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Price and coverage match limited by state law. Live from the play show you're not overly ostentatious, studios of the Infinity Sports Network here in beautiful New York City, sitting on top of the 10th floor of 345 Hudson Street. Welcome on in to a Friday edition of the Zach Gelb show across all of our local Infinity Sports Network affiliates, Sirius XM, Channel 158, the free Odyssey app, and of course, streaming live on YouTube. 855-212-4227 is the number to jump on in. Once again, 855-212-4227. You could always get at me on Instagram where I'm straight flexing or via the good old sass pool of Twitter X at Zach Gelb.
That's Z-A-C-H-G-E-L-B. I got Pat Boyle with me. I got Nico with me.
I got Stuart Kovacs and we are rocking and rolling all the way up until 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. Pacific time. Dean Thomas going to join us coming up 40 minutes from now. The former MMA fighter now does work for the UFC.
A part of a lot of their broadcasts. He will preview UFC 303 with us. That does come your way tomorrow in Las Vegas and also at the top of the 5 p.m. Eastern time hour. We'll be joined by Ian Begley who covers all of basketball for SNY here in New York. So he will be stopping by in the final hour of the show.
Whole lot to do today. We knew yesterday, even though we weren't on the air for it, it was inevitable that Bronny James was going to be the 55th selection of the NBA draft and going to the Los Angeles Lakers. I'm just gonna say this right off the bat. The whole nepotism conversation I roll my eyes at.
I don't care for it. I'm not gonna sit here and say shame on LeBron for getting his kid drafted. You know other teams could have drafted him.
They didn't have to listen to LeBron and Rich Paul who were telling all the other teams don't draft him, don't draft him, don't draft him. But the reality is and maybe Bronny turns into a great player one day. The reality is what's probably best for Bronny to develop as a basketball player would have been to stay in college.
Maybe you transfer to a smaller school like Duquesne. You'd be under the great guidance of LeBron's longtime friend and high school teammate and Drew Joyce III who joined us and when he was appointed as the coach of Duquesne. And I was like saying, hey, what are your thoughts on Bronny? Let's get Bronny to Duquesne. But Bronny wanted to go to the NBA.
Bronny had to know that he was going to get drafted at worse with the 55th pick in the draft and no one drafted him before that. So I'm not gonna freak out. I'm not going to get caught in basically like a mental pretzel like a lot of other people are on social media and lose my mind over Bronny James getting drafted.
Because quite frankly, I think the story is cool. I do think it is cool that LeBron and Bronny are going to be on the same team. But I will say here is my take from this. If you are LeBron James who went out of his way two weeks ago on Twitter to respond to a tweet when he was poking fun or someone that was tweeting was poking fun at this thought that LeBron doesn't want to win a championship anymore and LeBron responded something along the lines of all people say a lot of things, but it is 1000% factual and you can't debate it today. And this was my take all from the start.
If LeBron was going to stay in Los Angeles, you can't tell me priority number one is to win an NBA championship again and to go win his fifth NBA championship. You can't sell me that. And I used this analogy yesterday and I'll use it again. It's like I've gone through a big weight loss, right, recently.
In the last three, four years. I knew back in 2016 when I graduated college, I had to lose a ton of weight. I knew that. For years I said, I wanna lose weight. But until you get your ass in the gym and until you start eating healthier, that's when you're gonna see the results. But just saying you wanna lose weight or just saying you wanna win a championship is nonsense.
A lot of people wanna do things and they don't actually accomplish them. And my point with LeBron is this. He could say he wants to win a championship.
But does he actually? Do we see the actions where you look at the Lakers if he stays there and he's going to stay there? That suggests to me that LeBron James, his first priority, not second, not third, not fourth, not fifth, but his first priority is to win a championship. And you can't tell me with a serious look on your face if you're LeBron, you wanna come in studio LeBron, sit right next to me, we'll inject you a true serum. If I ask you, is your top priority still win a championship? And he said yes, it would be a lie.
