MMA Fighting - UFC 250 Post-Fight Show

Episode Date: June 7, 2020

MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck and Alex K. Lee break down the top storylines from Saturday night’s UFC 250 event in Las Vegas, including Amanda Nunes’ historic title defense against Felicia Spencer in the main event, a banner night for the bantamweight division, 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

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. The Mystic Alex K. Lee, and this is the official M.A. Fighting UFC-250 post-fight show live on the M.A. Fighting YouTube channel. You may be hearing this a little bit later, but this is what we're doing right now. But I hope you guys enjoyed a pretty crazy night of fights. There was a lot of naysaying, Alex, and poo-pooing of this card heading in. And we even saw some of that in the minutes leading up to this event tonight. But the only ones that can naysay now, Alex, are the ones that said, you know what? I'm going to skip this one.

This is a great card. Was it not? It was a great card. I feel like it might have oddly gotten a bit lumped in with the I-Calvio announcement. I think people saw the I-Calvio announcement, which is next week. That card's next week. And then they kind of also said, and they kind of added that to like not being super thrilled with the Nunya Spencer fight.

And then it just became this whole cluster of like, I guess they kind of group these first two June events together saying like, oh, I'm not excited. what the UFC's doing and they're kind of just throwing cards together. But anyone who took a real look at this 250 card would tell you, man, top to bottom, except for the main event, competitive fights on paper and lots of potential for highlight reels finishes, which we definitely got a bunch of those tonight. So, yeah, strong card overall. Of course, for those who are familiar with what we have done, the last few fight cards, we want to hear from you, ladies and gentlemen, who are watching this live with us.

So if you got questions, comments, thoughts, matchmaking ideas, et cetera, leave them in the comments. and Casey in the truck, we'll put them on the screen, we'll get to as many as we can. But Alex, let's start with the main events of the evening. Amanda Nunes retains her women's featherweight title, dominant performance. She wasn't in any danger at all in this fight against Felicia Spencer with that. She makes some history. She comes to first dual champion in the history of the UFC to successfully defend both of her titles while holding both of them. I know that's a lot to sort of unpack and process.

Saying it kind of makes me dizzy, but overall, your thoughts that Amanda Nunes's performance tonight because I thought she looked incredible. Yeah, all week I've been struggling to sort of what's the most compact way to say that she did the dual champion thing? Because people go like, what about Daniel Korme? What about Henry Sehudo? And again, just to clarify that one last time, unfortunately, none of those, neither Sehudo nor Korme were really given the opportunity to defend both titles while they had

them. They won two titles and they may have defended one of them. But at some point, they were stripped before getting a chance to defend both titles, unfortunately. So yes, Nunez is historically the first fighter to have two titles, won two titles, hold them both simultaneously and defend both band-in-weight and featherweight belts. So great job for her. I mean, her performance in the main event was amazing. It didn't make for an exciting fight, unfortunately. You know, Spencer, tough as hell. Anyone watching that is going to give her all the credit in the world for hanging in there. But boy, it was one-way traffic. I mean, the definition

of one-way traffic for, you know, for anyone who uses that cliche. But yeah, Nunez looked great. It's unfortunately what exactly what people expected, except I think some people were hoping she'd be so dominant that she would get a quick finish, put a real exclamation point on it. But the 25 minutes of dominance, there's no arguing with that. Really, the fight was really one of the only blemishes, you know, if you were looking as far as entertainment value on what was otherwise a great card. I give the whole card an A-minus overall. It just needed that one great back-and-forth fight, which it never quite had. There was some good fights, but not a real great, like, classic fight. And this is kind of like the old compliment sandwich that you get in the business world where you say something nice and then you say something not so nice and then you end with something nice.

This is about we'll talk about the winner, then we'll talk about the loser and then we'll go back to the winner. So let's talk about Felicia Spencer. She got dominated. No bones about it. But she went the distance. She stayed in there. She made it to the final horn despite everyone saying that they should stop the fight. Now, one of the concerning things I was heading, people were talking about heading into this fight.

and I talked about this with Jose moments ago and on the preview show is that people were messaging me on social media saying why are they putting her in this fight now? This could stunt her growth. Yeah, we get she's the number one contender, but let's hold off on Felicia Spencer. Let's let her get a little bit better

and then match her up on Duna's because this fight is probably not going to go well. But after that performance, I still think her stock rose a little bit because of her grit and toughness, even though the fight went the way most expected it to. Where does she go from here after this besides taking a break?

