MMA Fighting - Eurobash: Episode 83 (w/ Darren Till, Philip O'Connor)

Episode Date: May 19, 2020

On the latest episode of Eurobash, Darren Till (13:00) joins the show to discuss his next bout and the initiative he launched with Jimi Manuwa and Leon Edwards to combat knife crime in the U.K. Reuters journalist Philip O'Connor (56:30) pops by to shed light on the political ramifications of UFC's return, the controversial non-disparagement agreement journalists had to sign to cover the events, and Daniel Kinahan being named as an advisor to KHK MMA. As always, hosts Petesy Carroll and Niall McGrath look at the latest headlines in MMA.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With Instacart, you get groceries that over-deliver, like when you get groceries that are the same prices in-store. With no markups that select retailers, you get in-store products for in-store prices, and the only thing that isn't in-store is you. That means you could order in-store products at in-store prices while you're in sweatpants, in spin class, in stuffy work meeting, in anywhere but in store. So download the app today and get $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Service fees exclusions in terms apply. Hello, everybody. It is episode three of Eurobash, the second last episode of Eurobash on MMIFighting.com. As we revealed today earlier on Monday,

our contracts come to an end with M.M.A. fighting at the end of May. And yes, we are looking forward to what's going to happen next with this wonderful platform. We found out earlier this month, it's been a bit of a rigmarole getting the episodes done throughout May, but I'm glad that we could still deliver every Tuesday as usual. But yeah, maybe we'll talk about that a bit towards the end of the show, because as you know, MMA is back. There has been plenty of fight cards. We had a midweek card on Wednesday.

We also had a Saturday card, both from Jacksonville. So a lot to unpack from those situations. We're still kind of getting over the aftershock of UFC 249's title shot as well. but before all that let's welcome in the beautiful prince of your O'Bash the south side serenader

Noel McGrath how are you sir what's up man yeah I'm good I'm not too bad I'm a little bit I'm not gonna lie to you I was just sort of getting back

into the sleeping patterns of the last 10 years going to bed at normal times 11 o'clock and then this week is just fucking kick that right out of the water I'm just knackard man

I'm really tired I've just had my second cup of coffee in a row there and I have another one here so we might have a little bit of a Manchester-esque incident from the Bisping Henderson fight card when I overdosed on caffeine but yeah man

Oh my God Do you remember that one? Christ, memories They actually thought you were going to die that day I can remember like I'm saying I'm saying the Sean Betts and Steve I thought I was as well I was like man

notice is over there shaking I can remember I wasn't working with MMI at the time then but Casey and Esther were in that event and they were like Hey, is Nilo-K? It's like vibrating in the corner with 10 empty cups of coffee around.

Running around, shooting, yeah, doing video editing. It was obviously a late kickoff to suit you as time for pay-per-view. So it was a tough one. But I'm struggling this week, man. It's just, you know, I've watched every card live. I taught there on Saturday I wasn't going to make it, but I did in the end. And yeah, it's just sort of tough after a few months and no real late nights watching MMA.

But listen, I'll survive. Well used to. Well used to. You look so healthy. I'm looking at this fucker now on this I'm at their putting on about two stone from trying to eat myself awake and this lad looks like a French power, a little scarf on him and everything

for fuck sake. Yeah, it's my new What's the story there now? Why are you getting so sexy? You know, people need visuals man. We got to start, we got to start spruising it up, eh? All right. Are you getting ready to launch our only fan site as soon as this contract up is that what's going on? Who knows? Who knows?

All will be revealed, I'm sure. But yeah, sure, maybe. Maybe you might go down, Onlyfant. Only way you make a few quid these days with the sounds of it. So fuck it, why not? Get your banger out for a five or a pop. I'll pay happily. Oh, Christ.

Oh, Christ, no bike. Yeah, listen, we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. Only fans. Hit me up if you want it, guys. Right, let's do the brief headlines. Habib, the Magamadeov is ready to fight in September. Connor McGregor, after launching a Twitter,

a tyrant on UFC lightweights last week claims he's excited for a lightweight title fight in July and also revealed over the week, George St. Pierre and Kevin Randlewyn will be inducted into the Hall of Fame. They are the class of 2020. That's pretty much all we have.

One of those weeks. Three things I wrote down this week. Three things that'll do. But bad, listen, there hasn't been much outside that in fairness and you know, it's been a busy week, I think really, with all the on and a couple other bits around that we're going to cover today, but not an awful lot.

Obviously, great to have GSP inducted into the Hall of Fame, no-brainer, and obviously the late Kevin Randleman. So, yeah, that is pretty much it. And Abeeb, obviously, that talk as well. So that's interesting. And Henry's back as well, by the looks of it, according to Ali Abdel-Azile in mid-July. So that's going to be interesting.

And I'm not sure. I'm not sure what else we're going to see. Um, Noel, I think the most, uh, important, well, the most, the biggest news that came out this week, or the, the, the biggest talking point, I guess was Wednesday night's main event, um, Anthony Smith v. Glover to share it. Um, I thought it was, um, I thought it was, it was definitely one of the harder fights I've had to watch in a long, long time. Um, I don't think, I don't think, um, anyone was comfortable, especially in the last round of that fight, uh, basically, um, um, Glover to share it um you know basically apologizing to anthony smith as he beats him on the ground um

you know anthony smith uh anthony smith handing jason haresog his teeth at one point during the fight um the fight was eventually stopped but i mean i guess a lot of people are wondering why it wasn't stopped earlier why smith's corner didn't get involved and look i think i think i should say Herzog, I believe he's a great referee. We always very complimentary on this show. And look, I think it's a big testament to the guy

he is, the fact that he's come out and he said, blame me. If you're looking for someone to blame, don't blame Anthony's Corner. I should have stopped the fight. But it was pretty shocking stuff, wasn't it? No, like my dad was even, you know, he's watching, he was like, that's one of the worst things I've ever seen. You know, that was terrible.

That looks awful. And I got to I got to agree with him, I have to say. Yeah, I do. agree and you know I was watching the fight and obviously the odd tweet here and there and on my feed and you know I felt watching the fight after the third round Anthony Smith was done and I think when he's saying to his corner um you know my basically he's making an admission in so many words a fighter's never going to tell you they're done they're quit we we rarely see that happen and there's no shame in that anyway you know but I think when he said my teeth are falling out that's an indication to the

corner to lads come on just to just stop the fight now here and and yes fair play to Jason Herzog. He's come out and said, you know, he should have stopped the fight. He should have been stopped between rounds there. Very uncomfortable stuff to watch. Went into the fourth round, the fifth round. I was going, holy shit, lads, come on. What are we doing here to this guy, you know, his career could never be the same after this. We don't know, Will, that's obviously a waiting game. But Herzog obviously came out and said, the sport of MMA is beautiful.

I'm reading his tweet here. It's pure. And it's an incredible teacher. Some lessons and more harsh than others. I've seen a lot of opinions about what should happen. who was at fault but let me clear there's only one person to blame me you know that is fair play he's taking responsibility

there but listen James Krause in the corner you know I think they could have done a little bit better for their fighter in those circumstances and such a great corner usually right they are usually top like top professionals you know I

was just very uncomfortable watching and what I took from it really when I was looking at Noel was it's very rare that I'm ever watching a fight and I know both the fighters know that this fight is over. Like I'm watching two guys there and they're basically playing it out now. Like Glover knows he's won this fight. Anthony Smith knows he's lost this fight. And the people who are responsible are stopping the fight don't seem to have a notion of that at all. Like that's a very uncomfortable situation, isn't it? As a viewer, like when you're like this, yeah. This is, this is all but done. Like, why are we continuing to watch

this? And I guess this has a knock on effect from the Ferguson fight as well because I've heard a lot of people saying like Ferguson's clearly out out of this fight in the fifth round like why are we continuing to do this I mean do is the honor code of MMA stopping people from doing this like I mean is there I don't know what it is because they see it in boxing

a lot of the times where the referee will step in and stop the action when the two guys are still standing and you know live to fight another day mentality I just don't I think the fighters need to be saved from themselves a lot more than they are and I understand I bet you Tony Ferguson would have been in furorraine

of one of his corner men, Trudeaueling, but this is just, this is getting a bit crazy. And when, when, when the spotlight of the world is on MMA at the moment

like it is for the UFC, it's not good. Being the first sportback, that's a terrible look for me. Yeah, it's not good. And, you know, the only one thing I will, to sort of get a comparison

from the corner side of things are, I remember we spoke to Mark Henry, I believe it was in Eurobash, and we brought up the incident, in relation to Edson Barabosa, and Tony Ferguson that fight and Mark Henry went back to the fight of Frankie Edgar and Grey Maynard

when he literally had a tail taken from his hands by Ricardo Almeida as Frankie was getting his head poked off and Frankie did somehow manage and never forget that fight to come back and win the fight and finish Gray Maynard that's the only thing I think the corners have

that oh is there a comeback going to happen here is he going to pull something out extraordinary. But yeah, you know, you're dead right. Something's going to happen here badly one of the days. I think it's just a matter of time, and it's a horrible thing to say, but I think it is, especially when corners are letting their fighters

take so much damage where there's going to be, you know, there's going to be devastating circumstances and results and consequences from letting that kind of punishment continue and, like, man, a guy's handing his tea to the referee, man. like ref hers's come out and said blame me yeah you know i do blame you first and foremost because that fight should have been stopped between rounds after the third round definitely in my opinion

now when that's happening alone herzog should be stopping the fight absolutely um we're gonna have a deeper look into these cards in a few minutes time uh we have the first catch up with the one and only darren till uh we spoke to darren uh well nyle spoke to darren last week week right, Noel. I think it was the day the last year old batch came out and we had hoped he would be on last week's Eurobatch. Yeah, this is the whole thing. So this is a disclaimer before it comes out.

None of the stuff in relation to Daniel Kinnahen had come out with K-H-K, M-TK, you know, him getting to boxing with Bob Arm, none of that had come out. I wasn't aware of any of that sort of stuff. That's why there was no questions asked Darren Till. He was supposed to be on last week's show.

But we had a little bit. Darren's a hard man to get a hold of at times. just put it that way. So that's the reason why none of those questions were brought up because I think it was last Tuesday morning we did it. I think all the stuff came out on Wednesday or Thursday about Daniel that I was aware of. So there is,

there it is. Yeah, that's it, Pidsey. Yeah, and we will have Phil O'Connor on the show later on to discuss all this stuff. Obviously, it's kind of new to have him involved in the MMA world, Daniel Kinnon. So we're just kind of get an all-sports take on this. from Philip O'Connor and try to gauge how we should be approaching this as media members.

But, I mean, I don't think no one would have had any problem asking Darren about it. Darren doesn't seem to mind talking about it either. So, I mean, I don't think he would show you away from that kind of question. But yeah, I mean, introduce. What did you guys talk about? I believe just talked about a lot about the knife crime.

