The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Daniel Cormier TV - Daniel Cormier REACTS to Ilia Topuria VACATING UFC BELT, Charles Oliveira fight next

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

Daniel Cormier IS BACK to address the breaking news Dana White delivered Wednesday, stating Ilia Topuria is vacating his championship belt to move up to the lightweight division and Diego Lopes will fight Alexander Volkanovski for the vacant belt. Plus, with Topuria now in Islam Makhachev's division, DC talks about that future fight and why he expect that matchup to go down AFTER taking on Charles Oliveira! And don't miss Cormier's takes on Dana's other major announcements: Valentina Shevchenko taking on Manon Fiorot, Belal Muhammad fighting Jack Della Maddalena, and Shavkat Rakhmonov turning down the title fight! And DC gives his thoughts on Dana White's viral Instagram live on UFC 314 Wednesday night and shows fans exclusive, behind-the-scenes footage at UFC's The Ultimate Fighter show taping. #Volume #HerdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas.

We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Tired and sick.

Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you. you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier.

This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel. Help an Acapella band with their Between Songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the ice. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Edwin Castro, also known as Castro 1021.

And I'm Kunky, his best friend and business manager. And we've got a new show called The 1021 Podcast. I'm taking you behind the scenes on how I became one of Twitch's most popular streamers. We also love sports. And with the World Cup right around the corner, we'll be breaking down the biggest storylines ahead of the big tournament here in the USA. Listen to the 1021 podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The story I've told myself can then shape my behavior, and that can lead me to sabotage the possibility of connection.

This Mental Health Awareness Month, tune into the podcast deeply well with Debbie Brown. If you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work to become whole, this podcast is for you to hear more. Listen to deeply well with Debbie Brown from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The volume. Hey guys. What's up? It's D.C. Look, I know that you want the best for your family, and I do too.

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for next week's fights. But before, I cannot not talk about all the news that broke last night. Dana White announced fight after fight after fight last night. One being that Diego Lopez is now fighting against Alexander Volcanowski for the featherweight championship of the world, not the interim, full featherweight title, because the champ

Ilya is moving up to 155 pounds full time. Guys, this is massive news. Massive news in the world of mixed martial arts because very rarely do you get a champion that walks away from his weight class and says, I'm done with it. I don't want to have an interim title. I just want to give the belt up. I'm going to go up full time. I'm moving. I'm moving. John Jones did it. George St. Pierre did it.

Now Ilya is doing it. Here's a difference. Those guys all had guaranteed title fights. As they went up in weight class, Ilya does not have that. What Ilya is saying, or at least according to the boss, is that he can't make the weight anymore

and that his legacy has been defined already. Look, man, Iliot Toporia has become the champion and only defends the belt one time. Generally, when someone, one says my legacy is defined after one title defense, we would laugh at him. But how do you laugh at the poor year when he beat Alexander Volcanowski to become the world champion by knockout? Then he beats Max Holloway to defend and keep that world championship by knockout.

So his process is a little bit shortened because we are all in agreement that there are three guys in consideration as the greatest featherweight of all time. He beat two in one calendar year. And that is why I believe he should have been the fight in a year last year. Those two wins were insane in terms of 12 months. But he's moving up. Lopez is fighting Vogue. To me, that's the biggest news. There's a lot of news at 170. But the implications at 145 and at 155 are massive now because we didn't hear that Teporia has a title fight. He has been calling out Islam Mahathev. He has been saying he's the guy to beat him.

He is saying that he's the one that can go up there and beat the guy that has proven to this point, unbeatable outside of Adriana Martins, catch him with a punch that knocked him out. How do you move up? You know what's crazy is that when you're Ilya and you have a star quality about you, you seem like you can sell out a 75,000 seats

Santiago Bernebayo and, in Madrid, you have the option to say, hey, I'm going to make these guys fight for an interim title. The UFC would not have forced him to vacate. He made that decision on his own, but it is kind of par for the course when you think about Iliot to pour you. He really does carry himself like a politician, right? Well-dressed, well-spoken, very respectful of mixed martial arts. He seems to do all the right things.

And in this instance, most would believe that he's doing the. right thing because he's not going to hold up the entire division. But for me, I got to be honest, I would have been a little selfish in this situation because what if he loses? What if he does earn a title fight? And what if he loses? Now he's not even the featherweight champion anymore. Should have held onto the belt, waited. Lopez and Volcanozky would have gladly fought for an interim championship. You go out there with nothing to lose. You're playing with House's money. We saw so many guys do that before. And I don't know that they had the same. type of leverage that Ilya

has right now because he seems to be one of those guys that is on the verge of becoming the champion. So what's next for Tuporia? I believe and I'm not talking from any knowledge. I believe it's Charles Olavera. And let me

tell you why. You match up Tuporio and Olavera. They fight relatively soon. Islam is in Ramadan. They don't want to fight in Ramadan. He doesn't want to train the Ramadan. Obviously, you guys no Ramadan from the moment the sun comes up to when the sun sets, these guys can't eat, can't drink, they can't take in anything.

