MMA Fighting - HOAM | Francis Ngannou, Dana White, UFC Vegas 67 Main Event Shakeup

Episode Date: January 10, 2023

What will be next for current UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck answers multiple questions involving Ngannou, if he's a free agent as some have reported, status of a potential fight with Jon Jones, if Ngannou signing with the PFL would have a huge impact, and more. Additionally, listener topics include Dana White, the promotion and parent company Endeavor continuing with their silence, Sean Strickland stepping in to fight Nassourdine Imavov in the main event of Saturday's UFC Vegas 67 for Kelvin Gastelum, a rumored lightweight matchup between Justin Gaethje and Rafael Fiziev, and much more. You can listen live to Heck of a Morning Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays at 10 a.m. ET on the MMA Fighting Twitter Spaces. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Fighting Podcasting Network. Hope everyone is having a fantastic start to their week. I am Mike Hack back for another slew of shows here on MMA Fighting. And a lot has happened since we last. spoke, including the news that Halib Narmaga made off, at least the way it was initially reported, he's just going to leave MMA altogether, not going to coach, not going to do much. He's going to spend time with his family, which kudos to him. Our own Damon Martin spoke with Habib's manager, Ali Abdulaziz, who said that may not be a permanent leave from

MMA, but at least it is a temporary one for sure, which is really interesting, considering his prized pupil, Islam Makachev, has a huge fight with Alexander Volcanowski coming up next month. So there you go. That was obviously some big news. And then we got some even, we got some other big news yesterday, just out of nowhere, found out that Calvin Gasolum, who was scheduled to face Nassardine Imov in the main event of UFC Vegas 67 this Saturday at the hallowed apex. Gasolm is out of the fight. Suffered a mouth injury. Some gnarly videos and photos have been attached to this.

And on just five days notice, Sean Strickland is stepping in to take Gasolm's spot. The fight is going to happen to 205 pounds. And Sean Strickland becomes the first UFC fighter since Tito Ortiz, way back in the day, to headline back-to-back UFC fight cards. Of course, he's coming off the very competitive loss to Jared Cannonier in his last fight. And it's kind of a crazy story involving this because this was first reported by Bernard Okamoto of ESPN. And yesterday was kind of a weird and busy day because I actually was, I spoke with Eric Nixick,

and I'm sure that conversation is going to come up amidst your questions. So stay tuned for that. And as we're doing, as we're doing this interview and having this conversation, I see Eric on his phone and he keeps just like tapping his phone. And I'm not really sure why. I'm just like, oh, people are just trying to call them. All good. and we wrap up the interview and I finish up my shift and then I decided to go for a run. I go for a nice little jog.

And when I come back, I have like eight missed phone calls from people, a couple of them from Eric Nixick and Eric texted me says, oh boy, wait until you hear what's going on now. And of course, the news had already come out. I didn't have my phone with me. But apparently, as Eric and I are doing the interview, Eric had his phone. phone on do not disturb unless it's an emergency or some and apparently you can like bypass that and treat it as an emergency call so if you treat it as such it'll go through anyways so apparently as we're doing the interview with eric Sean Strickland had called him countless times

to get his thoughts on whether or not they should take this fight they obviously ended up taking it and agreed to it and here we are it was just kind of crazy to to think about. But yeah, 2023, just being 2023, this news comes out and a big shakeout to kick things off. So I see a lot of you lined up to give your thoughts about the comings and goings in the world of M.A. But I do want to get a couple of things off my chest before we get to the calls, some things that have been on my mind for the past several days. And I feel like this is a safe space for me. I feel like we're all friends and I feel like when I need to have these like self therapy sessions, I can just come on here and speak and get some things off my chest.

And a lot of you will listen and understand where I'm coming from. So I listened to, I was listening and watching Ariel Hawanee's wonderful program, the MMA hour. And I know he talked about the Dana White situation and everything going on. And I will say this. This whole thing has been kind of weighing on me over the past several days since this video came out and the silence has been really the most disturbing thing of all. And we've talked about it on this program pretty much every day last week. We talked about it on BTL.

And I feel like it's something we're going to continue to talk about. but let me just say this I see the comments I saw some people and I still keep falling into this trap that I just look at the comments and I don't know why I keep doing it because I've done so well over the years

to just not look at the comments about stuff and AK and I did our on to the next one predictions extravagance on Sunday and looked at some comments because one of the questions that came up was

by herself Dana White will, it was something like he will remain or not remain the active president at some point in 2023. Like something will happen, whether it's he's stepping away for a month or he's suspended or he just steps down altogether. We're buying or selling whether or not that was going to happen. Of course, I talked about it. And I saw some comments from some people saying, you know, it's a family thing.

It's a personal thing. Leave it alone. Stop grabbing at the state. so to speak and all this stuff. And I'm just like, what the hell, man? So I thought about this. And I thought about it a lot recently because obviously what data did was wrong. He's admitted as such.

And people are still just running and sprinting and tripping over their own shoes to defend this man. And I brought up different names. Like, again, if this is me on video, I don't think I'd be getting the same treatments. I certainly don't think Dana White would be quiet about it. He'd probably be quote tweeting it every day and calling me a piece of shit and lumping all the media members and together. And one of my biggest concerns with this whole thing is that I'm proud of what I do. I love working in this space and I don't want it to be a negative space all the time.

And I also don't want to just keep bringing this up over and over again if people are going to be upset about it. I will say this. I will not stop talking about this. If questions are asked about it, I'm going to talk about it. And something tells me that more is going to come out and we're going to keep reacting to this. But one of my big concerns was I want this sport to be treated almost in the same respects to some of the other major sports because I just believe in it. And I believe in the fighters and I believe in the athletes. And for some reason, I thought over the weekend, I'm going to talk to other people outside of this space and just get their thoughts.

Because I have a lot of friends who are reporters for other sports, who work front office jobs for professional sports teams, pretty much across the board, whether it be baseball or basketball or hockey or work somewhere with the NFL. and I had conversations with seven or eight people that I know who, whether I went to high school with them or met them along the way, about the situation and how the other sports and the communities are looking at us. Because I was just curious, what are you all thinking? What is the community thinking? What are the fans thinking? And the most common thing that I got that just made me shake my head.

a little bit. We're all laughing at you. That's what someone said. We're laughing at you. We're laughing at you because of the handling of all of this. And that's just like not what I want to hear. That's just not what I want to hear. I don't want to be covering the laughing stock sport of the world.

