MMA Fighting - UFC Vegas 54 Post-Fight Show | Jan Blachowicz Wins, But Was It Enough To Get Back To A UFC Title Shot?

Episode Date: May 15, 2022

Jan Blachowicz is back in the win column, even though his UFC Vegas 54 victory over Aleksandar Rakic ended in an unfortunate way. Was it enough to put in him the position to try and regain the #UFC light heavyweight title against the winner of the UFC 275 main event between Glover Teixeira and Jiri Prochazka? MMA Fighting's Mike Heck, Jose Youngs, and Alexander K. Lee attempt to answer that question, react to the post-fight bonuses, Katlyn Chookagian picking up another victory at 125 pounds in a fun scrap with Amanda Ribas, and other storylines coming out of Saturday's card at the APEX.  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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fighting YouTube channel. I am Mike Keck. We get A.K. Lee. We have Jose Youngs, who is backstage in the media room in Las Vegas at the apex. So we're going to begin with Jose. We don't have a lot of time with him. It's probably Oscar trying to get involved here. Not a surprise.

Not a surprise. Yeah. They say it's probably Oscar. I go, it is. Hello, Oscar. But Jose, we'll begin with you before you get booted out of there. In the end, Jan Blahovich gets a third round TKO victory over Alexander Rackich in the main event. We'll talk more about the fight, but unfortunate ending to a pretty fun fight.

Just your thoughts on the main event, how it ended, and seeing Jan Blahovic get back in the win column. I mean, it's always disappointing when anyone gets. I guess it feels, that was weird. I guess it's a... it always feels bad when you see someone injured themselves and like they lose a fight that they were because let's not let's not like mess around with that. Ratchick was not only in that fight it was I had a 1-1 after 2 and then he hurt his knee so it's just super

unfortunate A because Ratchick is still such a young fighter he's in the prime of his career you always hear like because he's going to get his MCL and LCL checked out on Monday so fingers crossed is nothing too severe but that looks gnarly when you can physically see your knee ligament snap in half it's probably not a good sign but just super unfortunate all around. I know Yon is just pointing that. He's happy that he won, but he's disappointed that that's how it ended. And very humble and defeat,

Ratchick was, you know, he went up to Yon and congratulating him. And Yon said, you'll be, you'll be champion eventually. But it's just disappointing that a fighter of Aalzanah Ratchik's age and standing in the division, hurt his knee so badly, because he might now come back for two years. And we always say the light heavyweight division is so shallow and losing someone of his caliber is definitely a huge blow. Did they give any sort of an update on, because I know he wasn't at the press conference, but was there any update provided from anybody from the UFC about just that just the US CPR came and said that he's going to get an MRI on Monday for his LCL and MCL. And that's as far as we know. I assume places in open tomorrow. It's Sunday or he's going to

heal up for a bid and rehydrate and then go into it. But yeah, we won't know. Monday. Now, I know you're not a giant fan of playing matchmaker, but we did have the champion, Glover Tashira, tweet out before this all began, this whole card, that, hey, if I win and you win, we'll just run this back, Jan. Yon obviously is not going to be upset about seeing a tweet from the champion. Obviously, Glover's guy got a tough task ahead of him, fighting a madman in Yuri Perashka. But if he does get the job done and beats Yuri,

what are the chances they run this one back in your opinion? I mean, higher than I thought, I didn't think, I mean, I was going to say if Ratchik in one, he probably deserved the number one contender spot, obviously Ankelyev and Anthony Smith's coming up, but if you just go by rankings, I mean, Jan Belhovic is still the number one ranked light heavyweight under the champion in the U.S.C.'s rankings

where they kind of try to use it for matchmaking purposes. So before this fight, I said, ah, Ratt Jans probably maybe one, maybe probably two wins away, considering he got finished by the current champion. and I always said if Glover does be Urey and then retires, I would assume it be Yon versus fill in the blank for the vacant title. But since the title is not vacant, and Glover tweeted that,

I think it's probably 75% chance, 75, 80% chance to happen. Because for all we know, Glover to Cher gets really hurt because as we just saw today, when you fight Yomlovich, your knees can blow out. So fingers crossed, that doesn't happen. But if Glover to Cher wins, I would assume that fight is going to happen maybe by the end of just especially someone the champion tweets it two last things just to give us a vibe from what happened back there i know there are fighters coming in and out talking about their victories and everything but what fight what moments got the media room all i'll fired up tonight uh the david grant

knockout was pretty jarring uh he basically punched a hole through loose smoke his head on the canvas so that was a jarring uh a pretty jarring moment the uh the manuel knockout what's What's Manuel Torres? That was a pretty jar on one, just considering it was like a one, two, and then he didn't even follow. He even said himself, like, I didn't know if I should follow up. He's kind of a black boy. He doesn't want to hurt him anymore, this and that.

And then, like, who would have thought, Callant Choucageon getting a fight of the night? I mean, we all joked 3027, Callant Chagin. That was a fun scrap. The Vivian Arruchel getting head kicked by Andrew Lee in the first round and then surviving was a pretty spectacular moment. So pretty great night all around in terms of like excitement finishes and fights and the late. he's put on some pretty fantastic performances. So all in all, pretty fun fight car.

