MMA Fighting - Fighter vs. Writer: Matt Brown Calls Current Situation at PFL-Bellator a 'Trainwreck,' Reaction to Conor McGregor Trial in ireland

Episode Date: November 26, 2024

On the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer, Matt Brown and Damon Martin discuss fighters from Bellator getting frustrated about a lack of fights and if this speaks to a larger problem happening at PFL plus we react to the Conor McGregor trial in Ireland where he was found liable of sexual assault from allegations dating back to 2018 plus more Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. But first... There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes. Welcome aboard Air Canada. Rocky's vacation, here we come. Whoa, is this economy?

Free beer, wine, and snacks. Sweet! Fast-free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land. And with live TV, I'm not missing the game. It's kind of like I'm already on vacation. Nice. Air Canada. Nice travels.

Wi-Fi available to aeropline members on equipped flights. Sponsored by ballot. Conditions apply. See air Canada.com. You're listening to the Vox Media Podcast Network. Back to the fighter versus the writer. I'm Damon Martin. He is UFC legend Matt Brown, still recovering from a long, long, long trip to Thailand.

You've been dealing with Jetlag, Matt. Would you like to inform our listening audience how bad the jet lag has been from this trip? This is the worst jet lag I felt in my entire life, and I've traveled all over so many times. But, man, this has been a rough one. I slept until 2.30 today. I've literally only got up to pee and eat for the last few days. Yeah, it's just nuts, man. But we get through it, bro.

That's what we do, you know? So I'm going to start getting back in the cold plunge in the mornings. that if I don't wake you up, nothing will. Little inside baseball. So I texted you this morning to find out what time we were recording. And I usually text you like 10 a.m. when I get up, whatever. I didn't hear from you. So I said you a second text.

Just like with what we were going to be talking about. And that was like 11.30, noon, something like that. And usually if you're at the gym in the morning, you get out like 12 or 1, you'll text me back. It got to be like 4 o'clock and I heard and heard back. And I was like, I was seriously like, is something wrong? Did Matt like get kidnapped? Like, what's going on really?

Like, Matt never not, and you've asked me back, you like, I just woke up. And I was like, I was for like 10 minutes, I was legitimately worried. Like, something's got to be going on. Matt never not texts me back for that long. Like, even if you forget, you still get back to me eventually. I was like, did he get kidnapped? Like, did he get just taken on? Like, what happened?

You definitely don't have to worry about me getting kidnapped. Who knows? I have no idea. There's a lot of bad things that could happen. Kidnapping isn't happening to my breath. Yeah. Yeah, whatever. Something.

I was just like, what's going on here? This is odd. Like, this is just so out of character. And yeah, and you sleeping until 2.33 o'clock in the afternoon is also very out of character. Yeah, that's what was wrong. I was fucking sleeping. It's so out of character. Yeah, dude, my schedule is just all over, man.

What a mess. But they said, we'll get through it. I got to start getting back in the cold plunge, man. That's the only way it's going to wake me up in the morning. And then I'll probably shit the bed by noon tomorrow because I'm getting up at eight tomorrow, no matter what. There you go. There you go. Get it back on that schedule.

So this week, of course, we are in Thanksgiving week. We don't have a lot going on fightways except Friday. We got the PFL championship. But I guess let's start there, not because we're going to break down a bunch of fights or anything. Not that I'm trying to disrespect to fighters on the car. There actually are some really good fights on there. Brendan Locknames fighting, Dakota DeCevis fighting. Some pretty solid fights.

But over these past few days, Matt, as I'm sure you've seen, we've seen a lot of the top fighters from Bellator releasing statements, patchy mix, Corey Anderson, Patricio Pitbull. and I know from other people, other people like Aaron Pico, there's a few others involved that haven't put out statements, but I know this is happening to them, where they basically have just been sidelined, inactive, with no idea when they're going to fight again.

Apache Mix, probably the most, like the easiest example of a guy who fought in May, he was scheduled to fight in October, November, in France. They just canceled the show, didn't just scrap the entire show. Everyone will be rescheduled. He was going to then, I heard he was going to be rescheduled for January in Dubai. They just announced the Dubai card with Uswinder Magamatov and Paul Hughes. That's not happening. And so he's basically like, hey, I have no idea when I'm fighting.

Corey Anderson fought in March. He hasn't been scheduled. Has he been scheduled since then? Like not even like a hint of a scheduling like nine months later. And Patricio Pitbull, same thing. I heard he was going to fight on the Rise of New Year's Eve card. Now that's not happening. I heard maybe he was going to fight Aaron Pico on that card.

That's not happening. and they have no idea when they're fighting, and they're all kind of like hitting the panic button. Like, what's going on? Like, we've been sidelined some of these guys for nine months at a time. So, Matt, I know, you know, you, like, as a UFC fighter, I'm not trying to dog the PFL, but as a UFC fighter, you knew pretty regularly when you were going to fight.

And as your relationship grew with the UFC, you could just call them and say, hey, I want to fight, and they generally get you a fight within a certain period of time. But what are you making of it when you hear all these guys? And let's be honest, these are not just like prelim, prelim guys. These are champions who are saying, hey, we're getting sideline and we have no idea what's going on. Yeah, it sucks, man, because all these guys are in their prime too, and they're essentially wasting their prime waiting on this organization to figure out their shit,

right? The PFL Bellator, it just seems like a mess, really, the entire, you know, the merger with everything. It just seems like there's not really a lot of organization. You said there's a fight coming, happening this weekend that nobody even really knows this happening. You know, I think they lost their ass on the, the Ingano fight. I mean, it just seems like a train wreck and it's, you know, the rails are just slipping off little by little. I think, like, and also, you know, to put it out in its public, I mean, I did a story on a Giggard-Missazi filed a lawsuit against Bellator and PFL.

and a lot of the allegations are basically kind of hinting at what's going on right now where he basically said he was sidelined and it was more or less intamated to him and this is his accusation, not me saying this is what's actually happened. I'm saying this is his accusation. They're more or less they intimated to him to like,

hey, we'll bring you back, but you got to take a pay cut. Like we'll fight, we'll get you a fight, but we need you to take less money. That didn't work out eventually. They parted ways. They basically released Gayguard, and now Gayguard has followed a lawsuit against them and that, like, that in and of itself, I was kind of like, man, that's kind of wild.

