MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 171

Episode Date: August 14, 2014

Featuring Alexander Gustafsson, Demetrious Johnson, Matt Riddle, Marcus Brimage, Skylar Astin, and Shaun Al-Shatti. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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On this Monday, March 4th, 2013, it is so great to be back here with you for the next, what, three or so hours? Oh, there's my voice again. Not my voice, my name. Do you hear that? Oh, I'm such an idiot. My computer's on, and I was hearing the feedback, and I heard myself talking Lenny Hart. and whatnot. Sorry about that.

Can we start over? No, we can. Okay, here we go. It is the MMA hour here on MMAfighting.com, joined in the back by New York Rick, will the thrill, Sans Hare this time,

and Isaac will hear from New York, Rick, in the third hour as we recap UFC on Fuel TV 8. It happened this weekend. Saitama Super Arena. It was a tale of two cards, in a sense. First, three quarters, kind of dull, let's be honest.

Last two fights? Incredible. Mark Hunt knocking out Stefan Struth, Van der LeSilva, turning back the clock, knocking out Brian Stan. Great fights. We'll talk about those in a second. As we look ahead now to UFC 158, which goes down in La Belle Provenous, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Saturday, March 16th, GSP versus Nick Dia. So who'll be joining us on today's show? Well, at around 240, we're going to be joined by Demetrius Johnson. The UFC Flyway Champion was forced to pull out of his fight against John Moraga last week, talked about why, what, when, how, and when he's coming back. Most importantly, looking forward to having Mighty Mouse on the card. So last week, everyone was talking about Connor McGregor, one of the most popular guests in the history of our show.

Well, this week, we've got his opponent at UFC on Fuel TV 9. Remember, he's fighting Marcus Brimage in Sweden. Brimidge, an all-timer as far as guests go. He'll be stopping by at around 220. Skyler Aston is the star of the film 21 and over. It came out on Friday. He was also in Pitch Perfect. He's been in a bunch of other stuff.

I actually saw Pitch Perfect this weekend. And it was a fun movie. I must admit, you alpha males out there, I may not think it's your kind of thing. But trust me, it was fun. Anyway, he's a huge MMA fan, big-time actor, Hollywood superstar. I met him at UFC 157.

He's going to stop by to talk about his love for all things MMA, looking forward to having him on. Matt Riddle, formerly now of the UFC, he'll be stopping by at 140 to talk about his release from the organization due to testing positive for the second time and less than a year for marijuana. Once again, Matt Riddle test positive and now he's gone. We'll talk to him about that. 120. We'll talk to Alexander Gustafson. He faces Gaggar Musassi at UFC on Fuel TV 9, April 6th in Sweden. Looking forward to having the Mahler on the show. And a little later in the show, we're going to be giving away two tickets. Yes, two tickets to World Series of Fighting 2, which takes place March 23rd at the Revel Resort and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. If you live in the area, the New York, New Jersey, Connecticut area,

the tri-state area, you can win these. And we're going to be giving them out for the next three weeks leading up to their second event. So if you didn't get them this time, don't worry. We've got a few more tickets to give away, but we'll let you know how to win them. Now, as far as the Twitter questions go, up for grabs, This special edition, Carlos Condit,

championship edition, never defended the title, but he got his championship edition Round 5 toy. That's up for grabs this week. Best Twitter question. Hit us up on Twitter using the hashtag, The MMA Hour. Hit us up on our website in the comments section below. You know how we love the comments.

And New York Rick has assured me that he's going to start looking a little later and hasn't already banked the questions. Speaking of which, New York Rick with a little more swag in his step this week, but we'll get to that in the third hour. First up, though, let us go to the Skype machine and welcome in our good pal colleague over at MMAFighting.com.

The great Sean Alshaddy joins us for the very first time. There he is. Sean, how are you, my friend? I'm doing well. How are you, Aria? You know, we had Connor McGregor on the show last week, one of our best first timers in MAA history, but here you come with this great Skype quality,

great audio quality. You're giving Connor a run for his money. start. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. All right, let's talk about UFC on Fuel TV 8 off the top. I called it sort of a tale of two cards, three quarters of it, a little dull, somewhat controversial with Gomi Sanchez.

Then the last two fights, of course, stole the show. I want to talk about Mark Hunt and Stefan Strew first. When I was on the Sherdog.com roundtable, as we were previewing these fights, I said, this is the fight that Stephens Trub is going to figure out that he has exceptional reach. He's way taller than Mark. he should use his jab more. He should use his height and his reach to his advantage.

Once again, he doesn't. Are you surprised? I mean, I'd like to say that I'm not surprised, but I mean, it seems like every time out, it's going to be the time he puts it all together. It's going to be the time he figures it out. And again, he just gets sucked into these brawls. And at a certain point, he just starts dropping his hands.

And it's exactly, he plays out exactly like it did. Actually, the Mar Hunt fight was very similar to the Travis Brown fight and the Roy Nils fight. fight. It's just always he gets sucked into these firefights when, like you said, he really should just be using his physical tools to his advantage. How many seven footers are there? In the UFC, there's one.

But he just can't seem to put it together. I don't know. It's frustrating to watch, most certainly. And on paper, when you look at them, staring at each other, you'd think that Mark Hunt has no business winning this fight. It's almost like watching like a Mike Tyson's knockout tail of the tape where he had to jump to reach

Stefan. Going into it, did you give Mark a chance? I mean, you can't count Mark Hunt out just because of his resume. But I thought Struve would win it. Like you said, I thought he would put it together. And I thought this would be the fight that really launched him into the title contention picture. And it just didn't work out like that. And yeah, the shot that knocked him out was basically a jumping hook.

Mark Hunt basically lunged into that punch because he had to. And like I said, it's frustrating as someone that would like to see Steppenstrip put it together. He just can't seem to do it. And in the process, Mark Hunt broke his jaw. If you follow Stefan on Twitter, he tweeted an x-ray of his jaw. There's a huge crack there. It's unbelievable. So Mark Hunt wins.

And a lot of people after the fight were saying, we want to see him against Roy Nelson. Let's not forget. Roy Nelson is fighting Czech Congo, April 27th, across the pond in New Jersey. Do you like that matchup, or are you thinking something else for the Samoan? Simone, what was he? The Super Samoan. I was going to call him the Simone submission machine, but that's Samoa Joe. Excuse me.

Yeah, I mean, that's definitely. a Barberger, I would definitely like to see that fight. Really, anybody within the top 10 to give him a run for his money, I think would be interesting. He's on the longest win streak of anybody in the U.S. or any heavyweight in the UFC with four fights now. I think with one more fight, maybe the loser of Ream,

Dos Santos, maybe just anybody big. I think they could actually put together a pretty convincing case for giving him a title shot if he can get one more. And he has such a loyal following the whole rally for Mark Hunt campaign. Everyone loves him. And what a story.

of the best stories in MMA over the last two years, just him coming back, losing to Sean McCorkel, of all people, in seconds, and then coming back to, as you mentioned, putting together the longest winning streak right now in the heavyweight division. Speaking of people not really sticking to the game plan or doing what we thought they were going to do, Brian Stan, I didn't think he was going to get into a firefight with Vangelie, and at one point in the first round, he had this look on his face like, oh, screw it, I'm just going to do this, I'm going to come at you and just like, you know, go nuts. And that's exactly what Vandale wanted.

Are you surprised he did that? I'm a little surprised, but, you know, you have to give credit to him. He really just said, screw it, I'm just going to go for it. And I'm going to play into what Vanderlain likes. And I'm going to give these fans a show because up to that point, besides the Mark Hunt fight, obviously the card was a little lackluster. I mean, it tied the record for the most decisions in a row for any UFC event. And like I said, you really have to give credit to Brian Stanford,

just abandoning all that and just going for it. But that was an incredible fight. That was an incredible fight. It was. It was candidate for a round of the year, fight of the year. Poor Mac Rice and Dennis Bermudez. They're like an afterthought now after that performance. It was like a video game.

One guy falls, gets up. The other guy falls, gets up. It was like someone was like playing around with us. So what do you want to see Van der Le do next? Because I kind of feel like he should stay at 205 at this point, some intriguing matches for him. Do you want to see him go back down to 185? No, I think I'm with you on that.

I'd like to see him stay at 205. A lot of people said it afterwards, and I think I agree that it seemed like his chin held up a little better with 205. Maybe he had more neck muscle or just maybe, I don't know, maybe the cut didn't take so much out of him. But I'd like to see him stay at 205. He's obviously a little undersized for the UFC's 205 division. But I think there's plenty of matchups where you can just kind of throw him in on a pay-per-view main card or just a Fox card and just expect violence. Speaking of violence, Hector Lombard usually brings violence to the table. He did that in his last fight against Husseemar, Paul Harris.

This fight, though, he just couldn't get it going against Yuschenokami, predictably. This is what Yushan Okami does. And I saw some people calling for Lombard's release after the fight. I know he's expensive. I just can't see the UFC releasing him. What do you think? I can't see them releasing him, maybe renegotiating that contract

because I believe he's making like 300 grand per fight, which if John Fitch is expensive at 50 or 60,000, then that's absurd. Right. And he's one out. out of three for his UFC fights, and two of them have just been clunkers, say the least. So I can see them renegotiating, but yeah, I don't think the UFC would drop, but I still a top 10 middleweight like that. There's still interesting fights for him out there.

I think maybe a fight against the loser of Bissping Belcher. I mean, I still think he's relevant. He's had some tough fights. You know what, and I know you're sort of in tune with the people. One of the byproducts that have really annoyed me of this whole cut discussion is like every fight, should he get cut? Will he get cut? Who got cut?

It's kind of a downer, right? It's like this cloud that I feel is hanging over these events. You know, the flip side, maybe you guys are stepping it up. But on the other side, it's, I don't know, it's too much negativity. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. It's a bummer. And I don't even know if it's making people step up.

Like, we just saw it, like I said, eight straight decisions. I don't know if people now are fighting safe to fight for their job. Because it seems like that's, you're at the point where you either win or you're exciting and then you can keep your job. And so it obviously winning is the easier path than just saying, oh man, I don't care if I get hurt. I'm just going to go out here and try to be exciting. So it seems like a lot of guys maybe now are starting to tend towards that. How does that try to wrestle? Right. Go ahead. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. No, yeah, it seems like a lot of guys are starting to tend towards a safer game plan so they can

kind of keep their win streets going and not be, you know, worried about their job security. Yeah, we saw that with, uh, I don't know if that was his, his, his, his sole focus, but Brendan Schaub kind of flipped the script on us two weeks ago in Anaheim and took the fight to the ground against LeVar Johnson. Who is sticking around? He tweeted that. So that's good news for the men they call big.

Now, Diego Sanchez, Takanori Gomi, controversial. Who'd you score it for? I mean, obviously, it scored for Gomi. I think it's surprising to see all the outrage. I mean, obviously, Gomi won that fight. But I feel like we've gotten to the point with judges where

it's so consistently bad that it's actually surprising if the judges get it right, which is a little silly. I mean, that's utterly ridiculous. And it seems like every show now there's at least one or two fights where we just expect the judges to mess up and then they do. And I don't know how we've reached that point. And it seems like it's only getting worse. I don't know how we can fix this. But yeah, Gomi won that fight. I don't really think there's that much debate. The fight metric stats were completely lopsided. I didn't think it was a huge robbery. I could see someone giving the first round to Diego. but yes, and every media member out there

scored it in favor of Gomi. So that is unfortunate, and I think Gomi came out today and said that he broke his hand in the fight, so you have to wonder what would have happened had he not broken his hand. I want to talk to you about a few more things before we go.

You know, speaking of things that I'm not a huge fan of these days, all the super fight talk. And last week, I know you spoke to Benson Henderson, there was the whole thing with Aldo and Pettus that happened at the beginning of the week. What's your take on all this? Because I liked it a few years ago.

This was one of the things I liked about MMA And specifically the UFC, as opposed to maybe boxing, I know this guy's fighting here and he's going to fight in this way class next, and he's moving up this ladder to get to this champion. And these are the contenders. And now, you know, the matchmakers always would tell me this. Our job is not to create champions, to create contenders.

That's not happening anymore. And I think this is becoming a problem. Are you as bothered by this as I am? It's definitely getting a little tiresome. I think just because we haven't actually seen any of these superfights come to fruition. It's been nothing but talk. And it seems like it's just a new one every, you know, every month pretty much. The Benson one was interesting, though, because that was really the first time anybody's called out somebody from a wave class higher than them.

Usually it's people going for the smaller men. And Benson's obviously smaller than GSP. And GSP is one of the greatest, he's the greatest Walter Wade of our era. So I thought that was interesting just to see somebody actually change up the formula a little bit. Although, like I said, it's definitely getting tiresome to see, to hear this constant talk, but not actually get anything from me. it. Do you like that matchup, Benson versus GSP? Are you interested in it?

I mean, of course I'm interested in it. It's two great champions. I'd like to see any two great fighters fight each other. But I think right now that just doesn't make sense, especially for Benson. Actually, and for GSP, both divisions are very backed up with contenders. And I think you need to, first, anything like that. Like when GSP fought BJ Penn, the divisions were more or less cleared out. So it wasn't really holding things up.

If you do something like that now, especially with lightweight and multivate weight, it's holding up a lot of contenders for a long time, and I don't think that's anything we need at this point. I know Dana turned it down on UFC tonight, but think about this. Let's say GSP wins next weekend in Montreal, right? Let's say Condit beats Hendricks, right? Let's say Marquart beats Ellenberger, let's just say. And then you want to do the Jones Silva fight.

Let's say if John Jones beats Chelsunnen. And then if Benson beats Gilbert, and there's no cloburn. and there's no clear-cut guy because, you know, Gray Maynard's fighting in a few months, there could be a chance where there really isn't anyone for them at 155 and 170. Yeah, I mean, anytime chaos likes that, like that happens, that would definitely work out.

And like I said, it would be an interesting fight, especially stylistically, I think those two would put on quite a show, say the least. I don't like the whole situation brewing at 145. If Aldo wins, he gets to go up, but if Pettus wins, he has to stick around and defend the title. if Aldo wins, he has to, it appears, vacate the belt, which I always feel like that kind of tarnishes the belt. And if he doesn't have to vacate the belt, then you got guys sitting on the sidelines and waiting while he's going off and fighting someone else.

What if he gets injured, it delays things? I just feel like it makes for a very messy situation. I know everyone wants to see Aldo move up and it's intriguing to see Aldo Benson, but I'd rather him stick around on 145. Agree or disagree? No, yeah, I agree with you on that one. that's actually a really strange situation. I wonder, just to myself, if in retrospect, Anthony Pettis

regrets his decision, because like you said, now he's kind of stuck until August, and I don't think he anticipated that. And yeah, I don't understand why they're forcing Alito to move up either. I mean, he's the greatest featherweight, I think, the way we've ever seen. And I don't know what the rush is to make him

go to lightweight. I guess he's kind of cleared out that division, but not really. Yeah. So that whole that whole scenario is very strange in general. I don't think anybody saw that coming. I don't really know how they're going to work through that. Well, one thing we have learned, I guess, is that just because they say today,

it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to happen tomorrow. Yeah, exactly. You know, this has happened, and our guest coming up in a few minutes, Alexander Gustafson, surely speak on that. It seems like every day there's a new guy who's potentially the number one contender at 205 pounds.

So next weekend, as I said, it's UFC 158, GSP versus Diaz. I don't know if you've noticed, but have you seen some of those clips that the UFC has put out of Nick Diaz? And I was mentioning this to someone recently. This feels like the Nick Diaz of two years ago. The Nick Diaz of the last year and a half in the UFC

almost feels like he was subdued, like he was trying to play the game. Like someone came and kind of showed him this propaganda film and he was like hypnotized. Now it feels like the Nick Diaz who's talking smack, who's calling out George. He just feels like himself. and it's refreshing.

Do you know what I'm saying, or am I crazy here? No, you're not crazy. The way they're selling this fight is definitely pretty interesting. It took me into it. I'm curious to see how it's going to play out. Do you have as much interest?

See, I understand some people have said, you know, once we saw what Benson did to Nate at Fox 5, I lost interest in this fight because I saw what a wrestler, kind of like GSP can do to a Diaz brother. And Diaz is coming off a loss. He is, you know, coming off a suspension. but still, seeing them not talk about each other,

seeing the anticipation build, I'm reminded why I wanted to see this fight more so than Anderson versus GSP. I can't wait. It finally feels like it's real and it's going to happen. And maybe when it was announced, I wasn't as into it, but now I feel like I'm as into it as I was

when it was first announced. How do you feel? Yeah, I'm right there with you. And I think part of that for me is just because GSP seems like a more focused more. I've never seen, or at least I can't remember seeing GSP this, Wanting to hurt someone so badly, I guess, is the way to put it. And motivated GSP just to really hurt someone, I feel like it's going to be an extremely dangerous and entertaining GSP.

So I think that's going to be interesting to see, especially if Nick Diaz, at some part in this starts doing his in-cage antics, I'd like to see how GSP kind of reacts to that. Yeah, that would be fascinating. GSP says he despises talking to the media before fights. Are you offended? No, not at all. It's 50 the same questions every day. Okay, so you're saying that we need to step up our game. Is that what you're saying?

Absolutely. Oh, wow. Look at Sean calling everyone out. Hey, it's the truth, man, you've been there. You've been to these workouts. It's the same question over and over and over. On the flip side, he brings up an interesting point. It's not fair that I have to do it and he doesn't.

Is he right on that point? Yeah, I mean, he's right, but I think, that's just the UFC not wanting some disaster to happen, so they would have to do something drastic like Pull Nick Diaz, so they're just kind of saving them before it can actually happen. It makes sense, but if I was GSP, I would definitely be frustrated. Who's your pick in the fight? GSP.

No doubt. GSP decision. Same old, five nothing? I think it's going to be a very violent fight. I think GSP's going to kind of get out his aggression that he's built up for Nick Diaz, but yeah, I think he's going to dominate Nick Diaz. I'm not giving Diaz any shot. Oh, no, no, no, of course. Diaz is a shot.

Dia is a great fighter. If you ask me for my pick today, I'm going to have to make Pierre. Great debut, my friend. This man right here, one of the most underrated MMA writers out there. He does the great morning report on MMAfighting.com, which is a must read. And one of my favorite things that you do, which is not really showing off your skills other than your skills to find tweets. but I love the pros react.

After every event, it's on M-A-Finding. It's always fun to see what the fighters do, and you do a great job of gathering their thoughts with those tweets. So keep up the great work, my friend. Great to have you on the show, and we'll talk to you very soon. Thank you. All right. There he is.

Sean Al-Shadi. Follow him on Twitter. Twitter.com slash Sean S-H-A-U-N-A-L-S-H-A-T-I. There he is of M-M-A-Fighting.com. Okay, let's move along now. We talked about it a bit. with Mr. Al-Shadi, but one of the big events coming up in the next month. Of course, you've got UFC 158, March 16th in Montreal.

We just had UFC on Fuel TV 8. Well, April 6th is UFC on Fuel TV 9, and it's back in Sweden. Last year, great debut for the UFC sold-out crowd in Stockholm, Sweden. They come back with another sold-out crowd, and it's a better main event this time. It's Gagar Musassi making his UFC debut against our next guest, Alexander the Mahler Gustafson he joins us right now from Sweden Alex how are you

good thanks how are you great to have you on the show Alex really appreciate the time I want to ask you first off there was news that came out about the fight now officially being a five round main event because there's some kind of law in Sweden

where you can't have a non-title fight go five rounds can you explain to us what this all means where did this come from I'm not that involved in it I don't know all the information about it, but they have been doing this boxing before, and they still are, and different regulations and rules and stuff. So I don't have all the info, but I'm very glad it's a five-rounder,

and I've been preparing and training for a five-round fight. So it's going to be very interesting to fight a five-round fight. when the fight was first announced did you think that there was a chance it might be three like was this still kind of up in the air yeah yeah because you know I fought Tiago three five so I know

that would be it could be a possibility but you know I was hoping for five rounds and I've always been training for five rounds so you know now it's a five round fight and one more question on this do you have any idea if the rule has now been changed

forever or it's just been changed for this fight? No idea. No idea. All right. Fair enough. Now, part of your evolution into becoming one of the best 205ers in the world has been training at the Alliance Gym in San Diego. Since this fight is taking place though in Sweden, are you even going to San Diego to train for this fight? I don't think so.

I know if Andreas Michael, my head coach is fixing everything my training for me, and I have a me and Andreas have a steady contact with Eric Elifero, the head coach of team alliance. We're always talking and, you know, so it's not set yet. I don't think we're going to go, but you never know. Let's see what happens.

You know, I train hard every day here in Stockholm. So, you know, let's see what happens. And you have a new gym over there, right? Yeah, correct. Andreas Michael, he opened a new gym with a few other guys and I'm training there now, All-Stars Training Center.

