MMA Fighting - #455 – Askren, Adesanya, Anthony Smith, Branch, Lewandowski

Episode Date: October 29, 2018

Luke Thomas speaks to Ben Askren about how he ended up in the UFC after a historic trade with ONE Championship for Demetrious Johnson, the UFC welterweight division, more (2:12:18); Israel Adesanya about his UFC 230 bout opposite Derek Brunson, his development, more (30:53); Anthony Smith about his win over Volkan Oezdemir in the main event of UFC Moncton, what's next for him (1:16:27); David Branch about his UFC 230 bout opposite Jared Cannonier after losing out on the Jacare Souza fight (1:52:27); and KSW CEO Martin Lewandowski about the latest with his organization as well as changes in the MMA industry (1:31:03). Luke also looks at some of the bigger victories from UFC Moncton plus an examination of Ben Askren’s UFC potential on the Monday Morning Analyst (10:56); and he also shares his thoughts on the Ben Askren, Demetrious Johnson trade on The Weigh-in (3:53). We also take your questions on the latest in MMA and more on Sound Off (47:22) and A Round of Tweets (2:06:44). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. This is the MMA hour right here on MMAFighting.com. Thank you so much for joining me. I greatly appreciate it. On the docket today, well, biggest show we've ever done. We're adding an extra half hour at the beginning just to accommodate everything. A bunch of guests are going to be here.

Let's see. Let's go through them. Number one, Israel Adasanya is going to be here ahead of his UFC 230 fight. Anthony Smith, fresh off of his UFC Moncton win, is going to be here. The CEO of KSW, Martin Lewandowski, will be in studio. How about that? That's kind of fun. David Branch, who had his whole situation change at UFC 230.

He will join us, and then last but not least, the new darling of the ultimate fighting championship, Ben Ascran, will be here as well. Plus all of your tweets using the hashtag the MMA hour, all of your calls. At the number, as it always is, 844-866-2468. We'll have the sound off, the Monday morning analysts, the tweets, the weigh in, the whole thing. So much to get to. Look, we added a 30-minute window to this because we just couldn't accommodate everything. We won't be doing five guests very often.

This was not on purpose. It kind of fell in place like this. But we thought, you know what? It's UFC-230 Fight Week. Let's start the week off right. So with that being said, can we jump to my buddy, Danny Segura, very, very quick? Let's just check in with the old main man himself. Dan's, how you doing, boss?

You're out there, buddy? Yep, but the camera angles are switched up because we're going to do the Monday morning analyst early here. No analogies today, huh? No time. Oh, you know what? No time to waste. No time for that anymore.

But you know how you are the Aheako to my Bogota. How about that? Oh, that means a lot. Thank you. You are that to me, my friend. All right, good weekend. Both of our teams suffered horrendous defeats in recent days. But aside from that, I thought UFSI Moncton had some great fights.

Yeah, great fights. Pretty good night of fights, you know, despite not having too much star power. And big news also that broke throughout the week as well. That's right. That's right. And very quickly, I don't get a chance to talk about Calvin Cater on today's Monday morning analyst, but I wanted to give a big shout to him. That's gentleman, I forget his first name, but Fishgold, I thought, really brought the fight to him.

But like, I take my hat off to him. But, you know, like Calvin Cater, he fell short against tonight. Nato Moikano, big deal. Lots of guys fall short against Anato Moikano. Very, very talented fighter. I thought this was a great comeback win, a savvy performance. So I'm not going to give him a spotlight on the Monday morning analyst, but I did want to say something. I think he's a very, very talented featherweight, and I really appreciated that performance from him.

Any other standouts to you besides some of the more obvious ones? For me, it was Anthony Smith. I know that's the obvious one, but everybody was riding sort of the bandwagon. You know, he beat Shogun. He beat, you know, Rashad Evans. And for me, I was never really, not that I wasn't impressed because he put on good performances, but to me, given where they were in their career, it didn't mean much. But this was a, he beat a real contender in Volcanoes de Mir.

So for me, it woke me up and I'm like, oh, snap, this guy's legit. Biggest one of his career. Oh, yeah, by far, fias. I was so impressed with what he did. We are going to talk about him on the Monday morning analyst. Very quickly, the tweets in the calls, give me a sense of things. Give me, like, if it was like a, if it was a glass of wine and you were smelling it, what did you pick up on the nose of these, of these inquiries?

A very, very strong body here in a sense. You know, a lot of questions came in midweek, just given the fact that the biggest news was in the middle week. So we're going to get a lot of Asker and DJ questions. And we'll address also a few things from, you know, this weekend's fights as well, but mostly Asker and DJ. That's the hot topic. It was the biggest news.

Yeah. All right, we don't have a moment to wait, so let's get right to now. We'll check in with you a little bit later in the show. Sounds good. All right, my friend. With that being said, it is time now for the way in. All right, as I mentioned, let's do the way in here on the MMA hour to kick things off on the show, as we customarily do. And here is my basic belief, my declaration to start today's show.

The Ascran DJ trade is good for MMA, period, and especially for three different reasons. And I want to go through them. This subject has been talked about to death, but I've seen a lot of consternation. I've seen a lot of negativity, and I've seen just a lot of questions being asked. As Danny mentioned, we'll get to some of those on the sound off. We'll have been on the show later. But I want to start the day by just acknowledging how great this is. And if you've heard negative things, it's not to say that the deal is perfect, because no deal is.

It's not to say that there's not even any causes for a potential concern down the line, but it's to spotlight three reasons, three reasons why this trade is good for M. The first reason is that it's basically good for the fighters. I mean, I saw so many people out there saying like, oh my God, the UFC did DJ dirty. His team not only wanted it, they appear to have engineered it. How dirty can you be have done to you? That would even make sense grammatically. If you're the one who sought this out, it doesn't make any sense.

his team apparently through Malkikawa were the ones that created this idea and at a bare minimum even if they didn't they had no problem signing on to it this is not something they got arm twisted into they appear to have spearheaded the effort you got to be kidding me so if DJ wants it and you have seen Ben Ascran on Twitter and if he wants it why are you complaining one wants it UFC wants it Fighters want it. Case closed. You can say, well, it's good for the fans or it's bad for the fans.

I think it's good. We'll get to that later, but the first point is, it's good for the fighters. All of them have bought in on it, and the guy who appeared to be getting the worst end of the deal is the one who may have engineered it. You have to be kidding me. By the way, there's a couple of the benefits here.

As DJ gets older in his career, he won't get fed to the wolves like so many guys do who hang around the UFC. He'll be able to tailor. his way out. He'll have sponsors back again, right? You've got to imagine all of these streaming companies like Twitch and whoever else are probably chomping at the bit to be a part of that. He's going to be able to get all that money, right? By the way, fighters won't get stuck in contracts that are super long anymore. And Ascran finally gets an opportunity that he has richly deserved.

Like, this is great for the fighters. I'm really struggling to understand what is so bad about it on that level. So you might say, okay, well, maybe it is good for the fighters, Luke, but is it good for the promoters? Um, yeah, pretty clearly it is good for the promoters. You have the UFC opening up their doors to a degree to something that they don't normally do, namely, cooperation. Ladies and gentlemen, in mixed martial arts, cooperation breeds ingenuity. It breeds possibility. It breeds new heights. hereto-for unexplored. Look, Mayweather-McGregor might have been a crazy fight,

and maybe it didn't even need to get made. But it's cooperation that made things possible. Look at Mayweather versus Pac-Yo. You had half of HBO and half of Showtime or half of Golden Boy or whatever. All mixed together. Mayweather promotions, not Golden Boy. But you get the idea. The broadcast was split between the Showtime broadcast and the HBO broadcast.

Two worlds had to unite. It made for better things. Folks, I don't know what's next, but if other promoters can at least borrow a scintilla of this cooperative spirit, it's good for them. They get fighters who've been locked under contracts. They can make fights hereto-for they couldn't make. And if they get the fighters to buy in on it, great.

And you could say, well, look what if they don't get the fighters to buy in. The contract shows they can be transferred. Number one, that's not how this deal happened. And number two, the fighters have pretty much made clear at this point that they don't give a damn about collective bargaining. They don't really care about any of that. if they don't care about any of that, I'm struggling to understand at this point why I'm supposed to. They've been presented with the facts, and they basically said, no thanks. Okay, that the situation is

what the situation is. But it gives the promoter some flexibility. It gives them some opportunity. And I think it creates for some unique possibilities. Bring down the walls a little bit and allow for this transference. And last but not least, certainly, I do think it's good for the fans. Look, in the case of Ascran, if you're a fight fan, you get to get some of the questions answered. And maybe it'll all blow up in Ascran's face, or maybe he'll go on to do incredible things. But part of being a fight fan is getting the answers to questions. The octagon, the ring, the cage, whatever, it's a laboratory. It's a laboratory.

And every fight is a science experiment. And there are always two sides. This side thinks this outcome is going to happen, and that side thinks this outcome is going to happen for their various reasons. Let's see who's right. And whenever you do that, you get a chance to potentially sometimes rewrite how we even understand the universe. Maybe if you're a hater out there and you think Ascran's going to fail, maybe you think this is a giant waste of time, you will be proven right potentially.

Or maybe you believe, you know what, there's a real possibility that a guy who has developed the style of fighting that many other high-level fighters have borrowed from, even at age 34, he might be able to do incredible things. What if Ascran goes on to become a UFC champion? Now what? Now are you going to look back on this deal and say, boy, I'm sure glad, I'm sure, I'm sure miserable that these walls were broken down, this cooperative spirit fostered this opportunity.

You have to be crazy. So in either case, you get to have these experiments that have been long denied to us. And I think more importantly, if you're a fan of Demetrius Johnson, as I mentioned, you're going to say, wow, he's going to have the sponsors back. He is not going to have to be fed to the wolves as he ages out. and more importantly, he's going to be fighting under a new rule set. Right? You're talking about a guy who's so creative, so different, so smart.

He's now going to be emboldened by that, especially with a lower level of competition. Right? That's good for you. That's good for you. So people keep saying, well, is it to ask him for a DJ trade worth it? The answer is nobody knows. Nobody knows. But here's what I do know.

There are reasons for optimism whether you're the fighter, whether you're the promoter, or whether you're the fan. That's the way in. All right. With that out of the way, it is time, ladies and gentlemen, to do the next bit in the show. It is time for the Monday morning analyst.

Look a hair, look a hair. Okay, welcome, everyone. So usually on a show like this, I'd just like to cover the fights that happened over the weekend. We are going to do that. I'm going to look very quickly at your co-main event. Well, actually, at your co-main event. Go look at the Misha Sarkinov win

because I didn't catch it in real time, and I saw it afterwards, and it was amazing. People were blowing me up about it. And then, of course, the Anthony Smith finish as well. Here's the thing. I can't come up here and not talk about Ben Ascreen. You have to get to Ben Ascran, right? But I thought, what am I going to do? Because I want to give a special shout out to somebody.

He's not even involved in the company, but the work is so good. It would be promotional malpractice for me to not mention it. BJJ Scout. If you guys have never heard of him, you can check him on on YouTube. It does a lot of BJJ scouting. It's a lot more than that. It's a lot of striking. It's a lot of wrestling.

He has done a, I think it's probably the best work he's ever done to be quite an. Or she, whoever it is. It's a five-part breakdown of Ben Ascran's game all the way from cross-body rides to Matt returns, to risk control, to some of the meta-game that he incorporates. I can't possibly match that either in this format or any other one. So I strongly encourage you to go watch that. But I thought, what could I make use of 14? Today, the big knock on Ben Ascran, such as it exists, is allegedly the Luis Santos fight.

Now, this was the one that ended in the first round with an I-poke. They tried to make a rematch. Santos ended up duffing on the whole thing, and they never did. It's the one-no contest on Ben Ascran's otherwise flawless record. And there's an interesting vibe that's happening around Ben Ascichrist. It's almost like a combination of two different worlds. So on the one hand, do you remember before the UFC 229 main event between Habib Nuregamedov and Connor McGregor, a lot of folks were saying, oh man, Michael Johnson, he really tuned, excuse me, he tuned Habib up,

he really got after him. And then you go back, you look at the footage, you're like, well, he did land some nice shots, but this is way overblown, totally overblown. The reality was Habib Nirmar Gamedov headed into that Connor McGregor fight as a fighter who had never been knocked down. or knocked out, including that Michael Johnson fight. They were just, yes, he got hit with some good shots and not about it, but it was way overblown. So it's partly that. People are taking this Louis Santos fight, and there are some criticisms to make of it,

but they're way overblowing some of the results here. On the other side, you're getting a bit of this Nick Newell vibe, where people are all saying, I don't know how good he is. We can't wait to find out. We won't only know if he gets a chance to compete, which I generally agree with. Like, how good is he? I think he's very good, but the reality is, until he gets a chance to test himself against the very best in a contemporary way, there's no way to know. He was fighting some of the best years ago in Bellator, like Douglas Lima, and he had no problems, but today's a different day, right?

So that's the issue. He's coming to it from two different spots. So I'm going to show you Ben Ascran basically at his alleged worst. And the reason why I'm going to do that is because if this is his worst, the arguments against him are not very good. Luis Santos has, what, 80 professional fights, something like that, something nearly that. Never fought in the UFC. I'm not presenting him as the world's toughest welterweight. Here's what I'm going to say. Like the Michael Johnson fight against Abe Nuremberg Madoff, if that's the most negative thing you can say about him, there are some negative things to say,

but they're not that serious. Let's go to the tape here if we can a little bit. I'm not going to show the whole thing. The quality is not great because your boy had to, you know, work some magic on the internet to find some of this footage. if you know what I'm saying. But here we have, it's Louis Santos, it's Ben Ascran. All right. Ben fails to get the takedown total of that alleged eye poke. And folks are going to say, well, what happened between then?

What you're going to notice is Ascran is always in this orthodox stance. And what he's really looking for is he'll shoot a double on occasion, especially if he's against the fence. But he's always looking for upper body ties, either from a 50-50 or you give him double unders, forget about it. But he's always looking for that 50-50, much like Habib Nirmikamato. If you recall, Habib Numer Kamadov against Daryl Horcher. They had 50-50, but Habib was able to take his own elbow,

even with the underhook on this side from Horcher, and then just pin it to his own body, gable grip, and then take him over that direction. Excuse me, Ben Ascran is very similar in that regard. So let's just go through this a little bit. You're going to notice that Louis Santos does successfully defend the takedown here. A lot of it is throwing kicks, which I don't think is really all that smart. You could say, well, he got away with it.

But I don't think that's going to go all that well. As a strategy, I don't think it's a good idea. And what you're going to notice is, Ben is really good about ducking punches. He's really good about timing when someone leaves their balance to get a strike involved. Excuse me, to get a take-down involved. This guy's coming. He's telegraphing from one side. Ben shoots to the other side here, wraps up with him.

And then you're going to see, this is going to, he's going to try, excuse me, Santos, is going to try and get a... So let me go through this one more time. But Ascran here wants the body lock. Can't get it. can get it. It's going to come around the corner to get a double. This wizard is going to save him. This is going to be Santos. Plants his hand on the mat, keeps his hips facing the mat. Now you see Ascran coming over, switching the takedowns here, looking to drive him in the opposite direction.

You can see he's got the body lock here. And what's Santos is going to do? A bit of an Uchimata throw here while his weight is going forward. This is a nice counter from Santos, but I want to point this out. It puts him here. They go to the thing. And I'm doing frame by frame here, so chill out one FC or whatever, one. And you see him go to deep half, right? Now he's threatening deep half on the other side. So even though he's been countered, Ascran is working underneath. Look, he's being protected. He's not hardly taking any damage.

