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

Episode Date: March 31, 2024

Manon Fiorot has done more than enough to earn a title shot in the women's flyweight division after delivering a one-sided performance in her first promotional main event against Erin Blanchfield at UFC Atlantic City. While merit is certainly on Fiorot's side, is timing a different story altogether — to the point where Fiorot may have to take another fight while she waits to see how the Alexa Grasso vs. Valentina Shevchenko trilogy fight plays out? On an all-new edition of On To the Next One, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee discuss what could be next for Fiorot after her dominant victory over Blanchfield. Additionally, future matchups are discussed for Joaquin Buckley following his stoppage win over Vicente Luque in the co-main event, Chris Weidman after his controversial win over Bruno Silva, along with fellow main card winners Nursulton Ruziboev, Kyle Nelson, Chidi Njokuani, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter 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 Volkswagen. As the U.S. gets ready to host soccer's biggest moment on a worldwide stage, Volkswagen is helping. people discover new turfs and new ways to play the beautiful game right here in the U.S. From deaf and power wheelchair soccer to beach and futsal, Volkswagen is actively supporting

all the communities and teams within the U.S. soccer ecosystem. They're supporting talent from across the U.S. soccer extended national teams and are focused on helping to give these less widely known forms of soccer a platform moving forward. From the pitch to the sand and everything in between, welcome to our turf. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. And welcome to a brand new edition. On to the next one. Yes, the matchmaking crowns return following.

Just a weird, wild, one might call it, kind of dumb UFC Atlantic City event, which saw, we assume, the new number one contender at 125 pounds. But when you have the ultimate fighter mixed in there, you just never know what could happen. much drama surrounding the show, not just in the house, but with the coaches and the title picture in the Women's Flyweight Division. But let's talk about where some of these fighters go following UFC Atlantic City. I am Mike Hack and joining me as always, the co-host, the co-matchmaker, the Prince of Positivity,

and I think we need some positivity today from my best friend, Alexander Cayley, AK. How are we doing? Pretty good. People should know I didn't watch any of Atlantic City live. I took a day off, spent time with my family, you know. My family's pretty Catholic, so a little bit of an Easter weekend, Easter weekend festivities up here in Canada. So it was nice. Had a nice evening.

Obviously, it was keeping up the results the whole time. I'm aware of what happened. Checking on MMFighting.com on the reg. Getting notifications from Twitter. People, you should be doing that. You better have, I don't know why you wouldn't have your M.A. Fighting Twitter notifications on. Don't miss the thing.

And again, you can be like me, spending quality time away from the TV, away from a monitor, and still finding out what's going on. I got kind of a negative vibe, Mike, from what I was seeing online and from some of our internal Slack chats. Is that accurate? It was just so dumb. Like, there's so much dumb happened on this card. It was just wild between the referee, Gary Copeland in particular, just starting off good and then just getting progressively worse,

like he was drinking his own Kool-Aid throughout the night as a referee. We have the frontrunner for the worst scorecard of 2024 in the Cheating-N Joaquin'I-Ris-McKea fight. That judge is probably the only person on planet Earth who scored that fight for Reese McKee. Because even Reese McKee was stunned that he got a scorecard.

It's just, obviously, the Chris Widman situation was not great. and then him just going full grizzly bear about it was another not so fantastic look. We had Joaquin Buckley get a big win, but we saw sort of the next step of demise. One would say for Vicente Lucke, who just didn't look like himself at all. Now, I don't want to take too much away from Buckley,

and we'll talk about him in a moment. And then the main event was just not competitive. It was all men in Fioro, Aaron Blanchfield, try to do Aaron Blanchfield things. She couldn't accomplish those. Aaron Blanchfield things, and then she just didn't try anything else. So the night started off pretty interesting and weird.

We had a hip. We had a knockout with a fighter diving in for a double leg and him running into Jacob Malcoun's hip and knocking himself dazed before he gets finished from Groutabund. I mean, this Carter's just wacky and weird, and the fact that there were 14 of them, and it ended at like 1.30 in the morning, it's never a good combination. Yeah, our pal, Nicklinville, he wondered if Petrosky hit Malcoun's Cup.

Again, I did not watch this clip closely. I saw you guys kind of talk about, you know, maybe just hit his hip, hit his hip really hard, which you can imagine, you know, it's kind of a freaky thing, but it could certainly knock you sense. Was there a possible head-to-cup action here, Mike? I honestly don't really.

know. It just seemed like Andre Petroski dove in. His head hit Malcun's hip almost at the same time that Malcun landed like a short punch. And then he just fell to the floor and got finished. It was just super weird. I almost thought the same thing happened in

the Vicente-Luke fight. Because he dove in and then just fell to the ground and pulled guard and then Joaquin just hit him and Lucke just kind of let him, just kind of turtled up and let Buckley just continuously hit him

It was like he just wanted the referee to stop it So I don't know what happened there either It was just a weird Vibey night And We were talking about this on the Post-Wite show 298 was very good 299 was very good

Outside of those two cards This has been a tough run for the UFC in 2024 There has not been much to really write home about in regards to these cards. And then I didn't want to get into the main event for St. Louis. I mean, geez Louise, man. This is like this is what 2024 is for the UFC. Like, have we given up?

We just, let's give them $2.99 and $300 and then let's just throw shit against the wall and hope it sticks and people just enter the house anyways, even though there's shit on the walls. Like, what are we doing here? Not only a lackluster St. Louis main event, but not even the Derek Lewis heavyweight main event we wanted. Like at this point, at this point, they're trolling us by not giving us Lewis and Jarazino. It's not even the top 20. They are the top 20 Derek Lewis main event? Someone said are Jarzino and Derek Lewis possibly the same person? And that is why they've not because I cannot think of it.

Jerzyne has been asked about it. Like, it's not like this fight. It's like, oh, this is purely a fan making and media making. Like, we just, it's in the realm of conversation. He's been asked about it. He said he's open to it. I can't remember if Derek Lewis was asked about it, but I don't think Derek Lewis would say no to anything. And I'm sure he's probably been, I'm sure he's been asked about Jarzino and thought to himself, yeah, sure. Cut the check, great fight.

Someone's getting knocked out. I don't know. I don't know what's happening there. And back to the, but back to Saturday's card, yeah, it's weird. So much of the narrative, I'm just looking over the result,

is almost about sort of what went wrong for the loser, or in Chris Wiseman's case, even like the winner, and not necessarily celebrating, you know, who actually got their hand raised because so, like you said, Petroski, very weird finish. And good for Jacob Malcun. Like, you know, hey, listen, that's a knockout win for him. But yeah, we're all going to be talking about how weird that was. Anta Tricali, O and four in the UFC, you know, good debut for Igbo Aslan. But we're kind of thinking about like, oh, no, is that it for the pleasure man? Herbert Burns, I think third straight lost now.

What does this mean for his future? Loopy, good fighter, just kind of falling short against the top 10 person. What else that? The Reese McKee, like you said, the scurry score card. Algeo, I know there was some conversation about the stoppage, of course, Wyden the I poke, Lucke, kind of a, yeah, deflating loss, and then Planchfield, getting shut out by a better fighter.

So, again, we should give up, be giving so much flowers to the winners, but I guess, yeah, on a card like this, and it's hard, it's hard to sort of focus on just like, oh, let's talk about who won, because how these fights happened is a major part of the story. Well, let's

give some shine to the winners because there are a couple winners on this card that aren't going to get much shine, but they are winners nonetheless, and we must approach the game as such. Let's start off with Manon Fioro. Yeah. She just, as Jedd liked to put it, she outhossed Aaron Blanchfield. I just didn't give enough credit to how big and strong Manon Fioro is in this weight class, because every time Aaron Blanchfield went towards her, it was like there was a collision and Aaron Blanchfield just went backwards every single time. Manning just a big, strong flyweight. And like I said earlier, Blanchfield just didn't have a plan B. She fed right into Manon's hands. And Manon was like, all right,

bet, like five round main event? Like, this is the fight you're giving me? Sure, I'll do this. And she cruised. And outside of a Dustin Porre-loving guillotine attempt, that was pretty good from Aaron Blanchfield after getting basically body slam, like picked up, hossed off the mat in midair and slammed to the ground. And then Blanchfield put her in the guillotine attempt. This was one-way traffic, complete shutout, pillar to post.

It seems very clear here, okay? This was a true unadulterated, number one contender fight. These were the two women who both had very strong cases. And because of what was going on, the availability in Grass Zone, Shibchenko fighting to a draw and not coaching the ultimate fighter. One of these women just had to lose and they collided at the right time. But was it the right time, A.K., because Manin wants the title shot.

She deserves the title shot. She's 34 years of age. She's not getting any younger. But in order to get that title fight, she's going to have to wait for all this dust to settle. We don't know when this fight is happening between Gras and Shibchenko. If Valentina wins the fight, do we do it again for a fourth time? because it'll be one, one and one. And even if Grasso wins,

she's not the most active fighter in the world. So where does Manning go? Does she wait until 2025 to fight for the belt, maybe serve as the backup and fingers crossed, maybe she slots her way in there and gets it earlier because something happens to Wishafchenko or something? Or does she take a stay busy fight to stay active?

I don't know who that would be, Macy Barber or something. I mean, that's literally all that's available to her right now that would make any sense. What are we doing here? I feel pretty confident that if Menon Fero and her team decide to wait for the title shot, you will not see her again until next March. This will be the last you see of Menon in the cage this year because of the old-way fighter happening, because of Grassland Shango actually still having to fight.

And then for the reasons you mentioned, like, that'll be at best. I'm trying to remember when the ultimate fighter airs and like, when it'll finish. At best, you might see it sometime in quarter three. And then again, if you're assuming that Menon gets tell us out this year, it'd have to happen in November or December, and there's just no guarantee that that's going to be the case. But I want to believe that Menon is kind of okay financially that she doesn't need to just step into the cage to, you know, to pay her bills. And yes, you want to stay sharp. You hate to stay in the shelf for too long. But I don't think a year is crazy. So if you're Manaw, you head home, take a year off and try. And, you're a year off and

story of the French countryside, Mike, just wait for either the winner of that fight or the chance to step in. You kind of mentioned that like, oh, you know, you're kind of crossing your fingers. But ultimate fighter historically, and I think it's been better in recent years, there's a lot of such times where the fight just doesn't happen. Because, you know, you have the coaches on the show and then you'd wait for the show to air, you're really putting it off for a long time. And as we all know, like if you book a fight, if you booked a fight eight months in advance, for example, it doesn't happen, but let's say they did. That's eight months where a lot of weird stuff can happen.

An illness, a freak injury, you know, nothing serious, hopefully. I don't know. Another global outbreak. I don't know why I would say that. But so many horrible things can happen to cancel a fight. And if you're Manal, there's no reason to take another fight because, yes, you are the number one option, and she slots right in there. If Grasso can't compete, if Chichchenko can't compete,

Menel's going to find herself in a title fight either for undisputed or an interim and that's where she's got to be. I just don't want to see her fight again. If she does, great, good for her, good for her fans. I just don't think it's a great career movie. Any fight she takes on now is high risk, very, very little reward.

