MMA Fighting - Reaction | Dana White Announces UFC 316 Title Fights, Including Dvalishvili vs. O'Malley 2.

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

UFC CEO DanaWhite just announced the main and co-main events for UFC 316 in Newark, as Merab Dvalishvili defends the bantamweight title against Sean O'Malley in a rematch, while Julianna Pena defends her 135-pound title against Kayla Harrison in the co-main event. Following the breaking news, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Jed Meshew react. Follow Mike Heck: @m_heckjr Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew 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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Shop now at IKEA.ca.ca.com slash Black Friday. IKEA, bring home to life. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. All right, everybody. Mike Heck here from MMAfighting.com, reacting to some big news. We've been waiting all day long. The UFC tease this morning that UFC CEO and President Dana White was going to hop on Instagram and make some big announcements and we waited and waited and waited and waited.

And about 25 minutes ago, Dana goes on Instagram and announces. Two big title fights for UFC 316, which goes down June 7th at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. The main event is for the Bantamweight Championship. It is a rematch. Marab de Walsh willie will defend against the former champion, Sugar, Sean O'Malley. And in the co-main event, another Bantamweight title fight. This time, the ladies will battle for 135-pound world championship gold as Giuliana Pena put her title on the line for the first time since defeating Raquel Pennington, and she will defend against

the PFL multi-time millionaire Kayla Harrison. So there you go. Those are the big fights for UFC 316. Also of note, we have a new main event for UFC Kansas City, some rumbling, some rumor and innuendo, some social media chatter that Jamal Hill was not going to be able to compete in the main event against Khalil Roundtree Jr. UFC announces new main event. Ian Machado Gary versus Carlos Proches. If you watched UFC Mexico this past Saturday, we found out that Carlos Prochis versus Jeff Deal where UFC 314 no longer happening.

John Anick said big news potentially coming for Carlos Prochis. And there he goes. Another main event this time in front of a big crowd in Kansas City. So there you go. Some big news. And joining me to react to this news is Mr. No Greer himself, the hot take kid, the one and only. the big booper, the climber, Jed Mishu, Jed, how are you, my friend?

I'm so good. I had all day, you know, it was a terrific day, Michael, woke up at the gym, tweet comes in. Hey, be on the lookout, big announcement coming. It's April Fool's Day, so the guard's up. Any number of, you know, you got to have the guard up on April Fool's Day. Anything can happen. Day goes on, guard didn't need to be up. Nothing's happening.

We got a big air ball. happening waiting waiting waiting clock out like all right work is done gonna go gonna go make this dinner got to get some food in the belly three minutes later dana white comes and drops hey guess what dana white privilege is real and here it is and also the juliana pani killer harrison fight which has been rumored for a hot minute and it's a very good fight that's happening too but shone emalley's getting to run it f your chicken jed you don't get to eat that because we to talk about this. So as you mentioned, you're at the gym, lifting the weights, waiting, you see the tweet.

We waited what, 10 hours, 8, 9, 10 hours, many, many hours. Did this, was this worth the wait getting these two fights? And did you expect something else? I expect better. I will say, um, not to peel the curtain back too much. There were rumors about the protest thing happening. Obviously, the rumors of the process thing happening. Obviously, the rumors the process were going to get something big.

Ian Machado Gary comes out and teases something. There had been rumblings that the Kansas City main event was in jeopardy. People started a piece together that this could be it. And if that had been the extent of the big announcement, that would have gone over like a wet fart, like just a lead balloon crash to the ground. Getting the 316 main and co-main, you know, a double title fight offering,

that's that it's worth saying hey big announcement coming but like this is the smallest big announcement right because the announcement everyone wants is the announcement that will never happen because the because the fight is never going to happen it would have been legitimately good theater if the UFC did announce tom aspirin all john jones today if it was real because nobody i certainly would i would be on this post show right now being like it's on mbmafine dot com for the first time ever don't trust it it's not real this is an elaborate april fools instead they give us fights that no one would even think are in april fools because i won't say they all make sense one of them very much does not make sense but we knew that was coming kind of knew where

this was going and it is good to have the official clarity here of these things and you know some more title fights to talk about so you can never be that upset about it but who we we could have done this than the 10-hour wait, I guess, is really where I land on. Yeah, we could have done this April 2nd, March 31st, any other time. Because it's done it in the early afternoon. Like, oh, Dana's going to make an announcement

and a couple hours later make the announcement. Like, we didn't need the speculation mill going. Just like, all right, we're doing this now. Cool. Yeah, just drop it like, just drop the posters. Like, this is, I don't know. This just wasn't. like that groundbreaking moment

when you tease something like that the big boss is coming up later today even if it's not John Jones versus Tom Aspinall you know give us the International Fight Week made event give us a couple of fights for that but none of this is surprising we knew both

