MMA Fighting - Reaction | Alex Pereira MOVING BACK To Middleweight?

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira says he's focused on his UFC 307 title defense against Khalil Rountree, but regardless of what happens, he wants to head to middleweight one more time to face Dricus du Plessis for the middleweight title. Will it happen? Is it the right move? MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee discuss Pereira's latest comments, and get your thoughts as well. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Hello, everybody. Surprise once again, this time on a Tuesday because, hey, when things are happening in the MMA space that are getting some attention, that have a lot of questions attached to them, that are getting a lot of questions asked to us, we figure, hey, let's hop on here with all of you and talk about it and perhaps answer those questions. This time, we're talking about the UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Barrera, who made some headlines recently and if you missed it we'll tell you why right here on this reaction

right here in the m a fighting youtube channel i am mike heck hope you're all doing very very well on this tuesday and joining me as you could see reunited and it feels so good my best friend alexander keely hello i can't i feel like we haven't been on the same show in like a month at this point mike we're like we're live on air right now with the internet and so am i oh this is crazy Is this a thing we do now? I was on vacation for a couple of weeks. Happy to be back. What's up everybody? Great to see you all. Great to be, uh, have you hearing us. This is the thing now? This is the M.A. fighting show thing. Yeah, we're just going to know. Let's just hop on here. Everyone's like, oh, what are you guys going to do?

You guys are dying. No, we're going to be in a mail or we got things to talk about. So we're just going to come on and talk about them. Let's do it. Like, you know, rather than just go on Twitter and all this stuff, like let's just jump on here and talk about it. Let's weigh it all out. Let's discuss. And then let's get the peeps in and then they can discuss too. And we'll discuss what they discuss. I'm really excited to see what the peeps have to say about this because, you know, there's been a lot of stuff going down.

But I think Alex Pereira, man, he's mastered the art of keeping his name in the headlines. But I think without doing it in an annoying way, I think, you know, anyone can glance at M.A. fighting. And I can see how a lot of fighters like Connor McGregor and I guess now, like, who's no, Sean Strickland, I suppose, Colby Covington, when he was talking a lot. Like, they have a way of keeping their name in the headlines, but it's just so aggravating and it's just for the wrong reasons. And, you know, we got to cover it because a lot of it's probably relevant, some it's not,

but most of it is. Alex Pereira has just found that, like, that right balance of, hey, I'm here, I'm around. I have a fight coming up. I'm scheduled. I have things that, you know, I have substantial things to talk about. But also, I can keep myself in other conversations, other conversations that people might have forgotten I could be a part of. And I guess that's what we're here to discuss today.

This middleweight conversation now that he's back in. Yes. Apparently, my volume is not where it needs to be. Oh. So that's never a good thing. But hey, we will carry on. We'll get through it. And it is what it is, my best friend.

But let's get into this thing. There we go. There's the old split screen. Hey, we're doing this kind of the seed of our pants here. but I'll try to get as loud as I can. And for those who missed it, let's talk about Alex Pereira because he's getting ready to defend

his 205 pound title against Khalil Roundtree. This is October 5th, UFC 307, Salt Lake City. But right after UFC 305 ends, which happens earlier this month, Pereira jumps on social media. He reacts to DDPs stoppage win over Israel Adisania

to retain the middleweight title and says, hey, I'll come back down to middleweight. We'll do the damn thing. thing. And as you said, okay, we see this type of thing all the time, right? Fighters say something after a big moment. We get some headlines for a few days. And then we sort of move on to other business, right? And then yesterday, he posts again, same photo, I believe. And this is what he said is transcribed by the Brazilian beast, our own Guillermo Cruz, kind of laying down the

gauntlet, so to speak. And he says this, quote, I'm focused on my next fight. And I'm getting prepared but you never know it can happen. So regardless of the result, I want to go down one more time to the middleweight and go for the belt. Hey, Drickus, bring your will to fight me so you can prove that you are better than me with your public statement. It is easy to make this happen. And then Shama, AK. He's planting some seeds. He's extending the competitive hand across the internet to Drickus Duplice. What did you think of this? What did you think of this from Pereira? Like I get it after the title defense teasing the move and like you said, guarded some headlines, but to do this now, a month before this fight, before you're about

