MMA Fighting - ‘DAMN! That Was Crazy’ | Looking Back At UFC 151's Cancellation with the 'Sport Killer'

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

While DAMN! They Were Good normally celebrates the careers of the most exciting and influential fighters in MMA history, for the 10-year anniversary of one of the biggest fiascos in UFC history, this week DAMN! will dive deep into the first fight card the UFC ever cancelled, UFC 151. UFC 151 was set to be headlined by a light heavyweight title fight between Jon Jones and Dan Henderson, but eight days before the event, Henderson informed the UFC he ruptured his MCL and would be unable to compete. The promotion scrambled to find a replacement and settled on Chael Sonnen, but Jones and his team refused the short notice fight. In the end, the UFC cancelled the event and laid the blame square upon Jones and his coach Greg Jackson, releasing a scathing press release and adding the term "Sport Killer" to the MMA lexicon. Follow Jed Meshew @JedKMeshew Follow Shaun Al-Shatti @ShaunAlShatti Follow Alexander K. Lee @AlexanderKLee Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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podcast network. My name is Jedmishu. I am a writer for MMAfighting.com, the best website in the whole world, and we are back for another episode of, damn, they were good. Now, as you may be able to tell from the title of this episode, we're doing things a little different today. Instead of talking about our favorite fighters, remembering these wonderful careers, we're going to talk about one of the weirdest, the most contentious, bizarre things that's ever happened in the sport. The King's cancellation of UFC 151 because today, Thursday, September 1st, marks a 10-year anniversary of the pay-per-view that never was. So if you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry, we're going to give you a full rundown, a deep dive into everything that happened or didn't

happen as it were. But first, let me introduce to you the people who are going to help me on this journey of what exactly was going on in August of 2012. First, man working in MMA media at the time. He's going to give us a great historical perspective. The best damn writer in the whole game working for MMAfighting.com, great website. Mr. Sean Alshaddy. Hean, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing well, man. I'm doing well.

In a weird way, I almost feel like I'm bookending something because the last time I was on this program, I was like a day away, like 24 hours away from having a baby. And now I'm like two weeks in and I haven't slept since and I'm just like all sleep deprived. And it's a wonderful life. So I'm glad to be back. Well, we're glad to have you back.

Congratulations on, you know, being a new father. And I wanted to have you here, as I said, for that specific reason. But are the third leg of this tripod, arguably the most important man to have on this podcast because if there's one person who knows about killing the sport of MMA, it is Mr. Alexander K. Lee, also we may find a comrade website, AK, thanks for joining us. I would never do anything to harm the good name of the sport of MMA. I have said, I have made it pretty clear, like over the past year, taking a pretty strong stance against the mixing of the martial arts.

This is true. But overall, I'm a lover of combat sports. And listen, I have been accused by the UFC, you might say. By Dana White himself, you might say, of making comments hurtful to their brand. And I suppose some people would say, thus hurtful. to all of all of MMA but that is not true I love it and I will prove that with our with our discussion well hopefully go take some steps towards proving that with our discussion today of truly one of the most bizarre incidents in the in the history of the UFC I don't know man

this it was kismet been planning to do this obviously for a few weeks and then for whatever reason the UFC decided to re-upload the video where it calls you a sport murderer and I was like this is great for me because you killed the sport. They didn't call me anything. The picture they used and the way they filtered it said a million words. America's most wanted frankly. Fantastic. Also, for the listeners at home, happened to be lucky enough to have another sport killer

joining with some audio. I was fortunate enough to interview Greg Jackson, who is a central player in this as we'll get to. and I will be adding that to the end of the show to hear Greg's thoughts on the 10-year anniversary of him murdering MMA. But for those who don't know, because some people, you know, this is 10 years ago, guys. That's why I wanted to do it on this event instead of a fighter this week.

Because let's all be honest, Connor McGregor brought a lot of fans to the sport. Connor McGregor was not in the UFC at the time that this whole shenanigans happened. So there are a lot of people who maybe don't know that UFC 151, is the first event the company ever canceled. And so that's what I want to talk. I want to bring that back. Let everybody remember it.

And because it's a little different just to let the listeners know, we don't have nearly as many categories. If you listen to this all the time, you know what I'm talking about. But it's mostly going to be a free-flowing conversation with a few points and a game that I'm so excited about. I can't wait to get to the games later. But for now, let's kind of just,

dive into it and he and because you were you know working in in MMA media at the time I was a fan so I was intimately involved in paying attention to the drama but tell me what you remember at the time of UFC 151 being canceled kind of how all of that shook out in in the lead up to it sure I am actually really I'm happy you're doing this podcast about this particular event and a moment in MMA history because I think you're right in that a lot of people, I would say like 90% of fans, I would estimate probably either have only a vague sense of this whole situation or have no idea at all that this even was a thing. Which is so insane because it was such a big deal and then it just doesn't matter at all anymore. That is exactly. When this happened, I was with

MMA fighting. It was still early in my time at MMA fighting. It's a great website. I was doing the morning report and a couple other things. And I just remember this whole day so vividly because it felt like simultaneously the biggest thing that we had ever seen in the world, it felt just huge in the moment. It felt confusing in a moment because of the way that it was framed and just sort of the way that the MMA community received it, fighters, media, fans, everybody sort of met it differently. And I just remember the day itself being such a long day because this started, you know, early in the afternoon and it didn't end. The news, the updates did not end until way, way late in the night. I remember at maybe like 1 a.m. Eastern time. The main event changing all

over again when the Leoto Machita stuff happened. And I'm sure we're going to go through all this. So it's just, it's such a fascinating moment in time to look back on because in one way, it is such a it is so if you could pinpoint one thing that would be the most illustrative example of why there will never ever be a union in m m m m m m this would probably be the number one reason if you just look at this day and how this day played out and how the fighter community reacted to it and how no one had anybody's back and everyone just put john jones out there on a platter and shoved like 40 different knives in him from all angles like john jones was destroying by the fighter community of this day, the coaching community, just everybody in MMA. And if you look back on it in retrospect, having maybe more of the perspective, I think, the understanding, the appreciation that I think a lot of us do now of the inner workings of the business, how one-sided a lot of this is, it looks very strange in retrospect to see the reaction from us, from fighters, from coaches, from everybody. And it's just, again, it is so illustrative of why this will never happen in terms of all

these guys joining together. But it also is just funny to me how this would barely be a blip on the radar if this happened today. Like if the UFC canceled some event in the way that they did today, it would be very small news. I'm sure we would talk about it for a day and we would move on. And the amount of, I should say the packaging with which we would get this information would not be nearly to the degree that this whole situation was where we had. this conference call, this incredible press release, this whole, like, it was a whole to do. People were going on Sports Center, Fox Sports, whatever. Like, it was just a week straight of barraging the industry about this idea of this lost event,

whereas that feels so quaint now with wherever we're at. So, so quaint now. And we are going to, for sure, get into the press release, which is one of the most incredible pieces of MMA historical context of all time. The single most, the single most insane press release I've ever seen in my entire life. And going back and reading it now is just magical. Unbelievable whole game built around it because it's great. I don't remember it.

I was told not to look back on it before this show. And I did not. So I'll be going in like I guess I probably once we start going over it again, things will start coming back to me. But I was told to go in cold. I'm very much looking forward to revisiting this release with you guys. It's going to be my favorite part of this episode by a long shot. Because it honestly, in my head it sounded like a fun idea.

And then when I got into it, I was like, there's so much more meat here than I even conceptualized. There's so much to this. So, but A.K., I do want to come to you because I know I was a fan at this point. I've been a fan for a pretty good stretch. Like, I was deep in the forearm game doing all that stuff. And I remember this all happening and thinking it was very weird, the reaction. But where were you at in your MMA journey at this point in time? I recall being a pretty big John Jones fan still at the time.

This was before a lot of the things happens that permanently tarnished his reputation that made him the heel. If you want to use, you know, boil it down to that, the heel that he is today. So this was kind of one of the first moments of really understanding how the sausage was made with the UFC because I was in it enough, I certainly was not a casual, I was in it enough to see through a lot of the criticism and a lot of the heat that John Jones and his team were taking and the blame that they were taking for,

oh, well, them not fighting this walk, I thought it's got this card ruin. And I remember, I know we'll talk about sort of the rest of the card later and sort of the depth of the car and the makeup of the card. but I remember looking at the lineup and being like John Jones not fighting this card is not the main reason why this card isn't happening like this this is not a strong

this is not a strong set of fights that the UFC has given us here so I was remember I was staunchly on Jones's side and Greg Jackson at all them and and this was this was like almost this is a very pivotal moment in my fandom because I I had realized like okay I am very much on the fighter's sides here and I'm really starting to see how Dana White and the UFC

can frame even and John's, you know, I don't know, I don't remember John was the one of the, he was already on his way, he was one of the biggest stars. I don't know if he was number one at the time, but was one of the biggest stars. Even he was not bigger than the company and was not immune to being thrown under the bus because yeah, I mean, this was an all-time

public shalacking from Dana White and the UFC. And again, they really glossed over kind of what a poor job they'd done putting UFC 1501-151 together. But again, we'll get to more of that a second. I think one thing, one thing, too, to sort of add to what you just said, that it's important to contextualize where John was in his career, because at this point, John is such a different person than the person we know him now, right?

He hasn't gotten into any legal trouble. He has basically been a saint in the media. He is putting on this veneer, whatever you want to call it. It's before the D.C. interview where it all comes crashing down. Way before. This is before all of that. And he was just coming off of a year in 2011 that might still be one of, I mean, not might, it is one of the greatest years in MMA history for any single fighter, where he captured

the title and beat just three legends back to back to back, like handily. Like, it was just not a competition. And at this point, I mean, he beats Rashad at this point, too. His run, he is basically the next superstar in this company. he is basically being poised as this is the next number one pound for pound guy in the world. This is going to be a guy we hinge the whole company on moving forward. And then all of this happens and they throw it all away willy-nilly, like just haphazardly. Just, hey, all this work we did building this guy, screw it.

Yeah. So since we've been talking for, I don't know, about 10, 15-ish minutes already, let me clarify exactly what it was that did happen. For any of those people listening who genuinely have no idea what we're talking about, UFC 151 was obviously a pay-per-view event, and you should have gleaned by now that John Jones was fighting. He was set to take Dan Henderson on the main event. This was going to happen September 1st, 2012, obviously the 10-year anniversary now up.

It's going to happen in the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. And then all hell broke loose. About eight days before the event, Dan Hens, Henderson came to the UFC, said, hey guys, I ruptured my MCL, I can't compete. Now, apparently, Hindo actually hurt himself three weeks prior, but did not tell the UFC about that injury, but we'll get into that later. Regardless, the short version here is Hindo said he couldn't fight. The UFC goes into scramble mode to save this pay-per-view event.

