MMA Fighting - #467 – Stephen Thompson, Trevor Wittman, Ricardo Almeida, Jose Torres

Episode Date: February 4, 2019

On this episode of The MMA Hour, Luke Thomas speaks to Stephen Thompson about his unusual fight with former UFC lightweight champion Anthony Pettis, how the fight came about, Tyron Woodley vs. Kamaru Usman, more; Coach Trevor Wittman about his new commentary role for UFC broadcasts, coaching and cornering fighters, more; former UFC welterweight and now coach Ricardo Almeida about Marlon Moraes’ sensational win over Raphael Assuncao at UFC Fortaleza, more; Jose ‘Shorty’ Torres about the next step in his flyweight career after being released by the UFC, more. We also take your questions on the latest news in the world of MMA on A Round of Tweets and Sound Off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Hello, donkeys. It is Monday, February 4th, 2019, and Caesar is home. Welcome. My name is Luke Thomas, and this is the MMA hour right here on MMAFighting.com. You might notice the new music. We're still working it out. It's not finished yet, but yes, we are making some pivots here on the show.

But some things remain the same, including a stellar guest list and a lineup. We've got today, Shorty Torres will be here. I believe he has a bit of an announcement. We have Wonderboy. He's going to be here. We've got, let's see, Trevor Whitman's going to be here, and Ricardo Almeida is going to be here as well. Plus, you're going to be here two ways, as you always are,

with your tweets using the hashtag the MMA hour, plus with your calls when we get to the sound off, as always, that number 844-66-2468. I have been off a week. I apologize for that. It is because I had some other professional responsibilities to attend to. were very weird, but I'm back.

We had UFC Fortaleza over the weekend and a whole lot more. A couple of announcements. In addition to hearing that music there, again, it's not quite finished. We've got some things we'll start working out. So appreciate your patience while we have a metaphorical under construction sign going on. Number two, I have great news. Some of you folks who listen on the audio podcast have noted that the Monday morning analyst doesn't really work for you.

Good news. We're going to make the Monday morning analyst for the podcast portion a YouTube exclusive. So we're going to make sure that when we go to the audio side of things, it's going to be the kind of content that more naturally caters to that format. So we heard you guys. We wanted to honor some of your requests. They're very fair. They all make sense. So spread the word.

The Monday morning analyst, it'll be a part of today and, of course, on YouTube for the MMA Fighting site. But it'll be a YouTube exclusive. Yes? Okay, that'd be great. I'm not even going to put my headphones on for this one. Ready, folks? It is time now for a round of tweets. Okay, let's get to it. Let's get to it. There was my face, mouth breathing. Clock starts when the first tweet goes up. I went long on that one, didn't I? Yes, I did. About two minutes. Waiting on you donks. There we go. There's the clock. And where are the tweets? All right, let's go. Clock's ticking.

point deductions for I pox go i guess they're asking me am i in favor of point deductions for ipokes yes generally i speaking not in totality but generally speaking i am in favor of anything where the referees are more involved there is this attitude in m mb a where we want everyone to swallow the whistle i don't believe that referees should swallow the whistle i believe that they should get there and be active oh we don't want to disrupt the purity of a fight there's no such thing This is a phony idea. There's no such thing as a fight under perfect conditions, under real conditions, under these are more pure than the other one.

They all just take place in the context in which they take place, whether it's in the street, a ring, an octagon, you name it. There's nothing more inherently real than the next one other than, I suppose the danger that it might pose to you. But in the case of what we're talking about here for sports, yes, I'm in favor of it. Next. What do you guys think about the judging in Brazil?

It looked like there was some home cooking going on. Just my opinion would like to hear yours. Pulling up the results here very, very quickly. I didn't feel that way. Also, there were so many stoppages. I guess I didn't care. Let's see, anybody who of note that lost, Max Griffin lost to Tiago Alves.

I guess if you wanted to, you could say that. And then the Sarah Frota thing, I guess she's Brazilian too. I don't really remember, but Suzo won. I mean, maybe. I think judges are always going to be. be, I need to know who the judges were for that one to really say. But do I think there's an egregious case?

No, I don't think there's an egregious case. Next. Could any other country excluding the USA fill out a card like Brazilian fighters did? Canada and the UK. You could get just about any country to fill out a card. Could you do it with the depth that Brazil does? I think is what they mean. And the answer is, I don't know.

Maybe Canada, you could do it. I'd have to see. But if you're asking, you know, where are the powerhouses in terms of developing talent across weight classes. You know, Brazil has got to be at the top of the list. Maybe USA's number one, but Brazil is right there, top three bare minimum. They have so many fighters in heavyweight, right? Even though the rest of Spanish-speaking Latin America, they're not going to have heavy weights

like Brazil does. It's just so special as a country. It's such a unicorn in the world. And, you know, for a country that doesn't have a background in wrestling to be as competitive as they are and as good as they are, it's, you know, it says a lot about the strength of that country and the kind of people that they produce. Next. Even though Dana keeps denying and saying no,

do you believe that the UFC will introduce a 165-pound division and or other divisions as well? To me, the issue is not a matter of if, but when. They will create a 165-pound division. I just don't think it's imminent. They know that that is inevitable. They just don't want to do it yet. That's the only issue.

But will they do it? there's no doubt in my mind, but it could be years before they do. It's just not something I think is going to happen in 2019 or 2020, but maybe by 2022, I think that is probably a different and better time horizon. Next. With Habib waiting until the end of 2019 to fight again, should the UFC strip him, they could do an interim belt,

but that didn't work well for the Ferguson the last time. Just another reason I think we would all benefit from a 165-pound division. No, they should not strip him. If he's going to fight again this year, I don't have an issue with it at all, especially for all the havoc that it causes when you put another title in there. And he also has been on ice with this issue with the commission. And I know some people were like, a $500,000 fine is totally justified. These are deranged people, truly. It's impossible to justify this in any event.

So he's a little bit bitter about that. They've got to find them the right opportunity. So if he sits out until 2020 for no other reason that he doesn't want to be. want to be there, that's different. But if you fight again, 2019, I'm okay with it. Next. Hot Ones. Who was your favorite person to quit on Hot Ones? You guys seen this show on YouTube? I love it. I talked about in the last episode of the MMA beat. My, you know what? I like DJ Caled, but he was so annoying on that show. So, because he made three wings in and it was like, I've never taken an L. It's like not even your blood pressure, DJ.

I would say Ricky Jervais. Next, real quickly. So the Nevada commission is contemplating regulating pre-fight trash talk. Outside of this, what is the most ludicrous policy you've heard any commission have ever come up with, whether it's successfully implemented or otherwise? Remember when they tried to ban Nick Diaz for life, for marijuana infractions?

They couldn't even prove took place? Boy, that commission is truly amazing. People will justify anything that the powerful do, but that I found to be utterly disheartedly. graceful and, and I'm not even sure. I agree with Dana White. I don't even know if that's legal to be quite candid with you. All right. Let's get to our guest. I believe he's there. Is he not on Skype? Oh, we're working on him. We're working on him. I believe we're have Mr. Shorty Torres next. I believe he has some news to share, if I'm not mistaken. But we'll talk to him just a second.

Yeah, that whole commission thing, I just couldn't believe people were like, yeah, you know, it makes kind of sense to find him half a million dollars. It's only a quarter of a spurs. dude, these are the kinds of people who can be tricked into anything. If they had taken a million, they would have justified that as well. They said, well, things could have happened. Folks, if you jaywalk, why is jaywalking illegal? It's illegal because it can cause a lot of problems. Bodily harm to the person jaywalking.

It can cause traffic accidents. It generally is not good for law and order. No one is calling for Habib to not be punished. No one is calling for him to not suffer consequences. You can't jump out of the octagon and go after a teammates or excuse me a rival's teammate. You cannot do these kinds of things. On the other hand, you have to have a proportional set of justice and you have to ask what is the appropriate role of the commission. The commission is not there to pick up where law enforcement didn't.

That's not their job. If they want to sanction a fighter, they can and they should. But there should be appropriate limits on that. the state of California only allows a $2,500 fine for any kind of infraction, and they can double that if it's against the spirit of the sport or something. To take $500,000 from him is unconscionable, it's irrational, and frankly, psychotic. You have to have a proportional sense of justice. And the point about jaywalking, I'll get to our next guest in here just a second,

the point about jaywalking is that if it does cause further damage, Well, then you go on and you say, you did all of these other things as a consequence of your action. But if you just cross the street and nobody gets hurt, I think in the end, you decide, eh, here's a ticket. All right. All right, let's go to our guest.

Is he on Skype? I believe he's on Skype. Yes? No? Yes, he is on Skype. Let's go to him now. There he is. The one and only 125-pound phenom, Shorty Torres.

Hi, Mr. Torres. How are you? I'm great, man. I'm alive. I'm alive. Just alive? you're clean shaven, you're smiling, you must be more than just alive. I decided to look pretty for once in my life.

I was looking at all throwback photos. I was like, ah, let's just do it once. Now I'm getting all this backlash. People messaging me going, you should bring the beard back. I'm like, all right. I do agree that the beard is a better look. How old are you, by the way, Jose? I'm 26.

26. Did you do your 10-year challenge on Instagram? Yeah, I did my 10-year challenge, and it was funny because when I was a sophomore in high school. I had longer hair. I had the Bruce Lee Ball haircut, but the only problem is I have a big chin and a big head. So naturally, I'm trying to pick on the freshman, but the freshman are picking on me calling me Lord Farquod. So decided to make a meme about that and put that up. And like, ah, well, might as well have had some fun with it. But yeah, man, it's, it's, it's been pretty cool looking at old photos.

Let's talk about what happened with you. So you were in the UFC as of when. When did you move on from them? So I was in the UFC for Utica, which was June 1st, so pretty much a month or around 10 days before that I got signed. And then my last fight was August 4th against Alex Perez. And it was the constant calls of Mick Maynard going, hey, what am I going to fight again? What am I going to fight again? Yeah, obviously, I would like to take a break. But when am I going to fight again for a full two-month training camp?

Because if people don't know, I had 9-day notice and then 20-day notice in a 45-day span for the two fights. And then, oh, hey, you're going to be fighting next year. You're going to be fighting next year. You're going to be fighting this day, this day. And then I don't know, I was released, I think, in the four. was released, I think, in November. All right, so you fought, again, Alex Perez on August 4th. How often were you in contact with matchmakers after that fight?

After that, I'd probably say maybe every two to three weeks trying to get something figured out and go, hey, I would like a two-month training camp, something to actually show what I'm able to do. And when you ask for a two-month training camp, what was there a response generally? Well, they go, hey, you just fought twice. we're going to move you to the back of the line just because, you know, there's a bench of people waiting to mainly flyweight to get, you know, their fights going. So he's like, we'll move you to the back in line and we'll probably get you in November. All right, cool, we'll get you in December. All right, we'll get you sometime early next year. We'll see whenever you're going to fight. And then when this whole Demetri's Johnson thing, you know, got boasted out there. Well, I wanted to take advantage. I had my own YouTube series. I put a video about it. Well, I guess it was bad for business to the U.S.C., and I was the first one released because of it.

Did they say that's why they released you? No, but I was the first one kind of going, hey, I brought up to speculation video, but I'm not trying to say, am I right? But am I right? And they go, no, no, you're not right. And the next week they call me back. Okay, you are right. And the next week they call me back, you're released. Like, oh, thanks.

Wow. Okay. So we spoke right when you got released. I think like the day you made it public that you got released. Did they say it had anything to do with your performance? You won one. You lost one. did that play any role?

Well, the leeway out of the contracts are once you lose, they can technically cut you. I mean, look at Dustin Ortiz, look at all these guys being released by the UFC. Once they lose, they're out. So for me, the way they looked at it was, they never even looked at my 135 performances. Again, I have eight professional wins,

four of them being at flyweight, four of them being at Bannonweight, and four of them total, two and two in each weight class, had been title fights for Titan F.C. They didn't look at my Bannumweight records. So they go, your first fight, you technically got lucky. And your second fight, you got demolished by Alex Perez. And that's it.

We're not going to give you another chance. It's like, oh, okay. And then now after that, I don't feel as bad because they're literally cutting everything. People aren't fighting the fight anymore. They're fighting for the contract. So all the fly weights are literally being let go once they lose. Okay. So since that time, who have you spoken to about this in terms of other promoters?

Did you get a lot of interesting offers? A few ones? Like how has the how has the market been? So we we talked to a bunch of promotions, KSW, Pancras, 1FC, I believe Verizon was kind of itching a little bit there. You know, we're trying to get to them. And then, you know, for sure, brave, just because I do have a background with them with KHKMMA before they ended up starting the brave promotion, which, you know, people were Frankie Edgar, could be a little bit of Matt off, Alex Soto, other UFC veterans. and, yeah, man.

So eventually I went to the World Championships in Bahrain and was able to talk to Sheikh Khalid, which is the Prince of the Country and CEO, Mohammed Shahid, and we ended up figuring out a deal then and there. And it ended up being, you know, two times better than the UFC and literally respect-wise, I can say this is what I expected to be and, you know, what to get to be in the best promotion in the world. Okay, so tell me what it is.

So you have officially signed a deal. What can you tell us about the terms of the deal? Well, the terms of the deal, I'm definitely making more than what I did in the UFC, which is very unheard of mainly for a person who, one, is coming off of loss. And UFC veterans are usually making a little less. But I'm a young athlete, they see that and they see what can really unfold with me. I was able to receive a signing bonus. I have a four-fight contract.

I'm pretty much fighting all over the world. And I am going to be signing a commentating deal with them as well because I am able to speak. I have commentated for them twice and they see what they can what they can do with me and I think that's really, really amazing. All right, so four fight deal, more than you're making in UFC, are you fighting flyweight

and bantam weight? Yes, so I was given the offer to do that and my ultimate goal, if everything works out well, is repeat what I didn't tighten. My first fight is at flyweight, which I'm going to announce very, very soon, but my first fight is at flyweight. Hopefully second fight is a title fight,

third fight, defend it, and fourth fight, bump up and see where it goes from there. Do you know when you're going to be making your debut? So my debut will be for Brave 22, March 15th in the Philippines and the Mall of Manila, which is huge for me because my favorite fighter, Mani Pachial, and rumor has it, he is going to be there. And March 15th, I'll be fighting a guy and I could be saying his name wrong, but Amira Albazi, he is 11 and 0, a Bellator veteran. He's beaten an I-Muff World Championship in his last fight, so he is an undefeated upcoming prospect,

and it's 11 over, say he won. I mean, he technically has a better record to me. And it's a nice, it's a nice debut fight because, again, there's no slouches in the promotion,

at least at Flyweight. Everyone's trying to beat the very first inaugural champ, and there's definitely some competition in that. How did it make you feel, before you talk about how great this deal is for you, when you first got cut,

how worried were you about your fighting future? I wouldn't say I was worried, because, again, I got cut at 26 years old. I know I have nothing but time. You look at Keoguji and Horeguchi, you know he got cut very early or he ended up leaving very early in his career and now he's you know risins pretty much you know just mayweather in a sense and he's doing so many things and there's so many other fighters that have done the same thing moved to different promotions and have still extremely succeeded very very well so for me it was just brave was right home and i believe for me brave was right home it was just you know it took time it really wasn't struggled it's stressful one to find out if you're going to fight again when you're going to fight again oh i'm released when and you know who's going to sign me will

for what money and you know i ended up finding the best deal possible and now with this deal i mean is this better than even you had hoped like when you think about what was realistically possible and what you ultimately signed how close how far apart are they so what i got with brave now is what i expected in the ufc you know you see the ufc is the biggest promotion in the world they're the most popular promotion in the world so you expect them to respect their fighters to the fullest and do this and be communicating with them and just keep everything in check, but it wasn't. For

at least my experiences, I learned that we're just very, very expendable. And I see a lot of veterans, and I talk to a lot of guys that have been released by the U.S. And it's like, once you're in, that's it. They have you, if you have to fight, you're not their, you know, Anderson Silver, you're not their champion,

you're not their, you know, Brian Ortega, the guy that they're really trying to promote. And that's it. You're just, you know, meat to the wolves, you know, so for me, that's what I was again 45 days two fights and I lose 26 and 28 pounds they didn't care it was either you fight or that was my my contract for August 4th you you fight now in 20 days time you're probably not going to fight again until next year and it's like that's more than four to six months and I don't know when next year is I don't know if you're saying early next year mid next year at the end so

you're going to hold me for you know my my I got the basic contract how long is that going to last me You know, I still have to pay my bill. They still have to do different things. I still have to now, in a sense, being an adult. So it was a struggle. But with Brave, I have no worry whatsoever, and I know I'm being taken care of very well. No, I have to ask one question about this. I just have to do my due diligence.

It does sound like they care deeply for you, and this is going to be a great deal. It is tied to the Bahraini government, which does have some human rights issues. Any concern about being in business with them as a consequence? Honestly, no, because I'm not a very political person. I don't know much about that. You know, from what I see, I do talk to the Sheikh, I do talk to Mohamed Shahid, and I do talk to everyone involved in Brave and KHK. But for me, that's never coming to my life.

That's never come into my life. I'm not saying it's not a problem, but for me, this is not what I'm focusing on. I'm focusing on fighting and building my career, and that's just what's in front of me. Any concerns? Not concerns exactly, but like you're going to be fighting in Manila. You'll probably be fighting in Bahrain. You'll probably be fighting in places outside of the U.S. Any concern about that in terms of building a brand,

as a U.S. entity. You know, for me, and this is something Brave is doing as well, is the U.S. market's already tapped. You know, everyone's really trying to get in here, and the opportunity is very, very little, but there's not many stars outside of the country. I mean, I went to Saudi Arabia, and we're in the mall in Saudi Arabia

just hanging out doing the overworkouts, and people already know my name before I'm even signed to the promotion or even publicly signed to the promotion. So it's a huge thing to finally, in a sense, you know, why can, for example, Mani Pacquiao from the Philippines be a huge star in the U.S., but we can't be a huge star in the Philippines?

So for me, it gives us, you know, a different market of, I don't want to just be known around the U.S. I want to be known around the world, mainly for being a two-time I'm off-world champion, now seven-time, you know, tight-n-sede defending champion.

I want to be another, you know, champion that for me is a, hopefully a two-division brave champion and that's around the world. It is a global promotion, and that's the market I'm looking at. I don't know what your views were on fighter unions before. Have they changed as a consequence of this process?

I wouldn't say they've changed completely because I do believe there should be something more for fighters. The union is obviously very, very hard because fighters are expendable. We come and go. There are injuries constantly. And it's insurance-wise and billing and all that stuff. It gets extremely complicated. But I do believe fighters easily should be paid more because, again, I fought once, you know, defending or trying to win another belt for 10. F.

See, broke my hand tore in my MCL, I was able to fight for another six to seven months. And what happens just in case if that fight ends up backing out, if that fighter ends up getting injured, then I have to wait possibly a few more months. So, you know, the pay is very, very low for someone else's entertainment. What did you make, by the way, of how T.J. Dillshaw looked down at 125. He made the cut, but the fight ended a little bit early. Obviously, the stoppage is somewhat in question. How did you view that whole thing?

Yeah, it is a bummer. I think TJ looked phenomenal, good for him, because he was ripped going down to 125. I know he has a very, very phenomenal coach, which I sadly never got to meet. But, you know, training at the training lab and seeing what he's done and seeing his training when he was getting ready for Cody Garbrandt won. He's a whole different athlete. And for Suhudo to be able to do that to him, I don't believe that's the weight cut. And TJ does get caught early. You see the Cody Garbrand fight the first time.

You even see the second time he was clipped a couple times, not drop, but still hit a couple times. Suhudo just caught him and the ref, I believe, stopped it a little too early, but again, it's, it's fighter safety first. It's an unfair share of circumstances, but what's done is done and I'm hoping they get a rematch at Banim way. Is it not weird that you have this moment where the best fighter that UFC's had in a long time leaves to go to one? They get this new flyweight champ who's bilingual, former Olympic champ. He beats the 135 pound champ, and they're still designs on closing it. It's like, what more could the flyweight's do? guest sell more tickets, but isn't it odd

at this moment of flyweight strength it's being eroded? Well, I wish they would prolong this little bit instead of releasing all the flyweight now, maybe they should have waited for the T.J. Suhudo fight, and if Suhudo won, which he did, then

possibly really rebuild and now get this new hype in the flyweight division, but they started it so early that even though Suhudo won, they've already cut more than 80% of division. Oh, sorry, guys, you can come on back. That's my bad. We're not going to closed division. It's, it doesn't make sense for them. So for them, they're really just doing a process of elimination and still cutting as it goes. I believe Suhudo's a great champion. He's a phenomenal

fighter, gold medalist, like you said, bilingual. He's not, he's not a Connemarger. He's not a Kobe Covington. He's not someone that's easily marketable when it comes to his own persona. That's the hardest part. I think, again, Suhudo's a great guy and he means well, but he is a different individual that he more speaks with his talent instead of, you know, his mouth by kind of a brother and clothing all those other guys. But it sounds like what you're playing with your career is, you know, I talk to a lot of guys that leave the UFC and they go, yeah, you know what, I might go back one day, I never know.

You're still young. You never know where your life could take you. But when you think about a return to the UFC, is it even a real thought? Honestly, right now, no. Again, I'm 26. I was just released. I'm in a new promotion, Brave, and that's the biggest venture I'm looking at right now. We'll see where, you know, time takes me.

We'll see where the world takes me. But right now, when it comes to the UFC, it's, it's, more of not money, but it's respect. You know, it's not just respect to myself, but respecting the fighters in general. And I just don't see that for mainly the flyways of the smaller guys. And again, and I've noticed if you're not their number one guy,

if you're not the guy that you're trying to build up, then, you know, who cares? I mean, even look at Steve Northcutt. Save Northcut left with a positive record, but he still was released as well. And now he's making something big in one I've seen. I think that's amazing for him as well. So in the end, is it,

I don't know if it's good that the UFC, got rid of the flyweight division. But if you are getting opportunities to make more money, to do commentary, to do events all over the world, on some level, I guess it is kind of good, right? Oh, I mean, it's amazing what I have right now. I mean, I'm telling you, what I'm receiving right now from Brave is something I expected from the most popular promotion in the world,

which is the UFC, but that's not the case. And I've learned that even though UFC is on this pedestal, it's not the pinnacle of the sport. There's so many other promotions out there that can easily take care of you that much better. And for me, Brave is that promotion. And I mean, in only two years, I believe they're the fourth, if not third biggest promotion that have gone to 14 countries. I think the fights in the Philippines, there's 10 fights. All 10 fighters are from different countries.

You know, they're extremely a global promotion. So they're now just going, hey, you're American. We're going to promote you in U.S. No, they're going to the Philippines. Yeah, their main event is Filipino. But they literally have everyone. My guy is from London, from what I know. You know, so all these countries, it's literally country versus country and representing their own nations.

It is, in a sense, a bigger or more professional world championship sense. Well, I got to tell you, I wish you nothing but the best of luck in the next chapter of your career. March 15th, right? By the way, how can folks watch the fight? That one, I know Brave does have their own online streaming service. I can't remember the actual website. It's like brave.tv. something at the end. But overall, if anyone wants to look up and brave themselves, just type it in on Google, Brave CF.

And, I mean, all their info is on their website. Most of the time, it's either on YouTube or through a streaming service. And it doesn't matter where you're at around the world. You're always able to rewatch it and just have fun and enjoy the fights. Shorty, I appreciate your time. Wish you nothing but the best of luck in March. And I'm glad to hear you're doing well. Thank you so much.

Thanks, man. Hopefully next time I see you, I have my beard back. Yes, me too. That would be great. I really appreciate it. Take care. Take care, Jose. All right, we go from one guest to the next. You know this gentleman, he needs no introduction. He is known as Wonderboy. He's got a big fight coming up against Anthony Pettis. There is. Everyone's in their car today. Hi, Mr. Wonderboy. How are you?

Doing good, man. Getting errands ran today, man. Headed out tomorrow from you and so trying to get things done. Well, I appreciate your time. Let's go ahead and get right into it. When this fight was announced, I liked it because it is unusual. And there are some risks involved. But let's talk about some of the things that made people their heads a little bit. If you get a win, a win in the UFC is always significant. It doesn't matter if you're at the top of the division or the bottom. So I'm not talking about that. What I am going to ask is, besides that, what do you get out of beating Anthony Pettis at 170 pounds? You know, that's a good question. That's something that I sat down and talked with my coaches about to see if we wanted to take this fight in the first place because, you know, beating being,

you know, the former 145 champ, of course, he moved to 155. Now it's a fight at 1.7. You know, what does that do for my career? Well, you know, Anthony Pettis has a name. And at this point in time, you know, I was out, I've been out for almost seven months. I had an knee injury after the tilt fight. And just one fight after the next that we were trying to shoot for. It just didn't happen. I tried to fight Lawler, RDA, Ponson, and EBO, and things just weren't happening.

So, to be honest, I was just ready to take anything that came out of way. I was actually headed to Denver on a snowboarding trip, And I took my phone off a plane mode, and my phone was blowing up. You know, that's how I got the word that he was calling me out. So I was like, you know what, I'll take anything. And I'm not going to, this is not a fight that I'm going to take lightly. He does have some very good striking. He's got a knockout real.

So, but, you know, I welcome him to open arms to 170. So here's what I was thinking about. Tell me if I'm wrong. What I thought was, it's obvious what he gets. If he beats you, he beats what? Top five guy in the division. I think you were wearing four last. It jumps him right to the front of the queue,

plus he'd have a win in a third weight class, all that stuff. So that part I get. For you, though, you mentioned he does have a name, and he is coming up to 170. You are a natural 170-pounder. You are taller. You fit into the body type that works well in that weight class much more effortlessly.

So for you, it's a more manageable fight. True or false? I would say true. I would say true. I mean, yeah, he is coming up to my weight. He doesn't have to cut the weight. You know, I guess that could be a positive maybe. But, you know, I'm not a big welterweight.

I'm not a massive wealthway like tiring. I don't have to cut a crazy amount of weight. You know, 15 pounds is 15 pounds. But, you know, you hear guys cutting 25, 30 pounds before a fight. And so I'm not strained the next day. You've never seen me step out there after a weight cut. And just, except for once when I fought Matt Brown. I was walking around at 2.15.

