MMA Fighting - On To the Next One | Matches To Make After UFC Vegas 71

Episode Date: April 23, 2023

Sergei Pavlovich destroyed Curtis Blaydes in the first round of their heavyweight main event battle in Las Vegas this past Saturday, which led to Pavlovich calling for a title shot against Jon Jones. While the fight could be interesting, it's unlikely to happen, but that doesn't mean Pavlovich can't get a title fight in his next appearance. 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 Pavlovich following his massive win at UFC Vegas 71, and explain why he probably won't be facing Jones anytime soon. Additionally, future matchups are discussed for Bruno Silva following his first-round finish of Brad Tavares in the middleweight co-main event, along with fellow winners Iasmin Lucindo, Jeremiah Wells, Montel Jackson, and more following the promotion's latest card at the APEX. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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We are back following a spirited UFC Vegas 71 card where we had a main event that left some folks saying, hey, that guy is an absolute monster. Well, most others said, what the hell is that guy doing? More on that in a moment. but the matchmaking crowns return this week. I am Mike Hack and joining me as always is the co-host, the co-matchmaker,

the Prince of Positivity, my best friend, and the Balke Bar-Tacomus to my Larry Appleton, although we're not cousins, nor are we perfect strangers. Alexander Kay Lee, hello, IK. So flattering, my best friend. Matt Ayad, you're looking fantastic after your CrossFit adventures this weekend. I'm so sore, dude.

It took me like 10 minutes to get out of bed this point. That's a good sore, though. That's a good. That's the sore that you know you're alive. That's not just me waiting of old man sore. That's an accomplished soreness. Yes. It's a good soreness.

My wife's like, I don't even know how you're walking around right now. But it was a good day. Very challenging. The workouts were tough. The second workout, I was like, all right, this one's not that bad. And I realized it wasn't just one go through. It's just you had to do as many of these things in 12 minutes as you possibly could. And I was like, oh my God, are you kidding me? And it was like 90 degrees outside,

which didn't help either. But I, you know, I think we did okay. I'm sunburnt. I have tan lines everywhere. Successful day, okay. Successful day. I feel like Anson Gibb after Kingpin boxing last night. Wow, what a reference. You are, you have your finger on the pulse of combat sports today. Let me tell us something because we got misfits boxing on Friday. We had Kingpin boxing on Saturday. You and I, we should tell you before the show, we were doing a little mini-aut-no for influencer boxing. And we need to see this dream match between Kingpins-Winderson-Nunes. I call him Kingpin's Winterson-Nunes.

There's a whole bunch of listeners there. I'm sure like, Kingpin, like, he's one of those famous YouTubers in the world, dude. Isn't that just some Kingpin boxer? I get it. All right. I'm aware he's super, super famous. I understand. I had no idea who he was before he started celebrity boxing.

I'm sorry. And we need salt poppy. And we were talking about it. We said they're apparently close within range. I think both guys have a fight book, Salt Poppy fighting Anthony Taylor. And, you know, and Winderson's in this tournament for Kingpin. But man, when that's over, 2024, the rights, the rights to get this fight are going to be, I don't know, man. That's going to be a fight in itself.

Everyone's going to want a piece of this. I want to, like, get alone and make this fight happen. Yeah. Because it would be gigantic. We're not even being sarcastic. I think people I get, we don't talk a lot of influencer boxing on this show. Maybe that's why people like it. But I mean, there was just so much this weekend.

And it's becoming, honestly, some of these cards are just so entertaining in a junk food way. You can't help but talk about it. And we're not being sarcastic. Like Saul Poppy versus Winterson Nunes will be one of the 10 biggest fights of 2024 if this, if they're able to make it happen. It's that, it's that like most highly anticipated fights. And they're both skilled. Like they're probably the two most skilled actual boxers in all of this. Like, you know, Jake Paul is obviously somewhat skilled because, I mean, he's taking this very seriously.

But these two guys are really good. The Wenderson Nunes went, I was like, holy shit, this dude might be the best of all of them. But I don't know. He has 39 million followers on Instagram. That's a lot. That's a lot. That's insane. I don't even know how many more times.

of followers he has than I do. It's like 390 million times more than I do. I don't know. But it's wild. But that is influencer boxing. Yes. This is just going to continue to go from a snowball to a snowman to an avalanche over the next few years.

This isn't going away anytime soon. Just like the UFC not leaving the apex anytime soon. So let's begin with the UFC's return to the apex, the main event between Curtis Blades and Sergei Pavlovich. My breakdown on this fight was pretty simple, okay? Curtis Blades pretty much needs to wrestle from the moment this fight starts, and if he does that, he will win this fight.

Yes, we know his striking is improved. But once in a while, the Curtis Blades, who wants to show the doubters that he can strike with the elite strikers, we needed this guy to stay home. Curtis Blades betters needed that guy to stay home, maybe do a CrossFit competition,

and just be so sore that he didn't even show up to the 8 packs on Saturday. Just go out there and take the dude down ASAP because otherwise what happened last night is going to happen in the fight. Now, I am not a fighter. I get that. Curtis Blades was giving credit for one takedown attempt. And that was a desperation attempt after he tried to box with Sergey Pavlovich for like

two and a half minutes and he was getting the boots put to him. He was getting hurt, he was getting stung, everything Sergei Pavich threw seemed to land. I just don't get the strategy, AK. And now, Curtis Blades is never going to fight for a UFC title. Unless he somehow drops the 205 and he was like 263 and a half heading into this fight, I believe. He's just not fighting for a title now. This strategy that he does every so often, I just don't understand it. But Sergey Pavilich, he just might fight for a title, AK.

Can't put the blame on Pavlovich. He was just like, oh, this is what we're doing? Okay, thank you. I will do exactly that. Pavlovich wins. He's a monster. What is next for him? Hashtag, keep the martial arts apart.

First of all, Curtis Blades is right there. It's not a joke. We're not joking about influencer. We're not joking about Salt Poppy versus Winterson Nunes. And we are not joking about keeping the martial arts apart. I know people see the hashtag. They're like, oh, this is MMA. What are you doing?

It's stupid. sometimes when you have a moment like this in front of you, you've got to keep the martial arts apart. You've got to go with what brought you to the dance. I rewatch that fight this morning. It was extremely frustrating to watch. Blades, listen, he caught Pavlovich a few times in the feet. His hands look good.

Blades is a decent striker. He's a decent striker. He could outstrike a few people at heavyweight. Sergei Pavlovich is not one of them, especially if we're just talking about raw power. I don't know if Sergey Pavlovich is that much of a better striker than Curtis Blades, but I know he has a hell of a lot more knockout power. Blades is a strong guy, but there's a big difference being a strong guy and having knockout power.

It's about speeds, about accuracy. Pavlovich has both those things in spades for heavyweight, and it was disappointing to see Curtis Blades. Again, one take-down attempt, scouted from a mile away. He'd already been stung a few times. So a real bummer. A real bummer for Curtis Blades. but for Pavlovich, a little bit of a bummer as well,

because he's going to have to wait. He's going to have to wait. In a perfect world, he should get that title fight instead of Stepe. I like Stepe. I get the name value. Stepe way more well known than Pavlovich. I'm just looking at, listen, we were talking about Instagram. Pavlovich and Blades, listen, combined less than 400,000 followers,

nowhere near Wenderson-Nunes territory. And I imagine Stepe is well above them as well. Let me do a quick look here. I bet Steve is above. Steve A just, you know, 1.7 million. This guy's the, though. He doesn't even try. He doesn't even try.

He's not tweeting hot fire every, like, every day. He's just, you know, one of the greatest heavyweeds of all time. He's just putting them out. So he's well above any sort of metric you want to use for name recognition. Stevey's way ahead of Palovich. I get it. But Palovic has earned this, man. I mean, he should be fighting John Jones next.