Dana White always talks about how when the UFC makes its debut in a country or a city for the first time, a year or two later you see this boom where a lot of people want to get involved in MMA. Since the debut last year, last April, have you noticed a rise in the popularity as far as just from fighters to fans

to everyone in between, people more interested in the sport? Yeah, yeah. for sure. It's been exploding here in Sweden. You know, it's a very small country. We only have, like, what is? Nine million people, I think. And it's crazy.

You know, I'm very happy to see it and be involved in it. So it's been, you know, on the right way and the right path. And Jim is exploding everywhere and new talents coming up. So, you know, it's very fun to see. How has your life changed? Because I would imagine, with the sport being so popular, you're the face of Swedish MMA. You're a lot more famous over there, right?

Yeah, a little bit more. You know, it's been more media and the TV and so on. So it's, you know, I just having fun. I enjoy every minute of it. And, you know, my focus is still on training. And it would always be on training. So I'm just having fun, you know. When you go out, you know, on the street,

Do you get recognized a lot? Yeah, sometimes. I'm not, you know, if you're a hockey player, everyone, I wouldn't know you, you know, but it's not, we're not there yet, but some people recognize me and so on. And, you know, they say hi and, you know, I want to picture or something. And, you know, it's a very, very good feedback.

And, you know, I'm enjoying every second of it. So what you're saying is you're not quite Matt Sundin level, right? And not really, no. Maybe in a few years. You never know. Exactly. But, you know, let's see what happens. So this fight is, it's interesting because when we last saw you in December, you know, after your big win over Shogun, the talk was that you're going to be the number one contender, yet you're fighting Gagar Musassi.

So why are you fighting Gagard? Why aren't you the number one contender? You know, it's a good question. I don't know. It's, you know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't have an answer in that. It's, you know, now,

the child fighting Jones and so on and so on. You know, you never know in this business. Everything can happen. So I'm just keep training and fight wherever they gives me and, you know, just wanted to win. My biggest focus is to win every fight. And I know, I know I will get a title shot in the future. And I'll win this fight.

And after that fight, I will go for the title. Is it frustrating for you because it seems particularly at 205. It's like, you know, Dana said it, it appeared he kind of said it in London that you were going to be the number one contender. And then after the Machita fight, they said he's going to be the number one contender. It just seems like it changes every week for a guy involved in this. Is it frustrating? No, no, not really.

You know, my biggest concern right now is Musaze. That's my biggest focus, you know. That's the only thing I think of right now. I don't really think about it that much. I will, you know, I'm going to grab the mic from whoever has it after the fight, and I'm going to challenge the champ after this fight. So, yeah, let's see what happens. That's your plan, because you're usually a quiet guy.

You're very, I don't know, you're very reserved. You know, you're not a boisterous trash talker, but are you saying enough is enough? You're going to take the mic when you win on April 6 or if you went on April 6 and call it the champ? Oh, yeah, for sure. I will. I will. So you've had enough. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Yeah, exactly.

No more, no more Mr. Nikeska, no more running. Now it's time, you know. So, you know, I don't know if you saw it. Did you see Machita's win over Dan Henderson less than two weeks ago? I haven't actually seen the fight, the whole fight. I saw a highlight of it, but yeah. The fans weren't all that impressed with it.

Do you think that if you have a finish, if you do something impressive, that you can kind of jump over him and really be the last guy, you know, the true number one contender? Yeah, I think so, yeah, for sure. So that's the plan. You need to do something spectacular.

I will. I will. I have two decisions in a row, and I'm not a decision. I want to finish guys. And that's what I did before, and that's what I want to get back to. So it's going to be a finish for sure. Do you think there's a particular reason

why your last two fights went the distance? No. I don't know. You know, it's two tough guys. And first I fought Tialan home ground, and that was a nerve-breaking fight. And then I fought Shogun a legend. So, you know, I'm getting, you know, you have to get used to fighting legends now, you know, fighting really good guys.

And I'm used to that now. And so is a really good fighter. And, you know, but I can't, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to find back to, you know, finish and go for the finish. and that's what we're doing in the 6th of April. You know, Musassi called you out even before his last fight. He said this is the fight that he wants. He's well-known, maybe internationally,

but in America not as well-known, making his UFC debut. Did you think twice about taking this fight? Because, you know, there may not be a lot of people, at least here in the States who know who he is, and you were being talked about as a number one contender. No, not at all. You know, I know Massi very well, and I've seen him fight.

He was fighting when I was just started in America. So he's a young guy, but he has a lot of routine. And, you know, I've been seeing him fight a lot. So, yeah, I took the fight directly. I want to fight him, you know, and it's going to be a great fight. I can't wait. And he challenged me, too, so now I really want to fight him. It's going to be great.

We know about his striking. He was somewhat exposed when he fought King Moe as far as his wrestling goes. Are you going to take this fight to the ground? No, I'm going to stand up with him. Oh, yeah? It's going to be a stand-at-war. Yeah, it's going to be a stand-at war. I feel like you're just saying that to me.

You're not really going to tell you what you're going to do, right? You know, you never know what happens. You never know. It's a fight is a fight. And, you know, I will have a waterproof game plan and it's going to be awesome. I can't wait. You know, let's see what happens. I like that term, waterproof game plan.

I like that. I never heard that before. So what do you think is the biggest hole in his game, like his biggest weakness? You know, I think, you know, his weakness is, you know, he's a very, He likes to, you know, have a certain pace in his fight. He likes to fight his own way. If you take that away from him, I think, you know, I can use that a lot. So, you know, we all have weaknesses and strength.

And, you know, the fight is about to bring him out, you know, to his weaknesses and to my strength. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to put him in my game and fight him. Do you think he's too small for 205? No, he's a natural mid-weight, right? I haven't... I think he's, yeah, it's a little smaller than me, but, you know, you can't judge a book of the discovery,

you know, you can't say he's small or his week or he's, you know, whatever. He's, you know, he's my father-denish guy, a fight so far, and thus I see him, you know, it's a... He's a dangerous guy out there right now and figuring out of a fight. So you think he's more dangerous now than Shogun? Oh, for sure, yeah. He's more hungry. And, you know, he's a lot of fights.

And I think he's more hungry a fighter is, more dangerous is. This is a big debut for him. First time in the UFC sold-out crowd. Do you think he might be, you know, do you think the magnitude of the moment might get to him? Are you banking on that? No, I'm not the chance. on that at all, you know. I'm preparing for the best, you know, the best, you know, the best

and that's how I see him, you know. You said your debut, not your debut, your first time fighting in Sweden for the UFC last year was nerve-wracking. Does it feel different? I know we're a month away, but do you feel less nervous, or will that only really kick in maybe a week or two before the fight? No, it will kick in. I know it. It will come. But I try not to think about it now. I'm just, you know, training my best training, you know, at all the, at a heart as I can. And, you know, all the emotions and all the thoughts and, you know, the nerve, you know, the nerve, you know, the nerve-breaking stuff is, that will come, you know, and I will handle it good. I handled it good last time, and, you know, I'm going to have a good this time, too. It's all about focus. And, yeah. Very interesting thing played out a few days back. You, you made a Harlem Shake video, which I didn't know was big in Sweden. is that is that it's it's everywhere here but is it popular in Sweden or were you copying what was going on in the States

no it's popular in Sweden but everything that comes to Sweden has always been in the States so you know that's how it goes so what was interesting about this video it wasn't just your typical Harlem Shake video I thought it was maybe the best one as far as MMA goes because you used it to send a message to the champion you you told John that you're next and then he tweeted back to you I see you I see you big something like that. That was brilliant. Whose idea was that? Yeah, it was awesome.

No, it was a guy from the gym. He just came up, you know, with the idea, and we all thought it was, you know, a fun thing to do, and we did it. So, got good response. I thought your dance moves were great. And then, I don't know if you noticed, but then he made his own Harlem Shake video.

So I think he was trying to copy you there. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, yeah. I think I've seen me once or yeah something like that but yeah you know it was a fun thing it's a really something to to do and we got really good response and people you know they liked it and you know

it's been spread how many takes did you need to to really get it down as far as you're dancing no it went good actually you know I find the flow directly and everything went well so it was fun and all the all

all the guys from the gym was there and we all had a big laugh so that was fun When you look at your skill set and what you bring to the table and you look at everyone else at 205, do you think that you have something that others don't at 205 as far as ability to beat John Jones? Like, do you have the missing ingredient, maybe your height, your reach? I don't know. But do you feel that way when you look at everyone else?

You're just a bit better than them because of what you have? Yeah, you know, I think I have a, you know, special that really makes me as a fighter, you know, I think I have special abilities that makes me to a really good fighter. And, you know, I know I can beat the champ one day. So, yeah. Okay, last thing before we let you go, Alex, I just wanted to ask you, what's your take on this hole? They were going to have a women's fight in Sweden,

but then they took it off because they didn't think that the market was ready for that. You're someone who lives there. I mean, you are Swedish. You've fought many times there. Is that accurate? Did you think that this was a smart move? at this point, maybe not rock the boat, let's just give the fans what they want, don't bring the women there, what did you think of that?

No, you know, for me it would be, you know, great to have a, you know, a women fight too. So that's how I see. There would be, I think it would be, you know, popular too. I think it would be still selling tickets. It would still be people coming, so. So the people are ready for, for. women's MMA in Sweden, right? Yeah, yeah, of course.

Yeah, they've had women's MMA fights over there, right, and other organizations? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we've got a few women that are playing in competing, so it'll be. All right. Well, we appreciate the time, Alex. Really enjoy talking to you, as always, and good luck. April 6th, the Erickson Globe Arena over in Stockholm, Sweden, UFC on Fuel TV 9, Gagar Musassi versus Alexander Gustafson, one of the best main events of the year.

for it. Appreciate it, Alex. Good luck to you on April 6th, and we'll talk to you very soon. Appreciate that. Thank you. All right, there he is. Alex, the Mallor, Gustafsson,

stopping by. I always mess up. Yeah, it is. All right. It is called the Erickson Globe Arena. It's a very cool arena. If you've never seen it, it's a big ball,

and it's multicolored, and it's in Stockholm. Ryan Couture making his UFC debut on that card. Conor McGregor making his UFC debut against Marcus Brimich. That's a fantastic. main event. Gustafson versus Musassi, a great international feel. And quite frankly, if Gustafson

wins, in my opinion, he should be the number one contender. All due respect to Machita, he had his chance against John, and he's only two and oh since losing to John Jones. I'd like to see Gustafs get the shot if he wins. And let's see what happens if Musassi wins. Musassi's saying recently that, well, he's not going to get his hopes up. He thinks that, the UFC will probably give it to someone else because he's only making his debut. But a win over Alexander Gustafsson is huge and would only really put him maybe one fight away when you consider the other contenders out there. At this point, it's really down to Machita or Gustafson. And let's not forget, there is the talk of John Jones fighting Anderson Silva.

But then, of course, Anderson Silva fighting Chris Wyman. What happens there? There's a lot of ifs. There's a lot of question marks right now. So we almost really do have to take a one fight at a time. but I think, let's just say John Jones fights again and fights again at 205 next after the Chale Sunn fight. I really do think Alexander Gustafson deserves the shot.

And I like the fact that he's getting a lot more confident. I like the fact that he's saying he's going to take the mic and call out the champion if he wins on April 6. He's doing the Harlem Shake video. I like that. You need that. There's one thing I've learned about MMA these days. If you want something, go out and get it.

Look at Gary Musassi. He wasn't even in the UFC yet. Called out Alexander Gustafson, got the fight, main eventing on fuel next month, sold out arena. All right, let's move along now. We had him on the show two weeks ago.

Better times for him. Coming off his win over Shane Mills, looking very good, continuing to develop at 170 pounds, and then we get word last week that he has been released from the UFC due to testing positive, for a second time in less than a year for marijuana.

Of course, we're talking about Matt Riddle. He joins us now on the MMA hour. Matt, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing great. So we're less than a week away from this news coming out. What's life like for you now? Has it set in?

I mean, are you still in shock? What's going on? No, not really. To be honest, I think we talked when they've already fired John Fitch. I think they were just looking for a reason to get rid of me. So I was expecting it You know I didn't I wasn't expecting to fail that drug test You know I quit 21 days out

But uh You know after uh you know me calling out Joe Silva He didn't give me Dan Hardy and then Me not fighting just going out there and brawling And then the failing the drug test I They were going to fire me So whatever I'm good I got I got fight off first I'm good to go

Oh yeah what do you got Uh I've been talking to Access, I don't know which Fight League in particular, but I'll probably be heading towards Access here in a couple months. Access TV?

Yep. Someone tweeted me that you're fighting Nissan Osternick, the former UFC fighter in a few months. Has that been brought to the table here? I have not been handed a contract with an opponent or anything yet, but, you know,

I'm down for whatever, so. And you're, you don't have a manager, right? I do and I don't. I have a couple guys that are working for me right now. Right now I don't have anything, the official management, but right now, you know, I just got the news last week, and, you know, everybody's asking me if it's like if I'm bothered by that. I'm really not, you know, just because it kind of gives me a chance to kind of have fun

on the regional circuit. You know, you don't hear a lot of people saying that, but for someone who made his debut in the UFC, are you somewhat excited to see what it's like out there in indie MMA, so to speak? Well, I've been around the scene. I never got to fight in it myself. I was always there watching, but, yeah, I am excited, you know, and it might sound maybe not the greatest,

but I'm excited to probably fight lesser talented fighters than I was in the UFC, just because, you know, the UFC, to get there, you usually have to be on like a five-fight knockout spree, and you know, you usually have to be doing big things on the regional circuit to get the call, you know? So I'm pretty excited. I think it's going to be a good way for me to just keep developing as a fighter and showcase my skills.

And the UFC wants me back, so be it if not. I'm happy with that, too. So you're looking forward to fighting some cans is what you're saying. Yeah. Yes. Yes, I'm very, and I'm excited also. fight other talent outside the UFC like another one

you know I've always wanted to fight but he got cut from the UFC and never invited back was Paul Daley oh yeah so maybe I wouldn't mind fighting him but before I fight Paul Daley I want to beat up a couple you know a couple cans or lesser

talented fighters you know like Chey Mills extremely talented and you know even Chris Clemens the guys I've been beating on pretty good win streaks or knocked out a lot of people. So it'll be nice just to fight like somebody with like maybe a five and two record, you know, something like that.

So, I mean, as far as the other big organizations out there, the Bellator's, the World Series of Fightings, I'm assuming if you'd sign with one of them, you would probably have to sign an exclusive somewhat multi-fight deal. Are you not looking to do that? Do you want to kind of jump around and do whatever you want at this point? Yeah, you know, right now I kind of, I don't want to sign into anything serious. Not that I wouldn't say, you know, if the deal's good, I'll sign it. But I really don't want to sign myself over to somebody.

I already did that with the UFC for the last five years. They kind of owned me. Yeah. And it kind of feels good. It's like a fresh breath of air to know that I don't have to worry about what I post on Facebook anymore or what I do anymore because I don't have the UFC yelling at me anymore. Did they yell at you a lot? Not a lot, but ever since the whole mess.

marijuana issue came up and commission in Calgary released my medical information. They were calling me probably once every couple weeks to be like, you know, you can't wear these clothes, you can't do this, you can't say this. And, you know, I could tell they were kind of looking for a way out and I messed

up, you know, I should have quit five weeks out, I guess, before a fight, not three weeks out. And, yeah. So I got to ask you, did you try to get fired? No, no You know, I'll say this right now I definitely did not try to get fired But I will say this The way I got fired in the U.S.

You know, usually most people lose two fights Then get fired Yeah I've won my last four fights And I got fired So, you know For getting fired It's probably the coolest way

You can get fired But you know But saying that My wife is pretty pissed out of everybody, but this news. My wife is probably the most angry about this, just because, you know, I think she liked the fact I bought in the UFC, and it was like, you know, it was kind of like a guarantee,

like as long as I was in shape, I could probably get a fight, you know? Yeah. And now, you know, in the regional circuit, you know, things aren't guaranteed, you know. But I don't mind, you know, because I've already been getting offers from, like, legit organizations. and yeah, the money's still there. So I'm not worried at all.

What's interesting about this is that people always compare your situation to Nick Diaz or even other guys, you know, Vitor Belford, et cetera, that have had some kind of drug-related issue over the last year or so. And what's interesting is, you know, based on what you were saying, we talked about this two weeks ago when you were on the show, do you believe had you not said those things about Joe Silva, had you not had the kind of fight that you did against Shea Mills, even if you did test positive for a second time, do you still think you'd be around?

If your name was Nick Diaz, if your name was Vitor Belford, and you tested positive for the same exact thing, July marijuana, February marijuana, do you still think you'd be around? Yeah, I think we all know that answer. Yeah, I think, honestly, I think, you know, the UFC, they wanted me to go out against Che, they want me to stand in the center of the octagon and just throw down.

And I would have done that, but I'm not going to do that in his backyard in London when I know, like, even if I take him down three times a round and pass his guard every round, they're still going to give him the scorecard. So, you know, I couldn't take a chance like that. But you got to look at guys like Dave Herman, three-fight losing streak, gets knocked out, like three times in a row, fails two drug tests for weed, and he's still in the UFC. You know, and I don't take anything from Herman, you know, I bet he's a great guy. guy. But I don't know. I think that's very hypocritical, and, you know, that's, those are

politics right there. That's, that's not good business. That's, you know, you guys getting together, doing a little powwow and being like, let's get rid of riddle. You know, he's fighting more conservative. He's going out there for wins. He's fighting more educated. And, you know, I would rather hire a couple guys from Australia or UK that just brawl and pay him half as much. So, you know, I kind of knew. I was starting to get paid more. Everything was coming into play. I was hitting my stride.

And I think they're just looking for a way to get rid of me. You really were. I mean, we've really seen you evolve as a fighter before our eyes from the ultimate fighter to this point. And you worry, I mean, really, you had won four in a row, and that's what I think upset people so much because they wanted to see you continue to progress. So let's figure this out.

What exactly happened? Obviously, you did smoke marijuana because you told us, and you have the license to do so in Nevada. What went wrong here? Why did you test positive? Honestly, man, I find the test a little fishy. I'll say that. You know, I really do.

I got the results back. Of course, they couldn't give them my exact numbers. They gave me a qualitative numbers, which are basically just as negative or positive. But there's just a couple things like me testing positive for marijuana. You would think it would happen, but I did quit three weeks out. I've passed drug tests in like two weeks. So to take the extra week, I was shocked to fail on top of that. And then there was creatine in my system.

And I don't take creatine. I haven't taken creatine since I was 16. So, you know, that's just those were just two things. Like I quit three weeks out, so I should have been fine on that, but I failed somehow. And I had creatine in my system, which I, I haven't taken since I was 16. So I'm definitely looking into this drug test and seeing if, you know,

maybe the sample was tainted somehow. I don't know. Usually they do a lot of little things like when they take your pee. Like they make you sign off a couple of times. They make you initial, the actual vials of pee you handed them, and certain things so they can't misplace or misrepresent your urine test. And this time, you know, I signed one thing,

a paper and then they're like, all right, you're good, get out of here. And they were pouring my pee into other things and doing the test, but usually it's a lot more professional. So do you think you were set up? I won't, I'm not going to say, I think I was set up or anything like that yet until, you know, I get more information, talk to a doctor about the test and then maybe talk to a lawyer about it. But yeah, right now, I just find it confusing that I failed after I quit three weeks, and then I had creatine in my system on top of it. Based on... Go ahead.

Yeah, I didn't have an abnormal amount of creatine in my system, but I had above-average of my creatine in my system, and that's just crazy because, like I said, I haven't taken creatine since I was 16. Based on your experiences, what's sort of the cutoff as far as time since last smoking weed, you know, like two weeks, 10 days? what's usually the cut-up point? Because you say three weeks, like, but I don't know how long that stuff stays in your system.

You know what, man? I've quit before, like, I fought in New Orleans, I fought in Pennsylvania, and I quit literally like 10 days, 12 days before those fights. Passed. Not a problem. Wasn't a question. This time, you know, I failed that one test in Calgary.

I quit, like, seven days, eight days before the fight. Failed that test. And I kind of saw that one come just because, You know, I was smoking, like, just over a week out. But then, you know, this last fight, and even the John McGuire fight, I quit three weeks out before the fight, didn't have an issue. And then this last time failed, failed a drug test. So how often do you smoke? You know, I smoke.

I throw up the day, I probably smoke. I'll have, like, like, two to three smoke sessions, and they last about, like, half an hour at a time. and so I mean, if I had to put it in weight, I probably smoke like an eighth a day. And are you always alone? Not always. Sometimes, you know, my other medical patient buddies will come over, and we will use our medicine together. And what do you do? Do you just sit around and talk, or do you watch TV?

Like, how do you sort of pass the time while you're doing it? Oh, what I'm doing it, you know, maybe I'll throw on some music, a TV show, or something. You know, if I'm by myself, I'll do something like that. Even if I have friends, you know, we'll just talk, you know. Yeah. Just normal social behavior. Just like if you saw two guys at a bar, drink a beer and hang out. It's the same thing.

