MMA Fighting - UFC Houston Post-Fight Show | Reaction To Sean Strickland Finishing Anthony Hernandez; Title Shot Next?

Episode Date: February 22, 2026

Sean Strickland delivered a big-time performance after a year on the sidelines, dominating and stopping the surging Anthony Hernandez in the main event of UFC Houston. Strickland called out middleweight champ Khamzat Chimaev after the fight, but did he do enough to leapfrog Nasourdine Imavov? Following the UFC Fight Night event in Houston, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Alexander K. Lee react to the card as a whole, Strickland's performance in the win, Hernandez's showing in the loss and if he's out of the title hint for good, and if Strickland locked up a title shot. Additionally, they discuss Uros Medic's incredible finish in the co-main event, Melquizael Costa stopping Dan Ige for his fifth win in less than a year, the ending of Jacobe Smith's brutal knockout of Josiah Harrell, referee blunders, 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

Oh, hey. Sorry, love to chat, but I'm busy shopping all the rollback somewhere at Walmart. Grab a what? Cancel that. I got to grab these big savings on the Walmart app, online and in store like right now. See who? Nope, on a mail. The only thing I want to see are the prices just lowered on tech home and all my must-haps. Wait, you want to shop Walmart with me.

All righty, I think I can fit you in. Podcast Network. Those are the victory horns. Yes, the victory horns are back, ladies and gentlemen. I found them, and they're going to be here with us every single time moving forward. And those victory horns sound for Sean Strickland, who beat the holy hell out of Anthony Fluffy Hernandez, especially from round two on and knee to the body in round three leads to the finish.

What are performance from Sean Strickland? and despite Anthony Hernandez being in a very tough spot now in the middleweight division, I do not think he is the biggest loser tonight at 185 pounds. More on that coming up in a few moments. I am Mike Hacken joining me to react to UFC Houston, which, boy, we were heading down the road to one of the worst UFC cards of all time through most of those prelims. And then eventually we got a little bit of a spark with Cheedy and Carlos Liao. and then that led into the main card

and then business picked up, as the great Jim Ross likes to say. And joining me to react to all this is my best friend, the one and only Alexander Cayley, AKA, how are we doing? What's up, my best friend? You're a best friend.

I'm Sean Strickland's best friend. I'm really the perfect guy to have on, I think, for the result of the show. So, yeah, we made it, man. We made it through 14 fights. We made it through a pretty well-paced card, to be honest, Paramount Plus so far. I mean, again, other than, you know, the first couple events where they're working things out.

They keep things moving, man. They keep these moving. It might mean some of the undercard fighters get the short shrift when it comes to post-fight promos. But I'm glad that they had the pace high on this card. Because if this was like paste in a more like traditional way, it would have been a real, be a long night. But main card, pretty strong, man. Pretty solid. Pretty solid.

It was pretty solid. Yeah. Let's just get right into it, AK, because I was very confident that Anthony here, was going to go in there win this fight. If he just went in there and did the Anthony Hernandez slash Marab thing, he would win. And he chose not to do any of that tonight. And he gave Sean Strickland exactly the fight he wanted. And we were for two rounds plus, we're watching classic Sean Strickland.

He's jabbing. He's teeping. He's jabbing some more. He would land like a sneaky uppercut here and there. But it was vintage Sean Strickland, just jabbing. way and then he turned it on in round three he was starting to mix it up then he got real aggressive he was fighting openings and even said in the post fight and i was noticing this myself i'm like man fluffy is just like sloppy out there like he just isn't looking sharp he's got no confidence in

his grappling right now because sean was able to thwart every attempt that he had and sean just started picking apart in the second he had hernandez uncomfortable he went in there and pounced and just put it on him you have to tip your cap to sean strickland Unlike most people out there, I'm happy to admit that I'm wrong. I had a bad read on that fight, apparently, and Sean Strickland whoop that ass. I mean, what else can you say? I was wrong, and Sean Strickland did the damn thing. But, AK, your initial reaction, your thoughts about 20 minutes after this fight ended,

Sean Strickland goes out there and just mollywaps, Anthony Fluffy Hernandez, and probably knocks Fluffy out of the title hunt forever, honestly. I don't think Fluffing can get back to this position again. Yeah, I don't know how to go that far yet, but I understand where you're coming from for sure. This really sets him back. This really sets him back. It's a shame because he had this golden opportunity

with really the Reiner-de-Ritter fight in Vancouver. That was a fight where I don't remember the odds. I'm pretty sure Fluffy was favored. I would have been favored by the time Fight Night came around. And I would have, I think he could have won that comfortably, especially when we're seeing how Brendan Allen beat in, right? Like maybe RDR was compromised, you know, one fight too many in 2025. And if that was the case, I mean, Anthony Hernandez would have just trucked him.

So, yeah, I don't want to say the wind is completely closed. But this really was his moment. You know, this was a nice main event opportunity. A former champion, we all said this is the first time Fluffier Hernandez gets to fight a former UFC champion. And if you beat a guy like that, I mean, you are undisputed. You know, nothing's guaranteed, but no one could argue if you got the title fight. There's not one person could say, oh, why did Fluffy jump over, you know, Imavov? I mean, some people would say it, but I don't.

don't think people could complain too much. But it doesn't matter because that didn't happen. Sean Strickland won. I picked Sean Strickland to win. So just for anyone out there who is like, who's like, oh, wow, these guys are both way off. And it's like, no, man. It's, I had Strickland.

