MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 175

Episode Date: August 14, 2014

Featuring Conor McGregor, Miesha Tate, Matt Mitrione, Melvin Guillard, Scott Jorgensen, and Michelle Waterson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix Colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,

What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love? The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for the show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other. Introducing O-DU. It's the only business software you'll ever need.

It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier. CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-4-3 at O-D-O-D-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-O-com. It's the Mixed Martial Arts Hour with...

It's the Mixed Martial Arts Hour back in your life on this Monday, April 8th, 2013. My friends, if you recall last week, I told you that we were about to embark on one of the most stacked weekends on the 2013 MMA calendar. Well, I think it delivered. And as a result, we have a ton to talk about this week on the MMA hour. We're going three hours. We may even go nine hours. I run this place. They put a plaque outside the studio in honor of myself because I built this place.

It's true. I actually did. Built it with my own hands. That's why there's no back job, nothing. It's organic, as they like to say these days. A word that pretty much came out of nowhere. Last five years or so, no one was using organic 10 years ago. Anyway, point being, we have a lot to talk about on this week's show.

No time to waste. Let me first say that I noticed that I don't really introduce myself. Anyone notice that? I never actually say who I am, and maybe that's presumptuous on my part. But anyway, I'm Ariel Hawwani. I'll be with you for the next three or so hours. I'm joined in the back by New York Rick, Buzzkill Brennan, Will, Mike. We've got a full house back there.

And in the third hour, you'll hear from New York Rick. How did he do this past weekend? Wasn't as active as I thought he would be. So many fights. Guy bets on like two fights. There was maybe like 900 fights on the MMA docket. He bets on two. At UFC on Fuel TV 9, Victa had a great card.

one-fc, Belator, season finale. We'll talk about all of that in the third hour. We're also taking your questions, comments, using the hashtag the MMA hour, or you can leave them on the website, in the comments section below. And the pose of the day. By the way, we're giving out a prize.

Best question in the day gets a Halwani-Nose shirt. You know about that already. Best pose of the day. This week, it's the Uriah Favor Pose. Use the hashtag, no-shirt nation. Send it via Twitter. and you know what I'm talking about. No shirt nation. It's got to be Uriah Faber-esque. You don't have to go totally, you know, topless, but be creative.

And the best one gets a really great prize. One of our best. We'll talk about that in the third. Now, in the second hour, everyone asked, the second Connor McGregor won on Saturday. The world was asking us to get him on the show. Of course, we obliged. Connor McGregor, the man who defeated Marcus Brimidge in a little over a minute on Saturday in Stockholm, Sweden. one of our best guests ever. He stops by at around 240. Can't wait to have the notorious one back on the show. Hopefully, he's eating blueberries again this time.

Scott Jorgensen, he main events, the Ultimate Fighter's 17 finale this weekend in Las Vegas, Mandalay Bay Events Center. Scott Jorgensen versus Uriah Fabor, that's why we have the Uriah Fabor pose, another stacked weekend in the world of MMA coming up this weekend. Melvin Galard, he left the Blacksillians. He's now a member of the Grudge team in Colorado.

Not welcome at Jackson's. We'll find out. why talked to him about his upcoming fight against Mac Danzig. One of the stars of the weekend was Michelle Waterson, the karate-hadi. First time we have her on the show, she won the Invicta Adam Way title. She beat Jessica Panay, a great fight, a coming-out party, if you will. We'll have her on at 140. And then at 120, we'll talk to Misha Tade, who has a huge fight against Katzenegano this Saturday

at the Ultimate Fighter finale in Las Vegas. The winner will be a coach on Tough 18 opposite Rhonda Rouse. All right. All that is out of the way. Let us start with a true friend of the show, an OG, if you will. He's still in Stockholm, Sweden. I have no idea why. We'll find out he, of course, is Matt Matrione,

and he joins us via the magic of Skype. Matt, how are you? What's up, dude? How are you, man? You look like you're 12. Freshly shaven? That's why I don't really shave my beard that much. I usually try to leave a little something because I'm like a little baby face, you know?

Yeah, where are you right now? Ah, I'm somewhere in the world, you know, somewhere. Now, look, the question is, how come I can't see you? I feel like I'm just looking at a picture of myself. I'm vain and everything, but I'm not that vain. You know, that's up to the guys in the back, but at least we can see you, and that's most important. All right, what's going on, dude? No, but seriously, where are you right now?

Are you in Sweden? I am currently in, I am somewhere in Europe right now. Okay, you don't want to say. No, I'm getting, I'm collecting as many stamps on my passport as possible. Is this a... Should I be worried? Like, everyone I think has left Sweden after, or Europe, you know, the Americans. Should I be worried that you're still stuck over there? Maybe a little bit, a little bit.

I've got my fat friend Wood here. I got Chris Idle here and our buddy Cliff. So I'm in an okay hands. Not good hands. I'm an okay hands. Well, you're loving life, and I see some lovely ladies walking in back of you. This is a great time to be Matt Matrione. You had the big win.

Your first win since June of 2011. Can you explain to me how? how you won that fight? Because I've watched it 10 times. I still don't know how you finished Phil DeFries. I know what happened on the ground, but how did you get to the ground? You know what I mean, I really, I haven't watched it, dude.

I don't really know. I think that, you know, I know I threw, I kind of lunged. I saw him get rid of shoot, and I want to throw an uppercut into it. So I kind of lunged into him, but I don't know if it was my hip. I don't know if it was my right hand.

I don't know. I don't know if it just kind of caught him in an awkward position. I have no idea. I haven't seen it yet. Have you seen it? What are your thoughts? I said, I saw it like 10 times. It seems like he tried to go for a takedown and just

sort of rammed into you, and that knocked him out. They might have. I mean, I'm big bonedage, you know what I'm saying, bro? There was some talk that maybe an elbow hit him, but I really didn't see that. But nonetheless, you won. It was very impressive. I believe it was the fifth, according to fight metric,

fifth fastest knockout in heavyweight history. Did you know that? In UFC heavyweight history? I did not. I'm flattered that I made the top five. Very cool. You seem genuinely relieved after that. How nervous were you? Considering the two losses, considering the Cormier situation where you turned down the fight,

honestly, how much pressure did you feel going into that one? Well, you know, I wasn't nervous at all. I never get nervous. But it's like I definitely knew that my head was on the chopping block, you know, and it's like, look, you need to go perform. And I think that I think everybody that will acknowledge that I probably should have beaten Phil to freeze. I don't think, you know, people might have expected it to be that. quick, or via

knockout, but I should have won. So, you know, it was just, it was more relief. You know, it's a little bit of stress off my shoulders. But like, but now this is when the fun part begins. Okay, now we start getting the talent coming back and saying, okay, like, who are we going to get here? What's our gameplay going to be? And let's see if I can string together two in a row now.

Let's see what happens. And I think this will be the, the next fight coming up should be a lot of fun. And just to correct myself, you're in the top five. You're actually the fourth fastest. So congratulations. Number one is Duffy over Hague, your boy Duffy. Now, I heard, I got reports. You know, people tell me a lot of things that you seemed a little down this week,

or last week, I should say. Some people saw you at kebab shops with your hood on, just kind of keeping to yourself, not talking to anyone. Were you a little down going into the fight? No, no, no, not at all. Not at all. I just, that's the way I usually am on Fight Week. It's like, even when I fought Kimbo and I was with Pat Berry,

you know, we're out late at night just because, you know, that's our sleep habits. And we just walk around with their hoods on and kind of stay to ourselves. Don't really, don't involve too much and kind of keep to ourselves. That's it. Is that why you almost got arrested? No, man. That was really weird, the whole arresting thing.

So the store, if we have time for it, I was walking back from getting a kebab. I was wanting to, we had practiced late. It was a night before the fight. So we practiced at like 8.45 to about 10 o'clock. Lytle and I, we did some groundwork and some other stuff. and then I went upstairs, took a shower, did whatever, and then went to go get dinner, and it was about 11 o'clock, so all the restaurants are close.

I went over to the kebab shop, got a kebab, was on the way back, and stopped by 7-Eleven, got a bottle of water, and then somebody comes up from behind and touches me on my shoulder, and I didn't want to turn around because I didn't want to get, like, you know, jumped or whatever, so I kind of shrug him off and keep walking. And then somebody shows up to my right, and he says something that sounds like the word faggot, but I was wearing a pair of headphones.

so I take my headphones out and I was like, huh? And he said whatever that word was again. And I shoved him. I was like, get away from me, dude. I was like, you have no reason to fuck with me. Don't talk to me. Leave me alone. And I shoved him, you know, kind of away from me.

And then he showed me his badge. Well, that really doesn't mean anything to me because there's no reason for them to be messing with me. So I didn't know if it was a real badge or not. So I shoved him again. I was like, don't mess with me. I was like, don't mess with me. It's like, I'm going to my hotel.

Don't touch me again. And then another person came up to the left of me and showed me his badge. and then it was like, who's like, who are you, where you going? What are you doing? Again, ask fire and start to fire off these questions. And my response was the same thing. Like, look, you have no reason to mess with me at all. You have no reason to talk to me.

I have no reason to bother me. I'm not saying outside in the cold. You know, like, like, well, we stop people in Sweden. I'm like, well, you stop other people. Don't stop me because I'm not doing anything wrong. So now you see, I'm fine. I'm going to my hotel. And it's like, well, we thought you were somebody else.

I'm not somebody else. Me and I'm going to my hotel. Like, he's like, well, you're not going to go to the hotel. I was like, well, look, buddy, like, we're going to have a problem here. We can go to my hotel and you can talk to my boss about why I'm here and whatever else. It's like, but I'm not going to talk to people. I don't know who they are and for no reason whatsoever. And then it got a little bit escalated, you know.

And then some local media guy interrupted, like intervened. It was like, okay, look, let me help this situation out. And then the media I spoke Swedish to him, told him who I wasn't, what I was doing, and I wasn't doing anything wrong. And then literally the cops just walked away. What? Yeah. Did you look like someone that they were looking at?

for? Why you of all people? I don't know. And I don't care. There's no reason to bother, if I do, I have a bag with groceries in it and I'm walking to a hotel with a hoodie on. There's no reason to bother me whatsoever. None. And like, no reason to touch me. There's nothing like that.

Especially, dude, it's a day before a fight. I'm already in kill mode, you know? I don't need to be talking to anybody else. That's not my friend. Other than that, how was your experience in Sweden? I mean, mostly if I'm looking at your record here, I know you fought in Montreal, but You weren't one of those guys that the UFC sent you overseas.

I'm pretty sure, yeah, you never fought outside of North America. So what was your experience like? You know, it was good, dude. You know, it's interesting because I was worried about the time change, you know. Six hours ahead and, you know, a little bit of time on an airplane. But to be honest, my sleep never really got too normal, but it didn't really matter because even if I stayed out, because a couple of the first nights, what, Tuesday night, Wednesday night,

Thursday night, those first three nights, I was awake till like seven to eight in the morning. I was just awake all night long to sit and laying in bed. But like, it doesn't really matter because I was asleep until, you know, two, three o'clock in the afternoon. I would get up, bounce around a little bit, catch a little bit of a nap and then go train at like 845, 9 o'clock. So like as long as I felt good when it was time to fight, like, you know, like my, like I figured I'd be fighting around 9.30. So as long as it was good for me at that time, I couldn't care less about the time I went to bed or what time I woke up because all that matter. was I felt good at fight time. That's it. Is it possible that a man who is neither

Brazilian or black is the man that gets the black zillings back on track? That's the most impressive black zillion win in many months. Well, you know, man, I appreciate that. But honestly, I don't agree that that's the most impressive black zane win. I think that

Anthony's fight against under Alaskia was really impressive. I think Anthony looked great. You know, I think Ryan Laflair looked really good also. You know, I mean, for his first UFC fight coming out there going three rounds, I think he really got down. You know, but I think that we're in a spot, we're going to make a run again. You know, it's just, you know, we had some people that took some fights on short notice. We had some guys that, you know, weren't really black, black zillion team members that were training with us that fought under the name.

And that kind of added into the, you know, our losing streak per se. But, you know, hey, if I got to be that guy, that's cool. But honestly, I didn't start it because Ryan Laflair did. So you're still all in. You're still a part of the team. we're still proud to be a part of the team. It's still working for you. Yeah, for sure, man. The team's been great to me. Great to me. Glenn Robinson's been fantastic. He's a really good manager. It's a great team. Coach Henry Hooft. He's exceptional. He's my striking

coach. George Santiago has been fantastic. And I don't know if it's been no, I don't know if it's been said yet, but we just hired a super duper big name, extremely qualified wrestling coach. Extremely qualified. Let me guess. It hasn't been out. It hasn't been out. there, but I'm going to take a guess, okay? Is his name Kenny Monday? His name is Kenny Monday. How smart am I?

Wow. Has it been announced yet or no? No, no. I just felt like that would be the perfect fit for your team. Okay. Well, I don't know if I should. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

It has been announced. It has been announced. Okay, right on. So, yeah. So we have coach Monday, and I'm like, dude, he's awesome. He ran, I was, I've been part of one of his practices. And, dude, it was a grind. It was brutal.

And it was really difficult and stressful. And it was exactly the way. way a wrestling practice should be. So I think that we're starting to do the right things again. And you know, you talked about this on the show famously, and by the way, we're going to get to the Mitreel minute in a second. People have been asking for it. And by the way, I mean, that was a perfect opportunity

to give a shout out. What's my fat friend here? What's up? What's up? Hey, man, how are you? He got a shout out. He got a shout out in the post-fight interview, right? Yeah, that's my fat friend would. That I wanted people to slap and I would have bought him a beer for it. But here's the thing. I mean, that was a perfect opportunity

to give props to the Mitreo minute. You beat a guy in under a minute, and yet once again, you forgot us on the biggest stage of the mall. Dude, I forgot to thank my coach Henry Hoof. I forgot to thank my Robinson, but I remembered to translate with Chris. I think that's the biggest point.

That was good. Finally, we could understand what you're saying. But I wanted to ask you, you talked about in an interview a few months back, financially you were going through some trouble. How much does this help you, this win, to get back on track? Oh, it does. It's huge.

But honestly, man, like, I live very conservatively as it is. So, like, I'm still doing well for my fight against Roy. So, like, it's great, but it adds, you know, puts money in the bank and adds a little bit of comfort to my life. But, like, it's not like the dire straits that it was before. It's all right. That is good to hear. Okay. You got something for us?

It's been a while. What do you got? I do. I've got some fire to throw out today. Am I going to get fired? If you guys... You might. You might.

It's pretty good. But it's all current, up-to-date stuff. This is straight off the pen of real life today. All right. Here we go. Mittrio Minute. It's back. Okay.

Well, the Matured minute. So, first of I'd like to start off with, and I got to read it because I write it down, you know? No problem. No problem. And there's another one here, like, all my stuff. Okay. So with this whole Gusseson debacle, there was a lot of pressure on us to perform. and I think this card really delivered.

As far as I know, we had three submissions and three knockouts, and that's not a bad night. And especially with the finishes like mine and Ross that did not get knockout of the night, that really said something. So good job card. I'm proud of everybody that was on that card. And you're right, the McGregor kid, Connor McGregor, came out and did work.

He looked fantastic. So, you know, great to see him in there and doing work, and I'm glad he got the knockout. It's been great to get the money, but, you know, good for him. And then talking about submissions, how about my girl Thug Rose, Pat Berry's girlfriend. I'm flying armboard in 12 seconds. Unbelievable.

Very impressive. I'm just saying I'm really impressive. I was waiting for the punchline. All right. So then I'm going to start off with my lightest joke, and then I'm going to get him pretty aggressive. Okay. So Fador says that only God can get him to fight again. Well, apparently God had the wrong Emiliano number on speed dial,

because Alexander has officially left the priesthood to go back to fighting. after just a few months. That's true. So we had to change God's number on speed dial for that. Okay. Second, so it felt great to get back into winning, this is going to get aggressive. Okay.

So it felt great to get back into winning ways, and it all happened so quickly, but it's funny how in the heat of a hectic moment, you can have a full rational thought. When I was starting my ground and pound against Phil, I thought about my options, and I immediately thought that since he's a Lloyd Irvin student, he's definitely knows how to apply the rape choke,

but he probably didn't know how to defend it. So I was actually thinking about going for that because he might not know how to defend a rape joke. I can't react to that. I figured so. I can't see your face, so I can't really see what's going on. No, don't worry, I'm here. Shaking my head.

Then immediately after, I thought, well, obviously, Lloyd Irman knows how to defend rape concerns as well, but there's no possible way that Phil could use the erectile as a functioning excuse in the cage. Come on, man. Come on. Is this thing on? He tried to beat the bus a carrot.

Is this thing on? No, we're on. All of a sudden, you win a fight, and you got your swag back. It's good to see it, at least. So I was watching, I got to read, so I'm sorry I'm not looking at the screen. No, no, it's okay. I was watching television. Normally, I deprive myself of all, like, things that are nice during camp.

Like, I say in as nasty of a house as I can possibly stand, I sleep on the floor most of the time. I don't watch TV or cable. So I was watching TV during the last week of my camp. And the classic film Silence of the Lambs came on. And I was amazed at how true life really, how true the adage of life imitates art really is. The lead antagonist, Buffalo Bill, is a woman beater that pretends to be a woman.

Well, maybe instead of being the queen of swords, Fallon Fox should consider being the king of the buffaloes. How did I know you were going down on that route? So, that's my favorite joke I might have ever written, ever. So we've all heard about him by now. So I check this fight videos, and holy shit, I have not seen a man be the woman like that since Chris Brown beat Rihanna. That is exceptional how he just beats innocent, unknowing women like that.

Incredible. And finally, my last joke is, since he's obviously looking for any way to break or avoid the rules regarding fighting, if he ever fights again, which I hope he doesn't. But if he ever fights again, it loses to a woman, is he going to charge that woman with a hate crime since she's imposing on his freedom as a tranny?

Oh, my God. Why do you hate Falun Faw so much, and why do you keep calling she a he? Because she's not a he. He's a he. He's chromosomally a man. He had a jubes. He had a gender change, not a sex change.

He's still a man. He's a man for 31 years. 31 years. That's a couple years younger than I am. He was a man. And six years of taking performance, dehancing drugs you think is going to change, all that? That's ridiculous.

That is a lying, sick, sociopathic, disgusting freak. And I mean that, because you lied on your license to beat up women. That's disgusting. You should be embarrassed yourself. And in effect, the Florida licensed him, or licensed him because California licensed him or whoever the hell did it, It's an embarrassment to us as fighters, as a sport, and we all should protest that. So the woman that's fighting him, you know, props to you, I hope you beat his ass,

and I hope that he gets blackballed and never fights again, because that's disgusting, and I'm appalled by that. All right, fair enough. Wow, this just took a turn to Sirius Town. It did, it did, but I'm glad I can make fun of him a little bit because he's obviously got some mental issues and wants to beat up on women, but Joe Rogan and everybody else that threw heat on him. feel is correct, and I got on my little podium, so there we go. Cheers. And it's only my first Oh, that's it. Hey, by the way, one last thing before we go. Who do you want next? I'm going to do it really, man. It doesn't matter. It's whoever the UFC thinks appropriate for me,

you know, and then we'll get down. I'm done picking and choosing. I'm done being in a prima don't, I'm ready to go back to me and do and do whatever they tell me to do. So you're humble Matt Matreo now? Oh, I don't know if I go so far to say that. but it's good to see you back it's good to see you with a smile on your face you're back on the winning track it feels like a long time since we got to talk about a win here and of course you were out for a year or so

and what better way to win 19 seconds right that's what it was freak knockout it was crazy sounds like my sex life absolutely fantastic Matt it is good to see you and be safe out there I don't know where you are it seems like there's a lot of people there you're drinking a beer so you seem to be in good spirits

but be safe out there because we're worried about you thank you very much by the way This is my weighing shirt. It says bacon. It's meat candy. And where can people get it? I don't know. My butter.

My guy butter got it for me. All right. That's good to know. Way to profit off that. What to push it, right? Exactly. Matt, thank you so much. We'll talk to you soon.

Safe travels out there. Thanks, brother. Appreciate it, man. There he is. Matt Mitreone stopping by from Parts Unknown Europe, getting a little serious on us. But he did win.

So I guess we give him the platform. Didn't know he would go that route. And I know a lot of you agree. I actually wrote an article about Fallon Fox. I spoke to her manager, Brett Ashley, on Friday. Wanted to know if she was going to try out for the Ultimate Fighter season 18 because those tryouts are a week from today in Las Vegas. But it's a moot point because she's 37 and the cutoff is 35. So she's not going to try out. But Brett did tell that they're hoping to get a shot neither in Victor or the UFC. It might be tough in the UFC for the obvious reasons, but still, 2 and O.

She's supposed to fight May 24th in the CFA semifinals of their Featherway tournament. She is moving down to 135, but it's going to be tough at 37 years old to make your UFC debut with the baggage. We haven't really weighed in on the whole Found Fox story here because, you know, to be honest, I just don't know. I just don't know enough about the topic. And what was amazing was I put out this article about her wanting to fight for Invicta. And the response is I got, gosh, this really brings out a side of people. And people feel very strongly about it.

And, you know, as they should, that's good. But it really brings out a tough side of people. Well, I don't think they'll have to worry about her fighting the UFC. That's my hunch. But I think Invicta is a viable outlet. I think they would look at it. I think. I don't know. Let's see what happens. And that fight on May 24th, by the way, is not 100%. It's in Florida, but the commission over there, the Florida Boxing Commission, still has to either approve or deny the fight once the card is submitted to them.

According to Brett, her manager, it hasn't been submitted. And by the way, in case you're wondering, Todd Duffy, number one, seven-second KO, according to fight metric, UFC 102, Arlofski over Buantello, 15-second KO, UFC 55, Anthony Hardunk, over, Colin Robinson, 17-second knockout at UFC 80. Then Matt Matreone is fourth. This is heavyweight division, of course, at UFC on Field TV 9. And then the fifth, quickest one of all time. Roy Nelson over Stefan Strove back at UFC Fight Night 21.

