MMA Fighting - On To the Next One | What's Next For Ilia Topuria, Alexander Volkanovski After UFC 298

Episode Date: February 18, 2024

The fallout of UFC 298 has been such an intriguing part of the build towards the UFC's return to Anaheim on Saturday night. Following the featherweight championship main event which saw Ilia Topuria brutally knock out Alexander Volkanovski to become the new featherweight champion, where do both guys go from here? MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee attempt to answer that question from a matchmaking perspective on an all-new edition of On To the Next One. Future matchups will also be discussed for Robert Whittaker following his crazy co-main event win over Paulo Costa, Ian Machado Garry after his split decision win over Geoff Neal, along with fellow main card winners Merab Dvalishvili, Anthony Hernandez, and more, Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original, The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever.

Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster, The Downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now only from Audible. To the Vox Media Podcast Network. Well, hello there, everybody, and welcome to a brand new edition of On to the Next One. Yes, we are live on the MMA Fighting YouTube channel following a memorable UFC 290.

eight event, which went down last night and Anaheim, California. We have a brand new featherweight champion. His name is Ilya Taboria. We will discuss the followout of that event from a matchmaking perspective where Teporia goes from his big win, where Alexander Volcanowski goes after losing the featherway title, where a lot of the main card winners go and more. Plus, we'll get your suggestions as well. I am Mike Heck, and joining me as always on this matchmaking adventure.

the co-host, the co-matchmaker, the Prince of Positivity, and the best friend of on to the next one, Mr. Alexander Cayley, aka how are we doing on this Sunday morning? My best friend, we got some storylines, man. We got some storylines coming out of Saturday. I think some pretty clear narratives shaped. They were during fight week. They were in the lead of the fight.

I think we were all highly anticipating the top four fights of your C-298 for sure. And I think we thought we'd get some answers about, you know, the respective divisions involved, the respective personalities involved. And we definitely got some answers. We definitely got some answers. We got some questions too, some which we'll answer on this show, certainly the ones involving matchmaking. But yeah, I'm really excited to talk about this card. Overall, top to bottom, like not, you know, whatever, not probably won't be one of the, remember, just one of the best three events this year, one of the best five events of this year. And that's okay.

But we'll be talking about, I think, the results from the top four fights for some time. I think we will be discussing the results and what direction the winners went in. Even in December of this year, I think we'll still be talking about it. Very intriguing stuff. And boy, ended on a hell of an exclamation point. Yeah, undeniably the card of the year so far. But the bar wasn't very high, if we're being honest. We have a surefire knockout of the year contender in the main events.

That will definitely be in the top five. And honestly, I think if we talked about this in the post-fight show, if that is not the knockout of the year from Ilya to Poria, then this is a crazy-ass year, an absolutely crazy-ass year. So we will discuss the fallout from a matchmaking perspective for a lot of the taste makers of this card. If you guys have thoughts on the fights and or the fighters we're talking about,

you can leave them in the comments section. We'll pull them up on the screen, all of that fun stuff. We'll go through all of this. We'll go through the wild card selection where AK and I will matchmake for somebody that was either not a main card winner or somebody else. else. And at the very end, we'll take about 10, 15 minutes. We'll open up to you guys to make your suggestions. Throw them in the chat. We'll pull them up. There's going to be a lot of these.

And if you're thinking to yourself, I don't want to wait in line. I really, truly want my matchmaking selections to be discussed on the show. We have the super chat feature. You can skip the line, the proverbial velvet rope gets opened up and you walk by the big line, angering those in front of you. But that's just the beauty of the super chat feature. But before, you get into the matchmaking AK, I think the biggest question that needed to be answered when it comes to the UFC and their 2024 calendar year, we got our answer to last night in just a weird moments because Ilya Tuporia becomes the featherweight champion of the world has this incredible moment. They're about to strap the rockets to him. It's his time, his shining moment.

And then moments later, UFC CEO Dana White goes to social media and announces the main event for UFC 300. It is not Drick's Duplice versus Israel Adisanya. It is not Drick's Duplice versus Hamzaa Shamaif. It is not Leon Edwards versus Hamzaa Shamaif. It is not Leon Edwards versus Bilal Muhammad. It is Alex Pereira versus Jamal Hill for the UFC light heavyweight title. Love the fight.

If I had to make a list at the end of last year heading into this year of three fights, I have to see in 2024, Alex Pereira versus Jamal, Hill makes that top three list. But was this the UFC 300 main event? And I didn't really think that would be the case for a couple of reasons. One, something that was announced before UFC 298 last night, UFC going back to Brazil less than a month after UFC 300 would have been a damn good fight to headline that card in Rio, UFC 301. And Jamal Hill coming off of a nasty Achilles injury, I thought it just seemed like April is going to be too soon for that to happen. but on the flip side,

of all the options we thought about that were going to be announced for this spot, even you could even throw in just promoting Justin Gatzy versus Max Holloway to the main event, which was a big talking point during the fan Q&A on Friday. Pereira versus Hill wasn't really on anybody's radar, especially this week,

but that's the fight we're getting. Your reaction to the official UFC 300 main event, at least as it stands right this moment on this February 18, 2024. Yeah. A amazing fight, a must-see fight. It's one that's been, in our minds, I think it's been the worst for a while. Feels like a bit of a quick turnaround for Jamal.

Jamal tore his Achilles right in July, so summer of last year. And when it comes to those kind of injuries, it usually takes quite, it takes a bit longer to fully recover. Now, he's a good athlete, so, you know, these guys are athletic freaks. They're getting the best treatment. Maybe he heals faster than expected. Maybe he comes in, like, you know, less than 100%, but is functional. can fight and in that case you know uh then more power to the oc for throwing this one together i suppose i think it's a more than worthy main event it's not it will when they first envisioned

what would headline ucc 300 when fans envisioned what would headline uc 300 yeah this probably wasn't at the top of the list we had dreams of what mcgregor ronda rousey come back again maybe shemaiah fighting someone maybe is he coming back to fight so we had all these ideas and it's crazy because i'm a little I'm a little disappointed in ourselves, the MA fighting crew, because we did not, like you said, somehow this wasn't on our radar for this event. Like this was certainly something we had matched made for future events many times. But we've done several roundtables. We've done several podcasts.

Mike, you've done a heck of a morning. I have people asking you about U.S. 3,100 every frigging day. And we've all kind of, and we've had all these think pieces about what could headline, what's the card order is going to be. And I don't think any of us picked Jamal Hill versus Alex Padetta. in any of these articles that we wrote. Again, we've done several articles, podcasts.

I don't think we did. So again, good on the UFC for pulling a wrap out of a hat. Jamal, I believe speaking to Aaron Bronsteader's Sportsnet after, said, he says it literally came together on Friday. He says, you know, it's something he's wanted. If you follow his social media, of course, he's targeted a career for a long time. But he says it was not realistically in the cards until Friday. He's in California.

Of course, he was there to watch. the show and Dana White comes to him and says yeah let's let's make this happen so uh I think it's a great main event I think it's you know again it's what the card needs now because it's a stacked card guys it's a stack card I see a lot of people disappointed like oh it just doesn't have the name power we wanted it doesn't have like the the title fight I was hoping for but even before this fight was added it was a stacked card I think Pinedetta is a star uh certainly a B level star not in the level of you know maybe like a John Jones so that is he a disinia but he got some of the rub off Izzy.

So he's a strong A-side. We'll see what Hodge of Monhill does as a, as a, excuse me, as a top flight guy again. He won the title and then everything's been kind of screwy for him since then. He certainly has the disposition that might need a bit of work as an emotional guy, but hey, some people like that. So I think the main event is fine. I understand people being disappointed. But as far as adding to what they already had for EOS 300, it's really good. It's strong.

This is a strong, really, really good card, one that I think could be one of the best of the year. Yeah, and that's why it was so important that I kept trying to tell everybody from the beginning of this, even when, like, B.C. was on BTL. We need to manage our expectations. And I think a lot of the newer fans learned something through this whole process that if Dana White says something, it doesn't automatically happen. When he says, we're going to do something that is going to, you guys. aren't ready for this made event. Your socks are going to be blown off. And to kind of paraphrase what Jed Bishu said on BTL after this announcement, I was fully clothed after this announcement. And it was fine. Like, it was totally fine. Nothing fell off my body in terms of clothing. Like,

I was bundled up walking back to the hotel and freezing-ass cold New York. It's a fine fight. Like, it's a fine fight. And someone had put this out earlier, Leon Belal, from a stylistic perspective is not 300y. It just isn't. And I just don't think this fight's going to stink so that regardless of how you feel about the on-paper stuff and the drawing power and all that, I just don't see a world where this fight sucks. I think this fight's going to be really good. I think it's really interesting. Perera could defend the freaking title. Like he didn't defend successfully the middle-aid title, but then he moves up to 205, comes a two-division champion and starts defending the belt there. And I have a million.

questions about Jamal Hill. A million of them. And I want to see if he's that good. Because I think he could be, but beating Glover Tashara, who was a former champion, but also had a foot out the door and doing so in a short notice moment like that

and then getting hurt before we get all those answers. This is a big, big moment for Jamal Hill. Let's see if he's the real deal. Because he hasn't been very thrilled with how we have ranked him since winning the belt.

