MMA Fighting - On To the Next One | Matches to Make After UFC Vegas 66

Episode Date: December 18, 2022

The UFC closed out its year with a mixed bag of a card on Saturday, as Jared Cannonier walked out of the UFC APEX with a workmanlike - and controversial - win over Sean Strickland in the UFC Vegas 66 main event. How much did the fight affect either man's stock and does either still have an outside shot of fighting for a UFC title someday? On an all-new edition of On To the Next One, MMA Fighting's Alexander K. Lee and special guest host Jed Meshew figure out who were the biggest winners from the UFC's last event of 2022 and what's next for them. Future matchups are discussed for Cannonier, surging lightweight contender Arman Tsarukyan, as well as Amir Albazi, Alex Caceres, Drew Dober, Michal Oleksiejczuk, amd more. Follow Alexander K. Lee: @alexanderklee Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser 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 Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster,

the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now only from Audible. Hello, everyone. This is your friend, Alexander Kaylee, of On to the Next One, Fame. My usual co-host and my best friend, Mike Heck, is not here. He is on vacation. I'm sure if you guys have paying attention to social media,

paying attention to some of our other shows. You know that Mike's taking a well-deserved break. But I have another one of my best friends joining us. The wonderful, the intelligent, the gorgeous, Jet Caymishu. You know, I appreciate all that. I don't appreciate the love for Mike Heck, because Mike's left us in the trenches taking grenades here, you know?

We don't, days off. MMA takes no days off, good sir. You think he would know that. There are no off seasons here around the clock. And so that's why we're up. We're grinding after this wonderful event that we just had. Got another big event, arguably the biggest event of the entire year, maybe the biggest sporting event of the entire year this evening.

And, you know, the wheels keep turning. So I'm so happy to step in for Mike Heck since he dropped the ball on this one. Well, I think I speak for everyone when I say we're happy to have you. I think Mike's exact words before going vacation were like, guys, I have like a wife and child and a dog that I love and I want to spend time with. I don't need to see Jared Canineer versus Sean Strickland. Blastomy. Blastrophe.

In retrospect, now this Saturday's event, U.C. Vegas 66 is in the books. Not a great, not a terrible main event. I don't think a terrible main event. Just not a great main event. Not one we will remember. for super positive reasons. You know, when we're talking about Jared Kennedy or Sean Strickland's careers down the road, it's a fight.

It's a five-round fight. It happened. It is tough to score. It gave us some peculiar scorecards according to M-May decisions. And for anyone who didn't watch Jared Kennedyer won a split decision over Sean Strickland. 42, 4946s for Cannoneer 14946 for Sean Strickland, according to M-May decisions. only the second time this has ever happened. Jed, do you know the other, I tweeted this, I retweeted this earlier.

I don't know if you saw. I did. A five-round fight. I did. It was Dominic Cruz versus Tyler James Dilleshaw. It was. And I believe Sal DiMato was the same dissenting judge in both fights. So coincidence or not, I don't know.

I don't know if you want to frame it, but. It probably isn't a coincidence. I actually imagine if you went and watched those fights, you could see that there is, that there's a congruity there. There's some reason, whatever it is. I have not watched Dillishaw Cruz in a long time. I remember at the time thinking Dillard won, not being upset particularly with the outcome,

you know, but thinking that Dillard won. I definitely rewatched and still thought Dillard Shaw won, but I haven't watched it recently. my guess though is that which way did so go in both instances so this time he went with the guy who lost no this time he went with the loser oh yes right yes both times he went with with the guy who lost correct yeah so uh interesting because you know i my my assumption is uh that that is actually that's not how i would have thought it because i would have thought that he would have gone with uh essentially he would have done like uh crews and uh strickland together like those would have been the sides just

because their fighting styles are a little more aligned in that record volume versus damage so that's interesting but the ultimate endpoint here is i know jr i know sean strickland's really upset about it there were no wrong answers to this this fight this outcome there any any scorecard we talked about in the post show any scorecard totally live if you gave that 5045 strickland I can't say you're wrong. If you gave it 50-45 canoneer, I don't think you're that wrong. It's, to me, we didn't talk about this because we talked about some other stuff, and I don't want to drag us into the weeds in the post show.

Sure. I have never been a huge, I know that people hate draws. I have never thought that draws were like a bad thing. Frankly, it feels a little American, like a little American-centric in our absolute refusal to think that teams can be equal or people can be. like roughly equivalent. This fight to me feels like a draw.

Like honestly, that's sort of how I I do not believe either man showed that they were any level of better than the other. They're incredibly well matched. If they fought 10 times, I think they would each win half. Sure. So whatever the way scoring works,

totally fine with any outcome. I do kind of wish scoring was a little better cater to where the true outcome of, you know, neither guy wins. We're, you know, we're just even. Maybe feels a little more fair, but say lafee. Yeah, I agree in the sense that, like, man, it's, I don't feel it does the win does a lot for Canaan's career.

I don't feel the loss hurts Strickland's career that much. I do feel like, you know, it is the judge's job to pick a winner or lose or score or use a draw. That's true. I mean, 1010 is supposed to be part of their judging, you know, tools as it were. It's rarely. heavily dissuaded. It's rarely used.

It is, it is, especially where there's activity. I think, I think when there's, it's more like if there's a fight where around. If there's no activity,

yeah. Yes, then you're supposed to draw. If both guys are doing stuff, and to Strickland and Keny's credit, they were doing stuff. They did stuff. Stuff was being done for 25 minutes.

There's no question. They were doing stuff. This was not a boring fight. No, it wasn't like boring. It just felt it, you know, it never got out of first gear,

second gear, however you want to phrase it. It just kind of stayed level. It felt like really, you know, high-level sparring, like a high-level sparring contest, which is probably not what you want

when you're talking about a UFC main event that people are actually watching on television, but that's what it was. That's a fair way to describe it. And you mentioned the score as being all over the place, no wrong answers, Jed. Just going at M-May decisions, the media was all over the place.

A few more for Canaaner, but we had all the way from 50-45 Canineer to 49-46 Strickland and everything in between. I'm looking at the fan voting very close again. 48, 47 Strickland, 31%.

So that was the leading people, that Strickland won. But right behind 27.3%, 4847,47, Canineer. And behind that, 13%, another Strickland score, and then another 13% for another Canaaner score.

So that is how really, really super close this fight was. And as you said, like, did anyone really win? No. I mean, I don't, it's one of those where I don't, Sean Strickland drops absolutely nothing in my fighting estimate from this fight and

Cannon-Eer doesn't really raise. He does officially get a W and gets the two paychecks, et cetera, but this fight was, it was a fight and it's, I feel so mean saying that to some extent, right? Because I feel like fans think we're really bagging on this. And it wasn't a bad fight. It may just be the end of the year. Like I'm just kind of done this fight. The stakes were so minimal.

if there were stakes at all, they were so very low for then to have this fight, this outcome where, again, it wasn't awful. It wasn't the worst fight I've ever seen. This wasn't boring, but the stakes are so low

and the outcome was so not definitive that it really just takes any level of shine or care off this one, which is a bit of a tough wait in the year for being honest. Yeah, and I think it's a little bit like the card we just saw, 282, where there was a lot of,

of notable finishes, a lot of excitement before the last two fights. And then we kind of got, you know, and we'll talk more about this in a bit. We certainly talked about a lot on the post-fight show, the Surukian-is-McGulov fight, which was fine, but not exciting, certainly nothing, not a fight-of-the-night candidate by any means. And then, again, a sort of a main event that was, you know, not bad by any stretch. I mean, I think, I could lie of Blakhovitz was a lot better than this one. But not bad by any stretch, but again, maybe not what we're all. all hoping for to close out, close out his show, especially the last UFC event of 2020.

But as you said, Jared Canier is the winner. He gets the extra paycheck. And Jed, he gets the honor of having a fight pick for him because it's not a nice business, but we only pick fights for winners generally. It's a title fight. We'll sometimes pick the loser. So it's not a title fight. So Sean Strickland, Happy Trails, whatever is next to you, my friend. But Jared Cananier, we are going to pick a fight for him. He, we kind of, ended up in neutral. I don't know, so I don't know where you went with this with this one, Mr. Rishu. So I think there are a few choices here. I had one written down. I think I mentioned on the post show yesterday, but I pivoted. Thought about it a little more. First, let me just say,

God love you, Jared Cannon, here. You ain't getting the things that you want. He came out afterwards and said, I want a title fight or I want a number one contender match. Those are the fights that I want. And tremendous. We're going to talk a lot about people wanting things that they ain't got no shots of getting. And Mr. Cannonier, you're not getting, you're not getting a title fight. Like, that's, it's almost ridiculous and counterproductive to ask for that one. You know, really get into a more contenders match, especially when you won't even pick one. A lot of high profile matchups for top rank guys. And you're just saying the one that gets me a title fight. None of them do. So pick one and hope that maybe it can get you there.