So, but, you know, I'm not a big. big welterweight. So it's going to be easy for them. You said that other welterweights were saying no to opportunities with you? Well, you know, I tried to get the law. I was pushing Lawler really hard. You know, I was pushing it. The UFC was saying that it may or may not happen. Lawler was saying it was going to happen. And then I was in New York helping Chris Wyden to get, you know, prep for his fight against Jack Carre-Cose. And then they announced that he was fighting Askins. So I'm like, all right. So I tried to fight RDA. He said,

He was having surgery. Leon Edwards, he said his sciatica was acting up. And then Ponziadio, he just said no. You know, so it just wasn't working out for me. So I was just willing to take anything, to be honest with you. So for you, it's more important to stay busy than it is to wait for the right opportunity? Yeah, I mean, it keeps you in the line light. You know, you see this with fighters all the time.

If you're not staying active, you know, you're not staying active, you know, you're kind of put on the shelf a little bit. And, you know, I'm still going for that title. I'm not giving up on it. And I think with some wins, no matter who it is, it's going to keep me where I'm at, or hopefully we'll put that in the, you know, put me with a good win over Pettus in the UFC's mind to, hey, let's push this guy up a little bit. Let's get him a fight with us, with another top five guy.

You know, there's a lot of guys right now who I'd like to fight, but they have fights coming up. but um so it just wasn't working out for me in the 170 you know the past few months so i was keeping my fingers crossed and next thing you know you know anthony pedis is calling me out so i was like sure out let's do it and i think you think he's got my number you know i fought hiring twice he's got he's got the same coach uh coach rufus and rufus thinks he's got my number so um i'm here to prove him wrong so you believe that that rufus thinks he has your number no no i mean he says that Yeah, he comes from a karate background. You know, Anthony Pettis comes from a taeklindo background.

But, you know, I don't, you know, Tyrant's a different fighter. And still, he didn't have an answer for me. You know, he hit me in the fourth round with the right hand. He actually hit me with it twice. But that was, I think it was more on my fault, you know, rushing it with my hands down than anything. He still was kind of confused. He still really didn't have an answer. And it was still a very close fight, both of them.

You know, we got to draw the first fight. The second fight was controversial. So I don't think he's got my number. You know, my style is very hard to bring in fighters for and to prepare it for. So, you know, I think it's going to be an exciting fight. Anthony Pettis, he's got some really good striking come from his background, his taekeno background. So I think it's going to be fun. Now, when folks zoom out, they take the macro perspective.

They say, oh, Anthony Pettis, good striker, Wonderboy, Time. Thompson, good striker, but you're very different kinds of strikers. You kind of alluded to it, but in concrete terms, our audience can understand. Why are you different strikers? Well, you know, I think the way he's more of a, I'm more of a mover, I think, more of an angler. Whenever I, whenever I fight, whenever you see me fight, I work a lot off of angles, used to my kicks a lot. I think I throw more variety of kicks than Pettus does. Yeah, he's got some crazy kicks, man, off the cage. Was it called the Pettus kick now that he did in W.E.C.

Showtime. But I think, I don't know. Yeah, the Showtime kick, that's right. The Showtime kick. But I don't know, man. That's a good question. Like, it's kind of hard. It's very difficult to break down because we have some similarities.

We have some differences. Well, I think he's, he uses, he's more well-rounded. Like, he's submitted some really good, really good, uh, high level grapplers in the past. I mean, his last fight at one, I think was 155, he submitted, uh, Kiesa, you know, which I thought was going to go the other way around. Um, yeah, he submitted him and, um, and was doing work. And now, Kiasas moved up to 170, defeated, uh, Carlos Kondent.

So I think that's another reason why he thinks he's going to do well in the 167 division, because you got a lot of 155ers moving up. Of course, Cowboys Saroni's did well, has done well in my division. Um, he's moved back. down. But yeah, man, I always think I'm the better striker. I'm definitely the better striker than Pettis. So I've got to reach on him. I'm faster than him. And I'm coming with more power. And fair to say, you have just a more unique style. Now, Anthony Pettis has a very unique style and takes some risks, but is generally, I would say some, and this is going to sound crazy. But you're right,

in terms of that moving thing you do, that is much more rare, even with that creativity that Anthony Pettis does. So it's fair to say he's probably not fought a lot of movers like you. And again, I'm not saying you fought, you know, Pettus's clone. That's not what I'm saying. But someone a little bit more in that tradition. Yeah, I agree. And you're starting to see more of that style and me coming up in the UFC. I mean, Gunner Nelson, he comes from a karate background. Connor McGregor, when he fought Jose Aldo, his move. movement, man, was on point.

And he uses that movement to really lure his partner in and his opponent in. That's why he ended up landing that left hand. And I fight the same way. Anderson Silva has been known to fight that way as well. And now you've seen Israel, Adonis, doing the same thing. So you're starting to see, and one of the best MVP, Michael Page Venom, freaking amazing. So you're starting to see more and more of it. But a lot of these guys have been doing this for years, you know?

They've been doing this for a very long time, so it's hard for just some Joe Blow to pick it up and be able to do it out there in the Octagon, you know, in six weeks or whatever. But you are seeing more and more of that style. What do you make of the Walterway Division today? You noted, like, I mean, part of the reason you're in this position is because these guys are kind of standing pat at the top. Let's start there. You've got Wonderboy taking on Kamaru Usman. Forget the whole Kobe Covington angle for just a second. You fought Tyrone Woodley for a long time, 10 rounds, man.

What do you make of Usman's chances there? You know, I think Usman is a grinder man. I think he can For him to win, he's going to have to go out there and tire him out, just lay on Tyron. But it's very difficult because he's a D-1 wrestler. You know, Tyron is a very explosive, very strong, athletic human being,

and he's got great striking. I mean, he knocked down Darren Till in the second round with the right hand. He knocked me down twice, three times in both of our fights. I think Usman is he's got a gas tank

I know that guy doesn't get tired tyrant is notorious for that especially when he's fighting somebody who just is relentless and that's how

Usman's going to be I think that might that will be his game plan but that said Usman does slow down like he doesn't stop but his striking slows down tremendously

when you saw him fight RDA he was throwing his punches but he was dropping him like crazy and tyrant will take full advantage of that so oh man i hate predicting fights but i think for for my career it would be better if ozman won i think it would be better if usman won and the fact that it gives me a better chance to fight for the title faster right it would be a fresh matchup because you've already fought tyrant twice if there's a new king at the top it gives you more reason to be seen against him exactly exactly 100 percent and

And if Tyron wins, man, I'll have to work my way back up, like, you know, several more. I'll have that fight, you know, more fights than I would if, if Usman got the title. And it is, man. And right now, it's kind of crazy because you got Kobe Covington, which is understandable, waiting for the title, waiting to fight for the title. I don't think he's going to face anybody. I know they tried to get him to fight Darren Till in London. And he's, it would be dumb for him to take that fight, to be honest with you.

especially in London, you know. But, you know, Mazvedo, I think, took that fight, right? Is it Mazfadol? Yeah. Yeah. Modsvado. That's going to be a good one. But, yeah, we kind of had a stalemate there for a little while.

I wasn't really sure who's going to be fighting for the title next. And then you hear there was going to be interim titles. So it's like, what the heck is going on? You know, for this division to be so stacked, it shouldn't be at a stalemate like it was for so long. What did you make of, by the way, Darren Till, you guys had a very, I mean, I know, it was very close your fight with him.

And then he goes and fights Woodley and gets the doors blown off. I mean, I still think he's a very talented fighter. I think he's got a bright future. But that, you know, you went 10 rounds with him. Is it just a styles make fights kind of thing? What happened there? Yeah, I think so.

And I think maybe the weight cut had something to do with it. He doesn't cut weight very well, Darren Till. He looks like he's about to die whenever he does. He made weight, and he told everybody was going to do. But he performed a whole lot differently. when he fought tyrant and when he fought me. Of course, he didn't make weight when he fought me. And there was a lot, you know, in that first round when I fought,

when I fought Darren Till, that sidekick to the knee definitely slowed me down. I ended up tearing my MCL in the first round. And from then on, I was kind of playing, like, you know, my knee felt very unstable. So I wasn't taking very many risks during that fight, you know. But, hey, it goes to show. show what type of fighter Darren Till is. I mean, not Darren

Woodley is. He's a beast, man. He's a beast, he was a champion at what? Strike Force, right? For a while. And then come to the U.S.C. and just doing work and fight some high-level grapplers, high-level strikers, and winning. You know? The beast, I think, man, I think he's going to beat Uthman.

I hope he's going to wins, but I think he's got it. I think Tyrant's got it. Now, the interesting part about this is what I was asking, like, what do you get out of a win? I think you're right. You get to stay active. If the fight's exciting, people will want to like, you know, they look at you differently again. But then you got this weird Ben Ascran fight with Robbie Lawler, right? Because the winner there could get a title shot.

But only if it's Robbie, if Tyron wins or if Usman wins, I guess it could be either. What I'm wondering is, where do you fit into this whole thing with is you, Pettis? And then, of course, Ascran and Lawler, like, where are you in that mix? You know, that's a good question, man. I mean, if Tyron does win, if Tyron wins, I don't think Ascran would fight his buddy. You know, I know he's pushing a fight what I've seen in those social media, you know, for them to make that 165 division. So he may want to cut to that.

But if Uzman wins, the winner of the Robbie and Ascran may get that title shot, which means I'll have to fight maybe one more time, which I don't mind. You know, I'll be 36 in a few weeks, but I'm a young 36-year-old, you know? I haven't taken a whole lot of damage. You know, we train here at our school very, you know, very intelligently. So that way we're not beating each other up all the time. So I've got some time. I've got some time.

I've got a small window to kind of do what I want to do. And I just want to take every advantage of it. So, man, it's very difficult to really put me in that mix because, you know, where do I fit in? I mean, I may have to fight if... It really depends on who wins, to be honest with you. Who wins the Taran-Ozma fight? And who wins the Askin and Robbie fight? I think it all depends on who wins there.

Let me ask you about something a little bit differently. There's two middleweight fights that are happening this weekend. One with a gentleman you defeated in Robert Whitaker. How do you think he does against another former welterweight in Kelvin Gaston? What do you make of that matchup? Man, that's going to be a great fight. I'm so looking forward to it. I'll actually be in Florida

in an appearance for that fight. You know, Robert Whitaker is definitely a different fighter for when I fought him last. His take-down defense is ridiculous. Ridiculous. And his cardio is out there. Like, the guy does not get tired.

But Calvin Gasolum is the exact same. He's got very good hands. Gasoline does. He's got great wrestling. But I think Robert Whitaker is going to come out with the win. He's got a long to reach. I think his moving and striking, his combinations are put together well, better than

Kevin Gasselm. And if Kevin Gasselm gets overwhelmed with the striking, he's not going to be able to take Whitaker down, I don't think. And Whitaker's, he's huge. I remember, you know, standing in front of him facing off with him at 170. I mean, big barrel chests, big arms, big shoulders, and I saw him not too long ago, and he's massive. He's massive. He's not a big big big 1805er, but he's just solid, you know, which is, which is great. I'm taking Whitaker on this one. And then Israel Adasanya, one of the most exciting talents in the sport you were just talking about him a second ago, taking on Anderson Silva. This has been a sort of a point of debate, I think, on this show and other ones. It's like, of course, of course everybody has respect

for Anderson Silva, truly one of the greats of the game. But the question is sort of what he has left at this point. Adasania is still in his 20s and just running through people. What do you make of this matchup, how competitive in the end do you think it will be? You know what, to be honestly, I don't think it will be. I mean, from watching Anderson-Silver's last few fights, he just looked very, he wasn't the same. You know, I think whenever he broke his leg, when he fought, when he fought Wyman, took a lot out of him. I mean, he was out for a very long time.

And he just doesn't, I don't know, I don't know if he doesn't have that drive or that that timing like he used to have. He just felt very, very slow. and just didn't have that timing like he used to. I've spent some time with Anderson-Silva and Leo to Machita when they were training at Black House in California. This is before I was in the UFC. I was looking for management.

And my brother-in-law called him Machado do the guys of their Black House. So I spent a few weeks up there training with Anderson, which was a dream come true for me, you know, me being a kid, you know, coming from a karate and kickboxing background, Anderson Silver was like my idol in Louis and Littah's Mucita, especially with his karate background. And from spying with him and seeing him then,

and to see him his last few fights with Bisping, and I forgot who else it was, it just, it, you think there's a difference. There is a big difference. I think Israel's going to go out there in school. I mean, it would be cool. I think it would be very cool to see Anderson, him being the veteran, go out there and just finish him.

That would definitely put a smile on my face, but I don't see it happening. Well, I know what I am going to see happen. I'm going to see you fight Anthony Pettis. This will be March 23rd at the Bridgestone Arena main event for UFC on ESPN Plus 6, which is a weird name, but UFC Fight Night 148. I can't wait to see it. It's a really weird and interesting fight, but it's got my attention, and I look forward to seeing the result.

Thank you so much, Stephen. Thank you for your time. Anytime, my brother. Definitely a pleasure. Hopefully we can do it again sometime. We certainly will. There he goes. Go get those errands done.

The Wonderboy there. All right, we go next to the Skype machine. It's going to stay busy today. Truly one of my favorite people on the sport. Former fighter himself and a phenomenal coach. I don't think it's nearly enough credit. I wanted to get him on the show today, even though I know he's been traveling.

