MMA Fighting - On To the Next One | Matches To Make After UFC St. Louis

Episode Date: May 12, 2024

Derrick Lewis delivered a sensational knockout of Rodrigo Nascimento in the main event of Saturday's UFC St. Louis fight card, and then put on a show in his post-fight celebration. Lewis has put himself above the rankings in a lot of respects as people just want to see him in fun fights — but following another stoppage, what should be next? 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 "The Black Beast" following this past weekend's victory. Additionally, future matchups are discussed for Joaquin Buckley after his co-main event win over Nursulton Ruziboev — and subsequent callout of Conor McGregor — Carlos Ulberg following his 12 second knockout win over Alonzo Menifield, along with fellow main card winners Diego Ferreira, Sean Woodson, Waldo Cortes-Acosta, 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 reprise his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original, The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco 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 two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now, only from Audible. To the Vox Media Podcast Network.

And welcome to a brand new edition of On to the next one. Yes, we are back following UFC St. Louis. UFC heads to the gateway to the west, and the crowd was on fire. Shout out to St. Louis for bringing their A game. And shout out to Derek Lewis for bringing his A game during the fight. Even after the fight, just bringing his A game like you're supposed to do at all times. Not everybody did that on this card. And we're going to talk about that and much more on this edition of the program.

I am Mike Heck and joining me as always the co-host, the co-matchmaker, the Prince of Positivity and my best friend, Alexander Cayley, AKA, how we doing? Hello, my best friend. We're doing great. Skipped a lot of Saturdays action. I've got to tell the audience right away. It was doing some early Mother's Day festivities. I have a lot of family who lives in the GTA, so it's very easy for our family to get together for all our moms and aunts and so on and so on.

So yeah, just enjoyed a nice night off. But of course, I had my phone by me. Thank you and have with M.AFighting.com's coverage of U.S.C. St. Louis. So we had a lot of questions answered on the card. some in a satisfactory way, some not so much. But I think if people look at our preview show, we covered a lot of like the pertinent angles and we got pretty definitive answers

for some of the questions we had about these matchups, people's chances of, again, possibly becoming future title contenders, whether someone is for real or whether they're like a Fugazi contender. It was interesting in that way. We got some nice highlights, like you said, thank goodness there was a hot crowd. Anything that's not the apex these days, very, very pleased to see it. But Mike, I have a real question is, what the hell was going on with the Dana White Press

conference after, the media scrum after? What in the, I know, listen, I know it was the first time in St. Louis since 2018. 2018. So it's been six years and most of the media, again, should act like they've been there before. Frankly, most of the media members who were asking questions, there probably had not been to a UFC event before. I think this sounded like a lot of newer people. influencers.

And that's fine. Listen, people should get a chance. I am not saying, oh, you're an influencer. You can't go, you can't be, you know, do journalistic stuff sometimes. You can't ask questions. No, some of these people bring out some of the best responses and create great viral clips. So for sure, you can't hate on that. People are on their hustle.

But some of these questions were desperate. They weren't funny. Credit to Dana White, he had some incredible reaction. some of these questions. Even Dana White was like, what the hell is going on? Like, I think, I'm sure he's happy for the intention and whatever, like, whatever traction this gets with a different kind of, you know, maybe a younger, wackier audience. I think he's at least going to talk to his team a little bit about like, can we raise the bar for, for credentialing just a little bit? This was a strange, these people, this is not good journalism. I'm not saying I do good journalism.

I just, but I know what some things I saw on the Saturday night, some of those clips, that's not good journalism, man. I feel like you are absolutely insane for saying that Dana White is going to go and talk to his team about being, about vetting these people better. He's loving this. This is what he wants. These are the people that he wants. He wants to kill the MMA media for the most part. He wants to kill sites like ours and some of the other bigger sites.

This is what he wants. This is who he's doing interviews with. This is who he's doing podcasts with. It was awful. I thought the whole week was tough when it came to some of that stuff. It just, ah, man, that's just kind of what happens to these fight nights now. When you don't put together like a strong card,

this is what you get. And I would, believe me, if anybody felt like, do you want to go to St. Louis to cover this card? I would have done in five seconds, of course. But there's no rush for that because this car, hard while it had potential to be fun and yes there were lots of questions there was like no stakes unto any of these fights including the main event it really like there's just there's just kind of fun stuff happening and i don't know when you get that you just kind of you kind of get what you get

and i'm not saying like everybody there was not good there was some some good questions asked the media day but it just kind of goes to this thing where it's like one if just because you're you're there doesn't mean you have to ask questions. Like if something's already been asked, you don't need to ask it again. You don't even ask another variation of it just because, oh, I got to get a question. I want to be able to do this and that with the video. I want to post it on social media and be like, yo, look what I just did at a UFC posed by a press conference.

And like, I know that that rush is there. And I know that there were certain times early in my career when I was covering UFC events and I was like, hey, look at what just happened here? This is my office. This is my picture holding a UFC microphone. Like, I think we've all been there. But come on, man. You're trying to get a viral moment.

The cup thing was super weird. The Soroni branding thing was super weird. I don't want to call anyone out by name. Frankly, because I also don't know who that woman wants. I don't know who it is. Yeah, yeah. Apparently she's done other, it's not like her first MMA-related thing. She's done other MMA-related shows, I think. This is what I'm just seeing in the comments.

So there's me doing my journalistic work right there. I'm going through the comments trying to figure stuff out. But yeah, that's bad. It's just bad. It's weird. It's not cool. funny weird it's not interesting weird it's just weird weird and it's uncomfortable and it's a very strange thing to ask dana white like why would he even have does she think he he can tell donald saroni to do it

because his response was right he was like ask cowboy like what why are you asking me and she even said like for clout oh maybe for club that oh my god and i'm like okay i i i am i'm done with this i admire the honesty but also have some shame some have some dignity. What are we doing? You're branding yourself. I mean, you know, whatever. It's her body, whatever she wants to do with it.

But you're doing it for a gimmick. You're doing it for, not because it means something to you. You think it's going to make you the female BMF? That's weird, man. I don't lie. I wasn't a fan of that stuff, Mike. There was, yeah, there's just kind of like a lot of weirdness going on. It was just.

And it wasn't just heard. And it wasn't just heard. Whoever this woman was, I'm not just singling you. It wasn't just you. It wasn't just you. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's just bad. And they don't really care either.

Like, they went there for specific purpose. And you know what? If that's what you want, you can look at yourself in the mirror and you're like, hey, I went on there and killed it and you're proud of yourself. Then great. I mean, what am I supposed to do? It's true. I wasn't there.

Hey, listen, I wasn't there. I wasn't there. I wasn't there. Here's my biggest takeaway from that, from the Dana White Press conference. And then we'll get into it outside of just what the fuck are we doing here? like what is happening right now is that Dana like Dana it was Dan did a great job like he really did a great job almost throughout and he was he had great answers like everything he was saying was really really good he was excited he had a little bit of a smile on his face outside of the

shocked looks and then he said one thing and I was like what we're back talked about the Saudi deal and he said the only reason he based is like the reason we put the Saudi deal together is because Saudi wanted power slap and I was like okay now we're back we're back we're back I don't believe that for a second. No one does. Hey, Dana, we got to, listen, we got to extend this partnership, but we won't do it unless you put power slap in there. I think it's the total opposite.

I think Saudi wanted to do something cool. I think they wanted to be part of the sphere. And I think Dana, very smartly, by the way, as a businessman, said, sure, you guys can sponsor the sphere event. It's going to be the biggest event ever, but you have to do a power slap event in Saudi. And they were like, okay, that's, I mean, I have no actual insight to this. but if I had to take a guess on what actually happened, that is what my guess would be.

I don't respect it, but I'm amused. I'm amused by how all in he is on PowerSla. Let me put it this way. If PowerSlapp fails, it won't be Dana White's fault. Is that a fair thing to say? Because Power Slap, again, inherently, I think, is just dumb. He has done everything he can to try and put this as legitimate, to try and compare it to the original UFC,

to, like you said, bundle it into this major multimillion, dollar Saudi deal. So again, I don't agree with it. I hope it fails. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to everyone involved with Power Slap. You know, people who are hard working, working hard behind the scenes. I just find it really deplorable. I think maybe there's a place for it, but to try and push it as this mainstream, it's going to be the next UFC thing.

I think it's just absurd. But it won't be to the fault of Dana. This is one case where we always tell him, promote, be a promoter. If you put a fraction, Mike, of this promotional energy into getting some of his fighters over, into getting some of these events over. Man, imagine how different the U.S. And not that he needs to. We say this every time.

The UFC is massively successful. He has done, in his mind, him and his team have done enough to get it where it needs to be, and they're not wrong. Look at it. Look at the giant that it has become behind him and the people that he works with,

with their efforts. But it's just crazy watching what he does for power slam and what he won't do for certain events, certain fighters, etc., etc., etc., etc. But yeah, yeah, the Saudi thing is funny. It is funny to think of it as like, we want power slap we want to be involved with power slap so badly dana you whatever else you want to tack on we'll take it whatever gets us in the power slap key in

those we want but that he's able to portray it like that is fantastic and uh i need the gift of him uh the cup talking about the cup thing when they said the guy was saying oh i got the cup can derrick lewis sign it or can you sign it can dana white sign it and he's like wow you got really lucky and his eyes like dart back and forth like in a very awkward way i think that is a great reaction. And someone, someone, please gift that.