He hasn't been thrilled with anything, like he's not a happy he's not a happy man well he says he is he keeps shouting that he is so i guess he is the more you say i'm a happy person than you love to believe you but he's he's he's angry young man he's an angry young man i don't mind it uh it's fine uh i wasn't really prepared for it because from all accounts and i talked about this in heck of a morning it seemed at least from the conversations i had this was the fight that was going to more than likely headline rio at 301 so i think the timing's kind of weird like if they did it and not hours earlier that they were going to Rio three weeks later, I think this would have landed a little bit differently.

But still, I think it's a great fight. The card is ridiculous. There's still one more fight to be announced. And I hope the speculation isn't as ramped for the non-main event fight as it was for the main event fight. I'm so glad we have an answer to the question. We can move on with our lives. And for that, I feel a million pounds lighter. Yeah, I found it a bit strange.

The backlash, people saying, like, well, I'm not going to order the card now. And it's like, I would have ordered the card. Why? As is. Like, it's a great car. Now, you're again, you're not getting that next level of sort of more casual fan. I get it. I get it. Like, again, if you have McGregor, if you have a, excuse me, even like, Izzy, like, let's go like a little bit lower level star. Let's say you have Izzy and DDP. Let's say they manage to squeeze that on there. That's when you're getting probably in that upper tier, you know, close to a million pay-per-view buys range. I still think this can do really well. Again, it won't come close to that now. Again, it just doesn't have that big casual appeal to it. Maybe if they push, if they can make more aware of the, um, the BMF title fight that has some appeal for sure to pretty well-known guys. But if this is going to do what? Well over 500,000, 650,000. Oh, it's going to do. It's still going to do it.

Yeah. Again, I will say, I have no, I don't know. See, that I'm not sure. Also, because I don't know how the new, like we don't get reliable pay-view numbers anymore, right? So I don't know how they tabulate these. I don't know what the last one was to do a million, the last one that they touted is doing a million.

Because, again, we really have no hard data on that anymore. but it's not going to break records and that's fine. The number, the events sell itself, the fights that are on it already sell itself. And as you've kind of said many times, Mike, like, you know, people got a bit hung up on the anniversary thing. They got hung up on Dana White's proclamations. But this is one instance where I'll defend Dana because he was actually promoting. He's promoting.

Now, he was promoting something that he didn't deliver. Sure. And that sucks. And that sucks. And if you want to hate him for that and hate the OCE for that, more than fair, more than fair. If a promoter says they're going to do something and they don't deliver, you have every right to be annoyed and bothered.

But I would rather that than him not even attempting to sell this card. It is his job to sell cards. So mileage may vary on how it all turned out, but did a pretty good job selling it. Mike, like you said, could still make a million. I think it'll be under. But again, these days, if they make $800,000, even close to $100,000, that's a huge hit. That's a huge hit. And you're not paying anyone like McGregor money.

This event is going to make ridiculous cash hand over fist. So UFC's doing just fine. Yeah. And I think you kind of nailed it because a lot of the top. heading into 298 is we did like the media the scumbag media in particular we were the ones that put 298 over we were the ones that were hyping this main event up we were the ones that were hyping up this main card because all their attention for the most part it seemed was on 299 and mostly 300 because just the mere conversation of when are we going to announce 300 main event stole all the headlines

from this event altogether so it was up to us to really put this fight to card over as good as it was going to be the matchups, what they were, how good Volcanovsky versus Tuporia was. Having said that, 300 is going to be a whole different beast for Dana White. I feel like he's kind of checked out of the UFC stuff a little bit, and that's fine. Like when you win the race, it's easy to do that and go on to other challenges. See what he's doing with Power Slap, some of the other ventures he's dove into. And good on him. I'm not blaming him for that.

But you know he's going to go full bore promotional-wise for 300. Like this is when we're going to see Dana put forth his best effort to get this out there to everybody. So I do think the effort will be there. I do think by the time we get to 300, it is going to be freaking crazy. I think the build's going to be wild. And by the time we get to April 13th, it's got to, like everyone's going to be talking about it. So it's going to be fine, guys. I promise you.

This card is got to be really good. It's going to be really good. Mike, as good as a job is we did, by the way, of putting over you, 290. I feel like you're not keeping enough credit to the hilarious antics of Henry Sehudo and Oban Elliott. Those pranks, those hilarious pranks they pulled really, I think, helped to draw people in. We'll get, you know what? We'll get to Sehudo later. We'll get to Suhudo later. And Oban Elliot, I'll tell you something. That nonsense, you're not. That's not my wild card fake. It could be my wildcard fake and that's one reason why. Boy, people were just eliminating themselves

from the wildcard selections. Yeah, it's really easy. There's some awful callouts. I mean, just some real bad ones. But we'll get to that in a moment. Let's get into the postmorm of UFC 298 for a matchmaking perspective. As we talked about, as everybody here knows, Ilya Teporia, the brand new featherweight of the world. Fight was super interesting. It was the edge of your seat kind of stuff because Volk looked really good.

And Teporia looked really good. And it was a roller coaster ride where Volk would come out, getting some momentum. Toporia would get a little aggressive, steal some back. Volk would take it back. All three judges. scored round one for Volk. I did as well. Round two, Volk looks good. Teporia has a moment. Volk starts to pull away a little bit. And Teporea then knocks him out dead. One of the most brutal knockouts you will ever see. Volk set it in the lead in. Volk said it after the fight.

You cannot make a mistake when you're in there with a hitter like Ilya, who is a freaking sniper. And boy, did he deliver. Ilya backs up the trap. Hashton gets it done. Rose petals everywhere. Photos with ladies. Everything just was ready to go, prepared. And Ilya went in there in Anaheim and did the damn thing and is the featherweight champion of the world. A lot of ways we can go with this AK.

Ilyate Tupori is about to become a superstar. I think they're going to Spain. They're probably going to get there this year now. Is it Volk getting the rematch? Are we going a different direction? There's a lot of ways we can go here. in a fair and just world Volk getting the rematch

probably would be the UFC's top priority also given the history of people who have gotten rematches but I've said on previous shows that I wish they would kind of throw out their rematch policy because it's I understand I think you could defend the title three times at least especially in this era

like three times it's a lot as you know there's a lot any era but in this era I mean no one does 7, eight, nine straight tele defense anymore except for maybe like what Valentina did I can't remember six six and or if you count nunez her two you know across her two titles definitely defended you know more than five six times um and that's why you know amanda's got an immediate rematch and valentina's getting immediate rematch with grasso so uh and i'm and i'm okay with that i'm okay with that and by that logic

how can you not give wokenopskin immediate rematch extremely tough division great champion but the circumstances are so weird because he's like now technically last three of his last four fights he's been brutally knocked out in two of them it feels like ilia has a lot of options this isn't a situation where it's like, well, there's no one else, you know, ready to step up. We have a lot of good featherweights or featherweights that are about to fight that could take that spot. So this was, again, if they give Volcanowski rematch, no problem. It makes a ton of sense.

I would hope there's some time between this fight and that. But that's another reason why I'm going with. I think Topper would want to turn around, I mean, within the next four months, four or five months, and I don't want to see Volkanowski fight that soon. So I'm going with a pick I set up when Mosar Vloev, when he beat Arnold Allen, 297. I said he should get the winner of this fight and Mike, I'm sticking to it. Give me, give me the undefeated Mosar. It was the undefeated Ilya, banger of a fight. So I am foregoing any otno points here because to me, this is incomplete. I cannot,

I cannot make a selection right now. Oh. I truly cannot make a selection until a week from today. Because here's how I would do it. And if you want to throw Volk into a rematch, I have no problem with it. If there's anybody on this freaking roster who deserves a rematch for the title, it's Alex Dinder Volcanovsky. He was by far the longest reigning champion until last night. Now Leon Edwards is the longest reigning champion in the UFC, which is crazy to think about. Volk just ran rough shot for almost five years of this division after beating Max Holloway. And he was looking good. He was winning the fight until he got knocked out. So it's not like Ilya 13 seconded him or 50-41 him. He just caught

him with a big shot and beat him. And the fight was looking like I thought it was going to look for a while. But Tepore goes in there and gets the damn thing and starches Volkadovsky. So here's what I would do. If Yaya Rodriguez goes out there and finishes Brian Ortega next week, I think that's the fight you do in Spain. Toporia versus Yair, Spain versus Mexico. The build to that will be wild. The fans will go friggin bananas for it. Totally fine with that. If Brian Ortega wins that fight,

you give me Mabs are a Bloyev. You could do it in Spain. You could do it sooner. Co-main event to something fun. Like, even International Fight Week, if you want to do International Fight Week, if Toporia wants to get back in there, throw it a good, like, good solid main event for international fight week.

