[music] Hello and welcome to The Hammer! I'm your host David, joined as always by my good friend Steve, and of course Greg cannot be here this week, but we will cover the show as best we can without him. He's at the Tennis Games in Montreal. He is at the Rogers Cup Tennis in Montreal because he was a huge tennis fan. So however we are the Mixed Martial Arts fans and we're going to stay true to our fans and to you guys and give you some results and some news and some previews. So we're going to cover the results of Strike Force Challengers pretty quickly. This was on last Friday. So we had the Women's Tournament and then the televised card. The Women's Tournament featured Misha Tate taking you on Maju Kajala. Misha Tate picked up the win. Karina Dom versus Tomi Akano. Akano picked up a submission armbar at 2 minutes into round 2. Then Misha Tate faced it to Hitami Akano, defeating her with a unanimous decision. Colleen Schneider, the beautiful disaster, took on Liz Karmoosh. Karmoosh picked up the win by unanimous decision. Ryan Coacher made his debut against hometown boy Lucas Stark, picking up the Triangle Choke victory at 1 minute into round 2. Then Joe Riggs took on Liz Taylor, picking up the win by submission due to punches at 2 minutes into round 3. Now the big thing with this Women's Tournament is this was a 4 women tournament that was supposed to decide a number 1 contender for Sarah Kaufman's 135. We've got a lot of comments we want to do on the show. So let's get into it. First of all, this is a tournament they decided to go for the initial rounds 2 rounds of 3 minutes like they did for, they used to do for women's fights and they haven't done in years because the women don't like it. Now the problem with this setup is it's strongly, strongly favors a wrestler. A wrestler only needs to keep you down for 6 minutes to pick up a unanimous decision win. It strongly disfavors a submission or a striker. That takes time to win. Because it takes time to set up your game. Now this could not have been more clear in the Misha Tate's fights. She is the best wrestler of the 4 women fighting. We'll look at her first fight. I mean her first fight. Maju Kamrela, she held the woman down for the first 2-3 minutes. The last part of the first round, she started setting up an arm trap choke and the ref was like you guys are busy enough. You guys are busy enough to stand up when she had co-couge all in an arm trap choke which is terrible refereeing. You have to give somebody more time than that to work on a submission. I understand that the rounds are short, you want to keep the action going. But you just shot that girl in the foot. You know the Misha Tate had the submission locked in. Cozola came out in the second round, came out with some good punches, was really holding up against Tate. At the last minute in round 2, Tate got the takedown to clinch out the rounds. And because it was a 3 minute round, she got the takedown at 2 minutes, 45 seconds. Cozola just didn't have time to recover. So Tate picks up unanimous decision victory there. I don't think it proves anything. Don't get around. Tate's probably the best girl in this tournament. She has a favorite going in but this tournament is also strongly favorite style. Now I think she had a beat Cozola anyways. Cozola was 5 minute rounds in the first round and she had time to work on the arm trap choke. She had a choke Cozola. Oh for sure. But that's the thing. It's a total 6 minute fight. It proves nothing. It's too short. I don't like it. Now Dom versus Akano. This was a much more even fight with Akano. Really, really work in the ground game in the first round. Dom came out with some great strikes in the second round. Akano managed to get her down and lock in an amazing triangle arm bar at 1 minute and 48 seconds. It's a good submission. This is a beautiful submission. This is one of the best I've seen. She was so happy afterwards. She was ecstatic. What's her nickname again? Girl Fight Monster. Girl Fight Monster. Girl Fight Monster. Yeah. And she was being coached by Megamuyo who is considered the number one female fighter in the world at 125 pounds. And she won a women's fight in Bellator. So then they went to the beautiful disaster Colin Schneider versus Liz Karmouch. Now this fight happened on the preliminary card. This happened before the show went on the air. No. Yes, they aired it during the thing. Oh. They aired it earlier. Sorry. The way they aired it was looking. This is a fight that if one of the other girls couldn't continue in the tournament, then the winner of this fight. If Akano or Mateit was injured. That never came up. The winner of this would come in. It never came up, but these are still women that are considered contenders at 135. The beautiful