Digital Social Hour - The $250K Secret: How UFC Stars Build Digital Empires | MMA Awards DSH #983

Episode Date: December 15, 2024

🥊 Discover the $250K secret behind how UFC stars are building massive digital empires! Get exclusive insights from fighters, coaches, and industry insiders on their journey from the octagon to online success. Join us for intimate conversations with UFC legends, rising stars, and the masterminds behind the scenes as they reveal their strategies for building wealth beyond fighting. From bare-knuckle boxing to crypto investments, these fighters share how they're leveraging their platform into profitable digital businesses. Featured guests share candid stories about their experiences in and out of the octagon, discussing everything from fight strategies to entrepreneurship. Learn how top UFC personalities are transitioning from physical combat to digital conquest, building sustainable income streams and lasting legacies. Whether you're a fight fan, aspiring entrepreneur, or digital marketer, this episode packed with raw conversations and real insights will show you exactly how UFC stars are building their empires in the digital age. 💪💰 #UFC #DigitalEmpire #Entrepreneurship #FightBusiness #MMALife #UFCFighter #SuccessStories #BusinessGrowth #socialmediamarketing #digitalmarketing #personalbranding #fightingbusinessstrategies #marketingagency CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 00:40 - Julian Lane Interview 02:00 - Sean Brady Insights 05:15 - Noah Schnapp Discussion 10:58 - Ian Bohen Highlights 14:08 - War Rhino Analysis 16:29 - Sam Shoemaker Career 21:10 - Neil Magny Update 23:55 - Megan Olivi Report 30:40 - Matt Serra Experience 31:51 - Jon Jones vs Askar Rumors 33:11 - Outro 33:52 - Off-road Racing Adventures 38:08 - Handling First Loss 40:16 - Future Fight Plans APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Humburglar, why are you calling? Rubble, rubble. McDonald's has a new biggest burger called Big Arch, made with two 100% Canadian beef patties, a new delicious sauce, and all the McDonald's flavors you love, and... Wait, you want me to help you get it? Rubble. Come on.

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He's not that big. He has hair loss too. Damn, Shots 5. I love that. Now we just want to find out. Shots 5. I'm Sean, nice to meet you. I'm Rob. Nice to meet you. I'm Sean. Nice to meet you as well. I'm going to get straight to the point, Rob, because I've been looking for years. You founded an MMA league, is that correct?

No, not an MMA league, no. A media company. So we started as a magazine publisher and we got into digital and social. We had a clothing range. We'd tap out and now we're here with the only industry event of its kind, the World Mixed Martial Arts event. Would you be interested in making the first magazine solely for little people? No, because I wouldn't print magazines anymore, that's why we don't. Only because of the fact that it's a challenging business at the moment, for sure.

The magazines are dying, right? Well, it's not that they're dying, it's just everything that goes around magazines like the distribution networks and the gold tailors It's highly, highly challenging so no I wouldn't like to produce a magazine again at the moment Who's the greatest person you've ever had on the cover of one of your magazines? Oh I really couldn't answer that, we've had all the stars of the sport Who's your favourite? My favourite fighter? Or favourite individual or what? I don't know, I always look at Mirko Krokop, Van Leesilver, Dan Henderson, all the guys

that used to stand up and really bang that. That's what I used to really love. There you go. Thank you so much. I love you. I love your tuxedo. Thank you very much. Thank you.

All that. Appreciate it. Thank you. Enjoy the show. Have a good one, man. Nice to meet you. All the best. Let's go, brother. What's up? What's man. Thanks for meeting you. All the best. Let's go brother.

What's up? What's up man? How you doing? How you doing? It's nothing man. What's up fellas? How you all doing? I'm ready to go close to you because I heard you were awesome.

Yeah. It's the bang game. Got the bare knuckle champ. I'm feeling it guys. Who wins in a bare knuckle fight? You or Bryce Hall? Speaking of Bryce Hall, I want to, if he beats Kimmel, if Bryce Hall beats Kimmel slice jr. that's who I want to fight next all right you know what I mean but uh who wins me of course what's your record right now

shit I think I'm 8-5 baronoko maybe 8-5 you know what I mean yeah I can't really keep counting man I got so many baronoko fights I've done this I've done this since 2019 man. I was the first one to go over to the pond the England Well, I'm gonna do 17, you know from Ireland man took the belt on my debut fight. What? Yeah, man So huge upset. Yeah, let's go, you know, but you know like we can't see man there That's my home right now, and I'm just trying to you know Get that belt so look forward in the new, you know the new year. I'll be coming for that belt All right, you get that belt. Walson Trowell has the belt right now in my weight class. He's a tough fighter, man

You know, I just I can't wait to put myself to that test. Let's do it, bro You get that belt you're gonna make your way to the UFC. Hey man Of course like MMA is my passion. I would love to fight in UFC. Dana White give me a shot man, I'll fight whoever the fuck you put in front of me. You know, put him in my weight class. 155 or 170 man, like I'm there.