Oh, you know what? I'll reveal the results of the poll now. I was going to say it for later. I did a little poll right after. It's just straight up, who do you want to see fight John Jones next? It's got a couple of, it's got another 24 hours on it. But right now, Pavlovich, 71%. Seventy-bias, of course.

Of course. But that's what's fun about this business is that promoters should be able to kind of just turn things on a dime and be like, oh, well, there's suddenly more interesting this fight. Let's just do this. Let's do this. But Steve A, listen, the clock is ticking his career. They want to do that next. So Pavlovich versus the winner of that fight, you know, date still to be finalized. Excuse me.

Date still to be finalized. Pretty sure it will get ironed out, though. So Polovich, I don't think he has to fight again, Mike, but I'm not sure if you want to see him one more time. This has been a really interesting 12 or so hours because this is how I've kind of looked at this fight for a while, especially. And I'll lead into how this all kind of goes together. But I think the UFC's plan, or at least their hope for how things could play out, first box checked off. Because this is probably the result the UFC wanted here. They wanted Blades sort of out of the title picture.

And if Blades had won, that they would have rolled with it. But this is probably what the UFC was sort of hoping for, blades out of the picture, and probably out of it forever, unless he wins like six or seven straight. So we have one box checked off. And now May 13th, the second box could be checked. And I think it will be checked. So the fight is unequivocally, beyond the shadow of a doubt. It is Sergey Pavlovich versus Jailton Almeida. And this fight could possibly be for a title, possibly for the vacant title.

I put this out on Twitter. Some folks liked the idea and we're like, oh, that's cool. Others had things to say. We had some conversations on Twitter, me and a few others. And we ironed it out. And they were like, you know what? You're, I don't hate what you said as much as I thought I would. This is probably makes sense.

I got some passionate DMs on Instagram from people saying that I have no idea what I'm talking about. I should find another career. I am a hater of Pavlovich. And I am a hater of Russian fighters, which is just ridiculous. Let me, let me just, this is going right to you people, right to you negative nancy's. Oh my. I know we want to look, I know we want to. Look, I know we want to live in a magical world, a magical universe where you can walk around and houses taste like candy and you can take a bite and it'll morph back into the candy.

Like, we want that to happen. We want to live in this magical world where guys like Sergei Pavlovich would interest a superstar in John Jones. But guess what? He doesn't. John Jones does not care. The fight between Pavvich and Jones is interesting. to us, the hardcore fans, the ones who are listening to this program. Of course, but guess what?

This fight does nothing for John Jones. Absolutely nothing. This is not a legacy fight. It's not anything to John. It is just a fight with a guy who has some knockouts. This fight means zippity-doodah to John Jones. At this point, in John Jones's career, John would fight Steepay, maybe fight him a second time. or he'd fight Brock Leszor.

That is it. He's not fighting Sergey Pavlovich. John didn't even react to this fight. He didn't even tweet and delete. I was going to say, did you find that curious? He didn't even tweet and delete. Not one thing. I have a tweet deck column dedicated to John Jones tweets,

and I kept waiting for something to pop up. Nothing. Not even like, not even watch the fight. Not even like a sleeping emotion. You know what I mean? Like a little Z's coming out, a little pot shot at both guys or something. Or like cringing, you know, cringing because Blaze lost another opportunity to fight him. Nothing.

Did, I've seen nothing from. Nothing. Nothing. He did not. He didn't even watch. He probably didn't even know the fight was happening. Or he may have known. He was just like, eh, I'm skipping it.

You want to know why? Because he wasn't going to fight either of these guys. And guess what, folks? If Steepay beats John Jones, he's. going to fight John again and then he's going to retire. So Steve Bay's not fighting Sergey Pathovich either. Jelton Almeida is fighting Jarzini-Rosestrike in a fight that got bumped to a main event on ABC in front of a crowd in Charlotte, North Carolina over Anthony Smith and Johnny Walker, who are too much more established names. Why? Why you ask? Because

they are about to strap the rockets to Jelton. In fact, they've already strapped the him to him. And now if Jailton can win, the UFC's got the lighter. They got the lighter. They got the blow torch. They are ready to ignite that flame and send that rocket right to Pavlovich Island. Because if he runs over Rosenstrike, which I think he's going to, he's getting the Pavlovich fight, and it could be for a vacant title. Does Pavlovich deserve a title fight? Apsaw friggin-Lutely. Will he get one? Maybe, but he ain't fighting John Jones. Just get that fantasy out of your mind, that fight's not happening. So Alameda is my pick, whether it's for a vacant title or not a vacant title, that's the fight the UFC is going to make. That's it, folks. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry to let you down. I know we want to see Sergei Pavlovich lose to John Jones, because I think that's what would happen. I think John would not fight like an idiot. I think he would take Sergey down immediately and strangle him. That's how I think that fight would go. So, and plus, I don't think it's going to happen. John has no interest in this. so I'm sorry. Sorry to let you all down. He's going to fight Jailton Omeda, and it's going to be fun as hell.

It's going to be way more fun than him fighting John Jones, I think. First of all, fully agree on the matchup prognostication. People know I don't like John Jones personally, but I think Pavlovich is fantastic, fantastic. I just think that John Jones and Heavyweight is not going to mess around. We saw it in the Cito-Gone fight. Just, listen, I'm going to take all these guys down. I'm going to take all these guys down if I can.

I'd let heavyweight. Listen, maybe he had a little more room to play a lot of, around. Maybe you have certain physical advances there that he's like, oh, okay, I can, I'm going to wrestle with wrestlers. I'm going to strike with strikers. And that was a great time. It's part of reason why we love John Jones and heavyweight. That's one of the best runs, you know, we've ever seen of any fighter ever. But a heavyweight with Pavlovich, yeah, I think, I think he's quite a bit smarter than that. Craven, one might say, sinister. All right, you're talking about how John Jones might tackle his, however many heavyweight fights he has left. But you're right, very low in a list of

priorities. So I hope, I hope, Jelts and Almeida and Palovich happens. That's a great fight. Again, part of me still wants to see, even though you're right, it doesn't mean anything that John Jones. I still like find that Jones-Palovitch matchup intriguing, but you're not wrong. That we're much more likely to see Almeida and Pavlovich than ever see John Jones fight Pavlovich. It's, it's just, it's not super likely. As much as I was, I was heartbroken by some of the DMs that I received. The social media post that really made me the most sad came from our own

Shaheen Al-Shadi because he was right. He was right. The world I would rather live in is a world where Sergei Pavlovich fights Francis and Ghanu. That's a world I would love to live in. But unfortunately, at least for right now, that world does not exist either. But I actually give more of a chance

at this moment in time that we will see a Sergei Pavlovich, France and Gano fight before we ever see a Sergey Pavvich John Jones fight. I'm into that too. I love that. I mean, it's crazy to say that. The visual, the visual of it. Yes, please.

I'm for it, yes. I mean, come on. John, here's what I want. John, please. Go beat Steepay in November at MSG. Call out Francis. Call out the UFC to get the deal done. Go fight Francis. So they resign Francis.

And then whatever happens in that fight, you could retire. and then Francis Gitt fights or Gipapovic, that world is just a delightful world. That's a world I want to live in. But let's move on, A.K., the co-main event. If we must. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats.

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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. Lift with confidence, while Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross-Draining Treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. The Colmate event, boy, do we have some middleweights. And Bruno Silva stops Brad Tavares in the first round.

I will say I didn't love the stoppage, but I get it. Probably was going to get worse for Tavares, so I guess it's fine. But Bruno Silva back on track. Big win for him. And you know what? Do you don't want to know what Bruno Silva did last night, AK? He wasn't a middle-weighty middle-weight. He took some advice.

He took some advice from a man named Dana White. And Dana White said last summer, hey, be Joe Piper. And he tapped into that Joe Pfeifferness and got the finish. So you know what? Let's see who can be more Joe Pfeiffer. Bruno Silver. Silver. Bruno Silva.

