MMA Fighting - #475 – Justin Gaethje, Paulie Malignaggi, Javier Mendez, Josh Emmett

Episode Date: April 1, 2019

On this episode of The MMA Hour, Luke Thomas speaks to Justin Gaethje about his knockout win over Edson Barboza at UFC Philadelphia, what’s next for his career, his post-fight interview with Paul Felder, more; Paulie Malignaggi about signing with Bare Knuckle FC, possibly fighting Artem Lobov, more; AKA coach Javier Mendez about the future for Cain Velasquez, what’s next for Khabib Nurmagomedov, more; Josh Emmett about his knockout win over Michael Johnson, where he goes 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

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. It is Monday, April 1st, 2019, and this is the MMA Hour. Welcome, everyone. My name is Luke Thomas. I am the host of this program. Thank you so much for joining me. I greatly appreciate it. Even though it is Monday, April 1st, I read books, and therefore I don't think dumb-ass jokes on April 1st

where I'm trying to trick you are funny, so I won't be doing them. So don't worry about it. But here's what I am going to be doing. I'm going to be giving you four guests today. At 1220, he's the head coach of American Ketka. Kickboxing Academy. Javier Mendez will be here at 1240. He had a great win at UFC Philadelphia, but no bonus. What's up with that? Josh Emmett will be here. At 1 o'clock right over here in studio will be everybody's favorite. I actually do like him a lot. Pauli Malinaji will be here to discuss

all that is happening in his life, burn uncle boxing, Artem Lobo, all that good stuff. And then at 1.30, Justin Gaci will be here, fresh off of his win at UFC Philadelphia. Plus, you will be my guest, not one, two ways. First with the tweets, using the hashtag the MMA hour, keep sending them. We always appreciate that when you do. And with the phones as well on the sound off at 844-866-2468. Yes, indeed. So there we go. Hope everyone had a great weekend. I know I did. We are starting a little bit early because we just don't have enough time with the normal show schedule. Otherwise, I'd have to be running uptown for my next job, which I just don't feel like doing today, because I am tired and old.

So, with that being said, remember, the Monday morning analyst is a YouTube exclusive. We will not put this on the podcast portion. All right. Time now for the sound off. All right. Let's go to my man.

The Percocet to my drug addiction. Where is he? Let's see a picture of old Danny Sigurs. Hey, buddy. How are you? So, man. I'm feeling good. All right. You want to tell folks what you've been up to or no?

Yeah, I got. got surgery last week for a hernia, you know, last Wednesday. So, you know, I've been a little bit of pain, but, you know, I've been pulling through. So I'm all right. All right. Well, I appreciate you hanging in there. Glad to see that the percocets are working their magic. Yeah, yeah, feeling good. All right. Very good. We can finish, we can figure out the hissing in my headphones later. Let's do this. Let's get right to these calls. We're going to have to come back to them later as well, but we'll start on them now. So kick it off here, please. All right. Let's do it. Well, So big topic with Connor McGregor retiring.

A lot of people are speculating why that came about. So, you know, there's a few theories out there, but, you know, this caller suggests one that maybe a lot of people might agree with. So let's listen to it. Hey, Thomas, Chututriene and Danny, Yasmin here. Two questions really quickly. You see a move to the ESPN completely ESPN Plus and ESPN TV channel, which means me thinking, what about the rest of the world? Correct me if I'm wrong. but ESPN is US exclusive.

ESPN Plus is region locked. I can't be subscriber of DSPN Plus and we're in Europe. So now how to get even pay-per-views. And second, Connor retires just after new ESPN deal. Do you think it has something got to do with it? I believe he can't get pay-per-view points now, how he did before. or probably they are offering less money than before. I think he retired because it's not worth it.

Anyhow, keep up good work. Bye. All right. So first of all, the ESPN, the paper views, everything international will remain the same. The whole thing that you can only get ESPN, I mean, paper views through SPN plus is here in the U.S. So if you're an international fan, you don't have to worry about that. This is only for the U.S. folks. That's correct.

So with that out of the way, let's talk about that. So Karma Greger retired, right? And, you know, we know that he was big on paperview points because, you know, he is a big draw. That's how he makes a good chunk of his money. Do you think that's the reason why he retired? I think, look, he's trying to exert maximum leverage. Right when they go to pay-per-view with ESPN Plus is probably got something to do with it, right? Because if you want to fold that over, too, John, it'd be great.

Look, man, I know for a fact that ESPN wants to feature Connor on one of their platforms at this point. Probably their linear TV, but they'll take pay-per-view at this point as well. And him sitting out doesn't help that effort at all. How effective that will be in getting them to make any kind of change remains to be seen. I suspect not very powerful, at least not right now. But it probably could be related. Sure.

It's a theory. I don't have any proof. Yeah. By the way, quick parentheses. Your Molly's your Perk-Set. You know that song? No, I... Molly Perkisset.

I am not a fan of Lil Zan or Gucci gang, Lil Pump. Yeah, well, we have a question about your rap, a rapper that you might know of later on the show. So anyways, but yeah, so for people wondering, it's not that fighters won't get pay-per-view points moving forward because I am assuming they will, and most likely they will. Yes. The thing is, the pay-view buys are likely going to drop

because now they're behind a paywall, right? For example, I'll put you this perfect example. My dad never orders a pay-per-view. Never. I think he's ordered maybe two in his life or one, and the most recent one was UFC 229 because he knew he saw the commercials about Habib. He saw the commercials about McGregor. He knew that was a big fight.

And he's like, you know, F it, let me watch it. He's not doing anything on Saturday night. So he ordered that pay-per-view and he ordered a suit through his cable provider. Guarantee you, he's not going to go on the computer and buy the pay-per-view, sign up to ESPN Plus and then buy the pay-per-view. about it. It was just something that was there. It was easy for him to do and he bought it. So technically, you know, the pay-per-views will drop most likely. So, you know, I'm guessing fighters, like Connor McGregor, would demand a higher percentage since, you know, to make up for that

kind of loss. So, you know, I'm with you. You know, I think this whole retirement thing is him exercising leverage. I don't know how serious he's going to take it. I think he's willing to sit out for a bit. But I think eventually he will he will come back. I don't think this is a do or die for him. Do you agree? I agree. All right. Well, with that other way, let's actually talk about some of the fights and some of the stuff that, some of the action that went down this weekend. So let's start off with one. Demetrius Johnson picked up a pretty solid win over at one. So let's discuss that.

Hey, Luke and Danny. This is Brian Siskin from Nashville, the unfortunate destination for all bachelorette parties. So I was curious to see how Demetrius Johnson would adapt to the differing rules and won, specifically with respect to knees to down to opponents. DJ went beyond just being aware of that new threat and actually took advantage of knees while the opponent was down, which really began his fight ending sequence. Is DJ an anomaly being able to adapt so well? Do you think this will be an issue for other fighters coming to one from the UFC?

It just seems like it would be really tough to retrain your instincts to account for that threat. We'd love to hear your thoughts on it. Thanks. Yeah, it's sort of two parts here. One is that, yes, DJ is going to be able to adapt to any kind of different role. set better than just about any other fighter. On the other hand, what I would also say is not to diminish his contribution because it is as real as the caller identified it being. It actually is the fighter's instinct to knee in that situation.

It's in the unified rules that they have to suppress that instinct on the one show they no longer have to. So it's actually a reverse repression where they have to repress the initial previous desire to repress throwing the knee. That makes sense. They're so used to like, I want to throw it, but I can't. Now you have to work around that. But yes, DJ is going to acclimate to any kind of rule set change better than most fighters.

And a perfect example is, you know, the other former UFC fighter, former UFC champion who fought on that card, Eddie Alvers. Remember when he fought Dustin Porrier the first time? You know, he landed out of illegal knee. He's like, you know, I'm not a dirty fighter. I'm not a dirty fighter. It was just an instinct. You know, he's in that position. He's trying to finish the fight, right?

your whole goal is to beat up your opponent and he threw a knee and then you know we we know what happened with that first outing um so yeah it's definitely a lot more freeing i feel like the one rules um but i would say i feel like demetre's johnson is somebody that will adapt very well given you know what i've seen in other fights one his size i feel like fighters that are smaller tend to you know use perhaps you know more knees and and more of those type of strikes and say like a bigger fighter and uh two like do you remember when he fought john dotson and john dotson was playing the whole uh you know putting his his hand on the ground to make him a grounded opponent and then dj kept bumping him up just to neum um so i think dj will adapt quite well and there's definitely some fighters that we've seen in in history that you know adapt to those rules than others i mean shogun became

famous for his stumps you know vanderly for his soccer kicks you know you can go down the list so you know, I'm, I'm going to, it's going to be fun watching Demetrius Johnson and in this new rule. Yeah, there's a lot of problems I have with the one organization, but the rule set is not one of them. I actually like their rule set. I think it's smart. And I think Matt Heumann's probably had a lot to say about crafting a rule set, not for Demetrius, but just generally in his role as VP. I think he's done a great job. Yeah, for sure.

It's definitely, definitely exciting. All right. Now, let's talk about, uh, Habib, and you kind of touched on this on your Monday morning analyst. I had to race through it. Yeah. So let's discuss it further. Luke, Danny and the crew, it's JD from a tiny town in the middle of nowhere in Canada. Just curious, I know I dropped a part of this message a while ago,

but Habib really does have yet to face a top high-level grappler. And we know he beat Max Holloway is going to be top-tier striking versus top-tier grappling. However, is Justin Gaichi actually the more dangerous fight to Habib? I've watched that guy wrestle through World Series of fighting. seen the old videos, man, is a beast. And he can bang. Is it possible? He's the threat. No one really saw coming for that belt. Thank you guys. Have a good one. Yes, he is. I can't declare that as true as fact as I know for sure. But I showed the two takedowns. They only happened one case where he got absolutely floored. And another case where he had been hurt over the course of

two and a half rounds from Eddie freaking Alvarez. And he got right back up under both of those considerations. Habib's not the kind of guy who really puts hands on you like that, not nearly to the same extent. Of course, he's a much better wrestler than those two guys as well. So the answer is, I don't know, but I think there's a lot of reasons to think, Danny Seguer, that it's a very compelling matchup. I would have to agree. And look, there's something about his, I don't know, his physique, his structure that you see him and he just seems so wiry. Like, you never really see him resting. He's always just kind of ready to, you know, like always recharge is ready to, you know, exert power.

And I feel like, you know, that's, it's very difficult to deal with someone like that if you're trying to take them down. Two, fighting Habib, you want somebody, right, if you're trying to win, of course, you want somebody that's ready to go from the very beginning. When you're on your feet, you've got to maximize your time, right? Because you know that once it gets you to the ground, it's going to be a tough fight. You know, this type of fighter where you pick your shots and take your time and set them up, I don't know if that's the right striker to, you know, make the most out of, you know, striking with Habib.

I think someone that's, you know, always, you know, foot on the pedal 100% of the time, I think that's the way to go. And Gaji is that. I still have questions about his wrestling because, you know, as you mentioned, there's, there are some things that, like, we can see and we can see he's got great takedown defense. But, you know, it's, I feel like it's still very little. But, man, I really do think if Gagie puts up a couple wins, especially now, I saw a much more measured, just engaging in that fight, I think he could be a real threat. I think he could be the threat to Habib.

The thing about the guy who's super aggressive going after Habib, it's not, I don't know what the right answer is. You can get over exposed for taking us. Exactly. I sort of worry about that, that Habib is actually, like, surprisingly quick.

And I wonder if him getting underneath something and someone's overcommitting to something would just make the job of Habib a little easier versus someone, like, even like Connor, who's a little bit more concerted in that way. And, of course, Connor, I don't think, can wrestle, like Justin Gachie can, but you get the idea. There's a lot of different ways that could go.

Here's the point. A lot of times I can sort of piece together how a fight might go. I don't know about this one. I really don't know. It's much more interesting than I think folks can... When Justin said it the first time, I was like, let me think about that.

And I only began to think about it. And I saw those two takedowns in preparation for today's show. And I was like, oh, this is much more of an interesting question than I think anyone realizes except Justin Gachie. Yeah. Well, I think he knows. He's like, for when you came into the UFC, I feel like he just came with this.

mentality like, look, I'm in the UFC, I made it, I'm just here to entertain. Now he's like, you know, I'm going to make my way to Habib. And, you know, he's willing to fight anybody to get there. But, you know, I don't know. Did you see like a much more measured, a much more patient, just engaged you in this fight? Like, yeah, I feel like this was. This was a much better performance that he had against, let's say, Michael Johnson. For sure. The only thing I was pointing out when I was pushing back against people being like, well, he fought smart this time. Yeah, he did. And again, the Michael Johnson one, he was a little bit wild. Yeah.

But he's been doing a lot of things that were clearly thoughtful that he never got credit for because the barbarism he fights for just drowns out everything else. And it kind of upsets me. It's like I get the point. No one loves his barbarism more than me. But to say that this was the first time he ever really showed a lot of intelligence? No, he shows intelligence and high level fighting. He just marries it with some craziness. And I think that's the reality.

Yeah, he's definitely, I agree with that. But I'll push back a little bit in the sense of, I feel like he's. He's always, you know, to do what he does, you've got to be an intelligent fighter. I mean, he's obviously, you know, implementing, like, great technique out there. But I feel like in this fight, he wasn't, I mean, you always got a compromise, right, if you want to be an exciting fighter. But I feel like he dialed down a little bit. It kind of reminded me that one time when Vendrly Silva fought Kung Lee were like, yes, he had that crazy barrage of punches that he always throws. But, like, you know, he was, it was smart or aggressiveness.

I'll say yes to that. Again, I think we're mostly agreeing. I'll push back on the pushback, just a hair on that, Danny, and I'll say this. I don't think, in the end, I wasn't sure how Edson and Justin would match. In the end, I think Justin was a very bad matcher for him. Because if you go back and you watch the Alvarez fight and then you watch the Porre fight, watch how much they're turning him. Watch how much they take away pieces of the game that he needs to succeed.

Edson didn't really do that. Edson just kind of stood his ground. That's not what Eddie did. and it's not what Dustin did. And I think that kind of plays into it too. Yeah. Well, I feel like he got rocked early.

It was a very quick fight. Eddie got rocked early too. I mean, Eddie always gets rocked early. But yeah. Yeah, I want to see more of Justin Gage. I want to see like how he looks.

It's an interesting question. Yeah. It's not settled by any stretch of the imagination. Isn't the lightweight division fun, man? Dude, it's the best division in MMA. I don't care what anybody says. It's awesome.

All right. Well, I'm going to get, have your Mendez. You want me to leave you with a question? Leave me with one. and go grab Hoff, please. All right, cool.

Let me see. Here it is. All right. This is all you, homie. Hey, what's up, Luke? What's up, Danny? This is Lex, man.

I'm calling out of Louisville, Kentucky. I actually just had a somewhat of an off-topic question for Luke. Luke, what's your favorite song out of these last three push-a-tie albums? What's your favorite song from Daytona? What's your favorite song from My Name is My Name? and what's your favorite song from Rath a King? I'm just interested. I'd love to know that thing.