And to most of those people that I spoke to, that's how people are viewing MMA. It's fans. and the promotions were a laughing stock because of how this has all been handled. And what's been wild about this whole thing is along the way, I think all of us who have talked about this have given Dana White a lot of credit for how he handled himself in the interview with TMZ, despite the absolute awfulness of that interview from TMZ side. It was just a joke. It was just a joke.

And I was one of those people, and I said it for days. Dana handed himself well. Didn't make any excuses. Everyone tried to defend him. Not everyone, but a group of people, fighters, fans defending him. The equal rights argument, all that crap. And since then, everything since has changed in my eyes. because we talked about the Twitter story that was since,

or the Instagram story that was deleted hours later of him just living his life out in Vegas, gambling and making stacks of cash with the Nelke boys or one of the Nelke boys. That went away. Then the FIT Friday came out as we were doing the show, Bologna pie. I mean, isn't that apropos of this conversation we're having right now, baloney pie?

And then yesterday, on his page a promo for the stupid slap fight league that's starting January 18th. And I'm just like, this guy and everybody else, they don't give a shit.

They do not give a shit. And it's just, I can't believe it. I just, I can't believe it. And since then, we've had women's advocacy groups come out and say, this man needs to be removed.

from his position. He doesn't give a shit. Nothing's going to happen at this point because it's just not going to. And everybody's fine with it, no matter what anybody says. The coverage of it from a grand scheme has been awful. We're doing what we can to keep it in the news because it's a big story. Whether you want to hear about it or not, it's a massive story. And again, this is any other sport. We're not having this conversation right now. Punishment has already been put out. Statements from everybody involved. With this, nothing.

Absolutely nothing. And the other sports, their fans, the communities, media members, Ariel brought up the Dennis Green Line many times when it comes to Dana White. We are who we, who we are, they were, are who we thought they were. Dana is who Ariel thought he was. And in their eyes, the other sports and their communities, we are who they thought we were. And that just crushes me.

But it also led me to take a look in the mirror and say to myself, do you want to keep talking about this over and over again? Do you want to annoy people? Or do you want to do what you've always done, which is highlight the fighters, make it about them and just be as positive as possible in this space while still being honest at the same time and saying what's on your mind. And I decided that I'm not going to take the left or the right. I'm just going to keep going.

I'm just going to keep driving. Am I going to bring this up in the open of every show that I do moving forward? No. And if that's your hope, congratulations. am I just never going to talk about this again? Absolutely not. I am going to talk about it. Because like I said,

this isn't the end. More is going to come out. I'm not kidding. Like, I just don't think there's one video. Like, I think there's going to be more to this. And what's got to be interesting is if something else happens with one of the fighters on the roster who get put in the same position. How is Dana going to react to that?

How is the UFC going to react to that? How is this going to happen? Like, how is this going to work? So, I'm just going to do my thing. I'm not going to harp on this. I'm going to talk about it because it needs to be talked about. But if you're just like, oh, here we go again, it's not going away.

But I'm not going to, like, obsess over it. because if the UFC doesn't give a shit and Endeavor doesn't give a shit, I'm going to give some shit, but nothing's going to happen. And the more I speak about it, the worse I'm going to feel. So I have to be able to balance it.

I have to be able to do this fairly and talk about it, but I also have to live my life and I don't want to be sick to my stomach every day because of this sport. I want to enjoy what I do. And I want to thank my best friend, Alexander K. Lee, for kind of reminding me of that on Sunday

because we had a great show. It was just nice to talk about MMA. Yeah, we had to talk about Dana, but it was nice to just talk about MMA and the fighters and everything involved. And that's what it's all about. So it's not going away. I ain't kicking this to the curb by any stretch of the imagination,

but I'm not going to be a negative downer, Nancy guy. I'm not going to do it. So we're going to find a happy medium. And that's it. So I wanted to get that up my chest. There's a lot to talk about. And like I said, at any point on any of these shows, if you want to talk about this,

let's go. Let's turn the key and I'm happy to talk about it. But I'm not going to go crazy over it either. We'll talk about it when it comes up. You want to talk about it? Let's go. But I'm not going to like completely forget about this to put it out there. But I also don't want to be just the negative downer guy who just talks about awful shit all the time.

So I want to thank AK. I want to thank Ariel for saying what he had to say. And one other thing that Ariel said that I completely agreed with because I actually spoke with Adrian Yannes yesterday as well. I got other interviews coming up over the next few days. I'm trying to just do a lot of interviews now to get my mind off of all of this to just focus on other positive stuff. I'm not going to ask UFC fighters about this. It was something that weighed on my mind. Do I ask them about it and get their reactions to it?

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized I completely agree with Ariel, that's only going to be bad for them. It's not going to be bad for Dana. It's going to be bad for the fighters. Like if I ask Adrian Yonnas what he thinks about it, and then Adrian gives an answer that isn't UFC suitable, then he gets in trouble, and I don't want that.

I don't want that at all. Will I ask fighters outside of the organization about it? Yeah, probably, especially those who may have been former UFC fighters. But I'm not going to ask UFC fighters about it. I'm not going to. And hopefully, as this year continues, we're in a more positive place. That's my hope. And it's my hope that at the end of the year, when I go back to my buddies that I spoke to

about how they view the sport, maybe their answer will be different. And that'll make me happy. But speaking of happy, the show makes me happy. Talking to you makes me happy. And that's what we're going to do right now. So AA, let's go. What's up?

I'm good. How are you doing? I'm good. Just one really quick one for you. Valentina Shefchenko came out with some comments recently about the state, the state of the contenders in the 125 division. She didn't feel like they were active enough last year. I just wanted to know if you agree or disagree with those comments.

Have a heck of a morning, Mike. Everyone else, have a heck of a morning. Enjoy the first part week of the year, peace. Yes, I saw those comments. And yeah, it doesn't appear like anybody wants to go. And I just don't know who it could be. Like maybe Alexa Grasso, maybe, man in Fiora, I know Fiora's hurt. Both of them said they just want to fight each other at this point.

No one's really calling for it. And Valentin is just kind of in a position right now where she's kind of like in the Volcanowski spot, where it's just, all right, someone needs to emerge and then I'll just fight them. But in her eyes and some others, no one has. But we'll see. We got obviously some fights coming up. We got Just Gondragalor Murphy, although Valentina beat both of them.

