MMA Fighting - On To the Next One | Matches To Make For Sean O'Malley, Merab Dvalishvili After UFC 306

Episode Date: September 15, 2024

Merab Dvalishvili is the new UFC bantamweight champion after defeating Sean O'Malley in the main event of UFC 306, while Valentina Shevchenko is once again the women's flyweight champ following her dominant win over Alexa Grasso in the co-main event. Where do the new, and now former champions go from Saturday's event at Sphere? On an all-new edition of On To the Next One, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee discuss what's next for Dvalishvili, O'Malley, Shevchenko, and Grasso following their championship bouts in Las Vegas. Additionally, future matchups are discussed for Diego Lopes after his decision win over Brian Ortega in the featured bout, Esteban Ribovics following his incredible battle with Daniel Zellhuber, along with fellow main card winner Ronaldo Rodriguez, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Media Podcast Network. Well, hello there, everybody, and welcome to a brand new edition of On to the next one. Yes, we are back. The matchmaking crowns have returned following UFC 306, Noche UFC, which went down last night at the sphere in Las Vegas, Nevada. Was it the greatest sporting event of all time? Was it the greatest combat sporting event of all time?

Maybe experience-wise, potentially if you were there live, quality of the the card, maybe a little bit of a different judgment, but we have two brand new UFC champions, and we will discuss what could be next for those two champions, the two former champions who lost their titles last night, along with other notable names from Saturday's card. I am Mike Heck, and joining me as always, as you can see, the co-host, the co-matchmaker, the Prince of Positivity, and gosh, Jarnie's my best friend. Happy Sunday to the great Alexander Kay Lee, aka, how we doing? Happy Sunday to you. My best friend, happy Sunday to everyone watching.

It was a long night. It was a late night. Even if you weren't us and you were just watching and not working, I think the card ended at close to two in the morning. Did it not? It sure did. And then if you are like us and you stayed up to, you know, of course, watched some post-fight stuff.

Now, thankfully there wasn't like a crazy long wait between the first fighter coming out. I think it was Diego Lopez, first fighter coming out and like the end of the cards. So because we've had some cards where there's been like huge gaps between the main event and the post-fied press conference. So at least kicked off pretty early. But again, by early, I mean, yeah, like you were, if you stayed for the whole press conference, you were on until probably close to 3.30 a.m. to see Diego Lopez and Dana and Valentina and Marab. So anyone who stayed up and you're with us, I applaud you. You guys are crazy.

And you guys are the best. And I'm so excited to hear your matchmaking suggestions, meaning you, Mike, and anyone watching. Yeah, so how this is going to go is we will talk about each individual fight. We'll talk about all four fighters in the main and co-main event. We'll discuss what's next for them. If you guys have some suggestions for those individual fights that we discuss, throw them in. We'll chuck them up so you guys can see them on screen. And then we'll get through the rest of our picks.

And at the very end, with however much time we have left before I have to check out of this hotel room, we will get your suggestions. We'll just go full wild card round. and we will get after this thing. But before we get to that, A.K., what was your thoughts on the sphere? Did you enjoy it? Not just, not talking about like the card itself,

but just everything that was promised, did it live up to the hype for you? How would you grade the viewing experience of NoC, UFC, this big card at the sphere? I'm probably being generous for someone who wasn't there. If you were there, I feel like it was like a 10 out of 10, right? And again, I'm just going based on our own Jose's comments. Jose seemed very, very pleased.

with what he was seeing, very excited. And most of the media members who are there, I think, seemed pretty dazzled by it. So it must have been a 10 out of 10 in person. I'll generously go 8 out of 10 watching from home. First off, I do think I did see a lot of people making fun of it during the prelims, which is fine. They didn't do much of it with it during the prelims. The fact that they used that enormous, you know, 40-billion foot screen to simulate rafters

or scaffolding, excuse me, was dark. funny. Like it shows you that. You know, you don't want to distract the fighters. I understand. And you don't want too much going on in the background. Um, especially until the big show until like the main card actually started. That's when they put on all the little mini movies. They had the kind of cool backdrops for the fighter intros and the fighter walkouts and the fights themselves. Um, so all that stuff worked. I think all that stuff looked great. I will say, and I don't know what we expected. Like I don't want to ding the UFC for this too much. But, you know, once the action was focused on the octagon, which is where we all want it when we're watching. It looked like a pretty normal broadcast. If you took a, if you took a random screenshot of any of the fights, you know, the actual fights, there's a very good chance you would not have known that this was at the sphere, that this was at a state-of-the-art facility. I saw some people saying it was indistinguishable from like the UFC Apex. I get it.

Yes. But there were some different angles they had to use, obviously, given the change in locale. So overall, I thought pretty strong presentation. and don't compare it to Dana saying it was going to be the greatest sporting event of all time. Of course, it's going to not be an 8 out of 10 if that's your, if 10 is the greatest sporting event of all time, it was never going to be that. We know what the sphere is. Huge screen, great sound. Probably that's the thing I think we're missing out on home.

I think if you were there, the sound must have been incredible. I would have loved to have been one of those moving seats as it was. Like, I would try to time just like my shaking of my own chair at home with the punches, but it did not work. it just made my butt hurt. So I would have loved to have been part of that in person. I didn't quite feel FOMO. I know some people do when they see this event. I think I never have, and I didn't on Saturday either.

But I can't imagine anyone who was there. And I'll go as far as to say, anyone who sheld out whatever the most expensive ticket was, they're probably pretty happy with the experience. So I'm going eight out of ten. I know I'm being generous. I'm sure that people who are going to hate on this fear. But I thought everyone worked really hard. And huge shout out to the Octagon Girls and the designer

of the Octagon Girls outfits. Unbelievable. So, so cool. Such great use of it. I would shout out all of their names, but I think they used eight different new Octagon girls on Saturday. And I cannot remember all their names. But big tip of the cap to them and again, again, to the designer.

Because that stuff looks frigging great. Yeah. I thought it looked awesome. Like, I really did. Even like during the fights, I thought it looked awesome. I thought it was just lit more brightly. There was just a different ambiance. the crowd noise was different.

Like it just felt bigger and just it separated itself. And like I said, heading in, the one downfall of all of this is that it's over and that, you know, they're going to go to Paris and that crowd is going to be absolutely on fire. And then that will be the big story of that event. And then UFC 307 is coming.

And then we're back to the apex on the 12th. And again on the 19th, we're going to be like, oh, 306 is so freaking cool, man. But I dug it. It was the best they could do to make the viewing audience feel like they were there. There were moments where I was like blown away by the graphics of it all. And I was like, wow, I feel like this giant meteor, this planet is going to fall on my face right now.

