MMA Fighting - UFC Kansas City Post Show | Reaction To Max Holloway Outlasting Arnold Allen, Barboza's Nasty KO

Episode Date: April 16, 2023

Max Holloway and Arnold Allen put on a highly competitive five-round main event to cap off Saturday's UFC Kansas City event, but in the end, it was the former champion who was able to outlast the surging contender to get back on track. Following the UFC's return to Missouri, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck, José Youngs, and Alexander K. Lee react to Holloway's unanimous decision win over a game Allen, the scoring of the 25-minute battle, and where Holloway goes from here at 145-pounds. Additionally, they discuss Edson Barboza's incredible knockout of Billy Quarantillo in the co-main event, experience continuing to play a major factor in main card matchups, Brandon Royval's quick finish of Matheus Nicolau and if that puts him in a position to fight the winner of Brandon Moreno vs. Alexandre Pantoja for the flyweight title next, Zak Cummings and Ed Herman's dual retirement, Clay Guida's fake retirement, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow José Youngs: @JoseYoungs 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

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See app for details. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. The Horns of Victory. are loud and clear and they're stinging the praises probably of boat fighters both Max Holloway and Arnold Allen who delivered a really fun main event

but in the end Max blessed Holloway does it again in his incredible streak of beating featherweights not named Alexander Volcano continues on it's a decade plus how about that Max Holloway gets it done unanimous decision

4946, 4946, 48, 47. Gets the job done, bounces back. Aram Allen had a tremendous showing of himself, but in the end, it just was not enough to earn himself a title shot. And now we're in a very interesting position in the 145 Pond Division. But welcome to the Post-Bite Show. I am Mike Heck. My best friend, Alexander Keeley, will join us momentarily.

But I'm happy, oh, there he is. Holy cow. Hello. Hello, everyone. nice to see you and joining us on a rare non-travel week mr jose youngs is here very excited about this how are you buddy i'm fair to find how are you uh fair to find as well so jose as a alliteration as daniel cormay would say and as as as uh as brenner for charl would explain that's right well jose as a fan of high-level martial arts competitions such as yourself i'm sure you

you enjoyed this main event very much. Max Holloway, Arnold Allen, get after it. And it was a good fight. I thought it was one of those situations where Arnold Allen proved he belonged with the upper echelon of this division. But Max Holloway was just that much better.

I think the veteran savvy played out. His defensive prowess played out. I think he confused Arnold at certain points with the stance switching. But man, both guys brought it. But Holloway got the job done. Your reaction to the fights. Holloway getting the nod

everything that had to do with this main event I mean the fight the main card the main event ruled it was everything that we had hold for and two of the best featherweights in the world two of the gentlemen that have the longest win streaks in this division's history of obviously max holloways was snapped but it's like whenever you got a guy that has like a 10 fight win streak against a guy that

at one point of a 13 fight win streak it's fireworks are in you're in for fireworks and that's what we got it was just a tale of two defensive game plans max Holloway seemed to be an inch away from all of Arnold Allen's punches. Obviously, some got through. You could hear them through the television. Arnold Allen had the thudding sounds.

A lot of it, Max alluded. And on the flip side, Max was throwing a lot of punches and kicks. And Arnold was blocking a lot with like that high elbow block that Justin Poy obviously has success with. Obviously, some of those got through. In fact, a lot of them got through. But it just felt like a tale of two game plans. Both of them were implemented well.

Max Holloway just made better adjustments. Like you said, his veteran gamesmanship just was on display. This stick Max Holloway in a five-round non-title fight against the featherway, and chances are he's going to win. I don't think Arnold Allen loses any stock. This is very reminiscent of the Max Holloway-Hawah-Rodriguez fight, where yes, Max won, but Yaya proved that he belongs in the top five of this division. Arnold Allen proved that he belongs in the top five of this division

and won, maybe two more wins. He's still a fresh face for the current champ, Alex Volcanowski. He could very well get a title shot with a winner to against high-level competition. Obviously, you have fights like Iliate Tuporia versus Josh Hammett in the works. Green Zambu's still out there. But yeah, there's both men, I think, maintain their place in this division. If anything, it cements them as two of the five best featherweights on the UFC roster. Obviously, there's some very good feather weights outside of the UFC, but checks all the boxes.

Taylor 2 defensive game plans, both of them implants. implemented to perfection. Max Holloway just found ways to sneak his punches through Arnold Allen's high guard and beat the soul out of his midsection with those kicks. Yeah, those some nasty kicks down the stretch, AK, your thoughts? And how did you score this one? How did you score this fight? I had it 48, 47 Holloway.

I went two and five for Allen. I think looking at official scorecards, all three judges gave the fifth to Allen and the one who had a 4847 also gave two to Alan. So, but I have no problem scoring it either way. I think there's certainly a very strong case for 4847 Allen. At the Ophop a poll, of course, asking if people agreed with the UFC-KC main event score. 85% yes. 85% yes.

I don't think this is super controversial, but it was a great fight. It made self be fun. We say this all the time. And I think we've had a lot of fun, quite a bit of fun over the past few cards. And this card, I think most of us were. telling people that like this is a good one on paper this is a good one on paper it has a lot of potential to deliver if you know if the matchup shake up a certain way and of course that always starts at the top and I think we got like the best case scenario with that main event you got this

young very hungry up-and-comer in I shouldn't even call it up-and-comer anywhere young very young and hungry contender Arnold Allen really fighting like he won his first hell of shot I'm sure some people out there will argue oh he could have been more aggressive he could have opened up more but man when you're fighting max holloway it's so much easier said than done And I think if you watch the fight again, you'll see there are times where Allen did open up and he landed and then would get hit right back and Max would crack them. So again, easier said than done. But yeah, if you had it 4847 Allen, I don't think that's an atrocious score. And I don't think 4946 is a bad score either.