If you end up doing like Connor versus. whoever get Ilya and Connor on the same card. Like you think Ilya's going to be mad getting his first title defense on a freaking Connor card as a champion getting paid three points there. I don't think he's going to be too upset about that. And then you throw a Vloyav in there. It's pretty cool.

So that's how I do it. If Yaya wins, that's the route I'm going. In Spain, whenever you can make that happen, you shelve Ilya. If you can get there in like September, perfect, that's where you do the fight. If not, due to Poi versus of Vloyov, you can do it in Spain or do wherever.

But yeah, I'm very excited for this era. And now for the Volkadovsky side of this AK, because for me, the true answer to this is the most fascinating matchup for Volkadovsky is Alexander Volkadovsky versus Alexander Volkadovsky. That's the most fascinating fight right now because I want to see him take some time off. I want to see if he can have the wherewithal,

even at his age right now where the door is, it starts to close for everybody, no matter how good and how talented you are, that door starts to close for everybody. And it's starting to close for Alexander Volcanowski, and I think he knows that. So the time to strike and make those big paychecks is now. But he's been brutally caowed in two straight fights. This was way worse than the Makachap knockout, in my opinion, because he just got badly, badly, badly caoed with a punch. He was out and down for a long time.

But for me, still kind of incomplete, but when Volcanovsky is ready to fight again, he is going to fight for the belt, whether it's still Ilya or if Ilya fights somebody else and loses, Volcanovsky will get a title shot against whoever that is, whenever that is, whether it's the end of this year, early next year, I just think I'm throwing this out there because I want to see Volk take some time off. I don't know if he's going to, and I don't think I'm confident that he's going to because I think they are going to, I think they are going to run this one back. And I think we're going to be like, oh, this is too soon.

I wish this wouldn't be the case. But I'm putting up this juju that maybe Volk does take some time, takes like nine, 10 months, maybe a year away, and then comes back, fresh, new perspective, coming off the two losses, give it one more go and see what happens. But so that's where I'm going. Volk versus himself, Volk gets a title fight, but just whenever he's ready to come back, and I hope it's not anytime soon. A little Kimball slice there.

The enemy was the inner me all along. I think Volcanovsky maybe finding that out the hard way over the past 14 months or so. Yeah, it's not tough to watch because, like you said, he was winning the first round. For anyone who didn't see the official scorecards, it was 10-9 Volk across the board. So he was up. Again, that means nothing now with the final result and he was knocked out cold. But yeah, he looked fine. And I worry that he might be entering the Stager's career like we're seeing with Tony.

say that he's going to suffer that precipitous a decline, but that he's winning a fight until he isn't, which is kind of explains my pick for him, which I'll get to in a second. But yeah, he needs to take time off. It's hard, man. He just took four insanely high-level fights in whatever the last 14 months. I've said, you're going to get got. He got twice real bad. I don't think that could have happened against a year, but if it happened, it wouldn't surprise me just because the schedule is that keeps is so difficult. The skills are still there, but age does. matter especially the lower you get in weight lightweight feather weight bantam weight the people get faster they get younger they get stronger uh that's not the only reason to perry beat him to porr is an

incredibly skilled fighter if you put him against a prime volkanowski i'd still give to pori a really strong chance of winning that fight but against this version it's it's understandable why he was uh he was such a sneak he was the underdog i think right mike slight slight who was Ilya Slight yeah Volkler is I think he closed at minus 130

Yeah so you can understand Yeah so But listen he showed out And Volcanochi clearly doesn't want to retire He called for the rematch several times Post-fight press press conference interview All he wanted to do was talk about the rematch Which is fine he deserves it

It sucks that we're even discussing this Because he should get it But like I said I'm going Abloya for Tepore and for Volkanowski Kind of a low wattish fight Mike It kind of goes against what we're saying here where he should be going for like big money fights in this stager's career. But if you're him and you really think you have an honest crack at getting back up to a title somewhere,

whether it's at 145, 155, you should be fine with just fighting ranked guys regardless of the name. So I went with Josh Emmett. And I was kind of inspired by the co-main because it reminds me that matchup for me would be a little bit like Whitaker and Paula Costa and that like we know one fighter we feel like pretty confident paper is more skilled. we know Volkanowski is the quote unquote better fighter, whatever that means when two guys step into a K.A. just are throwing hammers. But for 15 minutes, we would be thinking, man, all Emmett needs is one good shot to put Volkanowski down. So Josh Emmett, of course, would jump at this opportunity.

Volk, I don't know if he would care. But I am fascinated because he should win a comfortable decision against Josh Emmett or finish him. If he gets K-O.ed by Josh Emmett, then we have a really good idea of how close Volkanowski actually is to either retiring or making a move up in wait, which really would not solve his problems if that's the case. If he did get a KO in that situation. So not a super sexy pick, but I have a feeling that Josh Emmett fight could happen. If I'm Josh Emmett's team of putting out feelers in like a couple of months

to see where Volcanovsky's at. I'll tell you what. The only fight I would want to see Volk come back for is if Al Jermaine Sterling beats Calvin Gator. We do Sterling versus Volk. I'd be all right with that because Sterling could win, but he's not going to, he's not going to badly hurt Volk with strikes. Like if he wins, he's going to win a decision or he submits Volk, which would be very difficult

to do. But I'd be okay with that. But still, I would still rather him take some time off. And I know for Ilya, if I could, if I had my druthers, I would, but then you have to take away my dream fight because Ilya versus Max friggin rules. But I just feel like that fight is impossible now. I just feel like it's impossible because either Max is going to beat Justin Gachie and probably fight for the lightweight title or Justin Gagey's got to thump up Max in a bad way and it's going to be real hard to justify throwing Max in a title fight like if he gets thumped up by Justin Gae. Like especially if Gachi like cracks him and drops them and really hurts them, then it kind of loses some appeal. So, I mean, we just booked so many weird things that in hindsight probably weren't. the right things, but I still love Gaichi Holloway so much. It's the one I've

been calling for for three years on this show. And now we're finally going to get it, but now Ilya is the champion. Ilya versus Max would be great. But we'll see what happens. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo.

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let's continue on here, okay? Robert Whitaker comes through after getting knocked out by the current champion, Drick's Drupal C, welcomed back the man, the creator of the secret juice, Paula Costa. Fun-ass-fight. Paulo Costa is officially not human because he got hit real hard, an awful lot in that fight. And he didn't even, he had like the Marlon Vera stuff going on where, like, he was barely marked up, but he took a lot of damage, didn't wear it. Rob looks like he got hit in the face of the baseball battable 15.

times with his hands tied behind this back. It was just wild, but Rob gets it done, gets the unanimous decision. Thought it was pretty clear. He won at least 29, 28. I scored at 3027, but I don't hate 20, 2928 is probably the better score. Maybe just because I had a point spread bet on Robert Whitaker and I kind of needed that 3027 to get me, get me over the hump. What are we doing with Robert Whitaker here? He's already fought the champion, got knocked out.

If we do DDP versus Izzy, he's already lost to Izzy, twice. Where do we go here with the Reaper? This was by far for me the hardest pick. I think Shamiya's an Ozzie's pick, but I had match made for Shamiya on a previous show. I think I so want to see him in Strickland fight. And if I had to choose Shemaiah Strickland under Shemeyer-Wittaker, I would stand by Shemai of Strickland. I just think that's a funny matchup and would like to see it happen.

So for me, in my mind, Shamiab is not free. Obviously, he's not booked if he wanted to fight Whitaker tomorrow. The UFC can make that happen. But in my mind, he's booked. so I had to go in another direction. And doing so sent me on a real trip, man, because Rob has beaten so many of these guys in the top 10 already. There's guys who are on the fringe of the top 10

who just aren't quite near that fight or coming off a loss and don't make sense. Jack Remanson would have been a good pick, but again, I've matched for him already. So I have to get a bit weird here, Mike, and I've got to get a real crystal bally. I think this fight would be a ton of fun, and I'm predicting that this guy will call for

after he wins his next fight. Demolidor, Michel Pereira, if you are out there, if you are out there, after you knock out Michael Alexechech at UFC 299 on March 9, call for this fight. I think you can get this fight.

Again, rankings-wise, he's not close to me. I think I have Michelle around the top 20, not in the top 10, not the top 15. He'll have won seven straight fights if he beats Michael Alexeach. That's a heck of a run. And that's a lot of steam that Robert Whitaker could take if he chose to accept that matchup. So we have to make two predictions here.

One, that Pareda wins, two that he calls out with three predictions, three they called Whitaker and three that Whitaker accept. So I'm going really a bit out there and hoping we see Michelle Padetta and Robert Whitaker in 2024. I actually thought about doing Michelle Pereira versus Paula Costa is my wild card. That would just be ridiculous. I didn't end up going that direction. This was tough. because of Hamzat.

