MMA Fighting - Reaction | Khamzat Chimaev vs. Nate Diaz Targeted To Headline UFC 279

Episode Date: July 19, 2022

Nate Diaz wanted to get the last fight under his UFC contract on the books, and he looks to have gotten it in the main event of UFC 279 against Khamzat Chimaev. MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee react to the booking, the fight being the main event of the card, if it will in fact be Diaz's final fight in the UFC, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Alexander K. Lee: @AlexanderKLee Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 reprise 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 Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster, The Downloaded.

It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. The Vox Media Podcast Network. Mike Heck here for MMAfighting.com reacting to some big, big news on this Tuesday, following an initial report from UFC broadcast partner ESPN.

The main event for UFC 279 on September 10th will not be a world championship fight. It will be, in fact, a welterweight matchup between Hamzaa T. Shemayev and won Nathan Diaz. Now, the report has stated that verbal agreements are in place for this big matchup, five rounds to headline the UFC's return to Sin City to the T-Mobile arena. And yes, Nathan Diaz apparently has gotten his wish to fight out. the final bout of his UFC deal, and he will do it in a big one against the surging Shemayev, who is coming off a big decision win over Gilbert Burns at UFC 273 in Jacksonville, Florida back in April. Diaz has been very vocal over the last several months, including a tell-all of sorts interview on the MMAR with Ari Hawani.

He wanted his final fight. He feels like he's been in the grasp, if you will, of the UFC. he wanted this fight against absolutely anybody. He even, I don't even know if he's joking about this, was saying, give me out of Sanya, give me Francis and Ghanu. Because he's essentially been on ice since his decision lost to Leon Edwards back in June of 2021 over a year ago at UFC 263. And now it appears he will get his wish.

And apparently he's going to close the show in Las Vegas, September 10th. So there's a lot to unpack here. And joining me in doing so is the one, the only. the best friend, Mr. Alexander K. Lee, aka here we are. We are living in a world where Hamza Chimae versus Nathan Diaz is headlining a pay-per-view after all that has been said between Diaz, Dana White, etc. Are you surprised by this? Not about itself. Not about itself. Definitely it's something that has been talked about on multiple occasions. The headlining thing is a bit strange to me. I obviously if Alstmein Sterling and Delshaad does end up being made for this

card, I mean, I'm, you know, I'm a bit of a traditionalist. I feel like you should have the title fight at the top. I get it in terms of name value. Nate is the biggest star of those four by far. And Hamza is certainly getting up there. I'm not sure how much mainstream cash he has, but again, the D.S side is very strong. And then, you know, I think Shimae is almost like, it's hard to say mainstream, but definitely there's there's like a buzz. If anyone has even seen him fight once, he's like a guy you remember. So he has that going for him. Dilla Shah would be up there too.

And then strangely enough, the champion, Alamara Stirling, probably has the lowest mainstream name value, which again, I would say I would put that on the UFC. He'd been the prelims for so long before finally eventually becoming champions. So, yeah, it's not surprising. The bout order is what it is. Again, you've got to put that star power up there. I don't think a lot of people will be complaining about it.

It is just weird because the UFC for so long kind of had this weird policy of like, you know, oh, well, we have to have, we have to have championship fights headlining paper use that we have to. They broke that recently, of course, with Colby and Miles Fidall, which was a good reason for it. Again, very, very big fight namewise. Did not need a title on the line. That didn't matter. But again, there's been times where we've seen like, we've seen fights moved or, sorry, scheduled a certain way. And it's kind of like, well, why didn't they just put it on this card?

like, no, well, this card needed a headliner, so we had to wait and they had to this opponent. So listen, if this leads to more flexible scheduling from the UFC, that's great, then I encourage it. Again, they really do not, they have enough star power, guys with star power that they really do not need titles at the top of every car. They don't need to make things for an interim title. They don't have to do that.

That's something they would also do to make a main event, you know, to a main event, like official to make a UFC quality. No, it's a very cool main event. Some ways I'm kind of happy, I think, that Nate Diaz is. getting the fight he's wanted and just getting a fight and possibly signaling the end of his UFC career and a tumultuous, like last couple of years to his relationship with the, the promotion. I think this is absolutely perfect in a lot of ways.

