[music] Hello and welcome to the Hammer. I'm your host Dave, joined as always by my good friends. Greg, how's it going guys? Of course Steve. So I've got an interesting little show for you. We're going to quickly review the results of Fight Night 22 from last Wednesday. We're not going to spend a lot of time on it because it's always the last Wednesday. And then we're going to go on to talk about the upcoming UFC 119 as well. We have news as always. What's the interesting news this week? So, for Fight Night, the main card that we saw on TV, Ross Pearson takes on Cole Miller. Ross Pearson loses his streak as Cole Miller picks up a second now. Second round, we were going to make a choke submission. Broke my heart. Yeah, so this was a really, really good submission. Cole Miller looked really, really dominant throughout the fight. Pearson landed some good shots on some exchanges, but Miller just used his height, kept stepping back and counterpunching him and picked up the submission on the night here. I thought Pearson got the first round though. I agree. He did, he does say he does some good exchanges, but Miller definitely had a good game plan here. Yeah. Then Jim Miller takes on, no relation, takes on Gleason T-Bao. Miller managed to smother T-Bao's superior strength using his good ground-gram and his good counter wrestling as well as some really, really strong striking, including a really nice jumping knee to keep Gleason off-bounds. Picking up unanimous decision victory, 3027, 3027, 2928. Kind of a boring fight, actually. Yeah, I was a little groggy during this fight, I have to say. Not the most exciting one. Then Oliverra, Charles Oliverra made his return after six weeks, take on Ephraim Scudaro. This one started out a little bit slow, and a second round, it started picking up quite a bit as Oliverra started finding his rhythm, and Ephraim started reusing, he had to ground this fight. In the third round, Scudaro made a wild charge. Oliverra managed to jump on his back for a staining, mounted, rear naked choke for the victory at two minutes and twenty-five seconds in round three. So he picks up a submission of the night that he shares the honor with Cold Miller. That was a great submission. Now Oliverra has proven himself a little bit more now that he's eaten an actual name, so he's lethal. His funeral is not quite a name. He's an ultimate fighter winner, and he joins a very elite company. He is the second ultimate fighter winner to be cut by the UFC. Oh really? They low-keyed it, he's the first guy, and the only guy since Travis Looter has a bad company. He has a really bad company, and you know what, it's because he didn't make weight. He didn't look particularly great, and his last three fights have been dull. Not making weight is a big, big accident. He's been losing a lot of fights. I think it may have been a little hasty, but you know what, they're not going to miss him at this rate, they're not missing anything with him. Well, this was a cast rate fighter 159 because he missed weight, and he didn't miss it by a little, he missed it by... He has like four pounds or something. Yeah, four pounds, given how much, like, missing it by a pound is a lot. Yeah, four pounds is your messing up. And after the Nick Lents debacle from the last Spike TV special, they're really worried about boring fights at the moment. Yeah, particularly because this was a boring card in general. Yeah, and he didn't help matters, so, you know, hopefully he made a bit of a start out of La Vieira. So then we go forward to the main event, Marquardt versus Paul Harris. Paul Harris came out looking to do his patented heel hook. He managed to get Marquardt to the ground and almost had the heel hook applied. Marquardt managed to slip out of it. Paul Harris started motioning for a timeout. One of the dumbest things I've ever seen anyone do in the middle of a fight. It wasn't just a timeout, he looked at the ref. So he looked at the ref to his own ankle and it was like he's greasing, he's greasing. Who takes their eyes off at an important point? I know, fight. So Marquardt took advantage of this huge lapse and landed a huge jumping fist. Oh, yeah. Followed by a whole bunch of other fists and the ref stopped it, giving Marquardt the TKO. Afterwards, the ref did indeed check. Paul Harris jumped up and said that Marquardt was greasing. The ref checked Marquardt's legs as did the fight doctor as of the outside ref. And they cleared it. As did Marquardt, he wasn't greasing. He really was just Paul Harris, his heel hook isn't as invincible as the guy fell. Also, Marquardt came in hot so that he would work up a good sweat. He said that in the first interview. He came in as a good sweat. Yeah. It was part of his strategy, not cheating, and Paul