MMA Fighting - HOAM | Should Sean Strickland Or Israel Adesanya Get Dricus Du Plessis Title Fight Next?

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

The UFC's middleweight division is fascinating right now, especially with the addition of Robert Whittaker vs. Khamzat Chimaev in the main event of UFC Saudi Arabia in June. As of now, new champion Dricus Du Plessis' first title defense is not lined up, but should he face bitter rival Israel Adesanya next, or the man who gave Du Plessis his toughest fight to date in Sean Strickland? On an all-new edition of Heck of a Morning, MMA Fighting's Mike Heck discusses the middleweight title picture, why the word "deserves" should be limited from the vocabulary of UFC fans, and which fighter has the best chance of being Du Plessis' next opponent. Additionally, listener questions include Dana White's relationship with the MMA media, getting into the MMA space, the UFC Atlantic City main event between Erin Blanchfield and Manon Fiorot, 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 to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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What's going on everybody? I am Mike Heck. I hope you're all having a fantastic week. We're on the eve of UFC Atlantic City. getting the wheel of doom do we have you no we did and then you were gone so try again um let's try a left lane do we have you left lane yeah can you hear me yes sir all right well heck of a morning mike and you know normally i would come on you and i'd talk about fight announcements or i would talk about the upcoming card but i got all that out my system the other day and now this card i just don't have a whole lot to talk about so i wanted to ask you a question

in terms of your background in media and also, I guess, any advice or any pointers or anything like that that you have on how to become one with the scumbag media, how to become one of you guys in the media space, whether that be for a platform like MMA fighting or anything else, I guess if you could give me sort of like an outline because it's something I've been wanting to do

when I get out of high school is go down the media, especially sports media pathway and obviously talking about in that UFC space would be amazing but I guess how do you go about doing that what was it like for you in terms of your progression through the I guess the ranks of media

to make it to your position at MMA fighting and what advice would you have for me as someone who doesn't live in America if that changes anything and yeah that's all I'm asking thanks Thanks, man. Yeah, my progression was definitely different than most. Yeah, I've talked about this before, but most of my jobs over the last decade or so were kind of right place, right time, if we're being honest.

So I've always been a guy who likes to have a microphone in hand or in his face. I have, when I was a little kid, I wanted to be a game show host. That was like my dream. I wanted to be a game show host. I thought I would be great at that. Still think I could, but those jobs are like impossible to find now, unless you create your own game show. It's just, it's just not there because they just take celebrities

and just give them the jobs as opposed to like doing what they used to do where you would try out for, but that's beside the point. but I started DJing weddings. I started hosting karaoke shows. I started hosting trivia shows. And then in like 2013, when I was living in the Berkshires, there was a weird time where I got a phone call out of nowhere about whether or not I wanted to be on the radio

and host afternoons on the biggest station of the area. But it was like a hit music station. And I had never done that shit before. But I was like, oh, this is kind of interesting. So I got brought in to kind of try out. I did a couple of weekend shifts and kind of learn the ins and outs. And basically the way it was presented that my name came up was like, look, this guy does all this stuff anyways. He just doesn't know how to push buttons to learn how to run everything and actually be on the air.

And after going through the weekend shifts and going through a couple of interviews, I ended up getting the job. And at the time, I had started listening to podcasts. Obviously, people who listened to the show, I was a big pro wrestling fan growing up, especially in the 90s. And I remember that Stone Cold Steve Austin had his own podcast. So I started listening to that. He's doing interviews. He was answering questions, telling stories. and all that.

And I was like, oh, this sounds like something that I could do. I could do something like this. So me and a couple of buddies, we just started to do a sports podcast, and it was terrible.

And no one really listened to it. There was like one episode that we did that actually like got some traction. But it was about whether or not I had some college, some college newspaper writers and bloggers for specific schools come on and talk about why, or why not college athletes should be paid to, especially at a D1 level. And that debate actually caught a little bit of fire.

And that was like right around the time I got the radio job and started getting into radio and like was doing pretty well. Started getting really into the production side, learning how to use Adobe audition. And I mastered that pretty quickly. produced some Massachusetts Broadcast Association, best commercials of the year awards. I think I produced two of those, which is pretty cool. And just really started getting into it.

And then on the sports show, I started doing a couple of interviews. And I remember I had a couple of fighters on. Joe Proctor was the first fighter I had interviewed. He was on the ultimate fighters in the UFC for a hot minute. He was from Massachusetts too. And we did this like 30 or 35 minute interview for the podcast. And someone had heard the interview who represented some of the fighters from the past that fought at like the early, early UFCs.

Like Pat Smith and Cal Warsham and the late grade Emmanuel Yarbrough and others. And he had asked if I wanted to do some interviews with them. So I started interviewing those guys. and there is this event out in Syracuse, New York. It was the MMA Classic Fan Expo. And I've told this story before. A few of us went out there. It was like a two-day event.

I ended up hosting the events out of the blue. They didn't have an MC. The guy who was running it said the MC just no-showed them, even though they paid them up front. So I ended up doing it. So that was pretty cool. And there was like a roast of the UFC One fighters. And there were like,

there were a ton of people there, past and present fighters, and I started to do some interviews and learning backgrounds and stories. And when we left there, before I went to drive home from Syracuse, me and a buddy who came out, we went out to lunch and I was like, hey, it's up to you. You could be on this ride or not, but we're changing the podcast to this. We're just doing MMA interviews because these are fascinating stories and I want to learn more about as many fighters as possible.

and that's what we ended up doing. And then we started, I just started reaching out to everybody at that point. I would go on Facebook. I would go on Instagram, anywhere I could send direct messages to fighters or emails or whatnot if they had websites. And I would submit 20 messages a day to anybody that I could find. I was just like, oh, this would be interesting. And I would go up and on the roster. and try to get some folks.