I think 4946 for Max, again, a few of those rounds were tossed up. So this is what a great, close competitive five round fight looks like. It was awesome. And at least on the broadcast, I don't know how it was for, you know, we had Jed on site. It looked like it was a pay-per-view fight. It had the energy or pay-per-view fight, and it totally delivered. So I'm really, really thrilled without how that main event turned out. It would have been cool to get sort of a fresh challenger.

But Arnold Allen will be back. It's just going to take them a little bit of time to get back to Shirefire a title shot. Apparently, Dana wasn't thrilled with Arnold Allen in the fifth round. I don't know. I have to go back and watch. I can't imagine why. Maybe the grappling he didn't go for it. But there's the cards right.

there. I scored it 49, 46 for Holloway. I was live blogging, so it's really tough to get the complete gauge of everything while you're doing everything at once. But I gave Holloway the first. I gave Allen the second. I gave three and four to Holloway. Five, I was going to give to Allen until that final flurry. And like Holloway Atlanta, that left hook and Alan hit the floor and I was like I don't know if it's a knockdown but the way the way Arnold got up and reacted to it like he was pissed like damn it I can't believe I just got dropped at the end I was like oh maybe I guess that is a knockdown so I just gave the fifth to the max but still 48 47 49 46 I think they're fine cards 4047 I just I think it's kind of a bridge too far to score that fight for Arnold Allen but hey

listen if you if you did who am I but how did you score it Jose you in the 48 14 37 camp as well? Yeah, I had it 4847 max. I had it 1, 3, 5 for Max and 2 and 4 for Arnold, if I remember correct. I didn't write any of this down. It was more like mental math to me, but I thought Max won the first. Two was very competitive. I gave the slight edge to Arnold.

I think he landed more. And then three was three max looked unbelievable. Four, same thing as round two. I think Arnold just landed slightly more. And then five, I think that knockdown really sealed the deal. Arnold was well on his way. I think to winning. Not well on his way.

It was a close fight. It was just round five was just the same thing as round one through four. Just Arnold throwing bombs and narrowly missing and Max throwing a lot and Arnold blocking. And then they both just collided at the end and Arnold Allen fell down. So I guess you give it to Max, but I did have it three to Max. If they gave it three to Arnold, I wouldn't have complained. But I remember that fight ending. And I thought it was, I was pretty confident it was 1,35 max, 24 for Arnold Allen.

Okay. Now, I'll go back to you, Jose, because A.K., we'll dive into this a little bit more tomorrow. We'll discuss what this all means for the Max Holloway side of things. Because, Jose, this is the one issue I had with this fight, is that I felt pretty good that Max is going to win. Like, maybe Alan could do something and shake things up at 145, which would have been really interesting because now you get Volcanowski fighting Yair. Allen wins his fight. He's next in line. Tuporia fights Emmett. Teporia could be next in line. And we have some movement. We have some fresh faces, so to speak. But matching Arnold up with Max Holloway puts us in this position we've been in for like two or three years now. If Max wins, now what? Because Max just fought Volcanovsky in July and got dominated.

And he's now 0 and 3 against the man. Now, I know the second fight was really close. First fight, clear Volcano win. Second fight is one of the most controversial fights. I can remember throughout my fanmanship of covering the sport. And the third was a clear one. So where do we go now? Like I know Tepore is fighting Josh Emmett and who knows, but does the winner of that fight, like if Teporia wins, is he getting a title shot or is he graduating to fighting Max Holloways? This is for like the Max Holloway sweepstakes? Because both of these guys, neither of them have fought Max yet. So are they fighting for the hallway fight? Like, what are we doing here?

Because I just feel like the division is kind of in the same place it's been since Volk's been the champion. I really think we can answer this after EIA Rodriguez fights, Alex Volkanowski. Because obviously, if EIA wins, they're going to do the rematch. If Volcanowski wins, I know he wants to be hyperactive. We're all assuming Islam fights in Abu Dhabi. I'm on record saying if the UFC was smart, they would do, UFC 300 international fight week next year and do the rematch between Volcanowski and Islam

as the headliner for the lightweight title. I guess it would just depend on if Volcanowski wants to stay active. Or I know Dana White said Spain is kind of on their radar for potential fight night, maybe next year. So if they're going to go to Spain, Iliate is the only man that could really headline that. And so I think they could just throw him in there against anybody, especially if Mavzar keeps, if Mazzar beats Mitchell and then he wins again. maybe they could, you know, rematch, or not rematch, they never fought, they could fight in Spain. I really think we need to see what the champ Volcanovsky does against Jaya Rodriguez and how active he wants to be

because there's a log jam named Max Holloway at the top of the 145 pound division. And it is pretty, it is in there pretty tight. And I don't think that's budging against anyone besides Volcanowski. I mean, Iliate is poor. is fantastic. Brian Oetegas hurt. Korean zombie has one fight left. I don't know, man. I don't know. Giga Chikaziz. Giga Chikazzi is still out there, but he got pieced up pretty

easily. I don't know. I guess, I mean, and then for all we know, Al Jermaine Sterling beats Henry Sehudo, and then he goes up to 145, and then all of a sudden we have Al Jermaine Sterling in the 145 pound division. So I just, I don't know. Asked me again on July the Sunday after a national fight leave. And I'll have a lot of have a better answer for you. Yeah, and now you make an interesting point about Volkadovsky maybe going back up to 155 because guess what? The man named Benny Darius was supposed to fight Charles Olivera in two weeks time.

And now that fight's not even happening. So do they just push this one back? And I mean, I'd love for them to do it in June because that card friggin needs it. But it's probably going to be too soon. Maybe you do it international fight week. Maybe you do it the 2nd July pay-per-view. But that fight needs to happen sooner rather than later. What, Benile and Charles?

Yeah. Nah, forget that. Just give Benil the tile shot in Abu Dhabi. Call it a day. I'm okay. I'm okay with that. Dana did say at the presser, they are working on another co-main event for that card,

even though they just put out an updated lineup today. So who knows? Who the hell knows what's going to be in this position? I mean, Ball did tweet some eyeballs, so maybe he's in there somewhere. And Gilbert Burns tweeted a bunch of money emojis, so maybe they throw those two dudes in there. or Burns versus Volah Muhammad three-round fight, I'm here for it.

