The Ariel Helwani Show - 2025 European MMA Predictions: Jones vs. Aspinall? Topuria in Spain? | The Craic

Episode Date: December 27, 2024

Petesy Carroll is joined by journalists Andy Stevenson, Chisanga Malata, and Donagh Corby on The Craic to preview the upcoming year in European MMA. The conversation begins with predictions on whether Tom Aspinall will finally get a crack at Jon Jones (03:58) and if Ilia Topuria will be able to bring a UFC event to Spain in 2025 (10:03).Next, they discuss whether Shavkat Rakhmonov will be able to capture UFC gold (18:00) and Leon Edwards' place in the welterweight title picture (26:15). Then they look outside the UFC and forecast what the future holds for Dakota Ditcheva, Paul Hughes, and Muhammad Mokaev (28:44). Finally, they break down the rumored boxing match between Conor McGregor and Logan Paul, discussing whether it will happen and the potential magnitude of that event (42:05).

welcome back to the crack everybody i hope you're all having a wonderful christmas as we have promised we are going to do some European reviews and previews, and we are happy to bring you the first of those offerings today, which will be the preview of 2025. Because as Ariel Awani says, 2024 has yet to finish. So why would we get into reviewing it if it's yet to be completed? Anyway, given that it's a special European show, I had to bring a special gang along. These are OGs of the crack. Many of you will already know them. The real diehard crack fans, crack heads, if you will, will know these people and love them already.

I am happy to introduce my faithful companions, Mr. Chisanga Malata of The Sun, Dunna Corby of Bloody Elbow, and Andy Stevenson of the L Triangle Podcast, and Severe MMA. Lads, welcome. You've finally made it to the big dance. How does this feel? Chisango, I mean, Jesus Christ, we've been doing this a long time. This must feel like winning a Pulitzer at this stage. All I'm going to

say is I'm very proud and happy that you with the Uncrowned thing, but how come it's taken so long to get me on? I'm normally a staple. You're normally hitting me up two, three times a week

to set these dates up in advance, but become big time in this uncrowned era, man. I mean, you've changed. You've changed. It's good to be on.

It's good to be on. I'm going to get a lot of this throughout these introductions. I feel Andy Stevenson of Severe MMA how are you feeling buddy? PC great to see you Chisanga great to see you

Dunna yeah great to be here appreciate being on Uncrowned and as Chisanga says you know you've got your most esteemed original crack guests on

and Dunna of course but like if I feel a little bit like we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here you were stuck we finally get the call uh it's kind of like you know you've been going out with like a really hot girl for a while she finally gives you the boot and you go home for christmas and uh decide to get with the ex that's what this feels like so um yeah you're welcome uh good to be here donna corby uh how are you feeling boys yeah no i'm feeling like obviously a lot more friendly

than that i didn't think that i would just be on the offensive with andy two seconds earlier congratulations pz on all this uncrowned success and uh yeah great to speak to you it's good to see you in new york and uh andy i saw you in wheelands recently that was nice wow well it was it was lovely we did yeah He did not keep the same energy when we were in person. He was completely enamored by my presence. I swear to God, I was rushing to get out to get into a taxi

and he was like, no, no, you have to come meet my wife. And I was like, okay, cool, but you better keep the same energy on the pod. And now we're here. It's our first crack of the Uncrowned era. I thought we were banned, but it turns out we're not. We're actually allowed on the show. And yeah, unfortunately I have to do it with Andy, but that's great.

And it's good that I get to do it with Shazanga and also the rest of the crew. Well, yeah, I took some, I took some shit there. I'm happy to say I knew I would. The hot girl is Chuck Mendenhall and he's getting a new half fitted for Christmas. That's why he's not here. I mean, that's why you're all here. He was like, listen, I'd love to do the European preview. I know European MMA inside out.

I don't know if you hear some of the obscure French MMA references that this man is making on the recent shows. He knows it inside out. But unfortunately, the Christmas hat fitting was happening. So unfortunately, I'm stuck with these guys, I guess. But I love you all very much. I'm so glad we've got the band back together. But without further ado, let's get in to this preview of 2025 and i want to start with you sanga because this

question pertains to you and lads please jump in with your two cents wherever you feel appropriate for weeks and weeks now at the uncrowned channel we've just been constantly discussing the fact that the one of the biggest stories of 2025 will be at the meeting we've talked about many many times already uh the meeting between aspinal and jones and whether it will happen you have your ear to the ground there in the uk better than anyone tell me what are your feelings on whether this will be possible and will come to fruition in 2025 my gut instinct especially going off what tom said in the after ufc 309 i'm optimistic that it will happen i i really am but the current stumbling block is uh the fu money that john demanded seconds before leaving the post-fight

press conference i was there with uh the great and powerful Donna Corby as well. Initially, that made me hesitant because obviously we had this similar situation ahead of the potential, well, there's no potential fight happening anyway, between Francis Ngannou and John, where apparently he wanted Deontay Wilder-type money in the region of $30 uh pound a dollar sorry i believe but given the the constant glazing of uh of john over the probably the last six seven months this has probably been dana white's longest glaze uh as long as glaze known to man i think that he's willing to uh to meet him somewhere in the middle and give him

