MMA Fighting - On To the Next One | What's Next For Max Holloway After UFC 318 Win Over Dustin Poirier?

Episode Date: July 20, 2025

Max Holloway did exactly what he promise — he spoiled the retirement fight of Dustin Poirier in front of Poirier's home crowd in New Orleans as he retained the BMF title in the main event of UFC 318 on Saturday night. After becoming the first to successfully defend that title, where does "Blessed" go in the UFC's lightweight division? Following the pay-per-view event, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee discuss what's next for Holloway following his decision win over Poirier. Additionally, future matchups are discussed for Paulo Costa after his lopsided decision win over Roman Kopylov in the co-main event, Daniel Rodriguez following his win over Kevin Holland in one of the craziest fights of 2025 thus far, along with fellow main card winners Patricio Pitbull, Michael Johnson, and more. Follow Mike Heck: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@m_heckjr⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Alexander K. Lee: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@AlexanderKLee⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/dYpsgH⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our full video catalog: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/u8VvLi⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Visit our playlists:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ http://goo.gl/eFhsvM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Like MMAF on Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://goo.gl/nOATUI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Read More: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. I don't know where that thumb came from if you're watching this live, but welcome everybody to a brand new, oh, so live edition of On to the next one. The matchmaking crowns are back following UFC 318, kind of an undescribable event in a lot of ways. It was an emotional roller coaster ride. I think that's a pretty fair way to describe UFC 318,

but we saw the final fight of the illustrious career. of Dustin the Diamond Porre. The fairy tale ending was not to be. Max Holloway came out. Look great. Terrific fight. Holloway is still the BMF champion. Making history first title defense of that championship belt.

And it belongs to Max Holloway. But today we discuss the fallout of this event from a matchmaking perspective. I am Mike Heck. And as you can see, the man to my right, the co-host, the co-matchmaker, the Prince of positivity. and gosh darn it, my best friend, the one and only, Alexander Kaylee, aka how are we doing on this Sunday? I was going to say Sunday morning because we usually do it,

but Sunday around lunchtime, I guess. Diamonds are forever. Shout out to the great Shirley Bassi. Yeah, man, we're a little emotional still, I think. I think we all knew it would hit. It was kind of hitting a little spurts during fight week, and I thought it would hit a little more during the entrance. It may be peaked, like at the beginning.

beginning of the show when they played that really, really well put together, Dustin Pori tribute. Shoutouts, big shout out to the UFC production team. I mean, they just absolutely crushed that video. It was so, so, so good. That's a video that, like, you'll be going back and watching, like, just for, you know, for the memories going forward at that. I think it was excellent. But yeah, and then the emotions sort of trickled out through the night. You almost, as, it was a very long card. 14 fights, no fights fell through. You know, sometimes we see these cards that are booked for 14 fights. They end up having like 12 or 11. And we assume they book so many fights because they expect, you know, they expect some things to fall through. But this was all 14. Some really great highlights,

some really great fights and some really forgettable ones. But that's what's going to happen when you have that many, you know, about something. If you can find a 14 fight car that's just an absolute banger top to bottom, then please let me know because I don't think I've seen it. Yeah, by the time we got to the end of the night, we're all a little emotional getting ready for Dustin's last fight. And I don't know. I don't know. I think I think I'm still processing. I really, really enjoyed the fight. I think they played all the post-fight stuff perfectly. Max did as well. Of course, just getting out of the way. And yeah, like you said, the card was kind of hard to describe. It was a little bit all over the place. And I don't know, Mike, I know you and Jed talked about it on the post-fight show.

I don't know if we got an answer to whether this, you know, this card was worth the $80, right? Because it was always going to be a one-fight card. You know, it's not like anyone went into this thinking, like, ah, I bet if everything delivers, it'll be like one of the best cards of the year. Like, well, that would have been very unlikely. But you wanted to see Poray and Hollow one more time. You knew that was when you could fight. You hoped for a few finishes. You got those on the preliminaries, not in the last eight fights of the card, which all went to a decision.

So if the question is, like, was the main card worth paying $80 for? Like, really, no, right? Like, it sounds like a bad thing to say because we had some good times. We had two fight of the year candidates on the main card. But the other three fights were fine. I would say a little forgettable, certainly important to the fighters involved, but we won't be going back and watching a lot of those anytime soon. So I would say, I think we were our initial assessment of like, you know,

if you only watch half the UFC events a year or six out of 13 or seven out of 13, this probably didn't make the cut. And I think you'll be okay if you didn't see it live. So I thought a lot about this after the post fight show. I think this card was exactly what it needed to be. This to me, and I know a lot of people were down on the quality. when comparing it to pay-per-view lineups of the past.

But it wasn't about that. If you were spending $80, you weren't spending $80 on UFC 318. You were spending $80 on Max Holloway versus Dustin Porier 3, the pomp and circumstance around Dustin Porreier's final fight. That's what you were spending your money on. So I think if you had that mentality, I think it was worth it.

I also think that if you went into this event and didn't watch any of the prelims and just watch the main card, I think you were okay with it. Like, the problem was, I mean, we, I know at our website in particular, we set probably a little bit higher bar than most did. We were a little more positive on the card.

I know Jed and I specifically were giving the UFC sort of a pass on the lineup because of what this card was actually supposed to be. And then you start watching the prelims from fight one, and you're just like, oh my God, this is going to be the event of events. This is UFC 199 feeling where, well, UFC 200s are on the corner and I don't know if I want to spend the money on this or I really want to watch Michael Bisping fight Luke

Rockhold for the middleweight belt. And then if you actually spent the money on it, you were like, holy shit, this might have been the best top to bottom pay per view in terms of like what it looked like on paper to over exceeding expectations. And then we got Zell Huber and Michael Johnson. And it was an interesting fight because Michael Johnson went out. there and kind of taught zell huber the vet lesson i think we expected more out of danie gay versus patricia pit bull but i think some of that had to do with how insane the prelims were

and then we got kevin holland and daniel rodriguez which was just oh my god what a what an absolute banger that fight was like it was just the silliest fight i've it was the silliest fight i've It was the silliest fight I've watched since Glover and Yuri. Like, it was just so ridiculous. And I, it's just, I don't think you complain too much about having two fight of the year contenders. Two top 10 fights at the end, by the end of the year, Holland D.Rod and Porre Howley are probably top 10 fights of the year when it's all said and done. For 80 bucks, you get two fight of the year contenders. It's hard to complain.

You got Paul Costa who had a great performance. It's not that E. Gay Pitbull was a bad fight. And it's not like Zell Hubert Johnson was a bad fight. I mean, both those fights had near finishes. They just, in contrast to the rest of the event and what it all meant and comparing it to the prelims, almost an impossible bar to overcome once you got to the main card. I attributed this event.

And this is like the first thing I thought I woke up. If you were a pro wrestling fan during the attitude era, this is an adjudic. attitude era pay-per-view, where you got, all right, the, the undercard was huge. The opening match was great, had a great moment, and then it just can continue to build. And then once the emotions were at their peak, we kind of went down a little bit, the popcorn match, so to speak. And then we got tables, ladders, and chairs with Kevin Holland and Daniel Rodriguez. And then Paul Costa was kind of like, okay, this is the tag team championship match with no gimmicks.

and then we got Porreier versus Holloway. It was just, it almost like was the perfect way to line the event up, I guess, like in terms of like emotional roller coaster ride. So it is what it is. And I think this event we think we are going to talk about. You're right for a lot of these fighters. And let's just get right into it. We will not obviously be matchmaking for Dustin Porier because the gloves went to the center of the octagon.

I don't think he will be coming back. I think that was legitimately his final fight. But Max Holloway is going to continue on Alexander K. Lee. He goes in there and he beats Max Holloway or meets Dustin Porier. Great performance. Fun fight. And Max Holloway did the damn thing. Retained the BMF Championship belt.

And I think this is the easiest pick of all time. I truly think this is the easiest pick of all time. But I'm curious to see if you are with me in this being the easiest. 100% with you. We're not killing up the band. This was discussed during Fight Week. This was discussed during the preview show. This was discussed on the post-fight show.

