MMA Fighting - UFC Orlando Post-Fight Show | Reaction To Stephen Thompson's Showcase In Thrilling Main Event

Episode Date: December 4, 2022

Stephen Thompson accomplished his mission of proving to UFC fans that he's still got it on Saturday night at UFC Orlando. Following a fourth-round corner stoppage TKO win for "Wonderboy" against the incredibly tough Kevin Holland, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and E. Casey Leydon react to the exciting battle, and Thomson's turn-back-the-clock performance. Additionally, they discuss Rafael dos Anjos' dominant performance in the co-main event, his overall resumé, and the callout of Conor McGregor, Sergei Pavlovich's devastating finish of Tai Tuivasa, Roman Dolidze's stoppage win against Jack Hermansson and callout of Khamzat Chimaev, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow E. Casey Leydon: @ekc Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for this show comes from the Audible original The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian

in this follow-up to the audible original blockbuster, the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two, Ghosts in the Machine, available now only from Audible. We're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. The Sound of Victory, a song playing in the ears over and over again of Stephen Wonderboy Thompson pulls off the upset win against Kevin Holland.

It looked really good doing so. And in the end, it goes down in the books is a fourth round TKO corner stoppage victory where the man they call a Wonderboy, about to turn 40 years old. What a fight, what a performance. We got ourselves a top 10 fight of the year, that's for sure. It was a lot of fun to watch.

And the event as a whole, it was a long one. It was a grind at times. But the main card came in. We ended up getting a seventh main card fight. We're like, oh my gosh, really? And then guess what? All the mended before the judge's scorecards. But it ended with Stephen Thompson getting back on track,

snap at a two-fight losing streak. So thank you for joining us for the UFC Orlando live post-fight show here on the NBA Fighting YouTube channel. I am Mike Keck back at you. He is E.C. Lydin. He is back as well. we're the post-fight show tag team champions of the world right now reacting to UFC Orlando.

It is 233 in the morning. And here we are, Casey. We talked about it. We heard from Wonderboy himself just moments ago at the post-fight press conference. He says he broke his hand as well. So we had Kevin Holland breaking his right hand. Stephen Thompson broke his left hand.

But luckily he didn't break any of his feet. That was a huge weapon. But the left hand was a huge weapon too. He landed that a million times. I'm not really stunned that he broke his left hand, but just overall, your thoughts on the fight, which over-delivered, in my opinion, and just the performance from Stephen Wonderboy Thompson.

This was a night of, you know, that y'all must have forgot, basically, with the main event and the co-main event, especially just, I didn't have super high expectations for this fight. I don't know why. And this fight that made sense, but maybe I was just kind of just tired of the Wonderboy story, you know, not his fault. Just know he's been around for a while.

We've watched a lot of his fights. But, man, I forgot when you put the right opponent across from Stephen Thompson, the person like Kevin Holland, holy moly. That is just fireworks, super exciting. And it's just fun to see Stephen Thompson get to do Stephen Thompson things. Get to be Wonderboy. And, you know, his last couple of fights, I know he's been, no, grinded out, you know, by wrestlers and stuff.

And Kevin Holland, no. Even if he may have had that skill set in him, but he chose not to use it. He's just like, you know what? We are coming out for entertainment tonight. We were just going to throw hands and feet. And it was a heck of entertaining fight. It's a bummer about the hand injury thing. But man, when those guys are just throwing fists and legs at each other like that, that's going to happen.

But Stephen Thompson, man, he still got it. Where he goes from here? I don't know. but man just awesome fight super too many fights too many fights it's just even though a lot of the fights are super excited just too many fights and but hey the main event delivered and i kind of forgot about it all it was just awesome yeah it was it was weird that they couldn't even it wasn't even timed well enough and they got right into the first fight like we were still doing the people's pre-fight show when both women were in the cage like right when the broadcast started they were ready to go

and we still had a carryover fight from the prelims into the main card, and we're just like, holy cow. But luckily we got some good moments and fun fights, all finishes on the main card, and it was capped up by Stephen Thompson. And that's kind of the big question, like where does he go from here? Because you could go in a number of different ways.

Like you could use him as kind of put him in that sort of gatekeeper role right now, sort of where Neil Magni is, maybe like a step higher than that, build up the Rock Bonoffs and the Brady's and guys like that who are on the come-up, you could certainly do that. Or you can sort of do the MMA thing where you remember the thing that most recently happened, which is Stephen Thompson in a fight with a guy that had 15,000 people on their feet, cheering and going bananas for 20 minutes as this thing was going on.

And I think that's a feeling the UFC wants to continue on. And Wonder Boy's a feel good story. Can you imagine 40-year-old Wonderboy Thompson going on a little bit of a win streak, winning three, four in a row and then maybe getting himself a third crack at the belt? I think that's a story the UFC would want to tell because this is, this right now, this is it.