Ricardo Alameda. Hey, Ricardo, why do some people call you Ricardo when we call every other Ricardo in the sport, Hickardo? Which is it? I guess I've been in the U.S. for too long. Not too many people think I'm Brazilian anymore. I'm not sure about it. It's cool both ways.

look for a problem. Thank you so much for having you, man. Yeah, of course, Ricardo. I love talking to you. You're one of my favorite guys in the sport. First of all, congratulations. Could that have gone any better for Marlin yesterday? Did we lose him? Signals fading. Let's see what's up with that signal. Do you want to put the thumbnail up until we get him back? Let's get him back here. Is he still in Brazil? He must be... That money Brazilian internet. I can't talk too much. The U.S. Internet's not that great either.

guys, there is. There is. There is. Man, my signal where I am is horrible. So I forgive me if it's really bad. No, you're back now. There we go. One more time.

Let's try it again. How was, how would you rate that win for Marlon? Man, I think it's a 10 out of 10, you know. You know, he showcased all his, his power, his speed, his timing, is a finishing instinct. You know, I think Marlon is the type of guy that you watch him hit pads or you watch him even just warm up and you know his special.

And sometimes it takes me. fights for people to show that in a fight and Marlon's been showing that, you know, every fight since his first fight in the UFC. So I think it was perfect for him to come back and beat the only guy that he had lost to in the past, I don't know, five, six years, you know? You know what? I was just watching this fight. There were so many things I liked about what he did.

Let me start with one thing. And it's not what he did. It's just who he is. We talk about the best athletes in the UFC. For some reason, I don't see Marlon's name on that list, Ricardo. My God, Marlon is a phenomenal athlete. Why don't, why doesn't he get credit for that? All right, we got to do this.

Let's call him back. Let's put up the thumbnail. We got to call him on the phone because we got to get this done the right way. I am dying to have this conversation. Plus, we got to get to the sound off, donks. You know what I'm saying? Gotta keep this train rolling. But I said it before on the Monday morning analyst.

It's like, I'm not saying people don't consider him a good athlete. That's not my point. But like, if you're listing out, like, oh, who's a phenomenal athlete? I don't usually see Marlin's name bandied about. It needs to be. It needs to be. And again, not because he's some raw athletic power who does nothing else. No, no, no.

I think part of the reason people don't bring it up, and this is just a theory, I don't really know, is because he is so technical, right? Yes, he looks physically strong. But he is so technical, he is so sharp, he is so well-rounded that he doesn't necessarily need some of those other things. so he doesn't like lean on them in such a way where you know you all romero is so athletic but you know he got into mma in his late 30s or in early 40s and so you know he has to lean on it a

little bit more marlin's not that way and so i think folks just don't necessarily consider him one of those guys uh but jesus man he is a ridiculous athlete it's kind of amazing to watch all we're going to try and get him back here on the uh on the phone because that internet is not money. But I thought that was just an... I mean, how much better of a win could that have possibly been for Marlin? It's hard for me to imagine

it could have gone much better. That was just amazing. An amazing, amazing win. Number one contender? Has to be, right? Has to be. I spoke to T.J. Dillashaw. I want to say,

when was this? Fight week? Fight week for UFC on ESPN Plus for one? And he was like, yeah, you know, I don't have a contender anymore. That's why the 125 fight makes sense. And I'm like, okay, I mean, it was true. Like, those two guys had to fight. Okay, well, they fought.

Now it's pretty clear. All right, let's try it one more time. Let's go to our friend here on the phone. It's Ricardo. Hi, Ricardo. Can you hear me, all right? Yeah, I can hear your post again. Okay.

So. It's okay. Don't worry about it. Let's get back to it. You were saying the win was a 10 out of 10. Did he do everything you guys wanted him to? Marlon on Saturday. I mean, you always game plan and you always try to give the fighter like a clear picture of,

you know, where the, you know, where the flip-loat are and, you know, like, where they should, you know, how they should try to win, but, you know, like, you never really go according to plan. But Marlon is just the type of guy that he could make something special out of anything, you know. And he's starting to really show that in the U.S.C., you know, and he's starting to really have the performances that he was having late in his career at World Fears of Fighting, you know, like he just beat like three, three like world-class guys and, you know, the entire fighting time doesn't equal a round, man, so it's pretty impressive, you know, like I was, I was, like, impressed.

I see the guy's sporting all the time, but, you know, one round he's going with Frankie, another round he's going with the beat, and then he's going with some other Russian dude, and you forget just how good these guys are, and then they get out there, and I'm like, wow, I'm taken back just by his performance for sure. Okay, so a few questions about this. Obviously, he's the top contender at this point. What do you think was the difference, though, between the first Assam self-fight and this one?

I mean, yes, he won more quickly. But in terms of how good he is in his approach, like, what was the major difference? I mean, I think that when you go into the UFC and you start to fight there, I think there's without a step-up in competition besides maybe like one or two or three guys in the organizations outside of the UFC.

You know, like so almost every fight you're going to get a really, really tough guy. And once you step into the top five, man, it's like you roll the dice. You know what I mean? Like every one of these main events is just so hard to keep winning, you know, like as a coaching staff, like me and Mark, like we go into.

these fights, you know, it's a main event with Frankie, then it's like a main event with Marlon, then it's like, you know, a main event with Eddie and it's hard to put back-to-back wins, you know, but, so what I think Marlon has done, you know, like not necessarily doing like three main events in the world, but like three

top five, top ten guys in a row and be able to win in that fashion, I think he's just more comfortable, you know, he's he knows what he needs to do, he's more comfortable, like he's not holding himself back. So, I think time, you know, it's experience. The experience, I think, is the big key. You know, he's able to let

go more and truly be, like, everything that he can be as a fighter. When I asked you as before, but we got the connection cut off, it was just occurred to me that, like, Marlon is so good at so many things, decision-making, he's got crisp boxing, his footwork is good, he sets everything up. But he's like a ridiculous athlete. Why don't you think he gets credit, or more credit, I should say, for being a, maybe one of the best athletes in the UFC? I think that, yeah, and I agree with you, man. Like, he's one of the most athletic guys I've ever seen, like, some of the things that you see Marlon doing in the gym, just like,

just like messing around, you know. I think that he doesn't get the credit because Marl is so technically sound. You know, his defense is so good, and, you know, his power, he's got so much power, you know, like, he's never really super flashy. He's just devastating. You know what I mean? Like, you take a guy, he'll do, you know, even add, is a big spinning kick knockout.

You know, that was devastating, but there was also, like, super flashy. And, Morn, you know, without flash, but with, you know, decisive violence, if he could have finished these guys. So, always people are going to think they're an athletic guy, maybe they're just going to think they hit that hard

or, you know, he's been in some fight, he's finished guys so quick that he hasn't really had to show his up predicament, you know? By the way, have you gone back and watched the fight on video yet? I haven't. I was actually at the airport leaving because I left by. After the fight, I went straight to the airport in Forta Lille, and I saw the finish. But, yeah, just that finishing combo where he slips and he throws like an uppercut and a hook.

And, you know, Asso and so steps back, drops his hand. He hits the first right hand, and he just changes the speed. He hits another one, too. It was incredible, man. Like, just the speed and power in that and that. And to be able to follow up and finish, it was just, I just. I had my mouth open at the end. I was like, man, how did you just do all that in like two minutes?

You know, it's crazy. Okay, here's one thing, and I'm legitimately asking because I have no idea. Obviously, he won via mounted arm in guillotine. But I went back and I watched this. You're a black belt, a high-level one at that. Aston Sao had both his hands free and then brought them both to the inside to defend. Why did he do that? Man, I think that when Marlon started to squeeze and he pulled guard, he was free,

And I think that I think that Asohn's someone brought the arm down to try to block the hip as he rolled, you know. And Morrow was smart. He stepped the leg on the same side of the choke because that's the one that you kind of, you know, you want the guy to be able to trap him there. And like on the roll, he was able to end up above and climb and get above the arm. So that's when someone's arms was trapped and then he had to pull that arm out from the arm that was stuck in the guillotine to be able to get the finish. you know, so to be able to tap. So you're pretty impressive.

I couldn't really see from the angle that I was. I just could see more on, like, dropping the hips and him having to pull arm to tap. I don't know. A lot of times in the transition, guys don't try to do that. But as you roll, you know, you end up above the arms. It seems a couple of finishes like there with Gary Tonner. It's been a couple finishes like that, too.

Interesting. Okay, I'll go back and look at it another time because that one kind of confused me. It was a little weird, but it was devastating all the same. I mean, you get a tap from Hafeel Sunday. how you earn it and he certainly did. Now that leads us to the next step, you have got to like his chances against anyone that weight class.

Tell me how in your mind that you think Marlon matches up with T.J. Dillashaw. In defense of Marlon, you know, and I think VJ. Dillard is going to be trying to move around and you kind of come in from angles and things like that. And I think, honestly, I think that's a perfect style for Barr. I think Bill Shores' weakest spot is his wrestling, to be honest. You know what I mean? Like he's not the type of guy that could, you know, threaten with a whole lot of takedown.

He could takedown like a couple of guys, but he's gotten taken down a lot. And I don't think that he has like that takedown button. You know what I mean? You know, I want to take this guy down. I'm going to take this guy down. So, man, if you're going to fight ball and standing for 25 minutes, I just think it's all, you know, like not to take anything away from TJ. I'm a huge fan of TJA.

He's amazing. Some of the things that he has done, he's probably one of my favorite guys to watch, like his striking, you know. He's like in and out, and he's very elusive, and he has a lot of tools. But I don't consider him, like, a super complete guy. And, man, like in this weight class, if you're not going to threaten everything, I think that was the huge evolution of Sehudo. in his second fight with Mighty Mouse

where he was able to threaten the takedowns. He was able to hit him. He was able to kick him. And I think that's what made him be able to beat the Dillershaw. You know, like the Dillard had to worry about the takedown. He had to worry about all these other things. And I think in a fight where, you know, Marlon and T.J., I think the winner is going to be the guy that's able to be more complete

and threaten with different things, you know. And I honestly think it's a great matchup for Mara style. How much of the loss that T.J. just suffered? How much of that do you attribute to the weight cut? Man, you never know. That's the thing about the sport, man. Like, I said it earlier, you know. Like, you take the top two or three or five guys in each weight class,

and it's literally like a roll of the dice. You know what I mean? And a lot of times that rule of the dice is what happens on that day what happens on that week. As far as the weight cut, I think that if I had to lick pick on something, I think the weight cut might have affected him because we haven't seen him, you know, get rock, you know, like that.

And Cahood is like a 125er. He's a tough guy and, you know, every wrestler is strong as hell and has really good right hands, but he's not known for, like, devastating power or anything like that, you know? So it makes me wonder if the wake-up was just too much and just from personal experience, if I have to say anything, I think, yeah, I think the way it's definitely affecting,

you know, that you take the weight that doesn't mean that you're going to be, you know, 100% hydrated during the fight. Like, no matter what the, no matter what the skill is telling you, no matter what all the science is telling you, there are just certain things in fighting are just impangible, you know? And then that led to the,

I won't call him, I won't call Marlins' post-fight speech hilarious, although certain admissions about his biological conditions, were a little bit worth chuckling about in the way that he described him. But in all seriousness, I guess he was sick. Can you tell us how sick he was during the week? And he was so sick to any one of us because he didn't want to worry us. You know, like, we got to, we got to Brazil and like, you know,

like we knew that he had felt sick, but, you know, like not like the extent, you know, because we got there Friday. He had already made weight. I did notice that he looked lighter than he normally does. you know, but he never complained to me, never said anything. And as far as his speech, that's Marlon, you know, like he sometimes can be a little emotional. And he's very sincere 100% of the time, you know. He's one of the most, like, simple and humble guys.

And just very sincere, you know, like he wears his heart on his sleeve and everything he does. And he's a type of guy that, you know, what you see is what you get. And if he's going to talk about, if he's going to talk about a guy, the whole world's going to hear about his medical condition, then the whole world's going to hear about his medical condition. But that's just that's just who he is in the person. He's very sincere. Okay, but in the end, he got the W.

You know, here's the only thing about this, Ricardo, that I do think works against him. You know, he's headlining these shows, and that was a great show in Brazil, not merely his win, but the vibe was great. And from a spectator's position on, you know, in the United States, watching on the ESPN Plus app, it looked phenomenal, but he's got all these wins, and I'm not telling you anything you don't know,

not exactly a household name here in the United States. Like, do you think he is going to get the title shot next? Do you think he's done enough? Because on the popularity side, the wind is not exactly at his back. I think it's a weird time in the UFC. There's no, there's no consistency. You know, like there's no, like, oh, you know, if you do this, you know, that J&P is your pilot. shop or, you know, if you rank

this high and you beat somebody that's ranked this high, there's really, like, no consistency. It's the first year with the ESPN deals, so, you know, we don't really know, like, what's going to happen as far as, like, what's going to dictate that? If they're going to bring the big fights to,

you know, to pay-per-view and try to sell more paperviews or if they're going to do big fights on the yesterday, you never know, like, what they're doing. Like, to me, that's been the biggest the biggest thing that I have known since the new ownership took place. It's just like, you know, you just try to observe and, you know, of course, you want to win

and if you want to be a champion. And that part, I think there's been like a little lack of consistency, like all these superfights and, you know, Connors kind of like added to that a little bit. And often in a good way, you know, like if you're going to see these huge fights, then I want to see the huge, the best fight, when it's the best fighters fight each other. And I do think that the PJ Dillashaw with Sehuda was a very interesting fight. But now what? Now you have a champion that just lost to somebody from a lower-way class.