to fight a scary dude in Khalil Roundtree at UFC 307, what did you think of the timing of it and just the way he approached this sort of tease? Yeah, the timing is a bit worrisome. Not to say that this is any indication that he's not focused on Kalil-Roundtree. I think he has a lot of respect for Khalil. I know I'm sure people will look at this, him even bring this up as indicating that he doesn't. But again, this is, we haven't even gotten into ramping up for UFC 307 yet. We have 306 still around the corner. This is just kind of the nature of the MMA news cycle now, right? Like, you're right. In a perfect world, he wouldn't even be mentioning this stuff. He'd be talking about Khalil and we'd be all in on that. But the UFC barely even promotes

his events like more than two weeks ahead of a pay-per-view anymore, right? So he's just kind of following suit with the way the MMA culture is now. And again, and that means, yes, sometimes talking about subjects that, you know, aren't directly related to your upcoming fight. He'll get to Khalil. He'll have plenty to say about Khalil or, you know, he'll do it in his own, his own Alex put it in a way that's just, again, it's hard to put a finger on what makes it so effective, but certainly it's also difficult for others to emulate. But for now, there's just really no harm in bringing this up. DDP, we've had... had some conversation of our own internally about like how we view this guy as on the pound

for pound list. One can make a case he's top five pound for pound given his past three wins. One can make a case that he's outside the top ten. If you don't think highly of the middleweight division, which is the case I'd be making, I'm not a huge fan of it. So there's a vulnerability there. There's a vulnerability there. He, I guess he hasn't necessarily, he didn't dominate the Sean Strickland matchup. He had some issues with Izzy before outlasting and finishing him in the fourth. So if you're Alex Praneda, I mean, and you can. can, you're willing to make that cut one more time, as he suggests, there's really no reason not to inject yourself into the title conference in 185. If you can do it, if you can do it.

Let's say he beats Khalil, not a sure thing. Let's say he beats Khalil. Takes the rest of 2024 off, probably takes early 2025 off, comes back maybe second quarter of 2025, you know, with having a chance to properly shift his weight down a little bit and make 185. It's very possible. It's very possible. I see some comments saying like, why, why he's doing it? He can't make $1.85. again. I think for a one-off, he could. I think for a one-off he could. And I think that's what makes this such a fun idea. We've seen him win titles in two divisions. I'm trying to think how many people win a title, go up and then come back and win a title again. It's not a long list, right? Like, Randy Guterre, I don't think he ever came back down to light heavy and won the title

again. Did he? People correct me from Rom. I'm having a brain fart here. I guess like my biggest reaction was, is this real? Because again, he, Poetan does a great job just sort of casually injecting himself in these conversations. And people are like, oh, this is interesting, whether they believe him or not, they're not crushing him for it. But you also see John Jones getting ready to fight Stipe Meachich, you would think if Pereira's going to move to a different weight class, wouldn't he just try to go up and get the John fight? Like, I'm surprised he's going this direction. because you like let's be honest if if and when this fight

happens between John and Stepe right we know Tommy Aspenall is sitting there we know that Dana's trying to convince us and John is saying things about Tom but none of us really think this fight's going to happen right we don't think John if he beats steepa is going to go on the mic and be like hey Tom let's go unify

the belts when he's already said on social media hey me fighting Alex Pereira Pereira beats me he's the actual goat and Pereira's going for a third title and that is just a gigantic fight, you don't think Alex Pereira's going to post that same exact photo, same exact room with John holding the belt, doing the exact same thing? Like, this is, this is to me so strange.