God, that's a good one. So from Daytona, I would say, God, it's a good one. If you know, you know, I would say my favorite push-a-T song ever, aside from the story of Adidon, is, God, what's my favorite? Numbers on the on the boards

Um Yeah That's probably about I'm There's a bunch of good ones to pick from Numbers on the boards It's probably my favorite song And I'm one of my favorite videos as well

And then you know But God, just my I don't know if I've mentioned the album or not But alone in Vegas is another good one Yeah those are some time Those are some easy top I mean there's so many good ones There's so many good ones.

And also, like, I'm a big fan of clips. Clips kind of fell off because what's his face? Malice. Was he no malice now? Who was two brothers. And, um, and push a tee kept going and malice, you know, saw God or whatever and decided to call it quits. But I'm a big push.

I'm a big push a T fan or a big, uh, clips fan. So, uh, by the way, shouts to Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Norfolk, that whole area. That's where all those guys came from. Neptunes, the whole bit. So. All right. Let's go now to the Skype machine. We are joined by our first guest.

He's one of the most esteemed coaches in MMA. I just wanted to check in with him like I always liked you every so often, see how things are going. And he joins us now on Skype. There he is. Javier Mendes. Hi, Javier. Hi, Luke.

How are you doing, buddy? It looks to me, I could be wrong, that you are in Las Vegas, Nevada. Is that right? I think you're right. Yeah, I have a great host, George Roge from the planet in Hollywood. He hooks me up all the time. And, you know, I lose a lot of money. He does a lot of good things for me.

Now, you, uh, you spend your free time out there? Uh, usually when I, when I come to the fights, you know, the fighters have their one room or whatever they give them. I stay here at the planet Hollywood with, under my friend George Rojay, because I get hooked up. I'm not sleeping with other guys when I can have a two bedroom seat to myself. Are you there, about, I guess what I'm asking is, are you there on business? Oh, this one's business. Yes, I'm sorry, business. Can you tell us what the business is? No.

Good. You're no fun, Javier. I know sometimes. All right. Well, I wanted to check it with you because there's a few things floating out there in the ether that I thought were kind of interesting. And I thought it would be a good time to circle back with you. A couple of things. So we saw this news about Kane Velazquez at something.

And I'm not a pro wrestling person. So forgive me if I get it wrong. Something called Triple Mania in Mexico, I believe. Either it happened before or it's happening soon, something like that. First things first, do you have a health update on him? How is Kane? Far as I know, he was at Daniel Korme's birthday party that we all had and seemed fine. I didn't really ask him how he was.

You know, we're just chatting about other stuff, but he was walking around fine. But, you know, I don't even know if he's, I don't know. I didn't ask him. I figured he'd tell me if so. I didn't know something. No, no, I don't know anything. I was wondering, like, after the fight was over, was he able to, like, walk home? Was he able to get around?

He wasn't getting around too well. You know, the screwed up about that whole thing. Originally, when I saw the fight, I kept having to replay it, replay. I never seen what the hell happened. And I was thinking, well, what the hell? It's just his knee gave out, right? And, of course, his knee gave out, right?

But then it wasn't until I was home, and he leaves me a text message. He goes, I was fine until he hammer-fisted me in the back of the head. And I'm like, what? Talking about hammer-fist. So I replayed the guy. damn video in the very first strike that was hit was an illegal shot right behind the back of the head when he shot in and that's what he said that dazed him a teeny bit and that's what started this whole sequence but nobody ever saw it it was an illegal shot it was it was if the ref would have caught it it would have been it would have been a no contest but he didn't catch it hell i didn't catch it and i watched it over and over again and then i'm i i made up in my mind what i thought it was and it wasn't i was completely wrong so no it's funny not funny but it wasn't funny i wasn't funny i I'm sorry, that's stupid word, but, but, you know, it was one of those weird freak accidents, man.

You know, whether intention or not, I don't know. All I know is that he got a hell of a shot. When you slow it down and you watch it, it was a clear shot, the legal back of the head. And nobody talks about that because it's over stunned. And also, I'll be honest, I watched the tape a thousand times. I'm certainly not suggesting you're wrong, but like you, I think I missed it as well. If what you're saying is true, I can't recall that. Yeah, rewatch it.

rewatch it and then watch the very you know Garner shoots a one two at him he misses both shots and then Kane shoots in as soon as he shoots in he gets hit with the hammer strike right in the back of the head and then followed up by sequence of punches and then that one shot where he lifts with a straight

up an uppercut it looks like it's a hit him a glance hit him and then at the same time right as it hit him he looked like his head buckled and then his knee went but it was the shot before that that we all missed I missed it you know you don't pay it tension, you're going to miss it.

I'll definitely go back and take a look. That's interesting. Now, has he been back in the gym since then? No, he hasn't been back in the gym. Like I said, the first time I saw him was with the Daniels thing. And I knew about the thing for Mexico because he had made an agreement with the UFC. Because, you know, you don't have an agreement with him. You're not going to be able to do it. But it was already agreed upon.

So he's doing something for a WWU in Mexico. I don't know exactly what, but it does involve, involved with the Mexican league. Now, that's through WWE? Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Okay. So you can imagine what the average fans' perspective might be. They see this injury.

They don't hear from Kane. And the next thing they hear about him, he's doing some wrestling stuff. And they say, man, he kind of has one foot out the door. Is that an unfair overreach? Is that a panic response? I would say 100%, you know, panic response. He hasn't said anything alive here. from him is he can't wait to get back in.

Okay, very good. By the way, how, how overweight at this point is Daniel Cormier? I don't know. He's happy. Let's just say he's very happy. All right, fair enough. So you, like, is there, again, you're spitballing here. I just want to coach's perspective.

Reasonable to assume Kane comes back this year, reasonable? If it does late year. Late year. So maybe more. likely like a, again, we're just spitballing here. Yes. Like a first quarter, second quarter, 2020. You know, that's, that means that would be more likely first quarter, second quarter,

2020, I think, if he comes back, you know, and, and you never know, right? I mean, he may say yes and all of a sudden last minute, he goes, no, right now, I haven't heard anything other than, you know, he's still hungry. That's, I do know that. Here's the thing, Hobb, as a coach and as somebody who I know cares about Kane, and I'm really an observer, but I'm certainly an admirer of what he's done. Do you ever get bummed out about all the time he's missed? I mean, no one's probably more bummed out than Kane himself. But what about you? I'm honestly heartbroken here in my opinion. This is my opinion, okay? I think he could be

that it could have been the greatest heavyweight of all time had none of these stupid things happen to him. I mean, there's some by his cause, some by my cause, some by just unforeseen things, you know? And I mean, almost anybody that sees. what he's capable of doing and what he has been doing, obviously knows that there's no one like him. But, you know, this is an unforgiving sport, you know, and he's had a lot of mishaps happened to him. And like I said, some my fault, some his fault, some other people's fault.

But it's happened, you know, and we just got to move forward. But is it depressing? Yes, it is. It's heartbreaking for me when I see these things happen to him. I don't know how much you pay attention to, like, other sports, but I live in Washington, D.C. Havon, my favorite team is, they're terrible, but I like the Washington, Redskins. They have a tight end who goes by the name of Jordan Reed, 6-4-240, super athletic.

This dude just cannot stay healthy. When he's on the field, he is the most incredible specimen there is. I wouldn't say he was as good as, you know, Gronk, but very, very good. And you just never see it because he's got a shoulder or a foot or a concussion or this and that. And it leads me to believe, do you think some people, no matter their best efforts, they're just more injury prone than others? Well, you know, I'd like to think that, but in all honesty, I asked, I said, hey, you know, were you getting injured in college? He goes, no, never. And I'm like, what the fuck?

You know, I go, what the hell's going on here? You know, so I'd like to say yes, you know, that's an easy answer. But no, that's not the answer. I'm trying to think that it's maybe that we do too much in one sport and he pushes his body too much. And it breaks, you know. And, you know, we have to learn to stop him, you know, because he'll, he's, he just got energy for days, you know, and he'll keep going. He doesn't know when it's stop.

You know, he won't stop unless you stop. So can you imagine that? So I'm working with him. And he seems to be always ready to go, always ready to go. So I'm pushing it further than I should. You know, and the next thing you know, boom, injury. Because why? The stupid coach went out there and did more work with him

and he probably should have, you know. And I'm not saying that's the case, but I'm saying that's the case with him. Fair enough. I want to circle back to Cormie in just a second. Let me ask you something else I saw floating out there. It happened with something Luis Pena had. said, Mr. Violent Bob Ross, and I'm going to ask, not tell, because I legitimately do not know

what the answer is here. To be a high-level gym, you got to have a high-level coach, you are one, you got to have high-level fighters, you got them. On some level, though, it's like a division one program. You got to recruit two. What are the ethics in your mind of recruiting fighters from smaller gyms to come to bigger ones like yours? What are the rules in your mind about the right way and the wrong way to do that. We, you know, we generally don't do that. We don't want to do that. We don't need to do that.

You know, they basically come to us. I don't really, I don't really like taking somebody who's been training somewhere else, you know, and they say, come over here to us. It's not fair. Let those individuals that have been worked with them, work with them, you know. And if that individual, that fighter wants to come train with us, to me, it's like, I let him and let his corner come with him. Let him be the people that are with them.

Man, they worked really hard to be with him from the beginning, you know. And my attitude is, you know, stay with him. Like Luis Pena, you know, when he's had his first fight with us, his original corner was with him. And by all means, that was the greatest thing for me. But then something happened between them and now it didn't work out. But to me, it's always should be that way. I don't, you know, I don't like it. That's why for me I like working guys from scratch.

That way they're with me and that's it. I don't really like working guys that have been somewhere else. and, you know, and then I'm implementing what I want to implement on them. And then, you know, I'm taking away from somebody else. If the relationship with their other coaches is good, then it should stay there. Not even speaking about AKA, but just generally, when you look around the industry, is that kind of recruitment from higher level gyms? Is that a problem?

Or do most higher level gyms have the same benefit you do, which is you guys are so visible, people just come to you? I think we're just so visible, people just come. I don't think American top team. Jacks and, you know, all the other top themes, they, you know, Duke Rufus. And, you know, I don't think, I don't think they recruit. I think just people come to them. I don't really see it.

We don't recruit. The only thing we do recruit is through Duane Zink and, you know, and Crazy Bob, you know, they're out there actively recruiting top wrestlers. So, yes, but that's wrestlers that have no MMA experience. That's not wrestlers that, you know, are already fighting. They don't recruit them. They recruit the wrestlers that from zero. That's why you notice a lot of the guys we have are from zero.

That's right. So you get them right out of college or when they're done with the freestyle circuit or whatever it is. And then you build them from the ground up like that. Yes. Yes, from the ground up. That's the way we like to do it. Fair enough. Okay. I was just wondering because there were some people chatting about it, but I don't know how big of a deal that is or it's not. All right. So let's circle back to if we can. Mr. Daniel Cormier, as you telling me and joining me his wonderful birthday. We saw him commentating at UFC Philadelphia per usual. He did a wonderful job. Last time he was on this show was not too long ago. He was still. rehabbing, I think that thumb

or there was another injury he was dealing with. Is he going to fight in 2019, do you think? Oh, 100%. He's fighting. He's fighting. It's better be Brock. It better be Brock. Dana keeps talking about it. We keep talking about it. Let's help Brock talks about it. We want Brock.

Let me push back on this. Yeah, I get it. Let me push back on this. If I can't, Javier, look, we both know what the deal is. He's going to get paid to fight Brock. It's not very competitive to me. I think that Daniel's going to go in there and wax him. Like, why should I be interested in that fight?

Well, I think the Brockomania fans are going to be interested in that fight. It shouldn't be a spectacle to see it. You know, when he does it, how he does it. You know, I'm thinking we're winning too. But you know what? I've also thought King Velasquez was going to win some fights too that he didn't win. So there you go. There's a monkey in the wrench, you know.

It's just thrown at you, you know. This sport's an unforgiving sport and it's a 50-50 sometimes, you know. You come in highly favor, you know, Luke Rockville, Michael Bisping. You know, oh, walk in the park. Well, Luke had an injury. Well, Luke pushed things. Well, guess what? Walking the park became an upset in history.

So everything that you think appears to be just like that sometimes does not end up being that way. Are you glad he pushed back his retirement? Yeah, was he announced, by the way, on this show? I want whatever Daniel wants, you know. I'm okay with him Tyree. Now I love the guy. He's my team captain and he's my friend for life. So I don't

really care if he fights ever again. But, you know, if he's going to fight one more time, I want it to be Brockville because of the big payday. I mean, that's an obvious thing here. It's not anything other than that. You know, it's a big payday. And then what is what is price fighting? This is more of a

price fight than it's a sport. Anybody that thinks this is a sport, then man, we're all a effed up here. You know, people are fighting each other that shouldn't be fighting each other. A guy loses a title. He goes up and fights for another title. And then he fights, goes down again and he fights another high level fight instead of earning his way back up. You know, it comes down to eyeballs through the screen, who's going to pay? And, you know, the people do what they do to make business work. And that's what happens. You know, look at Mighty Miles. I mean, as great a fighter as he was,

you know, why did he get switched over? Look at his pay-per-view numbers. Look at his viewership. Very, very low. So what did they do? They have to do what's right for the the business. So is this a true sport? No. It's prize fighting. You know, and I'm never delusioned by that. So I understand how it goes. And also, he's still very competitive. And one thing that kind of bothers me, Hav, I wonder what you have to say about this. You see a lot of guys get to the top of the game in boxing and not even necessarily the best ones, not the Pachiaos, not the Mayweathers, but like the Garcia's, the cons, right? When they start getting million dollar paydays, they stay in the sport and keep earning million dollar paydays. In MMA, you see guys make a few

million dollar paydays and then they're out they don't stick around daniel's still competitive he's at his peak earning potential why not well i mean the thing is you know if daniel decides hey i'm going to continue to fight three more fights and you know dana decides to throw more money at him and the money's too good to pass up you know i'm sure daniel's a competitor he'll do it but you know let's face it he's he's such an incredible announcer and incredible host this guy can do anything NFL NBA, you name it, you name it. You put him behind a mic band. He's magic. I'm sorry, that guy's magic. Anything you want to put him in, he can do, and he will do, and he'll do it to the best of his ability. And I don't think there's many people out there in the world of announcing

and personalities they really have what that guy has. Now, we just saw Justin Gachie win over the weekend. I'm not sure if he had a chance to catch it hobb, but I know you're familiar with Justin. He had said he wanted Habib next. Now, Habib's a tough fight, as you well know, better than I do. he's a tough fight for anybody. But Justin Gaichi is interesting. The only two times he's been taken down in the UFC was when he was rocked by a huge punch. He got right back up from both,

and he stopped every other single one. What kind of a threat do you think Justin Gaichi is for Habib Numergermakimadov? Not much. Tell me why. Not much. Because he ain't got to be able to stop the take down. None of those guys can.

He'll take them all down. And if they don't have much of a ground game, they're done. You know, the only way it becomes interesting if Habib decides to do things. Look back to all his fights. It's only when he decides to stand with people that it becomes a little bit trickier.