I'm not going to lie. Usually when there's a pretty talked about rotten moment of the night, it always sort of bounces out with a delightful moment. I think we know the rotten moment we're talking about with Tony Kelly in the cornering, but you got to actually speak with Tetsuro Tira for the very first time, a delightful young man. And have you ever gotten a reaction from a fighter

just explaining the secret menu in and out? Because that kid was so excited. Never for a fighter, but it's always like I've had other friends from other countries to come in. I take him to the end and now, and I'm like, there's a secret menu. They're like, what, what's that? What's a secret menu? So, uh, I read definitely responded like, well, how old is he? 21, 22 years old at that?

Yeah, definitely respond to like a 22 year old who has been cutting weight. We just got told he could get quote unquote animal style French fries with a burger with three patties. So I don't expect that's tired to be anywhere close to 125 pounds by this time. next week. There you go. Jose, I know you're about to get the boot, but thank you for checking in. I know it's been a long night for you. So I appreciate it, my man. Enjoy the rest of your night and we'll see you probably next

week. I'm sure. Awesome to the leg of the gentleman. Thanks, Jose. There he is, everybody. Jose Young's coming on in and giving a quick recap. I know he's got to get out of there and when it's time to go. They don't just say, okay, you got to go. And then, because you know what happens when they tell you you got to go. You're like, okay,

but you have to try to squeeze in like two or three last things. Now, the UFC just shuts off the Wi-Fi and make sure you're getting out of there. So, AK, you're looking dapper. You're looking like you're going to play a Sunday round at the Masters. It's more of a bowling, I think. But, I mean, obviously golf, yeah, but I really look at it as like a bowling shirt. Yes, Kingpin 101 from Alexander Cayley.

Your thoughts of the main event. Yombovich gets it done. Not the way he would have liked it and a lot of people watching would have liked it. But in the end, he landed the leg kick. And those leg kicks are really effective. It was unfortunate the other leg that he put the weight on and sort of collapsed him and brought him down to the canvas. But just your thoughts on Jan's performance,

especially that first round, I thought he looked really good. Yeah, I think a lot of the comments I saw were like, he's really came to fight tonight, which sounds like a weird thing to say about like a guy who was just the UFC champion in his most recent fight. But I think a lot of people were kind of discouraged by what happened with the DeSherr matchup, not just that obviously he was outclass on the ground.

You know, he was facing a superior grappler. but he didn't seem to have that Polish power verb that so many people see. And he commented that after the fight, he was kind of asked about it. And he was just like, yeah, like I felt more relaxed. I'm having fun.

And I think you could see that in his performance. I think a loose and sort of relaxed of Blackfitz is the best version of him. That's the version that got him to the title, his first title opportunity that got him the title win and got him as the win over at Dissena. So we saw some of that tonight. And would that have carried through for the whole fight and got him to win unclear?

Because, you know, Rockich was fighting really well too for the injury. But I think it's definitely for some of us, including myself, who was kind of counting, I was counting Jan Blakovich out a little bit, as I have many times in the past. This is, I think, the sixth time in his past seven fights that I have picked a fight wrong. I picked him to lose many times, and I picked him to beat to Cheras. So it was all just, it's all incorrect. I picked him to lose to Rockich tonight. So another L for this guy.

But listen, he turned 39 in February. Yeah, his best years are probably behind him, but he's still clearly more than good enough to be competitive with anyone in the top 10 of the light heavyweight division. And I guess the question now is, and I see a lot of people asking in the comments and on social media, how close is he to getting another shot of the title, whether it's against a share or Parachca?

I don't know. I'm kind of mulling it over myself. Yes, of course, we will match break tomorrow. on onto the next one and we'll make that situation but i assume there's a poll with with such a topic yes yeah oh yeah absolutely straight just straight up people asking uh did he do enough did he do enough tonight to earn a uc title shot regardless of who wins at uc 275 very strong right now 64 percent yes so most people like yet like you said they saw at least enough in the first round and uh had ended with an injury but it was competitive enough that they see enough of the of the of the yon blehovitz of old

of the championship yon that if you got a title shot tomorrow or is announced that it was announced this week he began a teleshot doesn't sound like too many people would complain. Yeah, I mean, we also have to keep in mind that there is a very big fight in this division coming up at UFC 277, July 30th,

and Dallas between Anthony Smith and Magamahe and Akhalif. And you would think if Ankelaif wins, he's either in there or they're going to do another number more contender fight. Plus, if Anthony Smith wins, people love Anthony Smith. there's a very good chance he gets up there because, I mean,

he gets the chance to run that back with Glover because that was a bad loss for him. One of those things. And then he turned it around not long after that. He took another loss, but all of a sudden he's on a tear again. And Anthony Smith versus Jerry Perash is probably just going to be insanity until it ends should that happen.

We already know what's going to happen. Gloverichshare is going to take Yuri down. He's going to submit him in the first round. I'm saying this for like seven months now. Come on, no. Anthony Smith tweeted after he said, he tweeted, looks like I'm going to upset a couple of guys pretty soon. So he thinks, you know, he's, I think he's amused by all the contender talk.

And he's just, you know, he's just, I think he's, he's kind of like, well, don't forget about me. Don't forget about me. I'm here. Like he said, I have the Ankolaev fight. That fight is, I mean, that's a certainly winnable fight for Anthony Smith. I mean, I think Ankoliath, I assume, I'm sure this odds already, probably at least a two to one minus, probably minus 250, maybe close to 3 to 1 favorite.

