1-on-1 with DP – 93.7 The Ticket KNTK - Ridge Lovett In Studio with Anthony "Lionheart" Smith: September 3rd, 12:00pm

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Ridge Lovett In Studio with Anthony "Lionheart" SmithAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's time to go one-on-one with D.P. Coming at you live from the heart of Lincoln America, a 93-7-a-ticket and the ticketfm.com. Here is your host, Derek Pearson, brought you by Canopy Street Market. Hour two, hour number two, the official notice is that when we do this next time, it will have a different name. Yeah, yeah. It'll have a different name. have big voice Bob doing all the rejoins and all the intros, right? So we

have to land on it and we'll have to be grown-ups and we'll have to land on. Like, we'll actually have to land on the law. It's not going to be. Because we're, we're both creatives and we're all over the way. We're indecisive. Yeah, that part. So maybe we'll include Bach in it and let Bach give this. I don't know. He won't even text me. Well, he won't text you. Which is the thing that you need to work out. I'm just going to write

him about it too. Absolutely. One hundred said Bach, pay the bills, pay the bills, pay the bills. It's the new. That means it's lunchtime here at the ticket. And lunchtime at the ticket is sponsored by our friends at Mulberry Barbecue. Now with two locations at 11th and at 161st in Apple's Way right off a highway to by Lowe's. Both locations are open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Try their burnt in sandwich, a brisket burrito, barbecue nachos, a full slab of ribs, a half-smoked chicken and much, much more.

Plus, incredible sides get fuels for lunch today or make dinner plans. at Mulberry barbecue located 11th in Cornhusker and at 61st in Apple's Way just off of Highway 2 by Lowe's. I've listened to that enough times now. I have to go get some barbecue. I have to. It's the thing. Marcy sent her address for the shop. So she said after the show. Let's go. That's where you'll find me. That's where it is. Bach, can you grab the Lincoln Lancaster Reed, please? As we head into this Mark Kerr conversation, I think this is appropriate. this is the campaign they are currently running. Yeah, the Lincoln and Lancaster County Health Department has launched Credible Mind,

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Care about the people you care about. Sometimes they need for you to say a thing that needs to be said, and they need for you to pay attention. And that's part of the deal from the text line. John in DSM says, I just want to say how great it is to have Anthony on local radio talking to MMA. Congrats on a great career and best look going forward, Anthony. Yeah, thank you very much.

I appreciate that. Eric says this. By the way, GSP is the goat. Oh, man, we're going to have. this argument over and over and over. He's on the bone, man. It's John Jones. He's on the bone. He says, what? Are you telling me that Vanderley Silver was juicing?

Yeah, right. Who knew? You know what? It could have been the indication of Vanderley juicing. Remember when that, uh, you saw a tester showed up to test them and they hid in a closet and ran away? Like, the juicing stories are the best stories. Can I just, can I just say that, that when you get, when you get fighters together telling their own nightmares.

Oh, for sure. The behind the scenes one are, some of them are awful. But yeah, Van der Leigh did hide in a broom closet or like a custodian's closet at one time. And then they found him and he ran out the door and just ran away. They were like, why did you do that? He said, uh, I was scared.

Oh, the, the juiced up muscle head Brazilian was scared of the Usada lady. Okay. Yeah, I believe that. And he told the story, he goes, they got, and asked, how big was you were scared? He goes, yes, she was 150 pounds, but then. You know, Vanderley's doing some of that kind of freak show celebrity boxing stuff. Yeah, I would go down that road with him.

Would you? Yeah, it'd be fun. Yeah. Your thoughts on bare knuckle? Love it. Love it. Have had, since I've retired. Actually, I've had a couple offers, but it's good.

Like a million dollars with four fights? Is that kind of what I, so for me? For you? Or generally. Well. I listen to Paige Van Zantt tell stories. Oh, well, see, you can't. Page is paid different.