That was 39 seconds. Now, we're talking about Tough 18. We're talking about the tryouts next week. Well, we already know that Ronda Rousey is going to be one half of the coaching duo on the upcoming season of Tough. We're about to find out who the second half will be come Saturday. night. It's the second women's fight in UFC history. It's a massive

fight for both fighters. And we have one of the competitors involved. Another friend of the show. We've got Misha Tatea on the phone, I believe, not Skype. Misha, are you there? Hi, I'm here. Hey, how are you? I was expecting we'd see you in your bunker. Your typical Skype bunker

that we usually see you from. No, not this time. I'm actually already in Vegas getting kind of climatized and trading out here a little bit to the last a little over the last week. Oh, wow. You've been there for a week already?

Almost, a couple days, actually, but I'll be here all this week. Obviously, I just wanted to come out and get adjusted. And I've got so many friends out here and good places to train and figured, why not? It's a little higher in altitude than where I was training. So I figured, yeah, head on out. Now, before we get into the interview, let me just throw it out there. Are you still mad at me? I sense that you were pissed at me.

After the interview we did at UFC 157, you thought I took your words out of context, not impressed, impressed. I mean, we have the clip here. I don't think we need to replay it, but there seemed to be some tension. Am I wrong here or am I accurate? We always have that love-hate relationship, don't we, are you? That's fine. As long as you come back and we could talk about it and not hold a grudge.

For sure, for sure, always. I'm used to it. I know how you all. Whoa, what's that supposed to mean? Well, I mean, you're good at your job, you know. You've got to take whatever said and make it more alive with than it is. I will admit, you never said the word not impressed, but I gave you guys the opportunity.

You didn't say one positive thing about her. In a 140 character tweet, I took away from that. You weren't impressed with her performance. Was that inaccurate? That's not true. That's not true. No, no, no. I said, actually, her arm bar was very impressive.

I said almost annoyingly oppressive. That's what I said, impressive. Because I said because she can keep doing it every time, even though everyone knows that she's going to do it, how can it not be impressive? However, I said that they're all homes that I noticed again in the game, and it gave me confidence. Should we look at it?

I really don't think you said that we're impressive. Do we need to look at the clip, or should we just let it go at this point? Go look at it. We go off the whole interview. Okay. All right. Eric, do we have the clip? Ariel Hawwani alongside the next two women in line.

The women who will face each other on April 13th at the Ultimate Fighter finale, Misha Tate, Katzengano. Let's start with you, Misha. We just watched Ronda Rousey defeat Liz Karmouche. You know Rhonda well. What do you think of her performance? It's pretty much what I expected, but she did get a little sloppy there, giving her backup, which is a habit I have picked up on a little bit.

And, you know, I got her back in the first fight, and I guarantee you if I get in the second one, I'm going to rip her face off. So you think if you were in that position, Liz's dominant position, you finish her. 100%. Kat, what do you think of her performance? I agree. I feel like there's a lot that you can do to deal with the things that she puts out there.

It's exactly what I expected. Correct me from wrong from both of you here. You don't seem all that impressed with her performance. It's impressive because it's the first female fight in the UFC. That's Kat, by the way. I'm very proud that we're all part of it. But, you know, I think that there's a lot of holes in the game that can be filled and there's time we'll tell. So did Liz surprise you?

Was she tougher than you thought she would be? I knew Liz was going to be incredibly tough, and I thought a lot of people were underestimating her, and she definitely brought some things to the table no one else has. And she really did a great job. She came out there with tenacity. She came out there with heart, and that's something that you can't account for in MMA. You know what I mean?

You can say, oh, yeah, someone has a great right hand. Someone has a great umbra. But you can't measure heart, and she has a lot of it, and I'm very impressed with her. Kat, does this... All right, all right, that's enough of that. Then we just talk about the fight. Misha, are you still there?

I'm still here. Do I get an apology? You said you thought Liz was impressive. You didn't say Rhonda was impressive. You said she was sloppy. Well, that's a small little segment. I can swear at something in that interview. Oh, I don't want to waste your time, but trust me on this one.

And I felt bad, and I rewatched it many times. You weren't impressed. And that's okay. And that's better. Look, you may get a chance to be on the Ultimate Fighter with her. Trust me, you won't be impressed with her then either. No, no, no. Honestly, I am impressed that she can do.

the same thing over and over and over, but it gets irritating, you know, and I want to put a stop to it. So, I mean, we all know Ron, that's not my favorite person in the world, so, you know, I have to credit work credit to do. I mean, do I still, do I like her outside the cage deal in the day? No. But, you know what I mean? She did it again. I mean, it is impressive. We can't take that away from her. Did you know when you came to the UFC when the cat fight was first put together? Did you know that this was going to be at stake, a spot coaching on the Ultimate Fighter opposite Rhonda? No, I didn't. When did you find out?

I found out about an hour before Dana announced it. He called me up and said, hey, just so you know, I'm going to announce this and don't tell anybody and watch, you know, watch. And I said, okay. And I said, my first question was, so coaching guys or girls? And he said both. And I was like, what? You have to be crazy. And he said, yeah.

And I was like, you better have mandatory birth control and lots of condoms available and stuff because I have a feeling it's going to get crazy. And I said, getting knocked up isn't very, you know, very good for your career as a girl. He said, yeah, I know. It's worse than getting knocked out. Wow. That was kind of it. You want to be a part of this? This interests you?

I do. I'm excited for it. I think it's going to be wild. I have a feeling it's going to kind of be like real world meets the tough. And I don't know. I have this funny little idea or joke, actually, that all the girls are going to be like lesbians. They're hooking up with all the girls and all the boys are going to go on there with hope,

thinking, like, you know, oh, we're the first guys that are going to have chicks on the show. It's going to be awesome. And then they're going to be like, you know, those boys are loud. I think I saw you on Twitter. You kind of asked the other female athletes out there that aren't signed in the UFC. Who's coming to the tryouts next Monday? Did you get any interesting names? Any big names?

Because I think this could be one of the best seasons yet, because they've never tapped into that division. So we could see some huge names tryout possibly. Yeah, I know Roxanne Modifery. She's a really old-school veteran. She's coming out all away from Japan. Yeah. She's coming out to tryouts.

We also have Juliana Pena, Pena, excuse me, who is one of my main training partners for this training camp. She's here in Vegas already with me, and she's trying out. So you guys are going to be shocked by her. She's incredible. And she's crazy.

Quite frankly, she's nuts. So if they want some drama and good stuff, they'll definitely put her on. Also, Julian Liberger, He's a twin, and identical twin, actually. I wish her sister was pro so they could both child. Oh, yeah. You know, the brother duo did on the tough 14.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's kind of interesting aspect. But, yeah, I mean, there's a lot. Oh, Sarah Maraz is also coming out, beefcake. So we already said that if, you know, she gets on and I'm the coach, she's going to be on my team and we're going to give everyone dessert. Beefcake, Cupcake, yeah. That all works.

Now, you spoke of training partners. You've been training at the lab, which is obviously made famous by Benson Henderson, the UFC Lightway Champion. How did you end up there, and is that your new home? No, it is. Not my new home, but I ended up there because Benson and I are actually from the same hometown. We grew up about maybe 10 or 15 minutes away from each other, although I didn't know that until, you know, I discovered him in MMA.

But he was always inviting me down there to train, and I wanted to train somewhere that had a similar climate to Vegas. Obviously, in Washington, it's still very cold. And so I decided, you know, what a better time than now to come down and check it out. And it was a really cool experience. I definitely got a lot of great training. And the atmosphere was awesome. You know, obviously, Ben's got a very positive outlook on everything.

And he makes training there fun. So I really did enjoy it. honestly, did you ever catch yourself looking past Kat once this happened? The hoopla being opposite Rhonda, your rival, tough, you know, that great platform. Did you ever catch yourself? Wait a second. I still have to fight. I still have to, you know, UFC debut, a lot of, a lot involved in that.

Mandalay Bay, this is not just a small show at the Hard Rock or a Strike Force show. Do you have to sort of slow your role for a second? No, you know, I really, I'm proud of myself. I felt like I did a great job keeping myself grounded because I'm never the kind of person. to get excited about something that, you know, I know that there's something that I have to do before that. So I'm not going to be all excited about the ultimate fighter and excited about Rhonda when I still have, you know, a huge obstacle in my way and not for Kat. There is no Ronda. There is no fighter without beating Kat. So, I mean, anytime I find myself even thinking about the ultimate

fighter, I immediately switch gears and I start picturing Kat Zangano, the fight, beating her, because that's what is the most important to me. This is the calm before the storm. It doesn't really get all. all that hyped up on a Monday, but is it somewhat surreal for you? Because to me, honestly, this sort of feels like the main event on Saturday. You know, no disrespect to Yariah and Scott, no disrespect to the tough finale, but this has the most at stake, in my opinion, especially what's to come. You're fighting again, Mandalay Bay, Vegas, your UFC debut, you've been in this sport a long time.

Does it feel surreal at this point? You know, a little bit, it does. I'm not going to lie, because it's just like I can't believe that this is actually. happening. There's a part of me that's still in a little bit of disbelief because it's been such a big dream for such a long time. But it's like, wow, you know, it's actually here and it's here sooner than I anticipated. And I'm really excited. And, you know, I know that I have to make the most of it and I'm 110% ready for that. Are you the kind of fighter that gets nervous before fights? And if so, do you think you'll be more nervous going into this one?

Pretty calm fighter, actually, before fights. I just remind myself, any time that I get nervous. I mean, I get nerves for sure. I think if it didn't, if I didn't get nerves, then it would mean that it didn't mean enough to me, you know, or matter enough. But it does. Be a little bit nervous.

But, again, I just remind myself that I'm here to have fun. And that's really all it boils down to. At the end of the day, I want to go home with a win. But even more so, you know, I want to go out there and lay it all in line and just have a good time. That's why I started doing this for. It was because I enjoy it. and I never want to make it into something I don't enjoy again.

By the way, wasn't Katz supposed to go train at the lab? Did you kind of like bump her out of there, or did she decide not to go and then you kind of walked in? Well, it's kind of a funny story. I want to go down there and train, but I haven't solidified anything, you know, like for sure, but it had been talked about. And then all of a sudden she just showed up there and was like when I was in Japan with Brian. And she said, hey, you know, I moved out here. This is where I want to train.

And so John Crouch was kind of like, oh, you know, my hands are kind of tied. You know, the girl's here, obviously. She wants to train. So sorry, you know, but she's already here. And I said, no problem. And then I came back and we wanted to do UFC 157. And then she left for whatever reason. I'm not exactly sure.

But she was down there for like a few days, I guess, not real long time. she went back home to be with her family and whatnot and now the door was open so I went down there and I don't know kind of an advantage I guess on my part because they got to see her train for for a few days yeah some of her training partners

I worked with the same training partners and I don't know I think that's going to be a little bit of an advantage you mentioned Japan you were involved in a bit of controversy over there I don't even know if you you probably know about it I knew that I was coming I knew Well, you know, well, then I'm doing my job then, hopefully.

You were caught, you know, on camera. They showed you in between rounds. Your boyfriend, Brian's fighting, and you told him to Coast going into the third, and then he loses the fight. And a lot of people say, well, what kind of advice is that? Why should a cornerman or a current woman, I should say, ever say something like that? Can you defend yourself? Why was that the right thing to say?

I agree. I have to admit, you know, where I made a mistake for sure, it was terrible. advice, and I know that at any time I've ever watched someone corner or whatnot. You know, if they say anything somewhere, I'm like, you know, never tell a fighter that, absolutely. And I have to take responsibility for that. You know, I'm not a professional cornerman. I do actually very rarely.

I don't coach a lot. And when you get the heat of the moment, you have 60 seconds. Sometimes, I mean, really is really less than that. I mean, you're rushing to get in the cage, and then you've got to get out of the cage. It's like, you've got 45 seconds to say something to calm the fighter down or to say something, you know what I mean, that you think is going to, like, help them. And my thought process going into the third round was I really felt that he won the first two rounds. But even so, you know, I know I shouldn't have went in there and said that.

But he did go in there with a pretty serious back injury. And the last couple weeks of training, there was a point where he wasn't even able to walk. And I was afraid for his conditioning. And I was like, look, I really think that you have the first two rounds of the bag. This guy is going to come out here knowing he has to finish the fight. And I believe Mizigaki's corner told him, you got to go out there and knock this kid out. You got to go out there and finish him because it looked to everyone like he was down to, you know what I mean? Two to one on the scorecard.

And I didn't want Brian to go out there and do anything overzealous. I didn't want him to feel pressure like, oh, he has to go out there and knock this guy. I wanted him to be smart. And so basically saying just close to Brian is like just relax and let it come naturally. Don't go out there and do anything stupid. And, I mean, the first thing he did was go out there and freaking throw bombs. So, I mean, it's not like it really, I don't feel like he coasted that round anyways. But, you know, he got into a good exchange, and he actually kind of got a little bit wobbled at one point.

And it kind of, you know, I mean, that's what I didn't want to happen. So that was my thought process behind it. And I wasn't the only corner person. You know, we kind of discussed that in between the round. So I was just the one miced up. And that's just kind of where it led. So, you know, I've apologized to Brian. and I definitely won't make that mistake again,

but it's just a heated moment, and that's what happened. Will you continue to corner him? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so this is not an indictment on your coaching skills. If you get on the ultimate fighter, you won't tell your fighters to coast when they may not be up. We not. You know, there's just more than people realized played into that,

and the injury and my fear of his cardio, which is something that I should know let be a factor, you know what I mean, was just part of my reasoning in that. Okay, last thing before we let you go, and we do appreciate the time. I know it's a busy schedule out there in Las Vegas. We haven't talked much about Kat, the fighter, and a lot of fighters, or a lot of fans, I should say, don't know much about her. She's making her UFC debut, never fought in Strike Force before. How are you beating her on Saturday?

Well, I think I have a lot of things that give me advantages. You know, but I can't say that they're going to help me win the fight for sure. But I think the fact that this is going to be such an easy adjustment going into the UFC being that I have fought for Strike Force that's headlined a card. I'm used to cameras. I'm used to everything, the whole system, the pictures. I know all the faces. I know Sean. I know Dana.

I know, I mean, Lorenzo, I've met them all. It's going to walk in there and still just like a Strike Force part to me. And also I've cornered. I've been to a ton of UFC events, so I know exactly how they're run just the same as they ran Strike Force. It's a little bit bigger. That's a huge advantage. I noticed she was pretty nervous at the 157, even when we were doing the interviews together. You know, she just seemed really, like, didn't know what to do with herself.

And so that's going to be a part of it. But really, once I get inside the cage, I think all that's going to go out the window, and I think Cap's going to fight hard and I'm going to fight hard. And how I'm going to beat her, I believe, is just being the more mature, more seasoned fighter, making some of the smarter decisions during scramble. Because I really think we're going to have a lot of those. I know she was a very forward-style fighter. I'm a pretty forward-style fighter.

and that's going to lead to an exciting fight. I really believe that we're going to have a lot of exchanges. We're going to have a lot of ups. We're going to have a lot of downs. We're going to be on the ground. We're going to be on our feet. We're going to be scrambling around. And I think being able to have more experience in those exchanges and those scrambles,

ending in better positions or being able to catch a punch or a submission off of something, I think is where my advantage is going to be. Well, I can't wait for it. Like I said, I think it's the unofficial main event. I remember being in attendance covering your service. covering your strike force debut against Elena Maxwell back in 2008. Kind of cool to see you now. Fighting in the UFC with this big opportunity ahead of you, possibly if you beat Katzengano.

Going to be a great fight, looking forward to it. Always appreciate the time. And I'm happy we sort of, even though I think I won and you didn't apologize, I think we made progress here. I was given the benefit of the doubt. It's probably about 50 interviews down there, and I know at least one of them. A few of them said she was impressive. All right. Fair enough.

Good luck to you, Misha. to be walking on. All right. Good luck. Can't wait for it, and we'll talk to you soon. All right. Take care.

There she is. Misha Tate, stopping by. She faces Katzengano on Saturday. Mandalay Bay Events Center, they're not fighting at the Poms,

the Hard Rock, those typical tough finale venues because Hard Rock was booked. Some band is going to be there. So they're at the Manila Bay. This is a big deal.

And you have the finals of the ultimate fighter, Gabriel Gonzaga fighting Travis Brous And then the main event is Uriah Faber versus Scott Jorgensen. Second hour, Scott Jorgensen is stopping by. And again, give us your best. Hashtag, no shirt nation pose.

Winter gets a great prize. We'll talk about that in the third hour. Now, as I mentioned, it was a stacked weekend in the world of mixed martial arts on Thursday, Beltor had a great card. Saturday, the UFC had a great card. Friday morning, one FC had a very solid card over in Singapore. Friday night was all about Invicta. and dare I say, and we have a poll, by the way, on the MMA hour post right now,

and you should go vote because I'm very curious about this. It's the people's poll. Click on the link. It's towards the bottom. I asked you which event you like the best this weekend. Belator, 1FC, Invicta, UFC. And I had a feeling that Invicta would win. And quite frankly, I think it may have been the best card of the weekend.

And it was highlighted by a great title fight, a great main event fight. and the person who won the Adam Weight belt, the person who defeated Jessica Pinaid, joins us right now. She is joining us for the first time on the MMA hour. She is Michelle Waterson. Michelle, how are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm doing great. It's great to have you on the show for the first time.

Congratulations on the big win on Friday night. We're less than 72 hours removed from it. Are you still in cloud nine because you seem to be very emotional? You were in the sky. It was such a huge win for you. How are you feeling now? you hit it right on the spot I'm definitely on cloud 9

I can't believe in overwhelmed with emotions I got the sense and correct me if I'm wrong correct me if you felt like you were getting a different vibe I got the sense that the experts the pundits the fans a lot of people weren't picking you going into this fight did you notice that

yeah definitely I felt that way but all throughout the camp but I just had to you know, force myself to just stay focused and believe in myself and my abilities. And as long as I trained hard that I knew I would be able to come out on top. Why do you think that was? Why do you think very few people were giving you a chance?

I don't know. I really don't know. You know, I've been fighting for about six years now. Maybe it's because they had a baby. Maybe it's because before I thought I was a hooters girl. I couldn't tell you. But, you know, I grew up doing martial arts. been a part of my life for a very long time, and I'm glad I was able to show everybody that

this is something that I love to do and that I'm very passionate about and, you know, that I'm serious about. Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, we just had Misha Tadon, and she's about to fight in the UFC, and, you know, you came on 2007 right around the time that women's MMA, you know, with Gina on Showtime and, you know, Cyborg was coming up, and Misha's slowly coming up, She was on Strike Force. And we started to see some names and get familiarized with women's MMA. And then you came on.

You started off a little slow, two and two. And you have the great nickname, the karate-hadi. Obviously, you had the great look and great vibe, all that stuff. And it just kind of felt like, okay, here's someone who's trying to capitalize, you know, clever nickname looks good. So guys will be interested in seeing her fight. But she'll never really be a champion. She'll never really be like a major star, a top of her division.

Did you think that you would end up this way? Or was this kind of just like a fun little thing that you wanted to try to. out? No, I mean, it wasn't something, fun little thing that I wanted to try out, but I definitely feel like you said exactly it, you know, I just feel like everybody's like, oh, yeah, you know, she's doing it for the fun of it or whatnot if she can do it. But, I mean, if I decide to do something, I'm going to, I'm going to try to go to the top. There's no, there's no in between, you know. and so I definitely feel that I kind of was able to prove myself this Friday. When did you get the sense that you weren't just the karate-hadi that people were noticing you

because of what you did inside the cage and started to take you seriously? You know what? I don't know. The truth is when I moved out here to Albuquerque to train with Coach Jackson and Coach Wink, and I started training with all my teammates out here, I kind of stopped worrying about what everybody else was thinking. And the truth is the most that I cared about with my teammates and my family and that they knew where my heart was at, you know.

And once I got the acceptance from the coaches and my teammates, and, you know, that's what mattered to me the most. But it's great to be able to have some more fans on my side and kind of see that I am a serious athlete. Did you notice at any point, you know, because I'm sure online you get people hating on you for the same reasons I just brought up and now they're starting to come around

now they're your fans now they're so happy for you do you notice that shift you do you pay attention to that stuff I don't you know this whole this whole fight camp I I stayed off the computer my mom was on the computer more than I was you know

checking the stats and looking at people's comments but that stuff just really messes with my head and you know I'm a real personal person and and an emotional person, and, you know, and I don't like to hear that people don't like me. You know, I'm a people person. I'm a pleaser. I want people to like me. And so, you know, I just stay away from that and I just try to stay focused. And if you like me, you like me. If you don't, hopefully you will now.

So that's how easy. Would you ever consider dropping the karate-hadi nickname? No, it works, you know. It fits. It wasn't something that I had to. picked for myself, but it's catchy and it fits. And, you know, if it works, you know, if it's not broken, why fix it? And by the way, I'm not condoning you dropping it. I'm just curious if now you feel like, oh, I'm the champion.

I should have a more serious nickname. I think you should keep it. I think it works. It fits, as you mentioned. So just to clear that out, I think it's good to have a gimmick, if you will. Yeah, for sure. Now, who gave you that nickname? Yeah, I'll take it.

Well, when I was working for Hooters, I was out in, I went out doing a photo shoot, and I met this guy from bikini.com, and he wanted me to be on his website, but each of his girls were themed. It was like the Creschen, Russian, and the sports fanatic, and this and that, and he found out that I did martial arts. He said, how cool would it be if we themed you, the karate-hadi. So we did a photo shoot around that theme, and, you know, so I, I'm on the website, bikini.com, and I took my first pro fight in Colorado,

and the promoter asked me if I had a nickname. I told him no. So he Googled my name, and that's the first thing that popped up, so he used it, and it just stuck. Man, that guy, are you still friends with that guy? The guy who came up with the guy from Hooters. bikini.com. Yeah, you know, we tweet here every now and then, you know, and keep in touch. All right.

