[music] Hello and welcome to Hammer. This is April 7th and I am your host, Dave, live on CFMU 93.3 as well as on iTunes and available at our website, TheHammer.com, that is TheHammer with an A. I'm joined as always by Greg. How's it going guys? And of course, Steve. So we've got an interesting little show for you this weekend. We've got a quick review of last week's Fight Night. We're sorry we couldn't get to it that night but we couldn't get back into the studio. A little bit later than we thought it was going to be with the ultimate fire happening right afterwards, and then we were excited to see that and then we've got some reviews coming up as well. So going on to the Fight Night, we had an interesting little show, Charlie Brennan beat Jason High by Unam's decision, Gerald Harris defeated Mariano Miranda by TKO in the first round four minutes and fifty seconds. Lucian O'Kami came over Lucio Lanares with a second round TKO at two minutes and forty seven seconds. This was a particularly devastating one that ended in a doctor's stoppage. This is good for O'Kami. He is a judo specialist with some good ground and pound and he recently was defeated by Chill Sonnen. So it's good for him to get back on the winning track. Then Gleason Tebow defeated Kael Uno with a devastating first round knock down slam and punches followed by Nikki Lance defeating Rob Emerson by Nam's decision. Jacob Volkmann defeated Ronis Taurus with a split decision. Christmas is back. He got a win. That's his first UFC win, right? Is it really? I'm pretty sure. His first UFC win, but the problem is a split decision with Ronis Taurus after a couple losses. This is better than a loss. He is good than a loss. You can't fire a guy after he wins. He's bought himself one break. He's bought himself a break, but Volkmann is still on the ropes in my opinion. Totally, definitely. So we go forward to Andre Winter who defeated Rafael Olevier by unanimous decision. Then we head to the main card. We started with Ross Pearson versus Dennis Seaver. Ross Pearson and Seaver both stand up experts, one from England and the other from Germany. This was a great fight, a lot of exchanges. Both guys, very, very tough. Seaver took some hard shots. He also gave back his patent and spinning back kick that Pearson managed to weather. Fight of the night. Volkmann's walked up with $60,000. He didn't quite connect the way he connected against Kelly. Pearson sought coming and knew it was coming and reacted accordingly. He had it scouted for sure. Pearson looked great in this fight. Just fantastic. I think he's one or two fights away from a title shot personally. I think he's looking great. What do you guys think? I know you're a bit of a fan of his. I don't think he's one or two, but he's definitely in the hunt now. He's on the high upward trajectory. It's time to start pitting up against the main guys. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, before I say one or two, he's got to beat someone like Veach or Edgar or, you know, Florian or Guida or Guida, but Pearson picks up a convincing unanimous decision victory. Very, very impressive. Look forward to seeing more of Ross Pearson. He's going to do very well for himself. Then we went to Jorge Rivera versus Nate Quarry. They called Jorge to win. He came out strong in the first round, landed a lot of throws, a lot of hard shots. Quarry looked rocked. Near the end of the first round, he was saved by the bell in my opinion. Then in the second round after the one minute break, he came back out. Rivera went right back on the attack, landed more hard shots, put him against the cage and knocked him out. So this is Jorge Rivera by TKO at 30 seconds into round two. Quarry looked good. Jorge looked better. Yeah, Jorge looked really good, really good. I was impressed. I don't know if he's on the upwards trajectory in middleweight because it's kind of stacked division right now? Yeah. Well, I wouldn't go as far as to say stacked, but it's definitely not Jorge. He's pretty far away from a title shot. Yeah. But convincing knockout victory, plus he has a bit of a story here. He's mourning his two daughters, and the company definitely has a lot of respect for him and how he's come back. Well, he's the type of guy that you would respect. I mean, you look at the way he sort of conducts himself, and he seems like a pretty classy fighter. And he's also-- he's very exciting. Yeah, very exciting. He feels a lot of punches. He's very worked up. He makes everyone interested in the fight. So afterwards, we go forward to Roy Nelson versus Steven Strove. After a blackout? After a blackout. There were some power issues in the arena. Now we said that we love Strove, but this is a very poor matchup for him. We didn't realize how poor it would be. Nelson came out, landed a couple of hard shots, knocked him out with 40 seconds into the first round. With that being said, Nelson is now two decisive