So wait for the winner of this trilogy. Yeah, and I think the biggest factor is she's 34. Yeah. You got to do it. You just got to get it. No other fight makes sense. I would say she's probably going to get tapped as the backup fighter for whenever this fight happens.

And I know that's a pretty significant weight cut for her. I know a lot of people are commenting about how she looked on the scale. We saw the betting lines kind of shift a little bit in Blanchefield's favor after how she looked on the scale. Obviously didn't slow her down at all. You know, get a little paycheck. Cut that weight. Step on the scale. Get a little extra pay pay.

And, you know, get a seat in the sphere and face off with the winner. that's it. You know what she could do. You know what she could do, Mike? Now that you mention it, her being a bit of a larger side of the flyweight division, maybe not enjoying those weight cuts. I said she just wants to take a fight for the end of the year, get a paycheck. I'll go up and do a little women's bantam waiting.

How about that? How about that, Mike? Go spice up the women's bantamweight division. I mean, I'd pick mannau over, God, I think I've got my rankings up here. I'm trying to look at like the top 10 of women's bandit. I mean, again, and I feel like this would be less risk because I feel like, I feel like if she lost at bantam weight, yeah, it wouldn't look good, but I would hope that UFC wouldn't hold it against her. I hope they would be like, oh, okay, you took, you took a fight for us to help us sort of pad one of our random fight nights. We appreciate that. Here's your paycheck. And also, yes, you're keeping your spot on the flyweight line. But maybe I'm being too optimistic. But I would pick her against, I don't know, Carol Hosa, Macy Chesson, Penny Kianza. I'm just looking at some of these names here in the, maybe even Holly Holmonde. That's always a nightmare matchup for a lot of people.

I don't know. She could randomly go up there and fight some random. Go fight Misha. Like, Jed brought up Misha Tate. Go fight Misha. That's fine. Like, that would be, that's a name, that's a main event probably. Yeah.

Go do that. But even so, especially if Holly Holm beats Kayla Harrison at UFC 300, she should absolutely do that. She should absolutely do that because she beats Misha Tate. That would be. If she beats. She meets Mika Tate, she's getting a title shot. At Bantamette? At either one, whatever she wants.

Whatever comes up first. If she meets Meeceeat and Kayla loses, they would probably give her a title fight. So I don't hate the idea. But Aaron probably would have fought somebody else. She probably would have taken Rose or I don't know if she would have. Maybe she would have fought Macy just to try to shut her up or something. But yeah. But with Manon being 34, I think she just kind of waits it out.

She goes and gets to be we should tape money go get that but yeah she doesn't need to do anything else Good news for Aaron though that Barbara fight is still on the table I feel yeah

I don't think a loss I think if you're barber you're still kind of like yeah I love to fight Aaron Blansfield I think Barber should go after Rose full throttle here Rose is available

Rose could have got the Blanchefield fight if you already beat her so really the only thing for Rose is the barber fight so Oh how does this result Mike how does this result affect Rose's title chances.

It's not great. This is probably not great for her. But they didn't look, but Fioro, like, again, sorry, I got to tell people I didn't watch the whole fight or much of it at all. I imagine this isn't the kind of performance that like lit up the, you know, lit up the matchmaker's candles, as it were. What a weird metaphor. It wasn't fun because we just saw the same thing for 25 minutes outside of a

guillotine attempt. But it was, this was not competitive. Like, Aaron's just kind of run through everybody. Even the Taos Santos fight, like she struggled a little bit, but then she just kind of took over and just out hustled Talas Santos. That didn't happen here. Like, she made Aaron Blanchfield, she made Aaron Blanchfield look like a 24-year-old fighter.

Like, that's exactly what she did. No one else has been able to do that. And she did that. So this is impressive. This is probably not great for Rose. But she can go fight Macy Barber. There's something to that. Rose is probably hoping.

for Aaron Blanchfield because she probably could have got that fight in a different number one contender fight, but we'll see what happens there. A.K., I think back to October of 2021, or 22, excuse me. And we're on the post-flight show following a UFC pay-per-view in Abu Dhabi, and we were discussing the importance of doing the thing

and how important that is. and we talked about Balal Mohammed, how he was so bad at doing the thing. We talked about Benil Daryush being worse at doing the thing. And some people kind of just shrug off the importance of the post-fight interview and having a name in mind. I think there's some value to that. I think you need to have something in place. And Joaquin Buckley goes into the co-main of ending against Vicente Lucke

and finishes him in the second round. And I know a lot of people are like, You know, Lucke didn't look great more so than Buckley looked awesome. But Buckley did look really good. This is an impressive showing. I still think we still have a lot of questions about Joaquin Buckley and how good he is. But I said on the People's Pre-Fight show, I said after MVP's debut at UFC 299, and he beats Kevin Holland.

The winner of Vicentee Lucie versus Joaquin Buckley used to get on the microphone and call for MVP. Call for MVP. I will go to Manchester. I'll go to the UK. MVP. I thought this fight was for the MVP sweepstakes. Joaquin Buckley gets the win. He's very emotional about it. There was a video that surfaced that he was partying at the Atlantic City pool at the hotel, dancing with all the peeps and led to other people saying things to the effect of, that's it. We've got to go to pool

parties a day of every fight now. That's a thing. Joaquin Buckley gets on the mic, talks about how important this win was. Puts Vecente Lucille over as an absolute animal. respect. And then Michael Bisbing says, all right, man, who do you want to fight next? And Joaquin Buckley says, I have a call out. I've been waiting for this call for a long time. St. Louis, May 11th, Anheiser-Busch sponsor me. In essence. And I'm just like, okay, maybe there's more. And Michael Bisbing, well, I don't usually give him a ton of credit for his commentating and even the post of my interviews, especially when you have Paul Feldor there, is probably the best there. Even Michael Bisbing was just like, what the fuck, dude?

Like, you have to have a name, Joaquin. Like, you have to. And what does Joaquin say? I don't care, man. Anybody in the rankings. What the hell are you doing, Joaquin Buckley? What are you doing? Oh. So now this is what he's going to get. It's two options. option B is he's going to get the option that I was going to give Joaquin Buckley the last time after he said I just want a main event I was going to give him we're not fuck or teen off so that's the B option and I'm not going to take a point for this if he's going to fight May 11th he ain't fighting anybody good

so my pick and this is more of a punishment and I actually feel like this could happen it's Joaquin Buckley versus Michael Morales that's what he's going to get sorry you got to be better in the spots, man. Like even if you don't get it, you have to give people something to talk about. MVP was perfect. It was perfect. It was right there for you. I was worried he was going to call Colby or something and I was just going to chuck my hat across the room. This was worse. I would have preferred him to call out Colby. But this is just bad. Now he's going to have to fight Michael Morales, an absolute murderer on his way up. And that's what you're getting. That's what you

getting, Mr. Buckley. I was going to just call you Buckley, but that's what you get in. Buckley, you're getting Michael Marouse. You want to fight in St. Louis, this is what you get. Sorry. Mike, should I just skip my pick? It sounds like you're, it almost sounds like you didn't want to make a pick for him. It almost felt like he should, he should have been, uh, had a one week ban for his very poor collar artery. He's not getting anybody. He's not getting anybody good. He could have called out Jeff Neal for St. Louis. Like, I would have been okay with that. Like, This is just bad. It was just bad.

Like, I understand he's from the area, but, I mean, especially after seeing the frigging main event they just announced, like, here's your opportunity to get, like, the co-main event spot that people are like, okay, no, this is the actual main event. But you ask for a sponsorship deal instead. Why are you asking for that? That's not your job. What are you doing? Now you're going to, now he's going to have to find Michael Browns. That ain't good. Mike, please.

Please, please. That's tough because he'll be ranked on Tuesday when the UFC does not be number 11. He'll certainly when we do our update. I think we won't do a full update again until after 300, obviously. So a couple of weeks. But he should have a number next to his name. We had Lucke at 13. I don't know where he was in your individual ranking, Mike.

I am at 12, but. 12. So it's either obviously you're dropping Luke 8 out and putting another name in or you are inserting, Buckley in there, which is maybe well-deserved. 3 and O at Welterweight, which is nice. We all kind of watch the Buckley drop down for a long time. Now it gets this win. Again, over perennial top 15 guy.

I just gave him Luke K spot, so he'll probably be in my ranking. So he'll get a few points from my ballot, that's for sure. That's tough. And now, yeah, it sounds like he'll have to defend it against someone else. Michael Morales, who's somewhere probably just outside the top 15, somewhere in the top 25 reign. It's harsh, Mike. It's harsh, it's harsh, but I know you mean this out of love. I know you just want Buckley to do better.

And fighting Michael Morales. Hey, hey, hey, hey, look, getting the chance to fight an undefeated guy is not, it's a, that's a, that's a firm punishment, but I think a soft punishment and a chance for great reward. So not terrible. I guess I went more crystal bally then. Not because I'm sorry, not crystal ball. Excuse me. Magic Wondi. Magic Wondi. This is, this is, this fight would have to happen in Australia. And again, I want to keep buckling the top.

So I think maybe he could get Jack Delamadelina. But that's, again, I'm magic wanding it, Mike. I'm magic winding. It's not what I think will happen. It's what I think would be a, a fight. Because I think there's a chance he gets fed to someone. And I thought it was like, it was like Jack, JDM or like Shopcott. Like, I just feel like they're going to feed him.

I feel like that he beats Luke A and they're like, oh, this is someone now we can present as a reasonable opponent for a ranked fighter who like, we need to keep busy. We don't like, because Shopcott's not getting this hell shot next. He has to fight someone. Jack Delamadelina, again, probably a guy who's done enough to, what he's like, 7 and 0 in the O.C. Maybe not done enough needs one win. Maybe Buckley's that win. You just get him to that win, keep him busy.