You know what I mean? Who's the greatest UFC fighter of all time? The greatest UFC fighter of all time is John Jones. Let's go, right answer. Yeah, of course. This guy knows his good. The fucking, the greatest madman is Conor McGregor. I like Conor, man. Greatest shit talker of all time for sure. Yeah, fuck it. But no, Conor's a good dude, man. He's a part of us now too, so. Have you been in more street fights or more bare-knuckle fights?

I've been in more bare-knuckle fights. Any street fights? I've been in street fights. Alright, what's your record in street fights? Fucking, definitely, probably, I would say undefeated, bro. Damn, alright. Undefeated, man. But what is a street fight, man? That ain't really testing yourself man. Yeah that's too easy for you.

That's easy. I'd rather go out and get somebody who's like training for me man. I feel that man. You know what I mean? Street fights don't last long man. Don't do nothing but get your ass in trouble. Facts. Where can people find you? You can find me on Instagram Julian Lane in the May. You can find me on Twitter or X Julian Lane in the May. Boom. Thanks for coming on, brother. Thanks, man. That was fun.

Yeah, appreciate it. Hell yeah. I'll send that to Bryce. Yeah, man, thanks. Yeah, tell Bryce, man, I'll fight him, man. Yeah. You know Bryce? Yeah, yeah, he's been on my pod.

He lives in Vegas. He's fighting this. If he wasn't fighting, man. Hell yeah. I love him. He had the most fights, man. You've always wanted to be part of something bigger than yourself. They had the most spice man! already in you. This is for you. The Canadian Armed Forces, a message from the government of Canada.

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you know what I mean? I never turned down a fight, man. Hey, nice meeting you, man. Hey, thanks, man. Nice to meet you all, man. I know that you're a doctor on a show. If you saw a UFC fighter get knocked out, do you think you would know a couple moves to get him back?

Uh, probably not. They'd be screwed. Do you think? I would believe in you. I've seen your moves on the show. You know, I mean, I still don't remember any medical terms from the show after doing it for seven years. Has the show ever helped you in the real world in terms of saving someone's life or even just helping them when you're a medic? No, the only thing that's done is validate my career with my parents because they wanted me to be a doctor ever since I was young. And I wasn't smart enough to get into med school, but it eventually became full circle

when I became a doctor on TV. So with you being here, do you have a favorite fighter? Who is your great ultimate fighter of all time? Oh, ultimate fighter of all time? After so many, but I mean, George St. Pierre is one of them on top of the list. Ooh, Canadian right there. It's going up on the list.

But I'm a huge fan of Zhang Weili. And I mean, there's truly too many. I remember watching the very first UFC. And Hoys Gracie will always be my standout. I love it. I love it. Who is one fighter you think you would win in the Octagon? Probably, there's not a single one.

Us? They're talking about creating a Dwarf MMA league. So would you watch that? Are you guys fighting? We could. If you guys fight I'll be there. I'm a lover. I love it.

Do you guys practice? We don't but we're going to start training. Do you practice? I do. What do you do? Jiu-Jitsu? I've done Taekwondo my whole life but Jiu-Jitsu has been kind of my obsession for the last year and a half.

I feel like it's a very hard-working sport and very mental right? It is and it's very addicting because it feels like you know the closest thing to human chest That's a good way to put it Boy you got 20 something years trying to rip off my neck but you know other than that it's fun That's a little scary well it was nice meeting you though, very nice meeting you I have one more half if you don't mind. What is it? No problem.

Yeah, I should have. Yeah, no problem. This is my other half. Okay, yeah, no problem. Who wins in a fight, you or these two? I like my chances. But I'm not gonna give any flatties. I actually think y'all, you know,

I like my chances big time. It gets anybody on the plane. But I think if we take you out down low, you know, you're done. Thanks. I don't know, I squatted a lot, so I don't know. How many of us do you think you could squad? I know, pizza, hamburger, and the bun. 95 and 150.

So battle average is where I was okay. Like 100? Yeah. So I'm gonna like, right at 2 and a half times. You want to swap me right now or not? I don't really want to hurt the blazer. I don't want to mess with you. Okay, okay.

Who is one fighter in the UFC who you really want to fight and you haven't fought yet? Well, he goes by the name of Bo Niki. So that's the guy I really want. If times do, it will happen. But yeah, that's the guy I want to fight. And why hasn't he accepted to fight for you yet? Well, for myself, I just got into UFC myself. So that's just a fight down the line. No slaps for him.

