MMA Fighting - On To the Next One | What's Next For Sean Strickland, Israel Adesanya After UFC 293?

Episode Date: September 10, 2023

Sean Strickland silenced the doubters with a one-side decision win over Israel Adesanya in the main event of UFC 293 to become the UFC middleweight champion of the world. After a stunning upset victory, who will Strickland face in his first title defense, and will it be in a rematch against the former two-time champion? On an all-new live edition of On To the Next One, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee attempt to answer that question following Saturday's pay-per-view event and make an educated guess on where Strickland and Adesanya go from here. Addtionally, future matchups are discussed for Alexander Volkov after submitting Tai Tuivasa in the co-main event, Manel Kape after his victory in the Fight of the Night against Felipe dos Santos, along with fellow main card winners Justin Tafa, Tyson Pedro, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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. The Vox Media Podcast Network. Well, hello there, everybody. We are live. Welcome to a special brand new edition of On to the Next One.

The Matchmaking Hats are back on following a... I'm going with chaotic. A chaotic UFC 293 event. And ladies and gentlemen, it is real. We're not joking. MMA is supposedly a real thing. Sean Strickland is the UFC middleweight champion after dominating Israel Adisania over five rounds, winning four of the five rounds. Sean Strickland gets it done. One of the craziest results. that we could ever think of. And golly, man, Sean Strickland is the middleweight champion of the world. And we are here to discuss what this all means from a matchmaking perspective. I am Mike Heck. And joining me, as you can see, to my right, the co-host, the co-matchmaker, the Prince of positivity.

He's my best friend. And he's probably on his little sleep, maybe even less than I am right now. But we're here to battle through this all. He is the legend, Alexander Cayley, aka good morning. What is going on? He did the damn thing. He did the damn thing. I think we had braced ourselves appropriately, Mike.

I know it was going to come as a shock no matter what. But if anyone just glances to the M.A.fighting.com headlines from the last seven, eight, nine days. Every headline involving the story was somebody the effect of, can Sean Strickland do this? If Sean Strickland does this, how crazy will that be? Where will this rank? We were already proofing our brains. I think to the possibility of Sean Strickland win. None of us, I think, predicted it would go down this way.

Even if he thought he would win a decision. Because I said in my predictions, there's two ways this could go. Like if by some chance he lands that lucky shot because he's not known for having knock-up power. So I didn't even think that was super lucky, super likely, excuse me. So I didn't see it that way. But again, it's a fight. These guys hit hard. It could always happen.

We almost saw it in the first round. And my other thought was, well, if he does like a constant pressure, maybe like Julianna Pena thing and breaks Izzy down. But he just outstruck him. Like he just outstruck him. You can say Izzy wasn't that his best. Fine. It probably wasn't. It probably was not the best version of Izzy, but that doesn't matter.

This might not have been the best version of Sean Strickland we've seen either, frankly. He might not have had to be this best. He was as good as he needed to be. He outstruck him four or five rounds. This was not a, again, there was not a Pena, Nunes, like, I'm just going to outpace you and, you know, break down your cardio and hope you have an off night. He outstruck him. none of us predicted that. None of us thought he would win the fight that way.

So a huge victory for Sean Strickland. I've said in the past how I feel about the man. Personally, I'm not a fan. I'll probably keep saying it throughout the show and saying it every time the man's name comes up in the future. But there's no question in my mind if we're giving, you know, credibility to that title that he's the number one, 185 pound fighter in the world right now.

So as the preview show is going on Friday, I was beginning to feel a little bit vibey about it. And if you watched the watch party last night, I was feeling the vibes more and more that's something very bizarre and chaotic and strange is going to happen. And I don't know. It was weird. I called somehow I called for an Ezekiel choke in the co-main event. And it happened. And then somehow I kind of put this all out into the universe.

And Sean came out with this focus, just a different look on his face. For the first time, it's like he almost like felt the. pressure and he's ready to turn into the diamonds. It was just a different look from him. And then from there, I was like, oh, my God, like, this could really happen. And then the first round is playing out. And not much is happening. Izzy's just kind of cruising along.

Sean's not really throwing much. He's defending pretty well. Izzy's landing shots here and there. And then AK, when everything started to become real. Let me play this clip from last night. Let's play this clip from last night. final minute of the first round. We're talking about how Sean is like,

all right, he's not getting the doors blown off him. He's hanging in there. He's not making any real mistakes. Izzy doesn't, even New Yorker was saying, Izzy doesn't really respect Sean's power right now. He's just, Izzy's just kind of dancing around.

Sean, no respect for the man, no fear. And then all of a sudden, this happened. Doors blown off. Oh, no, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, man. Oh, man.

Oh, man. Oh, my God. He's ready. Big shot. He's leading huge shots. Is he fighting to get back up? Left hands. Is he covered up against the fence?

He just gave a thumbs up. This is insane. Ten seconds to go on the round. Whoa. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.

Wow. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Wow. Wow.

Wow. So, Sean Strickland knocks down Israel out of Sadia. Almost gets him out of there. Izzy bounces back in round two and kind of evens things up. Sean clearly wins round three. Round four was probably a Shirkland round. Like I haven't gone back and rewatched, but watching it live was pretty close.

I think I even scored it for Izzy just because not much happened. But I think the right call was Shriclin winning the fourth round. And then the fifth round, you could just tell that Sean Strickland, not just without striking him, he broke Israel out of Sanya. Like he broke the man. That man who is maybe one of the most confident strikers we have ever seen in the sport was broken.

Sean just demoralized him. And even in the end, like the last 20 seconds of the fight, he's screaming at Izzy. Come on, man. Come on, let's go. He's yelling obscenities at him. He's trying to get Izzy to fight back. And Izzy just wouldn't do it.

This is incredible, AK. This is incredible. Sean Strickland just goes out there and beats him. And now, from a matchmaking perspective, look, here's what we're going to do, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, pull that up. Was it going to be the most shocking outcome for the, just for the movie. Yeah.

it was that doesn't mean like just because I said it was shocking doesn't mean like the vibes weren't there you know what I mean I even said on the preview show I'm like can you imagine if Sean Strickon goes out there and Cody Gar Branson and just styles on him and he did this is incredible nobody saw this coming if you did you're full of shit you're full of shit if you predicted this I'm sorry by the way yeah if you bet on Sean Strickland like that's one thing but that's a value thing that's not because you were totally confident that was going to happen last night which you know it which by the way I did as a hedge as a hedge i had i i want to go to a comment and the youtube but joe does says that is he was going to seal a

six like partly for me i was going to hedge with a small benest rickland bro with the fight and said as izzie will win why bother l-o-l i almost had that same thought but uh as a rookie gambler i do listen to my mentor slash devil on my shoulder jed mishu who says always hedge uh my let my bet was again you know a small wager small wager uh my bet was uh hackparast pedro tapah cop and then isy so pretty confident about all those i think the only one i was sweating a little was oh a cop the cop i will talk about that in a bit um but then when it got that main event i really i did kind of get that weird feeling mike and also the value on on on strick on that point was still almost like plus 500 so i was like whatever you know what let's come let's be smart let's uh let's

cover it up if i win my my parlate okay i shave a few dollars off it whatever but uh yeah it worked out. So always hedge people. And in a sense, I did bet on Sean Strickland, but again, only for practical purposes, I had no confidence that he was going to win that fight at all. And then to top it off, like a lot of the betting sites like Draft Kings ended up boosting Izzy to plus 100 up to a $25 bet. So like anyone who put any money on Izzy on draft Kings was like, okay, I'll just go ahead and take that too. Wow. This is all insane. So now things get real interesting because a lot of of the questions heading into the fight was, well, what's going to happen if Israel wins?