Yeah, no, the situation where... Yeah, there was a lot, obviously, to get through with Darren, him and, you know, he's been after every bloody media member on Twitter as well. We did a bit of a laugh about that at the end. But the more serious sort of takes where obviously I asked him about the contract, what he thought of us,

the fighters having to sign it, you know, whether Dublin's still going to go ahead with him and Robert Whitaker, all that sort of stuff. It's not. Yeah, it's more than like not, Fight Island. When he wants to get back in there,

obviously, you know, a lot of the European fighters at the moment aren't getting fights. So that's, you know, it's a pretty, bloody serious thing for their career. And also the knife crime and the initial

that himself and Leon and Jimmy Manor have taken up. So yeah, go listen to it. We'll be back, I'm sure, to talk a load more shy. Look back at some of the fights, the weekends. And obviously, yeah, Phil O'Connor's going to join us on the show a bit later on as well. Always a pleasure. He's back on with a Liverpool's favourite son, Mr. Darren Till. Darren, first of all, I have to ask you.

How's the family? How's everyone? Are you guys amongst all this, Maddice? They're perfect, mate, my girlfriend. family at all off work, obviously because of COVID-19. So they've been chipping in with the newborn and the other one, the older one. So we've had a lot of help, mate, which has been really, really good for us. You know what I mean?

In a time like this, so they're all good and perfect. I think they're just a little bit cooped up now. But, you know, I don't know what that fucking thing was the other day with Boris. If you can go out or you can't. But, you know, I'm out doing a few little bits of things and that, you know what I mean, mate. Good stuff. Good stuff. Good to hear.

Darren, it's obviously been a difficult time. for everyone, especially in your game in the mixed martial arts game in terms of training. How has that worked out for you? I know you're just back from a little bit of a work out there. What's been the process for you? Nile, I want to stop you there, mate. This time for me hasn't been difficult at all.

I've really enjoyed not, you know, the chaotic life we all lead. I've enjoyed just having peace. And I've been training an hour a day. I've been trying to stay away. from the gym, obviously, because it's not good. But I've just been doing my own little weight circuit's running. I've been running a hell of a lot.

I've been doing a lot of sprint drills with myself. So, you know, mate, I'm cracking on with that. And I'm, you know, I've enjoyed it. Obviously, I want it to end like everyone else. But if this is another two months, I'm going to be honest, mate. I'm not phased in the slightest. My fight's booked for August. So this is the independent fight game, mate.

So, you know, I'm thinking of me. I'm thinking of my, what I've got. to look forward to. So yeah, fight, Ireland, great and that I enjoyed the fights the weekend, but I'm thinking of me, mate. So the eye is still very much, you know, there's obviously a lot of stuff up in the way, Darren, about that August 15th date.

We'll talk about that in the moment. But the eye and your mind is very much still set on that date, yes? Yeah, well, that's the date I've been told. I'm not going to annoy day in it with messages while he's got all this other stuff on his plate, you know what I mean? So for me, mate, I've been told the date, Robert Whittaker has been told the date.

He talked about a catch weight because obviously we won't be training as usual as we usually would be. He talked about that. So whatever he wants, mate, he can have. He's the former champion. You can have whatever you want. If you want to fight 115 kilos, mate, let's do it.

I do not give a rat's ass. Well, that suits you better darned to have that catch weight. Not really now because middleweight is my weight now. but as I say, mate, we've all gained weight. Let's not lie to ourselves and say that we're all eaten correctly every single day, every single meal, because we're not. I've just had six French fancies last night. You know, them little bakeball case. I do.

Mate, they were fucking unreal. So let's not kid ourselves, you know what I mean? If he wants to catch weight, I certainly would love to catch weight. Let's do it. August 15th, fans or no fans, I do not give a fuck now. And you know I don't, mate. And everyone knows I don't.

And to be fair to Robert, mate, I don't think he does, mate. Yeah, I know I agree. I think both of you, from what I've listened and heard about that in the last couple of weeks that you both would seem pretty content on that. Listen, I've got to ask you about Dublin. Obviously, you know, we're Irish here. And, you know, it's a big disappointment when the government here announced that there is going to be mass ban gatherings until September.

That's obviously very disappointing for you to hear that news that it basically puts the Dublin card off in so many words. That's a ban of 5,000 people or more in an arena. Would you be open to having a reduced capacity fight in Dublin? Or is that even a possibility at this point? Listen, I don't like to get politically involved in all this. To me, right, this is how I see it. Dublin and Liverpool have the best fan base in the world.

There's no comparison. People would argue you the case, the Dublin's better. People would argue the case that Liverpool was better. I don't give a fuck. They're both unbelievable, amazing venues, the best in the world. So, yeah, people can say, no, it's just the fight. Whether the fans are there or not, I don't care.

Yeah, okay, mate, Sands. Tell someone else, bore someone else to sleep. It will be unreal with the fans. But if the Irish government is saying, which I don't know, that it's a gathering of 5,000 and it has to be reduced. I think there's three arena of them not mistaken, mate, is 11,000 people. I could be wrong.

Nine and a half. So, yeah, yeah, nine and a half. I think still with five thousand crazy Irishmen, whether you're a man, girl, woman, child, you're all mad like the Scouses, so it'll still be unbelievable. But, you know, it's not down to me.

It's not down to anyone. It's darn to, you know, the powers that be. And whatever they say may go. So, yeah, no fans. It's going to be miserable. But, you know, it is what it is, mate. It really is what it is. have you spoken to dana at all i know dana's you know exceptionally busy what what has dana said to you about dublin and potentially about that fight

as i said to you nile i'm being it's you know i'm being independently selfish and looking forward for me but i'm not being selfish enough to message dana with the bullshit that he probably can't be a gas with so i've sent him about two to three messages just saying listen make good luck you've done well doing all this and he's just been like thanks till fist bumps and whatever. That's what he wants. He doesn't want me. Oh, Dana, is my fight going to be on? Oh, it's all about me, me, me. Shut the fuck up.

Do you know what I mean? So that's just what I've done, mate. And if Dana comes to me and said, Darren, you fight still on, or Darren, listen, you and Whitaker, could you fight on the island? Which arm, you know, whatever you want, mate? As long as you're going to check on for the fans, and we're getting to do what we want to do, fight and create leg. I'm all for it, Naila.

I'm a simple man, mate. You are. You've definitely chilled the beans as we talked about before and. You're a family man now, Darren. Well, I'm half and half. I'm about to go and get me quad out, me quad out later and just tear some fields. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah, mate. But Fide Island, what do you think about that whole situation? Because, you know, Dana's been very coy about it. Is it a real thing? Yeah. you know what mate I was on I was on to the ad year and he was asking my opinions on it

and I'm not a promoter mate I'm a fighter and let's say as a fighter yeah fucking great we get to fight we get to release all that stress and energy whatever now as a fight fan again great amazing blah blah blah as a promoter now and as a journalist I know you've been getting a lot of backlash

because I don't look into mate I don't give a fuck to be honest but is it good or is it bad well, I don't know. Is it dangerous? Obviously, Jacari got confirmed with COVID-19, unfortunately. You know, I wish him. I hope he gets better soon. But he was next to like Verdum and all this and that.

And so is that safe? Is that unsafe? A lot of people, more percent than none, will say that it's unsafe. But, you know, I don't feel like who am I to say? So, you know, let it crack on, mate. I don't know. I haven't really got an opinion on that. Eddie Ayn asked me the same.

He said, Darren, what's your opinion? I said to him, I said, Eddie, I really don't have an opinion on it because I don't know where I lie with it, you know what I mean? And I know you've been very vocal about it. So, you know... Yeah, well, my feeling on it, Darren was that, you know, apparently Stephen A. Smith said

when he was speaking to UFC officials and Jack Ray, that Jackery let the UFC officials know when he came in to Jacksonville that some of his family members may have had COVID-19, contracted COVID-19. So for me, was a little bit strange that the UFC didn't isolate him straight away up in his room and you know he still attended the Wayans and stuff them knowing that information was a little bit

strange to me i think they could have dealt with a baiter i think they've amended it in fairness than this week that emails were sent out to the fighters and things like that but yeah i don't know if you can comment on this what did you make of the reports that there was a clause in the fighters contracts about not being able to talk about this kind of thing again i'll out of respect i'll always speak out and i'll always speak hopefully made a hundred percent i'll never have no one be on me saying that and say this say that's, I'll never have it you know, I have, I have my

coach who's basically my advice, he just fucking carries me through life, he fucking probably can't stand me at this point to me right, but if I had a problem with the clause contract, if I had a problem directly with the company, if I had a problem with

Dana, I would take that problem out with Dana and you know, the bosses that be, I would confront that problem between me and them personally. It's not for the public. Now, a lot of fighters have come out and a lot of fighters have said this and that.

If I wasn't happy with some... You know, obviously it comes out that and you wasn't happy with your contract. And that gets to the news and yet you do have to address it. But I don't know, deans and out to this clause contract, it's seen that it was more towards the company than it was the fighters. Okay, sad.

But I haven't fought me. I haven't felt what... You know, I don't really know. I haven't even read it properly. I have a little glass through with the other day, but outer respect, mate, that would probably be a conversation for me and Dana and I've always said this and I'd always like to

keep me mentality that way, you know what I mean? 100%. Yeah, I just had asked the question, Darren, you know yourself, it's obviously been talked about in the news and there was obviously journalists on site that were sort of more or less forced into signing of from my aware. It's the same thing, Nail. It's the same thing as when people

and they, like, you know, obviously people sell, well, Darren, give you it you an opinion. on what so-and-so did outside of the octagon. Oh, for example, what do you think about Connor McGregor doing this outside the octon? My answer's always the same. I couldn't give a fuck because, mate, I do madness outside the octon. We're not all saints. I don't consider myself a bad person.

I consider myself a good person who makes a lot of mistakes. And, you know, I'm sort of these, I do before I think type of people. But, you know, it's one of them, mate. Like, it's hard. It's hard. Yeah, I just go off. If someone, if you said to me, now, well, what you think of this?

I'd say, I focus on that man's skills inside the oxgon. What he does outside, you know, I don't really give a fuck. Unless he's fucking, you know, doing something shit. Like, you know, then yeah, okay, address this to change. That's fucking disgusting. But, you know, he's having a fight or if he's doing this, throwing a bottle, I don't give a fuck, mate. Don't bother me with the details.

You know what I mean? It's fair enough. Look after your own issues. Yeah, of course. I was speaking to Paul Feller last week on our show here and Paul was under the illusion that a lot of the American fighters in the UFC rankings might benefit from what's going on with the COVID-19.

Obviously, V's issues are going to be an issue. You know, guys are going to have to travel to the States getting over there is going to be a big, big issue for European guys. Is there sort of a case if we don't get fights resolved for some European fighters like on Fight Island, which Dana has said it's going to be for international fighters, that you guys are maybe going to fall behind and be overlooked for in the rankings because of the way the UFC is set up.