It just there was sorry about like the drone shots. Like I was actually getting a little dizzy with the drone shots like the way they shot it. It was just it was pretty wild. It was pretty wild. I hope they try this again because I thought it was a really cool. It was an undertaking, probably like nothing they've ever done before. But they took a swing, man. And whether you liked it or you didn't, I think they deserve a lot of praise for this.

Because if you went down the street to T-Mobile, that Canella fight sucked ass. And there was nothing special about that event at all. I didn't think the fight was that bad. I thought it was pretty one-sided. I mean, but I thought Berlanga was, like, spirited. I didn't think it was like, I thought that fight was, let me put that way, this way. I don't want to necessarily say it was better than the two UFC main events. It was definitely better than Shipschenko Gras-O-3.

We'll talk about more of that later. Probably was, I thought the main event of UFC 300, 200, UFC 306 was still pretty compelling. I just because of more the inherent drama, not necessarily of, you know, what the, what happened in the fight. So I won't say that Canelo fight was better than that. But I like that Berlanga was pretty game. He did get schooled. had like a shutout. I actually had a shutout for Canello. I scored it at 120 to 107.

And I know that sounds like a terrible score, but sorry, I know that sounds like a terrible score for a fight, but I found it most entertaining. I guess I enjoy watching Canelo, I guess it's just like, oh, you get to watch him cook. I'm sure people would have liked to have seen a knockout. He probably should have been able to finish Belonga.

He didn't. 100%. I know. I know. I know. I'm the Prince of Positive. I'm probably being too positive right now, but I did not hate the Canelo fight. I would rank it again above the UFC 306 co-main event. below the UFC 306 main event and well below several of the fights on UFC 306s. Well, let's get into it. Let's just start right at the top.

We have a brand new Bannon Way champion. Thy name is the machine. Maraud de Walsh, Willie. He goes out and he beats up Sean O'Malley. Like, he beat up Sean O'Malley. He broke him a little bit. O'Malley had moments in the fifth round.

I didn't hate the 48, 47. I see some people in the chat saying like 4847's ridiculous. Sean O'Malley had a case for winning round three because nothing really happened on either side. Just didn't. And I felt like O'Malley did enough to sweep that one out if he scored it for him. O'Malley definitely won the fifth round. Like there's no case on earth where Sean O'Malley doesn't win round five

because he had Marab hurt, had him in trouble. He just didn't have enough left in him to get the finish because Marab just overwhelmed him. And it was a different sort of marobbing. It was a very patient one. He didn't shoot 30 take down. attempts. It was just he timed him. He picked his spots. And when he got Sean down, he beat him up a little bit. He would let him back up and he would just kind of do Marab

things. But just it was a more different approach. I thought his stand-up was much better. And the most important question I had about this fight, A.K., could he shore up the defense? Damn it? He did. He did. Outside and take of those body shots of the fifth round, he didn't get hit hard at all in this fight. He barely broke, he didn't even break much of a sweat. So Marob's the new champion. We don't even need to queue up the band. I know they're over there warming up. It's Umar and Amaga Madoff.

I don't care what he says about wanting Figurato. He ain't, first of all, he ain't getting what he wants. Anyways, I don't think the UFC is overly thrilled with how everything went last night, especially with how that fight went. It wasn't the most thrilling affair. Neither was the co-main event. Dana White didn't have tremendous things to say about either. But it's Umar and Amaga Madoff.

There's no other way. This doesn't happen, right? Yep. Great fight. Great fight to make. Umar was there. UFC did a good job. I assume they made sure to have him there and she showcased him.

They showed him on the screen. They didn't do the in cage confrontation. But he was there. He was there. They said, look, this is the next challenger. We're already hyping him up. He's undefeated. He'll be facing a champion.

He's won 11 in a row. Style-wise, it's a perfect match-up. Again, I think you and I and Jed and many people on the MA fighting crew, we think that Umar is the future champion. And that's no disrespect to Marab. Like, I'm going to hate it if Marabh, loses and people go like, you know, fails to get a first-tel defense just because he's fighting

Umar, like he just happens to be running and the guy who has the potential, I think, to be the best 135er of this generation. That's how good I think Umar is. And, and it's just going to ignore all the stuff that Marab did, you know, prior to winning the title. Listen, 11 straight wins, 11 straight wins. Just because only one of them was a title shot doesn't mean that the guy is not a worthy world champion. I mean,

dominated O'Malley. Sehudo win is great. Piotr-Jon, a former UFC champion, Josie Aldo, former UFC champion. Marlon Marais, that was a great fight. He's been beating top five, top ten, world title level guys for a long time. So even if he loses to Omar and never gets the belt back, I really hope people don't look at it and go,

well, he never defended it, blah, blah, blah. There's circumstances where you're just not going to be able to defend the title guys because they're running to a monster like Umar. Or maybe we're wrong. And maybe Marab, he's a big step up, I feel like, for Umar, from most of his competition. Corey Sanhagan, Umar's biggest win.

But other than that, big gap between everyone else and Marab. So maybe Marab just beats up. And then I can't wait to see what we're saying at Marab because he's just been such an exciting guy. I think he had to be happy for him. Exciting, I mean, personality-wise and his win streak, maybe some of his fights, I know people didn't love.

But very good champion, very exciting. Mike, should we also, I don't know if you want to, you know, people should know, of course, we're going to do the losers of the title fights as well. Do you want to do the boring? a co-main event pick as well before we get to O'Malley and Grasso, or do you want to keep going in order? Yeah, it's Chalka versus Fioro.

I'm sorry. Like, we're not doing the Grosso thing. Grasso can make any case she wants. It would have been probably, probably would have been a good thing for her to show up at the press conference and state her case, maybe show a little, a little chutzpah in making that case, but she didn't. Sean O'Malley wasn't at the presser either, which I thought was super weird. Yet he's showing videos backstage in a singlet, which was.

super weird. I was not a fan of that at all. So yeah, it's, it's Chifchenko Fioro. We can, we can move on. I mean, good for Val. She did what she needed to do. This is the kind of performance we always kind of thought would happen in the first fight, where she would just kind of hulk Grasso around, and that's pretty much what she did here. So yeah, yeah. I don't mind seeing the fight again, I keep talking about retroactive thinking. I hope this stink bomb of a fight does not people, people like, wow, that trilogy stunk, because the first fight was, was really good. The second fight was great. And yes, the third fight has left a horrible taste in our mouths. Grasso, I kind of understand why she didn't go to the press comps. She looked really demoralized

in that fight, like from maybe after the second round. Like she just looked so defeated. There was no fire. There was no barely even frustration. The Comptor was trying to say, she looked frustrated. Yeah, frustrated, but also like, like, resigned. Resigned to like, oh, well, I just, I'm not going to be able to do it. It was so, it was so strange. not saying Grasso is the most like fiery personality outward personality anyway but when you're down like that in the cards you would like to see a little bit more we did i you like you had no expectation that she was going to have her Leon Edwards fifth round headshot moment like it just didn't feel like it was coming she she just looked very very very very down so i don't know what's

going on maybe something personal maybe an injury maybe no excuses just had an off night just got lost to a better fighter that's certainly possible but yeah really um really sad to see it go out like that because I thought this was a really good, could have the potential to be a great trilogy, as it is. Two really good fights, one absolute stinker. As for O'Malley, who I guess we'll talk about in a second. Mike, I kind of understand why he didn't go to the press conference because he is a guy who's very much in control of his brand, right? He doesn't, if you're him, you're telling yourself, I don't need to give my time to the UFC and to the media. I am my own media.

