MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 185

Episode Date: August 25, 2014

Featuring Randy Couture, Anthony Pettis, Josh Burkman, Muhammed Lawal, Ed Soares, and Dave Meltzer. 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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Yes, it was four years ago tomorrow that we launched this little shindig, my friends, in the old AOL studio. They told me, just go like 20 minutes. No one really wants to listen to a podcast for more than 20 minutes. in 20, 25 minutes. I said they want to hear it for an hour. They want their MMA talk for an hour, at least an hour. We started off, I think, around 45 minutes or so. We pushed it to an hour.

Later on, it became 90 minutes, then two hours, two and a half hours, three hours. Three and a half hours, we've even gone, I think, three hours and 45 minutes this year. But we are still the MMA hour, still staying true to our roots. In fact, our first name, our original name for three episodes was Fight House Radio. Back then we were a part of Fan House, and we thought it would be catchy to call the show Fight House Radio. But then we found out that there was a gym here in New York City called Fight House. They are no longer with us.

We decided not smart to car ourselves, Fight House Radio. So we went with The MMA Hour. Four years later, here we are. We've gone through so many studios. So many people have worked on the show. Different logo, different sets. But we settle in to our home here at Vox. media in Midtown Manhattan. We've got the crew in the back, Buzzkill Brendan, will the thrill

in the house. Mr. New York Rick is in the house, and we will hear from New York, Rick, in the third hour as we answer your questions and comments. Hit us up using the hashtag the MMA hour, of course, on Twitter. Leave them in the post below. If you're watching this live, we'll get to them in the third hour. Coming off, of course, UFC 161 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. What a wonderful place Winnipeg is. MTS Center. Full house on Saturday. night. Interesting pay-per-view. It was what we expected it to be, right? It wasn't a show that blew you away. It wasn't the worst show of all time. It just kind of was there. And there's not really a whole lot to talk about coming off of it. But if you want to talk about it, hit us up using the hashtag

the MMA hour. And of course, UFC 161, probably the biggest thing to come out of UFC 161, was that it presented, or at least it was the finale of the Rick's Picks Invitational. It was Lee MMA only versus want to bet UFC. Who won? We'll find out in the third hour. Now at around 2.45 p.m. Eastern Time, we're going to be hearing from Anthony Showtime Pettis. Unfortunate news on Friday, Anthony Pettis had to pull out of his UFC 163 featherweight title fight against Joseo. Due to a knee injury torn meniscus.

How badly is he hurt? Is he really trying to fight at UFC 164 against Benson Henderson? We'll cover all of that with Showtime come. 2.45 p.m. Eastern time. Ed Soros is the president of Resurrection Fighting Alliance. They have a show on Friday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Actually, Pettis's brother, Sergio Pettis, is the headlining act. And we're going to talk to Ed about going from MMA manager extraordinaire to fight promoter. What's that transition been like? He has been doing this for almost a year now. Randy Couture will be stopping by at around 205 p.m. Eastern Time. He is a coach on Bellator's new

Fightmaster show, Belator and Spike TV, premieres this Wednesday at 10 p.m. Eastern. Randy Couture, of course, the former UFC champion, two-division champion, leaving the UFC or the Zufa family going over to the Spike TV family that has caused a bit of controversy, and he also has another new show coming out

called Jim Rescue. We'll talk to Randy about all that good stuff. Now, speaking of Beltaur, they returned to Spike TV on Wednesday, and King Muhammad Lawal will be headlining their show, Bell Tour 96, against 7,000. Petrozzelli. Beltor 96 is from 8 to 10 on Spike TV on Wednesday, and then it's the first ever episode of Fightmaster. We'll talk to King Moe as he transitions and tries to get back on the winning

track from that very bad loss in February, and now here he is fighting a veteran in Seth Petrazzellie. And then at around 1.25 p.m. Eastern Time, we are going to be talking to Josh Berkman, who, in my opinion, he was the story of the weekend and everything that came with it. I'm I'm still kind of in shock. 41 second guillotine choke. I call it a submission, but it wasn't a submission. Or at least I was going to call it a submission. Fitch never submitted.

Out cold. The guy who said he could not be submitted. The guy who said that he cannot be choked out. John Fitch got choked out in his World Series of Fighting debut. Josh Berkman now 3 and O under the WSOF banner. And the victory, not controversial, but it has brought about some controversy with Dana White's criticism of Steve Mazegadi talking about it on Friday, Saturday. We'll talk to Josh about the win, what he thought of Steve Mazagati, where he goes from here, all that good stuff. But first,

very good transition here to talk to our man who's joining us via the magic of Skype. He is, of course, from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and MMAFighting.com. He is Dave Meltzer joining us from San Jose, California. Dave, how are you? I'm doing great. How are you doing, Ariel? I'm doing great. Thank you for joining us. You spoke to Keith Kaiser last night, the executive director of the Nevada the Athletic Commission. He came under fire. While Dana White did not really address him specifically, we knew what he was talking about on Saturday

when he met with the press in Winnipeg, Manitoba, after UFC 161. Do you think, first, let me ask you this, do you think Dana's criticism of Steve Mazagadi and his performance as a referee on Friday was fair? Well, you know, it's funny because when I first saw it, I came to the same conclusion in the sense of, geez, the guys out cold,

shouldn't the referee have been in there to stop it? Because, you know, it kind of ended out of the goodness of Josh Berkman's heart, and you really don't want, you know, fighters are trained to fight until the referee tells him to stop. So I was really concerned about it. At the same time, you know, when I looked at it from my own perspective, watching the fight in the time that I was watching and the mentality that I was watching it, I did not know John Fitch was out until, you know, you're watching it.

And you know, and he was in. trouble, but I think part of the situation is that when he was in trouble like that, I kept thinking, hey, it's John Fitch, I've seen him in chokes a million times, you know, he's, he's in a lot of trouble, but I was a lot more concerned when he was getting pounded before the guy put the choke on, because when he was getting pounded, and I thought, oh, my God, they're about to stop this thing in about 30 seconds, because Fitch is in trouble. When he put on the choke, I thought, okay, now he's going to have time to, you know, recover because you don't beat John Fitch by a choke, which, so using that in that regard, um, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't,

I don't know. It's, but, but yeah, I mean, I think that the, I think that the ref should have been right there. It's a split second thing. I can see where Dana was coming from because I was thinking the same thing at the time after, but then I was thinking, what was I thinking while it was going on? While I was thinking while it was going on, I was more concerned with the ground and pound than the choke. But that's, and again, part of that's by knowing Fitch's, you know, track record. So I'm not, I don't know.

That's kind of a bad political answer, I guess. No, Dana was very harsh towards Mazagadi, but he has been in the past. That's not news. You spoke to Kaiser about this. And as he has been known to be, Kaiser very nonchalant and not thinking there's an issue, saying it wasn't a positive performance, it wasn't a negative performance. He never seems, anytime he is presented with something somewhat controversial, or if one of his judges or referees,

in the eyes of many seem to screw up, he never takes ownership. He never seems to believe there's a problem. Is that what you took away from this? I mean, I think that's been a consistent thing all the way through that he's going to defend his officials until there's a situation that's so bad that... Until someone dies.

They have to get rid of the official, so to speak. And I don't know that if someone dies, then that's a real bad situation. But, I mean, again, I mean, you know, We, you know, in every state, and Nevada is certainly no exception. You know, there's things that happen with the referees when it comes to stoppages. And sometimes judgment calls on certain rules where you just go, oh, my God. And Nevada is certainly not the worst state when it comes to that.

I mean, we, you know, I mean, I've, you know, Jesus, you know, watching some of the fights from various states and some of the refereeing, it drives you crazy. But, yeah, the Nevada referees are not immune to it either. That's for sure. It's called the fight capital of the world. And, you know, they, what's interesting. is they employ a lot of referees. And I think a bigger issue right now in MMA is the refereeing as opposed to the judging because the referee can actually hurt someone. If they screw up, if they're incompetent,

that could lead to a serious injury. And they employ a lot of referees that you don't see in other states. You don't really see Mazagati in other states anymore. Winslow, maybe in California, you don't really see her anywhere else. And I think that's a very, I mean, the fight capital of the world should have the best of the best. And it doesn't seem to me like all this criticism. means anything to Kaiser. In fact, Dana said on Saturday, which I thought was a good point, the more he complains, it seems like the more they try to ram those controversial officials down his throat. Do you believe that? Is that the kind of guy Kaiser is, in your opinion? I wouldn't say that, but I would say the sense that the criticism doesn't seem to affect him.

I don't know that it's so much like when, put it this way, if Kaiser is, if Kaiser assigns Masagotti to referee the Anderson-Sovwa-Wyidman fight, then I would say, yeah, because And Dana actually brought up not going to do that. Then I would say that, but I do think that there is a thing where I'm defending my officials and this criticism, whether it's by the media or by Dana, is not going to affect me changing my mind on my officials. I think that he's there to protect him. Now, whether, and Kim Winslow and Mazzagati are obviously the two that there's always the questions about. Because Herb Dean, you know, even, and Herb Dean will make a mistake here and there, but everyone knows he's probably one of the best in the business.

And, you know, every ref's going to make a mistake. But, and, but like, yeah, with those two, you know, you're more concerned than others. I know that when I watch Kim Winslow, and you know, it's, and part of it is also, what's frustrating is the inconsistency. It's like if you have a referee that always stops it a little early, you know, okay, error on the side of caution. It's the late stoppages, obviously, are the ones that concern you. But then sometimes you'll have the same referee will stop early on a show. And then, and I've seen this with the same referee. I remember I Levine, I think it was once on a show in Ohio,

where he did an early stoppage that was a big mistake. And then, I guess, because he was so concerned about it, that in a fight later in the show, you know, he let it go too long. And it's like, but they're human. And then the stoppages is such a tough decision when you're being watched by 10,000 people. And, and, but, I mean, it's a problem. I mean, late stoppages are a bad deal, that's for sure.

The MMA referee position is one of the toughest in sports because there are judgment calls. You have to be very quick. And we can watch a replay, whatever. But these men and women are in there. They have to make a very quick decision. If you screw up, the guy can get seriously injured. And we all have bad days. Everyone understands that.

I don't get the impression, though, that Keith Kaiser sits down and looks at these men and women, looks at their performances. And then if someone has a screw up, you know, punishes them and talks to them and tells them, this is what you did wrong. Let's try to get it right the next time. they don't get better. And that's the problem. In fact, it seems like they get worse.

You know, again, my belief is that if he does that, it's going to be private. I do know that in certain cases when it comes to judges, when judges have had like a round or something that seems wrong, he has addressed the judge and go, okay, explain it to me, you know, what you saw in that. But generally, those judges stay as long as they can give a reasonable explanation. I mean, as far as the refereeing, you know, in this specific case, it was a split second call. I mean, John Fitch was like, it wasn't like there was like a 10-second gap, like we've seen many times, or one of those things where it's, you know, 11 punches too late, you know, on a stoppage. We've seen all of that. Those are the ones, this really was a split-second call. It's just the fact that the guy was legitimately out cold.

And because it was the goodness of Josh Berkman's heart that stopped the match when he could have held it on longer because it hadn't been stopped, I guess the idea is. And, you know, again, my reaction was bad as soon as I saw that. It's like, what's the referee, you know, doing? but, you know, would he have stopped it in the next second or two? It wasn't a lot of seconds. So this wasn't as egregiously bad as some of them. But they are, but, you know, there are bad ones. That's why I thought that, you know, again, I mean, there's been so many situations like that when it comes to the,

but the late stoppages are the ones that really are the most concerning when it comes to the, all the late punches and everything like that. I think that the, how Berman did it kind of, I don't know. I don't know. I'm having a tougher one on this specific case, but you know, you're right about the situation as far as like the, you know, when you see a referee and your immediate reaction is, oh, God, maybe that's not a good thing. Let's stick with WSOF while we're on the subject. Their third show just finished. They have a fourth one in August. They announced Ray Cephyl coming back. And Nick Newell is going to be on, who I think is must see TV. How do you feel? feel about them three shows in? Production, announced team, product, Fitch losing. I mean, how do you feel about WSOF now

heading into their fourth show? You know, it's one of those things where I hope that they're making some money off of television because I don't know where the money is going to come in because you're really not going to sell a lot of tickets to a product like this, especially when you're using name fighters and everything. As far as the show went, I was entertained for the two hours. I mean, that was no problem.

I had no problem with this. I think the show was a blowaway fantastic show. But it was, you know, for two hours of watching an MMA on show on Friday night, it was fine. And, you know, the one thing out of the show is Josh Berkman is the real deal. Because, again, throwing out the controversy. I mean, this guy destroyed Aaron Simpson, who was a real fighter. I mean, when Aaron Simpson was cut by UFC, that was kind of a controversial cut because he was a good fighter. But I sort of understood when Fitch was cut, that was probably the most controversial cut in UFC history.

and he, you know, again, before he got that chook, he knocked him down, and he was, when he was grounded pounding him, I thought, you know, this fight is on the verge of being stopped before he grabbed the guillotine. It wasn't just the guillotine. John Fitch was in trouble, in bad trouble, I mean, seconds into this fight. And so, I mean, I think that was like the big thing, you know, I mean, it's a big memorable thing over the weekend as far as it's something that people talked about. And Josh Berkman should be talked about. I mean, he, you know, my thought, I, now I wish he was in the, I wish she was in the UFC and getting a shot at the top guys because I want to see how good this guy really is. Yeah, and that's the problem I think that WSOF is going to face. When they

create these stars, people are going to be like, well, I want to see them go on to the UFC. It's going to be hard for them to keep them in WSOF and more importantly, get them intriguing matchups to where they're happy. Okay, let's move along. Let's go to 161. That was on Saturday. Rashad Evans defeated Dan Henderson in the main event via decision. Did either man show you anything, especially Rashad because he won in terms of, okay, I'm a contender, I'm a force to be reckoned with now at 205, still at 205.

Rashad, I think, I think they both showed that they were competitive and I think they both also showed nothing to make me think that they could beat John Jones. But I don't know that anyone can. I mean, I'm a little bit intrigued with Glover to Chera just because I've never seen the guy in a lot of trouble. So I would like to see, you know,

what he could do, But I mean, as far as like, you know, do I have any interest in Rashad Evans and John Jones again? No, no, not at all. I didn't think that Rashad looked, you know, he looked good enough to win. I thought he won the fight. I thought that neither guy, I thought they were both in good shape. I thought they had a nice fight. And I thought that they are, you know, in the mix with all those guys.

There's eight or ten guys, you know, names in that white, heavyweight division, you know, that are out there. And I, you know, both of them could go and fight the massasies and the people like that. that and they'd be fine fights on a card. You know, as a main event, I don't know if I want to see Dan Henderson. You know, on a TV main event, I think Dan Henderson is still very viable. As far as the pay-per-view main event, I don't know that he is right now, even though he still has a name. Don't you think Glover Tashara versus Rashad Evans makes sense next? I mentioned that to Dana.

He said they have other plans for Glover. He didn't know what they were. I thought that makes sense for both guys. Glover gets a big win over a former champion. If Rashad wins, he derails the Glover hype train. I thought that was a good idea. Well, actually, I agree with you because, you know, the minute that fight was over, and I was thinking, okay, what do you do next with Rashad?

My thought was Glover to Shera. And I think it was because, again, one of the reasons I thought that was if Glover to Shera is going to get a shot at John Jones, and he's kind of working on that path, you know, or Gustafson of Gustafson wins, Rashad is a big name, and a win over Rashad will make people think, you know, that, okay, this guy, you know, again, he beat Rampage, who was a name, but passed his prime. And, you know, if he could beat Rishad and Rampage, he's beaten two top guys, plus Rashad just come up a win over Dan. So I like, I like that.

That was actually the first thing that popped into my head, too. I thought one of the biggest stories to come out of 161 wasn't the main event. It is what the UFC is going to do with Roy Nelson. And that, to me, was the most intriguing part going into the card because Roy Nelson, much like Dan Henderson, I thought he could be the first free agent in a while who can kind of control his own destiny. Not a champion, but a guy who goes into free agency on a winning streak. A lot of people expected him to defeat Steve Amiochich. He goes out and puts on a stinker.

Amiochich beat him up. And he beat him at his own game. Great boxing. We know he has the history and the golden gloves. And Nelson was not in shape and he did not put on a good performance. And now he goes into free agency on a loss. What do you think is going to happen with Roy? It sounds like Dana legitimately, sincerely wants to keep him around.

Do you think he will be back in the UFC? You know, it's funny. It's like that's completely up to Roy. I'm sure that they made him an offer. Now, you know, Dana, I also heard, you know, kind of said like, you know, Roy gambled and lost. Yeah. So I wonder if the offer that they had made to him going in, you know,

the next, you know, they may make a new offer and go, look, now that you're coming off of a loss, you know, we may have it, you know, the offer may not be as good, which will be tough for Roy. Now, the one thing with Roy, where I think is to his benefit is I think that Roy would be the kind of a guy who would fit really well with Bellator. Because, again, he is a name. They don't have a lot of good heavyweights.

He can be on their reality show. I mean, the one thing that I, that the most, you know, the only impressive thing about Roy on Saturday night was his walkout. And I mean, the thing is, Roy's always been very popular. But when he walked out, and you were there live. So, I mean, and I wasn't there live. But from watching it on TV, when he walked out, it was the first time that, I've ever seen Roy where I thought, oh my God, this guy is really the superstar that we all thought, because that cult thing that Roy could be, that these three knockouts, it really made him that every man hero. And when he walked out, he had that now, of course, then he went and did that fight.

And then that's the, but he's still, you know, like, there's 400 fighters in UFC, but everyone knows Roy. And I think that that's the kind of a guy where he could get an offer from Bellator. You know, where a lot of the guys from UFC, if they went to Bellator or not, it would, it would, it would. wouldn't really be a big deal. He's kind of got that, you know, personality. So I, you know, but, you know, the other thing we've got to think about Roy is, you know, Roy turns 37 in just a couple days. And, you know, he's 37 and he's, you know, that's, that's always an issue, too. I wonder if Roy will ever crack the top five. He seems to be a 15 to six kind of guy. I wonder if he has what it takes to get into the top five. We're talking about Bellator. We're talking about

free agency and all that. I just want to get, since you know about this more than anyone, Rampage doing the King Mo thing. And now he's been on team. in the last two weeks, is this going to work out? It seems to me like a... I don't know. I'm not getting excited, and I just don't feel like these guys realize how difficult it is to make it in the pro wrestling world. What do you think?

Do you have high hopes for this? No, not really. Because, again, I mean, there was a time, there was a time when Ken Shamrock came in. Of course, Ken Shamrock was a trained pro wrestler. But I think that, like, in the 90s when MMA was kind of a novelty thing, and I mean, I thought that an MMA fighter who knew pro wrestling, you know, like it, it was done in Japan. There was kind of a thing where a crossover would mean something. Now, when Rampage first came on in Atlanta, Georgia, he did get a much bigger reaction than I thought.

So that was good. And as far as his performance, it was so short, you really couldn't read anything into it other than they put him with Kurt Angle. And Kurt made the segment into actually a great, you know, three-minute segment that he had. But again, what are they going to do with them? and how much is he going to train? And, you know, again, his body's already injured. You know, coming in and he's 35 years old,

and wrestling is, you know, like, you know, everyone will knock it for what it is, but it is so tough on your body. It's tougher on your body than MMA. And if you had, like, really, really great creative and you worked with him with, like, a Kurt Angle, and you did a good program, and Rampage could be good on interviews,

and the potential for Rampage to be good on interviews is absolutely there. And the people did see him as a star. so it was a better debut than, you know, I mean, the problem with Mo was is that people really didn't know Mo and it was kind of like, you're telling someone,

somebody's a superstar, but the fans were like, but I don't know him because the wrestling fans didn't know Mo. When Rampage came out, they did the same thing. We're telling you he's a superstar. But when he came out,

you saw all those camera phones go off. And I was like, these people think he's a superstar. So that is something good. But in the long run, you know, that initial reaction is great to have, but you've got to be able to perform.

at a certain level. So it's really going to be up to Rampage's ability to transfer the promo style that he had in pride, which would work in pro wrestling, and that he sometimes showed in UFC, to pro wrestling, and the potential's there, and the in-ring, which is going to be a whole lot tougher, he's going to have to either be protected or he's going to have to just work so, so hard to get up to speed on that. And I don't know, I don't know that you can do that while you're still trying to do a MMA career.

I mean, I know when I talked to Kurt Angle, Kurt Angle just felt that you could not do both at the same time because he tried with the amateur wrestling, which isn't the same as MMA, but you know, he tried to do his amateur wrestling at the same time as keeping up a pro wrestling schedule. And, you know, when he was done, he just said you cannot do both at the same time. And, and I

think that, again, Rampage, if he gave up the fighting, could he do pro wrestling? Maybe. But again, like you said, it's harder than I think a lot of these guys think when they just go, hey, you know, I can go and act and do that, you know, that stuff for easy money. Pro wrestling is not easy money. Let's end on this, Dave.

161 came and went. It was just there. Nothing to write home about. And now we have three weeks, essentially, to build a 162, July 4th weekend. That's a show that the UFC now is trying to make kind of like their WrestleMania, you know, the big fight week, all that stuff, put on a big title fight. They got Anderson Silva versus Chris Wyman. What are your hopes for this? Will this be a big show? Do you think the hype train, the Chris Wyman hype train? You see the promo. It's all about Chris, about the fighters predicting Chris to win. Do you think people will buy into this? I don't think people know Chris well enough. I think that the way they're promoting it is the only way you can promote it. Because people don't know Chris, you've got to tell people that, you know, you have a chance to see, you know, to me, if I was doing this, it's like, you have a chance to see history, the greatest fighter in the world. He really can lose to this guy. And I think that the public is sitting here going like, to who, this guy? You know, but, you know, I mean, the problem was just that his big win was with Mark Munoz on fuel. It was a year ago.