first round knockout victories back to back, both in under a minute. Yeah. So-- One was-- one was in tough, but still. I mean, that's-- that's still pretty impressive. Well, even if it-- with it being on tough, it's still, you know, it was on the main fight car. Yeah, that's true. That's true. It was the final. Uh, I don't know, I'd like to really see what Nelson can do against a matchup that doesn't favor him as great as this one did. I mean, even-- even a shawd match favored Nelson a lot. I mean, I'd like to see him go against somebody who's really going to give him a challenge. Um, and this sucks for Strove. Uh, I really think Strove got shafted with this matchup. Well, the unfortunate thing with Strove is because he's so tall, even though he's fairly heavy, he's lightly built. Yeah. He's shown a vulnerability to knockouts. You know, when you hear Santos knocked him out, Nelson's knocked him out, he doesn't have a lot of bulk to soak up punches. Yeah, and he's all-- we said this beforehand. This is the wrong matchup for Strove, like he's-- he doesn't have the sort of defense. We expected him to get knocked out, and he did. He's also a pretty young fighter, too. He hasn't really gotten his-- he hasn't gotten his man's strength yet, so I mean, when he, uh, that's a Dustin Hazels father quote, by the way, uh, his man's strength. Uh, but, uh, I think that given a few more years, even Nelson said in the post-fight interview, he's like, look, just give this kid some strength, and bulk up, and he'll be sanctioned. Yeah. Now with that being said, after the fight, Nelson said that he wants to fight James Tony next, the 41-year-old boxing sensation-- I don't actually think he was serious, though. I don't think he was serious. But is it a good fight for him? Yeah, probably. He would take the fight if he was offered to him, but I mean, he was just trying to-- because like, he was just trying to bug Dana a little bit. Yeah. I think he was trying to bug Dana a little bit, but with that being said, if Tony's coming in to the heavyweight division, you're not going to put him in against your champ, in case he humiliates the champ and he, you know, takes the belt back to boxing. But shut up, you can put him up against the worst guy you have in the division, either. He is a boxing champ. Yeah. Nelson's a good choice, especially because-- Nelson and Rothwell and Crocod, but I think those are the three natural choices for guys you put with Tony. And also, I think Dana doesn't want Nelson to be a contender, because I don't think Dana likes Nelson very much, so putting him in a free fight is first fight. I mean, it's, it's a side show match. Yeah, it's a side show match, exactly. So that's why I think Dana would want to throw that in there. Throw Nelson into the side show so that he doesn't go after-- so his prolongs his rise to the title, if he ever has one. So with that being said, that was the fight night with the exception of one last fight, Kenny Florian versus Takanori Gomi, the fireball kid making his UFC debut. We felt that Florian might have the ability to overmatch Gomi, because Florian has been such a current fighter. I was sure he was going to have to kill Florian. It was all about Florian. I had some hopes that Gomi would show some of his Pride Days glory. And fortunately, that glory is passed. He was severely overmatched by Florian, Florian would struck him for the first two rounds. And the third round, he got a knockdown, took it to the fight to the ground, and choked Gomi out at three minutes to 52 seconds in round three. This definitely follows the trend of Pride Guys not doing that great in the UFC. I mean, a lot of some Pride Guys do do well, but for the most part, the Pride Guys tend to-- it doesn't actually carry over. No, it doesn't at all. He gets over hyped, and I think Gomi got over hyped. Here's the thing with Gomi. He came with the hype of being a former Pride Guy. He could have come in, won this fight, would have gotten a title shot. Immediately. That's probably never going to get one. Yeah, I agree. Well, I mean, he might not have a time left in his career. Oh, great. He's a little bit of an older fighter, but he needed this fight more than most first career. Yeah, definitely. With that being said, with Florian winning this fight, over a former Pride champ, do you think this puts him back in the hunt for BJ Panci? He's always been in the hunt. Yeah. I don't think he was ever out of the hunt. They didn't want to give him a match right after, because there were other people in the picture. Well, he's now beaten Guida and Gomi. Oh, yeah. Both of those for number one contenders matches. Yeah, I give him one more. I think he gets the next title. I don't know. I think he's the next one. And then one more win title shot. Who else do you think is going to be a good match for BJ Pan? Great Maynard. True. True. So-- Maynard. Sadaropolis. Yeah, Maynard. And then