It would be. His top priority, even though, right, he came out and he kind of said, oh, that's my dream. It may not be Bronny's dream to play with this son in the NBA. Even Rich Paul said LeBron's fine if it doesn't happen, baloney. Bronny going anywhere else. I remember when people were talking about Bronny being a first round pick. There are serious conversations about that. It was all a bunch of nonsense.
It was a force. The Lakers were the 55th pick in the draft. You knew like if the Lakers really thought Bronny was that great, where do they have picked him with their 17th overall pick? If they couldn't stomach him going somewhere else.
Now they made a good selection in Dalton connect. It's like the first thing I could say in a positive way with the Lakers in a long time. Good on the Los Angeles Lakers with that draft pick.
I was stunned. He fell out of the lottery, but even the Lakers know Bronny isn't this great prospect. And it's a second round pick who gives a rat's ass. The bigger point though here is that LeBron doesn't seriously care about winning a championship again.
He doesn't because if he did, he could have got the best of both worlds. He could have said to Daryl Morey said to Nick nurse, Elton brand, Josh Harris, you draft my son. I'll opt out of my contract. I won't even negotiate with the Lakers and I'll come play in Philadelphia because if you put together LeBron James, Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey, that is a better trio of players than anything the Lakers are going to be able to put out in the court this year. And if you want to tell me, oh, but Zach, him and AD have chemistry and AD was finally able to play a season where he was actually healthy playing 76 games. Well, Joel Embiid has health problems too, and Joel Embiid is a better player than Anthony Davis. Joel Embiid has won an MVP in this league the last time I checked. So Embiid is better than Anthony Davis.
That's why I would go to Philly. And then the third piece, who are the Sixers or who are the Lakers getting in this third piece? Like I'm reading if D'Angelo Russell opts into the contract. I heard Windhorst say this on first take today. Yeah, that's right.
Get up first take whatever he was on. But Windhorst said, Wendy, for people that know him well, Wendy said on the ESPN that maybe the Lakers, if Russell opts in could trade him for like Kyle Kuzma. That's what he was talking about. Now they've already gone through the Kyle Kuzma experience. But you can't tell me that Kyle Kuzma would be a better third option than Tyrese Maxey. The other name he threw out there was Cam Johnson, who's a good young player in this league. But you can't tell me that Cam Johnson may be getting a deal done with them. Then D'Angelo Russell would be going back to the Nets. Man, I feel like he just flip-flops between the Nets and the Lakers.
But you can't tell me that Cam Johnson is a better player than Tyrese Maxey. So LeBron thought that only the Lakers could get his son on his team. That's the crazy part.
That's not true. So you got to remember when LeBron first went to LA, people said, hmm, LeBron's top priority isn't winning another championship. People said this was not for basketball reasons. This was more for setting himself up for life after basketball, the movie business, more money and all that stuff, right?
Whatever was feeding you. Now, to LeBron's credit, they won a championship. LeBron has exceeded expectations in Los Angeles. That's why it's mind-numbing to me when people go, oh, LeBron's tenure in Los Angeles has been a disaster. It's been a failure.
No, let's be fair. LeBron won a championship in Los Angeles. People didn't think he was going to win a championship in Los Angeles. But all good things come to an end.
All good things have an expiration date on them. And LeBron's time in Los Angeles should have ended this offseason. But it's not going to. And not that I ever thought LeBron was leaving Los Angeles and we get into this conversation all the time, what should an athlete do and what will an athlete do? I told you it's a 98% chance, 99 I think I even said, 99.9 I think I said, that LeBron was staying in LA. That's what will happen.
That's what is happening. But what should have happened is LeBron should have forced another team to draft Bronny that was on his list because they got him to LA. They should have forced him to go somewhere else where he had a better chance to win a championship. And Dallas would have been a better chance to win a championship. Miami, I don't know if he wanted to go make amends with Pat Riley, but that would have been a better chance to go win a championship. Heck, before the New York Knicks re-signed OG Ananobi, the Knicks would have been a better situation than the Los Angeles Lakers. Golden State, you know, we're talking about Paul George potentially winding up with the Warriors. I would love to see Stephen LeBron and their careers together.