But, man, Anthony Smith has been down in the odds before. And he's being a lot of, he's being a lot of guys. So I'm certainly leaning towards Ankeliov, but Anthony Smith would not shock me. me in the slips. Of course, Ryan Span got a submission win, light heavyweight division against Iwan Kuchelaba. And that brings up a question from Jordan Isle bonuses, which are kind of surprising. Jordan, did I not just answer this question in the comments? Like, I swear I just told him.

But, you know, there's a lot of comments here. It might have been someone else. It might have been someone else. I apologize. So if it wasn't Jordan, I was nearly certain that I told them. It was the same person. Anyway, you're right. For anyone else just tuning in.

Amanda Hebas, Caitlin Jukagian, fight of the night. Kailen Jukagian, fight of the night, Mike. I know. It was a good fight. It was the most interesting Kailen-Chagian fight ever. No doubt about it. Clearly. And then Ryan Span and Manuel Torres performance bonuses.

But Jukagian, six years in to her UFC career, Mike, the most appearances in UFC women's flyweight history, her first ever fight of the night or a fight night bonus of any kind. So on the People's Free Fight show, me and Jed played the bonus prediction game. We both got Manuel Torres correct. I said Davey Grant was going to get a performance bonus and fight of the night, which he had a very good case of getting both of those. And he got none of them. He got none of them, AK.

I think this is a travesty. And Michael Johnson didn't get a bonus either. I like Ryan Span. And good for him. Again, I never want to take bonuses away from anyone. I never want to say someone doesn't deserve a bonus because, you know, it's great. He's got a great guillotine. He used it to take out a very dangerous light heavyweight tonight.

But, boy, I definitely would have ranked the Michael Johnson finish and the Davey Grant finish above. And David Grant and Smoka for sure should have been the fight of the night. It was, yeah, it was strange. And again, I don't want to take away from Keybus and Chiquayana either. Fun, competitive fight. Well deserving of some sort of bonus. Again, this is why there shouldn't be a four bonus limit. All these people should get $50,000.

It does leave a bad taste. in my mouth and I think a lot of the, a lot of the viewers to not see Davey Grant's and or Luis Smoka receive a well-deserved bonus. David Grant showed up to the freaking press conference with his gloves still on. That just shows the kind of guy he is. He's ready to keep on going. Still had his four on his gloves up. Like he was ready to go all beat up.

It's just absolutely crazy. Brandon, yeah, Brandon Hahn saying Bertrowski. That's right. He choked out. What was Maximum was like a two to one favorite, right? No. He was the big of. Maxx was the biggest favorite on the card.

Even, well, with the, no, I got to look at this. It's like minus 380. What? Why? I don't know. Why? Because I think they looked at it as if Petroski was going to get a finish, he was going to get it early.

And they felt like Maximoff's grappling would be enough to ride him through a first round because Petrosky fades down the stretch. And Maximoff just gets better and has an insane gas take. And has that chain wrestling take down. But geez, Louise, well done by Petroski. Saw an opening, got it done, and proved a lot of people wrong. Yes, Callum. He made all, listen, it's not just us.

He made everybody eat their own words because everybody bet on Nick Maximoff, which is why the line was so high, except for a couple of people. A couple people were smart. I'm so disappointed myself. All my tuppies out there, I pick Maximov by decision. I'm embarrassed. I'm one of the only people in the world who watched the Ultra Fire 29. And yes, Petroski was very disappointing on that show.

He lost in the first round. He was one of the favorites going into it and just kind of dropped a stink bomb in the, you know, on the actual show. But going into it, again, people knew about his grappling. He has the billing of a strong grappler. They talked about on the broadcast. I said this is a great grappler versus grappler matchup. Like you said, Mike, maybe Maximov viewed as having the deeper gas tank.

I think we've said, we've discussed internally there's that Diaz bump. He's part of the Diaz army, you know, and people like that. People see that and think, oh, maybe he's, you know, he's cut of the, he's from the same stuff. And maybe he still will be. You know, this is, this is not the end for Nick Maximov. His career is just starting. We may look back on this. He's 24.

He's 24, right? Just getting started. Yeah, very talented guy. We may look back on this as a blip. But Petroski was definitely, definitely overlooked. And good for him for, um, clearly winning the grappling battle in the 76 seconds or whatever this fight lasted. And, man, choking him right out.

But, hey, listen, Nate Diaz will be happy. Nate and Nick will be happy. their man did not tap. I love the call-out as well of Gerald Mearschart. I thought that was great. I think he's, Gerald Beershardt, hilarious response to it because he called for it for the Singapore card.

And Mearshaart's like, yeah, dude, I'm down. But can we push it back a little more? Because I'm pretty fat right now. We're not going to do that. So we mentioned the Coal Main event, Ryan Span, back in the wind column. No, I would assume,

I thought he was getting on the mic and say, hey, we're going to Dallas. I want to be on that card. But he says, He's not even thinking about that. He wants to get his mental straight, wants to hang out with his family, and then he'll talk about the next move. So we'll see what happens with him.

But more on the Chukagian Amanda Hebas fight, because it was a fun fight. We weren't sure what Amanda was going to look like against literally, like the gatekeeper to the championship in this division. Keill-Chickega just beats everybody but the champion, anybody but the best fighters in this division. And she's just knocking off these contenders. You want to get a title shot?

You got to beat Caitlin Chiquagin. Amanda Hebas gave her everything she could handle. She looked good at 125. I'm seeing a few of these. I've seen it on Twitter. A lot of different scoring. Yeah. Did the judges get this right in your opinion?