We got Aaron Blanchfield, fighting Tila Santos coming up. That could be a big one. And who knows what's going to happen at 135? Maybe they'll just be like, you know what? Let's just bump you up to 135, which is a fight.

I'm hopeful we get some time this year. She could fight Amanda Nunes again, get a crack to become a champ champ. Yeah. But it's nice seeing Valentina going out there and just being like, come on, somebody step up to the plate. Let's do this. And ladies and gentlemen, we have some breaking news.

It's not fight news or anything. So a lot of people have been wondering, what are we going to do for the pay-per-view? What are we going to do for UFC 283? Are we going to do the watch parties? Are we going to keep the watch parties going in 2023? Mike, you mentioned it was kind of an experiment. Let's see how it goes. Or we're going to keep doing it?

the answer to that question I just literally found out is yes it is going to happen next Saturday back to New York me and G.C. some special guests along the way the watch parties continue so there you go some breaking news very excited about that and it's going down and I saw the dartboard in the M. May hour studio and that just made me really really happy. That just made me very excited. Because I don't know if you know this. I've been known to Chuck Goddart at two in my day. So I'm coming for you, Helwani. Coming for you. Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Oh, 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.

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How are you? I'm good, you. Good. So I have a question regarding the Justin Gaci versus Rafael Fizai of fight. I've heard that there are rumors that they are scheduling for March. Could you, how do you see this fight playing out? Could this possibly be detrimental to Justin's career if, you know, Raphael ends up winning? and is it true that it possibly will happen in March?

Thanks for the, have a good day. So I figured this question was coming because on Sunday, reports are coming out that the UFC and is working on a fight between Jesse Gaecchi and Raphael Fiziv. And of course, me being who I am,

being the curious cat that I am, had to reach out to people about it. And from what I was told, this whole thing stems from an interview with Raphael Fiziev. I'm not sure who it was with where he mentioned that this was in fact the case, that it was in the works, fight between Justin Gagee. I'm told that there's truth to that, that where there's smoke, there is fire. Fight is being discussed. March is on the table.

April is on the table. but it appears to be March and there's two pay-per-views March 4th in Vegas March 18th in London I spoke to Justin Gatchee at the end of last year

he mentioned that he wants to fight on that London card so it could be one of those two dates but from the conversation I had there is truth to that it is being discussed and March is the target it's just a matter of the date

whether it's March 4th, March 18th, and we'll see if we can get both parties on the same page on date and all that good stuff. But love that fight. I hope that's the fight. And as much as I would love to see Justin Gaichie versus Dustin Porre too, I would rather see this fight first. I would rather see Fzeev and some of these up-and-coming contenders get their opportunities at these names and these types of matchups. I think this fight makes perfect sense. This is the one, and I hope it gets done. And will it be detrimental to Justin Gage if he loses?

Depends on how you look at it. I don't think his star power or the excitement levels behind Justin Gachie will diminish all that much, because even if he beats him, I don't think it's going to be the kind of fight where Gachie just gets the doors blown off of him. I think it's just going to be a crazy fight. And maybe if he catches him with something or outworks him or something like that. But his title hopes certainly take a bit of a plunge. But for a guy like that, he's almost at that level where it's almost like he doesn't need a title anyways. People just want to watch Justin fight.

So love the matchup. Don't think it's totally detrimental to him if he loses. And I really hope this is the one that happens. because I think Fazeve deserves it and maybe it'll set a nice little precedence that some of these up-and-comers will get these big opportunities and we can't

and we can kind of veer away from just the big names fighting the big names over and over again at 155. So I truly hope that fight happens but it is being discussed. I can assure you of that. Let's go to Archer. Archer, are you there?

You're muted. I don't know if that changes anything. All right. let's try J-Stat what's up man this is mom was in a PFL shirt so I know you mentioned you spoke to Eric Nixon so I just want to know

the as of Francis and the John Jones situation but anyway that is all heck of a morning to you all right so I figured this question was coming as well because I was asked about this many times on Twitter what is going on with Francis and Ghana and I'll start with I'll start with the correct answer. The answer that I'm going to...

The answer I'm going to give you is I have no friggin' idea. I have no clue. But here's what I will say. I saw that... I saw the picture of the PFL gear. I don't know if that was planned or... If it was planned, then absolute brilliant move from Francis Ngano. Brilliant move.

tremendous. Tremendous business savvy that guy. I saw an account tweet out that Francis and Ghanu is officially a free agent. I saw this. And like I did, and like I said, I did speak to Eric Nixick. We talked about obviously that fight because I would be crazy to not talk about that fight. Here's what he told me. I think that interview is going to drop in the next day or two.

So I'll give you the Cliff Notes version. Eric Nixick is optimistic that Inganu Jones happens. In regards to it happening March 4th, Eric's honest answer was he's 50-50. Asking him, 50-50. Now, you have to understand where he's coming from. He is the head coach. He's privy to Francis the fighter,

the recovery, the rehab, how he looks in the gym, what he personally is going to be preparing his fighter for. And in his eyes, he is preparing Francis and Ghanu right now to fight John Jones. Francis is not in Las Vegas right now. Francis is in Cameroon, spent the holidays of his family, but he also has to renew his visa, which is why he's not in the States right now. Eric told me that a couple days before Francis went to Cameroon, he worked with Francis in the gym. It was just him and Francis.

It was just them in the gym. Nobody else. And he said that Francis was almost rejuvaded. Even said, I missed this shit. I'm back. Bouncing around. So he looked tremendous and said that the energy that Francis was giving off just, gave him a boost of energy as well.