And I don't know. I'm not saying it will happen, but I wouldn't have a problem with booking that if I was the OC. If we didn't put Buckley in St. Louis, wait for the extrao card and go with him in JDM. JDM goes out on pay-per-view against a man who was seconds away. from becoming the World's Away champion. Seconds away from losing the fight to Gilbert Burns, bounces back with a heroic comeback finish. He gets on the mic and actually does the thing,

calls out the boogeyman in a fight that is super realistic and actually got the attention of the boogeyman himself to the effect of like, let's go. A guy who has a case right now to go fight for the Welterweight title. If the UFC announced today that Leon Ed. Edwards was defending his welterweight title in Shopcott Rachmanoff in the UK in July, everyone would go crazy with excitement, more so than the guy who probably deserves the belt for being honest. And JDM goes out and calls this guy out. And you reward that with a guy

who's just who's now the number 11 ranked welterweight in the world? His thing is, I want JDM to get a showcase fight in his home country. I don't think a fight with Shobokut would go his way. It's a big fight. It's a big fight. I think that ends in a downer for the Australian fans. So this is me again, sort of... And give him Tim Means or somebody. No, no, but that's what I'm saying. Buckley is now the perfect, uh, not jobber, but the perfect, like, opponent for that situation, because he has a name. He has the, um, uh, Kassanai knockout forever, right? That's, he has that, he rides that highlight forever. Now he's also a credible guy at Welterweight. Again, three and no beats a perennial contender. So you can sell him.

him as not just a walkover, right? I mean, I think J.DM would be a three to one, probably like three to one, four to one favorite by come fight night. I don't know, man. That's a tough style. It is a tough matchup. But I think your average fan, your average would just be like, oh, yeah, like Jdeme's on this run, like you said, he'd just be Gilbert Burns.

Yes, he almost kind of lost that fight. And I think there's still questions to be asked about Jadden. I actually don't think he's on Shobcot's level. So I don't want to throw him in there. It was a great callout if it happens. Fantastic. I think the thing to do here is build him up a different way. I don't need to throw him into a shop-caught.

Maybe I'm trying, maybe I'm protecting contenders, which is something I don't normally like to do. But I think we can go a different way with Jack. If anything, like I said, a little bit of a step back from Gilbert, because I think that kind of showed how much more work he has to do. His natural gifts, his striking ability, saves him in those matchups. But let's take a little bit of a step back. So I think maybe a quote-unquote showcase fight for JDM in Australia.

But yeah, I don't know. Good for Buckley, though. Yeah. Look, last thing I'll say about this, if JDM loses to Shafcott does nothing to his stock. True. Literally absolutely nothing. It's just like, all right, dude,

kudos for calling this dude out. But if he loses to Joaquin Buckley, he is aft. Like, he is in trouble. That road back from there is a long one. You lose to Shafcott, you're still there. Like, you're still right in the mix. But in Australia, would be tough. That's a tough pill to swallow.

If it was somewhere else, I'm not saying it would hurt to affect the stock differently, but getting like smashed by Shafcott in his home country would hurt real bad. Trust me, I was at 297 when every Canadian lost. You have no idea how much every fighter on that card is now like dead to Canadians.

You know what I mean? Like we're good people up here. We support them. The next time any of those, the men who lost on that card are booked, we'll cheer them. We'll be high for them. We still want big things for all these guys, but it sucked the air out of the building every time when those getting guys lost. If JDM lost a shopcott and the co-main of that card, it would be like, it would be rough. It would be a rough watch. We'll see what happens.

Buckley, even if he called up Kevin Holland for St. Louis, like, that would have been fine. Like, that would have been good. The rematch, like, that would have made sense. That's a co-main event people would be excited about. Just not good. You know, Buckley, don't listen to it. It's a learning experience. He just co-main evented in New Jersey.

Luckily, your career's gone just fine. He wasn't even the first choice because Sean Brady wasn't actually fighting. Yet they announced he was. Well, that's another story for another time. I know. Just listen to us. Sorry, don't listen to us. Walking, don't listen to us.

Support for this show comes from the audible original, the downloaded two. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Roscoe 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 with 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. Saving and investing well is an art and a science. It requires high-level math, an intimate knowledge of economic history and theory, and a healthy dose of psychology. People have spent their whole careers and won Nobel Prizes, trying to figure out the best ways to do it. Betterment believes that you should be able to be a successful and sophisticated investor without having to get a PhD. They've spent over a decade creating and refining a platform that can help people who have, you know, lives invest like experts.

And it's all because they have a simple mission to make powerful investing tools available to everyone. Their approach, which includes things like goals-based investing, globally diversified portfolios, and tax-smart technology, is rooted in deep research but packaged in a single, easy-to-understand, user-friendly platform. With automation, friendly reminders, and best-in-class customer service, Betterment makes it easy to make good investment decisions. You don't need a Nobel Prize to be a great investor. All you need is Betterment. Go to Betterment.com to learn more.

That's B-E-T-E-R-M-E-N-T dot com. Investing involves risk, performance not guaranteed. Let's go to Chris Widman, AK. This was the on the card, the, let's bury your face in your hands. and watch in between your fingers kind of fight, because we didn't know what we're going to get. I think the NBA community, especially people, long-time fans, people have been covering this war for a long time,

who saw the rise of Chris Wydenman, the fall of Chris Wyden, the injury, everything he's gone through to get to this point. I think even then, we felt like this was a winnable fight for Chris Wideman. We felt like this is one that if he gets his fight to the ground, he can do well in. But we also were very nervous because Bruno Silo, can hurt you and could put you on skates and finish you pretty viciously. Weidman has a good start to the fight.

He's definitely lost a lot of speed. He's definitely lost some stuff. That's what happens as you get old. 39. He's going to be 40 in a couple months. I thought he won the first two rounds. There was an eye poke mixed in there. We start round three.

We have another eye poke from Chris Wydman. Referee Gary Copeland said, no, no, no, no, no. They poked each other, which if you look at the replay, if we're calling this from a technical standpoint, yes, there was an eye poke, but Bruno Silva was throwing a punch and his thumb just kind of like got into the eye. So it's a little bit different than the Three Stooges thing going on that we kind of saw. And then the fight's going on and we're wondering, we're still kind of nervous. Is Chris Wyman going to get knocked out? Is this it? This third round Wyatman, how many times has he fought in this neck of the woods in the country? up two rounds and then gets brutally knocked out in the third. Yule Romero, Jacqueray, et cetera. And then Chris Widman, it appears watching live. He throws this big combination. Silva collapses to the floor.

Widman pounces. Punch, punch, punch. Gary Copeland in the shirt that doesn't fit him. Steps in, stops the fight. Crowd goes crazy. Boardwalk hall is electric. Wyden jumps out of the cage. He's high-fiving the freaking fans on the crowd.

This is unbelievable. And then the camera shoots over to Bruno Silva, and he is absolutely rip shit. He is pissed, pointing to his eye again. He is livid about all this. He's yelling at the ref. He's yelling at anybody who will listen to him. No, no, no, no. He poked me in the eye.

And at first, I'm like, okay, this is sour graves. This might be a little bit of sour grapes. Maybe he's just pissed about the other eye pokes. Maybe he's just pissed at the point wasn't taken. I don't know. And then we saw why he was so pissed, okay? They go to the replay. The combination is not of any punch landed.

It is a two eye poke combination where Bruno Silva's head went right into to the finger of Chris Wideman. And then as Bruno Silva continues to come forward, the other finger of Chris Wideman from the opposite hand goes into the eye of Bruno Silva and he just collapses to the floor. Weidman gets the win.

We're thinking to ourselves, okay, this is probably going to be a no contest. Wyman should probably be disqualified because it's four eye pokes. But there's no way that Chris Wydenman is getting the win here. There's just no way. Bruce Buffer comes in, referee stops about winner by TKO Chris Wydenman. So we're already confused by all of this because instant replay is there. You can use it. And you could have easily overturned this to an old contest or done whatever you wanted here.

Then we find out from Brennan Fitzgerald, after Bruce Buffer makes the announcement, Chris Wyden does this post-wide interview, which, boy, we're going to get to, A.K. It's overturned from a TKO to a technical unanimous decision because rather than ding Chris Wideman for the clear-as-day fouls, they just stop the fight and score the bout and give it to Wydman. So much confusion here.

And then Chris Weidman, who I have all the respect in the world for, gets the poachshy interview with Michael Pistick. And he says something to the effect of, look, man, if you can poke to the eye, you can't fall down. It's supposed to look for the wreck. So he basically says, yeah, man, I poked him in the eye, but you got to be tougher and not fall to the ground

because it's just a bad look for the ref. And Wydeen just carries on with this. into the post fight press conference and says maybe it's for a way out after getting poked in the eyes four times like all of this is just unbelievable AK. This is just unbelievable stuff. And at this point, Chris can't do anything else. Like, he can't take it back. He can't go on air and be like, you know what?

I watch the replays. I really, I talk to my family. I take it all back. No, no, no, no. You've already gone this far with it. You have to play this all the way. But man, A.K., this has to be the worst result of all.

Right? Because if Wyman goes out and gets knocked out by Bruno Silva or loses this fight, just based on the interviews he did, there's a chance, this is it. It's his retirement fight. As long as he was somewhat competitive, like he could leave with his head held high.

If he goes out and just has like a thunderous finish, like if this was a left-right combination that dropped and hurt Bruno Silva and dropped him to the floor and he goes out and gets the finish and gets that reaction, it's clean. It would not have shocked me if Chris Wydenman was like, all right, this is it.

I can't go any higher than this. But the way that this fight ends, Wyman getting a win like that, there's no way he's leaving now. There's no way he's retiring. because even with him going grizzly bear on this, which honestly, it's so ridiculous, but the fact that he's going to have to stick with it, and if he does, I will respect it so much more. I just don't see a world where it's like, it's almost like the Tony Ferguson Patty Pimbleau fight

where it was like it was, it just showed how not with it Tony Ferguson is anymore, but it was competitive enough that he just won't see that no matter what people say. This, Chris Wyman ain't going anywhere after all of this. So, okay, after I just laid this all out, because I know you didn't watch, but I know you obviously saw it on Twitter and probably paying attention to what happened. What did you make of this? And what did you make of the post-fight interview? Gary Copeland, all of it, because this is one of the weirdest things I've seen in a long time. First of all, denied till you die.

So, Chris, well done. To come up with that, to come up with that immediately. To come up with that immediately in the post-fight interview, the, the, you know, you. You can't go down. What's the referee's supposed to do you can't? Great. And then to double down on it, yeah, I was, I did listen. I did hear some of the post fight, the post fight press conference stuff.

Yeah. Don't back down. Do not change your story. Do not change. Don't go like, oh, yeah. I, you know what? I know what I said in the cage. But then I saw the replays later and I was like, oh, no, no, no.

Stick with your line. Stick with your line. People have made it. Chris, people have made up their minds. I saw the Twitter reacts. No one is going to respect this with. but guess what? They have no choice to do.

It's in the book. It's a weird technical decision. I think thankfully not a TKO. I think TKO, I'm sure there's people who maybe lost some money on this. Actually, if you bet knockout Wyden, I mean, you probably deserve to lose. I can't imagine the odds must have been plus 500, 600, 600 on that. So sorry to anyone who got hit by that, but it was a long shot. So decision was probably a bit more in play here, and that's what we ended up getting in a weird way.