these fights were happening it's just a matter of when and I guess if we're going to be positive about this now it kind of opens the door for what International Fight Week could look like it eliminates some options if you will. So perhaps you see Islamakachev, perhaps we see, I'm not going to say, John Jones is there. There are two outcomes for International Fight Week. There's one that I'm,

that is going to happen. I've been saying forever. And there's one that I won't say won't happen, but seems unlikely, though many people believe it could happen. So international fight week is going to be Drickis versus Hamza. Like I've been saying that for five months now, however many months are in this year. That's just what's going to be international fight week. And there is be a small chance that Islam versus Ilya is there. I still don't believe that is going to happen. I do not think Islam will accept a fight with Ilya to paring some major incentive. And so I, until I am proven wrong, I will be dying on the hill that Jigas 2 plus

E Hamzaa Jami of is the International Fight Week main event. As our gambling expert, Jed, what do you think the opening lines are going to look like? Like if you haven't had a chance to look at him, Marab's probably favored. I'm sure. I'm sure Kayla Harrison's going to be favored, right? Ooh, Kayla Harrison's definitely going to be favored. Rob's got to be like a minus 400 favorite. It's given the first fight.

Like that's the thing. This is the fight that's bad, right? Like I had started to talk myself into and I didn't really believe this would happen, but I just start to think like, it honestly makes the most sense right now. And because we're, you know, we're coming off UFC Mexico, Mike,

where a major talking point is, well, what the how do you do with Brandon Marino? I can't really fight for the belt, but UFC Mexico or Nocha, UFC 320, like you wanted to fight with the belt, I guess he can. You know what solves all this? If Pants is the guy who gets the shot,

he's like, hey, Pantosia, you've got wins over like the four next available title challengers right now, multiple wins over some of them. Screw it, man. Why don't you go up and fight me? Rob, who doesn't have any new blood to fight either. This is like one of the rare times a champ champ fight makes a ton of sense. And then you can do, all right, well, he's doing that.

So we will have the Brandon's three match for the interim belt at UFC 320 or whatever. And now that's not necessarily off the table. It still could happen. But it's just like that would just would have been better because the O'Malley rematch is just garbage. Like I know we knew it was coming. It doesn't matter. Like if, you know, knowing something is happening doesn't make it any better.

If the school bully says, I'm going to kick your ass at 2.30. It's not better that you walk out there at 2.30 and get your ass beat. Like, it's worse. You have to spend the whole time. You're like, well, this is going to suck. I don't even want to eat my pudding cup today because Milo's about to whip the shit out of me after read. Like, no. And that's what this is.

This sucks. Nobody wants it. I am super proud of our chat right now because they're all like, this is garbage. and terrible because that's the answer. This is garbage and terrible. It is one of the worst title shots that has been awarded in recent UFC history. And that's saying something.

They gave, like they are, man, are they bending over backwards to help freaking Sean O'Malley out? Like, and I, you know, Sean O'Malley's good fighter. I'm not here to say he's not a good fighter, but buddy, like, you are giving him more favors than you gave Connor

and you gave Connor a soft touch for a while there. like it is really shocking just how much leeway they are giving him because like why like I why is this happening Mike explain it to me we know why it's happening they are in the shan o' mallee business they feel like he can be the guy to move this division forward I don't know why like he's like he's popular he is a star within the audience the UFC is trying to attract but not like the hardcore MMA fan. Like we ain't selling this, Sean O'Malley's not selling a million pay-per-views.

It just isn't. By the way, my favorite commenter is Jemir, who just says, damn you all so negative when he's maybe the most negative commenter that we have on our website. So I think that's kind of hilarious. By the way,

current betting odds on Harrison Pena, Kale Harrison, a minus 600 favorite over Giuliana Pena. That's a little higher than I would have thought. I might just throw a little, I would have thought they were both like minus four, frankly. Yeah, I'm not sure what O'Malley in Marab is right now. I don't see anything.

But yeah, Kayla, minus 600. Kela, Juliana coming back at plus 450. So, yeah, that's UFC 316. And that's what it looks like right now. Newark, New Jersey, getting more Bannamweight title fights. It's, uh, yeah, that's just what Newark gets. They just get Bannumweight title fights or just, just not the greatest cards