I just think we match up really well and I like the opportunity. Why do you feel so confident against Bo Nichol? I think I'm a really good wrestler myself and I think maybe sometimes I might sleep on my wrestling but I just think I got the skill set to beat him and continue to elevate in this division. I wish I could elevate in height. I agree, I'm the same way. We'll end off with this, who's the GOAT of the UFC?

My GOAT personally is Jon Jones. I do think he is the GOAT. Obviously along with other allegations and things along with that nature but I definitely think he is the greatest of all time so he's done it all look at all the champion he's beaten. I definitely think he is. Alright check him out guys. We'll see ya. Sean great to meet you.

Sir you are one of us like a few inches off. You're 100% correct. So where are you from? I'm from Ireland originally. Wow. Las Vegas 31 years. Have you ever split the G? You don't like the G?

That's my daughter. My daughter right there. I know, I know. Like split the Guinness. Guinness. Guinness. We can drink Guinness with the whiskey as well. Oh yeah.

You have Carbomb? Yeah, yeah, Carbomb. He knows where he's talking. Let's go. He knows where he's talking. I'm half Irish. I've been to Ireland. You have been? Yeah.

You've been to Belfast? No, I went to Dublin. Oh, right. Who's your favourite Irish fighter? Ooh. I don't know. There's only one that I know. McGregor.

How do you feel about Paddy? Paddy Pimlin, he's a great fighter. I think he can win a bell. Soft microfiber cushions engineered for comfort, and a range of colors and finishes. Dyson On Track, headphones remastered. Buy from DysonCanada.ca. With ANC on, performance may vary based on environmental conditions and usage, accessories sold separately.

I can see it, just gotta keep it waiting. I've seen them get really big lately. You gotta keep yourself in 10 feet. Well it's hard in Ireland where you can literally, it's appropriate, that'll boost you every hour of the day. Yeah, you can live on potatoes as well. Uh-huh. Potatoes and beer. Good old Irish breakfast, right, at the bar?

Exactly. Yeah, I love the Irish. I might head over there in March and become a leprechaun if that's okay with you. I tell people, with leprechauns, they don't believe me, but I said I could take you to to a leprechaun hill Are you able to bring us to the leprechaun hill? Let's go You can just hide and pop out Are there a lot of rainbows over there? The rainbows they tell people I'm a leprechaun

I'm a real Irish leprechaun If we arrive you won't be a leprechaun You should be over here No you can't come over there You gotta stay here. Thank you, sir. I love it. Thanks, man.

How are you? Sammy. Hey, Sammy. What's going on? Nice to meet you. So, Sammy and I are huge fans. Yeah, huge fans. That's cool.

Thanks. I appreciate that. What was the best part about filming and the worst part? So, the best part is the cast. The family that you make, the personalities. So many different people. The worst part would be taking the lead. So Sammy wants to get on the show. What's the role you think would be best for him?

Stall cleaner? No, I think he would work with Gator. I think he would be in the kitchen. Little chef? Cooking it up. Okay, I love that. He's one of my favorite characters on the show and he needs someone to like play off of his energy. And he's also an enormous man.

That would be funny. Yeah, it'd be like David and Goliath cooking in the kitchen. That would be funny. So, these are the animated awards. If you could fight any other cast member in real life, who would it be? For sport or pleasure? Either one. You choose. There's a couple of different answers. One of them is not to be spoken. For fun... You want that answer?

Yeah, I bet you do. For fun, I would like to fight Cole Houser. Ooh. Yeah. And how would that go? You know what? We wrestled a few times, as does everybody on set. It's always pretty easy. Is Cole as big and bad as he shows as Rip

as he is in person? He is as big and he's imposing and he's large and you definitely don't want to mess with him, but he's a teddy bear. Yeah, teddy bear heart, okay. So were you, did you ride horses before the show? Yeah, I was lucky, I grew up riding horses, so I had a very stable foundation.

Were you one of the only ones that actually knew how to ride a horse? No, probably half of us did but everybody else got trained and worked their butts off every day and then got to the level so everyone's competitive now. What was the worst training accident you saw a lot of stuntmen on set? So we did a thing called Cowboy Poker where we sit around a table in the arena and the bull does its thing and they sit so when the bulls is getting real mad they put the stunt actors in and they all sit there and one time the bull got into one of our stunt ladies and launched it and just it was catastrophic

and she took it, rubbed something and came back around the next day. So are you an adrenaline genie? Is this a normal thing for you to be on shows like this and stuff like this? I'd prefer it. I'm high speed and I'd rather do that than, you know, the low power. So what's next? Next is Lioness. Well, it'll be Lioness, another one of my favorite shows. Sure, next year, so I'm very excited about that.

