[music] Hello and welcome to The Hammer! I am your host, David, joined as always by my co-hosts and good friends. Greg, how's it going, guys? And Steve, hey. So, we've got a great show for you on Wednesday, March the 16th, as we always try to do, but today is going to be especially good, because I get to tell you, I told you so. Guys, I told you so. About six months early, though. About six months early, but I said 18 months ago, or 12 months ago, I said 18 months as a lifespan of Strike Force. These guys are not running their company well enough. I don't know if it would be more, but it would probably be 18 months tops before Strike Force goes down. And then, when Theodore and Melanie go lost for the first time, I'm like, "That takes off three months." I don't want Henderson to watch where he's shot at Jeep 2. Another three months. Here's another three months. Yeah. And what happened this Sunday? If you go back into our archives about a year ago, Dave actually, there's a show that actually says that Dave predicts the death of Strike Force, and he comes on and he makes a big deal out of it, and he was right. I counted it down for weeks after that. For those who don't know, UFC bought Strike Force this week. Their biggest competitor, a company that has 140 fighters under their employee, UFC has gone from being huge to being monopoly. The biggest thing you could possibly imagine. To be the only game in town. The only game in town. Down goes Strike Force. Down goes Strike Force. Well, Strike Force is a company, but I mean, Coker is still going to run it. All the contracts are being honored. Yeah. It's still going to be on Showtime. It's everything like that. It's not going to change, actually, for a little while. But the same thing happened when they bought WEC. If they bought WEC, they were running separate promotions. And then as soon as all the TV contracts and everything kind of worked out, they unfolded them into the UFC. I'm hoping that Strike Force winds up putting on shows that are as great as WEC because of this. No, Strike Force has been doing really well. When Dave was predicting the death of Strike Force, they were putting on some really bad shows. Oh, it's random. Their last four months have been really good. It was kind of sad that they were turning it around and they never got a chance to start through. The production value was still horrendous and the commentary was still lackluster. So, I mean, though the fights were getting better and they were still booking badly. They were still not like the commentary was still rough. The production value was still bad. I mean, it was just the fact that they had exciting fighters putting on exciting fights and they happened to be coincide with the few shows that are off. That's almost like a luck of the draw thing. Well, that is a luck of the draw thing. I mean, one of the most exciting fighters in the world is George St. Pierre. You wouldn't know that to look at his last two or three UFC fights. But if you look at the UFC fights who's putting on four or five years ago, the guy's phenomenal. Similarly, Anderson Silva, if you look at his fight with, say, Damian and Maya, is atrocious. If you look at his fight with Vyter Belfort, it's incredible. Well, it's what incredible kick. But I mean, like, if you look at the Anderson Silva of Damian Maya, that would knock you into an accurate impression of what Anderson Silva was. If you look at the Anderson Silva of Anderson Silva versus, you know, Vyter Belfort or Chael Sonnen or Chris Lieben, that's a completely different guy. And what I'm saying is that not every fighter goes out and has the exact same performance every single time. It's a fluid sport. No, but there's also some you said for matchmaking and Strike Force has improved in the matches of putting together just by them signing Diaz versus Daly for the title, like coming up. And that's still going to happen, by the way. You know, they've shown a real improvement. But they have shown an improvement. I mean, like, definitely they showed, like, a lot of great improvements. The fight booking of Jake Shields versus Dan Henderson as Jake Shields was already quitting the company to go VOC. That was amazing. That is before what I consider to be the turner. You know, Vyter Deum versus Vyter Deum versus Fedor. That was wonderful. For Vyter Deum versus, you know, or versus Overein for not the title. And Fedor versus Antonio Silva, that was pretty incredible too. Hey, the show's a bit good. But the, well, I actually... There was structural flaws. That was what I'm getting saying is that the shows were okay because how can it not be okay when Dan Henderson knocks, you know, Sabral into next week, or when Dan Harrison knocks Calva Conti in the next week. Yeah, that's great. When Daly's knocking out Scott Smith, that's awesome. But unfortunately, knockouts happen, but there's times when they