I'm I'm really interested to see how this the reaction to this because obviously our chat right now is being pretty down on this again I think justifiably I'm very down on this I think the hardcore fan base is gonna reject this outright the Sean Amalley part the Julian of Pena and Kayla Harrison which we don't need to give short shrift to that's the fight that's supposed to happen we've known it frankly it probably took a little longer than it should have to get here

that that's the fight I have no qualms with that. If Julianne Pena wins, Damon's head might explode, and we should all be sad about it. But, like, if she wins, she wins and, you know, she deserves it. She,

she did the thing. She good for her. And if Kayla wins, then we've done it. We've crowned Kayla, which was sort of the goal of her coming over in general. And now we can talk about

maybe Amanda Nunea is coming back. That is a legitimately good fight. I have nothing bad to say about it. I'm excited to watch and I'm interested in that. up because I do think that fight's probably closer to the minus 600 suggests but I want to see how the broader public reacts to this because I like I just like are I people are probably just going to show up because they everybody goes to UFC events all the time but like if I'm

living in Newark I'm not shelling out a grand to go get floor seats to this dog shit rematch like I just go watch the first one it's going to be the same fight it ain't going to be different. So like, I am really interested to see what the public reaction is to this. And if it gets to a point where Dana has to come out and defend it, because at some point, he is going to get asked about it and he'll, you know, be, be promoter mean about it. But like, I'm just interested. I want to see what real people not like the hardcores who are populating this show right now, say. Yeah. The good news, I guess, is one, Marab has the Long Island long-go ties and it's not that far away.

So that's one thing. Two, despite Sean O'Malley not selling pay-per-views, he's very popular at the gate. Like covering the Boston card at 2992, Sean was over like Rover, man. Like those fans will cheer for him. They will be there for him. It doesn't translate to pay-per-view buys,

but it does translate to a gate. And I don't know if Julianna Paine and Caleb Harrison sells a ticket. Doesn't really matter. But I'm sure they'll load it up with a lot of New York fighters, a lot of Jersey fighters, Jim Miller, successful at 314. I could see him fighting on this card, like guys like that, you know what I mean? So yeah, we'll see. We'll see how it all plays out.

I got to say, I am very intrigued by the new UFC Kansas City main event, Jedmishu. Carlos Pratch is fighting Ian Machado Gary in the main event. love this fight and Ian Machado Gary taking a pretty big risk here for being honest. He was in a great position with the UFC. He did them a favor with the Shavkat fight.

Did not win the Shavkot fight. Won a lot of fans. Won a lot of, got the moral victory, I guess, in a lot of respects because he gave Shovkat such a tough fight. And now he's taking a big step back in competition against a surging,

dangerous guy who's just kind of running through everybody right now when he could probably get a fight with a Colby or an Ousman or somebody of that ilk at this moment. But instead, he's taking this opportunity on less than a month's notice to fight Carlos Proches out of nowhere. So your reaction to this. And does this gain Ian Machado Gary even more fans? I don't know the Gaines fans.

People just hate his ass. And I'm not here to tell you you're wrong. I feel like he gets hated. Probably more than is proportional with the personality traits that people dislike about him. I'm not here to tell you I'm like a big Ian Machado Gary Stan, but I think people do overhate him for reasons that aren't good. But like, you can't deny that he's a very good fighter. And the way he competes is good.

This is dope. Like some people may know this. My sister lives in Kansas City. I went to the last one. I just straight up was like, I'm not going to go to this one because I didn't care enough about, the Hill versus Roundtree fight. I guess fine.

It's certainly not bad, right? Like, it would have been interesting, but less, I'm a lot more interested in checking flights right now and seeing about going out to KC for this one, because his fight is really fun. I don't know that this is a huge risk for Ian.

I think it is, I guess, a little bit. But like you're getting, this is cachet, right? Like he's getting the clout of saying, dude, F it on a month. I'll fight Carlos Prattice. I don't care.

Yolo. And like maybe he gets Colby or maybe he gets Usman, but I don't know, Kumar Usman's fault once in the last like six years or something. That's a hard guy to want to wait for. And I think much more likely he would have gotten somebody like Joaquin Buckley. And I don't, I think this feels like a parallel move to Buckley. Maybe not meritocratically given the run Buckley's on where he's ranked. But like more people are talking about call his process than they are about walking Buckley in general. And so I think that this is a fairly savvy move of, okay, I'll do the UFC another favor. I'll step in. I frankly think that, like, and I haven't done any real diving into this fight. My gut reaction is, it's a really good

matchup for Imacado Gary. But like, we're mainly, I just, my thoughts are, man, that's going to be fun. I really like watching Carlos Prattis fight, and Imchato Garry is very, very good. If Pratis wins, booked the man for a title fight at some point next year. And if he Machado Gary wins. He's sort of in the mix, right? The loss to Shavkat's a bit prohibitive, but not entirely. So really good main event, really interesting. I'm sure they'll do well to sell it on Fight Week.

