MMA Fighting - #471 – Ben Askren, Brandon Gibson, Henri Hooft

Episode Date: March 4, 2019

On this episode of The MMA Hour, Luke Thomas speaks to Ben Askren about his controversial win over Robbie Lawler at UFC 235, his lack of relationship with Dana White, what’s next, more; Jon Jones’ striking coach Brandon Gibson about Jones’ win over Anthony Smith, his performance in the cage, what’s next and more; Kamaru Usman’s coach Henri Hooft about Usman’s capture of UFC welterweight gold, preparing for Tyron Woodley, and more. We also take your questions on the latest news in MMA on Sound Off and A Round of Tweets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and use promo code sports for 20% off. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. It is Monday, March 4th, 2019, and this is the MMA hour. Right here on MMAFighting.com, thank you so much for joining me. I greatly appreciate it. My name is Luke Thomas, and I am the host of this program. What a jam-packed program we have for you for this first show of the third month of 2019. Can you believe it already?

Here's just flying by. Who do we have today? Ben Ascran is going to be here fresh up of his very first. controversial but interesting win over Robbie Luller, UFC 235. Speaking of UFC 235, we have two of the very best coaches in the game who both coached the champions, the main event winners. Brandon Gibson will be here around 1240. He was, of course, part of the John Jones team.

And then Kamaru Usman's coach, Henry Hooft will be here. I think around one, of course he helped guide him all the way to a Walterweight championship title as well. Plus, you're going to be my guest, not one, two different ways. We've been taking your tweets this whole time using the hashtag the MMA hour. Thank you to everybody who submitted them. My friend, Danny Segura, tells me that they are copious in amount and quite interesting, which I'm always happy to hear. And I hear the calls today, and the number is the same as always, 844-866-2468. I have heard that England is in the house today, quite numerically, or I should say, in abundance, rather.

So we'll do that a little bit later in the show as well. All right, as always, the Monday morning analyst is a YouTube exclusive. This will not go on the audio portion of the podcast. So if you want it, you got to get it online. Well, you get everything online, but on our YouTube channel, I should say. Let's go now to our first guest. Talk about a winning career this guy's had. He is, well, fresh off that win by Johnny Jones Jones.

I mean, what a spectacular finish, or I should say, a fight he had. A little strange in certain parts, though, right? There was that kind of knee scenario, and I'll be honest, I would have thought he was going to finish Anthony Smith. I have respect for Anthony Smith, but, I mean, he was coming off of the finish in 214 of Daniel Cormier. Then he finished Gustafson, what, in December, late December, and then he goes and does this. It's like, it's a dominating win, but I was a little surprised by it.

But at the same time, he was a total command, total mastery the whole way. So, all right. Let's go to him now. I went a little long. I apologize for that. Let's go to him. The one and only, Brandon Gibson. Brandon, look at him.

Oh, man. Look at the tie and everything. A little dapper scrapper. Are you going somewhere? Something important? I just, you know, I wear mini hats. I'm not always a trainer. I'm not always a martial artist.

Sometimes I'm a bit of a businessman. So, just Monday morning and tire. All right. Well, let's talk about it. How are you feeling about the win on Saturday? Obviously, John was in pretty much command the whole way. I'm sure no event or no fight is perfect, but that was relatively close to the knee notwithstanding. You know, we hold ourselves to very high expectations and very high standards.

That's what we trained for. So when we won, it wasn't this big celebration. It was, okay, what's next? What's next? I think, you know, we're very happy with the performance. If you take away the illegal knee, it would have been a 50-44 score. card in a championship fight, which is, you know, dominant at that level. So we're happy with it, but we always want more. All right. Tell me about what went right. What was the game plan

for Anthony Smith? What were you guys anticipating? We knew he's tough. We knew he's tough. This guy has a lot of experience, a lot of fights under his belt, and a very high finish. He either finishes or gets finished, and he had only had one decision. We wanted a full body attack. You know, we knew he didn't check kicks very well. He was susceptible to body shots. He has a chin of granite. And I think he was a little suspect on the ground,

especially in wrestling positions and scramble. So, you know, we were trying to be well prepared in every single area that we could. Anthony surprised me in his work against the fence, being able to stop some of John's takedowns. He sprawled on John pretty good. I believe in the fourth round. You know, he's an athlete.

He's very tough. Comes from a great team. I have a lot of respect for Mark Montoya and the guys at Factory X. And we knew they'd come prepared. You know, when you fight John Jones, you have to be ready. You have to be ready.

But in the end, you know, John was able to kind of take away anything Anthony really wanted to do. I will say that I thought his wrestling was much improved. This is actually proof of those arguments that when you defend a title in your weight class, maybe it's not necessarily fight over fight as, you know, glamorous as a champ-champ scenario.

However, the contenders who get to that spot, that's their maximum opportunity, and you often see the maximum effort. He was, I think, a little bit defensively more sound than it sounds like you guys. I'm sure you were prepared for it, but in execution, you know, he didn't get finished. He lasted a full five.

I think that's exceeding expectations for some. Absolutely. And, you know, we wanted the finish. I thought John would put him away I was thinking by the third round the fourth round we really saw John turn it up and you know

I feel bad about the knee you know a split second later or one state line over that probably would have been a fight ender I feel bad about it I'm really really happy that Anthony was able to get up and continue from that I think you know

it shows why he has that lion heart moniker anything You know, it's interesting, John's game is, it's complex. I don't know how to describe it exactly. He's not throwing the spinning stuff much anymore, but it's still complex and it's ingenuity. So it might be a jab, it might be a cross, it might be a front kick, it's not, you know, he's not an enbach back elbow, but there's a certain degree of, I'm going to, I'm going to use the word simplicity for a lack of a better term. How do you think of his game? It's complex, but he's not, it's not quite so flashy, is it?

I think John has one of the deepest playbooks in all of MMA. You know, I break fighters down for a living. I train a lot of very high-level fighters. I've trained a lot of Hall of Famers. Nobody's playbook is as deep as John's. Now, he's not the crazy volume combination striker, but he can throw just about any strike from any stance. And I think the beauty in what John does is the simplicity.

Anthony Smith hit a few moments there he was kind of stuck in like this sitting turtle position what did you make of that because he wasn't getting finished but he wasn't able to launch any offense of his own we had seen that in a lot of Anthony's fights

that he was really good at going two on one on a wrist and trying to hold the position and then he would take some ground and pound damage but he was comfortable in that position and then he'd wait and create a scramble he did against Volk and he did it against Andrew San. We had seen him go for quite a bit.

So we had really trained in that two-on-one wrist control, big knees to the body, big ground and pound, big passes when John was ready. And I think that's what we saw in the fourth round was just John unloading knees, the body, needs to the ankle, finding ground and pound when he needed it, and just riding them, controlling him and grinding them. When folks say, hey, how can you finish somebody is decorated? And I don't mean this to be demeaning to Smith, but, you know, higher-ranked guys like a corn, like August of sin, but not Smith. What is your assessment of why that happened? You know, sometimes it's like a clash of trains. DC2, they were throwing hard.

They were in the open mat. You know, you're slipping into strikes. You're rolling into strikes. When you're playing very defensively and trying to wait on the cage, there's not as much just inertia, clashing. So it becomes a bit of a grind, and John was very smart in his pace.

You know, the one area, Anthony was very dangerous, and you look at fights like the Vulcan fight, where Vulcan's clearly in charge for two rounds and almost punches himself out gases, and then Anthony comes on. So we didn't want John to exert everything in these ground and pound moments, get tired and fatigued, and then give Anthony a puncher's chance. What impact, if any, did the news about the, and we've been. been over it a million times, but when the peek of Graham stuff came out again this week, what news, if any, did it have on, John?

What impact, brother? None. We were sitting at breakfast. He saw Twitter. He'd kind of been briefed on it a day earlier. We just went about right back to our breakfast and right back to our training schedule. Okay. These are things that are expected the time being and until we really understand what's going

on and I'll leave that up to the experts at USADA and everywhere else to continue to educate all of us and we just stay focused on what we can control. That being said, you were with him in this camp and he was tested for whatever that is worth to an extraordinary degree. I wonder what impact that had on him. None. You know, this stuff he's prepared for. He's been at this level for a long time and I think he gladly welcomes all the testing

possible, which shows with three different bodies testing him. You know, we just want to prove to everybody that we're clean and we're the best in the world of what we do. All right. Let's talk about that knee real quickly. As our own Mark Romundi had pointed out, as you did as well, had that bout taken place in California, no biggie, right? But Nevada has their own rule set that's partly advanced but partly antiquated. I'll ask you as a coach, were you aware of the difference? Because I'll be honest, as a media guy who's covered this, even I forgot about it.

Yeah, you know, we try to be as best we can, and the referees usually do a pretty good job breaking it down in the locker room on, okay, where is the hand and where does the weight need to be in this state? What is three points in this state? Is it fingertips? Is it palm? Is it fist? Is it, I don't know if we went over that. That's in as detail as we should. I was under the understanding that John couldn't knee. I think John was just waiting for that little millisecond. Anthony's trying to play that up and down. game right there. John knew there a short time left in the round. I think he was just trying to time it for the second. Anthony lifted up that hand. And there's some pictures where it looks really damn close to just unleash that knee. I think it was more of a timing thing than a state and the commission thing. I see.

Again, for the folks who are like, oh, my God, here's John Jones out here cheating again. It sounds like, you know what's interesting, it sounds like, well, of course, you guys don't pay it much mind, I don't think. He doesn't seem nearly as bothered by either. He was all smiles with a turtleneck at the post-fight press conference. He's looking sharp, that's for sure.

I like seeing John and Rick Fledrip. You know, I'm glad Anthony got up from it. I've actually worked regional shows where, you know, we're up two rounds, we're going into the third, and we had a similar situation happened, and it wasn't bad in the other fighter.

took the way out and got the DQ win. And it's a rough night. And, you know, I just didn't think in a world title fight, Anthony would want to do that. And he didn't. He didn't. He definitely looked at us pissed off the corner. He was not happy. And we weren't happy either.

You know, we don't want to see fouls in this game. I want to see a good, clean, competitive competition. I saw a video. Great if I'm wrong. I can't quite tell the context. But what it looked like was, John and you guys were all walking back to his locker room and Anthony was there greeting you and giving you like

congratulations as each one went through the line. I have to say, I find that an incredible moment of sportsmanship. Yeah, absolutely. We just got done taking photos. Everybody was kind of in this back media room and Anthony was in there and we all shook hands and told him he was a true lionheart. And like I said, I got a lot of respect for Mark Montoy and Factory X.