They ultimately land, they talk, a number of names are thrown out. They'll make a cheetah. We'll talk about all that later. ultimately Chale Sondon is the guy who gets to call Chale Sondon is offered to John Jones and John Jones his team Greg Jackson the Jackson Wink Squad they say nah I'm gonna do it my guy it's eight days for the UFC light heavyweight championship that's not enough time we we decline this fight and that's where all the fun especially the fun we're going to be

concerned about begins because the backlash from the UFC was immense I mean frankly something we hadn't seen up to that point So it was a whole host of stuff, but now that you've gotten a real background in it, let's talk about the card specifically because, and even more specifically, I want to go to my buddy AK here because AK is a man who's known to give gymnastic scores for cards. Happens on a lot of our programs. And I think at this point, we should probably, for the listeners who don't know, let's just talk about what UFC 151 was on paper. had everything gone according to plan and how that would have looked like. So a very quick rundown of it is the main event is John Jones versus Dan Henderson. That's a fight that at the time maybe got a little more mileage for you,

but I mean, now I don't know where people are looking at it. But your co-main event is Jake Ellenberger, J. Huron. You've got a featherweight fight between Dennis Seaver and Eddie Yagan. You've got a lightweight bout between Dennis Hallman and Tiago Tavares, flightway palpout between John Lineker and Yasuio Oshutani rounds out your main card. For listeners who have just started MMA fandom within the last 10 years, you maybe know three names of the 10, I just said. You maybe know three of them, and you certainly aren't connected to any of them.

The prelims arguably a little better. You've got Michael Johnson, Danny Castillo, Taked Mizigaki, Jeff Hoagland, Tim Means, Abel Chuhio, Darren Corkshank, Henry, Martinez and then the prelims back when the prelims were on Facebook because that is a thing that happened in this company in this world to Facebook prelims Shane Roller Jacob Volkman, Kyle Noek, Charlie Brennaman, AK, you said that this wasn't the best card. It certainly isn't the best card I've ever seen. Even in hindsight, I'm not sure if it got worse or better, frankly. But give me a gymnastics score here on what UFC 151 was, had everything gone to plan.

Now let's keep in mind here. I'm going to say a score that might surprise you at first, but it is low relative. So the score, I put it in the 8.2, 8.4 range as far as how potentially good it could have been if it had gone down. Keep in mind, though, the baseline, I would say today, for USC pay-per-view today, is like 9. It's like it starts at 9. And then if it's really bad, it goes maybe slightly below 9, and then the better it is, you can go in 9.1 to whatever, possibly all the way to 10, if we're talking like a super super stacked exciting card. So an 8.2, anywhere in the low 8s range for pay-per-view is pretty bad.

It's pretty bad. Now, Jed, I was trying to remember, like, is this just how cards were back then? Were they maybe not as stacked as I remember? And then... To some extent, yes. To some extent, yes. Oh, you did the research. I mean, I just...

I didn't do much. I just went to 150 and 1502. I just went to the pay-view before and the preview that happened after. So 150, 150 was Benson-Henters and Fram. Mikey Edgar, championship fight main event. Soroni was in the co-main against Melvin Galard, one of the best knockouts ever. Jake Shields was on that card.

Yushin Okami, who would later fight for the middleweight title. Max Holloway was the main card opener. So there you go. So that's just the main card already considerably stronger than 151. And then 1502 is the, you know, we'll talk about more of that later, of course, because that's where the Jones' next championship events

kind of went. He fought Vitor Belfour. DJ Benavides was in the, was in the co-main. Bissing was third from the top. Matt Hamill was on there, Cubs Swanson, and future lightweight champion, Charles Olivera.

So, and even at the time, that was a really great fight. So, no, 151 is not representative of the cards at the time. It is particularly weak.

I don't know if you guys, if there's any car, fights in particular you want to highlight. I'm going to give a quick rundown, but I don't know if you guys had any thoughts on any of the fights in particular. Oh, no.

I mean, it's, I, and I looked into after it was like, well, is this just to answer the same question? Is this just how cards were? I don't, it's hard to remember. And honestly, this is also semi-relevant given we've got UFC 279 on the horizon. A lot of similarities. If we're being honest about card quality, you've got a main event that matters and that is drawing the people in. But if something happens to the main event, the whole card collapses. And I thought that maybe after after what happened

here we might have seen, oh, maybe this was the trigger that got most pay-per-views to have two titles on it, because that is usually the standard these days, is a paper-view event's going to have two titles on it. But no, the other ones maybe had deeper or better cards, you know, but they still had one title fight and the co-main event was something good, but if it had to step up and serve as a main event would have been a little weaker. But that's sort of where I come down. Sean, do you have any thoughts on the quality of this card?

It's a bad card. I mean, that's ultimately what it came down to. And AK alluded to it when we started it, where a lot of the blame, in fact, most of the blame, went on John Jones, particularly, and Greg Jackson's particularly, for sort of not accepting this fight on short notice when, in fact, the reality of the situation. I actually was looking back at some past articles

and I was proud of myself, because in the moment I framed it. as such in my morning report that day of the reality is this is on the UFC for building such a lacklustric card and just thinking that it was going to be okay and basically building a card where if one bad thing happened your whole entire event is screwed ultimately it's the UFC's fault and i mean you look at the card today i think you're right that there are maybe three names two names that people would recognize outside of the main event maybe michael johnson um you know John Linnaker.

Michael Johnson, it's, the outside of the main event, it's maybe John Linnaker, maybe people remember Takeda Mizzigaki getting steamrolled by Dominant Cruz that one time. Like, it just ain't, ain't the bodies here if you're not deeply ingrained in the sport. Yeah, it's, it's, again, some of these fights actually probably even aged better in much respect than, like they were the time. Some of them did, so the Coal Main was supposed to be Ellenberger and Cause Check, which would have had a little more choose as a Coal Main. Ellenberger, this was after, not right after, but I mean, he had already had kind of that Jake Shields win, so he was kind of

viewed as top 10 welterweight, of course, Kasha was. But certainly not a fight that you could push into the main event. You know what I mean? Also, not a particularly fun fight, if we're being honest. Jay Haran was not viewed as a top 10 middleweight at all, or no

welterweight at all. He was just coming off of losing a Ben Ascran in Belator, and like he had not done anything in a long time. He was coming in from LFA, I think. LFC at that point, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's LFC. Like, it's over a man named Ramiro De Silva.

No clue who that is. So, big win. And then the rest, the Dennis Seber, Yagen, had a little bit of juice. Siever was kind of doing good things at the time. Yagin had won a split decision over Hominic. But that fight actually fell through again, and then Yagin actually never fought again

after the Hominic fight, which is weird. Hallman v. DeVars never happened. Lindaker versus Urichitae was a very cool fight. People forget Ushutani was one of the original Flyweight 4, right? Benavides, Ian McCau, DJ, and Ushutani. It's kind of funny, like, what a forgotten name he is now, yeah. And then as you guys said, John Castillo.

But also at that point, at that point in time, people viewed flyweight. Most people viewed flyweight as a throwaway. Like, they're not, that's the bathroom break fight for other people, which is silly in retrospect to think about John Linear fight that way. Also, you don't know a fun fact about that. That fight is a main card fight for Yosu 151. They rebooked it.

It was a Facebook prelim. Yep. There you go. Unlike a Fox card, I think. I think it was rebooked on a Fox card. It was just like, no, it wasn't even a Fox card. It was a Fuel TV card. It got rebooked as a Facebook prelim for Fuel TV.

These people did not respect flatweights. Michael Johnson cast you. Michael Johnson already had that win over for. Ferguson, which even at the time was pretty good. It's aged incredibly well. It wasn't that big of a deal all the time. Aged incredibly well, but still a solid win. It was a good win at the time, yeah,

because I think Ferguson was looking like one of the better guys to win the ultimate fighter. Mizukakis, you guys mentioned, very solid, kind of forgotten guy now. Tim Means Abel Trujillo never happened. The second time it was booked, Means slipped in a sauna, and it just canceled, and then just, that's it. They just gave up on it. Kirkshank, during Kirkshank, Henry Martinez, that kind of would have been a fun one.

I think Kirkshank's one of the, you know, kind of overlooked action fighters, highlight real guys. Roller and Holckman. I don't think Crookshank was, I don't remember Crookshank had just started his UFC career at that point though. So that was not an anticipated bout. I want to say this was his second. Yeah, that was before Crookshank really, we knew.

Sir, he was on the ultimate fighter, he was on the ultimate fighter, which immediately makes you a star. So I don't know what you were talking about. I did. Hand out. I forgot. Shane Roller was a solid W.C. guy. Volkman had some heat because he'd already made those bizarre comments about Obama.

and Kyle Noak, solid middleweight, future Open Fighter Nations coach, very good season for anyone hasn't seen it. And Charlie Brennan, the Joe's, the pros versus Joe's guy. Remember that? Who could actually fight? I do. Remember that? He was ranked top 10 by Sherdog after he beat Big Story.

I remember this distinctly. But before there was a widely universally accepted NBA fighting global rankings. I showed Sherdog, like, go to. The one true rankings. The one true ranking. Charlie Brennan was a top. 10 welterweight. So very strange cards. This is why we wanted AK. AK is bringing the positivity on this just

food flutter of a fight clubber. I just wanted how I got to a somewhat respectable eight a score in the low eights range. Because I do think like it's a it's for the time it was a decent card but now this would be like a passable like fight night lineup relatively speaking. It was it was not a decent card. I don't it was I don't. This was a John Jones and bodies card and then that's what happened but let me pose this to you I know Greg Jackson and John Jones took the brunt of it and I think we all agree that that's garbage does Dan Henderson have any amount of culpability here for not telling the

UFC when he got injured not giving them the heads up hey I have sustained an injury during training it was a partial rupture of his MCL hey I'm going to try to and work through this, but heads up, it is possible I won't be ready to go and giving them more of, should he be the guy who the UFC was mad at, is I guess the question. I mean, maybe to some small degree, because ultimately you have to contextualize a lot of this, right? Because you hear the names and you hear sort of the, you know who these people are, but to think about it in the actual moment in time, Dan Henderson was on sort of the end of his career. Like it was three, four years before he called it quits with that last Bisbing fight. Like this was

sort of his last run in the UFC, his last chance to sort of make do and get, you know, a title opportunity. He had just beaten Shogun. And this was just like this was the moment. If it was going to happen, it was going to happen now. And I understand at that point, old man gets hurt. He's going to try to just work through it. Like he's just going to try to work through it and get to the fight date because with the H-bomb, which was his classic weapon, anything can happen at any moment, and maybe he can pull a rabbit out of his hat, Leon Edwards style. So I understand completely where Dan Henderson was coming from. And ultimately, if you want to parcel out blame, maybe he gets some of it, but I wouldn't give him very much. Yeah. Do you want to blame old man

Hindo? Blame is a little harsh, but he certainly should take some responsibility. I mean, yeah, if he had, if he had informed them, you know, at the first sign of trouble, maybe they could have found a more suitable replacement besides Chil Sonan or Sonan could have jumped in earlier and Jones's team would have been like okay two weeks is enough or three weeks enough or however much time however much advanced time in fact having spoke with Greg Jackson

they would have agreed to that because that was enough time to to be prepared but but as as Shaheen just said Dan Henderson has no reason to do this he has if he doesn't like if he thinks there's a chance that his injury will clear up and he he has you know and he'll be able to

He has to take that fight. I mean, that's just such a huge fight. And if we see what happened after, I'm just looking at his record now after. Instead, he ended up taking a horrible fight with Machita, a horrible fight with Rashad Evans, and then various other calamities to end his UFC run. So he has to look up for himself.

