MMA Fighting - UFC Vegas 78 Post-Fight Show | Reaction To Vicente Luque & Cub Swanson Wins, MMA Judging

Episode Date: August 13, 2023

Vicente Luque returned to the octagon for the first time in over a year and looked like a new and improved version of himself as he earned a unanimous decision victory over Rafael dos Anjos in the main event of UFC Vegas 78. MMA Fighting's Mike Heck, Eric "New York Ric" Jackman, and E. Casey Leydon react to Luque's victory over the former lightweight champion, his more grappling heavy approach, calling for a top-five opponent, and more. Additionally, topics include Cub Swanson's unanimous decision win over Hakeem Dawodu, how the fight was scored, if it was a robbery, Khalil Rountree's continued evolution after his nasty finish of Chris Daukaus, a finish-heavy preliminary card and which up and comer impressed the most, other burning questions coming out of the APEX, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Eric Jackman: @NewYorkRic 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 Cudulian 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 reprise 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 Saturday night victory horns are sounding, and right now they sound for the silent assassin Vicente Lucke

wins a unanimous decision in the... main event of UFC Vegas 78, a workman-like performance out grappling the grappler and Vicente Lucke back in the win column, went through a lot over the last year to get back in the octagon. And kudos to Vicente Lucke

for getting it done. Strategy kind of played into his hands, who knew? And he gets the win. Nicely done. Welcome to the UFC Vegas 78, live post-fight show here in Mbighfiting.com. I am Mike Heck.

being joined by EKC on the ones and twos, and we have a very special guest. There he is. Joining us, this doesn't happen all that often, but it's always a treat, always a joy, and just a straight pleasure to be joined on a post-fight show by the incomparable New York Rick.

New York, Rick, I feel like I just saw you all last week. It's good to see you virtually again. Did you enjoy the festivities tonight? I did. I think it had a little bit of everything. You know, the card was much maligned heading into it. I thought it was passable. I enjoyed myself.

I had a good night of fights. Wasn't the best night, but wasn't the worst night. Yeah. And I think that's what we could expect. Best case scenario from a card like this. And like I said on the People's Pre Fight Show, this card is just not going to have a lot of staying power. But anyone who stands there and watches,

anyone who sits and watches from start to finish, you're not going to be mad about it. It's not going to be like that bad, but there's the aftermath of it's going to allow. last like a day and then it's just going to be done. It's just one of those cards. And Vicente Luque, I think we're going to be talking about him a little bit because a lot was said about what he had to deal with after his last fight with Jeff Neal, suffering

a brain bleed, had to get clearance from the commission to even be able to compete on this card. People were very worried about Lucay even fighting. Not just now, but maybe even ever again after that. Luke went in there and just fought like a day. different guy. A lot of grappling. RDA just wanted to wrestle and Lucay did very well there. And I thought it was very interesting during his post-fight interview. He said, look, this is something that I've been dealing with. I thought I was going to lose this all. And even in the

first round, I didn't want to get hit at all. I did not want to get hit, but goes through five rounds, look good, didn't get tired. I thought that was going to be a big part of this fight. RDA was just going to wear on him as the rounds went on. But is this Vicente, Lucke 2.0, New York, Rick? Is that we saw tonight, the beginning stages of this? Yeah, I have a feeling that we're going to see this version of Ascenti Lucke moving forward. It's just smarter later in your career. This is kind of a more effective strategy. He's a very fan friendly fighter or has been in the past, a very fan friendly fighter, always

able to kind of find finishes, but been in a lot of like guts and glory type fights. And yeah, I think this is this is probably smarter for his longevity, smarter for where he's in his career in terms of not wanting to necessarily take a step backward and being more willing to take incremental steps forward than take the risk of stepping backwards. So I like this for Vicente Lucke. Is it going to be, is it going to maintain his fan friendly style? Maybe not. But at the same time, like to do that to pretty much at the end pull away from a guy as good as RDA, I have no criticisms of that. I'm happy with that performance if I'm Vicente Lucke. He absolutely just by the end was far, far in a way, the better fighter than RDA.