You know, on the regional St. Albuquerque and Denver, we compete against each other a lot. I've known these guys for a long time. They've come down to Jackson's. We've gone up to Denver. You know, we're going to be seeing them in two weeks, and we always want good sportsmanship with those guys. And especially after a championship bout like that, where two guys put on line for five rounds, you can't have nothing but admiration.

All right, so let's talk about what's next. Look, ultimately, John's going to be his own man and make his own call. But after a performance like that and making a fact, fast turnaround. It's the inevitable question, right? George St. Pierre alluded to it in his retirement. What is next? If you had to guess what is next, both in timing and opponent, who do you think it is? You know, we're going to

get together this week and break it down. I know Tiago Santos is looking very strong. John always gets hyped for the idea of a super fight. You know, he said he wants to fight three to four times this year. We want to give him a little break, though. We want to make sure

that fire is always well lit under him. Back-to-back training camps is definitely a grind. He was excited to get in there, though, and have this quick turnaround and make sure there is no ring for us. And I think as a fan of the sport, we're lucky to have the greatest of all time actively competing once again. So he wants to stay busy. Maybe it's the big international fight week in July.

Maybe it's something big in the fall. We'll see. I'm always interested to see what D.C. is up to. He wasn't, I didn't see him, I didn't see him tweeting that much, did you? No, no, surprisingly. Yeah, we'll see. You know, I'll be interested to see with the UFC brings to the table. And, you know, we want to get John a little rest and get him back in and just keep growing John Jones.

You know, that's an important time for us to be in camp without an opponent and just develop and continue to sharpen John's arsenal. By the way, I noticed something. Correct me if I'm wrong. Now, I one time on the mats, dislocated my own toe. Ooh, that sucked. It was not fun. And he, of course, had that broken one against chale. He tapes it.

Does he tape it on the buddy system? Is that the same toe that I saw? I don't know if he does it in the fight, but he definitely does it in the warm-ups. Yeah, yeah. You know, we just try to keep everything, like more preventative injury, you know? And with as much as John kicks, it's not even the chale injury as much as preventing future injury. So, yeah, we just want to keep them sharp and keep them feeling good.

And, yeah, we go through a lot of tape in camp. What do you make of D.C. silence, and I have to say as an observer, I have a tremendous amount of respect for D.C. Obviously, I know you do as well. I was glad, actually. I was getting a little exhausted with the rivalry. I do want to see them fight in the future. But for this moment in time, I was happy to take a break. Yeah, I was happy for it, too.

You know, I like when these guys get to celebrate. nights. And same when D.C. wins. I like it quiet on our front or just to congratulations. I think that will always be looming, though. Everybody will always want to see a trilogy there. And D.C.'s had so much success in John's fight and, you know, it was double champ

and heavyweight champ. But I think for right now there's a lot of intriguing matchups in each of their prospective weight classes. So I just like having fun with that idea. What do you, by the way, you think, is there any chance he fights heavy this year, or do you think these four fights or three, whatever they end up happening,

are all going to be a 205? I think this year will probably be a 205 unless, you know, some really intriguing super fight gets offered. But I think John's just fine, being light heavyweight champ of the world and defending this title as many times as we can. What did you make of Johnny Walker's win? The kid's impressive. He's explosive.

I saw a really impressive stat that he's only thrown 30 strikes or something his combined UFC career. So his knockout to strike ratio is like one to nine. That's impressive. Definitely got our eye on him. And, you know, he's charismatic. He's fun. He has a swagger to him.

He's creative. You know, that's a fight that is definitely on the horizon, I'm sure. But if you had to guess it, you probably, again, nobody knows, especially with UFC these days. But it sounds like you guys think Tiago Santos is next. You know, that's what Dana was alluding to in the press conference. You know, he's been looking great. He's a powerful, very powerful, 205-pounder.

I'm sure that's something that intrigues a lot of fans. And I like that there's some fresh blood in the light heavyweight division. You know, when John started, it was kind of like the older reign of some of the pride legends. You know, the show guns, the Rampage, Jackson's, the V-tors. There were so many of these legends for us to chase after. and now, you know, John's the legend, and these young guys are coming up, like Johnny Walker, like Tiago Santos. So it's cool to be in this position now. Has it John ever fought someone who brawls the way that Tiago Santos does?

You know, I think he's fought a lot of brawlers. I would consider Anthony Smith the brawler. I think we've fought some very polished M.MA boxers with explosive hooks like Rampage Jackson, like Shogun. and then we fought a lot of really polished technical and MMA strikers like Guffs of Sin, like Machita. I think Tiago brings a different kind of power. I don't think he's as polished or refined as a shogun or a rampage. I think he's probably a little closer to Anthony Smith's style.

Still, though, Anthony Smith fought a less brawler style this time, didn't he? You know, when you have John Jones in front of you pressuring and fainting and level changes and thrown kicks, it makes you question trying to load up on a big hook. Yeah, I suppose that it does. By the way, speaking of the four times in one year, like every fighter's different, everyone's a different age, different experience, different injury level.

What do you make of Israel-A-Sanya with six fights in 14 months? By the way, he's won five of the first six, so something's going right. But even I've been asking him, that sounds like a heavy workload, man. You know, hell, we trained Cowboys Soroni for a long time where he was working at a pace that was about that insane. And, you know, when you're on fire, you're on fire. and you got to keep it going.

And sometimes you don't know it's too much until you get in there and you feel a little flat and burned out or you have a camp where everything really starts adding up. But, you know, Israel's a brilliant fighter. He's been in it for a long time. You know, with his kickboxing background,

he's used to competing at a high pace and training often. You know, the guys over at city kickboxing in New Zealand did they know what's up? They know what they're doing. And hell, man, you know, know, when you're hot, you're hot. So keep it going. And I'm a big fan of what Israel's doing. I love the swag. I love what he's doing. So as a fan, I'm like, hey, man, keep competing.

As a fan, do you want to see John fight Brock? It's like, as a media guy, it's like, it would be great for me, the views would be through the roof. But look, man, I don't think it takes a genius to be like, I don't know how competitive that is. I don't know how competitive is either. I think for the casuals that a guy that, that a guy, like Brock brings to the sport, it will be super high numbers and a high payday. I think for the challenge, just the size of the man that Brock is, I think that's something that intrigues John. I think, yeah, Brock will bring something different.

It would be fun. It would be intriguing, but as far as, is Brock the most polished mixed martial artist that we've ever competed against and what is our game plan going to have to be in all these things we're going to have to watch out for and train for? No, I don't think it's that. Well, you know, here's what I know. Not only you're one of the world's best MMA coaches. It looks like you're the town mayor of Albuquerque with those clothes on as well.

So, yeah, yeah. So Mr. Mayor, congratulations on a successful win. And again, I've been telling you this. Can't wait to see what you guys have in store in 2019. All the best loop. And we appreciate your breakdowns, man. Keep it up. You're sharp.

You got a good eye. I'm trying to be like you. And we're just going to be in there holding pads every day. Yeah, no thing. getting the guy's fine. I leave that to the experts. Thank you, Brandon. Really appreciate it.

All right, there he goes. One of the best. We go from one of the best to another one of the best. He was, I mean, this guy, if you didn't watch his corner advice on Saturday, you missed out something pretty great. He is a Dutch legend and the coach of Camaro Oussman, the one and only, Henry Hoofd, is here. Hi, Henry. How are you? Good.

It's an honor to get you on the phone here, so we really appreciate your time. So how did Saturday go from your vantage point? It looked pretty good from ours. Yes, it was very good. I mean, of course, it's something special to win a belt at the end. But according to training and everything, how the fight went, it was like Kamau is the last couple of fights, you know, progressing, putting a lot of pressure, doing what he does best,

put his will on his opponent. And you saw what happened kind of. broke the opponent and won every round, you know. So, yeah, it was great as a corner. Of course, it wasn't the craziest corner work that we had to do because he's such a disciplined and technically, his fight IQ is so high that as a coach you don't really need to do a lot. But at the end of the day, me, Greg Kami and the guys,

I think we did all good together. made him good. He prepared him good for the fight. And what he did the last couple of years for his career and now with the belt, that's something that he really did by himself. He's a different guy. Well, here's what got me fired up, Henry,

was right at the end of the break. So right before each next round would start, you would tell him, by the way, and he would be standing and Tyron would be sitting, you would tell him, look at him, look at him hard, he's sitting, you're standing, look at him.

I got to be honest, that got me fired up sitting on my couch. Did you stood up or not? I definitely, I was out fist pumping. I was like, I mean, just, you could feel the intensity between you and him. You know what I mean? Yeah. No, it's, it's, I always say to my guys, too. In training, nobody sits down.

It's funny. And then when they fight, everybody wants to sit on that little chair. By the way, it's a shitty chair. You sit down there and you have to get up there. I think it's much better just to stand. For 15 minutes normally, now it was 25 minutes. If you can do that, I think it gives you a little bit of a mental pump. And if you look at the other guy, at least you can see some stuff,

especially if you have a fighter IQ and all your coach or a fighter. He can see that, and he can see that that guy needs to sit down and ask his coach for advice. While our fighter is just breathing, take the water, of course, listens to the advice, but it's just doing something that we do in our room for the last couple of years. So I think that's just a normal thing that we do. But the thing that I say, that look at the opponent, it's just a thing that I have from my kickboxing background with all the fighters. We stand in between the rounds.

Of course, it's not MMA, so it's a little different. But we stand and we look and we breathe and we can't wait until the next round start. And that's what sometimes gives you a little edge. And if not, you don't need to sit down, man, for 15 minutes or 25 minutes. Come on. Okay, so let's talk about this. He has said at times that you guys don't have game plans, but there must be some kind of overarching strategy.

