MMA Fighting - Reaction | Jiri Prochazka Out Of UFC 282, Vacates Title; Blachowicz vs. Ankalaev New Title Fight

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

MMA Fighting's Mike Heck, José Youngs, and Jed Meshew react to the news that an injury to Jiri Prochazka has forced him out of the UFC 282 main event with Glover Teixeira, that Prochazka has vacated the light heavyweight title, and that Jan Blachowicz will face Magomed Ankalaev for the now-vacant title in it's place. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Follow José Youngs: @JoseYoungs 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

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian 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 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 Cudulian 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.

What's happened to everybody? Happy Thanksgiving Eve to those who celebrate here in the United States. Welcome to a live stream here on the M.A. Fighting YouTube channel, and I wish we were coming to you with great news on this Thanksgiving Eve, unfortunately. We are not coming to you with great news. I mean, it depends on who you are, but for most involved, this is not great news. We have confirmed with multiple sources close to the situation to report from Kevin Ayoli of Yahoo Sports,

the main event for UFC 282 for the light heavyweight title, the highly anticipated rematch from their classic earlier this year, Yuri Perhashka versus Glover Tashira no longer happening on December 10th. A pretty significant shoulder injury to Yuri Prohashka has forced him out of the fight. According to a UFC official, it will require a significant rehabilitation period. And also from the UFC, quote, out of respect to the athletes and the division, Prahashka has elected to vacate his title, and will compete for the belts as soon as he is medically cleared.

As a result, the new UFC 282 main event will see former champion Janbovich take on the surging Magamette Ancaliyev for the vacant, undisputed UFC light heavyweight championship. So just crazy news. I can't believe we're talking about this. It's one of those days where it's just like, it's just another day, typical MMA day, World Cup going on, MAA hour happening, and then all of a sudden, boom. This news happens. You just got a feel for Yuri Phrashka.

Glover Tashira elected not to compete at UFC 282. As of now, we have no real reason why. We don't know what was offered to him. We don't know what the options were. But what we do know is that Yuri Pajaska versus Glover Tashka is off. Yuri Pajaska is no longer the UFC Light Heavyweight champion. And on December 10th, we will have a brand new UFC light heavyweight champion. It's either going to be Jan Bolhovic, winning the bell for the second time,

or Magamette Ancolaev being crowned the champion. And I'll do these reactions by myself because you don't want to see me talk to myself this entire time. So we have Jed Bishu and Jose Young joining us. Jose Young's, not young. He is young, but he is Young's. Jed, hello, sir. We will begin with you. Man, tough hang on this Wednesday.

Your reaction to this news that Yuri Prakashka, Glover Tshara 2, not happening. and not only that, Yuri Perashka, not only not competing at UFC 282, but he's no longer due to his own decision the UFC light heavyweight champion of the world. It sucks. It's not that, it's layered, right? There are a lot of things going on here.

One absolute boss move by Yuri, from the sounds of it, if he's going to be out for a year plus with the shoulder surgery, just saying, you know, we all know what's up, but you guys can have the belt while I'm away. Total pimp move.

Great for him. Sucks, obviously, for him in every other respect, but you know, Bushito Code, samurai spirit, however you want to carry that. Sucks that we won't get to see him fight for a year. I think that's my biggest takeaway from this is

oh, like, I would have love to see the rematch. I'm not a big guy on immediate rematches, but when it's arguably the greatest fight of all time and certainly the fight of the year, I'm okay with running that one right back. So it'll suck that we probably never get that fight now. It feels like that that fight is now just,

it was a one-off, which adds a little bit to the mystique, frankly, the first one sucks that he's the most exciting light, heavy weight in the world, and we're not going to get to see him compete for a year. A lot of it sucks. Like,

there are so many layers of this sucking, and so it's really tough to even, because it just happened, too. I haven't had, like, time to really process, That's what's going on. It's just like, oh, well, this isn't like the worst possible outcome, but I still have questions about Glover and everything going on here. So not the best kickoff to Thanksgiving, certainly.