Harris later issued an apology. Yeah. But Marquardt, like, Marquardt has a good submission defense game anyways. His gym is really, really good. And it's also -- you can probably knock a scout on the first round. We don't need to be, like, all your energy received. Work out, get hot, get sweaty. Yep. Then go in there, a little bit sweaty already, and this guy is not going to be a heel hook. And the fact that Paul Harris went for that heel hook early, I mean, Marquardt's still fresh. Marquardt, I mean, he was sweaty and he was fresh. And he was fresh, so he's got the energy to sort of make his way out of that maneuver. Third round might have been a different story, but first round, yeah, Marquardt's going to escape that. And unfortunately, for fights that we did not see at Fight of the Night, Jared Hammond versus Kyle Kingsbury, it apparently was a brilliant little striking battle. And knock of the night goes to Brian Foster over Forest Pets. Now, Forest Pets got taken out about a minute into the first round, so. Forest Pets did not come through. No, that card was the lowest rated live UFC fight card they've ever done. I'm kind of not surprised. Me neither. It really is a weak, weak card. I love Marquardt. And I've obviously learned a lot of fans. But I don't spell Harris. There's no market ability. It's a weak card. No real contenders on it, ultimately, because Marquardt's not in contention for a middleweight nor a spell Harris. I got some news for him. He is now, but anyway, he wasn't at this point. You know, and then you're proving you it after a week spike special, and it was full of boring wrestling fights. This is the kind of thing that's going to kill the company. Dana's going to have to put his foot down on the wrestling. Well, you know what? Sometimes there's an interesting card. It's live fighting. It's not scripted. It's not scripted. I mean, mixing up the fighters, and maybe you've got a few different styles in there. I mean, as long as not everybody on a card is a wrestler, then definitely. But you also got to put wrestlers against wrestlers. You can't put them against wrestlers. No, why not? Don't. Whoever against whoever, I mean, you don't don't don't fix the matches, but fix the order of the matches in the paper. What I'm saying is like once in a while, you have to put a wrestler with a wrestler. You have to put a striker with a striker. You can't just put wrestlers and strikers. That's unfortunate in the way that the cards have lined up. The thing is that whoever is a contender should be a contender. I'm saying guys on their level, guys. Guys, guys on their level, yes. But I mean, ultimately, there's usually a couple of different guys in the same level with the exception of the top levels. Now, if you're a top-level fighter like Anderson Silva, yeah, you have to be ready to take on a wrestler. Because you're at the top, and eventually, a wrestler is going to get to the top. But you know what, Anderson Silva took on a wrestler and he beat them. I have to disagree. UFC was built on different styles fighting each other. MMA is mixed martial arts. It's different disciplines. Well, you book based on-- Just don't load up a card with nothing but wrestling fights. Make it so. Okay, well, this card will have these guys set and this card will have these guys set. You've got a few too many fights that look like that, then put a couple of them on your card with them on next month. Yeah, but don't start fixing in which types of styles are going to fight each other. It's not about fixing up one style, which styles are going to fight with each other. It's putting on styles that are going to have a semi-decent match. Yeah, maybe on your free TV cards, try and come up with exciting fights. This was a free TV card. That's right. But you can't load an entire card up like that. Maybe one or two. You don't do that in the pay-per-views or for contenders matches for guys that are actually trying to get into contention, but for free TV cards on spike specials. Yeah, once in a while, you could put Leonard Garcia versus Chang Sung-jong. Yeah, but that's WC. And also-- Every WC fight. That's great. But also, I mean, the guys who fought on the show, I mean, there were 10 injuries leading up to this card. Every single healthy, ready-to-fight fighter in the UFC fought that night. Yeah, there's so many variables that have to be taken into account. I mean, it's-- you can't start saying, well, match this guy with this guy because it's going to make a good fight. You've got to put guys in with who's on their level. And also-- Sometimes there's no choice. Immediately following the ultimate fight night, there was the premiere of the Ultimate Fighter with George St. Pierre versus Josh Costic's team, and the ratings were