It's great for Shemayev because he sort of gets the rub, but he really doesn't need it because maybe it's just kind of saving face slightly from the Gilbert Burns fight because of the reaction from it, which I still don't understand because that was a super competitive fight with a guy who had just recently fought for the damn title and was coming off a win over a guy who had fought for the title twice and did it in pretty dominant fashion where when the fight was over, we knew that Gilwood Burns beat Wonder Boy Thompson. And it wasn't all that competitive, especially with the grappling. So I still didn't really understand the reaction to Shemaya of how, you know, maybe he's not as good. He was overhyped, all that stuff. I really didn't understand that at all.

And now he gets this opportunity against Nathan Diaz, a fight that, let's be honest, even though he's probably a giant favorite in this fight, Shamiyaf could just hang out and wait to see what happens at UFC 278 between Kamar Usman and Leon Edwards, because you have to think after this win over Gilbert Burns, he's probably next in line. So it is a little bit risky because while Shabayev, and I think best fight odds actually put something out that the current line on this fight, or at least the open line with Shamiyaf minus 1100 and the comeback on Diaz is plus 775. Diaz is a scrapper man and you never know, considering this is a five round fight, maybe Diaz can pour it on in rounds four and five and you never know. Maybe he comes out

and gets a big win. So it is a little risky for Shamiath to take this fight considering the position he's in. What do you think sort of his mindset is and taking this fight other than, well, he's a big star, well get the rub. And what do you think the UFC's thinking putting this fight together? Is this a let's just try to help Hamzad out or is this a let's send Nate out in the most painful way possible? Is it a coincidence that this has now been reported by, you know, first reported by ESPN, UFC's broadcasting partner, you know, is it a coincidence this has got reported after kind of this weekend where Dana got back from vacation? He got at, he had to do a lot of D.S. talk after U.S. Long Island. He handled it okay, depending, I guess, on your perspective of it, you know, kind of

essentially doing his job of, you know, maintaining that company line, listen, Nate Diaz doesn't want to fight. I have to offer him so-and-so-many fights for year. I have to pay him, but this happens, if this doesn't happen, et cetera, you know, it's, I don't know if it's a coincidence. I don't know if it's a coincidence. It feels, this feels motivated by Dana sort of, I don't, I don't want to give the media too much credit. Media fans, the fighters themselves, I'm sure, you know, putting pressure on Dina White and the officials to make something happen. So whatever the reason, whatever the reason for it is, it's great. I don't think it's a risk for Kamsat at all other than, you know, as risky as to take any

fight. I mean, the Gilbert Burns fight was very risky. This fight's risky, of course, you know, just because, like you said, Diaz is so experienced. He could find a way to win. But it's such a favorable match for Kamsat. And we had, I think, Mike, you and I had kind of been on the side of like, you know, maybe Usman to try and fight Kamzat now, rather than wait for Kamzat to sort of develop even further and become even more of a threat, once it became clear that it wasn't going to happen and that the

wheels were in motion for the Leon Edwards rematch to happen. Then we thought, okay, then it became obviously like, okay, Kamsat probably is going to have to fight again. And with respect to Nadeez, this is as close as you can get to like a stay busy fight for Kamsat, a tune up. Again, they don't really do tuneups in MMA, but it's kind of a tune-up. And tune-ups can certainly go wrong. It does occasionally happen in boxing. I have seen you, I have seen fighters getting a tune-up fight before they're supposed to fight a star and they lose, but it's certainly rare. I think this is the occasion where it will go as, as Hamzaa expects. He'll have some opportunity to style on Diaz, as it were, maybe even finish him would be amazing. I mean,

because Diaz just, I mean, really, he just doesn't get straight out finish. It doesn't happen. But I mean, Hamzaat might be one of the guys to do it. I just think he has a lot of advantages here. So, no, I think it's medium reward, high risk, and something that as long as he wins in impressive fashion, keeps him right in line to get the winner of that Usman, Leon Edwards, fight. Just a crazy situation.

As you record this, Shemayev, through his management team, actually released a little bit of a statement, which it was tweeted out by Brett Akamoto, BSPN, which essentially says, let me pull it up real quick because I don't want to mess this up, but we're talking funerals here. Hamzaa Tchamai provided this comment. I'm going to handle Nate Diaz's funeral with the UFC. So there we go.