But I look at the options and I see who has the cap space and who's looking for another star. Nothing tops Philadelphia in terms of realistic options. LeBron could have been in Philly, could have had his son there, and would have had Joel Embiid, Joel the process Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. And it would have been one last chance for LeBron in however many more years he's going to play to legitimately capture another NBA championship. Won two in Miami, one in Cleveland, and one in LA. And with him staying in LA, this is the end of LeBron James winning another championship in this league.
And right, I had a college buddy of mine, Abdul Smith, who used to be a college buddy, who used to play for Temple. I think he's like a big Laker hunk. And you know, he's like, Stu, you know, loves the Lakers, love the Lakers, love the Lakers. And he saw, yesterday I put out a video saying LeBron doesn't care about winning a championship anymore. And he's like, this is one of the dumbest takes I've ever heard.
And I'm reading his explanation back to me. He's like, they were just in the Western Conference Finals two years ago and Darvin Ham can't coach. Is JJ Redick now all of a sudden an upgrade over Darvin Ham? And last time I checked, Darvin Ham, I'm not saying Darvin Ham's perfect, but he was the coach of the team when they got to the Western Conference Finals.
And also, I think that was a fluke. And when they actually went up against a championship quality team, they got smoked. I had tickets to Game 5 in Denver, Denver Lakers. I didn't even get to go.
I went to Denver to go visit my sister and my brother-in-law and my niece, who's adorable, by the way. But I didn't get to go to the game because LeBron couldn't win a single game against the Denver Nuggets two years ago. And who were the Lakers? Like, let's even say, Stu, they get Trae Young. They're not getting Donovan Mitchell, but let's just say they get Trae Young.
So you have LeBron, Trae Young, and Anthony Davis. Are they beating the Thunder in a seven-game series? Nope. Are they beating the Nuggets in a seven-game series? Nope. Are they beating the Timberwolves in a seven-game series?
Nope. Like, those are just three teams right there. And then let's see what the Clippers look like with Paul George. The Mavericks right now on paper are a better team, just as long as Kyrie can only focus on basketball and not trying to fight all the Boston fans. The Lakers going into next year are looking at trying to maybe get a fifth seed at best, so they avoid, or no, maybe a sixth seed at best to avoid being in that playing tournament to get into the postseason. That's what the Lakers are. And maybe at best the Lakers can win a round, but they're not winning two, they're not winning three, and they're not winning an NBA championship. And that's my biggest gripe. Forget about the nepotism nonsense.
Forget about the brawny conversation. Everyone is looking at this the wrong way. The way you should be looking at it is, this is a signal that LeBron is not winning a championship again. And don't tell me, oh, why would he leave the Lakers? When he realized he couldn't win a championship in Cleveland the first time, he left. When he got to Miami, won two championships and realized that the core was deteriorating, he left. When he was in Cleveland, won a championship, which is the greatest moment of his career, got to a bunch more and realized he didn't have enough ammunition to win another championship, he left.
So don't tell me he can't leave the Lakers, because if he actually wanted to win another championship, he would have left the Los Angeles the Los Angeles Lakers this offseason. It is the Zach Gelb show on the Infinity Sports Network, 855212, 4227, 855212, 4227. We'll take a break. Oh, I'm skeptical to do this next segment. I am. And no, just because Pat Boyle here, this is not when we are talking about the Kyle Filipowski story, which is absolutely bonkers.
We'll get to that later. But I watched a presidential debate last night between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. I have a few sport takeaways because both of them brought off their their golf games and probably lied through their teeth. But I was watching it last night and I said Donald Trump shouldn't be president. I said Joe Biden shouldn't be president. And I have two athletes that should get together, be president, vice president and should be the next president, vice president duo, the next dynamic duo of the United States. I'll tell you who that is when we return right here on the Zach Gelb show, where we may talk some politics next on the Infinity Sports Network. This is the Infinity Sports Network. This is the new song of summer.
That's all I'm going to deem it as. It's called Oh My God, and it's by Mets second baseman Jose Iglesias. So Stu and I were at the Mets game on Tuesday night, the Met Yankee game, where Stu was miserable because the Mets opened up a can of whoop ass on the New York Yankees. And Stu and I had a very splendid time at the ballpark.