I think they did. I would have given the first two rounds, Chukagian. It's not a terrible to score the fight for Hebus at all. I get it. I get it. She had a lot. Her jujitsu is amazing. She had a lot of great ground control.

She took down Chukagin a lot, something that I didn't think was going to happen. I said, I said Chukakin has fought strong grapplers in the past, and they have not managed to control her on the ground. and Hebas clearly had moments where she was winning the fight in the ground. So that was great. But I don't think it was enough to outdo any time they were standing. Again, Hewis had some moments.

But I think if people go back and watch that fight, Chukagin won the majority of the striking exchanges. And guys, look at the criteria, look at the official scoring, please. Check out Sean Sheehan's Pins tweet. If you don't want to read it, he has a helpful video that he has pins where he talks about the scoring. And I'm not saying his word is law, but I'm saying I think he does a very good job of explaining why fights are scored the way they are now. So striking is always an immediate damage guys is what takes priority.

It's a post-take priority for the judges. Chukagan did more damage on the feed. Should the criteria be changed to be, you know, more suitable for MMA? Maybe someday. Maybe we should get to a point where we're rewarding, excuse me, where the judges should reward position and like you said, more like ground control

and grappling dominance and give more points for that. Maybe that is more suitable for M.A. The way the scoring is now, if you are winning the striking for the majority of the fight, you are probably going to win the decision. That is what happened tonight. I think, in a Heba score, I don't think out of the question at all, but I would have scored the first round for Chukagin. So that's where you get your 29, 28.

So I don't have any issue with it. I scored it for Chiquet again. It was close. I knew we were going to a split decision. I knew it. I tweeted it like midway through the second round. We went to split decision city. We took a one-way trip.

We knew it was coming. and death taxes, Caitlin Chukagin by decision scores. Once again, she gets it done. I thought the judges got it right. And it's amazing the arguments people had on Twitter from the Bellator card. You know, the Logan storely MVP fight. And then people dying on this hill. And I couldn't wait to fire back at people who were giving me crap for the MVP scorecard yesterday.

But it doesn't matter. I love this comment. How does Dominic Cruz still not a host score? John Anick and Brennan Fitzgerald. are the only ones in these broadcasts that know how to score fights. It's crazy. Yeah. It's crazy.

Dom has his own way. Well, like I said, Dom might be like kind of what I'm saying. He has his own perception of health, which is funny because he was kind of like a very tricky stand-up fighter during his time and won with a lot of, well, I think he was very effective striker. But you definitely had fans who were like, who were like, oh, man, how much damage is Dom really doing when he's kind of like zipping in and out? I always thought he was doing great. but it's funny that he would that you know he doesn't know the criteria when his fighting style was actually perfect for winning under the criteria of a mixed martial arts fight so i don't know it is it is weird yeah i would agree uh manuel torres great performance against just the nicest guy in the world i hate

seeing frank camacho go out like that he's such a good dude uh alana cemento hint about we all knew frank camacho was going to come out right away to swinging i tweeted i'm like if there was any game plan for this fight you know as soon as that bill you know as that bill you're ring ram car mat just like no i'm just going to come forward i'm going to punch i have to he has to he has been two years since he's been in the cage he's like i you know he's just like i got to go i got to do it my way like i just got to go in and uh talk about going on your shield that's he always does it uh we get viviani arru or nassimento gets the win viviani arroo fun fight with angrily of course we're not going to remember the fight itself we're going to remember the moment

that happened between the first and second round with tony kelly we're not going to really get into that here but not great Michael Johnson gets a win, aka you came through, buddy. You sold that fight. Somebody has to win. That's a good fight too. Somebody won. It was close.

That was a good fight, right? That was a good fight. Yeah. I thought Patrick was going to score that submission win for me, but did not happen. Man, and yeah, Michael Johnson, I can only imagine what's going through his mind. He kind of, he didn't, I didn't watch the whole post conference. I don't know if he went to great detail exactly what his struggles are. Just kind of mentioning like going to a dark place.

And again, given, again, that he hasn't won a fight in four years, hasn't won it lightweight in six years, you guys can draw your own conclusions by what he means went to a dark place. I would imagine, you know, that's a tough spot to be in. He's only, I think in his career, he's like three fights over 500. So it's tough, man, to keep climbing the hill. It's not like he's losing decisions all the time, too. Like he lost some, you know, he had some tough losses, tough finish losses too. So good for him.

Good for him, man, for sticking with it and for reaping the reward. Again, I hope he gets some sort of locker room bonus, maybe not the full 50Gs, but, you know, pay this man some good money because he could have retired. You know, a lot of people would have retired, retired or, I don't know, found a way to get out, maybe get away from the UFC, maybe not want to fight UFC level competition anymore. And he came back tonight. And credit to, again, Patrick, Alan Patrick as well, because he also hasn't won a while and hopefully his turn comes next. We know you love the thought of a vacation to Europe, but this time, why not look a little further? To Dubai, a city that everyone talks about

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Workday is the AI platform that transforms the way you manage your people, money, and agents, so you can transform tomorrow. Workday, moving business forever forward. Vernege Andoroba, nice performance. Angel Hill, just ridiculously tough getting out of those grappling exchanges. Tetsura Tira, good debut. I think it's the kind of fight he's going to grow a lot from, because like I told everybody since this fight was book,

Carl Scandallero is not a guy, he's just going to get run over tonight. He's a very gritty, tough dude. He can take a beating and he's scrappy as hell. Tyra goes to full 15, gets a clear win, nicely done. And then Petroski kicked off the car with a huge upset against Nick Maximoff. So if you guys got questions, let's get after it. We're only going to go for probably another 10 or 15 minutes at the most.