Two guys smoke a joint, hang out. And you do it when you are feeling pain or when you need it, or do you have a schedule, you know, I have to do it at this time, this time, so that I am not in pain? You know, it depends on, you know, my routine. the schedule and what's been going on. Like, like right now,

I'm in no pain, you know, I haven't used any today, and I probably won't use any until later today. And, yeah, you know, just because I don't really need it.

But, you know, honestly, when I'm in a training camp and, like, maybe, you know, I have a fight in 10 weeks, so I started training just a little bit.

But, you know, that's when it helps me when I'm training and I'm just sore and beat down, and my kids are screaming. I'm just exhausted mentally. and physically. You know, I smoke a little bit, and it just slows everything down and just makes everything much more pleasant in my life.

By the way, do you have to smoke in a different room from where your kids are at, or will you do it in the same rooms? Okay, okay. I mean, I do, you know, I mean, you know, when I grew up, you know, they didn't even know smoking was bad, so my mom was smoking cigarettes and everything all around me. But bottom wise, I don't want my kids to see me doing it one. and the last thing I would want is to affect them physically or mentally because they were by me for some reason. You know, even though it doesn't have anything side effects-of-wise like that, I just would never want to take that chance, you know.

And how hard is it when you're used to doing it two, three times a day, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, for that week or ten days or fourteen days before a fight? I mean, that's got to be a hard thing to not have in your life anymore, right? You know, it is, and it is, and the thing is, it's hard in a way because I see what I turn into. And, like, you know, I'm pretty happy to go lucky, but you usually see me after I just fought or I just want to fight. So, you know, I got all that aggression, everything out. But you can ask anybody that hangs out with me those couple weeks, my wife, anybody. It's just like I'm not fun to be around. I'm just dieting.

I'm cutting weight. I'm just miserable. I'm training three times a day, you know. I'm taking, you know, I'm just taking as many vitamins as I can just so I don't get sick. and yeah, it's just, it sucks, but at the same time, I guess that's what makes me fight the way I do too, because, you know, I'm off my medication and I'm, like, in kill mode instead of just being like a normal guy. You said earlier you're going to look into this, this drug test that you're kind of questioning here. What does that mean? How are you going to look into it?

I want to talk to a doctor, and I want to ask him about the creatine levels to just ask how would those get in there. If I don't take creatine or anything of that sort, how would creatine get in my urine? And if they're like, well, the only way it gets in your urine is if you took creatine supplement or something, then I'm going to be like that's bullshit. I've never touched creatine, and I'm going to have to act on that. And how do you act? Like, what do you do then at that point? Do you know? Well, I would imagine.

Well, I've had multiple lawyers come up to me, especially just for being fired for marijuana because the state laws in Nevada, they actually, you can't fire somebody for using medical marijuana. You can't even suggest rehab. You can't suggest anything because we're prescribed and recommended by a doctor. So right there, a lot of lawyers think I have a lawsuit for wrongful termination. And, you know, I'm not really trying to go that route because I like to fight, and I'm not really trying to deliake about it. But at the same time, if I didn't fail a drug test and something was added to my urine,

like creatine and THC or something like that then I would like to know because I don't I just think it was just really convenient and then even after my fight you know Dana White was making comments oh you know maybe people started

playing more exciting unlike Riddle lately oh really? You know he well yeah he did a couple interviews and mentioned how I haven't been playing exciting and then just so happened like a couple days later I failed a drug test and I get fired you know so there's just a couple

variables that I'm just, it just seems really fishy. You know, a lot of people were comparing this to, again, the Vitor situation where he's on TRT, that's legal, and now Dana has kind of changed his mind about it, but, you know, again, a lot of people think that guys are abusing TRT. I think guys are abusing TRT, yet you have to come in within the allowed limits, but still, if you have the TUE, the therapeutic use exemption, then you're good as long as you come in. if you, you know, would you like to be the trailblazer who kind of figures this whole thing out to where if you have a license in your own state that maybe you should be allowed within a certain limit to have a certain amount of THC, the tablites, et cetera, and be able to fight? And even when I talk to Mark Ratner in a person, I talk to everybody, that's my only thing I say.

Because honestly, I don't think people should be fighting high. I don't think you should be smoking the night before the day of a fight. that's a little close, and you shouldn't be using, you know, any drugs that close to a fight, anything. But at the same time, for me to quit smoking 21 days before I fight, and then to say I fail a drug test and then fire me from my job that I've had for five years since I was 22. I just, I find that really just, it's just hard, you know? Did you hear that Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. was fined $900,000 and suspended for nine months by the NSAC, I did

Do you think that's that's a little hefty As far as the dollar amount It's extremely hefty It's kind of how these athletic commissions Make their buck though You know they count on guys like us That make good amount of money

Failing our drug test here And then they just collect You know I don't know What are they going to do with $900,000 There's like seven of them In Burgundy suits You know

Like I don't know What the Nevada Athletic Commission needs 900K for. Right. It just seems like a very random... I mean, I know he's had his issues in the past, but that just seems like a lot of money. It's an extreme amount of money,

and, you know, I don't know what their problem is, and I don't know what the other state athletic commissions problems are, especially when other states are legalizing, you know, medical marijuana. And some states are illegal for recreational use, like Colorado and Washington. Like, you can literally just pick it up at the dispensary, go home and have fun. You know, so I just find it hard that they're fighting it so hard, and it's like, it's a losing battle they're fighting.

It always has been, and I don't know why they just don't quit or just get educated. That's the hardest part. You know, it's a bunch of senior citizens that don't really know anything about the drug or anything about the people that use it or the culture, and they just look at it a certain way. They think it's like a dirty thing to do. and you should just go to a pharmacy and get some pills and you'll be fine. And I'm not that guy. I'm a natural kind of guy, and you'll never get me to do that.

Given the restrictions that you talked about in the UFC, would you be cool if you never go back there? You know, honestly, I would be fine with that, you know. I've already done a decent amount of damage in the UFC, you know, with, you know, fighting and having fun there and making a good amount of money. And I'm 27 just hit my stride in. Honestly, what I see happening is, you know, a year or two from now, the UFC calls me back after I won probably like five or six bites, I would say, hopefully. And I'll probably at that time probably just say no, because I don't, I really don't like the direction they're taking the company.

They're firing high-level talent so they can have lower-level talent just scrap. And they'd rather have a brawl and then a good technical fight. and I think that's going to be their downfall because the fans are getting more educated. They're getting smarter, and they don't want to just see a slug best and two retarded guys with brain damage bleeding everywhere. Don't get it wrong, that's good to have.

If two guys are evenly matched, you know, two guys are evenly matched. You've got two Division I wrestlers that can't take each other down, and they are left in a slug fest. That's what happens. But then to have me fight Chey Mills and then kind of expect me to stand in the pocket with, like, a world-class kickboxer who has knocked out other world-class kickboxers. It's just stupid.

You know, you're asking me to, like, get hurt, you know? And basically, I didn't. I fought smart, and I lost my job. So. Final thing, Matt, and we do appreciate the honesty, the candor. It's always great to talk to you. When can we expect to see you fight again? I would probably say in the next two months. because the UFC couldn't suspend me because they're not an actual athletic commission,

and they were the one that ran the drug test. So they can't suspend me. So I can fight tomorrow, but I wouldn't recommend that. I know what you mean. Yeah. So, yeah, I would have to say probably in two months. I'd say probably April, right? All right.

Mark, April, yeah. Maybe a month and a half. Yeah, April will be in a month. Nevertheless, we look forward to it. Always great to talk to you. I'm sure we'll talk to you again as you now begin a new chapter in your career. Looking forward to seeing what you do out there outside of the UFC. Great to have you on the show, Matt.

Good luck to you and keep us posted where you land next. We'll do, man. Always a pleasure. All right, there he is. Matt Riddle stopping by on the MMA hour as, and I guess fittingly enough, the flag, the great Canadian flag, which I do need to pick up. I'll have New York Rick fix this later. And by the way, I forgot to mention, did you guys notice this picture here?

This is made of melted crayon, the great Lucas W37. That's his Twitter handle. Twitter.com slash LucasW37 made this for me, and he made those shoes, that one over there. But look at this. This is like looking into the Matrix. This is me looking at me, looking at me in the camera. You see that? This is the set.

Are you able to see this, Isaac? Melted crayon, my nose. Look at that. That's unbelievable. One of the greatest gifts, if not the great. This and the guy who made the toy of me. me for around five, Gonzo,

fittingly enough, unbelievable. This is great. I cried when I saw it. So thank you very much to Lucas W37. We appreciate it. All right, let's move along now

and welcome in. Very excited to have for the first time on the show. Met this man less than two weeks ago at UFC 157, and there I say, he may be one of the most famous guests

we've ever had, especially with the 16 to maybe 21-year-old girls. Very famous. He's the star of the new film 21 and over. It came out on Fridays, on Friday theaters nationwide, and he was also the star of Pitch Perfect, which I saw over the weekend, which was great, as I mentioned at the top of the show. Been in girls, a bunch of other shows.

He is Skylar Aston, and he joins us right now on the MMA Hour. Skyler, how are you? Ariel Hawani, how are you doing? Man, you've been everywhere. New York Knicks fan. Yes. Well, let's not talk about that, because then I'm going to get depressed all of a sudden. Yeah, I know, dude.

You've been everywhere over the last week because you got a big movie that just came out on Friday. but I'm imagining this is the highlight of your week. I mean, forget about E, forget about red carpet. This is a big deal, right? You know, you joke, Ariel, but it's the biggest highlight of my press tour. My brother, Milan, and I listen to this every week. We are a huge MMA fighting fans in Fan House. We go way back, so we're really pumped, yeah.

You see, I want to believe you, but for someone who's so busy as you, you're on movie sets, you're mingling with all these important people, How do you have time to listen to MMA podcasts? Well, there's two that, you know, it's like it's this and the Joe Rogan podcast, and that's where I get all of my AM stuff, and I don't go on any other, like, websites, really. It's actually kind of surreal to be talking to you because I'm still used to seeing you on my computer. Wow. Well, I'm just going to keep talking about how great we are here to build up my ego,

especially coming from a Hollywood actor. But I do appreciate it very much. I saw you at 157. You were there. You were just kind of canoodling with Dana White in the back, hanging. out, I think it was his assistant that brought you over, VIP treatment. What were you doing? You're tweeting pictures of you and Dana in the back.

How did you end up there? Well, basically, they were having us promote the film there because we were doing a lot of cross-promotion with the FX and Ultimate Fighter and stuff. And I met a ton of people, and Lorenzo for keto went up to me and was like, hey, I'm Lorenzo. I'm like, I know. He's like, yeah, can you take a picture with my daughter? You know what I mean?

because it's like, once you're in with the daughter and the wives, you're like in. Yeah. So something, it was just all going down. I saw Demetrius Johnson with his wife and all these people, and they're all like big fans of pitch perfect. It was pretty wild. So you're just sitting there. You're there as a guest.

Your film is being promoted. And Lorenzo comes up to you and asks to take a picture. And then that's how you end up backstage? Well, basically, yeah, because then through that, I met his assistant. And I met Dana's assistant. And she asked for her friend to have a picture or whatever. And I was like, oh, cool. So what do you do around here?

And she was like, yeah, I'm Dana's assistant. I'm like, okay, can I meet him? So she organized the way for me to go backstage and meet him. And that's when I ran into you. And I was like, I was actually about to leave. And I was like, okay, can I actually really quick talk to Ariel? Because I have like a lot of shop to talk with that. And now here you're on the show.

What was it like? What were you doing with Dan in the back? Because I'm imagining a lot of people, listening to this, they now hate you very much, because a lot of fans would like to just watch one fight with the guy in the back. Well, we were talking about Koschak, we were talking about, we were talking about, actually it was really funny. I was with him and Chuck Liddell back there.

Wow. And it was so surreal, I know, and it was so surreal for me because one of the women with the UFC had like a headset was just going up to him and was like, hey, so Cheetos out front, and he's being so annoying with tickets and whatever. and you just hear Dana like blow up in a typical way and Chuck's like rolling his eyes and I'm like I felt like I was in a video blog I was like this is phenomenal

you know what I mean just like as a fan how like Dana's frustrated with Tito like tell that son of a bitch like blah blah blah and I was like this is unbelievable that's great and I saw the the cast of the film 21 and over you guys were actually interviewed by Chale Sunnet how did that happen

actually that was my idea because I thought that a lot of people who like UFC with like 21 and over, they kind of go hand in hand in their demographics, and Chale's such a performer, and he's so funny, and he's he's got a million jobs these days,

and he was just game for anything. So when he signed on, I figure he could be just to like fight predictions, and you know, just kind of riff, and he's just like such a, he's like such a salesman. He should be an actor, honestly. It's ridiculous. I noticed two of you were big fans, but the other

guy, who I think his name is Joe in the film, not a big fan, right? He was kind of coasting. Yeah, yeah. Jeff, he plays Jeff Chang. Jeff, Jeff, excuse me. Just in real life, he had absolutely no idea. He knew Machita. That's one person he knew about. So he was like, I think he called him Nimble or something like that. Yes, exactly. But yeah, Miles, Miles pretends to be a big fan as well.

But he kind of, he just kept talking about how hot rousey was, which is true. But I also talked about how she could take someone's arm home with her, which he did. When did you become a fan? Well, my brother Milan, who, by the way, I have a nickname Kwan's, which I'll explain the derivation of that in a second. He got me into it like two or three years ago. And I think we watched one of Brock Lesnar's fights or something like that, because I was always a huge WWE fan all the way. Like my first screen name ever was Heartbreak Kid.

Oh. Like always, I went to SummerSlam 91 at Macho Man's Wedding. So, you know, I've always been into, like, entertainment, and I always wished it was real. And I don't know. I just fell in love with the sport. You know, you may be jealous even more jealous of me now. I was at the Montreal Screwjob. Oh, my God.

What a moment it was in time. Yeah, but I hate it. Actually, I was just talking to my other brother that we're going to go to MetLife for WrestleMania this year. Oh, yeah. Maybe I'll call it my good friend CM Punk. And, no, I'm just kidding. I'm trying to, now I'm trying to sort of one-up you. I dropped something on the floor area.

But no, I, too, was a big wrestling fan. It's interesting, you mentioned that, because I do feel like a lot of, you're what, like 26 or so, 25, something like that? 25, yeah. I feel like a lot of people in our age bracket kind of graduated from wrestling to MMA, especially when the wrestling product became too predictable. Like, you look at what happened this past weekend, Vanderley knocking out Brian Stan. Everyone thought Brian was going to win. A lot of people thought Struve was going to win against Hunt. You can't write that stuff.

You can't script that. And even what happened with the rousy Karmouche fight, the ups and downs, wrestling is just too predictable. And I think that's what's beating wrestling right now. It's itself. It's the writing is so predictable. And MMA, it just all unfolds and it unfolds beautifully. Absolutely. You can never script like that.

And I know New York, Rick, he's always doing his Rick sticks. But I try to bet on MMA. It's the hardest thing in the world. It's like impossible. I literally have such a, like, I just want to watch and just be entertained. and I always have my favorite, you know, sometimes going into the fight, but, like, who could have predicted that exactly, Brian Stanford, Banderley?

They were, like, swinging for the fences, both of them. It could have gone either way at any point. And by the way, just a piece of advice. If you are looking to bet on fights, I would suggest not following Mr. Rick. That's just my two cents on that. Okay, so 21 and over. I've seen the commercials, obviously. I didn't have a chance to see it because, honestly,

I can only take so much Skylar in one weekend. I saw pitch perfect, so you can't hate me for that, right? I completely understand. It did come out this weekend. I see the commercials on the Bellator broadcast. You guys are all over MMA content. Why should MMA fancy this movie? Why does it appeal to them?

Well, I think if you like The Hangover, I think if you like funny movies, like Super Bad or Animal House, it's got that old-school vibe. It's just like, you know, anyone can relate that's turn 21 also, or is looking forward to turning 21, it celebrates the milestone and what that means. And I just think that it's such a hilarious script. And also it's about three best friends,

kind of getting into one crazy night. And I don't know, I love it. I mean, it's like if you like those kinds of movies, it's just an easy sell. You know, pitch perfect with harder, especially for my guys, you know, for my dudes, I would be like, oh, you know, it's about the singing stuff,

but, you know, it's actually really funny. It's just easier thing to explain. It's just like, yeah, it's The Hangover in college. It's written by the same writers as The Hangover, too. Oh, wow. I was talking about this with my wife over the weekend while we were watching, because we were very impressed with the film. Are you all singing, or is there a lip singing going on?

No, we all sang in that one. Really? 100%. Yeah, 100%. Some of it was live. Like, if you saw that since you've been gone part, like to audition, we were, like, singing that totally live. That is unbelievable, really, because I could have sworn,

particularly the British girl, that that really wasn't her. For sure. Are you K-fabing me right now? We're singing it. We're lip-sinking to ourselves when we shoot it because you can't keep producing that 12 hours a day. But yeah, we all went into the recording studio and made it happen. Are you K-fabing me right now? What?

Are you, you know, K-fab, it's, you know, like the old pro-r wrestling term where you stick to the character. You don't want to reveal the curtain, so to speak. Is that what's going on here? I wouldn't ever, because I'd be found out. All right. Universal's not like Vince McMahon. He doesn't, like, you know, hold us like that. No, I mean, I would tell you.

I would for sure tell you if there was any tricks. Okay, so now that we have someone inside the Hollywood scene, we've been trying to get in, you know, the MMA movies these days. I mean, here comes the boom. I mean, here comes the boom. It was actually up against pitch purpose, so I didn't. But I think, yeah, it's hard. to do an M&A movie, especially if you're going to go with the PG-13 audience, you know?

Yeah. But wait, let me just understand something here. You didn't see Here Comes to Boone because it was up as far as the same weekend, but that doesn't mean you can't watch it now. Or are you just so, so loyal to your own film that you refuse to watch any movie that came out the same week? I would totally see it. I love Kevin James. I love the Zookeeper just because Joe Rogan was in it.

But, yeah, I would totally see it. And I know Mayhem was in it as well, right? Mr. Lucky Patrick himself, that's true. he was in it. Yeah. I was going to pull it a lot of capacity today at the show, but I figured that behaves. Yeah, it's tough to do it over the phone. But why, so you just think because people are, maybe, and also it doesn't, it doesn't do that well,

box office-wise. I mean, I know Warrior didn't do that great, this film, here comes to go. So, I mean, are you, are you think that the, do you think that the Hollywood audience, the, the casual movie-going person just isn't ready for an MMA film? Is that what you're saying? I don't think so. I mean, I think it just needs to be done well. I mean, right.

You can never predict the box office. It's so hard. You have things that, like, you know, should for sure, you know, dominate the box office that just fall flat sometimes and vice versa. And Warrior, I thought, above all else, was a great critically acclaimed film. And Nick Nolpey was amazing. Tom Hardy was awesome. Here comes a boom. I didn't see, but it looked a little bit watered down.

You know, it wasn't as gritty, maybe as Warrior was. I know there was the Matt Hamill. you know, biopic. Something that my brother and I were talking around one day would be like, and I actually met Shogun at 157, and I talked to him and his manager about it, doing a biopic about him. Wow.

Yeah. Why him? Why him? United, we Stan for Brian Stan. Oh, that's a good one. Although these days... Yeah, actually my brother, Milan, came up with that one. Wait, but why Shogun of all people?

I don't know. My brother just always said that, I remind him. Like, I think with maybe like a prosthetic nose or something like that, I could pull it off. I think he's just the only fighter that I could somewhat resemble. So is this something you want to do? Is this kind of on your wish list as far as films, be a part of an MMA movie? Absolutely.

Yeah, I went into my agency like a year ago, and we were just talking about kind of what's next. And, you know, obviously saying in the comedy genre, but also expanding further. And something I told them, I said, I love sports movies. I've played baseball my whole life. I've always loved sports movies and something I've had died to do just as a passion and just to be able to train would be like an MMA

or some sort of a fighting movie. So you were also at UFC on Fox 4, right? Shogun beat Brandon Vera that night, so you must have been happy about that. What's the best fight you either saw live or on television? Like, what's number one for Skylar Aston? I mean, I went to 146,

which was great. Yeah. And that was my first ever live fight. And, I mean, I just never seen anything like when Kane beat Bigfoot because it was a massacre. Like, I've actually never seen someone just so bloody in a ring. And, like, in front of my face, too. I was like, I just got to see how ugly the sport you get. And it was such a big statement for Kane.

and now that he even ran through Junior DeSanto, who's one of my favorite fighters, I just think he's the baddest man on the planet right now, and I'm excited to see what happens in that division. Do you care about the rematch? Yeah, Bigfoot. I mean, listen, it's going to be interesting to see what Bigfoot can do now that it isn't enough blood in his eyes the whole time,

but I just don't see that. After seeing that live in front of my face, I don't see how Kane doesn't win. and I also think you can't underestimate over him, you know, with his kickboxing, but I think Junior's going to take him. I think he's going to knock his head off because. So you think we'll see a third fight between them? Who do you like in that?

