MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 204

Episode Date: August 25, 2014

Featuring Rousimar Palhares, Mark Munoz, Pat Miletich, Jon Fitch, Javier Mendez, Garry Cook, and Dave Meltzer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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48 hours removed from what some are calling the greatest night in UFC history. Some are calling the Gilbert Melendez Diego Sanchez fight the greatest bout in UFC history. Is that in fact true? We will discuss all that and more. this very program and even if it's not true let's not take away from what happened on saturday night in houston texas it was one of the best nights in ufc history wall to wall from the first fight to the last fight a lot of great finishes great fights great performances a little controversy here and there and at the end of the day kane velasquez stood still once again as the ufc heavyweight

champion the reigning and defending ufc heavyweight champion the undisputed champion the undisputed champion and he once again dominated Junior Dos Santos. This time, he didn't need 25 minutes, a little less than 25 minutes, but it was very much like the second fight and Kane Velasquez. If you don't think that he is the best heavyweight in the world, then you are absolutely insane. And if you think he's the best heavyweight of all time, I might just agree with you at this point.

He is that damn good, and there was a time when I thought, well, you know what, there could be some guys who could fight him, beat him. Daniel Cormier Dos Santos Verdum, Barnett I don't know if any of those guys could beat him at this point honestly I think he is that damn good

and he proved it once again on Saturday night we're going to be talking about that fight card as well as the other big fights that happen on Saturday and we'll look ahead it's another busy weekend for the UFC it's a busy weekend in the world that makes martial arts

on Saturday there are two big events UFC Fight Night 30 and also World Series of Fighting Number 6 is on Saturday night Belator is back. There's RFA on Friday. So there's a lot to get to, and we have a fun show plan for all of you. So let us get right into it. We're joining the back, as always, by New York Rick. We'll have the thrills over there. Alfred Buskill. Still MIA. I don't even know if I should be mentioning him at the top of the show, but we do it out of respect. Who will be joining us on this show? Well, first things first, let me tell you that in the third hour we'll be taking your questions and comments. So by now you know, hit us up using the hashtag the MMA hour. Leave us some questions in the post below. We'll be. We show love to the website now. We love the website. We love all of you over there. So please do hit us up and New York Rick will get the best ones. We'll answer them in the third hour. Also in the third hour, we'll talk to Javier Mendes, who had a very busy night on Saturday night. He, of course, is the coach over at American Kickboxing Academy. He was there for Daniel Cormier. He was there for Kane Velasquez, and they both won in back-to-back fights. Co-main event, main event. So we'll talk to Javier about those fights and what is next. Pat Militich, the first U.S. he will be returning to the show. And on Friday, resurrection fighting alliance is giving him a lifetime achievement award. That's a very nice gesture. So we'll talk to him about that and where he's at

in his career, post-fighting career. I believe it's post-fighting. Never actually officially retired. Anyway, we'll get to him at around 245. Mark Munoz, he'll stop by. He faces the Eurama Chita in the main event of UFC Fight Night 30 on Saturday afternoon on Fox Sports 2 here in America. And speaking of England. Gary Cook, the UFC's executive vice president and managing director of Europe, Middle East Africa. He's doing a lot of great things announced just a couple of weeks ago that the UFC will be holding six events in Europe next year. So we thought it would be a good time to catch up with Mr. Cook and see what's going on since he took over the job over there from Marshall's Lasnik. Husseymar Paul Harris, the controversial Brazilian fighter. Now a Walterweight used to be a middleweight,

of course, released from the UFC after holding onto that heel hook just a little too long. against Mike Pierce a couple weeks back. He will be stopping by along with his manager slash interpreter Alex Davis at 145. John Fitch returns to the World Series of Fighting Cage on Saturday night. That's a pretty solid card. Josh Berkman fighting against Steve Carl for their vacant Walterway title. He faces Marcelo Alfaya on Saturday in Florida. So we'll talk to John Fitch at around 125.

but first let us go to the phone lines. It was supposed to be Skype, but I'm being told it's now the phone, and welcome in our colleague over at MMAFighting.com. Of course, you also know him from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Dave Meltzer, online one. Dave, how are you? I'm good.

How are you doing, Ariel? I'm doing great. So lots to get to here, and, you know, I thought, I wanted to have you on the show because, as I said at the top, everyone's talking about UFC 166 being, the best night, the best card in UFC history,

the Sanchez-Blundice fight, best fight in UFC history. Who better to ask than you if UFC 166 was in fact the best card in UFC history? Do you agree with that statement? I think it was one of the best. I mean, it's really hard. I mean, I think that the, whatever the number is, 119, I think those number,

the Shane Carwin- Brockland show. 116. 116. Okay. So I remember that show when it was over thinking that that was the best show. show, UFC show I had ever seen. And I kind of like, because of this, I kind of went back. And I think that the undercard and the prelims were, um, were, were better, um, on this show.

I think that the overall main card was a little bit better at 116, even though the Melendez and, um, you know, the Melendez and, uh, Diego Sanchez fight was better than anything. But I think that, like the, the, of the big five, the big five fights, I think were better. but this one because of this Sarah Kaufman and Jessica I and the, um, the, um, C.

Bolloway fight with Tim Boch on the prelims that, that kind of beats stuff that was, you know, anything that was on the prelim part of that card. So it's, you know, in the San Jose card with, um,

Dan Henderson Shogun, who was, was really, really outstanding. I remember that one is being one of the best as well. I mean, I think you can, it was,

it was, it was right up there. I mean, it was a, you know, it was a fantastic show. I mean, so now I'm like really mad.

Yeah. having a broken foot. Yeah, let's talk about that. And before we get to it, by the way, if those who are listening may have forgotten, UFC 116 was headlined by Brock Lesnar with that great comeback against Shane Carwin, Chris Lieben, had that triangle choke against Akiyama, Lytle over Matt Brown, Stefan Bonner against Christophos-Soszinski in a great rematch. And Sauteroplas beat Kurt Pellegrino.

There was the Gerald Harris Slam against Dave Branch. So there were some nice moments, and it's certainly debatable. But, yeah, I don't know if a lot of people know this. you were supposed to be there, but you recently broke your foot. What happened? Yeah, I was just going to was running down the stairs, and somebody left a shoe, and I went down. And, I mean, the first thing was so bad, because as soon as I fell, the first thing I thought was, okay, I broke my ankle, and I'm going to miss UFC 166. That was the first thing that came to mind.

Wow. In fact, that's what happened. It was a broken foot, not a broken ankle. And the funny, you know, no one actually knows this part of the story. the reason I was, I mean, not the reason I was running downstairs, but it was actually going downstairs to watch the replay of the last fight, the Jones Gustafson fight, because I had gotten a text. Well, I've been texting back and forth on, that was on Sunday.

With Dana White, and he just goes, you know, we're going to watch it and you watch it, and just let me know what you think of the scoring when you watch it again. And so I was, you know, running downstairs, actually to watch it again. I never, I mean, I did watch it again about two days later, but I ended up in the hospital that night, so I didn't watch it that night. Oh, my God. Did you tell him that? I haven't told him that part of it.

No, I didn't want him to feel bad. I mean, he knew I probably was the one of the first one to knew I, know I broke my foot because I texted him and go. Hey, I broke my foot. I'm not watching it. You know, I think at that point, he kind of decided that John Jones had won the fight because if you remember when he was there, he said he didn't score it, so he was going to go home and score it. And I said that I thought that John won, but he just goes, we'll watch it again and see what you think the second time. So Dana is to blame for all.

this? No, he's not. Oh, I'm kidding. Are you still in a cast? But I did miss one of the greatest fights in UFC history and one of the greatest cards in UFC history after all, and there you go. Are you still in a cast? I'm still in a cast, yes. Wow. And so my, my big follow-up is, will you be in attendance covering UFC 167? The 20th anniversary, you won't be the same without Dave Montser. Oh, God, I sure hope so. I mean, my plan is that I am. I was told that, you know, I got two more weeks here in this card, so I should make it, yes. So, I mean, unless the bone doesn't heal right, I'll be there. And even if it doesn't, I may still be there anyway because I feel bad enough about missing this one.

Yeah, and knowing you, what was it like? Like, I bet you were enjoying Melinda Sanchez and everything that's going on, but it must have been killing you inside, right? Not so much when the show was going on. In fact, the foot injury really hasn't bothered me that much because I'm a writer, so I just was writing most of the time. I mean, it's a limited... I can't go anywhere, so I'm like on house arrest,

so that's kind of bad, but really it wasn't bothering me until the morning when I woke up on Saturday morning. And, I mean, my first thought in my head was, this is going to be a great show. And mainly because, you know, I was very invested in the Canaan Jr. fight, again, not knowing what would happen, and I thought that Melendez and Diego Sanchez, I really thought it was going to be a great fight.

And, I mean, I couldn't have thought it was going to be as great as it was, but I just thought like this is, you know, and again, when you look at the whole card, deep from top to bottom, I mean, when I looked at that card, it was like, this is going to be like one of the deepest cards ever. So it was like, I woke up and that was like my thought was, God, I'm really, this is the first moment I was mad, probably, you know, since about a week after the break when I was trying to figure out how to manure my life. And, but watching the show, no, I had friends over, which, you know, usually at these shows, I'm at the show. Right. I went to have friends over. We watched the show.

We had a great time. So it didn't bother me during the fights that I wasn't there, but I would have loved to have been there. You mentioned you were deeply invested in the Kane Jr. fight. Is that because, you know, you live in the area, and you've known of Kane, and you actually wrote a great story about him, and you wrote about this tryout that Dana White was a part of where he just went to check him out before coming into the UFC,

and he kind of signed him on the spot? I'd never heard of that story. So is that part of the reason why you were so? you were so invested in this fight? I mean, I just thought that it was going to be the big heavyweight fight of, you know, like to me the big heavyweight fight was always the Thadour Crow Cop fight and Pride from 2005. And then the big one was, to me, then became the Kane Jr. fight on Fox, because that was just gigantic when that happened.

But now that they've split, I kind of saw that this one as being like the big one because they split. So this is the big one to decide who's the number one guy for real, no questions anymore. And, you know, who's the best heavy weight of this era? And so, you know, yeah, I was just – and, you know, again, I've known of Kane since he started, since before he ever had his first fight because, you know, when he came to San Jose, I mean, I knew people from A.K.A. and they were going – there's this guy from Arizona State wrestling. It's like, this guy's unbeatable. You know, before he even had his first pro fight, so I knew of Kane from right away.

And, you know, Junior, we watched Junior for years move his way up the ranks and knock people out, left and right in UFC, and he's a fantastic fighter. and so, you know, yeah, it's the two best guys, and they were going to decide it, and the fight ended up being similar to the second fight, but you didn't know, because it's, you know, the thing with the fight is, at least for the first three rounds, it was always, you know, Keynes-Malling him, but if Junior connects on Kane with a right punch, this thing can turn around, and then it, I think it went too long, personally. I know a lot of people did, but I thought it went too long. My next question, do you think that his corner, Dos Santos's corner,

did him a major disservice by letting that fight go past the third round? Certainly go out for the fifth round. I think the fourth round, debatable, but when I saw the doctor and you see the eyes shut in the fourth round, I couldn't believe the doctor let him go out. But no, they should not have let him go out for the fifth round. That was the one where it's like he can't see. He's just taken a horrible beating.

You know, if you're your corner, you know, you're supposed to like the guy. He's got a future, you know, a future in the sport, and he's only 29 years old. And yeah, I mean, they could have stopped it in the third. It could have been stopped in the third. I wouldn't have argued it. I think everyone would have been happy with it. They could have told him not to go out for the fourth.

But the fifth really, the fifth was really bothered me when I saw the eyes shut. And it was just like, you know, it's like a little bit too much at that point. You know, you think about the beating that he took in the second fight in the beating here. I just saw a report coming out of Brazil where he said, Dos Santos said in a statement, that he thought he was finished in the second round and he was pretty much on autopilot after that. I mean, you have to start thinking about the damage this man has taken over the past year. I mean, that second fight was just 10 months ago. This is serious stuff, right? Yeah, it's real serious stuff. And I think this was, again, this was worse because it was so visual.

I mean, he took tremendous damage in that second fight, but he was, he was in the fight, and there was never a time in the second fight where he would, there was like that moment where he was just out and you would want to stop it. It's just, he just took a beating. But this one, there were, there were many moments, you know, in the fight. at least three different moments where it could have been stopped and it should have been stopped. And again, he could be champion again. And, you know, I just kind of felt, you know, like the fifth round act I thought

was almost borderline criminal. Yeah, it was. And I mean, look at the way it ended with him just kind of collapsing there. You could tell, I mean, nothing really happened, went for a choke, didn't get it, and then the fight was pretty much over after that. Can you say, I mean, you've seen him all, you've watched them all, can you say right now that Kane is the best heavy? heavy weight ever is it too early to say that i mean if you go okay there's two ways of

looking at it um if you look at it from a historical standpoint of the greatest i i would go with fader because of the test of time because he was on top for so many years but you know again and i people will get mad at me for saying this and they'll get mad at other people things but i believe that if fadour fought kane i think that fadr would have i mean he would have a chance to win but i don't think he would have much of a chance to win because I believe Kane would do to Fador exactly what he did here, except he would take him down easier because DeSontas had better take down defense. And he would keep up a pace that Fador couldn't keep up.

And I think that he would Maw him. I mean, I think he'd mall the best Fador. He had the best fador if he hit Kane or the right punch at the right time early. He could beat him. He could beat anyone if that happened. But I don't think would happen most of the time. I was just getting into a bit of a debate with New York Rick before the show started about Daniel Cormier versus Cain Velascus.

And at this point, I feel like I'm the only one who keeps bringing it up because it seems like it's a foregone conclusion that Cormier is going down to 205. Dana doesn't even seem to care about it all that much. Mr. New York, Rick, thinks 100%, without any doubt, Cormeet beats Cain Velasquez. I think he's wrong. What do you say? I think he's wrong, too. Yeah, of course, he's always wrong. But why do you think he's wrong?

Why do you think he's wrong? I just think the same thing. I just think the pace, no one can keep up. we came for five rounds, and Cormier, yet, Cormier could, Cormier might be the first guy who could out-wrestle him and win a round that way. I mean, we're just, you know, a judge's round, because nobody's ever wanted to judge's round over Cain. And, but I don't think he could win five. I don't even think he could win.

Honestly, I don't even think he wouldn't win two. I think by the second round, Cain would take over. And then Cormier, Cormier is not a finisher. Right. Certainly to the level where he could finish Cain, and probably they would go, if not, you know, three all the way five, and then I think that, you know, Kane would take the decision. I'm really interested in the Verdoom fight.

I think it's obviously because, you know, Verdoin fights off his back, and he's comfortable there, and we've seen some upsets that he's obviously pulled off. It doesn't feel like many people are giving him a shot. What kind of shot do you give him against Kane? It's a completely different fight. You see, the whole thing of what Kane usually does, which is take a guy down and mall. That's a dangerous fight with Purdue. I mean, the thing with Verdum is, you know, you always hear about this guy's a Brazilian

who's blue-belt and this and this. and and then they get, you know, then somebody in an MMA fight gets on top of them, you know, like with GSP, with, with, and it was the fight that we just saw, um,

I'm sure I remember who was. There was a fight that I just saw with, oh God, I'm sure, anyway, whatever. It was like, where,

you know, the guy did nothing off his back at all, never threatened or anything like that. And so, um, well, I mean, any,

any Ben Askin fight, right? What? Any Ben Asken fight? um any if he if he fights a black belt well yes of course i mean the whole thing

the whole thing is is that um i get your point i get your point i get your doom is not that guy but doom is a guy who i mean he's got the you know the brazilian jiu jizu world championship pedigree and all that but i mean he's tapped real people he tapped no gary he tapped phaedore it's like

he that this guy i mean and and and immediately and quickly and and i mean he's just fantastic on the ground for a guy as big as he is and and because of that You know, and Kane's game is involved, involves takedowns a lot. You know, I think it's a completely different fight and a different opponent than Keynes ever had. And because of that, I think it, I find it intriguing. And I think that he, you know, I don't know that he's going to win, but I think he poses a danger on the ground.

And his striking isn't bad. I don't think that, you know, the conditioning is definitely going to Kane. I mean, that's the one thing, and that may be his undoing, but, you know, Kane's very comfortable on top because nobody's ever come close to submission. hitting him, but this may be a fight where, you know, that may not be the place to be at all. I mean, at any point in time, even for, you know what I mean? Yeah. You know, and that changes the whole fight.

It changes King's a total fight strategy if the idea is not to be on top. I'm happy that there's someone next in line where it's on a situation where he has to fight like a big foot again. No one wants to see that fight. To me, it's a fresh matchup for Kane. Finally, he gets to fight a new guy, so I'm happy about that. And I got a quick two-parter about Daniel Cormier. did his stock rise, stay the same, drop after that performance on Saturday night,

and what would you like to see the UFC do with him if he does in fact go down to 205? There are names like Gustafsson, Phil Davis out there. What do you think the plan should be for Cormier in the light heavyweight division? I think his stock stayed the same. I think it was a weird fight in the sense that he was fighting a fight to win, and he bought the right winning strategy, but it wasn't very entertaining. He didn't make himself a lot of fans, but I don't think he heard of. himself because he clearly won.

He won the fight. The 205 is a completely different situation. I mean, you've got quicker guys that aren't strong. I think that his wrestling will be stronger, going against smaller guys, but I think that the stand-up and the quickness that he shows

against heavy ways, he's not going to have that quickness speed against a lot of the 205, so it's two different dimensions. As far as the fight goes, I mean, it's, there's two ways of looking at it. I mean, the one, the first one is, is you just go, Daniel Cormier against Gustafson in Sweden or England or wherever that fights

going to be early next year and then the winner fights John Jones and Glover to share a winner. That's the easy one of looking at. Or you can go, you know what? Put Glover, I mean put Alexander against somebody else and put Cormié against somebody else with the idea that after Gustafson, now you've got Cormiere or Phil Davis or somebody like that, which is actually, you know, Cormier and Phil Davis, perhaps, two wrestlers. And then the winner of that then becomes, you know, you've got two championship fights that you've kind of, like, set yourself up for as opposed to one.

So you could go, either one's fine. I think that makes more sense. You put Gustafson in a fight against a little Nog or something like that. They want to make that fight, and I think they're rolling the dice if they're putting Gustafsson against Cormier. So you put Gusen against someone that he could be, not a tune-up fight, but, you know, no real risks there. but he has to beat this guy who, let's not forget, Little Nog is coming off a win over Rashad Evans, and then you do Cormier versus Phil Davis,

and I think that makes total sense. I like that better, again, because you set yourself up for two championship matches, because with Cormier and Gustafson, what essentially you're going to do is you're going to knock off one of the two contenders that people are most looking forward to. I think people right now want to see Gustafs in the most because that last fight,

but Cormier and Jones, they're going to end up talking to the fight, especially Cormier, they're going to talk the fight up so much it by the time that fight comes. If it does happen, that will be a big fight. So you've got two big fights this way. I mean, perhaps, you know, one of them will lose and you only have one.

But the other way, you're guaranteed one of them we're going to lose and you're only going to have one. Now, Gilbert Diego, very interesting. I thought, you know, I'm a huge Rogan and Goldberg fan. They're the best. They are, you know, the soundtrack of the UFC. But fight of the century and greatest fight of all time, all this stuff, I don't know. I mean, you know, other than that, you know, that knockdown, you know, midway through the third round, It was fairly one-sided.

It was your typical Diego crazy fight, which is entertaining, but sometimes not the most technical fight. I think Jones Gustafin was a much better fight. And you look at Gilbert after the fight, his face was pretty much the same. I mean, he wasn't in the war, so to speak. He was beating up Diego Sanchez. Do you think all this talk about it being the best fight of all-time fight of this century is a little out there?

I thought it was a fantastic fight. Yeah. And I'm not trying to take anything away. from them. But when he went out there and said, this is the greatest fight I've ever seen, I was taken aback. I mean, I thought,

I thought this was, you know, I mean, the match with Jones and Gustafson, I mean, I mean, Jay Jones and Gustav's, there's two entirely different fights,

and you were at both of them live, and I'm watching both of them on TV. I would say on TV, I like the Sanchez fight better. I just thought those slug fest were so exciting and Diego firing up the crowd. The other one was great in another way because it wasn't what you expected.

It was John Jones, in trouble and a fight that went down to the wire for the champion, a great fight that went down to the wire. So, I mean, they each have their good points over the other. I didn't, you know, like, if you compare it to, like, the greatest fights of all time, I don't know that I would go that far, but, you know, I didn't, it didn't, when he said it, it was, it was, like, okay, you know, it's in the mix. I mean, it's in the mix of, you know, top 10, top 20 fights of all time.

I thought the fight was a genuine match of the year contender. Sure. I think, you know, that the Jones Gustafsson and the Stan Van der Lees-Silva fight to mirror the big three this year. Yeah, and don't forget about Matt Rice and Bermuda's, you know, kind of flying. That fight was fantastic. It was great. And the third round might be, you know, round of the century,

along with maybe, you know, Daly and Diaz a couple years back. Not trying to take anything away from them, but maybe you have to watch it again on television. I was actually in the arena for that one. So it was great, and I was honored to be a part of that post-fight interview where they were hugging and thanking each other. It gave me goosebumps. I have goosebumps just talking about it.