If you want my thoughts, go to my social media. where you can see me doing this hilarious, you know, wrestling skit, listen to my podcast, Tim, Timbo Sugar Show this week. There you'll get my thoughts. I think he feels no need to show after. And he's not a great press conference guy either. We've talked with this press conference or a media day guy either. It's really not his specialty.

I think he's a good personality, but I don't think that's really a specialty. So I would have, I agree he should have shown up, but I completely understand what he did. He's controlling his own narrative here. Yeah, I just, to me, if you're a guy that the UFC is, you know, putting their dollars behind and put you in this big spot and had you as sort of the face of this event, you show up and kind of take your lumps. That's just it. You were, the tweet was everything cool, like, you know, over, overhyped, but underperformed

or whatever he said. But you just show up, you answer a couple questions. You don't have to stay there for an hour. Just go in there, answer like five questions and get the hell out of there. Put Marab over as a guy who just beat you. And that's it. Like, it just looks so much better. And say, Jed talked about this in the post-fight show, and I completely agree.

Say what you will about Connor McGregor, like him or not. Connor will talk all sorts of noise heading into a fight. But when he loses, he shows up. He humbles up. He answers all the questions. Like he does a chill son and did the same thing. Talked a lot of noise. Kept the same energy on the way out.

You don't see that. Is he? Same thing with the DDP fight. Like he didn't have to show up after getting stopped. Showed up. Put DDP over. Said nice things about the man. Like that's what.

fighting is, especially at this level. So, I mean, it's up to him. You're right. He's going to go on his show and it's going to do a whole bunch of views and all that stuff. But it is what it is. Gratul, he's to Marabdo Lus really is the new champion. And now let's go to O'Malley, AK, because I see a lot of suggestions on here already. I think this was super easy.

But I'm curious to see where you went with this. Uh, I hope you, when you're easy, you don't mean to Henry Sehudo. It's, that's the one and only answer. Far, far. I will say this, though. I will say this though. This is, if I was, if they were like, hey, Mike, who should Sean O'Malley fight next? It's Corey Sandoaghan.

Like, that's the fight I would book for me. Sure. But the UFC is not going to book that fight. They're just absolutely not going to touch that fight. Why? Because I think Corey Sandoahig would win that fight. And that's bad for business. I think Sean O'Malley could beat Henry Sehudo.

I think he would beat him like eight out of ten times, especially where Sehudo is right now in his career. And I think it's a good enough name. And I think the build would be weird and silly enough to like make Sean look like a baby face through all of this. Like Henry Suhudo can make Sean a male look like a baby face to every sort of MMA fan at this point. So I think this is the, like if I'm,

if I'm playing for the Otno point, it's Henry Sehudo. This is what they're going to do. I'm not going to play for the Otno point. I have a pretty strong. F. Henry Suhudo and never give Henry Soudo what he wants policy. People know this from the day of his comeback. Well, we had both been strongly against it for the longest time. You had dedicated many, many hours of a heck of a morning time to say,

please don't give Henry the title shot on his comeback. It's fine. They decided to do it. It was a really good fight. Henry, you could argue he beat Al Jemey and Sterling back then. But he didn't. He didn't win, okay? The scorecard said he didn't win.

He didn't win his next fight. He's 0.2. He hasn't want to fight in, what am I, where we're at now? Seven years? Where are we at now with Suhudo? Clearly still a high-level guy, but I don't understand. We don't need to keep giving this guy big fights just because he doesn't shut the hell up and because he was a champion many, many, many years ago.

Sorry, his last win, four years ago. My apologies to Dominicruzeman. It'll be close to five, right? By the next time he actually steps into the cage. So, no, I don't want to give him relevant fights anymore. I don't care. Henry Sehudo, go fight someone. I don't know.

Outside the top 10. I know he'll never do that. He won't sign up for it. And he shouldn't because it doesn't make sense. But also, like, what do we do with this guy? I'm tired of giving him big fights. I don't want to give him big fights anymore. Henry Sier can go away.

I went in a very weird direction. This is clearly not going for a at no point. This is a magic wand pick. This is me trying to make something happen. That almost definitely won't happen. But we keep talking about O'Malley being compared to Conan McGregor. We've done it. Other fighters.

have done it. Chelsonin kind of went on a bit about how Amali has surpassed McGregor's the bigger star. But I think we've also noted, like, McGregor's rise was so unique and his ability to step up in every, like, major moment. And Amali did this several times. The fight with Peodor Yan was really exciting.

It could have been more definitive, but he got the win there. The, of course, knockout of Al Jemey Sterling and the UFC immediately released that on YouTube for free was fantastic. So he was getting there, right? I think he was still like two or three big performances away from not even getting to McGregor level, but at least getting that A-level tier of. of fighter fame. But he hasn't been able to follow that path.

Now, can we put him back on a similar path, Mike, coming off this loss? What about Mike? What about if we matched him up with one of Connemer Gregor's greatest rivals? What if he fought? Jose Aldo, after Aldo beats Mario Votista at USC 307 October 5th.

I think, I think O'Malley. I think O'Malley should have those Twitter fingers going. He should call Aldo out in a month, assuming Aldo wins, which I will assume because I'm an Aldo fanboy. So I want to see that happen. I would have picked Corey San Diego as well, but I think I matched up Corey with Dominic Cruz at some point earlier this year. I know that fight's never going to happen, but I'm still holding out hope. So considering I consider him occupied and I don't want to give him her to Sohudo anything, Jose Aldo, Sean O'Malley in 2025.