But yeah, I'm with the Chris on this one. Terrible win. It's hard to call a win terrible when it's your first one in so many years, and you're just trying to get off the Schneid. And this should be this inspirational story of, man, Chris coming back from that brutal leg break, and it didn't go well against Brad Tavares. But now here he is back in the win column

when people were calling for him to retire after UFC 292, it should be so much, it should taste so much better. And it doesn't. And how can it? How can it? This is the one-two I-po combination. Listen, well-trained, blatantly illegal. Does Chris Wyden, aside from BJ Penn,

BJPEN, the clear number one, have the worst post-undisputed title lost career of any fighter? Besides DJ? Beside, BJ clearly number one. Loses the, loses to Frankias. Anderson Silverlist. Anderson, hold on. So after he lost to Wyden,

What did we get? He got some wins in there, but who did he be? What was Anderson's wins? There was the Dark Brunsson one, which he clearly lost. He got the terror game. Oh, but you know, but he did cool things, though. The Nick Diaz fight was memorable and hilarious, and he, quote, unquote, won. Overturned.

Daniel Cormier was bad a yes. Was a great moment. The Michael Bisping fight was really, like, he had really good moments after. He did have really good moments after. Chris is, so let's look at Chris. Yuel Romero and Gagar. tough, just nasty losses. He does beat Gastilum, great win,

caoed by Jacaree, brutally killed by Dominic Reyes, ugly win over Mariamic Akhmadav, and then, gosh, the Uriahal leg injury, then comes back. Very uninspiring loss to Brad DeVars, and now this highly, highly controversial win over Bruno's.

It's not the worst because he was up on the scorecards, right? Like, he probably should have been disqualified or it probably should have been no contest, but he was winning the fight. Yeah, he won the first of right. Yeah, we can kind of give Chris that. But I do think, besides BGPen, this is one of the worst-slash-weirdest undisputed career since losing an undisputed year.

Again, Tony Ferguson interim. Piotr-Yon, we'll see, Peoria Yon, you know, bounce back with that Sondya-Dong win. But we'll see how the rest of the things go. Sure, I'm sure he could be up there, especially the way he lost his title. It's been rough, man. It's been rough for Chris Wobb. A guy, fighter, I'm a big fan of, big fan of. And what a weird, weird fall from Chris.

race after the highest of highs, you know, takes out and his silver defensive title a few times. Mike, who are you matching him up with? I think we should get to. Totally forgot. Oh, man. Yeah, this is tough. I just gave Marvin Petrosian

because it's the least likely he'd get hurt. And it's a fight he could win. So, do it at MSG, like, have him fight in New York, see if he can get one there. But, I don't know, man. Like some people are saying Kamar Usman

I kind of brought that up But I was hoping for a little bit of a cleaner win Before I would think about that If he's gonna fight I'll go arm and Petrojan or we go Like have Reese McKeego back up to 185 or something And fight him Like that's kind of where we're at right now

Okay Uh Where did I this took me No you know what This took me a moment to think about what I wanted to see next for Chris Webb Yeah you can listen, you can give him some way back at the rankings middleweight. Totally fair.

This is a weird, quote, a win. But it doesn't sound like the UFC's interested in doing that, because Brad Tavares is a top 25 guy. Blendado is a top 25 guy. So they don't seem to be in the business of dialing things back too much for Chris Wyatman. He turns 40 in a few months. I think you still try to give a chance to move up, Mike. I think you try to give him a chance to move up. Now, shout out to No Best Bard Boys for breaking down some weird Chris Wydebin patterns here.

He'd never lost in New Jersey. Still stands. Undefeated New Jersey. He's never lost to a Silva, might. Undefeated against Silvas now. I assume this would be 3-0. I don't think, I think it's just Anderson and Bruno. Yes.

Not undefeated against Brazilians. We did mention Jacques-Ré. But other than Jacques-Réééé, he did have a rep as a Brazil killer there for a while. So I think we can get a resilient opponent Like I think we can get him a ranked Brazilian opponent Why not try him in Paulo Costa What the hell is This is what happens when I don't watch a card

But why not Mike First of all Who is Sean Shrip I'm going to fight I don't care Nobody ever again hopefully Who Jared Canning are going to fight Who's Kamar Usman going to fight You're just going to pull Paul Costa

Off the board for all of these guys After they just announced that Hamsat Chamaif is fighting Robert Whitaker, you just want to pull Paul Costa out, shelve him for six months, six to nine months probably. You don't know. Well, Wyden recovers from all of this. Because I don't know if you saw Wyman's face.

He was banged up. That's superficial damage. That'll be healed up by tomorrow morning. So we're going to ice Paulo Costa when this division is red-hot right now. I have all these big cards. No, we're not icing. We're keeping them busy. We're getting him a fight now.

We're getting him a book in this week. Against who? Chris Wyden now? Christopher, Christopher Wyden. What is this going to happen? Tell me. Do we have a date? Do we have a month?

International Fight Week. Should we put it out of UFC 300, AK? Just let's add another fight. 301. It's just around the corner. Needs a little more juice. Needs a little more juice. I'm just saying.

International Fight Week. International Fight Week. Call O Costa. Chris Wydenman. He doesn't lose to Brazilians, except for Shuckery. I mean, I respect it. He doesn't lose to it. Five and one, I think.

Five and one against five, six and one? No, title fights. Vitor? Machita? Damia. Damia. This would be the new Patty Tony Ferguson, if this happens. This would be the most shocking...

I think this is way more likely, way more likely than Patty and Tony was. Wow. Yeah. We will see. I mean, I'll give you, I will give you two of my own Otno points if they book this fight next. If Paul Koss's next fight is against Chris Widman, I'll give you two of my personal Ottono points. Wouldn't you hate this less than the Patty?

I think you hate the suggestion less than Patty Tony, though, right? I don't know. It's close. It's pretty bad. At least like I could, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Tony, if Tony isn't completely cooked, he could win. And there were moments where it looked like he could win. And then it just went away real fast.

And we kind of saw how the fight was going to go. And at least it was like somewhat competitive. And I wasn't broken because of it. I don't know. I have to I have to ponder this. I have to ponder this. I have to reflect. I was surprised that why I've been.

still had a bit of a chin. Because my whole write-up was, doing the predictions, was like, I can totally expect him to, you know, uses grappling, stifle Blondado.

But once Blendado, like, hits him, I thought, Wyden was toast. And it sounds like he took some shots. He took some shots, right? I mean,

got to give him some credit for that. That chin is still there. And Paulo Costa, certainly would be heavily favored. But he's not, like, he's not the most consistent. How many weird losses,

though, like, Paulo Kasa's got some weird losses in his resume. He's not like this killer. I mean, Paul of Koso is not a killer. He gave Rob Whitaker the business. He lost. He did.

He did, but he lost. He heard Bobby Knuckles in that fight with that spin cake. If he hits Chris Wyman, that spin cake. Good Lord. This ain't horseshoots, brother. He lost. He's lost three of his last four. How much leverage does Paulo Costa have?

He's lost three of his last four. He never fights. Let me ask you this. If Chris Wyman fights Paula Costa, international fight weekend wins, is your next pick of title fight? I mean, it's hard. We have to know if that DDP still,

um, is he fights going to happen, what the results is going to be there. But I mean, he'd call for it. You know, he'd do the thing. If there's anything Chris Wyven does,

as we learn from Saturday, he does the thing. Whether it's calling for title fights or defending the indefensible, Chris Wyven does the thing. Wow. Narsalt and Rootsabob did the thing. Yeah. Um, again,

more controversy. Another eye poke that led to a finish against a, Idrique Dumas, looking at Twitter, didn't seem like a lot of people were too upset by that, but that's another conversation for another time. Rizabov looking good. She's got a lot of fights, a lot of mild. She called out the great Gerald Mirchart for a fight, which I think it's a good call-out. Not where I went, AK, did you go there?

Are we doing Rizabov versus GM3, or did you go another direction? Roussabal is a weird case because he's very new to the UFC, but he has this like insane amount of pro experience. So I wanted to find someone who, and I guess the UFC doesn't care about that because they matched him up with Dumas. Dumas has what, like 11, 12 pro fights. So I guess it doesn't really matter.

As far as I've seen, I don't think I've seen Topology or Shoredog, like debunk Roosevelt's records. He's pretty legit. I haven't seen any wins being taken away like that. I think, Mike, that he can get the, oh, whoa, I almost wrote that wrong. This would have been the third eyebrow raising pick

if I'd read this incorrectly. I think he can get the Alan next week's main event. Alan Curtis rematch loser. I didn't get the loser of that fight. I originally written winner and I'd be like, oh, no, wait, that makes zero say. Imagine Brendan Allen beating, avenging his loss to Chris Curtis

and then it's like, you get yourself on Roosevelt next. No, the loser. I think the loser of that fight he might be able to get. Because I'm not sure what they have with Roosevelt. Again, he's got a lot of experience. I'm sure people want to dig into his topology if you go to like, I'm sure you'll see like there's a lot of wins in there.

Like he's like 20 fights deep and probably beating up guys who were like three and two or something. I get it. That's what happens over in the regional scene. You fight a lot, you get a lot of wins. And then hopefully you know, you make it to the UFC and start fighting some stiff competition. So this would be a huge jump up, I think, at least from what we've seen against his UFC competition.

But again, he has so much experience. I really am curious how legit he is. So I want to throw him in there with someone legit with, again, 25 plus fights sooner rather than later. So, yeah, I had to go a bit higher here, probably higher than I would have liked, and I'll say the loser of next week's meeting event.

I think Roosevelt could get a shot of them. I wasn't sure where you're going to go after the Chris Wyden and Paula Costa selection. I wonder, like, how many... Look, we know how appeals very rarely get overturned, but there's going to be a number of fights on this card that are going to get appealed. Both of these, I would assume,

Dumas is going to appeal this since the iPogue was pretty gnarly, and it led to the actual finish of the fight. But let's just say everything goes according to plan. I think it's time to do it. Rudesaboff versus my boy, Roman copy-lough. Absolute thumper. Let's go. 185 is fun.

Let's go. I love that fight. Solid. Shout out to the Canadian, Kyle Nelson, AK. The man has just found like a second wind. He's looking better. better than ever. He's in fun scraps. Bill Algeo is a very durable cat and Kyle and also just feed his ass. I mean, a lot of people were upset about the stoppage in this one. Maybe he thought

it was too early. I didn't have a big problem with it. I thought it was fine. Algeo was still kind of on his feet, but he was out to lunch. And the referee gave him a couple of different chances to kind get his wits to him and Algeo certainly tried, but it just kept getting worse and worse, and the rough had seen enough, so I didn't have a big problem with it. Colin Nelson calls out Nate the train landware, who had a fun, insane fight as only Nate the trade landwear can. And you know what, A.K., normally I ding fighters for trying to do our jobs for us, but I gotta tell you, AK, I kind of like it. I like this fight. I think we should do it. Both guys got first round finishes. Both guys are in crazy.

he's wars for as long as the fight lasted. I love it. That's what I'm going with. Kyle Nelson versus Nate Landware. Yeah, the only reason I went away with it is because he called for it. I just wanted to go in a different direction. Also, there's so many great fights for Nate Landware. Maybe Colin Nelson's one of them, but I think there's maybe higher ranking.