We had the filet mignon cheesesteaks, which were delicious, and we had a few cold ones, but the Mets were just hitting home run after home run off of Garrett Cole because he doesn't have a spider tack. And any time the Mets would hit a home run, they would play the song and the whole dugout would dance to it. And then I find out that Mets second baseman Jose Iglesias, who's been in the MLB for a long time, he is the artist of this song.
So that's pretty damn cool. And it's not just like, oh, a sports thing. When I was working out at the gym this morning, I was listening to this and Pat Boyle, who I found out today is a Cubs fan. Go Cubs, go, go Cubs, go, which I did not know is rocking with this song so much. And this is like Pat Boyle, you know, and he's hanging out in his frat apartment and he's like slugging those surfside drinks and having all that penne alla vodka and the muscles and the gaba ghoul that's in his fridge. Pat Boyle is liking this song so much that he's actually thinking about becoming a Mets fan.
Is that right, Patty? Yeah, I mean, it's infectious. The Mets incredible run from a team that was going to trade everybody, blow up the core to now they were a playoff contender, wild card, albeit, but they're the best team in baseball in the last month. And they've got the support of grimace, the purple blob from McDonald's who has revived their season.
And now their backup second baseman is also can write a pretty damn good song. It's kind of crazy. The Mets season is now turning out to be somewhat of a fun one.
It probably will end very soon because I don't think this team is really all that good. But the fact that they're at 500 blows my mind and the grimace a whole situation where my best friend, he goes, you're not going to believe what I bought. I said, what, Alex?
He goes, I bought a grimace costume and I'm wearing it to the next Met game. I said, lose my number. Never talk to me again. Oh, wait, no, that would make me Kyle Philipowski's girlfriend. Basically what she said to the family. So I don't want to do that. We'll get into that Philipowski story later.
Cause that's one of the craziest things I've ever read. So the Mets are now known as the grimace team. And then their backup second baseman who has played for the red Sox, the tigers, the reds, the Orioles, the angels, and the Rockies. And he was an all star in 2015 is a musician.
I did not know that. So it's a pretty damn good song. Anywho, last night, I'm not going to lie, even though the presidential debate didn't make many of us walk away, feeling inspired with either candidate in Donald Trump or Joe Biden. I felt like it kind of got me ready for football season that had Sunday night football vibes going in. And then after the first three minutes, it was like, Oh boy, is this like a crappy AFC South showdown on Thursday night football that Al Michaels is dreading to absolutely call to wrap up his illustrious career.
And there could be a chance. I saw Al Michaels is now getting, what is it? AI.
Is that the right terminology there for the Olympics are doing AI Al Michaels for the Olympics. That's a real story, right? That was not some fake story that I read. That is absolutely real.
Oh my God. I can't believe I wouldn't surprise. It would not surprise me if Al Michaels gets like a really bad Thursday night match up this year. And he's like, all right, let's get AI to call this game for me. Because there's some games where the great Al Michaels, do you believe in miracles?
Yes. You could just tell he has no part and wants no business being a part of some of these Thursday night games, but I'm watching the presidential debate last night. And I walked into it and I was like, I feel like this is a Sunday night football matchup. And all I need is like a promo code for like a sports betting app to somehow bet on this presidential debate. And I kept on like trying to figure out what the score was going to be.
And that's how I was processing it. But then sports came up and here we have someone who was the president and someone who's currently serving as the president, both running against one another to see who's going to be the president for the next four years. And these two old men were talking about their golf games at the presidential debate.
This is what it sounded like courtesy of CNN. I just won two club championships, not even senior, two regular club championships. To do that, you have to be quite smart and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way.
And I do it. He doesn't do it. He can't hit a ball 50 yards. He challenged me to a golf match.
He can't hit a ball 50 yards. Look, I'd be happy to have a driving contest with him. I got my handicap, which when I was vice president, down to a six. And by the way, I told you before, I'm happy to play golf.
If you carry your own bag, think you can do it? That's the biggest lie. It was a six handicap of all. I was an eight handicap. Yeah.