maybe Florian or Sadaropolis, we'd imagine, is the next two guys that would be looking for title shots. So keep an eye out for those two guys. And with that being said, we go forward to some news. Steve, what do you have for us this week? All right. First of all, UFC and Vancouver has been saved. We talked last week about how it looked like it wasn't going to happen, and now it's on, which is good news for Vancouver, good news for everybody. But John Fitch, versus Chago Alves, has been signed for that, which is pretty decent. Well, I mean, that was the original fight that they wanted. And as much as I like Ben Saunders, I don't think Ben Saunders had a chance and was really taken seriously in that fight with Fitch. But with that being said, Chago Alves is another striker who doesn't have a particularly great counter wrestling game either. But he's a beast. Fair enough. He's huge. He's very powerful. So I mean, that's a rematch. Those guys have fought before, and John Fitch has won. But hey, you know what, those guys are near the top of the division. It's a fairly big fight for the show. I mean, hopefully Alves-- I'll let this sit through another John Fitch fight, though. Yeah. And hopefully Alves' brains are unscrambled, so we can actually get that fight going. Yeah, he seems like he's OK, which is good. I mean, you never like to see a guy have the head trouble that he's had. But I think, you know what, I think that if Fitch dominates the fight, it will be kind of boring. But I don't think he'll dominate Alves the way he dominated Saunders, the way he dominates everybody. The way he dominated-- Except he has GSP. Yeah. With that being said, though, Alves was able to get a takedown from GSP and GSP dominated Fitch. Yeah. So I mean, Alves is a strong enough guy. He can get off. He's a monster. Like, he's really, really big. And so I think that Fitch is going to have a more of a difficult time. I still think Fitch is going to win, though. And I think Fitch is next in line for the shot. A win against Alves title shot, for sure. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. And just signed for the July 3rd show, which is expected to be the Brock Lesnar Shane Carwin pay-per-view, is Kristoff, Suzuki, versus Stefan Bonner rematch. The rematch. Yeah, the last fight ended with an unfortunate headbutt. Yeah. They're dropping off in the fight. Well, that would actually, they're going to be giving the fight to Kristofinsky. Yeah. Which should have been a DQ. Mm-hmm. Or I know a decision. Most should have been a no decision. We thought it should have been a no decision. It wound up being Suzuki's fight. I think this will be as entertaining as the first one. Yeah. So Bonner's fights are always fun to watch. I mean, he's not really-- This is a good fight. --anyone takes seriously as a title contender. Fights are either very good when the two guys have equally matched skills and similar styles. He's up all stand-up fighters with good chins. Neither one is a knockout fighter, so I mean, this will be a brawl. And they have a great desire to put on a show, too. They always wanted to show, right? So that always lends itself to a great fight. I enjoyed the piece of it that we saw a couple of months or two ago, so it was fine up until the point where it was stopped. Yeah. Chase Gormley was released. Well, that was-- we expected that one. He's been having some struggles and-- He lost the stuff. --and then he just lost two Brendan Schwab, got knocked in like four in a second. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you lose to the runner-up of Tuff, then, yeah, you're pretty much out. He's got his third or fourth loss in a real life, and Gormley, unfortunately, he made his run out of it, and he hasn't managed to deliver in his latest UFC run. I think it's time for him to go back to the drawing board. Mm-hmm. Yeah, no real surprise there. War machine. War machine is back. Yeah. War machine. He was arrested last week. Aw, poor war machine. Again. He and a friend were fighting with bouncers at a lounge, and then the cops had to put a bag on his head because he was spitting at them. And so, yeah, he was arrested for like the-- what the second time since we started doing this radio. This guy needs a movie. Yeah. It's brilliant. War machine. War machine. War machine. When you're fighting, you change your legal name to War machine. He's just not being called Mr. Machine. You have to suggest that there's some mental issues there. But he was on the run already, right? So he was on the run for a while to cut him. He went to drive him. He got out, and then we just got arrested again. So you only get like two months or beating up a girl in the middle of the street. I don't understand. I just turned the face at a Playboy Mansion party. Yeah, I know. And you only get what? Like he caught him. Did he escape? Or did he get part in the movies? It was like a misdemeanor assault. So