I think the one I mentioned last night was the Vittori De Lidese fights coming up in March take on the winner of that or if he wants a quick turnaround and something happens and maybe step in but I actually decided instead

I think one that I like more Andre Munez fighting Brendan Allen February 25th the winner of that fight because I think Andre Munez is the future of this damn division

if Brendan Allen wins great for him but I love Andre Munez I want him to start getting his shot to move up. And Jared Cannoneer, I still think, is at least two fights away. One fight plus a contenders match. So give me the winner of Andre Munez versus Brandon Allen gets Jared Cannonier sometime in early summer. I agree on both fronts.

Moonez deserves a top ranked guy. Cannoneer is still in the UFC's top five after this. I think he's top six, top seven in the MMA fighting class. global rankings and muniz is good enough to be in there they just haven't given him that opponent so I'm cool with that exactly yeah I'm cool with that and I'm cool with the Brendan Allen matchup two for Canineer because I think it's a winnable fight for Canineer suddenly he's on a two he beats Brendan Allen it's on a two fight win streak he's one what oh wait what is he won that's he's you know six and he'll be seven and two at middleweight

if if he pulls that off so nice he he he'll remain that guy at middleweight that we said he is he is destined to be just a guy he's a guy and that's fine you make a lot of money being a guy in the ufc if you hang around long enough so uh no no it's not a bad thing um but that would be a just a guy fight if he fought renal and i don't know where it would lead to that where it would lead to after that even if he won um but i like that for kenner and i like the canner matchup for munis so good thinking there um where are you going then i'm interested yeah it doesn't sound like we're friends forever here no we're not friends forever here i also want to give a young man an opportunity to move up the 185 pound ranks.

Now, last week, I said I wanted Deleise to get the winner of Nasartine Imavov versus Calvin Gaslo on January 14th. But Deleese very wisely, got himself booked already. He has a fight coming up. So he's, oh, Vittori. It's fighting more. Big fight. Yeah, big fight going.

Very smart for Delixte. Dark Horse 2022, Friday of the year candidate, Ruma Delizzee got himself a matchup with Votori in March. So that frees up the Mimov-Gastlam matchup to fight Canaanier. But I'll go a step further now. Last time I was like the winner, Gasolm, of course, has already fought Canineer. So I thought about this one. That was why I didn't because if Gaston wins that, I have no interest in rematch.

That's why I'm going crystal ball here. And I'm going Imabon after he beats Gaslam. Nassar Dean Immovob will be Calvin Gasselam-Gus. And he will fight Canonier. So I'm going a step for it. And then maybe France can finally win. instead of losing like idiots. Too soon.

Oh, too soon. People, I did not set him up for that. We did not know who each other was going to pick. Wow, too soon. We were recording, by the way, people just like moments after the World Cup final. Congratulations, Argentina. I have some family from Argentina. Congratulations to Argentina.

Incredible game. And congratulations to Francois for a fine effort. Back-to-back World Cups. It's hard to win two in a row. Come on. Yeah, the flu. Le Flew. Flew, several of their best players, not involved. My question, is this the second biggest Argentinian win of the month after Ponsonibio's comeback, K.O.

Yeah, it's a distant second. Distant second. It's a distant second. Big month for Argentine. Messy raising the cup. That was. He very kind of gently just kissed it, actually, when he first saw it. He kind of saw it.

The first one when he's getting the golden ball and does it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a beautiful moment. Just sneaking it in there. So cool. What a drive-by, though, in the France, did my championship. So embarrassing.

I love Nassarine and I do think he's going to be Kelvin Gastilum. And I think he'd have a good shot against Canaaner, so I like the matchmaking. I think so, too. I think Canineer, depending how some of these fights play out, could have a really tough matchup next. Either Muniz or Yomov, I mean, they're coming for that spot.

He's been holding onto a ranking for a while. And not squatting. I mean, he's been defending that ranking. He's been fighting. He's been fighting. He's not a squatter. He's been fighting people. We got some young gunners up here come from that spot.

Speaking of young gunners, how about that segue? Young gunners. Jed, I don't want to fire you up all over again. I don't want to break your heart all over again. We had Armand Sergian score a, I will describe it, as a workman-like victory over a very tough, lightweight opponent in Damir Izmogulov. Both men ranked in the top 15 of the MMA fighting global rankings. Ismugulov was 15.

Surruchion at 9. Now, I want to tell people, I don't think I got to bring this up on the post-fight show, Jed. Heading into it, you were very high on young Armin, just turned 26 years old this past October, I believe. You had him as high as five. You have been pushing the Sarukyan train. You weren't like super crazy as far ahead of other people. Excuse me.

I think we had some people had him ranked as high as seven. I'm a conservative guy. I don't recall. I think I had him outside. I think I still had him outside the top 10, maybe. I'll have to check in a second. Probably. But you had him five.

You had him five. And I feel like you were personally hurt that he did not run through Demeriz Magulov and that may have influenced your reaction on the post-fight show. Now that you've had some time to sleep, to digest it, do you want to rephrase your critique, perhaps, of Surukian's unanimous decision win over Demerius Magulov? I do not. I had the time to sleep on it, and I'm not, I'm not disappointed. I'm not upset.

I am still going to rank him number six in the world in our next ranking cycle. I currently have him five. And that five, as I mentioned in the post show, is really a 4A, B situation. We talked at the top. I think him and Matush Gamrot, neither man is better than the other. That fight was two guys who are identically the same in quality. And so, but because Garamot officially won gave him the nod in the ranking, but they're interchangeable. But all of my concerns about Sarukian are still here now.

And I, the thing for me was not that it was a bad performance, is just that I was so high on him and he did not deliver on maybe my expectations. He still has work to do. He's still super young and he can absolutely get that work. done, but I'm just going to segue right into my pick for him. I was going to say, what homework have you assigned for a young army? My pick for him works very well because it's the guy who's right behind him currently in my rankings, but in my next iteration will move directly in front of him. It is Hafeel Fiziv.

The reason I put Sirukin in front of Fiziv because the large of my rankings are based on who I think would beat each other in a fight. They are predictive in that measure unless there is concrete data points saying otherwise. And I thought Surukin is just going to tackle Zivin's getting his game going. I am way less confident in that now.

He might still be able to do it, but his inability to firmly establish dominant positions sustainably against Isma Gulov, who is, to his credit, tremendous defensively. Did great work. Sarukian really struggled.

That win, I went back and rewatched it. And honestly, rewatching it only reinforced my first take on it, where that win looked a lot like Sarukian won mostly because of athleticism and physical talent. And there's nothing wrong with that. We'd talk about it a lot. Athleticism is a cheat code. Use your advantages. But I wanted to see, I think the thing that I was trying to articulate is I wanted to see more

skill development. And that's not what carried the day. Isma Gulov simply could not keep Armin off of him. He was too physically imposing. I am not confident at all that Armand can be that physically imposing against Hafeel Fiziv. And if he's forced into striking exchanges with Fiziv, that Fiziv is going to really chew him up because Fiziv throws to hurt you and

Srucian is a performative striker for a lot of what I'm seeing. So, again, still young, could develop. I know a lot of people are really against matching up two young contenders. It's just I could have picked something else. I don't, but it's not going to happen. He's not going to get to fight Benile Darius for Charles Oliver like he wants. He's not going to get to fight Dustin Poir. He's going to have to fight some other young guy who's good, and Fiziv is pretty highly ranked,

and Fiziv's in the same boat. Dustin Poyer is not going to fight Raphael Fassi. Steve wine, God's name would he. So they're going to have to duke it out. And then the winner of that might finally have enough shine on them to say, okay, in the same way that when Gamrod beat Sarukin, Gamrot finally had enough chips, enough cachet to be like, I get Benny Daryush.

And it's maybe not all the way, but it's close. The Fazeeves-Sauru Kins in the same way. And the winner of that can then maybe get a fight, Charles Oliver, or one of the other guys hanging in the title picture, depending on how the next 12 months breaks down. So give me Fiziv. The fight's awesome. It'd be incredible.

We would have a deserved, the true and deserved king of the prospects of lightweight. That's what we'll be counting with that one. So that's my homework. That's where I'm at. Jed, this is how I know that you are a harsh master, but a fair master.

Because though you're critical of him, I mean, you are, if anything, you're still kind of moving him up, you're still giving him a chance to move up the rankings. Absolutely. Like I said, he's going to flip spots in your rankings with Fazeve. So technically we'll be fighting someone above him. And in our own rankings, like I said, Srukian enters Saturday at 9.

Fiziv is at 6. So he's still graduating to a big fight. You just think it's one that also is going to be very informative about like whether this guy is the real deal or not. Absolutely. And that's a main event fight. That is not a five-rounder main events of fight night sometime, you know, next spring. and the winner of that gets to call their shot. And it probably won't be a title shot,

though maybe Fazeve could sneak one depending on how things shake out with Benny hanging around. It's probably not a title shot, but the winner of that gets to say, hey, I've beaten all the best guys. I'm clearly the next gen. Give me Dustin Poire,

give me Justin Gage, give me a big name to earn a title fight. Give me the number one contender match. Now, I actually, the other thing I like that you mentioned, was that there's some concerns over, is he just kind of out-athleticisming people? Young guy, great shape.

That is my biggest concern. Very explosive athlete, which is why I went along with sort of the call-out he suggested, because he called out, I think, one of the most physically gifted guys in the lightweight division, one Mr. Jalen Turner. Now, I don't always love when fighters do our jobs. He did not call out Jailen Turner.