The UFC is not doing anything to look up for Dan Henderson. We know this, we know this. Other than apparently, you know, maybe not blaming him, which is fine. Other than that, he has got to preserve his opportunities for as long as he can. and at the time, at that stage of his career, a fight with John Jones was as big as it gets. And like you said, maybe win or lose, getting one more UFC title flag,

because that would have been the last UFC title opportunity of his... Oh, no, I'm sorry, I forgot Bisping. No, oh, don't you dare forget Michael Bisping, sir. How can I forget the second Bisping play? But the John Jones opportunity to be huge, and unless the UFC is going to take care of him in the future, which, you know, I don't even know why I suggest the thing like that. He's got to try and try and get that fight.

And, you know, it didn't work out. Obviously, they hit a point where he's like, I definitely won't be able to make it. And that's when they chose to, you know, give the UFC the info that it wasn't going to happen. And that's fine. Again, he does take responsibility, but anyone blaming him for the decision, I think, is,

I don't think it's fair at all. It's so funny. It's so funny the way it all works out, right? Because you just said he had to end up taking a terrible fight with Machita. He and Machita, and we haven't gotten to the Machita aspect of this, but Machita was tab. as, okay, John, if you're not going to fight Chale at 151, you're fighting Machita in a rematch at 152, and then that fell through by the, before the end of the day.

Like, it didn't even make it all the way through the day at like 1 a.m. Eastern time. It was Machita pulled out because he didn't have enough time either. So then the UFC was upset at Machita too. And neither Liotto or Dan fought again for basically like a year. Like they just shelved these dudes of, okay, if you're going to screw with us, we're going to pay you back, and then we're going to just put you against each other. And it was the most typical way of a UFC sort of reaction blowback, just type of handling that situation, especially in that present moment of time, where they had a little more latitude to

just be ridiculous with these guys. We're just like, hey, we're just not going to give you a fight for a long time. And when you finally get one, it's going to be against Dan Henderson, who had this whole part in this too. Oh, Leota, three weeks isn't enough? Take a year. Take a year. Take all the time you need to prepare.

Take a year and think about what you're. you've done. Sit it out. Sean, that brings us to a great part of this. And I'm especially excited to get your perspective in remembering it. Because as you mentioned, the Machita thing fell through at the end of the day. So the timeline here, if I'm correct, and please correct me if I'm wrong, Chale's Sonnen is the ultimate that gets agreed to take the fight and that John Jones rejects.

Then it's Machitas. He's going to fight him at UFC 152. Somewhere in here, though, Vitor Belfort ends up replacing Machita at 152 because of all that. But also in the middle of this mix, Chris Weidman throws his name in that as a guy to also. He had some background wrestling in, was it high school with John? Like, he beat John Jones in the state championships in high school.

This was before he was middleweight champion, Chris Widman. By the way, just a guy, a prospect. and middleweight. So we've got all these names snowing out. Did it ever seem at the time, did any of this feel like, oh, this is a reasonable thing that's happening

and not just the UFC throwing names against the wall and seeing what's going to come out in the wash? No. The whole day, it felt insane. The whole day, it just felt like a fever dream because it was every hour something else was happening because there was another name that tried to step in that you didn't even mention,

is Anderson Silva. He volunteered to fight just a random light heavyweight, which again, Anderson Silva is one of my favorite fighters of all time. Can you imagine if he had just volunteered to fight John though? And that was how we got John versus Anderson. That would have been unbelievable. But just the sheer fact that, again, this man, one of my favorite fighters of all time, one of the greatest who's ever done it, at the peak of his powers, basically the goat at this point, like he was sort of our Michael Jordan on this crazy long winning streak. He's just like, screw it, I'll just fight whoever you want me to fight at this next division up.

It's not going to be a big deal. Like, that's such a badass ball of move on that guy's part, and he would have absolutely done it. And he actually did end up doing it a couple events later against Stephen Bonner. But the whole thing, like, just to contextualize why it felt so ridiculous in the moment, because this was Chal Sanan just coming off

of the second fight against Anderson, where Chale Sonan, for three, four years, his whole career was focused solely on Anderson at middleweight. He builds himself up into this massive superstar. It is basically the biggest rivalry in the sport. The sport is consumed by this rivalry and waiting for this rematch for a long, long time. We finally get it.

And it's almost anticlimactic because of the way it ends, right? Chal Sondon just get knocked out pretty quickly after that very ill-time spinning back fist. The saddest ending to a fight of all time. Just it wasn't great. And so we leave that. It's the textbook definition of out with not a bang but a whimper. Just textbook. And so we leave that wondering how in the hell is Chale going to spin this at this point?

Like, what is the play for Chail Sondon? And we didn't have to wait long because almost immediately he very smartly throws himself into this rivalry with John Jones that then extends much longer because he gets an ultimate fighter season at this with John, gets an undeserved title shot against John Jones. And ultimately comes like 20 seconds away from actually winning the lightweight, light heavyweight title because of the way that fight went in John's foot or tow just basically ripping off his body. It would have been the best thing that's ever happened. Which would have been the best result in the history of MMA because Chale would have never let it go.

He would still be talking about it today. He would still be talking today about the day he beat John Jones and it would just be the silliest thing that we've ever seen. But ultimately, yeah, you asked how did this all feel absurd in the moment? It absolutely did because of the steps, the timeline of it, right? Where it's Chale, that's a surprise to everybody. He's been seen as a middleweight forever. He definitely doesn't deserve this. But then also it's like, well, John would destroy Chale.

And then the fact that John doesn't accept it just causes more. John just fought Liotto. So then we do this big conference call with Dana White, essentially telling us all this about it, giving us all this update in the media. And if you listen to that conference call now, it is an incredible relisten. It is just one of the most bizarre.

Because first of all, the UFC doesn't even do conference calls anymore. That used to just be sort of standard of, hey, we have an event coming up, we're going to get all the media on the phone, here's the fighters, here's Dana White, let's ask some questions. That doesn't even exist anymore. But just if you listen to that conference call, it is 35 minutes of Dana White slowly, at the beginning he's trying to rein himself in, but you can tell he's very, very upset. And by the end, he just doesn't give an F. And he is just going ballistic, going ham on everybody, and just ranting and raving and throwing all these guys under the bus. and then like two hours later Leotto joins that category by

canceling the fight too and dropping out and suddenly we end up with Vitor and by the whole day again just felt like a fever dream and I remember that day writing the morning report my first two lines were like what the hell just happened no seriously what the hell just happened because it just felt like the longest day

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For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Let's talk about the Chal Son and aspect of this, because I think now we're going to actually, we're moving into it, we're getting into the press release, which to me is having not bid on the conference call,

certainly not the high watermark for this event, but the press release, because you know in a conference call, it's off the cuff. And Dana White is a man who's been known to say things, But a press release is a thing that is vetted by PR people, and it touches many hands before someone at the company is like, this is a good thing. This is a thing that we can attach our names to publicly. And let's release that to all corners of the earth. But the Chale Stunand thing, I think, is a huge, I mean, it is a huge part of this because of what you were saying, Sean.

He just lost the middleweight belt. and I think this all plays a lot differently if Chale Sunnan is not, if it's not Chale Sunnan, if it is, okay, he doesn't want to take Liotto on, even though he's already beaten Liotto, that's one of the best light heavyweights. It's a very, very different style matchup. Chale Sunnan is, I distinctly remember the fan reaction being, why won't he fight Chale, like he will obviously slaughter Chale Sondon. Chail Sunn is a middleweight who, honestly,

might not even be that good. Like, it's, this is a ridiculous thing. And that sort of begets the whole press release thing where, where it all starts, which brings us to my favorite part of today. Because we could read the whole press release out. And, you know, it wouldn't be honestly the worst television or worse radio that's ever been done because there's so many great quotes. But I thought a much more interesting way to go about this is, as we mentioned at the top,

A.K. Doesn't remember the press release. No. I was intentionally told not to go look at it. We're going to play two truths and a lie, AK. I have pulled some quotes from this press release about the events that have happened here. And I have mixed with two of those quotes a lie. Either a quote I am totally fabricated or maybe a quote pulled from something else. It could be anything.

And I thought I was only going to have like one or two of the. I have four, four two truths and a lie, rustic by. My goodness. So, Sean, I'm going to assume you would know the answers to all of these, but if you don't and want to get involved, feel free. But we're going to start with what I think is the easiest one. We can see each other's faces. So I'm going to not look at, I don't want to see Shaheen's reactions. Okay, go ahead.

That's a good solid thought. Also, just in case any listener doesn't know what this is, I tell, I give them. three quotes, two of them are real, one of them is fake. A.K. tries to pick out the fake one. First one. That has never happened in the history of the UFC. A guy who is champion, who is supposed to be one of the best in the world, refuses to fight. Quote two, you can't make anybody fight.

I think it was 90% mental and maybe 10% physical. I think a lot of fighters have had times where they don't feel right. Three, we spent tons of money on this fight. how long and how far it goes and how bad it hurts i don't know it's the first time we've done it wow all right i think you need to hear any of them again no no no no i think quote one is definitely true or is definitely from this release i thought and i thought quote two was easily a lie okay but now the third one seems i'm going to say two i i'll say two is the one that is not in this press release ding ding ding ding you nailed it all right that is dana white talking about

Amanda Noon's withdrawal from UFC 213. That sounded familiar. It's, yeah, I thought that that one was going to be the easiest. What was the third quote again? What was the third quote again? We spent tons of money on this fight, how long and how far it goes, and how bad it hurts.

I don't know. It's the first time we've ever done it. That's a Dana White quote. Again, this is, this is an press release. This is an press release. This isn't a press release. This isn't just an interview. But is that like a concept?

The UFC consciously chose to put that in a press release. But they said that. Dana White said that or this like this sort of like a UFC said no no that is that is a Dana white quote from the press release we spent tons of money on this how long we're heard of it for we don't know we spent a lot of money we don't know how long this is the backlash is going to happen etc okay round two good start okay I think it's pretty clear to the fans and everybody else that I'm pretty disgusted with him quote two let me tell you this guy is a sport killer.