Like, Gagard's a legend, and I get it. He has a big paycheck. But, hey, you bought the company. You bought the contracts. Like, that's part of the process. Now you have, like, other, like, and at least I'm not knocking Gagard, but at least in Gagard's case, you say, well, he wasn't a champion at the time. He is a little older, you know, he's kind of the tail in his career, like, maybe you side a little bit more with them. But then when you have guys like Patchy Mix, who's legitimately one of the at-war, you know,

worst one of the top five bantam weights in the world patricio pit bull a bona fide legend been around forever cori anderson we know how good he is he just won the title in march to sideline all of them like again i don't know the particulars i this is me this is damon martin's opinion i think it's got to come down to money doesn't it like why would you just like it's got to come down they got guaranteed contracts for bellator and pfl is my opinion they're just like we can't either we can't afford or we don't want to pay $500,000 a fight or $600,000, whatever their paycheck is. That to me is the only reason why I can't think of another reason.

Yeah, that's exactly. What other reason could there possibly be? If they had the money, they would be wanting these guys to fight. This is all their premier fighters that they acquired with Bellator. Of course, they want these guys to fight, get them out there and you put on shows for the fans. And us hardcore fans that do follow Bellator, these are the guys we want to see fight. like I want to see Gagar Musassi fight

but you know guys like Patsy Mix that are in their prime they should be fighting I want to see him fight I want to see Aaron Pico fight I want to see Corey Anderson fight this yeah this is just a bad bad and especially when these guys start coming out publicly about it

it just looks terrible for the PFL Bellator and man I say it looks like a train wreck on its way right like it's just the train's going to fall off at some point and explode. Here's the thing. What happens, right?

The same thing always happens. They're going to end up going to the UFC and the UFC wins again. Here's the thing, and I'll say this. Like, I've legitimately enjoyed a lot of what PFL is done. You know what I mean? I have. But here's the problem. And this was brought up to me by, I want to say it was Kai Stewart, the BKFC champion.

He said this to me like a year ago, I mean, like six, eight months ago. And I talked about the rise and the popularity of BKFC and how BKFCs in a lot of ways become kind of like the number two combat sports promotion behind the UFC just because of popularity and they're selling tickets, all these kind of things. And he said, no matter how you cut it, what gets people into BKFC is it's different. It's bare-knuckle fighting.

You get names you recognize guys like Mike Perry, Eddie Alvarez, Jeremy Stevens, so you know these names, but they're not just fighting in MMA fights. And it's bare-knuckle, it's different. He's like, every other organization you can, throw a tournament on it. You can throw a million dollars at the end of the season, all these kind of things at it. Ultimately, it's still just MMA. And to the average fan, it's just not the UFC. So at least BKFC separates itself. What he said was, is like, we're doing something

different. And every other MMA organization, like it or not, is just doing a different version of the UFC. And to the average fan, they're like, oh, it's MMA, but it's not the UFC. There's some truth to that. And so when you look at the business, model of what PFL's doing right now, I appreciate the whole season long tournament. They tried something different, right? The tournament season long format. Matt, it doesn't work. It hasn't worked.

This whole point system, you get more points for a finish. It doesn't work, yeah. It doesn't work. If you're going to do it, do it just like a straight tournament. Guess what? Bellator did is a straight tournament when they started. Remember that? And that didn't work out for them either.

It just, you got to just put a better product out there and people will go. You bought Bellator. You bring in all these fighters. You got Don Davis out there saying, now we own, we have 25% of the world's greatest fighters. How does that benefit you have half of them are sitting on the shelf right now, not doing anything? Because you could argue, you could argue like three or four of your absolute best pound for pound fighters. I don't want to sell it. Apache Mix, Eric Pico, Patricio Biphol, the guys who are complaining now saying they're not fighting.

And then why did you keep Bellator? Like, there has to be some sort of contractual obligation in there, or they just didn't want. want to just do away with their seasons so they just kept bellot. It's confusing. Just keep all PFL, make good fights, sign good fights, and move on. Like, this whole thing has just been a mess. Yeah, it's a train wreck. And the fact is, like you were saying, it's all MMA still, just like the UFC, and the fact

is, no one cares. Like, your tournament, no one cares. Your fucking point system, no one gives. the slight as fuck. Nobody, right? Not the hardcore fans, not the casual fans. Nobody fucking cares. The only way

you're going to compete is by getting the best fighters and putting on the best shows and building some fucking drama. I've said it for years. That's what the UFC has done better than any sport promotion in history. Like, they build drama like no one else.

We know the personalities of the athletes of the athletes, we build favorite athletes and guys that you start caring about and it builds drama and people start fucking caring. Motherfuckers do not care about your points, about your turn. They do not fucking care. Even if the UFC did a tournament,

which they've talked about, right? Dana has brought it up. I'm not sure if he'll ever actually do it, but he's kind of entertained the idea a few times. I think he's entertaining one right now. But they don't really care about the tournament. They care about the fighters. UFC has the best fighters in the world, bar none.

That's what people want to see. And they care about the drama. Why do everybody want to watch Floyd Mayweather? He made drama. Why did everybody want to watch Connor? He made drama. Why does not everybody want to watch fucking, I don't know, Peter Yon? Right?

To me, Peter Yon is top ten one of the best in the world. I mean, he's a fucking, you know, just coming to mind because, you know, he fought last weekend and looked amazing. And I tweeted the other day, I think he's underrated. I think his skills are up there with anybody on this planet. But no one cares. Like, he ended up on a shit card in China, you know, against a tough guy, too, against Davis and Figurado. You know, I mean, this should be, this is, this was one of the higher technical, skilled fights that, you know, around.