Described it as two little kids. Just have it a good time because of the energy Francis brought to the table. Now, the free agency question, if he is a free agent, like an out and out, outright free agent, in my eyes, news to him, news to me. Because if that's the case, Eric does, Eric Nixick has no clue, unless this happened after our conversation, which more than likely, if that was the case and he knew about it,

I would probably know about it as well at this point. So I don't know. I truly don't know whether or not he is an outright free agent or not. But as far as Nixick goes and the way he's viewing it, optimistic he fights John Jones, sometime in the first half of 2023,

March 4th, he says 50-50. Because he is still rehabbing. He's coming back from a pretty traumatic injury. That takes a lot of time to recover for. And let's be honest, if Francis isn't going to be 100% March 4th, then I don't want to see it March 4th. But Eric is confident that if all parties agree and Francis resigns and everything is good on all those aspects,

If they has to be ready for March 4th, they believe he can be ready for March 4th. But between business and just where he's at right now, 50-50, which look, in baseball terms, 50-50 is pretty damn good, right? So we'll see what happens. All of that's still kind of up in the air. Eric is not privy to the business side of things. But I would think if Francis was like an outright free agent

and with shopping suitors, that he would be privy to that and probably talk about it in some way or at least be sleutie about it, and he wasn't. And you'll see that in the conversation. But if you're asking me if I know for sure whether or not Francis and Ghana is a free agent or not,

I don't know. But that's based on that conversation. Four quarter sports, hello. Oh. Hey, Mike. Are you ever here? Yes, I can. All right, cool.

I wanted to ask the mouth injury to Calvin Gasson, was that like a sad infection? Because of so, Connor posting his, you know, his take on it, you know, saying that the mask probably was dirty and stuff like that. I just never seen something like that before, and if that's the case, I mean, that's pretty, that stuff's bad for, for Kelvin. for Calvin because the last thing he fought, I think he was out all the last year, but not mistaken, you know, right or am I wrong about that? Yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, it sucks for him.

I mean, the man, this is already going to be going, like, what, maybe like, what, 15 months without a paycheck from the U.S. That's a long time right there. And I think this is, like, what, the second time they were trying to book the National Dean of him to fight him. So it sucks on that.

I know you're so much John Jones and, let's go Francis and Gano, but I want to ask, between them too, you know, whoever was to win, if they do fight on March 4th, who would have like the bigger upside, you know, like from a legacy standpoint? As for, you know, you're tracking back, you know, in their careers, John getting the second belt or is it, you know, Francis getting a victory over somebody that we never thought that would be defeated? All right. Thank you. It's a really interesting question.

It's probably John. It's probably John. Just because of where everybody sort of rates him, a lot of people feel like he's the greatest of all time. Even Eric Nixick admits that even Eric said he thinks John is the greatest mixed martial earnest of all time. And for those who don't think that are on the fence, getting that second belt, puts it over the top.

100%. And I think, I mean, it'd obviously be huge for Francis, but it's just, it's the heavyweight division. And like right now, most people's eyes, the greatest UFC heavyweight is steep just because he had the title defenses. So adding John to that list probably puts Francis over the top. So I think it's obviously meaningful to both guys' legacies, but I think it's probably John more, it's probably more John just because of, the undefeated record. Like, I know he's got a loss on the record, but we all know, all of us know that that's a bunch of caca, the Matt Hamill thing.

So I would say John overall, just because of the undefeated record and the winning streak and all that. But that also means there's probably a lot more pressure on John, too, especially with everything involved, his career, what that 30 for 30 would look like right now. and then just move up to heavyweight and being out for three plus years

by the time he gets back in there, it's a lot to weigh in. But top of my head right now, it's probably something I'll be thinking about if that fight gets made. Heading in, it's probably a question we'll bring up on preview shows and stuff.

But I would say John Jones. Let's go to Emilio. What's up, Emilio? What's up, Mike? Happy to talk to you again. A heck of a morning to all the other beautiful listeners up in here. Up in here. Yeah, 223 has been rough, but let's try to say positives here.

I've got a couple of things that I want to get off my chest. First of all, the whole, okay, I guess it's one question and then kind of a statement. I'll start off with the question, which is related to Francis and the whole PFL thing with his mom. What do you think, how do you think if Francis was a free agent and if the PFL somehow managed to sign him? I mean, what do you think that would leave or the potential, what kind of potential would that have for the PFL, you know, by the end of the year in terms of their growth, in terms of their marketability? I was, I was listening to the MMA guru talk about the whole Francis thing with PFL. and he said that, I mean, you know, he's kind of a, you either love him or you hate him, but he was saying something in the realm of that Francis doesn't sell fights.

And I think the reason why he doesn't attract huge numbers is because the UFC just doesn't know how to promote this man. I mean, I know for the fact that you have come out and said, several times over different programs and different broadcast from the MMA fighting family that you just just show footage of this man blasting Alice or over into the shadow realm over and over again. That's it. You don't need to do anything else. So, so yeah, I guess, again, just to kind of finalize my thoughts.

The question would be, what kind of impact do you think, Francis being a free agent and Francis maybe signing with the PFL would have on the PFL as a brand, you know, with the whole Jake Paul signing and if by any chance they would

manage to sign Francis if he were a free agent. Honestly, yeah. So I guess that's my question and what I wanted to get off my chest is that there's a part of me that if I had to choose between seeing Francis fight John and finally seeing John

fight again, or having the PFL kind of I love Bellator or at least I don't mind them. I'm not a hater. But it would be kind of cool if the PFL sort of by the end of the year became the number two, the solid number two promote MMA promotion in the world and I think that if they

by any chance manage to sign Francis you know I mean you just said it yourself like he's probably not a free agent or or at least Eric Nixig doesn't that would be news to him but I would rather see that than a Jones and Gano matchup you know I'd rather I'd rather see Francis in the FFL just destroying bodies and sending more people to the shadow realm,

if that meant that P.F. Hoc will get some more momentum going for themselves and maybe attracting even bigger and better talent. So yeah, that's it. Thanks again for having me. Appreciate you all and have a heck of a morning. Thanks, man. It would be gigantic if PFL said Francis and Gano. Gigantic.

Francis is a, that's a difference maker. And I don't agree with the M.A. Guru, if that's what he said, I haven't heard him say that he doesn't sell fights. Francis doesn't have to sell fights. And in fact, you can make the case that all the fights that have been bought involving France and Gano, he has sold. outside of maybe the first steep fight. Because you saw, and I was there, I was in Boston covering that card. I think it was UFC 220. Francis challenging Stepe, his first title shot,

and you saw what a promotional machine the UFC can be for Francis Ingano, because that was the entire build to the fight was how much of a murderer he is, how much of a scary individual he is, his knockout ability, his power, all of it. It was built around him. And Stipe admitted frustration about it as well that the UFC didn't promote him enough. It was the Francis show. And you saw it at the end of the end of that fight. He refused to let Dana White wrap the belt around his waist when he beat Francis, gave it to his coach, had his longtime coach do it.

