MMA Fighting - UFC 276 Media Day Reaction | Israel Adesanya Takes Shot At Jon Jones, Sean O'Malley Shines

Episode Date: June 29, 2022

Israel Adesanya and Jared Cannonier are fired up for their main event clash for the UFC middleweight title this Saturday at UFC 276 — and they brought the energy on Wednesday. MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and José Youngs check in from inside the UFC APEX following the UFC 276 media day to react to Adesanya and Cannonier's pre-fight media scrums in anticipation of the International Fight Week capper. In addition, they discuss the co-main event fighters Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway, Sean O'Malley shining throughout, Sean Strickland's memorable sit down, and much more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jose 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

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IKEA, bring home to life. Hello there, everybody. Mike Hack here for nmating.com here inside the UFC Apex where we just wrapped up the U.S.M. UFC 276 Media Day, and it was all sorts of fun with Israel Adasanya, Jared Canineer, Alexander Volcanofsky, Max Holloway. There is one scrum that sort of stood out above the rest, which if you watch them, I think you know where I'm going with this, but it was a fun media day. I thought everybody did a great job coming in here, and it's always tough because we have the media day on the Wednesday, and then there'll be a press conference tomorrow with a lot

of the fighters that are already here today. And then it's very difficult to keep things kind of separate, but everyone was there. It was a good time. We had Max Holloway and Israel Adasania get their USADA jackets for 50 consecutive clear tests, which is always very cool. And then that led to a big moment from Israel out of Sanya, basically calling out John Jones and taking a shot at him and then offering anybody in the room $3 million. if anyone can prove he was on some sort of performance-enhancing drug,

which brilliant move. He just realized you. I thought he did a great job. I think he's got this confidence to him, and you saw it during his sit-down where you haven't really said, I mean, you always see the confidence, but the type of swagger that he has this week, the type of attitude that he has this week.

And he doesn't view Jared Cannonier as, is like a horrible human being or somebody that he has hatred towards or anything like that. It's just another opponent. But now he's being specific about things. He's saying this fight, this performance is going to remind you of the Anderson Silva versus Forrest Griffin fight. And that to me is very telling. And that confidence, that swagger has continued over into Media Day, into Wednesday. He's just got something.

He's just got something going this week. You can see it in his eyes. You can see it in his attitude. It's very clear what Israel Adasanya is going to try to do on Saturday. And on the flip side, Jared Canaaner is not buying into any of the hype whatsoever. He is not going to discuss anything that's been said about him from fans, how they view him. What Adasanya said, mostly in regards to the Anderson Silla for Scriffin-comparison. He is just focused on one thing, and that is himself.

He did not really. love my line of questioning, but I thought all of those questions were fair to ask, and especially the follow-ups on being the underdog and having that mentality and people overlooking you, maybe more so than any other challenger that Adasanya has faced throughout his career. And I thought those are very fair questions to ask, but he's not engaging in that, and that's fine. It's his title shot. Who knows if he'll ever get another one, depending on the result on Saturday? But if that's what he needs, if that's the type of mentality, he needs to go in there and have his best performance and become the first man

to stop and defeat Israel Adasania, 185 pounds, and power to him. He can yell at me, try to throw a microphone on me all he wants. So good on him. I thought he did a great job of selling the fight and taking things very, very seriously. And the co-made event, which I'm so excited about, high-level martial arts at its best. We got Alexander Volcanowski defending his UFC featherweight title against Max Holloway. Third meeting between these two competitors.

and if this is not the last meeting, I'm not going to be heartbroken about it at all. If we see these two guys fight 17 times, I'm going to watch every single one of them, and I've been getting more excited and more excited for each of these fights. I'm more excited for this one than I was for the second one. Definitely more excited for the second one that was the first. So my excitement levels for this fight in particular are really, really high.

I cannot wait to see it go down, but I thought Max Holloway came in did a great job. He's fired up. He's got that look in his eye, And when Max Holloway, of all people, is coming out saying, I don't think this fight gets out of the third round, that's not something you hear from Max Blessed Holloway all that often. It's usually it is what it is.

We're going to go in there and two guys are going to fight, and whatever happens happens, I think I'm going to win. But now he's coming out and trying to be specific about things. He's got that look in his eye. He's ready to go. And it's all about his legacy. This is a legacy fight for him. And for Alexander Volcanowski, he feels like it's a legacy fight as well.