decent. So I mean, people were just like, I don't have any interest in this card, and they just didn't tune in. It's not even that they tuned out during the show. Just Paul Harris versus Mark Warch. It doesn't capture the imagination. It doesn't. It really doesn't. So we're going forward to the news. Yeah. There's a-- speaking of the middleweight division, with Mark Warch, there are big things afoot in the middleweight division. Yeah. I'll start at the top, and I'll work my way down. To begin with, Chilsonin, he who trash-tocked his way into one of the most interesting fights of the last year-- Yeah. His title fight against Anderson so much. The hard-working Republican. Which he narrowly lost. Turns out his good showing may have come from a lot of extra testosterone as he was tested positive in the post-fight. For steroids, it took him a few weeks to do the extra tests and figure it out. Definitely performance-enhancing drugs. He has suspended for a year as of today. And this piece of news actually made it to the fan. I was listening to the fan on the way here, and this is huge. These guys, their rematch, was supposed to headline a show early next year, January, February, and expected to be massive. Much bigger than the first fight, just because of word of mouth. Most people would say that's in their top five fights. Their first match is in the top five fights of the year. People are anxiously awaiting a Chilsonin versus Anderson silver rematch. Yeah, it's not going to happen properly ever. Yeah, well, he's going to be out for a year. Well, if you have to figure he's going to have to-- When he comes back, he's going to have to have at least one or two tune-up fights. Oh, yeah, for sure. You can get away depending on how the division looks at that time when he gets a year from now. You can get him away with one, because it's not like Sean Shirk didn't have a title fight on his return match. I mean, this happens. Is Anderson Silver going to be in the organization in a year? Is he going to quit and go run his school? I don't know, so is Anderson Silver going to take a fight with Chilsonin after having this to throw back at him and say, "Hey, you cheated our first matches, and you still didn't win?" I think Andrew-- I think if the opportunity is there and Simon comes back, I think Anderson will take the fight. And do you know why Anderson Silver will take the fight? Because he gets paid the percentage of the pay per view, and that's the biggest possible fight for him. Anderson Silver, rematching Chilsonin, Anderson Silver can buy himself a new house. Yeah. So with Chilsonin out, who is on the next on Anderson Silver's dance card? Okay, well here's the thing. There was a middleweight-- Did you say "Damey" in Miami in the booth? No, no, no. This stuff all just came out. In November, it was booked for Germany, a Yucheno Akami versus Vudor Belfort, for the number one contender after Anderson Silver, a new Chilsonin's rematch. Well, today, Vudor Belfort has been pulled from the card and replaced with Nate Marquardt. So now you've got Nate Marquardt and Chilsonin Akami. Initial speculation was, oh my god, Vudor Belfort's injured again. No, he's got the title shot in February. They're fighting Marquardt and Akami. They're now officially fighting for the next number one contender slot. Dana's Twitter, minutes before we came to the studio, was Vudor's not injured. He's going to fight Anderson for the title and the winner at Marquardt and Akami are next. I don't have any problem with that. Ain't that bad? I'd like to see Sylvain. I said even at the time that I didn't like the idea of an instant rematch with Chil because Vudor was waiting in the wings. I don't know if Vudor can win that fight, but I definitely want to see it. Vudor needs to fight Anderson and Anderson needs to give a shot to a guy who's a good contender. If it's Marquardt and we Marquardt earns it, which is entirely possible because Marquardt's very, very good, it should be Marquardt even though Anderson's fought only four. It was Yushin O'Kami who was also entirely possible because O'Kami's very, very good too. Absolutely. And I mean honestly any one of those three guys. And O'Kami holds a win over Anderson, so if I just call him the case technically. But all three of those guys are worthy, worthy contenders. Belfort has a striking game that's definitely comparable to Anderson Silvas. Marquardt has a wrestling game that gives him some tools you can use against Anderson in a great camp. And O'Kami has a judo game which is proven that Anderson is not like being taken down. Oh yeah. I mean they're all worthy contenders and they'll keep the division busy for the next year or eight months. Because Anderson is right. No, no, no. But I think you're right. Because