Stephen Thompson is in that Rick Flair, WWF, early, like that run where Rick Flair was like, I'm going to keep wrestling until I lose, and then he loses the Sean Michaels, and we thought he was never going to wrestle again. Unfortunately, that wasn't true. But I feel like once Stephen Thompson loses again,

the door hasn't been locked behind him for a title shot, but as soon as he loses again, I feel like the lock is going to get thrown. So I think, like, this is it. This is the run if he's going to go on it. He's got to do it now. For sure.

I would agree for you, but I swear, when he lost to Bilal Muhammad, and we got to see 25 minutes of him being just grinded against a cage or on his back. I'm positive. I said, well,

we're never going to see Wonderboy have a title run anymore. And then, but like I said, I didn't expect this fight tonight. I don't, even though Kevin, I knew Kevin Holland was always going to bring that type of fight, but for some reason, I just, in my mind, I couldn't imagine the fight was going to be this exciting where we would honestly start having conversations and going, you know, I could see it. I could see Wonder Boy getting that one big win. Obviously, he needs one big win at least after this. But, you know, it's like, man, he's got one, without a doubt, he's got one more main event in an arena or one more maybe co-main event for a pay-per-view on him. And it's the Wonderboy story, I think we're kind of all shocked.

I don't think we're going to be talking about Wonderboy in this sense. We might predict that he was going to win tonight, but I don't think, I don't really think we had this type of momentum behind it. So it was shocking, and part of why this sport is freaking awesome. Yeah, I did pick Wonderboy to win. It was kind of a reluctant pick. It was more of a perceived value look at it. But I thought it was going to be sort of the fight we saw for like two rounds.

And then Wonderboy starts to sort of pull away like you did in the Jeff Neal fight. Yeah, and just cruise to it, cruise to a decision. But we didn't get that tonight. We got a fun-ass fight. It's not the fight of the year, people. I'm sorry. I saw people even ask my question. This is not the fight of the year.

I'm sorry. This is, it might be in the top five. That's pushing it. Definitely. Yeah, it's definitely in the top 10. It's not the fight of the year. It is not beating Glover versus Yuri. I'm sorry.

It's just not happening. It's not beating Hamzav versus Gilbert. it's just not. I hate to tell you. People love to do that. It was super fun. There are 14 fights on this card. It was the best of the 14 fights.

So it's be happy of that. It's just, we don't need to push our luck. Come on now. So what we're going to do here is because, I mean, we literally just had a press conference with one guy and we had to wait an awful long time for Stephen Thompson to show up. And I get that. Guys coming off of war.

Had to get all stitched up. Had to get medical stun. He had to take care of himself a little bit. Had to go on the ESPN post-fight show. So we had a little, wait a little while. So we talked about a lot of the storylines and narratives, if you will. So what we're going to do is instead of doing the people's pre-fight show, we're going to do the people's post-fight show here.

So we're going to, for the next 20 minutes or so, we're going to take your questions about this card. Whatever you want to talk about. You want to talk about what's next for Wonderboy? You want to talk about what's next for Kevin Holland. You want to talk about RDA's big win. We can talk about whatever you want. You want to talk about Mateus Nicolaou, ending his current UFC contract with a big win.

You want to talk about scary Sergei Pavlovich. We could do that. Roman DeLizze is near STFU-T-O-type submission. I mean, we saw a little bit of everything tonight. Eric Anders getting back on track. Yasmin, your guy kicking off the car with a sensational finish. Whatever you want. Let's go.

Next 20 minutes. Let's just fire out some questions. All right. Do, do, do. We've already answered what's next for another way. Here we go. Let's go to the very first of the top of the bottom of the card. Thoughts on Yasmin.

She looked great again tonight. She could be something special for the UFC in Mexico and for Latino fans. Yeah, I agree. She looked great. And it was a good fight, Casey, for a number of reasons. One, because she went out there and got a finish and set the table for a very interesting card. But two, she got thumped a little bit in that first round. Nunes dropped her.

had her in some trouble. We got to see her overcome a little bit of adversity. And then battle back, which is a great second round and a great finish. They got something with her. They definitely have something. They're super young. So she's going to be kind of growing up in the organization.

But another early 20s exciting prospect right now. And right now, this is happening in a division that, let's be honest, we see a lot of up-and-comers and hungry fighters at 125 right now. This division needs somebody like Yasmin, and I think they got something with her. So I agree with everything Brandon said. Your thoughts at her performance and her ceiling right now after two octagon appearances. She's a legit prospect. I can't go out and say, you know, she will be fighting for the belt.