So I guess roundabout way of asking, A.K., do you believe this, man? Like, when he says this, do you believe him that he's dead serious about this? He goes in there and takes care of business against Khalil Roundtree, which most people think he will. Do you think he's going to do this? Like, what would you, what would be your percentage that he does this? Oh, I think, I think it's actually high. I think it's high.

Really? Yeah, I'm like most fans at this point. I think we've learned to take any kind of statement like this that fighters make with a grain of salt, with a grain of salt. I think he'll do it, though. Depending what has with the round, true fight, if he sparks him in the first round, first second round, just dominates them, which I feel like we're going to talk about the roundtree fight more later in this episode or on this YouTube stream show. I don't even know what we call these things. I feel like we had to talk about the possibility of like Roundtree spoiling this a lot more, but working under the assumption that prayer wins for the sake of this conversation.

Yeah, I think right after, I think he's savvy. I think he would mention the DDP fight. Again, we don't know if by then DDP will have his fight with Sean Strickland scheduled. I don't know if that happens in December. I don't know if they make that part of the Mads Square Garden card. I don't know if it leads, maybe it happens in January. Maybe they, you know, a year after their first meeting, maybe they make it lead off 2025. I'm not sure.

So by then we might know. We might know what DDP's plans are. But if you're, even if that fight is booked, I'm surprised that. The one thing I'm surprised with Pera is that he didn't just call out both of them because he beat Strickland already. I mean, he destroyed Strickland on the way to getting his fight with Ediznia. And then DDP, again, we've already talked about that. He's already mentioned him. So really, no matter what happens with how the middleweight title picture looks at the end of October or whenever this.

Sorry, the route street fight happens. I think Perra was going to do it. I'll go like 75%, Mike. I think this is 75% chance he follows up. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, as for why he would do that instead of, you know, going for the Jones stuff. It's like there's just so much uncertainty around Jones. I think I think Padena and whoever helps him with his social media, assuming there is someone helping him.

They're pretty savvy about that. They're like, listen, this guy's got his, plus John Lynch has his own trauma going on with, like, Steve Bay and with Aspinall and the Dana White stuff. And, like, I think if you're a prayer in his team, you're like, that's a little too messy right now. That's not a fun conversation to be a part of. Let's stay out of that one for now. Maybe after December, then we can insert ourselves in there. But Aspinall is more likely to get the shot than him.

I think so. I know everyone loves the idea of the Pereira Jones super fight. But again, just based on how many pigs that Pereira already has currently has in the fire, I think if you'd be the UFC, you'd like, hey, let's angle him towards DDP with this conversation. Let's see if we can get John Jones to fight Aspinall. And again, and worse, not worse, it's worse. Another great scenario, they can also get Padilla and John Jones, but that's what both guys want.

So, but I think if you're prayer out, you don't need to press that John Jones button right now. It's there, and it's especially there if John Jones calls him out. It doesn't retire and calls him out after this DBA fight. So if you prayer out, you let that fight just build itself. You don't know anything you need to mention it. There's an obvious point to all of this, and a lot of people are commenting on this. Alex is a monster. The fact that this man has ever made middleweight is absolutely stunning to me.

He is a giant man. And Sean Strickland, who I don't think Pereira would fight Strickland again because, I mean, there's nothing really there. He's already sort of ice Strickland. And they're kind of buds now and they train together anyways. But Sean Strickland was telling the story about how he was in attendance. He was at least there for Poetan's last cut to middleweight. and he just wanted to go in and say hi to him and he was just like, I thought this dude was going to die essentially.

He looked miserable. He looked awful and was just like, there's no effing way this guy is going back down to middle way. It's just not healthy for him. It's not sustainable. Yeah, maybe for one. But who knows? Maybe DDP is that fight.

So I guess I just, I don't know if I buy this. Just because of that, I think that's a huge thing. And I know DDP is rising up in popularity. He's getting a little bit more over. is this a big enough fight for that risk though, okay? Because sure, you're still the light heavyweight champion. But I mean, look, you know how I feel about this weight class movement? Why hold up this division?