Eight. But I haven't, you know how many good I've seen you swing. I know you swing. Let's not act like children.
I love how Trump ends it. Let's not act like children, you know, let's not act like children. You started it by talking about how you won two club championships in golf. And it wasn't like a senior kind of event.
It was with all the youngsters as well, which you probably lied on and, and, and fudge some of those scores. And now it's like, Oh, let's not act like children. And then Biden to then respond back.
I'd like to see you carry your own bag, basically calling Trump, a fat slob was electric television. You know, if it wasn't for who was going to be the president of the United States and wouldn't have this serious reaction, but it's such a joke anyway, that I'm sitting there and I thought I was watching forget Sunday night football. I thought I was watching Saturday night live.
I didn't think that was real. And I kid you not CNN missed the golden opportunity because not to get too political here. I didn't love the moderators. To be honest, I would have put inside the NBA either to do a halftime show or moderate the debate. We don't know what the future of inside the NBA is. It looks like next year is going to be the last season.
Could you imagine if you add Charles Barkley, man, this debate is terrible and Shaquille O'Neal just sit in there at the, at the debate desk and given the questions to, to Donald Trump and then also to Joe Biden, I want to see a match. I do. I think they still do the match.
That was like hot during the pandemic. And then a year ago I saw there was a match and I'm like, this thing's still going on. Call up tiger, call up Phil. He will pair Trump with one of them. You'll pair Biden with the other.
And let's see who's going to be the better golfer. And there were a lot of lies on that stage last night. And with all the insults and everything going back and forth, it's so funny to me that it looked like Trump was going to fall over when Biden claimed he was a six handicap and then quickly said, Oh no, it was more like an eight handicap when I was VP. So that's just absolutely wild. What's more believable Boyle that, that Trump legitimately won two club championships without fudging his score or that Joe Biden is a six handicap in golf.
I mean, neither of them are believable, but the, I guess the more believable of the two is Trump, because there's just no shot. Biden's a six handicap. Absolutely. I know you swing. I've seen you swing. You're terrible.
There's no chance. It was wild. And I don't take politics really seriously. Like I'm like the least political person in the world, just because the whole system is such a joke. And I logged on Twitter and I thought Twitter was awesome last night.
Yeah. You had people that seriously care and they're losing their mind, but people that were just playing into the jokes last night, after these two were arguing over the handicap and club championships. And if Trump could carry his bag and if Biden could actually swing the club, I thought it was TV gold last night. Now I'm watching it. And I saw a lot of people like our good friend, Mark Malousas. He used to host here on the network when it was a Taz and the moose in the mornings, he put out a video last night. Moose does like these walks late at night and he records these videos, I guess, cause moose is now a TV anchor. So I think it's after his late news telecast sports telecast. So moose is leaving wherever the studio is in New York City.
He's like, seriously, America, this is the best that we got. And it got me thinking like who could be the next president of the United States? If you don't want it to be Donald Trump or Joe Biden, like we say this in sports, you want to coach fired, you know, you don't want to pay a quarterback. Who's your replacement. So if you say Biden or Trump shouldn't be president, who's the replacement.
And I have a ticket that I think America can really get behind. Tom Brady, the greatest quarterback of all time, looks like a politician these days. He's got seven Super Bowl championships. Stop with Fox, all right? Don't get ready to call games for Fox this year. I want Tom Brady to run for either, let's say president, right?
He seems presidential. And then I want his VP to maybe be one of the more popular men in America who also just retired. And that is Jason Kelce. A Tom Brady, Jason Kelce ticket would be electric.
Would be electric. And it would actually make me go to the polls in November. And I would vote for TB 12 and Jason Kelce. I guess Kelce couldn't be the president.
You have to be the vice president because if he's control of like all like the nuclear codes and all that stuff, and he's doing a keg stand, I wouldn't trust him in that regard. But I think if he had like a babysitter with him in the Oval Office and it was Brady, the president, and you had a Jason Kelce as the vice president, I think that would be a much better ticket than whatever they're going to offer us with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and then also Donald Trump and whoever is going to be his VP. Stu, who would you like to see in sports, president and vice president to try to compete and stir up another legitimate option come November of 2024? Okay, so for president, I will go with someone who in his past as an athlete was a very good leader.
I thought a lot of people respected. He's very polarizing and I will go with Tim Tebow as the president. I think he can as a big following to big following donations.
Yes. So I think he can lead. And as his vice president, I kind of went with like your Kelsey route, someone who's very lovable. Urban Meyer, you go in the crowd. She's no someone very lovable, funny urban Meyer walked up to Putin and he would just kick him like he did to that kicker when he was the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. No, Urban Meyer, I don't think would go well, but I think Shaq as the vice president would be someone I would go with.
Yeah. Tebow and Shaq. What a ticket that would be. I think that could win. I like it.
Boyle, what do you got? That's a heck of a combo. And Shaq, they're right there. You fulfill your head of security needs as well. They don't need a secret service. No one would mess with America.
Shaq would just walk over to you and stuff in you like you're an ant. I was gonna say McAfee, but I'm gonna go for a more down the middle moderate, maybe a slightly boring ticket. Give me Peyton Manning as my president. Okay. Another leader of men, one of the greatest quarterbacks of the last 20 years. He's involved in everything. He's funny. He's witty. He speaks well.
There you go. His VP. Eli, right? I was gonna say the Manning brothers, but just to make it- I actually think Eli is funnier than Peyton Manning.
I think he is too. I think Eli is funnier. When they were playing, not the case, but now post-playing and broadcasting, Eli makes me laugh more than a number 18. Here's the thing about Peyton and Eli. It's kind of been, I forget who was on with them.
That kind of said, yeah, you guys don't even really hang out that much anymore. I don't know if the Peyton and Eli relationship, I don't think they're as close as we're led on to believe. Really? That's what I've heard.
I've not heard that. And I'll have to go back and get you this, but I forget who was on with them during the Manning cast last year that kind of pointed it out. And there was like a moment or two of some awkward silence. But anyway, as good as the Manning brothers- Will Harry Rogers' family drama with the Manning?
No, no, no, nothing like that. I just don't think, I don't think they're, and maybe it's just because of their busy schedules. I just don't think they're with one another nearly as often as you would think. Okay, so Manning- So Peyton's my president. Steph Curry is my VP.
Another leader. Steph is very likable, Steph. That's the thing. Not that he's, I wouldn't even say Steph is very likable.
Oh, why not? He's one of the more likable athletes on the planet. Yeah, I don't think it's just because of like his aura. I think it's because you don't hate him.
Yeah. Like he's impossible to hate, not so much you love him where he's polarizing and you have lovers and you have haters, but it's more so love. I just think Curry is just almost impossible to hate because he's always smiles. He's one of the most entertaining basketball players we've ever watched. One of the greatest shooters. And he's a good leader.
He's the, he's been the leader of that team for a decade. Could we get Belichick as the press secretary? You know, there'll be no further questions. We're not going to be talking about Putin today. We are on to talking about something else, you know, but we're on to talking about oil, you know, like a Travelers Championship where, you know, they want to talk about oil.
Belichick would put his head in good with DC because he's got a 24 year old girlfriend. I wouldn't be the first one to have a little fun in the oval office. It is the Zach Gelb show on the infinity sports network. Alrighty. It's time to preview UFC 303 that comes your way tomorrow. So let's do so with one of our favorites. And that of course is Dean Thomas kind enough to join us once again on the Zach Gelb show. Dean, always great to have you on. Thanks so much for doing this and how you been? I've been good, man. It's always good to be on the show. I'm glad to be here. You guys are my people. So anything you need, you know, I got you.
Well, Hey, we always love when you come on and we appreciate you saying that. So obviously this was supposed to be Connor McGregor going up against Michael Chandler. McGregor had to get the fight postponed and we find out he has a broken toe. You being a fighter and probably having to go through a bunch of different injuries, how much would a broken toe impact a fighter?
I mean, it's easy to, I mean, everybody's a little different. It's easy to kind of criticize Connor over this, but it's hard to say, man, like I don't want to criticize him because his game is based on movement. And if your game is based on movement, you need your wheels.