He then got hurt. so the momentum kind of got hurt. And the fuel show wasn't really very well watched. The fight with Damien Maya, while he won, people don't remember the fight. And it was probably his worst performance. And in other fights, you know, yeah, he looked good, but they were undercard fights against guys. You know, people weren't focused on him as a star at that point. Right.

So it's early. I don't know that it's going to, I think it's going to be a tough one. I think it's going to be a tough one to do. I don't see it all right because of Anderson. I don't see it doing any kind of monster numbers. and for the July show, I wish that they, you know, I like the idea of this July show being like a WrestleMania, but you needed more depth than this show doesn't have the depth.

To be that, you know, it's just another UFC pay-per-view to me. You know, with Anderson, I mean, it's, you know, but it's not, you know, I don't see it like the GSP Nick Diaz fight. Unless something unforeseen happens, I don't see it anywhere near that ballpark. Well, hopefully the unforeseen happening is not an injury at the top because that would be devastating for the UFC. We will wait and see July 6 that goes down. Dave, always a pleasure.

Catch him on wrestlingobserver.com, MMAfighting.com, or on Twitter, Dave Meltzer, W-O-N. We appreciate the time. Dave. We'll talk to you soon. Okay, thanks, Ariel. There he is. Dave Meltzer, the one and only stopping by.

We're talking UFC 161, UFC 162. UFC 162. It now has the spotlight. You can see the program right there. Chris Wyman, Anderson Silva. They debuted the promo during the 161 pay-per-view. And, you know, we've got three weeks. weeks. And that's a good thing for the UFC. They've got three weeks to promote Chris

Wyman to promote the fact that he has a shot of beating Anderson Silver. There are no shows between now and then. And I like that. For a show like this, it needs time. You need all hands on deck for this one. Because he very well can upset Anderson Silver, but you want people to watch it if he does. And I thought the first promo was okay. I'd like to hear more from him, but that was just the first one. I'm sure more will come out. And like I said to Dave, I thought 161 was just kind of there. It was what we thought it was going to be nothing huge. No big news to talk about coming off of it. Alexis Davis, very tired after her win over Rosie Sexton. You know, she had her opportunities to finish Rosie, but Rosie was tough. People thought Alexis was just

going to run right through her. Rosie's been in this game a long time, and she has fought bigger opponents. She fought Gina Carrano, who fought as high as 145. In fact, higher sometimes, if you know what I'm saying. So she was not going to lay down for Alexis David. and then you could tell by the third round Alexis Davis, very tired could hardly speak to Joe Rogan in the post-fight interview. The Jimmo fight was just, what more can you say about it? I mean, I guess the only news there was that Jimmo didn't do the robot afterwards, but he said he went the conservative route,

and he got the win that he needed, although sometimes those wins are kind of like losses in the eyes of the UFC, I think. It was not a good fight out of both Jimo and Igor Pich. And then Sean Jordan defeating Pat Barry on the opener there, you know, that was, I guess, the highlight of the pay-per-view. Although, Steve Miochitz, let's give him credit. I mean, it was a decision win. But that was a fine performance.

You know, he outboxed Roy Nelson, landed an incredible amount of strikes, and beat him at his own game, essentially. I mean, didn't score the big knockout punch, but Nelson had nothing for him and was very tired, very quickly. But how about Sean Jordan, knocking out Pat Barry in a matter of seconds? A huge win for Jordan now, 2-0 since that stinker against Czech Congo. and there were some nice performances on the undercard. James Krause comes to mind, Roland DeLorm as well, and how about Mitch Clark? Very emotional afterwards.

If you have not seen that post-fight interview, I do suggest you check it out. All right, let's move along. What I think was the story of the weekend, as I said to Dave, Friday night, Las Vegas, Nevada, Josh Berkman choking out John Fitch in a matter of seconds, leaving him unconscious, standing over him with the fist raise. A huge win for the People's Warrior,

and he joins us right now via the magic of Skype. Josh, how are you? I'm doing really well, you? I'm doing great. Congratulations. Has this set in yet? I actually, I'm still in shock. You know, it's not that I was doubting you or anything.

I just, the whole thing, the way it unfolded that quickly, choking him unconscious, I still feel like I'm in shocked. What about you? No, I agree. You know, I'm still, I just got home last night. Now that I'm home and unpacking. You know, it's settling in a little bit, but, you know, right when me and my wife and my little boy got home last night, we flipped on the TV and our kids.

me and Fitch's fight was starting. Wow. That was the first time I really got to, you know, watch it on TV. And, you know, I think that it's, I think that the fight is a little shocking, you know. So I think that we should all be a little bit, you know, a little shocked and taken off by it. What was it like watching it again? You know, it's, it was just kind of fun to watch, you know. It was fun to watch sitting there with my wife and my little boy and being able to just kind of enjoy it as a fan, you know.

and just kind of seeing how it went down instead of trying to believe that it went down like that. So it was just, it was fun to watch. And, you know, I think the World Series of Fighting production does a great job. And, you know, I'm just, I'm happy about the performance and the World Series of fighting and the way things are going. Be honest with me here. Did you expect that? Did you envision that? Not so much the win, but the way it happened because we've never seen John Fitch.

He was knocked out by Johnny Hendricks, but that was kind of a flash deal to get beat up and then choked unconscious. that very shocking did you expect that to happen no you know I didn't I didn't expect it to happen like that I did expect to be him you know I in the second round you know I thought I'd be able to finish him the second round I kind of said that in my interviews but I didn't think that the first round was gonna be very easy you know I thought it was gonna be very I thought he'd be I thought John Fitch would be aggressive and I thought it would be a grind trying to fit set it up and I figured you know I'd be able to get my speed my timing down and be able to

find my range you know in that second round So no, I mean, I didn't expect to finish him like that. And, you know, I didn't necessarily expect to finish Aaron Simpson like I finished him either. So I just, you know, sometimes you just got to go with what opens up. And when they go like that, you just tip your hap to martial arts. And it works out like that. When you rocked him and he fell to the mat, what's going through your mind there? I know it's very quick.

But are you like, oh, snap, I can actually finish him right now? You know, I did for one split second, you know, but then I seen that he started to recover a little bit. So when I first put the guillotine on him, I was just doing it to stand him back up so we could exchange again because I didn't want to get too excited or overly aggressive that soon in the fight. So I just wanted to stand him back up. I was going to kind of push him away and just go back at it again. But when he grabbed my leg, I thought I could get around that corner. And when I tried it, the choke tightened up standing,

and I just figured it was going to be a good time to go for it as any. Okay, now we get to, unfortunately, you know, I don't want to call him. called controversy, but a major talking point, as you may have heard, Steve Mazagadi, the referee, you know, you choked him out, you felt that he was out, and you let go of John. He never came in and stopped it, even though on television, you can kind of tell that John's body went limp. You know, why did you do that? Because you're trained as a fighter to stop when the referee stops you. Did you think, you know, what's going on here? Why isn't this guy coming in here to stop the fight? Well, you know, I think it was, I think that I think it probably surprised

Mazegati. You know, as far as me, I knew when I went to the ground that I had the choke. And I knew it was really tight. And so when we went down to the ground, I knew I knew Fitch went out, you know, and I tightened it, you know, real fast just to make sure. And I got a lot of respect for John Fitch, you know, I got a lot of respect for, I mean, just who he is, you know, and I didn't feel like there was any need in holding that choke or trying to, you know, prove anything else.

You know, I knew that the fight was over. So, and Mazegadi, you know, I think he's getting harsh criticism. He probably could have been in a little bit better position, you know, but I think that there was, as soon as John Fitch out, I went, I'd let go of it, you know. And Mazagati could have been in a better position, probably. But at the same time, I think as soon as Fitch went out, I'd let go of it. So it wasn't a big opportunity to jump in there and stop the fight anyway. So you've seen the criticism, most notably from Dana White.

You don't think it's fair. You know, I think it's a little harsh. I think that part of it is justified, you know. I mean, I think he could have been down there and been in a little position. But I think Mazagati maybe felt the flow of the energy in the fight. He knew I was going to take care of it, laying him down nicely, and get out of the way. Did he say anything to you after the fight? Mazagotti?

Yeah. No, not really. you know, it was a little bit of a little chaos, you know, so I was just trying to give my wife my baby a kiss, and then I got kind of rushed out of there. So I didn't have a chance to talk to Mazagati or hear his thoughts on it, no. Since this was John's first fight out of the UFC, do you feel like he may have, you know, looked past you? He had the win over you. You know, maybe he thought I'm going to come in here, the ex-contender of the UFC and just kind of steamroll through these guys.

Do you think he was not giving you the respect that you deserved? You know, I think it would have been a hard for Fitch to not underestimate me, you know. And I said that in a couple interviews, you know. I just don't think there's a way that John Fitch can understand how much I've improved as a martial artist just by watching me. You know, so I think he probably didn't intentionally, you know, underestimate me. But I'm sure that he thought, you know, that he was going to come in and win. and because, you know, he was healthy, his training went well. So I think that there's no way that he couldn't have underestimated me coming into this fight.

You know, I'm sure he expected to get back on top and get back in the winning column, you know. So WSOF has put on three shows. You've been on every single one of them. You've looked great. The Simpson fight was amazing. This fight, obviously spectacular. Your one blunder, in my opinion, was after the Simpson fight, you kind of dismissed the fitch rematch. It sounded like you didn't want it.

Right. Why? That was very surprising to me. Why was that your approach when they brought it up in the cage? Right. Well, you know, they hadn't mentioned it before the fight, and so when they said you're fighting John Fitch now, you know, I just thought it was a really neat opportunity

for the World Series of fighting to let... I hurt my hand in that fight against Aaron Simpson. I tore my retina... I come off my hammet. So basically tore a ligament in my hand, and I knew that I did. So that was part of it. But I figured I needed a fight some time off.

And I thought that it would be good for the World Series of Fighting to have John Fitch come in and establishes himself in the organization. And then that would give both of us a chance to fight for the title. And nobody had been talking about any titles or anything in the World Series of Fighting. And I didn't think that there could be a better fight for the World Series of Fighting for one of the first title belts, me and John Fitch. So I wasn't saying John Fitch needed to earn a shot to get to. to me by any means, you know, John Fitch signing with the World Series of Fighting instantly

made him the top welterweight in our organization. I just thought it was a good opportunity to, you know, let him come in, get a win, and, you know, you had a title fight with me and Fitch. The other thing is, is that there's a title clause in our contracts, and I managed myself, so somebody had to start talking about the title pitcher, and I figured that I was probably one of the only welterweights in position. position to be able to bring it up. So it was a combination of those things and, you know, and I managed myself so I wanted to create a little negotiation there. All right. So it's smart.

I take back the blunder comment. But so you speak of the contract here, what is your contract situation like with them? How many fights you have left? When that came up with the World Series of fighting and the me and John Fitch fight, I talked to Ali, I talked to Ray Sefa and they said, hey, we told the fans of this fight's going to happen. What do we need to do for it to happen? And they made it, uh, They made it, you know, they gave me what I wanted. And so I signed a new four-fight contract, and that was the first fight of the four fights.

So I have three fights left on my contract after this one. And are you promised a title shot at some point? Yeah, I've pretty much been promised to the title shot now. You know, in the conference call that we had before the fight, Ray Seffa said that the winner of John Fitch and I would end up with the first title shot, you know, and since then, Ray Sefa, Ali, they've just said your next fight will be for the world title. So it looks like I'm in line and I'll be the first one. I don't know exactly how they're going to decide who it is,

whether it's going to be Steve Carrow, whether it's, you know, I don't know exactly what they're going to do. And I did re-injure my fight in the, or my hand in the fight. So, you know, I'll probably be out at least six weeks. I've got to go see an orthopedic this week. So once I find that out, then we'll have a clearer picture of what's next. Do you think you'll need surgery? You know, I hope not.

I, you know, I was supposed to, you know, I was wrecked. surgery was recommended to me on my wrist after the Aaron Simpson fight, and instead I ended up going and getting the platelets and the stem cell. And, you know, I knew I was going to re-injure my hand against Fitch in this fight, but I figured it was a great opportunity for me, a great opportunity for the World Series of fighting. And, you know, so I'll just go see the orthopedic. Now my finger, this one right here is, it's got that little crook on it now. Yeah. So they say it's probably a tendon. It could be, you know, broken.

I don't really know. So I know I'm out at least six weeks. But I'm going to try to avoid surgery and get back as soon as I can. Do you have a preference as to who you fight in the cage for the title? No, I don't. Not at all. I think Steve Carl's kind of earned a shot. He's 2 and O in the organization and had a couple impressive wins.

You know, I also think that if I have to sit out a while, a fight between John Fitch and Steve Carl to see, you know, if, you know, there could be a fight to get in there to help kind of promote that title fight would be good. But, you know, I don't have any preference or whoever. You know, I'm just, I'm excited to get a chance to, you know, get the first title shot in the World Series of fighting. That would be pretty cool.

What's interesting is, in case, you have three fights left on your contract and not to dog them, but, you know, we were talking, is your son leaving? My wife and my little boy. Honey, come here. Want to say hi? I love you. Yeah, they're taking off.

They're going to the grocery store. And by the way, I must say, I love how your family is so important to you, and you can just see it, you know, after the fight. It's just a very nice thing to see. So congratulations on just being in a happy place in your life. You know, a lot of people now naturally say we want to see Josh Berkman in the UFC. We want to see him back there. He just beat John Fitch.

He just beat Aaron Simpson. That's the first thing that comes to mind. Do you want to be back in the UFC? You know, I'm very happy with where I'm at. You know, my goal originally was always to get back to the UFC. You know, me and Joe Silva kept in touch. You know, I told Joe Silva right before I signed with the World Series of Fighting, I said, listen, you know, I believe that I'm in a better place than I've ever been, you know.

And he's just like, you know, with the merge with Strike Force, I don't have a lot of spots, just keep winning and we'll bring you back. So our relationship was fine, and that was my goal. But when the World Series of Fighting came up, I was, it just felt like the right place for me to be. And, you know, I was joking around the other day and I said, I want to be the Dr. J of MMA. And somebody goes, well, if you want to be the Dr. J of MMA,

you just got a slam dunk. So, you know, I really am happy with this organization. They've kind of gotten behind me and I've been able to, you know, come back up through them and they have my loyalty right now. And, you know, I have three fights left with them and I'm not planning on trying to get out of my contract or, or any of that. I'm very happy where I'm at.

For those that might not get the reference, what do you mean by Dr. Jay of MMA? Well, Dr. Jay took the ABA, you know, and made it very popular to where the NBA had to come in and they rivaled the NBA because he did, because he was such a dynamic player, you know? So I really want to help this organization grow, and I think that the best years of my career are ahead of me,

and I think that with a new organization, and where I'm at in my career, that it's just a very unique opportunity for me to help this organization grow and vice versa. How do you explain this turnaround eight and one since leaving the UFC? You've obviously defeated some very, very tough guys. And we look at you, you were on the ultimate fighter season two. You had an okay run in the UFC,

but then you were released after that three-fight losing streak. Now you have turned into a completely different fighter, a killer out there, a finisher, a guy who goes out there and just knocks people out within second. What happened? How do things turn around for you? You know, I mean, it's a, it's a very long story. You know, one day we, you know, get into it a little bit more.

Sure. The big thing is, is my last, you know, getting off the ultimate fighter and getting into the UFC for a 25-year-old kid was a very, it was a cool experience. And I was focused when I got off, you know, but then I kind of, you know, the fame and the attention was very, was, was, I got caught up in it. And not caught up in it where, like, destroyed. me or anything, but I would train for my fights for about six weeks or eight weeks. And then after my fights, I would travel around and I would live the lifestyle and I would

enjoy the lifestyle. And, you know, that would make my life and my career kind of go up and down. You know, or to now, and so I say I was a fighter and I was just training for fights. And, you know, you don't get the best out of yourself doing that. And also living that lifestyle ended up hurting my back. You know, I ended up with injuries. because when you get out of shape and then you train so hard to get back in shape, it's hard on your body. So, you know, with that being said, I ended up getting hurt against Mike Swick when I was training for him snowboarding.

You know, then I fought Dustin Hazlet, and when I fought Dustin Hazlet, I was winning that fight, and I picked him up and I slammed him, and I herniated a disc in my neck. So after that, it was just a whole bunch of problems, and I called Joe Sylvan. I said, Joe Silva, you know, I'm injured. I can't train. I need to take some time off. Well, Joe Silva called me about a week and a half later and offered me the fight with Pete Sell. And in that fight with Pete Sell, you know,

I had a really good first round, but then I was tired, and I was just, I was, you know, I was training twice a week, hitting mitts with Sean Tompkins, and I wasn't able to train like a professional fighter should be training, especially one that's competing in the UFC. So after that, me and Joe Silva talked, and I just told him, hey, I'm going to take time, off. He's like, it's probably a good time for that. My contract was up anyway. And, you know, I took a

year off. And in that year off, I had mixed martial arts taken away from me. And during that time, I just got to process, you know, my career. I got to reflect. I got to think about things. I worked in Las Vegas with the Nevada sports institution. I rehabbed my back. I had a sports psychologist. I had a guy named Robert Donatelli, who was a rehab guy. He's the number one guy for the PGA tour right now. He helped me rehab my back and my nerves. And then, you know, it was just a whole spiritual transformation for me, you know, that transformed my whole life.

And, you know, then coming back, I was just a different fighter. But the final thing was getting married really kind of turned me into a man, made me more responsible, gave me some structure to my life. And then, you know, we added our little boy. And when that happened, it just gave me so much energy and renewed my spirit and my passion for what I do. and you know I think now it's just a reflection of you know that I've kind of been able to put everything together and make my own style of fighting and I really know myself and what I want to do

better and I think that's the reason for for these performances and where I'm at in my career right now and in my life it's a tremendous story very happy for you're 32 years old you you've resurrected your career this is the second chapter maybe maybe I should say the third or fourth chapter for you nevertheless it's a very good chapter how many more years do you want to to do this for? You know, I always said I wanted to get 50 fights, and that was my 37th fight, I believe. So 13 more fights, you know, that's probably about four years. So, you know, I have a lot of other things that I want to do after mixed martial arts.

You know, but the main thing that I want to be able to do is when I get done, I really want these last few years of my career, I want to put everything that I have into it and be as dedicated and as focused as I can so that when I'm done, I say, that's as good as I could have been. You know, I did my very best, and that's as good as I could have been, and I can walk away from competition and mix martial arts and be happy with my career. And if I would have had to do that when I walked away from the UFC or at any point in my career before this, I would have known that I didn't give everything that I had, you know. And now I'm doing that, and it's bringing out the best in me, and I think,

think that that will help take me in the right direction for the next couple of years. Well, Josh, I think I speak for everyone in the MMA community. Cannot wait to see you fight again. You have become MustCTV. It's amazing seeing you transform from the guy on the Ultimate Fighter season two to now. You have put words of fighting, in my opinion, on the map. Congratulations. Enjoy it.

Enjoy the win. Enjoy your time with your family. Get well soon. And like I said, cannot wait to see you back in there. Thanks so much for the time. Yeah, we'll do. Thanks for having me and appreciate it very much. There he is.

Josh Berkman, the, you. You could say right now, the top star in World Series of Fighting, an organization that has guys like Anthony Johnson on the roster. They signed Nick Newell, who I've called MustCTV, but this man has performed in three straight events for them. He knocked out Aaron Simpson, choked out John Fitch, and you see humble, appreciative, head not getting too big. A great story, Josh Berkman.

You may remember him from the Ultimate Fighter Season 2, transforming his life and his career into. what we see today, an unbelievable story, and that's what we love about MMA so much. Let's transition. Let's go back to Bellator. It's Belator 96 on Wednesday, 8 p.m. Eastern, the main card, 6 p.m. Eastern, the undercard on SpikeTV.com. A big show for them. It will kick off the Fightmaster Reality Show, which begins this Wednesday as well at 10 p.m. Eastern. And the headlining act is our good friend, King Mo Lle. He faces Seth Petrazelli. It's a mini tournament in their light heavyweight division, and good to have King Mo back.

on the show. King Moe, how are you? I'm good, man. What's up with you? Not much, King Mo. It's been a while. It's good to have you back on the show. Lots to get to with you. I want to ask you first before we get into the fight. I know you train with Roy Nelson. Do you think he'll be joining you in Bell-Tor? Do you think you'll stick around in the UFC? I don't know. I have no idea. I've trained with him, you know, train with him. They're talking business. You know, we train. We're cool. We're trained. He's a cool dude. I don't know what he's going to do. So that's a different for him to decide.

You know, I really don't know. Are you going to try to recruit him to come over to Belator? I don't know. It's like this. I want Roy to go where he's going to get paid the most, and whoever's going to treat him the best. So whoever gives the best offer, he should go with. You know what I'm saying?

I'm not to try to recruit nobody for nobody, you know what I'm saying. I just know that, you know, it comes down to Roy's decision. and whoever offers him the best deal, he's going to sign with. That's how it is my fight game. Absolutely. You train with him for this fight. Were you shocked by that performance, that result?

Yeah, I was very shocked, but then I started to sit back at the first round, and I was like, you know what? He's over-trained. Because people want, people could say how they want to say about Roy's physique and Roy this, but do trains hard. You know, see, I'm watching train at the mayor of the gym, throwing 500 punches around. I watched him You know

You grapple He wrestles You know You know I'm saying I think that I think that He's over

He's being like Overtrained Peaked a little to really In his camp But the camp Really was not much Of a camp

Because he He fought To fight Santos He was training back then I'm back When he came back He got back

The training And then I think That he got To be myosic He kind of Maybe started off Too hard And didn't

Let taper down For his stingo I don't know I just know that he looked over-trained and part of the game, you know, sometimes. What did you think on Thursday when he said that your good friend, Daniel Cormier, pulled an Uncle Tom move when he said he wanted to kick his ass for Dana White. Was that over the line? Again, I haven't even seen that, you know.