I am super here for it. Well, we shall see what happens. But featherweight is an interesting place right now. We have bonuses, gentlemen. We have bonuses. We have three performance bonuses and a fight of the night. How about that? So the fight of the night, not the main event.

It is Bill Algeo versus T.J. Brown. Damn good fight. AK, you're not happy about that? I thought it would have gone. I really enjoyed the Pedro Munoz, Chris Gutierrez, but I guess it never got out of a certain gear. And also the crowd reaction kind of guaranteed it wasn't going to get the might of the night, which is it was a really good fight, I thought.

And usually I'm actually amazed the main event didn't get it because usually like on a card like this where there's multiple competitive fights, they just like defaults to the main event. So I'm happy for Bill LGO and T.J. Brown. But yeah, I thought there was, I also thought there was a chance that the delightful, light heavyweight retirement slot fest between Zach Cummings and Ed Herman would get it. But apparently, I'm seeing the press conference live tweets right now. Dana White said he's giving both retirees an extra 50 cookies anyway.

So there you guys can count that as an extra bonus. Performance of the nights, Jillian Robertson. Nice win. Brennan Royval, of course. And Edson Barbosa, of course. Get performance of the night bonuses. Yeah. Dana White actually admitted that they screwed up putting Brandon Roy

Volvo versus potato stick allow on the prelims. So I mean, at least you know. At least you know. And Bernardo was pissed that he was on the prelims. You can go watch that scrum over on the YouTube channel. But let's talk about Edson Barbosa, Jose, because it appears the old dog still has some tricks in him, doesn't he? Holy cow.

Just a ferocious knee crumbles Billy Q, first round finish for Edson Barbosa. and the theme of UFC 287 in a lot of respects was experience matters and I think a lot of that carried over into this car. We saw it in the Pedro Munoz-Cruidier's fight and we certainly saw it here with Edson Barbosa with the strength of schedule that is unmatched by any fighter maybe in the history of the sport, goes in there and just melts Billy Q early.

I mean, what else could you say about Edson Barbosa? That was frigging incredible. This happens all the time with Edson Barbosa where we think he's like on the last, legs of his career like I think it was the fight going in when he fought Dan hooker when he fought Shane Burgos everyone's like oh he's lost a bunch in a row or I know he beat up like Machuan before the the Shane Burgos fight but I remember he like lost two or three in a row I know one of them was to Habib so no faults in that

I can't remember who he lost to right after maybe Kevin Lee maybe Paul Felder I get all I it's there's like a big but I know he lost like four or five or five or six or something. But like he just he literally turned Dan Hooker and Shane Burgos his body off to get like to like like it was like this is what I can do when I'm fighting guys I want to stand in front of me. And then obviously he could get Chikaze heard him early and never let took his foot off the gas and then Bryce Mitchell just ragged all to him. And then again like he did to Shane Burgos and Dan Hooker, he melted Billy Quarantanillo. So it's just it was another one of those.

classic Edson Barbosa moments where you think he's, you know, oh, if he loses or has a bad performance, maybe it's time to hang up. And then Edson just, you know, kills a human being on national television. So it's pound for pound very easily on the all violence, like all time list in all of MMA, without question and lightweight and featherway. So, yeah, I'm never not going to turn into an Edson Barbosa fight. And now I really want him to fight the Korean zombie because that fight rules.

And Korean zombie is going to retire. so you might as well go out on a body bag against Edson Barbosa. Love that idea. A.K. Edson Barbosa doing Edson Barbosa things. Yeah, the zombie fight has been called for on to the next one. Like, I swear, I don't know, 50 times. I don't know. I don't know how every, at least once every three weeks.

I don't know. It just comes up. Yeah, it feels like that fight has to happen. Jose said it in my mind. I was like, has that not happened yet? Have they not found a way to make that happen? because if zombie retires before we get him in Barbosa, it would just feel wrong.

It would feel wrong. That's one of those one that got away matchups if we never see that one actually books. So I would love to see that. But yeah, listen, I'm one of those people. I'm one of those dummies that Jose's talking about. Pain against Edson Barbosa. I think we've been saying a lot over the last few weeks

about the whole experience versus, you know, kind of people coming up thing. And experience is doing pretty well. It's doing pretty well, at least the last couple of cars. I don't think every matchup was won by necessarily the more experienced fighter, but it's doing all right. And that was certainly the case here. And Jed also broke this one down really well on No Bet's Bard.

And a few people were saying, one thing with Billy Quintillo is he's going to get hit. He's going to get hit. And I knew that. I just thought he could maybe be there first or maybe outslug at some Rosa, or maybe just be a step quicker again because he's the younger fighter with less, you know, less battle damage. But man, you just, you take one wrong step against Edson Barbosa,

and that's the last step you're going to take for that night because he just made him pay. You know, he got his head right in the wrong spot. Edson and Bosa is going to step that out every time, and he's going to take you out. It was absolutely incredible. Yeah, I don't know what's next for him. Again, hopefully zombie.

But even if it's not zombie, boy, how can you not tune in every time this guy, this guy goes up there? Perfect co-made event choice. and it just delivered in every way. That was so much fun. Yeah, Billy Que will be back, fan favorites. He'll be fine. Maybe don't walk into Edwin Diaz's,

out to Edwin Diaz's song next time. Bad things happen when that plays. Yes, that is very true. I didn't even know that happened. But I had seen tweets about it, so, oh, man. Billy Q tweeted after, damn. So that's what's getting knocked out in the U.C. feels like. Sorry about your parlays, y'all.

