MMA Fighting - Reaction | Charles Oliveira vs. Justin Gaethje Fireworks Official For UFC 274

Episode Date: January 26, 2022

Charles Oliveira will defend his lightweight title for the second time when he faces Justin Gaethje at UFC 274 on May 7. MMA Fighting's Mike Heck, Shaun Al-Shatti and Alexander K. Lee react to the matchup, give early predictions, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Shaun Al-Shatti: @ShaunAlShatti 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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MyCack here for MMAFighting.com, reacting to some very big news on this Wednesday, January 26th, 2022. We have ourselves a UFC lightweight title fight. May 7th, UFC 274, Charles Olivera will defend his title against Justin Gachie. Now, we knew this fight was coming. It wasn't a matter of if, it was just a matter of when. And the when is May 7th officially, per Dana White, the broadcast partner ESPN. We have also confirmed this ourselves. Gachi coming off an MMA fighting fight of the year victory over Michael Chandler at UFC 268, Oliverer coming off his first

successful title defense submitting Dustin Porre at UFC 274. And joining me in this reaction are my good buddies and colleagues, Sean Alshadie, Alexander Cayley. Sean, look, this fight is awesome. Everybody knows it's awesome. But very few can paint word pictures like you can. So go ahead. and paint one right now, sir. We got Olivera, Gachy, lightweight title, and go. Oh, boy, man. I mean, Jesus Christ, you like violence. This is what it is, man.

This is it, right? Like, this is, we have been waiting for this one, and this was sort of like, we knew this was coming. It's one of those fights where you know it's coming, but the moment it is booked. You get that little jolt. Get those goosebumps, those chicken skin, as somebody had mentioned on the broadcast together.

I think Bisbang or somebody on the broadcast, which is a weird way to describe that. But I absolutely love this fight. I will say the announcement is, a tiny bit bittersweet to me just because I thought the idea of having it in Brazil would have been so cool. That would have been such a nice moment. The UFC hasn't been back to Brazil since the pandemic began.

You look at this card, obviously Gloverich Cheshire is on this as well against Yuri Barajka, getting the chance to have this sort of homecoming for Charles Olivera of coming back after he defies the odds again and again. He's now the man and it's undisputed. There's no chance that anybody's saying Dustin Pori is the light. weight champ or anything like that, getting him and Glover on a Brazil card and letting them get that heroes welcome back home, would have been really cool. But still, the fact that this is happening at all, I absolutely love it. We have an active lightweight champion, my man.

When's the last time we've been able to say that? Like, this division is moving again. It's fantastic. It's my opinion still. I know everybody loves Bantam weights, but in my opinion, this is still the best division in the whole damn sport. And these two men are psychos. I mean, we just had Justin Gagie over the weekend. and say he was bored by his fight against Michael Chandler,

that he didn't like the fight against Michael Chandler, which won pretty much every fight of the year award in the history of all these awards last year. So I absolutely love it. I can't wait. I might only, you know, it's in May. Why is it in May? Why does it have to be so far away?

Let's do this next month. Come on. This is why you went first. See, you painted the word picture. You set A.K. up perfectly. Stockton him alone time. So AK, obviously the fight to make, especially now that we knew that Islam Makachev and,

Benile Darius, you're going to do the damn thing on February 26th. So you assume the next guy will be coming out of that fight. So like Sean said, this division is starting to move forward, title implications for all these fights. We now know they have something to fight towards. Your thoughts now that this first lightweight title fight of 2022 is now official. Yeah, it is kind of nice to know we have a fight so far ahead of time. I know fans these days are more accustomed to getting it like two months ahead of time.

And even then you have fans kind of going like, oh my gosh, why are they announcing it now? There's so much can go wrong. So I guess we have to have cautious optimism here. Oddly, I kind of have the same feeling about the MVP fight over in Belta, MVP's next fight with the AMASA, which is also in May. So I don't know. I think it's a good thing for motions.

R. and that's these things so far ahead of time. But again, I get it. A lot of people probably going like, man, what are the chances that this fight stays together and nothing goes wrong and everything plays I was supposed to. But again, let us be positive. Let us be optimistic. and just, I mean, the fact that this fight has been booked, it has been put out into the

MMA ether is wonderful. I mean, the math alone is staggering. And you guys know I love rules, and I also love basic math. And not complicated math. That's another thing. Charles Alvara, most finishes in UFC history, most submissions, obviously, I think 15 submissions, numerous bonuses. Justin Gates-G would probably have the most UFC bonuses if he had been with the UFC longer.