And where can everybody find you and what do you need everybody for? Hell, you can find me anywhere on the internet you want. Oh, no, no, sorry. What do I want? I want a piece. We're at the wrong event for you. Well, but all of the men are so disciplined that they have

fine inner-piece. And I think I was telling Eden that that's the discipline for a support partner. Last question, Ian. One more. Who is your favorite fighter of all time? I would say Royce Gracie, because when I was a kid, he was like the pioneer of the sport.

He was your bad boy. Yeah, I'm quite a bit older than the fighters normal age now. Back when it was just getting popular this guy from Brazil was like doing it and I'm like who is this guy? What is he doing? He's wearing a gi and nobody else is and so he's a stud. Well Ian it was a pleasure. Thank you so much. Very nice meeting you. All right we got War Rhyno here how's it going man? Good man. Oh yeah. Are you nominated for anything tonight? Oh, absolutely not. But there's some solid nominations coming through. Who do you think's gonna win Fighter of the Year?

You know, I always think the Stockton boys should win, but that's just me. Oh yeah. But they're not even nominated, but I think that's the MMA's world's loss. Have you competed in Power Slap before? Ooh, I have not. That hurts my soul watching it

I don't know if I would do bare knuckle with Glass in the wrist before I would do power slap damn really absolutely 100% how come I? Am deathly afraid of just getting pimped slap for nothing. I Mean, they're not making them that much right now cuz so new it's too new. Bare Knuckle is amazing and but you watch these power slap guys man and they I don't know I you know I just don't know what kind of households they grew up in but uh respect to those guys. Respect. I've seen some vicious knockouts of power slap. The knockouts I've seen on power slap are almost worse than UFC. My boy my boy does power slap and he just got knocked out when they went to Saudi Arabia

and he got knocked out. That was his first loss and it was the first slap. Just cold clocked him and he hit the counter and walked back and just watching that hurts me. I feel like whoever goes first has a huge advantage. 100%. I don't understand the nuances of it but all respect to everybody that even competes in that, my hat is 100% tipped. For real. Ospinal and John Jones rumors, who you got winning that fight if it happens? I think John Jones gets stomped if that fight actually goes down.

No way, really? I think it happens at least in the second round. Wow, that's a hot take. That's a hot, yeah, that's my take. He's undefeated though. All respect to him, but I think he gets beat in the second round. Wow, that's a hot take. That's a hot, yeah, that's my take. He's undefeated though. All respect to him, but I think he gets beat in the second round, that's why he wants 30 million to do the fight.

Yeah, that's more than he normally gets, I'd assume. Yeah, I would hope so, geez Louise. Well, what's next for you, my man? You know, there's some big stuff coming up next year, and I got some big announcement gonna come out in about April or May, so I'm looking forward to that announcement. Oh yeah, stay tuned, we'll link it social below.

Let's go. Boom. Hey, come on. Thank you, bro. All right. It's a little bit awkward right now because I'm not the flyest in the room. Yeah, I'm usually that guy. So I heard you're a fighter, right? Yes, yes.

You could hurt somebody not with your knuckles, but with those. If it got wild, that's what I would do because my hands are valuable. I can only imagine a front kick to the face with those. Or a heel kick. Yeah, heel kick. What do you mind if I see how sharp they are? Yo let's guess how much they cost.

Whoever's closest wins. How much are they over under $1500? Under. $789. Under. Wow. I'm $789. Under. Wow.

I'm going $450. Five, 500. 450. Oh. Oh yeah. How'd you guess that? That's crazy. I don't know, I just knocked it out, you know?

Damn. Well, speaking of knocking out, who's one fighter who you haven't fought yet and you really want to just move the office race on? Um, so I wrestled in college against Michael Chandler. And I beat him pretty bad. And he's got a good wave. He's upper weight class. He's bigger than me. But he's got a good wave and he puts on an awesome fight.

So that would be one that I would like to have. Well, we were just talking about front kicks. Have you seen that front kick? Of course. Are you scared of that? No. There's nothing in MMA that scares me. I was there in person and it made me scared. I had nightmares. Well, I can see that being a bad thing.

That up kick can get a lot of people's jokes. Is there any chance Mike Dole Chandler would say yes? No. Why not? The money ain't right. It ain't about the money at the end of the day. At his level, it's about the pride. Yeah, yeah.

And he might be afraid that you're going to book his house. Man, no childhood dreams. It comes to nightmares. Well, mine was I wanted to make the NBA going up. So mine was also playing the nightmare. I understand. As long as you got a jump shot, you can get somewhere. I don't have any shots.

You're the granny shot. Nice to meet you fellas. Everything. Yeah, meme coins coming on. Everything. Yeah? Yeah, meme coins. That's how I made my money. Crypto. Really? Yeah. Oh nice. Yeah, yeah. I nerded out on the meme coins. I caught NFTs at the right time. Yeah, that's awesome.