He's now looking, Santos is, to separate the head from the body. He's got the overhook here, but this won't save you. Now, ultimately, Ascran bails on it. He takes to an elbow and get back to his hands, right, and his knees tries to try to re-go for like a low single here just to hang on and it doesn't work. Now folks will say, boy, doesn't that speak poorly have been? I would say the opposite. I would say, yes, he got countered and that's not great. But number one, that's a high energy throw. Number two, he took no damage. And number three, you can see how fast he goes from a body lock to a double to

another kind of body lock trip to then deep half and the whole time he's making you move. So yes, that was a failed takedown attempt And then of course you get that Let's fast forward here just a little bit if we can Let's go to something else I got a bunch of these I don't want to go through all of them Right here's another one all right

So they're standing out here what happens Ascran waits boom goes to the opposite side Takes a bit of a shot there to the body But he's on the other side so it's less impactful Gets his hands around it Now Santos is strong in this position And he's going to be able to counter even with double overhooks to get a trip plants his hand on the mat, which is correct. And what do you always want to do? You want to have your hips

facing the mat, which he does. He comes over like this. Ascran gets that right knee inside, which saves him from getting mounted. But you're going to notice, once again, already looking for like a borderline waiter sweep at this point. He's going to get underneath here. He's going to pull it over him. And now he's going to begin to do more work. What's this going to do? He's going to then come around the other side. He's going to look for a funk roll here. Let me fast forward just a little bit. Right. Here we are. You see. him he's going to have this leg. He wants to be able to turn. Ascran does. He wants to be able to turn base down, which you'll see in just a minute. All right, here we are. This is the funk roll he's looking for. Now, Santos is holding that bottom leg with two hands because if you can

keep his leg separated, that's going to give him the ability to come straight out. It's when the legs get locked up that you can get caught and something else can happen. So he's got the right defense. He's preventing any kind of lock from happening. Ascran wants to roll over here. Kind of can't because he's kind of trapped as well. So he comes back the other way, decides to go for a heel hook, and eventually, wait on,

eventually Santos is able to get the knee past the hip line and then basically just stand out as Ascran, let's go. So you're going to say, once again, oh, look, this is terrible for Ben. Right, it's a failed takedown. That's right. It's not his best moment. I agree.

But what I'm pointing out is, he can do this all day long without really getting tired, and he's taking no damage. And by the way, even if he gets underneath, he's immediately working. By the way, here's the other component here. He's able to establish contact every time. He's getting either double unders or he's getting 50-50 every time.

Every time he's getting it. Here's another one. Let's see what happens here. Kind of fakes, punches his way in. This is the one I didn't like. Right? Comes up underneath. Collar ties here a little bit, right?

Punches his way through. And here kind of does a Randy Couture bit where he does just some dirty boxing. Takes a little more punch from here than I would like. And you can see he just punches his way through here, right? That's what he's doing as I go frame by frame and not play the video. Frame by frame here. See, this I didn't like. But he also appears to have a really good chin.

Let's fast forward just a little bit more because I don't want to spend too much time on this. This is the one where he ultimately, apparently, pokes him in the eye. Let me get out of the way here so you can see. Right? Fishing for the hands. He's got good distance. he's going to look at his timing here he waits, gets out of the way of the punch

and then immediately wraps up bit like Ronda Rousey. Ronda Rousey would wait for the punch and then throw what people call a hanger over the top or some kind of like hook around the top of the head and judo they'll grab the lapel here and then they'll grab the lapel here they'll also grab the lapel at the top right with the tag of a BJJ2

they'll grab the tag you got you can really you can yank you switch with two hands so if you have like a collar and then sleeve. You can do a lot of snap downs or whatever. He comes in and he immediately changes the angle. Now, Santos thinks his eyes have been damaged. And he goes down. So you're going to say, Luke, why did you show me all this footage about Ben Ascran that's supposed to make him look bad? Remember what the argument is. The argument is, this is, by all accounts, the worst Ben Ascran has ever looked. This is the bottom, right? This is as low as it does. It's, as low as it

gets, allegedly for him. Ladies and gentlemen, if that's the worst it gets for you, you're doing great. Trust me, you're doing great. Now, what does that portend for the elite of the division? It'll be hard to say. But here's my point. Once he gets wrapped up on you, he can switch takedowns over and over and over again. If he gets countered with a throw, like an Uchimada or something else, he can work underneath very quickly. He's known for the funk roles that you saw there before. Santos had a good game plan around it. He took no damage. He came back and found a way to get the taked down. This guy ultimately duffed on the rematch, by the way, not Ascran. And it was only about two and a half minutes. Habib Numer Grameharmadov misses on a lot of his takedown attempts.

It's just that once he gets it and gets you down, it's a wrap for you. It's the same for him. So how good is Ben Ascran? I don't know. Your guess is as good as mine. But if that's the very worst he's ever looked, that is not a strong argument that that, that's the good. this is a talent that is not good. I would argue just the opposite. If this is your low light, you're a damn good fighter. It's my argument. Now, with that out of the way, with the time we have remaining, so we have, let's jump to UFC Moncton. Two fights will show here very, very quickly. Here's Anthony Smith taking on Volkan Usdemir. Quick caveat. Smith does some things here that are by the textbook not quite correct.

But what I wanted to make a note of is that if you're as tired as he was and as hurt as he was, it's not that they don't matter because the correct, it's like, what is correct versus not correct? Correct is about what is ultimately successful at a high percentage. So like, correct is what is hard to break. Correct is what finishes easily. Correct is what makes you balanced. So it's not correct as in like, oh, we need it to look correct for artsy, sake. There's a functional assessment there involved in that grade of correct or not correct.

But it doesn't matter because he gets the job done and I'm not going to dock them for it. I just sort of want to point that out. He doesn't do everything altogether all that great. So this is a nice double. He does like a, it's actually not double. Excuse me. It's a knee tap. Right. He has the over, he has the underhook here. He's driving that shoulder up while he blocks this leg. And he's not, he does kind of drive him straight back. But you can notice by the way the hand is posting. He's kind of driving him at an angle. So you block this side. You just go like this, like a steering wheel. Daniel Cormier's got these. St. Pierre had one on Tiago Alves.

That was incredible at UFC 100. He shot a double expecting Alves to rip him up off of his hips. And when he did, he just turned it into a knee tap. Brilliant, right? So here's the knee tap. He takes them over. And then they come crashing down. He goes right into side control.

So this is what I mean when he says like it's not quite correct. You can't, how am I? I'm not as a BJ instructor, nor could I ever be. Nor what am I qualified to be. I'm just noted a couple things that are a little bit not by the textbook. So he gets the seatbelt grip. That part's fine. And I'm always told, I've always been told that the near side hook always goes first.

He goes the opposite way and goes over the top. Could have been because he's tired. Maybe he didn't want him to roll. Maybe he just felt like that would be faster for him. But typically you want to go near side hook first than the other one. You don't want to mount it like a horse. All right. Skip ahead a little bit here.

You're going to see. Now he's got the seatbelt grip. He's going to chair sit, basically, it looks like. It can't get the hook. That's another reason why you don't want to go because you can get telegraphed and then they can block the hook, so he does not get the hook in. But he does have the seatbelt grip. Now, he's a little low here.

You kind of want to be a little bit higher, but you get the two-on-one here. He pulls him back to the correct side, so you want to go to this side. That's the choking arm. You always want to fall towards the choking arm, right? And didn't get the hook in, so he tries to put the other one in, but he's going to, frankly, the easier side to escape from. Why? There's nothing controlling the shoulder, and there's no choke there, right?

So this is like Usdimir had a moment here And you're going to see He's going to try As I go frame by frame here Let me skip ahead He's running low on time You're going to see he tries to get that knee under

So then he can switch his hips Into him Which he would have been able to do But I think he was tired and confused And he doesn't quite get it He eventually you'll notice here Gives up on it Right and just goes

You see that? Anthony gets a little bit higher So Usdemir just says F it and just rolls Boom to his base. That enables Smith to get all the hooks in. Right? Let me go a little further. Now look at that hook. Now both are in. He's still on the weak side of the choke. You got to get over to the other side, which is kind of funny. One, it protects them from escaping. Two, I'd actually argue if you can lean on

that same side you have the choke. It's actually a little tighter, right? So what does he do? He pushes it in a direction. Hold on here. All right. So now here we are. This is the choke. hasn't changed. This was the weak side he was on. This is the strong side he was on. You notice the choking arm comes around, but they're on the weak side, right? So with that weak side, he can't quite get it. So you're going to see, oh, did it freeze up on me again? Hey! Oh, my life is meaningless. My life is meaningless. Point being is, we'll stop here because we're running out of time anyway. It's actually okay. The point being is, you'll notice here he has the choke. If folks were asking what the difference was, this is the weak side of the body.

And he gets the body triangle on the other side. Now, this is fine because you don't want that foot on the other side. But he's got the choking arm on that one. So what he does is, since I can't fast forward anymore, son of a bitch, since I can't fast forward anymore, that's fine. What he does is, you go back and notice he switched sides. So he was here and he switches to here. Why does he do that? One, because he hand fights.

He has to. So Uzdimir hand fights. What Smith does is he drives his hips in, stretches Uzdemeer out, then switches to the strong side here, where the choking arm was to begin with, rotates over, and then when he chokes, he's on the bottom side of the choke. So his whole body is laying right where it needs to at the final and the final sequence. So he just got pulled apart, used it to stretch, switch the side, and then made it work. It was actually a really, really dominant performance. Let me see one thing if I can do here. Can you close the screen here?

Thank you. Let's see if we can do this. For the time we have remaining. Probably not really. No? That's a bummer. Well, all right. I didn't get a chance to go over the Patrick Cummings fight.

We were running out of time anyway. We've got to fix this for next time. Why do you think this keeps happening? I know why? Because there is no God. Anyway, doesn't matter. The long story short here is people had talked about the ground game of Anthony Smith and why people had discounted it.

Again, you're like, oh, look, you're focusing on all the errors. No, I'm focusing on the fact that it was really successful. And that in that moment, when someone was hand fighting, he was able to write some of the wrongs that he had created from the initial entries. He cleaned them all up in the process. And then by the time, he's able to choke the person, initially has it wrong, is able to stretch him out, switch it, and make that connection. To me, as Danny Segura had noted, you're talking about a guy who had some nice wins

were some aging veterans and did it stand up. This is on the ground. Volcano Ouzdemeer's a tough customer and in his prime. He gutted through fatigue, gutted through a couple of entry errors, corrected it along the way, and got the tap. Folks, that's the very definition of fight IQ. It's the very definition of heart. It's the very definition of ultimately having the right technique and understanding what you did wrong. And ultimately, he got the win, the best one of his career. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the Monday morning analyst. Put this on here. We got to figure that out, man. You know, I had hilariously, I had people messaging me

being like, hey, you know what you guys should do? I have this bold idea. You should test things before you run. And I'm like, do you not, do you think we just show up and don't test this? We test it every time. It's just you know, some of us are favored children and some of us are not.

What are you going to do? All right, so we're going to be waiting here on Israel-A-Sahna, our first guest. Appreciate everyone. You know, I got to do something new for that next week, too, by the way. We're not going to bring that back. We've got to do something else. But in any case, there you go. So yes, we're going to to talk to Israel out of Sanya. He has a big fight coming up this week at UFC 230. I am very much looking forward to that. Takes on Derek Brunson. That'll be on the main card. That was one of the few fights that I was hoping would not fall through. And it didn't. Thank God. I mean, you know, we're not there yet.

Knock on wood the whole nine. But when, let's see, Luke Rockhold got injured, there were some people saying, man, should this guy be the one that fills in against Chris Wydenman? You know, I thought, hey, man, I don't know what he wants, but if he's ready to be a big star, this is the star making opportunity. So ultimately it didn't go that way. They gave the fight to Jacqueray, which I'm fine with two. Nothing wrong with that fight. But at the same time, it would have been interesting.

All right, let's go to him now. He's one of the top UFC middleweights in the world. I think he joins us for you the magic of Skype, the one and only Israel. Adasanya. Hi, Israel. How are you? Good. How is New York City treating you thus far? Oh, night, but I'm planning on, hanging out for a little bit. When did you get here? Because I know you're coming from a far place away, and the time's sounds really different. I came around midnight. So just as I return Sunday, I die right. So, yeah, I'm adjusting

with Jay and get up to the fridge. How are you adjusting to the jet lag? Do you get over it quickly? Are you one of these guys who hates it, or how does that work for you? I like the earth normally, but in time square it's really hard to find grass. Maybe I'll just go to the central box first. I'll find other central box somewhere today and just kind of connect the earth. All right. Well, we really appreciate you joining us here.

UFC 230 days away. Before we get into the fight, I have to say, I've been watching your podcast a little bit. You do a podcast with Dan Hooker. Yes, yes. You do a podcast with Dan Hooker called Frenememones. The only thing I don't know is why you call it that. Because usually that's two people who don't like each other, but find a way to get along.

I think now it's gone the other way. Like, two people who like each other's like push each other's buttons, try and like it up a little bit, but just during training. Like, and watch our aspiring session. It's pretty funny. It kind of feels. And it airs on something called, what,

Maori TV or something? Forgive my ignorance. Yeah, definitely. On a network called Modi TV in New Zealand, but, yeah, normally post it to link. I think Kai replaced me today this week, so any of the guys try to take my job, who knows. Connected our Prampe.

I'm just going to sign to the UFC. So he'll be on December 2nd and Adelaide. One of our other teammates in the UFC as well. All right, very good. So one of the things I learned from watching that was your own friend there, Dan Hooker, had asked you, have you done anything new for this camp? And your answer was, yes, you had, actually, something involving breathing technique.

What was that? Oh, yeah, we went to a seminar in New Zealand. by one of a Wimhoff's student, one of his disciples, and that was, he taught us some, you know, Wimhoff,

why I think I've been broken all the world records were cold. Who's that? Wimhoff. Wimhoff. He's, I think, he's broken over 26

Guinness World Records with call therapy. He swam under ice for the long end. He's held his breath. I think in the ice cold temperature and he's a guy that just knows his own point.

to a molecular level. So through these breathing techniques, you can learn how to control yourself, control your recovery, your stress levels, and even if you go deeper, you can control you just to add it to your body, just to breathing.

I try it, it works. I change my gauge level. So, yeah, I can do that in like 10 minutes. It's a magic type of shit. So has that had a big impact on this camp or just another, let's say, helpful tool, but not that big necessarily. That's a very helpful tool, trust me.

I haven't used it as much as I should, but it's a very helpful tool. And one thing I've realized when I use it, doing my breathing now, actually, I think it's had a big impact. Because even my recovery, when I check my heart rate, my recovery is I'm getting like maybe 1, 24 feet per minute. I'm going from 1.7, 1 beats a minute. I guess that's 124 in about 29, 32 seconds

So yeah, that's fast record Recruitment. You have one minute in between around And a lot of guys you see that's still huffing and you don't know how to breathe. They're breathing through your panic. You know what I mean? And you have to learn how to control yourself if you put a breathing to your diaphragm breathe from within

So there's a level to this shit Yeah, I say it's had a big impact, you know? And so the other thing I picked up watching this was You were saying that there are some camps where like you had to get up and kind of had to force yourself out of bed, but not this one. This one, you said you were flying high. What's been the difference? Mindset.

I've always said when I go to this game, I went to the U.S.C. Every fight is like new level, new devils. So either you evolve or you die, so I feel like my evolution is being rapid. It's just like exponential growth every time. Because even like this fight is even not going to so much media to. I already knew this is going to happen. I knew, like, every single fight is going to get work and work. I was better and better.

So I've had to evolve. I've had to set my game off. If you can't hack it, you're going to get swallowed by this thing. You're going to get consumed by everything. You're going to be under the headlight. So, yeah, I've had to evolve in so many ways. It's definitely one of them ones when I wake up is different. I don't know.