what he wants and potentially give him an even bigger payday and say to him look if you beat tom then you can have this power time fight and we can give you 40 million so i'm i'm optimistic although that optimism waned a little bit after dana white gave it the old dana white guarantee and there's been a litany of of guarantees which haven't come to fruition but personally for me i'm crossing my fingers i think maybe international fight week and well it might be late june it might be early july that's that's what i'm shooting for mentally that's what i'm preparing my budget for already um yeah let's let's see see if it happens let's see if it happens hopefully john doesn't price himself out with a stupid demand,

but I don't think that will happen. I think the UFC will meet him halfway, give him a bumper paycheck because they also want to go into negotiations with TV rights suitors saying that we've got John Jones, potentially John Jones and Alex Pereira in the pipeline. So I think they'll give him that. Absolutely. Does anyone disagree

that this is the biggest fight the UFC can put on in 2025? Yeah, I would. I think that anything excuse me, anything pertaining to, I mean, even if you want to talk

about European MMA, anything pertaining to Conor McGregor, whether you like him or not. And obviously he's had a fall from grace this year, but I think anything regarding Conor McGregor could be bigger. I or not. And obviously he's had a fall from grace this year, but I think anything regarding Conor McGregor could be bigger.

I mean, certainly if there was a way that he could be matched at some point with an Ilya Toporia, that would be bigger. You know, I think there's still bigger fights out there, but of course it's right up there. And the way that they've built it and the way that, like you were talking about this glaze that Dana White's been doing on Jon Jones,

it has made this all bigger and it has made John Jones feel like this world beater and Chazanka, you were there, you were cage side I was up in Press Ledge, I didn't get the cage side seats because Buddy Elbow is still not super popular with the UFC yet but we're working on it.

Proper order, sorry. Yeah, exactly. I thought that John Jones didn't look that great in that fight. I thought that if I was Tom Aspinall, I would have been watching that and kind of licking my lips a bit. But I think that it's not the biggest because Conor McGregor is always a factor,

but we'll probably get into that later. Is Conor McGregor going to fight next year? I would think it's probably unlikely unless it's against Logan Paul. So I think, yeah, I don't know but it will be the biggest if Conor doesn't fight yeah I think it can like really depend I think that it will be very interesting to see how Dana's approach

to this and the influence that he wields as far as like bigging up the fight because already we're seeing him talk about it being you know it's going to be the biggest heavyweight fight ever potentially the biggest fight they ever put on all of these kind of uh comments that he's starting to come out with now and of course we know the way that dana used to talk about john jones when in ganu was with the ufc and when he was you know flying high and saying she's i don't know if he wants this fight people say that they want

to fight but do they really want to fight now we've seen him as as shisanga's rightly pointed out glazing john jones uh left right and center for the last number of months it's going to be interesting to see how it changes now because what's going to happen is jones in contract negotiations all of a sudden like that glazing may take a back seat for a minute and all of a sudden it'll be you know the focus on on tom aspen and i think that you know you we're so used to seeing fighters from the uk or wherever in europe coming up in the ufc and they've got really strong regional backing from the fans but tom has that worldwide at this point um it's not just you know american fans maybe saying oh you know here comes another guy that the the uk the the european the irish media are are big enough only to to falter that's not the case here so he has

the fan backing uh worldwide and now i really think that there's going to be a shift in narrative away from all pro john jones the entire time to jones and contract negotiations uh dana wanting to make this fight and bigging up aspen in a huge way because at the end of the day he will switch up at any point on what's best for ufc business and he i think he does see that aspen is the future of the business yeah yeah no i agree with you um i'm worried that there will be that sliding scale of things going from we're upset with john to we're upset with tom i think the biggest tragedy the whole thing regardless of the matchup situation is the fact that Aspinall is raring to go he wants to fight

as much as possible this guy is a joy to watch um and and really his target is the belt it just so happens that John Jones is wearing that belt and that's kind of taking away from the fan experience because we all love watching this guy fight Donna corby you mentioned someone there who has had a massive massive 2024 ilia tapori in the conversation for four of the year without a doubt beats volkanovski beats max holloway really really shit hot at the moment ilia tapori i think a lot of people in europe are particularly excited about a spanish event and we've talked about bernabeu and things like that and i don't necessarily think we're there yet maybe if it's the the fight that you talked about earlier with mcgregor the bernabeu will be the only stadium that will be able to uh put up with

the man for tickets but do you think we'll get this spanish show in 2025 it feels like it's been talked about an awful lot and given the the links between the ufc and la liga and the the marketing partnership they have i think it's a bit more close than say other events like the likes of crow park and everything that was thrown around for years do you think it happens in 2025 a spanish event with ilia taporia as the main event yeah i think it it makes a lot of sense um i think that the the wising center in madrid makes a lot of sense as like a venue. I've been there for concerts before and I was looking around and kind of thinking like, yeah, this could probably if I think back now, that's probably a venue that could host a UFC show. So, yeah, I'd imagine it probably will.

