MMA Fighting - What the Heck: Episode 30 | Jon Anik, James Krause, Lauren Murphy & Casey Kenney

Episode Date: October 22, 2020

This week on What the Heck, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck speaks with UFC welterweight James Krause (6:13) to recap his UFC Fight Island 6 win over Claudio Silva and discuss his post-fight comments regarding Joaquin Buckley. UFC play-by-play voice Jon Anik (24:25) previews UFC 254, the significance of Khabib Nurmagomedov vs. Justin Gaethje, and more. UFC flyweight Lauren Murphy (47:34) talks losing Cynthia Calvillo as a UFC 254 opponent, getting a short notice newcomer in Liliya Shakirova, and why she feels Jessica Andrade shouldn't get the winner of Valentina Shevchenko vs. Jennifer Maia. Finally, UFC bantamweight Casey Kenney (1:12:46) previews his catchweight bout with Nathaniel Wood at UFC 254, talks the impact his dominant win over Alateng Heili has had, and where a win on Saturday will take him. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR 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

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is What the Heck with Mike Heck on MMAfighting.com. Now here is your host, Mike Heck. What the heck? Hello there, everybody, and welcome to a brand new edition of What the Heck here on MMAfighting.com. I am Mike Heck. Thank you, as always, for checking us out each and every week. And, man, am I fired up.

UFC 254 going down this Saturday in Abujublj. Dobby. And can I just say, I am loving this idea of coffee in combat here on the East Coast. Prelimbs on Saturday kickoff at 10.30 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Main card at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. I'm all in for this. Of course, the main event, Habib Narmaga Madov versus Justin Gachi for the undisputed lightweight championship of the world. And at least on paper for me, in some you may disagree with this. I truly believe this is one of the greatest title fights in UFC history. I mean, there's a lot of intrigue here. And if you haven't seen it, go check it on our YouTube page. We talked to a lot of fighters, got their predictions on the fight. And there are a lot of

fighters, a lot of people, even friends of mine who are way into MMA or even like casually somewhat into MMA, a lot of people, probably like 90% of people that I've spoken with are predicting the upset. They're predicting that Justin Gachie will leave Fight Island as the undisputed lightweight champion of the world. Of course, he got Habibn Mugamagamatov, and he could do what he's done to literally everybody else that he has fought in his career and moved to 29 and O. Floyd Mayweather-esque in a way, because, I mean, if you're a boxing fan, every time Floyd Mayweather fought, there's always questions, right? Like, even when he boxed Connor McGregor, Like, I didn't think Connor had any chance.

The fight pretty much played out the way I told everybody it would. But, you know, even with the Connor fight, the bill of that, Floyd struggles with power punchers. Floyd struggles with self-paws. He's fought boxers, not fighters. Connor could be the guy. He is the belief in himself. And, of course, it just never happened. We all bought, a lot of people bought into it.

We all bought into it. And then Floyd did what he did. And the narrative in this fight is Habib's never fought a guy. with the wrestling pedigree of a Justin Gachi, who, by the way, his nickname is the highlight for a reason. He could chop you down with those absolutely ferocious leg kicks, and he can knock you stiff. So it really is a fascinating fight that I'm very much looking forward to.

We'll be talking a lot about this event on the show. We have throughout the week as well. If you miss between the links, our own Jed Mishu took on Aaron Bronzetter, the fight, the card. These two guys had differing opinions on pretty much everything. It was a crazy episode. I'd highly recommend you go back.

and get the different takes on that fight and that event. So let's just get right into this thing. Let's run down the lineup and get right at it, right after this thing. Rapping us up this week is Casey Kenney takes on Nathaniel Wood this Saturday at UFC 254. He joined us from Abu Dhabi to preview that fight to talk about some of the predictions that Nathaniel Wood had for the fight where he goes with the win as he's looking to make it two and oh on this particular trip to the island. Always great chatting with one of the bright up-and-comers at 135 pounds.

Of course, this fight between Kenny and Wood will take place at a catchweight of 140 pounds. Also competing on Saturday, Lauren Murphy makes her What the Heck debut. She was originally scheduled to face Cynthia Calvio on this card and a potential title eliminator belt, excuse me, at 125 pounds. And as you know by now, Calvio tested positive for COVID-19. So now Lauren is going to face newcomer Lillia Shakarova on the main card. Lucky Lauren will discuss that fight. Jessica Androja's win over Caitlin Chiquagy in this past weekend and much more. We'll also be joined by John Anick.

He'll be the lead voice calling the action to preview some of the big storylines heading into Saturday night. He will be here and I will warn you the Wi-Fi in his hotel room. Not great. Not great. But the audio is fine. And a little over halfway through, we switched to his phone. And for some reason, it worked way better.

Like a laptop, high-quality laptop, no good on the Wi-Fi, but a little tiny cell phone, apparently that works way better. So we're able to figure that out. It's a great chat. I just ask kindly to bear with us, bear with the Wi-Fi issues over there because John Ayick is the man. He'll join us in around 20 minutes or so. But first, let us put a bow on this past weekend's UFC Fight Island Six event. James Krause is about to join us.

And as you know through the history of the show, it's happened a couple of times. It is not often that we get fighters on back-to-back weeks. But since his win over Claudio Silva on Saturday, we over at M.A. fighting have been talking about something that stuck out. And it stemmed from last week's show. And it continued on into Saturday night after the Krause fight, the win over Claudio Silva. Joachim Buckley was on this program. and he called out James Krause after the viral K-O-win over Impa Kasang and I the week prior. And he said that the call-out stemmed from a DM on Instagram,

and he wouldn't reveal what the DM was about. He wanted to maintain brocode and whatnot. And then at Krause's post-fight scrum, our man Jose Youngs asked James about Joachim Buckley and good lord, did he go off? And then people thought, you know, it might have stemmed from a fake Joaquin Buckley account. So I was tasked to try and get James's side of the story and kind of crack this case, so to speak. But also, I really enjoy chatting with James Krause, so easy self for me. So let's kick things off with one of the big winners from this past weekend, the James Krause.

All right, back on the show for the second week in a row. One of the big winners from UFC Fight Island 6. He gave himself a C-minus D-plus for his win over Claudio Silva, which was actually the first legitimate loss of Claudio's career. We're not even going to count the first one because I went back and watched that fight and that was like the John Jones versus Matt Hamill loss. It was a DQ. It was kind of BS. But James Krause, back on the program,

the James Krause, back from Abu Dhabi. Congrats, man. How are you? Thanks, I'm good, man. Good to be home. Really good to be home. I was going to say, because after the win, they're asking you, what do you want next? And you're like, I just want to get my ass home. Like, you know, get the fuck home, man.

The fucking sleep and everything. is just a nightmare there. It's terrible. It really is. It's tough to do, man. It's not easy. It's a different animal. Was it like a little more crazy than you thought it was going to be?

Because you're just like, yeah, we're getting in a cage and fight. You were pretty nonchalant about it because, I mean, you fought so many times in your career. But was this a different feeling? No, I knew it was going to be, I mean, listen, you can, they were talking to me about the sleep schedule and stuff like that. I'm like, I don't get a fuck of what schedule. I'm going to wake me up when I need to fight. Like that stuff doesn't matter, but It all is the same still, right?

Because like you got to sleep So it's not necessarily when I'm fighting It's just like like I just couldn't sleep You know what I mean? And I was getting like one and two hours of sunlight a day Just little weird things that you wouldn't think are a big player But they are, you know? Like the travel makes the weight cut harder

You know, because I took on a short notice I had a real weight cut this time at 70 Which I've never had before I had a fairly tough cut So it's just a different, different look, different, whatever, man. You know what I mean? Like, it's a bunch of bullshit at this point. It was just a little different than normal is all.

Yeah, so it looks like you're still kind of catching up on those Zs a little bit, trying to acoam. It's a nightmare, man, waking up in the middle of the night, wide awake. It's tough. It really is. I mean, luckily you had a baby in the house not too long ago, right? So it kind of evens out in a weird way. You don't want to do that again. No, my wife handles him.

You know, she gets up in the middle. And he doesn't really, he sleeps through the night now, so it's good. But, yeah, I mean, just the, like I said, the sleep, the food, everything. Like, you'd be amazed of, like, how the rest of your day operates off of your sleep. And you don't know until you mess that up, right? Like, so, like, I was eating breakfast for dinner, dinner for breakfast, getting like one or two hours of sunlight a day. It's just a different dynamic.

It's weird. It's just not what you're used to. So the big question is, how are you feeling physically? Because you're dealing with the knee injury in the fight. You said you may have torn something between rounds to Mark Montoya. Were you able to get any answers on the knee at all? I got an ultrasound on it yesterday. I have an MRI here in a couple hours, but the ultrasound looked like it's a partial tear of my MCO.

All right. Is this better or worse than... you thought? I don't know. I mean, in the fire, I mean, you seen me what I said. I mean, he's like, yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. I mean, like, he was, I wasn't saying that to show, hey, my knees, you know, my knees messed up. He kept telling me to move left or right and I was just trying to explain to him that I couldn't, you know what I mean? Like it was almost fell over a couple times trying to do it. So I had to like widen my stance out a little bit more, which is why I got kicked so much in that lead leg. Everybody thought my lead leg was the one that's messed up,

but it's actually my, my back leg. So, but in the first round, those kicks were never even thing but because i had to get so lead leg heavy to get weight off my back leg it made him a thing to where i you know it was it was it wasn't hurting me it was just throwing me off balance whenever i got kicked it was just different i had to move a little different than i'm used to where you're starting to feel it more and more like oh yeah i definitely felt it i mean it hurt it hurt like hell uh you know what i mean like this is i don't know it's just it's a factor but uh it never was anything crazy to me. You know what I mean?

Like I've been through stuff like that before where you just got to work around it and I did. It was a factor in the fight but it wasn't like there was never a point where I was like oh should I continue and like that never that's not even a thing to me.

So like we touched on at the beginning here you weren't happy with your performance overall. You rated it low but you I mean positivity here if you beat an undefeated fighter on one leg. So now the time has passed, few days have gone by. Do you feel any better about it?

Well, given the circumstances, I feel good about it. You know what I mean? Like, I don't want to say, like, out of a pissy performance or anything. Like, given the circumstances, I feel good about what I did, you know, short notice, 13 days notice with a torn knee. I mean, I feel like I did all right. You know, I won. That's all that matters, really.