disaster is 5'9" and 135 pounds. They made a lot of commentary about how most people underestimate Taekwondo in mixed martial arts, but just like Kung Lee proved, if you're really good at it, it can still work, which is unusual because Kung Lee is actually a sand shell expert and has never used Taekwondo as far as I've ever seen. Comicery wasn't great on this show. No, this is ridiculous. This was the commentators who were Pat Militich. In Marlboro. Pat Militich and Steven Walker. Now Karmouch again held Schneider up against the cage for the first round. In the second round, Schneider was able to back up and create some distance and land a couple of kicks. She did not. But there wasn't enough time. She threw a couple of flashy kicks. She did not. Nothing connected. Karmouch held her up again. And I mean, picked up the decision and win, but this is 6 minutes of a roster holding on a striker. If these were 5 minutes round or a 3 round fight, maybe Schneider could have come up with an impressive strike to win it, but the beautiful disaster just didn't have the wrestling game to hold Karmouch off for 6 minutes. No, I mean, she had tied away for an opportunity. In the second round, she was starting to get opportunities. I think if it had been a 5 minute round or if there had been a third round, maybe she could have come up with something. All the left got to say, but you finally get some distance on this girl and you throw some flashy high kicks and spin kicks and stuff, she didn't know how to win this fight. Well, she didn't know how to win this fight at this duration, had it been a 15 minute fight. Maybe there had been different results because Karmouch looked to be again a little bit tired, but Karmouch picked up the win and she deserved to pick up the win. This is definitely a solid win for Karmouch. And then we go to Coacher, Ryan Coacher making his debut against Lucas Stark. This is Randy Coacher's son fighting at 155, however, Coacher is much, much bigger. He towered over Stark and was much heavier. You can tell Randy Coacher knows how to cut weight and knows how to use his weight well. He has taught his son that. Ryan overpowered Lucas took the fight to the ground. Lucas jumped up to his feet, got a couple shots, but Coacher just kind of reversed it into a submission triangle choke picking up his first professional win of his all's amateur wins. He won five times. All five of them were about triangle chokes. He's won this one by triangle choke. So he's. He's a leader in the commentary. Yeah. This is his favorite submission. This is good at it. This is a, this is a something he's able to do very fast, very slick. Lucas Stark was just overwhelmed. He was not able to compete at this level. And in the post-fight interview, they mentioned that he should teach some of his submissions to his dad, who is not really known for doing a, for, for being a submission expert. And they also mentioned that his dad is a Hall of Famer, which I thought was funny because Strike Force doesn't have a Hall of Fame. He's a Hall of Famer for the UFC. Yeah. Well, although I don't really have a problem with Strike Force promoting Ryan as, as Randy Coacher's son because that, that could do nothing but, but help them. Okay. So we go forward to, um, oh, one last comment I want to make on the Krena Dam, Hitomi Akano Fight. On the first round, Akano almost had a footlock on Dom. And for some reason at the 10 second mark, the ref blew a whistle, which in judo competitions is traditionally a sign of stop. So Akano stopped. And they're just like, no, no, that was a 10 second warning. Akano's like, what the heck, you, you don't do that and mix martial arts. It's the bell when the bell comes, you'll give him a 10 second warning. You know what though? I, I got to say, I mean, every fight during this show, they were blowing a whistle with 10 seconds left. No, no, no. You were listening. This was, for that one rap, the three fights he wrapped, yes, but for the other fights he did not. That was her letting go. Her letting go of that submission was her fault. That was a dumb move. But at the same time, there's no whistles and miss marks with the large. Don't start doing it. If you're not a professional mixed martial art referee, go home, get her, get her some deems to money. You know what I mean? Like get out of it. I think if you're a submission expert, the, the let's go of a, the let's go of a submission with 10 seconds left and around, you're not very right. Well, but she got whistled and she got the, the referee yelled something at her. English isn't her first language. She didn't know what the ref had yelled. And then again, like you could tell there was other points where other fighters were confused. Misha Tate in her fight with Quijalla, when