also have a decision, "Yeah, you can't rely on that, you know, next week you hit up a man miller fight." Well, what I found really interesting is that they didn't... Strike Force didn't go into business. Like they didn't go bankrupt. Yeah. What I didn't know, and I guess I'd heard this, but I didn't really think too much about it. They're owned by the same company that owned the San Jose Sharks and the HP Pavilion Arena. Yep. They started off doing little small shows in San Jose with guys like Cung Lee and Frank Shamrock and they were profitable. Local shows. Local shows. But they were profitable. This almost became a runaway train. Once they started signing bigger guys, getting on show time, competing with UFC, the investors just realized, "We're not in for a war with the UFC. We were happy when this was small and manageable and things were going good and profitable. They weren't ready to put all their eggs into this basket and I don't really blame them all." Yeah, for sure. You've got to know that you're not going to topple UFC. Well, it's just not going to happen. You might be able to top UFC, because you're going to need to bring a lot of weapons to a fight. And you have to understand... You're going to need to bring a nuclear bomb to that fight. They're not toppling UFC. They're too big. They're too strong. They are not. But when I'm saying you have strike force... But when I'm saying you have strike force, you get there. I mean, you would need money, you would need fighters and you would need years of time to erode the brand. A commitment that these guys didn't have. And I was in the audit of the commitment that strike force had, particularly because unfortunately, and I maintain that this is true, if you look at what Dana White said, he said that the bio happened very, very fast. So you look at strike force, after being a local show for so long, all of a sudden spent all the big money in the world to get big name fighters like Fedor, like Dan Henderson. And then all of a sudden, those guys flopped in their strike force debuts. The strike force was not able to get on pay per view at the anticipated schedule. They were supposed to be on pay per view two years ago. They still haven't been on pay per view. And then, you know, at the same time, UFC just sold out 55,000 tickets in seven minutes in Toronto. Well, Toronto had a huge thing to do with this. Toronto basically put them over the top when it comes to bankroll and success where they're like, okay, we can handle buying strike force. Oh, yeah. Like, Toronto was the catalyst. And also, Dave does have a good point, like, paying for Dan Henderson, paying for Fedor. That's when the money guys start thinking, like, wait a minute, you know, we're putting out a lot of money if we need to return. We're putting out a lot of money here to get to put, we're putting tons of money for these fighters. We have to deal with M1. We lost CBC -- I'm sorry, CBS -- so we're not having our shows going to CBS anymore. We're not getting that advertising money. And we're not -- we're not -- anywhere close to being on pay per view. They were actually planning on running the finale of the Grand Prix and -- Eight months from now. Ten months from now. Come on, sure. But, yeah, it wasn't -- Assuming everything goes right, and Josh Barnard doesn't win all the way through, then you have to, like, have a fight in Japan. Well, and assuming people actually got out. Assuming people actually got out. You came in. Yeah. So, I mean, like, there was definitely a lot of risks. And keep in mind that for UFC, they're profitable now. There was a five-year period of time when they were running at a loss. Every pay per view, just throwing tickets into the wind, saying, "Okay, we're going to build the brand. We're going to build the brand. We're going to build the brand." Now their brand is super successful because they spent five years running at a loss. UFC was a five-night overnight success. They're five-year overnight success. Like, they bought it, and then they were in trouble for five years until, boom, everything hit. And I mean, even if you look at the Frititas, they tried to sell UFC at a couple points of time, and they were like, "They got offers that were so insultingly low that Frititas were like, "You know what? We're not going to take $2 million, $5 million to go sell our company." And they were right. And they were right. But they wanted to. If they were to offer $10 million, they might have sold. With the popularity of UFC came the popularity of MMA, right, in North America. So at the time when UFC was in their rough stages, they had that ability to just sit back and build the brand because they didn't really have anything, you know, in their way. Like there's no, a young company like a Bellator or a Strikeforce is not going to be able to come up now. It's just impossible. There's just no way. Like, at