But given the fight as a whole, that's where I rated myself, you know, C-minus, D-plus, whatever. But when you start taking factors into play, like the weight cut, the short notice, the knee, I did what I had to do to win. And I felt like I pissed his shut out. I don't feel like I lost the round. So I feel like I definitely showed that I'm the better fighter. I feel like I nullified his ground game rather easily. I think the striking was a huge difference.

I felt like I won very handily. You know, I thought it was 3027. These guys were acting like it was a close fight. I didn't see how. I didn't feel like I got hit, but two or three times the whole fight, you know, clean anyway. And I was hitting him clean often. And that's no disrespect to him. and that's just how I seen the fight play out as it was happening.

It's funny because, I mean, I do so many of these interviews, and a lot of times when fighters have fights coming up, they just say things. Like, it just, they say things. I'm going to wipe this dude out. I'm going to do whatever. But I remember our conversation, like, very vividly leading into the fight because it went pretty much exactly the way you said it was going to go. So did anything actually surprise you in the fight outside of the knee?

Nope. It went exactly how I, I mean, go back and watch the interview. It went exactly how I said it was going to. I'm sitting there. Wow, exactly, like literally exactly. Yeah. I said I was going to stop the, I was going to stop the takedowns. If he got me down, he can't hold me down.

Got me down one time, couldn't hold me down. And I knew the striking would be light years difference. And it was. So now that the fight has come and gone, I do want to ask you about something that has gotten the entire MMA fighting team asking questions. Like, this has been a thing since Saturday, because you got a question at your post-fight scrum from a colleague of mine, Jose Youngs. And the reason that that question was asked was because on last week's show, which you were a part of as well, Wachim Buckley was on here.

And when I asked him what he wanted next before he booked the Jordan Wright fight, he said he wanted to fight you either at 170, 185. And then he said there was an Instagram DM involved that he didn't want to dive into specifically. So when you were asked about Buckley, I mean, you had a lot to say about this. You called them several names. There's talks. Yeah. And there's talks about like potential fake twilight. Twitter accounts that actually causes beef.

So how did this riff between the two of you start? He messaged me probably five or six weeks ago. And I said he could come train. And I pretty much just told him no. I said no. I mean, like, because listen, he doesn't have, I know people just, people just met him from his viral video. He's from St. Louis.

He's not too far from me. He's been kicked out of every gym in St. Louis. I've never heard a good word said about him. he messages me basically saying he doesn't want to train he wants to come spar and I say I'm not interested like that's not how it works here like I don't like we don't like we're looking for is not what we're doing and I said like you know you know pretty much no you're not a good fit and then he goes on to this thing about how like and he says I heard I just heard at lunch today that he said because of bro code I can't release the DMs or some shit like that as those is me I'll show them to you I don't get that shit like I told him no And he got lippy with me And said that it's obvious That he would do me

And my guy's dirty Or some shit like that I said dude I've been in the UFC longer Than you've been fighting me Miss me with that shit If you think I'm scared of you You gotta get on with yourself dog Because I ain't nobody afraid of you here

I'd tell you that right now And that was pretty much the extent of it I don't know why people are making that To be this big deal He doesn't like me I don't like him Cool like he has to come I said no he didn't like it

Sorry get over it That's pretty much the extent of it he said he wants to fight me, send the contract. Like, I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, and that's the thing. That's, he always does this. He's called out, he's called out a bunch of my guys, like, when he was still on the regional scene.

He's called out, like, he called out Trey Ogden. He's a fucking middleweight calling out a 55er. Like, dude, like, to me, where I come from, that's just kind of a bitch move is all. You know what I mean? Like, it's just, and I'm not making it out. Listen, I don't want to make this like an ongoing feud because it's not. I don't really, I don't care about him enough to have an ongoing feud. I just don't have a lot of respect for somebody that consistently is calling out somebody smaller than them.

I don't see heavyweights calling him out. You know, we're talking about a two-weight class difference. You're talking about 30-pound difference. Like, why are you calling out a lightweight? And now, now he wants to fight me. Okay, like, at what weight? 70, 85? Like, and I know what he's going to say?

Were you fought at 85? Okay, yeah. Yeah, I did, yeah. You know what I fought at 85 one time in my attacker? And I will fight him at 85. I don't care. But it's just, it's, I just don't have a lot of respect for somebody that does that. It's a bitch move where I come from.

And, you know, I just, I pretty much just told you what the DM said. Like, and I'll screenshot and I'll send him to you. I don't get a shit. Like, there's, there's no brocode. Like, it's not even as big of a thing as people who say he wanted to come spar. And I said, hey, that's not how it works here. You're either on my team or you're not on my team. You know, so sorry, I'm not what you're looking for.

Oh, we'll do you dirty. You know, that's obvious I'd beat you and your boys. I said, dude, miss me with that shit, dog. I've been in the UFC longer than you've been fighting, man. Get on. Get on with that. That was pretty much the extent of it. So it sounds like, have you talked to him prior to that?

Or is that, like, the first time he's reached out to you and vice versa? Like, that was the first time you've ever spoken to him? That was the first time. Yep. But I've never heard a good word about him. He's been kicked out of every gym in St. Louis because all he wants to do is fight his teammates. He's not, I mean, look at it. Look at the pictures.

He's fucking training with, like, four and five people. You know, he's been kicked out of the gyms because they don't want him, you know? And I see him who's on Ariel's show and they asked about him training with Tyron Woodley, and he acted like there was nothing. Like, dude, they don't want in there because he's a fucking asshole. That's, you know what I mean? Like, that's what I'm saying. People talking about me and being a cloud chaser.

Dude, I was saying this shit before his stupid kick. You know what I mean? Like, I should say stupid. The kick was beautiful. I'm not, you know what I mean? Like, I'm a lot of things that I'm not a hater. The kick was an amazing kick. I'm not taking anything away from that.

But that doesn't take anything away from the fact that the facts are the facts. You know, he's kicked out of all the gyms in St. Louis. Like, he obviously reaching out to me for a reason. I had 35 people on my mat this morning. I don't fucking need him. You know what I mean? Like he needs me not the other way around. So now you're telling me my guys need work.

Get out of here, man. Like you called me, not the other way. Get on. Anyway, that's all it was, man. It wasn't people making that it out to be some long, darn out thing. He's just a mildly motherfucker and not his own, you know what I mean? Like, I've been in this game too long. He can miss me with that shit, dog.

I've been doing this for a minute, bro. Welcome to the UFC, man. I remember what it was like in 2013, too. So it would be fair to say that if timelines line up correctly gets another win on November 21st where we're doing this thing. or you'd be interested in doing this thing? Sure. I think I've shown by now that there's, I'm not, I'm not dodging fights.

Yeah. I mean, it's, because I think you're one of like the toughest to matchmake for just because of your schedule and you coaching and everything you have going on. Like this seems kind of like a no-brainer in a way. Like if he gets through November 21st, your knees is good to go. We have something here. It doesn't happen that often for you. Yeah.

No, I'm not fighting. I'm not fighting for the rest of the year, probably the first part of next year. I mean, my schedule is not. permitting it. But if the schedules line up, dude, I mean, I'll, I guess I'll fight him in 85. I don't mean. He's made 70 before. So like, why don't you tell him to cut the weight? You know what I mean? Like, he will. He said he would. Oh, perfect. It's even better. Like, it's even better. You know what I mean? Like, dude, I would love to, I would love to fight a guy that's got two fights in the UFC. That'd be amazing. Yeah, I remember talking to Kevin Holland

before the Darren Stewart fight. And he apparently, Joaquin said some things to him that rubbed him the wrong way so badly. He says shit to everybody. He wouldn't even tell me. He wouldn't even tell me what he said in an interview setting, you said, you're going to have to talk to me, like, you're going to have to call me on the phone and I'll tell you. And Kevin's grandfather actually made a COVID mask with a shadow image of Kevin's slapping Joaquin in the face because what he said was that bad. So I'm saying, dude, he's just a mouthy shit. He's got a terrible attitude.

I just don't want him in my gym as all. Like, you know what I mean? He took offense to it and said some lippy shit. So I said some lippy shit back. Like, it's not a big deal to me. Like, I don't have like a hatred towards it. I don't really like the dude. And he don't like me.

Okay, cool. Move on. You know? But, yeah. if they, I would love that fight. And any other setting why I ever fight a guy with two fights in the UFC, like sign me up, please. Sign me up 100%.

Please, please. And he can't make 70, bro. I'm just telling you he can't make it. I know he can't. If he can make it, he'd be making it. You know what I mean? Like, he's, he tried to make it on the regional scene and he's missed weight. Like, but I'll fight him at 85.

I don't care. You know what I mean? It does not matter to me. So it is what it is, whatever. Can this be fixed? Like obviously he's finding success right now. He's on this way of momentum. But could this beat get squashed?

I'm not a person that holds on to shit. So like if he got lippy with me first. So if he came to me and apologized, like I'm just telling you what he's looking for is not what I'm offering, though. He's looking for a place where he can go fight somebody in a gym. And that's not my place. Like go somewhere else, man. Like I don't want that on my team. I don't want a negative attitude on my team.

I don't want somebody that just. talk shit all the time on my team. I don't want guys that are calling out guys two-way classes below him on my team. I don't want that. So if that's what you're bringing to the table, not interested. I don't need him. Like I said, I had 35 people on my mat on Tuesday at 10 a.m. this morning. You message me, not the other way around. My team's good. So like I said, I'm in a good spot. Like, if you didn't need me, you wouldn't message me. Well, we'll transition here. I appreciate you talking about this. But now that the fight is over, the coaching hat is back fully on. we talked about the Megan Anderson fight coming up in December with the Man of Newmes, but the

squad has a bunch, a bunch of big fights coming up, right? Yeah, we got Jason Witt, October 31st, November 14th, we have Julian Marquez, and we have Jeff Molina, November 28th, we have Sean Woodson and Gina Mazani, December 12th, we have Megan Harrison, January 16th, we have Tim Elliott, and then we have Dawson, Minner, Kroom, I'm sure I'm missing some other people that aren't booked, and I'm sure they will get booked pretty soon. When, I mean, Grant's one of those guys that

he fights in July, he sees the opportunity because of these short notice things. Like, he's like, I'll just fight at 55 because I want a short notice opportunity. I just want to fight. And that was a long time ago,

but he keeps posing that he's ready, he's ready and nothing has come up. Is he just kind of frustrated at this point? Like, why the hell isn't this happening? Yeah, I mean, the UFC is grossly over, over-roastered right now. So, like, I don't know. And, you know, he can't make,

he can't make weight on short-n-n-n- notice even at 55. He's a big dude. So I think he's he's needing a little bit more time than what they're offering. So I think what we're going to have to do is get ready and just take something on short notice, you know, at least some notice. It doesn't have to be a full camp, but, you know, two, three, four weeks maybe. But in terms of like ready to fight, yeah, he's ready to fight for sure. The weight is the only thing ever standing his way on taking a short notice fight. What's, what's Julian Marquez's presence like in that, Jim? because he's such an interesting cat, such a positive dude.