So, yeah, I expect that this is what we'll see. And I've got no issue with it. If he wants to make one last run or, you know, try to get near the top, I think this is the way forward. And of course, we all want to see crazy man, Vicente, Luca, in there. It's very fan friendly. He's made a lot of these. The Mike Perry fight is one of the craziest fights I've ever seen. But this guy with this back against the wall, coming off back-to-back losses, got

knocked out brutally by Jeff Neal. We talked about the aftermath and the fallout of that. It was more important than anything for Vicente Lucke to win this fight. He needed this more. The pressure is more on him. And he got the job done. He called for a top five guy next. I don't know if he's going to get that.

But what do you think should be next for Vicente Luque coming out of this? He wants to sit back and chill and just kind of see how things are going to play out. But I don't know. There's going to be some interesting guys for him. What do you think is next for him? I think it's an interesting spot. I don't know if he'll get top five, but if you look around the top 10, it's some guys he's fought, some guys he's not.

You know, I think he's got, you know, one or two fights before you start saying like, hey, he's back in a top contender conversation. Now, do I think that the path to that is very easy? Do I think it's a guarantee that he's going to, you know, get there? No, not at all. I think that the top of the division is very difficult. We saw him lose to Balal Muhammad. He's obviously a roadblock near the top of the division.

So it's tough sledding, I think, and because of the fact that he's fought so many different guys, there are ultimately going to be a lot of either rematches or having to fight somebody down, potentially, fight somebody below him potentially if he wants a fresh matchup. But yeah, I'm okay. I'm okay. If he gets, honestly, if you got a top five guy, I wouldn't have a problem with it. But I think he'll land somewhere closer to the 10 to 5 range than a top five guy. Yeah, it'll be interesting.

Like if Neil Magny somehow wins or no, I don't know, he's not going to fight Ian Gary because they train together. Gilbert Burns is out of the question because they train together. He's not going to fight Oosman because they train together. So we're kind of, you know, we're kind of, we don't have a ton of names and he's fought all the other guys. So maybe a Kevin Holland type. I think that'd be an interesting name.

May not be the rank guy, but he's got some hype behind him. It's very popular. I don't know. He is in a very interesting spot, though. Holland's behind him and that, you know, obviously has, if I'm Vicente Lucke, I probably want to try and fight up. Wonderboy just lost a fight. Wonderboy is above them in the UFC rankings. Match that up. Wonderboy already beat them. Yeah. I mean, look, both of them are in a tough spot. If we're being honest, like there's a lot of guys in the Walterway Division that have that have fought, that have been here for a long time and fought nearly everybody.

there's going to be some matchups that have to be remade. And if they're all going to just wait for somebody who's fresh in the top 10, you're really looking at Shavkat and Hamzat. That's basically like what you've got. Otherwise, yeah, we're going to have to fight each other multiple times and take these opportunities to get close to the title shot. And you don't mind that at all. Let's get the best guys against the best guys.

Best guys versus best guys, baby. That is it. And, you know, RDA loses this fight. He doesn't lose a lot here. He's still going to, you know, if he wants to keep going, he gets another fight or two, there'll be names for him to fight. He might just kind of be another Neil Magni-esque kind of a guy, throwing a young whippersnapper against him and see how they fare.

But 38 years old, RDA is the man, and he just came up short tonight. You know what came up short tonight? Hakeem Dawadu, and a lot of people were not happy about him. about this New York, Rick. A lot of people were on Twitter, just very upset about this. Even Cub Swanson thought he lost this fight in the end, but it gets a unanimous decision.

All three judges scored for Cubby. This is not a robbery, right? It's not a robbery, but maybe a questionable call. Or are you leading robbery here? I'm not, but every fiber of my being wants to say every close fight is not a robbery. And it's kind of just like letting judges off the hook at this point with like every close fight is not a robbery.

Like this was this was rough. It was pretty bad if Cub Swanson at the end of the fight feels like he didn't win it. That's usually a bad sign. That's usually a bad sign for the judging of the fight. Then you look at the actual scorecard to not have round two for Dawoodoo. It's rough. I'm not going to use the robbery word, but it's not great. And yes, I mean, what's to be done at this point?

Like we've been in these positions. I've not been on this show at those times, but I'm sure there's been a conversation happening just like this one about how egregious the score of cards are, and we just have to move on from it. Unless there is going to be some active measure taken to change this, this is just our reality. And we move on.