Look, there is really no featherweight division. So where Spencer goes from here, I mean, look, she's already beaten Megan Anderson, you know, the other kind of name featherweight that most fans are familiar with at this point. So you kind of have to throw her some lesser known people. Maybe some of the women from the, that season of the ultimate fighter that were, that had featherweight women, the most of them turned out to be bantam weights. Maybe you can convince one of them. Otherwise, otherwise you have to, oh, sorry, I said my thing, we'll go out there for a second. Otherwise, I think you have to start bringing in people from outside the organization. There's just a lot of, again, featherweight is just not one of the deepest divisions.

It doesn't matter where you look. It doesn't matter what organization you look at. Even Beltor, they have a division. It's not super deep. So you kind of have to do that for Spencer, which is fine. I think it's cool to find her opponents who are obviously a big step down from some of the best that she's fought at 145, but to kind of showcase her strengths again, build her up again. And who knows in the future what we see for Spencer.

But yeah, super tough, just skill-wise, you know, nowhere near as well-rounded as Nunez, the champ. And probably the more interesting question right now coming off that performance is we have Amanda Nunes, who is the greatest woman's MMA fighter of all time. She's one of the greatest fighters of all time at this point. And she's in a very interesting position because she has pretty much cleaned out two entire divisions. Like there's other names that she hasn't fought yet. But in terms of like the toughest competition, she'll probably face up to this point, she's seen them all. she's beat them all. What else can she do?

I know she's about to take on a new challenge of parenthood as a parent of myself. That is a challenge in itself. What the hell is left for her to do right now in fighting in either of these divisions? Like, if you had to pick one person to fight her right now, who would you pick? I'm going to pick the name that Dana White seems resistant to, I don't know why. He's very insistent on not making the Valentina Shepchenko rematch. Look, I get it. yes, Nunez is 2-0 against Svchenko, so that's fine.

She's convincingly up in the series, though there are many who would dispute that Shofchenko may have won their second fight. Our own Jedmishu will sing that until the cows come home. He's a huge, Schochenko beat Nunez supporter. But I do think that's the most reasonable fight. Shishenko wanted, I think Nunez would be open to it. And I think there's still a little bit of intrigue there. I will warn people that that second Nunea-Sherchenko fight to be respectable to fighters,

that fight sucked sucked. I don't know if I remember. It was a terrible fight. So in that sense, if that's the other reason Dana White doesn't want to do it, I actually kind of agree with that. But I mean, as far as name value and how good the fighters are and where they're viewed at their level of esteem, Shichenko Nunez 3, it's the way to go.

There's really just no one else that's ready yet. Though Nunez did say she's planning to take time off, so it could be very different by the time she comes back. We lost your audio, Mike. Yep. Oh, sorry, Mike. Oh, you're back. Oh, you're back.

What a rookie mistake. All right. What a rookie mistake. I'm new to myself and I didn't turn myself back on. So it seems like Aldana. Excuse me. Hold on. The truck.

The truck is set. Okay. So he's making the carry on motion. Yes. I wanted to give you guys some times to digest what Alex just said there. Aldana seems to be the front runner. We got some Valentina saying someone saying Valentina won the second fight. There you go.

I mean, I'm with you, Alex, because what else is there? I just don't think there's another fight that's interesting. Even Dana White said something that Zhang Wei Li is closer to getting a fight with Amanda Nunes than Valentina Shofchenko is right now, which, believe me, I would love to see that fight. But I found that comment a little puzzling, considering that Zhang Wei Li is the strawweight champion. And Amanda Nunes is a 45er who cuts a pretty decent amount of weight to get to 35. I just don't know if Zhang Wei can put on that kind of size to make that fight competitive. Yeah, the other hopes are, you know, Aspen Ladd bounces back from that, you know, setback against Deroondmi and, you know, emerges as a contender.