You guys can find my prediction at MAPFlying.com. I can't remember if I thought Strickland could have finished him. I certainly knew it was possible. I just don't know if I locked that into my final prediction. But you got to give him credit. I'll say right now, you guys know, man. I don't like Sean Strickland. I loat him.

I think he's a, I just think he's an awful human beings. but that has nothing to do with this in cage performance, right? If we're just judging the fight by itself, I'm actually more inclined to give Strickland credit for the performance than I am to just say Fluffy fought badly. I mean, certainly, Anthony Hernandez don't look, do not look great. If you're going to be down on Anthony Hernandez for this, I really understand.

Like, it's frustrating to see a guy just kind of just get hit over and over again and not commit to either be able to execute from distance, which would have been a bad idea. Like, that would be the worst thing. Or take one to get win. Take one to get one. go in and pose your will as you do and just try and you know wear the other guy down he it was hard for him to commit and again i don't blame him we can all sit here and say well

he should have just gotten punched in the face and gone in for takedowns and go in combos and make a sloppy getting punched in face probably sucks even your professional fighter it sucks so like i said i lean more towards saying this this was a very strong performance by strickland i think um a good matchup for him on paper like i didn't understand him being uh such a huge underdog I thought the odds were a little wide. And because the take-down defense is there, he's rarely gets dominated by people just outgrapling him. And then you saw it turn into a mostly striking battle,

and that's what Strickland does really well in. So finish, a little surprising, but it built up to that moment. And Hernandez got hit a lot, man. That's going to happen. I don't know what you think about someone's finishing power. But if you get hit enough by a UFC-level fighter, referee's going to have to step in at some point.

Yeah, I mean, I see people out there saying, oh people forget that Mike must have forgot Sean Strickland had great takedown defense. Never did I once say like he was going to go in there and just like take Sean down and have control on him. But I thought Fluffy would just put him up against the fence and take him down. Sean would get right back up. Take him down. Sean would get right back up. It's just going to be one of those things where there's a lot of like Matt returns, very Marabre style because Fluffy has done that to many people.

And Fluffy could have done that to Sean Strickland. but he just didn't do it tonight. Like he didn't even try. And again, I think it's hard. I think it's a little easy to spread than done. Yeah. But here's the thing. I got midway through the first round,

I was getting serious Yancey Maderos vibes from Anthony Hernandez. I'm like, golly, man. Like you're out there. Anytime Sean Punch, he was like, yeah, man, good shot.

He was like smiling and, you know, dapping him every single time. Like, what the freak is going on here? I'm like, you just said it. You said into live microphones.

You just. He just said it that you were going to torture this man. Multiple times. Multiple interviews, multiple interviews. Bluffy said, I'm going to torture this guy. F word, F word, F word, F word. F word. I'm going to torture this guy.

Then, oh, hugs and handshakes and dab me up and smiles. I'm like, oh, Fluffy. Oh, my God, man. That's not the right energy, my man. It's not the way. Yeah, and he just didn't, and he was moving forward. And he was getting Sean moving backwards a bunch in that first round. And I'm like, okay, now push him up against the fence and maybe you could have something.

And he would do it for like a second and then he would pull away. And it just, wouldn't it just didn't happen. And then so basically what he did was he gave Sean exactly the fight he wanted. And then Sean just beat his ass. Like this is the way Sean was going to win this fight. And I remember one of my colleagues is like, dude, Sean has a really good chance of winning. We're on our Slack channel.

I'm like, yeah, if Fluffy just has a kickboxing match with Sean Strickland, he's in trouble. But Fluffy ain't that crazy. He's not going to sit there and just stand in the middle of a kickboxing match with Sean Strickland. And that's exactly what he did. And Sean beat his ass and went out there and finished. So great performance for Sean Strickland. Not a great performance for Fluffy Hernandez. The stakes were very high for him.

He needed this one badly. I said it on the preview show. No one needed to win more than Anthony Hernandez on this card. Because even if Sean lost this fight, Sean is always one win away from getting into a title shot. And now, AK, what this leads to is poor Nasorini. Imov. Poor Nasreded

Imovov. He is he is effed six ways from Sunday. This man ain't fighting for the belt.

He better pray. He better pray that the rumor, the reports that Hamzad is moving up to 205 and challenging for a belt are true

because otherwise he is going to watch Sean Strickland fight Hamzat Shemaiif for the middleweight championship. That is what's going to happen, AKA, are we crazy?

Man, and now you've got me thinking if, uh, if, if the rumors are true and Hamza does go up. So we're getting in that world, we get Sean Strickland versus Emovov two for vacant middleweight title. Is that like what the, where the year's he would go if Hamza's out of the picture? You have to, right? Oh, gosh. You have to do.

Sean, I mean, fun fight to sell the rematch. Everybody wants it. Hey, listen, Sean finishing the first time. Oh, I mean, this is not a bad fight, but I'm just, there's a, there's a, there's at least a story there. But Sean Strickland's next fight is going to be for the middleweight title. Whether it's against Hamzaa Chamaif,

I got, I hope Hamza doesn't move up. Because I'm, I am fascinated by this fight. As I've been saying since Sean Strickland won the middleweight title against Israel Adisana. Even though I thought Sean Strickland, I picked Sean Strickland to lose tonight, I said the winner of this fight,

like, that's the most fascinating fight for Hamza in this division right now. It just is. Strickland is a very interesting stylistic matchup for Homsup because of the takedown defense. And if he goes out there, if he could survive 10 minutes while putting pressure on Hamsan Shabayev, he could win. Like he could do it. So, yes, people just love to say, did you guys not hear what I said earlier?

I was wrong. I put the hand of Akkadability up. I read it wrong. You guys don't need to rehash it. Okay? Mike, then I could be happy. Until you've resigned from M.A. fighting for your mistake until you're well guess what guess what that ain't

happened or picking a fight wrong how that it happened fight wrong I know I know also had as like I know I see I see Carter in here who is who's talking shit on Twitter would never say it to anybody's face but of course here he is out there just just just throw it at me but again unlike some people I admit when I'm wrong and I admit I had a bad take there good for Sean Strickland now he's gonna fight for the belt take hey this man is going to fight for a title listen I see a lot people in the comments saying Hamza runs through him and and sure again the odds will be even bigger if they get matched up again I can again I think Fluffy was like a two to one three to one

favorite in this comes out would be like a four to one favorite that fight gets made but I think it's crazy to say that Sean Strickland does not provide some sort of challenge for Hamza like like I as I keep saying and I've said this every time I talked about this match up with Fluffy what what is the fight where uh Sean Strickland just got out grappled and smothered and like killed like that like this is a bit of fights where he's gotten taken down There's been fights where people have used grappling effectively against him for sure. What is the fight where he just totally got outclassed in the wrestling? Now, again, Hamza,'s a different beast.

And I guarantee you if that fight gets made and I write my prediction, that's probably how I'll land on Hamza. I'll say, well, I don't really have any proof of it. I don't really have any proof of it. But I feel like Hamza, you know, he's just so much superior wrestling to Fluffer Hernandez. Anyone else is Sean Strickland and his fight. But again, that is strictly theoretical because this guy does not, this guy Strickland is talking about, does not get just completely.

overwhelmed by the grappling. It's just not a thing that happens. And it's very difficult to close the distance against him. So yes, I understand people picking Hamzaa and I would too. But after tonight and again, after the Israel-a-Dassania upset guys, very different fight. The Hamzaa upset would not compare to the Izzy upset. That is still one of the, I think, five greatest UFC upsets of all time. I don't think people will remember. It's easy to talk about it now based on where everyone's careers have gone. I don't think people remember going to that fight. Nobody was giving Sean Strickland a chance. Not a safe. single soul. If you are that person, good for you. I've not heard of you. Not a single soul.

I think the Hamzat fight would be a huge upset nowhere near Izzy. So if we're talking, remember we're in a universe where Izzy that loss exists. I just don't see how anyone can say like, oh, Hansa wins for sure. No, I don't think that's the case. I don't know, man. That was that that was a shot in Strickland who, but I don't know, man, he was focused. He looked focused. I did. I loved how he, uh, I love how he took advice from Eric Nixick and like did exactly what he. What do you wanted him to do. Eric's advice for round three was like, hey, man, things are going to change here. Like, look for this, look for this.

Like, he's going to start getting a little wild and wacky. And John was like, bet. And he just went out there and was ready for all of it. This is a great performance, man. Like, this is not the guy who fought Drink's Duplice, a UFC 312, and looked horrific. This is a spectacular performance from Sean Strickland. It just, it was a great performance. And he's going to fight for the belt.

And I hope he fights on Sanchmayef because I'm eerily fascinated by that fight. So great win. He got a bonus to A.K. So shout out to Sean Strickland. Gets the bonus. There were no fight of the nights, by the way. No fight of the night bonus.

All performance bonuses. I don't think anybody's surprised. Well, maybe you, maybe you, AK. Maybe you. First off, Jocelyn Edwards did not get a bonus. Boos. Oh, yo, how bad, okay, for my fantasy team, I wish he had. But let me tell you something.

Mike, I had one bet tonight. I bet women's bandaway fight to go the distance. If you look at the prelims, only one fight didn't go the distance. Mike, you know which one that was. Jocelyn Edwards. Don't bet on M.M.A. guys. And definitely don't listen to me when it comes to betting on M.A. I would never tell anyone to follow that bet.

I thought that was a sure thing. And I looked like a fool. So, hey, good for Jocelyn Edwards. A shame she didn't get the, didn't get the bonus. But I think before the fight, they were talking about the winner of this being like a

dark course contender or something. And Johnson Edwards might be. I can't believe it. Hey, listen, Joshua got an extra $25,000. Yeah, yeah. Someone's asking, did she get a,

oh, yes, she got to finish. Well, yeah, she got a finish. We're talking about the $100,000. Yeah, she did not get out of $100. I mean, sure, it's good to win $25K, but Jacoby Smith, Malki Costa, Euros Medich,

Sean Strickland. Hard to deny. All got $100,000. They all made four times the amount, the amount of bonus money as Jocelyn Edwards did by getting revenge in the rematch with Nora Cornole. But yeah, main card rocked, AK. Good win for Sean Strickland. Euros Man, that was brutal.

That was just a brutal ass knockout. That fight, it was just you blinked for one second and the fight was over. Euris match gets the first round finish. Spectacular performance from him. He said, Houston, we have a problem. I can knock out all these guys. I'm going to be a problem for this welterweight division. Did this performance open your eyes in regards to where this man can go at 170 pounds?

