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Welcome back to the fighter versus the rider. I am your host, as always, Damon Martin, and we are back with another big event coming up this Saturday with UFC 288 now, just a matter of time.

And we are back with another big event coming up this Saturday with UFC 288 now, just a matter of days away, of course.

My usual coach Matt Brown is shifted into fight mode. He has his own fight coming up next weekend on May 13th in Charlotte, North Carolina, so he is taking this weekend next week off in his final preparation for the fight.

He will return the Monday following his fight against court McGee, which we just learned this past week will headline the prelimbs at UFC Charlotte on May 13th. So of course our best wishes go out to the man himself, Matthew mortal brown. He'll be back in a couple of weeks in his place this week.

We have a trio of interviews with some of the biggest names fighting at UFC 288 this weekend. We're going to talk in just a few moments. I had a pretty wide ranging interview with UFC band to weight champion, algebra and sterling.

He obviously is fighting Henry Sihudo in the main event. I had a chance to catch up with algebra and we talked about the Sihudo fight. We of course talked about his future, a band to weight and he had a lot of interesting things to say about.

You know, where his future takes him at 145 pounds, especially with his good friend and teammate, Marab to Wallace, really kind of knocking on the door, a title contention to 135 pounds and doubling down on the fact that they're not going to fight. And I respect that. I respect that they are sticking to their guns on that. And you know, UFC be damned. They're not fighting each other. So.

Really interesting conversation with Al Jermain when it came to this pilot, Henry Sihudo and his future as the band to weight champion the UFC. It's going to be interesting with Sihudo coming back from three years away. Of course, you know, at his peak at his prime, Henry Sihudo, one of the greatest combat sports athletes in history, accomplishing what he accomplished in the Olympics and then coming in and becoming a two division champion the UFC.

Three years a long time, though, and it will be interesting to see how does Henry Sihudo look. I then know that Al Jermain posted a little video on his Instagram and I think Twitter as well of him running into Henry as they both arrived at the hotel in New Jersey to get ready for the fight at the provincial center this weekend.

And you can see, like, here's Udo is a significantly shorter guy. Now does that mean he's going to lose him because he's shorter than Al Jermain's story. Of course not.

But it is going to be interesting because when Henry Sihudo left the division, he hadn't fought any of the kind of up and coming guys were knocking on the door. I mean, he beat dominant crews, like a month before Al Jermain choked out Corey Sanhagan to kind of become the number one contender.

Yeah, he got out before he fought Peter Yon. He got out before he fought Corey Sanhagan. He got out before guys like Cheeto Vera were right there and guys like Sean O'Malley were rising up the ranks.

So I am curious to see how Henry Sihudo is going to adapt because, listen, you beat Marlon Marias incredible performance.

Marlon, you know, had his moments in that fight early and then he, you know, he definitely gassed out and soon it took over late.

He beat dominant crews and I listen, I dominant crews a legend. The guy may be the greatest man to wait all time, but I don't think I don't think Henry Sihudo fought the dominant crews that was, you know, the dominant crews of five, six years ago, who was the best man to wait in the sport?

I don't think dominant crews is that guy anymore. Dominic Cruz is not a bad fighter by any stretch, any stretching imagination.

But I would define dominant crews right now as a top 15 fighter, whereas five, six years ago, I said he's number one, number two, number three in the world of bandweight.

So we still are, in my opinion, we still don't really know who Henry Sihudo is going to be as a bandweight. He is definitely going to be giving up size.

Probably going to be giving up some power, depending on who he fights. It will be interesting, because this is a, this is a very intriguing match.

And without you being out of it is a big, long, strong bandweight with good striking, people really underrate his striking. Go back and watch the fight with Pedro Munoz.

If you don't believe me on that one, and then of course he has the fights with Peter Yon, who, you know, listen, despite what happened in this last fight losing the Maraud Duyla,

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