The relationship between Steepa and the UFC has been a pretty rocky one as well. But geez, a wheeze. You put France in the PFL? You put Francis and Bellator and they will, because you don't have to do much. You don't have to do much. Just show pictures of this man. Just show him with a mean look on his face. Just all jacked up and huge.

Punch in the bag. hitting mitts. I mean, that's all you need. That's all you need. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Francis and Ganu is probably the easiest guy to promote in the entire sport. He doesn't have to say a word. Of course, when he speaks, he's very eloquent. It's almost surprising how kind he is and how soft-spoken he is when you see what he actually looks like. But that's what makes him so marketable. It's so easy to promote. him. It's so simple. And yet,

outside of the first Deepe fight, the UFC has just done a horrible job promoting this guy. And it's so simple. I don't understand. But yes, it would be a game changer if PFL signed him. Because that's a domino effect.

If Francis goes and the grass is greener for him, when there's a John Jones fight on the table, holy cow. other guys are going to be jumping on board as well. This is a very big few months for the PFL. Huge, huge few months.

The Jake Paul news is big. No doubt about it. But it ain't enough. They get Francis, holy cow, that's huge. And you get Jake Paul to help promote him. You're going to just bring him into a whole different kind of an audience. Now, who knows what other names they'll sign. I know Kevin Lee has done interviews talking about wanting to sign out the PFL.

Eddie Alvarez is still kind of looming out there. I've been saying for a while now that I think that's probably where he'll end up. They got this new pay-per-view division. So you don't even have to sign these guys for the season anymore. You can just sign them for the pay-per-view fights. And Francis would be a huge signing. You still have to do more, but it'd be a damn good start. especially for a guy that's so easy to promote.

That's so easy to get over. Yeah. I mean, it's a no-brainer if they can do it, but we'll see if they can actually do it. That's the big question. Let's go to Tristan. It's up, Tristan. Maybe.

Yes, sir. A couple of things here. I was messaging AK yesterday. We were talking about the whole situation with Dana-WI. And what was on my mind was I was, trying to figure out is what is holding endeavor and ESPN, I mean, mostly Endeavor, what is holding them back from reprimanding Dana? There's got to be something because, like, you were expressing, I think last week was you don't really need Dana out there. The UFC could run the business

within itself. Like, you don't need to have data out there being visual. You could, have them do something else or whatever or not be in the spotlight at all and the UFC would be just fine so it's got to be something that's holding them back to even try to to not reprimand them or do nothing

and it was just so odd to me but AK had brought up a good point was he has a lot of support he has a lot of support within the media fans so and you know they're tied to him and I guess he does make them a lot of money.

I kind of compared it to the movie like Casino where like Dana White is Sam Rosting and Endeavor is the mob bosses and they're saying, listen, he makes a lot of money for us. So he's a made guy and not only being a made guy,

he's a good earner. So they're not they don't want to disrupt that because again, the UFC makes up a lot of their revenue for Endeavor and they don't want to disrupt. that so they're going to try to week this out as much as possible. It makes, you know, that makes the only sense to me in that, in that regards.

But anyway, other pressing questions I want to ask, what were your thoughts about Benyadereusia? What do you have to say about Dustin Porrier? Because I agree with him, but at the other hand, I also agree with Dustin Porier of taking only certain fights that is going to wake him up, that's going to motivate him. He's going to go for the big names. But I also agree with Darius.

He's like, man, fight the up and comers. You know, we talk about this all the time. You know, fighters squatting on their ranks. Fight the upper comers. Let's get the slight weight division moving along. So I just want your thoughts on that too. As well as we see Danny Gaye's fighting Damon Jackson and then as well.

And then was it? Gilbert Burns, expressing the same things of being more of a faster fighter. It's more of a go time for them. You know, I think Danny Yeh was talking about how that fight went with against the Korean zombie, that he wasn't pressing more. He's going to show that Saturday he's going to press more and really go for the finish. And then we saw Gilbert Burns, he was saying the same thing again against Neil Magny. I was like, I got to finish him to put a big impression on the UFC so I could figure out a way to get back to a title shot.

So just your thoughts on their interviews and what they had to say and what's coming up. All right. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, man. Yeah. Part of that Eric Nixon interview is we talked a lot about Danny Gay. His strength of schedule over the last couple of years has just been absolutely ridiculous. And we talked a lot about that fight.

and how much that meant to him. Danny Gay had just welcomed a child and to the world, and he really wanted to win that one. It meant the world. And maybe he felt more pressure for that fight than maybe he had felt in the past. And that's not really like Danny Gay. Dan typically has a business-like mentality,

no extra pressure. But that fight, apparently, there was a little bit more pressure to win because of him being a dad and all that stuff. And him in Punisoriato, I mean, the relationship between, I mean, those two guys have known each other forever. They knew each other as kids, grew up in Hawaii together, went to college together.

Ege moved to Vegas. Puna went with them. And now they're fighting on the same card and back-to-back spots in a main card. Like, I think that probably loosens Dan up a little bit. But yeah, I think I think Dan knows that. He's a pretty smart guy. And, yeah, Gilbert's probably the same way. I mean, they're both in pretty interesting spots right now.

A little bit different, but both in. pretty interesting spots right now. I'm trying to think of what the other questions were. But I'll talk about the Dana thing. Let's talk about the Dana thing. It's a tough spot for Endeavor, if we're being honest. And here's why. It's a serious conflict. But not only does Endeavor own the UFC, they're also Dana White's agents. They represent Dana White. So at the same token, you're running a business. You own the UFC. But it is also your job. job as an agent to protect your client. So it's kind of weird.

So that might have something to do with it. And then on top of that, they're probably all in communicato right now just saying, let's just act like nothing happens. And let's just hope this thing all goes away. And I think that's equal parts. But yeah, I mean, if your endeavor, it's your business. business, but it's also your client who makes you, even in that sense, a whole bunch of money. It's their job as his agent to protect him.