Oh, that was Drew Dober? That was Drew Dober. Well, I get the mistaken all the time. Okay. I know that I know Drew Dober. They're both very handsome men. They're both very handsome men. They're both lightweights.

Shurkin and Dover are both very handsome lightweights. That's okay. We'll fix this in post. Hold on. Pause. As you both know, Jed, Sir Yukian called for a fight with either Charles Oliva or Binald-Daryush, which anyone would know if they were, if they read M-Afighting.com. Because there we have a great website.

It's a great website. We have an article about that very call-up, which is, you know, which everyone knows about. Actually, you know what, but I'm sticking, I'm sticking with my guns then. Oh, this is fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then I'm going with jail in credit.

Your process might have been flawed, but your result is A-OK. I'm going to stick with my imaginary callout that he made because, yeah, let's let him go after Jalen Turner. I have a different pick for Dover. Let him go out to Jalen Turner because, yeah, I think you're right. I want to know if, now I think he can out-r wrestles Jailen Turner. But, again, Jalen very physically good guy, huge guy,

a huge guy at 155. That's the physical disparity there is going to be huge. Well, if he could physically dominate him, that'd be super impressive. So I will go with that. Let us move on from this embarrassing misunderstanding. Amir al-Bazi. It happens all the time. Don't worry about it.

I hope we're friends forevering here on Amir al-Bazi because we talked about this in the post-fight show. I don't think there's a way we can't friends forever. I would like to think we're all in agreement that Amir al-Bazi has to be the next. I was going to say victim. Victim. Al-Bazi could feed him. We don't know.

But we're hoping victim. I mean, we're hoping to give him our plans. The stats point out, science doesn't lie. And Manel Kopp, if your name is illiterative, you are doomed against him. He's coming after. He is the illiterative assassin with his current win streak, including Odei Osborne, Zalgis, Zuma, Gulov, and now David Devorak, Adversy, Adjaze. And now we are hoping that Emir al-Bazi, who is also victorious,

great, vicious win over Alessandro Costa, uh, fights Manel Kopp next, the double A and then, uh, you, you had the final, uh,

you had the final, the final cherry. Yeah, should Manel Kopp, should this fight happen? Should Manel Kopp beat Amir al-Bazi? Who will he then fight in 2020? I mean,

probably in a, a flyweight title eliminator match at that point, Muhammad Mikhail, right there. I mean, I love it. Is Mackayev booked right now?

I don't think he is, but I'm not looking at it. I think a lot of people are assuming he's going to end up in that London card. I just don't think he has a opponent yet. I think they're assuming he will be fighting in March. That's the guess. Very, very likely. So yeah, he fights like, I don't know, Tim Elliott or something in London. And then, you know, Manow Kopp does the thing against Al-Bazi.

He moves into the top 10 at which point. I mean, you could also make. the argument. If Brandon Royval just drops his name and just goes by Raw Dog, Raw Dog Royval, there's an opportunity there for another one. So we've got some chances. Oh my goodness. How did we we miss the biggest one? Who? Kai Kara France. Oh, Kikara. Okay. Well, I mean, I was that This is true. He would yeah, Kai Kair. That counts. The biggest one. Kaikara France is. There are so many of them. He could fight nothing but alliterative names for the next like two years.

Why is a flyway division like this? Why is a flyway division like this? And more will develop. It'll be awesome. So yeah, for sure, I'm with you though. Yes. Minel Kopp, Miaoazi. Yes. Cop wins. He fights Makayev or he fights Kikar, France.

And then he fights whichever of those two he didn't fight afterwards. Yeah. We've planned out all of 2023 for Minnil Kopp. Yeah, Manil Kopp. It's done. Book it. Forget, listen, forget being a former Risen champion, forget that his incredible knockouts. The real selling point for him is the whole illiterative assassin thing.

You put this on T-shirts. You start talking about this on, you know, get that great voiceover on the ESPN broadcast, talking about his history of taking out a literatively named opponents. That's dollar signs, baby. That's pay-per-view dollar signs. That's ratings in the millions. It's beautiful stuff. It's big business.

Absolutely big business. And then, you know, I'm trying to think if he, you know, he cleans out all of the alliterative names at Flyway. Maybe he bumps up, but I can't think of any illiterative Bannam weights off the top of my head. I think there are actually some now that you mention it. I don't want to. I'm trying to and I can't pull any off the top. I don't know if we want to go down this rabbit hole. Kyeong Kong.

Sure. Yeah, that counts. That definitely counts. Kind of there. But yeah. I mean, there's just a whole. world available from an al-cop in this very niche, but undeniably using. Bit of weirdness that M.M.A. has provided us.

That's a good pull. I think that's the highest one I can find, Kong-Hokang in the Pantamate Division. It's the only one I can think of. What a pull. Unless you're going to do sugar, Sean O'Malley, but really bringing in nicknames, gets a little iffy. We kind of gave an advanced wild card pick there. Really, we talked more about what's next for cop that we did for Abazi.

But listen, we're just saying. Well, he sure did. I was saying, Abazi, great performance. He deserves a guy with a name next. Manel Kopp certainly has a name. Either guy moves them legitimately closer to a title shot. Like you said, maybe one fight away, whoever wins that fight. So great.

I think that just again. Oh, and I want to say, someone corrected me on social media, saying their training partners. I'm pretty sure they did train together at Extreme Koutur, but I don't think either fighter is based out of Extreme Kouture. I'm pretty sure if the money was right and if the opportunity was right, they would fight each other. I'm speculating, I'm speculating, but I don't think they're both like died in the wool extreme

Couture representatives who are just like, oh, we'll never fight. I could be wrong. I await the social media post where they're like hugging and like we're best friends, we'll never fight each other and people send it to me if I missed it. But I think they'll fight each other. I could be wrong. Yeah, I guess if that's the case, I would say, I don't know, Mattias Nicolao. You just picked up a dub pretty easy.

He deserves a big, I saw a lot of people were saying the Albazi, well, before it was Perez or Rovah, whoever it was last. The winner, the winner of Albaazi and one of his original opponents for Nicolao, but then it got switched up. I mean, yeah, honestly, there's no wrong way to eat this in the Flyway Division right now. Oh, actually, I got to check in you quickly. I'm sure you'll talk about it on the show this week. Oh, I guess you guys aren't doing, will you be doing a no-bets bard? Not this week, but there will be a year-end? Will there be a year-end episode?

It is undecided. It is possible. It may just wait until the beginning of the year. We're certainly doing a futures episode. Right, right. Whether we will separate that into a futures and recapping some of the year or just combine them into one, still up in the air a little bit based on scheduling. So I don't now say no. We won't have one this week.

Yeah. Listen, I don't know if you're going to get a chance to talk about this then. It may have cooled by the time you guys record the episode. But how disappointed were you by two fights that? seemed like pretty likely flyweight under candidates, somehow neither hitting. Well, that's not technically true. Actually, 50%. The cop one did not hit.

Depending on at what point you got in on the Albasi coastal line, I got it at one and a half. But you could find that line at two and a half at various points. Two and a half does hit the 213 mark of round three. the cop devourak super should have hit really should have hit um but that's a whole different conversation about my my many frustrations with manel cop the fighter um but you know you can't win them all and that fight card was probably it wasn't full of a lot of wins anyway so we had a good year it's fine cop cop and surikian really let you down i was almost in different ways as far as shown that killer instinct and getting that job done they kind of let you down they kind of let you

cop really let me down. Sarukian is, you know, maybe it was really simply just that is McGulab was way too good. But cop had all the world of an opportunity to try and do something. And buddy, he was content to let the fight come to him. So that one was frustrating for sure, which is why he is not going to be my, I don't, I mean, outside of fact, we already predicted him, wasn't going to be my wild card. No. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes.

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For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. No. All right, let's get through these last three fights for the main card and get to that wild card. Alice Casaris, listen, the guy's a lifer. This was, I think I said, UFC appearance.

This was a hard one for me. Oh, I'm sorry. I haven't been using cap enough. This was UFC cap number 27. 25, 27. UFC cap number 27. Alex Casares fighting in two ways. Not a small number.

Boy, he's been around for a long. I was writing a lot. about it in the predictions and saying, man, if you, if you remember, his ultimate fighter season was coached by, you know, and meant to build up a title fight between George St. Pierre and Josh Coschek. That's how long ago Alex Casares was. I was like, what he made his UFC debut? This was easy for me because I did have a prediction for a fighter last week that I wanted to get the winner of this fight. So it was easy for me. I don't know where you land. We'll go with you first, Jed. Who's you have for Bruce Leroy?

Um, so I, this was a little tough because there were just too many options and none of them like really rang out to me. Yeah. The one I wanted was Andre Feeley. That it's weird that that fight hasn't happened. Mm-hmm. But Feeley is booked against Lucas Almeida for February. And I, if Almeida wins that fight, I don't think I care about doing Almeida. It's just like that fight doesn't does nothing for me.