So I love this pick. I would pick Jose Aldo to to win this fight. But here's the other thing that I'm, I just don't, the UFC for some reason, they just hate Jose Aldo. They don't like him. They booked him in the worst match made fight in the history of the UFC. And I know we're talking a lot of years. Them booking Joseo Alto against Mara de Wallis Willie in Salt Lake City is the, is promotional malpractice. It is the biggest, is the worst piece of business I've ever seen. How can you do that? Give the men the title shot. You book him at altitude with Marab, just awful. And now you're burying him on the prelims of a pay-per-view event? Like, what are we doing here? Now, I, I understand that the UFC graphics team,

if there's one thing that was real bad last night, it was the UFC graphics team, because they got so many things wrong. What do you mean? What do you, whatever do you mean? Oh, you mean the, the wonderful appearance of Kendrick Lamar sitting next to get, what again. I was like, I didn't even know they knew each other. I thought he only hung out with boxers. That's weird. I guess he's hanging out with Tendip Lamar now. Apparently, Natty Ice is fighting Viviani Arrujo for the second time this year. You got to run it back.

You got to run that one back, Mike. UFC 2. And apparently Anthony Smith and Dominic Reyes are fighting at MSG when they clearly are not fighting at MSG. Like they were just so bad, just so awful. So many things wrong. It was crazy. So we'll reserve judgment until we get closer to the card. But like seeing Jose Al do, like, buried so deep on the prelims,

even against Amari Boutis and say it. I would love to see that fight, but the UFC is just not going to give Jose Albaugh that opportunity. Jose Alder versus Corey Sanhag would be fun as hell. That would be real fun. But we'll see. We'll see how it all plays out. Phantom way, just keep moving.

We need no delays here. Got to get that Umar, Morav fight going, all the other fights that are booked, you know, play. I want to see, I see some people ask you on Figgy or Jan for, for a fight.

Just book those two dudes. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. I want them to fight each other. Peelers and like, why can't they get one of these fights, one of the top two guys? And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Let them fight each other. And then, boom, winner and present performance, there's your guest to tell what we're.

We talked about what's next for Sean O'Madley. Let's talk about what's next for Alexa Grasso because this is, this is the kind of performance from her that made her such a big underdog at UFC 285. Why Jed went all in on Valentina and Schochenko because she just got host around in there. It was just, it was a perfect game for Valentina and Shipchato. couple like submission attempts that were it was just it was there's the just gun droge perfect game and then there's just a 25 minute perfect game and it wasn't all that thrilling and we'll never go back and rewatch that fight but valentina did everything she needed to do to stifle lexagrosso and this was the one fight that i compared this to was the i was i covered a bellator card during the

covid when there's no people in the arenas and stuff and i watched douglas lima defend the welterweight title against Yaroslav Amosov. And that's exactly what this reminded me of. Douglas Lima getting up as Douglas Lima getting up and going to his corner after every round and just dejected, just beat. You can't just tell like I can't stop the takedowns. I can't get up even when I get taken down. I've lost the belt tonight.

And I think, and that's kind of the sense you got from Lexa Grasso throughout this fight. I'll go first here. There's a lot of options here. I almost pivoted and threw in Natty Ice, but I'm not going to do that because I have Natty Ice fighting the Rosenomi Yunis, Erin Blanchfield winner. Let's get Macy Barber her shot.

Let's get Macy Barber her shot. Let's see what she can do. Let's see what she can do. I like it. And it's kind of like the only name that I haven't used yet, not named Natty Ice. Now, if they do Natty Ice versus Lexa Gras, I ain't got to be mad at it.

I just don't think Alex Gras is going to be fighting anytime soon. We probably won't see her until April, May, 2025 would be my guess. And Barber's had some health issues that she's had to deal with as well. So we may not see her until like the first, early second quarter of 2025. So I think timeline wise, I think this works out pretty well. This is, uh, this is not to do with my pick. But let me ask Mike, um, if by some chance, uh, Menon and, um, Shepchenko gets booked sooner rather than later, let's say, probably not December. I hope that Valentina would get some time off.

But let's say December, maybe January. Let's be honest to say January. Do you think Natty Ice has to fight one more time, or do you think that if she has a luxury of waiting, let's say they could sort of promise her a title shop by like April? Do you think that she's done enough or do you think that's impossible to think that you need to see her fight again? Well, I think she needs Iron Blanchfield to be Rose Nomit Unis. Okay.

Yes. True. If Rosnami Eunice beats Aaron Blanchfield, they're going to do Valentina Shepchenko versus Rosemunus. Yeah. As quickly as possible. Now, you can't skip Fioro here. No.

Does that just be ridiculous? No, no. There is another option, though, apparently, because I didn't see this, but apparently Zhang Wei Lee has said that she wants to move up to 125 and fight for the flyway title, which is freaking crazy, dude, which would be nuts.

And I don't want to see that because I want to see Tantayette Suarez get her opportunity. I would to see Verna Gangeroba get her opportunity. Unless she vacates the strawweight title, then I'm okay with it. But I just don't know if she does that. So yeah, yeah,

I just, I think a lot would need to fall into place for Natty Ice. We have worthy challenges at both divisions. I, I honestly have been in no hurry to see Zhang fight move up. And I get it. I'm sounding kind of boring here. I,

those, you know, to see two legends fight is never a bad thing. I think by the time. think by the time our rankings come out, the number one, number two, women's pound for pound fighters in the world. But man, I just, there's so many good contenders I want to see you get shot. So I can't, I can't go that way. You mentioned the Blanfield, Blanchfield, Namajunis, pairing, which is coming up. I would like to see the winner of that fight fight Grasso.

I think, I know if Rose wins, like you said, she probably gets the next title shot after Mano. But I guess it depends how Rose wins. If Rose somehow dominates Aaron, which unlikely but possible, I guess, then I could see her not having to fight again. I'm sure she would call for the title fight. I'm sure she is known for taking time off. I'm sure she would not want to fight Alexei Grasso. But I really want to see that fight as well.

I'm talking about, again, two top pound-for-pound fighters, top 10 pound fighters. I think Rose and Grasso would be amazing. And Aaron Blancho, I'd be very curious. I'd be very curious to see. I know grappling apparently is Grasso's weakness, but I feel like she's done better than this. I mean, this just isn't what happened to her in the first two Valentina fights. So I believe there's a better version of her that could definitely beat Aaron Blanchfield.

But also I'm curious to find out. So give me one of them. Give me one of them. Because I've matched up Natty Ice and Macy Barber, but otherwise Macy Barber would make a lot of sense. So Blanchfeld are not a matajunist for Alex Cross. A.K., I consider myself a man of integrity and honest man. one that admits faults when faults need to be admitted. And boy, oh boy, do I have to admit one right here,

thanks to our friend Daniel Edwards. This is a bit of do-do. I didn't slap two on this bad boy, and I was wrong because this fight happened. I totally forgot this fight happened three years ago, but it did. And Alexa Grasso won it, but I still think this is a possibility.