I mean, this was a really good fight. No one fucking cared. Right? There's no drama. Yeah. Well, and the reality is, like, you can sell it a million different ways, but, like, I say this to fighters all the time, and I know you'll agree with me at least to a certain extent. I know you were never, like, a huge, like, you didn't love doing interviews and stuff

during your career. But, like, I say this to fighters all the time when I say, like, you got 15 or 25 minutes in the cage to sell yourself. But you have hours, days. weeks, months outside the fight to sell yourself. You have that interview inside the cage. Like when they give you that microphone, you have a captive audience. Like say something to get people interested. After the fight.

Like when fighters don't want to do media, and I get it, it's not for everybody. I'm certainly not telling people to go outside yourself and be someone you're not. But if you can get people interested, like a great example, Kai Stewart, I just mentioned him a minute ago. We did an interview before his last fight. He beat Jimmy Rivera, U. U.S. veteran, defendant his title, good fight, Montana.

But we talked about he had a bit of a beef with Sean O'Malley Because they're both from Montana And he had like O'Malley had been asked about Kai at a UFC event And he's like oh fuck that guy He gave my DMs talking shit I don't want to talk about him and fuck him Okay there's some drama So I asked Kai about and he told me the story about like he actually

He's like it was a DM from like three years ago For some reason O'Malley just remembered it now But like they're both from Montana They kind of run they ran in the same circles And so it's a little bit beef And I did a story and it blew up because there's beef He's like a UFC champion or former UFC champion now, and him had a little bit of beef, BKFC, you know what I mean?

When you see like offshoot stories about other promotions, a lot of times it's the best knockouts or the best finish is like wild crazy knockouts or when someone does some dipship moving away in where they shove the guy or they slap the guy or they shove each other off the stage or some stupid shit like that happens. Because people pay attention. No one's going to pay attention if you're like, these guys stared at each other. Oh shit.

They stared at each other. I'm not saying you have to slap your opponent or anything. You're right. People care about the drama. Why do people like the ultimate fighter when it first started? It wasn't because they loved the fights. It's because Josh Kosteck was being called, calling guys calling Chris Leibin a fatherless bastard

and they're getting drunk and kicking a shit. Yeah, like that's what people like the drama. Yeah. And the fact is when I say that, there's always going to be, like I have a good fan base, right? If every fighter was like me and put on great fights, like say me and Robbie Lawler, if they were all like me, the sport wouldn't have lasted. There were great fights before us.

There's going to be great fights after us. What built the sport was drama. And then there's the guys like me, Robbie Lawler, you know, the guys that aren't talking shit or the GSP's even, you know, the great technical winners. the only reason we are able to get a platform so large and build our brand so big is because of those drama guys that build like we're we're uh you know they're the catalyst for what we're doing they're the linchpin we're you know just playing off of that and getting that platform just like bkFC like uFC brought the in a combat sports audience because

of the drama and then bkFC is able to play off of that for one, getting a drama guy like Mike Perry who makes it a lot of fun, but also like, you know, these people that are watching, a lot of them wouldn't be combat sports fans if the UFC hadn't built that drama to begin with. And even the, the, the, FFL Bellator guys, or the, I mean, the entire organization, they're only playing off of what the UFC built. It's all, it all comes from the UFC, and the UFC did it with drama. Everything else is just a

I don't know how you say You know just something that fell off of the side of it Well and the thing is like I think like the UFC does succeed Because they have a mix right Like not everyone's not not every single person's into the drama But you get that you get you get people in for the drama And then you get people to stick around And they watch you and Gay Chi and Porre

Guys who just go out there and fight your ass off It's a good mix but you got to have that mix You can't just be one of the other like you said the tournament Okay it's a novel concept I get it but as you said, no one cares. No one, no one's going back and be like, ooh, what happened in this season? No one. I've never, and also a two-fight scene. It doesn't make a great story. No. And that's what people want is a story, right? That's what people relate to his stories. Yeah. And like the two, they have a two-fight regular season. That's not a season. What the fuck is that?

Like, okay, just do a tournament. But guess what? We've had a million tournaments. And they don't really, people don't really give a shit. Like you said, like the only, the only time anybody cared about a tournament was pride. Yeah. When I don't, I don't know what they did different, but maybe because it was the one night thing and, you know, you had the characters like Coleman and Fador and, you know, they just has such great characters, you know, of Crow Cop and, and what was his name, Igor Vochanchin.

I mean, it was like, there was something special about it, but that's the only tournament in history, I think that anybody's cared about. Of course, since, well, like UFC one or two, that was tournament stuff. Yeah. also got to remember, like, they had, like, what Pride did really well in those days is they also learned how to sell personalities. Like, Fader was this stone cold killer. Krokop, you know, they told the story about him being a fucking Croatian military guy and he just looked like he was going to, he literally, like, you remember that backstage thing they did with him and Mara Rinaloa back

in the day with him and Boss Rutan? Like, hilarious, but like, that's how scary. Like, I remember, like, I've rarely, I've met a million fighters. I think the only time I've ever met a fighter and was, like, terrified to meet him because I was like, is this guy, like, this guy seems like he might actually kill me was Crow Cop because he had such a reputation as like this kind of stoic fucking just, you know, murderous killer guy. And I'm like, oh, Jesus Christ, but I say something wrong is he going to lock my fucking head off? Like build personalities.

And yeah, like, PFL had one. They had Kayla Harrison. That was their one. Like they had the one. And to their credit, what they did more recently, even though you're right, it didn't do well in paper view and all that stuff. But like, Francis and God, who coming back was a good store. cared about Francis.

The tragedy went through. Didn't matter. He was fight Hain and Frere, because no one knew the fuck Hainan Frere was, but we cared about Ingano. And they actually had a legitimately good co-main event,

Chris Cyborg, and Larissa Pacheco is a good fight. That's a really good fight. The problem is, is that that's the one-off. They only do it once a year. You're not doing it all the time. You know what I mean?