I'm assuming they didn't like, play the guy. And as soon as they let him out on whatever, they all are his own recognizance. It sucks. The guy likes to grow him on face. Like-- Then he celebrated his victory in bail hearing by going-- By going and beating up a couple of bouncers. So, man. Mr. Machine is kind of a clown in AOC, I think we should-- Yeah, hopefully he doesn't get out of jail, so we don't have to talk about him anymore. Yeah, later this show has come after us. Speaking of crazy fighters, the season of the Ultimate Fighter that just started last week, two of the guys who showed up for triads, one of them was Charles Crazy Horse Bennett. Oh, Crazy Horse. Oh, man. He wants in. Let him in. Like Crazy Horseman. He didn't get picked up. And also, obviously. Jason Greida, Clay Greida's brother, he tried a couple seasons back and could not make weight. And they wound up cutting him before his first fight, was it? Oh, yeah. He didn't even get to fight because he couldn't make weight for the show. Yeah, that was, I think, season eight or something. That was a while back. Yep. Yeah, so, not all of those guys made it. Also with someone who's not going to be fighting, Bobby Lashley was asked to fight on the big April 17th Strike 4 show next week. But he had nasal surgery and had the baillet. So, yeah. You definitely want to. Yeah, nasal surgery. And also, I don't think this would be a great card for Lashley. There's no room for him. There's no room for him. Yeah. It's a two hour show. Overloaded. Three, five round title fights. Yeah. That's, you don't want to be on that card. You're trying to load too much under that card, unfortunately. They barely have enough time for the three fights. They've, like, promoted. Yeah. So. And there's a few rumors that they're out there too. So, not all of this stuff is guaranteed. But Dana White has said that putting Kane Velasquez versus Junior dos Santos is something he has no plan of doing. Good. Which is good, because both of those guys are fairly logical to 10 years of time. Yeah. The game plan is for Velasquez to get the next title shot from the Lesnar Carwen winner. It takes center this year. And then dos Santos would, he should fight someone else. And if he wins, then he will get the title shot after that. The name thrown around? Roy Nelson. Against Junior? Yep. Again, there's no, there's no real, like, back to this. But the name that's been thrown around is Junior dos Santos versus Roy Nelson. Nelson's picked up two knock out wins, so maybe. I think that they're thinking that this could be a stand up brawl between two good strikers. Now, don't underestimate Nelson's ground game. And I would question that this would be a good fight for dos Santos to pick, because Nelson's got a chin too. I think dos Santos would crush him. But I think dos Santos would probably match up quite well. This would be, honestly, Nelson's really surprised me and impressed me. I still think it's been an unknown quality. I mean, if I was on the contender track, I wouldn't want to fight a wild. That's a wild card until I'd seen the wild card fight. A guy like Rothwell. I forgot. So I'm just gonna plumb his depth. Yeah. Well, here's the thing. The guys above Junior dos Santos are the five top guys in the division, who's immediately below him or on his level. That's true. There's a real cutoff after Junior dos Santos, where Nelson might be the best choice. With that being said, though, Mir is coming off a loss to Carwin. No garris. No garris coming off a loss. You know, you're looking at basically the Los Santos isn't going to fight his sparring partner, no garris, but Carwin is there. You're basically looking at, well, I mean, you're basically looking at, well, I mean, you're basically looking at giving him either Czech Congo, which is a, which is a drop or Roy Nelson. So, because there's nothing else is more of a drop than Congo, much more of a drop. Nelson's his two fights. You know what? Who did Congo? Congo, B Buantello, right? Yeah. And Strew B Buantello and Nelson just beat Strew. So Nelson is, it gets muddy like, you think, okay, Nelson just got here, he must Congo must be ahead of him. Kong has been around. That's not that, that's not that true. And you look at the matchups. So I think that, I mean, anyone you give to Santos isn't really going to make sense. It's just a filler at this point. So Nelson, I guess, yeah, give him Nelson, he'll crush him. Yeah. Yeah. And the rumor is going on for the next season of the Ultimate Fighter, the one following, the one that we're watching right now, is going to be, they're saying they want it to be Josh Koshcek and GSP as the coaches. Okay. If Koshcek beats Paul Dalyley on May 8th. See, this is as though I questioned that because the rumors were flying before they announced this one, that this one would be Koshcek versus GSP. Which just adds to the rumors for this because it just means the timing is probably just wrong. Yeah. I think this is kind of like the dream of fans to see Koshcek versus GSP. Well, they pop up for me. Yeah. I don't know how much of a dream this is, but as coaches, you know, I mean, because this is something that like I see a lot of more GSP than Koshcek. Yeah. It really just seems more like a lot, it seems logical to me. Yeah. So the thing is with GSP, though, you put GSP on the show, there's no drama whatsoever. Really. I mean, other than him walking around being a nice guy and being amazing, this is great. Being a client, I saw a spoken guy who also doesn't have a particularly wonderful time speaking English. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He has very pronounced accent. Koshcek will make up for it. That's true, I guess. Look at, look at Muir and Endogerra. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of along the same lines. Yeah. I agree with that. I think it could be interesting, but I mean, that means that Koshcek's getting the shot at GSP, right? I mean, I appreciate it. This is assuming that he beats daily on May 8th. Yeah. So what does that leave Fitch and Alves? Good question. Fitch and Fitch. Yeah. Once again, we're in the mud. But you know what? I mean, they always do need coaches for this and they will move their schedules around for the ultimate fighter. Yeah, that's true. Well, time will tell. Yep. Yeah. And that's all I got. Okay. So we go forward to the UFC 112 coming up on this Saturday. This is a two champion card with BJ Pan defending his title, his lightweight title against Frankie Edgar and Anderson Silva also defending his middleweight title against Damian Maya. That's the first show from Abu Dhabi. The first show from Abu Dhabi and also the first show of doors. This one will help under the sun and it will also be going on earlier during the day during the lighting issues and times on differences. Yeah. So with that being said, let's start at the bottom and work our way up. Unfortunately, the bottom of this card is heavyweights, John Madison versus Mustafa Al-Turk. And I'm saying he is just competed on the ultimate fighter. Can I watch that fight now? I can't wait till this Saturday. So Madison is a wrestler who can recently competed in the ultimate fighter, did not impress Mustafa Al-Turk is a UFC perennial who has never impressed. Mustafa Al-Turk won his way into the title into the UFC by defeating James McSweeney, the fighter who eliminated John Madison. Al-Turk is that first boss and final fight that nobody dies on. He's blocked out. He's blocked out. He's blocked out. That guy hasn't really shown, I don't think too much so far, but I don't know, I can never bet on Al-Turk now. You can never bet on Al-Turk, but I don't know if it's necessarily fair to bet on Madison either. With that being said, Madison is a wrestler and Mustafa Al-Turk is a normal way of striker, so you maybe give the edge to Madison, I guess. Let's give this no more time moving on. All Kelly vs. Matt Veatch, Matt Veatch is coming off a loss to Frankie Edgar and is exiled all the way down to the preliminary card. He's been the guy who got beat up by Dennis Seaver, but which is crazy because Matt Veatch, I mean his record, his only loss was to Edgar. Yeah, for him to share. All that hard is interesting because he lost to Edgar, but Kelly lost to Seaver. Yeah. In a devastating loss too. In a devastating loss. Yeah, I think that's, I don't think Veatch deserves that, I think Veatch should be a little bit higher. I think so too. With that being said, I have to call Veatch. Of course, yeah. His skills are incredible. Yeah. I think he's going to wrestle with Paul Kelly to the ground and pound him out, so my call is Veatch to win. Yeah. I think if he wins this, he's back on the trajectory that he was on before he was derailed. Yep. I totally agree. I'd like to see Veatch fight again. His wrestling and stuff is really good last time we saw him. He slammed Frankie Edgar like he was slamming a rag doll. Yep. I'll happily see him fight again. I hope he wins. I hope that that prelem gets aired because I do want to see him fight. He was undefeated before he faced Edgar too, isn't he? Yeah, 12-0 I believe. Yeah. So then we have Demarcus Johnson versus Brad Blackburn in the wealthy white division. Nick Ospak. Oh, yeah. I'm cool with the Demarcus Johnson fight. Demarcus's character. He really entertained me last time he won. I liked him on the Ultimate Fighter. I call him to win. I think he's moving out. Yeah. I'm going to call Demarcus as well. Fair enough. I don't know if I'm out for what Mark is doing with Johnson as a fighter, but I have no problem with that call. So we go forward to Nick Ospak versus a rich story. British fighter Nick. He's making his return after being one of the winners at the Carina Quarter versus their London show, placing Rick's story, who's been on a three-five mystery, I believe. So should be-- What