Or Joe Piper, AK. I think we should just have. these two guys fight for the who is the more Joe Piper-esque fighter. Amen. What do you think? I wish we could be friends forever on this. It's a perfect pick. I have to stick with my formulas that I have here, my elaborate formulas. I had Calvin Gasselm. I said I want him to fight the Blendado Brad Tavaar's winner. So I have to stick with that. So I think Silva and Gasselm is a great matchup. Even though I don't know if the matchmakers, if it's in their minds right now, I got to go with my own mass.

So I'm sticking with Blendado, Silva, Calvin Gosselin. But by the way, I do not consider Blendato a middleweighty middleweight. His fights are way too. Yeah, okay, okay. Way too exciting. He has a distinctive personality.

He had a run of success before the UFC. But we don't talk about Brad Tavares enough as being a middleweighty, middleweight, do we? He never quite held the title. I think he's been like... I don't think he's really a middleweighty, middleweight. I think he's fun. I think he's a scrappy, fun.

dude. Drinkis Duplice put the wood to him and he just fought back and bled everywhere and just kept going. Okay, okay. You know, his kid, fuck God, there's a long stretch of indiscriminate fights. I couldn't tell you anything about

his fight with Omar Ak Madov, Talus Laites, Elias Theodoro, Kyle Megalish, Lorenz Larkin, I was a long time ago, maybe that was a great fight, honestly don't remember. So I don't think he gets enough middle weighty middleweight credit. But I'll say he, he was unfortunate that his, his careers, for the most part,

band parallel with Christoph Jocko because he wasn't taking the middleweighty, middleweight belt off him. Did they never fight? Oh, they did. They did. Oh, he TKO Jocko. So, see, but that's the problem. He had to win a boring. He had to win a middling decision. By TKOing Jocko, you out of the picture. Out of the picture. Out of the picture. You can't win the title that way. You can't win the middleweight, middleweight title that way. Too, too effective. Too effective. Yes. So both picks are great. Good win for Bruno Silva. We did have a fight, AK, between Bobby Green and Jared Gordon.

Let's do it. It looks like Bobby Green finished Jared Gordon. And we were like, holy cow, this is great. And then we saw the replay and we're like, oh boy, there's no chance. This is not a no contest. And that's exactly what happened. So by aughtna rule, no contest, draws all of that noise means no pick. Means no pick, but I'll ask you, AK.

Do they just run this back or do we move on? Certainly you can run it back. There's some good list of suggestions later. A lot of them mostly suggesting run it back, but there's some good suggestions for, I think mostly for Bobby Green. I'm sure I saw that many Jared Gordon's in there. I will say Chris Curtis is super salty right now. He tweeted it immediately after, oh, we care about headbutts now, right?

That was a great tweet. That was great. Greatest Curtis, your only mistake was getting back up. But that's the problem. Like, in some ways, I'm, I see both sides of it. I don't know if I agree with him that, like, that fight should be reviewed. But, like, it sucks because obviously you get headbutted. And if you can, like, you don't know, you don't know what hits you.

You don't know what hit you if you're Chris Curtis. You're just, your first thing to do is, I got to get back up. I got to scramble. I got to recover. Because you don't know. And then, and then probably in the moments after. And then, of course, watching the replays, you realize he got headbutted. So it sucks because if he had just gotten headbutton and stayed down.

that fight with Gaston's probably a no contest. But that's the, you know, MMA is funny that way. It's a lot of randomness. There's a lot of luck. Instead, Chris Curtis gets a loss on his record. Either way, he's in the same boat as Barbara Green and Jared Gordon and that they didn't get their, they didn't get a second check, which sucks. So, yeah, hopefully both guys are okay, Bobby Green and Jared Gordon, and they can just run it back.

I'm not sure how badly I think I'd the guy wants to, but if I was them, I would think they'd be interested in that. But, yeah, no, yeah. Like you said, Mike, I'm not particularly inclined. to matchmake for either guy after an unfortunate no contest. There aren't on July 1st or even $290 if there's space for it. You know, that's a fun one. And I didn't hate what Bobby Green had to say about it.

I understood where he came from. I understood where he came from. He's not going to get what he wants, but I get where he came from. He's like, dude, yeah, we collided heads, and I get it. And then we went to the ground and Jared still had his. his wits about him. He tried to lock in a triangle and I broke it, but I didn't, he wasn't effed up until I started punching him on the ground. So give me my money. But, that's tough. Not going to happen. So, yeah, it's a tough way for that fight to end. People

were looking forward to that one and Jared actually looked really good early in that fight. He was fighting really smart. I was like, this is a very composed. So I kind of do want to see it again, but especially if Patty's injury is his, Patty Pimbley's injury is as bad as he says he is, and he may not even fight this year. Yeah, just go ahead and run that one back. So I think All Roads kind of leads towards the winner fighting Patty, especially if it's Jared.

So we'll see what happens. Let's move to Yasmin Lucindo, AK. She just put it on poor Brogan Walker for 50 minutes. This is one-way traffic in the Strowite division. Walker showed her toughness, but usually when your best attribute is being damn tough and taking punishment, it's typically not a great thing. So, AK, I'm not sure if Brogan Walker is long for this UFC world,

but Lucindo certainly is two fights, two great performances, a win and a loss. What's next for Yasmin Lucindo? Yeah, I said this would be a showcase for Lucindo, with all of respect to Brogan Walker, but I do feel like she's maybe at that stage of a career where she's not being viewed as a contender in her own right. She got a bit exposed in the Juliana Miller fight, a fight that I thought she would do much better in.

Listen, she's up there. It's always so rude to say this about any fighter. She's a bit up there in age. I know she only has like 10, 12 pro fights, but that's life. There's things that get in the way from you competing more regularly. And then the MMA is merciless. There's just this young, there's just this, always these young dogs come to get you.

And Lucinda is what, 21, I think, 21, I think. 22 years old. She looked great in the the Hauragi fight, right? I mean, Harri-Gi, I think is just legit. But that was a great fight. Listen, that was so dangerous.

So I want to kind of keep her moving along up the charts. I think she's going to stick around at 125. I'm not sure. I'd rather see her stay at 125. This is a flyway fight, wasn't it? This was a flyweight fight. Yeah, but I don't think she had much issue making 115. So she could be one of those fighters who at this stage

kind of just bounces in between, maybe like, Amanda Hebus, where she's just like, oh, well, you know, if good fights come. at 1 15. I'll take fights at 115. If good fights come at 125, I'll take fights at 125. So just for the sake of simplicity, I'm sticking at 125. That's what she just fought at. And I kind of want to give her another potential chance to style on someone. Victoria Leonardo is fighting Natalia Silva on May 20th. Leonardo just has sort of this habit of being on the receiving end of highlights. And Jed and I always talk about, listen, there is such a thing as

jobbers in professional wrestling and in MMA too and maybe that's what Victoria Leonardo is looks great on the scale can take a pounding and just loses in spectacular ways sometimes so listen whatever happens with Leonardo if she beats a Taya Silva if she's another

up and comer by the way or loses to her line her up with Lucindo next and let's see if Lucindo can put on another performance like she did against Sanchez and let's see what we have here let's see what we have here with her no and there's just no reason to rush to listen to up the charts in flyweight or or strawways.

So let's just keep building her up here. I forgot that fight got bumped to a 25 fight. No, I don't really know why. But we need her back at 115. Sure. We need her back at 115. 125 is fine. It's solidified.

There's a ton of contenders. It's as interesting as it's going to get. Straw weight, losing a bit of its depth, if we're being honest. But still very fun, but it's losing a bit of its depth. So let's get her back to 115. And it's, this is one of the easiest picks for me. Cheyenne Velismus, that's the fight. Love that one.