Jose, we'll go over to you, your reaction to this, because the first fight was just so damn good in Singapore. It was a fight that nobody expected to be as good as it was. We thought it was going to be one-way traffic either way. And it seemed to be one-way traffic for each guy. multiple times throughout the fight, but just so many swings of momentum and just to hear this news about Yuri

and being out for a long time and no longer being the champion, just him making the decision to vacate the belt for just out of respect, your reaction on this Wednesday. Yeah, a lot of what Jed said, I agree with, especially like props to Yuri for if it was truly his decision

and he's going to be out for a year plus, he doesn't want to hold up the division, good on you. the second they wrote that Kevin tweeted Yuri vague he's vacating his title we all just kind of knew it must be serious especially because

they put that light heavyweight title fight between Enkolaev and Jan Baho which is the co-main event I would if I would just be under the impression that if Yeri got hurt and he could say he could come back in September or October they would make

just make the co-main event an interim title but the fact that it's now for the vacant undisputed light heavyweight championship of the world. I just kind of assumed it would be year plus, like significant shoulder reconstruction or something. It's very strange that Glover's not involved, considering Glover's talked a lot about retirement. He's on the last run of his career,

maybe won two more fights. A little confused why Glover isn't involved in one half of this title fight, especially because it is for the undisputed title, but maybe he just didn't want to have to prepare for a different opponent. I'm sure they went to Glover and be like, hey, do you want to fight Ancolaev or Jan, the rematch with Jan. And he probably, I'm assuming he said, you know, I'd rather have a full camp prepare for those two because those two are very different fighters from Muri Perhaska.

So I'd be, I wouldn't be, but I wouldn't be surprised if maybe we see Glover now on the real card. But I was little alarms that Glover wasn't involved in one half of this unspeed title fight. Yeah, just, just very strange stuff. And Jed, do you kind of agree with Jose that you just think it's Glover just looking at this like, this might be my very last chance to fight for a belt. I don't want to just go in there willy-nilly on less than two weeks notice against a totally different guy. If it's John, maybe, because you already beat the guy, but still, it's a whole different matchup than Yuri Perashka.

And then if he's offered Ankhaliev, that's a tough one to get ready for in less than two weeks. So I have no idea. This is entirely conjecture. My assumption is that Ankaaev is the one who got the nod over Jan. Because, sure, one, Jan fought lost and that fight wasn't like interesting. Yes, he's a former champion, but that Ancolaev at the very least appears to be the future or one of the futures of this division. Whereas Jan, maybe you can get back to the belt. I'm not here to say that that's impossible, but he's older.

He is not a standard bearer for the company for years to come, whereas Ankleyev has all the makings of being that. And on a big, long win streak, it's a new matchup. My guess is that Glover got offered Ancolaev as the replacement and said no. There is also, I suppose, the possibility that Glover was just like, well, look, we were doing the Erie fight here because Yeri refused to go to Brazil. You're going to Brazil. If I'm going to be the A side on this as a former champion and let's just push this back to Brazil, I'd like to fight.

if this might be my last fight let me do it in brazil win the belt there that's a moment and maybe the ufc's just like buck on that dude like uh i don't know if you've paid attention lately glover but we don't make good fight cards anymore they're usually pretty top heavy and this one is is a fine fight card but there ain't nothing underneath it to carry like the this the co-main event which is now the new main event is the only thing that could have done and that fight still isn't a good pay-per-view headliner unless there is a belt attached to it. And so you can't be like, well, like, Glover, we can push you back and then we'll just elevate the other title fight. There isn't one. There's not another fight to do.

So, and that's like another piece of this too, where it's like, well, man, now it really just sucks that Glover's not fighting for the belt in Brazil. Like, that would just be way cooler. It would be cooler if this fight card was better constructed and had a true co-main event, you know, a title fight co-main event. And then maybe that's the reality we could have lived in. Gloverier will get a couple extra weeks. Either of the dudes will say yes to going to Brazil to fight you because it's for the title. And that would have been a way, way better outcome. But that's not the UFC we live in in 2022 and probably not for the foreseeable future.