Quote three, as difficult as Tito Ortiz could be, even Tito never bailed on a fight. So my only doubt about two is like whether it was in their release or I'm assuming it was. Okay, so I'm down to one or three. Can you read three again, please? As difficult as Tito Ortiz could be, even Tito never bailed on a fight. And what was one? I think it's pretty clear to the fans and everybody else that I'm pretty pretty, disgusted with him.

Sean, do you know the answer? This is tough. Okay. This is tougher the first one. I think. Oh, yeah. This one is much more difficult. It's much tougher.

I think one is the one not in the release? Is the lie? Final answer? That is my final answer. Two for two. That is Dana White talking about Nate Marquart in 2011. What? The Markquart failed medicals for UFC on Fox event.

It's why this. game got really fun because instead of fabricating totally fictitious quotes, I could just find other times Dana's thrown people under the bus. Wait, did he say he was disgusting? So it all sounds very vibe. Did he say it was disgusted with name Marquart? What? Yeah.

Oh yeah. I remember that. I very vividly remember that. Oh, my gosh. Are you doing great, though, A.K., two for two. All right. Round three. When you were a champion, you're supposed to step up.

Quote two, it's a major, major deal. We lose a lot of money, money that's already been spent. And quote three, I don't respect him at all. The only time he's a man is when he steps in the cage. Okay. This sounds easy, but because my first instinct, it was so easy, it does worry me, but I will go with my first thought, best thought, Jed, as you know, that's how we like to live our lives.

I believe it would be. From the hip. Yeah, number three is the lie, not in the press release. Final answer. That is my final answer. You were three for three. That last quote is him talking about Randy Couture. Wow, AK, you're doing great.

The other two quotes are so, like, so crazy. Like, they sound like they could be lying. They shouldn't be in there. They shouldn't be in there. Again, to be stated, this is a thing that the U.S. UFC chose to render to the press as a sign of their thoughts and feelings. Last round, quote one, UFC 151 will be remembered as the event John Jones and Greg Jackson murdered. Quote two.

Quote two, I'm not a fan. I think he's bad for the sport. You know all the shit that comes out of his mouth is stupid and I'm not a fan. in quote three it will never happen again i can guarantee that i'm serious oh gosh that that last one could be from so many other releases and interviews and comments but again i mean it has to be two right it has to be two i feel like that wouldn't apply to this particular situation so i'm going to go with two but boy three sounds you don't think he would say that about gregg jackson I don't think so, but I can, I honestly am struggling to remember the level of animosity at the time.

Because he was once, but he was once pretty complimentary, I feel like, of Greg Jackson and his team around the John Jones GSP era. I feel like there was some Dana White liked Greg Jackson once upon a time. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I will go with, with, what I say, three, I think, as the lie. What did I say? Good question. You said two was like. Two is a lie. Also, three was a lie as well.

The only one that was true was the UFC 151 will be remembered as the event, John Jones and Greg Jackson murdered. You just wanted to say it. That is a true statement that was made in a UFC press release. The second one is about Josh Barnett. The third one is I included it because you're right, AK, it could relate to anything. But it was Dennis Hallman. And Dennis Hallman was obviously supposed to be on this card. It was the Speedo incident for Dennis Hallman.

UFC 133. But, AK, you did great, though. Thank you. I feel like they didn't use language this strong when, like,

John Jones had the hit and run. Oh, man. It's, like, it's not even close. So, so Jed actually undersold the insanity of it. Because you can't,

unless we just straight up read the whole thing, it would be impossible to articulate the insanity of it. Because even the framing of it, I'm looking at it right now. The very first thing you say, or you see,

is UFC 151 event canceled, this is like the heading of the press release, champ John Jones refuses new opponent. Like that alone right there, you're already throwing them off the bus, ASAP, and then the first line, the first line of the effing press release. For the first time in the history of the UFC, a champion has refused to face an alternative challenger after an injury to his original opponent forcing the organization to cancel a vet.

For the first time in history, this guy is a pussy, is basically what you're saying. And it's the wildest just framing ever. And then all throughout it, there's just, if I'll be 80 years old and I will still. Just character assassinations up and down. I will be 80 years old and I will forever remember. UFC 151 will be remembered as the event John Jones and Greg Jackson murdered. That is the wildest line to ever be put in a press release from any like major billion dollar company, ever. And then after all this, after all this, they held an event with John Jones in the main event.

Three weeks later. Three weeks later. Three weeks later. All is forgiven. Well, not all is forgiven, but I mean, all is forgiven enough to you get in there and pay you and put a show up, build a show around you. Also, again, Tito, just, Tito Ortiz just taking, like, getting sideswiped in here. String strays.

As difficult as Tito or Tis could be even Tito never bailed on a fight. Like, that is in the press release for no reason. Okay. I thought I was going to get you in the second one because there is a quote in here that says Lorenzo Fertita and I are disgusted with John Jones and Greg Jackson. They love that word. We're just straight of disgusted. Disgusted and disappointed.

Also, for those who haven't read the press release, you can get out there and find it, but it is maybe my favorite part of it outside of the number one is for sure that they killed the murdered line because that is such strong language. But I respect whoever said, whoever was working in PR was like look if we're going to be a bear be a grizzly let's just do the whole damn thing and they also

get Dan Anderson and Chale's son into trash shit. There's be like Henderson's quote this is the first time a champion wouldn't step up and fight I was pretty shocked it's not like he's insured it's unbelievable to me that he wouldn't take the show must go on attitude if there was any way I could have gone

any way that I thought I could give myself a chance I would have done that Dan Anderson just throwing dirt on John's grave and then Chale being chale I was shocked I'd already gone to the gym He had a chance to prove himself a champion

An ultimate fighter and he didn't take the chance I just have to throw in one more Because this is just the Again just the insanity of this This is from Dana White So many two truce and a lie from their shit This is one more from Dana White Sure

John Jones is rich What does he care if he cancels the fight, but 20 other fighters on the card added up to almost half a million dollars in purse money that John Jones and Greg Jackson's decisions stole from them. Thief and a murderer. What? John Jones is a thief and a murder. I remember, I distinctly remember that now, I'm thinking like, that seems a little unfair.

That's, I think, as I thought of the time as a fan. I was like, that's this unfair. And of course, then, also the 500, that also the half a million number that's thrown out there, like that, that unwittingly kind of revealing at the time, how horribly compensated these fighters were back then. And again, frankly, as we talk about all the time, are still under-compensated today. But half a million for like 20 fighters?

Like, what? That's bad. The thing that you have to remember and contextualize about the moment is because, like, this is still a very real thing today, not to the degree it was, but it is still real. Whereas if the UFC says something, a large majority of the sport, community, fan base, etc., fighters will then take that as law or just verbatim and run forward with that being then the

prevailing narrative that they will believe, right? That is still present today, but back then, 10 years ago, that was so much more prevalent to where if the UFC said anything, it was just believed. And that was just sort of what everybody was going to go with. And if you go back and you look at 10 years ago the reaction articles from this, whether it's like prose reactions, just the fighters tweeting about it, or the columns that were being written about it, John Jones and Greg Jackson got destroyed. Even the fighters were just turning on them so much. You have so many fighters tagging John's Twitter specifically

and being like, how did you take this money away from my family's table? How did you take this food off my kid's plate? All of this, like everybody on that card more or less through John Jones on the bus via Twitter. I saw two guys looking back at my research, two guys who actually stood up for John. Benson Henderson and King Moe, both of whom were like, y'all, this is not a real sport. You just got to basically do look out for yourself. Like, this is, I don't know how you guys are upset at him. Which, kudos to you, King Moe and Benson Henderson.

You guys were on the right side of history. Everybody else, every other fighter in the sport, basically just turned on John in, like, such an outrageous way. I just went to the pros react on M8Flein.com, which you put together. And so many of the tweets are hilarious. So Jeff Holgland tweeted, wait, I'm not fighting. Please say it ain't so. I got bills to pay. Like, what a terrible look that is for the company.

And then a lot of the saying, hey, John Jones, you owe me money, Charlie Rediment. Me and Rick Storriot took a fight on 24 hours, noticed, you know, champ, what's going on? Like, send me a check. It's like, shouldn't you be telling the UFC they can pay you? You know, the U.S. You know, John Jones isn't the one who writes your checks. Just tell the UFC, hey, I was on way to prepare to fight in however many days, you know, I should get paid. But, yeah, you're right.

They so easily, so easily directed, just redirected the score towards John and Greg Jackson. No questions asked. These fighters are all like, yeah, yeah, you see, you're, yeah, we're together against John Jones. I can't believe he did this to us, you know. They completely wholly and fully escaped culpability within the fighter community for not paying these dudes. Just straight up, just not paying these dudes. Like, hey, sorry, John Jones took your money. If you want to, go go take it up with John.

And it worked. And Greg Jackson. It absolutely worked. It was an unbelievable thing. And that's, I mean, that's why I want to talk about it. Because this whole thing is incredible and insane. Marshall's buyers travel far and wide, hustling for great deals on amazing gifts. So you don't have to.

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price on line on C4.A or magazine But now let's I mean

let's just let's talk about the meat of it let's talk about the aftermath let's talk about what

happened because I mean that is basically the end right the UFC cancelled the

card they threw John as far under the bus as possible. They labeled him and Greg Jackson murderers and thieves and selfish and all these things. And then the show went right on moving because John Jones defended his title against Vitor Belfort three weeks later at UFC 152. Obviously he went on to win that fight, though there was the funness with the armbar. The rest of these fights all got rescheduled for a month or two months later and then happened, but a few of them didn't. And so,

We're going to close out our discussion by kind of talking about the aftermath and jumping into some categories here. So I will just run off a brief rundown of what happened in some of these fights because John Jones and Dan Henderson never ended up fighting. They did end up grappling at submission underground in 2016. Unsurprisingly, John Jones won by an arm triangle choke at that fight. Jake Ellenberger went on to face Jay Huron, won a unanimous decision. Dennis Siever Eddie Yagen, as AK pointed out earlier, never ended up happening. Yagin got a head injury, never fought in the UFC again. Siever fought an M-Fand at UFC on Fox 5 a few weeks later.

He won that fight. Holman and Tavares never ended up happening. Hallman blew weight. I think it was his second weight miss in like three fights or two fights. Got cut from the UFC. Yeah, second straight. Second straight, yeah, got cut from the UFC. Tavares goes from fighting Dennis friggin' Hallman to Habib.

Medov. Oh, okay. Tough, tough change of opponent for him there. John Lineker, we already mentioned, fought on the Facebook prelims won't beat Yasuhiro Usher Tani a few weeks. Actually, I think that might have been a few months later. Michael Johnson, Danny Castillo, Johnson ended up winning that fight. Mizigaki beat Jeff Hooglin.