So if you got thoughts on this, If this car was in front of 20,000 fans, what Amanda Hebas had won. I think people wanted her win, so she could challenge Valentine and her Tyler. Kaelin's a difficult spot at 125. Yeah, Kailen is in a difficult spot, and she knows she's in a difficult spot,

so she called out multiple people at the end. She called out Misha Tate. She called out the French chick and Alexa Grasso as well. So, well done. That's exactly how you get to do it. Angela Hill's 12th UFC loss is the most in UFC women's MMA history. Unlucky or is that who she really is, AK? Wow, this is a complicated question.

Okay, well, a little bit unlucky. I've called her the robbery review queen. I don't think all the split decisions that she lost were robberies, but that she keeps ending up in these situations where she has a potential to lose a robbery is unfortunate. But it's also indicative of her fighting style. She doesn't have like big knockout power. She never has. Very solid striker.

Very good striker. But someone who you wish she had that extra gear, if not just a finish people, but just score a few more knockdowns. It sounds insulting to silence, but to make things a little more obvious for the judges, sometimes is what you have to do. Because it sucks because she definitely won some of those fights that were scored against her. And I wish the judges had, were able to parse her work a little better.

But I mean, that's just not how it is. And as far as like how many losses, again, we talked about, I think we talked about on the preview show, she only had one pro fight before coming to the UFC. So for her to have, like, I think she's 8 and 12 now. I know it looks bad 8 and 12 in the UFC. But she has fought everyone. She has fought everyone in her division. She's fought some amazing, really, really talented names. Michelle Waterson, Claudia Godelia, Jessica Andrage, Rose Navajunas, Tisha Torres.

You're going to pick up L's when you fight these people. That's just how it is. And if she had a much easier schedule, we could be talking about, oh, Angela Hills is 12 and 6 in the UFC or 14 and 4 or something. She's fought the best of the best and hasn't been able to get over that hump a lot of the time. And sometimes she did, and the scores didn't go her way. So in a way to answer the question, yeah, it is who she is. But the story of her record tells you how tough her competition is not necessarily that she's not a great fighter.

Yeah, it's a bit of both. There are certain fights that she thought were robberies that weren't robberies, and there were probably certain fights that were. So I think it's a combination of both, but she's still very talented, and she's tough as hell, and she's a fun fighter. So always good to have somebody like that around who's willing to fight anybody anytime. Dana White loves those folks, and I'm sure Angel Hill is pretty high on the old list. Do you think Jed is kicking himself for not betting on Ryan's fan?

Probably. Yeah, but anytime, again, that matchup was made for chaos. I mean, they threw Ryan Span and Kuchelab in there. Kuchelab, I mean, could have knocked Ryan Span out in the first round. You know what I mean? But he's a super aggressive guy. He went right into Ryan Span's strength, one of his signature moves, guillotine choke. I don't think he's, I think this is the first time he, you know, he has one other in the UFC, right?

I think he has another situation. I just want to say, I'll take a quick look here. Because he's, he had, he used to be a move. He used a ton. Yeah, yeah, Devin Clark. He submitted Devin Clark with the guillotine. and Emiliano Sority, PFL champion Emiliano Sority on Contender Series.

And before that, he had a ton of guilty and chokes. So he used to do it all the time. He just hasn't had one in a while, but I'm like, Kutelab is the kind of guy who's going to fall into it. But I don't blame Jen for not betting on it. Again, that matchup with chaos. That's like a stay away for sure.

That's just great about having a podcast because if you say something and you put it out in the world, you have to stand by what you say. So if you say, like, I'm just not going to bet on it, then you can't bet on it. Interesting question, because Holly Holmes is headlining next week. week's card is Caitlin Chagan, the Holly Home of 125.

I'll let you go first before I'll. I mean, no, for a couple of reasons. Holly Home won the title. I mean, she has a signature moment. That, I mean, look, that knockout of Ronda Rousey feels like it happened like 25 years ago now, but it's still replayed to this day. She's still viewed as the woman who, you know, blew up the Ronda Rousey hype, who who beat, who did the unthinkable.

And now that we look back on it, maybe not as unthinkable. But, yeah, Caitlin is missing that moment. If you're asking that, is that where they are now? No, no, because Hollyholm always feels like she's one win away from a title shot. Kaelin feels like she's, as Mike says, 10 wins away from a title shot. Yeah, that's the answer right there. She's not the Holly Home of 125 because if Holly Holm is at 125, she would have got eight title shots already against Valentina Shibchenko.

We'd be talking about if Holly Holbe won next week, would she get a ninth crack at Valentina? Like, that's what we'd be talking about. Kailen is not in that position. she's eventually going to get there, but she's going to have to win like five more fights before that happens. Or Valentina is going to have to vacate the title and go up to 135 because that fight was not competitive for even one second. So, yeah.

You guys haven't brought up Nassimento's stupendous performance. Thoughts. Let me just say this. The only people happier with that performance besides Nassimento and his family and his corners where Sean shall be a McMaynard. Those two were probably as happy, if not happier than anybody else. And I think they knew something with this matchup. I think they had a feeling about how this fight would go.