One more thing, and we could talk for hours, but we got John Fitch coming up next. Were you a part of that, Kane Velasquez, Dana White tryout? Did you witness it? No, no. I didn't even know about it until recently. I didn't know about it like five, you know, four years ago whenever it took place. I knew, I kind of, I guess it was sort of hinted to me at one point because, you know, the whole thing of everybody had heard about Kane, but, you know, he got, you know, he got signed

after two fights with nobody's, and essentially, you know, because nobody would fight him. I mean, his reputation locally was such that, you know, Scott Coker was going to put him on the strike force shows, and he could never get an opponent, and, you know, he would have guys, you know, see him at weigh-ins and then change their mind, or guys agree, and then they would look him up on the Internet, or they would talk to their friends in San Jose, and it was like, so it was like, the only way this, you know, he came to the UFC early, but it was the only way he could get fights, but there was, I mean, before he had ever had his first UFC fight, I had many people tell me that he was going to be a UFC heavyweight champion that he could beat,

you know, like I think Randy Couture was the champion at the time that he would walk in right now and beat Randy Couture, and it was kind of like this guy's had two fights against nobody's. I know he's great in the gym. You know, but I didn't know of that story until, you know, I think that when I'm trying to remember. I think that when I met with Bob Cook and Kane not all that long ago, and I think Bob Cook told me the story. Wow. Yeah, it makes you remember that time when, you know, he was briefly on the verge of getting released. And I remember Dana giving a quote saying, you know, like, you know, who's this Kane Velasquez, has two fights in the UFC, you know, what has he ever done? And look at him now. It could go down as the greatest heavyweight of all time. And let's not forget, you know, it's out there. Kane and Verdum, who does the Spanish television and has been doing it for quite some time for the UFC, Kane and Verdum in Mexico, that could be the time to do it, don't you think? Absolutely. And I also believe that they should do it at Plaza de Toros, which is a 50,000-seat stadium.

Really? Yeah, I mean, the first time into Mexico, it's going to be gigantic. I think that, you know, yeah, they'll sell out the 21,000 seat building. I think I would go for the 50 because they've never been there. They have that pent-up demand. People in Mexico have known about UFC for years and years. I'd go all the way. I mean, they have 130,000 seat stadium. That one would scare me to death. But 50, I would go to a place that holds 50 in Mexico City.

Wow, that would be insane. We'll see what happens next year with their new TV deal with television. I saw them all over the place on Saturday all week long, the UFC network that just started over there. So it's going to be interesting to monitor for them. It was huge that came to Lascus won, and you put Gilbert Melendez on the card after what he did. Even Diego Sanchez, you can have a very good card over there in Mexico. Dave, always a pleasure. Get well soon.

I expect to see you at UFC 167. Do not let us down, all right? I will expect to be there, and I'm looking forward to seeing you again. All right, there he is. The man himself, the true MMA encyclopedia, Dave Meltzer, of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and MMAFighting.com. Always great to get his insight. Okay, let's move along and welcome in someone who knows a thing or two

about a man named Kane Velasquez. He returns to action on Saturday night at World Series of Fighting Number 6. He is John Fitch. John, how are you? I'm good. I'm good. I'll have me on. A pleasure as always, John. You know, we're talking about King.

We'll get your friend in a second, but just feels kind of natural to ask you about him. What did you think of his performance on Saturday? Outstanding, man. That guy is just his inspiration. I mean, he's the guy who you hope that, you know, would be a champion. The guy that, you know, represents a sport, represents what it means to be a martial artist and to be a champion. And, you know, I'm proud of, I'm proud of be a teammate with him.

And, you know, he's a type of guy that, you know, parents should have their kids emulating, you know. Do you recall meeting him for the first time? Do you remember what you thought when you saw him practice in the gym? Did you think he could be this good? Yeah, I was saying a long time ago. When he first came to the gym, everybody was talking about Fidor, and I was openly doing an interview saying, a guy, give this guy three to five years,

and he's the only one anybody will ever talk a lot again, and he lives up to it. And, you know, we were just talking to Dave Meltzer, who lives in the Bay Area. he talked about a tryout. Dana White came to the gym and watched him and kind of signed him on the spot. Do you remember this? Did you hear about this?

I don't really remember that situation. No, okay. It just sounds like a very interesting story, but here he is. He's the champion. You know, you're someone who is outspoken about the sport,

the evolution of the sport. I guess the only blemish coming out of that fight was the fact that maybe Junior's corner or the doctor should have stopped it earlier. And when you consider it the damage, that Junior took in the second fight and the damage he took on Saturday.

I mean, is this something as a fighter you sit there and watch and you start thinking, you know, Junior might pay for this fight for many years? You know, it's hard to say because, you know, the guy was still fighting back. You were still, you know, landing some big punches here and there. He was laying some elbows. You know, it's a fight. And it's always hard for me to... you know, say stop a fight or whatever.

I mean, I don't know if it was that bad. Something that, you know, Camel was easily waiting that fight, and it was a little one-sided, but still, I mean, you never know in the M.A. Why do you think the throw-in-the-towel culture is not a part of MMA as much as boxing? And do you think it should be? Do you think corners should stop fights more so than they do? I mean, I think it would be up to the corner more than the judges. or the,

the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, because they have a more personal knowledge

of that fighter and in a fighter and a fighter and, his situation. And, um, you know, and just, you know, as a fighter myself,

you know, we, we sign the bad line. We know what we're getting into. And, uh, there's a lot of money on the line. Mm.

And when you lose, you know, things can go very sour very quickly in your career, uh, just from one fighter and one loss. So, to, to just really nearly,

be stopping, fights just because your perception is if somebody's taking a lot of damage. I mean, you don't really know. You don't know how hard punches are landing. You don't know what's going on in that person's head. One more thing about Saturday. You are privy to, on a fairly frequent basis, the best heavyweight fight right now in MMA, and that's Kormier and Velasquez when they train together.

Forgetting the fact that they're friends, training partners, coach student, all that stuff, Who do you think actually wins that fight? Just talent versus talent, Kane versus D.C., who wins, in your opinion? I mean, you can't really do something like that. Why not? You know, I mean, they're such good guys. They're both good. I mean, you know, if Kane is a heavy, he's a true heavyweight.

I mean, he's never been a true heavyweight. You know, I mean, soaking wet, he might weigh in at like 225, 230. He's not a heavyweight. He's so good as a fighter and athlete that he can get away with beating. heavy weights up, but he's not a true heavyweight. So that means you're kind of leaning towards Kane, right? Just, I mean, just takes on the side. Yeah.

You got two guys who are equally skilled, equal worth ethic, equal punching power, equal everything. You're going to put the way money on the guy who weighs more. All right, let's transition. World Series of fighting number six in Florida this Saturday. You return against Marcel Alfaya, and, you know, we had you on the show a month after the Berkman fight, and you know, you know, you were kind of, you know, you're getting back into it, and we spoke about the fight, and there's not much else to say.

But I'm just wondering, you know, mentally and how you're feeling, what are we five days away. Are you over the Berkman fight or are you using the Berkman fight as motivation going into this fight? A little bit of both. You know, I've, I say have my stuff together much more for this training camp, much more focused for this training camp. You know, a lot of the dust has settled and gone by from all the other stuff that would have. and last year, you know, being released to UFC and lost to David and Maya. You know, I put all that stuff behind me also.

And it's been much more focused for this training camp in this fight. So you say you're more focused for this training camp and the fight, but it came out last week that you moved your family to Syracuse, New York, and this struck a chord with me because I went to Syracuse University, and I hope your experience is different, but it was the most depressing three years of my life. I was not a fan of living in central New York. It just was very depressing. How are you able to focus on the task at hand while changing your life and we'll get to what you're doing over there?

But that's a major change for someone. Yeah, but, you know, I've got great tools and resources out there to make training easy. And I'm still here at AKA. through my training camps. A family hasn't moved yet. We'll be out there probably December 1st, a little bit, maybe the week before. or something like that. But, yeah, you know, it was kind of like leaving for,

going out and I was there for about a month, and then they moved my fight time, so I had to start camp out there. It's kind of like when I went away to Thailand, you know, I had a month of focus and I had nothing else to do, but trained, you know, that kind of total immersion situation, and it actually helped quite a bit.

So what's this, oh, go ahead, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Well, you know, part of the thing, too, Like, I'm one of those people who kind of, I get, I think we all get kind of stuck in ruts sometimes. No matter where we are and how good or bad our situation is, it's easy for us to get stuck in ruts. And I feel like sometimes I need to shake things up a little bit to really get the most out of myself. The situation over there, you're trying to start a fight team, you're working for a gym that sounds fantastic. What's the name of the gym? How did this all come about?

And how difficult of a decision was it to go from beautiful San Jose, the Bay Area, area to Syracuse. And let's note, December 1st, Syracuse, do you even know what you're getting into? I know you're from the Midwest, but I hope you have a nice place to live because it's going to get depressing very soon. Not trying to pour it on Syracuse, but I'm just telling you like it is. No, I mean, the situation came about the owner, Bob Natoly, was starting this gym Pacific Health Club.

It's a ginormous facility. It's 90,000 square feet. It's just ridiculous. This has everything you could possibly think of. And, you know, and then he started kind of seeking someone out to run his grappling and grappling department and help out with his fight team. And when I was released from the UFC,

it kind of sparked an interest with him. Mark Stevens from the Ultimate Fighter Season 12 is out there, and he kind of dropped my name because he was able to work with me a little bit when he was being coached by Koschek on that show. So they run about away They got a hole in me And after the Brooklyn site Me and a wife went out there

And check things out And so the facility It's still in the construction at the time But you know I got to see the city And look around a little bit And look like somewhere We can have some fun

And try something out new So we decided that Just go ahead and try And sign a year contract And see where it takes So okay Your contract And you say you're not officially

living there now, but let's say your next fight for WSOF could be a big one, could be you versus Berkman number three, happens in February or March. Will you be training for that fight out of Syracuse and no longer A.K.A.? No, I'll be coming back for training at A.K.A. Okay. It's written within the contract that I have, you know, time to leave for training now here in California. And it's just, you know, we're trying to build something out there. We don't quite have the body. around for me to be able to do that type of thing. You know, three or five years, if I'm still in the area, maybe it'll be something that we consider.

But right now, you know, we have such a deep group of guys over here at AKA it would be impossible or stupid, really not to be back here training with them. So this facility, this is for regular Joe's and Janes, right? They can go, but you're also building a fight team out of it? Yes, correct. That's interesting. So is there going to be just a private area for, for pros, for fighters?

Well, we have 8,000 square feet of mat space just for grappling, a little side room that has two cages and another, you know, probably a couple hundred square feet of mat space and heavy bag and stuff like that. So we'll all be kind of

in there together, but we'll have our set times where the pros are training and there aren't regular students around. This may sound like a silly question, but, you know, I think it's worth noting, you know, MMA right now in the state of New York is still illegal. Did you consider that at all?

Because, you know, you live in a great hotbed for mixed martial arts, and especially when, you know, strike forces around, guys who were younger could get fights fairly close to home, things of that nature. If you live in New York, you know, obviously there are states nearby, the Jersey and all that stuff that put on fights. But do you think that affects the evolution of the MMA fighter in the state of New York, not being able to actually fight in the state?

I mean, I see that's what's weird is, you know, it is legal here in California has been for a while, but we have a very, very difficult time finding fights for our guys out of AGA. Oh, really? We have guys who are on the verge of, you know, breaking through and should be a big organization, and if they would get that break to fight in a big organization, people would know who they were.

They would be successful, but they can't even get a fight on a lower-level show to help build their record to get in that door. you know it's partly because you know the money's not always there to pay the fighters

and also when you have the name with AKA next to you there's a lot less likely that somebody's going to take a fight with you we have one guy Davin Clark who has had maybe six fights canceled on the scale you know he waits in first his opponent

sees him and says no I'm not fighting that guy wow on the scale the guy just sees him and says no, six times. On the scale. Does he get paid for that even? No, because the guy, it doesn't count as a show, because the guy didn't weigh in or whatever. We have, you know, the manager with crazy boss,

so sometimes he'll fennagle a little bit of extra cash or something for the trouble, but, I mean, Davin himself, he's driven down to L.A. for a fight. The guy said, no, I won't fight on the scale, and then they've driven to Vegas for a fight the next night, weighed in and the other guy with a 20-pound weight advantage wouldn't take the fight. Man,

that is great. How old is he? He's about my age. He's about my age. He's probably, you know, early 30s. Okay. Wow. Well, so then maybe maybe the issue is just the AKA name. People are getting intimidated by it, and now that you're with a fresh team, you can get guys. I'm sure hearing that it's a John Fitch guy

will certainly help the fighter. So when do you start recruiting fighters? How does that process work? You know, I'm not sure. I've talked to, you know, the owner, and I'd like to do some open tryouts for some people in the area because, you know, there's a lot of good wrestling in New York State. There's good wrestling in New Jersey's really great wrestling in Pennsylvania. But I'd also like to go to later in the year.

I'd like to go to these guys' state wrestling tournaments and see if I can do some recruiting there and see what these guys are up to. You know, find some guys who. who maybe can't afford college or don't have the grades for college and are looking for something to do rather than work in the factory or doing nothing. So, you know, and there's a lot of other areas around New York in that area that do have Lelized M.A.

So there's plenty of places to go and get fights. They just have to travel a little bit. I mean, you can get to all sorts of places on a six-hour drive from central New York. I believe, actually, that the casino over there, turning stone casinos on an Indian reservation. I actually think you can do some MMA over there, so actually maybe it's not as tough as I...

I think the last time I thought that we drove to Rhode Island, and there was a site, and Mark Stevens actually fought the Indian Reservation up there. Right. And A.K.A. was okay with this, with you not being there other than when you're training for a fight? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So now you're at A.K.A.

I'm assuming you're in the Bay Area now getting set to go to Florida, and you're fighting this guy, Marcel Alfaya, who a lot of people, doesn't, the name doesn't jump off the page. What do you know about him? What are you expecting from him on Saturday? You know, he's a tough guy. You know, he was like, Jonathan in South Florida. He was a champ.

I think AFCA, if I could be quoting that wrong, but he was a champ on there for a little while, you know, good jihitsu, heavy-handed, you know, he's flying in Brazil quite a bit. He hasn't had a super active career in the last three years. but he's still had some good wins. He's got like a 13-second knockout as his last fight. So, you know, he's a serious threat, so I have to take him as a serious threat and do whatever I can to put him away as fast as I can.

You talked about the dust settling from everything that happened this year. It's been quite an eventful year for you. Does it feel a little less hectic, a little less stressful, you know, less of a chip on your shoulder going into this fight? It doesn't feel like, you know, the other one, obviously you were in the main event and it was a rematch all that stuff. Now you're kind of flying under the radar a bit. Are you liking that position?

A little bit because, you know, I can just focus on the fight at hand and focus on the training. You know, the body's been feeling good. I've been injury-free. You know, that's really the most important thing. And, yeah, it's just the focus is everything. And getting that focus back is going to make a big difference. Are you hoping Berkman wins so that you can fight him next? if you win, of course?

I think that would work out best for everyone involved. I think the fans, the organization, and me and Josh, I think it would be a big fight. I think we get a lot of eyeballs on it. Do you like... We both have to take care of business this weekend, but I think it would be good for everybody's future. Are you happy with where World Series of Fighting is at? The guys they're signing, you know, they signed Okami recently, and that signing was compared to your signing, somewhat of a controversial release from the UFC, and, you know, this is their

six show guys like Nick Newell, Tyrone Spine. I mean, are you a fan of the World Series of Fighting Product? Are you happy to be a part of that organization? Yeah, I think they're doing a great job, and they're doing good things. Good numbers on NBC Sports Network. And not only, you know,

do we get good numbers when we have the live shows, but they replay the fights over and over and over again afterwards. I think it's going to help in the long run with sponsors, and I think it's going to help a lot with just exposing fighters to fans. You know, and you can see that fight

10 different times a month after the fight happened, that helps a lot. That's true. I never actually thought about the replays help the sponsors. You can tell them it's going to be seen over and over again as opposed to just once, right? Yeah.

And it helps the fight of themselves, too. You have a good fight, a good night, and then people are going to see that over and over again. And, okay, so right now you're, you talked about your plan of, you know, hoping that if you win and Berkman wins, how many fights do you actually have left on that contract? three more, including this one.

Okay, so it would work out for the promotion. And by the way, for people coming up to you on the street and things like that, what kind of reaction do you get from them? Because you're obviously a lot more visible when you're in the UFC. Do people ask, you know, what happened to you? Where did you go? How are people reacting to you these days? No, people are supportive.

They know where I am and I've been following me. I think, you know, it's a mistake that the UFC has been, been cutting a lot of these guys because they, I think they feel their brand is stronger than any individual's name. But what I'm noticing is a lot of the guys who do, they take their fans with them. You have noticed that. You think that the UFC is a little too trigger-happy with the cuts. Yeah, I think it might end up stinging them in the end, because I know my fans know where I am, and I've seen a lot of other fighters in the same scenario. You know, they get released and they take their fans with them. But what would be the

alternative? Because they have so many guys on the roster, how would they get everyone a fight then? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I'm a fighter. I don't have those answers. Right. But I do know, and you know, guys put in a lot of work for you, and they give you a lot of value. You should respect that.

And the final thing, John, before we go and we appreciate the time. Would you ever consider going to the business side of thing, the side of things, the promotion side of things? Because you, I've obviously paid attention. You've been around a long time. I feel like that's something that you'd be interested in. Am I wrong? The opportunity is presenting themselves to me,

but right now I'm happy as a fighter and happy what I'm doing and doing pretty good job at it, so I'm going to stick with that for now. You said last time you... You know, you can't fight forever. Sure. That's true.

So, you know, I'm open for things when they come out. It's always been something I believe in, you know, you just have to keep working hard, and then doors kind of open for you. You know, I spent my old childhood in high school thinking I was going to play college football and pro football. In senior year, things didn't go that well, and I decided to wrestle. And if I wouldn't have been training hard all the time, I wouldn't have been able to go to college and wrestle.

And then I busted my ass in college wrestling and didn't become as successful as I thought I would wrestling in college. And then this door of MMA opened up for me. So I just keep my head down and keep grinding it out. You know, doors are going to open. You still want to have 15 more fights? That's what you said the last time you were on the show. Yeah, I mean, if everybody holds up, why not. It's a great lifestyle.

This is a lot of fun. Me and Silberoni, we're talking about this not so long ago. We love this life. You know, winner to lose or draw. It's fun to travel around the world and beat people up. Yeah, it is. Yeah, I can imagine. I don't know from my own experience, but I can imagine it's fun.

And you're going to be competing at the World Jujitu Expo, right? Next month? Yes. Yeah. Wow, look at you. And I'm no, you know, I don't cover J-Jit-Too, but I hear you have a tough fight or a tough match, tough opponent. Yeah, I don't have really able to watch it for a while either,

but there's a lot of people surprised that I was willing to take this fight. And, you know, I'm happy to, like, give some promotion and some attention to grappling like this. You know, I think it's important that people respect our roots. And I think these guys should be paid more than what they do for what they do. So if I can bring some more attention to them, that's awesome. Okay, final thing. So tell us where to learn about the gym.

Where can people sign up, read about it? Is there a website up? What do you got? I don't know if they have the website up still. They just opened, you know, a little over a month ago. But at the Pacific Health Club in Liverpool, New York, is right next to Syracuse. It's a fantastic facility.

I think they might have a Facebook or something up. I don't know if they have their website up yet or not. But, I mean, if you're in the area, go and just see it. like pictures and write-ups and things can't do it justice. You've got to see this place. Awesome. Well, good luck with it. Good luck on Saturday night against Marcel Al-Fi World Series of Fighting Six.

It's on the NBC Sports Network at 9 o'clock Eastern Time. Always a pleasure, John. Wish you the best of luck on Saturday. All right, thanks, Matt. There he is. John Fitch returns to action. Saturday night, NBCSN, NBC Sports Network. It's actually not the NBC Sports Network anymore.

They actually refer to it as NBCSSense. N. And it's a pretty solid main card. As I mentioned, the main event is Josh Berkman versus Steve Carl for the vacant, the inaugural, Walterway title, WSOF introducing their first title. So that's a big deal for them. And then Carson Beebe against Marlon Marais, Marcel Al-Fiaa versus John Fitch, and Justin Gaichie versus Dan Lozon. It's also a prelim card beginning at seven Eastern times.

So busy night on Saturday for MMA. Okay, let's move along. We've been talking about him a lot over the last couple of weeks. And finally, I believe this is first interview since his release from the UFC, the controversial heel hook against Mike Pierce a couple weeks ago in Brazil. Very interested to hear from this man. So let's welcome him in.

Hussimar Pahis is on the line, as well as his manager slash interpreter, Alex Davis. Husimar, are you there? Thanks, I hear. Hi, okay. And Alex, Alex, are you there? Yeah, I'm here. What's up, Ariel? Okay, great. Well, thank you very much to both of you for stopping by. I'm going to ask the question, and then I guess, Alex, you can translate for Hussehmar,

and then we'll do the back and forth back to me, okay? That's correct. Okay. Okay, great. Well, it sounds like the English is pretty good. So I'm just curious, off the bat. I mean, this has been a crazy two weeks for you. What has life been like? Since, you know, the fight against Pierce, the submission, you get release, and then the aftermath, the hoopla afterwards. How have you been dealing with all this? Rosemann, this has been two months

very longas for you. First, I've had a lot, you finalized the Pierce, and then happened so all. How you've been lided with this? Well, I'm... I'm very shantyed, for having this situation,

and it's been very difficult for me, but I'm super having, I'm super having, Yeah. It was, I was very sad. It was very difficult for me to deal with all this, but I'm surpassing it. I'm getting over it.

Okay. Now talking about the actual fight, did you hold on to the submission longer than you should have to try and injure Mike Pierce? So, the finalization, you secured that finalization

to match him Mike Pierce? No, that it can no. With a certain, but I'll tell you, when he batted, I don't see, no, in the cold of the lot, you know, in my point of view, in the hour of the lot,

I didn't, I don't see him batting, no, you know? I was to see, just after the lot, that I went to see the video, because they were all the people, me jugging,

so, and I went, and I saw, it took a little bit so, but in the hour of the water, in the cold, I, I don't see nothing, I'd never,

I'd, even more, I'd more, even more, know, I'm not going to get my company

of the job. You know? The guy that me will get

to get the money to get him. You know?