Like, if you are Robert Whitaker or Hamzaa Shemayev or even to some extent Sean Strickland right now and you were reading this headline and you're seeing this Instagram post from Alex Pereira, who doesn't seem like a liar, if he's posting it seems like it's at least something he's thinking about. Are you concerned? here? Like, are you legitimately concerned about this? I would be, yeah, if I was them. If I'm Maga Manacolaev, I'd also be concerned because where the hell?

He's already had to book another tough fight. He's got to fight Rockich now. And God knows that if that, and then if Ferrar moves down and Glyde, you're going to wait around again. So there's guys in two divisions that are probably frustrated by this prayer talk. And listen, that's not Alex Panetta's problem. Okay. He's got to promote his own brand.

He's got to get his own stuff set up for, he's building already for what happens after the roundtree fight. if he's successful. It's just good business. It's just good business. But yes, guys are light heavy weight, guys at middle weight, I'd be very annoyed. Middleweight, guys, I think could be a little less concern. Because like I said, I do feel like if Padetta is going to do this, if he beats Roundtree,

and if he doesn't end up getting called up by John Jones and they make that fight happen, it's going to take him or he should take time to make a proper move back down to 185, even if it's for only one time. And whatever that means is, you know, slight changes to his diet, slight changes to his workouts. whatever he has to do to make 185 as he has in the past, I would hope he would take a little more time off to do that as opposed to just, because he's getting older too. This guy's 37.

He'll be 38 next year, next summer. It can't be easy to make that cut, right? It doesn't get easier. It only gets harder and harder. So if I'm the guys at middleweight, I'm not that concerned. Because maybe you get the Strickland DDP winner before Alex Padet is back, before Alex Padet is ready to fight. And then Pinedetto would get the winner of whatever comes out of this combination of fighters.

And again, by then, Paderico could change his mind. Maybe he fights Anka-Lyav instead. Maybe the John Jones fight is there. So I'm not that worried if I'm Robert Wyrd or if I'm Kanzas-Shimae or any of these other, Kyle Baha'i, whatever, all these other middleweight contenders. I'm not worried. I think you're getting, I think there's time in between when Alex Padaa makes this move for you to get your shot. Okay.

Two last things on this. Now I take some viewer questions about this and whatever else everybody wants to talk about. One, if you were to set a betting line on this fight, how would you do it? Is DDP the favorite? Is Pereira the favorite? How would you set it? Perre will be favored based on, not because I, not because that's my pick necessarily, based on his star power, the knockout power, the highlights.

Again, DDP had moments against Izzy where he wasn't, he didn't, you know, he didn't dominate that fight. It was a definitive win for sure. But it's not like DDP, like, handled. Izzy from bell to bell, like there was tough moments in there. And Alex Panetta is a very, very different fighter than Izzy, but he brings some of the same problems plus insane knockout power. So just based on that alone, your average better is going to lean towards Alex Padeta.

The odds makers know that. So I think they're going to try and drop people in. If he's two to one, that would shock me. I think the opening line has to be somewhere around minus 150, maybe a little lower, minus 140 for Poiton. I just, it would surprise me if they went two to one. I don't think people, I have to imagine people wouldn't bite on that. But minus 140, minus 150.

I think you're going to get some people getting in early because they do think that he's just going to straight up K.O. Drickis, who is hitable. He's a hitable guy. And I also am not confident that he could just, as so many fighters have thought they could do, just take down Petetta for like five rounds and dominate him that way. But I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. But yeah, I think opening line favors Poetan.

Would you pick Poetton? What I pick Poetton, I'm the worst person in the world of picking fights. and I haven't been giving DDP enough respect. I think I picked him to lose to Izzy. I might have picked him to beat Strickland, but at the night up, I actually scored the fight for Strickland, and I certainly picked DDP to lose to Rod Whitaker once by the time.