Well, I think he deserves maybe a dollar or two. I mean, he's been a big part of who you are, your career, very much associated with that name. Or not? I'm sure he's getting tons of hits on his left side now. Oh, because it's still up. Yeah. Oh, okay.

I understand. All right. Well, maybe people can, if they want to do some of their own research, they can do that after the show's over. Let's talk about the fight. First off, I noticed I obviously early that morning

I was watching Shinyeoki fight for 1-FC and I noticed you went with the Shinayoki-esque grappling tights which I don't think you had in your last fight for Invicta

why'd you go that route? My outfit was that was very last minute we had a custom outfit made and put out for me and I thought it would just be cool to have like you know some longer pants

with some designs and stuff like that And I had a whole cool shirt made out. But when it got sent in, it was like three sizes too big. And I just kind of had to go with it. So the shorts, the pants that I had were the longer pants. And then I had to just wear a regular underarmor and sew my sponsors on there last minute. So that wasn't my original, like, outfit. But, you know, I just, I thought, why not?

It was a change. What a pain to me ask that is. I'm sure you didn't have to do all that, right? Yes. Oh, yeah, I did. Oh, wow. You didn't have like a manager or your mom. Okay, well, that's what mom's for.

Was she at the fight? Yeah, she was at the fight with my little baby. How old's your baby? She's two now. So she was actually watching you fight? Does she have any idea what's actually going on that you're getting punched in the face? Oh, yeah. She's in the crowd and she's on, Mommy Fight, Mommy Fight.

And after the fight, we're in the car driving back home, and she's like, Mommy, you got mad, huh? Wow. So you're okay with her seeing you in that position? Oh, yeah. She's in the gym all the time, and she understands this is my job. You know, when I get up in the morning to go to practice, I tell her I'm going to work, and she knows that I'm coming to the gym to train, you know? You took a hiatus when you had your daughter.

Are you looking to have more kids, which means you may have to take other time off in the future? I do want more children, but it really depends on how my, you know, how my career goes and what happens in these next couple of years. Because, you know, I do want to fulfill my dreams and show, you know, show my daughter and if I do have children in the future that, you know, you can go after your dreams. And it just, you know, you just have to pick and choose when to do the right things. What was interesting about the fight watching it and reading things on Twitter and whatnot, it felt like, oh, at first, like I said, a lot of people weren't giving you a shot. And then after the first round, it was like, wow, not only did Michelle win that fight, but this is very competitive. It was a great, technically, it was a great fight, technically sound. It was not to say that we don't expect that out of women's MMA fights, but it was just an all-around great fight.

Arguably the best fight of the weekend. And then, you know, you were in that tricky spot with the arm bar, and eventually you had your moment. between the first and second round. And I know Greg and Mike, and they're so good at this, and people talk about them being so good at this so much. But what were they telling you as far as just to build on this and not lose your momentum? Because you looked amazing in that first round

and kind of surprised a lot of people. Yeah, you know, the first thing Coach Jackson always had me do is breathe because sometimes I forget to breathe. But he's, you know, having me take a couple deep breaths. And he, you know, he was just telling me, that when she just pushes me up against the cage not to let her you know reverse the situation and coach wink was he was really wanting me to land that overhand and he was just like peanut you can do it just commit you know make sure you take that angle and land it you know so um that's what they were

telling me and um yeah i know the fight just kind of takes has a mind of its own and it just takes over how did you get caught in the arm bar obviously you didn't tap but in that position and how did you get out of it? Well, she had me mounted for a pretty good amount of time and she was ground and pounding. And so I was, you know, I was trying to everything to try to get out of that position. And she was doing a great job of holding me down and picking her shots. And I just kept moving, kept moving. And, you know, once we were scrambling, I think she was thinking, all right, it's time to go for a submission.

because I kind of broke her down with the punches. And as soon as she went for the service, and I just stayed calm and made sure that I had control of my arm. And as soon as I felt her try to reposition, I turned into her. And that was that, I guess. That must have given you immense confidence, right, to get out of that. I mean, you kind of take her best shot. You're still standing, essentially.

Yeah, it definitely was like I was just happy to, like, be able to, like, get out of it and get a better position. I was like, oh, I'm out of it. No more ground town. Let's go to work. And then, obviously, in the fourth round, you got it with the armbar. Great submission. And then you were just, like, the emotion coming out.

It's just such a great thing to see an athlete, kind of climb the mountain. And then in that moment, it's so raw. That must have been, I mean, obviously, you know, birth of your daughter and maybe some other moments. One of the more emotional moments of your life, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't think it's something I'll ever forget. You know, when the rest pulled us apart, I stood up because the fight was over, but then it hit me that I won. And then I felt right back to the ground, and I was like, I did it.

Like, I was just overwhelmed with emotion. For someone like you fighting in Invicta, 105 pounds, these are divisions that, you know, not really, I mean, UFC is just getting involved in this, but even in Strike Force and Belta, they don't feature these divisions. Invicta, does it feel like a God sent to you? Does it feel like if this wasn't around, maybe you wouldn't have been able to fulfill these dreams of yours? Yeah, I definitely do.

You know, Invicta had done such great things to me, and I just tweeted to Shannon, thank you for, like, allowing me to let my dreams come true because they really do care about the athletes, and they just, they want the best for us, you know, and they put us in the position to achieve the things that we want to do, and, you know, they just leave it on our hands. And that's what I love about InVicta.

Do they treat you well? I mean, is this your full-time job? Well, it is my full-time job, like outside the fact that I take care of my daughter. And then I also teach over at the Academy at Jackson, the kids' class, and the cardio kickboxing. But, yes, fighting is my full-time job. And Invicta, because we don't hear a lot about their financial situation, do they treat you well? Are you getting compensated fairly? Yes, they treat me very well.

Well, that is good to hear. And have they told you about what's next? Who's in line when you will fight again, et cetera? No, they haven't. Probably a good thing, though, that I think Shannon wants me to kind of chill out for a little bit before giving me that news. When would you like to return? You know, before the years up, I'd definitely like to have another fight, you know,

and my best friend's getting married next week, so we'll be in Cancun, drinking some pinocados, and then when I come back, of course, I'm going to start hitting the gym, and keep working to get better, working my jih Tzu, working my wrestling and my stand-up, and, you know, you always strive to improve.

Absolutely. And by the way, you're fighting at Annamway. What do you walk around at? Around 120, 125. Okay. So you do, because you, you are a pretty small person, but you do have to cut some weight. Yeah.

All right. So you'll be defending that title. We don't know when. We don't know against you. But you are the King of the Mountain. And I'm assuming at some point you'll cross path with Jessica Penae again. It seems sort of inevitable that she'll get that shot. I'm sure you're ready, willing, anytime, anywhere, any place, right?

Of course. All right. Well, congratulations to you, Michelle. It's great to finally talk to you. Great to have you on the show. And a great performance. Like I said, arguably the MVP of a stacked weekend for MMA action, defeating Jessica Peney, fourth round arm bar, getting out of an arm bar.

Just a great story overall. And we wish you luck as the new Invicta Adam Waite champion. Thank you. I really appreciate you having me on the show. There she is. Michelle Waterson stopping by the karate-hadi, who, if you missed it, I think you could still buy the pay-per-view online. And by the way, kudos to Invicta.

a great stream, no problems, no technical issues. It was flawless. It was crisp. It was great. And they've had their issues in the past, but they nailed it. They really did. And kudos to them for that. I think it's time that they graduate to television.

I think you could only go so far on eye-paper-view. But Friday night, a lot of eyes were sort of waiting and seeing if they would fail with the stream again. The last one in January went horribly. They had to give them away for free. On Friday, U-Stream, they stepped up, and it was a great stream, and it was a great card. If you missed it, Cyborg, came back, she looked good. She picked up a big win. Thug Rose, Pat Barry's girlfriend, 12-second Flying Arbar.

Some great performances up and down the card. So check it out if you have an Invicta FC5, and they return in the summertime, Marluse Kuhn Fighting Cyborg for the vacant Invicta Featherway title. Let's move along now, and let's talk to one of the big names in the UFC. see, he returns to action in July also, UFC on Fox 8, he fights MacDansig, there's a lot to talk to him about. He is the young

assassin. I think he's still the young assassin. He is Melvin galard, most importantly. Melvin, how are you? Oh, what's up, Alvin? Good to talk to you, Melvin, so what's the deal? There's a lot to talk to you about, but are you still the young assassin? Because we saw on Twitter, you're trying to shed that nickname. It's always going to be the young assassin,

but, you know, I just wanted to change the name up a little bit. So it's calling me the Young Assassin, I just went with Melvin Y.A. the Gillard. You know what I mean? Because you know, I'm 30 years old now, so I just want to get a little bit of more transformation and get myself a new identity, you know what I mean? What does that mean, Y.A. The Y.A. The Y.A. The Y.A. Still stands for Young Assassin. Instead of calling Young Assassin, we're just going to call it Melvin, Y.A. the Gillard. You know what I mean?

All right. All right. So are you going to change your Twitter handle and all that stuff? Obviously I will But right now I'm just going to keep everything Like it's a little A little more convenient right now I mean Let's let them get a hold of it

And they twitch it for me But as of right now It's just going to stay the same for now Okay well there's so much to talk to you about You caused a bit of a stir When you tweeted around two weeks ago Saying that you were leaving the Blacksillians And you were going back home to Jackson's

Then we find out you're not going to Jackson's You're in Colorado At the Grudge team over there We'll get to them in a second First, let's talk about the Black Sillians. Why did you leave Florida? Why are you no more of training with them? Just, you know, I have a lot of reasons, you know,

but if I had to stick to identifying the main reasons, you know, the main reasons was because, you know, obviously I wasn't winning there. I wasn't successful as I thought I was going to be. You know, I was five and one with Jackson's, and then I got there and I was like, oh, one and four, you know, so, you know, my career took a little bit of a downspout, and it's just, you know, it's not, it's not that they don't have great coaches. I mean, they have a wonderful

staff of killers, you know what I mean? Coach Henry is amazing Dutch kickboxing coach. Coach Mario Spars is amazing in itself, but my chemistry with the team, I just wasn't vibed with some of the guys, you know what I mean? And, you know, I like to do things a certain way, you know what I mean? I'm I'm my own boss, and I mean, I don't like, you know, people telling me

what I need to do. You know, I mean, I don't mind if you, if you offer your opinion, but when it becomes to where I feel like I'm working for you and you're not working for me,

then it becomes a problem, man. I think it started ending up being like that down there, and, you know, they started doing attendance, keeping attendance and tardiness.

And, you know, this is not the third grade, man, it's a professional sport, and I'm a professional athlete. And, you know,

if I want to spend my, off time, my downtime, playing golf and, you know, enjoying life with my wife, then that's what I want to do. I don't want to feel like I'm obligated to being in a gym, you know, 365 days out of a year. That's just not how I roll. I mean, I've been in a sport for 17 years, you know, and I've had my times where I was a gym rat, but it's just not my lifestyle anymore, you know, I mean, I can still get the job done, you know, we're doing eight to 10-week camp. You know, right now I'm actually going to be in camp for 15 weeks because I'm already here, you know, So that was part of the reasons why.

But I love those guys, and I do miss them, you know what I mean? But, you know, it just didn't work out for me down there. Someone hears that they may think, well, Melvin doesn't want to be coached. He's not coachable. Is that the case? Do you not want to hear? I'm probably one of the most coachable guys you've ever met. You know what I mean?

My coach is Warren Donnelly, my high school wrestling coach, he nicknamed me the sponge. Because, you know, in wrestling and when I first started boxing and kickboxing, You know, I'm always eager to learn. You know, I love learning. You know what I mean? And, you know, and I'm not taking anything away from the black kids, but, you know,

somebody felt like I'm uncoachable, then that goes to show you they don't really know me for who I am because I've never had a coach ever in my life tell me I was uncoachable. You know what I mean? I'm one of those guys. I want to not only see it, but I want to do it and I want to drill it. You know, I want to make sure I can master the move and make it my own.

So, you know, for that comment to come out, I don't think they ever got to, you know, who I really was. You know, they're stuck in a bit of a losing streak. They have their one win here and there, but on the whole, they're not doing that great right now as a team. Do you have a reason for that? Do you think you know why they're not winning fights lately?

Man, you know, if I had to speak on that, I would think that, you know, Glenn does a lot for that city, you know, for that area. You know, I mean, he does a lot for all of us. and I think for the most part, man, like, I mean, if you really look at the roster of fighters on that team, you know, if you were to present me with a name list, I would be like, I would pick this team over anybody. They'll smash any team in the country right now. But I just don't think they have that chemistry, man. Like, like fighting isn't just about, training isn't just about getting in there and just having sparring partners and, you know, beating each other heads in. You know, yeah, I mean, that's not only going to get you so far.

You got to have a chemistry. You got to have viable people. You know, I just got here last week. Me and Coach Trevor, you know, we're bobbing like a motho. Like, we're, like, two peas in the pot, you know. Me and the guys on the team here, we're bobbing, and they barely know me. You know what I mean? Like, it's just good vibe.

You know, down in the day, you know, I go to the gym, and it was like, as soon as I got there, I'm looking at my clock, I'm ready to go. I didn't want to be there. And when you get into a position in life where you walk into the gym, Now, you know, fighting has been my whole life. It's my childhood dream. I love this, but all my heart. Like, I love fighting more than I probably love my wife.

You know what I mean? Like, I, and I love my wife dearly. But fighting is what molded me, you know, man I am today. It's something that I wanted to do when I was a kid and I did it. So when I walk into a gym and I start looking at my watch, like, I'm ready to go. I wish this is her up and get over so I can go to the golf course. Then that's a problem. And that's the way I started feeling.

And I can't speak for all the other guys down there. But right now, man, it's just bad mojo. I don't know what it is, you know. But, I mean, I'm still a part of Jocko. I'm still a part of ASM with Glenn, you know. So, but I just walked away from the team itself, you know what I mean? And I think it's a better fit for me here anyway because I'm already happy. I'm having fun training again.

And I lost sight of that. I wasn't having fun anymore. I was just in the gym and it felt like a 9-to-5 job like a day. They made me come. They made me be there. I don't work like that, man. I'm a free agent. You know, I want to come and go as I please.

But if somebody need my help, all they got to do is pick up and say, hey, I need your help to get ready for this fight. Could you be here for the next two weeks at this time? Can we live? Yeah, let's do it. But nobody ever reached out to me like that. People just started getting upset because I wasn't around. So I just kind of slowly just pulled myself out of the equation. So you leave, you decide to go to Jackson's.

You put out the tweet. You're not at Jackson's. What happened there? Yeah, that was a little bit of a slap in the face. You know, I never really spoke to Greg or Wink, but my judo coach, Dr. Tripp, he reached out to Wink and Greg, and he spoke to him because for some reason they wasn't answering my call. So the only person that I was able to talk to from Jackson's was Cowboy. And me and Cowboy, we talk frequently. And, you know, I'm righted by Cowboy telling Cowboy I want to come out.

So Cowboy actually invited me up to the ranch. He said, man, just come out to the ranch. You can train up here for an hour and we'll talk to Greg. we'll get it all worked out. I said, cool. Well, right as I hung up the phone, Doc calls me, he said, hey, I just got off the phone week time, you know, winked him and said that it's not a problem with them. They're okay with you coming back.

Everything's cool. So at that moment, I still didn't tweet anything out. I let a couple of days go by. And it was like about 40 days went by. And then I said, okay, you know, I'm getting ready to call Glenn and have him book my flight to send me to Albuquerque. So right as I'm getting that done, I call Glenn, I get off the phone with Glenn, and then I tweet, okay, I'm finally going back to where I belong, I'm going back to Jackson. Like maybe 30, 45 minutes after I sent that tweet out, I started seeing negative tweets.

And mind you, I'm on a golf course, like always, and I'm starting to phone beeping. So I'm like, what the hell? So my Twitter line's blowing up. So I look at the tweets, and now it's saying that, you know, I'm allowed back at Jackson's, you know, They voted me out. They're not accepting me back. And it was a little bit of a gut punch. You know, it hurt a little bit, and I was like, damn.

So at that moment, you know, I was like, where do I do now? The first thing I thought was, why not go to Grudge and train with Trevor Whitman? You know, because me and him crossed paths many times before. And it was only a matter of time before we get to work with each other. So I felt like this was the next best thing, then going back to Jackson. And this is why I'm here in Colorado now. Do you have any idea who voted for you not to come to the camp? Man, you know, I've heard multiple different stories, you know what I mean?

But in the end, you know, I don't care who voted against it, who did. It doesn't bother me. I rather not know, you know what I mean? But I did get to talk to Greg, you know, and, you know, they, for some strange reason, they brought up my court case that I have going on there from an assault charge when actually I was the guy who got assaulted, you know what I mean? So everybody's misreading. with their reading, you know what I mean?

So I was actually the guy that got jumped on in Albuquerque, you know what I mean? So that kind of came up from Greg and, you know, he was like, look, you know, I know you're going to get everything worked out, but right now some guys are for, some guys are against it. So for right now, the answer is no, but he said it doesn't mean you can't ever come back. He said, but just right now today you can't. That was Greg, that was Coach Greg's words to me. And I said, no problem, coach, you know, it is what it is.

but, you know, once I got shot down like that, I really have no desire to going back ever. You know what I mean? You know, I would love to, you know, be able to help some of those guys if they need it. But for the most part, I plan on fighting some of them in here in the next future, here in the near future. I plan on fighting a couple of guys from Jackson. Oh, yeah, like who? No, I got my base. You know, I got some parts of growing, certain 55ers.

And I may possibly even drop to 45 here in the next six months. I'm not sure. So right now I'm just switching my diet and getting my body right and seeing what my body is going to allow it to do. The body allows me to drop to 45 then I will. If not, I'm going to stay at 55 where I've been the whole time, continue to get back on the winning front. So you want to make them pay for sort of stopping you from coming back?

I would say pay. I just say it was a little bit of a slap in the face, but at the same time, I kind of made my best, so I had to lay in it. You know what I mean? Because when Jackson's in the South Florida, I probably picked the worst time to ever leave. It was around the time Rashad and John was going through their little stuff. And, you know, I see this, like I said before,

I've always been good friends with both of those guys, and I've always careful to every one of those guys the same way, whether I left the team or not. You know, I never had any animosity. But, you know, I can see on the other hand how it may have looked bad with retreating and going to South Florida, and now things aren't working out down there, so I want to go back to Jackson.

So I could see where some of the guys may have felt that was a little bit of a mis-hap. Like, I should have used better judgment. So, you know, it's not all their fault. There are a lot of things that's happening right now. It's my fault, and I'm taking for responsibility for it. But that doesn't mean I don't want to beat one of them up right now just to prove my point back. Hey, y'all should have took me back. So it is what it is.

But I still love those guys. I still love the coaches. You know, I still talk to Greg as much as I possibly could if I, I could, but me and Cowboys are still real tight. So at the end of the day, my friendship with Cowboy means more to me than anything else dealing with that team right now. Do you regret leaving when you did? No, I don't, man, because, you know, I have a great life in South Florida.

You know, I still live in South Florida. I know, I have, you know, my wife, she has a new job there. You know, it's sunny and nice year-round. I get to play golf year-round. I get to go fishing year-round, you know. Like, I'm doing more outdoors things, you know, I was living in Albuquerque, there is no day life. You know, there's nothing to really do.

So it was like strip clubs and hanging out and clubbing. You know, I don't do any of that in Florida. You know what I mean? And you would think that would be the place that I would start doing that kind of stuff. You know, Florida has so much more to offer. You know what I mean? I get to go fishing. I get to go to the ocean and pallet board and stuff like that.

You know, I didn't get to do those things in Albuquerque. So, you know, being able to be outside and be the outdoors person that I was growing up to, it gives me a lot of more options than me living in Albuquerque. So I don't regret leaving at all. You know what I mean? And even if I would have stayed at Jackson, I still would have moved to Florida and just doing my camps there. And that's why I have it set up here in Colorado to where, you know,

I come up here, I train, I work, bust my butt. And when I go home, I can enjoy life and, you know, get back to being having a normal life with my wife. You know, I don't have to be the husband fighter all the time. I can just be her husband. the assault charge. That happened in 2010 in Albuquerque. Can you explain what happened there? And where do we stand now?

When is this going to get resolved? Well, my next court date is May 23rd. I got a really good attorney, Ms. Cynthia. She's working on the case. She's been on a case since I hired her. And, you know, it's going to be resolved, you know, because my last outing

for court, you know, I guess the defendant to whatever, they were discussing the case when they weren't supposed to, you know, talking to other so it ended up getting talked out that day but they got some gunhole little DA guy that's new that they say he's just he's just after me because of because i have a name so but they have nothing that can hold up in court or nothing like that so there's no big deal man like it's been going on since 2010 and it wasn't a big deal then and it's really not a big deal now you know what i mean

so i don't even know why you know it was kind of but that one would kind of upset me with the whole going back to Jackson thing because when I officially said I wanted to go back to Jackson all of a sudden, you know, this pops up about my court date and the only people knew about my court date was Coach Greg, Ricky, the manager, and Coach Winklejohn.

It's like most of my teammates there didn't even know I was going to court. You know what I mean? So, you know, I kind of know in my heart who put it public and who went, but I'm not going to blast them over the radio and stuff like that. It is what it is.

But, you know, coming from my mouth, from where it matters, you know, it's not that big of a deal. And it's not something that's going to, like, it's not like I'm facing jail time or anything like that. So nobody going to start getting crazy thinking all crazy and stuff. But you say you got jumped. Yeah, I was the one got jumped. Where? At the library. By five of the security guards there.

Really? At the library. Yes. And it was my first time. I'm ever going into the spot, and it was my last time. I never stopped putting up to that. You know what I mean? So, I mean, it's just one of those.