I mean, Teporia, huge star. The problem that they're running into is that the UFC don't really love. They're not really like like boxing in the sense where they love, love to like do a hometown show. They love to do this. We, Dana White is not dissimilar in a lot of ways to like a Colonel Tom Parker character where he's got all these different deals going on that exists,

uh, that exists for his benefit and for the UFC's benefit and not really for the benefit of the fighters. Like it is actually actually a complete scandal that a Conor McGregor type of guy would never have had a major homecoming fight after the UFC Dublin event. That would never happen in boxing,

where AJ just would never fight at Wembley. Tyson Fury has fought at Spurs, he's fought at Wembley. AJ's fought at Wembley. Karl Froch fought at Wembley. All these different people. It just happens. And it doesn't happen in the UFC, which is which is weird but yeah i think the short answer to the question is i think a madrid event will probably happen next year probably at that wising center

or whatever it's called now and um and i'd imagine it will not be as big of an event as it could be but if they put it to portia in the main event people in madrid are gonna go nuts well this sounds great like paella i mean we'll be drinking beers in the sunshine just saying well what do we think of this yeah i'm optimistic that it will happen and i actually heard a rumor that they were looking to go to spain in april um well we don't know whether that'd be a pay-per-view because um the last couple aprils have been going to miami I believe. But yeah, April was what I heard was in the works for a potential Spanish event. And as Dono alluded to there, it would be promotional malpractice if you don't give Elia Taporia a homecoming,

because he's not just the key to Spain. You could argue he's the key to Central Europe or mainland Europe, because Europe has kind of been neglected by the ufc for ages like i remember in years gone by they used to go to prague and they used to go to germany and those markets have been completely completely neglected so if you bring to poor you're going to get those fans from those neighboring countries flooding to spain to come see this and then obviously the appetite for ufc will once again grow in uh in mainland europe how big will this be andy if they go to spain we've we've talked to people over there like

this guy is essentially the mcgregor of spain even though he's a georgian guy who lived in germany for a long time he's been fully embraced by the spanish people and the whole scene is booming because of him and do you think we'll have similar scenes in spain than we saw in uh 2014 with mcgregor and the rest of the irish cast that night the potential is 100 there in my opinion i think that he appears to be a completely beloved figure in spain also in georgia we saw the scenes of him you know arriving with something like 5 000 fans at the airport absolutely mobbing him um but specifically in spain i I think the way that he's been embraced and accepted by the mainstream, by Real Madrid, you see him, Sergio Ramos is coming to his fights.

I think that the partnership that he has there and does that the UFC can have, football's the biggest sport in the world if they can tap into to that market and the you know the ufc from a business perspective they're the biggest they've ever been they're doing better business than ever before um and they've conquered to to an extent the united states and i think how you can get bigger is is more globalization as far as the sport goes and and you know making those innards and i know obviously they used to do a lot more shows on the road in europe previously but it wasn't to the degree that we're talking about here when we're looking at a spanish event for ilia taporia um even just a little i don't know maybe i'm clutching at straws here but i noticed like

dana white was doing this thing with like ksi like the giveaway for around christmas time um part of it was, you know, tickets to, to go see Barcelona play. And I don't know, the conspiracy theorist in me kind of was like, is that,

you know, is that, you know, part of that kind of, you know, creating the partnerships with, with Spanish football, essentially.

And then I, of course, Tepori is, is a Madrid guy through and through, but, um, it's going to be very interesting. I think it does happen.

Uh, I, I don't see why they don't do a, an arena or sorry, a stadium specifically when they, guy through and through but um it's going to be very interesting i think it does happen uh i i don't see why they don't do a an arena or sorry a stadium specifically when they have a retracted roof i know the ufc from a production perspective they probably don't like that as much they prefer the arenas but i just think it's there like it would be absolutely humongous they could make it special you know so much of the ufc is cookie cutter these days but i do think that there's an openness and a willingness to do the likes of you know a severe event where you you know you make it different it's a once-off event it doesn't have to be every european show but you have a special moment here

they haven't shown that they want to do this in the past but i do think it's there on the table for them and i don't see why not there's there's a lot of reasons to do this yeah you mentioned the globalization of the of the of the ufc and of the sport in general and uh georgia as well the scenes there like marab and uh ilia like i know it's more complicated to go to georgia now they're in a bit of a difficult situation there but like andy they're the venues you want to see them go to when you see that much like people standing out on the streets watching these guys win titles defend titles that that feels like a spot i just want to be dropped into just to feel what's going on there because there's nothing quite like that being in a new spot when the when the ufc comes to town it's a magical magical feeling do you agree um if possible get over and do Moorabb and Ilya in Georgia?

100%. And I think that, and look, I'm not even going to try and pretend to understand the geopolitics of Georgia or the region. But what I do know is that places like Georgia, it is very evident that there is a humongous amount of national pride and national identity. identity so when when you come from an area like that when you feel like you've been the little guy who kind of you know is is overshadowed to an extent by maybe a different identity well then it means so much more when you see one of your guys on the world stage achieving uh because it doesn't happen too often and like the the success that they have had from georgia with ilia tapori with murab dav Valashvili. And, you know,

there's other UFC fighters there too, that are obviously not quite at that level. It's incredible. And I think that like, we haven't really seen scenes like that in, in recent years, other than Georgia, like to the extent that Georgia,

like they're absolutely going nuts on the streets for their fighters. And it's like, it's incredible. So I think that's, you know, when you have something like that, when you have that passion, that can only mean an absolutely amazing scene.