It is obviously a lot of it's geared towards business in the United States in terms of pay-per-view. Yes, of course, but, you know, okay, we've got Dublin. I'm sure we can go back to Liverpool. I'm sure we can fight. You know, I'm sure I can sell three main events, I'm sure I can do three main events, you know, before this is all over. Obviously, fans are no fans in Europe somewhere.

And the company knows that every fight I have now. You know, they never come to me. Darren, you want to, you know, mates, I've just co-main evented one of the biggest ever UFC shows in MSG, you know, I'm a main event co-main event fighter now. So, for me, I don't see as a problem, but then, yeah, the lower ends, let's say,

you know, a lot of fighters, even one of my teammates, Grundy, they all just got looked over because of London. They got paid, perfect, but are they going to be getting thought about now, you know, in this, probably not, which is, so they just have to fight and be vocal, I've said to Grundy many times, mate, you need to call

this out or that out, and he says to you know, Darren, I'm not there, yeah, and I do understand them, but you have to be vocal, mate, you really do, like, you've got to be vocal. Yeah, 100% I agree. You know, it is the fight game at the end of the day, and, you know, I think when people are interested, as you well know, that they tend to sort of gravitate and tune in.

Listen, yourself, Jimmy Mano and Leon Edwards, came together last week, and you're putting something together about knife crime in the UK, and those areas have been obviously predominant. We were speaking to Leon on the show a couple of weeks, ago. The kid stopped in Birmingham was his best friend's brother, I believe. What's going on here? You've reached out of politicians as well. Can you give

us an update on what's going on with this organization you guys are forming? Yeah, again now, you know, Jimmy reached out to me. He said, Darren, listen, me, you, Leon, we've all been involved in some sort of knife, crime, crime, blah, blah. We've had these mad upbringings.

And yes, we have. He said, would your man coming together? I said, not a fucking problem. So he made a group for me. him and Leon and we've just been bouncing ideas. Now, to be totally honest with you, Jimmy and Leon know a little bit more about it than me. I think they're more in it than me, but, you know,

the powers that be, you know, we're all very, we're all very powerful on social media. We've got a powerful forum. So, why don't we come together to use that and stop these, these, these, listen, knife crimes always going to exist, Nile. It always is, like gun crimes always going to exist.

That's just a thing. Like, you know, it's always going to exist. But these, mindless crimes with these kids who they don't know what they get themselves into whether it for example it could be a beef or another gang or whatever and they're like okay we'll sort that instead of going

fist fighting whatever they're taking knives and they're not intentionally going out to kill someone or sometimes they are and they're getting themselves in a world by the way they're taking a man's life a woman's life they're taking their own life away as well now because they're getting life

in prison for that and it should be You take another man's life, especially with a vicious clan like knife. You should be getting life in prison. You get caught with a knife. As Jimmy, me, Jimmy and Leon were speaking, you should be getting 10 years. No, we don't even want to speak about a judge. Ten years, go and think about why we're carrying that knife. That's what we're trying to do.

So Jimmy reached out to the powerful figure in London, and I know Leon's been speaking to some powerful figures. I messaged the mayor of Liverpool, Joe Anderson. I haven't got to reply us yet. but we're just dwindling at the moment, mate. We're just throwing ideas at each other and hopefully we will come together with someone. But as I said, Matt, mate, they're more in it than me,

but I'm there and they say, Dan, you know, can you do this? Can we do this? Yes, sad, whatever, not a problem. This goes further than fighting, you know what I mean? Of course. It's a great thing you guys are doing. I admire you what you're doing, using your platforms and your presence to promote that.

It's absolutely fantastic. And obviously it's something that's close to you. You know, you obviously got stabbed. I think it was 2012 and it sort of changed. the trajectory of your life going to Brazil and things like that. So fair play to you guys anyway. I got start when I was a kid as well. You know, I was fucking gangs and it's this and that.

It's, you know, mate, so it is a real, real problem. And especially in COVID-19 now, we can really, really address this problem. Definitely. Fair play to you guys. Anyway, I hope it keeps going. And obviously, you're going to keep us updated on what's going on there. Listen, you've been slating everyone again on Twitter. It's been very amusing.

And we talked about it a little bit before we got on air. There was words, again, exchange with Cal. Covington last night. He was giving you a bit of grief here in the show. We had him on, I think, about a month ago. He was calling you, Darren the Doeboy tail and things like that. What's going on with you and Colby at the moment? He said he liked me in MSJ, the Lionswat. Now, mate, listen, this is how it is with Colby, yeah. I'm going to be, because this is, that where it is, my lot. Like, I'm not done, mate, yeah. I'm a simple man, but I'm not done.

The big Ach Colby does and whatever. It doesn't affect me, mate. it doesn't affect me what he says. If we were to have a fight, it's weird, mate. So this is how I see the Corby thing, yeah? Colby is one of the best MMA fighters right now in the UFC. Agreed. Yeah, agreed. Totally agree. Don't give a fuck what anyone says. That fight with Usman, I want to see Colby Usman too.

It was a close fight. It could have went either way. Unbelievable. Ousman got to finish. Was it the right call? Yeah, I think it was. Colby might have said different. I know he'd give Mark a lot of shit, which I thought was uncalled for. But this is it, makes it to all an act.

Because I've heard from very close people that he's actually an okay guy. So there's that end. But, mate, I can talk shit as well. Like, I remember I messaged them that message. Like, it was in 2018, and he's like, hey, man, thanks for the support. I was like, what support is a fucking shit?

That's what you look like. So, mate, it's, there's nothing to it. Like, you want to talk some shit? Okay. There you go. You've been destroyed, mate. I've destroyed yet. There's no comeback.

But that's how it is, mate. But let's not look over the fact that he is an unbelievable fighter and is worth ethic. Like, I was in the gym. I remember before this COVID-19, and the coach was there, not calling our wrestling coach was off. I think he was away with his lad doing wrestling, sonnington. So I said, you know what, guys, I'll take the wrestling class. We'll just do drills and we'll just, we'll wrestle and blah, blah. And I remember shouting between rounds, Colby Covington mentality.

Because when you see that guy fight, the mentality to get that take down is it's unmatched. So, oh yeah, he's a prick and chat shit. But we can't look over the fact that he's a high, high level wrestler. So there you go, mate. That's where I'm at with it. And I said now, you'll always get the truth, mate. Yeah.

100%. No, listen, there's no doubt in Colby is a phenomenal talent. and I 100% want to see that one again. What a scrap that was, one of my favourite scraps of the last 12 months, definitely. Listen, any word from Izzy on your private DMs? Have you been still grinding at each other, playing with each other? No, I haven't been on much, I've been on Twitter,

I haven't been on much Instagram, to be honest with me, I gave it a little rest because I thought hard. But he fucked me off for the fucking ultimate fights. He's like, no. So I was like, okay, okay. Wait till I fucking based with the Gazette, And then we'll see what you're saying, you're scrawny little cunt.

But now, mate, we speak a lot to be truthfully. He messaged me the day and he was like, Darren, KFC's back open, mate. Get your fat ass down there. And I was like, I'll be there, mate. Don't worry. He's actually a good guy.

He is. I find it interesting, though, because you know what you're doing. And we talked about this before. Of course. You come across, like, you know, all your best pals, but you know there's probably going to be a point

when you're about going to throw down, right? Listen, mate, we are going to fight. I don't care what any shows. We're going to fight the best man will win. I believe I will beat him and I will become the middleweight champion. Whatever. We will fight.

It'll be for the culture. It'll be for the fans, for the people, for the culture of my Thai kickboxing K-1 slash everything, yeah. And it's going to be epic. But until the limit, I got no hard feelings towards that man. Yeah, I'm going to punch him. a hole through his face and he's probably going to punch one through man

but he gets the joke he gets the banter, he gets the frenemies do you know let's fucking make this fight massive let's make a load of fucking you know what I mean me 100% you've obviously Robert Whitaker first and I know that's the target that's what's going to get you there

I believe the winner that's going to fight Israel Adasania for the title and I'm sure you're along the same beliefs well yeah you know we're all You know, is he a superstar now and I'm becoming a superstar in my own right? And when I punch the head, when I punched the neck off Whittaker,

then me and him are going to fight. But, you know, I have to look. I have to focus every single ounce of my energy. I know I've been criticized before. I thought willy about saying I don't care about my kids and that. Same mentality, mate, and people understand what I mean. It's not that I don't care about my kids.

I have to put every ounce of my energy into beating a former champion who beat the scariest man on edge. Joel Romero twice. I have to put every bit of energy into that meeting. We're going to fight. I can understand that comment and it was totally taken out of context the last time as well. And I know you said it straight. It was a ridiculous, um, ridiculous, uh, ridiculous, uh, the way people construed your words and misinterpreted what you meant. Obviously, you're, you know, you're, you're, you're concentrating on the target. Listen, mate, we live in a generation of people who look for

things to be offended by. So, that's just how it is nowadays, you know. I remember when you're, you're, you know, I remember when Yorkie bars the advert for Yorkie and it used to say, not for girls. Can you imagine if they done that now? It's very true. There's a lot of films as well that, you know, 10 years ago they wouldn't be made these days.

Listen, I've got to ask you one more. You've been targeting the MMA media. Who's next on your hit list? You if you don't play your fucking card? No, do you know what, mate, right? Listen, everyone's bored. everyone's bored, even fucking Ariel Hawaiian's bored.

You know, let's just keep her interesting and whatnot. But I don't know, I've been targeting Ariel and I targeted Brett a bit, but he didn't fight, he didn't like bite back. And I've been looking at John Anach. He's been saying a few things. And, mate, if he wants to go, you know, we might have Kenny Florian,

but Kenny Florian's the size of my leg. I'll put him up and there on his fucking podcast studio. You know, so we'll see. We'll see what's happening, mate. We'll see. The American, Nothings don't get our banter. They don't, but they're slowly warming to it

and the slowly warming to me. They're just like, listen, let's just not take till serious. He's fucking just having a laugh. So that's good. It's for the culture, Nile. It's for the culture of MMA, mate. And you know it's good.

Listen, mate, you know it's good, right? You know it's good when you've got the likes of a powerhouse like Eddie Hearn, what me on his show. So we must be doing something quite. 100%. Listen, Darren, it's always a pleasure to speak to you. You've been great, I think, over this time, as you said, they're having, you know, a laugh and a joke,

keeping people's spirits up. Very much looking forward to that fight against Robert Whitaker, wherever it may be. Thank you, Paul. And listen, best wishes to you and your family and hope you say, Stave, man. Appreciate it, as always. Thank you very much, my man.

See you later. Thanks for the chat. Thank you so much to the lovely Darren Till. Great to speak to him, as always. He said he's going to be after me, maybe. On his Twitter rants about MMA media, so I'm holding my breath. He threatened John Anick as well, Nick, so it should be interesting.

I'm out of the crosshairs with Dazzler. I think I'm one of the first guys to interview him before his USC debut, but I don't get the treatment. I think he must know about my world-renowned ground game. That's the only reason I can think. He's clearly scared, clearly scarce. Clearly scared. In great form.