She's paid different than everybody else. But why? I mean, she got one of them spicy sites. They got a lot of followers on it. She got the whole spicy sites. She's doing, she's doing just fine. She got the whole. I mean, listen, Paige, Paige catches a lot of flack for, for, you know, her spicy site stuff

and in the beginning of her UFC career, what you cannot say about Paige is, that she's not a dog. Paige, Paige will dog fight. She will fight. She's, she's as pretty as any girl in the, in the MMA space. She will dog fight. She's down. She's not going to back out. Like, if you step your foot in that circle, bare knuckle. And you draw a line. She's not taking a backward step. She's going to throw down. Bear knuckle,

Bach, it is, it is the thing. She was offered a big time contract from the WWE because they, they like that part of her. For sure. And she was like, no, I'd rather do it for real until I can't do it for real. Yeah. And she'll get down. Oh, Paige will get down.

She will throw the hands. I've always respected that about her. You can say whatever you want about her, you know, her Instagram model stuff and the, you know, the pictures and the video, whatever. But when it comes down to fighting,

Paige can and will. She's willing. She's down. So we talk about the number then. So there is a number. Yeah, that, but you would have to have the conversation with,

with your wife. Because the recovery. For a bare knuckle, yeah. The recovery would be a real thing. I don't, The problem with bare knuckles, I've had so many hand surgeries, is the number would have to be big enough to be okay with not ever fighting any sort of way ever again.

Okay. So, again, what you'll figure out here is that when we spend two hours together, we could end up down several rabbit holes. Okay, but I need for that young man to get in here right away. Oh, yeah. We need for that guy to get in here right away and have this conversation. Yeah, this is, this is. what we're talking about. This is the beauty

of what we're doing. I'm plug this with you. Get in there here. And that to him. He knows that he is a professional. He's a broadcast professional now. He's a pro. And we're going to have that conversation because

you get you plugged in there as well. Pull that microphone up there, bro. Get that microphone up. He said, get that up there. Get that microphone up in there. It'll plug into that one. If you're there's another one on live radio

live radio that's fine here's what we do I'll slide those down how about that there we go simple business easy enough simple business all right it is remember we talked about club lionheart this is what I'm talking about

yeah the speech like in the dojo right fighters talking yeah let's welcome national change Randy love it let's go let's go I

texted him and I said okay let's let's get him in because I want you two to start having these conversations as well he does his own show he's getting a second show by the way two shows yeah he's gonna yeah you got too much time on your hands oh I got all the time in the world stop playing 2K

and start doing some stuff in the space we're talking in this thing that finding out numbers and what you do and how you make your decision. So Ridge is in that place. Graduates with the national championship. Then it's making the choice of one, how is he going to adult? He's got to pay the bill. Right. Right. So Ridge, in your decision making, right, because you had coaching offers, you're still competing. So that's in play. But having somebody like Anthony to lean on and go,

hey, wait a minute. Let me, let me offer you this. Let me whisper to you about that. He knows managers and agents too. So there's the other. Unfortunately, I know a lot of us. It's the worst humans in the world. It's the thing in the space. It is. We were talking about, so you and I were talking, Ridge and I were talking yesterday. He said, he gave me a number of what he was weighing in currently. He said after work, he's never weighed in this much after a workout.

And to most mortals, that number was like, meh. But to Ridge, it was a big deal. I think you would understand it. In this decision-making process, he's got to take care of his body. And now he's the grown-up in the room. Because Nebraska wrestlers, the people on the active roster are all leaning on Ridge.

Show us, oh, great one. We want to do what you did. We're going to do what you did. So how are you managing weight now? You're still competing. You're coaching. How are you managed? Yeah.

So the weight's changed for free sale, right? from for college it was 149 but now it's 70 kilos so it's like four and a half pound allowance almost it's like 153 154ish so i'm trying to get bigger and yeah yesterday after practice i was 163 that's the biggest i've ever been after a practice usually that's right around where i walk in at but yeah we know we got a good strength conditioning team so we're working on getting a little bit bigger and just trying to find that sweet spot where i can drop down to 70 kilos and then ultimately bump up to 74 kilos so do you feel feel like is the weight like do you really feel like you have to add the additional weight as you

move on? Not a lot. Not a lot, but just enough that like 10 pounds. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. I feel like fighting. So I was, I fought at 185 for forever and then moved up to 205 and it was, it was wild.