This was discussed, I think, the last time, obviously, the name we're about to say fought. I think after he lost his recent fight, I think we said, well, obviously, the next fight for him is whatever happens to do is 318. It doesn't even matter. Yeah, Chuck, yeah, Chuckie Olives, Charles Oliver, right? Let's do it. Let's close this loop. Let's close this loop. Max Holloway is having this beautiful career where.

I think he's one of the few fighters where there will be, there will be no unanswered questions for him, for better or for worse. If he, like, except for this one, for this one, like, we really want to see the Charlie-Ale's fight.

But like, he got his three shots at Volcanovsky, right? Most people wouldn't get that third shot after losing the first two fights, but the second one was so close. And we all would think like, oh, man, it'd be a shame if Max didn't get like one more crack at Volcanovsky. And yeah,

listen, the fifth, the third fight was total domination for Bolkanowski. But now, like, then we knew for sure, right? Because if that fight had never happened, people would always be like, oh that second fight was so close and i bet if holloway gotten that third shot he finally could

beat him so there's no no no question no questions unasked there trilogy with porreye can he finally beat porre yes he did uh i don't know if he wants him fight mcgregor another time maybe but that to me is like i that's never been a he will he will destroy car yeah i think that's more the point is i just assume he would kick connor's ass at this point um but yes if there's one little blip that we're like ah i kind of want to see how that would go it is the fight with Charles Oliver, which sort of happened in Saskatoon many, many, many years ago. A decade. But ended with an unfortunate injury.

Both men are completely different fighters now, just completely different human beings. And they're just at the perfect stage of their career to finally give us a proper fight. Fingers crossed, you know, assuming nothing else happens. But I would love to see him run it back one more time because, again, Holloway has really had the perfect career. And I think if we look back on it, we'll be like, yes, he covered every base. He covered every base. He fought everyone. He gave us everything we wanted.

I have no interest seeing Max Holly fight Italy to Portia right now. I know a lot of people are like, oh, maybe the rematch. No, we just saw it. It's not like the fight happened two and a half years ago. It happened like six months ago. This fight just happened and Ilya finished him. We don't need to see it right now. And the way I view this as well is I think people at this point know how much I revere the

lightweight division and how I've rebeard over the past. We essentially have two lightweight champions right now, like two active lightweight champions. You can't get better than that. All these fights are going to be absolute heaters. Iliots Poy against anybody as a heater. And then we got Max Holloway defending the other belt against other exciting lightweights. This is a terrific place to be if you're a fan right now.

It's just absolutely spectacular place to be. We're going to get Max Holloway versus Charles Oliver the way it was supposed to be. Not in fucking Saskatoon. We love you, Canada. But just such a weird place to house that fight. It's just so weird. I think it was the M.A. God just saying, maybe Saskatoon is not the place to have this one.

Let's put it somewhere else. I can't wait. Who knows when it'll happen, but that'd be a damn good, like, co-main event for MSG or something, would it not? BMF belt. And then we get Islam JDM is the main event. That's a damn good one two punch right there. So, yeah, it's, it's Charles Olivera.

I'm, I'm all in. And I don't think there's really any other choice right now. I think that's the way to go. Although Chale P's Chale P's suggested a Max versus Patty is kind of interesting. E. Casey L& was all in, was all in on it. And I won't, you know,

I won't complain if it happens. I've enjoyed the Patty ride thoroughly. I have, you know, correctly called two fights that people said would never happen. So I won't go that far with this one where I're saying like, oh, this would, this one will never happen and it should. Because one, anything's possible with Patty at this point. And two, not my number one choice for Patty. Like, I just think you do the Patty Ilya fight. But I don't know if that's not in the cards.

Maybe Armand gets to fight first. I don't know how long has me to tell Ilya fights again. And Patty needs to get in there for the end of the year. Ham and Max would be really, really interesting. Again, I would 100% pick Max to just beat Patty's ass. But we've said this before. This is the story of Patty's career. And it's always retroactively like, oh, well, this guy was too old.

This guy was too old. This guy was on the loser streak, blah, blah. But let me tell you something. There was a time when people thought Tony Ferguson was going to beat Patty Pam but probably not by the time Fight Night actually rolled around. But you can look back guys. Go on social media, check receipts.

There were people who said that Tony Ferguson, even on that loose streak, was like, oh, this is, he's still too much for Patty. Patty's trash. And then, you know, we saw what happened, right? So I don't think it needs to be next. I could see it happening somewhere down the road under some circumstances

because I do think Max is hanging around for quite a bit longer. But yeah, hopefully not next. I think it's got to be Charles Oliver. When I got a great deal on a great gift at Winners, I started wondering, could I get fabulous gifts for everyone on my list? Like this designer fragrance for my daughter. At just $39.99, how could I resist? This luxurious will throw for my sister. This gold watch for my partner? A wooden puzzle for my niece? Leather gloves for my boss? Ooh, European

chocolate for the crossing guard? At these prices, could I find something for everyone at winners? Stop wondering. Start gifting. Winners, find fabulous for less. Let's go to the aforementioned Paulo Costa. He's back of the wind column. He defeats Roman Copulov. This fight was really not all that competitive. It was these dudes were chucking him for the first like 45 seconds. And then once Paul Acosta started kicking Roman Copulov in the body, that was pretty much a wrap.

Costa goes in there and gets it done. He's going to be, I believe, the 13th ranked, or no, he's not, he's pretty much going to stay where he's at at number 13 at middleweight. but he called for Hamzaa Chamaeef, pretty personal, some perhaps alleged sliding into DMs from Hamzat Shamaev. Hamzot's saying that he's, his, Paulo's significant others slid into his DMs. It's a whole weird, wonky feud, as you would expect from these two. Paulo, if Hamzaa just gets dusted by DDP,

I could see the UFC making that fight. But I'm going with Anthony Hernandez. is. Because I know he's fighting Roman DeLidezay in a main event. I expect Fluffy to win that fight. But Fluffy, like, while a lot of fans like him, I think he's going to need a win over somebody like Paolo, where fans are like truly emotionally invested in the fight,

not just the ones who watch all of this stuff, but more of the casuals that are like trying to build up their fan base IQ, so to speak. You throw Fluffy in there with, with Paulo and have Anthony go back and forth with him a bit at press conferences and stuff like that. I think that that could be a win to kind of take him to the next level in terms of getting to that championship opportunity quicker than perhaps his road is right now. So yeah, I'm going with Fluffy, but I don't, I, he's, Paul Kos is such a wild card,

man. I just truly don't know how to matchmake him. So I'm just going back to the well. No, I took the bait, Mike. I took the blame. Oh, you did it. Give me the bohacchina gourmet Chen Chen a fight.

I took the bait. It would be so silly if Kamsa Shemayev won the title and then had to fight and his first offense was against Paulo Costa. I think more likely they would book a rematch with DDP or something than Paula Costa. But it's, I do, like, there is juice to this feud. And when I think of, like, the dumbest title opportunities that the UBC has ever granted, I don't even know if this would rank in the third. top like 10. There's been so many like questionable like why did they book this title.

We could we could make it the top five list of just like dumb rematches alone, right? You know, up in the last, from the last like 10 years, right? Like why did why did they do this rematch? So yeah, cost of Rashima, I wouldn't even be up there. Like and I say this with the assumption that again, they're really like imov or Kyle Bajalio if we're being fair, one of them should get a title fight. But the U.S. he has given like no indication that the winner of that fight is like, guaranteed a title fight. They're guaranteed nothing. Let's be honest. In a meritocracy, that's a number of contender fight. In the UFC, we'll see. We'll see how the

sketches and works out. You know, Paul Cost is ready to get in there soon. I guess we don't know the injury list from New Orleans, but assuming he's not out for six months, if he's ready to go for the end of the year and it's really the Hamza side of things we should be worried about. They're kind of a perfect match for each other in that way, though, right? As far as like, if you book it, you're just crossing your fingers that nothing happens in the time leading up to the fight. So I took the bait. I like the call out. I'm not, this is not my magic wand pick at all.