You know, as far as like what he says, what he said, you know, I think that he either handle that in the cage, but what he says, that's how, that's how boy is out. How did it come out? What was all said in that interview? So Daniel Cormier told me that he wanted to fight Roy Nelson next, you know, before this fight. And he said, I want to kick his ass because Roy said that he was offered a fight against Daniel at UFC 161, and Daniel turned it down.

Daniel claims that it was brought up, but he wasn't medically clear to take the fight. And then he felt like, you know, Roy kind of called him out for turning it down. So he said, I want to kick his ass. And not only that, in a kind of joking matter, I want to kick his ass for Dana White because of their animosity. I asked Roy about that. What did you make of Daniel Cormier saying he wanted to kick your ass for Dana White? And kind of paraphrasing here, but this is essentially it. He said, well, I have a lot of black friends, and they would say that's an Uncle Tom move.

I don't know. To me, it's just, you know, it's talk. It's a way, you know, that's a good way to get a fight going. You know, to me, I don't know. I don't know. Whatever. You know, Daniel, he's not that kind of guy. I mean, that's a very, that's a racist thing to say about someone, right? Yeah, yes and no, I guess, but Roy's not racist because, you know, Roy's the mayor with the gym.

He's the only white dude except a few of the people at the gym. Right. His boy James is a black dude. He's trained by a black dude in boxing. He's trained with me. They're a black dude. And he has a homeboy, Ryan Martini, he trained in Mexican. You know what I'm saying?

So I believe, though, I don't think he's racist. I think that we're in this time of a day's real talk. People can say what they want, but, you know, Uncle Tom don't mean the same as it does now. To me, Uncle Tom's like a brown-nosed type, you know what I'm saying? Dude's like this type kiss on the ass or whatever, but, you know, depending where you're from, it can mean different things. You see Uncle Tom down south and you're your stab somebody by on the West Coast, man. I don't know, really. Firstly, I'm just saying, hey, I'm not in it.

It's between them to. Whatever happens happens. But I really don't, I don't know the whole situation. I really don't know the whole deal. But what if Roy does get matched up against Daniel? Considering your relationship with Daniel, what would you do? Man, you know, that's a tough right there. That's a tough one, you know what if?

You know, because, you know, Dan's like a brother than me and Ward's my dog and saying, I just have to stay out of me. All right. That seems like the right call to make. Okay, so you're fighting on Wednesday. You're back. Of course, the last time we saw you talk about shocking results. You're lost to Emmanuel Newton was very shocking for us.

How long did it take for you to get over that? I don't know what the day it happened. Because the thing is that I've got caught, you know what I'm saying? I've got caught. I'm about back. Hopefully I get a chance to fight a manual again. If I not, then I've had the ability to work as way to me. I'm just moving forward, you know, saying?

Because really, you know, things happen and that happened, and I can just train hard and train smart and move forward. Did you take some time off, or did you get right back into it? I was right back into it. the next that Monday. I was back to get because we're trying for a fight himself. So I was back in the mix that Monday. How is this one different than the Fajal loss,

in terms of the way you dealt with it? Or did the Fajow loss prepare you for something like this? Yeah, well, I lost in college and amateur wrestling preparing for all this, because some people would be like, you lost in M.A. Well, I lost in pro-rest, and rocked the amateur wrestling. And to me, you know, my main, my biggest dream was to be an Olympic champion. So, you know, I fell short for the Olympic trials. And that was, that was rough things.

It still has me a little bit to the day. But as far as I may, you know, like, you know, I don't know. I just want to go out there to fight, have a good time, you know, whatever, make money. But when it comes out to it, that loss, I put it back, put it behind me, I cleaned a few things up and then it would happen again. When you say the Olympic trials loss still haunts you in what way? How does it still haunt you all these years later? Well, it's like this.

I was a favorite to win the Olympics. I beat the champion. Revis Vindis Vili from Georgia. I beat him. You know, I'd smash him when we wrestled. I was up, but one point with like, 15 seconds left I get taken down and turned. You know, if I was going to win that match, 15 seconds, I'll probably be in an Olympic. champion.

You know what I got beat. You know, I got hit. So, you know, got hot because I think about it. I'm like, man, I kept in the Olympics. Because that's why I first started wrestling, I didn't know about college wrestling. I just knew that, hey, wrestled, wrestling is the Olympics. So the thing is, if I'm going to be a wrestler, I want to be an Olympic champion. So that's what I thought.

That's all I thought about the Olympics. That's that I heard about college wrestling. So, but my main goal is to be an Olympic champion. Olympic and World Champion. And I came up short. You mentioned that you changed some things up after the noon laws. Like what? Oh, just technical stuff.

Like, you know, and warm up. The thing is sometimes, like, my God, I get so turned up and wired up that I'm looking for it. I'm slitting hard. I'm sitting there's going to be loading up too much. You know, there's no need to me to load up. There must be small gloves on, you know, saying, and I got, and I worked on that because I don't need a load up. worked on that and uh the last of all when you load up your hand will come back and up to your face

when I was signing Emmanuel Newton he threw a right hand I load up my right hand and threw it left and when I pivoted out my right hand was coming up and before it could come up he threw a spinning back fist or he's throwing a spin back fist and it landed on me you know what I was just loading up too much and that's what you watch a lot even in boxing even kickboxing the guys that load up a lot of the guys that get beat up

and there's no point in loading up. You were criticized a lot after the fight for keeping your hands too low. Was that fair? Well, if people want to think that, you know, it's like this. It's like a man who's out there to touch me up, like, out boxing me and I was striking me, you know what I'm saying? Nothing really going on. If anything, I was letting more on him.

But the thing is that, like, people will say that, oh, you keep my hands on, I'm trying to make with it. Well, no, I'm not sure about it, may with it. As a matter of fact, I'm trying by Jeff Maywe. Jeff May whether. And Floyd box nothing like. Roger May with him, Floyd, Box nothing like the like.

Floyd's more like his dad, Floyd, Sr. They had that style. I'm not trying to like Floyd at all because last of my check, Ford don't get kicked on at him. You know what I'm saying? I'm just doing what's comfortable for me. If I'm out of range, my hands have got to be up. You know what I'm saying? My hands have got to be up.

If I'm in range, my hands are up. If I'm looking to counter you, yeah, I'll put one hand down to bait you so I can counter you. Some people just think that, oh, you know, people's both hands are. up, motherfucker, I know what I'm doing. Shucka, I know what I'm doing. So just my zone, don't work about what I'm doing. Mind your own.

What's up with Seth Petrazelli talking some smack? It seems like he's been ramping it up over the last few days. Does that surprise you? No, you know what I'm saying? Sheppon's what I'm saying. You know what I'm saying?

I'm not worried about what he's doing, what he's saying. I'm concerned about where I got to win come Wednesday. Does anything that he brings to the table concern you? Uh, no. I'm saying, no, not really. Um, he's just an orthodox, um, you know, and he just, he's just goofy, you know what I'm saying? So, I've got to be solid and that's, that's it. And by the way, when you say he's goofy, do you mean in or out of the cage?

Both, you know, you know, he's a weird dude, man, with his character, and he just does what he wants to do. He's like a, he's like a, um, a white Japanese guy, like as far as the fighting style. You know, You know what I'm saying? Chuber is kind of like in Minari. In Minari, like his fight style is kind of like a Japanese style of a sense. You know what I'm saying? Did you get the feeling that the King Mo bandwagon, if you will, got a lot lighter, a lot more space on that thing after you were lost in February.

It felt like a lot of people were all amped up about you, all psyched about you in Belator, and he followed you in Strike Force and whatnot. But then when you lost, it was like, oh, yeah, we told you so, King Mo, you know, he's nothing more than rest of keeping his hands on. Did you get the sense that a lot of people turned their back on you? I don't know because the thing is like real talk, like

everybody that I'm cool with that I talk to I know if you have my phone number you know what I'm saying so I'm in contact my circle is small it's kind of big

as far as like people I know and I'm cool it but as small as the people that I really pay attention to as far as everybody on Twitter I don't know with them Twitter you know

the people that want to talk trash on Twitter if you look at their profile pictures or you look at their followers they're like what what what you know Who are they?

Well, they accomplished. You know, my worst, loss is bigger and greater than their biggest win. So I'm not worried about what they have to say. The big news over the last week or so in Bellator, of course, was the signing of Rampage Jackson, and he pulled a King Mall. He's going the wrestling route. He appeared on T&A and all that stuff. Do you feel like he's kind of, you know, stealing your swag?

You did this first. Now he's copying you. No, because anything, if anything, the Japanese, we're still in. that's swag because they did it first. Sure. You know what I'm saying? So, you know, I'm happy for, I'm happy that you're doing something he always want to do, you know what I'm saying, getting paid.

You know, I wish more people could get a deal like that. I wish, you know, I like to see Cyborg or Marlose or even a Desca Aguard or somebody, just, just the eyes. Some of them grow up there, even Rhonda, get a deal with doing some stuff for pro wrestling because I think that'd be cool, you know. I feel like, you know, you got guys like Kyle Kingsbury, you know, Tom Waller, Rashad, you know, I like to see some of those guys, you know, get a chance to do some pro wrestling WVETNA.

That's like, you know, it brought your horizons and it makes things fun for you. So where do you stand now with the pro wrestling? And I'll admit, I don't watch, you know, I probably only, you know, even think about it when you do something and now recently with Rampage because it's an MMA story. But correct me from wrong, you haven't appeared on TNA in a while, right? No, no, because I'm going through wrestling school. So I've done matches at OBW because, you know, people have to realize you guys don't sign a contract and then all of a sudden just go wrestle matches. You do that.

It's a disaster way to happen. He had to know what you're doing. You see a guy like Brock Lesnar, Brat Lesnar signed with the WWE out of college, and it took him a few years to get through wrestling school. You know, Santhew and Jack Swagger, aka Jake Hagar. You know, guys like that, you just don't sign contact with all of a sudden you start wrestling matches. is, you know, you have to learn the ins and outs of the rain before you go in there and start wrestling. And be honest with you, I kind of pick up pretty quick because I studied it a little bit, and I've done a few matches here and there and you've just been around it.

So I kind of, I think that I'm moving on pretty fast. So when do you think you'll be a reoccurring character on TNA? I'm hoping in August, you know what I'm saying? That's the plan, because, you know, I've done matches. I've done about four or five matches for OBW. Everybody doing OBW and a teen A team pretty pleased with what they saw. So I'm hoping in August. And is it hard to balance the two because it seems like they're both full-time jobs?

How do you do that? Really, the pro wrestling right now is more like a part-time job. You know what I'm saying? It's not a part-time job. It's like a 1-8 job. I'm always spending about two hours a week in the – I'm doing a little pro-w wrestling work. But we have an OBW

When I get a chance to go to OBW That's why I spend most of the time I spend a lot of time I work out to be foul out as long If not longer You know what I'm saying? Sorry, when you say you're going to go in August and be a reoccurring character

Does that mean MMA is going to be on hold And wrestling's going to be a full-time job? No, no I'll be doing both the things Here's the thing I've been traveling doing my pro-wrestle Currency in my pro-wrestling But at the same time when I'm back in Vegas

I'll be training. You know what I'm not going to be doing on the road like four days a week. I've been on the road for just a few days, maybe one and two days a week. Like, you know, I'm doing shows, if that. So are we going to reignite the feud with Rampage? Do you want to fight him in Belator?

You know, it is a thing. Right now, I'm worried about Seth Pachazil, but, you know, I wouldn't mind me and Rampage being tagging parties, you know, say we can go with that. And then, you know, see what happens with that. You know, so if we eat the belt. then, you know, it's cool if you can't,

and maybe something like, you know, we might just go our separate ways. So you want to be friends with Rampage? You want to be buddies with them? Oh, we're actually pretty cool, you know what I'm saying? I mean, Rampage is actually pretty cool. The whole stuff that happened like two or three years ago, it's in the past, you know? That stuff don't matter no more.

We don't want to hear that. The fight that everyone wants to see is you versus Rampage. We don't want to hear that you're cool. It used to happen in the Bellatory, you know, say, it's not like, you know, if my bellatory is, you know, if you're determined, I got fighters. If there's a matchup, people want to want to see, then Bill's Twitter, Vincolm, Spike TV, so make it happen.

So, you know, it's whatever right now. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not close to fight nine pages, but more than anything I would like to be a tag team partner first, you know what I'm saying. Then we can fight a tag team partners. Or fight, then tagging partners. I don't want to do it. But I think maybe fight first, tag team partners second, you know, whatever. You know, we'll see what they got playing.

You could be tag team partners, and then you throw them through a, barbershop window, you turn on him, and then you fight in Bellator. Yeah, yeah, that'd be cool, but that's not a barbershop window, you know what I'm saying? Well, maybe some other kind of window. Would you be heels or faces if you were a tag team partners? I have no idea. Probably, probably, I don't know. I have no idea. I want you to be a heel personally, you and him. I think it would be fun. I think so, too. By the way, you're in Vegas now. What happened with A.K.A.

Oh, nothing to have an A.K.A. I just, you know, I had to make a few changes. A game is still a great gym. You've got great coaches. But I just make a few changes, you know. You're still in good terms. You're part of the country club team over there, right? If there is a country club team, you know.

Wait, there isn't one. Yeah, we just try to, we do our own thing. You know what I'm saying? Like, hey, let's go spa. Hey, we're wrestling. We're grappling. Jiu-Jitsu, whatever. We're just, you know, we're kind of boxing.

You know, Roy, I call it Sinsche Roy because in grappling, he's smashing me. But, you know, we work hard, you know what I'm saying? And people want to say all they want to say about Roy, like, you know, Sezib, Roy trains hard, you know what I'm saying? And he's the hardest work as I've been around as far as he's pushing through, you know, Roy goes hard. Okay, let's end on this. You return, as I mentioned, on Wednesday against Seth Petrazzelli.

It reminds me in some ways, like your fight against Hajer Gracie, a few years back. And where was that? Was that in Cincinnati? Yeah, it wasn't Cincinnati. And it's like everyone wanted to see how you would respond, how you would bounce back. Does this feel the same way? Do you feel like all eyes are on you?

People want to see if you're for real here? I don't know. Maybe. I don't know because the thing is that, to me, I didn't know people were wondering how it bounced back with Hodger Gracie. I think of people who thought that didn't go out there and get submitted by Hodger. You know what I'm saying? So with me, I really don't know.

No, I just, you know, that I'm going to take care of business come Wednesday. I'm going to punish Seth. Oh, punish him, finish him, make him feel bad that he went in the cage with you. Yes, that's always what I want to do. All right. I look forward to it, my friend. Great to talk to you again. It goes down this Wednesday, 8 p.m. Eastern on Spike TV.

The return of King Moe. He faces Seth Petrazelli, Belltor, 96. We'll be watching King Mo. Thank you very much and good luck to you. All right, thanks, man. There he is. Mohamed Law is stopping by the Bellas. stopping by the Bellator slash TNA performer.

He returns to action this Wednesday night on Spike TV. Now, right after that main event, it is the debut of Fightmaster on Spike TV, and the star of Fightmaster, even though there are four coaches involved. There is one star on that show. He is the natural. He is the legend. He is Randy Couture. I was going to say the legend, Frank Shamrock.

He is on the show, but it's not Frank Shamrock. It's Randy Couture. He's on the show right now. Randy, how are you? I'm good, Eric. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for.

stopping by. You know, this is the first time I talked to you since the news came out that you were joining the Spike team, the Viacom team. You're going to be on this show. How are you approached? Who came up to you and said, we want you to come do this? Message came through my agent at Gertz, actually, and manager Sam. They were interested in, Sharon Levy, the director of programming, who's someone I had met before through. the ultimate fighter and has been with Spike for a long, long time. They approached me about it, I'd be interested in doing a deal with Spike TV and to develop some new programming, both in scripted and unscripted television.

How long ago was that? Oh, gosh. Only for it was early in the fall last year. So this has been kind of in motion for a little. long time. Did you have to think about it? I mean, did you sit? Because you knew if you were going over, you were going to another team. At the time, you were part of one team, a team that you've been a part of for a long time. And then, you know, it's a big deal to move on to another team. So were there a lot of nights where you were, you know, up, thinking, is this the right move for me? Was this

a tough? Okay. Absolutely. It's a long process. You know, I always have had my issues and ups and downs with Dana and with the UFC. And I felt like I wasn't being really offered any significant role moving forward that was going to help my career and the legacy that I felt like I established in the sport and was trying to give the UFC every opportunity to find a way to keep me with the company and use me in some significant fashion, but they just really didn't seem that interested. and I had this and other offers on the table. They obviously sign an NDA.

I couldn't just come out and say, hey, this is what's going on, but try to let them know that I did have offers on the table for things that were pretty significant. And, you know, the spike deal is a very good deal for me moving forward. But it was very stressful. I knew, you know, I think anybody that, knows Dan and knows how he's going to react to any of this kind of thing.

So I tried to sit down with him, had a dinner scheduled to sit down and try to talk to him about my position with the company and give him an idea that there was some pretty significant things being offered to me. Unfortunately, like so many things in this sport, the offer that was being put on the table leaked somehow, and he heard about it before that dinner. And obviously went crazy, started texting me and texting my manager and everybody else and saying all kinds of things. And the shit show, if you will, is off and running with him. So the dinner never happened.

We never really got to discuss any other options or anything else. It was a done deal at that point. I just went ahead and took the offer with Spike and moved forward in a positive way. what were you looking for? What was something that you wanted to see them present to you? Because obviously you were on Fox, that was obviously the biggest platform as far as TV is concerned, but there were just four shows.

So what else were you looking for? Yeah, you know, four shows, you know, four shows a year. Not that we were paid badly for that, but it just felt like it was underutilized and certainly wasn't a terribly significant. thing. And the guys of Fox were great. I mean, George and everybody at Fox, they're great people and great people to work with. Kurt Meneffey, all those guys were awesome. But it was still over a fourth year. I was willing to help with the lobbying and everything else was going on to

continue to promote the sport and get it sanctioned in New York. There was tons of things I was capable of doing. And obviously, it didn't work out. When part of the pitch was to bring you over to be a part of this reality show, were you on board right away, or did you think, you know, the ultimate fighter, it's been on for so long, you were part of the first season, are fans really ready? Are they willing to watch another kind of reality show involving MMA? Or did you think this was the right kind of formula to kind of combat the ultimate fighter?

Well, I think once the deal was done, and, you know, once the deal was done, and, you know, you know, and the show was pitched and the direction of the show was explained, the focus and, you know, the athletes having their control of their own destinies and the tactics, the training, the other coaches, the differences in the other coaches in our coaching styles, all those things were intriguing.

And I thought positive things, both for myself and for mixed martial arts. And, um, obviously that first season of the ultimate fighter was a very special thing. It's an amazing group of guys that I felt like were involved. You know, nobody knew if the show was going to be successful or not. I don't think they were ready to get their 10 minutes of fame on TV.

They wanted a genuine shot at being, you know, something in the sport. And almost without exception, each and every one of those guys had a great run and are still contributing to the sport in a significant way. And the subsequent seasons after that, I don't think you could say that always. So I think that first season was certainly special. And I kind of felt the same way going into this season of Fightmaster. These guys, they don't really know if the show was going to be a hit or successful. They're young, up-and-coming guys that all want their shot.

They all want a chance to compete and to make them in cage fighting. And I think they're a great group of guys. Obviously, Spike was involved in the Ultimate Fighter for many. seasons, but because this was the first one with Bellator trying to create something new, did it feel like deja vu? Did it feel like the first season all over again for you? There was a bunch of familiar faces, people that were involved in the production side of that first season, and folks are still around, you know, doing their job, doing the thing.

And so it was cool to see a bunch of them that I hadn't seen in a long time. and then just, you know, genuinely, the feel of the show, feeling like you were doing something special, doing something that was unique, different, and good for the sport, definitely kind of brought that home. You've mentioned in many interviews that Dana was the best spokesman for the show because when he did interviews and we asked him all kinds of questions about you in a non-direct way, he was, you know, pumping up the show

and getting people to talk about it, but you feel as though he crossed the line? Did he offend you with anything that he said? Because he said a lot about you. You know, I don't take any of that personal. I don't really tune into all the underground and all other stuff. And, you know, people come to me, always sit this and always said that. And, you know, I don't care. I know what the truth is. I know how I've treated people, how I try to treat them. And, yeah, fighting with them to get a fair shake and be told the truth. And, you know, that's been a struggle all along from ancillary rights on down the line. So, you know, I don't take any of that personal.

I don't really tune into it in the day-to-day running of my life. It's a small thing. But I think when you start talking about some of these kids and their family, yeah, you're crossing the line. I don't think you'd like it if I did those sorts of things to him. You know, I know his wife. I know his kids. You know, he's got my son's fate in his hands in some way here with Ryan competing

and I think not allowing me to continue to progress and work with my son on his fight careers is ridiculous. And yeah, that bothers me. It bothers me that he could affect my son's livelihood. And my son has earned his spot. Ryan has done the work. He has the passion for the sport. He's doing all the right things. and so for him to be hindered and hampered by Dana and Dana's feelings towards me, it isn't fair, and that bothers me.