Yeah, I've been a believer that Melki is a serious contender. And this was the perfect match-out. You know, with respect to Danny Gay, he is the featherweight gatekeeper. He is the, you know, listen, I get him mixed up with Rob Font a lot for some reason. And pretty much because they serve the same function in their divisions. They're probably not going to fight for the title anytime soon. They could beat, absolutely beat, you know, top. top 15 guys they can beat guys trying to break into the top 15 but that's kind of the range

they're always going to be and you're just never going to see a danie gay or rob font crack the top five um Danny gay has been in a rough stretch i think three out of four losses before this one he really needed this um and he lost a good guys Diego lopez just fought for the towel twice loren murphy should be fighting for the title petruchio football i don't know you know mileage may vary i still think he's a pretty good featherweight and now you know one of the hottest guys in the division of kizel costa who uh technically has won seven straight fights at a hundred hundred forty five pounds. There was a fight with Steve Garcia a couple of years ago,

which you know, you could count as a featherweight out if you want, but technically they did fight at 155. So yes, if you don't want to count that, it's six straight wins for Melke. The guy looks so good in there. He's got a great gimmick.

Like, I mean, not actually a gimmick, but a distinctive style. People know him for these fearsome kicks now. And that was all, you know, one of the big talking points going to this one.

Sure enough, clips Danigie a few times and then puts him away with the spinning job. Was a stoppage a little early? I don't know. I think Danny, he was hurt pretty bad. I think because it was close to the end of the round.

We're all going to say, well, you should have gotten a few more seconds. And, you know, maybe that ground and pound after wasn't like exactly coffin nails. But I don't mind this option fine with it. I think it was just going to be more brain damage for Danny Gate going forward. So, yeah, Melki can go really far, man. This guy absolutely could be fighting for the title within the next 18 months. Would not surprise me. Okay.

I mean, I was talking about yours, Meditch. Oh, geez. Sorry, sorry, sorry, I've seen the comments now. Sorry, guys. I jumped ahead. That's okay. It's okay. That was great forwards.

Yeah. Can I throw it on to the next one, suggestion right now. Yes. By the way, because I know people were asking for the mic check, um, A plus plus for Melchicosta. I literally just like tweeted out and put in our Slack channel.

I'm like, I want to see Melchia Costa fight Diego Lopez. I like, I understand that the UFC probably wants to do the I-Year fight. They want to do that. I get it. Like there's heat there. There's more heat on that fight than any other fight in the featherweight division by

10,000 miles. But it doesn't seem like Yaya is like all that interesting. in the fight. So, dude, Melky versus Melky versus Diego Lopez. Frigan rocks, man. That was great. That's a fantastic call. He called for it. Diego's in the crowd. And Diego's not going to say no to any fight. So there you go. Yeah, that's

your friends forever, your friends forever with Melki Casano. It's a great call. It's spectacular. We'll talk about it more. I know, sorry, but about Euros Medich. Man, I still don't know. I still don't know if I want to say this is a guy who's going to be like top of dean because he said it himself in his post-fight speech i go out there i'm not he kind of said i'm not going to win every time like i know i know i've had some losses on my record because i go out there to kill or be killed a lot of fighters say that euros meditch is on that list of guys who they mean it like he literally has never gone to the scorecards um that

is a very tough style to fight to go in there and know like yeah i either either i'm you know another highlight or I might not remember this fight tomorrow morning. That's how much I'm waiting to go in there and throw. Even this knockout of Neil, like if you, there's great technique in there for sure. But part of it is just him saying, I'm going to go in there and wing it. I'm going to throw this left hand. And if it connects, great. If it doesn't, I'm loading up again and I'm throwing some more bombs.

And he just caught a Jeff Neal Square and put him down. So I don't think we ever see Euros fight for a title, if I'm being honest. Because I bomb Leon Edwards, I would not want to, fight this man right now. It is just not a good idea for him. If he gets that fight and wins, maybe it's another story. But I don't think he gets a Leon Edwards fight. I think the UFC kind of likes what they have with him, and I think

they'll be reluctant to push him against a top seven, top eight guy. But I'll have a number next to his name on this week. So I am curious what they're going to do. Maybe Wonderboy? I never know. I never know. What about Bonfee? I kind of think that makes sense. I have the right. Bonfee keeps calling for Colby. He'll never get that fight.

So yeah, do that. That's fine. I have them right next to each other in the rankings. So yeah, that might be the way to go. Yeah. I mean, great win for him as well. Jacobi Smith, nasty stuff. We were hoping, a lot of people are hoping for the, for the miracle moment for Josiah

her, Harold, and that just did not happen. Just did not happen. And yeah, man, tough, tough night for Josiah, Jacobi Smith. He's just so big. Good. He's just so big for this division. and what's his name? Carrie Hatley

for a frigging terrible job and you know I know Jacobi's taking a little bit of crap on social media as well for hitting afterwards but you know what I blame Carrie Hatley for that too because it's your job to get him off

like tackle his ass if you have to like it is your it is your role to do that yeah you can't just go in there one he was late to get in there in the first place and then when you get to there you honestly yes the first Fighters should be able to hold back for sure.

But you realize as a referee, you can't just go in there, kind of kneel down gently in front of them, kind of put your hands out like, excuse me, sir, please stop. Like, no, you, when you see a guy he's like midfire, he's like firing away, you really need to just get in there. Like you said, like tackle or just at least really firmly grab the guy. I know it's a scary thing to say. And again, easier said than done.

I'm not a referee. But both him and Jacoby Smith, yeah, they deserve some blame for those extra shots. Yeah, I mean, it's, when you hit a guy like once or twice, easy to stop when you hit a guy 10 times like it's different it's it's a little bit more difficult to stop when when you're in that finishing mode right there and you need somebody just like forcefully get you off of him or at least like be authoritative and say okay it's over and that didn't happen from from carry hatley there and obviously the UFC saw it the same way because they gave him $100,000 for that performance so good win let's run down the rest of the card and then uh we'll go to the peeps

for a little bit. Let me refresh real quick. We mentioned Sean Strickland's great win, Uris Menich's great win, Malky Koss is a great win. Is heavyweight back AK? Sergei Spivak? Do we...