So now I have no idea what the hell is going to happen. My guess is Glover will fight the winner of this sometime in the middle of next year. And that's probably fine for him. He gets a full camp to prep for them and that's better than taking on Uncleyev on a couple weeks' notice. Is this the right fight, Jose? I mean, it's probably, it's the most sensible because they're already going to get a freaking fight each other anyways in two weeks. But if you, if, let's just say like Anthony Smith or Jamal Hill or maybe a couple of

these other guys were like, yeah, I'll do it. Would you have, would you have slotted in one of those two other guys or do you feel like this is the only matchup that could really be made here? Slotted them in against Glover or one of these two? Against one of these two or maybe Glover. Well, the fight that the only, I think the fight to make would have been Glover versus one of these two. Obviously, if you just look at M.MA fighting's rankings, I'm not,

I don't have them up, but I'm assuming Yon is ranked higher than Ankleyev at the moment. Corrects me if I'm wrong. So, what, Yon's probably, because we do, because M.A. Fighting does Belator, too. I'm assuming Corey Anderson is somewhere in the top five. I'm assuming the top five consist of like Yeri.

Not no more, Corey Anderson's not. Get out of here, Corey Anderson. Block on that, dude. Navajo is 30 in the top five anyway. So, Boehovic is four, and Bank of life is six, but that's probably going to change. Then it should have been Jan Blahovic, Glover, too. Let's replace one rematch with the other rematch,

because the first rematch was still a good fight as well, and just a good moment over in Abu Dhabi, last October, 2021. So the fight to make, that would have made the most sense, would have been Glover versus Yon, too, just on meritocracy. But assuming what Jed says is correct, and they were like, hey, Glover, we want you to fight this just, you know,

monster of a Russian who can't speak English, and it's just on this wicked run right now. I'm assuming he said no. So then the fight, obviously next man up would have been Jan. This fight just makes sense. Both men had an argument to have the initial title fight against Yuri to begin with. Yon beat Al-Anne Arachic and then they had that stare down when he flew to Singapore to watch the fight. Glover had said that if he beat Yeri, then he would have loved to rematch Yon because John gave him the shot.

Anc Glyev is on this big long win streak, beating everyone. ranked that he's put in front of him. So if the initial fight was Yuri versus either one of these men, I would have had no problem. So, yeah, I'm Anthony Smith versus Jamal Hill. Obviously, we just confirmed that's happening, what? March 11th. March 11th.

That seems like a very long ways away. Anthony Simmons is also coming off a pretty bad injury. Jamal Hill's not ranked quite as high. Ryan Span just fought. Yeah, this fight just makes, this is the right fight to make. if if Glover did indeed say no. So now currently, here's what the main card probably looks like. We got Boehovic Ankyla for the vacant title,

Ponziadio versus Robbie Lawler, Patty Pimble, Jared Gordon, Bryce Mitchell, Iliot, Teporia. Obviously, Yuri Glover 2 was the main event, so that was your five-fight main card. Oh, where Darren Till, DDP is getting the bump to the main. That is 1,000% the other main card fight now. Yes, but here's also my, other question because the UFC doesn't have a card this weekend. They have a loaded fight night

card next weekend. The main event is Stephen Thompson versus Kevin Holland. RDA, Brian Barberina. They got Taito Ivasa on this card against Sergei Pavlovich. Do you think there's any chance, Jed, that they just pull one of these fights, like maybe not the main event, probably not the main event, but if they maybe pull Ty Ty and Sergey Pavlovich up to this card, maybe just to give it a little bit of a boost, or do you think they're just going to go with these 14 fights and just one of the other bouts is just going to get the bump? It's honestly a bit surprising that Tai Tui Voss is fighting at Orlando and not just on this card, because this card needs depth.