And Hakeem Dawadu gets the real rough end of the stick on this one. Hopefully there could be something done to compensate him, but that L is going to be on his right. record and there's no appeal that's going to overturn that and that's what we've got and it's just the most unfortunate part of this um but no i mean look there's some people who i saw on twitter and elsewhere scoring the fight for cubs swanson saying you know you can make a reasonable case about rounds one and three and i understand that round one was extremely close round three was cub swanson for me so yeah it's it's a possible it's a it's a possible way um that cubs watson won the fight giving him round two is

where I'm like, okay, what are we, what are we doing? What is the actual metric by which this is being graded? That's, that's where my issue is, not necessarily with the idea that Cub Swanson won the fight. Yeah, I'm kind of with you. I scored it for, for Dawadu, but I was, at first, I was like, I don't know about that, but, you know, kind of reading what everybody was saying. And then even in our private Slack channel, people kind of talking it through, I was like, all right, I guess. I guess we can make a case. That's one I'm going to have to go back and rewatch.

But, you know, Cub Swanson gets the win. And let's see where he goes from here. A lot happened on this card. Like, the prelims are incredible. It's just knockout after knockout after knockout. And then we got the Allen Joe Banjinks. We're about to break the record. And then we get middle weighty, middleweights for the next two fights.

Josh Friend wins a unanimous decision. AJ Dobson wins unanimous decision. And then Yasmin Lucindo is like, you know what? No one thinks I can grab. with Pollyanna Viana. So I'm just going to go ahead and just take her down a bunch and then tap her in the second round, which is insane. But I think the guy we're going to be talking about the most coming out of this card is

one Khalil Roundtree Jr., New York Rick, because this guy is just dynamite. We've been waiting for this. We've seen the Eric Anders performance where we're just like, man, I've never felt worse for a fighter sharing an Octagon or a cage with any other fighter. But when Khalil Roundtree just beat the head. hell out of Eric Anders that entire time. I was like, oh, this is just tough to watch. We all anointed this guy. Here's the next guy coming up at 205 or 185, wherever he was. And it just, he never really got consistent. The performances, he couldn't follow it with one

after another after another. But right now, at this point, since the pandemic, Khalil Roundtree is a bad dude. And Chris Dawkins was looking pretty good in this fight. This is a good little scrap. Daqas was landing his shots, but Roundtree just with that piston man, straight left hand, Docis' back of his head slams to the mat. Fight should have been stopped right there, but Hokie-Pokey Herb had to let Khalil Lin two more absolute bombs on him. Clil Roundtree wants a main event. He wants a five-rounder. This guy's moving up the ladder. This guy's a problem, is he not? Yeah, I'm with you. I think he's one of the more exciting prospects in that division. Look, if not for the insane toughness of Dustin,

Kobe. That's a four finish streak in a row for Khalil roundtree. It seems like he's putting it together at the right time. My thing with Khalil, the performances were up and down, like you're talking about the Andres fight and then he goes on to lose after that. I think it's more just like the focus. It seems like he vacillates between

like being fully committed to fighting and feeling like fighting is something fleeting for him and he has other ambitions in life. He seems like a very complex kind of individual. And I think the The focus seems to be where it needs to be right now to make a real run. If I'm calling for main events, he wants to be the guy. And I can appreciate that. And quite frankly, like in a division that needs somebody like that, let's give him an opportunity.

I don't have a problem with Khalil Roundtree headlining a fight night. It's guaranteed that him or the other guy are going to be hurt in this fight. And I have no issue with it. So, yeah, I'm all for a Khalil Roundtree, five round main event on a fight. night card somewhere, no doubt. Do it at the apex. Do it at the apex. Right down the street from Kille's, where Kahlil lives.

I'm trying to like look at the, the light heavy rate roster and just kind of see. I get like Anthony Smith and Ryan Spanner about the fight. So maybe like the loser of that fight maybe in a five-round main event. That's not a bad one. I saw some people throwing out Dominic Reyes. I was like, what did Dominic Reyes ever do to you? I don't want to see that. Let's not.

Let's not do that. That could end up real sad. Just like Walterway, we were just talking about the, the welterweight division, light heavyweight needs new blood. Like both of these divisions need like welterweight. We're looking at Ian Machado, Gary, Kevin Holland to kind of creep into that conversation and start giving this some fresh life. Light heavyweight's the same way.

So if Khalil Roundtree is getting an opportunity against one of the old guard light heavyweights and breaking into that position, I think everybody would be happy with it. So yeah, I think it's time for him to have that opportunity and sink or swim. I just talked about, you know, he has a win over Dustin Jacoby, another guy who I'd like to kind of see crack into that, into that old guard that's happening at light heavyweight. So yeah, I love it. Main event, Khalil Roundtree, let's do it. I like it. Any other performances that really, we're still waiting on bonuses.