Because he was a, that was the likely outcome in everybody's money. He was the massive betting favorite. Stylistically, this favorite is he in a lot of different ways. Sean just showed up and stuck to a game plan, which he just never has done, really. He just went in there and listened to everything for 25 minutes. He did a fantastic job. He did say after that their plan was to wrestle.

He did say after, like, he said at the post-fight press conference that they wanted to wrestle more. They worked on wrestling a lot. But he said once he got in there, he was like, we just, I think he and I think also after the first round, I think they called an audible. They're like, yeah. Oh, actually, after you've rocked him. You know, they're like, yeah, stay on the feet.

Don't bother. Because he did say that they had discussed a lot about possibly wrestling. But I think it was the right move not to. I mean, I think I don't need to say. I think we just saw what happened. He beat Izzy over five rounds. He's a middleweight champion in the world. Yeah, he didn't get too aggressive.

Like usually Sean comes in and just throws a million punches and he didn't. He didn't. He let Izzy try to be the offensive guy, and Izzy wasn't ready for it. Everything was just brilliant about it. It was just a brilliant performance, brilliant coaching. Eric Nixick got me all fired up

when he was shouting instructions in the corner of Sean Strick. Everything was just unbelievable. So now the questions change. It's not what sex version we'll get there as well. Sean Strickland, the middleweight champion. The question's heading in about Izzy was, is it going to be Drickish Duplice?

Is it going to be Hamzaa Shama if he beats Paul Acosta? but now everything has changed A.K. Sean Strickland's on the champion. All of a sudden, DDP's in play, Hamza Chayev's in play, Israel Adasani is in play, Paulo Kost is in play. And even Robert Whitaker is back in play with this title change. I mean, he's not going to get it, but he's back in the mix. So this is all just absolutely insane. Dana White said at the post-fight press conference, I want to do the rematch. Izzy looked slow, wasn't himself, all of that stuff.

What do we do now? Sean Strickland, middleweight champion, are we running this back? Are we going a different direction? If you had a, if you had a guess here, and this is what the show is all about, who's Strickon fighting in his first middleweight title defense? I'm going trick as too, Plissy. I just could not be less interested in an Izzy Strickland rematch right now. We didn't want this fight in the first place.

We didn't want this fight in the first place. Yes, Strickland pulling off the upset makes it slightly more intriguing. But this wasn't a fluke. This wasn't a fluke win. He beat him fair and square. I might not like it, but he beat him fair and square. Who can dispute this? Can you make a case?

Is he had an off night? Yeah, we'll probably be saying this for a while. Coach Eugene, coach Eugene said that while, of course, giving Strickland a time. He said, he said, Adasania had an off night because Strickland made him have an off night. So he kind of, you know, he kind of gave, you know, protected his fighter a little bit while also still giving props to the new champions. So, and I feel the same way. I feel the same way.

Maybe it wasn't an off night for Izzy, but that was, you know, that wasn't entirely because of him. It was because the guy who was in his face punching him. So I don't really want to see it again. If it happens, it happens. But everything about this fight was, except for the result, which again was certainly headline worthy. I didn't think the pre-fight hype was that exciting.

I didn't think their beefing was that interesting. I don't know if people enjoyed the trash talk. I didn't even think it was like a bad and a so bad as funny way. I just thought it was boring. I thought both guys were really boring in the way they approached the fight. Maybe that's just me. If you want more of whatever that was the press conference than have at it. But DDP is the clear cut number one contender.

I don't know what else he has to do to earn a shot. Really, this should have been his fight anyway, except that, you know, the scheduling didn't work out, is he wanted to fight in New Zealand, in Australia, excuse me. And so it had to go down that way. But I think denying DDP a tell his shot would be incredibly dumb. So I think that's the way we have to go. I like the matchup of him and Strickland. I will not.

I think Strickland, I don't know how long he holds on in the title. It's going to be the underdog in pretty much every matchup, including this one. But I don't think, after seeing what happened on Saturday, I don't think that we can just comfortably say DDP rolls over for Strickland at all. So I get what you're coming from. But Sean Strickland and everything that comes from Sean Strickland winning the title. is pure and utter chaos. So honestly, I think, besides Israel Adasanya, I think the guy who probably lost out the most on this is Drickus Duplice,

because he's kind of fallen off the radar and everything going on. Jared Kandinii has a win over Sean Strickland. He wins as the backup. I'm certainly not picking Jared Kandaneer here to get this title shot. However, there is a big fight coming up at UFC 294 between Hamzaa Chamaev and Paul costa whoever wins that fight is going to be sean strickland's next opponent that is what's going to happen uh in my personal opinion either paul costa is going to slay the dragon the unbeatable hamzata or hamzot shemai if is just going to absolutely run over paula costa and there's just no way

in a sport like this where it's always what have you done for me lately the most recent moment is the most important moment there's no way dana white's not going to that press conference and not saying that whoever wins that fight is going to be next in line and it just creates all these different opportunities. Now, DDP not taking this fight, whether or not it was a quick turnaround or not, you know, Dana even said it. You know how I feel about people not taking fights and taking these opportunities when they come. So I kind of feel like DDP, one, just because of that and two, just not even being in Sydney. I thought that was a huge misstep on his part not being there. He's kind of out of the, he's kind of out of the picture. So I kind of feel like they're just going

to chuck them in there with Jared Canaan here, which is unfortunate for DDP because he really doesn't need to do this. But again, we say this all the time, especially for the newer fans, this isn't a meritocracy. This is about putting the weirdest, craziest fights together. And Strickland against Shamaev or Strickland against Costa is a way bigger fight than Strickland versus DDP right now. And honestly, I feel like that's what's going to happen. And Sean Strickland's not going to be one of those guys that's going to play a political game. He's going to be like, all right, you want me to fight that dude? You want me to fight that, dude? You want me to fight both these guys at the same time? Okay, I'll fight both these guys

at the same time. So, man, Paul Costa is in a much better position now. Hamzaa Shamaif is in a great position right now. And I feel like DDP just kind of takes a step back in all of this, whether it's fair or not. So that's where I'm going with this. And now the more interesting question, A.K., what's next for Israel, Adasani? Because if we're going with the Shemayev-Costa winner, and look, there is a very conceivable

real world where the UFC just says, I don't care what any of you say. We're just going with the winner of this fight. Like, we're just going to run it back. What's next for Adasanya? Does he just, do we just throw him in there at DDP? It's kind of like the number one contender for it. Because you could certainly do that. Like, if you need a pay-per-view headliner,

if you're going back to, if you're going to Africa or if you're going to South Africa, or even if you're going back to Australia, you could throw that in there or going to New Zealand. You could throw that in there as a main event for paperroom. People are going to watch it. where do we go with Israel a lot of sign? Because neither of us are picking the rematch here. No, neither of us are picking the rematch, that's correct. You kind of mentioned, this isn't my pick, but I do have, I want to ask you a couple of questions.

One being, firstly, before we completely move on to Edison, you mentioned Jared Cannonier. It's weird because he kind of does deserve a shot at Strickland, right, based on him weighing in, which, according to Dana White, immediately makes you the number one contender, according to the Colby Cubbington rule. And two, he beat, you know, Sean Strickland not long ago. We're talking last December. Like, this is still within 12 months. And it was a close fight. You know, the UFC can always pass over Jare for that reason, saying, well, you know, we

look back at the footage. Could have gone either way. It wasn't like you can dominate him. But I thought that was a, you know, that's a win. That's a win in the books for Jared. Again, and not too long ago. For Jared, just two fights ago, for Sean, I guess it's now three fights ago, three or four fights ago.