It's fine if it happens. Um, played around with a few. And then I stumbled on the one. And maybe this is do-do. I'm not sure the do-do rules is in this regard. I went for Edson Barbosa. I know he suffered a knee injury in September that pulled him out of a fight with Ilya. And also just, man, they are never doing Edson-Parbosa favors.

Lost six of his last eight or something. And I'm like, hey, what if you fight Ilya? I know you've lit. Your strength of schedule is one of, if not the most outlandishly tough fights in the last decade. Let's just Chuck Ilié find it. I'm trying to help Edson out. I don't know where he's at in the knee injury recovery, but that was back in September, several months away.

If this is available to do in the spring of next year, I want to give Edson a veteran name, 30 caps or whatever, a very winnable fight, and probably a fun one. So give me Edson Barbosa. It would actually be the 28th UFC cap for both men. I didn't even work. I did not even look into that, so that is just a bit of kismet. Well done. They are both at 27 UFC caps.

I love it. Very popular listener pick. I want to be clear, those are the most difficult possible caps of all times. Like the difference between quality of comp in the... Those two 28 caps could not be more stark. And Casares hasn't fought a bunch of nobody's either. But holy crap, the gulf between those people. If you were at home, you listen to this, you're like, why is he said, just go, just go look up at some Barbosa's resume.

Look at the absolute list of murderers. This man has been fighting for a decade since like 2012 or whatever. He joined the UFC in 2010? 2010, yeah. And his first couple of years maybe a little, you know, that's what you expect. But starting at 2013, 2014, doesn't miss. Hitters. Hitters all the way down.

Oh, Bobby Green. Here is a legitimate stretch. Bobby Green, Michael Johnson, Paul Felder, Tony Ferguson, Anthony Pettis, Gilbert, Melendez, Benil Darius, Habib, Kevin Lee. Like, what? That's good. What? That's good.

It's unreal. And then it still goes on for another 10 names. Give him Alex Casares. It will be the easiest opponent he's faced since Danny Castillo in 2013. Alex Casares is not quite as impressive. Let's start. Edwin Figueroa Motanovo Tizuka, the immortal and Modanova Tizuca. We all remember that bar and burn.

He had a stretch of tough opponents. Sergio Pettus, Faber, Massanori, Kanahar, Francis Gourvera. and then kind of got bumped back, Masio Fulin, tough Latin America never die. Wang Guan. You remember Wang Guan? He fought Hick Diaz in there,

lost to him, Martin Bravo. Not, okay, fair enough. Not exactly the same list of killers. Yeah. Before, yeah, he was on a good little wind streak there, too. He won like five, but it's like, he was.

You know, Chase Hooper and Kevin Kroo. And that's, that ain't, that is not what Ed Simboros has been doing. Let's give Ed Simbaugh, A good name, but a fight that he can win. It's still a big opportunity. I think Barbosa, if he's not ranked in the UFC, he certainly was a ranked featherweight for him.

He still is ranked. He's number 14 in the UFC's. So it's still an opportunity. Let's do that. That was by far the happiest one I could find since Andre Fili wasn't an option. I love it. They're close in my UFC rankings.

I have Barbosa at 14 as he is in the real, excuse me, the UFC ranking. Yeah, what is that? The UFC ranking. has 14 and in my personal UFC only rankings he's 14 at Casares just a couple of spots behind at 16 so I do like that I went with that Jonathan Pierce just because I said last week after Jonathan Pierce's win I knew you were going to do that yeah I wanted the winner of this fight I have him just outside the top 25 sorry the top 20 so I'm happy to have him he needs to I think he gets he deserves a chance to take someone's spot in the top 20 it just happens to be whoever was

the winner of Saturday's fight with the Caceres and erosa and thus Bruce Lee Roy so there we go I like that one. I like that one, too. The reason I didn't do that one is I want Jonathan Pierce to get a shot at the top 15. Like, I want him to get a shot at a ranked guy. Great Winstreet. Been looking good. I want to give him a bigger bump than Casares.

He's close. It's a tough thing. If they make that fight, there's nothing wrong with that fight, totally reasonable. We could have led this show talking about this man, Drew Dover. What an awesome fight. What a year for Drew Dover. Just absolute chaos. I could not help it

I placed him on my top fight he was a last minute addition to my top five you did it fighters of the year list I DM'd our guy Shaheen Elshari I had to do who I did not have more fun watching any fighter this year than Drew Dover The Terrence of Kitty one round complete insanity Hafei Alvese a really fun dance partner

because Hafei Alves is also a maniac and is also always doing weird stupid things in the cage so putting him and drew Dover together was just hilarious also ended in a brutal knockout. And then this Bobby Green comeback where he's getting completely tooled. You look at the stats, Bobby Green doubled him up with strikes in both the, well, the round and a half that this fight was. And at the end of the day, it's, listen, sometimes fighting comes down to who punches real good.

And as Drew Dover, he punches it so hard and he got the knockout. 3 and 0 in 2022. I loved it. I did not go crystal ball here. I sincerely doubt this fight happens. But I am going magic wand. I am if I were the matchmaker this is what I would do you you got to give him and Michael Chandler somewhere I don't know if it's next but I need to see this fight happen I think it

I love that pain insanely fun it's definitely not next I do love that fight though that's an that's an excellent fight did you know what you dober called out did you know what you dober called out to Jalen Turner did you hear about that I heard that he called you but yeah Turner and in fact because I'm nothing if not a man of the people my choice was to give the man what he wants I would love for Jalen Turner to get a bigger step up, but that is the most unlikely of all outcomes at this point, is that anybody above him will willingly fight the six two absolute monster in this division. So Judeo recalls for it, I do think he is going to get it.

And I love that he's going to get it. Great fight. It's the one I want to make. Simple enough. Enough said. I think that fight will happen to. I think that's actually a decent crystal ball pick. And, man, hopefully 2023, Jed, the year that some of these squatters get kicked out of their spots by guys like Drew Dober and Jalen Turner and Sarukyan.

Look who you're talking to? The reason that I like, you're like, well, Jed, you actually aren't like that much higher on Surukian. The reason I am in general higher is I, I don't know, five months ago, I was like, screw it. I don't care about any of these top lightweights anymore. They're not fighting other people. and I moved them all down. I moved Poria, Gaichi, Chandler. I was like, here, I'm going to replace you with all these young people who are dope.

And then Benile Darius beat Gamron. And I was like, well, look, you beat somebody that's cool and young and relevant. Now you're back up to the top three. So hopefully we'll get some of that, but probably not. Probably going to get Porier versus Gaichi, too. Chandler's probably going to fight Conn McGregor and the actual best lightweights in the world that aren't named. You know, it's the Makachev, we're going to be stuck. fighting other dudes in the co-made events of fight nights and, you know, being the number 14 guy

in the world or whatever, because lightweight is impossible. Yeah, and these aren't even bad fights. Who could complain about seeing Pori and Gigana? Or seeing Chandler and McGregor, that'd be awesome. Like, we can't complain about these. That's unbelievable. But they do nothing to move the division in like a meaningful direction. And that, again, I always say fights shouldn't always be about that. But I just, you know, Just if you're going to nitpick and, like, criticize these potential matchups, that's where we would go. But I don't want fights always be about it. I do want some of it because the truth is what's going to happen is Porier and Gaichi, et cetera,

it took them a while to get their shot at it. And now they're here and they're going to stay, even when it's probably a little past their actual peaks. And so the Fizivs, Surukian, Gamrot, Turner, like that group in like two years is finally going to actually make the all the way move up and it's going to be a whole new crop of young hitters that we don't even know yet that maybe aren't even in the promotion yet and are like actually this new hot shit guy out of Dagestan he's going to be a problem you know other other nerve met off it jumps to the UFC like he's going to be a problem in a little bit here it's just going to take him six years to actually get to the top of the division because it's impossible to make headway lightweight

Preach. Preach brother. I know. I know. And listen, that's the thing is I'm a phantom weight stand. But every division, once it gets a certain point, gets like this cluster at the top. And it's kind of hard to, it's kind of hard to shake it up. But anyway, to make a dent. It is. Let's go to the man who opened up our main card with a spectacular knockout. Mikhail Oleg Seych. I love this guy. I think he looks great at 185. Though I had a little bit of trouble figuring out.

what's next for him because he is a UFC veteran it's just that he's only had two fights in this new division so far so i wasn't 100% sure where to go i had to go with uh well i'll let jedd who did you pick first for mehow this is the one i'm the least happy with it wasn't as hard as uh finding one for caseras but is the one that i feel the least confident is good matchmaking um i had two choices i ultimately settled on julia marquez marquez was obviously supposed he was supposed to fight on the same card. Duranwin fell out. Frankly, I know it wouldn't have happened because of the way time worked, but

the Brundage fight, Alexajic was a big favorite. It would have been cooler just to do an opponent swap and leave Brundage out in the cold. But it's ultimately where I went. I think there's one other name that I really thought long and hard about, and I'll be interested to see if this came to you or not. It was Edmund Chabasian. I decided I didn't want to throw because Shabazian might be rebuilding and I didn't want to throw him to a guy who looks like maybe he's just a hammer in Mito way in Olexeychik,

but the fight is compelling in and of itself. But I was like, I'm not sure this is exactly what I want to do. So what about you? Listen, Shabazian's dangerous on the feet. He's dangerous on the feet. So certainly he has a chance, but I would think Alexeot Shiasch smashes him. But hey, stand-up battle. Who knows?