she had the arm trap in, the ref is like, okay, let it go. She's like, why? And then the ref's like, no, let it go. Quijalla didn't let her go. So Tate topped Quijalla and was like, let me go so I can get up. The ref is ordering a break. And Quijalla was like, oh, you tapped. I won. It was, it was awkward. And also the fact that these rounds were so short. Yeah, these, these refs were just not on their game. So we go forward, Misha Tate versus a condo, uh, Tate all was in a very, very nasty looking footlock at the end of the first round, but it was a three minute, three minute round. So she knew that she just had to tough it out for 30 seconds. So she did. If this has been a five minute fight, a clown might have picked up the wing here. Likely. But Tate toughed it out, came back in the third round and just oppressed a condo, picked up the wind, looked very, very good. They came out and they put the championship belt on her despite the fact that she won a contender's tournament. Yeah. So this is the number one contender's tournament. I understand them giving a trophy or some sort of prize to, to win her of a tournament, but it's kind of confusing when it's a belt. Yeah. So I don't know why they came out and locked the belt around her waist because she ain't a champion. She's a contender now. Also what I don't understand is this is a hundred, three five pound tournament. There was sugar free coater and where was Carrie Vera? They're 135 pound contenders. They fought. Yeah. Coater's not really a contender, but then Carrie Carrie Vera. You see less of a contender than Colin Schneider or Liz Karmusch. You see less of a contender than Meijo Kajala who's been in the game for nine months. Maybe they didn't want to be in a tournament like this. I don't think it's a conspiracy. What I do think is awkward though is that the interviewed Sarah Kaufman about the winner of the tournament. She's like, that's great. I'd love to fight me. That's fantastic. She doesn't have the next title shot. Yeah. She's going to get the title shot following this. Yeah. So yeah, they announced afterwards, despite the fact that this was a tournament to determine the next contender, yeah, the next contender is in fact, Oh, I can't remember who it was. I think it's money. Fair. No, no, no, it's not. No. It's not her. But I can't remember who it was. Oh, Marles Cohen. Marles Cohen. So Marles Cohen is going to cut from 145 to take on the 135 champion. And then after that, Misha Tate will take on the winner. See what the problem this is? We watch this tournament. We find a new number one contender who's just wanted to Misha Tate just won this tournament. And then the action number one candidate is Marles Cohen. And then yeah, and also no fear from the part of Sarah Kaufman. She looked like they were giving her brownies. Yeah. You know, she's like, Oh, I can't. She really, really tough. And I'm really looking forward to fighting her. She had an ear to ear grin. She's saying, I've beat this girl before. I'm going to whip this girl. No, she wants to fight. She's a great. She's a great writer. She's a great writer. She knows that she's gotten tools to be to meet Misha Tate. So she's like, yeah, yeah. And you owe me a fighter. Bring her on. Just just too bad that they can't do this this date verse coffin fight for like it. It's going to be like a half a year, a year away. Six to eight months, I imagine. So then we go forth to the main event a catch weight 182 pound boat between hometown boy, Joe Riggs and Lewis Taylor. And Joe Riggs goes, goes way back to like all these promotions. And he's really not that big of a name. He impressively, he beat Nick Diaz, their multi-way champions. However, let me say this, this is a catch weight belt at 182. It's the main event. You just had a women's tournament where you gave a belt to the winner. You put a belt on Misha Tate's waist, whether it was a good idea to give her a belt or not. This is the main event. This was the main event. You just had your middleweight champion at 185 pounds. Leave your company, throw his belt on the ground and leave. You're having a middleweight tournament to determine who the contender is going to be there. And you announced that Joe Riggs the world beater because he beat another champion, your Walter weight champion. You didn't have this belt at middleweight. This is 182 pounds. You could have said, hey, this is 182 pound middleweight fight because both guys are just under the weight limit. You could tell the guy who had to cut three pounds and not cut three pounds. Why did you have this as a middleweight contender's belt? I agree. And also, I really don't like the fact that the main event is a fight where these guys can't make a normal weight, like can't make a fight in a weight