Like, what does that like for you guys? In the Jimmy, uh, in the gym, he's pretty, you know, straightforward. Like, I think, I think, you know, he's got his, his Instagram personality, and then he's got his actual personality, you know what I mean? He's a little bit more laid back in real life than he is on Instagram. How excited is wit to just actually have a camp this time and not take a flight on like two days notice? That's crazy.

Yeah, he's looking really good right now, man. We're really excited for him to get his first, his first UFC win. He looks great right now. So you're ready to dive into this coaching thing and get right back on track here. I'm at the gym right now. You are. You're unbelievable. But listen, I know you probably get a million interviews to do.

Your phone's been blowing up like crazy. I appreciate the time as always. Good stuff. Always enjoy chatting with you. Congratulations on the win. Short notice King still sits atop of his throne. All the best to you with these big fights coming up with your squad. Appreciate the time as always, my man.

There you have it. A little more context on the James Krause-Wa-Wa-Wa-Bos. ugly story. It's real. There's no fake accounts. And now you know where James is coming from a little bit more. So big thank you to him for talking about it. I'm sure he talked about it a lot and didn't want to talk about that much, but he did. And congratulations to him on another victory at 170 pounds. We move ahead to one of my absolute favorite people in the business. And before I got the job here at M.AFighting.com, I was grinding away on the freelance scene, covering the sport full time, making very little money.

And one of my roles in that venture was working on the video production side of the Anic and Florian podcast, which I enjoyed immensely because John is such a great guy. He's very passionate. He wants things done in a professional way. And I've always appreciated that about him. Of course, he's a Boston guy like myself and just such a great job on these broadcasts. So I figured, let's get him on. Let's shoot the breeze and preview this UFC 254 card.

Again, let me preface this, the Wi-Fi over in Abu Dhabi, as you may have seen in different videos and preview shows we've done. It's not great in general, and oftentimes it gets kind of bad. But the audio, pretty good on this conversation. It does get better. Do not let that discourage you. I'm giving you a heads up, ladies and gentlemen. All right, here is the great John Anick. All right, UFC 254 coming up this Saturday in Abu Dhabi.

You all know this by now. so we had to get the lead voice calling the action John Anick back on the show to get us all fired up for this event as if we needed it. John, appreciate the time as always, man. How are you? Always a pleasure to be with you, my brother. And if I had known you were going to be wearing a Red Sox shirt, I probably would have put my Fernando Tatis Jr. player tea away. But my video's not great here on Fight Island. So we'll see how far we get, my man.

It's always good to chop it up with you, though. Absolutely. And I'm wearing this because this was the right around the 16-year and, of the comeback where they won the Red Sox won game seven against the Yankees. So I felt it would be, I guess, apropos to where their share while I talked to you today. But I appreciate the time as always. Back on the island, different schedules this time around with everything adhering to local time over there as opposed to our broadcast schedule, which you've seen in the past. Has it been, I guess, a little less stressful, a little easier to get some sleep this time around?

Strangely, Mike, it's been harder. And I never thought I would say that. It's 6.35 p.m. Abu Dhabi time right now, so it's about 10.30 in the morning on the east coast of the U.S. So the previous two trips to Fight Island, I was sleeping all day and staying up all night. We were hitting the bicycles at 4.30 in the morning just to try to stay up till 7 or 8 so that we could stay on U.S. time. I think the mistake I made was staying on U.S. time for a couple days, and then I tried to pivot to Abu Dhabi time with a couple of early commitments. And now my clock is all screwed up. But I am not a professional athlete. I am not competing this weekend.

So I think I can figure out a way to suck it up for a seven and a half hour broadcast. But for the athletes, this is a real variable to fight week. Let's not understate that. A lot of them are doing four-hour sleep here and then they'll get up and do another four-hour session. Not ideal, but other than that, things pretty much are about as good as they could be. Yeah, I was talking to Casey Kenny yesterday who fought two weeks ago on the island. So he was on one-time schedule.

And now he's fighting on this card on a completely different time schedule. and he likes this way better than he did a couple of weeks ago. This certainly is more normal. And I think now that I've hit the middle of the week and I am firmly entrenched on this time zone, maybe it'll be a little bit easier. But what happens is you wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning and your body maybe thinks it's a nap.

And so you wake up 3 a.m. ready to go for your day when really you're supposed to shut it down for another few hours. But great fighter meetings with all the athletes today. And this feels like a big one, not just here. but I think when you start to track things on social media, it seems to be a groundswell of support for this pay-per-view. I think we're going to do a big number. Anybody in the fighter meeting stick out to you outside of like the obvious ones,

any newcomers, any sort of up-and-comers, or you're like, man, this is a pretty cool cat right here. This guy or guy could be a little something-something, something. They can string a couple wins together. I mean, I could go on all day, but I'll try to do this in an efficient way. For me, this was the first time I had sat down with Walt Harris since the passing of the his daughter. So it was great to see him and see the place that he is in now and just to see how much good he's been able to do for other people who have really sort of been brought up and inspired by his ability to continue his life in the face of every parent's worst nightmare.

But I got to tell you, the woman who stole the show today was 23-year-old Miranda Maverick, born in 1997. Her story isn't all that well documented, but I think a lot of insiders know that she was to make her UFC debut several months ago and had a retinal issue that was flagged on her UFC medical. Thankfully, she was able to have a surgery, clean bill of health. She is ready to go. And what a thoughtful young woman getting her Ph.D.

at Old Dominion while also training right now. She's actually working as a teacher assistant doing Zoom classes in the middle of her effing weight cut. So I'm excited to Miranda Maverick. Obviously a great test in front of her in the Georgia and Leona Jojoa. but Miranda certainly impressed the room today for sure. Before we get into the card itself,

I checked out the Fight Island Declassified series on ESPN Plus, and it's a great documentary if you guys haven't seen yet. Roy Karp just knocked out of the park. And you were obviously a big storyline in that, John, because of a false positive COVID test. And you weren't even sure if you're going to be able to call UFC 251. So, I mean, that was just wild to watch, man. Like, did you get a chance to go back and watch the dock

and relive those moments and that week in general? Well, a lot of people send me clips. I haven't admittedly ingested the entire four-part documentary, but you can be sure that, you know, that part of me in a row with Paul Felner, I got texted that a few times. But certainly it was a trying experience for me the thought of not being able to work the pay-review

and sort of putting the rest of the broadcast team in a really compromising situation was not at all ideal. And I think anyone who knows the inner workings of our show and our live production nature knows that we do put a lot of stuff on tape. We voice stuff. We get way ahead of the process. So it would have been hard for a backup, for lack of a better way, to put it, to make the pivot and call that pay-per-view.

But yeah, I test negative in Vegas. I get on an airplane Abu Dhabi and immediately test positive. And you think you're staring at a mandatory 14-day medical quarantine up on the fifth floor. It was obviously not ideal, but thankfully I was able to turn around three quick negatives. And I know they leaned into that a little bit. on the documentary. People who listened to our podcast certainly knew about my false positive,

but I've obviously heard from a lot of people in the MMA space that had no idea I was dealing with that until they watched declassified. So we are just, as you say so eloquently, a couple of sleeps away from UFC 24, Habib Naramagabanov versus Justin Gaghi for the undisputed lightweight title. And the fight is just so good

that it doesn't need a lot of additional salesmanship from our part, since it seems to be trending in an all-time way heading into Saturday. But there are fights, at least in my mind, and then there is this fight. So from a broadcasting perspective, and the man is going to be calling the action, where would you place this one on your anticipated main event list in your career, John? Well, I sort of would reciprocally say to myself, what fights can I put above it?

And as great as like Adasanya Whitaker was in front of 60,000 people, It might be online with it, but I don't know that I can put that fight above Khabib Gaiji. Certainly most would argue the biggest fight I've ever called is Khabi versus Connor. And then when I had to call a brawl thereafter, I think that one will always be hard to top. I think Rosenama Yunis's finish of Yaneu and Chichek will probably be the craziest championship fight I ever call, given that circumstance of their first meeting. But this is huge. I mean, when I say on broadcast, have you ever seen anything like Justin Gachie? I think most people say, no, I really have not.

So he is truly a special guy looking to break through and do what obviously no man before him has been able to do. And what else can you say about Khabib Nirmagomatov? And much has been made of him losing his father, Abdullmanop, and rightfully so. And by the time we get to our fighter meeting with Khabib today, he has been asked every question in the book. So I spent a lot of time trying to figure out a thoughtful way to ask Khabi and Justin questions. And I did ask Khabi today if he talked to his question. father about Justin Gaichi as a potential opponent. And because of Islam Akashev's presence in this lightweight division, oftentimes when they would talk about elite lightweights, Abdulmanab and

Khabib, they would talk about the fighters as either a possible future fight for Islam or a future fight for Khabib. So when they used to talk about Gachi, they talked about him more in a context of a possible opponent for Islam al-Kashchev back in the day. But you can be sure the challenge of Justin Gachie has brought Khab's excitement. to the surface. He is very excited to fuck this man because a lot of people think Justin's a live underdog. I would agree because I've been asking a lot of fighters their predictions on this fight over the last few weeks. And more than any Habib fight before, a lot of them are going with Gaichi to become the one in 28 and 1 and do what no man has done before. And, you know, you mentioned

the Connor fight because, I mean, the fight with Connor because of the build more than anything was just so massive. It like took on a life of its own. It was clearly the biggest fight of all time in terms of and how personal it got and everybody's eyes are upon it. So I'm curious on paper, John, is Havid versus Gachi from a competitive standpoint? Is this the greatest lightweight title fight of all time on paper? Maybe not the biggest because Connor obviously, you know, biggest star of all time. But competitively X's and O's, is this the greatest 155 pound title fight of all time? I think you can certainly make that argument.