the time UFC was building, they didn't have a big UFC in the way, right? So they were able to do that. Yeah, the field was wide open. It's not open anymore. It's airtight. Well, that's true, is that now any company that wants to come up is going to have to pay bigger wages to their fighters because UFC money's there. Why would you want to go fight in mountain cage fighting if you can get a $5,000 fight contract at UFC? Well, I found it really interesting that while UFC was bidding for Strikeforce, and as they said, this thing turned around very, very quickly. It was sold very fast. Their biggest competitor for buying it was Pro XC, the guys who ran a lead XC into the ground. They were trying to buy Strikeforce and do it all over again. Oh, man. And I guess that would have been interesting to see. It would have been interesting to see. It would have been made for some great news, but it would be some incredible radio. But for the sport, it's better that they came nowhere near Strikeforce. Yeah. Well, I mean, ultimately, yeah. And so, okay, we've talked about this is what happened. Now let's talk about what it means. So we've got UFC now in charge of Strikeforce. Separate promotions. They're going to run it separately. They're going to still let Strikeforce run at their contracts. But let's get into the nitty gritty because I know we all want to talk about it. First of all, let's talk about who's good, who's okay and who's screwed. You know who's screwed? Paul Daley. Paul Daley was happy to be in Strikeforce because UFC doesn't want to touch him. But you know what? He's under contract with him right now. That's the thing. He's under contract. It's a decent contract. I mean, Strikeforce signed him for a good chunk of change. So he's okay for a little while. Well, the hilarious thing is though, Dana White came out and said, you know, for guys that were previously banned from the UFC, we're not going to take action against them because they're in Strikeforce. We'll be fine with Barnette. We'll be fine with Daley. But then Daley came out and started talking smack on Twitter saying, I don't want to work for a Zufa. I don't want to work for Dana White. I'd rather go fight in Bama. I'd rather they fired me. Well, dude, if you're going to say that to Dana White, guess what? You're probably on Boral Time, my friend. Why? You know, you're going to call the guy out and spit on his shoes. He's probably going to be like, well, he's still like, they still have to honor the contract, though. I mean, Paul Daley's got to know that- Paul Daley does not have an exclusive contact, which guarantees him fights on a certain time-less threshold. He's allowed to fight in other promotions, which means that there's no guarantee that he has to fight at a certain rate of time, most like cyborgs, been like two years between fights. But this goes for almost every, almost every Strikeforce fighter has deals where they can fight in other promotions. But him talking trash on Twitter is not going to change that. No. What I'm saying is I think you can say, you know what? I don't feel like we're going to schedule any fights. Yeah, so he'll go fight for somebody else. Yeah. And while still under contract, and they still, at some point, have to give him a Strikeforce fight. No, no. And if he wins a belt, the belt's already, the belt's already, that match is made. Exactly. He's already got a title shot. So that's going to be the big money. What are you going to do not have your champion fight, and then it looks Mickey Mouse all over again. So it's over him all over again. That we want to see that. The Reiner's book that tickets are sold. Yeah. Paul Daley's fighting. He will get good money for that. And even if he does, it's going to be a great fight, and the tickets are sold and it's going to draw some money. What if he wins your belt? Yeah. That's his thing. Daley takes business very, very seriously. And if Daley wins a belt, I managed that Daley will suck it up. But if Daley loses the belt to Diaz, if Diaz beats him, I mean, don't expect a lot of mercy from Daley White, my friend, not even after you've been trash talking him. Take the course of Barnett, Barnett, who was previously banned by USC, he's come up being like, oh, this is great. I've always respected Dana. I mean, like, you know, sometimes we disagree, but really, Dana's pretty metal and we're metal. And we're metal. Barnett and Daley are different scenarios, though. Daley's got, Barnett's got a really checkered past. He doesn't have as many options as Daley does. True. Daley is still in demand, and he's got a title shot. Barnett doesn't have, like, Barnett's in the tournament, which he's not going to win. Let's face him right now. He can't fight in, like, three different countries or whatever. I don't even know what. So what do you guys think about this? Scott Coker, who's the old and current runner of Strike Force, he's going to have a budget that Dana's essentially going to give him, and he can use to bid on fighters who were not under contract. And if a UFC fighter gets cut, he can bid on them. He can open it. Do you think this is actually going to last? Or do you think Dana's just going to pick and choose where guys go? I think it'll last for a little bit of time, and I think it's going to end up with Dana just picking and choosing where guys go. What's the stop, Dana, from taking Elisor over him and Nick Diaz and all the guys he wants in the UFC, and then the guys you would send Joe Daddies Stevenson down to Strike Force because you got nothing for him. Well, yeah, well, the depth of the thing is, though, the depth of the UFC roster right now, yes, you can trim. You can trim some guys off and send the Strike Force, but is there really any room for over him in the heavyweight division? Is there really any room for Nick Diaz in the welterweight division like this? You've got to think, well, Dana's got to show some loyalty to the UFC guys who've been grinding away and putting on great shows. There's the odd Strike Force guy that's probably going to move over, but I don't think Dana's in any hurry. He's got deep rosters in all divisions. Well, no, I agree, but the thing is, if you look at the WC, people are like, "God, they're never going to merge the WC middleweights until they didn't UFC middleweights." Guess who the number one contender is in the USC middleweight division right now? Chill Son, formerly from WEC, you know, Condits in there too. But the depth of the roster wasn't at the level that it is now. Right. But I mean, ultimately, yeah, they merged all those guys in, and I would have to imagine that they'll follow the WC model because the WC model worked. They'll say, "You know what, Koker? You can pick your own fighters for a little bit of time, much like they did with the WC." And then after a bit of time, they're going to say, "You know what, Koker? We're going to pick your fighters, and you're going to just book them, and they're going to say, "You know what, Koker? We're going to pick your fighters, and we're going to book your fighters, and we're just going to pay you." Yeah. Now the show goals. The show. On your contracts. Yeah. Well, if Koker shows himself to be, to have a little bit of, you know, wherewithal, there's some knowledge and does a good job, then why send him golfing? That's very important. They wouldn't have sent him golfing, but I mean, you need a lot of wherewithal to be better than the guys that were doing WC, not to mention Joe Silva. These guys are really, really good at this kind of... Silva's great, but I mean, the guy who is, I mean, whoever's organizing WC had a lot of gold to work with. I mean, it was impossible to make a bad WC fight. Now here's the deal with the showtime contract. It goes till 2014, unless something changes and the showtime doesn't renew it. That's three years they could run like this with Koker calling the shots and them doing this, and then eventually it's going to happen. The unification matches. You think Zufa wants 14 championships? Oh, God no. I mean, it's going to merge in. As soon as that contracts up, it's probably going to merge in. The other thing is, I honestly don't think that Dana really did this for the fighters or to control the competition or anything like that. I don't think he gives a damn if he gets fatal or overing or Henderson back or anything like that. I think what he wants is that showtime and CBC contract, because first of all, I'm sorry, the CBS contract, because the CBS contract, if he managed to get it back, CBS wants to run mixed martial arts, they just don't trust Strike Force because Strike Force screwed around on their shows. They're right now, too. I don't think showtime's as big a deal only because they don't have nearly the reach. They already have the best deal on earth with Spike TV. Right. But there's Spike TV contract is up for negotiation this year. It comes up for negotiation periodically. If you're going to diversify your market, which you have to do, why not have two different activities? Absolutely. It's a bargaining chip. You can say you can get more money out of Spike to be like, "Okay, cool." But the other thing is, showtime also carries boxing. So Stan White's real rival, boxing, that's the brand he's trying to kill. That's the sport he's trying to kill. He's almost killing it. He's got a boot on the chest on that one. Yeah. And now he owns the company. Boxing's about four or five feet on earth. He's the only place that's still showing boxing now is showtime and HBO. Well, Dana just got in on showtime. Yeah. Well, it's a nice outlet for UFC, but I mean, not very many people have showtime in the big scheme of things, so it can never be their first network. It can be. But as a secondary network, it's... It's an important secretary