It is desperate for some other fights that, not fights that don't matter. Like, this is a fine card. This is one of the, one of the lesser paper views they have put out this year. And maybe that's just because we're coming off 280 and 281. which were very strong offerings. But there's, I don't know that they need to give it a bump because if you just put Daryntill in the top, like in the main car, that's fine. And there's still 13 fights on this card even losing the main.

So it wouldn't hurt. Tai Tuivasa is always going to help a pay-per-view, I think, in general. So that certainly wouldn't hurt. But Ty doesn't want to fight in Vegas. Ty wants to fight in Orlando. He wants to go to Disney World. So I think they're going to let him do that. And this will just be the car.

and it will now be substantively worse without the main event at top of it. Yeah, we got that fight. What else is on here? Billy Q, Alexander Hernandez, Edmund Shabazzian, Dulchia Lungambula,

Eric Silva T.J. This is, before the narrative starts, this is not going to be the worst pay-of-view lineup of the year. UFC 270 was real bad outside of the top two fights. And UFC 275 was also not great. Even 273, wasn't that good.

Oh, 270 was terrible. That is true. 273 was also... 270 did have two title fights, though. Well, that's what I said. Outside of the top two, I bet you couldn't have named

a fight in that main card without looking at it. No, I'm not you, for sure. But, like, I also am a firm believer that, like, it really doesn't matter. Like, the rest of the card

does not matter nearly as much as it does having a top end that's very good, because that's how you leave the event. 272 was also real bad. They had to just manufacture a co-manent between Ardae and Moikano. That didn't have a title at the top. That was Colby Jorge.

That fight card was not great either. This is that actually this, this is the same level of fight card if you look at it. It's like, it's not. The Colby Motsfordall main event, like the manufactured nonsense main event is the one we're going to get for 282. Everything else is fine. Fine. Bryce Mitchell was on that one. We're getting Bryce Mitchell again. Yay. It's fine. This is a fine card. It's not awful. It's not the worst thing you're ever going to see. It's in the lower, it's in the bottom tier, but it's not the worst. It's certainly a low tier. If they're going to pull a card from Orlando, I'm assuming they would have to pull the heavyweight fight because cutting weight is terrible and they're not going to have to cut any weight. Yeah, I would say so.

Then we'd have two heavyweight fights on one card and it's never good to have multiple heavyweight fights on a fight. Man, if Jed Mishu is saying that, you know, it's a bad idea. That's true. That's true. That's very true. Okay. The truth is 279 was the worst fight card of the year, as I'm thinking about it. Well, I mean...

He just feel better about it because of the chaos that happened. But that fight card was bad. Even the new version of it was still pretty bad for $70. It was a bad card. Sure. Well... This one ain't good, though. Hey, we're trying to be positive.

Hey, listen, this card... A month ago, a little bit more was, everyone was looking at this like, man, this is really deep because you had, we had the main event. There were still maybe hope for John Jones, but I didn't really buy that one. I never had that hope because I'm not a fool. Yeah, Bo Nickel was on that card. That obviously got moved as well. So, yeah, we're, we got this one. We got this one.

And it'll be the last paper of the air. Who knows? The UFC has pulled rabbits out of their hats last minute before. And I don't even know. you could do to make this good i don't know like that i do not know if there's a viable thing for them to put here like it's again it's fine they have a title fight and it's it's maybe not justified because glover should really be in the spot but like you can't really have too big an issue if glover did turn this down and year he's going to be out for 18 months which just kind of feels like that's the

case like this is a a pretty legit light heavyweight title fight and but but it's just, everything about this kind of blows, man. Like, it would just be way cooler if they canceled this card. And we're like, hey, we're just going to move half these fights to Brazil. Glover's going to fight Jan in Brazil or whatever. I mean, I'm more disappointed in the fact that we're not going to see you or a Phraska fistfight a human being for a year plus. That and we didn't talk about it as much with the TJ stuff,

but like shoulder injuries are the worst injuries. Like, they are, you just never, you're never. ever the same. And it's the way, the way like tearing your MCL used to be a death sentence in like professional sports and now it's like fine. Fing up your shoulder is still like it just doesn't, as a man who has had surgery on my shoulder multiple times at this point,

it just doesn't ever get better. Like it's just, it's really weird joint that does a lot of stuff. And it's, I don't know what he's going to look like after 18 months off and with a reconstructed shoulder. because TJ's still screwed up after he had double shoulder surgery.