Don't be scared, honey. He's in great form these days. Those two kids have definitely chilled him out a little bit. But, no, it's interesting. brilliant on social media. The social media game, he's unbelievable. Like, I mean, it's, it's, he's got better at it. He's got better.

This whole quarantine has brought us out of him. Like, it's hilarious. He's been great. He's been a great entertainment to everyone. I said out to him at the end of the interview. You've been, you've been wild. It's been fun. So, listen, I'm sure we'll have, well,

well, we'll speak to him again in the, in the future anyway. At some points. Don't, don't let make us pin down a day for that. Yeah. That could be any time. It's normally, you normally need to, give yourself a week with darn and then a day or two on top so you go you go when do we want darn on the show okay two weeks time okay so we better start now and then just pretend just try to

lower him out the other way I think he gets serious satisfaction I'm going like oh yeah I'll do that you're like all right cool darn just tell us what time and then nothing he was interesting he said he'd snap Kenny flarian as well because he's too fucking small, I snap him and all this. So he's going after people on Twitter. Kenny Florian gets in the mix there. He's just, he's, he's, he's been talking about going after media members. And he said, John Anick and Kenny Florian might be next.

Or me even. Yeah, I don't want, I don't want on that darn. I'm all right. It's only heat. But I might stir it apart with Kenny Florian and John Anick tomorrow and see what the crack is. Get him to make a bet with John Anick, a bay over some tattoo that Anick will lose and you have to get another one. that'll be funny. What's not?

Scouser tattoo on him. Let's have a look at this Wednesday card and we'll look at the Saturday card immediately after that. But first of all, the Wednesday card, we spoke about Anthony Smith there. Little low-key run, Glover Tashire has put together here. Four wins in a row.

I mean, that kind of puts you immediately into that title picture as far as I'm concerned. You don't see a lot of streaks like that at light heavyweight anymore. Yeah, no, definitely. And I think we spoke about these two lads, you know, where they are in the division is obviously a couple of lads ahead of them still,

I believe, you know, the Reyes rematch. We don't know John Jones is talking about fighting bloody Francis and Gannu now. So again, it's just hard to gauge really where these guys are because it's mainly going to be down to what John Jones wants to do. And, you know, he's all over the place at the moment. He's talking to Israel, Adizania, he's talking about Steepay, he's talking about Franny and Gannu. Yeah, listen, Fairplace.

to lover, but realistically, could you see him beating John Jones again? You know, it's just a tough division to work out at the moment. I don't know what the appetite is like for it eager, to be honest with you, man. Big Ben Rockwell made a two in a row against Oven Saint-Prue in the Colmate event.

But what about Drew Dober? I mean, I predicted that he beat Alexander Hernandez, but it's weird with Hernandez. He had such a lightning start to his career with the UFC, and it's just kind of... Fizzled. It's just, he's not been able to keep that consistency at all. It's like win loss,

win loss. But I had a feeling Drew Dober was going to catch him. Dober has really emerged as a force at 155, isn't he? Big time, man. Whatever he's doing with Justin Gagey and the boys up there, you know, they're obviously working their ars as often, you know, it's paying dividends since he's gone up there

and he's looked like, he's looked like a fucking proper contender now at the moment with those last few performances and just seems to all around have, you know, even his take down the fence, you know, his box and everything seems to have come on. And he's definitely a threat. Like I remember watching Drew years ago

the fight against Nick Hine when you know, I think he married Nick Hines' sister at one point. I don't know if they're still together. And he was just, he was just your run of the male fighter, but he's just evolved so much and he's, you know, done a lot up there and with those guys

and Trevor Whitman. So yeah, fair play to him. I'm looking forward to see where that goes. And Anthony Hernandez, or Alexander Hernandez, man. Very disappointing. And I think we sort of mentioned a lot in the broadcast. And he Pender in that week as well that he's not a very likable dude either and I don't think that really helps him

no I'm being deadly honest here you know he comes across very hostile bit of a dickhead he's fighting a dude over even though I was on the online media day as well and I was just like this guy just just the aura he gives off is a little bit you know it's a little bit cocky or brash

and maybe he needs to sort of look at himself and and check what he's doing because yeah just from what we saw when he came out and he had that great win against Manil Darius. He just has not followed up. And, yeah, he's, listen, could be a waking-up period for him.

So, yeah, it could be good things that he's lost. He's a young kid as well. He's not particularly old. What is he 24 or 5? Along that, even younger, maybe. So, yeah, listen. Listen, he's still going to be a guy to be reckoned one of think in the future,

but he's obviously a bit to do. He's 27, actually. He's something like he was that old. Nearly the same age as you, no. Yeah. Catching up, man. Catching up, catching up. You owe Andre Arlofsky an apology.

Go ahead. No, I don't. You know, he won the fight, man. You know, yeah. He looked stunning. Philip Lenz, a Brazilian contender, come in. Everyone expects him to dance all over the great Arlofsky,

the European God, former UFC champion, of course, a legend of the European scene. But no, no, not today. Belarus has different ideas for you and my first. friend. I thought Arlowski looked as good as he has in a very, very long time. What did you think, Noel McGrath? Yeah, he did, but like, you know, where is this all going, Pizzi? He's not getting a title shot. Like, he's, there's not a hope in hell. I'll run around Dublin naked if he,

if he gets a title shot. It's just not happening. Like, where, you know, what is the purpose of, of this career at this point? You know, I'm not, like, there was a point where he lost five in the bounce in the UFC. You know, he's lost, what, four of his last six as well. So it was a decent performance. That's pretty much it against... It's impossible, man. That's all he was doing.

Philip Lins. Who hasn't, you know, exactly the most amazing record in the world out of it. So, yeah, it is what it is, really at this point. International prospect, yeah. Okay. Tiago Moises has to heel over,

Michael Johnson ends the night. So Harry Eubanks wins a split. wins the unanimous decision over Sarah Maras. Omar Morales and Gabriel Benitez was a fucking savage. Yeah, that was a cracker. That was a knock. It was a wild scrap. Really enjoyed that one.

What about Ireland? Brian Keller. Flying Brian. Getting it done again, man. Oh real. Man, boom is on some run, man. He's really, really getting people to care about him. You know, I felt like he picked up a lot of traction,

especially for a guy who's fighting, you know, second fight at a night there on a Wednesday night card. I felt like it was a huge night for him again. He's having a great 2020 so far. I feel people are warming to him. I like the fact that both of these bantamites are competing at featherweight. Really, really nice for me. I think I really like the O'Malley fight.

Do you like? I really, really want to see Keller fight O'Malley. I don't see why O'Malley is dragging his feet with that. I'll tell you why, man. Keller gets it. He gets the media. He gets the cell. And he gets where he wants to be.

and he's really laying down a plan here and he's executing the plan to perfection at the moment. He's thought about this. You know, he's, as we had him on the show last week, what did he say? Contender series killer. Then go on to fight Omali's is the next sort of path to call. He gets how to sell himself and loads of people

look at the traction he got online after that fight during that. People are talking about. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what he wants. Very, very clever. You know what I really was though? Let's be honest now. Oh, yeah. He's not the biggest show. Of course, easy. You're on the biggest show in your, being in M&A.

Exactly, obviously. That's what happens. And he's Irish now. He's from, he's from church town. All right, but listen. I thought he was an Arclow man. Oh, Arclow, sorry, shh.

Getting confused now. There's a Marcellus chipper in Arclow as well as Churchtown, right? But it is, man. The guy really, you know, breath of fresh air. We need more guys like this. A lot of people in that division, a lot of martial artists up and coming could take a look at what Brian Callagher is done in terms of selling himself,

laying out of planning X. executing it because it's been really, really good this year and, you know, props to him. I hope he does get that fight against Sean and Mali. Whether Sean's going to be interested or not, I don't know. But really clever and intelligent sort of selling himself, definitely.

Chase Sherman, heavyweight heavyweight champion of bare knuckle FC at a fantastic performance against Eich Villanelva. Yeah, he like has never looked so good in his life. Never. Even physically, his body was banging. And he was fucking laying on them hammers. I thought that was the best of seeing Chase Sherman ever looked in my

Definitely, and I think he sort of admitted that he'd a few problems in his life outside of fighting. You know, now he's a fireman, I believe, as well. And, you know, obviously things are looking good for him, and his hands looked unbelievable, incredible. Maybe Peronuckel did something for someone, Jesus Christ. But yeah, good stuff from Chase Sherman. Looking forward to seeing him back in her. That was a lethal performance. I feel very sorry for Marvin Vittori, though.

If you guys, he was obviously on the show last week, his fight with Carl Robertson was called at the 11th hour as has become a pretty normal practice around these wild events. But man, the footage that emerged. That was wild, wasn't that? From the hall, I believe it was Al from BJ Penn that put it out, I believe. An Italian journalist, he, Al Zalino, he put out the clip of Atari just loses it. And like, I'm just looking at the footage. I'm like, this is a guy that is expected to fight three times in the last month.

And every one of them fell apart. And look, I know it's not the ideal way for a professional to be carrying himself. I can understand us. I can't understand us. Like, this is just a guy. This is a guy that's just lost his shit today. He has enough of it. And he's had such a hard fucking career over the last two years.

It's hard to blame the guy for just melting down like that, you know, especially when you're denied that big release that combat sports gives these athletes. You know, they're gearing up to fight. And such an outpouring of emotion and dolphins, everything. And then you're not going to be able to do it. And you're after risking traveling to all these different countries. You know, it's, I completely understand where he's coming from. But, like, it's a tough situation for him, right?

I agree 100% and, you know, who knows what's going back on at home for him in Italy as well. Obviously, you know, the epicenter in Europe at one point of this pandemic. And yeah, listen, man, it must be just, the emotions must be insane to have so many fights fall out. Then you're literally two days away from an event a day away and you get the news that your opponent's pulled again. You know, we spoke to him last week. He was, you know, he was desperate to get in there, desperate to fight after, you know, having those pullouts and fallouts over the last number of months. And yeah, like, man, people don't understand. These guys are cutting ways, you know, they're irritable.

It's going to be the case. And, you know, nothing but respect for that guy. And listen, shit happens like that. People just have to deal with it. It's part and parcel of it. And, yeah, fuck it. It is what it is. Let's move on to Saturday's card.

Alistair Overim, another European legend, got a big win after a hellish first round that Walt Harris put on him. Got the win in the third round, second round, I believe. Walt seemed like he just gassed himself out, beating the piss out of Alistair over him, and the first kind of opening couple of minutes. He had him on the ground. I'd say the referee was very close to stopping that fight a number of times. Testim at the Overim for coming back and getting that round two win.

Obviously, the big story coming into this. was Harris competing after losing his daughter. Earlier this year, which is an incredibly sad story. SportsCenter ran a feature about in the lead-up to the event. But not the storybook ending for Walt Harris on Fight Night, Noel. No, no, listen, it was very close to being the story book ending for Walt Harris on Fight Night, and I think he'll look back on that fight and maybe regret some of the things

he did in that first round in terms of selecting his shots. He could have been a lot better with that. I think he sort of saw Alistair hurt and jumped on and sort of going with a flurry. If it had been one or two more shots that have probably landed, he would have got the stoppage.