Was it ever gone? Is the question. I had said in my prediction. I expected this to be like a somewhat entertaining fight because I thought there'd be a finish. But it wasn't good. It was a decent heavyweight to grab. I said there's a squishy middle guys.

There's a squishy middle of the heavy weights that still deliver some excitement. I think Waldo Cortez-A-Costa's in there. Walter Walker's in there. I don't know where you guys rank like Sergei Pavlovich, but he's like kind of in there. He's maybe a do it too high. He's by like top five, top. There's a squishy middle.

It's really at the top where it's kind of murky right now. And it's really obviously like the bottom third of the division, which is just like if you match any of those people up, you are just getting a truly atrocious contest. So yeah, not bad at all. Good stuff. Good stuff with the big boys. Yeah.

By the way, speaking of calls, I thought Jacoby Smith's call out of Kevin Holland was spectacular. Nice. Spectacular. It's unfortunate that they announced like eight seconds later that Kevin Holland's fighting Randy Brown in Miami. So that kind of stinks. So it was no do-do. He gets the winner. Sure.

He should be, yeah, sit cage side and be there and face up with the winner. But Sergei Spivak beats Auntie Delajja who's not lost too straight. Tough, tough scenes for one anti-Delajer, the former PFL star. We mentioned Jacoby Smith. Michelle Pereira wins a splitty over Zachrise. Didn't score it that way in my scorecard, okay? But look at Michelle Pereira getting back to it. Zachary's decided, you know what I'm going to do?

I'm just not going to do anything until like random points in the fight. And then when I actually do stuff, it works. And then shout out to Michelle Pereira for, I guess, cheating in like the reverse way. Embellishing? He was flopping. He was LeBron Jamesing it out there. And it works. It kind of did.

He definitely did. None of those low blows hit. The eye poke was close. It was closer than the ding ding kicks. But yeah, Michelle Pereira wins. Zach Reese just kind of handed it to him, I guess. Carlos Lialch, Chidi and Jokwani. Maybe the MVP's of the card because that fight was fun as hell,

especially the third round. I didn't even know there were people in the building until the final minute of that fight. The crowd got into it. They started erupting because they had to sit through Adiris at O'Day Osborne. They'd just sit through Coria and Garul. They just, Jocelyn Edwards, that was nasty, nasty slam. Pune and Brahimaz's was a good fight. Can I be honest? Like the prelim fights in a void, like weren't terrible. They were just forgettable. And I think we used a lot of U.C. fights because I enjoyed watching like Carly Judee's fight.

I enjoyed so what I saw from... The Phil Roe fight was good too. Yeah, Jean-Paul is, but he gave, he gave, he gave, a JPL a really tough fight. The Jordan Levin-Dell Valley fight, yeah, I get it. It wasn't that exciting. It was like, you know, just a lot of control, a lot of control. I totally understand. You want to throw that one out? Sure. But otherwise, I did not think, I did not think the fights were bad, but they were forgettable.

Like, I'm not going to, like, BS, what's the word I'm looking for? I'm not going to gaslight you guys and tell you like, oh, you didn't appreciate these prelims. These were a competitive fight. No, we won't be remembering these fights like in a couple days for now. Maybe in the big picture when we're looking at some of these people's careers, We'll talk about them. But yeah, they all just kind of blend it together. But the performance is like some of them in isolation weren't that bad.

Yeah, Jordan Levin, nice upset. But again, big upset. You got booed out of the building after his win. A little unfair. You know, guys moving down a weight class trying to win. And boy, did social media explode after Jordan Levin won that fight? They're just like, yeah, man, FBI needs to go to Isaac Dolgarian's house. He's definitely guilty.

This is now a Zipzig. I was like, wow. That is just tough seeds. You guys really don't believe in Jordan Levin at all. This is something. And that we mentioned Carly Judis, Jedd Mishu's favorite female fighter going out there. And shout out to Juliana Miller, who was the biggest underdog on the card. She took it personally.

Had a couple of moments in the fight where maybe she could have got a sneaky submission. And yeah, then Carly just kind of. punched her and kicked her for the other 14 minutes and 30 seconds. So that was UFC Houston. It is on to UFC Mexico next week. But let's go to the peeps. There's a million comments. Yeah.

I got a poll going too. I got a poll going. Please. Where are we at here? Does Sean Strickland fight Hamzot next? It is overwhelmingly, yes. 71%. And it's going to, I probably should have said, is he going to fight for a UFC title next?

But I'm more curious. Do they think, like, that this rumor with Hobzot isn't true? And if Hamzat stays at 185, will it be Sean's record? It's got to be Sean. Yeah, yeah, 100%. It's got to be him. It's got to be him. And by the way, like, you can feel how you will about Sean.

But like when the fight ends and Sean gets on a microphone, you know, he changes back. He morphs into, he just, it's always about the guy he fought, which I kind of, I respect the hell out of that. It's like, hey, Fluffy, you get over here. You know, this guy's a tough dude. Your boxing's really good, man. It's way better than I thought. Why didn't you tell me that? It was like a nice fun moment.

He just spent that time putting Fluffy over and then, you know, had the quick comms at call-up, but it was all about fluffy, which I thought was very cool. Yes, but you know what? He'll have, you know, he made it all about Fluffy because he's having his post-fight press conference time. I don't know if it's now or coming up soon. Mike, I might have to leave you with the stream monsters because I think I needed to cover some. The presser has started. I think we're getting Euros. I think Eurosh is coming up.