And yeah, I just can be really fun fight. This is the best of the fights announced. Yeah, because Ian didn't want to fight to like July or international fight week, maybe. And now he takes this fight doing the UFC another solid. So it's nice to have the UFC kind of paying back. favors and now he's got two to kind of work on and he goes out there and gets a win availability is your best friend if ball all goes out and beats jdm and wants to turn around relatively quickly and shopcott's

not ready for october or whenever ball would be ready to defend again could go up there could could go to the winner of this fight so i know buckley's up there too but he's probably going to have to fight again and so interesting stuff luckily needs to be trying to get kamau usman now. I just thought Buckley and Gary were going. I thought that that's where we were going. Because if I would have made sense. Like they were supposed to do it. And now let's do it. Right. Like that. So I just thought that that's where that was going. Now Buckley really needs to put his eggs in the Kamar Usohn basket. Or else he's just sort of the last dog at the bowl. Does he try for Sean Brady?

I guess. I don't know. Sean Brady, you know Sean Brady better than I. You speak to him a lot more. often than I've ever spoken to him. On his podcast, he did not seem at all interested in fighting anybody that wasn't a title fight or maybe Kamar Usman. And even Usman felt like that was a maybe for him. He was basically like, I'm the number one dude. I get to run it back with Balor, or I guess the winner if Jack Della beats him. Or I'll fight Chavcott for a number one contender.

Or maybe I'd take a former champion on my resume. So I don't I just straight up don't think Sean Brady takes the walking Buckley fight. He's in an interesting spot right now. I mean, every day that goes by and every welterweight fight that happens, like, I don't think if I don't think Kamar Rousman has a realistic sense on what is actually happening right now because him not fighting Shafcott and him watching Ian Gary fight Schofcott. There's no way he wasn't sitting on the couch watching that fight being like, son of a bitch, I should have taken that fight because he might have won. And then look at where he could be right now. But you just can't get a title fight on a three-fight losing street. You just can't.

And you haven't fought in two years or whatever the hell it is at this point. Yeah. And the losses are obviously excusable, but you just, there's just too many guys right now. And he's just falling further and further behind with all this stuff. So welterweight's interesting. Bannumweight. We'll see how this iron's out in June at UFC 316. We'll see if Juliana Pena can pull off another massive upset and defeat Kayla Harrison.

Perhaps you can get Amanda Nunes back for a trilogy fight. If Kayla wins, I think there's a very good chance. What are you laughing at? I'm loving at Wybencraft saying, I think Marab will try and finish this time. You think that, buddy. You keep hoping. Well, listen, New Jersey. You think Rob's going to try and do something he's never done?

his UFC career maybe I mean keep on hoping marumarize you finished mara my is being hyperbolic Mike come on yes oh man well that is the news we're hoping for maybe something a little bit better a little something that we didn't see coming but all and all it's fine like this is just it's fine it's it's the classic good not great moves the ball downfield yes and if If you didn't love this announcement, and most people in the chat did not love it, the good news is we are less than two weeks away from UFC 314. Best car of the air.

Absolutely slaps. I'm very excited. Knock on wood. I just cut a custom cold open for the watch party, very Miami centric. So I'm very excited about that. There's a lot to be excited about right now. Hopefully we get some international fight week news coming soon rather than later. And don't forget everybody.

Yes, the UFC is back to the world's most famous apex. but don't you dare forget the PFL World Tournament kicks off on Thursday Jed Mishu even though every fighter who is like the number one seat in every division seems to be out of all the tournaments now

it's just you know it's the toughest tournament in sports Jed real talk I won't say names one of our editors who does our schedule was like hey I'm really sorry

I was like, what did you do? I had a specific request for someone. I was like, hey, like, I need this off or whatever. It's like, what did you do? It's like, yeah, so for the next four weeks, you're covering PFL on Thursdays. And I was like, okay, that's fine. Because I don't mind it. I enjoy the PFL Thursday cards.

You say it all the time, Mike, like the Thursday card, it's not, like, it's not, their PFL. It won't be great. But it is different. Get some weekday fights. And so I'm ready to lock in for another PFLC. season, even if all the best fighters aren't competing in the seasons anymore. Are you ready for an 11 p.m. main card coming up next week? I mean, I'm not stoked about it, but I'll be prepared by the time that happens.

Well, we are getting prepared to head on out here. Jed, enjoy your delicious dinner. I will essentially do the same. And it's been real, everybody. Thanks for joining us for this breaking news reaction. Maraud de Willie versus Sean O'Malley 2 is official for UFC 316. Giuliana Pena versus Kayla Harrison is official for UFC 316. And Ian Machado Gary versus Carlos Prochis, official new-made event for UFC Kansas City.

So thank you very much for Jed. I am Mike Keck. Hope you have a great rest of your night. We'll see you later on. Love y'all. Listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Unwrap Holiday Magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you from festive and cozy fashion to luxe beauty and fragrance

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