And once we get those, we'll let you know who took home an extra $50,000. But any other performance, I guess from the prelims that really stood out to you. Anybody like truly impressed you tonight, someone that really wasn't on your radar, but now you're like, all right, I got to keep an eye on this guy or gal. Yeah, there were a few. I mean, honestly, you could say pretty much every single person on the prelims. Like, I mean, we saw a twister from DeMond Blackshare. Like, there was some, there was some really impressive stuff. To me, the one that I think will probably have the most lasting impact, you know, just moving forward is going to be that Terrence McKinney's back on track, right?

Like, he needed one bad. he got one. And now I think there's a lot of fun fights that could potentially made with Terrence McKinney. It's hard to keep kind of pushing him into that opportunity if he's on a losing skid. And now that he's back on track, I think there's lots of potential fights that could be a lot of fun for him. And man, the unders with that guy,

like GC's been making a kill and betting the unders on Terrence McKinney fights. And it has, it didn't stop today. Like the under one and a half was an absolute slam. And yeah, gets it done in round one. good to kind of see that. And honestly, like on short notice, huge, huge risk there. But good to see him back on track. And that's the one that I think is going to have the most potential for future matchups.

Yeah, it was a really good stylistic matchup for him. And like someone asked before the show started, was it a must win for Terrence McKinney? And I wasn't willing to go that far, but it was damn close. If there's a step below must win, this was probably the step below. that with a guy like Mike. You lose to Mike Breeden. No disrespect to Mike. He can be a dangerous guy. He does have knockout power. But you lose to Mike Breeden, it's not good. That's not a good. That'd be a pretty bad loss. I agree with that. I think it was a must win from the perspective if you

want to be more than just the action guy. If you want to be more than just like throw you on a prelim and we know that that's going to be guaranteed fireworks, I don't think he was at risk of losing anything there because they want to keep a guy like Terrence McKinney around. He can promote fights. He can do the social media stuff that he does to get attention. And then he's going to come out and have a one round banger. But if you want to be more than that, if you want to be a guy who's actually like moving up and advancing in the promotion, you needed to win tonight. And he did.

And he looked damn good doing it. So good for him. Do we just keep sort of building up his confidence again? Like he's not that he's ever lost it, but in terms of step up. Do we go crazy with them? Do we throw him in like top 30, top 35 territory again? or do we just kind of slowly build him up? If there's opportunities and he's ready to go,

just doesn't really matter who the opponent is. I think it could be either, right? He seems like the guy who, I mean, he mistakenly seemed like he wanted to fight next week. And then he was like, okay, maybe give me a month. I think whatever, whatever's available for Terrence McKinney. If it's a guy in the top 20-ish, great. If it's not, I think he'll take that fight and keep building and get himself on a streak. You know, he was second away from completely.

starching Drew Dober like he's he's there it's just putting it all together um and and not getting clipped himself and and having the gas tank so yeah i don't have a problem if it's a if it's a if it's a rank if it's you know a guy who's on the edge of the rankings um or somebody who's just like a matchup like this where it's like hey let's let's get him another w i was super impressed with jacqueline amram tonight she looks incredible i that was one of the fights i had big questions I was thinking either Amarim was going to submit her in the first round or she's going to lose his decision

kind of like what happened in the Sam Hughes fight. Boy, did she shut up a lot of people when it came to the gas tank and not being able to wear herself? Two 10, eight rounds, at least on two of the judges cards and then freaking Tony Weeks comes along

and it's like, no, I guess there's no such thing as a 10-8 round. Like, what the hell else are you looking for? And then Ruiz... To the point where the broadcast was asking about 10-7, that they're like, is that possible? It was completely one side. to that point for sure.

Yeah. Third round Ruiz gets her down and I'm thinking, uh-oh, maybe she's starting to gas. And then she sweeps beautifully with like a Camora and then just gets on top and just starts to punch her in the face and gets the finish. She's going to be a good addition to this division because she's just going to keep getting better. She's going to get a little more experience under her belt and a win like that going to round three and getting a stoppage as opposed to just continuing getting 100% finish rates in

round one. Huge learning experience for her. And the Sam Hughes loss, I think it's going to be a very important chapter in her career. So good win for her. Good win for Martin Boudet. For sure, I thought that was going to be a heavyweight over if there ever was one. And he was like, nah, I had things to do. There's parties in Vegas.