If you, you know, if you can really stoke the fire of that and, and, and, you know, kind of give back to those fans. We,

we talked a lot about glazing at the start of this. And before I let the glazing commence i want to bring in chisanga here to talk about shavkat obviously uh kazakhstan we know we're done and andy are gonna go with this question you know like before they get in and they have their oh ian gary should jump ahead of him because he nearly beat him uh will shavkat will shavkat fight and win the title in 2025 as far as you're concerned you're saying it you know what right I went into the Ian Gary fight I was optimistic about Ian's chances because I've been cage side I've seen Shavkat fight twice and uh he has well as what the kids say

this aura or whatever that that term bloody does my head and you know i mean or a level 1000 or whatever but he didn't really blow me away um in particular the fight against jeff neal jeff neal um like look who's an elite world-class fighter but when we're talking about the upper echelons of the division he he just isn't there and at times jeff neal made him look very very human i'm i know ultimately he got standing rear naked choked. And a lot of people will point to that as a counter argument. So I'm, Shavkat is a force of nature, 19 wins, 18 finishes, but I'm not completely sold on him. And I like, I'm not writing off Bilal. Like we were cage side, well, three of this quartet. I don't know where Donna Corby was

that evening in Manchester at a BKFC event probably well I was actually at the Black Forge watching it in fact Bloody Elbow was banned and I was on assignment for another outlet in New York but yeah unfortunately we report serious proper news

and we're banned from the UFC. Unlike all of you, all of you, what's a UFC access media. Yeah. They don't ask the tough questions. They're afraid of what I would ask. Yeah.

Okay. So back to, back to my point. I think we were all blown away with just how relentless Bilal was, especially with his, his forward pressure and his wrestling when he got Leon down. So,

I'm not discounting his chances of beating Shavka. In fact, I'm going to go on record and say I think Bilal beats Shavka. I think he silences his detractors and the naysayers yet again, and I think he wins. How he wins, I wins i think maybe a decision uh i don't foresee him stopping him although i said that about sean brady and he took out

sean brady on the feet but i'm going uh with the belal muhammad upset yeah i i think that's fair and i certainly thought like after watching shavkat and ian belal will be sitting there rubbing his hands together you know like based on what happened in that fight although it was a very close fight and a compelling fight um I think he would have thought you know we saw the the Shavkat fight kind of change when he started dipping into those double legs and Bilal is great at that I mean we saw it we were we were meters away from him doing it endlessly to Leon Edwards, who we obviously rate so highly. Andy, how much of that was Shavkat on his knee, or did Ian Gary make him look bad? Well, of course we know that Ian Machado Gary

is the greatest fighter in the UFC right now. Of course, of course. And, you know, did he lose in the scorecards? Sure. But like, did he win the fight of course like pride rules um everyone knows this um look it's on a serious note it's impossible for us to to know that like all i've seen so far is is daniel cormier kind of mentioned that i haven't actually seen anything concrete come out perhaps he was and it would explain a lot because you know

one on shavkat's side he wasn't as aggressive I don't think he wasn't as uh varied maybe in his approach against Ian Gary um he obviously had you know great success uh at times throughout the fight as it in but I just think that there are two incredible fighters who are at the top of their game and look they're they're like they're in their ascendancy of their careers it's not like they're 35 years old have already reached title contention they're still acquiring skills as they go along and they're also it was a fight between two guys who were very familiar with each other so i think that from both sides like if you look at ian in that fight it was he i thought he was quite tentative in his striking in the in the the first exchanges understandably because he knew the potency that Shavkat possessed.

So, difficult to say, but I do think that counting Shavkat out against Bilal based on that performance I think is very risky. I can understand why,

but I do think Shavkat's an absolute killer. I would probably be backing him against Bilal Muhammad, but at the same time if there's anything that we've learned over the past decade plus is that it's not necessarily the the flashy finesse fighters who are the most successful in the sport like if you look at you know all of the dagestani fighters they don't have the most beautiful striking in the world they have

obviously incredible grappling but they've striking that is effective. And that's what I saw when we were in Manchester that night against Leon Edwards was like, Bilal was getting in his face and landing with his strikes. And going into that, you would have expected Leon to be winning those exchanges because he's the traditionally kind of more polished striking, but he lost that fight. So I'm saying on one hand to discount shavkat is

you know at your own peril but the same goal applies for for bala muhammad so very entertaining very interesting fight that is uh i'm looking forward to seeing it done it the the fight obviously puts shavkat right in that trajectory to the title shot like he's the natural guy to pick next but it also highlighted how high level ian was and you know i did think shavkat would get the nodding light but i also thought that ian would give a great account of himself in the end that's exactly what he did is it too much of a push to say that ian could fight for the welterweight title in 2025 like obviously he's gonna have to get a big win to put himself in that equation given that that he's he's on a loss right now but is it

beyond the realms of possibility that ian gary fights for the welterweight total in 2025 it would certainly be an impressive run that he would go on if that were the way it were to go but it all depends on what shav got and but i'll do really because if ian i mean he's talked about his game plan is basically he wants to be super active in the second half of the year so he wants to take some time now i'd imagine it was probably difficult to step in on short notice like he did i know that he was preparing for another fight but completely different styles completely different types of fighters and and also a different level of pressure right to be on on this major event in in vegas and all of that so i wonder you know how how everything's going for him how his body's going to

be recovering because he also i'm sure like Shavkat supposedly had this injury. I am sure Ian Gary had injuries as well that he's not talked about going into that fight as well. Fighters tend to. So he'll want to recover and everything else. And he's also not the kind of guy who says, I want to take eight months out unless there's something he needs to take eight months out for. So I think it's feasible. If he does this run, he's talking about where he fights in July fights in September,

then that December end of year card in Vegas could be a time. If he has two big wins against ranked opponents, like if he beats a Joaquin Buckley now, that would almost immediately put him back into contention, given what Joaquin Buckley did to Colby Covington. And I think he would probably look at that fight and very seriously fancy it. I don't think despite a good Buckley looked against Covington,