I mean, he stood with Connor, so he gave Connor a chance, and I'm begging for him. Go back to Father's Plan. Go back to Father's Plan. He screws with me all the time. He does the same thing with Michael Johnson. I'm telling him, what are you doing? Go back to Father's Plan. Father's Plan. That's what I call just wrestle the guys.

Take him down, wrestle him. And he does that all the damn time. He did that to All right. Quinta, same damn thing. I'm begging him. I told him, look, Al's going to bait you. He's going to allow you to hit him because he, you know, and you're going to be able to hit this guy.

Don't get too comfortable hitting him because he's going to lure you in. Also, the guy hits really hard, and I don't want you getting caught. Sure, sure. Okay, coach, okay. What does he do? Start banging with out. And then he's outpointed him. Just like I said, next to you know, he's doing it, doing it, doing more.

And then I'm just, and I'm just like telling him, can you please go back to Father's by? Nope. Then all of a sudden, I said, okay, since you're not going to go to Father's plan, why don't you do 50% what you want 50% what we want so he goes okay coach then he goes out and does that you know but it's only because of what he wants if he wants to take somebody down he'll take him down i don't care who it is in his weight division he'll take them all down and guess what if they if they get backed up he'll take him back down again i've seen it too many times you know i've never seen anybody like him and and you know we'll probably never see anybody like him again you know the guy can take a shot he doesn't even get fazed i mean look at barboza kicks him in the head It didn't even look like, what, nothing? And then, you know, Michael Johnson taps him right in the head. And I'm like, dude, he hit you. He goes, no, he didn't.

And I go, yes, he did. He hit you with a decent shot. I mean, you didn't show it very much, but, you know, you can't get caught like that too much. You know, but it's up Habib. Habib is the reason why these fights are more stand-up than they need to be. I, if my choice is always, just take him and smash him. And he can do that to every one of these guys. So let's assume that's true.

Last question on this. Let's assume that's true. I won't challenge it. that he at 155, nobody can stop it. So answer me this then. How big and how good do you need to be before guys can start stopping him in the training room? You got to be a middleweight.

You got to be what? Tell me when that begins to wear off. Well, I don't know because I never had let him spar a middleweight. Well, that won't do it. I won't let him do it. No, he'll want to. I won't let him. It's no way.

He can do the wrestling, whatever. But in the MMA sparring, no. No, the most I will do is a welterweight. I've never done middle weights with him. I won't do that. It's just stupid, you know. It's a little too big, too much horsepower on both sides, and I don't want any injury unless it's a middleweight that he can play with.

But if he can play with him, why even be there? He needs to have something that can challenge him. So I put everybody, Habib, always spars it right within his weight. You know, the butt the heaviest he'll go as his cousin, you know, Abukhar. You know, that's it. And they sparred each other so much. So it's not that much of a weight difference. You know, I won't let, like, Luke Rockhold and stuff, be crazy.

and let the spot would move. All right, but then tell me, tell me what your hunch is. How big do you got to be to really give him some trouble? Like weight-wise? Yeah, like, I mean, if a 155 or can't do it, what does your brain tell you about who could? Someone like Luke Rockall type weight, that those guys can do it. Wow.

That ain't going to happen because I won't allow it. Yeah, of course not. But that would be a sight to behold. Good Lord. All right, well, you tell you what, Hav. I know you're there in Vegas. I don't want to keep you from those wonderful Vegas buffets or whatever it is you are doing there. Enjoy your time.

And we look forward to seeing you back on someone's corner. And of course, you're on the show. Thank you so much. Thanks, Luke. Thanks for having me. All right, buddy. We'll talk to you. Yes, sir.

One of my favorite coaches in the sport. There you go. All right, we're going to wait on Mr. Josh Emmett. We're going to get him on the show. Man, I was so bummed about that. Well, I was happy for the win. Don't get me wrong. And that was nice.

And then when they announced the bonuses, I'm like, dude, This guy's got to be a lock, right? He's got to be a lock. Nope. Doesn't get a bonus. Couldn't believe it. Now, maybe they took care of him privately. And they didn't announce it, but I was dismayed.

So I wanted to get him on the show. What a win it was for him. Great win at UFC Philadelphia. I'm joined now by top featherweight, Josh Emmett. Let's put him up here on Skype. There he is. Look at that. Hi, Josh.

How are you? Okay. Good. How you doing, Luke? I'm doing quite well. You know, you got a couple of scuffs there on the face. but you have a nice clean smile. You must be feeling pretty good.

Yeah, feeling great. I have just a little black eye and a few little cuts, but nothing major. All right, man. Let's just get this out in the open. How on earth is it possible for a knockout like that? You didn't get a bonus. I'll be honest.

When you knocked him down and he went, it reminded me of the Edson Barbosa knockout of Terry Edom, where he went down like a wooden mannequin, I was like he is a guarantee luck to get a bonus and it didn't happen. What happened, man? Man, I thought the exact same thing as soon as I hit him and it went down like that. I told Yariah and Danny and Joey in the corner, I was like, finally, I'm getting a bonus. You know, I thought it was a shoe in for sure.

And then I'm going back backstage. And of course, the branch fight went down and he got submitted. but that's okay. And then Gachi, you know, I figured there'd be some type of bonus in the main event. And Gachi got a, you know, a nice TKO or knockout, whatever you want to call it. And so I'm like, for sure, I have to get one. And all the UFC staff, everybody was like, you're getting the bonus. Have you got your bonus yet?

And then Danny pulled it up on his phone. And it didn't go to me. And I was like, I thought he was joking. I was like, there's no way. And that was the case. So I don't know what I have to do. You know, I feel like what more can I do to get a performance bonus? But I'm just super disappointed with that.

Let me honest. That's a little weird that UFC staff would kind of say something like that without knowing, right? No, it's just like people that I know, you know, in the back. They've said it before, you know, like, oh, you're getting the bonus for sure. You know, just kind of some of the people that I'm a little like closer with and things like that. but but nothing like set in stone or anything you know okay um typically it's what the matchmakers who decide this like how is your relationship with the matchmakers um i really i'm you know cool with everybody i don't really have much contact with them besides just when i see him fight

week or at the way ins and just kind of you know shake their hand say hi and things like that but yeah it's it's usually dana white i want to say mick sean and read right and they kind of vote unanimously. That's just what I've thought. So I'm not exactly how it goes down. Do you feel like you have to glad hand with them? You know what I mean? To, like lobbying does work, right?

No, of course. Yeah, it works for sure. And I know some of them are maybe a little tighter or closer to certain people's managers and things like that. So I know every time there's a great performance or big finishes, I know those managers are in their ears. but from a knockout like that, people were telling me it's one of the best knockouts so far this year. And it's, you know, don't get, don't get me wrong. It's the, like the Massoudball knockout was great. The Pettus knockout, the Gachi knockout, but those, they still had to follow up.

I landed one punch and it was just, it was like the Lomas knockout, you know. It was just one punch. I knew it was over. Just walk off home run. When you landed it, did it feel super clean? Yeah, exactly. It sounded or it landed and I just knew. I hit him and I just saw him falling backwards.

And yeah, I wasn't going to follow up with any more unnecessary blows. I knew he was out as he was falling down. Now, I know you didn't get the bonus, which I want to circle back to in just a minute, but you have to feel pretty good on one level about the year you've had coming back.

And, you know, Michael Johnson is a credentialed, well-respected opponent. That's about as nice of a way is you're going to get over a guy like that. You have to feel pretty good about that, yeah? You know, I feel great about the performance, about the matchup. That's the, that's the reason why I wanted that fight. I want to fight people in front of me, of course, or bigger names. And Michael Johnson's name was thrown out there. He's a veteran. He's fought the best, beat the best. He's never been knocked out like that either. And, you know, I've given a few opponents,

their first knockout losses, but I knew how much of a following he's had, or he has, and just how good he is. And I wanted to truly test myself. I felt like I started a little slower, but even with that, I felt like I won the first round, the second round I gave it to him, and then my coach has said,

you need to just have a big third round, go out there and just let it go. I was being a little more cautious, just because I've seen things that he's done. I didn't want to, you know, rush into anything and get caught with. just anything unsurprising and beyond his highlight reel. So I know that I can finish the fight anytime.

I know he could finish the fight anytime. And there was a lot of respect in there as far as, you know, because normally I'm just like in the mix. I'm pressuring people and I'm just throwing a lot of big blows. I had to really, you know, step back a little bit and pick my shots and just be way more cautious than I typically am. And I knew it would come eventually. How fast was he?

And this is the thing I was talking to my coaches about. I give all my opponents. I give them, they feel like too much respect. Just because I watch all their fights. Some people have fought some of my teammates, but I really do not know how fast, how hard they hit, how strong they're going to be until I physically get in there. You know, I get a little advice from teammates and coaches that have fought him.

And I knew he's really fast. I knew he's powerful. But honestly, as I got in there, it was not as fast or as powerful as I thought it would be. And that tends to happen quite a bit. All right. I've been covering the sport quite some time. It used to be the case. And I know it's dwindled over time, but it used to be the case where if you didn't get a performance bonus,

you would get something like a locker room bonus. And these would not necessarily be substantial sums of money, 5, 10K, sometimes more, but let's say roughly in that range. Did you for this fight or have you ever gotten anything like a locker room bonus? I haven't got anything yet, but I haven't got paid yet, but I know I'll probably get paid today, Monday or Tuesday. And yes, I have got locker room bonuses, but nothing like 5,000 even. You know, I think the biggest one I typically thought it was like $2,000, $3,000. So I know they used to be bigger like you're talking about $5 to 10, but I think they're a significantly smaller amount now.

It's sort of a separate larger question. Do you think Fighter Pay is, how would you classify the issue of Fighter Pay? A problem could be better about what it should be. Where are you on that spectrum? Yeah, it could definitely be better. You know, I feel like we're the, it doesn't get much higher. It's like we're the MLB or the NFL of mixed martial arts. I feel like there should be, it's just too all over the pace.

You know, there's people that come in and their first fights 10 and 10. And then you're, you know, of course, champions and people at the very top are getting paid a significantly bigger sum of money. Even with the win and show bonuses, I feel like it should be just a flat fee. You know what I mean? Because no one's trying to fight any harder trying to get that win bonus. I'm trying to go out there and finish the fight with every strike I throw. You know what I mean? And I'm trying to finish the fight.

I'm trying to win the fight. you're not thinking like oh man i got to pick it up because i really need that win bonus i'm trying so it would be nice to get pay just flat fees but larger sums of money like what has to happen before you can get that i've seen certain fighters get it and they're usually a little more senior um i think gilber melendez for example i think he either does or used to you know get just a flat rate uh i think overreem might get a flat rate there's a handful of them out there like what what does the guy got to do to get a flat rate man i'm not sure i I think it goes into how popular they are and, of course, the management side and just, yeah, a lot of things kind of play into that.

But I definitely think MMA fighters need or some type of security, you know, whether I know we just recently got insurance, I want to believe, but it's a big deductible if you were to get injured outside of the fight. And just like what happened with me, you know, I fought in 2018. in February. I fought one time I had significant injuries. So I only got paid half a check in 2018. And it was a tough year for my wife and I financially. So if there was some type of, you know, some type of pay, you know, whether it be, you know, monthly stipend or something, you know, that would have definitely helped.

Does your, you don't have to tell me what she does or anything else, but does your wife work? Does she, is she employed? Yeah. All right. So that was there was something to be said for that during this past, what I'm sure was a very difficult year. At least something there, yeah? Yeah, for sure.

No, she definitely, she had to basically support us. But no, I got paid, you know, a decent amount, but not for the injuries I sustained. And so we just, it was just tough getting by, you know, for going 13 months without me making a paycheck. Yeah, it was tough. And it's not like I can go. doing little jobs helping some buddies that, you know, or project managers and stuff like that,

doing errands just to make a little extra cash, I had to sell some things I was doing, you know, personals here and there. But, yeah, stuff, I couldn't go get another job because then I'm going to work full-time. I can't train. And then when I get a fight, what am I going to do put in my two weeks? That's just, that's not me. So it puts you in a weird, like a tough situation, you know what I mean? Yeah, because, like, for example, Gordon Ryan,

one of the best, you know, he did the team alpha male thing for a quintet. He's all banged up, but he's out there doing seminars constantly and making big cash. It's like, okay, that makes sense, right? Because even if you were pro-JJJU, IBJF doesn't pay you hardly anything. So that's really how you make your money elsewhere. But for you, you guys, the more extracurricular activities you take, the more it affects the thing you're trying to get back to. What are other teammates, did they have any advice about what to do?

It's like a lot of the bigger name guys. They have, you know, like their businesses going on. Like Chad has fins and feathers. Your ride does a lot of things, you know, just outside of the sport. And that's something that I'm trying to establish. I would like to, you know, I used to have a CrossFit gym. But we closed that down a little while ago. But other than that, like if there was other business ventures or anything like that

where I could make some extra cash, that would be awesome. And that's one of the things that I did do while I had this long-term layoff was I was working with my doctor and nutritionist. And when we formulated and developed this supplement that we just launched. You know, it's on my website. And it's a powerful supplement. It's called Mastermind. It's on Josh Emmett.com. It's, I always want to do a supplement line.

And that was creatines, proteins, stuff like that when, but it's so saturated. I can't compete with that. during this process, he had me taking a lot of different ingredients and supplements to get what we put into this one powerful supplement. So instead of me taking a basket of things, I'm just taking three capsules a day. And it's phenomenal. You know, I've been taking it for three, four months, and I feel that that's one of the reasons that got me back into training and back to fighting. I credit a lot to that. So that's interesting. By the way, I first call me, I've seen, I saw you find the UFC. We got to get you back plugging that thing on Mark Bell's Powercast or whatever he's calling it these days.

That'd be a nice plug for you to the industry. But so what's in it? Like what? Citraline malate, creatine? What's all in this thing? Yeah, there's a lot of like, cedocon. There's a lot of things. So it's a four and one. There's a, it's a brain booster. So it decreases stress, increases mood. It's, uh, energy enhancer. So it's sustained energy throughout the day. It's not like you, don't have these highs and lows with these big stimulants. It also has this anti-inflammatory agent. So not only just anti-inflammatory for the brain, but the entire body and joints, and it has a lot of ingredients in there for recovery. And so it just, I swear when I take it's like laser focus, I'm just like, I don't know, it's, it's, it's tough to explain. I feel great. And even because I'm, I'm partnered up

with my doctor and stuff, not being biased. It is, if you look at the ingredients, it's just powerful ingredients. We have like 16 ingredients in there and it's a every time you know people are looking at there like man this is great. It's it's something we didn't want to put a few things in there and then people buy it you know one time. Oh, this is crap and never do it again. So we we've spent some money putting some expensive ingredients in there hoping that they take it, they enjoy it and they continue to buy it. All right. Well, I hope some folks pick it up. Let's talk about the rest of your year because if you can't get a bonus, the best thing to do otherwise is to stay healthy and then just get back out there again. Now, I know I read a story that Berro Komoda did on you, you still can't

feel the left side of your gums, as I understand it, but you did get licensed for this fight. You are allowed to compete. So from a health standpoint, how ready are you for a turnaround? Is that, is there any concern there, given some of the lingering health issues? No, I feel great. You know, and that's one thing. I always want to stay as active as possible. As long as I'm healthy, I want to get in there and fight three, four times a year. And after this fight, I feel great. You know, I, like I said, it took me a little bit to get going. I've been out for 13 months, so I felt like my timing and everything.