I sold my house, went all in in crypto. At the bottom. My crypto partner over there, we have a YouTube channel. Crypto Kings. Okay. If you want that alpha, come check us out. And I've just grown my platform big on Twitter. Let's go do some influencing and stuff like that, but mainly trading, investing. I'm in the trenches, man. Nice.

Did you get in on the Hawk to a coin? No, definitely not. You guys got to learn, man. Do not buy celebrity coins. Most these guys are getting approached by scammers, and it might not even be the hot tui girl that's scamming but the people that launched her coin are absolutely scamming. Don't do it.

The only celebrity meme coin I've seen stick around is Iggy. Iggy's has done good because she embraced the culture but still not that good. I mean it did good. You can get some gains but you know Andrew T obviously, but he's kind of in the crypto space. So, but if a random, you know, celebrity wants to launch a meme coin, it's probably gonna not be good. What's the highest multiple you've made off a meme coin? I've made a 14,000 X. Damn. Yeah.

That's insane. So you got in right when it launched then. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Rode it up all the way to half a billion market cap. That's insane. So you got in right when it launched then? Yeah. Yup. Yup. Rode it up all the way to half a billion market counts. Let's go.

Do you think it's predictable or do you have a formula for meme coins? We absolutely have a formula. If you watch the Crypto Kings livestream, if you subscribe to me on X, we give an exact formula of how we do meme coins. That'll give you a way better chance of winning. And obviously it is a luck of the draw and it's also a numbers game so you do got to be in the trenches and but you got to take the motions out man we call it the laws of meme coins if you want to learn more

check that out what are your price predictions for this bull run for Bitcoin and Ethereum Bitcoin I see going to I predict 169,000 but with everything so bullish it could go to 250. Ethereum 12,000 to 15,000 range. Solana 900. Ripple? Ripple, I don't know, it's got like a 3 maybe 4x left. A lot of people are chasing that, that's retail. You're chasing that. I'm really bullish on Poles chain.

It's a new blockchain. It's a layer one. It's a fork of Ethereum. It is the founder's Richard Hart. So he has that cult-like hex community behind him. And this thing is a cycle one layer one about to explode in my opinion. A lot of cool things happen in there. Actually, you could even interview my partner.

He was the top 200 wallets in SHIB. Wow. Yeah. So that one took off. He's a multimillionaire, retired from it. Well guys, get ready for next year. Crypto's gonna be huge in 2025. So we'll link his stuff below. Thanks for coming on.

Yeah, absolutely. Oh yeah, cool. That's awesome, bro. Yeah, I'm in there. I'm on Crypto Twitter every day. Yeah, me too. Hey, Sean, nice to see you guys. Sean, nice to see you.

You guys are tall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow, let's go. So Neil, I've seen you on a lot of Taylor Sharer shows lately. How is it on set working with them? Taylor Sharer is unbelievable. What they do over there, David Glass is an incredible producer. So to go from Yellowstone which is amazing and then Ravé is my wife but also my agent and manager convinced that I put you on television. Thank you honey. You on Toleslake was incredible. That was so much fun. Watching you in third episode coming out. That ending for me was sad. There has to be another.

Oh no no, we're not done yet. We're we uh. They're slowly like an onion. They're unwrapped in the maze. They're making you cry. A meal character. I love it. How precious are they? They're slowly unveiling themselves. Let's just say you kept me on my heels all the way. Was that one of your favorite roles to ever play? Oh yeah, I mean I got to work with Sylvester Stallone every day.

Sly is one of those guys that cares so much about not just his work and how hard he works at it, but he loves his family so much and his family's all around. So, Ravay and I are the same way. We always have our kids around whenever we do a production. I love it. What do you think the secret is? Oh, go ahead. Well, I was going to say, but to have Sly play Sly, the alter ego mafia character. I still love that. I was invited to dance with Scorsese movies, with Coppola films. There he is.

I'm going to create my own character with Taylor Sharer. I'm going to kick everyone's butt. He did. He's the best mafioso character I think. Mayhew, he truly is. I love it. Was it actually filmed in Tulsa? No, we filmed in Atlanta.

I love Tulsa. We were filming our own movie called The Last Rodeo, which comes out in May. In Tulsa, we knew what the phone call to be on Tulsa King, we were like, we want Tulsa! Because we don't know what to do to amend it. And so, Neil's filming in Manitow, which he loves, but no, it was filmed there. They took the whole Tulsa King hotel

and everything and brought it to Manitow. Is your favorite role, you say like a villain role, I feel like you play that really well. No, I put, yes, I love playing the villain roles, don't get me wrong, but I had to do it because I want to do intimate scenes. So all I gotta do is be the best bad guy they've ever made. And that was my design. And now that they're producing movies, I get to write my characters. So there's a string of good guys coming out with an edge.