you'll do Anderson versus Vudor assuming he'll win. And then you do Anderson versus the winner of O'Kami and Marquardt. And then I mean she'll son in free match a year from now. Well and also don't keep in mind Anderson's out with his own injury. Oh yeah, until February. So February. So I mean... Not should be the winner. Yeah. Like a year if Chill Son is rematched for it is going to be a year from now. That would be September next year. That's true. Yeah. You know it's not the first... It's not going down until February. I think the division might be just fine. Yeah. I don't see a problem with the division. And plus you have Akiyama and Bisping fighting each other next month. Yes. And Vondrolace still kicking around in there. Yeah. I mean I really wanted to see Chill Son in. Yeah. Yeah. You can't forget about leaving. He's on fire. I really... I mean given my choice out of all of them I would have luck to see another Son in match even if just for the build up. But the division will be okay. Yeah. And Chill Son in just like... I'm not surprised. I mean he stepped up in his performance huge. So I mean I can't say that I'm surprised about it. And I mean he's not the first wrestler to have allegations of steroids. Literally all of them do. Yeah. And I mean the degree of strength that he's shown in his fights. I mean he's notorious for being so strong. And being able to hold guys down. And it is kind of not surprising that he had some help in doing that. Well think about the guys we're talking about. For the middleweight division. I mean Mark Warts could have been busted for drug tests. Who else? I'll leave him. Has as well. Yeah. And I mean these guys I believe Veed or Belfort has as well. I mean this whole division is full of guys who can't pass a drug test. Chill Son in just another one of them. They got a juice up so they can face answers. Exactly. It might be that the only guys in the division who have not had allegations are Andy or Sam in the Wonderland. And O'Kami. Yeah. You know like these are the only three guys I could think of that. I'm relatively sure that they're fighting clean. And O'Kami's a grappler. So if he came out tomorrow was like you know huge scandal in Japan. I've been using human growth hormone. So it wouldn't be that surprise. So how much better does Andrew Silva look like that? Now we now we'd be derointed up dude. Now he can meet guys who run drugs as well. He's like he's like you sane bolt. He's just like he's just untouchable. All right. And the only other bit of news is Merko Crockop last week was poked in the eye while training. Oh. And there was big talk about him being pulled from this one. And it doesn't look like it's going to happen. First of all who do you possibly replace him with after he already replaced. Yeah. There's no one left. I mean let's go. Jason Brill's on speed dial. Jason Brill's it's Dana. I want like Mike Russo. Yeah. Let's see. I don't see him. I'll send Frank Mir. But but Dana wait insist that while Crockop did get poked in the eye. And while he has had doctors look at it. He will be cleared to fight. He's adamant that it's going to things are going to go okay. Yeah. And we'll talk about that fight later on in the show. Because we have to talk about the USC 119 card which is coming out this Saturday. Yep. So speaking of the USC 119 card in a smooth transition. It's coming up the Saturday and here is the card. Prillums we have Mark Hunt versus Sean McCoracle. I don't know either of these fighters well enough in the heavyweight division to make a comment on them. We have T.J. Grant versus Giulio Polino. Polino is actually quite good and very well rounded. So that'll be entertaining fight. Then we have lightweights Steve Lopez versus Waylon Lowe. And Tiago Taveras versus Pat Odenwood. Now this is the type of prelim that shows you this card. This UFC 119 it's coming off of like a string of huge loaded UFC cards. And this is the one that's going to get and there's big ones coming up. I mean October 23rd is huge the November card is going to be huge. This seems to be one of those cards like to happen earlier this year. The filler card. The filler cards it's the guys you've got to fight not a lot of star power. And even the guys injured and even the prelims show it. I mean these aren't even your top notch prelim guys. I'm sure though. But I think is with even with having names that aren't as recognizable though. I mean a lot of the time those can come up with some really good fights. Sometimes those are the best fights. It's looking to make a name with the most to prove. And the guys who can most use a $70,000 bonus. And these are the guys that are also a lot of times the most equally matched in skill. You know unfortunately John Fitch versus Ben Saunders isn't