I don't know, was a little off, but I felt like I just started to open up after like the second and third round, really just kind of just let it go. So, yeah, I want to turn around and fight, maybe international fight week. I've never fought in Vegas. I want to fight in Vegas just so it's close to California. You know, I'd have so many people out there,

and it's a huge event, so that would be awesome. unless something popped up in June, but I want to get at least two more fights in this year. Yeah. Where do you think you sit in the division after a huge win like that? I mean, bonus, not bonus. Put that out of the side. Dude, that was a killer. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Thank you. Yeah, no, and that's why I wanted to fight Michael Johnson. You know, I got offered someone in front of me. I took it. He got injured, so that didn't go down. But then they threw out Michael Johnson's name, and I took it because, you know, he is one of the best, you know. and I figured a big win over him and something like that, a big finish, of course, let alone just a big, a great performance would put me kind of right back in the mix where I left off, you know.

And so definitely I'll be fighting someone in front of me in my next fight, hopefully. And yeah, I feel like with the division and injuries and everything that's going on, you never know in this sport what can happen. and I could possibly be one, two, maybe three fights away from a title shot, you know, if everything continues to go well. Well, you know what? I know I'm glad to talk under these circumstances because you won. I wish it was really, really, really good circumstances with the bonus. But dude, keep your head up, man.

That was a, I mean, I dropped my dishes in the living room when I saw you land that punch. I was so taken aback by it. That was a thunderous, K.O. And it shows you're a force to be reckoned with in this division. I hope you get a chance to go back out there and show that again. Thank you for your time. Awesome. Thanks, Luke. You have a good one. There he goes. One of the best. Josh Sett. Really appreciate his time.

All right. Let's go now. This is every MMA fan's favorite guest. I love this guy. I think he can do no wrong in my eyes. So I wanted to get him a studio because he's got, well, see he's going to work out tomorrow. And he's got a big future in bare-knuckle boxing in in addition to all of his stuff on Showtime boxing, which he obviously is going to be a big part of and has been for many, many years. Let's get Pauli Malanagia in here. One of my old faves. It's been a long time since I've seen Polly in person, man. There he is. Look at this guy.

Got the Jordan's on. Me too. What's going on, man? How are you? Good, man, what's going on? Good, good. Do I keep these on? I don't remember.

He's miced up here. You can sit right next to me. You can sit over there. Yeah. You can just slide around if you don't want it. You know what's a big disappointment? The Snapple started coming with these plastic bottles. Let me see?

The most disappointing thing ever. The glass keeps everything so much fresh. You know what they did that? I noticed that when I did that. I know for the environment. No, no, no, no. They did it to 40 ounces, too. Yeah, well, they ruined the drink.

Because, you know, the glass, when it's cold, the glass takes so much better. I know. You know what, New Yorkers are bitter about Snapple doing that. I'm still bitter about Gatorade doing that 20 years ago. You remember when Gatorade was 16-ounce glass bottles? That's an old-school pole right there. Yeah, man, well, I'm old enough to realize. I remember that.

But at least when Gatorade went plastic, they gave us four extra ounces. Because you remember the Gatorade bottle with 16s like this, and it was glass, it tastes good. But at least they went plastic, that are all right. You know what? We're going to ruin the taste for you. So we're going to give you four extra ounces. Snop will just stay with the same thing. Plastic.

Bro. Ruin the game for me. It's a, look at the iced out. How you doing, Paul? You feeling good. Yeah, I'm good, man. I'm good. Now, you live over in Jersey, right?

Brooklyn and Long Island. You got a couple places? I'm actually in Florida, too, but I only go in the winters. And now it's, you know, time to, you know, come back up to New York. I kind of, it's like my trifecta. Honestly, I like, I prefer Sicily as well, but it's kind of out of the way from me right now. I can see that, yeah. Last year, though, in 2018, it was my first four year without fighting,

and I was able to spend a lot of time in Sicily, too. How is Sicily? What's it like? I love it, man. You get fed over in Sicily, though. You do, though, yeah, you do kind of gain weight. But it's like beach weather six months a year. You know, you have, I mean, it's an island. So you kind of get that island mentality, where you get a little bit lazy,

and you kind of just chill out. And there's a lot of stuff to do as long as it's beach oriented. You know, like, there's clubs on the beach. There's restaurants on the beach. There's beaches on the beach, obviously. And whatnot. So you're basically, you're oriented. towards that island, geared towards that island life, but it's chill, it's really chill,

you know. Plus, I like Italian culture, espresso, and chill in a cafe. Who doesn't? Now, you're, obviously, Malajja is an Italian name. Is your lineage from Sicily? Yeah, yeah, I'm actually, part of my child was raised in Sicily. I lived in Sicily. Wow. My father still lives there. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. So your dad has the, the accent in the whole bit? My dad speaks no English. Is that right? Forget about the accent, right? You speak Italian? Yes, I do. Do you really? Yeah, I speak Italian and I speak Sicilian. So how, what's the difference between them? The Sicilian is a dialect. It's not a written language. Every region in Italy has their dialect where they speak it at home, they speak with their friends, but the proper language in Italy

is Italian. Like if you go to a job interview in Italy or you go to a school in Italy, for example, you know, you're going to speak proper Italian. That's what they're going to teach you. They're going to teach you. Write Italian. They're going to speak in proper Italian. That's more the formal, the formal way of speaking, you know. But even in a job interview, say you're in Sicily where everybody speaks Sicilian, if you go to a job interview, it will still be handled in Italian, because it's a professional setting. But of course, Sicilian. and all other dialects, they kind of roll off your tongue fast, everything's shortened, they're kind of, it's a lot quicker and easier to use, you know.

But it's not a written language, so you're not really going to learn it, writing it. You're going to learn it because it's used in the house. So if your pops is still in Sicily, how'd you end up in Brooklyn? My parents divorced when I was a kid. My grandparents, my mom's parents moved to the U.S. a couple years before I was born. And she is Italian as well. You know, she was 18 when she moved to the U.S., but she was still dating my father. So she went back to date my father and get married to my father.

And then my father played pro soccer or football, as they call it, in Europe. Yeah, yeah. And he played in the third division in early in Series C. And so he was going to keep playing over there. But the U.S. had the NASL at the time, North American soccer. Yeah, of course. He was going to try to get a job here. Instead, he wound up getting picked up by a team in Mexico.

And so in the summer of 80, they moved to the U.S. where my mom's parents were. And my father went to Mexico to play for that season. And I was born in November. My mom was pregnant. So I was born in November. At the end of the season in June, because everybody knows soccer season goes from September to June, except in the U.S.

where they just change everything. Don't give you started. But so in June, my father's season ended, we moved back to Italy. He went back to Italy. So we stayed there until my father was almost retired, 86, and my parents got divorced. Because my parents got divorced and separated, my mom's parents were still in the U.S., so we went up back in the U.S., my father was in Italy. Now, what neighborhood did you grew up in Brooklyn?

Bensonhurst. Of course you did. Of course. Why did I even ask that? Of course you did. Where else would it be? I don't know. I mean, if it was the 60s and 70s, we had other neighborhoods. I mean, the 80s and 90s, you know, it was Bensoners 3,000. Well, you've been in a million Spike Lee movies by accident. Look at you. That is so funny. Man, I'm telling you, if they made movies like that, now, I would be the actor.

You know what I'm saying? All those, nobody has my accent. Nobody talks like me anymore. No, they really don't. It's a shame. It's kind of sad. You're going to get me started on all that nostalgia. It's sad. Because first of my whole neighborhood moved to Staten Island. For my entire neighborhood, but being a Staten Island is not really a neighborhood. Because you can't walk anywhere in Staten Island. You've got to drive.

So it doesn't have a neighborhood feel. Don't get me wrong. I'm not, I'm not shitting on Staten Island. I am shitting on Staten Island. Listen, it's coming up, it's nice. But I tell you what, you need a car in Staten Island. You know, back in a day, like, you know, we used to ride on our bikes all over the neighborhood. You know, I would be 12, 13 years old.

I rolled through all the Bensoners in my bike. You know, I'm meeting all my friends and going anywhere I wanted to, you know? You can't really do that in Staten Island. As kids, you're still kind of structured in a way where you're kind of trapped in a certain region of Staten Island, you know? Like, when we were kids in Bensonhurst, we'd take our bikes and just go all over. We go to Coney Island even, you know what I'm saying? Because Bensoners is not that far up from Coney Island.

We could take our bikes to the beach in Coney Island or whatnot or even jump on a subway and go there, you know? It was different. It was more neighborhood-y. So, all get me wrong. You have everybody who moved to Staten Island and Jersey even. Don't get started on that whole Jersey thing, because I want to get started on that, too. But it doesn't have that neighborhoody feel because it's more spread apart.

It's more spread out. You know, with Jersey, you know how many times I travel out in New York and people see you have a Jersey accent? A Jersey accent? Yeah, no, you don't at all. That's a Brooklyn accent. I know what it is? All Brooklyn moved to Jersey.

They had kids. Their kids speak like the parents. And so they start speaking, but they're raised in Jersey. So people think that's a Jersey accent. That's a Brooklyn accent by their parents that just passed down to the kids who now were born and raised in Jersey. Don't know what's funny. Yo, you know, I'll tell you what's funny.

You know, how you're going to get me started? Here we go, let's go, Paul. Remember, you've seen the shoot and don't be dumb and dumber. There's some people, the younger people, one understand this joke. Remember you the movie? Of course. The beginning of the movie, when he's hitting on the girl and he's rolls down the window, Jim Carrey does, and he's talking to the girl, the Austrian girl. He says, lovely accent there. Where's that from New Jersey? And she says Austria.

The reason that was such a joke is could New Jersey had no accent? There was no Jersey accent in 1992. That's why the joke was funny. The joke wasn't funny because he misplaced the accent. She had an accent and he said the wrong accent. The joke was funny in 1992 when the movie came out because New Jersey had no accent in 1992. Now the Jersey accent is the old Brooklyn accent. Everybody's like, oh, you have a Jersey accent. Don't get me started. You, bro, and Brooklyn has changed completely.

I used to live here. There is no Brooklyn accent. There is no Brooklyn culture really anymore. Even I live in Washington, D.C., but I used to live in Brooklyn. I lived in Manhattan back in 2002, three and four. And even then, there were certain parts of Brooklyn like Red Hook. Williamsburg was already changing. Oh, my God.

Red Hook was starting to change at that time. So I went back. Red Hook was a slump when I was a kid. It was a complete slump. You know what? I went back. It's completely unrecognizable. Now, some of the places that were nice back then are still nice, like Park Slope or whatever.

But Benson... Park Slope was bad when I was a kid, too, though. Is that right? The time I was here, it was much better. It was kind of expensive. But generally, you're right. Like, that area that Benson-Herz area, that's sort of the last of the Mohicans for Italian culture. It was.

It was the last. And there's still a couple of spots there, you know? Like, I still keep a place there. But all that's left, the only Italians that are really there are the old people that didn't want to move out, you know? Some of my friends are still there, but most of them have moved to Jersey and Staten Island. And I even had a couple of friends that were holding out. And even recently, just recently, they moved to Johnson Island. I'd be like, bro, you moved?

And they were like, yeah, man, I held out as much as I could, but I could, you know. Am I allowed to say that Little Italy here in Manhattan is a little overrated? Yeah. It's a little overrated. It was overrated when I was a kid. I'll tell you, man, when I was a kid, by the time it was like the mid-90s, Marlbury Street was already swallowed up by Chinatown, really. You know what I mean?

Little Italy, it still kind of is. There's only a few blocks left. But I was always so proud of Benson Herspe. You're like, yo, we kept our neighborhood, man. You know, don't even remember, I could appreciate a little Italy, but I would always say, yeah, we kept our neighborhood. Bensoners is where it's at. But I have to say, man, now, actually, there's more Italian culture

in the three blocks of Little Italy than there is in Bensoners. I never thought I would. As a matter of fact, I never thought I'd say that to the point where I used to argue with my Boston friends. I have a lot of Italian friends in Boston, and they have the North End, which is, to me, the last Little Italy left in America. I've never been there. It's legit.

The Boston Little Italy. It's not as a lot super, super legit, but it's like as legit as, is going to get right now. You know what I'm saying? It's bigger. You have like little, little barbershops, because, you know, the neighborhood is not just Italian restaurants. You know, when you have an Italian area, it's cafes, it's barbershops, it's meat markets, you know, the Solumedia, the pork stores, you know, where you get the, you call cuts and whatnot. It has to have all that. You know what I mean? Otherwise, it's not an Italian area. It's not just about pizzeries and restaurants. So the north end of Boston has all that.

So it, to me, it's like, aside from the bakeries and the cafes, so it gives me that feel of my old neighborhood. But in like the mid-2000s, like 0-5-06, I used to, have a manager from there. So I used to train up there a lot and go up there a lot. And I used to argue with my Italian friends up there. Like, yo, man, you don't have no Italian neighborhood over here. Ben Center is where it's at. We got 18th Avenue.

And they'd be like, nah, Hanover Street. It's Hanover Street. And Hanover was great. But I thought 18th Avenue was where it was at. Now I'm craving Hanover Street. Now I go to Hanover Street. I'm like, all right, you guys win. Thank God you just kept it preserved.

You know, because 18th Avenue, you go there. And don't get to Chinese culture because, you know, they're great people. And they're really sweet people. And it's nice people that move in the neighborhood. But I look at my neighborhood and I'm like, oh, man, I remember there was a cafe here. I remember this cafe here. I remember this Italian record store here, you know, the Italian movies and see these out. And it's all gone.

It's all gone. Well, you know what? Things change like this. They do. I got to tell you, you don't change. You stay caffeinated, my friend. Look at you. Yes, yes.

Well, this did have this tea. You are full of energy these days, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually just worked out before I got here. Usually this would have been my workout time, but I said, you know what, let me switch it up. I appreciate you coming in. I got in an early workout. Yeah, yeah, we got a way down a little bit.

I haven't seen you in a couple of years in person, I don't think. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think I was I still fighting when I went when we last Saturday? I think you were like semi-fighting. I don't think you had officially retired at that point, but you weren't like. I wasn't like as active. Yeah, yeah, you were on the Showtime side. So what's your, what's your shape like these days in terms of like what you can do?

No, no, we're getting, we're training again, you know? We're on like a, it's a process, yeah. Yeah, it's a process. We're on a daily grind, but it's not like a, we're not 100% daily grind, but we're back on a day-to-day schedule. where, you know, we didn't have that for a long time, you know. So we're on a day-to-day schedule, but it's not at, we're not going at 100, 150 miles an hour yet. You know, like, we're going on a day-to-day schedule. We're going at the speed limit right now, you know.