I shook the crystal ball up a little bit, Mike. And it does, you know, like signs are pointing to this somehow. Win lose or draw. When lose or draw. Preferably lose. If he loses, much more palatable. If he wins, boy, that would be, that would be crazy. There is a very real chance this fight is next.

It's a very real chance. I'm not picking it because it's, it's, it's, It's ridiculous. I see Sky River Rain saying that Costa versus, first of all, I said Costa should fight Anthony Hernandez. Let's just get that out of the way. And the Derek Lewis, Tom Aspinall fight, there's a very real world that fight happens. And then I went on to the next one forever because I've been saying for well over a year that Derek Lewis is one fight away from fighting Tom Aspernel. And you all thought I was insane. And there's a very real chance that Derek Lewis is fighting Tom Aspinall next. You went on to the next one. You win BTL. You win all of them. I win the inaugural pre-fight Q&A championship. It's still my Q&A, you'll get it.

It's very. Absolutely that fight could happen. There is a, and if you are, if you're Nasrudeen-imov right now and you're watching the Policosta show all week, you have to be livid right now that Paul Costa won that fight. Horrible. Because you can make, I mean, you can make a very real argument that Naserine-Emovov should be fighting DDP in four short weeks. over Hobbesat Shimaev. Like you could app into Kyle Bahalio too.

You can absolutely make that argument. And now these two dudes are going to fight. They're going to beat the shit out of each other for 25 minutes. And then neither of them are going to get a title shot next, which is absolutely nuts. Unless DDP wins, then it's pretty clear where we're going here. But yeah,

it was nice to see Paul back in the wind column. It's nice to see him like kind of looking good and not just, I'm just fighting for my life and trying to survive. He just, he put it on Roman Coppulap. That was like a level up kind of a fight where you're just like, all right, Romans fun. Maybe is overachieving a little bit. But Paula kind of put him back to reality.

So good win for Paulo. Those body kicks are absolutely ferocious. And yeah, good job, Boroshenia. And let's go to Daniel Rodriguez. I'm giving this man his flowers forever. This dude should have gotten all the bonuses last night. And all due respect to Brendan Allen and Marvin Vittori, fine fight. one that over exceeded expectations in terms of excitement and quality and blood and guts,

because typically you don't put either of those guys in this conversation, especially Marvin Vittory. Danny Rodriguez and Kevin Holland is ridiculous. Those two should have got a big fat bonus. Hopefully they get hit up on the back end. But Daniel Rodriguez, at 38 years old, AK, just doing the damn things. Got three wins in a row right now. Just beat Kevin Holland and an all-o. anger. And I'm kind of going to have to switch things up a little bit. And we'll get to that in a

moment because I don't even know if I made a selection for this gentleman last week, but we'll get there in a second. But who did you pick for good old Daniel Rodriguez after his third consecutive victory? Well, Mike, I was not even on the show last week. And let me say you did a fantastic job, by the way, Manning on to the next one by yourself. Never an easy task. But thankfully, we have such, you know, we have great listener picks and they do so much of the heavy lifting. So shout out to all you guys as well. You guys are so fantastic. helping us put the show together. So that was great.

UFC Nashville. So I didn't make picks for the card. And I didn't even make them like, you know, just for record keeping purposes. So I have some names free from there. And I think the logical one to pull out is Gabriel Bonfine. I think Gabriel Bonfim, yes, he's up there in the rankings now because he beat Stephen Thompson. Pretty controversial.

I mean, it wasn't, it was far from a resounding win. I think he needs another veteran test. I think the always tricky Dale Rodriguez is. a great matchup for him. I don't know how D. Rod does it, man. I do not know how he keeps doing it. He looks slow. He just looks so slow. My pre-fight prediction was a Holland decision win.

And the whole thing was based on like, oh, he has a size and speed advantage. And none of that is, like, incorrect after the fight. Like, if you watch that fight, you would say, oh, yeah, Holland has a size and speed advantage over him. But somehow, Dea Rodriguez's timing, he just finds a perfect spot to land these, like, looping left hands or a short hook and it's like how is he doing this he looks slow he looks a little bit off balance sometimes um but man he just gets it done in there uh casey was telling us we were talking on slack about down ruggins against casey was telling us that uh he he uh down regas had trained

at the gym that casey trained at and people people told casey like the guy just knows how to fight like that's it it's he might not be the most physically gifted guy you don't see downward rega on scale and go like oh this guy's a killer like this guy's gonna slaughter but damn he gets in the cage and just he just knows what he's doing. And that sounds like I'm damning him with faint praise. But in the welterweight division, when you're whatever, 15, 16 fights deep in the O.C. That matters a lot. That can carry you a long way. Just knowing what you're doing and being tough as hell, which John Rone Rodriguez is, can take you a long way. So yeah, I think he's a great test for Gabraubon Fienho. I think he's a really talented guy. Has it, you know, the grappling

I think can take him very far. I'd like to see if you could implement that against D-Rod. and if he has to do more striking, I'd like to see that too. Because I don't think he's a bad striker either. I just obviously think he's a little bit more known for submission skills. So yeah, give me that one next.

I actually went the opposite with that. Hashtag age appropriate matchmaking. How about D-Rod versus Wonder Boy? I know Wonder Boy is healing up a little bit. D-Rod ain't fighting anytime soon after that battle. He just isn't. So sometime maybe at the end of the year, a little D-Rod versus Wonderboy action.

Like I said, age appropriate matchmaking. That's fun scrap. And if it's the last fight of Wonderboy's career, that's a damn good one to go out on. I'm sure Wonderboy would be pretty cool fighting a guy like Daniel Rodriguez and his final fight. He's got one fight left on this deal.

Who the hell knows if he resigns? I know he's kind of on the fence right now, but we shall see. I like that. And that age appropriate matchmaking will continue on in the featherweight division. Patricio Pitbull gets his first UFC win, looked pretty good against. against Danny Gay. Again, I will say this, while he looked a lot better in this fight that he did against Yahya Rodriguez, I don't look at Patricia Pitbull as a guy who's going to fight for a belt or any of that stuff. But it's good to see him in the wind calm because I don't think he would have got a third crack in the UFC had he lost a Danny Gay. I think they just would have cut bait. I think they just would have cut bait and been done with it, especially with the contender series season coming up and 50, 10 and 10 contracts coming the UFC's way. I think they would have probably cut bait. But now they don't have to do that. think of this AK It's the year of our Lord

2025, it's like November we're in the world's most famous apex and we need a fight to captivate the audience to get the dozens and dozens of fans who paid VIP prices on their feet up and running

and just so excited so I offer you Patricia Pitbull versus Joshua Emmett five round, main event, world's most famous apex, there you have it. Very good, very logical. I think that's to be a good fight. I'd be a lot of a lot of fainting,

a lot of, it'll be like every pit bull fight we've seen of the last like three or four years. Let's be honest here. Well, I think Josh, maybe can bring out a little more excitement than we've seen recently from Patricio. Fingers crossed, fingers crossed. So I like that.

I went in a very strange direction. I don't know how I ended up here. One moment I was looking at Josh Emmett and who else I'm looking at? Like, what were, sorry, what were some logical names here? Josh, I was like, I was like Al Jemate Sterling. I mean, I know those people who have booked fights, but I'm saying this is the, like Bryce Mitchell,

Saeed and America. I was looking at these names, Steve Garcia, I didn't think that for a second. Somehow, Mike, I ended up on a guy who like, I was surprised I didn't, like, I know we haven't seen it in a while. It's been almost a year since this young man is fun. And I do not know what is in that works for him, but he might have to defend his top 10 spot. I'm talking about Arnold Allen.

Oh. I'm curious because we saw Pitbull face the top five UFC featherweight in Yeir. Did not go well. Pitbull didn't fight great, but a lot of credit has to go to Yair year for making it difficult to fight great against him, right? You know, I'm not taking anything away from a year in that win. Arnold Allen would be the same problem. Arnold Allen is a difficult guy to get your offense off against, just a great all-around fighter. It could be a repeat of that year thing.