Speaking of bad guys though, we're at the USC MMA. Who is the baddest guy in the MMA? The Rock. Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil, Neil's funny. I love it, man. It was nice meeting you guys. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. That's Sean. Thanks for coming on, guys. That was fun. Awesome.

Oh my god. What are the odds that we find somebody on the carpet who just isn't that funny? I mean, zero. You are the funniest person. What zero. Cause I'm here. You are the funniest person. What up? Nice to meet you, darling. Nice to meet you in person. How you doing?

Good. You've been blowing up. Man, I don't know. You've been crushed. How did you even end up with your role with the UFC? Ooh. How did I end up? I thought it was a long-winded question. Um, should I hold you? Are you squatting in the chair? Yes.

We saw you on the pencil. Hey, hey, hey, sorry. Um, let's see, uh, the long, the short version of the long story is that, uh, I got invited to an Apex maybe three years ago. I showed up, um, I filmed some content. I was like, whatever, whatever you guys have an opening, call me, I'll come back I'll do whatever you guys want me to do Then they have an opening for International Fight Week They were like, come through, shoot some content, see how it goes We did really well, crushed it And the rest is history

You've been absolutely crushing it How long have you been working with the UFC? I want to say a little over 2 years now And you plan on probably being here forever? I'm gonna die here. Wow. I'm gonna die here. In the ring?

Anywhere. Yeah, have you ever decided to maybe hop in the octagon yet or no? Have I decided to? Yeah, would you ever fight? No, I can't. I just... Her nails are too long. The nails, you know, my lashes, my weave. You've done hundreds of interviews now.

Who's been your favorite fighter to interview? Oh man, I mean... It's such a hard answer. Putting her on the spot. It's putting me on the spot. I mean, everyone is like, how can you pick? You and Strickland seem like best friends. Yeah, he's my brother.

I interviewed him once and he said, my owner is Snow White. I'm being a little serious. Wow. Oh it's too funny now. Okay. I mean, that sounds like, I mean that sounds like something John would say. It means that he likes you. It means well.

That's a compliment. The worse the insult, the more he likes you. I had to learn that very early. I loved it because I know he won't. You know what's funny? UFC fighters are the least freaky people because because I know he won't you know it's funny you have seen fighters at least Freaky people because you know they actually won't hurt you If you're able to hurt somebody No, I mean even I think He feels more safe and comfortable in a room full of fighters than anyone else

Makes us comfortable in a room full of fighters than anyone else. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I love it. I love it. Makes sense. Well. Who is one athlete that you haven't interviewed yet and you just really want to interview? Oh. One athlete I haven't interviewed yet. That's a tough one.

She's interviewed a lot of people. I was in house league hockey growing up. You ran what? House league hockey. I played T-ball. You went home and ran. Close out. So T-ball is on the roster now? Yeah. We're doing T-ball. Yeah,. I play T-ball. Close enough. Oh, T-ball is on the roster now?

Yeah. Oh, we're doing T-ball? What about Bagnet? Hold on, I've seen... Did you get shot out of a cannon once? Oh, no, that was probably one of my ancestors. No, I didn't. Oh, a blob, you mean? From babies? Yeah, yeah, it was that.

Serious question though. If there was a dwarf MMA light would you join it? Or would you like, watch it? Of course I would. You think you'd go viral? Who would win between John and I? I would love another fighter just like you Nina. So who? What's your grip strength? You know? We should have brought that machine. Oh my gosh I love this

Well, I mean I love this Honestly, I haven't seen you in so freaking long It's so good to see you Sean Sean Yeah No, not Strickland I have the number 2 podcast on Spotify. We get a hundred million views a month

Jamal Hills been on the podcast what happened with you to you and him today Carada I was training and I got there. But I think it's part of it because I've seen it many times. I think he's already lost. It's hard. When we lose like this, sometimes the guys think they can do better, give a lazy and want to prove that it's another opportunity. Obviously, you're not your next opponent. No, I'm not focused yet. I have some work to do. I'm focused on the fight, I'm training, slowly, I'm coming back. Let's see what they create. I got two of my little friends here. Do you think he can pick up both of them? What are your thoughts on having an MMA league

solely for people under the height of five foot? What do you think? What do you think about making an MMA league only for people who are shorter than five feet? I think it's a good idea. It will give everyone an opportunity. It's a good idea because it's going to give chance. It's a good idea because it will give everybody an opportunity. How many middle people would it take to whoop your ass in the octagon?