Who knows which way we would go. It's funny, you mentioned, just wanted to shuffle opponents. Did you know that the Olexeychic Brundage matchup? It's one of my favorite things, Chad. It's a mutin's matchup. Oh, is it? Yes, it was originally another fight entirely. This middleweight spot was originally for Bruno Silva and Albert Dari.

I do not remember that at all. No. I think it changed, even that Brundage was a couple of weeks ago. So it's not like super insanely short notice. So this fight has existed for a bit. But originally Bruno Silva. versus albert deraev silver withdrew first and then uh oloxych stepped in then uh oloksaic stepped in so i always find that's find that so strange like could they not like should they not like

accidental just an accidental fist fight it's like neither guy was really planning to fight and it's like well now you are you know and it's okay great uh so i went with uh brad tavara's uh win loser draw. He's fighting Robocop, Gregory Rodriguez, U.S. U.C. 283, January 21st. So I just think it's time, like, again, I'm a believer Olexeychuk could be a top 10 guy. Brad Tavares has been a litmus test guy for many, many, many, many years. Very respectable. I don't want to see Olegs Sajic fight Robocop yet, so even if Gregorovriguez won, I kind of want to keep him apart. So really, whatever happens with Tavares at that U.S. 283 fight, give him, give him a howl. Let's just see where holl is so so wrong with that i got no issues with that one either man there

there were a lot of choice you could have done a lot of things here you could um and all of it's fine uh how was your wild card how'd you go with your wild card jed my wild card was uh maybe the easiest one for me because i knew who i was picking as a wild card there's no there's no possible way there's no disrespect to anybody else you know uh said no Rico Meadow's Ninja Show, 8, et cetera. Simmel's Burger looked good. I'm going to go with Demeris Magulov because he didn't drop at all. Like, he lost almost no shine from that.

In fact, he's probably going to get a bump up or two. I think maybe in my rankings, I had him just on, just inside the top 15 and my rankings at 12. I think he might actually get a little bit of a bump up because despite losing, I thought he showed, showed some stuff against again. The guy, I think, is one of the five best fighters in the world in his weight class. So I wanted to pick him. And look, it sucks.

I hate doing it. I hate doing it. Hate hurting the young, fun lightweights. But if the top guys aren't going to get off their rankings, we're just going to have to establish a packing order amongst the rising stars. And you know who's a rising star lightweight? coming off maybe his best performance

when you factor in quality of composition Grant Dawson, baby. Man just runs over Mark Madsen. Olympian wrestler Mark Madsen. Grant Dawson took him down repeatedly. Let's see how he does against Demiris Magulov because that man is a phenomenal defender of takedowns. Let's see what happens.

Give me Grant Dawson Demiris Magulov. Damn, you just did it. You're just doing the thing. Our motto of 2020, too do the thing carrying over in 2020 throwing them into the fire we got we have too many young good guys and if they don't get their chance to fight the other guys let's just have them all fight each other then we can have one or two and be like these are the guys who get first ups and we'll settle it that way while the squatter squat so us is mcgulov grant dawson uh sucks for smugulov to have

another super good super athletic wrestler come at him but he had some success in this one i don't think Dawson's as good as Sarukian, so we can maybe have a little more success, maybe learn some lessons, or maybe Grant Dawson arrives, so doing it. And listen, we're trying to find someone to someday challenge Islam Makachev. And if you're going to challenge Islamakish, buddy, you're going to need to be able to stop Grant Dawson. But I'm saying, Sarukyan is Makulav, Dawson, perhaps as we put all these, and other, a lot of other wrestlers, put these guys through the fire.

One will emerge. from this grueling tournament of wrestlers that has a chance, has a chance to grapple. Well, I mean, we know Srukian can be competitive with Islam. We've seen it. But beat him and other stories. So I like the lightweight wrestler crucible that we're kind of having here. That's what we're doing. You have to get after it.

Just trying to find someone for Islam. Otherwise, Islam's going to be champion for frigging as long as he wants to be. Until Nirmagamatov the second rises from the ranks of Belatorial. to take the crown from him. Oh, my goodness. And Father's plan just churns out a domination of this one-way class for a decade-plus. I went with Matthew Semmelzberger. Just an exciting guy.

This is a guy. He's super exciting. I'm excited to see where you went for him because I think there are some good choices. So many ways. When they brought him in, I remember thinking, like, I don't know if I thought it was too soon. He kind of came pretty inexperienced. I didn't know if he was a guy that wasn't going to last long, like comes in, fights his four fights, you know, has mixed results and leaves,

but he's put together a pretty nice resume. What is he now? Five and two? Five and two? So he's got a good, nice, like, little winning record. He's five and two now. He's got two sub-22nd knockouts. Again, not against world beaters, but still, if you can do that, that's pretty insane.

And now it takes out a young man who, uh, we were all pretty high on after his win over Andre Fiali, uh, Jake Matthews, uh, Jake Matthews, I feel like I's taking a little bit of flack for Saturday's performance. Like it wasn't bad. He just was clearly outclassed by Matthew Semmeltsburger. Outclassed, uh, out, outpowered, out punched.

I don't know how you guys want to phrase it, but, um, a bit of a step back for Jake Matthews and a step up for Semmelsberger. So him and Jeremiah Wells would be nice. This would be a cool matchup. I just think it was fun. I think they're about the same range in my rankings. I think you're going to get a highlight. I think, again, you kind of keep throwing some of these mid-tier guys together.

You might find someone who's actually worthy of a top 15 ranking. I don't know if Semmelsberger is. I don't know what Jeremiah Wells is, but I know it'll be a fun fight. And I know each guy could make a stronger case to at least get a shot at a top 15 guy, if whoever won that fight. I don't hate it. Not where I thought at all your goal. What were you thinking?

I thought you were just going to say, F it, let's have fun. Jack Della Madelena. It's just two dudes throwing them and one guy is going to fall over. Yeah. J. J.D.M.'s a weird case now because he keeps saying he's fighting Li Jing Liang in Australia. As far as we know, that has not been signed, that is not official, not announced, nothing like that. So I don't know if it's something he's just trying to speak into existence or if that is in the works.

But, yeah, that's not. That's probably why I haven't been naming JDM much on the show. Plus, it's a good fight. I mean, that's a good logical match for JDM. So if he's just trying to make. that happen. Very smart. There's certainly worse fights you could try to manufacture.

All right, Jed, we're going to go to, well, first, we'll do a little quick check the tapes here. It's the holidays, Jed. And we do have a point. We do have a point to give an odd no point to give. We do. Our own Mike Heck, well, first of all, message me. I'm a little worried.

I think he's imparting pretty hard. I think he needs an Otno point. I'm not sure how his funds are going on vacation. Has it been using the calculator too much? He might have been used the calculator too much and just generally, I think just splashing cash around wherever he's. I think he might be on like a white lotus-esque like Bacchanalian trip somewhere. And it's just letting it rip, just making it rain. So he messaged me the other day and was like, was like, okay, okay, I need not a point.

I need not no point. He's like I called this fight. Vittori DeLite, U.C. 286, March 18th. And I said, okay, all right, settle down. Relax, relax, please, breathe. And I said, you'll have to share the point with a lot of several listeners. call for this bite. So this is a shared Otno community point.

Hopefully that is enough to get Mike Heck out of out of jail, out of the Canary Islands, wherever he is, and back home safely. So Mike, if you're out there, please take this portion of an auto point and use it wisely. Again, it travels very well, depending on what country you're in,

this could make him a king overnight. I don't know where he is right now. He could be the king of an island right now with a fraction of a non-no point. So hopefully he's doing a right. But yeah, Vittori deletes a great, great matchup. All right, let's see. Chad, I'm going to run some listener picks by you.

You tell me what you think here. For our listeners, you get a little standard disclaimer. Guys, you're going to get a point for yourself if you're somehow the only person who had a pick. This is very rare these days ever since our show has become, you know, a little bit, a little bit of a listenership. It's got people setting in picks. So it's a little bit harder to be the only one, but it still happens.

Guys, please pay attention to the weight classes, have these two people fought already as someone have a notable injury that's going to take them out for a year. Have they been released? Have they already been booked? Are the teammates? Some of this stuff, hard to keep track of. Some of the stuff very easy to keep track of. So please do your best.

Your pictures might be do-do and we don't want to read it. I will just make a note. I saw some people throwing on Jim, his name out there, Brandon Allen's name for some of these middleweight like fights. And as we mentioned earlier, they are fighting now on February 25th. That was reported on M.A.fighting.com.

So some of you guys might have missed it. It happened Saturday. So not DoDoo if you brought it up, but I'm just kind of skipping over some of those picks. A lot of people wanted Kenoneer and DDP, Duplice. Jed, not sure how you feel about that. So I briefly considered it just because I do want DDP to get a bump up. I ultimately went away from it because I was not doing magic wand. I was trying to crystal ball this week.