Like, you're not like, this card on Friday that they're doing, it's rough, Matt. It's rough. It's a lot of Russians you've never heard of and a couple of guys already been there 18 times. Like, it's not a lot, you know what I mean?

And so, yeah. And so, like, and the people you think you could build around, you know about a super exciting guy like Patrice to a Pitbull. He's been entertaining his entire career. Doesn't talk crazy, but he's had some pretty fierce rivalries. Remember what he did with AJ McKee, Michael Chandler? Like, he's had some rivalries. How are you not trying to sell that?

Like, it just, I understand you're trying to brand it as a, listen, like it or not, and I know there's going to be a lot of fans who listen to say, oh, I hate when you say that. It is a sport, but it is also entertainment. I don't care whether you agree with me or not. Nate Diaz is a great fighter. But why did Nate Diaz get as popular as he was? Because Nate Diaz had a personality.

You're right. And you're right. And this is just what's going on right now when you're literally five days away or four days away from crowning a bunch of new millionaires. And you got champions and legitimate stars saying, hey, like, what the fuck? Like, what do you do it? I haven't fought in nine months. I haven't fought in 10 months.

I haven't fought in whatever. I don't know when I'm fighting. again. That's not a good look. Yeah. Look, people aren't, you know, people don't really pay to see sport. You know, like, like,

if you're going to NFL game, you're going, most people, you know, that's a, you know, huge American sport, but most people, they want to, they're paying to go see their team that they're attached to. Yeah. Right? Or like soccer, you know, over, over in

England, like, you know, they are attached to their team and they'll, you know, fight to the death over their team, right? It's a crazy thing, but they're not paying, you know, just for the sport, right? We can go, if we want to go see sport, I'm going to go watch my daughter play soccer, you know, and, and cheer her on, right? Just the, if we're paying to see sport, then wrestling would be the biggest sport in the world, right? It's one of the greatest sports. Or Muay Thai would be one of the biggest sports in the world. That's the most exciting sport you could imagine

people pay for entertainment they don't pay for sport yeah and fighting like it and fighting like it or not yes it is I mean it is still a sport to a certain extent but it is also entertainment when you think about why do people watch

remember bum fights remember that shit or like Kimbo back in the day like any fall like four guys in the backyard did we watch that because we were all about the sport no we were all about the spectacle we're all about the entertainment watching Kimbo beat the shit out. And more people watch that than BFL, PFL Bellator. Yeah. So I just

yeah, it's just, yeah. And like I said, you got to do something to differentiate yourself. And they're not and it's just not a good look. When some of your biggest names fighters, the guys you are touting is like, we now have 25% of the world's best fighters or whatever number you're throwing out of me. And they're the ones saying we're not fighting. Yeah, no one cares. Even if it were true, no one fucking cares. And look, the UFC could easily, Dana have one.

press conference and say no they don't have 25 the best 25% the best we do we have 100% there like end of the story you know like it's that simple so that's the power that the UFC has and it's funny because I've actually been talking with a couple guys about bringing boy tie to America and we've been having a lot of these conversations just like this where we're like how do we make it you know it's already entertaining it is the most entertaining sport everybody wants to to see the knockouts, the elbows, the knees, them standing. I mean, how many times do people go to the ground and people boo? Like, we all know this.

This is common. So bringing the sport is pretty easy. I mean, there's already Muay Thai here. There's already kickboxing here. Now, how do we make it dramatic? How do we make it someone, something where people can get invested in it and feel emotional about it? And we haven't figured that part out yet, so I don't know if we're going to do it.

Well, I mean, but I'll say this, like when one championship started doing moitai. I, like, I watched Moitai. He's lion fights just do Muay Thai, and I watched that. But when one championship did it, you know what got me into is when they introduced doing four-ounce gloves in Muay. Such a dumb little thing, but there were some fucking vicious

knockouts. I remember watching Joe Nadawa just absolutely knocked a piss out of someone with four-ounce gloves, and I was like, ooh, this is interesting, Muay Thai with four-ounce gloves. Little things like that, they just get people in, you know what I mean? I'm not saying that's a long-term success story, but at least in that moment, I was like, ooh, this is

something kind of cool. Moy Thai and four-honts gloves? And one brought that to America and didn't do shit. Yeah. There's no one knew who those motherfuckers were. And these are some great Muay fighters. I mean, they, I don't remember who all was on that card, but I remember they had a legit fucking card with legendary moit Thai fighters.

And look, how many people in America even follow one championship moitai? I mean, not that many. And they got insane talent over there with, you know, with fucking Liam Harrison and John Haggerty and Sexan. And I mean, the list goes on. Superleg. Superleg. That's what I was trying to think of. Superleg.

I mean, Superleg is ridiculously good, you know? Sam A was a fucking legend. You know, they got such good talent. It should be the biggest sport in the world. But it's not even, it's not even scratching the surface right now. how do you make that dramatic? I don't have the answer yet. Yeah.

And they tried the Moitai, they tried the Moitai contender thing. I don't know if you remember this. I do remember that, yeah. Yeah, yeah, with John Wayne Parr and Yotson Clyde. Didn't really do much for Muaytai, as far as I could tell. You know, it's unfortunate, but yeah, that's, it's just, we're going back to the same thing over and over, right?

We know what it is. People want the fucking drama. They want the emotional investment. Yep. Why is Connor Kabeeb to biggest MMA fight of all time? Because it's the most skilled fight of all time? I mean, you could argue Kabib is up there. But why?

Because they fucking hated each other. They absolutely hated each other to the point where Kabee is on top of Connor dropping punches saying, you must give up, you suck or whatever you're saying. Like that's what people want. Like it or not, like the biggest, the greatest fight of all time.

You could argue Shogun and Dan Henderson put on two of the greatest fights ever. And they are. And people still talk about those fights today. But they didn't sell two and a half million pay-per-view buys because that's not, the drama's not there. You're absolutely right. We'll talk about this.

