MMA Fighting - #472 – Alexander Gustafsson, Clay Guida, Mickey Gall, Ralek Gracie

Episode Date: March 11, 2019

On this episode of The MMA Hour, Luke Thomas speaks to Alexander Gustafsson about getting matched up with Anthony Smith at UFC Stockholm, Jon Jones’ most recent title defense, more; Clay Guida about his upcoming bout with BJ Penn at UFC 237, the controversy surrounding Team Alpha Male, more; Ralek Gracie about making a comeback with Metamoris, the controversy surrounding the promotion, more; Mickey Gall about his loss to Diego Sanchez at UFC 235, health issues heading into the fight, and what’s next, 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. What it is? Monday, the 11th of March 2019, and this is the MMA hour right here on MMAfighting.com. My name is Luke Thomas. I'm the host of this program.

Thank you so much for joining me. I greatly appreciate it. Fun show plan for you guys today. The order's going to be a little bit strange, a little bit turned around, but here's what's going to happen. all the show elements that you know and love. We'll get to tweets with the hashtag the MMA hour.

Your calls at 844-866-2468. I have a very special Monday morning analyst today, though. But we have not three, but four guests because we have a late edition. Alexander Gustafson is going to be here to talk about his fight against Anthony Smith. We're going to have Mickey Gall. I heard something about his physical condition. It got me a little bit concerned, so I wanted to have him on the show to talk about it. Clay Guida's going to be here because he's fighting BJ Pen at UFC 237.

And Hallag Gracie, it appears he is trying to resurrect Meta Morris. Is that so? Is that even possible? We'll talk to him about that today on the show. Plus a whole lot more, sundry topics like UFC, Wichita and the like. So thank you guys so much for joining me. I hope you're doing well. It is, in fact, Monday. And, yeah.

Did you like the fights over the weekend? They were okay. They were okay. They weren't bad. My ESPN Plus feed kind of died on the vine. And people were like, oh, because they died on my phone. I have the Google Pixel 2. And then it died on my, I have a new Samsung TV.

It's not even a year old. And it's got, you know, all the, it's got apps built in. And, of course, you can add other ones. Both died. Everyone's like, oh, it's your router. Well, how could it be my router if my phone's not connected to my internet at home? So it can't be that. Or it could be that ESP.

SPN Plus, while a mostly decent service, if not outright good, still a little buggy. Still got some problems. So aside from that, though, the fights were fun, and it was nice to see, like, a vintage JDS get out there and get a win by, frankly, dueling with Derek Lewis. So there you go. And then this weekend, you've got Mazvedol versus Till, which should be a lot of fun. Back to ESPN Plus there as well. So we're going to see how things go.

This might be fun. So here's how it's going to go. We're going to start out with some tweets, and then we're going to get to Clay. We're going to have to break up the sound off. I didn't want to do that, but we're just kind of stuck in that position. So we'll do sound off.

Then we'll get to Hallick. Then we'll get to Mickey. And then I'll do the Monday morning analyst in the second hour of the show, and then we'll finish off with the rest of the calls. When we put it on YouTube, we'll stitch everything together. Yeah?

All right. With that in mind, let us kick off things here on the show. Let's start today with a round of tweets. All right, five minutes on the clock. Clock starts when the first tweet goes up. Let's see on the Das Green, because I have to be able to see them as well. What do we got here? Oh, no, that's the Skype machine.

There we go. All right, kick it off. Let's do it. Clock starts. There we go. What do you think would make the biggest impact to the legitimacy of MMA? One set of unified rules for the world, union for the fighters, refs having a central association that can speak on their behalf.

That'd be a big one. Or changes to the scoring system and judges. The union one would be the answer, quite frankly. The other ones would be beneficial except for the same unified rules. You want the ability for, for example, if you have a North American promotion or even a European promotion, you are largely going to be limited by what the governing, not bodies, but the states allow. So like, you can't just change the rules when you go fight in Oklahoma. That reduces the ability of a competitor to innovate on the rules,

relative to the UFC. One is not hampered by that, so you actually want to keep that around, but it would be the union. That touches so many different issues. It wouldn't solve all their problems. It might only make a small dent in some, but it'd be a big dent,

and really that's what's missing. That's what's needed next. Is JDS resurgent, or is the heavyweight division just a mess, and he's one of the few left standing? Maybe a little bit of both. I do think he has reinvented his style, or at least accommodated his style in certain ways,

although there wasn't much evidence of that on Saturday night. again, as I indicated, it was very much throwback JDS. But here's what I would say. Heavyweight more than other divisions allows for comebacks. The fighters themselves are older, which I think indicates that if you are a reasonable talent there, which I think you would all call JDS a reasonable talent being a former champion, you can have several acts over time. That's not really possible in the lightweight division.

It can be possible if you switch from like well, to middle or middle to light heavy, but you can stay at heavyweight and just kind of rotate through some of the newer faces. And if you're good enough, you can get a second and third act in this business. Next. If you were Derek Lewis, would you change up your game plan going forward? After a great run, he's had a rough stretch. He just lost a two, he lost two, the champ and a former champ. No. Derek Lewis is what? In his mid to early 30s? Like, there's changing up much is not possible at this point. You kind of is who he is. There might be some things he can do to accommodate his back pain or his unique susceptibility to it appears to body shots but no i would just stick with what got

you here it's you can't like you can't learn how to speak chinese very well in your 30s you got to learn that when you're very very young and then build that over time next do you think the daniel cornea versus brock lesnar fight will happen if it doesn't what is dc's next fight jesus man i don't know i don't know what the hell's happening with that brock's doing whatever the hell he's doing DC still recovering from injury, as he indicated on this show. If it doesn't happen, what is DC's next fight? I would love it to be against John Jones. I wouldn't even mind a steep fight, to be honest,

but I don't know that it has to be the priority. Next. What's the worst combinations of toppings on pizza you can think of? The worst combo. I don't mind Hawaiian pizza. I don't know that I love it, but I don't mind it. I would say black olives. And I love olives, but the black ones they put on pizza, they're gross and like sardines maybe,

something like that. Those are pretty bad. Next. Would you like to see Nico Price versus Robbie Lawler? Boy, Nico Price, is he a born finisher or what? Wow. Sure. Sure, that'd be a lot of fun.

Mix it up. Nico Price, man. He wins. He wins in devastating fashion. Remember his hammer fists on Randy Brown and now this. And he's had a number of other finishes that are just violent. He is an incredible finisher. He's built for that.

Next. Dan Rayfield reported disclosed salaries for PBC boxing's event Porter versus Ugas. Porter made 1.25 mil, but there were two fighters that made 1K, 1K, 1 they made 5K and 2 they made 8K. In the UFC, your very first fight, you are guaranteed $13,500 between your show and gear. Is there a question there? Oh, yeah. In the UFC, you can become a millionaire without even having 15 professional fights in boxing.

95% of boxers have to have at least 30 fights to hope to make that much. That's overstating it. But is the UFC over villainized for their pay structure? No. The issue is not that. The issue is the UFC is better about creating a healthier middle class of fighters. But when we talk about who is the most robbed or who is the most underpaid, a lot of people think it's the guys who are making 10 and 10 or 20 and 20.

No, it's the guys at the top because they're not getting the maximum amount of what they're probably entitled to. Were they in a different position? So it's a bit of a change-up. It's good to have this middle class. It's not so great to have the ones at the top, not really making those big dollars. Next. With Holloway versus Porriere 2 on the horizon,

what areas in both guys' game do you believe have improved the most since their first fight? Do you think Holloway's wrestling defense has surpassed Porre's wrestling offense? And how does Dustin handle Max's striking ball? What a great, great question. Well, they've both improved dramatically. Let me finish this one while we call Mr. Guida. Here's what I would say about this.

Definitely for Poirier, excuse me, for Holloway, his takedown defense has become borderline impenetrable. It's amazing. That has really done a lot for him, both in making guys stall out against him and in bringing the other parts of his game to life, which is his distance management and his jab, and then sort of the way in which he adds volume over time. The key there, really, the glue that holds that together is his takedown defense. By contrast, Poirier has really dialed back the brawling. very, very good defensively, good judge of distance, still has that potent power punching.

I don't think he's going to try and really take down Holloway. He might try to mix it up, but for the most part, I think he's going to, they're going to fight this one at distance. So for me, Poirier's really got to do damage early. Holloway doesn't check a lot of leg kicks either, so that should be something you should watch out for and how much can Poirier limit the stance switching. Man, there's a lot. There's a lot.

All right, let us get to our first guest. I haven't talked to this gentleman in a while. I think the last time I talked to him was when he fought maybe in Fairfax, Virginia. I could be wrong about that. I saw his parents there. They could not have been nicer. Let's recap with him now. The one and only Clay Guida is here.

Hi, Clay. How are you? Good. Yeah, yeah. Well, I appreciate you making some time for us. Your parents, I met them at your fight in Fairfax, Virginia, if I'm not mistaken. Are they still coming to all your fights? Oh, absolutely.

can mail the fights. And we'll see if we need them now to Brazil for this one, but they try to stay, you know, stay stateside. So we might keep them back home in a, you know, the game party, obviously. But if they're not, they're always in person, they're always in by corner, just like you guys are.

Man, you, they, for folks who may not have been there, they had, great if I'm wrong, Clay, they had T-shirts, they had signs, flags, the whole nine yards. I've never seen, well, maybe Tyron Woodley's mother is also kind of like that. But it's pretty rare, man. Yeah, you know what?

They go to drafted measures for all the fights, man. They're my biggest supporters, my biggest fans, and they're my best friends. So I really love having them nearby, having them home row, and, you know,

they're always right there like, all right there in the country. They're always right there with me. Hey, Clay, real quick, is your phone on speaker by chance? You know, what's there? Do you have a speaker? No, no. It just sounds a little bit muffled. Not sure what that is exactly. But it's okay. We can roll through it. Just wanted to see.

Is this a little bit better? Yes, yes it is. That sounds great. Okay, so let's get to it, man. You're taking on BJ Penn. When the UFC called you and said, hey, we want you to fight Mr. Penn. What went through your mind? Oh, man, you know, first of all, yeah, I mean, all the incredible fights that BJ put on, he paved the way for not just the lightweight division, but pretty much the UFC. You know what I mean? He's done so much for the sport, so much for, you know, so many up-and-coming fighters. And I was just so excited and thrilled that they would ever offer us a fight like that. And I could not turn it down because that's not, you know, that's not our style.