he has 10, I think, and he's only fought in the UFC nine times. So he is still averaging, he's technically more than one bonus poor appearance, slightly more than one bonus. But now you throw these guys in there together. It's the fight everyone wanted to. There's no drama around the negotiations. When the Porier and Olivaire business was resolved, everyone was saying, it's just Gage. Even Dana White, in a rare moment of post-fight, you know, immediate kind of post-fight matchmaking

was like, yeah, yeah, Gage. the next guy. Again, you have Makachep, you have Benyil Darius, you have, as Shaheen said, it is just a loaded division. You can have guys coming, who knows, Fiziv might just smoke RDA, and then we're going, oh man, got to get Fiziva tell a shot sometime for the end of the year. But right now, the one that we have in

front of us, it has fight of the year, you know, a candidate written all over it, or a possible submission of the year, or a knockout of the year, depending who wins. It's just what we watch, it's what we watch MMA for. And, you know, the U.C. has had a really already had two great title fights.

well, let's say one great title fight with Moreno, Figurato, three, and a fascinating title fight with Ngano and Gon. That's a great title fight. Don't be, don't appreciate. For me, well, I don't want to speak for everyone. I can tell you there's a strong segment of the M.A. fan base that did not enjoy that fight. I'm not part of them.

I thought it was fascinating. Well, there's a strong segment of the M. Fembaugh's been telling me that Ngano is a boring champion. So it's just like, I think there's a strong segment of the fan base who are morons for being honest. I love you guys. I'm just saying. I do feel confident speaking for the fan base now and saying 98%,

is excited for this fight, because if you can't be, you're probably not a reasonable member of the MMA fan base. I don't want to meet those 2%. I don't trust those 2%. I will say, too, let me just jump in quickly, Mike. One thing, too, that this booking does for us, is it really lets us know. It just kind of gives us that reassurance

that there's not going to be any shenanigans. That there's not going to be a Fugazi title fight coming up that we're not going to hold this belt on the shelf until like July for one Connor McGregor. I'm just saying like this this is the notice that we got, right? Like this division is not coming back. It's not being, it is coming back. It's not being put on hold for this guy with this nebulous timeline.

And I understand Charles after, you know, that last title offense saying, hey, if Connor wants to jump the line, go for it. I get it. He wants the money. He wants the big fight. But we got the right fight. And that's all that matters. You are playing with so much fire right now.

We are, we are like three. months away now from, from God forbid, one of these guys getting injured and Connor McGregor stepping in as a late replacement. We are playing with so much fire right now. Hey, that's fine. If he wants to do that, if he wants to step in in May as a late replacement, more power to him. I don't know how he could potentially do that with his injury and how long it takes to recover from that. But I'm just saying, as long as this belt isn't on the shelf for like August or like July or something, just just to artificially delay it even longer to wait for him, that's all. Yeah, maybe Connor will take some motivation from Francis Ngano

defending his title on one leg. Maybe he can jump in on one leg himself. Who knows? But I'll tell you my thoughts. My initial thought was, I knew we would get this announcement this week. I knew we would get this announcement today. I knew we would get it today.

The timing is perfect. Dana White's getting ready to a fan Q&A with Laura Sanko, and the UFC is thinking to themselves, how can we make sure that we don't get 500 Francis and Gano questions from the fans? Let's announce the best title fight we can announce. but that was my initial thought on the whole thing, Sean. They could have announced this next week. They could announce it two weeks from now.

They could have announced it at UFC 271, February 12th. It's not that far away. But they chose today to announce this fight. The timing just seems so interesting, right? PR 101, Sean, it just seems like we're trying to take our focus off of one thing and put it on something a lot more exciting. Mike, heck, you couldn't be suggesting the something shiny corollary right now, are you? The, hey, here, look at this dazzling glimmery thing, everybody.

Don't pay attention to what's going on over on the left. That's not what you're saying, right? Cynical. Cynical, Mike. How dare they? They couldn't do that to us. It was funny. I was talking to a friend of ours, Marcel Dorf, and he was like, oh, what do you think's

going to happen today? I'm like, they're going to announce Justin Gachie versus Charles Olivera. And he goes, no way. I'm like, I'm telling you right now they're going to announce that fight today. And I got the laughing emoji from him as soon as that report came out from Brett Akamoto. So, a.k. Charles Olivera, the number one ranked fighter, much earned in MMA fighting's global rankings at 155 pounds, which might mean more than the belt itself, if we're actually being honest here.