He's so active. So that was a smart thing for Strickland to do. It kind of puts Jared in the rear of your mirror. but is there any chance you think he gets the is there any chance you think he gets a telethot? Canineer? Yeah. The only way I see this happening is if we're booking the schedule for the rest of the year and every plan they had for December falls through. Yeah, yeah.

And it's like, all right, well, Sean will just fight. And Ham's not going to be ready or Paul is not going to be ready. Izzy's not going to be ready. Jared, are you ready? Maybe you could do that. But other than that, I just, I don't see it. I don't see it. Cannonaires doesn't seem super high on their priority list.

Like he got that main event win over Marmar and Vittory. Kind of beat the hell out of Marm Vittory. And that was, he fought Marmortory, right? Kenya, yeah, just be here. That's, I'm trying to remember. I'm just in the days right now. And there were talks about maybe doing Canyonair versus Hamzot instead. So, I mean, the way Canaaner has said it is like either I'm fighting for the belt or I'm

in a number one contender fight. So to me, cannon air fighting DDP or fighting anybody is fine with him, as long as it's written somewhere, at least he's told via handshake and verbal agreement that he's next in line, which doesn't really mean much in this sport.

So, yeah, outside of like we need something fast to fill a spot, I don't think that's fine. I don't think it happens. And then regarding a Disney on DDP, are you interested in that as like the co-main event on a pay-per-view somewhere, Because there's still a lot of heat there. It was never about the title, really.

We wouldn't get five rounds, which would suck. Because I do think that's a fight that could be an entertaining five-rounder. And you also lose that title entry. But if Izzy, I don't know the next time he's getting a title shot or if he can even win it back, that's a huge, you know, then you can't just shelve that fight forever. So did you like, again, you sort of mentioned it? But is that one you think that they should do him and just just do him and DDP, just book it as soon as you can? So, I mean, I might as to just kind of go into what I'm thinking here. Because we talked about this on the post fight show.

Like, what are we going to do with Israel and Asana now? And Eugene Barraman is like, oh, we'll fight him next weekend and beat him. And Jed said, no, he should just take some time and move to 205. And Shaheen was like, oh, no, we could do this. My whole thing is, it's such a weird contrast at M.A. Because to become a star, you have to be active and in the limelight and fight as often as possible. But once you get to a. certain point you become the champion it's like izzie has just been go go go go go go go go go go go go go go for the last

three or so years like this dude's fighting like every three four months like clockwork and we talk about it in pro wrestling and we talk about it in mama here sometimes you just got to leave for a little while so like people can remember who you are like even a guy like colby covington who you either love the man or you hate him but even the people who don't like colby when he should showed up after a year of just having his head in the sand after everything that happened with Mazadol, dude just shows up in London and weighs in and it created like such a buzz. Like Colby didn't even have to say a word. He just showed up and they're like, oh shit, it's Colby Covington.

And at least for a little while until he started doing interviews and then some people had that feeling about Colby again. It was like, man, we can't miss you unless you leave. And I kind of feel in this situation like, Izzy just needs to take some time, man. and go get your head right. If you want to go to 205, go to 205. And what would be super interesting is if during this hiatus between now and let's just say like Izzy comes back in July or whatever, what if DDP is the champion?

Like what if DDP gets his title shot and wins the belt? All of a sudden, Izzy's comeback fight could be against Strickus Duplice chasing the title against him. Like that is just a whole interesting ballgame in that sense as well. So creates a very interesting storyline there. and then DDP all of a sudden has like a little bit of leverage. You can be like, no, you weren't, you weren't going to give me a title shot. Maybe I won't give you a title shot.

And then we have a play a political game with Izzy being the chaser. So like that creates a different thing. But honestly, to me, I don't even have an official pick for Israel to Sanya. I don't even have a pick. My pick is take a break till like the summer of next year. Like maybe Izzy's comeback fight is like the main event of international fight week in 2024. Whoever the champion is at the time, Izzy comes back and fights them. Like I think that's fair.

I think that's fair. But I don't want to see him. Like I think for him in his career, he needs to take a little breather because they built this card around Izzy. Like this was the, oh, Izzy's going to headline this big event in Australia. He was getting booed, man. He was getting booed. People are kind of getting tired of the man. So not to mention.

Not that it's fair. Not that's fair. But people are getting kind of tired. Like, they need a little breather from Izzy right now. Not to mention. And I don't want to agree with anything, Sean Strickland ever says. But he made a decent point. You know that there's that meme, the worst person in the world, made a good point.

He made a decent point at the post-fight about, listen, his whole thing calling Izzy the China man whenever was stupid. But conceptually, it wasn't horrible as maybe just the execution was bad. But post-fight, his whole thing was like, why are you fighting at home or close to home, you know, New Zealand Australia, not the same thing. But, you know, fighting close to home, a place where you have fought where you have trained, you know, again, a lot of New Zealand fans in the building. Why are you doing that and then doing everything your power to look like you're representing another country? And again, there's nothing to do with China. It could have been like, he could have been wearing USA shorts. And that would have been like, why is he wearing USA shorts? So I know what Izzy was going for.

He's going for like, I'm a world champion. I'm a man of many nations. You know, I've lived in China. I've trained there as well. I fought there. So I'm a man of New Zealand, a man of Nigeria, man of Australia, I'm out of China. I get it. He's, I'm a true world champion. MMA fans are not that nuanced, really. So I think in that sense, Strickland was right. Like, he may have not made fans, not lost fans,

but definitely like confuse them a little bit with like, okay, so he's wearing red shorts. He's representing China, but he made this whole whole whole whole blow about fighting in Sydney. The branding was strange. On this, I feel like Strickland was correct. The branding was strange. I didn't make people turn on Izzy,

but maybe you're right. maybe the performance, maybe the loss, maybe just fatigue, some easy fatigue, like all contributed to this being a really a pretty flat and stock down week for Israel at Disney. Yeah. I mean, ultimately they're going to try to do a rematch, but I think for his image, the branding, all of it, I think you just, there's nothing wrong with taking a break, man. No one's saying like take three years off, but take like nine months off.

Like that'd be like the longest stretch between an Israel. out of Sanya fight in a long-ass time, man. Like, he lost the belt to Pereira and then, like, just five months. He just took five months off and everyone was like, why is he getting back here after getting knocked out? He's just, he's 34. So, like, he's still got time, but he has, he has mileage on him. He's got a lot of fights, a lot of fight weeks, a lot of build.

Like, he's got to be mentally drained, man. Like, he's just got to be. It was almost like there was a sigh of relief there when he showed up, the press covers, he got not the way I expected him. I'm going to hand it off to Eugene. I'm going to hang on my family. It's posted videos, dancing to Diana King's shy guy on the bus, like all this stuff going on.

I think there's maybe a part of it that's just like, all right, let's just get out of here for a little while. And there's nothing wrong with that. And I think when he comes back, there's going to be like a little different excitement for him. So I think it's pivotal for him right now. I think so too, I'm with you that he should take time off. However, I don't know if I want him to take that much time off as far as next summer,

though that would be what's best for him. And I do have an opponent in mind. like my best friend someone who doesn't fight very often either and someone who is another rematch for him that we've all wanted to see for a long time but again we've wanted to see it I guess for the title again but that's all out the window now we don't know when or if is he fights for that title again so give me Calvin Gasolm to whenever he's ready to fight oh you're saying don't make the move to 170 you're saying don't move to welterweight Calvin Gasolm stay here wait did he ever he hasn't officially made the

move, right? He was supposed to drop down to 170. Did he fight at 170 again? Well, he was booked against Shopcott and then he got injured. And I still kind of feel like they're going to go back to that. He didn't squeeze in a fight before that at 170. He hasn't actually made the drop back down yet. No, he hasn't made the drop back down yet. No, I think, no, I think it's, maybe he does. Maybe he does. Maybe he does and he fights Shotcott, maybe and loses. If we're talking about Izzy taking time off, maybe the time will work out that whenever Izzy's ready to fight again, Calvin's like. hey, I'm available.