I'm going. Isaac Dolgarian wants to get out of the RV. What a performance from him, dude. You beat the hell out of Francis Marshall. Yeah, I don't know if we have performance bonuses yet, but hopefully he can get out of the RV. That was, that was an impressive one. Yeah, he looked real good. first fight in the UFC.

He was off of looking for a fight and gets it done. Trying to get back in there. And he gets a great win. So still waiting on bonuses, but for the time being, we could bring in E. Casey Liden. Hi. Oh, by the way, I think we should mention one thing.

Show of hands. Who lost their ESPN Plus stream during this card? Oh. That would be all of us. And I would assume most people watching this as well. A little thing I never discovered, though. I actually did see it, but I never used it. If you watch these, if you have the ESPN Plus Hulu bundle and you go to Hulu and watch,

you get no commercials. It's like if you ever, yeah, if you like when you cover an event, Rick, like and you're sitting in the back and they have the TV going and instead of going to commercials, they just have like the overhead of like the crowd and the octagon just sitting there. that's what you see on Hulu. It's tremendous. It's wonderful. It's a great experience.

One of my favorite experiences. Yeah, I used to work at ESPN. Spoiler alert for anybody who's not aware. And our feed also did not cut to commercial. And when I left, it was weird getting used to that. It was really weird getting used to that. So yeah, that's a listen, if you're a fan out there, Mike just dropped a nugget, a golden nugget for you. I'm really into watching this Home Depot commercial for the 10,000s time.

They do play them on a loop quite a bit. Yeah, there's like three commercials. But the Instagram commercials are cute. I'll say that. So they haven't got, they haven't killed my soul yet. But two of the questions. Yeah, let's go to the question. Still waiting on bonuses.

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of the fact that I just de-niche that I'm energize so much. Mm, it's the ensemble. The formats standard and mini regrouped, what are and the embellage too beau,

who is practically to give to do this offer. But I'm sorry the summer Fridays and Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez. I'm,

I'm sure. The most ensemble the gift of the fairos show show Shepora. Summer Fridays, Rare Beauty, way,

Cifora collection and other part of Vite. Procurry you see form standard and mini regrouped for

a better for a placea or in magazine. You're like falling out of the box. That's me.

Do do do Where are we at? Oh, first question Hank Hill, a guy named New York Rick on with a guy in a Boston Yes, we're all friends We're all friends, yeah I'm too old to start fights with

Yankee fans and all that stuff I think it also helps I don't like claim New York sports teams You know like Yankees No interest They have the same weight to me as Boston Red Sox. The family never passed those down to me.

So no contentiousness. There you go. Just, oh, you kind of brought, you brought her name up, but just Bozo was also. Mr. Bozo was also very impressed with Jacqueline. I was, this is the one fight. I was, I like getting things wrong. And, man, I was way off on this one. I thought, actually, I didn't realize maybe the two-year gap.

I thought she'll be, Montserrat would be better. But I don't know if she regressed or, I don't know, she just, I don't know if she looked really bad or Jacqueline looked really good or probably a combination of both. But it looked like a brown belt versus like a blue belt in there. Like, it was just such a bad beating that she took. And yeah, that was just a super dominant victory. Yes, sir. We have bonuses. Oh, okay.

No fight of the night. There is no fight of the night. So four performances, yeah? Who wants to take guesses? I'm going to say. Round tree. Round tree. One.

Two, just for the heck of it. Lucinda. Two. Oh, McGee. McGee. McGee. Three. McKinney.

Oh. No. Oh, McKinney. Oh. Oh, man, you're so many to choose from. Blackshare. Twister.

There you go. Swister. Yep. Yeah. Four Isaac. And even though those are four really good ones, man, there's another four like here. It was, it was one of those.

No matter Alan Joband's jinxing, that that early start was was incredible. It was absolutely. Yeah, Santos didn't get one. How did Amramim not get? Amory didn't get one. Two, ten eights and then a third round finish? That's, that's tough.

When I think about these, I always go flash. I'm like, what's the flashiest? That's, that's kind of how I, I tend to think of these and serve me well. Yeah. Wow. Okay. I thought, yeah, I thought, I thought,

I thought Kobe and Hakeem were going to get, was that fight of the night? No, it was none. No, no, would that have been fight of the night? Oh. Yeah, for sure. Okay. That's a good question.