in the secondary network. I definitely think it's better than versus, but it's a good shot. Well, way more people have verses than have showtime. Yeah. You get verses for free. You have to pay for showtime. But I still think that this is about taking a shot at CBS, seeing if they can get that contract, and more importantly, taking a shot at boxing as a sport. Well, I think this is like not taking the cookie that's on the counter. I mean, it's been... Yeah. Like, they were selling it for a reasonable price. Dana's got the money. He probably just bought it. He probably was like, "Why not?" If anything, if anything, what he's going to do with it. If anything, you've avoided Strike Force running a pay-per-view on the time of your pay-per-view, so you just get a little bit of money that way. I mean, it's all win-win. Yeah. So, just a few like quick little facts about this whole merger. Showtime is still going to continue to pick the announcers they always have, so we're not going to be rid of Mar-O-R-Nol-R-O. Well, likely. Boo. It won't be... The fights won't be in an octagon. They're going to be in the same hexagonal cage. However, they are adopting the UFC unified mixed martial arts rules. Elbows on the ground. Elbows on the ground. Elbows on the ground. So, you've previously seen Antonio Bigfoot Silva having to posture up and drop those hammer fists. Yeah. Now, you're going to see him be able to use elbows. That's going to be scary. Same with Oven, same Peru. Yep. He's another guy. Elbows would help his gain significantly. Mm-hmm. So, one last little question about this. Do you guys think the women's division is doomed? I think they're in serious serious trouble. I really hope not. I don't know. What's their contracts for now? They're all under contract. Everything's gold. But once all the women's contracts run out, if there was ever a reason for Cyborg to go to the WWE and for Gina Cronard to go back to Hollywood, this is a good reason. Well, I mean, Dana has said before, you know, he doesn't like to see women fight and he doesn't want to run women's mixed martial arts. He's certainly not going to bring those girls over into the UFC when that merger happens. The best is you'll have UFC beat men's and some Strike Force B women's. But realistically, if I was a female competitor in mixed martial arts at this point, look for Bellator, look for a different brand, look for, you know, it's unfortunate because right now, Japanese MMA is running, is drying out. Yeah. So that's not an option. Oh yeah. Sengoku just went out of business this week. Sengoku went out of business. Sengoku went out of business. Our team were. Our team were. Sengoku went out of business. There's also that matter of the big earthquake that just hits. So anything that's going to go on, I mean, they've already, they canceled the figure skating championship. So they're, any fighting events aren't going to happen. Realistically, if I was, you know, a marvelous Conan, I wouldn't be saying they're going, like, well, you know, I could probably go to Japan. No, you can't. Nope. You got to either hope you can make it big at M1, Bellator, or that Dana White goes back on what he's previously stated and allows women to compete. I think, I think that women's division is going to be around for a little while. I don't, I don't see Dana having any thoughts of saying, oh, well, we just have to get rid of it. Because I said a few months ago that women shouldn't fight an MMA, I'm just going to whatever. I'm just going to eliminate this, this division. Like that's, that's rad. Dana Stilich, he's a considered guy. I don't think he's going to fire everyone right away because that looks so bad. I don't want to kill so many female fans to be ridiculous. Yeah. Saying that I think that eventually when they merge in Strike Force and UFC, I don't see them running 15 titles, seven men's divisions and five women's divisions. I completely don't see that happening. It's as long as the Strike Force brand is around, I think the women will be okay. But once they merge all the UFC and it's inevitable, it's going to happen. It may be two years. It may be 10 years, but it's going to happen then the women, they've got that long to figure out what else they're going to do. Yeah. So if you're Gina Crowno, like, you either look for a movie or look for a bikini because your career in the UFC is going to be a ring girl, they're not going to have you fighting. Yeah. It's unfortunate. That's the unfortunate truth. I love Gina Crowno, but I would learn a bikini. I love women's MMA, so. All right. So we're going to move on. I think we've talked a little bit about Strike Force and the UFC, but we're going to continue with that in the future. We'll have a lot more to say about that in the coming weeks. But now we're going to move on to the other important news of the week, which is what we really want to talk