And the rubber match? Yeah. Well, I sound so official because I texted you last night. I told you that if Ed Soros at the airport. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I ran into Ed Soros, and we met at 157 as well, and we were talking about Junior and how he used to represent him, and he was saying that in a way, you know, Junior kind of needed that loss just for his, you know,

just to prove some imperfections in his game. And I don't know. I can never bet, but I would probably be rooting for Junior Dos Santos just because when I met him after 146, I met him as a total fan, no privilege or anything. And he actually had me and my brother sit down with him at his, when he was like, but he was just eating dinner with his trainers and stuff. And he invited us to kind of like eat with him. It was like the craziest story.

I couldn't believe it was happening. So you just went up to him and he invited. Did he know who you were? No, he had no idea. None of my movies had come out at that point. So there's no way unless he's a big fan of off-Broadway, which I highly doubt. So I know my brother and I just went up to him and we congratulated him. He happened to be eating at the same restaurant and he had no security, you know,

just showed like how all these fighters are just the most humble guys. They walk around with no qualms and no, you know, bodyguards. And he just had his team there, and he was just relaxing, and we sat down. I mean, he taught us, like, some Portuguese phrases. I don't know. We took a picture with my brother. He was awesome. It was just really cool guy.

So what's the scoop? Did Ed tell you if Anderson's going to fight Chris Wydenman? Oh, I did talk to him about that. What do you got? What do you got? He said the same stuff that he's insane at everyone. You know, he says it's close. And, you know, I think that Fourth of July rumor is, you know, prevalent.

I think that's a really tough matchup for Anderson. And I know it's only done in boxing with the immediate rematch stuff, but I think that Anderson should get one of those two-fight deals with that. Wow, look at you, kind of breaking some news on an MMA show. I don't know. I please don't post it. It'll kill me. Was that on the record or off the record when you guys were talking?

Yeah, right. There's nothing off the record. That's one thing I do know. But no, we weren't on the record or off the record. He was just speaking candidly, and he was, like, really cool. He was not making anything, you know, official. But that would just be what I would say. I want to see M.MA in New York, and my dream would be to see either the Jones-Silva fight there

once, you know, that gets figured out or Wiedman Silva, too, if that's possible. What do you care? If everything, you know, works out that way. What do you care about in New York? You deserted this great state to move to the left. coast. You don't care about us. Of course I do. I'm always a New Yorker. L.A. is a necessary evil for me, and I got to be out here, and I love it out here, but I just

came back on the plane last night from New York. I'm there once every month or two months. So it's very important. I mean, I was at the Garden yesterday with the Nick Cetech, which was heartbreaking. Again, you keep bringing it up. It's almost like, why do you keep bringing it up? Why do you keep reminding me of this heartbreaking loss? I'm sorry, man. I don't know. It's fresh on my mind. It's just brutal. Yeah, well. LeBron literally broke my spirit yesterday with some of those ducks. And mine, too. Now, I just want to know, before we let you go, what's it like young actor, your film is about to open, a lot of promotion, you're on commercials everywhere. That Friday night, that Friday afternoon, what is it like? What's that experience like? You're about to be seen by millions of people. Take us into your mind a couple days ago. It's one of those things where I filmed it a year and a half ago. I actually filmed this one before pitch perfect. So I was just excited for it to finally be shown.

I want people to like it. I know they do millions of tests and all these kind of statistical analysis and people seem to have been digging the film a lot. And you just kind of wanted to do what it's going to do and have its own life. And, like, you know, I mean, I've been promoting and talking about it for so long.

I just wanted to come out. And I don't see it anymore. I saw it at the premiere, so I'm done checking it out myself. But, you know, it's just exciting. Like, it's exciting for my friends and my family and people I know to finally, you know, see what I've been up to.

Are you happy with it? You happy with the final product? I'm pumped. I would not be promoting the movie in such a way if I wasn't so excited about it. It's my favorite thing I've ever done. It's like it's four dudes by dudes. It's just phenomenal. I'm still pumped. I know that was the last question, but I actually have something. Oh. Oh, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. If you please. My brother Milan is the hugest MMA fan. If you think I'm funny or trying to.

Charming or cool, he beats me in all of those elements. The Mitrione Minute has not happened in a while. Oh. He loved the Mitreone Minute. Oh. But we're proposing the Milan moment. Oh. My brother's name is Milan.

So I don't know when or where this could happen, even if it's just the attack. But we need to make this happen somehow. Okay. What's his Twitter handle? It's at Milan Jagger. Jagger. So Milan 1L, Jagger 2Gs. Milan, like the city in Italy.

Yeah. and then J-A-G-G-E-R. I'll tell you what. We'll follow him a line, and we appreciate him being a fan, and you drop Mitreau-M-M-N-N-N-N-all-that stuff. We know you're a fan. Give us a taste.

What has he got? This is, the world can see. I just think he's going to have the wit, the charm, and the knowledge to just, like, give everyone just, like, a nice flavor on the M-M-A hour. All right. So we'll follow him.

Let him put it out there for the world to see, and then we'll see if he's really truly ready to come. Because, as you know, we only, you know, this is the A-list of the A-List of the A-list. That's why we have guys like Sean McCorkel on the show. Only the best here on this show. Listen, I know. I know all about it. So that's what?

I know all about the band, Ben Folks' band. Oh, yeah. So I would never... By the way, we don't mention his name on the show anymore. On live podcast, if I didn't believe that the Milan moment could become a weekly regular. All right. Well, we'll do that. Is that fair?

We'll follow him. We'll check out his stuff. And if we feel like he's ready to jump to the big leagues like you just did today, then we'll give him a shot. You heard it here first, folks. I do appreciate you coming out and supporting your brother like this. That's a very nice thing to see. It warms my heart.

So kudos to you for that. And kudos on a great career thus far. I know you're very new to the game, but you've put out some great stuff, and I'm looking forward to seeing 21 and over which just came out on Friday. It's getting great reviews. And as you mentioned, for an MMA fan,

sounds like the perfect film if you're looking to do something this weekend, which, by the way, is kind of MMA light. There aren't any big fights this weekend. with the UFC 158 going down. Final question, GSP Diaz, who you got? I have GSP via split decision. Split decision. Wow, in Montreal. I know. I know. I wish I could want something else.

But in the co-main event, I got Hendricks knocking out Condon. Wow. Very surprising. Well, great to talk to you, my man. Really, really enjoy talking to you. And great to finally meet you. Well, finally, I've been dreaming about it for a long time. And congrats on everything. It's great to see someone who's an MMA fan,

a wrestling fan doing so great in Hollywood. We need more people like you guys out there. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. All right. All the best to you, Schuyler. We'll talk to you very soon. All right. Take care out. There he is. Skylar Aston stopping by, the star of 21 and over, a film that just came out on Friday.

And it's getting great reviews, as I mentioned. It's been on Bellator broadcast, UFC broadcast. You've seen the commercials and whatnot. You've seen it on the mat. And he was in pitch perfect, which at first glance may not be your. typical guy film, but let me say I watched it, and New York Rick told me he watched it and loved it as well. Isn't that true? It's not true. It's not true, my friend. Okay. That doesn't mean I won't watch it. Yeah. It just means I haven't done it yet. Okay, I thought you said you did. All right,

let's move along now and welcome in our next guest joining us from the great state of Florida. He is Marcus Brimidge. Marcus, how are you? Yeah, man, it was good, man. Thanks for having me out. It's always great to hear from you, Marcus. Appreciate you having you on. You know why we're having you on this week. I know you have the fight coming up, but you know why this week? No, not enough. Well, you know, we had Connor McGregor on the show

last week, and people have just been, I haven't had a guest where a week later, people are still ranked me about this guy. People are still tweeting to me about him, leaving comments. This guy had the best, arguably the best, first appearance in MMA Hour history. Did you know this?

Nice. No, I did not. You didn't hear his interview? No, I didn't. You know, I had a feeling you'd say that. I want to play you a quick clip of Mr. Connor McGregor from last week. Get your response. Fair? All right, let's go. Here's Connor McGregor last week on the MMA hour,

talking about his fight against Marcus Brimidge, April 6th in Sweden. Yeah, fair play to him. He's three and now inside the octagon. He's fought some prospects and that. I don't really look into what these guys are at, you know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, there's no opponent, you know what I mean? yourself in there so I don't really I don't really look too much into me he seems he seems he seems he seems like a nice guy seems it he seems like an okay little boxer and he's athletic but we'll see

I think I think his movements I think he's limited with his movements and I look I look to exploit that you know what I mean I'm moving many different ways and I'll definitely be getting there and looking to exploit that I'm gonna go straight for him hands in the air open palm chuck norah style yeah wow how do you expect to finish him um um I don't know, I have a few shots picked and he's a cell paw as well let's see what happens he's tough

you'll see what happens I am gonna finish him though there's no doubt me mind I'm gonna walk away I'd like a nice bonus you know what I'm in there to get paid I'm like I said we're all broke over this neck of the woods

not a thing going for any of us you know what I mean so I want to start getting paid maybe get myself a nice car or something I mean having got a car at the minute and maybe some nice clothes or something you know what I mean a few suits and some shit like that so there you have to start

I haven't, Marcus. First off, did you understand anything he was saying? A little bit, but I was going to say it ain't April 1st yet, so all that bullshit he was talking and go past my ear, baby. So he said open palms, he's going to finish you, them's fighting words. Yeah, but, you know, the honest with you, who has he fought? I mean, I looked up his, both his title runs and both fights, these are title fights. In both fights, he got hit three times together in two fights. And which goes to show me, Doc, you ain't fighting nobody.

I mean, that's my person. That's my personal opinion, man. He can't fight nobody. I mean, you know, you go up there, you're fighting these English cats, ain't nothing. I'm back to the course things. I'm going toe to toe with Dan Strauss. I'm going with Bubba Jenkins that I think.

And this guy is just beating up. He's just being up these English guys who, Don't know how to box. He don't know how to move. And then he wants to talk about my boxing, man, he better take that shit to trial because he didn't miss with me over here. That's what he's faith. And he didn't never been tested for him.

But when I started touching his ass up, guarantee he's going to turn into a wrestling, just like on my opponent. Are you pissed off now? I'm not going to lie about it. I'm a little belligerent, you know what I'm saying? Because, you know, I, this guy is talking all this trash. And you know what? He better watch me because he's going to be the other, he's going to be number four of people who didn't believe that Marcus Brim and James Brown's shit, and I walk away with my hand raised.

Interesting thing that you just said. Number four, your three and own the UFC thus far, coming off a big win over Jimmy Head as part of that Maximal Blanco. I mean, you've looked very good the last year or so. Do you still feel like people aren't giving you the respect that you deserve? Yes, 100%. They're not giving me the respect to the deserve. And you know what? I love it. I love it because that's going to base me more. I love making haters pick their face off the ground every time I won. Every time I win, everybody's like, I don't know how he's winning, but fuck you. I'm winning. You know what I'm saying? That's all that really matters for me, you know? So, Conn McGrath, like I said, he ain't been touched, he ain't been touched. He's overstaffed beating up those English chats thinking he's doing some. I'm American-made. I'm built for it tough. He ain't meant for you.

Why do you think that is? Why do you think you don't get the respect that you deserve? I'm because of my very underwhelming performance on the ultimate fire. I'm not going to lie. I mean, I look like a bitch. You know what I'm saying? I mean, if Carraway made me look very bad during my ultimate firestead. And I had to have the Carraway, you know, even though he lost his fans a weekend, but, you know, he was terrified that night, you know.

I was in my element on the ultimate fighter area. I lost their fight, but ever since then, it's not going to happen again, because that should have been, that should have been my open-in-fighter. That should have been, I chose one that. I still believe that in my heart, you know what I'm saying? But because I didn't

win, I look at that loss. I look at that loss with Carraway all the time. And I was like, yeah, man, that shit ain't happened again. So I keep on standing in the gym, and I make my tough stuff. You still watch the fight against Carraway from Tough? Yes, I watch my fight for him.

I watch all my, I watch, every time I lose, I watch it over and over again because what it does is just feel with me to get better. You know, every time I think I'm getting better, I think I'm getting better, I don't like that, you know? And it makes me, it makes me better, you know? Like going against, going, doing Jujillo, ATT, I don't like it, you know, especially with the Ghee on. I get tapped out.

I'm like, I get mad because I'm like, I feel like that person is supposed to tap me out, but he does, you know what I'm saying. I go to boxing gym. I'm starting against world champions. That's not fun at all because I'm getting beat up. But, you know, at the end of the day, I know me getting my ass with at practice makes me better when I fight. So I'm going to get my ass with my ass with practice and step in that cage on TV and get my ass with. Honestly, how many times have you watched your backflip contest against Maximo Blanco?

I mean, that was one of the most impressive things we've seen in 2012. that is flooded. Like, you know, that, I had a moment there. I had a little inward moment there because, you know, I was mad. Yeah, yeah, I totally did. I was sad because, you know, there was a lot of hype surrounding Maxo Blanco during that fight because there by all was like, oh, Brimish's going to get raped with no Vaseline.

Oh, you're going to get ran through like finish line tape, you know what I'm saying? Like, people were saying this online. So I was like, you know, I ain't no bitch. I ain't going out like that. So, you know, when I fought him, I was surprised that he wasn't trying to knock me out, you know, because he was like the taxi killer and, you know, Marcus Brimson got a chance, and I caught it. I caught his ass with a left, and then after that it completely changed the tempo of the fight

because he was waiting for me to come in so he could take me down. And, you know, I didn't want to lose like that. But when he started backflipping like he won, it pissed me off because I'm like, no, you didn't win this fight, and you damn sure ain't going on outbackflip me. So I had to have outback flip him, so he lost twice in one day. So do you think you were successful? Did you think that you out backfliped him? Yes, of course I did.

His technique was wrong. He didn't do it right. I did it right. I represent it. How did you have the strength to do that after a three-round fight? Weren't you tired? No, because I was, that fight was, that fight was, The fight was horrible, and, you know, I would have lost it if I was younger.

If I was younger, I would have been more impatient. I've been trying to rush him because I thought he wasn't trying to do anything. But, you know, because I was so patient and I was trying to get off, I was getting off smart and stuff like chasing him all around the ring and getting taken down, I had plenty of injury left, which scared me because, you know, you know how the ULT referees are. I mean, not the referees, but the judge, you know. When we went to decisions, that scared the hell out of me. I was like, man, I'm going to get cut and all this stuff.

So that's all I was thinking about. You know, I got to be honest with you. It's March 4th. Your fight is on April 6th. I found out the unfortunate news last week that the fight is on the Facebook prelims. Now, we need to change this. I don't know what we can do. But what's going?

I mean, Connor, a lot of people are psyched about him. He gave us a great interview. You're always great. You're always entertaining. You're 3-0 in the UFC about to try to be 4-0. I mean, come on. What do we have to do to get you on the main card here? Are you disappointed?

Are you as disappointed as I am? Well, be honest with you, that's beside me. That's very disappointed because, you know, I'm a chocolate adonis. You know what I'm saying? I come to the ring. You know, I look good. You know what I'm saying? I'm all sexy, you know, sexual chocolate.

Oh, yeah. And they put me on Facebook, and, you know, they had Jim Bermudette. his last fight, he looked like a hobo. I try to give him $5 for my well-pargo app, but obviously he didn't need it because he got 50 grand after his fight, so I have to take them $5 back. But you know what I'm saying?

That does piss me off because, you know, I'm too sexy for Facebook. But at the same time, I am fighting for the U.S.P. So can't complain too much, right? Is it possible that you're too sexy for TV, and that's why you have to be on the internet? You know what? I believe so. I believe so.

Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that. People don't understand that. I am too sexy for, I'm too sexy for PhilTV. That's what it is. That's what it is. Thank you for clarifying. You should run with that.

Now, do you have an official nickname? My fight nickname is the Belmont beast. Formerly the bruiser. Like back in Alabama, I used to be called the bruiser because I used to put all type of bruises on my opponent. And those are my two fight names. Other than that and street, Everybody just called me brim because of my last name. I got to say Batman Beast is okay, but chocolate adonis,

because, you know, Mark Henry already has run with sexual chocolate. Chocolate Adonis, that should be the new one. Yeah. I know, man, you see, people don't understand because my skin tone is an Egyptian bronze. You know what I'm saying? That sounds sexy, you know what I'm saying? It does sound. Oh, yeah, the Egyptian bronze stands.

You know, that's sexy, you know what I'm saying? So, yeah, chocolate adonis, you know, like a chocolate. Greek, I could dig it, you know what I'm saying? It sounds yummy, I must say. I don't want you to take that the wrong way, but chocolate. Egyptian bronze. You got to say no homo after that.

You got to take no homo after that. So you go like, it sounds yummy. I'm thinking of chocolate right now. I'm thinking of like chocolate from Egypt, and that sounds good. I am Egyptian, by the way. I don't know if you're trying to, you know, but I'm just, you know. I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm half Egyptian. My dad's Egyptian. Now, how's the love life going? We always got to ask you about this. What's what's going on there? Basically, I don't have time. I'm always training and trying to get better. Women just kind of slow you down in that aspect, you know.

And most of the women I meet in South Florida are go diggers, you know. Because, you know, I don't stand out in the crowd. I'm like 5 foot 4. You know, I'm not going to stand out, you know, in the crowd. So, you know, I'm out and, you know, somebody whispers like, you know, Hey, maybe good. Yeah. And then, you know, all of a sudden, girls started talking to me.

And, you know, I'm feeling like, yeah, you know, she's talking to me. And then, you know, she's like, yeah, hey, you think you don't see. I'm like, here we go. I was like, hey, you know what? Baby, if you think I'm making money, just go to YouTube and look at my crib, okay? There we go. And after they look at my crib on YouTube, they don't talk to me in the morning. So when you go up to the girl and say, yo, baby girl, I fight on Facebook.

You're saying that doesn't necessarily sweep them off their feet. You make it sound like I'm Kimball's life, but yeah, yeah, I follow you too. Well, at least you have to have, at least you have to have like a login name to watch your fights on Facebook, so it's somewhat, you know, prestigious. Yeah. Oh, man. But I was with you, like, when I do that, I completely don't even tell them I'm in the UFC. I just, I just want to see, you know, what the conversation goes, you know what I'm saying? And I, you know, when you tell people you type for the U.S.C., they start seeing dollars signs.

We're like, nah, baby, ain't got that country here. No big dollars over here. So you're not looking to settle down? No, no, no, no. Not any time soon. Not at all. If I wanted to settle down, I would stay my ass back in Alabama. By the way, what do you think?

Are you fan of this Catherine Webb? Everyone's talking. When I think of Alabama, that's who I think of these days. I'm thinking of what? Catherine Webb. You know, the girlfriend of the girlfriend of the, quarterback and she was everywhere from Alabama. You didn't see that whole story?

At the national title football game. You haven't heard of Catherine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. She just kind of there for the fame, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. That's just how it is.

Like, if you play football for Alabama, it's like you play basketball for Miami Heat. That's the equivalent of that in Alabama. It's like, oh, my God, you play football for Alabama? Like, you don't know how many times people have called up to me. It's like, oh, my God, you're so muscular. You must play football for Alabama. And about Hobo, it's like, are you –

are you – really? Does she just say that to you? I'm like, hey, man, just let go. Just let go. No. Like, do you're in the UFC? You're a pro-finding man. She's going to say, can you play football for Alabama?

I'll say it. You don't understand, man. That's like the biggest thing here. That's the biggest thing in Alabama ever, playing football for the road time. Bigger than Auburn, though? Auburn's bigger, right? No!

Sir, sir, you just committed blasphemy. Really? Yes, that was blasphemy. How dare you permit blasphemy in front of me? No. All right, all right. Alabama, world-tide, is better, always. So you look at Connor McGregor, you watch his film on tape, you watch as you, you watch as you,

safe to say you're not overly impressed? No, I'm not. And be honest with you, if y'all want to know how this fight is. going to go down. All the thing you got to do is go back to the BCS championship game where Alabama, the roll-in-all played against Northern Day, the fighting Irish, and that's exactly how this fight would take place with me and Connemagreggis. I'm going to, I'm going to whip his ass in the first and make him on the leave in the second and third. Wow. Well, there you have it. I look forward to it, man. I hope this goes on on Fuel TV.

I hope many more people than the Facebook audience get to see it because I think it's a great matchup between two featherweights and I think you're doing great. I mean, you say you're boxing with Corey Spinks these days, Bubba Jenkins, I mean, you're doing what you need to do. By the way, any update on Daniel Strauss? I know he's gone to some trouble over the weekend. Yeah, man.

I just want to tell everybody, you know, tweet him. You know, just pray for him, man. He's going through something hard right now. So he's going to bounce back, man He's going to bounce back As a matter of fact, I'm trying to figure out where he's at So I could just roll through and just be him You know what I'm saying?