And I know sometimes when we speak in goat or best ever pound for pound, it gets lost on some fans, but I don't think you're overstating that. And you can't lose sight of Gaichi's body of work outside the UFC when you talk about his lightweight greatness. You know, he did defend a major belt five times. And I also believe that it was the number one skill you probably need to fight Habib Nirmagov. Defense, right, the ability to keep him off of your leg and get up when he puts you down. And of all the people, Habib has fought, and of all the elite lightweights on paper, who is the

lightweight best equipped to get up? I mean, Tony Ferguson is outstanding fighting off of his back, doesn't mind hanging out on the bottom. But if you had to pick one lightweight, who you think has the skill set, who is best equipped to get the F-Up after repeatedly being taken down, I think Gatji might be the best option.

So that has me excited, and obviously there's no denying the body work that these two men have put on paper when you add in the COVID-19 flight island backdrop, the Adulnop story, the fact that Gachis' parents were able to charter over here with him. There's so many different. different storylines. I feel like we're already chasing the clock on broadcast. I'm pretty damn excited.

What really sticks out about this fight to me is it seems like Gaichi, although, I mean, he looks at things differently than a lot of other people do, especially fighters. And it seems like, at least to me, like all the pressure is on Habib here and very little is on Justin. I know Justin is a bit hard on himself and he could be his own worst critic. But like a lot of us like hope for the best and like expect the worst. Like he looks for the best and like knows the worst is coming. Like that's the way he prepares. Like it really is fascinating to listen to him speak in that way. Do you feel like in a way he has everything to gain and little to lose on Saturday?

And if so, how much of a factor could that be in determining how this, the outcome of this fight? Well, you set it up. Well, he certainly doesn't see it as having little to lose, of course. And I know you know that. But you are right that he seems unusually immune to pressure. If you were to hook me up to a heart monitor before this interview, and him up to a heart monitor getting ready to fight Habib, I might have more anxiety to chop it up with you than he does to go fight.

I'm telling you, bro, he is so comfortable not just in the chaos, but in combat and in walking out there. And he's never been intimidated in a wrestling setting. So if you think he's intimidated by Habib's MMA wrestler, you just haven't been paying attention. So certainly the pressure resides firmly with the man who is 28 and 0. I do believe Khabi, though, thrives off of that pressure. And I think the more pressure that is on him, the better he has performed.

His performances really have gotten progressively better. You can call the Iacquint to fight an outlier. It was a short notice, weird situation. But it's a fascinating matchup. And, you know, I understand where Justin Gagia is from a betting perspective. And I'll just say, man, I think that two-fight losing streak was the best thing that could have happened to a Ben 20- and O. Justin Gachie. And I just think mentally, physically, emotionally, he couldn't possibly be in a better space. I mean, confidence is literally dripping out of his every pore. So I'm excited,

as I was with Porriere last year, to see what Gage can do with the opportunity. As a broadcaster, I mean, you've seen fighters come and go and announce their retirements in the octagon. And we know Habib's days are numbered. And it's in his own way. Like he wanted, he's been saying it for years. I want to get to 30 and O. And then. and then move on. And you've seen, you know, a broadcast colleague of yours, Daniel Cormier called a career and wish the sport ado from that aspect. But do you look at these Habib fights now,

especially heading into Saturday, and think, man, like, I need to soak this all in because the door is closing. We may be looking at the greatest to ever step into the octagon. Absolutely. I'd be very surprised to see him fight more than 31 times professionally, right, which would give him three fights remaining. And when you look at Henry Sehudo, two division champion defend the belt in both divisions and walked away. There was no legacy building that was going to happen thereafter.

Certainly he could come back and fight Alexander Volcanovsky, and that would be something that he hasn't accomplished. But for Henry Sehuto, there was only going to be staining the legacy if he stuck around at 35. One more title defense or two more title defenses. I don't know that it was going to bolster his greatness. And for Daniel Cormier, my buddy, you know, you think he likes looking at his Wikipedia page. with those two red stripes against Deep M.A. He does not. So for Habib, I don't know that there's all that much more to accomplish.

Certainly you can say, man, he hasn't defended the title too many times. This is only, I think, maybe defense number three. But I think for Habib, the power of that O in modern-day mixed martial arts is such that to walk away 30 and O with a handful of defenses and what is ubiquitous to regard as the toughest UFC division and to leave as the consensus number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world, Even if he's not the goat, he is the consensus most dominant fighter in the world. And I think right now for Khabi, that would be enough to walk away for good.

It's a massive fight. I cannot wait for it. But before that happens, another fight that's kind of flying under the radar is the co-main event. Big one at 185 pounds between Robert Whitaker, the former champion taken on Jared Canineer. The up-and-comer, Israel Adasania, has spoken Canadiere's name many times, says he's the dark horse of the division. And with the victory, could earn himself a title shot. So, I mean, this is a fun fight, and it's not getting the love and attention it deserves. I understand why, but I feel like this could potentially steal the show on Saturday.

Oh, I think you're absolutely right. It's the first three-round fight for Robert Whitaker in four years or so, and you can be sure he is very excited about that reality to really let it rip for 15 minutes. But we had very insightful meetings with both athletes today. I'm not sure that Robert Whitaker mentally and emotionally has ever been in a better place, right? answered the naysayers and the critics with a huge win over Darren Till less than three months ago here on Fight Island. And I think that just has given him a lot of confidence that he went a hard 25 minutes, lost the first round,

and then came back strong to win the final four, essentially. On the other side, Jared Cananeer is a very layered individual. He's a spiritual guy. And even though it took him a while, Mike, to find his best MMA division, I'm not sure if he had been a middleweight, you know, 33, 34 years old. if he would have been an elite middleweight. I think this opportunity is happening at the perfect time for Jared Canoneer. And he just can't even, as much respect as he has for Whitaker,

it's like losing is just not a part of his mentality. I mean, confidence was just dripping out of both guys. And I'm excited to see how it plays out. It's a pick-em fight. Obviously, it's a title eliminator. But again, there was nothing from either side that gave you a hint that they weren't in the optimal headspace heading into this co-made event. I know you're not a matchmaker, John, and you know, you call the fights and you do the damn thing in that sense.

But this is an interesting fight for a number of reasons. One, because if Canaanair wins seems obvious he's going up there in fighting Adasania for the middleweight title and the division can move on. Of course, we've seen Adasania and John Jones go back and forth on social media. So there's a lot of people that say, well, if Robert Whitaker beats Jared Canaaner, it's hard to really justify him getting right back to a title shot since Adasani just finished him like a year ago. So the UFC doesn't really go back to the well that often. So do you think, like, Adisani's next move all depends on what happens here? Like, if Canaanar wins, we haven't said at 85, but if Whitaker wins, could we see Adesania jump up to 205 and fight a fight?

Fight a Bojovic for the title or maybe even they pull the trigger on the Jones fight as quickly as, you know, early 2021? Well, certainly there is a promotional appetite for the fight between Israel, Adasania and John Jones. I don't think you'll see Izzy fight Jan Wahovych anytime soon. It'll be interesting to see if Adasanya wants to maintain this beastly schedule because if he does and Jared Cannoneer wins the fight, you've got to think he'll put the middleweight belt on the line within the next four or five months or so. But as far as Robert Whitaker is concerned, right, it's all in front of him.

If he beats Darren Till and then follows that up with a win over Jared Cannoneer, who's all the rage right now, I think he would be hard to deny a rematch despite the fact that their first fight was clearly one-sided. I think Robert Whitaker, despite some of the health issues, has established enough promotional goodwill that he might get another championship shot against Adasanya sooner rather than later.

But yeah, Jones is lurking. It seems like there's a weight separation between those two guys right now, and they'd have to kind of figure out how they wanted to approach that. Does Jones want to cut down to 205 for a non-title fight? You know, is he going to be weighing in at 193 for a catchweight fight at 2.10, you know.

So there are a lot of different things that would need to be worked out. But, you know, I know Lorenzo, Fertita would always say you got to strike while the iron is hot. And I think when Adasanya and Jones want to fight each other, you've got to figure out a way to try to make that happen. Certainly, fans would be on board. Yes. And I think another fight on this main card, everyone's excited about the rematch between Ankleyev and Kutalaba. Finally, it appears knocking on wood, putting out that positive, dude. you that this fight is actually going to happen on Saturday. We've tried a bunch of times and it just

hasn't happened to this point. But you've given me a lot of time here, John. I appreciate it. But I have to know, I love the main event and I love the co-main event, but you know me. I am an under the radar guy. I am a guy that wants to give love to all these fights. And I know it's hard for you to pick and hard to justify this. But as a broadcaster, when you look at this card, especially at the prelims, what fight stands out to you that's like, hmm, this is going to be really, really good? Well, I don't want to jinx it, but I don't know how Casey Kenney and Nathaniel Wood could not just be nonstop action. And you can also add to that that it's a catchweight at 140 pounds, right? So they're not cutting any extra weight.

So I think that fight has fire written all over it. And really curious to see if Casey Kenney has bid off more than he can chew going home for 12 days and then coming right back to Fight Island to try to compete again. I did mention Miranda Maverick. I'm very excited to see her compete. But you mentioned the rematch between Magamara and Goliath and Iwan Kute Lave. And real quick, think of it. about how much divisionally things have changed. Their first meeting came two weeks after

Janbollah knocked out Cory Anderson. So for Angev, even though this delay since February has been less than ideal, if you think he's closer to title contention, now the division's wide open. So for both of these guys, and particularly who wins, because they're going to win by knockout, Mike, let's be off honest, right? I mean, whoever wins is like, probably going to get a finish. And now there's just much more divisional traction at 205 pounds. There's so many different opportunities in front of these contenders in the top 15, top 18. So I just think that fight obviously has the first meeting behind it, but I just think now, divisionally, it's a more relevant fight than it was back.

I agree. And then last thing for league I'd be remiss if we didn't talk about this. The great Doc Emmerich has called it a career. They're the greatest hockey voice of all time. And I know we're Bruins fans. We watch the local networks. Fred Cusick screaming, go, and going crazy.

It always sticks out to my mind. But Doc Emrick, just one of the best ever do it. He makes every hockey game just more exciting, more valuable, even if you're not a fan of the team's playing. But what kind of impact did Doc have on your career and what kinds of lessons did you learn for him?