Felizmus has a bit of a mean streak in her. Be a good scrap. Nice step up from Brogan Walker. Yeah, let's go ahead and do that. That would be fun. The one that popped right into my brain. Is there a way we can get that out of the apex? I feel like these ladies deserve a crowd, like an actual crowd.

Hmm. International, maybe we do it on 290. It could be the first fight of UFC 290. That'd be fun. I'm trying to see. Did Lucinda, her last fight was also at the Apex, I assume? No, that was San Diego. The Hardy.

Okay, okay, okay, that's right. That's right. So they did get a chance to, okay. All right. I don't think Blis was fought in front of a crowd at all. That's depressing. She's, she's exciting. She's exciting.

Yeah. Her and Lysindo should be in front of a crowd. Yeah, that's a good fight. That's the one. Jeremiah Wells remains undefeated inside the Octagon, AK. It does. Oh. Did you not agree with this?

No. Were you on the Semelzberger? Okay. I just had trouble. Yes, because of the nature of the win and also where he kind of landed my rankings, I had a lot of trouble matching this guy. I had a lot of trouble. Oh, fair enough. Fair enough.

I don't know if it was easy for you. Well, tough fight with Matthew Semelzberger. Again, I think Matthew Semelzberger is a really good fighter. Incredible athlete. I actually think he's one of the best athletes in the entire division. Not great fight IQ last night. Not great fight IQ. Had Jeremiah Wells hurt many times in this fight. And instead of just keeping it on the feet, he decided to go to the ground in Jeremiah Wells' world and got beat up, man. Like a lot of people were like, oh, where's the damage? Where's the damage?

Jeremy Wells was landing damage in that fight. He was landing damage. She was landing ground and pound. Wasn't the prettiest, but he was doing things. So I scored a 29, 28 for Wells, no issue with the result at all. I actually didn't even hate the 3027, to be honest. A lot of people are like, oh, that is one of the worst scorecards I've ever seen. That is, it's a fine scorecard.

3027 is very acceptable for how that played out. But good win for Wells, continues to get the hand raised, and now it's time for the Brian Barberina test day. Oh, okay. That's my pick. Let's get weird with this. I think this would be an extremely weird, chaotic sort of fight to me.

So let's go with Brian Barbarina. I like that one. Yeah, so I have Wells somewhere in my top 30. He's a few spots behind Barbarina in my rankings. Barbarina's just right there in the top 25. And I do think Wells should be bumped up. I do think regardless of whatever, you know,

if it was a controversial, I'm doing air quotes right now. Split decision. He's 4-0. 4-0, he won six overall. This is good. Look good news. I'm still reeling from the McGee knockout. I don't know how long he gets to ride that for.

but when he knocked out Cort McGee, I was just blown away. I was rewatching that, and I'm like, wow. Like, just nobody does that. Just nobody straight up flattens Cort McGee. It's one of the toughest freaking guys in the UFC, and he's fought very, very heavy hitters, and Wells planted him. So I'm going a little lower than Brian Barbarina, but sticking around the same range, Muslim Salikov, Muslim Salikov.

It'd be a very interesting style matchup, tough test, tough guy to figure out, but certainly a win-a-will fight for Wells. and Salacob also coming off a win. So the real question of match at Wells was like, do you want to try and find a way to slide him into the top 20? But a lot of these guys are booked, or I would say just as far as esteem in the eyes of the public and the matchmakers, they're just a notch above him.

So he needs one more. I know that sucks to say about a guy who's four and O in the UFC so far. But, you know, Welthwaite has always been one of the deepest divisions. So he's just one win away. One win away. Then we started talking about like the Dan. Neil Rodriguez is, the Neil Magnes, the Vicente Lucchase and stuff like that. He's just not quite there yet.

I'm not saying it would shock me if he managed to get a matchup with the top 15, top 20 guy, but we can pump our breaks a little bit here. I thought I saw that Salikoff was booked for something. We haven't confirmed yet. No, nothing. There's reports. It's not even on topology, so this is not doo-do at all. I don't want anybody giving my best friend any doo-do nuggets because there's nowhere.

It's not even on tapology. I just looked at it. I don't even want doo-do particles in my area, all right, for this one. Yeah. Don't even get a whiteboard and write the word do-do. What is the rumor? Don't even do that. Muslim Salikov versus Nicholas Dalby, June 17th.

I did see that. I did see that. In Las Vegas, MMA mania reporting that. But I don't know. Maybe that's the case. We'll see. We'll see. So let's go to the wildcar round, okay? Let's go to the wildcar round.

We'll select one fighter we have not matched made for, and we'll matchmake for them right now. You know who I'm picking. I don't know if you're picking the same guy or Dow. I think we have to. I think we have to pick the same guy. Could this be? I'm wondering if this could be the one. We have never had a Friends Forever Wild Card moment.

Is this it, A.K. Okay. Is it the same guy, first of all? You know exactly who I'm picking. As soon as you saw this person's name on the card, you probably knew that if he won, I'm picking him. We better be talking about Montel Jackson. Quick. Hell yeah. Okay. Hell yeah.

Now, did we, are we friends forever, though? That's the question. Should we count to three and say it simultaneously? Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah, and look. Okay, ready? This is going to end so poorly. I just know it. I can't wait.

You count, you count. All right. We go one, two, three, and go. One, two, three, say it. Name, okay. One, two, three. Three. Chris Goodyear. Saida Magamato.

I knew it. It was delayed too. It was delayed so much you could have changed it. You could have changed it. I was laughing before. I was laughing before. I knew we didn't have the same pick. I mean, look.

We're both in, we're both right around where we should be heading here. Yeah. We're right about where we should be. explain okay i like your pick why i i guess i just went i gutier's was definitely in play i guess i just went with let's go with guys who are on winning streaks but um and also i i still don't know where said is in the bantam weight like future contenders picking order uh he's in my top 15 of just ufc fighters just uc bantam weights he's right there at number 15

Montel jackson i bumped him up slightly to number 20 uh he jumped him up slightly to number 20 uh he jumped a few veteran names after that very impressive win over Hanya Yaya. So, so yeah, I think his next logical step is to face a top 15 opponent. I just didn't, because I actually have him ahead of Chris Gutierrez now, literally one spot ahead. I have Montel 20. Tatee? No, no. Oh, yeah, okay, okay.

I have Montel 20, Chris Gutierrez, 21. So I already have him ahead. If my rankings were a little different, then that would probably make a lot of sense for me. but I wanted to go up. So I have my number 20 facing my number 15 in my UFC, a bantam weight rankings. And that's really it. Oh, Saeed is coming off a loss.

That's right. I thought he is. He lost Jonathan Martinez. I totally forgot about that. Silence behind the violence. Well, I stand by it. Forget everything I just said. Forget everything I just said, but I stand by.

Yeah. I mean, look, Montel, anyone who has listened to this show or have been following my career, nobody in this media space has been higher on Montel Jackson at 135 than I had been. I have been since well before Miami fighting days. Ronnie Yaya hadn't been finishing a fight in over 13 years, AK. December 2009 was the last time he was finishing a fight.

He's tough. Rosa Benavitas, WEC. That was the last time he got finishing a fight. So he's one of those guys that people would think like, oh, he's probably like, you know, if he loses it, it's by knock on. It's like, no, man. He's not getting ganged regularly. That's a great word. word.

The thing with Montel, it's always been the injuries and the inactivity. The skills are always there. And it's just a matter of like he fights, he'll fight, he'll look incredible and then he won't fight for 14 months. And we're like, what the hell's going on? Now we're on a nice little run. Two fights in five months, I believe. I believe November to April.

That's the kind of rate I want to see from this guy. And if he continues at this sort of rate, he's going to fly. He's going to fly up those rankings. So him and Gutierrez is a great fight. Nice step up in competition. I want to see where he's at. This is kind of the Brett John step because when he fought Brett Johns, he got worked a little bit in that fight.