What was the plan for Tyron Woodley? I think when we talk about game planning, of course, it's not a, it's not football or American football or whatever. I really need to tell you this. Look, me, Greg Jones, Garmino Sini, our guys, we have, of course you have a lot of experience. But we don't overcoach our father. fighters in the room. We are always in the room, three of our coaches. Of course, we know all the

opponents that our guys fighting because we have been doing this for a while. So we kind of know if we fight a wrestler that it's probably a little bit better to have a little more distance. If we fight a striker, whatever, every aspect of the game, of course, you know when you look at it. But at the end of the day, we are all trainers, not coaches, we are trainers. We want to train our guys. We want to teach them skills. So they have to be. enough skills to fight anybody. Nowadays, in MMA, everybody gets injured or they pull out of a fight or something happens, and then you've been training for a wrestler, and then you're going to fight a striker

the other way around. I think overall, you need to work on your skills. And at the end of the day, we are trainers, so we want our guys have the skills to fight anybody and try to beat everybody with our style of fighting. So, of course, there's a little game plan, but that game plan is in the head of the fighter that's been training like Usman and Michael Jones. Johnson and these guys for seven years. They know our game plan is we come to fight hard.

We are offensive, defensive fighters. We have a good guard. We come hard. We go forward. We fight. We make the fight. We try to finish fights. We put a lot of pressure.

But also skills. And I think, especially if you're being a fighter, I fought myself. I know how it is to have a game plan. And I know everybody says when you get points in the face. Well, in kickboxing where you got kicked in your legs or in your face, the whole game plan changed. A real fighter knows what to do in the fight. And we're just an extra pair of ice.

We just need to make sure during training camps that they don't get hurt and they train the right way. But really, really a big, big game plan. No, Kamaru is a pressure fighter who put his will on his opponents and that was the whole game plan. That's just what he did. And he didn't do that for the last seven years. So I don't want to be a hater or something,

but some coaches, they make themselves too important. It's all about the fighter and the training room, the training partners. And the trainers are that is important, but don't put that on the highest platform, you know. That's interesting. Well, let me push back a little bit if I can. Now, beating Tyrone Woodley is an amazing, amazing feat. But what about the argument that, okay, you're right.

You need to have this versatile ability because you never know if your opponent's going to change or what they're going to. These things change so often, and you have to be well-rounded. That part I can understand. But what about the idea that if you fought someone so good, if you didn't have a game plan, that's just not enough prep. Like if you fought someone like John Jones, I'll be honest. I'm not sure how you beat someone like him without a game plan. No, well, he's the best fighter of all times for me,

so it's very difficult to beat him. But again, I understand what you mean. Of course, there's a game plan. But in our gym, we don't look at films with all the coaches, write stuff down and put this stuff on paper. Other coaches does it that way, and we do it our way. We just train in the mornings and in the evenings with a group of good fighters, with all kinds of fighters, kickboxers, wrestlers. I mean, look, we not have one or two UFC guys.

We have 14 UFC guys, nine battle-to guys, three glory fighters, two-one-fc-te-te-te-te. champions. We have so many good fighters that if you can't keep up with these guys, you just lose. If you keep up with these guys, you're going to be good everywhere. And John Jones is something special. Once every many, many years, a guy like that comes very difficult to beat. Everybody gets beaten, but it's very difficult to beat. And I don't know because I fought John Jones, not me, but my fighters, Rashad and Vitor, we lost. Is it so bad if you fight 10 times and you win nine times and you lose to one guy. Is it so bad?

No, it's not bad. You just lose to the best fight that there is. So I know what you mean, and I understand there is game plans, but we just work a little different. We just work out two times today, work on our stuff, make our athletes better, and we really don't care about what the other guys are training for because it's too much thinking. And you never know what's going to happen. So just make sure you're prepared.

And Camaro Usman's cardio is crazy good. That's another big point from him. him and that's where we work on, that we can go forward for five rounds. That's just really the game playing, you know. What you said is right. John Jones is the best there. He beat everybody and he's just so good everywhere that it will be very difficult to beat. So I don't think that's a big problem if one guy is better than the rest.

And kickboxing, winning or losing, it's a big difference than an MMA. Here you need to have an old record and you need to have a lot of, You need to talk a lot of shit to get stuff done. In kickboxing, we fight each other. And if you lose, you go back to the drumboard, you work on stuff, and you fight each other again later on your career. If not, so what? But here it's all about, oh, you need to be perfect,

and this needs to be game planned. No, you just need to fight, be at the best condition you are, and just make sure that you represent your own style, your own identity, without talking trust, just fight hard, and make good fights. That's all there is. That's the way we think about it. So.

Fair enough. And your formula is certainly working. I can attest to that. So let's talk about Kamaru here for a second. A couple of things I want to start with him. If I had to ask you, and you've kind of alluded to it here a little bit, but if I could ask you in a more direct way, what makes him so good? What would you say? What do you mean?

Complaining anything, everything he does. From training to family to thinking to everything, to everything, discipline, knowing what he wants. knowing when to do the right stuff, just like in everything, not only in the gym, everywhere. He's a good family man. He just started like the correct guy, and I think he will be a great champion because he's just good, you know, perfect guy to have. For a guy who is as well-muscled as he is and as skilled a wrestler, now fighter, I don't think I've seen many guys who have his kind of a gas tank. You've been around the fight game a long time, Henry.

How rare is that? It is. You're right. He starts to get better at round four and five, you know? It's just like a diesel. He slowly gets stronger and stronger and stronger. That's his big plus in the fights also. I mean, some guys say, oh, he's not the best striker,

and, oh, he has not the best wrestling. Oh, he has not the best this. but he is disciplined and he has will, and he believes also in the people that are with him. That's also a big thing. He believes in us. He's Church Santiago, who started seven years ago, it's me, it's Greg.

All the guys were shot, all the guys he was with. We didn't bring special people in. We didn't train with special people. We didn't do that. We have our own people, and that's another big thing that helps him being so good. He has faith in us, and yeah, and his body. But again, you see, if he takes a shirt out, it's not normal.

He's built like a... He's little Francis, right? Yeah, he is bricked up. Crazy. Okay, when did you realize he was not really... He came in with a wrestling background, and he came in looking like a statue. That's not what I mean.

What I mean is you can see a lot of guys who come from other combative sports and they're not necessarily cut out for MMA. When did you realize that this guy was championship MMA material? I think after a couple of training sessions, really, because he came with Rashad and he, he trained with, I remember we talked about it in Fight Night with Anthony after the fight. Anthony was just chasing around the cage and everything because Anthony, of course, it was already a beast by then, but he always hang in there and he always came back.

So he kind of thought, well, you know, it can be something special. then you need to see him fight. And then he slowly, on the show, on the Ultimate Fighter Show, you saw him getting better, progressing. And again, back to the training room with so many great fighters here in our place. You saw him compete,

getting better with the kickboxers, in striking, and getting also more comfortable in not wrestling during MMA sparring, but just keep standing up to get confident in his striking. And then, And then me, again, I do this 34 years now, you know, fighting and coaching, of training.

You can just see a guy growing and seeing that he is on a certain path with his whole life, with his career and fighting. But also, if you see his television work, when he's commentating, he does that very well, you know, he's well-spoken, and he does that all very disciplined. So, yeah. But then at the end of the day, they always have to do it in the cage. And the thing is, he does that. Every time when he fought, he showed, he probably never lost a round.

He just kept getting better, better, better and better, you know? It's been amazing to watch. Let me say this. He does have, I mean, look, his numbers, I just went through them at the top of the show. They're literally historic for his weight class. He has historic numbers in terms of the volume of output and the amount of control. It's amazing. Let me just say this as a minor critique, and I wonder what you make of it.

I am merely an observer. so I look to you as the expert here. Yes. He has eight decision wins. Is there an issue with an inability to finish? And I realize I'm asking this after he just won the UFC World Trey title. But if I could nitpick, if I could be petty, is that a criticism? No, because there's always something, whatever you do,

there's always something that people think you're not doing correct. You know, and I mean, same kind of been said before by Kabib, who's dominant, you know, that's the same stuff. No, I think it's not a big thing. First of all, you sign for a 15-minute fight. You train for a 15-minute fight, so that's what you do.

And if a knockout or a decision or a submission or a TKO comes, it comes. Everybody wants to win fights before the final bell, but maybe the opponent is good, or maybe you can't stop some guys. and yeah again there's always something that people can pick up and say oh he's not finishing fights

or for instance now i have a very talented kid in my in my gym chamille nica i try to get him signed with every organization i'm not a manager but i push him always the kid is nine and no but he didn't finish people but the kid is fought the russian top guys only in russia when he was 19 and 20 years young so of course you don't but he dominates every every fighter You know, and then they said, but they don't have finishes. Okay, so next time when you sign a fighter, don't sign them for three rounds and five minutes, but sign them for finishes, you know?

There are some fighters in the UFC who finish fights, but they look horrible. They're finished, but they got finished also. But these people, they don't finish fights, but they don't get finished themselves, too, the durable fighter. So, you know what I mean? Look, there's always something to be said. You know, I see people in the UFC that win fights,

and I think to myself, if I see them in the training room, what the hell is going on? But then when they fight in the cages, it's great, and people love it, especially when they start throwing spinning kicks and jumping stuff. People like it. People don't like a simple jab or a good takedown. They don't like that. They want to see jumping stuff, spinning stuff and everything. So, you know what? At the end of the day, he did what he had to do against a very dominant champion, Tyron Woodley, with a good camp, good people around him, and he dominates. So if people don't like it or people say he has to finish more fights, then step up. up and do it yourself, right?

Fair enough. Last thing about this, and we appreciate your time, Henry. You know, you've been around the game, as I mentioned, in a very long time. You've been with a lot of really successful fighters. You have a fighting background yourself. And, you know, you're around a lot of top guys all the time. Nevertheless, it does feel like this win by Camaro is really special. I wonder what it means not just for you, but for the gym, for the guys he's around. This one feels, it feels for me on the outside looking in, for whatever that is worth.

it feels a little unique. It's very nice for you, you've talked to to say that because that's another funny thing. Most of the time I get calls from people because some of our fighters are in trouble or whatever, you know. They don't forget that we have the one-fc champion

on the song. We have the Beliz champion, Michael Chandler, and now we have Kamau-Uzma. We have three champions and three different organizations, you know. Again, like I said before, 14 UFC guys, nine Bellator guys. kickboxers and we do it with three coaches and our strength of conditioning

coach Dr. Pickock. So we do it every day. It's not a factory here. People cannot, people don't go train somewhere else and come to us for a couple of weeks. They live here, they stay here and they train here. And this win from Kumau motivates the guys even more and to see that everything is possible, but it takes time. This is not something you can get in six weeks or in one month. It takes a lot of work and and and and and and and a long road you have to put a lot of miles in there and most of the guys don't even make it you know they don't even make it but he brings back that belt and he shows everybody that yeah i'm here i'm always working i'm helping you guys out and you see what i can do

so it's always a big motivation but we got three champions and and he's always of course the biggest name uh but uh yeah it's great to have great to have people like that around us And us as a trainer, too, these people are good people. You know, Kamau's a great guy. Michael Chandler is a really good guy. Ongo Zong, and then we got Robbie Lawler. We got all the guys around us that are, like, great. Nick Lance, everybody's helping each other.

