Sunday MMA Quick Hits: Sam Alvey Returns, Paul vs. Diaz in PFL?

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Jake Paul and Tommy Fury
Jake Paul and Tommy Fury during their fight. Photo: Skill Challenge Entertainment

Jake Paul has announced he’ll face Nate Diaz in his latest boxing spectacle this August, but could that lead to a fight in MMA, under the PFL banner? UFC veteran Sam Alvey, meanwhile, makes the move to heavyweight. It’s Sunday, you know what that means — time for the Sunday MMA Quick Hits!

Sam Alvey returns… at Heavyweight?

It’s almost a surprise that this fight isn’t coming in the UFC. Can you not see Sam Alvey jumping at the chance to be a short-notice replacement for Chase Sherman, or in some other preliminary card heavyweight bout?

Instead, Alvey will take a heavyweight fight under the B2FS banner when he fights Cameron Graham at B2FS 183 in May 27.

Graham is an uninspiring 5-12 as a pro, while Alvey was 0-8-1 in his last nine fights with the UFC — an obscene number given the amount of younger talents cut after posting back-to-back losses. We’re not knocking Sam, either — his fights are usually entertaining enough, but it still feels like he had serious dirt on the UFC’s matchmakers. Or has some real voodoo skills.

Worst beef of the year?

Something no journalist should be doing in a niche market is trying to create beef with another journalist (actually, no journalist should be taking that route to notoriety period). So you can count the renewed feud between “The Schmo” and Ariel Helwani among the candidates for Worst Beef of 2023.

Helwani’s response to the Schmo (who in an interview recently released discussed fighting Helwani with Sean Strickland, though in Schmo’s defense Strickland brought it up) came during The MMA Hour segment with Chris Curtis above. The bottom line is, it stems over Helwani allegedly giving “The Schmo” — who basically does his interviews in-character as sort of a no-nothing Joe Schmo figure — a fake e-mail address when they first met a few years ago.

Helwani denies this. Schmo insists it happens. The idea they should fight over it is ludicrous. To respond loudly and publicly about it feels like a guy complaining that a girl handed him a fake number at the bar — look, buddy, she just wasn’t that into you. Move on.

Jake Paul vs. Nate Diaz in PFL?

PFL exec Peter Murray was on hand at Friday’s PFL 3 card in Las Vegas, as was Cageside Press. We asked Murray about the potential of Jake Paul facing Nate Diaz in MMA, something that was teased when Paul announced he would be boxing Diaz in August.

“We heard directly from Jake, absolutely. We had that conversation as a potential two-fight deal, and the focus that made sense. Focus on boxing first. We’ll see what happens after the fight,” said Murray. “We’ll see if Jake gets in the cage with Nate to potentially finish that score, but what I can tell you is when Jake makes the debut in MMA next year, it’ll be against a major, major talent, major opponent.”

So that’s a maybe then?

Ex-WWE star John Morrison wins celeb boxing match against Epic Mealtime guy

This is either stupidly funny, or the bottom of the celebrity boxing barrel, and which probably depends on how you view who entire fad. John Morrison was a mid-card guy in the WWE, who last year briefly turned up in AEW before jumping to MLW.

Epic Meal Time is your grandfather’s Youtube channel, and hasn’t been relevant since the mid-2010s, when eating stupid, high-calorie meals peaked as a trend.

So of course, someone decided that Morrison versus Epic Meal Time’s Harley Morenstein was the must-see boxing match-up of 2023.

Okay then.

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