And then I think we'll have Strickland eventually. So thank you everyone. I was supposed to say, thank you everyone for letting me speak on the post-fight show. All you trolls out there. I love you guys. All supporters, I love you guys. But yes, Mike is, are you good? Are you good with the, I can hang on a little bit longer.

Are you good with the stream monsters? I will hang out the stream monsters. Okay. Guys, be nice to Mike. Be nice to Mike. That's okay. And we'll, and Mike, we will reconvene tomorrow. On to the next one.

And for me to do, of course, celebrate Team Canada's victory over the USA and ice on teams. We should do a watch party for this. that. All right, guys. I will, I will, I can switch off here, Mike. Yes, you can. Thank you, AK. Love you. Love you. This is about the time because, honestly, you never know if Dana White's going to show up to one of these events or not. Dana White did a press conference. And shout out to Aaron Braun said. Let me see if there's anything of note.

White says Strickland was in great shape, look sharp. White said that he heard some people bet $300,000 and won a million on John Strickland. uh, but, but, but, but, uh, white says that the platform Strickland receives when he is in the main event is a nightmare and blames the media for asking him done questions, which pushes buttons. I mean, you knew one million percent. That was going to be the response. Uh, white says the main event for UFC 327 will be announced when it's signed. Then he met with President Trump this past week and that the card itself was not discussed just the logistics for how the event will be executed. There will be a lot of hurdles in pulling it off, but they will make it work. they've been discussing

Ronda Rousey returned for her for the past year but it happening in the UFC didn't work out he says he's on good terms of Gina Carano now he's happy for both of them so that's good White says that this week he really was beating up babies and asked is there a bigger P-word than Eddie Hearn he says that he should be happy for Ben

for making more money and Eddie had the right to match it what else? Nothing to announce for Connor White says Bruce Buffer being the Hall of Fame Alex Pere is one of the guys who always steps up for the UFC and they will work with him on whatever he wants to do. White says he would like to see Hamzaat Shamaev defend his title at middleweight before he moves divisions.

And you know what? I agree with you, Dana White. I would like to see Hamzat Shemayev. Fight Sean Strickland. I would like to see him fight Sean Strickland before he moves up. Or Nasty. I don't care. One of those guys.

Fight one of those dudes. And then vacate and go. There's just, I'm more intrigued by the Sean Strickland fight than Yuri. Pereira, I understand it's like a massive fight, but like, if Pereira is moving up, like that fight can't happen. And if Pereira is moving up, then there's no sense in Humzut moving up to 205 right now. So good for you, Dana. Well said.

All right, let's get into it. Who's excited about Brady versus Buckley? We had a couple of main events announced for the world's most famous meta apex. We found out that April 4th, the main event is Hanata Moikano versus Chris Duncan. Didn't see that coming. Certainly not as a main event in the year of our Lord 2026, but here we are. And then three weeks later, April 25th, back of the world's most famous apex, it will be Sean Brady versus Joaquin Buckley.

So good fight, good matchmaking. I hope Joaquin Buckley has shored up his takedown defense because if Sean Brady gets on top of him, it is going to be a horrible night for him. But we'll see. We shall see. Okay. Which ranked fighter is getting fed to Amosov next? good question

let's see who is ranked right now at walterweight I mean Bonfim would be a good one Leon would be a good one Gilbert Burns probably would have been like the correct well I don't know if they

yeah Gilbert Burns probably was the right answer but Burns is fighting Mike Malott he might have to fight just outside of that maybe Jeff Neal would have been a good one maybe do Uris Medich that's not a bad one what are Jordan Levitt's featherweight prospects?

I don't know. Tough to say. I mean, it was a good performance. He seemed, he even said it in some of his post-fight stuff. Like, it was the first time he felt like the stronger fighter. And I think he's going to do okay down there.

Like, do I think he's going to fight for a belt and be like a top 10 guy? Probably not. But, yeah, he'll win some fights. I think he'll have more success of featherweight than lightweight. Featherweight's a tough-ass division too, but lightweight is the toughest division in the sport. So, I mean, really any division is a step down from lightweight in terms of, like, difficulty. Not that featherweight's easy because it's not.

That's probably like the second or third hardest division in the sport right now. So unadaptive. Phil Rowe, 100% the most frustrating guy. The guy can't be paid to throw a double jab with his insane reach. I actually thought he had a good chance to win this fight. and yeah he's just he

someone needs to like he needs someone to tell him that like the first round is the third round and that he's down two rounds and then he starts to like wake up and that's what makes Phil Roso dangerous because you can't get him out and then somehow he becomes like a superhero

in the third round and we kind of got glimpses of that and fortunately it just took way too long in this fight I don't know how he makes Walter Wade he is gigantic. He's a humongous man. I saw him at the last R-A-F event and I'm like, dude, how do you make 170? He should be a light heavyweight. He looks like a light heavyweight. He's that big.

And he is talented. He's a really good athlete. But yeah, it's, it's tough to watch him when he's so big and he's got those advantages over people and you don't see it until like the very end of the fight. because like once he got going and once he got loose like he was tagging jpL and it was just too little too late somehow a judge scored it for phil row i just don't know how that's possible but i don't know mike does a sharper looking fluffy have an easier of a time with strickland i don't i i don't know maybe my read on that fight my read on that fight was horrific I mean, it just was. I've had some really good reads on things,

and I've had some piss-ass poor ones, and that was a pretty poor read. The fight I expected from Fluffy was what you saw from, like, Marab. And not even, like, I'm not talking, like, Marab finishing Sean O'Malley, or Marab Corey Sanhagan, or even, like, Marab Yon won. I'm talking, like, Marab Jose Aldo.

kind of a thing. We're just like, okay, he's just going to push him up against the fence. Maybe he gets a quick takedown. Sean gets up. We get a bunch of Matt returns. And we just didn't even really see any of that from Fluffy. Like, he tried a couple of times. But at that point, like, Sean was already like jabbing his face off.

