MMA Fighting - Fighter vs. Writer: Is Jake Paul Actually Facing His Toughest Test in Tommy Fury?

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

On the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer, UFC welterweight legend Matt Brown and MMA Fighting senior reporter Damon Martin discuss and debate the biggest topics in combat sports including Jake Paul’s upcoming fight with Tommy Fury. As Paul prepares for his first fight against an opponent with a boxing resume, we'll debate if Tommy Fury is actually the toughest test "The Problem Child" has faced or has he already taken on tougher competition in past fights against Tyron Woodley and Anderson Silva? We’ll also discuss the broadcast teams working in the UFC and if Brown has ever taken issue with anybody calling his fights in the past. Brown will also reveal his top UFC commentator of all time and who he believes might soon be fighting for the top spot. To kick things off this week, we’ll discuss Erin Blanchfield’s huge win over Jessica Andrade and if she’s now the biggest threat that Valentina Shevchenko has potentially faced since winning the title and becoming UFC flyweight champion? Plus for the first time, we feature our new Ask Matt Brown segment where the veteran UFC welterweight answers questions from the fans — this week including his opinion on fixing judging in the sport, fighting at the UFC APEX and even offering some dating advice. All this and more on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts Subscribe: Spotify Read More: MMA Fighting Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy. Hey, I won! Feel the fun!

The morning will begin when passenger fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 1-8665-3-3-2-60 or visit comex Ontario.ca. With Amex Platinum. You have access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. So your experience before takeoff is a taste of what's to come. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply.

You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Welcome back to the fighter versus the rider. I'm Damon Martin. He's Matt Brown. And Matt, we are back after another UFC weekend, going into another UFC weekend. I think I probably said every week for the show with UFC going on. And then this weekend we also got your favorite boxer in the world's coming back. Jake Paul, fighting Tommy Fury on Sunday.

I thought you were going to say Tommy Fury was my favorite boxer. I know you love Jake Paul. Come on now. He's kind of growing on me a little bit. I got to tell you. Yeah. So, Matt, what's going on? Obviously, we made the big announcement in the show last week.

Your fight is booked May 13th, Courtney McGee. We're going to kind of do some of these episodes as we get closer to the fight, you know, kind of calling Fight Camp podcast. well, we're going to focus in on your fight and the training you're doing and things like that. I'm hopefully going to come up to your gym and stuff, but it's weird to say fight camp for you because you never really stopped training.

So, like, what is the biggest difference between like normal Matt Brown training and training camp Matt Brown? The intensity and focus of training, right? Like, it's like, of course I never stopped training, but the training is much different when there's not a fight. Like maybe I'll do a few rounds

and then like I get a little tired, like, all right, I'm going to call it a day. Maybe, maybe, you know, maybe I just don't feel like training tonight. So maybe I'll just go for a light jog or something. And then when it gets into camp, there's, you know, it doesn't matter how you feel anymore. It's about you go in and you do what you got to do. And then, you know, the other part is the types of training partners that would bring into the camp where instead of,

of, you know, you're just kind of going with whoever's at the gym and hanging out with everybody and having a good time. It's like, no, we're bringing in guys and, you know, we're telling them to, well, my coaches are telling them to try to kill me, especially Coleman, right? He's like picking up, picking up, you know, always pushing them harder to try to get at me and get me tired and break me. Yeah, Coleman's in there throwing the hammer house heavy back at you in training camp. That's what you need the difference, right? he absolutely is I'll tell you what he probably changes more than just about anybody man like he you know he's

he's always a pretty intense guy and pretty fired up but when training camp comes you know when you get that fight booked and you got the contract sign he's another level man he um that's something you know it's a lot you know he's he gets you really fired up we got to get Coleman on the show soon I feel like we have to do that.

I know we keep talking about doing that. I feel like we got to get Coleman on before this fight. Yeah, I just keep procrastinating with it. You know, we'll get him on for sure. Yeah. And he's the type of guy. You got to just get him at the right day, right time. And you'll be like, all right, let's go.

And rather than you try to set a plan or a schedule or something, it's going to get fucked up nine out ten times. Yeah. Coleman is funny. It's so funny to the switch he hits, though, because like when you talk, Coleman's always kind of an intense dude. And he'd be a great storyteller, funny guy, great guy. but man, I've seen him in the gym with you. Like when it's time to train, he turns it up a notch. He definitely cranks it up a couple of times.

Because I was up there the one time you were training with Mickey Gall, and you guys were doing rounds up there, and I was watching Coleman train and coach. And I was like, geez, man, he just hits another level. Yeah, and I'd say even more now because he's feeling great. He's sober. He's on the Liver King diet, the Ninestestrian tennis, living it up, eating carnivore.

And, you know, it's doing well for him, man. He's got a new inspiration in his life, and he's just fired up every day now, feeling great. And it's just amazing like the genetics he has, man. 55 years old, he's dropping weight so fast. He's already got some abs showing through. You mean, you feel him grab you.

Like, you just never felt a, you know, unless you've actually wrestled with a gorilla, like you've never felt strength like that. And I mean, it's just, it's amazing. You know, 10 years plus of, you know, really bad alcoholism and, you know, surgeries and not training. And then he comes in and grabs

after 10 years of all that and you're like dude you didn't lose a fucking step man it's insane yeah dude he's uh he's like a freakish he's one of those freakish athletes like where when he when he turns it on he uh he really turns it on like he really can turn things around like he looks he looks at great shape already like he's been posted photos on his instagram and stuff since he did the liver king thing i'm like geez man like he's already like looking great yeah and he's talking about getting a celebrity boxing match or something now. You can tell, man, he's just a competitor at heart through and through. Like, you cannot take that out of him. Like, he wants to compete. And I think, like, when he was

drinking and going through all that, like, it was a competition to him. Like, how much can I drink? How much more can I put in me? And I think it's the best thing in the world for him. And it's just great to see that energy come out of him. Absolutely. Well, yeah, we got a few months to the five of course, so we're going to be doing some more focused in fight camp stuff. Closer. We're also going to debut our new segment this week. Ask Matt Brown advice. We got a couple of good times.

I actually got a bunch of questions, but I'm going to narrow it down to two this week. We got one actually about the sport, and then I got some love advice questions for you, Matt. Someone wants some dating advice for Matt Brown. I was, I was itching. I put it out there and said, I got to get some dating advice questions for Matt Brown, because it seems like people don't, you know, people think you use this intense fighter, you know, just, you know, fucking savage. and you know, you're a lover as well, Matt.

You're a lover and a fighter, and I think people need to take this dating advice seriously from you. Interesting, you say that, but I consider myself a good lover and good romantic at all. I'm not true. You tell me that we talk about your hideaway down in Tennessee, and you're like, you know, I'm a badass, but, you know, I'm fucking lover too. It's the side of Matt Brown that most fans will never see.

No, only one person is going to see it. That's the lady. But I guess I find it interesting that people would want to ask me for advice on that. Like you don't have very many good people in your life if you're asking me. But maybe I'm not seeing it from their perspective. You know, I do think I have some good things I can probably tell them. So we'll find out, though. It depends on the question, I guess.

Yeah, we'll definitely get into that a little bit later. This past week, and, of course, the UFC card. Did you watch the UFC card, Matt? Did you see the fights? I watched the main event. So the card was real bad. The whole main card, except for Jim Miller and Alexander Hernandez, was real bad. The main event was great, but the other three fights, sorry, were really bad.

I unfortunately missed the Jim Miller fight. I'm a huge fan of his, and I wanted to watch that fight. I usually try to watch all of his fights. I did miss that, though. Tell me what your thoughts were on that fight. I'd like to hear. I actually scored it for Jim Miller. Now, that's not a knock on Alexander Hernandez.

It was a close fight. I thought it was 29, 28, Jim, but I don't have a problem with that. It's kind of like the, you know, it wasn't a robbery or anything like that. It was just one of those fights where I kind of edged it towards Jim Miller. I thought he came back in the later part of the third round. He ended up getting on top. He ended up getting a back position on Hernandez and almost had him a choke for about a minute, maybe two minutes.

And I thought that helped him win the round. To his credit, Alexander Hernandez did come back and hit some good punches towards the end, but it was a close fight. I thought it was 29, 28 either way. Don't have a problem with the result. But Jim still sticking in there. And credit to Alexander Hernandez, he took the fight on like a week's notice. And he put up a damn good fight.

He went out there and blasted Jim with some good shots. Jim was still in there taking it. I mean, it was a really, really good fight. A little surprised, even though there was a good fight on the prelims, I was a little surprised it didn't get fight in the night, too. Like, it was a really, really good scrap. Oh, wow. Who got fighting in the night?

It was on the prelims. Evan Elder and I can't remember the kid's name. He fought it. It's the fight that ended with the cut. He had that really gnarly cut over his eyebrow at the start of the third round. It was a good fight. Don't get me wrong. It's not that that wasn't a good fight.

I just thought maybe Jim Miller and Alexander Hernandez got it. Like they just, I mean, they were just beating the hell out of each other in the first couple rounds. But yeah, again, no, no big deal. But yeah, Jim looked good, man. He wants to fight to UFC 300. That's creeping up around the corner. I mean, we're already at UFC, you know, we already get plans for UFC 287. coming up in a couple of months.

So we're going to hit UFC 300 before too long. Yeah, maybe I'll get there too. I like it. I like it. And then, of course, the main event, Aaron Blanchfield, man, boy, I tell you what, she, everyone, I'll be honest, when she was fighting Tila Santos, I thought that's a fight, Aaron could definitely win. Tyler Santos is good, but we didn't really understand how good Tila Santos was

until she took Chowcino to a split decision. No one was really hypened Tila Santos up until after that fight. Everyone knows how good Jessica Andrage is. That woman is a monster. She is a savage. She is a beast. And Aaron Blanchfield, I mean, she took it to her on the feet and then one takedown and she wrapped up that rear naked joke.

That was a statement-making performance. Yeah, I agree. I thought that she looked really good and just did all the right things. And especially to Jessica Androge. And my big question was, you know, was Andrage coming in on a week's notice? Was she in there at her best? you know, that's the, I think, where the big question is. And she certainly looked herself, I thought.