Tim Means and Abeut Trujillo never ended up fighting either. Means caoed himself in the sauna, which I think AK mentioned earlier. And the rest of these all got pushed out a few weeks and ended up happening and frankly nothing that interesting or exciting happened though Darren Corkshank did start as AK was mentioning he he started building his excitement resume with a headkick K over Henry Martinez so the aftermath first I just want to talk about the fights in the card before we start talking about the hypotheticals and how everything broke down so we're going to go into categories now we brought a few of them with us from the normal dam and the first one's

going to be the Mount Rushmore. And it's pick four fights in the card that you would have liked to see. And this was super easy for me. I don't know if it was as similar for you, but I'm just going to fire mine out and then you guys can adjust as you see fit. Give me the main event. I want the John Jones Dan Henderson fight, obviously, even though I know how that fight would have gone. It's still a very fun fight to do. Give me Tim Means Abel Trujillo.

That fight is just a... That fight, if you did that fight any time within the last. 15 years would have been a banger. It was probably the most fun fight on the card. Michael Johnson, Danny Castillo, similarly a banger of a fight. And then we talked about us, the flyweights, baby. Let John Lennox go to work.

Let him punch people in the guts and then go up top with the hooks. Like, that's where I'm at. Do you guys, were those the only, because I'll be honest, those are not only were those to Mount Rushmore. Frankly, they're the only four fights in the card I really gave any kind of a crap about. No, you nailed it. That was my four. That's a T. I don't even know what else I would really throw in there. Maybe again, the crook shake Martinez fight, maybe, but nah, you can, you nailed the four. You could talk to me into Siever-Yagan. You could talk to me into Siever-Yagan or Noke Brennaman,

but it would be hard to knock off one of the four you mentioned. Nobrenumann is the only one that I maybe cared about outside of those four, just because Kyle and Nogue and Charlie Brennam both were pretty competent fighters. But, yeah, very, I'm glad we all agreed. I need a new name for this because I don't think I'm allowed to say the name who's invented a new category of FMK fights that didn't happen because four fights didn't happen on this card. Obviously, Jones Henderson never fought Siever Yagan, Halman Tavaraz, and Meantzscheo. And essentially, let's just go ahead and rank those four fights on the terms of which ones, how sad are you about them not having? happening because to me honestly I am the saddest that Tim Means Abel Trujillo didn't happen like I know

that John Jones Dan Henderson is a more relevant fight but that fight was never going to be fun whereas Tim Means Abel Trujillo was probably going to be really fun am I wrong for believing that no no absolutely that's a great fight I was still put Jones Henderson top of the list though I was really excited yeah I was really sorry the fight at the time and it is a fight I still look back on it Not that I think Henderson would have won, but, like, he deserved the chance to at least go out there swinging and, you know, just to see what would happen. And it would have been John Jones, of course, would have loved it. Another legend adjoved resume. He had, as Shaheen mentioned earlier, he'd just gone on this incredible, ridiculous run where he knocked off legends, UFC Hall of Famers, however you want to, whatever, you know, accolades you want to give him.

And Dan Henderson would have been a nice, nice name to add to that list. So I did think it was a cool fight. And Henderson earned it also for going on base of merit. he had earned it. He had fought his way to, I think, a fairly legitimate teloshot. So I'll still put that at the top. But, I mean, yeah, Trujillo and means exciting fight. And then the other two, I mean, put him whatever order you want.

Yeah, don't care. A.K., this was not a planned game, but because you, your man standing here telling me that Jones Henderson is, it certainly was relevant and probably deserved, it was just never a fight that interested me. Would you care to take a guess what the odds were for that fight? I can over under the odds on that fight if you'd like a little more help or if you just want to take a straight guess You can I take a stab at it?

Go ahead, Shane, you go first. I think John was... We can price is right this, whoever's closest. John, I'm going to say minus 700 favorite. Okay. That's around the range I would have gone to. I was thinking more minus 600. I'll go, but now I'm based on Shane's guess.

I'm going to go the other way. Now I'm going to go minus... 850 Jones. Oh, okay, you were so close to having it. It's minus 650.

You were talking yourself into going down to 600 and you did it the wrong way. Jones is a minus 650 favorite at the time. Do you guys have any thoughts on Ellenberger, Hereon? Because I have the odds

for all the main card fights. Actually, not all of them. I have exactly zero thoughts on Ellenberger-Heron fight, which is exactly how many thoughts everybody had at the moment in time that this was all happening.

No, he had to be at least minus 400. He's only minus 320, but he should have been. But I think Sean is correct. There's zero thoughts on that fight because no one cared at all. But yeah, to me, I'd still think, like when I look at this fight card,

the only fight, I'm like, ah, it would have been cool to watch Tim Meads and Abel Trujillo fight. I bet that would have been really fun. Yeah. That's the big loss here. but now the real big one, the real big category is the alternate universe. And it's, I gave you guys carte blanche here to pick any hypothetical because I have one very

specific one that I want to talk to you guys with because I have real questions on it. But I'd like to open the floor with you, Sean. What big hypothetical do you have coming surrounding the UFC 151? So I have two. one's maybe a little bit plainer than the other. First, I would say, the way that this plays out, it ends up actually messing up several pay-per-views in a row, right? Because 151, UFC got, cancels that, loses like 40 million or something like that.

I remember Dave Meltzer at the time estimating that for our website. It was a loss of around 40 million. And then 152 changes because then it's Jones-Belfort after it was Jones-Bechita. And so we end up with Jones-Belfort. And that's TR-TV tour. And it's just a very weird, everything about that whole. moment of time is weird. And then 153, because Anderson stepped up and was like, I'll just fight anybody.

I'll fight, like, give me, give me a body. I'll, I'll wreck them. They take him up on it and they just give him Stefan Bonner, who at that point was at the last legs of Stefan Bonner's career. And Anderson Silva has basically the last. And on the gas. Yeah, and on the gas. And Anderson basically has the last pure Anderson moment that we get from him in the UFC.

And it's sort of the end of his 16 Silva 16. done. And that to me was always just, I always loved that Anderson's Stefan fight where he's like, Anderson's up against the cage. And Stefan's just looking like he's totally out of sorts. And Anderson's just like, come on, come on. Do whatever you want. I'll sit here and let you kind of do whatever you want. And then finally turns it on for like a half a second and wins the fight. So that, the way all of that plays out, my what if in this situation would be, because Anderson stepped up pretty immediately to, in regards to, hey, let me fight on this card against a random light heavy but by this time he had done that the UFC were already like working on other things

if there's just a world where that comes in a split second earlier and Anderson versus John Jones is even a tinkling of a possibility and I know John wouldn't have it wouldn't there's no chance John would have accepted it but just the idea of that being a thing in our lives for 10 minutes would have been wonderful because that's still like not put that's not post Prime Anderson that's sort of the tail end of the Prime Anderson that's maybe early John where he hasn't really figured himself out fully yet. And so that would have just been a really moment, interesting moment in time to have a fight

that we never actually got. It's a really good one. It would have just been unbelievable. Also, second, what if would be really just like, how does this, in a broader scheme, broader sense of the word, how does this change the trajectory of John Jones's career? Because I think for him,

this was very much a reality check of the UFC's not your friend. none of these people in this industry are your friend. They will turn on you in a half a second and hey, you're the golden goose, you're the golden child, you're the next big thing. F you, no one cares anymore, everyone hates you, all within a span of a day. And I think that's a very bizarre moment of clarity, but also just moment to go through for a 25 year or 26 year or whatever he was at that time. And I would have to think that to some degree that influenced at least a little bit the person

who he ultimately became. and I just wonder if he doesn't have this very weird sort of, again, bump on the road, moment of clarity moment in his early 20s, how does the rest of his 20s play out? Because very quickly after this, things kind of get derailed pretty off the rails, right? Like it's sort of the beginning of the end of John Jones pretty soon after this. Not quite right here, but the moment is coming and we can see it coming. So that's interesting because you're coming at it from the other end because that is my one big what-f out of this is, and it's obviously the most straightforward, right?

It is just, what if John had just said yes? Because he would have beaten Chale. He goes on to defeat Chale. It wouldn't have been, Chale wasn't going to pull off some miracle upset in that. So what if he had said yes? Because that raises the question to me of when things start to go awry for John, when the hit and run happens, does the UFC strip him? because I remember at the time when the UFC stripped him, there was a big amount of dissension over whether the UFC should

because, you know, it's outside the cage stuff. It's obviously a bad look, but he's not guilty. And even if they do strip him, he's probably going to come back. And then he ultimately does only come back after nine months or whatever. Remember there being the conversations in the public of, well, why did this? He didn't get stripped for steroids. are doing. This was an outside the cage incident. He's still the best fighter in the world.

And I have always wondered to what extent, if he was still the golden child, if everything had been perfect with him forever, I have always wondered if the UFC would have just been like, you know, this is the first bad thing because they have stuck by fighters for similarly bad things. And that always felt very quick on the trigger to me in a way that I had always assumed another shoe was going to drop when they announced that, right? Like, oh, they're stripping him. Something else is happening because on a face, this does look bad, but it feels a little quick trigger.

And then when it never did, when it was just what it was on the face, then it was like, okay, well, that's a little odd. So am I off? Do you guys, because I actually genuinely think this may well have played a role in their decision to strip him moving forward. Yeah, you can draw a line. I don't know if it's a straight line, but there's definitely a connection. and sort of touch upon what both of you guys have said.

Like, this moment is such a, is so integral, I think, to the way things eventually went down for him. Which is not to say, which is not to blame the UFC. I'm not blaming the UFC for John Jones becoming a bad person or Dana White for John Jones becoming a bad person. In all likelihood, he was not the, you know, saintly figure that he presented himself as early in his career. I think we know that now. I think there were probably cracks that could have been seen or if they, or he was just really good at hiding it. But probably not the best guy to begin with. And then as he got more powerful and more influential and more famous and richer,

you started to see the real man more and more and more and I think most people by now don't really like what they see. But, yeah, I don't see how someone couldn't be affected by, as I said, from a fan standpoint, this was an eye-opener. I can't imagine being in John Jones's shoes and suddenly just having almost like your whole world turned upside down. Like I'm sure he was aware of the business side of things. but to so publicly be lamb-based. This wasn't the behind-the-scenes like, John, and listen, this is how it's going to go down. We're going to give you the slap on the race,

and we're really disappointed in you, that you didn't step up to the plate here. This was, we don't just want you to know that we're disappointed. We want the world to know that you let us down, you let your fellow fighters down, you let the fans down. So I don't see how that can't change someone inside, can't change their persona,

or at least accelerate him down this path of, of a you know of a bad behavior um so yes i i do believe you're saying calling your sitting champion a murderer and a thief and selfish is not a good idea it's a little m and m and i am what you say i am right like so but no also also just like calling him a whip like there's a whole overton of this whole thing of just like hey you're clearly not you know oh you're a whip and then all the fighters as tough as you think front forward chel sight is the middle way and he accepted it and he accepted it he accepted it, you won't do it. He's a real man. He's a real man. I do think, I do, I'm sorry, A.K., I didn't mean to catch up.