And I would get some, most of the time, I didn't get any responses. But then some of the interviews started to catch some buzz and some PR reps from some of the smaller MMA companies started reaching out and want to do some interviews. So James Lynch has told the story as well. We started getting interviews with fighters who were competing for Titan FC. They were a pretty big regional promotion of the time. They're on Fight Pass.

a huge chunk of fighters on the UFC roster now or in the past six years competed for Titan FC at one point. So I just started doing those interviews. And then from that point, like other folks would reach out and I would just try to interview everybody. Just try to interview everybody.

I wasn't doing like a ton of writing at the time. And then at one point, I went to cover, it was UFC 208 in Brooklyn. I used my radio job to try to get credentials. Just to give it a shot, I was like, well, they're kind of close. So we'll see if I can get them, and I ended up getting them. So I went out there, met some folks. It was quite the experience, seeing what a pay-per-view fight week look like.

And at the time, I had met, I think it was on Fight Night, I met Mike Dice. And Mike Dice used to be the head editor. for fan-sided MMA at the time. And he was like, I love your interviews, you do a great job. Have you thought about writing?

We'll pay you. It's not much, but at least you'll get the experience of writing and what to do. And I'll show you the ropes. I'll show you what things to do, what things not to do, et cetera.

And, you know, some of your podcast interviews can make it to our site. So I was like, all right, I'll try it. So I started doing some writing for fan-sided.

and as we were going, I was loving it. And then I realized, probably through the first year, we had started to assemble a fucking dream team over there. And I was like ready to go because it was me, Dice. We had Jose Youngs. We had James Lynch over there. We had, I mean, there's so many of us. And we were just really good.

Kristen King was there. And we were just, we were just firing on all cylinders doing all these different things uh this is in 20 when was this this start this was what 2017 probably like beginning at 2017 and we're just firing it was it was awesome like it was awesome and i was really getting into it i had asked my wife for the time like there was talks about me like running my own mma site under the fan sided banner uh It didn't really work out. We just couldn't get it to work.

And so I just stayed with fans out for a while. Got to cover some events for them. UFC 220 in Boston, Jose and I got to do that one together, which was a lot of fun. Excuse me. It just started to learn the ropes. And then it got to the point where the site we kind of disintegrated. Lynch had left.

Then Dice ended up taking a job with NBC Sports. He was gone. So then Jose was running the site in Dice's absence. And then Jose got the job with M.A. fighting. And, you know, the core group was gone. And fans had to continue on. And they kind of went in like a different direction of how they were doing coverage. And at that point, I was just like, hmm, maybe this isn't the spot for me.

And I still wanted to keep doing the podcast, which I did. Dice even let me do a podcast on FanCided. We called it the Extra Rounds podcast. And I kind of took that over, which is a lot of fun. And then once people started to leave and the core group was disintegrated, I was like, eh, I'm not going to really get to do this anymore. I kept doing the podcast. And then our radio group actually got bought out by Town Square Media,

which is like a big ass conglomerate that just buys out like local radio chains and they focus more on like the digital side of things so i was still trying to do the mma stuff we have this new company that's focusing on digital and i'd stepped up and done something with like our city elections to make sure that all the coverage is on the website and the company as a whole was like oh this is good stuff way to show initiative let's promote you to you could be like the digital media editor for us. So I started like running all the websites and started running that. And then I realized that even though it was technically on paper a management position,

I had no power at all. No one fucking listened to me. And like I had no backing from anybody. And I was just so fucking stressed out about it that I was just getting over it and over it. And at the time, I was like, do I just play it safe and just try to rise up in this big, huge company and just give up MMA and just focus on that? And then I had a conversation with James Lynch.

He's like, no, don't do that. Don't leave. Still do one interview. And then I had a conversation with Mickey Gall, UFC fighter, because after he called out CM Punk on looking for a fight, I was the first interview he did. And that interview got picked up by, like, everybody. So it was like the first time things happened.

And Mickey's like, no, don't go, man. like we don't want stick around the space like you're a different kind of a presence like stick around and then you know if you go to the to lynch's mma industry podcast i kind of told the story where i took a job in cape cod we're going to try to move the family down there and i fucking hated it was still in radio but it was behind the scenes doing marketing i absolutely hated it and i would go home and i'd go home for lunch and i would just do m m ms interviews, and I would just do them as much as I could. So if I was like, yeah, I got to do, you know, I got to go do this call.

I'm going to meet this client or whatever. I would just go home and do interviews instead. I fucking hated that job. I liked people I worked with, but hated the job. And we eventually realized that the move wasn't going to work out. So I gave my two weeks, said I'm done. I had to go back home. And then I'd asked my wife at the time, like, can I just give this a shot?

And at the time, I had already, like, had an initial conversation with MMA fighting because most of the staff was gone. Ariel was gone. Luke was gone. Mark Romundi was gone. Shaheen was gone. Chuck was gone. So the site was kind of dwindling down to just a few people. They brought Damon in. And, you know, Jose was there. And I had a good relationship with him. So he would go to bat for me as much as possible.

and just like just keep plugging away and like opportunities are eventually going to open up so just be patient they're going to come so my wife had let me go do the M.A. thing for a year and I was like, give me one year and if a year from today, I'm not either making comparable money freelancing to what I was making in radio

or I don't have a full-time job. I will never do this again. Like just give me one shot. I want to give it a go. I don't want to live my, life with regret 10 years from now that I didn't give it that I didn't try. So I basically did what kind of like James Lynch is doing now. I just got on with a whole bunch of different sites, doing a ton of video interviews. So I learned how to video edit, started writing a lot more.