Yeah. What other, what other one? No other close fights even, yeah. I mean, the Dobson, none of the middleweighty, middleweight fights are going to get it. Definitely not that. Yeah. I mean, it's anything else ended like in the first round or was just a complete trucking.

It would have been by default, but I like the four performance bonuses better for sure. Yeah. Luana. I was just trucked Juliana Miller in the first fight too. So. Yep. She didn't get one, right? She missed out.

No. Yeah. She missed out. Yeah. I'll still never quite understand. logic of how they do bonuses. But whatever. Yeah, I'm sure.

I like this comment. Uh-oh. Cubs Swanson's fight strategy. Bring adorable family cage side to sway judges. Hey, listen. It's not bad. It's a great strategy. Think about that.

You're in an almost empty apex. The judges are there. You can hear everything. And the judges look over. And there is Cubs' beautiful family, his three beautiful children. all wearing their glasses cheering on that. And if it's a close round, ain't no way you're giving up, you're giving that round to Akeem.

If I was in that seat, if I was in that seat, you better, you better believe it's the MJ meme. FMFM kids, I don't care. I don't care. I do not care. But it's a good strategy. The best part about that was Cub's wife was so confident Cub won. She was like, yeah, yeah, I knew you won.

And then Cubs like, clapping. It was like clapping for Do Doe. It was just wild. She had no doubt that Covey won that fight. But by the way, I will say, like, there's lots of fights where I think the fighter kind of doesn't have the best assessment of it. It's too fresh. It's in the moment. The action feels different.

He thought he got the worst end of it. But there's probably, you know, he will watch it back and either have the same opinion or a different opinion. And I don't think that's really like a great indicator. Like, I know a lot of people will be like, even Cubs. thought he lost but i don't think that that's a super great indicator um after you've been in a fist fight yeah thank you for mentioning that yeah you'll see that all the time like if you're if you're a high level fighter if you get punched hard in a round you all you kind of already consider that round of loss you're like well i shouldn't got touched you know it's like you consider every time

you get touched a loss so uh yeah that's just cub being just a high level professional that's all that was and also just being honest hey didn't think i got that one but i'll watch it back and maybe I did. And that's completely fine. That's a completely fine kind of thing to say. Interesting, too. I think would have we, would have we been oh, not okay if it, but if that was, if that was a split decision rather than unanimous decision, because say is it Sao de Motto that gave the second round? Yes. It was. So say Sal gave that round the correct way, gave it to Hakeem. It would still been a victory for Cub. You still got two judges. So it wasn't just Sal. I mean, it was really the round one, the close round one, I think.

I think it would have been more palatable, but the thing operating against it is, man, like a lot of people are kind of keyed in on the fact that they showed a live betting line and he was minus a thousand or greater, I think that would do when that's conducted. And man, if you're sitting there thinking like, yeah, like Vegas has this as a foregone conclusion and then all of a sudden Cub wins the unanimous decision the other way, I feel like that's that's contributing more than the fact that it wasn't a split. But to be honest, like people, the people who want to claim robbery always claim robbery

and the people who don't care to don't care to. So we're not changing hearts and minds here with anything. I do forget about the betting side of it. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Okay. Vicente Lucke just said a name, said a name. Who we got?

Dustin Porre. Wow. Wow. He'd be happy to welcome to him. He was asked about Dustin. because Dustin said I'll move up but I think Dustin already kind of explained I think Dustin kind of already explain what that's all about

like I'll go up and fight Nate because he tweeted that after the Jake Paul fight so I don't think he's gonna Dustin Pori ain't gonna fight Vicente Lucan No it's not gonna happen And I like the gusto Yeah I've been I've been calling for Dustin Porre and Colby Covington nonstop

To the point where Ariel asked Dustin about it on the show. Not that he wouldn't have anyway, but he kind of threw me under the bus as he asked about it. And Dustin said explicitly, like, I'm not a big 155. I'm really not that interested in going up to 170. It feels more like he wants the Connor McGregor method of big fights with lightweights at 170, right? You want to fight, I want to fight Michael Chandler, but not have to cut weight. That's, that's the 170 fights I think he's interested in. I don't think he's interested in fighting Vicente Lucke. All due respect to Lucke, but that's just not the one that's going to get him where he needs to be. Agreed.