an even skill match up. This isn't going to end in a one-sided execution. Whereas like Mark Hunt versus Sean McCorkle. I don't know anything about either one of these guys. Which probably means they're probably even in this game. Oh Mark over there. Well Hunt here's a little story. Hunt is the I believe the first guy to ever fight in the UFC. Coming off of a five-fight losing streak. Oh wow. It's got to be a trainer. This is all fairly convoluted. But he had a contract with pride. And then when UFC bought all the pride contracts. They didn't use him or something. And then he still has fights left on his contract. This is a make good. So he doesn't sue Zufa who bought pride. Anyway that's why he's on the card. I don't expect him to win. Mark Hunt. Ladies and gentlemen. [Laughs] So look for the results of that. And then in the preliminaries of the card on Spike TV. We have CB Dollaway versus Joe Dorkson. This is in the middleweight division. They are highly reliant on this one to be entertaining. Dollaway normally is. Yep. Dorkson is too in his own way. This should be better than Nick Lenz versus Andre Winter from last time. Oh. So these guys are a fairly good match. And we have Matt Matreon versus Joy Beltran. Beltran is coming off as wins over Hall's Gracie and Tim Hegg. The epic win over Hall's Gracie. Oh man. That was the one for Hall's Gracie. Was that worse performance of the year? Hall's Gracie? Oh, not the fight as a whole. Him personally? I would say it's up there. So if you were to do the hammer awards right now. He would win worst performance of the year. I think so. He definitely is stronger than that. Would you combine the expectation with what came about? I mean, I'm sure there have been worse fights like worse performances. But when you combine the fact that he's a Gracie, he went out and performed. And Matt Matreon, he is now, he has two and all record. Yep. He is winning. He beats Kimbo and... Beat Marcus Jones. Marcus Jones. What do you guys think of him, of me heading out? I'd like to see him fight someone that wasn't a can from that season. Well, Kimbo's not a can. I'm sorry. I'll correct myself on that one. But I'll have him fight someone who's not from that season of the ultimate fighter. Well, I enjoy both of those not from that season of the fighter. Now, Matt Matreon is in his Kimbo fight and his fights in the ultimate fighter. His basic style was that he's a really, really big guy who's got a good solid chin. So he walks in your punches, front of his arms, until he both of your gas out. And he just kind of lines on top of you. Well, he's got bombs, though. I mean, Matreon has got some big, big shots. He's got a good shot. He doesn't have a lot of accuracy. So he doesn't generate knockouts that we've seen, but he definitely hits hard. But he's got his own zinni. In the second round, after Jones was terrible, terrible guy. So Jones just kind of fell for her. He didn't knock him backwards. He fell for her. Now, in his Kimbo fight, he actually showed a bit of a good submission game, too. He's actually really, really injured. Did he try to do like a triangle or something in that fight? Yeah, there's really awkward to see. He's just trying. Yeah, he is. But he's turning with the top team. He's trying to vary his game. He likes to say that he's crazy and he likes to be very entertaining. He comes in singing his own entrance music. And dancing and whatnot. Beltran is a fighter, too. He'll come on hit you. He'll punch in the face. He's going to love the swing. This is a good fight. Actually, isn't a bad choice for the Spike TV special. They usually don't put heavy weights on the Spike TV special because they want lighter, faster guys to draw in the interest. Sometimes a couple of big guys just punch each other in the face. That works, too. Yeah, it definitely works. So that will be what this fight is. And then we go forward to the main card. We have Melvin Gulliard coming off of his wins over Tibao and Sivir. And a loss to D-A-Z. Taking on Jeremy Stevens, who's coming off a split decision win over Sam Stout. Now, Stevens versus Stout. Gulliard even is always a funny watch. That was a very, very entertaining fight. And Gjard had that incredible knockout with a botany. Yeah. Oh, he just punched that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm calling this fight the night. I think so. I think so. It's the best candidate, I think. These guys are the right mix of guys with stuff to prove. Little heathens like a licensed to print fight at the night, money. Like, he really hurts. Although, when we get to it, there's another licensed to print money fight at the night guy coming up. Oh, that was great, too. But this one here, I think this is going to be pretty exciting. Do you guys have