I was doing a lot of fight night coverage for a couple of different sites where I was doing like full event recaps, fight recaps, results, all of it. That grind of fight night. and was hosting other shows along the way as well, kept in touch of the M. A-Fighting. And eventually, when I covered UFC.C. 244, I had found out that Danny Segorah was leaving.

And it was like his last, I think fight night was his last day with M.M.A. fighting before going over to M.A. Junkies. There's another spot that was opening up. And at that point, like, the wheel started spinning a little bit. It looked like things were going to happen. But those freelance times, man, were, like, grind.

I mean, they were a grind. I was making shit money. But I was like pumping out content like crazy. I was breaking some news. Just so much going on behind the scenes. So I had a supplement income by continuing to DJ weddings, which I was so over at the time. I did some PA work for like a minor league baseball team during their home games. So like whatever I could do that was like easy money.

to grasp just to like help the cause I would do it but the whole thing was M. I would spend all day doing M.M.A stuff doing interviews, doing writing, all that stuff. And then eventually had the interview with M.A. fighting. And right before I took the M.A. fighting job, I had a couple of like sponsors reach out with like some big deals. that would have been comparable to continue freelancing. And it would still be the same money I was making on radio. So like at that point, this is probably January, early, like late January of 2020,

that was, I pretty much known like no matter what happens here, like, we're good. And this is before COVID really hit. So there was always like a part of me being like, should I take this, job or should I just keep going on my own and just see what it did what would happen and obviously I made the right to go to that in May fighting because if I had gone on my own, who knows where I would be right now because of COVID and everything shutting down. I'm sure like the sponsor deals would have probably, I don't know if they would have fallen through, but it probably wouldn't have lasted very long because of where the world was going. So basically the long and the short of it was

the advice if you want to do this just fucking do it just do it and embrace the grind of it all because that's exactly what it is it is a grind it is fun you will make very little money for the first several years covering the sport and then eventually if you start to catch some steam and you build some really good relationships to the point where people will have your back and support you and pump your tires, so to speak, that's all good stuff. Go cover events, get in front of people, talk to people, do as if it's, and then you just kind of figure out what your niche is going to be. I was always on-camera stuff.

That was always me or doing the microphone stuff. I'm not a tremendous writer. I mean, I pump out some of those features, but I get a lot of help on those. but it's just like the audio production and hosting that kind of thing, that's my jam. That's my bread and butter. And I also want to try to find different ways to like be different. Case in point, the golf video with Mike Perry. That's something I've been wanting to do forever.

And it took me like three years of research to kind of figure out like what's the easiest way to do it. And it took some trips and some filming of things that never hit air to realize like how this is going to go. what's the best way to do it, et cetera. And we're still working on that. So just find an inch and do it, man. I mean, that's really all I can say and just do it as much as possible. There's going to be times where you just don't think it's worth it. But if you really want to do this, then you battle through those and you keep going.

It's ebbs and flows with everything. Even when you get, you know, even with MMA fighting now, love my job, love what I'm doing. But at the same time, it is a grind. It's a lot. It's a lot every Saturday. And you're watching like, some cards are great. Like doing the watch party and stuff is awesome.

Love that. But there are some cards that are awful. They have to sit there and try to like battle through and then you have to talk about them after when literally nothing happens. So, I mean, there's Emson flows with everything, but if you want to do it, just do it.

Don't wait. Don't wait until after high school. if you want to cover it, go fucking do it now. Go do it. Go do it. Go cover some local events. Go find some fighters to interview. Go find some prospects. Go find some amy fighters.

Go find some early pro fighters. Just talk to all of them. Talk to all of them. Keep doing everything. Just try a little bit of everything. Some things are going to work and some aren't. So just go. Just do it.

You don't need fancy equipment to do it. a microphone and a camera. There you go. Hope that helps. It was a long story, but here we are. Support for this show comes from Volkswagen. As the U.S. gets ready to host soccer's biggest moment on a worldwide stage, Volkswagen is helping people discover new turfs and new ways to play the beautiful game right here in the U.S. From deaf and power wheelchair soccer to beach and futsal, Volkswagen is actively supporting all the communities and teams within the U.S. soccer ecosystem. They're supporting talent from across the U.S.

soccer extended national teams and are focused on helping to give these less widely known forms of soccer a platform moving forward. From the pitch to the sand and everything in between, welcome to our turf. Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever.

Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster, the downloaded. It's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequence. Wolf that leaves you asking, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The downloaded two Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. CV, do we have you now? Hey, Mike, can you hear me?

Yes. Ah, happy, happy Friday, happy Good Friday. Just two quick questions for me. First off, what are your thoughts on Kamar or Uswan? Do you think he's going to fight again? I've been seeing clips of him with Sehudo on his podcast. And it seems like he's right at home doing that. I don't know.

I don't mind if he doesn't fight again, to be honest. Like, I don't mind him as an analyst. Like, I could maybe see him doing some commentating, maybe doing like what Felder does. Yeah, your thoughts on that. And what are your expectations for your Red Sox this season? Thanks. I mean, the second question is easy.

162 and O, baby. Let's go. Getting that quick win in there last night. It was nice. Getting it done. Some clutch hitting down the stretch was beautiful. Nah, I mean, they'll be okay. They'll be like an 88 win team probably at best.