Pitbull just might have a lot of trouble waiting for that perfect moment. Never comes and loses an awful decision to Arnold Allen. But if he beats Arnold Allen, now we're really talking about pit bull having that last chance to fight for the title. I'm not overly concerned with that. There's not that part of me that's like, ooh, I really want to see Pitbull. Like, we'll really lose something if Pitbull never gets that U.C. Tyler shot. But that doesn't mean we should remove it from the equation. It is still a marketable thing down the road, depending who's at the champion at the time, depending how desperately they need challengers.

It might be good to have his name in the mix. So let's see what I don't know what's going on with Arnold Allen, but let's get him back in the cage sooner rather than later, hopefully before the end of 2025. And yeah, an unexpected matchup with Pitbull, who I would imagine probably doesn't even have Arnold Allen on his radar. Yeah, Arnold is just so, he's such a wild card. And I know he's still recovering from some injuries.

I think him and his team are targeting. the fall, September, October-ish. So maybe. There you go. Maybe. I mean, could you throw it like an Abu Dhabi or something? Sure. But yeah, I think that would be a pretty interesting matchup.

I don't know if Arnold's sort of looking at that, but hopefully regardless of who Arnold fights, it's, we don't have to wait another year from the fight again. Right. It's just, it's just, it's been super unfortunate, just sort of watching his career and getting to good points and then he's just gone. You know, that fight with Gigate Chatser's really fun. And then we, again, a year, it's going to be, what, 15 months, 16 months by the time he gets back. So I know he's had some surgeries recovering.

I think he's training right now. But yeah, he'll be back, hopefully in the fall. And if they make that fight, sure. I know Patricia wants Aaron Pico, which, by the way, if for some reason Mozar can't fight at UFC 319 and Pitbull has medical clear, She should probably just go ahead and book that one at this point. Is that TVD versus TVD? You think that's our TBD versus TVD co-main event of UC319? I think so.

Oh, my God. That was the most hilarious graphic, by the way. Oh, my God. Just shameless. Like, there's literally selling tickets for the show. I don't know when they started selling tickets for the show. I imagine it's already I've been on sale for weeks, but you're selling tickets for a show. They're all sold out of it.

That is just shameful. I mean, look, people ain't buying it for TBD versus TV. They ain't buying tickets for pico versus employee either. I know. And it's almost worth it. I would almost say it's worth $160 just for comms, for GDP. But my man, people are like, can you wait to see like 10 fights book for a card

before you give the UFC your hard earned money? My goodness. Like this product is so hot. It's so hot. They can have no fights book and it's just sell out. Yeah. That's just, they're just on fire. They can do no wrong.

Damn. And yeah, the chat was having a terrific time. with the TBD versus TBD. A lot of, man, you guys should have drafted TBD on your fantasy teams. That should have been an option. It should have been. We had two TBDs fighting each other. What if it's a draw?

Do you win all the points? I don't know. There'd be so much going on right now. I love that they put TBD weight. I don't know why that made me laugh. Like, you don't need to tell us TBD weight. Obviously, it's TVD versus TBD. We don't know what the weight's going to be.

Like that was such a red like, why would you put that? I have to put this comment up there because. No, you don't, Mike. You did not have to put this comment. I'm putting it up because I didn't think, honestly, I have been telling people that I've talked to today about this event. I said there's not one person in the world who thinks Brendan Allen, Martin Vittory should have won fight in the night. And I'm wrong. Hand up.

Countability hand is in the air right now. Austin Smith is the only person in the world, not named Brendan Allen and Martin Vittori. who thinks that fight deserved fight of the night over D-Rodding Kevin Holland or the made of it. So my apologies. We're all delusional as well, apparently, Mike. We're all delusional, he said. Yeah, pretty crazy. So good for you, awesome.

I respect the take. I respected a lot because you are the only person in the world who feels this way. It was a very good fight. We should be fair. It sucks. It sucks that like at once. So we have to like dog it and be like, oh, but it's not as good as this fight. It's not as good event, but it was a really good fight.

I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to poop. It was a great fight. Yeah. Because on paper, no one thought that was going to be fun in any way. It was, I mean, it was literally like going to see. It was the cabin boy effect. You saw the previous for cabin boy, and you're like, oh, my God, this is going to be awful, but I might just go see it anyways.

You're like, oh, this is actually kind of funny. That's what Brennan Allen versus Marmatory was. You said cabin boy? Cabin boy. Chris, uh, hellia, baby. Chris, I did not wake up today expecting a cabin boy. Let me tell you something. I didn't expect to drop a Christmas storyline on the watch party last night,

but Daniel Rodriguez throwing the Ralphie punches at the... Davidson Baker appearance? Davidson Baker appearance. I was going to save this for Check the Tapes. But I believe you were referencing, of course, the great Davidson Baker head-shaving bed from the original Between the Links. You were trying to remember what fight it was, Mike. I believe that Johnny Walker, so you gave me half.

I think you're right. It was Johnny Walker. Pretty sure it was Johnny Walker, Nikita Krollov. If I'm not mistaken. Yes, that's what it was. Which turned into a 15-minute wrestle fest for an Akita and a future haircut for Davidson Bigger. Shout us to Davidson.

One of the greatest moments in the history of M-A podcast. Congrats to Davidson as well. His Oklahoma City Thunder winning the NBA title. I was taking a lot of crap on Twitter from people saying, crapping on Shea, crapping on OKC, hey, whatever you feel about that, guess what? He got the last laugh. So Davidson, if you're out there, send you love, man, send you love. Best moment, the best moments ever.

100%. Let's go to the lightweight division. I thought we'd be talking, and I think most people did as well. Apologies to Jed Bishu, the climb came to a unfortunate end. I haven't clipped off that fight yet, but highly recommend, I mean, there's so many great fights to watch, like, the replay on the watch party. Start with that one because Jed, watching Jed's climb just completely disintegrate, watching Daniel Zell-Huber throw one punch, one kick at a time, while Michael Johnson is just kind of teeing off. on him throughout the fight is just true theater and but michael johnson just going out and doing the

damn thing pulls off the big upset this career resurgence is fun to watch and i'm curious okay michael and mattis johnson a guy who has one of the most insane resumes the level of competition this guy has fought over the years is pretty wild but where we going here after this win over Daniel Zellhuber. Mike, this shows just, this is between us, right? No one's watching right now, right? Yeah, Jedd's not going to see this, right?

Probably. He can't, okay. You won't listen to this on his long drive home. Okay. Back to Atlanta. This is a private conversation between us. I don't believe in these sort of things. I say this all the time.

I may have jinxed the climb. So let me say, first of all, let me say, you guys, the watch parties obviously are amazing. When I can tune in, it's fantastic. But we don't always have. have the chance to tune in because obviously we're all working, right? We're all working. Sometimes I'm listening to the, you know, the audio on the show.

So I don't always get a chance to tune in. This time I was like, well, I'm just curious to see how it goes. It's the beginning of the show. I'm like, oh, there's not a lot going on. I also got, I had a weird feeling. So I'm like, I kind of want to listen in. And then, oh, so I may have tuned in the middle of the first round, maybe not right away, maybe in the middle of the first.

