Hello everyone, and welcome to the Hammer. This is a special installment. We're going to talk a little bit about the upcoming UFC 129 card, and it's coming up tomorrow. And we're also going to talk about the Fan Expo and the Wayans, which happened today, and we're lucky enough to attend those events. So I'm your host, Greg, and I'm also joined by our co-hosts. We've got more usual. Dave's not here today, unfortunately, but we have Steve's here. And also, we're here with, actually, our roommates and friends from Taiwan. We've got Kai and Jess and Lori. And actually, we've liked MMA for a while, but when we lived in Taiwan, we lived with these guys, and this is where we learned to love MMA. So we introduce yourselves, guys. Yeah, I'm Kai. I love MMA. I can't wait to go see the show tomorrow night. It's going to be great. I'm going to go there, make sure GSP wins, and that's what I'm all about. Hey, guys, I'm Jess. Go GSP. I'm Lori, new fan, but look forward to the show tomorrow. So we thought this would be really cool, because they only do a couple of these Fan Expo's per year, and most people don't get a chance to go to them. So, yeah, we figure we run down what the experience is like, and hype ourselves up a little more for the show. I have to say, when I first was going to go to the Fan Expo, because I'd actually never been to a Fan Expo before, I was expecting it to be crowded. I was expecting it to be a big shopping mall. I was expecting there to be lineups down the block, just a general, like a Comic Con or something where you never get to meet anybody, and it's just crowded. But this was actually really well organized. I was very impressed with the way Dana did this, especially with how many people were going to show up to this thing. We met a bunch of guys. We met Dominic Cruz, was the first guy we met, and all of us met him. So what did everyone think of Dominic Cruz? Super cool. We met a big fan from the WBC days. Oh yeah, Dominic Cruz is amazing. What I thought was interesting was, there's these huge lines for all these guys, and he's a heavyweight champion, or he's like eight people, and he'll wind him, and he'll find him. Technically, he's the Bandsom win champion. Sorry, sorry. Well, it makes sense, though, because this will be his first UFC pay-per-view fight, right? So, he's still not as well known as he'd think. I mean, we've been WBC fans for years, but, you know, he's still new to the UFC, right? So, anyone else have any thoughts on Cruz? Yeah, I don't want to cruise with an awesome guy to go see, like, he's sitting there totally humble. You know what I mean? I think he knows that he's not as well known, and that's why he's more apt to be there, like, either with his fans. I'm trying to play by the rules there today. I tried to get a face punch in it, it didn't work out, he said he couldn't do it. Yeah. Later on, I see you know other people doing it, so. That's the most interesting thing is, like, he's not allowed to, like, fake punch people in the face. Like, is that a rule they think Dana puts that down on these guys, or? I think it is a rule that he's supposed to do, and people are supposed to play by the rules, but it just doesn't end up having with someone. Well, later on, when we met Bader, he gave Greg a fake punch to the face fans. Yeah, he gave me a good one, so. And we saw him give a couple of headlocks, and we saw him face off with a 13-year-old girl. And then at the end, Ron, she kind of freaked out, so. But no, Bader is such a nice guy. He was so personable, really friendly, and he's just in general a really, really cool guy. I mean, he was probably, he was probably the, my favorite fighter that I met that day. And I've been a Bader fan forever. I mean, I called him against Bones, which was kind of stupid, but. Maybe the only one. I was with you. Yeah, I'm not going to lie. But well, it's not that I thought, I always go for the underdog, right? And you know, if you have Bader there, he's an amazing athlete, then you've got Jon Bones, Jones, he's a phenomenal guy. He's a freak. You know what I mean? He's just ridiculous. The man is a freak. She's coming to L.L. Cool G.A.'s phenomenon. All right, that's what he should come out with, too. I guess I'm actually, it's too bad, Kai and I had gone to the weigh-ins a little earlier, so we actually didn't get to meet, we didn't get to meet Bader. Bader, yeah. We also met Clay Guida, but yeah, Kai and Steve went to the weigh-ins early. They got the front row seats, but Guida was cool, a decent guy. I mean, he was kind of fixated on, because they were showing recaps of the other fights