You know, it made for a bit of an awkward situation because this happened around the time that Ryan was going to debut with the UFC in April against Ross Pearson, and Ryan said all the right things. He said that you, you know, had movie commitments and you weren't going to be able to make it, but honestly, I have a hard time believing, and you tell me if I'm wrong, that you weren't going to be there if you could have been there. Was that not true? Would you have been there if they had allowed you to be there in this corner? As it turned out, as it turned out, the movie I was supposed to be doing, when Ryan made that comment was true, I was supposed to be in Vancouver working on a movie. That movie fell through, got pushed, and may still happen here this next month, but I ended up at home, could have looked at purchasing a ticket,

which would have been reasonably. expensive to get to Stockholm on that short of notice, but looked at purchasing a ticket to just come and be there for that last few days of training for Ryan. And I don't know where or what or how it would watch the fight. Obviously, maybe it would have to go incognito and find a ticket and sneak into the arena or something to be there. But I don't know how that would have unfolded. And I think it's ridiculous that they would even have to think about that.

So why didn't you do it? For one purpose. Uh, would have been probably about $11,000 or $12,000 to, oh, wow. To fly over on that short of notice. Uh, and then I wasn't even sure that, that I could see the fight. Oh, yeah, I could see Ryan in the hotel and, you know, just being there risks, you know, Ryan's relationship with the company. And that's the last thing I want to do is create any more burden or any more issues for Ryan.

So for me to kind of work around that and find a way not to create any issues for him has been the biggest challenge and the thing that I've lost the most sleepover throughout the course of this whole thing with Zufa and Dana. Will he get another shot in the UFC? Well, I think he's got another fight on his contract, and I think they're crazy if they don't negotiate. I mean, they stand, as Ryan put it, they stand to make a lot more money off of Ryan competing in their, with their brand, and facilitating him and giving him everything. He needs to be successful in their brand,

given, given, you know, the history and who he is, then any of this other petty crap. So I think it's a lot smarter for them to let all this other crap go and just take care of him. Now that you're a part of another team, would you prefer that he comes over and signs with Belator and you can go back to having that relationship that you did have with him as far as fighting is concerned.

No, Ryan's career is Ryan's. I think he's where he wants to be. I think he's always wanted to be known for his fighting and his abilities and the dedication and the passion that he has for the sport. And I feel like this is where he, you know, he's making those calls. It doesn't matter what I'm doing and where I'm at. He needs to go and do the things that he needs to do, and I think that's what he's trying to do.

All I want to do is support that. We've kind of, you know, come up with strategies and ways to keep myself out of the way of his own choices and his own career. You know, now that it's been five or so months since all this came out, and, you know, you don't get brought up as much when media talks to Dana, although I did bring you up on Saturday, and he dismissed me very quickly. Did you try to maybe, you know, send him a text, give him a call and say, let's try to, we're not going to be best friends, but figure this out so that you can have that relationship with your son. you could be there. Bygones, be bygones, or do you not think that's a possibility, at least right now? I think that's on him and Ryan. You know, it's Ryan's career.

It's Ryan's relationship with them. Ryan needs what he needs to be in a good place to go out and compete and make use of the gift that he's been given. That's really on Ryan and Dana at this point. I'm not the one that's been bashing on Dana. I'm not the one that's had the issue. I'm just trying to make a career or continue to make a career and do the things that I need to do for myself to progress. So it's really not my issue.

I'm going to do whatever I can do for my son, stay the hell out of his way, let him compete and do the things that he needs to do for his career. And I think ultimately he's the one that has to have that conversation with Dana if I'm going to be able to corner him and, you know, it's not about their brand. It's not about me representing anything with the UFC. It's simply about me supporting my son.

Does this make you a little sad that, you know, that's where you were, you know, king for so many years. That's where you made your legacy. Does it make you sad that you may be, you know, washed out, you know, from those history books that you may be not recognized? Does that bother you at all? Well, first of all, there's no way you can change history. I've done the things that I've done,

I've experienced the things that I've experienced as much as Dana would like to rewrite the history books or change it, it can't be changed. I've accomplished the things I've accomplished, so I'm not worried about that. My only concern moving forward is my son and him being free and clear to be able to do the things that he needs to do and go out and compete to his full ability. And I'm not worried about my legacy or any of those things. They stand on their own. and there's nothing that Dana or anybody else can do to take that away or to change that.

So I'm not concerned about that at all. Sure, it's disappointing. But, you know, it's expected. Dana is Dana. Everybody knows how Dana's going to be. He could be screaming at you in a day for this interview. And no one would be surprised. You know, a lot of people have whispered.

I've heard this. I've heard some talks that, you may have a bigger role in Bellator, not just the reality shows this one, Jim Rescue, commentator, promoter, things of that nature. What's the deal? Are you going to work with Belator on a more consistent basis?

I haven't had no discussion, so that's pure and simple rumor. I've had no discussion with any of the powers that be it by Com or Bjorn or anybody else about any other role with Bellator. I know that all the coaches, for Fightmaster are going to get the chance to commentate

one of the fights this Wednesday all in promoting that first episode of Fight Master. This will be the very first Belvoir I've ever attended. I had never met Bjorn Redney until we started shooting Fight Master. I didn't know.

It was from Seattle. He's from where I grew up. Went to Engelmore High School. We had a lot of things in common about where we grew up, which was interesting. So, I've had no discussions about any of that stuff.

So it's just people speculating. Before we let you go, we have around a minute. I'm just going to give you some rapid-fire questions. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. We don't get the opportunity very often. Dan Henderson, he lost on Saturday. Should he continue fighting, or would you like to see him retire? Oh, I thought he won.

Okay. He held a great account of himself. I thought he won the first two rounds and clearly slowed down and lost the third round. I think he came down to that second round and how the judges scored that. And we've seen in close rounds, you know, it could have gone either way. A split decision loss, I think he could have made a case for either guy. That was a closely congratulated, you know, contested fight. And I don't think Dan's, you know, showing any signs of slowing down or age.

He still as effective as he's ever been. You know, it's such a personal decision. It's hard for me to weigh in. You know, everybody asked me about Chuck when Chuck had lost, couple and there was a lot of scope, but that he should retire. Again, it's such a personal thing. I'd like to see him go out on top. You know, he's still at the top of his game.

You hate to see him, you know, get knocked out or lose significantly to, you know, to people and kind of take away from the legacy that he's established as a multi-time champion and all the things that he's done. And I think that, you know, it's one of the reasons why I made the decision I made when I did. I wanted to go out when I still felt like I was competing at a very high level. Chale Sunnan, how much do you enjoy listening to him on TV? I have known Chale and his family since he was in high school, and he's such a great guy. And to hear some of these interviews, and I'm just like, I'm amazed.

It makes me laugh and smile every time I hear him talk and hear him kind of go into the rant through the things that he does. It's very clever and very, very good. TRT, should it be banned? I think if it's done properly and you're using a physician and under doctor's care and getting blood work done and all those things, and it's warranted, you know, why not? But, again, I made a personal choice not to do those sorts of things to find them more natural ways to jumpstart my body's own production of testosterone instead of.

injecting it from their external source. But again, I think, you know, there are guidelines and standards for the levels of normal human testosterone. As long as you're falling within those, you know, I don't really think you're cheating. I think it's when you start using antibiotics in a detrimental way, you know, but kind of the typical bodybuilding thing, where they're taking massive quantities of these things to make themselves look a particular way that it becomes unhealthy, and it's not really what it was intended for.

So I think it gets way blown out of proportion, obviously since the 1960s with the Olympic movement, the drug testing and all those things, performance-enhancing drugs and all those sorts of things that become a huge thing. And there's no substitute for hard work. but being involved in, especially in a combative sport like ours, it's very hard on your body, it's hard on your glands,

it's hard on all those things that you're forcing your body to function at an extreme and it takes its toll. Even on some of these young men in their 20s, that on the normal circumstances, there's no way they should have low testosterone. But because of the beating, through training and competing, that they're putting on their bodies that happens. It's a side effect of that. And I think that's where a lot of this is coming from, and that's what a lot of people don't recognize.

I don't think it's that these guys are trying to get some sort of advantage. I think they just want to get the most out of their body within normal limits. And there's nothing normal about the training that we do in the way that we compete. Okay, here's the last one. It's the most important question I've asked you all day. Are you still interested in fighting the Honorable Sensei Segal? And if so, when is this going down? Yeah.

I don't think it's very realistic. It was a joke when I made the comment in front of Jay Clazier and some of the media and the next thing I know they're off and running and talking to Seagal about actually competing and then obviously his response was pretty comical and classic as well. So I don't know that it's terrible realistic that we'll see Mr. Seagal in the cage anytime soon, but it would certainly be interesting. By the way, that's Sensei Segal. I just want to correct you there, but are you still interested in... Are you still interested in fighting him?

If there was any chance that that would really happen, yeah, I would definitely be in. I made the off-handed comment trying to be funny, but if all bullshit aside, if it was time to step up and back that up, I would definitely do that. All right. Well, look into that. For now, Randy, good luck on Wednesday. It's Wednesday night on Spike TV right after Bell Tour 96. It's a debut of five. Fightmaster, their own reality show, four coaches. Joe Warren, Frank Shamrock, Greg Jackson, Randy Couture. The fighters can choose their coaches. That's the difference this time around. Always a pleasure, Randy. Good luck with the show. We'll talk to you very soon. We appreciate it. You bet, Ariel. Thanks, buddy. There he is. The Natural himself, Randy Couture, stopping by now a member of the Viacom team, and they have their new reality show. Their answer to the ultimate fighter, the difference, as I mentioned, 32 fighters, they get to pick their coaches.

and he mentioned on Wednesday's live broadcast, you'll be able to hear the coaches in different matches doing commentary. You've got Frank Shamrock, as I mentioned, Warren, Couture, and Greg Jackson. We'll see. A lot of people who have seen the first episode, I have not, speak very highly of it. We'll see on Wednesday at 10 p.m. Eastern on Spike TV. Let's move along now on Friday. It's the return of RFA. Resurrection Fighting Alliance. They have their eighth show. Sergio Pettis is headlining, and they're doing great things. And the president, the brains behind it all, is a man you know very well, manager to the stars, now president of RFA, Ed Soros, and he is on the line right now.

Ed, how are you? I'm doing great, Ariel. How are you, man? I'm doing great. What about Randy Couture calling out Sensei there? What do you think? I heard that, man. Maybe in RFA we could do it.

Nah, no, no, no. No, I respect both of the guys too much. They're too big for the RFA. Oh, wow. And that's actually a very interesting point that you make and gets me into the meat of what I wanted to talk to you about. You continue to call RFA sort of the minor leagues, and everyone tries to run away from that.

Everyone tries to not be viewed as the minor leagues. Why do you embrace that? Well, because I believe that, you know, as this sport keeps getting bigger, I believe that there's more and more fighters out there and more and more talented guys, but there's less and less opportunities for these guys. And, you know, to step up into the USC, it's a big show. And for you to go from fighting in, you know, some, you know, smaller venues, 500 to 1,500 to all of a sudden going from that to fighting all. on national television or on pay-per-views all around the world in the stadium with 15,000 people in there. It's a big change, and I believe that people need to progress and they need to get used to.

It's a lot more than just stepping in there and fighting. It's the media commitment. It's how to, you know, present yourself on television and how you fight, you know, and the lights and cameras and everything's on, and there's, you know, three to four or five thousand people in a stadium. you know, it's a good testing ground, and it also creates value in the fighter. Not only is it going to prove to yourself as a fighter, but it also proves to the bigger show, like the UFC, if this kid can do it. If this kid steps up on the main event fighting on national television and performs well,

then, you know, he shows that he's prepared to go to the next level. So, you know, when you took this job, less than a year ago, it was around August, or so that the news came out. You have been in the promotion business before. You have been in the MMA business for a very long time. But what did you think it was going to be like? And almost a year later, has it turned out the way you thought it was going to be better, worse, more difficult, easier?

Your thoughts, almost a year into it. Well, you know, what I've learned over everything that I've done is it never really ends up being what you think it is when you start off. And just about, but at the end of the day, it's pretty much been kind of what I expected it to be. The only thing that I would have to say that was different is, you know, when you come to a promotion from the manager side and representing a fighter, there's so many things that if you're not a promoter of an event, you take for granted.

Things as simple as, you know, having just, you know, things on the production side and things of picking people up at the airport or if someone gets this or someone needs that, I mean, there's just so many little things that really made me appreciate how thorough and how professional and how on the ball an organization like the UFC is because, you know, a lot of times I came in as a fighter and just things just happened. And sometimes you don't pay too much attention to it. But when you're on the other side of the coin and you're the one having to set everything up, you realize all the moving parts that make this show a success. do you enjoy this more so than being a manager? I think I've had it's new so it's exciting

I feel that as a manager I've been very fortunate I've been blessed but I've had a lot of great experiences I've managed the greatest fighter of all time I've managed various champions I've won I've lost I feel that I've had a pretty great career as a manager. And I still intend to have a good career as a manager, but I think this is, this promotion thing

is something that's been in my blood for a long time, because before I used to promote events and promote clubs and promote bands and promote concerts and stuff, so there's a lot of similarities in that. It's pretty much the same formula. What's been a real big learning experience is dealing with television, and I have a great partner in the RFA with Sven Bean, who's been the guy who kind of handles our, he's our CEO who kind of handles all the production side of it. So I've been learning a lot from him, but a lot of the little details, fortunately, I've

got a guy who's had 15 years experience in promoting events. And, you know, the team that we have around us is really a strong team. You know, we have Scott Cupberts, our matchmaker. We have Jen Wink as our PR director. And, you know, I believe in a short amount of time we've made some changes that have really put us in the right direction. And I'm very excited about the future of the RFA. Has it been challenging to balance those two jobs because both of them are full-time jobs, right? Yes, they are.

They are both full-time jobs. But like I said, I have a great team around me at Tough Media, which is my management company, and I have a great team around me. at the RFA. So what happens is, you know, we just have a good team and we make it work. It is a lot of work on my part, but it's a sacrifice that I'm willing to give right now because I believe in it and I have faith in it. This card upcoming on Friday is a perfect example of why I think RFA is so special because you have young guys like Sergio Pettis, Lance Palmer,

guys we've been hearing about for a long time, and now you're giving them an opportunity, as you mentioned, to get ready for the big dance, but also be on television and fight tough competition. But don't you get a little, for lack of a better word, emotionally attached to these guys? Like, don't you want to be in the Sergio Pettus business for a long time and would be sad to see him go on to the UFC? Or are you truly okay with that? I mean, look at James Krause.

You know, he fought for you guys. That's an example. I'm trying to say, let me tell you something. Nothing made me prouder. And that's one of the things that's so fulfilling about being the RFA. Like, as a manager, you know, it's really great to go out there and get a guy. to the UFC, have to go out there and, you know, get out there into the UFC, have him go out there and perform well and win a fight.

And in a way, it's like I got to tell you that I had the same sort of feeling with James Krauss. When I heard that he signed with the UFC, you can call him and ask yourself. I sent him a text. I called him personally and told him how proud I was of him and that to go out there and make us proud that he deserved it, that he's a tough fighter. Nothing made me happier to see that. And then to see him go out there on his UFC debut,

and then he did a fight of the night and a submission of the night, that just goes to show you that the level of competence in the RFA is very high. Like, you know, even guys that I represent that choose to fight in the RFA, the first thing I tell them is I said, listen, there is no easy fights in the RFA. I'm more than willing to give you an opportunity to fight there, but understand that you're going to have tough fights because these guys are the next level. the next level is the USC or that level of a show.

So at the end of the day, I mean, you know, James Krause is living proof of the sort of competition and the sort of level of fighters that are coming out of the RFA. For you to go out there against a veteran like Sam Stout, who had gotten knockout of the knights and fight of the night, and for you to go out there and perform the way you did, that just shows to show you that he's primed himself very well. And I'd like to believe that, you know, the RFA, his life,

last five fights being in the RFA, I'd like to say that the RFA definitely helped them out with that, and nothing would have made us prouder than to watch him go out there and perform the way he performed. You mentioned something very interesting. So when you bring a guy who is part of your stable as a manager over, how does that work? I mean, do you negotiate with him, or do you step aside? How does that work? No, because it's pretty simple. I mean, you know, it's no hidden.

and it's not hidden what guys on these shows make. These shows aren't high-paying shows. These shows, so basically what guys are making at the UFC is pretty standard. And so there's not like really a big negotiation. The one thing that we don't do, though, is we don't take a management commission from them. We don't commission them on that. We basically just explain to them, hey, this is the deal, and we compare it to other deals that are out there. So they're very comparable, and most of these guys want to fight in the UFC.

Most of the guys that we manage, if they're not in the UFC, they want to get there, and if they got cut from the UFC, they want to get back there. So they realize that by signing with an organization like ours, that if the UFC calls, they're going to be able to let go and take off. There might be other organizations that might pay them a little bit more, but then they're also going to be tied up into a contract. So for each fighter, it's a different choice. You know what I mean?

It's just an opportunity that's placed in front of them and they have the right to do it or not. And by the way, is that deal only for the UFC? Like what if Belator, World Series of Fighting comes calling? Well, it's not that it's necessary for that, but I mean, I guess we have to cross each bridge and we'll cross each thing as it comes. But, I mean, at the end of the day,

I mean, the only, I don't know what you think is it or bigger, I mean, Bellator, yeah, Bellator has the tournaments, and they're on Spike TV, and they have a lot more viewers. But World Series of Fighting has only got three events. So we've done, we're on our eighth event already. So, I mean, what are you considering bigger? No, no, I didn't say bigger. I'm just wondering, do you have that open-door policy for anyone? Let's say they want to go to...

Well, put it this way. We're here to develop talent to get into the next level. I can tell you that if you ask 95, 99.9% of these fighters and no offense to any organization, no offense to Bellator, no offense to World Series of Fighting, but if you ask any fighter, what is your goal and what do you want to be?

I don't think too many of them are saying that my goal is that I want to be the World Series of Fighting Champion of the World. I want to be the Bellator champion of the world. No offense. to Belator. I'm not trying to offend that. Sure, sure, sure. Most of them are saying, I want to be the USC champion of the world.

Right? Right. Yeah, of course. Yes, 99%. So, so, I mean, to me, it's whatever the, I don't want, I'm not here to hold back any fighters, to hold back fighters. I mean, Bubba Jenkins went to Belator. Yeah. We let them out of the deal.

You know what I'm saying? It's like, it's like, you know, each fighter has to do what they want to do. Our vision is that we're developing talent for the, If someone wants to go differently, then we'll cross that bridge when it comes. I've let him out for Bellatorial deals. I let Tyson Griffin out of his RFA deal to go to World Series of fighting. True. All right. So the thing is, is that if that's what they want to do, that's what they want to do.

But, you know, our goal is to do what we're doing, and that's to develop talent for the RFA, to have the RFA develop talent for the UFC. By the way, around the time that you came aboard the RFA team, team, it was announced that RFA was merging with Titan, but Titan put on a show recently. What happened there? Yeah. What happened was, is that, you know, unfortunately, the deal with Titan didn't work out the way we all expected. You know, Joe Kelly and the RFA kind of separated, and part of the deal was that he got back his Titan, all the, you know, all the intellectual property that came with Titan, you know what I mean?

And so it just was something that we went into it. It didn't turn out to be what either one of us expected, and we just win our separate ways. But, you know, me personally with Joe Kelly, I think Joe Kelly is a cool guy, and I was happy that his show went well. And, you know, I went from luck because at the end of the day, he's a good dude, and he has a family, he has a daughter, and hopefully he can, you know, be a success with Titan to be able to provide for him in his family. He's a good dude.

It just didn't work out with us. The original main event for Friday's show was Sergio Pettis versus Jeff Kern, which was fascinating with Kern going down to 125 being a veteran of the sport. Pettus being an up-and-comer. Unfortunately, Kern pulled out. Some, you know, talk about why he pulled out, dog, something else. What's the reason you were received? Why did Jeff Kern pull out of that fight?

You know, well, he pulled out of that fight for personal family problems. You know what I mean? I honestly, you know, I think it's up to him to explain. I'd rather put it on him. He can explain to the fans why he pulled out of the fight. To me, it basically boils down to one category, which was family problems and some family issues and emergencies. And I think that that's more of a question for you to ask for him.

Fair enough. Why other than Pettis, Palmer, give us the promoter sell. Why should people watch Access TV? on Friday to watch RFA 8? Well, I mean, RFA, like, you know, you did mention about, you know, current fall and out, but like the UFC, you see any big, any big successful event, those types of things happen. And, you know, we tried to follow in the USC's footsteps, and thank God we were able to find a replacement, a very viable replacement to fight Pettis, which is this kid, they call him

smoking Joe Pegg. And, you know, he's five in one. He's on a four-fight win streaks. All of his fights, all his wounds are by finishes, and then he's fighting a kid like Sergio Pettis. So it's like, that's going to be a great main event. And then we got Jared Downer versus Lance Palmer that's fighting in the co-main event, and that's for the featherweight title.

So you're going to get two title fights on Access TV. And not including that, you know, there's another great fight is Mitch Jackson against Pedro Munoz, which is the future fight of the night. So the whole televised card has got really, really exciting matches. And I think it's a fight, you know, a fight card that you guys won't want to miss. And, you know, the RFA is here to stay. We're only getting stronger and stronger. And as you see, as you'll start to see, the talent that's developing in the RFA,

I really believe they're going to be the future stars of the UFC. Three more non-RFA questions for you and then we'll let you go. Any update on Antonio Rodrigo Nogera injured his arm against Fabrice Radoom? We heard he had surgery. Do you have any update on him? Yes. He's surgery on his arm. He had some ligament damage.

Okay. And do you know how long he'll be out for? The doctors are saying that he should be back to training in about three months. And does he still want to fight? Yes. Yes. Okay. Do you know against two?

Or no? You didn't mention him. You know, he's still a top 10 heavyweight in the world. Sure. Leo Machita, how pissed is he that he's not fighting for the title next? I'm not going to say he's pissed, but at the end of the day, Leo is a fighter. He wants to stay busy. You know, he just starts to go out there and do his job and just keep winning fights.