And then I just want to see how concerned Jed was. and to see his frustration grow I was with him and I was like this is so frustrating and I did not have money on the fun oh I had as Elieber to win by a submission that was like a wild took a long shot but he definitely should have won

I mean he was a what was he minus 700 no he wasn't minus 700 was he wasn't the biggest in the card wasn't it oh maybe it was something like that I think Dulatoff was the biggest favorite on the card but he was up there Holland I think I think it ended up being like the third biggest favorite because I think Holland ended up being the second biggest. The disrespects

to Michael Johnson. So, yes, I do feel bad. I do feel like my tuning and may have sent some bad juju onto the bet. And so the climb ended. The climb ended in an extremely frustrating fashion for Jed, who was just dying as every second ticked away and Dan Zell Hubert refused to do anything. And when he raised his hands up at the end, Zell Hubert raised his hands up with a smile in his face at the end after the final buzzer, I cannot imagine what Jed was feeling inside. I cannot imagine the rage, the, I don't incur, like, listen, we would never, no one, no one in the media should say, like, oh, I want to, I want to kick this fighter's ass. I can only imagine Jed actually wanted to climb to the cage and fight down Zelliver, even knowing he would

be killed. I think his, his irritation was that high that he'd be like, he would be willing to end his life by going at Daniel Zell Huber, just to let him know how upset he was. Daniel Zell Huber, close your DMs, please, for the next, like, 48 hours, because there are a lot of angry fetters, I'm sure, who are unfairly blaming you for blowing up their parlays or whatever or their $10,000 they put on you as a plus, as a minus, you know, 600 favorite, 700 favorite. Tough, man, tough. Michael Johnson, I don't know if this is next, but, like, I have to see him fight Jim Miller. Right?

Before it's all of a sudden. I'm okay with that. Okay. I don't know. And I think it could be next, right? Because Jim is not booked if I'm not mistaken. I think Jim is. I don't think he is.

Yeah. I'm okay with that. I actually went. actually went a different direction. I will say this. Had Daniel Zell-Huber reacted to the loss in the decision being read a little bit better, a little bit more realistic,

I think Jed would have been okay. But like, yeah, young man learning a lesson, it's all right. He was a little upset. He was, I think the Zell-Huber moment made him climb again. Because he restarted the climb with Kevin Holland. And then he lost that one, too. Oh, that's.

It was a tough night. He did. He did, but again, I don't bet much, but he, oh, he's, I try to follow him as my betting guru. And he always says, you don't, you don't try to buy back in, like your bets are your bets. You don't try, you don't try. If you take a hit, you do not try and chase that loss and try to get back. And that's exactly what we tried to do.

And didn't even get back up onto the mountain. Just, just thudded into the mountain. Oh, what a tough night. What a tough night, what a tough night bird here, Jed. Yeah, pretty, pretty crazy stuff. But so here's, here's what I'm doing. I sort of look at something real quick. Let me see if this person is.

Oh, he is. Okay. I say, let's just get Michael Johnson the chance to have a number next to his name. They gave it to Jim Miller once upon a time. It didn't work out for him. Let's do Michael Johnson versus Hanata Moikano. Let's do that. Some more slight, I mean, not quite fully.

age-appropriate matchmaking, but kind of close. Yeah. Let's just see what he got here. You know, if he loses, so what? Then you can go fight Jim Miller, awesome. Or you can go fight a Terrence McKinney. That's fun too. We could go and have fun like that.

But dudes won three in a row. We just beat Daniel Zell, Huber. We'll just give him a shot. Let's just give him the chance. I don't think that fight's going to be bad. And if Michael wins, he's got four in a row, and he's the 12th-ranked guy in the late-weight division. So, sure.

I like the boy. I, there's Miller's great. I like the McKinney idea as well. If Chase Hooper goes out and beats Alexander Hernandez, we can do that. Or Hernandez-Smits, I don't know.

But, I mean, I don't want to throw Johnson to the, like, Grant Dawson, because he's just going to get smushed. BSD, probably the same. Could you do Michael Chandler?

I think they're like kind of buddies and training partners and a lot of that stuff's tongue-in-cheek for Michael Johnson. Fiziv, no. Addie no, Benny, no, Gamrod, no. Like, these are all nos. Moycano? On a tough little run right now? I don't think it's, I don't think it's bad.

So I end up landing on that. I don't love it, but it is what it is. Let's go to the wild card round day, okay? And then we're going to go to the peeps. If you want to get your super chats in, great. And then we'll just kind of do a wild card, fire this all up. We're going to select one fighter we've not match made for yet. match week for them right now, AK, where are we going with this?

Who is the wild card selection? I, oh, am I muted? No, I'm not. Awkward. I had to go with, oh, before I said, you know, I'll give you the name who they're fighting before I give the name. I'm going to, you know, we're returning to the world famous apex, not next week, right, but in a couple of weeks, right, Mike?

August 2nd, I believe. What's coming up, Abu Dhabi next weekend? Abu Dhabi is next week. and then I think back to the world's most famous. Oh, I missed it so. The next two cards? Is the next two? Yes, the next two after Abu Dhabi.

I missed it so. And, you know, some of these fights, I feel like, need to be given a little more important. So I am turning the battle between the highly anticipated battle between Nick Klein and Andrew Polive, Mike, into the Atteba-Gotier sweepstakes. The winner of that fight will be fed to Atteba. That is your privilege.

And you'll, you'll get to enjoy being a plus 1,200 underdog to a man that many people have pegged as a future middleweight champion. So there you go. I'm so proud. One to watch. Thank you. That's terrific matchmaking for Mr. Gautier. That's exactly going to do it.

I hope Gautier fights like five more times. My fantasy team is just loving this. It's going to be, Gautier is going to be the pick of the draft because he's just got, that's just, He's just got a first round, KO people and get bonuses every single time he fights. Because the UFC is matchmaking him perfectly. My first suggestion for a wildcar pick was Eric McConico for Gutsi. I was like, all right, just go in there, feed him Eric McConico.

Like, cool. That's all good. I'm going to give Kevin Hall on some flowers here because he deserves it for that gutsy-ass fight that he had last night. I think, I don't know if he's getting six fights. after that one, I just don't, I don't know how quickly he recovers from that. So we're just going to have a little fun here. We're just going to go ahead and have, have some fun.

There is a fight coming up at UFC 319 that I'm very much looking forward to. Between Carlos Prochis and Jeff Neal, the loser of that fight fights Kevin Holland. So if it's Jeff Neal, we get a long-awaited rematch from the regional scene. If it's Carlos Prochis, let's just watch those two go in there and just, beat the shit out of each other. So, um, totally cool with that. That fight rocks. I wanted to give Kevin a little more flowers because of that insane fight.

But maybe, maybe the man just needs a break. Can Kevin Holland actually like sit out to like November or December? No. No. I love the, uh, I love the process idea. I think, I think before the Neil fight got booked after Pratchez's last performance, uh, I wanted him to fight Kevin Holland. So I'm really rooting for that.

I'm into that. Boy, you guys are. angry today. You know, there's a lot of conversation there. It doesn't make sense because he lost

D-Rod, who gives a shit? Who cares? Like, you think the loser of Carlos Pratchis and Jeff Neal has any hopes of fighting

for a title? Does this stunt the growth of the welterweight division of Kevin Holland fights either of these guys? Fuck, no. Not in any way,

shape, or form. It does not slow down anything. It's just a fun fight. So, yeah. Tell them, Mike.

Tell them. Yeah. You guys pick, you guys pick like the wrong days to do this, where I'm on like no sleep. It's always the day after paper reviews where people are all fired up. All right. Let's go.

Get your picks in. Let's party. Shout out to Sledo. One of our long time, just OGs here. Benetius Olivera. That was a great win over Kyler Phillips. This is a fun-ass fight versus Montel Jackson. I want to see.

slick boxing against Vince's hands down style. Also, why are Nixik fighters turning into spa merchants? Yeah, what's going on? Jed was even imploring you to text your boy Nixick and tell him, could you, he was like, could you text Zell Huber in between, Knicksick in between rounds to tell Zell Heber to do something, just do something. I think it's more matchup related. I don't think it's a Nixick issue.

I do think it's matchup related. And, you know, I think some people are, I mean, I don't know if you can blame, you know, sick if it seems like sometimes guys aren't listening right this is this has more to do like uh with like a young fighter thing at least in the case of zell huber i mean i know i know he's not like a baby and i know he has some experience but 26 years old and the ufc is still pretty young and only five five fights in yeah five fights six fights in five fights six fights as young it's young so he can't blame for zell huber what was the other one like he was also oh den yke um i don't think Dan Ege was like particularly

he could have done more. I kind of get what people were saying. Oh, 100% he could have done that. Yeah, yeah. But again, that was a very anti-Igay-ish kind of a fight. Yeah, yeah. It was different. Yeah, that to me just seemed like an oddity. Like you said, it was so out of character. It just seemed like he was just off. He had an off night. And yeah, you can certainly draw a common thread between, you know, his coaching staff. And so it's a fair question to ask. I would just say keep an eye on it. I don't, honestly, don't think it's a real issue. But, Um, yeah, listen, going forward, oh, Sean Strickland as well.