We can have a million uses for that. Oh, there's just so bad. It was just so bad. And there were other bad things that happened on this car. Boy, boy,

we're going to get into it. But I'll tell you, it wasn't bad. Derek Lewis, just doing the thing. Yep. Just, Derek Lewis mixed the martial arts

throughout a lot of this fight. And then once round three hit, he was just like, all right, bet, we're done. I'm just going to punch this dude in the face as hard as I can. And he knocked out Rodrigo Nostevento

in the third round, he gets it done. And then Derek Lewis just does Derek Lewis things. No call out, no name, doesn't need it, doesn't want it, doesn't matter. It's all good because he's Derek Lewis. So here's what I'm going to say, okay, I'm going to do something I've never done on this show. I'm going to just put out a rule, a guideline for today's program. And I think a lot of you should probably know where I'm going. When you hear me say this, you should not be surprised at all.

Even if this is your first time listening to the show because we've talked about this million times. If you sent in a suggestion, and it's not Derek Lewis versus Gryorzini Rosenstrike, you are suspended from Otnosa picks for the next three weeks. You're suspended. Because there's no other fight. Literally, you cannot say anything else. If you do, I'm banning you for three weeks. Because this, what are we doing here? Three weeks. The madness. We're doing Derek Lewis versus Jarzziers, either Rosenstrike. Any other suggestion? I'm not even reading it. Like, I'm not even reading it. So there you go.

We don't even need to queue up the band. Like, we don't even need to queue it up. There should be like the Boston Pops in the 4th of July. We should all be playing the same song. I'll be playing the Derek Lewis versus Jarzanio Rosenz's Strike. The beautiful music that that fight is. It's been too long. Enough is enough.

Let's just do this. We should all be on the same page. And if you're going a different direction, try to be cool and hip, you're wrong. There you go. Trying to be one of these cool influencers. Like, oh, yeah, no, I want to do it. Derek Liser's Butterbean or something. No, okay.

Shemiel Gadsyev, man. Just think of what it could do. Like, no, no, no, no, no. Three weeks is harsh, Mike. Some people, you know what? If they can't hit with that suspension today, if you give them a nice three week vacation before we get back to like the,

like the get to the summer, you know, to June 1st. You'd be happy to miss the apex card. Then there's a weekend off. But the real penalty is you get, you get banned for 302. And then you come back out of that. Oh, okay.

Oh, so they would. That does. Oh, okay. I thought it stops just before. 4302. Oh, you're doing that thing like, oh, this, this pitcher is suspended for five games. You're really just saying like one start. So, okay, I say, exactly.

Exactly. Yeah. Okay, I'm not banning you, am I? No, of course. Come on, of course. And also, I was just going to tell the band, Jill, because this is the odd, the easiest, pick. I was, I was mulling over whether I should do my picks like late at night or wake up in

early and do them. And then I realized, like, wait, oh, some of these are. They're so easy. Like, some of these are automatic, starting with the main events. I'm like, yeah, let's do them now because I can knock these off in like 20 minutes, maybe less. It was not hard. I went with a lot of, did a lot of math.

Math was involved. But with Derek Lewis, no math necessary. No, you know, no, you don't have to break out the yarn. It's Derozino. It's the fight that has to happen. And I will say, Derek Lewis, the king of really doing the thing at this point. I've complained before about fighters. Like, oh, I don't like when they're, like, it becomes a schick where they're like,

expect to do something. We're kind of seeing that with Money Moycano a bit where he wins. It's like, oh, give him the mic so we can say something crazy. But execution is everything. And sometimes, Mike, you've just got to smash the watermelon. You know what I'm talking about? Like sometimes you can be a great comedian. Sometimes, but at the end of the night, got to get that watermelon out, get the hammer

and just smash it and get the watermelon goop all over the front row. And that's what Derek Lewis does. He has a stick. He has a stick. It's a great way to cap off a knockout. It's why he's the main event of this card. He nailed it. top marks all around.

He evolved, but he the thing with Derek Lewis is it's an evolution of the gimmick. True. So the pants, the pants come off by balls is hot. Pants come off after the Marcus Jury de Lima win. He swings it around does the thing, does the DX crotch chop, like just an evolution

expanding upon it. And then this one, he takes the shorts off, he fans it over his fallen opponent, then throws the cup in the crowd, then he moons the same. St. Louis crowd and then pulls his shorts up just high enough where it covers up his entire ass, but it still leaves a little bit of ass for the broadcast. It's just so funny. It's just so funny. And he just, he gets it. And I don't care if he doesn't call anybody out. I really don't. I just want to hear any yesterdays. He can be completely honest. Bisping, buy me a drink. You owe me a drink.

Shout out to Popeyes. All of that. Just everything is so good. It's so good. I still think. I still think this was an awful main event for this card. But again, this also proved by point that the UFC just doesn't care because, and I'm not saying this in a bad way, because they know that they can put anything, any card together at all, and they will sell 14,000 tickets to it. Even with Rodrigo Nassimento in the main event. So, but, but maybe this leads to no more apex. I don't believe it. I don't think that's true. No. But I do think there is a part Dana that's just like, okay, look at this card. We have this card right here.

Look at this thing. Look at it. This thing is the highest gate in fight night history in the United States. Wow. For this card. This card. It does not matter. You could put Lorone Murphy versus that's in Barbosa on the road and it would sell out tomorrow.

Or be very close to it. There's all this new media out there. He doesn't have to deal with like M.A. fighting and M. Junkie. He's got a guy frigging asking him to sign a sweaty cuff. he's got a woman asking get branded. I think you're right.

I think this really opened his eyes to the possibilities of hitting the road again. I think it might have revitalized him. So you know, Mike, who I'm glad wasn't in the main event, I think. And we said this could have was Mr. Joaquin Buckley. Yes. Based on imagine how you would have felt at the end of the night if that was what capped off the evening.

Oh, my God. Not necessarily the fight. I'm saying the post-fight speech. Yes. Derek, Derek Lewis, like, kind of saved things with all of this. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time.

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And I know I probably care about this stuff. And Jed probably cares about this stuff more than other media members do. Hell, we were just on the post-fight show talking with New York Rick. And he felt like post-fight callouts and post-fight interviews, like don't, they matter very little. And I just completely disagree with him on that because if they did, didn't matter. If those call-out questions didn't matter, then why would you even ask them or why would you even have a post-fight interview to begin with? Why didn't Waldo Cortez-A-Costa get a post-fight interview? Because they don't care who he wants. They don't need to put a microphone

in his face. But they do care. That's why they have them do that. That's why the producers like, Fisbeg, ask him what he wants next. Ask him when he wants next. So Joaquin-Buckley goes in there. He was the story of this entire card heading in because he's getting this tough fight, wants to put on a show for his hometown, wants to try to get over, and everything he did after the Vicente Lucan knockout win was awful. Like literally every single thing he did was bad, yet he still got what he wanted, got a tough opponent, a relative unknown, but was still kind of a dangerous guy, goes in there, gets the job done. It was a good, solid outing, looked real good, crowd was into it, he was over. Then he gets the post-fight interview, and he's talking to Michael

Bissing and he's doing it. And there was even a moment in our Slack channel because we were waiting for this all night. What is he going to do when he has a live microphone in his face? And he is doing great. He is doing fantastic. He's talking about his grandmother. He's talking about St. Louis. The weirdest part about it was he's telling everybody to stand the F up. Rudesabayev is like on the mat, just kind of like praying. So like everybody in the building is standing except Rizabai F. So that was like kind of weird and couldn't really ignore that. And he's talking about his grandmother and her battle with ALS and like everything about it was great.

And then Bisbing asked the question, which is by the way, one of the most awkward post-fight interviews because Buckley's trying to grab the mic from Bisbing. Bisbing's trying to keep the mic with him. It's all wild. What do you want next? Oh, what do I want next? There's only one name you can call in a situation like this. And he called Alcona McGregor.

And I truly couldn't believe it. And I videotaped all of it happening. Because I just, I had to, I wanted the world to see how was going to react because everybody wanted to know what I was going to do. AK found out about it. Like, because he, as, as you said, AK, you didn't watch it live. Like, you're doing some other stuff. And we were talking about the call out.

And you were like, who did he call out Leon? And I said worse. And then I let you know it was Connor. And you did, had, you just couldn't believe it. You just could not believe it. He bungled this so bad. It's not even funny. it's just so, so bad.

And even if you're just doing the thing, I know the Corey Anderson's of the world who, I mean, if you're going to teach a fighter how to be a massive star in the sport, you've got to listen to Corey Anderson, right? Corey Anderson's like, yeah, look what he's doing. He got the attention because he called out Connor McGregor. No, no.

It's not the attention you want. I know there's people out there that it's like, all attention is good attention, even the bad stuff. No, it isn't. No, it isn't. This was awful. This was so bad. And he legit could have put himself at a position

outside of maybe Colby Covington and of course the title fight to fight almost anybody else in the division. Like if he called out, if he called out Shofcott, who could sit out and get a title shot right now, I guarantee you the UFC would try to make that fight. I bet they would.

They would try to do it. They called out Ian Gary. Maybe that's a miss. But I think if he called that out, people have been okay with it. Even if he called out Wonderboy, I would have been like, okay. Like, this is a good, solid callout. Like, Wonder Boy's still in the division. He's ranked higher.

Wonderboy's a big name. Like, this is a good callout. But then to drop Connor. Jen that just to drop Connor, it's bad. And then you go to the post-fight press conference. After Dana White, who was asked about this, and it seems like every time Dana White is asked about Joaquin Buckley or if Wachie Buckley asks Dana White something, he either gives a no answer or a one-word answer.

Hey, is Joaquin Buckley going to fight Connor McGregor? No. And then he moved on with his night. And then Joaquin's like, all right, I'll fight Gilbert Burns. It's more of a realistic call-out. Let me tell you something, Gilbert Burns. You better ignore this call-out. You do not play second fiddle to anybody.