It was walking at like 230, would get in shape and like maybe get to 200 and I would just kill myself to get to 185 every fight. But then I moved down. up to 205 and then my weight came down it was the wildest thing like when i didn't have to cut anymore then my natural weight my natural walking weight came down and eventually that all flipped itself on its head and i ended up fat again but um i felt way even though i could tell that i definitely wasn't as strong it wasn't quite as big as a lot of those guys but i just figured i just worked my way around it it really never felt like it was that big of a deal and now that i

and then once i got larger i didn't i didn't really feel a difference at all but i do hear wrestlers a lot are concerned about it like that's like a cultural thing or do you think it really is a real thing yeah because part of it is just the cutting weight culture but there is some truth to it like my freshman year i wrestled 33 sophomore year i bumped up to 49 it was like so yeah the kids were way slower but i was like way undersized right these kids are really really strong right and i kind of struggled with some of that a lot of the kids i could beat just because i was better but some of them i was like this kid's really strong and it it just made it real like real tough you know when i stepped off the scale when i fought teago santoos in brazil was the last time i made

185 pounds. And I remember saying, I'm going to retire or I'm going to move up. And one of my coaches were like, oh, man, them dudes are kind of big. And like, I'll just have to get better. Because I can't do it anymore. Well, that's got to get better. That's the conversation we were having because the natural weight, the natural weight that the universe, your body is telling you that you will be at your physical best. But you don't have that conversation to say, well, what's my emotional best? Because I got to carry this weight management burden and stress the entire time, leading up to the fight. Well, I think in wrestling, between, like, wrestling and

MMA, there's pros and cons to each one. Like, I think wrestlers stay closer to their, to their wrestling weight for longer periods of time. So there's never the huge crash cut, because they're always kind of within striking distance, because they're competing, you know, what, two or

three different times a week, however many matches that might be, depending on what your week looks like. But I only fought three times a year. So I would yo, yo these huge, these huge cut so I'd be 240 down to 205 and then by Monday after the fight I'm back to 240 again and then like that yo-yo effect is just causes crazy damage so it's it's a different they do it for longer so there's longer amounts of stress yeah but it's smaller incremental cuts so like

you know maybe it's five pounds a week you know if you get a little heavy throughout the week or 10 or whatever and the time between the way ends because you you guys have like a day yeah we like there winds it being like 36 hours a lot of for for us it we used to be one hour We weigh in, wrestle an hour later. Now they bumped it to two hours. If you're later in the duel, you might get closer to that three hour mark, maybe even four. But if you crash cut, you're not going to have anything. Yeah, you're not going to beat anybody.

Yeah, I find it fascinating. Ridge love it. Anthony Lionheart Smith here on the ticket. And again, when I texted Ridge, I'm like, okay, you need to get here. Because it's, because Anthony and I were talking last night. And you came up and I said, okay, we need to start. We need to get Manning here with, with, Anthony. We need to get AJ here with Anthony.

Like, we need to get Trelli here with Anthony. Because those conversations have never been had on Lincoln rate, sports rate. The conversations of how you guys are living, what the process is, how you get through, the training aspect, but then the nutritional side of it. And if you guys did two hours once a week just talking about nutrition, it changes the community. It changed for all the kids in high school who were trying to figure out how to weight manage, what they're going to need to do to be successful, parents, and trying to figure out, okay, he's doing this thing and he's having success, but is it healthy for him?

Right? Is it healthy for him to lose weight the way his coach is telling you? Wait a minute, should he be stretching before his matches, before his workouts? Should he be stretching after? What kind of stretches should he be doing? and I think the fact that you guys can have those conversations, not only for yourselves, but for the people listening,