I'm sorry. People mention Sean Strickland as well, of course. But Sean Strickland has kind of always been that way, let's be honest. So it's, but it's a pattern to keep an eye. And I actually, I actually like the question. I actually do think like, well, let's look at this going forward. I don't know. I don't know.

I'm not sure why, um, why it happened to be some Nixick fighters recently that are, uh, losing these weird point battles. But here's the thing, though, which, you know, we have to take into account. Zell Huber and Ege were hurt very, very bad. in those fights in both fights like Johnson floored zell huber and perhaps that made him a little gun shy and let's not forget what daniel zell huber's last fight looked like he went hammering tongs with estabon rievich and a lot of people's fight of the year that third row was insane zell huber was just he got his ass beat even though he was like throwing big shots and he was the first one to hurt rievich

just poured it on him so perhaps there's like a little thing there of like all right that sucked I don't want to go through that again. And I don't remember, Dan Igey almost got finished last night by Patricia Pitbull. Like he got hurt. He was on another planet at different points of that round. So not a place Dan Ege is all that familiar with because Dan's always had like a really good chin. He's never been knocked out in a fight. And he was very close to getting stopped.

So we have to kind of put that into effect. One thing I will say, kind of bizarre, Patricia O'Pichol didn't get a post-fight interview. I will say that. At first, I thought Danny McGill. he made of broke Pitbull's jaw with that knee up the middle. And then someone pointed out on the watch where he goes, well, maybe his jaw's broken and then he didn't do a post-fight interview. But then he did the post-fight scrum after.

I'm like, well, that's obviously not true. So, yeah, it was just, it's so weird. Like you would think Pitbull getting the opportunity and you could see Captain Eric. He was livid that Pitbull didn't get an interview because you know, if you guys, if you guys know Captain Eric long enough, I guarantee freaking to you that they were taking an hour a day, during fight week and practicing Patricio Pitbull's post-fight interview speech.

Scripted out, practicing it on stage, maybe in front of a few people. Memorization. Pitbull had like a call all scripted and ready to go. He's probably going to call it Aaron Pico. And it was just, it was kind of a bummer. I felt bad for Patricio. The UFC could not be like less enthusiastic

about the Patricia Pitbull experience so far. Honestly, they are. They are. I think they did a good job They did an okay job when they signed him I think that not you know They didn't lay out the red carpet for him But they kind of let people know

Yeah look we brought in this belt To a champion people won So that was nice That they did a good job initially Pit Bull's fault Did not deliver in their year fight And then I think that like the water Is just permanently just just you know

Muddy right now Like they're just like oh no We don't know And again the fight with Ike While a good performance It was a little dull man The crowd was not He heard of both guys got hurt in that fight

Which is like So funny. It'll look good on the highlight reel later when they're putting together something for pit bull. But like in like the crowd was not happy. There was a lot, quite a few booze during that fight. So yeah, UFC, not into it, not into the pit bull experience. I think at first this was like a WWE slash like AW move where they're like, oh yeah, we'll take pit bull from you. We'll get him his release and then we'll just steal them.

And I think they're just like, oh, maybe we should have done this a few years ago. of that nature, but we'll see what happens with good old pit bull. A-man report. Kevin Holland needs to pause a bit and actually go through a full training camp. There's a contender in him if he just take training camp seriously. But see, here's the thing. He doesn't want to be a contender. Like he truly, like this is not a gimmick.

This is truly how he feels. This guy does not want to fight for a belt. He does not care one bit about climbing the ranks because it's not like, he can't i don't know if he can possibly make more money on his contract that he's probably making right now he is made for a guy who is not a contender outside of probably does saporia max holloway kevin holland far away made more money than anybody else in that card last late it's just the way that is that whole ufc 279 situation and him stepping in fighting hamzot that dude is set up forever after that decision he is making probably

probably close i bet he's making close to like you might be making close to like three 400 grand to fight like it would not surprise me at this point so yeah this dude doesn't care about being a contender just to care about fighting for belts he just wants to make those fat checks for as long as possible so there you have it uh let's see uh noxtel yesterday's a great day for fans 10 a m pfl started pretty good card and then immediately ufc had a banger

PFL was great. It was pretty good, Ben. Yeah. There was a solid chunk from Dakota to, the Costello Van Sienis win to the UFC prelims. We're like, man, you were just getting nonstop, like action. Like the Dakota fight was like, you know, it wasn't a finish, but very solid.

If you like Dakota, you saw her, like just put it on, Simikoinaw for three rounds, right? Just great striking. To me again, I got a great chin. And then the Evelyn Van Stenis fight was high, high drama. Maybe like, honestly, probably better than, in the Vittoria, the Vittoria,

I had to keep pooping on the Vittor Allen fight. Wow. But that, the Ablin Messina's what was really good. Like, it was very much

an Eblen fight at points. Still get me wrong. Oh, it's very middle weighty for like three rounds. Yeah, but the story it told is like incredible. Like you need those sort of three rounds.

Like you need kind of some little slow periods. And that's, to get to that point where Vansina somehow was not, not dispirited, was not, his gas tank wasn't drained. If anything,

it was Eblen who was struggling in the later rounds. And then you had this insanely exciting chokeout finish, which I would not have picked Van Steenis by submission to dethrone Eblen, but here we are. And then you got like five straight a finishes to open up EOSC 318. That was a lot of fun. Joey, can we let Valentin have at least one more fight before they cut him?

I feel like it's match and solving crazy. Joey, I'm going to have a hot take for you right now. They should sign Robert Valentin to a 12-fight deal right now. There is so much, we talk about this all the time. There's so much value to a guy like that who is going to pull. put on a show before the fight, but then fully understands the assignment. His assignment is to go out there and just get obliterated. And he is terrific at that.

And there are a lot of middleweights outside of the UFC. Like Jackson McVeigh should fight Robert Valentin next because he is, they threw McVeigh in there with Bruno Faheda, which was a pretty tough fight. But Jackson McVeigh would probably do the same thing to Robert Valentin that Goteer did. So like there's, again, there's value to having fighters like, this on the roster the victoria leonadoes the priscilla catuarez and if they win it's always like in super exciting fashion so you have to have as we like to say enhancement talent on the roster so yeah they should lock this dude up for like the next 10 fights because of the value he brings get or get

got guy it's going to get got more than often he's going to get used to put for the most part to put over ascending talents that you're trying to to put in a great position you think you think they booked Gautier versus Robert Valentin because it was going to be a competitive fight. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. So, yeah, I'm with you. Let this dude. One more fight.

Give him 10. 10. I think it's fair to ask, can we mix in, like, like, you know, a slightly, a fight where he won't be a, you know, plus 400 underdog or higher. You mentioned Eric McConico earlier. What's Jose Medina doing? What's Jose Medina doing? Antonio Tricoli, may mix in a little. Jordan Santos.

I'm just saying there's like... That's just no Torres Fiddy. Don't you dare. I run it back. That was close. Run it back. Run it back. Split decision.

That's rough. Future champions. God, I can't wait to see Torres Fini go undefeated and get a tell of shot. Oh, God. hilarious. D. Rod versus Randy Brown from AIM report. Has that not happened? I swear I picked this like two times onto the next one before.

never even been has to been booked no guess not good lord they they are they have been in each other's orbit for like three years how they never just collided that's strange is bike saying Robert valentine is a modern jellis please you wish Robert valentine walked so jails could run yeah listen if you can if you can uh have a career like jales where you've lost a hundred times or whatever it is and still people are still paying you to to get to the case you are doing well in life uh lazy bed 2025 first melm McLaugh who just who just got knocked out on Friday by isa marato who is one of the this Isaac Moreno is a guy that is could fight for UFC belt saw it from like one of his early amateur fights this dude is an absolute murderer if he could

just stay healthy and fight he's got to be in the UFC very very soon and melvin guys was by the way 10 ranked fighter at one point. So Robert Valentin is, I don't even think you compare him that way. What was fun about Valentin last lane? Come on. What? What? I'm talking about the theatrics beforehand.