I still think it's possible. Hey, if Natty Ice has to fight Viviani I or Ujo twice at a year, I'm certain we could do Alexa Grasso, is Bacie Barber's based in three years. So that's, yeah. Yeah, that was totally forgot. Share your doo-do with me, my best friend. Tell you,

I forgot. Shout out Daniel Edwards. That was a good, good call. Good call. Yes, so Grasso and Barber two. All right. Let's move on to Diego Lopez. The story of Diego Lopez, there's going to be a 30 for 30 on Diego Lopez in the next like seven or eight years.

And I'm going to watch the premiere of that bad boy because what this man has done, after losing on the contender series and losing other fights before getting his shot in the UFC and taking Mobsar of Loy up to the limit and just everything he's done since then, getting finishes and just being fun and the hair, the Dan Igay situation, which made him a made man. And then he goes in there and fights Brian Ortega, who only loses two guys who have held UFC championships. And he's unkillable. And Diego Lopez almost got him out of there in that first round. Ortega stayed in there and was tough.

then Lopez almost finished him again in the final like 20 seconds of this fight. Diego Lopez is a madman. He's very popular. He's over. I think if there's anybody who got a huge boost from this card more than anybody else, I think it's Diego Lopez, even more than Maraub or Valentina Shepchenko or anything like that. This is a huge performance for him. And the options are a plenty.

They could throw him in a title fight if they wanted to. I don't think they will. I don't think you could shoot him over Volcanowski. my dream scenario how I would do this is pay Volcanovsky a bunch of money to fight Diego Lopez

whatever he would make for a title fight just give it to him I want to see that fight I think that fight makes all the sense in the world I don't think Volk's

going to take that unless they slap some sort of title on it so what I went with is there is a fight coming up in three weeks time a little less than three weeks now Al Jermain Sterling

versus Movsar I've Lov I know Lopez and of Loviv had fought before this is one Lopez certainly would want back. I don't think if Loyov would turn it down if it's a number one contender fight. We do Lopez versus the winner of that because I kind of feel like that's where this division is right now.

But man, no matter what they do with Diego Lopez, I don't think it would shock me all that much. I can't do it because I think I picked Mossar a couple of times to just, like I just want him to get a title shot. I understand why the- I kicked him to be champion at the end of this year. Oh, man. And again, he should, in fairness, get a shot.

If it wasn't for Max just disintegrating, Justin Gagee, and creating so much hype around himself. And, of course, having a much, much bigger, more marketable name than Mosaar Vloyev. You know, Moussar probably would have gotten his shot. But he is a victim of circumstance here. And I'm not blaming the matchmakers. I'm not blaming the UFC. If you polled 100 fans, Steve Harvey, on who would they rather see Max Holloway or Mousar Avloev

fight Ilya, it'd be probably 100 out of 100 would say Max Holloway after that

BMF title fight wins. So it sucks. But I don't want to see Mozar face Lopez again just yet. I know it was a few

fights ago, but it wasn't that long ago. Last year, right, may have last year. So the Volcan opposition I really like,

I almost went that way. And rankings-wise, it's the only thing that makes sense for him because Ortega was a top five guy heading into this. Beating Yaira helped him hold on to that spot. If Aeir had just beaten him, we could have dropped Ortega so far down the rankings.

You know, he had so much inactivity, but he beat Yaiir, so he's got to be in the top five still. Or he dropped him both Yai Yir and Ortega out, but at some point, the enemy master doesn't math. So the only guy's button that's free technically is Volcanowski. I have Diego fourth now in the UFC rankings. So I want to go that way. instead I'm going with a really weird choice and a very, very tough fight for Lopez and a tough situation.

But I also think this other guy might be one fight away from title shot. So I hope this wouldn't muddy the waters too much, but I think I'm picking Lorone Murphy to beat Dan Igay at UFC 308, and then I would love to see Lorone. I know, I'd love to see Lorone and Lopez fight because I don't think I don't think...

There's no way Diego Lopez is going to fight Lorone Murphy right now. I think he will. I think he'll fight anyone. I think he'll fight anyone. You're on your mind. I don't think he's a, he's a, I'm not going to fight this guy guy. I don't see him. Have an attitude at all.

I think at this point, after you beat Brian Ortega, I think you kind of have to have that attitude. I think after Lorone beats Danige, he's done enough to earn a title shot. Not that Danny Gay is like a top five guy. I mean, the resume wouldn't be as strong. But I think Lorone is so good. And again, if you're Lorone, after you beat Danny Gay, maybe it's time to fight top six, top seven guy. But also, but I think that guy would be Diego Lopez. because I don't know if Lorone is getting some of these other guys that are ranked harder than.

It might be him. So I just think the timing is going to work out. And I don't think Lopez has a luxury of waiting for a teleth shot or getting the Volcanovsky fight. I think he's just going to have to fight in on the contender. And I think that's going to be Lorone after October 26th. I don't love it. I actually thought Lopez was really hard to bash back for it just because of where his ranking is now. And he's just so over right now, man.

He's going to get a big fight. He is. He's going to get a big fight. I think there's a big fight. If they book Lopez versus Lorone Murphy for February, if Lorone beats Danny Gay, I will come on this program and say, like,

I should just take a week off because I'm not good at this and you're the best at it that there ever was. So let's keep this going because another man who stock rose tremendously is just an absolute bad man. His name is Esteban Rievovich. We knew he was an absolute madman heading into this fight with Daniel Zell-Huber. and boy was he. That fight was absolutely ridiculous.

The first two rounds were the best two rounds of the night. And then the third round was the best round of 2024 and one of maybe the 15 best rounds ever in the UFC. This had Cubswants and doo-ho Choi vibes written all over it. These two just beat the shit out of each other. The third round was absolutely bananas. Both guys were badly hurt. Both guys showed tremendous heart and chin.

It's absolutely why. I don't know what to do with this man, A.K. I don't know what to do. I think I've landed on somebody that I think would be really fun, but I just wasn't sure how high to go if we just want to do a, like, a fun fight. I wasn't sure. So I'm curious, where did you go with Esteban Rievich after this friggin incredible showing? Yeah, I had to, again, I had to kind of just hit the rankings up here and try and figure out who's booked, who's not booked.

Because, yeah, it wasn't an incredible showing. He's an exciting guy. I think he has the potential to be a spoiler. I think that might be his role at lightweight until he strings together enough wins to prove me wrong and maybe be a top 15 guy. I think right now I view him as a top 30 guy, which at lightweight is incredibly impressive.

