MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 210

Episode Date: August 29, 2014

Featuring Forrest Griffin, Paul Daley, 'Judo' Gene LeBell, Luke Barnatt, Shannon Knapp, Brian Melancon, and Miriam Nakamoto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

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Oh, there it is. Wow, how about that? No problem. Everyone blamed Mr. Will for that. I just saw the graphic. I just saw the graphic. I was like, what's going on here? I see my name up there.

But I don't even know if we're live or not. Hello, everyone. I think it's stuck in my throat. Music's not playing. It must be Monday. It's the first Monday of December, so we're a bit off here today. Let me start as I usually.

like to start the mixed martial arts hour back in your life on this Monday, December 2nd, 2013. What a great start to today's show. Hello again, everyone. I'm Ariel Hawani back from Las Vegas. Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving. Hope you had a nice Hanukkah. Well, it's not in the past tense because we're, I think we're in the sixth night, but it's a lot of fun. You know, the next time Hanukkah will start before Thanksgiving will be in 70. thousand and change years. How about that? So history is being made right now as we speak. History, by the way, was made on Saturday night in Las Vegas when Giuliana Pena became the first women's ultimate fighter winner. How about that? Also, Chris Holdsworth won the men's contract,

Nate Diaz with arguably his greatest performance thus far on the UFC. And that says a lot. He's had some very good ones, I think, about the Jim Miller victory that got him, the title shot, and some others before that. But, man, beating up Gray Maynard like he did on the field. For a guy who's, you know, he's known as a great boxer, known as a great striker, but people have questioned his knockout power, his punching power, to do what he did to Gray Maynard, and now it brings up a lot of questions about what's next for Gray Maynard. Where does he go from here? We'll talk about all that and a lot more on today's show.

Let me tell you who's joining us on today's show. Well, in the back, by now you know that Mr. Will, who's still feeling the effects of Thanksgiving. Now I'm hearing the music again. Will, what's going on over there? Are you drunk? Okay. Anyway, Will is back there.

By now you know that. New York, Rick, is in the house. Alfred is in the house. We'll probably blame all of this on Buzzkill. Brendan, in the third hour, we're going to be taking your questions and comments using the hashtag the MMA hour. Leave them in the post below. Today, on the show, we're giving out a prize. We're giving out one more of these DVD box sets here.

The best fights from July of 2012 to June of 2013. here you have it, courtesy of our friends over at Anchor Bay Entertainment. We'll tell you a little bit more about this as we move along and answer those questions. At 305, the legendary judo Gene LaBelle, the toughest man in the world. He'll be stopping by to talk about the 50th anniversary of the great match between himself and Milo Savage. A lot of people consider this fight to be the first mixed martial arts fight ever televised on U.S. television. ever televised in U.S. television. Does that make sense?

Ever televised in the United States. Historic moment in the world of mixed martial arts. Of course, M.MA wasn't even known back then. But Judo Gene, Milo Savage, they got it on in Salt Lake City, Utah. And today, December 2nd is the 50th anniversary. It first happened December 2nd, 1963. We'll talk to him about that. Forrest Griffin is doing some great work with the UFC about raising awareness for HIV.

He'll be stopping by at 245. to talk about the ultimate fighter and how retirement life is treating him. Miriam Nakamoto, she'll be stopping by. She is a big women's MMA prospect. She'll be talking about Invicta 7. That goes down this Saturday. She fights Lauren Murphy for their inaugural Bantamweight title, and she is a very outspoken lady.

So looking forward to talking to her. Speaking of Invicta, Shannon Knapp will be stopping by. She's the president of Invicta FC to talk about that event on Saturday and where the promotion stands right now. Paul Daly, he returns to action at Bama 14 next weekend. This weekend is a very busy one in the world of MMA. There's a ton of events and fights going on, but Bama 14 is next weekend. We'll talk to him about that.

Luke Barnard, who is a rising star coming out of England. He had a very – maybe that's why Will is so upset today because he beat up his friend, Andrew Craig. Maybe that's it. Actually beat him up like three times, won the fight three times, or at least celebrated three times. He is an interesting guy. We're going to talk to him. at around 125 p.m. Eastern time. But first, let us go to the phone lines and welcome in our first guest of the day. He is now the former UFC welterweight fighter. He is a man who recently announced his retirement from the sport out of the blue.

We wanted to talk to him about that, how he's feeling, and a lot more. He is Brian Melonson. Brian, are you there? Yes, I'm here. How do you feel about my pronunciation of your last name? Very proper, very proper. Well, thank you, because, you know, there were some people who were hating on me when I was saying Melanson, well, when you fought near your two UFC fights, but that is actually the accurate way to say it, right? That's the correct French way to say it. In the Cajun French way in Louisiana, they kind of, you know, slurred a little bit with all kind of, you know, different dialects.

But, yeah, that's the correct French pronunciation, yes. Well, thank you for the confirmation there. Okay, let's talk. Obviously, there's a lot to talk to you about. out of the blue two weeks ago on your Facebook page, you announced your retirement. You said you had kidney problems and you were essentially advised to walk away from the sport. And rather shocking, you had a great debut in the UFC and the summertime came back. You know, one in one, but obviously there was a lot of problems to your career.

Where did this come from? How did you find out that you had this issue and how are you feeling right now? Well, it's kind of, you know, looking back now, I see all the signs before. You know, you kind of miss when you're just training and pushing through. You know, you're trying to give your all. And, you know, you have times where you get weak and things like that, and you just chalk it up to normal overtraining or something like that. So it's been going on for quite a while, but it got progressively worse.

Actually, before I fought Kelvin, about three weeks before that fight, I finished the real hard, you know, training day, did three sessions that day and then went home and I was going home, my body started cramping up. Literally everything from my toes, you know, up my legs, my ribs, my stomach, my neck, my back, everything was cramping up, you know, severely. So I got home and kind of crawled in and I went to the bathroom and, you know, went to lay in hot water and drink fluids to try to get the muscles to relax. And my wife was there helping me.

It was about two hours that I was in the tub. trying to get this to relax, and it was excruciating pain, and it wouldn't stop. So I had to go to the emergency room and got some IV fluids. And, you know, finally after about another hour there, it started to calm down. And they did some blood work and, you know, they said that my electrolytes were all out of balance and, you know, something was going on with my kidneys, but that it could just be, you know, from training so hard. I had been having kidney pain kind of off and on from the days that I used to cut to 155.

So whenever this kind of, you know, severe incident happened, my kidneys were sore for a while. And it's kind of a long story. I actually had another condition with my heart where my ventricles were beating, you know, prematurely. It's called premature ventricular contractions. It started kind of after another training session back in two. 2011, and that's what actually prompted me to kind of take some time when I was in strike force because I had to get that figured out. It was said to be benign, you know, and that it wasn't life-threatening, but I noticed my conditioning,

my endurance was way down after that, and they had put me on the halter monitor for a couple of days to check it out, and it was happening about 8,000 times a day, and during that time, I was getting married, so I took a job and kind of, you know, walked away just for a little bit, wasn't planning on fully retiring, but needed to get everything figured out after about six months. They kind of, you know, went away, and then that's when I got back to training from the UFC and then in July. But fast forward to after the Kelvin fight, I came back to training right away because I wanted to get right back in there, and my conditioning was just horrible. Like I couldn't, you know, we normally spar six, five-minute rounds and then drill afterward.

And for this camp, I was getting to where I could only spar, you know, two rounds. And then I had to take the round off because my body just wouldn't go. And I started having night sweats and was sweating, you know, way more than normal. You know, I went to the urgent care center from before. They just said, well, you need to drink more water and you need to train, you know, less. and, you know, obviously in our sport, you can't really do that. So I drank more while I was drinking, you know, a gallon and a half a day while trying to stay hydrated.

But actually, I didn't know it at the time until I saw the specialist that was making things worse because my electrolytes were out of balance and the sodium was being flushed out of my kidneys and it was making a problem worse. What they think happened is I had a condition called rabdomyelitis where you basically break down the muscle tissue. you from, you know, intense training, and then it clogged your kidneys, so to speak. And then after that, you know, kind of one main incident back before the last fight,

now it's been real susceptible to happening again and again, and it's gradually gotten worse and worse as I tried to train for this last fight. So I saw a specialist, a low-recognized specialist here in Houston, and kind of talked him into letting me continue to give me a clearance letter for the for this one fight and he said, you know, I'll only do it under the grounds that, you know, you do one more further test, another blood test after a training session so I can see how your kidneys are functioning. And he said, because right now it doesn't look good, but, you know, if you rest a little bit,

then it may get better. So I rested for the rest of the week and went back to train on Monday and just did a, you know, kind of a normal session, nothing too intense, just one workout that day, and did the rest of the and did the blood test, tried to stay hydrated so everything would, you know, come out okay. And he said that, you know, my kidney function has dropped to 47% with just a light training session. And he said, as I continue to train, it's going to get worse. And if I cut weight for sure, you know, it's going to get worse. So I kept trying to say, well, you know, let me just get this one in.

And then, you know, we'll take some time off and look at it. And, you know, I asked them, like, it's nothing like I'm going to. die or anything like that. And I said, kind of jokingly, and he said, I can't promise you that you're not. He said, with the way things are going and this repeated stress that you've been having and things getting worse, he said, you know, you may be looking at, you know, possibly dialysis or, you know, worse. And so that was a point where I was like, okay, well, that's, it's time to, time to quit now. And then you just decided to walk away and wrote that post, and I was surprised at how you seem to be at peace.

I mean, that's the impression I got from reading the Facebook post. Are you at peace with this? You made it to the UFC one in one, and suddenly you have to retire at a young age. Are you at peace with walking away from the sport right now? Yes and no. I mean, I have a lot of other things in my life. You know, fighting was never my life.

For me, it was a hobby. It was something I like to compete at. It was never, you know, truly my profession. I always was a physical therapist. as I was still fighting, you know, so I love to do that. But I love to compete. I love the sport. And, you know, and I wanted to do more.

There were more goals I had that I wanted to accomplish. But at the same time, my main goal was to get in the UFC and to get a win and everything else after that was just going to be, you know, kind of icing on the cake, so to speak. And that's how I felt about it. That's how I viewed it. But whenever, you know, he was talking about there was no guarantee that I was going to able to even make it through that, especially if I were to cut weight again and then go through

a long grueling fight. That's what he was really worried about if, you know, if I was having these problems just from like training and then you add on top of that the weight cut and then another grueling fight and, you know, that's when he was like, you know, and then after the person in Brazil died, you know, from trying to cut the mass amount of weight, you know, I just decided it's not worse, you know, it's not worse my life, obviously. and, you know, there's plenty of other things that I want to do and, you know, spend time with my wife and I look forward to in life having kids and all that kind of thing. And, you know, I treat patients that are in their homes right now.

So I see a lot of patients that have to go through dialysis and the strain that it takes on them and, you know, their quality of life is severely diminished. So it's something that, you know, I obviously didn't want to want to go through and I didn't feel was worth it. So, you know, the decision was kind of made at that point, you know, looking at what options I would have. But, you know, obviously, I still would love to compete and I still miss it. And, you know, I tried to not watch any of the fights. But then when I read some of the results, you know, it kind of gets you where you miss it and you want to compete again, obviously. So, you know, it's both. You know, I feel like it was the right decision.

I don't really feel like there was a decision to make it. You know, I had to do it. But, you know, obviously I'm going to miss the sport and going to miss competing. Was this the first time that you found out that you had any kind of kidney issues? Yes and no. The first time this ever actually happened was in 2008. And I had a training session, and, you know, I started having kind of the PVCs and feeling really, you know, like I was going to pass out, basically.

So I went to the urgent care center, you know, where I was living, and they basically just said my potassium was low and that I was dehydrated. So I took some time off from training, you know, really focused on research and things to keep my electrolytes level and stay hydrated. And then that problem kind of went away. So I thought nothing of it. And then once I started cutting to 155, then I started having problems again because I would cut, you know, quite a bit of weight, you know, to make that. and it was literally, you know, I went to the point where I was in the sauna in and out for four hours on the last day, trying to get the last bit of weight off, and I only lost half a pound because, you know, my body stopped sweating.

And so I think that that could have contributed to it. After that, I decided to move up to 170, so I didn't have to cut that amount of weight. But there was always still something that was kind of off. I still had kidney pain occasionally and would notice things. And then after these last two fights, things really kind of took a turn to the worst. You mentioned that you work with patients. You're a physical therapist, right? Yes.

Is that what you are going to continue doing now that you're retired from MMA? Yeah, I'm doing home health again now. I switch back to full-time since I was part-time getting ready for the fight. but yeah I'll go back to the outpatient orthopedic and sports medicine world that's kind of where my interest lies and that's what I was

doing before so I'm looking to looking forward to getting back to that and then possibly opening up my own place for physical therapy, sports medicine, sports performance, all that kind of stuff to use everything that I've gained

so looking forward to that and do you feel any pain now in your kidneys? Yeah, it's still there. You know, the doctor at first kind of was like, well, you know, you shouldn't have kidney pain unless there's a kidney stone or, you know, some, some inflammation in there. I had a kidney ultrasound way back in January because I was having, you know, the pain then, and so there was no kidney stones. So he doesn't really know what's kind of causing it. You know, he said, are you sure it's not back pain? And, you know, I don't. Like, I'm a physical therapist.

I know every muscle, you know, ligament, joint, bone that could be causing pain there. And, you know, it's none of that. And it only coincides with all these other symptoms. So we're still trying to figure all that out. I got another appointment with him in 30 days to check my levels again and see how it is. So I'm just kind of resting now. I'm not going to work out or train or anything for now and just try to, you know, get my health back in order. Is there a chance you might need some kind of surgery to correct?

this? I don't think so. He thinks that, you know, if I, if I don't have any other, you know, bouts of rabdo or, or anything like that, and I stay hydrated and, you know, I really focus on keeping my electrolytes level and, you know, reducing intensity, he thinks I can make a full recovery and, you know, go back to normal. So that's what, that's what I'm open for. And when you say full recovery, do you think you'll get, because you said you went down to 47% use of your kidneys, do you think it will ever go back to 100? We're hoping so. I mean, he doesn't know.

I haven't seen him long enough and consistent enough. He's taken the records that I've had from, you know, two previous emergency centers and looked at them. And, you know, sometimes things are up, sometimes things are down, so it's been really inconsistent. So he wants to, you know, kind of monitor me for the next couple of months to see what my patterns are without all the intensive training. and see how everything goes before he can, you know, kind of decide.

But overall, it looks like everything is going to be going to be okay and get back to normal. And to be clear, you don't think that this, or do you think that this happened because of maybe poor weight cutting or your body's reaction to weight cutting? Is there any relation between weight cutting and your job as a fighter and this condition? I can't say that it was caused by it. I mean, that's kind of impossible. to say because of the time train between when I used to cut, you know, massive amounts of weight. At 170, you know, I walk around at about 195 pounds is my normal walk around weight,

and then I will diet to about 180 a week out, and then, you know, usually I'll only have to cut about eight pounds the last, like 24 hours, which comparatively, you know, it sounds like a lot, but everybody who's fought and cut weight knows that that's really nothing. But when I used to cut to 155, it was the exact opposite. I mean, I would diet for 12 weeks to get down to 170, and then the last week I would cut, you know, those 15 pounds, and that was, you know, that was what did it. But I definitely think that contributed to the problem.

Whatever might have been there was actually made worse, or, you know, it could have caused it as well. I think the intensive training is just a combination of a lot of things, you know, intensive training, breaking down my muscles, clogging up the kidneys, you know, having rabdo, having the previous history of, you know, electrolyte problems and everything, it just kind of all came together. I think that's more what it was. I read that you watched UFC 3 live and watching chemo versus Hoyce Gracie's,

what made you want to become an MMA fighter made you into an MMA fan. What was it about that event and that fight in particular that really inspired you to do this when you got older? Well, a lot of things, you know, I love to compete and, you know, I thought that, you know, just the one-on-one, you know, combat was, you mean, the ultra, you know, most pure form of competition that you could get, it's just you and another person, you know, putting your skill set together to see who can win. Also, chemo at the time, you know, was a devout Christian and, you know, he came in carrying the cross and everything. and, you know, I was kind of inspired by that. You could use, you know, that platform that he was using for, even though it was, you know, brutal at the time, you know, to spread whatever message and things that he wanted.

And that's one thing I always wanted to do if I made it to the UFC was to, you know, kind of push forward, you know, my views. And, you know, especially with the charity that I worked with, the fight for the Forgotten with Justin Wren and the work that he's doing in the Congo. I wanted to use that platform that I had, you know, know, using my competition for myself, but also to, you know, to further that cause and to get the awareness out there about what's going on in that country and the work that he's doing and, you know, the things that he's going through are amazing.

You know, I want everybody to check it out. It's called Fight for the Forgotten. He's free and slaves that are, you know, treated as animals, not even as people. He actually just had a bout with malaria and typhoid fever that he, you know, had a miraculous recovery from. So, you know, he's really doing great work. And that was kind of, you know, one thing I always wanted to look at and to do whenever I got to the UFC.

And then, like I said, just the spectacle of it all in the competition, I just thought was awesome. Well, you did get to the UFC. One of the biggest shows of the year. You had a fantastic performance against Seth Baczynski, one of the later stoppages in UFC history, 4-59 of the first round. And then, like I said, you went on to fight, Calvin. Gasolm. So you end your UFC career with a one-and-one record. At least do you take some

solace in the fact that, okay, you got there, you were in the big show, you got the fight on the biggest stage ever. I mean, if you would have had to walk away post-strike force and never got a shot on the UFC, perhaps this would have been a little tougher to take. Is that accurate? Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I didn't accomplish everything that I wanted to, but I can look back on my career and be happy and be satisfied, you know. The win was awesome. I mean, that was the best moment of my career by far. I had 30 family members that went to Las Vegas to watch me and, you know, I wanted

to put on a show. I felt good before that fight. I felt like I was going to be able to get the win and to get it. And the first round knockout right at the last second, you know, the only thing that would have topped it off would have been knockout of the night, but as soon as as why I'd been knocked out of it, running for that.

So I was like, nope, let's go. But yeah, if I would have left from strike force, I would have felt like something was missing, you know, that I didn't accomplish all I wanted to because, like I said, you know, a thousand times the only goal I ever had was to get a win in the UFC and that was it. And, you know, I was able to accomplish that in that fight. You know, I took the fight with Kelvin on short notice. I felt good.

I felt like I was going to go out there and be able to win. You know, it was kind of more of a game playing issue. I waited back a little bit instead of, you know, going after him. You know, he capitalized on and got the win. But, you know, I was in there and went after it, and that's it. I mean, you can't win unless you try. And so, you know, I got to do a lot of things that a lot of people don't have the opportunity. And, you know, I'm thankful for that.

And I can look back on my career and, you know, be satisfied. Well, I wish you the best of luck, Brian. It was great to watch you. You're a great story coming back after the layoff. And, like I said, winning at UFC 162. And obviously, first things for us, I think you made the right call walking away. from someone who had a kidney stone once. I can't even imagine the pain that you are going through because that was the worst pain I've ever experienced. So I wish you the best of luck, the best of health,

and please do keep us posted. You're still part of the MMA community, so want to know how everything turns out with you and hope that you'll still watch the sport and be able to come to terms with what you did in the sport because it was a pretty nice little career you had. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that, and I will be around the sport either, you know, continue to help my teammates or I'm possibly thinking about, you know, maybe going into the judging and refereeing around to try to help out that because the Texas Commission needs a lot of helping a lot of work. So that's just something I'm tossing around the idea to see so I might do as well in the future. That's a fantastic. I plead for you to do that. I implore for you. I think

that would be fantastic. That would be a great idea. We need more people like you. Smart fighters going in helping out. Obviously not on these terms, but that's a great way to do. to turn a negative into a positive and still be a part of the sport. That is a fantastic idea. Now you just got me really excited about that small idea. So keep us posted on that, Brian.

Like I said, that's not yet, but yeah, if I do decide, I'll let you know for sure. All right, thank you, Brian. Best of luck to you. All right. Thank you very much. There he is.

Brian Melosome, former UFC fighter, former MMA fighter, unfortunately had to walk away from the sport, but that would be something else. You know, like Ricardo Almeida did, kind of help

sport grow, help the sport evolve, become a judge, a referee. I think that would be a nice, a nice ending to his chapter in MMA and a sort of continuation of it, but ending of his active career in the sport. So great stuff out of him, and we wish him the best of luck and the best of health most importantly. Okay, let's move along now and welcome in our next guest. You know, this guy has been terrorizing me, calling me out on Twitter, calling me out all over the place terrorizing me to come on this show. And now the spotlight is on him. And now we see if he's able to, you know, you can get to the UFC, you can be on the ultimate fighter, you can do all that stuff. And that's kind of small potatoes. But can you deliver when you are on the MMA hour we are

about to find out? Let's go to the magic of Skype. There he is. Luke Barnett in the house. Luke, how are you? I'm very well. You're right. It did take a discontal phone call. Yes, a couple. And on Twitter and text and everything. I mean, you were challenging me. And I like that. I give you props for that. I was just a bit displeased.

You know, I put on a fight at night performance in Manchester. I was a bit of an underdog in that fight, and I thought I'd get a little bit more attention from the win. And, you know, I didn't hear a peep out of you, so I was a bit upset. Well, I'm sorry. I did give you props for celebrating three times in the fight. So at least there was that. But, you know, one of the guys who works on our show in the back over there, Will,

who's having a bit of a rough show. He actually went to high school with Andrew Craig, so maybe I kind of felt bad for me. I didn't want to rub it in, you know? Oh, I don't know about feeling bad. The guy got $50,000. You should feel happy for him. That's true.

He actually should have given you a cut. You're right, because he didn't do all that much in the fight. He didn't. He just got hit and I celebrated him. That's why we've got the money. You blame the celebrations, but that's actually what won us the money, so I'm pretty happy I did that.

Did you do that on purpose? Was that party? your plan to make the fight memorable? No, not at all. It was a complete mistake. I don't want to make up some of it. But the first one, if you actually look at it, the first time, it was not a celebration. It was me looking to raise my hand to create force when I hit him on the ground.

Sure. He got bumped forward to look like a celebration. And I'll take it to a celebration. But the second time, yeah, I was being a dick and I walked off. What's going on in Backview over there? I see a big sheet of paper with some scribbling, but I can't actually read. Does that have anything to do with this interview? Did you put that there on the premise?

We're in the headquarters of Big Cyber Enterprises. This is my office. This is where I do my work. Okay. The way I live my life is I write everything down. I write all my goals down, everything I want to achieve. And I thought I'd write down some goals for 2017-14 to see you could have a peep into, you know, the sort of person I am. Can you tell us some of those goals right now?

Well, they're pretty simple. we've got a I want to make more money in 2014 outside of the cage than I do inside of it we think that's a big problem that athletes have in the UFC and sportsmen in general you know we fight two to three times a year and you think you can make your living

in three days out of 300 you know out of year you know you think you can make a living out of three days so you know my plan is to make as much money as I can out of sponsors out of talks out of whatever I can through my age and through my life outside the cage, you know. So that's the number one.

Pretty simple. Yeah. Number two is I want to fight a UFC, London on March 8th. It's at the O2. I'm going pretty harder for a fight on that card. I want to fight in England again. I loved it last time. So, you know, I want to get the fans behind me and do that once again, which I've asked for.

Who do you want to fight? I want to fight Dylan Andrews. I want him to win in Australia this weekend, and I want to fight Dylan. That's who I want. Why? they'll give the winner. Why? Because on the arm of fighter, he beat me. Yeah, everyone I keep announcing myself as an undefeated middleweight in the UK and people keep laughing at me and say he lost in the armour fighter and I say, listen, you know, there's an exhibition match.

I've lost many games with table tennis, I've lost, you know, I've lost money. And I don't count towards a professional career and I need to make that right, you know. It's a completely different environment in the ultimate fighter house. It's not the same at all. So, yeah, I want to prove my right, get a match up against him. But he's got to beat Clint Hester in a week, and that's a tough, tough feat. So I think either way, I'd get the winner of one of those two guys. And by the way, they don't count unless you're part of a trilogy like Diaz Maynard,

and then they'll count them. That's what we learned this past weekend. But yes, I understand what you're saying. Okay, what else you got over there? I want to make Ariel Hawani my best friend in 2014. Wow. Wow. I just thought, you know, we need to bond them.

become friends after this experience. And finally getting on the show, I think it's our first step, you know. Well, you could talk to your buddy Chale about that. Maybe you give you some tips to my heart. Okay, I will do. I'll give me a text straight away. And this is a weird one. I want to meet Dwayne Johnson.

It's like a big goal of mine to meet The Rock. The Rock, really? You know, why The Rock? Because I have a follow-up there, but why The Rock? Well, because he's one of the most inspiring characters there is. It's the Rock. Dwayne Johnson. He's done some great things in his life, inspired millions and millions of people through the WWE. I used to watch him as a kid, and it's just someone I want to meet.

Would you call him a hero of yours? Hero is a strong word. I don't have many heroes, apart for my dad, but yeah, he's up there. You know, I ask you this because I read a quote from you, where they asked you if you have any heroes, and your quote was, I'm not a 12-year-old girl who idolizes people and covers my bedroom and posters of people. The first person you need to thank in life is yourself. You said that, right? That's correct. As I said that 100%. I'm glad you found that. It's true. You know, you're the one who achieves things in your life and you can have people that you look up to and all the rest of it. But, you know, I'm not going to plass my award posters

and say, oh, that guy's the man. He's fantastic. You know, at the end of the day, I'm the man, and I'm the one that does what I need to do. And I plan on, you know, proving that. I think one of my pet hates with this as well, and this is going to come off a bit. weird, but one of the things is when people thank God in an octagon after a fight, you know, you don't thank God, the first person you have to thank is yourself. You're the one that did the hard work. I'm quite a religious person. I have a religious family, but you know, like Cahill said, he's not watching two people who want to fistfire on a Saturday night. It's a more other people you need to thank first. So, a bit of a pet how in mind. But yeah,

that's definitely, that sounds like me, that quote. How much has Cale helped mold your personality? Because you're obviously, you're a very interesting guy. You're very confident. He was in your corner and Chale's not the kind of guy. I mean, he has his duties with Fox. He doesn't usually leave those duties to go to England and corner someone. So obviously you have a good relationship. But how much have you leaned on him to help mold you as the entertainer and personality that you are today? I mean, it definitely gets put together. I mean, Chale that he's, you know, helped me, give me these tips. But before I was in the UFC, you know, I was known as the English version of Chale Sondon because I was insulting people,

I was doing interviews, you know. I've already been quite charismatic. And I think just the fact that we, the fact that I was that sort of person is why me and Chale got on so well. And the thing, I still believe, the thing that bonded our friendship on the Alt-Mont Fighter, which you didn't get to see, and I don't know why, is we played a game of charades in the house or charades.

Sharrades, yes. Right. And you picked a person and you had to act out of who they were, what they were at, you know, whatever. And the person I got was Chal's something. So I had to go up and I had to act out of Chal Sondon. Now, Ariel, how would you act out Chal Sondon if you have to mind? I want to know how you would act.

I have a good, I have a good chale impersonation, by the way. Impression, I should say. We'll hear that afterwards. But, you know, the biggest part of this career that I could remember at that moment in time that everyone would know was the spinning back list against Anderson's. Oh, yes. So I'm on Charles team. I'm his number one pick.

I get Chal Sondon and I walk out there in front of both. teams. I throw a spin-back fist and fall over on the ground and everyone calls out to our Charles Sun's name. He found it hilarious. Other people on the team were going, oh, you can't do that. That's out of order. You can't be, you know, it's disrespectful and all the rest of it. I think that moment he realized that, you know, I was a guy who could take a joke and give a joke and and we got on pretty well. Look, Ariel, Luke Barnat is the toughest fighter in America. He fights on the number one network in the world. Fox Sports One.

He is a disciple of the American Gangs. That's my Chal Sunna impression. What do you think? That was average, but yeah, not too bad. Okay, you got more. Yeah, I want to hear the rest. I love this. One more.

Okay, okay. One more. My goal is to get, I want to get 76,000 followers on Twitter, and I think you know why this is, but that's one of my goals. Well, you just teed me up. Why do you want 76,000 Twitter followers?

Well, you know, I've been promised by a sponsor I've got in South Africa. Okay. A friend of my agent promised me if I can get 76,000 follows on Twitter, he will buy me a brand new Audi. Now, why 76? That's a weird number. It is a weird number. Well, there's a young fighter out of a small country called Ireland. Okay.

That's too hard in the UFC. So he's currently got the same record as me. And he happens to have 75,000 followers on Twitter. So this man saw this and was like, well, if Luke could get above this man, if I'm out of Ireland, then I think I'll buy him a brownie. Are you referring to Connor McGregor? That might be it. You might have got the guy.

He might be him. He's a guy out of Ireland, yeah. Yeah, Connor's done a very good job of marking himself, buying followers and making himself look important. My, my sponsors like, Don, get above him and then we'll buy you a car. You just said something very interesting. You said he's done a good job of buying followers? Well, you know, there's this paradigm, I think, is the management company, I believe,

that Conrad was under. Correct. They have this interesting concept that they believe your following is depicted by how many people you have on Twitter. So your whole MMA following, if you've got followers on Twitter, obviously you're a big deal and they find that easier to go out and get sponsorship and make you look important. So they employ this thing called TweetBot.

I don't know if you've heard of it, Ariel. Yeah, I have, I have. So you pay a certain amount of money and then you get these fake followers. So they're built and they're made via computer and they follow certain people. And if you go through the followers, all the paradigm goes, not all of them,

but some of them, you'll find these robot accounts that make up for a large percentage of people's following. So, you know, it makes them look like a big deal. It makes them look like they've got lots of fans and makes them feel important. At the end of the day, it's just fortunate. Wow. So you, and you are 100% sure that they are doing this? 100%.

Wow. And do you like Connor? Does he bother you as a person? I mean, because there are a lot of fighters that seem to be a little bit jealous of him. I wouldn't say, this is the thing I'm worried about. I'm not jealous of Connor. He's a cool guy. I've met him a few times.

I know his team, straight blast him in Ireland. He's a good guy. He's doing well. I just think, you know, if you want to be fake and you want to, you know, pretend that you're a big deal and get all these followers, then, you know, calling out people like Diego Sanchez this week, things like that, they start to irritate me.

Because if you're going to call somebody out, this is my thing, I don't mind calling people out. I've done it before. For one, you call someone out in your own weight division. And number two, you call someone out who's kind of off of a win. You don't call out someone who's a loser. It's like calling out, it's a loser.

What's the point in that? It doesn't make much sense in my eyes. And he's called out, a lot of other people, don't get me wrong. But I just think he's causing a bit of friction, but that's all I want to say about Conroyo's about me. This interview is about me. Sure, sure, sure.

I will know, I'm not trying to defend him. Calling someone above you in a way class, in a way class, there is something to that, right? I mean, it's better than calling out someone below, right? That's true. It'd be nice to call someone, one, who maybe could wrestle a little bit. Sure. And two, who's coming up a win.

you keep man mentioning your agent. Your agent is a guy by the name of Shane Baldwin, a very interesting character who is somewhat new to mixed martial arts, has worked with PGA golfers. I've had a chance to talk to him. And I mean, eccentric, one of a kind. Those are words you can throw around, but I don't think they accurately describe this man. He is truly, he is maybe in the world of agents, often imitated but never duplicated. This guy is the agent. He's Jeremy, Jerry McGuire in a sense. And I understand that he makes you read two books if you want to join his team. Is that true?

And what are those books? That's great. The Jerry McGuire of M.A is like how he likes to be known. And he says that many times. And we had a very interesting phone conversation this week, me, you and him. Yes. He's an entertaining guy, very, very intelligent guy, made a lot of money, you know, come from not a lot and made a lot of money.

So he's, you know, he can back up what he said. And you're right. Anyone who wants to be a part of Donovo athlete, which is his company now. I'll tell you a story just started off just so everyone knows how it works. Shane had nothing to do with the UFC. Absolutely nothing to do with it. And he came on the Ultimate Fighter because he was friends with Chale, who was my coach. He made a bet with Chale.

If you win the Coaches Challenge, I'm going to come on the ultimate fighter and I'm going to give every single one on your team $1,000. And Chale won out the challenge. He came in. He stood there with $13,000 in his hand and walked past one by one, gave it to all of us, including all the coaches. Wow. And then he just left.

And I was like, that's a bit strange for a man walking here with $13,000 and hand it out and then leave. He didn't want anything for it, and he was just, you know, being a nice guy, it seems. So I went up in the hallway, had a little conversation with him saying, who the hell are you? Why have you come here and give me $1,000, you know, and just wanted a bit more information, took down his conference. contact information and after the show finished, out of everyone on the show I was the only person who's getting contact.

So I contacted Shane and I said, listen, what are you doing? Why are you walking in here and give me a thousand bucks? Do you want anything for it? Do you want to know anything about a sport? Blah, blah, blah, blah. And he was like, nope, I'm just a fan. I had a bit of an interest. Send me over your contract. Just so I can have a look at it. I'm interested in the UFC. So we got talking and then I badly wanted to go train with Chale. He was great on the show. with me and I had a fight coming up against Colin Hart and I said to him I really want to go train with Cheryl but I haven't got the money so he said well how much you need and I said what probably cost me about 10 grand to go out there stay everything else said no problem

sent me the money I went out there trained you know with with Sanis's cash he paid for everything help me out and then when it came to the fight I said to him listen and they come out loads you fancy corner of me for the UFC so a unique experience you can get not many people get to do it he jumped in my corner obviously I beat Colin Hart was a pretty close fight, pretty hard fight, and then afterwards he said, you know what, I quite like this,

I want to get into it, you know, I'm going to start managing some guys. Never ever done it ever before but like you said, been involved with some PGA guys, NBA guys, NFL, but only on a very small, small scale. So now he's taken on, I think he's got seven or eight guys in the UFC now and he looks at MMA from a very different angle to anyone else. So, you know,

like you said, you've got to read two books to be part of the team. You've got to read a book called Think and Grow Rich and a book called How to Win Friends and Influence People. So there's, you know, there are books to help your business acrimand, to help you meet contacts, talk to people and take part of opportunities. And they're, you know, they've helped me a hell of a lot. He also requires you to work with a sports psychologist, which he provides.

He provides you with a sports psychologist. And then he also requires you to do all. your finances through a company called Merrill Lynch, which he also provides contact too, which is a lot of different to a lot of other agents that have brought managers that approach me and that got hold of me. You know, he, he's trying to try to do it properly and teach the sport that there's more to it than what we've been used to, accustomed to, you know, $500 sponsorship is not what we're talking about here.

You know, he's helping me, I mean, to put it into perspective so you guys can see, you know, what he's trying to do. I fought on the undercard, on the England card. Luckily, I rock fight at night, so I was on the main card. Fort Andrew Craig. And, you know, on the undercard in England, which Ariel, as you know, is not a big deal, just didn't even contact me after the fight.

So, I mean, he managed to come up with $20,000 worth of sponsorship for me, which I've heard from talking to other people that's a lot of money. You know, I didn't know I was new to the sport and new to the UFC, if you say. And, you know, he's got a careful of him on the company. contract, Kevin Gasselin, who won the Arnold Fire, and he got him considerably more. Mike Pio, again, he got him considerably more. And he's working with real sponsors. And he's looking at big names with a lot of money rather than looking at your little, little guys and give you $500.

And he is recruiting. My point of this is he is recruiting. He's looking for guys. He read his list at Ariel. Yeah. It was a very impressive list. I mean, he's shooting for the moon. Shooting for the moon.

Well, you know, you have to shoot. That's the thing. You shoot for the moon. You might reach the stars. or whatever. That's right. He's definitely right. And, you know, I said to him, but he said, no problem. We'll have him all by June.

You know, he's a very optimistic guy. He's bringing down his goals. He's running down what he wants to do, which is what he teaches us to do. And I guarantee he'll have a lot of them by June because his approach is very, very unique. So, you know, and your approach is unique as well, following you on Twitter and just listening to some of your interviews. You're very interested in the growth of the sport, the evolution of the sport, the business side of the sport.

Are you setting yourself up to one day become an MMA manager? Because we don't see a lot of fighters transition. And I know you're very young in the sport and everything, but you don't see a lot of fighters come with goals and talking about bank accounts, Merrill Lynch and books and things like that. It seems like you have taken a big interest in the business side of MMA as well. That's why a lot of fighters go broke. That's why a lot of fighters complain about money.

Coming back to Colin McGregor, guarantee the guy's got 10 euros in his bank account because he's out spending on suits. you know, it's, I look at life, you know, I don't just look at MMA, I think that's something that happens with athletes in the sport. And I can understand that it becomes your life, you get so consumed with mixed martial arts and you become very narrow-minded and you look at just the UFC and just the sponsors in the UFC and the people there. And it can have a bad effect on you, you know, you think, for one, you think the UFC is bigger than it is. The UFC is very

big company worth, I think it's $2 billion now as well, you know, but we're, we're not, you know, But when you compare that to the NFL or to the Premier League or to all these other big sports organizations and you look at how they operate, you know, at the end of the day, it's not there yet. We want it to be there, and I'm one of the guys that wants it to be there. But especially over here in England, I think being English, a very different outlook on the UFC

because no one quite knows what it is again in England. It's still not the average person on the street knows what the UFC is. If I walk up to someone's at, fight in the UFC, they couldn't care less. where it's in America you get a lot more attention or a lot more happens to you which is another reason why I think English athletes

move to America I don't think it has to do anything through the training or the training is better out I think that's just a cop-out and it's just the fact that you know you get better sponsors you get treated better

you get to go to nice places you know I think that's a big reason and yeah I'm definitely looking to set myself out to do other things after the sport I think I've got, like I said, I'm young, I've got a long time to fight in the UFC. I want to achieve my goals by the time I'm 30.

You know, I don't want to be in a sport for 10, 20 years because it has a detriment on your body. And I want to try and preserve that. And I want to be, you know, I don't want to be an old man and injured and not being how to play with my kids and all the rest of it. I want to get in and get out. So I give myself five years. If I am obviously, obviously, I've been in the top five, fighting for a title, all that sort of stuff. By the time I'm 30, then I might hang on a little bit longer. But I'm looking to get in out and then look at the business world.

Maybe stick with De Novo, Help Shane, Recoup guys in five years because there'll be a lot more money in the sport. But, you know, I want to do some away from the sport. I want to get away from me and do other things, you know, run a business of some kind. I come from a business background in a way. You know, I ran a few clothing stores. I did a few little things when I was 18, 19, 20 years old. I always wanted to be a businessman. And it's hopefully that's something that I can do with the funds that I gained from

the fight business. And do you feel like to fully reach your potential you need to move to the US? Do you want to go train with Shale full-time? I mean, Shale trains on his own. Yeah. He doesn't really have to train with it. So I don't think to reach your full potential you need to be in America. I think you need to have contacts and definitely do camps, I'd say, in other places.

We're looking at a few places. Kelvin's just spent eight weeks up there with GSP in a TriStar. Right. They've opened up to me if I want to go there. But I'm quite happy where I am with Sinaii-Tam. I mean, a lot of people say this. You have to move to America to achieve your goals, blah, blah, blah. But the last, I want to say, four people I beat were American.

And I had, you know, no real, I went to train with Chowell for three months, but three months doesn't change your career, you know. So I'm beating the guys that they're telling me to go and train with. So I feel very, very happy right now. Well, look, you have delivered, my friend. And I like this. I like to see a young smart fighter with goals, with aspirations, who seems to have his head on right, calling people out.

What do you add, by the way, as far as Twitter followers are concerned? Right now, I've got 12,400. Oh, gosh. And what's your deadline? I've got to London. All right, so you've got some time. All right, help the man get a car. And by the way, this is no fake email from Nigeria where they want you to invest.

This is a legit guy who wants to give you a good. a car, right? The legit guy I've seen the car. Okay. Oh, wow. If we reach the go out, you know, you'll see me in the car driving it around. Maybe you'll give me a lift somewhere. Who knows?

Maybe. But we'll be best friends. Of course, that's right. We'll be hanging out every weekend. That's true. That's true. We'll go to the movies. It'll be great.

His Twitter address is Twitter.com slash Luke Barnada and it's B-A-R-N-A-T-T. He is the big slow. He is, for now, Chale's best friend. one day he'll be my best friend and he's a great guy and he did a great job on the show. Thank you so much for stopping by and I promise we'll be talking to you

before and after your fight. What do you got to say? One more thing. I've got this list of goals. I wanted you to contribute. I wanted you to have the goal for me to see 11 and 14. I think you're very intelligent,

smart land. Okay, by this time next year you have to be a pay-per-view main card draw. No more London, no more international. I want you to be one of the draws on the pay-per-view main card. This time next year, so December 2nd of next year.

Don, I'm running it down. Awesome. I love it. Thank you, Luke. Best of luck to you. Thank you very much, I'll see you soon. There he is. My future new best friend, Big Slow, great nickname, by the way. Great stuff out of him and wish him the best of luck as he tries to get a fight March 8th in London. Okay, let's stick with the English fighters and go to one of our favorites.

He is joining us from England as well. He is Semtex. Paul Daly joins us online. Paul, how are you? Good, thanks. How are you? I'm doing great. Why are you out of breath? I'm in the gym.

I've just finished my workout, so I've just... As you're the most important American journalist, I thought it's super important, that I take your phone call. Well, I appreciate, and by the way, I am Canadian, although this show is being broadcast in America, and why do you have to add the country?

Why can't I just be the most important journalist, period? Because I've got a lot of UK journalists. I have to keep sweet, you know, so... It has to be careful with what I say. Okay, fair enough. Okay, Paul, well, you know, the last time we had you on the show, you were very much in the news. It was over the summer when there was a big push to get you into the UFC.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Are you over it? Are you still upset? Are you still hoping that it might happen? I'm pretty much over it. You know, I think Dana White's made clear for whatever reason. I will not be going back to the UFC regardless of what, kind of, or whatever, I cheek away from the UFC at the moment.

But yeah, I'm settled with the fact that I won't be going back. How close were you, though? Did you guys ever get a face-to-face? Did your manager talk to him? I mean, how close was this actually to happening? I think there was some talk between my manager and Joe Silver, I think. I'm not 100% sure. But, you know, it got pretty far.

I think there were like three or four big media scrums with. my name was brought up and like I said I was quite just happy with that fact but I think it reached its peak and then Dana was sort of you know throwing the line and then he just jumped on side and just made a decision and said no it's not going to happen I kind of got the impression that it was close but then as I said on this show what happened with Hussimar Paul Harris pretty much killed your chance because now they they quote unquote banned someone else and if they would let you in everyone be like well what about this guy And I felt like you were kind of in a unique spot,

and he kind of ruined your chance. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. That was an interview that I heard, which made me think, yeah, it was pretty much done. I forgot what program Dana was on. But it was about the Brazilian guy. I won't attempt to announce a surname, so I'll get it wrong.

But yeah, it was about him, and he brought me up and says, you know, he wouldn't have a fight in the UFC pretty much the same as Paul Davis. I thought, okay, there it is. Are you at peace with this? Like, does this, does this bother you? Of course it bothers me because I'd like to fight, you know, be given another opportunity with the biggest MMA promotion,

the most recognized MMA promotion in the world. But, you know, there's not much I can do now. I'm pretty much at peace with the fact. And I'll just continue just fighting where I can't and fight the best opponents I can. And like I said, it was never my, it was never my big push. I was just, I just went with a flow of it because it picked up so much.

team. And, you know, I did my best. You know, you interviewed me. I can't get much better than that. I was heard by the Americans and, well, I heard by everybody around the world. You know, that was it. I said my bit and didn't work out. So here's the thing. You were on a very impressive winning streak. And then you go to the show in Russia, legend, and you fight a guy by the name of Alexander Yakovlev and you lose via decision, which stopped a bit of your momentum. What happened over there? Yeah, that was a bad fight. fight. There's a lot of things happening behind the scenes and the build-up to the fight. You know, not to go to him, but one of my coaches going for a hard time, so he couldn't be there.

And he's my head coach. You know, the coach I've been since the very beginning, he couldn't be there 100%. Because he was going for a really, really big life-changing kind of event. So there was that. And then there was a ring. I wasn't comfortable in the ring. and I always knew taking the fight out, I was pretty much going to have to submit the guy or knock him out, and I don't submit people, so I was going for the knockout. It didn't work out. It left me open a lot, and I was taking down, you know,

for the latter half of every round, which meant that the fight didn't work out in my favour. Why did you think that? Because you were in his home country? No, not necessarily because I was in his home country. It was just because I could only fight one way, and that was, like, coming forward, putting a lot of pressure. you know there wasn't any other way that I could fight

I had to keep working for the finish I had to keep pushing forward I had to throw you know power shots and that just left me open a lot I wasn't really 100% comfortable in the ring I think I only thought once maybe twice out of 50 MMA fights in a ring and you know there's a few situations where I think

a cage would help me get back to my feet and stuff like that but you know I'm over it you know I'm not a fight fight to dwell on anything everything's a chance for me to learn. I'm one of the fighters that just like to travel us to fight, like to grow as a person. You know, I've met some wonderful people in the sport, and Russia was another great, great experience. You know, Miss Universe was staying in that same hotel as a fighter. And when, when am I ever

going to get to share a hotel with 50 of the most beautiful women in the world? Oh, all of them were there. Not just one, all of them. No, no, all of them was there. Donald Trump was there, Mel B from the Spice Girls was there. A few other celebrities were there, and it was pretty, it was cool. Yeah, also a lot of... A lot of big UFC names were there, too, right? Mirko Cropop was hating on them. Yeah, Crow Cope was there.

John Jones was there. Frank Mayer was there, and, you know, I was very surprised at how friendly both Mayor and Jones were. I've never did. The two UFC fighters I've never met, before I had time to talk to. They were very, you know, complimentary of me in the situation

with the USC. They party hard, you know. I was at surprise when John Jones says that the fight's going to be pushed back, and his body wasn't in no shape to be ready for fight camp, because he was partying hard out there. You know, we had a good time.

We was treated very well by the Russians, and, you know, it was pretty cool. So maybe that's why you lost because you were partying with John Jones? No, this is after. Oh, okay. After party, yeah, not before the event, you know. It was all professional before the event.

And, yeah, it was even a little bit surreal. John Jones was sat front row at the way in. I was cheering for me. Like, what kind of, although I was with the UFC, you know, I'm still a massive fan. Like, when is that going to happen? When am I going to have John Jones sat front row saying, good job, Paul, you know, or cheering me on during the fight.

He was sat right next to the cage offering advice throughout the fight. You know, I'm all for the experiences like that. You know, you mentioned something... Yeah, of course. And you mentioned something interesting about the cage versus the ring. For those that obviously aren't fighters and don't have to train for a fight,

what changes as far as your game plan and the way you attack a fight? When you do have to fight... It's very rare in any other sport, you know, when you're training for hockey or basketball or baseball, it's the same surface wherever you go. But now you're in a completely different surface.

How does that mess you up? Mainly for me, it was just the fact that there was it was more difficult to be stood in the clinch. Getting up off my back was a lot more difficult because I didn't have the cage here. You know, cage is like another sort of tool that you can use. It's another aspect to the game. You can use it to help get back up and pivot, push off,

or whatever you might be doing. And if you watch the fight, a lot of the times, my head was under the rope. A lot of the time I was falling through the ropes. My hips and my butt was sinking through the ropes. It was just a lot of stuff like that. I feel would have worked in my favour in the cage, I arrived the cage report and been able to walk and stuff like that

and circle off the cage, I haven't had something to push off. But like I say, I'm not one for excuses. I probably won't ever fight M&A in a ring again, you know, just because I didn't feel comfortable and for those reasons. But Yakulev is one of the top three Russian fighters,

and you can see how the Russians are coming through in the UFC. You know, there's no joke with being under the radar of it because it was all about Fado, You know, he's got all these young, talented Russian fighters coming through. He has a respectable record. He has 20, 21 and 4. He knows how many Samba World Championships and how many hundreds of fights he's had there.

And he's a respected fighter in Russia. Not a very good rapper, for those that know him, as some kind of Russian hip-hop rapper. He's not very good at that, but he's a pretty good fighter. Well, the good news is for your fans, you're returning to action rather quickly. You're fighting again December 14th for Bama. You're returning to Bama against Romario, Manuel de Silva,

and this is Bama 14 in Birmingham, England. And, you know, that news that you were returning to Bama came out around the time that, you know, you were flirting with this UFC return. Why did you end up choosing Bama? Obviously, it's not an exclusive deal because you fought in Russia, but it sounds like for in Europe,

or at least in England or in the UK, you're going to be fighting for Bama. Why them? Yeah, it's a U.K. exclusive deal. U.K., okay. I think that although you got cage wars in the U.K., which is probably their closest rival, Although Cade Warriors do a lot of shows

I just feel I like the production of Bama better. I think they're covered better in the mainstream UK media, you know, they're in all the tablo newspapers, they've got terrestrial TV, which Cade Warriors haven't got it. They're on Channel 5, which one of our main channels over here.

And I think it's just out of the two, it stands a better chance of being received by the UK mainstream media, you know, they're doing everything right to sell their products You know, they have UK celebrities there. You know, the guys from one direction was at the last show.

Oh, yeah? Yeah, one or two of the guys from one direction at the last show in Birmingham on Newcastle, was it? So I think stuff like that is just, it's a good fit for me right now. And they can still provide high-level opponents. You know, they've flown good guys over for me before, the Japanese champion Shirai, and then Radav, the Olympian, the Bulgarian,

So they can get me good quality opponents with some weight behind the name. And I don't think Cade Warriors have the budget to do that. Are you going to fight for a belt there? No, not really. It's not really part of my plan because one of my old teammates, Jimmy Warhead, who was his sister with roughass after, so I've gone my own way. He lost a pretty close decision to Eddie Ellis and American. And, you know, I don't really want to step on nobody's toes.

He's had, like, five fights there. and, you know, we've been good friends in the past, although we don't speak to each other much, and I'm not there to sort of come in and try to take any limelight off anybody. I'm just here to fight. It's the best offer of that I got. And, you know, this is going to be your fifth fight of 2013,

and, you know, like I said, you bounce around different organizations. For a guy in your position with the name that you have, and you usually fight at the top of the card, it's not, obviously, you want to be on the big stage and you have seen all that, but it seems like, like you can make a pretty good living being Paul Daly right now, right?

Yeah, I'm living, which is good. I'm paying bills. I'm running my own gym. You know, I have merchandise that I'm selling, and, you know, I do a lot of seminars and appearances and stuff like that. So, yeah, the name Semtex or Semtex Daily holds a little bit of weight in Europe and in the UK. So I'm able to, if I fight enough, to earn it, earn a decent living. But, you know, like you said, I've had a lot of fights this year,

and although I do enjoy it, it would be nice to have the option to take some time off. But, you know, I get so many offers, and they're too hard to turn down sometimes, so it keeps me a little too active. But after this fight, I'll probably take some time off and see what happens early next year. Have you put a cap on when you want to stop fighting? You've been doing this a while. Yeah, yeah, a long while. I'm going to keep fighting until I have a few personal goals.

that I want to achieve. Like what? There's just a few places I'd like to fight, a few shows that I'd like to fight the champion. I'd definitely like, you know, if the UFC now, it seems pretty much out of my reach, but there's still a few shows that have some tough champions that maybe not be in the UFC now,

but they may be there soon, and I'd like to fight a few of them, you know, and take their titles off of them. Anyone in particular you want a name? I think his name's a celebrity. back, Thaydov, he's over at KSW, he's a Mamma Kaleedov's younger brother or cousin. He's pretty tough.

He has a strong record. He's a champion over at KSW. I'd love to fight him and relieve him of his champion juices before the UFC sweep him up, because I know the UFC's going over there. A few of the Russians as well, there's Rashid, Magmadov, I think his name is the M1 champion. He's also on the UFC's radar. They're shows in a ring, but if Bamak could get him over.

over here in a cage. I'd love to beat him up as well before he gets snapped up by the UFC. So that's my target. Now, I'm just, I'm just going to go around picking off guys that are on the UFC's radar. I'm trying to fuck the record up a little bit. And what's the latest with your visa issues? Like, if someone wants you to come fight in the US, can you do it now? It's a possibility. At the same time that the UFC was talking about me, I want to say considering having me back, I got a phone call and an offer from Ray's EFA, which was pretty cool. a series of fighting.

Yeah, I've still got the contract. They made me a solid offer. It was all ready to be signed and stuff like that. But I decided to go with Bama, basically. But you could if you want to come fighting you. I mean, has it all been cleared up? He said he could make it happen. Oh, wow.

Who runs their ship or whatever? But he was pretty confident that if I signed with them, that he would get me into the States or get me fighting for the show and if not the contract would be void so he there was signing bonuses involved in everything so he was pretty confident that he'd get me over there so that

that's still an option but like I say I'm here with Bama right now I'm just going to fight with Bama and we'll see if the World Series of fighting comes back around and I think there's a big possibility that they might especially now they've signed new broadcasting deals

looking to be sure the UK and Europe so we'll see. Okay so So this guy that you're fighting on December 14th, Romero, Manuel de Silva, he spent some time in the U.S. with the Blacksillians and has fought a lot of guys, been around for a long time. Handicap for us, handicapped the fight for us. What are you expecting on the 14th? You know, I think he's formula of shootbox. I think he's going to bring that old shootbox style.

He doesn't move a lot. He had some submissions of guillotine in a rear naked choke. I think he's lacking in the wrestling department. think he's around the same age as me, but he looks a little older. He's been in a few harder fights or whatever. I think I'm going to be too athletic, too explosive, and I'm going to knock him out, basically. I think he's a great fight. I think the Bama matchmakers have done a great job.

If I don't get a stoppage, I'm just going to beat him up over three rounds like I did Radev. So it's either going to be an entertaining fight or an explosive knockout. There are a few things more exciting than a Paul Daley left-hand knockout. in mixed martial arts. Yeah, I've been mixing it up, though, recently, the stoppages that I've had, I've had, you know, I bought the Polish guys, had clean open with an elbow. There was a double jumping flying knee against Patrick Valet. There was a ground-and-pound knockout over the other Brazilian Black Belt.

Black Belt that didn't serve him very well when I was in his guard punching him. He was not to Marco out. So, yeah, there's been a few variations, but I'm able to bring the left-up back. We'll see. We'll see. Russia kind of fruit off track a little bit, but it's coming back. vengeance. Which is your favorite? My personal favorite is Scott Smith.

Which is your favorite? Yeah, Scott Smith seems to be in most people's as not highlight, knockout rails, whether it's one dedicated to me or not. I think it was a perfectly time of punch. And I summed it up before in the pre-fight press conference where I said he's been at some rocky moments, but this is going to be a knockout that is not going to recover from.

And luckily, it panned out like that. Yeah, it really did. I mean, I'll never forget him falling like a tree. just stiff as a board. It was... And the thing is, after that five, me and Scott Smith ended up, like, good buddies. I think I was on three more strike for shows after that with him,

and he was always the one banging on my door, like, Sam, Texx, let's go party, who. Crazy guy. Wow. I don't know how old he is, but he reminds you of one of them American, you know, jock-type characters that we have in the films over here. He's a cool guy, though.

Paul, always a pleasure to talk to you. Wish you the best of luck, and, you know, happy that. you're on this Bama card. They're good people over there, main eventing it. It's December 14th in Birmingham, England. The return of Semtex to Bama, and I'm sure all your English and European fans are excited that you're back fighting for them.

So best of luck, and we'll talk to you very soon. Thank you very much. There is. The one and only, Paul Semtex Daily, returning on December 14th. It is Bama 14, and he is headlining that card at the LG Arena in Birmingham, England. Paul Daly versus Romario, Manuel de Silva. Colm Fletcher, by the way, formerly of the UFC, he made it to the finals of the tough U.S.,

not U.S., Australia versus U.K., he made it to the finals, and he was released after his loss to Mike Ritchie earlier this year. He is going to be fighting on that card as well. So, Bama doing good things, still chugging along, and it is always good when Paul Daly fights. And he is a very active fighter. When he fought in Russia, that was in early November.

Now here he is two weeks away from fighting once again for Bama. Like I said earlier in the show, this is a very, very busy weekend in the world of mixed martial arts. Of course you know, UFN 33, UFC Fight Night 33, is this Friday in Australia. And that's not it. I mean, we got World Series of Fighting. We've got Invicta, we've got Legacy, we've got, what else do we got?

We got a lot. Let me read them all here. We've got one FC, Cage Warriors, KSW, Jungle Fight, as I mentioned, UFC, World Series of Fight. It's a very busy two-day stretch Friday and Saturday, and one of the big shows is this Saturday night, and it's on pay-per-view. It's the return of Invicta. They haven't been on your television screen since the summer, so we're very excited about that. have the president of Invicta FC to talk about their big show coming up this weekend and all the comings and goings over at Invicta FC. So here she is right now via the magic of Skype.

Is she? Oh, phone only. Shannon Nap, are you there? I am there, yeah. What happened to your video? We wanted to see you. You know, honestly, I can see it from my end, but for some reason it's not working on your end. Oh, I'm not sure. Well, you know what? I'm not surprised, given the issues that we've had today. So anyway, it's good to hear you at least. And I'm excited that Invicta is coming back. It's been, it feels like, you know, and obviously you stack the deck here and, you know, you have a big show.

But it felt like from that show in the summertime, you kind of flew under the radar. And I was wondering when you guys were going to be coming back, did you, did you always plan to take, you know, five or so months off? Or was this something that came up that you needed to kind of regroup? Something came up. And, yeah, we definitely needed to regroup. You know, normally we would go October, November, but, you know, it just got so congested with dates. And, you know, we were going to go November 2nd and then, you know, Bellator was going to do the pay-per-view.

So we certainly didn't want to counter-program that. And so, you know, we just waited for the right opening and it just happened to be December 7th. So what were the things that came up other than scheduling issues? Internal issues. You know, you know, Janet Martin is no longer with Invicta. So there were a lot of things that were going on. And, you know, I like to do good business. That's what I call it.

And I just needed to get a better footing before we step forward. So Janet Martin was the matchmaker, right, over at Invicta? Yeah, that's correct. Hear all kinds of rumors as to why she left. Why did she leave the company? You hear all kinds of rumors. You know, I could tell you them if you want, but I'd rather hear them from you. No, don't because, you know, honestly, in all,

professionalism, you know, for me to go out and publicly say that it was a very bad situation, you know, I just would prefer to leave it at that and just say that I think we're a much better functioning and, you know, in a better place moving forward for sure. And who's the matchmaker now? Well, currently me. Wow. President and matchmaker. Yeah.

You know, I mean, I'm certainly going to look to fill that role. But, you know, this card was already set. and, you know, there's no sense of bringing someone in right now. I'd like to take the time and be selective of who that person will be. Just for fun, are you interested in maybe a sort of celebrity matchmaker? And I could book one of the shows. I've always wanted to be a matchmaker. What do you think?

I'll do it for free, just for fun. I'll give me a shot. Really? Sure. Wow. Absolutely. That would be great. Okay, we'll talk.

She's going to take the heat. You know, there comes heat if it's a bad, you know, back. But do you feel like, give me a shot? Well, I appreciate that very much. Is there a lot on your play right now? Like are you pulling double, triple duty? Yeah, because you know, I've never had a large staff over here just to keep, you know, be conscious of the budgets. So, you know, right now, yeah, I feel like, you know, I've been pulled in numerous directions.

So but you know what? It's fun because you love what you do and you're doing what you love. So, you know, when you're busy, you just go with it, you know, and I love that adrenaline of it. It's all good. I like to call Invicta the anti-Belitor because it feels like you guys are the darlings of the MMA community. Like everyone has no problem almost openly rooting for your success as opposed to Bellator, which it feels like everyone openly roots for whatever reason for their failure.

How healthy is InVicta right now? Being a small, independent company and, of course, only featuring women's MMA, how healthy are you guys as you approach 2014 with one show left? You know, the thing is, is that when you do have some issues internally, You do face some setbacks, but I would say that, you know, in terms of being healthy, I think we're very healthy and we're getting more and more healthier every day. So, you know, yeah, you know, there's been some struggles, like I said, but you know what? I think it's better to, you know, to not dwell in the past and just move forward with that positive attitude that, you know, what, we're going to continue and, you know, things are looking very bright. lots of good stuff happening in the sport, especially for the female athletes.

So, you know, that's always been my goal and the commitment. So personally and professionally, this is a great time. I've always wondered this and never really quite got to the answer. Who owns Invicta? Who's the financial backer of Invicta? Right now, I own it 100%. Wow. You own it?

No help, no financial backer. No partners, no nothing at this point in time. Yes. Wow, and how tough is that? I mean, it costs a lot to put on a promotion, right? Yeah, it's tough. You know, I always joke sometimes and say, you know, maybe I'm not going to out to be a promoter. You know, I just do, you know, do business differently. And coming from the other side of the sport in terms of, you know, I've always been very instrumental with, you know, when it comes to taking care of the athletes and things like that. So sometimes, you know, it's a real pull between both. But, you know, I think that, you know, I think that, you know, you know, I hit a good happy medium where, you know, we're able to deliver and still really keep

the athletes at the forefront of, you know, the promotion and what we're doing. Are you looking for a financial back? Are you looking for some kind of financial help? I probably will take a new partner. I was 50-50 with Janet and, you know, now I own it 100%. So I will probably look to do that. But, you know, once again, I'd like to take my time with that as well because, you know, we know what happens when you know, just coming off a really bad experience, I'm not ready to jump back in head first.

And, you know, part of the way that you can obviously, you know, pay for some of these costs that go into putting on an event, flying in the fighters, paying the fighters, I'm sure, would be television. But this event is, once again, on pay-per-view, and a lot of people surprised, including myself, that you still haven't found a TV deal. What's the latest with that? Are you talking to anyone right now? Are you just turning down deals? You haven't found the right deal? What's going on as far as TV is concerned? You know, we do have, we are in conversations and I'll have a couple more after this event again.

But, you know, part of it's being selective, but the other part of it is, you know, getting a good partner and, you know, them seeing that, you know, we're strong and that we continue to deliver, you know, a great product every time. I think people were, you know, I always knew coming into it that people would be a little apprehensive because it was all female. But I think every day we make strides to break down those perceptions and barriers. You know, with the UFC expanding and, you know, I think that's huge. I think it's huge and I think it really makes a statement. So do you think your next event will be on free TV? You know, we do have an offer. Oh.

Who's it from? Well, I can't tell you that yet. I can't tell you that yet. But, you know, there are a few doors that have recently. opened more than what they were before. And so, you know, I'm optimistic, very optimistic. And do you think that, you know, and I know you have a good relationship with UFC, but is it, is it good? Because I could see both sides of the coin. It's good that they're obviously in the women's MMA game. There are three fights on Saturday featuring the women. So I think that that obviously

raises the profile of women's MMA and gets more people talking about it and excited about it. But on the flip side, let's be honest, they take some of your fighters. And now they're talking about the 115 pound division. So is it a double-edged sword? Is it kind of good and kind of bad for you guys? How do you view it? You know, I think, you know, it depends on how you want to view something, period. You know, you can find negatives or you can find positives.

And for me, I think that, you know, it's a positive on many levels because it really solidifies and says to me that, you know, what we're doing here is making a difference. And that's always been, like I said, you know, my commitment, my goal, you know, in building Invicta. So I think it's great, you know, they can give more exposure to the athletes than I can ride at this moment. And I think any exposure right now that the athletes are getting are huge for the athletes and Invicta. So, you know, for lack of a better way of saying it, you know, I don't mind riding their coattail and vice versa, right? Right, no. But are you worried, like when they start the 115 pound division, that's a very exciting division for you guys?

I mean, are you worried that that will hurt your organization? No, I don't. You know, my girls are contracted, so I mean, everybody's under a contract. I hear all the rumors about everybody has UFC outs, but that is not true. Oh, okay. Yeah, secondly, you know, there's so much talent out there in that division. And even if every one of my girls goes to the UFC, the thing is, is that I have more opportunity to build stars quicker because we are all female. You know, and they do tend to fight, you know, a little more frequently, I guess. So I don't worry about it.

I mean, you know, you've got all these new, young talent coming in. I call them the hybrids, you know. And they're really performing. So I'm excited, you know, in aspects to continue to sign new talent and to keep pushing forward. Where do you stand right now with DirecTV? Because, and correct me from wrong, last I heard, this event will not be shown on DirecTV, right? Actually, I might have an update. They're actually working on it.

What it is, it's a schedule conflict. Okay. So, but we had the same issue last time and they were able, you know, to maneuver it, you know, move things around, and it worked out for us. So I should know something hopefully today. You think it will be? You confident? Yeah, I'm confident. I mean, they, you know, changed the schedule last time for us.

They were happy with the programming. you know, they want us back. So I, you know, and of course all our fans really heckle them too as well. So I think if it's feasibly possible for them, they will do it, of course. How much is the pay-per-view? 1495. Are you concerned that all, you know, that night you're going up against a free show in World Series of Fighting the night before there's UFC to find your place and you are very different than those organizations, again, all women's fighting, all women's card? Do you find it, though, that there might be too much. There are too many options. Like on that night, you are going to be. up against another free show on, you know, a fairly large network.

Does that worry you? No, not really, to be honest with you. I mean, we are different. We're completely different. And I think that, you know, our fan base is so diverse, you know, where, you know, most of the time you'd look for that 18 to 35, the male demographic, we're all over the board. I mean, I can look in the arena, you know, and I see grandmas and grandpas. I see children.

I see, you know, we just, I don't worry about it because. Because, you know, we just keep doing what we do, delivering a great product. And, you know, I'm confident that, you know, this fight card's stacked, and I feel like people will tune in. And maybe they'll DVR the other, you know. So I'm not as worried. And it certainly is stacked. You have three title fights on the card, some very big names. It's headlined by Barb Honchak versus Leslie Smith, both super exciting fighters for the flyway title.

But, you know, we've learned in the past three title fights. for whatever reason, it doesn't usually bode well. You remember from the Strike Force days on CBS, that was not a great card. You know back in the day the UFC, they now say they'll never do that. I mean, you're rolling the dice here with three title fights. Are you a superstitious person? I hope not. Nope.

I don't even look at all that stuff. You know, for me, you know, it makes sense. It's a good card. You know, these fights are matched up very competitively. Even if you look at one and you say, oh, this could stall out or this could be this way or that way, There's at least one athlete in each bout that is not the athlete that plays it safe, you know, that really always pressure, you know, pushes the pace. So I think that I think it's going to be an amazing night, Ariel. I really do.

I think that, you know, these women are going to make their mark one more time. Carla Sparza tweeted late last week, and she's obviously very good friends with Shane Del Rosario, and she tweeted that her grandmother suddenly and tragically passed away. Will she still be fighting on the card? Yeah, absolutely. You know, yeah, she's had a really tough week. But, you know, she's professional. She's, you know, committed to this.

And, yeah, she wants to compete on Saturday. So I think it's amazing. I really commend her. What's a successful pay-per-view for you? How many buys would that entail as far as selling? You know, everybody always asked me that question. But the thing is, you know, I don't base it so much on what's successful by numbers. because for me it's not costing me more money to do the pay-per-view versus what I normally do

in terms of production. So for me, it always comes down to, you know, I'm successful, consider it successful, just being able to have the opportunity to give the fans more options, viewing options. So, you know, whatever else comes is just great. Who is scouting your talent? Because, you know, look at Giuliana Pena. She just won the ultimate fighter. never fought for Invicta.

And there were some other fighters who, you know, of course, some of them are very young and it's hard to get everyone. But are you doing that as well? Because I would imagine that's a full-time job in itself to try to scoop up some of this talent before the UFC, to try to scoop them up before they go to other organizations overseas and whatnot. Who's in charge of that? You know, I have a couple people in place that are very, you know, involved in what they call the women's MMA community. So, you know, I do have people in place and, you know, they know everything about everyone and they're constantly watching that talent. So, you know, I'm very blessed and lucky in that aspect to have, you know, a couple people like that that really, you know, pull their way and know everything about the sport as far as the female competing.

And are you, are you having fun? Are you enjoying this? Because, you know, a long time MMA fans, aficionados, whatever you want to call them, know, you've been around the sport a long time. You've essentially worked for everyone. But now you're in the forefront and you're trying to do a great thing by putting on an all-women's fight promotion here in the U.S. and North America. I mean, are you enjoying this? You've had your ups and downs, but is this what you thought it was going to be? You know, I always enjoy it because, you know, I love this sport.

You know, and the reason I got into the sport is because I felt like that I could contribute and make a difference. So, yeah, I'm having fun. You know, I love what I do and I do, you know, I do what I love. That never changes. I honestly couldn't, you know, really, I wouldn't know what else I would do. I would be lost, honestly, if it wasn't for, you know, my passion that I have for this sport. Would you ever consider approaching the UFC about investing? You know, I've been so focused on this show that, honestly, I really haven't given a lot of thought to investors and things like that.

I have people that call a lot. And, you know, like I said, getting involved with people, you know, in an investment type situation, you know, I just want to be extremely careful. You know, just coming outside of mess that I just came out of, you know, I definitely want to be able to take the time and make good decisions instead of feeling like I'm forced to have to do something and do it very quickly. So. And since you're doing this on your own, how much? will a show like this cost you? Ariel, you know, I can't tell you that. I mean, good try, though.

That's what I love about you, Ariel. Yeah. So, you know, it's costly. I mean, but, you know, we just, you know, we're still in that stage where you try to trim things here or there. You're still trying to, you know, really put it together and make sure that, you know, it is cost effective and that you're making money back.

So, but yeah, it is costly when it, you know, it comes to athletes, you know, hotels, you know, all that stuff that, you know, it all adds up and it does very quickly. And you have to, you know, you're not like your typical, like Strike Force would do just a main card and then the undercard will be a lot of local people. But because you are kind of the, you know, you are the UFC for women's MMA, you're bringing in people from all over the place, right? I mean, you don't have that luxury of just having local people on the on the undercard, right? Yeah, that is correct. You know, it's really hard, you know, to find, you know, all in one area. So you're always going to have the majority of the time bring these women in, you know, and fly them in, especially if you're committed to, you know, making matchups worldwide, as they say, you know,

you're bringing athletes in from all over the place and give them the opportunity. So, yeah, it can get expensive, that's for sure. Do you know when Invicta 8 will be? You know, we had a date tentatively. And that one would have been on television, but there's a conflict with. So, you know, right now I'm kind of looking at February instead of that January day. Okay. And will you move maybe outside of the Missouri area? You know, not sure yet. You know, it all comes down to it. I know that people always want us to move, but it has to be the right deal.

Because, you know, when you do pick up a move around, you know, you do incur a lot of added cost and things like that. So I always kind of wanted to stay in one place to definitely build the solid foundation. and, you know, I think we're definitely getting closer. And certainly if it was the right deal, yeah, we would do it for sure. And you teased last night that you had some big news about the broadcast team, so pour it on us. Okay, so, yeah, I haven't announced this yet, but since Morrow, he won't be with us his time, or Julie Kedzee. Oh, yes. Yeah, Marl's got a boxing event, and Julie is actually competing, so we're very excited and happy about that.

But anyway, we're going to have Michael Chavello and Misha Tate and Mel Lulawal will be our commentary team for this event. Wow, Misha Tate, that's interesting. She actually did a great job on Saturday, the post-fight show. I don't know if I've ever heard her as far as a broadcast is concerned, but she's very well-spoken. And, of course, capitalizing on her newfound fame off the Ultimate Fighterer, that's a good call right there. Well, thank you. Yeah, you know, one of the things about Misha is that I do think that she's very articulate, and I think she comes across very well.

And I've known her for years. So I have had the opportunity to hear her commentate. So I think it'll be a nice fit. Although we'll miss Julie, you know, but I think Misha will do an amazing job, and I think the fans will be happy and impressed with her abilities. Well, Shannon, always a pleasure. I'm looking forward to.

We actually have one of the fighters competing on the card coming up next. Miriam Nakamoto, who faces Lauren Murphy for the inaugural bantamweight title. Also, Carlos Sparza versus Claudia Godella. for the strawweight belt. And as I mentioned, Barb Hancock versus Leslie Smith. You know, a friend of the show, so to speak. Felice Herrick is also on the card,

Julia Bud fighting, Zola Frosto Gergell, a ton of interesting names. And the great Tanya Evinger will also be competing on the card, one-of-a-kind character in women's MMA. So looking forward to it, it goes down, this Saturday night on pay-per-view. Is there any portion of the pay-per-view that's online, or is it all on direct-or, or hopefully on DirecTV,

but all on pay-per-view? Yeah, actually, there will be a couple couple fights that, you know, the first two fights will be streamed live for free, and then we'll move into the pay-per-view. Great. Well, I'm looking forward to it. As I mentioned, always a pleasure. Best of luck with the show.

Best of luck in the future and hope to talk to you very soon. Oh, thank you so much for the support, having me on. And, you know, Mariam is delightful, so you'll have fun with her. Yes, I hear she is also one of a kind, so I look forward to it. Yes, she is. I mean, I got a great group of female athletes, you know, pretty lucky and pretty blessed in that aspect. I have said, I think it's the story of the year. They've brought a refreshing nature to the sport, and I enjoy watching the fights and covering them as well, so I agree with

that wholeheartedly. Yeah, and thank you for having me on. And, you know, congratulations. You're doing an amazing job out there. I've been watching you. Thank you. I appreciate it, Shannon. Thank you very much. All the best. All right. You too. Take care. There she is. Shannon Knapp, very accessible as far as social media is concerned. You can follow her on Twitter at Twitter.com slash Shan Knapp, S-H-A-N-N-K-A-P-P. Been around the sport for a long time. I used to, you know, when Elite X-C was around,

strike forces rounds, worked for the IFL, even worked a little bit with the UFC way back in the day. So she's doing great things and very well-respected and liked in the world of mixed martial arts and putting on another Invicta event this Saturday at the Ameristar Casino Hotel in Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, by the way. Three title fights on the card. How about that? So as I mentioned, Miriam Nakamoto, who fights Lauren Murphy in the third title fight. There's that fight,

and then the Sparza-Gaudela fight for the strowweight belt and Honchak Smith. She'll be joining us in a matter of minutes here, and then Forrest Griffin will be stopping by, and then Judo Gene LaBelle, the 50th anniversary of the first MMA fight to be televised here in the U.S. of A. It wasn't known as mixed martial arts back then. As I've said, it was just more a judo guy versus a boxer guy, but it pretty much was MMA. And I'm looking forward to that. For now, let us go to the Skype Machine and welcome in our next guest,

Miriam Nakamoto. There she is. Miriam, how are you? Hi. I'm tired and hungry. Oh, great. Good start. Well, sorry to disturb you.

We'll try to make it quick and painless. You are nicknamed the Queen of Mean, and everyone keeps telling me, Oh, you're very outspoken, doesn't really care about, you know, how she comes across. We'll say whatever is on the top of her mind. Is this an accurate portrayal of you? Do you just not give a crap about, you know, the PR and saying the right thing and, you know, putting out a package version of yourself? I think that I've just, I'm kind of incapable of it.

Why? I tend to lack of filter. That's good. People like that. respond to that better than people who filter themselves too much? Really? You don't think so. Have you felt a backlash throughout your career being this way?

Well, not an MMA, actually. Maita, yeah. How so? They just want you to get banged up and bleed and fight your heart out and then sit like a lady and raise your pinky when you drink your cup of tea. It's just, it's retarded. And in mixed martial arts, they don't react that way to you? No, uh-uh, it's nice.

What do they want out of you in MMA? Just fight. So in Maitai, you were undefeated, right? And you were someone, I believe you want seven titles in Muitai, highly decorated, correct? Am I right on the world titles? Well, I just got one recently, so I'll forgive you. Okay, it is eight. But you've made the transition to mixed martial arts,

And would you say that you have received more notoriety in your short time in mixed martial arts, too, and perhaps more financial stability, things like that? Like, why make that transition and why stay in MMA, at least for now? Yeah, I would definitely say that. And it's kind of, I really, it's hard to wrap my mind around it. I still, to me, I'm still, you know, know, the $2,500 WBC champ. Wow.

You know, that's what I got paid to win that. So in my mind, and I didn't get any credit, Moy Times Magazine wouldn't even, it's a Muay magazine, they wouldn't even put me on the cover after I won that. They said, but they offered me a slot on their centerfold. So I could be centerfold, but I couldn't be on the cover after winning the most prestigious belt in Muay Thai. And then the next, and the reason was that women don't sell magazines, but then their next issue, they featured Cyborg doing MMA, punching Jambini in the face with MMA glove on.

Right. Yeah, so that's kind of always Muay Thai. So given that I've always been treated that way in the Muay community, I just kind of am surprised and overwhelmed by the credit. I receive in a MMA. So why even stick with Maitai? Why did you go back and win another title? Because it's my belt and I wanted to defend it. It's kind of a point for me.

Right, but you defended it or you want it? Because you said you just got another one. Oh, yeah. So that was, it was the belt that I've had since 2010 and I've never defended it. Oh, okay. Yeah. But are you still going to stick around? I mean, other than that fight, what you want?

Are you still sticking around with those? You are frozen. So whatever is happening, Can you hear me at least? Now you're frozen. Here. Oh, there we go. What did you say?

Are you going to go back to Moitai? Now that you got a chance to defend that belt, are you still going to stick around or are you full-time in MMA now? I would for the right challenge. Moy Thai. Mm-hmm. So I heard, and correct me if I'm wrong, you're fighting for this Invicta title against Lauren Murphy, right, this weekend? I heard that your challenge, so to speak, to yourself is you want to win this belt and then you want to fight cyborg in perhaps line fights. and that's moitai and win that belt and then go on to greater things.

Is that what we're talking about here? I think that right now I'm just focused on this weekend. Okay. Are you interested in that fight? That's an interesting fight. That's an interesting fight. I would, I think I would give up a lot to take that fight and I would put a lot on the line to take that fight.

lemmished record. I'm an eight-time world champion in that sport. So if somebody could collect my scalp and hang it on their wall, you know, that would be big for that person. So I feel like I'm putting a lot on, oh, and I'd also give up 10 pounds in weight. Right. So there's a lot of, there's a high risk in that one for me. I don't know. Have they approached you about that? No one has approached me. They've talked to my coach and my manager. I don't have to deal with these conversations. Sure.

But I think that right now, the fight this weekend is far looming over my head, you know, far bigger than that potential of that future event. It seems like from reading interviews and stories about you watching interviews, that you, I don't want to say it's a struggle, but you don't say the things that some other MMA fighters say about, you know, wanting to entertain the fans and respect and things like that. It seems like you want to get in there and get out as quickly as possible and that you're legitimately scared for your health when you're in there. Like you don't want anything to do with this other than, you know, win the fight, get the check

and move on. Is that accurate? Yeah. How do you live your life like that, dreading something like that so much? This is your job. Yeah, you know, I was kind of, one thing that I think is so cool about Lauren Murphy is that she is a, she just has so much fun. And I can see that about her. I can see that, you know, she, she just has a blast and she doesn't take it too seriously. And I wish I could be more like that.

I've been seriously injured in fights and I think that the unpredictability of MMA puts your body at greater risk for if an accident were to occur it could be you know the level of accident like Muay Thai you get your you get your face cut open you maybe get your forearms broken from a kick you get ribs cracked you get you know contusions

on your legs, broken foot. But MMA, you could get slammed in the wrong way and you could be paralyzed for the rest of your life. So I think that that is a much higher price to pay. You know, you get your, you fall on your knee wrong from somebody taking you down and you could be on the operating table getting ACL reconstruction surgery, which I've had.

And that was traumatic for me, you know, as an athlete, as an elite athlete. athlete to have my happiness taken away for a year. And you're 37 now, right? Yeah. How much long you want to do this for? I don't know. Probably about three more years.

Three more years until you're 40. But do you enjoy any... So far, physically. So far. Do you enjoy any aspect of being a fighter? No, I do. I do. I do, I love just taking a challenge and dissecting. it. And I do love when you just putting your heart on the line, just putting it out there

and just laying yourself bare. I do. I do love it. But also I think that I put so much pressure on myself that sometimes it's just hard to breathe. So you get very nervous before your fights? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I cry. Oh. Yeah. So your fight's in five days. Like how do you feel right now? I feel like shit. Cutting calories and drinking, you know, two gallons of water. I feel like crap. I'm like thinking about what I have to do on Saturday. And I have so few food in me that I have like this little like kitten strength.

So it's actually really retarded how I feel, you know, I'm drinking so much water. I feel like I'm swimming. How much weight do you have to cut? Like what do you walk around at? Lately I've been a fatty. I walk around like one. So it's perfect for your cyborg fight. You don't have to cut too much weight.

I know, that's right, huh? I also read that your family didn't really support you as a fighter growing up. I think your mom and dad went to two fights combined. Are they more supportive of you now? I actually don't talk to them. Okay. And for me, it's better that way. Why is that?

I think that sometimes, I think that if you have a goal and you have to surround yourself with people, that support the mindset that the goal requires. And if they don't, you've got to cut them. It's either that, it's either you have them in your life and you cut your goal or you cut them and you pursue your goal. And it's, it can be lonely going after what you really want. But, you know, especially with a goal that is more on the physical side, you definitely, I have a timeline.

You know, I have a time limit and I need to prioritize what I want. Is it true you moved 11 times as a kid? Yeah. Gosh. I think so, yeah. Yeah.

So you didn't have your typical upbringing. Is that part of why you went into fighting? Did you need that? Was it an outlet for you? I think it was an outlet for me, but it wasn't a, I'm angry I need to hit stuff. It was more I need to be able to find my dignity.

Your dignity? Yeah, I think that was taken for me as a kid. How so? You know, you just get disrespected enough and you get talked to a certain way or you get by who? Distain and you just start to relinquish those things about yourself. Who is doing this? Oh, my parents, like upbringing.

Really? It was difficult. Right. Yeah. I was doing some research about you, obviously, and I stumbled upon, and I don't know how recent it is, but you have like a model page set up, and you're very honest on this page. You say that you're a fighter, and you're trying to make some money.

You don't really read that. Yeah, I was just doing some promotional modeling at the time where I did air shows. Yeah. It was serious modeling at all. Are you still doing it? Like, you feel like you have to. You're done with that. That's old. Yeah.

No. But are you financially stable being an MMA and Maitai fighter? Because it jumped as one of the first things that comes up when you Google yourself. So I was wondering, you know, do you feel like you have to do this in order to allow yourself to be a fighter? Well, now, actually, yes, at the time that was the case. I was trying to find something that would allow me in a free time to, you know, be able to fight competitively and also just to kind of get by. But now I'm doing a lot better.

Yeah, a lot better financially. You obviously fight in the division that is featured in the UFC. Did you try out for the ultimate fighter? No. No interest? I already did a reality show. I don't want any part of another one. Thank you.

That was fighter girls, right? Yeah. Yeah. So fight girls. That's right. That was the Muay Thai show. It was an MMA, but still you did your thing over there. Has the UFC ever approached you about fighting for them now that they're promoting women's MMA in your division?

Yeah, there was an offer. And why didn't you take it? Because we have a vision for me of something else. Do you want to share it? I think it's being shared. I think, you know, I mean, that's, I'm fighting for the belt this weekend. So they didn't offer you a big enough fight, something that you felt was worthy enough of jumping over to them? I really like Invicta.

I really appreciate what Shannon is trying to do. for women and women's MMA. And I, I, I, I, that's something that I can get behind. No, with my, my heart and my soul. So, and I've seen how they treat the fighters. And I'm, it surprises me. We actually kind of blown away. I'm not used to it.

And so I, I appreciate that. that and I'm down to be loyal to something and someone, you know, that cause. Yeah, that's, that's very commendable. I, I appreciate that very much. So you have no, if your career, you know, comes to an end in three years, as you say, you're kind of planning right now and not fighting the UFC, you'd be okay with that. Yeah, I actually have a different, I have a different goal, which I'm not going to tell you. Oh, you can't tease a goal and not share it.

It's too big. It's big. It's too big. Wow. Does it involve fighting? Yes. Wow. And it's never been done before. Oh, come on.

Give us a hint. Ever. Ever been done. Boxing, Muay Thai, and MMA champion. How about that? Is that it? Not telling me. Okay.

Fair enough. By the way, what do you think of all the attention Holly Holm gets? That'd be a fun fight. You versus her? Oh, yeah, that'd be a good fight. It's visually, it's a good fight. and stylistically it's a good fight. Something you're interested in?

Yeah, sure. She gets... I'm not going to say, oh, hell no, I don't want to fight that person, and I'm not going to say, oh, yeah, I want to fight them. You know, I think I don't really... I just don't do that. You know? But she gets a lot of attention coming from the boxing world.

Do you wish you got more attention coming from your world undefeated Muay Thai fighter? To me, as little attention as I've received in the past, this is a lot of attention. Yeah. And if you win on Saturday, you'll get even more attention probably.

Yeah. How do you expect the fight to play out? Not how do you want it to play out? Because I know you want it to last a second so you can get out of there, but how do you expect it to play out? I am. I mean, except for very few MMA fighters,

anybody fighting me would pretty much have to get their hands on me. What does somebody do out-moy-tie me? What am I going to do? I'm not going to out-jit-suitu Alexis Davis? Am I going to out-wrestle Sarah McMahon? No. Would I out-judo Ronda Rousey? No.

It's like, who's going to out-moy-tie? There's very few people that's going to stand and trade Muay-a-tie with me. You know, will she try to outbox me? Maybe. Will she want to smother me and take me down and pound me out? Probably most definitely. It's kind of predictable that way. When you fight someone that's so specialized, does that make sense?

Totally. I'm very specialized. I have 16 fights doing Wai Thai. I've been doing it for 14 years. I'm very specialized. So somebody's going to go into a fight with me who doesn't have that, couldn't possibly ever get that level of, you know, specialization and find me at it. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you see people who are specialists or very strong in one category and people try to neutralize them by doing the complete opposite. Right. Well, I'm looking forward to it. And it was great to meet you. great to talk to you for the first time.

Good luck this Saturday in Victa 7. You're going up against Lauren Murphy for the first ever in Victor Bantamweight title. I will be watching, and I'm sure a lot of other people as well. Best of luck to you, and I'm sure we'll talk to you very soon. Thank you. If you want to. It's up to you.

I'd love to. Actually, I saw some of your stuff on YouTube, and I was a little nervous. Oh, wasn't so bad, right? No, this was painless. Okay, there you go. As I predicted. Thank you so much. Best of luck.

Okay, thank you. There she is. Miriam Nakamoto, who fights. for the Invicta Bantamweight title. This Saturday night, it is live on pay-per-view, and if you have DirecTV, it sounds like they might figure that out. So stay tuned. Okay, let's move along.

Yesterday, this is a very interesting interview we have coming up. Yesterday was World AIDS Day. World AIDS Day, excuse me. And the UFC has been doing some fantastic work, just some facts and figures for you. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has said recently that the awareness about HIV and AIDS, AIDS among those under 35 is surprisingly poor.

Last year, half of the 50,000 Americans infected with the disease were under the age of 35. The UFC and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, they're doing their part by informing and educating the young public with this great campaign called, quote, Protect Yourself at all times. And here to talk to us about that is former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, a UFC Hall of Famer, tough one winner. My pal, Forrest Griffin. Forrest, are you there? Hey, I'm here. It's good to talk to. What's going on? It is great, and especially after we had that great workout in Fort Campbell. I really put you to shame. It was jogging. There was calisthenics. It was awesome. It was like two old people.

Yes. I felt like your respect for me grew a little bit after that day. Yeah, I mean, we shared a bond of walking at almost four or five miles an hour. You know, that's a lot of fortitude on both our parts. Well, you know, you're retired, and I'm a schlubby journalist, so I felt like we were kind of competing at the same strength. But I want to talk to you about this great thing, the great cause that you are a part of. So as I mentioned, yesterday it was World AIDS Day,

and you're part of this program. I only know that because of Starbucks. So how did you team... Send me a card this down. But no, go ahead. I'm sorry. What was the question? And I know you're doing a lot of work for the UFC.

Of course, you were in Ford Campbell, you know, hanging out with the troops and doing things like that. But why is Forrest Griffin a part of this campaign to educate the young public about HIV awareness? I like for a question. Well, you know, me personally, you know, you grew up. You're about my age. We grew up in the era and there was a lot of fear of HIV, you know, and, you know, everybody worried about and everybody took precautions. and everybody knew it was the thing that was out there. But, you know, as it slowed down, it became its own worst family

because it left the spotlight and people forgot, you know, that there's this disease out there that you're going to live with the rest of your life that will at some point kill you, you know? I mean, is it going to be better treated? Yes, but it, you know, it's never going to go away. So, you know, it's basically just to, you know, kind of, you know, re-enlighten people on the fact that it's out there. And the other thing is, like, why would the UFC, you know, be,

why would they partner up with this center here in town? Yep. You know, and for testing, because if you think about it, our sport is very, one of the big things is blood tests, you know? That's one of the things, like no matter where you fight, what commission you fight for. And, you know, again, I'll tell you, commissions don't get a lot right. But the blood testing is one thing is they have,

gotten right, you know, as far as the hepatitis and HIV, you know, fighting's supposed to be dangerous, but not that kind of dangerous. The other point would be, you know, as you said, 50,000 people last year in America got AIDS, 56,000

air-put of statistics, and half of them were under 30. The UFC touches those people under 30. You know, it is an edgier, riskier sport. People that tend to be fans of the UFC, tend to, you know, be more, you know,

younger, risky, more, engage and more risk-taking behavior, that's what I was looking for. And you mentioned also the center, the center to be specific, is the gay and lesbian community center of Southern Nevada, and obviously the UFC based in Las Vegas. So that's, that's a... So we have more in common than just a healthy love of Las Vegas, our hometown. We have, you know, the love of, you know, just people should get tested for diseases, and you should know your status. You know, that's their, the center, that's the, you know, that's the keyword that is, you know, your status, be positive. We're going to play a couple of PSAs that you and Dan Hardy shot after the interview. That's right.

Something that I learned in watching yours was before every one of your UFC fights, you were tested for HIV. I didn't know they tested for that before every single one, even the ones overseas. Oh, yeah, God, yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, in overseas markets, the UFC acts as their own commission. Sure. Yeah. And then, you know, we were tested to get on the show.

So before those fights, we were tested as well, you know. And that's an important thing because, you know, fighting people in a cage is scary enough. You don't want to have the fear that you might catch something that will be with you for the rest of your life, you know, and potentially kill you. You do bring up a good point because I remember, you know, I was born in 1982. And I remember obviously when Magic Johnson made his announcement, and that was, you know, everyone thought that was a death sentence, right? Everyone thought Magic Johnson would be dead a year later. Now here he is. He looks great. Does work for, you know, or used to do work for ESPN, owner of the Dodgers, all this stuff. But you don't hear about it as much. You don't, in the news, it felt like all. And I was watching the news back then, believe it or not. I was a very learned young man. But it's not talked about as much. Why do you think that is? you know the thing with the disease

people like him a couple of high profile people have survived it you know through all kinds of advanced treatment and you know very expensive means you or I would not be able to afford every all the research all the stuff he's been able to do you know

yeah and the average person you know under 30 a young person you know they can't afford the proper treatment for HIV if you think about it, you know. And then, but if you think about it, you know, you remember when EZE died, you know, he didn't tell anybody about it until like two weeks before he died and he died right then. So it was like EZE has HIV AIDS and he was dead two weeks later, you know? Right. Even Tommy Morrison, he's had AIDS since HIV. I don't, I mean

he refused to get tested or anything after that, but he had HIV. That was in like 93, wasn't it? 92, 93. Yep. So, you know, look how long he lived. But again, these were people that had access to a lot of good treatment, et cetera. So when you're going out and talking to people about this and the center in Las Vegas, I mean, are you meeting young men and women who are battling HIV? And are they in, not in, for lack of a better term, not in awe, but, you know, surprise at Forrest Griffin, who, let's be honest,

you're kind of, you know, a man's man. You're not, you weren't one to speak about things like this. Are they surprised that you're involved in something like this? No, not really. I mean, you know, that's a thing. I mean, I'm going to repeat what you'll hear in this PSA in a moment. HIV is not a gay or straight disease. It's a young people's disease.

Unfortunately, you know, the most valuable assets are used to people that are, you know, hopefully going to pay social security so we can retire. You know, we can't have them, you know, having horrible diseases. So it's really, it's not about. It's about prevention, you know? That whole ounce of prevention thing, it's a cutout point before someone gets the disease. You know, it's a lot simpler to, you know, to change your behavior, to get tested, to be a little bit responsible than it is, you know, once you get it, it's too late, you know. It's that ounce of prevention thing.

Where do people go? And this might sound like a silly question, but where do people go to get tested? Well, there's actually you can go to freehiv test.org. Okay. Or we're just punching free HIV tests. Hopefully you have a computer. You can find someplace locally that will do it. Or you can go to the center, Las Vegas.

And I don't know the exact website, but the center of Las Vegas, they have the, they have like some links. You can find anyone local. You can find the place to get tested for low or no calls. Wow. Okay, that's great. You know, I saw you in attendance on... Go ahead. No, go ahead. I saw you in attendance on Saturday at the tough finale, and obviously you more so than anyone will forever be linked to that show. And now here you are, you know, you're doing this great work for the UFC post-fighting. Are you, you know, is that itch that whatever it was in you, that made you want to be a fighter and go back into that cage time and again and fight? Is it being

satisfied now post-fighting with what the UFC's is putting you up to do, you know, the stuff with the troop stuff, stuff, stuff like this? I mean, are you motivated every day? I mean, well, I mean, it's not what it was, you know? Sure.

You asked me today, well, my dream job is to be a UFC fighter. That's what I want to be when I grow up, you know? Nothing will ever take that place, you know, and then towards the end there, you would interview and stuff in the middle of an eight week camp, I would seem burnout and you'd hear how much I hated and, you know, etc.

But, you know, after not doing it for over a year, you know, that original passion starts to, you know, stoke again. But, you know, it's just not physically possible. You know, you have to move on with your life at some point. It's, you know, you don't choose, you don't quit fighting, fighting quits you at some point, you know. It's very unfortunate. That's the nature of the beast, you know. And that's one of the things, too. to tell young fighters is

have a backup plan, you know? Yeah. When you're walking into the cage on that day, on that week, your world champion, your Anderson, Silva, you're going to retire from the U.S.C. as a champion and have plenty of money. Fine. But when you get that bank,

when you get your checks, you go to the bank, you start thinking like force, Griffin, what am I going to be doing in five years? Is it realistically going to be fighting? This is not your forever job, you know? This is a young man's game. And at 36, I'm already done. you know. Everybody thinks they're going to be Dan Henderson.

You're not? Do you feel like fighters don't prepare for... All kinds of public service announcements coming out of me today. And this is great, and I think I'd love to hear more fighters do things like what you're doing. But do you think that the young fighters don't prepare for that in retirement? We just had at the top of the show, a guy by the name of Brian Melanson who had to retire due to kidney problems, and he has a great back, you know, he's a physical therapist. But, you know, those fighters are few and far between.

Do you think that enough fighters don't prepare for that day? when retirement comes knocking? No, I don't, I mean, I know my friends haven't. You know, everybody helps to get that one big break, you know, that big fighter, that, you know, land a roll on something or, you know, being anchorable. I mean, those are tough jobs to get, you know. Everybody wants to come and take a fight.

Everybody wants your job that used to get a fighter, basically, you know? And it's a tough gig to get, so, you know, But realistically, if you're doing it right, you should have time during a camp or during, you know, life to engage and learn in another skill set, you know, an occupational therapist, a physical therapist, an MRI tech, you know, maybe it won't be, it'll never be as great as fighting, you know, realistically, I can't, you know, I wouldn't tell somebody this 22, hey, you didn't just a good, you know, just a good job checking people in the house. As you do fighting, it's going to feel the exact same. Nothing's going to feel like that again. But, you know, it's going to feel better than looking around and wondering, okay, what do I do now? Were you prepared for it? Not as much that I thought I was.

I was probably more prepared the most. And let's be honest, a lot of people don't get jobs from the UFC, right? I mean, you were lucky in that sense. Oh, yeah, very much. And, I mean, I'll be the first to tell you, I was lucky. And USC can't have everybody, you know? Right. I'm the dumbest guy at the office, and I'm pretty smart for a fighter,

and I'm going to keep being the dumbest guy at the office. You know, you can't hire. You can't give jobs to everybody. Do you actually go to the office every day? No, God, no. Every day twice a week. But you actually do go to the office? Yeah, well, I mean, I live in Las Vegas.

I live, like, 8 miles away. Sure. I just picture, like, board meetings. You, Chuck Ladell, Matt Hughes, just sitting around. talking about financial, you know, health of the UFC and things like that. No, no, it's PR stuff. We're actually, I was in a meeting the other day. We're talking about, you know, how to make the next expo, the best expo ever.

Oh, cool. How are you going to do that? I can't tell you. No, this stuff might not come to fruition. We've got another seven months, man. Come on. Just stress you out, bad. I can't handle.

I got to stop. What's the biggest piece of advice you'd give to Chris Holdsworth and Giuliana Pena? and even the fighters who will get a chance to fight in the UFC who didn't win the show, but how life is going to change now that they're in the real world and their ultimate fighter champion? What kind of advice would you give them? You know, this is the first time you've ever had in your life to concentrate your efforts on being a fighter.

You know, make sure you take it professional. Make sure you take it serious. The house, the six weeks on the house sucks, but that's a good guideline for what a proper training can. should feel like, you know? And that's what I always thought about. Throughout my career, I actually went back to the eight weeks I spent to the house and was like, okay, well, this is about, I was pretty, you know,

I was pretty burnt out and beat up by week six. I didn't really want to be there anymore, you know? And that's really, after the first fight, you know, I was kind of like, okay, I don't have big adrenaline dump, you know, you know, it's tough. So, you know, just use that as your God. But both of them are very hard workers, you know? And the other thing would be the advice that was just given, you know.

Have your backup plan, five-year plan. You know, you're going to fight for the next five or six years, but what are you going to do that? You know, have you developed a skill? Have you saved some money? Do you have an idea of what you're going to do and have you started to work towards it? The other advice I would give people is the earlier in the day you work out, the more productive you are. Earlier in the day you have sex, the less productive you are. That's just the fact.

Right. You know, it's interesting. because the Ultimate Fighter of Season 1 happened a little less than nine years ago. And you think about 2005 in the NBA or NFL, NHL, it's not that long ago, but in our sport... It was actually shot. It was just wrapped. Right, right, right. And it started airing in January of 2005.

But my point is, in our sport, nine years ago, feels like legitimately like 75 years ago. Even the footage looks really old. Yeah, in the development of the sport it was, you know. It's like from the 70s to the 9. 90s in basketball. Yeah. How does it feel for you? And that's when you were flying.

Well, you know, you look at the level of athleticism, you know, to change the guys. And, you know, I get mad because of YouTube, because of this, because of that. I used to have to go pay money at a seminar to learn that move, you know. It was cloistered. The knowledge was a little bit hidden. Now it's, you know, now it's kind of everywhere, you know, it's very free. You know, you can, you know, people are like, oh, how do I try? turn for a fight, just watch the UFC, see a move, and then let that move up, you know?

Right. You know, we used to huddle around, you know, five or six guys get together by a pay-per-view of pride or something. I have to watch it like three in the morning or three in the afternoon, you know? Mm-hmm. It's pretty, you know, pretty funny. So, you know, you always think that people today have it easier than you had it. The fighting has evolved, but for...

I have my... Go ahead. Oh, I had my first fights in places where they were smoking. They were smoking in the audience, and it really bothered me. Like I said, the fighting has evolved, but the one issue now in the sport, and Dana's talked about it is the refereeing and the judging. How do you feel about it? Do you think that that's a big problem?

You know, me and you, I'm going to come on. We're going to do a show on Fox called Devil's Advocate or Point Counterpoint, and I'm going to yell at you for five or ten minutes segments about why decisions go the way they go. What the actual criteria is, every time something controversial happens. I'm tiredly explaining it to the person on the individual basis. What the

judges see. You know, how different fights look on TV. They don't have instant replay. Should day? I don't know. I mean, you know, we were there. It was a close fight. It could have gone either way. Did Johnny Hendricks get screwed? Maybe a little bit, but I don't think

it was... It's not the worst thing I've ever seen in MMA. It's not a fixable problem is what I'm saying is you're doing the best you can but there's a moment passes again too like a fish you know somebody taps or something and you know I've seen a couple times where somebody actually caps ref missed it they slipped out and they kept going you know and I've seen that a couple times in the UFC um it's just such a you know it's just there's so many flaws in the judging system and you can change the system you can change the scoring system, you can make it like pride with the totality of the fight, whatever the hell that means.

Right. But, you know, there's always going to be, it's always going to be difficult, you know, and that's why the last thing Dana White says, in the locker room, the day wins, before he gives the speeches, don't leave in the hands of the judges. You know? But the 10 point must system, you have to agree that system is not an MMA system. It doesn't work in our sport. Okay, here's the thing.

I'm not saying it works. I'm not saying it doesn't work. I'm just saying I haven't seen laid out for detail, for detail, the better system. I'm still looking for it. If I wasn't a better system, I've never seen, you know, I haven't seen a better system in Europe. I haven't seen a better system in Africa. You know, you show me the better system. I'm willing to get on board, but I just need to see that system before I abandon this one.

I think there's still some hope to the judging and scoring system. It's not easy, you know, it's not. You know, there's going to be glitches. Nobody got paid. You know, I don't think decrying the system really helps it improve, you know? No, no, I understand. Somebody you don't. Yeah.

So what's the better system? You give it to me, man. You know, I thought that a point system in the sense that if a takedown was awarded this many points, submission attempt, striking this many points, take down the fence, submission defense, things like that, and you add them up because the sport is so, it's so. rich and there are all these details that aren't, you know, I was watching kickboxing. There's a knockdown. I know it's a 10-8.

I don't know what a 10-8 is in MMA. I mean, look at the fights on Saturday. Jared Rochalt was knocked down like twice in his fight in the first round. That was a 10-9. Next round, the third round, he's completely dominant. That was a 10-9 as well. How can that be, how can they both be the same? Or the second round was very close and it was also 10-9.

So my point is, I feel like, because there's so much involved in MMA, we need to... Well, you've heard it a half. Yeah, a little complicated, but yes. Exactly. Yeah, see, your answer was even, yeah, well, it's not great either. So, you know, I don't, I mean, if you want me, here's the deal. I'll judge the fights. That'd be great.

Do it. Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to take a video home. I'm going to study it. I'm going to, you know, like Olympic boxing. Well, first let me bash Olympic boxing scoring before I, before I move. on. That's all tick, tick, tick. It doesn't matter how hard

you hit somebody. It doesn't matter if their head jars, it's one click. It's guys with clickers. Click for right hand, click for left head, and that's all they're doing. And so then it becomes what Olympic boxing is, which is a number scan. So that's my great system that's another system I've considered as

far as, you know, the numbers. Because, you know, my numbers always look good because I'm active, you know, high volume, but that doesn't mean I'm effective. So back to the How was I saying? Oh, I'll judge the fight. But I'm not going to tell you who the champion is until Sunday morning.

Okay, well. Because I'm going to have to go home with a couple of pots of coffee and watch the fight a couple of times. And then I'll tell you who actually won. After I've determined who was on their back longer than the first round. Sure. You know? But do you think all the people are going to stay in the arena to wait?

Is everyone going to wait until Sunday morning to find out who the winner is? I mean, it's asking a lot. Oh, no, no. You'll get up. It'll be like Christmas present. It would be like you can't wait for Sarah. Did I win the boat? Oh, goodness. I mean, there's a belt under my tree. Let me find out. Why don't you get license and judge some fights? I'm biased. We were talking about that.

Here's the other thing. Well, ex-fighters should judge the fights. No, they shouldn't because they're biased towards the way they fought. You know, I'd be biased towards more active guys. that maybe didn't have a lot of power because I never had a lot of power, you know? So you have those inane biases that you cannot strip away. So, you know, ex-fighters probably shouldn't

be the judges either. I don't care who you are. Me and Matt Hughes are not going to see eye to eye if a kickboxer fight the wrestler. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I understand. I still think that you can offer something that some of these judges can, like Tony Weeks, no disrespect, is a boxing referee.

What does he know about the ground game? Well, he asked me. I told them all about it. Yeah, I mean, the other thing is these guys, I know some of the judges pretty well. How do you think I won all those fights? I'm not kidding. I just got to know them recently. And, you know, they watched tapes.

They've seen every fight. They've seen as many fights as you have more fights than that. All right. So that's how you learn. You learn just by watching. You don't have to do it. Sure. No, I know.

I guess, I don't know if I totally agree. I mean, I hope they won't. watch the fight. I would think that they would want to know how it feels to be in there and suffer and go through everything that goes into an MMA fight, but alas... Why? If anything, I think that biases is you. What are you talking about?

If I'm a judge... If I'm judging a dance competition, I need to know how to dance. Right? If I'm judging figure skating, I need to know how to figure skating. If I'm judging gymnastics, I should have done a pirouette once in my life. Maybe, maybe not. There's objective and they're subjective. I prefer

objective. I prefer somebody to sees what it is without their own biases. And, I mean, you know, neither one of us is right or wrong on this. I'm just off- No, it's fun. This is going to be our show. So I'm bringing it to the devil.

This is going to be our show in there. We just shouldn't argue. I mean, there's like 20 shows on the experience where people just sit and argue. Yes. But you are... You got to be more shows where people just yell at each other.

It would be great. You're officially done, though. You're not coming back, right? No, I physically can't. I didn't want to be done in the beginning, you know, and then, you know, when I announced my retirement, that was actually when I was trying to come back, and I realized it just wasn't, it wasn't liable, you know. Well, I respect that.

You know. I respect that. My shoulder's done. I brush my teeth from my left hand now. That's just the way it goes. Really? Wow. No, I can't shoot a basketball.

I can't throw any kind of ball with my, you know, I was right-handed. Sure. You know, if you have no, you know, after years, I was kind of fighting with one arm on and off, And I was never, you know, my training camp was, it was, and I won't call it Frank Mears style, but it was Frank Mears style. It's like, I'm going to work on whatever hurts the least today. Right. Right. That's what do we do today? What's not broke today? That's what we're going to do today. Well, you know, I never got the impression that you stuck around too long, and that's a big problem in our sport. And of course, you know, you had your injuries and your ups and. Well, I mean, the thing about that is, too. One, it's fun.

and nothing else is going to fill that void and there's skydiving or something, I don't know, too. What are these guys going off to do? You know, when it's time to quit, you know, what's the next step? Like, how much money has it got in the bank? Have they got enough money to work for a year? At their passion, you know, to find their next big project.

You know, do they have anything to do? You know, what's their skill? I think if you fought more than three fights in the UFC and you're not financially ahead, you're either doing something wrong, you just need to quit. You know, your first two fights, your first two camps,

yeah, you're going to maybe even go into debt on those. But if you've had two or three wins and you're still not finding a way to get financially ahead, you might should do something else. Very good advice from Forrest Griffin. Ties it all together. Good advice. I'm not necessarily good advice.

I think it's good. You're doing great work. Once again, yesterday, World AIDS Day, uh, force and the UFC team, up with the gay and lesbian community center in southern Nevada. Get tested. He gave you the websites. We're going to play the PSAs right now from you and Dan Hardy,

and we hope that we have raised some awareness and told the youngsters out there to be smart and, quote, unquote, protect themselves at all times. I appreciate it very much, Forrest. Great job. Thank you very much, boss. Thank you. There he is. Forrest Griffin, the one and only.

All right, here are those PSAs very quick, and then on the flip side, we're going to be joined by the legendary judo Gene LaBelle. Hi, I'm UFC Hall of Famer of Forest Griffin, and I'm here to tell you that HIV stopped being a gay problem or straight problem a long time ago. Unfortunately, it is now a young people's problem, with almost half of all new HIV infections involving people under the age of 30.

No matter how tough you are, protect yourself at all times. I'm UFC fighter Dan Hardy. I grew up in the 90s when everyone was made aware of the realities of HIV. but in the last 15 years or so, it seems that HIV education has fallen off everyone's radar. As a result, the younger generation is uninformed about the disease. I want to help fight this ignorance and ask everyone to protect themselves at all times.

So there you have it. Great stuff from the UFC, great stuff from Forrest Griffin and Dan Hardy. Appreciate Forrest stopping by very much. Okay, let's move along. Our last guest of the day, we've saved arguably the best for last. Like I said, legendary,

legendary figure from the world of combat sports. and a man who is celebrating a fun little anniversary today. We go now to the phone lines once again, welcome in. Judo, Gene LeBelle. Gene, how are you? I am terrific, Ariel. It's a privilege and an honor to talk to you. And I'm sorry I didn't give you more time yesterday when you call,

but I was in California out surfing because it's 80 degrees here and trade winds. And how's it in New York? Well, you know, it's a little cold, a little damp, but how old are you right now? You're still surfing, huh? Well, doesn't everybody? No. I mean, this is California. Oh, I'm in my 80s. Wow. But I've been road hard and put away wet, so I probably look a lot older.

I think you look fantastic. You sound fantastic, and as I mentioned, the first time you were on our show last year, it is an honor to have you on. And it is an anniversary for you. Were you aware that today was the fifth. 50th anniversary of your fight against Milo Savage? That's what I understand. It was the first sanctioned, televised mixed martial art event. Yeah. Of course, MMA wasn't a term back then. No one called it mixed martial arts.

It was you as a judo cut versus him, a boxer. But the way you got there was very interesting. Who approached you first about this challenge? so to speak? It was done by a gung-foo guy. Ed Parker brought in

his style of Kempel, I guess you'd call it, Kempel Karate from the islands. And there was a magazine article in Rogue magazine, which was a class magazine 50 years ago.

And a guy named Jim Beck, who was a boxer, called it judo karate bums, and offered a thousand dollars to anybody he couldn't knock out. And so, you know, I was approached to fight this man by Edry Parker. and I said, why mean? He said, well, we had a big meeting with 200 black belts, and they needed somebody to protect the martial arts. And I said, why mean? And he said, basically, because you're the most sadistic bastard, I know. and that was the start of a long road which was very interesting.

Was that a compliment? You know, when I got there, I had to fight a guy named Milo Savage, and he was switching bait, but a lot of people don't understand. You kind of give this guy credit. Milo Savage. I saw him fight, and he was a rated fighter. In the first round, he went out,

hit the guy a few times, the guy went down and out, and the referee started to come. And Milo knew the guy wasn't going to come out of it. He just walked out of the ring. So when the referee

counted ten and turned around, Milo was gone. Milo was a great, great fighter, and of course I love boxing, and he fought people like Gene Fulmer. Gene Fulmer was the World Way champion who fought Sugar Ray Robinson, and Milo lost a decision, but it looked like he might have won the last couple of rounds, and a great, great fighter, in great representing boxing. And then it goes on.

We were going to fight here in Los Angeles at the Olympic Auditorium. Right. And my mother was the boss there for many, many years, 38 years. But the Athletic Commission said it was too much of a duel. So we ended up a few months later

in Salt Lake City, Utah. and that's where it took place. The Fairgrounds Coliseum over there, and Roots of Fight, which is a great brand. We've talked about them on this show many of times. They actually just released a great mini-documentary about this match, and you can see it over at YouTube.com slash Roots of Fight. And they also have a T-shirt that they put out in honor of it.

We'll show it at the end of this interview. But I'm interested about the bait and switch. So when you got to Utah, you still didn't know that you were going to fight this guy who at one point was ranked number five as a light heavyweight boxer, 46 wins. I mean, this was no, quote, unquote, bum. At what point did you find out that you were actually going to fight him and not the amateur that was first offered up?

Well, when I was leaving to go there, they said they're going to fight another guy, and, you know, I said, Milo Savage, he's one hell of a fighter. But, you know, when you're young and you think you, own the world, it doesn't matter who you fight. And in fact, when I went to get into the ring, the other guy had these looked like speed bag gloves with a little bit of metal in it. In other words, brass knuckles, you could say. And people say, well, no, that wasn't it. But during the bout, and it shows it in the film where he hit me in the stomach, and I had a judo suit on with a brand new black belt,

and he broke it right in half. Wow. So, you know, a regular glove wouldn't do that. But this man hit really hard. Like I say, he was a great fighter. Yeah, he hit hard because he was also wearing brass knuckles. Are you 100% sure? Well, you know, if you don't cheat, you're not trying hard enough.

That's true. And I call it the dark side of the moon, what the referee didn't say didn't happen. But... Aren't you also convinced that he put some Vaseline on the karate ghee that he was wearing? Oh, that all over the place. Really? I went to grab it.

You couldn't do it. And it was supposed to be four rounds. And then before we went in, their manager, a promoter said, it's not four rounds until the first person's unconscious. and if it goes 100 rounds, fine. Well, I was in great shape, and I figured I could go 100 rounds, you know. But, you know, when you're young, you think you can own the world.

It's not really, really true, but so it didn't bother me. Well, you got him in the fourth round, right? You ended up submitting him in the fourth round, but how difficult was he? was it to actually get him to the ground, considering he was a boxer, he was probably, you know, keeping his distance. And as you mentioned, he had Vaseline on his ghee. It was very difficult. I didn't take any chances because I figured if we're going a bunch of rounds,

just a matter of time I'd out-condition him, and then he'd slow down, and then I could snatch him. Why take a chance? I walked out without a He never hit me once In the face You know I didn't have any car

Bruises He had a Shiner Which you could see I guess he caught a elbow In his eye But that's neither here nor there It's a A guy was a great fighter

But It shows where I dropped my hands so he could throw a right, and I went underneath it and got him in the ropes. So when I got him in the ropes, then I had a handle to take him down. And there was a few takedowns. And on the ground, I feel, geez, I'm on the ground. Nobody's going to get up.

But he slipped around like a slippery eel or fish. And he tried to bite you, didn't he? had wrestling background, which I didn't know. He grapined my leg once. This son of a gun is sneaky, you know. And then the back of the end, I threw him in a judo throw, catapulted him off the ropes and threw him down and landed on him. and he put my hand in his mouth and started to bite.

And I said, hey, Milo, you bite me and I'm going to take your eye out, which I probably would have at that stage. But when he opened his mouth, you know, I tightened up the choke. And the referee didn't know he was. out when he was out. I said, I'll hold it until he dies. And now, John McCarthy, the greatest referee that ever lived, in my opinion, would have broke it up right away. But meanwhile, when I get the match, they raised my hand.

He's out cold for about 20 minutes. And the referee, who was the local doctor, couldn't revive him. so if you know Katsu or how to revive a person that's unconscious, you can do it in a matter of moments, but it kind of made me look good. And there's a thing it says that I stepped on him after the match. And, of course, you know, I've got a memory like an elephant of the nose to match. I don't remember stepping on the man

but other people in the audience thought I did and started throwing chairs and pillows and couches and all that and it was interesting trying to get out of the ring one guy tried to stab me it was very nice Salt Lake City then, they didn't show that much what I call respect. But the very fact that they threw chairs at me, that means they had a good time.

It was very much a pro boxing crowd, right? You just said someone checked this. There was kind of a brawl that broke out afterwards, right? Yes, there were. he had to sort of fight my way to the dressing room, which was kind of interesting. And when you're young, you don't mind that. You know, it's fun in games, but, you know, you could get blindsided by a chair or sliced with a knife. Yeah, it got to be a little rowdy what we say.

and very interesting. It's something that you remember all your life, you know. And I think it was stupid to do it. Nowadays, thanks to Dana White, I mean, he's the best promoter that ever lived, and they got rules that make it a lot safer. You can't pull the hair, you can't hit. in the groin.

There's a lot of things you can't do for safety purposes. You know, and... You think that it was actually... You think it was a mistake. Not a mistake, but in hindsight, not your smartest move to go into an atmosphere like that with those kind of rules and compete. I got the Guinness Book of Records of making bad mistakes, you know.

And some... Sometimes you don't listen to common sense. If somebody coaches you and says, I can do it this way and I can do it this way. But like Forest Griffin, you just talked to, great, great, great fighter in his time. But he made one mistake. He said he's right-handed.

Well, if you're going to be the best of the best, you better learn to be amperjectures, both hands. In case you happen and about hurt your right hand, well, you can still use your left. And so on. How big of a deal, and that's a great point right there,

how big of a deal was this back in 1963? I mean, of course, the world has changed, technology has changed, media has changed, MMA wasn't even a term. The UFC, of course, didn't exist. It would come into fruition 30 years later. But was this a big deal? The fact that there was a guy,

from one form of martial arts, judo, going up against a guy from another form, and there was money at stake and all this stuff? How talked about was this? How much talk? How much buzz was there about this match in the martial arts? Oh, there's a lot of copy on it, a lot of all the martial artists, although I'm known as a judo man, like I've won nationals a couple times and all that stuff. Big deal. I grew up in boxing. You sparred with Sugar Ray Robinson, right? You sparred with Sugar Red. I was spard with him. I used to work out at Main Street Gym, and just one day,

Howie Stein and said, hey, the Sugarman's spying partner didn't come on who wants to fight him. And I said, I'll fight him. I was like 16 years old if he's not afraid. And he hit me about 300 times in the first round. And he said, throw up. punch and I said sugar man stay still I threw a punch and he was gone it was a good learning process very very nice guy and he showed me a lot of tricky boxing moves and of course I did other martial arts you know, I did

Graco Roman freestyle wrestling, professional wrestling with the legitimate guys that were hookers, which means they hook you and make you give up. And they would fight on their back as the Brazilians made it very popular

with the guard, which in wrestling they called foot and leg control long before there was such a thing as the guard and it's very funny on the same subject they get all these holds like the Amabata it's a wing lock

foot and leg control is the guard and they have the old wrestling terms and they're the same holds It doesn't matter what you call it as long as you can do it. You know, go ahead. I was just saying I loved, I think if you're going to be a martial artist, don't criticize other martial arts. Learn.

I don't do forms myself. It's just my kick. Anything that's practical. I've done Kempo Shoda Kondo Kwondo Kung Fu all the different arts

and you've got to have an open mind and when I went to the boxing gym somebody had beat me up a little bit when I was a young kid so I'd pick him up and air-prime him and spin them and body slam them

then I went to the judo school and some guy was a lot better than me when I was young and I'd I'd hit him with a punch and knock him to the nickel sneets and kicked out of these places.

Which is your most... You've had many famous matches, many things, you've been in a ton of movies, you've been all over the place. Is the Milo Savage one, the one that you're most proud of? Because, as we mentioned, the first quote-unquote MMA fight televised here in the United States, or is there another one that comes to mind that you're most proud of? Well, a couple of them, Ariel.

One is winning the judo nationals the second time. First time was in Kizar Pavilion, way up near Oakland, San Francisco area. And the second time, the AAU, which is the Amateur Athletic Union, they rented the Olympic auditorium, which my family ran. And so it's the first time my mother got a chance to see me work out because what she did, she sent me to these different gyms to get rid of me. And she didn't realize how hard I worked. The harder you work, the luckier you get.

So that was a big thrill. and I won my weight, which was the heavy weight, and I still weighed under light heavy weight, but my coach said, hey, they move slower in the heavy weights. Then all the weights go together. So when I went against the light heavyweight champion, Johnny Osaka, a great, great judo, ma'am, they said, oh gosh, you beat them because you were heavy,

weight. No, he was six or seven pounds heavier than I was. So, you know, it's an eagle thing that you're happy about. And another situation is Muhammad Ali, Cassius Clay, fought for us at the Olympic, and the great guy, and I drove him around, and he liked to see the wrestling matches and everything. So he had to fight a guy named Anoki in Tokyo, Japan.

Yes. You know, a mixed martial art event. I'm sure you're familiar with it. This is actually one of my favorite Gene LaBelle kind of

moments, that you were the referee in this match. Yeah, that's more people talk about that because it was publicized.

Muhammad Ali was the most popular person in the whole world. Right. You mentioned Muhammad Ali or Cassius Clay, they know who you're talking about.

And he was a champion on the mat and off the mat, a great competitor, a great athlete, and the best heavyweight of all times as far as I'm concerned. How'd you get that gig? Ali guy, he says, the referees, well, there was like 200 people that tried to get the gig, you know. Right. And Ollie says, no, I want Gene, because I did referee boxing.

So I knew boxing. I did referee wrestling, and I knew wrestling. So most of the people, and you were just talking about it before in your interview. I did it when I say I wrestled I boxed a lot of the judges and I have to agree with what you said

and correct me if I'm wrong you'll never be the best of the best if you don't if you haven't been hit by a left hook or body slammed you know what does the most damage in MMA what's more important, a jab or a judo throw.

Well, to me, it's what does the most damage, what hurts the most. Right. And that's why... You've judged before to mess, right? I think it's important in your life. Not to be a big competitor, but at least know the territory. It's a mess. You've judged before.

You've got to agree. The way they judge MMA fights is completely wrong, right? I have my issues, but I have learned to keep my mouth shut. No, we don't like that. We want to hear what you have to say. Yeah, I'm very opinionated. I'm opinionated about the people that they have hired in the past. and, you know, I have my likes and my dislikes, and, you know, it's, it doesn't do any good to knock people.

Certain people knock other people to make them look better. Well, everybody is good, but not everybody can be at 10. There's twos and ones, you know what I mean? Absolutely. You have to live with them. I know there's a lot of copy on the last MMA fight. The Johnny Hendrix, right? George St. Pierre.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think he's a great, great, great competitor. He's one of the best of all times. But, you know, as watching it, I said, he got beat. The other guy didn't have a mark on him. and St. Pierre was, he was cut up pretty good. But that's just my opinion. And I think if you're a referee, you've got a real close view. If there's three judges, one guy might not see something where the other two might.

And what was your opinion? Are you going to get your feet wet? No, no. Of that particular fight? Yeah. No, I thought it was clear. Three rounds of two for Johnny Hendricks. The first, second, and fourth rounds were won by him. And, you know, the weird thing is, is that in the unified rules of MMA, the term damage was actually taken out. But here you are, and I agree it should be in there. Here you are saying that you have to judge based on what caused the most damage. And yet that term, if you look at the rules on how to judge an MMA fight, is not even in there. And that, I find to be very surprising. But we are running out of time. And I want to ask you one last thing before we go. I wish we had two hours with Eugene. It is. is an absolute honor and a pleasure to talk to you on the show. