MMA Fighting - UFC Vegas 83 Post-Fight Show | Reaction To Khalil Rountree's Nasty KO, Song Yadong's Main Event Win

Episode Date: December 10, 2023

While Song Yadong swept the scorecards in the bantamweight main event against Chris Gutierrez, it was Khalil Rountree who stole the show at UFC Vegas 83 with his emphatic third-round finish of Anthony Smith in the co-main event before calling out new light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira. If timing is his friend, could Rountree somehow get what he wants? MMA Fighting's Mike Heck and Eric Jackman react to the UFC's final Fight Night event of 2023, Song's dominant win over Gutierrez, whether or not he'll get his wish and face Petr Yan next, Gutierrez's frustrations throughout the fight, Rountree hitting his stride following the biggest win of his career, and his title prospects heading into 2024. Additionally, they discuss the post-fight bonus winners, Andre Muniz getting back on track against Jun Yong Park, Tatsuro Taira picking up another stoppage victory to remain undefeated, and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Eric Jackman: @NewYorkRic Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter 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. Yes, there they are, everybody. The victory horns, and they sound for Song Yidong, the 26-year-old gets it done, sweeps the score cards.

I'm trying to find the right word to describe the main event. It wasn't thrilling, but Song showed some well-roundedness. He won the fight. He won the fight. Two wins in a row. Called to Schutter Jan, who yawned throughout the fight. We saw the tweet on the broadcast for about 90 seconds a song was making his post-fight victory speech.

But Paul Felder brought it up. He wants the fight. And we'll see what happens. But not only did that happen, Cleo Roundtree with a big knockout against Anthony Smith in round three. And then he calls out Alex Pereira. He calls out the brand new UFC light heavyweight champion. And there's a lot of talk about whether or not Anthony Smith could earn a title shout at the win. And Cleo Roundtree heard all that noise and said, well, he didn't win.

I did. So maybe I should get the title shot. Let's give the fans something they could be excited about. And you know what? He did the thing. And that's all we ask that you go out there and do the thing. and he certainly did the thing, and we're going to do this thing right now.

Welcome to the UFC Vegas 83 post-fight show. I am Mike Heck, being joined by a very special guest. Always an honor, because it doesn't happen all that often to be joined by the great New York Rick for a post-fight show. There he is. How are we doing New York, Rick? I'm great, Mike.

How are you? I'm doing great. The fight just ended. The car just ended. This was, it probably lived up to the expectations that we saw on paper. There were some fun fights. some good performances at the main event.

It was a win for Song Yudong. It's not one we're going to go back and rewatch, but goes out there and sweeps the scorecards against a pretty tough guy in Chris Gutierrez, took some big shots. He's very tricky on the feet. Song was missing a lot. Wasn't really to get a lot going on the feet.

He was landing the more damaging shots to win the first couple of rounds. And he said, you know what? I'm just got to take you down and put you on your back. And boy, was Chris Gutierrez on his back for a lot. time in this one. Your reaction to Song Yidong's main event victory here. Yeah, did what he needed to do against the guy who in Gutierrez, I think,

probably isn't going to get enough credit for how tough he is and how many problems he can give people, especially with his kicks. The line felt a little bit odd to me. Now, in hindsight, winning 50, 45, essentially across the board with 150, 44 mixed in there. Like maybe the line was right. but I think Gutierrez is one of those guys that's hard to look really, really impressive against. And I came away thinking like Song Yandong did what he needed to do here and is a well-rounded mixed martial artist

and is going to give a lot of people the kind of problems that he gave Chris Goudierrez tonight. And Chris Gutierrez is going to give a lot of people the problems that he gave Song Yadong here tonight. So I don't know if I learned much of anything new, but it played out similarly to kind of how I thought it might. So it's kind of a weird question to ask when a guy wins 5045 on two cards and 5044 and another. What's your biggest takeaway?

Is it on the song side or was it on the Gutierrez side? Because things got a little weird in there. Herb Dean was talking about putting the fingers in the gloves, gives him a stern warning. Gutierrez was pissed about that. And then when the round ends, he's even more frustrated. There's a heckler getting in Gutierrez's head. He's getting pissed about that. And then it just seemed like after round two, he was just,

cooked like mentally he was just dunzo and then comes out in round five and tries an iminari roll i mean you say go for broke when you're down four rounds but jed on twitter called it the actual worst punt of the mma year and he compares it to chills spinning back fist and chris wybman's wheel kick against luke rock hold when he lost the title i don't know if i would go that far we're not going there i mean those are those are catastrophic errors this didn't result in any like you know crazy change of fortunes, this was just useless, useless. He was out of options at that point. My takeaway is not on the Gutierrez side, although it is interesting to think about,

like, he kind of did mentally break here. Like, there was a lot of attention being paid to things that you don't need to be paying attention to in the middle of a fight against a top ranked contender. But my takeaway is more on the Song Yadong side to say that, like, yeah, this guy is an elite talent. This guy is a very well-rounded mixed martial artist. This guy is ready for the Peter Jan type fight that I want to see him take. And yeah, this felt to me like, okay, here's the stepping stone. Now we get the fights we really want. And yeah, I'm ready for it. And he's ready for it, in my opinion. So after UFC Austin and after Davidson Figurato beat Rob Fawn,

I mean, Twitter was just all over a possible Davis and Figurato versus Peotryon fight. That was the popular pick from everybody. It was my pick on to the next one. I believe it was A.Ks as well. But Song Yidong wanted the Pejorian fight. This was presented to him when that card was going to be in Shanghai. That fight was never really a thing. I know it was reported as a thing, but it was never really a thing.

It was like briefly discussed, but there were never a contract sent. There were no like official offers submitted from what I'm told. in terms of getting that on both sides of the table. But what do we think here? I mean, look, Banimate's great. You throw figurato in there. That's fun. That's a fun little mix.

Figurato, Song Yidong would be super fun too. But if you had your choice, would you do Figurato versus John or would you do Song versus John? I don't really have a preference, to be honest. Like, either of those is fine by me. I think it's time for him to be in that echelon of contenders. So, yeah, I don't, gun to my head, Figgy and Yan

just because I think those are bigger names and going to put on a great show but I'm not mad at any of them to be honest and you even mentioned Figaredo versus Song Yadong. I'm in for that too. Like Bantamade is fun right now there's lots of good permutations

of this top of the division that you can make and I'm in for all of them but yeah it feels like it feels like Figy and Jan has a lot of the public support and public sentiment at the moment so you probably keep that that one intact, but then what do you do with Song Yadong? So yeah, they'll figure that out, but no, no bad options here at the top of Bantaway.

And it's nice. It'll start finally moving and now we'll have some traction. And hopefully Marab de Valle, Viali gets a fight. We'll see what happens from here. Yeah, maybe they do him in Ceuto. I think that makes a lot of sense, considering O'Malley and Vera about to fight. And look, if they do Song versus Jan, or they do. figure a versus John, the consolation prize, it's a step back in terms of rankings, but in terms

of name power, little consolation prize could be Dominic Cruz. Song you, Dong versus Dominic Cruz, at little alpha male versus Cruz action. I know they've mended fences a little bit, but that would still be kind of fun. And then figure out of versus Cruz would be fun as well. So like you said, Banimweight is deep. It is fun. And we'll see what happens. But usually the main event is the story.

I think the story is Khalil Roundtree here in New York, Rick. What a performance against Anthony Smith? And look, not all 20. 18s are created the same. The first round with Anthony Smith was pretty damn close, I thought. I gave it to Roundtree, but it was close round. Second round was still close. I think Roundtree just landed the more damaging shots.

And then he just put Anthony Smith away. What a crazy knockout, man. Lands that short little counter-upercut and then lands that left hand. And Smith was just doing the stanky leg. And he goes down and Cleo Roundtree just being the martial artist, the human being that he is, just stood over Anthony. let Mark Smith come in and stop it, gets the win,

and then he gets the microphone, and he calls out Alex Pereira in the most Khalil Roundtree way possible. And I have to say, this was good stuff. This is really good stuff. He did the thing, New York, Rick. How do you grade Cleo Roundtree's performance in the fight

and then on the microphone after the fight? Yeah, he aced it. This is an A plus. As far as the performance goes, I think you're right. Like the rounds were close. And I think there was a little bit of, concern heading into this, right? I think a lot of the sentiment was like, oh, this is going to be

rough. Anthony Smith's coming in on short notice and Khalil roundtree is just going to mark him. And to be honest, like the first two rounds, while it did seem like Kalil was kind of waiting for that moment to land that shot that was going to take them out, they were close and Anthony Smith was competitive. There's no other way to describe that. It was not, you know, this one-sided drubbing. Now, granted, when Khalil was landing, the landing shots, you could see the difference in the damage that it was doing. And when Anthony was landing shots, you could see the difference in the damage it was doing. He was not affecting Khalil in that way. But the rounds were close. And then round three inevitably happened. And he landed that shot that he needed and then held back the last shot that he didn't need.

So shout out to Khalil Roundtree, who seems to be kind of a solid dude is probably the easiest way to describe it from the call out, the not holding the shot and the way he's kind of an open wound at times and speaking emotionally. And then the call out itself, yeah, I'm in. I'm in on the idea of Khalil Roundtree, finally putting it all together. I think this is five in a row, but correct me if I'm wrong.