We accept every fight with open arms and to fight compete against a legend like DJ. He's more than just a legend. He's, you know, one of the creators, he's a pioneer. And, you know, he's a prodigy for a reason. So we're super excited about this matchup. Okay, so let's just be honest about this conversation. I know what you're going to get out of it. You beat a guy like BJ Penn.

That looks great on your resume, no doubt. Certainly, I'm in no position to challenge all the nice things you said about him. But he hasn't won a fight since 2010. Do you really believe in your heart of hearts that this is a guy that should still be competing? Someone brought that to my attention the other day. It was a close friend of mine. He's a huge fight fan. He's very knowledgeable about the sport.

And I couldn't believe it when he said that, you know, been 2010 since he won a fight. So, I mean, it's kind of hard to, you know, believe that. It's hard to think that, you know, a guy that was, you know, a former two-time champion, you know, lightweight and, you know, and welterweight, you know, hasn't wanted to fight in, you know, in nine plus years. It's pretty incredible.

But, you know, what, having, you know, getting in the cage with someone like DJ Penn is, you know, it's an opportunity you can't turn down. And, you know, he's the only one, and his camp and his family are the only ones to say, you know, if he should be competing or not. So that's totally up to him. I'm not in a position to say that. So I'm accepting the fight, and we're going to put on a show for the fans. Do you – when this fight was announced, I was like, oh, that's – there are some interesting elements here. I saw a lot of people saying, well, this is going to be competitive because Clay is going to go into BJ's guard.

Now, you might. We never know how the fight goes. But I actually feel like people are sleeping on your striking here a little bit. You were going toe to toe with Brian Ortega for a long time. Obviously, things didn't end up your going your way, but you showed a lot of great striking there. Do you think people are forgetting about your striking a little bit? Yeah, you know what? People, you know, everyone knows we're going to wrestle in every fight.

We always get it to the ground. We try to get it to the ground. You know, whether it's beginning of the fight, first round, it's towards the end of the fight. I would have been well advised to take it to the ground against, Ortega, you know, towards the end of the fight. But, you know, it came up a little bit short in that one, unfortunately. And our striking game is definitely coming around every single day out here. Team Alpha male with, you know, I'm a boxing coach, Joey Rodriguez, you know,

our striking coaches, Chris Holdsworth, Danukestillo, Mike Malat. We're getting much better on the feet every day. And we're always improving our stand-up game. So we're more versatile every camp, every fight. So expect to see, you know, put it on the feet. And definitely, you know, I'm always going to wrestle. That's what we're born and raised to do. So this fight's definitely going to go to the ground.

And we've definitely have to watch out for a slick guy like, you know, BJ who's dangerous everywhere. He's got tricks up his sleeve, and he's one of the most dangerous fighters. I don't care how old he is. I don't care. One of the last time you want to fight is, that guy could, you know, flip a submission on you from any time, anywhere, any place. Yeah, thinking of that, though,

what would you say his submission threat is the strongest, close guard, like, finding his way to the back. Where do you think he really is the most dangerous in that consideration? I definitely think his transitions from, you know, from his guard to taking a guy's back, whether it be, you know, an arm drag or, excuse me, you know, hopping up and, you know, snapping you down, going behind, whatever may be, he's definitely got, he's very versatile down there. And he's a, he's been down there so many times.

and, you know, he was the first, what do they say, the first American Brazilian world champ or something like that, or, you know, won a Brazilian world title or something down there. Yeah. So he's got a lot of tricks, and we'll be expecting everything, but we'll be well prepared for everything he has. Yeah, he was the first American to win the Mungiaals, the world championships way back when. Yeah, and the guy's blackout in four years, too. That's unheard of. Wow.

All right. So the going to Brazil part, here's what's interesting. Are you going to be the hero or the villain down there? I was going to ask you guys. What do you think? I mean, we fought until before. We fought a Brazilian down there. Didn't go too well for us, but you know what? They were super, super supportive. So I feel like we're definitely going to be welcome down there. I've heard that DJ is training down there.

So, you know, he's got a huge Brazilian fan base, and he's a fan. I'm sorry, he's a favorite wherever he goes. So I expect the crowd to be cheering for both of us. And, you know, the crowd can definitely expect an amazing fight. And I know we're going to put it out of the line, as always. So I don't know if I'm going to be the favorite or the villain in this one. That's a tough question. My hunch is that with BJ being who he is in the game and then training in Brazil

with some of those guys down there, he's probably going to be the favorite. fan favorite, but I guess one never really knows. Let me rewind to his last fight against Ryan Hall. Is there a whole lot to read into that? Like, you and Ryan Hall probably have opposite games. You know what? It's very, like, almost complete opposites. He definitely goes for the takedown, but in a different way,

he kind of shoots and, you know, he pulls guard. I'm always, you know, looking, you know, to take top position just because of my wrestling game, my ground and pound, like, you know, pass the guard, you know, take the guys, back. Ryan Hall is just, you know, he's a master

just like BJ Pennies. Their ground game is so next level. But, you know, like you say, once you get on top and you start raining down punches, you know,

the whole tide of the fight changes real quick. So, um, I hope BJ's leg is okay. I know he's training hard for this fight. And, uh,

I'm glad, uh, you know, he accepted it. I'm glad he put it out there. And I know it's going to be, uh, it's going to be, uh,

it's going to be, to be incredible. So I hope, you know, Ryan's doing well, too. I know he could have a big fight effort coming up a huge submission win over BJ Penn. So I'm definitely interested to see what he has next as well. What does a win over Penn get you? You know, it gets us back in the, you know, the wind column. Having, you know, a finish is what we're going for over BJ, obviously, just like every fight. You know, beating, like I said, not even a, not just a legend, he's a Hall of Famer. And, you know, having a win over BJ Penn, like, you know, someone like that is, it just, it puts you in the next echelon. I don't care how old he is.

He is the, you know, he's the creator of the Lightway Division, you know, in the early, early modern day, if you will. You know what I mean? Him and Jed's pulver, they paved away for us. You know, I wouldn't be here. It wasn't for guys like them. So that gets us, you know, relevant again. And it gets us, you know, back into me talking about, you know, maybe a top 10 guy. You know, your last fight was in June of 2018.

Were you out for any injury? Were the right matchups not coming? Like, how come where there was relative inactivity? Only one time you fought in 2018. Yeah, it was just, yeah, there wasn't a whole lot of, you know, a lot of fights. We've been trying to fight, you know, in the fall, excuse me, after the last one. And, you know, the UFC is so busy now. And there's so many athletes under contract, it's just kind of hard to get.

fights right now. So we took our time. We waited for, you know, the phone call, and once we got it, we jumped at the opportunity. Clay, how are things going at Alpha Mail? I looked at your Instagram before today's show. You seem to be fitting in right in there. Tell me how it has been since you have made the move. You know, I've been honored for about four years now, and it was a very, very smooth transition. Your Eye Faber does a great job, you know, with his facility. I call it the mecca of MMA. He's got a new. facility. It's almost two years old now. And it's really a one-stop shop.

You know, you got your, you know, he runs it like a college wrestling program because that's, you know, his pedigree. He's got a wrestling background. All sorts of wrestlers, you know, from Chad Mendez, the Cody Garberant, Darren Elkins, Andre Feely, you know, the list goes on and on. Lance Palmer. It's just, there's so many top level. Josh Emmett's got a big fight coming up. So, you know, obviously I'm a wrestler. so it's natural for me to, you know, to be a track into a place like this.

And, you know, like, you know, the coaches and, you know, former fighters like Danny Castillo, they really, really run this place. You know, it's, they got it so dialed in, and hopefully they're going to be expanding in the near future. But it really is a perfect fit for me, more of, you know, wrestling base. And, you know, they know how to utilize my strikes and my takedowns and get the fight to where we want it. So it's been a perfect fit for me so far in these past few years. Have you, when you moved there, did you inherit any of the team alpha males got a lot of guys everybody loves, but it's not some secret that they had some beef with T.J. Dillashaw, that seems to be mostly behind them at this point.

But when you move there, sometimes guys move to a team and they kind of inherit that beef. Did you inherit it in any capacity, or did you just sort of stay away from it one way or the other? Oh yeah, you know what? I was here before all that beef started. So, you know, TJ is a friend of mine. So I don't get caught up in any of that, any of the drama, not my place. Do you, you know, I asked Uriah about this, but I think he had some family thing going on. What do you make of the ongoing, I don't know, what do you want to call it, dispute between Justin Buckles and his assessment of what happened with Cody Garbrand and the gym generally. Do you have any comment about that? Yeah, you know, same here. I stay out of that stuff as well. I just focus on what I have, you know, a task and, you know, in my teammates. And that's all I can, you know, excuse me, that's all that I stay focused on

and that I, you know, wrap my hands around. Fair enough. So let me ask you this then. This I think you can speak to. You've been there four years. Can you speak to your technical development while you've been there? Yeah, my game is definitely. definitely been improving every single day.

It's, you know, people saw me coming from Jackson, Winklejohn out to here, and they see the improvement in my stand-up. You know, you saw it a little bit in the Ortega fight. You saw it in the Eric Koch fight, Joel is on fight. So expect to see it. You know, unfortunately, we got a little bit rear-ended in the, you know, my last fight last June in Chicago. and I'm looking to make good on that fight this next one. So you can definitely see them proving in my hands, the stand-up game,

but always realize that we're a threat on the ground, and we're getting better every single day. So it's definitely been a good fit out here. And, yeah, I'm looking to get back to the old ways of the carpenter, putting these guys down and ground upon them. Well, you know what? If your parents can't make it all the way to Brazil, I know they're going to have probably the best watch party

that anybody could ever hope for. So we got to get pictures of that one way or the other. Clay, wish you nothing but the best of luck. You don't need it. UFC 237 on May 11th when you face BJ Penn. And thank you for making some time for us today. We really appreciate it. Oh, the pleasure of all mine.

Thank you guys so much. I always appreciate the support. Check out our brand, our supplement brand, Macchepermostle.com. Check us out at Instagram, Clay Gwita. Thank you guys so much. And I can't wait to get in there to scrap it up with a legend like BJ Penn. Thank you guys so much. All right.

Thank you. Thank you. Very good. All right, time now for the sound off. All right, let's go to my boy, Danny Seguera, who thinks he's El Tigre on Instagram, just out there posting all his highlights. I'm out there breaking ankle, son. All right, we're going to do this in two parts.

I don't know if we have to play the intro twice, but it doesn't really matter. Yeah, we can skip that. We don't need to play the intro twice. All right, so you heard the calls, you screened them. You got them ready for today's show. I did. Tell me about them. They were pretty good.