Because you could do so many different things with him. Like, does he fight Leon? Does he fight DDP? Does he fight Strickland? Does he fight Paula Costa? Because you could still do that, even though Paula lost. Like, you think anyone's going to complain if they book Hamzaat Shamaia versus Paul Ocosta? Do you do Hamzaa versus Robert Whitaker?

Like, that's a great fight too. In the end, I agree with you. If I had to choose the next fight for Hamzaa Tchamai F, It is Sean Strickland. That is what I'm doing. That fight fascinates me. And I want to see it very, very badly. So because I'm sticking with that, and that's the one I need to see,

Robert Whitaker will now face a former, long-reigning UFC world champion, a man who spent all of his career in the welterweight division until he took a short-notice fight, against the man we just spoke of, Hamzaa Chimayev, lost a very close decision. We do Robert Whitaker versus Kamara Usman next. That's what I think. That's what I'm going with.

It's been talked about, you know, it's been talked about the past. Past Otnos. It's not the first time we've heard about this. And very sellable fight, very sellable fight. That's a great, that's a strong, strong co-main or a paper view, I think.

If they can't get to the, if there's one of the future where they can't fit in two title fights, get Whitaker and Usman on there. A nice kind of like a legacy fight. There's a lot of ways to sell. And a fight that would have some contender implications, frankly. So, yeah, that's name value-wise.

I mean, way better than Michelle Panetta. So there's options for Whitaker. Again, hardest guy I thought to match up after this win. And he looked great. He looked great. Yeah. I mean, you could do Whitaker Strickland, too. Like, I'm totally fine with that.

There's so many things you can do with the top of this division right now, with all of these dames, that there's really no wrong answer to any of these. No. So however it works out, it's great. but man, Whitaker Rousman's pretty fun. It's pretty fun. Both guys are like in the exact same places

in their careers right now where they're on the back nine, but they're not cooked yet. So they're still gas in the tank for both of those guys. And that would be a really intriguing matchup. So let's go to Ian Machado Gary, AK, just kind of a weird stretch

for Ian Machado Gary between all the hype he had heading into the Vicente-Luke gay fight, whether it be good, whether it be good or bad. He kind of flew under the radar this week, like in a different kind of a way, but boy, he was getting booed left and right, made some big promises for this whole Jeff Neal build. Yes, he goes out there and wins. Was it a fight we're going to go back and watch again? Probably not.

And there's not a lot of Ian Gary fights we have seen ever that we're just going to be like, nah, not doing that one again. But this is one of them. I don't fully blame Ian Machado Gary for the fight. being what it was because one, he's fighting Jeff Neal. Two, he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. I don't care who you are and how much swag you think you have. There's no way his head wasn't filled with bullshit all week with how people react to him.

He's almost getting in fights with fans who are shouting at his wife when he arrives at the freaking arena. I mean, this guy left and right is just dealing with hurdles needs to leap over. And even on a night that wasn't his best, he beats Jeff Neal. And that's a great win to have on the resume. I think despite the performance not being one we're going to go back and rewatch, I think it's one that's going to age very, very well. He calls out Colby. If he had like a sensational performance,

the performance he kind of thought we could get for me in Machada, Gary, I think people will be all over this fight. I am still good with it. And I still am going with it. Gary versus Colby. And I honestly think knowing Colby the way, that I do, he watched that fight and said to himself, I could beat this guy. Like, I feel better about beating this guy than maybe I potentially thought a month ago. I think Colby watched that fight and said,

this guy, I could win. And this is the right time to fight him. Because if you wait a year and a half to fight Ian Gary, I don't think it's going to go very well for Colby. But right now, I think there's something there. The bill to that fight's going to be super weird and Ian's going to be tested mentally and physically like never before getting ready to fight a guy like Colby Covington. So I'm good with it. I think it makes a lot of sense. And if you're really going to do something with Ian Gary, you got something here. And if you want to still, if you still think there's gas left in this Colby Covington train to build him up, maybe get him another title fight, getting him in there with Ian Gary, who you can make a debate right now has

Xbox Heat. Colby could come out looking like a freaking baby face, even after the Leon fight, when people turn on him like crazy. Colby could become the freaking baby face. And there's no other guy in this division. He would be a baby face against than Ian Machado, Gary. So I'm still going with this.

This is the fight I think the UFC will try to make. And I think Colby will be in on it. Can we even queue up the band here, Mike? Was this too obvious a pick? No, we can't. He called for it right after. There's really two choices. You either do Colby or you do Wonderboy.

And I'd rather see Colby. Yeah, I'm quite sorry, I went with Colby. This is definitely more of a magic wand thing because if you're Colby, again, you're, you know, you still have some leverage. I know that he dropped an absolute stink bomb in his last fight, but there's a falling there. He has a name. He still has the higher number. I think he's still ranked top five in the UFC's rankings. I don't know if he's in our rankings anymore.

I'm trying to think, Dan May fighting global rankings, he might just be gone. I think we were that disappointed in his Leon Edwards fight. But again, to the UFC, that doesn't matter, right? They've got their own rankings, they've got their own panel. I think they still have an actual panel, hard to tell. And he's in the top five. And Ian Machado Gary won't be. He'll be top 10.

He'll be top 10. Jeff Neal, I think was eight or nine in their rankings. So he'll be eight or nine. They'll be eight or nine come Tuesday, maybe seven. I don't think so. I don't think he bumped him above some of the more experienced guys before him because I think he'd have to jump over Wonderboy, and I don't think he's done enough to earn that.

I see a lot of people in the chat, confirm him to fight Wonderboy. Makes a lot of sense for the future. Don't think Wonder Boy is taking that one next, unfortunately. That's the other callout he could have done for sure. But Colby makes a lot of sense. Mike, both guys have to see this as a win-in-ball fight. Colby has to think, I'm going to wrestle this dude's butt off, and I'm going to out cardio him, 37.

This guy, the level of competition we've faced is, it's not even close in comparison. If you're Colby, you think that, if you're Gary, you saw the Elon Edwards fight, you think this guy is washed. I'm going to 30-27 him on the feet. He won't touch me on the ground. If it goes to the ground, I don't care. got better grappling or so he would think.

So both guys should theoretically on paper want it. If you're Colby, you do have a lot more to lose. You do have a lot more to lose. It would be cool to, again, I said with Rob Riddaker, taking someone's steam. It would be cool to be the guy to hand the future his first loss and humble him in front of whatever crowd they have him be in front of. But it's still a dangerous fight for Colby. I think Gary has a lot more to gain there.

But it's logical. I'm waving my magic wand. Let's see this happen, UFC. very easy fight to sell weird yes inappropriate at times for sure we'll get some ugliness we'll get some things i'm just going to hate having to transcribe uh but it's a good fight to make it is a good fight to make this is an ugly business and uh this is about as ugly as a match i can get and if you want to see ean machado gary in the top five and fighting for a title either by the end of the year or in heading into 2024 he beats colby they probably we'll talk about giving him a shot off of that yeah if he beats

Colby, he gets a number one contender fight. Yeah. And then gets title played. So, yeah. I mean, he won. Again, it's always important to know that even if you're not on your best, if you go in there and you get your hand raised, it's a win. It's going to be green. And two years ago, when we look at it, we're going to be like, oh, yeah, he beat Jeff Neal. Like, that's a good win. We're not going to remember the fight. We're not going to go back and rewatch it. We're just going to know that he won. So I think you do it. If they do Wonderboy fine,

um, Chom Brady would be interesting, but I don't think they're going to do that. So I just think you got to, you got to just go with the name here. And I think Colby's the one. And I think Colby looking at from a risk-reward perspective, I think this is about as good as he possibly get for him right now. Machado Gary is an interesting, you know, Connor McGregor comparison. Of course, they both from Ireland. Of course, they both talk a lot.