No, I did not want to hurt him in the heat of the fight,

I didn't feel him tap afterwards when I watched the

fight I had held on too long but

I really didn't mean to hurt him you know and

you know he's a fighter like I am and I know that he

does this for a too long. People are bringing up the fight against Thomas Durval at the UFC 111. Some jih Tzu competitions fights outside of the UFC. What do you say to the people who say there's a history here? You have been holding on to submissions too long

and as a result injuring fighters. So, Rosemar, you, he, he said that, after this battle, farra of that war against Thomas Droual and said other times that you've secured too, and the people are just doing for this. What do you think of this? The only

The only thing I think is because, maybe it's my way to train I'm a guy

explosive, the velocity that I enter in a position, maybe the people can think it's

a little aggressive the way to the positions and finalize the lot but

it's, it's it's going to enter in the positions and

for I be judged to not final to not finalize the car and I

say and I I don't know, I think I think that I I've worked much to do do everything right, and not commit this type of error more,

so. You know, I think it has a lot to do with my style, and I'm really aggressive when I go after the submissions, and there's been times also when I've not I've not held on and people have got out of it, and then I end up losing

the fight, you know? And so it's, you know, kind of way I fight, but, you know, I'm, I've been trying, I've been getting better. I've been working a lot on this, you know, and it's just the way I fight, just my style. You, there was a video out that said that you only held on 1.2 seconds, and, you know, there are some who have defended you and said that you didn't do anything wrong. You, you, were just doing what you were supposed to do, and the referee came in late. As a result of all of that, do you think the UFC was fair in releasing you?

There Many people say that you just just secured one second a more 1.2

seconds a more and many people came that not was a so horrible you think

was just the US to be to be I'm sorry I'm I respect the decision

of the FC I'm respect the decision of the Noite I

just just just the my job, me prepared much to do a show to everyone, even for him, including, and the only thing I can't say, I respect to the decision

of his, because he said, he's been talking, that's all right, for all the same. You know, I respect Dana's decision. You know, I know I worked very, very hard to be here and do that, and give on a show for everybody to see,

for him also. And, you know, I'm sad, I respect his decision. And Dana White has been asked whether or not the door is completely closed, you're banned for life, or you'll get another opportunity maybe sometime down the line. He says right now, no opportunities, it's done. Do you believe him or do you think that maybe in three, four fights, you pick up some big wins, you'll be able to convince him if you do everything by the book, nothing controversial,

convince him to come back to the UFC. Are you holding out hope that he will change his mind? Some reports have asked him asked to Dena if you could

have done and the Dena says that no. But you think that if you

do you do you do you do it all and you have a hope that you can

you can you can't you don't know I think so I think so that's only

the time and my other operations that I think he could be could be could be idea. I don't know. I will

continue to go to continue to run right of my son because I'm I want to be the world, I want to be the best, so I'd want to be the world, understand.

You know, I don't know, I think time will tell. I'm going to continue fighting. I'm going to do my best. I want to be the best in the world and the UFC is where the best in the world are. And And time will tell.

I'm going to keep on doing and getting better, and let's see what happens. Mike Pierce said some strong things about you before the fight, called you a cheater, all that stuff. Did any of that come into play in the fight? I mean, maybe subconsciously you really were upset with him, and that's why you held on a little too long? The Mike Pierce said some of the things, mehashire chattes, of you before the

that's that's it's overrece or the way if you you're you're

so the same no no I'm I'm borgiciced because he

has been the he's promoting a lot, he's he's promoting these things and my

way to promove the lot is calad not in the topaguan understand so I'm have been

no, I'm have been the right of this no for this no. a great athlete, I maintain

focused on my job, did you? No, that kind of thing doesn't bother me whatsoever. You know, I know he's a good athlete. I know he's trying to sell the fight. I don't let that kind of stuff bother me. I mean, my thing is when we get in the octagon

and I don't even have any will feelings towards him. You know, he's a great athlete, and I just went out there to do what I had to do. Some, like the Nogara brothers, have come to her defense. Others have, you know, piled it on, Marilla Bustamante saying that, you know, when you train together

that you were injuring fighters and other fighters like John Fitch have said they wouldn't want to fight you. Do you feel like you've been treated fairly after this? Or do you feel like some have taken shots below the belt, whatever the case may be, and kind of poured it on you in this time that you're somewhat vulnerable? Some of the people have been

to defend, like, those people have been trying to try to denigree. others are still who would would be like that would

like would be with you, and other people have been there have been

the moment to you think the people are to get to you? I don't see

I don't I'm not too focused on this no I'm I'm

going to this moment difficult I'm I'm diggering these

things that are going to come with me first I'm don't

think nothing with this then I don't really know I'm going through a tough time in my life and I'm not really paying attention

I'm just trying to digest all of this and get over it I can't really can't really tell you Did you used to injure training partners You macho No No, sure that no

If I didn't care to train it No, no Because if I didn't have a lot of people that I passed. No, if I did that, I wouldn't have anybody to train with, and if I did that, I also wouldn't have as many friends as I have every place I go to train.

Right. Have other people, other promotions, reached out to you to fight? I mean, have you received interest from other people since you were released from the UFC? Other promotions have we've been to to fight, after this problem of UFC?

There's Alex, the Alex Davis, Yes, there are some organizations that I look for them. Yes, Alex Davis, with me, of course, there have been other promotions interested in having me fighting for them. Can you talk, has anything signed,

anything done, do you know when you'll fight again? Something is signed, something is done, you know when will be done? No, just I'm trying now, I'm not doing it, I just am doing continuity

of my work, my dream, go to get back and I'm working for this. No, right now I'm just concentrating on training

and then doing my work and I'm not even really, even focusing on that at the moment. Some have said that you need to work with a psychologist

as specialist of sorts to figure out why this keeps happening. Are you open to that? Do you think that you need this kind of help? Some of some days

that you'd would be to look a job a psychologist to be for what what happens in those

your battles you're open to this? You think that you will be able to you? Yes,

sure. I had done this before. It's part of my training too.

With the yes, of course. I'd already done that before and I'm doing again and it's just part of my

training. So what do you work on with this person or with these people? I mean, why do you feel

like this because when you watch it it does appear as though the holds are being held on to a little

too long. So how do you fix that problem? And how the psychologist you help? Really, looking on your

lot, it is it, it's really really as much. How you consider this? Look,

I'm very very much concentrated in the lot, thanks a God, I can't

get a level of a lot. So I enter very focused in the lot,

and the level of the athletes are now, it's it seems it doesn't

make not not, not they're not going to and they're going to get into,

I think the most of the thing that happens I think because because of

this, but I will work to make a maximum possible to make

this every day. When I get into a fight, I really, I get in very, very

focused and very, very, concentrated on the fight, and the level of

fighters today, it's not easy to submit them so maybe I go a little

too intense and I'm working hard to change Mike Pierce said that he, you know, he heard some pops, he felt some pops, and last week he told us he suffered a sprain MCL and a completely torn ligament on the outside of his left ankle. Did you feel any pops while you were holding on to the submission? Mike Pierce said that he sent him a stalar in the torso and that there was an esterament on the toezoal and that had a a ligament

rompeded in the Tonnoseero, you see some there? No, of course

that I have to ask you need to ask you know, that all the

I saw after the the last of the I saw the during the

time, the time there, no the the cold of the adrenaline

the want to get to say the fact I don't feel anything

I'd really like apologize to Mike Pierce. It was just in the heat of the fight and at that adrenalized moment, you know, I didn't feel anything. I only afterwards did I realize everything after I watched the fight later.

At the way-ins the day before and after the fight, you were very emotional. Of course, this was your Walter Wage debut, so some, you know, thought that maybe it was because of the wake and whatnot, but tell us now, why were you so emotional on the Tuesday weigh-ins and then after the fight?

In the day of Pesage, you were very emotional You're sure Or so, maybe some Some people I thought

Because it was Because it was the First-Nour And there's Much time So, Why you So, why you

Feree So, I've got So, I'm going to And I'm I'm doing What I'm

Really, you So, The world It's the It's been So well I'm I'm doing

and so well as I always always went to stay from here forward. It was just because it's been a while since I was fighting and I was very

you know I was very had a lot of emotions because it's been a while since I had fought and I was getting back to fight again

which is what I love to do so that's why I ended up like that will you continue to fight as a Walterweight You continue continue to continue on 7-7?

With certainty, without No doubt. Yes, certainly. And what happened with ADCC? They said that they couldn't reach you, and that's why you weren't a part of the tournament.

Can you explain to us why you're not a part of it? And what what happened to us? They said that they're not, not able to talk with you. What did happen with this? It was right. It's because it was a lot in San Paul. It started to happen to happen to do that. a lot of boatho that

came to my phone to get a phone to get a little, and they didn't talk to talk with me, just about because I didn't

have never confirmed nothing with them to understand, I didn't know how to the fight, you know,

then they didn't get to talk to me, and it was it was good. Yeah, well, you know, I hadn't even

confirmed my presence because I had the UFC fight, and then after everything happened, I just turned off my phone

because, you know, I had to have some peace of mind, and they didn't manage to talk to me. That's all I know. I've been told that you will be competing in early November at the World Jiu-Jitsu Expo. Is that true, and who will you be facing? Yeah, me said what you would be competing in the World Jiu-Jitsu, in the Exposition.

This is the reality, and against who you will compete? Probably, probably I'd be able to look, But I still don't have nothing certain, right, yet, no. Yeah, they said everything that I'd be fighting there, I just haven't heard against whom yet. Will you change the way you fight now because of this? You will try the way that you look at because of this?

Look, man, I'm going to try to make make every day, you know? I'll better every day, until I'll look at the way that everyone wants, but I will work the part of, but I'm trying to distract, that I want to be able to distract, like I'm going to go, I'm going to show,

I want to be able to leveled to be able to show. Yeah, I always try. I'm always trying to improve, and I'm going to keep on trying to improve. I also want to improve my striking part to be as good as I am on the ground, and, you know, I'll just keep on working on it.

Two last quick things. Do you regret the way you handled the end of that fight against Mike Pierce? You You You see You're You're

You're That's That's No, because I Vence the Lute I finalized the Lute,

you know? I wanted to win by submission But the fact that you held on and injured him You don't regret that But the part

That you That you That you That you Seugue The time Dime Dimey

I I was, it was it was really, because I just can't see this after the video, you know,

I just have to give a Mr. I'm going to ask, because it's not my intention,

car, the main intention was just to wince the I was focused 100% in this,

you know? I wanted to show what I could see, understand, and I didn't

see this during the last I was just then the video. Yes,

that part I need to apologize to Mike Pearson to Dana White. I was so focused on the fight. I didn't feel it. And, you know, I just can't apologize. I only saw that afterwards. Okay. And final thing, Husseymar, and we appreciate the time, both yours and Alex's. Is there anything else that you want to say to people? A lot of people hearing from you for the first time since that incident, anything that we didn't touch on that you'd like to say to the people listening or watching? Yeah, Rosemar, very much more thing. You'd like to say to all of those people who are listening to listen. The next

I'm going to I'm going to try to better to make my part of the path of my heart

and I'm going to go to all the events that have to look to and I

will show who I am really and that can see that will be the good

and it's all of my fans I'm I'm I'm I'm

want to I'm really I'm I'm 77. Who want to

send to send him. Yes, I'll show everybody who I really am.

I'm also going to improve my striking a lot. I'm willing to face anybody at my

weight and I'm to just show everybody, everybody who I really am. Thank you very much.

We appreciate you coming on the show to talk to us answer these questions and best of luck to you,

Rozimar. Rosemar, very very good to be coming for show and all the

lot for you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thanks, guys. Thank you, Alex. We appreciate it. Good luck to you this weekend. No problem, Ariel. Big Hogman. Thank you. There he is. Hussimar Paul Harris, Alex Davis. I said good luck to Alex. He is in Manchester for UFC Fight Night 30.

One of his fighters, John Lineker, who is a top contender at 125, is fighting over there against Phil Harris. So I'm curious to hear what you think about that. Some of the things that Husseemar says, of course, some may get lost in translation. but you know, you don't get the impression that he is overly regretful. I mean, I kind of have to ask that question twice, and that kind of tells you my reaction to it. It's a tough one. It is certainly a tough one, and I appreciate him coming on answering the questions,

but you wonder whether or not, I don't doubt, it's a weird thing to say, I don't doubt that he does it on. purpose, but even if you don't do it on purpose, it doesn't mean that you're not doing something wrong. And if you can't fully grasp that and if you're not fully regretful after the fact, then I don't blame you if you're a fighter who has second thoughts about fighting someone like that, who is incredibly talented and tough and whose go-to move is one of the tougher ones to get out of and one of the more dangerous submission holds in Jiu-Jitsu.

do that that's a that's a tough thing and um and i don't know if that again sometimes people's demeanors and their answers might not come across the way you want them to or think that they should it doesn't come across to me like that that he is overly regretful or sorry for what he did um somewhat nonchalant but again it could be a lost in translation thing and it just could be the way it is that's the life comes from. That's the way he was built. Guy is built like a machine literally. I mean, look at him. It looks like. I used to call him the tree stump. Tocino, I think, is Portuguese for something of that, like a fire hydrant. Or maybe Toccino is a tree stump, and I used to call him the fire hydrant, something like that. I'm curious to see who signs him next. Someone will sign him. I can guarantee

you that. Someone will sign him, and I'm curious to see where he goes from here. because at this point, uh, he has never, you can, you can, you can, you can,

you can talk about him being dirty, you can talk about him being a bad guy, but he has never been more, quote unquote, popular, not in a good way,

but more out there, more known, more talked about. So his return fight, his next big fight, since getting released by the UFC, is going to be a big deal. Beltor has already said that they are not going to sign him.

World Series Fighting hasn't said that and I'm curious to see what they do about it there's still some promotions in Brazil there's Shudo over there that does some good stuff there's one FC who had a show recently over the weekend so it's going to be interesting to see where he goes and you'd have to think other than the suspension the 120 day suspension

that he received from the Brazilian commission he should be back pretty much right when that's done right and he will be competing at the World Jiu Jitza Expo, which is in early November, I believe it's the 9th and 10th of November. So he'll be competing there, and I guarantee you that all eyes will be on him. And I think it's smart that they sign MMA fighters to compete in those competitions, guys like John Fitch, guys like Hussein Marpa Harris. They did try to get, they did try to get Matt Riddle, but he said he couldn't do it. And there are some of them fans, a part of it.

that's what I think these jiu-jitsu competitions should do. They should sign these guys. So people like myself who do cover MMA, who are MMA fans, first and foremost, of course, appreciate and watch when we can the other combat sports. But you have that crossover. I think it's good for the competition. It's good for the brand. And it raises some more interest in it. So that's the next time you'll see him in action. Probably at this point, that's what we're being told. But as far as MMA is concerned, he's going to have to wait until that 120 days. So suspension is up. and that is what

40, there's four months. Also, Jake Shield's going to be a part of that. They're texting me updates about the World Jutuzu Expo. They are that passionate about it. Jake Shield's also going to be a part of that competition, November 9th and 10th. All right, moving along, I mentioned Manchester, UFC Fight Night 30.

It's this weekend. We're supposed to have Gary Cook on, but he is M-I-N-A. Hey. Where's he at? Oh. Oh. Well, he just got my hopes up. I don't even know if you can hear that. Could people hear you? Will? Wow. See, Will's so shy, yet people are still interested in this man. He's talking in my ear. And someone came up to me actually in Houston and said, where's world of thrill? Houston's own. They were looking for him. Nowhere to be found. People actually, from time to time, asked me about Buzzkill, even though he really has no. He really has no. to do with the show anymore. They asked me about New York Rick, of course. Alfred hasn't reached that status yet. I'm expecting, you know, within the next couple months. But that, I believe, was my first will-the-thrill question about his whereabouts. And who's the fan? Get out of here. Wait, am I having a conversation with someone that the fans can't hear? Is that what's

happening? You can't speak to me, right? At least on air. Hey, now they can hear it. Oh, great. a fan called in asking about you? It was the same guy that you met in Houston. Get out of here. I don't believe it. Eric talked to him. How do you know? How do you know it's the same guy? How do we know? He referenced it.

Wow. First off, where's Gary Cook? I don't know. Okay, great. I just do audio. Yeah, that's right. What did he want to say to you? I don't think he wanted to say anything. I think he was just checking on the control room because no one else does.

that's right because Buzzkill is out there doing something else all right well it's good to talk to you maybe you guys can get me Gary Cook um Gary Cook of course is the executive vice president and managing director of Europe, Middle East and Africa for the UFC he was on this show oh I'd say seven or so months ago

and that was fairly um you know that's fairly early in his UFC run and since then they've done a lot of great things over there. BT Sport is now the home of the UFC over in England. They've returned for the second time. Well, they will return for the second time on Saturday. They were there in February. And next year, they've announced that they are going to go to England six times. Excuse me, not England. Europe six times. And I could sit here and talk about it. But now we have

the man on the line who can actually answer our questions about it. Gary, are you there? I am, Ariel. How are you, sir? It's nice to hear you again. Oh, thank you so much. We appreciate you stopping by. Okay, let's get into it. You have an event in Manchester on Saturday. How much did the event suffer after Michael Bisping pulled out due to the eye injury? Well, as you know, Ariel, we've been a bit of unlucky in the last event. We were in Stockholm, and we lost Alexander Gustafson. Right.

And then, of course, we've lost Michael Bisping. We're terribly unlucky. Obviously, he thought to with the fighter. the fight is the most important thing. Everybody doesn't like to lose their local hero on the main event, so yeah, it was disappointing. But again, as always,

we've got a first with Loyota-Machita fighting his first middleweight fight. So, you know, we never cease to surprise in the UFC. Are you sensing buzz the second time that you're in England this year? You were in London, February, Manchester

on Saturday. Are you sensing a buzz? You know, the English fans, they hound us to try to get to Dana White, try to get to you, to tell you guys that they want more events. Are they stepping up to the plate, as they say here in America? Are they coming out supporting? Is there a buzz for this event? Yeah, we never get into a position. We're very fortunate.

We never get into a position where we don't have a great atmosphere and we have great crowds. The British fans and, you know, have always been tremendous supporters of UFC. For many, many years, they've shown their loyalty to the people. the sport. You know, as you well know, Ariel, you get the critics. The critics know about the card or the critics moan about, you know, the main card, or they moan about, there's not enough events, and there's too many events, and that's, and then it's not on TV, and then it's not on the right TV channel, and then it's, so, but we always try and meet the needs of the fans wherever we can, so we're just excited to have another event in the UK.

We have a lot of UK listeners and viewers, and I know a lot of them were excited and somewhat, you know, they wanted to know what would happen with the BT Sport deal. You mentioned the TV deal. If you're listening to us in America, that's the big TV deal that they signed over there across the pond. How has that been working out for you over there? I know you have Garrett Davies on a lot of shows, and I think that's probably the one negative, but other than Garrett's presence on the shows, how have things been working out for you in BT? And do you feel like this is the TV partner that you needed to really grow the sport?

in England and beyond. Well, I'll take you, Garrette Davis comment. Hopefully your tongue is firmly placed in your cheek. Yes, yes. But, you know, we had to make a decision. We made a decision for the TV network that we wanted to be with. And it was really all about a network

that wanted to invest in the UFC. They create a weekly program, a weekly show, weekly magazine show that applies to the UK audience. We're going through an interesting transition period. You know, we have some very, very loyal fans in the UK who really, really understand the sport. They know all the technical detail that you would need to know to be considered

hardcore fan. But life can't live just on hardcore fans. This sport has taken the world by storm. It's capturing the hearts and imaginations of many. One of the challenges that we have are in this country and in mainland Europe is educating people about the sport. It is an elite performance sport. And we're not in the mainstream at this point because we're still driven through football, soccer, and rugby.

And it's time for people to realize that this is the sport for the future. And we're starting to have to educate people on what this sport really is. So while we've got the hardcore fans, we're also looking to convert other sports fans into MMA. You've been in your role for a little bit over a year. Has the task been tougher than you thought? You talk about kind of breaking through from the hardcores and, I've read you talk about this in interviews as of late, and you must have had your own kind of preconceived notions going into it, but now that you're a year in or so, has it been tougher or easier than you thought it would be? Well, I think I didn't, I think I underestimated a couple of things, Daryl.

I think the first one I underestimated was the amount of content that was on after 3 o'clock in the morning. So you really have to be a hardcore fan to see all the live events, the great event. Look at the last two. look at Houston at the weekend and look at Jones Gustafson. I mean, these are monumental moments in our sport and in the history of USC, and yet the mainstream don't get to see them. And so the next part of our strategy around the globe, around Europe in particular, is to get the sport into prime time television.

Give the fans more events, give the fans more prime time viewing, and that's the way forward for us. Okay, so recently you announced a very big news that you're going to England six times next year. And what I thought was interesting about the news was you refer to it as a fight night series, not just a string of events. So what do you mean when you keep saying fight night series? Is this something different than we've seen in the past?

Well, fight night series has become a bit of an internal working name. Let me explain to you. The six fights next year that we've gone public with are actually not just in the UK. We are looking to be next year in London. we're going to be in Dublin, we're going to be in Istanbul, we're going to be in Poland, either Lodge or Warsaw,

we're going to be in Berlin, and maybe in Hamburg, and we're definitely going to be in Sweden. Why wouldn't you go to Sweden with what's going on there right now, either in Malmo or Stockholm? So what we needed to do, we needed to create a series of events

in the local region for primetime television. So all of those fights will be available on the television news. networks in Europe. So we don't think it will end there. We think that the demand will continue to grow because as our sport grows, as our brand grows, people are going to demand more live events in their region during the prime time hours. And how did you, I mean, some of those places you've been to before, but the new ones like, you know, Poland, Istanbul, why did you decide on some of those new places? How did you end up deciding those? Well, Poland is a huge MMA market. There's

There's some promotions there that do very well. We've pulled out some great fighters from Poland. We've got great fighters in Russia and Germany and also in Croatia. And these parts of the world are under-explored for us. And we've never tried them because we've always been limited by how many events we had in any given year. What we've been able to do is just take example of Istanbul in Turkey. There are 12 million people in one city. and it's a fight culture, it's an MMA culture,

and so we think there's opportunity, and they call and ask for UFC to come to their country. We've just never been able to do it because we've only been able to handle two, three events for our U.S. television network. Okay, so the six events, is it just going to be six, or is there room to grow in 2014 where in the back end you can have more?

Right now, six in Europe, that's signed, sealed and delivered. Yeah, so six, six right now. We were in a sports conference in Monaco last week, broadcast television conference. We already had demand for another four. So I don't think the success will be what we do do. I think some of our success will be back down to what we say we can't do, because I think we've got to be very careful. We don't try and run before we walk.