We got a lot of submissions, a lot of late submissions. I mean, guys. Guys, get the main on Sunday night because, you know, Monday mornings at, you know, 10 minutes before the show starts. A lot of people do that on Mondays, man. I've noticed that. They're like, I left a message at 10 a.m. It's like, probably not going to make the cut. Probably.

Yeah, it's kind of hard to, you know, get all that sorted out last minute. So get them in early and, yeah. Early bird gets the worm. Exactly. All right. All right, well, let's get started with UFC, Wichita. Okay, let's do it. What did you think about the Ben Rothwell decision?

Do you think he got robbed? Let me know what you think. You know, I wasn't scoring that in real time. Yeah. It looked to me like Ben clearly took the third and definitely did the better damage. I know that Rothwell was cut until he was bleeding, but he just seemed to me to be doing the better damage overall.

But I've not looked at the stats. And honestly, I didn't really start asking myself who was winning until halfway through the third. Yeah. And halfway through the third, Rothwell was chewing him up. I guess I was surprised, but I couldn't go to the mat, Danny, and make a real argument about either guy. What about you?

Yeah, I thought he took the second and third. But, I mean, the... It was tight. It was tight, but it wasn't, it wasn't, like, tight enough for me to be like, oh, you know, I don't know who's going to get it. I thought going into it, I'm like, oh, Ben Rothwell should get it. But the fact that it went the other way, like, I'm not surprised with...

with the judging. Like Nate Diaz, you're not surprised? Yeah, I'm not surprised. There was a couple of strange calls. Yeah. Marianne Rennon, not even getting one full judge's scorecard. That one surprised me a little bit. I'll be honest about that.

I started tuning in for the main card, so I didn't get to watch a lot of prelims. I'll catch up on the prelims on... Yeah, like her losing is not a scandal. It was just that she only won one round on all three judges' scorecards. I found that a little surprising to be candid with you. But, all right.

I mean, it is what it is, right? I guess so. To borrow from Max Holloway. It is what it is. That's probably the most used sentence in MMA. That's lingo, I guess. They go through phases. For a while there was in the mix, you know?

Now we're off to it is what it is. Trending in a good direction. I guess. That's also another one. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, let's talk about judging now.

All right. Hey, look, and Danny. This is Alex from Orlando, Florida calling. Florida. I personally think that the judges made a horrible decision with the Ben Rothwell and Blagoe, even off-fight, especially since the significant strikes were pretty much even, and Rothwell was doing almost all of the advancing. So I know you've touched on this before, Luke, but can you discuss how you feel about judges in MMA today,

any possible solutions to bad decisions and fighters getting robbed by judges? And also, do these judges even have any prior fight experience? Thanks guys. Appreciate you. I would go out there and say most judges don't have any prior fighting experience, not even any training. That's accurate, right? Yeah, so here's to your point.

Again, these are just numerical totals. So you have to judge for yourself what these mean. Blagoi Ivana versus Ben Rothwell 19 to 9, round 1. 29 to 28 in round 2. That round 2 is dicey. And then Ben really took over in round 3, 33 to 24. These are all landed. A couple of responses.

Number one, there is no hope. And I'm not trying to be like weird or rude or difficult about it. Remember, we have entrusted, MMA, and I'm actually working on something about this. Danny, MMA has an innovation problem. The major reason is because we have entrusted the government to innovate our rules. That sounds inherently idiotic, but it is exactly what we have done. We did it to preserve the sports literal ability to stay alive. so it made sense.

The problem is we are now in a space where the sport is evolving, and boxing's rules kind of were established over time for a narrower field of combat. They've mostly worked out. We do not have that in MMA. So we have innovation problems two ways. Number one, it's uneven. So Nevada might have instant replay, but they've got the old hand-down rule. Or there's another way you can look at it, which is there's simply not enough innovation.

And that includes with judging. So here's the issue. You have asked Nevada and California and New Jersey, and in this case, where was this one? Which dog, Kansas? You ever been to Kansas? You know what you're missing? I know what you're going to say? Nothing.

You are missing. They call that fly over country for a reason, bro. Okay? In any event, people in Kansas are super bitter right now. Sorry, don't live in Kansas. Anyway, the reality is this. You have entrusted these government entities to innovate their rule set without any other authority mandating it. Dude, this is never going to happen. It's never going to happen. You have a current

rule set that is so wide in latitude. Think about this, that you could decide one person one and I can decide another person one. Think about that. If you have a scoring criteria where two people can have two different winners in a contest and your subjective experience about where you sit, what you heard, what you saw, you have no ability to look at any metrics to go back. back and double check. You might have a combative background where you didn't fight, but maybe you trained Jiu-Jitsu, Danny, which I know you did. That might either inherently or not affect your judgment. You have no ability to go back and change a call. So we have instituted through the mechanism of delivery of scoring and the way in which we interact with the world,

this epistemological pipeline that has made it so wide in latitude, it's never, it's so open to interpretation. There's almost no such thing as a bad card, almost. And then on top of that, the government's in charge of any rules innovation. You are stuck. You are stuck. And also, last thing on this, well, do the judges have any combative experience? I do not care if they do.

The role, I'll let you go on this one. The role of judges somewhat overlaps in terms of expertise with the role of fighters. But they're very, very different. And just because you're a good fighter does not mean you are a good judge. Yeah, exactly. And that's one of the things, like, even like people like us that work in media, like I hear the argument all the time. Like, you know, do you even train? Like, you know, everybody should fight, you know, in order to report on it. Like, no. You know, that's totally not true. You can totally report on something. You can totally be knowledgeable about something without, you know, having to get in the cage, right? But yeah, in order to fix this, what do you think about having five judges? And I don't know if, I don't know how to get into MMA as a judge.

judging it, but like, I would, I would like for it to be, have, like, a trial where, like, you sit somebody down, like, you know, somebody knowledgeable, say, like, you know, John McCarthy, obviously he's not involved anymore, but, you know, you sit a few judges down, you make them watch some fights and then see how they score those fights. Right. And then be like, all right, is this, you know, and then ask them, why do you think you scored this, you know, this way and then see if, you know, if they're judging criteria is somewhat accurate, you know?

Right. So I get to ask this question all the time. or, Luke, what do you think about open scoring, which Glory, by the way, he uses in kickboxing. What do you think about X? What do you think about Y? Here's a very basic answer. We can't know the answer to any of these questions. You might be right, Danny, that five judges might be better than three. I know New Jersey has experimented with what they call silent judges, where they're in the back just watching on a TV. How do those scores differ from the ones who sit caged side? Is there a real experiential difference there? I don't know what kind of results they came to, but I know they tried.

But the answer is this, until we get enough data through direct experimentation, it is impossible to know. It is impossible to know. And I have said this in areas where the UFC goes to self-regulate, why not experiment? That's true. Why not? Nothing is stopping you. Put in five judges. See how it goes. And they don't.

They're the only ones who can do that, not the only ones, but they're a big driver of potential innovation. And they abdicate their role. And until someone else does, I don't know what to tell you. Dude, and it sucks because, like, one, one. fight can make a huge difference in your career. Look at Ben Rothko. He's been out for what, like, since 2016, three years almost, right? He comes back. He has

a pretty good performance. He looked good out there. And then, you know... And it's strong. Yeah. And then, you know, he gets what I thought it was a bad decision, and then, you know, that can... You know, especially in the heavyweight division, that could lead him a different path. If he would have gotten a win, maybe, I don't know, fight JDS, you know,

I don't know. But, like, it would have definitely put him in a good spot. And at that age, with a long layoff, like, he needs every fight accounts at this point. And money. And money. Yeah, and money too. Yeah. So there's definitely an issue there and, you know, I'm with you. There needs to be some experimentation. That's the only way to figure out what works and what does it. That's exactly correct. All right. Well, let's talk about the main event with the time that we have. We had two callers to just two fights. So we'll just share the thoughts on that one fight and they move on to the next. Okay.

Sounds good. All right. All right. Here's the first. Hey, Luke and Danny. This is Andrew from Georgia. Driving through Marietta right now, Luke. Just past the square. Sorry to hear that. Wanted to talk about the fight night in Kansas. It was excellent. I was a little tired laying on the couch and then Tim Means and Nico Price got in there and I was jumping up

and down yelling. I was more fired up than Brian Campbell watching those three main fights. It was excellent. This guy's pure Georgia. Which is, after Junior Dos Santos win, I want to think him fight Francis. I think him and and Ghanu need to fight. It was supposed to happen.

Can we please make this fight happened. What do you guys think? I just don't know what else to do with them besides the trilogy with Stepe, and I don't think that's going to happen. So anyway, have a good day, fellas. Talk to you guys later. All right. So, Jay there, y'all. That was a great call, by the way. My coon hound was out there on the porch just yelling at the moon. Okay, I would say I'm all in favor of it. There are some interesting questions about what you do with Blades, Volkov, and Overeem, because they're occupying a space sort of somewhat in the middle of there. But I would say if you wanted to do JDS versus Francis.

I mean, Blades is coming off that loss against Ingonaut. He's got some fight lined up. I'm not sure. Yeah, he is. He's got some fight lined up. I'm not sure exactly who it is. Yeah. And Overeem just got announced with some gentleman, I forget his name as well.

I don't know what Volkov is up to. But sure, I mean, in theory, would I want to see JDS versus Francis? Yeah. Dude, and here's what I said on Fright Night, and I think it's true. If you go back and you watch how JDS beat Ben Rothwell, he was jabbing to the head, jabbing to the body, lateral moves. movement. He was on his horse the whole time. Bro, he kind of had a gunfight with old Derek,

and he won. Kind of shocking, to be honest with you. I was, for all the talk about him reinventing his style, which he, I do, not reinventing, but like, accommodating it. Yeah. Bro, he went out there and just slung the dogs with him. It was awesome to watch. Yeah, it was sick. And I felt like at first he approached

the fight that way, but I feel like at some point during the fight, he figured out, man, if I pressure this guy, like, you know, I can hurt him. You know, he landed a few shots and we saw, you know, Derek kind of get wobbled a little bit, not too bad. And then after he landed that body kick, that's when he's like, I felt like in his mind, he's like, okay, I got him. And he had that switch. Yes.

But yeah, I think JDS definitely, like this whole time we've been talking about, you know, Steephe, Jones, Kormier, and then in Ghana one, then all of a sudden he's in the conversation. I think you need to plug in JDS right in that conversation. I think whatever plans you have the UFC has with the heavyweight division, I think he needs to be involved as far as the title, like how you sort this out. Well, he came into this fight ranked, what, eighth? This idea about him being in the title picture, I'm not saying he's too far from it. I'm a little less convinced to necessity. Dude, he's on a three-five win streak.