And I think in the end, they might have snuck to the back room, giving each other a high five, and then went back to sit down. Your thoughts. Mike, Michael, are you suggesting the matchmakers would do something to mess with a debuting fighter that perhaps they're not fond of that did not make a great impression on them when he met them on the during the contender series it was a wise decision because they picked a guy that maybe the betting lines would would look favorably towards hadley but they knew deep down because of their matchmaking prowess that they had a good chance to to hand jay cadley's

his first owl and that's exactly what happened that's great performance too i can't believe you think they would do that i i don't think mcmahon but they have they certainly could if wanted to. I mean, yeah. Let's see. Oh, I saw that. Did Michael Johnson earn himself a fight with Tony Ferguson, AK? Why not, right?

Why not? He beat him, you know? Is this not a fight that Tony Ferguson would like to have back? How long ago were we talking about here? How long was that first fight? That was a while ago. 10 years ago. Years ago this month, May 5th.

2012 that was a tony ferguson's first um first ufc loss right i'm not crazy right tony was was you know he won the ultimate fighter and he was doing like he was kind of running through people right was that that was the last loss before he went on the run right it was that's right that's right so he beat aaron riley he beats eves edwards and then uh yeah michael johnson wins a decision over him and then uh and after that tony bergers goes and in his uh 11 12 excuse me 12 fight win streak so i think that's actually pretty cool i don't remember this coming up at all on last week's ought no. But I have a feeling some people will be suggesting it this week.

I would agree. Let's see. Luke Abniz. Sanford M. M. A leading the discussion for the best MMA gym this year. Interesting question. Elevation took a hit with the G.

and Nambu Junis losses, that's for sure. Yeah, 100%. I mean, trying to think, I mean, Logan Storley just won a title. Michael Chandler's there. I mean, they got Gilbert Burns, but I don't think anyone really thinks Gilbert Burns is a little. loser in that situation.

Yeah, I, Ford is still doing pretty well. Not too bad. I mean, I have to like go back and think of like which gym had which fighters because like these fighters switch gyms all the time. Like Davey Graham was representing syndicate MMA tonight. So these fighters change hands all the time. Let's see what else we have here for questions.

what happened to Dana? When was the last time you see Dana at a fight night press conference? Very, very rare. Yeah, I wouldn't look into it. It's coming off a pay-per-view. He's doing what guys with billions of dollars in their bank accounts do.

They're traveling. He's on a, maybe on a yacht somewhere. I don't know. Do you guys think that Bisbing's commentary is hard to listen to? There's a lot of talk about the commentary. I think more from, Dominic Cruz tonight.

Dominic Cruz is actually pretty solid when it comes to position and technique. I think he's really good at explaining how to get out of tight spots and what fighters need to do and seeing advantages because he's really, he's good at like studying tape. So he knows tendencies of these fighters, even the newcomers. He's well aware of what these guys do. He studies really hard. He knows no clue how to score a fight. all, especially in today's MMA.

But maybe we're being a little too hard on these guys. I don't know, because they've been doing this for so long, and they're so used to a certain thing that it just hasn't caught on. And when you ride a certain bike for a long time and then you switch to a different bike, yeah, it does the same thing. And this is the cool thing now, but you're so used to riding this other bike that it just doesn't feel the same. So maybe we're a little hard on them.

Maybe it's a positive spin on it, but just Bisbing tonight in general. Were you a fan of his commentary? Do you think he's hard to listen to as skinny boy seems to maybe think he is? I wasn't paying that close to the commentary today. I'll be honest. I saw I did see, I saw people mentioning on social media. They had some issue with it. I'm a fan of his.

I do think, I don't know. I'm a fan. I don't know. I was about to search for criticism there. But I like Bisping. I see someone saying he's the worst commentator. I don't know if there's any commentator that's like universally loved. John Anick, I guess.

John Anick, people like him a lot. But Dom Cruz, Bisping, Cormier, Paul Feldor, I think most people like, Paul Feldor most people like. I just don't know if they put them on the level of, you know, some of the guys they really love. But they're all going to take their criticism from various reasons. They have biases, they have misconceptions. They have, you know, things that happen in their own career, that color, how they view fights. Mike, are you watching the show a winning time? Are you watching the Lakers?

No, I watch it. So there's a little subplot in there with Chick-Hern, legendary Lakers announcer's Chick-Hern. he, when he starts doing commentary, he has Pat Riley with him doing Pratt Riley before he became the coach of the Lakers. He's brought in as a color commentator. And back then, Chick Hearn had like, I mean, this is according to the show,

I don't know the truth, but Chick He had like so much power that he essentially did all the talking. And every now and then he'd let Pat Riley talk for like 30 seconds. And I almost wish, I almost wish veteran broadcasters could have that kind of generalmanship in the UFC. Obviously, you can't because guys like, guys like Dominic Cruz and Michael Bisping are much bigger stars than like a

Brendan Fitzgerald. Brendan Fitzgerald cannot tell those. He's there to kind of guide them along and let them do their thing. He's not there to tell them when they should and shouldn't talk. That's just not Brennan Fitzgerald's responsibility. But I think there was a time when the person who was the trained broadcaster, who was the veteran broadcaster, would be kind of trusted to keep the guys in line. And you just don't have that option.