I was hoping, you know, as someone who had this prediction and was looking at through a certain lens, I didn't think, and I know Fluffy is historically kind of a slower starter. And now you'd, like, go out there and, like, set a time. tone and set a pace right away and he didn't and when you let Sean get cooking like that he's he's a tough out he's a tough out I thought the first aren't really really close uh because Sean was landing a lot of volume he's landing a lot of jabs he's definitely getting his attention but Fluffy was landing some like pretty significant shots in that round too so there's a really competitive round and then

the momentum of round one was like all strickland then it went to okay Fluffy's kind of closed the gap a bit and then Sean just took over right from there and there's just a great performance I mean it was just a solid there's just a really good outing from Sean Strickland so good on him

and what else can you say is Nasserdine email off the biggest winner today how could you possibly say that he is that no he is the only way he wins this is if

Hamza is just like I've I vacate the title and go up. I don't think he's vacating. I think he's going to fight John Strickland. I don't think, and I think nationally move off is going to have to watch him fight. So, Mike coping.

Oh, this is a great comment. Talking is a Fluffy chose to stand and bang. Fluffy tried his take down grappling game plan and failed. Then he had a strike. He attempted two takedowns the entire fight. So that's not true. Look, like I said, Sean kicked his ass, man. Like, he beat his ass.

He shot Fluffy, gave him exactly the fight he wanted, and he beat his ass. What else you want me to say? It's not coping. I said I was wrong. I said I read it wrong. And I said, Sean, beat the shit out of him. What else do you want me to say? Seriously.

Like, what else can I say to make you happy, active unsubb? They cut Sean's mic at his presser. What? Really? Is Jocelyn Edwards a threat at women's Bannamweight? Sure, because women's vanem weight is, there's like 16, fighters in the division. So by definition, she is a threat. Who would I pick her to beat

that is ranked above her? Misha Tate, sure. I would pick her to beat MBS. Cavalcanti would be a tough one. Yeah, she's losing a bunch of those fights. But she's looked good. She's looked good. Sean has Riyadh season written all over him. Maybe. What else we got? PFL Heavyweight

Grand Prix winner, anti-Delijah. Now one and two in the UFC. What is next for him? He's in a tough spot. Talas and Deshera. Derek Lewis? That's probably it. I mean, I don't know what you do with them.

Heavyweight is just yowser. Well, that fight wasn't bad. tonight. That was pretty fun. And Connor continuing to say things that no one actually is going to respond to or care about. Shocker. Let's see.

According to Moycano, who's streaming during the fights, he has yet to even sign the contract for the Duncan fight, and they still announced it a classic UFC. It seems like that happens to Boycano a lot. Luke Thomas was angry about what? Ryan Garcia appears to be, apparently, is looking good. Jocelyn collecting

collarbones, that's for sure. and uh herban overall how would you grade tonight's card uh b minus i think that's fair i think i think b minus is a fair grade at the end of the day like the main event has to deliver you have to have something to remember it by

and Sean Strickland gave us something to remember so he went out there and won in a high stakes moment and is probably getting a title shot so that alone puts that up a whole bunch of grades. And luckily, the main card was just really strong.

So that puts it over the top. And if the main card is good and the main event makes it happen, then you're all set. Like, you're good to go. And that's what happened here. Sean Strickland ended the night in a good way. B minus. I think that's a very solid and very fair grade.

We were not trending towards B minus early. That is for sure. We are trending towards C minus D plus territory. Yeah, I think B minus B is, I think B minus is right. I think we're right on there. So, and we're penalty boxing. Sorry. Bring something to the table with the rest of the very intelligent people in here.

Dave's in a C. I get it. I get it. But I'm fine giving it a B minus, only because, I mean, it was like, it was a tail of two cards for sure. but yeah i i'm fine with the be mine again because the main event was good and the main car was good uh solid ass card paramount plus should be satisfied maybe i mean i don't know how sad i mean i guess it really doesn't matter because everything's streaming on the network but like i mean your prethums went 15 minutes overtime uh lauren murphy who was at the fights

was tweeting out that they actually were rushing the last two fighters out i think she even said Let me pull this up just to make sure that I read this right. Hmm. Where is it? Okay, this is four hours ago from Lauren Murphy. UFC Houston got no bangers tonight. The decisions have taken so much time. They rushed Osborne and Adair is out from the back.

They walked out in the dark during the intro vid. Neither got a walkout song. So that's pretty wild. Because I don't think I've ever seen that. That is very Bellator prelim right there. So they were definitely falling behind. This reminds me of Mike's waylie will just crush Valentina prediction. That was bad too.

That was really bad. That was worse, honestly. That was worse than this pick. T. Bray, I might have to take Sean versus Hamzad. His life's unfolding like a movie script. Maybe. Listen. Sean can do it.

I said it at, we go back to that post show. he won the belt. We were like, look, he might, he might just go beat Hamzat. Like, he might be able to do it. So, it's a very interesting matchup. Did you just look stuck in first gear?