That's as good as it gets in heavyweight. You know, he's just be former title challenger. You know, I don't know. I was just, the thing is, like a fun. fight would be Steepa versus JDS, but they already ran that back in Dallas and Steepay ran through them. So it's like, you know, there's no real cause for a third one. Are you want to do one more real quick? Yeah, yeah. And then we'll do part two later. Wait, so, okay, yeah, yeah, you're right. Part two of the second. So let's, let's tackle the other part of, you know, JDS's potential

fights. All right. This call was really creepy, but that sounds like one of our listeners. Yeah. Yeah, I was wondering with the win over Derek Lewis over the weekend. Does a JDS Steepay 3 fight as a title eliminator make sense? That way Stepe can get back in the acting on and maybe make a statement. And maybe JDS can cement a new run

at the title after that Stepea lost. All right, thanks again, man. Keep up to good work. And Danny, I like your mustache. Nice mustache. Bro. Bro. The ladies and the dudes love you.

To my Chipoli. Yeah. Yeah, I'll grow back the mustache as long as you don't ever leave a call like that again. That made my day. That made my day. That was creepy. So what do you think? No, no.

Trilogy fight? Because they are one and one, right? Yes. JDS won a war the first time, then got smoked the second. Yep. No, not really that interested. To me, it's like the second one is probably a lot more indicative of where they are today. Yeah.

I'm much more interested in like Stipe versus Francis, too, to be honest with you at this point. I think Curtis Blades is a fight lined up, but are Curtis Blades versus Stepe? I'm a little more, something fresh, I guess is the answer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I don't have. Again, they may go a different direction, but you're asking me personally where I'm at, I'm looking for something fresh. Yeah, I'd rather go to the Ingana, right? By the way, that sounds fun.

I know I said, real quick. I know I said, look at something fresh, but I also said Francis. Yeah. But Francis's resurgence kind of makes it fresh for me, but I could be wrong. For what, JDS and Gano? For Francis and Stepe. Oh, yeah, I mean, his resurgence, I feel like there's still questions about that. There are.

I think he has improved since that fight, but I don't know if we have like a completely different fighter. I'd like to keep those two away from each other at least for a bit. I'm down for JDS and Gano. Put that fight wherever, you know, D.C. ends up fighting Brock, you know, number one contender away. Whatever it is, but make it happen. All right. Let's do it. I only have time for a few more of these, so we got to burn through them, sir.

All right. Well, let's get into it right away. There's a big fight, big, what the way of fight happening this weekend, so let's talk about that. Okay. Names Chris, calling from Smyrna, Georgia, almost a Campbell Spartans. You should be familiar with them. Yeah. Luke, what I want to know is.

They have a lice at that high school. With a win on Saturday night, would that put Darren Till back in the title picture, or do you think that it's too much too soon coming off his loss from Woodley. The UFC has spoken about Till Usman in the past. What do you think that puts Darren Till? Thanks. You have to beat Game Bread thoroughly to get my respect. Lots of people have eeked by him,

but if you, and that's hard to do too. You really want to make a statement. You got a viciously KO that guy, which, by the way, very hard to do or submit it. I'll say this. You go and you finish horse. Hey Masvedol, to me that is extremely impressive. If you just beat him, I don't know, one more fight.

I'm not sure against who, but maybe Askeran or something. Yeah, I mean, I feel like the line is quite long, and we already have a title fight set up between Usman and Covington. Then you got the guy who beat Curtis Millinder, right? Oh, Elizoo, Zaleski, Dos Santos, yeah. He's on a... He's awesome, right? Yeah, he's sick. He's on a current, like, seven-fight win streak, right?

Ben Ascreen is back in the leagues. He looks like a La Liga player, doesn't he? Yeah, he does, yeah, yeah, yeah. Clays for like Girona or something. Sporting, he-hon. Yeah. Dude, I don't know. And what's up with the 170?

I thought, you know, Darren Till said he was going to go up to 185 after his title fight. I mean, these guys, I think they figure out, well, you know, here's some couple tweaks I could make. And if I get this big, dude, you're fighting Horne-Massville on a main event in London. Like, it's big doings. And I think they feel like I'll lose position if I make them. There's a lot of fear about moving weight class. That's why these guys literally get forced into it by health complications. So it's just, you know, a lot of lessons learned a hard way, I guess.

Yeah, but I think if he beats Jorge Mazzville, even with like a vicious chaos, I still think he's a bit far from that title fight. I think he's at least, you know, two more fights after that. So, yeah. Yeah, I don't see an immediate, because also, like, his title fight with Woodley was so one-sided, you know, with someone we consider obviously an elite, obviously being a champion. So, you know, I don't think they'll plug them in, you know, that quick. Yeah, I agreed.

All right. You got time for one more? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. You want to talk about Daniel Cormier or Tony Ferguson? Um, or Tony. Okay, let's do Tony. Tony's always fun. Hey, Luke. My name's Cass from Oregon. I'm a big Tony Ferguson fan. I'm just wondering, um, what you think he should do next? Like, what's his next fight? You know, it's kind of sucks that he's not in a title fight. He's my favorite fight. I'm just wondering what you think you should do next, you know?

All right, thanks. I think he should see what happens with Holloway and Poirier. See what Holloway is going to do at 145. I think, let's see what Habib's going to do. He can't, there's just not enough. I mean, I know that's not a satisfying answer. Let's see what Connor's going to do. Well, okay.

But I'm saying there's just not enough information to know at this point. If you're going to pass up that, you got to let some, You got to let some events transpire and then make a call based on that. Because, dude, I know you had that debate about the interim titles. Here's the thing. If Max is not going to give up 145, let's say Max beats Dustin, or let's say Dustin wins, is it really crazy to think that Tony might get next if Connor doesn't come back and Habib needs a fight? Like, I know these are a lot of ifs, but is that crazy?

It's not. You know what I'm saying? It's not crazy. So I don't know what to tell them. Basically what you're asking is it crazy to see an interim champion. get skipped over. No. And in these circumstances where the guy hasn't lost since 2012. And he was another interim chance or whatever that's worth. It's just so it's bananas. It's bananas. I don't know what the roadmap is here. I think he just has to figure out let these

things transpire and then make a read based on the available cards you've been dealt. Yeah. At this point, you can't make any possible decision. I mean, the only decision you could probably make is fight somebody else, but I don't think that'd be a very smart one because I don't think it does anything for you at this point, even if it's San Aalaya Quinta, you know, a top dog, right? I don't think it does anything for you at this point. At this point, you're looking at the winner of Holloway and Poria and then see what happens

with Habib. So just wait it out, man. I mean, that's how you can do. We have any more? Yeah, we got more. One more very quickly. All right. This is a fun one. Let's talk about weight classes. Okay. Hi, Luke. My name is Chris from San Luis, Vizbo, California.

Chuck Liddell. My question is, it seems like a lot of a UFC title sites in recent memory have been pretty decisive. The only exceptions coming to mind are maybe Rose and Joanna, DJ and Sohudo, and Romero and Whitaker. But my question is, what divisions in the UFC do you think are the biggest shark tanks right now? And which ones do you think have a competition that's a little bit closer to championship level? I feel like it's a good sort of thing to evaluate every year or so as the sport progresses and all that. Thanks for answering.

Have a good day. So I think basically what you meant with like the second part is like what what divisions do you see the belt sort of switching hands and what divisions do you think the belt will sort of be steady with with one champion? I still think there's a lot of unanswered questions at 155. Well, let's start with the big boys. Heavyweight. Shark Tank or no? Semi. Semi.

I think there's some questions about Francis's resurgence. Stipe believes with another crack he could do some work. DC is getting older. beat them in a round, but there are some interesting questions. Sure, okay. Yes, I think that, especially after D.C. retires, man, that's going to be a bloodbath. Yeah. Light heavyweight, no. I mean, let's be wrong. No. Yeah. Jones is going to hold on to that for. It's going to take a mistake or something catastrophic.

Middleweight. Shark Tank or no? Yeah, I think so. You got a lot of young, you know what? There's a lot of youth there. Yes. Which is why that gives you some intrigue about, and then, you know, let's see what happens with Romero and things like that. Yeah, Paulo Costa. Yeah, I would call that a shark tank, sure. Walterweight, Shark Tank? Definitely. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, just changed hands, right? Proof of concept there, yeah, absolutely. All right, 155.

I think so. Hard to say, Habib might be very dominant. It's not clear. But, you know, Tony Ferguson, Max Holloway, does the R&A. There are enough questions out there. Yeah, those are tough bastards, man. Yeah.

fight, but anyways. You know what? It's very hateable, but I love it only because Aldo is like, oh, I'm sorry, you a contender, you a contender? I just love that from him. On paper, it will be fun because both are a fantastic fighters, but I don't like what it does to do.

It tears it up if he wins, Aldo wins, but I just love his competitive ambition. That's what I mean. Yeah, I respect that, for sure. Okay. All right, 135. Shark Tank. Absolutely, Shark Tank. Absolutely, Shark Tank. I mean, I know Cruz has been out for a while, but that's kind of interesting. what's going to happen with more than Marais.

What's going to Al Jermaine Sterling is Sehudo. Yeah, absolutely. And then flyweight doesn't exist. I suppose. You want to do? All right. Women's featherweight. No, I mean, there's not even a tank.

Amanda Nunez went up there and just, you know, crushed everybody. 135. No, I think Amanda's better than everybody there too. Really? I think. If Shevchenko were still there, I'd be like, eh, but. I think Holly can maybe. Maybe.

The stick and move? Maybe. Yeah. Maybe. Cardio, five rounds. Yeah, it's an interesting, it's an interesting fight. Toughness as well. So, semi, I call it semi. Yeah. 125, bro. They got nothing for, they got nothing for Valentina.

Shofshenko is... I respect them too. They're all good fighters, but that... They are. You're talking about a generational talent in Valentina Shavchenko. Shevchenko is one of the best fighters. Dude, I think she beat Amanda the second time they fought to be quite honest with you. And considering, like, what Amanda has done recently with Cyborg, like, that just makes it even, you know... And then 115, Shark Tank. Absolutely Shark Tank.

I think so, too. I think so. You know, you've got, you've got some hierarchy there. But, dude, Tatiana Suarez on her way up. Cynthia Calvijo is on her way up. Like, yeah. Livina Sousa. Yeah, a lot.