I'm not, by the way, I'm not dogging that fight. It's incredible fights. I'm just saying like, that didn't sell two and a half million pay reviews. Why? Because as great as it was. they weren't emotionally invested like they were, it could be even Connor.

I mean, hell, fucking Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. 65 million people watch this shit because of emotional investment, not because of a single fucking skill. I mean, I know there's everybody with the question, can Mike Tyson do it at 70 years old or 60 years old, whatever he is? And it's like, but no, we got emotionally invested.

like, fuck yeah, Mike, you can do it at 60, right? Yeah, that's, and we all carried that over because we all love Mike Tyson. So we're like, we got to see Mike, Mike's got to do it. Yeah, we couldn't help but watch. Yeah. Because of emotions, not because of a skill. So that's where, yeah, anyway, the point is, PFL Bellator has a long road. And again, no sporting promotion in history except maybe Jake Paul, right?

Nobody else has ever sold personality and drama the way that they're. the UFC has, and that's their key to success. And why is Jake Paul broken through? Not because he's the best boxer. So, you know, just... It's entertainment, bro. Entertainment sells, not sports. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

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IKEA, bring home to life. I want to talk about kind of a dicey subject real quick next because obviously this last week, I'm sure everyone saw the trial involving Connor McGregor in Ireland, came to a close and he was found liable. I want to be clear about the language here because on Twitter I said guilty. I should have said liable. libel is different liable is a civil case he got found liable of sexual assault in ireland for a case that dates back to 2018 now to be perfectly honest here matt i'm not getting into the legality of the case i'm not going to see it's not my place to pass judgment on connor whether he was right or wrong guilty or innocent that's not what we're doing here but the reality is a court in ireland a jury i believe it's 12 people in juries in ireland and that sounds terrible i don't know that but like i know the u.s. court system the jury found him guilty and he has to pay damage in a civil case. Now, again, to be perfectly clear, he didn't get charged criminally.

This is not a criminal case. This is a civil case. I know this is, so just to be clear, this, he's not going to jail. He's not serving time. He has to pay damages in a civil, just like when you see your neighbor for cutting down your tree. That's a civil case, not a criminal case. The tree falls on you. If the tree falls on you, it could be a criminal case. The tree just falls. It's a civil case. So this is not, I just want to be clearly. He's not going to jail. So again, I'm not here. We're not here to pass judgment and say Connor's innocent or guilty. I don't want to get it. in that debate because we have no idea.

We weren't there. The cases, that leave it to the courts. But like it or not, Matt, the biggest superstar in combat sports today just had a trial end and a jury found him liable for sexual assault. Now, my question is because the court of public opinion, like it or not, that may be the most powerful court in the land. You know how that is. Like when you get accused of something, that hangs over a dark cloud over your head forever,

right and this is even worse because like it or not a court found him liable a court said we think you did it that's what the jury said how bad is this for connor publicly with what he's already been going through like this inactivity and questions about his future like i'm not i'm not gonna say and like turn this into like is connor we're going to fight again we've already had that debate 8000 times and you were right i bow down to the altar of matt brown on the the uh the the case that one thing right finally but in all serious it's like Like he already had like the hitman video game cut ties to them immediately and said we're not going to put them in any of our marketing material. Now I don't know that's going to be far reaching.

I think you and I both know the UFC aren't going to cut ties with them. I think we know that. But like it or not, man, this is not a good look. I don't care how you cut. It's not a good look. Yeah, it's not a good look. The closest use case that I could think of in, you know, to sort of find similarities would be like Tiger Woods, right? I mean, he didn't rape someone, but, you know, he obviously did some fucked up shit that the public did not appreciate.

I think his, you know, it was a little bit more, like, certain that he did it, right? I don't think there was, like, any question whether he was, you know, fucking around on his wife all the time. But Tiger got fucked with it, right? His whole, all of his sponsorships, everything got screwed. And that wasn't rape, you know. So you got to think that, yeah, Connor's going to be in a shitstorm here. Obviously, he's going to be fine financially. I don't think he's got any problems there.

But, yeah, I think it's, you know, public-wise, publicity-wise, it's going to hurt him, for sure. And it should, right? Whether he was convicted criminally or not, which, again, you said we're not going to get into. whether he actually did it or not, he was found civilly liable. And the fact is he was in, he put himself in a situation where something like this could happen. And now he's got to pay the consequences for it. So, yeah, it should be publicly held accountable for it. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just like anything else in life, like I said, like it or not,

when you're a public figure, you live under that much more scrutiny. And you're absolutely right. Tiger Woods is a great example of that because Tiger, when he had that whole thing go on, because Tiger had presented this image of like this squeaky clean, wholesome, you know, guy you could, you know, he was a role model. You could be, I could be your role model. That was the way he presented himself. But then you find out he had a lot of skeletons in the closet.

And everyone's like, whoa, you're not the guy we thought you were. And his career kind of fell apart. Like Tiger was never the same after he started losing, couldn't win tournaments. Like, he was just never the same again. Now, we've already said, and I'm still backing this. that I don't think Connor's ever going to fight again. But when you think about, like, the downfall of a superstar, like, over, I mean, now it's been, you know, three years and going on four years next year.

But, like, man, like, think about where this guy was in 2016. He was on top of the fucking, he was the biggest. You could argue at that point, he was one of the three biggest sports stars on earth. Like, not just combat sports. You can say, like, him and fucking, you know, was it Christiana Ronaldo? So I don't watch soccer, but I know he's a massive star. You know, at that point, like whoever it was, like, you know, like David Beckham. I don't know how big he was in 2016, like worldwide.