But credit to Alistair over him as well. I don't think that's been sort of mentioned enough. You know, can't have been easy for Alistair going in on that fight week as well, fighting Walton. There was a lot of respect between the two guys. I thought Alistair handed himself absolutely fantastically. Even before the boat, when he came into the octagot he ran around

and gave him a hug it was very very respectful and we saw obviously the authors as well but yeah listen Walt's gonna bounce back from that you know nothing but respect for that guy for getting in there with all those emotions

it must have been you know I can't even fathom how he got in there and did that so yeah he's an inspiration I think to the world of sport let alone mixed martial arts and Alistair Overeuxe over him deserves a lot of credit as well but yeah big big win for Alistar

Alistair went in as well as Underdog slide underdog in that fight. So there you go. Incredible. Very interesting. I wanted to just give you a quick ask you very quickly what way you scored these fights because there seems to be a bit of debate. I feel there was a lot of close fights on the night.

But obviously there has been a lot of going to split decisions not going to way of the majority, let's say, as they have it on Twitter, etc. that we're looking at. But I do think they're close fights. But Gadelea v. Hill, who did you have that for? I had it for Hill, too. rounds to 129, 28.

Yeah, I did too. Dan Egey versus Edson Barbosa, what did you have for that? This was probably the fight where I was most sort of... Yeah, yeah,

I was talking to the time, sure, yeah, yeah. I think Edson won that two rounds to one as well, 29, 28. I think it was a lot clearer maybe than the other fights, the arguments there.

I taught Ege, man. Did you? I know, I'm not trying to say I'm right, you're wrong, but listen, I need, I need to watch it back, and I do. Yeah, same, same.

And then obviously we, you don't and Vera as well. I did for Vera. Same. Yeah. So it's, you know, all three fights there. It's the losers winning. So maybe it says something about me the way I'm looking at fights. But, you know.

I think that close fights. I think, I think it's one of these things where I, sometimes I feel like, you know, most people do understand that. Yeah. And I'm fucking how many media members to have to tell us the criteria. Yeah. Every single one of these things. happens but I feel like it's

just a clear fight I mean it's close fight and sometimes these things it's it's very hard to see someone you know not not getting rewarded for putting on a fantastic fight and all of these guys did but um yeah the one thing

I will say about Vera and Yadong um was if you look at the judge's decision being read out in that fight especially at all three of them song looked like he'd resigned to defeat and Vera looked like shit.

A lot of people saying this, yeah. And I think that was maybe an indication that, that, that, Yadong thought he'd lost the fight. And I know Jason Perillo has been working with Marlon Vera as well, and the bailout of this fight as well as Conno Yama. And, you know, Jason was pretty pissed off with that decision. So, listen again, I'd have to watch it back. I haven't had a chance because I fucking knackard from this last week

is staying up at 6, 7 a.m. in the morning. but yeah I think that was maybe the indication for me that at all the three fights there that the Marlon Verre probably should have got that um yes Matt Brown's return to action did not go well lost by a big left hook to Miguel Beezah in the second round

he looked good Marlon yeah he did therefore we topped the prelims I believe Kevin Holland and beautiful knee finishes off Anthony Hernandez in their middleweight bout and Jigga Chikaze What do you think of this? A lot of people

He'd be very excited about this to it He looked like a Georgian version of MVP With the stance on him And you know, keep on changing the karate stance And taekwondo He was mixing up lots and yeah Listen look really impressive It's hard to judge obviously

Against the level of opponents He's at the moment, it's been a slow build But definitely someone I'm looking forward to seeing again man Yeah 100% And Darren Elkins Got Borst open in him that picture that

emerged from that is fucking wild man your man land wear was a pain in the earth he wouldn't go down too well in Dublin would he

I was just saying that the other night imagine a guy like that floating around Dublin Jesus Christ he was giving me a headache man I couldn't be listening

to that guy for too long Jesus Christ he wouldn't shouting during the fucking fight and then after it was like all right I'm muting this guy

after 30 seconds like but listen But fair pay to me. You got people talking, but yeah, Jesus. Odd character. Very strange. Is the writing on the roll for Mara or Amero Borrella?

Three defeats in the bounce. It seems she's in very, very dodgy territory here. Yeah. I think so, man. There's no way around it. Like, I mean, I think you need to be someone like Orlovsky who's won a belt to hang around after losing four straight or whatever it is, you know. And I think it was. Seroni even.

It was Courtney's first finish in a long time as well. Yeah. You know, she's not really known for her finishing. So, yeah, it'll be tough, I think, for it to hang around in the UFC after that one. Yeah, definitely. I agree. Right. Well, let's move on and get a take on these three events from Philip O'Connor, a man who

we've been at international events with a man who covers a sport very closely, but also covers a lot of other sports in all sports journalists who can give us a real Zoom. out view of what these fights mean. Dana White has said it was a 10.5 that was his rating for 3-0 events, believe it or not. Dana thinks he did a good job. Surprise, surprise. Obviously there's some huge

talking points from this event in terms of the waivers that were signed by not only fighters but media members too. There's also a huge political element to these events with Donald Trump appearing on the show. As we said ahead of the Darren interview, we didn't get to speak to

him about this whole Daniel Kinan situation with top rank with KHK MMA. So we spoke to Phil about that. Basically to just give us an idea of how we should be approaching this. What are the questions we should be asking about Daniel Kinan being involved with KHKMMA and what we can expect moving forward with this storyline because it seems pretty clear that with top rank KHK, all these guys speaking about Daniel Kinnon, it seems like he is trying to, you know, re-emerge as a businessman more so than what he's known for in Ireland at the moment or as commonly known as. So let's go over to Phil. We had a big chat with Phil.

We don't do any half measures with Mr. O'Connor here. We gave him the table, as we always do, for as long as he wants. A beautiful, beautiful man, a man we both have massive respect to her, and it has helped us out at every turn in our careers. We love him very much. And it was great to have him on to speak about all this. He is a real fountain of knowledge as our Phil

and he's got a beautiful beard despite what Noel McGraw always says. And we have drafted him back in. My good friend and one of the great journalists,

Philip O'Connor from Reuters and our man in Stockholm podcast, Philip, how are you on my love? It's been a long time. I don't believe we've had you on since the Las Vegas

special, my friend. Yeah, it seems like an eternity ago now, but it was only what four or five months ago we were walking down the Las Vegas Strip and we were talking about Connor and Habib and just around that time I'd say it was around about the time the coronavirus was actually breaking out in Wuhan China and has turned everything

on its head but no it's absolutely brilliant it's great to be back on what is essentially the only podcast in MMA that matters at this point in time and we have of course the UFC is back there are various other promotions who are talking about getting back to work and with they're lumbering from you know the tragedy to triumph to the disaster to I don't know what you call it at the moment as always in MMA so things are gradually getting back to normal and here in Stockholm we never had the lockdown that you had in in Dublin Peter or in the rest of Europe and around the world so I've been pretty free to move around hasn't been a whole lot of jihito unfortunately but yeah no we are slowly

getting back to normal as how I describe it that's all that's all great to hear my friend and I guess that you spoke about the USC there and you have covered some of the biggest sporting events globally for Reuters and I'm just wondering I guess my first question is what is the perception of the UFC now. Has this been a way to put a spotlight on the sport given that they've, you know, Dana Hoyt's made such a big thing of being the first sport back. I know a lot of sports have come back since, including Bundesliga, golf. But what is, what is the international perception of, of MMA at the moment, the UFC? Has this helped them or has it been a hindrance to the growth of the brand the youth field? I think it's been very much a missed opportunity, Peter.

And I'd like to say, just to start off with, I'm not speaking on behalf of Reuters of the Irish Times or the BBC or anybody they usually work from. These are sort of my personal opinions about that, right? But I did cover the recent cards for the Reuters News Agency. And it kind of brought home to me how difficult it is to work with the UFC and to work with MMA in general, right? So if we go back to UFC 249, and Tony against Justin Gagey, you know, this is the card. This was where sport was coming back.

We were getting back to normal. And personally, I just felt that the whole thing was just, it was disastrously bad because everything went wrong from the very beginning. Here we had a situation where sport was coming back. This is what we wanted. We wanted live action. We'd had a great time talking about all matches and all fights and, you know, who are the top 10 of all time. But no, no, no.

Here we had like, you know, two fantastic lightweights and two great bantam weights going in there for title fights. But that's not the whole story. The whole story at the moment is COVID-19. It is the coronavirus. It's the pandemic that's going on around the world. It's the disaster that has been the American and the Irish response and the different things have been happening around the world. So we weren't just telling us. a sporting story. We were telling a story about politics and about public health and all these other

things. And the UFC did not really understand that part of it. So before the card took place, and I'm sure every journalist is listening to this who works in MMA, we did exactly the same thing as I did. We all reached out to the UFC and we asked for the health and safety protocols in advanced. We were all ignored. Nobody got them directly from the UFC that I know. Nobody was able to write about that before the event. Now, that basically kills the... the whole preview, right? In terms of the international mass media, not MMA fighting or not your competitors there at MMA fighting, but the international mass media, the story was not Tony against Justin. It was not the return of Dominic Cruz. It was not Greg Hardy. It was, here's a sport in the

time of COVID-19. But nobody could tell that story because we didn't know what the UFC were going to do. Then you get into the whole thing of, you know, on the night of the fights, this event participation agreement came out in which clause number seven prevented anybody who took part in it, not just the fighters, from speaking ill of the COVID-19 preparations or the health and safety precautions. And not only that, that the fighters themselves could

lose their purses, their bonuses, their endorsement money, all that kind of thing. And then when this was brought to the attention to the UFC, first of all, they denied it. Then they said, yes, it's there, but it's a standard non-dispargement clause, and basically said that it didn't exist. Now, I'm not the only one. There's an awful lot of people who have since got

hold of that document. I got it before the fight card. actually started. And everybody approached the UFC and we got the same thing. And essentially what it did, Peter was. And this is a missed opportunity, as I say, we could have put this sport in all its glory in front of every TV viewer in the world, on every back page in the world, but we couldn't because once again, the UFC failed to give the mainstream media what they needed. And to me, it's just heartbreaking. Because for over five years now, I've been battling to get coverage of this sport on mainstream media outlets, like the kind of ones I work for. And every single editor in the beginning says to me, no, that's a joke.

They may as well be fighting in a car park. Who are these guys? What are they doing? And, you know, I get that. If you don't like the sport itself, I get that. But they could at least behave like adults and like a proper business and come in there and have a professional relationship with people who are essentially there to tell the world what they're doing.