a call for it? You know, Little Heathen is definitely entertaining. And I'm figuring that was Gregson's call. However, I'm actually saying that Gjard, he's picked up so much. In a striking game, he's got really, really good counter grappling. And he's coming off of a great camp. He's really up to training. Yeah, he's training way harder. I think this is going to go late. I don't think it's going to be a first rounder. But I think he yards power, striking, and counter duress in the game. He picks up the win in this one, either by knockout or by decision. Greg, you say Steven? Steven's. And I'm going to say, I'm going to say is probably a good decision. Probably going to be fighting at the night. And I'm going to go Gjard. Well, I look forward to it, actually. Yeah. Well, we'll see. And now the other good candidate here for the night. Sean Shirk versus-- That's not the one I meant. Keep going. Sean Shirk versus Evan Dunham. Now, Shirk is coming off of his loss last year to Frankie Edgar. However, he is a former lightweight champion. He's got a very, very good reputation in the division. He has not fought in nearly a year and a half. He hasn't fought nearly a year and a half. I mean, he's had issues coming back. You know, the muscle shark has just because nowadays, competing with the steroids, he was so famous for using during the first part of his career. He's definitely not having the same issues of, like, overpowering the other fighters that he was used to do. He has also been plagued with injuries. His last-- he's supposed to come back multiple times over the last year and a half. And he-- oh, it's always like, oh, we're three weeks before the pay per view. Oh, he's got an injury. Didn't he, like, cut himself in his garage? I mean, maybe someone else, but-- Yeah. He just had weird injuries. Yeah, he's had a-- He's got himself golfing, really? Yeah, I think, yeah, Schurk's been a-- had a lot of injuries. And I think some of that might have to do with the fact that he's not on the steroids anymore. And one of the best ways is not-- I wouldn't recommend it, but one of the best ways that guys sort of cut corners to come back from injuries to take the steroids, right? Absolutely. Yeah. So that might be one of the bad guys. Hopefully, it's going off. It tends to make you more vulnerable injuries. Yeah. Because-- Well, it's a drug. Your capillaries are usually engorged. Yeah, it's a drug. Yeah. Any other drug it's going to have withdrawal symptoms. Yeah. But I think Schurk is a great fighter. And I'm hoping that he comes in and fights. Well, I'm just kidding. He's fighting one of the new Golden Boys with that promotion. Yes. Evan Dunham is one of the Golden Boys. He's 11 and 0 with wins over Efren, Escuro, and Tyson Griffin. Now, his win over Griffin was madness to watch. He was able to completely stay on Griffin's back in the entire fight for decision victory. He doesn't have a lot of knock-off game, but his ground game, his grappling, his submissions game was pretty solid. Now, that being said, I don't see him being able to tap the muscle shark. Oh, yeah. And I definitely don't think he really gets stopped. Yeah. I don't think he can stop the stop, Schurk, either. But I have no doubt he can win a decision. I think that I'm winning this one by decision. I agree. All across the board. That's what's going to happen. Oh, yeah. I put money on it. Maybe I will. Yeah. So, done by decision, that should be an OK fight. For sure. It might be a little bit slow, because denim is very, very methodical. But Schurk, what we'll definitely do is best to go. This is big for the vision, because either guy winning this can move them significantly far in the lightweight division. That division, as Dave always says, that division is very fast right now. And either guy winning this will move nicely up. Anyone with a record as impressive as Dunham's is just looking to be on the cusp. Well, I mean, you have the figure. Well, after Maynard, the two guys that got to be looking at it is Sodoropoulos and Dunham. Yeah. I think you're right. As long as they can get a couple wins. So, the guys they're probably banking on. And hey, you know what? And if he beats a former champion, steroids or not, it's impressive. And it makes a name for yourself. Yeah. Yeah. I think you could probably throw an A.D. as into that mix as well. D.S. If D.S. is a grain of Maynard wins, maybe even if he doesn't. But D.S., K. Florian, but after that, you got to be looking at Sodoropoulos. Yeah. Oh, to Sodor, I've been wanting to see Sodoropoulos in a title night for a while. His Sodor is definitely the next one. He's awesome. So then we go forward to Walter Waits and Matt, Sarah, coming back to fight Chris Lydal. This is what it is because Chris Lydal always wins