I think this is five in a row and is on the path to the title. You know, one more maybe, and you could be in there. This division is not very deep. And it's kind of yearning for somebody who make, like the easiest way to figure this out and see what I'm about to say is that Alex Pereer was the one who got the title shot.

And what I'm going to say is, this division is yearning for some new names and people who could knock people out. And this is what you're getting with Khalil Roundtree and already have now with Alex Pereira. The division has needed that for a long time. And he's here. And I think he's won away. Would I be surprised if they even threw him into a title shot now? I really wouldn't.

I mean, I think there's plenty of opportunities where we've seen next man up. And I think Khalil Roundtree would be ready for that opportunity, as he said. So I would be not shocked if it was next. I don't expect it to be next. And if it's not next, I think he's won away at most. Timing could be on his side here, New York, Rick. If Alex Breyer is like, I want to fight in April. And I know we have the big one coming up,

the rematch between Magamette Ankleiv and Johnny Walker on January 13th. You have to think probably by then we're going to know what's somewhat going on at UFC 300. So maybe they put that fight together. I don't know. Not having the rackich, Yombovich fight in January kind of hurts. And it looks like him and Yuri might go. But now they're talking maybe March, February.

And even then, it might be a little bit too late for one of those two guys to turn around. So who knows? You can't like, I want to see Alex Pereira fight Jamal Hill. I really want to see that fight. But you can't bench Alex Pereira until the summer at the early. She just can't do it. So maybe he sneaks in there, New York, Rick.

Yeah, I mean, as we've seen, like UFC title shots are just timing at this point. Like, it's next man up. And I think Kalilio Roundtree is somebody who's ready to be next man up. And the rest of the division needs to sort itself out. Like, Rockich is in there. Jan Blahovic is in there. You mentioned a fight that needs to play out. There's lots of guys who kind of need, you know, kind of need to see where they fall.

And in the meantime, hey, you could do worse than throwing Kalil Roundtree in there. The problem that I would foresee is that's not a headliner in my opinion, right? Khalil Roundtree has been doing his work, but he's been doing it on co-main events of an apex card, right? Like, this is the biggest spot he's been in, and it's the co-main event of an apex card. So he's not been exposed to the audience in a way that I think people are going to say, I'm plopping down my money on pay-per-view. The highlight reel is one thing, but he needs a little more seasoning, a little more time in the oven, in my opinion.

So that's the problem. Now, if you're getting, if you're thinking it's UFC 300 and maybe that can be a co-main underneath something or maybe there's another opportunity for that to be co-main underneath a big heavyweight fight, then I think that it's viable. But I think it would be very hard to make this the main event of a pay-per-view. So I think he's won away, in my opinion. Yeah. Even if you do Connor Chandler, like the Galaxy Pereira would complain if you'd, if you'd, the co-main event to a Conner Chandler fight. I think you'd be like, yeah, I'll do that.

That's a perfect situation, right? Connor's headlining UFC 300. They can throw a light heavyweight title. Hey, like, fans, this one's for you guys. This one's the fun fight that is going to be an absolute war between two dudes who just murk people. Like, that is what they do. They go in there and they hurt people badly.

You can sell that as a co-main. I don't think you can sell that as the main just because of the name value. But one more win over a top guy at light heavyweight, all of a sudden, and Khalil Roundtree has that momentum that he needed. And again, not dissimilar to the path. Alex Pereira has taken in this. Like, he's doing his work with his fists. He doesn't need to hop on the mic and do much.

The rivalry with Izzy obviously expedited that. But I think Kalilio Roundtree is building enough of a highlight reel that like one more. And you can really say this guy's coming. I'll tell you what. If I'm Khalil Rauntree, I'm rooting from Agamana and Goliath to beat Johnny Walker and do it in the most boring way possible. and then maybe he gets in there because there's just nobody else that people would even want to see at this point.

So we shall see what happens. We do have bonuses. No fight of the night. We have four performance bonuses. I don't think it's going to be of a surprise to anybody. Tim Elliott. Yeah. Nazareth Hackpressed.

He unsung Park and Kaleo Roundtree get bonuses. So there you go. Four finishes, four bonuses. 50K. Enjoy. Nicely done. Nicely done. Good performance from Nazarad Hackperass with the hockey punches on Jamie Mularky.

That was nice. We haven't seen Hackbarass go out there and get finishes like that. It's coming off that kind of crazy fight against Cignonese in his last fight. That was really, really fun. Tim Elliott on short notice with the arm triangle, put Sumedareji to sleep. And how about Andre Munez, New York, Rick? Kind of a weird one. The Iron Turtle, I know he's a chat favorite in the hour chat.

