MMA Fighting - On To the Next One | Matches To Make After UFC Vegas 90

Episode Date: April 7, 2024

Brendan Allen delivered a gritty performance in a classic main event matchup against Chris Curtis at UFC Vegas 90. After his seventh straight win, Allen called for a fight with UFC middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis, or former champion Sean Strickland. Will "All-In" get either of his requests? On an all-new edition of On To the Next One, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee give their thoughts on what could be next for Allen following his victory over Curtis in their rematch. Additionally, future matchups are discussed for Damon Jackson after defeating Alexander Hernandez in the co-main event, Chepe Mariscal after improving his record to 3-0 inside the octagon in the event's Fight of the Night, along with fellow main card winners, Ignacio Bahamondes, Charlie Campbell, and more after the promotion's final stop on the road to UFC 300. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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But ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, we are officially in the middle of UFC 300 fight week. As we record this episode, as you hear this episode for the first time, we are six days away from UFC 300. and it just cannot come soon enough. As we decide to do some matchmaking here, we'll talk about what's next for some of the tastemakers from the world's most famous Apex's latest event. I am Mike Kack and joining me as always the co-host, the matchmaker, excuse me,

Prince of positivity and gosh darn it, my best friend, Alexander Cayley, AK, how are we doing on this Sunday? I assume you're much more well-rested than you, typically would be following an Apex event on Sunday morning. You would think so, my best friend, but I had to wake up around 5.36 in the morning today to get ready for Celtic Rangers. Biggest match.

Well, probably the biggest match of the season, though, I guess they do get to play. They are probably going to play again now in a few weeks. So if anyone's tuning in now, you know the score. There was a draw. Very disappointing. But I did have to get up super early. So, no, I'm quite exhausted. And the fact that Celtic didn't win, drained.

And, yes, it's sort of put a damper on the otherwise thrilling apex card that we saw on CERN. Yeah, look, the main card saved this thing because the prelims were just god-awful. They were so bad. And we were, especially after the Lucas Brezky-Walter Walker fight, which is arguably one of the 10 worst fights in UFC history, this was trending towards being the worst card in the last five years. It was just horrific and bad and not thrilling in any way. You could have put 14,000 people in the apex, and it would not have done, made any difference to the quality of this event. It was so, so bad.

Of course, there were some decent finishes, Nora Canole, and Cesar Almeida had some nice finishes, but all in all, like, just, it was so tough, AK. It was so tough. I'm so happy it is 300 Fight Week. And these all, this all just kind of blend together now, aka these Apex events. Do we they not?

Just pretend the last couple of weeks are essentially the prelims of UFC 300, the extended prelims. So we've had two weeks of prelims, including, again, great fight between Chris Curtis and Brendan Allen. Intriguing, maybe not a great fight, not a fight. We've rewatched any time soon. Intriguing fight between Mennell and. And Aaron Blanchfield, I'm just trying to look back the last card.

You know, we've had some – we had a bunch of finishes last week. These were the prelims. This weekend last week were the prelims to UFC 300. Yeah, and the week before that as well. So we got some decent cards. Saturday, I don't know if I'd quite put it up there. You're right. Main card was solid.

But otherwise, look at all this guys as the prelims for you, the extended, extended prelims for YosC 300. So we're so close. So close, guys. We sure are. Yes, the main card was very solid. Shout out to Charlie Campbell and Trevor Peake for setting the table. Ignacio Baja Baja Baja Monday's, great finish.

Chippe Mariskel, Morgan Chariar, great fight. Damon Jackson, Alexander Hernandez was a better fight than I think people thought it would be. And then Brandon Allen, Chris Curtis was a million times better than people thought it was going to be. So all in all, started off. Usually these apex cards have tremendous prelims. main card is a sloggy slog slog slog, but this is the complete opposite. And Brendan Allen, Chris Curtis, shout out to them setting the table beautifully for UFC 300.

And then there's a week off after 300. And then it's back to the world's most famous apex for Matthias Nicolao versus Alex Perez in the main event. But more on that in a couple weeks. Let's get into the matchmaking, AK. Let us talk about Brendan Allen. Seven wins in a row. He finally defeats Chris Curtis.

He gets one back. Chris Curtis, the last man to defeat Brendan Allen. This is a super close fight. A lot of people are kind of torn on this one. I scored it 48, 47 for Brendan Allen. But I have to admit, AK, WrestleMania was happening, so I wasn't completely zoned in.

One million percent on this fight, but it was very good for the 22 and a half minutes that I watched. In the end, Brennan Allen gets a split decision win. He called out Drickus Duplice, hashtag not doing the thing. That was not good, and I was willing to give him a little bit of a pass because he just got the shit beaten out of him for 25 minutes by Chris Curtis.

Jed was not willing to give him any kind of a pass. So, and then he called for Sean Strickland a little bit after that. So where did you end up? Because, spoiler alert, Brennan, at least in my eyes, he's definitely not getting DDP. That was almost a laughable call out. And he's also not going to get Sean Strickland, AK. Well, I'll tell you.

I assume I know where you went, but I'll give you my pick first. I do like the Strickland rematch. When Strickland, when he lost to Duplice, I think I said I wanted to throw Strickland to Shemaiah. But we know Shemaiah now is fighting Whitaker. So Strickland definitely, his card is still free. He's been campaigning for a DDP rematch. Again, we don't think that's happened anytime soon. So I think fighting someone else in the top 10 is a logical way to go for Sean Strickland.

And again, also for Brendan Allen, who was supposed to fight Marvin Vittori, I was supposed to get a chance to take his top five, top six spot, however he's ranked at UFC or wherever he is in the M.A. Fighting global rankings. And again, he's wanted that's John Strickland rematch for a long time. He would certainly be very happy to get it. I don't know what Strickland's all of interest is. We know he talks some crap about Alan after the fight. You guys can read about that on M.AFighting.com, kind of saying like he didn't really,

won. He thought Chris won. Of course, Chris is his training partner and his good friend. And also that based on Curtis taking the fight on like 20-something days notice that Brennan Allen's win like, ah, it's not that impressive. He's going to get discount the win. You know, you beat a Chris Curtis who wasn't prepared, you know, fully prepared. And fine, you know, that's a fair criticism. But listen, you get in there. It's a result that matters. Sean Strick can say whatever he wants.

Chris Curtis, I don't know how he's going to feel about it. I think he respects Brandon a lot. I don't think he's going to try and downplay that loss. And again, and Chris Curtis fought really well. So I'll make anything more out of it. But, yeah, I do think fighting Sean Strickland, again, is the way to go. I know Strickland's got more of a name now, but I think he has to protect his spot. And, hey, he's got a win over Allen already.

If you're Sean Strickland, you'd be pretty confident, you can win again. But Chris Curtis probably was too. I think Brinnell would do better in a rematch. But I am curious to find out. If this was PFL or Bellator, this is the fight. It's the one that makes the most sense. It's an meritocratic way to do things. But this ain't those promotions.

This is the UFC. And as good as that fight was, first of all, it didn't even get fight of the night on that card, which is wild to be. What happened there? I don't know. What do we mean? I'm fine with the pick. Yeah. But people are calling it the fight of the year.