So, you know, I didn't see any signs of major fatigue or anything. But I don't just don't know, maybe she thought she was just going to walk over her or maybe she was just in there for a paycheck or, you know, maybe all the above. I'm not sure. Yeah, I mean, she fought a few weeks ago and obviously, you know, laid the beat down on Lauren Murphy,

which we talked about on the show. So it wasn't like she had been out for a few months. Like, she just fought a month ago. So it wasn't too bad in terms of timing, but she didn't look bad. Like she had good moments. She had good moments in the first round. She landed some punches in the first round. But I think for me personally, I don't think it was that Androj maybe wasn't 100%

or she didn't look like herself. I think what really surprised her, me and pretty much everyone watching was that Aaron stood up with her and actually did okay in that first round. Like I don't think anyone saw that coming. Yeah, I agree. And sometimes I think also coming in, you know, only fighting a month. you know, isn't always necessarily, you're not necessarily going to be at your best either when that happens, right?

Like, you know, you didn't have the time to fully prepare. You can lose a lot of money. I don't know what she was doing in that month off. And how much of, you know, adrenaline dumped did she have after the last fight, you know? And there's a lot of things we don't see in there, too, that you don't know the types of bumps and bruises that she had. There's just a lot more to that than just assuming that she's in shape because she fought a month ago.

so that's what I really don't know but we have to assume that she wasn't oh excuse me we have to assume that she was in good shape and we have to assume that she was ready because she took the fight and she stepped in there and Aaron Blanchfield fucking put on a performance and you know like you said when on the feet that was where she really shined I mean she made Androj she took her good shots from Androj and also landed her own good shots So, and obviously, like, once she got the take down, I mean, it was just, it was easy. I mean, it was a, it was like a black belt versus white belt.

Yeah, it was crazy. And, you know, I know we have, and we're going to talk about it next week on the show, of course. We got Valentina Shepchenko taken on Alexa Grosso in the UFC 285 co-main event. I don't want to make it sound like I'm disrespecting Alexa Grosso. I think she's an incredibly good fighter. I got to be honest. So I don't think that's a great stylistic matchup for her because she's primarily a boxer. Valentina is just a nasty moitai striker.

I think that's kind of a bad mashup for Grasso, so I'm really favoring Chivchenko in that fight. But I'll be honest, like for the first time since Chofinco became champion, like there's finally a contender in my mind, Matt, where I'm kind of like, oh, man, like this is not a fight that I could just automatically give to Valentina. Like, there was a little bit of that when she fought Jessica And Raj, you know, going into that and Drash would come in and just absolutely, I think she just blew through Caitlin Chukagan, looked incredible, got the title shot. We knew how good she was. And so there was a little bit of that in that fight.

And then, you know, Shevchenko went out there and just demolished her inside two rounds. But this is the first time in a long time where there's a new challenge or someone we haven't really seen at this level yet where I'm kind of like, you know what? Like this is a person who could potentially dethrone Valentina. And I haven't had that feeling with Valentina since she became champion. I agree. And his heir is young and she's fiery and she has a lot of skill. And she's confident.

And her confidence must have went through the roof after beating Androja like that. And I'll tell you what, Aaron is good on the ground. And Chepchinko, as good as she is on the feet, she doesn't win all of her fights just on the feet. She takes people down and grapples them a lot and overpowers them and, you know, outgrabbles them. I don't think that's going to be an easy task for her with Blanchefield. So now on the feet, I don't think she's, I don't, I don't see, I didn't see anything last weekend to show me where on the feet, Aaron's going to have any real threats to the chef chinko. And that's kind of where I would expect she could try to keep this fight this time is on the feet.

And which, you know, she does a lot of times anyways. But I expect her to try to keep us on the feet. And now if it goes to the ground, though, can she hang with Blanchefield on the ground? I'm not sure that she can. It's an interesting matchup because again, for the first time at a long time, it feels like there's like a legitimate threat to Valentina and Chubchenko at Flyway, which is good. That's what you want. You don't, you know, you don't want, you know, she's going for her eighth title defense next week and, you know, she's been a heavy favorite in every fight. And credit to Tyler Santos for taking her to split decision. That was a weird fight. Again, I'm not making excuses. Valentina went in there with an injured foot and she didn't look herself. I mean, she wasn't moving on the feet very well. She was real like, like, real like standing in cement. kind of understand it, but that's not normally how Valentina fight. So, like, that's not taking anything away from Tyler Santos. That's just saying that even watching that fight before I knew about the injury,

I was like, something doesn't look right with Valentina. Like, she's not moving the way she normally moves. And again, she still looks. And tell me this, Damon, when we first heard of Andrage versus Blanchfield, did you not feel the way that I felt in that, but this is a step too fast for Blanchefield? this was going to be too much for. She's in too deep.

We knew that she had the talent. We knew she had the skill to maybe be champion one day. But is she in over her head finally? Is she moving up too fast? Is this too much for? And we were completely wrong. I'm imagining you probably felt the same way, right? 100%.

I thought it was too much too soon. Honestly, weirdly, I thought she had a better shot against Santos than she did against Androj. I was like, Santos, Santos is good. But again, Santos was getting, Santos became kind of, like a challenge or a real contender by losing a split decision to the champion. We didn't have a resume on Santos before that. We were like, oh, man, she's a killer. We know what Androge can do.

And she just did it to Lauren Murphy a few weeks ago. I absolutely beat the brakes off her for three rounds at a fight that you and I were like, probably should have been stopped after two. So yeah, I was with you. I was like, yeah, this might be too much too soon, man. Like, I don't know. And boy, boy, does she prove everybody wrong with that one? I was blown away.

Like now, like, I'm like, yep, give her the title shot. Like, you know, I don't have any doubts about it now. Like, you don't care. Now my question is, is the title shot too soon for her? And again, from her performance last weekend, she didn't look nervous or, you know, at least overly nervous and she didn't look too intimidated. She didn't look out of place in there, right? She looked like she belonged in there with Androj.

Is she going to look the same way with Sheppchenko? And if she does, you know, she could, she poses a true challenge. and then the next question becomes, okay, if she loses to Shevchenko, was it just too soon for it? And can we give her a couple years? I see her, you know, Shefchenko probably doesn't have that many years left.

Maybe she does, I don't know, but she's been defending for a long time. She's a great champion. All the champions fall at one time, right? At some point, they all start to fall off. Is Blanchefield the future, whether or not she wins against Sheff Chico or not? Yeah, I think so. I mean, she's 23, you know? She's got so much time. Like, and that's the thing. Like, that's why I was with you. I was like, this might be a little bit too much too soon. But even if she loses the Chubchenko now or later this year or whatever, I mean, she's got so much time. She's not near her prime yet. No, not at all. That's why I said. I was like, I don't know, man, this might be a little bit too much too soon. Well, of course you proved me wrong. But, yeah, I mean, I mean, 23 and, and already this good. Imagine what she's going to be like in two years. I mean, remember, you know, we got a guy coming back in two weeks.

John Jones, who I've said many times, I think is the greatest of all time. You know, when he beat Shogun at 23, like, I was like, I knew John Jones was really good, but there's still a little bit of a question, right? Like a little bit of a question going into like when he's running, you know, when he first gets that run, you're like, is he ready? Because he hadn't truly been tested at that point. He'd won a lot of good fights, beat Brandon Vera, be Ryan Bader, guys like that, but you're still kind of like, is he really ready?

Is he ready for that next step? Right. Boy, was he ready? So Blanchfield seems to be in a similar position. And, yeah, I'm with you. Even if she loses, like, I still think she's got plenty of time to develop into an absolute savage, and she's already pretty much a savage. So it'll be interesting to see.

Again, I don't want to discount Lexa Gross's chances at UFC 285. I just, I don't like, I don't like her chances in that fight. Yeah, it's an uphill battle for it, that's for sure. But, you know, this is MMA, man. We're speaking to John Jones, did you see the video the other day of the guy trying to come at him, whatever? Yeah, at the signer or whatever? bro i swear to god john jones is the most ice-cold motherfucker i ever see when he said do not hold him back let him go and dude like that's it chills down my spuckin i was like can you imagine like john

jones saying like like this guy had no fucking flu man is just the most ice-cold thing to say could you imagine being the idiot that wants to challenge john jones at a freaking like signing or whatever your appearance he was doing like how dumb Listen, we haven't really had a lot of these conversations on the show before, and I know we've talked about off the air. We talked about our old podcast. Like, there are moments when there are idiots out there who want to challenge a pro fighter. Like, it happens in bars and restaurants. It rarely.

But, you know, and I know, you know, obviously a lot of fighters don't put themselves in that situation. They don't go out to those kind of places. But it does happen. But I always, I always marvel at that, like the idiots that actually think it's a good idea to do that. Now, it's- Like what was the street fight? There's no rules here, bro. Yeah, and then, like, I'm not saying, like,

we always talk about there's levels of this game. Like, imagine doing that and then doing it to John Jones. Six foot four, probably 250 right now, absolute savage monster. I mean, good God, how dumb do you have to be to step in there and be like, let's go, bro. Like, really? And realistically, when you talk about guys that you would fight on the street,

you know, there's certain, Like, say like GSP, like, I feel like people would have a better chance in a street fight against GSP than obviously, like, in a ring. Right. Like, he's a clean, nice guy. Like, he's not even going to try to hurt you in a street fight, right? Like, he's probably going to do his best to get. You're talking John fucking Jones. Like, he's going to literally murder you in a fucking street fight and not care.

Like, he is an ice cold motherfucker, bro. Yeah, that's like the last guy you want to test, right? Like, that is. I'm saying. Like, GSP's going to choke you and, you know, do Jiu-Jitsu and he's going to be really nice to you. But, like, okay, buddy, like, you know, don't do that again, okay? Like, John Jones is going to end your fucking life, bro. Yeah, he's going to elbow your head into the concrete and you're going to wake up not remembering who you are in the morning.

Like, that's a, that dude's on another. And like I said, he's sick. And this is not like a knock on GSP, but John Jones is 6'4, 250. Like, this is not a welter. doing this. This is a true heavyweight. Even when he was a light heavyweight, he was a heavyweight, like walking around. This is not the dude you want to test. Like, I've still, I don't know how much you've been around John. I've been around John a lot. I'm six foot three. John's bigger than me. Like, John is a big freaking dude. He is a monster. That is the last

guy. I'd be thinking the back of my head. Can I take him? Can I take him? No, you can't take him, you moron. You cannot take John Jones? Yeah, it just cracked me up, man. He said, let him go. dude that's fucking ice gold man i loved it how like in that moment like because you know you know that that guy i don't know like i don't know the situation i don't know what he was trying to prove i don't know what's going on but like you got to imagine when you pull something like that at a big signing there's going to be security there to pull you back right like they're going to get him there's no way there's no way on earth you're going to get that close to actually do something because you imagine the reaction that guy has internally when he's like you know trying to make

trying to show himself, try to be a big badass. And John's like, come on. He's like, let him go. Could you imagine how quickly your balls would run up inside of your body when John Jones is like, let him go? That's what I'm saying, man. You could look at John Jones in there and you can tell like his blood pressure didn't even go up.