I made turtle emojis everywhere. Close fight. I kind of thought John Young Park might have snuck it out there. But Andre Monez back on track, he needed that one so bad. As far as someone who like desperately needed to get back in the wind column, Andre Mniz probably at the top of that list, was he not? He needed to get back in the wind column. But I also think he needed to be a little more impressive.

Like this was a guy that was being talked about as one of the top prospects. Like, wow, this guy's coming through and is going to be a middleweight contender. And he's just not been impressive. Like this was not a great performance. He did what he needed to do here. I thought the Iron Turtle won the fight. I thought he won rounds one and three. So, yeah, I don't know.

This is not what you need if you're Andre Meniz. Yeah, certainly you need to get a win. You're right to that extent. But I thought you needed to do a little more oppressively to really, like, establish yourself. It feels to me like he's on the outside and he's going to be forgotten in this middleweight division. And then I'm looking down the rest of the card. Like Steve Garcia's knockout was nasty. No bonus for him.

Tatsura Tira Tira Tira thing. So this time with the hands, he doesn't get a bonus either. Maybe just because he was such a big favorite. But Jansung Park was the biggest favorite on the card. Maybe some backdoor bonuses being done. But Tatsura Tire, man, this guy is super good. I know there's a lot of hype and talk about Muhammad Mikhail F and Tatsura Taira did call him out. And I remember when I interviewed Taira before his UFC debut, he said he wants that fight.

and boy, oh boy, am I excited, maybe 2025, 2026. We get a Tetsu Roira versus Muhammad Bahaif possibly Flyweight title fight, New York, Rick. Flyweight, the division that was on life support at one point, we thought we were just going to dump it all together. All of a sudden, super fun, always delivers. And now we have two of the best prospects of the sport in this division right now. There's a lot to like at 125 right now. Yeah, I'm in total agreement. Mikeyev took to X during the fight night and said if Alex Perez falls out, he's taking the fight.

He's not going to sit on the ranking. He'll take the Tatsuro-Taira fight. So shout out to him for being awesome and game in that regard. All the stuff I said about Andre Muni is being like this Uber prospect and then kind of like not living up to the hype, Tyra is the opposite of that. Like every single time he's out there, he impresses me more and more. His opponents just look like they have no answers for the kind of pressure and like suffocation that he brings. And yeah, I'm excited to see where he goes. Obviously, we need to start seeing the escalation of opponents of tougher competition.

But he's passing these tests with flying colors. And yeah, he's an absolute stud, man. Like, you can see it in the style. Like, he's just a finisher. Absolutely. Kevin Justad gets a win. Luana Santos, big weight miss, but she gets the win over Stephanie Edgar. And congratulations to Tolita Alancar with a split decision win, although I didn't really love the scoring of that one against Hyannamanda.

But it is what it is. Tolita Alancar remains undefeated, 5'0 and 1. It's a good win right there, gets a former Invicta champ. So that's UFC Vegas 83. Boating for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Oh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea.

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That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. Normally we don't go into listener questions this quickly, but I kind of think we just should because there's not, there's just not a lot of like fallout storyline wise. Yeah. Really? So we'll bring Casey in. I know, you know, some people are calling Song Yodong's performance, you know, kind of safe in some regard. But you seem to like it, Casey.

You seem to like it. I have the, I think Chris Gutierrez's performance was the safe performance. That was the one that was playing it safe. And I often think of this. I often say this in these kind of, these type of victories. We've seen this a lot, I feel like. Was it rack? rackets over Anthony Smith in the sense, these five-round dominant decisions,

pretty much after seven minutes, we knew it was going to happen. But it's, to me, it's up to the guy that's losing to do something. And Gutierrez was just content, just losing every round, basically in guard. And to me, that's him playing it safe, and him losing safely. I get it, you don't want to get knocked out, but that's the game we play. you know go in there kill kill will be killed you know and um he was content losing a decision which is fine but um yeah so that's that's that's why i see it yeah it was a boring fight by far it was boring but i think it was a great performance by song but in a boring fight that makes sense how

much oh yeah that makes sense how much does all this matter you know in in in the scope of things because to me like yeah it's on the it's out in the guy who's losing to press right because he's the one with no answers. He needs to figure something out, right? Song yandong's doing stuff that's working and he just needs to keep doing it. But in, if you're looking back at these performances and going Davis and Figuero against Rob Fon or Songuong versus Chris Gutierrez, all of a sudden, if you're the UFC, what I'm saying, all of a sudden, it might be an easier call to say, hey, Figgie's the one we want to fight Jan. There are some style points that are required. Sometimes it's not enough to just go out and do your job. Sometimes you do have to push it.

a little bit more. Sometimes you have to press the action, even if you're putting yourself in a dangerous position. I'll, yeah, I mean, yeah, you're right. But, but in the day, the UFC doesn't give out entertainment checks in a sense. They give out a show bonus and a win bonus. You have to win. You have to win.