Yeah, I mean, you know me, I'm not big up on a lot of sportsville, but I was listening to our good friend Ken Early on second captains a couple of weeks back. speaking about Bundesliga and now this this was two weeks before they were meant to be coming back but the amount of information that was available to the journalist covering soccer covering all sports about how they were going to try and put these steps in place how the training would go what would happen after every training session what the training sessions would look like how many people would be together in a training scenario i mean compared compared to bundles league and these other sports it seems like we have absolutely nothing and you

mentioned the waiver. Obviously, journalists had to sign this as well with this clause in it that got up a lot of attention. I heard you speaking about on Ewan McKenna's podcast as well, the Black Guy, brilliant episode. But I'm just wondering, you know, is this all major blockers for the UFC to be ever taken seriously? Like, I mean, the situation where journalists are signing, basic, waiving their rights to criticize the safety standards, we had Jose Young's on last week, who was in Florida covering the event. Is this all massive? massive blocker for them to be ever taken seriously by, you know, mainstream publications. Well, it's very, very simple, Peter, because mainstream publications will look at that, right?

Now, I don't fault Jose or I don't fault, I'm fighting on anybody who signed that, right? Essentially what they did was every outlet, anytime I'm asked to sign anything, and this could be, you know, for a visa for entering a specific country or to cover a certain event. And anytime that happens, any time you're handed a contract like that, it goes straight to the legal department, right? So it's not on me personally as a journalist. I can't speak on behalf of anybody who I'm contracted to, right? So Jose sent that in. I'm sure I can't speak specifically for Jose now either, but I'm sure that people would have sent their contracts,

these events participation agreements, to their legal departments, and most of them that I know were told, look, it's sign it because it's not legally enforced, right? That's not the problem. The problem is that the UFC asked journalists to sign this, and that's just a complete red flag. So I'm just going to read you out

the second sentence of the famous clause number seven now that most of your listeners will have heard about, right? So non-despagement is basically where you shouldn't speak ill of whoever is you're working with, right? So if you're a fighter on a card, you know, stands to reason that you shouldn't criticise the UFC unduly, right? So you shouldn't say, lie about the country, right? But the line I wanted to read to you is this. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, the participant will not suggest or communicate to any person or entity that the activities, this is the UFC events, have been or will be held without appropriate health,

safety or other precautions, whether relating to COVID-19 or otherwise, Peter, that's a travesty. If we cannot report and they are contractually forbidding us from reporting on what we see, I'm sorry, that's no longer journalism. They're actively standing in their way. They're asking us to sign away the right, not to report properly on an event, right? You cannot ask journalists to do that. And then all week you have Dana White talk about, oh, you know, the media, the weakest of the week, put them in a room, it's these guys. And he actually, I think he actually said, I'm not telling the media nothing. He was so disappointed over the event that didn't take place. The USC 249 was supposed to take place on tribal lands in Canada. I think Dana somewhat

blames the media for that sort of leaking out. And then the political pressure that came from the governors in California that in turn went to Disney and in turn went to ESPN and then the rug was pulled from under. And I think he actually blames journalists for that rather than looking at it and saying, okay, what was it that actually went wrong here, right? Now, the difference between the UFC and any other, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be a sporting organization. It could be any company, right? The UFC was bought for $4.2 billion by WME IMG, but now known as Endeavor, right? This is not some, you know, shit kicker competition in some place in Arizona, right? So with that, you have to have a certain amount of credibility. When you're

dealing at that level, right? So mass media, the likes of Reuters, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, the telegraph, they exist in many ways to serve people in financial markets, right? And they expect you to say what you mean and to mean what you say, right? So why is that, there could be a huge interest in sport in these places, right? But there's a bigger interest in the financial side of things, whether it be, say, ticket sales or pay-per-view sales or TV deals or sponsorship, right? And that's why communication with the public is so important. It has to be clear, it has to be concise, and that's not always the way with the UFC. In fact, it's the opposite, right? If I was somebody who trades shares on a daily basis, I might be listening to Dana White at a press conference saying that after the incident of Brooklyn, Conor McGregor will never fight for the promotion again, right?

And, you know, if I'm a businessman, if I'm somebody who invests money in these things, I might then decide to sell my shares in Endeavour or ESPN or Monster Energy or whoever that happens to be because they sponsor the UFC and they just lost one of the big draws and someone whose image drives their business and gives sponsorship value, right? but then Dana flip-flops and Conner's book for another fight and if I'm an investor, I'm left there, I wonder, what the fuck is going on here? Actually, the motto of the London Stock Exchange is, my word is my bond, right? So what I say, I'm going to do, right? And that's exactly the opposite with what happens with the UFC. Now, you know, if you have somebody like Dana who is considered unreliable by mainstream media, you can't trust what he says.

But that means that his statements and his business aren't going to be taken seriously. And that essentially has been the core problem of mixed martial arts in the U.S. since day one. The struggle they had to be taken seriously by everything from state athletic commissions to sponsors to investors, these kinds of people like people who can generate attention, but they tend to be conservative and they don't like loose cannons. And this is why it's so difficult. Look, if I have to write one day that Dana White says one thing and the next day that he says something totally different, an editor in a mainstream publication is going to say to me, you know what, let's not cover that guy because he doesn't know what he thinks about anything. And that reflects then on the whole sport.

And that's why it's so difficult for the sport. And you know yourself, Peter, if you get called up with a radio station, say the BBC Radio 5 called you up, right? The first two minutes of conversation is often spent trying to explain things like this to people. Your listeners know what we're talking about. But if you're explaining to, you know, Des driving his van in the Whirdle in Liverpool and he never watched the sport before, you have to explain these things, you know.

And it should be a given that, you know, people in power say what they mean and they do what they say. Yeah, you're talking about power here. It's one of these things that, um, I get, I know we spoke about a bit. I've been picking your brain a lot offline about this whole situation, but did this have a bigger political kind of thrust than we usually see with, with Trump at the start of the broadcast? Like, I mean, is, is this, is this, these events and the UFC getting back up in action? Was this a far bigger gesture, say, than just getting the UFC back up and running? Because it certainly felt that when Trump appears on the broadcast and just basically the eyes of the world being on the sport because nothing else was happening. Do you feel like it had a big political ramifications

the UFC putting on these events with Trump obviously at the start of the broadcast? Yeah, I think if you zoom out, you have to see it in that way, Peter. So if you look at soccer in the UK and England, you can talk about Manchester City and their owners and that kind of thing. And it's always called sports washing, right? Newcastle United now, a Saudi conglomeric coming together to buy them. They talk about sports washing. What we've seen with the three events, of the USC in Jacksonville, Florida is arguably the biggest most naked case of sports washing that we've seen in North America in I don't know how long. So you have a situation where the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, the National

Football League, the PGA, everybody is called up by Donald Trump onto a conference call, and the UFC is part of that conference call. And Donald Trump says that we need sports back again, okay? You're talking about an election year in America. He needs that country to get back to normal. not just the country, not just sports. He needs business to get back to normal. He needs shops and restaurants to be open

and people be going, doing the things that they usually do, the things that drive the economy and made it one of the greatest countries in the world, right? The problem is that we're in the middle of a pandemic, which is killing all people like flies. Okay. So Donald Trump goes out and asks people like Dana White. Dana White will usually tell you that he's not a political guy, right?

Dana White is a very political guy. He stood on stage and presented Donald Trump and said, I think this guy would make a great president. You cannot back away from those statements. And then when you go and you put on three events in Jacksonville, Florida, like they did, the message that's being sent to America there is not, oh, great, the UFC is back. It's not oh, great, sports are back.

It's oh, great, America is back, right? And this influences absolutely everything. Like, I think last night there was a PGA, sort of, you know, they're made-for-TV skins game with Rory McElroy and Justin Johnson with these guys. And the same thing, Donald Trump shows up there. as well. He sent a video from the Rose Garden to the USC. This is not an accident, Peter. This is all happening by design. And the thing is, again, this is a political thing whereby Donald Trump wants the country to open up again. There's no sort of thought being given to the

fact of, okay, is this the right thing to do at this particular point in time? As we know, the United States of America, very unfortunately has about 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the deaths from COVID-19. So, you know, to eclipse all that, you know, what do you do? And this has been in the history of politics in America for a long, long time. We've long had a situation where people try to attach themselves to sports stars, but in particular back in the days of Hollywood, and we have to remember that Trump himself is a reality TV star, Ronald Reagan was a famous actor long before he became a politician. So this is not an outler. This is kind of very, very simply what happens all the time there. So I think that, you know, wittingly or unwittingly, that

UFC fans are being used to sort of generate a narrative whereby it's okay to get businesses back up and running. And we've seen that grow. Since USC 249, we've seen that grow. We've seen people out on the streets protesting demanding their freedom back, the freedom to go to work and do the things they want to do. And whether it likes it or not, the USC has to own the fact that it has been used in this way. Yes, yeah. It's really, really interesting stuff. You know, the reach of the events, etc. I mean, I've been saying for a long time, Phil, that we can't really, you know, Dana White's talked about 249 being a home run. We really won't know the, um, the real legacy at events until maybe a couple of weeks down the line, right?

Due to the... Hold on, hold on, Peter. We will never know. Okay? We will never know whether this has worked or not, right? Forget Jackeret and the positive test and that kind of thing. That was almost the best thing that could have happened to the UFC because they say, okay, he came in, he told us, we tested him, we caught him early, we sent him home.

We did a fucking great job, right? But the thing is, the people who are at risk from this disease. And as you know, like, when all sport was cancelled, I had to quickly sort of saddle, like, resaddled the horse and go towards general news. And when I'm talking to you from here in Stockholm, I'm about 10 minutes from where they have the daily press conference every day with the state epidemiologist here. And I've spoken to so many people at the Institute where he works about this disease, right? The people who are at risk from this disease are not Jacereseuza. He's a young man in the best physical condition in the prile of his life.

It's not Tony Ferguson. It's not just engaging, right? It's not even Dana White himself who's still a reasonably healthy man, right? It is the people that they come into contact with down the line, right? So it's the people that Jaceret may have met, the taxi driver that might have driven him from the airport to the venue or the hotel in Jacksonville, right? It's that taxi driver's grandmother. It's that taxi driver's neighbor. It's the people that he picked up after Jackeray, who, and let's face it, Florida's full of old people.

So this is not beyond the bounds of possibility. So without contact tracing, we will never know the extent to which holding these three events in Florida, from which people travel pretty much all over the United States of America. We know of a lot of fighters. Greg Hardy, I think, drove there. We had certain fighters who drove there from Las Vegas, Nevada. Donald Soroni would have driven in there as well. I know he packed up his RV. We have no way of knowing if this was a success or not.