But opening lines right now, a.k. Olivera, the minus 155 favorite, the comeback on Justin Gachie, plus 135. I feel like this is the type of line that Charles Olivera deserves, because he didn't get this kind of respect heading into the Dustin Porre fight. Your thoughts on the lines, did Vegas get this one right, at least on the early stages, before the money starts coming in. Yeah, definitely. Look, Jujitsu is back. All right, we've seen Jiujitsu. It's back. It's real. Forget what Derek Lewis says. It's what other people say. It is real. Okay, go over to Chera, just won with the gentle art. Okay. We just saw it. He became UFC champion with a gentle art. Olaver, of course, has shown a lot of striking as well. But at the, at the base of it,

is, man, that just that next level grappling that I think nobody else at 155 has. And I think people are kind of looking at the at the Habib Gateschi fight and thinking that if Olivera can get him down, we know Gatesi can be submitted. And certainly once it gets down there again, he doesn't have the takedown game of Nemegamedov. But once he gets down there or once he takes your back standing even, you're a gunner. It's over. So yeah, there's a lot of respect there for the champ. Porier was viewed probably as his biggest challenge. There's a lot of respect for Gates.

You said Gathe's only plus one. Plus 135. So barely an underdog. So there's still a respect the other. way. But I think it's opened with Olivera as a minor favorite. I think it'll stay that way. I think it'll move further in his direction, but I don't think it gets anywhere near like minus 200 or anything like that. I think around like minus 150 is the right is the right spot that it should be at. Sean, are you concerned that because Charles Olivera is fighting Justin

Gaichi, we know how just maniacal Justin Gaichi is when that when that bell rings and the fight starts and that cage door locks behind him. Are we actually going to hear this narrative that He's going to make Charles Oliver quits in this fight, that Charles is not durable, that Charles can't take a beating. Because I swear to God, if I hear this narrative heading into this fight, I'm going to be so upset. I'm going to be so upset. There's no way, right? Like, you have to think we're done with this. That died.

That died in December when we just saw what we saw against Dustin Porte. Like, this is two fights in a row now where Charles Oliverer has shown us what he is made of. He is not that guy anymore. And anybody who's still using that tired narrative, whether it's Justin Gator. H.E. or somebody in the media, I just don't want to hear it. I'm right there with you. I will say, though, I am pretty surprised that Justin is the underdog. For some reason, it just felt like people were going to continue at least to some degree sleeping on Charles Oliver and just not believing in him purely because of what you just mentioned. The way these title fights go,

every single time we see this guy out there, it's as if he's two seconds away from losing every fight he's in until he just magically wins, and it's just the craziest thing we've ever seen. That's a hard thing to do on Justin Gachy, man. Like, Justin Gachy of anybody in this lightweight division, once he smells blood, that fights over. Like, he's not letting up. He's not making the mistake that anybody else is making. Like, he is going to finish that fight.

If there's an opportunity to finish it, I am a little surprised that Charles Olivera is actually getting the respect that he's, that he, you know, has earned that he deserves. Like you said, he is the number one lightweight in the world in the MMA fighting rankings, the most important rankings in the entire MMA space. It took him a long time to get there. None of us believed in him except for AK. He was the only person on the whole team.

You're darn right. But hey, that's scoreboard for AK. But it's just one of those things that nobody believes in a team, right? You always hear Bill Simmons talk about the nobody believes in his team. Charles Olivera was that nobody believes in his champion. Now he's the everybody believes in his champion. That's a different dynamic to go into a fight, right? Like Charles Oliver thrives as the underdog once everybody's expecting him to win.

that is a much different dynamic to just go into, to hear the type of conversation around you, the questions you hear, everything around it. I'm curious to see how he handles that. Because being the everybody believes in this champion is much, much more difficult it feels like than being the nobody believes in his champion. That is a really excellent point right there,

especially the way he beat Dustin Porier and the doubts and how he answered a lot of those questions. So let's have some fun here, gentlemen. We were running out of time, but I know we're four months away and we're going to put out this positive juju. So, AK, what's your gut telling you? Early pick.

We can change by the time this fight happens. We have a preview show before May 7th. But what's your gut telling you? What's the early selection? Are you going with Ann Still or Ann New with Justin Gagee? Of course I'm riding and Still. I've gone with the Dill Bronx train this far. I'm not jumping off now.

I think he wins by submission. In my mind, obviously, it's hard for me to shake the Porre fight, so I see it being similar to that. But Porre and Gates are different fighters. So I'll go like third round. First round would be stunning. If he could submit Chesson Gates you in the first round, that'd be stunning. But I do think we see a submission.

I do think we see it in the third round. And I'll give you a bold prediction, Mike. I'm going to look further ahead. This is the first fight of what will become the story that brings Habib no megna out of retirement. Whoa. I have said this is not new for me. I have said this on various shows that what would it take to bring Nemeh back?

And it wasn't Charles Lovera at the time. I said someone has to rattle off like four or five straight like dominant and tell defenses and just clear out the division again. And I think he would think about it. This was also before, of course, his plans to sort of expand Eagle FC into the United States. So he's kind of all in on that. And now I think most people would imagine that if he were to come out of retirement, it would be for his own promotion.