And what does that do for the entire division? And, man, Dillow is probably one of the best one of the best one-35ers in history. So now what? You know what I mean? As far as where does that put more? I think more is in a really good position, you know. I think that the best position you could be is to do everything right

with what you have control of. You know, like he's like beaten the best guys like decisively and, you know, violently. You know, like, I think that people look at him and you see a special fighter that's from this new generation of Brazilian guys where

there are many special fighters, man. I have to say that I am from Brazil, you know, like I see a huge a huge gap between, you know, the generation of, you know, Anderson and Vitor and, you know, Minotan, and even Damien, who's now on the later end of his career, you know, he's never won the title, but he's been one of the most successful guys in the U.S. history as far as, like, finishes and fights.

But, you know, I think more is great. I think Marl is going to end up being, like, a superstar here in Brazil, you know, just because of how good he is and the more he fights, the more people are going to see it, and people in Brazil here, they lack, like, you know, you know. know, someone to really look up to now, especially as Alders, probably like Aldo's last year, I think he's in a great position and, you know, just got to keep working hard, have patience, and, you know, you're going to get what you're supposed to get. Well, if he doesn't get the next title shot, it'll be a crime.

Not saying crimes don't happen, but it would be a crime if he didn't get it. He looked phenomenal. Well, I'll just say this, Ricardo, congratulations. You guys are doing great things over here in New Jersey, and I was just blown away by Marlon. and I hope the UFC feels the same as I do because that guy is special. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you guys so much for having me.

And, yeah, man, I want to see him fight against him. I want to see all the guys fight against him. I'm a huge fan of our guys. Like, sometimes I forget how good they are. The beats up next. We got Eddie, like, at the end of March, and I can't wait to see Frankie fight again. So it's exciting times for us, for sure.

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you, Ricardo. Take care. What a great guy he is. I could have talked to him for an hour. We just don't have an hour. But here's what we do have time for. This is where you become a guest of the show.

It is time for the sound off. I'd not heard these new noises. I didn't know we were getting them. This is awesome. I knew we were getting the new intro thing, but I didn't know about that. That's kind of fun. All right, let's go to our man now.

He is the Ahi to my Arepa. He is the rain to my Bogota, the one and only, Danny Sigora. Hi, Danny. Yo, what's up, man? How are you? Good. Why are you wearing a jacket indoors?

Yeah, good question. So, Austin here has the, vents pointed straight at me, so I've been shivering all the show. So, you know, I didn't bring a sweater, so I got to pull out the jacket. Shivering like a little chihuahua in a rich lady's purse, huh? Sure, yeah. That's the way we're going to go about things. All right, how are the calls, my friend? They were good, man. The calls are really good. Very good questions. You'll see on the show. We also had some left doors. We didn't have a show last week. We didn't get to talk about Bellator, so maybe we'll get it. Yeah, I was wondering if you were going to

balance them out. Yeah, because I do think it's important. to talk about some of the things that happened in Belator 214. It was a big card, pretty big Belator cards. So let's tackle UFC Fortaleza, and then if we'll have time, we'll address that. Okay, let's do it. Sounds good? Yes. All right. Let's do it.

Hey, Luke and Danny, this is Boyd from Salt Lake City. I was calling to ask what your favorite moment from the UFC card was. And for me, it had to be when Michael Bisping mentioned that Johnny Walker could be one of the best light heavy weights in the world at the very moment that Johnny Walker is doing the worm across

the cage like a complete weirdo. See ya. Yeah, you know what? Johnny Walker, dude, that's a different dude, he is, he is totally weird.

Yeah. I would love to get him in studio. Yeah, not about, not like drop your pants at the bus stop weird. More like, uh, tells weird stories,

but they're kind of funny at the party kind of weird. Um, yeah, that was a tremendous wood. I have a great respect for Justin Lodette. I think that he has a great jab. He's one of the best jabs in the live heavyweight division.

And that was, you know, I won't call that a fluky win. I don't know how many times you could replicate that over time. But still, dude, he's powerful. He's athletic. He fights without fear. And he's fun. Favorite moment from the card? Got to be Josealdo jumping into the crowd.

To be, got to be, got to be, got to be, got to be. That was cool for sure. Yeah. What about you? I don't know. I really liked seeing, you know, Tiago Alva's dig deep. and, you know, he's had a few losses. It kind of, you know, it was in his home city.

It just felt nice watching him. And the decision, I thought, for example, Griffin won. I didn't think Tiago Alva won. But regardless of the decision, it was a competitive fight, a fun fight. And it's nice seeing a veteran, man. Dude, he's been around since 2005. Yeah, bro. Dude, he's been fighting in the U.S. season in 2005.

His first UFC pay-per-view was, like, UFC 56 or something like that. Your kid was born when Tiago Alva has joined the... Dude, I was in middle school. I think I was in seventh grade. Think about it. If your kid was born, when Tiago Alvese went to the UFC, he'd be a freshman in high school now. That's pretty crazy. That is wild. That is insane. And he's out here, he's not fighting bums either. Max Griffin is a very good fighter. I mean, Max Griffin beat Mike Perry, not so long ago.

Yeah, exactly. He's no slouch, so I agree that the decision was a little bit off, but, okay. It was a few that. It was competitive, you know. Yeah, for sure. All right. This was an interesting question. All right. Let's see it. Is it about diarrhea? No. No. I am furious.

The ESPN Plus style of doing an entire main event card in about an hour and a half is, it's too fast, okay? I don't have a lot going on in my life. Drop dead. 10.30? What am I supposed to do with my night now? I have no one to call or hang out with. Yeah, go meet girls. To keep me busy.

What should I do with the rest of my night now that they're done at a reasonable hour? Bye. All right. of all, Diego, you're absolutely crazy. The ESPN timing was amazing. Dude, was that not? I didn't, I'm being dead serious about this. I didn't realize how bad it was.

Oh, sorry, my thing just collapsed here. I didn't realize how much it was taking out of me. I was literally watching those FS1 cards resentful of the sport. Like, I cannot believe I have wasted my stupid life doing this. And now I feel like, oh my God, like, what do you want to do? Go to the bar, read a book, do some sit-ups. learn how to cook. Go to great courses plus.

I don't know. Sit there and meditate. Play FIFA. Go to bed early. You got so many options, man. You got so many things you can do with your life now, man. He was in Brooklyn. Go get some food, man.

There's great food in Brooklyn. Go get some comito. Whatever you got to do, man. To me, I was sitting there watching being like, I had no idea what I was missing. I had no idea what I was. It felt so much better. It was, dude, that FS1 cards,

the way they were doing it, was such attacks on our lives. Yeah. I hated it. Especially for the media too. Because, you know, the fans watch the fights and when they're over, they're over, right? Yeah. Like, the media has to stick around for the press conference, right? They're working that night. That night, I was watching the fights. I was tweeting them live, but I wasn't necessarily working. So after I was done with the fights, I was done. Yeah. And, man, it was awesome. I went to celebrate my friend's birthday. I saw your Instagram story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shout out to Constanza Gallardo. It's her birthday on Tuesday. So we went out to celebrate. And I can't believe all the things that. I did on Saturday. Because we start at what, like 6 p.m. usually with the FS1 cards. So it takes up your entire day.

Yeah. And look, I'm sure some are going to go late and the pay-per-views are still going to be what they are. But this is the best part about it. Before, they had to make every card work for FS1 schedule. Yeah. And so you were having cards in Argentina or in Chile or in Brazil that were ending at three or four local time in the morning.

Something absurd. Now they get to put it back when you're streaming. it doesn't matter. Folks are going to catch it live. They're going to catch it after the facts. Sorry, my microphone's having some issues here. So you can have it end at a reasonable hour in Brazil and not have to worry about it anymore

because you're just streaming. One of the benefits of streaming. On the other hand, one of the downsides is, I'm not sure how many people saw it. That was the only part that kind of concerned me. Yeah. When the fight card actually rolled in, I was looking at the main card.

I'm like, oh, shit, this is actually a pretty good card. Like, this is a solid card. And yeah, but for some reason it didn't feel like a big event. I wonder if maybe if they would have switched the Co-Main and Maine, if, like, Jose Aldo was featured as the main guy. I wonder if that would have changed anything around. Because he is a former champ pay-per-view. You know, he's done so many paper-views as well.

I can't claim to have watched ESPN on Sunday, so I don't know if they covered it at SportsCenter. I don't know what they did. But everything just felt so Super Bowl heavy on Sunday that it kind of drowned it out a little bit. It was also a big weekend for sports. So, you know what I mean? And it's like, you know, we'll have to see how it goes.

By the way, I didn't realize this. Do you all call the Super Bowl supertason? El Super Tasson. I believe that's more in Mexico. Football is actually really big in Mexico. Yeah. For folks who are not know, it's like literal Super Bowl. Like a bowl of cereal.

Yeah, yeah. Super Tasson. Yeah. That's funny. Okay, what's next? All right. Let's talk about some matchmaking. Let's talk about that common event.

All right. Hey, Luke. This is Jack. from New York. So I kind of have a, you know, general comment about all of the Moikano. I believe that match

was terrible match-paging by the U.C. It was a losing situation for you. If all the wins, which you did obviously, you kind of hinder Maconaut's trajectory and kill off

one of the brightest youngsters in Brazil. If Micano one becomes a billified in Brazil for being Brazil's standard star and becomes disliked by the Brazilian population,

which you know is supposed to be the next heir to. You want the young starting a year to. his pop in his home country, and my kind of got absolutely no pop. I feel like that hinders his ability to become popular in Brazil, and it's

a very, you know, a very short-sighted kind of idea on what they did. All right, let me know what you think about that. Do you agree? Okay, here's what interesting about that. I know on our site, I don't think, I know for a fact,

our videographer, Casey, didn't like the matchmaking. He knows a lot about the sport. I'm not sure if Jed liked it. I can't or disliked it. I cannot remember. Jed dislikes everything. I know. He truly is the world's angriest man.

He just needs a trash can and a green body paint. And he is Oscar the Grouch for sure. But they had, in fairness to both of them, they had raised what this guy is raising, some pretty legitimate objections. Here's the thing about it. You heard Ricardo talking about it. Brazil is up against the challenge

because the class that Ricardo came from, the V-Torres. And Ricardo Al-Made got out of MMA in 2011, But, you know, he was the ADCC medalist. And he had a great career in MMA. And then you had the Marilla Bustamantes and the Aronas and the Babelous and the Nogara brothers and Anderson and Shogun and Ninja and all this vandalay and this incredible class. I mean, I remember when there was like so many good Brazilian fighters that Brazilian top team versus shoot to box was like this big rivalry. And a one time at some point in time

We had like six UFC champions or something like that Like five UFC Brazilian champions at the same time or something like that To the previous question that we had been raised on the tweets They still produce an enormous amount of talent But our own Guillermo Cruz had noted one That regional MMA has really suffered with the economic contraction And some other regulatory issues that have happened in Brazil And two, here's the big thing the UFC is looking for

They are looking for the next big Brazilian star Right? So that's where Bohashina comes in. Paulo Costa. Hanato Moikano was one. I think they're still looking to maybe see if you can turn that corner. Thomas Almeida for a while was maybe going to be one of those guys. And they just...

Johnny Walker. We'll see what happens with him. But none of these guys yet have gotten crossed into that next threshold. And you get in these other Brazilian guys, Silva's in his 40s. Jacques-A-Rae is right around then. Noggeras are out of the... Well, I think Little Knox still in this sport. Little Knox still in the sport.

But you get the idea. I mean, they're all aging out a little bit here. And so they're trying to find the next one, and it's just been a bit of an issue. My thought is, I hear the objections from people who didn't like it, and I can't really say they're wrong. But to me, I kind of wanted to know what Moikano was made of. Is he ready or is he not?

Pretty clearly he's not. And if you're not, you're not. I guess. No, I said right now. I didn't say ever, I said right now. I mean, I do understand where this call is coming from. Not necessarily, like, I feel like if Moikano would have won, because it's a gamble, right?

What if Moikano would have won? Who knows what would have happened then, right? But I feel like at this point, anybody you match up Jose Aldo with at 145, it's pretty much a bad matchup because he's clearly not going to beat Max Holloway. I mean, we saw that twice. We saw that play out twice and it played out kind of the same way, right, both times. But he's still clearly that number two guy. Like anytime you put him up, he's kind of going to be like your Joseph Benavides in the sense of like he might not be the champion,

but he can beat every single other contender. So he's not going to be fight that. not going to be fighting the champion anytime soon because he's got two losses, but he's going to kill every contender if you give him the chance. Yeah, but people act like that was a given. I think after the two Max fights, there was a question of what he had left. Yes, I guess. Now, in looking back, it's like, okay, well, he couldn't beat Max, but Max is pretty good, and it looks like he's got some life left. So partly it was a fact-finding mission. If folks could tell that Jose was good and this was all unnecessary, fine. I don't, I understand

people's objections, I think sometimes you've got to go on a fact-finding mission, and that's what this was. Yeah. Again, not horrible, but I can definitely see the concerns. All right. Let's talk about Aldo one more time. Happy Monday. This is the Irish Mexican calling from Los Angeles, California.