class. Why would you have your main event be a catch weight fight? It wasn't like they came in too light or too heavy and they didn't like, okay, we got to catch weight because somebody is going to lose his purse. It wasn't a catch weight fight going in like two weeks ago. What's not like this is Dan Henderson versus cigar massassi or something that's like the show must go on. This needs to be the main event. These guys are stars. These guys are nobodies. What's that women's tournament? Let me tell you this. They gave this guy the main event because it's hometown, which is insane and stupid. Home town gets you in the car, it doesn't get you the main event. If there's a belt on the main event, then the belt is the main event. Second of all, this fight was so exciting that between rounds, they cut away from the fight and did an interview with Randy Coater, a two-minute interview with Randy Coater where he talked about how proud he was of his son. Randy Coater doesn't fight in your company, dude. Why would you tell these two guys hold for an extra minute between rounds so he can go and interview Randy Coater? Because that's how people aren't going to change the channel. Well, it's not going to change the channel, but if they're going to change the channel because this fight sucks because it's a catch weight fight and no one knows these two guys, why are you in the main event? Oh, that's an excellent question. I don't know. That's Strike 4's booking. Also for the production value, before every single fight, I swear this to God, before every single fight, they did a promotional prepackage of each fighter. But unlike a promotional package where they show the fighter's fights or they show the fighter training, in every single promotional package, they showed the fighter looking off to the side as a profile of something incredibly interesting on the left-hand side of the camera, which you can't see, then the fighter would slowly turn to face the camera, then they would do three quick cuts going in closer and closer and closer until they just have the fighter's eyes right in their face. And then in the background, there was a chain link fence on a red background, and the background kept striating through colors, it'd go like red, dark red, purple, dark red, red. It was really hard to watch. This is the '80s, dude. Why are you doing this? This is how you make fighters look like fighters. They looked really, really bush league. This is terrible. I'm done with challengers. I'm at 13 months now, I think, with Strike Force. 13 months left on your prediction of the company being out of business? Honestly, with this level of production and competence, I'm a mixed martial arts enthusiast. I love the mixed martial arts. I go home, I read about the mixed martial arts, I follow the fighters. I love this sport. I can't stand Strike Force challengers. It's so painful for me to watch, because it's so bad, and it's so low quality. What really drives me insane is instead of saying, "These guys are such low quality. Let's get competent people, kick these bombs out." They're saying, "Well, these guys, let's promote them to do the actual real Strike Force shows." Why are you promoting these guys? They get no ratings. They're terrible. They're failures. Don't promote them. Fire them. It's pretty bad. It's really tough to watch. Although, you know what, that's where the women seem to fight, and I support Strike Force having a women's division. If that's where they're going to fight, I'm going to keep watching it, but they've got to step it up. I support the women's division. At this point- These cable access production values are- It's ridiculous. Honestly, I could put Better Show Together on YouTube with a Black Camp. These are on Showtime, which is a network that has a lot of Dexter and Weeds and all the stuff. They have Dexter. They have Weeds. They have prime time boxing matches. They've had pay reviews for boxing. You can't find a guy who can edit a video package. Yeah. There are so many reality TV shows on the air. There's Keeping Up with the Kardashians, there's Rock of Love, there's Daisy Love. You tell me that not one of those cameramen wants to step up and become a producer and can produce a video package of a fighter training and have it look good? Come on, man. Yeah, it doesn't help these guys. Come on. It's unfortunate. Terrible. This is nothing against the fighters, you know, but the show itself, Strike Force Challenges is pretty tough to watch. Also, something that's going to be tough to watch, there's the UFC 119 card was looking to not be so hot just from a buy rate perspective because it was both no Garra Brothers fighting. One no Garra, Rodrigo no Garra versus Frank Mir and his brother facing Ryan Bader. Well now, Rodrigo