He was just like, let him go. Get him, you know what I mean? Yeah. That would have been like John would have been, John would have been two and oh because he would have destroyed that guy and then he gets Cyril Gond. a couple weeks like could you imagine like how bad like street fights generally are pretty bad anyways like how quickly they last they're usually pretty they're usually pretty quick uh that one what does that last like eight seconds as long as it takes john jones land an elbow and that

guy's heads caved in it just depending on how long john jones wanted to last he might make the guy fucking suffer you know like he might just lap drop them and sit on top of them and put drive his elbow into his eyeballs like like i could see that too you know making it last until the guy just starts saying uncle. Yeah, that's like you said. That's a different level when he's like, let him go. And you're just like, oh, shit. What did I just do?

So intense, man. I loved it. Have you ever had anyone try to test you in a bar? You know what? Like, I've never really experienced that, man. Really? I don't know what. Yeah.

I know lots of my friends that are fires and stuff. They said they'd experienced it. For one, I don't put myself in that position. but I don't know. I've never really experienced it. Yeah, it's weird because I just, like, I've got to figure you've got to have a screw loose if you're doing that. Like, it's one thing if you get into a,

you get into a mix up with a fighter over something else going on, but like to willingly and knowingly target a fighter and think you're going to beat them is just such a dramatically dumb idea. Like, it is like, this is what you do for a, like, I just, it just, it's just, I understand, like, you bump into each other. There's a girl involved. There's other things that, like, I understand those situations may come up

where you may end up getting into, like, a fight with somebody that you shouldn't be in a fight with. That happens. I get that. But, like, to go in a bar and think, oh, Matt Brown's right there. I'm going to go challenge that dude. Yeah, good luck. Have fun with that.

Send me the hospital bill so I can see the litany of injuries you got to recover from after that. Yeah, whoops. Wrong guy, buddy. Yeah. I've been a lot of street fights in my life, so I'm prepared for that. also. You know, that's what most of these drunk idiots say.

You know, it's a street fight. You know, there's no rules. You don't know how to fuck with that or whatever. And it's like, bro, like, I've been in at least, you know, 30, 40 street fights in my life. You know, I've had my ass kicked in street fights and I've won street fights. I know how to handle myself on the streets too, buddy. And so where the other guy is like, you know, I'll just shoot them or something. And it's like, I actually practice shooting too, buddy.

So, you know. And my reaction. might be a little bit faster because yeah this is what I do for a living bro that's the scary I do I did a story a couple months ago on Houston Alexander you remember Houston right UFC fighter now fighting a BKFC I did a story on him where he was talking about

fighting bare knuckle and I asked him I was like when was the last time you got into a bare and uncle fight before you were in BKFC and he's like it's funny you asked me that story and he told me that years ago before he got into the UFC he had gone to a bar and some dude slapped a girl at the bar and so him and the bouncers were like dude you got to get out of here No, that doesn't fly here. And the dude tried to swing on him.

And so he ended up grabbing the dude and a tie clinch and need him in the face like 10 times. It's just completely bludgeoned the dude. And then they kind of rushed everybody out the door. And before he knew what happened, the guy had slipped away from him. And the guy, like, he heard a gun shuggo off. And he's like, what happened? And he used to get shot in the leg. And he didn't realize what had happened.

The guy pointed a gun and someone grabbed a gun, but the gun still went off. And he ended up getting shot in the leg. And he was okay. He didn't get charged or anything like nothing crazy like that. guy got arrested, I guess. But, yeah, like, that's the other reason. Like, that's why I never put myself in those situations. Like, I'm not the dude.

Like, you know, I don't, I avoid trouble if I can do it, you know, and that's why right there, dumb shit like that can happen. Like, you can think you're handling a situation. He was beating the hell out of this guy and then gun comes out. And then he got shot. Like, no, I'm good. Like, that's why I don't put myself in those situations. Yeah, I'm right there with you.

And if you're in a situation like that, then, you know, you set yourself up. for that situation, right? You're in some sort of bar or something, you know, like, I just stay out of that shit. Like, you know, there you only go to bars for two reasons to get laid or to get in a fight. You know, I, well, a lot of people, you know, most people try to go just to have fun, right, and get drunk with their buddies, whatever. But it always ends up with, you know, once you're drunk, you're either getting late or getting in a fight. And that's what you say when I was young, I would be like, we're going to get a fighting or fucking tonight, right?

And that's, that's how it goes. Yeah, that's just, that's like the mentality, you know, of a young male with a lot of testosterone, right? Like, it's good. That testosterone is coming out one way or another. And he's either going to be with a girl or with a guy. You're going to get some aggression out one way or the other. Speaking of John Jones, did you see this thing? I loved it.

It was weird because, like, I was wondering, but like, this whole thing that happened with John and Daniel Cormey. Did you see this thing online where John, There people were asking Daniel about commentating on John's fight because we all know Daniel Corme and John Jones have a long history together Huge rivalry one of the biggest you know probably one of the nastiest rivalries in UFC history and and he was asked about it and and John sincerely said I think you do a great job. I know you won't be biased like you're welcome to commentate my fight and in DC and I know I know DC more than I know John Jones although I've known John Jones a little longer DC was like I couldn't tell him he was being serious or he was trying to mess with me a little bit and John's like no I was being sincere, like genuinely.

I root for you. I think you're a good guy. You're represented for a sport, ambassador of sport, please. And I was like, this is kind of cool. Like, you know,

like two huge rivals, guys that clearly did not like each other. Competitively, they were at the absolute top of the food chain. And like for that moment, I was kind of like, a little kumbaya. I was like,

this is kind of cool to see them kind of like squash the beef. And just because why, why I don't understand why there needs to be. Daniel's retired. You know what I mean? DC is still retired. They're not going to fight again.

Like, they don't need to be rivals. I just, I don't know, I loved that. I thought it showed like a lot of maturity from John. And it was cool. Like, I was like kind of applauding that. Like, good, put this behind you and move on and, and, and do your jobs. John's fighting for the heavyweight title.

DC is one of the best commentators in the game. You know, it's cool. I was just glad to see them kind of squash that beef. Yeah, and I think John realizes that, right? Like, he's focused, I think. And that's, you know, he doesn't have an easy challenge going up with gun. I think he realized that he's focused on. He's not letting something else come into his mind as a distraction.

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, a lot of people we're talking about DC being biased, which I disagree. Now, I do think that it's hard for fighters doing commentary when they're doing commentary on a teammate or a training partner not to use that knowledge, which I think you've got to use your knowledge for that. And it's impossible to avoid because as I've learned doing the show with you, Matt, like you've trained with everybody. Like, I had no idea until, you know, a month ago or two months ago, do you train with Israel Adasanya? Like, I didn't know that. You train with a lot of people. So it's kind of built into the nature of the sport that you're going to be training with people.

And you might be like, you know, Daniel might seem to be a bit more biased towards Islam Makachia because they've trained together for years. And he's a teammate and a training partner of him to this day. You know, Paul Felder trains with Sean Brady. Guy that happens all the time. I'm curious for you, Matt. Like, you've fought on pay-per-views. You fought on fight nights. You fought, you know, with a lot of different.

Do you, like, because I know some fighters, like, I don't say they're. They're upset at a commentary team. Like they're going to say, I don't want this guy commentating my fights. But you've seen the stories. I know you have where people like fighters get upset at some of the commentary that said during their fights. I've done stories on it where people are like mad at Rogan or mad at D.C. Or mad at whoever because it makes it seem like they're commentating like in a one-sided fashion towards an opponent or not giving credit to the other guy or girl or whatever. I'm curious in your history.

Do you pay much attention to commentary in your fights afterwards or or days later? like you hear when you watch the fight like do you ever hear that do you ever care i absolutely do and when i watch the fights a lot of times the commentary give you a little bit of insight maybe what you were doing wrong things that you could have done um especially like because uh cornea in particular is very critical i think when at least you know from my experience watching my own fights like he's very critical of the techniques that you're using and things that you could be doing or should be doing um and maybe some people would would take that defensively, I take it as a positive, right?

Like I can learn from it and I can grow from it and I can use it. You know, like if I look at it as like Cormier's coaching me right now, you know, and there's that's things that I could be doing better. There has been other times where guys have commentated and I think that they just didn't understand what I was doing or maybe, you know, yeah, I guess, yeah, That's about it. They just didn't understand what I was doing

and why I was doing what I was doing. And, you know, that can be, that can certainly bother you if you let it. But I also understand they have a hard job. Like I've commentated before, you know, on like smaller, smaller regional shows. It's fucking hard, man. Especially like you're sitting there for, you know,

three, four hours and talking about all these fights. Like, sometimes you just got to say shit. I mean, sometimes you just got to talk, right? and you know you got to find things to talk about the whole time so you know i do have sympathy for him on that part there was only one time when i really didn't like the commentaries when i was fighting uh Diego lima and michael bisman was commenting and he was talking about some of the bad things that i was doing and it kind of like what i was just saying before i think he just didn't understand what i was doing um you know what like is you know the one thing that i i would like

commentators to maybe realize is that there is no right way to do things right there's your way there's my way right so that you know they all are everybody's going to be a little bit biased towards the way they were taught right like cornea you know talks a lot about wrestling right and how you know if you're doing if you're in a wrestling position he's going to tell you the way that his way is right or you know and you can't argue with cormii's way he's a fucking silver medalist right So, you know, there is times where I certainly feel that, but, you know, again, a lot of times I think they just don't understand, right? Because I'm coming from, I'm seeing it from a different perspective than they are.

But I also understand you got to talk, right? You've got to say something. And sometimes, you know, criticism is warranted. So even like with the Bisping situation, can I imagine you didn't get, like, irate and, like, confront him afterwards or anything like that? Like that wasn't that big of a thing? Just like a kind of a... No, no, no.