It wouldn't be a five-rounder. If they did sign it, I'd love it to be a five-round co-main, but it's a hard sell for the fighters. If they don't get paid more, it's a hard sell for the UFC who just doesn't like to book non-title, non-main event, five-round fights. And I don't think this would be, I don't think Is he's fighting the apex or anything like that.

So unless they can make the main event on, you know, a fight night card that's outside of Las Vegas, then maybe it could happen, but otherwise it would have to be a co-main. So you don't only get in three rounds, but I think it's possible. I really struggled, Mike. I think you're right.

Him just waiting for a big opportunity is probably best, but I want to have a name out there. So if I have to pick one, let's do Gassalm, too. I just, I really want to see it before their careers are over. Yeah. I mean, look, is Jed, like, says there's no wrong way to eat these reasons. All of this is super interesting and in-compelling stuff. So when I got a great deal on a great gift at winners,

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man that's the fall in the main event let's go to the coal main event alexander volkov did what kind of a lot of people expected him to do against tie two vasa i know tie two vasa was a was the darling dog i had a bet for tie two vasa by knockout and we kind of realized with the great paca porter on the watch party probably about a probably about two minutes into the fight we kind of knew where this was going like ty just couldn't get to him volkov is landing tie was getting busted up and then the fight ends up getting to the ground gets it a zeal choke i believe he's He's the second fighter in modern UFC history.

Like there's the third overall, but as Jed said on the post-fight show, the first one was because there was a Gionn, so it's like a little bit of a different feel. But man, Bullcloff gets the Ezekiel choke. He's in a weird position though, man. Like heavy way, we got John Jones and we got Steepa getting ready to fight. We got Sergey Pavlovich, Mr. Backup Fighter himself, who's going to be the backup for 295. Cyril Gahn's coming off a nice win.

Tommy Aspinall is in play. Jailton Al-Made is getting ready to fight Curtis Blades. and Volkov's fought and lost to a handful of the guys that we've just mentioned here. Where does he go after this? Like, what did this win do for him overall right now? It can't do a lot. He just kind of holds his spot. Actually, I did move him up one spot.

I had, I think, Tuibossa 7 and Volkov 8, or at least that's what it was in our consensus and May fighting global rankings. So when we update those either after Noche UFC or after UFC 294, you will see Volkov move ahead of Tuva. Just beat him. But other than that, it can't move him that much farther in the actual contenders line. For reasons you mentioned, guys are booked, guys are ranked ahead of him. He's fought everybody.

So there's some rematch potential in there. But, Mike, I think we, and I'm wondering if you went the same way, I think we just go the obvious route here and book him against another guy who bought in the card and won, right? We just go Justin Tapa. I guess that's the way to go. I don't know if that's too, if that's not a great matchup for Tapa or we feel like. Tapa hasn't earned a top 10 fight yet, but it's heavyweight. It's heavy weight. It doesn't take a lot to get up there.

Tappas looked pretty good so far. Going from Austin Lane to Alexander Volkov would be a considerable step up in competition to be kind to Austin Lane. It would be a considerable step up in competition. But I really had no other way to go with it. And I think Tapa, I think they would want to see what they have with him and they would kind throw him to the world with Volkov. And if you look with Volkov's record, like he has had ticks and weird fights.

there was the Greg Hardy fight. So I couldn't remember the other football player turned to Emmy fighter. That was, I mean, not the original opponent, but still, they will put Bull Club in there with some weirdos. And Justin Tava is a talented weirdo. I think he can get that fight. And again, just based on the lack of options for Volkov right now, that's where I'm going to go. I'll go Justin Tava Volkov. So this is kind of a weird one.

So again, this is one of those things where, like, we have to wait and, we have to wait like a couple of months to see what my pick is actually going to be. So my first choice is if Curtis Blades meets Jelton Almeida, we do Volkov versus Jelton Almeida. Like you can, there are way worse heavyweight main events you have Csies put together. If Jelton Almeida does win, then we do Sergey Svecac. It's just kind of, it's just kind of there. To go from Taito Ivasa in the co-main event spot and landing in Ezekiel choke to getting

an essential unranked opponent is tough man that's tough so yeah that's kind of where i'm at here he's just in a weird spot like and i've tied won this fight and like knocked him out tie is in that because of how popular he is and how beloved he is he's in that conversation with with all those other guys with the aspinals and all that because it's just one of those stories the ufc could get behind getting tied to yvasa and a title fight like even if he just gets in there and loses like at least he got to the dance man but Volkov just used his size, uses his length very well,

and he's just in kind of a weird place right now. So let's see what happens. And Andrews in the Blades rematch? We could do that. I think that's hard match. Derek, like the newly resigned Derek Lewis, we can do that.

I mean, there's options we can do here. But I kind of feel like Volkov is, I'm not going to say gatekeeper. I don't know if that's the right word, but he's probably like a top five litmus test for the future of this division for the, foreseeable future until things just really break apart like if jones and cpe both retire and we get

like pavlovich's champion then we can mix things up a little bit and do some different things but yeah until we get through the fall and through november and the heavyway title fight and almeda blades it's really hard to say like where volkov's going to go so uh with an almeda win it's speedback with an almeda loss we do volkov almeda and we just go from there do we like i don't even think we need to cue the band for Menel Cop. Minel Cop's fighting Kai Garfrats, right? Yeah, we can't. That's it. That's the fight.

A lot of heat. A lot of heat there, a matchup we all want to see. Mike, can I tell people beforehand? I almost didn't want to do Minal Kai. I would message you, you know, and I said, do we have to do this guy? Because I think, like, a lot of people, or maybe not a lot of people, judging by, you know, if you're judging by Twitter trolls, you know, Menel Cop's post by speech, him and Charlie Radkey, they used a homophobic slur.

was completely unnecessary. I was glad to see Radkeke apologized. Radke and his team probably apologized. That's fine. That's good to see. But yeah, it was a really terrible way to cap off a couple of, like, good moments. You know, Charlie Radke, his EOC debut, not the best fight. I mean, it wasn't a great fight.

But good for him for getting a win in his debut. Hopefully the last we see of Blood Diamond. Nothing personal against Blood Diamond. I just don't think he's a UFC level fighter. And then Charlie, you know, was fired up about the crowd booingham, probably gave me some crap all week and used that slur. Manel Cop was even worse because he won a great fight. The hit fight with Felipe Dos Santos.

Awesome fight. I think it won fight of the night, right, Mike? They got the 50 Gs. They did get the 50s. So, you know, well-deserved for their efforts in the cage. But then he caps it off with a, using that word again, using the homophobic slur again. And he really loaded it up too. I can buy a rad key, like, you know, not, and this is not excused at all, but like a heat

of the moment thing. Not that, again, that's not any excuse to use those words. If you're using those words in the heat of the moment, guess why, you suck. But Kat, like, really loaded up. And I think he did apologize at the post-flight press.

He did. He did. But we really got to do something. I mean, you know, the culture of it is so bad. And I won't go off on a full rant. It's bad. I don't know what else needs to be said. If you agree, obviously, you're a logical human being. If you disagree, I mean, you're an idiot and your piece of trash.

But you got to say, these words still have power. and not just from like, oh, well, they have power because people are offended by it. No, they have power because historically they've been used to oppress and harm people and to completely denigrate a whole segment of society, a large segment of society. This isn't a small group of people. This is a large segment of society. These are people you probably know. And people, they might be out, they might not be out, they're probably people you know.