Something keeps his head up Is he still Is he still incarcerated? Yes, yes, yes, he is Oh, that's an unfortunate situation You don't know any more about the situation though No, I don't Actually, I imagine told me about the Saturday

You know, it's like, are you serious? And, you know, it's tough to hear that because, man, that guy's talented. I mean, Pat, I know Pac-Chan is pretty excited about that because, you know, hey, my man, Danes Strapp coming for that ass. But, you know, it's just an unfortunate situation. And, you know, it sucks. It sucks really bad.

Well, Marcus, you're one of our favorite guests. Always love talking to. Looking forward to this fight, April 6th in Stockholm, Sweden. First time in Sweden, by the way? Oh, yeah, it's first time in Sweden. But, like I said, like I said before, that I'm definitely going to go, I'm not going to go empty-handed that fight.

Because I'm a knock-in-fast, so I am to get birthday bonus because April 6 is my birthday. Oh, wow. Birthday in Sweden. Yes, sir. I have a feeling you're going to like Sweden, my friend. Just a hunch. I do.

No, I have a feeling you're going to like Sweden. Oh, okay, because, you know, I heard about the blinds. I don't want to think about it to ask my fight. Ask my fight, the blinds. Yeah, focus. Not before. All the only person ass on the top is Cunna McGregor. After that.

All right. Marcus, good luck to you. Can't wait for the fight. Always good to talk to you. All right, man. Thanks for having me on, man. All right, there he is. Marcus Brimidge, Brim 205.

Twitter.com slash Brim 205 is where you can hit him up. Always fun to talk to Marcus Brimage. He has a huge fight against Connor McGregor, April 6th. UFC on Fuel TV number 9, Stockholm, Sweden. It's on the Facebook prelims. and the full card isn't set just yet, but I think that's a mistake. These two are very talented, very exciting.

They can sell a fight. You just saw it right there. I mean, geez, I'm looking forward to that fight as much as the main event at this point, having them on back to back. Let's see if we could get that fight on the main card. I'll make a few calls. You know, I work for Fuel TV these days.

Let me see if I could get it done. All right, let's move along now. Let's welcome in the UFC Flyway champion. Demetrius Johnson. He was supposed to fight. April 13th against John Maraga, unfortunately, had to pull out of the bout due to an injury. Let's get an update on him. We welcome Mighty Mouse to the MMA hour.

Demetrius, how are you? I'm good, Aaron. Thanks having me on, man. I appreciate it. Good to have you on the show. So very unfortunate news. As I mentioned, you were supposed to fight next month. You had to pull out. What happened?

You know, basically, you know, we were getting ready for the training camp and you kind of contract, and we thought everything was good to go. You know, my shoulder was still bugging me after the, you know, the doctorate and, you know, I started training, and I was starting to work out and pull on a rope, which is one of our conditioning, and I couldn't pull on a rope. And I was like, well, I'm not doing that exercise, and I want something else.

And that goes, hey, you already did that exercise. You need to get on the rope. And I was like, it hurt. And he goes, well, that's not good. And I was like, well, yeah, but we're going to first do it. You know, that's the American way. We go hard. And he goes, well, you need get MRI.

And, you know, I was, you know, fighting me. I don't want to get MRI because you never know what's wrong with your body. You know, you want to think you're, you know, invincible. And sure enough, I got an MRI, and I'm like, yep, you got a partially torn laborer. And now I was like, ah, damn it. And that's when we got the bad news. And when was this? Oh, this was, man, I can't tell you.

A week ago? Yeah, last week. So was it after 157? U.S. 157? I believe so. That was, what card was at? That was Rhonda Rousey in Anahe. Yeah, I knew about it when I was there, yeah.

Oh, really? So I saw you. You seemed to be in good spirits. I'm trying to just get a timeline here. So did you know you would already be out and you kind of kept the poker face? No, no, no. I didn't know I was going to be out because we had an MRI and, you know, we got different results from different doctors. And then, you know, sometimes, you know, a labor terror, you can, you know, the doctor says that, you know, everybody has a labor and terror through their life.

And sometimes they don't show any symptoms. But with my case, after he looks at the MRI, he's saying that I tore my labrum previous to the one I just said now. And he was like, yeah, I can see there's some old scar tissue and it looks like you tore it. So now you have loose carilage in your joint. And he said that's why you're having pain when you're working out. And so that's when we found it after U.S. 157. But previous to 147, we knew we had a partially torn labrum, but we didn't know the fullest fit to the damage. So did you need surgery?

Yes, I get surgery this Thursday, actually. And what's the recovery time? You know, I heard different things. You know, the doctor said, you know, I'll probably have me to cat. I'm not a cast, I'm not a cast, I'm sling for three to four days, and after that, he was like, you know, with rehab and, you know, full training camp, you'll be, you know, ready to find 100%, you know, 8 to 12 weeks. So I'm pretty happy about that.

You know, if he goes in there, he's at my shoulders instable, then I'll have to come back again to get, shoulder surgery, which would put me out to six to nine months, which I didn't want to do right now, because then they'll come up to the head and then blah, blah, blah, blah, and I didn't want to sit and let that happen. But long, you know, sort of big picture, long-term picture you here, don't you have to do what's best for your career as opposed to what's best right now? Yeah, absolutely.

And he actually saying, you know, the best thing right now, he said that, you know, he'll go in there, and then he said that he can go on there and my shoulder can be completely stable. He'll just shave up the labor and pick it all out, make it feel good, get all the loose stuff, outside of there, then I'll be back to 100%. But if he goes and he goes, oh, man, this shorter is jacked up. You know, he could fix it, but then I don't want that to happen just because, you know, you know how they do it. You get injured your help for nine months, and the next thing you know, it's like,

oh, we have a new interim belt, and we don't even know who this guy is anymore, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it's a very much what have you done from me lately kind of sport. Where are you getting the surgery? Getting the surgery in the Swedish hospital in Seattle. The doctor Tafane is going to be doing it. He is a shoulder specialist, and he works with the Tia of Coss. He's their number one doctor. You know, I feel like everyone who has this sort of shoulder surgery,

they go to James Andrews in Birmingham. You heard of him? I had not. You haven't heard of him. Everyone is all the baseball players, the pro wrestlers. I feel like they always go to James Andrews. So I was curious if you talk to him, but clearly you haven't talked to him. Yes, I had not.

But you're in good hands, right? I'm worried. I'm in good hands. I'm in the good hands. You know, Matt said he's not going to put his horse in the hands with someone who's going to mess up more. So I trust Matt, and this guy's worked with, you know, Seahawks guys all the time. So I think he's going to do a good job with my shoulder.

Is this the first serious injury of your career? I don't want to say serious injury. I mean, it's definitely, you know, my injury. I broke my hand twice, and I had surgery on my hand once. And, you know, I broke my fibula. and, you know, I was out for a long time, and I came back and I fought, you know, Domina Cruz. So it's a good thing that I'm young and I kick time off that I need to come back 100, 10%, and I stopped playing out of doing after this surgery. You were main eventing this show, FX, and, you know, it was obviously the finals of the ultimate fighter, which is doing pretty well this season.

What was it like to have to make that call or at least tell whoever made the call that you couldn't fight? Being competitor and got, and a champion, by the way, who's been very active. I mean, you were kind of going down the path of maybe being fighting at the year because you were fighting every couple months here, and you'd just be more active than any other champions. So what was it like making that call? Oh, that sucks, you know, just because it was working out perfect, you know. My wife, she's about to give, you know, birth to our child after that fight,

which is July 16. So it was just going to work out perfect. And, you know, when we made the call and I was like, great, now I got to, you know, go to need the nice, kid surgery, rehab it, and then try to get back in there. And, you know, I'm always, like to set my date, and I'm hoping to fight June 15th. That's your plan, June 15th.

That seems less than, actually, no. I guess that's, what, in four months? No, in three months. So June 15th, that's the one in Canada that they're talking about, right? Yeah, yeah, that's what I heard. You know, I'm thinking, like, if I get surgery this Thursday, and I'm in a swing for, you know, three to four days, and then after that, just rehabbing because it's just the joint.

It's not, you know, the muscle and all that stuff. And who knows, this is me in my perfect world, that I'm hoping I go in there, I'm going to swing with four days, and after that I'm rehabbing it for two weeks, and then I'm hopefully back to go, because this is the minimal surgery. If I got the full surgery, then I'll be out to, you know, six and nine months. But it's just a minimum just to go in and shave everything up and make it, you know, get things going again. And hopefully, you know, four days in the sling, get back after it, rehabbing it,

and then, you know, start training camp, and hopefully, you know, the Canada card, droop and teeth, that will give me plenty of time to get ready, if everything goes. And I told Matt, I was going to put the buggy ear, Matt, and he says, we'll see how you feel in mid-April. Then we can, you know,

like, obviously the UFC and Josh Shelby now and go from there. By the way, has the UFC told you guys if they're going to keep Moraga on the sidelines until you come back?

You know what? From what I heard, I heard he's probably going to wait for me. That's what I heard, which I don't see, you know, I think it's a smart thing. You know,

everybody doesn't support to be a champion. There's a shot to, you know, fight for the championship. and it gives him that time to get ready and study me and get ready for battle. What did you think when they made him the number one contender, the guy who would fight you next? Because as far as the rankings go, I suppose it makes sense, but his first two fights in the UFC were on Facebook, and let's be honest,

a lot of people don't know who he is. So what was your reaction? It is what it is. I think he's a great competitor. He's done great things so far in a sport. You know, he has two finishes in the U.S.D. and he's doing a good job. And yeah, you know, nobody knows who he is.

You know, people in my gym who I train who are pretty involved in his martial arts, they go, who's this guy? And I'm like, and I explain to who he is, and then I just leave it at that. Is that kind of like a lose-lose for you because a lot of people were expecting you to beat him, yet he's very tough, obviously?

You know, I don't look at it. I mean, yeah, obviously, if you look at it, you know, like a business standpoint, yeah, I could be a lose-lose situation because if I beat him, they were like, oh, you're supposed to beat him, then if I lose him, then it is what it is. But at the same time, I fight to fight,

and that's what I love about, you know, this flyway division. It's not about, you know, who's very popular. You know, he deserves his shot. He has two wins in a row. You know, I beat Joseph, John Docton, he and McCall, and he's, you know, the new blood in the division, and I'm just looking to go out there and being the best mind enough that I can and come away with the victory.

So, you know, this was the first time it was going to happen. It's not happening that there was a title, that there would be a title fight on a tough card. This is coming off the Big Fox showing in January. Were you happy being on free TV for another time? Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm not at that stage in my career yet where I read the benefits for being a pay-per-view.

So I'm just happy just to get another fight underneath my belt, whether it's on free TV or Facebook or it doesn't matter to me. It's a fight to fight. What did you think of that rating after the Fox fight against John Dodson? It was awesome. I saw that it was a huge 30% up from, you know, U.S. Fox 5. So that made me happy.

You know, I think the U.S.C. did a fantastic job of advertising it, you know, on the Sunday during the football game. And, you know, millions of people watch NFL on Sunday. I mean, nobody skipped out on that. And I think we got some of those fans to tune into the, you know, the U.S. You know, Fox 6th card. So it was awesome.

I'm glad I could be part of that. Deep down, did you have a bit of a smile on your face? I mean, that was such a great rating. and there were a lot of critics who said, oh, they shouldn't be in the main event, the flyways, blah, blah, blah, was that kind of your own little screw-you moment to the critics? No, not at all. You know, everybody's going to have, you know, their own, you know, opinion,

and they're entitled to that. It doesn't bother me. I'm just guy that, you know, me and John Dockon were not there, put on a great fight. That way we had all those viewers, and they're like, damn, the boys can fight, and they're small. So it was great. It just worked out, you know, the pieces were just line up perfectly.

Did you know that in that fight against John Dodson, your 73 significant Clint strikes are the most ever landed in a single fight? Did you know that? No, not at all. That's fantastic. I just got that via text from my good friends at Fight Metric. That's how we inform you about your own fights. I just got there and fight. That's all I do. So you got a, you mentioned your wife's pregnant, your lovely wife, the mighty wife.

Now, are we going to call the baby the mighty baby? Is that what we're going with? You know, that's, you know, I mean, it makes sense. Joseph Benavita, he always has, you know, he's like a Twitter god. And he came out, you know, with Mighty Baby is the hashtag. And so we kind of like it, so we were going, you know, Mighty Baby. Joseph Benavita's thought of that? I mean, I would have thought you guys would have thought of that.

That's a no-brainer. No, after I thought, John Nats, you know, me and we always said, you know, tweets to each other after one of us fights. And he said, you know, congrats on the fight and congrats on, you know, the new news, know, and he goes hashtag Mighty Baby. Then after that, we started running with it. So your wife is due in July, you said? Yeah, July 16th.

First one, right? First one. Does this change anything? I'll tell you this now before you answer your question. And I don't want to be Mr. Oh, I know it all a dad guy, even though I'm kind of new to the game. But it's changed everything for me. But right now, before it's actually happened,

when you see your wife pregnant, the belly's getting bigger, your mindset as far of your career, has it changed anything? You know, as far as having a baby in a way, you know, it does. You know, I want to be very successful and make sure I can provide it for my family so I can be my child's life and my wife. She can be a stay-at-home mom and all that stuff. And, you know, other than that, I want to do well in my career, you know. Other than that, I think I want to stay healthy for him and I get, you know, beat up as well

and just be healthy to be here for him. And I believe this career that I choose gives me the opportunity. to be able to buy for him the way I would like to. Would you be, so you know the sex, it's going to be a boy? Yes, it's going to be a boy. Would you be cool if your son became an MMA fighter? Yes, but I would force him to get an education first because, you know, you only have a small opportunity of time

to make as much money as possible, you know. But if you have an education, you can use that when you're, you know, 65. My body, I only can use it until it gives out on me. and I'm only 26 and I'm going in for surgery, and who knows, I can never, I might go into surgery and never come back and never be the same guy. And then, you know, I lose three fights and I'm out of the U.S.E. I'm not making good money.

I get a full-time job. I mean, that's how it is. But you have education? You ain't got to worry about that at all. Are you worried about that, that you may not be the same guy after the surgery? No, no, not at all. I'm just saying you never know.

Anything can happen. I mean, you want to get one body, and, you know, it just happens. You know, I think, you know, Matt told me he says, you know, your fights are not as hard your training camp. Your training camps are the hardest thing about you getting a fight. And when I'm in training camp, I push my body to the limit, like where I'm just sore. And then when I get into a fight, you know, it obviously shows I never get tired.

And that's what we do. And that's why Matt made me get the surgery. He goes, yes, you can probably fight this fight against the armorrho. And you can possibly win it or you can possibly lose this. So I don't want to take that risk. I want you to have a full training camp we're going into a championship fight. This is not a joke where we take this very seriously. And that's why we, you know, decided to get surgery and see how the recovery is. And if it feels good in mid-April, then we're going to try to push for, I'm going to try to push for June 15th. By the way, speaking of Joseph, you know, he's coming off that win over Ian McCall, but he said, I don't want the title shot, even though that's probably the biggest fight right now,

even though you beat him rather convincingly in September. Were you surprised that he wasn't campaigning to get another shot at you, or do you think it makes sense on his part? No, I think it makes sense on his part, and I'm not shot that he was campaigning. You know, everybody gets into this sport to be. champion and then you know he could have ran to the same roadblock he did at 135 where he fought Dominicruz twice and then he lost

and then he basically was in limbo because I only wanted to be seen by a third time because it wouldn't have been a run match. It'll have been you know Dominicruz is 2-0 and he's 0 against Dominicruz the champion so I think it's good you know there's no rush to be champion I mean take the time you need to get the fights

that you need and then when you get there you want to stay there. I just make it a you know a one-time thing where it's like oh I won the belt and I just lost it That was a big name of me. I wanted to win the belt and defend it as much as I can. And when I defended against John Dodson, I was very almost satisfied. I was, okay, maybe I am a champion.

Maybe let me see how the next one goes. That's funny you mentioned that, because I felt that. You felt like, and not to say you didn't before, but you had that champion aura. It was like oozing out of you. And I'm happy that you've recognized that because you feel like a champion now. And maybe it took people to sort of get warmed up to the idea

that there is a flyway champion. But now there's Demetrius. there's Dominic, there's Jose, GSP, et cetera, et cetera. It just kind of, you belong. Do you know what I'm saying? And that's a compliment. I'm not trying to slight you. Yeah.

It fits. Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate that. And I'm glad that when I find out that I went through, you know, a lot of adversity. You know, I'm glad that, you know, I show people like, hey, you know, I got dropped Plyson. I wasn't like, okay, I'm not going to win. I was like, no, okay, yeah, you dropped me.

It's going to happen. I'm going to get back up. Let's see you can do it again. Or can you handle this pressure? Can you handle this speed? and you handle the nonstop pressure for 25 minutes, and that's what I want people to know when they go in there and fight me like, okay, you know, yeah, you know,

we can't, we can travel, but he's going to get back up. I like to see that. And in my mind, that shows a true champion's colors when they go through, you know, that stuff. I said that some guy who goes in there, you know, Anna Silva, he doesn't go to that, but he does work in there. By the way, me and my people, we like to look out for our guests, and SM Murphy-Shahn is telling me the Swedish hospital in Seattle

is an amazing hospital. So just in case you were doubting your decision, my Twitter friends are confirming that you made the right call. Awesome. Tell them, I said, thank you. Wish you the best of luck, Demetrius. I know you have a big day on Thursday. I'm sure it's going to go great.

Looking forward to seeing you back inside the Octagon in June in the greatest country in the world, Canada. Why not? I know you can't see us, but I'll wave the flag right now. Here it is. I'm waving the Canadian flag, just to give you good vibes as you make your way back to the Octagon

to defend your title against John Maraga. Good luck to you. Thanks for coming on. And let us know how it goes. I know you're always thinking about updating us on your career. After the surgery, don't bother talking to your wife or your family. Just give me a text. Just let me know everything well, okay? I'll let my wife know that. And I'll let her know you're the first one on the list to let know how it's with. And if you need any tips about the pregnancy, anything like that, feel free to hit me up as well. Sounds good. All right. There he is. Demetrius Johnson stopping by the UFC Flyway Champion. He's coming back. And I look forward to it.

Always a pleasure to talk to Demetrius Johnson. Now, what's going on with this fly? Can I fix it while sitting down? Let's see. Because it's very disrespectful. There it is. All right. It's sort of flying in the air because of the heating.

I mentioned last week that we're moving studios very soon. I won't give you the date just yet, but let me tell you it's very soon. And there's nothing going on out here. Out here, it used to be the MMA beat, tons of people on their computers, making videos. It was a nice little scene out there. Now, it looks like, you know that feeling the night before? You're going to move to a new and better place, and you don't really care about your old place. At this point, you bang the walls.

There's garbage on the floor. There's no toilet paper in the bathroom. That's what's going on over here right now. So to get my point, it's freezing out here. So we had to blast the heating that they thankfully left on for us. We blasted the heating here so that we would not be freezing. When I got here, it was freezing my belly. buns off and the heating, as you can see, is sort of blowing my beautiful flag.

So that's the situation over here. But soon we're moving. And by the way, speaking of soon, I've been told, I don't want to jinx it, but I've been told that in the next few days, days, I will have the Hawaiian nose shirts in my possession. And we have some exciting news. I don't want to jinx it just yet. But let me just say it's going to be very easy to buy these shirts and very accessible

to all of you. And I can't wait to see if all of you really, truly, truly, want to buy these shirts? Because I've gotten a lot of response, great feedback. Everyone says they're going to buy, but what happens when they're on the sale? Are you really going to buy them? Remember, the proceeds go to charity. Colorectal Cancer Association of Canada, near and dear to my heart, my father-in-law runs the charity. Will you, in fact, step up? I don't make any money up this, by the way. One more thing. Someone was accusing me of saying lip singing instead of lip syncing with Skyler. I was

I was of course I know it's lip syncing are you crazy you just didn't hear the C as opposed to the G you didn't hear the pronunciation so just want to clear that up all right great guess so far we move along it is the

third hour that means it's time to check in with Mr. New York Rick Mr. New York Rick yes sir before we get to Rick's picks and how you did over the weekend let's get these tickets off our hands here because I know a lot of People are worried about them and they want. Wait, before I get to that, let me just, let me, my man,

Lucas W37, that's the guy who did this great painting here. What did he say? Yep, he's tweeting about it. Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Okay. Well, he didn't reply.

Okay, well, I could hook him up if he needs him. He deserves it. He lives in the area. He made this amazing melted crayon paint. of that thing. I'm still so in awe of the whole situation here on my desk. Big note. I mean, it's just amazing. You'd think I may be

insulted by this? I'm not. I think this is a great honor. Anyway, we got two tickets. World Series of Fighting 2. March 23rd, Reveld Casino. Solid seats here. This is the card headline by Rumble Johnson versus Andre Arlofski. This is what's going to happen. If you want the tickets,

okay? If you want the tickets, you have to tweet New York Rick or I, or you don't even have to tweet it, just use the hashtag W-S-O-F-T-I-X, W-S-O-F-T-I-X, tweet that, use that hashtag, tell us why you deserve the tickets. And then by the end of the show, you have to live in the area,

okay, you have to live in the area, tri-state area, or even not. I mean, if you're going to go, fine, we'll give them to you. You don't have to live in the area. If you're planning on going, tickets will be yours. But just be honest and don't just get the tickets and be a jerk about it go.