And I don't think that's the one that's going to come for him. I think DDP is probably going to get Chris Curtis. I know Chris Curtis certainly believes that. But they have not, it seems like, I mean, based on Andre Muniz, shit, seems like the UFC is not interested in fast-tracking middleweights who aren't named Alex Pereiro to a title fight. They're going to make you work your way on up. I think DDP is probably going to get Chris Curtis. Maybe, I don't know, Jack or Manson, but it feels like Chris.

Curtis is the right answer. So I don't hate the pick and the fight would be good and very reasonable whether it'll happen. I have strong doubts. Yeah, that was the most popular, probably the most popular listener selection I saw, certainly the most popular pick for- It makes sense he just fought the week before. Yeah, of course.

Same way class, time frame. Yeah, yeah. Didn't seem to get too banged up. A tough fight, but didn't seem to get too banged up. So yeah, Kenneur, Dupacupaciel, people see, live pill time with that. Surukian, people with trying out, Chandler, Porier, Darius. the one people said the most because they believe that Darius of course of those three is the most likely to take it because Darius is a bit of a sucker let's be honest

Let me scroll down here we kind of talked about we hinted to some of these picks we were going over our own Oh I saw two people I hate this so much Dauber versus Tony Ferguson I don't know how to feel about that The part of me that doesn't like Tony Ferguson isn't opposed I don't that will never have I hope not. I don't, if you're going to throw a look, I don't know, I genuinely don't know what you do with Tony Ferguson at this point. If you're the UFC, like if you're just trying to make a name off him or give somebody a bit of a bump,

I think you really probably only have like one more of those fights left. He's just lost so many of them. He's really getting into the Cowboy Soroni end of his career stretch here. if you're going to do that, you've got to do it with Dan Hooker or maybe you can pull it off with Patty Pimplet. I don't think Drew Dober brings enough to the table to sacrifice Tony on his altar. So no, hard pass for me. It's tough for me to find a matchup I don't like for Drew Dober just because they're fun.

and lightweight rules, that is one of the very few that I'm pretty against. I can't see Ferguson avoiding a knockout punch for three rounds. Or if they made it of a main event, God help us. Now, I have no interest in it. What else we have here? O'Locaychuk, people threw out to Eric Anders, Phil Haas, Bruno Silva, sure, no problem there. Corey McKenna, what does people want to see her fight, see her fight, Vanessa Demopoulos? I'm into that.

That's fine. Oh, that's pretty good. Yeah. That's a pretty good one. Popular pick there. That makes a lot of sense. How do you feel about Saeed and Armagometa? There's a lot of people thrown out there,

but the most public choice, I was surprised, Ricky Simone. Hmm. Let me pull up Ricky Simone and see what he's been doing lately. I feel like Ricky, like the problem is, as I think the last two times

Ricky Simone has won, I have matched me for him to move up in the rankings. I guess some people might have Said ahead of him. I wouldn't. No chance. I can't imagine anyone actually has him. He's on a 55-5-1street. And he just absolutely.

Saeed's also thumped Jack Shore. The Jack Shore fight was. Seid's on a four-fight win streak, you know? So I don't know. He's a Norma-Met-Ov. I don't know what people are doing with their rankings these days. It's true. You do worse, but based on that fight, Ricky would just kill him.

Oh, you think so? I don't. I think Ricky would just kill him. Ricky's so good, man. Ricky has the athleticism cheat code in freaking spades. I said it at the time. The Jack Shore fight was the most obvious fight of the entire year where it's just like, hey, so these guys aren't playing the same sport.

They're not doing the same thing. One guy is so much more athletic than the other. We talked about it on the Daniel Cormier, Damn, they were good. there's a quote from I'm blanking on his name right now the wrestler he used to wrestle and then fought in the UFC in his light heavyweight debut Pat Cummins Pat Cummins, there you go Pat Cummins gives this quote he gave it to the great Sheen Al-Shadi

when he was doing the night we faced Cormier and the quote is paraphrasing slightly you know you get told your whole life you work hard good things will come to you you know i'm i'm i'm damn good wrestler you know you um youth national champion etc uh and nobody out works me i come to the gym thing so you get told that every day and then one day you realize that that's a load of shit and i realize that when i faced danier cornea because i could do nothing to that man he's talking about his collegiate wrestling days he's like i work there's not a soul alive who works

harder than me. And I could do nothing to this. And that's, that was Ricky Simone, Jack Shore. Jack Shore, hard worker, hell of a fighter. And it just didn't matter. Riki Simone was on a different speed than him. And I think that is very much the case. Like, Saeed Yoko was, was getting takedowns pretty much a will against Numercombe. Who's not a bad wrestler. Ricky Simone is going to throw him from the cage if you make that catch up so i don't like if the plane is just to keep building ricky cool but i'm with you i would like to give ricky a step up and i i don't know about the ufc rankings not looking at him i suspect that's a step back for him in that regard that is high praise for you to say that some that a fighter will throw around someone with the last name or megal madame i don't think i've

ever heard you've made such strong prediction against anyone with the last name that ends in really just in in OV, much less an actual Nirmagamatov. That's very true. Ricky, I think we're about to see Ricky make a title run. I don't think he's going to win it because some of the top, top of that division probably figures to be tough for him, but he's, I think that's a good fight for him based on how, how much trouble Saeed Nirmagamatov was having with Rachmanov's wrestling and grappling in that fight until he got, until he found the ninja, you know, full credit to him.

found it. And that's, I'm not confident he finds the same thing against Ricky. Well, you put, you put your money where your mouth is. You, you and our own Stephen Morocco and our voting panel for the rankings have him as high as 12. So you have him rank, you guys have him ranked the highest. And people should also keep in mind, our rankings include other promotions. So this is not a UFC only ranking. If we're talking about UFC only, you and Steve would both have him in the top 10, the top 10 of your rankings. And probably more than fair based on what Ricky's done in his talent level. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here.

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Marshalls. We get the deals. You gift for good stuff. All right. I want to read some individual messages here. People flattery will get you everywhere. Casey Carpenter always come with the column. First and foremost, thank you to Mike Jed, Casey, Damon, Jose, and Sean, plus the M.

Our team, especially my boy, Frank. Shout us to Mysterious Frank. I said, I passed this message along to a mysterious Frank. He loved it. For all the amazing, entertaining coverage you've given us all year. Looking forward to next year, the year of the Rod Dog, and all the great work you will all have again. some time New Year's Day, Bell Tour Rising Card.

Since Jed is hosting, let him know he's the goat of BTL. I don't always agree with him, but his ability to give hot takes and say who sucks is awesome. That is when your ability to say who sucks is one of your best trades. I agree with, I agree with this wholeheart. Look, I appreciate the kind words. One of these days, people are going to figure out that the reason I'm good at BTL is I will simply say when people suck and they'll start doing it. It's the same as like the calf kick or the oblique kick or like, I just found, I found the

undervalued part of MMA commentary. And just as controversial, by the way, a lot of people will say, should being, should saying someone straight up sucks be banned from MMA debate shows? People have been talking about it. Yeah, no. I'm, you know, it's, you know, it's borderline. Maybe it's a fence grab, you know, in, in, in the. in the realm, but I'm going to grab that fence until I get told I can't.

I've never seen you lose a point for it. I've never seen you lose a point for it. So that's a problem. Keep doing it until I be told I can't. And other people are either going to follow suit and they'll change the rules or I will keep getting those free edges that people are just giving away by not saying people suck. I don't think I've ever said a fighter flat out sucks since I've started working in MMA. Since I started making money as an MMA media member, I don't think I've ever.

ever said like flat out so and so sucks i just can't i can't thought it you've thought it and listen and people can look at my btl record so it's not it's not great so maybe it's not a coincidence maybe i should have i should have done that more uh casey likes semelsberger versus fracratina we should talk about him more he looked he looked great on uh oh he really did uh say no magametta versus yanez bobby green versus uh jim miller i keep thinking this fight has happened it has been booked three times and has never happened so yeah i'm totally for it uh and then uh casey also had a another message for you, Jed, Casey Carpenter. Tell Jed, take a shot in Scarlet-Jansson's DMs.

Go on, Jed, just do it. You know, I don't think that that would work out for me and also might be creepy. I'm just saying, for the people who didn't watch the post show, that is a reference to me saying that it was very, very dumb, which I stand by, Amund Serukian calling for Charles Oliver and Benio Derrush, because he has no chance.

The fight, those fights will not happen and I love dreams. Dare to dream, children. Do you? But there's a difference between public dreams and private dreams, and your private dreams should be limitless. Dream the biggest dream, the impossible dream even. But when your public dreams, you actually have an opportunity to maybe make them happen,

at least be aware enough to know what can and can't happen. in the same way that who uh kamar oussman trying to fight uh um yon bovich that one time you know that or max holloway saying he would fight francis and ganu those can't happen so don't don't dream those dreams less like the max was tongue and cheek and funny i disagree arman instead try and try and fight somebody you can fight um or be more interesting i still stand by that take all All the way. Okay, listen, that I can agree with, but I will never tell a fighter not to make an absurd call out. I say, do it.