about. UFC 128 this Saturday, Light Heavyweight Championship bout, Mauricio Shogun Hua versus John Ballons Jones. Now John Ballons Jones, he's the man of destiny in the Light Heavy Division. He's been a longtime common for him to get his first title shot. Mauricio Shogun Rua, Shogun is the man of history in the Light Heavyweight Division. He's been consistently one of the best in the division, consistently considered one of the best in the division. In multiple organizations. Multiple organizations. And Ballons got sort of lucky, sort of deserved it, but he, six weeks ago, he won a fight. Rashad pulled out. He got dropped into this on super short notice. And he's the favorite. Yeah. He's the betting favorite to win this fight. He's progged half the division. I think that, I mean, this is going to be an awesome fight, and it's a really, really close fight to call. I think Jones deserves the title. I think he is ready for the title shot. But I don't think it was pushed or rushed. And I think that beating Bader was enough to get him there. So I think it's earned. I think it's earned definitely. It's earned. He's on a huge win streak. Now let's go into the actual fight though. John Bones Jones is going to have a huge sized advantage. He's going to have a pretty good corner. He's going to have a really, really good length advantage in reach and advantage in wrestling ability, which is something that Shogun Rua has previously struggled with. Shogun Rua, on the other hand, is a far more powerful and technical striker than anyone that Bones has fought as far as I can tell. This is the hardest fight that Bones has ever had by far. Oh yeah. Here's my thing though. And Shogun is so, so dangerous, and he can very well win this fight. Remember how he looked last time he came off of knee surgery? That's true. Yeah. He was coming off of surgery and facing Bones. This is not a good day for Shogun. So let's call it. How do you see winning and how? You know what? When I envision it, I think Shogun can leg kick him and just beat him by experience and power and skill. I don't know how healthy he's going to be and Bones will not let up. I can, I'm calling Bones and it is so, so tough for me to call. I'm going to, I've called Bones every time. I have to call him again. I think, I agree with Steve though with the leg kicks. That's going to be a big X factor. If Shogun can kick the hell out of those skinny legs, then Bones is in a lot of trouble. But I just think that Jackson is going to have that scouted beyond belief. I think that they're going to have a plan for everything Shogun's doing and yeah, he's coming off surgery. There's too much work against Shogun and I got to call Bones. Well, I traditionally have not been the biggest fan of John Bones Jones. I do agree that he's earned the title shot and I think that his reach is going to give tremendous problems to Shogun. I think his wrestling game is incredible and it's going to give him tremendous problems to Shogun who traditionally only uses his Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu just to get back up. With that being said, everyone knows I'm a Shogun real fan and I'm going to go with my heart rather than my head. Even though I know that Bones is the favorite in this, I still think that Shogun real can surprise us all. Shogun has got vicious, vicious striking. He's just violent. No one has ever rung Jones's bell the way that Shogun is capable of doing it. Bones ever kick Jones in the legs or body the way that Ruo is capable of doing it. I mean, the other thing is who is still a gym at Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, he's not an easy guy to ground and pound out. Yeah, that's true. This could be a five round fight. There's no guarantee that Jones is going to be able to put the guy away as easily as he's able to put away some of the other guys just fought. If the fight goes on longer and longer, who has been on a lot of wars, a lot of long fights, he knows how to fight you along, he knows how to grind you, those leg kicks and those body kicks and those elbows and the clinch, they add up. I have to say, this will be a more entertaining fight if Ruo wins. I think that he's just awesome watching Shogun knock a guy around. It really is. Just watching him tear a guy apart, but I think Bones is going to win and I think I would like to see Shogun win. I know in my head that all the advantages and all the odd makers go with Jones, but as much as you've always called Jones, I've always been a fan of Shogun, got sick with my boy. Come on Shogun. Yeah. So we go forward to the Bantamweight debut of Arai Faber and Eddie Weiland. Now, Arai Faber, the California kid, he has had a tremendous WEC career, a tremendous independent career, hugely popular. Yep. Eddie Weiland was the original WEC Bantamweight champion. He lost it to Cruz, but he's been on a four fight win streak since