Like, I just go. Yeah, I just get up and go. It's been great. So it's more of a mental adjustment. It's not any kind of physical. change in terms of how a camp is built or constructed? No, it's really about the camp. It's all about me. And it can be physical. You know, your mental always affects your physical 100%.

So, yeah, it's all been me, nothing about the camp or anything. I just, like, I have no problem to admit to my faults. Like, I used to be real lazy back in a day and, like, you know, dragging it. I didn't really appreciate the position I was in. I never really appreciated it. But now, you know, I turned 28 last year. I'm 29 now. And 28, I had a metamorphosis.

and a lot of things around me change, a lot of people around me changed, and just one of them was my mindset. I had to evolve in a big way, and I think it just happened naturally, and that came along with it. When you say things around you change, can you give me an understanding of what that means?

Things around you change. I mean, I keep that same energy. You know, I like, I just, I keep doing me at the end of the day, you know, people around you who, they feel like once you kind of get a little bit of, you know, notoriety, a little bit of stardom, they think, oh, you've probably changed.

So they act in a defensive way, like a defense mechanism. They kind of change as well. And it's surprising to see the kind of, it's surprising to see the characteristics in certain people because you think you know some people. You think, I don't know, people just kind of try and be wear it around you. Just people need to be cool, that's all. And yeah, just the world around me changes in general with like the perks,

the perks of this lifestyle. Everyone wants something, snakes everywhere, vultures, circling. You know, like scavengers is waiting to grab a piece, so I've had to evolve in my own way and just stay focused. You can feel the weight, can't you? You can feel that there's a sense about you that with this fight or whatever it is, the next one after that, things are going to rocket for you to a new level of,

certainly starting within the MMA community and perhaps beyond. It seems like you're aware that this is beginning to weigh on you. It's not weighing on me. It's just, even if it does, I don't really, like I said, pressure makes diamonds. It's all part of the game, and I've prepared for all this from day dot. I've always known all this shit would happen. And, yeah, I've just been flowing with it, you know. I've been adjusting accordingly.

I've seen the right people to get myself right at the end of the day, because, I mean, if I can't look after myself, then this whole ship is going to sink. So, yeah, I've just been adjusting properly and moving in the right spaces. with the right people. All right, so let's talk about a few details here. Chris Wybman is going to be fighting Jacques-Aray. There were people who were suggesting that when Luke Rockhold fell out, you should have gotten that fight.

You didn't want that fight? No, I want to walk this guy first. I don't want to have to, because I know if I, once I beat someone like Wyatman, there's no going back, and I really want to get this guy out the way first because, yeah, he needs to pay for his words. He needs to repent for his transgressions. So I really want to get this guy first, get him out the way.

And I already told Chris, I've seen him in New Jersey. We sat kind of two seats away from each other, and I told him, eventually I'll see him. Now, just as a matter of record-keeping, did the UFC offer you that opportunity? Not that I know. I don't think so. I don't think Brooklyn's trying to get that fight even. Maybe he's trying to run away, but I don't know. It doesn't really bother me.

I'm focused on my work. I'm focused on my touch going in. And that's shooting with a bum. All right. to me, and perhaps I'm wrong because I don't, I'm not the purveyor of all of social media. But it seems like you guys had some bad blood. We interviewed you when the fights first got made. But since then, it's been real quiet.

It's quite a week. I'm going to ignite it again. I'm going to call out in these streets, man. I mean, I'm walking around in New York Times Square in my Sims. And I'm imagining like, man, I feel a woman in this week. He'll feel a homeless. It's going to be a guy like that who's just struggling. You know, he's a guy who's been around the game for so long.

He hasn't even, I don't think he's ever even made, like, headline in the event. I don't think he's ever been in the sport I'm in. I mean, I only had three fights in a company. So, yeah, eventually. You know what? After this, I'll put something up. I'll let him know I'm around. I think I don't even, I don't know if he's around yet, because we haven't really checked in.

I came in early, but, yeah, bad blood isn't really bad blood. I'll just say it's another guy, same shit, different night. Like my last few opponents, they all talk the same. game, they all say the same shit. And eventually when they're in there, it's like, oh, shit. I fucked up. What is your view about how, like, you see all the trash talking in the game today. Some of it is inevitable.

Some of it is organic, not just you, we're around the whole game. What is the appropriate role in your life for that kind of thing? Keep that same energy. Don't try and be anything else. Don't try and be what people want you to be. classic example is Derek Lewis he kept their same energy he was just himself on the post-fight

speech on the mic and his stock went up just by keeping that same energy not being fake none of that shit and even the whole trash talking and fire hype has been around since the dawn of time

I mean I use this analogy but if you think about it when I was in high school you know if two people two boys had beef and they were going to square up maybe a teacher broke it up And then I'll see you after school. I'll see you after school.

Yeah, yeah, whatever. From that point on, till 3 o'clock when the bell rings, all everyone is doing is talking about the fight. They see each other in the hallway. They're talking shit and whatnot. And it's just been that way since primary school, since middle school, high school. And then after school, 3 p.m.,

everyone runs to the spot where the fight's going to be. You see one guy on one side, one guy on the other side. They walk towards each other, and then a fight breaks out. You know, it might be a great fight. It might be a shit fight, but what was exciting was the lead-up to the fight, the hype of the fight.

So, yeah, it's been around history, you know, Prince Nassim Hamad, Muhammad Ali, McGregor, Mayweather, you know, Chil Sun and guys like that, they already understand like this is part of fighting and they've kind of enhanced it and just like ran with it. So, yeah, it's just all about building interest, I get. But you don't really have to be that kind of guy to build interest. It's just, I mean, a guy like, you know, what's his name? Derek Lewis himself, like I say, he just, you know, he can, he can square up with guys

push them or whatever, but he just, he's funny, and he's just himself, so he kind of gets the attention, he deserves the attention to getting right now by keeping that same energy. You're a Derek Lewis fan? I think like the rest of us. You're a Derek Lewis fan? Yeah, definitely. I like the way he, I like a social media game. He repost memes, and I think he started to make memes, but I'm impressed. I like the way he's handling himself with all this attention he's getting. Okay, relative to your last fight, I was there when you fought Brad Tavares. Is this fight a more difficult fight or it's a different opponent? So you put them on par with Brad?

No, I think Brad will put him. But this is, this is, you know, M-M-A-T-H-S. That's M-M-A math, you know. It never always works the way you expect that. Like, it's like rock paper scissors, you know, I beat you, you beat the camera guy, the camera guy beats me. So who's the best man, you know, it doesn't really work that way.

but you have to be able to understand that you're the shit or you ain't shit. So I have to dot my eyes and cross my T's, and I made sure I did that for this camp. We took care of every single thing. Like with habits that we know of, it's chaos that's random. So, I mean, I can be real random as well, but I'm more of an organized chaos. He's just chaotic. He's just chaotic in his ways.

And, yeah, that leaves him really, really dangerous, but makes him really, really, really susceptible to my strikes. And my whole game in general, you know, I'm not just a striker like everyone keeps saying. I'm just really, really, really great at striking. But let's see what I'm like on my back. Let's see what I'm like on my top game. I just have to find someone to put me there first. And, yeah, if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it.

I want to smash these guys on the feet. And then they end up on the floor. What's interesting to me is if you win this, you have to sort of begin to ask yourself how far you are from a title shot, especially given now the bit of the landscape here. I might get the strap next. I don't know. I just have to see how the whole middleweight tournament plays out

because, you know, it's like a few, it's like a little middleweight tournament that's happening on 2.30s. So, yeah, the other guys suck. They fight to lackluster. If Bobby Knuckles gets past the Kelvin Gasselham, I'll probably go for the strap next. But like I said, I don't move up for motion.

I move up strategy. I'll see and plot as I go along. So right now I only have one guy in mind, and that's that bum. their rumps in so yeah right now I'm just focused on him and then the strap is just something I grab along the way

real quickly if I can do you have a thought on who might win between Wybman and Jacaree? No really no it's a fight that's kind of got announced recently short notice but they're both professionals I'm sure they can both handle each other I don't think yeah they haven't fought before

they haven't fought before but yeah anything that happened doesn't really bother me yeah but your view that's just so I can understand you correctly your view is that with all of these middleweight fights on the card, and they're on the main card anyway, and there's four of them. It's basically for grabs. Whoever has the best performance gets the title shot.

Is that what you're thinking? Yeah. As I say, New York, Facts B. I think so. Yes, they certainly do, Israel. Well, I got to tell you, I am beyond thrilled for this one, man. This is a, this is, what do you think this is? Israeli ought to sign at least to the North American audience?

Is this the coming out party? Nah, that was the last one. Everyone's a, there's always a new, like, there's always a new demographic to introduce yourself too. So, yeah, last time in Vegas main event, I smashed it, you know, better than most people, much, much better than most people thought I would do. So that was my coming out party.

This is the after party. And then after that's the after after party. The next one is the after party. It's just same shit, different night. I'm going to dance under those lights. All right. Well, you know what? I won't keep you any longer.

I really appreciate your time, Israel. Can't wait to see you, Media Day, and everything else. And obviously, can't wait to see your fight at UFC 230. Thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Likewise, Luke, I'll see you there. All right. There he is.

Could be the next big thing in MMA, man. What a guy he is, huh? Pretty impressive. All right, let's do this. I believe our next guest is at 1240. So that means it is time now for the soundoff. All right, time now for the sound off with my main man. What's up, dude?

Boy, that Israel Adasanya, he does not lack confidence, nor should he, nor I'm not saying he should. But, man, he is out there, you know. That's one of the fights I'm most excited. I would say that's my favorite. I'm the most excited for that. Yeah, that's my... He is what we say in the Marine Corps, high speed, low drag, my friend. That's what he is.

All right, let's get to this. We have the calls. You have sorted them. You have readied them for us. Yes. We don't have a moment to waste, my friend. So why don't we just get into it? Let's do it.

All right. So obviously, I talked about how the calls were very centered towards the Ben Adel Eskron DJ deal, so let's talk about that. I'm going to cut this one short in the middle just because the second question, a caller asked that later. Okay. Good morning, Mr. Lucie. This is Charles Jalen calling out of Atlanta, Georgia. My question is about the Demetri Johnson band asking trade.

Who do you think will benefit the most in the short and long term between the UFC and one championship? And who you feel to you? All right. So I'm going to stop it right there because we had another caller asked the second question. We want to include as many colors as possible. So let's talk about this. Who benefits from this trade?

Who's the real winner here? As far as promotion-wise, right? Yes, well, ATL Georgia, what can we do for you? Bulldog and H's like them Georgetown Hoyas. Anyway, the answer is no one knows. The answer is no one knows. Look, I think that people were asking me last week, oh, is this an even trade?

But that's really the not correct question. You're getting an all-time great for somebody who never had an opportunity to compete the highest level. They're not alike, but it's not supposed to be. The question is, are you getting value and am I getting value? I have a bunch of things if I'm UFC. I don't need the best fighter in the world or one of the best fighters in the world in Demetrius Johnson to prove a third-party validation that this is a great organization.

One FC or one championship, excuse me, they do. They need it, Nidi Alvarez. They need a Nikki Holtskin. They need a Demetrius Johnson because it says, hey, look at the quality of our roster. But conversely, if you're the UFC, maybe they, they're not. It sounds like they don't want flyweight anymore, by the way. Yeah. Which is another.

We'll address that later. Yeah. It's a component of the story, but to your point. And then lastly, you know, they get a guy who maybe he fizzles out or maybe he's the next champion. It's just a gamble. And by the way, say whatever you want. He's out there picking fights on social media. So I think it's a wonderful trade.

I think it is. I think it's great for MMA, great for a sport, great for fighters, great for all parties, really. There needs to be more of this. And I hope, I hope this is not the only case that we see. But I would say that for me, I think the real winners here are won, one championship. I mean, Ben Ascran technically retired. He's a retired fighter. He wasn't going to fight anymore for one.

And he made it pretty clear. I'm only coming back for the GSP fighter or something real special. So you already, it's not like if they had to make the DJ deal, Ben Ascran would have gone on to fight for one. You know what I'm saying? So you're pretty much kind of getting DJ for free. That's how I see it. I don't know if that makes any sense.

I mean, you're basically trading a retired fighter for one of the greatest fighters that ever set foot in the cage. My view is you're getting, if you're one, you're getting a known commodity. You know exactly what you're getting with Demetrius Johnson. You don't know with Ben, and that carries some risk. Yeah. But the point being is if you didn't want this guy around

and he doesn't want to be around and you didn't want to have a flyweight division, you're getting something for nothing, basically. You were going to get rid of that stuff anyway, apparently. We'll see what happens. And now you get Ben Asker, who, by the way, I don't know how he's good he is. I think he's very good, and maybe he becomes something special.

So there you go. And I mean, the fight game is all about gambles, right? Every time fighters step in the cage, they're gambling, right? So this is no different. And I feel like either way, you know, we know the history between Dana White and Benaskerin. Either way, it's going to be, I think, a good outcome for the UFC. Either you got a star that could potentially, you know, have huge fights down the line. Or, you know, you could be like, hey, look, prove that here we have the best fighters in the world.

then, you know, we'll show that. Yep. So either way is fine. So now let's talk about Ben Ascran and why the UFC wants him, I guess. Hey, Luke Thomas. This is David calling from Toronto, Canada. I just have a question about Ben Aspirin coming from the UFC standpoint. Considering the current business model of the super fight,

they're looking for guys who have big draws, they're looking for fight and for fighters that could sell pay-per-views. To me, a guy like Ben Astrin, He's not the best fit, I don't think, in the current business model of the UFC because mainstream fans, common fans, they don't know who he is. Us hardcore fans, we know that he could potentially be great in the UFC, and we know that he could talk a big game. But considering his age, he's 34 years old,

so he only has maybe two, three prime years left in him, I really don't understand from the USC standpoint why they would want him. I could understand maybe if he's, he was 24 and he still had 10, 15 years to build up his star power. But because he's 34 years old, I just don't see what they see in him. But, I mean, obviously, as hardcore, like I said before, we know he's a great fighter and he could potentially be great in the UFC. But I'm just wondering from this standpoint what your thoughts are.

Thank you. Keep up to good work. Thank you. It's a good question. But a lot of people are not under, and they're not being haters. Do you know what that question was? That was not some guy trying to be a dick. that was somebody asking a critical question,

which I really appreciate. Here's what I would say. Look, the answer is, your skepticism may prove to be quite wise. He may actually not be all that great, in which case you're saying, you got rid of Demetrius Johnson for this, but I harken back to two things.

Number one, it looks like, number one, DJ wanted to go, and more importantly, that the U.S. just didn't have designs on this weight class anymore, and whether or not you grew that decision, they were going to make it one way or the other, it appears. The other one is,

I don't think people appreciate Ascran. he's 34. He is an undefeated former Olympian Dan Hodge trophy winner who at age 34 has taken virtually no damage. Now think about that for a second. That's 20 fights basically. He's been in and I don't think he's been hurt. He's been knocked down once in the Luis Santos fight. He just got kicked off of his legs, but he got right back up. He didn't get knocked down by getting hit in the head. We're talking about a guy who is about as fresh as you could possibly be at 34 years of age. Moreover, he matches up well if they make a 165 and 175 pound division. You got a guy who can cross both paths.

And this is the most important thing. It's why I brought up the BJJ Scout thing. We're talking about a guy who I think was ahead of the game in 2008 and 2009 with his ground control, Danny. And the rest of the fight game has sort of caught up and I still think he's ahead. Habib has employed a lot of the techniques that Ben is, I would argue, much better at, to be quite honest with you, especially when it comes to Matt Returns and ground control. So you're asking what's special about him. Undefeated Dan Hotsch Trophy winning Olympian at 34 who took no damage, that seems to me like a risk you might want to take.