And it might be the front runner right now. It's not even going to be in our top five by the end of the year. It's just not going to be because it happened at the apex mostly. and I saw some media members say the stakes couldn't be any higher. There were like no stakes in this fight. Outside of the only stakes are really like Brennan Allen just can't lose. Otherwise, he's completely out of the title conversation right now. At least that's how I viewed it.

Brennan just hasn't done himself a ton of favors in terms of like being super interesting and like becoming a star. And as good as he is, there are just, when we talked about this on the post-fight show, If they booked DDP versus Izzy, let's just say they booked it right now. It's going to happen in August and Perth, right? And it's June or July. It's July, mid-July, or the beginning of July.

And Izzy's out. He can't fight. But they still want DDP to fight. How far down the list is Brennan Allen when it comes to the phone calls? Is he like five? is he five, six, seven? Like, he's pretty far down there right now. Yep.

If everybody, I mean, I know there's fights booked, but let's just say they're not. If we're looking at Brennan Allen, who's number six in the UFC rankings, he's probably like the ninth or tenth phone call, which is crazy. It's probably not that fair. What Brennan Allen is probably becoming right now, and it's not his fault. I mean, it kind of is. He's the, he's the, he's the Ballahmohama'am of this division. He's going to have to win, he's going to have to win like 10, 11, 12 fights in a row before he gets a title fight, which is, it's just the way that it is.

Star Power rules. It rules everything. Meritocracy means nothing. Blahmahman still doesn't have a title fight booked, and he fought a number one contender fight in May of last year. That was a long time ago. By the time Balal gets fights for the belt, that's if he gets this fight, it's going to be like 16 months between fights. and he's healthy and ready to go. I don't understand.

But anyways, because of all of this and because of how the UFC does their booking and such, and because Brennan Allen did not do himself any favors by calling out drink his stupilcy, he basically just threw away a call-out.

He threw away his chance to get like a really good fight. You know who didn't throw away his chance? Martin Vittori did not throw away his chance because he tweeted up a storm. He was compelling and interesting and he had people talking. and I still want to see it, A.K.

Like, this is the fight I wanted after Brennan's most recent win over Paul Craig heading into this one. And this is, and they booked it. Let's just rebook it. Like, this is the one. I mean, it just is. This is probably the best Brennan can hope for right now. Maybe he gets Jared Cannotier, who's the forgotten man in all of this. But I think he's going to get Fittori.

I think it's probably going to happen at the world's most famous apex. And that's what he's going to get. I was going to ask you, did he accidentally talk himself into just rebooking that match? Because the post-flight press conference, and I wrote this up for MAAfighting.com, it'll go up probably later on Sunday. He did the right thing at first saying, oh, I don't care about Vittori. He's irrelevant. And then spent the next maybe 10 minutes talking about Vittori.

So I'm like, ah, like, Brendan, I get what you're trying to do. You're accidentally selling this fight. You don't mean to. I don't think you mean to. Or he's smarter than we think, and he does want to rebook the Vottery Fight. And he's like hyping in advance. But he seems pretty genuine. So I have this feeling when he says like, oh, I don't want to, I'm over Vitori.

Like I don't care about fighting him again. I think he means it. But then he said all the stuff about like, you know, come see me, come see me, whatever. I'll fight you outside the cage. And UFC, they love that stuff, guys, when they're talking about matchups. So you could be right that we could just see a rebooking. 100%. I don't think Sean's Strickland.

I'm not going to say Sean's not interested in it because Sean is interested in fighting anybody. So if they're just like, yeah, I don't care. whatever. Brennan Allen tomorrow. Okay. But I think Sean is becoming a prize, a little more prize-fighterie. And he's already,

he's already kind of thumped up Brennan. I know it was three, four years ago. But Paul Costa fights way bigger. Like Hamzaa Chamev's way bigger. These are all fights, and I know Hamzad is booked, but these are fights he could get. Kamar Usman rematch is bigger.

if Usman stays at 185, there's just way bigger fights. It's, let me ask you this, just about Brennan Allen. That conversation we just had about where Brennan sits on the list of people

that the UFC would call. Who would get that call first? Marvin, Vittori, or Brennan Allen? You don't think Alan gets the call over him at this point? I think he does still. I don't know, man. I think Votori's...

He should. I agree he should. But Marvin is... Marvin would sell the shit out of it or at least do his best to do it. It's close. Marvin, I think, is actually hurt by having somewhat, he's helped anything. He's hurt having that he's already fought for the title,

but also the UFC likes, you know, once you fight for the title, they do put you in a certain tier. They're like, okay, this is, this guy's in the title contender tier. He's in the, you know, one win away tier of getting another talent shot. So I know what you mean. He does sell it, but I do think him pulling out here of this fight, I know it's not as false. He had energy is fine.

I just never think the UFC looks I just think it hurts you in the matchmaker's eyes whether it's intentional or not might be subliminal but then they see you bow out of this a main event and they go like okay well that just slightly moves a fighter down our estimation again even if it's just bad luck it's just bad luck it's just sort of how they how they look at it so I

think Brandon has done enough I do think Brendan has done enough to move past Vittori on that particular list but it's weird I'm very curious to see how he'll be ranked because I don't think he'll take Vitori's actual ranking in the UFC list. Yeah.

If Brennan could just be smarter with the microphone, he's going to be fine. Like after the Bruno Silva win, I thought it was great. He just goes in there. Hey, how did you feel about the performance? He goes, all right, got five things I want to say. One, purple shorts. Two, I want this. Three, Louisiana.

Four, I want a main event. Five, I either want this guy, this guy or this guy. That was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Organized. Go back to that. Yeah, organized. I like that.

Okay. But yeah, I think Vitori's the fight. I think the UFC will book it. There's some heat there. Here we go. Race the runners. Raise the sails. Raise the sales.

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that can stop novel threats before they become breaches across email, clouds, networks, and more. Dark Trace is the cybersecurity defenders deserve. and the one they need to defend beyond. Visit darktrace.com forward slash defenders for more information. Damon Jackson, A.K., gets a victory over Alexander Hernandez. Boy, it feels like every week we come on here, and we say there's a frontrunner for the worst scorecards of 2024.

3027 Alexander Hernandez might just be the clubhouse leader. This is, is it worse than the Reese McKeek? card. It just might be. It actually might be. This is a tough one. But Damon Jackson gets the win. He gets 20% of Alexander Hernandez's purse as well since Hernandez missed weight. It was a fun fight. And Damien gets back in the win column. So we'll do a little, a little something, something here. Damon Jackson versus Yusuf Salaw. I mean, this is what I picked after Yusuf's win over Billy Q, the winner of this fight. So here you go.

Damon Jackson versus Yusuf Salal, come on down. I forgot about that. I thought we were going to have a Friends Forever moment. I got a look. Mike, you know, the last few weeks we've kind of been telling the band to just chill. I don't think we've queued up the band because when we have had the same picks, they're like so obvious. So I thought we were going to be on the same page as this one.