How did you convince the powers that be that they should bring six events to Europe? because, as they always say, they're being pulled from so many directions, six in Europe is a very big deal in one calendar year. Well, look at where the success of UFC has been historically over the last five years. USA, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, pretty much all along the same timeline. So that's driven by the television networks. And so people are able to watch the product and see all the live fights, you know, during their prime.

time, time, hour. So if we want to develop our business and grow our business, Lorenzo and Dana have all agreed that we have to be, not only be a global business, but to be a great global business, you've got to be local. We've got to find a way to serve the local fans and give them what they need. You mentioned the first week of March, early March would be the first event of this, quote, series. That would be in London. And ever since then, I've had people hounding me saying, can you give us a date? I need to book a flight. I need to know this. So can you break some news for us? Do you have any dates for when these events will take place? Well, I wish I could, mate. But unfortunately, you know, there's a lot of elements that go into it.

And I always don't like to tempt fate because it can come back to haunt you. But I can assure you there'll be a date in London in March. We're working on a couple of weekends. We haven't gone to, we haven't signed the contract yet. But I can assure you there'll be something going on in March in London. Will that be the first of the six events, the London event? Yeah, well, I think it's very important for us to make sure that, you know, we have a successful event. London and the UK clearly are our flagship market. That's where we are basing our headquarters for Europe, Middle Eastern Africa. That's where we've grown a great fan base. You know, historically we've got a core fan base and people understand the sport here. So we're going to,

We're going to hold that and we're going to launch from our home country, and then obviously we'll just move around the rest of Europe. And not forget in the Middle East and African nations. We sometimes forget that. You know, a mayor is not a place. It's a host of many, many, many countries. So we've got a lot of work to do. But we've got a great team of people here in the UK working very hard.

That was actually my next question, because you are overseeing those regions as well. Will there be any events in Africa and or the Middle East next year? I think you've seen delivered by the UFC over the last 10 years, no restriction on their capability to go into a market and make a difference with the UFC, not only impacting MMA, but in my mind, changing the landscape of sport. So there is no limit. Whether there's an arena, there's a capability in my mind.

So in 2014, will you be in either Africa or the Middle East? We would hope to see us at least in 2015, if not in 2014. Within the next two years, I can guarantee you that. When you say Middle East, that's an interesting part of the world. Is there any particular country that you're zeroing in on? Well, we look for gateways in most of these markets, because you can enter a country and they can lead you down into the area very well. Obviously, we have great partners in Abu Dhabi.

You know, we've got connections there. We've got relationships there. Dubai is a big market. Qatar is a big market. You know, there is no end again. It's part of the culture. In Abu Dhabi, Jiu-Jitsu is in the school curriculum. So we've got so many areas and so many markets that are untapped, Daryl.

There is no, we've only just started. The runway is very, very long for us. I recall when you were at that conference a couple weeks ago with Lorenzo Furtita, you mentioned Glasgow's one of these six countries you may visit as part of the European Fight Night Series, but you didn't mention it just a few minutes ago. Is Glasgow now off the list? No, no, no, no, none of them are off the list. I think the challenge that we've got, the only problem that we've got, is you have to go

to contractual obligation. And, you know, everybody, the demands, the demand levels are high. And again, it's just a case of making sure that we get the right one. So, you know, we're still talking to some of our host event partners. They've got arenas everywhere. And again, it's just the case of managing the six. You know, we may not be in Berlin as early as we think. You may have to switch something out and go to Glasgow.

This is all a bit of a moving target for us right now. So I think that's the downside of always making a statement that you're going to be in a city on a given date. It is a moving target because we can actually plan out six, seven, eight events, providing we get the right weekends and the right venues. Is it safe to say that you will wait for Conne McGregor's return to go to Dublin? It would seem like a natural to have an event there when he's fighting on the card. Well, of course, Harold, he's taken the world by storm, hasn't he?

I mean, just four months ago, five months ago, the boy was in a very different part of his life and a different point in his life. You know, since he performed as well as he has done, we were fortunate enough to have him on one of our cars. I mean, he's on every national television show, every talk show. I know I've watched you and some of your banter with him backwards and forwards. I mean, he's taken the world by storm. What a character. What a great athlete.

And everybody in Ireland cannot wait for him to return. Let's wish him the very best in a speedy recovery. Okay, final question for you. Speaking of cannot wait, I mean, what excites you most? It seems like you're about to venture into this whole new era for the UFC overseas. Dana White and Lorenza Fertita, they can't stop saying great things about you since you joined the team. What are you most excited about as you take this next big step overseas? Well, you know, I think it's all down to people, Ariel, to be honest.

What a great group of guys that we get to work with every day. You know, they're smart, they have ambition, but they've never lost focus on the core capability and competency of this business. It's about the fighters. it's about giving the fans exciting fights to watch either on live television or live in an arena. They have allowed us, that's Lorenzo and Dana and the entire management team, they've allowed us the opportunity to bring that mix to the local region. So it's about becoming bigger, reaching more territory, gaining more fans with your core product. And so the exciting part is that they are moving into these territories.

We had Lorenzo here for a week, and there was no event on. And he was able to take a good look at our business, and he looked at what we would look at trying to do. He fully endorses it. He fully supports it. And like all of the management team, we couldn't ask for a better group of people. So I'm excited about the people. I'm excited about delivering product for the fans. And I'm excited as well about bringing new talent into our.

region that one day will waive their national flag and fight in Las Vegas for a world title. Great stuff, Gary. I really appreciate it. Always a pleasure to talk to you. I'm excited as well. I think this is great. I'm curious to see what you do next year and beyond. Good luck this weekend for the event in Manchester.

And once again, thanks for stopping by. Always great to get some insight from you. Thanks, Harold. Keep up the good work with the show. I'll speak to you soon. Appreciate it. There he is. Gary Cook, stopping by, dropping some knowledge on what's going on in Europe next year and

beyond a very interesting time for the international expansion of the UFC. Now, the UFC's event on Saturday, it will be headlined by Leota Machita versus Mark Munoz. You had the Gracie Brothers on the show, you. We had the Gracie brothers on the show just a couple of weeks ago. Henner, Heeron, they talked about this being somewhat of a family affair. Well, let's hear from Mark Munoz as he prepares to go to England to fight this weekend. Mark, how are you? I'm great, Ariel.

Thank you for having me on the show, man. Pleasure as always. So first things first, it's a bit of a trip to get over there, and with time difference and all. Does that concern you in any way as you prepare for this fight, which is five days away? No, I don't know. I fought there in Birmingham when I fought leaving,

and I have no trouble sleeping, man. I have no trouble at all with having four kids, a wife, running a business, and training. I feel like this is a time for me to just run. rest and recover and I will get my rest and I will cover and I'll be on the same time zone as as the fight. So I mentioned at the top that we had Henner and Huron on and they were talking about you know everyone training together being friends and this being somewhat of a strange one for everyone but everyone's being a professional about it and it's going to be great. When was the last time

prior to getting that call that the UFC you know wanted you to fight Liotto Machita? When was the last time that you actually trained with Liotto, as friends, training partners, et cetera? It was two days before the fight got announced. So it was just, it was quite recent. And, you know, we just, we talked about it. And, you know, it just took us by surprise. And unfortunately, we, you know, we don't want to do it. But, you know, it's something that we have to do.

and, you know, this is just part of the business. So, yeah, we were just rolling together at the Gracie Academy two days before we found out. Did you consider saying no? Yes, I did, but there was nobody there's nobody there's nobody there, nobody to fight. They had to take Leoto off the five-footed troops card to save this card. And that was something that they were. they were talking about. And yeah, I was saying, I was wanting to say no because obviously, you know,

we're training partners, but at the same time, you know, we just trained together. And, you know, it was getting ready to, we were getting ready to train a lot more together. So, but having said that, I mean, Leota is a type of fighter where you have to have like six, eight weeks to get ready for him, you know, not two and a half weeks. I mean, he's an Orthodox fire, fighter, but at the same time, you know, you can say on the flip side, he's got to get ready for me in two and a half weeks, but, you know, it's even more a point to get ready for him because he's unorthodox, and I'm not. You know, I'm, I got a lot of power and I'm a wrestler, but he's definitely somebody that's unique,

and you don't find too many guys that can mimic him. So that being said, I mean, do you know, do you know, have an advantage over the regular fighter who takes a fight on short notice against Leo because you have trained with him. In other words, do you have intimate knowledge of what this guy's about, how he fights, and that will actually help you, as opposed to all

the other fighters who have, you know, kind of thought that, and afterwards said that he's a difficult puzzle to figure out. Yes, you're right, and I do have some insight to how to fight the way I want to fight it. And, you know,

I think he knows that, and I think he's going to use my tricks that I taught him against me. So, but like every other coach and teacher, you have stuff that you can pull out of your sleeves. So, but having said that, I mean, it's going to be a great fight either way. You know, I mean, I'm not much to, I'm not much of a fighter that's able to, you know, kind of have no action. I always want to press the issue or be able to have a passive-aggressive type of style. And Leoto waits for somebody to come into you.

So, you know, suffice to say, it's going to be a great fight, and I do plan on it to be a great fight. And let's be clear, this is teacher versus student, you being the teacher, he being the student. It wasn't the other way around. No, I mean, I've learned some stuff from him, too. So, I mean, it goes both ways. You know, I taught him some stuff.

He taught me some stuff. But, you know, for the most part, we were training together, you know. That's how it was. And, you know, I brought some insight to wrestling. He brought some insight to striking. So, yeah, it goes both ways. But I feel like I taught him more than he taught me. And, you know, mentally you go from a fight against Michael Bispane, who was talking some smack about you

and always likes to get his opponents robbed up to now fighting your friend and training partner. Is that a tough thing to go through? You know, you definitely have to roll with the punches, you know, figuratively speaking. You know, I mean, you have to be able to do that, and we do it inside the oxygen. Now we have to do it in real life. So, yeah, I was looking forward to fighting Michael Bisping,

not only because of all the stuff that he was saying, but of, you know, because he's been high on the radar as far as title shots as concerned, and for me to get a win over Michael Bispe, it's definitely upon my name of hand. But having said that Leota Machita is a former world champion, and I think being able to beat Leota Machita is definitely going to do the same, if not more, for that purpose.

So I don't think it's a problem. I've been able to change opponents at a drop of a hat in wrestling and even the mixed martial arts at times in the beginning of my career. So, you know, I'm the type of guy that can adjust and is very, you know, resilient to that. And I can adjust. That's the bottom line. So it's not difficult. You know, I'm just literally just well with the punches here.

Michael was touching on, you know, your battles with depression and whatnot going into the fight. Did you feel like that was a low blow? Yeah, it was somewhat of a low blow, man. of me, you know, I could be like, you know, hey, you know, talking about his injury and stuff like that, but I'm not going to do that, you know, because you don't wish retinal tear upon anybody because that's a somewhat career-ending injury. So, you know, I wouldn't want to kick a man when he's down, but, you know, to hype a fire, I think Michael was doing that.

And so I don't take it personally. It's all business. he's hyped in a fight, so it's all good. Do you think Liotto, we saw a picture of him, he looks amazing as he makes his way down to 185, but do you think that will change him in any way as a fighter? You know, I don't think so. I mean, he's always been light at light heavyweight. I mean, he's weighing in sometimes at 199 and 201 and 202.

So he doesn't walk around very, very high above light heavyweight at all. So I think for him to drop down 185 is not going to be a problem. and I don't find it to be a problem. I'm just going to go out there and do what I do, and if I see some type of fatigue, I'm just going to press even more. Obviously, the last time we saw you was in July. Amazing performance, amazing win over Tim Boch. You were in very good spirits.

How were things after the fight? Of course, it wasn't the same as post-Widman. You were on a high. You had just, you know, want to fight. But I'm assuming you weren't that lean and mean. You know, the weeks leading up, you can sit back and relax and enjoy life a little bit. but was it different? Did you indulge or did you stay very strict as far as your diet so that you don't add on the pounds again?

You know, I didn't add in any pounds, man. I mean, it was, I didn't go through, I didn't eat because I was sad. And I didn't, I wasn't sad because, you know, that's, you know, I wasn't a fat bastard, you know. So I basically just started training again about a week later. just helping out the guys that were training at my gym. And, you know, I stayed at like 210, 215 at the most. And that's pretty, that's nothing for me at all. And, you know, I end up getting a call to find Michael Bisbane, I think,

three weeks after that. And so actually two weeks, and then I just started three weeks to train for and then it was slated to be a a 12-week training camp you know which I like doing so so yeah I mean

no I didn't I didn't balloon up at all I stick to training and it's a lifestyle man and people need to realize that you know when when athletes like us that you know when we get injured and we can't do anything it plays with our head

you know it really does And, you know, when we can't train and when we can't, you know, do something that is very attuned to what we do every day, it kind of throws us off. We're going to do something else, which for me it was food. You know, I'm not at a party or I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't do any of that stuff. And, you know, I love eating, man. That's, I think everybody does.

and for me it was you know I couldn't do anything I didn't have a fight lined up so I was like to my size all my favorite foods and that's what I did and I had all my favorite foods a lot

throughout the day so to fill a void and I was trying to fill a void that was unfilable and you know I was just I was sad all together because you know one I couldn't fight

I couldn't do it I couldn't exercise about the same time you know I had a hard time providing for my family had a hard time providing for this gym, you know, when it is getting off the ground, you know, we just are going through a restructuring process with it, but now it's in the black and now it's a, we're spearheading a movement here

in Orange County and we're doing well. So, I mean, I think I needed to go through that to give me a different perspective about life and training and running a gym. So I think you need to go through circumstances and situations and situations and trials like that to make you a better person. I picked up on something in the post-fight press conference at that event in July. I mean, the thought, the mention of Chris Wyden really gets you fired up. Yeah.

Is that accurate? And is this, you know, do you feel like you do something spectacular on Saturday? You want to be right there to get another shot at this guy? You don't hear a lot of trash talk out of Mark Munoz. You're always so respectful and nice. But I could sense you were fired up in that post-fired press conference just talking about him. I mean, I don't, I don't get fired up.

You know, I do respect Chris, and I, you know, I respect him as a person and a fighter. I don't, you know, I don't have any ill will towards him, but I'm a competitor, man. I'm a very competitive competitor. I mean, that's who I am, and it just runs, I mean, I compete against my wife for a spot on the couch. If you try to get a spot on the couch, I, like, I, like, nudge her off and, like, wedge her and like wedge my way into that spot and she does the same thing with me and I do with my kids. I race into the car when we get done grocery shopping.

So it just flows within me and when I lose it just it just irks me, especially in the way I lost when it wasn't me really inside the octagon. You know, I know I can give way better, way better performance than that. So it just, yeah, you're right. I mean, it's something in me there were, you know, I, you know, I, you know, I want a second crack at it, you know. And, you know, so I mentioned of Chris Wyden, it just, you know, it fuels me. It really does.

And, you know, that's something that I definitely want back. Well, first things first, Leo Machita on Saturday, really interested in this fight. It's obviously there's the storyline, you know, the friends, the training partners, all that stuff. You've got the brothers in either corner. This is a fun thing that's playing out in Manchester. You can watch it on Fox Sports 2 this Saturday afternoon. Best of luck to you, Mark. I know you're about to fly out, so it really means a lot to us that you would come on the show.

Safe travels and looking forward to the fight on Saturday. Awesome. Thank you, Ariel. Always, it's an honor to be on your show, man. And, you know, I just love being on your show because, you know, you're a great person. And, you know, we've got to hang out sometime, man. Next time I'm over there in your neck of the woods. I'm a little far away, but next time for sure.

Thank you. That means a lot coming from you. Thanks, area. I appreciate it. There he is. I say it often. I think I said it on this show recently. Someone asked me, pound for pound, top five, top three nicest guys in the sport, Mark Munoz. That man is, as they say, in the old country, a true mensch. And he is fighting this Saturday. It's on Fox Sports 2, as I said. The face, there is no prelims on TV this time around. It's either Facebook or Fox Sports 2, Facebook prelums at 1215 Eastern Time. So if you're watching this in North America, it's a pretty early one on Saturday afternoon. And then the main card is at 3 o'clock Eastern time. And then a few hours later, it's World Series of Fighting on Saturday night on NBCSN.

Now, on Friday, Resurrection Fighting Alliance is back on Access TV, and they've been doing a lot of great stuff trying to build themselves up as the minor leagues of the UFC. And on Friday, they're doing something fun. and they are honoring a true legend of our sport. One of the very best that ever was. He was the first UFC Welterweight champion. Currently does tremendous work as a UFC, excuse me, as a mixed martial arts, a broadcaster,

and they're going to honor him with a Lifetime Achievement Award. So I wanted to have Pat Militich on the show to talk about that and other things going on in his career. Pat, how are you? Doing good, Ariel. Thanks for having me, buddy. Good to have you on the show. So before we get to the award,

I understand you're a father once again, right? I, yes, I am. We have another baby girl in the house, and so I'm completely outnumbered. It's three daughters, a wife, and Pat. Wow. Well, congratulations, Muzzletoev. That's amazing. Thanks, buddy. I appreciate it. How do you feel about going through the whole process again? You know what? I'm loving it. It's really a cool, cool process, and my other two daughters are pretty excited about being big sisters. That's great. Well, all the best to you and your family. And it comes at a fun time for you. You're getting this award. You'll be calling the event. But the award is obviously in your backyard. And they're presenting you with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Where did this come from? How did this all come about? I have no idea. I have no idea. They just asked me if they could. And I said, you know what? Hey, you know, I respect Ed. Soros a lot. He's been around.

for a long time and and Sven Bean, you know, both both very good guys and I thought, you know, hey, if that's what you want to do, you know, have that it. Do you like that kind of thing? Because some people don't like that, that kind of award because they say, oh, it makes me feel old and things of that nature. Are you one of those guys or do you like receiving these kinds of awards? I, Ariel, everything I've ever received, you know, I've said it before. Some people think I'm joking, but everything I've ever gotten, besides the,

the National Hall of Fame Dan Gable, National Hall of Fame Award that I got. Everything that I've ever won title belts, all of other stuff is in my basement in the boxes.

So, you know. So you're not very, you're not very nervous about Friday. What's that? You're not very nervous about Friday. This isn't something that's keeping you up at night. No, but you know what,

it's nice to have somebody to recognize all the years of work. and I do feel good about that. Correct me if I'm wrong here, you never officially retired from fighting, right? No, I never really said no, that's it. I'm done, but you at the same time have to be smart about it. I think having a neck injury probably saved my brain.

Oh, really? I've got some of it left anyway, that I can still talk a little, but it's my neck's not 100% let's put it that way really do you need do you need more work to be done on it

I've never had anything done on it besides um paraphractic treatment and and the strength and strength training and rehab and things like that will you need neck surgery some people would say yes

okay like neurosurgeons maybe but um I I just don't Don't want to get it done. And here's why. You know, one doctor who's a good friend of mine, you know, a surgeon worked on thousands of spines.

So, you know, the amount of work that I would have to do to your neck to repair is something that at your age you do not want. You know, if I was a sedentary, 75-year-old man, yeah, get it done. But as active as you like being, you know, if it doesn't bother you, then don't get it done. And honestly, it really doesn't hinder me from doing most things. What can't you do? I don't run into walls anymore headfirst. Okay. I generally shy away from that.

But I don't spar. And I don't really necessarily. I love sparring. I used to love it. Look forward to it. Every time I woke up on a Wednesday morning, knew that I was sparring that night. That was the best day of the week.

but I do not spar anymore, things like that. And every once in a while I'll still roll, but I have to be somewhat careful. If you didn't have this injury, do you think you would have fought since the Thomas Denny fight in 2008? Say that again, if I didn't have the injury, what about Tompc Denny? If you didn't have this lingering injury, do you think you would have come back to fight, you know,

one, two, three more times since you fought in 2008? Yeah, you know, I probably would have. I mean, the injury for my last three or four, four fights in my career was really prevalent. So it was, you know, at the time of the any fight, I actually hurt my neck going into that fight

to the point where I knew that really couldn't get hit, at least, not even one time. Wow. So I made sure he never landed one punch on me while we were standing and just make him open himself up and just look for a finish and get the hell out of there. So I was,

that was my way of just making sure I could go out. somewhat, you know, a little bit of health and dignity, I guess. That's a lot of pressure going into the fight. You can't get hit unless you want a serious injury. That's something, you know, tough to go into a fight on your shoulders with, right? That teaches you good head movement, air. That's true.

That's like John Jones' training without a mouthpiece going into the Gustafsson fight, although it didn't really work out. Yeah, he still got hit a little bit, but, no, it was a little nerve-wracking. to be honest with you, but I wasn't going to pull out of it. You know, you mentioned, you made a joke about, you know, the brain kind of being there. This is somewhat of a hot topic on this Monday after the Dos Santos fight, and Dana White saying that he thought his corner should have stepped in. Not sure if you saw the fight, but do you feel like that should be done more these days? It's not really a part of our culture.

It happens from time to time. I remember in the Nate Diaz, Josh Thompson fight, I believe it was Nick who threw in the towel, but you don't see it happen. often. Why do you think that is in mixed martial arts? Well, God, you know, it's, there's a, a lot of pride involved. A lot of the guys that are cornering these guys. You know, many times our training partners, pretty, pretty strong, very young guys who don't see themselves as vulnerable, probably, to be honest with you. I don't think I don't ever recall myself throwing in a towel

but I don't I'm not sure if I ever recall one of my guys taking a beating for you know three four rounds in a row to the point where I needed to but at the same time it's you know I witnessed the fight Friday night Roger Carroll

getting beat up by Scott Haltzman I mean it was a hell of a fight but Roger Terrell took a I can't even count how many elbows he took. He was, his face was swollen shut,

and there was no use of the fight going on, but the, uh, the referee of the fight had seen him

many times had reft his fights before and let the fight go all the way to the final bell. Holtzman could not hurt him, could not stop him, couldn't drop him, but it was,

you know, I'd seen enough when I said that on TV. And, uh, um, you know, the voice agreed with me.