You know, not going that far away, not far yet. But at 23, the fact that she fought through some of her, for some reason, as fans, we like to see our fighters kind of take a beating and come back a little bit rather than dominate some of the domination is kind of boring so it was really nice to see her kind of take that big shot and go all right she can fight she can like she can be the nail and still come back and finish that fight with hammers so um just super exciting um yeah uh i think but he said just be a big star in mexico latino fans that's that she's just a big she's a big star i think she just has that package. Does she speak English? I'm not sure, actually. Does she speak? I don't think so. I know her post-fight interview is, I believe, is in Spanish. And I think her press conference was as well, but she'll get there at some point. Regardless, that obviously would help a little bit, but just for the American fans. But yeah, she has, I feel she has that thing. Whatever our promoters are looking for, she has that thing, that it factor. And, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I hope.

Don't push her too fast. I don't really have an ideal matchup for her next, but she's here to stay. It's just a great pickup by the UFC. Yeah, it's kind of tough because there's not, there's just not a ton of women in this division. It's the best, it's the best division. It's the best division.

It's straw weight. It should be the best. It's never let you down division. But I don't know, like I saw some people throw some names out. Vanessa DeMopolis was kind of a popular one that I saw. don't hate that idea. Juni Fry, it's not a bad idea. Something like that, like a little bit of a step up, a little more of a vet name.

But we're not throwing a... We don't need to throw in there with, like, Janjohn, Janon, or Rita Rodriguez right now. But a nice little step up. Somebody, you know... Someone out. Give me a little bit of step up. Yeah. Around 20.

Not even 15. Around 20. Around there. That's why I want to see her. Yeah. do do um okay

it's interesting does hall need a new corner that should have pulled them out of the fight at the end of the third round I don't think third round

third round now I don't know I mean the the hand thing I I mean again it's tough because I was live blogging so I'm like looking up

at the screen and typing and then making sure I'm not misspelling things so I'm not it's a fight I'm going to have to go back and watch, like, with the more clear eye again. Like, I feel like I got the gist of it, but I don't have all the ins and outs of it. But Kevin was still, like, I thought the end of the third round, he looked tired.

And I even started the live blog around for him. Like, Kevin looks pretty tired, but he gets up, but he's smiling, he's laughing. He's talking to Wonderboy, he's having a good, good old time in there, doing Kevin hauling things. And I didn't see outside of just him being really tired. I didn't think the fight really needed to be stopped there and then. But again, I have to go back and like rewatch it, full on, no distractions, and get a better gauge of that. The momentum was clearly swinging in Wonderboy's way.

That was a big third round. Fourth round, obviously, was a 10-8. You scored at a freaking 10-7, which I'm not even going to hate you for that because that was just a one-sided thumping. But, you know, even when Dan did the wave-off thing, like, you could have stopped the fight right there. And I would have been okay with it. Yeah, I thought, I thought his hand was so bad. He was getting beat up. I thought Kevin Holland verbally submitted, I mean verbally tapped.

He said, I can't do this anymore. That's what I felt happened. Clearly, we were wrong. And Murriada's odd gestures confused everybody. But regarding this question, should have ended in the third round? No, I think it was fine. And if anything, like halfway, like you said, halfway to the fourth round

if Bob Perez or even his cornerman would have tried to stop the fight. I had no issue with it. Because I don't think they knew how bad. Because like every handbrake is different. You know, like you saw Kevin Holland's handbrake. He couldn't. Like he was in visible pain

while Stephen Thompson says he has a handbrake, but he could still throw punches of it. No, so there are, handbrakes are all different. But it clearly looks like Kevin Holland's handbrake was a bad handbrake, one of those handbrakes that we we might not see Kevin Holland fight for it, probably six months, because those things have to heal properly.

Otherwise, that's a potential career type of injury. Yeah, because he was still chucking it and landing in the second. Yeah. Third, you're still throwing it a little bit. Fourth is when you really started to realize that he was a one-handed fighter.

But he's still like, still kind of throwing it when he was getting in those exchanges. But yeah, I would have felt a little, I would have felt a little queasy. had they let Holland out in that fifth round, I think after the fourth, it was the right call that you couldn't let him back out there.

He was just getting, he was just getting thumped. He had no defense. He was one-handed fighter. And again, like, I know we want to see more of this. We want to see more of these types of situation. It was just like, dude, you're done.

Live to fight another day. Who knows, at least, and again, I didn't watch it. I don't know what the corner was. They might have been, I might have seen the same commercial 800 times in a row and missed it. But maybe they tell Kevin, look, man, it's not going well.

I'll give you five more minutes, but then that's it. You got to show me something or I'm stopping it. And that was the five minutes he gave, and they went and stopped it. So I don't know. I'm sure we'll get answers to those questions down the road, but I didn't have an issue with them.