So you can say, you know, home run all you like, but I never saw that ball go over the wall. And I'm never going to be able to ascertain if this has been right or not. The one thing that we do know is that societies have been locked down around the world, not to cure the virus because that's impossible, not to eradicate the virus because that is as yet impossible. But when people don't move around, they don't come into contact with other people

and that is just the beginning of the end of it the UFC chose to ignore that to bring all these people together and to have these fights but we can never know the outcome of it and that allows them to call the home run all they like but I'm sorry I just don't buy the fact that this was a roaring success just because nobody died in the octagon gasping for breath

yeah yeah that's all great information Phil and thanks very much for that you're giving us a real kind of look at this zoomed out I suppose from just inside the MMA bubble and I really appreciate it. You mentioned sports watching there moments ago and I guess one of the big stories of the week

in MMA, I guess in European MMA, in international MMA is that Daniel Kinnon has been announced as a special advisor to KHKMMA who was out of Bahrain there. They have links to brave fighting championships.

Daniel Kinnon also has been kind of announced as a special advisor to top rank and Bob Arum MTC have come out and again kind of said he's not with them essentially

but he is an advisor to the boxers who are on the roster like Tyson Fury Michael Conlon Carl Frampton and of course we know that Darren Thiel has acknowledged that Kinnan is a good friend of his Kinan of course who was named as the

head of the Kinan organized crime gang in the High Court in 2018 Phil, this is a weird one to unpack. I guess it's all come to ahead with the announcement of the KHK situation and top rank. But what way should we be approaching this with Daniel Kinnon now seemingly involved in MMA? What could that potentially mean? Well, I think what it means for me and what it should mean for you and for all of our colleagues is that we continue to ask questions, Peter.

Daniel Kinnahen is known as being a huge boxing fan. He's a huge fight fan where he has been named in courts in at least, two jurisdictions as being the head of the Kinnah and Crime family. He's been named in conjunction with murders in the High Court in Ireland, but also in a court in Spain, right? He has never said anything about those allegations. He's not a man who talks publicly about these things at all. He doesn't do interviews. We have had very high-profile criminals in the past from Al Capone forward who've happily spoken about these things and denied that that's not the way Daniel works. He doesn't live in

Ireland anymore. As far as I know, he lives in Dubai. The best information is that he lives in Dubai. But I think, again, if we zoom out of the... a little bit here. It's worth have a look at what Daniel Kennan wants from all this, because this is actually another former sports watching, right? This is a man who has a past that maybe he's not too proud of, but he's generated so much money. People I've spoken to in the police in Ireland reckon that his gang has generated somewhere around a billion euros over the course of the time that he has been involved, right? And not only that, but they're so good at laundering money that they actually launder money for other rival gangs,

right? So these are people who are very, very clever people. I'm not the kind of person to go clutching my perils and saying, you know, I want somebody think of the children, right? Because Daniel comes from the same city as I come from. He comes from a similar background to what you and I come from. I'm sure he's done things that he's not proud of. But I also think that, you know, in some way, he has to be asked about these things and held to account.

And the people who know him and who work with him have to be held to account for these things as well, right? Because if these things are true, if Daniel has been behind a gang that has brought the misery of drugs to the streets of Dublin and to the streets of other European cities, because this is a very, very international gang we're talking about. If you have been behind murders, then we need to ask ourselves, and the people in power in these sports, in boxing and MMA,

is this the kind of person that we need to have in the sport? What's this doing for the image of the sport, right? Now, personally, I don't have any great hope. There's two things I don't have. One is I'm not worried in the slightest. I don't think that Daniel Kinnahen is any threat whatsoever to me asking any question I want to ask, right? He may not answer it, but I don't think he cares about you, me or anybody else. But the other thing is, what's in this for the fighter?

How was he helping people? He's an advisor. What advice is he given, Peter? In what way has he become, you know, Bob Aram is an absolute, if you're going to do the Melt Rushmore of boxing, Bob Aram arguably deserves a place there. Here's a man who wouldn't work.

Every great boxer, you know, through, you know, since the dawn of time, basically, right? But this situation has occurred in America before, right? The mafia, Las Vegas, where we've seen so many fights, I mean, Las Vegas was built on mafia money, laundered through Utah and invested in Nevada, right? that's just how it happened. And what attracted people?

Boxing attracted people. That's why, you know, people went to the MGM grant, not because it's nice in the desert in 130 degree heat, but because Mike Tyson fought there or because Ali fought there, because George Foreman fought there,

whatever happened to be. So people were sort of predicting their investment. So for criminals who reach a certain level, eventually you get bored of, you know, either selling drugs in a street corner, so you become the guy who sort of, you know, pulls the strings. Or eventually you get bored of pulling the strings

and you just move into a management capacity. You look after the money that's made. But when you've been done looking after the money that's made and you have other people doing that for you, you start to look at legacy, right? It's not unusual at all to see people like the Kinahan's or people who have been involved in crime previously to start to invest some of their assets in sport. It could be a favorite football club. It could be a local basketball team. It could be, you know, a local upcoming fighter. It could be a golfer. It all depends on what you enjoy. And as I said, Daniela Kinner is a huge fan of fight sports. So, you know,

it's natural to me that he chose to invest in this sport. It's natural to me that he chose to invest in both boxing and MMA. He identifies with these people. And you know, you and I both know Darren Till. There's no nicer, no more genuine person in the game than Darren Till. Darren and Leon Edwards and Jimmy Manoa and Mark Goddard at the moment are trying to put together an initiative to combat knife crime in the UK, right? These are nice people. But yet they're hanging around with a guy who has, you know, euphemistically called a very dubious past, right?

So there's a sort of a cognitive dissonance there. They're kind of holding two thoughts in their head at the same time. This is a man who might have some very, very bad things on his conscience, but he likes me and he might be able to help me in my career. They're the kind of things that we have to work out. I don't necessarily think, I think that if you're going to be doing something, if we look at the elite level of sport, right, that's one thing. The UFC and Brave and all these other promotions, that's one thing, right?

But to me, jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts and the small gyms in general, that's where we bring young people in off the street, Peter, and that's where we try to make better people out of them, right? And that is where we need to say, okay, is this what our sport needs? I remember being in boxing gyms as a teenager and thinking the same thing. There were so many people there who are trying to make better people of the young men and women that we were. And that's what I want to know, is that what Daniel Kinnah is going to do. And he's going to do that, then we have to have another discussion, right? If he is liable for something, if he has done something in this past, let the law take its course, okay?

I know that the gang has, I think they had a judgment against them in 2018 for 1.4 million euros, if I recall correctly, right? Like, you know, let the deaths to society be paid. You know, if he could pay his deaths to society and if he can assure us that there are no questions left to answer, then that's absolutely fine. But for now, we have to ask Darren and we have to ask Tyson Fury and we have to ask people, not necessarily, you know, why they do this, because, you know, that they may not tell us that, but, you know, how they feel about that person, how they know it, what can they tell us about Daniel Kinnell and Louie? we, like as a boxing fanatic, we don't already know. Because it's only in having a greater understanding of these things that we will ourselves understand the situation

and see if we find it acceptable or not. Because at the end of the day, I don't want to enrich somebody. I don't want to give the limelight to somebody who doesn't deserve it, whose objectives are so much different from that or everybody else involved in the sport, right? We're all involved in sport and promoting sport

and in covering sport because we believe that there is a powerful, powerful positive sport for us, for ourselves, for our children and for society. And none of us wants to endanger that. And I think that we need to keep asking these questions until such time as we know that we have this situation under control and that people like Daniel are no threat to that in the future.

Yeah, and I mean you mentioned about, you know, we have to ask Darren about this. I should mention that, you know, Noel interviewed Darren for this week's show last Tuesday. So this is before everything kind of came to the forefront in such an emphatic way. And I guess that's the big shift, right, Phil. I mean, this thing used to not be kind of public knowledge that, you know, Daniel or, you know, was associated with these photos, but this seems very public.

And, you know, it's all out there. What is that shift all about? Do you feel like this is a kind of a way to, I see RTE have an article out today, Daniel Kinnan reinventing himself as a boxing promoter. Is this what this is? Is this the trust of the effort here? Yeah, I think there's an, you know, if you look at social media at the moment, I think that you will find that there's an effort to rehabilitative. his reputation going on, right? I honestly think that we're in that final legacy stage of Daniel's career or his life work where he wants to find some meaning in his life that doesn't have anything

to do with his previous life. And I'd love to sit down with them and to discuss this if we ever got the chance, right? But that's what's happening here. People are trying to rehabilitate him. He was involved or he was involved. He was there and the subject of a murder attempt at the Regency Hotel in Dublin at a boxing way in a few years ago. And there's now sort of a documentary or, you know, It's almost like a dramatization of that I've seen clips for online. And people are saying, oh, look, this is what really happened. And now there's a conspiracy theory that that shooting wasn't actually to do with any sort of gangman thing, but it was actually politicians trying to rig the results for an election.

Now, I find that absolutely ridiculous. But if that is an attempt or, you know, an attempt to somehow muddy the waters and allow him to rehabilitate his reputation, then, you know, we have to look at that and we have to try to understand that. But I do think that, you know, there is this effort being made to rehabilitated. And as an answer to that, then, people are saying, well, hang on a second, this man did this, that and the other, right? What was very unusual use about last week's announcement was that it was an announcement, okay? The MTK thing, Daniel was very, very quiet there, and indeed they've gone the opposite way,

saying, no, no, he's not involved at all. As recently come out, well, you know, he still advises some of the boxers. Well, then he is involved, right? But this is the thing, it's in trying to keep, again, it goes back to what we were saying about Dana White. If you're talking to the mass media, if you're talking to the general public, you have to keep your ducks in a row. You have to have a story that is absolutely watertight because people like Pizzi-Carl,

Philip O'Connor are going, hang on a second. I read this, I saw this, I talked to this person, that's not entirely right. And that's where all the questions come from. And my, you know, if you look at crisis communication or if you look at rehabilitation of somebody, there was a boxer here in Sweden, Paulo Roberto was a former boxer.

And he was caught on Thursday night coming out of a prostitutes apartment in Stockholm here, right? And the first thing he did was he went out on social media and he admitted everything, but he ended up saying things that might actually end up seeing him charred with more serious offenses than what he did. When it comes to crisis,

Communicate. Yeah, he incriminate himself. Okay, so there's a thing called, basically here you would have, it's illegal to buy sex, right? But it can be sort of upgraded to a charge of rape if you believe that the person that you paid for sex was there against their will, which is essentially what Roberta did. Whether they can make that stand up in court, I don't know. He said it in a TV interview, you know. So, but again, it would come down to the time that he realized that this had happened. He may have only realized afterwards, etc. Right. But, you know, when it comes to crisis communication, he was actually on the right track, right? Because if you tell

the truth immediately, if you put everything out there immediately, what more can we say? Okay, there's absolutely nothing more to be said, but when you try to go, it goes back to the soccer player, Stephen Ireland, who didn't make an Ireland cap and he said that his granny was dead. I tried after she was alive and he said, no, it was the other

granny, I turned out that she was alive as well, you know, when you start, yeah, you need a really good memory. And I'm not accusing people of sort of lying, you know, it's not necessarily lying, but they're just, they're saying things that later turn out not to be true is the most charitable way I could be about.