I don't think that he did anything in that fight that would have Ian Gary concerned. You know, Ian's a much better striker than Colby. Ian's ability to defensively grapple on the ground off his back and everything is a higher level, I think, than Colby's. Obviously, Colby's a great wrestler, but we didn't see too much of that. So I think, yeah, if he could fight a wacky and Buckley type of guy, I mean, immediately once he wins that, he becomes a top contender, particularly if Shavkat in the meantime has become champion,

there will be immediate calls for a rematch because you're talking about a fight where the difference is one punch. If he throws one more combination in that first round, he wins that first round because they threw the exact same amount of punches, right? So you're talking about like a minuscule margin uh and i think fans would be interested in seeing that fight again so is it gonna happen i wouldn't bet on it but is it possible definitely leon edwards just saying that's a guy who i think going into the fight in manchester a lot of people were kind of saying yeah he's gonna win this fight and then potentially you know what's next is he going the guy that's going to be putting his crown on the

line against chavcat we know balal won now are people riding leon out of the welterweight title stakes like me and you talked about this afterwards like there was no conversation about immediate rematch and look the fight wasn't the most entertaining in the world and 100 i agree with that but at the same time i feel like it's a natural thing after any of these title fights where people start talking about is there an immediate rematch nothing for leon are we overlooking leon as a contender at welterweight just after losing the title yeah i mean the the ufc uh commentators normally daniel cormier joe rogan i know joe rogan wasn't there obviously it's there obviously it was a European pay-per-view but most of the times the commentators always harp on about the possibility

of a rematch for a long reigning champion. I know Leon only had two title defenses but two title defenses nonetheless but it was almost as if he was completely shift the focus completely shift to Shavkat straight away, straight away. And I understand because at the time 18, you know, 18 finishes. And. But I was just sure. Well, I was, I was, in fact, I was about to say it was shocked, but I wasn't shocked that Leon was completely overlooked for when there was

talk of an interim title and Kamaru Usman's name was, was being touted. Tell it. I may, maybe that's because he did them a solid and for Hamzat Chemaev in short notice in the Abu Dhabi pay-per-view last year. But it completely baffled me that you had a former champion who almost came close to, well, came close to, he did some serious damage on Bilal in that fifth round. It would have been interesting to see how the fight had gone, had that elbow and the grounder pound that he'd landed on Balao

happen in the third or fourth round. And Balao had to endure that. But there was just no mention of Leon Edwards whatsoever, which was completely baffling. And once again, Leon is back to being left outside

and overlooked by everybody, which is a shame. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets removed from the rankings yeah he refuses to fight like some no-name guy in the main event of ufc london like you're out you're you've technically retired yourself um from from ufc to to pfl don't look at donna getting excited over there he cannot wait for this um one of the fighters of the year without a doubt uh dakota de java unbelievable year four wins four ko's um how impressive is this from the pfl like i mean doom bay uh you got hughes over there you have lazy king you have

dakota and dakota seems to be one of the shining stars after winning that tournament. Tell me, where does she go from here though? She was on Ariel's show and she was not very concrete in terms of what she wants to do. She says she doesn't want to go back into the tournament. There's obviously the Dubai fight series

that she could go to and they would have to make compelling matchups for that. There is obviously a massive amount of people clamoring for her to be involved with the ufc and things like that things don't happen that easily but what do you think the the pfl should do to capitalize on this surge in popularity for dakota it's good question and i'm not 100 sure and you look at you know those names you mentioned right like lazy king cedric, even Paul Hughes. These are not people

who you necessarily, like if there was a big UFC versus PFL card, you would want to throw them in with a top, top, top level. Like,

I think you probably wouldn't want Doombay anywhere near Abulal Muhammad if you're PFL. It's probably not something you would be interested in. Same with Lazy King against,

you know, Adriggis. It's not something that they would be pushing. I reckon that Paul Hughes, you probably wouldn't want him with a Makachev yet, you know, a Dracosteel. It's not something that they would be pushing. I reckon that Paul Hughes, you probably wouldn't want him with a Makachev yet, but Dakota, there's a very real argument that she would

give Valentina Shevchenko a serious challenge, especially based on the Shevchenko we saw at UFC 306, who I don't think was super impressive. She got the job done and the one who's lost to Alexa Grasso. It's, it's, I mean,

the sky is the limit for her. And certainly she emerges as someone who, if a Turk Yalal Sheikh were to put on a big Jones and a Ghanu card, that might be something where she could possibly do a crossover as well. Because there aren't, like we just said, there aren't many people who could cross over at the top, top, top level successfully.

And yeah, I think that's probably where they should go i don't know who she could fight if they wanted to keep her warm she could maybe fight like a liz carboosh i don't know how how interesting a fight like that would be or she might want to move up the weight something like that i i don't know but she's uh yeah she's certainly in a very enviable position at the moment and also she doesn't exactly need to be super active going forward because she's now a millionaire so uh she can she can take some time and really focus on what it is that the game plan is but you got to give it to pfl in europe at least they've they've been able to build some people oh absolutely they're doing amazing work. I'm sure we'll talk about it. Do the Chelsea Hackett rematch. Yeah, yeah.