I will, I should warn now, I'm kind of this whole main card. It's a bit of a dart throw. Like, just none of, none of these fighters realistically are like in the top 25 of their divisions, unless you people are particularly generous with their rankings or very high in them as like potential, you know, where they could end up. But based on resume, no one on this main card really outside of the main event is in the top 25, I don't think. But I am, so I am, so I'm all over the place with these next few picks. Not a lot of storylines here. But I do want to move Damon Jackson into the top 25. So I'll have him fight Juicy J. Juliana Rosa. Oh.

Okay. Yeah. That's where I thought you were going with it. Okay. I will be surprised if you and I land on the same. Like that one, I think, was the best chance we had. These next three picks, I will be stunned, Mike, if we somehow end up with the same call here. And unless I'm missing some obvious callout or beef that I wasn't aware of, it's these are dark throws, people.

These are dark throws. I don't know. I don't have a lot of faith in getting a point here for any of these picks. Yeah. So I called up the band leader and I said, for the first. first time in like weeks, you need to be ready. Be ready. Because if we, if we friends forever on any of these fights, maybe, probably even including the Brennan Allen one, then you best be playing. Like, it's the first

dance at a wedding. Just all out. Don't, don't mess it up. But I like those. Again, you can't really go wrong. If there's any guy that's like closest to the top 25, it's probably Damon Jackson. But he was coming off, you know, a tough little stretch. So, but yeah, Either of those fights would work out good. Speaking of feather weights, how about this guy, aka Chepe Mariscall, just quietly amassing a nice little resume here. Now 3 in the UFC.

He has fought like all fun or scary fighters, even taking the Trevor Peak fight on like a week's notice, up a weight class, defeats Morgan Charié, what a fun-ass fight that was, got fight of the night even over the main event. Where are we going with Chepetay? Mariscall.

Guy is fun to watch and he is going to be a tough out in this division. Those are quality opponents. I was writing about this. I think because the peak fight, he kind of got mis-evaluated as being like,

oh, this is just another wild man in the lightweight division. Really, Peak just kind of brought that out of them. Jet Bay is like super technical and pretty mature as a fighter for, I'm saying, I was to say for his record,

but he's actually, he has a lot of experience. His record is not, his record, his overall record, excuse me, reflects how mature and how, like, advanced he is in his career. So, yeah, Chepet Bay has surprised me. I thought, I thought Morgan Cherrier has me too much for him. I thought Jack, I thought Jack Jenkins, I think I picked him over Chepet. So both fights, he was a slight underdog, both fights, comes on top, great for him. Mike, did we come up with the same name here?

I went with a Canadian. Did you go Canadian? No, I did not. Okay, all right. So we will not have friends for every moment. I just looked slightly up the rankings. I want someone again with sort of a similar amount of experience to him, but I'm more well-known in the UFC.

So if Chepa beat him, it would certainly boost his profile a bit. Let's go with Chepa and a good old Canadian boy, Hakeem DaWitt. Oh, that's a good one. Tough one. I did not go with that. I went with a fun action fighter. In fact, I just booked his previous opponent against Damon Jackson. Let's do Chepe Mariscall versus

Billy Quarantillo. Hey, Chepe versus Billy Q action. I think that fight is just so freaking fun. I even have a date. July 13th. Let's do it. Rumored, at least from conversation I had, the frontrunner to host a fight night card July 13th

in Tampa, Florida, right in Billy Q's current backyard. What a good place to have a fist fight. Let's do it July 13th. I like it. Billy Q. Listen, looking to bounce back here. That'd be a lot of storylines coming out of that matchup, depending who won. Even the loser.

I don't think the loser gets cut. I think there's a path for them to take to keep their UFC careers floating. But yeah, I like that. Mariscault beats him. Four and O in the UFC? Man, I don't know. Might have someone in this guy. How did you score that fight, by the way?

Which one? The Chepin Mariscall. Oh, him and Cherokee. Morgan Charii. I agree. with the 29, 28. I did not think it was a robbery. I did think it was super close.

The 3027 Cherrier, I think, is a little crazy. That's a horrific. Not as bad as Hernandez. It's, yeah, I think. And Hernandez was Brian Miner, I think. So Brian Miner and Adelaide Bird, not their best night. Let's go to the lightweight division, the best division in all of M.A. Ignacio, Bahamundes. Gets back with a beautiful headkick knockout.

And, well, I don't think he's going to love this one. And I don't know if fans watching from their television screens are going to like this one too much. But this is what I'm going with. Again, I'm going with another date, ready to go. I mean, we don't have a date yet, but another July fight, AK, another July fight. This one for Ignacio Bahamundas, this time he's going to have to stamp the old passport to the United Kingdom to Manchester, wherever this card's going to happen. and he will face Mark Jacasey in his next fight. Oh.

Oh. What do you think? I went, again, I would love to say we did a Friends Forever. Did not. It's like there's no way we're friends forever. I do like that. I think Bahamandas is so talented. I also kind of went, again, a more veteran name.

Yeah, because I just, again, I don't know what is sealing it. I don't know what a ceiling. It's like I feel like it's not a top. I feel like Bahamandas is not going to be a top 15 guy. I just haven't seen that consistency in this performances. But again, you never know this. You never know how this game plays out. And that was a very nice win on Saturday.

So similar vein, definitely a different style of opponent. But I went with Rafa Garcia. I don't know. Chile versus Mexico, you know, a little storyline there. But other than that, again, this is just me looking at my rankings, looking up within the next 10 spots above, 10, 15 spots above, Ignacio, how can he move up? And, you know, these divisions are so deep.

You can really pick any of these names. But yeah, Jacizzi makes sense. Garcia makes sense. So that's what I got for Ignacio. Sure. I think we're going to, I think Charlie Campbell, Mike, I think we're going to, I think we're going to do it. If we friends forever this, okay, then I'm going to be super impressed.

I got a feeling. I think I went off the board kind of here, but we'll see. Maybe not. Maybe not. Charlie Campbell. Charlie Campbell defeats Trevor Peake in a fight that delivered the way we thought it would and Charlie Campbell comes on and does this post-fight interview with Michael Bisbing.

Michael Bisbing had no idea what he was talking about because he said finally the cannibal has come back to the UFC apex and Michael Bisbing is just like, what is he doing? Of course, throwing homage to the people's champ, the rock who was just getting ready to headline WrestleMania Night 1. Then he shouted out Dave Portnobes, and wants to meet me Miss Peaches, who is Dave Portnoy from Barstool's dog,

who has become very, very famous over the last month or so. And Charlie just knows how to, like, gain headlines. Like, he's just very good at this. I didn't know where to go with this, A.K., this is maybe the dart throw of all dart throws, but I'm giving him a super vet. Oh, you were excited. The super vet, did that slow you down?

Are you still excited? We definitely did not fix it. person. It's, I think we got to do the cannibal versus the carpenter, okay. Let's see what young Charlie Campbell's got. Charlie Campbell versus Clay Gwita is what I'm going with. I like it. I think they have something with Campbell, not even just the Mike's skills.

I find his fighting style quite enjoyable to watch. It's again, guys, pretty raw. Again, there's a lot. Again, there's a lot, just, you know, guy needs experience. But it's distinct. He's, it's, it's so weird. So I wasn't super familiar with Charlie Campbell. on us before.