And Adrian Yanaz also replied to him with a gift saying welcome to the club. So you love seeing these, listen, you love seeing these guys who are usually dishing it out every now and then. Look, they're going to get got. They have a good sense of humor about it. And I honestly feel like these are the kind of guys who are going to be in the UFC for another five, six years are going to be ranked for years once they get up there. So great to see Cornillo, Yanez, and other fighters like that with this kind of attitude. This episode is brought to you by Peloton, a new era of food. fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus powered by Peloton IQ. Built for

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and apparently at his post-fight scrum he said he broke his arm in the fight and continued to fight with the broken arm. What a savage. Good on him. Iwan Kuchelaba spoils the UFC light heavyweight debut of the very spelt, ripped, shredded Tanner Bozer. Tanner has one fight left of his deal. He's hoping to get on that.

UFC 290 or 289 card in Vancouver. would love to end his, at least have that one last fight there if they don't cut him. Pedro Munoz, experience matters, beats Chris Gutierrez. Chris, I think, still has a pretty good future. I think he'll be a top 15 guy for a long time. I think he'll go back and learn some lessons from that one. Rafa Garcia goes out and beats Clay Guida 3027, and Clay Guida faked at retirement and said he was just joking.

And apparently Dana White was not happy about that. Bill Algeo submits T. Ren Roy Val, the nasty knee. He says he's going to be the backup fighter. Good stuff there. Zach Cummings at Herman, double retirement. Zach Cummings gets a win in front of his home crowd. Gillian Robertson with the weird arm bar submission.

Did she tap? Did she not tap? Goes down as a verbal tap. Weird win. Weird ending. But Jillian Robertson gets it done. She extends her record submission total for women's UFC fighters. Daniel Zelluber gets his first UFC win.

I believe. Well, he bounced back anyways. Denise Gohams. Well, let's talk about Denise Gohams, AK. Can we? Can we? Holy cow, man. That is an angry woman.

That woman is angry. That was impressive as hell, dude. That was so fun. I love, listen, Pruna Brazil is a pretty respected prospect. There's a lot of people see a lot of big things ahead for her. Her nickname's the special one, you know. She was a decent favorite for someone making their UFC debut minus 150, minus 155, depending on where you looked.

And I think like technically she might be the better fighter. She had a nice clinch going in the first round. But Denise Gomez, like, her whole goal is like, I'm just going to hit you. Like I don't care what situation we're in. I don't care if we're at range. I don't care if I'm in close. I'm throwing punches. I'm throwing to hurt.

I'm doing to hurt. So you do your martial arts. You be, you know, okay, great technique. I'm going to, I'm here to punch you. I'm going to punch you in the face. even the fight that ended the that led to the finish the strike that let to finish excuse me i'm sure there's technique to set it up i'm not taking a discus a skilled fighter i'm being a bit a bit flippant here but um at times she kind of looked sloppy and even her her strike that landed

to nearly end it was just this looping overhand like chuck ladle right right in the button uh and then she she followed with just the nastiest ground of pound just no hesitation so she's really a fun one to watch at straw weight i think brunner brazil will bounce back she'll be fine but Denise Gomez is she's getting to be appointment viewing let's see where she goes from here

let's see who they match for up with next but yeah definitely liked what I saw that was definitely one of the highlights of the prelims anybody else from the prelims stand out to you Jose or would you like to wax poetically more about Deniseie Gomez because I'm here for it if you are

you're muted but I can't can you hear me now yes yep but I'm just because you cut out for a second I'm assuming you asked me about the prelims because that's what a he was talking about before. If anybody else stood out on the prelims

or if you wanted to wax poetically a little more about Denisey Gomez and what she did. I mean, Deniseie Gomez is a scary individual, so we'll say that. I hope the UFC doesn't cut Landovanada right away.

I mean, like, I know he's had some rough luck, but he's obviously a very exciting guy. He's a guy, I think he's a good lit in his test. Daniel, Daniel, how do you pronounce his last name? Zell. Zell Huber.

Zell Huber? How old is he like 23, 22? So I think he talked a lot. He's like, I know the theme of the night was people like veterans doing veteran things and not eating up, but like veteran wherewithal kind of being the deciding factor in a lot of these thoughts. Well, that was not the deciding factor in that fight because Land of Nod has fought a whole bunch. And Daniel Zah Huber is like early 20. So he obviously looked impressive.

Jocelyn Edwards somehow got a win. And I really like Jocelyn Edwards, but she missed weight and should have lost. I thought it was going to be one of those nights when they read those scorecards. Because as soon as that fight was over, I was like half paying attention because I'm like, well, that was a mauling. And then they gave to Jocelyn others. And I was like, huh. And it would be one of those nights. So it is what it is, I guess.

It didn't end up being that. controversial throughout the night, but also, Sain-R, tough three. The last of a dying good brother, Ed Herman, rode off into the suns. And now Joe Lozahn is the longest tenor tough veteran. Do you know who second is? Matt Brown. Joe Lozano on Matt Brown, remnants of an old breed.

Tough five, tough seven. Damn. There you go. Tough three. That's crazy. I can't believe Dana White was that, is that crusty about it. I only saw that the comments I didn't listen to it. I need to see her's tone.

I can't believe he was that crusty about the Clay Guida fake retirement. Like, it's not something I want to see it become a regular thing. If everyone starts doing it, then obviously ridiculous. It's dumb. But this guy's earned the right to do any sort of post-fight shenanigans. He should be getting interviewed after every fight win or lose. He's effing Clay Guida. How many UFC appearances for him?

This was number 30. Where are we here? The fact that I'm even having to say into 35. His 35th UFC fight. I want to say 18th at lightweight, I think 18th and late 18th. It's 28th, excuse me, 18th, 28 at lightweight. He can do these things. It's fine.

It didn't even take up that much time. He did like, he had a little chuckle about it. It took up maybe what, like three or four minutes of air time. Damn, why it's real crusty lately? He's real crusty. I don't know. He doesn't seem a bit of a bad mood lately. He's not putting up with any shenanigans or hoot-nanny.