Big fight. I've got an idea. I've got an idea. We want to capitalize on Dakota's star power and everything, right? Just do a catchweight fight with Chris Cyborg. Do a catchweight fight with Chris Cyborg.

What kind of weight could Chris Cyborg make chris yeah she's not making 135 yeah but let's just have some fun like put the scales aside yeah just go yeah chris i want dakota with her over i like that i actually really like that just hanging out is fucking great mate that is a great exact you're welcome right you're welcome how much commission are we talking here for this how much all my journalistic integrity aside just a little slice of the pie here i just want to wet my beak guys um but i wanted to ask like how impressive is it for you to see as a guy involved in the mainstream media there, knowing how little opportunities, like it's very rare, you know, unless you're a McGregor, we saw Leon in some prominent spots. We've seen Tom in some prominent spots and that's all very exciting.

But now we're seeing Dakota there, which is really impressive for a PFL athlete. Not the same brand recognition as UFC around the world, as we know, but she is everywhere. You know, Sky Sports during during the week all this kind of stuff how impressive is that for you as a guy who's involved in the mainstream media in the uk oh it's absolutely massive like i've i've been covering mma in the mainstream media for nearly a decade now and to see somebody from a fringe promotional though they are the co-leader as they as they like to call themselves be be doing the rounds at TalkSport, at Sky Sports, and even at The Sun.

It's massive. And so early into her career as well. I mean, I think, to give you some context, even my editor, who is the most casual of casual combat sports fans, she's come up on his radar on Twitter and what have you. So that just shows you the reach and the potential star power that she has. Yeah, I'm really excited by Dakota Ditch.

I think she can be one of the biggest stars the UK and Europe have ever, ever had. But it's just now on the pfl to give her those fights to keep that star rising and as i just said there before just let's have some fun let's do chris cyborg i love it i love it um andy uh chisanga speaking about the uk mainstream um interest in dakota and paul hughes had an incredible breakthrough year this year as we know um the the win against aj mckee was absolutely unbelievable and in december we saw this incredible media tour that was put together by the pfl and and you know pfl and bellator are getting a lot of a lot of kind of slack there towards the end of last year because of the situation

flexure to say uh with patricio pitbull with all these fighters but to give them some credit like because we did talk about um that situation quite a bit on the ari loani show um to give them credit the the stuff they've done with paul was incredible the and very simple things like pulling a point uh him at the celtics game i've said this before about the guy, but he is just so relatable for Irish people to see him. And for even the, you could see him in the bar with, I'd say these kind of second generation Irish guys who are drinking their points. Don't I mention at the top that, you know, Irish MMA, MMA in Ireland, should I say, is, you know, it's not in the best spot given that mcgregor's year with the the civil case not going his way and brands all drop like a lot of supermarkets dropping his brand and stuff like this is it too soon uh directly after that to to have someone like paul used to maybe lead people

back to mma um not not in the way that mcgregor did like this was the whole country kind of switched on to what he was doing in 2015 2016 but do you think he will help in some way to to give irish mma a positive outlook for 2025 i'll take the the second part of that first i think paul definitely can like i think the way that he presents himself he's a very very easy guy to get behind and even you know prior to this media tour that you know they had the the the media spots where you know he's a very very easy guy to get behind and even you know prior to this media tour that you know they had the the the media spots where you know he's down at the local GAA club and he's you know he's kicking balls over the bar like just he comes across like your average guy from down the road from from the Gaelic football team who's now excelling on the world stage and like I thought what they did there was brilliant like I was thinking like that's what Ian Gary needs to be like it's stuff like that where,

you know, where we've talked about before him struggling to connect with the Irish fan base. Um, it's those types of kind of media spots that you want to be in to, to just show, you know, Ireland that I'm one of you,

I'm representing you on the world stage. That's what got Connor over, you know, when he was on his rise, like it was because he was, everyone just related. It was like, Oh,

he's got, he's going out there repping the tricolour for me. I think what Paul is doing can certainly shine a positive light on Irish MMA. It's not in a good spot at all. After the McGregor sexual assault case, I saw Will Fleury on off the ball

and it was just, you know, a 25 minute or however long conversation about um him failing steroids like barely no discussion you know it's just they're very negative stories from the Irish mainstream press point of view I don't think it'll ever get to a point if I'm being perfectly honest where MMA is embraced in the country where MMA fighters are embraced but I do think we need people like Paul Hughes to be able to to deliver that he's just a normal you know young man uh who like I ran into him in the airport on his way out to the states he was behind me in the queue for immigration he was kind of getting

excited like oh yeah I'm going out and I've got tickets for the Celtics game and I think I'm going to be courtside and then you see what it actually is you know he's yeah you know in photos with like their star players as you mentioned the pulling points I just think that he just seems so down-to-earth and likable that he cannot do

anything but help you know MMA in Ireland but I don't think that's enough to overcome where it's at right now I just don't think that there's too much pressure on anyone's shoulders and I don't think anyone's able to single-handedly change that perception right now.