You do not play second fiddle to anybody. Even Connor McGregor. If he wanted that fight, he should have jumped on the microphone and called for that fight. You should say no. You should even entertain this. You should not even bother with this call-out. So, long story short, I got everything I needed to get off my chest there, and I'm excited to get your reaction to all this.

I'm just going to throw it out there. Maybe the band's going to play. He's fighting Sean Brady. That's it. Like, this is the fight. Walking Buckley is fighting Sean Brady. Tough matchup. Another bullish guy who probably could have success at 85 is down at 170.

A guy lifts a lot of weights. It is tracked and strong and good grapplers. good fighter. I think this is it, and I don't think anything else is going to make sense, and it's too bad because he could have called out MVP for Manchester, and it would have been big, and he would have been in a huge spot on the card. He didn't do it. Now he's not getting it.

Now you got fight John Brady, and let's see what you got, man. That's it. What do you got? So I didn't go with MVP only because I have Buckley ahead of him in the rankings at this point, so I'm like, you know what? Buckley, despite his microphone debacles, should still fight up. Brady made sense. I think I had Brady literally one spot above him, so Brady would make a lot of sense.

I decided to just grant him his wish, not the Connor McGregor one. I said, I'll wave my magic wand and let him fight Gilbert Burns. But all the reasons you said, Mike, Gilbert should just, like, roll his eyes and be like, this guy's an idiot. And unless there's no other options, fine, I'll fight. Gilbert should not be remotely interested in this fight. But if I'm the matchmakers, I'd probably try and put it together. I say this with very little enthusiasm.

Again, because I think Buckley's talented. I think he could contend with people in the top five. And I guess I'm curious just to see it now sooner rather than later. But yeah, he's done really nothing properly to get that fight, which would have been a great, a great live callout instead of Connor McGregor. Mike, he did the accent. Oh, I know. Mike, he needs to do, someone needs to teach him the George Costanza leave the room method. because he's he's he's that you're right he can entertain we know he can engage an audience but he always

stays like one beat too long and tells one joke too many and then loses them you got it you got to leave on the high note you got to be a pro you got to leave on the high note because he's doing the he's doing the he's doing the uh whoa back it up beep beep beep thing and then everyone's like what beep beep beep what is that so people i'm you got to watch some side but we're getting we're getting older mike but he's got to learn how to leave the room on a high note, it's getting truly embarrassing. And to New Yorkerick's point about like callouts not matter. And a lot of times they don't. But in some very pivotal points, they do. And there's never any reason not to make a reasonable callout because there's a, if they didn't matter,

Balaamahmahmah would have gotten a title shot by now. And Chal Sondon and Colby Cometon might have, Chal Cometon might have never gotten a title shot. Kobe Compton might have been a longer road to one. So yes, these post-fight callouts do matter. That these, these, it's unfortunately do matter for better for worse. And especially with someone like Buckley, where he's on the cusp, like a good promo, a good callout is what's going to put him over the top to getting a top five guy, a top 10 guy. It's so crucial.

It's so crucial. That's one of just one of the few things that's missing because he's very comfortable talking. He just needs some editing. So that's all. He's got something. And when you mentioned George, he's got a lot. Yeah. And when you mentioned George Costanza, there's multiple episodes you could compare it with.

Yeah. I thought at first you were going to say he needs to do the opposite. And I think that's another thing he needs to do when he has the microphone. Like when you start to get to the call-out portion of the stuff, you need to do the opposite of what you feel. If you feel like Connor McGregor is the right call-out, then you need to call out literally the opposite of Connor McGregor. And then you're on the right track.

Like that would have been a great time to call it, Shof-Kott. Shof-Kott's the complete opposite of Connor McGregor. That would have been a great call-out. Because I mentioned, like, Jack Delamette-Ailana has this tough fight against Gilfx skill of burns he's losing he comes back he wins and then he calls out the boogeyman and despite everything else that happened at ufc 299 if you talked about like the three or four best moments of that card the things that i remember most it was jdm's performance and then him him calling out the boogeyman out of all of that and that just like it matters it does matter and i think it's

more important than a lot of people give it credit for but other than that i'm not going to dump the performance, I'm not going to dump on everything else. But just that point was so bad. It was so bad. And he's got to get better. He's just got to get better. Yeah. But good performance, Joaquin. They loved them. They loved them in that building. But man, even the home crowd was like, ooh, you could hear the deflation. I've never, I've never seen that before. I've never seen home crowd turned like that. Like so abruptly. Ever.

Ever. Ever. Never seen it. He had to tell them like, don't boo. Don't boo. It's so crazy. He had him. He had him.

Oh, let's move on. Carlos Ulberg, aka this guy, I don't know what it is about his opponents and their teams that are just like, you know what we're going to do when we fight this guy? We're just going to go 100 miles an hour at him and just hope he gets on.

uncomfortable. And then for some reason, they swing and miss, and the second Ulberg puts a mitt on their face, they go down and the fight is over. 12 seconds goes in there and knocks out Alonzo Menafield. And a lot of people felt like Alonso Menafield was a live underdog heading into this fight. Boy, did Carlos Olberg just, I mean, he's got that death touch, man. People who listen to the show every week know exactly where I'm going here. So I'm going to let you do your thing. What do you want to see next for Carl Sleberg? Is it because he's so pretty? Are people on underestimating him. Is he a play? Is he what they would call him Brazil, a playboy? Is he like,

do they just think like, because like you said, you're right. You're right. Because that happened with E.R. as well, like it was just a kind of a wild swing, aggressive swing that led to his downfall. It didn't happen in 12 seconds like before Alonso. But yeah, there does seem to be this penchant for throwing strategy out the window and people thinking like, oh, I can just rush him or I can just overpower him. But like he's a pretty darn good technical striker. And like you said, with some clear, natural power. And it's not like people are just learning this. This is what his fifth, fifth straight win, sixth straight win, fifth straight finish.

I think he now, I want to say he now has the active record for most finishes in a row in the UFC right now. So very impressive. This was pretty easy for me because, again, like I said, I did a lot of math on this one. Just kind of look for the rankings. How do I get someone ahead? That's how Buckley ended up with Burns, even though there's almost zero chance in hell he's getting that fight.

Um, Ulberg should fight the Johnny Walker Volkan Usdemir winner. I think that makes a lot of sense. Both guys, we know them well in the division. We know what they're capable of. We know their top 10 guys. Whoever wins that fight is not going to move that much closer to the title fight. They're not going to really move up the rankings. I mean, Uzdimir would take Walker's spot.

Walker maybe will move up. I have to look at who's ahead of him, like one or two spots. Either way, though, you set them up with the fight with Ulberg. and if one of them can beat him, he's now, like, I think one of the most hype guys at 205, then we're talking about Johnny Walker, maybe getting a tell the shot, then we're talking about Volkan, maybe getting another crack at the light heavyweight title. So, yeah, and the timing works. It's happening in June in a few weeks.

I'd be surprised if that's not the fight that his team is eyeing, unless they're trying to aim for a top five guy, but I think that's the right range, though. Yeah, here's what you do, A.K., and this is going to sound super weird because the UFC is going to Perth in August, but we know what the UFC likes to do. They like to book Australian fighters, New Zealand fighters, like at the apex two weeks before they fight or two weeks after. So I'm just going to go.

I'm going to go with the UFC playbook here, but I'm going to make this fun. Carlos Oldberg is about to main event his first UFC card. You throw him in the main event. We do it at the world's most famous apex. His opponent, you already know where I'm going at this because I already talked about this couple of weeks ago. Bogdan Goosekoff. And what you do is we do a little five-rounder. We know that fine ain't going five because Bogdan Goose.

Scop don't roll like that, and neither does Carlos Sahlberg these days. And what you do is, for the first time, you do the thing. We're looking for a third person in the booth, right? We got Brandon Fitzgerald and or John Gooden. We throw Lorisanko in there. And yes, we like Paul Felder, and D.C. and Pisbbing and Domina Cruz are all there. But for the first time ever, we bring in from the desk itself, Anthony Smith. Anthony Smith sits in the third seat. And he's the commentator for this main event. Because the winner of this fight. This fight is for the Anthony Smith sweepstakes. Whoever wins, gets

to fight Anthony Smith next. It's either Carlos Oldberg or Bogdan Gouskopf. Goosekopf gets what he wants against Doppelganger Anthony Smith. And we do it in a main event. Let's just have a cool thing. Let's let Anthony Smith get involved. He can even raise the hand of the winner after and then even get the microphone

and not call out Connor McGregor. But just everything about this, like let's just have a little bit of fun with this one. Because I think this is kind of what these two guys would be fighting for anyhow. So let's do Ellberg versus Gusk off and winner against Anthony Smith. That's going to trip out Oldberg a little bit, seeing Anthony Smith on the side and also standing across from Anthony Smith.

This would be like, what was I just thinking of? Who are some other doppelgangers we've got? Oh, it would be like a Calvin Gaslam commentating on like Nazarat, Nazareth, Nazaraj. And we got Connor Burke's got to do some commentating on Gurum. Grom could say that would be interesting. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. That makes a ton of sense. I think that's smart for all parties involved.

I think you're Oldberg. Yeah, man, if you can get a fight with Anthony Smith, former title contender, that's the way to go. Yeah, I love the Bugdan matchup. I think that's probably what they're going to do. I only didn't do that because I've been pushing hard some Bogdan versus like, I'm obsessed with him fighting I won Kutalaba someday. And I feel like once he starts getting these big fights,

that's going to be out of his range. So I'm hanging on to that dream still. But the path you laid out is very likely what we will see. Yeah, and if Oldberg wins, then he can go fight Ewan after. It's beautiful. It just sets it up perfectly for you, A.K. This is a way to go. We saw some vet lessons get handed out on this card, AK.