fight to the night. That's true. These guys are going to go with their brawl. This is another contender for fight to the night. Although I do have, just as I always have with these guys, I usually have trouble carrying. Lydal's got a good chain. He's got a good mixed game. He does like to brawl. He's also got a good game, a good ground game. Now, Sarah is best known for his immaculate reception shot against GSP where he knocked him out. However, as he always likes to say, he's much like Gimli and Lord of the Rings. Although he's short, he's very, very powerful. So, I mean, he can definitely knock Lydal out. Lydal's known for a good chain, but you don't want to test that against Sarah. I really think this is going to be an awesome fight. Yeah, these guys are going to brawl. I think it's going to be really good. This is the one I meant. Yeah, yeah. But you didn't think Dunham was a shirt? Well, the second I looked over and saw Lydal on the card, I was like, "Oh, yeah, right." So, yeah, I think this would be a good fight. I mean, neither way, neither guy winning this puts either guy into a contender slot or anything. No. It should be an entertaining middle of the card fight. Yeah. What do you call for this fight? Honestly, I got to figure Sarah. Lydal likes to take chances. You don't want to take too many chances against a guy with a knockout power of Sarah. Lydal also has been a little bit reliant on this submission in ground game. Sarah is very, very good at getting out of ground game and going to ground in pound. He gets out of submissions and he starts hitting you from the top. This is a tough one for me to call. I have to figure Sarah. I'm going to go with Sarah as well. I think that he's got more tools. I think that he's, as Dave said, he'll capitalize on a little bit of a wild Chris Lydal. I'm just thinking of, like, I know Sarah's got the tools to do it, but I'm thinking, okay, you know, last win over an aging Frank Trig and that, I just think that Lydal, I'm going to go Lydal just to gut feeling. It'll be a good fight. I'm going to go Lydal. I just don't have that much faith in Sarah for a champion or not. Fair enough. So, then we go forward to the light heavyweights. Antonio Rosario Nogera makes his return after his incredible victory over Jason Burles. No, that might be robbery here. Yeah, it could be for sure. Uh-huh. Now. Good turn. Chuck down daily at the shark fights. I'm short-listed. So, Nogera, he's a solid boxer with a really, really good Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu game, as you might expect from a Nogera brother. Ryan Bader has maybe the best boxing of the division. His stand-up game is fantastic, but he also comes from a good wrestling background. He's not an easy guy to take down. He's not an easy guy to hold down. What do you guys call him for this? Well, not only am I going to say Bader is going to win, but I think Bader will have a title around his waist within, I think, the next year. I did we say this last week? Well, it's very reasonable that he could have his title shot and possibly be champion within a year. And Nogera is just a speed bump. Like, he's just going to slow him down for a second and he's going to keep going. Yeah. I mean, he might not destroy him immediately, but he will Bader will win this fight. I don't even think it's going to go into a decision. And, you know, and Nogera, I mean, look at his fight with Jason Burles. Jason Burles, I mean, really, he should have won that fight. And Bader's a lot better in Jason Burles. Mm-hmm. Well, Nogera came in underestimating Burles. I don't think he's underestimating Bader. I think he's going to know that the key to this fight is to get the fight on the ground and to try to, like, you know, keep oppressing Bader with his ground game. Nogera has an incredibly solid chin, again, as you might expect from Nogera brother. He's handled other strikers very, very well, like Louis Arthur Kane. You know, I love Bader, but I have to figure that Nogera does have the tools to win this, and he's a very, very experienced guy. I think he might manage to squeak out a decision victory over Bader in this one. Not happening. Anything can happen. It's a Nogera, but this is Bader's fight to lose. Yeah. Well, we'll definitely see. Interesting little note about Ryan Bader. He actually has a very significant fan base. He has a fan, as far as we can tell. In our hometown of Hamilton. A lot of people walk around in Bader shirts. Well, you saw one guy today wearing one. Which, you know what? Hey, if you're going to back a fighter, I mean... Whoever whoever that guy was, he got on the Bader bandwagon right the right time. Because a year from now, Bader's going to be like... You don't figure anyone's going to buy Bader shirts, so... Unless