Maybe they sneak into a playoff spot, but I'm not expecting much from them. Their offseason was shit. They didn't even try if fucking drove me crazy. But hopefully they go out there and just show something. and I'll be happy with that. Will Oostin fight again? Yeah, I think he'll fight again. Uston's one of those guys, you know,

kind of going back to the old story I just told. Oostin's one of those guys that I interviewed early, interviewed him early on when he first got to the UFC when nobody was interviewing him. And I always thought he was such a fascinating guy. Uber competitor, very confident, super intelligence. And I remember after the first,

time I interviewed him, I think it was like after his first official UFC fight, I was like, this guy is going to make it. And anything he does. The way he sees fights, the way he breaks them down is incredible. So if he didn't want to fight again, he is a no-brainer analyst. He is a no-brainer analyst. And he's a no-brainer color commentator as well. I think he's tremendous. I've been saying this for five, six years now that Usman would be a, no-brainer color commentator as well. I think he's tremendous. I've been saying this for five, six years now, that Usman would be a fantastic desk guy or a color guy. And if you watch those old Eagle FC cards

when they were running in Miami with signing all those big names, the commentary was pretty bad. But when they would bring Usman in, you could just feel the shift of professionalism. You could feel it. Because Zahudo couldn't even pronounce any of the, any of the fucking fighter's names right. Like none of them.

He couldn't even announce Habib's name right. And it was just like, it was just kind of funny. But when he was breaking down fights, he was great at it. But there's just like little things he was really bad at. But then they would bring Usman in

for like two or three fights. And he'd just like, damn, this guy's so good at it. Who he fights? I don't know. I think you should stay at 185. There's really nothing for him at 170 at the moment

unless he wants to fight a young up-and-comer. And even then, even if he beats said young up-and-comer, or multiple young up-and-comers, as long as Leon Edwards is the champion, he's never getting a title shot. He's already lost twice, so they ain't going to re-book that one again.

So go to 85. Just have some fun ones, man. I mean, I don't know who those are. We were talking about this up BTL yesterday. Like if Chris Wyman goes out and beats Bruno Silva on Saturday, like that's fun. That's a fine fight. I don't hate that.

You could do Usman v. cannon air, that's fine. There's, there's, there's things we could do with Usman if he wants to keep fighting. But knowing Usman, as long as I've known him and, you know, even talk to him back in the day, there's a competitive side to him that I don't know how easy that is going to be for him to just let go of that. So I do expect him to stick around for a little while longer, if that makes sense. But once his career is actually over, he's going to. He's going to, going to be he's going to be incredibly good on camera doing analyst roles or uh or color four on sniper hey can you hear me yeah yeah okay all right good uh heck of a morning first of all uh just

real quick you know i do this every weekend i always ask you just wanted to hear your your best best for the weekend that's all i got for you mike oh god let's take a look here Let's take a look. I mean, Aaron Blanchel, minus 185. That's close fight. I don't, I'd probably take, like, some props of that with that with the main event. Vicente Lucke at minus 115 sticks out to be a lot. I just don't see.

I think walking Buckley's, like, a good, solid hand, but I just, like, I just think Luca's better than Joaquin Buckley. I think he's fought way better competition than Joaquin Buckley has. and Lucke has some losses, but his losses are to, like, the best dudes. And I just don't necessarily view Joaquin Buckley as, like, a top 10 guy in the world. So him at minus 115, I don't hate that at all.

Chris Wyman can absolutely be Bruno Silva. So there could be some juice there plus 205. It's kind of looking at, like, some, like, decent, underdog plays. I mean, Verna Janderoba, Verna Jandarob is almost plus 200

right now. And Lupi Godinez is a good, is a good fighter. But, Varen is a tough out. You're giving me two to one on her. I don't hate that.

I don't hate that. What's Vecitei look at for points? Fentzei Luque minus three and a half points is plus 110. I don't hate that. Yeah, I haven't really done a lot of,

digging into good betting lines for this card because this card isn't that great. But those are some of the ones that just kind of stick out looking at them real fast without doing any research or watching any tape. Holding hands, go ahead. You're muted holding hands. Hey, Mike. I'm the other half of holding hands and throwing fists actually usually talk to my husband. Oh, welcome.

It's nice to talk to you and be on. on. So earlier this week, you mentioned that when you interview Brandon Moreno, you've like vibe with him. You love to interview him. So we were wondering, who would you want to interview outside the MMA space that you think you would also vibe with? Oh, that's a great question. That is a great question. God, I don't know. That's a, man, that's a good one. Probably some probably be some golfers. Like Max Homa is funny as shit.

Min Mool-Lee is funny. The golfers are hilarious. I think those guys would be those guys and gals would be fantastic. Someone had asked me the other day if I wasn't covering MMA, what sport I'd cover. It would be golf in five

seconds. Like one million percent. Vox had, if Vox reached out to me tomorrow and said, hey, we need, you know, the heritage is coming up. You live in the area. Could you help us out, cover the heritage for us? I would, wouldn't even hesitate to say yes to that. The personalities on the golf course are great. Golf's just fun as hell anyways. And I think I would vibe with a lot of those guys, even like some of the creator, like golf creators. I mean, I was

basically inspired by, you know, the guy, the Bob does sports guys. Like, I don't know if you guys, have ever watched Bob DeSports but God that is good stuff like my favorite content to watch on YouTube right now it's just a bunch of like it's two like real bad golfers and then one really good golfer

and they just have the best time and they do all these different challenges and stuff like I would vibe with all those guys but probably probably some probably golfers if there's one person I would interview it would be The Rock.