We saw some young bucks coming in as big, big favorites, not just from a betting line perspective, but just sort of in the court of public opinion. One of them was Mitu Trebekchi going in, just looked real good heading into this fight with Diego Faheda, who hasn't been all that active, hasn't fought in around a year's time. But people just forgot it.

about how good and how vicious this man is. And 39-year-old Carlos Diego Ferreira just goes in there and thumps up Matush Trebekchi something gnarly. This was one hell of a performance. The UFC loved this performance so much, A.K., that Esteban Rievovich, who probably has at worst, the fourth or fifth fast knockout in MMA this year, didn't get a bonus, but CDF got one for this performance against Mitu Schrobechki. This guy just bawled out.

It was incredible. What would you like to see next for him? Your thoughts on the performance. It was kind of a comeback, right? There's some drama there, right? Is that why he got it instead of Riebevitz? I mean, like there was some drama, but like the way you sort of viewed that fight on paper was if, if CDF was going to win, this is what was going to happen. Rebetsky was going to look good early.

He was getting to get tired. And then he was just going to get, like, mopped up. And that's pretty much what happened. Rebetsky looked like a different human being when the fight was over. Yeah, good for Diego. I hope they just threw, they didn't mention it, but I hope they threw 50,000 to Esteban as well. I mean, that was nasty. I'm just, I don't know. Maybe it's because of Terrence McKinney and like they're just expected at this point. Maybe you don't get 50 grand for knocking out Terrence McKinney. I don't know if it's a vice versa. I don't know if those bites are going to go. I will say I got this one wrong. I picked Rabetski. I think quite a few people did. And my prediction, it's a classic like if I just thought about a little more. Because I said specifically there will come a point where Robeskii said, he cannot just like sort of Hulk smash his way through people and win fights. And I, but then I said, today is not this day. Mike, today was this day, or Saturday was the day, I should say, because, yeah, you're

dealing with a veteran. But I don't know, how is Diego Veda doing this? Because he's 39. He has a history of injuries. He's a, the lightweight division is not a division where as you get older and more banged up, you should be able to hang with some of these guys. Maybe I'm counting the old guys out. Jim Miller's beat a lot of younger guys.

But Jim Miller's beat a lot of young guys who aren't as good as Wrabechki. So I am really shocked by the result. And no disrespect Diego, because, as he said, he's a finisher. He's proven. He's fought in much better opponents than Wrabechki. But I thought his body's betraying him at this point. But hey, he shut me up, man. That was really impressive.

I'd like to see him fight Jalen Turner. I think that's the way to go. Let's get Diego up the – again, just going up the rankings, fun matchup. someone's getting finished could be going to keep pushing up this unlikely Diego run or could be a comeback not comeback but you know

write the ship for Jalen Turner yeah I like that fight I thought about it I almost went there I didn't want to go there just yet I went with Mafferbola I think CDF Maffirola it's a banger no one's gonna be mad about that matchmaking

so let's go ahead and do that CDF just I could not believe how wide the betting line was. I thought Rebechke should be a pretty big favorite. I would probably put him at like minus 280, minus 300. But like I saw some books having Rebedchke's minus 500 heading into this fight. And I was like, whoa, that just seems like a little much.

Even though CDF is 39 and if you just look at the guy CDF has lost to, it's like the top of the top. It's all the legit people. Even like Gregor Gillespie, who we haven't seen him forever, like these are the guys he's losing to. top 10 perennial contenders. And I mean, just unbelievable stuff from CDF. One of the really nice guys in the sport just had another kid. So good for him.

I had two other thoughts. Does he become as a prospect as a UFC prospect, someone who hasn't fought the UFC much? Does he become a prospect test guy, a litmus test guy? Could he get Mick Tebeck Oral by? I thought about that as well. Do they use Diego for that purpose now? Or is there any chance? It's a bit of a quick turnaround now.

Does he get Patty in Manchester? Who, CDF? Yeah. No. You think Diego kills him? I don't know. I think Paddy could catch him the right time. I'd pick CDF in that fight, but it would be,

I just don't know if it does anything for Patty. Yeah, he doesn't have a name. If we're going to do it, yeah, if you're going to give him CDF, just give Moikano. Like, what are we doing here? Just give it to him. I'm surprised. Everybody wants it. So just that one's not already like put together.

I don't know if they're both pursuing other matchups or something. Because Moecoe kind of didn't push it the last win. He's been pushing it hard, but the last one he was kind of like, he's just like, I just, I just, you know, just wants money fights, whatever. Pimbleet is one of those fights, I guess. Yeah, probably not. Probably doesn't get that. Again, it is only two months away now, maybe 10 weeks, two months. But I had a thought that he could have slotted in there because they got announced that Patty

fight soon, right? They've got to start an announcement announced some of these big Manchester fight soon, right? They haven't even announced the main event yet. Yeah. We have one fight. They announced one fight. And this is... Versus, uh, no, we, we confirm that. Have they announced any actual fights for that card? I don't think so. Like, officially announced them? No.

And we're like 10 weeks away. Like, that's not... Yeah. So I'm assuming fighters know, like, I'm assuming they're not getting, having people prepare on 10 weeks. I assume people know they just haven't been announced. Like, people have been preparing for opponents. I haven't said, yeah. I don't know. We're a situation. We know our own Langea Chikiccacaze is happening. We know Mohamah Maha'i of Mnell Cops happening. We assume Tom Aspen all be on the card.

We assume Leon Edwards will be on the card. It's just a matter of who they will fight. Let's go to the Featherweight Division. And we talked about Joaquin Buckley. And we talked about sometimes it's important to just do the opposite. And that's what Sean Woodson did, A.K. Sean Woodson did the opposite. I didn't think he beat.

I didn't think he won. Honestly, I thought Alex Casares beat him. I thought Casares won the second and third rounds. I think scoring 3027 for Sean Woodson is one of the worst scorecards of the year. I don't think it's like a all-and-out robbery, but I got to tell you, man, like, I don't throw that word, you know me, I don't throw that word out very often, but we are kind of, I went back and rewatched it today.

I think you have to, if you did a robbery around this fight, I would not be upset about it. Honestly, I really wouldn't. I think, I kind of think there was a little bit of a hosing going on for Alex Casares, but it doesn't matter. Because you know what Sean Woodson did, A.K., he did the thing on the microphone. Shouted out St. Louis. The people were behind him.

And then he made a realistic and solid callout that, you know what happened, AK? It was so realistic and solid that it was immediately accepted by this guy. And I'm just going to give it to him because he did the damn thing. even though I didn't think he won the fight, I think he's a really good callout. Call out Bryce Mitchell. Bryce Mitchell said, let's go. The fight was made pretty much within 30 seconds of the fight ending.

John Watson versus Bryce Mitchell's where I'm going. Let's give him what he wants. I'm in. A great callout. Yes. UFC, get on that. Again, it wasn't my pick, but only just because I just chose,

I want to just defer. Like, I knew that was the way to go, but I just chose to go to a direction because I'm such a rebel. MMA decisions.com We have 11 media scores for Casares, three, four, three, four, Woodson, including one 3027, and I won't call this person out because I don't know, I don't know their reputation for scoring fights, but yeah, you know, maybe not the most authoritative win for Mr.

Woodson, but he's cruising now, man. He's what, three straight now, I think, and undefeated six straight fights, six straight fights. six straight five doesn't quite have a signature win in there that signature win you're looking for but he's just been solid he's been cranking away in a tough division so i gave him a very tough opponent next because i i want to know how good this guy is i'm going with uh maybe one of the only feather weights that's harder than him right now joe anderson brito yeah not not as high in the rankings as brys mitchell so like i said that's why that's a smart call out for watson is uh brice miltel definitely has more of a name he's got a number nexter's name i think brito might in the official

UOC rankings, just not in our global rankings. I would love also just a really fun fight. So it's a tougher matchup. Maybe it doesn't do as much for him. He should keep angling for that Mitchell fight and definitely both those guys should talk about it. But if that doesn't happen, retail would be very nice. Now we go back up to the heavy weights, AK.

The man who did not get put in a good spot by Dana White at the Post-Fite Press conference. And this isn't a victory lap, ladies and gentlemen, that I'm about to take. But it is, and I told you so, Lapp, because what did I say, A.K.? What did I say on onto the next one the day after UFC 299 when someone suggested that rebellious Spain should fight Waldo Cortez-A-Costa? Do not do this. Don't do it. It's got to be awful.

It's going to be terrible. This is horrendous matchmaking. No. And what did you guys do after they announced the fight? See, guess I'm the better matchmaker than Mike is yada, yada, yada. And you all shoved in my face. And I was like, you'll see. You'll see.

And what did you get? You got 15 minutes of rebellus to Spain, who has fought for a combined 35 seconds in his last four fights, on his back, looking like a fish out of water the whole time. And to quote the great Mr. Perfect and Bobby Heenan after Rick Flair won the Royal Rumble, I'm not the kind of guy that said,

I like to say, I told you so, but I told you so. And Waldo Cortez-A-Costa did Waldo-Cortez-A-Costa things. and the fight was absolutely awful. And it was one of the worst main card openers maybe in the last five years for a UFC event. And that's just the way that it is.

So I'm just getting the side of the way. The UFC is not going to give him anything good after this. So there's a fight coming up on pay-per-view in a couple weeks' time, June 1st, heavyweight division, suffocating grapplers. Alexander Romanov is fighting Jailton Almeida. Whoever loses that fight is going to go beat Waldo Cortez Acosta. Your thoughts?