I mean, he's a contender series guy, right? Oh, he lost Contender Series. He did, yes. He was a short notice guy. Right, and got signed later. It's weird.

So when I was watching him with doing some research on him and knowing very little, I thought there was like some sort of karate background in there because he's pretty athletic, very light in his feet. But he doesn't. He's just sort of has a natural kind of, you know, he's a good athlete and he knows how to use it, which is, I know sounds like a very basic compliment, but there's, I think anyone knows, but there's a, I think anyone knows, but like there's a vast majority of MMA fighters who are either not athletic or have athleticism and no coordination.

And he's like really coordinated. And I think he has a distinct style. Like not just fun, but distinct. I think that's the, that's the line we have to draw a lot. It's like there's a lot of fighters for fun. Are there a lot of fighters who like if you just saw the silhouette of them, would you know who they were? Like we have so much less of that these days. It's just such a homogenization of the training. But he's, he's getting there. I'm really starting to get familiar with Charlie Campbell. again, still not super familiar with him, but I like what I see. Mike, I did not go super veteran.

I do think Cleeguita is a great matchup and a great name to add to his resume if he pulls off that win. I went a very kind of lower ranking than I would have Charlie Campbell right now, but like I said, I kind of want to just give him opportunities to style for people to get to know him and for him to maybe get some more mic time

because, yeah, that is a good part of his act. Loeik Radsavov, Mike. Is that, uh, Lighten your idea. Loic Ratskobb. There you go. Siting matchup. Another, another Apex main card opener, possibly.

It's a good fight. In fact, like when I first started going up my rankings, that was the first name I thought of. And I was just like, eh, we could go there. And then I thought I went to Clay Glee and I thought that was a good one. So, so close. Maybe we'll get a Friends Forever Wild Card here. I think we'll. Yes, I think we will.

Okay. I think, yeah, we're minus four. 400 to get this here. On the count of three, say for us the fighter you picked. All right. One, two, three. Norma Du Maus. John Matsumoto.

Come on. Who did you pick? Norma Dumas. Oh, Jesus Christ. Come on. Please, I can't wait to hear what you picked for Norman Dumas after landing 11 significant strikes over 15 minutes in three total significant strikes. in the two rounds she won, okay.

29, 28. 29, 28, Dumont. I mean, the score is correct. She did, oh, boy. Where did we go here? Please. Oh, my God. Go, please.

I have, Mike, I understand your tone right now. I have been as critical of Norma de Mont as anyone. Again, the fact that she's, I think they've ranked her, even before going to this fight, I believe she's ranked to Vantamate, even though she had never actually competed. at Bantamweight, like in a proper bantam weight bout in the UFC. She'd missed weight. She fought several times at feather weight. This was the first time she weighed in 136,

that she actually came in at the contracted bantam weight limit. So that was huge. And then she beats GDR, who yes, has been off for quite a long time. And I don't even know where to rank at GDR at this point. But that's a solid win. That's a solid win. I know if this isn't GDR in her prime, I know this isn't in form.

GDR, I understand. If they ran it back six months from now, honestly, you could very well sell me on a Derrandami win. But this isn't six months from now. They might never fight again. Dumont has the W. That's that.

She has won four fights in a row. She has one seven out of eight fights. She has good wins on there. Carol Hosa, Aspen, Ladd, Felicia Spencer. I know those are featherweights. I think we have to actually look at her as someone who's a contender at 135 now. So, so I'm going all the way, Mike.

Big fight. The loser of the UFC 300 matchup between Holly Home and Kayla Harrison. Okay. This is not bad. Okay. I thought you're going to go bananas. Holly home, pretty logical. Again, we don't know if you lose to Kayla Harrison, you know, at that point,

I would think she's finally a bit back from the front of the contenders line. and, you know, she'd be a great test for Norman Dumont. Kayla Harrison, if she lose to Holly Home, which I think she will, you kind of drop, you know, you have kind of dropped your expectations for her significantly, and you give her to Dumont. And if she can't beat Dumont, then we really know that, you know, maybe it isn't meant to be at Phantomweight or help. Maybe her and Dumas just fight a featherweight.

I don't know. But, yes, I do think whoever loses at 300 is going to have to take a pretty big step back at 135. And Norma Dumont, we were right there to pick up the pieces. Yeah. That's fine. I thought you were going to give her a title fight. or Julie, even Giuliana Pena. Which her, like, look, if you asked David Martin,

Norma Dumont's resume is far superior than Julianna Pena's least currently right now. Who's isn't? Let's be honest. I went with who I thought was the prelim MVP, Gian Matsumoto. This guy is a stud. He's got to be super fun at 135 pounds. And I had to rein myself in a little bit because after what he did to Dan Argeta, which is a really good win in my opinion,

because I think Dan has looked tremendous, and the way Dan approached this fight was actually brilliant, just getting in his face and just kind of whiling out on him. And Matsumoto jumps the gilly, maybe the sickest gilly we'll see at the apex in 2024. Dan Argetta, like his brain shut off, but he didn't go to sleep. It was just super fascinating to see what was going through Dan's mind

as this whole sequence went down. but I'm going to throw them in there with the gentleman who's coming off of a nice win himself at the same venue, the world's most famous apex. Let's make this say a featured bout at the world's most famous apex, 135 pounds, Gian Matsumoto versus Miles Johns. Let's just throw those two dudes in there and let him chuck them and have some really good fun grappling exchanges. And it's a fun-ass fight. I want to see what Matsumoto has.

and I think John's a good test for him. Bantam waiting is so crazy. And yes, all the props in the world to Jan Matsumoto for that. But I still think Dan Argueta, I still think there's a run in there. I think he's had some weird, weird, weird start to his U.C. career. But don't be surprised if, like, he rattles off like three straight wins or something. And then suddenly we're talking about him as like a top 30 guy in the UFC. And he's, he is, Dan Argoet is good.

I know this. For sure. I've rushed enough M.A. to know this guy's good. he's had some very, very, very tough opponents. And again, some weird circumstances with the no contest. But I'm not giving out hope for him on it. But yeah, Matsumoto looks like a friggin' blue chipper, that's for sure.

Yeah, Dan just look great. Like some weirdness when it comes to like if you look at the results. But he's looked really good. He's a good fighter. And this is impressive. Going out there and finishing him like that was very, very impressive. I took a lot away from this performance. So anyone reach out about.

claiming Otno points or anything, or should we go right into the piece? No, sir. In fact, I'll get to someone sort of addressing the issue of Otno points and picking fights correctly, briefly, in a moment. Okay. Didn't get a lot of submissions. I only got one, and then somebody else literally just chimed in, who you probably sent it to you as well. But I'll read his. Let's go to John Ray. He kicks us off. Norma Dumont. versus Nora Cornoli in a bamptherweight fight sometime down the line. Matsumoto versus Ronnie Lawrence, Alex Brito versus Muslim Salikoff, Charlie Campbell versus Kurt Holabo.

It's fine, but Kurt's coming off of a loss. Don't really love that, but I get it. Baham, geez, Baja Mondays versus Daniel Zelluber at the sphere. I like it. That's a wild-ass fight. I saw a lot of for picking that fight. Love it. I think if you're, honestly, and I mean this with full respect, because I like Ignacio Baja Baja Mondays, and I think there's something there.