The Rock's been my guy since I was like at high school. I was told people like, The Rock's going to be a huge star. You just watch, even when everybody hated him. When he was in the nation of domination, I was like, I'm telling you, this guy's going to be the guy.

So like, every time I go home and like see my old friends from high school and stuff, they always be like, you were the one who called it. You said it. The Rock was going to be the guy. But that would be a cool one interview. But, yeah, Justin Thomas, Jordan Speath, Max Homa,

the golfers. I think I would advise. best of them. I'm sure some of them watch fighting too. I don't Roy McAwery likes the fights. So that'd be fun as hell. It's a great question. Much love. Let's go to Toke. What's up, Toke? To just quickly chime in

because I just saw a man on Furo on the scale and thought she looked gone would probably be the right word. So I wonder how that, does that change anything in your mind as to the chances of Manon Furo winning or not, because it's always always kind of a weird thing to kind of make up in your head if you're a sports betting and stuff.

And other than that, by the way, I just wanted to say the clip that I saw from the Dana White Sage Steel interview, where he says that he only wants to get interviewed by podcasters and sports business journal and sports business journal had come back and fact-checked four or five times. Dana, that's not the flakes that you think it is. That's probably because you've told them some bullshit, honestly. That's it, Mike.

Thank you. And I think that was, I think that interview got dropped already. It was about PowerSlapp. So, yeah, of course they're going to fact-check. That's what journalism is. And Dana has this thing where he's like, You know, I didn't say this or fact check it. Like, God, he doesn't get it.

Like, just come out and say you want positive PR all the time. Like, just come out and say it. It's fine. It's the truth. All you want is positive PR. I mean, at the end of the day, that's all everybody wants, but you demand it. You demand that. And your whole thing is now, well, I'm just not going to do interviews with anybody.

unless it's like my friends or shows like this who are just going to cater to me and who are going to promote my brand. And that's fine. Like I don't care. I don't care. It's hilarious when Dana gets mad when people write about actual things he says. And he's like, well, they don't fact check that. You fucking said it.

You fucking set it into a microphone. We're quoting you. We don't have to fact check things when you come out and do these interviews. actually say them. You say them. But that's fine. Look, Dana has won the game. He doesn't have to do interviews with us. He could hate the MMA media all he wants. He also says, like, I don't care if any of those media members ever cover an event. No, you know that's not true. And I guarantee you, there are a lot of people on that staff who would disagree with that of one million percent. Dana wants to be a 22-year-old right now. He wants to hang out with young

He wants to use the influencers to promote his brands, which is not a bad strategy, by the way. But he's just, he's just changed the game. I mean, he's just in a different world now where he doesn't have to do any of this stuff. And that's fine. That's totally fine. But this is hatred against the media because, like, we prove him wrong most of the time. It's just ridiculous. It's just ridiculous.

Like, that's sports. said, he has said forever, we want to be the biggest sport in the world. We want to be up there in the same conversation with all these other sports. Go find me any other major sport that gets 100% positive press. Go find me one. You can't. You can't. Roger Goodell gets bashed on a daily basis by the media. NFL owners, NBA owners, the NBA commissioners, Major League baseball officers. They get ripped to shreds all the time. Do they come out and say they hate the fucking media? No. Do they throw a hissy fit about it? No. It's the way it works. Would you do good? You get praised. Would you do shit? You get shadow. That's it. It's nothing personal.

This whole vibe and like for years it's been this whole thing of like, oh, you guys just hate the UFC. No, we don't hate the UFC. We know the UFC could do great things. We've seen them do it. And when they do it, we say good things about them. We just want to see more of it. What they did with Robbie Lawler was like one of the greatest things I've ever seen. That was unbelievable. We showered them with praise for like an entire hour about that. We know what they're capable of. And when you see what they're capable of, you want more of it. You expect that from the biggest organization in the world. We just, all we care about is all we want is to show that you give a fuck that it's not just about the money that it's not

just about the business deals show us show us this whole thing of like oh well i'm not going to talk to these guys so i can bury them you think we care i've never i don't i think i'm the only time i've ever asked for a dana white interview and it was recent and it wasn't even like a a real interview. When I put out the Ashley Gambino thing, I reached out to the UFC to try to get Dana on to be a part of it, because after I had done the interview with Ashley and Liver King, Liver King revealed that he was going to pay off the rest of her GoFundMe.

And he also said that Dana White said that she could go to any event she wants, and they ended up going to $2.99. So I wanted to get Dana on to just be like, hey, is this true? And she had told a story about how she had met Dana on Fremont Street. And she had told Dana, hey, I'm going to be your future champion before she got sick. So I wanted to just get Dana on for like five or ten minutes to just talk about that. And I even told like all the staff with the UFC, like, I'm not like, I was like, even if I got a regular to me with Dana, like, I'm not. going to do it just to be a dickhead. Like I would ask him, like, I would ask him real questions

and stuff, but I'm not going to be a dick about it. I mean, talk to him like I would talk to anybody else that I would do an interview with. But this was specifically about that. And it's just, we couldn't get the timing to work. He didn't like, from what I understand, he didn't say, like, no, I don't want to talk to that guy. He's a scumbag media member. we just couldn't we couldn't get it we just couldn't get it slotted out i'd end up confirming anyways that the ufc had offered them that and had come through with that so we didn't need dana but it would have been kind of cool to have him as a part of it but the long than the short of it is we don't need to talk to data we don't need to we're fine just like i don't need to go and

cover a UFC event. Like all these people are like, oh, you're just, they're going to lose their credentials. You think, like, first of all, we're not going to. And second of all, I don't cover events, really, unless I just make the choice to go. Like the Boston card. I was going home anyways to visit family.