I don't know. Nelson's three straight now on his street, undefeated in his last floor, my fellow Canadian. Mike, you know, he's been the underdog in his past four fights. I think he's been the underdog and almost all his U.S. he fights. I've picked against him in this one. I've picked against him, I think, every time. And I will continue to do so as long as it motivates him to win.

Because, again, Canada's been kind of star for a standout fighter. And if people have told you, if people told you last year or 18 months ago, Kyle Nelson would be like one of the top Canadians right now in the O.C, they would have been very confused. If they suggest that like, let me think, six or seven years ago, maybe you could believe. But this guy was a very highly regarded prospect on the, on the canada scene once upon time.

And then, yeah, ran some tough luck to start his UFC career. But now, undefeated in his past four, and again, all underdog fights. Duo Choi, he was a, all of these, I think, two to one almost. Doeot Troy, a little bit less than that. Blake Builder, two to one underdog.

Fernando Padilla, two to one underdog. Bill Algeo, two to one underdog. So he keeps finding away, and I think we've got to stick with that. The land where pick is fine, I think he would again be a two to one underdog. But I went with an even, I think a fight where he'd be even more heavily,

bet against. Let's say, let's move up the rankings here. Let's go the Jonathan Pierce David Onama winner. They're fighting April 27th. Kyle Nelson's a dangerous fight, man. And I think either of those guys, if they won, would probably not want to fight Kyle Nelson. But I think he's earned the right to kind of get a shot at one of these more younger, up-and-coming guys.

Because I say younger, I remember how old these guys actually are. Yeah, because Kyle Nelson's got something, man. I don't know how long this run is going to last, but I am very, very, curious to find out. So big congrats to him. I did not think he'd get past Bill Algeo. Thoughts that's where the good times we're going to stop. 3.0 and 1 in his last four. Tough division. Yeah. He's looked really good. So congratulations to him. And let's go to the welterweight division. Main card opener, Chee di and Jokawani, makes the weight. Gets there at 170 on the nose. It looks pretty good on the scale. A lot of people wondering if he

get there is his first time in eight years, I believe, since cutting down to 170, when one of his recent or one of his previous weight cuts to 170, actually like messed up his voice box. I wouldn't even say he messed it up because he sounds just tremendous. He could be a DJ. He could do it all. Fights, Reese McKee. Rees McKee has basically done everything in his career but win a UFC fight. That continues.

You have to kind of assume that Reese McKee's UFC days are numbered here. O and four. I understand his first run. You got freaking Humzaa Chimaeuf and just got. murderers row early on, but Andglosa and now Chitty and Jokwani, he's an out

0 and 4 in the UFC. I kind of feel like this could be the end for Reese McKee as a UFC fighter. But Chidi gets the win, split decision. One of the all-time horrendous scorecards scoring this fight for Reese McKee, it's just awful. I would even question if you scored this fight 29-28 for Cheaty.

I thought it was a clear 30-27, but if you did 29-28, like I probably, I might be like, I don't think that's true, but at least I wouldn't have a problem with it, but scoring the fight for Reese McKee is absolutely criminal. So, Gidi gets the win. He's back on track, snaps three fights, kid. O Canada, AK, cheating and Jokwani versus Mike Milat.

It's very good. Let's do it. It's very good. So I saw that thrown out there. I saw that got some DMs on that. I'm like, yeah. I didn't watch this fight, by the apparently on this McKee card was so bad. I had people asking me to do a robbery review just in that one card.

It's awful. We do not use the robbery review equipment for that. It's very expensive to use, but apparently I'm seeing no justification for it. The judge, did you see the judge who gave that score? Yes. I'm not familiar with them. I did check their history on Unmade Decisions.com. Their name escapes me at the moment.

I apologize. They're not that experience with you. I saw they recently did some PFL cards. And I assume, I think they're within the New Jersey range because I think, PFL what that event was in New Jersey as well. So not the most experienced judge, and maybe that happened that showed up on Saturday. But good for Chee-D. I had a lot of concerns, like you said, the cut down to 170 has never been favorable to him.

In Bellator, even though he won, he wanted to run in Belator. Those were, there was a catch weight. It's like 180-pound cash weight, 175-pound catch rate, like scheduled, scheduled catchweets, not fights where he missed weight. So he won those. He did miss weight for some fights that were supposed to happen at Welterweight. and he still won those fights but he never really

got down to 170 in Beltaire even though that was obviously the goal so I was very concerned but I think he hit 170 on the dot at the way ends which was nice he didn't look bad at all he looked fine so maybe they've got the cut down maybe that UFCPI is working against magic

I love the McMillop pick I picked a name out of a hat Carlson Harris I don't know I'm just happy to see that Cheedy is maybe has a run in him at one of the first because he's not a really young guy and he has a ton of mileage on him. But hey, if he can make a few more big checks and get some cool fights in there before it's all sudden done, hats off to him

and Carlson Harris, fun fight. And if he wins that, maybe we move him up the rankings. Yeah, good for Cheedy Bang Bang. Defenders and cybersecurity are always there when we need them. They should get a parade every time they block a novel threat and have streets, sandwiches, and babies named in their honor. But most of all, they deserve AI cybersecurity. that can stop novel threats before they become breaches across email, clouds, networks, and more. DarkTrace is the cybersecurity defenders deserve and the one they need to defend beyond.

Visit darktrace.com forward slash defenders for more information. Boating for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is.

Yours to keep groovy. Hey, I won! Feel the fun. Boarding will begin when passenger Fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close,

you call 186653310 or visit Comexonterio.ca. Let's go to the wild card round, AK. We'll select one fighter we have not matched made for. We will match bake for them right now. Who's your wild card selection following UFC AC? So I didn't go with Nate to train. And I guess you can't. I assumed you would, but again, you kind of already, you kind of already did.

You kind of got a freebie, freebie wildcard pick there with him and Kyle Nelson. I went with Vierna, Viena Gensuro. Would you go with Vyner Gensirno Gensuroba? Could we have a wild card, Friends Forever moment here? Oh, God, no. I thought, I, honestly, I thought we were going to. Oh. But now we couldn't be on more opposite sides of stuff.

Okay. I went with Vierna and I've seen. people calling for the possibility of a title shot, which makes sense. Which makes sense. Veteran at 1.15. When Zhang Wei Lee, should she get past Jan Shaunan? She's going to need a challenger. We're still waiting for Tatiana Suarez. Maybe Vyerna could fight Tatiana, which comes back, but I don't know if Tatiana needs to do that. There's some math that you see you down here at Strawway. So, I'm giving Verna a name that I'm surprised that she hadn't fought yet. For the reason, my mind. I thought this had happened.

Jessica Androge, and I'm making a double crystal ball pick here because I will say Jessica Androge after she beats Marina Rodriguez at UFC 300. So I'm calling a winner. I'm both calling a winner. I'm also calling a future matchup for Vierna. So, uh, Janjuroba, Androsh. So I'm not sure who this wild card pick is for, okay. Because both are, both are live in this situation.

And let me, I'll allow me to explain. I should probably go with Ebo Aslan. as the actual recipient of the wild card selection. This fight with Anton Turcali, Fight of the night, AK. Pleasure Man, didn't get the win, but he got an extra 50K for his efforts. This is a fun fight.

This was definitely the most fun fight on the card. These two just beat the hell out of each other in the highly anticipated rematch from the Brave Days. And this time, Ebo, Aslan gets it done. Thunders knockout at the end. And there's only one man, AK that Ebo Aslan needs to fight next. So there's only

one man on the UFC roster who this man needs to face next. And if you go anywhere else, you're wrong. So I'm happy to be correct here. The correct answer is Ebo Aslan versus the Pleasure Man

three. The trilogy, let's go, let's settle the score once and for all, because you can't cut the pleasure man. You just can't. Especially After that effort, getting fight of the night and then you cut him, you can't do this. So let's keep him around. Let's give him one more.

And let's see if he can win the series here, two to one against Ibo Aslan. Is there anybody who's going to complain about this being run back again? Not one person who'd be like, no, this is terrible. Because that fight was so good. And now the stakes could not be any higher for the entire rivalry. For it all, for the whole thing. Pleasure Man gets another opportunity. Let's see if he can get his first UFC win.

This is it. This is my pick. I'm sticking by it. This is tremendous. Mike, I have been pushing the Pleasure Man train since day one, since he was signed to the UFC. I will admit, I was not familiar with him before the UFC. I'm like, I can't call that shot. The nickname is just so great.

He's got a good personality. He's got the personality to back it up to. I did not realize that had one fight. That's two fight of the nights. Two fight of the nights and four UFC appearances. The UFC does like that. He's valuable, man. You can't, you need to have.

Every division is to have a pleasure man. Could we not send him back to the regional scene for a couple of fights? No, if he loses to Evo again, then we could do it. I almost think it's for his own good at this point, Mike. He was, he was good in this fight. He was competitive. But he takes a lot of punishment. The pleasure man takes a lot of punishment in his fights, man.

He takes a lot of damage. I'm worried of the. the pleasure of man's safety at this point. Oh, and four, you could stick around. We were talked a lot about Daniel LaSerta. Daniel LaSerta had an even worse run. I don't think he had any fight of the nights. I think he just kept getting finished.

Somebody had one fight of the night in there? Am I crazy? I think none just getting finished. And they kept around up until recently. So there's precedents, certainly recent precedent. If Daniel Lacerra sticks around, he needs to stick around. Has any fighter? And again, we are saying he is getting credit for being a good.

quote unquote job guy, you know, makes his opponents look good, gets to fight of the knights, that's always good. But let's say even beyond the performances, has any fighter ridden a nickname further in the UFC, Mike? Do we remember anyone who was like every time, like, we're pretty confident their nickname contributed to them getting a longer stick with the promotion? I don't know, man. I'm not saying that's the only reason, like I said, two for the Knights rate. He's exciting. He brings it. But I feel like the nickname is doing a lot of the, a lot of lifting here. Is that unfair to say? And it's, and it's, and it should be, because it's a fantastic name. If they were ever to retain someone

who was not successful in the gates just for their nickname, yes, it should be the pleasure man. But I do feel like that's been an incredible run. It's been an incredible run. My goodness. Look, this is, this, this is a note for all aspiring fighters. One, be a fun fighter. Two, have a tremendous nickname. And three, just be an interesting person. And the pleasure man has all three of those, all three of those. So you always have a job, or at least have the chance to have a job, no matter what your record is, if you could check off all three of those boxes, which he does all the time.

I need the trilogy in my life, A.K. I won't be sad about it if he gets another shot. And if they do, as you're winding that up, I'm like, he's really doing the trilogy. He's really doing it. He's really doing it. So many people did not even know that that was a rematch. I know. I certainly didn't know until, I don't know, maybe a couple of weeks, probably a couple of weeks ago. I do keep track of the two.