But like, you could argue at that Tom Brady, you could argue at that point in 2016. Connor was one of the two or three biggest sports stars in the world, period, right? Like, that's how big he was. And then the Floyd fight in 2017, like, you could not have reached a bigger apex than that guy had in that year. From 2016 to 2017, beating Nate Diaz, having that double fight with Nate Diaz, becoming the double champ, and then doing the $100 million fight with Conner with Floyd Baywood. two-year span was like Connor was on top of the world. He could, he was, he was the fucking ruler of the world, like, in terms of popularity and

attention, all that stuff. Here we sit seven years later from the Mayweather fight. That was 2017. And to think where all that, I mean, it's all, I mean, he's still hugely popular. He's still got a big fan base, but like, talking about a fall from grace, man. Like, how far are you falling from then to now? Yeah, so there's going to be at least a certain group of people that are just never, going to respect him again, right? And, you know, if you look, I've been reading about it on

X, Twitter, a little bit, you know, on social media in different places. And, you know, there's certainly a lot of different theories on what went down that night, right? The fact is, though, we know Connor has put himself in bad situations. I don't doubt for a second that at some point he has done egregious things to women. Whether he did it to this woman or not, I think is pretty questionable. So the public opinion of him has changed. And I think that there's, he never had that squeaky clean image like Tiger Woods did, right? He wasn't that squeaky clean.

We all knew he was kind of a wild man. But that kind of added to the allure. We're like, yeah, he's a wild man, but he's a respectable martial artist. He's not going to do that, right? and now he has crossed that line, at least, you know, according to a jury of however many are on Ireland juries. So at least according to them, he has crossed that line. So now there's a group of people that are going to have a loss of respect for him

and are not going to care as much about what he does or, you know, or not want to be involved with what he's doing. There's a. That has long-reaching effects, right? It's the public that matters. I know you're not a big movie guy, Matt, but just to throw this out there, I was watching a movie called The Social Network the other night. It's the movie about how Facebook got started. I want to see that movie, actually.

It's really good. It's really good. But there's a part in the movie where one of the guys who founded the company with Mark Zuckerberg, he was in college and he got accused of animal cruelty. The way he got accused of animal cruelty was, as part of his initiation into a fraternity, he had to carry around a chicken and take care of a chicken, right? That was like, you know, stupid fraternity thing. And at one point he was in the cafeteria, he had to feed his chicken. He fed the chicken pieces of chicken for dinner. Like they had chicken at their cafeteria and he fed it.

And they considered it. It's like cannibalism basically, animal cruelty to feed a chicken to chicken, basically. And so they had this whole thing and he's like, you know, got in the papers and he got accused of animal cruelty. And he actually made it, he didn't make a joke. But he's like, he's like, I could do necrophilia. And that wouldn't get the same visceral reaction that animal cruelty does. you get animal cruelty. You hurt a dog.

You hurt a cat. You're on camera hurting an animal. That's what. And so like, the reason I'm bringing that up is because he's like, you could do this, which sounds horrible, which it is,

by the way. But animal cruelty is one of those things you just, it's always like a dark cloud over your head because it's such a horrible thing. Everyone thinks like, you know, we love animals.

You don't, you're not cruel to animals. Yeah, you end up like Michael bit. Yeah, it's the same thing kind of here. Like, where it's like there's just certain things.

Like sexual assault is one of such a serious serious thing. Again, we're not placing judgment whether he did it or not. We're saying that it's now a dark cloud that's going to hang over his head from now until forever. That doesn't go away. So that's what, that's my point. Like, this is, this doesn't go away. That's a good point. You know, like, I don't, again, this isn't me judging him saying whether he did it or not. The fact that it went this far, it got to a court and a jury found you liable. Again, not criminally. That would obviously be a different story. Yeah, that'd be a lot worse for sure.

Yeah, but still, it's just not, it's bad. And it's just wild to me to think about like how far this is gone. Like, good Lord, man. Like, talk about a guy who's just like to pray to repeat. And listen, I'm not, by the way, I'm not belittling the victims. We're just focused on Connor here. I'm not saying like, you know, we feel bad for Connor. I don't feel bad for Connor.

You put yourself in the situation. You shouldn't been there. Whatever happened. You should have been there. But the fact that it's gotten to this point now, as we said, like, this is a dark cloud that's going to hang over him from now until forever, you know? Like, his kids are going to go to school. They're going to get old enough one day and some kids going to tease to him,

tease his kids about his dad. That's going to happen. You know it's going to happen. They'll probably go to private school, but yeah. But you know what I'm saying? Like, these are the kind of things that, like, just never escape you. You know what I mean? Like, these are the kind of accusations that just you don't escape from,

especially when it goes as far as going into court. You know, this isn't just like a Twitter thing. What does Connor do from here, right? because again, I think this case is this specific one. Again, I don't doubt that he's done terrible things to women before. Whether he did in this case, I just simply don't have a conclusive belief myself. I don't know if this one is unrecoverable from, right? If he was convicted criminally, I think it might be a different case.

But I don't know if this is unrecoverable. Like if his image is not salvageable from this. So the big question is where does he go from here and what does he do to recover his image? Again, if coming back and fighting would certainly help a lot, I'd put money if he came back and fought and, you know, carried himself the right way and came in and had a great victory over somebody good and won and looked great. Fucking people forget about that shit, bro. Like people are short-minded and they'll forget right about that shit. There'll always be a group that keeps that hanging over his head for the rest of his life. But he could definitely come in, like, you know, say, Michael Chandler or Nate Diaz or some,

come in, put on a great performance and just, you know, not get touched and just knock a guy out or something. There's a, the large mass of people would be like, fuck, yeah, Connor's back. He's awesome. I love him. Let's go buy his shirt and drink some proper seven or whatever, proper 12, right? So, like, I don't think this is. unsalvageable, but he's going to have to be the one to salvage it. No one's going to save him in this situation. It's not, you know, the UFC can't save him. He has to do the right things. Get the

fuck out of clubs, put down the straws, and get back in the gym. You know, maybe, you know, maybe fighting isn't what he even wants to do anymore. So maybe that's not the way of the path. But I think it's salvageable. And the other thing you got to remember, and this is certainly not me justifying anything that has happened or didn't happen or whatever. But what makes Connor a different case, you bring up Tiger Woods is a great example. To Connor's point, like, he has never tried to sell himself as a saint. You know what I mean, he's never tried to be that guy. He's never tried to be that squeaky-clean guy.