I think it's going to be value. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I don't know that there's a lot of people out there that don't know anyone who's ever been successful at wrestling at the level that he's been successful at. Like, 100%. It seems, we watch the, you know, you watch the NCAAs every year, and so it feels like you see a lot of high level wrestling,

but there's a lot of kids who have, never met a national champion or had a conversation with one or listened to a national champion talk about any of these things ever. So I think that a lot of it's just, it's just people are uninformed a lot of times. And there's a lot of great coaches. There's a lot of great training partners. There's a lot of great places you can send your kids, but not everyone has the ability to do that. Not everyone could send their kids to a, to a Ridge Lovett camp and get like that hands-on one-on-one training. It's just not how the whole entire world is. It's really easy to turn on the radio. Well, that's the beauty. Ridge

and providing, and again, I had to elevate my knowledge, wrestling knowledge, just to hang out with it. Right? Just to hang out and go, listen, I'm not going to be that dude. Like, I can't be basic. I'm just not wired to accept that sort of thing. But then the access that they gave me made me smarter. The access you give me, Listen, it's levels to this thing, and I just want the listeners to enjoy some of the knowledge that is out there. To have you, he had the conversation with Caleb yesterday, and it was riveting because Caleb is such a unique young man.

And Anthony, I don't know if you've ever met Caleb Smith. I haven't yet, I know. But his story, his birth story of his heart and that he wasn't supposed to make it. That's crazy. Right? For a young man to take that. burden and turn it into that's the motor and engine because he's never going to be at work. He's never going to be nobody's ever going to like the joke.

Yeah, those seven minute matches become 10 minutes in a hurry because it's Caleb. Like he actually, he's a goer. He's fun to watch. Right. So I want to put y'all together in several situations and circumstances. One, go to the film room, like having you two go to the lab. I could do that. Right.

I'm such a wrestling nerd. What I'm not. I bet my best friend is in my phone right now. Like, I cannot believe you're sitting with Rich Love it right now. But he's losing his mind. That's why I wanted to, because over the course of the next few weeks, and we want Manning for Michigan, get AJ in the deal, but we also have that podcast studio, which allows us that when you're conveniently in the same space

and have time. And then, oh, by the way, have him come to practice. Oh, yeah. Have Anthony come. You tell all the dudes and they'll leave me alone. You know, I beat me up like that.

No, it'd be fun, though. I would love to just hang out and it's really funny. I'm in this group text with Chale Sunning, his best friend, my best friend and me. And like,

we do these brackets all the time. And Chale is the biggest fan of you. The biggest fan. It's absolutely crazy. Oh, we'll see, now you need to change his headset because his head's never going to be the same time. There's nothing wrong with that.

His head's never. He's good at what he does. Yeah. He's good at what he does. It's amazing. We're going to clip that. Like, you know, we're going to, you know, we clip that and put that on social media. I'm a sonny guy.

I'm down. Oregon, Idaho. We're right there. PNW, baby. See, to understand the connections behind it and the fact that, as you said, how many kids never get to talk to a national champion? Like, real, like, realistically, not a lot. Not a lot. But I didn't, I don't know that I'm.

a national champion or talked to one until I was already a professional fighter. Well, but how many kids have met one of the two baddest fighters on the planet at any given time in the world? It was you and John Jones, bro. That's how many people can say that? I'm a way nicer guy than John Jones, though. That has been scientifically fact-checked and proven. And I've definitely passed more drug tests, that's for sure.

Sir, man. Sir. Sir, get him. It's the beauty of it. But it's why I wanted you two to get it. And I wanted you to meet. And we will do some things, some separate projects. Because he and I are going to do some traveling.

I'm going to go to some UFC events. We also, I'm at a UFC event. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that'd be fun. Slow down. That's, yeah, we'll do that for sure. Right. And then the next phase is getting Nebraska wrestling. And you imagine Nebraska.

Aska wrestling with Anthony Smith and Ridge Love it on the call. There we go. Right? I mean. Right? I think we go ahead and sign that up, book it. So Mark Manning, Troy Danin,

the challenges have been offered. It needs to happen. Sure. It needs to happen. Okay. So we'll throw it to break and reset. But I'm just letting y'all know why. I told Anthony last night.

Like we were fan-boying because the idea of us being able to put some of these conversations together and have them on, it was important. But those connections, that's why we do this. That's why we do this. All the rest of it is glory. But, man, watching you two have these conversations

to be exceptional. Don't go anywhere more. Ticket Sports Talk when we come back. Watch live on Facebook, YouTube, or Twitch. You're listening to one-on-one with DP on 937 The Ticket and the Ticketfm.com.