And if you're okay if people talking about, you know, gay people like that, then that's messed up. It is not the same as saying, oh, idiot or a dummy or like, it's not just, a generic install. It is historically couched in, you know, because those people who perceive a certain way, you know, gay people perceive a certain way that, oh, well, that means it's negative. So it immediately creates its negative association with people. It's terrible. It's a terrible word. Shouldn't be used under any context. And ending your, putting it in your post-by speech is just absolutely ridiculous. So I'm glad both guys apologize. I hope they're sincere. And, yeah, I mean, match speaking for a cop just made sense because we want to see that caravan's fight. So just keep it in the

cage, just talking about in-cage stuff. Great matchup, and the winner of that probably gets a title shot. Yeah, I mean, they did apologize. Dana said the same thing, and there you go. It was just kind of piercing with cop because it was just like, he was got like everything was like the fight was awesome. By the way, Felipe Dos Santos deserves just a ton of credit. That kid is so game.

What a frigging performance from that guy. Looking forward to seeing what's next for him. And I'll hit that dude with everything. in his power. And he got dropped in the first minute, but that dude just came to fight. So super, super, super excited to see what his future is. He's only 22, so a lot of excitement there.

What did you know about him before, Felipe dos Santos before the fight? He's just a fun. Like, I knew he was, I knew he was like a fun, exciting dude that wasn't going to be overtaken by the moment. He's a shoot-to-box guy. So those guys have just been coming in, making debuts.

being super like playing spoiler or at least making things really interesting. So as I said, even heading in, like I felt like cop and his power. And you saw it like mostly throughout the fight. Like even in the first bit of the fight, like D'Azantos was having moments and he was landing shots. But when cop hit him, you could definitely see like a change in progression. And you could see D' Santos really reacting negatively towards it, but didn't stop him from moving forward.

So I just felt like cop's power is just going to be too much for him. But as I said, pretty much all week. And as I said on the watch party, like that fight is going to be super fun and competitive until Cop lands the finishing blow. And he never did it. He never did it. So it was kind of the fight I expected, but I just expected cop to land a knockout shot to end the fight. And he didn't. So credit to Dos Santos, he gets an extra 50 Gs.

And all cop's going to go fight Kai Kar, France, maybe in a five-round main event. And it's a big fight now. I'm very interested in that one. Flyweight. Flyweight, A.K. Flyways. Flywates are fantastic. The fight was so good. Nothing I saw on the tape.

that I saw Bleepo D' Santos told me he'd be ready for Minal Cod. Like he said, fun guy, fun fighter, but the level of competition he was fighting was, you know, okay, not great, just compared to Mnell Cop. And I guess I had to remind myself, and I did mention this from my prediction, he is only 22 years old. And at this stage of a 22-year-old fighter's career,

the version you see in a fight from three months ago could be incredibly different from now, right? So I was looking at whatever his last LFA fight, which was also a really good fight, by the way. But I was like, no. You know, he's a short-nosed replacement. He gets smoked. I say he gets smoked.

But even though he lost a pretty clear decision, he was never out of the fight. He was to give him a lot of problems. He was given my five-leg parlay a lot of problems. So big featurehead for Felipe de Santos. I don't know if we're going to see the results right away. It depends who they match him up with. Like if they give him another top 20 guy, probably have another hard time with it. But it could be a Leresea Pacheco case where maybe he doesn't do great in his first run with the UFC.

he goes back, builds himself up again, and then becomes just a contender. Because the talent is clearly there, just vintage shoot-de-box fighter. Oh, yeah. He ain't going anywhere. He's going to be in the UFC for like the next six to seven years, just getting better and better.

So, yeah, great performance. The best part of the whole thing was when the fight was over. Like everyone knew Menel cop won, but DeSontos gets on the cage and sits on top of it, and everyone just cheers and goes bananas, woo-hoo. and then Menel gets up on the cage and they just boo the shit out of them. And they chanted bullshit at him after they announced a decision.

And just all of them, man, like just a weird. He won the fight. He won the fight. This was a case of like of the newcomer doing better than people expected, I think. And then getting, we see this in M-May all the time. It was the Diego Lopez. Yeah. And it's great.

And people get behind them. That's great. That's great. You know, one guy goes over. The other guy gets over, right? Classic pro wrestling parlance. So that's what happened here. But I get why.

cap, but might have been a little frustrated by their reaction that you got. And shout out to Landon Quinoes as well. Just going in as a massive underdog. Made some people sweat out that Nazareth hackpress minus 500, man. Ultimate Fighter 31. Good performance, man. All right of a 31, never die. I didn't give him much of a chance either.

He looked all right, man. He looked all right. Nazrat's leg is going to be ice for probably the next rest of the week. That was, so Landon looks all right. So good for him. Hopefully, he's definitely getting another shot. He stepped in, not on short. noticed necessarily, but kind of like did the UFC a favor because I think now's where I want to

fight in this card. And so they said, yep, Landon, come on down. So he'll get another show. We'll get to your picks wild card round in a little bit. Let's get through the rest of the main card. You already picked a fight for Justin Tapa. Yes, top of golf. Yeah.

I'm going Justin Tava versus Waldo Cortez Acosta, both guys with some nasty KOs over the last few weeks. So let's just match those dudes up. And now Tyson Pedro kicks off the main card, set the crowd into a frenzy, nasty. nasty knockout, some cold-ass stuff right there. I went with Vitor Petrino, AK for one Tyson Pedro. Oh, interesting. It's a dart, bro, man, at this point.

What do you got? First of all, salute to the pleasure man. Mike, I think this great nickname, great gimmick. Oh, you got to keep them. You got to keep them. No, no, I was going to say, I don't know if they do have to, Mike. You have to. I don't know if you have to.

And I love the pleasure man. I'm the number one advocate for the pleasure man. but this might this might be the last time that we see for now for now he can come back as long no no no no as long as carlos ulberg is still in the ufc we have to do the uh we we have to do the we have to do the normal matchmaking we have to ladies night into the pleasure man until the end of time i don't think i i think carls olberg f's antitra caliof i don't know they're not going to fight each other i'll just be on the same car yeah alberg fights the fight before the pleasure man that's just i don't know my guy connor brooks i think got hurt by the pleasure man ladies night

um parlay and i don't want to see that happen again because as long as it's there it's going to tempt a lot of people into doing that and macaale it seems like cool dude again great nickname he might not be a ufc level fighter right now he's only 27 there's certainly still time but light headway's not a great division his first fight was a weird cashway belt with jelton omeda we shouldn't even count it i understand but it's not like he looked amazing in either fight like the last the fight with petrino was fun and he had his moments but he didn't look amazing it's a pretty clear win for petrino and pedro just knocked him out in under three minutes so i love anton decali if they keep him around for another fight fantastic um mike this might be this might be it for the pleasure man it pains me to say it

uh oh for tyson pedro i want to know has there been a fighter mike whose quality of competition has gotten like lower and lower like actually made just the quality of his wins has gotten lower and lower as he's got along or hit or hit like a weird piece i will his wins are his uc debut first round submission calil roundtree has aged very well fantastic win so that's already starting pretty high yeah i know round tree wasn't like a top 20 guy at the time but you know now we look at it now pretty high next win first round tkl paul craig at the time big win really good win lose to a leetifie and then he gets a weird fight with Saparbek Saffarov. Now this was just so he could fight in Australia, I guess.

He wins that one again in the first round. Two more veteran names, OSP, Shogun, lose to both of them. And then Ikeville and Nueva no longer in the promotion. Harry Huntsucker no longer in the promotion. Takes both of them out in the first round. And now loses to Bukascus. And then now he fights, he beats the pleasure man who,

it gives me no pleasure to say it might be the worst light heavyweight on the roster right now. So it's weird. It's weird. He started off so high, and now all his wins have, like, gone lower in value. So I'm going to go all the way back, Mike. I'm taking it back to the Paul Craig-Ca-Cleel roundtree range. Alonzo Meadowfield? Oh, okay. I thought about that. I thought about that. That's like borderline top 15. He might be UFC's top 15. I've got to look at their rankings.