Eventually, he goes out there and keeps winning fights. The title shot will come. Okay, and final one, of course, Anderson Silva fighting Chris Wyman, July 6th. Of course, I'm assuming you'll be there in Las Vegas. He's your guy. You guys are your linked for eternity. This rib story, total BS. Where did it come from, this injured rib story?

I'm not sure where it came from. You know, during a fighter's camp, everybody kind of, you know, gets banged up here and there. But the thing that was interesting was that the day that the rib story came out was also the same day that Rosario-Nogera got hurt. So I don't know if people You know how rumors get Started and maybe you know someone from Kim Ilgarum maybe it was Orgerio maybe I don't know how it got up But the same day that that rumor came out

Was the same day that Rosario got hurt So I don't know if someone that was creating these rumors Got their you know Got their books messed up Are you guys sitting back and laughing about all these people picking Chris Wideman? It seems to be the fashionable thing to do now The whole promo is based off that Well, I personally don't sit there and laugh.

I don't laugh at any of that stuff because anybody can go out there and put on a fight. Chris Wyatman is undefeated. He's a tough guy and a fight-to-fight, anything can happen. Who I believe in, I believe in Anderson Silva. I believe Anderson Silva is the best fighter on the planet. I believe Anderson Silva has the, has the capability. I think that Anderson Silva is a bad fight for any fighter in any weight class. So to me, I think, you know, I'm not saying that Anderson Silva's invincible.

Anderson Silva can get beat just like anyone else can get beat. But I think it's, you know, if Anderson Silva goes in there well-trained and focused, I don't think there's a fighter on the planet that can beat him. One more just because you piqued my interest there. Any chance we see him up against John Jones and his next? next fight? Because you said any weight class, if he wins. Do you see that happening maybe the 20th anniversary show? You know what? There's been nothing mentioned about that, especially when they're already talking about Gustus and, you know, Gustus and Jones fighting in October or something

like that. So I find that hard to go. But like I said, right now, I think the focus is Chris Weidman. And I know that Anderson is very focused on Chris Weidman. He doesn't take in yet. opponent lightly. So, you know, after July 6th, then maybe he'll have a better idea of where he's going to go next. It's RFA 8. It's this Friday, June 21st. It's on Access TV. Main card starting at 10 p.m. Eastern. As Ed mentioned, Smoke and Joe going up against Sergio Pettis. It's going to be, I love it. I love what you're doing. I love how honest you are. I love how open you guys are about your policies. I love that you're building this young talent. It's great to and you say that you believe in Anderson Silva.

I believe in you, Ed. Good luck with it. Looking forward to it. We'll be watching on Friday. Hey, thanks a lot, Eric. I'm sorry. Good talking to you, man. There he is. Ed Sor is the man with the second best shoe game in the world of mixed martial arts. One being, of course, myself. Our next guy up on the show, our next guest,

has a pretty good shoe game as well, but he is known for a lot more than just that. He was supposed to fight Josealdo at UFC 163. Unfortunately, that's not happening. Let's get an update from him. He is Anthony Showtime Petis. Anthony, how are you? What's that, area? I've been better, man.

Yeah, so let's talk about it. What exactly happened? And when? With the last day of the press conference in Brazil, UFC took us out there to do some press media for the local Brazilian press. And me and Phil Davis decided to do some rolling before we went back on the airplane.

So we went down to my coaches, Jim, Tim Marius. We were rolling. I think it was the last round, man. The last five minutes, The last round we were rolling, and just my knee got caught in a weird position, and I heard a pop, and I thought it was right, got on the plane, and it blew up on me. I had to get our MRI the next day, and the UFC caught wind of it,

and it is what it is, man. It's just, I guess I got the worst luck when it comes to title shot. So when you say the UFC caught wind of it, were you planning on not telling them? No, I mean, you can't do that. I mean, that would be worse than, you know, that would be worse than me losing a fight. You know, if I would have told them up in and now I had to pull out, and then that showed a lot to me. event. So I mean, for me, it's, you know, it's without my control, man. It's not something I couldn't,

I didn't have any control over. You know, injuries happen. And unfortunately, you know, it was the worst time for injury to happen for me. Is it true? I was talking to Duke Rufus on Friday, and he said that you pretty much begged them not to take this opportunity away from you, despite the fact that you were injured. You said you'll still be able to have a few weeks to train for Aldo. Is that accurate? Did that really happen? Yeah, it really happened, man. I mean, I didn't want this fight to keep cold. I already knew what was going to happen if I lost that fight. You know, that's the position I'm in right now.

You know, it's stuck in the back of the bus again, again, and two weight classes. So, you know, I wanted everything in my power to make the fight happen. The UFC is looking out for my health, so I can't knock them for looking out for my health. I mean, the only good thing about this injury is that it doesn't require surgery. I mean, that would put me out a couple months. So looking at now, I'm only at a couple weeks, so it's just, I'm out a couple weeks, but everybody has a fight. So it's just one of the positions that just sucks again, man. So, you know, the first thing I thought about what makes this so devastating was the fact that you've been in this position before you alluded to that.

And that's why you went down to 1.45 because you thought it was the sure bet. When you got the news, when you found out that this was actually happening, you wouldn't be able to fight August 3rd. How did you react? How devastating was it for you? Man, I'm still in the same funk. I mean, I'm just, I can't believe it happened, man. I mean, this is another teleshot that slipped out of my fingers. I mean, I was right there in a contract with sign. I'm a couple weeks out from the fight.

feeling the best I've ever felt. I was feeling invincible in training. I'm like, I'm so on point. And, you know, for this to happen, it's just unfortunate. I just can't think about, I couldn't sleep the last couple days and thinking about what's going to happen. I mean, you know, I'm an athlete. This is what I do for a living.

And for me not to have a fight lined up and have an injury. I mean, it's pretty serious, but it's not that serious. I mean, it doesn't require surgery, so it's not where I'm, you know, going for a long time. It's just a couple weeks, but it took me out of my position to make the elbow fight. So, again, I'm stuck in,

The worst position ever. Officially, this is the third time that, you know, you lose the title fight. You had the opportunity, 125, then UFC 144, now this. Do you start to think, I mean, in this funk, as you call it, do you start to think that you're cursed or something? Oh, man, I have all these thoughts on my head. Like, what did I do to, I mean, maybe it's not meant to be for me to fight for a title? Maybe 145 wasn't meant to be, maybe, I mean, I have no idea, man.

I mean, like I said, I was just, I was just in this funk because the last couple days, is trying to figure out what's going to happen with my career, man. Do I just keep fighting and figure out from there? Do I try to get a little shot? I mean, just it's hard to come back from. So you gave me this statement over the weekend saying that you'll be ready to fight August 31st, and it's like you can't script this. Benson Henderson is fighting again August 31st in your hometown of Milwaukee,

and with all due respect to T.J. Grant, you want that opportunity. I asked Dana White about this. I asked him about the possibility of you replace. placing T.J. Grant on that card and fighting Benson in the rematch, everyone wants to see. And this was his response. I want to play his response. And then I want to get your response to his response. This was on Fuel TV on Saturday night after UFC 161. He's wrong. He will not be ready by that date. The doctor whom I respect and listen to says that he won't be the therapist that he talked to in Milwaukee says he will. I'm going with the doctor, not the therapist. And I'm going to fly him into Vegas this week and have him looked at again.

for a second opinion. I want a second opinion on it. I don't want this kid to rush it. You know, there's no rush for him to fight. We'll get something. I want him to heal and get his knee fixed properly. You know, some therapist in Milwaukee told him that. I'll go with the doctor.

So is that accurate? Anthony, is it a therapist that's trying to feed you the wrong information here? Orthopedic surgery? I've seen the doctor that did my shoulder surgery. We have a close relationship. My doctor's the exact word is, come on, this third, you're going to be sitting down at home training 100% and be like, damn, I could have made that fight.

So, I mean, you know, the injury happened. You know, I'm freaking out. I'm trying to figure out a way to fix this and looking at all possibilities. So you can't knock me for trying. I mean, you know, it's in my hometown. As I said, T.J. Grant earned a shot. I'm not going to say, you know, I should be fighting in T.J. Grant didn't earn a shot. You know, T.J. Grant earned his shot.

You know, he's there for a reason. You know, I don't want the fans thinking I'm trying to, you know, take his position or anything like that, but I mean, you can't, you can't act me for trying, man. I'm, like I said, I want a title shot so bad, and, you know, I was just, I was at home thinking about all the possible situations and positions, and I mean, it wasn't a therapist that told me. That's my orthopedic surgeon, you know, I'm going out to Vegas tomorrow. They're not going to look at me.

It's, again, it's an unfortunate, unfortunate position for me, man. What do I do? Do I try and lobby myself in for a title shot? Do I sit back and wait? I mean, it's just, I'm feeling, I'm feeling great, feeling invincible until this injury happened, and just, just, you know, just, you know, it's just, you're it shut it all down. So when you're in Vegas,

are you going to try to sit down with Dana White and give him that one last face-to-face pitch as to why you should be fighting at UFC 144? I mean, of course I'm going to try, man. I mean, the best in the best case scenario, that would happen. But again, you know, they already announced the fight with Grant. You know, they got him, you know, with Ben Henderson in my hometown. It would be amazing for that to happen, but, you know, it is what it is.

I can't make it happen. I'm going to try for sure, but, you know, but it is what it is. On the flip side, do you sympathize with Grant? Because you were kind of in that position after UFC 125 when they took the title shot away from you. I spoke to him over the weekend, and he was kind of in a state of shock while he wasn't trying to think about the negative. You could tell he was a little rattled by all this. He was a little afraid that the opportunity would be taken away. Do you feel for him?

Yeah, man. For like this, I mean, Frank Yeager did it? Frank Yeager went on his media thing. Yeah. He got his rematch with Ben Henderson. And, you know, I was already, for sure, going to have that shot. Got taken away. So, I mean, it's not impossible.

I mean, and again, it's not impossible for it to happen, but it's not likely, but you can't knock me for trying, man. I'm an athlete, and my goal is this year we're going to fight for the title, get a belt. I even took a fight in the lower weight class. We make that happen, and I'm stuck with a knee injury that I can't control. Do you regret that now? Now that you had to wait all the way to August, you didn't think you would have to wait, and you were in Brazil? Do you start to think about these things?

Maybe this was not the right move for me to make. Mike? Man, you know what? I don't even want to even think about that anymore. Like, you know, from the Glega fight to the Hickin'Aldo, the knee injury, I mean, it's just like all these things that happen to me when it's time for a title shot. You know, I get right there to a close to a title shot, and it just somehow doesn't work out in my favor.

Are you done with 145 now? No, I wouldn't say I'm done with it. I mean, the only person I want to fight a 45, Jose Alvo. I mean, fans want to say what they want to say, you know, he's faking an injury or he don't want to. Man, I want that fight so bad. I was more excited than anybody for that fight. I felt that I had what it takes to beat Osalgo.

And, you know, that's the fight I want. I mean, I'm not going to take another fight and drop extra 10 pounds and put my body through that, just for a number one contenders spot and go like that, if anything. And I'm doing fine at 155. I can do that at 155. No problem. So unless they give you an Aldo title fight,

you're going to stick around at 150. I mean, yeah, unless I'm fighting Osalvo for a title, I'm not going to put my body through an extra 10 pounds, is what I'm doing perfectly fine at 55. You know, it's interesting. I saw John Crouch, who's Benson Henderson's coach at UFC 161, and I brought up the possibility of you fighting Benson on August 31st. And he's usually a mild manner guy.

He got very amped up, saying that he thought that was BS or would be BS, and it wouldn't be fair to T.J. Grant, and that you'd be kind of cutting the line. And then Benson Henderson said to MMAFighting.com yesterday, I'll just fight and let others worry about talking their way. into fights. Do you get the feeling that they don't want to fight you? Man, I put it like this, I mean, I'm the last guy to be Ben Henderson, no matter

what, I mean, he's looking on top of, but I'm the last got to beat him, and my name never gets bought up out of his mouth for some reason. So I'm not going to say he's not he's ducking me or dodging me, but for some reason, when it comes to fight, Pettus, you know, he's all against it. So, you know, like I said,

I got the injury that just happened. I'm devastated more than anybody. It sucks that I'm in this position, but, you know, If people don't want to fight Henderson again, I mean, like I do, it's what it is. I mean, I'm not going to cry about it. I'm in this position. You can't knock me for trying to get a title shot, but ultimately it's up to the UFC. If you don't get the title shot at UFC 164 and Dana White, as of now, said that's not going to happen.

Would you like to wait for the winner and get a title shot after they fight each other on August 31st? You know what? I'm going to go to Vegas tomorrow. I'll get my own knee checked out. See what comes out of this, and I don't have to base my decision off the last. Based on right now what you know, you do believe you'd be 100% come August 31st. From what my doctor, my orthopedic surgeon told me, you know, I got a PRP thing done where they take my blood injected into my injury. He said, you know, I have at the most type 2 tear, which is considered a sprain.

He's like, you know, you're going to be 100% in, you know, three weeks back training. He's like, I need a surgeon that told me that. So, I mean, that's the information I used to talk to Dana and, you know, call out, who I had to call out. But, I mean, it wasn't a therapist. It wasn't somebody that's, you know, feeding me the surgeon. I mean, this guy, that's what he does. He's one of the best in the Midwest. And by the way, what kind of rehab does this all involve?

How do you get to 100%? I'm doing rehab right now. It's just building up the muscles around the torn ligament. You have to build that up so your body came with saying that a twisting motion. I mean, walking, walking, running, I feel fine. It's a twisting motion. It's an LCL that has a small tear in it. So, you know, just checking it out, building the muscles up around it,

and just waiting for it to heal. And while we're on the subject, what do you think of Benson's performance against Gilbert Melendez? Do you think he deserved to win that? I mean, I did some time. I did some interviews on that one. I mean, you ever look good? I mean, you ever looked very close?

I think that could have been one of them fights that went either way and both sides had an argument about it. So, again, you know, these guys, you know, on the top are super close. I find these very close decision fight. I mean, besides the Diaz fight, you know, Anderson, all his title fights in super close decisions. So, you know, I mean, it could have won either way.

Your brother is fighting on Friday. We were just talking to Ed Sores, the president of RFA, about his fight and about the organization in general. How far away do you think he is from fighting in the UFC? Sergio is, I mean, very close to fighting in the UFC.

It's a decision if we want to put him in there that young. I mean, we want to make career for Sergio. We want him to to last in there. And, you know, come down to it, 125 is full of beast. I mean, if he goes into the UFC right now, he doesn't have any easy fights at 125. So, I mean, he's 19 years old.

He has a lot of time to build up. I mean, he's in a great league, RFA is an amazing organization. They do great productions. He's on TV. He's building his name. He's getting tough fights. And, you know, I was really looking forward to the Jeff Curran fight. But, you know, stuff happens, man.

I mean, in this fight game, you can't guarantee anything. So both of us went from having, you know, tough opponents, title shots, you know, his opponent had to, you know, pull. He has a new replacement. I'm injured, so I mean, it's a like a situation for us, but I think, you know, like I said, Serge's going to make the best of it. He's going to fight who they put in front of them, like both of us always do.

And, you know, I'm glad he's with the RFA, and I think we'll take some time there. And considering your age and, you know, the, some of the injuries you've had, will you reconsider some of the things you're doing in practice, or do you just chalk this stuff up to freak it, you know, accidents?

Man, straight up accident. I'm telling you, we're meeting Phil Davis for going. light roll. I mean, we were just trying to get a sweat in before we hit the airport going back home. I mean, it's 11, 12-hour flight back to Atlanta. You know, we were in the last round. We weren't even rolling hard. It was just a weird angle. He straightened his leg out, and, you know, I heard the pop. I mean, so it wasn't like I was doing anything different. It's just, what I think it is is the amount of time between my fight. I mean, I fought in January. You give a fighter six months between fights, they're more likely to get injured than a two-month

training camp or a three-month training camp. So, you know, after, after I sit back and I'll remember this plays out, you know, I'll figure out what, you know, what my decisions are going to be and how I'm going to avoid these injuries. So for now, you go to Las Vegas tomorrow, you meet with their doctors, you meet with the UFC, and you try your best to get on UFC 164, right? Yeah, I mean, it's in my hometown. My doc said I'll be ready for it. Again, they know what I said it's the best.

You know, I'm not in a rush. I mean, I don't need to fight. It just I won't fight. I'm 26 years old, man. I feel like I'm entering my prime years. I don't want to waste these years being injured. I want to look back in my career and say, I take the fight for when I was supposed to,

and I use my prime years for the best of the advantage. Thank you, Anthony. Good luck to you. Thank you, man. I appreciate you having me on. There he is. Anthony Showtime Petis, unfortunate news.

And as I mentioned on Friday when this news came out, it's almost like the gods were telling us, and what was I saying on this show so many times? What was I saying on this show? The number one fight that I want to see in 2013, above any other, honestly, above any other, was Anthony Pettis versus Benson Henderson. And it's funny, I have said often that if you ask me to pay to watch one fighter in MMA, you can't go cover it, you just have to pay a ticket. You have to pay 50 bucks, whatever, get into the arena, watch this guy, even pay-per-view. It's a tie between Aldo and Pettis.

It always has been. Yet I didn't want to see that fight. Too many problems it would create 145, 155. Aldo's saying he's cutting the line. Pettis wants to go back to 155. It created too many problems. I wanted to see Pettus versus Benson. You show the kick over and over again.

He's the last guy to beat Benson. He's looked so good in the UFC. He's coming off an amazing win over Donald Soroni on Fox. I still don't understand why we didn't get it. I thought it just made no sense. the heat of the moment. He asked for the fight. He thought he was going to have to wait. But look, that fight was going to take place August 3rd. Benson's fighting August 31st. And Benson fought in April.

It made no sense. It's the number one fight I want to see. And I would feel horrible. I can't I can't say it enough. You know, I know people were getting all upset that I was asking TJ these questions. You are a liar if you did not think for a second that the UFC might try to do this. Because guess what? There's a precedent. They did it with Carlos Condit. They did it with him. Carlos Condon had a title fight. They said, you know what? We're going to do this DS fight.

We'll hook you up, sit on the sidelines, and he got the shot. They did it already. I feel bad for T.J. Grant. Good Canadian guy. He's worked hard. He's earned it 100%. But the fact that the fight is taking place in Milwaukee. Anthony's hometown.

They've only had a show in Milwaukee, you know, once. A couple years back of versus show. He was not on that card. it had to cross your mind. T.J. Grant's there. We're doing an interview. You've got to ask those questions. I'm not trying to be a buzzkill. I'm trying to ask the questions that people are thinking about. He says he's going to be 100%. That's a pretty big statement.

Especially when the fight that he was supposed to be on was happening just three weeks earlier. He's going to go out there to Las Vegas. He's going to do his best. But let it be known. If they take that opportunity away from T.J. Grant, I think he should 100% not fight anyone and fight the winner. If they don't, I think Anthony Pettis should fight the winner. 100%. Bring him into the cage in Milwaukee after the fight set it up. Give this man his title shot. He shouldn't have had to wait, what, eight months, seven months to fight Aldo? Made no sense after Aldo fought. They wanted to have, you know, in Rio, he did not. I mean, it just made no sense.

He shouldn't have had to wait. The fight should have happened May, June. Maybe this never would have happened. Nevertheless, it happened. Here we are. He's going to Vegas. We'll see what happens. for now, Benson Henderson is fighting T.J. Grant, UFC 164. Still would love to see that rematch at some point. Mr. Rick. Yes, sir. Don't you agree? I would love to see it.

I've never debated that, but I don't think it's right. I think T.J. Grant should get the shot, honestly. By the way, I hear an echo. How about now? That's good. Nice. So you still want to see the T. And I'm not saying I don't want to see it.

I really want to see. I said on this show, I'm a believer in the T.J. Jay Grant movement. I think it's a great styles matchup. But now it's just kind of dangling. I'm not for people getting skipped. I want to see TJ Grant. I mean, that's what happened to Pettis. Pettus got skipped.

Yeah. That's why it's kind of weird, right? Yeah, I want to see Grant get a shot. Yeah. By the way, it costs a lot more than $50. People are saying, I must be out of the loop. You probably, if someone asked me to pay for an event to go there live, I don't even know if I could get standing room for $50.

right these days you bought a ticket recently to an event I did you're more than you at 115 oh you got those comped huh Hollywood Rick look at you um speaking no it does cost more than 50 though yeah it does uh I was in Winnipeg

over the weekend and I saw some fans and they said they were fans of yours even in Canada even in Canada I'm worldwide baby how about that geez even in Canada

I'll give props to Winnipeg nice place um not the most most exotic that we've been to while covering a UFC event, but they came out, sold out crowd, unbelievable, they loved it, and it was the finals of the Rick's Picks Invitational, right? It was the finals. What happened? Now, it was a bit of a, it was a bit of a poor showing for both participants.

Interestingly, Lee MMA, he bet he had a parlay for all his money on Ryan Jimo, Sam Stout, and Roy Nelson. And as you know, two of those three lost. So he lost it all. Jeez. Stout and Nelson both busted his parlay. Now, Wana Bet had his usual. He diversifies his bets.

He likes to get a lot of different action out there. He had 21 bets. He hit on one of them, which was Jake Shield straight up for $25 to win 40. He ended up losing $421 and $61 and 61 cents last week, this week rather. And Lee MMA lost $417. But since Wanabet had more money going into the week,

he had more in the reserves. He ends up our winner with a total of $202.40. Now let me just ask you this. If you weren't such an idiot in the semifinals, don't you think you could have won this damn thing? I do, I mean, I still defend that. that bet. I do think I could have won. And that said, we shouldn't even talk about that because I didn't win. I made a bad bet and won a bet one. And it's important to, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, congratulations.