But if everybody puts their cards on the table, if MTC were to say, look at, Daniel Kinnan loves boxing. He has a huge amount of knowledge about it and he's a huge amount of contacts and that's why he's involved. That's fine. Then the discussion goes back to who is Daniel Kinahan and is he a good person to have involved in sport?

And it would clear up everything. You would have boxers able to talk to the Irish media because MTC's boycotting the Irish media for a long, long time. So you had some great fighters like Mick Conlon who weren't able to or didn't want to speak to the Irish media, which, you know, it was terrible really because, you know, people who are in sports media actually want to tell the stories of fighters, and we were precluded from doing so. So they need to sit down, really, and work out what their strategy is. And I don't think that glossy films is the way to go. I actually think, as I

always think of these situations, is telling the truth and owning what you've done is always the best way to go. It may not be the best way to go for you personally, and it may not get you what you want out of life, but it is always the best way to go, because you can put your head the pillow at night and sleep soundly and not think oh fuck i wonder what pt c car is going to get me next do you expect him to maybe speak to the media in such a way you know you know be transparent about the situation like i mean it seems to me for what you're saying phil is for us to take this guy seriously within the world of combat sports for the mainstream media to take him seriously he kind of has to put his cards on the table here do you expect that to happen um i don't know

peter i honestly think that you know if i was his media advisor you know and i could be a very highly paid media advisor to anybody who wants me, but if I used to be his media advisor, I would say to him to do that, right? Because he won't be able to be if you think back over the Bob Adams of our time, the Dana White's of our time, the Don Kings of our time, Eddie Hearn,

Barry Hearn before him, right? These people are all personalities. To become those personalities, you have to have that microphone under your nose. You have to sell a fight just as much as a fighter does, right? You cannot do that if you effectively have to hide away from the media because they're going to ask you questions about your past.

So, you know, he has to find some way of making a reckoning with that past that we as a media combined. And that's going to be very, very difficult when you consider the things that he's accused of. But without doing that, it doesn't happen. And without doing that, Peter, it taints and it tarnishes every fighter, every event that he's going to be linked to is going to have this bad smell about it. It's going to have this shadow hanging over it. And that really is where it falls down. Because if you're going to talk about a fighter, I'm not going to name any particular fighter at all here. But, you know, if you just go, oh, you know, he's in his camp.

Then all of a sudden, you know, it takes the luster off the achievement of men and women who do great things and go to great lengths to become champions. But if this person is standing over your shoulder, it's going to detract from that. And that's not what we want. I'm not saying that it's even possible for Daniel to come out and make an argument that everybody in the sporting world and the criminal world and the world of justice will buy. But I'm saying that I honestly think that that is what he needs to do if he wants to be taken seriously. and indeed to do justice to the fighters themselves, right? Because they're putting an immense amount of trust in him, in his advice, you know. But if they're going to be tarnished by him, because, you know, what happens,

we all know the relationships end, Peter. You'll get a fighter maybe who doesn't feel that they get the attention off a mentor that they think they deserve, and they move on. What happens to that fighter then? You know, will another stable be willing to take them on, you know, having been linked to a man like Mr. Kinnah? You know, that's the hard part in all of this. And these are the questions that we need to work out. Because essentially what we have to remove for fighting or for fighting,

sports to thrive, we have to actually remove the one thing that should only be ever found in the octagon of the ring, we have to remove fear. We have to be absolutely certain that everybody who acts in our sports is 100% safe in the life that they are going about living outside the octagon of the ring. What happens in there is between them and their opponent. But other than that, we absolutely have to ensure that. Well, Phil, I thought like you might have slowed down a bit with the lack of travel. Usually you're all over the world. I know you've been based in Stockholm, but you are on fire, my friend. You are, you are...

Bouncing off the walls, man. How has this been, though? I mean, for you, this must be a real shift for you. Because I know, I could call you on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and you could be in three different countries every single day, usually. How has this been for you? Man, I'm exploding. Yesterday, I actually messaged a friend of mine who used to play in the NBA.

I was going, you know, I've nothing to say to you, but can I come in an interview anyway and got the boat? Because I need to stay in a hotel, man. I just... You know what this lifestyle is like, and it gets it, it's addictive, and it's great fun and that kind of thing. But it is... Like, at the moment, this...

difficult but it's also a great time for for people like ourselves and for people in general you know to take stock of what we're doing you know sometimes it's a good idea to stop and ask yourself am i doing the right thing is my life where i want to be and i would say you know 95 percent i have absolutely no complaints but i'm always wondering on my things that have i things that could be doing more for in my work can i be doing more in my community and for my family and that kind of thing so it's been a great opportunity to do that yeah but man i cannot wait to see you in las Vegas sometimes, that's just going to be the best thing that ever happened. Yeah, it's got me amazing.

We have to go back to that. What was that all you can eat place we went to the last time? That was a beast. I was a bit, I let myself down really, didn't know? I wasn't. We went to this, it's kind of a buffet. It was a buffet situation when it kept bringing the meats out. And I was flying at the start.

But I tapped out fairly quickly in the last, in the championship rounds, didn't I, Phil? You did, but the old dog for the hard road. I was still there at the end. I managed to get through all of them. We got duck and we got beef and we got pork. that those animals coming out but I've never even heard of what I was still eating with you and long ago my friend but yeah I can't wait to see that I can't wait to see all the yurabash listeners back in Vegas now McGrath Jose Esther Casey I'm missing all you guys up terrible but you

know with the help of God we'll be back there soon enough yeah Phil I can't thank you enough for um you know as usual shedding light on a situation um I'm not 100% up on I really appreciate that man you're always able to guide me through these situations so well and I'm sure our listeners appreciate it as well you've been an amazing amazing rock for me over the years and I know you'll continue to be and as you said I can't wait to see you soon my friend fingers crossed

all the best sir Philip O'Connor of Reuters and the Iron Man and Stockholm podcast check it out we love you Phil talk to you soon man cheers Paul all the best thank you very much to Philip O'Connor as always hugely hugely informative when it comes

to the world of sports and the world of journalism as well of course really interesting stuff there and I'm glad we got him on to speak about it and we glad we have him on before we end this journey with him my fighting as well

because he's been a real pillar for me in all over the years definitely yeah 100%. Yeah so we announced today that the outpouring of emotion has been fantastic I'm overwhelmed by it

all of these legends of the media game legendary fighters legendary coaches reaching out and you know you know giving us a lot of praise and it's unbelievable I don't do very well with this stuff, but...

Yeah. I don't... I mean, it's unbelievable. I never expected this. Like, I mean, when we started this thing off, we didn't know what, you know, how big it was going to get. It's been a huge success. Like, I mean, it's...

It blew all expectations out of the water. It's become a real community, thanks to all you guys who listen to us. And it's become the platform for European MMA fighters. You know, obviously, we didn't want this to... We didn't want to be, you know, stopping doing this. We're very happy with the situation. We're very happy with the opportunity. MMA fighting have given us.

I think we've proven that, you know, European MMA, you know, there is interest in it internationally. You know, we've managed to put a spotlight on a lot of promotions that maybe weren't given such a big spotlight. And that was been a great honor. That was always what we wanted to do. You know, before I got this job with MMA fighting, I was taking a job as a cleaner.

So, I mean, I've come a long, long way And I'm very happy with the opportunity And we're still trying to work out What way we're pressing forward But we will be pressing forward one way or the other And we just have to figure out what way we'll be doing it Is that the right way to put it now? Yeah, yeah, we'll obviously sit down

And we'll see we're going to have a chat, I believe, In the next sort of week or before the end of the month Anyway, and see where we're at and try and work it out. Yeah, listen, thanks to everyone. The support's been incredible. But yeah, listen, shit happens. I think I tweeted that today.

It's been a tough couple of months for a lot of people in the media game, man. You know, it's too down for me. Free agencies there. But yeah, listen, at the end of the fucking day, you know, tick skin and all that. Lazarus, raised some the dead. We're not going,

So listen, yeah, we'll work out something to worry about that. But yeah, thanks to everyone for the outreach and the messages and shit. It's been cool. Yeah, one thing I would like to, you know, highlight and like, you know, this is probably my own pride a bit, but this is absolutely nothing to do with performance. That was explicitly told to me in a very brief meeting. You know, this, our numbers are great. You're about just far beyond anything we could have dreamed of.

It has a great following. There's a great community. You know, obviously I'm my obviously co-hosts of another podcast on the site as well. So yeah, it's nothing to do with that. It's more to do with, you know, where we are geographically, I guess. I mean, there's a union there with Fox for people on the ground in the US. We are not in there. Our contracts are, we're contractors rather than full-time workers.

So that kind of left us open. to the guillotine a bit more than others. But look, these things happen. We're not going to get too upset about it. And we want to just thank all of you guys for listening to us all the time. It's been amazing. I can't believe. I can't believe what it's grown into.

It's unbelievable. I genuinely in disbelief. I never thought, like, I mean, I'd never expect to be doing a podcast on M.A. fight. Like, I mean, I just, I didn't expect it. So it's been great. And it's been a great journey with Noel McGrath again,

as they tend to be. And there's still a few shakes. left in this tale, let me tell you guys. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. No, it is. It's been fun. And yeah, like, if you follow me on social media and stuff,

a few things I'm working on. So, so listen, we'll see. We'll work it out first, Psy, and then we'll have a conversation and we'll see where we're about that and see if we can make... Sounds like Noel's far and me as his mate here as well. We'll see if we can make rain three happen.

We're not into the championship rains yet, lads, right? So there's a left hooker upper cut left in McGrath yet. So fuck he's all. It's all. It's fun. And listen, we've another couple of weeks. So what are we winging about?

Fuck it. You have one more week. We have one more episode. Okay, one more episode. Cry me a fucking river. You know, I'm buzzing. I'm gonna watch the finale at the last last night.

Yeah. Well, I'll edit this and then I'll send this on to you. And then I'm going to watch the last two I haven't. I've been sort of disciplined today and went, you know, I'll leave it for something to watch tonight

because there's not an awful lot on as we know. So I'm fucking buzzing for that. It's been, it's been real fun to watch, I think, over the last number of weeks and an unbelievable piece of documentary. It's probably, if you look at documentaries, man,

like, to have the footage they have and to be so patient and to sit on that for years, it's just incredible, like, absolutely incredible. So, yeah, I'm loving it. Absolutely loving it.

Can't wait. I wish there's someone to do a documentary on my life. life. Huh? So much to do documentary in my life.

Be great crack. Look, I'm talking to ESPN at the moment about doing the Eurobash documentary. Let's do it. But,

uh, what are we doing, last? Fucking shite. But yeah. So yeah, keep sharing, keep like and keep

the word on the street. This thing is organically grown. You've been a fantastic, fantastic community that we've built around this stuff. So let's keep it going

until the final bell. We only have two more left, for God's sake. We love his loads. We're going to figure this goddamn thing out. And thanks again for all the lovely messages. I'm not a very emotional man. Well, I am actually. I'm very emotional man.

But I don't really know what to do when I see so. You're like a fucking hell of them. I know. It's great. Love you's loads. See us next week. Look.