It's like if anyone's seen the movie Gattaca, it's about people in the future being separated by their genetic qualities. And a spoiler for a movie that came out in, I think, 1997. At the end, Ethan Hawk is able to defeat his genetically superior brother in a swim, swimming race. And it's because he's, I never left anything for the swim back. So I tell all you people out there, dream your dreams, call on whoever you want. Never leave anything for the swim back. All right. Dream your dream.

Look, I'll even stipulate that that's fine. But if you're going to do it, you get one. You get one. No, you don't. No, I disagree. You can't dream a limitless dream of either wars. That's why they're dream. I would like either this or this.

No, I want this guy. If you're going to say a guy you can't get, if you were going to say a name that you know you will not get. It better be one name, not two names you won't get. It's because that's even dumber. This is true. I do. I even have a rule.

I won't get. We even have a rule on Otno. Like if you said, oh, someone should fight someone or this person or this person. I just don't read it. So you're right. He should follow Otno rules and only predict. If he won't, if he had, it would have been so much better if he just came out and was like, I want to fight as a mock chip.

I am the guy who gave him the toughest fight he has had in the octagon. gone. I want to fight him. I beat Matush Gamrod, asked the media, check MMA decisions. I beat that man. Ten fight win streak. I fought him on short notice. My first fight in the UFC gave the champ his hardest fight. I want next. That is so much better than I want to fight Makachev or Levera or Benio Darius. Like, cool. Those are three fights you aren't. All right. Anyway, there's enough of that. Specificity of a dream. is a little more effective. If you are going,

if you're going to be out, like completely irrational, be specific. If you're going to be rational, you can be very open-ended, and that's fine. Yeah. Like,

I would like to find any of these dudes in the top 15. That's cool. Not compelling, but like, that's still reasonable. But if you're going to, if you're going to ask for something

that you've no chance of getting, at least keep it locked in, baby. I'm moving to Twitter now. We've got a lot, again, He's not Crotina of Love. Again, he looked great on the, on the prelims.

Clearest Vives wants to fight Chaos Williams. John Ray wants him to get the, this is a nice one, Nicholas Dalby, Worley Alvese winner. That's going down January 21st, UFC 283. I don't know how you feel about this, Nirmago metam, potential Nirmagometa of a Nirmagom violence, Jed, Saeed versus Umar. Umar is fighting Haunee Barcelos on January 14th. I'm pretty sure they're not, um, I always get these things mixed out. I'm pretty sure they're not like directly blood relations or or training partners.

I believe like not all Norma Meadow is trained again. I don't think so. I will not pretend to be like the most, but, uh, Said is not related to Habib. Umar is Habib's, um, cousin. Yes, I think so. And he's, he's the brother of Usman. Um,

Umar is Usman's brother. Umar is Usman's brother. I'm, I'm like 85% certain that Umar and Usman are brothers. Uh, and that, they are both obviously cousins to Habib. Saeed is not related to them, does not train with them. I believe he's a dagfighter trainer, not Eagles MMA. But I suspect, and I think there's been talks before that they have familiarity with each other.

You know, same line of work, same exact city and area of the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am not certain if those gyms are like rivals or just competing gyms in the same city. but my guess is they haven't spent extensive time training, but I don't know that for a fact. Yeah, Umar and Uzmander brothers. This is, wow, today I learned. I cover M.A. for a living people.

This is new to me. What happens, Jed, when Nirmagomadov's and Nirmagomadov's meet? I mean, I've never seen, I've never seen a Nirmagomadov, fight of Nirmagomatov. I'm kind of scared. I bet it hasn't happened. It must have happened in Russia. It must be pretty common. I'm in like in a major promotion.

I don't expect. That does not sound familiar. Like, even if you take in, like, fight nights, I wouldn't be shocked if that had never happened in, like, Fight Nights Global. I've seen, I've seen Silvas, uh, I've seen plenty of that. Well, that's, I'm going to go on a limb and say Silva is a much more common name. Yes. The Nirmadov. I don't feel like Nirmadov is maybe the most common surname in the world or even, frankly, in Russia or Dachistan.

Listen, this is assuming Umar beat Sahani-Barsel. It's not a guarantee, by any means. Not a guarantee. He'll be a favor. I don't know if the odds already. He must be at least two to one. But that's a tough fight. That's a good fight.

Anyway, but yeah, we could be seeing a Nirmagometa of a crime in 2023. That would be something else. I wouldn't hate that just because that's unique and fun. Oops, I saw a little doo-doo. You know what? It's a holiday season. I'm not going to call it out. I'm not going to call it out.

Do you call it coal in the holiday season instead? No, it's still stinky doo-doo. Still do-do. But Alex McAdam, thank you for Semmelsberger versus a rain. I think that's good. There's Dober versus Dawson. There you go. There's that suggestion.

What do we got here? Sean Haywood, Frat Cortina versus Tim Meen. That'd be interesting. That'd be interesting. I don't know what we have with this fact or Tina guy yet, but he's got all the traits. It wouldn't be a bad way to kind of maybe find a little more out. How do you like Mikhail Oleg Seych versus Hidalfa Vietta, a little striker grappler? I think I like that.

Yeah. I think I like that. That feels pretty good, actually. I don't know if I like that as much as Julie Marquez from a fun standpoint, but it may be from a meritocratic standpoint. I assume that Vieira is a little more highly ranked in your big board or whatever. I would have them a little higher up than Julian Marquez, but it's not a bad fight at all. Our pal, Scott McCrae, thanking the entire MA fighting crew.

Thank you, Scott, for checking out our stuff. He said he wants to whack. He said, can you a Jed wax for two minutes? We won't go two minutes, but maybe 30 seconds on Umar versus Ilya how it would play out if his book. Is that a fight that you like? I don't, umar is, I mean, we just said he's a Mantaweight. I'm pretty sure.

Umar would have to go up to featherweight, right? Is there another umar that I'm not thinking? It's very possible there could be. Uh, I have been struggling to keep track of Nirmago Meadows for the last two years or so. Uh, there's an Abu Bacar at Welterweight. Umar is a bantam weight and Syed is also a bandam weight. So I don't know if he means he'd like to see Umar go up to 145 or maybe just got the weight class. I don't think that's necessary at all.

Okay. No worry. Scott, no worries. Interesting question. I just wanted to read it out. And we appreciate, again, we always appreciate you. Also, it would be Ilya Tuporia because Lillit Tepuria is freaking sick. Yeah.

Until such time as Ilya is fighting whiteweights who aren't named Patty. Pimbleet. I do think he will have some real troubles at lightweight because he's small for that weight class, which we saw Jai Herbert give him problems by simply being huge. But I think he's a plus at Featherweight and there are maybe four dudes in the planet I would pick to beat him in a fight at Featherweight. Certainly not a blown up Bannamweight. I can't wait to see him. I can't wait to see Morvilia in 2023. My goodness. Haysby 3rd wants Strickland versus Duplice and has this for Alex Casares. Hayes says, I have to stop paying against Bruce Leroy.

So we know that the Korean zombie isn't fighting in February. It seemed like his next fight would be retirement. Why not have Bruce Leroy be his retirement fight? They can still have it in Seoul. It can still be a headliner in my eyes. And it's clearly not just feeding zombie to an up-and-comer. It's a winnable fight for zombie. And also, if Alex won that fight,

it could potentially give him a bit of fan interest in the way that someone like Kelvin Holland has. I love the idea of Alxas versus Korean zombie. Again, it would depend on the timing. It would depend when zombie is going to fight in 23, if at all. I said, we don't know exactly why he's, I think, some sort of injury. He can't fight in South Korea. I like it.

If it were built as a retirement fight, if we knew it was the last fight for zombie, I really like it. If it's just his next fight and we're not sure where he's going after, it's still a good fight, but I don't know. I don't know how you feel like Casaris and Korean zombie. So I think it kind of gets at a lot of the stuff I was looking at for for how to use Casares, right? It's very similar, except for I think it's too big a step up based on how the rankings are for zombie. I don't really want, if zombies last fight, I don't really want it to be Alex Casaris.

I don't know who I want to leave. I like it. I like it. That's just a fight I don't care about, though, is my primary issue. Like if I'm getting one last zombie fight, I don't want it to be. all right let's send zombie out in his back you know necessarily but you might not you could take out caseras i mean i think i'd rather see like barbosa zombie or something like there's some true matchups yeah yeah if i only get one less i want to cook with with the with the last time i get zombie um but i think he's driving at the same point i was with barbosa of but caseras isn't really

going to make her run or do this but he is a big name and i want to give him an aging fighter who's had maybe a tough go or you want to see have a winnable opportunity, but if they do lose, not the end of the world. So I get where he's coming from, not how I choose to go. What is another?

Thomas Collins, I like Alexechuk maybe versus I'm involved Gaston loser. Big step up, but again, I'm high on Alexeachuk, so I don't mind it. I'm actually,

that was the other fight I had the most considered. I don't like doing, I know this is very stupid. I largely don't like loser versus winner fights. And that was the primary reason. But I was like, if neither, I would have done Imov for him instantaneously if

him involved wasn't booked. But I was like, okay, we could just do. But if Emilov wins, it feels like he deserves more, right? Yep. So I was like, can't do that. And I was like, I don't really want to give him Gasolum coming off a loss. And so that's, but it's not a bad fight, not at all. I could see him getting one of these guys.