Yeah, I was thinking about that because I was thinking, man, what would a Chilton, like, salsa boy fight look like? That would be a fun one. And a fun, fun in a weird, heavy, weighty way. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I'm just, poor rebellus, just, can we take away, can we take away no points for people in mind?

Can you retroactively, if the matchup turns out to be an absolute stink bomb? Are you allowed to, like, take those points out? This one in particular, I think we could, break the rules and just start. Like you woke up like two days ago, your Otno account got like a little bit of a boost effort that we made. The deposit was made. But now we're going to pull it back.

It might even penalize them. We might even tack like a 15% penalty on it too. People didn't know that like you don't know when we when you put an Otno point in your account. We have access to your account. We actually have access to your finances. And we don't abuse that. I promise we are only doing that.

We are not selling your information to advertisers. I promise we are only doing it for the rare, rare possibility where a point would have to be, you know, and this is a, this was a pick that a few people made. So this is like fractional points. We may take those back. I'll let Mike will decide by, we'll see how Mike wakes up Monday morning. Maybe he'll feel a bit better about it.

But I think you're right. It's you warn people, Mike. I told you. You don't do these things to be a, you're not a stick. You don't do this to be a stick in the mud. You're trying to help the community. And people didn't listen. And they made, and they helped to manifest this matchup.

And now, poor Robelis, back to the drawing board, I guess. Like, dude. The matchup, here, like, for an example, like the matchup I suggested was Austin Lane. We could have put Austin Lane in this fight. Like, we could have waited two weeks and had Austin Lane just fight Rebellus to Spain. Because look what had happened. Austin Lane would just try to punch this man as hard as he could. And Rebellis would have got him.

And it would have been incredible. Like, what a start to this main card that would have been. But no, you people out there, you had to do the thing where it's like, well, Rebellis, is this guy and let's go, no, no, no, no. There are certain fighters that we avoid stylistic problems with. Like, we don't look at rebellists of Spain and think, man, this guy is going to be the world champion. We don't look at him the same way we view the Armand-Sorukians of the world. We view him as like, man, how much fun are we going to have with this guy?

There's so much fun to be had. And then you immediately throw him in there with Waldo Cortez-A Costa. Yeah. Good Lord. I'm sorry, AK. That's one of those days. Um, I did give him a top 10 guy. I gave him a good old trusty Marchantibura. I think that would be if, if people, and here's why. Again, I said, I think that's actually the perfect

fight. Most of, like I said, most of my picks are how can I realistically move someone up the rankings? If they happen to be on a streak, which a lot of these part are at Buckley's on a street now, Oldberg's on a street, you know, so a lot of these far as on streets now, Woodson. Um, and so is Cortez-a Costa. Because going into the show, Mike, I stumped everyone with who are the, who are the hottest heavyweights in the UFC? And Renrigo Nusson. Mnesto if he had beaten Derek Lewis would have been, I think, number one. I think he would have been four straight wins would have made him the hottest. So that didn't happen.

But Nessimento, I'm sorry, excuse me, Waldo has now won three straight. And he joins that white, hot list, Mike. He's in a dead heat with Alexander Volkov, Carl Williams, and Mick Parkins. So he's in there. And I think if we're going to break up this race, I think he deserves a shot to, he could make it four straight with a win over Tibera and just become the hottest name at 2.65. it up. Can I change my pick? Sure. It's Carl Williams. Give him Carl Williams. That's it. Like, let's just, let this fight will just exist and it'll be over. That's a sexy match. Let's just do that.

That's a sexy match. Yeah, listen, street versus streak. That's how I, that's a great way to build contenders, right? This guy's three fight one streak. This got three fight one street. This got three one street. Boom. Make out man. Let's go to the wild card round. We will select one fighter. We have not a match where we're able to do right now. This is easy, AK. This is easy, Mike. Okay. Well, tell me how easy it was for you, A.K. I probably could have written this before the show now that I think about it once at once. Because this is just a fight I can't believe hasn't happened. And I know she was not victorious in her return, Tisha Pennington, the former Tisha Torres, of course.

Tisha Pennington now, a mom now, her first fight in, what, a two year or something like that. And as usual, acquitted herself well. Listen, she didn't get to split. I saw I'm going, I made decisions, got split down the middle. Six people scored it for Ritchie, who won, seven people scored it for Pennington. Tisha Pennington fights are pretty hard to score. She's had several split decisions in her career, some of which she has come on the right end of,

some of it's the wrong end. It wasn't her night on Saturday. That's fine. These things happen. But again, she did show that she's a freak athlete. She has not lost a step. She's in ridiculous shape for any human being. So Shark Nato, that was good.

We got that going. I'm shocked that she's never been booked. I swear I thought it had been booked at Lacing Follingerh. She's never been booked against Carolina Kovilkevich. Like, this is not a thing. Just make it happen. Let's make it happen. It just makes so much sense for both women at this stage of their careers. I'm not promising a banger.

I'm not saying, oh, I'm pointing together to make a fight of the night. But two veterans of the game at 115, it just feels like at some point they should fight each other. Now, both coming off losses. Yeah, throw that one together. That's perfect fight night material, pay-per-view, pre-limb fight. Give me, give me, Carolina, and Tisha. It's funny because immediately in the aftermath of Waldo Cortez-A Costa's performance. I was like, I'm mad.

The wild cards could be rebellious to Spain. That's, like, I'm just going to do him. Okay. And I'm sticking by this. This would not be my official wild card pick, but Rebellus to Spain versus Tai Tui Vasa is still very much alive in my eyes. I still think you do this fight. Yes.

Who really cares? Tai Tivasa is not fighting for a belt anymore. Like, the ship has sailed. You should have given him the title shot after he beat Derek Lewis. Like, you should just give it to him. Like, especially with the whole Francis thing going on, you're doing interim belt, like you should put tie in there 100%. So now you just throw them in there with Rebellis to Spain. And let's just have fun.

Like, let's just have some fun and let these two dudes just swing as hard as they can at each other. I will go with, I'm going with Chase Hooper, okay? Chase Hooper, the man. This isn't Chase Hooper boy anymore. This is Chase Hooper Man. It just goes in there. And Chase Hooper is a very popular underdog selection. I was very confident he would win this fight because Slava Claus, as fun as he is, is an awful grappler.

He's got just not great takedown defense. And once he's on his back, he's pretty much there the entire time. And then Chase Hooper just comes out in round one and stings him with a punch. He knocks him down and then gets on him. I think that was about as close to a 10-7 round, as you will see, on a proliferation. Liminary fight in the UFC, Chase's beat the brakes off this man. And Keith Peterson was all nonsense. He wanted to see, I mean, he wanted to see blood all night long.

There were a couple of fights that he could have stepped in and stopped that he didn't. And then it ended with just sort of a weird tap that didn't really happen, but kind of happened. But no one really complains unless you're a Chase Hooper by TKO better, then you're probably a little pissed off that it goes down like that. But Chase just looks great. I'm doing it, A.K. I'm doing it. I don't want to rush them up too fast. It's Jim freaking Miller time for Chase Hoover. It's Jim freaking Miller time. Jim's coming off of a loss in his most recent outing to Bobby Green. Chase is only 24. If he loses Jim Miller, who gives a rat's ass, honestly. Like, Chase is going to be fine. He's going to, he's, Chase Hooper is like six years away from getting even close to how good he's going to be. That's a problem. His athletic peak is six years away, and that's when he's really going to start getting good.

So let's teach him some of these lessons along the way. He's got a really nice attitude about it. Let's just chuck him in there with Jim Miller. I'm in. Let's go. When Jim Miller made his pro debut, Mike, in November 2005, Chase Hooper was six years old. I love it.

And see, that's, it's those kind of facttoids that would be read during that fight that people would be like, oh my God, this is crazy. It's going to come up a million times. That's another reason why I want this fight. Wow. All right. Yeah. Damn, I hadn't even thought about it, but it makes sense for both guys right now.

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those two, along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ, built for breakthroughs with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Live with confidence. While Peloton IQ counts. wraps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton cross-training tread plus at OnePeloton.ca. Do we have any one claiming Otno

points that we may have to steal if they didn't say Derek Lewis versus Judge and a strike? This is always the scariest way to start off the segment by saying I had not had a chance to vet these messages this week. So I don't know, Mike. We'll play it. We'll play it by year. I'll let you know. There. All right. Let's go. We have a first time, Rakey. Mm-hmm. His name is Alex.

How about that? Welcome to the party, pal. Hey, Mike, thought I tried my hand in a bit of matchmaking for this. You sought no. Oh, no. Derek Lewis versus Jarzino Rosenstrike. I mean, just coming in, getting it correct right out the gate. Joaquin Buckley versus Sean Brady.

I know it should be MVP, but I'm punishing him for calling out Connor McGregor. Carlos Ulberg versus the winner of Johnny Walker versus Volk and Ozedemir in Perth. Yeah. Diego Ferreira versus Matt for Vola. Sean Woodson versus Bryce Mitchell. And then WCA versus Marcos Regerio de Lima with the yawn emoji. Whoa, hold on.

We were doing so well. Did they put it two? I mean, there's an emoji there. Maybe that's... Did they put a two? I mean, that's Waldo's only lost. He put two parentheses. Two parentheses.

I don't know what that means. I'm not cool. I don't know what that means. They fought last April. He put the emoji in parentheses. So we have like one and two. This would be more unnecessary. Well, I guess he could get the win back.