no Garra, big no, big no, he's off the UFC 119 card. Now the news. He's with an injury and they're bringing in Krocop to replace him. Krocop has said there's only five weeks to train, so he might not be at 100 percent. But Krocop versus Mir is actually kind of an interesting fight. You know, you've got a ground expert who thinks he's a strong striking expert versus a real striking expert. I don't mind the prospect of seeing this fight, but this is a tough one to throw on pay per view. It would be a very good free TV card if they could do it. Yeah. Well, Dana said that he was going to make up for the Demi and Maya vs Anderson. But he didn't say last go. He didn't say when, but if you're going to do it, man, this is the time. This is the card to do it. It's the fantastic free TV card people flipped the channels. Oh, it's Burko Krocop. Krocop versus Mir, who you've been asking people to spend $55 to see Frank. It was no fault of the line and no contentorship on the line. To see Mir versus Krocop, I'm skeptical. It's a stretch, but putting on free TV, you get a huge rating. And I mean, you know, this, it's an interesting fight for me as an enthusiast, but it's not going to sell. I'm pushing for a free TV card, but the real news that we want to talk about is what? Ontario. Oh, yeah. Well, this is big. Ontario is now legal on Ontario, Canada, our home province. So we managed to get it done in Ontario. UFC is coming here. The rumor was going around that they might consider pushing back Krocop versus GSP to do that at some point in Toronto. UFC has not actually said that. UFC has not said it. They haven't announced it, but that was the rumor going around. I'm very, very hopeful. Even if I don't get that, I'm just delighted that mixed martial arts is now legal in Ontario. We're giving it a chance. UFC has said that the next two goals are UFC New York and UFC in China. Yeah. Apparently, well, China is obviously the biggest market in the world. The Chinese fans are incredible. There is an anecdotal story about a group of fans that came all the way from Beijing for the fan expo. So I mean, you know, I'm delighted to get it here in Ontario. Hopefully next we'll get it in Beijing. I've seen actually seen some MMA in Taipei, actually, it's been to some MMA cards there. And you know what? There's guys, you know, there's guys who can fight out there. He's incredibly talented fighters, yeah. They actually have training camps out in Taipei. It's great. So MMA is going to be legal in Ontario. They want to do a whole bunch of like 10 to 15 events a year, not UFC, but run MMA events. There'll be local promotions and whatnot. And which is even better for us is they're saying that UFC has even said that they wouldn't mind doing some smaller cards in Hamilton, Ontario, which is our hometown. I love a fight night in our city. Yeah. And you can do that. WC show. I'd be there in a second. Anything we could do to help. Yeah. So this is kind of interesting. There's been that there was a steroid scandal that busted out a couple of years ago and a bunch of pro wrestlers like Kurt Angle and Bob Hawley and all these guys got busted during it. One of the names further down on that list and no one really knew his name at the time has now come out. Shane Carlin, busted for steroids back at the beginning of his career. These are steroids he would have purchased at the beginning of his career, right when he first came in and started knocking everybody out. Like what do you think? Do you have sex as a fighter or, I mean, there's nothing to say that he's still on steroids. Who knows? Well, I mean, he's incredibly strong. You know, a lot of the guys with pro wrestling backgrounds and that is Carlin and also probably his product as well have used steroids at some point in their distance past. I don't know if Carlin's ever been a pro wrestler. Yes he was. He was training. He actually knew Brock from the news training. They were, oh, I can't remember, I don't know why pro wrestling very well. OVW, they were basically the farm league for the big time WWF, Carlin was in it at about the same time as Brock was in it. But yeah, you know, competitive sports, steroids is a huge issue for all of them. You know, it doesn't matter football, baseball, mixed martial arts. Am I surprised? Not really. If I'm a little bit disappointed. Yeah. I mean, even bigger stuff would have been a bigger story if he had won that world title. You know what? UFC world champion, accused of steroids. Honestly, I have my suspicions about Brock. Oh, yeah, for sure. But, you know, it's totally guilty. You know what I mean? You know, I have my suspicions about Brock is Sean shirt was definitely guilty. Definitely. I mean, he was a when he was a lightweight champion. So, you know, Tim