It seemed like she couldn't quite get going. I thought she was pretty fun tonight. She should have finished Julianna Miller. Like, I think, I think that's pretty fair. But, yeah, she, she dominated outside of, like, two choke attempts. I'll take a few more.

but cop not getting the fight versus van i would have gone with cop but again we don't know what's happening behind the scenes like cop is saying like oh i was never offered this or whatever um and van is saying well why didn't you sign the contracts maybe they were offering something for for the march seventh card for the for the bmf card i don't know so but there was definitely more buzz on on cop than tyra like without question so i'm a little surprised by that um and that puts cop at a really tough spot because he's probably gonna have to fight again and like who does he fight who does minel cop fight no no you could do uh you do you do the keog rematch there you go done now i Now I feel better about it.

And the winner gets the next in line, because Pantoge is going to get his shot too. Renata's better than Malap, but UFC is a hard one. Has something for Malat. Shows you the match biggest side of your future in the company, not yourself.

They want the big road warriors pop for Mike Ballot in Canada. And Mike Malott's probably going to beat Gilbert Burns. I believe this is, I don't know if this is like the exact fight I picked. After Malat's last win on onto the next one, it might have been.

It might have been the exact fight I picked. Because they're going to, like, if you're going to do something with Mike, you have to do it now. After the Kevin Holland fight, you have to move now. You cannot waste any more time. If you're going to try to make fetch happen, you have to make fetch happen

right now. So I'm not surprised by this matchmaking, and Mike Blot's probably going to go out there and clobbergill with Burns and we're going to feel bad and Lot's going to get a big win and they'll probably give him like another big fight and they're going to try to

rush him up pretty quickly didn't Vansan the Posto the cop couldn't make it for the March date against him I didn't see that I was doing this but maybe and look we talk about this all the time and Dana White says it all the time if the phone rings

and they offer yourself you got to say yes you just got to do it so if that's what happened they moved on to the next person RDR Fluffy making sense again now I mean we'll see we'll see RDR does against Kyle Bajlio I was just joking man it's it was a bad look man I deserve I deserve a little I deserve a little pushback for some of that shit. There's some bad, there's some bad picks. Some bad picks. Who had a sub for Jocelyn

Edwards on the bingo card? Not a lot of people, but that should have been a TKO, but the referee was a friggin' idiot. Saw a lot of that tonight. The officiant, why do they keep going to Texas? Seriously. I mean, I think we know why because they pay them, but like, why put yourself through that?

They're just, it's so, that commission is just awful. I just see Danny getting mad at the report of Strickland about Bad Bunny. No, but I I saw iron bronze setter's thing that said, he said that. All right, I'll bite Connor. Mike Hex is fluff. He's going to dogwalk Strickland,

but now Strickland has a big chance against Hamza. By the way, I've been saying long before you that Sean Strickland has a chance against Hamza Atchamaif, long before you. For almost two years, I said Sean Strickland was one of the toughest matchups. In fact,

the two guys who were fighting in this main event were the most interesting matches for Hamza Atchamai. And that included Sean Strickland. So Sean Strickland is a good matchup for Humzut. That's a fun fight. I honestly don't want to see Humza fight anybody else right now. I know it's bait. I know.

You game Bear Knuckle, huh? Yeah, that's tough. That's a tough knockout. I don't know if we're growing to BKFC, but... Muck's just really good. Dan's just... Dan's a vet. It's got so much mileage on him at this point. But yeah, I'm curious to see what they do with them.

I mean, I mean, look, Danny Gay is one of those guys who will have a job with the UFC for as long as he wants it. This guy stepped up literally on the day of a pay-per-view on hours notice and fought Diego Lopez and was competitive with him on like two and a half hours notice. So Danny Gay will fight for them as long as he wants to fight for them. so I don't think they're going to cut him or anything like that. That'd be absolutely ridiculous after the favors this man has done over the years. Like Dan is about as reliable as you get when it comes to being a UFC fighter. He's got some great finishes. He's usually never in a boring.

I don't think he's very rarely he's in like a boring fight. Dan's one of those dudes that's just going to be employed forever if he wants to be. Could he be having conversations maybe with his family? about, should we keep doing this? I mean, seeing Danny, you get knocked out tonight? I didn't think we'd ever see that. Dan's just one of those guys that will lose fights, but not get finished.

And yeah, man, he got his face wrecked by that kick. Anything else? Ha, that's very funny. Strickland finally went to war to the death. He has shown he can do it. Sorry, I was thinking. looking for comments. All right, I think we're done here. I think we've we've accomplished our goal here for UFC Houston. But we're not done with the UFC Houston Shatter. A.K. and I will be back tomorrow.

On to the next one. We'll do some matchmaking for, I mean, you already know where I'm going with John Strickland, but the matchmaking for what do we do with Euris Medich? What do we do with Melchie Costa? I think you know I'm going with that as well. Jacoby Smith for Sergey Spivak, Michelle Pereira. Where do we go? Who will they fight next? We'll discuss that tomorrow on the program.

Next week, going to be kind of a wonky week for us over at M.AFighting.com. It's a terrific website. Obviously, there's UFC, Mexico. The card is okay. Random brain of Loni Kavanaugh is the main event. Jose Youngs and I will be in Tempe, Arizona.

week for the RAF6 card. Armand Sarukian will be on that one. Henry Suhudo Uri Fabor is the main event. A lot of UFC representation on there, a lot of notable names. So we'll be out there for that. We'll be covering all of those things and more. So stick with us. And may fight him get you covered all things, combat sports.

And enjoy the rest of Ryan Garcia's masterclass, apparently, that he is putting on against Mario Barrios. See you tomorrow and on to the next one. and we're out of here.