I'm just say, I don't know if that means they wouldn't have stripped the title off of them after that hit and run, but I see the, I sort of see the point you're making there, Jen. I do think, too, that this, maybe not in the moment, but pretty soon afterwards became a really clarifying moment for a lot of fighters, in the industry of how the UFC will operate in these type of circumstances. And I think this, to a certain degree, influenced pretty strongly how fighter relations came from coming both towards the UFC and from the UFC worked moving forward and how they may be changed moving forward. Because once we got away from it, once we got, you know, a little bit of distance from it, and it wasn't this fervor and the fights happened and 152 happens, 153 happens, and at this point it's just something that happened, people were looking back on it as, hey, if this is going to happen to John,

if this is going to happen to the guy that they're positioning as the number one guy in the company, it's going to happen to anybody. It's going to happen to you. This can happen to you. This can happen to you. And maybe we need to figure out a way to speak to the UFC differently and sort of function with the UFC differently as managers and I think just back and forth even for matchmakers as well. It sort of influenced the change that we saw and the dynamic of this stuff moving forward once we a little bit of clarity from it. I mean, Sean, I think that's definitely true. So when I talk to Greg Jackson, I mean, he has no regrets, which you'll hear at the end

of this, obviously the interview. He has no regrets of how it happened. But I think especially kind of looking back, everything you said feels very right because honestly, I just pulled up the pros react that AK mentioned earlier. And some of this is astonishing. and I think if you talk to some of the people who tweeted these things now, there's zero chance that they would stand by what they said or if something like this happened, you know, not to put this bad juju in the air because heaven knows I don't want to. But if something happens to 279 to Hamzad or Nate Diaz or whatever, like this could be a run back of this situation. And I think if that did happen, there's no chance.

that anybody is reacting the same way. I think this maybe was a turning point to some extent in those relationships. And certainly at least a catalyst to how fans maybe started to view the relationship of the UFC to its fighters. So, you know, but that's all heavy. I hope there's a chance. I hope there's a chance it happens, Jed. I need Danielle Wolf going on Twitter going like, Nate Diaz, you ruin. Nate Diaz, you ruined my USA debut.

Gosh, like, God damn you. Like, that's, I was finally going to make my U.S. debut, and Nate Diaz, whatever reason, you know, couldn't make the main event that you've, the whole event's been canceled. Unbelievable. You know, for you, AK, I will say that I hope that's the case as well. Also, if we lost some fights, it wouldn't hurt, a lot of fights on that card. What fight would become the main, would they just make Tony Ferguson, Li Jingleang, the main event? If no, they would book something short notice.

They would bring someone in short notice. For Hamza, for Hamza or for, yeah. For Hamza. Yeah. Okay, okay. I think the idea of having Tony Ferguson on the card is specifically to step in as a replacement should something occur to the main event. That's right. That is, that was my thought when.

Yeah. Because it's, I mean, we don't need to go down this rabbit hole. But the Lee's youngling fight doesn't matter. Does it mean anything? But Tony as a name can step in. Or, you know, like Kevin Holland wouldn't say, hell yeah, immediately to doing so. So I think they've got a couple backups there. But this is all very, you know, above the shoulders, mustardy shit.

Let's have some fun. Let's get a little low. My favorite category, I had to bring it to this special event on Dam. We're going to rename it instead of the previous name. We're just going to go broad to the never back down category where we're casting. If Amazon Prime, you know, they just cut a deal with one championship, Yep, they still want to be in the MMA game. They come to you, AK, with $100 million to make a movie about this.

I want to know how you're using that $100 million to cast it. I've got five names that I think mattered to the overall story here. Jones, Henderson, Dana, Greg Jackson, and Chale. Correct. But if you went deeper, I would love for you if you had more people to go. But I know you have been chomping at the bit to get to this one. So I want to lead with you. and you're casting choices.

Yeah, of course I have the same five names. And I'm glad we actually have five names, because normally we are just casting, you know, when we do a damn they were good, we're just casting for the fighter we're talking about. We cast one person. But here we have to paint a picture. We're going for the SAG Award for Best Ensemble Cast now.

Like, this is legitimate stuff. Absolutely. So for the lead, for Mr. Jonathan Jones himself, the man at the center of this drama. It's hard to find someone, of course, that kind of matches a physical profile of a fighter. But this guy's tall enough, I think. You know, you put him that Hollywood diet,

get some of that beach muscle going. I like Lakeith Stanfield, who was outstanding in Judas and the Black Messiah. Got himself an Academy Award nomination. He was also in Get Out. He's a fantastic, fantastic young actor. And I could see him if he shaved his head. I could see him certainly pulling off a John Jonesy look.

He's about six feet tall, I think, too. So, you know, use the usual camera tricks. And you can kind of figure out. He's got kind of a nice youthful look still. Yeah. That's a good pick. I just Googled this man. Yeah.

Nice youthful look. Very versatile actor as well. So he could play, you know, again, the 25-year-old John Jones, I feel. And if there's at some point a flash forward, he can also kind of play, like if you want to go down the road, we talked about Jed and they make the movie about how this was the instigating incident that turned him into the villain John Jones. He could play the more intense version too. So I would love to see.

Can I counter? Yeah, please. Let's go one by one. Yeah. Let's go one by one. I would say, I have a counter for John Jones here. And I almost thought that it felt bad about it because I mentioned him previously for Daniel Cormier, but I didn't even think he fit Daniel Cormier.

I was just trying to find one for DC. I think he actually fits very, very well for John Jones. Winston Duke, who is Mbaku in Black Panther, because he has that physicality. He's six, five, so he's tall and long, like John Jones. He's a little bit thicker. He's a little bit of a thick boy compared to John. It's going to be hard. Yeah, but it's Hollywood.

Yes. It's going to be hard, though, to do that, though, because I believe he is playing Kimbo. In the Kimbo movie. Yeah, but that's fine. I'm just saying it'd be hard for it to separate that. Like, if that Kimbo movie comes out, then you're like, oh, and then you see John Jones. What platform is the Kimbo movie coming out on? If it's not on Amazon, then it doesn't matter.

And we also have to make sure I didn't just make this up. That's the other. No, no, that is distinctly a thing. This is a thing. It was a thing. It was, I don't know if it was true, but it was certainly rumored. It was a rumor. That is definitely a thing that is happening, but I was trying to find somebody who could fit the,

because John Jones is a big dude, is tall dude, 6-4. And I think Winston Duke is kind of the best physical match that I could come up with. I like it. Again, the Kimbo thing would make it a little bit distracting for me, but certainly if you want to go for someone closer to the physical profile. Yeah, I mean, and I think Winston Duke's fantastic too. Now for Greg Jackson. Now, Shaheen, I think you can read my mind. Oh, wait, did you not say Greg Jackson was not one of your names?

No, no, no, no, I've got it. But I just naturally went to Dan Henderson as my second person because of the top. Greg Jackson, I think you and I think you and I would have been the same page. And Shane, I think I would give you some context clues. You'll be able to guess what I'm thinking of. Certainly knows New Mexico very well based on his most famous role. Oh, okay. Yeah, I got you.

He's nailed it. Go ahead. Brian Crancing. Brian Cranston. That's a great thing. Brian Cranston, I'm sorry, I'm sending you back out to the desert. You're going to, I think he just, again, superficially, again, we kind of saw in Breaking Bad that he could sort of take that look. And also, look, just a fantastic actor.

I think he would really love to dive into that Zen master Greg Jackson role. I think he'd have a lot of fun with it. So he might look like Walter White, but I think he'd play it like totally differently. Oh, Brian Cranston is a really good choice. I don't know. I'm already in. I'm in on this moon. Frankly, that is a tremendous cast already.

Wait till the end. Wait till I get to the end. I need to mold this over because I'm not sure I had a different choice for Greg Jackson, who I really liked. Brian Cranston is a good one. But I need, I'm sorry, I just need a scene of Brian Cranston in the dark reading a phone or a laptop of the press release, hearing about the event that he murdered, and just going through working through the emotions. Just put that on the Oscar clip. You know the 15 second, 10 second Oscar clip?

Just put that on the Oscar clip. Him reading through. I love that you're getting fired up. I love that. Oh, it is. It'll be Amazon Prize. This is art. This is high class art, my friend.

See, I went John Malkovich for Greg Jackson. I don't know. I think he could do, oh, you're not in on that. He's a little bit older. I think he's also a little bit older, too. Brian Princeton's in his 60s. How old is John? Brian Princeton feels usually.

You know? Does he? Yeah. I don't, I think he does. I feel like he feels like a drug dealer. They are, they are close to him for. I don't mind Malkovich.

I don't mind Malkovich. But I want to New Mexico. Malkovich would give it some kind of weird accent that didn't exist. Like, I'm not here for it. Exactly. Oh, you're a gonzo.

As normal as a person as he is, and like, he's also kind of a weird guy in some respects. He's certainly very weird in the context of M. So I feel like, bringing some different energy is what I wanted. I don't hate Brian Cranston. I'm not sure I don't.

I'm not sure I like him better than Malcovich, so I'll reserve judgment. I haven't decided, but A.K. So far, you're more of a fan of A.K.'s movie. I'm going big, big, okay. This one I've got a little more obscure for Dan, for Hendo. So Hendo is, this was the toughest one for me by far. My next one was that actually. You also only get like two minutes of screen time.

Like, Hendo is such a small, like this whole thing. Yeah, well, then, you know, then my, No small parts. My choice might be perfect. Only small actors. My choice might be perfect because I don't think we want any he needs to have too big of a role. Canadian indigenous actor Adam Beach. I'm trying to say, you might have to look at him up.

But you certainly recognize his face. He's done a lot of movies. He's about the right age for it to play, I think Henderson at that point his career. Really? This is not bad. This is home from SVU. Yes. I don't know.

I'm not seeing this one. He's still a very active actor. Dan Henderson is one 16th native. He is part native. So I kind of want to stick to that. I kind of want to play up on that aspect of it. And I don't view Dan Henderson as just like a straight up like Caucasian guy. So I thought like having some native representation in the movie would be,

would be a fun, some indigenous representation. So I'm going with Adam Beach for what I think is a key, but you guys are right, possibly a small role. But also Canadian, like I said. So I'm a little biased here. I don't hate this. I do think I, so that's where I struggled because I don't think. I don't think of Dan Anderson as like strictly like a Caucasian dude and I was trying to find something there.