Yeah, that was a weird one. I don't know. I don't know how I thought about it. I don't want, if everyone starts doing it, It would be super annoying, obviously, but it's Clay Guida. It was funny. Yeah, I mean, it just happened. Yeah.

It just happened to fight before. Bill Algey did the same damn thing. I mean, we didn't believe Bill was actually going to retire, but we certainly thought there was a chance Clay Guido was going to retire. That was weird. That was a weird. I like what he was going for, but it wasn't exactly like his Colby Covington, you know, racist, filthy animals moment or whatever he didn't.

I don't think it's going to quite. spark his career as it did arguably did for Colby Cumberton. No, people seemed very confused by it all. Yeah, exactly. The fact that Dan Cormey had to say, please, please boo him. Please boo him, Kansas City. That's not a good sign. That's not a sign of good heel work, as it were.

So, Bill Adjo, great fighter. Love watching the guy fight. The marketing strategy, you might need a little work. Well, apparently he's a Philadelphia native mostly, and he was just salty about the Super Bowl results. So I guess he explained more of it at the post-fight scrum. But last thing I'll say about the experience matters things. Find you Eric Nixick as the non-experience fighter

to just say what you need to hear heading into round three because Eric Nixick just laid into Daniel Zelluber. That was a motivating speech. I was ready to run through my garage door here after listening to Eric Nixick do his thing. And that sparked Daniel Zelluber to go in there and get a win. So if you come to one of these up-and-comer versus experience fighters thing, just go to Extreme Couture for that one and let Eric just scream at you before the third round

and maybe he will motivate you to a victory. All right. So there you go. Let's bring in Casey. We'll take a few questions. Hello, Casey. Hi. Hi, everybody.

Jose, you're good in time, Jose? I'm good. I got like 20 minutes. All right. All right, good, cool. All right. So send your questions, kids. What have we got right here?

Questions now. What does Max gain from this win? I don't think the UFC will book Volk versus Max four without dominant Max beat him three times. He gains money. Yeah, what does Max get money? Yeah. Well, outside of me. I guess that was always the problem with this fight.

Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Yeah, that was always the issue. I don't know what he gains. kind of whatever he wants outside of a Volk fight he comes the biggest Jaia Rodriguez fan and will have to be a Yahya Rodriguez fan

for two fights minimum I don't know also Joseph Boza it's dominant not dominate how dominant Alex beat him three times not please this I'm sorry this drives me crazy I won't I won't harp on I won't give a grammar lesson like Brendan Fitzgerald did today but people

dominant is an adjective dominate is a verb. They're not interchangeable. They're completely different uses. This happens all the time of social media. Sorry to sing the out, Joseph Boza. You're not the only one who does it. So what do you hate more?

Dominate versus dominant or people that say resign rather than resign. That's tough. And that's like, that's actionable. That's actually in our business. I know. Like so and so resign. They are completely different. things.

They're completely. They got to throw that hyphen in there. Got to throw that hyphen in there. What was the question? Oh, yes. Max Holloway. Yeah, again, obviously he gains a win. He gains on the paycheck.

I mean, he keeps this record of since losing to what, it was losing to McGregor, right? He hasn't lost to anyone at 145 pounds, not named Volcanowski, which is just insane. This is insane when you consider some of the names he's fought the mileage he has on. He was 21 years old when he was 21 years old.

And he had injury. They both had injuries in that. It was a lifetime ago. It was. Also a short notice. Yeah. There you go. And his MA, you think there'd be some random, just fluky loss and some off night.

You think he's got to have an off night in there somewhere. And other than losing to Volcanowski, it just doesn't seem to happen to this guy. And Arnold Allen brought that tonight, man. I mean, this wasn't like Max being able to cruise through win. He had to be like one of the best versions of Max we've seen to deal with Aaron Allen tonight. Because if he was even a little bit off, Arnold. Allen is either winning this decision or Arnold Allen is knocking his ass out. Arnold Allen was great tonight, but Max Holloway is one of the greatest of all time.

And, you know, Alan might get there someday, but it just kind of shows you, shows you the difference. I got a question. Okay. Why doesn't Max or should Max take a fight at 55? Sure. You could. Yeah. If you want, we can.

Yeah. For the right. Is it. What is the right matchup? Is he like one fight? Is it just like a fun fight like like, you know, Andrews and Silver versus James Irvin type of fight? Or is it like a fight that like I don't know.

I'm not like a Benile Darius. I know that fight that's not going to happen. But something, he'll be like one fight, like one one fight away from fighting for the title at 155. Or should he just kind of stay around 45 and just knock out contenders? Because that's what he's going to be doing. Just get the bag, man. Get the bag.

If they throw a bunch of money at him go 55, I guess that's what you're saying. Go fight Gagee. Let's go. Whatever pays. Just Gagee. Let's do it. No, because I want, because I really want Poye Gaci too. So I'm not going to have Max Hollowie ruin that.

Well, listen, look, if they don't get any of the, I've been, I've been on this kick for a while. And I don't, again, we don't know what's going to happen. If they re, if they rebook this all verifite, which at this point, I don't think you should. Because if all. there is banged up he's probably not going to be able to fight until july that you're you're playing a risky game if you're hoping dariush can win and turn around and fight in october that is a risky game so if you if you're going to rebook that fight there is a there's a solid chance der a euse ain't going to be ready for october and i do believe that if dariush isn't the guy dust and pori is going to

get that's going to get that title shot i just that's just how i think it's going to happen just because He's the name. He's a star. They haven't fought before. He's coming off of a win, a fun fight, all of that. The story of the climb and he's never been able to grab the undisputed brass ring. Maybe this will be his last shot. So I could definitely see that happening. So I don't know, man. I don't know. I wouldn't hate Max Charles 2 at lightweight. I was going to say that too. That was at 55. At 55, it's a person who's at 45 or Connor or Connor Max 2 at lightweight. Connor? Yeah, well, I don't know if Connor's fighting anything. I think I think the Charles, Charles Max at 55 a rematch.