So we got a good group of people, and there's many more good stuff to come for us, you know. And if it's belt or no belts, one thing they know when they fight out of our group of people is people from our group, they come to fight. game planning and everything it's all nice but we come to fight we put pressure and we come to fight so that's what we work on last question for you what did you make of the stoppage in the luller's fight

how can you stop a guy that's like relentless the toughest guy there is one of the toughest fighters how can you stop a guy like that I just can't understand that you know I know I know it's difficult because there's referees they need to make

split decisions but the guy like Robbie you need to give these guys a little more chance and again I don't know if he would have won the fight or not. He was beating Ben Ascran very bad, of course. But they didn't stop that fight when he was getting molested in the beginning of the fight. And I like that. But then give Robbie a little longer, you know.

But you can't change that anymore, you know. We keep that to ourselves. Hopefully they run it back and he gets his chance. But he looked amazing in the beginning of the fight. And another great guy, one of our team captains, you know, Robert Lolle. So he will be back for sure. Well, Henry, you guys have so much success, and I don't think if anybody was doubting it before,

it's no accident. You're a class act, and your team is just full of high achievers. Congratulations on yet another one, but I'm certainly sure it's not the last one. And thank you for your time. Okay, thank you very much, Luke. There he goes. There are Henry Hooft.

One of the best ones. Okay. With that in mind, it is time now for, oh, no, I can't do that. I have to get to this. I spoke to Ben Ascran yesterday on the phone, live from his hotel in Las Vegas, about everything that went down, including everything Dana White had to say about the Post-Fite press conference and some other things that have been floating out there since the fight, since the presser. Here's my conversation with him.

I'm here with Ben Ascran. Ben, I know you're taking some time off for me here on a Sunday. I really appreciate it. First of all, give us a health update. Your face, I got to say, giving everything to happen, and not too bad. Yeah, I'm great, man. I'm ugly already, so ain't no big deal. I got a few stitches, got a few swollen eyes.

But, you know, I got, I got put in about as bad a position as you can be put against one of the hardest hitters in the division. And he got the fucking tee off on me pretty much at will. And, you know, I showed no quit. And I think that should have been the story of the night, more than anything else. Like, I dealt with a lot of adversity there. Most guys, 98% of division covers up and takes their assholes. There was no quitting me.

I just kept fighting. I eventually got my arm free. I got back to my base. I got a guard. I got up. I got the takedown. I got the chokeout. I feel like that should have been the story of the night more than anything.

I feel like the ending, and Dane is whining about the ending kind of overshadowed. What I thought was not an ideal performance to me, but definitely a gritty performance that showed a lot of heart. So I want to get to the ending, obviously, in just a second. But let's talk about the fight itself for just a moment, if we can. You know what occurred to me? I mean, I guess I kind of, I guess I already knew it, right? We all knew it. But Robbie Lawler appears to be quite strong.

Now, you've gone up against a lot of strong athletes. How strong is he? Normally strong. I mean, I went with a lot of, I wrestled with obviously hundreds, thousands of people. And, you know, I shoot in and I drag and I kind of almost take his back. I didn't have a good grip right up there in the bat, right up to bat. I mean, within five seconds, I think I was kind of on his back almost. And he pops his hand out.

I'm kind of around his neck and opposite arm. And, man, the speed he got me up and down with, like, I have, I have only felt a few people that powerful. I have felt the few people that powerful, but not a lot, right? I mean, I was up and down fast, and I was in a bad position right off the bat. It sucked. And like I said, I just had to keep fighting through it. So the gift wrap that he had, where he had the risk control that allowed him to sort of be in position. And when that was happening, what were you telling yourself?

What I was trying to do is with my free hand, I was trying to find his hand so he could stop punching me. But I wasn't able to find it. So as I'm trying to do that, I'm also trying to turn over and free my arm. And then I eventually do after taking a handful of shots, which again is not ideal, but sometimes that's what happens. Now, you obviously got back to your feet and you got on top at a bare minimum. Maybe the stoppage was a little bit controversial, but it was a nice showing. on some level you have to be kind of happy with this right there's controversy at the end look look the more i watched this finish and i've watched a handful of times today the less

controversial i think it is no no i don't i don't mean that hold on i don't mean that i mean the resilience you showed like i watched your other fights you just run over everybody absolutely i mean like i said you put 98% of people in that position where they got that where they got slammed on their dome and they got their wrist trap and robbie luller's bashing them in the face most of them are they're just going to do this number and cover up you know and just call it all today and that that just wasn't in the cards for me that wasn't what that wasn't how it's going down and I said to keep fighting all right so let's get to the finish because it's obviously a hot topic it's on your mind you said you've been watching it more and more as you watch it more and more what do you see

I see I don't know if you but I'm holding my phone obviously but his hand is all the way up on my head you know and the thing that for me that's a dead giveaway is when it drops it's a first of all at the free fall speed. And then it just like hits the mat and it almost like bounces off the mat, his hand, you know? And it's like that is not a conscious move. It's not a movement you make when you're conscious. And you know, why I think he came back to life is I guess there was a lot of shit going on, right? And I was semi-distracted by everything going on.

I was trying to, you know, lock in my position. I was kind of trying to pay attention to her. I was kind of trying to see what Robbie's arm was doing. I was trying to take in the whole scene, you know? and I loosen up. As her comes at me, I loosened up a little bit. As you know with a blood choke, because that's what this was. All you need is a little bit and boom, you pop right back.

But the bottom line is his hand falls down, hits the mat. And it's like, dude, that was a limp arm. You were unconscious. Whether you like it or not, whether you remember it or not, you were unconscious for a slight period of time. And that's all that needs to happen in an MMA fight. Now, talk me through it from the grappling side. It looked like he was trying to reach the far hand on the back of your head.

the one that ultimately dropped. When he initially put it on top, he was doing that to what, to come out and pop his head out, and that's when you grabbed it? Yeah, so I think he thought I didn't have as good of a grip as I did, but I was all the way underneath this chin

and I crushed watermelons. You're not getting me, you're not going to get me. I've seen the video. Yeah, you're not getting me off from that. I mean, if we want to add on to it, the fact is he was unconscious, even if it was for a split second. You don't need to be unconscious more than a split second.

But I had a minute 40 left. I'm underneath his chin and there's no way out for them. I mean, what is everyone thinks going to happen there? It's just over. Literally, 100 out of 100 times. We go back to that position,

the fight's going to be over. Okay, so let's talk about where the grip was. Now, anybody who's seen the video, I'll share it on Twitter, where you have not one, two watermelons, I think, at one point, and you've smashed them both. Right, right.

So you were there. You're saying it was like Carlos Newton, Pat Militich, it was under the, on the carotet or was it on the jaw? No, I felt like it was on the crew. I'm a neck right now. On the karate. I thought it was on the far side of the neck.

And I felt like, you know, I've been working. I actually got Mark Lehman. I'm switching my video here, so you can see. I started working with Mark Lehman. That's who that was at your corner. Yes, he lives really close to me in Wisconsin. And I always heard he was like a grappling genius. So I said, you know, let me go see if I can pick something up for this guy.

So we've been working on a lot of different grips and just like nuances. of the chokes because I've always said I can squeeze harder than anybody. The fact that I'm not choking more people out is kind of ridiculous. I need to be able to finish people. And so if you look when I get here and here, I'm like up really high on this. I mean, my hands are up really high to the point where there's really no way he's going to be able to go up and get the hands off of his neck. And like I said, I'm under his chin.

Obviously, if he's got a bald, skinny little head, if I'm not under his chin, I'm popping off that sucker in a second. say? Yes. So, okay, but from there, like, were your hips driving into it? I'm just pulling up on it like this number right here. Okay, but what I'm saying is to what extent is that a hip, also a hip-driven choke? I don't need my hips, Luke. I squeeze stronger than anyone you know. There we go. There's the picture. Yeah, I lost you for a second. Sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're good. There we are. Just used to go up a little bit.

No, I would just pull in here. That's, and that's frankly, that's all. all I need. Okay. So what did you make of two different comments? One, Lawler, first of all, I have to say, I know he's going to disagree, but I don't know if you heard it. He could have made it a big deal, and he's really not making it a big deal. There must be some relief on your portal for that.

Yeah. I mean, Robbie's a pro. I think, you know, I talked to him backstage. It didn't seem like a big deal. And, you know, I guess the other thing that I would add on to this is, you know, he said his ear was covered, but if you watch the video. the ear is clearly not covered on the far side. And Herb says three times, are you okay?

Are you okay, okay? And there was no response for them. And everyone knows the referee comes backstage and says, hey, guys, you know, if I ask you and you don't do anything, I'm going to stop the fight. So I think that's the other thing to add in there. That's an obvious to me. But yeah, Robbie, Robbie was fine with it.

And then, yeah, I'm sure you're going to ask about Dana. I'm going to ask about Dana one second. When you say the far side, you mean the ear that was not on your body, ear that was on your arm. Not the half the ears is open. What about the idea that he gave a thumbs up? I saw like that video.

And I, you know, I don't know what's going on there. But obviously, I said, I think I did loosen. What her came at me the first time I loosened a little bit. Who knows, maybe that was enough to let a little blood back in where he woke back up. And you did jihitsu. Luke, you've been choked. I've been choked out. Man, sometimes you get choked out and you wake back up and you don't feel like anything

happened. You know that. Yeah. especially with the blood chokes, obviously, as you indicated before, and it can really depend on the squeeze. It's a weird situation, I think. All right, so let's talk about it. Dana was saying he agreed that it was a bad stoppage

and that they want to run it back. Since you talked about it at the presser, have you talked to him or anyone else at UFC staff? Oh, Dana, well, I talked to Hunter Campbell. We'll meet up with him in London. I am going to London. Ali Abdellaziz just called me out for fighting Marty, even though they put Kobe versus Marty.