There's a lot of really good talent there. So, yeah, man. There's an answer to the question for the gentleman from Oregon. As always, you can call up, Danny, at 844-866-2468, international callers, the MMA hour at Voxmedia.com. Just send a voicemail clip. All right. So this is why I have it Hallick on the show.

show. Obviously, Mita Morris ended with a little bit of controversy, more than a little bit. But on Instagram, I saw that they were trying, or it appeared they were trying to get it going again. Now, that is interesting because, as you know, they had a, well, let's just sort of lay it out here publicly, they were years ago when they did their first show, even their second show, well, they did a bunch of shows. They did six shows, and they did like a Challenger series. But in those first couple of shows, they, I think, I'm not, they did. invented, but they really put into motion professional jiu-jitsu events. You have Fight to Win Pro, EBI. You've got Polaris, I think, this coming weekend. By the way, Palaris has a great

card on U.S.C. Fight Pass this weekend, and on and on. But then they ran into money problems. You had AJ Agasson taking over their Instagram account, people accusing them of not being paid, not just competitive athletes, but guys who paid for entry into the challenges services. And when the events got canceled, they never got their money. And a lot of people are kind of upset. I've been looking at some of the comments in the Instagram post, and there are some positivity, but there's a lot of negativity as well. And I want to see what the situation is and what the response is.

Because it seems like there's an indication, I could be wrong, that they realize that they have a debt that they owe and that they need to pay that before they can move forward. I will say, though, there does appear to be some nostalgia about them based on what I have seen. I just think folks want that wrongdoing put away. So we'll see what they have to say. All right, let's go to him now. I don't know what the truth is, but I want to have him on to see what the situation is. We have him on Skype?

Yes, I think we do. Let's go to him now. It's Halit Gracie. There he is. Wow, that was quick. How's it going, Luke? It's going, well, you grew your hair back out. Yeah, it appears I have.

Well, I was looking at photos today to get the post ready for the interview. and all the recent photos you had no hair. And there was one of you in a ghee, but you had hair. And I was like, well, I don't want to use the old one if this is the new thing. So I didn't pick it, but your hair is back. So there you go. Yeah, I'm not concerned with my life in the public eye as of late. So I'm not, you know, but yes, the hair seems to just be a natural fit at this point.

So, yeah. How are you doing? I'm all right. I'm tired. I'm so tired. could cry, but that's a story for a different time. All right, let's get into it. So I saw on Instagram the MetaMorse account got going again, and then there was a lot of activity in the comment section. So let's talk about it. Is MetaMor's coming back? Yeah, so, you know,

that's the goal. And I think people kind of misunderstood a little bit what we were, what we were saying, what we were trying to do. The Chapter 2 reference is, is, it's, you know, is, you know, essentially that, you know, with my, the time that I've had to kind of recuperate from a lot of the, the emotion and a lot of the stress that, that we really went through, frankly, in this, this whole process of trying to kind of keep things afloat and keep things going, despite a lot of financial stress. But being able to take that time off and look back and look, you know, in the moment at what we really have, it's been you know the the thing that's been coming up is that you know there's there's a life

for metamoris that you know uh is way longer than you know what what i you know what i guess i even anticipated initially and you know chapter two is a reference to the fact that you know we've learned a lot we've made a lot of mistakes we've you know gone through things that we couldn't even anticipate. And, you know, we're aware of the fact that that's essentially a first chapter in a book that, you know, could go 10, 20 chapters and or longer, you know. So the focus for us is to just acknowledge and help people realize that, you know, we're, we have every intention of doing the best that we can. And, you know, for me, Luke, I'm in a place where I have the ability to just wipe my hands and file bankruptcy.

And I live in a different state, actually. I'm in Colorado and I'm enjoying it. And life is beautiful. And I'm physically and mentally, I feel really healthy. You know, and so I'm in a place where I could just walk away. And again, I'm coming back to the idea that, you know, it can't, it doesn't make sense, you know. And it never really did make sense for it to end at that point. And so it's just becoming more apparent to me that there's still life, there's still energy.

We're getting, we, in the last year, we've had 11 million viewership hours on our YouTube channel. And we, we haven't done anything. We haven't even posted a video in the last year. So it's been, it's been incredible to see that there's still this pulse. There's still this energy, you know, with the content that we've created. and then I look at the industry and I look at, you know, the culture and what's happening and the people that we've inspired. And I can see that a lot of the organizations that we've inspired are still not pushing the industry to the level that we were pushing from the very beginning, you know, in some ways very frivolously and in other ways, you know, very, very on point in terms of our ability to really push the boundaries of jujitsu, you know, and drive the interest that I think is really necessary for us to, you know, help the game evolve.

And I look at a lot of other sports that, you know, could either could be less boring than submission grappling, but they have this established franchise and they have this established culture that is feeding the athletes and is creating a really strong, you know, presence, whether it be in the market or just culturally for people who are excited to participate. page. So I think, you know, for me, like, as a human, uh, I wouldn't embark on this. I wouldn't continue to do this despite all the ridicule if I didn't feel a deep, like I actually feel like it's necessary. I feel like I, this is not happening. No one is doing this. So who's actually going to do it if no one is taking that responsibility? If we have a bunch of leagues that are

going to play it safe and not really build the culture and take those. risks that are necessary to really leaps and bounds grow the industry and to calculate everything that's necessary and process the data that comes in in real time and have the guts to kind of deal with anything that can come up. And, you know, that's something that I've always felt inclined to do. And even now, you know, it's been like four or five years since an event happened. You know, it's still something that we're, you know, very much I'm excited about. And I look at and I'm like, man, this is something that's necessary here. Hold, let me stop be there because I want to get to all of that. I want to make sure you have your say,

but I got a thousand questions. So let me, let me start getting to some of this. I went through that. I watched, I think, virtually every Metamoros, including some of the challenger stuff. When you say that there, that you guys set the tone for all of this, I think you're right. I think you did. I think those, I think Meta Morris does not get the credit it deserves for pushing the market to where it is. However, let's, let's, let's, let's start with some of the things that happen before we talk about what's yet to come. You mentioned some of those mistakes. It's not a secret that you guys ran into financial difficulties. In fact, you'd mentioned it, I think, on one of the Instagram comments that you guys had run into it,

that your investor had pulled out either before or after the second event. So let's get to it. Is MetaMoros in debt? And if so, what are the plans to make sure that everyone who has not been paid gets their money? Yeah. Thank you for asking that. Yeah. So we are. The company is in debt. the plan, to be honest, is there's kind of a two-phase plan or two-front, a double kind of plan, if you will, or two sides to the plan. The first side is we need a financial partner and we need a business partner who has the experience and the fortitude and the qualities necessary to help us grow a company from a million dollars. to $15, $20 million. Someone who has that experience, and that could be on the operations side,

and it could also be like business development operations, but then you also have a financial partner who's actually invested, who cares, who's passionate about jujitsu, who's willing to actually put the money necessary to really take something from where it is now to what it really can be and what I believe it can be, which is not an easy path,

and which, you know, like any endeavor, requires the right amount of fuel to get it there with that vision. You know, as long as that vision is actually there and is shared by those people collectively. So I've been looking for the right partner for a long time. I still, to this day, don't have the right financial partner and I don't have the right operations partner. So that's a big piece, right? Another big part of it is being able to actually work with the athletes and say, look,

what can we give you? And what can we do to make this move forward without us being in a place where we're completely out and that you know we want to work with you and we're willing to take the steps necessary to pay you off, whether that be a first payment, whatever it may be, and moving towards that process of saying, look, you're more, you're on the inner circle. You're on the inside of this in a way that a lot of these athletes won't be. And we understand what you went through. But ultimately, as a general rule, we're here and we're not going anywhere. and we want you to know that like, yeah, this wasn't something that we did on purpose, but at the same time, we understand there was a mistake made, and we understand that you're the only way forward for us.

So it's a dialogue. It's actually getting into the nitty gritty and working it out. And for some people that may be, hey, I need my money right now. Great. You know, and, you know, to be frank, a lot of the people that really have made any noise and who have kind of went out against us online are people that are owed a lot less money, you know? and the people who are owed more money have, you know, in some ways, been very supportive and been aware of what we've been going through and have been very patient and known that I never really had the intention of, you know, doing that, which of course, you know, intentions can be dangerous and all that. We've heard it.

But they know me and I've had dialogue and I've been in communication with these athletes. And there are very specific athletes who haven't wanted us to succeed from the very beginning. And so, you know, for them, like for example, AJ, we owe him a. thousand dollars. Talk about AJ Agassarm, right? AJ Agassarm, yes. And so we owe him a thousand dollars and he goes out and says, basically, don't support this event on Metamore 7, live streams it from his phone to siphon revenue from us

so that we cannot continue to do business and pay athletes in real time live on the show when we owe him a thousand dollars. So if you look at his motives for trying to trash our brand and take over our Instagram and tell us that he's what he's not going to help us until we pay back the athletes like he's some superhero and when really he's owed a thousand dollars and

you know what I mean like we're this is a much bigger engine and yes I'm sorry it's unfortunate that he was caught up in it and yeah he's not any less you know owed or there's not there's it's not necessarily like the amount of money is really the main problem or even the main

I guess indication of of a level of disrespect or loss. But the point is, is there are people with different intentions who have, and for AJ, I think his intention

was to grow his own brand and to develop himself rather than look at it. And literally like a week before he took over our Instagram, I had talked to him and said, hey man, this is the situation. We're doing what we can.

And even though we owe you this amount of money, I was treating him the same as anybody else that we were in that situation with. So here's the thing, Hal. Here's the thing.

It's, I don't know your motivations, and to me it sounds like your motivations. You have a vision for jiu-jitsu that you want to exact, and so I believe that. But if you don't pay A.J. Agassarm $1,000 and whoever else, and a show continues, I'm not suggesting this is what you were trying to do, but it feels like fraud, man. No, that's not what we're trying to do. No, that's not what we're trying to do. It feels like fraud to some of these guys, and you can understand why they would have hard feelings.

I'm not mad at a competitor for not getting paid. You know what I mean? Absolutely. And so, like, for example, I didn't get paid for fighting Sakuraba in Japan. I didn't get paid. And that was a lot of money. I can believe it. Of course, and it could be for anybody, right? It's all relative. But it was 70 grand. So I didn't get paid to fight Sakuraba. And it was devastating for me financially because I put, Like I went in like a year into like developing my training and like was all. But anyways, they, I never heard another word from them. Like they cut me off and it was like, that's it. They did another show.

I never heard. Nobody from their executive team called me and said, hey, look, we care about you. This is what we're doing. This is the plan we have. Like I didn't even get a word. So that's, that's one level. And then another level is if they came back right now, and said, hey, look, we're trying to do this.