division's that in? Sorry? Walter White. Walter White, okay. Neither guy is yet over the costume. They got a long way to go in that division. Then-- Good luck, guys. Then in the lightweights, we have Paul Taylor versus John Gunnarsson, both interesting fighters in heavyweight Alexander Gunnarsson versus Phil Davis. Gunnarsson is a knockout fighter who is also an recruiter versus Vera, was fairly impressive. Phil Davis has got a pretty solid chin, so that one I call him to be a football. He's-- He's-- he's sort of-- Davis is like their new Golden Boy young wrestler. Like, he looked really, really good last time at Gunnarsson. He's a-- He's like-- He's-- He's a-- He's a-- He's a brawler. Yeah. That fight could be like a real show stealer. From the preliminary card to the main card, it'll be that one. Yeah. I think so too. That one-- That one or Veige. Yeah. That one or Veige. But a good brawler versus a good wrestler in these guys. I'm looking forward to it, for sure. Yeah. Also, Gustafson is very, very big for the division, so he's got a good wrestling defense in his one. He's very bulky. So, then we go forward to the main card. Kendall Grove makes his return versus Mark Munoz. Now, Kendall Grove is a guy that Dana White is not too big on. He's very, very tall for the middleweight division. He's not-- he's kind of got a mixed record. And his last few fights have been Loser Leaves Town matches, where you know if he loses-- He gets fired. He's fired. He won this last one. No, without being said, he's won for two in a row. Yeah. He was on the Prelin, the Spike Prelin. I can't remember the pay-per-view, but the same one that Bader fought on versus Rochelle and he beat him. So, yeah. I mean, he's on a win. He's riding a win. So, look for him. He's made his way back up the main card. He's Munoz. He may be out of the dog house and back in the hunt. Munoz has got some wins, but, I mean, he also hasn't beaten anybody. And Grove isn't a pushover, despite his spotty records. So, Grove gets to a point and then he just loses. Yeah. So, I don't think he's at that point yet. Grove is like a Steven Stroove where he's so tall for the division. He's got a ton of defense, but he's very wiry, very resilient, really good on the ground. So-- Like, I think this is the point on the card where Grove gets wins. Yeah. Exactly. I agree here, but when you put him up against that next level of competition, I wouldn't bet on it. Yeah. He's got to tear you down versus Rafael DeSanios. DeSanios is a great Brazilian fighter. Adam is a great British fighter. They match up pretty well. Adam's got some good wrestling, some good striking. DeSanios has got some really good Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Adam's on a win streak and they seem to like him. So, I don't know. I'd probably call him Light Witch. Light Witch, too, stacked up with division for us to say early on. Early, who's going to be going forward from this one? But, I have to say, I'm calling Adam DeWinn. He's been on a streak and then he'll see a lot of the guy. I'm a gold boy right now. Yeah. So. Then we go forward to a grudge match, Walter Waits, Matt Hughes versus Renzo Gracie. It's now the Gracie family and Matt Hughes who had their issues before. Hughes believes that his style of wrestling is superior to the flashier Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Well, if he keeps fighting Gracies that are over 40, then, you know, yeah, I guess it is going to be superior. I mean, the fact that Hughes keeps on bragging about how he beat Royce Gracie, how old was Royce Gracie when he fought him? I mean, like, let's just get real here. And this Gracie hasn't fought in three years. Yeah. This Gracie hasn't fought in three years. I mean, like, it's been, like, it's been, like, three years and even then he wasn't really beating. Like, who do you beat? Carlos Newton? Yeah. Like, three years ago. Three years ago. No, this has been a while ago. Yeah. Like, even, like, even, like, like, actually neither of these guys, like, really, they haven't fought very much. They, like, they're getting older. I don't know. This won't be the real barn burner. I think Hughes's last fight was beating Matt. I think this one was bigger here, I think. I think this one was bigger here, I think. Because they're both very technical fighters, Hughes is a technical wrestler in Renzo Gracie's, or Hens O'Grace. He's obviously a Busy and Jat semester, so this is going to be a lot of ground positioning, I think. I'm calling Hughes. Yeah, so am I. I'm calling Hughes, too. He's, he, they're both kind of older Don fighters, but Hughes is the last Don one, I guess. I don't think Hughes is done. And he's 35. He just doesn't fight as much anymore. Like, hey, well, when a year's still a win, you know? Yeah, exactly. But it's still in great shape. But he's not, he's not braiding the barns anymore. No, definitely not. In that division, in Walter