It's happening, man. It's happening. And apparently there's a funeral in place. So what do you think the build's going to be like between these two guys? Do you think it'll just be just, how? Is it going to be fun? Is it going to be weird? Like, how do you feel like the builds of this fight's going to be

because we're a little less than two months away from it happening? I think it'll be fun. I do think it'll be a fun one. I think it's going to take a bit of prodding, I think, to get an ADS to, you know, necessarily engage in sort of what we would view as like traditional trash talk, traditional fight build. He's never really loved that.

He kind of got into it with Connor, but again, Connor tends to bring that out in people. We don't know if Hamza can do that yet. We've certainly had people call out Hamzat. And he's got, again, he's taking, you know, some things out of the Habib playbook. So he can cut, he's, some of his phrasing the way he says things and challenges people. Again, and with help of his management, you just read that statement out. What did it say again?

Gosh, I was just looking at it and you just said it. This is a fight. Oh, no, I'm going to handle Nate Diaz's funeral at the US. Yeah, yeah. Listen, that's a nice, quick and dirty statement. I think, and I think we're going to kind of play up that angle. you'll probably be hearing that quote a lot from Hamzat as if you know English interviews come through he's going to be funeral funeral that's going to be the I wouldn't be surprised I don't think the

UFC likes playing up a like morbid death angle to any of their fights but I do I could see them somewhat incorporating something of that into their video package kind of acknowledging that it's last ride as it were metaphorically speaking at least with with the with the UFC I think they'll take advantage of it then the UFC will be smart I know I Again, they don't want to, you know, people might say, oh, well, won't they want to kind of downplay the moment given that he could go fight for someone else and you're kind of raising his, you know, profile if you do this whole thing. But listen, if they've agreed to make it a main event, clearly they're not afraid of still putting a little bit of promotional push behind,

behind Nate Diaz. And I think you'll see it. I think they will play up that angle. It'll be, it'll be fun to watch. Last thing on this, because there's going to be plenty to talk about between now and September 10th, in your heart of hearts, AK, will this be the last time Nate Diaz fights in the UFC? Yes, it will. Yes, it will.

I think the relationship there has been pretty sour. I mean, look, money solves everything. Winning can help things, too. You know, if Nate Diaz wins, I don't know, for some reason that might change things. Maybe he beats him and says, guess what, Ouzman, Usman's been wanting to fight me or fight my brother?

Well, now it's me. I just beat the number three guy, number three guy, and NBA fighting global rankings. Give me the title shot. geez who knows and it could happen it could happen so in that circumstance i think if he wins there's a very good chance that he at least sticks around for that title shot right and and the ufc would you know wouldn't just let it be a one-fight thing they would have him sign like a four-fight deal

you know the UFC is smart like that so um but since i am already right now and i'll stick with this till fight not comes around i'm predicting a pretty convincing shemaiah win then yes this will be the last time Nate Diaz fights. I'm not even factoring a Diaz win possibility. I'm not saying it can't happen, but if you're asking me yes or no, is it's the last time Nate Dia, the last time we see him fight in the UFC, I'm going, leaning strongly towards yes. This being five rounds makes this one a little more interesting to me. But we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. I favor Shemaya for sure, but the extra 10 minutes makes it interesting. And Nate is so good. at winning when he loses. It's just incredible the way he does this. He did it with the Leon Edwards

fight. He lost 23 plus minutes of that fight and then has the barrage of the end and everyone's talking about Nate Diaz. He just needs to win one moment in this fight and not get finished. And he comes out smelling like roses in this situation. So September 10th, here we go, Hamzaa Tshimae versus Nathan Diaz to headline UFC 279. and this is huge, this is big, and this is probably something that needed to happen because 278 needed a boost, 279 as it at least stood with the top of the card.

Sterling Dillishaw is a very intriguing and fascinating fight, but if you're trying to get folks to pluck down 75 bucks to watch a card, another one, this is the kind of fight that is going to get the casual audience involved for sure. But more on that, as we get closer to September 10th, aka i am iak reacting to this big news main events all but done for ufc 279 you're listening to the vox media podcast network