Yeah. All right. What else we got here? What? I mean, it's not bad. Like, if you're Vicente Lucke, take the shot. Why not? Whatever.

Everybody else above is somebody fought or, you know, not going to fight them. If you're asked about the guy, what are you going to say? No. Yeah, I'll fight them. Of course I would. It's one of the biggest stars of the sport. I loved Killow Round Trees answer for, no, the classic. Who do you want next?

No name. Just give me someone higher and give me a main event. I like that. Yeah. I like that. Because I can't think of it. Yeah. It's very easy.

It's easy to execute, right? All I want is a main event. You find the opponent for me, which by default will mean that they're highly ranked, right? Because you're not putting or at least semi highly ranked. You're not going to put somebody in a main event who's not. It works. It works perfectly. I love that.

Did you? Where we got? What we got? Oh, I guess a little bit kind of negativity, but what happens to these two gentlemen? Who is more likely to get cut, J.P. Bayes or Christakis, both one or none? What do you think? JP Bays is cut for sure. Like, I don't think there's any chance that he's not.

The dude's just been knocked around in all of, like, it has not gone well. He needs to be outside the UFC, build himself back up. maybe he gets back there, but I don't think his UFC run is going to be much longer. Dawkins, I feel like, you know, he got a pretty bad matchup in his light heavyweight debut. Like the chin has already been touched a few times. And you're going to put him in there with a guy who's like entire style is to head hunt

and kick legs and break you down and then knock you out. Like not the best stylistic matchup for him. I wouldn't mind seeing him have another chance at a different light heavyweight see if he could have some success there but at the same time like look maybe he needs a reset as well like there's there's not a lot of places to hide

when you're in the UFC. It's just the reality of the situation. It's been a rough go but I'd be okay I think if he got another one against a different light heavyweight. Dude, Doc is Dominic Reyes. That's the fight. Sure.

I like that. That one better. That's the one. I don't. That's the one. If I'm Chris Dawkins, I go farther back. Whoever I asked, you got to ask the UFC, who is the worst to a viper and giving him? That's where our Dawkins is, and I think in his career right now.

Four straight losses, four straight knockouts. Yeah. That's bad. I mean, I mean, and Chris Dawkins, he has to be, honestly, he's got to be looking at his health. And he's got in the long term right now. He was the cop, right? He was the guy. He was a cop.

Yeah. He quit his job, devoted everything to fighting. Turns out, once he did that, he got knocked out, knocked out, knocked out, knocked out, knocked out. He's not making a lot of money getting all these, getting knocking, taking a lot of brain damage. So I honestly, I think Ray is, it makes sense. It makes sense, but Doc is I go farther back. That's all. Yeah.

I mean, there's really not much further back. Can you go? Yeah. There's like 35 light heavyweights in the UFC. There's. And that includes Alexander Gustafson, who may not have a fight again. Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if we see Dawkins like do a little bit of a self-imposed kind of step back, right?

Like he seems like a very reflective intellectual type dude. He seems like somebody who's going to treat this as his profession and not just the like guts and glory. I want to get in there and show every. everybody and smash it. Like he seems like the type of dude who has the right perspective on this. So I think he'll do what's kind of best. If he thinks he has one more where he can see where he's at, I wouldn't be surprised to see it.

But I also could see him saying like, hey, I'm going to sit out for a bit, really work on things, figure this out and come back. But yeah, I mean, like, look, do we, I don't think we want anybody to lose their job, period. Like point blank, starting from that position. I really don't really, I don't really like these questions. That's why I meant that that's kind of negative.

but yeah but we have to be real about like how the UFC operates like this is this is a rough go um i think the i think the division change always you know if it's successful it gives new life if it's not successful it can be really bad it can look really rough yeah and bays is just i think he just kind of needs like a fresh coat of paint go back on the regional scene build a back up because he actually looked like he looked decent until he got knocked out like he was having moments he was winning some exchanges then he just got melted he's not a bannam weight he's not a bannam he's not flyweight he's a flyweight he's a flyweight montal jackson just kind of took his chin because he knocked him down like 14 times in that fight yeah he's got to stop fighting abandamate

go back to flyweight get it together he dude's been through a lot jp bays is like the definition of this sport is brutal Like, it just can be brutal for you. So what a story would be? Comes back, goes on the regional scene, wins four or five fights. Dude, trains and lives in Vegas. It's not like opportunities can't come. He's in the right place.