Sylvia was guilty when he was heavy. His sport was smaller than that. I agree. But I mean, you know, it's an issue for every sport and what can you say? I'm disappointed. I hope that the guys know better. I think a big thing with MMA is a lot of guys are realizing that flexibility and conditioning are so important. So I mean, you give, you get some strength with steroids, but you give up flexibility and conditioning. And I think it's not worth the trade for a lot of the guys. Chalk well. That's definitely about technique oversized. Well, you know, but the T.I. Well, that's never had a belt on his waist. Anderson Silva. There's a skinny, skinny can get and dudes pretty much undefutable, you know what I mean? Yeah. So. We move forward. Yeah, I think we may have mentioned this earlier. But Fabrizio Bergium is out till the rate 2011. So Strike Force is looking at that they're looking like they're going to have to do. Fedor versus over him, which we're playing on doing that anyways. Yeah. So this isn't really a factor of plan. This just justifies it. Yeah. But now they've got no reason not to do it as strange as it is. And yeah, just one brief sort of minor league thing, former UFC champion, heavyweight champion Tim Silvia, knocked out Paul Buonatello last Saturday in the powerhouse world promotion event. And we did not watch. Well, I mean, as much as Tim Silvia is not a popular man in a mixed martial arts circle, the guy can fight. I mean, you know, he's a profiler. I think he came in like a like 285 or something. If he takes on a much smaller profiler, he probably was going to win. Yeah. So, I mean, he won a fight with Paul Buonatello, who's, you know, they're both over the hill, but I guess maybe Paul Buonatello is a little less over the hill. I don't think they can do it. Is Silvia ever going to come back into the UFC? No. I really do. Is he ever going to come in Strike Force? No. So. Yeah, agreed. And that's about it for news. That's about it for news. So we go forward to quick, a little preview coming up for the next Strike Force car. This is the Strike Force Houston show. Yes. Saturday night. Yes. So Saturday, August 21st, Strike Force live from Houston on Showtime. So this will be on TV for y'all. However, they're going to open it with a SureDog.com livestream. This is a huge bone to be throwing to SureDog, which is the major online MMA forum. And just so they're getting two pre-lin fights on their website, I'm sure it'll drive up some traffic. And there's actually a couple interesting names on that list. Yes. So Andre Galvelo takes on Jujorhe Petina. Not the most... That was not the one I was talking about. That was not the one I was talking about. Exciting one. Then Jason Riley takes on Daniel Cormier. Now, Cormier is an Olympic wrestler and he might just be the best pure wrestling heavyweight of them all. That's the buzz. You know, better than Brock, better than Kane, better than Randy Couture. You know, those are guys that did well in the NCAA. Randy Couture is a guy who was an alternate. This guy was real deal. He's on the team. You know, he's like at the Kamala Shuller's level. Yeah. Fantastic wrestler, very, very powerful and because wrestling is such a good base to enter the MMA from, he could do really, really well from himself. They're projecting big, big, big things. Really well. This is the kind of homegrown star that, you know, if he keeps winning and strike force promotes him well, I mean, he could be there, Brock's, I mean, of course, you know, once he gets near that level, you'll just buy one. Well, I mean, Brock was famous, which is another huge plus, but like... I mean, from a dominant, in terms of dominance for a second. Single and dominant skill, Daniel Cormier is definitely probably, you know, the best pure wrestler to enter MMA on paper. Now that being said, MMA is a complete game. We don't know how striking he is. We don't know how his submissions are. We don't know anything that. But he's been training. Yeah. And he takes it seriously. So we'll see. So yeah, go to SureDog.com on Saturday night and you can watch this fight. So then we go to the heavyweight on the main card. We start with Bobby Lashley making his return to take on Chad Griggs. Now, Bobby Lashley's been out for a little while. He's the former WWE pro wrestler. Yeah. And he was really... He was a teen April wrestler star as well. Yeah. He's been slotted for very, very big things in that heavyweight division. Yeah. An interesting comment I heard about this guy was that he is so similar to Brock Lesnar in build and size that, like, they definitely are calling him the strike force Lesnar. Because he's a former pro wrestler and he's a big jacket wrestler. I'm very, very interested to see how Lashley does. With that being