But that's still pretty close to fight night. And I'd be very surprised if anyone else, the matured people knew. I'm sure they mentioned it on the broadcast, but that's so random. What a random rematch. And what a random trilogy this will be. Yes. We are an hour into the program. We should get to the listener picks.

Anyone claiming on points? Just shout out to TACMMA for reminding us that I, because I don't think it was just TAC. Tack wanted a point. I think plenty of readers had this, but special shout to TAC for reminding me. We're finally getting Wyrika versus Shemaya. I mean, this is a fight that I think had been, we had probably been talked about a while ago, just a

possibility of it, and now it looks like it's a reality. It looks like Yossi Saudi Arabia is getting this fight. And it's a good one. Highly intriguing. Shama obviously favored. I know the early odds. He's ahead. I think it's moved even further in his direction. But Robert Wittaker, about as live

dogs you can get, and that fight gets fast the second round, we are all going to be on pins and needles, wondering if Shamiya can put him away, outlast them or if Rupertaker, hey, championship rounds, no stranger to him. So I love that matchup. And yeah, no listeners were right on top of that one. Shout out to Tech MMA for his one, one billionth of a point for picking Homsachmaa versus Robert Walker. But see, you got to remind us.

You remind us, you get shouted out for all of this. So, look, you guys know the doo-do rules already. So let's just get right into this. Zippa T. Ripper Kicks us off. Manning gets the title shot. Actually, Zipa T. Rippa is Welcome to the Party Pell, A.K. First timer.

Welcome. Good to have you. Good to have you. Manning gets title shot. Blanchfield versus Barber. Buckley versus Jeff Neal. Wynden versus Boe Nickel once Nichols finished rinsing off whatever's left of Cody Brundage.

Pass versus present. Give Nickel the veteran win-shine. I saw a few of these, AK. If we're going to do Chris Wyethes, versus Paul Acosta, I would assume you have no issue with Chris Wyden versus Boe-Nichol. I have a little more of an issue with it. Please.

Because I don't think he can beat Paul Acosta. I don't think he can beat Bo. Okay. All right. Fair enough. I saw a few of these. I was surprised by how many I saw. I don't know if people are trying to punish Chris or what, but here we go.

Rootsab versus Gn 3. Sure, why not? Nelson versus Jordane. a little Canada versus Canada, okay? If it must be done, if it must be done. It's a good matchup. It's another one. But at this point, I feel like Nelson might be favored, and I don't want that.

I only want him as fighting as an underdog. Or it would be maybe minus 115 both away, minus 110 both way, maybe a pick number or something like that. Because I don't know. Like, Shardane, I think we all think he's a better fighter, but, you know, he's had, he's fought better competition and the results have been a little mixed, a little here and there. I don't know. Maybe he'd be favored, but I want more. I want two to one. I want him to face two to one favorites.

Two to one favorites? Okay. Yeah, I don't think Jordan would get there. Fair. Um, what else does he like? Nate Landre versus Juliana Rosa, Part 2, AK. So shout out first timers, knocking the two out right off the bat. Knowing what we know about Nate now, the first fight ended way too quickly.

Let's run that one back. Wouldn't mind seeing Nate versus Cub either. This is a very good debut. And he asks another question, Nick. Okay, regarding one of the fighters who was victorious in this card. Would Cheedy versus Kevin Holland be too far a step back for Holland? He really could use a tuna fight, and Cheetah is a good stylistic matcher for him. Do you like this? Does this make sense?

There is no such thing as too big a step back for Kevin Holland. The guy loves to fight. The guy loves to get paid. He likes good stylistic matchups. He would certainly see Cheetah and Jacoani as a guy that he could either have a fight in the night with or straight up knockouts. So ranking, if you're Holland, you don't care about rankings. He's probably pretty mad at himself that he lost to a Bellator guy, as it were, and just

wants to get in there as soon as possible. So I like that suggestion a lot. Four Corner Sports Manon versus the Grasso Shifico trilogy winner, Aaron Blanchville versus Serminara or Natty Ice. Here's the thing about Four Cornersports. I respect that he takes part in all these programs. He is going to get zero. points because everything has like multiple picks.

So you can't get any points, unfortunately. Chris Wyden versus Kamar Usman if the UFC is ready to give Usman the Legends tour. If not, then Wydenman versus Abus Magamatoff, regardless of the outcome between Abus and Worley-Aliz. Would Wyden be favored there? Against Abus? Yeah, I think he would be. So I don't mind that.

So now I didn't want to go that. Like obviously I went with a fight where he clearly would not be favored. I don't know if we don't go so far the other way. But yeah, maybe that's what people, I don't know. I have, Mike, I have no idea what people want from Chris Wyatman at this stage of his career. I have no idea what the UFC expects from Chris Wyatman. I'm really curious. Like the Bruno Silva matchup, I had no idea.

You could have given me 10 guesses as to who, you know, Wyden would have been booked against as to Brad Tabaris. I don't know if I would have come up with Bruno Silvan. And it's not because it's crazy. It's just I have no idea what direction he was going to go after that. And I definitely don't know what direction they're going to go after. this controversial win. So yeah, Chris Watson is such a weird spot. Such a weird spot.

Really, the fight was Luke Rockold all along. I know. Gosh, I know. Now he's in karate combat. Is there still time? Can we get him back? Make a deal. Make an offer to president.

Awesome. I think maybe we can make something to happen. He also likes Joaquin Buckley versus Michael Kiesa, unless they want to run Buckley versus Holland 2. Man, just so many options here. Cheedy versus Matt Brown, Nate the Train versus Nathaniel. Wood for the UK pay-per-view, Arcee versus Swanson, Bazooka versus Saldanea. Left-M-M-A

another Buckley versus Jeff Neal-Luke versus the Calvin Gasolm, Daniel Rodriguez winner. Those guys are fighting in Saudi Arabia, June 22nd. Wyden versus GM3. That's interesting. I saw that, and I like it. I like it. I think it, again, that's in the mode of we don't want Weidman to get concussed anymore. I saw other suggestions with other grappling-based fighters. We'll see, we'll see if we can get to those in a minute. Makes sense.

Yes. Roosbeveth versus Petrosian, Nelson versus Wood in England. Chidi versus Temba. After his next fight, easy one to book. Both managed by the same guy. Landware versus Mitchell. I saw a lot of these. I don't hate that idea.

Verna versus Lemosch, fine. Bojuka versus Silva-Gomi loser. Islan versus Modestis Bacoscus. I think you spelled the pleasure man wrong. Arsay versus Emmer. Lockerin versus Rinyanakamora. Wow. Yeah.

Whose picks are these? This is left lane. Okay. Okay. I just want to be sure we don't double up after. So I don't know what to make of Lockerne. Okay. I didn't see the fight.

Mike, how did he look? How did he look in the fight? He beat the shit out of Angel Pachco. Okay. Is that, Angel Pacheco, a talented guy, but is that like a huge, is that a huge feather in Lockerone's cap? or was it just good for him one to dominate and also kind of get off, you know, get that first year C win under his results.

I like Angel Pacheco a lot. He's tough as hell. Minnesota guy, Brock Larsson fighter, but he is a fighter who got a contract on the contender series after losing a unanimous decision. Yes. Yes. So I don't know if I'm ready to launch Lockren back. I remember when he came before that first loss, the Mike skills were there, the intrigue of

being, you know, a brash, confident guy from Ireland. and people love that. And the skills were there, too, right? He just kind of got a tough, he got Taylor Lappalus, right, in his first U.S. Yes, unless in the week's notice, they switched his opponent to Taylor Lappos. Insanely tougher.

I was, I don't remember if Lachan was favored, but I would like, the fact that the line wasn't like heavily in Loplas's favor, I was like, Lopoulos has been around, man. Like, he's really good. So that was a tough matchup. This really should have been his first matchup all along. I got like Angel Jaino.

I don't know if this puts, him back in the sphere. Like I want to push him back up into that sphere of, uh, what was, what was the bantamweight matchup you just mentioned? Rinyan Nakamura. Rina Nakamura. Yeah. Nakamura, Patent, these guys that I think we're seeing as like sort of the blue chippers of, uh, bantamom, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe he is in there. And I, again, I was too, uh, deflated by the lapless loss, um, which again, was an understandable one. So maybe he should go up there, but I do feel like you want to give him someone else before Nakamura, before Peyton Talbot, before, again, one of these other young

Vantom weights. But it's such a difficult division. There's almost no fight for him that I think is like, other than maybe grabbing another Contender Series guy. Sorry, like recently signed Contenders Series. I don't know if there's like a fight.

You can just give him. That's like, oh, it's a walkover. It's a 135. It's insane. Here's what I'll say. When it comes to like some of these the Cage Warriors fighters coming over, I'm usually not super high on them.

I usually fade them a bunch. I will say this. though, Lockerton's got something. They got something. And the way I view him moving forward is if they want, if they're planning on going back to Ireland, if they're planning to go to Dublin or anywhere else, you have to build this guy up. Find a way to build him up and make him a part of this card because he is incredibly popular. I was listening to Petey Carroll talk about how, you know, people just from Collins, excuse me, neck of the woods in Ireland who like now live in the United States. States, whether it's in New York or Pennsylvania, even as far as San Francisco.

When they found out Lockham was fighting on this card, they were like, we're dropping everything we're doing. We're going to this card. And it was the first fight of the night. Pee's City expected like 5 to 700 people from Ireland to go to Atlantic City to watch this kid fight. They got something with him. They have something with him.

Rania's tough, man. I don't know if I would do that. Kyle and I actually called out Raul Roses Jr. I don't hate that callout. I actually get a really smart callout. I think it's a fight he could win if he can extend it. If he could survive the onslaught of Raul Roses Jr. And the fight gets extended.

He's a dog, man. That's fun as hell. So I think they got something with him. I'm not sold, but I'm getting there. I think they have something with him. He was the most talked about dude heading into the Paris card on his UFC debut and then got a new opponent on like five days noticed and still was competitive with Taylor Laplice.

People forget that was a competitive fight. He didn't win, but he was very competitive. And then he just kind of beat the hell out of Angel decocoe. That was a battering. That was a battering. That kind of showed what Colin can do. So, yeah, I think you got to push this kid. However you get to do it.

Be very smart with it. I wouldn't give him Rinnia. But Raal Roos, Jr., I don't hate that. Yeah, it's weird. I didn't see too many people going along with the Roses call it. Maybe they just didn't see it or maybe they hate it. I don't know.

But none of the DMs I got said Rowe Roses. Yeah. Robbie, good day you bloke. Let's get out. No, Buckley versus Wonderboy. He's definitely not getting that fight. Wydenman versus, oh God, I'll save that one for the end. Love Kyle Nelson's called Nate the Train.