He just ruined it again. Like it's just a bummer. Losing him is a real bummer. Yeah, he's just so fun and exciting. And I was curious to see how he would come back after all that time just by himself, putting himself through hell because he was so disappointed in his performance.

It's crazy. So for those who are joining us late, we're about to get out of here in a minute, but they didn't say like the exact injury, how it happened or anything like that, but it is a shoulder injury that will, quote, require a significant rehabilitation period for Haska, vacated the belt on his own.

This was his decision out of respect for the division and the athletes within it. And as soon as he's ready to come back, he will get the first title shot. Man, this is just why. In July or August, I should say, Paradigm had three champions and now they have one. Rough go for them.

Yeah, that is tough. That is tough. Well, on the bright side, me and our steam colleague, Sean O'Shahti, predicted three champions each at the start of this year. And I thought I was dead in the water because I got Islam right, and I had Magamundankalayaev,

but I was like, well, he literally can't be the champion by the end of the year. Now he's super can, because I think he's going to be young. So, woo-hoo. Oh, hey, listen, The current betting odds are in your favor right now. Minus 240, Maga Van Ankolaev, the favorite.

The comeback on Yonahovych plus 200. He is going to be Yon. So we'll see what happens. But I think we're done here. But look, the good news is we get to spend $50 on a PFL pay-per-view. So happy Thanksgiving to us all. So the news just gets better and better. But there you go.

Unfortunate for most people. Not unfortunate for Yombovich and Maga Ankelaif, we're going to battle it out for the now vacant UFC light heavyweight title in the main event of UFC 282, December 10th, Las Vegas, Nevada at the T-Mobile arena. Jed, any final thoughts? It would send us down a whole new path that we don't need to go on? I was just thinking, would I rather buy 282 or the PFL championships? And I'm not sure. 282, because it has Robbie Lawler and Patty Pimlin on it.

Yeah, I think that's going to be sad Robbie Lawler, though. I mean, also really, DeFora versus Bryce Mitchell is going to be all kinds of venomous. I mean, that fight is very, very good. That fight is... Curtis, Lucky, Buckley's going to be fun. Those two guys do not love each other. I don't have to buy that one, though.

That's true. That's free. That's true. Unless they bump it up. Unless they bump it up. I can get six title fights and Julia Budd versus Aspen Ladd for 50 bucks instead of four and some other fight. We're not sure, I assume, it's Darren Till for 75.

So I'm just saying, if you're, you know, it's a holiday time, you guys trying to figure out where you want to put your money. Think long and hard. Did you guys know Ralu Roses Jr. is 20? I thought he was 16. No. No, he's 20. It's 20.

I thought he was 18 before. Now he's not. I thought he was 19 and just turned 20. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you just turned 18. Don't sign 20 years. Stop signing 20 year olds to fist fight people. How'd that work with Chase Hooper?

It doesn't. They need to develop. Yes. It's working pretty good from a hollow and high. October 8th, he was 18. He was 17 on the contender series. Right. There you go.

All right. I think we're done here. Some tough news, but what can you do? We're MMA fans. We roll with the punches and we try to take the negative and at least attempt to turn it into a positive. So for Jedbushu, for Jose Youngs, I am Mike Heck. Sorry, if you're just finding out about this news right now,

Yuri Perashka, on his own volition, vacates the UFC light heavyweight title, shoulder injury, significant rehab from all accounts. And now, Jan Bojovic will have a chance to become a two-time UFC light heavyweight champion when he takes on Magamette Ancolaev in the new main event of UFC 282. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. If you celebrate, happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

Love you guys. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.