If I'm his team, I ain't going near this fight. Just throwing that out there. This is not going to go well for him. I don't think. It's a pretty nightmare stylistic matchup. Jepin Marasgall versus Hakeem Dawadu, Damon Jackson v. Bill Algio, Chris Curtis versus Andre Munez

and rebooking Brennan versus Marm Vittory and then left lane MMA just checked in literally moments ago he says Alan versus Vittori Curtis versus Icrum Alaskaroff after his next fight he's apparently got a fight book

I have not seen anything about this fight but I assume maybe he'll be on the Saudi card but man Chris Curtis going hammering tongs doing the UFC a favor with Chris Curtis tears his hamstring at a and now you want to throw him in there with Icram Alaskaroff. Damn.

What did that man ever do to you, left lane? Golly. He's the action man. He's got a lot of expectations, you know. He also likes Damon Jackson versus the Cub Swanson versus Andre Feeley winner, which is going down at 303. Yeah. June 29th.

Cherrier versus Jarno Arons in Paris. I know he lost, but I gave him the fight, so I'll just match me for him. Baja Mondays versus Jai Herbert in England. Campbell versus Prado. versus AJ Cunningham. He says it's mandatory to matchmake peak no matter what. Don't disagree. Marono versus Li Jing Liang.

Walter Walker versus Shemiel Gadziyev, just for the memes. He's with you, AK. Dumont versus the Holly Holmecala Harrison loser. That's he is. Another Matsumoto versus Ronnie Lawrence. Almeida versus Dumas. Cornole versus... Santos.

Which Santos is this? I don't know. Hold on. Oh, it's, um, shit. I'm so embarrassed. Yana, right? Yes, correct. The former Yonah Kuntz guy, of course.

Of course, of course. Of course. I probably just lovely to know that we should know that. I'll stop. By the way, since I'm about to throw it to you, Caesar Hameda calls out Chris Wyden. Do you like this call out? Nope.

I didn't either. I didn't either. I saw a lot of people. I saw a lot. I saw a Canadian media member actually shout this out and said it was a brilliant call-out. I thought it was a bad call-out because there's just no, there's just no chance he gets this fight. There's just no chance he gets it. Maybe Wyatman asked, maybe Wythman wants it?

Why? Because he can win. Why would he want this fight? Because he can win. Yeah, he can win. He can beat Bruno Silva too. And Bruno Silva's like 40 spots higher than him. And he did beat Bruno Solo.

But he's probably going to run that one back. No. You're the dude who came on this fucking program and said Chris Wydenman should fight Paulo Costa. And now you're saying, you know what, forget that. Just go all the way back. Like one of those old school window blinds where you pull the thing down and it shoots all the way back up. You want him to go all the way back to St. Carolina?

He can go in any number of directions. If you want a big name, you go Paulo Costa. You want a big name. If you really think you're still that dude, you go Paul. If you want to keep fighting and you want to keep collecting paychecks and you actually want a good chance to win and not get your, I was going to say not get your brain smashed in, but I mean, it says it al-Meda is the hit hard as hell. Then you go back.

I don't think you can be, I would hope not that Wydevin's team is not locked into any one path. Because I understand there's that part of them that thinks. I can still challenge for the world title again. Like, I'm still that. I get it. At the stage of your career, that's how you get out of bed in the morning. That's how you get into camp. As you tell you, I am still that dude who won and defended the world title.

I want Paulo Costa, right? But, but if you are your team and you're like, we just want to keep you busy, want to keep you active, this guy just called you out. Let's take him. Let's take him on. Let's get this paycheck. We can beat this guy. Way more experienced in M.A.

then that's the way you go. Again, I don't love, I don't love either matchup. I don't know what matchup I would love for Chris Wyman this point. I was like a re-signed Luke Rockhold. Okay, that's really it. That's the only probably fight I want to see him do. Yeah, too-shay. Yeah, but I just, I don't, I don't know.

I'm fascinated to see who they match up wine over the neck. Because I would not have guessed Bruno Silva. I think if you gave me before that fight was booked, you gave me 20 guesses. I don't think I would have come up with Blondado. I don't think of a lot of match-tracking. That was really good. It was. Now that I look at it, it was, but like I would not have come up with that.

This is waste of my time, Cesar. I know you're trying to do, but come on, man. Like, you got to get at least two wins before you start calling out former champs. And you got to beat a guy who is, with all due respect to young Dylan, someone who's good, or at least like, seems like UFC caliber. Not that Dylan can't be. He just wasn't there. It's just bad fight IQ.

And the matchmakers do what they were doing here. It's basically what I was trying to say. Didn't love it. But that's just one man's opinion, aka on to you, my friend. Support for this show comes from Volkswagen. As the U.S. gets ready to host soccer's biggest moment on a worldwide stage, Volkswagen is helping people discover new turfs and new ways to play the beautiful game right here in the U.S. From deaf and power wheelchair soccer to beach and futsal,

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Available now, only from Audible. All right, I got a bunch, man. Let me go to the emails first, a couple of our regulars, Jay Donagy and Tristan Gordette. Jay says, Mike, dose of negativity here, 12 cards into the new year. I guess not the New Year anymore, into the year. He says he and you and I have not predicted a single fight correctly, a matchmaking choice correctly. So obviously, you wouldn't count the last like four cards.

So I really are looking at the first maybe two cards of the year, sorry, two months of the year and seeing if any of those fighters have been booked. And Jay says we haven't, we haven't picked any of those rights. I don't know. I didn't fact check this. I also didn't fact check this. And again, I'm trying to think how many of those fighters from the first few cards

already got booked new fights. There's certainly several. I just can't take off the tie. Maybe I will make that the check the tape segment next week. We'll see. But then he says, dose of positivity after maybe the worst fight card of the year, that's all going to change. So Jay is confident that we're going to land some of these.

Chris Curtis, Michelle Perreta, after he beats Murdov at UFC 301. Yeah, I think that matchup happens sometime. I don't know if that's going to have the next. Because, I mean, Panetta, if he beats Murdo, man, I mean, you got to give him a top seven or eight guy, right? I don't know.

What else? I'm sure I think so many things we haven't already said. Baha Moma's Rafa Garcia. I'm telling you, we're on the same page, Jay. You're right. We are going to break this curse if I assume we are something. Peak versus Chris Duncan. Not to be confused with Christian Leroy Duncan, the lightweight Chris Duncan.

Scherzhen Gurdet also has a prediction for Dawadu, but not for Cheppe. He wants him for Cherrier. and Peak versus Mota. Oh, I skipped over, sorry. I just wanted to say some of the more popular picks we had. These are picks that were made by a bunch of people. Brennan Allen Strickland 2, rebooked Brennan-Ellen-Battory, Damon Jackson-Norosa.

Again, I'm with you, people. Mariscal Christian Rodriguez. Like, I don't know. What are your thoughts on Mariscall? He's such a spoiler that Christian Rodriguez. Ah, yeah, maybe that's the right way to go. Sure. I like it. You mentioned this, Bahamanda, Zell Huber.