Might as well go cover the card. It's my fucking city. Of course I'm going to do it. But it doesn't stop me. Like, I didn't even go to the fights. I went to, it did the watch party. which I would do every time anyways. So, yeah, it's just, like, he thinks he's hurting us.

He's not. Like, we're fine. But do you, bro? Like, do you? But don't call us liars. And make sure you get all the facts straight. When you talk to Sage Steel about the whole Dustin Poirier-Bin-Wasantini thing. Yeah, there's a journalist who said this.

So I posted a text message thing. Yeah, guess what? There's two fighters involved. Where's the Dustin-Porier text messages? That's what I was looking at. before. We didn't see those. What's Benoit Santini going to say? No. Am I fighting him? I don't want that opportunity. Of course, he's going to say yes. That was even with his manager. That was with Benoit. Where's the Dustin texts? That's what I wanted to see. We never saw them. That's all

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Morning will begin when passenger Fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close to you, call 186653310 or visit comics ontario.ca. Julio, go ahead. Hey, good morning. Going to that topic for the media members that are at the press conference,

and stuff, like how hard is it to not respond or how awkward is it to hear Dana lie and sit there and act like, you know, he didn't say what he said or just saying stuff about that about fighters not taking fights for some reason or media doesn't know this and that. Because even when people or media members ask a good question, like, for example, I think somebody had asked, why not do a PFL versus UFC in Ghana versus John Jones? And Dana's response kind of crumbled or shelled the media member away to respond when it was a good question. There's legitimate reasons why that should happen. But once it's in front of Dana, it's hard to articulate or say something. Is it hard or is it one of those things where if I say something, I'm going to not come back? What are your thoughts on that? I mean, it just depends on how you present it.

Like, I know the person. I've actually talked to this person face-to-face about that interaction with data. And I think he kind of regrets how it went. I think he wishes he could have kept going with it. Because that's the thing. Someone had reached out, he goes, oh, you're tough on Dane all this,

but at a pre-fight press conference in the crowd, you didn't ask Dane and tough questions. That's not the time or place to do it. But the post-fight stuff, if you want to do it, you can't. And there have been media members who have challenged Dana and continue to challenge him about power slap numbers and all those things, which I thought was great.

And Dana tried to do the thing where he just asks questions back to the media member. And when he does that, most people just completely freeze in that situation. And you kind of saw it there and he would tell you if he was here that he sort of did the same thing. But it was a fine question.

He just could have kept going with it. Why do we need to do that? Because the fans want to see it. aren't you guys about the fans? Yeah, but nobody wants to see it. No, I kind of think everybody wants to see Francigano fight John Jones. There's no world where that couldn't happen, because we know if you really dig down deep, like, they could do it.

There's literally nothing holding that back except the UFC saying, nah, we don't want to do it. TFL would do it in a second. And as I've said before, let me just make this perfectly clear, the UFC doesn't have to do this. They don't have to. lose a dime if they don't do that. Like, nothing changes.

They don't need to do this. This 100% pumps up PFL. And it does very little for the UFC. It does a lot for the fans, because we would like to see it. But this does nothing for them. This is nothing for them. The best case scenario where they gain something is if John just goes out and just kills Francis.

then it's like, okay, see, we get the baddest dude in the world. But they don't need to prove that right now. They don't need to help anyone. They're so far ahead of everybody that if they co-promoted with somebody, it is basically to pump up another company. It does nothing for the UFC. So if I'm the UFC, I ain't touching this. Why would you even risk it?

Why would you give the PFL that platform for no reason? when it does nothing for you. We would do one pay-per-view? And just think, like, how many pay-view buys do you think John Jones versus Francigano would sell? Like, honestly, it would probably do a million, but it's not like it would do two million. We ain't sniffing Connor Habib.

We're not even sniffing, like, UFC 100 with that fight. It does maybe a million. And the UFC would do most of the heavy lifting. and putting that together. So is it worth doing all that work for just a basic pay-per-view in terms of, like a good number, but that solely helps PFL. Does nothing for the UFC.

So I get it. But is it awkward to go in there and try to have those exchanges? Yeah, because it's fucking Dana White, man. It's the face of the industry. And Dana knows how to do this. Dana is great with that microphone. He knows how to say the right thing. and twisting things around.

He knows when opportunities arise. He knows what he could have a clip. He knows what he's doing. Remember John Pollock just saying the leash question? Remember that? And the thing that became, even though it was just a figure of speech, I know you have your fighters on a longer leash.

And then it turned into like, I don't put any of the fighters on a leash. I'm this and that, it's free speech, all that shit. When the question wasn't like, it was just basically a figure of speech. Like, oh, longer leash compared to other sports. It's just a thing.

And it turned into this whole thing. Dana knows exactly what he's doing. Knows exactly what he's doing. So I actually defend Dana in that situation with the whole Francis John Jones thing. But Dana does respect you if you keep it going. You just cannot be a dickhead about it. Like, if you go in there and you just have like a conversation with him

and you ask him questions and he goes back and forth and you keep up with it without being an asshole, I think he would respect you. Because even with the power slap questions he was getting, you can tell at first he was getting a little annoyed, and then he was just like, all right, I kind of dig this.