I would have an issue if he went out there and fought in the fifth round. That's for sure. Yeah. Are you, are you been fined if he came out of the fifth round? You think so? No, I wouldn't have. I would have had, I would have had an issue.

Oh, you would have. Yeah, me too. He was done. The fact that I said 10-7, that's what I mean, like 10-7, that's like the round, like, because Kevin Holland has something, which is a blessing and a curse in MMA. He just, he doesn't have a button, which is great and exciting because BJ Penn was one of those fighters. You just could not knock him out. Nick Diaz is kind of the same fighter. Nick and Nate, they just don't, they just don't turn off.

But that can, you have to have responsible corners to save you for. from yourself because you will take just life-changing beatings in fights because you just won't turn off and you're you're such a good fighter and so tough you'll always be in the fight but it's just very dangerous and um bjpin he had a lot of those fights where if towards special end of his career he just didn't turn off he would just get beat up and beat up beat up and that's why these losses he felt even worse Darren Elkins is a bit like that i don't know how much we'll talk about him just the guys that just that was tough this is the they don't have that button that just turns them off. So those just take beatings and beatings, which is great for promoters and great for excitement. But yeah, it just doesn't make you feel good sometimes. That fourth round, just last thing on this. Yeah.

Stephen Thompson landed 40. There's like significant strikes. And then there's like significant strikes. Stephen Thompson landed 48 significant strikes. And they were significant strikes. Like everything. was with full vigor. They all landed clean.

They all got a response. They all, a lot of them hurt Kevin really badly. He just wouldn't fall down. Like, that was a tough round to watch. Like, Steven just put it on him.

And I give, I give crew bob credit for, for stepping it and stopping it. Because Kevin would have kept going. Like, it was up to him, probably just kept going. But, yeah.

If you had, I'm sure Kevin, there's a piece of Kevin that was probably a little bit relieved, too. He's like, oh, thank God. Yeah. God. But Kevin's toughest shit, man.

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That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. I want to talk about this gentleman now. This is an interesting question. RDA, the greatest resume in all of MMA history. So I'm going to let you defend your take in a moment, because I saw you tweet this as well, and I wanted to ask you about this. You said that this was a y'all must have forgot moment.

for RDA kind of a fight, a kind of a performance. To me, this is exactly the fight I expected. I didn't think, I thought Barbarita would, I thought RDA would light them up a little bit more on the feet and Barbara would just take it and bleed

and then eventually how the fight ended, we'd see it in the third. But RDA was, I believe he was the biggest favorite on the card by a mile. This is what we expected. So I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just curious as to why you feel.

feel like this is a y'all must have got performance when this is kind of a tailor-made matchup for him well according to the tapology's just straight pickums i don't know but the betting lines yeah he was a heavy favorite but there were uh six other fighters who were bigger uh underdogs than barbarina so i understand what you're saying already it was a heavy favorite yeah um these are just straight pick-um pickums and these aren't betting lines uh that's i kind of like going by that a little more i think that's a little more accurate for my taste. But I just, I just was so impressed by RDA. There's something about, I guess, well, I guess more in a sense, like, when I say y'all must forgot, y'all must forget, RDA is just on a level. They're like, I think D.C. kind of famously said it.

There are levels of this game. And RDA is just on a level that Barbarina just can never be on. and the way he just dismantled and like and actually I thought the commentary was great there was no wasted movement RDA just looked like everything he was doing had a plan he wasn't just like I'm just fighting and just kind of I'm just going to throw this and see what happens every single thing RDA did had a plan it was a plan and that to me like when I was watching him at his wrestling I saw why the fight was going on people were like oh they were kind like this is boring or something you know what before the fight got finished. But I'm just like, I'm just in really admiration for a man. Like, who, is he the same age

as Stephen Thompson? About the same age? He's like one year younger maybe or? He's 38. Just turned 38. So he's like a year, year and change behind him. Yeah. You know, guys who have just having fighting both these, Wonder Boy Thompson and RDA, these guys have only fight top 10, top 15 guys for the last decade. And I just think that's so incredible. And these guys can do this at that age and just all the time in the training rooms, all that mat time, all that drilling, it just shows up. And I was just, when watching RDA fight, I was just so impressed by just how everything he did was just perfect, his movements, his hip placement, his leg rides. It's just, and then Barbarina would get up and fight his way up and take him down and just slowly just kind of break down