And how did you react to finding out that he was closing the door? You know, you give me chills, just give me the chance to talk about other play-by-play guys like Doc because even though hockey was sort of a distant fourth for me growing up, I remember the first time I listened to Doc Emmer call a hockey game. And I was like, well, I guess I'm never doing hockey, right? Because not only could I not get to his level, if he's a 10, I don't think I could get to a two with that sport and all that he was able to bring to the table just so seamlessly. And I think for a lot of us play-by-play guys in this COVID-19 climate, we thought about what it would be like to call

sporting events from our living room. And if any play-by-play guy deserves to have a studio set up at his house, it was Doc Emmer. And the fact that he was calling the Stanley Cup final in what amounted to his final season from his living room and did not miss a beat, I think is just another token of his greatness. But no, he's just so smooth and it's never about him. And he's always trying to make his analyst shine. And he lets the action breed. I mean, so many things fundamentally that are a part of my style, I grabbed from different guys like Doc Emmerich. So anytime these guys step away, it kind of hits me hard. And when you see a guy like Doc Emerick that looks 54 and is 74, it goes pretty quickly.

So I'm trying to enjoy the ride knowing that surely I will not last into my 70s as a play-by-play, man. I can guarantee you. Well said, John. I appreciate the time very much. Looking forward to the call on Saturday. And a couple more sleeps, man. A couple more sleeps. Let's go, Michael.

Three more sleep. It's always good to chop it up with you and see Casey. Thank you guys for having me. I could just talk to that guy for 14 hours straight. John Anick, he'll be calling the action this Saturday at UFC 254. And we're looking forward to this event. And we're going to continue talking about this event because one of the fights that John will be calling will take place in the women's 125 pound division on the main card.

Lauren Murphy no longer fighting Cynthia Calvio. And here's the thing. She could have understandably said, you know what? I'll wait a few weeks, a month, I'll stay local, and I'll fight Cynthia down the line because it's a positive COVID test. It's not a broken leg or anything. And because the stakes are what they were, she could wait and take that fight.

Instead, she says, no, keep me on the card. I don't give a damn who the opponent is. And that opponent, newcomer Lillia Shakarova, eight and one three fight winning streak. Really, really tough wrestler and a really tough test on short notice, especially considering where Lauren Murphy stands in this division. But I caught up with Lauren while she was on Fight Island. Here she is right now on what the heck.

All right. We have Lauren Murphy joining us all the way from Abu Dhabi right now. She'd be competing this Saturday night at UFC 254. No longer against Cynthia Calvio, but she will face newcomer Lillia Shack. Rova. Lauren, it is bet a minute. I believe January was the last time we spoke. How are you? I'm good. Yeah, that's a long time. I'm doing great, man. Things have been fucking groovy since then. I was going to say, I mean, you look like you're at a dome right now. Looks absolutely unbelievable. And first things first, how did you enjoy the lavish and luxurious flight to Abu Dhabi?

Man, I don't know if I'll ever fly any other way than business class ever again. It was, it was really nice. You know, I got to stretch out, lay down, take a nap. The food was good. We watched like four different movies. Joe and I played a bunch of games. We played like battleship together. I killed him. I won every game. You sunk his battleship? Yeah. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. We had a really good time, you know, and there's no layover. It was a direct flight. So yeah, the hardest part so far has been adjusting to the time zone. As you know, I was asleep for our original interview. So, but that's, that's just. Just, even that for us is going to be easier on this card than it was for anybody else. Yeah, 100% because everyone had to basically sleep all day and then stay up all night just to adjust the time.

You're basically on Abu Dhabi time the entire time. How much you think, how much of advantage is that for you opposed to like some of the other fight? I know some of the international fighters, maybe like an hour or two different, so it didn't really affect them too much. But still, for them, it's like fighting at 6 o'clock in the morning. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's just, just crazy. So it was, I don't even want to think about it, really, because we did try to plan for it a little bit,

like months ago before we knew what time the card was going to be on. We knew that the other cards had been on at really crazy times. And so I was like, okay, like, I have a really good S&C coach, Andy Galpin. He's a genius. So he had a plan for me about when to be awake, when to go to sleep. He was in Brian Ortega's Corner this weekend, too. So that guy knows what he's doing. And I felt confident, like, having him planned for me, but I was pretty relieved to find out we could just get on Abu Dhabi time and call it, call it good.

I'm pretty excited just to have, like, a 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time main card start. I mean, this is like, it's heaven for me, especially after covering all these events. This is like, I think it's like 15, 16, probably more weeks in a row where everything's like, all right, please have like a 4 p.m. prelimb start time. This one's at 10.15 in the morning. I'm so pumped. Dude, I actually really like that. We've been on a couple cards where we fought in the morning. Like, I fought Liz Karmouche at like 11 a.m. We fought Mara Borella, I think, at like 1 p.m.

So it's like you have to get up pretty early. You get your shakeout in. You got to get breakfast, possibly get your hair braided. For me, that takes about an hour. You have to be down in the lobby like three hours, usually before your fight time so that you can get over to the arena. You know what I mean? You have to get tested. Like all kinds of stuff happens on fight day.

So when we fought Liz Karmuch, we literally. really like had to get up early in the morning. Everything was rushed. But yeah, I like watching cards early in the morning. I love getting up, having some coffee, watching some fights. That's the best. But fighting on those early cards can be a bit of a challenge sometimes. I bet.

So before you were inserted into the lap of luxury, Lauren, ESPN's Brett Akamoto reported that Cynthia Calvio tested positive for COVID-19. We since confirmed that and that you were staying on the car to fight Lillia. First off, when did you know that, Cynthia was out of the fight. The day of, the day that she tested positive, Mick called me. And any time the matchmaker calls you during fight week or really anytime they call you during your fight camp, it's probably not great news.

You know, probably something has happened to your opponent or on the fight card or something. You know, they don't generally call you with great news, like during those times. And so he called us while we were in Vegas. And as soon as I saw his name pop up on my caller ID, I was like, oh, no. And sure enough, he told us that Cynthia tested positive. And it was a bummer, but also we kind of knew that anything could happen. Like, it was like, okay, she might test positive. I might test positive.

Our corner, like my corner could test positive. I might have to go to Fight Island by myself. Same thing could happen to her. Like any fucking thing could happen. And so we just really had to be kind of prepared for it. So when he told me that Cynthia tested positive, it was a bummer, but it was also like, okay, what's now what? Like, what's the next step?

What are we going to do? So he found a replacement pretty quick. And then the replacement also tested positive for COVID. So we were like, shit. Like, now what? Mick was really working his ass off to find somebody. But he did. He found a girl.

I don't know too, too much about her. But she is a lifelong wrestler, I believe. She's eight and one. She's a champion and an outside promotion. So I'm happy to still be facing a grappler. You know, we don't have to completely change everything about the game plan. I'm happy to have a tough opponent. and yeah, just super thankful to be here.

Like, I literally told Mick, I'll fight anybody. Just get me on the fucking plane. I'll fight anybody. I, like, asked for hazmat Chamea. I was like, I'll fight him. I was going to say because, I mean, I was wondering if there is any thought of saying, which would be completely understandable. Like, you know what?

She got COVID. It's not like she broke her leg. She's not going to be out for six months. Like, Cynthia will be back in a few weeks, maybe a month. Like, we can do this in Vegas before the end of the year. Let's do that. Or you were just like, Nope, I don't care who it is.

Give me anybody. I'm staying on this card and fighting in Abu Dhabi. Yeah, I told him that and I said, if I win, then I'll fight Cynthia in a couple weeks, too. And he was like, that's badass. Okay. So as all of this is happening and you're trying to learn more about your new opponent, you're flying across the world, there's another fight happening in your division between Caitlin Chukagie and a former opponent of yours and Jessica Androge,

who jumps up to 125 after losing to Rosnaviannus. before we get into the aftermath of all this, what did you think of that fight even being booked and Jessica being bumped up and in her first fight, fighting the number one ranked 25er outside of the champion? I think it makes sense

because she is a former champion at 115, you know, and she is a high-performing athlete. She has a lot of finishes. She's exciting to watch. She has a huge fan base, and she was a former champion. So it's like she deserves it, And there's not really any way I can argue with that.

You know, it's a, I would, I would be lying if I said it didn't kind of annoy me because I really want that number one contender spot. But I also can't argue, you know, what are they going to do? Give her some, you know, unranked person in the division. Like that would be doing a disservice to both of those fighters, you know. So it makes, it makes sense. I thought, I honestly thought Chukagian was going to win that fight because she's so long and so good at keeping her distance. And so I wasn't sweating it too bad. And then we woke up in the middle of the night here and found out that Andrage had gotten a first round TKO.

And I was like, all right. That is pretty badass. But, you know, it's one fight in the division. She has one win in the division. So, you know, you can bring up all the 115ers you want. The fact still remains. I'm on a win streak right now. I have four wins in this division, which I believe is as many as the current.

champion, I think. And I have fought all ranked opponents in this division. Since the day this division was created, every opponent that I have had has been ranked. And, you know, except for the one I'm fighting this week, who I took on short notice. I took a huge risk coming here to fight her. Like, if she wins this fight, like, that's a huge blow to me, obviously. So I took a big risk coming out here being so highly ranked. I could have easily said, like, no, I'm, you know, I'm in a good spot. I just want to stay in a good spot. But anyway, I forget where I was going with that. But, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, so you find, you're basically, you find out that Androge finishes the fight early. And I thought the same thing. Like, we had our preview show. I'm like, listen, eight inches, like, Chukagin is eight inches taller than her. There's no way she'll let Androge get inside of her. I'm like, in the third round, she's eventually going to get her hands on her. So I think Chukagued just ride it out in the third round.

And then five seconds into the fight, Androge already had her against the fence. So it's like, oh, my God. I'm like, this is going to be a long night for Caitlin Chigigan. So she puts her away. And immediately, and I asked the question, and every other journalist in the sport asked the same question. Did she just screw up everything?

Did she just jump the queue and become the number one contender in this division before Shepchenko fights Jennifer Maya? You did not take kindly to these questions. And I can completely understand why. You hate Twitter anyways? Was Saturday night and probably Sunday morning where you're at? Was that just like the worst Twitter experience, considering you're in a very important fight?