And then I think that's why guys like Cruz are, I don't want to see. say this is who he's going to be for the rest of his broadcasting career. But I mean, keep mind, he's not a trained broadcaster. And I think he's very much the same guy he was when he started doing this job. What is it? Two years ago, three years ago, however long he's been doing it. Brilliant technical mind. You want to throw to him to break something down. I mean, there's few better. But as far as keeping like a consistent, like smooth broadcast goes, he's just not great at it. He's not great at it. He's going to cause these little like awkward moments and conflicts and that's how it is. And then you add in the chaos of a three man booth.

It's it just doesn't always come off well for any of the guys. So I don't think Bisspings particularly bad. I'm not a fan of Cruz, but I don't know. Yeah, I didn't notice anything egregious tonight. But like I said, I wasn't paying as close attention as some. I would like to see some mix some some faces around. I'd like to see more Paul Felder. I think he's really good. I would like see Michael Kiesa in there to do some color. He does a great job for LFA. Anthony Smith, I think, would be really good in the color spot. Laura Sanko, of course, would be great. Sanko, who has fought professionally, still trains, does technique breakdowns, and has a trained broadcaster.

This is, again, I know it's a skill you can learn on the fly. There's a lot of great former, you know, athletes who have become great broadcasters in other sports without, I assume, without having to go through journalism school or broadcasting school. But it's great if you do go through broadcasting school. and Laura Sanko has that kind of experience. Again, I don't know what her schooling is, but she has really, really worked her way up as a broadcaster and was not throw, you know,

when she finally gets her shot at being a UFC, at that UFC desk, it'll have been well earned, and she'll have gone, she'll have made all the mistakes that broadcasters make like 100 times way before she's actually on national television. So, Laura Sanko, get her on that desk. Please.

Get her in the mix for the low. Come on. Any hype for Parker Porter next week? Apparently not, because this fight with Jelton Ameda is not. not on the main card, which is just god awful. It's a weird fight. It is a weird fight, but

it's fun. Parker's a massive underdog. He's like a plus 500 dog or something like that. But don't sleep on Pacaporta. Any idea for when the UFC comes back to New York? I will, I can say with with knowledge that the July 30th card was being discussed for MSG that was on the list. There are a lot of cities on that list.

Boston was one of those cities. is on that list. MSG was on that list. Dallas was on that list. Dallas looks to have won the pony, so to speak. If I had a guess, I would say November. Yeah, that's the New York. Yeah, that's the matter of square garden month, right?

It's November, right? They've held a bunch of them. That would be my guess. I'm going to try to find a couple more here. Sometimes the thing just bounce around. Where's Jose? He's gone. He's still on site in Las Vegas.

Someone just mentioned, like, Fox just signed Tom Brady for $375,000. I'm like, yeah. I mean, look, he's a, he's a famous face and voice that people want to hear. Is Tom Brady going to be good at broadcasting? We'll find out. We'll find out. I don't think he's going to be as much of a natural as Tony Romo, who himself had a lot of bumps his first season doing commentary. But yeah, but that's actually a perfect example, guys. I want to see how Tom Brady does. And we'll see, like, man, is he actually good? Or should he not have some more training for us? Tristan, I see the Petroski question. We talked about it.

But Luke M asks, maybe we'll end here. best fight of the week slash weekend, AK. Oh, Belter had some moments, eh? They did. Belter had some moments. Let me take a quick look at the... I'm sorry, it's going to sound terrible because I just need to look at the card again

because everything's a blur now. Certainly not the Belter 21 main event, which was somewhat interesting to watch, but was not a great fight by any means. I mean, I want to say Davy Grant and Louis Smoka. Am I forgetting some Barnburner from? I remember getting some Barnburner from 281? I mean, the best moment of the weekend was Paul Daly for sure.

Yeah, yeah. But the fight prior to that moment was not great. It was like the anti-Paul Daly fight. It was like the exact thing you didn't. It was turning out to be a classic Bellator move where you have him in a position where he's going to fight a striker and the chips will fall where they may. But instead you put him in there. with a grappler and the guy just takes him down and lays on him and grapples with Paul Daly for almost two full rounds before Daley just said the hell with this and just knocked his ass out.

And we had that great moment. But yeah, I mean, there was the battle tour card had some good moments. That's for sure. We had the freaking buggy choke. We had all sorts of craziness. We had some sad moments too with Leone Matrida getting knocked out. That fight didn't happen. I don't know you're talking about.

And then just an awful main event, an awful main event. Stinker. And it was so bad of a stinker that people tried to find ways to make it, make it a talking point. So everyone just attacked everybody for their scoring on social media. And 40 minutes later, not one peep above the fight again. That's hilarious.

How much fizzled out. Ruin friendships. Scoring that fight hurt people's feelings. Like people got mad. We're getting mad at each other on social media. Like I tried to kind of stay out of it. Like I kind of just put my score as like 48, 47 page. And I'm like, I'm not getting involved in this like this discourse because it was getting nasty.

Yeah, people are like, oh, man, you stop, stop dealing with the criteria, man. Like, that's not how they score. Like that's not how they score. I shouldn't, I shouldn't focus on how their fights are actually scored. I don't understand your question. Maybe we'll take a couple more. Any chance to support your fights in the July 30th card. He certainly wants to.

He is called out literally everybody. So if you had a guess, AK, is he fighting July 30th? Yes, he is. That's it. No scoop, no scoop, no inside information. I'm just being super optimistic, and I think he gets an opponent. I think he gets an opponent as well. I would, I would be, I think they might go for that.