Barbarina and Barbarina is a very good fighter he's not an elite fighter but he's a super good fighter who's you know I don't know what he's at least 15 fights in the UFC like he's done this for a while he's fought the highest level of guys you know and to see Barbarina just kind of not look like he quite but this looks like he didn't belong in there with RDA you know and I just I just think it's so impressive and and I I forget because RDA just yeah he's just he's like he's not the most exciting personality. I get that. But just pure fighting, I just, I'm

always in awe of watching a fight. Because he's a true mixed martial artist, I guess. So he made his debut in 2008 in the UFC, got knocked up by Jeremy Stevens, loses to Tyson Griffin, which in 2008, 2009, like those are

solid losses. Wins three in a row, loses to Clay Guida, injury, TKO. This is 2010, Clay Guida. nothing to snark at, loses a close split to Glacin Tebow, wins five in a row, then the rest of the way,

loses to Habib Narbhna Madov Wins five in a row, which includes one of the most dominant title wins that I can remember. I mean, RDA put it on Anthony Pettis to win the belt. Beat Nate Diaz before that, knocked up Benson Henderson before that,

knocks out Donald Seroni in the first round to defend his title, Loses to Eddie Alvarez, loses to Tony Ferguson, wins three in a row. This is him going up to 170, loses to Colby, loses to Usman,

beats Kevin Lee, loses to Leon, Kiesa, and then goes back to 55, fights Paul Feldar, beats him, beats Tana Tamau Kano, short-notice opponent,

beats Brian Barbarina, and then sandwiching between those gets knocked up by Rafael Fazeveev, and he's knocking out everybody right now. So, I mean, his losses are like too legit. Even at the time, I mean, just the best, just the best dudes. Guys, a legend. He's a first ballot hallfamer.

He's a legend. I don't know if he gets the Conner fight, but I'm glad he keeps calling. I'm glad he keeps calling for it and he should keep calling for it. I just, it's the fight that got away. It's the fight that got away. And it's a fight that once it got away, we never thought it would ever come back to him. And now it actually logistically makes sense if they wanted to make that fight.

But I can totally understand why Connor be like, nah, not really interested because I had favor RDA to win that fight. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Which is, yeah. I mean, if there's betting lines on who Connor is going to fight next, I would say RDA is like one in 50s, one in a hundred.

I don't know. He's a long short. He's a long shot. Yeah, whatever, whatever. Like, I can probably, I probably have like 15 fighters I can name right now before RDA. Even though RDA makes a lot of sense. It does. It makes sense.

You have a whole storyline. You probably, you could recycle the promo you're going to use for UFC 196 and just add a couple of layers to it. It's easy. And one of my favorite parts of RDA is like, he lost his first two fights. He got just, just highlight world knockout by Jerry. Jeremy Stevens, and Jeremy Stevens uppercotted him from his ankles. He lost the second by Tyson Grimmons.

That could have been the end for already. He could have been released. He could have gone back to Brazil. He could have been the Bellator champ now. I don't know. There's so many different ways. It's already a story could have gone. But the UFC kept them around after those two losses.

And yeah, it's just, it's wild. So like, even I always, I always think about that. When I see, you know, fighters just get their butt kicked. in fights, you know, especially the first fight, and you go, you know what? But maybe this guy was going to be a future Hall of Famer. We don't know. It's just these are, like, there's no way after watching News Tyson Griffin where there was like, find any, listen to any podcast back then.

These guys are going, I know RDA got his butt kicked his first two UFC fights, but this guy, he's got it. He's got it. He's got it. He's got to be the champion. He's got to be champion. He's going to be champion. You just, it just doesn't, you just would never say that.

But it's just, it's, and that's why I like RDA, just like, it's like, RDA, just like, because he's just no frills. Like he just seems like a guy that just trained really hard and tried hard. That's, I mean, yeah, he just tried hard and just kept doing it, which just thinks freaking awesome. Yeah, his resume is, it's right up there. That's for sure. All right, enough of my RDA.

Love, love story. How scary is Pavlovich? Like, did he just jump up, jump in 80% on the scare meter to, I, He might be higher. He might be higher than 97 right now. Yeah, this is the performance he needed because I picked, I picked Ty to win. I expected Sergey to do what he did to tie early. I expected Ty because of his durability to be able to recover from that and survive,

maybe even lose a 10-8 first, but at least make it to round two and then do tie to Evasa things. And Sergey is like, nope, now letting that happen. and the first shot he landed, Ty's whole demeanor changed. Like, unlike the Derek Lewis fight, unlike the Cyril Gaon fight, this was like, oh crap. And when Ty Tuvasa,

when that fight was stopped, and Ty was like smile and be like, Sergei, you're a good fighter. I mean, Ty looked like he got run over by a car. Like, he just looked like it. And it was 50,

it was a vicious beating. Sergei's the real deal. And this is, this is the kind of finish that he needed after the Derek Lewis one because I know a lot of people thought that was kind of questionable. I saw someone post on Twitter after seeing the tie. It was, I forget who it was, but I'm just kind of paraphrasing. After seeing the way he finished tie to Ivasa, I no longer think the Derek Lewis stoppage is a bad one. I know what they're trying to say.