It's a fight I would like to see again, if we're being honest, and I would pick Montel Jackson again in that fight with this newer version of Montel versus the current version of Brett John. So this is kind of like the Brett Johns sort of a step up, and that's what I want to see. but Saeed's a good one too. Like both close picks. Montal Jackson is so good.

It sucks that, I really feel like we need to change the MA fighting global rankings and have like some of them be like a top 25, some of them be a top five. Like women's band-o-weight should just be a top five list. Men's band-in-wate should be a top-25 list because it's, it's silly. It's silly when we're looking ahead to a card and we go like, oh, this card has, you know, six ranked fighters on it. And we're including like Lena Landsbergs on there or something. I mean, she's retired now, I guess.

but she was ranked up until like four months ago or something. And then, but then Montel Jackson's fighting Hanayah, yeah. And we're like, oh, this fight doesn't have any ranked fighters on it. I'm like, if Montel Jackson, the equivalent of him at women's banditweight would be like top three or at heavyweight. He's like he'd be like top ten. Like it's just, it's such a tough division. And it sucks to say like some of these people aren't like, Collar Phillips isn't in my top of dean. Collar Phillips is awesome.

Chris Gutierre is like I said, isn't in my top of dean. And he was on a hell of a run before taking that loss. so Bantamweight's just so good. And man, we got to find a way to reframe these rankings because just using top 15 as a barometer for all divisions, it's, it's, it just feels, it's so wrong. It's just really wrong. Yeah, my Bantamweight rankings are going to look a little bit different. Patchy Mix will be a top five Bannam White. That's for sure.

I guess I just save it for the rankings show, but I don't know if we're doing one until after the next pay-per-view, which I guess is two weeks. What's that? Less than two weeks. weeks. Less than two weeks. Okay, I'll save. I'll save it. I'll save the, uh, where, where patchy stands.

Because there's going to be some debate over. There was debate over it heading into that fight with Stots. And we were saying on the previous show, Mike, like it depends. We were just, we were asked, will he be a top five? And then you and I both kind of said, uh, outcome matters, not just how, the, the, how, how the outcome happens matters. Uh, first round knockout via knee, counter knee. It's going to, it's going to bump you up.

It's going to bump you up pretty quickly, yeah, more so than like a decision win would have, you know, so. I probably would have been very, it would have been very, like, even if you went out there in 49, 46, sure. Stats, I probably still would have put him in my top five. But that, I mean, that's ridiculous. Did not see that coming. That was just an incredible performance.

Did not see that coming? Let's go to the peeps, AK. Yeah. Didn't we get a check the tapes? We did. We got a few. Someone who reminded me, I want to say it was Hayes. Hayes, was it you that reminded me?

Hayes Bethard reminded me of Vittorre versus Canaaner on June 17. I think pretty much a lot of us called for that. That was my pick that week for Vittori or for Kenon. Vittori? Votory. Who fought recently and won? Or who fought more recently? Vittory.

Votory. So yes, June 17th, that's going down. So a little sprinkling of points for everyone. Toby Kinsella, he said he messes you, Mike. He sent this to you, not to me. So he wants a full, on no point for, we have not confirmed this yet. For. Neither have either of the fighters, by the way.

Oh, okay. Oh, so you got this message from Mike as well. I did not get this message. I have seen it. Okay. All right. Normally when these two ladies have fights and people are reporting them, they usually like confirm it.

Neither of them have confirmed it. I'm not saying it's not happening, but we have not confirmed this fight. I haven't had messages out about it. I have not heard anything back and neither fighter is confirmed it. This point is being put in a separate account right now. It will, it's time locked. It's time locked. It will release and Toby you will receive your point.

Should the spout be announced? Should we be able to confirm Gillian Robertson versus Tabitha Ritchie, UFC Jacksonville, June 24th? Not confirmed? Oh, Mike, you're making a sour face. Okay. Jillian called her out. Yes.

So, I mean, you're literally just taking the fighter's call out and just saying, okay, let's do that. And it's a very sensible callout. And a lot of people were picking that fight. Mike, sometimes the sensible callout is the real call out. I will give him a half of a. He's not getting a full lot. You recall the other people.

I didn't have, I didn't make notes for this event, I don't think. They're a bunch of those. They're a bunch people. Okay. So Toby, you will have to share the point, but this point is being put away for now until we confirm it or until you see on M-Afighting. Datcam or some sort of announcement from the UFC or at least one of the fighters, you know, corroborating this matchup suggestion. But so Toby, listen, I ran it by the committee. And at least you're getting recognition for reminding us.

but it probably will end up being a shared point should that fight come to fruition. And Mike, you and you did remember which caller it was from heck of a morning, right? Who you guys figured out this main event switch? CV. C.V. Mike and C.V.

You guys can share a point for correctly predicting that the Song Yadong, Ricky Simone, which was supposed to be the co-main event match on Saturday night, has now pushed to this coming Saturday night as the very logical main event with that event losing its virtually scheduled main event. So well done, guys. Just logical. Just good sense.

Okay, I am not, I'm going to take a bit of an assist on that because I think the passion that was displayed about this idea helped will this into existence. But I cannot accept even a piece of this. It all goes to CV.

So there you go, CV. You get the entire out now point. See, people think, people heard your rant against Toby. and people thought like, man, Mike is a hard ass, but like, no, Mike is fair. I am fair. In a business where we tell people not to use the word fair or to use the word deserves, this man is keeping those tenants alive. So you're such a fair man. This is why you're my best friend.

This is why you're going to hear. And something tells us we're going to hear from both of these gentlemen in a matter of moments. Great. Great. I can't. I look forward to it. Toby, CB, if you're out there, will always love the support. Thank you guys for listening and calling in.

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Good stuff. I always forget do this at the end of the show. So can we do a quick happy trails, Mike? Yes. Yes, I forgot all about that. Can we do happy trails for the Spaniard, Juan Espino? Poor guy, his UFC career was over before it begun. I mean, he just, he won the Ultimate Fighter, but I remember we were all saying, what was it?

What was it? He won Ultimate Fighter 29, oh, 28, excuse me. and like he he is older than like Diego Sanchez or something like he's older than the guy who won the ultimate fighter won and he's just starting his career now like we're like hopefully he could you know have some uh you know a little nice little run in the heavyweight division no one predicted him to be a world beater listen uh he was like I said already in his late 30s by the time he got to the UFC uh he managed three fights in five years it's just Just a lot of problems with injuries.

I told you, he's had more Otno projected matchups than actual fights in the UFC. He beat Justin Frazier in the finale to win Aldo Fighter, beats Jeff Hughes first round, and then that bizarre split decision lost to Alexander Romanov, which a lot of people wanted to see it run back. Obviously, that didn't happen. So Happy Trails won. Again, it sucks. It sucks that the injuries piled up. A lot of Otno listeners kept wanting to see you fight.

Had a lot of interesting heavy matchups for you. and you know what hopefully we see you see you on the training mats dropping competition and something like that but uh yeah that that's that was unfortunate that was tough that was tough but probably the right call and yeah just would love to have seen what if he could stay healthy and just be have a consistent schedule with his with his fights just there's just tough sport it's a very tough sport but he got to the big dance and happy trails to El Guapo himself, Juanos Spino.

A.K., shall we just do the disclaimer for the piece? On to the listeners, guys. Categories rule, again, very rare these days. If you're somehow the only person to make a pick, guess what? You've got a single Otno point for yourself, which can change your life.

Please, people pay attention to weight classes, if people fought already, you know, and you're trying to match them up again, at least put a two next to their name, so I know you remember. Notable injuries, people who have been released, but hard to keep track of.

Fighters could already book as the easiest thing to keep track of, though I guess I kind of mifted today with Salakov, whatever, not official. No, no, you didn't. Not official. I'm just saying, I'm just saying. If I mentioned the Robertson-Ritchie fight,

I should have known about the Salafi. I should have remembered the Salakab Dalby fight. Because I definitely saw that. I remember seeing that floating around Salakob Dalby. And people, teammates, teammates, away from each other. Not saying it's impossible.