That's not an insult. So I'm going to move him. I don't know if that's exactly where I have him. What I'm saying is I need him to move up closer to the top 30. and I think I need him to fight Guram. I want to see him fight Guram. Another guy with Sustah, I feel like still has some buzz around him. I'd be very interested to see who would open as the favorite in that fight.

I actually think Guram still would. I think there's just a mystique about him that Esteban does not have. But UFC has something here with Esteban. And if he beat Guam, if he finished Guam, that would be unbelievable. If he just beats him, though, now we're talking about maybe giving him a top 25 opponent, but I'm not there yet. being a little conservative here with with uh with uh ruby bits but how'd you go mike five four three two one friends friends forever no way really grum cutta latte how did we that's the fight how did we do

that's the fight because that's the one how did we do this that's the one that's so there's i've shocked i'm stunned there's like there's like 20 people we could have picked how did this happen I just like, the way you started talking about, I'm like, ooh, we have a, we have a chance of hitting a friend's arrival here. The band was getting, the band was getting a smoke after the first, half the band was out getting a smoke after the first, like, few picks. Like, ah, we're not going to be needed today. And then I just thought him scrambling, the saxophone. Scambling. The lead basis went down to the lobby and got a waffle.

He waited the two and a half minutes to get the waffle that you flip the thing over. He put it on the plate and put the syrup on. everything. He's getting ready to take a bite and he had to drop it to play the song. It's unbelievable. Wow. What a pick. Unreal. Well, dot, A.K. We're good at this. Okay. You know what? Maybe I'm not as bad as I thought I was. That was pretty good. Of course not. You're excellent. Let's go to Ronaldo Rodriguez. Again, very fun fight. It's amazing that the two fights people complained about being on the main card were the two best fights of the main card. Renato Rodriguez O'Day Osborne was really fun. and Rodriguez wins a

maybe a controversial decision. The scoring was super with 2927 where a good old lazy boy was friggin awful. As soon as I was 2927, I'm like, all right, O'Day won,

because he almost killed him in the first round. And how you, like totally it should have been a draw. If you're going to score 10-8 lazy boy in round two, you have to give O'Day a 10-8 in round one. So this technically should have been a majority draw. But at the end of the day, it is what it is.

We're all the Rodriguez wins. I'm just going to get this out of the way. Josh Fan. We're just going to do that. We were so close. I was going to do the countdown one, two, three thing. But I thought that was,

you know what? You know what? We got the one. I shouldn't be greedy. No, I didn't have Josh Fan. But I definitely did think of, yes, just match up the two flyaway winners from this car. Because that fight will be incredible as almost all Josh Van fights are.

And Ronaldo Rodriguez has been quite a reputation for himself as well. I went, I got a guy. I have ranked one spot lower than Josh Fan. I'm going with Jeff Alf Filio. Jafel Filio. So I don't know what's next for Ronald O'Rour, every guys.

This is an insanely tough division. To get into the top of Dean again, you have to fight guys like Filio. You have to fight guys like Josh Van and any number of guys ahead of them. So keeping our eyes in this guy, very exciting. Many bonuses ahead for him, I'm sure. Well, it's time for the wild card round, AK. That means we're going to select one fighter.

We have not matched made for. Yet we'll match me for him right now. It could be Daniel Zellhuber. It could be Brian Ortega. it could be anybody who won on the prelims. It could be someone from the women's band and weight division, A.K. It could be somebody from the women's band and weight division. Maybe Arrini Aldana, who got you zero fantasy points last night, but that's neither here nor there.

Wow. But watching Shaheen just tank last night was one of my favorite things of the entire year. I love this so much. Shout out, Shahi. our dear former colleague, but still a member of this inaugural four-team fancy draft. Yes, he had Daniel Zell-Huber, who did get points for a fight of the night. Did he get points for a fight of the night? And the heavily favored Jasmine Hadeghie, who just got upset in time.

We got that hurt. That had to hurt. We say, Mike, you are technically not on the board yet because you kind of backloaded, I think, your team, right? You had no one. Except for Alessandro Costa, who didn't fight. I didn't bring out of respect to you. I did not bring that up. And fingers crossed for you is rebooked before the end of the year.

I don't see. Maybe he gets one of these guys. Maybe. Maybe he gets Joshua. I would hope he gets a ranked guy because he was already supposed to get a rank guy. You want those points. You want those points. Give him Cody Darden.

Let's go. Let's just get them a ranked dude. I love this idea. But you have yet to log a point because you've got some big fights coming up. You did not partake too much in Vegas 97. And no fights picked at all. No fighters picked at all for 306. But yes, Marab delivered for me.

Irina Aldana did not. But that's okay. We don't care about that. We don't hold that against people. But she's not my wild card pick. Who is? Okay. Who is?

I'm going to do something I don't usually do and go with a main card loser because this man's future is very intriguing. It sounds like win or lose. Brian Ortega was going to move up to 155, right? Because technically he was fighting back in the rankings. I don't think whenever Lopez really, really would have pushed him that much closer in the title picture. I know that sounds unfair.

Lopez beating him makes him like one fight away or no fights away from title shot, but Ortega beating him does not do the same thing. That's how the fight game works, people. Sorry. So what do we do with Brian Ortega at lightweight? I want to remind people I made this pick at like four in the morning. So I probably was not thinking straight. And I know I've pulled this card many times on this show.

But I feel like we got to give Ortega a ranked guy. I feel like he has the name for it. I think we've got to give him a guy who's got some intrigue behind the name and who Ortega could lose to to continue his push to an inevitable title shot. I don't feel good saying this at all. I'm going with Brian Ortega versus Patty Pimbley. I'm so sorry. I had been pushing, for the record, before anyone says anything, before anyone says anything, I had been pushing Pimbleau and Chandler.

I want a Chandler to move on. I want to free Chandler of the McGregor fight, which he still somehow believes he is tied to, whatever. Chandler is now officially booked for that rematch, Charles de la Verra. Good for both guys. Can't wait for that fight. So he is not on my matchmaking,

he's now free in my matchmaking book. Screw it. Let's go, Patty, and let's go, um, writer take up. You brought the Michael Chandler thing. Let me just say this. And I know, I know this man's manager is one of the very best in the business.