So this is a bit of a more difficult kind of story to forecast now. But I do, I have always thought, so he beats, let's say he beats Keachie. He fights Machachchev, Macachev, beats Marachev. He fights McHeachev. He beats Machachev. Yeah, it's Kabee's buddy, right? That's the proxy Habib. That's everyone saying.

The next Habib, he beats him. Maybe he sneaks in another fight with McGregor before the end of the year. That'd be amazing. Or just another title of offense because it's top five, top 10 lightweight. And then by 2023, you start hearing those rumblings about Habib wanting to come back and reclaim his lightweight supremacy. Maybe Habib fights for Eagle FC first. Maybe he comes up. Maybe that's how he gets out of retirement going, like takes a fight, wins a fight, Eagle FC, and then says.

I don't think he interactually that's even a possibility. Then he can't fight for Eagle FC? I'm almost confident that he still has a UFC contract. Okay, well, anyway, and that goes better with what I'm building anyway. So that's even less complicated. So, 2020, we start hearing rumbling. Or at least people ask him, hey, Oliver, four or five straight tail defenses, submitting all these guys, some people are saying he's a dominant lightweight champ,

maybe the greatest lightweight ever. And I think, this is a fight I wanted to see before Habib retired. I was a little heartbroken when he walked away because I did want to see him fight Oliver at some point. So part of me still thinks that it could. happen. Not this year, obviously, but Habib is still young, I think, could still dominate what, everyone in the lightweight division, maybe even including Oliver, depending who you ask.

So let's see. I want to see a proven. Oliver has got to do a lot of work to do to earn that fight, though, but I'm starting to think it's possible. All right, well, I'm hoping these rumblings happen in 2023, because we're just a year removed from Dana White's decision on ABC saying, tune in because I'm

going to give you an update on Habib, and it was nothing. There's literally nothing. So I don't want to go through this whole thing again. But I like rear heads at, AK. I like where your heads at. Shot, what's your gut telling you right now? I love it. I'm all in.

I sign up for what AK is laying out here. Let's get him beat back. That seems crazy that anybody would talk about Charles is the greatest lightweight ever. That feels like we're like seven wins away from that even being a conversation. But everybody is so knee-jerk in this sport. You never know. I just have to say, I am so looking forward to this event. This event might be my most anticipated event now.

in 2022. Just the combo of those two title fights, Glover, Yuri, Charles, Justin, like that's so good. And so you're asking

for an early prediction. I predict lots of pain for Brazil on this night. I really do. I think Yuri is the best lightweight in the world, light heavy weight in the world. I think he's going to take it.

And I think Justin, I just believe in him, man. I just believe in Justin. And maybe this is more fuel to the fire for Charles. Maybe this is what he needs to be back to the nobody

believes in this champion. Go ahead and post, this on your social media, Charles, I put this up on your wall on the billboard material. I think you're going to lose. I think Justin's going to win this one too. I'm just saying, I've seen this man for the entirety of his career.

He's an Arizona guy. I went to all of those early WSO fights. I have seen the progression that this man has made. And if Habib Nirmirga Madov did not exist, I think Justin would be in the middle of a pretty lengthy title rate at this point. He feels to me like the best lightweight in the world outside of maybe Islam.

Because that Islam is obviously that question mark that we don't know how good Islam is yet. I just feel like Justin gets it done. And again, he's not going to let this go. If it is a close, if it's a finish is near, he's not losing that finish. Like that he's finding what he needs to get it's done. It's early. Maybe I'll change my mind, but I'm just saying Charles Oliver, there's your billboard material,

my man. I think Justin's going to beat you. I'm going to give you some billboard material, Brazil. You're going to walk out May 7th with two still champions. Because Glover's going to win and Charles Oliver is going to win. How about that? You've been on Glover. You have been on Glover.

You've been on Glover. You're consistent. And our own Jedmishu has said into a live microphone, you have me thinking about it. I might be changing. I might be jumping on Team Glover. And he was definitely first team Yuri Barashka. So we'll see what happens. But I feel, I think Glover just needs to take him down once and he'll win.

Just one takedown, he'll win the fight. And Yuri's got ways to win. He's a scary dude. But Glover just needs one takedown. I don't think the fight's going to last much longer than that. So there we go. The first team, all violence, main, co-main event, maybe the best one in UFC history.

UFC 274, Justin Gaichi will challenge Charles Olivaara for the lightweight title, Yuri Perashka, who's heading to fight ready pretty soon to train with that team of Henry Sohudo and Captain Eric and Eddie Chah. Yuri's going to fight ready to get ready

to challenge Glover to Chera for the light heavyweight title should be a fun card on May 7. So there's our reaction. That card will continue to build. We'll let you know as soon as we find out where this card will actually take place. It's going to be somewhere in the United States and not Brazil. So for Sean, for AK, I am Mike Heck.

Thank you for listening. Enjoy the rest of your week, everybody. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.