He likes Chris Wydman versus B. Joe Piper, okay. You like this. Who is the sentence again? This is Robbie Ryan. I don't love it. I don't love it. But it wouldn't surprise me if it happens. I think that's a better crystal ball pick than it is a magic wand pick.

Like, I don't. Again, that's almost like not to say that Piper is near the promise of Bo Nichael, but it does feel like a, we're giving this to Piper to make a name off of Wyatman, which again, our fights I'm kind of trying to avoid, I think, for Wyman. But, hey, again, Maybe that's what the UFC is trying to do. I don't. Maybe they hope Brono Silva would crush him.

I don't think so. I don't see why they would. But it's a very possible booking. I don't think it's crazy. I don't like it personally, but could it happen? That's scary. Wouldn't shock me at all. Wouldn't shock me this last.

Actually, like Chris Widman versus the guy who just beat Joe Pfe for better, Jack Hermanson. Yeah, that was actually my, that actually made a lot more sense on Paula Costa. I think it's only I've picked, you know me. I try to keep track of my Otno picks. I do have Hermanson. facing like the winner of some other fight. I can't remember.

So Hermanson probably makes the most... Out of everyone we've mentioned today, Hermanson maybe makes the most sense. I just want to like look real quick. Yes, this is a question. No, I know what I'm doing. And so are you, A.K. What do you guys do next Saturday night?

Surely something better than watching that Apex card. We're not doing anything better. We're watching the Apex card. What time is this card? What happens? Can we talk about this thing? now. Um, please tell me. Please tell me. Oh, who. Ho ho. Hoo ho. Ooh. Ooh. Oh. Hold on. Hold on. Please. I really. Double check. I want to make sure we're seeing the same thing. I want to make sure we're seeing. Okay. We are seeing the same thing. Three p.m. prelims on the East Coast. Six p.m. main card. I can live with that. I can live with that.

Why was the New Jersey card so late? Do we know? I don't know. I have no idea. I don't know. Just awful. Can you imagine being in the arena at like one in the morning? I'm going to say that's an ESPN call. Okay. Yeah, I'm sure it is. I just, why did they make that call? Finally, NCAA tournaments, tail end. You don't want to row head to head with that. Yeah. The elite eight matchups. Well, they're going against like WrestleMania. Oh, no, I guess, I guess,

I guess next week they'd be going before WrestleMania. They sure would be, which I think is why they're going at 3 p.m. 6 p.m. You know what? All questions taken back. Schedulers, you guys know what you're doing. Yes, Russellmania is next week. I am excited. I'm freaking excited for WrestleMania.

Making people trot around making people amble out a boardwalk hall at 2.30 in the morning. You know what? Hats off. God, I can't believe how many of these you got for this card. John Ray, Locker, O'Cron versus O'Reachie Lang, Malkoon versus Ferreira, Arce Pineda,

Janja Rueba versus the Zhang Wei-Lie-Long-Losur, Landware versus Nelson, Chidi-Ber versus Matthew Semmelzberger, Reutzabbaugh versus the Iron Turtle, Buckley-Hollon, 2, BRO versus the champion. But he actually has a date. UFC 312, March 2025. Whoa, okay. So. But that's accurate.

That is what I think, yeah, like I said, I think it'll be a year before we'll see man on again. It'll be March or April, for sure. Yep, yep. Chris Buckley versus Gilbert Burns. Okay. Luke A versus, oh, see, that's a story. See, that's a story.

Buckley has been usually very good with the storytelling. Remember he would call it all the glory MMA guys? I want all of you. And I thought that was a tremendous gimmick. Now you go from Luke A to Gilbert Burns. You could switch it to the Kilcliffe FC team. I like that. Oh, okay.

Could have called it, could have got it. Probably not getting it. Luke A versus Mike Morales, Wydman versus Gregory Rodriguez, Roodsabov versus Murdof. Word off is booked, is he not? Got me. He fought recently.

He fought recently, I thought, but I'll take, I'm looking right now. Is this do-do? He did fight recently, but he is also booked. So he fought in February, and then, oh, but it was, oh, yeah, Shell Pereira. That's a dude-do. Non-fight, 11-second fight, no contest, that's right. Yes, this is doo-doo. Sorry.

Oof. Arcee versus Yusuf Salal. Ars has got to make that way, man. Come on. tough. Lockron versus Chad and Elyger. A little bit of a... I don't mind that either. It's not bad.

Harry, Malkoon versus Hisreyev. Ebo versus OSP. Bajuka versus Jordane. Arce Garcia, Landre, Hyder Amil. He likes Nelson versus Naimov, Routzabov, Iron Turtle, Wideman, Eric Anders, if he keeps refusing to stop fighting.

Don't hate that. Yeah, maybe it's your boy. Maybe it's my boy versus yo boy. Not my boy. You know what I mean. Yeah. And you like Spockley MVP, which I think was on the table had he called for it. But I don't think he's going to care of now.

Just don't people please. Don't make Mike mad again, please. No, I'm not mad. I'm not mad. Oh, you? Do you, bro. Do you? Someone,

DM me and asked why I hate Walking Buckley. I don't hate Walking Buckley. I think he's a very interesting cat. And some people were offended that I said, like, I still, that walking Buckley still reminds me of Jamal Hill. Because I don't know, I just don't know how good Jamal Hill actually is, even with the wins. Because it wasn't that, it was not that long ago that Paul Craig beat that ass, like, real bad. And that is a loss that has not aged gracefully.

And Jamal Hill, you know, had some tough fights with, like, Tiago Santos and stuff, like, got wins. And yes, he beat Glover to Cher and had a tremendous performance. but it was like a weird situation and Glover was already a foot out the door. This, UFC 300, if any, and this is why I want this fight with Alex Pereer so badly, we are going to find out everything we need to know about Jamal Hill. Either Jamal Hill is going to be a star

because he is talking a whole bunch of greasiness about Alex Pereira being an easy fight for him. Or his, he is just going to be the most hated fighter on the roster. Like it's just no in between. There really just isn't an in-between right here, the way he's kind of handled himself through all this. So that's what I mean by that. I am very interested to see how good Jamal Hill actually is. But I haven't gotten enough from the Glover win.

The Glover win makes me want to see more. I'm just like, all right, maybe he is like super good. But even when we were doing the rankings, I just, I couldn't put him above number five because there were guys who were just clearly better. and had better resumes. But if he goes on and does what he says to get to do to Alex Pereira, he's number one with the bullet,

and we will know. Joaquin Buckley, I think, could be a very solid hand at 170. But again, the way this fight went and the way Leuke performed, I just, I couldn't take a ton away from it. You know what I mean?

So that's what I mean by that. I'm not trying to be disrespectful. But I did, Joaquin, he had so much. better position if he just did the thing. Dad Jackson rounds us up. Ibo Azlan versus Iwan

Kuchelaba. That's fun. Bajuka versus Mekasey Acosta. Arsev versus Lockerun. Nate the Train versus Giga Chikaze. Knock on Doodoo on this because this is not I know that there's reports that Giga is fighting Arnold Allen

in London or the UK or Manchester or wherever the hell that card's going to take place. That is not done yet. It is being discussed. I kind of feel like that's what's going to happen, but to report it would be it's too premature. So we'll see. Maybe he does get that fight.

I don't know. Cheedy versus Milot. Nelson and Rosa. Roots of Buf, Coppulov. Buckley Morales. I mean, we're just on the, we're sympathico right now, Dad Jackson. I don't know how I feel about that.

Dad is one of the few people who have been banned from this program in the past. Or do-do. Just exponential due to. Lastly, he says, I also want to see Loopy versus Verna rematch in a five-round main event at the apex. I don't disagree with the decision, but I just thought the fight was fun. It was a fun fight. It was a fun fight.

And I will say, and I said this on the post-fight show, I don't like to bet on the fight night cards. I very rarely place bets. And when I do, they're really bad. I did place one bet on this card. and it was on Verna Gena da Roba at plus 200 and that was a solid bet. I just felt like there was so much value with Verna. But that's it, A.K., you're up.

All right, let me go to the emails here first. We got Jay Donnie with some really creative suggestions, actually. Jay's always good with this stuff. Run it back, Blanchfield at Tracy Cortez. That was Blanchefield's first loss, very controversial pre-UFC. So yeah, we've had a lot of people on the show suggesting that this happened. and maybe now this is the right time for it. Maybe now is the time.

But I do think Lancho will be heavily favored in the rematch, but she'd also be happy to get this loss back probably. What do we? Oh, Widman and Rusebob because of, yeah, listen, anything goes, anything goes match. Actually, those blinding winds that she be poking at the rankings soon. Well done, Jane. Very nice.

And Jaquani Max Griffin. This is also a two, apparently. And I wasn't aware of that. Did this happen? Where did this happen? before Bellator? I guess. I got to look.

I got to look this up. Tachy Palace fights 23, May 2015. Like, I'm sure you remember this fight, right? Max Griffin and Cheetah and Jacoani won. As we all do. What else here from Jay? Sorry, I close that. There we go.

And Jan Jaroba, Jan Shanon, after Jan Luzes to Zhang Wei. Interesting. So no title fight for Jean-Denroba. Maybe a title eliminator? Our boy, Tristan Gordon. What's up, Tristan? Nate Land, where Steve Garcia.

I got a lot of Steve Garcia in here. And against pretty much every featherway who found this card. Dennis, Bazukia, and Fernando Padilla. And Ibo, Aslan, and Zhang Mingyang. Not the pleasure man, Mike. I'm sorry. Let me go to Instagram. Got a couple of first timers here.

Gage. What a gauge? Gage like Lockharton, Cody Gibson, Malkoon, Chris Widman. We didn't talk about Jacob Malkoon. enough. Evil Aslan, Zach Pauaga, Pazupia, and Pat Sabatini, Arce, Jack Jenkins,

Janjova, Lemosch. Reschedule Nate the Train versus Aleph Kusaris. Alex Kesaris win-luser draw versus Sean Woodson. They're fighting soon. Chidi-Anjikwani, Li Jingle-Lian, Kyle Nelson versus Lopes-Yusuf Luser,

Ruzzovob, Mirchard, Shore, walking, Buckley, Sean Brady, Firo, and then, of course, the Valentina Alex Sigrasso winner. So welcome to the party pal. And we got another welcome to the party pal from Mason, who I've spoken to before, their first time sending in picks. Mike, again, we kind of just had a little conversation about this.

But I don't know if you mentioned you gave me your thoughts on these names specifically. What do you think about him and either Talbot or Simon? I'm muted. Sorry. You were muted. That's right. You look perplexed. For Lockren?

Yeah. Simon. Simon, I don't mind. Makes more sense, right? Yeah. Not Talbot. Not Talbot. Talbot is stock just a little bit. And I don't even know Talbot is better than Colin Lockhart.