Yeah, I agree with you. But this caller does bring an interesting point. I know Twitter is not the best way to measure. Yeah, it's the worst way. But I'm going to throw that stat out anyways. Ben Ascern has 100K followers on Twitter. Demetrize Johnson has 300K. Demetrius Johnson's been in the biggest promotion for many years.

And this guy has not. He has never had an opportunity. So as far as a star power, you're not bringing in a superstar. I was going to bring a bunch of casuals. However, though, there is a big demographic out there that needs to be addressed and catered to, and those are the hardcores, man, and he brought that up. We hardcores know who Ben Ascran is. The wrestling world knows who Ben Ascran is.

We need this, for a sports sake, we need to see Ben Asker in the UFC, or else we're just going to sit here and wonder, what if, you know, how good was really Ben Ascran. And I think, in a way, this is very good for the hardcores, and we're getting a nice treat here. And I think it's jolted electricity into the life of the life of. Ben Ascran. I interviewed him on my radio show when he called it quits. And he didn't seem down, but he just sort of seemed content with, you know, I guess this is what the cards are that life dealt me. And now he gets to something of a new lease on his athletic career. You need that in the sport. You need these kinds of opportunities. And if it means that Zufa is going to cooperate with

another promoter, I'm having a hard time understanding what the problem is. Yeah. And as I said, like he also brings in all the wrestling world just because how big he was there. So I think that's huge as well. You're bringing in a new set eyes. It's like saying of like Marcelo Garcia were to come into MMA or back into MAA because he did fight in MMA already.

Like all those Jiu-Jitsu guys that a lot of them don't watch MMA, you bet they'll be watching. Right. Yeah. All right. Now let's talk about matchmaking. This is going to be fun. Hey, what's up, Luke?

Hey, what's up, Luke? Rockin Jersey here. With Ben Ashwin now on the UFC roster, Any potential matchups you like to see for his UFC debut? All right. Thanks a lot. Later. So this is to me a really important question.

Here's my answer to it. Some people have said you want to match him up with another big name because you want to capitalize on this moment and turn them into a big star. I understand that logic and I wouldn't be opposed to it because of the guys at the top of the division, they're all going to be tough. And that's what he's here for, right? Yep. But to me, I would actually go and split the difference. I think you should give him a fighter based off where. you think he rates and what he deserves, and you have a little bit of a star power push.

So for me, I arrive, there's a number of choices you could pick. I arrive at Jorge Masvedol, and I'll tell you why. Jorge Mazvedal, I have a very high opinion of. I think he is a very, very good fighter. And I feel like more or less only the very best guys typically get the better of him, and sometimes barely, and sometimes they don't, by the way. You know, as winner for Donald Serroney, I thought was nasty, to be clear. And I thought he beat Iaquinto when he was at 155.

But neither here nor there. The point being is if you can't beat him, then you answer a lot of questions. If you can, it remains some kind of an elite proving ground. I think Jorge is one of these guys were only the very best guys typically can get the better of him. So how good has been? Let's find out. If you want to just throw him in there with like a Nick Diaz or something because you want to make a big splash, sure. If you wanted to give him a wonder boy, sure.

I saw people mentioning Kamar Usman, sure, Kobe Covington. I'm not against any of those. But for me, I'm looking to put him somewhere in that top 10 space, which is where Jorge is. I'm looking for a tough, meaningful, impactful challenge. And if he passes that test, then you really begin to market him as something special. I'd like to see him against a little bit of a higher, no disrespect to Jorge Masvidal. But somewhere higher in the rankings, I think Jorge right now is number nine, according to the Walterary rankings, whatever that means.

But I'd like to see him get, you know, a little bit of a step up just because, you know, Ben Ascreen is not here for super fights. He's not here for, in the sense of, you know, making just big fights that are just promotionally big. Like a GSP type thing. Exactly. Like, he's here to fight the best. That's the question, right?

Is he the best Walter Wade out there? Because that's what we're wondering. So I'd like to see him in a fight that feels like a title eliminator about. And, you know, he can get on the mic and call it the champion. Well, I know Tyron Woodley, their boys. but, you know, in that case, Habib or whoever, whoever, or 165-pound division, whatever they decide to do. But I'd like to see him in a little bit of a higher profile matter. I mean, I can't argue with that.

Yeah. And also, Jorge Mazvedal, is he coming off a loss? I'm not sure. I think to, is the last time he fought was against Damien Meyer, right? No, it was Wonderboy, if I'm not mistaken. Let me double check that. I believe that is correct. Yeah, pulling it up right now.

Let's see. Yeah, wonderful. Yeah. Yeah, two back-to-back losses, so. Okay, but the point being is, it's less about where he's been, but about who he is. And if you're trying to figure out who Ben Ascran is, again, I'm not... He's a good measurement, yes. It's a great measurement.

Because Horaceville can do it all. Correct. He can strike his ass off. He can defend takedowns. He's got good jiu-jitsu. He's a tough, tough customer, man. Now, let's talk about where his grappling, you kind of touched on this a little bit, but let's talk about where his grappling ranks in the UFC and just MMA in general.

Ben Ascern, of course. Hey guys, Bobby from Providence, Rhode Island. Giving you a call about the Ben Ascran deal. Luke, how do you feel about it? And also, where do you rank him in grapplers from MMA standpoint? You know, considering half of his Bellator fights when he first started, he didn't even throw a single punch. He was just spinning around, jumping around, spinning around, spinning around, doing his thing. Where do you rank him?

Do you think you'll ever fight Kabid? So there's a bunch of questions there. What the hell kind of questions? Yeah, there's a bunch of questions there. But let's just answer the main one. And I don't know if you want to isolate, just make this grappling, because then there's really good jujitsu guys with guard and then, you know, how do you deal with that?

Or you just want to do wrestling-wise? Okay, well, wrestling. What do you think is more fair, I guess? We can do either. We want to do grappling first. The issue is not how good he is based on jiu-jitsu tiers. I mean, he's a black belt level. That's what you're asking.

But it's about the kind of... of game that he plays, as you were acknowledging. They call it the medigame. And the metagame is at certain positions, what is he trying to do? And the answer is he's not playing a typical game that a Jujitero might play. He's trying to do different kinds of rides, different forms of control. He can take mount still if he wants it. He used to take him out a lot.

Now he's giving it up. He does a lot more rides and kinds of things like that. So in terms of riding, in terms of Matt returning, in terms of side control, in terms of risk control. In terms of these kinds of things, I find him basically to be the very top tier in MMA. Yeah. We were going to say that's crazy, but it's not. He is a guy who was doing things in MMA and nobody was doing it.

And only now is the rest of the game catching up. Yeah. Maybe he wasn't finding the best guys at the time, but trust me, he was doing things that the best guys weren't. Anyway, so there's that. In terms of, like, you know, finishing ability, I think that's where there might be a little bit of a shortcoming, right? Because even when, like, the Douglas Lima wins or the Carl Amasoo wins, these went to distance. even the Koresh. Dude, the Koreshkov win. Remember that fight between Priscilla Kachwara and

Valentina Shchevchenko? Look at the striking differential. That's the same thing that happened when Askron fought Koreshkov. So there might be some finishing issues in terms of that kind of thing, but that's where I'm at. So it was wrestling and then the grappling. I'd say the wrestling, you saw it there for yourself. And the worst of his scenarios, he's basically unstoppable. I have a very high opinion to Ben.

I do. Yeah. What about you? Like, same. But I think I would rank, I don't know, Habib, I think maybe just because I've seen him against guys that are, you know, are really, really good. Sure. I still have questions about Ben. Which is fair.

Yeah, I think he could be the very best. But I definitely consider him wrestling-wise. I think he's top three at least. I mean, he's up there. Yeah. He is one of the best wrestlers to ever compete in the UFC. Just keep that in mind. Yeah.

I mean, I would throw in there, Habib number one. But Habib was also six years younger. Yeah, that's true. Habib got to compete in the UFC in his 20s. Yeah. You know, Baskin didn't even do it until after the Bayesian games. Yeah. And who knows, maybe Ben Asking goes in.

There just starts out wrestling the hell out of, you know, the top. If you have to ask yourself, is he a better overall MMA wrestler than Kobe Coventon? I would argue that he is. I think so. The Kumar Usman one is interesting because Kamar Usman's so physical. Yeah. But even Dan, like Ben did.

That's the thing about Ben Ascreen. He's not a big dude. He's not this... He doesn't look like a bodybuilder. He can wrestle his ass off. And it's partly because his physical... abilities are understated and also because he has... He's got the funk.

He's got unusual techniques. He's got the funk. That's what they call it in wrestling. Cool. Now let's talk about the other side of that, which is Demetrius Johnson. Hey, it's Jason calling from Hermosa Beach, California. Just got a quick question about Demetrius Johnson. Now that he's going to one FC.

How much do you think, like some of the USC casuals as well as his avid fans will follow him? And how big do you think FC's crowd size will get out of him and Eddie Alie? I love all the work you guys do. Have a good one. So how much, how much of an audience? How much of a pool is Demetrius Johnson carrying over to one FC? I mean, look, you're adding out, excuse me, and by the way, they added Nikki Holtskin. A lot of people don't realize that. One of the best kickboxers in the world. So that was, I'm not sure how recently that was, but fairly recently. So they have Nikki Holtskin, they now have Demetriess Johnson, and they have Eddie Alvers.

It's a potent combo. It's a potent combo. Is it a game-changing potent combo? I don't think that it is. having Eddie is important to get Western fans. Having Eddie is important for some of the Eastern fans who remembered all of his great work and dream and might know of him more generally. And Demetrius is great as I mentioned because you can say legitimately

you have one of the best fighters in the world at a time, the best fighter in the world. Certainly the best flyweight of all time. I mean, that's an easy call. Yeah. And so to me, it's less of a promotional changer in terms of who comes through the door more than it is a piece in the building block

to be able to say if you're one FC, who, by the way, let's be clear about this, or one championship, they don't make money off their shows. They're surfing on venture capital funding, and that's okay, but they're seven years in, and that's how they make money. Nevertheless, if you're looking to do more fundraising, saying this guy's in our stable creates a lot of stability in that regard. That, to me, is its real value. I agree with you.

It brings legitimacy. You know, I think it will bring a good amount of fans over. I don't think it'll be crazy. By the way, people think I'm bagging on one. Maybe I'm a little bit, but I'll say this too. I think their app is maybe the best app in MMA. I still got to check it out. Oh, my God.

Dude, their app is, like, people are like, dude, it's legit. And I didn't believe it. And then I tried it on one of their shows. It's everything they say it is. It's really, really good. And something I would like to add, I also think he's older. He's, you know, DJ's been around. How old is DJ?

I think he brings, I think he's definitely in his 30. Go ahead, make your point. I'll look it up. I think he brings potential because, look. In what sense? He's a streamer, man. Streaming is big. And in Asia, like video games are huge.

Like South Korea is the hotbed for, you know, gaming and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and DJ, I feel like the UFC never really gave him a proper push with all his Twitch, channel, and all the video games. Dude, that's a huge demographic. Like, people, people might not even be huge MMA fans, but, hey, like, if that's one of my favorite streamers, I'll back them up. I'll buy a pay-per-view, I'll watch, you know.

And I think, you know, one has the opportunity to do that. And, you know, streaming is huge, man. I said as before. DJ is going to get his sponsors back. Yeah. Xbox sponsored him. Do you not know how important that is? Not just for any guy.

For that guy? That's a big deal, man. How much money has he left on the table since the Reebok deal? Probably a shit ton. If I'm being serious. That'd be a good question asking. I'm Xbox sponsoring him. I think he's a PlayStation guy.

He's a PlayStation guy now? I think he got bitter when they basically, as I understand it, their sponsorship was contingent upon being in the Octagon. Okay. Not just a glowing. Yeah, yeah. Yes. And so when they were like,

no thanks, he was like, okay. Yeah. Well, understandable when Reebok, you know. Yes.

By the way, he's 32 years old. 32, see? So, yeah, I think it'd be really cool if they do some, some gaming stuff and sort of try to merge those two worlds.

All right. Now let's talk about the action over the weekend. Arton Lobov, hot topic in MMA right now. Yes, it certainly is. Hey, looking to Annie.

This is Jason calling from White Plains, New York. Just wanted to get your thoughts on Aram Lobov. We all know he's very well known for being Conrader, a training partner. They're showing it to Michael Johnson.

Do you think it's time the UFC cuts him and he goes to fight somewhere else? Big fan of the show, take it easy. That's an interesting question. What did you make of that? So I saw the... I was watching the fights on Sunday because Saturday night I got off,

so I got to go out. So I wasn't watching them live, but I was looking at my Twitter timeline and it just seemed like Artim Love had a really bad performance from what I was reading. I'm like, oh, wow, apparently he looked pretty bad. And then I go look at the actual fight,

and the actual fight was, there wasn't much action. It wasn't not a lot of significant things happened, but it wasn't a one-sided beating. You can make the case that Artham won one round as well. And Michael Johnson, you know, the dudes fought Habib. The dude's been at the top and fighting top guys. So this is a weird one because, yes, he's losing, but he's also losing to some top guys as well,

and he's beaten some guys in the UFC as well. My whole issue is with him getting co-main event slots. I don't think he's at that level to get those type of slots. But as far as being UFC caliber, at this point with the type of fighters we've seen in the UFC and the type of performances, I think he's there. What do you make of it? I think he's, you know, it's hard to mention what UFC caliber is

because the answer is basically somewhere in the top 25 or so of your weight class in the world. I don't know that I would put him there in that way, in that level. I think he's very, very talented. But at 13 and 5, you know, it's a complicated one because you have to ask yourself some hard questions. Would he be here, were it not for Connor McGregor? Maybe, but probably not. Would he stay here?

Warrant not for Conner-Regger? Probably not. He would not be here. I think that's pretty fair to say. I think so. On the other hand, to your point, the guy's out here fighting BuzzSaw after BuzzSaw. What is it you really expect from him when he does that? You know, he's not taking fights for any kind of self-preservation reason.

On the other hand, if you're not taking any fights for self-preservation reason, probably it's because you're the kind of guy who doesn't really, I mean, I'm sure he cares about winning and losing, but it's not central to his identity. And does a guy like that have a place in the premier organization? I mean, I think I would say this. To your point, I don't know if I would cut him right away, but he's lost three in a row now.

I put him on a fight against somebody of a commensurate ability or whatever fight they want to make on a fast portion of the card. And if you can't win that, it's probably time to part ways. This is supposed to be an organization where standards, matter. And, you know... It's supposed to be, right? It's supposed to be.

And look, I'm not saying he's a terrible fighter. It's not what I'm saying. But at some point, you have to draw the line somewhere. And I think he gets a strong degree of charity because fans like him. He'll take on anybody, which is absolutely true. He fights his heart out. And also because he does have a bit of legacy involved in here. Yeah.

Yeah, I agree with that. And also, let's face it, the UFC is no longer what it used to be as far as, you know, just keeping the best in the world. you know, it's gone more towards entertainment. And at the end of the day, UCR. Tomlob of in a card, you know who he is. And, you know, he also brings, people talk, is like his relationship to Connor McGregor all the time,

but he also brings his own talk, his own game to it. People like him. People like him. Yeah, people do like him. Now, we got to get Anthony Smith on the show, don't we? Yeah. Do you want me, do you want to leave me with, do you want to do one more question and I get him?

Quickly. Okay. Israel Adasanya. Great. Hey, it's Jared from Allentown, PA. Big time fan of the show. of you, Luke Thomas. My question is, is if Israel the last style of Bender, Adasanya, wins against Brunson, how close to a title shot is he? Thank you.