A lot of people want to see that. Verseski, Moeusman. I think someone said there's no chance someone's going to get finished there, which I thought was hilarious. Cornole and Chelsea Chandler. What about, hold on, hold on a second. Brezky versus Mo?

No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. It's Walter Walker versus Moe Ouzabwe's about it. Oh, there we go. Like, there's so many storylines attached to that fight. Main event, please. Main event, please. Let me go to Instagram.

I got a couple of firsts. Oh, I got some more first time I was on Twitter. Okay, sorry, I got a first time on Instagram here. Jason Dernay. What is up, Jason? Welcome to the party, pal. Brendan Allen Costa, Curtis versus Paul Craig, after Paul Craig loses to Kaiyo, Baha'oio, U.C. 301.

Damon Jackson versus the Onama Pierce winner, April 27th. I don't mind that. Yeah, that's a good fine. Charlie Campbell, Kurt Hollabaugh, Marano Lucie, Dumont Home Harrison Loser. Guys, this is a winner. This is going to happen. I'll skip. Cesar Almeida, Trishangor.

Sure, sure, sure. Beans Extreme Means. Curtis and Costa. Damon Jackson, Caceres, Woodson winner. They're fighting at UC St. Louis, May 11th. Chepe, Mariscall, and Nate Landwer, Mike. Oh, my God. I, dude, I love it.

We are going to see that fight. I just think it's a little too soon for Chepa. Not saying I don't think he can win. I kind of think Nate's just on a different level of, I'm not going to say superstardom, but of being over with the people. I think Nate probably gets a bigger fight here coming off of that win in Atlantic City.

So I think Chepa is on the right track. I just don't think it happens next. Charlie Campbell versus Jamie Marlarkie, win, lose or draw again? Mike, do you know who Jay Malarkey is fighting at USC 301? I'll be very impressed if you pull this off. I know he is fighting someone at 301. I don't remember who it is. I know it's someone making their debut.

Okay, okay, okay, okay, yeah, all right. That's really all the, I think they'll all I can ask for. Maricio. Ruffy. Huffy, Ruffy. Huffy, Ruffy. I don't know. It's great.

That's a great question. Yes, but anyway, that's who he's funny. I honestly did not know this fight was happening. I'm not familiar with Rizio. I got to do some research. But yes, Campbell v. Malarkey, no matter what. And Walter Walker and Alexander Romano. Oh, my God.

Oh, boy. Walter Walker, I hope you just, whoever he fights next, I hope he trucks them because right now he is a meme. Walter Walker, I'm sorry, you are a meme. It happens to the best of us. Prove us wrong. Prove us wrong with an amazing performance next time out. and then we will always look back on your debut as a blip. A lot of fighters have bad debuts.

Whatever. Harry Newhouse. Mariscal and Arce. I like it. Alex Marano and Matt Brown. I like the matchup logically. I just feel like if Matt Brown's coming back. Like Matt Brown is a kind of guy.

He's just picking and choosing his fights at this point. I don't know if Marano tickles his itch. But it does make a lot of sense. I think that's a good one. Moron is what? How many UFC fights has Marano had? Oh, man. He has. You know what? I was going to ask you guys last night.

Hold on. Okay. He has had, I might not have been updated this. He said 20. He's a 20. How many? Oh, are you looking at this record right now? Yes. Because I was going to ask you how many. Okay, okay. I was going to ask you how many wins do you think he has? Because it's like, it's a pretty impressive. 13 wins. 13 wins is really good. And Walter Waite, like. This is a nice UFC career so far. But yeah, I don't know. Again, I do think that's a logical opponent for Matt Brown. I just feel like Matt Brown's going for people with a little more name value.

But that's a good fight. That's a good fight. Breschke versus Thomas Peterson, Hugo versus Blackshear. Show out of Victor Hugo. We haven't talked about him a lot. Almeida versus AJ Dobson, Cornelay versus Taner. of this bowlers show. Now I will go to Twitter.

There you go. See? Almeda, these are the types of names should be calling out. Jay Dobson, Trayshong Gore. You know, these are perfect call-outs. Zach Dwyer, welcome to the party pal. First of all, secondly,

shameless pandering to me, the biggest fan of women's band-to-weight in the media today. First-time submiter got a matchmaker for premier division like women's band-to-weight. Let's do two fights that happened previously at a heavier weight. Nora Cornel versus Jacqueline Calvocanti, too, and Norma Dumont versus Macy Chesson, too.

Wow. That's a true fan of the heavier women's weight classes, Mike. Those are two, those are deep cuts. Those are deep cuts. Respect. Got to respect. Also, welcome to the party pal to Bink MTG, Bink MTG, who suggested, I don't know, I don't know, Damon Jackson versus Nathaniel Wood, Morgan Sherrier, Stephen Garcia.

Breske versus Chris Barnett. Oh, actually, that's perfect. You know what? I love that. No issue. Another Dumontsiazantia 2 pick? Mike, this is the heat that is building here. Victor Hugo, Christian Kinonez, and Cesar Almeda, and Rob Brechick.

I kind of skip some of these here. Sean Haywood. Cornol versus Avila. Marano versus Gunner Nelson. Gelato Halepen. Mayor Scal versus Padilla, Bahamondas, Sadacov, Charlie Campbell Prado. I know there's another Campbell Prado pick. Mr. Senior Man, Chris Curtis, the Pereda-Miridav winner, Cesar Almeida, excuse me, and Claudio Hibero.

Tocke, Gurdine Jensen. What's up, Toke. Mariscald Dawadu. That's right, my friend. That's right. I forgot. Sorry, did you read Four Corner Sports? No, right?

I did not. You did not. Four Corner Sports chime in. Mike, what do you think? Chris Curtis, Joe Piper? Sure. Yeah, I mean, it's not bad. But we have to also have to keep in mind that Chris Curtis got really hurt in this fight. Yes, this is true. So it's almost like unfair to matchmaking for him. It is at this point.

Alexan Hernandez, Herbert Burns, loser leaves talent match. Ooh, harsh. But yeah, it's been a rough go for two very, very talented guys who have just either were thrown against tough competition too quickly or again, maybe just weren't quite at the level we thought they were. were. But yeah, if that fight happens, that would be a probably loser leaves town. If I'm like honestly, and I talk about this all the time, if I were to put together just kind of like a low key banger documentary about a UFC fighter's career, I think Alexander Hernandez would be like, I mean, there's obviously other like way more interesting ones. But if we're just like, you know, it would be like an interesting story to just tap into the Alexander Hernandez UFC story. I think would be super incredibly fascinating. What is the insistence on fighting at featherweight? I guess it's his... And you know what?

I shouldn't say that because he hasn't looked like... He's not like looked completely terrible at featherweight. He looked fine. And he looked fine on Saturday. That's a good competitive fight with Damon Jackson. But he's now 0 and 3. He badly, badly missed weight. I know he's not a massive 155er.

I get it that there's certain matches for himtie 5. He probably just saw it and it's like, okay, well, if I get to a certain level, I'm just going to be giving up too much size. But, dude, he beat Jim Miller. He beat Jim Miller. Great fight. That was a great fight.