That literally happened 10 minutes ago on Twitter. So I'm trying to get the bottom of that because I thought that other fight was already announced. Yeah, you know you're going to check your Twitter. Yes, I didn't know he did that. Yeah, weird, right? That was literally like two minutes before we popped on this call. So I'm going to try to figure out what that's all about because I thought they made Marty v. Colby. Yeah, I mean, Dana's disdain for me is like so clear and evident.

And it's so hilarious because he keeps saying, no, I like you, Ben. I don't dislike you. But then like really every action, every body language tells a totally different story that that he is like somehow repulsed by me. He hasn't liked me forever. He didn't like me in 2013 when they refused to sign me. He doesn't like me now. I have offered to sit down with the guy multiple times and be reasonable like two adults should do. He's not taking me up one time.

I genuinely don't know what his problem with me is. So wait a second. He said that I remember when you were in New York, you came back there. I was there when you did the scrum and the whole bit and that you wanted to meet. with him. He says he never even heard you wanted to meet. I grabbed him by the neck. I said, Dana, let's sit down and talk.

And he said, why? I said, because I want to straighten things out. He says, you're here, aren't you? Amy, come here. Come here. My wife's right over here. He doesn't use to be grabbed

by the neck. He brushed me off. I've also texted him. The man clearly doesn't want to sit down and have a conversation with me. I actually texted one of the other high ups at the UFC today and said like, listen, I'm not asking for more money. I'm not, I'm asking to sit down and have a conversation for 30 minutes. That shouldn't be too much to have. That's something that a reasonable person is to sit down and have with me.

All right, but at this point, what are you really hoping to accomplish? I mean, okay, you got the luller fight, right? Are they going to keep giving you bad fights? They get on the same page. What's your freaking problem with me? What is your problem? That's what I want to know. What's your problem?

What is your guess? To this point, I mean, I had other thoughts like, you know, about what happened in 2013. Right now, I don't know. I think he just doesn't like me. Like, there's just, you know, there's just some people, Luke, that you probably see and they just rub you the wrong way. And there's just something about me that rubs him the wrong way. But, you know, sometimes you have those situations. And, you know, I love when me and someone else are working together, hey, let's sit down and talk it out.

I mean, I've had so many people that they thought something was wrong. We sit down and we talk it out. Hey, we're all good, man. there was miscommunication. There was something that wasn't vibing, and now we're good. And that's, you know, I mean, that's like the minimum that should be happening is sitting down and having a 30-minute conversation. It's so obvious.

It's so easy. It takes no money. It takes no effort. I've made multiple offers. The fact that it's not happening is just, like, perplexing me. I'll say this. You saw Colby. Colby got one just by running up on Dana at the blackjack table.

They did, in fact, both confirmed that they talked for a few minutes afterwards. Are you, because you're trying to handle this like a pro. Like you want to be, hey, let's have a formal meeting. That was amateur. Okay, it may have an amateur, but it worked. Well, you have a good point there. So, you know, I went through other channels. I tried talking to some other high ups and said, hey, why, why is Dana,

why will Dana not sit down with me? Why is he literally refusing to do so? I mean, literally, I didn't hear people from the guy for the fight last night. I didn't see here one word. I didn't get text, nothing. I mean, and literally that's how it's been since I signed with UFC. In November, I haven't heard anything. I've heard nothing from the guy.

All right. So let's talk about this Ali Abdel Aziz's tweet. Ben Askeran versus Camaroon. Say again? You just saw that tweet. Yeah, I just saw that tweet. He tagged you in it. And what do you make of that?

I have no idea. I mean, I literally got it two minutes before I got on this phone call. So I don't know what to make of it. Obviously, you know, I thought Colby and Marty was announced last night, which, you know, hey, listen. If Colby gets screwed again, I got an issue with that. be the gibrony. You know, and this was like, you know, this was a path that I hadn't even gone down because I didn't really see a scenario where Tyrone lost to Marty.

So I hadn't even started thinking this way. And so, you know, now that he's calling me out, I'll probably have to talk to Tyron a little bit and see where we go from there. Would you be, like, how does? I called him out on Twitter today. We got some good back and forth going. And I already have my place. too that.

You know, I got banned. And that's the thing, like you said, with me in the wealthy division, I got so many great options on my plate. That's why you don't want to run it back, right? It's because there's so many different variables that are positive to move forward. And what about Robbie in the first place? I didn't want, I first, literally the first phone call

I had with Hunter Campbell, who's high up at the UFC. He's an illegal counsel. He says, how about Robbie? I said, well, I follow these other guys that don't like. And he said, how about Robbie? I said, okay, okay, let's go. I'm not here to be a little whiner about who I'm fighting.

That's who you want me to fight. We're fighting. Boom. Done. You're doing our negotiations, nothing. Let's go. Now I fought him. Now I got all these other people on my list.

Let me go start taking people off my list. So let's go through these role very quickly. To what extent you hadn't given any thought. I get it. But he did lose. And he made an argument, Tyron, did about why he should get a rematch, not based on the performance, which he acknowledged up front, but that the resume.

Maybe that works. Maybe it doesn't. But has his loss changed your perception about what title opportunities are available to you this year? Well, like I said, you know what? I haven't talked to Tyra. We texted a little bit today. I haven't really talked to him about those possibilities because I wasn't really even thinking about them. Man, really, I just kind of enjoyed my day.

I woke up, hung out my wife and my family. We actually went to the PI, the little hot tub, cold tub, met another friend for lunch, came back, took a nap, and we're going to go to dinner. So, I mean, I'm trying to have a relaxing Sunday. and all this crazy stuff's happening. All right. And about Darren Till, what do you make of him calling you? By the way, I didn't realize the Brits call us Muppets or something?

Listen, he uses all these, I think it's like English insults that I don't really fully understand. Whatever, we're going to fight in a cage. That's all I want. And you would take a title fight if the UFC offered it and Tyrone was okay with it, right? Yeah, I would consult Tyrone first, but as long as he kind of gave his blessing. Yeah, of course. All right. Have you given up on an opportunity with Dana? Are you moving on from it? No, I mean, listen, am I going to be depressed if it doesn't happen? The answer is no, I'll move out of my life.

But do I think that's probably the best course of action for everyone involved? Yeah, it is. Listen, you know, there was multiple polls out. UFC 235 was a really big card. There was many different polls that showed the fight people what were most excited for was me. I'm going to be a big star in this company. And I don't see a good reason why Dan and I shouldn't get on the same page. It doesn't make sense. It just doesn't make sense. I have all the capabilities of being a big star. I've proven that already.

Let's just get on the same page. We don't have to stop making this. Don't have to keep making this really difficult by each other. All right. Before you go, I know you've got time to, or you have to do with your time. You're going to fly to London. Prediction for that Mazvedol and Tillmate event.

I think it's a good fight. I think Mosvedo has the ability to beat Darren Till, but the best version of George Mosbyal doesn't always show up. The best version of George Mosvedal shows up, I think he's got a decent chance of winning. But I think it's probably more likely that Darren Till wins. All right, Ben, you've had a crazy week. I've seen your numbers. They've exploded on even for MMA fighting. They've been crazy.

Tell me, tell Dana that I'm going to be a big star. I don't think he likes me too much either. I'm no help to you there. Who does he like? Brett Okamoto. I'll talk to Brett. Yeah, you got to get him with Brett. All right, Ben.

Look, enjoy your Sunday. Congratulations on your win. And thank you for your time. Thanks. See ya. Yeah. Brett's a nice guy. People like him.

Me, a little less so. All right. It's time now for the sound off. Let's go here to my man. There he is. Let me think of something good here. can't think of much. I don't know. You know what it is. He's the Ropa to my Villeja. All that stuff. What's up, buddy? How are you? Day's and Gors here. Let me make a note here

before we continue. I have to apologize to Dominic Cruz. Dominic Cruz and I spoke yesterday on the phone, or excuse me, on, well, we spoke yesterday. I did an interview with him, but we had technical difficulties, and I was not able to use the interview. So that's not his fault. That's mine. so I'm going to make sure we, if he doesn't see this, I'm going to make sure that we tell him in person, or I'll make sure we talk to him. But Dominic, that is my fault. I apologize for that.

I apologize for wasting your time. He had really interesting things to say, and I'm sorry I couldn't bring it to the audience. So that one's on me. I owe him a big one, and I intend to make sure I can make it up to him. All right. With that out of the way, sir,

how was your weekend, by the way? It was good. Full of M.A. Great card. Yeah, you know what? I'm not going to say it didn't deliver. Relative to crazy expectations, it fell a little bit short, but it was good.

Yeah, what I liked about this card, this card is that in many other cards, like, you know, the prelims started, and you can kind of just, you know, wonder off a little bit and just have it on and tune out. But in this one, right from the start, it was like, okay, this is an interesting fight, Diego Sanchez-Mikigal, sign me up.

Zabee, Jeremy Stevens, sign me up. Like, every single fight, you're like, okay, I got to tune in and focus on this, which is what you want as an MA fan, right? Yeah, certainly is. All right, let's get this going. All right, so I had a different order here, but I'm going to take it a different route.

We're going to start with the Robbie Lawler, because I feel like that's probably the Asker and Lawler finished, probably the biggest, one of the biggest talking points. Yeah, certainly is. And I have a few things to say about that. All right, right. Let's do that first.

Hey, guys, Sebastian from Indiana. I really want to talk about the Ben Asker and Robbie Lawler fight and the stoppage. It did kind of look like he was out real time, but you can clearly see in footage now that everything is out of herb lifting his

hand and Robbie giving the thumbs up. You can also tell clearly that Ben's forearm isn't under Robbie's neck. That's a blood choke that's going on there. I mean, Robbie clearly gives the thumb up, and you just know that he's trying to push blood back to his brain. That was a blood choke. The arteries were cut off. Can you please talk to us about this and maybe explain to people the difference?

And, yeah, man, what do you think about everything that's happened in there? Thank you. So the truth is that nobody knows if it's a blood choke or not, right? Like sometimes you get just a tiny little bit of space enough for you to be all right. Only Robbie knows that, you know, for the most part. Yeah, I mean, even Ben Asker and, you know, you can get a choke. Sometimes you feel like you're effective, you have an effective choke, but you don't. But, you know, I don't know, it was a weird stoppage.