He might be in there. Metafield coming off of a finish win over Jimmy Crout. Let me see here. Light heavyweight. Alonzo Medifield is number 14. So I am going from someone who I rank as like the number. 40 light heavyweight to the number 14. But it's a wacky division. It depends where the fight is. It depends, you know, when Pedro's ready. It depends if men, if y'all can get another opponent, I'm sure he wouldn't, I'm sure he would see Pedro's step back. But I think it's a possibility. Let's do the Pleasure Man versus Alexa Kamer. We can headline a contender series event and just

like loser leaves town. Let's give the man one more shot. Let's give the man one more shot. Let's do it. I want to see it. Welcome aboard Air Canada. Rocky's vacation, here we come. Whoa, is this economy? Free beer, wine, and snacks. Sweet. Fast-free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land.

And with live TV, I'm not missing the game. It's kind of like I'm already on vacation. Nice. Air Canada. Nice travels. Wi-Fi available to AeroPlan members on equip flights. Sponsored by Bell. Conditions apply.

See Air Canada.com. That's annoying. What? You're a muffler. You don't hear it? Oh, I don't even notice it. I usually drown it out with the radio. How's this?

Oh, yeah. Way better. Save on insurance by switching to Bel Air Direct and use the money to fix your car. Bell Air Direct, insurance, simplified. Conditions apply. Having said that, let's go to the Wild Card round. We'll select one fighter we have not matched for yet. It will match made for them right now.

And then we will get to your picks. You just throw them up on the screen. After we do our WildClaught picks, we'll pull them off. We'll react to them for the next. or 20 minutes or so until I have to check out of this hotel and get to the airport and go home so I can get some sleep. So, AK, who is your wildcard pick for UFC 293? Yeah, let me go first because I didn't have a lot to feel like I had a lot to work with here.

I think you probably have a way better pick than I did. I just went with Jay Malarkey and as what Hock-Bras. I think they're both at similar stages of their career. I think it'd be a banger of a flight. And, you know, they're on the same card. Time works out. I didn't really have a great option. I was impressed with a lot of the performances I saw, but something's going to

have so little UFC experience that it's essentially, as you kind of mentioned before, like a dart throw as to be next. So, uh, Malarkey hack press for me, Mike, tell me you got something, uh, something spicier than that. So my first choice was I was going to give Carlos Alberg his wish, because I did like to call it to Dominic Reyes. Didn't you have a better Dominic Reyes pick or am I thinking of, or my thinking of, or my thinking of, it's Dominic, it's Dominic Grace Anthony Smith. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I love that. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to do that. Good call. By the way, uh, good, I feel is a good color by Holberg, but I will tell people, I am a fan of what I like to call

vulture callouts, where you are clearly, strictly calling someone out based on their previous accomplishments and name value, not on like, oh, this fight will prove that, you know,

Carlos Lerburg is a top 15 contender. That doesn't prove that he beats Dominic Reyes. But it's a good name and clearly at this stage for both men, a very winnable fight.

So I love the callout. I completely understand if people rolled their eyes and we're like, why the hell is he calling out Dominic Reyes? I understand. I like vulture callouts.

Mike, sorry. So no, no, no, for you. Did not go that route. I went with the guy who had a really good performance and literally no one's talking about it and no one is going to talk about it because of what happened. Shout out to Trepey Mariscall, man. Yeah. Yeah. Dude is two dudes two in the UFC. Jack Jenkins and him had a sick first round. Mariscall started to turn it on a round two. He throws that,

delivers that incredible throw. Bad circumstances. Jack Jenkins, I don't know what the actual injury was, but it looked very nasty and looked scary. But it was a clean cut win, man. Chepey Mariscal is a fun-ass fighter. He's getting better and better. There's talks about maybe him going down to 135. I don't think he's ready for that just yet. And if you want to go to 135, that's fine.

But before you do that, Chepe, please, please, fight David Onama. Go fight David Onama. Whoa. Just go fight David Onama. And then you can do whatever you want. You go beat David O'Nama. You want to go to 135, go to 135. Go to 135.

You want to go to 145? Go to 145. Stay at 145. I don't care. But go fight David O'Dama before you do anything else. Thank you very much. How high are you? And I use this term loosely with Chepa on him as a prospect.

Because he's been fighting for quite a while, actually. He's a UFC prospect, if people want to break it down like that. But he's been fighting for a long time. We're almost done, I think, nine years. Nine years. I think he's been pro. And a lot of experience, this is his 21st pro fight. How high are you in him as far as upside goes?

He's 30. He's 30. And he's in one of the lighter weight classes where age is not your friend. So do you see him as someone who could be a top 20, top 15 guy? Yeah, I think so. Really? Because I'm very high in Onama. I think we're both high on Onama.

I think Onama is a guy who I won't be surprised. Onama is a guy, I will be disappointed if he does not have a number next to his name at some point in his year's career. I'm not saying to say top 10, but I could see Onama like working his weight into the top 15. I don't know. I don't know if I did Chep Bay is a fun fight guy. but I love that matchup. I love that match. I'm just curious if you see both guys,

like possibly turning a win into something like real. Yeah, like I could see Chepa being kind of like in the JSP sort of conversation where he just, just goes on, quietly goes on a run

and then gets a big win against a sizable name and then ends up getting matched up with like a top 15 guy and getting a chance. So I understand why people are probably a little bit higher on David Onama, but I think Chepa is just kind of,

he's peaking right now. Like I think he's, He's in his prime. I think his confidence is up. I think he's learned a lot of valuable lessons along the way. And yeah, let's just see what he can do, man. I mean, that fight with David O'Nama is going to tell us a lot. That would tell us a lot about both guys and where they're at.

And look, you can make a great career just being a fun, competitive fighter. You don't have to be a rank guy. David O'Nama and Chappi of Mariscall could be like top 30 guys forever and do very, very well. No one's going to complain when either of those guys matched up against anybody at 145 pounds. But yeah, let's just see what they got. I like the matchup. I think it's super fun. You could,

there could be a great, like, fight nighty main card opener. Let's go. I love that idea. Chappet Nate Landwer, somewhere down the road. That's the next one. If he beats David Romano,

he gets Nate the train next. The only reason we, I think neither of us picked that is because we've, I think we've picked, like, 10 fights for Nate this year. So if, if going by, like, if we were able to turn every Otno fight into reality, Nate Lander would have fought like 12 times this year

against like a list of killers. So I only wish it was possible for Nate Lambert to fight everyone at featherweight. It's not. So, yeah, we got to find something else for Chippe. All right. Well, wild card round for the peeps. Let's go. What do you got?

Let's go crazy. Throwing a matchup for Sean Strickland. Let me tell people. Matches for Izzy. Whatever you got. We can list them off. We'll react. We got like 10 minutes.

We're just going to go, nothing but your picks. We're going to pull them up on the screen and we'll get after him. so let's wait and see what we got here. Let me give a quick, let me give a quick shout up first to Zoe in Australia. You know, I've got to give a shout to the Aussies. She says for an event posed on paper as a C at best, B plus in terms of storylines. Yeah, I'd agree with that. B plus for sure and turn storylines.