And we see you. Like, we care. And, like, we drop the ball. And there was things that you'll never understand that financially when we went through, which now I understand as an event promoter and as somebody in show business, what can happen. And so now I can see that they could come back and say, hey, look, essentially, this is what we want to do. We want to give you 25% of your money.

Whatever it is. And we want to work towards something that can happen. Great. Like, that's a different kind of relationship as a person. opposed to, hey, we took something from you, forget you, and now we're going to go try to do something in Japan and hide from you and act like we don't even, that you don't even exist. That's not the case. So, yeah, I understand.

We put out, if I may, if I may, the nobility of your intentions, whatever they may be, does that really cover for financial mismanagement? No, it doesn't. And so, yeah, we, you know, at the end of the day, like, yeah, you have to, and this is where I've been talking to my wife about a lot. And like, yes, we have to do the right, we have to put in the right amount of effort. And we have to put the right people in place. And you can't, you can't allow these things to happen. So yes, there's no doubt that I let down the jih Tjitsu community.

And I created a monster that I couldn't control. And it was a lot of, a lot of my own inability to, grow a company and not have that experience. And like, there was a lot of energy for growth and there was a lot of potential that I just couldn't manage. And, and like where I come from, like, with my dad's influence, he ran the Gracie Academy for many, many years and we grew up with that, right? And that's a specific type of like service business where, you know, your your whole life kind of goes into that daily grind and you have to be willing to kind of do whatever it takes and you grab the mop you grab the broom you fold the towels you teach the class you should you do everything right

and so we we come from this idea that like and i i have a lot of that in my dad where like you do everything and you're part of everything and like i totally i completely burn myself out and i completely let a lot of people down by just thinking that i was being noble by participating in so many parts of the business that really I had no business doing you know and it wasn't in looking back it's extremely irresponsible and it doesn't it doesn't really give honor to the the whole that the thing as a whole and so yeah that's that's now looking back right and seeing in hindsight as a human like I have to grow I have to learn like where was my real error and you know it's easy for people to say oh well your error is the is the entirety of it when really like there's

there was additional aspects of this, Luke, that like, I had advisors, right? And I had people who were very smart, who run other businesses and who are really high-level executives, who could only give me a certain level of advice because we were, we were participating and we were moving on something that was so unique, you know, and had no real reference, you know, like it didn't have any reference at that time. And when you go from getting a certain number of paper views to getting another number of we do two shows we have two data sets for events right and then we say okay well we're going to do a third show we have to be able to and when we lose our investor after the second show well how do we create how do we do this third show

that we already had hoyler and eddie bravo signed to and we already had made deposits for which took like a whole year to process but like how do we make this third show happen and actually make it happen and do it off of this like gut instinct which we knew that what was correct but we still needed to like present it in a certain way that people expected because we have this certain level of brand and quality and energy and momentum so like really developing that off of a data set of two events with paper view streams that that are and those two events are completely different right so you have like hadra and bouchesha competing and then you have Cron and Aoki and then like you have and then you have like you know so we had like price

differences and we had like all these things that kind of made everything a different variable in many ways and made it a more complicated data set and so meanwhile we're just like all right we're becoming the data set in real time so for us to be able to process that and say okay how do you approach this in real life when these guys have already been promised this amount of money. We've already made deposits. We have to make this event happen. And, you know, Metamores 3 was like, we barely made money on that event. You know, like, I didn't, we didn't pocket money on that event. So, and that was like the biggest event in Jiu-Jitsu of all time. But like, so then the stress is like, all right, now we have Metamor's 4. What do we do? You know, and Chale

Sonan versus Andre Galvan is a huge, powerful event because Chal Sonin was as controversial as he was. And he was losing the ability to be in the event because there was that whole mess about him testing positive. And they wanted to cut him out of the grappling event. And people weren't even sure if he was going to make it. All of that drama helped and boosted sales. And so, and it actually helped us break even again. So, like, that show was just as, like, did just as many almost numbers. It did almost just as much as Hoyler and Eddie Bravo because of all the drama.

But then we're like, oh, shit. So there's just, it's such. it's such a wild ride. Like, it was such a wild ride. And there was so many, like, numbers. And there was so many, like, things that were happening under the surface that we couldn't even anticipate. And, like, really, what I needed to do is step back and hire and raise, like, $5 million and hire, like, three top tier executives and be like, look, your job is to fucking make this work and do crunch all the numbers, you know, run. You, you focus on athletes 100%.

and, you know, I'm basically just going to smile and wave and, you know, and reach out to specific athletes at different times and that's it. All right. And so. So, Alex, I got 10 minutes with you left. I want to make sure we use this as productive as possible because I want to make sure we get to your vision for the future. Last question. You need the way, sir. All right.

Thank you very much. The last question about your past. When I look back and I ask my other friends in Jiu-Jitsu about Meta-Moris, I get two responses. Wow. They love the shows. All the highlights you're talking about. including that Eddie Bravo Huyler rematch, one of the all-time greats. On the other hand, it does seem to me there's just some brand damage baked in at this point.

Why resurrect that name for all the good that there's associated with it, and I acknowledge it's real? There's a lot of bad, Halleck. There's a lot of bad. Why not just change the name and do something else? Good question. Yeah. So for me, where I'm at in my life, again, like I said, I can just walk away from it. And the reason I won't is, and the reason at this point I'm still feeling into it is it's, it's, it's chi, it's karma.

And so I believe personally that there is a certain amount of energy. And whether you call it good or bad, it's energy, right? And there's passion. And the fact that there are people who have been wronged and there is energy that could be ill towards the brand or towards me personally is, is meaningful and is something. that ultimately, if I have the ability to write those wrongs, if I have the ability to step into it and say, hey, here, here's your money. After five years, here's your money for them to go, oh, wow, okay, man, all right. I'm not necessarily like super excited, but I'm, I'm no longer holding on to something that I was holding on to in the same way with you. And I think that

chi and that release and that movement is something that could ultimately be stronger than starting a new brand. And, you know, for me personally, I don't, I don't have any interest in just starting a new, it's not a business decision. It's not like I need to make money off of this, and that's my only objective. And I'm going to just hide out and do another brand and pretend I'm not a part of it and let this one dissolve and pretend like nobody ever got paid and it's all good. Like for me, there's nowhere to go. And the objective is the same, which is to make the impact that is, I feel, is necessary that is not being, you know, portrayed within the industry. All right. So let's move to your vision for the future. You had noted on Instagram, and I don't want

to put words in your mouth, but I believe what I read was that you had called the EBI rule set a little gimmicky. I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other about the EBI rule set other than, you know, no, I don't have a strong opinion. I don't. But okay, what is it you want to do that missing in the current marketplace? Yeah. So there's a huge gap in the quality of content that is actually educating and expressing the nuances and the beauty and the power of jujitsu. There is a huge gap in the amateur to professional development stage for all athletes and for future

athletes. I can go into a lot of details, but there's huge gaps in all structures, all development. And a big part of the future of MetaMoros is to really engage a lot of the newer leagues and a lot of the newer brands that have been really trying to push. But if they're not connected to something bigger and we're not all connected to something bigger, there's not really an adequate funnel. There's not really an adequate opportunity chain for people who really want to make a life out of jujitsu. So the goal is make a life for the guy, for the kid who loves jujitsu in Alabama or in Australia to make a life out of jujitsu and thinking through that entire process and making it possible. And then there's the idea of just the actual live event. And it's

always something that I geeked out on. And like till this day I have people who are like holic, Metamore's three or metamore's four or like being at your this event was the most, it was the best sporting event I've ever been to in my life like in and I'm like uh what does that mean you know so I think there's like something that we did with the actual experience that makes that makes that gives more reverence and brings more excitement and then you talk about like that you know going out and and and kind of you know in impacting the way that people feel towards you should do the way people want to compete the way people are excited to compete, you know? And so there's there's kind of those aspects, mainly. So, so are you looking to get some clarity, are you looking to do events?

Yeah, we want, absolutely. We want to do events. We want to do, we want to do, we want to build. But it sounds like more than that, too. Oh, it's absolutely more than that. It's content, it's events. It's, it's the structure of the amateur development process and competition process. It's the actual, it's the schools, it's the teaching, it's the development of, it's, it's everything, you know, and like, like, Hickson and like Penner and like my brother, we're all, we all have this in our blood and we have an energy where we have, like through generations, we have an energy and a synergy for making, bringing to light this experience of what jiu-sitsu can do and what it means. And, you know, I don't think I'm exempt from that. You know, I think that's just

part of my blood and it's just part of what I'm what I'm going for whether I like it or not. All right, but the plan is first to, it sounds like, I hope, write the wrongs. Because there is no, I mean, you, no one would know more than you. There is no forward without figuring out all that damage that's been done. Absolutely. And people like, I mean, I guess I missed something or I didn't explain something well enough. I don't think we can do another event unless we're good with all the athletes. Like, it just doesn't even, you know what I mean?

So we're not, we're at a point where all I'm saying is, I see you, I'm not, I don't need to hide. Like I don't, the brand doesn't need to hide. And we haven't filed. So like, we're still here and we still know that there is energy there and we still feel obligated. And this is not something that I can just like, this is in my blood. So I'm not just some businessman who's like going to flip and move on to something. Like I can't do that. I'm not, that's not my process.

So for me, this is jiu-jitsu is life. So forever, I'm part of this. And I feel that there is chi. And I feel like we did something amazing for the culture that no one still to this day has done. So I'm not, and I'm not like in some illusional space about what I think I can do. I know what has been done. And I know we just barely got started. And that's what I'm feeling.

And so I'm aware of the fact that we need very key people who are high-level people who care about jiu-jitsu to say, look, I'm willing to give my time to this 100%. And we need money, you know, we need the financing. We need the resources and we need, you know, the support of the community. But I'm not expecting people to just be like, oh, we love you and it's cool and forget everything you did. No, we'll see what we do. See that we take care of these athletes. See that we're willing to, you know, do the necessary steps to learn from our mistakes. and write the wrongs, of course, but also know that, and I'm hearing this from my, from advisors

who are smart people that I have in my network, I'm one of the most qualified people at this point to do this kind of business because of what I've been through. I'm extremely qualified. I have made more of the mistakes than a lot of people have made in terms of going through this process. I have data sets now that are more consistent and that are more, you know, revealing than they ever have been. So, and I don't take that. lightly and I don't and I don't think like oh I just know everything now not at all I actually feel like I know less I've been extremely humbled by this process and you know that's it right if we're not learning and growing we're wasting our time so uh yeah all right well halik I know it's a

big challenge I appreciate your candor I could talk to you for another hour but we just got limited air time so we'll have to call it a day there let's do it again because I know you have more questions so let's do it again whenever it's good for you yeah we will halik I appreciate your candor and your time today. Thank you. Thanks. There it. There he goes. Halle Gracie. All right. Let's go to our last guest of the day. I got a couple more. What am I saying? I've got several more. This is, I'm an idiot. You know what? I want to make sure this guy's doing okay. I heard, I saw what happened in his last fight, and I heard about something. I wanted to check in on him. So let's go to him now. Fresh face of the UFC. Mickey Gall is here. Hi, Mickey. How are you?

I'm good, man. It's up, Big Luke Thomas. I'm all right, Mickey. Mickey, let me tell you while we're having this interview. Well, one, I always like checking in with you because you have interesting things to say. But two, I got a tip about you. I got a tip about you. I heard that you were really, really, really sick after the fight and both before the fight and that you've been in the hospital this whole time. Is that true?

Yeah, I just got out yesterday. I'm still in Vegas at a Vegas hotel now. But yeah, that was my first hospital stay. So, yeah, I had, my kidneys were failing. I honestly, before the fight, I didn't really know. But I could feel like, well, once, you know, I guess, like, looking back, you could tell a couple warning signs, like something was going on, but it wasn't like I went.

Like, I, you know, I didn't even go to the fight, being like, you know, fuck it, whatever, it's just kidneys. Like, I really didn't know. And then, but then when I got it, the fight, I was like zapped right away. Yeah. I was like, I was just, I was zapped. Like, I just, I rewatched the fight.

I'm like in slow motion. I remember like, struggling for like balance. Like, just, just trying to like stay like on my feet. Like, it was crazy. Yeah, I was, I was, I watch. What if? I'm sorry. I was just going to say, I was watching it, Mickey and I couldn't believe it.

Like the, you were so, and I'm not trying to be insulting. I'm just trying to be honest. You look so lethargic in that fight. dude yeah i i i i was like slow motion uh it yeah it's weird man like when i when i walked out to the cage like i thought i was like fine like you know i i felt like some some some pains and and stuff like like like like little like almost like phantom like feelings but like nothing where i was like can you like i had no question i walked in the cage believing wholeheartedly i was about to go smash jaco sanchez and but it was like kind of like going uh going to my

my warship, like my, my guns were strong, my, my, you know, I was good, I had good maneuvers my, my ship, but I had a hold in the bottom of the boat. I didn't even know about. And I get out there and I'm, you know, trying to play. And I, like, I, like, just taking, like, like, I usually bounce, like, when I, like, I'm just, like, kind of, just trying to keep balance, just staying in there. Uh, yeah, it's, it sucked. It was like, my, you know, it was terrible pain. I remember, like, no, what the, like, I trained so, like, I train super hard, you know, do my conditioning, do everything, make sure nothing like that would ever happen. So hold on. So here's what I... Sorry, I've been to cut you off, but here's what I was told, just so we can

let the listeners know, I was told, correct me if I'm wrong, that it was not a weight cut issue, that what you actually had was rabdo myelysis, which a lot of crossfit athletes get. It's essentially this process where the body turns on itself from overtraining, and you can get blood poisoning in all manner of different things. What did the doctors tell you you had? Yeah, I did have rabdo. I did have rabdo, but they also think it was, you know, it was kind of like a perfect storm of like drops in the bucket that made this happen.

Like I was like my stomach was a little off for like five weeks. Like I had like some diarrhea when I'm supposed to be like cutting weight. And then I did the wake cut. And this wake I was way easier at my last one. like I uh you know I I believe like sometimes you just got to put the pain in and like get through the way cut but I just sort of what it wasn't really necessary I was you know seeing and having a good time I got the weight off but at one point I did when I stood up I like passed out which I didn't think I didn't think you know at the time I was like I don't know sometimes people

passed out I guess you know I really didn't think I was it felt like I you know got up to it was easy to write it off like like everything that all like the warning signs I was like, you know, no, my, my stomach and my back, like, my kidneys, you don't know what you got. A kidney feeling weird, really. Like, I don't know, my back does that's a little weird. Basically, I ate a lot of pasta, you know, trying to feel up. I was like, how I passed out. That's just because, you know, I got up too fast, a little lightheaded, whatever, whatever.

You know, but yeah, yeah, grab them sucks. Like, like, my past week, like, like, from Saturday night to, like, Tuesday, I was in terrible pain. It feels like, it feels like food poisoning on your stomach and on your back and like probably just like a little, like a little worse. Like just constant, just aching, cramp and sharp pains. Now, if you were mentally committed to the fight, but you knew you weren't feeling 100% was there ever a point where you were like, I don't know if this was worth it before the fight. Honestly, honestly, in hindsight, had I, like, in hindsight, yeah, maybe. I would have said some of the doctors at least like tried to get my levels a little. better.

But, like, it, you know, hindsight's 2020, but at the point, I was like, here it is. We're over there. You know, I guess like the excitement of them making the way and then it would be adrenaline a fight day. I didn't know anything was wrong. I didn't know for sure that anything was wrong. You know, I didn't, it wasn't, like I said, the warning signs weren't glaring. Okay.

It was kind of like under, yeah. So you're out of the hospital, which is great. what is the recovery like after the hospital? And I guess my two-part question would be, number one, that. But two, are you now, like, for example, if you get heat exhaustion one time, you're susceptible to heat exhaustion much more readily in future times. So are you more susceptible to now kidney or other kinds of ailments as a function of what happened to you?

No, no. So that's one of the things I was big with asking the doctors, like, going forward, or is there any long-term damages or any, there's no, there's no problems. What I need to do is I just need to just monitor with like a doctor. You know, I have to go see a physician, see like a nephrologist, just to make sure during like training cancer, and I'm going really hard that my levels are all good. Okay. Now, Rabdo Myelisus, when the CrossFit geters, or CrossFit athletes get it, they get it because

they're doing way too much. Junior Dos Santos had it for a time as well. I believe in one of his cane fights, and he performed poorly as a consequence. So there's some precedent for this. Did your training this time, was it really different than previous times where you had ramped it up,

or how different was it? No, it wasn't. I was doing, I was at, this is the least over-training I probably didn't in the camp. I'm a notorious overtrainer. I do, like I do, in the past I've gone, you know, probably too hard.

but now I've really you know I've taken to you know trying to be like a professional making sure I get my the proper rest all that stuff

so like I said it's a real surprise I really it was crazy man I remember like like I had no idea I just you know

I really had no idea and it wasn't like you know like the UST they have all the medicals all everyone checking you I

we don't know no idea so it was fine they do a good job of trying to, you know, make sure everyone's healthy and doing all right. It was just under the surface, you know? It's hard to, hey, but it really, shit, it got exposed in the fight, came out. That is crazy.

So how do you, how, okay, yes, you can get regular checkups, but from a training standpoint, do you have to switch things up? I don't mean leave camps. That's not what I'm saying, but I'm talking about the load or the way you periodize it. What has to change, if anything? I just think I just need to just pay attention to like my just pay attention to like my kidney function

just to do blood test and make sure my levels are all proper going forward I really don't think it's going to be a big you know have that big of an impact I think it you know its impact has been had for the most part you know I had a shitty fight fight that you know I should have won

fight that you know, was, it was mine. You know, I just needed to show up, and I didn't show up in the condition that I intended to. Is the UFC aware of your condition? Well, they must be now, but. Yeah, yeah, they were really cool. They were, you know, talking about the hospital,

Dana White came through. Yeah, everyone, that was been great. Okay, so that they sound like they were supportive. Do you have to go on any medication as a consequence of this? I do not. No. All right. That's something as well.

The kidneys, you had mentioned some other biological signs heading into the fight that were a little bit alarming. But aside from kidney pain, was there any other kidney indication heading into the fight? Yeah, I'd say, like I said, the warning signals that I was able to, like, write off. after like weigh-ins. And, yeah, I'd be happy to share just, you know, I'd like people to learn from at least maybe my mistakes or whatever, you know. So I definitely felt like almost like vibrations, almost like someone like playing an instrument on my, like in my own,

like kind of on my back, in my low back kind of. I thought it was like, ooh, I'm just maybe like, whatever, just, I don't know. It was kind of like, I kind of felt that. It was a little phantom like, like pickle kind of. And then, so I think a big, another one of the things, like I felt almost like I had to, like, like, I was having trouble digesting. But I think that was like me just like feeling my kidneys kind of hurt. But thinking of like my body trying to like process, like I said, like the pasta and the stuff I was eating. So that's, you know, pay attention if you're, if you're low.

it was like a low back stone like super weird. And then the other thing was I did that I think that the doctor said it was bad was I, after being depleted and like down and wait to help myself get back up and wait, just like I did last time take like a creatine, like a good amount of creatine, like more than normal. But apparently if you're like maybe not do that. That's one of the things. Like I have a really good team around me and I stand by them. But we just got out, we might have, you know, had a tactical error or something that was that this creatine could have, like, pushed it over the edge a little bit. How many milligrams were you taking a day? I did, we did like 15 after the, like throughout the day of the way after the way.

That is a lot. Yeah, but it's not really. Like, when people load up, they do more than that. I think it's a lot for, you know, for a dehydrated body. And then when I took, like, a nap and it was where my back was, like, soaked the bed, like, two times. So, like, I kept sweating. Like, I don't know. I think, you know, too, which is off, man.

Mm-hmm. Correct me if I'm-hmm. You know, yeah, go ahead. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the daily intake for creatine 5 and then loading is 10 milligrams? Yeah. Yeah, that's why I thought 15 was a lot. But I guess if there's other conditions in play. Yeah, yeah, and I'm drinking, like, gallons of water.

You know, I figure it was all right, but, you know, that's something I'm definitely going to, I'm going to have to examine. So how was the hospital stay? Like, can you get, I mean, without getting too graphic, how was the treatment? You just had to rest? Did they have to, what do they have to do? Well, shit, man, I'll tell you, Saturday. So I stuck around and watched the fights in the back room. And, like, my, my, I couldn't get comfortable.

Like, this is, like, after the fight, I was, like, pissed. Like, what the fuck? How do you gas out, Mickey? Like, that's crazy. Like, I even remember in the fight, like, grabbing, like, kind of Diego, like, put him on the wall and saying to myself, like, in my head to be, like, what is going on with you? What do you do? Like, let's go, Mickey Gall, like, what's going on?