But she's so young. It's just, it's even hard to tell what kind of fighter she is at this point. I'm just looking at some names here. Juliana Pena, you know, great fighter. But I don't know, again, if anyone really would take her as a serious challenge to Nunez. I do like the Aldana possibility. But Kettl Maita, unfortunately, she suffered a setback. So, you know, she's back in the contender rankings.

they're really and this is just that's the top look at the top 10 here if you want to go lower than that then we're really we're really reaching for potential opponents but again as I said before you know who knows how much time Nunez will take off it could be I she says her child you know her child is due in three months but who knows how long she wants to spend focusing on on being a mother you know it might be a whole year it could be more than a year right there's no guarantees I financially she seems to be doing well so she could be out longer than a year and uh that could give time for the bantamweight division and maybe even the featherweight division to bring up some new challengers. But yeah, right now and the immediate future, really no appealing big

matchups for Amanda Nunez. Before we move on to the remainder of the card, I just want to call it to the truck, see if we could pull up a comment that I just read. Someone that, you know, somewhat familiar with, I think her name was Esther Lynn. I just want to read that again. Esther Lynn says, I wonder if they don't want to book Valentina versus Amanda because the previous two fights are so close, just almost neutralized each other in a way that was not fun. And I understand that argument. Accurate. Alex,

the reason I think is because right now you have Amanda Nunes, who's a dominant champion at 35 and 45. And Valentina Shepchenko at 25 is like the big draw of the division. Like it's different with Valentina because people just like want to see her just crush everybody. They're just like, oh, Valentina's got a headkick, KO this girl, a head kick KO this girl. So if you match those two up, you're almost taking out like one of the dominant factors. And I know we've seen the fight a couple times. They weren't all that thrilling and exciting.

But could that be a part of it that they just don't want to take that allure of dominance away from either of these women? I don't think the UFC has ever been worried about ruining anyone's allure or their marketability based on some of the matches that we have seen made. even today, even something like, well, I shouldn't say. Al-Amey Sterling's Corey Sandhagan is a bad example because I think both guys had reached the only point where they had to fight each other. But there's nothing been times where the U.S. matched up two people, you know, either on a hot streak or like you said, with a certain level of fame or success and it's kind of like,

why match them up now? So for me, I think Shepchenko and Nunez have reached that endpoint where, again, they really are each other's only option. So I say, I'm definitely in favor of it. And I just say run it back. But again, that's only if Nunez plans to fight anytime soon. Moving ahead, as if the UFC Bannamweight Division needed to prove anything at all. I mean, good Lord, did 135 deliver tonight.

Even going back to Cody Stamens went, I know it was at 45, but still, what he did tonight was absolutely incredible and pretty darn inspiring, if you ask me. And then we got to the main card, and we got three big finishes and very big spots from Shotomalley, from Al Jermaine Sterling. and then Cody Garbrand in the co-main event. This was a banner night for the 135-pound division tonight, Alex. It's unfortunate that Suhudo is retired because you really could make a strong argument after tonight that, and this is a huge recency bias, that bantamate is the best division in the UFC. I'm going to throw it out there. It's got, you've got your veterans, you've got your veterans, Dominic Cruz, U.S. Faber, Josie Aldo, you've got all these hot contenders with like Peodor Yan, Azamane Sterling, Corey Sanhagan.

And I'm leaving people out. I'm forgetting people. Marlon Marlis. So again, even the guys who lost tonight, you know, there's no shame in it. You know, they put in good efforts. So Brian Keller, you know, Brian Keller, who lost his statement. So I'll say it. I mean, I think it's right up there with we always say lightweight, welterweight.

It's bantam weight is right up there with them. It's such a strong division. And yeah, if this was billed as a showcase for this division, and it connected in every possible way, every bantamweight fight was eventful and memorable. And yes, I'm counting this, again, the Stamen Keller-Hur fights. So could not have gone off better for the 135-pound division. And I hope by this time next year, we're not talking about unjust title fights. And we're talking about, man, all these great main events that we saw featuring these names. So let's kind of go down in order here.

Let's start with Cody Garbrand in the co-main event. Because Hafeel Sunso, as Cody Gar-brand stated multiple times, not the easiest person to look good against. But damn, Cody looked pretty darn good tonight. And we were wondering what was he going to look like after these three finished losses that he suffered, two to Dilloshah and then one to Pedro Munoz and then all the time off and the injuries and the stem cells and being hospitalized and all this stuff. And man, he answered a lot of questions tonight. Your thoughts, Alex, on Cody 2.0, as he called himself at the post-fight press conference tonight. I mean, he was so in control.

He was so patient, at least in the first round, using leg kicks beautifully. showing a lot, again, showing a lot of that kind of movement and creativity that we saw, you know, the Dominic Cruz win. It was one of the all-time, probably one of an all-time great five-round challenger wins in a UFC title fight. So he showed a lot of that. He got a little bit more wild. Some might say confident.