So you don't see a lot of instances like this where the business owner also acts as a representative of the person involved in this mess. And that might have something to do with it as well. but yeah it's it's just very strange how the only repercussion if you even want to call it that and maybe it'll be presented in that way is that the stupid power slap league is pushback a week and by the way i'm happy to announce and i even know if i'm supposed to announce this but i'm going to do it anyways mMA fighting we ain't touching that shit with a 10-foot pulls covering it. We're not recapping it. We're not going near it. Now, if there's a story about it,

if something happens, it gets canceled or taken off TBS schedule again, we'll of course report that. But if you think you're going to come to our website and we're going to tell you what happens on the first episode of Road to the Title for Dana White's Power Slap League, they're coming to the wrong website because we ain't going near that horse shit. So there you go. It's the matcha or the three Ensemble Cicester that I've been to deniches

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ca slash Black Friday. IKEA. Bring home to life. Let's go to Henry. Henry, you there. Nothing. Try again. Let's go to crypto. We'll take a few more and then I got to go busy day. Crypto, what's up? Crypto. What's up, man? Good. How are you? Good. Yeah, Mike. So a quick question because, yeah, I just talked briefly to A.K. about this, but I just want your take on this. So given this whole Dana White situation, and listen, Mike, I'm guilty of this as well, but are we as a community being a bit hypocritical when, and once again, Mike, I'm guilty of this, but when we want Dana to have some consequences, but we bluntly accept the behavior of John Jones.

and we I mean everyone is talking about him fighting Francis and Ghanu and of course there were some articles and this was supposed to be settled in court and so on but we know that he struck his wife in front of the yeah in front of his kids or the children it was a terrible incident and it kind of blew away right I mean it was brought up but we have kept on talking about this big fight. And to my knowledge, not a lot of us in the community have called for serious consequences for John Jones. So my question is, Mike, is it just me or am I? And maybe the community in general hypocritical here because we love this fight so much.

So we are willing to ignore John Jones's actions. But if Dana is removed, it kind of doesn't change the product in any way. I mean, to be completely honest, I mean, if Dana would have been removed, even if Dana is not basically the promoter in the future, I mean, there's a bunch of people that can take over that role and probably do it better than Dana. So it won't actually affect us that much. But if it's a member where there is a fight that is being affected, we're kind of, you know, like, yeah, let's see what happens.

Let's see what the police say about this and this and that. So that's my question, Mike. Should we have the same? And Mike, I understand Dana is different. I mean, Dana and a fighter are completely two different categories of people here. But still, I think we are a bit lenient to fighters as well. I think we should have the same standard for a guy like John Jones. Thank you, Mike.

So thank you for your call. I understand where you're coming from. However, the difference here is that the promotion actually said something about this. Like they actually came out and spoke about John Jones. Dana White in particular, it was talked about. Statements were made. Things were said. it was addressed like it actually happened.

And that's not happening here with Dana. It was one interview and it was done. And Dana has just gone on and lived his life and it is what it is. But the promotion actually spoke about it. People involved spoke about it. They're not doing that here. And that's my biggest issue. And again, I've said this a million times.

And when the John Jones thing was happening, we all reacted to it. We did videos about it. We've reacted to everything that John Jones has done. But at least it was addressed. And in the past, John has been stripped of titles. There were repercussions to a lot of John's antics. Didn't lead to him getting released outright from the UFC? No.

But at least his problems were talked about. they were looked at as bad things and there were some repercussion Dana there's none no statement from the promotion again they've told us to see the TMZ article no statement from Endeavor

nothing from the broadcast partners not that I expected it fans have taken up for Dana fighters taken up for Dana which is hilarious to me because I know a lot of people feel like, you know, Dana's one of us, built himself from the ground up.

If you were on fire in Las Vegas right now, Dana wouldn't piss on you to put you out. And you're defending this guy. It's crazy. And again, I'm not, no one to say, like no one that I've heard in this space, and I've talked about it a million times,

No one has said Dana should be fired. He should lose his job. No one's saying that. Although you can make a strong case that the UFC would actually improve with him out. It's the Vince McMahon thing. All we want is for people to care to understand why this is not a good thing. Why you can't just let this slide. And no one's saying Dana needs to be fired.

Get off TV. Get rid of the stupid power. slap league because that is the that might be the worst look of all of this is that you're allowing this to air on your on tv promos running on the social media running on the ufc social media it's just such a bad look it just shows you that nobody cares and i understand it's a private matter and all that stuff it's on video it's on video we can go look at this video anytime it's there. This isn't

this isn't Dana White arrested for allegedly slapping his wife and we don't know for sure. We saw it. We saw it with our own eyes. You can't hide from it. There's no loophole.

It's there. He's the president of the fucking UFC. And it's nothing. Again, any other sport. This is this is the biggest story and it is for a long time and maybe it fades away because within 24 hours everybody involved would have something to say there would be a statement released about it but not for dana it's just jett miss you use the purple word contrition contrition

step aside for three months go away pay a heavy fine that goes to a DV charity cut a PSA do something it's going to be with him forever when you talk about Dana White this incident is going to be with him forever it's never going away he's going to be looked at as the guy who built the UFC to where he's at and the guy who hit his wife. That's what he's going to be. But what you do with that and how the story continues on, how the promotion handled it, how endeavor handled it, how he handled it, how he showed that he cared, that will determine how this story ends or how the next chapters are written. He did this, he did this, he did this. And then he changed. And it never happened to get. What's wrong with that? I just don't understand. So I don't think it's the same

as John because it was addressed. This has not been addressed. And I got a problem with it. And as I said earlier, if you missed it, I talked to a lot of people I know who work in other sports, whether they're in front office positions with professional teams or they work media for other sports. And they're laughing at us. They're laughing at us. It is what it is. You can be okay with that, but I'm not. Michael, hello. All right. Nothing there. We got a couple of Mickeys. We'll start with Mikey villain. And then we'll go to Mikey bats and then I think Henry's still hanging on there too. Mikey, I got nothing. Connection

not good on your end. Mikey Bats. What's up, ma'am? I wish really push people would be like, Well, it's a private matter. It's between his wife. I'm like his wife can forgive Dana all he wants. The fact of the matter is the incident happened in public. It's on tape. He's a public figure. I don't understand why people think this is a private matter.

It's not private matter if it spills out where everyone can see it. Also, not to dive too much into it, but I think people need to understand if he hit his son, if he hit his brother, if he hit his security detail, it would be bad please stop trying to blame women for this or some stupid shit oh it's you know because women I'm like what are you freaking talking about you're not supposed to hit people in public

you're not supposed to act like that most people will get arrested for doing stuff like that as for you know I thought about this and I always we're like oh we're not saying we should get this job canned I'm like

honestly at this point I think it's irrelevant whether or not we think he should lose his job. The fact of the matter is he is in a more exalted position than even athletes. Because like the last guy, crypto, was like, oh, are we hypercritical because we support John Jones? No, it's not hypocrisy. Because you have to use emotional intelligence and nuance. With John Jones, there was accountability. Things happen to him.