You have to win. We talked about this on the pre-show, you know, winning solves everything, you know. And he won. and I think that's 90% of the job. Yes, if he want to, I don't know, let him stand up or I don't know. I'm not sure what song would should have done. Honestly, I watch it if I'm like, well, I mean, he's, I'm watching if I'm like, what's he's supposed to do?

He's just dominating from top and Gutierrez has lots of, he can roll to the side. He can do things that's going to put him in a bad position or take a chance or him take a chance and put himself in a worse position. But for song, I just don't know what he is supposed to do on top. I mean, if the guy's got you take him down and let you sit in your guard and just elbow you, I don't know what to do. I mean, I don't know what song's supposed to do. It's not yet.

It is not entertaining to watch 100%. I completely agree. Yeah. And if timing wise, yeah, I would figure you for, I guess, a more entertaining performance. Yeah, that in the short term, in the very short term, like, their next fight that might hurt him. But I think in the career aspect of it, it'll be forgotten. It'll be forgotten in a week Because apparently there's a really big card next week

And in about, I don't know Three or four hours We're never gonna remember this card In a sense Three or four hours, three or four minutes Yeah, I'm being very positive guys, come on Yeah No, by the way, I agree with you completely

Like this wasn't this wasn't Jitanao Meda to me Like this was fine Like this was a fine performance Doing what he needed to do And wasn't like he was just sitting there Like he was doing what he needed to do was landing shots and blanked them.

And Gutierrez fought safe, to your point. Like, he was fighting not to lose and he lost. And honestly, this was never, this isn't a main event fight. This is a strong, whole main event fight. And if this was a, if this was a co-main event, three rounds, we have a different conversation. But all the expectations are on the main event. We had an extra 15 minutes of, okay.

So, yeah, and it's very late. and we have next week. So yeah. Maybe somebody will ask this. Should they have shifted Roundtree and Smith to the main event now that this event wasn't in China? What was the point of Song Yidong and Gutierrez being the main event? There were more stakes in the co-main event for sure. Yeah.

So I would. And Anthony Smith is the biggest name out of everybody there, right? Like he's headlined these shows before. So yeah. Yeah. And just, but also just think how. how different this fight feels. If this is in a arena or stadium, I don't know, in Shanghai, there's 12,000 people there

cheering song on. There's a completely different, even as boring as it was, there's a completely different fill. And song grabs the mic. He goes, give me Peter Yan, you know, blah. He's the hero. We're talking about this completely different. And I totally get songs frustration because when he signed the dollar line to fight Gutierrez,

he's like, all right, well, I'm finding a guy who's, eight spots behind me, but it is the main event in my home country. Hell yeah, let's do this. Wait a minute. You're going to, you're going to fight in front of 15,000 people of your own fans. Now he now is 15 people and one jackass who was yelling at your opponent. So here we are. These are great points.

Yeah. And plus like once you give them the main event, you can't be like, oh yeah, we're moving to the apex. Now you're not the main event anymore. They definitely can't have. They could. They could. As long as song pays the same, I'm sure he wouldn't have cared.

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing because Song and Goodyear has probably made more money tonight than he's made in any other fight, even in a loss. Because you get that extra main event bump. So I'm sure that meant something to him to take that. And I'm sure Anthony Smith's pay was probably bigger than, it's probably bigger than both of them combined, even with song getting the win bonus, considering he's fought for a belt. that he's been around for so long. You also have the out that that fight wasn't originally on this card, right? Khalil Roundtree was supposed to fight the week before and now you're adding it. So just make it the main event.

Ultimately, I mean, you know my position on card placement, right? You know that I don't give two Fs about card placement. But it did feel like it kind of crescendoed there. And then it kind of was a letdown and you could time that a little bit better. But at the end of the day, we're going to move on quickly as Casey says. Yes. Yep. All right.

What are the peep saying about this wonderful event? The go home show for UFC 296. I'm trying to find positive comment. I'm trying to. I think Peter Jan had a positive comment, right? It was something like, oh, my God. Peter yawn. Peter yon.

Very good. Very good. Look at you, Mr. Heck. I mean, to be fair, Aaron Bronsetter said Peter yawned. I stole his shit. I stole his thoughts. under. Honestly, the most, the most, the, the memory I'm going to have this is, is Paul Felt

are trying to explain to the translator what yon emoji is. Yeah. That tweet being on the screen for two straight minutes was so, I was laughing. Like, I just stayed there. It was so funny. I'm trying to live blog. I'm like, the tweet is still on the screen right now. It's too funny.