It's definitely not the worst that I've had on that cesspool of a fucking website. But it's so different because on Twitter, people, like some guy wrote to me just calling me a piece of shit and a terrible fighter. Like, people are telling me I'm stupid, that I'm no good. And then I get on Instagram and people are like sharing videos with me and, like, they're telling me that they want to see me fight for the title and that I deserve it. and they agree with my tweets and like,

it's just such a different culture on Twitter. It's just so hateful sometimes. But, yeah, I stand by everything that I said. You know, there was five seconds left in that round. Caitlin did turtle up, okay? Caitlin did turtle up. But sometimes they let dudes get beat to death in that octagon before they stop it. You know what I mean?

So she, you know, Caitlin's a title contender. And Jessica Androge's former champion, let them fucking fight. It was almost the end of the round. Caitlin was getting up as the ref stopped it. You know, she tried to stand up immediately. So I don't know. I can kind of see it both ways. She got dropped with that body shot and she turtled up.

And that does signal to the refs that you're done. But yeah, I mean, props to Andrage. It's not that Androge is bad or that she doesn't deserve a title shot. It's just that she doesn't deserve the next title shot. Yeah. And that was the kind of the thing I mentioned on our matchmaking podcast. I was like, listen, I have no clue how this is going to work out. Like normally, like, I have my finger on the pulse.

And I'm like, all right, this person is going to fight this person. in both this situation, I have no idea how it's going to play out. Like a combination between you, Jessica, and Cynthia, that should be the next fight. And then we still have to wait for Valentina to fight Jennifer Maya, and especially in 2020, we don't know what the hell is going to happen. So you got to be prepared for anything. You know, if I had my way, which means jack shit,

but if I had my way, if I win this fight this weekend, then I want the winner of Maya and Shifshanko, and you can match up Androja and Cynthia. And that's a great matchup because they're two, 115ers that came up, had good performances in their 125 debut, yet they only have one win in the division. Okay. And Cynthia beat Jessica I, which a ton of people have done, right? Jessica and Drage had an impressive performance, but let them duke it out to see who the number one contender is between them. Jessica and Drage is one and two in her last three. You know, Cynthia Krivillo's

one, one and one in her last three. I'm fucking three and O in my last three with a knockout finish, you know, and we'll see how this weekend goes, but I'm going to. I'm going to be. going into it very confident and I'm going to into it expecting to win, of course, just like I do every fight. And so to continuously overlook me in these situations, I think is, it's a big mistake. Do you kind of like that in a way? Does it give you a chip on your shoulder? Do you do kind of like just fluttering into the radar? Because eventually that's all going to go away. You're going to be right there if you keep on this track right now. Like the under the radar stuff goes away. Are you okay with that? Yeah, I feel like that's kind of been my whole career. Like, I've been the underdog my

my whole career. People have underestimated me my entire career. Like, my entire career, even in Alaska, I fought the toughest girls in Alaska. And I remember, like, people always counting me out in Alaska and how my team that was around me was like, just, just wait, you're going to know. And then I won every fight that I ever fought in Alaska. Same thing in Invicta. You know, I moved up the ranks so quickly. And people just weren't expecting it. Like, nobody expected me to beat Caitlin Young on short notice. Nobody expected me to beat Sarah Dale Lelio because she was in the top 10, and nobody expected me to beat Mariam Nakamoto because she was such an accomplished Muay champion, you know? And I think it's kind of been that way in the UFC as well. But,

you know, I struggled a little bit when I first got into the UFC, had some really close losses. I had kind of some boring fights. I had a lot of stuff going on. And I've really made a lot of adjustments and I've worked really hard and I'm not struggling now. I was going to say, and I told you this the last time we spoke, it was like talking to a completely different person because, you know, it was January, the last time we spoke in, what, it's in October now, so nine months. I think that's the longest we've gone without having an interview ever.

And like in the last like six years, like normally it was like once a month. We'd get you on to do something, fight picks or anything at this point. But. And you're just a completely different part. Like you just, you still have like that same little bit of sass to you, but you just seem happier. Like you could just see it in your expression. Yeah. I'm a lot happier.

I got my confidence back, I think. I just had to go through some growing pains where I felt very unconfident for several years, really. I felt like I wasn't good enough to be here. I kind of had like imposter syndrome a little bit. I was really, really overtrained. I think that contributed to a lot. So I was having shitty practices. Yeah, I just had really a lot of stuff going on.

And those are kind of, it caused some failures, I think, in my career. but you can't be successful without failure. You just can't, period. There's no way to be successful without also having failure. So I had to go through those growing pains. And I had to figure out who I am as an athlete, too. Like, I had to test the waters

about what it means to be confident versus arrogant. Like, am I a shit-talker or am I a humble person? And so I kind of, you know, for a while, my attitude was like, well, in Invicta, I was humble all the time and didn't say anything shitty about anybody. And it didn't really fucking get me anywhere. Like still nobody respected me.

So I guess I'm going to start talking shit to everybody and running my mouth. And I didn't really like being that person to that extent either. You know, so it took me a while to kind of find a balance where I could be a little bit sassy and confident, but, you know, also not get this attitude that's, you know, turning people off all the time. So I think it just took me a while as an athlete. And you have to keep in mind, too, that I had not been an athlete very long when I got into the UFC, you know.

When I started fighting for Invicta, I've been an athlete for three fucking years, total. Like, an athlete, not an MMA athlete, like started playing sports three years ago. And now I'm in Invicta. And then a year later, I was in the UFC facing Olympians and title contenders and everything else. It just took a while for me to kind of sort it all out mentally and physically. And once I found the right team, the team that I'm with now and have been with for about a little more been a year now, I think. Yeah, I've been out, you know, I've been with this team

a little more than a year now. Things really, really, really started falling into place for me. And I've got some really good examples around me. Got some really cool level heads around me and just a great team that believes in me and loves me. And it has made all the difference in my attitude, in my mental state, in my training, everything. Would you do it all over again the same way?

Or would you stay with the team and stay in Houston the entire time if you could do it all over again? That's a hard one because some days I feel like fuck. You know, I was really in a bad spot during the prime of my career. And that is kind of a hard pill to swallow to think that maybe those tough fights that I had and those tough losses, maybe I could have won those if I had been with the team that I'm with now. But I also had some growing up that I had to do, you know, and I was able to do that at the lab. And I really had to figure out who I was as an athlete and go through those growing pains.

And if I had gone through that in Houston, maybe I wouldn't be on the team that I have now. you know, maybe I would have, you know, driven the coaches that I have now away or maybe I wouldn't have, maybe they would have driven me away, like, you know, anything could have happened. So I really believe now the team that I'm with, I appreciate them so much and I respect them so much because of the experiences that I've had that it just has to be better this way. I'm one of those, I believe everything happens for a reason. I think the universe isn't on it. I think the universe loves me and wants the best for me.

And yeah, so I think it's all working out the way it's supposed to. Every once in a while I'll get a little tinge of like, no, I never should have done that. But, you know. We all do that. I think we all do that. Like, you know, even I have those conversations myself at all the time. I'm like, man, I wish I, like, did the MMA full-time thing like five years ago when I wanted to. And I just didn't have the balls to do it.

Like, I really wish I did. Like, it would be like in a completely different place now. It's just wild to even think about. But, you know, you're about to fight a very tough newcomer on a three-fight winning streak. in her first UFC fight, she's 8-1 as a pro. I know you don't know a whole lot about Lilia, but what have you been able to learn about her? Have you been able to watch any fights or film or anything like that?

A little bit, but she hasn't fought in a year, so that's another, like, thing that kind of makes me nervous because it's like, well, who knows what she's been doing for the last year? It could be, you know, could be she's just been in the gym eight hours a day, fucking improving, you know? So I watched her latest, her last fight that she had and a few others. I can tell she's a very, very good wrestler. Somebody told me she's a lifelong wrestler.

Somebody commented on my Instagram that she's like the best wrestler from Uzbekistan. So, I mean, that can't be a fucking joke. You know what I mean? It's like that's a good grappler. She's fast. I saw that too. She likes to throw spinning shit and she does it pretty quickly. So I'm going to have to keep my hands up for sure.

And yeah, it's going to take, I think, a few minutes. But I have a really good coach in my corner named Alex Seesney. and I'm just going to rely on him to figure her out, and then he's going to tell me what to do. And that's basically the way we're going to have to do this. Like not really much of a game plan going into the fight. I'm just relying on him to be the brains of this operation. Still on the main card, despite the switchout.

You must have been pretty pumped to see that, right? Yes, that was one of the first things I asked Mick, too. He was talking about replacements, and I was like, oh, my God, well, I'll fight anybody. Can we still in the same? Can we be on the main card, please? And he went, that's a good question. He was like, that's a Dana. That's a Dana question.

I don't know. And I was like, okay, well, we'll just, you know, we'll wait to see. And I just kind of kept my fingers crossed. And when we landed in Abu Dhabi, John Anick was on the bus. And so I started pumping him for info. I said, John, do you know what the main card looks like if I still want it? And he said, well, it looks like it. Things are always subject to change, but it looks like you are.

So cool, man, awesome. Classic John Anick answer right there. I think so, but I'm not, he's going to be noncommittal here. I'm a company guy. I love that guy. You're also, I find this interesting, too. You're on the main card with a buddy, Mr. Jared Cannoneer. Both of you are fighting for a chance at potentially fighting for a world title in the next fight.

Like, it comes full circle sometimes in this wacky sport of ours. And here we are. How cool is that being in this position with Jared as he gets ready to fight Robert Whitaker in the co-main event of this freaking thing? Oh, my, it really gives me the chills when I think about it. So I'm going to tell you a little story. This is crazy. So my lucky number is seven, of course, lucky number seven. And this is Fight Island number seven.

And Jared's number is number nine for I don't know what his reason is, but that's his lucky number. And there's a picture of us from years and years ago in Alaska at the Alaska Fighting Championship, Joe, Jared and I, and we're all together. And we were talking about that particular picture. And we were like, dude, we should make one of those like how it started, how it's going things, you know, with us at the AFC and now us on Fight Island in Abu Dhabi with the UFC fighting for contendorship. And that picture popped up on our memories as the most liked picture exactly nine years ago, the day we were talking about it. Wow. So, yeah, it's kind of crazy. So we did take another picture on the beach today of us, like, in the exact same pose.