Like, I thought I was just gassing. And that doesn't happen to me. Like I said, I trained to my, you know, I obsess on coming in their top four. But, uh, so after the fight, I'm chilling out there in the back, like, kind of, down like what the fuck but i also like i wasn't as depressed because i do my body straight up shut down so like it wasn't like i i left anything i you know i couldn't so i'm lying back there whatever i keep derailing um i'm lying in the back i'm feeling like i can't get comfortable i have like the pain in my stomach in my back pain in stomach of my back i you know i try to

eat a little bit i uh throw it up um i you know pain in something on my back pants on my back fight's end. I'm like, yeah, there's something wrong. I think I got to go to the, if I was going to send me the hospital. There's something wrong going on. Might as well just check it out. So I get in there and then they give you this like this contrast that like is supposed to help so they do like a cascan to like see all your insides, make sure everything's good.

And this contrast will like fucks you up even worse. So for the next like three days, it was like, like I said, like food poisoning to my front, my back, constantly, just like, oh, man, it's terrible. I barely, like, kind of remember that, you know, had me morphed up and stuff those days. But then Wednesday came around, it's still a little better, you know. Hospital stays aren't so bad. Wow, that sounds like, that sounds like a crazy or you.

You have a pretty good attitude about it in the end, I guess. Yeah, man, you know, it's not bad. And, you know, I'm fine. I'm lucky. You know, everything's fine. And, you know, I still, I still, you know, I love this life. I'm really, really pissed and disappointed the way the fight went. But, you know, I couldn't represent, you know, all my skills.

But, you know, I'm grateful for this. I get, I'm going to get an opportunity to do it again soon. And, you know, I love this fucking game. I love this shit. So do you want another crack at Diego? Or, I mean, because I mean, even if it wasn't really you, you got, you know, he got stopped. So do you want another chance at him or do you want to move on to something else? I'd, I mean, I'd love it if he wanted to do it again.

But I'd be surprised if he, you know, it's not going to, you know, I'd be surprised if he wanted to re-up that. I expect to be fighting a new opponent. Yeah, it doesn't matter. you know anyone seven 70 pounders i'll show what i could do when is it safe to get back in there um i'll probably take like another like week or two off um i'll be back training you're a savage micky gall you're a savage i'd be taking i'd be taking months off man but that's why i don't do what you do so um yeah i guess so well look man i am really sorry to hear you had to go through that it did look weird watching it i just didn't know if you

I thought you were injured. Like you had turned an ankle and you couldn't do road work. And that's why you didn't have much gas. I didn't know what it was, to be honest with you. No, I worked, I worked real hard on the gas. You know, because I knew Diego, that's a, you know, he's like a stamina guy. All that. I just, you know, had some failing kidneys, bro.

All right. Well, look, Mickey, get rest. Get healthy again. It sounds like you're on the mend and on the better side of things. I appreciate your time. I appreciate your candor. and I look for a rejuvenated Mickey Gall next time you're out there, okay?

Absolutely. Thank you very much. I appreciate it, Luke. Thanks to give me the space to talk. Of course. My pleasure's all mine. There he goes, Mickey Gall. All right.

Man, that is crazy. That is crazy, man. I don't even, I'm like a little bit speechless by some of those details. All right. Let's go to our next guest. He is one of the top light heavy weights in the world. He's going to be fighting in his native Sweden

in his next spot. There's a lot to discuss. Let's go to him now. Alexander Gustafson joins us here on the hotline. Alex, how are you? I'm good, thank you. I'm doing quite well. Thank you for making time for us.

Let's get right down to it. You're taking on Anthony Smith in your next fight back in Sweden. Let's start with Anthony. Why is he the right fight for you next? No, I'm just fighting in whoever to give me. He just had a fight. He's in shape. He showed some of a lot.

Harton's lost fight with John. So I think it's a good matchup for the fans, and they will see a really good fight. You know, he has some good skills on his feet and good grappling too. So I'm looking forward to it. What did you make of his performance with John? You know, I'm not the right guy to judge him.

I just had a, I just fought John and lost myself. So, you know, it is. It's, you know, he just showed some heart, and he took some damage and just kept moving. So, you know, he's a warrior. And, yeah, I can wait to have him over and give the fans a really good show. So let's talk about the timing on this. You could have waited until summer, but this fight, if I'm not mistaken, is going, well, it is a summer, I guess, June 1st.

Is that the right time of you between your last fight and this one? It's like six months or so? Sounds like a good rebound time. Yeah, it is. I actually wanted to fight earlier than this, but yeah, the next one for me. So, you know, I'm in training. I've been training for a while now, and I had some time after the drone fight, and I just healed up, and I'm ready to go, and it's in my hometown, too, so it can't be better than this. all the other shows has been just success, so yeah.

How are you feeling about how your fight with John went? I realize it didn't go your way. Now that you've processed it, when you look back on it, what do you think? No, it was a really bad performance that I did. No, I just, I wasn't myself, really.

I just went in there and you know, I try to I tried to just take the game plan and everything, but no, he's just, he's just found away very early to neutralize my game and it put me very strong. And, yeah, not so much more to say about that, I think. You saw the rest you saw. Yeah, but so you didn't psychologically beat yourself up over it?

No, no, no, no, no, it's all good. Hey, spot out. Spot out. Just one second. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Can you call that out? Sounds like an eyei. I need to give it.

Sounds like an IKEA store. Yeah, sorry about that. That's okay. Okay, yeah, we worry. Basically, just that after the Jones fight, it didn't go your way, but you weren't too emotionally or psychologically troubled with it in the end.

No, I just hate to lose, but it's a sport, and John is the best guy out there. And, yeah, I don't know. It's, I think I could have done much better, but it is what it is. And I just don't take it as a man. And, you know, it's a sport. And, you know, even if you lost, even if I had my third title shot, I lost the third one, I'm still not feeling bad about it or anything like that. I just, you know, family moves on.

I got a family at home. So I'm just to keep doing what I'm doing and take the next fight and the next fight after that. And it's soft from scratch a little bit. So this Smith fight, this is still for you, the first step back towards the title opportunity. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

But with that said, I'm not even thinking about the title anymore. I've been thinking the title now for a very long time and it's been just a, it's just been a, stressful thing for me. It's been there all the time around me. The tire, entirely, tired, it's been a very long time between my fights. You know, I just have to sit back for a while and take this fight now and take a next fight after that and be more active and try to, you know, be a better fighter and be smarter.

And, you know, I'm still 32 years old. I'm not see, I don't think I'm all. old in the game yet. I still think I have a lot more to give and I feel my body is fresh and I feel good. So I'm having fun, good training. So I'm just taking this fight now in Stockholm and I beat Anthony Smith up and then we take it from there. See what's the next challenge would be. Fighting in your home country, is it the pressure good for you or is it bad for you? I believe it's good. It's, you know, I never lost in this arena, the globe. I I think it's a really good arena.

I have a good wife from there. I have, you know, what is it now? I have, I got two wins there and I got one loss in a Tatele II. So I think also with me and having the fans behind me is I really, it's a really push. You know, whenever you train and warm up for the fights, you have your friends around you. you have friends that will compete and we push each other. So, you know, the sweets are going to war, basically. And you can wait to just be going there again and prove that I'm better than what I showed the last time.

So this win, if you get it over Smith, yes, it's to get back in the win column. And yes, it's obviously to ascend the ranks. But it sounds like what you're saying is I'm going to let the wins take care of the rankings for me. you just want to get better as a fighter and as a competitor. Is that a fair read? Yeah, 100%. That's exactly how I feel right now. You know, I'm done thinking about, you know,

I have to have to work to be a talent contender. I have to stress. I have to, you know, it's none of that anymore. I'm just taking one fighter at a time and trying to fight the best guys and have fun doing it. And try to be smarter and better. What do you think it says that you said you didn't feel like yourself when you fought John?

And Anthony Smith said something kind of similar as well. Yeah, well, I just didn't perform like I used to. I didn't move my, I didn't have the footwork going and go in. And I have no excuses. It's not that. It's just like, you know, it was, you know, I couldn't really, I couldn't really after that when he got me with that knee, I couldn't really, you know, find the rhythm again.

I just, you know, I couldn't move like I did before. I just had a lot of pain after that. I never had that type of pain in my career before in a fight. Of course you have pain. You get shot from everywhere and you get back. You just keep pushing. But he just stopped me right there. And I tried to kick.

I try. I tried to move working with my footwork, trying to like kick him or attack, be explosive. But none of that worked. I just couldn't with my groin. And yeah, so that's basically. lit and it took me down. Nobody can hold me down. Nobody can hold me down. Not D.C. not John. Nobody.

When he took me down there, when he finished me, you know, I couldn't move because of my groin. You know, he just passed, you know, I just went to half guard and just went up and did the crucific stuff on me and nobody does that to me. But I wasn't 100%

I just felt that I had so much pain in my groin but I couldn't really get back into my rhythm again. And with that said, I don't use this as an excuse or anything like that. He did what he had to do to beat me, and John is the best guy out there. So, you know, I don't feel, I don't feel like I'm thinking about that loss nowadays.

It is what is, and I'm just moving forward now. Biggest challenge that Anthony Smith offers is what? Sorry? The biggest challenge that Anthony Smith offers. When you think about his biggest challenge is what? Yeah, yeah, he's a big hitter, and he has a lot of heart. he has a lot of fights behind him and he's very

he's a guy with a lot of routine behind him and it's going to be a real challenge you know and that's what I'm doing this to challenge myself and you know when I beat him I'm going to just move in the rankings

if I don't beat him if he beats me then maybe I don't have it anymore so I just take it from there are you surprised by his quick turnaround that you mean that it comes back and fight again Yeah, so soon, yeah.

Well, he's in shape and he feels like I feeling. Like, you know, like he's just lost and he wants to prove that he's better than what he showed and he just want to get back to fighting and win again. So I think he's very, he's in shape and I think he's ready for this and he's ready to fight me and he wants to beat me. So I understand him totally. Well, we could talk to you forever, but we're a little bit short on time.

Alex, we really appreciate it. It'll be June 1st at the Erickson Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden. Can't wait to see it. Gustafsson v. Smith, the headlining bout for UFC Fight Night 152. Thank you so much, Alexander. Talk to you soon. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Thank you. All right, there he goes. It's a great Alexander Gustafson. Really looking forward to that. Man, could have talked to him forever, but, well, all in a day's work, I suppose. Okay, so how about this? We really appreciate you guys tuning in. Thanks to all the guests who stopped by and to everyone else.

Again, keep sending those tweets using the hashtag the MMA hour. Keep calling us 844-866-24-68. We really appreciate you guys tuning in. And until next time, stay frosty.