Yeah, it's a good question. That's why I asked him, because I have a hunch that he's up there. Now, Chris Wyman will have a bit of a strong claim, right? Because if you beat Jacqueray, that's pretty impressive. He has a win over Kelvin Gastilum. Gastelam is fighting Whitaker already. So, I mean, obviously, one guy was ready, one guy wasn't. But if somehow Gastilum wins, and they don't do a rematch, you know, you can do the rematch there with Wyatman. So Wyatman's in a bit of a very good position heading into this contest. At the same time, I just got a feeling that Israel-Asaun yet, we don't know. He has to go and prove it like everybody else does.

But my hunch is that he's a very, very, very special talent. I think the UFC feels that way. And they need to see if their intuition is right. But let's say he goes out there and wins impressively, by the way, if Derek Brunson wins and this whole thing goes up in smoke. But if he wins, I think that they're probably going to, be looking to see how ready he might be for something like that, especially if you can put that title fight somewhere in the oceanic region, right? Because you'd have two guys from that

area if Whitaker holds onto it against Kelvin Gastilum, and then you got Israel Adasania at the same time, and that's a big deal for that part of the world. So you could do that. That's kind of interesting. But I just basically feel like he, Adasania, if he can beat a wrestler like Derek Brunson, you know, obviously Israel is going to say what he's going to say about an opponent. But me personally, I kind of feel like, yeah, man, I think he's, I think he's very, very, very special. So if he can win in the way that makes him look special and then get out there and say things that are interesting, you know, like to Joe Rogan or whoever and just had a big moment, you know, like Derek Lewis had a big moment. Granted was on a bigger card, but you get the idea, he might get it, dude.

He might jump the queue. There's a lot of ways this goes well for Israel to sign you. A lot of different ways. No guarantees. None of this is ever guaranteed. But I don't think he's that far away. I don't think it's like, oh, you beat Derek Brunson and you got to beat three more guys or something. It's like this one, maybe one more after that, and then he'll get it.

But if Derek Brunson goes in there and wins, and by the way, Derek Brunson's a very, very good fighter, let's not lose sight of that. You know, this is Chris Widman's opportunity to lose at that point. At that point, it actually gets kind of weird. Because if Jacques-Are wins and then Adasanya loses, you could do Jacques-A-V-Rae versus either of those guys again in, let's see, Bobby Knuckles or Gastilum, but he fought both of them and lost.

Brunson's already fought Jacques-A-Rae twice, so you couldn't do that again. You could do Brunson, I suppose, against one of those guys, but I think Adasana is the one they're looking for. If we're having trouble connecting him on Spike, phone's fine, by the way. Oh, okay. All right. I'm told we're going to get him on in just a minute.

Anthony Smith, man, what a win this was. Everyone knew what the talk was. It's like, all right, he looked good, beating Rashad Evans, and that's fine. Hey, he looked even better fighting Shogunhuah, and that's fine. But you got to do it against somebody, you know, in his prime, right? Like, Young, hasn't taken a lot of damage out there has a big name high rank. So he goes out there and he fights Volcano Oostimir, and things look the little dice. early. You know, Volcanoosimir is a tough customer. He's a very, very good fighter, but somehow

Anthony Smith found a way to gut it out. As I showed you earlier, got that double, got the back, pulled him in, had the choke, had to readjust it, stretched him out, sunk it from the other side. And man, just made it work and just made it work. Really, really, really, really impressive stuff from him. And it was the win he needed. And by the way, what a 2018 for this or this guy, right? Anthony Smith, I've said this before about guys. The best way to get ahead in MMA is to take an opportunity, at least in UFC today, is to get an opportunity on short notice. So here was his 2017, fought twice, beat Andrew Sanchez, beat Hector Lombard. Okay, that's pretty good. Then he goes 2018, he loses to Diego Santos and at five of the night at middleweight.

Says, I'm done with middleweight. This thing's been kicking my ass. Let me just go to light heavy. and then beats Rashad, then beats Mauricio, and then beats Ouzdimir. And I think a couple of those he had taken on relatively short notice. It's just the best way to skip the queue. If you're having to constantly, like, fight your way up and fight you, it just takes a long time, man. It really takes a long time. But if you can find a way to just say, okay, I'll stay ready and be ready. And by the way, the weight cutting fits into that, right?

Because if you're not having to cut weight all the time and you're kind of fighting, you know, relatively close to your natural weight, then when you get the phone call to say, hey, man, can you fill in on, I don't know, three weeks notice opposite XYZ, they've got a big name and you got there and you smoke them. This is how it's done, folks. This is a textbook case and how it's done. Get the opportunities where you can and build and build and build and build and everything the hard way. Everything's a hard way. So here we are.

Folks, we're losing time on this one. We may have to just jump to the phone. I'm not sure what the issue is back there. All right. But we're losing time here. We are on a clock. So the question is, now where does Anthony Smith go from here? Hard to say.

I think he asked for a title shot. Of course, I don't think I know he did. And I think he probably deserves it. We don't have a moment to waste. Let's go to him now. He joins us via Skype. The man, the legend. Look at this guy.

Lionheart himself, Anthony Smith. Hi, Anthony. How are you doing, Luke? I'm doing quite well. How are you feeling? I'm all right, a little bit banged up, but it's not too bad with a W. I'll take it. Yeah, no kidding, man. What a win that was for you. How are you feeling now 48 hours, or roughly 48 hours later? That, to me, was the signature win of your career, man.

That was all the questions about, okay, we think he's good, but how good is he? Turns out pretty damn good. Yeah, man, I'm just really proud of myself. I fought really, really hard. And Vulcan's a lot better than people give him credit for. I know that everyone kind of labels him the one-punch knockout guy, but he's seen there. His ground control was really good when he was on top in that turtle position.

You know, he forced me to stay safe and not be able to kind of explode there. And he's a lot more technical on his feet, actually, than I expected. I kind of expected him just to be kind of the wild brawler, but he's a lot better than people give him credit for it. You face some hard hitters. How hard of a hitter is he? He's definitely up there. I did a pretty good job of not taking anything super clean.

I kind of, you know, I rolled with him a lot. I was able to cover. But I'd probably say he's probably one of the harder hitters I've ever fought. All right, so let's talk through the ending. It looked to me like you had that knee tap, which, you know, I can tell you gutted it out because you were kind of like a little wobbly, a little before that, but you gutted it out, you got the double, you tried to take the back. He initially blocked it.

You pulled him back. He looked like he was fumbling underneath, but eventually he had the choke, had to switch sides. Like when you were going through this, how close did you think you were as you were switching side to side on the choke? Well, initially, when I had it on the opposite side right at the beginning, I was kind of stuck with that hand position because of how I took his back. I kind of grabbed that seatbelt and, you know, it's kind of my spot. I go there in the gym with everybody. But the way that we fell, we kind of fell to the wrong side. and I locked the body triangle at the opposite side.

So I was, I probably spent the first 20 seconds of that trying to just muscle it in there, knowing that it was on the wrong side. But I didn't want to give it up, you know. I was kind of just squeezing for dear life. And I got it under his chin for just a second, and he panicked. And then I was able to slide his,

I was able to slide the other arm in once he lifted his chin because he was having a hard time breathing. And that's why I was trying to keep him as flat as I could on his back because I knew all the blood was running down his throat because I could hear it gurgling. How tired were you when he finally tapped? Man, I was really tired. I took a really hard body kick at the end of the second round.

It was a really, like I threw an overhand right and he kicked me right up under my ribs. I was having a hard time getting full, deep breasts after that. And for whatever reason, man, he just fights at a high pace. You know, I think that's kind of the piece that the people are missing. You know, I was pretty tired at the end of it, but the pace that we fought at was pretty high, and delay kicks definitely didn't help.

And honestly, we kind of just kind of threw caution to the wind there in the third round and kind of both of us kind of strayed from our game plans a little bit. So I was pretty tired. I have to say you were mentioning that you were proud of yourself. You should be. But we as observers might be proud of you for our own reasons. Why are you proud of yourself? What did this experience mean to you?

man, it's a lot of vindication. You tell yourself over the years that no matter what, you're going to get there, you're going to get there, you're going to get there, and eventually, you know, after a while, you're just like, shit, man, like, am I going to get there? You know, and just proud of myself for just sticking to it, you know, and just staying true to what I said I was going to do, and that was world champion or die trying. And I think I'm closer now than ever to realizing that. what did your family say

man they were really really happy my kids were super excited my mom is really really excited you know when I started this whole journey when I was 17 I think she thought I was crazy but she believed in me you know and she never never discouraged me

and what I wanted to do and she helped support me as much as she could so I think she's just really really happy to see it finally finally coming all around you know you know I spoke to Derek Lewis he always tells me that win or lose but especially when and he loses, his kids make fun of him. I'm wondering, do your kids,

what is their response to dad out there dropping bombs on people? My middle kid who's standing right here, say hi. Say hi to Luke. Hi. Hi. What's your name? She's always trying to figure out if I won or lost. So she's only four years old, so she's trying to figure it out.

But she was wondering why I wanted to take a nap in the middle of the octagon. That's what she's been giving for capital, why I was trying to take a nap. All right, fair enough. Now, after the fight, you get out there and you call out for a title shot. Pitch me in your case. Why are you deserving? I just took out the number two guy in the world. I think I finished two former world champions back to back and then the number two contender.

The number one contenders fighting for the title, and I think Daniel Cormey, I think, is all but left the division. I don't think that he's coming back to 205. I don't know who else would be in front of me. You know, I don't know who else is a legitimate threat to either one of those guys, no matter who wins the title. You might be able to throw Latifie in there, but if Gusafson wins, then that's definitely out the window, you know? So I genuinely believe that I'm the only legitimate threat to either one of those guys.

And I think that I'm finishing people. You know, there's guys that are winning, but I'm finishing guys. Yeah, you certainly are. So let's talk about this a little bit. Let's say John Jones wins. Well, first of all, do you expect John Jones to beat Gustafson? I do. I do.

I think that if John Jones is being truthful when he said he didn't train that hard for the first fight, I would imagine him coming off this long layoff with everything that's happened to him, that he's going to, that the best John Jones is going to show up. And I think that that's what he's going to need to beat Gustaf. All right. So let's say he wins. Tell me how you believe you match up. with him. You know, I think that

well, first, I think that Vulcan is one of the tougher matchups for me in the entire division just because of the way that he fights. I think that John Jones is less dangerous than Vulcan is. John Jones isn't one punch knocking out anybody. You know, it's

just, that's not his style. You know, he's super crafty, he's dynamic. I think he has a high fight IQ. But I think that he's hitable. And I think that I match up with him size-wise, pretty well. Obviously he's got a longer reach than everybody in the entire UFC. You know, I think that John Jones beats a lot of people in that short range with the elbows and

stuff, and I think that I'm just as dangerous in that elbow fighting range as anybody in the division. Would you rather fight John for your own legacy or curiosity or Daniel Cormier? Forget the title being on the line. Imagine it was the same in either scenario. I'd rather fight John Jones. Why? I think that I because no one's ever no one has a legitimate win over John Jones

and that's the stuff that really gets me up you know the fact that deep down I truly believe that I can beat John Jones but deep down I know that I might not be able to and that's what drives me you know that's that's what motivates me

and that I've been thinking about John Jones since I've been at 205 it's never been about Shogun or Rashad or even Vulcan it's trying to get through as many people as I can get through to get to John Jones. Interesting. So it's almost the doubt mixed with the self-belief. This is what is propelling you?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, people can say all day that the doubt is a bad thing, but I don't think that it is. I think doubt motivates people, depending on who you are. I think that John Jones being the tallest task in the entire UFC will bring the best out of me. And I think that one of my biggest downfalls is that I tend to fight to my opponent's level. And fighting up to my opponent's level is always going to be a positive.

You hear people talk bad about fighting someone's level when you're fighting down to them. But I think that I'm one of those guys that I just rise to the occasion when they need to. And I think that I would do the same with John Jones. That's an interesting observation. Why is it you think you do that sometimes, either direction, either up when it's a big challenge or down when it's not? I don't know. I've kind of always done that my whole entire career. I had a coach one time that said that for whatever reason

I'll always do just enough to win but never any more than that it's not a conscious thing it's just for whatever reason it's just how I fight and you know I wish I could change it but you know I that's just who I am I think. Outside of you do you think there's anybody else that can beat John Jones in that light heavyweight division? Other than other than Gus Simpson no I don't. Wow.

How close by the way you think John's going to win that one. The first one was super close. Do you think this one is less close? I think it's going to be a very similar fight. But I think that John Jones is one of those guys that he has such a, I think that one of his biggest, one of his

biggest advantages is that his fight IQ was super high. So I think that if he has 25 minutes to figure you out, another 25 minutes isn't going to be beneficial to you. Interesting. All right, a couple more questions here. We would appreciate your time. You know, when you were out there on the regional scene and you thought to yourself, man,

when I'm on the cusp of a world title, it'll feel great. All right. You're on the cusp of a world title. I'm sure it does feel good. But is, is this what you thought it would be like? No, I thought I would, I thought that I would feel a little more accomplished. But, you know, I had someone tell me one time that the reward for winning a pie eating contest is more pie. so I don't really feel like I don't really feel like I don't feel like I've I don't feel like

I've accomplished it yet you know like I'm not happy yet I thought that once I got to this point where I'm like right there and hopefully I get that title shot you know I don't I don't know it kind of makes me nervous like my whole entire career

all I've ever focused on is wanting it is wanting a 12 pound gold belt like the way I feel now I'm kind of scared the ones I get it it's not going to be enough Oh, I doubt that. I doubt that. It's just, you know, I think the issue is right when you're tantalizingly close to something and it becomes real, then the achievement of the moment will only matter a little bit down the line, right? Even if you win or don't win, you will still look back on this moment fondly. I do believe that. I think so. I think it's hard to live in the moment of it right now because I think I'm just looking. I'm still looking forward. So like I always say, I don't want to live in it too, I don't want to live in this moment too long because I don't want to stay here very long. You know, I want to move on to the title shot and hopefully win the title and then later on we can look back and enjoy it.

Did you enjoy that main event slot? I did. I did. You know, I really enjoy talking to the media and I know that that's the one thing that a lot of guys complain about is they're busy and the media obligations and, you know, they're trying to do all that while cutting weight. Well, I don't have any of those problems. I don't cut really any weight at all. And I really enjoy talking fights. I'm a MMA nerd, man.

I could talk fights forever. So I really enjoy talking to the media. I enjoy the fans. And I just enjoy the whole process, you know. But it's all about perspective. You know, if I wasn't doing well, then no one would want to talk to me. And the fans wouldn't care about what I was doing. And fortunately, Canada was really welcoming to me.

So it wasn't like I was fighting someone in their home. area where I was, you know, had a bunch of people that were against me or whatever. So in that specific situation, it worked out perfect. All right. So let's end on this. You want to take a break, a well-deserved break. You have had a busy 2018, my friend, and it ended up with a bang. Couldn't have ended better than it did. So let's say you are the next in line. John fights at the end of December. Where do you think you will, where does this put you for a title shot? You think first quarter 2019 or what? Yeah. Yeah, I would imagine that that fight would have to be on a pretty big card.

So, you know, maybe May or June. I'd be fine with waiting until July for International Fight Week or something like that. I think that'd be a lot of fun. But I definitely need a break. You know, I just need to sit back and need to be a dad for a little while, you know. And I think I had five fights in 13 months. And, you know, it's just a lot of traveling. And, you know, I missed out on a couple vacations.