How many of us versus here in the octagon? How many people, their size, need to get together to get you in the octagon? Their size? How many? I have no idea. It depends on the person, if they're strong, trained, then it's a little bit complicated. It has to be more than one. I would say. I want you to rate his punch on me, one to ten. He has one of the punches, you have one of the punches,

one of the strongest punches in the world. He wants you to say how strong his punch is on him from 0 to 10. But you punch him, he's going to say from 0 to 10 how strong he is. Three. Three. Three, sorry, bro. He'll improve, you have to train me. You have to train him to improve. Definitely. 3 3? sorry bro you have to train me

I'm training for the minor guys we got Timba Grembo fighting on Saturday so I got a lot of like coaching duties so I won't be doing much of anything. Let's go. Who else is fighting? Just Timba but we have you know Aljo is like a teammate of ours so Aljo will be on the card as well so. Are they favored to win? Timba is, Aljo is not. Little upset in the making? I mean shit you know I think they're overlooking or under looking Aljo right you know he's a fucking he overlooking or under looking Aljoe, right? You know, he's a fucking he's tough as shit. You got that inside scoop. So you're probably not even allowed to bet right? Oh, no that shut that down years ago. Oh, yeah. Yeah somebody somebody ruined that for us. I don't even know what happened But we're not allowed to bet we're not damn. All right, who do you got winning the title card tomorrow or Saturday?

You know, I lean towards Pantoja. I think he's eased into being a champion, understands being a champion. And dude, he's just very well coached by Pahumpa. He's one of the most underrated coaches in the game. I don't want to say underrated. The guy's nominated for Coach of the Year again. But I really value when I see good coaching and that to me is Pahumpa.

I think Pantoja's got the game plan and the skills to go get that fight. Let's go. Rumors of a John Jones-Ospinal fight. Who do you got if that happens? Oh, it's tough, man. John is the GOAT. And I think when you're breaking that guy down, he's an enigma.

And not only is he an enigma, he's figuring you out and processing data all at the same time. We're trying to figure him out while you're fighting. But I've worked with Tom in the past. Tom is amazingly athletic. He's got the skill set to beat him, while you're fighting. But I've worked with Tom in the past. Tom is amazingly athletic. He's got the skill set to beat him, the hand speed, the footwork. So if anybody were to upset John,

that's in the UFC right now, I definitely think it's Aspen. Wow. Since the fight's evolving so fast, how often are you changing your training techniques? That is huge. And remember, this sport is constantly evolving. We have to be on the cutting edge.

Thankfully, we have such a big gym and a big team that we get a lot of people in. I train with a lot of the guys from the Fighting Nerds. They come and train with us. So we get to see different styles and adapt. And that, to me, is the most important part about this sport, is evolving and trying to stay on the cutting edge and see what other guys are doing

really well. Absolutely. I feel like the skill level is so high now. It's really hard to be undefeated these days. Oh, absolutely. I mean, we were laughing a couple of days ago around my gym alone at Shrinkator. Four or five six-year-old kids that are just training every day. They're not playing other sports. This is what they do. They're training in MMA.

So by the time they turn 16, 17, 18 years old, like the Raul Rosas of the world, they're competing. Not only competing, they're beating, you know, top-level guys. So it's huge. There he is, the champ. What's up man, good to see you. Well man, what's next for you, where can people find you? I'll be here this week for Timba, and then on the road, eric underscore XCMMA. Boom, check him out, thanks for coming on.

My man, all dressed up. Let's go. Little, we're just little around that, super tall. Well, in the polys too you're kind of taller, so. You think they could survive in an off-road race with you in the car? Yeah, I think so. Okay.

I don't think the airbag would go off because of our weight. We don't have to weigh them. This man don't crash. Do you have an extra large helmet? Because this big noggin needs one. Yeah, 100%. We'll let you dial, we'll get you with a fire suit on,

and some gloves, and some race shoes. You've been racing lately? I did the Mint 400 this year. We're doing kind of a restructuring of the team, but we start again at King of the Hammers in January. Nice. How long was that one, though, race 400? 400 was nine hours and 14 minutes,

if I remember correctly. My biggest question is, how do you go to the bathroom during the race? Just like that. You have to go on your pants. No, no, no, no, like he literally has you ask that he went. Oh, he just went. I can smell it to the right...

His garage is like eye level to me. You had asparagus last night, didn't you? Yeah. He don't have time to pull over, man. It's honestly, like the Baja 1000 I won in 2012 was 20 hours 14 minutes and 59 seconds and I have a cath, I have like a catheter that goes over instead of in. So it's like a really thick condom that has a hose that goes out the bottom of my shoe. I wish my bod had a really thick condom.

So obviously we solved the issue of if you have to pee. What if you have to do the other thing? When you don't really have to go number two and you take half a dose of Peptobizmo, it clogs you up for enough time to get to the finish line. I feel like you going at those high speeds too, you're not focused on pooping either. No, it's a seismic environment. The issue though is you held a crop for that long and then you win and you have to have champagne which kind of makes it bloated.