You know, like, I think that is what backfired so dramatically on John Jones. when John, because John painted himself as like this good kid and always, you know, quoting the Bible and all that stuff. And then he gets in that Bentley crash, the first DUI crash, and there's girls in the car. And then he has the whole thing come out with the Cormier fight where he's on Coke three days before the fight. And just, you know, the hit and run, it just spiraled like from there. And it's like that was the biggest complaint about John Jones. People said he was fake. In person, he's this nice guy.

He's his family man. But then behind the scenes, there's a fucking wife. child. To Conner's point, he's never painted himself as being a saint. But as I said, there's some things that you just don't escape from. And that to me is one of them, where it's like, you're right. You may be totally right, Matt, that it may be salvageable. But the problem is that that is such a serious accusation. And now that it's gone to court, unless it gets overturned on appeal, which could happen. And at this point, I don't know if people would care. It was again. Yeah. There's going to be a section of people who are always going to, like,

he's going to be at a UFC fight, if he fights again, if he walks out of the octagon, someone's going to yell that at him. You know it. Sure, yeah, yeah. You know, and like, that's the kind of. But you're right. Like, I'm not, I think you're, I think, strangely, I think you're right about, like, being salvageable. Because, like, I think a big part of that comes down to, Connor never painted himself

to be anything more than he is. Like, Connor's always been, Connor. But, like I said, still, this accusation is one of those things where it's just like, you know, it's going to follow you. whether you like it or not, it's going to follow you. You know, another great example I brought up a minute ago is Michael Vic. Like, I mean, he did what everybody hates the most, right? You know, messing with animals.

And he's doing good things now. But if I remember right, I've seen him on like a NFL broadcast. Am I wrong? I can't remember, to be honest. I think he was like actually commentating or something or doing an analyst thing a little bit. But he, you know, he is more. or less forgiven at this point. I mean, people still remember the name,

Michael Vakin associated with, you know, being a piece of shit dog guy. But he has saved his reputation a lot. I don't think this is unsalvageable for him. I think particularly because he won the criminal case or didn't get criminally charged, I'm sorry. You know, he can, like he can get through this, I believe. We'll see.

Time will tell, right? We can, but he's got to do all the right shit, you know. He's got to change his ways right now. And if he comes out and says, you know, look, I, you know, I learned a lot from this situation and I'm not putting myself in these types of situations anymore. I'm focusing on my family, blah, blah, blah. You know, she's, yeah, she's still lied about it. But I'm still, you know, taking this into account and blah, you know, all that kind of stuff says all the good things. People want, they'd like.

they like to see a redemption story people want people to be good people we talk about this with ronda right we're like if she would just come out and say the right shit like people want her to be the fucking hero right we want connor to do that he has to be the one to do it though it's not going to happen by itself two words for you matt i know you're going to agree with me mike tyson i mean bam bam yeah fuck yeah i forgot all about that yeah i mean he's done worse things to women than I mean, he went to prison. He went to prison for, you know, so I mean, and here he is. Biden is 60 years old.

We're fucking cheering on him. Yeah, I mean, that's like, again, even that, like, you come out on the other side and you become a different person. I don't think that Mike Tyson we see now is anywhere remotely close to Mike Tyson. We saw back in the late 80s, early 90s when he was kind of crazy. You know what I mean? The reality is, though, that's, you change. Is Connor actually capable of change?

And I think that's the key. Like, because. That's what I said. It's got to be. It's on him. It's not, no one can save him. Mike Tyson didn't have anyone save him. He went to prison and came out a different person.

If you, yeah. If we go a year and Connor actually comes back in fights and he's, you know, still trash talking being Connor, but like the headlines aren't Connor McGregor arrested for DUI. Connor McGregor, you know, gets into a fight at a fucking bar. Connor McGregor knocks out a 60-year-old man at a bar, dumb shit like that. If those are the headlines, it's never going to get better. but Mike Tyson, I'm just saying, I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying like we all just kind of forget, like not forget, but you just said, we all really, we wanted Mike Tyson win against Jake Paul. And Mike Tyson got criminally convicted.

So it can be done, but you have to do the work to do it. And as you said, is Connor capable of that? I don't know. Because he's still similar to Mike Tyson. Like he's still a lovable character. He's still a extremely charismatic guy with a great. mouthpiece and he still has all the qualities of someone that could be very likable to the public he's got a road ahead of him to get there and he has to

want that to happen from what he's posted so far it doesn't he hasn't show any signs that even cares about that he's just like fuck this bitch is bullshit right so you know we'll see how he handles it in the future and you know the other thing is the one thing not to forget about this whole thing. If he has done this to other women, sometimes after

that first one, that gives the next one the courage to come forward. Right? Because it's not an easy thing I know for a woman to come forward after this happens. Sometimes that could be the tipping point. If more come forward, he's got an even

longer road. Yeah. And again, remember this is one of the situation. actions, not words. You know what I mean? You can say all the right things and you can put tweets and you can post Mia Culpus on Instagram, whatever. Actions not words.

If you clean up, if you truly clean up your act and you become a different person and we don't see your name in the headlines for all the wrong reasons, which is literally the only reason we've seen Conner, the only reason we've seen Conner's name in the headlines outside of not fighting Michael Chandler in June, everything for the last like four years has been bad. It's none of it's been good.

Rested here, arrested there, accused of this, accused of that, you know, this lawsuit, this law. That's, you got to, if you can get away from that and you can actually clean your life up, you're right. Like, it can be done, but you got to do the work to do it. Yeah, and I think you'll be in the same boat as me. I'm going to be cheering him on that he does that. And then he, excuse me, that he straightens out his life and comes a better person out of this whole scenario. I'm saying this with little confidence that that's what's going to happen. I think maybe at some point in his life that might happen, right?