I just don't know why he doesn't just stay at 155. Again, I'm not him. I don't know what it's like to be in there and to be giving up five, 10 pounds to the opponent. I understand. I could not imagine how much that changes your whole strategy game plan. And maybe it's just easier to try and cut the weight. But the featherweight returns, which has been so poor, I think at some point, you have to just stay at 155.

I don't know. He's a great athlete, too. I feel like his athleticism makes up for any size differences. I don't know. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. But anyway, that's just, you're right about the documentary because I would love to dive into this whole Y, why in system of 1, 145 thing.

Bahamundas versus Jim Miller, Bobby Green loser. That's maybe too soon. Right? One of those guys? I get they're not like super high rounds. Yeah. Who did Bahamandes just lose to? Um, let me look here.

He lost to Clyne. Ludwig Klein. And it wasn't controversial. He just lost. Oh, no. It was a clear. It was a clear win.

He just lost. Yeah. So maybe, maybe. Um, go low to you. Yeah, man. Look, I, we talk about,

I don't even know how I want to put this. I feel like, I feel like they have something with Baja Mondays, but I feel like he's one of those fighters that I feel like because he's so rangey and unique. that people want to rank him higher and put him in a position that's way above where he actually is right now. And to me, I think that's a horrible, I think that's a terrible mistake. Because I think, like, look, the foundation is there. No doubt about it. He's only 26. There's

no need to rush him at all. He's three and a half, four years away from where he will be in his prime. we can develop him. If you feel like he could be a star, especially a guy being from Chile, not like a ton of fighters from that region who have gone on to like big, huge things, there's no need to rush him. There's no need to put him in big fights.

There's no need to throw him in with the Jim Miller's. I would pick Jim Miller to beat him without question. Yep. I wouldn't even have to think about it. Jim is just a dog and he's been there so much. The only way to match somebody's experience is to accumulate experience of your own. And while you could argue back that fighting in Jim Miller would be great for experience, not if you go out there and get thumped up by Jim Miller,

who has seen it all and been in there with everybody. So while if they do that, I won't be like, oh, that's terrible. I will kind of question the matchmakers and be like, why are we doing this when he's only 26? Let's just keep him around the same range. There's still fun fights for him. I would keep him away from Zell Huber too. I think Zell Huber is, he's ready.

Like, he's just about ready for that big step. Like, I would rather see Daniel fight the winner or loser that, the loser of that fight than Ignacio, if that makes sense. I think he's more seasoned and ready. Ignacio is on his way there. I just don't. We make this mistake sometimes with certain fighters that we rank them higher than they actually are. And while he's still very good, It's too soon for that.

You don't want him becoming the Chilean Alexander Hernandez, for example. But with Hernandez, it was a little bit more typical. Yeah, Hernandez. He beat Benile. Yeah. Within a minute of his UFC career, he was a top 15 lightweight. Oh, man. That's tough.

That's a freaking insane, dude. It's nuts. And he really wasn't. Like, that thing is like, if you're just using rankings math, of course, you have to put him over Darius, right? You had to put him over when that happened. But like, you look at the, you look at the, That did not make him better than like 30 UFC lightweights instantly. You know what I don't know.

I don't know. That's just talking about. No. I was actually more impressed with his second fight in the UFC because he out. O'Bin, Olivier? Yeah, because he just like out-grilled him for 15 minutes, just out-hustled him and just showed different parts of his game. And I know from having countless conversations with Alexander Hernandez at that time,

he hated that performance. And I was just like, why? That was really impressive to me. to do that to a guy like OAM, especially in Canada. I thought that was, and then you got the Soroni fight and everything that came with a co-main event on a historic card for the UFC, and you have to deal with everything that kind of comes with that,

and you're just your third fight at 25 years old, man, that's just a lot of pressure for that kid. Yeah, if him and his team have, like, taped most documented his career, like taped a lot of stuff, that would definitely be worth watching sometime. I would love someone could get a good edit in there and just put together a show because, yeah, I'm fascinated by Alexander Hernandez. I think you've interviewed him a bunch of times.

I've interviewed him a bunch of times. He's very good with the media. I think that's the other reason. Hell yeah. We all feel like we kind of know him. I think everyone's, everyone in the industry has interviewed Alexander Hernandez once or twice, and he's good to the media. He seems a good guy.

And you just want to, yeah, you would like to know what happened with this, how a career can just kind of not quite go as you would imagine, you know. If you want to watch Alexander Hernandez at a different kind of, interview. One of my first interviews at M.A. Fighting.com, tremendous website, was with young Alexander Hernandez as he was preparing for UFC 249. He was originally scheduled to fight Isll Mockachev on that card, if you can remember.

Really? Isn't that crazy, dude? He's supposed to fight Isll Mockachev on that card. What would this have been coming off of? Like, what would this have been? So let me go back and just like take a gander at this. Yeah. Help me out.

I don't remember that at all. This is 2020. Yeah, he was supposed to fit Isl Mokachev at UFC 249. The event was, this is before they, like, straight up cancel the card. And then he was supposed to fight Omar Morales. And then he ended up fighting Drew Dover instead on a fight night card. So I interviewed Alexander Hernandez before that. And he was, he double booked himself, the interview, and a massage.

So he did the interview while he was getting massaged. It was so ridiculously funny. Can you imagine he fought Islam? Oh, my God, man. That would not have gone well for him. The Drew Dober fight didn't go well for him. It did not. Even then was like a little too, in hindsight, it was probably a little too much.

But boy, yeah, that is in the fight. It would have been real bad for him. God, the Chernado fight screwed him up too because, like, he thought he lost that fight. Like, he didn't even think he won that one. And then he got, he won a unanimous decision. So, like, that kept him probably, again, a little bit higher than he should have been in the ranking. That's what a weird, like. Crazy.

A weird career. Yeah. tough. Oh, sorry. So the last I wanted to close, that's right. Oh, we're picking fights. This is not the, you know, we'll do a podcast for Alexander Hernandez someday after he does his documentary. Uh, close up, Barry O'Reilly. Um, fun picks here. Mariscarles, Charles O'Don, Dan, Charlie

Campbell, Landa Vanada, do Mont, Marado Buenos Silva. Yeah, we don't know what's going on with MBS, but when she You know what? That might be the correct answer. That could work. Who's it renailedana? Who's it renailedana fighting? I'm ashamed that I don't know this off the top of my head. Is she even booked? I mean, she, Her and Carol Hosa beat the brakes off of each other. Oh, no, no, she's not.

Yes, the last good women's bad, we had in you four months ago. Hey, that's, those are good. We've had more good women's baddeny fights than we've had heavyweight fights in the last year at 12 months. I will, I will stand by that. I will stand by that. If you could go back and rewatch one fight, would you pick Norma Dumas versus Germain Duranmi or Lucas Breske versus Valter Walker? Do you want GDR by far. you're probably right.

Actually, you're probably right. But that's, because at least there's a storyline there with Duranda, DeRond of me coming back. I mean, yes. And yeah, it's probably that. Like,

it's probably not even close to either. Uh, Victor Hugo Javid Bashrat, that's during Javid coming off his first loss. That's interesting. Man, we're just, Victor Hugo's one and O in the UFC is you not?