I would say a little bit wild in the second round. But, hey, obviously there was a reason for it. He sensed that there was a chaos as possible. And he really loaded up. You know, they caught a bunch of great angles on the broadcast of that knockout punch, that buzzer-beating knockout punch. And it was like a guy swinging a baseball bat. He just loaded up and connected perfectly.

I do think that it's the same, though, the way he got that knockout was kind of the same way that he got himself in trouble in the past. So to be a bit of a Debbie Downer, I will say, I don't know how this would work against guys who are a little more heavy-handed than us and Sao, but tonight it was fantastic and produced one of the best knockouts we've seen all year.

It was just awesome. you and I work on these onto the next one pieces. So we're not going to give away the whole dinner tonight. We're going to give away like an appetizer right now. So let's start with Cody Garbrand. Because like we talked about, Bannamweight, stacked right now. There's not a lot of bad matchups out there for Garbrand against anybody ranked above him in that top six, seven, eight. I think he was nine heading into this fight.

So with everything going on, especially up at the top, with the title and weird matchmaking and all of that, What's next for Cody Garbrand, your opinion? I am so, so tempted to throw him in there with O'Malley already. I loved the little interaction we had on Twitter. Actually got that knockout. And O'Malley goes on, he tweets out, you know, decent, you know, kind of I'm not impressed by your performance 2020 version. I thought that was great.

Though, you know, I just said we were just saying before about rushing people into things. I do think it's just a little bit of a bridge too far for O'Malley. He looks incredible. I mean, if they made that fight, I wouldn't complain. but I'd like to see, you know, Amali take one more, probably take one more fighter against a top, you know, someone in the 8 to 15 range, not a guy like Garbrand,

who I kind of still consider to be in the top five and certainly might be back in there after this fight. But for Cody, gosh, do you give him, I don't have thinking Stamen, but maybe Stamen's good for O'Malley. So he's fought almost everyone in the top 10 already. I just hope he doesn't get that the title fight. I'll say that with respect to Cody.

I hope he doesn't, one, I hope he doesn't swoop in and fight Yan instead of Aldo. And two, I hope he doesn't jump in front of Al Jemay Sterling. Sterling is next to fight that winner. So, yeah, sorry, there's sort of a cop-out answer there. But for a guy who's fought everyone in the top ten already, it's a bit hard to match him up. Stacey Robinson says, Cody Garbrandt versus Milo Morayas. And I'm going to stop you right there, Stacey, because the fight that we need to see is Marlomorais versus Dominic Cruz.

But how about Cody Garbrandt versus Corey Sanhagen? How about we do that after tonight? Ah, the winner versus loser with, okay, you know, in the most respectful way of putting it. Because, I mean, Sanhagen, he just got caught by a super motivated Al Jemaine Sterling. So, yeah, certainly a doable fight. And Garbrand, even though he is back in the winner's circle, does have some reputation rebuilding to do. This is coming off of three straight losses, three straight knockout losses and his first fight in 15 months. So, yeah, I wouldn't object to that matchmaking at all.

And I mean, I know we don't like to matchmaking for guys who got knocked out pretty brutally, Jafiel Sonsal, but I think Cody Stamen versus Hafiel Sonsal makes all the sense in the world after tonight. So that's just some nibbles, a little bit of nibbles. Give him a little taste. Give him a little taste. One of those little spoons you get at the ice cream store. Al Jemaine Sterling, I mean, good Lord. What else can be said?

You mentioned already, motivated performance. He goes out there. And I said this to Jose on the last show, we did. You could have laid out a thousand different ways that fight could have gone. And Al Jermaine Sterling going out there and submitting him that quickly and that explosively in the first round, probably wouldn't have been in my top 1,000 picks. So Al Jermaine Sterling, what a performance. Your thoughts on how he went into the fight. And even if you want to talk about Reginald's, you can see it right there, Reginald's quarantine hair, which is unbelievable tonight,

maybe even took away from the performance a little bit. What did you think of the Funkmaster tonight? I mean, look, I picked the fight to go to decision. I also picked Sanhagen, by the way, so I was wrong on that one. But either way, whether it was Sterling or Sanhagen, I thought this was going the distance, you know, two evenly matched guys. And we've seen that Sterling knows how to win decisions. Most of his UFC victories have been by way of decision. You know, so we've shown that he has that kind of both patience and also skill to do that.