It was just wrong time, you know what I mean? And it happened, but it is what it is, you know what I mean? And this is not a club or something called the library. This is an actual library. No, no, it's a club called the library. Oh, okay. I thought I was like, why would they jump you out a library? You're going to take out some books?

I got hit back in the head with a fair tale story book. That's what I didn't understand. Well, why would you... No, okay. So you're at a club, and they'd... jumped you, and you think you're innocent, obviously. Well, I know I am, because, I mean, I never put my air on anybody, you know what I mean? I just, you know, the guy's got to be thrown by other people that was there that was big fans of mine.

You know what I mean? That's kind of how the incident went down. And as that happened, I went out, and I actually went to the cops and called the cops first. You know, I mean, and then they were supposed to be thrown out right there. And, you know, it was like, look, we're going to squash it here, no big deal. I said, all, all, whatever. I took my ass open and I walked. away. But then next thing I know months later, I'm getting subpoena to come to court,

because one of the guys got hurt in the little scrap with all the other guys, and I guess he got in face, so they try to pin it on me. It's all because they want a civil suit to try to see me. That's what it's about. You know what I mean? It has nothing to do with me getting jail time for any assault charges. Basically, if they can find me guilty and criminal then the guy had the case in civil court. That's pretty much how it works out. So you relocate to Colorado. You're with Grudge now, and you know, you said your wife has a great new job in Florida. Fifteen weeks out.

Are you not going to see your wife for the next 15 weeks? No, I'm going to see her here and there. I'm going to fly up maybe once or twice, but I'm going to gut it out, dude. I'm here at the fight house. I'm sleeping in the basement. I got me a nice little twin bed cot. Like, it's literally a cot on the floor. And I got me a tennis.

I got me a tennis TV screen that stays on a few teeth. TV 24 hours a day. Oh, yeah. And all I've been watching is UFC fights and TV, the UFC Tonight Show. And, you know, that's just a lifestyle I'm choosing to have right now. You know, I left all the luxuries of my big king-sized bed, all my cars. I left everything home, man, and I don't go anywhere but here. But to the house to the gym, that's it.

And you like it? I mean, is this giving you motivation? I love it. And you know what? Like, I needed this, man. This has been so therapeutic. It's unbelievable. Like, when I first got here, I was.

was hating it. I'm like, man, the first night I got here, I was like, man, I can't do this, man. And then I, you know, I talked to my wife and we were Skyping and, you know, I'm video, I'm like video skyping through the house showing her like the house and like, man, look, this is where I got to sleep and this and that. And my wife just said, Melvin, you know, stop being a big baby and stick it out. And she's like, my wife is like, you need this. She's like, you need this to get that edge back. And my wife's white, man, like after one night of sleeping here, man, I started feeling like, you know what? You know, I watched Rocky 3.

It was the best movie I could ever watch. It was like, you know what? You forget where you come from until you got to really fight to keep what you want. And right now, man, I got to beat MacDansig impressively to keep my job. Like, I don't even feel like if I just, if I just, if I skate around, if I just get like a three-round decision and it's like I barely win, I still feel like I may lose my job.

So right now, this next fight for me is about me getting back to my roots and getting back to my sprawling ball and just hitting. people tell it hurt. And that's how I'm going to knock out out Madagic, I promise you. I'm promising the world a knockout. But also on the flip side, you don't want to put too much pressure on yourself, right? Because, like you said, there's no pressure. There's no pressure. There's no pressure. I win or I lose my job. If that is that simple, there's no pressure. You know, to me that's not pressure. To me, that's, that's few. That's few to go

and fight and fight hard for what you believe in. And I believe in being a U.S. I don't want to go and fight for Belator. I don't want to go fight for World Series of fights. I'm a UFC. fighter and that's where I belong and I'm going to fight to keep my job. You think it's... There's no pressure. You think it's 100% losing four to your last five. If you lose this one, you think you're gone?

I think it helps me. I was never told that. But you know what? You never know, man. You know, one day Dana and Joe Silver can wake up out of the bed and then I might lose that fight and they wake up on the other side of the bed and say, hey, I'm sorry, we got let Melvin go. And I don't even care about me, but, you know, you got a lot of guys right now,

and it's only fair to the roster. You know what I mean? Think about it. You got a lot of guys that can't even get fights right now. You know, I was scrapping for this fight. You know, I've been begging for a fight for the last two months. And I'm blessed that I got a fight in July. I thought I was going to actually be fighting May of June.

But, hey, in July, it's all right. I'll wait a little bit longer. And, you know, it's going to be the first year and seven years that I don't fight on the 4th of July. You know what I mean? I have not lost a fight on the 4th of July. And now this is the first year, year number eight, that I'm not even going to get fight on the 4th of July. So that right there kind of fused me up. I was kind of pissed. I'm like, damn, man, they always let me fight on that car. That's like the, that's like the car of the year.

And now I'm pushed back two weeks after that in Seattle, Washington on a Fox, on a Fox car. So there's already a little bit of a downgrade to me. So, you know, that's telling me right there, like, you got one foot in and one foot out, buddy. You know what I mean? You can't even follow on a pay-per-view. You got to fight on Fox. Well, Melvin, I, you know, I always appreciate you coming on. I always appreciate how honest and open you are. I know there's a lot going on in your life right now, and we wish you luck.

It goes down July 27th, Key Arena in Seattle. You know something that'll grow up. Yeah. There's a lot going on in my life. It's a lot of things that's fixable. You know what I mean? I remember at a point in my life where I felt like the whole world was against me, and I couldn't fix it if I wanted to.

Everything that's really happening right now to me, I have full control over, you know what I mean? I'm happy. I haven't been this happy about training in a long time. You know, I got my fight. I got my fireback. I got my passion back. Like, I love what I do.

And I forgot that when I was in South Florida. And, you know, I guess sometimes you got to fall all the way down before you can get all the way back up. And I promise you this. About a year ago, you guys were interviewing me because I was in the top five, and I was right there on the cusp of a title fight. Yeah.

And in 2013, man, I'm going to give it another run, bro. Like, I'm about to give it another good run. And I'm going to try to get that title. Man, I got one last chance at this, and I'm going to try to get it. Well, we look forward to it. And it starts July 27. in Seattle, you versus Mac Dandek.

Good luck to, good luck out there in Colorado on the cot. Keep watching UFC tonight. We appreciate that plug, and I'm sure we'll talk to you. That's my show, man. We appreciate it, Melvin. Thanks so much. Good luck to you. Hi, man, I'll talk to you soon.

There he is. Melvin Galard stopping by. Give him a follow on Twitter. It's the Young Assassin, but there's two underscores in between Young and Assassin. One of the more, you know, regardless of what you may think about Melvin Galard as a fighter, as a guy outside, you can't beat that. That is just him telling it like it is,

and we appreciate that, and we wish him luck now. With the new team in Colorado, he goes over there for one last big run a year ago. He was maybe a little over a year ago. He was considered a top contender knocking at that door, and now here he is staring at a pink slip. And he fights McDansig July. I don't know if it's a downgrade to fight on a Fox card. I'm not sure if he'll be on the main card, even if it's on FX.

but I see where he's coming from. You fight on July 4th. You win so many times. I see where he's coming from. So there you have it. Melvin Galard, telling it like it is. We go back to this weekend,

April 13th, Mandalay Bay Event Center, main event, Uriah Faber versus our next guest. Let's transition now. We welcome in. Scott Jorgensen. Scott, how are you?

I'm good. How are you? Well, Scott, I'm very good. Good to have you on the show, and I know it's a big week for you. We appreciate you, stopping by. One of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the show was, of course, you have this big fight

against your eye of favor, but I always get excited when I see, when I read this kind of thing. You seem a little annoyed with the media leading into this fight. You're getting asked the same questions. You seem a little irritated. Is that accurate? It's not

just this fight. It's every fight. I've limited now, and I know there's probably people out there that have done interviews before in the past. Like, the the blog spots up, but I used to do interviews all the time whenever I could get them, but it gets so redundant for me to answer the same questions. And it gets it to me, you know, I don't need to think about a fight or my competition

and thus I'm in practice. And that's the way I feel. You know, it clouds my judgment. You obsess to a point where it may not be necessarily beneficial, you know, where you're trying to sleep and you're sitting there thinking about it. You know, I need to stay clear-minded when I train. uh... and when i fight and so i try and keep everything separate and doing so many interviews and being asked the same thing over and over and over it's kind of get uh...

a little redundant and it's not just this fight like i said it's every fight so now i only do the interviews the uc a to ask me too okay well and they asked well at least i went through them to do this so if i would have gone through you you would have said no i would have done it for you oh thanks you know this is a big show you know i try and do like i'll get hit up with some of the, like, some of the bigger shows, and I'll do it. But I've never been on this show. I've always wanted to.

Oh, well, we appreciate you stopping by. I didn't know this was your first time on the show. It's more just like a, this is more for me just to check this off my list than it is for you. Oh, well, no. We're talking to the main event here. So I want to know what's the question you've been asked the most leading into this fight. I have a feeling I know what it is, but why don't you let us know? Oh, it's the same, it's this. It's this. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, So you're fighting a friend, you know, is that going to affect the fight? And it's kind of, I guess, the two-part. That question, you know, fighting a friend is, are you going to let that affect you?

And the follow-up to that usually is, you know, you guys have trained together. How is that going to affect the fight? And it's just like, oh. What happens? What happens when someone starts on media tour? What happens when someone like you see it coming, that you feel it coming, they're about to ask it, then you have to ask it. go like, I have to say, I have to answer this again. Like, how do you react?

I mean, if I was interviewing you in person, could I tell that you were about to get really annoyed with me? You probably would be. I carry my, my motion's kind of my face. But you're going to see directly that I'm not pleased with it. But I did one the other day, and I just started changing the subject. Oh, wow. What did you change it to?

I don't even remember. just something unrelated to the fight. No, I changed it off of the whole, you know, I'm going to fight my friend, and is it going to affect my fight, and, you know, what's it going to be like to Carl and there was a guy that helped get me into the sport, that kind of nudged me into the sport and all that good stuff. So at this point, I mean, I'm sure you get more media attention because you're fighting in the main event, but you look at your last fight,

and I remember there were some people who were kind of, they were kind of confused, why is Scott Jorgensen fighting on the Facebook prelims of a Foxcar? Why not? And there were some opening. You didn't get bumped up. You look at that compared to this. I'm sure you didn't get that much attention going into that fight. It was on the Facebook prelims.

So isn't that kind of, you know, you kind of chalk it up to being in the main event and this is what the main event fighters have to deal with? Yeah, no, I'm used to it. Like, you know, I actually did get hit up quite a bit for even my Facebook fight against my last fight against John Albert. But, you know, I knew it. it I was going to deal with going into main event. You know, it's not the first time I've been, I've had a big fight, so. So, okay, I want to do something here while we interview you.

If you've been asked this question before going into this fight, you say I've been asked and you don't have to answer, okay? Okay, fair enough. How pissed were you that you didn't get bumped with all those guys getting injured their last fight, and you were the only fight on Facebook? You know, I was bummed. I was pissed off, you know, more kind of, you know, that I guess disappointed that, you know, I love to go out there and fight to entertain. I entertain myself.

And, you know, the byproduct of that, like I've said before, I think, is the fact the fans get an exciting fight. Because I don't like to go in there and fight boring. I fought risky at times, and I fought wild, and, you know, it's worked out for me. In some instances, it hasn't in others. But I like to go out there. I'm not only a competitor, but, you know, I always wrestled exciting. There was never a match of mine that I felt was a boring match, even in college. So I was bummed because I knew I was going out there to put on a fight.

You know, one way or another, I was going to entertain myself and have fun with that fight. And I just want to, I like to share that. Did you talk to the UFC, Sean Shelby, those guys say, you know, what was going on there? Because if you recall, there were some injuries, Tim Means got injured. at the last second, the day of the fight, or the day of the way-in slip, and you were just stuck there. Other people got bumped up. Did you ask, what's going on here? Of course, they're showing

the love now. You're in the main event, but back then, it felt like you weren't getting much love. I don't even, you know, that close to the fight when I heard about meetings getting hurt and cutting weight, I was still pretty bummed, I think it bumped, but at that point, you know, I

worried less about that. I was just focused on the fight, you know. I mean, That's so sad of it. I mean, I was voicing my opinion over Twitter and whatever I could, you know, but, you know, in all reality, you know, I wasn't stewing over it outside of the few tweets that I shot out and what interviews I did do. But I was more focused on the fight, you know. Now, honestly, you know, you guys are managed by the same team, MMA Inc, and all that,

but are you even friends with Yeraya and his guys? Like, I don't really see you guys hanging out. You don't run in the same circles. being made out to be more than what it really is? Are you guys even pals? Like, when's the last time you even hung out with the guy? Let's see. The last time, I think it was up in Seattle.

Seattle. I think it was the last time I saw him. But you weren't hanging out with them. I think you're just trying to throw the pot. No. I just think that sometimes, okay, maybe three years ago you saw each other, but it's not like, this is not like Rashad Evans fighting John Jones, right? No, we weren't in the same camp.

I know for a long time, a lot of people were like, oh, you know, this guy is part of Team Alpha Mel, but that's because I did spend a lot of time out there when I first started. And, you know, there was a lot of, you know, we always taken, you know, all the pictures that surfaced while I was out there and stuff like that. And then I think the last time I really went out to Sacramento was about the time Joseph got into the WEC,

and I kind of quit going out there for this reason, not because, I mean, I like Joseph. you know, I'm buddies with Menda. I'm buddies of all those guys, you know, and it's, it was more, you know, out of respect for the sport that, you know, I'm not going to go out there and step on Joseph's toes. You know, he lives out there. I live in Boise. I've got my own team, my own guys, and, and so we just kind of, you know, I just trained

to Uriah, kind of if we crossed paths. We happen to be after, you know, once Joseph got in the WEC, I just trained with Uriah when we crossed paths. Did you, or do you feel? as though the UFC favors Uriah a little too much. I mean, he gets these title shots. He's very close now, it feels like. I mean, Henan beat him, but let's say Eddie Wineland wins, you know.

He beat Eddie Wineland. Let's see, you know, there's a lot. I feel, it feels to the media, and I know he always gets mad at us for bringing this up, that he gets maybe a little extra nudge from the UFC because, let's be honest, he deserves it. You know, he's a big draw, still very popular, and he markets himself well, all that good stuff. but do you feel as a fighter, and as far as accomplishments go, that he gets a little more perks than the other bantamweight fighters?

You know, you look at your eyes' career, and he has, you know, the guys he's lost to are champions, you know, including his time at 135, and he's lost with some of the tough guys, the top guys, and I feel like, you know, he's definitely one of the top in the world. I think, you know, he's always going to be a winner to a way because he is one of the best. And that's just the way it is. I don't – I stay out of the politics and all that stuff. I'm a fighter.

The UFC figure out what they're going to figure out. You know, if it works out in my favor or whoever, you know, it doesn't – I don't let that, I guess, resonate too much with me because, you know, that type of stuff is out of my control. The only thing I can do is go win fights. just like Uriah can. And if the U.S. he turns around and he wins two fights

and they say, all right, you're fighting for the title again. You know, all the better for your riot, but I don't care too much either way for it, you know.

I don't have a belt. You know, I haven't won that belt yet where it's really affecting me. As of late, it seems like he gets to the title fight. Obviously, he hasn't gone over the hump,

but before he gets there, the contender fights, he does amazingly. Is that just a problem? of him not being championship caliber anymore, or do you think that, you know, when the bright lights are on, he's not able to come through

and win the big one now these days? I don't, you know, I think he's just fighting tough guys. You know, guys that are, you know, able to stop him in the areas he excels. You know, you look at... with Dominic was very, very close. I felt like it was a very close fight. His fight with the hang-on was,

was not so much, you know. The thing with Hainan is, Hanon is very good at his takedown defense. He did the same thing against me, and he stopped your eye from taking down, where your riot is very dangerous. On top of that, you know, he's got a long reach.

And so, you know, a guy, and on top of having the reach on a lot of, on pretty much everybody in the division, he's able to maintain his distance very, very well. And he's a dangerous striker. He can, you know, he can throw knees inside. you can, you know, or he can keep you at a distance. So, you know, I think it's as a riot.

It hasn't, you know, hasn't pulled the trigger at 135 yet, but it doesn't really matter because he's got to fight me on Saturday. I'm very curious about this. When you last fought, you know, there was all this talk about how your tattoos were popping off the screen. The colors were just so much more colorful, I guess you could say. And then people are, you know, talking about, obviously, we've known for a long time, Fideligo and just the changing of your skin and all

that stuff. Is that something that's, you know, that you expected what happened? Is this part of the process? And where do you end up from here? I guess part of the process, you know, I figured

people would eventually realize that my skin is becoming lighter. And because of my Vidaligo, you know, I never had any treatments. I never saw a doctor. I never, you know, a lot of people thought I went and did what Michael Jackson did and had the depigmentation, is what they call it, where you basically go, you know, bleach your skin out.

And I never did that. I just let it run its course because it didn't really matter to me. And what bothers me more is that more people in the media after my fight with John Albert were more concerned about, I got more questions about my loss of skin color than I did, you know, my performance. And, you know, that drives me nuts because I don't care about my skin, my skin disorder, whatever you want to call it. I care more about what people think of the way I perform.

And so I've voiced my opinion a little bit about, you know, how it's annoying. People cared more about that than my performance. But, you know, where I go from here, I just keep doing what I've been doing for the last, you know, 14, 15 years since it started showing up. I just keep competing. Which is nothing, right? You don't do anything.

No, I don't do anything. I'm pretty much, I have no pigment now. And to me, the only shitty thing is I sunburned very easily. Ah. But that's it. You know, it makes my tattoos brighter. I did not start getting one question I do get from people, and since I'm on a bigger show, it would be nice to answer that question.

Now I did not start using tattoos to cover up my depigmentation, my Vidalago. I started getting tattoos when I was still very dark-skinned, and I like tattoos. So, in other words, what you're trying to say is, you've been asked this question before. Yeah, but this is one all answer because, you know, there's a lot of people that have this disease. I get a lot of questions and emails and letters from parents, kids, you know, and just fans that are afflicted with it and, you know, asking how do I deal with it and all this stuff. So I will answer questions about my Vidaligo to a certain degree. Like, but it got, you know, I expected one or two after the last fight, but every question, it seems like every interview I did after that fight, was, you know, why, you know, what about your skin color?

You know, you look so much better. And I was like, well, did you not go see the performance I went out there? I fought my butt off and pulled off fire at the night, submission of the night, and the first fire of the night. And that was kind of, you know. Now, what about the mustache? You tried to, you tried to throw us a curveball. I think it was on April Fool's, like everyone else in MMA. They got their jollies.

They wanted to confuse us. You said you shaved the mustache. And, of course, you haven't shaved it, right? It's still there. What does that signify? Is there a specific reason why you have? And I believe I'm quoting you here. You tweeted this on Saturday.

You said, quote, my dirty-ass mustache is dominating fuel TV weighing commercials right now. So this is something, this is a source of pride for you. Why do you have such a, quote, dirty-ass mustache? Because I can't grow a good mustache. And I don't shave because I don't like to shave. And I don't have, I'm half Japanese. I don't have a lot of facial hair. What you see is what you pretty much get.

I haven't shaved his mustache and, like, let's see, like, maybe like two weeks after my last fight, I shaved it. Wow. And this is what you've gotten in all that time. So my fiance, we were supposed to be off into Hawaii, and she made me promise I'd shave it. Then I signed a fight. She said I have to. So now it's just kind of a running joke for myself that I got this half-grown mustache that's, It's gross looking.

And what about on the sides? Do you not shave your or your beard? Is that just your facial hair and that's all that comes out? Pretty much, man. Wow. Like, I get a little bit,

I could never grow a beard in my life. And it's disappointing to me. Yeah. All my buddies can grow beard. And so I'm like, ah, man. But this is what you get, man. Like, what you see. Like, if I took a picture right now

and tweeted it, this is going on probably like three weeks and not shaving. on the sides of my face. But you do have, I forget what you called it, the Warhawk or something like that,

you do have a pretty cool mohawk, and you do, you do, you do, that's not real, the red at the tips, right? No, I cannot grow the pink into my hair.

Oh, the pink, excuse me, I'm a little colorblind. It reminds me of the red rooster. Do you remember that pro wrestler? No, I don't,

um, the only old pro wresters I remember, like Legion of Doom, Ultimate Warrior. I was never big into it because I was wrestling. I was like, all this fake, this isn't real. I don't care about it. Well, look them up.

I will. Yeah, the Warhawk I've been doing for a while, and I just like it stuck. It became part of my kind of character, I guess. And I don't know. I've thought about changing it up, but just leave it for now. Now, why is your after party going to be with your Rai?

Isn't that a little weird? I don't know. We talked about it. And, you know, this fight isn't about an, like having any animosity or, you know, we're buddies. And we're going to go fight and we're going to do what we're paid to do. We're going to go perform our jobs to the best of our abilities. And, you know, best man is going to win. We're going to walk out of the cage and pick up where we left off.

And so, you know, the thing with your eye, you know, I pass up money to throw, to have afterparties elsewhere. Simply because, you know, for me, personally, it's kind of the story. You know, I can look back and be like, man, I got a, I got, I fought on the main event of a UFC event with a friend, against a friend. And then we went in all, you know, the whole MMA-NAT family is going to go hang out and talk about it and, you know, resume business. And I think that's a good way to end this. So how did I do? I mean, as far as percentage-wise, what percentage of the questions that I asked had you already been asked leading it? I'm not claiming that I did any, I reinvented the wheel here.

Did I at least sort of keep you interested? You did. You did a good job. All right. I appreciate it. You're very much, Scott. Good luck to you on Saturday. It's the Ultimate Fighter's 17 finale.