So whatever I pick here, people do the opposite, is what I'm saying. Should you trick it on this early line? I bet I'm sure some sites already have it out there. I would pick Alex Paredeta to beat him. I would pick Alex. I think Alex Pereira can catch him. I think he's, I think DDP gets hit a little too much for my comfort.

I don't think he's proven that he can just take someone down and grind them out for five rounds. I'm probably for getting some fight, but that's not really what he does. He's a high-paced guy. He's going to go for the finish. And while that could be an asset against Alpsedado for sure, I just,

I'm not sure he's his takedown machine that can win strict men as wrestling. And he's going to get punched. So right now, I would say, Poiton. It's such an interesting fight. The more we talk about it. it really is it's just dynamite between these two guys i think just thinking about it right now and just consider like if this if ddp was going up to 205 i probably would lean perera because you're just

giving this man 25 minutes to land that big shot at the same token ddp is just one of those unkillable guys at this point he's just not getting dropped he's not getting knocked down just he's just a freak when it comes to that but eventually your number comes up no matter what Man, Pereira dropped, like making that cut again and going to 85 after seeing Izzy kind of, I mean, Izzy killed him. Killed him. And Izzy's not really known as that one hitter, quitter kind of guy, but he did that to Alex Pereira, man. And you have to think with the athleticism and just the dynamite, everything DDP brings to the table, you can't slow him down. So if this is a 205, I'd pick Pereira 185.

Damn, dude. It's tough. It's definitely tough. So could be something to think about. Last question on this, that we'll go to the peeps. It is September 3rd, 2024, AK. Does this fight happen sometime between now and September 3rd, 2025? Between now, oh, just a year?

Within the next year. We see Pereira go down to 185 and fight DDP for the middle-aid title. Oh, boy. So I know this is going to sound, I'm sounding, less confident, even though I just said there's a 75% chance I think Pereira follows up and calls them out. That doesn't mean there's a 75% chance that this is going to happen. I'll still lean towards yes. I'll still lean towards yes. But like I said, it will be summer of next year. It won't be, I can't imagine the first quarter of 2025. Again, as far as we know,

that's when DDP, Striplin 2 is going to happen, right? We don't know. It could happen November, December. It could happen in January. So we don't know. We don't know when that's happening. That pushes that back. I guess I said there might be another middleweight tele-defense. in there. But if Alex Padetta wants to happen, I think I'm, I think my optimism of this is because I'm being a little pessimistic about Padeta doing the heavyweight move, which I think we all agree would be intriguing in another way. We'd love to see him fight Tom Aspinall.

We'd love to see him fight John Jones. I'm just not convinced that's the move he makes next year. I think that's easier to move to make when you're older. I think the window to move down to 185 is shorter. It has to be within the next year. So I am going to say, did you want to be given attention to this, Mike? Or just as this is a yes or no.

Yes or no? Within the next year. By this September, we'll have, we'll have seen Drick's Duplice and Alex Bennett a fight at 185 pounds. I'm going to say no. I'm going to say no. I don't know, man. I don't know.

Like I feel like it's no, but at the same time, it's Alex Pereira and this man can move mountains if he wants to. He just seems to have. that mojo with him so tbd but i'm leaning more towards no 205 205 205 i mean i don't want to see that anytime soon dc he's got a lot of work to do i mean he's got to fight strickland again he's got to fight either whittaker or hamzaa shimai if we got you know kylel boh bohahliu coming up we got brendan and asserdine imov coming up like middleweight's interesting man not to mention the bow nichols and all those guys that are on their way up he's gonna have

no shortage of guys to fight in pretty big fights. So I don't want to see it anytime soon. I need to see like five title defenses before we even discussed this. And at that point, Peron could be like 39. And yeah, man. These days, though, that's a lot to ask. Five tell defenses. Guys get three and then that's three max and then they start talking one.

They win the title and they start talking multiple weight classes. So I don't know. That'd be nice. You're right. He, I mean, Drickus would fly up the pound for pound charts. It'd be racked up two, three, four straight tail defenses. I just, I don't know. I don't know if he's going to do that.