And we're just kind of just getting our body back to the consistency of working and whatnot, you know. So when you decided to retire the first time, what was it about that time in your life where you were like, okay, I think I've had enough? The real thing that had me feeling down and out about was my body, the metabolism wasn't working for me anymore, you know? Like, I'm not a big welto-weight, you know, and I was fighting, I was competing at Welthaway, but I realized I was a lot stronger at super-lightweight, you know, like, not that I was ever a big puncher,

but I remember my, and the clenches are super-lightweight. I could shift my opponents around. They wouldn't, like, push me around. I could maneuver guys where I wanted to, and ultimately, because of that, I was able to keep the fight on the outside where I wanted it a lot better, you know? As I got bigger, at Walterweight,

I had a lot more trouble holding guys off, and even on the clenches on the inside, you know, had to be very clever on the outside. And I was able to be clever enough to win a world title at Waltoeate, a major world title anyway. But it was still like a lot tougher to win those battles inside the clinches. You know, I had a lot of, I had good success at Walthewate. Probably most of the time against former late Walter weights like myself.

You know, like Adrian Brunner was a good fight, but he's a former late Welthaway, you know. But I think that was ultimately what really kind of gotten burned out, you know, was trying to hold his way because I knew I couldn't go up to light middle weight anymore. You know, the world-class bosses of light, like middleweight were very, we're killers, you know?

And I'm, for folks are listening, give an example of somebody. Like middleweight would be, Jamel Chalo, would be Jared Hurd right now, you know what I'm saying, yeah. You know, and like,

I'm not that size, but my body wasn't cooperating to get to Walterweight anymore. Like, I would be killing myself to make the Walterweight limit, knowing what was waiting for me at light middle, you know, and I'm like, I'm not going there.

There's no way I could ever compete there, you know? Not to mention getting oldest your energy level is not as high anymore. So it was like just, did the work of getting to Walter weight and it was like so hard. I remember starting training camps

and be like, the week before I leave for camp be like, man, I do not look forward to this. Well, usually when I was younger, I'd be like, man, I can't wait to start camp. I can't wait to start getting my body going. Was it like a shitload of road work or something? A lot of road work because road work obviously helps your conditioning,

but it also helps your weight cutting, you know? But it was just like, it's just a stress, man. Then you get your weight down and you look at the scale and you're like, man, it's still work to do it. Like, you're feeling like, you know, you're feeling like you, basically, in a nutshell, I look at myself in the mirror. I'd be cut and skinny the way I would be.

And at one time, my life, being this particular skinniness where I would be looking at the mirror, I would be like 145. Now, like, a few years have passed, you're just as skinny, but now the scale says 155. You know what I'm saying? You're like, where am I going? You know what I mean? Like, now I got to work harder to get that back down.

Your body looks just the same. You're like, you know, when I was just skinny before, I was 10 pounds lighter. Where is it? You know, it's just, and people that, you know, are a little older, who'll understand that who try to keep in shape at an elevated age, you know. I think, you know, when you get older, you just look at your body and make sure it looks good. You're not really looking at the scale anymore because you realize the scale is going to not cooperate with you, but your body still looks good, you know?

So that's basically where I'm at now, you know? It's like, you know, I will look better, but my body will not be as light as it used to be, you know? So I think with the fight with Artem, we're probably going to do 155. I mean, Arnh's a bum, so at the end of the day, it's not really easy. I got to worry about like, oh, this is a light middleweight where I got to fight Chala, where I have to fight Hurd or I have to fight, you know, Julian Williams or or Jaime Mungui or whatnot, where it's like, oh, man, these are these are light middle weights that are like destroyers, you know. Find them on them all, but we can fight it 100 pounds, we can fight a 200 pounds.

Like, he's going to get knocked out. It's not going to matter. Let's get to that just a second as we sort of work through here. Like physically, how do you know you're being honest with yourself? And here's what I mean. You know this as well as I do. You see athletes at the end of the lie of themselves that they can get through it.

Yeah, yeah. And sometimes they can't. How do you know that you still have enough to be, I know it's bare knuckle boxing, but how do you know you still have enough to be competitive? Forget Artem. I'll tell you what. Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you what.

I would be lying to you if I told you I could compete at the highest levels of boxing, professional boxing. I would be lying to you, you know. When I saw this as an opportunity, I said, you know, because I crave that spotlight. You crave the limelight, but you don't crave it where you're going to be at the mid-range anymore, you know? If you've been here and now you can't compete here,

you can drop down to here. Now here is not as adrenaline rushing anymore for you. You know what I'm saying? And you're doing all this work to compete here when you used to compete here, so it's like harder, you know? But all of a sudden, barrenoggle boxing gives me the opportunity to compete here while still, you know, being able to not only, forget about the money.

The money's good. The Bayfellman gave me a good offer to fight here. But besides that, you have to compete here. You know, where in boxing, I wouldn't get to compete here. And it's not like just my name would just bring me here. I would have to work my way up to here regardless in boxing. And I'd be honest with you, I wouldn't be able to work my way back up here in boxing. You know?

But in BKFC or Bear and Uncle, because I'm such a name and they're kind of starving, it's a new promotion, starving for bigger names, I can start out here already. And honestly, no disrespect to the talent pool, but the talent pool's not on my level. You know what I'm saying? It's mostly washed up MMA fighters. You know what I'm saying? I'm not got an MMA fighter in his prime in bare and uncle boxing. You know what I'm saying?

But so a washed-up MMA fighters is not going to have anything from me. No matter what anybody thinks about if I'm washed up or not washed up. Regardless of what, whether I'm washed up or not, these are not prime MMA fighters. So, not that I would have a problem with a prime MMA fighter in bare-knuckle boxing anyway. But that's basically the way I looked at it. It was like, you know what, it's giving me the whole upside of a big promotion. As soon as I signed up, you know, I was getting calls from everyone.

You know, right away, all the media were, um, How's you on my other show? Outlets were calling me right away. And obviously, I knew that was doing the job for Dave. That's why Dave did it, you know, because they wanted the crossover media to cover the sport that wasn't covering it before. You know, right away, networks like ESPN and things like that were right away giving me calls. You know what I'm saying? And it was all because I had signed up.

So I get why Dave had brought me on, you know. But from the other side, it also gave me that same kind of rush, the same kind of feel, that same kind of excitement. You know, like, it's one to do it. Sometimes, yo, we're all narcissists as fighters. We are, you know? As soon as, you know, you may get excited and it may some, but some days you're like, I don't want to work out right now. I mean, as soon as you saw I get in these calls and you're like, yo, you know what?

Everybody's looking forward to this, man. Like, I'm going to go out there and get in shape. I'm going to, you know what? Everybody's excited about this. It's getting me excited about it, you know? And right away, that kind of, that passion kind of comes back, you know? All right. So you may lie to yourself to a degree.

Yeah. But I know, I know which direction of upholded it now. You know what I'm saying? This is a more calculated. Yes, this is, exactly. Calculate is the right word, because I had to lie to myself at the end of my boxing career, you know, I really did.

But this is more calculated. I looked at the talent pool, I look at the money, I look at, yeah, there's a different way of fighting. You're not gonna fight exactly the same way. There's certain risks to certain upsides, certain downside, and I feel like I calculated it right, you know? And honestly, I mean, I didn't think there was any interest

in the automobile fight, at least not for me at first, you know, but once it started getting mentioned, That's, like, all the interest. I used to sweep it aside, like, all right, this guy's a bum. Like, what am I going to do it? Then, of a sudden, like, I would see, like, my social media and everything, just pumping up with it. I'm like, people really care about this fight.

We talked about this before. Did I not tell you he's a fan favorite? Did I not tell you that? Yeah, yeah, but I don't think it's all just, he's a fan favorite. I mean, he is, I guess, but it's more like, I'm also, like, because I have, like, this weird, like, relationship with the MMA crowd, you know? Like, it's become, like, this weird sensation. Jose, it's funny you mentioned this.

So, do you remember, you may not, remember this, but I do. Do you remember being in Washington, D.C.? Yeah, of course. Of course. I was with the John McCain thing. Okay, so I want you to do me, I'll send you with this. I have your number. I'll forward it to. I interviewed you for MMA fighting at the time. You should read the comments. The MMA fans are like, Pauli Malanagia is so smart. Wow, what a great guy. Yeah. We love him. It was only when you started beefing with Connor that everything turned. It was like Connor was this good guy when he's a piece of shit. And I'm saying, like I started beefing with Connor. He's a piece of shit. I didn't

I just for the sake of beefing with Connor, you know what I'm saying? Like, and all of a sudden they turned on me. But like, honestly, even before that, I could already tell you, because I had already been through ups and downs in my career, I could already tell you, I can already tell you fans in general are fickle. You know what I'm saying? So, so you're not going to rely on the love of fans to help keep you going. The love of fans, the passion of fans keeps your passion growing because we're narcissists.

We love that, that agilation. We love that fanfare. We love that. But really, I know it's not genuine. I can tell you it was not genuine. Even if I would have seen all the positive comments back then. Back then, that was a couple years ago. So I was already old enough to understand that none of this is genuine.

In my 20s, I'd be like, oh, these people love me. But by the time I got to my 30s, I know none of it is genuine. So it doesn't really matter if it comes my way positively or that comes my way negatively. I don't, I take it all with a grain of salt because I know how fickle the fans can be. You know what I'm saying? I know how fickle the adulation and the crowds can be. It's the way it is. As a matter of fact, you ever seen the movie Gladiator?

Of course. Russell Crowe. Everybody's seen it. There was a point where the Hawkinsy Phoenix's sister, she's trying to, you know, trying to talk with her brother, trying to stay on her brother's good side, and she's talking about, and he's mad that the crowd is for Russell Crowe, and she says, the mob is fickle brother.

You know, tomorrow, like, they'll be against them today. And I was right when around around the time was a turning, pro and I was already starting to understand that at the end of my amateur career. So I just imagine about the time I went to my pro career and how much I understand this now. That line in that movie is so deep because the mob is fickle. The crowd, the passion of the crowd towards you is always, it will always be fickle. Today they'll love you tomorrow, they'll hate you, and they'll love you again the next day.

You shouldn't ever take it that seriously. How much do you like the fact that your name is so attached to Connor at this point? I'll be honest with you. I thought at first it was annoying. At first I was like, what? drove me to even do this. Like, that was so stupid. Like, I was retired.

I was, like... To go spar and all that stuff? Yeah, I was happy. Like, you know, like... It wasn't really a big deal to me. It's still on a big deal. Like, that's 12 rounds that he makes, like, it was, like,

this intense fight, like, when we were fighting. That is one of the dullest 12-round sparring sessions I ever had. You know what I'm saying? The reason it was intense is because there was a lot of shit talking

and it was like, you know, he had invited people so I could tell, like, there was, like, an aura about the sparring world, like, well, this is kind of weird, you know? but like I have had much more violent sparring sessions with much better fighters where I have been in shape

and they've been in shape like sparring sessions where you could charge at the door of Gleason's gym in those gym war days, you know what I'm saying? Like that was, this one paled in comparison. The only reason it started getting an elevated feel was because you got there and had invited certain people Dana White was there, one of the Vatitas was there

and then he was a lot of shit talking so I got into the shit talking and went back and forth. But as far as the quality of the sparring, it wasn't that quality, it wasn't that intense. The fact that Connor felt it was that intense Show me what a pussy he was anyway.

You know what I'm saying? Because if that was intense for you, bro, you hadn't even scraped the tip of the iceberg compared to what real intensity is in a fight. You know what I'm saying? You can't lay on the ground in the guard for five minutes in a boxing match. You get your ass whooped if you're tired

and that's it, you're going to get your ass whooped. And if you're going to quit, you can't figure out a way to say, let me throw myself in here and let him choke me out so I can quit and nobody will know I quit. You don't have that option. You have to sit on your stool. You have to tell the ref no mas and you can need a criticize for it. And in MMA, let me throw myself in you, okay, choke me.

All right. All right, you know what? I couldn't do anything. He choked me out. You know what I'm saying? So you can kind of disguise it, you know? So the fact that, you know, he even thought there was that intensity for me was like, this guy's an ultra pussy.

Like this was not, it was all an illusion, really. You know what I'm saying? But in my career now, okay. But that was been, it was all annoying at first, you know? It was only until recently now that you're, I'm getting this offer to fight in BKFC and the whole Connor and Ardham thing. And it's going to get me pay. It's going to be paid money that I probably didn't think I was going to get anymore, which is why I retired, too.

One of the reasons I retired was, you know what, it's not going to tickle my fancy financially either. You know what I'm saying? Like there's a certain amount of money I have to have make to a minimum gain in order for me to go to a training camp, getting in shape, go through all the hassle of making weight and doing all that. Like, it has to be worthwhile even financially. And I kind of knew in boxing my worth, my value had diminished to where I wasn't going to be able to get those kinds of those kinds of. of number figures anymore that would that would that would at least be intense enough for me to interest me you know and bkfc came and the number started going up to the point where i was like listen i gave david minimum i was like you know what i won't fight for this amount of money unless i get

this amount of money and if you don't give it to me it's fine you know what i'm saying like i don't expect to get that in boxing anymore either but i don't have to fight nobody's putting a gun to make the fight i'm not broke so i don't have to go and fight but if you give me this amount of money you're going to get me to think about it you know because it is a certain amount of money you know and Dave started matching those numbers. So once we started matching those numbers, we started talking and going into more conversations and go in depth.

You know, we had to surpass that first. But once we did, we started coming closer to the agreement and then we did. So then I realized, you know what, my name being Natasha O'Connor has ended up working out for me.

Like, I'm getting paid off this stupid, stupid beef. Like, I'm going to make, I'm probably going to end up making stupid money for beating the shit of a punching bag. Like, low ball for me is a punching bag with feet, bro. You know what I'm saying?

No disrespect to Jason Knight who might actually beat him or might cut him. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen because I don't want to talk over talk about this fight with him fighting Jason. I don't know if Jason how it is, but I don't know he was signed to the UFC. So if you were signed to UFC, you have to have some kind of skill, right?

He's more of a grapple than a striker, but he's good enough to give him trouble. If I closed my eyes and I throw this bottle, like, it might hit him. You know what I'm saying? I might hit him if he's standing anywhere near me. You know, he's that bad defensively. Can I have that? Go ahead. We're going to put it on the set.

Yeah. So, you know, like, so it's not like, you know, he's foul proof where he's like Pernel Whitaker. You get hit and get cut and the fight's off, you know? And I don't have a schedule to where I'm playing with. So if it's not all of them, who is it? The fight has to be in the summer or the fight that doesn't happen. You know what I'm saying?

I don't know. I don't know. What I'm saying is, you guys, everybody's making like this guy is going to get through April 6. Let him get through April 6 before we start intensifying the promotion. Have you seen him? Night? No, no. A lobo?

I've seen him, yeah. And? Horrible. Horrible. Absolutely horrible. He's got heart and he seems to have a decent chin. He's got a big punch. I mean, for bare hands.

that everybody's got a big punch. Connor McGregor was a big puncher in an MMA. It's about accuracy when you have no gloves on or small gloves on. It's not even about punching anymore. You know what I'm saying? Like McGregor's punching when we got the boxing. You saw it yourself. I mean, I saw myself in the gym.