I just think his stock right now from that win. Great MMA hour appearance. The buzz, he's got a lot of buzz there. But so does Lockhart. It shouldn't happen. But that is a fight. You mark for like 2025. That would be a really, really big fight. If both guys continue on their path, man, that could be good. That could be something good. Really against the fans, like really gets the fans, like really good fans instead. So I like that. and give me Walking Buck League on Sean Brady as a fight night main event and sure amazing

James Sherwood anything new here they're with me with Nelson versus the Pierce Anama winner and Joaquini Semmel's Burger this is all good stuff let's hop on to the Twitter

let's close out with our Twitter here so let's see if there's anything I'm forgetting again shoutus attack MMA Buckley Holland 2 love it Wydemin Piper Landwer Fili John Jirova

and Tat Tatiana, yes. Depending when Tatiana is ready to come back, that feels very likely that that's what they would do. And then you just get your title, next title, like challenges from there. But I don't know. I just don't know if the timing's going to line up there. Sean Haywood. Sean Haywood had some picks, but also a joke here, I think, Mike. I didn't get this. Wydenin versus Freddie Kruger. I guess we're saying Freddie Kruger is an elite eye poker. Is that the gag here? I guess. What a dated reference. What a dated reference. Sean Hillwood, I now know how old you are, and everyone also knows how old I am because of that. I mean, go like Mo Larry and Curley or...

Yeah, three-s-ooges. Or even Shemp. You don't have to chuck shemp in there. Go right ahead. Yeah. The Ruzabov gag was better, I thought, from J. Donnie. Yeatskeet, McGillicuddy, Kyle Nelson, Steve Garcia,

and Jaquani versus Baezza. Where is that guy? And Landwerer versus Cub Swanson. Don't mind it. Don't mind it. Just a couple more here. Mr. Senior Man, Malcun, Bruno Silva, sure. Aslan versus Goosekhov, if he loses to Ryan Span on April 27th.

And we got my boy, Barry O'Reilly. A lot of picks here. I'm going to read all of these out. Aslan versus Balazzo's is a guaranteed finish. Landware Padilla, Enjikwani Malat. There you go, Mike. Great pick. Kyle Nelson, Pineda.

I don't know how you feel about this, because I know you're really high on this guy. Ruzabov and Alaskarov. Got bigger things planned for Ickram? Acriman's just not fighting though You know what I mean? Like he's gotten Talk about a guy who's been given A lot of opportunities

And a lot of big names And just hasn't been able to make it to the cage So I don't hate it He's got a fight man Like he's the division We all know how good he is But if you're not fighting Then you get passed over

People start to pass you by So if they make that I'll watch it It'd be interesting And Mike I'm sorry to plug one of our other shows here but Barry wants to know if they can make a request for this is Cinema

MMA Fighting's new MMA movie review breakdown podcast with myself, Jen Mishu, Annie Casey Leiden. Yes, so they're requesting they said, I know it's not a movie

with any MMA fighters. Can you guys do a pod on the Raid movies? Would love to hear you guys talking about the action in those movies as probably the most realistic and brutal fight scenes I have ever seen. I've seen two of them. I don't know if there's more than two.

They're amazing. Yes, love with the Raid movies. I think they will qualify. We've kind of had some disputes about what qualifies an M.M.A. movie. Because I've said any movie with M.A. Fighters in it should count. Fast and Furious 6, Fast Fury 7. But the others on the team, E. Casey Lyden, don't necessarily agree. They want the movies to be about martial arts.

So the raid's kind of in there because there's so much martial arts in it. It's not like strictly a martial arts movie, but there's so much traditional martial arts in it and some amazing hand-to-hand fight scenes that, like, you almost have to consider it. Also, I made it a pallet cleanse after some of the dog crap that we've had to watch on the show so far. Shout out's Roadhouse. Shout out to Fight Valley, which actually enjoyed in a weird way. But, yeah, I think the raid could be done. But yeah, check on our podcast, guys.

We'll see more of our thoughts there. But, Mike, that is it for me this week. People, if you want to reach out to us, send us your picks. at Alexander Kee Lee on Twitter at Alexander KK Lee on Instagram Alex dot Lee at SBNation.com Yeah, you know. Yes, someone I mentioned, I don't know if I said this,

Jacob Malcun versus Boe Nickel after Bo wins. I got to tell you, I'm a little intrigued by that because Bo Nickel shoots in the wrong way and goes face to that hip. Things can end really quickly. Or cup. Or cup. Whatever it was.

Whatever was. By the way, this is cinema. With like blood sport quality. qualify? I think it should. I think we want to avoid it just because it's been covered so much, but it is very clearly a martial arts movie. There are some awful Stephen Seagal movies that you guys have to do. Yeah, yeah. That might be borderline. I want movies that are about like, again, we have a system on the show about like how MMA is a movie. And for me, any movie that's about a fighting tournament is clearly an MMA movie. But again, we have varying degrees of

interpretation here. So people again, check in the show, send us comments, give us your opinions. How do we make the system better? Because, yeah, the show is young. And we're still, we're still just figuring things out. Well, we'll be back next week. One last stop before UFC 300. And we are back at the world's most famous apex for some early day MMA, 3 p.m. Eastern, prelim, 6 p.m. main card. What do we got? Six-fight main card, of course. It's the main event, the rematch. Maybe it's for the middle-wady middle-weight title. Maybe it isn't.

But if Chris Curtis beats Brendan Allen, he is the official middle-weight champion. That's it. It doesn't matter. However you want to proceed, if Chris Curtis wins, it'll be very middle-weighty, and he will be the champion. He might even be the champion after this fight,

even if he loses. But that is your main event. The co-mate event, Alexander Hernandez versus Damon Jackson in the featherweight division, Morgan Chariere versus Chepin Mariscall. That is a fun freaking fight at 145. Ignacio Baja Mondees versus Christos Gagos.

Lucas Breschke versus Walter Walker, AK, making his UFC debut. If the last name sounds familiar, it's because it is. It's a brother of one Johnny Walker. This is a, honestly, this is a pretty good card. Trevor Peak versus Charlie Campbell. that's going to be chaos uh court mcgee Alex Marono

how these guys have been fought before is beyond me uh guys people keep forgetting about this Norma Dumont going to Bannamweight let's see if this is a thing

welcoming back the former featherweight champion the one-time Bannam White title challenger herself Jermaine Durandami Jermaine is back AK How is this not on the main card? And the main card is very good.

The way they laid out the main card, actually pretty good. You really can't complain. But I feel like they could have bumped someone down for your former and inaugural featherweight champion. We rarely make this case for women's bantamweight division fights, Mike. But I think this is one situation where you could have. Both those featherweight fights are good. You can't bump. There's two really fun lightweight fights.

may knock the heavyweights down, I guess. But you know the... They would never do that. Never, ever. Aletang A. Lee versus Victor Hugo. Cynthia Calvio. Big one for her. Do or die.

Digging on Pierre Rodriguez. I don't know if you've been following Cynthia Calvia on Insta, working very hard. She is in tremendous physical condition. Let's see how that translates. We have Jean Matsumoto versus Dan Argeta. That's a fun fight. Dylan Budka versus Cesar Almada, who had quite the showing on Dana White's Contender Series. The young man coming in at 36 years of age, making his UFC debut in the middleweight division.

And AK, speaking of what should be on the main card, the curtain jerker, women's bannam weights, two fighters, I believe, who are on MMA fighting's global rankings right now. Correct. Right. Melissa Mullins taking on Nora Cornole. Yes. That's happening. Melissa.

The former Melissa Dixon. So if anyone was confused, the former Melissa Dixon. The former Melissa Dixon. The former Melissa Dixon, now Melissa Mullins. Yes. I look at the cart. I think there's only like three people. Oh, sorry.

No, maybe three. I don't think Chris Curtis is. Is Chris Curtis ranked? He might be, right? What? All ranks? I don't think he's ranked. No, I don't think Chris Carson did our rankings.

So I think the only. ranked fighters in this card are Brendan Allen, Nora Cornoli, and Musa Mullins. Is Norbert Dumont ranked? She doesn't have a division, so no. That's very true. That's why that's not in the main card. There's a very good chance this fight just doesn't happen because she has, people should know, and I know there's a lot of Dumont fans out there, she's never actually made

135. She's been scheduled for 135 fights. She has never made it, has never hit it. So fingers crossed, people. Fingers crossed. I got to tell you, guys. I might say something that it might while you a little bit. All involved here.

Start time, quality of the cards, all of that. What is this? We got 13 fights. This is a pretty good apex card. I like it. I like it. This might be the best apex lineup of the year so far. Like in terms of like, in terms of like from the first fight to last fight,

there's not really like a stinker stinker in here anywhere. There's your preview show Fodder, Mike, and also preview show headline, I think. There you go. Let's reel them in. Mike, let's reel them in. Let's real them in. UFC Vegas 90. This one's not that bad.

Well, no, I would, I think we can go with this. You know what? It's not bad. It's not bad. We get stakes. We've got former champ coming back. No. The headline is, is this the best UFC Apex card of the year.

There's your headline. It might be. Really a bit. Mike, you got a reel of it. You got a reel of it. You got a real event. You got to put the thing on the hook and it's got a real amendment. I'm going to say I'm going to go even deeper here, okay?

Top to bottom? If we're talking to overall depth, this is better than AC. This is better than AC. Yeah, it's hard to beat the top, like sort of the intrigue of the top three fights at AC. But, you know, let's stick in it. I need to dig a little more into this card anyway. I'm definitely familiar with all these names, but not as familiar as I could be. And maybe by Friday, Mike, maybe by Friday, we can revisit this discussion.

Well, find out throughout the week what AK's gymnastics score will be for this card, what the fart scale will be for this card, because it is the apex. So we will have some scores. We'll see how it all plays out. One last stop before 300. Don't forget, check out this is cinema. What movie are you doing, or do you want to save that? So it'll be coming out, I think, on Sunday.

It'll be coming on, like the Sunday, as we are recording this episode, Mike. So by the time people see this, we'll see this on the podcast network. I believe that will also be on the podcast network. Yeah, it's Fight Valley. It's no secret. The 2016 Rob Hawk film Fight Valley featuring Misha Tate, Holly Holme, and Chris Sennel. So that'll be fun. And then speaking of fun, we're going to have another watch party on Tuesday night, this time. UFC 200.

We're going back. Get your yellow canvished clothing ready to go. We celebrate the chaos that was UFC 200. From the event to the fight week, lots of people who were there covering that event, sharing their stories of just one of the craziest things. Maybe covering an event would ever be from, you know, everything from Connor Nate to John Jones, D.C. falling off days before to D.C. fretting Anderson-Silvon like a day and a half notice and new main events,

the return of Brock Lesnar, all of it. It's going to be fascinating. So 8 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, on the YouTube channel, UFC 200 rewatch party. It's going to be a lot of fun. And we're going to have more fun right here next week. Following UFC Vegas 90. Join us right here and on to the next one, the podcast. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first, there, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola. for a pause that refreshes.