That crop has to be a monster. Yes. It's pretty gnarly. Do you even have time to eat? In the car, I do 250 calories every 52 minutes for 9 hours. Wow, very calculated. Simple and complex carbohydrates. I have about 8.5 ounces of water. And then I microdose caffeine around 4 in the morning to 7 in the morning. Damn, yeah, because you're probably burning a lot of calories thinking about your driving, right? Yeah, for sure. You know, it's 136 miles an hour at 2 o'clock in the morning on a road that you've been down three times.

And sometimes it's dark. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's always dark at 3 o'clock in the morning. So you're going 136 miles an hour for almost 20 hours straight? No, no, no, no, I go back and forth between five miles an hour and 150 miles an hour. You know, I go like 115, 117 through three, four foot bumps over and over. My race truck, it's like any race car,

it's a million dollar piece of equipment. But it doesn't slow down, it doesn't accelerate very well, and it doesn't like to change direction. It's designed to go through really big bumps at a higher rate of speed. I feel like that was exactly how he walks. Yeah, it's really accurate. Yeah, I know slow down and you make it through a lot of bumps. Yes, exactly.

Alright, thanks for coming on brother. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, power slap, yeah. Are you going to power slap tomorrow? Yeah, I'll be there. Would you ever do power slap? No, probably not. UFC wasn't up for you?

No, well, it's funny. I would absolutely fight much before I would do a Power Slap. Yeah, so I got that answer from a few fighters as well. Yeah, yeah. I'll tell you what though, the live event is incredible. I mean, the things that Lorenzo and Dana can do in terms of live event, it's incredible. Because people, yeah, you look at PowerSlap,

there's some things that are interesting and maybe unattractive, but when you go to live event, it's incredible. It really is an incredible live event. Were you at the Sphere for the UFC? I wasn't actually. I was at a talent for that one. I heard that was one of the best events ever.

I did, I saw a lot of pictures and videos. And it looked amazing. But I didn't even see it. Just on TV. Yeah. If Sean won, I think that would have been a big fight for his resume. Yeah. That's a tough fight. And people forget you're continuously fighting the best guys in the world. And just what Sean's done to this point is really incredible. So I mean listen to win a world title one time I mean that's a that's a that's a lifelong accomplishment and dream and even to do it

or defend your belt or repeatedly do it I mean that's that's relatively unheard of. Absolutely. He's incredible. Yeah how did you handle your first loss was it really tough on you mentally? Not really. I mean, I was still kind of wrestling a lot in the wrestling mindset. And the advantage a lot of wrestlers have too is they're quick to move on. And in a lot of tournaments, you wrestle three, four, five times in a day. With a fight, yeah, you get frustrated, you get upset, and you're reflecting on what happened, this and that,

but you just, for me it was just I wanted to get back in there quick and as soon as possible. That makes sense. Did you like wrestling more or fighting? Oh, fighting way more. Really, why? Yeah, just much more freedom. You know, you could really do what you want.

You know, wrestling's a little bit more limited, you know, and obviously you can strike, and you know, it's funny because I could take advantage of areas that other people won't get at. I'd fight guys that are way better wrestlers than I am, but I could make them a little more predictable in a way. Or if I'm fighting guys that are way better striking, I'm going to be able to control that game where the fight goes.

So that's definitely, it was always an advantage. I can see that. Do you think wrestling should change some rules to make it more interesting for TV audiences? It's tough, man. I talked to Chael about that a lot. And he's been around some of the best wrestlers on the planet.

And I think they're doing a better job marketing and getting it out there. But at the end of the day, it's like you do gotta make it a little more exciting. You gotta get that buzz or even maybe put on a better live event because you know just to see what the UFC done and UFC's done and even other organizations in terms of live event it's tough you know because when you have such exciting sport you know exciting events in MMA and then you

know you go to wrestling yeah it's not as, but they could definitely ramp up the marketing side absolutely There's that jujitsu meme of like falling on your back getting in position You know so these sports got to figure it out. I guess I know I know like as a competitor It's a lot of fun wrestling grappling jujitsu all of it. It's so much fun. Just not that fun to watch You know that's the reality so you got events like powerslap MMA UFC it. I mean, I don't know if there's anything more exciting to watch. Absolutely. Will we ever see you in a fight again, whether it's boxing, MMA or anything?

You know, perhaps. Perhaps. Never say never. I could say Power Slap's definitely a no. Even for a million dollars? Ooh. I don't know. I don't know. I would definitely say you'll see me fight before I do that. Fair enough. Where can people find you man? Yeah, I'm on a I mean I'm I'm lucky that I live here in Las Vegas, so

I'm around at least a lot of the events here Twitter Instagram Ellenberg and May so I still try to stay Stay close to the sport as much as I can. Awesome, we'll link below. Thanks for coming on man. Appreciate it, buddy. Yeah. Thank you. Whoa.