you're a real fan of Ryan Bader. I'd buy a Bader shirt. So, it's a good one. Right after I buy a boat. We're sure Bader shirts. So, anyways, and then the heavyweight bout for the main event, Frank Mier versus Marco Philipovich, Crow Cop himself. Oh, one eye. This is legend versus legend here. Frank Mier is best known for his career in the UFC. He's been a poster boy from the promotion for a long time. Yeah. Philipovich is best known for his career in Pride. However, since coming to the UFC, he's actually done pretty good. He's done better than I expected. He's adjusted to the cage pretty well. Other than that, that Gonzaga debacle. He's like, you don't expect him. I mean, the rules are different. He's older. You don't expect him to be the world beater that he was in Pride, obviously. But he's been competitive. And every fight that he's been in, I've enjoyed. And also, I mean, people are saying he's old and done, but he's won us. The last couple of them are really out. He's one way. He's three. He's won more fights than he's lost since his return. He's training Bader. That's not a nostalgia act. That's a guy who's still going for it. Pat Berry's no sludge. Not at all. I expected Pat Berry to murder Crow Cop. And the Dos Santos fight wasn't a crush. I mean, so, Crow Cop has still got it. I think he still has it. And I think he's going to beat Frank Mier. Really? Yeah. Wow. Okay. Here's the thing. I think about Frank Mier and what he did to Congo. And I think about, you know, like he has looked good in fights recently. And anybody can get annihilated by Shane Carlin. Anyone can get caught by Carlin. Crow Cop is a legendary striker. But Crow Cop now is not Shane Carlin. Oh, no. Absolutely not. And I just think that Mier is a smart enough fighter and good enough and well-rounded enough that he could be Crow Cop. He could be this Crow Cop. He might be able to beat this Crow Cop. Now, with that being said, Mier has slimmed down a lot. He likes to think that he's going to go for a fast punching game against his opponents. That is not the strategy to take against Flippovich. Crow Cop is a very, very good counter striker. His kicks are devastating. His left hand is actually quite good, too. Mier is smart, but this fight needs to go up for the ground for him to have a chance. And if there's one thing that Crow Cop is good at, it's counter wrestling. He can see he can stop takedowns for the first time. He stops takedowns almost no one else in the world. He's really, really good at getting out of submissions and going to ground and pound. So, I mean, I definitely think Flippovich has the tools. I definitely think it's going to be a fun fight to watch because they're two legends of their respective promotions. I actually think I'm looking forward to this as a fight more than the previous announced main event of Mier versus Nogara. Oh, yeah. I was the second that Crow Cop got put in the place. I was like, "Okay, I'm twice as interested in this fight." It's a better fight. This card is a good fighter's card. This is going to be a great card to watch. The fact that the buy rate is going to suck really bothers me because it is going to be a good card. However many people buy this show is going to be how many people will buy every show. Yeah, but I'm kind of looking forward to it. Well, with that being said, I'm going to make my call. We've got to go soon, but I'm calling Crow Cop this for a couple of reasons. I think his striking game is good enough and his counter great game is good enough that he'll be able to eke it out into the third round. Mier is very, very prone to gassing lately. He always looks tired after the first round. He's smaller now though. Even though he's smaller, I definitely think that Crow Cop, as much as he has his faults, he's a smaller fighter, naturally, he doesn't gas. He'll be as strong in the third round. I don't think Mier will be, and I don't think Mier can put him away in the first two. Now, I'm also thinking about the things surrounding this fight. Mier is that Crow Cop took this fight on what's five, six weeks notice. And he just got poked in the eye to the extent that the fight was almost called off. But Mier also took the fight on five weeks notice. Mier was preparing to fight the ground game of Nogara. He wasn't preparing to fight. Crow Cop was promised a long vacation. He was not training. Mier was preparing to fight Nogara. He wasn't slacking on his training. So, I'm going to stick with Mier, but I'm going to enjoy the fight. So, it's a good call. All right. Well, it's been a good show, guys. Thank you for tuning in and listening to us. Have a good week. Oh, and you can get a hook us up on the iTunes store, the Hammer MMA Radio and the hammer MMA.com. See ya. - I'll see you.