said, he's five and no. He's encouraged. He's a very, very good wrestler. Chad Griggs is a nine and one striker. Chad Griggs does not, in my opinion, have a prayer against Lashley. He's a firefighter, like, on the side. Like, it's been jobs a firefighter. He's a knockout machine, apparently, but he hasn't really fought anybody. A powerful knockout machine versus a wrestler who can get you on the ground and holds you down for 15 minutes tends to end with a wrestler winning. Playing with Lashley is not only can he get you on the ground pretty easily. He's an NCAA champion and a Marine champion himself. This dude's powerful. He's a strong dude. He can maul you. Yeah. I mean, like, I've seen him knock people out. I've seen club people have to death. You know, like, unlike Brock, he's actually, he's, he's gotten knuckle potential too. So so I think, I think Lashley's got that one. Then we go to KJ Nunes is one who's like in the last five fights, the only one he's lost was to Crazy Horse taking on Jorge Grigal. That's known for dating Zola Frosto, the strike force women's fighter. Nunes is an exciting fighter. Grigal is a very fast pace. Yeah. Doesn't have a very good record. No. That's his thing. Well, the thing with Grigal is he likes to be more exciting than he likes to be skilled. Yeah. He's like a cool, like a weird guy. He just comes out and punches. So if I'm a calling him correctly, what I may not be, but you know, interesting fight on paper. We're in all those Suza in the last seven years. This is only lost to Masasa, he's going to be taking on Tim Kennedy, who's owned his craft as a soldier in the army. No, this is interesting to me because this was supposed to be a middleweight, a middleweight championship. This is really supposed to be like an eight man tournament from the vacant middleweight belt since Jake Shields has just signed with the UFC. They just decided to scrap that and do this fight for the title. And then the tournament that's coming up is going to be to face the win-tender, this is the one contender. So the champion will either be, we're in all those Suza, who's only lost to Masasa. And Tim Kennedy, who is a very, very good hometown pro. I think these are interesting choices for your middleweight champion, I think. I question why you wouldn't bring Masasa back down to 185, where he likes to fight. But you know, hey, yeah, I'm curious to see who's going to be the champion in the middleweight. Championship belts are always exciting, so why not. And then speaking of championship belts, late heavyweights, King Mo Muhammad Lawl, decides to defend his belt against a Rafael Calo Conte. Mo King Mo is an incredibly good top control wrestler. He wrestled Musasi and made it look fairly easy. And with that being said, Mo is another one who's got some good heavy hands too. He can hit you, he can ground and pound you. So Calo Conte. He's top competition. Calo Conte has got a good striking game and he's got, he's good off his back, he's got some submissions. But with that being said, I see him getting overpowered. I mean, I don't think his submissions are so good that he can pull one off over King Mo. I mean, if Masasa can't do it. Yeah. So, so I mean, you've got two title fights on this show, which is, which is pretty cool. But, I mean, all in all, I'm a little underwhelmed, I'm just not all that excited for this character. So who are your calls for, for Suza versus Kennedy and Lawl versus Calo Conte? I'm going to go, I'm going to go Suza and I'm going to go King Mo. I think I'm going to have to agree with you there. I think in Suza's the guy in middleweights right now, with Jake Shields not being there, Lawl, also the guy in like heavyweights. I mean, I don't see anyone being able to be him other than a rematch with Masasa. Skill one to ten. How excited are you for this card with two title fights on there? I put it as solid six. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to go down to about a five. Yeah. I'm going to watch it. But, you know, as I said, I'm getting very, very frustrated with strikes. We're the show I am at a ten with tonight. WEC. Now, we know we're live on Wednesday night, immediately following the show, we're going to go watch the WEC 50. We're going right up to watch WEC 50, which is Cruisers as Benavidez. And we will recap another next one. I'm delighted for to see this one. You should be too. Unfortunately, this show is probably not going to be on the iTunes until, you know, the... Until the fight is already over, but check us out at TheHammerMMA.com and hopefully we'll see you next week. And we'll be back this weekend with a little review of the Expendables in '18. So we're doing hammers going to the movies. The MMA-themed Meathead Movie Marathon? Absolutely. All right. Cool.