It's Scott Jorgensen versus Yariah Faber. If you haven't heard, they're friends, and they're fighting this Saturday on FX should be a great band-imweight fight. Good luck to you, Scott. And what's that? I was going to say, make no mistake about it, though. You know, we may be friends, but this is going to be a fight. It's got potential for a fight of the night.

You know, Uriah and I both have, you know, together to add them up in the double digits for five of the night. And of the night bonuses, you know, we both come in there to fight. We both come in there to get the crowd on their feet. So, you know, this is one of the fans definitely want to make sure they tune in for on top of that. We got the finale for the ultimate fighter. So this is going to be, you know, for me, I'm excited because this is, to me, going to be, I'm going to go out there and I'm put on one of my best performances and go out there and try and put out of the, your candidate. I look forward to it. Thanks, Scott. Good luck to you. Thank you. There he is. Scott Jorgensen stopping by. He faces your eye favor. As he mentioned, it's a great card on Saturday. It's on FX. We'll

run it down a little later on in the show. For now, we go to our Skype machine, and I don't remember a guest being requested and demanded so much the moment he won on Saturday, the moment he won the people's main event, as I dubbed it, I was flooded with tweets with people saying, you must get this man on the MMA hour on Monday. He must come back for round two. We said it a few weeks back, perhaps the greatest MMA hour debut in our short history. And he is so kind to join us once again,

right here on the MMA hour. There he is. Connor Mack himself. Look at him. What's up, man? How are you, are you going, all right? I'm doing all right. It's so great to have you back on the show.

I need to load this down, don't they? What'd you say? Do I need to lower this down? No, no, no. You look great. Should I not be able to see you? But I could see you the last time. Yeah, well, we change studios now, so it's a little different, but have no fear.

Under construction. But we're here and we see you, and that's all that matters. Now, first things first, where are the blueberries? Because we saw when you got back to the locker room, you're eating the blueberries, and I got a lot of tweets about that, so I was expecting you snacking on some blueberries right now. Yeah, no. I don't know, I just had some blueberries in my bag, but I tell you what, I do have kale chips there. Yeah, that pretty all right.

them little bad boys there Oh yeah Did you make those yourself Because I hear you're quite the chef Did you cook those yourself Because I hear you're quite the chef Yeah no I didn't cook to myself Yeah but I do like cook them

And I do always say like Someday I think I might open up my own My own little place It'd be you know what I'm like For visualization And I do visualize having my own place Like my own little restaurant kind of thing I've already got the name of the restaurant

If you want to know that. I would love to know it. Do you ever hear of like sloppy joes? Of course. Well, I would call mine shredded joes, yeah? And just have it like pure healthy food and have it like kind of like a sports bar. I know, have like UFC memorabilia and have all the fights on. I think a place like that would do good business.

Well, you're on your way, my friend. I mean, you're $60,000 rich. Not to mention your purse. You're in the UFC. you're an overnight Oh yeah I'd like to know do you have a pot to piss in now?

Yeah, yeah, yeah I have a few pots to piss in now, yeah? Someone tweeting me that, yeah? I guess kind of has a choice of pots to piss in now I thought that was funny, yeah? It was a surreal thing to watch and we're not saying that we had any part of it but it just, you know,

ever since you were on the show, the following week Marcus was on the show, I felt like this fight should be on the main card. We started calling it the people's main event and just watching it with the people on Saturday and then the explosion of tweets that I got I can't imagine what you got after your win just to see the people rallying behind you

how surreal has all of this been to finally live your dream and not just make it to the UFC but debut like that. Yeah, man, it is unbelievable words can't describe it, you know what I mean? I mean, as I was walking out and I could just see Ireland flags everywhere

and the Irish rugby jersey I can see people Irish flags I could see it everywhere in the whole arena I couldn't believe it but words can't describe

you know what I mean everything just went the way I said it was I said I was gonna steal the show I said I honestly can't put it

into words I mean I still feel like I'm in a bubble here you know I haven't come down I still feel like my adrenaline

is kind of going I still don't I don't know what the fuck to be doing with myself you know I'm just kind of twitchy all the time like that

but like even even all over the week like throughout the week when I was on Sweden it literally felt like I was playing the video game I literally felt like I was playing UFC undisputed

and when I got back in after the fight and this guy this guy walked up to me in a suit and was like Dana will see you now you know what the

I was like we walked in me and my couch and Dana was there and I don't know it's just crazy like I really it literally felt like I was on

on a playing the video game. I don't know how it was fucking nuts, man. It really was something else. It's a well-old machine in the UFC. You know what I mean? They run. They run shit, probably me. The people that came off and we didn't know what they were expected, you know what they don't really know much about

MM&E family and all. They didn't, me, my man, dad. They don't really know too much. But me dad's, me dad's the biggest fan of it now. He hasn't stopped watching it since I've came back. And obviously, Dana tweeted the picture of you guys being saying that you are for real. What do he say to you? What did he say to you? What was that conversation?

like? He was just saying, man, he was saying pretty much came at you, man, Brimich was tough, which he did, he came in and gave me some exchanges and he went for it, you know what I mean? But he just said, he just said, well, don't man, I've been getting hounded by all the Irish people and I just said, look, just have that 60 G's ready

because there was still, there was still like 8,57 on the car so I was like, listen, just have that 60 Gs ready, you know what I mean, trying to plant it in his mind. I ended up getting it, yeah. And congratulations for that. I know that must have made you very happy. Now, things were a little dicey earlier in the week, and we saw this on your video blog.

You had to get your wisdom tooth taken out because you were an incredible pain. What happened there? I didn't have to get a taken up, but I literally from the Sunday, the fight Saturday, the Sunday before that, I wakes up, I'm waking up in the middle of night, and I literally couldn't close my mouth.

I couldn't close, I opened my mouth past a certain bit. And like the gun, from my wisdom tooth was just coming over the, and my gum was coming over the wisdom tooth, and it was the most horridest painblest thing ever. And I called the doctor out to the house, and I said, I need antibiotics. He said there's an infection,

you're going to have to take antibiotics. I told him I had the fight coming up. So he gave me light antibiotics. And that was a bad thing, because I took them antibiotics for like four days, and they were a little baby antibiotics. I didn't do jack shit. So I'm over there in Sweden,

and I'm waking up. Having slept, I couldn't sleep for the whole, for all them days. And then Wednesday morning, I wakes up in Sweden. I just said to John and saying, listen, I have to go to the dentist. I have to go somewhere. I'm in pain. So we got in touch with Bert Watson. He said, yeah, there's a place here, go there.

So we went there. The dentist there was telling me them antibiotics, they gave you, went more than nothing. You know what I mean? So then I had to take big heavy ones, three antibiotics a day, twice a day. So six antibiotics a day I was taking it. it was just it was just another thing you know what i mean i wasn't gonna nothing could have stopped me in there you know i wasn't going to be broke it's just another

another thing you know adversity causes some men to break and others to break records and i chose to be the second one you know what i mean so that's the way i looked at i just looked at another challenge and fuck the pain you know what i mean it's only a tilt at the end of day and i got through it so you had to take this medicine is there a chance this could come up in your in your post-fight drug test is there an issue there no because they were aware of it and they got onto the ufc doctor and he was like no they're okay i could take ibuprofen up until 24 hours before the weighing in so i did that 24 hours before the wanes i stopped taking the ibuprofen and i continued with the antibiotics i didn't take the antibiotics on the friday of the wayans

and then i took i took one on the saturday and then that was it but uh what what else could I didn't, I wasn't sleeping, you know what I mean? I literally didn't sleep for four days straight, me mouth, I couldn't open. If you've ever had a wisdom to pain, it's the nastiest pain ever, you know what I mean? So I had to do something, but now they know about it anyway, and look, they're not going to rob that for me. There's not, there's nothing that them antibiotics done, you know what I mean? It was just like to kill an infection.

I mean, would have made me worse. You know, you're obviously a very confident guy, but was there ever a point you're not sleeping, you're bothered, you're thinking about something else where you're you're like, gosh, this is bad luck. I'm not on my game here. This is affecting me. Were you ever sort of doubting yourself because of this too thick? Yeah, I never doubted myself, but it was tough.

You know what I mean? I limited calories. And not only that the week before that, the week before the Sunday, my last week of training, I went in on Monday morning and I done some jujitsu, and I had twinge the nerve in my neck. So I literally couldn't torn my head that way all the way. And then literally that was like,

so the final week of training, two weeks before training, I had to sit everything out when I was getting treatment and acupuncture. So, like, for the final two weeks, I literally didn't do anything, you know what I mean? So it definitely, it was a tough time, you know what I mean? But honestly, nothing could have stopped me there. I just kept saying, listen, I'd beat this guy on my deadbeds, you know what I mean? That's the way I was looking at it.

Nothing could have stopped me, you know what I mean? Absolutely nothing. You said three letters in your post-fight interview that we don't usually hear in UFC post-fight interviews. You said WWE, and then you referenced Stone Cold Steve Austin. in the back with the other media. What were you trying to say there? Because I wasn't quite sure if I understood. I think I know, but what were you trying to say?

No, because people were saying that I was getting in his face at the wayans and all this. And I'm not trying to do it. I'm just having a solid, it's all a game. You know what I mean? I'm just playing up like the WWE. You know what I mean? It's all an act, really. I mean, I never had bad feelings towards Marcus.

I never had good feelings either. You know what I mean? I didn't love him. I didn't hate it. I didn't anything him, you know what I mean? He doesn't, the opponent doesn't come into the equation. I'm just playing up. I'm just getting people talking about the fighting,

but I, you know what I mean? Just get the hype going on. And I knew, I knew no matter what happens, I was going to perform in there. But outside of it, I definitely want, you know what I mean? I want people talking. I want, I want to create a story, you know what I mean, good or bad. Is that a good thing to admit?

Because people like to buy that stuff. They like to eat that up. Is it good to admit that? Yeah, I don't know. I don't want to give a shit, whether it's good to admit, you know what I mean? I'm still, it's not going to make a difference. You're still, all them motherfuckers are still going to pay for that ticket,

yeah, trust me on that. That's all that matters. So, so no hard, did you even talk to him after? Did you, did you share some words? No, I didn't, I didn't talk to him after because, I didn't talk to him after. I haven't seen him. If I had a son of him, I would have spoken to him.

You could see it in him. You know what I mean? I could see it in him. I was saying, man, he is emotionally attached. I could even see it in his coat. that he this coach was emotionally attached I just knew I'm saying this guy's going to be coming forward and going to be overthrone the shots and you know what I mean when you're emotionally attached your judgment is clouded you know what I mean your reaction time is off it's either too much

you're either firing too fast or you're firing you know what I'm trying to say yeah it's it's it's all I thought that would happen and now fair play did a little motherfucker he came out he came out he came going for it you know what I mean he threw some shots and Kenny and all those listening to the broadcast there, Kenny was saying I took some big shot. I didn't take any shots, to be honest. One might have been a little bit off balance, but I was in it. I took no shots, so I don't know what the crack that was.

I don't know what the fuck that was there, but no, I respect Marcus, he's a good guy, and I look forward to seeing him again, you know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, whether you beat a guy or he beats you, you know what I mean? You have a bond with these people for the rest of your life, you know what I mean? You want to see them do well. If someone beats me, I want to see them go on and do great things. If I, if

I beat them. I still want to see them go on and do great things. I mean, so you have a bond with, which are, which are opponents, no matter what, you know what I mean,

even if, even if there is a lot of shit talk, and there always is shit talk, but to me it means jack, shit, honestly, you can say what you want to me, and I'll say what I want to you.

It's going to come off, it's going to just roll off my back, you know what I mean, like water of a duck's back, as they say in Ireland. I don't know, they probably say that in America as well, but they say that in America,

yeah? They say bulletproof vest, waterproof back. You know what your man's, uh, Stitch was saying? He's walking back. You know, just the Cumpman Stitch. Yeah. You're the bad motherfucker.

Are you Irish? And I was like, yeah, the Irish are like the Mexicans, man. I'm going to call you loaded weapon. I was, fuck. Like, you know, it was just mad. You know, I don't really hear American accents or not. And then what you're just hearing everyone's accents and all. I was just, it was crazy.

It literally was like I'm in the game. It was literally like I'm in the game. And then both, both of a mad motherfucker. I'm like, he just, he gets you gone. He, he, he, he gets you gone. He, that man runs the show, yeah. Oh, yeah. That man really runs the whole shit.

He's the unsung hero. He's the unsung hero. He's the, he's the, he's the guy that you don't hear about as much, but without him, who knows how they go. Yeah. No, 100% that man runs the show. He was the only guy, you know, that you're in contact, that all the fighters are in contact with. And not only is, the fighters are in contact with him, and he's in contact with everyone else that is doing everything else. He really is the man behind it all.

It was great to meet him, and it was great to meet everyone, and get me foot in the door, you know what I mean? I told them all I was going to steal the show, Arreel, and I wasn't messing about that, you know. It's not going to stop here, you know what I mean? They'll give me someone in Boston, and it makes no difference here where it is. I'll go through them as well, and I'm just going to keep going.

There's no stopping me. You know, just a few more minutes left with you, Connor, we really appreciate the time. I have to admit and correct me if I'm wrong here, when you were on the show the first time, a month or so ago, like I said, you were sitting back, you were eating, you were dropping the F-bombs, you were very cocky, very confident. You seem to me now the same guy, but very tired. You seem almost exhausted from the whole experience. Like now you're coming down from Cloud 9. Is that accurate?

Yeah, that could be accurate. Yeah, I'm just, I don't know, I'm just chilling out on my gab as well. Can't a man chill out in his house for help me, looking, saying he's tired. I don't know. I feel fucking great, man. I feel rich as a motherfucker as well, I don't know. I don't know. I feel good. But like, even before, you know what I mean? Excellence is a, isn't, it's not a skill. Excellence is an attitude. You know what I mean.

It's all in your head, you know, you tell yourself, you, you are what you, you are whatever you tell yourself are, you know what I mean? I'm telling myself I'm the two-way champ. I mean, that's that. What does that mean? I'm the two-weight world champion. Two-way? What do you mean by that?

Are you talking about... Oh, two-weight. Oh, okay. All right. Two-weight world champion. Well, you're going to go up and downweight. You know what I mean? I'm not afraid. I'll go lightweight. I'll go fed away. I'd like, I wouldn't mind maybe a lightweight scrap for the next one.

Oh, really? Just to get in, because I definitely want to be up and down. I definitely want both divisions now when I'm about. So the next one in Boston, you want it to be at 155? Yeah, I wouldn't mind 155. Yeah, because as well, my first one in America as well, you know what I mean? It's a big travel as well, so I'd like to be, I'd probably like it at 155. My Sean Shelby came up to me and said, we don't want you to go near one. We don't want, I want you to stay at 145.

I'll honestly take, I'll take either one, you know what I mean? 155 or 145. You said at the Post-Five press coverage, what's that? Yeah, no, going on. You said that you were going to collect social welfare checks, or you were on the verge, or what was going on there? No, no. See, as you know, Ariel, maybe you don't know.

It's UFC or peanuts. Yeah. You know what I mean? If you're not signed to the UFC, you're a broke motherfucker, like I told you in the last interview. So I was collecting the social welfare, you know what I mean? Up until, up on hill it, you know what I mean? So now, and I was just basically saying that that,

because people were asking me questions, and I was just saying, listen, I don't know what the fuck is going on here. Here I am up on a big stage, and Dana White is right there. And I don't know, I'm just having to fucking clear what's going on. I was in a bubble. I was in my days just last week I was in collecting the social welfare, I mean, we just did. But all, martial arts chasing this dream on a nuttack,

you know what I mean? I hope the guys from Ireland and whoever around the world, you know what I can see, like me, that it can just change like that, you know what I mean? One minute, seven seconds, I go from being known to having money and money to me name and having my name out there, you know what I mean? So I hope that inspires people to get out

and chase what they're chasing, you know what I'm going to get after it. And just to show how confident you were, you planned out, you picked out a pretty sweet-ass suit, I must say. I mean, that thing was great, with the bow time, what not. I want to know, how did you afford that thing? You're collecting social. How did you afford it?

Yeah, that's what we called hand-me-downs, yeah. In Ireland, we call them hand-me-downs, yeah? That was my great-grandfather Joe's blazer that was, yeah? Handed down through the famine. Now, do you know what? I knew. I knew I was going to be on that post-fied press conference, so I packed some nice pair of slacks.

I packed a nice dicky bow. What do you think of that dicky bow, by the way? I liked it. I must admit, I thought it was awesome. Just a little touch. All it was was a dicky bow, 10 euro. You know what I mean? And people are talking about the dick about kill motherfucka. But anyway, I packed all that. Because I knew, I knew I was going to be on that post-fired press conference.

I packed some nice pair of pants, nice pink shirt, nice bowtog, blazer. I mean, I packed it all because I knew. I knew I was going to steal the show. And they were going to want me on that post-foy press conference. And, you know what they say when you see in your head, who says that? when someone says when you're seeing your head, you're going to see it before your eyes, and that's what happened.

What are the first couple of things that you want to buy with this money that you have now? I don't know. I was saying I'm going to buy a car, and I'm going to... Listen, if I'm going to have to talk to someone, yeah, because I know to talk to someone who knows about money because I know Jack's shit, yeah.

I don't have a bank account. I've never had a bank account, do you know what I mean? I've never had... You know what I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to talk to someone about what I'm going to do with the money, but if I was to cash that now, I'd cast that right now, that money, I'd be broke by next week, you know what I mean?

So I'm going to talk to someone, sorry to that, what I'm going to do with it, and then get back at it, you know what I mean? I'm going to, this doesn't stop for me. I don't stop at it, you know what I mean? There's no break for me. I'm, I stay in shape, you know what I mean? Not going to catch me out of shape, not never, you know what I mean?

So I'm straight back into it and keep going, keep going at it, and get back in and look for more of these knockout of the night bonuses and sub of the night bonuses. I'm not looking for that fight of night bonus either, you know, because that, that to me is, That to me is a loss, I'm looking to dominate sub-a-night, a fight-a-night, or even maybe, do you know what, there should be performed to the night,

if anything, there should be a performance of the night, and knockout of the night and a sub-of-the-night, as well as fire-a-night, you know, a fight-a-night is great, but, you know, even when you hear, like, two people in the, in, like, the pre-fight press conference, let's make this fight in the night, no, I know what I mean? They're saying, yeah, we're going to make this fight a night, trying to just make a fight-in-it.

To me, that's selling yourself short, you know what I mean? You're not, you're not. I don't know. It's not the wrong. You're not reaching for the stars. You're not reaching too short there for me. You know what I mean? I'm looking to steam roll everyone.

You know what I mean? Get the of the night bonus, but not the fight at the night bonus. And you've received an immense amount of love and we'll get to that in a second, but I'm sure with that come some hate as well. And somewhat famously made some headlines in Ireland. You and Kenny Egan, who's somewhat of a boxing star over there,

Olympic and all that stuff. What's going on there? Because I saw back and forth on Twitter, you got some people that you need to put in place. So I don't know if you feel like you do. Yeah, we have some, we have Olympic, our Olympic amateur boxers are heroes in this country. I don't know where that Phil thinks he gets off, things he, I went on to Twitter. You know, my Twitter is blowing up at the minute.

And I mean, I was just scrolling through the little interaction thing. And then I see it's that fucking dope puts up some picture about MMA or some sort of little joke and had put my Twitter thing in it, the Twitter handle. And I just wrote Tom to shut his fucking mouth In pure unarmed combat In true combat You know what I mean That man is a novice

Do you know what I mean So And I just talked to shut his mouth And he was like Oh I was only having the crack You know what I was only having the crack You know what I don't know That Phil person need to have the crack

You know what I don't have the crack with me I'll crack in my 30 left hooks into the chain And then some other little muddaf It's harmless to be honest You know what I don't know There's a vibe going on I suppose because again, this sport has only grown in Ireland and we have a long history of boxing stars

and maybe they're a bit jealous, you know what I mean, that now that it's kind of torn in, it's probably already happened. This is like probably a debate that has happened in America in probably the 1990s or early 2000s when all that boxing versus him and makeup was going on. This is probably only happening here now, you know what I mean? So I don't know, fuck them off. Do you want to, it's kind of like, to me it's kind of like rugby and soccer,

you know what I mean? It's like a soccer player saying, rugby rugby's not good because it's too rough you know what I mean they need to get over that shit

you know what I mean because there's a new breed of bad motherfuckers around town and you're looking at them right now how do you think you'll be received in Boston?

I hope good you know what I mean Boston is I know there's a lot crazy artist motherfuck is floating around Boston so

I'd imagine I'd imagine we'd be looking I'd be looking good yeah but imagine I get some good support out there but again

you could boom I could come into a chorus of bills you know what I mean I'll play up to that shit I'll play it all off you know what I mean makes no difference but definitely I think

I think the Boston I know Boston is a strong Irish connection and man that that's going to be special but when is it it's four months isn't it it's August 17th yeah it's a long way away

I don't like that it's a bit too long do you know what also I found out because I thought I thought when you're signed to the UFC you couldn't compete in jujitsu tournaments or any other tournament was like that,

but I heard Ben Henderson was competing in a BJJ tournament. So there's no gear Europeans on in Rome in June. I'm going to get on to the UFC and see can I compete in that because I would love to, those jujitsu tournaments, they're a great vibe, and I don't know, I mean, go over and it's a little chill and it's competition, you know what I mean? So I'm going to see will they let me go over and compete in that?

That would be next to me, I'd imagine. Unless maybe there's something that could come in, coming before that, I don't know. I think they want you to fight in Boston, and it makes sense. And I don't know if you know this. That day, August 17th, a new channel is launching here in the United States called Fox Sports One. So it's a very big deal. And they're putting a UFC event on the first day that the channel launches over 80 million homes.

So it's a big thing. And I have a feeling they want you to be on there because of the Irish connection, Boston and whatnot. But just so in case you don't know about that stuff because you don't get that channel in Europe, that's a big card for the UFC. Yeah, 100%. Just give me a minute there. I'm just going to shake my head, yeah, because I need to get them dollar bill signs there on my eyes, yeah?