You can't have a flat tire. So maybe, maybe it was better for him to do this, but I know there are a lot of guys that would have fought with a broken toe. I do know that though.
Yeah. Like Alex Barrera in his last fight had a broken toe. So like you think that Connor probably could have fought.
It sounds like what you're saying. He definitely could have fought, but he said in the interview, he doesn't want to give these guys an extra advantage. You know, Connor is not very good to the MMA community. He doesn't want to, which is the reason why when you have a Connor McGregor card, he doesn't let other big name fighters fight on his card because he doesn't want them to get any love. So he's never going to be good to fighters. So to give Michael Chandler an advantage by him going in injured would be doing Michael Chandler a favor.
So I can see why we want to pull out. Do you kind of think he used that as an excuse just to give himself more time? Cause we've seen some videos of, of Connor and it doesn't look like he's in the best of shape these days to get ready to go defeat someone like Michael Chandler. Well, I mean, it's all kind of, it's all kind of perspective because we don't know the timeline of some of these videos because he came up with some videos where he looked really sharp and I was like, man, Michael Chandler might be in trouble. And then a couple of days later, it's like, all right, he's out to fight. So it's really hard to say, um, cause there's no date on these videos of when he's coming out or showing himself or what he looks like and Connors in Ireland. So no one really knows what he's doing out there. Like he's not in the MMA community.
He's not even all that light in the MMA. So it's really hard to get a read on what Connor's doing. Talking to Dean Thomas right now, do you ultimately expect that we will get this fight? Cause that's my fear with how long we talked about this fight. Then we had a date and then it gets canceled. And now everyone's saying, you know, from the UFC side, it feels like they're trying to reschedule this thing in the next two to three months.
I just raised an eyebrow here. And I wonder if we're ever going to actually get this fight. You know, I'm very optimistic.
It's quite happening. I'm hoping I'm my fingers are crossed. And not only for our sake, but for Michael Chandler's sake, because he's been waiting for this fight for two years, he put his life on hold for two years, hoping that this fight would happen. So I'm just hoping that he gets the opportunity to get this match up and then we can all move on with our lives. And especially Michael Chandler, he can move on with his life or, and Connor McGregor can either get out of the sport or just whatever he's going to do. But let's just, let's do some, let's get some closure on this situation. Dean Thomas here with us.
Alrighty. Let's get to the UFC 303 card. The UFC did a very good job fixing this card with all the cancellations. Alex Pereira against Andrea Prahaska.
I know we've seen it before, but how do you kind of expect this one to go down? I love Pereira. He's my favorite fighter to watch now these days. Pereira is different. He's something special.
All week I've been thinking that Yuri's gonna come out and surprise him with something, but just being around their energies this week, I kind of changed my mind on that. I think Pereira is just too focused and he's too in the zone and the timing is just right for him to go on this spectacular run. I mean, what he's doing is unprecedented. Coming in just three years ago, winning belts in two different divisions and just beating everybody in front of them, basically with one skill set too. So I just think that because he's taking his short notice fights, that's a good sign of like where his head is at and how much he wants to fight right now. And I just think that he's not going to get beat for a while. I know we were supposed to get John Jones and CPA Miocic back at Madison Square Garden. That fight got postponed, expected to happen once again at Madison Square Garden, I think in November. But even John Jones talked about the possibility of him fighting Pereira. How do you think that fight would go down if we were able to get the two of them in the same octagon?
I think it depends on what we see from Pereira this weekend. I mean, right now I would think John Jones would beat him. I mean, John Jones is the greatest fighter we've ever seen. So I would think that John Jones would beat him.
But if we see a Pereira come out there and do something spectacular this weekend to get to a guy like Yuri, then I think John Jones is going to steer clear of Alex Bejeda. I mean, John Jones is at the point of his career now where he's looking for one fight, a legacy fight against CPA Miocic. He doesn't want to fight top guys.
That's pretty evident. He's done his work, so he doesn't really need to prove anything to anybody. But so I don't think he's going to fight any of the top guys. But if Alex shows some weakness in his takedown defense this weekend, then I see John Jones calling him out. Well, let me ask you this, not who the best fighter is, because you said pound for pound, right? It's John Jones. But the current active face of the UFC, who do you think is the face of the UFC right now?