Whether they happened correctly, whether justice was served evenly is debatable. But the fact of the matter is stuff happened to him. You know, as you know, Dana White and other people of positions of power that are even higher up, usually nothing happens to them. They quietly make it go away or it gets ignored. And the irony is, even if he was removed as UFC president, nothing's going to happen.

Nothing will happen. You know, no one's asking him to, you know, drive him bankrupt. No one's saying, hey, take his money. He's still going to be an owner of the U.S. It's just a cosmetic position. Hunter Campbell basically runs the UFC. He's the guy that signs everybody. You know, so like, yeah, I mean,

would it be weird? Sure. But, you know what? I think we just got so complacent in the idea that no one else can be UFC president. We don't even know what the idea is. When in reality, you know, Dana's not the only one running the place. You know, he works in conjunction with all of his books,

with Shelby and Maynard and Hunter. Heck, he still has to answer to Ari. So, like, if he's gone, he's gone. Big deal. He's still going to be freaking rich, you know?

So God forbid he loses this one cosmetic job. You know what I mean? So I don't know, man. Like, I know there's some nuances and it's more

far more complicated but I wish people would kind of like use your brains with the kind of situation, you know? Anyways, as always, be gotten guys.

I'll talk you later. Yeah, man. He's the freaking president of the UFC. And again, I brought this up and I'll say it again. What if this was Sean Shelby? What if this is Sean Shelby?

What if this is McMaynard? What if this is Hunter? They'd be gone. They would be gone. I'm convinced of that. As important as all those individuals are, they would all be gone. That's all I'm saying. All right, we'll take two more.

We'll see if we can get Henry in here. Henry, do we have you? We do not. Hashtag tobs. Let's go. What do we got? Are you there? You're muted. I can't hear you. Hello. Hey, Mike. How are you doing?

What's up, man? Yeah, health, success and wealth and everything. So my question is, my question is, and yeah, all you guys make some great points. Like, I'm even surprised that the U.S. the U.S. didn't even, like, issue, like, a statement of any sort. But that's really messed up, man, like, that I shouldn't be putting his hands. on a woman, no matter what happened, even if she's slapping first or whatever. I don't even want to hear that excuses.

But, yeah, back to the fighters. I hear that today he's like the last day of Francis being signed to the UFC, like is he officially a free agent or something? So is he going to fight this year? Are they going to bring him back? So that was my questions. and shout out to Shum Shickland for stepping up. I think that guy want to start the year on a good note since he lost that.

Did he? Yeah, I think he lost his last fight, right? So, yeah. He did. He lost his last time. So he wanted to start off on a good note. So yeah, so shout out to him for saving the event. And yeah, so yeah, I want to know about Francis' situation.

So we talked about Francis this earlier. I have no idea, honestly, but I did speak to his head coach yesterday, and it seems like it would be news to him if he's an outright free agent. He's optimistic the John Jones fight happens. March might be too soon. He said it's 50-50 in his eyes just based on the business stuff. And the dude ripped his knee to shred. and had surgery in March.

So it hasn't even been 10 months since. But he said he worked with Francis before he went back to Cameroon, said Francis bounced around good, so he had great energy to him. And that made Eric really optimistic about his future. So yeah. But as far as like the business side,

whether or not he is in fact an outright free agent, I honestly don't know. But I would think Eric would know, but maybe he didn't. I don't know. So that's just from conversing with him yesterday for about 35 minutes, which hopefully you'll see that interview in the next day or two. Henry, last chance, my man.

And then I'm going to take one more and then I have to go. Hi, Mike. There we go. Hey, how you doing, buddy? A heck of a morning. First time caller here, long time listener. I just want to start off my call by saying big props to your best friend, AK Lee.

I feel like he kind of got the Moy Caliente prediction kind of right-ish. I mean, I literally got done listening to the show on Monday evening, and within an hour the Habib News came out. I know, obviously, A.K.'s prediction was Habib coming back as a fighter, but still, I've got to give the guy some props, because it was just so weird how quick it happened within him making that prediction. And also, I just want to talk about the book in between Lorraine Murphy and Nathaniel Wood. I really feel like the U.S.E could have done a bit better here.

I know you have to look at time frames and stuff like that, but I just feel like the momentum right now, you could have kept these guys apart. Like the featherweight division is so deep. And it just, it's going to be a fun fight, but it just doesn't make sense, especially with the momentum that Nathaniel has right now after that win against Jordane. I don't get it.

I feel like they could have kept them separate, but that's me. Anyway, thanks for the call, Mike. Yeah, I don't think you're alone in that. it's kind of a stunner, especially doing it in the UK, having those two guys fight each other. But as fight fans, holy shit, that fight's awesome. It's going to be such a good fight.

Laron hasn't fought in a long time, man. So I'm very excited to see him back. I think Nathaniel Wood has just this newfound, like he's always been really good, but I feel like this move to featherweight has just scratched him right where he itched. It's just such a sick fight. I just kind of wish it wasn't happening now, but take where these guys are from completely

out of it. It makes sense from a meritocracy perspective because there's probably only room for one of these guys, like as potential top 10 guys. And it stinks having two guys from around the same area of the world fighting each other on this card, it doesn't make a lot of sense when typically these cards are structured as UK and Europe versus the U.S. and everybody else.

You don't see a lot of matchups like this, but, man, such a good fight. Such a good fight. It's going to be really, really good. Laroni's and fought since the Mach 1 win. Wow, it's been that long. October 2021, UFC 27. That's the last time we saw the Roan Murphy fight.

It's supposed to fight Nate Landware, and then Murphy had to withdraw from that one, but it's going to be a banger. It's going to be a banger. But I get where you're coming from. King Katz. Hello. Hey, Mike. Thanks for tagging me in here.

I was just able to join not too long ago, so apologies. It has already been brought up, but Amanda Nunes has been posting quite a bit of training and strength of conditioning footage on her Instagram lately. Do you have any idea when she's coming back or if it's 135, 145, or if you don't know, what do you think? Thanks a lot.

Have a good day. Thank you. Yes, I have seen the training footage. I don't know. Because I'm trying to think, like, where they would put her, that makes sense. It probably won't be. I don't know. And I don't know what they're going to do.