He feels Max has earned his stripes. to get back to this fight, to earn this third championship opportunity, this third fight with Alexander Volcanovsky. This fight rules. Both guys did a tremendous job in telling us that this fight rules. Both of them have just immense respect for one another. And they showed that at this media day today. They did a great job getting us even more ready for it.

The technique, talk, everything. I can't wait to see this fight on Saturday. I cannot wait to see it. And a Max Holloway can go out there and finish Alexander Volcanovsky, like he says he's going to do inside of three rounds. That is just gigantic. It'll definitely set up a fourth fight. And if Volcanovsky wins,

will this be the last meeting? Will that be the last meeting? Or could Max earn his way back again? Because if that happens, I'm not going to be upset about it. I will watch these guys fight a million times. Can't wait for that one. Both guys, tremendous job. Very respectful.

Max Holloway, like I said earlier. gets the 50 Tess Usada jacket. I was very proud of that. And he's ready to go. Of course, the media scrum that really stood out today, there are two. I thought Sean Amalley did a tremendous job, being super honest and just open.

I love the line about, you know, if I went out there and submitted Habib Naramagamatov, people are going to have an issue with that. They're going to have things to say about it. And I just think Sean approaches this game just so uniquely well. does such a great job of knowing where he sits and how the business works. Just fantastic stuff from Sean O'Malley. He's got that student of the game mentality and everything like that.

So like his insight on everything. And look who's here. My man Jose Young's is here. What is this? This is me just doing this reaction to the Meady Day thing. And now you're here and making us easy. I don't know. Come on it.

Come on over, Jose Youngs. The man who was up front doing all the videos. just back here asking questions and getting yelled at by Sean Stricklandt. Yeah, if you didn't watch any of the videos or you haven't seen them, they're on at MMA fighting across all social channels and YouTube platforms. And you can catch up on all of our lovely work here at the lovely scenic UFC Apex where it is probably, what do you think of this? Like 18 degrees in here? It's 18 degrees Fahrenheit. Yeah, I'm dying.

I'm freezing. There you are. Just want to get some quick thoughts. What scrum stood out to you today the most? Was it, I mean, Strickland was all over the place. Was that a squam or was him, he just doing crowd work? He was like Joey Gladson up there. I was just waiting for him to do the scissor thing and telling me to cut it out.

But he was calling out everybody. Adisania was very intense. Even Max Holloway was fired up today, I thought. You know, it's very rare that Max Holloway is out here being specific about things, saying that this fight's not getting out of the third round. You could just see it in his eyes. Looked a little sucked out because of the weight cut. But fired up.

The man is ready to go. What stood out to you the most today? outside of Sean Strickland being Sean Strickland Alexander Volcanowski's bum-ass Yankees hat that he was wearing Ah, boo! Izzy was good, but that was expected to be. So I would say, I thought Sean O'Malley was really good today. The fact that he was wearing two watches,

and I was like, why are you wearing two watches? He goes, got two wrists. I was like, you know what? You make a fair point, Sean. I thought he was really good because he reminds me of a young Izzy where he kind of knows the top 15 of the Bandaway Division. He talks about Adrian Yannis. He talked about Dillishar.

He talked about Algini. He talked Jose Aldo, Domina Cruz, Cito Vera. He talked a lot. He said he didn't say Peter Young, but he's like, there's a Russian out there that says he can't get a fight. So I thought Sean O'Malley, outside of Izzy and Max, not even just, even outside of just Izzy, I thought he had a phenomenal interview. I thought Jim Miller was really good. Right. Maybe because he's not cutting to 155.

I thought he was much more personable. Cowboy was Cowboy. This is like the third week in a row, three or four weeks we've had. him or something like that. So he was fine. Shawlomelle, I think, was the best outside of, like, the top title fights, I would say. Yeah, everything, the suit with the no shirt, the two watches, the hair is on fire. Sean's crushing it. Apparently, he left this building

and this white sports car. It's just out of, out of this world. So, yeah, I thought his scrum was fantastic. Seeing Donald Seroni in this stage of his life, and just seeing how positive he's, like, the constant. and smile, just very reflective and just pressure-free. Yeah. Like, it's one thing to see clips on social media, and it's another thing to watch the video on YouTube, but to actually see it in person, it's pretty crazy, right?