The Derek Louis Obitch sucked. It sucked because what we're saying about Pahlivich, Sergey Pavitch tonight, we should have been saying. saying after the Derek Lewis fight, but we kind of got robbed of that because of the early stoppage. The stoppage tonight was completely proper. That's how you stop fights, you know, these guys at this level, you know, that's a proper stoppage. But no, no, I said Derek Lewis.

I still get that it was a horrible stoppage, but I don't think Derek Lewis is going to win that fight, but that's not why it's early stoppage. But, yeah. Did you see? Scary, scary, scary. Did you see, I just saw this on Twitter. I'm sorry, I mean, it changed it to, but I reacted to it. Do you see Shafka-Rukhmanov's tweet an hour ago?

No, I did. What is it? It's awesome. He just goes, congratulations to Still Dangerous Wonder Boy, and happy retirement to Trailblaze to Top. Oh, Shafka. Damn. Dang.

That was, that was pretty good. I can't I can't wait I can't he's he's I know everyone loves Hasmot but to me that that's he's the guy I think but we'll see We'll see he's a good He's getting Jeff Neal love that fight

Nice little step up a competition for him So yeah I'll take a couple more Yeah Pavlovich is legit I'm very curious to see where he goes And how he's now Like when the UFC has their war room meetings Their matchmaker meetings It'll be interesting to see how they view him

where they put him in the conversation. Is he now part of that like that four-man race to the belt? Or is he just the guy on the outside? If he's not, who is the guy on the outside? Because either it would be Cyril Gunn or Curtis Blades, the way that it looks right now. If he's in the top four sort of mix right now, I'm curious to see how the matchmakers view him.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It sucks because I think so much. I'm sorry? No, I was saying you're good. I'm sorry. Oh, yeah, yeah, sorry. I think so much, unfortunately,

unfortunately, the war in the Ukraine really is going to hurt Sergey's, as far as his UFC career, just because it's just world politics. I don't think the UFC can have a big event in Moscow right now for obvious reasons. And that just sucks for him as far as being a prize fighter. So that's that's that's actually the big that's actually going to be the big issue right now. I feel for him. So we'll see. This is, I want to, I like, I always like your takes on these because I'm kind of indifferent to callouts, but I like your, but you're big on proper callouts.

So what do you think about the McGregor and Homzac calls? It seems like bad callouts to me. No way either those fights happen. We talked about the McGregor call out. I don't mind it. RDA, like, look, RDA, like, RDA. We talked about his resume. He understands he's not fighting for any more belts.

He just wants fun fights before he turns the page on life. And there's a story here. He was supposed to fight Connor UFC 196. RDA gets injured. We end up getting the Nate Diaz fight. Nate becomes a massive superstar. RDA is just done. He's out of the picture because after the first Diaz fight,

they were going to run that one back. And then Connor went and fought for the second title. And RDA was just donezo. Like, you're just out of the conversation altogether. And now, feasibly, it's possible. Like, you could do it. Like, you could make that fight right now

because McGregor against you, Casey, sells a million paper views. I'd watch a hell of that, by the way. But it would make sense, and there's a story there, and you could do that. The Homsai call out, I absolutely loved the callout.

And I'll tell you why. Roman DeLidezai has come from nowhere. Much like a guy named Tom Zat Shamaif. Kind of an afterthought. No one really expected this guy to be ranked or even be talked about. And then he goes out there and just finishes three dudes in a row, finishes Jack Hermanson, took the fight on short notice, a crazy finish.

I've never seen anything quite like it. Obviously, I've seen a cap slicer and a ground impound pot, but I've never seen them put together like that. And this dude's going to be a top 10 middleweight next week. He's going to be the number eight middleweight in the world. in the UFC rankings, when if you, if I told you in January,

my bold prediction is that Roman DeLidezay is going to be a top 10 middleweight at the end of the year, you would ask for me to be fired. But now look at this guy. And he goes out, and what I liked about the call out is, he's probably not going to get it.

But either way, worst case scenario, he's setting himself up for a big fight with this performance. He calls out Hamzaad, now you get seeds planted. Worst case scenario, he's going to fight like Darren Till or Drink his Duplicity next.

He might even get like a Marvin Vittori fight next at this point. That's where this guy is. And you know what I liked about the callout as well? He said the man's name. He didn't call him the wolf. He didn't call him anything else. He said Hamzat Shemayev. I loved it.

I loved the callout. You took the moment. You got so much momentum from that win. Everyone was buzzing about the finish. He called out Hamzat. He ain't going to get it. but I liked the gusto. I thought it made sense.