I love that idea. That's, I remember when someone on our Slack channel, someone on our Slack channel are like this fight card feels long. I always say the longest fight card I have ever watched in my life was Charles Oliverer versus Mac Holloway. But at the whole time, I was like, this made event's going to be so good. It's going to be worth it. And then we saw what happened.

Yeah Yeah this is a fun card But it was yeah It did feel like it was like a really long card This is not the Ronda Rousey Betheya card But this is six fights on the main card Two tough fight two tough finale fights on the main card UFC 190

That's terrible That was a tough hang That was a tough hang This might be the first card we've had in a while Where none of the scheduled fights got changed and there was no fight day change you guys go to tapology.com check out the page normally right at the bottom there's sort of all the you know anything that was changed even rumored bouts that were you know fizzled nothing this was everything that was written up everything that was

reported ended up coming to fruition very rare uh so that's probably why we ended up with like a yeah a pretty sturdy 14 fight card i'm not saying it's a good thing when fights fall through it's usually for the fighters involved i would never wish that but for people who i'll speak for my when we have to cover a card and it's like a 13 fight card and it gets knocked down to like 12 or 11 fights on fight day. Listen, I'm not going to lie. There's a part of me that's kind of like it's a bit leaner now. It's just might be a bit more watchable.

So you hate to see it happen. I'm glad it didn't happen for this card. Like I said, I think the card overall was really, really good. I think you be tuned in from beginning to end. You had yourself a good time. But it was a lot of, it was a lot of, it was a lot of Meda-Watch, that's for sure. Speaking of new fights, I don't know if you guys, I'm sure you guys saw this, but Bryce Mitchell now fighting Mavzar of Loyaf at UFC 288.

How about that? Most time, look, kudos to Bryce, man. Like, you can feel however you want about some of the things that comes out of his mouth, but fighting Iliotip and Mavzar of Lov in consecutive facts. He fought Edson Barbosa. And Barbosa. And Barboza. He made us forget how freaking crazy.

dangerous it is to fight it's in barboza that's how that's how crazy bryce mitchell is and yeah my uh what he says on the mic sometimes like uh but in the cage excellent fighter and um yeah kudos my new uh my new zombie versus ortega is mazar versus ilitiporia i've been calling for that fight for like two years that fight's gonna happen someday well they were booked right they were they were but whatever deity you worship hates me so they took it away from. All right. We got a question for you guys.

Yeah, we got a few. What do you do with the Rod Dog? Does it need one more fight for a title shot? We still got Figgy versus Cop coming up. No. I mean, I'll give, I'm not going to just waste the, I mean, this will not be my wild card pick because it's too easy, but yeah, Roy Val gets the winner of the title fight.

After that performance, you don't do that to Mateus Nicola. You just don't. And hearing the way. Roy Vell ironed it out. I don't know if you guys saw this on the on his scrum. Roy Val is saying that the UFC was not going to resign hyphen re-hifen sign Mateus Nicolao after that last win. But Brandon Royval said he called McMaynard and begged him to resign Mateus Nicolao and promised him that he would make him not boring and that he would get him out of there. And that's the story Brandon Royvall is telling.

Who's calling Mateus Niccolo boring? I don't know. He has a lot of decisions. Which, as we all know, automatically means you're boring in the eyes of the U.S. He's a very good fighter, but I wouldn't put him in the top 10 for exciting flight weights. Sure. He is very good. I wouldn't call him boring either, but yeah.

Yeah, he's not on the Edson Barbosa team, but he's very salvageable. But hearing Royval talk like that was kind of interesting. Oh, yeah, they weren't going to resign him, but I told him, like, no, re-sign him, I'll fight him. I guarantee it won't be boring, and I'll get him out of there. That's what he says he told McManard in order to get this fight. He's doing everything he can to make up for that horrible card placement. And that car placement freaking mattered because if he was the co-main event tonight,

we are talking about him much more. We kind of have to almost force ourselves to talk about and remind ourselves to talk about him because it was so freaking early on the card. So, and even of that knockout of the year type of performance. Yeah. Oh, it was such a good knockout. I didn't even see the knee. I had to watch the knee.

It was so, it was a knee, right? You did a knee and a punch. Yeah. It was so incredible. And so it's so weird because the UFC and Dana White specifically are always talking about we want guys who go for finishes. We want guys who are exciting and aggressive. Like, this guy's one of the most aggressive, like,

finish hunting guys in any week. Do the detriment of his own body. Yeah. Dude the deuterres. Exactly. The fight's loss probably because he's just going all out and going all in, right? I mean, you, the, uh, Brandon Marano, Pantoja, the two guys who were fighting for the title. He probably could, I don't think he necessarily beats them, but he could have done

better against them. Probably if he's not doing this all in, I got to get a finish thing. But listen, that's how he does. And I wish the UFC appreciated that. And like we said, put him in a more, uh, prestigious spot on this card. So listen, he proved them wrong. And they didn't know what even said afterwards. I effed up or we effed up.

I don't know. But they made a mistake and that fight shouldn't have been the prelims. So hopefully they do Roy Val right. I don't buy that one bit made him a. It was like it was an accident where we just didn't notice. Oh, man. Jeez. Just thing.

Flyweight erasure. Flyweight. We thought flyweight suck and it turns out they don't. Everyone knows about flyweight unders apparently, except for Dana White and the matchmakers. Yeah. Except. Except the biggest gambler in the building. He wouldn't.

He would never do that. Oh, yeah, you're right. And I've learned, at this point, I've learned to, Jose is here, so he gets a test of this. He was there when it all happened. I just can't feel confident. Middle Cup enters a cage until you actually enter the cage. Bro, facts.