But hey, like I said, in my scenario, one of them is Alex Panetta. So we'll see. Yes. All right. We'll take a few questions. And we got to get on out of here. We do have a super chat from Man Chase. In a hypothetical world where Aspinall gets injured with the UFC,

strip him of the interim or just let him sit out the same way John did. I mean, he just fought in July. So, like, like, six weeks ago. he just fought. But I guess it is a hypothetical world that Chase has presented us, okay? So let's just say they book, they book Aspinall against Cyril Gahn.

Let's say Cyril Ghan wins in Abu Dhabi, tough fight with Alexander Volkov. Let's just say, John, we don't know what he's doing. We're going to do, we're not stripping John because they ain't going to strip, John. We already know that. We'll do Tom versus Cyril Ghan February for the interim heavyweight title. And then January rolls around. Tom goes on and scratch.

I'm injured, I'm hurt, can't do it. Would they strip him? Oh. And just move on with John. Hells, yeah. And then, okay. They'll strip him so fast that it costs them more money for him to be in the interim champion.

They got to pay him. I don't know what his contract was exactly, but he does get a champions bump. We know this about the UFC. You get a champions bump if you have the bell. Now that, again, just say John Jones successfully comes back in November. Now that the true champion is back and active, you don't need an interim champion. And it muddies up the conversation. Again, it's someone they had to pay extra money.

They would strip him so quickly. He would stay the number one contender. They'd like, yeah, oh, you're still the number one contender. But, I mean, in the event that for some reason he doesn't fight John Jones again, then they're not going to pay, you know, they're not going to want to pay him, pay him that extra cash to do another interim title event. What an absurd conversation. Like, I'm, like, thinking about the permutations of this.

And I'm like, this is so stupid. Like, this is so, like, he should be making, at all the time I'm asking all we say this about a lot of Pfizer-General. I'll show you're making such and such high amounts of money regardless of whether they have a belt or not. It's so stupid that it's contingent upon having this belt around their waist interim otherwise. But yeah, I think that to clear up the situation and again to potentially pay Tom less. Though again, I can't imagine his next fight after being stripped, not being for a title anyway. But you know what I'm saying.

No pay viewpoints for Tom. No, yeah, no champions bump for Tom. Maybe he'd get the one because presumably he'd fight for the title or fight for a vacant title if John is gone. We got to get this John Jones D.B fight out of the way. It just has to be... I hope it doesn't get canceled again. I hope that fight doesn't get canceled again because I don't know what we're going to do. Yeah, we have to move on from it if that happens again.

So a bunch of people have been chiming in saying that the second Jones steep starts, Tom is no longer the interim champion, right? Is that what happens? Is that what will happen here? Who's saying they'll just... So a bunch of people are saying like, as soon as the interim, as soon as the undisputed, as soon as John Jones defends his heavyweight, title, he is back defending his title. Does that mean there's no more, there's no need for the

interim title? Oh, my head. Uh, okay, let's do, let me, yeah, go ahead. Robert Whitaker wasn't stripped of the interim title when GSP fought Michael Bisbing, was he? I'm going to have to look this up right now. They just promoted Whitaker to the champion as the actual champion, right? I'm looking this up right now. Uh, because right, Whitaker, this is a unicorn, by the way. Yeah, Whitaker's usually he fights the actual champion to you buy the belts that's actually not what's happening here yeah Whitaker was promoted right and then he fought so weird then he fought izzie who was also an interim who also it was technically like interim versus interim when Whitaker when uh and robert when he fought izzie uh right because he defended against yuel and that was interim that was before at usb won the industry this is so stupid

no so no so clearly there is and i'm not saying that this uh this comment is wrong because if the uc wants to do that they can do that They can absolutely say, yes, once the bell rings, no more interim, the true champion will be decided tonight. But yes, there is no history of the belt necessarily being stripped. Carlos Condit beat Nick Dino. That was before. Wait, what the hell? I hate interim. I'm not a fan of interim.