I had no issue with either callout. None of these fights are going to happen next. None of them. But I did like the gusto from both. So you're okay if called out for fights that aren't going to happen? As long as they have right. There is one callout that was awful tonight. And I hate to do this because I like this guy a lot.

Eric Anders, horrible call out tonight. Who was it? Just a hot. He called out Jamie Pickett for a fight next week. because Bo Nickel got hurt, they rebooked that fight for March like seven weeks ago. Almost like, so long ago they rebooked that. It's supposed to go down March 4th.

It's signed. It's happening. So James is going to be like, no, instead of fighting Bo Nickel in a fight is going to give him so much spotlight, you know what, I'll fight you next week. Come on, man. You got to get, you get that fight.

Unless, like, Beau gets hurt again, and Jamie's like, all right, fine, I'll fight him. But he's fighting the super prospect right now. Like, the biggest fighting you possibly get. You call out Bob Nicol. You don't call out Jamie Pickett. You tell him, maybe you'll see, rip up that contract of picket. I want to fight Bo Nicol. I want to, or something like, you don't go after Pickett.

Yeah, I would have been, I would have been better with that. Now, maybe Eric just didn't know. Eric's a busy dude. He's a family man. Dude's always trying to. on the grind trying to make some money, I get it. Maybe he's not tapped into the MMA space. But if you're going to try to call somebody out,

you could just jump on, jump on tapology. Jump on tapology, see what's going on there. Go on M.A.fighting.com. We reported that as Dunzo a while ago. That was a bad call on. As A.K. would say on to the next one, if you book, if your matchmaking suggestion, it mimics that, AK would say your pick is doo-do.

That was the do-do call-off. Because it's not happening. It's not happening. I love you, Eric. It just was a bad callout. It was a great performance from Anders, too, but the callout. And then he, not only that, he went to the back and did a post-fight interview, and he, like, doubled down on it.

Like, nobody told him. Nobody told them. Come on, man. Jose, he got to bring it to him. I had more of an issue with that. But you know what? You know what's crazy? Is that most people forgot about it?

Because even, like, the media member's like, ooh, we called out Jamie Pickett for a fight next week. I'm like, well, you know what's not going to happen? because Jamie Pig was pulled up. You have seen 282 so long ago once Bo got hurt. And they just rebook that matchup because why book anything else for Bo Nicol right now? So did Eric Anders, so he wanted to fight next week? He wanted to fight.

His initial call was, Jamie, I know you still need an opponent. I'll fill in and fight you next week since Bo's hurt. So he thought Jamie Piggin was still training for a fight. It was going to show up at the T-Mobile arena and go, all right, UFC. I hope someone shows up. Is that way Eric Anders is thinking is going on right now

in Jamie Pickett's life? I think so. Like I missed it. I missed it, but I saw people on Twitter talking about it. So I went on a Slack chat. I'm like, did Eric Ganners just

asked to fight Jimmy Pickett on next week's card? And they're like, yep, you sure did. And I'm like, oh man. I mean, his heart at least was in the right place. He just didn't know what was happening. And again, not all fighters

are like going to every event and watching every card and listening to every podcast. Like, I get it. Man has a life. He's got other things going on. But, you know, just quick glance at the old tapology page. And you'll realize,

eh, probably shouldn't have done that. Should have used that call for somebody else. But that's all. The other two calls, like, they ain't going to happen. But I like the gusto. Yeah, I think Angela Hill called out, other callouts, what Angela Hill called out, Carolina for UFC London.

So that made sense. Yeah. But. The time I got me called. Although Kanye West, that was a callout. I love when John Anick gets to say, your boy. I love. That's exactly how I would say it too.

Yeah boy. I'd get so into it. I could tell he loves to say that he was so excited to say that. Oh, Annick's so good. Do you do, do, do, do. Speaking of John Anick, by the way, Jose Young's got to sit down with John Anick while in Orlando for episode two of anything but fighting. And I cannot wait to watch this episode because we talk about New England sports the entire time.

And I am jazzed. And I am ready for this. So I think that's dropping Tuesday. So stay tuned for that. I saw that clip earlier. I think we got a sneak clip on Slack. So I don't want to talk about it yet. but yeah

all right thoughts on where Mateus goes from here UFC still shows a pension for not marketing fly weights that ain't Marino or Davidson so this is one of the interesting ones because I'm trying to prepare

for onto the next one tomorrow I have no idea what to do with this guy I have no idea the dude he said at the end of the fight I'm now an unemployed fighter because that was the last fight in his deal he's hoping he gets resigned I don't think he's going anywhere else

PFL isn't doing it. Bellator doesn't have a flyway to it. Like, just one game in town really, unless you want to go to one and to deal with whatever the hell is going on over there. And or go to Brave or something, but he's probably going to get re-signed because they're going to need him right now. I don't know. Like, I honestly have no idea what they're going to do here because Figgie's the champion. Moreno's the interim champion. These two guys are supposed to fight at the pay-per-view in January in Brazil.