It's just, it's hysterical. It's awesome. And I couldn't be more proud, like, of him and more proud to know him and to be on this card with him. And by the way, he's going to starch Whitaker. And I love Robert Whitaker, by the way. I'm a huge Whitaker fan, but Jared's going to knock him out. It's a huge, it'd be great. It'd be a huge thing.

I mean, I'm really fascinated in that, for the, in that fight for a number of reasons. One, because I love the matchup. I think Canaan Air is one of the most underrated guys on the roster right now. So getting this opportunity is long overdue for him. But two, like, if Cannonair wins, we know where he's going. He's fighting Adasania for the title. And if Whitaker wins, like, what the hell does Adisani do now? So, I mean, so much is going to come out of this event.

And then after that, we had Habib versus Justin Gachi. I have to know, how do you see that fight playing out? Justin's going to win. I just feel it. I know it in my heart that Justin's going to win. I brought my team Gaichi shirt from the Ultimate Fighter, and I'm just trying to pick a good day to wear it, you know? Like, I really love Justin.

I've seen him around a couple times, and his energy is really good. I've met his parents several times, too, at a couple different events, and they're here. And I'm just very confident in Justin that he's going to win. I don't know, probably probably, I knock out. And how do you get your your hand raised here and put yourself in a position to to maybe fight the winner of Valentina Shepchenko versus Jennifer Mai, which is coming up on November 21st? I don't know, but it's going to have to be something impressive, I think, you know,

it's going to have to be something impressive. So I'm going to be in there looking for the finish the entire time. I think I, you know, I think I have to get a finish in this fight and that's what I'm going to be looking for. And that's how I'm going to make a statement and, you know, show the world and the UFC that I am the true number one contender. Love to see it, Lauren, love to hear it. Very excited. We were able to do this again, especially with you being in Abu Dhabi. It's very difficult to get interviews like this lined up.

But you texted me late last night, and I was like, let's do it. Let's do this thing. And then you fell asleep, but it's okay. This is like the story of our interview-to-interviewee relationship over the years. I had an interview with Mike Heck. I said, but he didn't text to me and remind me. He knows better than that. I know.

I screwed up, too. As soon as I saw your text, I'm like, oh, shit. I forgot who I was talking about. I am still kind of getting adjusted a little bit. We're mostly on Abu Dhabi time, but we all went to the beach today too. So actually, my coach fell asleep. I fell asleep.

My nutritionist fell asleep. We were all kind of crashed out today. But I'm getting used to this time zone, and I'll be ready to go at 10.30 p.m. on October 24th. There she is, Lauren Murphy, on the program. She fights this Saturday at UFC 254. And real quick, I don't know, I'm feeling kind of like nostalgic.

today. Anyways, when I first got into this MMA thing, you know, I was doing radio, but I really enjoyed interviewing the fighters. So it was like a nice test. Like how many, how many Justin Bieber intros can I talk over and have fun with? Like really? Like, how many times can I do that? So I interviewed fighters, did the show, did podcasts. And Lauren was one of the first MMA interviews that I had. It was probably five, six years ago, maybe longer. And I remember that first interview because her story is really incredible, like the things that she's had to overcome, to get to where she's at now. And it was just one of those conversations that has always stuck with me over the years. And I remember I would have some young up-and-coming reporters and

journalists reach out to me saying, I'm trying to start a podcast, like trying to get fighters, like who should I get on? I would always say, get Lauren on because she's such a good interview. And she just tells it like it is. And whenever I had podcasts or things of that nature, I try to get on for everything, whether it be fight picks or, you know, just shooting the breeze of a boat, whatever, because she always delivered. And to see her kind of go through the beginning stages of her UFC career, she got the big fat hose job on a couple of decisions early on in her career. She would win some, then she would lose some, then she would drop down to 25, and to see

her make these changes and get her career back on track, getting very close to a UFC title shot. I got to say it's been pretty cool to watch. So glad to get her on the show this week for the first time. As we move ahead to our final guest, he's back on the program. He's back on Fight Island after his dominant win over Alatang Hay Lee a couple of weeks ago. He fights Nathaniel Wood and a potential show stealer at a catchweight of 140 pounds this Saturday at UFC 254. Let us head back to Abu Dhabi back to Fight Island and say hello to Casey Kenney.

All right, we have Casey Kenney joining us once. again and he's back in Abu Dhabi just like he had hoped. He's now fighting Nathaniel Wood at UFC 254 on Saturday. This is an on to the next one wild card selection that came true. I'm very excited for this fight. Casey, how are you? I'm doing great just finishing up a workout and I'm supposed to fight around this time maybe a little bit before on Saturday. So, you know, try to keep the training around the same time as fight time and just enjoying another fight week here and fight island. There you go, because you just fought on the island a couple weeks ago. You got a dominant win over Alatang Hailey,

and you were hoping to just stick around and fight the next week if you could. But now you get on this massive card in a huge fight with a lot of potential to get in the top 15. Are you happy with the way things played out here? Yeah, of course. Next weekend would have been great, but honestly, this is probably even better. I just wanted a super quick turnaround. And, you know, three weeks apart is quick enough for me.

And like you said, the massive card, the Habib Gachi card, there's not a better card to be a part of really all year i feel like that performance a couple of weeks ago was just super impressive you had a lot of people talking about it you kicked him in every legal place that you could actually kick somebody in a fight and he just kept like shaking his head and smiling at you and he just kept coming forward and taking all the punishment like i know you wanted to finish but is this a performance that you graded highly for yourself yeah i think uh i knew i was capable of doing stuff like that really haven't got the matchups that let me do that.

And, you know, I got to showcase, you know, how dangerous and devastating I can be in there. And, you know, I thought he was going to go away, but just to do what I did for 15 minutes, you know, dominate somebody like that. And, you know, keep doing what I was doing is, you know, a feat in itself. What do you think has more, like, staying power? Because I feel like, even though, I mean, you had the quick finish of Smolka and people were buzzing about it. but I feel like you got a little more momentum off this win just getting a decision.

And I know every fighter wants to go in there, punch the clock real quick and get out. But which one do you think kind of caught people's attention more? The quick win over Smolka or 15 minutes of just pure domination like you had a couple weeks ago? I think this last one did, you know, as far as like the way my social media came about and just, you know, the buzz that I've got around, you know, coming back to a fight week and making this quick turnaround. is, you know, something that everybody wants to do, everybody thinks they want to do, and then until you actually do it,

you know, there's only a handful of guys that will actually do it. So I think a little bit of both, you know, jumping out of the cage, demanding another fight, and then, you know, kind of coming true. So, and, you know, just the damage that I put upon Alating, you know, that's something that you got to respect,

you know, no matter who you are. And when you're watching that, you know, the fight fans, even myself, you know, they want to see some damage done to somebody when, you know, a fight's happening. And, you know, I thought Smoka was a pretty flawless performance, but this Al-a-Tang one, you know, it really, you know, set who I am, I think, you know, in there, like, I'm going to come to kick your ass for 15 minutes if you survive.

And I've been saying that for a little while, like, if you fight me, you know, the way I want you to fight or just fight me and not try to hump my leg, you know, you're going to be, you're going to either going to go away or it's going to be a hell of a fight. So you fight on the Saturday, you get the win, you fly home Sunday, and then we start to hear rumblings that this fight with Nathaniel Wood at UFC 24 is a thing. And unfortunately, I had to be that guy to kind of debunk those talks like hours later because I was told via both sides that nothing was to these rumblings at that time. Turn out a couple of days later, Penn goes to paper,

and the fight is signed at a catchweight 140 pounds. So from the time you started getting tagged on these Twitter posts that you're fighting at UFC 254, to the time Penn actually goes to paper. Like, when did you find out this was officially a thing? I knew about it before I left the island. I had said yes before I left the island. He was kind of shaky about it. Like, you know, that's why we're at 140.

He wouldn't take the fight at 35. So it took a little bit, a few days to negotiate and actually get that pin on paper. But I got the text of, do you want this fight before I left the island? and I had the option to stay on the island too, but 30 days on the island. Like I like this place, but 30 days on the island is a little much. You know, I wanted to go home, reset, get a quick little training camp in, make some adjustments.

You know, not a whole lot of stuff, really, but just kind of get back in the routine of training and, you know, do everything again. So I knew right away, the pin to paper didn't come a little bit later, and I think that was more on his side. So how did you react to getting Nathaniel? Because I mean, this is picture perfect matchmaking, in my opinion, because you guys are right on the cusp of the top 15. You, of course, would be returning to the rankings, likely with the win here. How did you react to seeing and finding out that Nathaniel was an option here? I loved it. I knew I was going to probably meet somebody like that here soon, especially, you know, after the Smokovight, putting on an almost flawless performance.

You know, Al-a-Tang putting on almost a flawless performance. and, you know, I only got one blemish on my record in the UFC, so I knew somebody good was going to be coming, especially in such a stacked division. You know, there's no easy fights from here on out, and I don't want any easy fights. A guy like Nathaniel Wood is somebody who's going to help elevate my game inside the Octagon as well, you know, stuff that I know I'm capable of,

but sometimes, you know, you need a certain dance partner in there to let things go. and, you know, as an artist, you know, actually put it on the canvas. You know, you got all these ideas in your head and things that you can do. But until, you know, you actually put it on the canvas there, you know, it's not really good. And I think Nathaniel Woods, the dance partner, I need to really show my full game. You touched on it earlier, but this time around, I mean, you still have to mess with the sleep schedule a little bit, but not, like, completely like you did the last time because you're fighting on their local time, not our,

so it's not 3 a.m. or whatever when you actually walk to the octagon. Are you digging that part of this experience? Yeah, you know, when it was time, it was fight day, it was fight day. You know, I had a motto all week. Just wake me up when it's time to whoop somebody's ass. And this time is a little bit better. You know, the fight day is going to be the same. You know, if you're not awake and you're for fight day, you got some problems.