I mean, there's options for her. Not a ton. I mean, there's Dumont, there's, if you wanted to go that route, there's, I mean, there's, but not only like all that, there's the Nunes trilogy,

or the Julia of Hanya trilogy, which I'll be honest, I don't, I don't know, I don't really love that one. There's Irene Aldan. But then you get Chavchenko, which is the one everybody wants to see. So, yeah, I'm not really sure. I mean, we'll see.

Looks like she has, I'm kind of surprised they didn't get something for her on this card next Saturday. But that was before all the chaos of 205 happened. But we'll see. I mean, there's, we got Ketlin Vieira fighting Raquel Pennington on Saturday. That's a big one in this division. I know Nunes and Pennington fought, but Vieira would be. a fresh new matchup for her. And even like this version of Pennington would be interesting.

But worst case, I think the winner of that fight probably fights Juliana Pena. I think that would make a ton of sense. I think the Raquel Pennington and Julieta Pena fight would be good business. There is a, Raquel Pennington is not a fan of Giuliana Pena, to put it lightly. But you can do Dumas, I don't love that fight. But it's something. There's just not a lot of left for Amanda at this point. point.

So I hope the answer is Valentina Shepchenko sooner rather than later. That's what I hope. All right, Michael, I'll get you in, then I have to go. Are you there? I am here. How are you doing? What's up, man? So this is like back to the topic of the

slap fighting thing. Obviously, we all think slap fighting is done as fuck. And it's honestly, in my opinion, it's a bad luck. But I don't know if the numbers are out there, but like, how lucrative, like, is it to be, like, in the slap fighting thing? like how much are those guys making? Do you give any ideas?

I have no idea. I assume it's far less than what UFC fighters are making. And apparently this is going to be positioned like some sort of ultimate fighter thing where they're all living in a house and it's going to be some kind of tournament thing and miss me with that. I mean, I literally have no interest.

I know we have a video on our YouTube channel talking to some of the fighters, but it just, that was just a geographical thing because it was UFC 282 Media Day. And before the UFC 282 fighters came up, they had those guys in a separate room. So it's either just sit there and do nothing or go talk to the slap fighters. And people wouldn't talk to the slap fighters. But, I mean, literally zero interest.

Zero, zero, zero, zero, zero. But I'm sure they're not making very much. All right, I'll take one more. We'll get George in here. It's got to be super quick, though, George. What's up, man? Yeah, thanks for squeezing me in. I just wanted to say, for those of us wanting,

hoping, starting to lose hope that Dana might actually face some repercussions. I'm starting to see that people outside of the bubble, the Dana bubble, because Dana can control ESPN. He has power, pulse, sway with ESPN. SPN, Disney, Endeavor, the MMA media. But I'm starting to see people outside of this bubble criticizing Endeavor, criticizing Dana. And these are people, these are organizations he can't control.

Like today, someone wrote an article in Variety Magazine criticizing Endeavor. Variety Magazine is the number one magazine. It's like the Sports Illustrated of Hollywood. basketball players, actors. And today, California politicians wrote a letter demanding that Endeavor do something about Dana. This is starting to grow organically. The like Dana can only control the bubble. This is beyond the bubble.

So there's still hope. There's still hope that Dana will be made to pay some price. that endeavor will be forced to act because it's one thing to keep it in-house. It's another when forces beyond when it goes mainstream. So I think I say we just take a wait and see attitude and don't be surprised if a week from now Dana steps down or Endeavor releases some statement

that he's like under suspension or something of that kind. So I think that bears watching, Mike. Thanks, man. Yeah. And I remember a call I took on Friday. And I know he was coming from a different place. Perhaps maybe he didn't know all the ins and outs of it. But he said something to the effect of this is overblown.

The story is overblown. And I'm like, are you shitting me? This is the most underblown story of this nature, maybe in the history of sports. at least American sports. And I think that's kind of part of the problem, too, is that if this was an NFL owner on video or an NBA owner, like if this is Mark frigging Cuban, if this is Mark Cuban on video,

getting in an altercation with his wife and slapping her in the face, everybody would be talking about this. This would be worldwide headline news if this is the cubes. This is cubes. But it just takes us back to where we are as a sport. And as I mentioned earlier, talking to other people in other sports who work in front offices or in media, this is who they think we've been the entire time. And this just put a stamp on it. I'll never forget it.

I'll never forget listening to my buddy say, when I asked him about this, we're all laughing at. you. So he said, we're all laughing at you. We're not laughing at the situation. We're laughing at you, the sport, and the community. And of course, he didn't just, like, leave it at that. We had more of a conversation, but it was led into, like I said, how Ariel put it out with the Dennis Green quote. They are who we thought they were. That's who the rest of the sports world thinks of us and always has and this just puts it over the top for them because i mean i've had conversations with them saying oh we're coming around just look at what we've done look what the sport not i mean not you know what i mean look at the sport his words come over the last couple years

being on ESPN and this new deal and ESPN plus and everything they did in the pandemic to keep the sport alive and all that stuff despite people you know having reservations about it and it, they went ahead and they did it. And they did it very well. And those people weren't convinced back then, and they certainly aren't convinced now. But again, this is not an overwhelming story because outside of our little bubble in the occasional write-up on Deadspin and politicians now coming together, women's advocacy groups calling for Dana's job, we've seen some celebrities come out and talk about it, Jamie Fox, Noriega,

others as well, it's just not enough. It's just not enough. And if this is anybody else in that position, this is not just a bubble story. This is a everywhere story. And it hasn't been. It hasn't been.

So, yeah, that's where we're at. All right, I got to go. Appreciate you. I got interviews coming up today. I think you'll like them. and more coming up tomorrow. Trying to be positive, but again, this story's not going away, friends.

It's not going away. Maybe it will. Maybe something will be done. Statements will be made. Some sort of contrition will happen. But I'm not holding my breath. But I'm also not standing here because these fighters deserve

their recognition and all the card stuff and the coverage. Saying about Dana. The same even about the UFC. It's about them. It's about the fighters. And that's how I have to look at this. It's about the fighters and we need to put the focus on them. But this is not going away.

And we'll probably talk more about this on Thursday when we'll return. So thank you very much. You guys are the best. I appreciate you. Back Thursday, 10 a.m. Eastern, right here on the Twitter spaces. Until then, have a great rest of the day. And as always, have a heck of a morning, everybody.