But this would be almost unnecessary as Nessimento, Dontail Mays, too. Like just no, why. I think they forgot. Otherwise, you know what? Great set of picks. I won't do you too much. I'm okay with it. Left lane.

I hope we don't have to ban you. Nope, he got it. Lewis versus Biggie Boy. Buckley versus Burns. the guy who he called out in the press conference instead of on the mic, fight night main event. No, sorry, you don't get that. You don't get it.

There's no second. Gilbert Burns play second fiddle to nobody. All right? No. Oldberg versus the Walker, O's Demir, loser. Ferreira versus Joel Alvarez, Woodson versus Calvin Cater. Do you like that idea?

I don't know. Yeah, you know what? Yes, yes. I was going to say, I don't know if he's earned that yet. But Calvin Cater, maybe only needs a little step back, not because he's bad, just like, you know, just see a little bit, see how he does against someone coming to take his spot. Yeah, I don't mind that.

I don't mind that all. We got Veronica Hardy versus Casey O'Neill. I like that. Veronica Hardy, yes, maybe for the Australia card? Sure, I like that. Maybe Manchester. Either of the two would be fine. Johnson versus Sumedherjee, Trey Waters versus Jeremiah Wells,

Ritchie versus McKenzie Dern. Okay. Yeah, I don't know what they have with Ritchie yet. I like, I like Ritchie. I'm not sure. I don't know what they have with her. I was trying to see, Joel. Okay, right, Joel.

Riebevich versus Elvis Brenner is awesome. That's awesome match back here right there. He also likes Chase Hooper versus Terrence McKinney. I don't mind that one. But then, Left Lane, you just did. You did something that you shouldn't have done. You did something you shouldn't have done. And how you haven't learned this lesson after we just,

We just went through this. After UFC 299, you want to do this. He wants Waldo Cortez Acosta to fight Tai Titu Ivasa. Why? Why? You're literally about to get the same exact fight we just saw. Why would you do this? Come on, left lane.

Come on. By the way, I have this image now of someone watching us having a heavy metal door in front of the office and like just the slot. and it's like they open the slot and it's like who should Derek Lewis fight next. And if they don't say Charzania and Rosenzsche, it's just slots close. It's gone. It's gone. It's a speakeasy, guys.

You know the answer. You got to answer that one question and you're in. It seems like everybody's gone with the correct choice. They know, Mike. They could sense that you were serious. How serious you are about this fight having to happen. There's just no other one. There's just literally no other one.

Unless the Spain won, then you have to do those two guys. I would be totally fine with that. But yeah, it's Jarzini at this point. Harry, Trey, Trey, Waters, just Danny Barlow, Charles Johnson, David Devorak, Rebovich versus Ishmael Bonfim, Hooper versus Foresseum, Woodson versus Landware or Cater, CDF versus Dakar close. That seems to be a pretty popular one that I've seen. Yeah, I like that. Oldberg versus Anthony Smith, the question mark, Buckley versus MVP. He could have got it. He could have got that fight. Yep. Now I don't think he's

going to. Robbie Ryan, another Buckley versus MVP. Oldberg versus Goosecough, Ferrer versus Close. Woodson versus the loser of Lerone Murphy versus Edson Barbosa. I don't mind that at all. Oh, nice. Yeah, that's good.

Oh, no, you did it too, Robbie Ryan. Waldow versus Tuivasa. What are you doing? What is there something we don't know? Has Thai Tuva called him out? Are we not missing a TikTok? Why would anybody want to watch this?

Do we miss a funny TikTok from Ty or something like making fun of it? I don't know. I don't understand. Why would anybody want to watch this? Come on, guys. I'm not with this. Wildcar Rievich versus Ruffie, which, okay, that's pretty damn good. Great, great.

He had another question, but he wants it for a heck of a morning, and we will give him that. Teaser. John Ray, I believe, is the last one. Hardy versus the Gato Vidal winner, Johnson v. Henson Park, Billy Gough, for Stanley Barlow. Pennington versus Carolina, aka right there with you. Ritchie versus the Angela Hill, Luana Pinero winner. Rivaich versus Mark Jacie.

Hooper versus Rebechke. Do you like this idea? No, I think they're going in different directions right now. I need to reevaluate this Rebetski thing, or he needs to make some adjustments because there's a lot of fights that Rebetsky is going to win the way he's been doing it. But I think this showed, like you said, there's some maybe some gas tank issues, some things like some focus issues. I don't know.

But he's talent, though. I don't think this is like the end of his run to being a top 15 guy. Yeah. I think we might actually have the, I mean, just tremendous matchmaking for WCA coming up in a matter a second. Stay tuned for that. Woodson versus the Barbosa Murphy loser.

CDF versus RDA, AK. CDF versus RDA. Wow. It just sounds, I mean, it sounds good. I like that. Sounds good. Okay, okay.

That's just fun. I can see it. The potion is right to itself. It's perfect. Ulberg versus the Dominic Reyes, Dustin Jacobi winner, which I'd be fine. with.

They really want him to fight Dominic Reyes, Dilley. I don't want to see, I have no interest in seeing him fight Dominic Grace anymore. I think he splatters Dominic Reyes at this point. I want to see Anthony Smith by Dominic Reyes. Like, that's probably the fight that should be made after the point. Buckley versus Jeff Neal. Let me just make sure there's, you know, no weirdness going on.

Okay, this is exactly how you should be booking WCA. WCA versus Dantale Mays. That's it. That's the fight. That's the one. If you're not just going to sacrifice him to Jailton, this is it. That Dantale is, I forgot that Dantel fought has bounced back from Rodrigo.

I totally did not remember the Kai-O-Machato fight. Oh, no one remembers that fight. And it happened just like a few weeks ago. I remember that fight. We were like, well, that happened. That was a thing. And he won. Yeah, I could see it happening.

Guys, WCA, listen, he's going up the rank. I feel like he's going up the rank. I don't know, man. St. Bell's the same TFL. Three straight. He's white hot. And he didn't go, this is funny. Derek Lewis versus UFC newcomer Rarizino-Josenstrike,

who is definitely not Rosenstrike and a funny mustache if the matchmaker's ass. Outstanding. Outstanding. There you go. Over to you, AK. What are they're telling you? Man, I got a bunch, so I got to run through these. Okay.

Chris, at Flatbed Chris. This is a veteran, by the way, ought no person who keeps having new accounts. So, Chris, I hope everything's okay. Diego Faheda and Mike Davis. I think that makes sense, right? Mike Davis? Sure. We just want to see Mike Davis get back in there.

Russell Westbrook. Pretty sure, not the real Russell Westbrook. Greetings from Alabama. If they keep Big Lou versus Jarzino from us any longer, I might lose motivation to keep going. Oh, my God. I mean, just keep going as a matchmaker and not in life. It's not that serious, Russell. Again, I hope everything is going okay with you as well.

Buckley versus Randy Brown, Elizu Zelisky winner. Sure. Alberg versus Johnny Walker, win, loser, draw. I don't know. I don't know if it'd say win, loser draw. I think it'd be Walker or Oostomere. CDF versus the medium-sized Bond Feme. Okay, sure.

WCA versus the guillotine for ruining my rebellious a big bet, I think bet he meant to say. Let me go down here. Sean Haywood. Yep, Buckley, Sean Brady. Charles Johnson, have we talked about Charles Johnson at all? He did.

He did good. It was a good win. He's kind of like, he's a scrappy guy of fly away. Like, you know, he's got, he's a tough out. He's not a guy you want a face coming up. Might be a litmus test guy for the rest of his year C career, but I feel like he, I think he can knock off like 10 more U.S.

appearances because that's really solid backbacked up wins, Azamat and Jake Hadley Ritchie versus Marina Rodriguez she should definitely angle for that fight that's a big one

Elberg versus Rockich I think about that WCA and Nassamenta oh god yeah fine whatever

tack MMA Lewis versus Rosen Strike easy that's right you pass the test Freneda versus Dober did this fight not

happen Mike. Has he never fought? No. No, they had to have fun. No. Really? How?

Were booked? They were booked. They were booked. Okay, I'm not crazy. This was, yeah, yeah, to filter it. So, yeah, I'd love to see it again. Mike, I'll just say this now, Mike. And if I see, for every time I see Cortezza, I'm just not going to read it.

If you hear me pause. If you hear me pause at the end of a thing, you know why I pause. Why? Oh, this is unbelievable. You know why I've learned your lessons? Haven't you learned your lessons? What is happening? Did you read Four Corner Sports?

I did. Oh, no. I did not. Did you? He doesn't even send him to me anymore. He just sends him to you. I'm glad he didn't because you'd react much more violent than I will. I'll just say this, Mike.

Oh. The slot is closed. That's all I'm saying. Our guy opened the slot. The question was asked. The slot has now been closed and the door is not open. So Four Corner Sports, I'm sorry. Mike, if you want to, I am not officially suspending him, but just keep in mind,

he did not choose wisely. I will say that. So for corner sports, we love you. Oh, no, he did not. Very, very, very wrong answer. He did not. I'm not reading it. It's not.

He just didn't do Derek Lewis and Jersey. He didn't do Derek Lewis and WCA, did he? Mike, it's not important what he did or didn't do. He just didn't do. He's bad. I didn't say whether he did or not. I didn't say whether he did or not. We double the suspension if that's the fight you make.

Mike, to keep peace in the land of Otno. I'm not going to say what it was. it's just not Derek Lewis, Jarz, Jr. That's... Okay. Let's continue on, please. Mr. Senior, man, he passed the test. Oliver versus Ryan Span.

Yeah. This is a lot of people that are just like one, two, three, four picks above them. I think any of those are great fits. I don't love that one. You don't love it? Span's coming off a real bad loss. Like a real bad loss. I think you kind of just...