And shout, if we're going to be positive before we go to the fan questions, uh, broadcast team knocked out of the park tonight. Great, great trio right there. John Gooden, who I don't think gets used enough. There you go. Sankofel Feldor Gooden. Yeah. I had this ready.

Actually, I wanted to talk about this. Yeah. Yeah, they were awesome. They were awesome. Is this a hot take? But like, I feel like Gooden is the best play-by-play guy. And I feel like Felder is like the best analyst. Yeah.

I love Gooden. Yeah, he's really good. I still get the crown to Anik, but Gooden is quality. He is quality. So I'll give you that. So, yeah, this is a super solid team. Yeah, I like this team. Yeah, I think Sanco and Felder work great together.

And honestly, they did a great job on trying their best to keep us, I guess, entertained and informed in the main event. Because they were struggling. They were like, you know. but they did really good job. So yeah, props to Sanko felt her earned good. Great job. You have the commentary team. Heidi, Heidi Anderall, she did a great job as well.

It was just a super solid broadcast. I think they crushed it. Yeah. Okay. As you need to consider, it's funny you should say it. As we use consider for the middleweight is middleweight now. That was brought up in our private Slack channel. I think he's been, I think I'll say Jed,

because Jed would probably probably tweeted this 15 times anyway. Jed threw this out there, and you can make a strong case that he was a middleweighty, middleweight since the Uriah Hall win. Because that fight was not, that was a very middleweighty performance for Majimunez. And then, you know, he fights Brennan Allen, who was the middleweighty, middleweight champion at the time. But Paul Craig isn't really middleweighty. I don't know. It's a weird one. He's under consideration.

I will say that. He's under consideration. I think Meneese had a good run, and now he's kind of, reality has sunk back in for us, maybe. And it's fun to be, I mean, I know Jose tries to make fun of us for being hyped on fighters, but that's what we do. We go, hey, man, Mnese might be this kind of dark horse middleway we weren't seeing. And we kind of go, oh, you know, we get excited. And it kind of turns out, you know, not every, I don't know, prediction comes true. And now I think Mniz is just kind of top 20-ish guy.

you know, limited. So yes, I think the answer is yes, actually. Not to oversimplify things, but like this is why we have the fights, right? We need to find these things out. Like, it's okay to be excited about like, hey, this guy's potential is XYZ. And then we find out. And then we do the experiment. And then they actually get in the cage and then they show us who they really are.

And Andre Muniz is not the guy that we thought he was. That's okay. He's somewhere underneath that. But still at top whatever. in the world, which is great. He's a quality of UFC caliber of middleweight, and I think that's just kind of back to where he is. Yep.

And he's going to have a very important role in this ever-evolving division because he's going to be fighting the Jun Young Parks of the world for a while now. Like guys who, like, are you a top 15 middleweight? Well, fight on Germanese and you'll find out. Like, he's going to be a Neil Magny type of middleweight. And that's not a bad place to be.

You could have a very long career being in that spot. And I kind of feel like that's where Andre Monez probably is right now. So good win for him. And there you go. Yeah, he's definitely in the mix.

Let's talk about, I guess, the one fight we will remember from this card. Do you guys think if Cleo got another finish against one more top 10 opponent his next fight, he could really get Poetan? Yeah, for sure. I wanted that Merzikana fight so bad.

I loved that matchmaking. That was my pick. like after Kaleo's last win I was like yeah give him an Apex main event give him freaking Mersikana

five rounds like that fight ain't going five there's no freaking chance I love that fight but now you know Kahlil beating Anthony Smith he's he's kind of in the dust

right now Mirzikonov until he gets back in there so yeah one more win like if he fights like the ankle eye of Johnny Walker loser and like finishes them

he's right there He's right there for sure When is Rackich supposed to fight When was that? He was supposed to fight at 2.97 against Janbovich But now it looks like That's a January card?

What is the January card? Mid January, early January 20th I think he would take a Five Way roundtree? I don't know, he's got Yuri barking at him right now and Yuri wants it so I think if I'm him I'm taking Yuri over Roundtree right now Yeah, I would do

The timeline though Like maybe he doesn't want to fight. I think didn't, didn't Yuri say he wants, what, what did he say, March or he wanted to push it back a little bit further? Yeah, he said February and March and she's like, yeah, let's do February. And then Yuri's like, nah, let's go to Miami in March. Let's do that. Yeah. Now, all of a sudden, the door is cracking open for Khalil Roundtree to get somebody to get somebody in the top of the rankings.

And then all of a sudden, we're at a title shot. Yeah, I think, I think he's won away at most. Like, I definitely don't think it's even going to take two. I think he gets one other top contender and he's in there. Get him out of the apex. Get him out of the apex. Yeah, put him on a paper view. Yeah, put him on a pay-per-view.