Look, we might see teammates and close friends Elimelae McFarlane and Liz Karmush fight next if Alima has anything to say about it. But otherwise, generally, you're not going to see teammates throw down. So why suggest it? It's a waste. And of course, guys, your pictures might be do-do, and we don't want to read it.

Well said. So let's get into it. Dad Jackson, usually when I see, is it Dad that always scares the hell out of me? And he was like on the brink of just getting banned. That's the one. Just so much doo-do. That's the one.

He has improved. Let's go to Dad. Pavlovich versus Gahn. Bruno Silva versus Bodybags Pfeiffer. I'm with you there. Semelsberger versus Brian Barbarina. Jeremiah Wells versus Michael Morales. Christos Gios, who had a nice knockout of Ricky Glenn versus Nassarat Hakperast.

He's with you, AK. Montel Jackson versus Saeed Ramaga Madoff. And this one, I'm surprised I didn't see more of this. Muhammad Usman versus Justin Tafa. I saw a lot of that. Yeah. You did? Sure.

Makes sense. A little revenge fight? Yeah, Brothers Revenge. Yeah, Brother's revenge. Yeah, Kamaru in Muhammad's corner. Then there you go. It's almost like a brother. Brothers.

I'd rather see a tag team batch. I think that would be awesome. But, again, fortunately, doesn't do that sort of thing. I don't know about Michael Morales versus Jeremiah Wells. That's a big step up for Michael Morales. And I think Michael Morales is awesome. I think this guy, again, you book him right. We're talking a future top five guy.

that's a big step up right now for his where he is in his career he's uh he's only 23 he's only 23 um hey hey listen maybe he's the next big thing i don't know they've been giving him tough matchups anyway um i thought that renat fakertinov matchup was really difficult so it could happen i just i just wouldn't do it john ray highstand versus daniel santo's johnny munoz junior winner go me versus trezano i don't know what's going on with trisano He's another guy. He's had so many injury problems, right? His last win was the last fight in his deal, right?

And he missed weight. So I don't know, I don't know what's going on with him. Right. I don't think he's re-signed. He won. He did win, and it was a sick fight. Yes. So, I don't know.

It's not doo-do at all. No. Just because you don't know what the hell's going on. So definitely no doo-doo. Uspin versus Parisian. That is probably the middle. weightiest heavyweight fight in the history of the UFC right there. Wow, that was one of those picks that made me black out.

Yeah, okay, sure. Were they, I'm trying to think, Josh Peresian, Josh, Josh Parisian. He was on. Contender series, multiple, three times, and the ultimate fighter. Wasn't he on the Ultimate Fighter with Mo Usman? The Ultimate Fighter 28, right? Ultimate Fighter. Oh, no, he.

No, he was on the Vannospino season, wasn't he? Yes, yeah, yeah, as was as was Mo. Oh, no. Mo was on 28? No, he wasn't. He was in 29. Wait, did they do back-to-back heavyweight seasons? No, Mo was on like the last,

Mo won this contract, like last year, right? Yeah, but that was just, that was like, there was a gap, I think, between 28 and 29. God, the ultimate fighter so dumb. Isn't this one coming up 31? This is 30 coming up. Oh, this is 31 coming up. So this is 30 that he just won, right?

What the hell was 29? What happened in 29? What was like? I mean, there you go. You know this more than I do. I've ashamed. Stupid show. Oh, oh, Volcan Oscar Retega season.

Yeah, that wasn't bad. Brady Houston and, I'm sorry, Ricky Terseos and Brian Battle. Ricketeris and Brian Bowel. That's right. Right. So Mo Usman, okay, right, was the last season. Parisian was two heavy, God,

they did two heavyweight seasons in three. Stop. Mike, just go on. Just stop me. I'm going down a well. I'm going down a well here. Blades versus the Gon Aspinall loser

and in parentheses that fight should also happen so he's matchmaking double I think John Aspinall makes all the sense in the world Bruno Silva versus the Fluffy Hernandez Edmund Shabazzian winner

Jeremiah Wells versus Phil Rowe maybe Phil Rowe wants to fight on that Jacksonville card I know this from following on social media which is June 24th I don't think he's going to get Jeremiah Wells

but we'll see what happens. Gagos versus Selecki, Jackson versus Casey Kenny. Where is Casey Kenny? Let's see. And AK, maybe you'll like this one. And there's literal quotes here. A title eliminator.

Norma DuBant versus Josiani Nunes. Yeah, I saw a lot of that. Do people have comments for that I want to read? Casey Carpenter said, yeah, for a title fight, if Amanda wants to be 145 champ, and the U.S. He wants to keep the division.

God, what are we doing? Bear O'Reilly said, make this fight to keep Josie busy while the Pena versus Nunes trilogy plays out. After this win, she'll be undeniable. And we'll finally get Nunes versus Nunes for the strap and the name rights. Yes, yes.

It shouldn't just be for the title. Someone should have to lose their Nunes. That I agree with, but just a dreadful, dreadful situation. Amanda, could maybe Amanda answer off? Would that have to be the switch? Why not? If Josiani loses? That'd be nice.

There you go. Is that really a loss then? Is that really a lost then? No. You suddenly have a new alliterative name. That's kind of cool. That's a nice, see, that's a nice, feel-good's potential storyline right there. And Josian Nunes becomes a UFC champion, which was, sounds insane.

Yes, it does. God, those two in the same octagon together fighting each other would just be the best. The visual of like the face-off. Hilarious. I don't know if you realize how tiny. Josian Nunes is tiny. She is a tiny, tiny, tiny woman. And her fighting at 145 is just so awesome and funny.

It would look like Elle-Bruck versus Miss Danielleca at pink and boxing. I'm sorry, saying it again, was that English? What? That was. That's what really happened. L. Brooke. Ms. Denialk versus Miss Danielka.

Okay. Josian Nunez, by the way, she would smoke Norman Duma. She will, I am caught frigging either first round. First round, K.O. Or 3026 decision. She'll disintegrate her. Wow. All right.

Now I have to see this fight. I'm on the record. I'm on the record. Mark this down. Make sure you record this and save it for the future. Drew Hilty. This is a time where I wish the UFC was like boxing and they could pay Steep A some step-aside money. Need Jones versus Pavish my life.

Look, it doesn't matter. You're going to have to pay Stepe A step-aside money and then you're going to have to buy, you're going to have to buy John Jones 100,000 cars and give him a floppy-dillion dollars. to pair him to fight Sergei Pavlovich. So it's just not going to happen. Blades versus gone. Hopefully Blades remembers he's allowed to mix the martial arts. Green and Gordon don't really think we need to see it run back.

No, he mixed the martial arts too much. That's the problem. They're looking for sure. He tried to mix in the striking with his wrestling. He needed to just do wrestling. I guess both. I guess both makes sense, actually. Yes.

You can make a compelling case for both. Green and Gordon don't really think we need to run back unless they feel they need to rather see Green versus Michael Johnson win or lose against CDF. Wells versus RDA sounds fine to me. Get my boy RDA a second year. RDA is injured from what I understand, so I'm not really sure what his timeline looks at.

Looks like right at the moment. Montel Jackson. It's time for you to pick on someone your own age, Jackson. So he wants Jackson versus Adrian Yan is. What did you think of Dominic Cruz on the mic? I thought he was on fire between him dunking on Peterson with his all, nonsense line when talking about

Suhudo to him being 10 seconds away from starting to boo during the Dumont fight, he's never been better. I have to admit, I didn't listen to a ton of the commentary. I did hear the Cruz Peterson-Lyush if that was delightful. And you were doing the boxing stuff. I was doing the boxing stuff. I was doing the box. Yeah.