Seeing where Soroni is after the Conner fight, and now where he is now, just loving life. And his wife was standing off to the side, like watching, like, pretty intently. So, yeah, it was, this is the cowboy we've had. He was in Phoenix. He was in Austin. He was a little more emotional, probably, like he said, because he was sucked out and dehydrated. a million times. So, yeah, Dad Seroni is alive and in full force, and fingers crossed.

We can actually see him a fight on Saturday. Drickus Duplice is a very late. Yeah, he talks a lot. I wrote on our Slack channel to someone because I was at his, I've been in all of Dracus' UFC fights so far. And I don't think he's spoken less than 20 minutes at any scrum. That dude knows how to play the camera well. So if there is UFC Africa, they're probably going to have to go to South Africa. I think he's real last time you said that Camaro said it. You'd have to assume. Drewis de Plessis has to be on it because he's really talented

and from South Africa and you'd have to imagine if he keeps like two in the next two years if he keeps winning and Izzy's the champ and they match them up in UFC Africa that prints money but he's got to win he's got a tough fight with Brad Tavares ahead of him yeah Strickland Scrum was

was unbelievable I'm sure you can find it some places his clips on enemy fighting social media he yelled at me not really yelled at me but he was like, why are you so far back? Yeah, I didn't want to ask him a question because I have, I've learned he doesn't like anime and he doesn't like tattoos. I happen to have both of the same, of them

on my body, and he doesn't like Pearl necklace, apparently. And I have one on right now, so didn't want to dig that kind of one. Yes. Last thing, and then we'll wrap things up because we have a very long week ahead of us. What did you think of Jerry Cannon and Erashrum today? What did you think of his attitude of his approach to the fight? Kept getting interrupted,

but other than that, other than that, it was Jared being Jared. He doesn't like, you can't, people here that maybe have never interviewed Jared. They, you can't ask Jared, oh, this guy said that. This guy is doing this. This guy brought in that guy. He's like, I don't care. Like, I'm not worried about it.

Like, if you ask him about anyone else besides Jared can there, his answer is, don't care. That's white noise. That's nothing to me. So you got to be really specific about it. He loves talking about his team. Let's talk about crystals. Let's talk about energy. He loves talking about all this kind of stuff.

But I think he had, outside of Alex Phaed is saying that Izzy would leave in a casket. I think Jerry Canaanier had the line of the night, a line of the day where he said, this isn't me coming up to be here. This is me coming down from my throne to partake Israel, partake with Israel-A-Sahian. I was like, damn, money. That is a money line right there. And that's not scripted. I love Israel-A-Sanion.

I love a lot of his lines, but a lot of it, he picks his line of the week, and he just sticks with that. Like, I'm here to show up and show out, like this and that, like last style vendor, like I'm gonna I'm gonna put on a show I'm a style on them this and that they're all you've heard them all before Jared just speaks off top of head and I thought that was line of the night or line of the day I should say well this is this is just the beginning of it because Thursday we have the press conference we have the Hall of Fame red carpet Habib Nirmagamagamade up Daniel Kormier getting inducted Kups on subversid Du Ho Choi that fight's getting inducted Giga Chikaze Max Holloway getting the Forest Griffin

Awards as well Max will not be at the Hall of Fame ceremony but geeky chikaze will be there and then Friday it is just here we go get your seatbelts buckled because we got weigh-ins ceremonial weigh-ins we got press conference for ufc 278 i'll be at the ufcx doing interviews like all day long so come say hello but this is just the beginning of the return if you will in of international fight week it all culminates this saturday night ufc 276 israel had asani versus jerry kannoni are in the main event hosea thank you very much we are done It's our reaction to UFC 276 Media Day. Stick with us throughout the week

to get you ready for UFC 276. For Jose, I am Mike Heck. Good night, everybody. The Vox Media Podcast Network. Hi, I'm Sophia Loper Caro, host of the Before the Chorus podcast. We dive into the life experiences behind the music we love. Artists of all genres are welcome. And I've been joined by some pretty amazing folks, like glass animals.

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