And also, he's someone who, sorry to interrupt, and I'll keep this brief, but he also, like, he's just a fighter. He's just someone who needs to win fights. And he's got a very tough one on his hands against the unbeaten Usman Nurmagomedov coming up. So I don't know that he needs all this pressure about, you know, being someone who can bring the sport back after what Conor McGregor did and all this other stuff. I think that he should be allowed,

now that this promotional tour is done and he's done his best, he should be allowed to focus on Usman Nurmagomedov. And of course, I mean, it's a great opponent. It's a great opponent in terms of, regardless of all the McGregor stuff, Khabib is still not a super popular guy over here either. There's still like residual people who are not too keen on Khabib.

And I think people who would like to see someone in the Nurmagomedov family take an L to an Irish guy. I think there's still a residual bit of that in the same way that there's residual support for, for McGregor as a fighter and stuff. So yeah, I yeah i think he's um he's got like a perfect matchup right now and i think we should allow him to focus on it and not concern himself with being a martyr in martial arts and in in his own country uh because that's not his priority right now yeah that's a fair point and look even if he does take a splash of black current in his points,

I still think he's Irish. You know what I mean? There's no worries there with me. In terms of one lad from Dagestan who moved to Wigan, Chisanga, Makayev obviously has his first win with Brave, but there's this situation occurring in the UFC's flyweight division

where Koyas Akura, a guy who'd never fought in the ufc had a great career with rising he comes in and he's immediately given a title shot it seems so stupid now in hindsight that they got rid of mokoev after the fight we were at um of course against manil cape in in manchester and look i understand that it was what ariel said on the show was it's a lot of little things. Like it's, it's not this massive thing he did. It's just a buildup of overtime where people find it difficult to work with him. Can you see a situation where he's re-signed next year? And this guy is a remarkable talent.

First of all, like it's, it's not like we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here. He's an undefeated fighter. He's a very, very good fighter. He's a very good speaker. He doesn't have the most exciting style i think it's fair to say and that's certainly uh one of the issues the ufc had with him but do you see a possibility where he's re-signed in 2025 um i think so um he's he's shown remorse um which which is a which is a good good starting starting point and when Dana publicly

cast him aside in that post-fight press conference it didn't seem like the door was slammed shut and firmly closed forever. I think the best example of that was when Paul Daly, after he punched Josh Koscheck, when Dana said I don't care if he becomes the best

welterweight in the world, he's never coming back here. it sounded like to me that Dana was open to re-signing Mo if he I don't want to say grows up because he's a young lad or whatever and I don't want to sound condescending in my old age now

but if he gets shows a bit more maturity going forward and gets rid of some of the the hijinks and doesn't sucker punch people oh allegedly allegedly sucker punched uh we should say there's no definitive video footage showing that actually happened but yeah i think i think if he gets a few more wins i mean he needs finishes first and foremost because that's what the ufc want they want exciting fights uh they don't want lay and pray.

Well, that's a throwback term, which I've not heard for a very long time, lay and pray. But yeah, I think there's a possibility maybe towards the end of the year, if he gets two or three more fights in, gets a lot of finishes in those. Yeah, I think there's a scenario that they bring him back in unless they decide just to follow the flyweight division,

which they were going to do before Demetrius Johnson back in unless they decide just to fold the flyweight division which uh which they were going to do before uh before uh demetrius johnson back in the day um yeah i know it's gonna be uh it's a situation i think that will pop up every time he fights we'll all be saying well why isn't it because i don't think brave are going to get a substantial enough opponent for him to to lose to and he's gonna look keep looking so good over there um donna corby this is your specialist category here today um i'm bringing you in to ask you about a fight that i don't think anybody gives a fuck about uh logan paul v conor mcgregor is the talk of some town apparently um india is this a big deal in the world of influence um is like is there like when

you see this fight where you understand this stuff better than all of us in all seriousness like when you see this fight are you like holy shit this is incredible like this is this is the closest thing we have to paul v tyson or whatever yeah no it is actually the closest thing i mean ariel did a great job uh on on his show recently kind of breaking down how it went from the ambani family wanting to meet with jake and then jake basically saying we'll we'll do a meeting if the ufc are involved and at the table which is like completely fair and ariel making the point as well that like jake is not so much a palatable individual but yes this is uh this is the culmination of all of it because if you go back I've done a couple of articles about this

this week if you go back to the day of McGregor Mayweather right when Logan Paul was just a YouTuber he didn't have there was no KSI boxing there was no KSI versus Joe Weller there was none of this stuff um it was it was just he was a fan watching the fight and you watch him uh this video is fascinating where he says, you know, I wouldn't, they love to do a video with one of Conor McGregor or Floyd Mayweather. And now it could be that he's about to have been the only man to step in the

ring with both of them, which is going to be incredible, but he's been pushing for this for a long time. There's also a video of him and Jake about to fly out to the KSI fight in August of 2018. And the TMZ sports guy is asking them you know who like who would you guys want to fight if you were fighting someone in the UFC and Jake says it the end goal would be for one of us to fight Conor McGregor so I think it kind of all comes full circle it reminds me a bit of when Jake fought Anderson Silva and that was

also a full circle moment because Jake's entire interest in fighting had come from growing up watching Anderson and yet it look it's massive Logan Paul is more famous than Jake ostensibly he's he's got any metric you look at he's got more followers prime is is huge uh he's super controversial I mean if there's a way to make Conor McGregor a baby face again, if there's a way for him to turn it around, it's to have him fight Logan Paul. You know, I think that's probably one of the only less palatable people to the general public. And, you know, I think, I mean, you saw that when Dylan Danis was able to be the seemingly sort of anti-hero against Logan. And it's also a super winnable fight for Conor because Logan is not really close to the level of boxer that Jake is.