I think they might actually party with the Wonderboy idea. I think that, that would make some sense. I mean, why not? You got two names, two guys that really are just kind of stuck right now. So, yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing that. I love that. That's a good idea. I see an NBA question.

I'll read this one real quick. Or NBA draft question. Calam Lambert asking is, Chet Holmgren are going to go number one? Let me just say, I think the draft lottery is in three, is this week? I think on Tuesday of this week. So ask me again. Ask me again, because it's very team dependent.

So it's a top three draft. It's like the three, there's three very clear four guys, four guys of the draft coming up. But Chet Holmgren, freakish talent. Love him. But Jabari Smith, Paula Ventero, also fantastic. So, yeah, I don't know. I haven't decided yet. It depends who is drafting number one.

And I agree on that. Like, why? Why didn't you just do the Nate fight? I mean, I know why, but just stop being dumb. Why does Nate fight anyone? Just Nate fight someone. Actually, he doesn't have to. He wants to.

He keeps saying he wants to. It's not doing it. Well, it's not his fault. I don't think, I mean, from what I understand is not his fault. He wants to fight, but the UFC wants him to fight more than this one time. And he doesn't want to do that. And thus, here we are. in that same position.

Poyer versus Val. Nah, not into it. I don't see. Yeah, I don't know. Did Val volunteer for that? Did he throw his name into the half for that? I mean, I guess. He would if he thought it was an option.

I think he knows it's fine. It wouldn't happen, though, so. But we'll see. I think Pore will end up fighting on that card. But I think with that point, since we have shifted over to Dustin Porier, I think we have, I see the Andrew Lee Cornerman thing. I don't really want to dive into that. I think enough has been said about it.

with Tony Kelly. Can I say one thing about it? Yeah, go ahead. Guys, whatever you want to call it, racism, nationalism, just general prejudice. If you're going to like, if you're going to, first of all, I mean, you shouldn't make weird generalizations like that anyway, but don't like, it's so in the saying. Like anytime, I see people going like, it wasn't racist, you know, it's just in the moment. He's just saying, it's like, guys, anytime you talk about a country or a group of people

and you put the word dirty in front of it, you're being a little, you're, you are being a little prejudice. It's not going to come off well. It's not going to come off well. Are you intentionally being racist? Are you intentionally being prejudiced? I don't know. Maybe that's not your intention.

But you have to have some... You're on national effing television. This was on the prelims, right, Mike? This is on the prelims. This is on ESPN. This is on ESPN, the feature prelim I'm on ESPN. I get it. That's maybe not the first thing on Tony Kelly's mind.

But, man, you cannot say stuff like this. It's... Anytime you put the word dirty before a group of people, it is it's not anybody being taken the wrong way it's people are taking it the right way and they're probably getting a real view of your character so i'm saying guys you got people just really got to watch you know your language and and and be empathetic and and think about how your words reflect on people because that stuff is just it sounds so bad the clip i had to listen to the clip a bunch of times because i was writing about it it just it just sounds so so so bad so Tony Kelly and whoever else says something like this.

Just do better, man. Just don't talk about people like that. Why? Why talk about people that way? I'll say a couple of things about this. One, I agree with everything you're saying. It was just in horrible taste. Two, Adrian Yannis is now one of the biggest baby faces on the roster

because he's fighting Tony Kelly, June 18th, in Austin, Texas, which is very close to home for him. So he's going to not only be a baby face just because he's fighting in Texas, but he's going to be a baby face with those watching on. television it's going to be like a guy almost fighting Greg Hardy to this point and then the third thing after I was disgusted by everything that was said where's the cheating where's the cheating because if you think about it there's only one warning issued in that one in that first round and that issue that warning was issued to Andrea lee because she was going down and she grabbed the fence like

full grip to keep herself up so if anybody was towing the line of right and wrong, it was Andrea Lee, at least what I saw. Maybe there were certain things that happened. I don't think. First of all, nothing garters that kind of response, but nothing that anybody else could see that comes, that would regard cheating.

But Andrea Lee certainly grabbed the fence, and that was the only moment that first round where the referee was like, hey, hey, hey, hey, don't do that. Don't do that. So, I don't know. It was a horrible moment. And then Tony Kelly was, Tony Kelly tells Endrily she won the fight when it was over, which clearly was wrong because she didn't win the fight.

But there you go. Varyana Arujo gets it done. She is, she's moving up. And she's probably get a big fight coming up. Yeah, let's focus on that. What a great performance fight for Vibriana Arirjo and a good win for her. And we'll talk more about her on onto the next one. Or we might not.

I'm sorry. She was not a main card. Spoiler. I'm going to talk more about Viviana Irrigo and onto the next one. How about that? Damn you, AK. You know, maybe we should both just pick her for wild cards just because she deserves it.

So we can focus on positivity. But we have done our part. It's 221 Eastern. Next week, there's a card where the prelims start at 4 p.m. Eastern. The main card starts at 7 p.m. Eastern. It's a five-fight main card, AK, and 11 fights total. I mean, we are just hitting all the sweet spots. all at once.

And the net's car was pretty good. It was pretty good. It was pretty fun. So, and we had fun with all of you. So thank you for joining us. Thank you for Jose to Jose for joining us from Las Vegas. We're done for AK. I am Mike Heck.

Thank you for watching. Good night, everybody. 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.