And I'm sure conversations have already been having. I truly hope Armouran has put pen to paper on a contract if I did is a Mokachev because let me tell you, and I've said this before, if Michael Chaylor beat Charles Olivera and then I see a face off with him and Islam Mokachev and Madison Square Garden, I'm going to throw my friggin camera out the window. Like it's just what's going to happen. I will be so frigging upset. The only other thing that would make me equally as upset is if Kamar Usman gets a title shot

after going 0 in his last three fights. That will really piss me off. It will really piss me off. However, I went with the man that underwhelmed, probably just with the performance from the batting odds perspective. And no one knows this more than Shaheen Al-Shadi, the captain of the Shahin al-Shadi suckbag fantasy team. We're talking about Raul Roses Jr. The 19-year-old goes out there. He gets a win, a workman-like performance, I guess one would say.

he did mention in some backstage interviews after the fight that he was heard he tried to pull out of the he was thinking about pulling out of the fight there are a multitude of injuries he called for a ranked guy i don't believe this guy is ranked but i do think it's like a really good sort of next step for him because i think he could beat a lot of guys like i think there's certain guys in the top 25 it could beat i actually there's certain guys in the top 15 he can beat right now so what i landed on just to test him because even if he loses it's not the end of the world he loses this guy's it's not the end of the world. This might be a, this might be a too big of a step up, but I actually would probably pick Raoul Roast Jr. to win this fight. I'm going Ricky Simone, okay. I'm going Raul Roos Jr. versus Ricky Simone. Ricky, so he called him up.

No, I'm just going with him. Oh, he just said a tie. He called for a top 15 guy. But then he also called for 50 Gs after that performance, which was like, come on, dude. What are you doing? That was. There's a certain times where you just got to leave the 50 Gs.

thing alone. That was a canned speech if there ever was one. He's 19 years old. You got to, you got to prepare what you're going to say ahead of time. He's pretty comfortable on the mic, but hey, again, like I said, if you're speaking in public in front of millions of people, you're going to ask some things like, oh, I got to make sure hit this point, this point, this point. Clearly asking for 50 Gs was going to be one of them. I guess he thought he was going to run through Ritchie Lang, which he really didn't. And, yeah, bad time. Don't ask for 50 Gs, guys. You can cut that part out of your speech if clearly you don't deserve it. But a win is a win.

win, Mike, and yeah, I like the Ricky Simone pick. Yeah, not currently in the UFC's top 15, obviously he's on a bit of a slump. But certainly a top 15 talents, like a guy who was there not too long ago. And I think he'd be a huge test for Roewell. I don't know if I pick Roses to win that one. Yes, Ricky Simone is Bannonweight as is Raoul Rojas Jr. I see a lot of people matching up Raul Rouss Jr. is a flyweight. What is happening right now? What is going? I think maybe this person's on your side and they're explaining it to the other person. No, no. Guys, get it together. Okay.

Cody Durdon did just fight in a 135 pound bout with Match. He did. He did. Last second, they did one. He took on like three days notice. Maxnell is a flyweight or was a flyweight. If he's retired, happy trails, Machel, I don't know, has not made it super official yet, besides, you know, leaving the gloves in, but then has made a statement yet. Machelel is a flyweight.

Cody Dern's a flyweight. I don't think that makes a lot of sense. I'm sure Cody Dern would sign up for it. I'd love to get a piece of Roe-Rosa Jr., but I don't think that's going to happen. Do you think, Do you think, Ravel versus Jr. fights again for the end of the year?

I'll say no. He should try. He should try. He's hurt. It's just the injuries. They concern me. He didn't look great last night. And my first thought after watching that fight was,

I think he's hurt. I don't think he's got, he certainly didn't have his fastball last night, but he still won. And at the end of the day, it's all that matters. All right. Let's go.

Wildcar round. What's open this thing? up get your matchmaking suggestions in we're going to go for like eight nine minutes and then i got to get out of here and check out of this hotel so uh shout out to michael thank you for the super chat sandhagan versus o'malley is the fight to make yeah i love that fight i just don't think it happens very very possible though very i think it's very possible but i know why you're yeah it feels that the timing just a little bit off uh it'll be a shame if we never see these guys fight though i they need to fight someday uh ortega versus benille there are you shay k uh i thought about that

i actually had thought about that i just think that was a little too high i don't know if ortega given his recent form and the win over a year was great. I just don't know if he merits that. I also think Benile is bigger than people think. Maybe Patty is too. You know, sorry. Patty's obviously a big leg weight too. Yeah, Patty's a big.

So I guess I shouldn't know. I say Benile's too big. But I feel like Benile is maybe too big and too good for Ortega. Because Ottega can, I like his chance to be Patty. I don't love him to be Benile. I think Benile can hurt him early as happens to Ortega a lot and kind of almost do what Diego Lopez did to him. It'd be great.

I mean, if he didn't get beat up so badly by Diego Lopez, Brian and Tago would be a fun return fight for Raphael Paziv. Just saying. I thought about that too. But I also don't, exactly. I don't want to see him get his head spinning kicked in. I don't need to see that. Gerard.

Gerard. Barab Umar, O'Malleyon, two for five rounds. Okay. Chef Jacob Fioro, Grasso, Natiaeis, Lopez title backup.

I don't know if he could do that. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's asking a, lot of the young man after a hard fought battle. But maybe Ortega versus the Moikano, BSD loser, Rivaovich versus Bonfim, Rodriguez versus Manus, Dumont Chiasan 2,

Rosas versus Davey Grants. I thought about that one as well. Dumont Chiasan won was a split decision win for Chiasan. Am I crazy? Let me look at that. And it was also some time ago. So actually, like, that's pretty smart matchmaking. Yes.

over two years ago split decision win for macy uh no this is oh 145 and dumont missed weight goodness me yeah the big one of the biggest stories of dumas is her making making weight at 135 twice in a row my goodness and uh hurt my fantasy but congrats to her that was probably her one of her best performances yet uh zizi bigs deuses peace out hardly knew you it's all good uh Lopez ortego was the best fight in the main card totally disagree with that I thought it was third best Wait, what? Lopez Ortega. You thought that was better than Zell Huber versus Rievich?

That's insane. That's an insane take, Jermaine. It's a take. It is a take. That's not even a jet. Like, Jed wouldn't even make that take. He wouldn't even try that. Right, that would be.

And it wasn't a bad fight. We're not saying it was a bad fight. We're just saying Reber's versus Zell Huber is like a fight of the year candidate. Yeah, it's going to be on, it's probably going to be in our top five for fight of the year. It's the round of, round three is one of the best rounds. ever in the history of the UFC. That's a wild take. I respect, I guess, but it's a pretty wild take.

Was Triple C right about O'Malley's injuries? I think in the sense that no fighter goes into the cage 100%. There's probably some, I'm sure there was some nagging injuries that O'Malley had or has had for some time. And so who don't knows about them? So who don't, if O'Malley was banged up at all, so who knows right, they trained. the Arizona roots, they definitely know people who know people who know the same people. I have been there's no secrets between those camps. But I would be, again, I don't want to use that as an excuse for what happened.

