MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 178

Episode Date: August 14, 2014

Featuring Tito Ortiz, Rich Franklin, Alexander Gustafsson, Bruce Buffer, Greg Jackson, Norman Parke, and Mike Chiappetta. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for this show comes from the Audible Original, the downloaded two, ghosts in the machine. The Earth only has a few days left. Rosco Cudulian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser 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?

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If you recall last week, we went three hours and 45 minutes. That was insane. That was our longest show ever. We may not go as long, but who knows. We've got a stack show. More guests this week. So we may go longer. Who knows?

You never know. Joining the back, as always, by Buzzkill Brendan, New York, Rick, Will, Mike. They're all here, and we've got a great show, as I mentioned. Hope you'll stick around with us for the duration. In around two hours or so, we'll be joined by MMA veteran, a future Hall of Famer, former middleweight champion, Rich Franklin. He'll be stopping by. I don't think we've heard from Rich Franklin since his loss to Kung Lee back at UFC on Fuel TV in November,

in Macau, China. That was a brutal loss for him. Looking forward to seeing what he's up to, hearing if he'll come back. Good to catch up with the man they call Ace. In around an hour and 40 minutes, Alexander Gustafsson will be stopping by. The Mahler. Of course, the Mueller was supposed to fight Gagar Musassi at UFC on Fuel TV in Sweden. At the beginning of this crazy month for the UFC, four straight shows that just completed on Saturday with UFC 159. Of course, we'll talk about that in a few minutes.

But Alexander Gustafsson now looking for. for a big fight. Will it be John Jones? We'll be Leota Machita. By the way, I spoke to Leota Machita after UFC 159 for some reason it didn't air on the post-fight show, but I'll tell you what he told me in our discussion with Alexander Gustafson a little later on.

Very interesting stuff. Norman Park, winner of Tough Smashes back in December, was supposed to fight John Tuck. Of course, you heard us talking about Norman Park a couple weeks ago with Connor. We'll talk to him about all that stuff. His upcoming fight at UFC 162

and a whole lot more. Our best pal. Our good friend. Our longtime fan. Tito Ortiz. He is going to be stopping by at around 2 o'clock. I think this is his third appearance on the show since we buried the hatchet. We squashed our beef.

How nice is that? A lot going on in the world of Tito Ortiz as always. And his name has been coming up a lot because, of course, John Jones seems to be obsessed with breaking his light heavyweight title record. He tied it on Saturday. He wants to break it in his next fight. Who knows when we'll see Jones back after he broke his toe in gruesome fashion. Well, we'll talk to Tito about the reign of John Jones in an hour or so.

And Greg Jackson will be stopping by. He is, of course, the trainer to the likes of John Jones and many others. We'll talk to him about what he thought about UFC 159, and John Jones's dismantling of Chale Sannan in the very first round. And then in around 20 minutes or so, Bruce Buffer, the voice of the Octagon. He'll be stopping by. Had an interesting night on Saturday. We spoke to Dana White on Thursday about his playboy lifestyle cover of Fighters Only magazine.

Always good to talk to Bruce Buffer. He has a book coming out very soon as well on App. A whole bunch of stuff. He is a true entrepreneur. Now, no pose this week. We've done them for like what, five, six, seven weeks in a row. No fight coming up, a big fight this weekend. So no pose this week.

We'll give you a break on that front. But we want your questions. We want your comments. hit us up on Twitter, use the hashtag the MMA hour on Twitter, and leave them on the post below. We like that as well. We like the interaction on the post if you're watching the show live. We're giving out two prizes this week. One of them you may see on the desk. We'll tell you about that later. And then another great one that we gave out a couple weeks ago. We've got some more for you. So hit us up with questions, comments. After Rich Franklin in the third hour, we will be taking those.

But first, let us go to the Skype machine and welcome in MMAfighting.com's own Mike Chiapetta, who was at The Rock. He was at the Prudential Center on Saturday night. He took in UFC 159. And Mike, first off, thank you very much for joining us. I'll ask you at the top, one of the more, I don't know, bizarre nights in UFC history. And it culminated with John Jones's bizarre toe fracture, compound fracture. It was very strange. what do you do now with the light heavyweight division,

especially with Leota Machita sitting there hoping to get a title shot. Gustafson wants a shot at Jones, Machita. What do you do now? If Jones is going to be out for a while, play matchmaker for us, what do you do now at the top of the division? Well, I think Machita versus Gustafsson seems to make quite a bit of sense, if that is the case that John Jones is going to be out for a little while recovering. Gustafsson, obviously, he seems like he's probably going to be ready to go very, very shortly,

that eye injury is probably healed, so he's going to be ready to go. Machita seems like he has some interest in the fight. So that seems like the logical way. Obviously, you also have Daniel Kormier as a possibility, but he seems more of like a wretch in the works right now. He seems like he's okay with staying at heavyweight. That fight with Roy Nelson, he said he's cool with. So let's do Machita versus Gustafin.

Now, you know, when you talk about Gustafsson, do you think it's fair? Do you think it's fair that he gets a shot at Machita? I mean, he would be fighting for a shot at the title. He pulled out of that fight due to do an injury with Gagar Musassi. Is that fair, in your opinion? Well, let's not forget. Both Machita and Gustafin were both promised that they were the number one contender at various points, right?

So they both got the same promise. So now they're both in the same situation if they end up fighting each other. In theory, you know, the winner should be the number one contender. And it's much more fair that way. And everyone loves to be fair. And by the way, we're going to be talking to Gustafson a little later on in the show. And, you know, hey, UFC on Fox Sports 1, they want to make a big card. You know, you look at the schedule.

They're pretty much booked up until that point. I think that's a fight that wouldn't make sense. But Dana White didn't want to commit to that in the post-fight scrum on Saturday night. So what do you think of Jones v. Sunnan? Of course, a lot of us were kind of down on it. I'm just kind of happy that we don't have to talk about it anymore that we can move on. But as far as the way the fight played out, were you expecting that? Uh, generally, yes.

I mean, I don't think any of us gave Chale too much of a chance there. Because it's not like, you know, the situation where John Jones fought Vitor Belfort, I think looking at that fight, you can say, well, Vitor has real fight-changing power. If he really lands something of substance, he could hurt John. Um, but Chale does not have that element to his game. He's just not, he's not a power punch. He's good at several things, but power is not really something in his arsenal. and he's not really a guy who's a finisher from the bottom either. So you just kind of wondered if he can't take John down

and John's one taking him down, how is it going to go? And I think this is basically how we figured it would go if that's what happened. I can't stop thinking about the fact that if this fight goes past the first round, John goes to his corner, the fight is not going to continue with that broken toe. We'd be sitting here right now talking about Chale Sun and UFC Light Heavyweight Champion. I mean, I don't even know how the world, the MMA world, the MMA community would react to that. Well, think about this, Ariel.

You know, a couple of times this week, Dana White talked about the fact that John Jones has one loss on his record, and he pins it on the referee, says, you know, it's a bad call. I disagree with that. I mean, it was a 12-6 elbow. Now, if you want to disagree that the rule should not even be in existence, that's a whole other argument that I probably would agree with. But the way the rules are written, it's a 12 to 6 elbow that he's throwing a Matt Hamill. They were clearly illegal. So he's got that record, which Dana White rails about. What about if, as you said, Shale Sunnet ends up winning the title because John Jones broke his tone, could continue?

Now, would Dana White be mad at himself for putting his champion in the position where he had to fight someone who was not a contender, who did not belong in the ring with him, because he hadn't even fought in that division? I mean, if he had even fought once in the Light Heavyweight Division and won a fight, at least you would have some kind of smidge of a case that Chal Southern deserved to be there. But there was none. There was absolutely none. And he came that close to losing his belt. And to me, that's something that would have been on the UFC more than anything else. It was such a bizarre scene to watch because he only noticed it seemed, I've watched it a few times.

Dana puts the belt on him and then he does his little turnaround elbow. and then he notices that half his toe is falling off. And then Rogan notices this as well. And Joe did a great job, brought the stool over there. And it just seemed like John was getting weaker and weaker. And credit to him for even coming to the press conference, doing all the interviews and all that stuff. Thankfully, his toe seems to be okay.

He tweeted about it. And then he said, oh, you know, I'm not going to let a toe stop me. But it sounds like we're not going to see John for a while. And that's why I agree with your Gustafsson-Machita thing. But on the flip side, do you think we're going to see Chale Sondon again? Was that the last time? will ever see Chale fight inside the Octagon? By the way, before I answer the show question,

John actually walked off on his own power outside of the cage, and I'm like, that thing is like ripped open. Is that sanitary for him to be walking on an arena floor? Pretty gross, but hopefully it was cleaned out properly and he's going to heal okay. As to the question of Chale Sunnan, I do think this will probably be the end of him as a fighter. I mean, that's just my guess based on some of the things

that he said in the past, talking about how if he didn't see a road for himself to a championship, which was his ultimate goal, that he didn't see any reason to continue. Having lost twice at middleweight, very unlikely to get a ton shot there anytime soon. Having lost now at a light heavyweight at a place where he didn't even deserve a title shot, how is he going to get back there anytime soon?

So I just don't see, you know, if he sticks to what he said, I just don't see why he would want to stay around. He's got something a lot of other guys don't. He's got a fallback plan on a very good one with his fox and fuel job. So I tend to think that that will probably be his last time in the Octagon. He mentioned Vanderle-Salva in the press conference. Something like, what am I going to do, stick around and fight someone like Vanderlay. To me, that was him starting the build of a Chale-Sundner versus Van der Leis Silva fight.

You didn't take it that way? You know, I think that's like maybe a just-in-case kind of thing, like, break-class in case of emergency. He's had an ongoing rival with Van der Le, of course. And, you know, let's face it, that fight, if it did come about, would probably interest some people. And it'd be another payday for him. But I don't know. You know, it's a fight that, you know, in the past he's obviously wanted.

But I tend to take him out of, you know, it's hard to know when to take Chale seriously and to take him at his promotional best. and I think I tend to believe him that he doesn't want to stick around if he can't fight for a belt. Now maybe he's okay sticking around for one more fight, but I don't know how much longer he'll stick around after that. I just feel like since he's not 100% sure, he just threw that out there just in case. You know, honestly, I kind of feel like Chale Sondon, the Co-Mane event act, Chil Sondon, the Side Show, if you will. I'm not trying to disparage him, but not fighting for a title. is still okay and he could still hang.

Vanderlay, Vitor, there are guys at 205 and 185. Sometimes I feel like we push guys out too quickly. Even like a BJ Penn, yeah, you know, he's lost some fights, but he's not getting knocked out, he's not getting completely dominated. There's still some guys I'd like to see him fight again. So why can't we see Chale Sondon fight those kind of fights? Oh, don't mistake what I'm saying. I'm not saying that he shouldn't fight again or he's not good anymore or anything like that.

I think Chale Sondon could certainly win fights if he chooses to stick around. I just feel like, you know, I'm just kind of drawing this conclusion based off a lot of things that he said in the past about what he, where he sees his career going and what he aspires to be. And he's always wanted to win a championship that has been his driving force since day one. And that's what's, you know, driven him this far. And the fact of the matter is he's not going to get a title shot any time soon. I mean, we're talking probably he'd have to probably win three, four, or five fights to even sniff a title shot, in my opinion. Since that is the case, I just don't know if he'd stick around and stick it out.

You know, I just don't know. But if he wants to stay fighting, I think that's fine. I think there's fights he can still win. You know, in the co-main event, we saw Michael Bisping defeat Alan Belcher. Unfortunate ending, it sounds like Belcher's going to be okay. a pretty nasty cut on his eyelid. It doesn't sound like it will affect him long term, especially considering the fact that he had surgery on that eye

and it almost ended his career. What did you think of Bispings performance? Some people called the dominant. He now moved into second place, according to Fight Metric. All-time, most significant strikes landed in UFC history behind GSP. Beat him up, did what he had to do, didn't knock him out, but it was still a dominant performance, in my opinion. Were you impressed with it?

It was a good performance. To me, when I watched that performance, I think I was focusing more on Alan Belcher, just because I felt like it was a fight where he had more to gain and Bisping had more to lose. So to me, I was kind of paying more attention to Belcher and how he came out. And to me, it just seemed like Belcher just had some problems pulling the trigger there. I don't know why if it wasn't, he was just not comfortable with Bisping's style and distance or what it was. But to me, that was more the story of the fight. I think Bisping does what he always does.

And the thing there I saw, you know, he had a speed advantage and he utilized it. He had good footwork. And, you know, he basically did what Bispeng does. I think maybe Benscher might have been waiting for him to try and take him down to, which is something, you know, he didn't really try and do. So maybe Beltcher was confused about what he was doing out there. But, yeah, I think it was a pretty typical Michael Bisping performance, professional, technical, and fairly strong overall.

What do you do with them next? He just doesn't, I think he's just not, he doesn't like just grab you with his performance. And he can go, wow, you know, it was a good performance, but it wasn't a blow away. What do you do with him next? You know, the guy is a perpetual contender. I mean, I just, he's got to get another, you know, top five, seven type guy, I guess. I mean, the thing is, he just always has a problem getting over the hump. And, you know, so you keep giving him these matchups and see how he does.

I just, you know, he never falls too far, but he's, but you don't know if he's, if he can get over the hump and fight for a belt. So I think another top five guy would be fine. I'm off the top of my head. I don't really have a name off the top of my head, but I think it's got to be someone, you know, maybe around the Philippeou level, something like that. Well, you know, Philippe who's fighting Jacaree next month. I think the winner of that fight makes a lot of sense. Or I really like Bissping v. Van Gogh. Vandale Silva when they fought a couple of years ago.

It was a bit of a controversial finish. It was a fun fight. They're kind of around the same spot now if Vandlea wants to go back down to 185. But yeah, Jacques-Rae-Filipu, they're fighting UFC on FX8. I think that makes a lot of sense. Since we're playing Fantasy Matchmaker, it kind of came out of nowhere. But Roy Nelson versus Daniel Cormier, that makes a lot more sense, in my opinion, than Mark Hunt versus Roy Nelson.

If Mark Hunt beats JDS next month, come on. You can't go down to fight Roy Nelson with all due respect, right? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I agree with that. That's to make sense. I just, to me, it's like, you know, this sub-story of Daniel Kormier and where he's eventually going is, like, fascinating because, you know, he keeps taking

and winning these fights at heavyweight, and a lot of people think that, you know, he's the guy to give John Jones a real fighter at 205. And so I just kind of, you know, it just kind of seems like when, when is it going to happen? When is it going to happen? And if he keeps winning, why would it happen? So to me that's the more interesting part of this. I mean, he is moving closer and closer to his fighting for a belt. And, you know, it's funny when Dana talked about him, you know, maybe his power translating better at 125.

Maybe it might, but he did knock out the guy who's fighting for the belt next month. So he's still got some power at heavyweight. You know, I thought one of the other big stories, I know it didn't start, you know, as exciting as maybe some of the other women's fights. But Sarah McMahon dominating Sheila Gaff. I really liked her bow in the middle of the cage But as I said to her That was cool I think, correct me from wrong

I think she should have curtsied right That's what a lady does Not bow, right? I like the bow, that was stylish It was stylish I give her props, UFC debut She looked great How far is she in your opinion

From really challenging Ronda Rousey I know Rhonda has a fight coming up But let's just say Ronda wins that fight I'm not trying to put cat down But I just think it's such a fascinating fight because of her wrestling background. Can Rhonda get her to the ground? I know people like to talk about Alexis Davis because of her grappling, but can Rhonda

get Sarah to the ground? Based on what you saw from Sarah on Saturday, how far is she in your opinion? You know, from what I, when I've talked to people in Sarah McMahon's camp in the past, I think they felt like they want to get her a little more ring time. So I think they feel like, you know, they wanted to have about three more fights leading into this fight. So maybe about two more fights seems like. Two to three more fights, I think, would probably be their goal.

Now, I don't know if the UFC came to them and said, you know, we want Sarah to fight Rana now, meaning after the Zengano fight, you know, would they say no? That's a tough one. I don't know if they'd have an easy time saying no. But I think all things being equal, they feel like they want her to have, you know, a little more cage time, get a little more used to, you know, striking and doing some different things in the cage. And, you know, that sounds fair to me, as long as they can push along the division in a good way. I think that seems fair.

Considering the fact that Ronda is fighting Kat probably in December, they haven't announced that officially. Alexis Davis is fighting Rosie Sexton in June in Winnipeg. I think if Alexis wins, and if Rosie wins as well, the winner of that fight should go on to fight the winner of Kat versus Ronda. Because that's a big gap. I mean, we're still eight months away from December. and I think Davis versus McMahon, if it plays out, could really determine the number one contender. What I love most about this is this is a really deep division.

All of a sudden, you're seeing these fights being put together. I think Sean Shelby has done a fantastic job with the ultimate fighter. They were going to get eight new faces in the mix. And you've been in the, you know, you were in the arena on Saturday. I was in the back doing the interviews. But it just seems to me like when the women fight, the crowd is captivated, right? They're really into it. Yeah, you know,

When Sarah McMahon specifically came out for her fight, I think that was one of the biggest pops of the night, aside from the event. There was a lot of interest in a fight. Now, the crowd did boo about two minutes in when she got to take down, and they were kind of in that stifled position. But, you know, that just shows they're treating women the same as the men when there's lack of activity. So I think there really is.

There's a lot of momentum behind the women's division. People are interested to see because a lot of them bring really different skill sets. to the table, you know, it's not just a lot of cookie cutter fighters out there. There's a lot of them with a lot of different skill sets. And so it's been fun. And there's, you know, they are action fighters. They're all, you know, show a lot of heart out there and courageousness. And they fight to the bitter end, you know, even after the fight was ended, I mean, Sheila Gaff popped right up and it seemed like she was ready to fight again if they let her. Yeah, I enjoyed it very much. Okay, one last thing before we let you go, Mike, Joe Rogan on the broadcast was complaining that it's time that

we get new gloves in MMA. Of course, the John Volante incident, which, I mean, I think we all agree. I mean, I will say that I think it was handled poorly. They should have given him at least a little more time before asking that question if you can see. And then, of course, what happened with Belcher and Bisping, the fingerless gloves. Is there an option out there, in your opinion? Because, I mean, you look at the sport.

You need your fingers. You can't have them covered up. So what can you really do? You can complain all you want, but is there a solution? Yeah, I don't know if there is right now. I think if there was a good one, you or I would have heard about it by now. Right. I mean, somebody out there who sees a money-making opportunity would have taken advantage of it by now.

You know, in this sport, grappling is a major component of it, and you have to have use of your fingers. And so I don't know that there's a safer glove that can be built. I mean, someone out there with an engineering degree needs to get on top of this. But like you said, I mean, I think in that particular fight, you know, the referee should have given a little more time. I know that, you know, under the unified rules that that five minutes is not mandated. They doesn't have to give that time. So he didn't do anything wrong in that regard.

But there are ways to kind of buy a fighter more time to walk his opponent to the opposite corner and give him his warning and bring in the doctor to have him look at it. Because, of course, he can't see. He just got poking in the eye literally five seconds early. I mean, it takes a couple seconds for. vision to come back and, you know, I would like to see that handle a little bit different, but, you know, it's in the rear view now. Mike,

pleasure as always, great stuff. We look forward to your work on MMAfighting.com each and every day. Thank you very much for stopping by. Looking forward to getting into that new studio. Oh, yes, yes, with our new set that's coming. I'll tell you about that in a second, but we appreciate it, Mike. Thank you very much to him. Yes,

I tweeted moments ago that we've got a new set, my friends. And I know I talk about a new set all the time, but it's actually really here. It's actually to my right. You can't see it right now, but a real new set is coming. And yes, we've grown to like this whole situation back here, the newsroom, if you will, but this is custom. This was made for us. And I did tweet it. It's on my Twitter, my Instagram. Check it out if you're interested. And it's pretty damn cool. It's really cool, especially when it's all dressed up. Hopefully, we're hoping that we'll be able to

debut it next week on the show. So stay tuned for that. And I know we change a lot, but that's just our way of keeping you on your toes. You know, you think you know all the answers. Then we change the questions, like Rowdy Piper once said many moons ago. So there you have it. Mike Chippetter running down UFC 159. I know it was a weird night, you know, from the Volante poke to then what happened

with Belcher Bisping, what happened in the Habilov fight, that thumb, Yancey Medeiros' thumb, Oh, that was as disgusting as what happened in the main event. There was a lot of weird things going on in Newark, but overall, I know some fans were disappointed. We didn't get to talk about it, but how about Pat Healy? How about Pat Healy, who was on this show last week, and we were talking about his debut, and then he told me Off Fair that he was considering that his debut,

a guy who's been in this sport for a very long time, going out there, having the first round that he did, turning things around, and then submitting Jim Miller. And it was such a Jim Miller thing to do, to not tap out. Such a tough guy, tough family in his home state. You knew he wasn't going to tap. But Pat Healy beat him up.

And Pat Healy right now, in my opinion, is top five, top six. He deserves it. Remember, he was supposed to fight Gilbert Melendez. He could have been in that Benson-Henerson spot. The fight never happened, of course. But there are some interesting fights for Pat Healy right now. You know, if you ask me what I would have liked the UFC to do, Pat Healy versus the winner of Gray Maynard versus T.J. Grant.

I really think that the fans, unless something crazy happens, I really think the fans aren't buying this idea that the next lightweight contender is going to come out of that fight. Goes down U.S.C. 160, May 25th. And then, honestly, as much as the immediate rematches are kind of getting a little tiresome, I really think, and no one's really banging the drum, but I want to see Gilbert versus Benson, too. or Thompson versus Benson. Josh Thompson looked so good last week at Fox UFC Saturday.

That fight or the Gilbert fight against Benson, I think makes a lot of sense. Or, I mean, above all of that, Showtime Petis. But that's not happening. We know that Petis is booked for August 3rd in Rio, but that's what I would like to see happen. Pat Healy, very impressive stuff. Let's move along now. One of the big stars of UFC 159, he's not just,

just a star for one particular show. He's just a star in MMA. I mean, in my opinion, this is him right here. I mean, what more can you say? He's opening his, reading his book right now, cannot be bothered by my intro. The incomparable Bruce Buffer, he's so great, this guy, he's such a pro that he comes on. Let's hear that microphone that you have. That is a professional microphone. This is, you know, actually, this is my studio in my office because, because I do requests, you know, I do a lot of voiceover work, and I do openings for, you know, company affairs and personalized recordings for the fans. I get a lot of requests for weddings and birthdays and stuff and my podcast, Ariel, so, you know, the It's Time podcast. Let's not forget that.