from previous UFCs, so he was sort of fixated on that, but still a personal guy. I find with the UFC fighters, they're all really great with the fans. Like when we did our interview with Shirk a little while back, he was amazing. These guys are all really, really personable guys, and I think that's great. They're great ambassadors for the sport, and with a sport that has such a tarnished reputation in the minds of a lot of people, it's good to have guys who are good ambassadors for your sport. Oh yeah, they're totally amazing. We've seen guys like Chris Leitel, Pat Berry, you had show guns sitting out there. Yup. BJ Penn. You know what I mean? Everybody was doing their part to be good ambassadors for the sport, and I think they accomplished that today. Yeah, it was overall a really great experience. Who else did we meet there? We met Coleman. Coleman. Coleman. Coleman's great guys. Great guy. He actually gives a little sound clip there, which is good. We'll be using that on the show. Well, we are the hammer. Yeah, exactly. So I seen the guy, and I was like, oh, we have to go for it. We need the hammer to introduce the hammer. These guys jump through hoops. They go way out of their way to make the fans feel good. This fan expo was fantastic. Oh yeah, BJ Penn was with the hammer there too, and it was good. Mark Coleman can stop singing his praises. It was great. Dana White did like a big Q&A thing too, but it was just fans asking questions. Well, too many people are asking for tickets. It's like, guys, really, you're there to enjoy the experience. And I understand a lot of people want tickets, but come up with real questions. Get into Dana's head a little bit. Find out about what's going to go on, because Dana is a wealth of information, and getting a chance to speak to the guy is a really important thing. It shouldn't be all-- 50 people asking for tickets. I really wanted tickets, but can you give me someone? That's not a question. And you could tell this happens all the time, because Dana even made reference to it. He's like, OK, well, now that they know that I'm not going to give away tickets, half the line is going to go away. Yeah, exactly. But anyway, I think-- Alaska, we met there. BJ Penn. What do you guys think all about him? He was doing good there. You spent a lot more time with him than I did, because he had a super huge lineup. Yeah. And he was super busy. But hey, man, he went out of his way for us. Yeah, he definitely did. He did well. And the guy's done the sound by it a couple times, because he didn't have to get it done two or three times. How was that meeting Shogun just? Shogun was kind of awesome. I wasn't in the line. I was walking along. I think I was looking at my camera, and I looked up, and Shogun was right there. I somehow got to the front of a line that wasn't a line, and I kind of-- he's Shogun, can you sign this? And he did. So that was it. I tried to get-- I got a picture with him. He didn't-- he wasn't smiling too much. But I think everyone was speaking to him a lot. He doesn't speak English too well. But that was kind of cool, too. So we've got a Shogun autograph as well. Let that be a lesson to everybody, and Australian accent works every time. Going back to Clay Guida, you guys said that he was like a little bit distant and stuff like that. And I find that weird, because he's always talking about, I do this for my fans, I do this for my fans, and stuff like that. Well, he was-- I mean, I don't want people to think that he was aloof or anything. He was just-- That's my way. He was just fixated. He was just fixated on what was going on there. But he was really cool with the fans that would come up, shake his hand. He would go look, because he's such a-- he loves fighting. He loves the sport. He loves it. So any time it's there, he just was really into it. But then he was great with the fans. He was like, you know, anytime, so he took pictures with us all. No, it was really-- as I said, everyone was really personal. He gave us a bunch of extra autographs. Turned out the TV's. He would have been right there. He had 100 autographs signed in front of-- just take them for your friends. You know? I think we covered a lot of the fighters we talked about. What do you guys think about the expo itself? Talking about merchandising. Some of the awesome shirts. So expensive. Yeah. I wanted to buy some things, but-- and I love shopping, but I didn't buy anything. It was a little bit too expensive. What did you guys think about the UFC Xbox Connect? What is that called? The UFC trainer where you do the connect is that like Xbox thing where you don't have a controller and you just kind of-- it tracks your body motions and it's a game where they show like GSP and Greg Jackson and all these guys and they teach you how to fight and train and punch and work out and it looks super fun. That game's going to make a bowl load of money. Yeah. I'm thinking about getting an Xbox just for that game. Yeah. You're not the only one. Microsoft sent it some money. I don't even play-- I don't even play video games and I'm considering getting it. Yeah. So what else do we have there at the thing? There was a lot of guys who were all signing their stuff. What else did we see there that would have been designated just as the Xbox? Oh, there was never such stuff like people doing like almost like challenges and stuff like almost like ultimate fighter music, all sorts of courses and stuff like that. No, we didn't really check out any of that just because it wasn't on a-- didn't seem like a very expensive-- Well, we had to get to the weigh-ins, right? Yeah, exactly. Which we should move our discussion to the weigh-ins, I think. Well, first, actually before the weigh-ins they actually had the Q&A. Oh, the Q&A, yeah. Okay, with top of the Q&A. It's kind of interesting. They had all seven champions in the UFC all up on stage at the same time and just answering questions and doing a thing. I guess they've never been all been gathered in the same place before. And news bulletin, Anderson Silva spoke English. Yeah, Albright. Chael Sonnen was right. And he spoke a lot of English. The man can speak English. You know what? I think that a lot of the fighters who do not speak English have a hard time with the North American fans because if they don't speak English, they just don't appreciate the fighter as much. You know what I mean? The fact that Anderson is gone, that extra distance to learn more English and stuff like that is going to make a leaps and bounds for his fans. In my opinion, I think he's known English for a long time. He just chooses whether to speak it or not. Because seriously, that's what Chael Sonnen said. I honestly, I don't agree with Chael Sonnen very often, but I do agree with him on this point. But anyway-- But the Q&A weigh-ins, there's 10, 9 or 10,000 people in this policy and probably the biggest weigh-in. Yeah, Rico was paver. It was massive. Kai and I were--we had really good seats for it. It was really good. You guys came in a little later. Yeah. We were more at the back. What do you think? Was it good in an environment? It was a good atmosphere. Everyone was kind of pumped. Everyone was excited. It was a lot of fun. Even though we were watching it on the big screen and we couldn't see them, it was still quite awesome. We got lucky. We were right by the--we walked the building. We weren't right to the left and we could just-- Right there. It was great. And then, unfortunately, GSP and Jose Aldo, they had to get ready for the weigh-in itself. So, they left the conversation very, very quickly. But it was kind of cool. Rogan kept asking each champion how they would feel about facing the guy above them. Yeah. And it made for a few awkward moments, but it was pretty cool. I don't think it was--like, not for all of them. It was mostly like GSP fighting Anderson Silva, facing bones, facing-- And it's capable of facing bones. Yeah. And either/or. And with respect to that, I would have to say the only one I could see happening would be Anderson Silva and John Bonjean. That's the one I want to see the most. I would want to see that the most. And you know what? But I think it's the smartest one for each and every person in the situation, just because it's the most plausible, Anderson's not afraid to go up to 205 and he's done it well. Exactly. And, like-- Against people that he matches up well against. Anderson Silva's a smart guy and he's a very--he's a good tactician and he's a strategist. Rogan brought up Super Fight, you know what I mean? Like, the winner of GSP and Jake Shields facing Anderson Silva. What do you guys think about that? You know, they're talking about this so much. I'm not that interested in it. No, they're right. I don't think GSP needs to move up to prove he's the best. Like, he's already the best welterweight, he's already one of the best fighters. I don't need to see him go up there and face the energy system. And he is not--I mean, he's not really cleared the division out completely. There are guys--Walterweight is getting stronger and stronger by the day. I want to see Carl's conduct in a shot. Condit. You've got--like, there are guys there like--like, Campman, like there's--the