We'll get you some numbers. I'll give you the research. I'll give you the data. You'd come and find me. We'll do it. Like Dana respects that. So it is a little awkward, but if you do it right

and you're not a fucking asshole about it, I think he's, I think he's okay with it. he's a stubborn Boston man. Like my dad's the same way. He doesn't lie as much. It doesn't really lie at all. But my dad's the kind of guy that if he,

even if you prove him wrong, he will find a way to tell you that he's not wrong. Super Gringo, go ahead. What up, Mike? What up, heck of a morning? Hey, what's your thoughts on the heavyweight division situation right now? And should Jones be stripped? And what's up?

stepe thanks um should jones be stripped no he's hurt he's injured you can't strip

because he's injured come on now this whole no shit like i you know how much i love jed bushoe he's my co-worker he's my buddy

he's my friend just the fate he's he's btel would not be where it was without him on the program but he started

this revolution that john is scared to fight tom aspital and it's funny it's a great bit but john is also injured He's had multiple surgeries.

So no, he's not going to get shipped in the belt. It's not going to get shipped in the belt. Where's Stipe? Stepe is living his best life, being a family man and a firefighter, and when John Jones is ready to fight, he will come back and fight John Jones. He's not going to fight anybody else. He's not going to fight Tom Aspinall, because why would he? He's going to fight John.

He's got maybe one fight left in his whole career. Is he going to give it to Tom Ashmanall? Aspinall? No. He's going to give it to the greatest fighter of all time in a lot of people's minds. So that's where that is. Tom will probably fight Curtis Blades in the UK. And that's sad. I mean, he's going to defend, I think he's going to defend that interim belt multiple times. And he should. He should stop worrying about John altogether. And he should act like he has the actual title. That's what he needs to do. Just fight as often as possible, especially while John's injured. Go fight two, three, four times before John's ready to come back and be like, see, you haven't

defended your belt once. I've defended my belt three times. That's what you should do. So I kind of, I think he'll end up fighting Curtis Blitz. I think that makes all the sense in the world. Dot, go ahead. Dot, you got to unmute yourself, buddy. Oh, this is in the first time. Oh, good, man. I got you now. Why do you think Autosanna deserves a fight against DDP over Sean Strickland when that decision was questionable? Why does he deserve it? First of all, big lesson here. We've talked about this before.

We do not use the word deserves because just strike it from your vocab altogether. Strike it. Don't even bother to use it when it comes to the UFC. because it's not about who deserves what. It's not about meritocracy. It hasn't been that way for years. But let's be perfectly clear here, as much as Sean Strickland has gotten over,

and he's gotten over, DDP versus Izzy is a way bigger fight than DDP versus Sean Strickland. It just is. It just is. There's a rivalry there. It's the big rival. in the sport right now, especially in the UFC.

And the fight just kind of has to happen at this point. I understand it was a close fight with Sean and DDP. It was a good fight, it was a close fight. If that fight wasn't like that, that would be one of the worst pay-per-views of all time. It was an awful pay-per-view. That fight being what it was, saved back hard because it was trash up until that fight. And it was one of the closest fights I've ever seen. but let's also think about it in this context.

Did Sean Strickland deserve to fight for the belt when he did? No. He beat A. Boost Magamatoff and got a title fight. You know what I'm saying? So that's why I'm saying, like, is he is more deserving now than when Sean was then? Sean just happened to be the guy who was available because DDP wasn't going to fight in too much.

which is why I hated the DDP versus Robert Whitaker matchmaking for that card anyways. The winner of this is going to fight in September in Australia. Why? You knew none of those guys were going to turn around. So Sean comes in. The UFC used him as a sacrificial lamb, so to speak, to build up the DDP fight. And then Sean Strickle went in and just thumped Izzy up and changed the entire division. So who knows?

We don't even know what's going to happen yet. I know a lot of people reporting that DDP Izzy could headline the Perth card from what I'm hearing that is maybe not the case and plus I don't even want those two guys to fight in Perth we saw it when Izzy fought Strickland Izzy's not that popular over there

and why would DDP go to Australia to fight Izzy that doesn't make any sense why would he do that just do that fight in fucking Las Vegas it's just as over if we're being if we're like being full merit If we're being full, hey, let's go with what the promotion said, then Hamzat Shamiya should be fighting for the title. Remember when Dana announced that Hamzat was fighting Kamara Usman? What did Dana say the entire build for that fight?

The winner's getting a title shot. Shemai if won. Now he's fighting Robert Wittaker. You know what I'm saying? Let's just do this easy fight. They missed the boat once. You can't miss it again. Sean doesn't need the belt.

Sean doesn't need a title fight. He is very popular right now. Sean just fighting on a card is going to make people happy. Let's do Sean Strickland versus Paul O'Costa. I think people are going to like that. It's just fine. Co-made event. UFC 302, Newark, New Jersey.

Let's do that. Let's do Islampori? We do Sean Strickland, Paul Acosta. That's a damn fine one-two punch right there. I love it. We'll go Leo, then we'll go to Four Corner Sports, and then we get it go. Leo, go ahead. Hey, do you got me?

I got you, man. Hello? Okay. I got you, man. I'm just calling in to ask. First of all, I loved swing rounds, man. I thought that was really great, and good job on that. I know it took a lot of work, but that was a really entertaining video.

And honestly, it's freestyle Friday. I'm on my way to class and I'm hungry, so I'm just going to ask you, what do you put on your pizza? Pizza toppings. Hit me, man. Have a good weekend, everyone. Pizza toppings.