And my question has to do with Jose Aldo. Pretty good job on the Rams. The last two fights has looked like a beast, like his former self. Where do you see him going from here? Because essentially, he's in a position similar to where Joseph Benevias, your right of favor,

is that they're always right now currently the number one best fighter behind the champion, and that's where Aldo is right now, behind Max Holloway. You see him possibly moving up to 1-55 because for new matchups, possibly trying to work his way to a lightweight title shot, or do you see him staying at 1-45? I know Conrader went on Twitter saying you'll love to fight in Brazil,

so if there's any possibility of Aldo v. Connor, U.S. 237, Curitia, her T-Blin at soccer stadium. So that's my question. Much love. Have wonderful week. Take care. Can I tell you, I'm just not, like, I don't hate it or anything, but like this thing

we're like, oh, an event ends and Connor just gives his thoughts on it and like, I have to, like, react to it. It's like, I don't, not that I'm, okay, to say I don't care is not true. But I don't, like, especially care. You know what I mean? Yeah, a lot of fighters weigh in. I feel like it, you feel like, no, I do get where it's, where, where it's, you know, I feel like, No, I do get where it's coming from because in a sense, like, Connor McGregor's very...

He's not out there tweeting like 24-7, like hashtag UFC Fortaleza. Oh, what a great... He has a right to share his opinion, of course. Yeah, so... And he might fight Jose, I guess, at some point. But... So when he tweets, it does feel like, oh, shit, like, you know, maybe... Maybe he's on something here.

Also, it's just like, oh, I'm... Like, you know, like, the king has weighed in now and now we all have to pay attention. It's also like, well, it's just his opinion, unless we should all move on with our day. Yeah. We over emphasize, I think, the importance of it to a degree. That being said, what do we attribute this to with Aldo? Okay, a couple of things. Number one, the three-round fights, I think, is an important part.

He doesn't have to conserve his energy. I think he was conserving his energy a bit in those five-round fights. I think also he got a bit content. I'll be honest with you. I think he got a little content to just win rounds and go about things. He knows the end is... I felt that way when he was fighting for any category. And when he fought, you know, Chan Song Jung, I just didn't really feel any urgency from him.

You did get the finish, though. Sort of. It was a bit of an – yes, he did. I mean, there was – Some injury involved in it. To me, so it was the three-round fights. Number one, you know, here's the thing. He's still fighting very good fighters in Jeremy Stevens.

And now – He's fighting the top. But it's a step down from the super championship caliber. So I'm not going to say it's easy competition. What I'm going to say is relative to the Max Holloways or Connor McGregor on. that run he was on, it is a step down from that. Okay? So there's that.

But also, dude, he's fighting with aggression, man. Like, those body shots he's landing, you saw the thing. W.E.C. Aldo, man. It's not accidental, dude, and he's gotten good at it, and he's just putting stuff behind it. So the thing is, it's like, I'm so glad this is happening. Because during that whole Connor McGregor chapter, I'm not saying Connor did this, because I think in his mind he knew how good Jose was. But the trash talk, which I get was part of the pre-fight, I don't begrudge him that.

But some fans got convinced that, like, oh, Jose was never fought anybody or wasn't that good. Dude, he's literally one of the best fighters ever. And you're finally getting a chance to see that. Maybe he's passed it to the point where he can't beat Max Holloway. Okay. But, bro, he will put the wood to other guys in this weight class, and you're seeing it now. Dude, he's stopping Moincano, who's a legit contender, man. He's up there.

Macono was beating Ortega through the third round before he made a catastrophic error. But he was giving Ortega the business. Yeah, yeah, he was. But yeah, like back back to the question, 155, Aldo. Dude, I'm all about it. Yeah, me too. I feel like this has to happen. I won 45 and like I saw a lot of people, like a lot of my coworkers were saying like, oh, you know, I'd love to see the Ortega fight and, you know, a few other feather weights were mentioned.

But I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it's me, but for some reason, Aldo at Featherweight, like, sure, I'm always down to see an Aldo fight. But if he's going to beat like all these top contenders and I already know that there's no end to that because. I don't see him getting another fight with Max Holloway, and I already saw that twice. Like, I don't know. It doesn't excite me that much.

I feel like at 155, there's so many good options. Like, if he moves to 155, almost every single fight that he'll be in, it would almost feel like a super fight. I'll say this. I would love to see him at 155. I wouldn't mind seeing the Ortega fight, but I don't want to see it right now

because after the loss to Holloway, I still think Ortega is a future champion. Yeah. And I think he needs a rebuilding fight. Joseo Aaldo ain't the rebuilding fight. He is still way too good. and I'm not saying Ortega can't win, just saying I don't think it's the right fight.

Yeah. So that's where I come down. So I would split the difference with you there. Yeah, I agree. But look, Aldo Neh Diaz, Aldo Conner, Aldo Geagie. Aldo Pettis. Aldo Pettis.

Oh, and Pettis is about that too. He actually posted an article that we wrote on his stories. I saw that. Yeah. So although, there's tons of good options left for him. Yeah, hashtag Aldo. And it's so glad that one of the games best, we'll see how the rest of the year goes

but appears to be ending on a high note. Love that. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's a nice story, right? Because, like, we always see, like, these legends drop off after they lose their title. Not Jose Aldo, man. He lost that, he's still out there.

Dude, he lost that McGregor fight in the worst way possible. Literally, the worst way possible. Same thing with the Max Holloway fights. Okay, but he gave, I mean, he... Yeah, he... Right. It wasn't, like, a 13-second knock on, yeah, for sure. That his stock plummeted.

Yeah. And I think now you're beginning to see, wait a second. This, this is why Al-Dol Aldo is Aldo. Yeah. Why, Sean Al-Shoddy wrote that piece on him, that served as a curse.

Yeah. The night we fought Aldo. Yeah. Yeah, that's an amazing piece. By the way, man, I just lost my train of thought. Oh, yeah. Did you ever feel satisfied with that finish with the Conor Aldo?

I don't know. I didn't. I mean, I'm not trying to take anything away from Connor, but... Connor, you can love Connor and you can hate Connor. He won that one clean. Oh, for sure, yeah. I mean, he threw the punch. He knocked them out.

Yeah. You know, nobody does that to Waldo. Nobody. But I feel like if they fought again, I don't know, we'd get a really fun fight. Oh, you mean what I want to see it again? Yeah. 1,000 percent, especially at 155. Yeah, I'd love to see it.

That'd be fun. All right, now let's talk about bantam weight. I guess something's cleared up, maybe? I don't know. Hey, Luke and Danny, this is Clinton from Phoenix. Last night's fights were pretty freaking awesome. I just wanted to know, you know, the UFC completely mishandled the whole lightweight situation after McGreg. Rager took his second title.

And we all want to see the rematch between Sohudo and T.J. But man, Marlowe Marite. He came out and earned a title shot. Did he not? I mean, he finished the Sunsout, something nobody's ever done before. And he did it in the first round looking like a monster. He deserves that title shot against T.J. How does the UFC handle this situation where they need to do this rematch because of the

quote-unquote early stoppage and now with a legit number one contender that's got the hype train behind him? Thanks, guys, and looking forward to hearing from you on the show. I don't need to see the rematch. I don't. I mean, maybe I do, but not now, at some point. Look, they're going to be wrong. Oh, would it be good?

It'd be good. Would it be interesting at 135? Sure. Would it be different at 135? Very well it could be. I am much more interested in T.J. Dillishaw fighting Malamor Rice. Dude, Marlon and Marlon Marais, I was sitting there watching that fight. I was like, how is this guy not more highly regarded?

I mean, the insider insiders regard him very highly, obviously. I'm watching him like, dude, he is. is built like a freaking Greek god. He's got ridiculous hand speed. His footwork is crisp. His boxing is nice. He has good finishing instincts, good power. He had a jitsu. Dude, and he submitted Hafeel Sunsau from with the arm in guillotine choked from Mount. Are you, are you kidding me? He's super leagued. Dude, he's so good. He's so good. Like, that's what that's the fight I want to see. Because I think, I think the world of T. J. Dillashaw, too, put them two donks together. That's what I want to see. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Plus, I don't know, I don't, I don't feel like you feel the same way, but I really

enjoyed the Sahudo Dillishaw rivalry. I think, you know, for some people, maybe it was a little cheesy, the whole snake thing, but I don't know, I liked it. And I think that's a rivalry that you should let Cook. So let T.J. Dillishaw defend his belt. Let Sehudo defend his belt, and then they'll meet at some point, you know, maybe next year or late this year. But yeah, let's go back to the number one contenders fighting the champions. That's the way it needs to be. So, yeah, I'm all about it. All right. All right. Now, let's talk about Johnny Walker. This is a two-part question. We just addressed the second part, but I guess we'll address

only the first part. Okay. Hey, guys, this is Morgan from Arizona. Just finished watching the UFC fights, and all I can say is, wow. Awesome pace of the whole event. Everything went real well. All the fights were great. Awesome time on ESPN Plus. Never had any issues. I don't know if you guys did. not. I do. Just want to get your quick thoughts on a few things. First off, Johnny Walker, I mean, wow, what do you do next with that guy? You put him up against Glover Tashara or

Krylov or, I mean, what do you do next with him? And then Marlon, does he get the shot against Tj or is he going to have to sit around and wait until the whole fight with Sohudo comes around again? I mean, what do you do? A big fan of the show. Hope you answer my questions. Thanks. Have a good day. I'll start with the second one first. I think Marlon deserves a title shot, just to reiterate that. Johnny Walker, excuse me, should fight a wrestler. So he fought, who is the striker? The gentleman, the African-American guy.

Khalil Roundtree. And he won that one standing. This one, again, Justin Liddette, I would say much more of a stand-up threat. I would like to see some of his skills tested. I'm not saying as to fight a guy who only wrestles him, but maybe a guy who can mix it up a little bit more. He has been very interesting to note.

But before we get the hype train moving, let's test the skills a little bit, see where he really is. That's what I would say. Same, like, you know, let's not rush him to the title. Let's not, you know, do anything crazy here. Plus, I want to see more of Johnny Walker. Like, you know, what does he really have? You know, I want to see him on the ground. I want to see him in a second round.

So, yeah, I agree. Put him with someone, obviously a bit of a step up. Somebody up there in the rankings, maybe a top 15. but yeah, keep him away for the title. You know if I want to see him face another maniac in like Ion Kute Lava? Okay, that guy can wrestle. He's not a wrestler, but you're right. He's strong and he'll tie up with you if he has to.

And he's aggressive and he's a maniac. I'd like to see those two lock horns. I think that would be kind of interesting. That would be fun, yeah. It's a good matchup. All right. This is a bit of a crazy question, so I'll just. I'm a crazy guy, Danny Shigua.

All right, let's see it. Hey Luke, it's Ben from College Station, home to the Agrarian School of Texas A&M University. My question is, in honor of the Bellator Heavyweight Championship, wrapping up finally, who would be the favorite in a four-man tournament between TRT, Vodor, Belfort, horse meet, Alistair Overeem, Pride, Fedor, or Sea Level King, Lasquez? Thanks and keep up the good work. Now, what's the seating of the tourney? Uh, let's say...

In the order he listed it? Well, he just made a list. Yeah, but I'm saying the first two, then the second two. Exactly, yeah. Okay, so then... Let's just say it's randomized. Randomized, like, we don't know the brackets. It's going to get randomized.

You got to put your money on someone. I'll do it the way he said it. You can change it up if you want. But the way he said it was TRTVitor versus horse meat overreem. I'm going to go horse meat overreem. Then you've got prime pride, Fador, and then C-level C. I'm going to go C-level Cain. And then I have Cain winning the whole...

I have Cain winning the whole... I have Cain winning the whole thing. thing. Yeah. Because that horse meat over in when he was gigantic, he was built for kickboxing back then. He wasn't really built for MMA. Because remember kickboxing is, you know, he was doing like three, three-minute rounds, basically. Of course, yeah.

Very different. So, and he just explode on people. And he was just butchering them. Again, the microphone here is having issues. So that's the way I would go. What about you? Dude, I'm going to go with horse meat overreem. Wow, really?

Yeah, dude, he was so big. All those knees. Dude, those things would drop every I remember when he fought Brock Lester He was like, oh shit Like he did that to Brock Lester Like yeah Do you remember

Like he tied him up I think he had like two underhooks right And he was driving him back Like one thing is like Out-technicking I guess like Brock Lessler And other things like outmuscling him

But I do agree with you In the sense like It'll be an interesting matchup Because Cilol can fight for a year So yeah I don't know By the way Before anybody gets offended

This is all a joke. We're just having fun, everybody. Everyone's very sensitive at M.A. We're just having fun. Here's the thing. I remember when Michael Schiavello, shout us to Michael Schiavello, he would be like,

I can't do his accent. But Overeign's back is so big. You could screen a movie on it. I'd be like, yes, you can, Michael Schiavello. Yes, you can. I was, you know, as much as you can be a heterosexual male, I was in love with Overeem at that time. It really was.

All right, so we got a few more questions. We're kind of running short. on time. So you want to talk about Bader's performance? Yeah. He's got a big weekend head of it. Let's do Bader. We should give him some props on this.