And honestly, I didn't settle on anything I enjoyed. But the best thing I could come up with was just to sim to sort of match the features was Billy Zane. Oh, this is a phone the Zane card. Okay. I'm not, I'm not sold on it. That's why this was the one I felt by far the least confident. It was way, way more difficult for me to find somebody that could do it. But I think Billy Zane's a great actor.

So I love those. You throw him in there. I'm okay with that. Proposal. Can we just get Hollywood Hendo in here? See Jai down him a bit and just have him play himself for like three lines. I mean, you certainly could. I am strongly against de-aging.

You're messing with our Oscar potential. That's not true. What happens? Three lines. You're asking Dan Henderson to ask. Act. I don't know if that's going to work for our Oscars. Hendo, just be yourself.

It's his big break. He's been waiting for. for it. Come on. I mean, you may as well just use archival footage at that point and Forrest Gump the situation, right? Just put him in there somehow or, you know. I had trouble with Chal Sonan. I don't know why, because it's such a juicy part. I think it's a part like a great actor could have a lot of fun with, but I had trouble both with like superficially finding some kind of match for him and also someone who's going to like not make him a cartoon. Because Sonan's like, you know, the way he talks is pretty, it's pretty distanced.

I think it's okay to make him a cartoon because no, no, no, there was like a level of self-seriousness that you almost need to have. You don't want to go. You all might be taking this as a joke, but I'm taking this with a level of seriousness. I feel like that's important. I don't want someone to go Jared Lido in House of Cucci, if you guys saw that.

Like, certainly an enjoyable performance, but just completely strange. You should never go Jared Leto in anything. In general. So I settled on. I needed someone with nice eyes. I was like, I just started Googling like, actors with nice eyes.

She also has very, very, very lovely eyes. And also like a decent jaw line. I love that this is how you got. Yeah. So I kind of ended up with Jason Clark, Jason Clark, Australian actor. He just played Jerry West in the winning time, a very cartoonish, probably completely inaccurate version of Jerry West in the winning time miniseries. That's not a bad choice. Yeah, that's not bad.

And the fact that he was able, he doesn't sound like that in real life at all. So the fact that he's Australian guy. So the fact that he was able to kind of transform himself into this guy from this American guy with a very specific regional accent was pretty cool. So I think he would have fun picking up. Chales kind of high-pitched, you know, unique way of speaking. So I went with some superficial resemblance and also acting ability. Oh, that's not bad.

I also went to that side of the world, New Zealand, Anthony Starr, who most known as Holander in The Boys. Yeah. I think that's going to be the world that I think most people will know him from. But I went in a similar vein of trying to get some match. of the physical features. And I don't know. I'm not opposed to years at all, but I also think Jason Clark's a really good actor.

Well, I'm seeing some pictures of Anthony Star with his actual hair as he's a brunette, I guess. He's actually a brunette. And like, I definitely see it. Clearly, he's in shape. He's in shape for the role. You say he's from New Zealand? It would just be so hard for me to not see him as Homelander at this point. I hate Homelander so much.

It would be so hard for me. not to see it. But I think that's perfect for Chale though. I think Chale is such a classic anti-hero, right? Like, I don't think he's, you'd want to be like... But Chale was, like, lovable, too. Like, he was... Like, people liked Chial Sondon. You don't love Homelinter?

Yeah, like, that's a hard bridge to cross. But maybe he could kill it. I mean, he's clearly a very good actor. May I submit one name to the Chail Sonan registry that we're doing here. Please, also. This is completely off the board. Terrible. It doesn't look like him at all.

But I would just like to see what happens if you give him. this lunatic six months of watching Chale Sondon footage, whatever he brings to it at that point. Give me Daniel Day Lewis just like studying the hell out of Chilana and just going so hard into the role of just whatever that is. Shaheen, you bastard, that is my pick for my final role. I want Daniel Day Lewis as Dana White. I want him to shave his head, change his body type. He's coming out of retirement.

We are bringing him out of retirement. I love the pick for Chil Sondon too. but I am bringing him out of retirement for the role of a lifetime. Dana White. I can't believe you took that off the top of my head right there. I'm sorry to steal that from you. That's fine. We each coming from the same place.

I just want this very classically trained, incredible professional who just goes crazy in his own mind over these roles to just study these insane people in our sport for like six months and see whatever he came from. He has to be involved in this film. Like we said, this is our Oscar push. and nothing says Oscar more than having Daniel Day friggin' Lewis in your picture. So whether it's a Chal Sona or Dana White, man, you know he could play either, and he would knock it out of the frigging park. So I'm mad, and I just love the idea of Daniel Day Lewis comes out of retirement for UFC, you know, biopic films.

For UFC one. I need that headline. I hate that. I hate that. See, is I don't want Dana White to, Dana White doesn't deserve Daniel Day Lewis. He's a complicated character. I hate that you somehow did that Sean I'm much more

I totally okay with DDL doing Jail Dude that's such a different type of character than he's ever done to Like I'm so weird I'm so here for whatever the weirdness of that It would be That would be I mean is it that different

I mean it's it's a little plain viewy Chale Sondon's got a lot of A lot of plain view in him I feel like plane view had like this very Like immediate overtone of menace that Chale doesn't bring to it, right? Like, Chale's coming with levity. Chale's coming with jokes.

Like, Playview was more like, I'm pretty scared to this guy pretty quickly. Oh, man. So I took the low-hanging fruit for Dana White because Michael Chickles is just the right, like, that's just the obvious answer. Michael Chichlis is the guy to play Dana White in a movie. So that was, that rounding out my group.

I can hear him doing his, like, the voice so easily. My other pick was the thing. my other trick was our own Mike Heck making his acting debut as Dana White. Yeah, your best friend. Plus, I think we spent a lot of money on some of their roles. Of course, yeah. It's about time. Well, look, I will say that I think on the whole, your list is probably a little better than mine, AK.

But I can't, in good conscience, allow DDL to play Dana White. That's just... Come on. It's just the worst thing I've ever heard. Her Dana White does not deserve the greatness of Daniel Day to play him But if you love the sound of that somebody you reach out to Amazon Prime for us Give us a hundred million dollars and we'll start making phone calls to make this script happen Everybody my heck is a bill imagine dream cast of Brian Cranston Daniel Day Lewis and anybody else we're talking about just for you

I see 151 the movie God if I had all the money of the Live Golf Tour. This is the sort of frivolous pursuits I would be spending it all right now. And you'd get it all back tenfold. Oh, yeah. And the Oscars and the awards for it. So, all right, we have been talking about UFC 151

for quite some time. Honestly, longer than I thought we're going to end up speaking about this event. It's time to shut it down. It's time to put a bow on all of this because we've accomplished mostly what we're looking for. So I guess we will end here

with my kind of big question, does this happen today? Like if this happens, we've been dancing around it with 279. If something does happen and the main event falls apart at 279 and the co-main event falls apart, you know, say Tony Ferguson isn't out there.

Does the UFC cancel the card? If so, do they put the blame on the fighters? Is there the same backlash? Or have, in the past 10 years, have we evolved as society as a fan group to recognize this as the unfortunate circumstance that it was and not anybody's fault. I think that we certainly have as evolved as a fan group,

we've evolved as a sport, but also just the intricate details of the broadcast rights and all of this has evolved to the level where you look back 10 years ago, the UFC needed these pay-per-views to be successful, right? Like it was very important to them that each pay-per-view hit a certain benchmark and that basically that was going to be a lot of their income throughout the year. Whereas now, that's super not the case. They couldn't care less on a lot of these paper views,

how well they do. If they do great, hey, that's great. If they don't do great, we're getting our money from ESPN and Disney one way or another. And I think the evolution of that deal and how that broadcast deal has sort of played out has completely changed a lot of things within the UFC and how they operate in terms of benchmarks

and what their sort of overall goal is. I think now if this happens, they would plug in holes to a certain degree, and just be fine having a bad pay-per-view. But if it was some sort of disastrous situation where you're losing Maine, co-main, basically any possible whatever, I think they would just cancel it

and we would all move on within a day or two and it would just be, hey, sunk cost, whatever, we're still having the best year in UFC history will be okay. And I don't know that we, I mean, I do know. It probably wouldn't be all blamed on the fighters either. It would just be like, hey, this happens, it's unfortunate.

We're moving on. Because I just don't think a lot, like that a loss of 40 million would hit their their company mark that much at this point do you think there's any chance do you think there's any chance that they just go like they lose those top two fights guess what UC2 79 is now free with a subscription to ESPN plus like it's it like we're still kind of they they sell it as like we're now giving you a free pay-per-view out of the out of the kindness of our hearts we are are now making you we're still keeping at you UFC 279 the event is not being

canceled we're not renaming it is 279 but now for all your ESPN plus you loyal ESPN plus subscribers and all you folks on the fence about purchasing a Instagram plus subscription, you get UFC 279 free with a new subscription. Like, could because that, could that happen? And then you have Rodriguez, Drod and Kevin Holland the main event or something. I think that absolutely could be one of the ways they could spin it. Like, they just have so many, so much flexibility at this point with the way that the deals have set up that they could absolutely spin that as just a PR win of, hey, you guys want something

free? Here you go. We made the best out of the situation. We're so generous. Look how generous we are. I can honestly see them just still charging. Just be like, yeah, it's still 75. Tune in.

You're not a real fan if you don't. Oh, the aggressive. Go ahead. The attack method. If you don't want to watch it, you don't have to. But, you know, sometimes the bad cards on paper turn out to be excellent. So pay $75 and roll the dice. No, they don't say sometimes.

That seems entirely possible. Jed, they say always. They don't say sometimes. So they always the cards you don't talk about. Always turn out to be good. I mean, you know, that's true. Also, before we wrap up, I just want to bring this up because I thought of it and it hasn't really come up yet. Obviously, the way they reacted was incredibly unprofessional and wrong and just, like, bad from an optic standpoint, just about every possible way.

But the alternative PR response here, and maybe it's, I don't know how you couch it, I guess, but they're the only company in maybe the history of the sport that could have survived. this. And they didn't, that was not like the thing that they said. It was like, hey, this screws over these fighters and John Jones is a terrible person and we're losing $40 million.

$40 million loss would bankrupts any other company that, and the UFC for much of its existence. I mean, if this, if this card falls apart, we will just collapse. I mean, look what happened to Elite XC.

Just bankrupted overnight, basically. Affliction. Same thing. Yeah, like it's, it just is how it is where, at least with those other companies, there was a sense of, well, if you choose not to do this,

we are screwed collectively. With the UFC, they were insulated to a point where, yeah, I'm sure that that made it less good of a quarter for them than it would have otherwise, but it did not halt their $4 billion trajectory that they're going to come to in a couple of years. I think that is a different way they could have approached this from a more reasonable PR stance of, hey, we're going to still pay these fighters, this happens, but fortunately, we are such a strong product that we can survive this and keep moving on. So just something I kind of wanted to throw out because it feels relevant to at least mention,

but, you know, hell if I know. And that's it, ladies and gentlemen, where there's not really much more to say UFC 151 was one of the weirdest things that's ever happened. and the fact that it was so relevant for such a period of time and now seems quaint in a lot of ways how absurd it all was remains really interesting to me and as we've hit the 10-year mark, I definitely wanted to commemorate it. So, Sean, AK, thanks for coming on.