I don't know. There's certain times, like, I don't really mind if a winning fighter gets a fighter coming off of a loss, but the way that Ryan Span lost his most recent fight was pretty bad. So, yeah, I think he deserves a little bit better than that. Sure,

sure. And if you, if you have ranked above Ryan Span, Alberg, if you haven't ranked above Ryan Span, I wouldn't blame you. Again, I don't think he has the name just yet,

but Menafield, that was the biggest name he's fought by far and clear. Barry O'Reilly, some good ones here. Trey Waters, Matthew Samuzeberger, super fun fight, love it.

Do you think Trey Waters loses that, is they lose. Do you think Billy Goff has a better chance of winning that fight if he doesn't insist on mixing the martial arts? Mike? I don't know. I kind of thought. I mean, it's tough to say. I have to go back and rewatch that one. It was just super fun and weird and chaotic. Yeah, probably not. I don't know. I kind of think like there's a case you made that Billy did win. Yeah, I saw some. I definitely didn't agree. I saw some golf cards. I saw some golf cards for sure. That's just who Billy Goff is. I think the world got to get to know Billy Goff,

who I've been watching fight on the New England regional scene for a long time. And if you're like, wow, this Billy Goff guy is fun, take a little journey on YouTube and watch old Billy Goff, New England fights, because that's literally what he does in every single fight. Congrats to him and Trey Waters, getting that 50 Gs, guys. Well done. Well done. Great work.

Very tough, very tough fight. A lot of, not defense. You know, not the best to show. of defense I've ever seen. Like, Barry says, Chase Hooper, Tony Ferguson. Excuse me. Chase Hooper, Tony Ferguson. Makes sense.

Hooper is already a bit of a star. Can get a lot of shine from being Tony. While Tony, despite the beating he just had, Hooper might not be able to hurt Tony as much as in some of his recent fights and may play into his ground game. I mean, I think that's exactly what you would do. And I don't know if that's, we want to see that. I actually don't.

I thought I would hate that way more than I actually do. I don't hate it, but I don't love it. Yeah, I don't hate it. I'm, like, I'm oddly fine with it, but not like hoping that it happens if that makes sense, but I'm oddly okay if it does happen. I think you'll hate this.

WCA Sergei Pavlovich. Now, Barry says this is not a reward. He did what he had to do to win, but this is a punishment for doing what he had to do to win and letting Pavlich get one back for the fans. I don't mind the thinking about it. I think there's zero chance if it happens. I don't mind the thinking behind it.

Yeah, just go back and watch Sergei Pavvich versus Alastor Overeem and see if you still feel that way. Like, I know that was a few years back, but... Am I going... Am I crazy, though, saying Cortez-A-Costa is not as good an offensive wrestler as Overeign? I don't... I think that's fair to say, no? No? No, but he has really good top control. And I know, like, the Samlis has rebellious his fame, but...

Like, he could... There's a chance he could do the same thing there to Sergei. Again, we just don't know because Sergey either melts people or gets melted in 30 seconds since the O'Bereem fight. So we don't really get to a sample size. So I guess if we want to see his grappling tested in some way, like not even Curtis Blades try to take him down, sure that we can use that as a lip-miss test somehow. But, eish, that could be a rough watch. The last one I read from Barry. Buckley v. Ian Gary.

again, almost zero chance he gets this. But he won an Irishman. He had to sell for Gary. His mix of striking takedowns. Just be a real interesting fight. Big win for other guy. Step back in rankings for Gary, true. But Buckley has a lot of shine at the moment.

Win against him means more than a win over Colby at the moment. Yeah, probably. But he's just not getting that. But I could see him. I don't know what they were actually booking for Ian Machado Gary next. Buckley should be prepared, step in a short notice. He could get that fight as a short notice replacement. He should have called it.

That's how he gets it. Like that's... Oh, that would have way better than McGregor, but I just don't think... Oh, 100%. I don't think he... And even though if he said it, knowing he's probably a zero chance of getting that fight,

but maybe he does AK. Maybe he does get it. Because if he says, hey, Ian, Gary, I know you want to fight at UFC 303. It doesn't seem like Colby's going to be there. And you know Ian would probably choose to fight anybody on a Connor McGregor card on that same main card, than anybody else.

So if Buckley was like, yeah, I'll turn around six weeks and I'll fight you there so you can fight on this card. I honestly think he has a chance. That's why I kept saying, like that's why I'm saying he could have literally, outside of Colby, Leon Edwards and Connor McGregor, every other option on the table was possible. All of them were possible. Even Ian Gary was possible. There was a chance he could make that happen if he did it right. and then he did the wrong, like the complete wrong thing. It's just, boy, oh boy.

Just looking at the opportunities he missed here is crazy. And he still might get one of these names, but it's only going to be because we got nobody else. You know what I mean? It's, yeah. Oh, God. Conor McGregor. Conor,

Conor McGregor? Oh, no. I think that was better than Buckley's, I think, version. I don't know. It's horrible. Liam Perry Elberg versus Krillov I'm surprised more people

didn't say this I think I'd book So I was actually going to go with that I had Krilov Some other as lined up With some other light heavyweight Much earlier on another episode So technically in my mind

He's booked Though he's not actually booked So but yeah I'm surprised more people Than say that Because Krillov's like Top 7 top 8 right now And I think a winnable fight

I think a winnable fight for Alberg So I don't know And would almost definitely end And finish Unless Krilov's grappling It just takes over And just cries out for three rounds

which could happen, hopefully. Chase Hooper versus Jakeasy in Manchester and Vibavits for S. S.C.M. Good matches there, Liam. I like that. Moneyline, Mike, you pass the test. Just trying to see if there's anything here. Charles Johnson, Tim Elliott. Listen, Charles Johnson might end up being the new Tim Elliott. So him or Steve Versaig might be Tim Elliott someday. So I don't mind it. Feed WCA to Pavlovich, JK, JK, JK, J.K. Joke. That'd be interesting. I wonder how much time they've, I'm sure they've trained together at some point. I know they're not like teammates now, but I'm sure those two guys have rolled around a bunch

being Missouri dudes. I know Elliot trained with Krause over there for a hot minute. True. I don't mind that. Mike, Chris Martin wants to know. Question, how does Keith Peterson pause the action in the Viseboev Buckley fight? A Viseboe of attempting a clearly illegal kicks to a grounded opponent with the express attempt to commit a foul.

How does Keith Pearson not take away position? Sorry, take away position from Buckley and not take a point from Brisbane. I did not see this particular sequence. So here's what happened. Yeah, please. None of the kicks landed. None of the kicks landed.

It looked weird. And there was a moment when Rude Zabayev basically, there was that moment where, okay, we know where you're like, Keith Peterson's like, I think I know what you're trying to do. But I'm just not sure if you're trying to do. what I think you're trying to do. And then Buckley just kind of stood there and looked at the ref and the ref just kind of looked at Rudesabayev.

And Rizabayev had a fork in the road. He could either choose to just do the right thing or he could try to kick Joaquin Buckley in the face illegally again. And he just looked right at the referee and was like, okay, I'm going to try to kick him in the face again. So the referee stops the fight even though none of it happens. He doesn't take a point. However, he does ask Joachim Buckley what he wants.

he goes, we could either we could either go back to the mat, we can keep it on the floor, or you can stand up. He gave Buckley the option. And I think at first, and I have to go back and rewatch it, but I'm pretty sure at first Buckley was like,

now stay down. Then he changed his mind and said, nah, let's go. Like, I'll stand up and try to hit him. Because he heard him pretty bad early, like before, and thought,

actually thought he was got to finish him in the third round. So he just, he asked for the stand up, and that's how the fight ended. So, yeah, I don't, I don't think Keith really did it wrong there because none of the shots landed. The intent certainly was there.

But given Buck of the option to recover if he needed it and then choose the position he wanted, I didn't. That was fine. Yeah, it's kind of a funky night for Keith Pearson. Pretty good rough. Some great fight picks here. Veronica Hardy, Arony Alypsky. I love it.

Estevon Rebervitz, Jordan Lovett. I think that's solid. He's with you. Mike, Chris Martin's with you. Chase Hooper, Jim Miller. Let's get it done. Let's go. What's in Cater?

Yeah, I don't mind that. Diego Faheda, Bobby Green. I know this fight happened, right? I'm not a crazy person. I'm not making up fights in my brain, am I? Or was booked. Was booked? I don't know.

Mike, I, you listen, Diego Faheda has been out for so long. I feel like in my mind, he's fought like... He's out for like two and a half years for a minute. Yeah. Herodover multiple times. No, Bobby Green. No, never even been booked.

Never been booked. You know what? Chris Ryan. Good pick. Good pick. That actually makes a lot of sense. Buckley Holland, too. I do wonder if we'll see that somewhere down the road.

A win-loser draw. Win-lose-Drave versus Michael Olegsichick. That's not official, right? We've just seen that around. No, that fight's done. That fight is done. It's a go. Yeah.

Holland and Michael. So, yeah, that's, that makes fun. I would love to see him fight, Holland again, actually. I thought the first fight was fun in a very strange way and not really, not really either man's best necessarily. So anyway. Honestly, I think that's, honestly, I think that is the best fight for Buckley right now.

Oh. I think that's exactly what you should do. Revenge is all revenge fights are always great. These two have like continued to talk about each other ever since that fight happened. And Holland's just hasn't looked great in his most recent fights. So I actually think it's like a really good fight. And now Holland just kind of going back to who Kevin Holland is, just taking fights on short notice in any weight class that's available to him. And that's what he's doing with McKell-Lexeach going back up 2085,

taking a fight on like three weeks notice. doing Kevin Holland thing. So maybe this is just what he needs. He needs to go back to old school Kevin Holland. That's why he's banned from the show. We don't match me for Kevin Holland because you can't predict what he's going to do next. No one can. I don't think anyone has predicted a Kevin Holland fight correctly.