But it wasn't, getting stopped, but I think it's just a matter of people not, they care so much about the guy that they want to see him win, that they, I don't know, they're blind at points, but Junior Los Santos took, yeah, he took a serious asshole up in the end. I tend to agree with some people that, yes, that should have been stopped. We're approaching the 20-year anniversary of the UFC, so the sport is still very young, but do you think in 10, 15, 20 years, we'll start to really see what kind of damage guys are taking inside the cage because now we just don't have that history there

and are you afraid of this? Are you afraid of what's to come? Do you feel like the fighters aren't taking good enough care of themselves as well as their coaches and their corners, everyone around them? And even the way fights are stopped. T.J. Walberger took an amazing amount of punishment when he probably shouldn't have taken that much punishment at the end of his fight on Friday.

You just, excuse me, Saturday, you just mentioned a fight on Friday. Do you feel like we'll only find out in a decade or so how much punishment these guys are actually taking? I think it's already there I've seen it in guys that you know I trained with from the earlier days in both boxing and and the guys that aren't the same

as they were when you know when we were all young so it's it's there I mean I can see it I guess you know I've been around for a long time but you know the number of suicides and things like that you know there hasn't been

a million guys go through the sport in the level of the NFL, with those guys having head injuries and shooting themselves deliberately in the heart instead of the head because they, we have a suicide note, study my brain,

because, you know, they know that they're messed up. But it's definitely there. I can see it in some of the guys that I've trained with. Yeah, I've talked to you about this in the past, how much people love your commentary, and now you're working for Axis TV. For a while, you were with Showtime.

and I spoke to Frank Shamrock after the demise of strike force. He talked about how depressed he was, and he was obviously very closely linked to Strike Force and Scott Coker fought for them as well. But I never spoke to you about the demise of strike force. How did you deal with it? And did you take it the same kind of way that Frank did? Well, Frank was very invested in that to the point where he helped put it all together. Right.

So it definitely was going to impact him a lot more. but I can tell you that, you know, I was on vacation with my family down in Florida at my in-laws place down in Florida, their winter home. I got to call during the holidays, you know, when it was down there that Strike Force had been bought up by the EOC. I talked to Scott Coker about it. I said, what the hell are you doing? And, you know, you can't blame a guy for anyone for, hey, I'm going to make money, sell out,

go do something else, whatever, that's fine. You know, Scots were up and down there. I couldn't stop it. You know, and it hurt him a lot. But it did. It bothered me, you know, because more than anything else, the growth of the sport and the development of athletes having the ability to truly have organizations bid on their talent and make more money for themselves.

And likewise, for everyone involved in the sport, that sort of competition is important. It's healthy. And, you know, until that comes back, some sort of organization that can put something together like that, that was lost for the sport, for the athletes, and for the fans, quite frankly. So where do you think we're at now? Because now we obviously have Bellator World Series of Fighting. There's the organizations that are on Access TV.

Japan is rather weak. There are smaller ones in Europe these days. There's one FC. But are you happy with the way things are now? Because you seem to imply that it's very much one-sided. I think that there are a lot of places where guys can get their start. I think there's a lot of places where guys can gain experience and get their name known out there to a certain extent

to make themselves marketable to then go on to the UFC. But until you have a place that can pay you as well or better than the existing king of the hill, then there's, it's a pair of, mid and there is no, there's no options. There's no options for the athletes. The only reason I say this area is because having been an athlete and having been from the top of the, you know, from the bottom of the ladder up to the top,

when there are no options, things tend to, the athletes have zero control. And the athletes definitely need to control. If I'm in the NFL, I have a lot of control because there are several teams that I, you know, people are going to bid for my services. and that does not exist in the sport. I remember when you were on the show over a year ago, we talked about fighter pay. Have you felt that there's any change in that regard,

or do you think we're in the same position that we were in when we spoke about this over a year ago? Well, obviously, this is the type of sport where the cream of the crop aren't going to be the guys that get the king's ransom, and that's the way it is. it's just the nature of the beast. It's the way it is.

You know, it's the same in boxing. Boxers do not get paid well until you get to where you are a very marketable guy and you can get paid massive amounts of money. Is it fair that a UFC headliner, pay-per-view guy, gets paid, you know, even on top of his regular purse, he gets to the pay-per-view percentages, however they work it out with the UFC, you know, $2 per buy or a dollar per buy, or however it works out. You know, they're getting paid very well.

But when you're a Mayweather type guy that can say, you know, I'm going to go ahead and take basically 40% of all ticket sales, all pay-per-views, all residuals, that's coming my way. well, there's no deal. That type of leverage is pretty, pretty powerful. So I think he'll probably, what do they say, and you've maybe studied this a little more than I have, but I think by the end of the day for that last fight,

he'll probably make close to $100 million. Yeah. You know, that's some pretty impressive dollars. You know, as I mentioned, we're approaching the 20th anniversary of the UFC, and you made that joke about your stuff, you know, in a box somewhere. but do you feel as though and Dana White and the rest of

the UFC have said that there's going to be some nods to the past and there's a documentary coming out. Are you happy with the way you're standing in the sport as far as your accomplishments being recognized the way history has treated you things of that nature? I don't want to get into the whole Hall of Fame thing because I think it's a silly conversation

to have at this point but are you happy or do you not even care at this point? Here's the way I see it. I see it see myself as, you know, I've been lucky enough and hopefully talented enough. So win a title in the UFC and hold it for a considerable amount of time. I was lucky enough and good enough combination to coach a lot of great fighters and push guys into great positions in life and in the sport.

And I've been lucky enough to be able to do broadcasting where a lot of guys in the sport have not been lucky enough. So the fact that I can pay my bills and put my kids through school and live a nice, decent way of living, level of living, quality of life, that's to me, I think, honor enough. Anything on top of that is great, but to be quite frank with you, a lot of the guys haven't been that lucky. So I'm pretty blessed.

Ever consider going back to coaching? I've actually had some calls about people who wanted me to coach. I've had a lot of guys. I've helped, you know, like Barb Hancock in her last fight, I helped her quite a bit get ready. You know, she's the number 125-pound-ranked girl in the world. Things like that. I've helped people.

But to do it full-time, it takes a lot of time, a lot of dedication. And for me, the amount of the amount of it. a time that I want to spend with my family and do other things just overrides anything. I mean, I've had people offer me very good money to take over teams and start things again and do things like that. And I just say, you know, there's really not enough money out there for me to just not be able to spend any time with my family. It's just not there.

By the way, a couple weeks ago you called the Holly Home Fight and Dana White said on Saturday that she's the Connor McGregor of MMA right now because everyone keeps asking him about her. Do you think she is good enough to beat someone like Ronda Rousey? Well, certainly with her striking, she's going to beat the hell out of all the girls in her weight division. Nobody's going to want to stand with her. But that's the thing. Can she stop a Ronda Rousey take down? Can she stop an onslaught on the ground? I haven't seen her on the ground. I haven't certainly haven't rolled with her anything like that. Now, she's got a great coaches with Winkle John and Jackson, and they swear up and down that this girl is

damn there is good on the ground as she is standing up. And if that's the case, she probably could deal with it. But, you know, with the amount of experience she has in MMA, I don't think that I would put her in there until I was 100% confidence she could go in and wrecked Ronda Rousey, no matter what. Well, that's going to be interesting to see. Also interesting, I will watch the Lifetime Achievement Award. if they're showing it. I'm not even sure if they're showing it on TV. I asked about this,

and they weren't even sure. I'm guessing you don't know either, right? Well, I heard and mentioned maybe it would be an inside of MMA situation. Before we go live on air with our portion of the show, with Michael Chavello and I, with the calling of the fight, would be the previous half hour with Kenny and Boss, possibly. So I'm not quite sure, but we'll find out. Well, it's this Friday, October 25th. It's RFA 10. It's on Access TV. I think it's a pretty cool thing that they're doing, what RFA is doing for you. So congratulations on getting the award. It starts at 10 p.m. Eastern on Access TV. There might be a little bit of the coverage

beforehand, as Pat just mentioned. Always a pleasure to talk to you, Pat. And again, congratulations on the new baby. That's great news. Thanks, Sarah. I'll have a great day, buddy. All right, there he is. Pat Militch, as I mentioned, a true legend of the sport, someone who we should be talking about as the UFC approaches its 20th anniversary, and we wish him congratulations on all the good things happening in his life and career right now. Okay, let's move along and welcome in our last guest of the day. He had a very busy Saturday night in Houston, a very memorable one. I'm assuming he is Javier Mendes coach over at American Kickboxing Academy. Javier, how are you?

I'm good, Ariel. How are you? Well, congratulations. Would you say that was one of the most memorable nights of your career to have Cormier in the co-main event do what he did, and then Cain fight in the trilogy fight and do as well as he did. That has to be up there, right? Yes, that's definitely up there because of the importance of

Daniel coming up, you know, healthy to be able to help Cain and the mental aspect of it for Cain knowing that Daniel was going to be in his corner, definitely. How key was that to Cain's success? I believe it's a very key to his success because, you know,

like if Crazy Bob Cook wasn't there, you know, or Leandro Vieira, you know, wasn't there. You know, everybody, you know, everybody's a good part of the puzzle for Kane. And, you know, he needs to have his coaches there for that comfort, you know, and it's definitely key. Were you in Kormier's corner as well? Yes, I was in Daniel's corner. What's that like, you know, because the heavyweight title fight doesn't get any bigger than that. Huge fight for Korme as well, but that you can't be with Kane in the minutes leading up to the fight. Is that tough for you?

No, it wasn't tough for me at all because, you know, Kane basically, you know, he goes on my every word on what I say as long as it makes sense. So, no, it wasn't tough at all. I just had to make sure that I was on point and I trained them just

at the right time, you know, not waiting too long to train him, because, you know, I had to be out there with Daniel. So I had to make sure I was on point. Did he do anything wrong in that fight? Or was that an A-plus performance? Uh, Daniel or Kane? No, Kane.

Yeah, he did, you know, but for the most part, you know, he did what, what him and I had discussed for months on then. You know, we, we had talked about the strategy and what we were going to do, and he actually executed it to a T. The only thing he didn't do is the part I mentioned about him. If we're going to change things, then we're going to change because there was a period there in the third round where we wanted him to separate when we knew it. DeSanto's was ready to go, and Kane still stuck to the plan, and he didn't separate long

enough to add more punches. Very early in the fight, like first five seconds. This has kind of been overlooked. It looked like he actually got rocked. DeSantos came out very aggressive. Do you have any idea how injured he was, how rocked he was, and were you expecting him to come out like that? Yeah, we were expecting to come out really hard. We were expecting them to throw everything and be very aggressive. And I told Kane, it doesn't mean. matter what he hits you with, you need to come right back to him. And that was the mentality. You know, I've been feeding him all along that you're going to get hit. You know, this is going

to be a tougher fight than the last one. You're going to get hit. But whatever he does, he hits you, you've got to come right back at him to not wait. And if you watch the fight, that's exactly what he did. Whether he was hurt or not, I couldn't really tell because it was a slight temporary moment. And then he was back right on force. So I would have to say, if you ask him, he'd probably say, no, he wasn't. So I don't. have to say no. Did you have any idea, you know, Junior always does that thing where he puts the sword,

the imaginary sword into the ground? Did you have any idea that Kane was going to walk right up to him and have that moment? Because that, to me, I mean, that picture might be the picture of the year, him right up in front of JDS's face. And it reminds me of when he puts his fist up, because Kane isn't that kind of guy, but it seems like he doesn't have, he doesn't care for JDS's theatrics. And he did that.

That was a spectacular moment on Saturday night. Did you have any idea he was going to do it? No, I didn't have any idea. Yeah, but I did frame him like this. I said, look, this is what I want you to do. Remember, I go, if he puts his fist in front of you, you do one better. So whatever he does, you do one better. And while they were walking back and forth and Kane was looking down,

and JDS was mad-dogging him, I was yelling at him, look back him, give it back to him. So then if you guys, if you watch the tape, you can see, then all of a sudden, Kane looked at him, then it was on. Then from that point, Kane was going to do one better. So it was planned, 100% planned. There wasn't just a spur of the moment that he just did. No, it was planned. He was going to show him who the top dog was.

No matter what he did, Kane was going to do one better. Yes, that part was planned. Him coming out and do what he did. No, that wasn't. Do you think the fight should have been stopped earlier? If you were JDS's coach in that position, would you have stopped the fight? You know, I would have been torn, to be honest with you. I might have stopped the fight, and I would have been like, man, I don't know,

because my fighter is such a great warrior. He takes a good shot, and he still has a chance to win. man, it would have been a tough call for me to have stopped the fight. I know that Herb was wanted to stop the fight when he tapped Kane twice behind. So really that was to say, hey, the fight stopped because what would have happened if Kane would have stopped? And then JDS hits Kane and knocks Kane out because, you know, Kane thought the fight would stop. So, you know, from all aspects, I mean, the fight should have been stopped because of what Herb did. But, you know, Caden did his job as far as he's concerned until the ref pulls him off.

He's not stopping. So, okay, so he wins the fight. He looks spectacular. And now up next for him is Fabrice Radoom. Anything concerning? I mean, this is a different fight, of course. But do you think that he passed the toughest test that he will face at heavyweight for the foreseeable future? It's hard to say. I mean, I would say he definitely beat a great champion. I think Tol Santos is going to be around again, and he's definitely a great champion. You know, Fabricia's been getting better all the time.

He's got new tricks all the time, and he's got incredible. Well, he's probably got the best Jiu-Jitsu out of all the heavyweights in the world, and he definitely can pose a different kind of threat for Kane. So Kane used to be up for him like he was for Junior. Otherwise, we could be in trouble. So, yeah, he definitely is a worthy challenger, for sure. Do you have any idea when that fight will happen? No, I have no idea, but you know, you've got to figure that Kane's got to get at least two fights a year, right?

Right. So we have to be thinking realistic. I mean, they're probably going to give it to us in April, May, March, someone in that time frame, depending on on what their schedules like, you know, I don't really know, but I'm thinking that sometimes the new year we will have I think April, March.

Is it true that Kane only likes to fight twice a year? No, no, I don't think that's, I think he'll fight more than that if they offer them more, but I mean, you know, let me take that back. I'm not sure. I never really talked to him about that.

Okay, because I've heard that, and you'd be the perfect one to ask. a couple of minutes left. I know you have to go. What did you think of Cormi... Oh, I got a little bit more time. Oh, great. Okay. What do you think of Cormier's performance? What kind of great would you give him?

For me, the only thing I asked Daniel to do is keep the constant moving. So for me, it's an A-plus. For me, it's an A-plus because he did exactly what I wanted to do. He kept moving. And I told him, I don't care what you do, because Daniel's such a great athlete that I knew that Daniel would make, you know, run circles around him as long as he was on his bicycle and doing it. And I told them, I just want you to be offensive, but I want you be moving offensive.

And Daniel did exactly that. The plan was to come in, take him down, wear him out a little bit in the first round, and stand with him the remaining two. And if you listen to the commentary on his corner, I just saw yesterday, they thought that Daniel was going to continue to go for the takeout. He really wasn't unless something was there just to mess him up. Nelson said he told me in the post-fight interview that he felt like Cormier didn't engage, didn't come to fight him.

What's your response? I don't know what fight he was at, but when you're getting tattooed the way he was, I mean, you shouldn't be complaining about the guy didn't come to fight you. He out hit you, he outstructed you, he outrasseled you, he outsmarted you. You didn't come to fight. You can't play checkers when he played chess.

And so are you in favor of Cormier going down to 205? I'm 100% in favor of Daniel going down to 205 because I think he's the only real, Real, real, real challenge for John Jones, and I believe once Daniel gets his next challenge, and I hope it's a top guy, then people will see how real Daniel and John Jones are going to be in the future. So he kind of slowed down. Originally he said he wanted to cut the line and fight Jones right away at 2.5. That's not going to happen, of course.

But would you like it to be like he gets one fight and then fights for the title? Is that your dream scenario? No, my dream scenario is he gets a title now. Okay. That would be ideal. It isn't like I think he needs to test the waters. My biggest concern was where his weight was, but you saw where his weight was for this fight.

He was 24. Right. He's right there. So guess what? No, he's like where he needs to be to make that fight a reality now. So for me, the dream situation now. But hey, he's got a weight in line, Dana's the boss, and he makes the decisions.

And, you know, but like Daniel said, it doesn't hurt to ask. He can always say no. why are you guys so confident in the fight between Cormier and John Jones? Why do you feel like he has such a good chance to beat a guy who, you know, obviously Gus Simpson tagged him, but eventually he did lose the fight, and I think that was the right call. But why do you feel like he'll win so easily? Because, you know, I don't think he'll win easily, and I'm not 100% sure he's going to win. I'm 100% sure that it's going to be a hell of a fight,

and it's going to be the biggest challenge of his life. That I'm 100% sure of. And why? you don't think that he loses anything now at 205 at a heavyweight. He of course isn't the biggest, but there are some strengths that he possesses. I think he's a lot quicker

than a lot of the heavyweight he fights. Now at 205, you don't think he'll lose anything? No, no, I don't think he's going to lose anything. I think what he's going to meet, though, is going to meet an individual that's got the height and knows how to use it. He knows how to use it really well. But what Jones is going to mean, he's going to meet a wrestler

that he's never faced before. someone of that level now Jones has got to be concerned about hitting it and going on his back he can't be thinking about okay it's not going to be it's going to be difficult to take me down now he's 100% has a legit reason to be careful what he does

because he's going to be on his back whether he likes it or not if you can't get Jones next who makes sense for him in his light heavyweight debut I've been saying Phil Davis what do you think I don't think I want to fight Phil Davis they're great friends Gustafson

that's what you want that's who I'd want because if Daniel proves what I know he will, it'll put a stamp on the reality of what him and Jones can do. And if Daniel doesn't, then we're all talking crap. Right, that's very true. Now, I just had John Fitch

on the show. He's fighting on Saturday night. Is this, you know, hate to use the word, must-win situation, they're all very important. But considering what happened in his last fight, does he really have to win this fight against a guy that a lot of people don't know that, you know, you lose this and you you kind of fall off the face of the MMA, you know,

radar, do you feel like he has to win, must win, do or die on Saturday? I don't think it's a must have to win. I think it's a want to win. Because John Fitch, you know, he stated many of times that he's not looking to retire anytime soon. So, you know, I don't think it's a half to win. It's a want, I want to win really bad. I want to get back on track. You know, I just think he looks at it like this, a big hiccup on the road, and he's going to be back on track. And, you know, he's going to put that W like he expects. And so I don't think if he has to win,

I think if he wants to win really bad. Okay, final question for you have here. I love asking coaches this question on the Monday after a big Saturday night. Do you take any time to relax, any time to breathe? I know you have, you know, Fitch is fighting, and you have a lot of guys fighting at A.K.A. But do you get a chance to exhale and just chill for a second after, I remember seeing you on Saturday.

Your hair was all messed up? You just looked like you had been through an emotional role. roller coaster with both of your guys fighting in the main event and co-main event. Do you get that opportunity or no? Yes, I do because of Crazy Bob Cook. He is my savior. That man will go to every freaking corner. He goes everywhere for the guys.

He is the best corner in the business. And because of him, I have a lot of time to spend with my guys here. He allows me to spend time here at my gym building the guys because of what the effort that he does. He's just a great corner. That guy, you know, without him, it would be very difficult for me. I probably wouldn't have all the freedom that I have. So Crazy Bob Cook is the reason why I have that freedom to stay at the gym and work the guys more.

By the way, are we going to see a Frank Shamrock-Kamrock-Kamrock fight? I don't think so. I think Ken is just desperate trying to get something going. And I think he's just looking at it as a payday. Frank was just being legit. I think Frank wanted, hey, you know, he wanted closure, you know. Frank came to me too because we had our own little issues and he came to me and there's the same kind of thing with Ken.

The only difference is there was no animosity between Frank and I was, you know, I love the guy. So we just embraced and we just acted like nothing ever happened between us and we're back to being great friends. With Ken, there's still some issues there, but it's with Ken. It's not with Frank. All right. Well, that's good to know.

Again, you know, I was talking about this earlier. I'll never forget for as long as I live, for as long as I'm covering this sport, that crazy day when Fitcher, was released and it looked like Kane as well, the whole video game stuff. You open the doors to me, let me stick around, the way you talk to the team. And it's crazy to think how far Kane has come because he was kind of an afterthought when that happened. And now look at him now, in my opinion, the greatest heavyweight of all time. And the fact that you did that to me for me is something that I'll never forget. So very happy for you. Congratulations on an amazing night on Saturday.

And thanks for giving us a few minutes of your time here today, Javier. No problem, buddy. And thank you for having me on. All right, there he is. Javier Mendez of the American Kickboxing Academy. I will never, ever, ever, get that day. I got to San Jose and it was a Wednesday night and I land and I read a report from Kevin Ioli that John Fitch has been released, that it appears as though Kane Velasquez will be released and there was someone else. Was it Christian Wallish? Was he released as well? Those were the two big ones. But of course, Fitch was the real story because he had just fought GSP for the title. This is around 2008. He had fought at UFC 87.

I was there for a Strike Force event. It was an event headline by Bobby Southworth versus Babelou Sobril. I remember Kim Kattour fought on the card and Scott Smith fought, I believe, Terry Martin off top of my head here. And there was nothing really going on other than the way-ins on Thursday. Strike Force was having their event on Friday. This was back in the day when UFC wouldn't credential me. I was younger in the sport. So I went to all the strike forces. In fact, it was the week after Randy Couture versus Brock Lesnar. So that was a big deal. I couldn't cover that. But here I was in San Jose for a much smaller strike force event. And those were my big events. So they get the release on Wednesday. I go to the gym on Thursday. Can you imagine my luck?