welterweight division is-- Campman needs to win. He needs to win a little bit more, obviously. But Diego Sanchez has been on a run. Like, I mean, I'm not saying that these guys can be GSP, but I'm saying that BJ Pence revitalized John Fitch deserves another shot. There are guys in the division still to face. So there's no point in taking him out of the division to do this. Exactly. And you've got guys like Mayhem Miller, you know what I mean? They're showing him on the clips getting his ass beat by Jake Shields. But if anybody ever watched that fight, if nobody watched that fight, and you're just watching that, it looks like he killed Mayhem Miller. Not Miller had that fight won until the last round, in the last 15 seconds. Yeah, totally. And also on that, now that they've got strike force, Nick Diaz can come over and face GSP almost at any time. That's a huge fight. Why do you need to leave the division until he has that fight? That's golden. That fight has to happen. Even if that fight doesn't happen, I think it's going to be bad for the welterweight division if they actually take down their welterweight champ. Well, then you're like, "Oh, Carl's conduct face John Fitch for the vacant title. Who cares about that?" Like, now you're the champ who couldn't be GSP, but the thing is, I don't think he would actually leave. I think it would be a super fight situation, but I think you're just going to do damage to the welterweight division if he ends up losing to Anderson. Yeah, it's just definitely possible. Sure. If you move up to another division or you move away from a division, you have to stay there. And that's one of the problems that, well, Dave's had this problem, too, with Anderson Silva forever. The fact that you go up, you fight for something, and then you just go back down to your, and it's not even for the title, it's ridiculous. If GSP actually wanted to move to middleweight, and it made sense for him to go, and he was going to stay there, then I'm on board with it. But it just seems like a kind of a little freakish, a little bit of a freak show. Well, let's see what happens as soon as Joe Rogan starts bringing this up during the weigh-ins. People start talking about it. If they don't want people to talk about it, if they don't think it's going to happen, they shouldn't bring it up. Yeah. I think it's bad for them to bring it up. I think you need to stay with the division, and you make your belt strong by building strong divisions. Actually, well, I do agree with that with the welterweight division, but I have no problems with Anderson going on. You know what I mean? I don't know what you guys mean. He's a light heavyweight. He should be in light heavyweight. He cuts a ton of weight. I mean, Bones cuts a ton of weight, too, a lot of guys, too, but... It's not even that. I think, for me, I see them trying to force GSP to go up and have a challenge. You know what I mean? I don't want to see that. You know what I mean? With Anderson Silva, he's comfortable doing it. Yeah. Well, that's the way I feel about that. So how about the Wayans themselves? Wayans themselves? Well, we... Bendo, bendo, bendo, bendo, bendo, why could you not make weight? Come on, man. We have to be straight. We went from the Wayans essentially going out for drinks, so we actually don't know if he... Oh, yeah. He had an hour. He's got to do some spitting, get in the sauna. He probably did make weight. Probably, yeah. Covering alcohol. So let's assume he made weight, but also he was the only guy who did that there. But it was a fairly tame way in. I mean, it was... Oh, no. There was no... There was no chacrimony or anything like that. Well, yeah, this... Well, the thing is, I mean, what does Diaz have against Rory McDonald? Nothing at all, yeah. There's no real... There's no bad blood there. I think... I wasn't expecting any fireworks. I really wasn't. I know Diaz has been, and I hope he gets his butt. Well, yeah, that's the way I see that. You know what I mean? But if we're going to do this, let's just take a quick pick on Bocek Henderson. Who do you think Boy's going to win, City? Okay. Well, we called this on our show before, and as much as we want to call Canadians on this card, because, you know, Canadian show, Ben Henderson's awesome. Bocek. He's got to win this. Bocek is the only Canadian I've ever officially called against, and this is the fight I've called him against in, so I'm calling Ben Doe as well. Okay. Well, me myself, I'm going to have to go with Ben Doe as well, just because, you know what I mean? I think he's awesome. Plain and simple. You know what I mean? He took a