Just like Tyson, I mean, it took him a long time. He was pretty old before he finally turned the corner. Connor might be the same guy. He might be pretty old. It might take his wife leaving him and taking the kids, right? Like, you know, it might take an actual criminal conviction. It might take more than what he's already went through. hopefully he stops right here and, you know, gets off the cocaine, gets off the partying and alcohol and drugs, you know, gets in, stays home, gets in the gym, does what he does best and starts turning the corner.

And I'm cheering for him to do that. And you know what? I just want to do this out there before we get out of here. I want to say this. And you know this as well as I do, Matt. You can be crazy. You can be wild. You can do drinking and drugs and do stupid shit.

It's how you behave during that time. Because there's lots of, I guarantee there's lots of athletes who do lots of crazy shit when they're in the offseason or during the weekends or whatever. But they're not getting arrested. They're not having lawsuits filed against them every weekend, things like that. Like you can do fun. You can be a crazy wild child and no one will ever hear about it. There's a difference.

Like look at all the rock stars. There's a million rock stars who do a million dumb things out there, but you don't cross lines. You just stay within boundaries. Like, I'm not even saying, like, obviously, in his case, he's a fighter. You probably should be doing cocaine every weekend. But, like, they're applied. John Jones did cocaine before he fought Daniel Cormier and won.

Now, I'm not saying that's a recipe for success. No one should. But John Jones was able to do that. We heard about it after the fact. But when did we start, when did John's crew start careening off a ledge at times? when he started getting arrested for doing dumb shit. Like you can drive to Bentley and you can have girls in the car and you can do it. You don't drive into a fucking telephone pole and you don't get into a hit and run, leave a pregnant woman in the other car.

Like these are the moments when people are going to pay attention to your dumb shit. You can do lots of dumb shit. Just do it within boundaries. Hey, even John Jones is a perfect example. I mean, he goes in and he just keeps coming back and winning. And when he comes back and wins, we forget all about that shit. You know, he didn't beat Steepay and everybody would be like, oh, that's cool. but I wish Depe would have beat you because you're a fucking drunk that they hit a pregnant girl, right?

Like he had his group cheering for him and, you know, winning kind of trumps everything, right? You just keep winning and performing at a high level. Everybody tends to forget about all that stuff. Yeah, but like I said, you can, you can be a party animal. Just do it in boundaries. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can party on your yacht, you know, whatever. But yeah, I'm just saying, like, there's a way to do it.

And I'm not saying because I know it sounds terribly. I think like when you know, like when you try to present yourself as a, as a, you know, the perfect citizen and then you become Tiger Woods when everyone's like, hold on now. You had like 19 missions on the side? Like, you're not a good guy. Connor never penned himself a good guy. But there are still boundaries to like, you know, like, you know, you party on your yacht, but let's not have criminal convictions and court.

Yard, yeah. So you get what I'm saying. Absolutely. Yep. Yep. Not with you though. We'll see. We'll see.

And like I said, it can be done. Can he do it? only time we'll tell Matt we got next week we're going back into UFC action UFC 310 it's a lot it's a different card now we'll do some breakdowns next week

Alessandrae Pantoja Kaya Sakura on the card and of course Shavkat Rakmanov Ian Machado Gary no offense I think the flyweight fight is incredible I think Kai Asakura is a monster I think it's gonna be a really fun fight but dude Shavkat Ian Gary that is going to be that's the one I'm most

looking forward to man I can't lie like that's my main event Absolutely. I'm right there with you. I think it's everybody's main event. I'm surprised it's not the main event, but it's not for the title. So they got to put Fantosia up there. And that's an exciting card, though. I think both those fights are amazing fights. What else they got on that card? I know Brian Battle is taken on Randy Brown on that card. That's a fucking great fight, bro. That's a great fight, too. They got Chris Wybin rebuked. Cyril Gahn and Alexander Volkov's on this card. That's not bad. Bryce Mitchell and Crone Graysey's back. And that's actually a pretty interesting fight, right? It may not end up being crazy exciting, but that definitely makes some interesting.

Nate Landware and Duho Choi, the Korean Superboy, that should be fun, Anthony Smith and Dominic Reyes. That's a pretty good fight. Mosar Evloev against Al Jermaine Sterling. That's on the prelims. Yeah, it's on the prelims, right? Yeah, that's pretty crazy. That got put on the prelims, but that's as high, high level there.

Let's go. Yeah, and I really look for it to Anthony Smith, Dominic Ray has been Dominic looked good in his last fight. I got the knockout look good doing. Anthony's always a gamer. He's a fun guy to watch. And I love Anthony. So it's going to be an issue.

Like I said, it's not getting the fanfare of a bigger card. It's actually got some pretty good fights on there. Yeah, this is a great card. I'm excited to see this. Yeah. So we'll break that down next week. Matt,

for people who want to check you out, support you, where can they go? What can they do? I am the immortal Instagram and Twitter X, whatever the fuck it's called. still not used to call on it Twitter. I always say Twitter slash X. That's what I say now because I'll never stop calling a Twitter,

but I try to go by Elon's rules and say X, but I'll still always call Twitter. Yeah, I wish he had a better name than X. It's my one knock on Elon. All right. Anyway, The Immortal Matt Brown on Facebook and check out my sponsors. Create Gummies at Try underscore Create on Instagram. Get 20% off using code.

mortal. There you go. We'll be back next week. We'll break down UFC 310. Final UFC pay-per-view of the year. So we'll get into that. I think we'll get into somebody. We got one more card after that UFC Tampa with Colby Coventon's back against Walking Buckley. That's a really interesting fight. And then, yeah, we get to the end of the year, maybe do some awards. So we got a lot more to come to. But next week, we'll be breaking down UFC 310. As always, I want to say, big thank you to everyone that tunes into the podcast. Make sure you check us out on all of your favorite podcast platforms, Apple Podcast, Spotify. and, of course, over on the best website

in the world, MMAfighting.com. For Matt Brown, I am Damon Martin. We'll see you guys next week for another edition of the Fighter versus the Rider. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you then. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you.

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