We expect nothing less from you, Bruce. You're the consummate pro. We appreciate you stopping by. So, interesting night for you on Saturday. Anything notable happened? Yeah, John Jones broke his toe. I know we're. I know. We're not. you're going. Go ahead. Get it done with. You were right there. You were right there. I'm curious, since you brought it up. Did you notice it before we all did? You know, I got to tell you something, Ariel.

I don't think anybody noticed it because, you know, there's all the celebration in the octagon. Of course, the adrenaline's flowing. You know, John's adrenaline's flowing. But if you notice when I got back and I watched the show yesterday, and when John looked down, when Joe came in the octagon, you know, John's like this.

Yeah. And then he looks down. You could almost see him get nauseous right there. Because, you know, if you ever have an injury like that, it's just immediately when you self-realize what's happened, right? So I watched the video during the fight and I wanted to ask you, is there any moment, did the camera show you

any inclination that he broke that toe during the fight? I'm trying to find a blood spot, I think I saw one, but then when he got up, his foot looked fine. So I'm wondering if maybe he heard it during the fight, because, you know, he was doing some very physical, you know, moves with with Chale, you know, the takedowns

and stuff. And then, I think he injured it during the fight, the adrenaline flow. This is my immediate take. I'm sure I'm either right or completely off base. But during the celebration and walking around, maybe he injured it more so to the point that it separated the way it did and broke the skin. I really am baffled. You know, I thought it was the celebration, but actually, kudos to the production staff, because at the very, very end of the pay-per-view, they showed, zoomed in. At one point, he was shooting, I believe it was, and his foot kind of got caught in the mat, and that's when he fractured it.

It was during the fight, and he only noticed, after all the adrenaline wore off, and they announced him as the winner. Well, that could stand true, because I think he mentioned he felt like there was a hole in the mat somewhere. Yep, yep. It was unbelievable to watch, and I agree, it felt like the energy zapped out of him. It was crazy that he even walked out, as Mike Chiapeta just said, walked out of the cage, went to the press conference with a toe that was, you know, dangling from his,

from his foot. Not just dangling, from a medical standpoint, it's like immediately, you know, don't eat, don't drink. Sure. You know, my own past injuries, you want to get in there and you want to get it checked and get it taken care of. But, you know, the show must go on. The press conference for a big show like that is important. But the show isn't, you know, I watch it. I really love the show.

I mean, the Roy Nelson fight, you know, Bam Bam's fight with Jim Miller, which I'm sure you're going to bring up. You know, all that kind of stuff. But it was a weird night. You know, it's, I've announced roughly about. somewhere in the area at 225 or more UFCs, you know, somewhere around 2,500 fights, okay? And not counting that 1,000 or more fights have announced elsewhere. And I've never announced, I think, once in the whole history of the UFC,

have I announced a technical decision, and we had two of them that night, right? And then Belcher, who I feel for, because the guy just had his detached retina fix, you know, in the last few years, and then all of a sudden, can you imagine how he felt when that finger hit him in the eye? And Michael didn't do that intentionally. You know, it happened the way it happened. But I can just imagine what's going through his head and then John's toe and then my little flub, you know, for the first time I've ever done anything like that

in, you know, 2,500 UFC fights. So granted, a low percentage, but still, you know, go ahead, Ariel, get it out. I blame, by the way, I blame the Culinary Union. I think they put a hex on that show. Of course, we were in New Jersey, not able to be in New York. That's why I blame. Okay, let's talk about it.

Bam Bam, Ham Healy, unbelievable performance. He beats up Jim Miller, submits him. you get there, you do your thing, and what was it? Just a mental fart? What was going on there? You know, here's the thing, Ariel. A lot of people love to make excuses, you know? And excuses are like a-holes.

Everybody's got one. We all know that, right? Bottom line, I'm a man that lives my life, looking in the mirror and admitting when I make a mistake. And I made a flub. I made a flub. Now, some people might say, well, maybe that happened because, you know, they both had, I read a couple things.

Maybe that happened because they both had red beards. Maybe it happened because they had the same sponsor. you know, whatever the case might be. I'm not going to sit here and try to decipher it. I don't want to call it a brain fart. I'm going to call it that I'm only human. That's it. But you know what?

I did decide that it really came down to it and it really bugged you that I was going to commit supuku right here on the MMA hour. What is that? Don't you know what's haricari? You don't know the supu. You know, yeah, you know, little this, put it in, slide it to the right, slide it to the left, put it up and down. You know, maybe defining moment.

You feel that bad about this? No, I don't feel bad. bad at all. I made a flub. We all had a giggle and life goes on. I'm just kidding with you. I'm saying it bothers you. No, no, no. That finally after 2,500 fights, I made a flub and everybody's going to have fun with it, then I'll go ahead and

I'll give your show the benefit of seeing the live action, Sapuco. Well, maybe we'll do that at the end of the interview so you can stick around. But you know what? I liked it because it finally proved to us that you are actually human. Because for a while, you were like the bionic announcer, and quite frankly, I think better than your brother. Yes,

I said it better than Michael Buffer, I see on these progressive commercials. Why aren't you on those commercials, by the way? You deserve it more than him. First off, Ariel, I thank you for your kind words. I appreciate it. But just for the record, I really do consider my brother to be the greatest announcer. You're too humble.

Of all time. I know we're different. We're different styles. I don't compare myself to him. But thank you so much for your colorful comment. Has he ever done that before? Has he ever messed up at the end of the fight? He has.

Yes. Oh, yes. There was a instant recently. I expect that out of him, not from you. well you'll never see it again how's that but like yeah I'm only human and trust me are you I'm still bionic okay I'm still bionic you strike me as the kind of guy who you were kind of beating yourself up

the rest of the night was ruined because I'm that kind of guy and you shouldn't be that kind of guy but you know I feel like you you remind me of myself a little bit can I say that is that okay well we both got big noses I got a Roman nose it roams all over my face you know you got a Jewish nose it roams all over your face, let the two shall meet. You know, it's like, that was, I hope you don't mind to say that, because I put myself in the same boat. Okay. All right. But, you know, here's the thing, okay, you're when you're, you're either a professional or you're not, right? If I'm going to let that

affect me when I still got four more fights to announce on the main card of the biggest pay-per-view, potentially the biggest pay-per-view of the year, that I'm not being the pro that I consider myself to be, as anybody should when they're in this kind of a position, you know, working for an amazing organization like the UFC. And as an example, I am my own worst critic, okay? Did it ruin my night? No. Did it ruin my moment affect me?

Sure, because I made a mistake. You know, but what you do is when you get hit and you get knocked down to the canvas and you make a mistake or I'm in a poker hand and I put out thousands of dollars in chips and maybe I made the wrong move at the wrong time and I just lost the pot, do I stop playing poker? Do I get up from the table and quit and go, oh, my God? You know, you stand there like a man, you look in the mirror, you say, okay, buff, you made a mistake. You want to call it a brain fart? No, I don't make excuses.

I made a flub. What do you do? You learn from it. You move on. Okay? Bottom line. And also, when I watched the video, and I'm not patting myself in the back or trying to make light of anything, because, you know, I flubbed. I'll tell you right now.

But I recovered. You did. And it went on. And Jim Miller and I looked at each other and smiled. And everybody got a giggle. For the first time in my life, I got more laugh. and Joe Rogan. Hey, it's UFC history.

Did Dana say anything to you? Yeah, a little light comment, but you know, it's nothing. It's not like, you know, oh, gee, you know, it was the pink slip in my locker, you know, it's like it's, no, no, it's... Because I noticed that 158 when you said it was the main event and it was the co-main event, on the video blog, he made a joke to you, and it sounded like you were bothered by it,

or at least it looked that way. No, no, no, I, again, Ariel Sticks and Stones, I'm a very thick-skinned, strong individual. Say whatever you want about. I'll be able to spell my name correctly. But the bottom line is, is that I'm the first one to say when I do right and definitely realize when I do wrong. Now, oh, yeah, Dana did say it was funny because Dana's hilarious.

He said, okay, he goes, okay, that's two. Because when I made the co-made event thing, or the main event, co-main event into the main event the other time, which actually turned into what could have been a main event when you get back to it, right? Dana said to some of the effect, you know, Buff, it's like I can count the number of mistakes you've made in 13 years and less than my left hand. So, you know, not saying that's proper because I don't like to make mistakes, okay? So you were the topic of conversation on Thursday with Dana White. We interviewed him about a whole host of things, and it was UFC 159.

There was a lot to discuss, but I had to ask him about you, particularly because you are going to be on the cover of fighters only. and as I said to him, I think that this is not just the best MMA cover I've ever seen, best magazine cover of all time, that at least I've ever seen. Now, if someone missed it, here we go. Here's Dana White responding to Bruce Buffer being on the cover of fighters only with a model in his arms. Final thing, I want to just expand on this in case people miss the scrum, because I'm so fascinated by this story, the Bruce Buffer cover. Honestly, though, what do you think?

Do you like it? Are you interested in this cover? Are you interested in this persona that he's building? Well, what fascinate you about it? When I saw that cover, honestly, I thought it was the greatest cover, not just MMA-related, him holding a girl, international playboy, the surfing. It was just, it was brilliant. Yeah.

It was Bruce. Yeah. And I just wanted, and the first thing I thought of was, I wonder what Dana thinks about this. I actually asked him that question, by the way, and he said, you hadn't talked to him yet. So that's why I wanted to. He's not quite sure. He asked me if I saw the cover. I said, oh, yeah, I saw the cover.

And when I saw the whole thing, I was just like, wow. Wow. Wow. I just don't even know what to say. I'm speechless. Are you okay with Bruce building his brand, right? He has a book coming out. He has an app.

He has a T-shirt line. Bruce is an entrepreneur. He can do whatever he wants to do. Sure. If he writes books, sells books, you know, wants to, you know, pop in bottles and kissing models and, you know, all the

crazy shit that was written in that story. Yeah. That's up to him. He's a grown man. He can do whatever he wants to do. So, Bruce, I'm not sure. Was that a good thing? Was that a good reaction?

Or was that a bad reaction? He just kept saying, wow. Well, you know, this is kind of a week for first for me. I mean, you know, I do my first flub of a winner. And I made Dana White go, wow, not once, but three times. I mean, I got to tell you, maybe I'm having a great week. I mean, I don't know what to say. You know, listen, Dana is such a cool cat.

And, you know, his reactions are so funny at times. And, you know, he just basically said it the way it is. Listen, I'm in business for myself, okay? And, you know, I've been building my brand for years, Ariel, you know that. This is nothing new. And my book is coming out. You know, it took me over a year to write it. It's finally being released on May 14th.

And like Dana said, I'm a grown man. And, you know, the bottom line is, I'm loyal to my organization. I'm completely loyal to my organization. and I also run, as you know, many other business ventures. So, I mean, I can't stop what I do. Now, as far as pop and bottles and kiss and models, baby. Well... Is that true?

Is that accurate or is that just a line that they put on the magazine? Is that really how you live your life? Ariel, how long have you known me? Well, I've known you a long time, but I've never actually seen you pop bottles and kiss models in person. I've never been invited to one of these shindigs. What do you think? I have a little affairs. Like, okay, listen, after the fight, we're going to go and we're going to.

to pop some bottles and kiss some models. Actually, it's kind of a cool saying. I did not write that. That's Fighters Only's title to the magazine based on the story they wrote and the pictorial. It's a 10-page pictorial. It's really cool.

Oh, yeah. But to answer your question, have I ever popped bottles? Sure. Have I ever kissed models? Sure. So if you want to put the two together, whether they happen on the same night or different nights, that's up to you.

But you're not married, right? No, I've never been married. I've almost been divorced twice, but never married. Interesting. Okay. So, but what about, then what is your life like? Because in this article, which I did get to read in advance, it makes you out to be some kind of international playboy, that you live this playboy lifestyle,

that you're, you're, there's much more to the Bruce Buffer that we see in the cage out there, doing many different interesting things with different interesting people. Well, Ariel, if you think all I do is walk in the octagon and then walk out and go home and read a book, you're totally misconceived to me. You have misconception of me rather. You know, listen, I have never said that I'm a playboy. I have never, you've never heard, you've never ever heard me talking about myself like that. But it oozes out of you. Well, maybe I'm a, you know, central guy.

I mean, I don't know what's not yet. Ariel, bottom line is I'm single. I travel the world. When I'm in a relationship, I'm in a relationship. I'm committed to the girl I'm in the relationship with. I am not, and I'm not the kind of person that falls around a relationship. Probably one of the reasons, and I go into this in my book, I have a chapter of my book titled To All the Girls I've Loved before.

Granted, might have had to condense it because they don't have me 300 pages, but the bottom line is, is that I'm in a relationship, I'm committed to make that relationship work. When I'm not in a relationship, I'm honest with everybody that I date or go out with, and the bottom line is, I'm single. If you're 20 and you're single, you're single. If you're 30 and you're single, you're single. If you're 40 and you're single, you're single, if you're 50, you're single, well, I'm in my 50s, and I'm single. And I get to travel the world and see exotic places and live a great life. and I go into detail on my book about some of these questions that is all the more reason why you have to read it.

Yes, and it comes out May 14th. And we'll have you on when it comes out after I get a chance to read and really dissect this book that you've been talking about for so long. But it really seems to me like you have made a conscious effort in the last year so to really raise your game. I mean, the book, the app, the T-shirt line, you're on magazine covers now.

And I'm just worried. Are you going to forget about where you came from? Are you going to forget about where your bread is butter? No, never. See, this is something that I live by. I hate arrogance. I hate conceit. I can't stand it.

I don't socialize with it, nor do I want to be around it. Sometimes I have to deal with it because you have to deal with different individuals in life. I believe firmly, as that article wrote, when you read the article, and I think one of the key points

of the article, it states, I don't believe I'm better than anybody else in this world, okay? I firmly believe this. I do motivational speeches. I teach people how to reach their goals or enhance their willingness to do so. I believe we are all created,

equal, okay? It's all about the paths we choose. Now, in the paths we choose, for me, it's about doing the best job that I, as myself, can do. That's all I can do. And I don't live on my laurels. I don't live on the performance last week. Right now, I'm living on the basis that I flubbed, you know, one announcement in the last show that I did. Do I give that a 10? No, I don't. Did I give the previous show the previous weekend a good grading? Yeah, I did. So I'm my own worst critic. Now it's up to me to perform on May 16th or whatever the date is 17th when we're in Brazil. So I only believe you're as good as you are today. Everything else is a memory and an achievement, but to keep achieving, you have to keep

doing your best. That's what it's time's all about. I wake up in the morning and it's time. This is it. You know, let's have a great day. This is going to be the best day of my life. Let's get out there and win this war, okay? And as far as like the different things you ask me about, you know, all the products coming out,

Ariel, everything is timing. You know, it's kind of like sitting back with the, you know, don't shoot, you know, when they're in the old day. Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes. I've been in this business in sports and entertainment for 20 years. And right now the timing's right for me to write the book. The timing was right for the app. I was hoping the UFC would have come out with an alarm clock for all the fighters and me to participate in. And I was getting hundreds of not a thousand requests over a year for an alarm clock.

and I just decided to go ahead and do it myself. You know? I carefully think everything out like chess. I always think three moves ahead are you. It's the way I run my businesses. And in this case, the way I run my own, you know, this business of my brand, which, as you so willing put it, which, you know, Tito Ortiz is a brand. Randy Gouture is a brand.

John Jones is a brand. So you work and you always create a nucleus in life and then you build out from that if you're an entrepreneur in business. By the way, I hate to do this, but the next UFC shows May 18th, not the 16th, the 17th so you know well didn't I didn't I act like I wasn't quite sure boy you're really trying to get mistakes okay another flub by Bruce Buffer yeah what was that photo shoot like with that lovely lady that's my friend Bree she's she's I mean she is lovely there's no question um she's she's great at what she does she's

excellent for the photo shoot she did a great job God knows that you know I knew she would fit the mold visually and it was wonderful she's wonderful to work with really wonderful to work with as the cameraman and the crew from fighters only Ariel, that shoot took two days. Really? Why two days? Well, because we spent the whole day. I went down and worked with Leota Machita down at Black House, you know, and then we did the photo shoot here at my home and around the area.

I live here in California. And we wanted to get the surfing. And there was a swell here the week before, and I had a camera crew all set up because you can't choose when there's going to be waves. So I was going to go out and hit the swell the weekend before. It was a good five-foot swell. the day had the camera crew together. When we left, the swell disappeared.

The ocean was flat. So it became nighttime, and we all decided that we meet again the next morning and go out and do the surfing pictorial. And that was it. But there were no waves. Speaking of, there were ways far out, but the camera wouldn't have gotten a good shot. Do you think this will all take you to the next level? You may say you're not an international playboy,

but just putting out this image, the popping bottles, Kissy Monk, may open up some doors to you and some... some new folks will be coming your way. Do you expect this to happen now? Now that you put this out there, the world is going to react in a certain way. What do you think? I'm going to be the next James Bond.

I don't know. I don't know what you're going to be. I just didn't see this coming, honestly. When I saw the cover, it hit me right in the face. Ariel, perception is reality, as we all know. And it was a fun photo shoot, and fighters only put it together in a really fun way. But I'm still the same Bruce Buffer that you met. It was on your radio.

show some 10, 12 years ago. And that's my whole point of the way I lead my life. You know, I love all these great experiences, but I will never lose track of who I am. And that's it. Now, I walk, you know, I'm very confident, right? There's two types of ego, REO.

There's the conceded type, and there's the constructive type. I'm the constructive type. And I believe that people out there who believe in the cells, that believe in their abilities, whether it's to be the best busboy, to be the best CEO, actor, fighter, model, whatever. Just try to be your best. You know, that's it.

It's not about who's richer, who's more famous. Just try to be a good person and be your best. That's all I've ever strived for my entire life. And by the way, and I just managed to get here. You are the best. It's not even close. And I see all these, oh, these imitators. The imitators, you must, when you watch other combat sports events, not just MMA,

but it just, I mean, it must drive you nuts, right? To listen to some of the, let's just stick with MMA for a second. It's, it's nauseating to listen to these guys. Do you agree? Did you just go nuts? You pull out your hair? No. You don't.

Ariel, I don't think you should be an announcer, Ariel. I think it's going to affect you too much to what you're acting. What do you mean? You would have killed yourself after last Saturday night, and you would have no hair because you'd be pulling it out every week from these other announcers. But they're imitators. They're copying you. It's okay.

I've got a full head of hair. I did a flub. I feel great. You know, I'm going to go train for two hours after this interview. I'm loving my day. The bottom line is, is that imitation is the height of flattery, as they say. my only problem if I ever have a problem with another announcer is if they try to violate my trademark rights with my trademarks

we are live and it's time that I will have a problem and I've dealt with those issues and I've squashed those issues or issue you know whatever and dealt with it properly the way it should have been done but if an announcer is going to go out there and try and do 180 or try and do a 360 or try and you know imitate my fighting or you know or the way I move or whatever well I have no control Ariel I will say one thing.

I have respect for all announcers that want to step in a ring in front of a bunch of people because a lot of people freeze just being in front of people on the stage. So, announcers write me all the time. I'm serious.

I can't begin to tell you how many, oh, I want to get into business, I want to do this, I want to do that. Even some established guys looking for me to manage them and stuff, and I'm not going to manage anybody. I manage one per two people,

my brother and myself, period. And I've managed Michael's career for almost 20 years now. So if they want to do that, they're making a mistake. in one way because if you want to get noticed as an announcer, those announcers listening, anybody wants to be an announcer. It's like running a company. When I start a company, I look at the five companies that are similar. I look at the greatest things they do or did to get

where they got and maintain their success. Then you take it, you put it all in a big ball, and you label it, in my case, BB, and I go to work because I look at what they did right. But I create my own individual style in business and announcing. Ariel, if anybody could have copied somebody in announcing, please, I would have been the one. I never wanted to be Frank Sinatra Jr. I knew that I needed to have my own style. And that's what I strove for. So for announcers listening, sure, you want to copy this, copy that, you know, I can't control that.

But if you really want to become notice for who you are and stand out, then develop your own style. That's the best advice I can give an announcer. Amen, Bruce. Yeah. You got to be a copycat. It would be a copycat. Yeah. Good riddance.

Bruce, we got to go. We got Greg Jackson up next. I want to remind everyone that your book, your great book, it's called It's Time. It comes out May 14th. If you want to get a special limited collectible signed edition of the book, go to www. www.com. You've got the app. It's coming out on Droid.

And the book is great. The magazine cover. That's coming out. Fighters Only magazine. You can get that. Bruce Buffer is everywhere. When I read the book, we'll have you back on to dissect it. always love talking to MMA's International Playboy Bruce Buffer.

Check them out on Twitter.com slash Bruce Buffer. I mean, I could sit here and do 20 minutes of plugs, but we don't have time, Bruce. I love you too, brother. It's always great to work with you. For those who want to know, the special announcements, the recordings are going to be. Follow me on Twitter at Bruce Buffer or go to Bufferzone. And if you're getting married, contact me, and I'll blow that thing up for you if you're a UFC fan. Ariel, you are the best, okay, and you're funny.

And my hair stays. You want to pull it out. That's your choice. Thank you very much, Bruce. There he is. The one and only Bruce Buffer stopping by Bufferzone.net. That's how I contacted him when I was in Syracuse University. I had my own little radio show, the whole, what was it? The Great White Northern Sports Show. Actually, it was called the main event back then. And he was one of my first guests ever when I was just a little peon in 2001. Bruce Buffer, always so great to talk to him. We appreciate him stopping by. Okay, let's move along now. Greg Jackson is on hold. Of course, a big night for him on Saturday, UFC 159. Greg, how are you?

I'm doing well, sir. How are you? That's a tough act to follow, Bruce Buffer, but I think you're the one who can actually pull it off. No, nobody can follow Bruce. He's the man. Nobody can follow. John Jones breaks his toe. Compound fracture, it's dangling. If that fight lasts a few more seconds, are we talking about Chale Sunnan, UFC Light Heavyweight Champion right now? Yeah, you know, I'm not sure. I'm not sure how we would have dealt with it in the corner. You know, I'm not sure. Certainly that is one possible.

ability and and we're glad it worked out the way we did. I'm not one of those guys that second-get things or, you know, kind of looks back and stuff. They're like that. I mean, obviously, I look back if I've made a mistake in the game plan or in the corner, you know, we do our little breakdown after the fights and figure out what we did right and wrong, but something like that, yeah, I did a drive you crazy thinking about it. So for me, best not to think about it.

When did you notice that he injured his toe? Right around the time he noticed. at some point, I think Joe pointed it out, Rogan, or he noticed I wasn't really paying attention at that time. I was just relieved that the fight was over and we won. And then, yeah, that's when I figured out that, oh, along with everybody else. So in the middle of the fight, you had no idea? No, negative, because I don't even know when I was trying to figure out how it happened. I thought it got caught in the cage or something.

I mean, it wasn't until later that you could see him pushing off of it. But, yeah, I was behind the curve as to kind of with everybody, including John, as to what happened and why it happened. As his coach, were you happy with his performance? Oh, very, yeah, extremely. He did extremely well. I was happy with all aspects of the fight, and, I mean, taking somebody out in the first round is never a bad thing.

Honestly, are you happy that we just don't have to talk about this fight anymore? Are you happy that this whole 151 thing? Because it really just started with that, that it's now behind you guys? No, for me, it's, you know, it's not as emotional, I think, is for maybe some of the other participants involved, because we want to be prepared. I mean, we want to make sure that if you were going to fight, if we're going to do something at that high level,

you want to be prepared for it. And when we were prepared for it, it went our way. So I feel like I made the right, it gave him the right advice for that situation. And, you know, I'm sorry, it all worked out the way it did with the negative repercussions on it. But, you know, it's over now. And for me, it wasn't a big deal. It's just I'm a trainer and I teach people and I break down how to win fights and that's kind of my area. The rest of it's not for me.

You know, I'm in the backstage area. You see me. I'm doing the interviews for fuel on MMA fighting. And at the beginning of the night, John walked up to us and just said, okay, let's do an interview. And he was so loose, joking. And I was just so surprised that before a big title fight that he could be that relaxed. Was that because he didn't really take chill all that seriously or is he always that way? No, it's exactly the opposite because he knew he had done his homework.

He knew that he was well prepared, so he can be relaxed because we knew everything that the jail was going to do. We knew the parameters that John had to work within to win the fight. And so when you do your homework, when you're physically and mentally prepared, you can be relaxed. You can be laid back. But had he had not taken him seriously, and there were doubts creeping in his mind, oh, you know, this matter, the other thing, I don't think he would have been his least, but because we trained and prepared for him so hard and focused on really improving so many aspects of his game, he just went in there confident.

I think he knew he was going to win because he was prepared to do so. Do you have any idea how long he'll be out for? I don't. I don't. I haven't sat down and talked to him yet. I hit the ground running today at so many other fighters' training, so this evening I'll probably reach out to him and see how he's feeling. Do you ever get a chance to just be like, okay, a week I'm not going to the gym, I'm not training anyone, I get to go on vacation? Because after a fight like that, the fighter gets to eat pizza and maybe go to Jamaica, as John mentioned.

When do you get your Jamaica trip? I get it once a year. I get one week off. I take my family and we go down and sit on a beach and I sleep for about 16 hours a day. It's paradise. But, yeah, I don't get breaks after fight. Everybody else gets the breaks. Me and all the coaches that work with me were right back to the grindstone.

I mean, we can't afford to not stop swimming. We've got to always be in the water, always going. and for. There's always a fight somewhere. How far in advance do you book that trip? Because what if the UFC books, let's say, John Jones, in a fight in the middle of your trip? Right. Well, that's the thing is I can't book anything

more than like a month or two at advance because just for that reason, like all of a sudden somebody adds to fight and off I go. So it's very flexible. So we can say like, I'm probably going to go in July. I've got a week here in July where I can go and it's

just kind of we run at that point. we don't know how long John will be out for, but he was talking about maybe fighting Alexander Gustafson next instead of Leotamichita, who the UFC deemed to be the number one contender. Are you in favor of this? It doesn't matter to me. You know, it's whatever the UFC says. As long as we have enough time to prepare, we're going to have to fight them all anyway. You know what I mean?

We're going to fight Cheetah again. We're going to govinson again, whoever else they put in front of us. So it's just a matter of who's next. But I never wanted to be like, oh, no, avoid this guy. and we got to fight this guy. When you're the champion, you really have to take on. I mean, that's the part of being the champion is whoever they say, you've got to fight, you've got to fight.

And people might not think that makes sense with when we said, well, we don't want to take a new fight on short notice, but that's a whole different animal. It's not that we're avoiding the opponent. It's that we're avoiding the situation. We want to make sure that we're well prepared. This is a world title in the, you know, the sport that's, I think, the best sport in the entire world by far,

and I want to take that seriously. John has also been talking about this plan. wants to beat Tito's light heavyweight record and then move up heavyweight super fights. Are you okay with that? Yeah, I'm okay with whatever they want to do. You know, if he wants to do that, then I'll help them out. I've always said that, you know, it's up to the fighter and the management, and it's my job to figure out how we're going to do that.

So if that's the parameters that they want to give me, that's what I do. And I actually enjoy that. Like, anything different is good. I said before, like, I like to watch scary movies, like with monsters and stuff, not because I like to get scared at all, but I like to figure out what are the parameters? You know what I mean? Does this ghost, if you're fighting a ghost, can the ghost hurt you? Can you hurt the ghost?

You know, I really enjoy that figuring out what the rules are of the game and then how to win at those rules. So they give me parameters or opponents or whatever. That is a fun part for me. The picking and the choosing of them, not nearly as fun or really my job. I just like to break down the puzzles in there in front of me. And speaking of which, you were kind of thrust into that spotlight with the, the 151 cancellation. And I noticed in a recent Dana White video blog, I think it was, I think it was after the Condit fight. So he posted that last week leading up to this fight, Condit versus Hendrix.

And I noticed him talking to you in the cage. And I'm not quite sure what you guys were talking about, but it seemed, you know, like you guys were, you were amicable. And I'm wondering now, as we put the, you know, we put the final chapter, we put this whole, you know, 151 debacle to bed, how is your relationship with Dana White these days? Well, it's great. You know, we've talked and things are cool, and we both understand each other, I think. And I actually have always said I like Dana.

I think he's an amazing guy. Like I said, even when he kind of loses his temper and has these severe reactions, these situations, I've always said that passion, you know, is the same passion that's got us all where we are. And I don't take it personally, you know, it's just part of the game, and yeah, I like the guy. I respect him.

You talked recently? Yeah, let's see. Well, I mean, he said congratulations in the cage. Yeah, you know, but did you have a Tet-a-Tet, so to speak? Did you clear the air? Yeah, yeah, everything's good. Yeah, we met and talked and everything's good. That's great, but does he know you're on the new Bellator reality show?

Yeah, and he has been, he has been clean. But he's not, you know, that's just, it's just business. It's nothing personal. You know, I didn't have any contracts with him or working for him or anything like that. I'm just a trainer, and, you know, I go where the training takes me, and that's my job. I work for my fighters and my people. And so he understands that, and I understand him. And, yeah, so we're just moving forward from there.

I know you can't talk a lot about it, but how was that experience? Fightmaster comes out this summer on Spike TV. You, Randy Couture, Joe Warren, Frank Shamrock, your coaches, kind of like the ultimate fighter, but the fighters get to choose their own coaches. What was that experience like for you? It was a lot of fun, you know, just again, and that same kind of thing, just working within new parameters

and with these new constraints of time and exposure to the fighters and all of these things to see how we could do in that, in that format was a lot of fun for me. And the experience itself was great. The fighters are really good. They're good guys. They fight really hard.

There are some talented people in there. And I think it's going to be a really entertaining show. I think people are, if they tune in, they're going to kind of fall back in love with that style of reality show. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Any good fighters on there? Any diamonds in the rough? There are.

There are some really good guys on there. And I, you know, too, I'm not going to spoil anything. You tune in, because there's some good guys on there. And there's some people that you haven't heard of yet that might impress you. By the way, what's it like when you're on a card like this where early in the night, a guy you've been with for a very long time, Leonard Garcia suffers a tough loss. Who knows what his UFC future is like now? and then you have to kind of regroup and get ready for a massive fight with John Jones in the main event.

How do you balance those emotions? Well, I mean, it's just battle. I actually have Rustam Kabilav. That's true. One in between those two as well. But that's kind of like those are my normal nights. And I think I was forgetting who it was. I think it was Ray Longover, Subway and I were talking.

That's like, as crazy as it seems, that's normal to me. Like, that's my job. Like, I go in, we usually have between two and five fighters. on a card. So I think it was a lot harder for me at first because, you know, I had all of this, you know, maybe a tough fight like that real emotional and I have to refocus. And I think I'm better at that now than I used to be just because of sheer experience. I mean, it's not because I'm anything special mentally.

It's just I've been throwing the fire so long that I'm used to getting burned and, you know, just kind of moving forward. And so I think it's so many hundreds and hundreds of fights over the last 20 years has just made me like, okay, this happened. I feel terrible about it, but I've got to regroup my emotions and, you know, stay calm, cool, and collect it and focus for the next one. Two last quick things before we let you go. Where do you sort of fit in in this whole debate that Joe Rogan brought up on the broadcast about changing the gloves? You know, the sport as well as anyone, do you think that it's time that we change the gloves? Do you think that fingerless

gloves are a problem? We saw some eye pokes on Saturday. Is there any solution out there, in your opinion? I don't know. You know, it's definitely worth looking at. I don't know. if there is a solution that makes sense. Joe was saying that, you know, kind of webbed the fingers together with a strip of leather. And that might work. The edges of the gloves and the thumb still might get in there. I don't know if there's any, like, foolproof way.

There might be a more effective way, but I honestly haven't sat down on it and thought it through yet. It's certainly an interesting problem to deal with. And, you know, it's, I mean, we saw Saturday night that there can be real problems with that, but that card was just crazy with all the injuries. I don't know if I've ever been on a UFC. As a matter of fact, I know I haven't. We had that many bizarre

injuries, one right after, even Rostom's fight. He was throwing the guy around, and when the guy landed, you know, some came out, and we hope he's okay. He's a really good guy, and, you know, just one bizarre injury after the other. So it might have just been that night. Sometimes it happens. But definitely there's an

underlying issue with the eye pokes, and I'm not sure what the best solution is. And final quick thing, will Frank Mier be back with the Jackson Winklejohn team for his next fight? I hope so. He said he was, and we just loved having him. He showed a lot of improvement, and we're really in a growth phase with him. You know, he's learning to fight in shape. He's learning to do a lot of these things, and I think that when we really get him to open up and pull the trigger, and when he's got a lot

of kind of physical stamina, mental stamina behind him, he's going to show people a side of Frank Mirr that I think people haven't seen yet. really excited to be there when it happens. Greg, always a pleasure. Congrats on the win for John Jones. On Saturday, I know it was in a perfect night for you, but still another solid night for you and the team. Love having you on the show and hearing your insight

and good luck with your next slate of fights coming up. Thank you, sir. I do appreciate it. There he is. Greg Jackson, what more can you say about him? Multiple-time winner of the Fighters-only Coach of the Year award, one of if not the best in the business. always appreciate him stopping by.

Okay, let's move along from one of if not the best in the business to right now, the man who a lot of people consider to be the greatest light heavyweight champion of all time, at least for now. That may change in the future. We appreciate him stopping by very much. He is, of course, the Huntington Beach bad boy himself, Tito Ortiz. Tito, how are you? Tito, are you there?

I was told he was there. Is he gone? All right. We're going to try to get him back. Was he upset that I said, he was, that it may change. John Jones, of course, tied his record for most successful title defenses. Aslight heavyweight champion on Saturday night.

And one more win would break that record. But John Jones gave him props on Saturday. And then on Saturday night after the fight, Tito tweeted, well, I may have to come out of retirement to beat at Johnny Bones. I can't let him beat my record. I wanted to ask him about that and then some other stuff. Guys, talk to me. Is he around? Are we trying to get him or what?

All right. Okay. We're going to get Titor-Tees in a matter of moments here. After Tito, Norman Park will be stopping by. And then we still got a couple more guests after that. We'll also be talking to Alexander Gustafsson, another, obviously highly ranked light heavyweight. And then Rich Franklin, who has fought at light heavyweight. He's fought at 195.

Of course, his glory days were at 185 as champion. Haven't seen him since his loss to Kung Lee in November in Macau. Want to know what's next for him. And continue to hit us up using the hashtag the MMA hour. Questions, comments, leave him in the post as well. Got two great prizes to give out to all of you. I wanted to read a little stat that my friends over at FightMetric hooked me up with. In addition to John Jones tying Tidor-Tees' light heavyweight record for title defenses with five,

Jones also tied Chuck Liddell with nine career stoppages either by knockout or submission the most in light heavyweight history. So he made double history on Saturday night, Johnny Bones. And now I believe we do have Tito Ortiz. Tito, are you there? Yeah, how are you doing, buddy? Hey, I'm doing well, and good to have you back on the show, Tito.

We appreciate it. So I saw you tweet on Saturday, and you were being discussed a lot. And John gave you props, and that was nice, and I know you liked it, saying that, oh, you may have to come out of retirement to stop John from breaking your record. Are you just messing with us, or what?

Plenty C game on. Now it's time to water it. No, I thought have a lot of recovery. I do, my ACL done. I'm actually in the doctors now out of Curlin and Joe, Dr. COVID, who's going to have an ACL replacement. I guess in UFC 148. I tore in the second round, I guess.

I don't remember. I didn't feel it. But I had a little knee problems nine weeks before that fight, where they went in and they took out 50% of my meniscus. And, you know, I got through training, got to the fight, and I knew it was very unstable after when you got an MRI, and I said you tore your ACL. So the last 11 weeks, I kind of just been sucking it up

and trying to get it through my days and try to make my legs a little stronger. But my knee keeps slipping out, and I got to get it replaced here on May night. Is the UFC taking care of you? Yes, they are. You know, Daniel Lorenzo, I've gone on the way to help me, and I'm very thankful for it. You know, they're a minute of the words, and they're taking care of it, man.

I'm very, very thankful. So, but honestly, though, you're done, right? I mean, you're not going to come back in your fight. No. Okay. You just wanted to mess with us. I don't know. You never know. But no.

Tito Ortiz in his prime, light heavyweight champion, the man who took the MMA world by storm. John Jones right now in his prime. Who wins? I do. of course. Why?

Based on what you've seen, I mean, obviously you're very, you think you dominate, you're confident, I know that, and I expect you to say that, but why? Based on what you see from John,

how do you beat him? Well, I take downs, of course, clinch, striking. I don't know. Big heart. John Jones is good, though, man. If anybody's going to beat my record,

I'd like him to beat it. You know, I don't think there's anybody in the sport right now with the technique and the skills that he has. He's very mellow-managed. soft-spoken guy, but his fighting shows how good he really is.

I have nothing respect for the guy, man. Do you hope he doesn't beat your record? No, well, of course I hope he doesn't, but if anybody does, I would like him to do it. But deep down inside, kind of like the 72 dolphins, you want to stay at the top of the record books, right? Of course, but I mean, like I say, if I'm under a person who holds a record, I think John Jones is the man to be, you know, he's very classy, he's respectful, and you know, soft-spoken, and he's a true champ.

What'd you make of the Chale Sunnen match-up? A lot of fans, MMMA media people thought it was a bit of a Fugazi matchup, if you know what I'm saying? He didn't have a chance. What do you think of it? Well, you read my Twitter and I think that was the easiest fight for Johnny Bones-Jones. You know, I like Chale. He's a friend of mine, but he's 185-pounder. He's a 205-pounder.

This weight classes are totally separated there. And, you know, Chale walks in at 205, maybe 204. Johnny Bowens Jones is 6-5 at 225. This is like a wrestling match. You know, that's why they had weight classes in wrestling because you can't wrestle someone bigger than you. And Charles showed that. You know, he couldn't stop the take down.

Considering Jones's road as champion to this point and your road to that point, who had the tougher road? You know, I think there's two separate errors, I believe. You know, at the time, I thought guys who got their chance for world titles. None of the guys I fought were just appointed besides Davey Motteshenko, because Vito Belfour got injured, and at the time,

you know, Monteshenko was a world-class wrestler, and I took them down each and every round, and I showed that I was a better wrestler, and I was only a college wrestler. So I think the time and the errors are totally separated. You know, a lot of guys that I fought, they beat guys who were number one contenders, and that's why I fought them. Like I said, I always

fought people they put in front of me. When I thought Monteshancoe was on a three-week notice, and I still took the fight. So you look right now at the light heavyweight division. Do you think anyone beats John Jones right now? Not really. I really don't see anybody to beat them. I don't think anybody will get close to him.

Kids are just so his mindset is perfect. I think it's how a champion should be. You know, just as long as no personal stuff happens to him, I don't think he'll have no much problem with anybody just because of those wrestling. You know, wrestling's always been a dominating force, in USC, and I think he's on war by going on it. Based on what happened to him

last year, you know, with the DUI and all that, are you concerned about that? I mean, you mentioned that Dana's talked about the leeches and, you know, that your head can get too big if you let people come, you know, and talk to you in your ears. I mean, you've been there. You've been where he is right now. The sport was in a different place, but I'm sure you know what goes on behind the scenes. Does he strike you as the kind of guy who will be able to deal with all this?

I think you will. You know, I think he learned from his DUI. I hope he did at least. I've learned through when I grew up you think of your mind 10 times if you could say it's okay 10 times of those questions and you ask yourself it's okay to do if you have one of those 10 of saying no it's not good thing to do

maybe you shouldn't do it and that's you know I kind of stick my life by that and every decision I've made to this point you know I've thought about that and hopefully he'll do the same thing too and there's nothing but great things that for John Jones you see him sponsored by Nike you hear rumblings about what his purse

really is does a party you almost wish that you were fighting in 2013 that you were a few years early in your career Of course But you know I can say I I lay the infrastructure The groundwork of what the fighters have today You know I stood my ground on a lot of occasions

But at the same time I'm a fighter who was in a great era at the time You know I I went out, I fought outside the box, and, you know, now it's paying off, and I'm very, very thankful because of it. Did you, not to get too personal here with your finances, but did you invest well? I mean, are you living comfortably now, or do you still have to work because of maybe some decisions you made while you were a fighter racking in the dough? No, investments are very something I paid attention to. You know, I've watched a lot of pro-boxers that did blow through hundreds of millions, and, you know, I've never had a chance to make a type of money, but, you know, I still have goals on my mind.

they still want to do. Taking care of my children has always been number one, whether I don't have to steal for food or steal for clothes in their back, as I did when I grew up. So that's my number one, making sure my kids can live comfortable. What's the management business like these days? How are things looking on that end?

Good, really good. You know, Chris actually has a fight. She was fighting for the world title, I believe, on July 12th, in Victor again. So she has that fight and one more fight after. and then she'll be a free agent. So either we signed a deal with Invicta, and I heard Dan talking about adding more weight classes to UFC.

So, you know, just try to be diligent, try to make the right decisions for the future of my clients. I noticed that you were in her corner in her Invicta debut, so are you her head trainer now? Not her head trainer. I just helped her with the wrestling, some ground-of-pound stuff we worked on. And just try to be motivational.

You know, I mean, if there's anybody who's been in the case, as many times as any fight it would be me. And just the pre-hyped stuff, you know, just keeping our mind focused, you know, try to stay positive and just be supportive towards it. And she, after the fight was over, she was like, I've never had a camp like this in my whole life. You guys are very supportive, managing, getting trainers for me. I mean, she was very, very happy and satisfied. And just trying to do our job as a management company to, you know,

push the force forward of great fighters as Chris is. Where do we stand now? This obviously comes up all the time in the Ronda story. I mean, has the door, in your opinion, been completely shut? Do you think there's still a chance? If it's not at 145 as you guys want, is there a zero chance? Where do we stand right now? I really don't know.

I couldn't answer that. I think it all lies in the hands of Dana what he wants to do. Do we do a super fight in New Year's at 140? I don't know, as I said, Ronda keeps playing her fights. Chris wins all of her fights, and you got champion versus champion. And I think that would make great sense. And Chris has told me it was a matter if Ronda loses or wins, she still wants a fighter, just because of the stuff that Ronda said was very personal towards Chris,

and she, her feeling to hurt, and she wants her Ronda. What's interesting, though, is she probably going to fight Kat end of December, and that will be around New Year's. So I think that New Year's plan is out the window. So at least for now, 2013, it looks like it's not going to happen. Well, then I guess you know more than me. It's fine. You know, I really think the fans want it.

You know, I think they deserve it. But at the same time, you know, maybe Dana will add another weight class and you'll see Chris at 145 continue to dominate. So we hear about you and Chris a lot. Who are some of the other people that we should be looking out for from your team, the punishment team? Well, actually, Ricardo O'Brien, he's 185-pounder, who's really, really good. Of course, Rob Emerson, two other guys, we're just getting the deal done, and you guys should read on my Twitter when it comes out.

Just some of the other guys that are from King's MMA, and we're just trying to look around and find the best guys possible who not just want to fight hard but want to promote themselves and hopefully to be the next big stars. And of course that Twitter is Twitter.com slash Tito Ortiz. Just a couple of minutes left with you, Tito. I had to wonder and I have to ask,

I'm sure you heard what happened with Matt Matrione recently on this show when he was doing a segment similar to the one that bothered you. Did you chuckle inside? Did you say, oh, well, good for you. You finally got in trouble for saying things like that, at Landish Things. Did you take some pride or some joy in all of what transpired there with his suspension? I did not hear any of it and watch.

I really, I just have a lot of fun of stuff. I'm getting care of kids now, dude. I got twin plays. I'm taking care of full time. You didn't hear what happened to Matt Mitchell, and he got suspended for saying some, I guess, unflattering things about Fallon Fox. You know Falun Foxes, right? The transgender fighter.

Yeah, I know he is. Yeah. Then he got suspended. I don't know. What that surprise that he said? something like that? I mean, maybe,

I mean, I'm not really sure if I was surprised or not, but I guess I was, he took, he was very, he was very, passionate about his take

on the situation. He's not a fan of it. He doesn't think it's fair that she would fight women, et cetera, et cetera. UFC didn't like what he said, got suspended. Wow.

Like, so you gotta watch what you say with UFC. I mean, this is a big business, and you got to make sure you carry yourself to respect and dig Indian, and maybe he didn't do that.

Hey, a lot of people want to see Cyborg versus Fallon. Is that a possibility for you? Well, I think she probably would have the only close chance of beating Chris. Chris had no problem with it at all. And do you have a problem with it as her manager? No, not at all. If a girls can meet with what she did with the surgery she did,

and she can take that much of drastic measures to become a woman, more power to her. Hey, so for right now, one of the big topics in MMA is fingerless gloves. I don't know if you saw UFC once. Actually, you did see it because you were talking about John Jones. Where do you stand on this? Do you think that they should modify the gloves? I said this back to the first time I thought, Chuck, you know,

and he split my retina on my eye. I don't know. I mean, should there be anything? But how can you do that? There's nothing possible to do. Right. If we can cover the fingers, I mean, put webbing on the fingers,

but still the fingers show. I just think fighters need to learn to close their fists when they punch. You can't really change. I mean, you need your fingers, right? I mean, there's really, you can complain on your fingers to lock and a body lock and a single leg and, you know, greco grip.

I mean, there's a lot of stuff you need for those fingers. Yeah, I don't see it happening. Someone was tweeting me a picture of one, like a web, you webbed the fingers up, but I just don't, I think you're drastically changing the sport at this point. Guys, do you think guys do this on purpose? Not calling anyone out, a strategy that you hear from guys, you know, maybe keep the fingers open a little bit,

and, hey, fingerless gloves, it can happen. No, not that I know, not at all. You don't aim for that? No, not at all. I never do. I try to aim with my elbows and my close fist. So you're at the doctor right now, right? When's the surgery? Yeah, I do, yeah, my pre-up for surgery.

I get surgery done on May 9th, ACL replacement and meniscus also. Wow. And how long will you be out for? Like, you can't walk and things like that? two months, a month and a half. You'll be good to go when she fight. Will you be able to help Chris prepare for this fight? I'm going to try to.

Hopefully by June, I'll be okay. So, I mean, at the worst, I could actually just go to coach her through stuff and have a couple guys and help out. But I'm going to try as hard as possible. I'll be at the fight, that's for sure. All right. Well, Tito, we appreciate it. And by the way, third time you're on the show since we buried the hatchet. This is, I'm feeling the love. Are you feeling it? Yeah, for sure, man. I appreciate it.

Thank you very much, Tito. And for more on Titor-R-Tee's. Check punishment.com, of course. Great website there. His Twitter feed, Twitter.com. Titor Ortiz. Good luck with the fight with Chris, your business, and of course, the operation coming up. Wish you the best. Oh, man. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

There he is. The Huntington Beach bad boy himself. Titori's right now tied with John Jones top the UFC record books. Five light heavyweight title defenses, successful ones. John Jones, one more away. He said before the fight that he wants

to break that record. And he wants to do it rather soon, but now we have the toe injury. We don't know. We spoke to Greg Jackson about it. Not sure how long he'll be out for just yet. And then he's talking about superfights. And interesting that Dana White said on Saturday night at the post-fight scrum, Anderson Silva called him up.

Anderson Silva called him up at the end of that fight. And of course, Dana wouldn't say why he called him. He said it was either the GSP or Jones fight. I mean, unless all of a sudden it smacked him in the face. but we know he wanted the GSP fight. He was in Montreal in November. Of course it had to do with John Jones, and that to me would be the biggest fight the UFC could put on right now.

It would be massive. But again, as Dana said, let's not forget July 6th in Las Vegas. Chris Wyman is sitting there, and I can't help but feel that Wyman is somewhere on Long Island right now feeling a little disrespected. In fact, his wife tweeted to me that he better be focusing on Chris. A lot of people, a lot of smart people in this, business. I know people say what they say about Chris and I, but a lot of smart people in this

business are picking Chris to win this fight. When we talk about it, I don't know if it's on the record, off the record, so I won't say who they are, but they are picking Chris to win this fight for many factors. How good he is. We haven't seen his best just yet. Anderson's age. Maybe Anderson's not taking him serious. A lot can happen. His grappling, his wrestling. It's a very interesting fight and I'm looking forward to it. As far as the summer goes, I think it's the most interesting fight out there. We appreciate Mr. Tito Ortiz stopping by in a minute. We'll be joined by Norman Park. A couple more stats for you. How about Brian Carraway? Brian Carraway took that fight on five days' notice against Johnny Bedford and submitted him. Take that. All you Misha

Tate, Brian Carraway haters. Actually had a nice explanation about the whole coasting, just coasts, piece of advice that Misha gave him in his fight against Taki Midsugaki in March. Well, anyway, this according to Fight Metric, Brian Carraway's submission with just 16 seconds remaining in the final round is tied for the third latest submission victory in UFC history and the latest by Bantamweight in UFC or WC competition. You want to know the five? Here are the five? Cole Miller, 12 seconds left, UFC 86.

Forrest Griffin, 15 seconds left. UFC 76, of course, the famous Shogun win. Brian Carraway on Saturday night, 16 seconds left. Mike Pyle, 16 seconds left at UFC 115, and Chris Lieben, 20 seconds left at UFC 116. So a nice job by Brian Carraway there. Speaking of UFC 159, of course, it was funny to see that date come and go. April 27th, we are, of course, April 29 right now, because that was the day we kept talking about the end of the Rick's Picks Challenge, right? Of course, if you listened to the show last week, you heard, unfortunately, that Rick wasn't up for the challenge and fell just a little bit short.

Gilbert Melendez would have pulled off the upset, and a lot of people still think he did pull it off. Unofficially, officially he didn't. Well, Rick would be the champion and he could shut all of you up. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. I have thought about how we are going to, you know, we knew what the, we knew what the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. was. The prize was that he was going to be on the MMA beat. He was going to be with the big boys. Well, what's the flip side? The consolation, if you will, for the world. I know what it is. I figured it out. It hit me while I was sleeping, and it's going to be great. Last week on the show, our boy, Mike

Tyson called him out, and that matchup is happening. Verbly agreed, contracts haven't been issued just yet, but it's going down. But let me tell you, there is an opportunity. There is an opportunity. for a few more of you to get in on this. And after the Rich Franklin interview, I will explain to all of you what exactly is going on because this is great. I think you guys are going to love it. I really do. I really think you guys are going to love this. You got some people here trying to throw me off my game. What's up with that? Vox employees trying to throw me off my game. But guess what? Guess what? Next week, hopefully we're going to have the new set. And none of these jokers are going to be able to – I'm trying to do a live show here. High-ranking officials trying to do a live show, and they're trying to throw me off my game. Unbelievable. I would like for you guys to kick some ass. And I hope you said that to the world

and not just to me. Oh my God. Will, all show long is talking in my ear. None of you can hear it. And yet we have people, our friend Timothy Yates, who gave me this great Helwani nose shirt, stopped by the studio earlier.

And I'll tell you more about that shirt later. He wanted Buzz Kills autograph. He wanted New York Rick's autograph. He wanted us to sign the shirt. No one wants Will's autograph because the guy just doesn't talk. He's only talking in my ear. Yeah, but no one really wanted it.

We just felt bad. And now I'm just having a conversation and people don't know what we're talking about. Anyway, let us move along now. Let's welcome in our next guest. Stormon Norman Park. He was a winner of tough smashes back in December in the lightweight division

and he was supposed to fight a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Happy to have him on the show. Norman, how are you? I'm great, my friend. How are you? This is way better than fighting at UFC on Fox, right? This is the ultimate consolation prize.

100%. Nothing beats talking to you, my friend. Well, I appreciate it. You actually had to go out there, right? I mean, you were supposed to fight John Tuck. He got injured, but you still went out to San Jose? Yeah, I actually got the email to say that John had pulled out because he had hurt his neck.

He had an injury that Saturday, you know, before the Saturday before the fight. But Joe sell the email just to say, come on out anyway, because there's loads of 1-5-5ers on the card, and just in case anything happens, you know, something crazy happens because it happened before. So, you know, I says, right, I'll stay on weight and go up there, make weight. And if anybody pulls out, I'm ready to jump in.

And that's what I did. That's, I mean, mentally, how do you deal with something like that? You're coming from Northern Ireland all the way to San Jose. You've got to do everything, and then you don't get a payoff. No, I was actually training in San Diego for the flight. I was only an hour away in the flight. You know, I had a good camp there. And, you know, I felt real good.

I felt fast, I felt fit, felt strong, everything was perfect, you know, it was nearly too good to be true, and then John pulled out,

but I says, right, I'm not going to dwell on it too much, got an email from Joe just to say, you know, come up anyway, one of these guys could pull out

because some crazy things that happened before, like one guy before he said, for instance, had banged his head in the sauna and they had to pull out of the fight. I'm not too sure who it was, but he said,

come up anyway and stay on weight, so, you know, it makes a good impression that actually went up there, stayed on weight in. It was just to show that I'm ready to fight. And then, you know, if I had a pull, I didn't care if it was that, you know, if it was the main event or the co-main event or whatever, I was ready to fight.

And then I'm lightweight. Did you get your show money at least? Yeah, yeah. I got my show purse, which was fine. And, you know, I definitely helped. I helped, you know, pay for all my flights and stuff and for my training camp. So, you know, that was a little bit of peace of mind, you know. why do you have to wait till July

to have your next fight if you're ready to go is it just a scheduling issue um you know I see whenever I started at martial arts had this dream that one day you fight in Las Vegas I don't know what it was whenever I first started at Marshall Archarge

when I said I would love to be in the fight capital of the world fighting in Las Vegas you know it was just I was a young fighter you know just starting off my career and I said that's where I'd love to be because that's where all the fights were happening at that time and um

I said the jokes of right could you get me on the main May 25th card because we had a few fighters from the Lions that's going to be fighting on that. So I was just going to go up to San Jose, way in, blah, blah, blah, blah. Come back down to San Diego and train for the May 25th card, but then he said there was

no available slots. They're like, oh shit. So then he goes, but I got a, I got an opening for the July 6th card in Vegas. And that's the, I think the headliners Anders to Selva against Chris Wyman. Yep. I'll take that there, no problem. Even though it's about

10 weeks away, but still I was like, this is where I want to be and that's what I do. So it gives me a bit more time, you know, to go back out to San Diego and work on the game. You know, it was a great experience being out there. And, you know, I'll be back out there in a few weeks' time and, you know, getting ready for that fight. But you don't think at some point in your career

you're going to get an opportunity where you don't have to wait a long time to fight in Las Vegas? Yeah, I'm sure that I'll probably come along. But, you know, I'm still fit, I'm ready to go. So you never know what could happen. I think there's a few late with. fighting on the May 25th card in Las Vegas, and, you know, I'll make sure I just stay ready.

So if anything happens, I email Joe just to say, if anybody calls out, give me a shout, I'll jump at that opportunity straight away. On the flip side, you won the Tough Smashes show back in December. You won't fight until July, think Stan, as they are right now. Do you feel like a bit of your momentum is being lost? A lot of people, my coach had said that to me, you know, a few people have said,

I wanted to get fight in there. April would have been a good fight because it's only a few months apart from my last fight you know, I'll wait keep the momentum going. But, no, I don't really see it a problem, to be honest. Once I'm ready to fight in July,

I'll be ready to go. I think that's six months or so, but I know it's a little bit longer than I expect it, but I've just got to suck it up, you know, and just take it in the chin and just wait from opportunity. You know, I'll not be a problem at all

whenever it comes. I'll be as sharp as ever whenever it comes to the fight. A lot of people were surprised when Colin Fletcher, the man you beat in the finals, was released from the UFC recently. Were you? I actually watched that fight.

You know, he just, I don't know what it was. I think Colin's one of them fighters, and everybody's in the gym. You know, he's really, really good because I trained with him when we were in the ultimate fire. We were kind of out of, like, the training partners, we were close, really, very close friends, and it was really, really good when we were training.

But I don't know what it was, and maybe it was the pressure, you know, being away in that guy's hometown, fighting a homeboy, I think there was a lot of pressure on him, and I just didn't really, you know, perform to his best, and that's what happened. I mean, you get a lot of fighters like that.

They're great in the gym, and when it comes to the big stage and all the lights and cameras are on them, he just can't seem to perform, and I think that was just what happened, you know. So recently we had Connemer Greger on our show before his fight against Marcus Brimich, his UFC debut, and I know he was sort of on the local scene,

people have wanted to see you to fight each other. And the first time he was on, he didn't mention your name when talking about, you know, his proud Irish heritage and how proud he is to carry the flag, et cetera, et cetera. But then the next time after he was on, after his fight against Mark Sprimmage, he was on our show, and we did talk about you. I want to play you what he said and then get your response, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, here's Conn McGregor talking about Norman Park on a recent. edition of the MMA hour. I suppose maybe your man, Norman Park, is 155.

He's fine. He's the other kind of Irish guy, but he's from Northern Ireland. He carries another, that's all a history thing. I don't give a shit about that, but that would be a good fight because the Irish-American thing, and it would be a great contest, it would be a great contest for the European scene. You know, me and Norman kind of came up together on the same kind of circuit. You know what I mean? 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'll 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? Yeah. No, I don't have, again, I don't have any, ill-finess I'm just it's one of those things you know it's a fight that makes sense

and we came up we came up the same way and I think I'd do him in half a minute I would you know what I mean so I don't really I don't have any

ill-feiness towards a 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

I'm from where I'm from yeah and if a UK if a UK MMA site or 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 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 you know what I'm proud of where I'm from he should be proud of where he's from but

At the end day, none of that shit means, you know what I mean? He'd be done in half a minute. He doesn't want that for you either. So there you have it. Connor McGregor talking about Norman Park, who's on the show right now. Done in half a minute, questioning the flag that you're holding? Your response? Well, you know, at the end of the day, you know, I'm from Northern Ireland.

That's the flag I car. It was actually an Ulster flag I had, you know. You know, I represent Northern Ireland. And, you know, I followed Northern Ireland football team whenever I was a young kid. and the flag they have on their t-shirt is the Ulster Northern Ireland flag, and that's the flag I carried that day whenever I was fighting in the ultimate fighter. So at the end of the day, you got to fight where you represent, and I'm from Northern Ireland, that's what I represent.

But the end of the day, people bring their legend into a sport, you know, and it's very, very bad for the sport. It's actually did martial arts to get away from all that there. All my friends and stuff got caught up and all that bullocks, and where they are at now. They're working a 95 job doing fuck all, whereas I'm doing a hobby, turned into be my full-time job and, you know, I'm making good money and, you know,

and having a good life. But at the end of the day, you're going to get that in this sport when you start to work up the high level. It's that north-south thing, you know, and to be honest, I got loads of friends down south, you know, and nothing like that religion ever, ever comes into it at all, you know, and that's the best way it should be. It should be neutral, you know.

We're together, we're all one, you know, and that's the way it should be kept. So you don't want to see that kind of talk enter your world now. You don't want to have any of that, about him saying he'd beat you up rather quickly. Oh, well, you know, that's his point of view. You know, obviously he's going to say that. You know, he's on a good win streak, you know.

And to be honest, I fully, Colin McGregor, from the very start, you know. And, you know, we kind of, as he said, we did grow up in the same fight circuit. We were meant to fight a few times because we were beating everybody around the local scene. And people always wanted to see that there. But to be honest, a lot of people would like to see that fight for the wrong reasons. And, you know, I don't really need to go into too much, too much. much detail for that because a lot of people understand what I'm talking about. But, you know, it's a fight that would be really good.

It's a fight I don't think it'll happen right now, but it'd be a great fight to hype up because I know what I want in this sport. He knows what he wants. So if we think we're going to both make it to the top, then that's a fight you'll probably see in a year or so a couple of years time. But as I said before, I'll fight any of these guys in this division. I ain't as scared of any of them at all. I'm ready for any of them.

doesn't matter who is, if it's Colin McGregor, if it's Ben Henderson, and then top ten lightweights, I'm ready for any of them. Honestly, I don't know what you were referring to. Why for the wrong reasons? Why do they want to see you guys fight for the wrong reasons? Well, it's because I'm from the north. It's kind of like, you know, in America,

you got that East Coast, West Coast thing, you know, and it's from, same from Northern Ireland's you got that, you know, that religious type of thing, you know, that's what's coming into play with a lot of people because I got a lot of tweets on Twitter people saying, oh, this British scumb bag, you know, this fucking

ordinary scumbaggness here, you know. And I don't really bite into all that stuff, you know, because that don't interest me at all. I actually, I started at martial arts to get away from all that. I grew up, from where I'm from, I grew up in all that bullocks. And as I said before, that it's just, it leads you to life nowhere, you know, and I'm a happy man right now, and I'm going to, I got a good direction of life, and martial arts gave me that there.

And, you know, but, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to be fighting corner just for the sake of, you know, for the sake, a lot of people, what they'd like to say is just the Northern guy feed the sovereign guy, I'd like to see you'll fight for the sake two good martial artists going at it, you know, both chasing the dream, both look like to, push ourselves as far as we can and, you know, be the best we can be, you know what I mean?

Absolutely, and I respect that, and I respect the fact that you don't want to see that political stuff enter... Exactly, it's going to ruin the sport, that will ruin the sport, you're always going to get, even if you're going to get, even if you're going to get, right, there's, what's that guy, Ray McElroy, he's from, he's somewhere from Northern Ireland. He carried the Northern Ireland flag, you know, and there's a lot of people from the south saying, oh, he's blah, blah, this and that, he should be representing Ireland.

But at the end of the day, that's where he grew up, that's where he's from, you know. Do you know what I mean? And, you know, you're always going to get some controversial stuff about that there, but, you know, it should be all left his side, you know, and just watch two good people go at it, and that's about it. Religious few should never be brought into this sport at all, because it's just going to ruin it. Very well said.

It doesn't set a good example for the young kids watching it as well. Do you know what I mean? Like years ago in this country, there was bad vibes and stuff. There was a lot of crazy stuff that happened. You know, we kind of got away from that over the years. And, you know, there's a new generation of kids and stuff growing up.

You don't really want to suck them back into that type of thing, you know. And that's the way I see, you know. You know what I mean? Yeah. How is it now? For us here in the US, or if you're listening anywhere outside of that region, of the world, how is it now? Is it, is it, are you okay?

Is it comfortable living there? Way back in 1980s, 1970s, there was a lot of crazy stuff that happened, so there was. And, you know, I don't really like to talk about it too much, but I thought I would just put it out there, you know, and I was kind of a young kid, but it all started off, you know, and I kind of looked into the history, you know, and what happened and stuff, but, you know, it's just a crazy old thing, but now it's really, really calmed down now, but you'll always get the few thugs from, you know, certain people. parts of the country, I'll try and start that bag up again,

but, you know, it's just, that's just thugs trying to make a name for themselves, you know, but I'm not interested in it at all, you know, I'm just interested in me being, I'm a neutral fighter, you know, just at the end of the day, I'm getting in there, being a professional martial artist, and if I end up fighting Connor, I'll be fighting Connor just for two martial artists going at it,

two good guys that's got a great career ahead of them, and, you know, trying to chase the dreams and, you know, make something of ourselves, because from what I heard, you know, I came from a crazy background and so was Connor, you know, and that stuff should never, ever be brought into it at all. We're trying to get away from that move on, you know. There's other things to life than that. I read that you left school early to join the Marines,

but for one reason or another, things didn't work out. What happened there? Why weren't you? And would that have affected your MMA career? Would you have not gone down that path if you did go into the Marines? The reason why, you know, I left school a bit early because I wanted to join the Marines and then one thing led to another

at that stage in my life I was 15, I think I was around 15 you know, and I was just getting in a lot of trouble you know, I come from a small village there's no, there's absolutely fuck all they do for any young kids about here at that stage and I thought what am going to do with myself you know, then I started

there was a local judo club that just opened up in my town and I thought right, I'm going to do this here because I was getting caught up in bad stuff doing drugs, doing this, doing that, you know. And I knew, you know, I kind of took a step, kind of took a step back and thought, you know, looked at the big picture and I thought, if I keep going the way I'm going, I'm going to end up in jail, I'm going to end up, you know, just going nowhere in life, you know,

whenever, I knew always had something deep inside, I had this desire to be something, you know, because it was pretty good at sports whenever I was in, well, whenever I was in primary school, and then when I went to second school, it was always, did athletics, you know, I was always coming first and everything. I knew, you know, if I put my mind of something, I, could be something. Anyway, I was getting caught in a load of crazy stuff, and then I got caught by a lot of a few times, and that stopped me from joining the Marines.

So then I just focused my life on playing soccer. I played soccer for a long time, and, you know, I had a good career in playing soccer, and then I just get fed up playing that as well. You know, and then I thought, right, man, go to stay the studio club, I'm going to stick there. That was my second hobby.

And then one thing led to another, I was doing pretty well at that, and then started doing some boxing competitions and stuff and you know and then that's what that was just where all started from there. That is a great story and great to see that you turned your life around. A final thing, Norman, before we let you go and it's been great talking to you for the first time. Really appreciate it.

You know, you have this fight coming up July 6. Kazuki Tokodumi and you know, he's been doing well but you're on a seven-fight winning streak and maybe flying a bit under the radar, right? I mean, you win the show that wasn't airing here in the United States, the finale aired of course. Do you feel like this is an operational? to get people to start noticing you because right now when people talk about the top lightweights in the UFC

they don't talk about Norman Park. Yeah, I know that's one thing on what I kind of put out there, you know, I've been over to America, I've trained at the Alliance, you know, I was trained with all the fucking great fighters and stuff and, but, you know, ain't, nobody's seen the best of me yet, you know, I ain't even showed anywhere near my true potentially yet, you know, and that's when I'm saying that myself, you know, a lot of people be saying, I's fucking this, he's eyes, got shit stand up, you know, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, I know how good I am inside, you know, and whenever it comes to July 6th and I fight, you know, Taga Dome, he's got a good judo base like me. He comes from a judo background, you know, I respect him that way.

He's got a pretty decent stand-up as well. But, you know, I'm going to come out and test him. You know, I'm going to keep him on the back foot, pushing pressure and make him making mistakes and look to capitalize on that. And, you know, alliance has really, you know, it's gave me a lot more confidence in myself as a fighter, you know, being trained with them great. I always like to train me with people that's better than me in every division.

Like people that's better wrestlers, better grapplers, better strikers. I always like to push myself and test myself against people like that. And once July 6th, I'm going to see a totally different fighter. And I'm going to come out and pressure him. I know he's got, I think he's got a weak chin. I watched a couple of these fights. You know, he's... I don't think he can take a dig.

So I'm going to put the pressure on him and try and finish him as quick as possible and make a statement to the rest of them. Like, waitfires, I'm coming. for them. Well, I'm looking forward to that. Norman, again, great having you on the show. Thank you so much for the insight. Good luck on July 6th, and I'm sure we'll be talking to you before then, and really appreciate you taking some time out. I know it's a little later on in the day there. Thank you very much. Good luck in the training. Thank you very much, Ariel. It's a pleasure, man. It's a true pleasure. I'll see you real soon, July 6th movie. Absolutely. There he is. Norman Park Stormin. Norman Park.

He returns to the UFC UFC 162 on July 6th in Las Vegas. It's a city he wanted to fight in. He got his wish. Congratulations to him. Okay, let's move along now and go from Northern Ireland to Sweden. I'm not sure if I did that correctly. Maybe like that on the map, something like that. We're being joined by the Mahler Alexander Gustafson.

Alex, how are you? I'm good, thanks. How are you? I'm doing great. Great to have you on the show. First things first, how is the eye? Is it all healed up now? Yeah, yeah, it is.

I'm back in training and everything goes good. I have a mock after the cut, but it should be 100%. Have you been cleared by the doctors? I haven't, I just, you know, I'm training, as usual, but I haven't checked it, so I don't know. But it feels like it's 100% and I hope so. But, you know, I'm just training and keep going. And, yeah, I'm going to check with them too and see what they say. How long, you know, that whole incident happened now,

almost a month ago, that event was three or so weeks ago. How long did it take for you to get over that? Because when I was watching that event, when I was watching that fight, Latifi versus Musasi, and knowing how much it meant you that it was happening in your home country, I couldn't help but think... I wonder if Alex is even watching this right now because I felt like it must have been eating you up inside.

How long did it take for you to get over it? Yeah, you know, the whole week was a big circus. It was worst ever in my life. I've been through. You know, it's, you know, it was, you know, very, a lot of up and downs. But, you know, it took me, I took me a week, one and a half week so I could start training again, you know, just to, like, clear my mind.

And, you know, I have to, you know, think, like, I just did the fight and, you know, go back to scratch again and start training and start training. and focus on new goals. But it was a hard time. Did you even watch the event? I didn't even watch it live, no. I couldn't. I was in the changing room with the elite and with Ries and Madadi.

I was in his corner and helped him out. And after that, I went home. And I saw the main event the day after. Wow. So you left the arena when the... the event was still going on. Yeah, yeah, I couldn't be there. You know, I couldn't.

I actually went there just because helped my friend out, Riazah, because he asked me to be in his corner, so I couldn't say no. And that was it. I couldn't be there. It didn't feel good. You know, it felt like if I'm going to be at the arena, I'm going to fight, and if I'm not fighting, why should I be there?

So I just went home, realized. I went home to my dogs. And, you know, I watched the main event the day off there. What were you doing when the main event was going on? You just had the TV off where you were doing something else? Yeah, no, I just spent time with my girlfriend, my dogs, and, you know, I had to think about something else. You know, it was tough. You know, Dana White was very upset with the commission, the Swedish MMA Federation over there,

and said that they blew it, basically. Considering how your eye looked a day before the fight, do you share that? that sentiment? Do you think they blew it as well? Yeah. You know, I have to respect their decision, the doctor's decision. Of course, they look for my best,

they look for my safety, first of all, and for my best health. And that basically has to respect it, but at the same time, I would fight with a broken hand if I could. It was, you know, in my hometown. You know, so, yeah,

you know, it was a big disappointment. pointing to. So it was a lot of, you know, emotions and thoughts in my head that time. And but it's, you know, I shared Dana and I shared the doctors too. So. Why did you even tell them? Why didn't you try to roll the dice and see if you could get by without them noticing? No, I didn't tell them. I just went to the doctor as soon as I got to cut and got the stitches. That was it. I just went to the doctor and the doctors of the commission, they found out somewhere, you know, running around in the gym with the cut, you know, I was bleeding and I was pissed off and people saw, I don't know, they found out. I don't have, like, all the information,

how they found out and, et cetera, but they found out and it is what it is, but I didn't tell them, though. I just went to a friend, my friend's, my friend. doctor and just got the stitches. So do you think someone at your gym told them behind your back? No, you know, I don't know. I don't want to say too much, you know, because I don't know.

They found out and it is what it is. So it's nothing I could do. Do you think if you were wearing headgear that wouldn't have happened? Could be. Could be not. You know, it's a tough question. But I can tell you now, 100%,

even if I'm like even if I do wrestling or grab I wear a helmet all the time I'm not going to I'm not going to do that mistake again never in my life it was a you know I learned from it

and I can be sure it's not going to happen again so then something very interesting happened in the last few days prior to his fight against Chal Suna and John Jones said that he actually wanted to fight you next if he beat Chal Sondon and he did but then John you know

tears his toe. I mean, severes a compound fracture. It's nasty. He'll probably be out for a while. And then I spoke to Liotr Machita after the fight for Fuel TV, and he said, if John Jones can't fight in the near future, I want to fight Alexander Gustafson. But what's interesting about this is, you said that you wanted to fight Machita before all this happened, and Machita's camp said, no, we don't want to fight Alex. We want to fight Jones. So what do you think is going to happen? I don't know. No, I want to fight. I want to fight. I want to fight. I want to fight for the title. That's what I want to do.

But I'm not going to wait, though. I'm not going to wait for a long time because I fought in December. I fought in December. I want to fight soon. With soon, I mean I want to fight in a couple of months, at least. I want to fight, you know, soon. If Jones can't fight, which I would understand because it looked very nasty. If he would be out for a while, you know, I fight Machita too.

but you know if john can fight in a few months i would love to fight him has the ufc talked to you about what they want to do with you next no not yet not yet or your manager i don't know if they talked to him i haven't talked to him so uh for i haven't talked to him for a couple of days so i don't know you know so let's see what happens what did you make of the fact that john asked for you that he said he wanted to fight you and not Machita. I mean, do you take that as a compliment? Do you think he thinks then that you're an easier fight than Michita? What did you make of that?

You know, I just, it's an honor for me. You know, I think it's a compliment, you know. You know, he's a jump. He's the best guy in the world in my division. So if he asks for me, it's a dream fight for me. This is why I work so hard for. So if we can make that fight happen, it would be crazy. Did you expect him to beat Chelsen in the way he did on Saturday?

Both yes or no. You know, I didn't think he will, you know, wrestle like he did with him. But I was suspected I'll win from Jones, you know, quite early in the fight. So a lot of people with you in the past, they've talked about your wrestling. he, you know, has a game plan like that, how would you beat him? Are you comfortable that your wrestling could hold up with his take downs of what he does on the ground? Yeah, you know, the, it's, you know, you have to, you know, that's, that's what I'm going to, you know,

like, that's why I'm having my camp, just to, like, you know, train, train, just train for a guy like Jones. That's what I would do. And that's what I'm going to do. So I'm going to be ready for whatever he brings. to the table. I'm going to be, you know, if I get that fight happen, I'm super motivated, you know, I'm going to be ready, for sure.

I can't wait. As far as a styles matchup goes, which style do you like better as far as an opponent? Machita style or Joan style? Forget about the belts, but as far as someone you'd like to fight next, how you match up with them, who do you think you match up better with? Both are tricky. Both are very tricky. So I love a good question.

I think I I think I will have a strong game plan whoever I fight and I'll be ready. So I think I would match up good with both of them. So in a weird turn of events here, correct me if I'm wrong, you're almost saying, Machita, I don't want to fight you anymore. I want John Jones, of course, if you can come back in a relative amount of time, but that's really the fight that you want.

you're trying to not have that number one contender fight. You think you're ready and you deserve a title shot right now? Yes. Yes, boss. And okay, we just made it. How confident are you, honestly? Do you feel like he'll be disappointed if you don't get this? Do you think it's an actual strong chance of happening?

Yeah, it depends on how it's injuries, of course. And, you know, it didn't look good. So let's see what happens, you know. If he would be away for a longer time, I could, you know, I'll fight Meshida, if that's what you see wants me to do, of course. And if Mashida wants it, no problem, because I want to fight soon. And so... What's the deadline? Like, if Joan says he'll be back in September, is that too long for you? Do you want to be... Like, what's your kind of time frame that you're saying, okay, you know,

if he could come back between... between this time, obviously I want it. If not, I want to fight Michita. No, I could fight Jones in September. Absolutely. No problem. But I'm like thinking, maybe he's coming back at the end of this year. You know, he didn't look good.

You know, his, his toe wasn't, he almost lost his toll. So I, so I'm thinking like in December, maybe beginning of next year. So I can't wait that long. It won't be possible for me. You know, I need to fight. So let's see what happens. Let's see what you see things and how things will turn out.

And two last quick things. What about Musasi? Do you feel like he deserves to fight you or at this point has the ship sailed? No, I feel, for me, I want to fight a guy that brings me closer to the belt. that's how I feel and you know if Musassi brings me closer to the belt fine

if Machita does fine because I want to fight for the belt but that's what I want to do I want to have a battle shop basically but right now you think obviously Machita's obviously a lot further along than Musassi it doesn't make sense for you is what you're saying to fight Musassi at this point

yeah because Machida is ranked over me I want to fight guys that is you know ranked over me I want to climb the ladder too. I want a belt. So, you know, I want to fight the champ. You know, if I can't fight the champ, I want to fight the guy that would be the number one contender. And a lot of people, a lot of people worried that when you pulled out of the fight against Musasi, that the market, the Swedish fans would get very upset and that it would hurt the market over there, which has been doing so well. What's the feedback that you've been getting? Are the fans upset? Do you think

the market has been hurt now? What's the, what's the market? the state of Swedish MMA? I think it's good. It's very good. You know, of course, everyone, you know, that was the thing for me too. You know, okay, I can take that I can fight. I can accept it.

I can take it, but that it brings so much, you know, it hurts because my fans, and I feel for the guard and I feel for the, everyone that, you know, the Swedish fans. And so, yeah, that was the most, the hardest thing when I was thinking about it. So, yeah, you know, a lot of, I can imagine a lot of situations was disappointed and so on, but, you know, it was a good show.

You know, Elyar stepped up, Elieffi stepped up, he took the fight, and they had a main event, so I think it was a good show. And a lot of the fans, I think are, you know, just, I think they are, you know, happy that everything went well. So the next time the UFC comes, you don't think this affects them? No, not at all. No, we have a really good fan base. They are very, you know, I'd say, they're a very good fan base, and they're very loyal to the sport and, you know, to the UFC. And to the fighters, too, so that won't be a problem at all.

Alex, always a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for the time. trying to get the John Jones fight. Happy to hear that you're feeling better. And keep us posted. We can follow you on Twitter, of course, Twitter.com slash Alex DeMaller. Hopefully you don't have to put another Harlem Shake video to get John's attention. I think you got it now. I look forward to seeing you fight again. Thank you, Alex. Thank you. Take care. There he is. Alexander Gustafson angling for the John Jones fight. Why not? We didn't do a poll this week, but let me know on Twitter before we get Rich Franklin, if you're listening to the show live,

what do you want to see John Jones do next? Do you want to see him fight? Let's just pretend he'll be back in a few months' time and the injury is not a big issue. Do you want to see him fight Alexander Gustafson next? Do you want to see him fight Machita next? Or do you say, hey, take some time off? I want to see Machita versus Gustafson.

The winner is the true number one contender at 205 right now. And then for anyone who had an issue with Machita, who is only 2-0 since his loss to John Jones at UFC 140. Of course, he beat Ryan Bader and recently beat Dan Henderson. If he beats Gustafsson, who's looked so good as of late, then you'll buy it, then he deserves a rematch. If not, you're not as into it. So John Jones versus Leota, two,

John Jones versus Alexander Gustafson, one. Or Gustafson Machita winner fights John Jones. Let me know. Twitter.com slash Ariel Hulwani. Now, we talk about champions. We have one of the greatest of all time, a future Hall of Famer, the man who, for a very long time, was the king of the

UFC's middleweight division. Looking forward to hearing what's next from him. We have Rich Ace Franklin on the phone right now. Rich, how are you? Oh, real well, Ariel. How are you doing today, bud? I'm doing great. Thank you very much for joining us for a few minutes here. Really appreciate it. So we haven't really heard much from you

since November. You're lost to Kung Lee. Where do you stand? now, I started thinking about you a lot because I was talking to Matt Hughes, and he said that he called you recently to tell you not to retire. He wants to see you keep fighting. Where do you stand now in your career? Yeah, I heard about that. We spoke about that and everything. I think actually this is the first interview that I've done since my Kung Lee fight.

Thank you for that. Yeah, so you're welcome. And I'll tell you what, I haven't really, I haven't been sitting on the first. my end thinking about retirement. I don't want people to, any of the fans out there thinking like, oh, well, you know, Rich is really just contemplating retiring. I really kind of just, you know,

the loss of Kong was a big setback for me, unexpected in my camp and kind of sitting here thinking like, well, what's my next move going to be? And I realized that I'm 38 years old and my time is limited in the sport. I know that I'm not going to be fighting for another 10 years, and I have to start thinking about the things that I'm doing outside of MMA.

So at this point in time, I'm actually out in L.A. currently, and I'm looking at some retail locations for an organic juice business that I'm opening up. And we were looking at, like, some possible opening dates and things like that, and the opening dates have gotten shifted back a little bit. But what that's basically done is just kind of push back my fight training for fight prep and all that kind of stuff. So in the meantime, I've been putting some time into this knowing that this is going to be the

next step for me when I'm done fighting, and it's kind of kind of push that stuff back. I haven't really begun talking about retirement or anything like that, and that wasn't my intention or plan. And I think that because it's been since November that people have really heard from me, that they think that that's possibly what's going on. I've just kind of laser-focused into something else for the time being. Which direction are you leaning towards right now? Meaning...

To continue fighting at some point or to maybe not fight again? Yeah, I have... I'd have to check my contract. I have at least one more fight, possibly two more fights left on my contract. And I've always said that I would definitely like to fill my contract. So looking at that, I at least have that much. I don't know, and I'm not saying that I only plan on fighting once or twice more or whatever. But as soon as I get this stuff going on my end with this juice business and things are kind of moving in the direction that they should be moving,

then I'm going to be focused more on. instead of recreationally training, I'll be focused more back on specific fight training again, and I'll look at taking another fight at that point in time, which could possibly be, I'm hoping, possibly before the end of the year. So the juice business, when does it get up and running? So the concept, the name of the business is Zeeland, so we can just refer to it by name. And we have actually, I have a confirmed location, and we're going through, We've got to cross the T's and dot the eyes, so to speak, on a contract that we're looking at in Beverly Hills,

and that'll be our first retail location that's opening up. I'm actually in L.A. today I'm walking around Brentwood looking at a possible second location. So I just left Santa Monica, and I came over here, and this is what I've been looking at. And so at this point in time, if everything goes correctly, we should have something open by August 1. Wow. Well, congratulations on that. You know, it's funny because I'm actually really into juices these days. What kind of juices are we talking about here?

Everything, what we're going to offer, there are three main things that we offer at Zeeland. We're going to offer organic juicing. Basically, you know, I mean, kale is a big buzzword in the juice industry now. So things like juicing things like kale and cucumber and beets and carrots. We'll have a chef that's working on some things and putting some preset recipes together with, you know, not just juices, but also with some different spices. and we're trying things with herbal peas and whatnot. But then we're also just going to have kind of a create your own,

and you'll see that in a lot of these organic juice places as well. But we're also, aside from the juices, we're going to be offering an asaibals, and we have these Megan, low-calorie vegan pastries that are vegan. They're made with no butter, oils, or eggs or anything. And we have these cookies, for example, like a chocolate chip cookie, normal-sized chocolate chip cookie only has 27 calories in it. And if I gave you this cookie and said, you know, hey, Ariel, try this cookie, which at some point in time I will. And you ate one of them.

You would say there's no way this cookie is low calorie. I have a call in shenanigans. So we have some great products that are going to be offering. I'm really, really excited about it. And basically, the overall, the business concept here is just it's about making healthier life choices. That's what it's all about. Does this mean you're leaving the Ohio area? Well, I will for some time.

I've been in and out of Ohio and L.A. Moving back and forth, and I've spent some weeks out here in L.A. I actually kind of laying the groundwork for this. But no, my home is in Ohio. I'll be spending some time out in L.A. And I'll be splitting some time, 50, 50, 60, 40, whatever. There will be times where I'm out here in L.A. longer than I'll be in Ohio. But my home is in L.A. or in Ohio, and I don't plan on leaving.

You mentioned this is your first interview. since the loss to leave, which was in early November in Macau. Why have you remained quiet? Was that something you wanted to do? Things didn't just, you know, were you not getting interview requests? That's a long time for someone of your stature to remain quiet. No, it's not that I didn't get interview requests. To be real honest with you, you get interview requests, Arrow,

and people, they want to rehash a fight, and they want to talk about a fight, and there's really, so I fought in the case. out and got a little complacent in the fight, got caught, and got knocked out. And there's really not a whole lot to recap other than that. So do an interview after interview after interview after that fight. You're just reliving a loss, which is not a fun thing to do. So until somebody was – enough time passes where you're just like, yeah, whatever.

I'll just jump on an interview. Or people want to talk about something not just the fight, but other things as well. then you become slightly more attracted to doing that. And so, you know, it hasn't been for a lack of interview request for sure. How long did it take for you to get over a loss like that? Every loss is unique, but this one kind of took a while. I'd moved back down to 185. I had a great performance prior to that against Vandrele in Brazil

and was feeling really good. My body was in great shape. I conducted my camp down at least half my camp. down in Singapore, it evolved for that fight, and things were going really well. I did everything that I needed to do, made all the sacrifices that I needed to make for that fight. And I think going into that fight, because Camp had gone well and I'd made the sacrifices that I needed to make, I never could see how I would have ever lost that fight because

of that. And then when you come up on the short end of the stick, you're stuck wondering. It's just one of those things where oftentimes when you lose a fight, you can, you can least sit in your locker room or when you go back to the drawing board, you can look and say, well, here's where I messed up. You know, there were maybe a day where I cut this practice shorter. I should have spent more time doing this or I should have been doing that. Or, you know, for that fight, I'd put myself pretty much in the same time zone for a month prior

to. And I was away from home. I was out of the country. And all that stuff was down and evolved there. I made all these sacrifices, surrounded myself with good training partners and took some of my coaches from Ohio down there with me as well, and things didn't work out. And so when that happens, you kind of leave that situation scratch in your head saying, what more could I possibly done?

And the answer to that question really is nothing. And it just things happen the way to do sometimes. So it takes a little while. When you had that fight, you had just turned 38. Do you think you get caught the way you did against Kung at 28? Same result. Like, some people want it to tie to your age, you know, these things happen when you get older in combat sports.

do you think it had nothing to do with that? You know, when you ask me this question, my natural gut instinct is to say, no, I don't really think my age played a role in that. But then I start asking myself, well, am I just being naive here? Is that the case? Do I fall into the category of people who would say, yeah, my age didn't play a role, and I'm the only one who doesn't see it? You know, I've sat down and had these conversations with my coaches before and said to them, like, hey, if you see me in practice at a point where you think, like, look, Rich, you've kind of lost a step, and it's time for you to let go or whatever. So let me know. Like, honesty in that situation is the best policy.

And so, you know, I've had these talks with my coaches, and, like I said, I think with this fight in particular, I got a little too relaxed in the fight and got complacent. and that's probably why I got caught. But yeah, I mean, there's always that in my mind. I'm very analytical about things. I'm sitting here kind of questioning that, like, is that the case or is it not the case? And especially at this age, but, you know, when you're talking to people like Matt, you brought up Matt Hughes and stuff like that, when people like that are talking about, it's really not time for you to retire and you're getting that affirmation from other fighters,

then it lets you know that, okay, then maybe this is not just an age thing, and I don't need to let that kind of stuff get inside my head. So what happened there? Matt just called you after the fight out of the blue, and what was that conversation like? You know, Matt's just Matt is, Matt's Matt, you know how full of Matt is, but basically just talking about the fact that, you know, sometimes when you're late in your career like that and you suffer a loss, obviously retirement is one of those things that crosses your mind. and Matt being, he's fought into an older age as well, basically, is the voice of reason there sometimes that you need that positive reinforcement, that positive encouragement saying like, hey, look, I don't believe it's time yet for you to walk away.

So like I said, that kind of stuff just at this stage of the game keeps you motivated and confident. And you mentioned talking to your coaches. What are they telling you? Well, you know, I sat down, like I've sat down with my boxing coach Rob before, and we've had these questions on many, many occasions. And it's difficult not to do, here's what I've learned that when I'm getting ready for a fight, when I was a really, really young fighter, like every time I came into the gym, if I had a really bad, like if I had a bad day or I was, you know, you have good days and you have bad days when you're training in the gym. and when you have a bad day, like every time you come into the gym when you're a young fighter, you view that as a fight. Like, today's training is exactly like if I have my training partner gets the better of me,

then in my mind it's like mentally like I've lost that fight. And when you get to this age, you start questioning like, okay, if my training partner got the better of me today, is that because of my age? And you start questioning these things. And so I've learned, though, at an older age that you have to not use your practices to gauge these things. You're going to have good days in the gym and bad days in the gym, and then you don't have to worry about winning and losing the fight until the appointed time of the fight.

But that's what your coaches are there for. They're there to see how you're doing against your training partners and the guys that you have been training with and seeing. And when you bring training partners in for a camp and seeing how you perform against these guys and saying, like, you know, Rich things don't look the same that they look, whether it be three camps ago or, five years ago or whatever the time frame was, things don't look the way they look this many years

ago or whatever, or your reaction time isn't the same or whatever. And I haven't had that problem with my coaches and stuff. I mean, these are the kinds of things that they study in between rounds when they're advising you and coaching you and doing this stuff like, okay, here's what you got going on. This is what you're doing. You're dropping this hand or you're this or that or your timing's off the day. And you have days where your timing's off, but if you have a day where your timing's off and those days seem to be more often than not, that's when you have a day. to start questioning those things. But my coaches haven't started seeing those patterns yet,

so I'm not really worried about it. Have you talked to Dana White about this? No. Dana called and checked on me after the fights just to make sure everything was okay, and then I told them that it all was well. You know, after a fight here, a little depressed, but physically I was in good shape and not injured

and all those kinds of things. And so, you know, they basically, the UFC said, just let us know when you're ready to get back in there. when I get to a good breaking point with this shoes business is when I'll give them a call and say, okay, it's time to rock and roll. Let's do another one. Do you think it'll be at 185? Probably as I get older, and, you know, PRT has been a big, big, big discussion in the MMA world.

And as I get older, it's just it's more and more difficult for me to maintain that weight, especially at a heavier weight. my natural body set point is right around 205 to maybe two under 210 somewhere between 205 and 210 between 205 and 210 closer to the 205 range and that's just not heavy enough to be fighting guys at the 205 pound weight class fighting force for example was a really tough fight for me because he's just so much bigger than me and it was a lot of weight he was on he was on top of me my guard that that entire first round and it's a lot of weight to constantly be pushing off of you when guys like that are coming into the fight at 2.30 plus,

and I'm lucky if I'm over 210. So, yeah, I'll probably be sticking at 185, but, I mean, who knows? This loss to Lee, unless I'm willing to put another two or three years or whatever into working towards a title fight again back at 185 or something like that, this loss to Lee has really set me back. So it's not like the next fight will put me in title contention. necessarily at 185. And with that being the case, then maybe the UFC will want to do a catchweight fight with me. Maybe the UFC will want to do a light heavyweight fight with me.

You just, you never know. And I've been open to doing these kind of super fights or whatever, just something that's attracted to both the UFC and the fans. And so my intention would be to fight again at 185. But I'm always been and always have been open to the options that I'm presented with. you know, when the UFC needs a specific something filled or whatever. I remember when you were on the show a few months back, you were against using TRT, even though it was suggested to.

Do you still have that stance? Well, let me just say this, so that I can explain the way that I really truly think about testosterone. I believe that the human body is healthiest when it's at the age of 25. And so replacing your hormones from a health standpoint, to that age bracket is the best case scenario. I've brought into this philosophy. However, there's a fine line there when you're using testosterone to kind of age yourself.

I'm 38 years old, and the reality of this whole situation is for somebody like me, if I'm 38 and I don't have the testosterone to compete against a 25-year-old man anymore, then it's just time for me to say, you know what, I don't have what it takes to compete against a 25-year-old person. I can't use something to give myself that edge, basically, to equal out the testosterone levels. And so there's a big difference for me between doing something for health reasons and doing something for performance reasons. And the reality of the entire situation with testosterone is that the public, a large percentage of the public, at least within that realm, views testosterone as cheating by athletes, whether you have a TUE or not. And so I just would personally rather not deal with, it's not, I have a certain image that I

wouldn't want to tarnish and I would rather not deal with any of that kind of backlash with fan response and all that kind of stuff and with the way that I personally view it with, you know, the differences between aiding yourself in sports performance and just pure health. I would rather hold off if I had low testosterone levels. I'd rather hold off until I was done fighting. And I think it was actually you and I that talked about this before, Ariel. I'm not at those crucially low testosterone levels. I'm obviously lower than I was at 25, but that's just an actual male aging process.

And so I'm not at those crucially low levels. I'm sure I'm at low enough levels that I could play the numbers and all that kind of stuff to get my TUE, but I just don't want to do that. It's not the way that I plan on doing things. I've stuck it out this long, and there's no sense in ending my career that way, and leaving my reputation as having a bad taste in certain people's mouths. No, you know, perver being insane or whatever. I just don't want to do that.

I have a certain reputation, and I'd like to keep it intact that way until I'm done fighting. And then what I decide to do with testosterone in my retirement and all that kind of stuff, if my numbers were low in my business rather than a sports performance issue. Just a couple minutes left with Rich Franklin. We do appreciate the time, Rich. Speaking of your health,

I noticed from following you on Twitter listening to interviews and in the past, reading interviews, articles, et cetera, you're very health conscious these days. I mean, your Twitter feet alone and you're opening this juice store, did this come to you later in your career?

Did you have an epiphany that you need to change? Or were you always this way? And I just wasn't noticing. Okay, here's the thing. with me, Ariel, and a lot of fans don't know this, but if I showed you a picture of me when I was in high school, like, you would not believe the way I looked. I graduated from high school 155 pounds dripping wet, fully clothed, and I was in third-string high school football player

for my football team. This is the reality of the situation. I was not some phenomenal athlete who was groomed into being an MMA fighter. I was this third-string high school football player who dreamed of playing college ball. If you've seen the movie Rudy, I was that guy. literally. And I wasn't good enough to play college ball, and I got it into martial arts, and at the same time the UFC started. And I took an amateur fight, and this eventually led to a professional career. But initially when I got into nutrition, for me, it was all about putting on muscle.

And fortunately, my freshman-slash-s sophomore year of college, for that year, I hit another gross sport. I grew like another inch and a half in college and put on, like, I put on my freshman 35, basically. So by midway through my sophomore year, I was walking around at about 190 pounds and looked like a completely different person. And fortunately, I was into nutrition. I mean, I was nose deep in muscle and fitness magazines and things like that. And I was reading about protein and how to put muscle on. And so most of the weight that I gained was good quality muscle.

And so for me, initially, nutrition was all about putting on muscle and putting on muscle. And then it slowly started morphing into like what about sports performance, recovery, from workouts and things like that. And that's why juicing is really a big part of my life right now. It's an easy way for me to get in my vitamins and minerals and everything. And so, yeah, I'm big on that. And, of course, what happened was my dad had a massive heart attack in 2008 at a young age at the age of 56.

And I spoke to him until I was blue in the face about healthier lifestyle choices and working out and nutrition and all these kinds of things. And it just didn't do any good. All that conversation fell on deaf ears. but losing my dad at a young age basically left me with like kind of this desire to say, you know, if I can educate people about making better life choices and healthier life choices and how to take care of themselves better than that's what I'm going to do. And so nutrition is one of those things for me that I could sit here and talk nutrition

with you all day and I'm sure you have other guests in no time or maybe not even the interest to hear all that. But yeah, I have been this way for quite some time since I was in high school, basically. And this is a good time. I feel like society is warming up to this. Your father may be a different story, but don't you get that sense? You talk about kale and then where I live in Brooklyn. It's all healthy, this, organic, dad.

It really makes it a lot easier these days. It seems like things have really changed in the last 10 years or so. Well, it's so true. Listen, I was talking, I'm from Cincinnati, and so the thing about Cincinnati is when something helps happens in the world, it typically happens 10 years later in Cincinnati. And I was having a conversation with my brother on the phone. other day about juicing. And he asked me, and he said, what are you going to charge? Like, what are your,

what are your price points for juices? And I said, well, we'll set that. I'm not sure, but you typically like a 16-ounce juice is somewhere around $8. And he's like, whoa, eight bucks for a juice. And I said, well, Greg, I said, let me ask you a question. I said, if you went to a restaurant and you ate a big, I said, would you ever pay eight bucks for a nice big salad with all these different vegetables in it and all that? And he's like, yeah, I probably would. I said, well, imagine you being a busy business person and you want to get all the vitamins and minerals of that salad in, but you don't want to have to sit in the whole thing. You can come to Zealand and we juice it for you, and then you basically have that salad in a bottle, and you have all the vitamins and minerals that you

pretty much would need for the entire day. And so for somebody who's busy, it's worth your $8 to be able to do that. It simplifies things. Now, there are other health benefits, you know, with eating vegetables and whatnot, fiber particularly and all that. And this is in a conversation about a debate about that stuff because probably message board will start. But the point is that the ideology is it kind of people that are in places like New York and L.A., they see that and they get it. And so it is a concept that's catching on. And when you say the name of the store is Zeeland, what does that mean?

Well, so when we, my business partner and I, the gentleman that, uh, that I met many years ago when I was actually working with Zion a long time ago. When we were researching names for our juice company, I mean, we looked up every possible, everything from vitality to eternity to root, to plant, to juice, to, you name it, like anything that could possibly relate in some sort of way to a vegetable or life or rejuvenation or anything like that. We looked up all these words in like Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese, Latin, English, German, We looked exhausted this in pretty much every language.

And basically everything was trademark. So we took part of his last name and part of my last name. His last name was Zee-B. My last name was Franklin. And we just called Zeland. And it kind of has a nice little ring to it. And that's the name that we're going to stick with. And we'll just brand that instead.

Two last questions. We've been asking a lot of our guests about this today. We asked Tito about it. We were talking about it earlier. Joe Rogan brought up on the UFC 159 broadcast that he wants to see the MMA glove evolve because we're seeing a lot of eye pokes and some unfortunate fowls.

A lot of people don't think that there is a right answer. It could be a nice idea, but there's no right answer. As someone who has been there for many, many years, you've fought with those gloves. Do you think there is a solution out there, or is this just what we have to deal with? Well, first of all, and I've also been poked in the eye. I had a really, really bad eye poke against Dan Henderson,

and I don't know if the picture is still on my website, but I had an amazing picture of my eyeball on the website where you can see. It looked like Dan basically took an ice cream scooper out and kind of chunked a piece of my eyeball out. And it was really, really a close-up. You might want to check that out if you're interested. But anyway, the thing with the gloves, they'll always evolve because the first adjustment that the UFC made was by going, they had a closed wrist straps, and now they have the open wrist straps where you can elbow, or Velcro them around your wrist, which makes putting the gloves on way, way easier.

And I was actually part of that whole process. Like, you know, we'd made suggestions about this and everything, because at one UFC, we wanted to cut the gloves. And I don't know if Stitch was the one that finally came up with the idea for the Velcro or who that was. I think maybe it was Stitch. But I remember being on the phone and talking with the UFC and with Mark Ratner and the Athletic Commission and giving my two cents when that had started.

But it's going to be difficult. I'm sure there are ways to, because there are two different kinds of eye poachers. They're the eyepoaks with the fingers, and then a lot of people get caught with the corners of those gloves as they come down over the knuckles. And so there will be a way of tailoring those gloves to make them a little bit better. But I think just because of the nature of the glove, you're always going to have problems with that. I mean, heck, you look at, I've seen people get poked in the eye in boxing matches before, and you have these big pillows compared to MMA. You have these big pillows of a glove on your hand, and your thumb is, you know, attached in everything.

and they still get poked in the eye by the thumbs of these gloves and everything. And sometimes when I see boxing matches, I see people get poked, I ask myself, like, how could this possibly even happen in a boxing match? But it does. And it is as much safer as that glove appears to be. So I think that there will be some changes that have to be made that perhaps it will decrease the chances of people get poked in the eye. But the God's on the streak is it's just something that we're always going to be dealing with. I mean, you have loose fingers coming out.

And so naturally when you're standing in a stance and you throw a punch, like your hand should be relaxed before impact. And so your hand is sometimes open and things get caught and, you know, isolate getting poked. Chris Wyman Anderson-Silva, who are you picking? You know, how can you go against Anderson at this point in time? It's just like it's, I don't know. It's, you can't, I'm not even sure how Anderson is going to end up losing a fight

at this point in time. So my money were going to Anderson if I was a gambling man. Even if he fights John Jones? That's a different story. Now you're talking about Anderson is really good at, first of all, let me just say Anderson's been in the game way too long to just let something simple like this completely defeat him. But Anderson is great at using his length and kind of backing away

and never taking any real abuse. But that takes on a whole different meaning when you're fighting somebody that has an 84-inch reach. It's a lot taller than. you. Anderson is one of the taller guys in his weight class, so he hasn't had to deal with those kinds of things. But again, Anderson's smart. I'll bring somebody in that's John Jones-esque and use that as a training partner, and he'll come in completely prepared. So if there was any fight out there that would be really problematic for Anderson, I think that would be the fight.

Rich, so great to catch up with you. Really, really happy that we were able to do this. Good luck with the store coming up. Zeeland, it is called, and you explain that perfectly to us, And it's funny how those things work out. You think of some fancy name, and then you just go with your own name, combine it with your partner. And there you go. That, as you mentioned, opens in August in the L.A. area and looking for me. Hopefully you come to New York.

I think this would be a very good place for that as well. So I wish you nothing but the best of luck with that. And happy to hear that we may see you get to fight again, because I do agree with Matt. There are some interesting fights out there for you. Most importantly, happy to hear you're okay. Thank you for the first interview since the Kunglea fight, and looking forward to hear much more from you in the future.

Hey, it's my pleasure, Ariel. Thank you, bro. It was good talking to you today, too. Yeah, and keep us posted. When the time comes that you're ready to have the grand opening, let us know. We'll get the word out there. I'll keep you posted on the grand opening as well as when I sign the next contract for the fight, too. Deal. Thank you so much, Rich. Hi, bud. There he is. Rich Ace Franklin, the former UFC middleweight champion stopping by. Really great to hear from him. Such a smart guy, a true legend in our sport, and a great ambassador as well. And I wouldn't be surprised when his career is over at some point that the UFC doesn't reach out to him to have him do things like Matt Hughes does.

Chuck Liddell does. And I know he is setting himself up very well for his post-fighting career. And the juice stuff is very – I love – I can have like four of those juices a day with the kale and the beats and the carrot and all that craziness. I like that very much. I just feel good about myself. At first, it doesn't taste great, I will admit, but I just mentally I feel good. I feel like I'm doing a good thing for my body. And that is cool.

That is cool that he's doing that. So good luck to him and looking forward to hearing what's next for him as far as his fighting career is concerned. But I do think the UFC in some way, he's always had a good relationship with them. I think we'll be hearing and seeing a lot of Rich Franklin in the UFC for years to come. So there you have it. Those are our interviews today, but plenty more to go. And before we get to the questions, want to explain. the challenge that is coming up,

don't really have a catchy name for it just yet. It was called Rick's Pick's Challenge. He crapped the bed to now we've got a new challenge. And last week on the show, we had Mike Tyson from Winnipeg say that he wanted to challenge a New York Rick to a betting contest. And I thought that was cool.

And I like the fact that he took the bull by the horns. He called us and he called him out. And I like that. But I felt like, okay, you know, He may have just been listening. He's a loyal fan, et cetera, et cetera. But we need to open this up. We need to make this more interesting.

We need to really open it up to the people. So this occurred to me, and I love it, and this is what we're going to do. Are you there in New York, by the way? Are you there in New York, by the way? I'm here. Okay. So as far as the challenge is concerned, you're going to take on Mike, but this is how it's going to work. It's going to be, and I know we talked about it beforehand, but we'll sort of explain it

and flush it out as well because I really feel like there are a few little holes in it, but it's a pretty awesome idea. We have some time to figure it out. It's going to be an eight-man tournament. Toughest tournament in sports. Tougher than the Ultimate Fighter. Tougher than Bellator. Eight-man tournament.

And we're going to pick six other individuals. We already have two. New York, Rick, Mike. And they're going to compete against each other. And what's going to happen is UFC on FX8. Now, I have a little variation to this, but hear me out. UFC on FX8, we're going to say, okay, we've got the eight guys. Two, two, two, two, two, right?

Tournament. You get what I'm saying. You see it all here right here, hopefully. And this guy, going against this guy, all he has to do is he has to make more money than this guy to move on to the next round. So it doesn't, like, this guy at the top is not competing against Rick and Mike. it's separate competitions. So we say to them, UFC on FX8, by this time, you have to put in your bet, you can do whatever you want. You can bet $1,000 on Costa Filipu, whatever you want.

All you have to do is make more money than the guy that you're going up against. Fictitious money, of course. You're going to be honest, you'll tell us your picks beforehand. So you can make a cent more than him. You win, you go on to the next round. New York Rick could lose the first round, and that's it. And the competition goes on without him. and he has to face the shame once again.

So we got these A people, and then at the end, it's sort of a king of the ring style, the end, one man standing, now we find out of our listeners, no more bitching, no more moaning, now we find out who actually knows how to pick fights. So it will last three events. And right now I'm kind of toying with the idea. I like the idea of UFC on FX8 being sort of an exhibition match. Like what if someone does horribly, and then we could cede based on your performance, one through eight, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really count.

You're still in it, and then it starts with UFC 160. But New York, Rick, you said you didn't like that because then you'll, you'll sort of find out how the others are betting their tendencies, so you don't like that idea. Yeah, I don't like the free one. I don't like giving anybody a chance to see how the other competitors are trying to bet. But, I mean, you could change your strategy just for that week. I don't know. so it might be in play, but I don't like it personally.

But what about the idea of like, you know, let's say, just for example, you crap the bed and then everyone's dogging you, but then you come back when it really counts and you go on a three-event winning street? That could happen or I could win the first week and then crap the bed out there. I mean, it doesn't really change anything in terms of. So you don't think, because we're, what, three or four weeks away from UFC on FX8, the next big UFC or the next UFC event, you don't think it's necessary to have that exhibit. Well, another thing to keep in mind is these people who are going to be in this tournament, men or women, have been frothing.

They've been trying to get at me for a long time now. So if they're not ready, then that's on them. Week one, it starts. It's time to get it on. All right, so exhibition idea is done. You sold me. Now, what do you think of the tournament? What do you think of this consolation, if you will?

I like it. I like this tournament. At first, you weren't sold, though. Well, here is my thing is, um, I like the fact that people are getting a chance. I just want everybody to get a chance, but that's unrealistic. There's ways we could do it with a big, like, everybody picks. But as far as highlighting matchups and things like that,

I think that this is a good idea, and I'm excited about it. I'm getting a lot of love here on Twitter. A lot of people want to be in the tournament. The Twitter feed, excuse me, has blown up. But here's the thing. Here's how you get in. Right now, it's too tough. I think, what do you think?

Do you think we should pick? Because here's my idea. My idea was, in case you're not listening to the show live, it's not fair to call everyone out right now. So what I wanted to do was pick a time later on this week. For example, let's say Wednesday at three, and 30 minutes before that, I'll say, all right, at 3 o'clock Eastern Time, and I'll try to pick a time that kind of suits all time zones. At this time, you have to tell me, in 140 characters on 20,000.

Twitter, why you deserve to be in this tournament. And you're going to get, you're going to be on the show, we're going to be talking about you, your Twitter handle, all that good stuff. Bragging rights for days. At this time, you tell me, and then we'll pick our other six competitors. Or should we do it right now? I like the idea of waiting, giving everybody a fair shot to enter this thing. If they're not watching right now, you know, maybe they missed a week, something like that, and they've been waiting for this moment. Let's set up a time later to do it. I love how into it people are. We may have to open this up to 64. Do you think eight is too little or eight's enough? Let's demo it with eight and then we can go even more if it works out.

Start all over again. Yeah. But what happens if you lose in the first round? If we do it again, do you not get into the eight? Like you have to make it a certain point in order to stick around. Of course you get some sort of advantage because you're on the show. It makes sense if you're on. But like, you know, what if you just prove that you can't hang?

Yeah, no, I mean, I... That's fair. That's fair. All right? Should be able to beat one person every week, right? Do you feel like, honestly, is there more pressure on you in this one than in the other game? Because now you're actually going against the people. In terms of pressure, I'd say it's about equal, but the difference here is without you have to reach X number, it makes it easier to just bet the way you want to bet.

You do whatever you want. Right. And we'll have the same rules you have to get in the picks an hour after the wands to make it fair. someone, you know, doesn't look at whatever and the lines come out. But I think this is going to be great. We'll have a bracket right now leading towards 8, but we'll see what happened. So right now we'll say later on this week, I'll put out a tweet and I'll tell the people, okay, in 30 minutes you have to tell me why, in 140 characters or less, why you deserve to be in this competition.

And then come May 18th, round 1, round 2 will be UFC 160. Round three will be UFC on Fuel TV, the one in Brazil, Big Nog versus Verdum. Should we make it more than three rounds? Should the final round be like a best two out of three? That'd be interesting.

I mean, we can work those kind of details out, but... But you want to have it set before the first event. Absolutely. Now, what about the backlash of you on following people? Because I was at that great event in Harold Square last Wednesday. And by the way, I thought that was great.

the people turned out. It was a lot of fun hosting the Q&As and all that. Thank you very much to Fuel TV and Metro PCS for the opportunity. And a lot of people are coming up to me say, New York Rick unfollowed me too. Unfollowed me. That's always hearing. I find that very hard to believe. No, it's true. What do you think? I don't think I'm making this up? Actually, yeah. No. That's exactly what I think. Because the people I followed are all across the country. In fact, out of the country sometimes. Because as I stated on that show, the reason I followed and then unfollowed was to DM, get their info about the, prize and then... But don't you think... And first of all, I had to kind of get that out of you. Well, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings by... But that actually makes more sense than just saying I unfollowed them. Because now you're saying, all right, it's for work.

You know, I have to give you the prize. I'm hooking you new up. But I don't really want to, like, see what you're talking about on a Wednesday afternoon. Now it just seems like you were interested in them and then you weren't interested anymore. It doesn't seem like that because we just explicitly stated what happened. No, no, no, but you weren't saying that I got it out of you. For some reason, you didn't feel like this was...

a proper explanation and you made your situation worse. Well, now it's all rectified because we know exactly what happened. Well, you're welcome for that then. But so you haven't received backlash. I mean, some people, I think people are good-natured about it, especially because they're weekly followers of the show. And, yeah, no. In fact, somebody who I unfollowed named Stephen lives in New York,

we have him on hold. He's going to chime in a little bit later. he came up to me. We were at the Vice Fightland Launch Party. Met him. Nice guy shook his hand. And now I'm following him on Twitter. Oh, wow.

So it's a real... It's a happy ending. It's happy ending for that. Now, I know you were at UFC 159. Yep. You were at the Vice Party, as you mentioned, you were all over the place. You were one of the big draws of UFC 159 week here in the tri-state area.

What kind of love did you get from the people? Were they... I mean, did you get noticed? Were people coming up to you? What happened? No, not really. I mean, some people said hi, that's about it. Really?

Well, that means you got noticed. Yeah. Was it cool? Was it fun? Now, whatever I say here is going to be a bad answer because you're going to call me Hollywood Rick, no matter what. No. I feel it coming. No, no, I just wanted to know.

What was it like? I mean, you're in your turf. You're on your turf here. You know, you're from this area, UFC event. Mm-hmm. What was it like? It was, you know what? It was actually very cool to be able to...

not have to work, not have to be involved in fights and just sit back and enjoy them. And that was a cool experience. And I met some people and that was fun too. It was nice to meet some fans. But it was all love. Yeah, as far as I know, nobody was coming after me. No one's coming after you, let's be honest. And did you enjoy the event, being there as a fan, as a spectator?

It was great. It was fantastic. Now, in my opinion, the card wasn't, well, maybe it's just because of how, great the last card was, but I wasn't like, you know, this wasn't the best card in the world, but it was pretty good. I had a good time. It was pretty much as expected. I don't really

understand the people who were really hating the, you know, the... Yeah, no, it wasn't that bad. Let's not exaggerate. I mean, what were you expecting out of the main event? Yeah, and then you got, you know... Well, I guess... Myself, if you remember, a Monday night, after we got out of the train, I said to you

that that's exactly what was going to happen. I said he was going to beat him within the first round. He's going to take him down, and he's going to elbow him in the face like he had been doing to pass opponents before he started to try his tools out a little more. And that's what happened. That's exactly what happened. And I thought the undercard, I mean, it wasn't, like I said, it wasn't the greatest card, but you had some moments there.

I thought the Stephen Siler fight was fun. Obviously, the McMahon finish was fun. Unfortunately, the Havillov fight, a little premature ending, Valante. I think it was a mixed bag. I think that's the best way of. Definitely agree. Nelson was a great K-O. Pat Healy was a great fight.

You know, they're not all going to be stellar cards. I don't think it was the worst UFC card of the year by any stretch. No. What was the crowd like? It looked like, you know what? It looked like a completely packed house. Really? They're looking around.

They didn't look like there were any empty seats. The crowd was loud and engaged, and I thought it was a great event to be at. Jersey really showed up for that one. Who knows if they're really from Jersey, though? That's true. Tri-state area really showed up for that one. Yeah, how about Swiss Beats giving me props on my shoes, stage. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. He was like,

he's walking by as I'm about to interview John Jones. He's like, this guy's got the Jeremy Scott's respect. I was like, yo, Swiss beats respect, go Nix. He did the Nix theme song. He's a big Nix fan. Kind of have that in common. Also, similar noses. You notice that? Similarly poor taste in sneakers. Really? Swiss Beets?

I thought he's down. I don't know what kind of sneakers he wears, but if he likes those then. You don't like those? Come on. Those were hot. Speaking of the nose, look at this t-shirt right here. You see it on my desk? Can you guys see that based on the configuration of the cameras? Yep.

That was given to me by a nice man by the name of Timothy Yates. And you can check them out on Twitter. At Yates Comics is his Twitter handle. He made, you know, like, you know you really made it when there are bootleg versions of a limited edition, kind of fun little shirt that you put out there. He made a bootleg version of the Halwani Nose shirt. and, you know, it's kind of like when you're at a concert and you come outside and all of a sudden people have these really ugly shirts.

One time I bought one of those shirts when I went to a JZ DMX concert because I really wanted a shirt, but I washed it once and it disintegrated. Like it just kind of fell apart of such bad quality. This is not as bad quality, but it's pretty awesome that someone made a bootleg version of the Halwani nose shirt. And there it is right there. And he gave me 10 of them. So we're going to be giving them out as prizes in the weeks to come, including this week. week. In addition to the other prize that we have, speaking of Halwani nose shirts, more are coming. We've got three new designs, black and pink, blue and orange, in honor of the Knicks, and we will come back strong on Wednesday, have no fear. And then, what is the other one? Oh, gray and plaid, looking very good. And it's not the plaid that I tweeted. We've got a new version of it. My man, Brendan King, who came up with the original Halwani nose design. Help me out there. And that guy's brilliant, by the way. You should check him out on Twitter as well.

Brenton underscore King, I believe it is. Is it underscore or is it not underscore? I don't want to get this wrong. One second. It's not underscore. Brenton K-I-I-N-G King is his last name. Brenton King is a Twitter handle, and he is the brains behind it all.

Great guy, and I appreciate all his help. Anyway, those are coming out soon, and John Jones dropping it in our interview on M-AFighton.com, and then on Fuel TV, he dropped it. He actually dropped it earlier when he stopped by, but that interview never had aired. Earlier in the night, we didn't interview with him, but for whatever reason it didn't air, he dropped it three times.

I think he felt really bad that he kind of was accusing me of swaggerjacking him, as they say, and he felt bad when he found out that all the proceeds go to cancer, so he kept mentioning it over and over and over again, even in his state where he was getting all woozy because of his broken toe. So we appreciate John doing that. It was very nice of him. Anyway, that shirt's coming out. Those new shirts. Those will be on MMA Warehouse.

We've got some bootlegged here. We also even have some other shirts. I still have some other Halwani-Nose ones still available. So lots of Helwani-nose action to come. And one more thing about last weekend. I heard those people talking smack at the Q&A, by the way. I heard you all loud and clear. And it's interesting that you were doing it behind my back.

But feel free. Feel free to come up. feel free. I'm right here. Step up. Come at me, bro. Bring it. Let's bang. What do you got? Yes?

I was just going to interject that one thing. Okay. John Jones didn't make that slogan or anything like that. He jacked that. From Bo Jackson. From Bo Jackson. All these people. How many different nose are there right now?

I see an MMA alone. Who knows what else is going on? I've seen Ronda, I think. Yeah, but that's... From fight chicks or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm talking for Nike. I saw, I've seen a JDS, right?

I might have seen that. Yeah. Well, I definitely seen Spider and John, and Nike only is affiliated with three fighters. So yeah, the audacity to say that I was like biting his style. Well, I think he more than made amends for that. He definitely plugged it. He repped it hard. He did.

But, you know, it's not about... It's just a coincidence. The shirts look the same. I didn't know. I never even heard of that shirt before. I'm just joking. Remember when I called you a liar earlier? It's just so funny that all these...

Can't make you come up with something a little more original than that? I mean, really? Knows? We've been seeing this shirt for 30 years now. It's kind of cool to come back with it. If you're going to put it on one guy like, this is the new Bo Jackson. I get that. But don't just give it to everyone.

So I got how Wani knows. All right. So to recap, the picks. Later on this week, you will have your chance. Then in a couple of weeks, it's going down the toughest tournament in sports. If Chale can say it about the ultimate fighter and if Beltor can say it about their tournament, why can't I say it about my tournament?

Toughest tournament in sports. Will I get sued for that? I don't know. Is that trademark? I'm not sure. We'll find out. Let's go to the phone lines. You said someone who's on hold.

Who was on hold? Alan is his name? Alex. No. Who is it? Stephen. Stephen. Stephen.

Hey, can you hear me? Hey, man. Where are you calling from? Hey, Harold. Actually, I'm calling from inside a storage container in Long Island. Storage container. Who put you there? I'm actually hiding. That way, can talk to you on the phone. Oh, my God. How long have you been there for? Since you guys hung up with restraint one. Oh, that's not so bad. Well, thanks for calling.

We appreciate it. Now, by the way, do you have, like, good air circulation in there? Can you breathe? Yeah, it's open so I can breathe. Sorry, I had it. Can you hear me? No. Sorry, I almost choked on my water there. How are you doing? What's on your mind? Good. Thanks for having me.

It's one of your favorite trollers on Twitter. Hey, Archer. Oh, this is you. I've actually called it. Yeah, yeah. Wow. I wouldn't consider you a troller. Are you a troller? I know your Twitter handle, but are you a troller? I mean, I kind of tag you guys in almost everything. I put USC-related, so I guess I might, you know, Yeah, but you don't annoy me. Oh, well, that's good.

Good. So what's up? Well, I want to say, you know, first I appreciate your show and that you're one of the few journalists that doesn't ask stupid questions at the press conference is. Thank you. You don't ask questions like how does it feel or like to John Jones. You got to ask like 15 times this weekend. How would he feel to fight an MSG? You know, we all know that answer.

Yeah, come on. So I feel like that. Let's switch it up. It's a waste of time. Yeah, I agree. By the way, I don't mean to interrupt, but I'd even ask John Jones once before the fight about what's next, all that stuff. Because, quite frankly, that's disrespectful to Chale. Sure, you may not have thought Chale was going to win, but come on, let's wait until after the event to talk about what's next.

That drives me nuts. Agreed. Oh, yeah. And actually, I had written down a script, but I kind of changed that up, listening to the conversation with you and Rick. Okay. First, I wanted to say that I changed my opinion of last week where I said Rick was not of the people. He is of the people. He was at the Fightland event.

And actually, as I was there and I saw him walk up, I went up, he knew where I was when I said my name. And actually some guys from ESPN were there, and they had great things to say about him. What? But I think he was being a little modest. Who from ESPN knows who he is? Rick, what was his name that was there? I always forget his name. Chuck Minnan Hall.

Oh, all right, all right. Now we're, like Chal said, let's not forget about the dot com, all right? Just saying. That's true. I thought it was like Stuart Scott or someone. I'm sure they know who he is, too. And by the way, do you believe that he really knew who you were? Or was he just being like, oh, yeah, of course.

Oh, no, of course, because I didn't even say my name, and he said, oh, hey, what's up, student? How did he know? I knew my fans. He recognized me from the Movember. Oh, wow. Well, that's impressive. I'll give you that. So yeah, you talk to people. Well, I don't know about that. I mean, he did unfollow like 400 people that's, in my opinion, a little route. Agreed. But actually, I was going to say that's a good idea with that tournament you have,

toughest tournament in sports. Oh, yeah. What do you think of that? I'd love to be in on that. Oh, really? Well, why do you deserve to be in it? Well, I think that rich picks weren't too bad. I would have. you know, change him up a little bit. I don't think he really played with the numbers as much in terms of, you know, if this guy, so not so much he was a shorter bet, but if the end of the dog won, you know, how much they would actually pay out.

So I think, in that sense, I do a better job. But not, and that's not to say Rick's fix, you know, weren't good at all. But I think that in this tournament, Rick should actually be more towards the finals. I think that us loyal fans should duel out and then go for the chance to go up a against Rick. Listen, you... Because it's not fair to just throw him in right away. If he's the one that we're trying to better, he's currently on top of the mountain.

That's interesting. And so along the way, he is sort of critiquing what other people are doing? Right. But why should he be atop the mountain? He lost the competition, so he needs to go back down. It's sort of like in the English Premier League, you know, if you finish in the bottom three, you've got to go back with the triple. A teams?

Well, at the same time, I mean, he wasn't doing too bad before it actually became a betting game. I mean, his fix before that, and the way that he analyzes them are pretty on point. So it's not like he was doing a terrible job. Oh, I don't doubt that, but you can analyze them and get them wrong. And by the way, what was the record? Like 26 and 14, something like that? I mean, come on. We're shooting for above 300 here.

But it was a year of a lot of upsets. Yeah. There was quite a few upsets. Oh, and if your wife asks you. why you just lost the mortgage, you're going to tell it was the year of the upsets? Well, no, I would just say it was Rick's fault. Well, okay, fair enough. And then what is she going to say to you?

Who's Rick? I give her his Twitter and he, she can go find him. I do like your idea. What do you think of that idea, Mr. Rick? I like that as well. I mean, we'll figure it out. Of course you like that. It's easier.

It's an easier road. You just have to be one person. I have to beat one person every round too It's the same Yeah but you only have to beat one person to be the champion As opposed to beating three people to be the champion Oh no I don't think that it should end after the final matchup It starts over again

No no no what he's saying is And correct me if I'm wrong here Stephen That they have the tournament And then to be crown champion They have to be you sort of like Mike Tyson's punchout You only really win the game once you beat Tyson Right so that happens right Yeah

Then if I win Tournament starts all over If I lose, I go back into the tournament. Well, I'll do respect to Belvoir. This isn't, we're not going to have 400 tournaments going on here. You know what I'm saying? What do you think this is? The summer series?

I don't even know what that is. So what I'm saying is, much like the Rick's Pigs Challenge, when the tournament's over, it's over. Then we move on to our next little game. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't care. I like you in the, you could be the one seed.

you could be whatever. Cool. Whatever. I like you with the people. You know what I mean? I'm in. I think that makes more sense. Then it's like a fun little journey.

Plus, he knows he's going to win. That's what he feels. So don't give him an out. I'm just saying, put him at the, you know, give him a little bit of an advantage to kind of,

you know, make it more interesting. So if there's a bunch of us on Twitter, you know, battling it out, you know, thinking promotional-wise,

it's not that interesting. But if we're trying to take out, you know, who made a co-host of the show. It's brilliant, Promotional-wise, imagine he loses in the first round. He has to sit there and listen to a bunch of other gibronies do his picks. I don't know.

I think it makes it a little more interesting. All right. Well, let me decide how I run my show, all right? What else you got? Well, actually, I would say two things. One, I would like to start a rally for Phil Davis. Rally for Phil Davis. I think he's completely, you know, flying on the radar for no reason.

doing work. I mean, I don't know why, you know, I understand why Leoto's up there on the list, but, I mean, I think Leoto personally should drop $25 anyway. But I think just because Phil lost that, you know, fight to Rashad, which Rashad just kind of held him down the entire time, I don't think I should knock him out of top five. I still had Phil Davis. Last time I did my rankings, I had him in the top five.

I know New York Rick's a big fan of his, right? You're still a big fan of his? Absolutely. I wonder what he does next. But that was, I mean, that was an okay performance. I give him props because why should you wrestle Vinnie McGillish? Why should you put him on the ground when he's great off his back? But striking, I mean, you never got the impression.

Although he did rock him in the first. After that, you never got the impression that he was going to finish him on his feet. Right. But I still think... Go ahead. Well, no, I think time-wise, I mean, it won't work out. I think it should, I think right now it should be him versus Alexander to see he goes up next. But they had that fight already.

They had that fight and they're also teammates. It's not going to, I don't think it's going to happen again. You know what I'd like to see? I think makes sense. Phil Davis, Ryan Bader? How about that? Would you put Ryan Bader that high right now considering his losses? Nah, I didn't really consider Vinny to be that high.

That's just kind of the way things go. or the winner of Glover Tashara versus James Tihuna, which happens next month. I'll think that one. All right. That makes more sense to me. Fair enough. And so then I got one last point. Yep.

Once again, to give props to New York Rick and maybe start another little bit going on. Okay. I think you guys should have your own competition on shirts. Shirts? You have the know, the Hawaiianian shirts. Yeah. I say we start a New York Rift shirt line. Really?

See who sells the most shirts. sells the most shirts and what would it say I mean look people have wanted me to put out a shirt for a while but it had to be the right one it had to make sense we were just going to put out a shirt

oh well that's what Twitter's for I'm sure right now on Twitter people are going to put up ideas on what I have an idea I have an idea for a perfect one but I'm not going to I'm not going to give it to you guys if you want to open up to Twitter go ahead but I have an idea for a perfect one

I think that's another good idea something to look into you do you want to shirt, Hollywood? I think you just gave your idea out right now. No, that wasn't it. Is he not responding to that name? Is that what's happening here? Mr. Rick? I'm sorry, I don't have the

line two in my headphones. What was the... You didn't hear what we were just talking about? Nickel Rick's shirts, right? You're talking about it. What else are you doing back there? As I said, the line two is not in my headphones. I have to listen on the speakers. You can't hear what's going on this whole time? Barely. I'm listening on speakers.

That's a buzzkill. pop if I've ever seen one. Is he even back there, Buzzco? No, he's not, but I wouldn't blame that one on him. Really? He kind of is the audio guy. Anyway, our buddy here, Stephen, was saying that you deserve your own shirt and you want to have a competition. Who could sell the most shirts between you and I?

Oh, no, I don't like that. I don't like that competition at all. I'm not going to have it. But you have an idea? I know what would be the perfect shirt. Well, as soon as it was mentioned, my idea was a 05 on the back, like a jersey style. Oh. and then a 05 because nickel.

Right. With like a period in front of the, in front of the 05 as a number. Yeah, yeah. What was your? Mine was just, yeah, it was kind of like that. It was just a big nickel on the front. Yeah, but that's not creative. Why?

I feel like the, that's been done. That's been done? 05 is much more. All right, fair enough. Who wants to walk around with a shirt with a nickel on it? Well, that's your shirt. Who wants to walk around with a nose on it? Tushé, I guess.

That's one good idea. Hollywood Rick right there. Hollywood is a good one. Like you said, a jersey. Oh, that is good. You know what it could be? It could be like the Hollywood Hills. You know how it says Hollywood? But instead of Hollywood, it says like New York or something like that.

I guess that's what? You know what I'm saying? My name has a semi-rimeing scheme with the New York Knicks. So it could be like a Nick-style jersey. Do not slander the great name. New York Rick on the number? No, no, no, no, no. We're not doing it.

Your number is 205. Slander. Let's not go there. there, guys. Okay, this has gotten out of hand. We do appreciate it, though, Stephen. And great ideas all around. And you're saying you want in, right? Oh, I want in definitely on this competition. Okay, well, here's the thing. I don't want to, you know, put something out there and then change, you know, the rules. So I have to leave it up to the people. I have to leave it up to Twitter. If you want to get in on this later this week, I will tell you, I'll look out for you. I know

your Twitter, you have that sort of red background thing. So I'll look out for you, but you got you got to submit your case along with everyone else. Sounds good to me. All right. Thanks for the call, man. Enjoy the storage closet. Yeah, thanks. There he is, Stephen in New York.

I like how he was in the storage closet, just chilling, so no one would get mad at him. That is how loyal our friends are. And I know some of you are upset that we're not doing a pose this week. There just isn't really anything out there to do, and we need to do them around the fights. I think that makes more sense. Okay, one last thing to do. We've got questions to answer, right? Yep. And at stake, let's just tell

them what's at stake. We got the shirt from Tim Yates. Give out his Twitter handle again, Yates Comics. He was the one at the Q&A, Rock and the Halwani Nose. So, there's the shirt that he made for us. It's on the table. And what else we got?

We've also got this art. We've given this out in the past, but we're giving this out again. Let me hold up. There it is. There it is right there. And who made it? That's from our buddy Chris, Chris Morcout. I will plug his info right now. His website is www.chrismorekout, and that's spelled M-O-R-K-K-A-U-T. So, www.christch-Morkout.com. His Twitter handle is at Chris Morcout Art and Facebook.com slash Chris Morcout Art. All right. There you go. prizes at stake this week. We're in a very good mood. Let's answer some questions and then get out of here.

These are from the website. First question. After watching Sarah McMahon's interview, it came to me. Do you think that the mat was responsible for the broken toe and thumb? The friction from the hybrid material the mat that Sarah was talking about. There's no way her knee should be so bruised after one round. I saw the Jones toe brake GIF. That should never happen. It could be that the friction was so strong it wouldn't let the feet slide properly and add the pressure of wrestling on the feet. Well, you know, when John revealed that he had broken his toe, I immediately thought of that interview with Sarah. If you didn't see it, we interviewed Sarah McMahon after her win on Saturday, and she showed us her legs, particularly her knees, were all, like, kind of burnt. What's the word?

When you have, like, that sort of friction, and then, you know, when you go in the shower and it's just going to burn, you know, looking at it, it's like the skin had peeled, not to the point where she was bleeding. but a layer of skin had been peeled off because she said for whatever reason the mat caused some friction with her skin. And then you look at what John Jones did. It didn't look like it was anything out of the ordinary. And his freaking toe gets cut in half. Unbelievable. It was, I mean, I've never seen that in a UFC fight or MMA fight for a toe to get severed like that. So I definitely think that there's some kind of correlation.

relation there. I've seen people complain about the mad in the past that it's a little slippery because of the ads, but never what Sarah faced and what John faced. Of course, in the past, I mean, you've seen people get like Matt Burn and things like that, but that seemed a little excessive for Sarah. So yeah, I definitely, and by the way, isn't it GIF or do you say GIF? I've heard GIF, GIF, GIF. I tend to just go GIF because I don't know if it's GIF or GIF. By the way, I was, when I interviewed Sarah, that was the first time I interviewed her in person. She is jacked.

Her back is ridiculous. They were both pretty jacked in that fight. It was very, she, I'm impressed with Sarah. I really like her as an interview. She was great on the show last week. Love her personality. But I just, I think that matchup is so great. Plus, you have silver medalists against bronze medalists in the Olympics.

I really foresee that happening. Our next question about Carraway's weight cut. Brian Carraway talked about some very disturbing side effects during his dramatic weight cut for his fight against Johnny Bedford. Is this kind of weight cut too dangerous? And should there be a closer medical supervision when the weight cut is a severe one in such a short time? Well, the problem is that, you know, he had to cut weight.

He found out about the fight five days before it. He found out they announced the fight last Monday. He had to weigh in on Friday. And again, if you miss it, I like that all these people are watching our interviews. That's great. He talked about how they wanted him to leave at like 130. The Wayans were at 4, and he said there's no way that I'm leaving this place.

I don't care if it's at 405, I'm going to make this weight. And they gave some extra time. Understandably so. I was surprised that he made the weight. Wasn't a catch weight? Took the fight, made the extreme weight cut, won, and submitted Johnny Bedford, who a lot of people were all jazzed about. I just think that's the sport.

You know, guys just have to do it the rest of. right way. You talk to guys like Mike Dolce. You talk to other nutritionists, not even in MMA, just in general, about weight cutting. You just have to do it the right way. And it's an ugly side of the sport, if done wrong. It's an ugly side of the sport. You know, you saw what happened to Nick Coton, had to pull out of the fight. On Saturday morning, you were supposed to fight James Head, dehydration. It's an ugly side of the sport. But it's something that happens in wrestling and boxing, in MMA, of course, all kinds of combat sports. You You just, you hope that guys don't take fights on five days notice and have to cut too much weight or, you know, try to, try to take on too big of a task just to make the UFC happy.

Our next question. Sonnen, so subtly, wow, subtly mentioned Vanderlae Silva at the post-fight press conference. If it happens, do you think that fight has the makings of the biggest non-title fight in UFC history? If you've heard Silva talk about Sonan, I think you know what I mean. Yes, but I don't think it would be the biggest non-title fight in UFC history. I think there have been bigger at this point. And by the way, if John Jones fights Anderson-Silva, that would probably not be for a title.

If GSP fights Anderson-Silva, that would probably not be for a title. But what I want is the old Chale Sunnan. This to me, remember when Stone Cold Steve Austin turned heel, but it was like the weird heel where he was all nice to everyone? That's what I feel happened here. And I want the old Chale-Sundan. I want the Chale-Sundan that goes after his opponents.

That isn't nice to them. It doesn't apologize for not shaking their hands. I want the Chil Sennan that's calling people out left, right, and center. And it seems throughout all of this, in this evolution of Chale, the two guys that he's always targeted, Van Lee Silva, Vitor Belford. I still want to see those fights. I want to see those fights very badly. I think that would bring out the best in Chale. But let's not forget.

I mean, what Chale said, I think we almost forget at this point. Do you remember what Chale Sondon was, who he was when he was fighting in W.C., when he was losing to Damien Maya. I mean, he was just, he was just a guy. He was just a mid-card middleweight. What he has done in the last few years, truly one of the greatest turnarounds, the evolution of Chielsen and one of the great stories in the history of our sport, to the point where you can actually put him in a title fight again against Anderson after losing, and then up a way class to fight. I mean, you know the story by now, but I feel like we've almost forgot about where he came from. It really is an amazing thing, and I'd like to see him continue fighting.

I still think there are fights out there for him. So I'd love to see the Van der Leis Silva fight next, to be honest. You know, I just think Sunnons going to take some time. He's got the TV stuff. And I don't see him turning around that quickly. It could be wrong, though. On super fights, Dana White has said that there will be no super fights if Anderson loses because it won't be the same if he loses.

But how is this different than the UFC promoting Edgar Aldo as a superfight after Edgar lost two in a row? Well, I think it's a little different because it's different for a few reasons. I think if Anderson Silva loses to Chris Wyman, I mean, he is no longer the big dog. He lost the belt after he was so dominant for so long, there's some sort of, you know, the luster gets taken away, right? I mean, he is no longer the dominant force in the UFC because he no longer has the belt. He lost. To then, to put him finally, it would be like doing Pachia versus Mayweather now.

Pacquo just got knocked out recently. and then you're going to put him against Mayweather. It feels like it's not the same. It would be like doing Fador versus Brock after Fader lost. Now, where it's different with Edgar is, A, a lot of people thought that he actually beat Benson at 150. So they were kind of viewing it in a sense that he was coming off a win. And B, it wasn't like, I mean, you can't compare GSP Anderson, Anderson Jones to Aldo v. Edgar. It's not one of those fights.

Well, it was talked about not one of those fights that was one of a dream matchup. So the luster wasn't taken away, and there wasn't really a true contender available for Aldo 145. So all those factors combined, I think it's completely different, and I 100% agree with Dana. If Anderson Silva loses to Chris Wyman, you can't make that super fight. In fact, you have to make, in my opinion, an immediate rematch. That makes more sense. Not a question, but a comment. Ariel in a plain shirt, man, is it a weird fight week.

But, I mean, it is yellow. It's not like I'm just sitting here in a white shirt. Sure, but you're not in your usual plaid. Sure. I mean, you got to keep them guessing. But I appreciate you noticing. Did you skip a question? No, that was it. All right.

Our next question, is the MMA hour going to have the fans' questions special, like Ariel suggested? May would be good timing as there's a break in the events. You know, what do you think about this? Because I was actually very tempted to do it this week, but it was after an event. We had some people we wanted to talk to. If you are listening to the show live or just hit me up on Twitter, and I'll ask you in a second, would you like a full show? because here's my worry.

We're on only once a week. Try to load it up with the best guest possible. Try to give you something, you know, three plus hours, try to give you something that you can chew on for the entire week, and hopefully you finish the show by next Monday, so you don't miss out on anything. A question-only show,

do you feel like you're getting the MMA hour, the true MMA hour experience? Now, I feel like one day, if we do two shows a week, we could have, like, an interview show, and then later on in the week, a question show, but I just, I'm concerned that I'll be short-shed, changing people. What do you think? I definitely agree to some extent, but I mean at the same time, if the fans want it enough,

then I think it's... But what do you think? Do you think it's not in the spirit of the MMA hour? I'm tempted to do it, but I just don't know. I mean, the person who posed this question is right. I mean, if there's any time to try it out, it will be now. I like it, but I also understand where you're coming from. All right. Well, if you're listening live, let me know. That was it for the website questions. I'm going to get up to Twitter questions now.

All right. Really looking forward next week. It's literally to my right. If you saw it on my Twitter or Instagram, the new set, literally to my right. Very cool. Very cozy. This is our first question from Twitter.

Yep. From Darren Chung. Jones has proven that he can fight long and that he can wrestle. Is there anyone at light heavyweight? that can beat him. Right now, I mean, the two fights that make the most sense for John Jones right now, we know them, Alexander Gustafson versus Machita. I really want to see Gustafsson versus Machita next because, as I mentioned, if Gustafsson wins,

already I think people would buy him as light heavyweight contender, but if he beats Machita, there's no doubt. He is the number one contender. And I think the bigger issue is Machita. Machita is two and O since he lost to Jones. I think he needs a win over someone like Gustafsson to really sell the fans that he's the number one guy. Even though he's coming off a win over Henderson, I just don't think the fans are all that excited about it. So let John Jones go out, vacation, rest, relax, get the toe back intact,

have those two fight at some point, UFC on Fox Sports One, the show in Milwaukee in August, something like that. And then we have a true number one contender. If you're asking me, do I think he beats both guys right now? Yes. I think John is number one at 205 and is the greatest slight heavy weight we've ever seen. And quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if some people are now voting him as number one in the pound-for-pound rankings. You look at the guys he's defeated. Shogun, Rampage, Machita, Rashad Evans, Vitor, Cheosunna. I mean, it's really an impressive list of champions, former champions, contenders, as the top dog of 205, he's the best. And right now, it's two of five, I don't see anyone beating him.

Our next question comes from Anthony Marchetto. Does Jones turn into a frequent name on the newer cards like GSP is to Montreal? You know, that's an interesting question. The next time I would guess, Dana White didn't want to talk about this, but the next time I would guess that the UFC returns to this area would be for the Super Bowl card because the Super Bowl is in New Jersey next year and Fox is airing it, and they've talked about

having the Super Bowl card moved from Vegas to New Jersey because Fox wants a big week and makes total sense. It's brilliant. So maybe he fights on that card. Is it possible that we don't see him from now until February?

That would be a long time. I would hope we see him again, but that's a serious injury. So, I mean, he fought there two years ago. He's fought in a bunch of places since... He was getting booed a lot. He got booed more than Chale Sunnend, so I'm not sure if it's the same kind of deal,

to be honest. You mentioned this earlier? from our buddy Sean Sheehan. Oh, yeah. Is there now a case to be made for John Jones being pound for pound number one? Oh, he also hashtags bring back the post. Yeah, I'm sure he did. He is the pound for pound king of the poses.

I think there is. Look at who he has defeated thus far. Not only as champion, but prior to that, he had wins over Ryan Bader, Naushenko, Brandon Vera of note. Of course, Stefan Bonner as well. I just think, I mean, his reign as champion, has been as impressive as any, even though he doesn't have the same amount of defenses as

Anderson-Silva. Yeah, his last two were against essentially middleweights, but he finished him. He looked dominant for the most part of me. His only really weak, I can think of two vulnerable moments for John Jones. First round against Machita, and that really wasn't vulnerable, but it was arguably the first time he lost the round. And then, of course, the arm bar against Vitor Belfort.

other than that, he's been completely dominant. And he doesn't mess around. He goes in there and he annihilates his opponent. So, you know, arguably yes, and I think you can make a very strong case that he is the number one pound-for-pound fighter in the world. Our next question comes from Robert Brown. What's so funny?

No, nothing. Something... What are you guys talking about? Don't worry about it. So now that UFC rankings have been used in several broadcasts, do you like them? Oh. Seemed odd advertising number nine.

middleweight versus light heavyweight champ. Okay, first of all, I have a very big bone to pick with this whole situation here because, okay, number nine, middleweight, are you kidding me? That is the craziest thing. Have we forgotten that his last two losses in recent memory at middleweight have been to Anderson Silva? His last fight was against Anderson. You know why he's number nine?

This is the problem with the ranking system that they have. He's number nine because there are some people who are ranking him. There are some people who aren't because he was. fighting at light heavyweight, they may have forgotten, whatever. So because of the way it all averages out, he ends up being nine. But that makes no sense. It makes no sense whatsoever whatsoever. And since he was fighting at light heavyweight, I would have just not made him ranked. Because he's not ranked as a light heavyweight. He's fighting in the light heavyweight division. So what does it really mean? And it doesn't make any sense that he was fighting as a number nine

middleweight. It makes no sense. So I don't, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I think it's fine the way they use the rankings, but they need to figure that out. When a guy's fighting in a new division, how do you rank him? If you put the ranking of his last fight, now he's a light heavyweight. Now you can rank him as light heavyweight.

He's done with middleweight for now, but it screws it up when not everyone's voting for him. He's not nine. That's crazy. He's two or three, in my opinion. Our next question comes from Ryan Bradford. Given the success Chale had with Yariah and Kelvin on tough, do you see him transitioning from fighter to coach? I think he'll always, like he said at the press conference, he'll always be, he'll always be in the sport, whether it's broadcasting. I think he could broadcast and coach. It might be a little weird if he's cornering guys, if he's working as a broadcaster as well. But yeah, Chale lives and breathes the sport. He is a true veteran of this sport. He's been around for so long from the dark days to now. He's been around combat sports forever. So yes, one of the greatest, if not the greatest coaches in tough history. Very good with guys, understands how to work with people.

people, politician, all that good stuff. Yes. Our next question is from Wanna Bet. Did Dana's controversial booking of Chale Jones to boost tough ratings and pay-off, or was it just a silly freak show all along? I don't know. Well, you know, we're going to find out very soon.

That is a crazy Twitter icon. This guy has an icon of someone counting money. It's wild. And his name is Wanabet, UFC. Maybe this guy should get in on it. seems apropos. I don't know. We'll find out.

I mean, from what I heard, there was a lot of intrigue. People were asking me about it who don't. I think being on the ultimate fighter for this fight, it worked because people really got behind the two stories. John, you know, you look at SportsC Center, ESPN, all that stuff. They really like him. Every time he fights now, he gets invited to do the whole car wash in Bristol, Connecticut,

which is a big deal in ESPN world. Every MMA fighter, every UFC fighter doesn't get that kind of treatment. So people really like him. People are interested in John Jones. They love him, they hate him, they want to see him lose, they want to see him win. They care about him in some way. They're not indifferent. And Chale is who he is.

So I'm going to guess it did pretty well, but can't answer that question until we hear some kind of estimate of the paper view buys and the man to follow for that would be our man, Dave Meltzer. Our next question comes from Piaw. Despite outclassing Belcher, did Bisbing showing harm his reputation? Even Rogan was joking about his punching power. I don't think it did. I think that was, you know, someone asked me before the fight, who I think is going to win? I said Bisping via decision.

I mean, by now, if you don't know what kind of fighter Michael Bisping is, you know, what were you expecting out of him? Did you expect something different out of him? No, my pick on that was Bissping by decision. Yeah, that's pretty much what we, you know, that is who he is. And by the way, I told him, and I said this on the preview show, I thought this was Michael Bispings' finest hour as a self-promoter, because he, this was kind of built as a one-fight card,

and he got people to really, truly care about this fight. And it wasn't about bets, it wasn't about nonsense back and forth, just the way he's able to promote a fight. And it doesn't seem scripted, it doesn't seem fake, it doesn't seem like he's rehearsing lines, it always seems genuine when he says things like, biggest win of his pathetic career, and that he can't hang with me, and he's not on my level,

and things like that. He's just so good at promoting. He's so good at selling himself. It's amazing that people don't copy him, that people don't fall on his footsteps and learn what he does. Anyway, he got the win. I want to see him fight either Costa or Jacare, the winner of that fight, or what was the other one that I said?

I said, Philippeux Jacerre, and I had another one. Oh, Van der Le Silva. Our next question comes from Richard Mason. Who would you rather see Big Country fight next? Hunt or Cormier? 1,000% Daniel Cormier. Now, if Mark Hunt loses, then that could change. But if you're asking me if he's going to fight a winner,

if Mark Hunt beats JDS, he deserves a title shot. I mean, the story, the rocky story, will just be so great at that point. You have to. You have to go that route. I mean, it would be crazy not to. So if Hunt wins, then Cormier. If Hunt loses, then I think Hunt versus Roy Nelson would be interesting,

and there are other interesting fights for Cormier right now. But they both kind of agree to it, so at this point, you kind of have to make it happen. Our next question comes from Jonathan Chiriboga. Yes. Will the U.S.C. do anything about the fighter's gloves to prevent further accidental eyep hoax? Honestly, I don't really think so. You know, even Dana didn't really seem to think so. And look at what Tito said.

Look at what Rich Franklin said. Look at what Chiapeta said earlier today. That's just the sport. Now they could modify it a little bit. And someone tweeted, it's been so long ago now, but someone tweeted me like a kind of webbed finger thing. Like it was like a yellow glove and the fingers were kind of webbed and just the tips were exposed. But I still don't think that that's the right answer. I mean, for grappling, for wrestling, you need your fingers.

So I don't see it happening, honestly. And again, it has to be not just the UFC, unified rules of MMA. They have to change all the rules. I don't see it happening. Our next question from Brent G about John stoppage Should referees be able to restart fights

After reviewing and assessing what happened You know it's very interesting That you said because I wanted to go on a bit of a rant on this I just think it was handled so poorly And I have respect for Kevin Mulhall I think he's a fine referee Whatever That's not the point

The point is that Volante got poked in the eye And you ask him within the first 10 seconds can you see? And he's kind of freaking out. You just got poked in the eye in the middle of a fight. So he says, no, don't call the fight. Give him a minute. If someone comes and pokes me right in the eye, at first I won't be able to see. But in a minute or two, I will be able to see. Now, the problem is, for whatever reason, you don't get five minutes to recover from an eye poke. That's what everyone was talking about afterwards. That's what Dana White was saying needs to be modified in the rulebook.

You need that time to regroup. and I think it was just careless on his part to ask him right away and then to make your decision based on that. Of course right away. Give the guy 30 seconds. Give him 45 seconds. Give him a minute.

Just knowing how you feel after you get poked in the eye. And then he just wouldn't have it. Additionally, your interview with John, he was just talking about how do you score a round that was 30 seconds in? Because what happens is the judges have to render their decision for that round. How do you score a round where maybe nothing even happens?

And also, you know, could this be a tactic strategically? Let's say you're up two rounds, but you're kind of fading. Yeah. Polk the guy in the eye and secure yourself a victory. You know what I mean? I know, I know. I hope not. That would be an ugly development in our sport.

Yeah, it's weird. It's just a strange system. What if it lasted 10 seconds? Would they have scored the round? Exactly. There needs to be a cutoff. The round has to have gone on for like two and a half minutes out of five or something like that. I do agree.

Crappy way to lose. You feel bad for both guys. You don't want – I doubt OSP is happy he won like that. I know John Volante wasn't happy with that. But come on. First off, give the guys five minutes for an eye poke. And second of all, don't ask him within 10 seconds. That's just crazy.

Someone gets kicked in the balls. You're going to ask him 10 seconds later if he wants to fight? No, you give him some time to regroup. Our next question comes from Adrian Markowski. What's next for Pat Healy? And how do you feel about Healy looking to rival you for the shoe fetish championship? You know, that's a very good question. Both are good questions.

I was happy that I hooked Pat up with my store here in New York. He went nuts. It was great. And, you know, I said this to him after the fight off camera. Did that bring him good luck? You be the judge. Now, he looked amazing. finally getting the respect that he deserves. Great for him. He deserves it. He's been in

the sport for a very long time. As for what's next, you know, what comes to mind, honestly, are the Josh Thompson's, who he did lose to, but it was a fight taken on short notice, and he performed pretty damn well on it. The Gilbert Melendez's, but those are strike force guys, and you know how I feel about strike force versus strike force at this point. I want to see him against fresh faces. So honestly, the Maynard Grand fight is the one that makes total sense to me, but apparently the winner of that fight is going to fight for the belt. Maybe if Soroni wins next, maybe, but he's fighting KJ Noons. KJ wins, I don't want to see that.

If Seroni wins, maybe. But he's got to be up there. I mean, Jim Miller, according to the UFC rankings, and most people, he's in the top five. According to UFC rankings, he's four. Nirmaga Madov, he's lower than Jim Miller. No great answer right now. I wish we could see him against either Maine or to Grant. I think that would be a great fight.

Our next question comes from Mario Montano. With the success of strike force fighters in the UFC, what does that say about Dana calling them a feeder league? Well, I don't know if he actually ever really meant that. I mean, he did call them strike farce and all that stuff, but what he means by that or what he meant by that, when he says that you need other organizations to build up talent, and then at some point, you know, they're going to make it to the UFC,

but I don't really think anyone really viewed strike force as a feeder league. I think there are other organizations out there that are feeder. leagues, some that are happy about it, the R-FAs of the world. I don't even know what World Series of fighting is at this point, to be honest. But Strike Force, in my opinion, was never viewed as a feeder league. They may have been viewed a step lower, and they probably were. They didn't have as many great fighters. They didn't have as many fighters on their roster.

But Strike Force was its own entity. I mean, you take Melendez, you take Nate Diaz. You take, well, I guess Rockhold at the end, or even Jacaree, you know, Fay Zao at two. or King Moe Musasi Overim, all those guys could have hanged at that time when they were champions in the UFC and then of course

the women's champions. They were never feeder league and I think we almost kind of missed them at this point because they had their little plays but it's great. I think it's one of the great stories of 2013 seeing these guys doing so well in the UFC a lot of these guys waiting for an opportunity

to shine on the UFC stage and I think that was just Dana in the midst of a war if you want to call it, especially when the whole Fador thing went down talking about the competition. I don't think he truly ever felt that they were beneath him. On the whole, they didn't have as good talent, but I don't think anyone really felt that they were a quote-unquote feeder league. They were signing guys from Strike Force.

Our next question comes from Sean Brady. Which was the most disappointing grudge match this fight, this past fight weekend, excuse me. Joan Sunnan, Bisbing Belcher, or Davis-Maghalegh. Definitely, Davis-Magalesh. Definitely. I mean, that fight didn't live up to the hype. I don't blame Davis for the fight that he had.

I don't blame Davis for not wanting to go to the ground. I don't blame Davis for any of that. It just wasn't a very exciting fight. It's more on Vinny at the end of the day. He was the one that called him out. He was the one that said he was going to do this and that to him and prove that on that night at least he wasn't at his level. So 100% Davis, Magalish.

Our next question from Mike Jones. Will more big-name sponsors, like Doritos and Reebok, be the final push MMA needs to be a mainstream sport? I don't think so. Dana White, if you missed it, said that there were reps from Doritos at UFC 159 that they had a big meeting with Reebok today, actually, in Boston. That's great for the sport. It makes things look better when you watch on television.

Even little things, like having celebrities in the stands during the pay-per-view. that makes the sport look bigger, more mainstream, all that stuff. But at the end of the day, it's about the action. It's about the way the media covers them. It's about building stars. It's not about sponsors. Our next question from Michael McElroy. What does Anderson Silva's new desire for a super fight mean for Chris Wyden?

Do you think Anderson is overlooking Chris? I don't know. I mean, it's hard to say Dana didn't give us a lot of information about that phone call that Anderson and Dana apparently had after the fight. Anderson's been in the sport a long time. I don't think he's overlooking him. I don't think he's looking past them. I think, you know, we have a tendency,

and I don't know why we want to talk two, three fights in advance. Like, we know what's going to happen. That's silly. And it's been talked a lot. Maybe he just said, hey, you know, this interests me now. I'm into it. Dana's being a promoter and generating some buzz. But I don't think he's looking past Chris.

Enough people are talking about it to where, I think, Anderson is taking this seriously. And he's so close to the end of his career, he understands the legacy. He understands what's at stake. He's not going to do something foolish and not trained for someone like Chris. That was our final question. Oh, that's it. Yep.

That's it for today. Okay. Who wins? We can go through him real quick if you want. Okay, sure. We've got this one about Wydman and Anderson. The sponsors. Yeah.

Disappointing grudge match. Successive strike force. What's next for Healy and about the shoes? About John Valante's stoppage. About the gloves. About Roy Nelson's next fight. Bisbing's performance. John and Chale.

Chale as a coach. The rankings. John Jones being number one pound for pound. John being a new. Jersey staple, and the first one, can anybody be John? This is my man over here, right? Darren Chung. He's the one that always sends questions.

There's quite a few people who always send questions. I know, but I think last week he was saying he wants to get picked. All right, we'll go with Darren. He gets a shirt. Okay. The rankings one about Chale. Yep. Robert Brown.

He gets a shirt. Oh, boy. Okay. And the one about Valante and the eye gets the drawing. The art. Yeah. Okay. You know, Valante lost on Saturday.

Let's give the guy who asked about him something. So two shirts, two Helwani nose shirts, and the drawing. You got that? Yep. Now, we are actually giving out these prizes, right? Because I've heard some complaints. We've had to organize some things, but they will be out, yes. All right.

So anyone who's waiting on a prize, we know who you are, you deserve it, you will get it, we just have to get there. A lot going on here. New set, new studio, new location, bear with us, we're coming. Mike, you get my music. There we go. If I were to talk for another 12 minutes, we would have broken last week's show. For some reason, this one felt shorter. but a fun show nonetheless.

A great show. Really enjoyed it. Thanks for all your questions, your comments. We do read them all, so keep them coming. Always fun to do the MMA hour here on a Monday, a rainy Monday. By the way, before I go, today's April 29th, tomorrow, one year birthday for my son Oliver. The pride of my life, the joy of my life. It was a year ago.

Do you remember? We did the little promo, Ben, folks, coming home, all that stuff. never happened. After the suspension, my son was born. Monday, last year, April 30th, a great day 452 p.m. Tomorrow we will be celebrating. Celebrating on the streets of Brooklyn. Happy birthday to my son. I love him so much. All right. Thank you so much to stop by. I want to thank Mike Chiapeta very much for stopping by. I want to thank Mr. Bruce Buffer, the great Bruce Buffer. Check out all the things he has out. I mean, I can't even list them all. The guy's got so much going on. Thank you very much to him.

Congratulations on the John Jones win. Tito Ortiz. Thank you very much to him. There's a Tito Ortiz Fighters Cut edition of UFC tonight coming out in the next few weeks. Check that out. It's actually next week, I believe it is. Check that out that is going to be on Fuel TV at 10 o'clock Eastern time. I also want to thank Alexander Gustafson.

Good luck to him getting that fight, Norman Park. Good luck to him at UFC 122. Rich Franklin. Good luck with the juicing store. Good luck with the different kind of juicing. You know what I'm talking about. And good luck in your future endeavors in the UFC and beyond. We'll see you next week.

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