No, it wouldn't be anything like that. And I wouldn't, you know, if I seen Bistpian, I wouldn't say so, oh, you fucking fucked up my commentary or some shit. Like, like, again, I'm sympathetic towards what they're doing. And Bispying is great at what he does. It was just a, you know, I think there is times when, you know, I, again, it's hard, it's a hard job. You know, I think of the best commentators, you know, like Joe Rogan, I think is probably the best of all time, right? And he's good at saying what they're doing without sounding critical, right? He's just very good at wording things without sounding critical.

And, you know, other guys aren't. Like, Bispin is a critical guy, right? Like, who is. That's his personality, right? So. I think that also, I would imagine that probably also goes into, like, having, like, fighters do it versus, like, because Joe Rogan trains. Like, Joe Rogan knows the sport, right?

Like, he knows the sport. I know the sport. Like, I'm in Joe Rogans. I'm not, I don't train. I'm not at Joe Rogan's level in that way. I'm not a Black Belt and Jitza. I'm just saying, like, I'm that way. Like, I haven't fought.

You know what I mean? But I know the sport. But you get a Bisping or a Cormier or a Dominic Cruz or, you know, any of those guys in there. They know, so you're right. Like, they're good, like, the technique they use, they might think that's the right way to do it. They're not speaking out of malice. They're not doing it like as a, they're not doing it because they dislike you. They're just doing it because the way they did it was different than the way you did it.

And so they try to like use that. And I get it. That's like, because I'm sure if you had to get stuck on commentary for seven hours, you would probably do the same thing when someone threw an elbow and you'd say, well, this is not how I would throw an elbow or this is not, you know, because you're like the elbow king like that. You know what I mean? So, um, I always, I always get, I always like, I always tend to back up the commentators.

And I've done interviews. I've done stories of Michael Bisp being. Daniel Cormie and guys like that. I always tend to, because I know deep down, none of them do it with malice. None of them are doing it because they dislike you or because they don't want you to win. Or I don't believe that. Could there be a fighter who would do that? Sure.

But I think you weed that out. And we really do get kind of the best of the best guys doing the job. And I just, I like, does it sound like maybe they're being biased sometimes? Sure, it does. I'm not going to lie. There's some fights where I'm like, what are they watching? Like, come on now. Like, this is not one side.

But again, it's not an easy job, dude. I remember when I was in college, they did like a test like commentary for sports. And it was just like a fun little exercise like in broadcasting. I was working at a radio station and they decided to test us out and show us how to do it. And dude, I did it for like 30 minutes. And I was like sweating bullets. It is so hard to like, because you have to make up a lot of idle chatter. You know, you have to like just talk about the sport in general and the guy.

It's just a it's not an easy job. Like, it is not easy. And you're there for, I mean, you've been to a fight car before. You're there for eight hours for a fight night. You know what I mean? Like, it's not an easy gig. So, like, I always tend to back up the commentators in those things. Like, do they make mistakes?

Do they say something wrong? Sure, of course they do. But I don't think any of them do it to be like, oh, fuck Matt Brown. No, I don't think they ever do that. Like, you know, they're never doing it because they dislike you. They're just doing it because they did it a different way and they're talking about that different way. Exactly. And they're also humans, right?

like they go through emotions too like you're sitting there for five six seven hours however long it is and like you're going to have emotion so you're going to start getting tired you're going to be sick of watching fights you're going to be sick of sitting there talking and maybe you might you know just be like this motherfucker doesn't even know what he's doing right that's kind of maybe what's going through your head like again I've done it on regional shows before and you know sometimes you watch fighting and guys do something and you just can't figure out why he's doing it you're like this dude just fucking sucks so um you know that they may be feeling that in their head.

But again, I don't, I've never taken it as a malice or a slight against me or anything. And, you know, you certainly could find those spots where, where that's a possibility. You know, sometimes, you know, you certainly come in. They come. When I walk in that cage, they certainly have an expectation of what they're going to expect my fight to be. And when it's not exactly that, then they have to change up the whole conversation. like why isn't it being that?

So, you know, again, I have a lot of sympathy for them. And I think all of the team that they have does a fantastic job. I think they have a great commentating team. And I don't have anything against any of those guys. I think they're all great. And I know you were praising last week and she showed up again this past week. It was Laura Sanko, the newest member. She did a great job in her debut.

She had a tough one to step into because that Derek Lewis car was rough. And then she was on Sunday night or Saturday night. I thought she did a great job. It's long past time that Laura was on no commentary team. I think she should have been on there long before now, but she does a fantastic job, and I want to continue to commend her for that because I hope they continue to put her in that rotation. I know you were praising her on Twitter. Like, she did a fantastic job.

Yeah, exactly. I think she does great. And I think it's really good just to have, I don't know, maybe it's because she's a female, but just having that other voice in there, like it just adds a whole other dimension to it that just has. hasn't never been there. Maybe that's just because she's female or maybe it's because of what she's saying. I'm not sure.

But, you know, I think she adds a great dimension to it. And again, I think she, everything she says is very, at least from my experience, listening to her, has been very valuable and is very well spoken and very clear. And I think she does a tremendous job. And just like I said on Twitter, I think she could be, she may not be there yet, but I think she'll be probably the best commentator since Joe Rogan. Yeah, I mean, she's fantastic. And I do like when they switch the teams up because it does give you, like you said,

it is fun to hear a different perspective, right? Like with the pay-per-views, generally we get, you know, Anick and Rogan and I like that team. I think because remember back in the day, it used to just be Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan. And then they had a third man to the booth. And I think D.C. does a tremendous job with John Anick and Joe Rogan. And then occasionally, like, you know, they'll do a pay-per-view. Like, I know they had Michael Bisping there one time.

I know they had Paul Felder there one time. They travel internationally when they went to Australia. They had, I think it was Bisping and Dominic Cruz. They do the fight nights. Paul Felder steps in there. So I like, and I really like Brendan Fitzgerald, too. I think he does a great job as play-by-play. The other guy who does it there, I think John Gooden's really good his job.

I do miss Dan Hardy. I wish I kind of feel bad that he's not there anymore. He's a really good commentator. He's a really knowledgeable commentator. But yeah, I mean, I do. I like they switch it up. And again, I feel, I don't, it's not like they, I'm sure, know of them give a crap whether or not I defend them. But I do, I think they do a tremendous job.

And it's a, I think the thing that, cannot be said enough is it so hard to do what they do man like if you've done it i tried to do it once in college and i was like oh jesus this is not easy yeah yeah i actually just did a couple weeks ago on a small show out in virginia yeah it's not easy and uh having someone there with you that does it well helps a lot but um it was so funny when it was just goldberg and rogan for the longest time and as soon as i don't remember who the first person whenever they fired um goldberg and Brian someone else I fucking hated it man

I was like but now when you go back and you look and you listen you're like okay they did the right thing and I love Goldberg you know he's still you know one of the greatest commentators

of all the time I wish he still had a place in there but having a three person team and having the guys they have in there is I think they've done a great job with it they have and we talk about bias just being honest like that's just natural you're going to be like

if you are commentating AJ Dobson's fight, you're probably going to feel a little differently commentating his fight versus just some other dude. You know what I mean? Like there's a, there actually is like an inherent knowledge there too. Like I understand like you don't want to like I understand people saying, well, you know, D.C. shouldn't commentate Khab or Islam's fights. I get that. They've been teammates for a decade.

They're very close. I understand that. Like I understand that notion. But I also understand it's a job. Like I know I've heard Paul Felder call fights for his teammates. and, you know, he'll be blunt. He's been very blunt and said, like, he's not doing what he should be doing. He looks like he's gas.

Like, he'll say things that are, like, very critical. And I think that's because he knows the guy better. Like, he knows what this guy's capable of. And I appreciate that. Like, I remember when Sean Brady fought Bilal Muhammad, I think it was Paul Felder was doing commentary. You could tell it sucked because he trains with both guys. You know what I mean?

But he was being honest with this guy. That's the job. And again, and again, no one should take offense to that. Like, they're just doing their job. Like, it's just like we're all. here and we pick against a fight or we or we say something like it's now i always say like i don't mean it to a i'm not saying it because i dislike a person or i don't think they're a good fighter i'm just giving my honest opinion like that's all it is and this is no different than commentary like i don't

do it with malice or because i dislike a person it's just my honest opinion yeah and i remember back in the day i remember sometimes i would hear about uh hosts or you have tv shows or podcasts or whatever and they pick against me i'm motherfucker fuck him you know i don't know think it's the right way to feel about it, you know, because, you know, you have to look at it objectively. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get a nice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice, yes, we deliver those.

Goaltenders, no, but chicken tenders, yes, because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. This episode is brought to you by Peloton.

A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ. Built for breakthroughs with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Lift with confidence. While Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress.

Let yourself run, lift, flow, and gut. Explore the new Peloton Cross-Training tread plus at OnePeloton.C.A. Fifth thing you should fire you up and you got to take that as fuel for the fire. Like, you know, people are picking against me. You know, these guys that are looking at things objectively and they're looking at it, you know, without bias, you have to assume that they're looking at it without bias. Yeah, absolutely. If you know then if they're your friend and they're picking against you,

they're probably being even less biased. So you have to take that into account. and not let it bring you down instead and let it fire you up. One of the reasons I hate picking fights because I hate it coming back on me. I hate when people get mad at me. Like, I'm not doing it because I dislike it, man. Like, I'm not doing it because I don't like you. I'm just doing it because I'm being honest.

Yeah, I feel the same way. You know, we pick fights all the time. And I always feel terrible for the guy that I'm picking against, you know, because, you know, but then I feel good when they prove me wrong too. So it kind of goes ways. It does. Speaking of before we get to some advice from Matt Brown, I want to bring up real quick the boxing match coming up this week

in between Jake Paul and Tommy Fury it's on Sunday in Saudi Arabia we'll have full coverage over on MMA fighting I actually had a chance for the first time ever I interviewed Tommy Fury for this fight spoke for about 15 minutes really nice guy I was very he was very impressive behind me I have a lot of

horror movie masks and immediately when we got on the Zoom call he's like oh you got all the Halloween mask I was like immediately you're in my cool book because he was like he's a big horror movie fan really nice guy Are you going to biasedly pick for Tommy Fury now because he's horror? He likes horror. Of course.

I'm going to immediately be biased towards him. But I had never talked to him before. Incredibly nice guy. Well spoken. Kind of changed my opinion on him a little bit just because, you know, when you get, when you talk to somebody, you get a little different feeling for them than just watching them on TV. A little bit of that.