You know, winning a decision is hard. I had never seen him impose his will on someone like this. He just got in there right away and took that back and just. dragged him down and was not, and, you know, he failed in the initial choke attempt, went right back at it, was not giving up. This was, you know, just a next level of performance for Sterling. And if he doesn't get a title shot at some point, whether it's replacing Aldo or facing the winner of the reported Aldo-Yon fight, it's a travesty.

It's promotional malpractice, as they say, it's injustice. And Sterling deserves, he's deserved more respect from the UFC for a long time. So they definitely cannot do anything but give him a title shot by the end of the year. Because of the way we thought this fight would play out, we didn't think about just having Al Jermaine jumped the queue and just replace Jose Alto. But the way he performed tonight, I don't think there's any other option right now. You put Aldo on the sidelines, match him up against somebody else. Really? Like, Sterling should be getting that shot.

I mean, he went in there, didn't take any damage, submitted Corey Sanhagen quickly. send them right to the island. Let's do this thing. Like, stop messing around. Stop playing with our emotions. Book the correct fight. I saw someone mention Aldo Garbrandt. I don't know what you think about that.

Ooh, that'd be fun. I'm in for that too. Ollie, Dana needs to do the right thing and make Jan versus Aljo as soon as possible. Sterling took no damage in this fight. Very well said, Ollie. Agreed. That's the fight to make.

They're not going to, but I agree. I know. And Sanhagen, I mean, he's very young. This loss stings today, but it doesn't hurt as much as like Al Jermaine losing tonight. Like if it was reversed, it would be devastating for Al Jermaine Sterling. It's going to be very hard for him to come back after all the experience he's had in the octagon, the fights he's had and the wins and the losses and the ups and the downs. Sanhagen, he'll be back.

He's still very young in his career. He's got a lot of room to grow. We haven't even seen the best of Corey Sanhagen yet. So tough loss for him. Could have been worse. But at the end of the day, he'll learn and he'll grow. And I think we saw that from a lot of different guys tonight. Yeah.

Let's talk about... Sorry, Mike, I hate to use this word when talking about combat sports. But tonight's result was fair because you would say Sterling has paid his dues. San Hagen still has dues to pay it, it seems. And this is one of them, you know, you take a loss. It's first loss in the UFC, like you said, it's not going to set him back far. But Sterling has definitely paid his dues. He's a UFC veteran at this point.

And, you know, deserved. Another horrible word. Deserved and fair in combat sports. But he deserved to get the wins tonight and he did. So we'll see if he deserves it gets to what's left for him that he deserves. Yeah, Garberham versus San Diego would be a lot of fun. It would be almost like Garbrandt versus Cruz 2 in a way, in some weird generational way. Let's, Neil Maggi versus Anthony Rocca Martin.

Nice win for Neil Magny. How did you score that fight, by the way, Alex? I think I had a 29, 20. I'm sorry, no, yeah, I'm sorry, 29, 20. 28 for Magni. I was out of say, Martin. 29, 28 for Magny, definitely. The 3027 was a strange call. I think we can all agree.

That's the only outrage. Really, there's some of the only real outrage I saw tonight. So, yeah, there we go. There we have the decision. So, yeah, a pretty convincing win for Magny. Well deserved. He's on his, I think he tied Matt Hughes, I think, for the second most UFC welterweight win. So congratulations on that, the newly coined Haitian sensation.

But, yeah, solid win. the most memorable fight to be fair to both to be fair but uh look magni he he's been around he's he really put it he really did well in the third round and i think he put a good put a good stamp on the fight at least so good for him magny double down wants to fight michael kiesa i think that's an interesting fight but we already know how kiesa feels about this he needs his gyms and all the stuff to open up and i'm not sure what washington state looks like right now in terms of restrictions and guidelines with covid 19 but i'd be down for magni versus kiesa that makes a lot of sense, but Sean O'Malley, what a performance. That knockout was sensational. Like the setup,

the strike, the way the fight ended, he just walked off. Amazing. But I don't know if I'll ever forget the image of Eddie Weinland's mustache, like fluttering through the air once he hit the mat. I mean, that was an incredible vision, an incredible knockout, huge win for Sean O'Malley. He wanted to step up in competition. He got a guy that was willing to give it to him. And he's delivered in a big way. Sugar Show was on fire tonight. UFC 250, Alex Kaley. Yeah, look, this was supposed to be a showcase fight for him.