He has mentioned the Conner-Ringera comparisons. It's impossible to avoid. And there's some massive differences there. I mean, the one thing was so, O'Connor, his highlight reel going up to the top was amazing, right? His highlight reel was incredible. He would talk some crap. He would deliver big.

knockout sure you could say it was against favorable matchups doesn't matter you know he was he he has this real that we still watch this every time we see how got it khanberger highlights we still see wins from before mendes from before jos a aldo like it was it was knocking people out and the talking trash is what helped get him to where he is today get him to that level and machado gary doesn't have those knockouts against high level competition he's had some knockouts early on but but he is doing the most important thing and it's just not losing like you said like if you're you're going to talk all that crap you cannot lose you cannot lose split decision doesn't matter as long as is that w is that extra paycheck it's you able to say i'm 14 to no 15 to no 60 to know down the road that's what it'd be

nice if he was starching jeff neil and starching neil magny sure great you know then we're really talking about a superstar then he's walking a title fight off this way um but he's not there yet so he's an imperfect mcgregor comparison but uh he's still trending in the direction like he said as a guy who could maybe maybe two fights away from fighting for UFC goal, which is, hey, everything's according to plan for the way him and him and his management have laid it out. I got to tell you, I got to tell you something. Okay, we talked about like not queuing up the band. I almost like feel like we shouldn't queue up the band for this next one, but I got to tell you. If you told me two weeks ago that I was going to come on this program and say that no matter what happens at UFC 29,

Marabda Welsh willie is fighting for the band and white title and say that with full confidence, I would have laughed in your face. I would have laughed in your face because I just the fact that like Marab was viewed in such a just a Marabi way but then somehow started getting some some buzz with the social media stuff doing just brilliant stuff and then he is over like Rover in Anaheim waving the Mexican flag proudly this guy got like the biggest pop of anybody yesterday in that in that car. He goes out, gasses out Henry Sehudo, and just, like, had a good time. He's talking with frigging Mark Zuckerberg while he's trying to lock it a gillie. He's picking dudes up and having conversations with people Cadeside as he's slamming Henry

Sehudo to the mat, unbelievable performance. And then Dana White goes to the post-fight press conference, and he did it. He said the words. I didn't think he would. Mr. I don't make fights the day of the fight. Says Rob de Walsh, really is fighting for the title next. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it.

This turnaround from Marab to Walsh, Billy, over the last 15 or so days, is incredible. And if I'm Bilal Muhammad right now, I am doing a Zoom chat with Marab every day for the next 100 days to pick that man's brain and figure out how to get from one place to the other. Because this is incredible. Marab is the dude. He's the best band I'm waiting in the world, in my opinion. I have shot on alley ranked higher. I'm just throwing that out there. He is the champion.

and he's looking good. And if Marlon Barab wins, then I still think I'll have Marab number one. But I'm very confident that when Marab fights for the belt, he's going to win the belt. And he's going to fight for the belt next. If you do anything else, it is ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. Yeah, it would be screwed up. It would be crude up.

Yeah, like you said, Mike, we can't really keel up the band here. This is the fight that has to make. Maraub is a star, man. He is a star in the making, again, he might not be a John Jones level star. He's not that A level, but UFC has a lot of potentially strong B level stars. And that's okay. If you're the UFC, that's all you need. The UFC is the star.

We say this, we've said this probably five million times. Anyone who's covered in MMA has said this five million times probably since the first day they got into the business. The UFC is the star. But you need, you know, strong, at least B level guys. If you get lucky, you get a rousy, you get a Brock Lesnar, or you get a Conraderrecker. That's a whole other thing. Then boom, you're getting a couple of years of insane prosperity. But you don't need them.

You need guys like Marov, who are personalities, who are memorabilis. his social media videos I think are so funny I know some people might cringe at them they're very sort of well-crafted skits that him and his team put together I find them almost uniformly hilarious I think they're all really well done they're short they're punchy they make sense they don't take themselves too seriously he his videos that he's done in the past whatever year are a hundred times funnier than anything henry sudo has done in his career So I cannot have been more thrilled with Marab taking care of business. I don't want to turn this to do a Sehudo slam session.

Well, yes, I do. I'm sorry, I shouldn't turn this to do a Sehudo slam session. I am just so grateful that DeBos really has hopefully shut the door on Henry Sehudo's career. Sehudo's had an amazing, amazing fighting career. He's still, if you want to make the case, the greatest combat sports athlete, maybe of our generation, maybe of all time, maybe the if you want to just go down to American, you can go that far too, the greatest American combat sports athlete,

Olympic gold medals, two UFC titles. I think he'd stuck around, and this is like the, you know, one of the nitpicks of his career, of course, if he had stuck around after the cruise fight and logged a couple more defenses. I mean, unassailable. We're talking about Henry as a top five, like pound for pound guy. That may be a little high.

But he would certainly make the case for it. You would have a certain demographic of fans that would support it. And that's fine. You'd have a case. The guy is an unbelievable. He looked good in round one. He still has the skills to fight. You know, he's just reached the age where, again, at Bantaweight,

where it's really hard to go with some for five rounds, especially a machine like Merob. So happy trails to Henry Zudo. Enjoy your money, whatever money you've made in this crazy business. Enjoy your beautiful wife and child. I hope this is it for Henry. If he fights again, of course, more power to him. I have no interest in it, but it's his life.

You can do what he wants. But thank you, Marov, for winning this fight and maybe putting a pin in this to Henry Soto. saga for now. But yes. Marab, title shot. It's got to happen.

It's got to happen, Mike. I, if Sean O'Malley beats Jito and like stops him, I'm super curious what he says. Is he going to call Marab? Is he going to call it,

Ilya. What's he going to do? I'm fascinated by it all. I do think he ends up fighting Marab, but if he cuts the right promo, could he sneak into that Ilya fight? I would hate every bit of,

of it because I think at this point everyone knows how I feel about this. Let's just stay in your division and try to fight dudes because Sean Amel. He's got a lot of them. And yes, I agree with you on the Henry Suhudo thing. Boy, if Henry Suhudo sticks around, he's probably going to have to fight Umar and Maga Mada Madoff next. And yikes. I can only hope.

Good. Do you remember how many heck of a morning's, like, do you remember before the Aljo fight? Do you remember before the comeback, before he actually came back? What, last year? Last year? Last year. How many people were asking you, like, do you think this is going to happen?

should he get a tell the shot right away? And you were having to explain like, I think you had no problem with him coming back, but like why, why, why should he leapfrog all these people? And then he did. And I was so upset. And then he fought great against Aljo. Let's call it what it is. He fought really, really well against Al Jermaine Sterling and, you know, just lost a sputty.

But man, it has been a roller coaster with Henry over the last couple of years. And I wish the U.S. he just paid it what he was worth when he was with the company the first time. It sucks that he had to come back. I don't think just for money, but, you know, to compete. And also, you know, to get the money he deserves because I think he made the UFC a lot of money. But for now the story's over. I don't want to see him fight Umar. I kind of like my eyes lit up there for a second, but I think Umar just,

just smashes Henry at this stage of their careers. And that's, I think that's the first. I think you're a fan of Henry Sehudo. You should have no interest in that. So, yeah, let's make this. Mike, do you think Sean O'Malley is practicing his Spanish? Do you think he's going to do a call out in Spanish of Ilya and get that, maybe get that fight in Spain.

Go to Spain and fight Ilya. Because if you're Dana White, you would love to see Sean O'Malley, versus Ely took for your headline, Spain. Sean's pretty smart. And I think if Brian Ortega wins, he's going to try to get that fight. I mean, that's a big one for that.

That's a big one. It's a big one. But I would rather see Sean fight Barab. If he beats Chito, I would rather see Ilya fight somebody in his division. But we'll see how it all plays out. And to Henry's credit, look good in the first round against Barra.

He won. He won the round. He has the skills. I guarantee if you go to Henry Seudo's gym, he is wiping dudes out left and right in practice. Like he is probably still one of the most skilled guys at 135. His best degree is unassailable. He's been wrestling since he was a kid and is still one of the best in the world at it. But on fight night, athleticism and age and the cardio and all that stuff matters.

And it sucks because, again, there are a lot of great fighters out there who are just above a certain age that can still do it. but actually find out an extra gear you need when the time comes. It's just, it's just human nature. There's a few freaks out there and go on forever. I wonder from Marab, when he reaches 35, 36, 37. We'll also have that second, third, fourth gear that he shows. Probably will because he's a freak. But again, these lighter weight classes, they just get younger and better.

And unfortunately, for God, Zahudo, father time, undefeated. Marab is just such a freak. Dude, barely broke a sweat with that pacing put on. he had a 14 and a half minute post-fight interview with Joe Rogan, arguably the longest post-fight interview in the history of the UFC. And Suhudo didn't get the chance to retire again, which I actually okay with. I actually was okay with Dana's reaction because he was just like,

look, man, he already did it. Like, he's had his moment already. It's like, do you buy wedding presents for the same person if he marries five people? Do we get five toasters at this point? So I kind of get it at that point, but man, what a performance. Rob is the dude and been pretty fun to watch.

Let's go to, look, I'll just throw out my Anthony Hernandez pick because if you listen to last week's show, this not a surprise. Jack Cremanson defeated Joe Pfeiffer. I said the winner of Anthony Hernandez versus Roman Copulov should get the Jack Cromanson fight. Anthony Hernandez is just the dude. He is so fun to watch.

This guy doesn't get tired. He's a frigging gamer. And he kind of did to Roman Copulov, what Marab did to Henry Sehudo, and it was very, very impressive. Anthony Hernandez is really, really good, and he deserves the opportunity to fight an established name who is ranked in the top 10 in this division, and Jack Hermanson's perfect. This could be a main event at the apex. This could be in front of a crowd.

This could be on a pay-per-view main card. It's a good one. I'm okay with it, and I'm sticking with it. Fluffy gets his chance, fights Jackramanson next. Yeah, I wish I could do the same. That's a great pick. I think for Hermanson, I went with another upcoming fight. So he's off the board for me, but I could see that fight happening.