That's right now supposed to be the main event. But then we heard about this James Krause situation, and we don't even know what's going to happen. Like we don't know if Branden's going to just say like, F it, I'm just going to find somewhere else to go and fight. Or if he's just going to be like, no, like, I'm not doing this. I'm going to wait and wait for my guy to be cleared or whatever he's thinking and then do it. So then do we have Pantosia, who's the back.

up right now. At least that's what he told Guillermo Cruz. I don't know. I think for him, get your dollars, get re-signed, make that money, son, and just keep the phone by you at all times because if they need to fill in for something for a big opportunity, you've got to be ready to go. Whether it's for the belt or to fight Pantosia or something, if this fight for the belt actually happens to the tetralogy, or for some reason something happens with like Alex Perez, because he's had a hard time just getting to fights these days. If something happens there, if you send him to Perth to fight Kikara, France,

you just got to be ready. You just got to be ready. There's a great win, a great performance. It's going to age well, I think. But you kind of have to strike where the iron's hot before it's forgotten. Royval's hurt.

It's just not a lot of ton of options for him, so it's just kind of... How hurt is Roval? Man, I want to see that fight. Is he like hurt, hurt, or... I think he's, I'll pull it up. He was supposed to fight in two weeks. He was supposed to fight on that last night night card with Amir Al-Bazi.

But now Al-Bazi's fighting. I forget who he's fighting. What did he say? There we go. Heartbroken say I'll not be competing in the same to the training injuries. Last week after practice is feeling pain on my wrist. After a few days of the deformity, bruising, and the pain not going away. Went to doctors determined I broke my wrist.

Thankfully, he won't need surgery, but he will not be recovered in time to compete. First time ever had to pull off a fight. So, I mean, broken wrists, four to six weeks, depending on how bad it is, maybe a little longer. Who knows? Royval could be fighting, like, first quarter, depending. I don't know. So maybe he is on the table. Any updates with Mr.

Aspinall. I've heard nothing. And that's another name we keep forgetting about is Tommy Aspinall. But again, he is coming off a loss. It was a weird one, an injury one. But fortunately, he's going to have to kind of build his way back up. But he's still really young and he's only going to get better. So him and Sergey will be fun.

I don't know if we want to do that right now, though. I don't. I think Asparal would need to, obviously, I still think he's got another six months. These are heavy weights. So you got to make sure those ligaments are, very healed. But obviously, a healthy aspirin, all in Sergey, I wanted them to see if I wanted them to eventually.

Just, I don't think we're going to see that. Maybe 2024. Maybe 2023. Yeah. Yeah, no idea. I'll take one more question. One more. One more.

One more. Oh, God, make this a good one then. Good, good, good, good. You guys are doing it on to next tomorrow, right? We are indeed. Okay. So other than that, not doing any match. questions gentlemen and ladies outside if there's a matchmaking question outside of the main

card we could do it or for any or for any of the losers and on the main card not talking any james kraus you go watch our pre-show pre-by q and a day yeah we've talked we've talked a lot yeah nothing's changed uh uh uh real quick why i find a good question Which fighter called out, yay, the guy with the mustache talked over Mike. Natan Levi called out Kanye West. If you know Natan Levies, you probably know why. If you know what has gone on in the last several months with Kanye, I think you would understand why. We just go watch it.

It's not a long scrum. I think it's like four minutes. I think it was basically Jose interviewing Natan Levy, but he explains why. so you can go check that out uh man come on guys give me a question about tonight uh

anything hey look we can be done if there's no more it's okay we got a paper view coming up next week so this is going to be content a lore don't you worry you know what it is extremely late on the eastern coast so what's 316 baby

316 and there's the music. All right, we're done. Thank you all very much. I think we'll have the full crew back next week. Next week, a lot of fun. UFC 282. They're back in Vegas, last pay for you of the year.

We are doing a watch party next Saturday as well. So, the NBA fighting YouTube channel is got to be pumping. So get ready. So for Casey, I am Mike Heck. Get some sleep, everybody. If you want to send in your matchmaking suggestions for on to the next one,

do them in the next six hours. or so. You can Instagram me, Instagram, A.K. If you listen to the show, you know how to do it. So for Casey, I am Mike Hack. Thanks for watching. Good night, everybody. Or shall I say, good morning, everybody. Happy birthday, Jose. Oh, yes. 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.