But just the whole fight week itself, you know, I had to train at three or four a.m. every, you know, every morning. I didn't have to, but just kind of general stuff you like to train around the same time that you're going to fight. So all fight week I was training at 3 or 4 a.m. I was trying to sleep, you know, 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. type of thing, local time here. And, you know, you got housekeeping knocking on your doors. It's during the day. The sleep was a little off. This time I hopped on a plane, you know, fell asleep and woke up and it was morning in Abu Dhabi, and I've pretty much been on this schedule. So this one's been a little bit smoother. Do you sleep well the night before a fight, or do you kind of have those feelings where you just can't wait? weight, it's kind of like Christmas Eve almost. I sleep like a baby. You know, I normally get some, you know, after weigh-ins and have some good food, and that's

some of my best sleep. When I first started, I had a little bit of those jitters like kid on Christmas. And normally, I mean, when I wake up that day, it definitely feels like that. But the sleep, you know, I don't miss any sleep for a fight, that's for sure. And also, now you don't have to cut those last five pounds, right? I mean, yeah. You wanted it at 35. but still you'll take this right right of course i told him we'd run it at 55 if that was the case if weight

was the issue for him i don't care what he weighs uh you know me just uh you know when i say i'm ready for a short notice fight i'm ready to fight but also the other part of our profession is make the weight in the weight class that we are fighting in um whether it's 10 days notice against smoker or you know three weeks notice um he wanted to catch weight no problem for me I just, you know, I wanted the 35 weight just because it's what weight we fight at. You know, I was ready for to make weight again and do everything just like you're supposed to. But it doesn't really matter to me. Like I said, we could run it at any weight class.

He's going to be the same guy in there. Did the last weight cut go well, or was it kind of rough with everything going on, the time change and all that stuff? No, it was good. You know, pretty much did exactly what I needed to do. did the food and everything I was supposed to. The water cut went smooth. You know, I've been cutting weight for a long time and not sucking down to fly weight, but I still got a little bit of weight cut to 35 these days.

And, you know, I'm a professional at that as well. So, you know, the weight cut went nice and smooth. Leaching up to do 25 anymore, right? Yeah, that's a thing in the past, I believe. So Nathaniel, obviously, he's been pretty solid in the UFC. He's three and one. the one loss was to John Dotson. He's got a couple of finishes.

He's coming off a win against a short notice opponent in his last fight, something that you're quite familiar with in your career. Have you been impressed with what Nathaniel has done to this point?

He's solid. He's solid. He's well-rounded. To say that I'm impressed, not really. I think he's a very basic well-rounded. He's solid.

He does things very well, but he does the basics very well. Unless he's got something up his sleeve, I don't know about. I feel like he showed most of his game, you know, inside the octagon. I feel like I'm just starting to show what I have, you know, in my bag of tricks and in my toolbox for him. So that's where I kind of touched on,

sometimes you need a dance partner to let that go. What I mean by that is like Al-Tang didn't really have an answer for what I was giving him. And in a fight like that, if it's not broke, you know, keep going to it. And if you would have made some adjustments, I would have made some adjustments. And I think that's where this fight's going to go. You know, Woods, a little bit. A little bit little bit more, a higher fight IQ. I don't think he's going to be able to stop what I have for him, but if he does make some adjustments in the fight, you know, I'm ready to make some more adjustments as well. And I think that's where my game's going to open up a lot. So I'm excited for this. So as we record this, it is Tuesday night where you're at, it's almost 10 p.m. local time there.

And you guys both spoke with the media earlier today as we were doing this. And Nathaniel came on after you. He said he feels like that your style is going to feed right into his. He likes the fact that you're exciting, that you bring the fight, but one thing that he said that stuck out to me was he predicts that within two minutes of the fight, you're going to be shooting for takedowns because you're not going to want to stay on the feet anymore. What are your thoughts on those comments? I mean, let him think that. Let him think that, you know, I have no problem staying in and trained with somebody. You know, we'll see what happens. But if that's it, if that's the case, then it looks like we'll have another stand-up fight, and I'm ready for that, too.

So wherever the fight goes, I'm ready. All I can do is laugh at that one. How do you see this all playing out Saturday right before? Probably about four hours before Habib and Justin Gachie make the walk and do the damn thing for the lightweight title. How do you get this thing done and maybe steal some thunder from those guys? I think I put him away in one of the rounds. I'm ready to go 15 minutes, ready to break them in the later rounds. I'll put them away early. early if I catch him on the feet. I think he's going to be the one shooting in. It sounds like we both think that. So I guess only time will tell. But if he shoots in, he's in for a long night.

So submission, TKO, K.O. K.O. Ground and pounds, something. He's going away. A lot of movement going on at 135 right now. There's reports that popped up earlier today that Marlon Vera is going to fight Jose Aldo on November 21st. There's a lot of big fights in the top 15 set up already. I know you just fought like two weeks ago and you're back on the island, but I assume knowing you from all the conversation we had that if all goes well here, you're not going to want to wait much longer to do it again, right? No, I'm going to try to get one more in this year. I've been, well, Sterling and Yon are booked for December 12th.

I may need a, I wouldn't need a few weeks, but I wouldn't mind having another camp for, you know, the fight. In December, it would be a perfect date. But really, they called me for that November 21st. card as well and I'd be down so I'm trying to get one more in this year at this point I feel like I'm in a spot where I may jump into the rankings but if not just keep feeding me guys keep feeding me guys keep putting on good performances and you know gaining a fan base and you know I'll be in those rankings on my climbing that ladder soon enough I was yeah I was looking at the rankings earlier I'm like

all right what happens if if Casey wins like what would they do because I think you might sneak into the 15 or just outside of it and there is one guy sitting there in the bottom half of that division that is looking for a fight right now. Rob Fonson at number 11 in the division, and he's hoping to get in there by the end of the year. So I think time-wise, I think things line up, but does that one stick out to you as like a sensible next step if all goes well on Saturday? Yeah, actually, when I broke into the top 15, that was a guy that I was kind of looking at, you know, like you said, he's been in the top 15, top 10 for a long time.

He's a veteran in the Bannonweight division. He's put some good guys away. respect Rob Font style, but that would be a great matchup for me. If he's looking for a dance partner on any of those dates, I'll be your guy. I love it, man. So I might as well ask you. And I don't think I did, but if I did, I apologize. But I find it fascinating that maybe 90% of the fighters that I've asked this question

to are rolling with the underdog here. Habeb versus Gachi. A lot of people think Gage's going to win. Do you agree with a lot of these folks, or do you think Habib's going to do it again? I like Gaichi, I like Habib, but I think Habib does what he normally does. You know, just for the simple fact, he's not going to give Gaichi the style of fight that he's used to. And I think that may throw him off a little bit. Not questioning Gaichi's wrestling at all, but, you know, Habib is one of those guys that you know exactly what he's going to do and you can't stop it.

And that's a dangerous man. So we'll see what happens. you know, I really don't have a favorite in that one. I'm just going to be a fight fan and sit back and watch. But if I was a betting man, I'd put my money on Habib. Fair enough. And this is kind of an interesting card because there's a lot of people with Arizona ties on this card. You're on it.

Lauren Murphy's on it. I know she's a former teammate of yours. Jared Canaaner is on it. So it's got to be pretty cool. In a way, it's almost like being in the gym, but it's almost like a reunion in some ways as well, right? Yeah, exactly. I got to see Lori.

And, you know, Gagey's from Safford, Arizona, Canaaners. You know, I see him every day at practice and stuff. So it's just cool to be a part of that, you know, especially along with Jared, you know, he takes out Whitaker. I think he's next in line to face Adasanya. So just sitting back and kind of watching how he does things and getting to be a part of that, you know. I got another teammate here on Fight Island, too, you know, at Kyler last time. And we're rolling deep again this time. So it's a cool feeling.

and I think we're going to come out two and oh again. What is, do you and Jared talk about crystals a lot? Two crystals is like he is, man. You know, I'll listen. I'll listen to anybody. You know, that's just, I haven't dug that deep yet. You know, I got my own thoughts that, you know, I think about. And, you know, kind of like just, you know, jumping over the cage and asking for another fight, you know,

put that stuff out into the universe and it'll happen. But I don't go that deep. We're going to jump out of the cage again. if all goes well and be like, give me, give me December, give me November, whatever? Or have you already done that? Yeah, you know, maybe I might have to jump out of the cage and challenge those full send guys to a drink off or something and then we'll get back to fighting. To quote my colleague Jose Young's, my buddy, my pal who has been in Abu Dhabi for over a month now,

this fight rules between Casey Kenney and Nathaniel Wood. Such a good matchup and it all goes down on Saturday. in Abu Dhabi, UFC 254. I really can't wait for this event. I'm almost, like, I'm almost giddy about it. I'm just so excited. Like, the main event is so good, and I know people look at the card,

and they just want, like, 14 title fights on it, and they just want everything. Really look deep into these matchups, because there's some really good ones. It really is. Like, Wood v. Kenny is ridiculous. It is a ridiculous fight. Alex Alvarez, like,

I mean, there's just so many good fights. There's just so many good fights. I'm not going to run down the whole lineup right now. You can do that for yourself, but trust me, this is going to be a good card. And of course, we're going to have all of your coverage the rest of the week. We've been all over it from the get-go here on M-A Fighting. And a quick programming note, because of things adhering to local time in Abu Dhabi, things are a bit different this week with the schedule, some changes, obviously.

So there are some more scrums that probably are up on the YouTube page now as we speak with Trevor Whitman, the head coach for Justin Gachie, Javier Mendez, coach for Habibir Mammagamadev, Daniel Cormier, broadcaster, I believe John Anix's part of that as well and others. So go check those out. I'm sure they're up there by now. The way-ins, okay? Now, normally we would have the way-ins from 9 a.m.

to 11 a.m. Eastern Standard time. But again, we're on local time. So the way-ins are actually going to take place just hours from right now. You're going to kick off at 1 a.m. Eastern time on Friday morning, 10 p.m. Pacific time Thursday night. So 1 to 3 a.m. on the East Coast, 10 to midnight West Coast, and we'll have that for you. And I'm going to tell you this. I'm planning on being there live with the Prince of Positivity, Alex K. Lee, for the way in show. So we'll keep you posted on that. And hopefully you guys can watch and grab some coffee, do what you got to do to stay

awake and get some sleep later. Preview show will go down on Friday afternoon. And guess what? We're going to do it with all of you live. about that. Details to follow on that. And of course, Saturday, we'll be all over it. I may be biased, but no one has done Fight Island like MMA Fighting has. We've done so many extra things that nobody else has been doing. And I just, I couldn't be prouder of the squad, prouder of Jose and everybody that's just contributing to this amazing coverage that we've had from Fight Island. With that said, buckle up, everybody. UFC 254 going down in a couple of sleeps, as the great John Annick says, my friends. We're out of here.

Thank you all for watching and listening. Big thanks to Casey Leiden on the production side. And as always, have a heck of a week, everybody. Fox Media Podcast Network.