So use the hashtag. Hashtag WSOF ticks. New York Rick is going to tweet that out right now and then I'll retweet it just in case because it's hard to write and talk and all this stuff. You got that New York, Rick? I do. Hashtag WSOF ticks. Tell the people this is how they and tell and you have to include that hashtag and tell us why you want the tickets and then we'll hook you up. All right.

Okay. I'll give them a second. Do you need a second to write that or can you? Yeah, give me one second. Okay. So it was UFC on Fuel TV 8 this past weekend, Saitama Super Arena. And if you follow Mr. New York Rick on Twitter, you will know that he had a pretty good night. Now, I don't want to take credit for this good night because I'm not that kind of guy.

But if you recall last week on the show, we kind of gave him a kick in the butt. I mean, he's coming off Nickel Rick. It was not only an embarrassment for himself. It was really an embarrassment to the show, to everyone who works on the show, to myself. I mean, to come out and say that you're the great MMA gambler and to come away with five cents, that's embarrassing. That could be cause for dismissal in some worlds, some jobs. But he rebounded nicely, and we gave him a bit of a pep talk. And it seemed, if you notice, I think like $50 were on the line of his pie.

And he finally stepped up to the plate. And guess what? You step up. You take a risk. and you start to make some money. It's an unbelievable concept, I know. It's a very tough thing to wrap your head around, but finally, Mr. New York-Rick has realized

that if you want to play with the big boys, if you want to hit a home run, you have to swing for the fences. So how did you do? I made $40, $40-ish. And now let me jump in here and say that I've been putting on the line almost that amount for the last couple of weeks. So it wasn't really that much different, anything that happened.

Not that much. Yeah, I had quite a bit in the one that I won a nickel, actually. I had quite a bit out there. You didn't have $50. I don't know if it was 50, but it was at least 40. And I had less money to work with. So percentage-wise, it was probably about the same. So all I'd like to say is, you know, I've been putting out a high percentage of my bank roll every single time.

It's just that this time I won. I made better picks. And let's be honest, you kind of got lucky. But that's how it goes, right? Did I get lucky? Well, I mean, everyone thought Gomi beat Sanchez and you picked Sanchez. Sure. There have been times that I might have picked somebody else that was on the wrong end of a decision as well.

That's what I'm saying. That's how it goes. Yeah. That's just the breaks. And it's better to be lucky than right in terms of betting. It always is. Absolutely. But you'd even watch the fights.

No, I didn't watch them live. I did watch the fights. I didn't watch them live. I mean, you know, and that's another thing. Well, I mean, somebody, no names. We won't talk about who did this, but somebody took away my ability to bet during the fights. So, I mean, it doesn't really matter if I watch them or not. That's BS.

You had plans, right? Did you have plans? No, you know what? I just decided, I can't bet, so let me leave the house. So you're an MMA aficionado. You have money, your reputation on the line, and you don't even care to watch the fights. But I did watch the fights. But not live.

Not live, no. Come on. Deep down, you knew what happened. It's not the same. same? What's not the same? It's not the same as watching it live? Yeah. No, of course it's not the same. So what could have been more important than watching the fights live? Well, you know, friends going out, having a good time, somebody's birthday party maybe, something like that. So what you're saying is MMA is not your life. Meanwhile, I'm a very busy guy. I have friends. I have birthday parties.

I sat on my couch for seven hours and I watched every single fight. I mean, I'm not trying to question your dedication to the sport and the show. But it would seem as though people want to follow along with your thoughts, your tweets. I mean, guess what? Fake it. Look at the results and fake it. Give us a tweet. I would never do that.

I would never do that. So you didn't look at any spoilers, is what you're saying. No, no, no. I did look at spoilers. So why don't I tell it? Give us an update how you're doing. I have to look through all your tweets. I'm curious.

I have to like scroll through all your stupid tweets and find out what your actual pick was. Tell us, okay, I want. I'm now at this much. Keep us informed. People want to play along. Haven't you figured it out by now? Oh, I'd love to play along. But, you know, it'd be more fun if I was able to play along with the money, if I was able to bet.

But, you know, I'm not, unfortunately. Aliso's saying that it seems like Rick is angry and filled with resentment. Is that true? Resentment toward what? Or toward who? I don't understand. I don't either. Okay.

And can I just say something? This tweet that you sent out about the tickets? Yeah. You didn't mention. Tell us why. So now people are just tweeting the hashtag. Tell us why you deserve him. Okay, let's send out another tweet.

Jesus. Well, you know, I have to get these phone calls. Oh, you're multitasking. I am. Oh, okay. So you're not ready. Let's give him a minute again. Now we have to do the whole thing again.

I have to retweet the thing again. I got people just tweeting me the hashtag. It makes no sense. Someone's asking, did I win? He'd even tell me why he should win. Well, that's not quite what I put in the instructions anyway. Let's not. What did you write?

If you want to win tickets to MMA World Series, on March 23rd, tweet us with the hashtag. So they just tweeted us. All right. Seems like they're breaking down the studio right next to me. I don't know if you can hear that. All right. So we're going to check up on him in a second after he does that tweet.

And of course, no UFC this weekend, as I mentioned. So go out and see that movie 21 and over. And maybe he'll do Bellator, but probably not. So the point is there's probably not going to be any Rick's picks this weekend. Right? Bellastore is always in play. You've only done Bellator. Belator once.

I think I've done it twice, but it's always in play. It's just that sometimes the lines aren't too great. And also it makes it more difficult because it's Thursday, and the lines don't come out until the night before sometimes. So it makes it a little tougher. But Bellator is never out of the question. Yeah. I'm going to go out on the limb.

Prove me wrong, by the way. I'm going to say you're not betting on the Doug Rinal-Marshal fight. Am I crazy? I have to see the line. Not sure what it is right now. Yeah. You're not betting on it. Let's be honest.

All right. So tell us, how do you officially do? I was plus 40. So the new total is 116 and a penny. So we're officially profitable again. Wow, you're over the 100 mark. Well, if you stuck around, you got a 16% return on your investment. Okay.

Which isn't bad, but, you know, that's obviously not the goal. The goal is to get the $400 to hit that mark. But you're feeling good, right? How many U.S. Well, I'm just happy to be back in the black rather than in the red. So what are we at? We're at 158 coming up. Then you've got four events in April, by the way.

So essentially have five UFC events. You've got Bellator coming up. You've got World Series of Fighting. Go for it if you want. You know, I was going to say you could do glory. You know, they've got a big kickboxing. But no, we're an MMA show. But you can pick anything you want, really.

You're still, I say you're obviously, you're in much better shape today than you were last week. but I think you could pull it off honestly well I'm not you know giving up hope yet obviously I think that I've put myself in better position as I was saying last time that I was in a position where I had my back

against the wall and I had to make you know bigger bets than I would be comfortable with now I'm at a point where I can pick and choose a little more and and try and get myself in in good position to make a final push so

officially what we're your picks? I had hunt inside the distance and the only reason I took that over straight out KO or TKO was because that line was actually better at the time for I'm not sure what the reason was but sometimes it works out like that. So I mean that's

good because it gives you the opportunity to clean up if he wins by submission to strikes. But the only reason I did that was because the line was higher. So I had hunt inside the distance but essentially I was banking on a K.O. I had Dung Young Kim by decision parlayed with Hunt and Struv not going the distance. I had Diego by decision parlayed with Hunt and Struv not going the distance.

And I had Diego by decision at a different line. And that also won. And the losing bet I had was I had Stan inside the distance, I believe it was. See, if you were watching live, you could have been nervous about the hunt. Struth fight because it looked like for a second it was going to go to the distance. I mean, it doesn't really matter. I can't change anything. All right, I'm just saying.

It would have been fun to be like, oh my gosh, he's got a lot of money here, you know? Yeah. Would have been nice. Yeah. Would have been more fun if I could, you know, do something about it. Would you, honestly, looking back, would you have done something? Well, maybe, you know, if you're live betting, there's an opportunity to say, oh, maybe, you know, I assume most people had Struve winning that fight. So the line on Hunt winning might have been different going into the third round.

So that would be an opportunity to make some money possibly. Things like that. Do you have a hangover? People are saying you have a hangover. That's not true, right? You'd never do that. That's not nice. Perfectly sober.

I haven't been, you know, doing anything like that. I don't smoke an eighth a day or anything like that. Speaking of which, I got to say, someone asked Dana White about, about Riddle saying he wouldn't accept a UFC offer. and Dana tweeted, we can make sure that happens. Meaning he'll never get a UFC offer. Kind of interesting. By the way, Dana White and Rhonda Rousey are both in New York right now.

They didn't tell me. They could have been sitting here in studio. If you're upset by this, if you're as upset as I am about this piece of information, let them know. It would have been nice, right, to have them in studio. So anyway, where do we stand? Okay. In terms of what?

in terms of you're at giving me the number again 116? 116 yeah 116 what did I say five UFC events April 28th is the deadline

well it's really 27th but that's one will know it's gonna be doable yeah um I'm not liking much on the card coming up because I really haven't come to a decision on Hendrix conda yet kind of up in the air still on that one

and um I'm very sold on GSP taking out Diaz, but the line isn't very favorable. But there might be an opportunity. Any lines out yet? Yeah, there's lines out. What do you got? Let's see. We've got St. Pierre as a minus 470 favorite,

Diaz as a plus 375 underdog. I really like GSP in this fight, and the opportunity there might be the prop bet on GSP inside the distance at plus 290. I think he's possibly going to be able to finish Diaz in a situation where he's going to Probably get Diaz down multiple times throughout the fight and land some ground and pound. I obviously don't see it ending in a submission, but I think that he might be able to get a TKO. So there might be value there. But straight up, there's really no value in GSP, but he will win this fight.

I give Nick Diaz very little chance. Okay. Any other lines out? Yeah, Condit is minus 110 and Hendrix is minus 130. So Hendricks is a slight favorite. As I said, I'm not really sure which way I'm going on that one yet. Yeah, I really don't know. Hendricks has been on such a tear that it's almost hard to pick against him.

I picked against him in the fight with Campman, and that ended up being a mistake. So, yeah, I'm not sure which way to go on that one yet. And then Ellenberger is minus 170. Nate Marquard is plus 130. So I like Ellenberger in that one. That might be one that I might take a stab at. I don't see Nate having much in the way of grappling or striking for Jake. They're both very good strikers who rely on that more than they're wrestling,

but both solid wrestlers as well. And I think that Jake's got a little more power. I think that that might be a play on Jake, but I need a little more time to think about that one. All right. So next week you'll have picks. Oh, absolutely. There will be picks.

Can I just say one thing before we get to? the question, so we're done here, right? You're not making any picks. No, next week. You're feeling yourself. You don't feel like you need to do anything right now. Meaning what? For Bellator? Well, I'm just saying anything. You're going to throw out something you're thinking about,

something you like on the schedule. I mean, who knows? I don't know if you know this, but James McSweeney knocked out Dionne's starring over the weekend. You could have jumped in on that. No comment. All right. But Bellator is in play. So... All right. I like that.

There might be something. I'm going to take a look. By the way, congratulations to John Jones. Had a daughter this morning. A lot of you guys were all worried that he was injured or that he was going to fight. Anderson Silva, Chale was injured. Well, he tweeted earlier today that...

Where was it? At 11 o'clock sharp, we gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Her name is Olivia. Olivia Haven Jones. My girl was a total stud, one big push, a whole lot of screaming, and out-com. comes Olivia. It's a nice name. My son's name's Oliver. Probably named it after my son.

Named her, of course. We've got some callers, if you want to do that, while I sort through these ticket tweets. Okay, I just want to play one thing before we get to the callers. Can we play that Nick Diaz clip? Yep. You got that, Isaac? Yep. Listen to this clip of Nick Diaz and tell me this doesn't

sound like the Nick Diaz of old, of two years ago. The one with a chip on his shoulder, the one who's calling out the big dogs who just doesn't give an F, who's not being packaged, managed, a refreshing, a real, an authentic Nick Diaz. Here he is. The real fighter, the guy that trained karate as a kid, went to the boxing gym, went to the Jiu Jitza Academy, met Hoyce Gracie and Caesar Gracie and Halp Gracie and Steve Heath and got right and took fights. See, I started like from 16, 17, 18, 18, 18, 19, 20, by 23, I'm fighting, like, fighting number one people in the world.

But Nick Diaz smells blood like this. He's formed. I will tell you right now I want to fight the number one fighter in the world. I've always said that. I want to fight the number one fighter. George never said that. It's the only thing I've ever said negative about George is that if I were in his place, I would do more. I'd be asking for the Anderson Civil fight. I wouldn't let, you know, that, I wouldn't let that blow away.

Like, that's crazy. you're going to take me down okay now you have to deal with problems on the ground so you might not want to do that Kondon didn't want to do that he wanted to run away from me

because he knew better than do that George says say he's better on the ground he might want to do that I'm saying right now I don't give a fuck take me down him stand up and you can't be a fight

he's going to be five rounds Is that it? It just ended Did it just end abruptly like that? The clip did. Yeah. Yep.

Well, clearly there's something wrong with the clip, but you got the point. That was refreshing, right? That sounded like the old Nick. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. I think that he presents interesting challenges for George, but I think that the problem here is the deficiency in the takedown defense. But if anybody can stand with him and can grapple with him, it's going to be Nick Diaz.

I think that he's, he's. motivated and he's going to bring it to George. It's just that I don't, I think that there's holes in his game that are going to prevent it from being a true challenge. But that clip, that clip alone got me so much more excited for the fight. Not to say, it just kind of gets all lost in the shuffle bit. There's so many UFC events, but I just, there was something about that clip that I just love it.

I loved, I loved his, his, his theory that George is in calling out the big guys and whatnot. When he is kind of the reason why the Anderson Silva fight is not happening. And I don't say that as a slight. I say that because he's there, his presence is there, GSP doesn't like him, and he was like, no, I want to take this fight. I don't even want to fight Johnny Hendricks, I want to take this fight, I want to beat this guy, I want to shut him up, and then I'll worry about the other stuff. And he's kind of the reason why is I just love the way he sort of twisted that, and that's brilliant on his part. That's getting under someone's skin, or at least trying to. So I thought it was great.

I thought it was a great clip, and I'm looking forward to the next week and a half or so as UFC 158 has a spotlight to its and by the way, there is no prime time for this card. It's a countdown only card, if you will. So everyone keeps saying that he missed primetime shoots and whatnot. It's a one-hour countdown show. It should be very interesting. A lot of talk about it going into it. So that's a countdown show that I think everyone's going to want to see.

Now, I just saw someone, Leo from Jersey, say, please for my mom, she would be so happy. She's 64. I'm 21. My grandmother died on Wednesday. I mean, it's hard to beat that as far as people. but who want the tickets. He wouldn't be making that up, right?

I would hope not. I saw that one as well. Was that the winner? Yeah. I mean, it's tugging at the heartstrings. I would just hope that this is true, but if it is, then that's my pick. Well, he's just tweeted again.

So I say we give it to Leo from Jersey. Have no fear, though. He's going nuts with the... He just said it's the truth. He just wrote, okay, so I don't want to question someone. You win the tickets, Leo from... Jersey. New York, Rick, what should we do? How should he get the tickets? Direct message him? Yeah, I'll coordinate it over direct message. Okay. And the tickets go, the tickets are obviously

on sale. Now you can get them March 23rd World Series of Fighting. And don't worry if you didn't get them. We're going to be giving them out for the next two weeks leading up to their second show at the Revelle Resort and Casino. A couple more things. Someone's asking New York, Rick, what happens to your theme music? We're not doing an official picks. week, but we're going to try and have the music for you next week. So it's going to be good. So stay tuned. All right.

I look forward to that. So you want to do these callers? Then we'll hit the questions and then we'll wrap this up. We'll get the heck out of here. First caller is Nick in Corpus Christi, Texas. Nick, are you there? Yes, I am, sir. Corpus Christi's in Texas, right?

Yes, it's like the southern part near Mexico. All right? What's on your mind? Actually, at first, I want to say thank you for having me on. I'm a huge fan of yours and New York, Rick. All right. Thank you. My question, yes, thank you.

And my question was, over the past few weeks, you've shown that you kind of don't support Rick's picks. Oh. And it shows to me that do you really want him on the MNAB? Because I think he should get it win or lose because picking fights is hard, especially for, mixed martial arts that anything can happen at any given moment and yeah

that was my question for you well here's the thing I mean anyone could really pick fights but is he an MMA journalist does he deserve to sit in that chair I mean let's not forget sitting in that chair you got guys like

Chuck Mindenhall you've got guys like or is it Mindenhall I always call him Mindenhall I always call him Mindenh Jesus I did it again I did it again Chuck Mindenhall

Luke Thomas Mike Chippet I mean these are true veterans of MMA journalism Does New York, Rick, deserve to be sitting in that chair? That's the question I'm asking. Do you think he does? I think he does, because it will bring a different atmosphere to it,

because, yeah, you have all the analysts, but then you have that kind of average Joe who loves pick and fights and loves M.A., and you can get their insight in it as well, so the fans can relate to him. He's certainly coming to his own, and make no mistake about it. If I didn't like him, he probably wouldn't be here. Although he does answer the phones, very well. Sometimes he's able to

write good tweets, so he does bring a lot to the table, but no, I mean, I just think that you're given this opportunity, an opportunity of a lifetime for many people, and you're going out winning a nickel and betting $3, to me, what it says is it doesn't show that you really

want it. You're just here for the spotlight, perhaps, you know, the fame, the autographs, the girls, all that stuff, but you really want this. You really want to be sitting in that chair. That's what I was getting at. you understand yeah i understand

but i have a proposition for you i think you should give him for 158 his live bet just for that one pay-per-view do you want that in your creek i want it for every pay-per-view but i'll take what i can get but here's the thing he asked for it i gave it to him and he didn't use it and that to me i mean if i didn't use it that time my friend if i gave you a present and you didn't use it and it was something that i knew that you could use so if you give me a present i'm supposed to

to use at that moment. In fact, I'm supposed to unwrap it in front of you and use it exactly at that moment. You give me a toaster. I'm supposed to find the nearest outlet and start toasting up some bread. At least take it out of the box and plug it in and talk about it a little bit. At least show that you care about the damn toaster. This is ridiculous. I mean, he gives it and he slaps me in my face, and then guess what? Guess what? Two events later, he's not even home. He's not even home tweeting about it. He's not even caring about it. At least show me, you see, if you were smart, if you were smart, you would lie bet even if you can't to show me the mistake that I made how exciting it is, how much people like it,

but you'd even do that. You just took your ball and you went home and you're like, you know what, I'm not going to watch this event. And that to me shows the sign of a sore loser. But I won. Well, you did win. You absolutely won, but you're not there yet. I mean, if you're in this for small victories,

then we'll find ourselves in an interesting spot come April 28. You're not into small victories, I would hope. No, we're going for the gold. Well, clearly you have one person in your corner. We've got Nick and Corpus Christi backing you. And by the way, I appreciate the idea, but I'm going to deny the live bet. You would.

Thanks for the call, man. Oh, you got one more question? Thank you, sir. Well, really quick. I'm just wondering, you have the Anderson-Salemoi College Bumblebee thing on your desk. What is that? It's like a black box with the Bumblebee. What is it?

I was just always wondered. You know what? That's a very good question. We got this back in the AOL days. Should I show you what's in it? Yes, please, because I'm a huge silver fan, so I saw that. What is that? Look how awesome this box. Which camera should I go to this one, Isaac?

Yeah. Look how awesome this box is. Bumblebee, Anderson, your fan. You know what this is all about. Inside the box. Yeah, that's awesome. Anderson's Silver Watch. See that thing?

What? Do you see it? Are you watching this right now? I want one. That is awesome. Okay. And this is a Meister. Meister is a big watch company, right?

I'm not into the whole watch scene, as you can tell, but this is an Anderson-Silvo watch. Look at this thing. Are you watching us right now, or are you only on the phone? Yeah, I am. No, I am. That thing's awesome. Yeah, look at that thing.

It's unbelievable. I should do something with this watch. Sometimes I even forget that there's a watch in here. But yes, it's an Anderson-Silver watch. It has a logo on it. It's yellow, black. I was given this as a gift, and I just liked the logo. So I was like, oh, this is pretty cool to put on the desk.

But, you know, maybe we should keep it open and show it off a little bit. I don't even think the people here know that there's a watch because, you know, they put all myself in a box. They just throw it in there. It gets bent, creased, like the toys get all ruined, and it just sits there. People use it in their videos. They don't care about my stuff. It's very little respect around here for what we do. And if they knew there was a watch, they probably would have stolen it by now.