Even though they both had a bad week, want a bet is our champion. But he, man, you could have taken him out. Possibly. It was as weakest performance, right? Well, I think it was actually the weakest performance by anybody. Yeah. Oh, really? Wow. I don't think anybody's ever lost more than $400. But you could say that he put it all in the line because he knew it was the end. But he did say he wanted to get a thousand, right? He was going for a thousand. Yeah, he was going for a thousand. You could have won this thing.

I could have. It's possible. I do not regret betting on Jason High. I really thought that it was a... But why everything? Why did you have to do everything on Jason High? I didn't have to do everything. I was swinging for the fences when I didn't need to.

And I ended up striking out badly. Badly. Did you enjoy it? I feel that a lot of the losers in this tournament ended up going for broke and losing it. Right. Which is what I've been preaching against

in the beginning of this whole thing but I ended up doing it myself when you kept trying to get me to put it all on this or that and I kept saying that's not how you do it. I think that this is proof of that. Except both times that you failed, you put it all in Gilbert Melendez you had to. And that time I thought I got it.

I pulled that one out. Now, we have an interesting wrinkle here. Oh, oh, oh. On the phone right now. Oh, really? We have our champion. What? We have our champion.

I didn't know that. I want to bet UFC is on the phone. Wanna bet? Are you there? How's it going? Whoa, here he is. The Masked Crusader himself. I just have to say,

I don't want to derail things, but it's an absolute honor to come on right after Showtime Pettus. And I have to say that that original fight, Pettus versus Benda was my first. all-time favorite fight. So I completely agree about the rematch in the future at some point is a must, and it's just an absolute honor. So I'm really amped up about that, hopefully, in the future. But yeah, I'm here to talk about what happened and the tourney in general. Wow. Okay, first off, congratulations. Not trying to take anything away from you.

You know, you backed it up. I mean, your name, for God's sake, is want to bet UFC. And I kind of thought you were a bit of a cocky guy, but Rick has told me that you are nothing like that. you were very active on the forums and whatnot. You put it out there for the people to see. Are you surprised that you want, or did you think, given the field here, that some have called a little week that you had this one? I wouldn't say surprise. I mean, I certainly expected that I would have a decent showing.

You had an interesting sort of structure whereby really every single week you needed to sort of hold your own, because unless your opposition really stunk it up, like, you know, needed to perform pretty much every single week to advance. It wasn't as if you can just, you can do poorly in week one, but then a week you can catch up. You're out basically after week one unless you had a really bad opponent. So you really needed to show yourself, and I did in the first three weeks, and then I had, I'll be the first to admit I had an awful finale. My strategy was really a counter-b betting strategy, kind of, as I said, kind of a lay-in-pray strategy where basically Lee would have to hit a miracle shot and he kind of tipped his hand on your show about he likes roy a lot so um i basically

you could see in my bets i i if if lee were to hit his bets um i still wanted a shot to win it all and that meant basically trying to find some of the edge on the roy stepe fight on roy um because he always goes all in with his bets he either parlayed or he bets singles like he did with rodrigo dam so the edge and roy's fight was he would win in round one if he didn't win in round one and get the chaos he almost certainly would gas out. So in real life, you can see on my bets are posted. I had a steeped by decision prop to cover all my stuff. But in this tourney, if Steve-Bey wins, it doesn't even matter.

I already won the tourney, so I'm not going to bet that and try to get some money. So you can maybe feel a bit of my rationale. And, I mean, again, I did terrible. I lost maybe 60 to 70% of the bankroll, again, shooting for that sort of a $1,000 benchmark. In real life, I did poorly as well. I lost 5% not 60 or 70 in my bankroll, which was 1,000 and 49. And I will say that I would have turned a dollar profit.

Had Dana given fight of the night to Roland DeLorm and Edwin Figueroa, and I think a lot of people would agree that was a fight of the night, but it's hard to bet on Dana's emotion. So I had a terrible night, and I think it's very important. You're transparent, and you talk about wins and losses, and frankly, I had a bad night, and hopefully I'll rebound to 162. Wait a second. You bet on the fight of the night?

Yeah, it was 20 to 1 prop on five dimes. I bet 50 to win 1,000 on that, and that was a $1,050 swing, basically, of my night was basically that prop. And it didn't turn out in my favor, but I think we'd agree that there's more than a, it would be a 5% is a 20 to 1 odds, 5% chance of that fight should have deserved it when all the fights basically played themselves out.

So it didn't happen, but that's my technique. I had no idea that you could bet on that. Can you imagine the guy who bet on Junior Dos Santos who went knock out of the night? And then Mike Tyson of all people took it away and gave the T.J. Grant, that's amazing that you bet on that stuff. Yeah, yeah. So five dimes is good with the of the night props.

So usually they have fight of the night, and then for the pay-per-view cards, the big cards, this one, I guess it's a paper view. I don't know if it's a big card. It had sub of the night and knock-out-of-the-night props as well. So it does have those. and yeah, I mean, sometimes there's these lucrative props, but I tend to not to bet those as much

because, again, it's really subjective on Dana and what he's sort of feeling, or in that case, Mike Tyson, so that can kind of derail your whole night. Okay, now I've got a couple questions that we need to clear up before we really get into the meat and potatoes of all this. Your name is Wan-A-Bet UFC.

We keep calling you Want-A-Bet UFC. What exactly is your real name? Want to bet. Wana, last name. Ariel, Ariel. We know each other more than you think. Even when I spent some time in Montreal, I think we had some mutual friends

and mentioned that you went to the Jewish day school there. You used to wear that big Yarmulka that covers the whole head. Wait a second. This is getting a little creepy now. Yes, this is getting... My next question was, are you Canadian? Because you sound very Canadian.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, Canadian, absolutely. You're from Montreal? No, I spent some time there, And so I think we have some mutual friends and stuff. What? I don't know you personally. You don't know me personally.

So I'll just say that much, but it was just kind of funny that our paths have crossed, but not directly. So why? Now I'm a little creeped out. Why? Just by, I mean, I'm looking at your Twitter icon, it's you counting money. Your name is want to bet. You won't tell me your real name. And you know about me back in the day wearing a big fat keep on my head in high school?

That's scary. Who are the, really? mutual friends that we know? It doesn't. I keep my profile completely... Are you wanted by the FBI? What's going on? No, no, no, no.

For professional reasons. I think a lot of people don't have necessarily the open-mindedness. They think of maybe gambling like drugs, not like drinking. It's not socially acceptable. They think they have a problem if you're gambling, even if you have a sort of a cerebral objective approach to it and you're doing it. and really quantifying your wins and losses and doing it as sort of recreationally when you're successful.

So I think professionally it wouldn't be good if I had a public profile for my own career. So I basically keep myself completely off the radar, I guess, in terms of who I am. What's the name of the guy, the Bodock guy? Calvin Air. You're like a young Calvinera over there trying to be all secretive on us. Okay, tell me this. What's your day job? a physician

Hmm That's what they all say What kind of physician Well now we're playing Yeah too And you're really coating it down Well I want to know who's the winner How are we going to know where to send the RPI belt

We'll work it out I got a lot of faith in my boy Rick So I think Rick and I can work something out In terms of contacts and stuff But by the way there is no RPA belt I was just trying to trick you into telling me. Yeah, I know you're not pulling my leg.

I know there is a belt. No, no, no, there really isn't one. There really is one. You have it. It's in your possession. You can go around parading, but you don't think I've been showing it. It would be showing that thing off if there really was a belt. I think you really should.

You got a resourceful parent company. You got a nice cushy set there, Ariel. Yeah, I know. You got some fan falling. Tell me your name, and then I'll tell you where our belt is. No. All right, fair enough. Now, let me ask you this.

Do you do this? this, like, you actually really bet on the fights, or do you just put out your picks on shirt-dog? Yeah, no, 100%. Oh, really? I bet all, I bet the fights. I show all my bets before the fights happened, and if there's any sort of live betting,

I post a live bets. If there's any wins or anybody questions, any bets, I screen-cap them. I fully endorse transparency, and it's important that you basically document both wins and losses, and basically, if you're just going to magnify your wins and really sweep your losses under the rug,

It's not responsible gambling, and you might need to sort of seek professional help. I think that I want to kind of get away from and show that. It's not kind of for everyone, but if you're good at it, then by all means, do so, and document it. If you're not, then I don't like to see the ugly underbelly of it. So that's just my sort of PSA on gambling. I don't want to glorify it from sort of the RPI or just this talk, but I think it's very important that people do it responsibly,

and that's what I sort of strive for. Now, my man, York, Rick, gets a lot of flack for maybe claiming to be a great MMA better, but a lot of people don't believe it. And, you know, the proofs in the pudding lost the Rick's Pick Challenge, lost the RPI. How would you assess his betting prowess? Is he a good one, or is he Fugazi, as they say over on the Lorry's side? All right, this is what I'll say about Rick. Rick is a bright guy.

Rick has shown a lot of growth in terms of his betting patterns over time. I think the whole segment's kind of really grown over the year with Rick. And he's really, I think, improved his analytical approach. But everyone now and again has betting errors. It's really important that you grow from those errors sort of learn what you did wrong and try to correct those in the future. And he made a fatal error. He really didn't calculate his risk of ruin, as they say,

with betting on only one fighter with an entire bankroll, should you think or not in terms of trying to reach the final over the RPI. And he put it all basically on a gringo in Brazil, and that's kind of never a smart thing. So he got his ass handed to him. I told him I didn't think it was a wise bet, even if the implied odds were like 20% basically for Jason High. But regardless that he made an air, we all do that.

And I think Rick is a very good gambler in general. He is smart better, and he just sort of, he was under the gun. I think he had a strategic move that didn't work out, but he is a good better, and I can endorse Rick as a good Emmy better. How do you feel about that, Rick? I feel vindicated in some ways, and as I've said, that I can vouch for want to bet. He's always on the Sherdog forums posting his actual bets outside of just the RPI bets.

So if you don't believe that he's a good bet, you can always check him out. So I'm happy that we have a winner who represented well, and I was proud of everybody in the tournament. Well, that's BS. I mean, to me, Rick versus Wanabed is now my new, you know, Pettis versus Bendo, my new Couture versus Fedor. This is the fight I want to see. This is the match. But now you guys are being too friendly to each other.

You can't, I want to Rick to come on and say, who the hell is this guy to try to vindicate me? Who the hell is this guy to tell me what I'm doing? That's what you should have said. Don't you know anything about fight promotion? So congratulations again. No, no, no, we don't like friends. It could be like a Griffith in Bonner War. Sure.

That's fair. do other sports too? Not so much. Just UFC. I really bet the edge. So there's less of an edge, I think, in a lot of other sports than there is in MMA. So I really, I pretty much stick to

MMA. I stick to what I'm good at. And it's MMA, right? Not just UFC. I saw you were betting some WSOF, Bell Tor as well, right? Yeah, exactly. I mean, like Rick kind of plug, there's a lot of sharps on the Shirtog forums.

There's a threat put on by Oblivion, My UFC Betts. and so there are a lot of good betters there and some of them are better than myself admittedly so people that are sharp at Bellator or World Series of Fighting or some of the other organizations I mean I bet them but I think my edge is mainly

for the UFC and in Zoof organizations but yeah I bet all MMA and there are some good posters there as well that do so for anyone out there is listening and it's kind of a bright sort of objective interested in betting, you're more than welcome to join the fray over there. And were they rooting for you over there?

Because I saw there were some people criticizing the field. I mean, were you guys talking about it? Was this the topic of discussion over there for the last few weeks? Yeah, there's a good group of guys there, and they were rooting for me. There's, I don't know, there's dozens of people, really, that are sort of involved. and the general sentiment was they wanted me to win to represent Shurdog and to show, we're very friendly over there. Now you make me want to throw up, represent Shirtog.

Well, whatever. I mean, I don't know what your impression of Shirtog is. The betting thread, it's on the heavies. It's sort of some of a segregated community. There are people that obviously go back and forth, but I mean the people that you might associate in terms of Shirtog, that sort of trolls and the nubes and the people that are really fighter-bashing all this stuff, we don't really accept that there.

Again, we try to be sort of objective and critical. This is betting, so you have to check your motion to the door, as we say. So that sort of trolling is not really accepted, and you kind of get your ass handed to you in that thread. So that's, I guess, the shirt I am referring to. I don't know if that's really weird. That's fair. One last thing before we go, since we talk so much about who really knows what they're doing when it comes to betting and all that stuff, for the young bucks out there.

Even Lee MMA only, from the Ricks to the Shans to the La Lala 9-Ns, to the people who want to get into this whole thing. What's one good piece of advice that you can give someone who wants to understand betting? Even myself, I don't know what the hell you guys are talking about. It sounds interesting, but I don't really get it. What's a good piece of advice if you wanted to get into this MMA betting? stuff. I think the best piece of advice is you really need to transition your thinking from sort of picking who's going to win a fight, sort of the winner's mentality to before

lines are released or if they are released really not paying attention to them, objectively sort of breaking down a fight in terms of what the percentage of Fighter A versus Fighter B is outright and then sort of breaking it down in terms of Fighter A, how often they win by decision, how often they win by sub or by TKO and the complementary for Fighter B. So when you have the percentages broken down, you can sort of see exactly where they lie and then look at the odds and see what those odds are. And basically anywhere where your odds exceed what the implied odds are.

So for example, I mean, basically, I don't want to use 50-50 or pick them, that's obvious. But let's say a fighter is plus 150 and minus 150. There's no juice, let's say, in the business. that's a 60-40 split in odds. So if you think that a fighter has, an underdog, let's say, has a 45% chance winning there, a sort of a winner strategy would be to pick the guy who's 55%, but an actual betting strategy would be to pick the loser,

the guy who's only going to win 45%, because the odds are 150. Now, if the odds were even or plus 110, you bet the winner. But in this case, you're actually betting on a guy who you still expect to lose more often than not. That's the sort of mentality you need to have, to win long-term in betting.

In the short term, there's always going to be turbulence. You're going to have rough nights. I had a rough night on 161. But in the long run, if you're betting on that edge, you're going to make money long-term. And if you're not making money long-term, you probably don't have an edge, and I wouldn't advocate betting. So that's what my probably my biggest tip would be do sort of betters or people that are looking to get into betting.

All right. I think I could take you guys. I'll dabble a little bit, and maybe I'll come for your crown. For now, enjoy it. congratulations. Mazel Tov. Still a little creeped out that you know about the high school stuff. That's okay.

But maybe you'll tell me privately who the heck you are for now. Enjoy it, like I said. I want my belt. Yeah, yeah, maybe we'll make you a belt. Who knows? We'll think about it. Or maybe we'll get you involved in the next challenge that's out there. You are the king.

Maybe a little money belt, a little money ornaments, maybe a little nickel rick on the side to celebrate. Oh, damn. See, that's fighting words right there. That's fighting words. He's my boy. Only with Rick's blessings. what I want that.

Okay, all right. Thanks, man. Congratulations. Cheers, thanks a lot. There he is. Want to Bet UFC. If you want to ask him any questions, go to Twitter.com

slash want to bet UFC. That was a little weird that he, as he started talking and he's like, that's a Canadian accent. And it actually sounds like a Jewish Canadian accent.

This man, I'm onto him, Wandabet. He is the champion. It doesn't bother you at all that this man is the champion of your own tournament? No.

Come on. Where's the killer instinct? Where's the fire? We're trying to breathe something here. Well, what can I do about it now? I can't, you know, it doesn't bother. You don't want to take them out? You could have been in them.

You could have been the one. This whole segment wouldn't have happened. Do I want to ever lose? No, I don't want to lose. But I think the tournament went well, and I was happy with, you know, everybody participated. It was a good tournament. You weren't a believer in it.

Let's be honest. Well, as I said from the beginning, it's just the format. The format, as Wanabat said, makes you, you know, you have to perform every week. you can't have an off week. And sometimes you'll have an off week embedding. Guess what? That's life. You have to perform every week.

How do you think I've put on four straight years of tremendous internet viewing? All right. There it is. One of a bet. Now we have to, by the way, we have to decide, you know, what we do now with the picks.

I actually have a good idea. Tell me after the show. No, no, no. But it has to be done rather quickly. Oh, okay. What is it? Well, I was thinking. that you have to work your way up

back to the UFC. I can only bet on on like RFA. Yes, RFA, Belator, World Series of Fighting. And you have to work your way back up. I have to pick those fights and bet on those only.

Yes. How do you feel about that? I don't know if people are going to be interested in that. I don't care with that. You have to earn your spot on this damn thing. Why should we listen to you

if you don't deserve to be there? I am now Ed Soros. I'm giving you an opportunity to rebuild your career. Sure. I'll pick fights in other organizations. Do they put out odds for those? They do, but what happens is you're going to have to give me a different time frame because those fights usually come out either like day of or like hours before.

It's not going to be some, yeah, that's just how they work. The odds makers don't really care that much about the RFA, the, even like, not Bellator. Belator comes out relatively early, so does WSOF, but like Titan and all those other ones. they don't really come out until right before. Do me a favor. We've got Bellator on Wednesday. Kind of easy fights to predict.

They seem a little one-sided. Sure. We've got RFA on Friday. And that's pretty much it if my schedule is correct as far as big events before 162. Let's see how you do. All right. Cool.

All right? I will bet on those fights. Okay. And by the way, next Monday, we don't have a show. So we'll sit on this for a bit. We're off next Monday. We return the following Monday. the week of UFC 162.

So that's it. Let's see if you can build yourself back up. Sure. All right. We have a phone call? We do. All right, here we go. We have Brad in Mississippi.

Bradley. Hey, Ariel. Are you there? Yes. Hey, I just wanted to let you know. I'm the guy that gave you the glowing endorsement to Mr. Stephen Espinoza the other day on Twitter. Oh, yeah. That was great.

That was awesome. This man was on Twitter and said that he loved hearing Stephen Espinoza on I show the M. May hour, and I think Stephen said, like, it's the must-see show or something like that. That was great. I appreciate that. Yeah, no problem. It was interesting to kind of get a chance. He really, he's a nice guy. You could tell that people wanted to kind of support him. I'd kind of mention some things about Forbes reporting that the fight, you know, Guerrero Mayweather had lost about $12 million. Of course, he countered that and said that that was very false. But he had a lot of people that

came to his defense, and I wasn't really trying to pick a fight with him. I just wanted to see what the story was on it, just to see where Showtime stood in their investment of Floyd Mayweather. So, interesting that he responded. I was very, very glad. I'm very impressed with Stephen Espinoza. He seems, of course, on Twitter, he seems very active, very open. I like his attitude.

You know, it's a bit, it's not quite like Dana White, but, you know, he doesn't hold back, like your typical. Scott Coker was giving you nothing on Twitter. You can tell that it's Espinoza just kind of telling you how he feels. And you can't deny, at least from a boxing perspective, they've got a great card this Saturday, Adrian Broner versus Pauli Malinaghi in Brooklyn at the Barclay Center.

You can't deny that he has done tremendous stuff. I mean, right now, showtime is probably above HBO. As far as the fights are putting on, I like what they're doing with Brian Kenny, the announce crew with Morrow and all that. They're doing a great job. The product's great. MMA, of course, non-existent, but boxing's good.

Well, hopefully that will change in the near future. He seemed to indicate that, but, of course, the promotions that are out there are limited, so time will tell. I still don't think we'll see anything in 2013. No, I do. But at the same time, talking about Dana White and talking about Stephen Espinoza, there's definitely, at least Stephen Espinoza has some sort of filter as he deals with people. I don't think you have that with Dana White,

which kind of leads me to my question that I wanted to talk to you about regarding the Josh Thompson thing and how that kind of blew out of proportion. I know that Dana didn't spank him too bad, but at the same time, there's a real precedent to being set now that, you know, that you can't say or speak your mind. I know that he pretty much said, you know, that Josh didn't say anything derogatory toward anybody, but at the same time, he shamed him, you know, he needs to stick to fight and not kind of the same stuff he says about Roy Nelson, you know, you're stupid. You don't need to be talking.

You need to keep fighting. But, you know, my thing is this, why is Dana? I understand he's the president. You know, where's Matt Hughes and all this? I mean, isn't he the talent relations got? Honestly, I think that they're just scared because probably Matt Hughes feels the same way that some of these other guys do. He kind of spoke his mind. Dan Hardy didn't care for the dude when he was put in that position.

but I just find it interesting that Dana always seems to champion either a cause or an agenda, but doesn't let these guys get away with saying what they say unless he wants to beat him up and call me an idiot. Well, the thing with Matt Hughes is, you know, he's not there. You know, he's not as accessible as Dana. Dana is there at the press conference. We're talking to him. He is at the end of the day the president, and we know that he is going to be open with his thoughts and tell you how he really feels.

Hughes just isn't, you know, made available. like that. And quite frankly, I think a lot of people would rather hear from Dana as opposed to Hughes, even if his response is a favorable one or not. You know, yes, you mentioned the, you know, he should stick to finger painting and things like that. At least they didn't find him. At least, I agree with my colleague, Dave Doyle. You know, it's one thing to have, you know, a stupid opinion, if you want to say that was a stupid opinion, it's another thing to be offensive and to, you know, say things that you're not supposed to say, use words, insult, and things like that. People could have been insulted.

For example, I was not in agreement with what Josh Thompson said. I thought it was a stupid opinion. I just think to even say that, oh, I'm just bringing up an example, to even put those two examples in the same sentence, bestiality, infidelity of sorts with, you know, sleeping with your kid or your sister or anything like that, I mean, to even put that in the same sentence as gay, lesbian marriage, to me is ridiculous. So at least they didn't find him or punish him or anything like that. But he's a lot to have an opinion.

He's a lot to say stupid things as I deem them to be stupid. It just to me, the bigger issue is, why does it always seem to be MMA fighters who keep saying this stuff? Like, why don't we have this problem in other sports? It happens from time to time you saw, you know, Roy Hibbert slip up and say something a little silly and got fine for it. But why does it seem to happen every few days in our sport where guys are just saying things that they probably shouldn't be saying in the public sphere?