It might. If this weekend goes right for Alex, it might be Alex. It really might be Alex. And I think that's all because of him stepping up at UFC 300 when he stepped up at UFC 300 and did what he did and gave us that meme worthy performance.
Yeah. I mean, he really put himself he put himself on another level and him stepping up this time. If he could get a good win here in impressive fashion, he will be the face of the UFC. That was one of the craziest things. After getting kicked in a spot where no one wants to get a hit, he then waved off the official and then knocked out his opponent.
That was just unbelievably awesome. When we get to the rest of this card, Ortega and Lopez, how do you think this one will go down? You know, and I said it before, I thought Brian Ortega was at a disadvantage taking a short notice fight and the fact that he couldn't make weight at 3 a.m. in the morning, they decided to call it off and then just move up a weight class. And it's a bad sign for Brian Ortega. I don't think Brian Ortega does very well. He might be competitive in the first round, but I don't think he does very well in this fight. I mean, he's going to get the dog and Diego Lopez who thrives on opportunity. Again, timing is everything.
The fact that he got this, he looks at it as an opportunity to show the world who he is. I think Diego Lopez stops him. And who do you like in this, Smith, the leads the fight? I got to go with Smith. I think Smith, this is a good opportunity.
Like if you were, if he was still fighting Carlos Oberg, I might be leaning towards Oberg just because of the timing, but the leads ain't coming up from 185. His strength is in grappling. Anthony Smith might be a better grappler. I think Anthony Smith wins, wins his fight. He might even stop the lead day.
He's longer on the feet, taller, bigger guy. I think he might even stop the lead day. And then last thing I'll ask you, Dean Thomas, I know to speculate the future and like I'm a casual UFC fan, but I've been watching more and more of it really ever since the pandemic and I love it, especially when I get to go.
And I was at the Prudential Center a month ago for the big UFC card that they had out there in New Jersey. And you saw Islam win. What do you think is next for him? Just wondering in his next bout, who'd you like to see him fight? He's got to fight Armand Surukian.
That's there's, that's a reiner to me. Armand Surukian, it'll be a rematch. There was Armand's first fight at UFC.
He didn't get an ample time to prepare. He's gotten better over the years. He's carved a name for himself in terms of being the bad guy. He's got a suspension there, but hopefully that's going to be retroactive and he'll be able to fight within a decent timeline. He's got to fight Armand Surukian. To me, there's no other person in the UFC that does justice for a title shot than Armand Surukian.
He is former UFC fighter, Dean Thomas. That is a great job covering the sport. Dean, always great to connect up with you. Enjoy the card coming up tomorrow.
All right, my man, I'm here at the UFC X right now. I hope that the quality of the video is okay, but do what I can, man. I appreciate you.
Well, thanks so much. You know, stay cool out there. I know it's really hot out in Las Vegas right now, so we appreciate Dean Thomas stopping by with us.
All righty. This is Zach Gelb show on the infinity sports network. Let's get back into the LeBron James conversation. Bronnie is going to be a Los Angeles Laker 55th pick in the draft.
It has sparked a question. You know, I said earlier that I don't think LeBron's going to win another championship. I'm saying in Los Angeles is going to be a sign of that. I thought he should have told the Sixers to go draft Bronnie, and then LeBron should have take his talents to Philadelphia and go to Philly and team up with Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey. But now with Bronnie staying, going to LA, you got JJ Reddick, the coach, Anthony Davis still there. It's a foregone conclusion, and it's a lock that LeBron James is going to be back with the Los Angeles Lakers.
The question then becomes, and this is our poll question today, which you could go vote on at INF Sportsnet and also at Zach Gelb. How much longer will LeBron James play in the NBA? One year, two more years, three more years, or four years or more. Right now, two more years is at 43%. 26.9% is one more year. 19.4% is three more years. And no, this is not a political statement, four more years, but four more years is at 10.8%.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-06-28 18:26:55 / 2024-06-28 18:44:20 / 17