Yeah, the winner, loser, some sort of mix there. Bear Riley says Hafa Garcia versus, I guess it's Rafa Garcia, excuse me, Rafa Garcia versus Hafeu'll Alves, Hafa versus Rafa. I always love that. Olexeychek versus Buckley. I'm down with that. Yep. Dax at Pike Putt. Srukian versus Makachov 2.

If Makachov loses the belt. If Makachchev lost to Volkanowski, do you think that this is a fight that they could set up? Yeah, actually that probably does work. Interesting. I don't know that they would do it if we're doing Crystal Ball. here I don't know that they're gonna do that if mock and certainly it depends how he would lose my guess is that if Makachev loses he's still by being a champion he's gonna get like kchi or poye or something like that oh i think they're gonna say immediate rematch as he's like

oh please no no no no he's not getting you never know you never know if you know controversy or whatever but if he loses that is much more likely than any world in which Syrucian gets to fight Charles Olivera, basically. And James Nal from Twitter, Surukian versus Gaithji, I Wish. And Alif Casares versus Bryce Mitchell, that's actually kind of cool. And also, definitely a clash of styles as we have the...

That's actually really good, too. How do I be nice about this? Cacaris, sort of a worldly, loving, spiritual soul. Bryce Mitchell thinks the earth is flat. So I don't know. I don't know how people would... It would make for an interesting buildup.

I've actually changed my mind. I don't want to watch the flat earth beat. I do not want to watch the flat earth or beat the hell out of... He might not. Feels like you would. All right, all right. We'll close out with Instagram.

I got some of Mike Hecks usual contributors coming to me. Very smart. Thank you guys. You knew Mike Hex on vacation. Robbie Ryan, Dober versus Pimblit in London. I don't know how we didn't bring this up earlier in the show. Dober just annihilates him. And again, I've defended Pibbilt's fighting ability many times.

Harder or worse for Pembley. It's bad. Because Dober's not going away. And I don't think there's not a realistic outcome of success for Pimbley in that fight. I mean, if you think his grappling is so good, he could submit him. But I don't think it's quite on that level. He's not a good enough wrestler. He's not a good enough for.

We saw that. To consistently get Dober to the ground. We saw that in the Gordon fight. But thank you, Rob, Ryan. It has to happen in London. I don't know if you'd want that to happen in London. Honestly, all of those fights are people. are people who just want to see Patty

get slabbed. They want him to be carried out on a stretcher. And I get it. I get the inclination. But there are a number of those fights we can book. All of them are going to go the same way. Look, Bobby Green, there just ain't no way.

There's just no way that fight is happening. The problem with, like, Bobby Green is the other side of that argument, too. If you gave Bobby Green to Patty, the problem is Bobby Green will probably actually be worse to Patty because Patty won't get knocked out he will just get made to look like a child

like Bobby Green will just put him on the bus and take him to school for 15 minutes which will be more damaging to Pimbleau than getting slabbed up by a big left hand or whatever yeah it's one thing for Patty to be caught it's another thing for like you said three rounds of the commentary just going like man I don't know what's going on in there

patty just can't seem to hit him and social media. His face is so bloody, he's landed two strikes. Well, he's trying, but man, he can't even sort of make something happen here. All right, Matt Bradbury, I like Surukian versus Charles Oliver. It's not happening, but I like the thought. Bean's extreme memes, Matt Seldonzberger, Ian Gary. I don't hate that.

I think that actually might be a really good test for Ian Gary, even though it could end up with him just getting his head knocked off. But hey, listen, you're the well, when you're getting up there in welterweight, there's a lot of people who can do that to you. I like that fight a lot, actually, yeah. And I got another, and I'll close out with another Mike Heck refugee, Gerard Biaagg, and thanks, Gerard. Casares versus Ege, Damon Jackson winner. That's going on January 14th.

Abazi, Tim Elliott, Syed, Narragometev, Hafowl, Asun Sal, and Sergey Morsov versus Montel, Jackson. All solid picks. Hopefully you guys out there get a full, odd no point for the holidays. I will let you know. please let me know, guys, if I, if there's a pick that you somehow nailed down and I missed it, send in your future picks. We won't have to worry about this for a while, but send in your future picks to me at Alexander KK Lee on Instagram at Alexander K. Lee on Twitter and Alex.

dot Lee at SB Nation.com on email. Jed, where can people reach you? They just want to give a little poke. A few of them did ahead of this because the work got out that I would be. Oh, do you have picks? No, no, because I intentionally directed them all to you. You. A couple of them. I was like, I don't know the answers to this stuff. This is not my world. You should send it to AK. Okay. Great. Great.

But it's on Twitter at at Jed K. Mushu. Yeah. And that's it. People should know. If you listen to the show, if they're listening to the show and then I'm following you. I mean, what are you doing with your life really? So. Probably happier. They don't want to get my football tweets on a Sunday when I'm, I have like 30 stupid bets down because I'm bad at gambling on football. And I'm just. furious about things going on. That's why people should follow you. So, yes, we won't be back with a proper matchmaking show until January 14th. Another UFC Apex card, UFC Vegas 67 headline by fight we talked about quite a bit. Nasor Dean Imov versus Calvin Gaslam.

Also on this card, I shouldn't wish I had a proper order here. Jimmy Flick coming back to fight Charles Johnson, Alan Nassimento, Carlos Hernandez. So a couple of flyweight bouts there. Jeff Neal and Shavcott, Rachmanov. Jeff Neal signed in the dotted line to fight a man. Nobody wants to be in the cage with right now. A top women's contenders fight between Ketland-Veyerra, women's ban to-way, excuse me,

Ketland-Veyerre and Raquel Pennington, congrats on that. Featherweight bout between Jarno Arons and David Onama, lightweight bout Omar Marales, Matush Rebecca, Daniel Argueeta versus Isaac Dolgarian, Punisoriano, Roman Copilob, and E. Gay, Damon Jackson,

Umar and Romagomagamatov, Haoni, Barcelos, Abdul Razak, Al-Hassan, and Claudio Ribeiro, and Javid Basharat, and Menteas Mendonza. So a lot of people debuting, a lot of contenders names that might be familiar to those of you who watched the last couple of seasons of Contender Series. Not the most stars of the car Jed,

but it's a way to kind of ease us back into 2023, the UFC's calendar year. So we'll also have Risen, Risen versus Bell Tour coming up, guys, before the year is over. And as for content from us, I don't like that. A. A. Oh. Don't forget.

There's also Fight Circus Sunday evening, 8 p.m. Yes. If you are listening to this now, you hopefully don't listen. Some people only listen on Monday, but you listen to this on Sunday when it goes live, guys. It could be happening as we speak. So don't forget, Fight Circus, Sunday night. Again, possibly right now. And if you're listening on Monday, go to.

to Mayfind.com great website. I believe I'm going to do a write-up on it since I'm obviously watching tonight. Look for Jed's coverage, and they're pretty good. I wouldn't surprise me if they throw it up on YouTube at some point or somewhere free. They throw them up on YouTube usually within like one to two weeks, if not days or whatever. The FMD full metal dojo guys really great about it. It's going to be a good time. It may flirt with dignity and acceptance.

ability, but boy, we're going to have fun. Yes, it may not be something you want to talk about to your non-combat. Actually, even your combat sports understanding friends may wonder what the hell are you doing, but that is going down. You may not want to watch. If you're home for the holidays or you're visiting, you know, your significant other, you're with their family, maybe don't watch that with your significant other's family unless you, you know, you're already in there.

You know, they already know that they like you. Yeah. Committed. But if it's your first time in the holidays with them, you know just feeling out maybe maybe skip Hanukkah gone wrong or cut this year leave the fight circus out of it for now but yeah we'll have plenty we'll have still have plenty of programming on the M.A. Fighting Podcast Network coming out we will have an episode of on the next one I assure you we will have a ranking show the the

highly anticipated airing of grievances will be coming up here I know you'll be part of that I know you love you love airing grievances whether it's with fighters or with your people that you work with. Don't boo me. I'm right. And again, plenty of other coverage and things to follow. And MMAFighting.com, M.M.Fightings, YouTube, M.AFighting Podcast Network. Guys, you know what to our social media, TikTok.

We're on TikTok. We're on what's going on. We're here for the Ray Roses Jr. generation. But thank you, everyone who sent in picks and listened to the show all throughout 2020. May your 2023 be full of Otno points and wealth and prosperity and health. Thank you so much, Jed Mishu, for joining us several times this year for filling in a fantastic matchmaker on the spot. And just a fantastic man. I feel like I'm getting better at it. You know, I had a little more reps.

I'm feeling better about it. So thank you for letting me step in, you know, to carry water when Mike's abandoning the ship. Thank you, Jed. Thank you, Mike Heck, wherever you are. Please get out of jail, wherever you are. Use that ought no resources to get out. And thank you again, everyone for who listens, watch. as reads, we love you guys.

And we'll see you in, well, we'll see you before 2023, but the next proper matchmaking show, we'll see you on, on to the next one. Into the next year. On to the next year. Well done. Love you guys. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.