then. No, he lost some weight. He went way back before then. Yeah. Balls lost to Cruz. Yeah. Yeah. Chase BB. Yeah. That's right. I had to dig deep there. I hope I'm good. We know we lost to some point. Thank you. We don't have notes in front of us, everybody. So Weiland has been our four fight win streak, including his last victory, which was a massive slam. One of the most vicious slam. Yeah. That was on the very last WEC show. That was great. So Weiland's not really like a huge name, both of these guys to be co-main eventing their first UFC fight is pretty is pretty huge for these guys. He's no joke. He's a great boxer, great wrestler, but it's your right Faber. This is to all around awesome guys who can do just about anything in the Octagon and who have limitless energy and limitless durability. This is going to be this is going to be fight of the night. Yeah. The favor loses out when you fight bigger, the bigger tougher guys. He's now the bigger guy. When he breaks to hand, but he loses, he'll never give up and I think that this is the Weiland's great, but this is the type of guy that Faber is born to be. Faber definitely has a lot of advantages in this, primarily that Weiland very heavily relies on his wrestling and Faber is a fantastic wrestler with a group with a bit of a size advantage here. I think it's going to be a tremendous fight. I think the Faber is going to win it as well as my call. I'm going to call Faber. Yeah. And if Weiland has a weak spot in his game, it's a mission defense. And how many guys have you seen Faber choke out? Yeah, it's true. So I think we're all in agreement. That's how that's going to go. Everyone's going to win watching this fight. Everyone is definitely going to win watching this fight. I can't see this fight on most excitable because I'm such a huge Shogun fan, but damn I'm excited to see Faber's UFC debut. Keep in mind that if Faber wins this, he's taking the next season of Ultimate Fighter against Cruz. Those two guys have got some legitimate hatred for each other. Yeah. And this is a good way to kick off the Band and Wade division. Can't wait. So we go forward to the lightweight. We got Jim Miller. Yes. In 1902, only losses are by decision to Maynard and Edgar, and he's taking on Greg's second favorite fighter after Nick Ring, Kamal Shalarus, 702, the Iranian born Prince of Persia, one of the best wrestlers in the WC, and a really fun, striker. I love this fight. Yeah. This is Kamal Shalarus. I'm worried, though, because I am a huge Shalarus fan. I'm actually not a big Nick Ring fan, but I am the fact that he's Canadian, but I am a huge Shalarus fan. And watching him fight is awesome. The guy is a rock. He's an absolute rock. You hit him, you break your hand. Like Varnar broke his hand, his foot, you know, his nose, everything on himself fighting Shalarus. But Jim Miller is danger either. Jim Miller is dangerous. He's bigger. He's a wrestling machine, I mean, Shalarus is a wrestling machine too. So I'm calling Shalarus because I can't call against Shalarus, but I'm worried. Well, Shalarus, his advantage is that he's going to be difficult for Miller to take down on top, which is something Miller likes to do. His disadvantage is going to be Shalarus's gas tank. I've seen him get a little bit gaseous in the third round. That's true. Miller has got limitless energy. I see this one going long. I don't see either guy being able to put each other away. I don't think Shalarus is going to be able to hit a big shot that's going to knock Miller out. I think Miller is going to go all the way with him. It's a good decision. I do see Miller being able to win this one on points. He's just so active. You take the words out of my mouth. That's the move right there. It's going to be a great fight, but Jim Miller wins this by decision. You guys, there's a little side note about Shalarus. He's listed as 38 years old, but apparently he actually doesn't know how old he is. Yeah, weird. I was reading that on Wikipedia the other day. He's got birth certificate issues where his birth certificate is actually his older brother's birth certificate. He stated that he's closer to like 30 or, I don't know what's up with that. He fights like a 30 year old, not a 40 year old. He does other than the fact that he gasses, and that's the one thing I'm really worried about with him. I'm pretty sure he's actually 19. He's 12. We're not sure how old he is, but we know he's not old. He's old enough to beat the hell out of Jim Miller. That's all I got to say. What's that? Then we've got Nate, the great mar court, taken on Dan Miller, the other Miller. This is supposed to be Akiyama, but he's stuck in Japan. Oh, yeah, yeah. But Dan Miller, great guy to step up and take the role of Akiyama here on short notice. Thoughts and prayers with Akiyama, obviously, the situation Japan is disastrous, so all the Japanese fighters are obviously