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, well, I don't know if you watched Jim Rohn's last show on Showtime, but he kind of dealt with the issue because all of the – a lot of NBA players like to say, no-homo or referred to something like, have you heard this? You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah. That's what Roy Hibbert said. Yeah, okay.

I'm sorry. I didn't catch the reference there. but at the same time, you know, they're still saying along the lines, not in the exact words, but they're expressing their homophobia, correct? Oh, absolutely. Those are stupid things, too. And Hibber was fine, like $75,000 or something like that. I mean, way more than a UFC fighter, although he is making a lot more.

It just seems like, you know, what happened with Diaz, the Mitrione thing, whether or not these things are good or bad. It's just, why do we always seem to take, you know, that extra step? I don't know. Maybe I don't follow the other sports as much anymore, but it just seems to come up more. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it just because I fall, you know, this is the sport I work in, so it's in my face all the time. But why did Josh Thompson even feel the need to wax poetic on all this stuff? What good comes out of it? Probably it's just his way. Again, the same thing goes along the lines with the Matt Hughes thing. That's why I can I bring Matt Hughes up, you know, because they feel like he's this, you know, gun flinging, you know, conservative, you know, all the things that you would probably sum up in someone like Josh Thompson, who is also, I don't know if you've noticed it, but he definitely makes his opinions known

in the terms of the political sphere. You know, he doesn't hold back there. I think it's just pretty much part of what he does. That's his thing. He likes to champion it with his t-shirts and all. Have you seen this? You know what I'm talking about? Absolutely. And you know what? I should correct myself, this is what I like about MMA in the sense that people are allowed to be themselves, colorful characters, they're not packaged. I just think that as the sport continues to grow, they need to be a little more careful because it's not so much that the sport is changing.

It's that the sports position in the world of sports and the new cycle has changed. And the UFC's view on all this, like in the past, they may have let this slide. Now, with a lot more eyes on them, them trying to get in New York, the deal with Fox, stuff, they have to police this a lot more. So you have to recognize the times and recognize that

maybe, you know, six years ago you wouldn't have gone trouble for this. Today, you will. So just package your thoughts a little better. Yeah. And unfortunately, you know, these guys are not the, you know, they pretty much represent themselves. You know, they are their own PR, if you will. So, you know, they're not going to come in the best package. And I guess they are learning. And Dana White feels like it's his position to try to coach them in that area to say, this is what you do, this is what you don't do. Yeah, and guess what? You know, I don't want them to be packaged by PR people.

I don't want them to give us, you know, like Roy, I made a joke about this. He was giving me all the cliches when I interviewed him on Friday. That's not where we want the sport to go, but you don't have to go over the line like that. You don't have to insult. You don't have to be defamatory. You don't have to degrade, things like that. I mean, it just, honestly, and there might be some people who do, I don't care what Josh Thompson thinks about gay marriage. I don't.

I don't want to hear it. I would never ask him about that in an interview. I do care what he thinks about Benson Henderson. Even if he brings up, like, his thoughts on Obama, that stuff's fine, you know, politics. But why do you, I mean, why do I care what Josh Thompson thinks about gay marriage? Now, if you tell me Josh Thompson's gay and he's fighting for his rights and things like that where it makes sense, like I would talk to Liz. Karmouche about Jason Collins because there's a link there, but what the heck does Josh Thompson have to do with gay marriage? And not only that, putting down gay marriage, putting it down.

If he's supporting it, more power to him, at least for me, because I support it. But if you're putting it down and comparing it to these crazy things, these taboo things, then what's the point? Why? Why is it coming up? Well, I think that he could have probably stated it better if he, for example, I think he came back and kind of reverted his story a little bit to say that he wasn't against gay marriage. Of course, we know that's not true. You know, he's obviously against gay marriage. So I think that he got scared and kind of crawled at it at the last minute. But, you know, you could say something along the lines of, you know, if that's your opinion and you didn't believe in gay marriage,

where does the, where does the line, where do you draw the line? And of course, the addendum was where he got out of whack. Yeah. Anyway, it's a bummer. He didn't get in trouble. No, he didn't. And, you know, I like Josh Johnson as a fighter, and I like the fact that, again, part of the personality is why we like fighters and what they bring to the table along those lines. And, of course, they're not going to decorate everything, package it just the way that you want it to. And, you know, Dana White's position, again, I was just kind of more or less confused with where, Matt Hughes's, you know, position kind of allowed him to kind of take the reins in that area, which I understand that accessibility factor is an issue. Yeah, he is the president in the day, and let's see what happens with Matt Hughes.

You know, Dana joked when Forrest Griffin retired that he's going to work a lot more than Chuck. You know, that job didn't really turn out to be much. So let's see about Matt Hughes. I saw Matt Hughes in Winnipeg. I don't know if he was there for business or pleasure or whatnot, but we'll have to wait and see. We've got to run, Brad. I appreciate the call very much in the insight. Hey, absolutely.

Appreciate the opportunity. There he is. Brad in Mississippi weighing in on a controversial topic from last week. Before we get your questions, just want to get a quick update from Mr. New York, Rick. How is the UFC Fit challenge going? Going great. I really feel fantastic. And I've lost a lot of weight.

I actually don't even have a scale. That's the problem. You see a lot of weight. You'd even weigh yourself before. this thing happened? Are you kidding me? Yeah, I don't know. I don't have a scale. You don't have a scale? You couldn't go somewhere, figure it. When's last time you've been to the doctor? Like a year ago, maybe six months ago? Do you know how much you weighed there? Yeah, I think I was like 165, 166, something like that. All right, so that's a ballpark at least. Yeah. All right, but you feel better. You look a,

you look a lot thinner. I see it every day that I get it. You feel better? I feel good. I feel really good. Have we saved your life? No. Okay. I wasn't dying. All right. I mean, as sad as that makes you, I wasn't dying. It's horrible. But I feel really good.

I'm putting better things into my body, and that can only lead to good results. And how's the workout? The workout is the same. I mean, I've been doing the same kind. Like, I haven't advanced to the next level yet, so I've been doing the same workouts for two weeks now. This is my third week. And then after this, I will advance to the next level. Okay, but you see, I think I could see it.

I mean, the proof is in the pudding. Sure. But when are we going to see some kind of photographic evidence? I took a picture this morning. Oh, you did? And I'll tweet out the one from when I started and the one from this morning later tonight or tomorrow morning. Oh, what's the picture of? Just me.

Okay, boy, I want to see you actually doing UFC fifth. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'll also vine something this week as well. Okay. I mean, I need to, you know, I don't want to call you out or anything, but, you know, I don't like to do that sort of thing. But, uh, but come on. You know, like, I've seen no evidence that you're actually doing these workouts. You will see the...

I don't know if one finds enough. I may have to send Buzzkill and the team down there will... To do a whole video show? Yeah, I want to see what you're doing. I want to see if you're really actually doing it. I don't think I'm ready for that yet because I'm still embarrassingly bad at some of the exercises. Well, we can, you know, the magic of editing. Yeah, that would be good.

I would like it to be professionally edited because I'm, you know, I can't keep up with Mike and... and the rest of them on the DVD. So three weeks in, it's going well, you're not tapping out. No, no, no. I'm going all the way through. And I think the results are going to be pretty incredible. I can't wait for your Jason High moment. What's that?

You know, when you just kind of give up and... I hope Jason High is watching. Well, no, he is symbolic. You know what I mean? I'm not so much talking about Jason High. I'm not going to give up. All right. Well, continued luck.

And the next time we talk to you will be in two weeks, so you'll really be into it. Man, I'm going to be... You're going to be shredded. I am. It's a true story. Let's get to some questions. Okay, these are from the website.

Oh, what's at stake? We can give away... How about we give away Round 5, Jose Aldo? Oh, yeah. Champion. By the way, we've got the champions up here. Yes, we do. Newark did something very fun.

He put the contenders and back. We've got... Who did you go back here? Well, first off... Oh, no. Jose just fell off. You just crowned a new champion. We got the Korean zombie right in back of Jose as my headphones fall down.

We've got, who do we got back there? We've got Pettison back of Benson. I like that. And then we've got Junior versus Kane. This guy's not really standing. Okay, hit me with the questions while I fix this. Sure. The first question titled from the website, U.S.

President Ariel Hawani. Oh, yeah. Dana White steps down. Ariel Hawani is given the nod by Lorenzo Fetita to run the UFC. What is your first order of business? Oh gosh. Get some cool jeans, some cool t-shirts. Shave my head.

After all that, honestly, you know, I think Dana brings up a lot of good points about the judging issue, the referee issue, TRT, all that stuff. But what are they doing about it?

Well, they're trying to change the TRT thing where they, you know, they start to test guys mid-camp. but if I were running the UFC, I would just create my own officiating, judging group of sorts. Why not? Why not bring it in house? It's cool in the NFL. It's cool in the NBA. It's cool in NHL, MLB. They all have their own kind of union. That's fine. But let's start that. Why rely on the commissions? Why? Let's change it up. Let's rewrite history. Let's change the system. Why do we have to go through the commissions. If the commissions don't care about making the sport better, if guys aren't being policed, if guys aren't being evaluated after they screw up, then it's time because the

end of the day, it only hurts the promoters. It only hurts the UFC. People actually think that, you know, the Mazagadis of the world work for the UFC. They don't understand what the commissions are. They don't understand all that stuff. So I would start to make my own officiating crew and invest in that and teach them and make them go through the ranks. And when they're ready to ref and judge UFC events, then they get the call in the big time. Until then, I use two or three guys. But does that, by bringing the officiating and the judging closer to the organization,

does that not like bring up its own issues? For example, the NBA is notorious and is oft criticized for being biased and having Stern's agenda. Sure, but they survive, right? People still watch. They get millions of dollars, billions of dollars. they still survive. People aren't getting hurt.

There's always going to be conspiracy theories. There's always going to be all this nonsense. But what's the best thing to do? Look, we've been covering this sport for a long time. Who's the new blood? Where are the great young referees and judges? Of course, you know, it's kind of an old man's game, old woman's game, whatever you want to call it,

and it's not a very rewarding job. But let's try to figure out how to make it as good as possible. And right now, just complaining in scrums, is not working. So how do we fix it? Okay. That's what I would do. Now, Dana is a lot more equipped.

He knows a hell of a lot more about this stuff. He is, in my opinion, the greatest promoter of all time, honestly, all time. But I'm just saying, if you give me the job, that's what I would do. Here's our next question. What does your mom think of Nick Diaz's war promotion, and how excited is she for the upcoming card? Well, the upcoming card is this weekend, this Saturday. My mom is watching right now. so let's just wait and she'll probably text me in a few minutes.

All right, let's go to the next one and then when you have an update from her. She was very confused about Wannabet, by the way, just to let you know. All right, here's the next one. This is about yellow cards. Isn't it time we introduce Pride's yellow cards into the UFC? We're seeing an increase in fighter stalling fights like Ryan Jim O did at UFC 161, and the arena boos are clearly not working. Save for bad stylistic matchups, stalling fighters should be penalized.

What are your thoughts? Well, this is a perfect segue or a perfect example of what I was talking about. People think that the UFC can actually make these decisions. They can't. The UFC is governed by the athletic commissions. So the question should be, should we introduce pride yellow cards into the unified rules of MMA, which is what the UFC follows. You understand what I'm saying?

The UFC follows unified rules of MMA. There are no yellow cards, red cards, things of that nature. But people think that it's the UFC doing the policing, the officiating all that stuff. Yeah, you're right. I mean, my argument was people will say it's too close to the organization, but you're right that people think that anyway. So might as well take control of it and make it better. Now, as for the actual idea, why not? I'm down with it.

They should be penalized in some way. I mean, there is, honestly, in the unified rules, there is something in there that that says, should be penalized for stalling for just doing no action, anything like that. It's actually in there. And that's why guys get, you know, fights get broken up. Look at Woodley and Shields. They were broken up a lot of times. Although, honestly, I thought those were bad calls.

I thought they were broken up way too many times. Eve Levine was doing that. But it's in there, just not outright yellow-red. I thought that was kind of cool. It was a little hokey, like taking it from soccer. But the concept, I liked it. So I'd be into it, but it's unified rules, not the UFC. Our next question, did you ever think about releasing a behind-the-scenes type documentary of your event coverage?

Behind the nose may be a fitting title. That's interesting. By the way, how about these great website questions? Finally, they're getting their due, and the people on the website know that I'm a big fan of them. I've been weighing in, and it's nice to see Eric give them some kind of spotlight here on the show. I have thought of that. Not so much. People have asked me about video blogs and things of that nature.

Believe it or not, I don't think it's about myself. Believe it or not, I don't want myself to be the focus. Like, oh, let's see a video blog of Ariel in Winnipeg. I don't really think anyone cares. We did one in Japan. It was a little more stylized. Esther and Casey did that, our video and photo team. That was really cool. And because it was special, it was in Japan. But I'll say this. I have thought of, use the word documentary. I have thought of that. I have thought of different ideas outside of our typical fight night coverage and I will leave it at that. But as far as like my trip

to so and so, no, I really don't think anyone cares and I think that's a little too, you know, egotastic. By the way, what's up with my mom not texting? I guess she took a break. She was texting me before.

You know, she finally gets a shot at the big time and there she is. She wrote a happy anniversary, all this stuff. Disappointed. Yeah. I'm sure. I'm confident.

She'll weigh in at some point. We're moving on to Twitter. These people are eligible for our prize this week. First question. We've heard Dana's thoughts, Kaiser's thoughts. Now it's time to hear Halwani's thoughts on the Steve Mazagati incident at WSOF. Skip to my fang. Skip to my...

Not quite. I thought it was a bad call. Not so much a call. Oh, by the way, my mom's back. She just texted me. someone asked you a question, Mom, and you weren't there. They wanted to know what you thought of Nick Diaz's new promotion called War MMA, June 22nd. They specifically asked for your opinion, and you were not there when it was asked.

But you have five minutes to redeem yourself. Anyway, back to the question. My biggest issue was his placement. If you look at the replay and some of the screen grabs, he's not even in the frame. He's not even in the shot. He's nowhere to be found. Of course, you have to give the fighter some space. But at that point, he had the choke on for a couple of seconds. He got to get in there. I mean, even on television, I saw Fitch's body went limp. You could tell he was out. And then to allow Berkman to just flip him around and throw him down there and even just stand above him.

Where was he? Where was he during all of that? Luke Thomas tweeted something funny today where he had a picture of the actual submission and he quoted Keith Kaiser saying like he was in the perfect view or whatever and he's nowhere in the shot. Nowhere in the shot. He's not even in the frame of the picture

supposedly looking at this submission. It was terrible. Yeah, so it was a bad call and then the fact that Keith is saying that it wasn't good, it wasn't bad, nothing to talk about is alarming. I mean, just the fact that people have brought it up and I've made such a big deal about it,

unless he's not telling us the truth, should tell you that you need to sit down and look at this and dissect whether or not people are actually right in their criticism. The fact that you're not, or at least you're telling us you're not, to me, warrants criticism. Here's our next question. Oh, by the way, this is from Joe Saliba. we will we excuse me will we begin to see more fighters complain and ask for new

ref assignments if they get a ref like mazagadi or winslow i hope so i mean they should control their own destiny in that sense kenny florin tweeted just recently that if any of his fighters or any anyone involved in his team knew that they were getting mazegadi and often you find out the night of maybe three or four days before it very much depends on the state Kenny mentioned that they wouldn't allow it. Brock Lesnar famously did that. And Keith, in the interview with Dave Meltzer on MMA fighting, brought up that he thought, you know, his Dana's beef with Mazagadi stems from the Brock Lesnar,

Frank Meir fight at UFC 81. After that, Brock Lesnar said he would never allow Mazgadi to ref one of his fights. You should be allowed to do that to a degree. Why not? It's like in our basketball league. There are two guys that I don't like. I asked for them not to ref our games. And they haven't.

I don't want some hack to ref. You know what I'm saying? I'm not calling him a hack. I'm just saying if there's someone I don't like, I should be allowed to exercise that right. So yes, if a fighter doesn't like a ref, judge is a little tough, but a ref, then say it now or forever hold your peace.

I didn't know about those two refs. You didn't know about that? I didn't. Oh my gosh. But I'm glad because we had a great season. So maybe that was a product. But actually there was one ref that was pissing me off so much. I accused him of being an anti-Semite.

I accused him of being an anti-Semite. And then I stormed off. I left. I left with five minutes left. He may have kicked me out. Either he kicked me out or I stormed off. And then I called the league and I said, this man and this other man are never allowed to ref our games.

And they haven't. How about that? Wow. You did it. Yeah, I did it. All right. Here's our next one from... I'm an example.

I'm a trailblazer for MMA fighters. All right, here we go. Here's our next one. MMA Pride Gilly. Do you think Fitch is on the downside? I think he's just been a bit sloppy lately and will bounce back as soon as possible. I mean, it's a tough one.

You know, the draw, the BJ Penn fight was not a good performance for Fitch. A lot of people thought, you remember that fight, UFC 127 in Australia. I was there. What an experience that was? Side note. for BJ to come out and fight him to a draw

a much smaller BJ pen, it was shocking. Remember that first round? BJ surprised everyone, wrestled, all that stuff. Clinched. It was a very good performance, and it was a performance that Damien Maya copied, and he admitted that he copied when he beat him in February. After that, he was knocked out by Johnny Hendrix.

After that, he beat Eric Silva in an amazing fight. Fight of the night. And look what Eric Silvas has since done. It's a very impressive showing. After that, he lost to Damia Maya. So, what is he? One, two, and one? Would that be it?

I always get confused. Is the draw in the middle or the draw? The draws at the end. Yeah. So it's one two and one. I'm right. He won two and one in his last four fights. That's not great.

No, because he lost to Berkman now. Oh, right. Berkman, Maya, and Hendricks. Birkman, Maya, Hendricks. Yeah, that's not, I mean, I like Fitch He's always been great to me He's a great fighter

I thought he was underrated I thought he was criticized unfairly I didn't think the fans appreciated him Of course you know not the flashiest fighter But he was a tough guy And I didn't think it was the right call To cut him But then you look at what happened on Friday

And then you look at those other fights There's a trend And you could say at this point his career He is not as good as he once was He's not on the top 10 anymore That's for sure Here's our next question from Michael Woods. Was UFC 161 the poorest pay-per-view card in UFC history?

Did the TV viewers and people of Winnipeg get short-changed? I don't think it was the poorest. Actually, paper-view-wise, 149 was worse. But the thing that 149 had that 161 didn't have was an unbelievable undercard. If you recall, 149 in Calgary was a great undercard. This one just top to bottom, only two finishes. It was like the anti-UFC on fuel 10.

It just wasn't one of those magical nights. But as far as the actual pay-per-view is concerned, what you paid for, 149 was worse. Overall card, 161 was worse. As far as the overall card, I mean, there's been a lot now, but I'm going to say, the pay-per-view only had one real stinker.

I don't think Hendover v. Rashad was a bad fight. Do you think it was a bad fight? Do you think it was a bad fight? Not at all. It wasn't a bad fight. I was pleased with that fight, and I am surprised that so many people weren't pleased with that fight. It was what we expected it to be. You know, that's what we thought.

I thought it was going to be a decision. It was close. It had its moments. Rashad got rocked, Hendo got rocked. I enjoyed Davis v. Sexton. I think people have way too high expectations now for the women's fights. I think people think that they're going to blow the roof off and produce a fight of the nights every time. It was a good fight.

Sexton showed heart. Davis was dominant at times, got tired. Barry, you know, he got knocked out, seconds, and then he had the Jimmo fight. And Miochich pulled off an upset. Look, of the pay-per-views this year, off the top of my head, I'd probably say it was one of the least exciting ones, but of all time, I can't say that. Here's our next question from Nick Massive. What do you do with Evans now? Give him the Machita rematch, which would eliminate a rematch fight for one of them with Jones? I wouldn't do that because Machita's fighting Phil Davis next. If Machita loses, maybe.

Machita's got to be pretty close to a title shot. I mean, he's been promised it twice. If he beats Phil Davis, maybe he gets it. I thought that they should do Evans versus Glover-Teshirea, but when I brought that up to Dana White, he said that they have other plans for Glover, which makes me think maybe Ryan Bader. If you recall, Ryan Bader was supposed to fight Glover

on Memorial Day until he got injured. And then they inserted James Tehuna. I think Rashad versus Glover and Glover's manager Ed Soros told me that after that fight in May, that they wanted to fight the winner of this fight of the 161 main event. But they say they have other plans. So I brought up on the Fuel TV post-fight show, which apparently you didn't watch, I said I wanted to see Rashad fight the winner of Shogun versus Chail Sunnan, particularly if it's Shogun.

That's a fight we were going to see. for the belt at UFC 128 until Rashad got injured and then John Jones stepped in and the rest is history. If Chale wins, I still want to see him fight Vanderlei. I think Chale versus Rashah would be fun. Plus they're kind of colleagues on Fox and that's kind of fun. But Chale versus

Ashung, I think is very interesting. I like both those fights. I'd like to see Rashad versus Chale as well. Yeah. Or, I mean, yeah, yeah. So there you have it. Here's our next one from Aaron Hill. With Evans again not looking great, at what point do we look back to his departure from Jackson's as the downturn of his career? I mean, he looked great against Tito Ortiz.

Remember how he looked in that fight physically? I was there. It was fantastic. Yeah, he looked amazing. Phil Davis, you know, he dominated Phil Davis for five rounds. He beat him at his own game, and he was very injured going into that fight, injured ribs. Then he fights John Jones, and of course John Jones is who he is, and he went the distance with John Jones. although it did seem like John kind of took his foot off the pedal there at the end. And then, of course, you have this performance.