I just hate is a strong word. I'm not a fan of interim titles. Yeah. This is why I hated it. What a weird thing. beginning of all of this because we all knew this is going to happen. We all knew this is going to be a year long thing where we don't know what the hell is going to happen and we're going to have these conversations. And everyone's like, oh, no, it's going to be fine. Well, like, most, most of people knew that. But now look at us. Like, we're still, we're still trying to figure this out. And we still even, we still don't have Jones steep officially announced yet, even though we, we, we kind of think it's going to have. That's so concerned. That's so concerning for us, like, we, I mean, it hasn't dropped yet, but we should tell people. We got a little, we got a little feature. We got a little feature. We got a little feature. We got a little feature. We got a little video idea coming up soon, guys. Maybe by the time some of you guys listen to this, I think it'll be Wednesday, right, drop

Wednesday, and you'll see why we are, we might be more or less invested in this John Jones fighting this year. It's tied to football season. I shouldn't give away too much. It's to be very exciting, guys, when you see it. I'll say, a little tease. I'm very upset that Alessandro Costor is a winning match now anymore. It's such a tease.

It's such a tease for this show. The new comparable time of the UFC were a singular fighter carried more pay-per-views through multiple quarters of the year than Alex hasn't. Wow. This has got to be Connor, right? I mean, I guess the question is what was his most active year, but there has to be a year where he fought at least three times and just, yeah,

I mean, it's 2016. It was Diaz, Diaz, Alvarez, 2016. Crazy, crazy. Maybe the UFC had a lot of money. And those were, I don't want to say, I have to look at the lineups. I think, I mean, 196 obviously was a great card. But his name, really. I mean, the second, I mean, and when you think about the Dias fights weren't even title fights, right?

That's, that's, and this was during the time already when the U.S. he's like, oh, no, we can only headline with title fights. It's like, now we're talking about Gregor. So, yeah, that's a big carry job for sure. Yeah, it's got to be caught. Is this better? Am I louder now? I don't know what's happening.

I think you were okay before. I don't know. Now everyone's saying my volume is very low. Big Marcel. Big Marcel has never let us. I mean, if there's any. anybody I believe in this world, it's Big Marcel. Yeah, absolutely. So I trust them.

Golly. Okay. You're definitely loud enough now, I would think. Yeah, I think I hiked it up. There's a lot of movement going on. There's a lot of construction going on on in the heck household. We're trying to get Command Center 5.0 put together. Oh, yeah. There's so much going on here.

Oh, thank you, Big Marcel. Thank you, Big Marcel. One more super chat. And I love to see Tom. Chase again. Yes, love to see Tom versus Gone. Tom is quite reckless on the feet. So gone can definitely give him problems and possibly

lead to an all-time Jones Twitter rant. Yeah, we can bring this kind of full circle here, Mike, because, again, I want to talk about Khalil too, right? Like, so much of the speculation is dependent upon, like, these assumptions that these guys who are the favorites, who are the champions, are going to carry on being the favorites, and being the champions and take care of business. But I think Tom crush the Cidil gone, but I also think Cidio is kind of unpredictable. And again, because of Tom's grappling, it's easy to, like, kind of to see, oh, well,

with John Jones to him, Tom could probably do too. but maybe Cidl learn something for the Anganu fight and learn something from the John Jones fight and just got that takedown events just where it needs to be. So much of what we praise about CEDL is athleticism. And when you're a great athlete, you pick up things quickly. You pick up things quickly and easier than others. Just as how it is. Life ain't fair, but it's that way in all sports, including combat sports.

So maybe Cidill just up that takedown events just a notch and keeps up by standing with Tom. He can win it. Again, I would pick Tom easily. but Zemay. Just like, I think a lot of people are assuming when they saw, Mike, when we saw the Pineda matchup, we were probably the two least surprised people in the world because I think we had at separate times

both called for this as a possibility on our matchmaking show onto the next one. He's the glory. You called for this. You called for this after Pereira got knocked out by Izzy. I did. I did. After 287, you put this on the map, say he's moving up to 205. Yeah.