He's said before the fight, he said after the fight, he's the best striker, he believes he's the best striker. I don't know he said in all of MMA, but that's certainly the best striker at 135 pounds. And he took out one one punch walkoff, K.O. It was just a perfect moment. The fluttering mustache will probably, unfortunately, become a meme, much like Brennan Shob, reaching for the, you know,

the imaginary butterflies, whoever you guys want to call that gift. But yeah, it was exactly, you know, we talked about how Connor McGregor became a star by capitalizing every moment he was given. It's like, oh, he has to perform in this moment. He has to hit this moment. O'Malley, his debut was great. He, he, on the Contender Series, the Sukumtath fight, a little forgettable. But the comeback against, was a Kinonez, spectacular, the one-punch knockout of a, tonight,

one time of a, you know, a former world extreme cage fighting champion, one time UFC titles, Challenger Eddie Weinland, right on the money, perfect timing. And it's a clip that they can replay forever. So this kid, I was skeptical. I was not a believer at first. But this guy is rising so fast, absolutely a future star. And based on social media buzz, everyone was talking about it. Maybe the most talked about fighters night.

Well, it seems like his next matchup will be against the UFC to renegotiate his contract. Well, how would you do that? People don't have disagreements with the UFC. What are you talking about? The UFC and the fighters are in perfect lockstep these days. What? That's the perfect harmony. The fighters on the card, the fighters who weren't on the card, they're all getting along.

They're all getting along. But he deserves to get paid. I'm sure he will get paid. John O'Malley even said at the press, at his post-fight media scrum that, listen, I'm not asking for what John Jones and Jorge Mazda are asking for. He goes, I'm not even asking for as much as most of the guys fighting on this card are getting paid tonight. I just want a little bit more. He's on that contender series deal.

he now has one fight left on his current contract. So I'm sure they're going to get this thing taken care of ASAP, especially with everything else going with Connor and Mazadol and Jones and all that stuff. You've got to keep this guy going. Where do you send him from here? Because there's the argument that let's just shoot him up. Let's do what Connor did and just give him these big fights. And then the other option is let's just slowly continue to build him up and put him in these showcase spots,

opening up a main card, co-main event on a fight night, maybe even headlining a fight night. maybe even headlining a fight night, something like that. So what makes sense? And I'm sure a lot of people might want to chime in on this as well who are watching. What do you do with Sean O'Malley? I think, like we said, Stamen is certainly a possibility. Again, they're both in the winter circle now. They're both guys who are rising band to make contenders.

I think they're probably after tonight still both on the edge of the top 10. I don't know if they quite crack it, though they are very high on O'Malley. They may want to push them in the top 10 now. We'll see. but I don't know if I'd quite put him there. I think we brought up this name, we brought up this name a bunch of times since he had that close win recently. Song Yadong, I think would be a very favorable matchup for him.

It would be a stand-up fight. I think O'Malley, I do think O'Malley at this point is a better fighter, but who knows, they're both prospects. If you're willing to put two prospects up against one another, that's certainly one way to go. And that for me would, a win there, I think would put O'Malley in the top ten for me. I wouldn't rush him up. Though, again, like I said, that Garbrand call out, somewhat tempting.

Here's my thought. And maybe I'm crazy for thinking this because it just literally popped in my head right now. Because I think he would take this fight. I think he would jump all over it. Sean O'Malley versus Uriah Faber. I thought of that as well. Do you think Uriah would? I think he would take that fight.

Faber has never been afraid to fight younger guys. He's never been afraid to get a contact. when he had no reason to do that. It was all to gain for Alcantara and he beat him. Of course, he just fought Piotr, Yan, another guy who, I mean, was trying to make his name off favor. And he was like, I'll just do it. Ricky Simone, you know, he fought Ricky Simone. There was nothing, you know, there was nothing to gain from fighting Ricky Simone.