But this is an interesting matchup because I'll be honest. I've not been, I said on the show, I'm not going to change my mind now. Like I've said, I've not been overly impressed by what I've seen. seen out of Tommy Fury in the ring. Now, to his credit, he does have more experience in Jake Paul against actual boxers. He's 8 and 0 and, you know, Jake's 6 and O and Jake hasn't fought an actual boxer yet. I still stand by the fact that Anderson Silva is a pretty damn good boxer for his age, but he's still not a boxer. It's still not his profession. I'm curious. I know you really hadn't seen Tommy fight that much. Do you have any expectations for this fight? Is this in any

way, shape, or form like a proving point for Jake Paul? Because he's actually fighting a boxer this time? So I did end up watching a little bit of Tom Furious fights. I did a little bit of digging into his record. First and foremost, we say he's fought some boxers. He fought one moderately decent boxer. Okay, the guys that he boxed, one guy's record was like, I think it was like two and a hundred or something.

Like, seriously. I mean, you might have your computer. Look it up on Boxerick right now. his opponents were fucking horrible. The one guy that he beat that had a winning record, I had a decent winning record,

is 10 and 1. All of his opponents were, you know, like 3 and 36 or 4 and 10, you know, terrible guys. So, that's really,

his first opponent, his first opponent has a record of 10 and 102. There you go. 10 wins, 102 losses. Go get through all of them real quick. All of his opponent, ends and losses.

So I think if they total, somebody, I heard somebody total it up, but something like 50 and 400 or something. Okay, so his first opponent was 10, 102, and three, the three being draws. His second opponent is 0 and 26 with two draws.

So 0 in 26. His third opponent is 2 and 26. Fourth opponent, oh, and 11. Fifth opponent, oh, and 9. six opponent was 2-0 so he did fight somebody that had an undefeated record with two fights Anthony Taylor the former UFC fighter

former mixed martial artist he was 0-1 and 1 and then his last opponent was 10-1 that's the first opponent he's faced who actually had like a legitimate like winning record actually any kind of winning record besides being 1-0 or 2-0 so yeah his first like few opponents

out his first five opponents had a combined 12 wins and I can't do the math $100. $148, $154, $165 losses?

No, 174 losses if I did the math real quick there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the one guy that he beat that was 10 and 1 basically had the same sort of record where he'd only been beating, you know, I don't even know what you call those taxi driver guys

that, you know, like 2 and 26, like, how do they even get commission or sanctioned to fight again? You know, like at some point, you know, the commission's got to say, look, find a different job, motherfucker. And to be fair, to be, and not to defend Tommy Fury, but this is something Jake Paul's brought up a lot when, when people talk about, well, you're not fighting boxers. Typically speaking, boxers coming up, don't fight good guys until their 10, 12 fights in their group. Canelo Alvarez, all his opponents up to like his ninth or 10th or 12 pro fight were god awful. I mean, they were all like, oh, they're like two and ten. That's how boxers work. I'm not saying it's a good thing.

I'm just saying like, it's different than MMA where you generally don't get to that point. We saw a guy on Saturday night. There was a kid from fighting on Saturday night's card who got beat on the under on the undercard by Jamal Embers who had like 23 and O. And he had all these wins and knockouts and stuff. But he got in there and he didn't look like he deserved to be in there. Like he didn't. And he got beat 3027 or whatever. what we call a pattern record.

You don't generally get that in MMA, but it happens in boxing all the time. Lots of boxers start out 15, 20, and O before they actually face anyone as any good. Yeah, absolutely. That's a common thing in boxing, building the guys up like that and getting the experience. And a very common thing.

So with that said, I don't know how good either one of these guys are, to be honest. Both of them know how to box. Jake Paul knows how to box. Like, you know, I had a lot of questions about, them coming in just like everybody did he's answered those questions like these guys that he is beat tyrone woodley anderson sylva these guys are probably better than the guys that Tommy fury be to be honest yeah i mean here's the reality people get lost in the whole you haven't

fought boxers thing and and then they don't do their own homework on who these people are fighting You know, that's the problem. You just said 10 and 102. How much threat is that guy really? I mean, the guy who's 0 and 29, how much threat is that guy? He's not being brought in there to challenge you. He's being brought in for you to beat him. Jake Paul would probably beat all eight of those opponents that Tommy Fury is beaten.

I would wager Jake Paul would probably beat all of them also. Exactly. You know what I mean? So this whole, like, you haven't fought a boxer thing. Yeah, he hasn't fought, you know, Canelo Alvarez and he hasn't fought, you know, Demetri Bivel. He hasn't fought. Yeah, of course. But that's a whole other animal.

He hasn't fought a legit boxer, but what he has fought, as opposed to Tommy Fury, is world-class athletes. Yeah. Like, I. Wong Woodley is a world-class athlete. Now, whether he was motivated or training hard or, you know, in his athletic prime when he fought Jake Paul,

probably not, right? But he's still a fucking world-class. I guarantee he's a better athlete than any of those guys. than Tommy Fury 5. So I would wager that, or I would argue that Jake Paul's record is currently better than Tommy Fury. Especially with Anderson Silva win. Like I don't think, I think Anderson Silva would go eight no against all those guys also. Yeah, I think that's the thing you get missed when you hold, you haven't fought a boxer thing.

Like, are you saying he hasn't fought a boxer? Are you saying he hasn't fought a world class boxer? Because I could easily argue Tommy Fury hasn't fought a world class boxer either. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, he's got, like, there are, there are plenty of fighters out there, boxers who have 8-0 records who have padded 8-0 records. That's a very common theme in boxing. And Jake Paul's credit, he could be fighting those same guys and B-20 and O right now and fight nobody. But he actually has fought some names.

Now, Nate Robinson, okay? The difference is that Tommy Fury has fought, what we come taxi drivers or, you know, just useless opponents, right? guys that she brought in for slaughter. Lambs brought in for slaughter. Jake Paul has fought fibers. They're not boxers, but they're at least fighters.

These guys are actual, they have the heart of fighters, and we know that. We've seen it. We don't, I have a, I find a hard time believing that any of those guys that Tommy Fury fought are real fighters at heart. They're not warriors.

Yeah, and I think that the three wins in particular on Jake's record, to me, look good. Two Tyron Woodley wins and an Anderson Silva win. Now, I'm not going to sit there and say Ben Ascran isn't an athlete. He is, but we know what Ben Ascran is. I love Ben, but Ben's never been a boxer that was always going to be a big mismatch for Ben. And Nate Robinson's an NBA player. Now, is he a tremendous athlete?

Absolutely, but he's not a boxer. So I'll discount those fights, but Tyron Woodley is a legit, legit, welterweight legend. Like, is he a boxer? No. can he knock your block off with one punch? Absolutely. Is he a world-class athlete? Absolutely.

And the Anderson, I hate the Anderson-Silver thing because going into the fight, you and I were, you know, leaning towards Anderson-Silva, praising him left, right, and center, and then he loses. And, of course, the narrative then, well, he's 47. Did he look 47 when he was beating Julio Cesar Chavez-June? No, he looked great. He looked tremendous. I know, listen, I know Tito Ortiz is not a good fighter, but he knocked him out in 30 seconds, which is what he should have done.

He did do, you know what I mean? Like, I hate that now he's a 47-year-old guy. He lost. If he had won, we'd be like, oh, my God, can you see what this guy's doing in 47? My God, this guy's incredible. He lost. He lost. Oh, he's 47. He's washed up. Shut up. Anderson Silva is a good boxer. Is he a world-class?

Is he a heavy? Is he a championship-level boxer? Probably not. But does that mean he's not a good boxer? I mean, come on now. Like, you know, as you said. And you have to walk out with the same, you can't stand on a statement and then pull it back after the fight. Like you said, we knew he was.

47 going into the fight, and most of us picked him going into the fight. So we can't walk back that statement after the fight and say, oh, well, he was 47. It's like, well, you knew that going into the fight, buddy. Yeah. Yes. So I agree with you on that. So to be honest, it's pretty interesting how this fight came about because this is the right fight for both of them in their career right now. And we're going to find out who has the potential to actually get better.

better, right, and move up in, you know, whatever rankings they're trying to move up in. I mean, you know, Tommy Fury is trying to actually move up in, you know, real boxing rankings. I'm not sure if that's Jake Paul's ultimate goal or not. But, you know, this is most guys at their level with these 8-0, 6-0 records wouldn't take on the challenge that they're taking on. They would keep beating up, you know, the taxi drivers. Yeah. So do you do you have a pick? you lean one way to the other because I'll be honest Matt

I think it's I think it is a tougher fight for both of them because Tommy is like Tommy has legitimate boxing skills that's what he's trained his entire life in but I've not been overly impressed by Tommy Fury I've said that here and I'm not going to change my opinion now just because I talk to the guy and I think he's a nice guy and I have a lot of respect for him but I don't I just I've not been impressed by what I've seen now Tommy Fury and I've actually been impressed by a couple of

things I've seen out of Jake Paul especially the knockout power That's there. He rattled Anderson Silva. He's knocked out several people. He has that power behind him. So I got to lean to Jake Paul in this fight. I don't know if he'll knock him out. I don't know if it's going to be like that kind of a dramatic ending. They both are making crazy predictions. This is not going to make it past the fourth round, all this kind of stuff. But I do think Jake Paul will win. I think this is a little tougher test because it is a legitimate boxer in the sense of Tommy Fury only trains boxing. This is all he's done. He's not an MMA fighter learning boxing. So I do think that's good for him. But I still think Jake's got the. size, he's got the power. I still think he's a decent enough boxer to continue winning. Again, there will be, if Jake continues to rise up the ranks, I do believe he will run into a guy one day that will beat him because I don't think Jake has out that championship level of legitimate, you know, when we talk about the best boxer, I don't think he's there. But can he still continue to win a lot of these fights early on?

Yeah, so I go with Jake Paul. Yeah, I think it's a very difficult one to call because, again, like, they just haven't really fought guys. But, you know, what I found interesting was when I watched the Tommy Fury fights, and I remember you telling me how unimpressed you were watching his fights. And I wasn't as unimpressed as you were, I think. You know, he did what he was supposed to do to all those guys pretty much, right? Like, he beat the hell out of pretty much everybody that he fought.