I mean, I'm a young reporter and I'm trying to cover the sport. And outside of the UFC and this massive story happens in San Jose, I live across the country. And I just, happened to be in San Jose. Havier, let me hang out in the gym the entire day. I remember speaking to Cain. I wish, again, I feel like I say this, I wish they kept those damn interviews. I ended up speaking to Cain. I ended up speaking to Fitch. Fitch actually afterwards, they spoke and he actually got his job back and I was able to break it because I was sitting outside the office when he was talking to the UFC and they settled everything and he got his job back. And it was just a surreal experience to be a part of, Javier calling his team together, taking our microphone so that we

can get the audio and speaking to everyone saying that this will not break up the team, because if you recall Mike Swick said that he would sign the deal about the, what's the word that I'm looking for, not licensing the ancillary rights. And Mike Swick said he would sign it. So you thought maybe there'd be some kind of rift on the team, and he let us film all of that. And it was just a surreal thing to be a part of. And I remember it was kind of like, uh, Kane Velascus, you know, he's caught a couple fights. Who knows what he'll become? You know, he wasn't the, this perfect heavyway with the great body and all that. And now look at him. I, I do think he is, uh, it's him and Fador at this point. And you can sit here and

argue about it all day. It doesn't really matter. Um, it's all, you know, BS conversation, because we'll never see them fight. But at this point, it's him and Fador, one A, one B, whatever, whatever you want to say, they are, um, um, um, um, you know, um, They are that damn good, both of them. And Kane deserves it. In my opinion, at this point, he beat the guy who knocked them out and dominated him twice in very one-sided fights.

And now let's see, you know, you forget about the Bigfoot fights, how he pretty much disposed of him in a matter of seconds. Very one-sided fights. And now he gets to fight a whole new crop of opponents. Verdume, probably up next. And then let's see what happens. Travis Brown, Josh Barnett, interesting opponents.

And I think some people are a little down on the heavyweight division. I still think that there are interesting opponents for Kane. We'll see what happens. I think the fight should happen in Mexico. I think that would be brilliant and it would make total sense. If it happens around March or April, see what happens with the Barnett-Brown fight. And then there are some other fights coming up. It's not obviously as deep as 155 or 170, 185 to a degree, and even two-old.

2005 at this point, but I still think there are obviously interesting opponents. And let's not forget about John Jones. Let's not forget about that test. I'll drop the Cormier thing for now, but John Jones in a, that to me, as I've said before on this show, is the superfight. That's the superfight that I think has the best chance of happening above all the superfights. John Jones, King Velasquez, can you imagine that one? Kane Velasquez is, they say the kid say he is a boss, right? He is a boss. You walk up to JDS when he's about to do that that sword thing and walk straight up to his face, face to face, chest to chest, in the middle of the octagon, that was nuts. And I can guarantee you that no one knew other than maybe his side that he was going to do that because no one was stopping it. Buffer wasn't there.

Herb Dean wasn't there. No one was there. That was amazing. Great night in Houston. Best ever? Maybe we'll weigh in on that in the comments section when we answer some of your questions and comments. but first let us go to the phone lines and welcome in a good friend of ours

who has been on the show before. Her name is Kristen Brown and she has a really cool thing going down in New York this weekend. I wanted to talk to her about it and give it some publicity. Kristen, are you there? I am here, Ariel. How are you? Hey, Kristen, how's it going?

It's going really well. Thank you for having me on again. How are you? I'm doing great, thank you. So we had you on way back when to talk about your live-to-fight organization, which people while they're listening or watching can go to live to fight.org to learn more about it. You told us about it when you're on the show the first time, but you have your first event coming up this Sunday, correct? Yes, I'm so excited. I'm so nervous. I have to exercise in my stomach and everybody says that's good.

So what is the event? It's a no-ghi jih Tijuana. It's going to be at Henzos down in Manhattan. Oh. He knows him for knocking out. What would... Kristen, your phone is breaking up on us. Oh, can you hear me? I can hear you now.

You're breaking up a little bit. Let's see if we can fight through it. Okay. I'll stand in the middle of my room. How's this? That's good. Start from the beginning. All I heard was no ghee.

Okay. It's a no-gi seminar. No-Ghi jit-sue seminar. And it's going to be at Henzos, the infamous Hensio, Gracey in Manhattan. Chris Wyden is going to be teaching and he is obviously everybody knows him from

his last fight which he knocked out Silva Never heard of Yeah no I know I know I don't remember that happening I remember talking to you and asking you what you thought

was going to happen and you were like I don't think that it's going to happen but You had to bring that up I'm sorry I had to rub it in a little but Chris is on my board of directors

so he's been really amazing and he's going to be teaching this event. It's Sunday, this Sunday at 1 o'clock at Hendo's, and Jim Miller, UFC, Lightweight Jim Miller is going to be there as well teaching. So it's open to all skill levels, all schools. It's not a HENZO, a Gracie event. It's just a, it's a charity. It's for, you know, my organization raises money for people who are in martial arts for fighting cancer and other life-threatening diseases. So, you know, some people are like, oh, I go to a alliance, I can't go. I go to Marcelo Garcia. And I'm like,

It's for everybody. It's for if you train, come down. It's for if you're a white belt, black belts, purple belts, whatever. You know, the event is open for all skill levels, and it's this Sunday. Okay, and how much is it? It's $90, which, you know, it starts at 1 o'clock. If you didn't register yet, come down a little bit earlier because I have a feeling it's going to be a lot of people who wait to the last minute.

Otherwise, you can get tickets on my website, which is livedafite.org. or you can get tickets at East Coast M.A fight shops. They have one in Rockville Center, and there's also one at Hanzos in Brooklyn. And we had a lot of awesome raffles, roots of sight, Manto, D. You know, it's just going to be a really good day. I have Bobby Rousick is coming down, and he's filming a little documentary. If you have to see May or may not be there. They're doing a documentary for Chris, you know, like the whole Rote to the Octagon primetime thing.

Sure. So they may be there. So if people come, they could get their little 15 minutes of fame. Yes. Of course, everyone wants that. Exactly. So, you know, I mean, it's just a great cause anyway. Octavia Bourdain is another one of my board members,

and she's just been phenomenal, and she's going to be there. You know, I just hope for a really good turnout, because all this money goes to my organization, and the person that we're helping, I can't say who it is yet, but it's somebody who's very, very sick, and it would break your freaking heart. It's, you know, the money, is going directly to them, and it would make you cry, really.

And we're actually showing the poster for the event right now as you speak. So all the money that will be generated from this event is going to that one person. Well, we have to keep a little money for operating costs because I want to do an event every month. So, you know, the whole point of my organization, I'm a cancer survivor. you know, I had one of my best friends passed away from cancer. He was a professional fighter. I have my teacher teacher, his son is very, very ill, stage 4 cancer. So we want to do something every month.

I want to do different seminars. We're going to be doing also. I'm going to be doing a toy drive. So if anybody wants to get involved with this toy drive, you know, please get in contact with me. Kristen atlifthefite.org. So I want to have different fighters drop off toys to the holiday toy drive to different children's hospitals throughout the area. So we'll be doing something every month, and obviously I need some operating costs.

I'm not making any money doing this. This is all just a charity thing. So this money is going to go directly to live to site, and then live to site. My board and myself, we pick our beneficiaries. We're not allowed to have, like I'm not allowed to say I'm going to do a seminar for this person because we are a charity. It's very different, raising money as a charity versus raising money as, like, Kristen Brown. I used to do a lot of fundraising as just myself.

But once I had my last little, like, breast cancer bullshit, oh, crap, I decided to start my charity. So, you know, it's a little bit different trying to comply with, you know, the 501C and the IRS and New York State law. So we're a legitimate non-for-profit organization. You know, we are in the process of getting our 501C. So if people donate, you know, you can get a retroactive tax deduction. If there are any wealthy, so-embrac people who would like to get involved, you know, I'm looking for backing. But, yeah, so the money goes directly to us, and then we distribute the money to the people who are in need. It's going to go directly to the families who are suffering.

It's a really great cause. Absolutely, and the email address is Kristen at live-to-fight.org, and that's K-R-I-S-T-E-N. Kristen at Lyftafite.org. So it's this Sunday. 1 o'clock at Henzos in New York City, which if people don't know, that is, what is that, 224 West 30th Street, am I correct? Yes, 224, West 30th. And like I said, it's open to all schools.

Like, it's not a Hensos thing. It's not, it's open to everybody. And, you know, it should be a great, great time. Obviously, I mean, it's freaking Chris Wybin. Come on. Who does not want to learn from Chris? And Jim Miller is, you know, phenomenal on the ground. So it should be great.

I haven't heard of either of those guys. so I'm not really that impressed. So what do you think is going to happen with the next fight? Oh, now you're putting me on the spot again. How about that? I don't have to know. Do you think he's going to win by submission this time, or you're going to knock him out again?

Are you calling a submission? People want to hear from you. You're the one that called it the first time. Yeah, I think he's going to, you know, I don't think Silva is going to play around as much this time. I don't think he was, I totally think he was overlooking, Chris, and I think that, I mean, obviously I have to go, I think Chris is going to win.

Sure. I hope he wins. But I think he's going to submit him. I do. Well, we'll see. That's what I'm going for. December 28th. You must have been going crazy when it happened in July, right?

I was crying. I was there. I was crying. And I was sitting in back of, like, Silva fans. Oh. Because my logo was on his banner, remember? Right, right, right. Yes, I do remember.

So it was a little tiny logo underneath the huge bad boy logo, but it was there. And I was crying. People must have thought I was insane. Because, like, I was like the craziest Chris Wyden fan, ooh, but he's just such a good guy. He really is, and, you know, he's doing all this stuff for me while he's training for the biggest site of his life, which, you know, he really is such a good guy. So I just wish him the best, and he's helping me so much with this.

He, you know, he really is just a good, genuine person, and he's not doing any of this charity stuff for, you know, I've said to him like, oh, this looks really good for you, and he's like, I'm not doing it for that. I'm doing it because I want to help people. And I was like, you know, that's just the type of person that he is. And I just have really great people who are helping me out. And it's an awesome cause. Like, this is not just for fighters. This is for people in martial arts, combat sports, family members of people who train, loved ones of people who train.

And it's not just cancer. You know, I'm a cancer survivor, so it's very personal to me. But it's, you know, I say like Jim and Dan Miller, you know, Dan's son, who had polycystic kidney disease. So if people know anybody who needs our help, please, you know, email me, let me know. And the email once again is Kristen at live to fight.org. The website is live to fight.org. It's this Sunday in New York City. You can learn more about it at the website that I just mentioned,

and you can learn more about everything that they're doing over there. I want to wish you the best of luck. This is great. Thank you, Ariel. And I hope that the big turnout and a lot of people support it, and we will do our best as well. Oh, thank you. much and you've been great and I will see you soon and and uh just thank you for all your support

okay all the best thanks I'll book you soon there she is Kristen uh of live to fight check them out on live to fight.org and uh if you are in the area pretty good opportunity to train with some pretty good fighters on uh Sunday in New York City so we wish them the best and I think that they're doing an amazing thing for people who are associated to MMA helping out other people in need. It's great stuff. Okay, let's move along and take one phone call and then we will get your questions. Two phone calls. How about that? Let's go to Hugo in Montreal. La Belle Provence.

Hugo, are you there? Hey, Ariel, you hear me? It's a very, my friend. Well, yeah, you're. Ah, it's a lot. We're talking just in French because we want that not a person can understand. my mare can

understand, but the other people, he'd not come to what you think. Okay,

perfect. All right. Yes, let's not go that route. How's it going? I was just a joke. Yes,

yes. How are you, my friend? I'm good. You remember me I called like two weeks ago. Of course, of course.

What's on your mind? Yeah? Okay. All right. So I'm kind of like, like, because I was actually, I was listening to it after

and I realized, like, my questions were not structured at all. and I like that. I really love, like, hearing you and you were talking, and you made your point, and I was like, I was listening to him.

You made a lot of sense. But just before, because I had a few, like, a question for today, but just to go back from two weeks ago, if you don't mind, just because I felt bad, like I thought I was like, I didn't really made my point. And I kind of felt the need to call you back and make things. So what's your point? clear.

Well, the only thing I was just going to take to me, I was just talking to you about the

fighter pay and, you know, you were kind of telling me like, yeah, well,

good luck for that and everything else. And I was telling you about the ESPN thing

with the reporter. I wasn't too good and was asking all the wrong question. So basically my

point was that you should be having this kind of in-depth interview. Oh. You want me

to do ESP interview. That was really like my idea behind the whole thing in the first place, like to make you, I don't know how much you like that subject, but I thought, you know, it's like a 20 years anniversary coming. I'm sure that's what they want to celebrate. I think you deserve it. And I actually think he likes your respect. So what do you think of that?

You think he could make it happen? Solely on that subject? No, no, no, no, no, no. like an in-dive interview and, you know, talk about, because it's going to be like the 20th anniversary, so you're going to have like, you know, it's kind of the time to go back and look at, you know, the past. Sure.

Well, I'll tell you this. A good timing to talk about this. You know, anything, like everything that you didn't have a chance, you know, in the previous interviews and, you know. Well, first off. But that, that too. I think it's an interesting subject. I know, you know, you might not get all the,

the answers you want, but you're the best in the business. I'm sure you'll find your way to ask the right answers, ask the right question. Sure. Well, I appreciate that very much. First off, second of all, there is a great documentary that's coming out November 5th that I don't know where it's going to air in Canada. I'm assuming you'll air somewhere. You'll be able to see it at some point, but it's November 5th on Fox Sports 1. It's a two-hour documentary. I was actually interviewed for it. I saw the first segment, and let me just say, It is unbelievable. It really is a great look back at the history of the UFC. It's two hours about the entire history of the UFC. And some people might think that, you know, they'll skip over some

parts. And again, I only saw the beginning. But if the beginning is any indication, it's really a must-watch documentary for any UFC slash MMA fan. So I think that's a very nice look back. I don't know if I'll get a sit down between now and UFC 167. He obviously gives me a lot of his time and gives reporters a lot of his time. And there are tons of things that I would love to talk about. I mean, we could do interviews for hours and hours and hours with Dana White and never get bored. So I don't know if it's going to happen, but I do appreciate it. And anytime I can interview him, it's always, you know, a pleasure and honor all that stuff. But I don't know in the next month if that's going to be possible. Oh, okay. What else is on your mind? I just wanted to

clear that out. Okay, no problem. Don't worry. I was like listening to him. I was like, oh, my God, I really didn't make my point. And it was like really not structured. and I don't call on talk show it was actually my first time so maybe I was like nervous or something I kind of let it go and I was like yeah no problem any questions before you go

yeah yeah yeah um yeah uh yeah what do you got just about um what's the name russimach yeah how you say it yeah well I just wanted to know like

because I heard like part of it but not the whole thing but did he actually do we know if he got actually like had a warning at some point before like in the fight it's like he he did sorry in the actual fight did he get a warning no no no no but before since it happened before like yeah denis just said like uh yeah he did it before and he got fine but did he had like kind of not a warning but more like an ultimatum like no i don't think he had an ultimatum but he was suspended by the new jersey commission for doing it at ufc 111 so that's pretty much all you

need. You don't know, you don't need someone to actually tell you outright that if you do this again, you're getting in trouble. So I don't think he got an actual, you know, warning. Someone called him up and wrote him a letter or something, but, you know, you had to know that was coming. I actually feel like he's sincere. Like, of course, I don't know the guy, but I feel like he looks like kind of sincere. What do you think? I think he is sincere to a degree, but I don't think he quite understands. honestly, I don't think he understands what he's doing. And that's no knock on his mental state.

But, you know, he's sincere in the sense that I don't think he actually tries to hurt people. I just think he doesn't understand that you can't do that. And he gets in this weird zone where he just, you know, blocks it all out. And he gets so aggressive, you know, I see people. Like, you know, when I play sports, I am a very kind of crazy person as well. Like, I get very intense. And sometimes I have been known to lose my temper and things like that. So I get that.

I'm not trying to, you know, crank on people's legs and things of that nature. I might throw the, you know, the occasional elbow here and there, but, you know, that's all part of the game. Point being, I don't think that he is actually a bad guy deep down. I just think he kind of loses it. And that's what I'm guessing he doesn't get. He doesn't understand the severity of what he's doing. Yeah, he's not there on the moment. He's just, like, in his head or something and he forgets about the, the actual, like, second where the tap is.

Yeah, you can't do that. You have to be programmed to let go when someone taps. And for whatever reason, he is not in that state when he's fighting. Hugo, my friend, we have to go. We have a long list of things to do before we go. But I do appreciate you calling again and clearing things up. And please do call any time. Could you just give me like 20 seconds?

Yes, 20 seconds. I don't know one thing that's boring. Like at the press conference, they know what I said, like, thanks to the union representative, Tim Boch for the 60 grand. Like, did you hear that? Or is this? Union representative? Were you there at the press conference? Well, on Saturday?

Yeah, what do you mean by union representative? That he worked for a union? Well, I don't know. The way he said it, it sounded like... Oh, I didn't hear that. He might work for a union, but I don't think Dana White is against unions. That's the whole... No, it's not about that.

I just didn't know that there was a union. Oh, no, no, no. I don't think... Honestly, I don't think he... He might mean that Tim Boch has another job where he's a part of a union, but... Oh, go ahead. I think it was like a... off-the-cuff kind of remark.

He said that about Brian Carraway when he campaigned for the extra bonus money. So I think he was just saying, like, oh, these guys are campaigning in the locker room for all the fighters on the card. Oh, why did Boch do that? That's what I read from it. That he was able to get them an extra boost

in the same way Carraway did for that previous card. Yeah, so, okay, now I understand. He's a joke, like sticking up for the fighters, he was just joking. There's no union. Oh, okay. All right, Hugo? No, I didn't tell them.

I just thought it was weird. Anyway, and nobody asked anything. I had the scrum, so I was like... No, he's joking. Okay. All right. Thanks, man. Appreciate the call.

Thanks a lot again for taking my call. It's a real pleasure. Avae pleasure. I hope you'll take it again sometime, but I won't call next week. I'll give a other... No problem. Call any time you want. Okay.

Okay, there is. Hugo from my hometown of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Okay, let's go to one more call. How about that? this. We got the infamous guy, at least he is claiming to be the infamous man who came up to me in Houston and asked about

the whereabouts of one will, the thrill. Patrick in Houston, online too. Patrick, are you there? Yes, this is me, this Patrick. Okay, let's see. Let's see. I'm doing well. I'm doing

well. Where did you ask me about Will? Where were we? Actually, I asked you, at the House of Blues, which is the open, the open workouts. Yeah. And I was like, hey, because I heard on your last podcast that he's from Houston, Texas. And I'm like, where are these guys that?

We're all these guys. I'm thinking that he would be there, you know, your will have thrill and all your crew. But you were saying like, no, he's not here. So then I saw you after the fight, after the fight in the backstage. Yeah. I think you're getting ready for the post interviews. But I was like, where are those guys again? Why don't bring those guys?

You're like, they don't travel. They don't do the traveling. So I know at the House of Blue, we didn't talk much. I know you're real busy, and it was pretty crazy. But, yeah, I got to talk to you a little bit more at the... All right. So it is you. It is actually you.

Now, I should make it clear. They do travel, just not, you know, doing the MMA stuff. as far as I'm concerned, I love they just stay in that little room over there. You know, it's very toasty, and I think that they've earned the right to just stay there. But it's very nice of you to keep asking about their whereabouts.

I like that. It makes me feel like people are actually listening to the show. I'll listen every Monday, so when I'm at work, I'm like really listen to your guys. I do a great job, and, you know, actually to meet you, again, I think I met you at the last time you were in Houston. I took a picture with you.

So, and after that, I was kind of like, you know. I remember that. I listened to the podcast and I'm like, man. Now, how were you backstage over there? You seemed to have a really good spot. You were like really in a prime time location. What do you do?

Actually, I was over. I took vacation just because of the USC week, you know. I actually work at an IT security analyst. I'm an IT security analyst. So I took off the week and I do a side job. Oh, Patrick? Patrick, are you there? Patrick in Houston. Going once? Going twice? Oh, New York, Rick? Are you there? Yep, his line just dropped off right now. All right, I feel bad. If he calls back, we'll go to him, but we do have to get to the questions.

Are we going to do Mama knows first? Oh, yes. How can I forget? 13 fights on Saturday night. 11 and 2. You know, this is the thing about Halwani. Halwanis, when our backs are against the wall, we rise to the occasion. And of course, you know, you were kind of dancing and celebrating when she was under 500 for the last event. But she comes back not just, she doesn't give me main car picks only. She gives me the entire card. And she goes 11 and 2. That's pretty impressive.

Do you agree? Very impressive. I mean, that's called rising to the occasion. in anticipation of the big Tet-a-Tet later on next month, that's called sending a message. Message received. Oh, there he is. You're back.

We didn't do this last week. Yeah, I don't know. But it's good to be back. It is good to be back. Now, let me just tell you, she lost the Gonzaga fight and she lost the... No, just that one, no? No, she was 11 and 2, I said.

Oh, yeah, but main card was the only one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm just saying overall, I don't even think I gave her undercard pick, so who knows. You didn't. But I do have it on the record here. She lost the Sarah Kaufman fight, which a lot of people, including myself, actually thought Sarah Kaufman won. Do you agree? I had Sarah winning.

Yeah. I can't believe that she lost because one of the judges gave Jessica the third round, which, in my opinion, was the easiest round to score. Did you make any bets? No, I didn't have any bets for this one. Why not? You're saving your money for World Series of Fighting? My own money? Like in my pocket?

Well, you know, everything. Fake money, real money. Well, I can't bet on UFC yet. Right. You know, you can't do it officially, but maybe unofficially you're doing things under the table. Who knows? No, I didn't have any. I didn't like many of the lines for this one.

Especially with the big favorites. and I didn't have faith in Diego or Junior Dos Santos who were some of the bigger underdogs beating the favorites. What was the breakdown of underdog to favorite ratio of wins on Saturday? Do you know it off the time? I don't know for the full card,

but for the main card, all the favorites won except for Sean Jordan, who was a very slight favorite. Wow. All right. Best card ever? No, not in my opinion, no. Close? Yeah, definitely in the top a couple of cards that I've seen.

But it's, I mean, these things are hard to say. Right. You become a prisoner of the moment. You say this is the best card ever. Or you fondly remember another one. So, I mean, I think these kinds of rankings and everybody having the need to put something in a list is ridiculous anyway. Um, but it's definitely one of the best cards ever, for sure. Just the number of finishes alone, uh, made it incredible.