Because when you talk about like the ceremonial way and outside of the main event, all the clips of Robert Valentin like yelling with his teammate, screaming and doing that little thing. And then he goes out and gets God because that's what's all about. A.K. Who did you give Islam Doolotov talk next? He looks like real. Neil, maybe Joel, Joel Alvarez, holy shitball.

Calm down. Also, where would you rank Eblen now at middleweight? Okay. Right there. And then we'll get to the Dool-Tam. Yeah, that's a lot easier to answer. Let me load up my rankings. I can probably answer that very, very quickly.

But the Doolotov thing, okay, no, guys, Joel Alvarez is a top 25. Where do I have this? He's probably a top 18 lightweight. But is that, like, I mean, if he goes to Walterweight, we're just going to throw dula top to him like immediately yeah they're not even hold on is joel like has he is he moving to what is he is that a planned move to welter rate i think there was like talks about it but i don't and he should because he's enormous yeah he is enormous so he should um no i think that'd be a weird way to welcome alvres to the welterweight division though not like impossible there's definitely a lot of

steam behind dula tov uh 12 straight wins uh was very uh well liked off of the contender series his his his debut got delayed quite a bit. But we finally got to see him, and he performed well. He's a handsome bastard. I mean, there's just no getting around it. The man's bone structure is immaculate, and I'm not ashamed to say it. But I have him ranked. Like, if we're doing a serious ranking here, I don't have dual top in the top 60.

I mean, maybe I'm underrating him, but I would like to him get a second win before I vault him up the charts. Boy, there's a lot of good names here. What's Johnny Parsons up to? Johnny Parsons would be a lot of fun. San Patterson just got a fight book. Maybe the winner of that one. Other than that, once you get into the top 50,

you're seeing a lot of veteran names, and I don't feel comfortable putting Duo Top in that range yet. Maybe a Carlos Laal. Oh. When you have one UFC fight and you're not like an established name for another promotion with respect to Octagon,

it's really just so many directions you can go in. I would not go with Joel Alvarez, who is a top 25. lightweight right now. The correct answer is Preston Parsons. Okay. I went with the wrong Parsons. There you go.

Yeah, yeah, Preston, yeah. If you want to do like Reese McKee, that's probably like as high as I would go. Is he still? Yeah, he just got his first win,

AK. He did. I'm so sorry. I forgot it. It took so long. God bless him. He, uh,

T. K.O. the always dangerous. Daniel Frunza. He got a bonus. He got a bonus. Billy Ray Doff. Like,

that's, that's what we're looking at right now for, for Dooltoff. Like, let him, let him do his thing. Let the man shine. Let us see that. Let us see that. Maybe like a Mickey Gall, like somebody like that.

Where are you ranking Johnny Eblood right now? Oh, yes. I'll say where I'm ranking him, he will be that if we were doing a middleweight shakeup, if you asked me like eight hours ago, I would not have Johnny Eblen ranked. Okay. But I'm going to rank him. He will be number 15. That's where I will have him.

Oh, Roman will be out of the rankings. Eblen will drop from 10 to 15 and Von Steenus will enter the rankings. One second. So you have Eblen at 9. Yeah, he was going to 50. As of now. That's a big drop. I have him at 11.

So let me tell people the names I have him ahead of right now. I have Johnny Eblen at 11 ahead of Roman deletes, Brendan Allen, Marvin Vittori, and Fabian Edwards. I don't think I'll drop him below Fabian. people can argue Fabian maybe shouldn't be ranked that's fine. Johnny has two wins over Fabian. Yeah, that's what I won't drop him below Fabian.

So Fabian's, yeah, yeah, so he can't fall below Fabian. Unless I just dropped them both out. That's the other option. I dropped them both out, which is entirely possible. Boy. Oh, yeah, and I might have to because Costello now gets a spot. Costello's going to jump in there. I think Costello has to be a top 15 ranked.

That's very impressive. So he's going to jump in there. Yeah, so maybe Fabian and Evelyn are both out. I would still, you know, no, I'll still have Eblen over Vitori. So I think if I'm doing the math right, Evelyn will end up at 14 in my rankings. So yeah, he's dropping, guys. He's taking a hit.

He's taking a hit. He's dropping quite a few spots in both of our rankings. I still think he's a very good middleweight, but it's been a while since he's really shined. And I don't know what it is. I don't know. Is he not motivated in the PFL? Because if that's the excuse, that's a terrible excuse,

he's got to find something because he's not, like he has a lot of good vice lift at him i feel like he's not super old right isn't he um 33 he's kind of still on the prime or at least on the edge of his prime i think he might be leaving his physical prime i mean we dude he's he's i mean he puts on such an insane pace for that division yeah yeah but he has he has fizzled out in two straight like vann's seeing his reaction heading to the stool before round five was just like, oh my God, like, Fonzius might do this.

Like he was keeled over in the corner. He had to like bend down with his hands on his knees, take like a bunch of deep breaths before he could even sit on the stool. That's not what you want to see from a guy with that kind of a style. So yeah, we'll see what PFL does. I don't know if they're going to,

the way they kind of matchmake, it would make sense for Eblen to get a rematch. If this is the UFC, Evelyn will probably get a rematch. because of how that fight ended. But PFL also didn't do Paul Hughes versus Usen-Romagabato next. And it doesn't seem like they're going to do that next. They're going to have Archie Colgan fight Usman next.

So it seems like they want to build up to these rematches, very WWE storyline. As a dangerous. Dangerous. It is very dangerous. It is very dangerous. So yeah. So yeah, Evelyn definitely took it. But shout up to set up to CBS or the pharmacy as Jedmershee was calls him now.

Big way. All right. We'll take a couple more. Lazy bad. I know this is a matchmaking show, but just quickly in review, who won the weekend? So many events from so many organizations? I mean, Alexander Usik? The dude is just unbelievable. I mean, the dude is just so fun to watch, just beating guys who are clearly bigger than him. I mean, when people want to talk pound for pound, there's a reason Usook again is on the show.

It's him and Inouye and Terrence Crawford. That's it. It's a very short list. This reason Usoc has often put it, number of. one. I mean, the guy is just, he's fun to watch. He's got a, he's got a kind of a hilarious personality. He's talking about Jake Paul's calling him out for a May flight now. He got all the buzz, man. He got all the buzz. I would certainly tip of the cap as well to Porre, who even in defeat just got a moment and a whole week dedicated to him, which just doesn't happen in the UFC, doesn't happen to the UFC level. We were struggling all week. Like, when was the last time they built a card around someone's retirement? It's like, oh, never. This is just, the UFC technically doesn't build cards on fighters in the first place, much less fighters who aren't champions. And are actually, like, you know,

you're doing it for sentimental reasons. It's just not a thing. That doesn't sell pay-per-views normally. But we're in an age where that doesn't really matter to them now. So they can afford to be a little more creative with their, how they build their pay-per-view. So, Porier, I would put second, even though he lost his fight. It was, we all got to say goodbye.

And please, poor, A, don't fight again. One of the big storylines coming up here is 13. Data White is like, I can't risk putting John Jones on the Whitehouse card. John was trying to be a company guy last night tweets were all with the broadcast. I kind of was like, what are you doing, dude? Like this is just ridiculous.

John Jones has responded. He did so about 30 minutes ago. Here's what he said if you missed it via Twitter. Quote, I heard the comments made it last night's press conference. While I was a little disappointed, I'm still in the UFC's drug testing tool. By the way,

have not seen any indication that that is fully true or not outside of John and Dana. And as you know, their track records say, we have to believe everything they say. But moving on. Staying sharp and continuing to train like a professional. I'll be ready for whatever comes next.