Because that's all I heard when you said that, yeah? Maybe you can ask for a new contract already. Yeah, I don't know. I'm not going to push me luck. The man's at the hand of me, the man's going to give me a 60G check, you know what I mean? I'm not going to start demanding contracts. I'm just going to take it as it is and have fun.

You know what I mean? I don't give a fun. I'm just hit that fun, you know what I mean? And when you have a love for life, it's contagious. You know what I mean? It just attracts good stuff and attracts good things to you and has been working for me so far. So I'm just going to keep going, keep having fun.

And just keep doing what I'm doing. And I mean, nothing changes to me. And just keep doing what I'm doing. Two last things. Anyone who makes sense for you on that August 17th card, do you want to call someone out? No. Anyway, 145, 155, whatever they say.

there's no one that I really you know I suppose maybe your man Norman Park is a lot is 155 he he's fighting he's the other kind of Irish guy but he he's from Northern Ireland and he um he carries the another art that's all a history thing

I don't give a shit about that but I would that would be a good fight because the Irish American thing and it would be a great it would be a great contest or contest for the European scene you know me and Norman kind of came up together on the same kind of circuit

since before the UFC and we were always mentioned in the same bracket so it's definitely a fight I would look I would like to have all right against Norman at maybe 155 and I suppose that could happen in Boston but you never know but that would probably be won

but other than that really no anyone I don't take you I get the sense that you don't like Norman because the last time you were saying there are people who hold the flag or different flags and a lot of your fans in Ireland thought that was a shot at Norman do you not like this guy?

No I don't have any Again, I don't have any ill-feanus. I'm just, it's one of those things, you know, it's a fight that makes sense. You know, we came up the same way, and I think I'd do them in half a minute I would. You know what I mean? So I don't really, I don't have any ill-feanus towards the guy,

you know what I mean? He carries his, he's from Northern Ireland and carries his flag. I'm from Ireland, and I carry the tri-colour. I mean, it's like, it's like, probably what I would have a thing with is, you know, I'm from where I'm from, yeah? and if a UK MMA site or an MMA site said

I was UK fighter Connor McGregor something like that which does happen I will write to them well I'm actually I'm actually Irish

or I would write something like that you know what I mean whereas he you know I mean he considers himself British so when when people when people say he's Irish he should come on and say

and say no actually I'm British you know I mean maybe maybe maybe he should do that you know what I mean have respect for where you're from I'm proud of where I'm from. He should be proud of where he's from.

But at the end of that shit, means nothing. He'd be done in half a minute. He doesn't want that fight either, yeah. Okay, last thing, Connor, before we go, and this has been great. I want to know if there's anything you want to say to the people out there,

because I know right now it's around 8 p.m. in Ireland. Like I said, my Twitter, it went nuts. They voted for you for, you know, this weekend. They said, you're the most anticipated UFC debut. They had this poll on Fuel TV. We had fun with the whole people's main event thing. People were begging. Literally, I've never had this before,

where people were demanding that you come on the show on Monday. They wanted you back. What do you say to these people who are supporting you and almost living vicariously through you? Yeah, it's crazy, man. It gives me energy, you know what I mean? All this does is give me energy just to keep going and keep chasing me.

I know I have so many people behind. Of course, there's negativity, you know what I mean? There's a lot of negative people that maybe want to see me fair, but there's three times as many positive people who are giving me such good vibes, you know what I mean? So, I like to focus on the positive,

you know what I mean, and then the negative just shrinks away, you know what I mean? So to all the people that support me, man, thank you so much, and you're not going to be disappointed. I just can't wait to get in there again, you know what I mean?

It feels like this one has worn off already. I mean, this win has worn off already. I want to get back in. I've already been thinking about, you know, I'm already thinking about shit. Today I spent a day watching, watching some videos, you know, and just things. I was watching an

an Aikido yokes. I've ever see that Akeedo, this, like, this karate thing that these guys stand together, yeah, and they're in the in the game, and they literally punch and kick the body only. It's a mad looking, it's a mad, it's a mad, uh, looking sport. But then they do these like rolling, rolling flip kicks

and all, man, it's some crazy. So I'm, I'm just back on what, I'm just back down what I'm doing, what I mean? Fucking trying to learn, trying to grow, just add some new shit. It'd be nice to catch one of them rolling kicks somewhere down the line, definitely, I don't even know what to fuck about I thought about there.

Hey, I can put you in touch with my good friend the Honorable Sensei Segal who is in a keto master he could teach you a thing or two. Is that what you're trying to say? Do you want me to hook you up with Sensei Segal?

No, no, no, no. I'm a Chuck Nautis man, you know that, yeah? Fuck, Seagal, yeah? No, no, yeah. I'm a Chuck Nautis man, yeah.

Do you know what it'd be great? You know the way to walk out with you? Oh, yeah. I would love to walk out with Chuck Norris, man. That for me would be there. shit, man. Have you got a contact there for Chuck, for Chuck, no?

Well, let's see what happens. Get him on board and I'll stroll out with him on me back, you know what I mean? That'd be fucking sweet. I'm surprised no one tried to do that before, because Chuck Norris is the fucking man, yeah? You don't fuck with Chuck Norris. Well, on Fox Sports One, the launch of that network to come out with Chuck Norris is quite the entrance.

So you put it out there. You're the man for that, yeah? You start tweeting to Chuck Norris. I don't even, because I just follow this page out, and it's not really Chuck Norris. You know what I'm all the Chuck Norris jokes and that. absolutely hilarious. But if you know someone who knows someone who rap someone,

and if you know someone who can get in touch with Chuck Nulles, you do that, mate, yeah? Because that man is more than welcome to join my entourage. Yeah, the man's a living legend. Look at you, always taking, taking. Haven't I done enough trying to get the fight on the main card, people's main event? Always asking for more, aren't you? Yeah.

Sorry? Always asking for a little more out of me. I mean, I feel like this is a one-way street. You got it going as well for me, the people's main event. man, I appreciate that very much. Since that show, since the first show we're doing, you know what I mean? That blew up after the first show. It's not the blown up after the debut as well.

But even before, you know, just from that interview with you on that show, I don't mean, it all hit the roof then. I have a good little thing going on me and you are there. So let's keep it going, yeah? I don't know if you know this, but one of my signature videos is I go somewhere and I walk around town with someone. I do it for a full hour. People have said they want me to go to Dublin and walk around town with you. Are you down for that? Yeah, 100% let's do it.

All right. That sounds good for you, yeah. All right, cool. Well, Connor, for now, we appreciate it. Congratulations. Enjoy it. Have some blueberries. Have some chicken pizza.

I don't know what else you're eating over there. Yeah, what did you think of that chicken pizza? I stared at that picture for like 10 minutes. I didn't understand what it was, but it looks amazing. That is the nicest paleo dish you're ever going to get in your life. Yeah. What you do is you get three chicken fillets and egg, put it into it raw. Yeah, you put it into a food process.

I was it up with a little garlic and a little chili powder and make it into like a snot. It literally goes like snot, yeah? Take it out there and put it into a tray. Put it out like a base of a pizza. Sticking it to it up in 15 minutes. Take it out. Stick some tomatoes.

Was up some tomatoes in the food process, some chili paste, some tomato paste, some fresh basil. Butter, I put the sauce on top of the pizza, on top of the chicken base and then start packing it with more shit. I packed it with like lamb, mince, chicken, sausages, avocado, onions, peppers, chickpeas,

and suck it back in the oven for 15, 20 minutes more. And it was the fucking nicest thing I've ever had in my life earlier. See shredded joys, yeah? That might be shredded joe's signature dish, yeah? That's what I was thinking about. That's a victory pizza if I've ever heard of one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lean and clean, yeah.

Well, that's great, Connor. Enjoy it. Take it all in, and then we look forward to what's next for you. Something tells me we'll talk to you before August 17th again. but enjoy everything. And once again, congratulations, and thanks for giving us a few minutes of your time today. No problem, Mario. Thank you so much, mate. Thank you very much. There he is. Slop the hole, yeah?

The notorious one. Connor McGregor is stopping by unbelievable stuff out of him. He is the latest sensation in the UFC, defeating Marcus Brimidge in 67 seconds, and winning the knockout of the Knight Award, 60,000. dollars richer. He now has a pot to piss in. He now has more money to buy suits, perhaps even a car. And it was a nice story to see unfold. And hopefully for Marcus, who's a guy who was really the hype killer in the UFC for a long time defeating the likes of Jimmy Hedis and Maximo Blas. I mean, he looked very good thus far. Three and O in the UFC up until that fight on Saturday. looking forward to seeing him come back. I think that's a tough fighter at 145. A great matchup by Sean Shelby, very interesting styles matchup

and Brimich came out strong, but those uppercuts from Connor, and they eventually landed, he eventually finished him. Very impressive. I'm curious to see what they do with him, and I think they'll keep him at 145, and hopefully this time he makes it on the main card,

because as you saw right there, the man's exciting to watch. So we hope you enjoyed that. Thank you very much to everyone. who asked and begged to have him on. Thank you to Connor for coming on. We appreciate everyone caring so very much. All right. A few more things left to do. We still have to answer some of your questions. We've got to look at the pictures. But first, let us go to the phone lines. We've got a caller on line number one. And it's a returning caller, a friend of the show, as they call him.

Our good friend, Milan. Milan, are you there? Hey, how you doing, Ariel? That was a tough act to follow. But, you know, I'm going to try my best with my... Are you still there, Milan? Yes, can you hear me? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, you cut out for a second, but we got you back. I was saying that that's a tough act to follow, but I'm going to do my best in my makeshift moment.

All right, what do you got for us? All right. And of Alexander Gustafen, who feels cheap if he wasn't able to fight Saturday, I understand where someone would be upset that is caught prevented him from fighting. But I think if you're a proud of a fan, you have to view this. is a blessing in disguise. Now we might be able to take the fight against Leoto Mochita. And when I talked a few weeks ago with Swar,

what was next for Leoto? He said he couldn't pick because of the top lead heavyweights that were already signed to fight. But now both contenders are available. And I think they should go to each other to decide who gets the winner of Jones. Well, first off, your phone's cutting out a little bit, but I heard the gist of what you said.

A, I love the fact that you dropped for the second week in row that you spoke to Ed Soros, a couple weeks back. That was great on your part. And B, don't you feel like it's a little unfair towards Gagarin Musassi? Who knows how long he'll be out for? But he was supposed to have this fight. Doesn't he deserve it? Yeah, I think we should maybe make Guthson fight Gagard again, depending on if he gets back from his injury quickly.

Yeah, you know, I said it as well. I think it makes sense maybe for the main event of UFC on Fox Sports 1, as they're calling it. They need a big card there, and I think Gustafin v. Machita makes sense unless they want to put a title fight. I'm kind of torn on this one, because I think Gaygard Company guy,

he stepped up, took the fight. He didn't have to. I think he deserves that shot. It's a fight I really want to see. But who knows how long he'll be out for, so let's see what happens there. Gustafsson's good to come back. He'll be back in two weeks or so he'll be cleared to fight.

And also, let's not forget, Machita was promised the title shot. So you have to kind of tell him, well, you're not going to, to get the title shot just. And let's see what happens with Chale Sondon. What if Chale Sondon wins? You know, there's a lot of craziness that can happen. I don't see it happening, but

definitely a possibility. Yep. What else you got? I think of old school fighters. You know, people were all finding it very significant. Deem Finkels Finer, Domitian, the president of C on June 9. I was wondering,

Aaron, I was saying hypothetically that they put silver or for Breedio for Dune loses their next really big fights. Two potential Remigrant people will be enough to get them to

have to talk Okay Again, I think I got what you said I think I got what you said But it's cutting out What happens Your good phone connection

From last week? I have no idea I'm in the same exact building Can you not hear me? Now it's a little better So let's roll with that I'm holding it very close to my face Do you want me to repeat that?

No, no, no I got you said you're asking If if maybe they'll get a rematch for Fador in the UFC with like a Verdum or a Bigfoot, right? Yeah, would that be enough to draw him back? Well, first of all, I got to say, you know, I'll do respect.

He's sitting there in the front row. Dana White says he doesn't know why he was there, how he was there. He's sitting in back to Stefan. I know they didn't mean to put him on TV, but there were rumors that he was at UFC on Fuel 7 in London. He wasn't seen on camera there, but he was seen. I find it, if you will. I mean, those are VIP seats.

Now, it's possible that someone may have done. gave him the tickets. It's possible that he was there to see Gaggart, but I don't buy that. You talk to Gaggart, he wasn't all that close with them one guys. He hasn't been with them for a while. I don't think he's coming from Russia. I think something's up. And Dana has said in the past

that he won't tell us everything to protect his own interest. I mean, heck, he told us about the Brock deal. He lied about it. He flat out lied about it. He said the meeting went horribly. It actually went great and they almost made the fight. I think something's up. I'll say it right now. I'll say something's up.

Vadim Ficklstein is not sitting in the front row just because he's on in the VIP seats. Those are tough tickets to get, and those are reserved for VIP people. Very important people. There I say, the VIP. Very, very important people. Anyway, point being, I think something's up,

and I wouldn't be surprised at this point. I think something very suspicious. Yeah, I think I wouldn't be surprised. They're talking about Rush all this stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if Fader signs with UFC. I'll be honest with you. I want to transition into my having said that portion of my Milan moment. Let me preface by stating Ryan Couture's UFC debut was on TV in the co-made event,

and Connor McGregors was on the Facebook prelims. And it seemed that Ryan Couture striking was about his quality as his father's acting. Having said that, I feel that Ryan was thrown to the wolves, and I was wondering, do you think Dana White or Joe Silva gave him a tougher UFC debut because they wanted him to lose, to do their beep with their whole? being father? You know, I don't know. If memory serves me correctly, well, it didn't come out. The stuff about Randy came out Super Bowl weekend. That being said, it had been developing before that. If you recall, Ryan Couture fought on the last Strike Force card. That was January 12. So it must have

happened around then. We'll see what happens with Ryan. As I tweeted on Saturday, I think he deserves another chance. I do think that Ross was a bit of a tough fight for him. I don't think he had fought anyone of that level, co-main event, UFC debut, all that stuff. That's a lot to give him. You know,

a lot of people thought he didn't even beat KJ Noons. But I'd like to see, I'd like to see him stick around for one more fight. They're cutting a lot of people. You know,

they have to get rid of some of that, that fat on the roster, Colin Fletcher announcing today that he had been cut from the UFC. I don't want to speculate. It's a tough position. I don't want to say they threw him to the wolves because of their beef

with Randy because, you know, no one has come out and said it, and then you're kind of jumping the gun there. But that being said, it was a tough fight. It was tougher than any fight that that he had received. We'll truly feel, or we'll truly find out how they feel about the situation when we find out if he's still in the UFC. If he's gone, you could speculate. If he gets another chance, then hopefully one has nothing to do with the other. But I'd like to see him get one more chance. And by the way, let's give props to Ross Pearson. Did you see his foot on Twitter?

The guy thinks he broke his foot. He announces today that it doesn't look like he did. But the thing is massive on the first kick he threw training and warming up in the locker room to come out and fight the way he did it, especially in that second round. He deserves a lot of props. Yeah, I think the story of UFC on Fuel 9 was perseverance. You've got to think of Gagar Misci taking the fight with knee problems and a cold, Latifi, having to cut 27 pounds in four days, and Pearson, just like you said, didn't break his foot, but definitely hurt his foot before the fight.

I think these fighters definitely perform with true heart, grit, and perseverance. All right, man. Another having said that that I want to bring up, Dana White missed out on creating even more hype around the Irish phenomenon by not airing Conner's fight on TV like we agreed he should have. Do you think that Dana White might make the same mistake in Boston on Fox Sports One? Not sure. It's a little early. I feel like they may put it as the opening fight. I mean, he's certainly produced, and there's a lot of buzz about it. him, so it seems like a perfect opening fight, but it's hard to say at this point.

Who knows where the prelims will air? Who knows how the whole thing will shake out? So I think it's very premature. We're still, you know, as he mentioned, April, we're still four months out. I'm also a huge fan of the Marvel Avengers. And any time that you get to see Thor or the Hulk fight on the same card, I'm a happy man. I think Mike Easton's persona and is in-your-face style of fighting is amazing to watch. Having said that, even Mark Ratner thinks that these judges overseas need a major wake-up call

because I don't see how anyone in their right mind can call the Easton v. Pickett fights 30 to 27. Ethan and Pickett were battling back and forth and the whole fight, and the sport should have represented a closer fight. Unfit judges are plaguing the sport, and people like Big John McCarthy aren't even able to rest in Las Vegas. I think there's no justice in this, and I would even like to see Big John become a judge, maybe, for the next Vegas card. What do you think? Well, I don't know if he's going to be in Vegas because he's not, you know,

he's not being employed by Nevada, so let alone judge, referee. Not going to happen at this point. He has judge fights in the past, so we know he can do that. But yeah, I mean, we've talked about this ad nauseum. There's issues. And, you know, even when the UFC gets to pick, there are issues, although this one was the Swedish MMA Federation, but you get the point.

It's not going to change anytime soon, and that's just something that we have to deal with. I just think we have to get, sorry. No, I just want to say, do you have one more because we have to run? Oh, for sure. I just want to leave with a message for the fighters, is that right? Yeah, go ahead. I want to end off by congratulating Scott Torgensen and Uriah Favor for being able to put their friendship aside

and headline the next ultimate fighter finale fight card. These two fighters both share the same managers, and Uriah Fabor was actually the person that convinced Scott to get into this college wrestling, to get into the sport after college wrestling. There are no teams, teammates, or friends in mixed martial arts. And as Dana White put it, it's an individual sport with a small window of opportunity. If someone stands between a fighter and contendership position, they should have no qualms about taking a fight that will advance their careers. Cormi won't even fight Kane Velasquez for the title that he should be fighting for.

And I think that he only took the Fox fight on the off chance that Bigfoot Silva beats Kane Velas so that they can rematch the strike force heavyweight Grand Parade. I want to see fights like Rory v. GSP, Cormier v. Velazquez, G.S. versus Melendez and Hunt versus Bigfoot. This has been Milan, lipstein for MMA fighting.com. There he is. Malan, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Another Milan moment. I like how he incorporated that having said that last week, he hashtag, having said that, which I thought was a little bizarre, but now he's incorporating it into his routine. All right, so there you have it. What are we doing now in New York, are we going to the pictures or what? We could do that.

What do you want to do? How about we do Rick's picks first? Because it's going to be a short one this week. There's not a lot of lines. And the card is kind of small. And then we'll go to the pictures and the fan questions. All right. So how did we do last weekend?

When I say we, I mean you. It's actually the week because I did put down a bet on Bellator this week. I bet on Curran over Shamalayiv. And that one came through. I bet 20 on Curran. That one won. So I won 1429, I believe it was. And then I put 10 on a parlay of Marcus Brimidge and Brad Pickett.

And I lost that one. So I ended up only up $4.29, I believe, is the total. So not a great one. But I mean, profit is profit. I'll take it. And I'm inching toward where I want to be. be come UFC 159. So where are we at now?

I think I have like 140 and 59 cents. So just add a curiosity considering, you know, how much we talked about the fight and the people's main event and all that stuff. How much hate did you receive for betting against Connemagreg, which was a fine bet? I mean, Marcus, great fighter, like I said, but I'm just, I have a feeling you must have received some flak for that. I didn't receive much hate. I received more people saying, like, what were you thinking?

after that interview or this guy's incredible. There's a lot of support for Connor, but it wasn't so much hate, which I can appreciate. I love enthusiastic fans, and I was looking at my timeline, and it was good to see. Just to get it on the record here, I did say when picking that fight, on the show, I said,

if Connor comes out in starches him, it wouldn't surprise me one bit, just because of how you're hedging your bets, right? That's what they call. Well, actually, speaking of hedging my bets. The prop bets for this card didn't come out until the day of the fights or, you know, sometime overnight between weigh-ins and the fights. So let's say I had been able to bet up until fight time.

I would have hedged Connor McGregor by knockout to win some money back if Marcus hadn't won. But since I'm limited to only betting an hour after way-ins, that wasn't quite possible. So I was a little limited in what I was able to do for. for this card. Are you giving excuses? Is that what happening? No, no, no. I'm just pointing out to you the stipulations that you've created for this.

Oh, come on. Enough of that. We gave you the opportunity. We didn't create any stipulations. I changed the rules. I changed the rules. I gave you more of a chance. And then you changed them right back.

You spat on my face. You spat right in my face. And quite frankly, I thought it was, I thought it was, I won't say rude, but I thought it was very disrespectful. Not just to me, the show, but to the sport. I'm spitting in your face now.

I spit on you. So how many fights? So you bet on three fights last week, right? Well, I mean, here's the thing. In my record, the... It's always an excuse. Can't you just answer the question? I'm just answering it.

In the 16 and 15, I'm counting... Let's say I picked Brad Pickett correctly. I correctly picked him to win that fight, but I counted it as a loss because I paired him with Brimage. So even though I picked one of those two fights correctly, it still counts as one loss. I don't get any credit for a win in that regard.

So I technically only won one bet and lost one bet, even though I picked two fights correctly and lost one fight. So there was like 9,000 fights. Could you not find anything else? I mean, you do realize there are three cards left. Right. Well, as I said, I'm putting myself in position to win. As I said last week...

But you're going to need a home run. No. At this moment, as I said last week, I could bet on a two to one underdog and win. But that's a home run. That's not a home run. Home run is betting on quite a bigger underdog than that. But what I'm saying is you have to bet everything. You have to swing for the fences. At some point you haven't done, what's the most you bet on like 50-ish? 50-ish?

So you're going to have to bet like 140. I'm going to have to. At some point I'm going to have to put it all down because there's not enough time. Yes. Right. There's three cards left, three UFC's left. Correct. Are you betting on anything this weekend?