I was supposed to take my kids on. So I got a lot of making up to do. Well, you know what? I won't keep you any longer. Anthony, what a win it was. It was tremendous to see that final choke. And I think once you have a couple of margaritas on the beach or whatever it is you're going to do for vacation,

you'll have a chance to reflect on it in a very positive light. Congratulations, and thank you so much for your time. Thanks a lot, Luke. I really appreciate you, man. All right, me too. Feeling is mutual. There he goes. Anthony Smith, maybe your next light heavyweight title contender.

All right, we have an in-studio guest. How about this? This is great. He is the CEO of KSW. And I believe I'm pronouncing his name correctly, only because this is one of the benefits of watching soccer, ladies and gentlemen. Martin Lewandowski is here. And I got, I'm pretty sure that's how you pronounce it because Robert Lewandowski plays for Byron. And that's how he pronounced his name.

We have Americans here who go by Lewandowski, Lewandowski. But I don't think it's how you do it. Bring them on in. What are you all waiting for? All right. Here we are. How you doing, sir? Cool.

How are you? Nice to meet you. I'm glad. Hey, thanks for coming in. Pleasure to meet. All right, have a seat, my friend. How are you? I'm good.

Thank you for having me here. Now, it is Levendowski, right? Yes, that's Levendowski. I got that only because I watch soccer. All right. For Robert Levendowski, you have to be a friend of mine, but, yeah. You know him? Yeah, sure, sure.

I was on my 40th birthday. And it was three years ago already, so. Wow. What brings you to New York? Just vacation. And now after a hard time and big show in London, Wembley. I just decided to go with my wife and a kid just, you know, to take a deep breath. I've been in New York once.

It was been, I think, five years ago. Yeah, and it's just, you know, great country, great city. So, you know, we're going to cruise, you know, around museums, theaters, going for NBA and UFC for sure. Is that right? Yeah. Do you watch NBA in Poland at all? Not much, but I have a friend actually, because of the time difference.

That's the only thing, you know. I watch maybe I observe and I, you know, take a closer look what's going on and, but not life because usually life is when I sleep. Fair enough. But I have a friend, Martin Gottad and he's the one and only. He played for the, my, I'm from, I live in Washington, D.C. Oh, right. He played for the Washington Wizards. Is he with the Kings now?

But the Clippers? Yeah, with Clippers. The Polish Hammer. Yeah, Polish Hammer. That's right. That's right. He's number five, you know, center. So, and he's a good friend of mine.

And that's why I've been, because I've been. playing basketball for years when I was in a teenager. And then back in times when I was working for the Marriott Hotel, actually, another American brand. So that's why I came across a lot of basketball players, you know, and my desire to basketball player grew again. But then I changed it for M. Fair enough. Let's get to it if we can.

I got a bunch of questions for you. Here's the first one in no particular order. I noticed that your last show, KSW45, that aired at least here on DeZone. Do you all have a DeZone deal? Yes. In the U.S.? Yes. We had a couple deals.

DeZone's are the latest one, and actually we started working, starting from the last show. Right. So fans like me are going to be able to watch KSW 46, your show in December, on DeZone. Right. Well, this is great. Wonderful. We had couple deals with different media partners. I can't recall right now.

But, you know, my brother is in charge of that so he can tell more, you know, in the past. But, yeah, with the zone right now, we are now close. And we are working for new deals and new cooperation, you know. Always it will be a problem because of the time difference. But still, it's such a huge market, you know, dominated by USC and Bellato here. So, but still a lot of fun base, a lot of Polish community who, you know, follow. KSW for years. So for sure, one day maybe KSW in the U.S. So I was going to ask you about that. There's a big Polish community here.

A big Polish fighters have done quite well here, particularly more so in boxing, I feel like than MMA, like Tomas, Saddam. He has sold out the, God, who he fought? I was there for when he fought Steve Cunningham at the Prudential Center, which is right across the river, and it was like, I mean, little, it was like little Krakow or Krakow, I pronounce. It was crazy in there. So do you guys have designs on eventually entering the market? For sure Europe is our first approach and this is where we base. These are the countries or the continent we understand. And it's also much easier to produce the show when you live and in that continent.

So for sure, Europe, this is our first approach and our desire to go there. I mean, we already have been, we did three international shows. it this way. We did two in London in Wembley and one in Ireland in Dublin. So for sure next year, at least one show will be outside of Poland and we will grow and expand

and we want to just make our brand bigger outside of Poland because in Poland it's like we are UFC like here UFC it's like you know it's associated with MMA and the same stories with KSW in Poland and we are actually

bigger than UFC in Poland than the UFC here is in Poland. So, so, for example. I mean, not that I just believe you, but let me play devil's advocate. What would be the proof of that? What do you mean what I call proof of, we are bigger than UFC in Poland? I have seen KSW shows. I know what the truth is. But let's say I knew nothing about it. And someone said, in Poland, KSW is bigger than UFC. How do you know? How do I know? Because of the ticket sale, because of the pay-per-view sale, because of the interest from the media. you know so but yeah so just just you know there are a lot of things or a lot of statistic we can we can see the first actually UFC show was a crap you know concerning the business approach the media the fans you know

they just put it like another show in another country don't pay pay much attention to that and I think that's what didn't work out well the second was much better for sure they will come you know Polish fighters are getting better and better. You have a couple good, well-known Polish fighter here. So I think not only for UFC, but for any other MMA organization, Poland become a nice, tasty pie. But yeah, but come back to the question about our development. So for sure we want to concentrate on Europe first, you know, because this is where we grew and we understand. We did already those three shows, but US would be something there's accidentally, I would say,

because it's so dominated here by UFC and Belator. That's what I mentioned before. So I think it will be just only once every couple of years, and it will be more like we are going to play for Poles. So with Europe, we are more concentrating on expanding our brand and to grow our brand between other nations, It's not exactly Polish. You know, Polish knows us very well everywhere where they live. So this is not our approach, just only to play to Poles with the Polish music. We want to be more international, but that's definite.

Let's talk about your shows. One of the things I find really amazing about them is that, number one, you only do, like, what, four or five shows a year, basically? I think this next one, 46 is going to be your fifth show of the year. What I like about it is, MMA is going one direction here where it's like show after show after show. It almost, I make an example. I say it's like banquet food. If you have to make a dish for five people, a good chef can handle that. You have to make a dish for 500 people.

It doesn't matter how good the chef is. By the time you're making it for that many people, the quality drops. You guys don't do that. The whole market here is going one way. You guys are going the other. You're saying, let's do less, but make each show ridiculously good in terms of the kind of fights we can put on. And in particular, the atmosphere and the show. When did you realize that that was?

was a winning formula, given that everyone else is doing the opposite in some ways? Actually, we started from the very, very first show. That's what we thought that we can't only concentrate on the sports itself, but we need to build the whole show around it with the... People need to understand that the whole sport is also entertainment. So this is like I wasn't a big fan of UFC. You know, like 15 years ago, I was more looking for the prize. you know, the way how they

show, they produce the shows, how they celebrate the fighters. So that was with my, you know, business part. That was our approach. We decided we are going to, you know, build it not only show, not only fight, but everything what's around is very important. Not only for us, but also for the fans. We didn't know if it's going to work, you know.

It like work out 15 years ago, you know, Poland and MMA. 15 years ago, it was associated with the worst thing, you know, illegal fights, dogs fight, no rules, you know, so the hooligans. So everything which you can think of, you know, black market, that was MMA. So first we need to grow and just show that this is a sport and it's legal business. And it takes us, that's why, you know, 15 nearly years, of course we are talking about now, about different, completely different world.

And MMA is number one in all martial arts in Poland and it's bigger than boxing right now. So, and thanks to KSW, we are kind of, you know, pioneer in that business. But you find that there's a hunger for this, right? Like, I hear American fans complaining all the time. What they want to see is, you know, look, can every show be a big spectacle? Okay, maybe not necessarily, right? But there's a certain, like, MMA with spectacles, how it's supposed to be. And so there's a feeling among, at least in this fan base, I can tell you,

When they see KSW, they're like, this is what pride used to look like to a degree, right? Right. Do you feel like MMA needs more of that? More of what? What you're doing? Or if everyone was doing spectacle, it wouldn't be... In other words, if everyone was doing spectacle, would it be too much? It wouldn't be so spectacular.

Right. So I think that the business idea, UFC head and Ballots are here for US. It's just, you know, working very well. so I don't think that they are willing to change it and I think there is no such need. We are unique because this is what we do and that's what you said probably if people would start copy it, it would be just another copy

and people wouldn't appreciate it and I think it's good that we have a map of MMA shows and you can choose some people want just many fights without any entertainment around but there are a lot of people who want just to be entertained in the movie. That's how I compare it to a movie. You come to cinema and you watch from the beginning to the end.

Usually it's like you are waiting for the only main events or call main events. And all the shows, most of the shows are just advertised with four or six names. We try to put attention and a lot of promotional efforts to every single fighter we have on the fight card. Of course, we need to build those brands. I'm talking about the fighters. But still, it's like a completely different approach. I think that's what makes us very. unique around the world and for sure we want to skip it. We want to give more shows,

more or produce more shows per year, but it won't be that number like UFC or Belatsoe is doing, that's for sure. What do you make of this trade that the UFC did with one? Do you like it? I don't give them all. I don't know. It's like, you know, it's good that UFC is opening for such That's something which, because I had a long story with the UFC and with conversation with people from USC. And it's been like this year, I might say, I have to say this is the first year. I'm really not satisfied because that's a big word. But we found a common ground to understand each other's needs, you know, like because when they are taking the fighters, they are not taking like they used to just take the fighters and sorry, we are not going to pay attention to anybody's contracts or something. They said if you are not going to release him, we are not going to sign him.

So they are kind of thinking about other promotions, you know, and I think that's the way it should be. That's what I told them because we are not the competitors because, you know, they are global and they can kind of work with those companies, small promotions around the world because, you know, we build this MMA. Why they are in Poland? Because we build the MMA, you know, in Poland. and why they are not going to Turkey, for example. You know, because... Wow.

I've been to Turkey. I've got a few theories about that. Yeah, nothing about, you know, political reasons, but just, you know, about the MMA doesn't exist there. And that's it, you know, it's the case closed. So, but I think it's nice that they are training and changing the fighters and because it's only... It shows that UFC starts to cares a little bit

about the other promotion. And MMA, we have... I think every promotion has the same, how to say, goal, maybe not a goal, but kind of a goal, you know, to be one of the Olympic games. And if we are not going to be kind of united, it's not going to happen. Even with those billions, you know, from East markets people are talking about that they are going to spend billions and probably that's what it's going to happen. I don't believe in that. It needs to be a structure. it needs to have a lot of clubs

and just the MMA need to be united and seen not only as a kind of show but it's really like a sport sports I'm not talking about US I'm not talking about Poland but I'm talking about the global market like nobody questions for example

curling you know if it's support or not the guys are you know moving the iron on the ice and they have the association you know it's for me it's crazy but still like you know they make it And it's bad that the MMA with such a power with a lot of money around. It's a huge business. We can't just because we are playing the different role in different countries.

But the goal should be, we should have at least one or three goals the same. And we should follow that one. So if the UFC is trading the fighters. So it means that I believe they have changed their approach. Or maybe it's just illusion. Maybe just only one fake deal. Maybe not fake deal, but it's just only one deal. It's a one hit or quitter.

But maybe the other idea here is, and I wonder what you think about it, look, I don't know if there's going to be any more trades. I don't know if there's going to be trades with UFC or could maybe a Bellator one trade or something. But if it's possible, maybe it's not, but if it's possible that it fosters a spirit of cooperation between organizations, like I guess what I'm getting at is, does this at all, a guy who runs,

KSW, does this make you think about, wow, what are some other ways we could work with other organizations? Or are you strictly focused on what you guys have to do? No, actually, we work with different organizations. We do these traits, but it's not like so obvious. It's not so, so spectacular, for example, like, you know, UFC and 1 did. But we are working with different organizations, not only with Poland, but also around the globe. With Bama, with Bala. So I had a really good relation.

I mean, I had with Bama. No more. No more, no, because now they are a part of, you know, a big bellator. So, yeah, and Cage Warriors, you know, so these are the organization I'm working with. Sometimes it's stronger. Sometimes it's just only just exchanging the information, but we don't see each other as a competitor. You know, so, so, yeah.

So you have this, I believe you have the trailer, Danny. Do we not the Bellator? Excuse me what I was saying. The KSW 46, right? We're going to air it on the monitor here, or are we going to put it? Full screen. All right. Let's see that.

You have, this is for, looking here. This came out today. He fights like calmness and applies submitsions, Frank Shui-like elegance. The hunter on Spiats. He will bring the storm to the KSWK and fight for. for the biggest prices in KSW

wants to rise from the asses like the phoenix. He's harder, better, faster, and stronger. Ladies and gentlemen, I can't do you. So there's the ad right there. Pretty incredible. I mean, that's just like typical KS1, right? Showmanship, it's got grandiosity to it.

It's got ambition to it. You've got the wild animals and the whole bit. That really is like a great... If you've never seen a KSW show, that's sort of like a... I would call that a very... fair teaser, if that makes sense, right? We try to find a unique thing to build around the whole show.

So nearly every show has its own theme last show in Wembley, London. We have a kind of punk theme, you know, like MMA is not dead. So we build around this one. So yeah, I think that's what people really likes, you know, about our show also, that we pay attention to small details. And me and my business partner, we are really involved in every single small detail of the show of the whole organization.

So I think that's why we can, you know, pay attention to those. And KSW 46, NARC, forgive my pronunciation. Narcun? Narcun, yes. Versus Mamma Kaladov, who they know here, hardcore fans know him here very well. That'll be your main event at 205 pounds, then your co-mean event for the title.

Mateus Gamrott? Gamrott, yes. I know I'm going to say it that. And then Cleber Coik. Coik Erbst? Yes. Wow, that's a bunch of syllables there that I cannot pronounce. He's Brazilian and Japanese living in Japan right now.

So, yeah. And if they've never seen this show before, what can they expect? And this will be, forgive my, this will be Saturday, the first of December. What can they expect? For sure, you know, great fights, eight, nine great fights with international crowd, international fires, you know, great production, the production, which for sure will bring you the pride memories, or even better. So, just, you know, three, four hours, it depends how the fight goes, but for sure it will

be like in a movie. You're going to watch it from the first, you know, scene until the last one, and I think people will like it. And, of course, beside the website you mentioned, you can all, and it's been for like, I don't know, seven years already, you can watch all those KSW shows on our own platform, which is KSWTV.com. And you can have it wherever the internet is, you know, available. Let me say this. This is a true story. I went to Poland in 2001. I took a train from Berlin to is it. I pronounced it Krakow, but it's Krakov.

Krakov. I have to say the Polish people, and I'm not exaggering, you're going to tell me, oh, you're just saying this because you're here. I am not just saying this because you're here. The Polish people are the nicest in Europe. Right. I have to tell you, they could, and this was June 2001, so this was before 9-11. And I went there, you know, you go to France and everyone is like all the Parisians, they don't care about you. Dude, the Polish were friendly every single place we went to. They asked questions.

English is prevalent there. And I just found them to be, I just found them to be great. So it is no surprise that you came here with a friendly attitude and English-speaking skills and business acumencytes of boot, my friend. It's glad to hear that. All right. All right. So let's do this. We have to go to our next guest.

We appreciate you coming on. on KSWTV for more information.com. Yes? That's right. All right. Thank you, my friend. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Get my best to Robert. Who? Reach Robert. Oh, Levandovsky, Robert. Okay, I will. All right. Thank you, my friend. Really appreciate it.

All right, we go from one esteemed guest to the next. I believe he's on with us via telephone. Oh, yes. When we have to reset the camera. Give me just a second. Yeah, so I wanted this guy on for a couple of reasons, right? Not least of which is because, well, he had a big fight coming up.