The timing was just perfect. But I'll go with the Brennan Allen, Marvin Vittori loser. He could maybe get the winner. Anthony Harris could maybe get the winner. But I'll be conservative here and I'll go loser. That fight's happening, I believe, the April 6th main event. So yeah, Fluffy versus one of them and keep this middleweight division moving. Mike, so far, your and you and Chehine, I think, what, top five, top four division.

Top 4 Division, middleweight. It hasn't looked bad so far. It hasn't looked bad. We had a lot of middle weights on the past two apex cards. I don't remember any of the fights being like terrible, I think maybe maybe forgettable, but nothing terrible. And then both fights on 298 certainly delivered. We got an early fight of the year contender with Whitaker and Costa, amazing fight. And Hernandez and Koppelov was pretty exciting for as long as it lasted. And then we had a definitive winner. I think Hernandez taken care of business. That was a really fun matchup. I'm not saying you guys are right yet, but Middleways looked pretty good. Pretty good in 2024 so far. Pretty good. And the picture is shaping up. That was a big thing for you guys was how does the contender picture look, how much intrigue is there? It's shaping up nicely.

So I'm not conceding defeat yet in this debate, but 298. Good night. Good night for the Middleweights. Yes, great performance for Fluffy. Five in a row. This guy's super fun to watch. He's good. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats.

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Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here.

Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ, built for breakthroughs with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Lift with confidence, while Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus at OnePeloton.ca. All right, let's go to the wildcard selection. let us matchmake for somebody we have not match made for yet. And we'll do it right now.

And then we'll head over to the peep. So, AK, who's your wild card selection for UFC 298? And why is it Min Yangang? Mike, we normally save the disclaimers for the listeners. But I think we need disclaimer for fighters now. Let's get the word out. If you make an insane callout, and we have gotten plenty so far this year, Denver Grimbo calling for a title shot,

someone else that same card. I can't even remember. But people just calling for top five guys or top. one guys with like a three and one you know see record or like on a two fight wind street I have been such an advocate for insane call us I always say call your shot you never know what you're gonna get now I have been pushed the other way guys are getting way too wiles with it shoot for the moon you land in the stars you're gonna shoot you guys are gonna land in a freaking dumpster the way you guys are making some of these callouts so

you are banned from wild card consideration sang min yang calling for alice butetta I don't know what the hell that was I was told it was a joke he was saying it in jest. Certainly possible. Made a blossoming translation. Maybe I completely misread that. Either way, didn't find it funny. So Zhang and Yang can have a lot of fun fights at LightHeatherweight. Really looking forward to what's an excheang. But, no,

I'm not wildcard video. You can't make a call it like that. So I'll go with Rinya Nakamura. Undefeated so far as career 3 and 0 in the UFC now at Bantamweight. But has shown that, you know, he's, he still has work to do against more experienced guys.

Carlos Vera, I thought, brought in to just get bulldozed, but Carlos has had a lot of, is an experienced guy, not as far as, like, he doesn't have like 20 fights or anything, but he's been competing in martial arts for a long time. And, yeah, he looked like he lost clearly, but he put Rino's an uncomfortable moment. So let's just keep testing Rigno with guys with similar amount of fights. I'm going, nothing fancy here, Mike.

Garrett Arnfield, another good fighter. Let's see where he is at Bantamweight. I think he's the right test. for Rinya. Rina would be favored pretty heavily, but maybe not so heavily after not being able to finish Carlos Vara. So let's keep going. Let's see if you can go to 4 and O in the UFC.

Then we can talk about maybe a top 35 guy at 135. But let's take it slow. Rineya is a – could be a guy who would be a top 10 guy, but I don't think he's close to that until 2025. I don't think we should even be talking about that yet. What? Rini broke his hand? He said he broke his hand, yeah.

Yeah, Danny Barlow broke his arm in the first round. Like, there is a lot of crazy. Henry Soudo definitely probably has like a broken forearm. Mackenzie Dern's face was a mess. Like there were a lot of. You said Whitaker earlier. Whitaker is definitely, Whitaker's face cannot be in great condition nor Volcanowski.

I mean, well, he looked pretty good post-flight, but I'd love to see the injury report after. Yes. So I was, I'm not going to lie to the world right now. I'm frigging tired. Like I got, I'm on an hour's sleep in the last like day and a half. right now. It's, it's a tough. It's tough. So I was just going to just throw out Amanda Lemos versus Tatiana Suarez and just do that because that's so obvious. But I'm not doing that. I decided let's have some more fun. I'm going to do something that's very rare on this show. I'm going to matchmake

for a main card loser right now. And it's not probably any of the people you expect. I'm going to matchmake for Roman copulaf right now because God bless man. Your boy. God bless that man. Remember when everyone was jumping off the copulov train. Who was the guy who stood up for this man? Guilty. Don't jump off yet. Guilty. Don't jump off yet. This guy's going to be fun. Buried him. Let's

let's make him shine. Let's give him fun things to do against other fighters who also need fun things to do. Who in the blue hell is going to be upset about this matchup? Roman Copulov versus Bruno

Faheda. Good freaking googly-moogly, you're welcome world. Take the younger. Take the under. I might take under a half a round enough. Someone is throwing hands without regard for life.

We got a lot of that. You could say the same by the way. Any future matchups for Zhang Mingyang. And also, Brenda Schen Hiberto, by the way. I mean, these guys are, these guys may never see a second round for a long time.

They are just going to be going into smash and bash until someone drops and hopefully collect bonuses and make a good living. the UFC as middle weighty middle weights or light heavy weighty light heavy weights but in a positive way I should say in a positive way so yeah but there's a lot of fun there's a lot of fun to be had and and there's definitely some guys on this undercard who and also a couple of off who are going to like plenty of fun fights ahead plenty of highlights ahead good or bad plenty of

highlights ahead god that fight was so good if I was so good all right we have about 10 or 15 minutes left all right so let me I'll skip the disclaimer this week. I'll skip the disclaimer this week. Let me just do some quick. I had a poll at the beginning of the show. Mike, what's next for Ilytipura? FCUC-C-Tunay-298, Volcanowski rematch,

Mov-Sar, Connor, or other Lee comment. Thankfully, Connor McGregor, fourth place, 12%. People, Ilya, people don't even want this. They don't even want this. Nobody wants this except you. And then a Volcanowski rematch at the top 46%. So that's logical, I think. I don't know if people are saying what they think's going to happen,

what they want to happen, but either way, pretty strong sentiment for a Volcanowski rematch. And guys, you're not wrong. very likely what will happen. And I just want to shout out one person. Mitchell Ostrillan, I like to shout up my first-timers, Mike. I'll read his picks real quick. Everyone else is sent in.

Sorry, we'll get to you guys another week. Mitchell, first-timer. Deporia versus Ovaluev. If bulk does move up to Womte 5, give him a long break, two KOs, four months. Don't think Rodriguez versus Ortega winners, winner deserves it. Sure. Whitaker versus Shemaiah, after DDP versus Izzy is booked.

Gary versus Brady. I think we'll see a lot of that. Mara Vars Chirley-Ommas versus Chris Curtis. Rebook Lamo Schwarzis. Delema, Rosenstrike after he loses to Gazeev on March 2nd, Nakamura, who's stand rebooking Zhang and Guskov. Mike, I imagine Zhang, Guzcov. That will happen someday.

That fight is awesome. They will. They should be circling each other because they will fight each other someday. No, that's next. That's next. We have to do it right now. We have to do it. Barlow and Adam Fuget, Ovan, Elliot, Gilbert Urbina, Maverick, and Casey O'Neill.

And a random wildcard pick, Mike. Volk moves up to 155 after taking eight months off minimum and fights Dustin Porriere after he loses to Benoit-Saint-Den-U. Man, I kind of feel like Volus knocked out in that fight too. That goes through a decision. Five-rounder. If Volk won and then moved up to fight Porre, like, I'd be okay with that. Yeah.

But, man, that's a tough, that's a tough dude to get in there with after getting badly KO two fights in a row. That could be a lot of red on Volkanowski's resume. quick for a guy who had no red on his resume up until the really up until the second oh sorry the first polkonowski fight that could be a lot of red i'll tell you what i liked a lot of those picks uh boy was there one fight that made me cringe a little bit oh you keep fluffy hernandez away from chris curtis no do not do that he specified it as a five round apex main event no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no No, I love me some Chris Curtis, but keep those two away for each other.

Stylistically, that's a tough one. I still think Hernandez would make it fun. But come on, man. After that performance, this dude deserves a step up in competition. And Chris is a good fighter, but I mean, come on. Come on. Let's give him something in the rankings. It could happen.