So I'll probably put the clothes. But there you have it. There you have it. This is the watch. All right. Cool? Are you asking for the watch? Well, if you want to, you can, but I'm not asking, because it was a gift for you to you, so I don't want to ask for something that was a gift for you, but that's awesome.

Okay, well, I would have given to you if you would ask for it, but since you don't want it, I'm a quick question. Let me jump in here for a second. I mean, I'll take it. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. I appreciate the call, Nick. Do you want to say something to him, New York, Rick? Oh, I want to say something to you. Okay, well, that's a nice gift you got there. Yeah. Now, I'm going to say, What happened when you first received it? Did you use that watch right away?

No, here's the thing. Let's be honest. It was a promotional gift. It was for the watch that was coming out. And I was like, guess what? I'm going to put it on my desk and immortalize the watch by keeping it on my desk for the last two years. If that's not showing appreciation, I don't know what it is. Debatable, I mean, you know, you kept it there for a while.

I'm thinking keeping stuff in your back pocket's never a bad thing. That is such a gift. They didn't give the gift to me personally. They want to, you get the point, Nick. I appreciate the call, my man. Thank you for stopping by. Thank you. Okay, let's go to one more caller and then get to the questions.

John and Charleston. Johnny. Hey, what's going on? How are you, man? What are you guys doing? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Yeah, I just wanted to get your thoughts on the co-main and main event from UFC on Fuel TVA.

My views on it is Steffin's troop. For some reason, never seems to use his reach. He never seemed to use. He never seemed to fight looking seven foot tall. I mean, Mark Klan got inside on him and was able to destroy him with body shots and Pepper's jaw. And I think the same thing happened when he fought Roy Nelson. And I just wanted to get your views on why he doesn't seem to use his reach at all in his fight. You know, it's funny that you mentioned that. When I came in today, that's the first thing that I said to New York, Rick, when we were talking about the fight.

I was like, this guy, and I mentioned it to Deshaun as well at the top of the show. this guy has unbelievable reach. I mean, when you saw the stare down, it looked like a cartoon. It looked like Mark Hunt had no business being in the cage with him, right? I mean, it just seems so ridiculous that this fight was even being put together. And he showed it for like a second or two in the fight. And then again, you know, when he was on the ground, it was fine, even though in Mount he didn't do much, he wasn't going for submissions. And it was almost even surprising that Mark Hunt was going for the submissions and the takedowns.

But I felt like he could just, if he could establish his jab, figure out his range, you know, just pepper him with those shots. And Mark Hunt is obviously a good striker, a good boxer. He knows what he's doing. But the guy's seven feet tall, fighting a five foot, 10 inch guy. I mean, it just, it was very surprising. And that's why I thought Struve had a very good chance going into this fight. And I believe he was the betting favorite. Wasn't he New York, Rick?

Was he the betting favorite? Yes, he was. He was the betting favorite. And it kind of made sense based on that. But every fight, you know, we've seen him evolve. He's not throwing Superman punches anymore, which is smart, obviously. And my heart goes out to him. He broke his jaw.

He's in a lot of pain. And we've seen him evolve. But still, it seems like he hasn't quite figured out that he has this amazing gift, this amazing gift, this unbelievable reach, tied with John Jones for the longest in the UFC, amazing height. And he just hasn't figured out how to use it. He's still in his 20s, mid-20s. Maybe he'll figure it out.

but I'm still waiting for him to really show it off. He hasn't done so just yet, especially he didn't do it on Saturday. Yeah, I agree totally, and I think that he could probably implement some kicks into his arsenal a little bit more, too. It doesn't seem like he throws too many kicks, and he could keep the distance more with heavy punchers. Like I said, Mark Hahn and Roy Nelson's another example who just got inside and knocked them out, you know. And then Travis Brown, that was more like they're probably the same height. If I could see that a little bit more, you know. But yeah, it just doesn't seem like he uses his reach.

And another thing I wanted to mention was the main event, how I thought that Brian Stan threw all game playing out the window and just went for it and thought all the fans want to see. And, you know, I commend him for that because it was entertaining to watch. But I guess, you know, it's not a smart way to fight Van der Le-ilva. It was entertaining to watch. I don't know if I commend him for it because at the end of the day, it's a loss and it's a setback.

And it's a second straight loss. You know, he's coming off that loss to Michael Bisbank. there was a point where you saw in the first round a switch went off and he was just like screw it I'm just going to go for this I'm going to fight fire with fire and I'm going to come out the axe murderer in Japan and he had this look on his face

like it was just the thing was just unbelievable I literally felt like I saw a light switch go off in his head where he was like game plan see you later I'm going to come at this guy and just go bananas and it obviously didn't work out it and that moment in the first

like with a minute left in the round when Stan dropped and Van der Leight draw. It was just, it felt like a video game. It was crazy. Yeah, I, I commend him because he said before the fight that he was going to fight him that way, and a lot of fighters do that, and they just throw it out the window

and they didn't get into fight because they want to win the fight. But it seemed like he did this one of the, he just kind of like, as respect for Vandele almost just fought his fight. You know, that's what it seemed like to me. It seemed like he kind of was like, okay, you know, I'm fighting the legend

that I've respected my whole life. I'm just going to fight. I'm going to fight him. how he want to fight, you know? I hope that wasn't the case. I hope it was just the fighter switch went off because that's a silly reason, in my opinion. I mean, you don't want to fight someone's fight

just because you're in their, you know, adopted hometown if you want to call it that, and he's a legend. I could buy the notion that it was just heat of the moment. It was fun. The crowd was going wild, and you just, the competitor in you just said, I'm just going to go for it. I can't buy the idea that Brian Stan would say,

I'm going to do this because it's Vanderley-Silva in Japan. Yeah, I just don't know why you wouldn't take them down or you any kind of like... I think... It's like when Diego Sanchez and Clay Guida go, you know, it's just like... We don't know, we can't fathom

what it's like. Stepping into the cage, the door closes, people going nuts, and you're getting punched in the face. And I think sometimes you just forget what the plan was going into it and you just kind of go into street fighter mode. Yeah, yeah.

I think that in his next fight, he'll be a lot more cautious, for sure, now that he's got two losses in a row, like you said, I don't think he's going to be fighting like that anymore where he's getting a firefight, which is basically what he was in with Vanderlay. And by the way, I want to just say, and I know people are, oh, we say it all the time, the way he handled the post-fight interview, and even at the press conference with class, with dignity, said the right things, didn't complain, showed a lot of respect to Vanderley. I mean, he really is one of the true great ambassadors for this sport. It deserves all the praise, everything that he gets. He's so well-spoken, and it was very nice to see after a moment like that, got knocked out, emotional, I bet, bloodied. That was a pretty amazing thing to see in here. Yeah, it really was, and he's a great representation of the United States of America, you know,

as a country, because, you know, he's representing us not only as a fighter, but as a soldier and, you know, and yeah, he truly is like an American hero, I guess you could say, you know. Yep, anything else? All right, man. Nah, that's it. I just wanted to catch your thoughts on those two fights. But, yeah, I listen to the show all the time, man.

It's great talking to you. I appreciate it. Pleasure. Thanks for calling in. Call any time. All right, man, appreciate it. All right. Bye-bye.

Suddenly in my throat there. We got John and Charleston. Thank you very much for stopping by. Weird. All right, let's go to the questions. And some sad news, before we go to the questions, Jacob Vokeman, saying that he has officially retired the Vokman for President T-shirt because he needs some sponsors as he gets set for his WSOF debut.

So does that mean we should retire it? Absolutely not. We made that thing famous. It's historic. Yeah, it's historic. But kind of sad. I thought I was going to go with him. But you know what?

Maybe it's time. New chapter. Yeah, it's time. All right. Let's go to the questions. Up for grabs. as I mentioned, Carlos Condit, round five championship edition. Here it is.

He's fighting Johnny Hendricks March 16th in Montreal. This is what's up for grabs. So hopefully we got some good questions. We got a few from the website first. Okay. First one up is, what happens to Shea Mills, who was cut for his fight against Riddle? Shea Mills just signed with Cage Warriors.

The former home of Connor McGregor, he told us last week that, I guess someone stole his business. belts from that organization, the lightweight and featherweight champion. Shane Mills, British, Cage Warriors, doing good things over in the UK, so that's where he's headed next. Not sure about a debut or an opponent just yet. A lot of people were asking if you thought that he'd be brought back to the UFC.

I don't think he should be brought back because that wasn't a PED. The UFC has made it clear that they think there's a distinction between a PED, like steroids, et and marijuana. They do not think that marijuana is a PD. It's a banned substance. You should pay the consequences, but they don't think it's a PED. So actually a fan asked Dana about this on Twitter, and he said, yeah, if he would have, if Riddle would have tested positive for a PD, he would be brought back, sort of like the Brandon Vera Tiago Silva situation from a couple of years ago. It wasn't a PD, just a banned substance. They don't think it affected his performance per se. So he's not being brought back.

Our next question. This is an interesting one. The Fox analysts have not want to fight Evans, Son, and Stan in a long time. Do you think the pressures of doing the Fox stuff affects their game plans and training, or is it just a coincidence? I must admit, I was not listening to that because people have alerted me that Chiael Sondon is going off on an M.M.A. journalist, or I think it's an M.A. journalist, and I was reading, what's going on over here? He's essentially calling out somebody for being a hack, and people are trying to figure out who it is. So he hasn't said who it is.

He said it's not worth, you know, giving your name. I'm not going to give you publicity, that kind of thing. Weird. Okay. Back to the question. So, yeah, Sonan, Evans, and Stan haven't been winning lately. Have their duties with Fox. Oh.

Prevented them from training properly, essentially. Well, Charles Sonnen fought Anderson Silva. You know, that's tough. Evans, yeah, he lost to No Gera. Part of that, he lost to John Jones, Stan. I mean, it's certainly an interesting, it's an interesting idea. and I haven't really thought of it. I will say this.

I know that, you know, Chale is going to take a break from the Fox duties before his fight, and I know it's coming up soon. I think the duties are coming to an end fairly soon, and most of the guys take a month and a half or so off before it. And some of these guys, you know, they'll come in and do the shows,

and then they'll, you know, it's just one day, maybe two days, and that could be their break, and they'll train where they are. But, yeah, I mean, it's certainly something to think about. It's certainly something you think about. I mean, is it a distraction? Are they, are, maybe these are older guys who are not paying as close attention.

But I don't think those guys are, are those kind of fighters. I think it might be just like the, uh, the SI jinx, one of those coincidences. But I haven't thought of that. And it certainly could be a valid point. Maybe there's too much on their plate. Why did this guy apologize for his spelling? Is it because he doesn't know? What do you think, the only spelling error I see?

is coincidence. Also analysis. And analysis. But why not just correct it yourself? It's not like it's happening in real time. Yeah. Anyway. Anyway, moving on.

Yeah, yeah. Our next question is about Bellator. By the way, I haven't been reading the names. Kilroy was here asked this question. Bellator has been having very good shows lately by having the majority of the fights ending in chaos or submission. Is the discrepancy in the talent level between these fighters the reason or some of the matchups designed this way for ratings?

I don't know if there's a specific reason for this. I mean, the light heavyweight title fight this past week was one of the more boring fights I've seen. But yeah, they've had some good shows. They've had some really nice knockouts at West. Obviously, the Manuel Newton knockout. You've had some nice one. I mean, Will Brooks was knocked out.

That was quite shocking. So you've had some nice moments in Bell-Torri. you've had some upsets, which, again, I'm not sure if it's good or bad for the tournament, but at least it keeps you watching. The ratings have been great. They went up, which was kind of surprising that they would go up when it's, that was a really poor, light heavyweight. I kind of feel like they should just get rid of that division, but that doesn't really help

King Moe. Even the heavyweight division, you know, there's nothing wrong with, you know, having, they have, well, they, yeah, they have bantam weight, they have featherweight, they have lightweight, they have lightweight, welterweight, middle weight. They have, I think they're going to do a one-team weight. 25 women's division. I mean, that should be enough. But anyway, I think it's a mix of a few things. I'm not going to say it's like the strike force syndrome where they were putting together some fights that were definitely mismatches on paper and there were knockouts that were going to happen as a

result. I just think they're having a good stretch and good for them. I mean, they're, I'm curious though, if A, a lot of these people are sticking around from wrestling. which is great. That's how it should be. That's why they start the broadcast right away. But are they creating stars? Are they making people stick around and say, oh, I got to see this guy the next time and then hopefully I'll see them on pay for that, et cetera, et cetera. Are they building stars? Are they doing what they can? And I'm just worried that having a show every week, it's hard to tell stories and get people excited and get the media into it and have enough time to tell the stories and go out and cover the events when they're back to back, back, back to back, back, what the heck do I know? They're getting 900,000 viewers. and they're going up and then they go a little down and they go back up. I mean, clearly something's working for them. So what do I know? This is our next question from Jellyneck. Prior to the announcement that Diaz would get an immediate title shot against GSP

after returning from suspension, Diaz was asking for a fight against Anderson Silva. Dana White has said the UFC will be signing Silva to a new eight-fight contract. What are the chances that one of those fights will be against Nick Diaz? Will fans ever get the chance to see the real super fight that is Diaz versus Silva before Anderson's retired? Anderson retires, and then at the bottom, Stockton, Watt, 2-09. Oh, okay. Well, that makes sense. Is that really the real super fight?

Do you want to see that fight? I think that would be a better fight for Diaz than fighting GSP. And I also think that GSP at this point doesn't want to fight Anderson, and Diaz does. So I'd be interested in seeing that for sure. Well, if he wins, I want to see it. If he loses, then it doesn't really make a lot of sense, right? I'm not talking about in terms of, you know, matchmaking based on rankings or anything like that. I don't think Diaz should be fighting GSP right now coming off the loss.

But if you're asking just an interesting fight, would that be a good fight? I think it'd be a great fight. Yeah, it would be fun. I don't know if it's the real super fight, and I don't think it's going to happen. I just, I don't know. I think that, think about it. I mean, he's going to fight Widman, I think. Then there's the John Jones fight, which I think is the biggest.

That's the real super fight, in my opinion. There's potentially a GSP fight out there. There are other middleweights that are climbing the ranks. If I'm going to guess, I'm going to say I don't think it's going to happen. So I hate to break the bad news. Yeah, I don't think so either. This is our last one from the website. From Chomatkar.

I'm sure I butcher that. Why does Vanderle get the stand and bang guys and Rampage didn't? What does that even mean? I suppose he's saying the matchmaking was favorable for Vanderlai where he gets guys who will stand with him and Rampage gets guys who won't. I don't... I mean, come on.

Glover Tashara, this is the question that you picked. Really? Of all the questions, how many questions are on this page right now? This question, first off, he used stand and bang. What's wrong with that? Eh.

I feel like we've kind of been there, done that with that term. 268 questions right now on the MAA. 268 comments, not all of them questions. interaction and why does Wandi or Vandi

Why do we call it Wandi but not Vandy when we call him Val-Rle? That's an interesting one. Get the stand and bang Oh get these stand-and-bang guys

and Rampage didn't Glover, what is he? Okay, fine, he got Bader. He got Machita, right? Yep. Silly question. All right.

Telling the fan his question is silly that's okay. Yeah. that's what I'm saying. We're going to move on to the Twitter once. Okay. Our first question comes from Wanna Bet.

The question is, who impressed you the most between the three Pride Legends? Gomi, Hunt, or Wand, or Vand? Well, I thought Gomi wanted the fight, but it wasn't an overly impressive performance, and I don't know.

I mean, I definitely think Gomi has proved his worth and his place in the UFC, and he should stick around. Van Related. It was a great fight, but it was almost like Stan played into his hand, and that's exactly what he needed, and that's what he got, and he got the knockout. But still, I mean, he took some big shots, proved that his chin isn't completely done. Still a great moment, but I got to go with Mark Hunt. To fight a guy who is that much taller than you over a foot taller with that kind of reach, that ground game in Mount, showing off his ground skills, I got to go with Mark Hunt.

To me, he was the MVP of the show. Do you agree? I have GOMI, because before this, a lot of people thought he was done. He had an impressive showing against Danzig, but there was still, you know, the idea that this was going to be a fight where Diego walked through him. If you're giving, if you're discounting Vanderle because Stan played into his hands a little bit, then you have to discount Hunt because Struve played into his hands the same way. He made it a very easy fight for him to win. So I'd say that, I mean, it's really hard because there's so many factors. Diego missed weight.

he had to travel. There's so many factors that you could use to discount one of these guys wins. I was impressed by all three. That's what I'm going to say. I'm going to sit on the fence. You can't sit on the fence like that. I am. I don't care.

I was impressed by all three of them. But the question is, who are you most impressed with? I said it's going to be gomi, but there's so many factors that I can't really choose. All right. Well, I'm going to go out and say, I'm going to go out and say that, that Mark Hunt was the most impressive guy. Now, someone on Twitter, what is going on here? Someone on Twitter just sent me a link to the UG

and clearly trolling said, Halwani let the cat out of the bag on the M.A. I'm obviously giving him attention here, but the reason I bringing this up is he said, Silva, maybe to fight Jones, then backtrack. When did I say that? Did I say that? It was you said you wanted to fight. He wanted him to fight Jones,

and that was the real super fight. That's all he said. Well, no, he posted this two hours ago. Oh. When did we even talk? Anyway, and then Dana wrote on the thread. Dana writes on the thread, I think this is him. That's right, the MMA hour is my show, and I own Halwani Soul,

and keeping it a jar in my office at the Death Star. I don't think that that was really Dana. DFW Jr., yeah, that's him. That's interesting. Okay, but I don't really understand. I don't understand when I said that. Anyway. Did I say that?

I didn't say that. That's not even true. Anyway, let's move along. Our next question comes from Brent G. Vanderlays' chaos was impressive. He has nothing left to prove. Wouldn't it be wise to retire at the top? I cringed when he got dropped.

I'm still thinking about this for a second here. Did I say that? Or are we being trolled right now? I believe we're being trolled, but I could have missed you saying that. Maybe it was a Freudian slip. And what is Dana saying when he says that he owns this show in my soul? What does that mean?

I think you're overthinking this a little bit. Okay, back to the questions. Yes, it would be great if he retired on top. I think it would be like Chris Lytle only better, doing it in Japan, doing it like that and that kind of fight in a vintage Vandalai Silva fight. It's not going to happen. We all know it's not going to happen.

and there's no way it's going to happen. The thing about fighters, when they have a moment like that, and especially when it's that spectacular, especially when it's a place where you once had all these great moments, there's no way they're just going to walk away because then for the next 50 years you're going to think about, what if I just stuck around for two or three more fights? That's what happens to all fighters.

That's why it's so impressive when a Chris Lytle actually hangs him up with a moment like he had in Milwaukee. And that's why you kind of have to think that he's going to come back at some point, but thus far he hasn't. That's why I think Lennox Lewis is arguably one of the most impressive combat sportsmen of all time because he left when he was at his peak. He was the champ and he left and he never came back even though he was he was proposition and people were calling him out never came back.

I don't think Van der LeSilva is going to retire. I mean, he's too much of a fighter and that's not knocking a Lennox or anyone else, but he just he loves this so much. having a moment like that is almost like a drug. It's going to keep him coming back for more. So it's almost like a blessing and a curse. But look, he proved that he can hang. And he proved that he still has a solid chin and he could take a punch.

So I want to see him stick around at 205. I think there's some interesting fight. Someone threw out Dan Henderson, another fight against Hendo. That'd be interesting. We have a question about his next opponent coming up right now. Okay. See, there you go. Now you're learning.

From James Hawkins. If Vanderley doesn't retire, who would you like to see him fight now? next, and he proposes a Chale-Sunnen fight would be huge. Okay, if Chale loses on April 27th, it's really Vandlera Vitor, right? Vitor's fighting Luke Rockhold on May 18th. Both those fights, because here's the thing about Chale. I feel like they put them against Jones and Anderson, but other than those two fights in the last couple of years since this evolution of Chil Sennon, they keep putting him in there

against guys that he respects and likes, like Mark Munoz, no trash talking with Michael Bisping. Who else was that there? I'm forgetting someone. O'Kami? O'Kam. Well, no, I'm talking about after. Was there just one fight? Didn't he fight someone else?

Between? He lost to Anderson. Stan. Stan. There you go. I knew it. So, like, there's no trash talk. There's no beef.

There's no heat there. Chale and Vandale would be the best. Can you just, I mean, those stare-downs would just be worth the price of admission alone. I buy pay-per-view of just the stair-downs. But I don't think they're going to do that. I think Hendo would be interesting, but Dane already said they're looking to do Hendo Rashad Evans. So let's see what happens in the next couple months. But absolutely, I don't think he's going to retire, and I think he should stick around at 205.