Yeah, but he's got some experience though, right? He's like, he's got like, what, 25 pro pro, he's like, lot of experience for the UFC, right? Yeah.

I mean, he beat a newcomer on short notice, who's very good, by the way. Sure. And he should have already been in the UFC anyways and kind of struggled a bit. Now we're going to throw him in there with Basharat. I mean, okay. Well, how about this one? Matsumoto and Haouni Barcellos. Dude.

Talk about a step up. Let's go. Do it? I'm fine. I'm fine with that. Matsumoto is ready. He's ready. I don't think there's

outside of legit top 15 guys right now or maybe like bordering top 20, I think Matsumoto can hang with a lot of these guys at 135. I really do. I really do. They just booked a fight between Montel Jackson and Saeed Naramagamatov for one of these cards. You could throw John against a lot.

loser of that fight and I'd be in. I think he's that good. I think he's that good. I'll remember this. You are, you are. If he fails, I'll remember this. Mike, I'll remember this. You are leading the Gian Matamato charge. Yeah, I like that kid a lot. All right. And I'm going to have with a pick, which I love. I'm going to see if you can guess who this person is. So this pick is for Zezar Almeda, and I'll read this without saying the name of the opponent. So Barry says, Almeida's fairly old. So I'm happy to give him a bit of a push quickly. This fight will tell us a lot about both guys. His opponent will not have to worry about wrestling in this one. So an opponent that will give a Cesar a bit of a quick push and also will not have to worry

about having to wrestle. Roman Cablelluff? No. I'll give you another guess, though. But yes, you're on the right lines. Harmon Trojan? No. Edmund Shabazian.

Oh, I'm a Shabazzian. Yes, dear Edmund. Oh, I like that pick. think that's a great matchup. Because Cesar, again, is a bit up there in age. Again, a lot of kickboxing. A lot of kickboxing under his belt. And we kind of want to see.

I hope people aren't thinking he's going to necessarily be like the next Alex Padetta or something. But he is obviously more qualified than his 5 and 0 MMA record says. So I think Edmund is the way to go. And someone's getting smoked. I think someone's ass is getting lit up in that fight. And that's, I mean, that's just what America is all about. So I like that.

Well, well, actually. Let me check something real quick. Oh, please. Let me just check some of the work. Are they best friends? I love this idea. Okay. Are they best friends that we don't?

I don't think they're best friends. Okay. Let me just check real quick. Okay. But I believe they are teammates, though. No. I believe Cesar Almeida trained the extreme couture. Oh, he does.

Yes, he does train the extreme couture. That is true. As does Edmintchavazian. Is he, but is he relocated there? Or is it just the sort of thing he's like, is that just his like camp, that's my U.S. camp, like this is my camp that I... I don't know.

Okay. I have still... But that's the right idea. Like, that kind of fight is the right idea. I like this. I like this. Yeah, I like the pick. If it could happen, if they're not like best buds,

um, man, if they weren't training at the same gym, that's actually the perfect callout for Sezer Alameda. I would have been like a plus, a plus. We'll see. We'll see if they hear the show.

and respond. So Barry, we'll let you know if we get an angry message saying, I'm not going to fight this dude. We trained yet. So I'll let you know. But I still like, I still think it's possible. Extreme guitar is one of those big camps. I still feel like that, you know, you can easily, one guy could just go to another gym with the fight. Anyway, great picks this week, everyone. Please send. Oh, well, no. Well, next week, you guys do not send me. Okay. All right. Whoa. All right, Mike. I'm sorry. I've got to catch myself. We've had so many fight nights in a row. I was getting into the groove, given our information again. I guess they don't need it. We'll love.

people know on next week's show, I suppose. Don't send picks. Don't send any picks for the next three weeks. No DMs. Okay. No picks for the next three weeks? The next three weeks? 300?

No card. Vegas 91. Week off. Ah. Okay. So you guys get time. Bask in it. Start looking at the April 27th lineup.

See what you're thinking. And just let it. to permeate before you start sending your DMs, okay? No DMs for 300. I don't want anyone getting mad. Just listen to the sound of my voice. If you send us a pick for 300, post 300, it's probably, it's actually not going to get read on the show

because we'll be live on YouTube. Time TBD, because I'll be in a different time zone because it'll be just coming off the watch party that's going to last six plus hours. Because you're doing the whole damn card for the Vegas watch party. So for 300, from Figgie Smalls versus Cody Garbrandt all the way through Alex Pereira versus Small Hill. Have you been medically cleared to do this? Did you consult your physician and tell them you were about to do a six plus hour

MMA viewing watch party? I mean, we're just going to, we're just going to go and we're going to try and we're going to see where it goes. Be hilarious. And Jesus, this card is unbelievable. Alex Pereira versus Small Hill, John Wai Lee versus John John Don, Justin Gagee versus Max Hallway. Finally.

My everything. Now I don't have, now I don't, unless it's a draw, I don't have to ever try to fantasy matchmake for these two gentlemen ever again. Charles Olivero versus Armand Serucan. Boe-Nichle versus Cody Brunch.

Are we doing all the fighters from the top four fights plus whoever wins the nickel Brundage fight? I guess if Brundage beat Boe-Nichel, we would do both of them as well. We'll figure that out. Can we promise? I mean, and we got to,

I feel like we got to do a lot these other names and the prelims. Anyway, go ahead, Mike. This could be a lot of mandatory picks. I mean, we can't do a three-hour show. I know, but you're going to skip Prohachka, Rackich, Holly Holm, Kala? I guess, well, I mean, Holly Holmah, Kela. I've already done half the work there, so.

We'll figure it out. I didn't, I haven't thought this far. Bonick, Cody Brown, Jerry Perhashka, Alexander Rackich, Calvin Cater, Aljurang, Sterling, which I cannot wait for that fight. That is so intriguing to me. give a little more shine to that fight people. Holly home, Kayla Harrison, which the story is obviously going to be about the fight,

but it's going to be about Friday, and Kayla Harrison on the scale. So did Yusuf versus Diego Lopez, Jalen Turner, Hanata, Maitano, Jessica, J.N.O., J.M.M.A., J.M.A., David, St. Figuero, versus Cody Garbrand. Best card in UFC history on paper.

I don't think it's particularly close, and I am very excited for it. It's going to be a very busy week for us. I think we're doing BTL on Tuesday this week because of all the chaos and chicanery going on we'll have not one, not two, not three, but four MMA hours this week. So stay tuned for that

because they'll be heading off to Las Vegas for a Thursday, Friday show. We have the watch party Saturday. Preview shows. All sorts of craziness. Jose will be boots on the ground. There's just going to be so much happening. And as you know,

Fight Week is done no better than by us. MMAfighting.com. It's a tremendous website. You're home for UFC 300. So for AK, I am Mike Kack. Thank you for listening. Back next week, live on the YouTube channel.

Always remember the golden rule. Don't take this stuff too seriously. MMA's supposed to be fun. Boy, oh, boy, are we going to have fun on this show right after UFC 300. On onto the next one, the podcast. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Support for this show comes from Chase.

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