In a recent interview I shared that the opportunity to fight at the White House gave me something deeper to fight for. A, why that goes beyond paychecks or belts. Fighting for my country gives me a greater purpose. The silver lining in all this is knowing the fans see my heart. They see I am ready and willing to take on anyone to represent my country on a historic. stage for me it's never been just about the opponent i'm chasing legacy something timeless something

bigger than the moment so for now i'll keep grinding stay patient safe faithful i'm ready to fight on july fourth what is to crawl around in that man's head i know it just be one of the scariest places in the world it be yeah i don't even want to say it's empty because it's infested with some kind of badness man it is um i try to avoid talk about john jones now as much as i can Like when he retired, I knew, obviously I knew when he retired. I'm like, oh, we'll still be reporting on this jackass's tweets every week. I knew that, guys. I understand how the sausages made.

Don't get me wrong. But my own personal social media feed, I try not to mention John Jones. On these shows, I will try not to mention John Jones. But he has a big figure in combat sports. You know, you can't stick your head in the sand forever. But this is just like so, you go back and read his tweets guys last night. Which, shockingly, I think very few have been deleted, if any. he just could not help like how do I make Dustin's retirement about me

people aren't talking about me right now how do I make this about me how come how come I didn't receive the same love when I retired what's the difference between me and Dustin that's not one reply which is just so on point was like well Dustin's not that wasn't carrying a UFC belt and dodging the number one contender and I'm like yeah that pretty much sums it up nothing more needs to be said that just fought Ben Wassonini like two years ago yeah Dustin also doesn't have a rap sheet like John Jones does a really really, really pathetic rap sheet, by the way, if you're out there, John Jones.

Like, just truly embarrassing stuff, just shameful. So, yes, he's also not coming, actually coming back, which is also irritating. He's not coming back. He's not fighting with the White House guys. John Jones is not reliable. Dana White says he's not reliable. And I'm not saying we have to pick aside of this or even believe what Dana White says. But in this one, I think that's a pretty fair take that you cannot trust John Jones under any circumstances.

So I know it's a long ways away. Anything can happen. I wouldn't be surprised if it happens. don't get you wrong if next uh you know april may we're talking about oh john jones has been announced for uc white house i will just be like this is this is our life this is our reality that we live in but i mean i i today i would bet that it's not going to happen but i don't know six months from now i don't know who knows who knows mike i don't know dude it's just not going to happen like it's just he's not going to fight the only if if they're going to book john on that card

and give like special clearance to him, it's to fight Tom Aspinall and he's not going to fight Tom Aspinall. Like they're not going to bring him back to fight Stepe again or anybody else. Like they're just not going to. So what are we doing here? I have to say we are,

I mean, we might be three tweets away from John Jones doing the unthinkable. And that is dethroning Henry Suhudo for the worst retirement in the history of sport. Like he is. I love. Like he's right there and you can make a compelling case that he's already done it. But I think you need to go back through the archives of Henry Suhudo's retirement.

So I don't think he's quite there yet, but Jesus Christ, he is, he's knocking on the door. And it's like Pee Wee Herman and Peewee's big adventure when he was trying to get to Francis who thought he, when he thought his bike was stolen. He's just pounding on that freaking door right now. So, yeah, John Jones, I don't understand this. This is just insane. I do. I understand it. I understand it. He thinks he's such an enigma. Like, people don't understand me. People don't understand how comp. I'm like, no, you're a very simple man.

Everybody sees my heart. What are you talking about? You are a textbook narcissist. I mean, it is, you are a cliche. If John Jones was a character in a TV show and, you know, and the character is supposed to be like a narcissist, people just be like, you're overdoing it a little bit. Like, this character's cartoonish in how transparent they are. He's not even good at it. He's not even a compelling. narcissistic figure. He's just boring. And I wish you would go away. Not not like go away. I don't know. She loves the gloves. I don't know. Like at least when John retired, Dana made a big deal out of it. Like I know it was at a rando Baku press conference, but at least he said nice things in his

up until last night. He continued to say like nice things to put John over as the greatest of all time. When Henry Suhuda retired, Dana White showed up at the press conference. It's like, okay, Piotr Yon's fighting for the belt in his next fight. Not sure who he's fighting, but yeah, we've already moved on. Like literally nothing. It was like, yeah, well, dinner on Monday, but yeah, Jan's about to fight for the title. Like, they moved on literally 10 minutes later. And then Sehudo just tried to get back and did everything he could and just nobody cared.

It was just so bad. And this is right when Sehudo is peaking. This is right when he was about to go on a run and like maybe become a star. And then he was just like, yeah, I want more money. and Dan is like, uh, bye, see ya,

like literally minutes later. Didn't happen with John, but John is getting there very, very quickly. Uh, it seems like the fan base for the most part is, has turned on them. Dude,

do the promoting thing. Like, turn dirty boxing into this juggernaut. You know what I mean? So, yeah, man, I feel like,

she loves the gloves. I feel like Henry was never even half as annoying. Ooh, you got to go back. Don't, don't, don't make me go back and check. Please.

I don't want to relive that. Go, go listen to. like the first year of heck of a morning or those archives and then the uh the the the the henry suhudo oh he's is he coming back and going to get an immediate talus shot at al joe uh drama oh and then got it oh my god it was literally like a smart judge's scorecard away from being the bad and white champion mike i'm pulling on my rope this chat is taking a dark turn i'm pulling on my rope i'm pulling on my rope uh yeah all my god it's been an interesting

month for the ultimate fighting championship it really has uh national it was great that was a fun ass card this was fun i i enjoyed ufc 318 i know again it was an emotional roller coaster ride there are some ups there are some downs uh two fight of the year contenders but a lot of people a lot of people although we did lose one of the pivotal fights on this card think that ufc abdabi might be like the best card of the year top to bottom lineup was i've seen a lot of this already but it is going down next week early day m ms which we love so much uh i believe a noon eastern prelim which just scratch me right where i itch robert whittaker versus reinier de ritter the main event already are trying to make a case

for fighter of the year how about that uh purer yad marcus biggie currently the co-main event shah maga made off is back following his first loss to michael vene page fighting Canadian Mark Andre Barriole who could play spoiler here Osu Obabaya fighting Jose Ochoa that one hurts the soul for the fantasy team Nikita Cryloff versus Bogdan

Goosecoff Bryce Mitchell is back in our lives and he is in the bantamweight division fighting Saeed Ramagamadov Muslim Salakoff versus Carlos Leal that is just going to be an absolute heater speaking of heaters Debonne Blackshare versus Davy Grant

also going to be a heater Amanda Hebas versus Tabitha Ritchie Ibo Aslan versus Billy Alacana, Muhammad Yahya versus Stephen Wynne. And we are getting some heavyweighty goodness to kick things off. Because as of right now, the opening prelim is the UFC debut of Marcus Buccecha versus the ranked heavyweight Martin Boudai. How about that? I'm just going to say heavy heavyweight overs are back I'm going to tell this right now I'm telling

this I know people are thinking maybe I'm wrong maybe we check just you know obviously next level grappling just takes them down gets them the ground in the first round and submits them totally possible I understand I think this has the possibility of being a stink bomb this could stink out the building I'll tell you this right now um it's I think we have to watch it live if it's the first fight we have to do we have to do we have to do we did for mo usman and uh what hell's the name i'm d'elah hub yes how how dare my how dare me oh how um run it back we might have to we might have to watch that one live so all right so that's next week so normal show next week uh so you can submit your picks as you normally do i would probably get your picks in like

Saturday after the event. There is a very real world where AK and I just like, F it, let's just record it and get this done so we don't have to do it on Sunday. That could happen, so be prepared for that. And it's just going to be a good time. So I'm looking forward to this car. Thank you for following along throughout Fight Week.

And thank you for watching on to the next one for AKI and Mike Heck. On to Abu Dhabi, everybody. Appreciate you all. Have a great rest of your weekend. We're out of here. Media Podcast Network.