What I would say is, you know, with my years of training Jitsu, the first tournament I ever competed in, I got choked out unconscious. I had like three weeks of experience in jiu-jitsu. I had wrestled two years prior, so I'm like, yeah, I'm sure I'll be fine. Shot for a double, like in the first 15 seconds and then got put to sleep. True story. When I was in the choke, the choke was 100% of blood choke clean. I think I could even breathe. That's how clean it was.

And I just started getting tingling sensation on my fingertips and on my feet. And it started escalating to my hands and my arms. And it was kind of just creeping up to my body. And then at one point, I was still conscious, but I was. I tried to tap, but I couldn't even use my hands to tap because they were just not responsive. Like, it was just my brain that was still on. And then, you know, I got the tunnel vision, went out, and I could hear everything, but I just couldn't see anything. So I was still kind of there.

And I woke up and I knew exactly what happened. I knew I was choked out unconscious. But, yeah, so with that being said, like, you know, I don't know, the arm goes down. Sure, you know, he puts the hands up. but like it could be on that sweet spot where he was still awake and he was still going out. Who knows? But, you know, where do you stand on that? Again, I don't know.

Nobody, people are going to say they know, oh, we know, we know. Nobody really knows. Here's what I think I know. Here's what I believe. Here's what I believe the evidence shows. I think he was quite conscious. I don't think. I disagree with Ben.

I know why Ben believes that. By the way, if you've never seen that video of Ben squeezing not one but two watermelons and popping them against his chest, he is abnormally strong in that position. So he's telling the truth there. And I don't know that he's wrong. But my, why would you keep the hand over the head of Ascran? When you, the reason why Lawler reached for it to begin with is so you can get it and then pop your own head out by controlling his and then using that as a lever to free yours. Once he goes to Bulldog choke, that, that opportunity is no longer there.

Leaving it up there makes no sense. So it had to come down at some point. Going limp can be strategic. I mentioned this before. If someone's put a choke on you, you know this, Danny. And you can tell it's a little bit off. and you can feel them squeezing, what are you going to do? You're just going to wait.

You're going to wait. And there can be ways to do that. But here's the thing. How unscientific is it to take someone's arm and go, you know, and you're trying to see how it's like it's 30% lifelike. Like no one really knows. It's really a crude test. And poor Herb Dean, at first I thought it was a really bad stoppage.

And I still don't think it was a good one. But here is my point about this. you got Ascran bulldogging. And this is not like Carlos Newton and Pat Militich, where he was completely under the chin. He was about to pop Pat Militich's head off like a champagne cork. You have Lawler looking down. He can't look at the referee.

You look at the one I have showed with Big John and Holly. Dude, he can see her entire body and the whole thing. And then she's making these unnatural reactions. You know what I mean? That's a great way to assess what's happening there. and he made a decisive, important call. Herb Dean was not in a position to make a decisive call, but we're asking them to make decisive calls.

And then we don't empower them really to fix it with any kind of mechanism if something goes wrong. And so for Bob Bennett to so glibly say, I mean, I was so shocked, he said that. This is a no-brainer. I was like, dude, this is why fighters are angry all the time. And when they make money, they don't want to fight anymore. Because they get treated like cattle.

They have no rights They have no way of fighting back They have no mechanism To protect their interests And so I was really I was actually sickened By what he had to say Yeah and poor Herb Dean

He's been catching a lot of heat But like dude Even the commentators Like on the live look Everybody thought he was out I go he went up Right And then when you see the replay

When you see the slow mo When you see the different angles Then you go You know it was probably a bad call Right But like at the moment He looked out You know

So you can't really blame Herb Dean, could he have done some things better? Yes. Could he have maybe taken more time? Yes. But again, you're asking him to make these decisions on what a second, two seconds. Dude, every other sport, even soccer now has VAR. Yes.

And in football, American football, if the referees of the umpires make a bad call, depending on the circumstance, it gets automatically reviewed. The coach can throw a challenge flag. The AAF now has what they call the Sky referee. So, for example, in the NFC championship game... I'm a pull off a Kanye right here. let you finish, but... Hold on. I'll make it fast. I'll make it fast. I got... Well, there's a question about that, about instant replay. So I don't know if...

Do you want to save your thoughts for that? I'll just say one thing. It's not about instant replay. In the NFC championship game, the Saints receiver got hit and there was no flag. In the AAF, this new smaller football league, they have a way to fix that. The point being is this, dude, referees make bad calls. It's inevitable, right? Give them an opportunity to do something about it. And what that is, we can all figure out, but just saying, well, fights over. Fuck it. It's like, this is not how this is supposed to go. Put Herb Dean in the position to make the best choices possible,

and they don't do that. Yeah. Yeah, you want to empower referees, right? You want to give them, you know, options, things that they could use to make their job a lot easier. All right, well, let's talk about what follows next from that fight. Luke, Mike, from New York. So for me, look, I want to talk about Ben Asker and Robbie Waller,

and I can understand why I think it was. an early stoppage. I don't. I don't think Robbie was intelligently defending. But that doesn't really have to do with my question. The main reason about my question is, you know, Dana White was saying how he wants, you know, Robbie Lawler and Ben Asker, run that back. Whether you think it was early or not, I think that is absolutely, you know, completely

dumb. And I'll tell you why. And I kind of want to hear your opinion on this as well. Robbie Waller, you know, is kind of at the end of his career. It doesn't really talk shit, right? Ben Asker has two or three years to be a really good draw. and whether you know the result is with you know with question next time he gets in the cage he's one and oh in the UFC right and then we're going to move forward and he showed hard

um i want ben asked to fight someone that's going to talk shit with him as well as you know continue to move above the ranks because he can be you know such he does he and social media numbers are great so what do you about bringing that fight back because i know you thought the early if you still agree with me that maybe you run the fight back might not be the best idea let me know been asking Robbie law there too Well, again, fight night, I thought it was a bad stoppage. Now I think it's a bad stoppage, but one that's under, the language we use is not right. It was good, it was bad.

I think it's a different way we need to frame it. I think we need to frame it as justifiable, understandable. Really, that's a better way to look at it. And then some stoppages will be good and some will be bad. But using that as the sole binary by which to judge, I think, is unhelpful. I'm torn, man. If Robbie really wants it, I think it's the right thing to do. But if he's kind of okay with moving on and I agree with the caller, dude, Ben, everyone talked S on the MMA beat back when it was still me, Ariel, and Chuck and everybody else.

And I think it was me and Chuck or me and Ariel, one of us, one pair of us were both like, dude, could you imagine Ben Ascran the ultimate heel? Although he turns out to be a hero in the company, but going up against St. Pierre and everyone was like, this is a ludicrous idea. he has no star potential. I'm like, oh, that is totally wrong. Dude, look at him now. He is out there rocketing. He is right. If he keeps going,

he is going to be a big star in the company. He has to keep winning, of course, blah, blah, blah. If you're asking me, are there more compelling fights for him to make that can make a lot of money and would be amazing fun? Yeah, there are.

It's not the Loller fight. So I don't really know what the right answer is. Same here. And also, I feel like by pitting him, this caller's right, by pitting him up against Loller, you're not maximizing Ben's star potential

or, you know, the attributes that Ben brings which, sure, you know, fight-wise, he's a fantastic wrestler. But outside of it, you know, he's also a fantastic trash talker. And, you know, it's hard for him. I mean, he was picking fights with everybody but Robbie. Like, right?

The whole trash talk was about, you know, Kamara Usman, Colby, everybody else but Robbie. So I'd like to see him put in that kind of situation where, you know, he's able to do that. So moving on, wouldn't be bad. I also feel like Robbie Laller didn't really take an L, although

officially on his record, you know, it counts as an LL, but dude, Robbie Lollah looked amazing. He looked, he's the best he's ever looked in a bit. This is why we need some kind of scenario I was thinking about, like, what could you do? How about a scenario where if both competitors agree, you either start in neutral position or you start

in some kind of, he could start with a lock around the waist or something? There are ways to figure this out if we take the idea seriously that we have to not allow a questionable call to dictate the outcome. Like, why do we have to do that? You know, again, Herb is being asked to make, like, the most difficult choice imaginable,

and maybe he's not going to get it right. Literally, referees in every sport get it wrong, but most sports find ways to fix that. If you had replayed that or done something else in that fight, again, what that is, we can debate, you wouldn't even have to have this question. You could just move on to the next thing. Yeah. So to answer that, I wouldn't, I would have liked for him to get another match. but I wouldn't mind revisiting that fight maybe like a fight or two down the line.

That'd be, that'd be fun. That'd be an interesting rebatch. Yeah, if they both keep winning, that'd be a good one. Yeah, and then you build that up. Like, yo, what happened? Who really won? You know, what's going on? All right.

Well, I feel like this is all leading up to that instant replay question. So let's skip these others and let's go straight to that. I might end this early because it's a building. This is Aubrey from Richmond, Virginia. Hey, RBA. About the use of instant replay in MMA. it's really maddening as a fan that the use of instant replay is only used

in the UFC for fight ending sequences to what extent I guess I'm curious to know to what extent can the use of instant replay be used and fight ending sequences that don't end properly case in point the Robbie Lawler

been asking fight on Saturday at that particular point in which the fight had been stopped, can instant usage have been used to, I guess, more or less judge whether or not Robbie Lawler was actually out or not? And if he was clearly not out, can the fight have been restarted from that point? Okay, I got the answer to this. So appreciate Aubrey from RVA,

one of America's truly great cities. So here's with the old regulation saying most states are like this. Instant replay can be used at the conclusion of a contest or exhibition stopped immediately due to an injury or an unarmed combatant pursuant to NAC 467.7.18. They have since amended their bylaws, Danny. So here's how it works now. The referee may at any time during a contest or exhibition call a timeout to consult with officials of the commission or to view replay footage.

So the issue is not whether he could have viewed the footage, but what the footage empowers him to say. I don't think it would ever empower him to either reverse the call or to have it restart in some capacity. Once you use instant replay, the fight is over. Yes. So, yes, he could have used instant replay, I suppose, to get a second look or to, I don't know. I'm not exactly sure into what capacity viewing this would have helped. But this is my point. He doesn't have the tools to go over a decision.

Now, maybe he doesn't regret the decision, but let's say that he did. He has no opportunity to fix anything. And there's going to be a scenario where the referee clearly gets it wrong. They know they're going to get it wrong, and they have to sort of live with it. Yeah.