Like, there wasn't any close matches as far as I could tell. I didn't watch the whole fights. I watched highlights it. but as far as I could tell, there wasn't like close fights. That's what you're supposed to do. That's why they bring the lamb to the slaughter. You're supposed to slaughter him, and he slaughtered all of them. So we don't really know what either of these guys are capable of.

Now, from what I could tell is Tommy likes the fight to be long at a distance and kind of work his way little by little, right? Like he likes his jab a lot and likes to follow up his jab, like basic boxing fundamental stuff, right? Jake kind of likes a little closer, you know, likes to clinch a little more and kind of push you around, bully you a little bit. So I think it's really going to come down to who's able to implement their game plan. So I have a hard time finding a pick here. I think if there's going to be a difference maker, maybe, you know, like 55% over to Jake

because I think he does have the power to hurt Tommy Fury and I'm not sure that Tommy Fury has the power to hurt Jake. And I think Jake is probably going to be able to get in close and land some hard shots and maybe wear Tommy Fury out because Tommy seems to like the fight kind of pretty and stuff. And I think Jake can make it look. little bit dirty. So I think it's going to go to a decision. And I think it's going to be probably a, um, you know, not a great fight. Right. Like it's not going to, it's not going to end with a good

book for either person. And I think the judges are probably going to lean towards Jake Paul. This is, um, this is kind of where I've ended with my research. Yeah. I agree. I think I, I do pick Jake. I agree with you. I don't think it's going to be the crazy fight. that everyone's, that they're predicting. You know, they're both predicting these wild knockouts and that's what fighters do. We understand that. But, yeah, I don't think it's going to play out that way. I just, I think both the guys are, this is, in a weird, this is going to sound weird to say this.

This is weirdly a fight you wouldn't normally see at this stage in their careers. Like, you know what I mean? Generally, generally, generally speaking, these guys would get to 15, 16 and O before they'd ever see each other. Like, that's just the nature of boxing. And I think a lot of people get, talking about each other at 15, 16, oh, and then, you you know, maybe start talking about locations at 20 and 0 and then actually 5, 23, 24, no, right?

Yeah, yeah, that's how that's how boxing works. I think that's one thing that gets missed your. Boxing just, I mean, again, if you look at Tommy Fury's record, we're talking about fighting a guy who's 10 and 102. I mean, come on now. Like, are we really going to say that's like, yeah, he has boxing experience, but, you know, what guy in the crowd did they pick out for him to fight? I mean, you know, like, yeah, Matt, you could have.

Exactly. That's not better boxing experience. what Jake Paul has. Now, did Tommy fight amateur? Do you know about that? I don't know if he did or not, to be honest. I'm not really sure. That was the one thing I couldn't really find any info on.

And that would be a game if he did, because that's a lot of experience. You know, if he had a lot of amateur fights, which is pretty common for boxers to have a lot of amateur fights, which that could be the difference maker, that experience. I just don't know if he did. But again, I kind of see, like, I just think it's going to end up being an under-

fight for both of them. Like it's going to lose, they're going to lose some of the lure on both of them because I don't see, you know, I think it's going to be a tightly contested match. I think the judges are probably going to lean towards Jake because he's probably going to come forward more and he's going to grab and, you know,

kind of bully a little bit more and he's going to land probably bigger, more powerful shots. And it's just going to look better for him. But it's going to be probably such a sloppy, you know, that's part of why these guys don't fight guys with that kind of record until they're, you know, 20 and 0 or whatever, right? They don't want that kind of stain of a, you know, a poor fight and that they barely squeezed

out, right? And I think one of these guys is going to barely squeeze it out. I think probably Jake Paul, but one of them is just barely going to squeeze it out, I think. Real quick, before we move on from this, I want to ask Matt, I want to get your opinion on this real quick, if Tommy Fury wins, and let's just say it's not a close. flight. I'm not saying it's a blowout or a knocker. Just he wins. It's eight rounds, I think. He wins six another eight rounds. Pretty, you know, pretty definitive win for Tommy Fury. Does the interest in Jake Paul just go away? Like, is he, is he in that situation

now where one loss just, I'll say it ends the, because he's now he's going to PFL, he's started doing MMA, he's got other things going on, and there's still going to be, you know, he can fight KSI, he can fight other influencers, things like that. But does the, the true fascination would Jake Paul go away with one loss? Well, you know, um, Well, Damon, I'm the fighter here and you're the writer. You would probably, I should probably be asking you that question. What do you think? I don't think it goes away entirely because, as I said, there's still other matches that could be of interest.

Like I said, he could fight KSI. People will still tune in for that. He could fight other influencers and people would still tune in for that. He could, you know, fight another MMA guy. He could fight, you know, some, I don't know who. I mean, I don't know. He can fight Nick Diaz. that could still be a fight that would sell.

Would the interest wane? Yeah, I would. Because I think at that point, the mystique around Jake Paul being this guy who's going to try to be a legitimate, like, threat in the boxing world, that goes away because I don't think anyone's looking at Tommy Fury right now and saying, my God, this guy is, you know, the next Mike Tyson. I mean, come on now. So, yeah, I think it does go away a little bit, but I don't think it goes away entirely

because, again, there's still matchups out there for him that people would care about. Would he lose the attention he's been trying to? to build himself into being a legitimate boxer? Yeah, that goes away a lot with one. And again, it also depends on how he loses. If he loses convincingly six rounds to two, seven rounds to one, whatever, and it's just not a close fight, yeah, I think a lot of that goes away. And then he really is stuck in, like, the influencer boxing world.

He's not going to be, you know, I'm going to fight Canello in 10 fights. Listen, you and I both know, in reality, he ain't fighting Canello, never going to fight Canello. Just, let's just stop. But he can talk about it because he's undefeated, he's beating people. to continue to play that card because he is undefeated because he is knocking people out so on and so forth. He loses that that part goes away. Yeah, I like, I mean, if I had to pick one person for him to fight it, it would be Dimitri Bevall, right?

Like, he's actually his size and he's a good boxer and he would piece him up pretty bad and Jake would learn a good lesson. But, you know, of course, again, like you said, that's not going to happen. And so I don't know where his allure goes, to be honest. you know, he's not going to lose his fan base, right? He built that long before he was ever boxing. So he's still going to have all his fans what he does with it from there. I think he's a brilliant businessman. I think he's very smart in how he markets himself and how he puts himself out there.

And I don't think he's ultimately going to lose, you know, his overall brand is going to be fine no matter what because he's very good with his brand. now we're all of course all of us purists and all of us um um you know fight fans and everything you know we're gonna be okay well we don't really care to see box anymore but his brand will be fine right like i mean i'm sure he's already fine he's set you know so um i'm i'm weirdly of the mind as much as uh maybe this is a controversial opinion mat but i'm of the mindset that i think jake paul is good for combat sports i do i just think like him being around and bringing in a younger like when i was at his boxing match

with Tyrone Woodley here in Cleveland, the audience was so young. Like I've been to hundreds of UFC fights. And it is typically a younger skewing audience. When I say younger, I'm talking like 20s and 30s. You know what I mean? Like a younger-ish crowd. There were teenagers jumping up and down, buying merchandise, you know, buying tickets. You know, we're talking like 15, 16-year-old kids.

I had people come up asking me to get, could they get my credential? Like they wanted like mementos and they were going nuts. like Jake brings in a different audience so in that way I'm kind of like he's good because like people people that wouldn't be interested otherwise are interested because of Jake Paul you know what I mean?

So I'm maybe I'm on the outlier of I don't know if I am or not but I think he's good for combat sports like he's bringing attention to issues he's talking about you know doing like a 5050 split for pay-per-view and PFL he's doing talking about fighter unions

he's obviously gone to war with Dana White and you can say it's a publicity stunt but guess what? It still works still works still be gets us to talk about issues that are actually relevant in the sport, fighter pay, you know, benefits, things like that. So, yeah, I'm up to mindset that Jake Paul's good for combat sports. So I'm not rooting for him to win or do I care that much of he loses.

But I hope he doesn't go away because I think in a weird way he's good for the sport. I think he's just, I do. I think he's good for the combat sports. That's interesting. I never, you know, I don't have no hate for him at all, you know. Everything I've always said, you know, I think it's pretty cool what he's doing here, coming up fighting Tommy Fury because what I've always said before

is what he's always done in the past hasn't been boxing, right? Like I'm a boxing purist and what he's done before was not boxing. What he was doing was just a show. It was just entertainment. And like you said,

it brought a lot of ice to sport. Boxing, well, you know, we've been saying that it's dying for, what, 20 years now and it hasn't died. But, you know, I think it has, always been.

The one thing about boxing is it has always been, at least in the last 20 years or so. Like, it has been kind of on that cliff where it feels like it could just die right off any time. And he's bringing it back. So maybe he'll do the same thing with MMA and not that MMA's on a cliff, I don't think. But I've felt that way about boxing for a long time, you know. Like there's only been two or three at most top stars keeping it alive. You know, it's just always kind of been right on the edge, you know. And of course there is always that next star, but I don't know.

I just kind of always had that feeling. Like, what if there's not the next star, right? Like some of these guys expected to be stars didn't end up being stars. And, you know, even as great as they are. So and with MMA, taking a huge portion of their demographic, you know, it always felt to me like it was on a cliff. No, I agree with you because a lot of, a lot of the attention around boxing surrounds one fight, right?

Like, it's not, you know, it's around Canelo fighting or Tyson Fury fighting or, you know, a big, you know, matchup like that. Or we talk about like Terrence Crawford fighting Errol Spinn. So, you know, like one fight here and there, one fight here and there. It doesn't, it doesn't contain the same, it doesn't have the same sustained following that MMA does,

where people tune in every week to watch the UFC. People aren't tuning every week to watch boxing. They tune in to watch a boxer. They'll tune in to watch Jervante Davis. They'll tune in to watch Tyson Fury. They'll tune in to watch Lomachinko. They're not tuning in to watch the undercar. They're not tuning in to see Lomachinko's training partners.

They're not, you know, that's the difference when doing boxing in MMA is you tune in typically regardless. Yeah, there are going to be people who only show up when Conner fights. Yes, that happens, absolutely. But MMA has a much bigger overall fan base where people just say, oh, the UFC's on. I'll watch. They don't really care who's on. They're just, the UFC's on or PFL or bellator or whatever.