So it's absolutely huge. If they can somehow make it happen, it will be as big as Jake and Mike Tyson because Conor McGregor and Mike Tyson are in that kind of realm of superstar that there's only a couple. In terms

of people who could actively still box now and Mike Tyson very barely clings into that category as we saw in November but yeah in terms of people who can actively still uh compete it's McGregor it's Tyson I can't really think of another monster Mayweather but Mayweather has also hurt his brand by doing all of these farcical exhibition bets. So yeah, I think it's, it's a huge fight. I can't believe you would even ask me a question like that, to be honest. It's obviously a huge Logan Paul versus Conor McGregor. It's a massive.

It's massive, but I don't think it's going to have this changing impact on Conor McGregor and how people see him in general. Like, I think this exists in a bubble. Like, I don't think this exists. Like, does Jake Paul come away from the Mike Tyson fight where I was was like do you know what we love jake now that was great no no how would they do that with logan paul and conor mcgregor well no because if you put logan paul and conor mcgregor on a stage and if you just look obviously everything that has happened with conor this year terrible and kind of transcends all of the other stuff but just if you ask an average person who

keeps who generally knows this stuff and they look at a face-off between conor mcgregor and logan paul and you ask them just gutturally based on what they know who do you want to win that fight everyone is going to say conor mcgregor it's just that's just how it is he's smaller he's it would be a david versus glide looking thing and also he's just someone who Logan has never been a super palatable individual he's never been someone who is beloved at least Conor McGregor at some point was this guy who was a huge star

and bringing Ireland all over the world with him I think that he's just even though the stuff Logan has done is not nearly as bad as the stuff Conor McGregor has done but try telling a normal person who just kind of vaguely keeps tabs on this stuff all of that uh it's it's not i i think that that you would be surprised if that fight got announced and you saw them at a press conference you'd be surprised how much people were enjoying watching conor uh like verbally cook logan i think it

varies depending on where you are as well right like in ireland yeah a lot of people don't care or don't pay attention to logan paul but there's going Ireland, a lot of people don't care or don't pay attention to Logan Paul, but there's going to be a lot of people who are going to be rooting for him, for anyone against Conor McGregor moving forward. That's the reality of the situation. Of course, there'll be a subsection that will be adamantly rooting for Conor McGregor,

but the public perception is in the gutter right now. But then if you look at the other side of that though like logan is also someone with all this crypto scamming that a lot of people know about with which i i don't know that i necessarily blame him as much for but that's all debate for another topic he's a he's a hugely unpopular figure as well online and you know i think i think you would as brendan schaub would say you would be surprised if uh if if they actually were about to fight and they were facing off and they were doing press conferences and all this stuff you would be surprised how many people would begrudgingly go into the head if you had to ask them who they wanted to win i mean people would want a double knockout right people want them both to lose

but i think if you had to ask people, like, who would you rather win? I just don't see anywhere in the Western world where people tell you that, no, I'd love to see Logan Paul knock out Conor McGregor. I just don't see it. Do you think that's just because, like, you're in the YouTuber scene bubble? Because, obviously, I think Logan Paul's biggest public transgression, which went viral, is obviously when he went to that famous suicide

place in Japan, and then he filmed, crassly filmed the dead body or what have you. But from what I've seen of him, he's matured with age. He's growing up. He showed remorse for what he did. So like for me, who's well some what got got a toe in the influence of boxing it looks as if like people have wanted to him but obviously that's not the case and see and see you yeah i mean i see where you're coming from but also like when he

fought dylan dannis the the behavior that dylan was engaging in before that fight people just because it was against Logan, people thought that was acceptable and good and, like, cool and thought it was, like, funny and, you know, like, he's an antihero of sorts. And that's Dylan Dannis, who's super unpopular and behaving in a way that is, like, deplorable, the way he carried on in the build-up

to the fight with Logan about a year and a half ago. So I just think, I see where you're coming from. And yeah, I do think that certainly if you're around the influencer scene a bit more and you're hearing all of this terrible stuff about Logan all the time, who actually, to meet him is to meet a relatively nice guy, by the way. He's not, I don't think he's this evil guy either, but he's, yeah i i get where you're coming from but also he's just such he's someone who just the general public will not want to see do well he's just someone who if you're an average person going about your day and you see logan paul coming up you're not too keen on uh on on him as as a guy right well uh what a way to end it all, boys. A spirited conversation about the big Logan Paul v. Conor McGregor fight.

I'll eat my words, Corby, if it comes along and everyone's like, you know what, we had it wrong with this guy. But that is our preview show. We're going to be back next week with our review show. Thank you all so much for listening. You don't want me to talk about Max Lally or Solomon Simon that's the section February we're doing them February is prospects month

yeah so we'll get to that I'll talk about Solomon Simon actually yeah you love Solomon Simon but anyway lads thank you to Sangamalata thank you to Dunacore we thank you to Andy Stevens and thank you to Oscar Losep thank you to the great on air Jordan we'll be back next week we love you very much Mwah!