I think my only issue with, and I guess I should hear the joke first, but one of my issues with Cruz is when he jokes, he's not really joking. He's, he legitimately, I think, hates Keith Peterson. It's not a joke. Oh, 100%. So it's a little uncomfortable for me, for him to be openly criticizing an official. Unless they're making a mistake. Obviously, if they're making a mistake, I want the commentary to go all in.

And certainly Keith Pearson has made his share of mistakes. But generally, if it's just like taking random jabs at an official, I do find that a little problematic. So, but I get, it. It's a joke. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, guys. I'll get my stick out of my butt. If it was funny, it was funny.

But I know I don't love that. sort of thing. Anyway. All right. Toby. The aforementioned Toby. Oh, hey Toby.

Pavlovich versus Jones. Not going to happen. Blades versus gone. Maybe. Silva versus Robocop, AK. What do you think of that? Bruno Silva versus Gregor Rodriguez.

I'm super into it. I keep thinking that it happened. I don't know why. But yeah, obviously it has not been happened before. And I would love to. I got a ton of Blendado versus Robo Cup.

That would be a pretty sick fight. So yeah, sign me up for that. Jeremiah Wells versus Max Griffin. Diago's versus Marco Madsen, Montel Jackson, Davy Grant. Norbert Dumont versus Holly Holme, AK. Is the world ready for that action? Please, God, no. You know what?

Listen, there's a UFC Apex. They got a lot of UFC Apex cars to fill up over the next six months, apparently. So I guess that's your main event. That's a main event, right? There you go. You got yourself a main event. 100, that's definitely going to be a main event. Just horrible.

It's definitely going to be an event. Oh, boy, that, that is, that fight's going to happen, isn't it? That is, that, Toby, you might be getting an auto point. I have a feeling that that's the fight we're going to get. I would rather be, like, for the vacant title. I don't know if I, I think I saw someone mention that or something. And I'm like, yeah, fine, screw it. Just do it.

Just put a vacant tile on the line. Just, what are we doing with this featherweight belt on a man in Nunas? It shouldn't even exist, but if we must exist, can we at least have people We'll fight for it. We did have another Ousman, Justin Taffin. This, Gomi versus Sean Woodson. Don't know what's going on with Sean Woodson right now. Highstand versus Chad and Ellinger.

A little Canadian, America versus Canada. Fistakuffs. Sure. C.V. What's good, Mike? Here are some picks. Bruno Sillo versus Bruno Ferreira. Ferreira is booked against

Abdul Razak-A-Hassan. Topology says it's May 20th. I'm hearing July 1st, that fight's getting bumped, but I don't know for sure. So, I don't know. There's a lot of confusion of that one, so no do-do there. Crystal ballpick, Jones versus Mietchich happens at MSG later this year. And regardless of winner, someone retires. Tom Aspinall returns later this year against Cyril Gone.

Winner of that fight versus Sergei for the vacant heavyweight title. First of all, how dare you? not even list Jelton Almeda in this scenario. How dare you? But yeah, Tommy Aspinall is certainly in this conversation.

If he goes out there and fights Cyril Gond in London gets the star reaction, I get it. Totally get it. Could see that happen as well. Side note, is A.K. still covering heck of a morning for you next week.

If so, If you guys didn't come up with a title for it yet, here's some suggestions. One, today is a good day with AK or just simply good day AK. L.O.L. Anyways, thanks again for all the content. Someone suggested absolutely a heck of a morning, which I liked. But I kind of like Good Day AK. I've been DMed some very good suggestions. But guys, it's Lee of a morning.

All right? It fits perfectly. It rolls right. off the tongue. I don't. It's, I don't understand why. You just replaced one host name with the other host name. It's not hard, guys. Leah of like, it makes just as much sense. It's just as catchy. I don't understand. I don't know what the issue is. Marcus, closing us out. Let's see. Renat, Fakritino versus Jeremiah Wells, Yasmin, Lucindo, Denise Gomez. Oh, God, that is a fun fight. I went with Denise Gomez, Denise Gomez for the other Yasmin, the other Jasmine, but, uh, that's fine too.

Bobby Green versus Demir is Magulov. Yes, right? Yeah, Demir has one fight left. He retired, but then says he has one fight left, so he's going to do that last fight. So yeah, Bobby Green, why the hell not? All right. Bruno Silva versus Chiti and Joe Kowani.

I kind of like this fight because now Chidi has impossibly found himself in the middleweighty middleweighted conversation. And I kind of think Bruno would, a fight with him and Bruno would get him out of that section of things. I hope so. So that's the picks, AK, you're up.

All right. Okay, let me quickly look at Instagram here. Well, let me read out some popular picks first. Pavlovich versus Jelten Almeda for a vacant title. Yeah, very popular. Barry O'Reilly said, I don't even need to put in if he beats Rosenstrike as it's inevitable. Pretty strong. Can't see Jones or Steve A.

Be being too excited to fight a killer like Pavlovich. So unless he wants to sit out for a long time, he will need to take another fight. Ameta has his all. all thinking he's a future talent challenger. Two more wins over Rosenstrike and Palovitch would certainly confirm these projections. Yes, they would. A lot of Paloves versus John Jones.

Again, we've gone over. It's just not going to happen next. A lot of Blades versus Gone. So people don't want to see. People don't need to see Gone. You know, not necessarily don't need to. Don't feel that gone necessarily needs to fight Aspinall. Although I agree, that's a fight that's likely to happen.

I don't know. I think Blades can have to wait. Blades might have to wait for some of these heavyweight matchups and potential heavyweight matchups to shake off. I got a lot of Wells versus Max Griffin was a popular one. And we talked about Dumont versus Josian Nune as well. A lot of Moe Usman, Justin Tava. All right, let me go to Instagram real quick.

So if any of these are jumping out at me. There's a lot of Lucindo versus Veronica Hardy as well. Don't need to read all these out. From Matt Bradbury, Mo Usman versus Dontail May. Don't Tal Mays is still, I always, it's so insulting when you say this, but Dante I believe he is. I believe Dante is still with the promotion. He is. He's just coming off a loss. Okay. He's with me with Montel Jack and say,

Nareglo Mettov, Christos-Giagos versus Sondini, and some others that we've seen already. Thank you, Matt Bradbury. James Sherwood. Bruno Silva, Andre Muniz. I saw a few of these as well. Yasmin Lucino versus Montana de la Rosa. I could see that again if we're doing the sort of the build-up Lucindo thing. What else we got here? Diagos versus Mark Jacesee.

And Usman Tafo, round two, just in this time. Okay, so a lot of that. Going to the Twitter machine. You read Toby out already. Okay, thank you, Toby, for saying to both of us. That's actually always a smart thing to do. Hayes but third. Blades versus Spivak?

Probably. Yeah. Probably. Yeah, God, that's, geez, Louise. Probably not the fight that Blade was hoping for our next. That's a bit of a drop-off. than what he could have had. That's probably the fight.

Mo Usman versus Martin Boudai. Sure. Brady Heistin versus Christian Rodriguez. I'm to understand Brady called him out. Did you hear about this? He called out Christian Rodriguez? This is what I'm told. This is what Hayes said.

Sure. Okay. Herman or German. I've asked this person, I need to know how to pronounce her name. Blendado Silva versus Brasio-Aloxac winner happening next week. Bobby Green versus Patty Pimblit. Mike, you sort of said Bobby Green and Jerry Gordon maybe need to run it back for the right to face Patty.

But yeah, because Patty's going to be on the shelf for a bit, it sounds like. And I think Bobby will fight before that. But not a bad suggestion. Not a bad suggestion. Thomas Collins, Bobby Green versus Armand Sarukion. Montel Jackson versus Victor Henry. Mo Usman versus Walt Harris. Why not?