Boxing is always about that one guy, you know, generally. You're not, you don't too different. You wonder, you know, maybe the analytics or statistics on, you know, how many people care about boxing to the extent that they're listening to a podcast about boxing, right, versus like Ariel Hawani or what we're doing or, you know, Chale Sondon and, you know, these big podcasts where people are following the sport. and getting into the personalities and who these people are and what they're doing. And, you know, versus boxing where, like you said, it's one or two people that they're watching matches for. No one even knows who's on the prelims of Canello half the time.

I know it. But you watch it, you know, UFC, you know, the whole prelim card sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. No, it's a different, and you're absolutely right. It always feels like it's on that cliff. And again, I like boxing, but I'm not a boxing purist like you are. Like, you follow it far more than I do. I'm guilty of it too.

I tune in for the one fight. Like, I tune in to watch Canello. I tune in to watch, you know, like, I'm excited for Giovante Davis and Ryan Garcia. Like, I'll tune in to watch that. I'll tune in to watch, you know, certain fights. You know, I'd love to see, you know, Terence Crawford and Errol Spence and things like that. Tyson Fury fights always watch. But yeah, I'm guilty of it just as much as anybody.

I don't watch the entire undercard of Tyson Fury fight cards. I watch Tyson Fury's fights. Well, I mean a perfect example right there. We're talking about like who's number one, maybe two pound for pound of the world right now. I bet you can't even name his name. Well,

I assume Terrence Crawford's up there, isn't he? He's the number one up there. But a little guy. Oh, isn't there a Japanese fighter who's like really high up there? Yeah. What's his name? He knows his name, right?

I don't know his name. Yeah, in a way. In a way. Yeah. See, I knew who I was talking. about but I didn't know his name. See, I was, I was, yeah. Yeah, where is, where is, uh, better be at? I like him too. I like watching him. He's really good. Um, I'm not sure where's that pound for pound, but I mean, he, he's an absolute killer. I just a goddamn savage.

Hopefully, um, him and Boval end up fighting is what I'm hoping for it. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, that's what I'm, like I said, there you go. Perfect example. Like, I, I consider myself a fan, but I didn't know that. So see, there you go. You're absolutely proving yourself right, Matt. Um, real quick before we get out of here. We said we're going to start a new advice column from Matt Brown. I'm so excited about this. Now, we said on the show we didn't want to do just generic questions like, you know, what's your favorite five or who hits you the hardest?

We're going to do like actual advice. Now, I got a bunch of questions. I got to narrow it down to a couple because I want to stay on here all night. But I have a couple of questions lined up for you. One, I'll go with two fight-related questions and then one love advice, which I do love that. Somebody asked love advice. So let me, here's two things real quick.

I think you can answer that won't one. There's one question I want to say for next week, which is, how would you improve judging in MMA? I'm not going to hit you with that one yet because that's a much wider question. That's going to be a bigger discussion. You and I have talked about having a much broader conversation on judging. So I want to get to that one, but not now. The one question, and this is a good one.

I like this one a lot, as a guy who's about to fight in May, is it fair to put UFC vets with over 25 fights in the apex with no crowd? I know your answer, Matt, because I agree with you. like seeing Jim Miller a legend most wins in UFC history fighting without a crowd on Saturday night was sad. I don't want to see that. I want to see a crowd. Like he walked out to Iron Man by Black Sabbath. I want to hear the crowd go nuts when that hits when you hear the doom.

I am Iron Man. Like I want to hear the crowd with that. So I know your answer. Is it fair to put UFC vets with 25 fights or more in the UFC apex with no crowd? I'll start by saying I hate the word fair. That's where I have to start. Like, anytime someone asks me is something fair, I generally just, you know, fuck it.

This is even a good question, right? Nothing is fair in life. Don't expect fairness and, you know, fuck fairness, right? Nothing in life is fair. That's all that comes down to. If I were running the UFC, Jim Miller would be fighting in New Jersey, you know, at least co-made event. you know, regardless whether he won his last fight,

his last five fights, whatever, you know, that's me. UFC does things different ways. And, you know, Jim Miller agreed to it, so that's what he got. You know, I'm probably going to be fighting the apex myself. I'm betting in May. And court McGee, right? You know, another long-standing veteran of the UFC. So I'm not going to ever say something's not fair, right?

because we agree to it and that's what it is and wish they're getting paid the same. Should it be different? I think so. I think once you get a certain amount, I think in a perfect world, maybe there's some sort of a tier system or something, once you get to a certain number of fights,

certain number of wins, you know, something, some sort of landmark where, you know, you're proving yourself, you should be able to get some benefits out of that, I think, you know, in a perfect world. I'm not sure that it'll ever work that way, though. I do like that idea, though, like, you know, like a graduation system. Like when you get to so many fights, you get to kind of like, not saying you're going to pick your opponents or pick and choose where you fight,

but, like, they give you an option. Like, you know, hey, you can fight in, you can fight at UFC 287. You're going to be on the prelims, but you're going to be at USC 287. You're going to fight in front of a crowd. Or you can be the co-main event on the UFC Apex card. So you're going to be one of the final fights tonight. you're going to be one of the marquee fights, you know, whatever, but you're going to be in the apex. Give me that choice.

Like, there are two weeks apart, you know what I mean? Like, which one would you rather be in? I think that'd be cool to give, like, the veterans, you know, like you and guys, like, guys who have been there. I think that'd be kind of cool. Like, you know, you've earned the right to like, you know, have just at least a little bit of say. Like, not a lot.

They're not saying you're going to pick your opponent and, you know, you're going to pick your spot on the card. They're just giving you a little bit of, like, just a little bit of a question about, like, where you want to fight. I think that'd be kind of cool. Yeah, and there's certainly, I guess, unspokenness of that, right? Like, I can call Sean Shelby now and ask for an opponent much more than I could when I had, you know, two or three fights in the UFC, right?

It doesn't mean I necessarily get it. It doesn't mean it's going to work that way. But, you know, I've built some rapport and some tenure with those guys. So there is something to that. But there's also, you know, there's no guarantee of that either. So again, when I talk about perfect world, yeah, I think it would be cool if there was some sort of additional benefits that you get as you move along. You know, it could even be something as simple as like health insurance or whatever, you know, which is a whole other discussion, you know, or, you know, guaranteed amount of pay every year or, you know, whether it's, you know, you're not going to fight guys that have less than this number of fights in the UFC. You know what I mean?

There's a million different things you could do and different ways you could do it. Marshall's buyers travel far and wide, hustling for great deals on amazing gifts. So you don't have to. They've bagged this season's Italian leather handbags. Designer. Handpicked the finest sweaters from the rest.

Ooh, cashmere. Landed makeup pallets from the brands you love. Rushes too. And hustled all those wishless topping toys. So plush. Our buyers. I've got you covered. Marshals, we get the deals.

You gift for good stuff. It's the matcha or the three ensemble Ciceroa the FACETs that I just to deniches, who energize so much. It's the ensemble. The format standard and mini-regrouped, what abem? And the embellage,

too beau, who is practically pre-a-donned. And I know that I'd they'd offer them, but I'm sorry and Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez. I'm just a couple ensemble, the Cadowd of the Feds

Cepora desktes, RARECuts, and other part of VIT. Ciform a standard and mini, regrouped for a better quality price. On link on Cipara.C.A.

or a magazine. But I think it would be a cool idea if it could be done that way. But don't ever ask me if something is fair or not because it's irrelevant when you put the word fair in there. Nothing is fair.

That's like when I always tell people when you're a fan of the sports strike the word deserves from your vocabulary because nobody, like, just you're going to drive yourself insane. Like he deserves a title shot. No, because you're just going to drive yourself

lunatic. thinking about that because no one deserves it. Like that's just the reality of sport. Like, do I believe someone should get a title shot over another person? Absolutely. Does that mean they deserve it? No, because you just, you will lose your mind with that word in this sport deserves because no one's going to deserve.

That's just not how it works. One other question. You don't get what you deserve. You get what you earn. And, you know, the UFC is probably more, you know, be holding to that than anywhere else in the world. world, right? Like, you get what you earn in the UFC. Some people have to earn it more than others, but if you earn it, you will get it. Yeah. One other question they have, which I'll just roll this

in. It was like basically if you were a, if you were like an executive, it says USC admin, but I'm going to say executive at DFC, like what improvements would you make to the sport? That's such a broad question. But I'll say this, like you're without going too deep in the woods on this one. Like, I think it'd be fun to like, wouldn't it be cool? And I'm throwing out, they're asking your opinion, Matt, but like you're talking about little things you could do to make a difference, like minimum pay, you only fight certain guys over certain experience, things like that. Like, wouldn't it be cool if there was like an advisory board of like veteran fighters who could help? Like, I'm not saying they're going to rule over the UFC, but like to like offer like

suggestions on little tweaks. Like I'm not saying, I'm not going to say they're going to tackle fighter pay. That's a whole other subject and a much bigger subject. But like little things like that. Like they help like with that kind of style. Wouldn't it be cool to have that kind of influence, like have maybe some veteran fighters like, you know, step up and make and offer advice on things like like, hey, you got Matt Brown fighting. Let's not put him on an apex card. Let's put him on a, you know, a fight in front of fans or Jim Miller's fighting. Let's get him in Jersey or get him in the New York card.

I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I'm overthinking it. Yeah, I think it's difficult because we just don't know the intricacies, the nuances of the deals that they have with ESPN and, you know, the types of pressures that Sean Shelby, McManard and Dana are under. And, you know, the type, I think there's just a lot more nuance to that than we're ever really going to understand. and until you do, are able to put yourself in their shoes and actually see through their lens, it would make for a lot of, probably poor discourse, to be honest. Like, there'd be a lot of bickering back and forth and nothing getting accomplished, you know.

And now, with that said, there is a fighter advisory board being made with the ABC, which I'll be put in front of the commissions, right? And I was actually approached to be a part of that, but by Rose Gracie. I was all about it and was willing to jump on board, and then we come to find out that they're actually only accepting retired fighters. So maybe when I retire, I'll join in on that. But for the current time, I know Dean Thomas is a huge part of it.