And let's see what this guy can do in front of a crowd and on a stacked card. Let's see what he can do. If people don't know them, that's how you introduce him to people. Put him on a big card. Yeah. Like it's a known commodity. Yeah. I mean, obviously, he brings the violence and everything, which, you know, fans love, we love,

you know, just, but I like also because he's, he's different to his personality, his persona is different. You know, he doesn't need to talk trash, but he, but he still talks directly to you. He doesn't know, wherever the matchmakers may. He still tells you what he wants, but he doesn't have to get this persona that we kind of expect a lot of fighters to do sometimes. There's something authentic about Cleo Roundery and unique, and I hope, I hope, hope, the UFC gets behind that and not just try to,

force some kind of trash talk when um when these are just two really high level talking about prayer and round tree two high level kickboxers who got really good at mma and i hope that match maybe if prayer like one of one of if prayer starts barking a bit and start going no i want round tree do you think that could rush it too even possibly next is that too much i mean i think i think i think it goes back to what i said about it can't headline a pay-per-view so it right now it can't headline of pay-per-view so becomes difficult right even if Pereira wants it because how do you see has booked roundtree basically in the apex you just yeah not yeah anything roundtree he needs he needs more exposure this is where the rocket gets strapped to him right i don't think before this they were

ready to this is where the rocket gets trapped to him now you now you start telling the complex stories like if people don't know about calillo roundtree like he's a very fascinating dude as a very fascinating story. Go watch the interview with Ariel Hawani on the MMA hour where he kind of like pours his soul out. He has a very complex story. Doesn't require trash talk. There's there's a lot of reasons to kind of root for Khalil Roundtree. And now is where I think the UFC starts to maybe invest those resources and say like, yeah, maybe this guy really can be the guy. And if he beats a rackage, if he beats an Ankolaev, if he beats even a Johnny Walker, we can tell this story. We can start to invest time and then we can start to invest resources.

and marketing and things like that and get him there. And then you've got the highlight reel for the fans that don't want to follow along with that. If the people want to hear his story and get that slow drip, you do that. If they don't, just feed him 60 seconds of him absolutely destroying guys. And I think he can be very sellable, but I do think he needs a pay-per-view. If it's not a co-main where he actually is fighting for the title, you give him a top-top, top contender, and then one more, and he's fighting for the title. Yeah.

It doesn't hurt that he's super fun. It does not hurt that he's super fun to watch. It kind of sucks because stylistically wise, and I think their skill sets, like they're perfectly matched up right now. But like you said, Eric, now it's more about the marketing and putting it on that paper view in front of, you know, 20,000 people. That's what's missing from Roundtry right now.

Nothing. The skill set's not missing. Now it's just the marketing machine. Rockets versus Roundtree, January. Let's do it. I like it. I would, hey, hashtag would watch. I don't know if we'll get that, but hey, look, maybe who, you know,

that might be a quick way to derail the train because, uh, the rackich rackage is not one who's opposed to taking them down and just, uh, keeping them there for a bit. So that, that might be a quick way to find out where his grappling's at. And, and I'm not sure he's ready for that step. But if you want to fight it here, I was going to say, if you want to fight Alex Pereira, you need to be, but you know. That's what I mean. That's what I mean.

That's what I mean. That's what I was trying to say. It's so weird. Like, skill set-wise, he could definitely be prayer. I'm going to say you will be prayer. But it'll be one of those weird, like, he could be the best 205 in the world, but we're going to pick him to lose against the next three guys, you know, type of thing.

He's just, that's, that is the light, heavyweight division right now, though. Uncle live and Rackich are going to be tough for him, in my opinion. Alex Pereira would be a lot of fun. But yeah, you're either the guy or you're not, and I think he's prepared to find out and I think it will be fun to see as he does. Or we just mix it all up and just throw the playbook up the window and we do Ancolaia versus Rackich and then we do Johnny Walker versus Cleo Roundtree. That'd be fun. And then there we go. We eliminate Rackich and or Ankoliah from the mix and then we get the two crazy dudes in there fighting each other. And then we go from there. I'm not

opposed to that either. Well, where does Iwan Kutalaba fit into this? That's what I don't know. We should really start a podcast about matchmaking. I don't know. You should. We should. I'll see what AK is doing tomorrow. Yeah, we'll call it,

who will this guy fight next? I've got to make a shorter. I don't know. Hit me up in slack. We'll talk about it. Yeah, we'll talk about it. I'll say what.

There's probably one man who is unhappy about how things have played out. And his name is Dustin Chikobi, who's getting ready to fight Alonzo Meneff. field next week. Dustin Jacoby tweeting up a storm today. Because truth be told, I thought Dustin Jacoby beat Khalil Roundtree at that national card.