Regardless of what I even wants to say about that video, he didn't drop me. He didn't even hurt me. He didn't get my tension. It's decent pop. But, you know, you saw it in the fight. Have you ever seen Mayweather walk anybody down so carefree in his life? No.

In all the years, Mayweatherer been fighting. So carefree, so smiling, so just, just nonchalant. Okay, so where was the power? Because Mayweather wouldn't walk Golofkin down like that, I promise you. He wouldn't walk Canello down like that, I promise you. So where was the power? So the power in MMA is not really, doesn't translate the same way, because it's more on accuracy.

Conner's karate gives him that accuracy than anything else. And so that's what, but in boxing, but we're only dealing with punches, his accuracy is diminished. And when he does land, we're also more used to getting hit than he. So with Lobloff, his accuracy, how accurate is he going to be with a real boxer? I'm going to be accurate as shit. I'm going to use him like a dartboard. You know what I'm going to use his first.

face like a dog, but I'm gonna, if I don't, it's not about winning and losing here because it's not even a question that I'm gonna win the fight. It's about how bad I can hurt this guy. For me, if I don't hurt him to a degree that it's something, there's something permanent there, like, it's not a win for me, you know what I'm saying? Because I'm not looking to, permanent, like, he's got to get hurt. He's got to wind up in the hospital. Like, something's got to happen to him. Like, because if I don't do that to him, then for me, it's not a win. You know what I'm saying? Like, for me, because of course I'm going to beat this guy. He's a, he's a punching, he's a punching bag with feet.

Hold on. It's one thing if you guys were to spar with boxing. I'm just playing devil's advocate. It's one thing if you guys were sparring with boxing, but both of you are in new territory here, where the rules are, not merely the rules, but the rules are a little bit different. It's just your hands, a little bit of tape. We've seen people cross over into other sports and take each other one lightly. How different is it? What's going to be the difference for me?

What's the difference for me? You've seen my style. What's the difference for me? Well, first of all, the rounds are shorter. Here's the thing. It's not about your style. It's about, I've seen MMA fighters. Because I don't turtle up.

I've never been a turtle up kind of guy. No, you're a come forward guy. No, I'm not even come forward, but I'm a guy who makes you miss. I don't catch a lot of shot off on the glove. You actually miss with me. Have you, good footwork, heavy on the motion. What I'm saying is, MMA fighters sometimes they just bite down the mouthpiece and they go.

And all they need to do is strafe a little bit and they cause problems. Yeah. They're not better boxers, but they don't need to be. Your timing can throw me off a little bit short, but you're going to, I'm telling you, you're going to get walked into some shit. I'm telling you right now, he's going to get walk into some shit. and it's going to be fast and it's going to be sharp and it's going to be a situation

where I'm not throwing haymakers so I'm following up because a haymaker, if you lay the haymaker, you can't even follow up, you have to get back on your balance and throw again. I'm going to land, I'm going to land hard, I'm going to land often, and I'm going to be balanced enough

to continuously land on you because I don't have to regain my balance when I throw a punch. I can literally pummel the shit out of you. And that's what I'm going to do to this guy. I'm going to beat the living shit out of him. That's what's going to happen when we do get in there.

But right now let him focus on his fight because I don't want to jinx anything because I don't want to disrespect even his opponent for this week. By the way, very quickly, there's this workout tomorrow. Where's the workout? I believe it's at Mendez.

I mean, he's doing the workout. I'm not doing the workout. I'm just showing up for some kind of media stuff. Your name is on the list, though. Yeah, yeah. They want me to do social. So he's working out, but you're just going to do media tomorrow?

Yeah, I think they want me to just speak to the media and whatnot. And, you know, they haven't really gone into detail or depth, you know. But nobody told me about any workout over there. What does Showtime saying? about all this. Showtime's fine with it. I was fighting at the end of my career. I mean, I started work with Showtime in 2012. I was actually still a world champion in boxing. So, you know, they signed me already as an active fighter. So this isn't anything new. The majority of the years I've been with Showtime, I was actually fighting, you know? So, you know,

I've taken off the last two years from fighting, but it's not like it's new to them where they've kind of got to balance it out. As a matter of fact, this actually works out even easier. It couldn't have worked out better because Showtime has a lot, a bit less dates this year because of Fox picking up a lot of the BBC fights. So we actually are not working as often as we maybe did last year, you know? So it actually has left me pretty bigger, decently bigger gaps to start, you know, be able to focus more on my training. I still get out of the gigs. I still have, you know, ultimate boxer in England. And I may do Converse Crawford with BBC Radio in England. And, you know, there's little gigs. I may do Joshua with Sky Sports,

but that's in New York, you know, as far as Conn and Crawford. So I still always pick up little gigs, but they're still to my schedule. You know, I'll still be able to work them in because it's not like to nine to five. You know what I'm saying? These kind of commentating gigs, you have a couple meetings in a day and then you'll go back to your schedule

or you'll commentate on Fight Day and then you go back to your schedule. So it's not that difficult to balance out. These allegations about Connor, well, you saw what happened in Miami and I'm sure you saw the New York Times report. Here's the thing. The thing that got reported in New York Times,

like Connor, don't like her, like him. I don't know what to say about it. He hasn't been charged with anything. Yeah, I heard about that in December, actually. The phone thing is... The phone thing was blown out of proportion. That's such the media jump in the gun. But that's also the bus thing.

I mean, the bus thing, I could have told you he wasn't going to go to jail for. You know what I'm saying? I had a road rage incident that was similar to that years ago. Did you really? Yeah, same thing. You just pay a fine and you're done. Like, I knew that was a blown out of proportion. But, of course, it hyped up the Kabit fight well.

But I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this. The phone thing, too, was a bit blowing out of proportion. It really didn't show that he's a crime. criminal because it's not really a criminal thing. But it showed he's a douchebag, you know, shows he's a jerk off, you know? Like, that could have been any fan. If you're a Connor McGregor fan, that could have been any of you that went up to him looking for a selfie.

You never wanted to throttle a fan before? No, not in that situation. No. No, like, I've had guys come up to me and, and, I'll never be wrong, I've wanted to throttle a fan, but they're not close to me where they're taking pictures like that. You know what I'm saying? Like, they'll keep their distance or they'll, you know, like nobody's coming up. I guarantee you that guy didn't come up.

If that guy wanted a selfie, I guarantee you he didn't come up and say, you're a jerkaw. Let me take a selfie. And Gary, I assure you, that doesn't, it doesn't happen that way. The dynamic doesn't happen that way, you know what I'm saying? So, you know, I've had situations, but they're always from a distance. You know what I'm saying?

Nobody's trying to get near me because, you know, even the fans understand. If I get near this guy, he might beat the shit out of me, you know what I'm saying? So nobody's going to go near a Connor and look to take a picture with him and insult them.

Guarantee that wasn't an insult. But I tell you, I've been part of several different situations where guys, well, as I'm leaving the arena or I'm leaving some, hey, Paul, take a picture of a quick selfie. And it's like, Sometimes you walk in, you're like, oh, hey, all right, you know, and you just, and he kind of goes, you know. But, you know, Kahnah wanted to be the cool guy, and he wanted to be the guy who didn't want to be in the selfie at 4 in the morning.

I don't know, you know, and he wanted to do that. But to me, that doesn't make him a criminal. To me, that makes him more of a douchebag, you know, because, like that, I could be any fan. That could be any kind of McGregor fan that likes Kahn of McGregor, and there are a lot of them. It could have been any of you at home that went up to him for that selfie and that happened. You know what I'm saying? So it's not like it's not like it made him a criminal, but it just makes him a jerk off, you know,

which I kind of already knew. All right, so everyone keeps asking me this, so I'm going to ask you this. How much of this with Lobov is really just to get a fight with Connor? I don't know what it would be to get a fight with Connor. I don't expect Connor to fight me because I've kind of gotten into this explanation before. The Mayweather fight was always forgivable for Connor. You know, he's the best fighter ever in boxing,

even though he wasn't at the time they fought. I mean, he was retired for two years, and he barely trained. But, you know, you have that whole geese of it, you know. Then the Khabibb fight, you know, it's the best fighter in MMA. You know, he can be forgiven for losing to that. Even though if you really know what, can see through Connor, he picks his spots. He saw the way Kibibb looked against your Kinta and said, you know what, this guy's slipping.

He's struggling at weight. I'm going to get him. Instead of giving your Kinta credit, he took it like Khabi was slipping, you know? And so he jumped on you. I assure you, if Kibb would have blown your Kintah out of the octagon and April of last year, Connor would have went nowhere near Khabib. He saw him go five rounds, had to work for it, and said, you know what? This guy's there for the taking.

He's struggling at the weight. I'm going to get him. Wrong choice. But Connor was still trying to pick his spot. So again, he's not looking to fight the best. He's looking to pick his spots. But when Mayweather and Kibibi gets wrong, the reason he can't do it with me, because my fight will pay him more than any other fight he can get,

aside from the Mayweather fight. Because he's not going to get a Kinello fight. He's not going to get those fights. He's not going to get those fights. Don't give me the whole, he can't get those fights. So I'm talking about realistically any other fight he can get. aside from Mayweather, he cannot get more money fighting anybody else, including Kabib rematch than fighting me.

He cannot get that kind of money. I know the kind of money that's being thrown at him. He cannot get that kind of money. But the reason he will not fight me is because you can be forgiven for losing to Mayweather because of the whole geese of the TB. You can be forgiven to the Kibu Kibu Kibu, because no matter what the reason you actually fought him for, people will believe you actually wanted to fight him because he's the best, no matter what the real reason is.

Also, he is extremely good. He is. He is. He can be extremely good. He's the best, actually. But that's not why Connor fought him. Connor fought him because he thought he was slipping and he could have got him. Because Connor felt he was still the best when they fought,

Connor wouldn't have went anywhere near him. Okay, Connor, if Connor saw the Eekwinta performance and said, hmm, I can get this guy. You know, he's slipping. If Connor felt he was the best, the time they fought, he wouldn't afford him. But he knows the image, the perception is that he's the best. Let me get him. He was wrong because it's not just the perception.

It's the reality. Kavib is the best fighter at M.M.A. But with Pauli Malinaji, the perception is you knock them down. The perception is you beat him. him all the procession is, now you're going to wind up in a fight with him, and he's going to beat the fuck out of you all over the place, and he's going to make you look stupid doing it. I'm not just, kind of knows, kind of sparred me, you know, I don't just beat the shit out of you. Now I'm going to talk shit. I'm going to embarrass you. I'm going to emasculate you

while I'm doing it. And you're not going to like it. You're not going to like it. It's not just going to be a loss. It's going to be an embarrassment. So, so you, and people will not forgive you for the loss, not just because the embarrassment of it, because you lie to them. Your fans will forgive you if they're true fans for losing. They will not forgive you for lying to them. And because of the lie, they would never forgive him. So, no matter for all the money in the world, Connor can't fight. So the lowball fight is not really to get McGregor. Like I said, it's for all the reasons we talked about before. You know what I'm saying? It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

I've already discussed why I'm, I'm doing this. If the McGregor fight would present itself, sure it would be, it would be, uh, it would be, uh, it would be nice. The entire promotion wants to get the McGregor fight for me. Dave Feldman would love to get the McGregor fight for me. You know what I'm Because it would mean mega, mega money and mega promotion even from BKFC. I think anybody involved will want to make Malinajian McGregor. The only guy doesn't want to make Malinajian McGregor is McGregor and everybody directly involved with him. Because they understand the entire, the game is over once that fight happens. The show, the game, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the flaw in thing, everything's over.

Because once I beat, beat the shit out of you, after all the past we've had and all the lies, you've told, you're done, your history. Nobody will ever want to remember you again. So he can't have that. He won't, not even his proper whiskey would sell anymore. All right. Well, look. I could have had you for a full hour. Sure.

We got to keep it rolling. You have an invite to the studio anytime you want. Let's get you one again either right before or after your fight. We'll figure something out. I'll have my people call your people. All right. We'll do lunch. Thank you so much, Paul.

My guy, Joe, we'll take care of you here. Watch that bottle. I'll hit all of them with it. I appreciate you coming in, Paula. Thank you so much. All right. There he goes. True gem, Showtime boxing analyst,

bare knuckle fighter, the whole bit. Paulie Malinandage. You really appreciate this time. All right. Let's go to our last, but certainly not our least. guest, he had an unbelievable win on Saturday at UFC Philadelphia, blasting through Edson Barbosa in half a round. Can you believe that? I guess I can. He joins us now on the telephone, the one and only, Justin, the highlight gate he is here. Hi, Justin. How are you? What's up, man? How are you

feeling? That must have been one of your best wins yet, huh? So tired. I just got home for the airport. You just got home? I slept about like five hours. since I fought. Were you, were you partying? What you've been doing? No, no. My parents wanted to say we went to the Phillies game last night.

Oh, and Bryce hit a home run, didn't he? Oh, we left in like the fourth inning because it was freezing. All right, fair enough. Well, generally speaking, man, first of all, congratulations. Among your UFC wins, that's got to be your best one yet, right? Oh, absolutely. 100%. All right.

I just actually, I just walked in, man. I did good. You did really well. You know what folks are telling me? They're saying that that... Justin, they're saying that that's your smartest performance to date. Do you think that's true? Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, I watched, you know, the ones I win, I watched in slow motion. And, yeah, dude, it was nice. Now, what was, like, how has... Go ahead. I said, my coach is a genius. I didn't even know I was doing these things. But it's just a good bunch. You're talking about Trevor Whitman?

Yeah. Now, what was the game plan? Going there and be me, but just control. This whole game is about controlling space. That was the main, you know, my mom. It was a big deal. Yeah, you certainly did. All right, so let's talk about this just a little bit here.

Where do you think a win like that puts you in the UFC? see. I think a win like that, man. It's all about how you win nowadays. You got to win, but I won in very impressive fashion. And that, in this game, that does a lot. So, I mean, I don't know. It's so it's such a, I don't know if I can cuss, but it's a cluster park up there at the top. So I have no idea what's going on. I don't think anybody does. And so, yeah, just got to kind of let it play out and then see where, see where, see what to go over to fight. Would you say, would you say, would you say it's fair that you get the

winner of Max and Dustin? Yeah, I mean, sure. chance there. I'm a little biased. Would you say that a win like that should put you in the top five? Yeah, whatever. I hope so. He was number six, so I mean,

at least number six. Yeah, certainly put you in a position like that. I guess what I'm wondering is, like, has the UFC has the UFC ever talked to you about like their vision for you? Or have you ever had a meeting with him? Like, your vision for yourself?

Like, here's what I want to accomplish in 2019. Here's where I see myself. here's what I got to do to get where I want to go. Has there been any kind of formalized talk about any of these kinds of things? No, not personally. I'm surrounded myself with a great management team, great coaches, and at the end of the day, they make those choices for me.