We haven't had a chance here. I was out last week. Keep in mind, this is from last week. Fair enough. Yeah. What's going on? Luke and Danny. This is Dylan from New Jersey.

I just wanted to get your guys thoughts on Ryan Bader's performance on Saturday night and where he stacks up against all heavyweights and light heavyweights in today's anime landscape where he stacks up against the likes of DC, John Jones, Gust of Sin, Anthony Smith. Where do you think he ranks town for pound between those two-way classes? Thanks a lot. I did a video on this on my personal YouTube channel. I'll just reiterate the short version of it here.

I was so dismayed to see people being like, dude, attorney just showed us that Bader sucks. And he didn't beat anybody. It's like, well, look, I don't know if he could go and beat John Jones again. Probably not. and I don't know that I would necessarily like his chances against Daniel Quirmeier, but I would like to see the fight. Certainly it would be interesting. Very competitive, I think.

Very competitive. And you never know. You never know. Here's what I would say, though. In the UFC, when you're fighting the top guys all the time, especially when you're coming from wrestling and you're learning the game, it's hard to really show how good you are. It's very, very difficult unless you are John Jones.

And you're so much better than everybody else that you can just reign over them like you're king and their peasants. It's just, that's the only circumstance. What it shows you is one of the better, if not one of the top, light, heavyweights of this era, not the very, very best. He couldn't beat Rumble and he couldn't be Jones. And, again, who knows how things would have gone against Cormier. I would have favored Cormier.

But the point being is a guy well below that is still very good. Dude, they literally didn't lay a glove on him. He didn't take a single strike through three fights. It's absurd. The lesson there is not the, the tournament wasn't tough or that Bader's not that good. It's that one of the better light heavyweights of this generation can go through another tournament, not have a glove laid on him,

and show you just how good he is. That's a better way, or I should say not a better way, that's at least one way to fully appreciate how good Ryan Bader is. I was very impressed. Yeah. Plus, like, it's not only the Fader win because I know people say, like, oh, Fader's not the same, but he beat Matt Maitreone, who's probably the best, you know, he's in his best career moment, I would say. And then he beat King Mo.

Yeah. And then he beat King Moe, who's legit. In 15 seconds. King Moe also is successful heavyweight. Like, he's beating Czech Congo. I know. He's beating, like, some solid heavyweights, too. It was crazy.

It was crazy. I couldn't believe some of the reaction. So, yeah, it's definitely not, you know, the champ champ thing, it's nice to have. I would rank, you know, back to this question, I would rank Bader, like, easily, a top 5 heavyweight in the UFC, easily a top three at light heavyweight? Maybe, yeah. With the absence of Rumble, yeah, maybe. It's like, dude, and if he's just fighting Jones and Cormier, well, maybe he gets smoked

and you don't know, you'd be all Bader sucks. Dude, you got to take him out of that environment and put him in a new one, and then you're like, holy crap, that guy's good. You're comparing him against, like, two of the greatest of all time. Yeah, all time great. Exactly, exactly. Which is a tough spot to be in, and it kind of sucks because, you know, Ryan Bader's super skilled guy, man. He's one of the best light heavyweights

out there. All right, let's do one more than I have to go. All right, let's talk, Adasanya then. He's got to make a weekend. Yep. What's going on, guys? Chuck Carter from Toronto. I was just wondering where you guys think a win at UFC 234 will put Israel because he's not fighting a top contendant in the division,

but it still seems that he's being built up for a title shot, even as soon as his next fight. You know, obviously, should he win on Saturday? You know, he has that co-made event spot. I just wonder, you know, does he need another fight after this? Does he need a fight of guy, you know, in that top five above him? Or is this...

All right, all right. I get the... I get the just of the question. It's a good question. The answer is very simple. It's a title shot. They are dying to give this guy a title shot. And you're right, oh, beating Ernst & Silva, what does that do for you?

Nothing in terms of realistically showing us how ready you were. Doesn't matter. Big name, big opportunity. It's co-made event for a reason. and short of something miraculous or strange happening, that guy is going to get the winner of the main event, period. I don't know about strange and I don't know about miraculous, but sure.

Yeah, he'll get a title shot if he gets a W. Am I the only one that's thinking this fight's going to be like somewhat competitive? You know, look, I'm done making predictions. It's just they're too hard. So in MMA, almost nothing surprises me. My rational brain tells me it won't be competitive, but that could be because I'm not taking into account enough variables. so I guess we'll have to see.

My hunch is no, but I can't say with any certainty. Are you excited for that fight? Yeah, yeah, I am. I want to see what it looks like. Okay. You know, I am... Because look, if it is competitive, then we have to figure out what that means, right?

You know, so... Right. So, yeah, sure. I think it will. I don't know. All right. Maybe. Are you picking Silva?

Should I go on record? Yeah. No, my... I think Adesania is going to win. But if Silva wins, like, I wouldn't be surprised. Kind of like the same thing with Cyborg, Amanda Nunes. I thought Chris Scyonel... Cyberg was more like he was going to win, but like if you would have told me like, hey, Amanda Nunez is going to knock out Chris Cyborg.

I'd be like, oh, okay, yeah, that's definitely possible. Like, I can see that happening. With Silva is like, I still think he's a top 15 middleweight. I think got Asana's above that. I consider him, you know, right now top 10, maybe even top five. So I do think he'll get the victory, but I think it'll be competitive. I don't think, because people have this perception that like Silva's washed up. I really don't think so, man.

All right. I don't think he's in his prime. You know, he's far from washed up. Let me ask you a question before we get to this next interview. See if you're interested in doing this. Remember how I talked about the show Hot On The Beat? Yeah. Have you gone back and seen it?

Actually, I haven't, man. But I will. You know what I mean, this is what I'm surrounded by people. But I know, no, I know what you're talking about. I've seen the clips. I've seen the clips. Danny due diligence, Seguera over there. All right, here's the deal.

It'd be, it's the host and then the guest and they eat 10 wings. They start mild, they get insanely hot. Now, if you did it a bunch of times, it would be stealing. If we did it one time on the show, it'd be homage. Would you want to do an MMA hour homage to hot ones where we both interviewed each other,

eight mild wings, and then worked to super hot ones? Would you want to do it? I mean, I'm bad with spicy stuff, but I'll give a shot. Would you give it a shot? Yeah. Okay, we're talking about like two million Skullville level.

You do it? Bro, the internet demands your compliance. Are you going to be... I'll do it. If enough people on Twitter want me to do it, I'll do it. All right, if you want to see me and Danny do it, let us know on Twitter. If you don't, you don't want to do it. But I think it'd be kind of fun.

We've got to spice things up around here, no pun intended, my friend. And I would like to try that. I would like to put it on camera. I'll take the day off after this, so I don't have to go to my next job. And we just ruin our day with incredibly spicy food. Yeah, maybe we can have a sound off with wings. Yeah, but we have to get through all 10. We'll try.

No, no, no. Yoda. There is no try. Either do or do not. All right, we'll cross that bridge. How about this? Let's plan something. We'll come up with the plan and we'll float it to the audience. Would you be interested in forming a plan?

Yeah. All right. And then we'll just throw acid in Austin's face because he's stupid. Okay. Thank you, Danny. I appreciate it. Good job today. There he goes.

Danny Sigurra. We are not done here on the show. We have one more interview to get to. I spoke to one of the great coaches in MMA, who is now a commentator for ESPN. He's doing like cornerman commentary and then a little bit more. It's Trevor Whitman. He did a phenomenal job in the UFC's debut on ESPN, so I wanted to talk to him about it.

Here was our conversation. And I am joined now by coach and now commentator Trevor Whitman. Trevor, how are you, sir? I'm wonderful. How are you? I'm doing quite well. Thank you for making some time for us. Let's actually jump right into it. I have to say, what a pleasant surprise that was when we saw you at the ESP,

excuse me, the UFC and ESPN Plus event as this sort of, well, how would you define your role, right? because on the one hand, you're discussing what's happening in the corners, but you were also talking about some of the action in the cage for the fights itself. So your commentator, but what is your specific role? I don't know. They had called me about a week prior and said, hey, we have this idea of calling how the corners work.

And that's a lot like how Fox was that ESPN is not going to be showing the corners, but pay-per-view does. So they asked if I can come and be a part of the ESPN. Pian events and do this position that they didn't know how it was going to work. So I showed up and they put makeup on me and I realized that they put makeup on me, I might be going on camera. And they tested that out in the beginning and kind of ran with it. And they would just ask me here and there, do you want to jump in?

And I think we're just kind of swinging from the hip at the moment. Well, I got to say, if you're swinging from the hip, it's looking pretty good. So there was like no formal tryout for this or anything? No. Wow. That's so unusual in television. I'm sure you know that. Just to get your dry run as the live version of it, that's highly unusual.

What do you think that is? Yeah. I think they, well, they had told me that they might go on and might not. So I think they tested it on the ESPN plus the prelim, the early prelims. So, you know, I guess it was going well because they kept me on every, every part. Now, have they discussed since then what their plan is? Yeah, at first they wanted me to do every, every one.

And I just said, hey, man, I'm super busy with Onyx and with my athletes. And I don't want to take on too much. And they wanted me to see if I could do every one. And I just told my number one internationally at the moment I can't. And so they scheduled me for five of them. And then we'll decide how much further we go from that point. Well, I guess congratulations are in order. This is sort of like a surprise out of nowhere.

I'm guessing you're pretty happy about it. Is getting into television? Was that something you had eyed at some point in your future? No, no. This is a complete surprise to me. I've never done any commentating or anything like that. When I had read the message, I actually didn't want to do it because commentate is not something I've ever wanted to do. But once I called Zach and Zach told me, you know, it was confirmed.

from a coach's perspective. They wanted, especially from the corners. Well, I was intrigued to do it just because I think there needs to be more of that. But then again, you know, here I'm supposed to come out and critique and talk how the corner's going. And, you know, who am I to critique anybody on the sense that, you know, I've done thousands of corners, but I would say not all of them have been purged. So it's one of those things going into this. I'm very humbled for them to ask me.

You know, and it's hard for me because I have such a good relationship with all the coaches out there. So, you know, going out there and speaking the truth is what I'm going to do and always do. And just hopefully from the perspective of how the coaches and, you know, the guys in my network who we share the same job, understand that, you know, where I'm at at the moment is because of the. the many mistakes I made and gained through it. So I actually wish there was someone critiquing me back in the day because that's what it takes. It takes tons of critique and I never want to call it criticism because criticism to me is a negative sense to it, but critiquing it. And going back and saying, what can I do better in each fight as a coach, I think would be super beneficial to me.

And I've always thought that way. I've always been my hardest critic. so I've made some huge fails in the game I mean I was just thinking the other day I remember when I forgot verno Phillips's mouthpiece in a title fight in boxing and I had no idea I didn't even put the mouthpiece in he came back and was like damn tee and he sits down and I'm like look at him like what and he's like you forgot my damn mouthpiece and I'm like I did but I touched my pocket my mouthpiece was in there and I have not forgot the mouthpiece since and that was probably 2003 and it takes scenarios

like that where, you know, it's just like the athlete. Athletes, it's all about performance and you gain from your performance. And sometimes you don't perform, it really helps you out. And, you know, having that performance where I really dug into myself after that fight. And it helped me never do that again. But I've got a laundry list of things that I laugh about what I've done in the corner before. So it's super cool to be able to get out there and do that. But again, it's never a position I want to take to ever go out there and critique people who I learn from, you know.

What would you say about the state of MMA cornering? I think you would agree probably. I don't want to put words in your mouth, certainly. But for the time I've been observing the sport, the last decade and more, it's certainly gotten a lot better. But one of the things I've really noticed is a lot of yous don't exist. And by that I mean, number one, people who've done cornering in other similar combat sports, which is, and they have, and those other sports like boxing, you know, long histories of cornering.

And two, it's a lot of really young people. It's a lot of teammates who might also be active fighters cornering. You're seeing a little bit less of that now. You're seeing some generational shift. To me, that's made cornering a little bit better. Still a long way to go. What is your assessment of the state of MMA cornering? Oh, yeah, it's kind of a long way.

I mean, I come from the boxing world, and the boxing world is, you know, you have a couple other people in your corner, but they're, I mean, one time I had to get on Miguel Diaz, who was a cut man and a very well-known cut man. And I was cornering Manuel Lopez, and he started like telling him what to do, and I had to jump on him. And I feel like doing the boxing cornering, it was really just you doing the instruction. And at least it was for me. I didn't have a big team. And a lot of times, the boxing coach works with the boxer all the time, so that's who you're listening to. I know when I got into MMA, there was a lot of other coaches that you're

working with. And that's why I felt like a big stick got put in the wheel where it was very easy to have so many people torn me the right thing and everybody could be saying the right thing, but it's so much information or so much going into the fighter where it makes cornering very, very, very tough.

And just like you said, a lot of times it's athletes and athletes don't you do good, but it's almost like listening to a mom yelling to her son on the wrestling mat. So, you know, you hear it say it squeeze harder, and you're going, all right, well, what does that mean? You know, it's definitely come a long way. And, I mean, just being a part to really dig in and watch the corners.

The night I got to do it in Brooklyn was very cool. And I thought everybody was doing a great job. I mean, there was a couple of little fatigue here in there, but it's super cool to see the level of coaches. You know, and look, there's a lot of different ways to be a good corner. so I'll ask you in this way, true or false, not every good coach is a good corner man. Not every good corner man is necessarily a good coach. In other words, how different are those two roles?