Debatable, um, sure, but Gilbert versus Diego is not the best fight ever. I'm sorry, it's not. I agree with that as well. It was very one-sided. Hmm. Um, now, I've in the past said that a one-sided fight can be very exciting. Um, this one, it was more Diego just whiffing a lot. Uh, Gilbert just,

look like the better, more technical fighter for the entire fight. Completely picked him apart. And the third round became exciting, but I'm not even so sure I would score that third round for Diego. Gilbert was completely controlling him for the majority of that round. And he was able to rock Gilbert. That should definitely hold more weight than just picking somebody apart on the feet. But at no point in that fight was Diego in control except for that maybe 30 seconds

stretch where he knocked him, knocked him down, and attempted the submission. As soon as that ended, that sequence ended, Gilbert was right back in control. Yeah, and Diego said after that he was hoping to get a 10-8 in that round, so, maybe that was a 10-9 in my opinion. 10-9 for Diego? I would score it that way, but I could see a 10-9 for Gilbert, and I wouldn't even be upset. By the way, before we put this whole best-ever card thing to bed, I asked Dana White about about this on Saturday. I just want to play that clip and then give him a response. So here's Dana White in response to my question

or kind of statement, because when he walked up to the interview, he said this was the best night anniversary, I just wanted to get it on the record. Here's the clip in case you missed it. Thank you very much, guys. Dana, well, you just said to me, you think that was the best fight card in UFC history? Yeah, I think it's the best card we've ever done.

Top to bottom, the fights were unbelievable. I don't know. If somebody could tell me a card that was better than that one, I'd love to hear it. Okay. So when he said that, I thought of an example, but I was like, man, I don't want to be a dick. I don't want to, you know, hate on his moment here. This is a great moment. But there was one that came to mind. And then I was thinking, has he said this before? I mean, he said great cards, but I never heard best card. So I feel like I should bring this up because, well, the last time he did say something like this was UFC 116. Brock Lesnar, Shane Carwin, the great comeback. Let's go into the archives and pull up that post-fight interview. Here's me talking to Dana White a few years back at UFC 116 in July in Las Vegas, and this is what he said about that card.

Ariel Hawani post-fight at UFC 116 with UFC President Dana White. And Dana, if UFC 112 was one of the lowest moments of your career. Was this perhaps one of the highlights of your career? This is literally the best night of my career ever. I don't know if I've ever felt this way about fights. or it just it was a great night every fight i thought was dynamite these guys came out and gave 110 and uh again you know i always feel like a goof when i say this about grown men but i'm proud of all these guys tonight and and they delivered and it was a great night for me a little over

three short years ago july 2010 july third feels like an eternity ago especially if you look at me uh young halwani back then beardless helwani so what do you think ufc 16 versus ufc 166 Who wins? I'm probably taking 116. But as I said, these kind of things are not very easily listed. It's not an objective kind of thing. So somebody's opinion may differ. I don't really have a problem.

It was one of the best cards. Both of those were one of the best cards that we've seen. It's almost a silly conversation to have. I hate having these conversations because it feels like you're trying to diminish what happened. I mean, this is barbershop stuff. They were both incredible. If you say one is, you know, great or the other or whatever, I hate having these conversations when it's too deserving candidates.

But I do feel strongly that Gilbert v. Diego isn't the best fight ever. It was a tremendous fight. It was the fight of the night. Without a doubt, it just was a little one-sided. Look at Gilbert's face after the fight. I will say getting to do that interview and being a part of it was top three highlights of my career, just seeing them embrace and seeing Lorenzo Furtita come up to Diego and thanking him and then having both of them thank each other right in front of my eyes after that kind of fight was amazing.

And it was almost like both of them, their stocks rose because Gilbert needed that win. And it was almost like Diego passed the torch to him. And Diego's stock just kind of stays the same war, rises, still very popular. So it was just, it was, it was special, but not the best ever. Two things quickly, one that reminded me of, in terms of you saying that, you know, look at his face, you realize that's not a good way to judge a fight, correct? Well, some people I know are, you know, they bruise easily, they cut easily, and Diego is actually one of those guys, but it is sometimes an indication.

I mean, his face is actually pretty much untouched. Pristine almost, yes. But, I mean, there's guys like BJ Penn who could be in a war, and Anderson Silva who, could be in a war and have absolutely nothing to show for it. And other guys who get hit once and they're bleeding, you know, opening up old cuts. Diego, for example, has scar tissue that opened it pretty easily. So that was just one thing. And the other thing was you describing Jr.'s pre-fight thing as some kind of sword maneuver?

Yes, what was that? Is that not the right thing? It's throwing down a gauntlet. No, no, no, no, no. It's a gauntlet. He's throwing it down in the middle of the ring. No, no, no, no, no. Yes. He does this thing where...

Do I have to teach you everything? It's a gauntlet. Let's see. Junior Dos Santos throwing down sword. Oh, there it is. There it is. The sword. I don't know what to look up at this point.

Well, if you typed in gauntlet, Junior Dos Santos, you might find something. Let's see. Dos Santos, nope, don't see anything. You have to do what you're talking about. about what the years is to say yeah yeah yeah do it right now he's talking to you area no no no i can't stand up um i've been sitting for too long he's throwing down the gauntlet at my age if i stand up i'm going to have to go to the bathroom because i've been sitting for so long here and uh kane met him which was what's the difference in gauntlet and sword anyway well a gauntlet is not a sword it's a type of uh glove no who knows uh

a stout glove with a long loose wrist yeah so why do people throw a gauntlet down Well, you've never heard that expression. Of course I have. But what does it even mean? To me, if you say he threw down the sort of... To offer the challenge. But you mark your territory. Bang.

You know, like we're drawing the line and the sand here. Yeah. No? No, he's throwing down the gauntlet saying, take the challenge and Kane met him right in the middle and said, I will take that challenge, sir. That was pretty cool, wasn't it? It was, that was probably my favorite moment of the fight, honestly.

Yeah, I popped for that. Well, anyway, we're both right. How about that? Let's talk about the picks on Saturday. Here are my mom's picks, all right? You ready? John Lineker over Phil Harris. Alessio Sikara over the newcomer, Nicolas Musoki.

Sure. Let's go back to her picks. Norman Park over John Tuck. Jimmy Manoa over Ryan Jimo. Melvin Galard over Ross Pearson and the Dragon. Leota Machita over Mark Munoz. What do you think? I like those picks.

All of them? I mean, they're the favorites. Oh, Nelly. Okay, yes. Continue. They're most likely. Are all the lines out? Yeah, for those, yeah.

Oh, wow. In fact, there's actually some undercard ones out, too. Really? Andrew Craig and Luke Barnard is out. That might be the only non-main card. Two, three, four. She's still going for the gold here because she gave me her undercard picks as bonus. Jimmy Hedis, Ally Quinta, Andrew Craig, just for a world of thrill, Rosie Sexton, Cole Miller, and Michael.

Hedis just had a new opponent, no? Yes, he did, a Scottish lad. So, yeah, in terms of her main card picks, I like those. I think Machita, real quickly, Machita, I'm big on him, I always have been. I think that he creates style matchups that are very hard to. to account for and very hard to counter. Munoz being a wrestler, that makes it a little bit harder, even in my opinion, because even the best wrestlers have trouble getting Machita down. You'd actually be better served to be a striker, like a Shogun, because you're not even focusing on the wrestling.

That's not even your bread and butter. You're able to stand and be able to provide a better account of yourself on the feet. So I don't like Munoz's chances in this one. I really like Machita, but the X factor is obviously the new weight class. That's going to be something to think about. But I think Machita takes this. Melvin and Ross Pearson, that's a close line. Melvin is minus 150.

Pearson is plus 130. I could see, I could theoretically see Ross Pearson winning a decision over Melvin with his boxing. That said, Melvin is able to outpoint people as he showed. in the fight with Jeremy Stevens. He was able to get in and out, and he's not just about knockout power. I think that I'm favoring Melvin in this one, but it wouldn't surprise me if Pearson won a decision,

which is what the line kind of reflects. I like that fight, though. That's called sitting on the fence, by the way. I'm favoring, but it wouldn't surprise me. But then you can kind of go back and say, well, look, it didn't surprise me, you know. Who's your pick? You know what?

And that fight, it's funny because I actually said to my mom that I agreed with most of her picks, but that was one that I really was torn on. If I have to pick, remember, Melvin Gleard changing camps once again. This is kind of inside information. Are we getting to the pick? Well, this is the kind of inside information that you have to consider that you don't consider. You just go willy-nilly. And a guy changing camps, once again, is a big deal.

Who's your picking Pearson, is that it? Who's he training with? Who, Melvin? Yeah. No. I don't know. Who's he training? Kane. ATT.

He moved from Grudge to ATT after that great performance. Is that going to be an issue? I don't know. He's staying at home. Who knows? If I'm forced to pick, I'll say potentially, as far as potential is concerned, Melvin should win this fight. Sounds like sitting on the fence. So, our next one.

Wait, actually, what is the next fight in order from the top? Manoa? Yeah. And Jimo? Manoa was actually a two-to-one favorite. I like that pick. I don't see any reason to pick against Jimmy at this point. He's looked pretty good in all his fights,

and I think he's going to be able to get it done against Jimo. Next one is Norman Park versus John Tuck. That's an interesting one. It is. We haven't seen Tuck in a while, but I do remember being very, very impressed. Granted, his opponent wasn't great. It was the Mongolian Wolf, I think.

Yes, Tietrangian. But I remember being very impressed by Tuck's overall game. He had huge power and he was able to be a relatively effective grappler. So I think that that might be an underdog to look for. So maybe that's where I might differ more from your mother. That might be the first one. I might lean toward Tuck, although Park was definitely impressive in his debut as well.

And we haven't seen Tuck in a while. So that's a factor there. Linnaker, no reason to pick against him right now. that guy's on a tear. If he makes weight, if he doesn't make weight, I mean, it doesn't really matter. He's going to come in and finish a fight regardless.

But it'd be nice if he made weight and put himself higher in the rankings. By the way, since you're all into correcting me, Norman Park has two fights in the UFC. My mistake? Yeah, there you go. This is kind of like part of the interruption when they correct each other at the end.

And then what about the big Sakara fight? I don't know. thing about the other guy. Sikara's like one of those guys who it's like, wow, I can't believe he's still in the UFC. Like he just kind of sticks around, wins one here, there, but you know what I mean? It's something. Yeah, he, I mean, he fights so infrequently as well. Yeah, it's true.

He does. He fights like once a year, if that. It's hard to, it's hard to really get a gauge on where he's at. I don't even know how old he is. I don't know if he's old, young. It's just a strange situation. But he's only 32. Yeah.

He always impresses me when he does. fight, although the showing against Cotei wasn't great. He was getting, he was getting beat up pretty bad, even including, you know, what would be considered illegal blows. I would say this is a must win. You know, it's crazy. He has lost his last three-in-row, technically, I mean, actually, technically he hasn't because the Cotei fight was a D-Q. But the first loss of that streak was against a young Chris Wyman. I remember that fight. His debut. Remember, Wiedman's debut in 2011? I do. Let's pull up the clip of Wyden's debut in the M. May.

Just kidding. Don't got it. No. So that's that. I like your mom's picks. I might lean toward tuck, but other than that, and even then, Park is not a bad pick, for sure. Close line. So I like her picks.

And good luck to Mama Helwani. Mama knows. 3 o'clock Eastern, main card, Fox Sports 2, 1215 Eastern, preliminary card. interesting fights on the prelims. I like the Jimmy Hedis fight only because, well, Jimmy Hedis is somewhat of an interesting prospect. And also this guy, Robert Whiteford, that they sign, I believe is the first Scott to sign with the UFC,

to fight in the UFC. So that is exciting. Andy Ogle versus Cole Miller, Jessica Andratch versus Rosie Sexton, Andrew Craig versus Luke Barnat. Chil Sunnan, going to be in the corner of one, Luke Barnat. And how about the return of our boy?

ally Quinta, Long Island's own. He's fighting in the featured fight on the Facebook prelims. So that is UFC Fight Night 30 on Saturday. Okay, let's get to the questions. Okay, these are from the website. First question. What happens if Junior Dos Santos wins his next two fights quickly, calendar-wise, in impressive fashion, and Velasquez is still the champion.

A fourth fight wouldn't have me too excited. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if they'd go that route, to be honest. A lot can happen. This is the guessing game here. you know, two fights, what happens if Velasca's still around, there's so much that can happen. There's no point even worrying

about it at this point. Our next question also about the heavy weights. This time, Fabricio Verdume. Vicarvalo. Now that Dana announced Verdum is next in line, do you really see him being the one to beat Kane? Other than his BJJ, he doesn't offer very much. Well, first off, I never said,

so by implying to really see him. I never said I thought he was going to win. But that being said, I am interested in the fight. I like the fact that Redume is obviously very comfortable off his back, has submitted people off his back. Remember the Fador fight. His striking very much improved. I just wish he was a little more active as of late. I mean, he really hasn't done a lot in the last couple years. He beat Mike Russow. He beat Bignog. He beat Roy Nelson. That's it since returning to the UFC. And that dates back to UFC 143. This was UFC 166. He hasn't been very active. And they've kept him on the sidelines.

lines because of tough Brazil. They kept them on the sidelines recently to wait for the winner of this fight, which is fine now, so things could work out. But I'm interested in this fight. A, I'm just happy that Kane is fighting a new opponent, someone fresh. And I think he presents a different skill set than his recent opponents, JDS and Bigfoot. So I'm very curious about this one. I like this fight. Do I think he's going to win? No. But am I into it? Yes. Are you into it? I love this fight. Yeah, it's fun. Because, first of all, it's very hard to predict who's going to be a match for who. For example, you know, everybody was counting out Gustafson. Gustafson put on a great performance.

It's very tough to pick fights like this. That said, Verdum has all the things you could ask for in an opponent for a dominant champion. He's very well-rounded. His striking has gotten leaps and bounds better. He's an incredible grappler, as we already knew, he always has been. So he's a complete package, and he presents an interesting challenge for, for Kane. So it'll be great to see and I have no problem

with that fight. I think it's fantastic. And I think he does offer things other than his BJJ. His striking is a lot better than it used to be. In fact, I'd say it's pretty damn good at this point. He looked great against Overeem when he wasn't pulling guard.

The time he was on his feet, he was actually winning the exchanges in my opinion. Would you pick Overeem over Verdome today? That's hard. I mean, Overim's on the slide right now. It'd be hard to pick Overim with the streak that he's on. And Verdum hasn't looked anything but impressive, although he's fought less frequently.

The holes in Verduem's game are getting smaller and smaller. So I might actually take Verduem over Overoom at this point. I don't think you're crazy. I love the fact that obviously King is a wrestler can box with the best of them. and Verdum is so great at BJJ. So that creates an interesting dynamic. I like that a lot. It just presents a whole new different discussion about Cane Velasquez.

So I'm looking forward to it, and I hope they do it in Mexico. This is an easy one. Yes. Is Kane Velasquez the heavyweight greatest of all time? You know, I kind of agree with Dave Meltzer on this one. Fador fought longer and had more big wins, but if you're telling me, let's talk about this. Fadour in his prime versus Kane in his prime.

Who wins? I pick Kane. Do you? I'd take Kane too. I'd say it's much harder, as I was just saying, it's hard to evaluate fights before they happen, but it's even harder to evaluate fights in different eras when they happen. Fador grew up, and it grew up, what am I talking about?

Fader fought in a time where MMA styles were just completely different. and he was able to dominate. But the heavyweight of today is a lot different, especially Kane Velasquez. His motor is nonstop. He has punching power. He's a fantastic wrestler. It's hard to find guys like that back then. Although wrestling was starting to become the dominant discipline in MMA at that time,

there were guys who were very successful wrestlers. They didn't have a complete package the way that Kane does. They didn't come up. training MMA as a whole rather than just certain disciplines. It'd be very tough for Fador to be just plopped into this era and have the same kind of success. In terms of athleticism and talent and things like that, Fador might even be right there with Kane. His package was unbelievably complete at that time. So I'd say that that would be a fantastic fight.

I'd probably pick Kane at this point. but due to the change in era, it'd be almost ludicrous for me to even, you know, say who would win if they were in their primes like that. Well, we don't expect you to do because you like to sit on the fence. But the point is, it would be great and I will not sit on the fence. And I will say that Kane would win. And guess what? If you do this in any sport, it's ludicrous. You know, you can't compare Bill Russell to Dwight Howard.

Oh, I can. Well, yes. Dwight Howard would dunk all over Bill Russell. Yeah, I guess. I mean, again, but the point is different time. You know, different exercises, weight training, all that stuff. It's totally different. MMA is very much like that.

Although, again, like we're talking Bill Russell in the 60s, Dwayne Howard today. This is only like four or five, six years ago that fader. So it just shows the evolution of the sport. The sport has changed a lot. The difference in those eras is exponential in both ways. It would be much easier to compare basketball players from the 90s and the aughts and the 80s. Whereas MMA, even though it was only a five-year,

10-year difference, the sport was growing so fast and exponentially at that point that would be as difficult to compare somebody from the 60s in basketball to between the 60s and now. Yeah. Like you can't really compare to Chuck about to John Jones. Yeah, it's just completely different. All right. At least we agree on that.

For sure. Next question. This is a bit of a lengthy one. Hector Lombard. After Hector Lombard's UFC 166 win, I couldn't help wondering just who is the best one-round fighter in the UFC. I don't use this term negatively, but there are just some fighters in MMA who are so effective in the first round and are just natural finishers. Fighters that come to mind are Lombard, Vitor Belfort, Roy Nelson, et cetera, who do you guys think is the best one round fighter in the UFC? There's one that I feel like I should be saying, and I can't think of him right now.

There's one guy who I feel like first round, who is it? you know honestly Paul Harris might be up there right that's definitely a good one but there's someone else that comes to mine anyone come to mind for you there's one that comes to mine I'm probably a little bit biased

but BJ Penn he almost always wins the first round right then after that it gets a little dicey but I mean his first rounds are almost immaculate and then second round comes the greatest first round of BJ Penn's career

in my opinion not the greatest most memorable was against John Fitch because everyone thought he was just going to get annihilated. That's what I'm saying. And then it started to taper off a little bit up there. I think the thing about Shogun is he's notorious for gassing. Right. But he's always hitting just as hard and looks just as good in the later rounds, even though he looks tired.

So I don't think he's one of those guys who this person is proposing who, after the first round, they kind of fall off. or look less effective. I think, honestly, Shogun, in my opinion, seems to be pretty effective even in the later rounds, although he looks like he's about to pass out. Vitor Belfort had that stigma for quite a while, but I think he's gotten over that a little bit.

How about this? Roy Nelson in the UFC has win over Brendan Schaub, Stefan Strove, Miracle Krocop, Dave Herman, Matt Mitreone, Czech Congo. right? All of those wins came in the first round except for the Crocob fight which was the third round. So

that's a pretty good one. He's a finisher for sure. I think Belfort has a similar kind of thing where a lot of his wins are in the first round as well. And we're talking current, right? Because I have one gentleman in particular saying that Shane Carwin should be considered.

Oh, for sure. That's another good one. Yes, but we're talking current, I thought. Or are we talking of all time? It seems current. He listed current fighters. And Lombard is up there. In the first round, he's as dangerous as anybody. I don't think he has...

Just in general, I think people gassing out is an over-played thing. Is it? I do. I really do. I think that people say, oh, this guy gassed out a lot more frequently than it actually happens. Now, that said, it does happen. And guys, there are... clear examples of guys who prepare for one round and then fall off after that.

I don't want to say any names, but it happens in the sport. Because that, you know. It's not nice? Yeah, it's not a nice thing to sell. Fighter bashing, not allowed. Hey, how about this one? This is a really good one. Yep.

I'll give credit to the man who brought it up, what's his name? Sebastian Militado, Ronda Ronda Rousey. Yeah. Now, the thing is, I feel like, There's somewhat of a negative connotation to all this. Ronda, I mean... Well, the guys he... She doesn't strike me as the kind who will gas out.

Well, the guys he's listing are winners. It's not like he... And he says, I don't use this term negatively. The guys he's listing are, you know, right there at the top of the sport right now. Hector Lombard just had a huge win. I think he's going to be a force at 170. Vitor Belfort is right there in the title mix.

Roy Nelson, he's on a little bit of a side right now, but, you know, we were talking about almost a title. shot as recently as a few months ago for Roy. So I don't think it's a negative thing, but there's definitely some guys who have finishing power in the first round and look really good. Our friends at Severe MMA saying Jake Ellenberger, I don't know about that one. That's one of the ones who we've recently heard about gassing out. I think it's just, it's silly.

It's a little overplayed. Right. All right. Next question. Daniel Carmier versus John Jones. in your opinion, who takes the fight if and when they eventually meet? Look, we had a very spirited debate about this. Let's throw it back to you. You seem to think that it is a foregone conclusion.

No doubt about it, D.C. wins, correct? Don't even think about backpedaling. That's what you said. No, no, no, no. I think that Daniel Cormié could beat any 205 or heavyweight in the world right now. I think that he is the best fighter in the UFC right now. Because I think you were saying that, you know, I said who has his level of pressure? Who can apply that kind of pressure?

And you said Kane. But Kane has a different kind of pressure. He's like a dog who keeps coming at you and keeps coming at you. D.C. is suffocating. He gets on you and it doesn't stop. It's not a thing where he comes off, separates, comes back, and continues to come at you. D.C. will just suffocate you until you can. can't breathe and you effectively shut down.

He completely shuts down everybody he's ever fought. You think he beats Kane and John Jones? True or false? Correct. Easy. Easy. No, neither of those guys is easy to beat. That's why they're the, no, I didn't say that.

That's why they're the champions of the UFC for their weight class with one loss each and Kane avenged his twice and Jones probably shouldn't have been a loss. So nobody's beating them easy regardless of, you know, who it is. but I think that Daniel Corri-Mier could and would beat both of them. That's my opinion. I am going to reserve the right to really weigh in on this until I actually see him fight a 205. Fair, very fair.

I mean, we don't even know if he can get down there. He looks like he's on his way, but we don't even know for sure. Yeah. Could be a different fighter. Who knows? Do I want to see it? Absolutely. Do I feel a little differently about seeing it next after what happened with Gustafson?

Yes. But let's see. My opinion, Mendez. has completely dismissed it, I want to see him versus Phil Davis. I want to see Little Nog, Gus of Sin, Phil Davis against DC. That's how I would book the 205 pound division. Here's our last question from the website. We've already talked about this, but just to recap,

Dana declared UFC 166 as the best fight card ever. Do you agree? And also, what are your top three pay-per-view events? Oh, man, this is a tough one. I mean, honestly, 116 comes to mind, 100 comes to mind. It's hard to think. I can name you at least one fight, main event, maybe another one, at least two, from every pay-per-view from pretty much like UFC 66 on.

I'm not going to do it, but I have done it in the past. Just throw one out. Just throw it out, just for five. All right, we'll do one. And I've done this with Ariel in the past, and he can do it. So let's do 106. Well, that was an easy one, of course. That one was interesting because actually, Brock Lesnar,

I'm pretty sure it was supposed to fight on the card, but then he got sick. It was Forrest Griffin versus Titor Ortiz, got bumped up from the co-main event to be the main event. It was in November, actually, almost the anniversary. It was in November. That's why I picked it. Oh, yeah.

Why? You remembered that? I knew. No, I didn't know. I don't even know if you're right. You could be wrong. I wouldn't know. Yeah, UFC 106.

It was Forrest Griffin versus Tito Ortiz in Las Vegas. number two encyclopedic right there now so my point is November 21st of 2009 how about that just give me one more just for fun

for fun let's go what was the first number that you said like what was your your cap oh 66 the lower limit

okay so let's go 65 84 well of course who could forget the event right after UFC 83 which was in

Montreal you would remember this one because BJ Pan B. Sean Shirk to become the undisputed UFC lightweight champion. And then, of course, how about Leonardo Machita and Titor Ortiz? Titor Ortiz almost had him in a triangle, right? Remember that? I've actually got that one on DVD. Here's a fun one. Here's a fun little fact about the UFC 84. I bought a ticket to that one. I just started covering MMA for MMArated.com, and I bought a ticket, and I was sitting in attendance for that one. So I was just merely a fan, but I was covering it sort of,

but from my seat. Anyway, it's hard to think of what, like I'm thinking, I feel like there were some good ones recently. Like, I really liked the one in, he did say pay-per-view, but I really like that card in San Jose this past year. The Fox card.

Remember that? All those finishes on the undercard? That was a great card. That was a really good card. It's up there. I didn't walk away from that event saying it was the greatest of all time, and I feel like I usually have that feeling,

and I can, like, I still think Jones Gustafin is the greatest fight. I really do. And it's essentially a month later. But it's up there. Top five, sure. Before we get to the Twitter question, somebody said Joe Lozahn, a first round performer, for sure. Yeah, that's true. That's actually,

that's a good one. That's one of the best ones. Joe Lozahn really just completely dominates guys in round one or, you know, he tends to lose after that. How about our friend Vince La Liberté saying that I'm stupid? Quote, quote unquote, you stupid. it Ariel saying that he's actually cracking a whip, Jr. is. A whip. That is actually the stupidest thing I've heard. Correct. Why would you be cracking a whip? Both of you being wrong. It's throwing down a gauntlet. So next thing on the agenda is Twitter questions. First question,

can it be the best trilogy when Kane has dominated 10 straight rounds out of the 11 rounds? The fights were not even close. I don't think it's the best trilogy. I don't. Trilgies that come to mind, Edgar Maynard. Liddell Couture, Penn Hughes. How about the one that really doesn't get enough love? And if we're talking trilogies only in the UFC, all three fights were in the UFC,

then there have been 10. So Rampage, Randeley, doesn't get considered. But if we're talking about the greatest of all time, then you have to mention Gilbert Melendez versus Josh Thompson, which we may, in fact, see a third one. The second was awesome. The third was super close.

This might not even be top. five in my opinion. Completely one-sided. I definitely... GSP Hughes, B.J. Penn Hughes, LaDelle Couture, Thompson Melendez, Vandrelay versus Rampage. I mean, just right there, that's five.

Now, the one thing this fight does have going forward, I'll say this, is Junior is almost unanimously the second best heavyweight, and people consider him already one of the best heavyweights ever. So it has the appeal of the stature of both of the fighters at the time, but in terms of how the actual matchups

when it just doesn't hold water in terms of a trilogy. Does someone ask about whether it happened too soon? No. Okay, well, do you think it happened too soon? The third fight? I do.

Yeah, I kind of feel like he had enough time to recover, Jr. Well, regardless of that, Kane's performance was so dominant and we saw the exact same performance again. It was so dominant that we really need some space in between those fights.

I would have liked to see, you know, just a different junior. Maybe even he would have lost again, something like that. I want to see, you know, some adversity that he comes back from, and then it's a new junior. And I felt like we kind of saw the same thing. While, you know, what he did in those, what was it, did he have two fights between or just one? He fought, no, he fought in May and that's it.

Hunt, right? Yeah, that's it. Yeah, I would have wanted to. to see. He's only fought two other people. He fought Frank Meier as champion. Yeah. I would have wanted to see more. So I agree with you. I think it was too soon. Maybe it's the greatest heavyweight trilogy, better than, you know, Arlofsky Sylvia, but I don't think it's the best trilogy. That one's on its way to happening so many more times.

Yes. Okay, next question. Who should Cormier fight first at light heavyweight? Maybe Phil, I know he meant Davis. Oh, by the way, by the way, I got to say, my friend Hafeel Silva is actually right. He is right. He just tweeted me this. And I know for a fact, he's right,

because I've heard him say this. He says, you are all wrong. JDS is pointing to the ground, dummies, suggesting the opponent will get knocked out. He said it on Brazilian TV. He's right.

He's right. He's pointing to the ground. This is where you're going. That's good. That actually makes sense. So how about that? Gauntlet. JDA is not throwing any gauntlet.

No, no. He's throwing out a glove. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Are you not familiar with this term? I feel like you're not. Of course, am. I'm just trying to dismiss it. Okay, so light heavyweight.

Phil Davies. Yes, that's what I want to see. I want to see that fight. I think that's the fight that makes the most sense. Most sense. I don't know if that's what I want to see because I don't think it would be a very competitive match. I personally want to see Gustafson and Cormier.

And then if he proves himself, I want to see Cormier for the title. See, the thing is, I want to see that rematch so badly that I feel like you can have two champions. or two contenders who can be champions waiting in the wings if you separate them. Why kill off two contenders in one fight? You know what I mean? But Phil Davis is a contender too? Yeah, but I don't think that there's as much intrigue right now in Davis versus Jones. Maybe. Fair.

And also, Dana White seems to think there's like a foregone conclusion that Gus of Sin and Jones are going to fight again. That's the way he speaks about it. That's a tough matchup for Gus of Sin, Cormier. Tough matchup. Korme is tough for anybody. Next question. Does Diego Sanchez deserve a spot in the UFC Hall of Fame

without winning a title because of all the amazing wars he's been in? You open up a very big can of worms if you do that. So I'm going to say no. I mean, there are guys who have been great players. And again, the UFC Hall of Fame is not your typical Hall of Fame. Like you say, oh, Stefan Bonner's in there. Obviously he didn't win a title, but he had that moment. But I don't know.

I mean, there are guys who had great careers and who are exciting. You just open it up. And the UFC Hall of Fame is not your typical Hall of Fame, but even the way it is put together, I would still say no. So if I remember correctly, this is a little while ago, your reason for liking the Bonner acceptance into the Hall of Fame thing was because it was for the moment, right? It was not for.

It was the moment. They did it together. And also, again, the UFC Hall of Fame. is no different than the Wall of Fame for the Denver Broncos. In that case, why can't Diego Sanchez be worthy of that? Does he have a moment like that? I mean, he's got 100 moments like that. That's even more impressive.

Nah, but not that the history of the business. He was the first ultimate fighter winner? Yeah, no one remembers that. What? No one remembers that. Everyone thinks it was Forrest that was the first ultimate fighter winner. Well, technically it was the first ultimate fighter winner because it happened an hour earlier in the car. What do you mean?

Forrest was the first. Yeah, but so was Diego. No, I know, but it was on the same night. It just happened an hour after. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So I guess, yes, technically he is the first, but it's only because that fight was on earlier in the night.

They're both kind of the first. Okay, yeah, so if they're both the first, then that... But Diego's fight against Kenny Floreen did not propel the UFC into where it is today, and you can't say that. Well, I wasn't saying that fight was Diego's moment. But Diego does have so many fights like that. Thought for the belt once lost. And, you know, okay, what?

The Clay Guida first round? This feels like people were going to say, why are you hitting on Diego? I love talking to Diego. I love his fights this step. But he doesn't deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. I think because it's the UFC Hall of Fame, and Diego has been over the years so synonymous

with great UFC fights that he does deserve it. I'd like to see him in there. I can see it happen. I mean, I saw Lorenzo Furtado go out of his way to actually thank him for the fight. So it could happen. But if you're asking me, if I was running the Hall of Fame, and again...

It sounds a little weird, like you have these stipulations that apply to Diego that don't seem to, like, really... No, no, no, because the Stefan Bonner one is... Like, ask me any other fighter. Ask me who's a Diego Sanchez-like fighter in the U.S. You're not going to find one. There's nobody like Diego-Sanchez. No, but a guy who never want a belt,

but is super popular. come on there's got to be someone like Nick Diaz I don't know about Nick Diaz Michael Bisping maybe comparable you know what I mean I just don't think there's anybody like Diego and I think I think he deserves it that's just my opinion

next question I love the Diego Gilbert fight however Diego has started to slur his words in interviews how many more wars can his body endure I don't know. I thought of that and, you know, it's great that we celebrate this and he deserves to be celebrated, but those are a lot of wars and the guy's pretty young. You know, this is a guy who pretty much has outlasted most of the competitors on the ultimate fighter. There's Josh Kosteck left. Swick is kind of out there, but he hasn't really fought all that often. You know, that's a serious thing. I mean, for some reason, brain injury has been a very, obviously because the NFL and what's going on over there, concussions, much talked about. But after this weekend, I thought about it a lot.

What happened to Junior, what happened to Diego, what happened to T.J. Walberger. And I don't want to see it happen. And you notice it in other fighters as well. And, you know, you just hope that they're not taking more damage than they should. By the way, our friends at Fight Metric tells us that Diego has six fight of the nights, tying Chris Lytton, Sam Stout for the second most behind Frankie Edgar. Chris Lytle and Sam Stout deserve to be in the UFC Hall of Fame? In my opinion, no.

But it's not just because of him having the fight of the night bonuses. I don't think Joe Lozahn belongs in the UFC Hall of Fame, and he has more bonuses than anybody. But Diego has given us some of the most memorable moments over his career in the UFC. Absolutely, absolutely. But back to this question, I mean, who am I to say, how many more wars? but all I'll say is I definitely thought of that on Saturday.

What do you think is next for Gilbert Melendez? Maybe a number one contender matchup with Habib Narmagamato. I like that fight. Oh, how failed those on this as well. I like both those fights. You know, it's another interesting one. I don't think they'll do it, but the Betts and Henderson fight is kind of interesting, right?

Oh, I like that. Too soon? Maybe too soon. For who? I don't know. I just feel like I want to see them. I want to, it took us so long. to see Gilbert fight in the UFC,

I want to see him against fresh people. You know what I mean? It still feels kind of cool that Gilbert Mendes is in the UFC. Gilbert versus Benson is not? I don't understand. It's not a fresh matchup. We saw it already.

I don't want to see the same thing again. But I mean, the stakes are completely different. You're right. I'm just being a stickler. I like the Chabeeb fight. It all depends on T.J. Grant. You know, honestly, because T.J. Grant versus Gilbert

makes a lot of sense, too, number one contender fight. Because I don't think, you know, I think Gilbert is one win away from fighting for the belt again. Maybe two. I agree. Max, too. Max.

I like both those fights. And maybe if Gilbert gets T.J. Grant-Khabib fights, those andros. I would not be mad at that. Oh, there it is. The gauntlet shot. That's it. Here's our next question.

Oh. What round was better? Melinda Sanchez in the third round or the first round of Daily Diaz. Our boy, Alan, really updated his back. background because I'm pretty sure that's from Saturday night because I see the Access TV um at the top right you see it over there I do um anyway that's a good one the third right I see I'm gonna gosh for for me it's easy it's daily Diaz yeah I'm probably gonna see because that might be my favorite round ever in anything the site of seeing Diaz fall face first and then get up and then

finish him was just complete bananas it That fight had five different chances where you thought it was over. It was just crazy back and forth. And Daly was supposed to be, you know, completely out of his depths in that fight. And he almost took the belt from Diaz. That round, I don't think anything comes close to it for me. Now, Gil versus Diego is fun because it was one side of going into the third. It was the end.

They're all bloody. But I probably give the nod to Daly. Diaz as well. By the way, Chal Sondon, Hall of Fame or no? No. See,

I say yes. You say, what's the justification here? Big business. Big business. Arguably the greatest rivalry. To a Brock thing? Yes.

Like Brock was. Yes. Okay. Brock. But he's a champion. Wait a second. Brock, you don't disagree that Brock deserves.

No, I don't. I think Brock does belong in. Sure. But he's also, he's been a champion, whereas Chale hasn't. So that's the little bit of the difference. Like, Brock is an easier case for me. I think Brock is a no-brainer, whereas I don't,

I actually don't think Chale should be in there. Oh, look at me. Kyle Marley, wow, how about that? Pacer fan. Kyle Marley. Next question. Why don't judges have to explain their decisions after fights? I don't see how Boch got two 30-26 scores. I mean, they should, I guess, to a degree, guess what? They do have to explain it, but not to us. They explain it usually, to the commissions, although who knows what goes on in Texas. I agree. That was weird. I mean, you very, you very seldom see 10-8 rounds.

And in that fight, of all fights, 10-8, if anything, well, I guess he may have gone one because of the eye-poke. Yeah, he lost the point. Right. But two of them? What was the other one? No, no, no. In that fight, two of the judges scored it 30-26 for Boch while the other judge scored at 29-27.

So the other judge had C.B. Dalloway winning every single round minus the one point. And these other two judges had Boch's winning every single round minus the one point. Right, right. You're right. Okay. I confused myself. Yeah, I thought, I thought Dahlia won the fight. Even if you didn't. 3026 is insane. It is insane. Also, the Kaufman third round versus I fight. Very strange. Not as insane as this, you know, On the whole, but equally strange. No accountability. So the question is why, I mean, I don't know.

They're just not made available to us. They can do whatever they want. They can go in the UG and write their thoughts, but it's just not set up that way for whatever reason. It's like you can't really go up to an NBA ref after a game and interview him. That'd be pretty interesting. That would be. Next question.

Is it just me or does WSOF with Berkman, Fitch, Morias, and Gagey in action look more exciting than the UFC this coming weekend. I don't know if it's more exciting. It's a great card. I mean, arguably, this is one of their better cards. They also have Miguel Torres fighting on the undercard. I'm curious about that at Featherway to 145. His first fight since losing to Marias.

Saturday is a really fun day and night for MMA. But Machita Munoz, in my opinion, is bigger than any of those fights, right? Bigger maybe, but any time I have a chance to watch Berkman, Marias, A.G. Fight. I want to. Those guys are amazing. And then throwing John Fitch and that's a great, that's a great card right there. Yeah. I mean, I'm excited about Linneker as well. And they're both good. I'm not going to say that the UFC card is much better. I think the UFC card always gets the nod because the UFC and it feels like the bigger deal. But on paper, certainly they're comparable. And I think it makes for one long, fun day. This is our last question. After witnessing Kane's BJ Penn-esque Glovelick at 166, what is the most violent, scary post-fight celebration taunt? Let's just extend that to what is the best maybe post-fight celebration.

Also, our boy, Sean, tells us, don't forget about Congo Barry is a great first-rounder. Oh, wow. That was great. Pittsburgh. I was there. It was awesome. Well, honestly, John Dotson flying around and flopping around and almost breaking his ankle every time makes me cringe. Like he messed up, really, he took more damage in his post-fight celebration than he did in the actual fight. That actually makes me feel very uncomfortable. Or when they do like the flips and they hit the, oh, I feel like someone's ankle is just going to snap.

There's famous videos of MMA fighters missing their flip off the cage and landing on their back or landing on their head. Doughton was, he was not on point. No. In that regard, he was great in the actual fight. I mean, BJ Penn licking the gloves was, you know, always pretty gross. But awesome. Awesome. But it's gross.

It's gross. I mean, for a germaphobe to see that, it's gross. I'm sorry, it's gross. But awesome, too. But I would never do it. So I feel gross about it, but I also very much respect it. Now, was Kane licking his own blood? I think he was looking his own blood.

It wasn't quite a BJ Penn. I don't know what he was, it looked like he was licked. It looked like he was licking junior's blood because it was, I mean, he's looking both their blood. It's all over. But it didn't have the enthusiasm and the pure awesomeness that BJ Penn says. That's my number one favorite celebration, but I'm obviously biased. But what comes to

mind? Also coming to mind is Tiago Silva's throat slash. That thing is scary and very impressive when it does happen. In its day, Tidor T's doing the whole The Grave Digger. Yeah, that was That's a good one. That was kind of a pioneer.

Kendall Grove as well. Kendall Grove, although obviously he stole from him because they were on the same But yeah, back in the day, that was like, bang. That was signature. Too lengthy for me, though. That was cool. And then when he did it against Ryan Bader, that was kind of fun. Yeah, it was.

It was good to see that back. Yeah. There's probably a million of these that I love that are not coming to mind right now, but I'm always going to roll with BJ Penn. BJ Penn. When he's on his brother's shoulders, licking the gut. Incredible. Is there any other one?

I mean, Tiago is good. I feel like there's tons. Roy rubbing his belly. on top of the cage is pretty great. Oh, you know which is one of my favorites? Two favorites. Brandon Vera doing his dance. Which one is it?

Remember that when he does the whole thing like that? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I really love, and I'm pretty sure it's the Lieben fight, Anderson doing the little guitar. The air guitar? Yeah. That was fantastic. That was great.

Anderson has some pretty great celebrations. Now, he doesn't usually have the one because he has so many different celebrations. But Anderson, I think the best. Oh, that one's great. Oh, here's some more. Wait, I just love. Oh, Jacqueray.

Oh, yeah. Jacaree doing the little. How could I forget my boy, Jacques. Yeah. Joseo going into the crowd. But that's a one-timer. That's true. But Aldo has done some flips, by the way, that have scared me.

Flips I like, but I like something more signature. The Jacaray alligator, I'm forgetting about that. That's a really good one. What about, uh, oh, Hannah-Braro was. pretty good with his dancing. What about Thug Rose and her flopping around like a fish? Remember that? She dusted off the shoulders too. Yeah, that was nice. But you remember when she did that submission? I do. I do. Yeah. Good times. There's some good ones. I'm going to, I'm excited to look at Twitter after this and see some of the ones I forgot and relive them all over. One more? Anyone?

John Dotson. Well, we just spoke about John Dotson. Come on. All right. Good stuff. Great questions. Yep. That's it? That's it. We're done. Mark Mere after the Big Nog win. I don't remember that one. Do you? Frank Mere always has good ones because he looks like I've been here. I've done this before. Frank Mere face.

He does the Frank Mere face. Yeah. You know, no big deal. Oh, you know it was a great one? This is a good one. Oh, man. Someone just sent me the picture of the gauntlet, whatever the hell you want to call it. What a great picture.

What a freaking great picture. This is a great one from Lee Jansson, GSP doing his spinneruni after the, well, I remember. He did it against like Jay Haron and all those guys. But the one that I thought was great. it was after he beat Matt Hughes to win the interim belt. I forgot about that. When's the last time he did that? It's been...

I think that was it. Yeah, I remember that one. Oh, and what about this one? From Nopta. Ryan Jimmo's robot dance. I don't love that. Come on. Ryan Jimo doing the kiss.

He, like, did the split seven seconds. Finally makes to the UFC does the kiss. By the way, all the cameras, the lights are flashing. Should that concern me? Abort. Abort. No, I don't know. No.

I was just messing with you. What's that? It means the cards are full. Okay. Almost full. All right, all right. Let's wrap this up. That was it.

That's it? Yep. Awesome. Alfred, you hit my music. I feel like they're all flashing in front of my face. It's making me very nervous. But those were great. I love reliving that stuff.

What a sport. What a great sport we cover. I was telling a friend of mine, this is why Mixed martial arts is the best sport to cover. It's the best sport to be a fan of. Because Saturday night was an amazing night. It was one of the best ever. And then guess what?

Seven days later, there's another UFC. And there's a World Series of fighting. And there's a Bellator. And there's an RFA. And there's a Cage Warriors. There's all this other stuff going on. And even though there's another UFC, and then there's UFC after that.

And after that, and there's like eight UFCs to go this year. They're all different with a different set of stakes, different set of storylines, different set of fighters. It's all the championship game for all those guys. It's not game 47 of the regular season in Carolina going through the motions. Best sport to cover. It gets better every time. And there could be oversaturation. There could be tons of fights, too many fights, all that stuff. It doesn't matter because every time out there, it's fresh and you can have the greatest night ever once again seven days later. That's why I love it so much.

I want to thank Dave Meltzer for stopping by. Thank you so much to him and get well soon. John Fitch, good luck at World Series of fighting number six. Husse Mark Paharis. Really appreciate him stopping by. And best of luck in his future endeavors. Gary Cook, good luck with everything that he is doing. Safe Travels and good luck against the Urimachita and Pat Militich. We appreciate him and we wish him congratulations on his Lifetime Achievement Award. And also can't forget about Javier Mendez. Congratulations on a fantastic night in Houston. Kristen Brown, check them out over at liftafite.org.

UFC 166 is in the books. UFC Fight Night 30 coming up. A lot of UFC and MMA action coming up. Thank you so much for watching. If you missed the replay, check it out iTunes. Until then, we see you next week. So, Mario. Defenders in cybersecurity are all.

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