Well, the line is only out for the main event. So I can't say right now. Let me see exactly what those odds are. The odds on the main event are. Jorgensen is the underdog plus 340. Faber is the favorite minus 465. Wow. I'm not betting on that fight.

Paper's a big favorite, huh? Faber's going to win because him and Jorgensen have very similar styles. It comes down to what Jorgensen does, Faber does a little bit better. In every aspect of the game, they're both competent and not competent. They're both really good wrestlers, really good grapplers, very good on their feet, and everything that Jorgensen is going to have for Faber, Faber is going to have that and a little bit more back for him.

But I do think that minus 465 is absurd. There's no way that fight is this big of a game. gap. I think that Jorgensen's better than that. I see value there, but I can't do it with what I have remaining. So I'm not going to bet on that one, unless there's a prop involving Faber that comes up. Or maybe I'll put Faber in a parley, possibly. So other than that, obviously we don't know who made it to the finals. We'll find out tomorrow. There's Zingano-Tate. Sure. There's Brown against Gonzaga. The Facebook prelims are pretty good as well. Let me just. just run down the card while we're talking about it.

Maximo Blanco v. Sam Cecilia, Justin Lawrence versus Daniel Paneda, Cole Miller versus Bart Pauschowski. That's the Facebook prelims. That kicks off at 5.30 p.m. Eastern on Saturday. Then there's the FX prelims. Nothing announced for that just yet. I'm assuming since they said all those guys are going to go over from the show,

you know, we saw some guys fight on this past weekend's card in Sweden. And then you got the main card on FX. Brown Gonzaga, Zangano Tate, TBD versus TBD, and your eye favor versus Jorgensen. So any of those fights interest to you? I mean, obviously there are no lines, but anything you think you'll bet on?

For sure, I'll be interested in watching the Tate Zangano line, just because I think that the books are going to favor Tate a little more than I might. I think that this is a close fight. Zingano is definitely a capable opponent, but I think that because of Tate's name, that she might get a bump in terms of the odds. So that's one I'm going to keep an eye on, possibly a bet on Zingano.

But I do think Tate will win that fight, by the way. If I'm picking a coin flip, I pick Tate. Brown versus Gonzaga. I think Brown's going to take him out early. I said the same thing about Bigfoot, though, before. And I really thought that he was going to before Brown got injured. So I think that we're going to see something like that here. He's going to take Gonzaga out early.

So there might be a prop bet on Brown within one round, or by K.O. I think that that's a possibility for this, for this card as well. Wow. That'd be a huge fight for him. He has to get back on track, obviously. Lost to Bigfoot Silver the last time we saw him in action in October. What about those undercard fights? The Facebook ones. I think there's some interesting ones there. Cole Miller, Bob Parashefsky? That's a good fight, but I think that Palishevsky's going to be able to... Really? Yeah. Interesting. Why, do you favor Miller? Are we getting a little insight into the mind of Helwani?

Well, you know, I like to keep it somewhat neutral. By the way, is this fight happening at 145 or 155? I wonder. As far as I know, 145, no? Because both of them have fought at 155 before, and I don't think 145 is good for Cole Miller. Let's see if we can find out here. Miller-Powicevsky. I'm clicking on UFC.com. I wonder. Well, in any case, in terms, I obviously, as we've said already, I don't know the line,

but I do favor Palloshevsky there. I think that he's going to be able to, on his feet, push the pace and in terms of wrestling get takedowns if he needs them. Now that said, Cole Miller is obviously a very, very good grappler and the submission might possibly be there, so maybe I'll hedge it with some kind of submission props, something like that.

But just picking, I like Palloshefsky there. And according to UFC com, it seems like it's 145. I think that's not the best way class for Cole Miller. I like them better at 155. All right, so we'll stay tuned to your picks. Twitter.com slash New York, I wanted to ask

you one more thing. I noticed yesterday that you were tweeting about WrestleMania which of course was last night at MetLife Stadium over in New Jersey and you've always been oh, Mr. Anti- Wrestling. So what's going on? Well, I'm not anti- Wrestling. I just, it's not my cup of tea. I don't watch it. So once a year I'll put on WrestleMania, that's about it.

What do you think? It's not, I mean, that's really what I think is it's not my cup of tea. In terms of production, I really thought it was a well-run show. I'm not sure if that's normal for WWE. I don't watch consistently enough to make that judgment, but in terms of production, it was really good. I thought it was funny that they had P. Diddy there,

and it didn't seem like the crowd was much into it. Yeah, that always happens. They always bring out some act that is somewhat, you know, well-known, mainstream, all that stuff. But the crowd doesn't care. It's like when they had, who they have, Metallica at an inflection fight? Was it Metallica?

I don't know. I'm not much of a music guy. But, you know what I mean? People don't care. They want to see. what they paid for. And it was cool to see Pete Dity there, but the fans don't care.

They don't want to see that. And then he's almost calling them out by saying, you know, oh, you're not too tough to put up your hands and things like that. Wrestling fans are going to put up their hands. This is not 1992 men on a mission. They're not going to swing their arms

from side to side. I thought it was, it pretty much summed up the issue I have with wrestling, which is what I said to Michelle Bito last week on the show. It's too predictable. You know what's going to happen. match. No way

Siam Punk was beating Undertaker and that was the best match. And then they put the Triple H match after that everyone's on this high.

You need something to let people cool off with and we know the Triple H is going to win. He's not going to retire. Brock loses

again. How weird is that? And then obviously Cina's going to win. It's just obvious. What do you think of Brock's attire?

It was W. It was MMA. Yeah. Like he had the sponsors on the shorts. He had the gloves. Yeah.

But it looked goofy. It did because I think his shorts were riding really high, weirdly. It looked like he was trying to urkle his pants. I'd rather him just go with the old pro wrestling. Like, don't do the MMA thing. It just doesn't look right. I don't know. I think it actually kind of works.

Isn't that part of his character, though, that he comes over from the... Yeah, I guess. The MMA world. But he was once there, so I'd rather him be the WVE guy, not the MMA guy. It just looks weird. Fair enough. Kudos to him, by the way. most people can't have sponsors.

That's not really allowed in WW. He has actual sponsor, like the same death clutch. You see all that stuff. And it's pretty amazing. Also, C.M. Punk coming out with a Gracie sweatshirt again. I wonder if they pay him for that. Well, he reps it to the fullest. He really does.

Geez, Louise. Keeping it real. He really does. It was BS that he lost. I mean, it was obvious. Well, what's the point? Doesn't that streak have to end at some point? I don't know.

It doesn't. That's the thing. People actually pay to see him keep one. winning. It makes no sense. It's so silly. At some point he needs to pass the torch. I guarantee you he won't. C.N. Punk would have been a good guy to do it with because he's a full-time guy. He's there all the time. But, no, that's part of the allure. 21 and 0. 22-0. Wow. It's so great. He was lucky enough to be on that many WrestleMania's and he won. Big whoop. You sound a little salty. Your boy didn't get it done.

It's not that. It's just so predictable. Oh, and here's my biggest issue. And we'll stop talking about wrestling after this. My biggest issue is back in the day, no matter what was going on, when it was happening, it didn't matter the time of the match, if you hit your finisher lights out. Match is over, you won. Now the whole thing is, oh, he hit the finisher, tombstone, pedigree, one, two, oh, he kicked out. Oh, I'm so shocked. Now you have to hit it like nine times in order to actually win the match.

It makes no sense. It's just, to me, it cheapens the whole thing. But isn't that where it has to go now? because they've already kicked out of one finisher. Now the next progression is kicking at a two, then three. Like the Rock and John Cena, they went through a period where they were just trying to land their finisher on each other. And it looked like they only knew like two moves in like a fighting game.

Yes. Like they were just jamming the buttons and they were doing the same thing over and over. And guess what? It's not a finisher then. It doesn't finish. If it takes eight times to actually finish the person, it's not a finisher. Amen. Let's no-shirt nation at up. Okay, let's do it.

What do we got? Okay, so just to recap, oh, by the way, let's say what's at stake here. Oh, good point. Just to recap, we ask people, we're going with this theme until it really craps on us. So far, so good. People are asking about it beforehand, so I like it. We asked you to give us your best no-shirt-nation pose. Hashtag no-shirt nation. Of course, you're right favor, fighting this weekend against Scott Jorgensen. The prize is... The prize is this beautiful piece of artwork right here.

Let me hold it up so everybody can see. There it is. Now, this was graciously, this was graciously donated to us by our friend Chris. I will tweet out later a link to his website and his Facebook page where you can purchase this art. And actually, let me open it back up for you. Yeah, and by the way, if you're not watching, if you're just listening to the podcast, to collage, a great collage. a great collage of the biggest names, the greatest names in MMA history.

It's a pretty cool thing. He hooked us up with like four of them. We may keep one for ourselves. Yeah, I think we need one of these for our studio. And how can people learn more about him? I'm going to tweet out a link to his Facebook and to his Twitter. Chris, right? Chris Mokrat.

I think it's like more caught or something like that. M-O-R-K-A-U-T, I believe is how it's spelled. Okay. But I will tweet out the links for sure. So follow and it's fantastic. And buy your own if you don't win one. Okay. So that's what's at stake.

Did we get good ones or did this fail? The people keep upping it every time. Oh my God. I'm more and more impressed every time. Wow. There's one in here that I think you're going to like particularly. But we'll see. Okay.

So this is our first one. And by the way, did you, are we seeing all of them here or did you weed some out? I've weeded some out. There still, there was a lot for this. There was a lot. Wow. Okay, so that's one. See, this is interesting.

Obviously, he's reppping NoShir, and I said you could be creative, but that's not really a Uriah Faber face. Well, we didn't get so many without the shirt, so I wanted to feature those for sure. Oh, really? The ones without the shirt. How did people, No Shirt Nation? We'll see.

People got creative on this. All right, all right. So that's the first one. Okay. This one I thought was incredible. He photoshopped his face onto Uriah Faber and onto Scotty Jorgensen. That's pretty good. and look at the butt.

The butt chin. Wow. So I thought that was, this is definitely the most creative. Is that the same guy in both picks? Same guy. Wow. That's creative.

Holy moly. How long did that take? I'm not sure, but that's really good. Do you think he had it in his vault? He might have had this done already, but either way. What timing?

It's a valid submission. Very valid. Now here, we have no shirt nation inside the 7-Eleven or whatever this may be, supermarket. Yeah. Looking good.

I would have liked to see it forward instead of profile, but... Why, why? What's wrong with profile? We don't really get much here. Wow, you're asking for more, huh? Wow. He left you wanting more. And nonetheless, I give him props. And by the way, wherever he's at, it looks like it's great.

It looks like he's on some kind of vacation. Florida maybe? Who knows? But I'm jealous. A bit of a farmer's tent as well. Whoa. Female submission with the butt chin. All right, all right.

What's going on on top of? her head. That's supposed to be a headband. She used toilet paper. Yeah. As you can see in the, that's very, uh, bandit octopus, very, very creative. Lindsay was, was concerned that, um, you know, it wasn't fair to females out there because you can't take your shirt off, obviously, but you can't do it. Sure. So she got creative. And by the way, she could have. If she wanted to, she could blur things out. I mean, you could get really creative. And we're not saying that you had to be totally. You know what I'm saying? Just want to throw it out there. The next one. I just want to throw it out there.

he's doing the butt, he's forming the buttchins on his own. Yes. And lifting the shirt. That's great. This is very good. I like this one. Is this your front runner so far?

That or the, the Photoshop. The Photoshop. Yeah, that was good. But this one, yeah, I like this. Oh my gosh. He's playing a little bit of a joke. Oh, Liz Carmouche.

A face of Liz Carmouche. Wow. Now what's going on with his hand? I don't know. No, that must be pre-existing if I had to guess. But I like this one just based on, well, the shirt's off, number one, points there, and then the Liz Carmush face. That's awesome. This might be number one.

This one's great. Oh, this is number one. So far, this is my winner as well. Toddy rules. Very good. He drew in the butt chin and the abs. More abs than even possible. Smile, chin, 8.

pack sandals give me that prize that one's great that's number one right now we can run through some of these more quickly a good attempt good attempt I mean he's shirtless props what's going on here at work no shirt mouthpiece

wow nice job a lot of these are from work so they had to be you know and I really appreciate that it's it's one of our our best submissions no shirt fitted shades and a Cali BJ and Cali BJ Pent Trucks equals shoeing.

I mean, I give people props. They're cool with exposing themselves to the world. I mean, they have nothing to be ashamed of, of course. All right, what else we got? Everyone's doing the, what is that called? Hang loose or something? Shaka, I think it's called that. Is that a Shaka?

Who knows? I'm not even sure. Maybe a fourth time will be a charm. He submitted every week, I believe. Close, but my guy who drew it in. Yeah, he's still the winner so far. Now, this one was, this is, Your-Raya Faber.

This is Yeraiah Faber from Ultimate Fighter. Yes, it says this is Dana's video blog. This is the submission. Okay, okay. Oh my God. That's pretty awesome. That is incredible. That's our boy Mike Tyson.

He really stepped it up. Wow. In the snow. There's snow on the ground, and he's out there, no shirt. Doing the pose. Wow. I think that he wins so far. Okay, well, that pose, by the way, is from the Dana video blog.

When he saw Yariah flexing and checking himself out. if you recall. That's amazing. That might be, wow. All right. What else we got? The hair's a match. The hair's a match,

but I mean, it's tough to top those two. What do we have here? He's got the last call Castillo badge. Man, I love how smart people are. I really do love this. It just warms my heart, and it's great to see the fans and people out there.

Oh, did he draw a butt chin in there? No. By the way, is it me or is his hand seem like it's almost sprained. I think it's the... It does look a little swollen, but I think it's the camera. It's pretty grainy.

Looks like Ross Pearson's shirt. Foot. shirt. Oh. Wow. Copying it. Replicating fight moves. Wow.

I believe that's Eddie Weinland. It is. That Faber is kicking in. Nice form there. I mean, I've got to give them props for that. Certainly better than I can do. Oh, whoa. an Irishman stole the show on Saturday in Stockholm

so I'm going to try to steal the show today Joey Lulles that's impressive that looks like your body just joking pants are a little low there wouldn't you say? I mean do we really need to see all that I feel like this one was one that

was sent other places other than just the show maybe not I mean if you got it I love when they copy a fan famous picture. So far, our buddy Mike is still in the lead. Yeah. Oh, there's the butchion. A good submission. A butt chin. Let's keep moving through these. Now, this is the one I thought you might

like a lot. Wow. Because of the such similarity. There is a lot of similarity. Obviously, he's got the cornrows. Is he wearing that shirt or is that Photoshop? I believe that's his shirt signed by Yerah Faber. But do you think that's legit? I think it's legit. No, do you think that he sent, Like this is him today? That's a good point. I don't know. Oh, look what he tweeted. UFC 132.

Yep. Screwed up. Screwed up. That might be. I think this is the last one right here. I don't even know what that is. I mean, it's a Mike Brown your eye favorite poster. He's doing the pose that favor is doing in the poster.

That's what he's doing. With no shirt. And also Brown beat him that fight. So come on. Oh, wait. Wow. I think he drew. Oh, that's fake.

drew it on. Yeah, that's fake. But this is the same guy who always tweets from the pharmacy. Oh, yeah, that's right. Gosh, people are trying to get their medicine. This guy's drawing butts on his chin. FYI, wait, go back to him for a second. Sure.

FYI, work in a farm lab. I got the jaw and chin down. Third times a charm. Four times a charm. What else we got? Doing the butt chin. Got a haircut. The day you asked for your eye favorite pose,

that's just bad luck. Bad luck, homie. Bad luck There's a lot of butchins out there Yeah, you gotta get creative If you're not taking off the shirt, I guess Yeah Now this is...

Oh my God This is from Fight Chicks Oh, that's my man Tweeting with children There's an alternate one Oh, that's so cute No Shirt Nation Did the braids too

So it's legit But you know what? I don't think it happened today Do you think it happened today? I'd have to say no. Yeah. Because Ms. Rara was, as much as we love, fight checks, Jake, Ms. Rara, I'm just not sure that this happened today. Oh, yeah.

Last but not least, our buddy. By the way, he sent some Connor McGregor pictures to you. There's one coming. Okay, okay. It's the last one. This is my effort. Sean Chien, this guy's incredible. I was tweeting with him all week, or all weekend, I should say.

He's wearing a headband, I think. This guy's the man. Now, here's his McGregor pose. This is the end of submissions. Do you think that? Oh my God, he's got the T-shirt and everything. Even though it's no sure nation, I'm not wasting my McGregor. Paced it on to it.

Oh, my God. So I think clearly. We need to blow that. Is there rain coming down on them? What's going on? It's the wall. That is unbelievable. I'd love to frame that and put that up in the studio here.

Now, clearly our winner was Mike. Well, you know, I've got to be honest. We're going to go with Mike, not the guy who drew. You like the guy who drew on the abs? Should we do two? We could do two this week. We have two. We have four.

There we go. We're doing two. So Mike and the other guy who drew the pictures, you win the pick, who drew the abs and the butt chin. You win the, that was amazing. Sean is the man coming. This guy stays up to like 5 a.m.

To watch Invicta on a Saturday morning and then watches UFC. Great guy. We appreciate it. We appreciate it. everyone who submitted. That's awesome. I think we're going to keep this going. I like it. That was fun. Next week, who's fighting? I have to think about it. But that was a good one. So kudos to you guys, and congratulations to the two guys who won the pictures and appreciate Chris hooking us up with those. All right, let's take some questions. Let's get the heck out of here. Do we have questions?

We do. I just got to open them off. All right. So we'll take some questions here and then there was a few things that I saw some really good questions on the website I hope New York Rick did his due diligence and got them Here's our first one Okay

By thought process If Daniel Cormier beats Frank Mir at the upcoming Fox show What do you think his next move should be Stay at heavy and see if he can really become Didn't we answer this already last week? Last week? I think we did So what was your answer?

Why don't you listen to the show? Honestly, I'd rather see him stick around at heavyweight. That's where he's best. That's where he's undefeated. I want to see him fight Cain. I want to see him fight Dos Santos. I want to see him fight Overeem. I don't want to see him go down.

Who knows if he can make it down? And who knows if he'll be at his best if he goes down? Makes no sense. There you are. Next question. Regarding Uriah Hall. Having heard Chale Son and speak so very highly of Uriah Hall and Ultimate Fighter,

when he humiliated Bobb McDaniels. Do you agree with Chale that he is a championship contender? And is there a danger that Uriah could be pushed too early after the show finale? I don't think he'll be pushed too early. I think there was a lot of buzz about him going into the show. I think a lot of people were interested because a lot of people knew about him, especially this neck of the woods. You know, there was buzz about him.

Fought on the regional circuit here. Lost to Chris Wyden. This is a guy people I've been talking about on the East Coast. and he's delivering. Now, as I think I mentioned last week as well, to be honest, let's see how he does against UFC caliber opponents. No knock on the tough guys, but they're not in the UFC just yet, and they remind us of that.

I want to see how he does against UFC caliber opponents, but honestly, this is just kind of like it almost feels like a new win for Chris Wydenman. And I know all of you say, oh, boyfriend, this, that, shut the hell up. He deserves it. He's the number one contender. he's the second best guy right now. He's the biggest threat to Anderson right now. A lot of people weren't talking about that win while in the UFC.

Now that Yerai Hall is doing so good, it's almost like Wyman just got a new win on his hiatus. He hasn't fought in a year by the time he fights. He'll be a year. So I'm impressed. Let's see if he makes it to the finals. First things first. Let's see if he wins the finals and then we take it from there.

Our next question. Who does it mean the most to beat at this point? Anderson Silva, John Jones or Kane Velasquez. Kane being the heavyweight champ, John being the guy that seems unbeatable at this point, or the Michael Jordan of our sport in Anderson Silva. I think at this point it has to be Anderson.

He's only been in one real compromising situation. That was UFC 117 against Chale Sunnan. He's been dominant for so long. To be the guy to beat him would be huge. Of course, John younger, but has been just as dominant. Kane has a loss recently, so it's not as shocking. You have to go with Anderson.

I mean, no one has really touched him other than that one fight, and he was injured and all that stuff, not taking anything away. But other than that, it's been pretty much dominance. The one round against Dan Henderson at UFC 82, the four rounds against Chale, other than that, it's dominance. So what I want to see happen is UFC signed Rio Chonan,

bring him to the UFC, back to the UFC. Let's get that rematch. and then he sails off into the sentence. Obviously joking. Yes. Our next question, what do you think of Dana criticizing the Swedish MMA Federation for pulling Gustafson out of the fight? Personally, I think he's way out of line here.

It's not in his responsibilities to make these decisions, and it is completely wrong to put the pressure on the professionals who make sure the fighters are safe, be it on the undercard or in the main event. You know, it's a tough thing, and I tweeted about it, oh gosh, look on Friday, look at his cut. doesn't look all that bad. But, you know, we're not doctors. Look where it was. Underneath the eyebrow, below the eyelid, that's a tough spot, gets punched what happens? What happens, A, if they would have saw him on Friday and deemed that he couldn't fight? Then they really would be

screwing with UFC, and then they would, Dana really would have had a beef with them, right? So they did him a solid, in a sense, by looking at it on Tuesday, and then they decided he can't fight, at least giving the UFC some time to bring in some of the world. someone else. Now, they could have told him earlier. They could have had Latifie on standby, but it would have been, and it would have felt like a major disaster. And then what happens if they let him fight and he gets punched in the first 10 seconds? The cut opens, the fights off. Another disaster. At least at this point, by the time Saturday night came, by the time the fight was over, it wasn't so much about Gustavson. It was about Musassi taking the fight on short notice.

It was about Latifi taking the fight on short notice, the weight cut, Musassi fighting injured, still we don't know how serious that injury is, but he stepped up. He wanted to fight. He wanted to fight in his UFC debut. And by the end, by the time Saturday night rolled around, it wasn't about Gustav's Center of the Cut. It could have been about that if they would have waited until Friday or just let him fight. So honestly, I understand where Dana's coming from.

He's a promoter. But look, Great Gate. They did amazingly for a fuel card. A couple million. 14, 15,000 people there. I don't think it kills the market. It was unfortunate. I understand where he's coming from.

He has his interests, but they're going to do what they want. And I don't really think that they're trying to kill the main event. They're not trying to kill the UFC. They're there largely because the UFC is so popular there. So I'm not a doctor. I'm not going to criticize them. They saw what they saw. And we'll have to go with them, take their word for it, because they're the professionals.

This is our last one from the website. Is the UFC wasting the time of fans by cutting or not signing the majority of tough fighters? Recent example, Colin Fletcher. Meaning we're invested in these guys and then they get cut? Yeah, I think that's what he means. Well, I saw Colin Fletcher tweet after one official fight, kind of a bummer, and obviously it is a bummer, and it seems like the leash is much shorter. It's like two years ago it was the same thing, one fight and you're out,

And then last year, when they signed the deal with Fox and they had more shows, they were signing all these guys where I said on this show, being called the UFC fighter isn't what it once was. Now the leash is getting shortened again. And there are still great guys coming up and you need a spot for them. And there's more tuffs. You know, you got this season. You got tough Brazil.

There's another season coming up with Ronda, et cetera, et cetera. Who knows where they're going. He had two fights, right? Officially he had two fights. The finale, the one in Montreal against Mike Ritchie. you went on to not the best performances. It's expected, especially if you're fighting on 155 or 170, in my opinion. Those seem to be the most crowded ones.

I think you have more leeway at heavyweight. You'll have more leeway at 125. You'll have more leeway at 135. 145. I think you'll have some leeway. But 155-170 seems to me like the most stacked ones. And he's just a casualty of that and many more to come. guys like John Fitch are getting cut.

It doesn't surprise me that someone like Colin Fletcher got cut. All right, we're moving on to the Twitter questions. First question. Which event from this past weekend did you enjoy the most? Bellator, Invicta, 1FC, Glory, U.C. on Fuel, or WrestleMania. By the way, what an amazing question, because I wanted to answer the poll or at least reveal the results of our poll. I asked the same question, although I didn't include Glory or WrestleMania.

I said, which event did you like the best? Bellator 95, Invicta 5, 1FC 8, UFC on Fuel 9. I didn't include WrestleMania in that. This is an MMA site. I didn't include Glory in that. This is an MMA site. Quite frankly, I know we do it on our site. I don't think we should be covering other sports.

I don't think glory is MMA. I don't think kickboxing is MMA. I don't think pro wrestling is MMA. I don't think boxing is MMA. But we do it and those aren't my calls. So I'll stick to those four. which did I enjoy the most? You know, I really liked Invicta.

I really did. And I will say, I really liked 1FC as well. I feel like 1FC is finally starting to create their niche, their space. I get where they're going. I get what they're doing. I like what they're doing. It wasn't the best show. But I liked Invicta.

You know, Thug Rose, Rose Namajunas, aka Pat Barry's girlfriend. and I know they hate when I say it, so I'll keep saying it, but be proud of it. We have a great video of them done by our guy, E. Casey Liden, all angles. It's a great video. Look it up on the site. 12-second flying arm bar. Michelle Waterson looked great.

The Return of Cyborg, the Leslie Smith, Saracophan fight. I mean, there are great performances. They deliver. They really do. And you know what you're getting, and they have their own little spot. I do think they need to graduate to television at this point. But I like their momentum. The UFC card was good.

It was fun. I mean, the main event wasn't the greatest. But to be honest, I didn't hate the main event because Latifie was still in it. He was swinging for the fences. There was that intrigue, the Rocky moment, all that stuff. Seeing Gaggar Musassi in the main event, that was cool. You know, so it's kind of a toss-up between those two. I don't want to sit on the fence, but they kind of offer different things.

You know, I really like what Invicta's doing. I love how social media conscious they are. They're building stars. They put out great content leading up. they put out great content after the fact, they just get it. And these other promotions, it's like,

how do these other promotions not figure out social media? They, like, it's just amazing to me. From buying Twitter followers, from putting out crap content, from not putting out any content, from not getting your stories out there,

it just doesn't make any sense. Invicta's doing it right. They really are. Beltor had a nice show. Pat Curran look great. Once again, didn't get punched once. I know some people

or pissed off at Doug Marshall. You know, he reminds me of early 2000s, you know, MMA guys from, you know, Long Beach, California, from Huntington Beach. That's just his look. But hey, he's reinventing himself. He's going on a run. Former W.C. Light heavyweight champion. Kudos to him.

It was a nice show season finale. I do suggest you check out Luke Thomas had a good, you know, what worked, what didn't article on our site yesterday. And I think he nailed that you just, it's hard to tell those stories. It's hard to get emotionally invested in these fights. And that's why the Invicta cards and the World series of fighting cards get more attention, I think, or more media attention than the Bell Tour cards because they're back to back to back to back. It's just hard to get into them

when they're one after another. We'll see what happens. But overall, I thought it was a great weekend. By the end, I was burnt out. Honestly, I watched way too much TV and it was weird being on that side of the fence, not being at any events, watching most of them on my couch. I felt burned. It was just a lot of television watching and it was such a nice weekend. So it continues a little less this weekend, but overall I thought for a mixed martial arts it was a very good weekend.

Just before we move on to the next one, we got two suggestions for next week's face. Oh yeah. One was the Benson Henderson with the toothpick pose. That's a good one. That is a good one. But this one, the Frank Mear Face.

Oh, yes. I mean, it has to be the mirror face. It does. Yeah, that's an obvious. So get them ready. Frank Meirface. Get your Frank Meir face. Get your Frank Meir face. face ready. Absolutely. Here's our next Twitter question.

Could Musassi's performance, even though it was a win, lower his stock because he seemed to coast? No. He was injured. He had a major knee injury. He said 90% of guys probably wouldn't fight in his position. He said he probably needs surgery. He was fighting a completely different opponent, a wrestler.

Different build, different plan of attack. To me, Musassi is exactly where he was, if not even a little higher, for fighting injured. That's nonsense. Well, I mean, the fact that you could even say exactly where he was means that maybe there's some merit to this. You know what I mean? When you win, you're supposed to... Yeah, but he was supposed to win that fight.

You know, there was nothing to win there. It was a lose-lose for him. So he went the easy route. Sure, he said, hey, some people... I like the what he said. He said, some people lay and pray, I did the same thing as far as striking goes. Did he go for the knockout punch? Maybe not, but who knows how hurt he was?

Of course, his hand wasn't hurt, but overall it affects your performance. I don't know why he didn't do that, but he needed the win. And sometimes you've got to get the win. I agree. I'm just saying, in my opinion, I think it greatly increases his stock. If he could do that while injured, and it's not like, you know, it was a close fight or anything. He completely dominated the fight, regardless of if you like the style of it. I mean, George St. Pierre jabbed Josh Koshchek to death, and that's a championship fight.

So regardless of the style points, I think that it was a very impressive performance, honestly. He did what he had to do. Late replacement, there was no point for him. Unless there was a huge opening to go for the kill, there wasn't an opening, so he did what he had to do. Our next question. What's next for Gayguard Musassi? Perhaps the winner of Davis Magalesh. You know, that's an interesting one.

I don't think Phil Davis is the best matchup for him. Well, neither is Vinny, to be honest. but I think it kind of makes sense. I feel like he... It depends. If they give Gustafson Machita, there's a lot that could go on there, especially we have to see what happens at 159 with Anderson,

excuse me, with John Jones and Chale Sunnan. But I could see them not giving Musassi Gustafsson. I don't know. It just, it happens. You have to sell the fight all over again. It's a little weird. So I could see this happening, and I don't think that's a great fight for Musassi.

I agree with both points there. Our next question, Latifi was clearly outclassed on the main event, but do you think he should be given a UFC contract? 1,000% are you crazy? A thousand percent, a million percent. He stepped up, four days notice, cut 26 pounds. Clearly outclassed against a guy who had a full training camp, injured or not injured, cut weight normally, all that stuff.

One of the best in the world, by the way. This wasn't like him stepping up, fighting on a lower level card. main event in his home country. There's a lot at stake there. And it seemed like as the fight went on, I mean, he was getting roughed up, but like the guy had confidence. Sure, he seemed a little off.

He was swinging for the fences, kind of stumbling, you know, hitting air only. But no, I'd like to see what he could do with a full training camp. Definitely deserves another chance. Definitely. Our next question. Is Connor McGregor the most impressive debut

since Anderson Silva? If not, then who is? And we've gotten, this is one of the most asked questions of the day, multiple people. I think people forget about a lot of debuts. There have been a lot of great debuts. I mean, it feels like every week we have a great debut. I think. I can think, you remember Hobby Love?

Well, I think there's much more famous ones than that. But I'm just saying, off the top of my head, remember when he was, incredible. When he was throwing people all over the place? Well, also his style contributes to that. He's a whirlwind. Who are we talking about now? Hobby love.

Okay. But also, Junior Dos Santos. Great debut. The upper cut on Verduim, where he knocked his ears back. Yeah. Incredible. Lozahn over Pulver.

Oh, yeah. At the time, how much that meant, you know. That was huge. There's a lot of good ones out there, but I was incredibly impressed. I'd say it's up there. It's in the conversation for one of the best. Let's just take those two examples, right?

Pulver, Fabio Verdum. bigger names right now than Marcus Brimich. So you have to give it to those ones. In terms of importance, those are obviously more important. But in terms of how incredible he looked, I'd say it definitely earned its spot on the list, on the short list for sure. Sure, sure. But I mean, there's...

And let's not... Todd Duffy. Remember that one? Yeah. Come on. Well, we're talking about opponents now. Yeah, but I'm just saying, I don't think it was the greatest since Anderson. I'll agree. I'll say Verdume, Lozahn, those were higher, but it's up there. It's up there. It's near there. It's in the territory. And Marcus Brimidge was 3 and O. Let's not pretend that he walked into some. Also, let's not forget. Do you remember Tyron Woodley?

Yeah, but see, I'm kind of disc, when I hear this question, I kind of discount Strike Force and WEC. And WEC. Really? That's just my thing on it. a whole different ball game. Well, then, how about Korean zombie? Korean, I think his UFC debut was the twister. I could be wrong. But here, now you're just, you're just agreeing with me.

It was great, let's leave it at that. It wasn't the most impressive since Anderson, in my opinion. Okay. Fair. Next question. What's next for Ross Pearson? Is he in title contention, or does he need a couple more fights? How about a fight with Cowboy Soroni?

Well, Cowboy Soroni is fighting KJ Noon's next. Memorial Day weekend UFC 160, so maybe the winner of that fight. I'm not sure if he's in contention. He's just two in O since returning to 155, but he's looked good. I never understood why he went down to 145. It's the same thing.

I understand when you need that fresh coat of paint. Same thing, Melvin Galard. I don't think he should go down to 145. He said that earlier on the show. Makes no sense. Don't do it just because it's there. Don't do it to reinvent yourself. Sometimes the move is not worth it.

So I don't get it and I'm happy he's back, at least for himself. Nice performance against Ryan Couture. Nice performance last fight against Soderoplas. I don't think he's in contention. But yeah, Saroni, if he wins, that's a fun fight. Striking-wise, he's one of the better boxers at 145, Ross Pearson, so I think it would be fun. What's your opinion on Gustafsson versus Machita for a clear-cut number one contender?

I like it. Again, I feel bad. from Musasi, I think he deserves the chance against Gustafson, but if he's going to be out for a while, those are the guys who deserve it. And I think then if Machita wins, you could say, okay, he deserves it. If Gustafsson wins, he 100% deserves it. You can make a case that he deserves it now

just because he hasn't fought John if John wins. So I like it, and it could make sense for a Fox Sports 1 debut. They're not the best interviews. They can't go out there and really sell it. Machita doesn't... But I don't think they really care about that stuff, to be honest. I would be down. I think that would make a lot of sense. With the close fight against Sarah Kaufman,

do you see Leslie Smith being signed to the UFC? Well, I said that I think she should try out to tough. And people are like, oh, she's so much better than tough. She bypass tough. I don't think people get it. If you're a 135-pound woman right now, it may be in your best interest to go on tough as opposed to going straight into the UFC.

Let's take like a Rosie Sexton, for example. She's fighting Alexis Davis, UFC, 161, June 15th. Winnipeg, right? How much buzz, how much attention, how much promotional muscle is going to be behind her debut? Probably not much. Look who's on that card. Rashad, Dan Hendo, Shogun, Littlenog, interim bantamweight title fight in the main event. You go on tough. Ronda Rousey, FX, 13 straight weeks. A lot of people know who Yerai Haal is, probably more so. A lot of people know, more people know who Yariah Hall is, then Connor McGregor right now. That is a fact.

That's a fact. They've been watching him for 12, 13 straight weeks on FX. Yeah, but that's, I mean, you have to do what Yariah Hall does in order to draw that comparison. You have to take people out like that. The rest of the fighters on tough, quite frankly, nobody knows who those guys are.

Yeah, but the point is you're going on tough to try to win, right? and these days, I mean, there's eight women going in. If you make it to the next round, you're probably going to get a shot at least once in the UFC. I think it's in her best inches. I mean, yeah, Leslie Smith, she had a great fight. She lost. How is she above trying off for tough? I'm not necessarily disagreeing on that ground,

but I'm saying that if you come into tough and you lose or you don't put on that great of a performance, I don't see it as that much of an advantage. I still think you're on the show. You're being watched by a million people. people every week, that's good. It may not be for you and I, but to the casual fan, it means something. And to answer the questionnaire, because the questionnaire is not about tough, the questionnaire is about the UFC, yes, I think if you're at 135 and you're fighting like that, if you didn't see the fight, it was a great fight, you're probably on the UFC's radar. I didn't think Rosie Sexton was on the

UFC's radar. She usually fights at 125. That's big for her, and she joked that she's going to eat cake and whatnot to beef up. I could see Leslie Smith getting a shot. Sarah Kaufman's already in the UFC. she was campaigning for a rematch already. It was a close fight. I just think it's in your best interest. I just don't see how it's not to go on tough. It's going to be a lot. I'm intrigued in it.

And I haven't been intrigued. I'll be honest. You know, like I said, bells and whistles, nice. The production's nice. But I'm not more captivated in this season as I was in the last season. This captivates me. Men and women. We're going to see new talent.

135 needs talent on the men's side of things. So that's good. And I think if I were advising her, I would tell her to try out. The only thing is, tough contracts, not the best. Our next question, any updates on Rampage? Where do you think he ultimately ends up signing? One-offs in Japan. I spoke to Rampage Jackson's manager, Anthony McGahn last week.

He said he had no update. He said when he does have something, we'll be the first to know. He alluded to a few things, but he couldn't talk about anything on the record. So right now, I got nothing. but I know he'll be back at some point. I just don't know where, when. This is our last question. You touched upon it, but this is a direct question.

Is it possible that Fador is coming out of retirement? Why else would his manager go to the UFC show? I think so. I really do. I really think that there's a chance that he... I mean, it's just... Those seats are way too good. They're way too important to just be a coincidence,

just be there. And again, Dana has said that sometimes he'll, I mean, look at the Fador story, this story. In January, he said they were close. If Fador's father did not die, he said he would have fought. And then when he passed away, he was like, all right, I'm done. Well, that happened almost a year ago now. Things can change.

It may not be against Brock Lesnar, but I guarantee you, if Fador signs to the UFC, people will go nuts. Despite the three losses, would you be interested in it? Absolutely. People would want to see it. It would suck because it would feel. It would feel like the Tyson Lewis fight. It would feel like, I wish this happened four or five years ago,

but people would still get behind it. The fight with Henderson was fantastic. Granted, Henderson is not the same size as Fador, but that fight was incredible. I love to see Fador fight again, absolutely. And I just, I mean, Vadeem, the guy who Dana White called Vadami, just chilling. Did you see him?

I did. Just chilling. Sitting in back of Stefan Struv. No problem. Not a care in the world. At a UFC event? I mean, it's not like Jerry. Mary Millen sitting there, someone like that, like a real rival, but Dana White is not a fan of

Adim Ficklstein. He called him a dummy. Many times. Just seemed a little weird. That's it. Are we giving out a prize for the best question of the day? I mean, if you want to, if we want to give out all of the prints today. We have another Hawaiian nose shirt.

We do. Was there a really good question? I can scroll back through them if you want. I want to make one last point. You scroll and then let me know. Okay? Are you, wait. Are you hearing me?

Am I hearing you? Yeah. I heard you. Okay, okay, okay. One last thing while New York Rick looks through some of the questions, I just wanted to comment on the Vanderlei Silva April Fool's joke thing that happened because I saw people saying that,

I'm scolding Vanderle that I should have more respect for someone like Vanderle. First off, I never called out Vanderlea specifically. I said on this show, before any of this happened on Monday, I said that I just don't like the April Fool stuff. There's the difference between lying and joking. And especially if you do pull off the joke and someone asks you if you're being serious and then you go with it, to me, now it's a little too far. But when you just come out and say, hey, I'm doing this. and it's something that affects a lot of people, especially if you're in the public eye,

you're a public figure. I think you're playing with people, and the biggest thing out there is trust. If you're a journalist, if you're a public figure, if you're someone out there in the public eye and you lose the people's trust, what do you have? A journalist couldn't do that. That would be a curse suicide.

Imagine I came out and said, breaking news. Breaking news. Anderson Civilist fighting John Jones in November, it's signed. Chelsundon's injured. It's done. Aha, April Fool's. People will get pissed.

pissed. Trust me about it. Trust me, people will get pissed. Lying, joking, there's a big difference. So I never scolded Van de Ley at the utmost respect for who he is, what he's done in this sport. All I said was, don't come out and say, you're doing something when you're not, especially when he had media people call you up and ask you, and you still went with it. And you got a whole joke, and I will admit that video afterwards, very endearing. It's hard to stay mad at him. I was never mad because people were like, why are you so mad? You mad, bro? You got trolled? All this stuff. We never got trolled. We said from the beginning it wasn't happening. We asked Dana, he said it's not happening,

and we put the fire out on that one. People thought I was getting mad. I was scolding him. I just, I could take a joke. I'm a fun-loving guy, but there's a big difference in my opinion between lying and joking. That's all. And I thought that when there's a lot of people interested in this fight, so much in the air, tickets, flights, hotel rooms, there's a lot at stake here. People getting excited to your fans. Why let them? them down. Why let them down? What's the point? To get a kick out of it for yourself? Who really sat back and said, that was hilarious? Other than Van der Leigh, clearly, because he liked it. That's all I was saying. I didn't lose respect for him. I didn't, I didn't scold him. I wasn't

trying to put him down. So relax with all that crap. All right. Why are you mad though? Just enough of that. It's so funny. Oh, you got trolled. How did I get trolled? I said it wasn't true. dummies. I like the question about Leslie Smith just because I disagree with you and I think it sparked a good debate. She lost the fight.

So the guy who asked the question wins a prize. How about that? There we go. All right. Congratulations. We'll give him a Hawani no shirt. Yep. All right.

And hopefully it fits him because I heard we had an issue with that last week. Well, we'll work it all out. All right. Last thing, courtesy of Fight Metric, Connor McGregor's knockout, minute and seven seconds, second quickest knockout by a debuting fighter of featherweight, excuse me, in UFC or WEC competition,

the quickest is Pablo Garza's flying knee finish of Fredsen Pai Zhao at the tough 12 finale in 51 seconds. So there's more to your sort of best debut since Anderson Silva, but still I think there's a lot between today and back then, and I'm not sure if I could go that far. Very impressive, nonetheless. Mike, you can hit my music. Did I call the right guy?

There you go. Oh, yeah. A little loud. A little loud. Okay, now it's good. A great show, everyone. Thanks so much for stopping by. Like I said, it was a fun weekend. It was an exhausting weekend in the world of mixed martial arts.

And it felt like we covered a lot here today. We were all over the place. From Europe, Matt Matreone. I see that's creating a bit of a stir. his comments about Falun Fox. I do not condone them. I do not agree with him. I have respect.

And again, I don't know how I feel about the situation. I know it's controversial. I just don't know enough about it. And I don't feel like it's my place to weigh in on it. That's way above my way class. I just don't know. But we appreciate Matt stopping by. We wish him congratulations on his big win over Phil DeFries on Saturday night.

Misha Tatech. She fights Katzengano on Saturday. Tough 13. 13, what the hell am I saying? Tough 17 finale, Mandalay Bay Event Center. The winner will be a coach opposite Rhonda Rousey. Shell Waterson, the karate-hati. Congratulations.

Congratulations to Invicta. I know it's kind of in vogue to be on the Invicta bandwagon, but this one, they deserve it. They're not just the darling. They actually deserve it. They're doing things right, and I tip my cap to them. Melman Galard, good luck to him over at Grudge, and against MacDanzig, July 27th. Seattle. Scott Jorgensen.

Thanks for answering our questions and not turning us down. We wish you good luck against your eye of favor on Saturday at the tough finale. And Connor McGregor, what can you say about the notorious one? A great debut. Looking forward to much more out of him. If you want to hear the show, if you missed it, anything like that, check it out, Stitcher's iTunes, MITFighty.com, all that stuff. We'll be back next week.

Same time, stay place. Peace. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough. So why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each? other. Introducing O-DU. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier, CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost.

That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-4-3. At O-D-O-D-O-O-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-O-com. Sacks Fifth Avenue makes it easy to holiday your way, whether it's finding the right gift or the right outfit. Sacks is where you can find everything. From the perfect Chloe bag for your hard-to-shop-for-sister to a prodig jacket for a fancy holiday dinner. And if you don't know where to start,

sacks.com is customized to your personal style so you can save time shopping. Make shopping fun and easy this season and find gifts and inspiration to suit your holiday style at Sacks Fifth Avenue.