How similar are they? You know, I mean, you nailed it. A coach, someone who is working in the gym, you know, there's so many good coaches. The difference between a good coach and a great coach, how I kind of put it. The good coach can tell you what you need to do. And I can talk to people on the street who can tell

your athlete what they need to do, but it's can you show them how to do it? Can you explain when to do it, when not to do it, how to do it, how to set it up, and most importantly, make them believe in it. And then going into the corner work, it's really the same thing. You've got tons of good corners,

but the difference between a great corner is someone who understands their athlete on the, you know, the mental side. You got to know how to piss them off. You got to know how to cool them down. You got to know how to, you've got to really just understand their psyche. And you've got to be able to read that from just, not even just from their performance, but their body language and what's going on. And, you know, there's something going on on the outside of the fight sport that's causing

their performance to be there. And if you're with them all the time, you should know everything that's going on. with him. I know a lot of people who coach in corner athletes that they're like their best friends. And I always say, hey, man, it's good to be a friend of an athlete. But a lot of times a good friend is going to tell you what you want to hear. But it's like being like a father. Like a father, you, you want to, you always want to let them know that you're proud of them, no matter what happens because they're, again, long as they're out there doing their best effort, that's all that matters. But you've got to be able to discipline them. You got to trust what they're doing on the

outside. You've got to know when to, you know, really dig into them and know that they're not going to take it to heart and be like, I'm not going to be your friend the more. It's more like that followy figure. I care about you and I care about your, you know, you're not getting hurt in here. And that's where that bond has to be so strong, you know, and really, I feel like that's the key to being a great coach slash cornerman. At the versa, just a, you know, the average, folks. One of your most famous cornering moments was the, you throwing in the towel or stopping the fight on behalf of Nate Marquart.

Obviously, he had a super decorated career, but certainly father time comes for us all. And when that happens, you need some people around you to make some of these very, very difficult calls. You're seeing calls like that, I think, a little bit more, Trevor. I would point to Duke Rufus after Anthony Pettus broke his hand against Tony Ferguson. you know, I can't, I mean, I'm sure you know this too. I mean, how many times have you seen guys with broken hands go back out into a fight? And Duke Rufus said, enough, right?

We're just not going to fight under these circumstances. Do you believe that corners in MMA have a problem not stopping enough fights that maybe shouldn't have continued? Yeah, I think it's a huge thing in this sport. I mean, it's really cool to go back and people are like, oh, Trevor is the first guy to stop a fight in MMA. And that's not true. I remember when Chuck Liddell. uh people jumps in and stopped the fight when he was fighting rampage and pride uh there's there's

you know and it's not only just if someone's getting beat up like like mate had a situation that i was aware of prior to going into that fight that the doctors were very concerned with his uh blood blood pressure the blood pressure was super super high and they were reset in the doctor's office or if you're where the doctors that prior to the fight uh about two hours before he went out and they were very concerned with his blood pressure. And then when I had seen him performing, I was like, there's something totally wrong. So I already had an awareness to it. But it's not that you just stop a fight that someone's getting beat up.

It's where are they in that fight? And does the guy have your number that night? And the cool thing about MMA is there's so many different ways that the fight can be stopped. So I feel like that's a big key to a lot of people who aren't stopping the fight. So there's a fight that fight that could just change so quick. to me it's more about the mindset of where that athlete is and uh if you're taking an ass whoop and that fighter clearly doesn't want to be in there you've got to be the one that steps up and takes the sword you have to jump in there and make it your fault and let the fighter

go and complain that they you shouldn't have stopped the fight because the more times that you get beat inside that cage and you're you're getting dominated that's a that hurts you mentally and that's hard to come back from and whether you're just taking too many points. or does your fighter need to be in there? Do you need to jump in there and save them and get them back mentally and re-stratage of what's going on? And again, it's a lot of psyche. You got to know your fighter.

And the key to all athletes is being able to ride that money train and write that money train as long as they can. You see with a lot of fighters, you almost see their careers completely change. And if you look at that, you've got to really pay attention to the two or three performances that change the way they perform in the cage, where you see guys that look invincible. And then all of a sudden they become human. And then all of a sudden you're going, wow, they are the even gatekeeper level.

And it was kind of like a scenario with Nate. When I had stopped the fight with Nate, I had so many people in my ear telling me you need to stop fighting. And I'm like, well, he had the best performances off seen in a long time in the gym, and he came back to win to after that. So it's, again, knowing the athlete and really stick into your guns. And again, everybody's going to have something to say, how do you have to stick to your gut feeling and what's going on?

and just pay attention to everything. Everything has factors. It's how are they performing in the gym? How are they mentally? Do they have too many things going on the outside that's causing them to be distracted? And that's where the cornerman slash coach comes in and has to assess that you are the co-pilot.

And you have to put yourself in a scenario. I'm a co-pilot, but I'm in the outside. I'm not driving in the car with someone that if I make a wrong move, we're both rolling. It's like you've got to really understand. I'm not taking no damage. but you have to care for them and be willing to take some damage if you go out there and make a decision like that. And again, it's that fatherly love, almost parent like love, but also just truth and honesty that they're getting to the goals they want to get to, if that makes sense.

You know, boxing stoppages seem to come from the corner anyway a little bit more easily. And one of the reasons people point to, well, there's several reasons, right? A lot of times those guys have guaranteed pay so they don't have to worry about going out to see if a show or win. So that's a big one. Again, we talked about it before. You might have somebody who's been cornering

for 40 years, quite literally. And so they've sort of seen it all. But the other one is that in MMA, we hold on to this idea. Well, I mean, even in Jiu-Jitsu, they don't have tech falls. We just saw a girl go up 91 to nothing in an IBJGF tournament

because there's always this idea that maybe you could pull it around. MMA is so varied that you can always sneak out a victory and I know we can all think of sometimes where that's true, but I got to tell you, Trevor, I think it's way overstated, and I think that's probably,

and I want to see what you think about this, to me it's combating that. You don't want to tell a fighter you never have a chance, but on some level you've got to live in reality and you've got to weigh the cost and the benefits, and it seems like that's the more difficult challenge we're up against. I wonder what you make of that assessment. Oh, yeah, completely.

I mean, you nailed it. It's, again, it's a longevity. Again, one performance is not your career. And yes, you've got to be the best you can every day. But sometimes you've got to really assess the performance of what's going on. And again, that goes to the outside. Professional fighting and prize fighting, you take damage over the years. But again, can you cope with it and can you rebound?

And again, that comes a lot from the outside. Again, there's lots of things that fighters go through, whether it's too much stardom. Do they get distracted? They can't train enough? where they have a family issue going on. And again, a lot of times it's going to cause a performance issue. I mean, just put it this way,

you remember when Chale fought Anderson Silva, and Chale beat Anderson Silva for five rounds, but Anderson came back to win the fight. That's one of those fights that kind of stand out to me where he found a way to win. He was a champion. But that was the downfall of his legacy. I mean, if you look at it next time,

he fought Chale again and dominated them, but then those performances right afterwards, you start to question your performances by your performance. And if he was doing everything possible, he's like, holy cow, I got held down for so long. Yes, I came back to win that fight, but he was the one that was in there. He's the one that deals with the soreness and that what's going on

where he was somewhat invincible. And those type of fights make you question everything, especially the older you become. What comes with age is wisdom. You see young guys, you see young young guys, and just reckless and can do it and don't get bothered by tough fights, but as time goes on, man, the tough fights are wearing you. What's an example of somebody, maybe from boxing again, or if it's MMA, let me know,

but is there ever been a, is there ever an example of just like really solid cornering, either stopping a beating from continuing or, you know, energizing a fighter to reach their maximum potential? Is there any moment you could think of in a corner that was just incredibly pivotal and just really really good, really good, yeah. Atlas, oh, I forget his name. I'm having a brain farm, but it was a few years ago. I had a great performance.

He said, you've got to go in the fire like a firefighter. Oh, Timothy Bradley. Yeah, Timothy Bradley. What a great job by this corner. And, you know, I always respected Teddy Atlas as a, as a cornerman. And he made a great commentator. I actually learned a lot about coaching by listening to Teddy and the things and the philosophies

had to say. But that was a great corner just by seeing he's a, you know, he's more of a full-time commentator slash, you know, part-time coach. And it just shows, you know, his philosophy by, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, you create energy. I mean, he was winning that site, but he knew that there was momentum. And he was able to build that momentum into a, a, a, a fireball. And that's what a corner's there to do is how do you, how do you, how do you, uh, create more

momentum or shift the momentum? And that's always tough to do is, is, is have a shift. How do you get into someone, a, head and make them believe that they can still win the fight. And that's, that's, again, that just takes time,

experience, and again, philosophy, understanding how the mind works and understanding how your athlete works. I'll tell you what, cornering now when I have three athletes compared to when I was, had a team at Grudge that, you know,

40 professional athletes, it's a night and day different. You know, when I was having too many athletes, there was a lot of things that I did and I failed as a as a failed as a coach. For instance, I had a guy named Alvin Robinson fighting, and

they were, I did an interview and they asked me about Alvin Robinson's opponent. And I was like, no, I don't think that's his opponent. And I mixed his opponent up with Justice Hallis's opponent. And they're both 155 at the time. And that's where a big flag went off where I was wearing too many hats. I had too many athletes.

Another time is when Rose lost to Carla Asparza. And, you know, I didn't even talk to her about a five-round flight. Here she is with three professional fights fight for World Pied. I'll come in off the ultimate fighter and seeing how dominant she was on the ultimate fighter, even when I wasn't coaching her. I became a fan. And she went out there and hit this pace, and after the first round, I didn't even catch on to it.

And afterwards, like, I've seen her start to cave. And 100% was that my fault as a coach, as a co-pilot, to not catch that and not plant the seeds that I needed to plant. a fighter that only had three-fights fight for a world title who's so young. I still feel we should have won that fight if we would have understood the pace and understand a five-round fight and understood the only way that Carla could have beat her. It was almost like I came out of a fanboy slash cheerleader. And those are part of the reasons why I gave up on Grudge and said, hey, you know, I went back to my boxing ways where I coached the athlete.

I don't have too many people in the saying the right things because, Everybody's saying it different philosophy. You've got too many coaches, you know, coaching you where everybody's in a right mindset. But you're going from one workout and you got three workouts per day and each coach is pushing you to the limit. And here you are overtraining. So there's just so many different experiences that you go through. It's just how do you audit it and make sure that it's balanced and, again, all about the athlete. And also, you have been alluding to this the entire interview, how different your athletes are.

Certainly it takes some humility on the part of the coach. but it also takes some keen awareness too. You've got Justin Gachie, one of the most exciting, dynamic, incredible talents in the Lightwood Division still highly ranked. He's going against Edson Barbosa, but I don't think it's any kind of controversial statement to say that that's a higher risk, high reward kind of style that he has.

Does it change the way, not so much that you corner because that would change as athlete to athlete. But I guess what I'm wondering is, as you approach that kind of fight, you're thinking about the strategy and the things he has to execute, but also the kind of fight style that he has to execute, and what requires it to succeed, does it make cornering a little more tense?

Does it make it a little more for you? As they go high stakes, do you go high stakes too? How does their fight style impact you? I mean, it's everything. Justin's a guy who really doesn't fear fight it. You know, he's a guy who loves what he lives. He lives in that fire, and he just enjoys it. Like, that's where he's himself.

But again, I've got to know when to pull it back. And then also, who's a point? who's not a puncher. And taking those, those, there's a certain person you can take a clean shot from, but it's going to take two or three clean shots to put you away. But sometimes you face a guy who's one clean shot is going to put you away. And, you know, I'm very big in a position and understanding positions. And it's just, I really focus on what do we need to position herself in the fight?

And then also through the rounds, how do we position herself and when do we start to push the gas pedal? And when do we do it right away? what are we doing? There's the strategy of understanding how to be like a general and control a battle, how would you say a scenario. What are they thinking? What are they thinking we're going to do? And do we switch that and try that?

So there's so much fun stuff that goes into, you know, game planning and getting these guys ready. And then how do I assess myself in the corner to make sure that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. and then you always have to be prepared for if it's not going your way, what are your seeds you're going to plan? How are you going to wake them back up? How are you going to get them back into the fight? So there's so many different perspectives that you need to put into play, so you're prepared for those scenarios,

which I never used to do in my early years as a coach. Like, hey, this is our game plan. And then it changes. And then instantly the fighter can read that you're going into plan B, and that's more like May Day. Instead of like, no, this is what we're expecting. and how do you make them feel that it's okay. We're good where we're at.

This is what we need to do. And to me, I feel that the key is how do you let your fighter know he's still in the fight and then get them to listen to what you're saying and trust what you're saying? Well, I've got to say, I've certainly appreciate this conversation. I appreciated your first run on ESPN. I look forward to many more schedule permitting. And best of luck to you with Justin against, Edson and everything else you have going on this year.

Thank you for your time, Coach. Really appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. Big thanks to Trevor Whitman for stopping by. Thanks to all of our guests, Shorty Torres, Wonderboy, and of course, Ricardo Almeida as well. Thanks to all of you for watching. We are back next week. The train rolls on.

My name is Luke Thomas. This is the MMA hour. And until next time, stay frosty.