Maybe they come calling. He comes back, wins a few fights at 125, goes in a little bit of a run. Be a great little story. Love a comeback story. I think JP can find his way back, but he's going to have to go somewhere else first. This is not the UFC of yesteryear. The path back to the U.S. UFC seems easier than ever just because they need talent.

They need guys and girls who are of the caliber who can kind of fill out these cards. And yeah, there's no shame. Like you, I mean, you know, this is a very extreme example. But you look at a guy like Brandon Moreno where he was gone, he comes back. And now he's the freaking man. Like there's just there is a path. There is a path to this. And I don't think it's any shame to kind of step away and reset and then come back.

He's only 27. Yeah. It's only 27. It's got plenty of time. Yeah. Where does Cub Swanson go from here? He's won four or five at Featherweight. To me, he should fight in front of a crowd. That was his fourth straight apex fight. So I will give my pick for this tomorrow on onto the next one with my best friend, A.K. But what do you want to see next for him, gentlemen? I have no idea. I really don't. I don't know either. Because the only thing I care about is like a fun fight, you know, like I know that's like a lame kind of cat. But like I just want to see a fun fight for him and I don't know what that is

Why can't we do the freaking your eye of Faber fight? Like they both want it like why I mean they've wanted it but I don't think the UFC wants to pay for that one because I don't think Yeah, it's great one. I think favor is a price tag. I think favor has a price tag and favor favor favor's cost on that one is not going to be conducive to being made. I mean maybe UFC 300 when the when the when the when the purses are are you know maybe the person strings are a little looser at that point and they go hey it'd be cool to have your eye of favor on UFC 300 let's put them in a fight with Cub Swanson that'd be pretty that'd be pretty great but I don't know I don't know that that's happening and I really don't know what what the fun fight out there is but that's

what I want to see obviously um we're we're in that territory right oh you got one oh boy that's fun that's definitely plan where that that's a very you winnable fight for Mr. Swanson. It doesn't throw Swanson two in the deep end at his age. And for Nate, that's a great fight. And you know that it will be a fun fight. Nate's coming off a loss, right? Who do you lose?

Last Danny Gay. Yeah. Danny Gay. Okay. Yes. I don't know. I think. I don't mind it.

I don't mind it. Honestly, if you say I want somebody to be in a fun fight, I should have thought like, who's somebody that's in every fun fight and Nate the train is the answer. So yeah, it makes sense. Why not? Yeah. I mean, I wonder, I just wonder where Cub is at. Like, what is he thinking about like what he wants to do and who the fights are? Is he, is he selective about the names? The fact that he fought Hakim to me says like, hey, I know where I'm at. Like, I just want to fight like tough guys that are going to give me a good fight and I'm going to test myself and put on a performance. And I think Nate, the train's definitely in line with that. So why not? Let's do it. I like that too. Good shout. Good shout. That it? I think we're good, gentlemen. Hey, listen, this is what we expected, right? We got a card that was pretty decent to watch.

It was entertaining. And there's going to be very little aftermath from this. And that's fine. And it just showed. Everybody got a little bit of shine. Everybody got their name mentioned who got wins. That doesn't happen on every post-fight show. But with cards like this, we get to spread the love a little bit more.

And I respect that. Casey can go ahead and hit and hit the music because guess what folks it's officially well we're not quite there about an hour away from UFC 2992 fight week everybody going back to Boston we're going back to Boston I will be there Jose will be there it's going to be a fun time you're going to Boston you're not going to watch part you're not doing the watch party in New York you're going to be in Boston I don't know we're going no I'll be in New York too I'm going to Boston for everything but the actual fight so Yeah, I fly out first thing Saturday morning to New York doing the watch party.

I would never miss the watch party. Okay, okay. The New England boys. I love that. I love the New Englanders. It's exciting. Visit some family. We're making it a vacation.

Oh, okay. But work vacation. So it's not really a vacation. Just got to see some peeps and cover some fights. It'll be great. So I'm excited. The card's good. We did lose Cody Garbrand.

So we have Mara Batista versus the dreaded TBD. And hopefully we can. figure out who the TBD is going to be. But thank you all very much for watching. Hope you enjoyed the card. For Casey, for New York, Rick. I am Mike Heck. Good night, everybody.

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