Very 50-50 for the Aussie key. We continue to see. We're totally okay with that. And I'll just read out a couple of these picks here. Strickland, Zoe thinks there would be a rematch, but she does want to see Costa Hamza, winner. Tuivasa, Derek Lewis, too,

because who doesn't want to see that again? Yeah, it could happen. Cop. I really, I think, hate this guy, but it has to be KKF now. And there was some other things, Mike. But what do we got? What do we got from the YouTube?

Also, Tai Tuvasa versus Marcus Cheri to Lima is a great fight to make. Throw that out there. Let's go to Tristan. We got Justin. We got Jasipha, Waldo Cortez, Acosta. Miranda, Jung-Yung-Li,

Alessandro Kong. Costa. I want to make a matchup for Miranda, but like I said, it's just kind of all over the place. So I leave it to the viewers and listeners. And that is that is a such a good matchup, Miranda and John. Alberg, Merzacanov is interesting, but I wouldn't do that this early. Right. I think Merzacchanoff's a big-ass problem.

Not saying that Alberg isn't, but I would probably wait a little bit on that. Hackpress bomb theme. That one makes a lot of sense. Mike versus Mike loser retired forever. Mike Jackson is actually fighting Pat Militich. it's true that like that's a real thing folks like that's super the real thing uh gerard izzie versus the shemaiah costa winner i believe that's where we're going to go here as well let's see minel cop charles racky and blood diamond versus josec to watch jesus christ uh yeah i think i think

roster watch is a minus well i i i cop and rat keith i think will will be okay uh blood diamond Ironically, Blood Diamond, the least problematic of them is probably done. I give roster watch minus 800 in that matchup. Sorry, Blood Diamond, if you're out there. But, no, it doesn't go your way sometimes. Yeah. Tafa versus... I would think about that idea.

I mean, again, let me, again, not mix up my Australia and New Zealand. So both... Okay, so this would be Australia versus... Australia versus New Zealand matchup, which is a lot of fun. I'm assuming there's no friendship there. I wonder if maybe they've trained together at some point, but I think that's a great matchup. I think you are seeing two guys slug it up.

But that has to happen in New Zealand or Australia, right? You can't throw that in the apex. No, God, no. You can't throw that. Those two boys slang and meathammers has to be in front of an audience and really preferably in New Zealand or Australia. So I don't know how early they go back there next year. I'm sure they will go back.

And by there, I just mean the whole region. I feel we've had to apologize for that a lot this week, my conflating New Zealand and Australia, but yeah, it has to happen in front of a rabby crowd. Yes, they're going to throw that fight in like Sioux Falls, South Dakota of all places. Oh, fantastic.

Jake Halley versus Bell Cop. God, no. No, not yet. Hadley's not a terrible fighter, but. No, he's coming off, he's coming off of a loss. He got run over by Cody Dirden. I mean, it's fun fight, not run over, but the last two rounds was all Cody.

So, yeah, cops, cops fighting Kai Kar, France. He's getting a top. dude for sure. Paul Craig and Whitaker didn't even fight versus... No, Paul Craig is main eventing against Brennan Allen in November 18th, I believe that fight is. I'm not sure. But, man, that Sean Strickland,

Brennan Allen win has aged pretty well, has it not? A lot of Sean Strickland's wins have actually aged pretty well. So, again, I'll never question the meritocracy of him getting a title fight. But only because of this, Mike, we say all the time about we always say, we'll just get a fighter or tell a shot. And then often we'll go like, no, but it puts them on the short list. This is the importance of being on that short list is when all the other options fall out, guess what? The UFC checks, checks, checks. Guess who was there the next on the list?

John Strickland, gets a title shot, now is the USC chance. So getting on the shortlist matters. It's not a sexy place to be. But that's how people get teleshot sometimes. And in this case, it's how they become UFC champions, haven't helped us. Yep. Adasani-Kanone here too. Please no, never again.

I don't know if anyone's in Russia. Never again. Mike, let me read one quick from Twitter because it's the first time. I've mentioned us to Helios, who has, who I've mentioned in the show before

during a Ask Us Anything, but, and I just like one of their picks here, I think, I don't know if we mentioned it. Oldberg, Alberg at Roundtree. Is it time to do that?

They're both streaking. They're both, no, you don't want to keep them away. Too soon. Too soon. Keep them away from each other. Yeah, I like what they're doing. I like what they're doing with Allberg right now.

Step by step. Roundtree wants like a veteran name in a main event spot, and I think he kind of deserves it. So we'll just give it to him. Another Oberg versus Menefield. What's up, Gerard Biaugan? What's up, Greg? No regular Gerard Biaugan.

Is he versus Rackage? It's like a potential move to 205. We didn't talk about this. Yeah, sorry, we didn't talk about this. I got a couple of people who still sent in picks, even though, you know, we warn them. Maybe don't send him picks. I'm doing it live.

Not going to read everything. But you talk about him taking time off, Mike. It should be the time off B to bulk up and make a proper move to 205. If he wants. I get where Jed's coming from. You've already conquered 185. What else can you do besides get the rematch?

Because then if he like fights GDP and loses, what are we going to do another immediate rematch? And he tries to avenge that loss too. Like we're almost to a point where like there's not much more he could do. Yeah. And if by some chance next year, even next summer, Alex Panetta is the light heavyweight champion. That is a fight he walks right into.

They're one in one. He knocked him out the most recent fight. That's the one. So that should have been our crystal ball pick. Pineda beats Yuri, maybe defense the title once, and then fights easy one more time. I hope that. MMA, give us something straightforward and predictable for once, please. To Yvasa Tibora.

Did they not? That's in my head a fight that, like, I don't think they fought. In my head, I feel like that happened, but I'm pretty sure it has not happened. No, it's not. Old Cut versus Speedback. So I saw a bunch of this, even with, like, the messages that I got. Strickland, like, Camaro moves up to 185 in Avengers. his buddies lost. That's a deep cut.

That's a deep cut. I was going to say, I was out to say, have they fought? And I'm like, right, Strickland was a welterweight once upon a time. And that fight is a thing that happened. So, hey, Kamaro, guess what? You can say you have a win over a middleweight champion. How about that? I don't think that happens, but I like where the head is at, though.

Izzy versus Rob 3, main event, New Zealand, fight night, or pay-per-view, doesn't matter. What do you think about doing the trilogy here? I like it a lot. We know Rob has really wanted it. I don't think Izzy would be against it. And like I said, with the castlem rematch, now the title's out of the picture, it probably makes it more possible.

So, yeah, doable, doable fight for sure. There's options for Izzy, even though he's coming off this pretty disappointing loss. Witterg takes that fight without hesitation. Of course. He wants another shot. Without hesitation. Volkov Lewis 2.

Very possible. Yeah, it could happen sometime, yeah. Thoughts on Strickland, Izzy rematch possible adjustments? I don't know. Like, maybe they will rematch, but that's, that is now like a back pocket fight. Like, even if Strickland loses the title, you could still go back to that at some point. And it's fine. But I don't know, man.

I don't know if I would pick Izzy in that fight no matter, like, how much adjust. I mean, I'm not saying that he can't come back and win because a stylist, he is a good fight. And if Izzy on his best day probably wins, I don't know how many times. It's not like Strickland would beat him 10 out of 10 times. But, I mean, he broke the man. Like, I actually don't even want to see it. I have no desire to see that rematch right now. I don't.

It was one of the worst possible ways for Izzy to lose that fight. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Because if you didn't know who was who, if this was your first time seeing Izzy fight and your first time seeing Strickland fight, you would have just said, oh, well, Strickland's the way better fighter, right? You would have no idea that one guy is in the running for or was, hopefully not in the conversation anymore for now middleweight at at least the second best middle

weight ever uh and one guy was you know not expected to fight for the title at all it looked completely the opposite chepe versus milarchy since you all know jami lost last night yeah c had a malarkey bet he sweated that one out and he was like who i'll take that but chepe i mean yes he did fight trevor pika 155 but he's not a lightweight he's not yeah yeah he's that was short notice that was just yeah so i mean chepe's talking about moving to bannam weight so that was and I think he's like, oh, I'm able to get a new nutritionist. That's why, because he wants to go to 135. Ulberg versus Bukascus.