He won. Oh, wait, we had one in between. The Nogara performance. His worst. That one, you could say, I don't even know what was going on in that one. That was not the Rashad Evans that we have come to know and love over the years in the UFC. But as far as a member of the Jackson Camp, that's it. because prior to the Tito fight

when he fought Rampage he was still a member of Jackson's so as a member of the Black Zillions he is three and two one lost to John Jones one lost to Nogera you can't really say you can't really say the lot going on in his life

divorce all that stuff I don't think that's a fair thing to say I also don't think his performance was that bad honestly I'm impressed I mean what do people want from him he I thought he convincingly one. I mean, I could see a case for Henderson winning, but in my opinion, it was

pretty clear that it was Evans. I wouldn't say he dominated or, you know, absolutely no, I won't hear an argument, but I thought he looked pretty good. And Henderson's still an elite level dangerous opponent. And he took his best shot in the first round and survived. And I also think if it was five rounds, he would have come on a lot stronger, and it would have been a very impressive performance, and people would have been completely satisfied. I mean, people don't want him to go in there and take Henderson down and just lay on top of him, because that's been a criticism of a shot in the past. He stood with Henderson for almost 15 minutes, toe to toe, and I thought he looked great. I had no problem with that performance. And a lot of people were picking Henderson.

That's one of the few times. I'm not a huge fan of the five-round main event, but this one feels like it would have been a lot of fun. And you can't ask them to do it. do it because they had already agreed to three rounds and then, you know, they had to change it into the main event like two weeks out. They were training for three rounds. It's not fair to ask them to go two more rounds, especially they looked, particularly Henderson looked a little tired, come round three, the end of round three, but that would have been fun. I have a bit of breaking news. Here's a statement from my mother regarding war. She writes, I love war by Nick Diaz. I wish I could attend, but it's my birthday weekend.

So, I mean, it's fair. You know, she put it out there. She wanted to be in Stockton. Happy birthday. Yeah. How about that? How about that? And she also writes, also, I bet Silva will win.

How about that? Yeah. This is breaking news. She also writes something about Charles Olivera, but I'm not sure what she's talking about. We'll get back to that one. All right. Here's our next question from Lucas McIver.

Is Hendo's Future at 205 or 185? Does he have another title run in him? Tough one. I mean, I'd like to know how many fights he has in him, period. I'm going to say 205. At this point, I just don't think he wants to cut that weight anymore. I still think there are interesting fights for Hendo. You know, maybe a rematch against Little Nog.

They fought back in pride. Maybe a rematch against Van der LeSilva. They fought back in pride. There are still some interesting fights for Hendo. at least a couple that I can think of tons of the, you know, even like the, the, the shoguns of the world. How about Chale versus Henderson? You saw that, a little bit of a simmering feud, right? Because Chale said on UFC tonight that they were in cahoots. They tried to set up John Jones. Then Henderson said that wasn't true. And then when I asked them at the Wands, Henderson said, I'll talk to you next week, Chale, like kind of in a father-sonlike manner. Maybe something's brewing there.

So I still think they're interesting fights for my 205. Our next question comes from me. The question is, why don't you fly your wonderful mother out to Stockton for her birthday? Happy birthday present. For some reason, she just wrote, thank you, Rick, New York. But I think it's because of something you said after. I said happy birthday to her. Oh, right, of course, of course.

You know, that would be, imagine that. And if you videotaped that entire experience, it would be even better. It would be better. Maybe Nick will have us over for. for Shabbat dinner, it would be nice. Here's our actual next question. Okay. From a long-time participant, Gazquilium,

how badly did Roy Nelson's performance hurt his contract negotiation with the UFC? Do you think he will ever leave? Earlier this week, or last week, I should say, I thought there was a very good chance that he was going to leave. And I also thought it was an extremely, you know, big mistake that he lost.

obviously. I mean, it was a costly mistake, I should say. To go into free agency, it reminded me very much of the Dan Henderson situation, and one of the few times that we've seen this in MMA, where the guy is looking good and has an opportunity to go elsewhere and could get the UFC involved in some kind of bidding war. He would have gone into free agency riding a four-fight winning streak. The first three fights, the first three wins, all came via first round, TKO or K.O., if he would have done the same against Miyoch, he would have been blazing hot. And it feels to me like Roy Nelson has never been more popular in his career. And I disagree with Dana White.

I think a huge part of that. Of course, the knockouts, all that stuff, his demeanor, his look. People can, you know, they relate to him. They feel like this is a guy. If he can do it, I can do it. He's a likable guy. He's a star. He really truly is a star.

So by losing the way he did, it will hurt his chances. I mean, surely he sits down and negotiates with the UFC. They're going to bring that up. up. It weakens his stance. I think Belator would take him in a second, personally. But right now, based on what Dana said, and I believe him, he was sincere. I think they want to be in the Roy Nelson business. They recognize he's a pain in the ass, but still, he is a star. And they're not going to let that star go away to Belator. They're not. So I think he'll be back in the UFC. Our next question comes from Richard Dunstan. Does Miyochic get a top 10 guy next? And if Nelson

resigns with the UFC, is it time for Nelson versus Hunt? Well, let's go with the second question first, 100%. I would love to see Nelson v. Hunt. I would love it. Both coming off losses. Both have a very fun style. They love to stand in trade, strikers, incredible chins. It would be a lot of fun.

As for Sipay Miocch, who all of a sudden is back in the mix after losing to Stefan Struth, 100%. You know, maybe the winner of Travis Brown versus Alster Overim. Is that too much of a push? I don't think so. Maybe Antonio Silva was coming off a title loss. It's a rare winner versus loser matchup, but maybe that makes sense. I don't think Antonio Silva is going to fight Tiago Silva.

That's just crazy. So someone like that makes sense. Our next question comes from Sean Brady. Does Pat Barry have a problem of getting too friendly with his opponents? It's certainly interesting. I saw someone blaming me for the loss because I brought up the fact that he hadn't won two in a row in the UFC, but it is interesting. When he gets friendly, chummy with his opponent,

I don't think he has the best record. I mean, most famously, you had the Crow Cop situation, right? Although he was kind of friendly with Anthony Hardin and he beat him the biggest win of his career at UFC 104. But it wasn't quite like this. Stefan Struve, remember that. Didn't have that with Moorcraft. Lovar Johnson?

Kind of, right? didn't really have that with Del Rosario beat him and then Sean Jordan maybe there's something to be said for that I mean I think Barry is a professional I think he's a guy who goes out there and just likes to be an entertainer but maybe he lets his guard down a bit

he'd be the only one that could really answer that question I doubt it I really I think he's coming in there to take guys heads off and sometimes it's his head that gets taken off honestly yes very eloquent thank you our next question comes from Roan Tine.

Pat Barry is 5 and 6 in the UFC and has never beat anyone in the top 10. Should the UFC cut Pat or is he the new gatekeeper at heavyweight? No, they shouldn't cut him. He's very popular. I mean, really it was him and Roy Nelson, the two most popular guys. At the Wands, I think Pat Barry got a bigger reaction than Roy Nelson.

Very popular. He's coming off a tough loss, kind of a freak loss. But prior to that, he had a great showing against Chain Del Rosario. Is he a gatekeeper? Whatever the hell you want to call him. He is exactly where he was on Saturday, in my opinion. He's in that kind of middle-tier

heavyweight status, and I still think there are interesting fights for him at heavyweight, and you need guys like that. Every time Pat fights, something fun is going to happen. Knockout of the night, fight of the night. This time he was on the receiving end of a knockout of a night.

But still, something fun happens, he entertains. They keep those guys around. Our next question comes from Street Justice. Dana didn't see seemed too impressed by Alexis Davis, were you? And where does she go from here? I think people need to slow their role a little bit,

and Alexis agreed she still needs a few more fights. People were saying that she's the one that could dethrone Ronda Rousey, and people who I respect, like Robert Sargent of MMARising.com, this man knows women's MMA. He was saying that. He was kind of saying it first. And I think the octagon jitters may have gone to her. Maybe she could have finished the fight in the second.

she seemed very tired, and I thought it was the right call to let the fight go into the third. But, you know, I'd like to see her maybe fight the winner of, well, she already fought Sarah Kaufman twice. The second one produced an amazing fight in Strike Force. But if Sarah McMahon wins in August, maybe the winner of that fight. Or maybe the winner of the Andrade versus Karmouche fight coming up next month. She still needs a couple more fights. I wasn't disappointed. I didn't think it was a bad fight.

But I think it was a bad fight. I think it told us that she's still at least two or three fights away from competing against Rousey. And by the way, to clarify my mother, she is picking Charles Olivera over Frankie Edgar. How about that? Wow. How about that? Wow.

Maybe she should be in the tournament. Absolutely. If that one cashes in, I'm bowing down. Yeah. Our next question comes from Benoit Belanger. Do you really think Anthony Pettis will take T.J. Grant's spot at UFC 164? For the record, it's Benoit. Belanger.

That's what I said. Yeah. Come on. Bellinger. Amazing avatar over there. Is that the Rampage or Rona Slam? That's pretty much why I picked it. It is the Rampage of Rona Slam.

Honestly, we'll find out very soon because he is going to to Las Vegas tomorrow and he's going to have a tete-a-tete with the UFC. My guess right now is crazier things have happened, but I'm going to guess no. I'm going to guess that the UFC is going to see. The difference between the Condit situation was there was no injury. involved there. I don't think they want to rush Anthony Pettis. Anthony Pettis is all about flash, pizzazz, the moves, flying everywhere. They don't want to risk that. It's not worth it,

end of the day. So I'm going to say they'll err on the side of caution. They'll stick with Grant, which, by the way, is not a bad thing. Maybe the people in Milwaukee will be a little disappointed because the Pettus carrot is being dangled in front of them. But if there's even a 1% doubt, a 0.01% doubt, don't do it. Our next question comes from Garth Bex. Do you believe the heat between Rowdy and Tate, or is it just typical tough hype? It's hard to say because we haven't seen it yet. Dana said that the animosity is bad.

The relationship is bad. Like Tito Ken bad, maybe even worse. He almost seemed like startled by it, like rattled by the whole thing. This is what he told us at the scrum on Thursday. And by the way, the scrum has turned into like its own event. It's unbelievable from the anticipation, the people watching, even at the scrum. It's really an amazing thing that it's turned into. And it's a lot of fun to be a part of, I feel privileged.

But back to the question, it's hard to say. We've seen tough hype before. I'm going to believe that it's real. Actually, Misha Tay was very nice. She texted me yesterday, wishing me a happy Father's Day. Now, I don't know if it was one of those mass texts, but you can't mass text to everyone a happy Father's Day. Maybe she has fathers in one section.

But I thought it was very nice, and I wrote her back about Dana's comments, and she said, it's true. So, who knows? I'm intrigued. September 4th, Fox Sports 1. I'm very intrigued. I'm also intrigued to see

who makes it onto the show. Can't wait for that. Our next question comes from Frank. De Christofano. You want to give that one a shot? De Christofano. That was good. So you add an accent and that makes it, okay.

Will had an interpretation that I think is wrong. How well do you think the fight master will do compared to the ultimate fighter? It's interesting because Belator, you see, they have the lead-in for this event, but Belator's not on next week. And Belator was getting a lot of their viewers from the pro wrestling show, TNA Impact. And then they're moving to Fridays. They're not going to have that anymore. So we truly don't know how popular Bellator is on its own, on Spike TV with no special lead in.

We're about to find out. And I think for the first event, I mean, we're going to find out on Wednesday, really, because they won't have pro wrestling before it. And let's say they get, you know, 700,000 viewers, 800,000 viewers, which would be rather low for what they got before in their first season on Spike. How much of that audience is Fightmaster going to hold? I'm still kind of confused about the whole pick the coaches. Like if I'm there, with all due respect, if I'm on the show,

why am I picking Joe Warren? Are you picking Joe Warren? Why the hell would you pick Joe Warren? With all due respect, I know he has the background. He fought in the tournament and all that, but you got Randy Couture, Frank Shamrock, and Greg Jackson? Honestly, who else? Why would you pick anyone but Greg Jackson?

I agree. I think there's probably some way that they make it even teams. I'm curious. Otherwise, it would just be the Gregs' action show. I really can't imagine picking anybody else. And I saw some people who saw the show, or I saw them write this, and they say Joe Warren. I think Dave Doyle saw the first episode,

and he wrote that Joe Warren stole the show, which is very interesting. I'm going to watch it, but I got to admit, I mean, you know how I feel about tough already, although this season I'm definitely all in. I'm very interested. I'm not sure if I'm ready for another reality show. But they need to build stars.

Here's what I don't like about the idea. You go through the tournament to get into the tournament. The guy who wins this show, with all due respect, needs to get a title shot. You're going to go through a whole damn tournament again. The prestige of being in the Bell Tour tournament, get the title shot.

Give them a title shot. People like that. That's a big deal. Now you're fighting for a belt. Not for an opportunity to fight in the tournament. That's silly. The Matt Serra. Yeah.

My favorite season of Tough, season four. Here's our next question. from JT. What is the craziest off-camera moment you have ever shared with the public? Never shared.

Maybe he, yeah. Gosh. Well, it wasn't really off-camera, but I'll tell you when Leonardo Machita's father peed in the cup right next to me when he just walked off into the corner

and drank the urine. That was pretty crazy, although that was on camera. It was a little awkward when he, you know, tried to shake my hand and I didn't want to do it right afterwards.

craziest when I was in San Diego and it was the infamous people like you, where I'm from, people like you get slapped, I will say that right before the interview, speaking of Nick Diaz, he really did not want to talk to me. For whatever reason on that day,

he did not want to talk to me. Caesar Gracie was there and he was like, look, he doesn't want to talk to you. We were on the stage, and this was the first show that Zufo was running for Strike Force. They just purchased it a month ago. It was April of 2011.

And Dave Schaller, who is the head of PR for the UFC, you know, tremendous at his job, kind of just stood there and said, no, you're doing this interview. And he did not want to do it. He really didn't want to do it. And it was very tense. That was the only time that I was actually kind of nervous that someone might hit me. And then he kind of blew up and I pissed him off in the interview. At first he was kind of jokey, but then he was really upset.

But anyway, the moments before we were rolling were very tense. And probably the most tense that I can think of. Hector Lombard, even though we have a fantastic relationship now, and I think he should go down to 170, when I saw him at UFC 149, his UFC debut, and he saw me and he was under the impression that I was talking smack about him. He went nuts. It was kind of scary.

But we were, you know, we were kind of apart. Like we were maybe, I don't know, 20 feet apart. But he's like, you, uh, S, talka, you start drama. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. He was all upset. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed. That was a little crazy. That was into Jimmy Calgary.

One more for you. After Tito Ortiz beat Ryan Bader, you remember we, I spoke to Tito Ortiz prior to that fight at UFC 132. And then we had our little thing at the press conference where he claimed that he never said Bader's wrestling was, wasn't his weakness. We were still cool. He wins that fight. I'm backstage about to interview him,

and then he goes off on me. We actually recorded it but never put it out. He went off on me saying, you know, all this and I don't know what he was calling me, bad names and just started yelling and said he would never talk to me. So there are a couple for you. Guillermo del Smito, what are your favorite moments from the first four years of the MMA hour?

Hmm. Off the top of my head? Well, the first one was fun because I was really excited that we were actually getting a show. And there was this studio in AOL, and there were cameras. And I said, this could be like kind of our MMA version of the Howard Stern show. Do a radio show, but you also film it. And then it evolved into this.

It took some time. I remember back in the day, the camera was kind of like a security camera. It was high up and didn't really work like it is working right now, and it was kind of black and white. But that was a lot of fun just to kick it off. I remember one of our first shows, we had Kevin Black. Ackstone on the show, and he had wrote this negative article about women's MMA, and we had him on. He's a famous writer.

We did the whole show, and I was leaving, and I was unplugging my computer, but by mistake, the board, if you will, was the guy sitting right next to me, Josh, by mistake, I unplugged his computer, and we lost the entire show. Five minutes after doing it. That was a low moment in my life. So I wouldn't say that was one of my favorite moments. But, you know, it comes to mind, of course, Alastair Overeem's birthday. that was probably one of our more famous moments. Rampage doing the Duggy. No, not the Duggy.

Alster doing the Duggy. Rampage doing the Gagnum style. What else? Mike Tyson being on the show with Dana last year. That was a lot of fun. The Hennar Gracie Rant. That was a lot of fun. Will mentions Miller Freakout.

I don't know if that was a favorite moment. That was kind of a weird moment. I mean, it was certainly popular. but I don't know if I would categorize that as a favorite moment. What else? I feel like I'm missing some New York Rick. Do you got any company? I mean, debut of New York, Rick, obviously.

Debuting New York Rick was a big one. You know, when we came here, that was a big deal. I've had John Jones in studio. I'll tell you what was my worst moment when we had that one show post-purchase of AOL in that studio that looked like it was like a control room, and I was sweating, and it was horrible, and there were horrendous, technical difficulties and John Jones of all people was in studio that day.

That was a bad moment. I thought the show was dead at that point. So here we are better than ever. And yeah, it's been great. Thank you to Josh back in the day and the guys over there at AOL and to the team here. We have survived. That's it for the Twitter questions. That's it.

What do we got? I'll cycle through them real quick. Favorite moments? Craziest off-camera moment. And by the way, some people tweeting me, keep tweeting me. I'm curious here what you say. My man Darren Chung mentioning the Diego Sanchez interview from last year. That was an interesting one.

Oh, yeah, that was a good one. Tell me your favorite moment. Fightmaster versus Ultimate Fighter. Rousey Tate Ultimate Fighter. Pettis taking Grant Spot. Alexis Davis. Pat Barry cut. Pat Perry getting too friendly.

Steepay getting a top tenor. Roy Nelson's performance Henderson at 205 or 185 Jackson's for Rashad Evans What's next for Rashad Worst pay-per-view 161

Fitch on the downside of his career Fighters complaining about referees to get a new assignment and what are your thoughts on the Mazagati thing Personally I like this one about fighters should, you know, will we see more fighters complaining about a rough assignment? There you go. There it is. Joe Saliba. Josealdo. Belt edition, right? Championship edition, round five.

Wearing Pretorian, which is now no longer in business with the UFC. Dana said on Saturday that they owe them some money. I love this one. It has, as you can see right here, it has the scar. It's really nice. So congratulations. Thanks for all the great questions. One more thing before I go. Oh, how about Jim Norton and Bobby Kellyan's studio? Newt Jute reminded me of that one. That was fun.

Mithriot back in the day. Corkle back in the day. Those were fun. Connor, of course, the debut. How can we forget? That was a good time as well. Just a few stats about UFC 161, and then we'll get out of here, courtesy of my friends over at Fight Metrics,

so kind to give me some interesting stats. I like this stuff, and I think you do as well. Dustin Paye kept Yves Jabr went on the defensive for much of their grappling heavy match at UFC 161. Pague fired off seven serious submission attempts in three rounds. How do they distinguish serious as opposed to non-serious? Tying the UFC-WC-Bantamate records set by Alex, Alex Caceresis, Alex Caceres, Alex Caceres at UFC 143 against Edwin Figueroa.

How about James Krause's big night, pocketing $100,000? James Krause's submission of Sam Stout at 447 of the third round was the second latest submission ever in a three-round UFC fight. The latest, Cole Miller's triangle choke of George Griselle at 448, 448, 1 second

of the third round at UFC 86. Two more. Sibbe Miochich striking output at UFC 161 was one of the biggest in heavyweight history. Myochich officially landed 106 significant strikes, the fourth most ever.

by a heavyweight in a single fight. Miotich is landing 5.48 significant strikes per minute after five UFC bouts. That is the second highest average in the UFC heavyweight division and is behind only Kane Velasquez who has 6.5 average. Now one more, Miochich is the latest heavyweight to land a high number of strikes against Roy Nelson without knocking them out. After UFC 161, Nelson has now absorbed 400. and 37 significant strikes inside the Octagon the most ever by a heavyweight without getting finished.

Only Frank Meir has absorbed more significant strikes in the heavyweight division. Stebe Amiochich, Junido Santos, and Fabrice Roodoom have three of the six biggest striking outputs in heavyway history, all versus big country. That man gets hit. Big target gets hit a lot, but you can say this about him. He does not give up. He does not go down easy. On Saturday, it was a bad night for him, but he showed a lot of hard, sticking.

looking around, we'll have to see what happens to Roy Nelson. Music? Bang. So as I mentioned, a reminder, no show next week. We are off. We will be back in two weeks' time. What day is that? Wow.

July 1st, Canada Day. There you go. How fitting. That would be UFC 162 week. By then, we will really be getting amped up for Las Vegas, for Anderson Silver versus Chris Wybman. but June 24, my mother's birthday, happy birthday to my mother, turning 30 years young, unbelievable.

We will be off. No show next Monday. We're back in two weeks. For now, let us thank everyone who stopped by this week. Dave Meltzer, thank you very much to him. Check his work out over on MMAFighting.com and wrestling observer.com. He does the great Wrestling Observer newsletter. Josh Berkman, how about that story?

The Star of World Series of Fighting. Huge winner of John Fitch. Congratulations to him. What a great story. Josh Berkman. Unbelievable stuff. King Mo, he returns to action on Wednesday against Seth Petrazzellie, the Silverback. That is the main event of Bellator, 96.

It's on Spike TV. Check it out Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time. Main event around 9.30 or so. And then at 10 p.m. Eastern, it's Randy Gattour on Fightmaster. Good stuff out of Randy. Appreciate him stopping by. Good luck with that. Ed Soros.

Good luck to him. RFA 8 this Friday, Access TV. And good luck to Anthony. No time peddice. He goes to Las Vegas tomorrow to try to get that UFC 164 spot, of course, just trying to get healthy. We look forward to his return. Thank to everyone who sent us questions, comments, all that good stuff. You miss any of the show. Check out the replay, Stitcher iTunes. All day, every day, MMA are back in two weeks. Until there, peace. I'm out of you. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough.

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