They know I'm going to fight. They know I'll fight whoever they tell me to fight, and I'll be, I just got to, all I worry about is preparation. And, you know, I trust the people that I surround myself with to handle all of that. You know, you had mentioned something when you were interviewed by John Anick right after you won, and you were saying how you were surprised you can't get nervous. Were you nervous when you wrestled in college?

No, no, I wasn't. It's more like, so now it's more like I'm wrestling more so. I didn't use some, these last two fights have been much different than previous fights ever for me. But, yeah, it's my ability, just now it's like a wrestling match where I can concentrate and make decisions. I'm actually trying to process things. Yeah, I'm having fun. So does that mean like previously you were more nervous, like against Johnson or Poirier-A or Alvarez?

It was a little different. No, no. Again, preparation is everything. And we just saw what they could happen. You know, you get knocked out. He goes home and gets to go home here, get to have a baby. You know, life goes on. There's no doubt about that.

And I understand that. And so I just go in there and I try my heart. And that's all I really hope. Fair enough. Okay, so let's talk about some of the things that could be next. It seems like you could be ready to go right away. Are you looking for a quick turnaround or are you looking for the right fight? I think of the right fight.

Absolutely. I mean, that's important to me. I'm trying to fight for the title, 2009, 2020, whatever. I'm going to work my way up there. But those are my goals and aspirations. So I'm not going to be looking behind me right now. I think I earned that. you probably did.

Now here's what you noted. The top of the division's kind of a mess. You got Connor doing whatever he's going to do. Habib might come back at some point soon. Tony's just kind of on hiatus. That's kind of why I was asking about the winner of Max and Dustin. Now maybe that person fights Habib, but it just seems like that's sort of the space you're in now.

That's sort of why I'm pushing in that direction. Your manager was saying you should only be in a number one contender fighter more, right? Yeah, yeah, I think so, but this sport's crazy. Who knows what can happen now? One of those guys gets hurt, I'll definitely be ready. I mean, where is that fight? That's saying Atlanta in about two weeks. Ooh, I don't know about that.

He kicked me pretty damn hard. Are your legs banged up? Well, yeah, he landed two hard kicks, man. Those low kicks we were kicking each other with her, no joke. Is he the hardest kicker you've ever faced? He's the best kicker I've ever faced by far. Ooh. All right.

Fair enough. I haven't picked very much in the legs. They don't usually have time to kick me back. No, they don't. He certainly made a point of it. You had mentioned something after the fight that you're the best challenge for Habib Numergummaid Madov. Tell me why you believe that.

Yeah, I think my wrestling credentials alone would benefit me so much in that fight. My ability to stop the take down and, you know, I'm on. I'm very confident in my stand-up. I'm confident in my coach and the game plan that we would come together with or come together and go out there and execute. And, yeah, I think with my athletic ability, I'm tough out for anybody. So I think a little bit of this is chance. And so you cannot, you know, you can't fail or prosper without going out there

and taking that chance. So I've got to put myself in a position. And I think, you know, as opposed to anybody else at the top of the division, and I would be the toughest out for him, no doubt. You know. And it's talented I'm looking forward to. Yeah, it's interesting. I looked at the two times you have,

do you know how many times Fight Metrix says you've been taken down in the UFC? Well, probably a lot because that thing's kind of jacked up. No, actually, just twice. Once in the first round against Michael Johnson, and then once barely in the third round against Eddie Alvarez. That's it. And both of those are from guys who know you were kind of trading, with Habib's not that guy.

So it makes over an interesting challenge. The only way Eddie took me down is when he knocked me out. The other one wasn't to take down by any rules. I'm just saying, yeah, fair enough. I'm just saying what the rule, what the, what the numbers say. Hey, I got through wrestling. I wasn't the best wrestler I do. I was, I'm athletic.

And my ability to scramble, create scrambles. You know, we're sweating more. I'm more slippery than people wearing singlets and, you know, wrestling in college or college or any wrestling match. So all those factors coming to play when it comes to that grappling. And, yeah, I'm not going to go in there to wrestle with them. I'm going there to stop take downs. And that's what I've been good at this whole time. And in the clinch, you know, I throw hard shots.

So there's no doubt in the stand-up, you would certainly be better than him. But to play devil's advocate, if I could, it could be noted that, like, no one has stopped his take-down. Why are you that guy? He knows, man. I think I've got a great, my wrestling coach is Ben Tarrington, you know, 2006 national champion for Boise State NCAA. So, I mean, I work with him twice a week. And if I was to get that fight, my training camp would be based around being in shape.

I know I could stop. I know, you know, I'm not saying I could be in a wrestling match, but a wrestling match is what I did in my whole life. He's not going to go out there and dominate me in a wrestling match. What it comes down to is my cardio being up to par with his and ability for me to grapple in as many situations and get in as many scrambles as he's able to get into because that's where he breaks people. He gets you into scrambles and you get tired. That is some tired and stuff. That's why I avoid it because I don't want to get tired. I want to try to knock

them out of you. He can't pin people in a fight and I'm trying to get out there as soon as possible. And so, yeah, that would be my focus. If I can, I would, I would and will focus on that if I fight when I fight the leave. I'm starting to do it now so that when I do. get that fight, I can wrestle for 25 minutes if I need to. You know, you had... For 25 minutes if I need to. Yeah, fair enough. You know, you have your own back-to-back first round, K.O. wins, right?

And that came after your first two losses in your career. I'm wondering to come out on fire the way you have the last two fights, what did you take from the Alvarez and Porre fights? Well, I mean, it was two losses. I was able to go back and go back to the draw on board, man. It was, I never went. You know, every time I won, it was just, you had to keep building on what was, what was successful. That's how this game works.

You know, it's like a roller coaster when you're up, you're up and you're down and down. So we got to ride those waves. And, you know, I was having so much success in the foul that I was choosing to go out there and fight. Because through my seven amateur fights and then through those first 18, you have 25 fights in the road. I mean, I went out there with one goal, one intention to create chaos. and I was 25 and 0. So, you know, you can save stuff all you want, but, you know, there's no reason I would ever try to change that. And once, you know, I fought the best guys in the world, Fourier is bar none.

You know, I think one of the best end of guys that there is in my weight class. And then, you know, just technically wise, his ability to take angles and stuff is just crazy. So to fight those guys is just crazy. Yeah, fair enough about that. So I know there was a bit of controversy a little bit after the fight when you were doing some post-fight media. And of course, you had Karen Bryant and Paul Felder on the set. I don't really want to dig too much into it, but just sort of like see where you're at now. Are you still as upset at the way that went now, having a couple days to sit on it?

Oh, I haven't even thought about it again. No? I've thought about that. No. I don't care, man. So you don't feel like, you don't feel like. You don't feel like they were trying to take your shine? I mean, they can't, dude.

You're the one who got the knockout. I think they were just... No, I think... I think it was a good at the professional move on Paul Starr. I think he knows that. And, you know, it's... He's there in a different status than me. I was a fighter that night, and he was an employee or a staff member.

And, you know, I was caught. I was just really caught up. I didn't even know what was happening until, you know, like, the second time I think when Karen brought it up and I was like, oh, I mean, I wasn't even I bet that was probably like 17 minutes from the moment I stepped out of the ring, probably less than that.

I bet it was maybe like 10 minutes. No, no, I was just at least 15, whatever. But I'm telling you, I hadn't seen the fire. I hadn't, you know, it was just, from the moment you, they tell you, you know, you have about four minutes to you're going to go in that hallway to make that walk through the Algon. that's the last time you get to to kind of process anything

and then after that until you know win or lose it's over you know you can't process me it's just a million miles an hour thousand thousand words a second you're trying to take in everything trying to try to not miss specific things trying to do interviews trying to try to make the decision that you need to make to not you know sound like a fool

it's just a crazy emotion that you run through so you have to control your emotions and all that stuff. So, yeah, man, I have no idea. I was, I was just caught off guard and that was just, that was all it was. Yeah, fair enough. I mean, I guess the idea would be if you're going to be a fighter, but you're going to be commentating that night, you got to put the fighter stuff to the side for just that evening. I mean, and now after the fact that it's two times in a row, like, he's got that opportunity. You got to think about it for like, who knows how long he thought about, you know, asking me those two questions on those two nights.

I didn't get one, you know, I didn't get one second to process that. You got, you know, probably like three weeks to go over that, I don't know, whatever. So, yeah, it's just not fair for one. And it's not what I'm next one. Well, you know, the good news is I think the thing that most people walked away with on Saturday was... Yeah, no, no. I don't, first of all, I don't make the headlines. And don't worry, I don't suspect that this will be the lead topic anyway.

way, but I just wanted to sort of circle back to it just the same. All right, man. Well, look, that was a tremendous win. Hey, let me ask you one last thing about the Barbosa fight. You had mentioned that you had a good gameplay with Trevor Whitman, one of the best in the business. How much do your game plans differ fight to fight? Zero. So then how do you have to come up with a game plan?

To be my best self, man. No one could beat me when I was, I'm telling you. Watch that. watch that fine slow motion. That was great, man. I can't even believe it. So I'm excited to see how good I can be. Yeah, that was about one of the best performances I've ever seen from you, and I've seen them just about them all. So Justin, I go get some sleep. We appreciate you spending some time with us. Sorry, we're a little bit late.

But congratulations. That was one hell of a win, and I do think you deserve somebody at the top of that division next, whoever that may be. Sir, you have a good one. Thank you, good time. Thank you, buddy. Appreciate it. The highlight, just engage you. There he goes. All right, let's do this. We got a little bit of extra time and we haven't finished yet. So why don't we do this?

Danny, why don't you come back on here and we'll finish up some of the calls? And then I'll end on some tweets. How's that sound? Why don't we do that? Get you ready back there. I know I'm springing it on you because I'm unfair. But that's the way I roll dog. That's how I do it. There he is. I had a little trouble with his phone in the first like five. minutes of that interview.

That was a great interview, though. No, no, no. I would appreciate his time. Don't misunderstand me. I'm just saying it was, I couldn't tell if he was like dropping it or something. Yeah, well, when I called him, I think he was a little bit low on battery.

Oh, I used to be plugging it in. That's what it was. Yeah, maybe that was, maybe that was. I'm going to keep this plastic bottle from, uh, yeah, yeah, I was talking. Oh, I should have had him sign it. Uh, F, F, F, F, F. Maybe next time we have one.

All right. Next time he comes in. I'm going to have in Brooklyn. Yeah, it's not too far. Yeah. He is caffeinateded. Calfa and netted. High energy, bro. High energy.

Very high energy. Yeah, yeah. All right. When we get... Wait, I missed the last part, because I was switching off to cams. Yeah. Do you want to tackle tweets a little later on the show? Yeah, so let's do this.

Let's do about 10 more minutes of calls. Okay. You stitch them all together when they go on YouTube finally. Yeah. And then I'll do tweets at the very end. How's that sound? Yeah, sounds good. All right.

Awesome. All right. By the way, for folks, tell people the truth. Paul is a nice guy. I mean, that's a nice guy. Paul is great. Yeah, super nice guy. Yeah.

I mean, I feel like that's truth to like 98% of the people like that, you know, you see on the media. Like, if any fan meets any fighter, most likely, dude, they're going to be nice people. They're, you know, just regular human beings. You know what I'm saying? And I feel like, you know, across the media is easy to hate. But in person, like, they're people. They're people, man. You know what I'm saying?

All right, let's do it. All right. Grab me a call. Yeah, let's talk about a key Walterweight matchup that got recently announced. Luke, Danny, how the hell are you? This is Jay Collinada, Brandon, Mississippi. Listen, I wanted to talk about the Woodley versus Lawler match. Lawler's one and three in his last four.

I don't think it makes sense for him to fight the number one guy, other than Ustman, of course. What are your thoughts? I thought that, if anything, Lola should fight Tennis and Willie should fight Ponsonibio. Give me your thoughts. Thanks for taking my call. Rematch. What do you think about it?

We talked about this bill on the MMA beat. I'm not nearly as upset about it. I didn't think it was the best fight to make. I guess I would have preferred to see something fresh. But yeah, I don't really, I mean, again, we talked about this last week on the on the, on this show. I'm not one of these guys who get super upset about matchups. Again, here or there, I'll get upset if it really makes no sense.

But I'm not one of these guys who get super excited about them or super depressed about them. I kind of just stay even through all of them. And I don't think this is the best choice, but I'm, I'm okay with it. You know, yeah, same. I didn't really have any strong feelings towards it. I'm like, Yeah, it's going to be a good fight.

I'm actually somewhat excited to see it because, you know, we know that Robbie Lawler has one hell of a chin, right? And the first bout, you know, because the fight was so quick, you know, we kind of got robbed on how it would look if it would stretch over a long period of time, which I think you could be a very fun fight. Yeah, look, people act like it's a bad fight. It's not a bad fight. It's a good fight. Maybe it's not the best one to make, but it's all right. And correct me if I'm wrong. This is hard to put into words.

I don't really know how to describe it, but both Tyron Woodley and. And Robbie Loller, for some reason, carry, I don't know if it's because they were, you know, former champions, but they carry a certain aura that other contenders don't carry in the Wiltrowe division. Agreed. So this matchup actually feels like, you know, it could definitely, this shouldn't, you know, it feels like it only belongs in a pay-per-view card. You know what I'm saying?

They're putting it on a fight night. Yeah. But I know what you mean. Right. That's what I'm saying. It feels like it should belong in a paper-room. Oh, I see. They've misplaced it.

Right, right. Yeah, maybe. Don't you think? I don't know. It has like a... Well, we'll see. There could also be a question of... It feels like a big fight.

It does feel like a big fight. There's a question of maybe one of these guys might be too old. We'll see, maybe not. No one really knows. And this fight will tell us the answer to that. Yeah, I suppose. But I'm excited.

I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, for sure. Why's my hoodie falling down my back? There we go ahead. All right. Now let's talk about something you just touched on with Justin Gagee interview. Hey, Luke, big fan of the show.

This is Gabe from PA. I was just hoping I could get your thoughts on that post-show interview with Paul Feller and Justin Gachie. It seemed like, now, if they make that fight, sign me the fuck up.

I mean, I think Paul Feltner's a lot of you guys that can match Justin Gagee in just terms of pure savage durability and toughness, you know. But I just, Paul Felter was there working as an analyst,

and you could tell Justin Gasey didn't really appreciate the callout. He even said in the post interview, the post-fight interview, that he felt like him and Karen Bryant We're trying to steal his thunder. I get what he's about to ask. I have a couple comments on it.

I appreciate the call. I was just trying to move through as fast as possible. Here's what I would basically say. Look, this is not to Justin, but to the UFC as well, who I would say to do. You kind of reap what you so, man. If you want to have active fighters who are calling fights or serving as analysts, here's the good news. They're plugged in in ways a lot of other athletes or a lot of other commentators

might not necessarily be. Here's the bad news. They're going to call fights against their rival. they're going to call fights against their rivals friends or teammates or people they hate. They're going to interview people who are in their division and they're going to do what Paul Felder did. I don't think what Paul Fielder did was the best thing, but I can't really say I blame him because no one told him he couldn't. In fact, they probably told him if you're going to. Now's the time started here.