Yeah, listen, I don't know what's up with Walt Harris. you know, listen, his life was just turned upside down a few years ago. And if he never fought again, I would not be surprised. I'm sure he plans to, but it really would not surprise me. Barry O'Reilly-Haston versus Ronnie Lawrence. Mo Ousman versus... Oh, you're going to like this, Mike. Mo Ousman versus Alexander Romanov.

Barry says it's too easy to pick the Justin Tava fight. Romanov needs to start from scratch. After his last two showing, Usman has looked solid so far in the U.S. see a solid name on the resume for whoever wins. I hate this matchup. Mike, I don't know how you feel about it. Saying it plainly. Oh, man.

I actually think it would be super funny. Like, it'd be a hilarious fight. Yes, I'm sure it'd be fine. But I think Romanov is quite a bit above Mo Usman, isn't it? I don't know, man. No, we don't know now. Like, Mo Usman has proven his durability. he's proven his ability to survive.

Okay. So all he needs, almost we would need to do is get through the first three and a half minutes of the fight. Okay. If he could do that, they're both going to be incredibly tired, and it is going, the grappling is just going to be spectacular. So I kind of like it just for how funny it's going to be.

And we need to, we need, and if this fight happens, we need to keep this in mind that this is not, not going to be an elite versus elite fight. This is not going to be heavyweights fighting like fly weights. We just have to accept that this is going to be a hilarious fight. And we just need to enjoy it in that same way. So it would not be fun, but it would be really funny, if that makes sense. You have talked me into this.

You have really talked me into this. Just imagine the third round is going to look like. That silver tongue of yours has worked with magic again. So Barry O'Reilly, good big, I guess. Four Corner Sports, NY, Blaze versus Tuivasa, Lucino versus Agapova. He's with you, Montel Jackson versus Chris Gutierrez. Chris Martin, Blendado's Hill versus Fluffy Hernandez, Shabazian winner. That's going down May 20th.

Lucindo versus Antonina Shepchenko. I think Lucinda watches her at this point. Moe Usman versus, I actually like this. Mo Usman versus Chase Sherman, win-l loser draw when that Carl Williams fight, which happens, rebooked for UFC Charlotte May 13th. I actually like that. And let's end with a couple of emails here. We got Casey Carpenter with the usual round of columnants.

Hope Mike has a wonderful, well-deserved vacation and safe travels. Looking forward to leave a morning. See, it's catching on already. Giacos versus Selecki, Montel Jackson versus TSBTV, Jonathan Martinez. And I want to end on Jay Donaggie, because Jay Donaggy is going to lead us in to the next card. First, some suggestions, Wells Rowe, Licendo Blissmas, Bobby Green, Green. Grant Dawson, and then I didn't know what they were talking about it first,

but Jay Donagie says, two top 10 bantamates fighting, and maybe the best division, a guy who used to be a middleweight fighting at heavyweight, a jiu-jitsu master with questionable cardio going against an energizer bunny, exciting prospects, Quinlan and the karate kid, Natan Levy, exciting vets like Brian Kellerher

and Julian Arosa, most importantly, my personal favorite fighter, Michael Oleg Sechek versus Kyle Braleo, as long as it stays in the, defeat. It will be over in the first round. Next week's card is going to be great. Thumbs up emoji. Well, that's a stretch. It won't be bad.

M.M.A. supposed to be fun. We might have a new Prince of positivity. Because even, I'm not going to say anything. I'm leaving you on that. I don't even want to. I will watch the preview show this week for my thoughts on this upcoming card. Can you at least give us, I mean, the gymnastics scale could change, but can you just give me a off the top of the dome? gymnastics score right now.

It's got to be below the norm, right? If everything goes well, I mean, we're looking at 7.5. And this is if we get knockout, submissions on the prelims, you know, a couple of three-round bangers, a five-round banger in the main event. If all that happens, at best, at best, 7.5. Because no matter what happens, again, you can have all first-round outcomes in the prelims, this is very likely not a card we'll be talking about at the end of the year. so oh god yeah

so the main so Josh Quinlan's not even like if you look at topology it says Josh Quinnlin versus Angeloza that fight's not even happening anymore Marcel Dorff reported the new opponent for Josh Quinlan

and it is it is where the hell is it come on man how many fucking times you tweet is Josh Quinlan versus LFA welterweight champion

Trey Waters. Whoa. Oh, shoot. He just won. I literally just wrote in, I think Ms. Fiss,

I'm like, yeah, this guy's probably getting a, oh, I did, I wrote that he,

he, he, he fell short in a contender series, right? He did contender series. He fought one of the Bonfeme,

one of the Bonfine brothers, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then his first fight since that won the Welterweight title, a vacant welterweight title.

So nice, love that. And now he's going to the UFC. Good for you, Tray Waters. Let's go. Just turn around quick. So 12 fights, which is not bad. And you have to think with the luck the UFC's having

one of these is getting out of here. So we're probably going to be at 11 fights, which is a positive. 4 p.m. prelim start, which is good. Pretty good main event. We get Song You Dong versus Ricky Simone. Kyle Barallio versus Mikhail Olexeych.

Rest of the main card, Hidalfa Vietta versus Cody Brundage. Julian Arosa versus for not. Pado Padilla, and the opening main card matchup might be the fight with the longest names in the heavyweight division. Marcos Rogerio de Lima versus Waldo Cortez-Acosta. That is a main card, folks.

That is your main card. And then we have the Josh Quinlan fight we just discussed. Martin Boudai versus Jake Collier, the Ton Levy. Boudai's messed up. Oh, no, I read out a matchup from earlier. Well, retroactive doo-doo for you, sir. Sorry for whoever. Routi versus Moos Rung.

Julieta, we already said that one. Natan Levy, Pete Rodriguez. So that doesn't seem like it's going to go off for Pete Rodriguez. Cody Durdon versus Charles Johnson. That's a good fight. That's a very good fight. Stephanie Egger versus Arena Alex Siva. Stephanie Egger is a really good fighter to get God through.

Is she not? Very good. Yes. And I feel like that's what's going to happen here. Brian Kelleher, Journey Newson, good fight. And opening things up, fingers crossed. Let's hope it happens.

I think we're both crossing our fingers right now. And I'm, my elbows as the fingers are crossed, knocking wood. Haley Cowen, scheduled for what? This is like your third or fourth fight already. And hasn't competed yet against Canada's own, making her UFC debut,

Jamie Lynn Horth, AK. There you go. The pride of Squamish, Squamish, BC. We're supposed to have Armand Saruki on Hanata Moikano on this card. We're supposed to have Chelsea Chandler versus Danielle Wolf on this card.

We're supposed to have Emily Decode versus Pollyanna Viana on this card. That fight has been moved to May 20th. That I know. But there you go. That's UFC Vegas 72 going down next week. AK will be here. I will not.

I'm taking about a week and a half off. My mom is celebrating her 70th birthday next week. So we're going to throw a little shin dig, if you will. And I'm going to play a little golf during the week and just

take a little breather from Combat Sports Action. Florida Mike's going to be in effect all of next weekend. And then I'll be back, I believe, the Wednesday before UFC 288. So right smack dab in the middle of fight week.

That's when I will return. So make sure you listen to this program. AK will be here. and don't miss, Lee of a morning, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, 10 a.m. Easter on the M.A. fighting Twitter spaces and the following Tuesday

on the M.A. fighting Twitter spaces. AK, thank you for filling the role, filling a very pivotal seat here. Lee of a morning, it's trending. It's trending. I'm going to be in one of those influencer boxing shows any day now, I'm telling you, with all my TikTok and my spacing.

I can't wait. Very excited. So thank you very much. Back next week to recap UFC. Vegas 72 from matchmaking perspective. And always remember the golden rule, everybody. It ain't official unless it's on MMAfighting.com. And the rule of this program, don't take the stuff too seriously.

MMA is supposed to be fun, and we will have lots of fun on UFC Vegas 72's addition to this program right here. And on to the next one, the podcast. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.