I appreciate your brilliance as always, and we will be back in two weeks for another episode of Damn, they were good. Until then, stay tuned to listen to my brief. interview with Greg Jackson and I love you guys. Hey all so as mentioned before here is my interview with Greg Jackson just a quick couple of notes on it beforehand. I spoke with Greg in anticipation of this podcast and some other stuff I'm doing with regards to UFC 151 got his perspective on what went down how he recalls it all the aftermath everything like that so it was a fantastic interview Greg is a great guy to talk to but

But because it was not conducted in the usual studio, et cetera, for me, the audio quality is going to be a little bit lower. I just wanted to give you as a heads up for that, but you can still hear everything Greg says, and I think it's a really illuminating interview. So with that being said, enjoy. Next week is 10 years since U.S.U.C. 151 or what has been. And so I'm trying to put something together for Mwayfiting.com. I want to start with the icebreaker question I have, which is, how does it feel to have killed MMA? Well, you know, I tried my best to kill the sport, but despite my best effort, somehow it's still alive and kicking. So I'll wait for my next opportunity to destroy an entire sport by not taking a fight.

Yeah, I mean, it's really tough. It's a talent. I'm a talented guy. Hey, you did your best, and that's kind of like why I wanted to do something about 151 is, because obviously 10 years long time, we've got a lot of new fans in the sport who aren't going to remember that this happened or was such a big deal. Yeah. Because it's kind of insane to look back on it now and sort of see how it all went. Yeah, a little overreactions from people, maybe, maybe?

Just a little bit. Jesus Christ. Just to clarify, because this is a while ago, but just to get it out there, was it you who specifically told John that he shouldn't take the fight, or was this sort of a consensus thing amongst the team, hey, it's eight days, this is a very dumb idea, we shouldn't do this. I think it was consensus, but I'll take the responsibility for telling John, for sure. I was the guy that was like, a new opponent, different style,

then brand new, yeah. And then just like some random, oh, well, now this is the number one contender, even though I don't think he really would the number one. You know what I mean? Like it didn't seem right. It was just like, oh, is this a sport or is this just like, well, let's fight anybody for the title? I mean, so that was actually going to be one of my other questions because he, obviously, Charles Sutton was not the number one contender. He just lost to Anderson Silva. He wasn't even in the conversation. and how much, if any, did that play into the decision?

Or was it strictly just a, hey man, this is eight days. This is absolutely ridiculous for us to take a new opponent for the light heavyweight belt on eight days notice. It was more of that on eight days, but also the style. Like if it was very close, because we were supposed to fight Henderson. And Henderson's got wrestling, but he also had shy at right hands, and his wrestling style is different. And, yeah, so it was, it was, from Dana's point of,

view it was, oh, well, John will just steamroll Shale and then, you know, everybody's happy. I've been in so many corners that, like, I've seen that go bad, and I don't underestimate Chale Sauton at all, hero. Like, that guy can show up as a world beer.

Like, really? And, yeah, so, preparation, right? Like, the 2005-pound championship of the world, like, if you're, like, you know, if you're a 5-0 guy, your first fight in the UFC or whatever, you're trying to get a fight. Yeah, it can be last minute stuff, you know, whatever.

You can weigh that out. But for the championship, I don't know, just didn't seem. I wanted to be prepared and I wanted to win. And neither of those options were as easy. I mean, and I'm not saying that John wouldn't have steam rolled in, but I like to win. I like to get in there and be prepared. And so it was really that was what it was.

It was eight days for the title, lack of, preparation for a completely, like, somebody we've never even game planned against. And to your earlier point about not underestimating Chale Sunn, and obviously you guys did go fight him, you beat him. But then after that, he submitted Shogun, and, like, Shogun was still Shogun. So it's like he's not some pushover just showing up. No, exactly. And I have all the respect in the world for that guy.

I really do. I like him a lot. and I respect his fighting style. And it was almost like I respected him that much where I wouldn't be like, no, we're not going to just jump in. You know what I mean? Like I have more respect for that guy than that. Yeah.

And so kind of also on this sort of thing here, you end up fighting later that month, right, at 152. Yes. That's a totally different opponent again. We're talking B-Tor Bell for it. Was this, how much of that was, just the additional weeks we felt confident enough with the game plan versus, you know, did you feel pigeonholed or backed into taking a fight given the sort of backlash that came

from turning down the sun in fight? No, no, nobody's ever going to pigeonhole me into anything, nor would I feel any pressure about anybody else's opinion to do what I think is right. So none of that will ever be a factor for me. So, no, mostly we just had time to put together a plan, train it, say, okay, this is going to work, and then do it. So I didn't feel obligated or anything, but you, eight days isn't even, like, that's fight week, basically, right? Like, that's basically you have zero time to do anything. Basically, you just showing up and then fighting.

If they gave us three weeks, that would have been something. We could have said, okay, let's break him down, let's all this stuff. That would have been reasonable to me. But one week just wasn't reasonable to me. Yeah, especially while you're in the middle of weight cut. So that's really really really good. Yeah, like, we can work on nothing. Yeah, we're like, and John's a fighter that does best when,

you have to know your fighter. You're the fighter that does best when he's very prepared. He's watched hours of video on you. He can relax. That's what makes John John. If you put him, I mean, not that he can't adapt and overcome, you certainly can't, but I want to put us to the best odds possible for us to win. and him being relaxed enough to be creative enough

comes from him understanding what his opponent's doing, what he's going to do, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. Can you also just sort of talk me through if you remember, what were the vibes like? Like when you told them or I don't know who would have communicated to the UFC that you're not going to take this fight, obviously their public reaction was overreacted.

reaction is probably an understatement. But, like, what did they say? The public reaction is dictated by Dana and Joe. So, Dana and Joe come out and go, you know, X, Y, and Z, you know, it's not a big deal. We'll get a next, we'll have the next fight for you guys, yada, yada, yada. Then, you know, people would be sad and disappointed, but there wouldn't have been that kind of reaction. Well, I guess Joe didn't have much to do with this one.

Dana just did what Dana does sometimes. just go hard in the paint. He really did. Yeah. And that's where the public reaction came from. Yeah. Did you got, I mean, I know you can't speak for John, but did you feel that kind of moving forward for a while?

I mean, you guys fought with the UFC three weeks later. We were always going back and forth. If they came out with a statement, it came out with a statement. I forget if it was before or after that where, I think it was before that, where all my fighters were, and then I came out with the list of that year that we'd had like 80% of the flight of the night bonuses. You don't remember all that?

So to me, it was, if somebody's always screaming at you, it doesn't have any power. You know what I mean? You're like, oh, that's just what the guy does. He's always upset throwing temper tantrums. If he was the sweetest, nicest guy, and then all of a sudden he had done that, I would have been like, what the hell?

Like, that's a little weird. But it was smart for the course. I mean, it didn't bother me that much. I wasn't affected by it. It's a sport. It's, yeah, it just didn't. Yeah, I mean, I did what I thought was right. I would do it again.

And, like, that's all I can do. So at the end of the day, if you don't agree with me, okay, like, I'm sorry, you don't agree with me. You have your opinion. I have my opinion, then that's what I do. So, I mean, just to make absolutely certain. It sounds like there's zero regret from your side on what happened to do. Yeah. Okay. I'm always going to, no, right, well, and I'm always going to do what's best for my guy, right?

Not what's best for the promoters. So, like, it sucks that we did that, but, again, you're putting us in a position that we didn't now. We were prepared to fight the person you wanted us to fight and do that stuff. Yeah, like, I'm not really sure. I'm not really sure why they got so mad. I still don't know. Like, I get it's a control thing. Like, you know, if I say you do this, you fucking do this. Like, I get the whole bully aspect, it, but if you're a promoter, you're not a bully, so no, that's not going to work. But in this situation, I just think he was off the market a little bit. Oh, I think for sure. Just a couple more things here.

Did you ever personally feel any backlash from the fans kind of maybe immediately, I'm sure there was some, but did that sort of linger at all? There's always some backlash for the fans, just the more successful you are, the backlash you'll get. So, yeah, for a while, everybody was killing Sport Killer and stuff for a while. But again, I just found the whole thing funny. Like, what the hell are you talking about? Like, it was really absolutely ridiculous to be at the time.

Like, not taking one fight, it's not going to kill the sport. Even if they canceled one card, like, what are you talking about? Yeah, but, like, just try to make an example of me to try to make a scapegoat of me. It didn't work. I'm still around. Dumber than ever, but still around. But yeah, it was just a bizarre, not unexpected, but still, like, surreal. Like, what the hell?

Yeah, very bizarre. Also, just on a personal note, if we were friends, I would basically exclusively call you Sport Killer from... Is that a thing? Yeah, I mean, for a while there, I wanted to make T-shirts, like, I wanted to embrace the whole thing, and I thought it was so silly. Yeah. So just to, like, make fun of it was like... the ridiculousness of it to be had value, but we never do. Yeah, I mean, that's fair.

But I'll tell you what, that one, of the two major kind of kerfoppels that we've had with the UFC, one was that my fighters were boring, and then two was that. The fighters were boring had a lot more, like, negative, long-term negative implications than that sport killer did it. Really? Oh, yeah. That is a little surprising.

because your fighters obviously aren't boring. Right, right. Well, exactly. But, again, obviously, I didn't kill sport either, right? Like, the whole, all of them was absurd. You say that, but then they sold DOC for $4 billion. I know. They really didn't make any money off.

I don't know. I know. You really hurt you, Greg. But I think that that was a message to people. Dana was doing it as a message to try to make an example of me. Yeah. Like, if you don't play ball, then I'm going to try to destroy your retic. Like, looking at it from a strategic point of view, it makes sense in a weird way, but not really.

Like a not well-thought-through strategy, I guess, maybe. Yeah, no, I think that's sort of, I would qualify that as a lot of top of UFC does business, frankly, but that's just me. Yeah, no, I think you're right about that. No, this has been perfect, Greg. like this is sort of exactly kind of what I'm looking to do here. So I know that you are busy, you know, still trying to kill sports and stuff. But every day thing, every day. I wake up, I'm like, God damn it, this thing's still around?

I think it makes me much as a hill on the planet. I hope you succeed one day. So just keep plugging away. I will, I will. I will. I'll find a new avenue to destroy an entire store. I'll like it. Well, good luck with that.

And thanks for coffee. I appreciate it.