friggin' spin kick off of a friggin' cage. He took a Vega kick. Yeah, he took a Vega kick, and he walked away from it, so you got to give with somebody props for that. And Bocek is a talented Jujitsu guy, but the thing is, I think he's outclassed to your plain and simple. Well, he's facing Rubberman. Yeah. The guy can't... The guy is... There's a reason we call him Ben Doe. He can't be submitted, and Bocek is a submission specialist. I think... It's just a bad match-up. Yeah, I think it's a double meaning, actually. You know, Ben Doe, Hendo, Kennedy. Anyways. Now, then, you got Vladimir Machishenko versus Jason Brilles, and on the show, last week, we pretty much decided that Brilles is going to win this, but we found a way to make this fight interesting is Kya and I decided we have to put money out of Vladimir Machishenko just to make this fun. Yeah, definitely. Because this is probably the... The janitor can help you clean up. Because this is honestly the least interesting fight on the main card, but hopefully the janitor helps us clean up. And they have Brilles favored, but you know what? I like Matty Hashenko. I just don't know why. I just do. I'm not going to give you an intelligent answer. I mean, he's going to win, but he's going to... Because he's a swab man, and he's a swab man. He's here on his chest. People like that. People like that. All right, Jess. Randy Coacher, and I'm a cheetah. Machita. You think Machita's going to win? I do. You want Machita to win? Okay. I would prefer Couture to win. I think he seems like a nice guy, just in general. I don't like Machita's style. I think he's boring. I think he's too calculated. And yeah, he's going to win, and most of the time. But I just don't like his style. But unfortunately, I believe he's going to win. Well, for all the reasons what you just said there, that's the reason why it took him so long to get a title shot. And if it goes the same way, it's going to take him another three years to get a title shot. Because what happened was when he started in the UFC, he just... He was winning every fight, but he always won by decision. But he wasn't winning with style. He was winning, because... He had his style. He just wasn't exciting. You know what I mean? It's just... But anyways, yeah. What about you, Steve? What do you think? Well, we all called Randy Coacher on the show this week, and he is by far the underdog in this fight. No one's calling Coacher in this fight. I want to see Coacher win this fight in half, and I think it would be a great double win. I know you'll want him to see him win. You're a force of willpower. He's got to win this fight. Or a sheer force of the fact that his style matches up well with beating Lioto Machita. Rampage did it. Couture can do it as well. Yeah. Okay. I can go with that one, I guess. Machita is still a... Machita is still a title. I still think... I still think Machita is going to win. I want Couture to win. Are you looking forward to this fight? Do you think... Oh, yeah. It's going to be great, because you know what? All that stuff where you got Machita trying to be elusive and stuff like that, Randy's the kind of guy who's going to stalk him down, put him in a corner, and he's not going to be... Well, he's elusive, right? But every time you see Machita fight, what does it say? Very elusive. It's like, "Okay." It doesn't say elusive. But what's going to happen, Randy's going to take the fights that he's seen right there. He's a tactician. He's the biggest tactician I've ever seen. How do I beat this guy? How do I do it? That's what I'm going to do. And that's what he's going to do with Machita. You get a little bit crazy, you know what I mean? You throw something out that he can't calculate? Machita? Randy's going to catch him, I think. And what I thought was really cool about this, the way the reception for Randy Couture was off the charts. I cannot wait to be in the building there. Well, people love him. You never love him. We had this argument with Dave, and we were both saying, myself and Steve, saying, "Quiture will get the second biggest reception at the weigh-ins." Because he is the only person on earth who doesn't like it. Exactly. He's like, "Hey, I'm in Chuck Norris." He's going to win. Randy Couture breaks his arm in a fight in the first round, and he keeps going. You know what I mean? You've got to love that guy. Well, sort of off topic, we saw Steven Seagull today. Yes, we did. He was there with Machita. So he taught, I mean, he obviously taught at Anderson Silva how to do front-kick Vidor Belfort. So I wonder what he's going to have taught to Lioda