There's Alberg like too far ahead. It makes sense, but I just think it's not a sexy matchup for, well, I really, I didn't fight with Alberg as a sexy matchup, but I mean, it's not, you know, sexy metaphorically speaking. So it could happen, but it's not my favorite. Let's see. Do you have anything else? Another Carlos versus Khalil, maybe, maybe that's where we go.

It's just they're both street. I think they're both four. fight win streaks right they both have a very appealing stand-up style rankings-wise they shouldn't be too far apart i think uh calil might be a little bit ahead but neither guy for me is in my top of theme so this would be the fight to sort of edge one guy closer to it like what would i do with what i do with olberger right now wait what are you saying again dog the value hunter i don't know if you've saw this comment yet miranda versus ryan hall grappler's delight uh i mean rip gabriel miranda in that case but i understand the appeal of it i do want to see more of gabberra

Miranda. He, I think we all, I want to say the entire staff predicted Miranda by submission and he showed out. I, I want to say a briefing for Shane Young. It's like he might need to take a break. Who's his teammate? He's teammates with Brad Vardelle, right? Yeah, city kickball and stuff, right? I don't know. He's smart. I'm glad Braddell is taking a break. Maybe Shane Young needs to as well. Four straight losses. Mised weight so badly. And it wasn't like a weight miss where I think it's one of those really bad misses. We're like this looks like a miss because a lack of focus, not because he was trying to like game the system.

So I had very little hope for him to pull this one out, and he didn't last a minute in there. So Shane Young, assuming he doesn't get released back to the shop, takes some time off, and hopefully we see a better version. Alberg versus Jacoby. I don't,

that's a good one. I don't think you had a good matchup for Jacoby last week. I think you would, if we're going by, no, didn't you match it. I think you had something good for Jacoby. Or I might be thinking of someone else.

We have matched up Jacoby a few times, or the listeners have anyway. Yeah, I think who won at 205 in Singapore? I don't think I match it. I think a lot of people said Anthony Smith, no, they're teammates, so they won't fight. I'll tell you what, Ulberg versus Ryan Span.

I would do that. Yeah, I like that. Lucas C, I just want to read this con. I'm still shocked what had happened last night, trying to decide which upset is the biggest. Leon Usman, O'Malley, Aljo, Izzy Strickland. This is definitely bigger than both of those. Leon was on a

10 fight unbeaten streak It's more how that fight went That makes it so shocking He was dominating the first fight and then got You know that Hail Mary knockout But odds wise it wasn't he wasn't that It wasn't that shocking He was on a crazy win streak

O'Malley versus Aljo I mean we all knew O'Malley had that punch of chance And it played out exactly as you would expect O'Malley win to play out Izzy Strickland's the shocker is a huge upset And for me Mike a top five upset all time I'm not sure where it lands for you but yeah, it's my top five.

Yeah, for me personally, yes, that's where it is. And again, a lot of people were like, you know, you're not giving strickling any respect. No, I'm, you'd stepped in on short notice and saved the day and took the fight and won the belt. So you can't take anything away from the man. But yeah, man, just so crazy. This is for me, like, because the betting odds are one thing.

And then you just kind of look at all the different paths to victory. Like nothing will be GSP Matt Sarah. that's etched in stone forever. But even like Peña beating Nunes, like, man, maybe the timing's not good here. Maybe Pena just, just to weather a storm. Maybe Nunes just isn't taking her seriously.

Like there were things out there. You're like, okay, maybe. Luke Rockhold, Michael Bisbing. Crazy ass upset out of nowhere. But like the way Luke Rockhold just, just kind of cast Bisbing off to the side, like he was nothing. Like, you just kind of felt like,

eh, maybe he's just beat, maybe he's too cocky right now. Maybe the ego's a little too much. And like even, even Sean O'Malley. Like, you just felt like, okay, there's, there's a way he can win. And, but this one, it just, it just, it was just really shocking. This is the most chaotic thing. This whole division, like the rankings are broken.

Pound for pound is never going to be the same in terms of rankings because of this result. Like, it's just absolutely wild. It's absolutely wild. So, I see someone saying, David Zell saying, GSP Sarah was a one punch fluke. Yeah, it was a one punch fluke. That's what's so crazy about it is if they ran that fight back, that's why it's the biggest upset. If they ran that back 100 times,

GSP probably wins 99 times. He wins all 99. We saw the one time that Sarah would win that fight, and it happens. That's what's great about MNA. Isn't that amazing, man? Yeah. All right, I think we're good here.

Yeah, I got to pack up and get that out of here. So, A.K., thank you very much. I appreciate you jumping on a little bit earlier. I appreciate all of you for watching a little bit earlier. Normally, we're, like, just getting the show started now, but schedules and timeframes are different. We'll be back live on this program. We get a little bit of a breather now.

Me and G.C., we're talking about this yesterday throughout the pre-build for the watch party. Like, I'm kind of happy we're getting a little bit of a break because it's like every three weeks, like, clockwork. Hoping on a plane in New York for one day. Hoping on a plane in New York for one day. And now we get like a five-week breather.

And then it's like right back to it because we're going to have 294, 295, like right behind it. And then 296 will be, you know, four weeks after that and and then we're just going to be all crazy. But the next one, afternoon MMA for the next pay-per-view because they're in Abu Dhabi. So I believe that it's a 2 p.m. or 3 p.m. Eastern main card start time,

which is incredible. I love that so much. I love that so much. But you guys are are the best. Normal show next week. We will be discussing the fault of Noche, UFC. and then we got the September 23rd card headline by Rafael Fazeve versus Matush Gamrott. Let me pull up next week's card real quick.

Do the quick rundown before we get out of here. Do it. Noce, UFC. We have 11 fights, Alexa Grasso, Valentina and Schifchenko 2 for the flyway title. We get Kevin Holland versus Jack Della Madelena. Okay. Weird. Big time, big co-main event for 170 for the future of this division.

Raul Roses Jr. coming back after his first loss against Terrence Mitchell. Main card. Boy, they're not giving up. on this kid, hey? And they shouldn't, and they shouldn't. They shouldn't. Daniel Zellhuber, who is just a super impressive cat, taking on Christos Giyagos, Fernando Padilla, Kyle Nelson. Lupi Godinez versus Elise Reid. We got Roman Coppulov versus Josh Fremt. We got Edgar Chiraz versus Daniel Lacerda. Fun fight at 125. Tracy Cortez versus Jasmine, Jazz DeVizius. We got Charlie Campbell, CFFC champ, making his debut on short notice against

Alex Reyes, who returns to the Oxtagon for the first time in like five or six years. Long layoff for Alex Reyes, but he is back. So maybe we'll hear a little bit from Dominic Reyes next week in Las Vegas. Maybe he'll do some interviews and we'll get some, because they're our brothers after all. And Josephine Knutzen taking on Marnik Man. Marnik Man? A blinded by the light fan? That's Manford, man. Oh, see, I knew I can see DJ, DJ Mike, I knew I could sneak that back.

I knew I couldn't sneak that fast here. I was like, can I get up with this? You're good. Next week, apparently. That's no JFC. So thank you all very much. Have a great rest of your weekend. Enjoy week one of the NFL season, everybody.

Or A.K.I. Mike Eck, always remember, don't take this stuff too seriously. M.A. supposed to be fun. We'll have more fun next week right here. And on to the next one, the podcast. See you later, everybody. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.