So training is almost impossible. So that pushes Makachev back to the end of Ramadan, right? It would seem as though Makachev will be ready to fight by October in Abu Dhabi. And if he is, you match Ilya versus Olivaura, early. Sometime in the spring, you make them fight with the guarantee that one of these guys gets a title fight. Because right now it's Charles. Charles is next. But when you introduce to pour you into the equation, things get a little bit convoluted and a little bit unsure. It's not as defined as it might have been before because Ilius looks so good in his time at featherweight.

So I say you match these two dudes up. Guys, every May we tend to a little bit for a main event, right? Two years, a couple years ago, we watched Amanda Nunes fight against Irene Aldana in Canada. Last year, we had Sehudo and Al Jermaine Sterling in New Jersey. In May, there's usually a pay-per-view that doesn't have the biggest names. This is one of those fights that you could do as a pay-per-view main event that doesn't even need a title.

If you do Tuporia versus Charles Oliva, everybody, taps it. Everybody taps it. It's an amazing fight. And I believe it would truly bring some stability to what now is going to be the lightweight division. Malkachev doesn't seem to want to fight him right now. His manager, Rizvon Megamatov said he needs to fight a real lightweight. Put him against Charles. I feel like that's Rizvon going, hey, I'm taking you behind the curtain a little bit. I'm letting you know what we're thinking and what we are hearing. It's clues. It's all. clues. Hell, Diego Lopez gave us a clue a few weeks ago that he was fighting the wrestler

by being in the Oklahoma State wrestling room. So he gave us a clue. We got to start paying attention. We got to start paying attention to what these guys and these gals are telling us and showing us as they prepared themselves for these fights. This is massive news, though. Toporia at 155 full time is real. And it has the potential to be a real problem for a lot of lightweights in the UFC. Put him with Charles. Charles versus Tuporia with the champion, a guaranteed title fight

in Abu Dhabi against the champ Islam Akachev. Now at 145, it leaves the belt up for grabs. Volkanowski is the right guy to be fighting for the belt, even though he's one and three in his last four fights. And Diego Lopez is an assassin. I don't know that I've ever seen anybody beat

Brian Ortega worse outside of Max Holloway. He beat him bad. He beat him up. The entirety of that fight. Maybe he didn't finish him, but he dominated Brian Ortega and earned a chance as a title. Here's where the issue becomes for me. I don't know that Volcanowski had one and three in his last four isn't supposed to elevate this kid because if Vogue loses, now you've got a legitimate star in Diego Lopez because he just beat one of the three greatest featherweights of all time. But if he wins, now you don't really lose anything with a champion leaving the weight because you still got a guy that has been really tied to 145 in terms of Volcanowski.

So it really feels like a win-win situation for the UFC. And it's in Miami, right? It's in Miami, beautiful town, beautiful fight city, and some of the hottest crowds that we fight in front of over the course of the UFC calendar. So that works. That works. But man, it really does kind of. suck because I was looking forward to Lopez versus Ily. I was looking forward to Vloya versus Ilya. There were so many young guys that we could have watched him fight against

over the course of his championship ring. Belal Muhammad is fighting against Jack Delamadal Madalina. Jack Delamadalina has an entire country behind him. He is the type of guy that if you can get a belt on him could become a true international superstar. The boss last night was having a good time on that line. There were 40,000 people watching that Instagram live. That's a nuts. That is an insane number for a person to be doing an Instagram live. Dana did it, announced all those fights. And I was like, oh, oh, hey, the Pitbull Brothers are now in the UFC. Dude, it was a massive night for news from the UFC. We get some big, big title fights. But I'm the most, I'm excited. I'm excited about Ilya 155. But he's kind of small.

Honestly, it's kind of a smaller guy. I want to see how big he gets as he has now made this move up. to 155 full time. Remember, Porre was a 45-pounder. He went up, he's huge now. Holloway now is 1-45 full-time, and so is Ilya to Portia. Massive news, big-time fights coming into UFC, and I got to get back to work.

The ultimate fighter doesn't stop. You want to take a look around the gym? Let me show you guys. Hey, you want to see the ultimate fighter gym and how this works? Oh, here we go. We got Bob and Jake working back here. We got Rosendo, but this is the UFCPI.

This is Apex. We're getting ready to pick fights, guys. Always behind the scenes. I give you what you want. What you need. Bell Wolf, what a beautiful camera you got. Let's go. Guys, until next time, like, subscribe.

Tell a friend to tell a friend that D.C.'s got a YouTube channel and that I'm doing stuff like this and taking you behind the scenes at the UFC. Until next time. Peace. Hey, guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin.

And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions.

Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it, but, you know. Tired and sick. Tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smike.

and friends, me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The story I've told myself can then shape my behavior, and that can lead me. to sabotage the possibility of connection. This Mental Health Awareness Month,

tune into the podcast deeply well with Debbie Brown if you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work to become whole. This podcast is for you to hear more. Listen to Deeply Well with Debbie Brown from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Hey, it's Edwin Castro, also known as Castro 1020, And I'm Kunky, his best friend and business manager. And we've got a new show called The 1021 podcast. I'm taking you behind the scenes on how I became one of Twitch's most popular streamers. We also love sports. And with the World Cup right around the corner, we'll be breaking down the biggest storylines ahead of the big tournament here in the USA. Listen to the 1021 podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human.