So we started doing the show. I'll finish up here with Instagram. Beans Extreme memes. I really like actually Diego Fedhaed versus Benile Darius 2. This was one of their debuts? No, no other debut. But 10 years ago, Mike, almost 10 years ago, this fight happened. and Benile Daryush.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait, a minute. Wait, did they fight twice already? Do I know nothing about Diego Faheda's career? If we've taken one thing away from this episode, I don't remember anything of this man's career. Because I remember they fought once. I did not remember, I think, that they fought a second time in 2021.

So a little, I guess a little doo-do for beans, a little dut for me as well, because it would be CDF versus, Benile 3 and Benile's 2-0-0 in the series. So maybe that doesn't happen. That's so weird. That fight, I have no. That fight, that was like less than a year after, like, I joined.

That fight was a freaking bang on the second one. Fight of the night winner. I'm not sure I know who this guy is now that I'm, like, I think people are at this episode, people, by the end of this episode, if your conclusion is, does Alex know who Diego Faheta is? You might be right. I may have, I may be thinking of someone else. I don't know because there's all these fights I thought he had, all these fights that thought were booked.

I'm way out of here with that, with CDF. Anyway, WCA versus Spivak, Woodson, Alexander Hernandez. I don't want to see Alexander Hernandez in the featherway anymore. I just don't know what's going on there. Jason Dernay, Jason Dernay, Alberg, Anthony Smith, Faheda, Jim Miller, Shore. I'm just going to do we have new here. I think I said WCA and Rodriguez, not the, not the only one to recommend this. Apex card only, yes, please.

Hooper Joaquin Silva, sure. She says BJJ versus Netto BJJ. That's not bad. That's not bad. Hardy Miranda Maverick actually makes a lot of sense. I have them right next to each other in my rankings. Okay, let's move on here. Good stuff, Jason.

Gerard Biaggan, again, Mike, by the way, all the people pass in the test. Very simple answer. No bannings, sweet. No bannings. Chase Hooper Claudio Poeyes. I thought about this a lot, I think, maybe on another episode. I do think they cross past some point. I don't know if it's next for both guys.

I think they're just a little bit in opposite directions right now. but Diego Oralbaa, yeah, I think that's very possible. Buckley Wonderboy. No, no, he's not getting that, right? Probably not. He's not getting it. You read Left Lane. Tino Alvarez, the last one from Instagram here.

Ritchie and Loma. Okay, Loma look with me, sure. That's just confusing. I should clarify because Loma did, Loma Chenko did fight Saturday. It's a little confusing. CDF, BSD, sure. Carlos Alberg, Bogdan, Goose. of Buckley Brady and yes they passed the test as well and let's just finish off with our boy

Tristan who sent me an email. Tristan Gordette, what is a friend of the of many M.A. fighting shows. Esteban Riebovitz, Nicholas Motta, Chase Hooper, Daniel Zell-Huber, Veronica Hardy Miranda Maverick, and Charles Johnson, Jafel Filio. We got some, I got a lot of picks this week, Mike, and I got a lot of good picks. Just the one from corners, from four corner sports that does not need to be read. That shall be named.

That's about it. So Jared Canaaner of matchmaking. Maybe. And I didn't even... And for Cornersports, I'm sorry, because of that, I didn't even look at you. You might have... Your other picks might have been spot-on. You might be in line, like, maybe you hit the crystal ball.

You might have picked, like, you might go 11 for 11, like, for the rest of your picks. But I'll never know, because you didn't even make it through the door. Well, that's good. I'm glad you didn't tell me. I would have to ban him from a heck of a morning, too, for a week, too. If we had to do that, if that's what the fight he actually made. But, all right. We've wrapped impact.

But guess what, everybody? Guess what? The UFC back at the world's most famous apex next Saturday. We're doing it again. Is this Vegas 92 or 93? Yeah, I think this will be 92. 92. I love this main event, by the way. Edsabarosa versus Lorraine Murphy.

Great fight. Really looking forward to this one. Chaos Williams is back. Everyone's been asking, where's Chaos Williams? Where's Chaos Williams? Well, he's fighting Carlson Harrison, the co-main event of this card. I've seen this poster. Omar Sy versus Andrew.

Have you seen the post? Yes, pretty good. You can't see, I don't know, you can't see Lorone Murphy's nickname. I'm looking at the one in Wikipedia. I don't know. Is there a different official? It's the one that's squaring off and their nicknames are behind them on a lot of law. Yeah.

Timmeran. Yeah. And again, sorry, I should have remembered Lauren Murphy's nickname, The Miracle. I'm sure more people will have a better memory than me. But there's a lot of you who probably don't know. Yes. There's a lot of people who I don't know his nickname. I don't think his nickname is, like, so.

popular that you can do this where one guy's nickname is clear and the other one is just garbled. You didn't even do that with Connor McGregor and Michael Chandler. It's a bad graphic design choice. I'm sorry, I'm not. The overall format I like, just like the very basic whatever. Yeah. But it's a strange choice. Yes, I'm sorry.

KS. Williams, Carlson Harris. I like it. Yes. Umar Sae versus Antonio Tricoli. Adrian Yanis is back, AK. I'm very much intrigued by this matchup. Adrian Yanas jumped on the Francis Ngano

versus Anthony Joshua watch party with us and talked about his 2023. He kind of felt like he drank his old Kool-Aid a little too much. Really helped him focus back and really looking forward to see what he could do against Phoenicia Salvador. Angela Hill versus Luana Pinero, Rameh versus Temba Garimbo.

Now that's good matchmaking, trying to build the star. I think this is a pretty good match for him. Mr. Apex himself, Abuse Mago, Madoff returns against Warli-Alvese. Tom Nolan, looking to get his first UFC win against Victor Martinez, Tamiris Vidal versus Melissa Gatto, Pierre Rodriguez,

Ariani-Carno Losi, Emily Dakota versus Vanessa Demopoulos and the opener of the event, Alatang-A-Li versus Clitzen Rodriguez, AK. What are we thinking there? This is not a strong card. Is this putting it in... We've slagged some cards recently.

We have thrown out the weakest, card of the year designation, I think, like, three times since, since, since, just, only like five, the past five months. Probably more than that. I say, maybe like five times in the past five months. This is up there. This is a contender. I'm sorry.

I'll do a little test later this week. I think if I'm on the preview show, I assume I will be. I'll do a little test later this week. But this is like, if you look at this a glance, you could think this was like PFL fought, 24, 5 or something. There's like. I'm being so disrespectful to the fighters right now. I acknowledge this, by the way, because, again, they're on there.

I'm sure they're going to do their best and put on a good show. Like you said, there's some sneaky good matchups on here. I'm sure once I dig more into the card, as always, by Friday, I will have talked myself into, oh, this card isn't so bad. But at a glance, boy, this card is lacking star power, stakes, storylines, you name it, Mike. This is going to be a rough one. And I think I'm pretty sure I'm on with you next Saturday.

I think I'm on with you next Saturday. I'm not sure. Yeah, when we use the term apexy apex card, this is exactly what this is. This is an apexy apex card. It's a quintessential UFC Vegas event inside the apex. Like, this is exactly what you look for. Decent main event that has stakes, but not any stakes of like true and utter significance. And then just like a whole bunch of like unranked fighters.

You do have a ranked strawaway fight on there with Angel Hill and Luana Pinero. And some interesting stories, but, man, outside of like three or four of these fights, yowser, when it comes to significance and stakes. Just going by ESPN, our main card is going from bottom to top, Pinero, Hill, Yanya, Salvador, Gorimbo, Brahmi, Williams, Harris, and Barbosa Murphy. That sounds, I think that's the right way to go with it. Again, we normally, I don't think it's finalized like Thursday, but this is what's on the docket, according to the ESPN broadcast schedule. that's probably right. I don't think there's any other card. I would have been like,

oh, this has to be on the main card. I think the order is right too. So, yeah, I'm looking at the UFC website right now. Okay, what do they got? The order I just read is exactly how they have it listed, but they don't have them separated by main card, prelim or really prelim yet. Yeah.

So TBD, I don't, I, it'll probably, this is probably vaguely what it will look like if you guys go to ESPN, but I don't think, wait until Thursday. Because I have family could, they might make it a six-fight main card, right? That's usually what they like to do. Yeah. It's only five right now.

Does the ESPN schedule say what time this event starts? Please tell me it's on a 10 p.m. It says four and seven prelims main card, but that's a weird choice for an apex card, isn't it? I don't know. I don't know if that's. Again, people take this all with a grain of salt. This stuff gets finalized later in the week, but that would be really nice. Yeah, this can't, yeah.

If they dropped the 10 p.m. main card on us. By the way, we also got Tyson of Fury, Alexander Usick next week, too. Yeah. Which I'm very, very excited about. So much happening here. And we'll discuss the fallout of UFC Vegas 92 right here next week on the program.

And then I believe we have a weekend off from the program. And then it's UFC 302, which means we'll be live from, at least, yeah, I'll be in New York and we'll have a live show after Dismal Makachev and Dustin Porrier do the damn thing for the lightweight title. So lots to look forward to.

Thank you all very much. UFC St. Louis in the books. Always remember the golden rule, everybody. Don't take this stuff too seriously. MMA is supposed to be fun. And we'll have more fun following UFC Vegas 92 right here on onto the next one. The podcast. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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