Sorry. He's had some weird luck. I can't put that, I can't put that juju into the universe again. I agree. I think literally Roy Val Raival is there right now if Figgi and Kopp

enter the cage and all is well and they fight and cop just annihilates Ficky in like the first round maybe we'll have a conversation we had

maybe we get Roy Val versus cop number one contender fight because you best believe Moreno and Pantoja could probably get to beat six shades of crap out of each other and I don't think it's a fight

either of them going to be bouncing back real quick from so honestly I would rather to see Roy Val versus cop and get Viggy just someone. Figgie, get Figgie, I don't know, whoever number six is or something, I don't know.

But I want to see what I'm going to see. You can fight Cody Arbrand at 135. Something like that. Right, okay? Yeah. Still a chance. Speaking of Fing up, they should have made that fight. Yeah.

Does the glove exchange stick around like jersey swaps and other sports? No, the UFC, clearly Dana White hated it. So I thought that was so cool. It doesn't work because you're wearing the same gloves. This is true. This is the same gloves. And even the jersey swap doesn't even work. And like if it was like a cool fighter shirt, you know, like no, you made custom fighter

shirt. But it's just the weird venom jersey. So, no. Yeah, back in the day, it would have been great if you could have handed like your sponsor covered shirt over. Like, hey you go man. Condom Depot. Which I've seen that before.

They used to do that. Like fighters would do their actual fighter shirts. But some major pay-per-views that have. the main event or title fights will have like custom venom jerseys or obviously back in the day rebach his member habib and dustin traded shirts in abdhabi and then habib raffled his off for charity yeah but i think just in general just regular fighters yeah saw this someone's saying swap trunks but it's the same thing the trunks are these are these venom like there's not that a lot not enough really a lot of variety there so yeah unfortunately

What else we got here? But I thought it was very nice, especially with the people didn't see Cubs Swanson's tweet showing that Rapha Garcia met him and played Guida 11 years ago when he went. Rapha Garcia was 16 years old at a BJJ tournament. It's so cool. Like it's that's there was a lot of stuff. We talked about how exciting the fights were, but a lot of the stuff around the fights was so cool. Like, does that coming at Herman double retirement?

Like I guess we really haven't really talked about that much. if only that's how all MMA retirements could go, right? You have a sensible matchup, you know, fight where neither guy's really cutting that much. Ed Herman hasn't been cutting weight for a frigate. One guy clearly did not cut weight. Zach Cummings fighting at lightheadweight

for the first time since, I don't know, probably his regional days. I think there's like a random lightheadweight title fight in there somewhere. And they just had a good time. They threw down. They had a good time. Some illegal kicks were thrown. Afterwards, both guys retire.

One guy gets retired in his hometown. Another guy gets retired after fighting in M.A. for 20 years. No hard feelings. Extra 50 Gs from the boss. It should, this is how it should be. The fight that we kept talking about

as like the opposite of that. We were talking about in our internal slack was Shogun and Ihor Portaria, which were like, people don't even remember that fight happened now. Like that was Shogun's last fight.

It's like a tripea question. It's like just no one remembers it now. Yeah. Did you guys see Max Holloway says he wants to fight zombie next? Oh. Cool. That'd be bad.

I'll settle for that. I'll settle for that. That's not bad. That's not bad. Well, I guess that's what that's what Max Oliver was going to do. As far as, because Max, zombie's not a contender. It's still a fun fight we haven't seen yet.

So that's like, zombies also said forever that that's like one of his dream fights and it'll be his next fight. Cool. Hope zombie gets what he wants. I hope we get to. see at some point too max holly versus edson barboza that's also a fight i would like to see plenty of great fights for all these guys yeah it's just um yeah just don't put max against the the number one contenders like just exactly what mike why this fight kind of made no sense

it was cool for fight night pay-per-view but i felt like if this would have been uh max versus korean zombie say i don't know four months from now or whatever in some random city i feel like that'll be a fine fight night main event what do you think yeah as long as you're supposed to go to soul. That's a perfect fight for soul. Yeah. And look, it's still, it's, yeah. It will be in Nebraska though.

It's tough because like a lot, there's people out there that think Arnold Allen won. And I'm not going to argue against that. So it's tough because like this fight made no sense on paper. But if like two of those judges felt the same that a bunch of fans thought, then we're talking about differently. Like, oh, great match. making Arlallan beat Max Holloway. Like, it's tough. No, yeah.

It's, it's, it's, I get it. Like, it's, like I said, it's a great fight on paper, but I just wish Max had lost, like, three in a row or something. I don't know. It's just, it's just really weird. It's just really weird. Like, if Teporia and Emmett are fighting, right? If Teporia wins, do not do, for the love of God, Ilya versus Max Holloway.

Do not do that fight. But if Josh Emmett wins, you could do Josh Emmett versus Max Holloway. That makes sense, because even if Josh wins, probably still isn't getting a title fight, you know what I mean? There's not like significant championship stakes involved for really either guy at the moment. But Tuporia Holloway would be. Yeah. Tupori Holloway makes just as much sense as Allen Holloway.

So who knows or the UFC would do. Yep. Who does it? Right. We'll take like one more because I know we got to wrap up shortly. Real quick. What do you want to on? Casey.

I saw it. Oh, that's a good. I saw people asking about both Pierre Rodriguez and also the, I guess we mentioned the rock already, people talking about the Pierre, Pierre Rodriguez, the tap. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we could throw that up there.

Yeah. It was a few people. I don't know if there was just one. There was a few people I saw mentioning it. But I know we all have sort of a different perspective on it. I've trained a little bit in MMA, not extensively. I know Casey, you're training now. Jose, I know you have in the past.

Mike, you're a lover, not a fighter. I don't know if you've ever trained in grappling. Just a little bit. You don't like that sentence at all. He's my best friend. I can say these. These are the kind of things we joke about all the time. That's an equal winner.

I'll say, this is a strange. I will say my first reaction was I didn't see it live, the tap live. I didn't see the tap live. I was a little confused. And then in the replay, I thought that was a clear tap. I thought it was a clear tap.