He made a moment out of it by getting a knockout, of course. But you're right. He's really not afraid of these things. And the fact that O'Malley is kind of such a rising name now, it does seem like the kind of challenge you a take, doesn't it? I like, I like where your heads at on this one, Mike Heck. I like where your heads are. I think that's the fight to make. I think Stirling, I think Favor takes that fight. I really do for the exact same reason. You could headline any card, any fight night card with that fight or a co-man event on a pay-per-view card, O'Malley versus Favor. I think Favor would jump

all over it. O'Malley would love that opportunity. Of course, you got to renegotiate and make everybody happy, but there you go. We got a few more minutes. If you guys got questions, thoughts, all that stuff, throw them out there. The truck will get them up on the screen. But prelims, O'Malley versus Peter Piotr-Jon from Richland Ford. Wow. Just do it. Just do it.

Just do it. They want that smoke. Yes. Yes, he does. I think you would take that fight. Prelims, who are your prelim superstars? Alex Gail. We had some great performances.

And I'm going to shout out one that's going to get completely under the radar that no one's going to talk about. Ian Hinesh. What a win, considering the week he had and the months he had. and the months he had. And like I told Jeremy Scharer, when I interviewed him yesterday, everything that happened was probably like the 2000 most interesting day of his life compared to everything else he's gone through.

So to go through and have that performance, man, that was impressive. Who stuck out to you in the prelims? Yeah, a huge win for Heinzsche. I mean, look, he's got a great story. If you guys haven't read about it, please look up any number of articles that have been written about Heinish and his early days being put in international prison. foreign prison and turning his life around. And it was a great win.

He was coming off two losses and a guy like Gerald Mearshot, Mier, not an easy win at all could easily have kept that losing street going. So that was huge. A lot of names here. I will just shout out specifically a guy we've already mentioned a couple of times. Cody Stamen competing under a heavy cloud for anyone who doesn't know. His 18-year-old brother, his younger brother, did pass away recently. I believe it was last week, so the week before Fight Week.

I have an older brother. I can't even imagine doing anything of this intensity, of this, that requires a level of concentration. I'm sure in some ways, you know, a lot of athletes,

when they suffer some sort of personal tragedy, it's an escape, you know, it's a way to kind of maybe get their mind off of that personal problem for a bit.

But regardless, you know he had a heavy heart as soon as the fight was over, just in tears, you know, just in tears, his brother, his other brother

who was also in his corner, it just comes over to console him. It was a really, really powerful moment. He was in tears after. He was in tears during the interview. Totally understand. Just letting it go. You know, just letting it go after having to stay composed for almost the entire week.

And he put on a great performance against Brian Kelleher. Brian Kelleher, all class, of course. They, you know, they had a little, they chatted after. And he, Kelleher tweeted after, you know, good for you. And, you know, condolences, of course. So Stamen, really great moment for him. But really, there's any number of guys. guys we could talk about on this prelims.

It feels like almost everyone who wanted the prelims really took just another step up as far as recognition and the quality of their resume. Alex Perez. Yes. My guy. Got it done. So good.

On the radar Friday the night, man, he delivered a big way. And unfortunately, not a lot of people are going to be talking about him, considering how the rest of the card played out. But tremendous performance over Juicier Formiga. I like him. I like what he said at the post-fight press conference, stepping in, being ready, being an alternate for that vacant title fight, or we do Brandon Moreno, I'm down for that fight a million times.

That's just a sensational fight. Those are really the only two things that make sense at this point for Alex Perez after that great performance. And the other hero of the night, in my opinion from prelims, Devin Clark's dad, Mr. Clark. Wow. He was-cordering today. He was motivating. I was tweeting.

I seriously would buy anything he puts out. Anything. Anything. I don't care how much it costs. 100 bucks? Boom. take my money, Mr. Clark. You're amazing. He needs to be miced up whenever, you know, whenever it gets to like, back to normal crowds,

we got to keep him mic'd up. We need that, we need that Devin Clark, dad, energy on every broadcast. So we get a parent coming through every single year. Like last year was Taryn Woodley's mom after the Kamar Usman fight. This year, it's Mr. Clark. Mr. Clark is, I don't even know what his first name is, but Mr. Clark. We will find out. We will know from now. He is now part of the MMA familia. So welcome Devin Clark's. We didn't even mention Herbert Burns, opening the show with an 80-second submission of Evan Dunham. Evan Dunham's tough, you know? Herbert Burns, just amazing.

Knocks out Nate Landau in his first career knockout. He knocks out Nate Landauer. He's insanely tough. And then he submits a long-time, lightweight veteran who they met in a catchweight boat, but a longtime lightweight veteran Evan Dunham. So Herbert Burns is for real. Man, these Burns brothers are dangerous. Unreal.