This could be a crystal ball pick. That's all I'm saying. I don't know if that's the pick we want, but it could be the pick we get. Yeah, that's very true. All right, Mike, what do we got? Comment. Let's go. comments let's go i got to help you

again all right we're opening up to you guys it's your wild card round uh again you can clear the velvet rope you can cut the line with the super chat feature if you guys have questions about other things uh we could do that as well barlow versus semelsberger i mean it's fine i like it danny barlow is good i like dandy barlow the problem is i think semmlesberger like could probably win that fight because i mean we haven't we didn't see Danny Barlow, like, wrestle at all? Because that's kind of the pedigree. Semmelsberger hurts people on the feet and then gets taken down and controlled for 12 minutes.

Sorry, Mike, we're not protecting Danny Barlow. You know, we've got to give Danny Barlow tough fights. It's tough division. Yeah. Miranda Bavrick versus Veronica Hardy, Jeff Neal versus the JDM Gilbert Burns loser. Wow. Coppola versus Robocop. Don't hate that.

No. Like it. Who did I put Robocop in there with? I'm Alaskar if I put him in there with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. which I like that fight a lot. Ilya versus Volok 2. I mean, that's a popular one.

I think we'll see it. I just, I don't want to see it right now. I don't want to see it right now. Gary versus Burns, regardless of the 299 O'clock. That would be a huge fight for Gary to get. I can't picture it happen. There's a reason Gary did not call him out.

I think he knows that is not the matchup for him right now. I would certainly pick Gilbert to win that fight. maybe a little further down the road. Get some more seasoning for Ima Chata Gary and get a little more wear and tear on Gilbert before we try and try to make that fight happen. Locally 2, Whitaker Strickland, Gary Covington, Marab, title fight Hernandez, Paul Craig.

Do Do there. Paul Craig's booked against Mr. Co-Mane event himself, Kyle Barallo. Neil versus the Holland Page winner. Yes. Dern versus Godinez, Jean-Joroba loser. Loobie's fighting John Jarobo. one really when's not happening i think that's right uh let me check real quick also

did are either loopie's the right answer though loopie um i am seeing march 30th like march 30th oh she is fine atlantic city ucccc lantic city oh cool okay i forgot about that one bierna and mackenzie have not but it was a while ago it was you know what you could it was a good fight too yeah you could run that one back you could run that that's a good thing that's good thing yeah Who was Viernes supposed to fight? Was she supposed to fight Tatiana? Was Vierna's who's fight Tatiana?

Yeah, who was Vierna matched up with that was like? Yes, that's right. Last August, yes, yes. Correct. Ilya versus Mazzar will happen. Selfishly, for bragging rights purposes, I truly hope that's the fight that's made. Because if I could end the year in a world where I predicted Mavzar of Lov and Armin

Sirukin to be champions, and it happens, I'm never making predictions again because it will never get better. You're on a hot streak with your predictions. I'm on fire right now. We should tell people at home, we do an internal M.A. fighting, like, topology picks competition. And Mike has won, like, four out of four times this year so far? Four out of five.

Four out of five, a UFC card. My goodness. I had a great betting night last night, like, swept it until the main event. Hit a big parlay with Volk Toporia going over one and a half. Just barely. Sweat that one out a little bit. Lost some Volk bets at the end. But, man, I hit everything.

I hit point spread bets. I hit everything. It was a great night. It's definitely my best betting night ever. Like I see, we have a super chat, but it is, it is used on do-do, sadly. That's do-do that you just, you already called out. Paul Craig versus Pluffy, but it's, it's just due because it's super chat. Oh, okay, okay.

Wow. Man, we are really given super chat privilege to be, my goodness. But, yes, I mean, look, it's, it's BNP. Paul Craig is. Okay. Let's see, what else we got? Volk rematch, Bobby Knuckles versus Strickland, Ian versus Colby. Fluffy versus Zickram.

Dude, Fluffy versus Grum is great. But too risky at this point. Too risky. Yeah. Marob, next title shot, 299 winner. We touched upon the Whitaker Strickland fight. That is a really, really, really good fight. Again, if it wasn't for the fact that I think you and I have already matched me for Strickland and match.

Like, we've done previous matchmaking shows, but that's a really logical fight for both guys. If you're Strickland and if you're the UFC, uh, listen, if you don't need to go over, you know, me being there at UFC 297 to see Strickland in person. That's a whole drama. It's a whole other thing. But I did see what an enormous following Sean Strickland has. He is a star with the UFC. To some degree, he's a star.

They need to keep him in big matchups. And Robert Whitaker makes a lot of sense. And is probably a winnable fight for Sean Strickland? I would, of course, pick Whitaker to win. Like, I think he'd be favored. Probably pretty strong, like minus 180, almost minus 200. But Strickler can win that fight. Yes, he can.

He's so tricky. Everyone says the first time you fight him, it is just crazy. DDP is the champion. DDP didn't like kill Sean Strickland. That was a really hard fight. And he looked like he had a lot of problems figuring Strickland out. I think Whitaker had some problems too. So, I don't know.

Like Strickland versus Hamzot is so compelling. I just love that. It's just fun. It's so good. Because I think Strickland could win. Like, I think Strickland stylistically you could give Hamzot fits. And that's really interesting. Why did that just happen?

I don't know if you guys could hear that or not, but it's okay. So Gerard said, Toporia Evloev. Volt versus Charles Olivera, winner lose, which I'm cool with that. Hallway versus Olivera is one I would love to see as well, depending on what happens to 300.

Whitaker Strickland, Gary versus Burns, Jadiam winner, Hernandez versus the leads A, sure. Like, how do you feel about if it does end up being, I don't think they would do Delam Adelaena and Gary if JDM beats Gilbert Burns, right? I am someone who's an advocate for throwing up and commerce together. I always say don't protect contenders, just throw the contenders. I don't care about quote unquote killing off a contender, guys have to fight.

I would love it, but I don't think the UFC, I think they would avoid IMG versus JDM as long as possible. Yeah, I think they'll try to hold off on that one. Because both guys could be title challengers. So again, I wouldn't protect them, but the UFC probably would. Mike, do you see, we have another super chat. Also from Akila's Jr. Oh, shut out. Let me, let me find it. Sorry. No worries, no worry. People, get your super chats in there again.

Love it. Okay, is Brady or Brady or Wonderboy beats Gary? I don't know. Sean Brady. A lot of people I saw saying, let's get Sean Brady in there with him, see how cocky this guy is. This is definitely a tough matchup.

I think Gary can beat Wonderboy at this point, but I've said that before about other fighters who Wonderboy has like 50, 45 or 49, 46, or whatever. It's like, I don't know, could be totally, or 29, 20, when he didn't. That could be totally wrong. Gary versus Shafcott. Let's see how good Ian really is. No more tiptoeing. Come on. Dude, Schofcott might do this point, Shafcott might be

fighting Leon Edwards next. We don't know. I just any, no Ian, Gary, Ballam's suggestions, I'm kind of surprised. I'm kind of surprised because it feels like Belaw's not getting a title shot. Like what was really feels like he's not? What was Dana saying that Leon,

they'd offered Leon three fights or something for three? And he said, what was the other? They offered him three fights. For 300. And what are they saying? Leon said no or what do they say? I don't understand. No, they're saying, Leon said yes to all of them.

Oh, but they didn't mention names. And they just didn't want to headline 300? I'm so confused. Or they just didn't come to fruition. Because obviously, like, as Ariel reported, Leon versus Hamzat was one of them. And Leon was probably like, hey, they were probably like, hey, Leon, how about you versus Hamzaat? And he was like, yes.

And then they're like, hey, Leon, how about Chofcott? And you said yes. And then the third one is interesting because I would not. be surprised and I didn't hear Dana's whole presser I saw like five seconds of it because after the watch party I have to go through the whole watch party and timestamp them for you guys to make sure you can just find the moments as easy as possible so that takes a lot of time um so I don't know if he was asked specifically about Bilal Mohammed but something tells me that for some reason the law was not one of those three names I'm curious who the third name was something like I wonder

because this could be anything, right? Like nothing are like official offers. But do you think there's a world where they're like, hey, we're going to try to get George St. Pierre in here. Would you take that fight? And he just says yes. Like that counts as we offered him three names and he said yes to all of them. Like they're going to say like Francis and Ghanu.

Like, hey, would you fight Francis? Sure, I'll fight Francis. Oh, there's number four. Like you said yes to that too. Like that just adds to the list. Like these weren't official offers. But do you think Balaamah was one of the three names offered to Leon? because I don't think he was for some reason.

It's super weird. I'm just now imagining a series of texts. Just like, I need to see the text. It's just like, hey, Leon, do you want to, hey, would you want to fight in Ghanu? L.O.L. And then like, Leon just answering, huh? Question mark. K.

And like a funny gift. And like, yep, that counts. Okay. And like, and there's more names. And just Leon going like, okay, I guess. Question mark, question mark, funny gift. Like, just a very casual exchange and not realizing like, oh, this is them kind of doing business.

And then Dana later showing up, yeah, they are. offer them all these whites. Trust me. We got the text for it. I need to see those messages. Hey, Dana, release those ones. You release those ones with the NWA Sondini.