It was that that's how I view. it. And then afterwards, apparently, it was Keith Peterson? It was Keith Peterson? Yes, sir. Keith Peterson said verbal tap, verbal tap. So he kind of, I think he tried to save himself from any sort of controversy. Was it verbal tap? She said tap tap. No, I think she cried out. Yeah, if you cry out and pain, that counts as a verbal tap. And that is in the, that is in the regulations. Yeah, that would be my assumption because I would think she wouldn't have argued if she had said tap, tap. I think she probably cried out. And then I, I think he called it on the controversial tap.

And then when he thought about it, he was like, oh, like he kind of saw the controversy. He's like, oh, there was also maybe there was a, I think he thought quick on his feet to kind to try to avoid more controversy. But I don't know. I could, Jed might have a better perspective. I think Jed said he didn't think it was a tap. Did we mention Jet. Yeah, Jed is in Kansas City.

So he doesn't think it was a tap. Oh, no, no, no. Sorry. I'm sorry. He said she shouldn't have made that motion and if, and if there was a verbal tap, it doesn't matter anyway. That she very like, very like, thrott. her arm towards, you know, the hold. But it wasn't like a clear tap on the, on, uh, Gillian Robertson.

Um, so that's the controversy, right? To me, it looked like she was tapping like out of instinct, like she didn't mean to, but that's, you know, it's not a tap. It's not a tap because the ref literally said it, they didn't stop the fight because of the tap. It wasn't that. So we can just take that out of the equation, honestly. But so basically the ref said he heard a, a, a grunt.

or a sound of pain and basically he stopped the match. And I'm assuming the pain sound plus the arm being in a very compromised position was enough. And I think I'm pretty sure by the rules you can do that. And my personal opinion is in the gym, that's a tap. Absolutely is a tap. That's an actual tap tap tap in the gym. If you make any noises like pain, that's a tap. that's also a tap in a gym.

But this is a professional fight at one of the highest levels. That is not a tap at this level, especially in an arm bar position like that. That's pretty much on Pereira, Pierre. Pierre. Pierre. That's on Pierre. Honestly, I believe it's on her if she wants to get her arm snapped off.

That's just how it is. At an amateur level, at a low level, maybe a low pro level, the ref can't stop the, I will give the reps of discretion to stop the fight, but not at this level. That is on Pereira to tap again and make it clearly known.

But if the rest, if she did cry out, if there was like a scream or a cry, I wish they were, I wish it was shown a replay with like no commentary. So we could hear it better, but they didn't do that,

so I can't give you a definitive answer. But in the end, I don't think she was getting out because that was Julian Robertson. So I think it's kind of I would talk about it for a little bit But I think it's a It's a nothing burger then

Yeah, when I was doing the Fury FC Breakdown and everything going on I talked to John McCarthy for like a half an hour About what happened with that choke and the arm bar and everything And he told me that like there's such importance to the backstage conversations Before they actually go out and fight and John McCarthy said he goes Let's just say, you know, there's two somewhat grapplers. One's like really heavy on submissions.

Let's just say like Ronda Rousey and Misha Tate were fighting. I would go to the back and I would tell Misha Tate like, hey, this is what's going to happen. Here's the rules. If she gets you in an arm bar and your arm hyper extends and you scream, I'm stopping the fight. That's it. It's over and done with because you're right. That is part of the regulations. Like that could be shown as a verbal tap.

But who knows what happens in the rules meeting? maybe Keith Peterson said, look, she gets you in a position, you scream and your arm gets hyper-extended, I'm stopping the fight. Like, that conversation could have happened. We don't know. But it's just the aesthetics of it all where, like, it clearly looked like she was trying to tap. And then he hesitated, so it looked weird than it was. Yeah. So I think if he had just, if he had stopped it right at the initial tap, I don't think we're having this conversation right now.

I think it was kind of the hesitation and just the aesthetics, how just weird it. looked. You know what I mean? It looked like it. I, it did look weird and I, and it's not a fun position for the ref to be in. That's just,

he's like, I got a, that's not, Pierre put a, put the Peterson in a tough spot that he didn't, I don't say he didn't deserve to be in, but it was a tough spot for the ref. And to be fair,

she did exactly what she was supposed to do. Oh, no, I didn't tap because it looked so weird. Like that's what you're supposed to do with that situation. Ah, I didn't tap and you talk a bunch of noise. You look at the opponent and be like, I didn't tap. You didn't tap me.

It wasn't a submission. You didn't win. And then Gillian acted right. It goes, I would have broke her arm. I was prepared to break her arm. Yeah, Jillian said everything right. She didn't say, yeah, whatever. For her, you know, she said, well, I want to broken it.

And the rep told me to stop, and I stopped. Followed the rules. But Pierre, she should be more experienced when you are in that position. Don't put your hand in a spot that could potentially look like a tap. That's all. So, and yeah, that's pretty much it. Okay. Well, speaking of that's pretty much it.

That's pretty much it here. So thank you for joining us. UFC Canning City's in the books. But guess what, everybody? If the beauty of a live audience and people reacting to a great main event, if you love that feeling so much, don't worry. Because the UFC returns to the apex next week. And I believe we have heavyweighty, heavyweight headlining.

Is that, that's accurate, right? Yeah. Heavyweight? Yeah. I don't remember what the freaking fight is. Pavlovich Blades. Oh, yes. Yes.

Sergei Pavlovich versus Curtis Blades back at the end. I'll be, I'll be, I'll be in Vegas. It's not bad. I'll be in Vegas, but not at that card. Oh. Oh. I'll be at the, you know, the little, the fisticus. The boxing.

The little boxing match of the T-Mobile. Oh, the little boxing match. I feel like most people will be watching that little boxing match. All right, everybody. Well, thank you for joining us. AK, I will see you tomorrow. On for the next one. We will matchmake following UFC Kansas City,

and then we'll get you ready for UFC Vegas 71, I believe this is going to be. I don't know. For A.K. For Casey, for Jose. I have Mike Heck. Thank you for watching. Good night, everybody. Happy birthday, AK.

It's not my birthday. Are you sure? You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first? There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.