way, GSP's already handled him. Yeah. Do you honestly think he's up to the bench, Alves, even Sarah? No, he's beaten Matt Sarah. He just beat Matt Sarah. So I mean, he's, it's not like he's, he's not, he's not someone who's completely over the hill. I mean, the guy's still got some gas in the tank, but he's got some gas in the tank, but he's not in an upwards trajectory. He's reached his plateau, in my opinion. I think he'll be continuing to beat over the hill Gracie's for the next decade. Okay. So I'm still saying, watch out for Hughes, I mean, like he's not going to get to GSP. But he could surprise, like cost checks that he wanted to fight him, didn't he? I think he'd surprise his cost check. I mean, Hughes isn't a guy to take lightly, he's just not a guy who's moving upwards, but the plateau he's on, he's a high plateau upwards. Yeah, I think, I think, as you were saying, I mean, I, I think it's by his choice that he's not, I think he's taking it easy. Do I think he could be cost check? Yeah, I think he could, to be perfectly honest, if you have a chance, for sure. I, I, I think he had more than a chance. But yeah, Hughes, I don't think wants to hit, hit the weights and hit the workout as hard anymore. This is hard enough to, you know, go up against his penis. Plus he's going to make his money facing Gracie's, so, yep. So then we go forward to the first title, well, title belt, the lightweights, BJ Penn versus Frankie Edgar. Now Frankie Edgar is very, very well rounded, he's a lightweight, so they all have to be well rounded. Good, good wrestling, excellent boxing. I really like Frankie Edgar, very well rounded fighter. I, yeah, I like him too. I mean, he's, he's, he's small. I mean, Penn is a lot bigger than he is. So I, this is, Edgar is, is in tough. He's really in tough. I don't, I can't see him winning this fight. Now with that said, as much as I love Edgar, he's drawn the Marlin in the division. BJ Penn is bar and on one of the best powerful power fires in the world and bar and on the best and lightweight. I have to say that his boxing is better than Frankie Edgar's boxing. I have to say that his wrestling is at least as good. And on the ground, his Brazilian Jiu Jitsu skills are incredible. I have to call for a BJ Penn to win this one. Yeah. I think it's going to take him some time to feel Edgar out and get a real grip of it, but I'm calling him the win by, I would imagine, TKO in the third round. Yeah. That sounds just about right. Like I think he's going to win by decision. You think he's going to go all five rounds? I think Edgar can go five rounds and I think that he's just elusive enough and good enough to take, to take Penn the distance. I think, and I would like to see that. So I'm hoping for it. I definitely would like to see him test Penn and obviously, you know, if you, for a guy like Penn who's so elusive and so good in the ground, taking him to decision is sometimes the way to beat him. I've showed him real proved against little machita. So, you know, it might be a good strategy. What do you think? Well, I think Edgar, Edgar has like a great skill set, but all of the things he's really good at. So, I think he's not going to win, I think he's not going to win, but I think he's going to win. He's going to win. I think he's going to win. I think he's going to win. He's going to win. I think he's going to win. I think he's going to win. I think he's going to win. He's going to win. I think he's going to win. I think he's going to win. I think he's going to win. I think he's going to win. I think he's going to win. I think he's going to win. I think he's going to win. I think he's going to win. I think he's going to win. I think he's going to win. I think he's going to win. But I'm looking for that fight, if Frankie Edgar wins that fight by the upset victory, that's going to completely reopen the lightweight division, so I'm excited for that one. However, the one I'm really, really excited for, Anderson Silva makes his return to the octagon. He's actually fighting. He is fighting. I've made some comments about Anderson Silva in the past. I feel like he's been ducking some of the top competition. They finally got him signed to a match against fellow Brazilian Damian Maya. Maya is, in my opinion, ranked well below Silva. He's moved up ahead of guys that Silva did not want to fight, notably Marco. Or could not fight, like Chilson and Evita Bell for who are both injured. Yeah. So with that being said, do you think Maya has it in him to under see the spider? No. That's true. That's all I've got to say about that. He is not a very good stand-up fighter, even though he wants to be. And his ground game, how do you take Anderson Silva down and keep him down? It doesn't matter how good your BJJ is, he's going to stop you. Yeah. Well, I mean, he's not going to win. Unfortunately, Anderson Silva is a black belt and presented Jiu Jitsu as well. With that being