Let's see some, let's see some Leon text, please. Can you imagine what Leon's, like, text thread looks like from the UFC? It's just, like, a million things. And then Dana, like, puts Leon over. And then you look at Belals and, like, the only message he gets from the UFC is, like, what you do in at, like, 3.30 in the morning. He's become the booty call of the Walterweight Division.

It's so like, how did we get here? It's so crazy. I feel so bad for him. He's made so many mistakes along the way, but at this point, I feel so bad for Blahaw. His nickname should be the booty call. That might get him a title shot faster than remember the name, which is quickly becoming the most ironic name in nickname in M.A history. Because they never remember his name when it comes to booking big fights.

Yeah, I think we're going to. have to change the nickname like please call my name or yeah i don't know jesus it's so weird what the hell plal ball all consider the name that's a good one yeah yeah that's that's maybe be a little less aggressive with it yeah guys send in your pick i'm seeing a lot of random comments you guys this is your chance you are live you are live on you have five you got five minutes you have to check out the hotel send in any no don't send any fix i just i don't open those gates but Dana Bilal 3 am a bighead. Will, let me ask you this.

Is Bilal Mohammed going to have to fight somebody else before he fights with the belt? Yes. That's so frigging wild, man. I thought, people know this. I was saying on shows, I wrote about it. I thought they were just going to have to default to, um, uh, Muhammad and Leon for the UFC 300 main event.

People told me that's not going to happen. You guys were absolutely right. Clearly was not their number one, number two, number three number four five to everything they were doing humanly possible to not have leon and ballol headline 300 so uh maybe maybe it doesn't matter if they go to england right leon or if they go to london it doesn't matter who leon fights and then you can do the ball fight but it does feel like they're going to make him fight again which is so so stupid ball all deserves the title shot 100% but he's i don't think he's going to get it come on booty call let's go booty call

it's they're going to make them fight freaking shock God it's nuts it's nuts I mean I don't know man what's gonna headline 301 at this point that's my big question because I understand like Pantosia should fight on that card but who's he gonna fight? Moreno would make sense but we've seen that fight three times already Pantosia won them all the last one was great but Marino's fighting Brennan Royval in a week so like that would be the best option is

that Moreno just runs Roy Val super quickly and then turns around in two months. Otherwise, like, who is Pantosia going to fight? What's Amirabazi? Amirabazi's booked, right? They gave him a fire. No, you're supposed to fight Brandon Moreno in Mexico and got hurt. Melkoff missed weight? Cancel.

Cancel fight? Missing weight? Yeah, that's a good option there. Look at my rankings right now. You've got to go. You just stole Mokai of it. the fire? I don't, I don't think so. To Tissau Tower is way too early.

Mark 2nd. Yeah, call Tim Elliott. Call him Elliot. You know, he deserves another title shot. It's time. Call to him. Oh, my God. Who do you have, who do you have Dern fighting next? You fight everyone in the Strawaway Division, pretty much she'll be having rematch. So I touched on this earlier. I think it's Lubby Godinez. Yeah, yeah, against

Virida-Daganda-Robo. Yeah, I like, yeah, I like either of those. Yeah, you do loopie or do the, you have been a rematch. So I think that's good. But we can, we can talk a bit about Mackenzie because gosh, she's tough as hell, but that's striking is just all over the place, man. I don't know. And she has, she has, the crazy thing is,

she has the tools to be a good striker. She has athleticism and raw power. She knocked down Amanda Cooper a while ago. She, she, she, I think she got a knockdown of Lamosh, right? Was that not a lot of knockdown in the round two? Was it scored a knockdown? I don't know. I have to go to, let me go to Ucstats.com real quick.

Oh, hold on. Let me go to UccS.S.S.com real quick. I thought it was because I do believe knee, her knee and Lemosch's knee touched the floor. No, it wasn't scored a knockdown. It is not scored a knockdown. Okay. And they only scored, they only gave Amanda Lemosch one knockdown. I thought she clearly had two knockdowns in the second round.

Yeah, yeah. I guess I guess they counted it all as one knockdown because maybe McKenzie never really properly got back up after getting her face broken. Super tough, but we got to get her somewhere and wrestling and wrestling. I just thought she needs to go just dedicated wrestling camp for, I don't know, three months or something. because the skills are there, man, I mean, and the durability is there, but she has taken a lot of damage these fights, and that window is closing real fast. So entertaining a fighter, I hope she has a great long career,

but she won't if she keeps taking damage like she did, and the fight with a lot of motion. I don't know. I see someone saying Val Woodburn versus Leon Edwards. I wish Val had made that call out even in defeat. Listen, we're in the year of the crazy callout, so screw it. Should have done it. So I'll make an interesting point.

And if Jelton Almeida goes out there and just runs over Curtis Blades, do you do Almeida versus Tom Aspen on the main event of 301? That's quick turnaround. It's two months. I would be. I'm saying, wait, because, okay, this is happening at Blades and Almeida is 299, right? Yeah, so it'd be less than two months. But if it's quick, like, if it's a quick, like, you subs them in 90 seconds, then you can do it.

I would love that. I'm all, you know, I'm all in the Almeada train. The faster we get this guy to the heavyweight title, I'm all for it. That's a good one. but man he's got a tough fight curse blades is uh it's a good one it's a good one all right last call what you got get get your picks in here people i'm just i'm scrolling back to see if we missed anything good that should be red uh i think we might be okay there's one that jumped out of me but i can't i can't find it now it's it's gone but yeah i mean overall are you saying boo or bulal

i was saying bulal for the record i was saying bulw um oh one air a lopsided Lopsided through in. Costa versus Strickland. Failed the moon. So, yeah, yeah, listen, they both come back. That's a good one. That's a good one. God, that would have to assume Hamzat's fighting in Saudi Arabia, right?

Like, if, if we were to guess, I think that's where he's going to fight. He's on that Saudi card. So, Costa's good. Whitaker's good. Strickland's good. Costa and Strickland would, I think they'd really get along, too. They'd find some sort of weird. They've trained together, I'm sure, at Extreme Coutre.

When Hamzaa comes to town, that's usually where he gets his work in, like, when he fights in Vegas. That's how he, like, where he finishes his camp. So I'm sure those two got some rounds in together. Hey, throw that to pay for you. That's a, that's a made for pay for view fire right there, Koso versus Strickman. Absolutely. All right. I think we have, we have done the thing here.

I think we're good. Yeah. Great picks. I think we're good. Everyone has sent in great picks, great stuff. Great comments. Love it. And just a pretty fun card last night.

It was a pretty, pretty, pretty fun card last night. We will be back on this program next week, but normal show will be on the podcast network reacting to UFC Mexico City. Main event, Brandon Warren versus Brandon Roybal. We have Yaya Rodriguez versus Brian Ortega in a five-rounder. Daniel Zellhuber versus Francisco Prado. What a fight that's going to be. Raul Roses Jr. versus Ricky Terseos.

Yasmin Hadeghi versus Sam Hughes, Manuel, Chores versus Chris Duncan, Christian Kenyones versus Hione Barcellos, Jesus Aguilar versus Mateus Mendonka, Edgar Chiraz versus Daniel Lacerda, Claudio Playa's versus Fores Zayem, Luis Rodriguez versus Denny's Bandar, Victor Altamorano versus Felipe dos Santos, and Muhammad Naimov versus Eric Silva. That is UFC Mexico City. But don't forget everybody, before that happens, the perfect, the cold leader. PFL.

Oh, yes. Back with PFL versus Bellator champs card, which is just crumbling and dissolving as each day goes by. The two best most compelling matchups from a stylistic perspective are off the card now.

And yeah, for the low, low price of $50, you could watch whatever is left of that main card. So that's happening first. And then, uh, I'm not sure how to watch it. I'm not sure how to watch it in Canada.

It's on the zone. It's on, oh, internationally. It's on the zone. Okay, yeah, we have that here. All right, guys. So get in, get into zone if you want to watch that, this card, which is still has some intriguing matchups. Help the co-leader out. I mean, AJ McKeever's Clay Collard's got a rule.

So I'm cool with that. But, like, yeah. One last year's C note, if Brandon beats, if Brandon beats Brandon, Brandon, Random Beas Brandon Royval. He gets the title shot, right? He fights Panto. We get to run it back with Pantosia one more time, right? Sure, but if him and Royval go five rounds and beat the shit out of each other,

like, how's he going to turn around in three months to fight in Brazil? It's going to be tough. Well, thank you all. To the world's most famous Apex for Jarzini Rosenstrike versus Shemiel Gadsieff, and then it's UFC 290. and we're officially on the road to UFC 300. So thank you. Back next week after UFC, Mexico City.

For A.K. I am Mike Heck. Always remember, don't take this stuff too seriously. MMA's supposed to be fun. And we'll see you next week for more fun. On to the next one of the podcast. Good night, everybody. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.