His first fight should be Cleoil Roundtree. Yeah. And so little of what we talked about today matters if Roundtree just beats some. I mean, I can't. The option is obviously still there. In prayer, I lose to Roundtree. Then he says, oh, okay, I'm going to take one fight at 185 still. But it might still get a shot at DDP.

Like, again, next year, it's possible. But it loses a lot of us, luster. I think it would be the UFC, it's a bit of a harder sell as great as Prater has been, as much as they love him. I think you're like him coming off a loss and taking your risk, he cut down to 185 and then fighting, assuming DDP is still the champion. It's a bit risky. It's a bit risky. So, again, it's really we can't understand.

Understand, excuse me, how much of a wrench roundtree can throw into the whole outside of hype train. I don't think it happens. But Roundtree is the best that he's going to be. He has beaten several glory fighters. He knows how to handle kickboxers. That is what the output is. And Mike, I don't know what we're going to do if Roundtriples off this upset,

because it's going to create a whole other set of headlines, spin it off and do a whole whole other alternate universe and we'll definitely probably doing another one of these live shows just to address, I don't know, Collio Browdry, superstar or whatever it is. Yeah, could happen. Oh, we got one. Oh, I got it. I got it. Do you guys think there's any validity to the take that Izzy gave everything he had left to

finally be Poetat? No, no. That's always a tough thing to say. And I get it. There's lots of fights in people's careers you can look at and go like, oh, they, that's where that's where the drop off happened. And I always bring up Vanderley Sofa and Chuck Liddell when they finally fought. And then I said after that, both guys just, like, it ruined their careers.

But in the best way, because that fight ruled. I don't think it took everything he had. I don't know. Like I said, he looked good against DDP in some of those rounds, right? It's just age, guys. It's just age at this point. So if you want to say he aged a little bit more with the Poetan series, yeah, sure. You can certainly make a case for that.

But I don't think it was that second fight specifically, or even that rivalry specifically that's caused him to do. drop off. It's just you get older. You got a lot of mileage on you. And guess what? Guys is great cardio. They're going to outlast you. It's what happened with the EDP. So, um, and Sean Strickland, tricky matchup. He didn't look, he didn't look like washed. This is tricky guys. Sean Strickland fought great that night. So no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't go with that take. No. Uh, real quick, just run through a couple of these, uh, on the way out since we already kind of did all that to do, do, where are we? Where are we? I just saw a couple that I wanted to,

to get through real quick. Is there a possibility this is a troll from Alex? No. Who's doing the watch parties with you now, Mikey? Jedmishu. At least that's the plan as of right now. So stay tuned for that. It's got to be a good time.

We're kind of going to probably be doing like a double watch party next weekend because we got 306 and then we got the Canelo fight as well. So you might just actually do both at the same time. No double watch party this weekend for UC Vegas 97 and Belator San Diego. That bellets our card. It's a rough. It's a rough one. Title VIII.

Made events real good. Made events real good. Who was the guy I was just talking about in the slack? I got to mark John people, Google, John, John McAlolo-Looie. Google this man who is fighting this weekend. You know, I'll talk about this more on another show this week if I'm on because I don't know. I should interview this guy. I'm very curious what the hell is going on here.

Yes. Shout out to all of you. A lot of people saying keep jumping on for the impromptu bits. We played the exit song a little too quick, but it's okay. We do plan on doing a lot more of these. So as long as the news cycle continues to move like it typically does, you will see our smiling faces reacting to the new cycle. So for AK, I am Mike Heck.

Appreciate all of you. We'll be back the next time something breaks. Perhaps next time Dana goes on Instagram and starts yelling into his phone, sure there'll be some big news. Perhaps the official return of John Jones versus Steepa Michich, the fight everybody wants to see. that could be the next one, but we'll find out. Stick with us here at Mbathletting.com.

We're out of here. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.