I did. I thought Jacobi won that fight. Jacobi rewatched it on Twitter today just because he's like, all right, I just want to rewatch it and see. He felt like he won all three rounds. I don't know if I would go that far. Refresh my memory on that fight because I remember Dustin getting knocked around a little bit in the first two rounds and then Khalil completely fell off a cliff and faded and

Dustin came on. Did Khalil not win the first two rounds? I thought he, Cleo won the first round. I thought Jacoby won the second. I thought he stole some momentum away. And then he, Jacoby definitely won the third. But Jacoby thinks two all three rounds. I don't think he won the first. I'm looking at MMA decisions right now. And I think about the 15 journalists and it looks like 13 of them did have Jacoby winning that fight. I don't personally, I don't really have a strong memory of that fight, to be honest. But, um, Yeah, a lot of journalists had it for Jacoby that fight. Remember when wrestling used to be the best base for MMA,

but now it feels like everybody's a kickboxer? It's kind of weird how that happened. It's crazy. I remember watching that fight. I watched that fight in Dallas. It was the day of Jake Paul versus Nate Diaz. I think I was watching on like Andreas's phone or something as that fight was happening. And I thought Jacoby won that fight.

But, oh, well, they can run it back down the road. It'll be fun. By the way, the Kalil Roundtree gas tank looked pretty good. Seemed to conserve the nicely in this one and had the finishing power in the third. So maybe some improvements being made. Yeah, he was a little bit. You could tell you, it's not they took his foot off the gas in the second round, but he had Anthony figured out.

He'd just let Anthony come to him and just countering him. That counter left hand was absolute money all day long in that second round. and he's a rough style for Anthony he has to come to him right because he really doesn't have another way to win that fight he has to jab him and he has to outpoint him and he has to do what he's going to do and then Khalil's just waiting on that power shot and tough fight tough fight on short notice but I don't think like let's not get it like pump the brakes on the like Anthony Smith needs to do XYZ thing like he just beat Ryan Spann like after getting like mauled in the in the opening round there came back one like we've got some time here like we're not we're not calling for anthony smiths head here like chill out it was it was a competitive first 10 minutes competitive short notice tough stylistic matchup like chill chill chill out i am surprised he didn't go for any takedowns in the first round i was gonna i was gonna did he actually did in the second did he ever get his hands on him he tried he did okay i was

trying to there's just like what they just got in close and like tied up and then they ended up against the fence and then round tree almost beheaded him with the elbow that anthony avoided on the break and that was it that was like the only like clinch or in like any sort of a grappling exchange in any way in the first round it was just like uh well we're close together let's just tie up and we'll battle against the fence and roundtree just pushed anthony's back against the fence and anthony was probably expecting an elbow to come his way and it came and he avoided it and they just kept fighting but i was surprised not one takedown attempt in that first round it i know it's very easy to say just shooting for takedowns because yeah it's very easy to say

because people don't understand when those knees are coming at you like oh my god but we also knew anthony smith's only path of victory there had to be at least a strong takedown threat so i don't i mean this is this is something for anthony anthony smith to answer you know once he gets hilled up but uh the The same people who are like, oh, just shoot for a takedown are also the ones where when you're working chain wrestling and on the fence and grabbing a single and switching to doubles and doing all this stuff are going to be like boring, get out of here,

I don't want to see it. So like there's no winning. There's no winning when it comes to that. That's very good. But yeah, I mean, just take them down is the refrain that's been said about like Alex Pereira for this long and Israel and Asana before him. Like there is no just take him down.

Yeah, I don't know why people think. You got killers trying to like take your head off with like deadly, deadly weapons. Like it's not that easy. Absolutely not. Are we good? Do you have anything else? Guys, let me. You all know how to host act UFC 296 is everybody watching this does.

Do you know what the first fight of the night is? No idea. The first fight of UFC 296 is Randy Brown versus Muslim Salikoff. That's the six. That's the curtain jerker. That just shows you. That's incredible. That just shows you how stack this freaking card is.

I cannot wait. It is going to be a lot of fun. Boots on the ground. Lots going on. Vegas will be a buzzing all week long. There's the awards. There's karate combat with Benson Anderson versus Anthony Pettis. There's all sorts of Jake Paul's boxing this week.

Wow. We got a little bit of everything. Yes. One Jake DePaul will be boxing this week. I will actually be there for that. And I think Ariel's going to be there too. So look at this. A little, a mini Dallas reunion, but missing New York Rick and the whole crew.

But it's going to be a busy week, friends. We're going to have a lot of fun meeting into UFC, which is absolutely snack. So get ready. Get some sleep. Get some rest for Casey for New York Rick. I am Mike Heck. Thank you for watching. Good night, everybody.

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