I think, again, every fighter goes in there with bumps and bruises. It just happens in this case. That's the Hudo probably knows what they were. Maybe he'll talk about it more on his podcast with Kamara this week. I'm sure he's going to gloat and, again, campaign for that O'Malley fight. But I don't know if I said he was right about it necessarily being the reason that O'Malley just lost. Yeah, and you can't use it anyways. You put pen to paper.

You went in there and fought. You lost. That's it. That's why when Volcanowski fought Islam in the rematch and took it on short notice, you can't use short notice as an excuse. I'll go in there and be like, I'm going to kill this dude and knock him out in the first round. You just watched.

Sean O'Malley, basically disregarded Marab as an actual competitor. He's like, I'm going to smash this guy. It's going to, I'm going to make this look easy. And he didn't. And honestly, just watching the way Marab fought, I think if Sean O'Malley was 100%

and in the best shape of his life and had no injuries, I don't think that fight goes any differently. We all said it in the buildup. Like, I felt really confident Sean O'Malley would catch him because Marab has been very hitable. And that was my biggest concern about the fight.

And if you give this man 25 minutes, he's probably going to catch you once. But I think the other thing is, and I think this was spot on from like literally everybody, we would know exactly what this fight was going to look like once the first round was over we knew what this fight was going to be because either O'Malley has either knocked out Marab or is on his way to knocking out Marab or we were going to get on marobbing like no other and that's what we got so craziness man um but I was going

I was going to say yes I was just another example of someone who went in with injuries and listen no and it happens you go in there there's no way Aljo was 100% going to that O'Malley fight there's no no no chance but was he so injured that he's so injured that he's not he's so injured that couldn't fight and so injured that he wouldn't, you know, oh, he had no chance of beating O'Malley, no, that's why he got in there. His game plan should have allowed him to beat O'Malley. He didn't. No, no fighter, any fighter who tells you they went to the octagon

100% no injuries is just not telling the truth. There's just no Alex Perrero broken foot and fight Yuri Perashka and like that's how it is. That's the game. And then killed him. Yeah, that's the game. It sure is. It sure is. All right. I think we're done.

Guys, yeah, Mike has to go. You're not sending in fight picks. You're just, you're just chatting nonsense. And we love, we love the nonsense chat.

But yeah, Mike, you got places. Shout out, by the way, shout out to a fellow Burlington High School alum Matt Giacopo.

Maddie G. jumping in the chat today. How do you know this person? Went to high school at the bed. I went to high school with the man. How do you know it's not a different Matt Giacopo? It's him. It's him.

Did you tell him to watch? No, I haven't heard from Maggie in a long time. So it's good to hear from him. It's good to see him throwing out some takes. Much respect. Good to see you, Maddie G. Good to see all of you. No show obviously next week because the UFC is giving us a rare week off.

How about that? How about that? And then it's off to Paris, France, for the card headline by Hanata Moikano versus Benoit Saint-Denie, which should be fun as hell, because you know that Paris crowd. always brings the ruckus. So that should be a wonderful viewing experience.

I will actually not be covering that card. I'm actually taking that weekend off or taking my kid out of town for a couple days, which will be fun. And then after that, ladies gentlemen, back to the craziness, back to the pay-per-view fight week schedule, back to the watch parties, back to it all. UFC 307, Salt Lake City, Utah, Alex Pereira, about to set the tone for the marvelous Mike Heck All-Stars.

on my fantasy team, like when he fights Khalil Roundtree, his third title defense. We're going to get a whole bunch of fun stuff on that card. That card is actually really, really, really strong. It is deep as hell, and it should be a lot of fun. And then it's back to the world's most famous apex. And then October will wrap up with some early day pay-per-view MMA, UFC 308 in Abu Dhabi, the main event, the best fight on the books for the rest of the year, Iliottip Torea versus Max Holloway.

And then all roads to MSG, all roads to December, all the way through Tampa where they will close out the year. So this should be a fun little stretch, everybody. It should be a fun little stretch to close out 2024. And there you have it. A.K., any final thoughts for the people? First off, I want to say, again, first, thanks to everyone who tunes in to these post-paper-view shows. As I said, the top, you guys are crazy.

You must be exhausted wherever you're watching from, wherever they're watching here, whether you're watching the UK, where you got up at God knows what time in the morning to watch the show. You guys are the best. You guys are the best. You're why we do this. And we love you all very much. Mike, I wanted to ask, you don't have anyone on UFC Paris either on your fantasy team.

Nope. Mike, are you even playing this game with us? Are you, what do you do? Are you playing? You're playing, you're,

I feel like you're operating on another level here. I feel like you're not playing the game. So 307, you will be, 307 will be your first fantasy points of the, of the season. Yeah. Wow.

That's it. I think that's the only one. I have so many on 308. I have so many fighters in 308. You have so many fighters in 30. You have. amongst patience, sir. I am impressed.

I think part of the, I think some of my drafting was just like, oh, I want to know how this crazy experiment's going to work. So I got to get some like Vegas 97 guys on there, got to get some 306 guys. But you didn't, you didn't care about that.

You're just all about the W. You're doing, four months. Except for Alessandro Casso, except for Alessander Casso, which was supposed to fight that weekend. Which was a great pick. You could have gotten like 150 or 175 points right out the gate if you just want.

I said Cody Dern just swooped in and just took them and gave him to nobody. But yeah, I also won't be working the 28th. I have a friend's very, very, very close friends wedding. Mike, will you be working? Are you out that weekend? I mean, that's the plan, but we might have to, you know, maybe we not got, no, no, no, no, maybe we're not got a Monday show.

It's okay. We just not got a Monday show after Paris. I guess. We'll see. We'll see. Okay, guys, you might have a Monday show. I could also, I mean, I'm on Sunday. I'm not out the whole weekend.

I'm on Sunday, I think. So I'll be, oh, there you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just not out that, that day. So you should guys be getting. and on to the next one as usual probably myself and jed meshew but who knows maybe we'll get a different guest host but jed excellent matchmaker and uh you can maybe see him uh play of the watch party it was a lot of fun and uh aka i have to sing a karaoke song and share it on social media because i got beaten the picks by jett so that should be fun we have to figure out the songs

send your submissions uh so look for that on social media until next time everybody for a k i am mike always remember the golden rule. Don't take this stuff too seriously. MMA is supposed to be fun. And we'll have more fun in a couple weeks right here. And on to the next one, the podcast. We love you. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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