Back-to-back fights. Like, seriously, like one. last fight from the last card Burns beats Woodley first fight of the next card Burns beats Dunham Unreal what a run for the brothers Alex Casares gets a win tonight

against Chase Hooper As our own Jose Youngs noted Well I kind of told him But I'll give him the credit for it This was the 22nd UFC fight for Alex Casares and Chase Hooper is only 20 years old So you guys do the math in your head To figure out how absurd that is

I'm one of the people who jumped on the Hooper bandwagon Even though every logical part of my brain was like, this guy has 21 UFC fights going to this and he's facing a guy going to his second UFC fight. Is Chase Hooper that good? And the answer was not good enough to beat Alice Casares. Ciceroz is such a sharp guy

and he's seen it all and really anyone with, I should have known that he would pull out the win here because he looked great. Chase Hooper back to the drawing board, though I was joking with Damon that they're probably going to match him up with Ronnie Yaya or John Dodson next

just because he went He managed to go the distance, and I hope that's not the case. I hope they match one with like another contender series person or something, but Chase Hooper, you'll be fine. Back to the drawing board for you, man. And congrats to Bruce Leroy. Edgy Bra, I was hoping here for Angie Brass. Herbert Burns is a legit featherweight.

He sure is. And then someone commented before, I think his name was Q, that I think it was Alex Perez versus Kai Kair, France on Fight Island. And while I would love to see that fight, no offense to Kai Kair or France, but Alex Perez, he's like a win away from a title shot, if not like there. Like if Benavides or Figure Outer, I can't make it to that fight, I think Perez is the guy to slide right in there. So love to see the Carre France fights in the future. Did we also have some Ryan Hall chatter tonight?

Were people saying Ryan Hall? Herbert Burns. Herbert Burns? Oh, so many. Gosh, Ryan Hall versus anyone. It's just, look at the look into your face. Love it. I'm blushing.

You're like dreaming right now. I think I'm bluff. I like the Bryce Mitchell matchup, though, honestly. If we're choosing between the two. You can't go wrong. You can't go wrong. There you go. What an event.

UFC 250 is in the books, ladies and gentlemen. Alex, always a pleasure having you join me virtually alongside for this post-fight show. It is officially, as we record right now, 3.36 a.m. Eastern Standard time. And from what I told from the truck, we are not done with our work yet tonight, Alex, Kelly. So thank you for the time. Any parting words? Any final thoughts on UFC 250 as a whole? Yes.

just thank you, of course, to all the stream monsters who are watching now. Again, you guys are crazy to stay up to this late and listen to us. I'll say this was a really good night for Manda Nunez. I know, again, it didn't surprise anyone how dominant she was. But her performance and her comments after and the kind of energy she brings, these are things that I really wish we would focus on more when promoting MMA stars. And I get it, I get it. Being nice and being all rainbows has never been like a proven formula for creating a, you know, a mainstream combat sports star.

But I feel like it would work for her. And I always wish the UFC had pushed that more. Has the ship sailed on her ever becoming this huge draw? It's very, like we've been saying, it's really very dependent on her finding a rival, probably, finding an opponent that can really build up a fight and be a, you know, a nemesis for her. But otherwise, I do feel like she could be bigger than people give her credit for. and then the UFC understands that she can be. So great night for her, Nunez. And she should take all the time off she wants,

and congratulations for her on becoming a mother. Completely agree. And the one thing I will say is, first of all, shout out to Jose Young's. Once again, boots on the ground, on location in Las Vegas. And number two, if you guys haven't seen it yet,

I highly suggest that when you turn the stream off or turn this off, however you're watching or listening, go back and watch Dana White's post-fight press conference tonight. He was fired up. Fired up. I've never seen Dana like that. He wasn't having it.

He's been in some crazy post-fight media scrums. This is something else. He was all over the place, especially with the Connoons dropped like minutes before he got up there. Some of the media was like kind of, there was some softball questions there like compliments and that he was still like on the, he was too late. He was already on the defensive. So, yeah, there is, I agree, worth watching. Still dropping F bombs and they're like, Dana, great job being out on the front lines. And he's like, F and thank you, bro.

But it's bald head. That's what happens to us. But Alex Kaley, I am Mike Kack. Thank you guys for watching and listening. UFC 250 is in the books, and we are out of here. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.