You remember that David Branch was like getting after it and really wanted an opportunity to fight Jacaray. He came on my radio show. We talked about it then. We had a bunch of conversations about it. And he got it. He actually had it at UFC 230. Then Luke Rockhold gets injured. And, well, everything just kind of fell apart from there.

But he's still got a big fight. He's still got a big challenge. He's still on that card. Let's go to him now. The man himself. David Branch is here. Hi, David. How are doing, Lou?

I'm doing quite well. Hey man, so we talked, I don't know, a few months ago, right, on my radio show. You were trying to get that jacqueray fight, and it just didn't go your way. So how are you feeling what the five days out now from your fight? I'm excited to fight again. The objective is still the same, crush, kill, destroyed. And at this point in my life right now, the things that I've been through and have made, It's just give me my fucking opponent and then give me my hand wraps and my gloves and let me go through my job so I can get back to my family after I'm done and taking care of this.

David, if I can, is there any way I can get you to take the phone off speaker? Is that possible at all? There he is. You sound great. Okay. All right, man. So let's walk through what happened. So as I mentioned, you had the Jacqueray fight.

Boom. It was locked in. Luke Rockhole gets injured. what happened between then and how you ended up getting the Jared Kennanier fight? I think that, you know, they understand, I don't know really what happened with the situation. I just, I got a, I got a, I was teaching class, actually, the day that I found out, and just a normal routine. Going through teaching my class and stuff like that, I think I was teaching the beginner class, or the beginner class was about to start. And then one of my students walked in and said,

he said, hey, man, did you know that Luke Rockhole got hurt? And then I go, oh, he did? And then I said, oh, oh, shit. And then I go, oh, man. And I say, oh, man, I know what's going to have it. And then I said, if I get to my phone and I get a call by my manager or one of my cornermen, then I know what happened. And I did, and it was a missed call.

And it was easy for me to put things together. I understand why I'm a veteran for it. luckily the organization was able to you know call somebody up uh jared cantonair he responded to the call and and that's that's what we got next um so okay a couple things here let's go through this why did you suspect it might have been you that was going to lose the fight why not somebody else why not israel a sonya or whoever because it just makes sense luke uh from a business point of view if i was a promoter um i'm going to want to keep on the one of the people that that was, uh, that I, that, that my show was kind of pushing. They were kind of

pushing the Luke Rockhold fight with, you know, in conjunction with the, uh, with the, uh, with the, uh, Cormier, Derek Lewis fight. And I'd want to keep on one of those people that I kind of like comained. And I guess they're going to just boost up one of the other fight, fighters that are like, you know, closer up in that rank. Uh, I guess that's what it was, you know, um, I'm not too sure, uh, you know, if, if, if, uh, if, if, uh, if, if, if, uh, if, If Chris was asked to fight me or something like that or, you know, or anything like that, you know, I've made it public before that I'm not interested in fighting him, especially, you know, not for, you know, something like that. You know, if, you know, that that wasn't the case.

I think that it was a situation where they asked the jacqueray camp and his handlers. Would they want to take the opportunity to jump up? and I think they see that it was probably better for them politically wise for like numbers and rankings and stuff like that. I don't think anybody was scared or anything like that. And it just happens, you know. I got a phone call from my management and they were trying to save me on the card. I explained to them that I worked really hard. And it's been like about a 19-week camp.

You know, I've trained as hard and smart as I possibly could. And I actually got a phone call from Dana. and he was actually nice enough to reach out to me himself. And he explained to me that it's fucked up, kid, and we'll get you a fucking fight, you know, and do you do you got to do this one, and we'll get you in there with some fucking killers that'll move you forward.

And I was just like, okay, I'm going to do what I have to do so that we can, you know, honor these things that were said, and that's it. And for folks who men, I realize, the Weidman thing you don't want to do because you guys both have that HENzo affiliation, right? Yeah, I just know them. You know, I know I'm, I like the guy, you know what I mean? I don't want to, you know, those kind of negative intentions on somebody that I know, you know.

You know, it's a, you know, it's a very difficult situation. It's not something that I'm faced with right now. And it's not something that I'd even want to, like, you know, get into, you know, because it's not, it's not birth. It's not real right now, you know, and I'm glad that we weren't faced with that situation where it was something that is just like, hey, man. you know, which one of you boys wants it the most, you know, and I'm glad it wasn't

a situation like that. You know, Jack Ray was available to take the fight. That's somebody that I still do want to fight in the future, along with other people that I would still like to fight. It's just not something that's on the, in the cars right now. You have a very

tough opponent in front of me right now, very durable opponent, and he's coming down and wait for his first middleweight debut. and I'm looking to do business with him. All right, so we'll get to that in just a second. Let's, let me, well, actually, you know what, let me ask you about him that you bring him up.

I'll pivot to that. What do you make of Jared Kennedy? He's a tough guy. He's a tough guy, tough kickboxer. You know, he's got, he's got skills all over the place like everybody needs to. I just think that, you know, technically was I'm you know a lot better uh I I'm not saying that you know being you know arrogant or anything like that I think that it's that's what it is and I'm going to look to take

advantage of that you know I'm going to you know start fast and um and I have the condition to stay on top of this thing the whole time you know I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna push the issue I mean in my fight with Jack Ray that was my that was one of my game plans it was my game plan to that's it that is my game plan to go out there and put the fucking heat on everybody, you know what I mean, and just not let up, you know. And it's just a wild creature that you have to deal with for as long as the time duration permits, you know, and if you make it, you make it. And if I fucking fall on a banana peel in the process, hopefully that doesn't happen, you know.

I don't see that happening, you know, because, you know, I'm a very cerebral person, then that's what they have to deal with. So what's interesting to me is you said you had a roughly a 19-week camp. Did I hear that correctly? Yes. 19 weeks. Hey man, is that a long time. How do you even have a camp for 19 weeks without burnout or injury or something else?

Give me the story there. Okay, I peaked once. I peek really fast, actually. I peaked once. And the camp, I had some really good professional people that were in my camp this time. And one of my guys named Greg. And he has been helping me with, like, my body and stuff like that, getting me all fixed up. somebody I'm going to be using in the future.

And he told me, he said, look, man, you're overworking. And I was just so obsessed. I have, you know, serious OCD, and I was, like, really obsessed with, like, just going out there and, like, putting on a flawless victory and just complete domination of Jacare. So I deem that it would take that many weeks to be able to do something like that. Because in order for me to call on my skill set at will, during that kind of intense kind of competition,

I know that I would have needed to train and train a lot, and I know that my conditioning would have to be peak. So I trained like an animal, and I ate like one, and I knew I'd be ready for something like that, you know? Man, that is, I've never heard of that before. So let me just play devil's advocate if I can, David. You're a vet, you're a pro. This is not your first rodeo for sure.

So I have no reason to question you. But if I was thinking out loud, I'd say, well, how do you know? How do you know you're not overtrained? I start my movements and, like, people who assess professional movements and, like, you know, like high quality athletic movements and me knowing my body and where I'm at and my snappiness, my strength, you know, my, where my mind is right now. I'm ready to fight, man. I'm really ready to fight, you know, and I'm going to go in there and do what I have to do.

And I'm going to do it well, you know, and I'm not going to be nice to anybody that I go in there with, you know. you know, I want to, like my boy, Justin Willis says, I'd like to apologize ahead of time to any one of my opponents because my intentions are not set well for you. And I'm not going to talk any smack. I'm not going to say that you're not this, you're not that, you're scared. I'm just going to go in there. I'm going to do my job. I'm going to do it well.

And that's it. So let's say you do, right? You go in there and Saturday goes about how you expect it to go. How does 2019 go? However the UFC wants it to go. You know, I'm just a cog in the system, man, and I'm not an entitled brat. I think that, you know, me doing what I have to do in a certain fashion with this fight should definitely make a statement to the UFC. It should make a statement to the rest of my division.

To God, I happen to ready made one already. But that's what I am, man. I'm just a soldier, man. That's what I do. and I've learned to not expect anything as a fighter, but just to always be ready. And my job as a martial artist is to make sure that my skills are always ready and sharp as they fucking possibly can be.

And that is the only thing that I'm in control of. I'm not in control of title shots. I'm not in control of rankings. I'm not in control of any of these things. The only thing that I'm in control of is being in there and being a fucking deadly weapon. That's my job, and that's what I focus on. And I'll let the UFC focus on the rest with my management.

for sure and you're a pro so that's the kind of attitude one would expect from a pro I guess what I'm sort of curious about is like are you happy with your predicament because you're still on the main card right there is some value there um huh

am I happy with it I mean I'm not happy that I didn't get to fight the person that I really wanted to fight you know because that's who I really wanted to fight but I'm happy that I'm still on the card and I've made the mental switch necessary. And I've gone through the mental preparation and the switch to now switch my intentions to this man, Jared. And now he is next. And that is it. So you said you still want to fight

Jacques-Aray down the road. If this Saturday goes your way against Jared Canaaner and he wins, is that the next appropriate bout to make? That would be the next appropriate bout to make. Yes. in my opinion it would be but I don't know like again I'm not entitled to anything you know and I don't have any control of these things but if it would be if they ask me what do you want that would be my answer and that would be what I want you you made that what that fight does what that fight does for me in the future would be based on what the UFC wants fair enough you know you made that one interesting video with all of your Jiu Jitsu I think it was one of your classes, and they were all making the Gator Mouth.

Are you still planning on doing those kinds of things? Or how do you feel about actively lobbying further in your career? I mean, I'm at a point right now. And, you know, I'm really humble, Luke. You know, I'm a very humble person, you know. I try not to be a narcissistic fuck. And it's very difficult to be. It's very easy to be, you know, as a fighter because, you know, the attention does feel good at a certain point.

but I'm a normal fucking person just like you and everybody else and I'm not special. I don't feel that like I need to do certain things like that based on my resume, man. I mean, I've been doing this for a long time. And I just hate like having to reiterate shit that I did and go back and start bringing out profiles and shit like that because everybody's done something. You know what I mean? And just, God damn it, just fucking recognize what I've done, you know? and I don't think that I should have to do fucking monkey shines to fucking get a fucking good fight. You know what I mean?

I'm a great fighter. And just fucking just act like you know. That's one of those things like, you know, when I was in certain locations, you know, or when I was a kid, you know, and I would, you know, act a certain way to an adult or a man. I'd actually run across a real man and I would get beside myself he'd look at me and say, act like you fucking know. And I'd have to look and I'd be like shit. Well, I do understand that I'm a fucking small child

and this is a grown man. I need to act like I know. And I think that at a certain point, you know, I think that other people need to just act like they know, man, and just let up off the bullshit, man. You know, you know who's a good fighter and you know who's not. And I don't need to go through a fucking bunch of shit

to fucking say who I am. And I've done what I've done. and hopefully that's just good enough and hopefully people can act like they know. That's it. I think that's more than a fair request. David, I'm sorry that you lost the fight. You were scheduled to get.

But with a 19-week camp, man, that is quite a gas tank to have for Saturday when you take on Jared Cannonier on the main card of UFC 230. You paid your dues. If Saturday goes your way, man, I hope 2019 is the year you've been looking for and we really appreciate your time here on the show.

Thank you, Luke. You're the best, man. I appreciate you. Thank you, brother. Appreciate you as well. All right, there he goes. So I believe we have just one more guest. So with that in mind, let's do this now.

It's time for a round of tweets. Look at that. All right, five minutes on the clock, donkeys. And then once it gets going, it'll get going. Well, I'm still good looking, y'all. Here we go. All right. Smith and Blahovic have arguably deserved light heavyweight title shots.

Thoughts on them having a number one contender fight around the time of Gus Jones, or it can be done early 2019 if DC is next for the Gus Jones winner. I'm going to get, I would not mind a Smith-Blo-Hovic fight. To me, Smith's win over Ouzdemeer is a bigger deal. But I can understand an argument for Blahovich. If they want the suit a fight, that's fine. But you're kind of eliminating one contender there, and they might actually need it light heavyweight as many contenders as possible.

So it's a fine fight. It's not a bad idea. In an ordinary circumstance, I just don't think we're in an ordinary circumstance. Next. Can you think of a more impressive UFC debut in recent history than that of Don match? Oh my God, I'm going to try and still get a hold of Don. I've had some of my producers reach out to him to try and see if we get a hold of him.

We tried out a little bit too late so we couldn't make him happen for today. But we are going to talk, he and I. I was blown away by how good he was. There's a lot of talent coming out of South Africa. He still got some issues to work on. He's still a junior fighter in his career to an extent. But just, I mean, he, look, T. Edwards was not afraid of him at all came out with total confidence. Look at their body language when they both ended the first round.

Total difference. They came back out and Don Madge had a very, very impressive UFC debut. I would say George St. Pierre beating Carl Peresian as a UFC debut is pretty good too. But yes, that's a really, really good one. Next. Would you be happy if they replaced Face the Pain for Bodies? I'd be happy if those songs, never existed. Next.

Honestly, not hating here. Why is Artum Lobov in the UFC? They have kicked out way better fighters with winning records. What is Lobov now? 13-15-1. I made this point before, right? We kind of talked about it earlier. Look, the idea here is this. He will fight anybody anytime. He, I think, does have a pretty decent level of ability, but his record speaks for itself. And so with three losses in a row,

to me, if they wanted to move on from working with him. I could understand that. If they wanted to give him one more, I could even live with that. But look, I mean, it sounds like you're trying to be insulting by acknowledging the role Connor McGregor plays in his life. And I don't think that it is. I have deep admiration for every UFC fighter. I truly mean that. And Artem Lobov gets a little bit of unfair criticism because he gets promoted a little bit because of the nature of his relationship with Connor. But at the same time, he gets it because of the nature of his relationship with Connor. And that's the way the world works. like people who know famous people and people who know powerful people,

sometimes things go a little bit better for them. So it's all those things. It's all of those situations combined that put him in the situation that he's in now. It's never one or the other. So you can have admiration for his ability. You can have admiration for his willingness to take on all challengers. And you can also recognize, you know, he's getting, it's a bit of nepotism going on in there.

And if they wanted to move on, I would understand. Next. Would Darren Tell be a nice entry fight with, Ben Ascran or would that put the fire out of whoever the loser is? By the way, unblock me. I'm about to start doing that Venmo thing. You just Venmo me $10 and I'll unblock you. The thing is with Darren Till and the way his ground game looked, I don't think that's a good idea because what if, first of all, if Darren Till savages him, that's a fine rebound for Darren Till, but I'm not exactly sure what that would tell you because we still don't know for sure how he would match up Ascran

with the very best to me. If Ascran goes in there and smoking, him, A, you've put Darren Till back two in a row for no need, and he's 25 years old, and you'd be beating a guy who showed a bit of a weakness in the ground game generally. So I don't know that that's the best idea. Darren Till's 25, he has time to really work on his ground game, and he will, and it will get very, very good. I firmly believe that. No need to risk it against somebody who that's his particular specialty at this juncture.

I wouldn't be opposed to really any fight against the top welterweight, but I don't know if that's the best one to make next. With the addition of Ben Ascreen is now the time to add a 165 division in the UFC. I've been a longtime skeptic of this division. I did a mock draft on my radio show. It came out that you can actually do this and still have a very strong 155 and a very strong 175. If you eliminate 125, so it frees up more roster space. I know folks think that's not a real argument, but it is.

If you do that, then I think you can do 165, no problem next. What was the biggest mistake maybe of a dread? Letting Zizu go sold CR7 to Juventus or both It was letting someone who cheers for a loser-Atletico team Pick the tweets How about that, for nothing, Dortmund? Next. What do you think would be a bigger fight?

