Saturday. I was like, did he miss a fight? Of course he didn't miss a fight.

And then I saw who the fight you missed and I'm like, oh, okay. It's a wind-up. He's winding this one up. Just like the classic song, you go and save the best for last, okay? You go and save the best for last. But you guys are the best. Appreciate it. Get some sleep, everybody.

I'm very excited to get home to the first. fam and this was a really fun weekend back to Boston and then doing the watch party last night. We'll post the clip of the Sean O'Malley knockout in a matter of moments. It is delightful. We didn't get it up last night, but I'm going to post the clip of the watch party reaction to Sean O'Malley becoming the Bannonweight Champion of the World in a matter of moments on my Twitter. So next week, normal show be recorded. So submit your Otno picks like you usually do.

Hit up AK on social media. Hit up me on Instagram. Send us the messages. We'll get back to the normal thing. But until then, everybody, you guys are the best. Thank you very much for watching and or listening. Always remember the golden rule. Don't take this stuff too seriously.

MMA is supposed to be fun, and we will have more fun next week following UFC Singapore. Right here on onto the next one, the podcast. Peace out, everybody.