This is the reality of having active fighters in those roles. If you want that to happen, here's the lesson. That is inevitable. It is absolutely inevitable. deal, not to Justin, but to the UFC, you're going to reap what you so on this one. Yeah, man. And to further your point, like, we live in an era where rankings,

and in that interview, Justin Gage was saying, you know, rankings don't mean anything. You know what I'm saying? We live in an era where talking, getting your name out there, causing controversy, you know, calling somebody out, is worth a lot, right? So, of course, and fighters are out to, you know, look out for their best interest. So I can't blame Paul Filder for that.

But you know that's what he's going to do because, hey, if that's the fight he wants, he's got a camera. front of them. Everybody's watching. You know what I'm saying? It's the hype business. What better way to get some hype than got the guy who's just coming off the K.O. win. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, I can't really blame any of the guys there, but the UFC for

setting this up. I mean, I think it's not bad if you have, you know, fighters, active fighters, you know, calling these fights, fine, have it. But when it comes down to interview the post guy, you know, post-fight, it's their time to shine, you know what I'm saying. So maybe just have, say, Karen Bryan or one of the interviewers that, you know, It's not an active fighter conduct the interview and have, you know, the active fighter sit out, especially even in the same weight division. I felt kind of the same way. And I think this guy handled it like a complete professional, but still there was a little bit of a weird feeling there.

I understand Paul's feeling. I understand Justin's feeling. They're going to clash. They're going to clash. You keep that around. They're going to clash. This is why you should have Jimmy Smith. Same thing when, exactly.

There you go. You wouldn't have to worry about any of this. When D.C. called Justin Willis fight against Curtis Blades and the post-fight interview, DC handled himself. like a complete pro, but nonetheless, I felt like there was a little bit of tension there. I don't know. Look, I think that Paul is a great commentator, but maybe on the analyst desk have Jimmy Smith. Exactly.

But they decided they didn't want to have him because he's not a former UFC fighter, which is a very stupid idea. But here we are. All right. On to the next question. This one comes up often, but I feel like it's fun to revisit, especially as new tracks come out. So let's hear it. Hey, look and Danny. This is Aaron calling from Sydney, Australia.

Simple question, what would your walkout song be if you were a UFC fighter? For me, I would choose Face the Pain just so I could be the biggest heal and make everybody hate me. All right, thanks, fellas. Love to know your thoughts. And thanks for all the great contact. Keep it up. Bye. I feel like low-key, you'd do the same.

True or not? I hope all of you die. You wouldn't do the same? I feel like you would do it because I feel like you're so passionate about this topic that it will just pump you up. Like, you'd be ready to go. I'm not passionate about walkout songs. I'm passionate about not slumming it with dumb shit music that's old and that nobody likes. How, I can't, I've said this before, it's like, of all the things you want to debate, like, oh, what, you know, what should be this color and what's the best way to run this production element and blah, blah, blah.

This seems to be like the no-brainer of it. It's like maybe at the concession, this is seriously, this is how I hear it every time someone says it. Like, I like face the pain. This is like saying, all right, at the concession stands, we're going to serve beer, pretzels, hot dogs, and feces sandwiches. And I'm raising my hand being like, maybe don't serve fecese sandwiches at the, at the concession stands. Be like, no, dude, people love them. I'm like, I don't think, I don't really think that that's true. I don't think people love them.

And they've kind of phased it out, to be quite honest with you. I've sort of, you know, I've got, I think I've harangued the, uh, the folks in the know a little bit. They bring in bodies, you know, every night. And it's like, it's like, I just can't believe this is an issue. It is a terrible song. It is outdated. It dates the product.

It was never good to begin with. It's certainly not aged well. and they keep recycling it like it's some, like this is, you know, when the levy breaks by effing lead Zeppelin or something like it's some iconic track. It is basura, garbage. Yep.

All right, but anyways, what would your walk-out song be? It would be Big Mouth Strikes again by the Smiths. Okay. I think I'll go with Chambia bad bunny. Of course you would. Why would be? Chambia.

Of course you would. That's a fine song. That'd be a good one. With the gun going off and everything? Yeah. Karon, not take it. all right let's go by Eddie Alvers this is Justin from Las Vegas

I'm a huge fan of the show guys just moved out here from Mobile Alabama and loving it so far one month then my question is if you guys caught the one championship card at all I only watched the DJ and Eddie Alvarez

fights but it looked like Eddie was moving much slower and he wasn't his normal self. He didn't want to engage as much as he usually does. Can you touch upon this? Yeah, that was not a great performance from Eddie. Yeah.

And I don't think that's controversial to say. Now, here's the thing that I won't do. It's one fight. I'm very hesitant to read too much into it, Danny Segar. I'm very hesitant to read into it. Oh, he's done. Show's over. He can't hang anymore.

more. I will acknowledge that it was a bad performance. I will acknowledge that it did look like something was off. But I've seen this before where I'm like, oh, here we go. It's the beginning of the end. And then they come right back out and they look fine the next time out. Could be a lot of factors. Could be they didn't take the guy seriously. Could be maybe at an injury. Could be maybe he is done. And we don't know it yet. Could be the travel. Hard to really say exactly. He also has had, dude, Eddie's taken a ton of damage in his career. So what does it mean? It means this. It wasn't good. Let's see how he looks in the next one

before we draw any firmer conclusions. I'm with you 100% and to best, you know, put this into words. Kamar Usman, I think it was Kamar Usman. He had a great tweet. He said Eddie Alvers is the type of guy to go to a promotion, a loose, then go tear the division and win the title. So that's what he did in the UFC. I'm not going to make much of this loss.

Although his debut against Cowboy was more competitive. Of course, yeah, that's true. But it's safe to say, I mean, there's a much younger Eddie Alvarez, but I mean, he was rocked, you know, in that fight. So I don't know. I'm not going to say Eddie Alvers is done. I think, you know, we need to see a few fights in and then see how he looks.

You cannot rule it out either. Yes, of course. But you don't want to jump to conclusions. By the way, here's who he fought in the UFC, just so everybody knows. This was his UFC resume. Donald Serroney, Gilbert Melendez, Anthony Pettis, Hafeel Dos Anjos, Connor McGregor, Dustin Poirier, Justin Poirier, again.

You want to talk about fighting murderers. That is who he fought murderers. So, yeah, maybe he is a little bit, you know, worn down. It's possible. But I don't want to declare it until we have some more evidence. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we got to wait and see what happens. Plus, like, every time you jump into a new promotion, new weight cutting, right, travel, everything.

Like, there's so many factors involved that, like, it's way too early to speculate. We got to see some more. This is his first back-to-back loss scenario in his career, though. So first time that's happened. That's never a good sign. I mean, we just got to keep an eye on it and see what happens. Exactly right. He could come back and blow the doors off somebody next time.

So let's just see. All right. We got time for one more? Let's do one more. All right. Do you want to talk about what strikes you think should be illegal or maybe a little bit of Max Holloway versus Dustin Portia? Let's talk Max. I'm pumped.

By the way, let me say this. Yeah. I've got a special Monday morning analyst next week. I have one because there's no UFC event this next weekend, right? No, no. Buddy boy. I have Get some good scene

I am the foremost Max Holloway whisperer I feel like that's true It's probably not true But I feel like it's true He loves your Monday Monday Alice His coaches love it too

He's called the audience He's like yo don't give away my tricks I was like Yeah I found something in the tape And I was like Next week boy Next week you will see

I'm excited All right let's hear All right so let's discuss that This one's a little long So I'll cut it short Killian Calling from Los Angeles California

By way of Atlanta Georgia Atlanta. A couple questions for you. With USC 236 vastly or quickly approaching, I was wondering if you thought between the two, Max Holloway and Dustin Porriot, who has improved the most? Obviously, Max is on a 12-fight win streak.

He's looking unstoppable these days. Come up right there. Who do you think has improved the most? Holloway or Portia. By the way, who has improved the most is not the same question as who is better. The answer could be the same, but they are not necessarily the same.

Max has clearly improved the most. He was further behind. He has made up more distance. I just don't see how you can argue with that. His sophistication and his development has been extraordinary. At the same time, that doesn't mean Dustin Poirier also hasn't improved.

He has. You just or Justin Gage, talk about it. I talked about the Monday morning analyst. all the angles he was taking. He was either getting out of the way of Gachi or forcing him to turn all the time. Go back and watch it was actually really, really slick

how he was doing that. That was one of the reasons why he won and he held the leg kicks down and blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, point being is he has improved massively as well and also went up a weight class. So he feels better as well too. So there's a now max is coming up, so we'll see what that means.

But Max has improved more is the answer. Yeah, I think it's pretty easy answer. I mean, just look at where they were at in their careers. I'm not saying Poria hasn't improved. He's improved drastically as well. But Poria was already a legit contender. That's right.

By the way, I think from that fight, if I'm not mistaken, he went on to fight maybe one more and then the Korean zombie for Tidal Eliminator. Whereas, you know, Max Hollow was literally just getting started. That was his first UFC fight, you know? And they had to go fight the Will Chopes and everybody else in the world. So he had a much further distance to climb.

Yeah. I mean, Poria was already established at that point. That's why Porier kind of ran through him the first time. The first fight was not close. But in the seven years since then, it's been max making up more ground. Which is which is why the rematch is so exciting. Exactly. All right.

I got to do some tweets because then I got to get out of here. Okay. All right. Great work this week. Get better. Thank you. All right. Time now.

Ladies and gents. Time now. Time now. Time now. For a round of tweets. All right. Five minutes on the clock for you, Jabroni. As soon as it goes up, we then go to the tweets.

Let me wait to see the clock. There we go. Hit it, Boaz. And we'll get it done. All right. Clock is ticking. There we go. So Luke and Danny,

it seems that March was a very prolific K-O month in the UFC. Who do you think will benefit the most in terms on getting the UFC machinery behind them? For me, it's my boy, aka Mazvedol. Mazvedol's got that fight with Ascran coming up, so that'll be a big deal. Probably Mazvidal made the biggest one, but I mean, you want to talk about a major change

in the career of Anthony Pettus. He needed that win bad, and boy, it is big. The one for Gaichi should be as big, but it probably won't be. But there you go. Next. All right, how much does Eddie Alvarez's loss affect his legacy? His legacy, probably not a lot. The fact that it was a back-to-back loss, as I mentioned, is a bit of a problem.

But I don't think it changes his legacy exactly, especially if he comes back and roars in his next performance. So we'll see. Next. It's a quality show. Thank you and the crew for the efforts. Yeah, thank you, buddy. Appreciate it. Next. What did you think of the decision

when Casey Kenny got over Ray Borg. It was an exciting fight with lots of scrambles, and I do think Borg did enough to get the W. Who would you like to see Kenny fight next? Oh, here's the thing. I thought Borg won that as well. I can see a scorecard, 29, 28 for Kenny. The 3027 I don't really get.

And I understand Kenny's point, he didn't do anything but get the takedown and hold me. It's like, okay, some of the better striking definitely came from Kenny. But Borg got a lot of takedowns, had a lot of control time, escaped a lot of bad positions. was kind of initiating a lot of scrambles,

trying to go for the back. I kind of thought he deserved the W. So who should be next for Kenny? I mean, you know, next in line. I don't have anyone in particular. But I don't think it's a travesty that Kenny won. Don't misunderstand me. It's a defense.

2928 is a defensible scorecard. But 3027 is not. And you got to feel bad for Ray Borg, given everything he's been through. Next. Okay. After the Michelle Waterson victory, both Annick and O'Levy

asked her, about going to Brazil to see Namayunas versus Androge. Is it fair to take that as Waterson has the UFC's blessing to be the next challenger? Remember, she's reped by WME, IMG. So they probably would want to put her in a position. By the way, I thought

Michelle Waterson looked awesome as a fighter on Saturday night. I really thought that was a complete and just a really strong veteran, prepared, well-rounded performance. I really, really, really appreciated, which he able to turn in on Saturday and yeah dude they signed her like WME reps her like yeah

they're gonna look this game is not necessarily the fairest one now you could make an argument based on her wins that she should be there but the reality is also this and in life it is who you know well she knows the people that uh own the company because they rep her next uh how did you get your beer so fluffy uh this company called cremo put it in your beer donks your beard doesn't have natural oils like they do on your scalp. You got to put it in there. So there you go. Next. Let's see. It's just to get you the most exciting fighter on the most consistent basis. I don't see how anybody could possibly argue against that. I don't see how that's even debatable.

Absolutely 1,000% yes. If I had to ask you to pick one fighter against any other opponent who you could reasonably rely upon to be exciting, would you pick anybody else? Next. Pettus mentioned in his post fight wanting the winner of this past weekend's fight. How do you think he matches up with Gaichi? Do you think that will happen? Or will they match Pettus and Gaetchi up with others? Well, Pettus is up a division, so I don't know how that's going to work. Certainly, I know he wanted the rematch against Edson to get the win

because he wants the same one against RDA is what he told me last week. Against Gaichy, it's like, I don't know, man, Pettus has been in a lot of wars, and I, that's a tough fight for anybody. That's a really tough fight for anybody. If I'm Pettus, I'm going to say, don't take that fight. You got a good thing going at Walterweight, ride that out, and then come back to lightweight when everything's sorted out. So that's what I would say. And I would match you up Petis with, I don't know.

So again, he beat the number three or four guy. So let's see where they puts him in the rankings. Five is six, five is sixish, depending on how they put them and then match him around there. Next. Are you noticing McGregor fatigue amongst MMA fans, journalists as it relates to his behavior? Dog, I've been had McGregor fatigue. Personally, it's affecting me because I feel there's more substantial discontal. to be had about active fighters. Yeah, I mean, chiming in all the time from the sidelines like that.

He's not the only one that does it too. I love Nate Diaz, but Nate Diaz does it as well. And you're constantly inactive. And then for McGregor, you know, he's got these law enforcement issues, whatever you want to call him. And he hasn't won in a while. Like, yeah, there are people who are kind of checking out on him a little bit. I think that's true. Next. Our fans underestimating the skills of fighters in one championship? Yes and no. There is no possible way to say that one's fighters are even close to as good as the, UFC's fighters in aggregate. But the guy that Eddie Alvarez fought, there was a good argument to make that he was very

underrated. Shouts to Caposa, Grobaka hitman on Twitter. If you guys don't follow him, you should be. He's just a fan, but he's as knowledgeable, if not more than any media person who does this professionally. And he was saying before the fight, he was like, ah, this is closer than people think. Keep your eye out for this guy. He was absolutely right.

He called it. And he at least had an awareness about what this all meant. And so, look, do not overstate things. One has eons to go before they're even close, roster to roster. But can, in a division like 155 where everyone is good across the world in those weight classes, right? It's the deepest weight class. So if I go to Russia, they've got good 155ers. If I go to Canada, they've got good 155ers.

If I go to Brazil, they've got good 155ers. It's that good of a division. So in individual circumstances, yes, it can be possible. You can find diamonds in the rough like that. It's still the rough. All right. Thank you so much to my guests, Javier. Let's see, Justin, Pauli for coming in, Josh Emmett.

Thank you guys. Keep sending the tweets using the hashtag the MMA hour. Keep calling 844-866-24-68. Until next time, stay frosty.