Habib versus Tony or GSP versus Ascrant? Look, GSP's, well, Habib versus Tony probably is bigger at this point because of he's surfing off that Connor McGregor fandom But that's an interesting question. That's one you have to think about. Very good. All right. And that takes us down. Do we have Mr. Ascran set up yet?

What is the word? Back there. All right, we're getting him on the phone as I understand it. He'll be up at just a second. All right. Let's go to him now. Not a minute's a waste. He is all the rage right now. Finally getting a shot in the UFC. He's an undefeated Bellator and won championship.

Dan Hodge Trophy winner, Olympian, and everything else. Ben Ascran joins us now in the hotline. Ben, how are you? I'm doing great today. I'm on fire. I'm ready to rumble. Just ask me who wants you to beat up. Oh, man. You have been on fire this week. Is this the happiest you've been in your MMA career? Yeah, I feel like, you know what? I always felt a little guilty when I was calling a few jobs because I couldn't really go beat him up. And now I can beat them all up.

So it's like, man, I can't have a bad choice here. I can beat up dumb, Colby. I said, you know, if he has to put the pipe down, I could beat them up, I can beat up there and chill because he's annoying his shit and he was undefeated. And I didn't like that. Man, there's so many good choices for me right now. All right, let's back up a step, man. From your vantage point and the way you experienced it, how did this deal get made? Oh, it was, for me, it was shot in the gossip. It was simple.

They called me a checkpoint happen, and I said, make it happen. And that was it. They made it happen. Now, when you say they, who is they? Boy championship. Tatsriotia Don. So they came to you and they said, hey, we got this idea. We want to swap you out for Demetrius.

How long ago was this? A while. I mean, you know, we're pretty close. I talk with him fairly frequently. You know, he knew there were certain guys that I wanted to fight. And, you know, he always said, let's make everything a win-win, right? and so that way, you know, kind of, we were kind of always looking for a win-win-win type of situation. And this one was perfect.

Literally everybody won. Every party won. The UFC got a star. One championship got the greatest McSmartarsars ever. And I got to go fight the guys that wanted to. He wanted to go. So everybody won. This is a fantastic deal for all parties.

And, you know, really brought sincere star power to the U.S.A. Now, is it true you signed with first round management this past week as well? No, that's not true. Oh. I like Malky. He was, Malkey was very instrumental. I hope he gets credit or credit through because, you know, he was instrumental in making this trade happen.

And this is the first. I mean, when they called me and they said, it can that really happen? Can we actually do that? Like, is that legal? And so, I mean, this is something that no one, but no one. But no one saw this coming. And if they said they saw it coming, they're lying. They didn't sue it's coming.

And so, you know, if you should get credit or credit to do is that he was very instrumental in this process. But I was already representative. I chose to stick with my current representation. Man, you were, you must have been over the moon. Were you, like, how shocked were you when they came to you with this? You must have thought this was a joke or something. That's what I'm saying. I'm like, can we really do that?

Is that really? Is that really what I'm curious? And then even when they said, I'm like, ah, they didn't have. and that's crazy. Then it happened. All right. So have you talked with the UFC at all, like any of the matchmakers,

any of the reps, like about what's next to you? I have talked to Hunter Campbell, who is very high off at UFC. And my plan, our plan is for me to, I'm going to head out to New York City this weekend and hopefully finalize everything.

And then, you know, hopefully take out an opponent. Man, it's like, they're going to line them all for me. And I'm going to say, you. And I think every single welterweight on Twitter is hoping I don't point at them because

now one of them is getting lippy with me. Okay, so this is crazy. Now, Dana White famously had issues with you, right? You told Joe Rogan and many others he was going to kept you out. Why do you think he ultimately changed his mind? I have no idea. And, you know, I've worked with a hunter so far. So, I don't know what I have anything.

I think about this. Data might be saying, like, Hunter, what are you doing? I hate that guy. I don't, I've no, I literally, I literally have no idea what Dana thinks about this. I've not, for an interview, I've not seen a tweet, I've not seen anything. Man, so are you going to talk to him in New York? I would hope so. Would that be nice, right?

Yeah. But when you come to New York, you're, like, what I'm asking is, are you scheduled to meet with Dana? Oh, yeah, I'm scheduled. I scheduled to meet with Hunter. I guess I am assuming that Dana will be there. to national confirm nor deny that. You know, me and Daniel

Cormiere are really close from the Olympic team 2008, and so, you know, I'll probably be spending some time with him as well. So I'm sure by chance or by, on purpose, it will happen one way or the other.

Man, this is a crazy turn of events, you know. I talked to you when you were deciding to hang them up and here you are today. What does this mean you think for your MMA career? Like, what kind of opportunity now is in front of you in terms of how to define a legacy? Well, this is it for me.

The thing that I think was, number one, hard for me. And number two, is the thing that interests so many people and why the situation are so unsettling, right? Is that we didn't know. We don't know if I was good as I say, I am. Nobody knows, right? We haven't seen it. And everyone wants to, everyone wants a finality, everyone wants closure.

then we didn't have closure on this. And now we're going to get closure. And for me, I didn't want to protect my record. I don't give a damn about my record. I want to go fight the best guys in the world and show people on the best. And, hey, if something doesn't go my way, I don't think that's going to happen. That is a possibility. I realize that that's part of competition.

And that's what happens. But we're going to get some finality. We're going to get some closure. And we're going to see what's going down. I've made it very clear public on the record. I'm a very big fan of this trade. But there has been some criticism of it. A lot of folks don't understand.

How? What was to criticize? Everybody won. So folks are saying, let me give you the critical version of this. It's that, hey, Ben is unproven. I would argue you never had a chance against the very best, but, okay, it's a different story. Never been proven. Demetrius is one of that, as you noted, one of the best ever.

And they might get rid of flyweight. Why is this an even trade? Well, I think that's pretty, pretty simple to answer to Luke. Number one, Demetrius never liked, I mean, never like, promotions. Never like talking trash, right? And that's how the UFC sells the fight, right? Although most

the fighters can't talk trash worth of a damn. There's a, ooh, I'm really tough. I'm not scared of him. I'm going to go punch him in his face. I punch so I punched so hard. Right. It's very elementary, rudimentary, very simple, simpleton talking. But nevertheless, that's what the UFC wants. If you want these guys don't trash. Demetiers ever wanted to do that.

And in Asia, that's just not how it goes down. I really had to tone down my rhetoric, because it wasn't welcome there. You know, people reacted very poorly to it. And so Demetri's gets to go and do what he wants to do. I get to come and do what I would do, fight the guys who are ranked above me. The UFC gets a star. I mean, a legitimate star.

And, you know, and Demetrius, he kind of doesn't beat around the bush. He says, you know, I was there to fight. I wasn't there to sell people to use or talk trash. And so, you know, he wasn't a huge seller where I think I will be. And one championship gets one of the greatest mixed martial arts of all time. So literally everybody won in this trade. And there's probably a lot of bitter names there, but that's all they are. Listen, if I'm saying, if we're all four of us, all four parties are saying, we're great with this,

then get the hell out of our way and let's do what we want. Very quickly, you mentioned how, it sounds like what you're saying is Demetrius Johnson's probably going to be a really good fit in one. Do you think that that's like, that's the best place for him, you think? That's where he wants to go. Here's what I'm saying. That's where he wants to go. I mean, he's already done a few. I've already seen a few of interviews.

He's really, really happy with how it went down. He's really, really happy with what's wrong on. And so, yeah, that's where he wants to be right now. And I think he's happy to do the trash talk about it that people want him doing. He doesn't have to do that aspect of it. And so, yes, if he's happy with it, how can anyone not be happy? He doesn't he say it's what he wants. Like, shut out of his way.

Yeah, yeah, that's the point I've been making as well. It's like, Demetrius is capable of making his own choices. If they're the ones that engineered this, I'm struggling to understand what the problem is. Yes, I agree. I don't know. Some people just got issues to everything. Ben, you're 34 years old, and this is a golden opportunity. It came a little bit later than I'm sure you ever expected, but here it is.

But the point I've made is you're undefeated and you haven't taken hardly any damage. How do you feel physically and how much longer do you think you can do this? I'm not sure on that. When I retire, I retired for real. No, that was a joke. I took nine months off. I didn't have a skill on nine months. And I want to do something for myself, stay in shape, stay competitive.

I'm actually going to wrestle in a wrestling tournament in December. And so, on September 1st I got on the scale. I started dieting, bringing my weight down. I'm feeling really good. I'm already in really, really, really good shape. Obviously, I'm not doing the striking other. You did you do it for that. I was playing on just wrestling.

But my shape is getting really good. My weight is coming down very well. And I don't drink. I don't smoke. I've never sustained a major injury. I haven't got hit in the head a lot. Like, I'm about as healthy as you could be for someone who fought professional with martial arts and wrestle for the last 30 years.

Now, you plan on staying with Duke, Duke Rufus. Is that right? You know what? I didn't train there the last little bit of my career. You know, I have a lot of my own stuff going on my life with my rest. wrestling academies and other stuff. And so I would bring people to me, and I will probably do something similar to that moving forward.

I see. And it might include Duke. I mean, Duke's a great coach of what he does. And, you know, obviously, I work with him when we both help Tyron. And so it's not like there's ill will there. And, you know, I could definitely persist in a area where my training includes Duke, for sure. Okay. I just wanted to clarify that.

Speaking of which, Tyrone Woodley is currently the champion. Now, I don't know who they're going to match you up against or how many fights they might win or you have to win to get a title shot. But I'm just sort of wondering, it's an inevitable question, Ben. You have to imagine. What is... No, me and Tyrone are fighting. It's simple. You would fight each other?

No, we are not fighting each other. Oh, never. It would never happen. We are not fighting, no. All right. So you're happy just to fight the best and keep doing it as long as he remains champion because that would be enough validation. I think there's a lot of... I think there's a lot of scenarios in which I get to prove how good I am, and we don't fight.

You know, they could create the 165-175. I think that's the – I think that's a possibility that it's almost like the UFC's pushing back a little bit and fight how much all the fighters realized it would be beneficial to us. They would open to the fighters. I'd create that division of muscle, right? And, you know, women's 135, they refused to – I mean, Dana White, they will never have women to fight at the UFC. and then they came upon a star named Ron and Rodney

and then they created the division. Well, maybe the same things happen to here. Maybe they don't think Kevin Lee or Justice Puri is a big enough star. Sure, they're great fighters, but maybe they're waiting for funky bad to come and get down. Maybe that's what they're waiting for. Maybe they're going to start and make me, and they want

a fresh draft on how we're going to do that. And, you know, I think that'd be a great way to get done. I understand. I think from a business aspect, I think, $6, 65, 65,000, you know, 85 is a great idea. You know, and hiring has disclosed me before that there's a possibility he might move up. So, you know, that's something that we've talked about even before this deal was made.

You know, I don't really know what his time frame on that is, but it's a possibility in the future. Now, you can make 165 no problem? Yeah, I mean, well, I'd have to do some work to get there, but I made 163 for the Olympics and all the trials and all the other tournaments and stuff. So, yeah, I mean, I've been down there. I know what that feels like. I don't really love it. And it's a lifestyle change for me, but I can definitely do it.

By the way, real quickly, I wanted to play a word association game with you. We'll do that in just a minute. But your very quick reaction to the World Championships recently, you've got to be on Cloud 9 with how well USA and Men's Freestyle Wrestling is doing. Yeah, absolutely. And you know what? I got my own wrestling podcast called The Roos Wrestling podcast. So, now, we had two whole, we actually,

we had three episodes dedicated to the World Championships. So I got to talk about it. I love it. I followed it very closely this year. America DeGray. We came on with three gold medals, seven total medals. We did lose to Russia in the point totals, but it was a very close to the race.

Yeah, we were very happy with how that went down. By the way, what went wrong with Kyle Snyder in that, Sadjolive? He just one move. He got to get caught. You know, the move, we call it in Wisconsin. We call it the chest crush. It's like a J.

move. One of my kids in my academy came and said, hey, Ben, I learned this great new move. It's called the chest crusher. I would literally say, don't bother that move sucks. I mean, you know, and Kyle Snyder admitted as much, I think it was one of those things that it was just, it was surprised, right? Kyle Snyder didn't force

the National. I went, freaking Abdul received to Judge Alive was going to try chest crusher, and he did. So, I think that's what it comes down to. I don't think that that result will happen similarly in the future. And, you know, I'm already looking forward to those guys matching up in 2019.

All right, I'm going to read you. I'm going to say some names. I want you to say the first thing that comes to your head when I say their names, okay? Yeah, this game always gets me in trouble, but sure, why not? Geez, Ben, you've been causing trouble the last week, man. I doubt. I said, why not? I said, why not?

All right. Number one, Habib number number gamedoam Medov. Amazing grappler. Who I will beat up. George St. Pierre. Legend of the sport. Who I will also beat up. Colby Covington

Total Gibroni Ripoff version of me In every single way Let me ask you about that very quickly Like you guys are both politically aligned You both have wrestling backgrounds What is your objection to him? My objection is

He's a moron His lines are written for him His wrestling sucks And he's appealing to The lowest common denominator Of the MMAS By the people who are writing his lines they're realizing like the stupid shit people will react to, and then he's saying it.

And there's just a much more eloquent way to say things. And it's like, if you're so dumb and so desperate that you've got to play the Donald Trump card to get people interested in it because that does get people interested in 2018. And if you will get any of the news sports, like everything revolves on what Donald Trump's do, right? So I just think he's playing the lowest comment on there. I think his wrestling sucks. I think his fighting is not very good. and I just generally don't like the guy.

I think he's a moron. All right. Darren Till. He's a young punk. Total young punk. I will whip his ass. Raphael Dosanjos. I will make him humble.

Raphael dosanjos. Oh, I like him. I don't know. I got nothing else. All right. Stephen Thompson. I got nothing against him except karate's not going to work against me. That's simple.

I'll try that shit. I'm going to throw you on your back to punch you in your face. Robbie Lawler. I don't know. I like him, too. I'm a fan of him in Washington forever. You know, he's lost a few fights lately. Looks pretty lost to step. That's it. I got a little will. Just a few more of these, Demi and Maya.

Great grappler, but obviously in his last slide, he lost four-in-row. He's kind of been exposed, and, you know, he's getting older, so maybe he's just losing the fire in his belly, but he had a damn great run there. and now I don't maybe I could be wrong about I think he's lost like three in a row two more

Kamar Usman I like him he I knew him from I knew him when he was Marty he was in I believe that that's the same person when he was wrestling for UNK I gotta be honest

I haven't seen him fight but I hear he's pretty good so I don't know I got nothing nothing for him or against him last thing Jorge Mazvedal he's a bum

I mean listen I try with This is the thing about these idiots, Luke. I train Jorge Mazadol when I've been training MMA for two and a half months in Coconut Creek, Florida in, like, December 2008. I was beating him up that. Look, I was doing MMA for two and a half months, and he was no problem for me. Like, give me a break, dude. That's why he's on here talking on Twitter.

Like, listen, you sucked. Compared to me, you sucked when I've been doing over two and a half months. Like, imagine what would happen now. I'm going to take you down. You're going to act up. You're going to talk all crazy. I'm going to take you out, I'm going to punch you in the age of Peeley, and the rest of going to stop it. That's simple.

Ben, you got a big task ahead, but I know you're up for the challenge. We really appreciate. I love the challenge. Hey, man, we really appreciate your time, and congratulations. I'm looking forward to seeing what you're making this opportunity. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you.

See you. All right. There you go. Ben Asking. Never short on opinions, is he? Kind of like your boy. All right. Keep those tweets coming.

Use the hashtag the MMA hour. As always, leave us a voice. mail 844-866-24-68. You can also just email it to us, TheMMA Hour at Voxmedia.com. Thank you guys so much for watching. Until next time, stay frosty.