going through huge issues right now. But with that being said, we must talk about the mixed martial arts sport. Nate the great, phenomenal striker, pretty good at wrestling, Danny Miller, good wrestling. Good wrestler. Good overall, good wrestler, pretty good puncher as well. Mark Wart's taken this. He's do. He's got to get something. Well, this follows my general rule now, is that there's nothing on the line, Nate Mark Wart wins. Yeah, I guess. I mean, it's just Nate Mark Wart, it was such a disappointing fight with Ocami that he's got to come back and he's got to come back strong and hard, and I'm looking forward to it. I just go crazy. And Miller's good, but he's not great. You know what? No pun intended. Yeah. While Mark Wart is the great, I definitely think that if he was prepping for Ocami, he was prepping for Obral. He was expecting a punch for Akiyama, obviously, I'm sorry, he followed Ocami last. If he's prepping for Akiyama, he's preparing for a ball, a brawl. Danny Miller is a very different type of fighter, so this is a short notice fight that's going to hurt Mark Wart as much as it is to hurt Miller, because Mark Wart's a very game-playing fighter. And Miller is a really, really good guy who's come back after a lot of tough beats in life to start winning again. I definitely think that Miller can surprise us. If there's going to be an upset tonight, even though Mark Wart's a favor, I think the upset will be Miller or showman. Shellaroos. Then we go forward to Mirko Crocop coming back to take on Brendan Shaw, the hybrid, one of my favorite fighters. Now, Philip of it is obviously a legendary striker. His left-light kick is the thing of story. His reputation precedes him. Brendan Shaw, pretty good punch himself with a good wrestling background. Yep. Great training camp, and some really good sparring part of his approach, which does not help. And he keeps on improving. He keeps getting better. He did a great against Gonzaga, although I think Gonzaga looked poor in that fight. Yeah. Still, I mean, like Crocop's going to look any better at this stage in his career. Apparently, Crocop has stated that this is the first time in a while he's been fully healthy. So, I don't know how much steak to put in that. This isn't going to be easy, though. It's a Tito. This isn't going to be easy. This is going to be a really close fight. I do think Shaw is going to take control. Absolutely. I think Shob is on a meteoric rise right now. And this is another big win for him. Yep. I definitely think I have to agree with you. To me, Shob is going to either win this one by Naka or he's going to point him out, much like Junior DeSantos did in their fight. Philippovich, he's scouted. Greg Johnson knows how to handle Miracle Crocop. That's the thing, is Crocop, everyone knows, avoid the left hook, avoid the left kick, and avoid the left hook, and you're pretty good. Yep. You're going to see Shob circling to the right and jabbing. Yep. So, we're running out of time, Bob, what's the rest of the card look like? We've got Luis Kane making his return to take on Elliott Marshall, who begged for this fight. Kane's a great striker. Marshall is pretty tough all around guys. This will be fun. Edson Barbosa, he of the leg kick knockout, makes his return to take on Anthony Injakwani. Injakwani's got some long legs, but... Big targets. Yeah. Injakwani's very... He's inconsistent. He's very, very inconsistent. He's very kind of hit or miss. And watching Barbosa kick that dude's legs last time is not the first time I heard the Beatles. It was great. I want to see him destroy this guy. I think this is going to be Injakwani's last fight in the UFC. I agree. I think he's done after this. He'll lose. And Ricardo Amada on Facebook freedoms will be taken on Mike Powell, Kurt Batman, Pellegrino will be taking on Gleason Tebow. That one will be a fun little brawl. That's like good. Modern Facebook fight. Yeah. Absolutely. And then in the prelim card, we have a fight to watch, Joseph Benavide is taking on Ian Loveland. Benavide is an incredible competitor at Benton Way. He's a real pleasure to watch. He does not get the credit he is due. I can't believe this isn't televised. If anyone is going to make it up from the prelim card to the televised card, Benavide is going to be the guy. He's going to put on a show. He's a warrior. I mean, I've enjoyed every Benavide's fight I've seen. There are great fights on this card. I know. This is a stat card. I want to see every single one of them. This is maybe the best UFC card. Talked about him since at least the Griffin, the Forrest Griffin, Rich Franklin card. This is phenomenal card. So I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully, everyone will tune in to see it. Thank you for listening to us live at 93.3CIFEMU. You can also find us at thehammermma.com. Addictedmma.com and have a good week, everyone. [BLANK_AUDIO]