Machita. Yeah, what did you guys think about that? Actually, we're going to go a little bit off-talk. This is really tough. But what do you think about that? Like, you know what I mean? Whenever they were talking at the weigh-ins, and they asked Anderson, while Joe asked Anderson about his front-kick, Vidor, and Vidor, who has been talking crap, I guess. You know what I mean? Vidor could talk all the crap he wants. That guy got beat bad. He got beat bad, he got beat badly. You know what I mean? He just can't... That's just a horrible beat. The cocktails have been flowing, people. What are you talking about here? This is definitely the drunkest episode of the hit-and-roll fight. Yes, for sure. So, okay, Mark, how many Jose Aldo thoughts is so hard to bet against Jose Aldo because he's so good. Well, let's go weigh-in. We're going to talk about the weigh-in first before we make our follow-in. This is really interesting. This is really interesting. We're also in the fight, and I see Jose Aldo walk in, like when he had the seven champions up there. Yeah, and before he even stripped down for the weigh-in, or I think, he's in his suit, he looks sick. He looked emaciated, yeah. He didn't look like he was all there, and then Dana said he had to leave for medical reasons. That's what he said. He's got to leave for medical reasons. So, I'm like, okay, well, he's going to jump in the ring. Well... He's going to jump in a water tank. And the very drink. Second, that he made weight, he ran for the water faster than anyone else on that card at the weigh-in. Yeah, at that card. That reminds you of Tiago Aldo's before he fought GSP, when he had the big, like, leader-10-leader jam. And how did that go? Yeah, exactly. So, you know what? It's very positive. I don't know. We don't know for sure. We're just going based on what we saw. It's very possible that Aldo has had a rough weight cut. Yeah. You know, he's a fairly big dude. And yeah, I mean, maybe that could be the edge of the Hamanek needs. Well, Hamanek, I mean, well, I called him on the show. I can't remember. I call it Aldo. I call it because it's calling against Aldo's. I've been over for good odds. Yeah. No, but Hamanek, he has the tools, and Aldo, this weight-cutting issue as well, I've got even strength in my-- I'm going Hamanek all the way. I really think he can do it. You guys looking forward to this fight? Yes. This is going to be-- this is my prediction for fight in the night. It should be really-- Fight of the night. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big call. Hamanek had like my fight of the year last year. I call it Aldo's amazing. You see that guy fight? You rest down. You can't see a little guy like this hit like he does. He hits like a middleweight. Yeah, a monster. You know what I mean? It's ridiculous for the size of this guy, plain and simple. He's going to knock down. He's knocked down. He's going to knock down. He sucks because I bet on him because I won't be on him. And last on the card, Jake Shields versus GSP. Awesome reception for GSP. Awesome reception for Shields. The booze? The booze. Fantastic. When he was tried, they did a square off, and Joe Rogan was asking Shields a question. You couldn't even hear Shields' responses. The booze were so loud. I think he said something like, "I don't care if you boo me," but nobody could hear what he said. He almost had tears in his eyes. I think he was getting to him. And you know what? I don't think anything to help our Canadian boy. I thought Shields put on the good intent face, though. He was trying to look mean and tough, but he's facing GSP. GSP doesn't need any help to beat Shields. I don't think anybody's ever had a worse reception than that. You know what I mean? That was great. Oh, Josh Koschek in Montreal. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. But like, I felt bad. But Josh Koschek wanted that. I don't think Shields wanted to get booed. I don't think Shields wanted to get booed. Yeah. How about you guys? Laurie, Jess, which fighter are you guys looking forward to the most? GSP. GSP. GSP. You guys think Shields is going to win? No, we're not. I think it's going to win. I think everybody said that right at the start of this podcast. Yeah. Everybody was like, "GSP go, GSP go, GSP go." Yeah. So anyway, on that note, I think we're going to wrap things up. You've been listening to the Friday night edition of The Hammer. And we will be back Wednesday live on CFMU with the results, what we thought of the whole show. Yeah. So we hope to have you guys tune in for that. And yeah, we'll have a good week. See ya. Cheers!