said, Damian Maya's Jiu Jitsu is on a completely different level. I'd say the only guy in the world as good as him on the ground is maybe BJ Pan. There are guys worse than Silva that he has not tapped. He's got some submissions victories in that, but if you can't tap some of the big card guys that he's gotten the decision with, you're not taking Silva. Yeah, absolutely not. I mean, Mark Mark crushed him. So what's Silva going to do? Well, unfortunately, that's the mistake that I think Maya has made. He's trying to work his stand-up by taking in against top-name fighters. Dance with the one who brought you. Your BJJ Jiu Jitsu master, take the fight to the ground. Don't try to stand-up with Silva. Silva will knock your head in. He'll knock you out. He'll clench you out. He'll do like really, you've got to get him down and heal hook him and hope you just pray for victory. But that has worked against Silva. That's your only move and if Damian Maya doesn't follow a game plan like that and tries to dance with Silva, it's going to be a short dance. Now, with that being said, Silva does not like to go to the ground. He had issues on the ground against Henderson before he achieved the room and could choke. He's not particularly comfortable. He likes to stand-up a lot more, foulless ladies. That fight, Silva did not fight him on the ground because he knew that foulless ladies had some great position in Jiu Jitsu. That was a boring fight, oh boy. I am calling Silva to win this fight, but I have to figure Maya's guys are going to tell him if you stand with this guy, you're a fool. So I'm thinking that Maya is going to try to take the fight to the ground or if worse comes the worst lay-ons back the whole fight, much like foulless ladies did and said, "Come grapple me." Yeah. Which Silva's not going to do. Silva's going to out-weight anybody. He'll just keep kicking him in the legs until he gets up. As much as I want this fight to be exciting and interesting, it's going to be a crush or a boring lay-down fast. Yeah, I think this is going to be a first round knockout for Silva or a fifth round decision for Silva. Yeah, basically. This is the way it works. There's no doubt. There are not going to be titles changing hands on this show. No. With that being said, Silva will be doing a lot of dancing, so that's always fun to watch. He'll be definitely doing some weird wacky stuff to make fun of Maya. And about two hours after we get off the air here, we're going to be watching. Spike TV's Ultimate Fighter will be on tonight. They will be dividing the fighters up into teams. It's a little bit too earlier to say who the standouts are, but Steve's made some pics. We watched the one last week, and there's a few guys who are standing out. There's Hammer Tree, who spells Hammer Incorrect. Hammer Tree. He spells Hammer Incorrectly, just like us, and he made a French guy quit, that was pretty cool. And then there's Nick Ring, was it a name? Nick Ring. Yeah, he was a Canadian, and he did pretty well, because some good ground and pound. Kyle Nokay made some guy's face explode. Yeah, that was, he's an Aussie, right? Thank you. I believe so. And then there's a guy who's spelled K-C really badly. K-C-I. K-Y-A-C-E-Y, yeah, but he got a pretty good TKO Nokay on like 30 seconds. These fights were all really fun. These were all really good. And there's a guy who looked like Leonidas, called Leonidas. Yeah. You're going to talk about Nitorio? And then Clayton McKinney, who we called Mint Oreo, because he had green and black hair. And it sounds like Minutoro. And he broke some dude's face with a punch, and he looked like a guy who crushed the guy's nose. He looked like the lamest guy at the My Chemical Romance concert, and the guy was tough. But the guy was still kicked ass, so yeah. Jerry Only's brother was tough. Really? So yeah. What's that being said, some guys look out for? I'm actually quite enjoying the season, because the middleweights, they've got some more gas in the tank than the heavyweights. There's no guys gassing in the initial prelims. Oh, the heavyweights season last, last time. Some of the fights were so great. Those fights. Wow. So with the middleweights, I'm expecting a lot more fireworks. I think this season's going to be a lot more fun for a fight fan. Yeah. It might not be as good, but for the fight fanimes, we're really looking forward to this. I'm apps, and you've got Liddell and RT's absolutely hate each other, so that's going to add fuel. In fact, Liddell was teasing or teasing about how RT's had tapped out, some of the strikes before. So even though it was not a Liddell who won that submission victory over him, so. All right. Still, keep while I listen to us, guys. We are the Hammer at Live at 93.3C at the Mu, and also on iTunes and on the web at TheHammer.com. You can check out our Facebook as well. It's H-A-M-A-R. So thank you for listening to us. Have a great week.