God, I can't remember the other names. There's some legitimate names and high levels of experience on this currently. So that's a step in the right direction, right? I love that. I loved hearing that. And hopefully that will lead to more changes. And yeah, that'd be great. If you get to do that after retirement,

I think it'd be a fantastic idea because I know we've talked a lot about, you know, rules and judging and things like that to give me changed. And I think it's awesome that they're actually going that far to have like fighter advisory board to have fighters because it should be. I mean, this is you're the one indication there. Like, you should have that influence and that voice. in the room. Like, we've talked about that forever. Like, what are we doing if you're not having a voice in the room with that? Like, what's the point? You know, like, they're not fighters. Like, you know, they've got skin in the game. And they actually know, you know, what it's like. They've lived the life. So, you know, rather than these people that are either politicians or, you know, boxing people or, you know, just, you know, who knows how they got in the positions they got in to make the rules. Yeah, like I'd like to think with my knowledge of the sports. I'm not. You know, like, I'd like to think with my knowledge of the sports. covered in sport for 20 years and I'd have a valuable voice on on a board like that like in terms of like rules and things like that but ultimately like I haven't done the sport I haven't so why wouldn't your opinion matter as much of not more than mine because you've actually been in there and done it like that's my opinion like you know I mean like I'm not saying fighters can't be wrong we both know they can be but I'm saying like wouldn't your opinion mean a little bit more than mine like I'm not saying my opinion is not valid I'm just saying like in a situation like that we're talking rules judging, you know, we're talking about monumental stuff, right?

Like, that's hugely effective stuff. Why wouldn't you want a fighter or a group of fighters involved in that? That seems like a no-brainer to me. Yeah, so it's great what they're doing. And on that note, you said we would next week talk about how to improve judging it and then make you think that would be a long discussion. But I could tell you, I could actually answer it pretty quickly. You know, it just brought it into my mind when we're talking about this fighter advisory board.

and the answer would be scrap the whole thing and start over. Like the entire judging system is completely fucked and is stupid. Now how we start over, now that's a long discussion and things that I would add when we're starting over, you know, again, those are just my opinions.

Other fighters would have completely different opinions, but, and it would get very complicated, very quick, I think, because I think lots of fighters, lots of referees, lots of journalists, people involved in the sport would have very, very different opinions on how to do it properly. But what I can tell you that I was strong conviction is the current system needs to be completely scrapped. And that's how we could start by improving it.

I 120% agree with you. Burn it to the ground. Start over. It does not work. Start over. Yes. Now, I would love, down the road, we have some. time we should do an entire episode we come up with our own judging system that'd be a lot of fun like

how would we judge fights like what would be great i think we know what would actually be cool is a way to do that would be not only us but maybe bring in some other people who put some real thought into it too um yeah you know for instance i think that like the verdict people would be great like they've obviously put some thought into it they built their own system um the scoring senate people you know they put a lot of thought into it built their own system um maybe like a dean thomas type guy, you know, someone who's obviously put thought into it is very well spoken and very well thought out on these things.

You know, maybe a referee or judge too, I don't know, but. A guy used to get coached by Matt Hume. He's a very knowledgeable guy he has a day. He works under a different scoring system now in one championship. I think it'd be valuable a guy like that who works under a different scoring system now. You know, what would actually be really

cool maybe is if we did like an entire series on it. And, you know, because if we bring a whole roundtable discussion, there's going to be a lot of it comes with its own problems, but maybe the whole series where, you know, you do like a couple weeks, but three or four weeks of,

you know, just different guys and different opinions. And because we both just agreed, and I think most people would agree, burn the fucking thing to the ground. It's bullshit. It was made by people who didn't know what they were doing in a time when we didn't know what the sport was.

Yeah, 100%. 100% agree. All right, last thing, we got to get some love advice Matt and I actually got I actually got I actually got several questions on like dating advice from Matt Brown

I was like this is impressive I really want it but I'm going to start with this one and this is actually this is actually a really good one and this is something to you can really speak to that I really like this one the guy was asking like you know basically he said we might have run into some of the same problems with maintaining a good relationship here's a good question and this is really valid especially as you're starting a fight camp

Matt what are some of the ways you've learned to balance your relationship and the grind you're on to become a better partner? Basically saying like, how do you maintain being a world-class athlete? You're training for a fight. You're training to fight a savage in court McGee in May 13, but you're still trying to maintain a relationship at the same time. Now, you're in a little different situation. You're an athlete. But, I mean, I'm busy.

I have a full-time job and I work a lot. So that is, I think that's a good question. How do you maintain the level of intensity you have to do as an athlete? but also maintaining be a good, be a good partner to your, to your girl. Well, it's pretty simple, right? It's all about having the right girl. I mean, there's really nothing more to it.

And if it's not the right girl, then you scrap her. Now, if you're in a situation where maybe you already have kids or something, you're already in deep, then it gets a little bit deeper and more complicated. And, you know, you got to start with having the right vision. And if she doesn't buy into the vision, then you're going to have to find a different

vision and that's all there is to it. But having a proper vision, the two of you sitting down and writing things out and building systems, actual systems, you know, look at it almost like a business, right? You can

actually look at it just like a business, right? You have weekly meetings, daily meetings, monthly, whatever it is. You have actual systems. There's specific things that you talk about. Having that vision clear. every single day

knowing this is the path that I'm going on and if you are not supportive of it then we're going to talk about it and figure it out that's part of the week of meetings, whatever. And there's a lot of advice online on different things that you could talk about

every night and everything. But in any relationship if your visions are off, then your relationship's going to be off. If she's going down one path, you're going down another, then the relationship's going to be off. And that's all there is to it. It's funny.

You say that when I interviewed Tommy Fury before the fight with Jake Paul, him and his girlfriend just had a kid like weeks ago, like a month ago. And I said, I asked him, I said, you know, how, I was like, how difficult this has been? Because, you know, in reality, like, you probably wouldn't want to fight for a few months. Like, your kid was just born. Like, literally, like, when we spoke, it was like three, his kid was like three weeks old. And he's just like, he literally is like, I have the best girl in the world. Like she's taking care of everything. She's allowing me to do my training and focus on the fight.

She's just being the support system I need right now. When I come back from my fight, I'll do that for her. But right now she's doing everything for me. She's the best mother in the world, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, that's brilliant. And that kind of speaks to your point, right? Like, he needs to be 100% focused on a fight right now. You know, he needs to be, you know, in a different mindset.

You know what I mean? And he has a girl supporting him in that. Like he has his girlfriend supporting him in that vision, as you talk about. Exactly. And the whole thing is, you know, again, it all comes down to finding the right girl. He obviously, he found the right one. It sounds like. And to do that, I think too many men in this world are accepting of a lesser partner because they're either not comfortable being alone or they want certain status or, you know, there's a lot of different reasons. but something that I've learned I was divorced a few years ago and for that exact reason

we were on two different visions right and so we split up and I had to become very comfortable with being alone and I was like I'm not going to settle for a lesser partner for the sake of not being alone or for the sake of going to parties with some girl

you know whatever it is it doesn't matter you know or just so I can get laid, you know, whatever it is. You have to be comfortable, letting it off in a fucking heartbeat. And that's where people, I think, make the mistake a lot of times is they'll let little things trickle

and build and build. And I told my current fiancee that I've been dating for two years now. I told her on day one. Well, not day one, but when we started actually getting serious, you know, I told her, I said, look, I don't care how serious we get.

I will cut you off overnight. Like it would be the end. Like that. If this is, if you, if you are not going down the same path as me, because I'm not going to do that again. And that goes, but we're saying obviously from a guy's person, that goes for girls too. Like if your boyfriend isn't supporting you in that vision,

yeah, you got to be on that same path, right? Absolutely. And this goes with. everybody in your life, right? These low frequency individuals around you, you have to cut them off. You have to rip it off like a fucking band-aid, right? There's way too much peeling off slowly, right?

If they do not have that frequency that you are desiring in your life, if they don't have that vision, if they're not for you, they're fucking against you. And get it the fuck out. Rip it off and throw it in the fucking trash. Yeah, I agree. Look at that. Who knew Matt Brown love advice. I think it's a new, a new, a new, a new, that was kind of turned in. It's interesting. That one kind of turned into entire life advice. That's true. You know, I think I've made the reason that I think that I can speak on this is because I've made the mistake for many years, as a matter of fact. People would talk about, you know, we've talked about before, the small town that I grew up in.

and, you know, some of those negative people. And, you know, I would go back and, you know, all the friends would hit me up, like, she's an old friend, but hey, come hang out or, you know, they'd be, hey, come my wedding or, you know, whatever, this and that. And I'm like, I don't even go. I don't even want to come see you. Because if you're not on that path that I'm on,

like, I'm perfectly fine being alone. I can sit in my fucking house by myself with no one. And the truth of the matter is these days in the world that we live, and we're never alone, right? I can communicate with millions, if not billions of people with this little fucking phone in my pocket all day long. I'm not alone, but I'm comfortable completely alone. So if you're not on that path with me, then you're just against me.

And there's no gray areas. It's black or it's white. I love it. I love it. Keep sending those questions. Ask Matt Brown. You got questions. I got a ton this week.

So I'm going to save some for future episodes because we got a bunch of questions. So that I put that tweet out. We got a ton of questions. So if you didn't get your question answered this week, continue to send them over. I will keep track of them and you will get your advice answered by the one and only Matt Brown. We're going to get out of here. Of course, next week we're going to be leading into the big pay-per-view UFC 285, the return of John Jones.

Jonathan Dwight Jones is back taking on Cyril Garland. in the main event. Of course, Valentina Shochinko taking on Alexa Grosso, so we're going to have a lot to talk about. Hopefully, we're going to have a special guest join us next week to help us break down some of those fights. I don't want to announce it yet because obviously we've got to work with timing and everything, but hopefully that works out to have a guest on with us next week to break down some fights. As always, if you want to check out the podcast and all your favorite podcast platforms, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and of course you can always check us out on our website,

MMAFighting.com. Matt, where can people check out and support you? Obviously, the fight coming around the corner. I know you are going to have people want to support you. So where can they find your stuff? At I am the immortal Twitter, Instagram. You know it. At the immortal coffee. Twitter and Instagram.

Best coffee you ever had. No crash coffee. What else we got? R-O-O-T-I-N-E. Those are my boys sponsoring me. Routine.C-O. The best multivitabitabit. and you'll ever have.

They take your DNA, take your blood, figure out what you're deficient in, figure out where you're at, and they're going to make your, you bring everything up in congruency with the way it's supposed to be. So I think that's all I got today. All right, we'll be back next week

with more Fighter versus Riders as we get ready for UFC 285. I want to say a big thank you, as always, to everyone that tunes in, and we'll see you next week for another edition. The Fighter versus the Rider. sending it in. See you then. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network.