Chale and Vanderle might be the fight I want the most right now in MMA. Chale and Vandrelay? Really? The most? The bad blood is there. I mean, even if, you know, if you take Chal Sondon with a grain of salt, whether you think he's a comedian, whether you think he's serious, whatever, when you talk all that smack, the guy who you've been talking all that smack about is going to get pissed and and whether the beef is real from Chale's son inside, the beef is certainly real from Vanderle's side and I'd love to see that fight. I think he goes both ways. It's almost weird watching Chale have to analyze him and praise him because I feel like deep down he doesn't really respect

them on the fuel shows. It would be a dream come true. A dream come true. Wow. Our next question is from Mike Jones. Who? Who do you want to see Mark Hunt fight next? Why do you say who like that? Mike Jones. Oh, okay. Is that what he's says? Yeah. You don't remember that song from back in the days? No. I do not. So he says who... Where he gives out his phone number. And then you say who? Yeah, back then, something, something. I don't remember. But anyway, let's read this question. Mike Jones asks, who do you want to see Mark Hunt fight next? I would go Pat Barry, Big Country if he wins, or the loser of Overeem versus JDS. Well, I thought the loser of Overeign versus JDS, but it's

It seems like the world wants to see him fight big country, big country fighting Czech Congo, April 27th. So I think you got to go. I mean, that's what everyone wants. That's what everyone was asking for. They both hit very hard, great chins. You know they're just going to stand there and slug away, although Mark Hunt showing off his new grappling skills, but I don't think he's going to do that against Roy Nelson. So I guess I got to go. But here's the thing.

Will the timing work out? Because the UFC's booking a lot of fights now. It's almost like if you're not fighting around the same three, four weeks stretch, and I know it's a little bit more here. you may kind of miss each other. But I think they're going to go with Big Country if he wins. What do you think? I think that that's the play, and I think it's a great fight too. It is a great fight.

So yeah, I think it's... And then at that point, if Mark Hunt wins that fight, he's got to be one fight, if not there, depending on how this whole thing shakes out. The real loser in the heavyweight division right now has to be for doom. I feel like he's just sort of out of sight, out of mind. And finally he's going to fight in June, but that just feels like an eternity from when he last fought.

Agree with you there. Very high on Verduem right now. Yeah. Good to know. Our next question is from Sam Law Fox. He asks, is Stefan Strews' ridiculous reach the most underutilized weapon in MMA today?

I think it has to be. It's just unbelievable. Look at what Gustafsson, John Jones, guys with long reaches do, and he just doesn't use it at all. It's very bizarre. Yeah, I agree. There's other things that he can do defensively, too.

I mean, credit to Jack Slack, the guy who breaks down MMA striking, he pointed out that Struve covers up rather than utilizing footwork or keeping people at bay with his reach. And that allows people to get on the inside and hit him with those powerful shots. He just really doesn't choose to use the reach the proper way. And it's disappointing because he has the tools to be an elite fighter. Yeah. I still think he could put it together.

getting bigger. He seems to be developing more, but right now I would have to agree with that statement. By the way, irrelevant anth who tweets us a lot says, man, Ari Hawani mentions the trolls on the MMAR, but not the fans. I love the fans. I didn't mention them by name. Just someone sent me the UG link. So I looked at it and I was confused by it because I didn't want to say something wrong. I mean, when someone says I say something, I try to think that I actually say that because I don't want to be wrong. And I didn't say it and it was wrong. But yeah, I love the fans. And that does suck. I feel like people sometimes we tend to

we tend to call out or you know mention the trolls, the negativity and not show love to the positivity and the fans and I am a victim of that and I apologize. I love you. Irrelevant Dan. Next question.

Our next question comes from DeFranco. There are bad calls but one area not seen is Octagon Control pushing the fight. Diego pushed and won. Thoughts. I don't know. I mean, sure. But isn't it, at the end of the day,

isn't it about damage what you do in there? I mean, you could push, push, push, and yeah, it takes two to tango. Look, again, I don't think it's the biggest robbery. I think clearly Gomi won the second. I think Sanchez won the third. It's really that first round. I think Gomi did enough.

How did you square it? Did I ask you this already? No, you didn't. I gave it to Gomi, 29, 28. And it brings back the question of the Machita Henderson fight. That's pretty much the perfect example for this. If you value pushing forward and not really doing much damage, not really landing much, then Henderson wins that fight. He was obviously creating the pace and chasing Machita.

But if you value picking your shots and doing the most damage effectively, then that's a clear decision for Machita. and I think that that fight, you know, crystallized it perfectly. And me personally, I think that doing damage matters, and I think that Gomi won that fight with Diego. Yep, I agree. So, yes, that's one of the criteria, but I don't think it should be the defining criteria of the fight. I don't think it should be the thing that you put the most weight in.

Again, I don't think that there's really, I think every judge kind of really judges the fight based on his own merits, and I think that's part of the problem here. I don't think there's a set criteria. I don't think the 10-9 system works. So I think there's a lot of issues. And again, I don't think it was the biggest robbery, but I think it's clear.

You go to that website, MMA Decisions.com. It's a great site. They do a great job on that site, categorizing everything, chronicling it, all that stuff. And it seems like every media member had it for GOMI. So that should tell you something.

Our next question comes from Brian. Do you think it's out of bounds for Sunnan in his fuel analyst role to be saying a fighter, Hector Lombard, should be cut. No, I actually, I want the fighters. See, this is one of the tough things about the fuel jobs that these guys are doing. A lot of these guys are active fighters.

You know, in other sports, it's usually people who are retired, out of the sport, etc. Here you have guys who are fighting actively, who may be friends, who may have fought someone, et cetera, et cetera. So if Chale truly believes that, and it's not some sort of, for lack of a better word, gimmick to sell a fight, then I want to hear more guys be honest. that. I want to hear guys talk about how they truly feel and criticize and not be afraid to criticize. I'm not saying others do, but you could see why some would. So I don't think it should be out of balance. And I think that that's what an analyst does. That's what someone in that chair should be

doing, calling it like it is, telling it like it is. And if it's negative, well, then it's negative. I agree completely with you. And the other thing is Lombard is in a weight class that Sondon pretty much made his career in. So if he took offense to it, he can have an avenue to back it up. And I think Sonan was one of those guys who doesn't mind. He's like, if I'm going to call you out and say something about you and you take a fence, then let's settle it in Octagon. So I think that that's exactly what he's supposed to be doing and should continue to do it.

And for the record, I don't think he should be cut. I still think that there's some life in Hector Lombard. I know he's expensive. You got the signing bonus, the big deal. still, I don't think you should be cut. I think you should keep him around. It would be interesting. Imagine they cut him.

What would Belta? Where would you go? Be weird. Well, here's a question about Lombard's future as well. Or actually, a little bit related. From Clint, with Lombard not making a splash people expected, do you think it hurts Belator's legitimacy as a competitor to the UFC? I don't think you could put that all on Hector Lombard's shoulders. Now, if Eddie Alvarez came over, loss,

and I don't know. Pat Kern came over and lost, then yes, maybe there'd be a theme here. But I don't think you could put Bellator on the shoulders of one guy. Let's be honest, their middleweight division wasn't their deepest. And he was knocking guys out, and some of those guys were former UFC fighters, right? Jay Silva comes to mind, et cetera.

So I don't think it really says anything about Bellator. I mean, we know Belator, I think their champions are great. I think they get all hanging in. There's maybe one or two contenders. it gets a little dicey, right? I mean, they're not there yet. They're only four years old, three years old, four years old. So I think you're comparing apples to oranges.

They put on a lot of fights. They have a lot of fighters come and go. I don't think we could say right now that Beltor is as deep as the UFC. That's just, that's just honest. And I think they deep down would agree with you for me. I also just think in general, people are jumping the gun a little bit with this, you know, Hector Lombard's not that great. It's crazy.

It's not like he got blown out by. anybody, first of all. He had his moments against Ushin. He rocked him in the third. Ushin's top five middleweight, lost to Boch, who at the time top 10, and beat Paul Harris. Give him a break. Also, Yushin Okami is a stud.

I know a lot of people were writing him off, but this guy just continues, as I said before we made the picks, he just continues to dominate guys who are supposed to be the next guy in line for title shots. He just continues. The only guys who have really posed any threat to him

where Anderson Silva and Chal Sondon. Now, it's an interesting choice as far as matchmaking goes. You kind of heard a contender here against a guy who does that kind of thing. Bad styles matchup for Hector. I would have loved to see him against a Bisping or a Belcher,

and he could very well fight those guys if they lose on April 27th. But yeah, Hector has some work to do now. People keep asking me, do I know who Chal Sond is talking about? I do not know. So stop asking me. our next question comes from

William Wingo stun gun Kim is coming off a dominating win who do you think is next for him is he being underlooked as a large force at welterweight someone threw out Roy McDonald and I kind of think that makes sense

what do you think I think that would be an interesting one he's definitely a top contender I hate to do it but I do almost discount the the loss to Damien Maya now I don't think that necessarily Maya wouldn't win that rematch

or that Kim wouldn't win that rematch one way or the other. I just think that, you know, that injury kind of discounts that. And if you do, then his record looks pretty spectacular. Did you have a problem with his performance? No. It was dominant. I have no problem with his performance ever. He's always, you know, he's always trying to improve position, always trying to go after subs.

It's not like he's just one of those guys who lays there in guard. So I have no problem with Kim. I have no problem with Ocami. I have no problem with any guys who are considered lay in prayer or whatever the consensus is right now. But especially not Stung Gun. I'm very into Stung Gun. I'm thinking that they may do Damien versus Tarek Safedin. You've got all those fighters fighting at 158 and that may work out if Rory's out for a while.

But I think Rory versus Kim makes a lot of sense. For the record, my voice didn't just crack. I just had something. Yeah, so I'm going to go with Rory. I liked that one. And by the way, the question is, the second question is, is he being overlooked? I think there's a lot of contenders right now, 170, Hendrix, Condit is still there. Ellenberger is obviously working his way back up.

Mark Hart's back in the mix. There's Rory there. Safedine's coming in, Damien Maya. So there's a lot of guys, and he's certainly there. But I don't think he's being overlooked. I think what happens is no real flashy knockouts as of late, doesn't speak English, so those things go again. him. That team, by the way, is he part of Crean Top Team?

I believe so. Yeah, that team is doing great. They had Lim on the undercard do really well. They're really doing great things, of course, Crean Tommy, and I love their manager or the guy who works with them. I don't know if he's kind of the head of Korean Top Team, Brian Re. Just a great team. Great guys. Our next question comes from Jacob. What's next for Alex Casares? He's now 4 and 1 as a bantam weight, with his loss coming from a two-point deduction for a groin shot.

By the way, I've been loving Alex Caceres. I know the win was somewhat controversial. I won't ask you what you thought about it because you probably missed it because you weren't watching, of course. But I really like him as a bantam weight. And he really seems to be putting it all together. He seems to have matured a little bit, still has his gimmick with the hair and I really like it.

As far as what's next, that's a tough one. I mean, yeah, he, I mean, form. one. He's kind of in that sort of Marcus Brimidge territory where he's winning fights but isn't getting like a big showcase fight, which I would expect him to get

fairly soon if not in his next fight. Let's take a quick gander at the bantamweight rankings. Look who's under there. It don't be interesting. Maybe you're returning Brian Bowles. I know a lot of people have been asking me about Brian Bowles. We haven't seen him for a while. I hear he's coming back shortly. That could be an interesting

one. Is that too much of a step up for Mr. Carceres? Maybe. You think so? Yep. All right. Um, I have to think about that. I don't know who's necessarily next room. Anyone come to mind for you? No, but that's the thing. He's been kind of, you know, middling out and fighting guys in the same range. And it's, you know what? It might be a big step up, but maybe he's ready. So for a bowl's? Yeah. I, I personally don't think that, but, um, I mean, he has to, he has to jump into the deep orders at some point. So, I like bringing him along slowly. He's very young.

What about Mitu Gaki? Yeah, that'd be interesting. That would be interesting. I think that that's also quite a large step up. I mean, I know his record's been kind of spotty. Yeah. Win loss, win, loss, one loss. I kind of like it.

Yeah. I'm going to Mitu Gaki. That's a good fight. Yeah. Mitu Gaki, it is. Had a win over Brian Carraway this weekend. Infamously now, Misha Tate told Carraway to coast in the third round, and that has been deemed not the best advice to give someone going into the third,

who clearly wasn't winning decisively. Our next question comes from Dennis Mason. He says, where do you think Nick Diaz has the best chance with GSP on the feet or on the ground? It's an interesting question because obviously Diaz off his back, you know, he's got great jiu-jitsu, but I think at the end of the day on his feet, GSP has a great jab, has turned into a solid striker, but I think Diaz wants to turn this fight into a brawl. He wants to box with GSP. He wants to try to rough him up on his feet.

So if I'm going to have to pick one, I'll say on the feet. Do you agree? You think that Diaz has the best chance with GSP on the feet? I mean, the question is, yeah, I guess that's the question. Yeah, sure. I mean, I don't think he's going to submit GSP. I agree with that, mostly because the assumption is that if Diaz is on the ground, it's on his back. So I definitely agree with you that the best chance for Diaz is on his feet.

Yeah. Complete agreement. By the way, Yash Sharif says Ariel's voice is giving him problems, damage. Someone get the master water now in Capitals. New York, Rick, water please. Then you'll get your break. Those are just things that should come to mind when you see me struggling, you know? I don't know if we have time to correct all your struggles.

Wow. What else you got? Let's see. Our next question comes from Dr. James Kelsk, or Kelski, the second. Do you think that Bellator is staying away from Fitch to protect their stock by not having a UFC guy win their title? I mean, I think part of it is they don't want to be seen as UFC light. They don't want the scraps. I don't know if it's necessarily that they think he's going to beat Ben Asgren,

but I don't think they want to be like, oh, John Fitch just got released because the UFC does think he's good enough. He's on the downswing of his career, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. we're going to sign him and then we're going to put him in a tournament and then he beats our guy. I just think they don't want to seem eager to pick up the scraps. Now, they have picked up guys

who have been released. You know, they have tons of guys who have been released from the UFC. But I think a high profile one, I don't blame them for doing it, but I do think they should sign him. I do think he would bring some much needed star power,

if you will, to their welterweight division. And I would love to see that fight. I think it's a fascinating fight. I think it would be Ascrin's toughest test at 170. So I get it. I understand, but I don't agree with the decision. I completely agree with you.

But I think that people would forget about those kind of stigmas associated with it as soon as they announced Asker and Versfitch because people would love to see that. Look at WSOF, right? I mean, they have guys who may be on the down swing of their career, but people are drawn to names. And at the end of the day, the UFC is the NFL. and the UFC has put time and effort and promotional muscle behind some guys. If they're available, even if they're coming off a loss,

a guy like Matt Riddle is interesting because he's coming off multiple wins. So it doesn't look like scraps. That's why I think those guys should be very attractive to Bellator. But people are attracted to the Arlofskys and the Rumble Johnsons, et cetera, et cetera. That's what gets coverage. That's what gets fan attention, et cetera. Some of the guys in Bellator, a lot of them don't. don't speak English, not household names, all that stuff.

It's tough to get that notoriety, but hey, again, their ratings are doing great. So who are we to complain? Our next question comes from Chris Lewis. He says, is Rhonda the new Royce, pioneering fighter, specialist in one thing that her contemporaries don't have the tools to avoid yet? I don't think so. I mean, by the way, did you call him Royce? Wow, I did. Yeah, you did.

Wow. Okay. Talking about the deficiencies. I need some water. Yeah. I don't think so. I mean, I get the comparison, but she just keeps doing the same thing well because she knows it works. I'd love to see someone try to, you know, let's see her go to the well multiple times and not being there and then let's see what she goes to. But I don't know.

What do you think? I see the point of the comparison, but I don't necessarily agree with that. much different time and everything's different. I mean, it's more of a thing where now the competitors have access to the same type of training, the same type of tools. And it's not some, the arm bar is not some new thing that Rhonda Rousey invented. She's just amazing at doing it. Everybody has access to the same gym, the same trainers, whatever they need to do to get as ready as Ronda Rousey, they can. It's not an idea where she's bringing something new to the table.

She's just very, very, very good at what she does. Yep. And by the way, I don't think it's an insult to call someone the new Royce or Hoyce. But what he's implying, like sort of a one-trick pony and all that stuff, no, I don't think so. I see it, but not in agreement necessarily. Right. This is a coincidence. The guy who won the W.S.

If I had tweeted this earlier today. By the way, he tweeted it at 127. Yep. So proving that you don't just look at the morning questions. Well, I mean, there's no proof needed. I don't need to prove that to anybody. I look at them all. So keep sending them.

I look at them all. Leo from Jersey, the winner of our WSOF ticket, says, does the WSOF main event make sense for Anthony Johnson? I mean, not really. When you think about it, why is he fighting at heavyweight? He just moved up to 205. but I think these are the kind of fights WSOF needs to make. They need to move into the slot that was once held by Strike Force.

Put together fun fights. Don't even have titles. I don't think WSOF should have any titles, to be honest. Just put together the most fun fights possible. And this is the best main event they could put on right now. They're two biggest stars. They're trying to get eyeballs. People are talking about them.

It's just their second show. It's on NBC. You've got a nice undercard. You've got names like, I like the Morais versus Navi. because you've got two guys who aren't UFC castoffs. Palophilio, if he could keep it together, you know, mentally and, you know, outside of the cage as far as everything else goes, anxiety and all that stuff. I mean, he's still an intriguing character. I'm going to watch for him. I think he's very interesting. And then you got guys like Aaron Simpson. You want to see how he'll rebound. So it's a

nice mix for a new organization. And I'm curious to see how many of these UFC releases they're going to sign. They signed Jacob Vokeman. They're obviously interested in. and John Fitch, let's see how many. But for them, they don't have to worry about the same thing Belator should be worried about. Just make the most fun fights possible. Don't worry about titles. Don't worry about rankings, put them together. So does it make sense for Anthony Johnson's career right now to fight at a heavyweight

against a former heavyweight champion? Not necessarily, but in WSOF, it's the fight that makes most sense for him. Who do you want to see him fight? Another no-name guy? You don't want to see that. Let's get a big fight going. He'll weigh in at 220-something. saying Arlofsky won't be that much bigger.

And let's see it. It's fun. And at the end of the day, that should be what WSOF is all about. That's it. That's the last one. Wow. We had a lot today. Yeah.

Great questions today. I'm partial to the Sun and Vanderlake question, because now that's the only thing I can think about is that fight. But did you have one in mine? You deleted them all, right? Yeah, well, I don't delete them, but yeah, they're gone. Yeah, I wish we could just run through. them quickly. I have some of the topics written down.

Okay, but to be honest, I like this question a lot, but he got the ticket, so that's probably not fair, right? Yeah. Okay, tell me some of the questions again? We had the style, which style will be better for Diaz against GSP on the feeder on the ground. We had the question about Casares, the question about stun gun, we had the question about Bellator's legitimacy with Lombard losing. We had the question about Hector being cut. We had We had Vanderlay Sonnen. We had Struves reach the most underutilized tool in MMA. Yeah.

And our first question was which of the three Pride Legends did you think of the most impressive performance? So you like Van der Le Sondon? Yes. Okay. Let's go with that. I like the Struve one as well. I have no problem with that one. Yeah, but you mentioned the first one.

So let's go with that one. Okay. There it is. There it is. Carlos Condon, Round 5 figurine, courtesy of our friends at Round 5 Championship Edition.

There it is. All right. I think we're good. Anything else? Let's wrap this dog up. Isaac? There it is. Another fun show in the books.

Appreciate everyone stopping by. Appreciate everyone writing in, whether it was for the tickets, the questions, for the Round 5 figurine, or just to talk to us. Just to throw out your two cents. We always appreciate.

the the the the the the the the feedback and hearing from the pulse of the sport the fans so we appreciate it very much want to thank sean al shoddy for stopping by doing a great job as always on mhmapuny not com obviously we're a little biased but great guy and uh one of the young guns in this sport so we appreciate him stopping by alexander gustafsson good luck to him on april 6th ufc on fuel tv niner in stockholm sweden matt riddle gave us uh gave us an all-timer there that was great stuff out of Matt Riddle. Good luck to him in this new chapter in his life. Skylar Ashton really appreciate him stopping by busy Hollywood actor, a fan of this show. And we appreciate his brother Milan being a fan as well. Let's see if he could jump in and fill the big shoes of the job squad.

Well, I don't want to put Mitchie on that. Just big sexy. You know what I'm saying. Thank you very much to Marcus Brimidge. Always great to talk to him. And Demetrius Johnson, get well soon. Good luck with the surgery on Thursday. Next week, we really start to gear up for UFC 158. Bit of a break this week. Beltor is back on Thursday. No big UFC fights on Saturday.

But next week, it's UFC 158. GSP Diaz. We'll be talking all about it right here on the MMAfighting.com MMA hour. Until then, we'll see you next time. Pace. I'm out of here. Support for this show comes from Volkswagen. As the U.S. gets ready to host soccer's biggest moment on a

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