Some sort of protein. I like pepperoni rules, do some beef, sausage, all that good stuff. I am a fan of Buffalo Chicken pizza, have done the right way. If you throw onions on a buffalo chicken pizza, you are awful at life. So don't do that. That's just wrong. It just kind of depends.

My wife ordered a, like a Hawaiian pizza the other day. It was pretty good. Had a slice of it. It was pretty delightful. So, yeah, I'm not, I hate onions. I never, someone ordered once, and I had never had it before. I think it was when I went, it's for UFC 202. UFC 202.

I ended up going to a buddy's house to watch it, and we played some poker. Or is it 197? This is one of the cards. We ended up playing poker, and someone ordered bacon and jalapenos. And I was like, damn, this is good.

It was really good. I was impressed, but I ain't that picky. Just get the onions and mushrooms off by pizza and otherwise I'm fine. Go ahead, four-quarter sports, and we will close the show with you. All right.

Two things. One, I was watching the way in its. Manifuro, she didn't look so great on the scale. Do you feel like she had a look... Does she normally look like that on the scale? Just because, you know, I feel like people that are betting Aaron Blanfield are probably scalivating of the fact that she probably looks heavily depleted. And then my second question is,

if they do not make Connor versus Chandler for International Fight Week at what point do you tell Michael Chandler just to move on just because it would already be two years since the last time

he has fought and I feel like he could have made whatever money he was destined to make fighting Connor if he would have just fought a couple times within that duration but I just feel that if they're not going to make

it Connor versus Chandler for an international fight week who would you have Chandler fight just because I feel like he needs to move on from that chapter. All right, thanks, Mike. I mean, nobody.

Like, why would Chanler? Chandler seems to be doing just fine. He's got some businesses. He gets sponsored by a whole bunch of big companies. I'm sure he's not, like, just sitting there being like, oh, I need to make a paycheck. I haven't fought in two years. I think he probably has steady money coming in.

He seems to know what he's doing from a financial perspective. I've been talking to Michael Chandler for over a decade, and he's just one of those, just one of those guys, you know? Just smart, knows what he's doing, knows how to invest his money.

I'm sure he's just fine. I'm sure he's just fine. Like, he's not going to fight fucking Armand Sarukian. Like, why would he do that? He's not going to go fight Matush Gamrod. Like he would fight Islam.

Maybe he'd fight Charles again. Like he'd fight a big, huge name. But I don't know. I think that fight's going to happen. From what I understand, Chandler's already in Florida. He is getting ready to fight Connor McGregor June 29th. Nothing's been announced. Nothing's been like 100% crossed and dotted.

But from what I understand, Chandler is acting as if this fight is happening June 29th. So at this point, you must just fucking wait it all out, man. Like, unless Connor gets, like, suspended for two years, just wait it out. Connor wants to fight. I don't understand the holdup here. Like, I don't understand why we're not announcing this. I would say if the UFC is very smart, that during UFC 300, they announced this fight,

or they do, they announce it before, and then 300 fight week, they do a press, conference of those two guys. Like, that fight should be locked and loaded as announced before 300, I think. But we'll see how it plays out. Manon on the scale, yeah, a lot of people talking about that. She's pretty big gal. She's got a lot of muscle on her. I don't remember looking that depleted, but this change is nothing for me.

This fight, I mean, this fight, even if Manon skipped and frolic to the scale. Dale. If Aaron Blanchfield gets her to the ground, she is in deep shit. So whether she's depleted or had the best weight cut of her life, Aaron Blanchfield puts her on her back. She is going to get annihilated. It's going to be a horrible night for her. So it changes nothing for me the way I see this fight. Mann is the better striker. Blanchfield can, Flanchfield can strike. Her striking's getting better. Manon's definitely better on the feet, but I mean, it is, like, Aaron could be able to, Aaron could at least compete with Manon on the feet. It is not going to go well for Manon on the ground at all in this fight, at all. So there is a distinct advantage for Aaron Blanchfield

here. So it doesn't really change a whole lot. I think Aaron's going to win. And she'll go on fight for the belt and probably win the belt against either Alex Grasser or Valentina Shepchenko. But looking forward to the fight and it should be good. And we'll talk about this card. We'll talk about that fight more in depth on the preview show. 1 p.m. Eastern on the YouTube channel, an eclectic group of fellas talking fist fighting. It'll be myself, the great Chehina al-Shadi, and New York Rick, who will be in the tent.

for this event. They will both join me at 1 p.m. Eastern, so it should be a lot of fun. We'll have the People's Pre-Fight Show tomorrow around 6.30 p.m. Eastern. So stay tuned for that. Post-fight show, on to the next one. All that good stuff. And yes, I didn't thank you, Leo, for checking out the swing rounds. Yeah, man, good stuff.

I've gotten incredible feedback about it. It's a very nichey thing. It's new. Never really been done before to like this in the MMA space. So this is one of those things that probably should have more views that has honestly, because it's a different thing.

But everyone who's watched it has really enjoyed it. But I think it's one of those things that if we keep doing it, it's going to get better and better. And we plan to keep on doing it. So we've got some ideas in the works. My plan would be to put one a month out try to do as much as possible, but it's got to be with the right people.

I thought Mike Perry is like the perfect guy to do it with. So go check that out. Like I said, it's only 18 minutes, 18 minutes and 45 seconds of golfing and talking, and it's Mike Perry playing golf, and it's everything you would expect it to be. So go check that out. We'll see you at 1 p.m. Easter for the preview show.

Have a heck of a morning, everybody. Okay, only 10 more presents to wrap. You're almost at the finish line. First? There, the last one. Enjoy a Coca-Cola for a pause that refreshes.