Dude, MMA is full of dumb rules. This is one of them. Like, how on earth, like, if you call instant replay, the replay is to figure out what decision you're going to make on the fight as far as, like, how it ends, you know, DQ, or you're going to give a win to, etc. But why can we just,

set up the replay where you can go back and look and see, okay, well, he clearly wasn't out, maybe start him from a similar position and let the fight go on. I mean, I can understand the claim where, like, you know, oh, we, like, you know, you're stopping the action, we're taking breaks, but, like, how about when there's an eye poke or a groin shot? We're still stopping the action, giving the fight or five minutes to recoup and then starting the fight again, you know, or why can we just do that? Right, I don't know.

I don't know. They want to limit what referees can do. And by the way, didn't Herb Dean or who was refereeing the main event? It was Herb, right? I believe so, yeah. And then Herb asked somebody if they'd seen the replay on the Smith Jones knee. And I could hear him being like, did you see it? And in that case, it was helpful.

It was like, well, here was a thing, it was fine. Or whatever, it was illegal, but he's okay or blah, blah, blah. They were able to use it in that kind of a way to avoid the worst case scenario. Okay, fine. Or they took two points or whatever. But was it that fight? I can't remember. In any event, yes.

Yeah, it took two points. In any event, but these guys just have a real limited tool belt about what they can do. So we just have to end up living with these deeply unsatisfying results. And then, no brainer. It's like, oh, my God. I can't believe this person has a job. All right, next.

All right, let's talk about the main event winner. All right, lad. This is Keith from Scotland, Five Carcote. So I just wanted to quickly talk about John Jones. It was great to get back to normal regime champion. contender, see some normal seat in the division. But, when the contenders are guys like Santos, Smith, Johnny Walker, Rays,

I feel like when you've got a talent like John Jones, this might be wasting him a bit. Now, Ray's might be a top prospect, and the one that Dana wants, Santos, that would be an exciting fight, but we know where this is ending up. I feel like if we're going to use John Jones, we should really get some world-class competition in there.

Get Rock Holder Romero up. Jones to heavyweight. I guess my question is just is really that much interest seeing Jones against a guy like Santos no matter how exciting he is all right thanks well P.S. Please unblock me

at Keith Farrell and Twitter. Thanks. I'll send you that that handle that. Anytime I hear that accent, you may not get this. Anytime I hear this accent, I always think, head, pants, no! Do you know that from the movie?

No. So I married an axe murderer? So here's my sense of things. No, Danny, does anybody really think that John Jones versus Tiago Santos is somehow more interesting than John versus, you know, Kane before losing to Francis or Stipe or DC at heavyweight. Nobody believes that. Nobody would argue that. Not the point. The point is the champion has the title. If you're going to have the title, you need to defend it against the most worthy contenders. They are entitled to an

opportunity at least to get it. If he wants to remain a light heavyweight, then these are the directions we go. Tiago Santos is out there just putting the boots to these people. Yeah. He deserves a shot. Let's see it. That's it. Simple as that. Dude, I'm off for it. I actually like this better than all the super fights and making everything the biggest fight possible in champ champ and all this. Dude, let's just get champions defending their belts.

No matter if the contenders world class or not, no matter where you think the contenders doesn't have a chance, let's just see these fights. Like, let's just, you know, get the ball rolling. You know, I feel like all these championships, you know, are stuck because people just want to do super fights. I'm down for Jones v. Santos.

You know, completely fine with that. Love it. Again, I don't want to, you know, yes, things. Does that, look, put some other exciting fights on the card that are a little bit, you know, more glamorous, a little sexier. Let's move on. It's good. Yeah, for sure. So there was a lot of referee controversy. So let's address what happened in the comming event. Okay.

Hey, Luke and Danny. My name's Kenny, and I'm calling from Flushing Queens. Queens. Now I like Mark Goddard a lot, and I think he's a great ref, but his decision to separate Uzman and Woodley was questioned. on several occasions. And I thought his, it's a fight, Kamaro comment was pretty rude and ignorant. You know,

it's weird because he's usually really good about being assertive but respectful. So I was just wondering, what do you make of his decisions during that fight? And a quick second question, is GSP kicking himself now

for not fighting Woodley? And how do you think a fight between them would have gone now that we've seen Uzman's performance? I know hindsight's 20-20, but, you know, it's fun to talk about hypotheticals.

All right, thanks, guys. GSP wanted that big money. That's what he wanted. So, you know, I'm not saying you couldn't make big money against Tyrant, but, you know, he's talking about Habib at his peak of popularity. That's what I wanted that for. Why don't you go first on this one? Well,

Because you got all wrapped up in the Twitter beef. I got wrapped up in this Twitter beef with John Agne, Enik, and Mark Gutter. Pro tip, Danny. Never tweet. I do it all the time. Never tweet. Yeah, yeah. I'm slowly learning.

But look, I think Mark Godter is one of the best referees out there. But I did, when he said the comment of Kamaro, this is a fight. I was like, that did kind of rub me the wrong way because the man was fighting. It might not be exciting, but he's working. Like, even if it's not much, like, remember when they were just on over under tied up and he's just punching the body? Like, you're not going to knock anybody out with that. But the man's still working like nonstop, whether it's stomping the foot, whatever it is, the man, the man is active. So, yeah, I thought, I thought Usman was active from start to finish.

And that was one of the reasons why he was so successful against Tyron Woodley. And yeah, I was in complete disagreement with the break of action. Same thing with, especially because it's a title fight. Remember the Sehudo, Demetre Johnson fight? Like when Sehudo was just dominant on top and people were claiming, oh, they should get more stand-up. Like, he's not doing much. Dude, he's holding him down. You know, this is a world-class fight.

Like, every single little inch matters. I think Margarter is a great referee, but, you know, I didn't agree with his calls of, you know, halting. you know, resuming the action. All right, so look, these referees take a beating on social media. So if Mark is watching this, like, you know, Mark, Danny and I, I think the world of your abilities. Yes, he's amazing. I would trust him to be a referee in the most important contest.

I also, however, don't understand what he meant by that. Like, it's a fight. I'm like, did you see his totals? I mean, they're absurd. Okay, so I don't know exactly what that is. I will say this, Danny. This is where I differ from most people. Yeah.

You know, you have some of these purists, and I think I would classify Joe Rogan as one. I could be wrong about that, but it's my hunch where he's like, I think all stand-ups should be earned. Well, I don't exactly want unearned stand-ups, but I don't think our sense of earned is the same thing. There are absolutely scenarios where the person on top and bottom can both be stalling in their own way. It happens all the time, and there can be cases where the guy on bottom can be stall. and the person on top is willing to let them stall. There can be all kinds of scenarios like that. For example, Danny, if I'm against the fence

and you're trying to take me down and I'm digging an underhook and I'm pushing the head and I'm not really going to do much else and you're going to wrap around my legs, you're not really going to do much else and then we sit there. Some people are like, let them work. No, break them up.

I don't know why he made the decision to break them up. I will be honest. I did not have a problem with it. I think this is a sport, yes. Dude, if you watch collegiate wrestling, those donks are on their whistle constantly forcing action. And I get that you don't want to be so interruptive that you change the course of a fight.

On the other hand, if they're kind of stuck in these semi-neutral positions, and Camaro's not much of a guard passer, he did get to mount once, but he kind of found him to self there pretty quickly. He's not a heavy guard passer. Yeah. Move him along.

I don't really have an issue with it. But I realize I get I'm outside the norm on that one. No, I think there's clear instances where a guy's stalling. He's looking at a timeout, but I don't know. I really didn't get that sense with Camaro in certain situations. He was working the whole time, and that was part of his strategy,

just wearing on Tyron Woodley. Yeah, so he's a bad example. When I say Stahl, I'm talking about more what you see it is when someone goes for a takedown along the fence. Yeah. And they just kind of let each other, both know if one makes the mistake,

the whole thing blows up for them, so they kind of just hold where they are. And I've seen a lot of people who are like, why are they separating them? You know, separate those don't want to see the referee swallow the proverbial whistle in this particular case. Let them know.

It's just, it's hard to know what Mark Goddard meant by that. But, dude, understand Mark Goddard's position because I know he got bitter at John Anick about it. Dude, they roast this guy every time he doesn't make the perfect call. And Herb Dean gets roasted as well. All these guys get burned. And when they make perfect calls, they don't get any praise for it. They get nothing, dude. It's just like, yeah, that's what you're supposed to do, you know?

And I know, look, you'd be like, that's what they signed up for. I know. But their lives are difficult. And they're sensitive about it. And I get it. It's personal. And so I think it'd be helpful, Danny, if he's, He explained what he meant, but I wasn't overly bothered by it, although I granted was confusing.

Yeah. Disclaimer, Herb Dean, Mark Goddard, excellent referees. Thank you for, you know, being part of the sport. They are not the problem. They are not the problem, yes. All right, now let's discuss, let's talk about two other guys on the card on opposite ends of the spectrum, but nonetheless interesting storylines here. Okay.

Hello, Luke. Hello, Danny. My name's Tom and I'm from Liverpool. Ah, you can hear that accent. I just want to say, love the show, always tuned in. Just a couple of what next, really, for a couple of fighters who fought at the weekend. Listen to that accent. Cose Garbrandt really like him as a fighter, but on the end of three brutal knockouts.

Where does he go next? And also, Johnny Walker, what's next for him after his brutal knockouts? I think personally a fight between him and Tiago Santos would be unbelievable with the winner getting a title shot and yeah I just want to say again

love the show thanks for taking me question bye bye what an accent that is amazing I love the Scousser accent man that's amazing I played that question like four times I was a cool accent

shots to Liverpool man great place we need a translator whenever I go and I speak the King's English all right Um, let's start with Garbrandt. Boy, that was a tough one. Dude.

That was a tough one to watch. Yeah. You, you tap that one first because I got my own views on it. So I asked Dominic Cruz about it last night. He gets, his point was, and I don't want to speak for him, and again, I ruined everything, so it's my fault. But, um, his point was like, yeah, that can happen. It can happen where you get hit and you just go on autopilot, which was Garbent's explanation that they had clashed heads.

And he just went, ah, he, you know, he raged out. Um, I think he's still working through something. of those demons, man. I think he's still, I think that last loss to Dilleshaw, I think it bothered him and I think it set him back. And, you know, remember Cody was one of the guys who was contender for, what, 2017 or so for Fighter of the Year, man. He had a ridiculous year. From unranked to champion. It was just an amazing run. I still believe in that guy. But I think he's gotten inside his own head a little bit. And I don't know what the answer was for it. I thought maybe this Munoz fight would get him on the right track. If you told me that Munoz was going to win,

Dude, it's the UFC, man. You're going to have tough-ass fights in this league. Yeah. Okay. But to lose by knockout in the way that he did, man, that was utterly preventable. He's too talented. Cody Garberin is too talented for stuff like this. And so I don't know what to make of it.

If he says he just got an autopilot, that's great. But I would like to, he can make better choices. We've seen him make better choices. How is it that the guy that beat Dominic Cruz did this? It just doesn't add up. It doesn't add up. Something's wrong. And I would like to see.

I would like to see him come out the other side of this better off. What did you think? Yeah, I agree with everyone in the sense of, like, yes, he's not fighting up to his potential. We've seen better. I mean, dude, we saw him out, you know, I'll point one of the smartest fighters to ever compete in the sport in Dominic Cruz, right? Absolutely. Like, dude, that's super incredible. But then you also see the other side of the spectrum where he's going in there and just brawling, you know, completely careless behavior.

Nonetheless, fun to watch. but still not very smart for his career. I do think he's not, you know, fighting up to his potential. However, something I would like to say is that I think he did catch a little bit more heat than he should have. Because I see a lot of people tweeting like, oh, my God, like, what is he doing? This is insane. But like at the end of the day, like I was watching that fight. Dude, that fight was fun as hell.

Like, I enjoyed it, you know, and props to Cody for going out there and, you know, die by the sword, live by the sword. I disagree. I disagree. But look, no, because you get fans on. On that, for example, look at someone like Woodley, who's the complete opposite, someone who puts, maximizing your skills, maximizing your physical abilities, your fight IQ over excitement, right? And look how much hate he catches, right? Like, oh, you never take any risk. Oh, you know, this, this and that.

So what is it? Nonetheless, we came here to watch fights, and that's what we got. We got a sick fight. I do agree. He could do better. And I think he can find a better balance between excitement and, you know, managing his skills properly, you know, and still. Some are playing it safe, I guess. But, dude, he put on a fight.

That's what we came to see, right? I will grant that the consumers bitching have, they're being a little bit disingenuous to your point. On the other hand, what I would say, Danny, is if you're a championship caliber fighter, and he, by definition, is a championship caliber fighter, having just been a champion, you need to be fighting championship level ability.

And that's so far below his ability. He is too good. This is not okay for his career. It's he's too good. He's too smart. He's too talented. And we've seen him do better. And if it's one thing if you're a guy who, like,

you're lucky to be on the pay-per-view or you're just sort of a guy who's, you come and go in the UFC, dude, if you're a championship-level fighter, man, this is not okay. I'm with you 100%. Like, he could do better and he should do better, right? It's also healthier for his career. And his brain, yeah. Yeah, his brain.

What I do just, my whole point is, sure, the comments about him probably fighting smarter, completely fair, but don't roast the man for going out there and fighting. Like, you know, he put on a fight. That's what we came to see. Okay. So, yeah. So anyways, the second part about that, Johnny Walker gets in your doing the worm.

But, you know, his tear in the U.S. he's, like, heavyweight division has been incredible. I even tweeting. I even tweeting. I even tweeted. I was like, all right, this is the fight that I'm looking forward to, Danny, because I'm like, someone is finally going to push this guy. so we have to see him go long.

Then he knocks him out in like 30 seconds, and I'm like, Jesus, they can't even get this guy to the second round. So here's what he needs. Let's fast forward him to the front of this division, because he is out here just crushing these guys. I have a high respect for Misha Sarkhanov. He's out there breaking jaws with rear naked chokes. Boy, he is talented.

He is physical. He's athletic, and he's experienced as well, and Walker just blew past him. The dude is crazy athletic and not afraid to use it. let's see it against somebody a little bit more advanced on their career. Dude, I'd be down for Santos' number one contender fight. If Usdemir wins, this week or the following, whichever one he's on or forget,

I would love to see Uzdemir. Really? Yeah, Uzda versus Wals. I kind of, I know I've always said like, oh, you've got to build prospects, you got to give them time to, you know, build up their skills. But Johnny Walker just seems to be in a different track.

Like, you can't top, you know, 40-second knockouts, right? Like, I'm okay with him just getting thrust it on to the top. top real quick. I don't know. I don't know how you feel about that. I'm not opposed to that at all. And I feel like we can, you know, even if he loses, we manage us to get to the top, loses to John Jones. Dude, he's still young. He's still an exciting fighter. He can rebuild. I agree with that. Hey, we got to move this. I got to move to tweets because I got to get up to him. Okay, cool. Yeah. The Liverpool, we can't top that accent. So we'll have to call it a day. By the way, we still have tons of great questions.

You know, we need to do some kind of after hours, well, where we just answer a bunch of these. Save anything that's evergreen that we could maybe answer next week and we'll get to it. I'm sorry we getting more time. just, I have another job. I have literally more work I have to go do. So, Danny, good job as always, my friend. Really appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Athletico sucks. Ah, yes, I got the last one. All right, time now for your tweets. Let's do it. All right, here we go. Clock starts where the first tweet goes up. Let's see it, and then I will get this going on the screen. Here we go. Hit it, boys and girls. All right, Danny Segarra, Luke Thomas, M.A. fighting. Ben Ascran should fight Till Mazvedal winner or Dana White next. He should definitely not fight Dana White.

But I agree with him. I don't really understand why Dana White. Just give him 30 minutes of your time and move on. If you won't give him 30 minutes of your time, it does sound like you have. They're so unnerved by him. You can't stand to do it. But he'll stop talking about it as soon as you do. So just do it and move on.

Next. Would you, A, would you rather for UFC events? Option A. Never play face the pain again, but have the crowd woo all night long. Option B, play face the pain still, but never hear another woo. Believe it or not, I would actually rather have face the pain. not hear another woo because the woo's go on for hour on hour, whereas face the pain just lasts for five minutes or whatever it is, two minutes, and I can mute it. I'd have to end up muting the fights

to stop the woo's. So face the pain is abominable, but the woo's, they are, I mean, I just want someone to give everyone who woo's the wood shampoo, but that's not the will we live in, unfortunately. Next. I had Stevens winning first and third rounds. I was not scoring it. I thought that it was close, certainly closer than the judges had it, but you know what? I don't know. I don't know.

I wasn't judging it in real time. It's a great point. I'd have to go back and look. I apologize. Next. Was that the first time Bob Bennett or any other NAC official answered questions after an event? Hopefully this will become more common. No, he's done it before, several times before.

The problem is not that. The problem is that his answers are idiotic and disingenuous. Next. The Bulldog choke isn't very common in MMA, correct? Could a guy with Ascran Squeeze have finished from that position? Yes, the most famous Bulldog choke. There are many. Ashley Evan Smith has a Bulldog choke win,

but the most famous one probably is Carlos Newton defeating Pat Militich, a UFC 31 to become the Welterweight champion. You can see Carlos' muscles in his back, everything. just flare up as he does it. The reason why you have to really have a great squeeze there, and Ascran has an ridiculous squeeze from that position, is that, remember, you're not really controlling the rest of their body, so if there's anything wrong with your mechanics,

you're not really hipping into it, you can get lifted and slammed. There are ways out of it if it's not super tight. But if it's super tight, again, we've talked about it before. If a choke is on, you have to respect it. Next. Hey, look, if the UFC was to hypothetically end their partnership with Usada, what changes would we see in the few years following this, including both changes to the fighters themselves and the perception of PED usage? Well, it would depend what other regimen that they would decide to pick up. Would they go with VADA? Would they go with what Bellator has, which is commission plus enhanced for particular places or other fighters?

That would be a big deal. I don't know. Here's what I do think would happen. If you had less positive tests, you'd have less scandal. In every single sports league and in sports organization, including MMA, but worldwide, where they have lax regulation, and there are fewer doping scandals as a consequence, the fan base begins to tune out. I know that sounds counterintuitive, and I know I have a lot of views that seem a little bit outside the norm on this issue,

but I challenge everyone to tell me a league where that isn't true. In FIFA, it's quite true. In Belator, it's quite true. In the NFL, Major League Baseball's had some scandals, because they had something scandals. about it, the media plays a role in that one. But generally speaking, when you have less testing and less scandal as a consequence of it, the fan base, more or less, does not seem to care.

There are a couple of exceptions that prove the rule, but that's a pretty standard, well-supported, academically backed fact. Next. Are you worried like I am that Dana's answers about McGregor's next fight sounds like they might try and do the rematch straight away with Habib? I try not to read too much into it, but you could be right. I cannot say that that is wrong. You know, saying that they're very far apart with the, or not even close, I think, to making

it was McGregor versus Cowboy, and they might end up doing it. Poor Tony Ferguson. I don't know what's going to happen with him, man. I'm as dismayed by that as you guys are. I don't know what to tell you. Next. Still don't understand how Woodley was so unlawful. overwhelmed by Usman on the ground when he trains with Ascran. I understand they're different

fighters, but shouldn't all these years of dealing with Ascran's ground control and top pressure have prepared him better? It did prepare him quite well, but they have very different similar, they have very different attacks. They have very different setups, very different fields. I've said this point before, the average person you can race with Usain Bolt, you can train with Usain Bolt. It probably will make you faster if you're dieting with him and training with him and working drills and doing other things. It's going to make you faster. But at some point, And that's more measurement of absolute athletic ability. So it's not quite apples to apples.

You will get better, but you may not be prepared for Justin Gatlin. It's only going to be helpful for so much. So training with Ben Ascran is enormously helpful, but not necessarily in the specific ways that Kumaru might begin to threat. As I went back, the visible and then the invisible threats, he's got them both. That's something that Ben Ascran is much more about the visible threat. So there's enough differences there quite clearly to make a difference in the end.

It's a good question. but you always have to be careful. Training with really talented guys will never lead you astray, but it won't guarantee victory either. Yeah? What a great show. Really appreciate you guys tuning in today. As always, call us 844-866-2468 for the soundoff.

Send us your tweets using the hashtag the MMA hour for a round of tweets. Thank you to my guest, Brandon Gibson, Henry Hooft, and Ben Askran. Thank you guys for being here. And until next time, stay frosty.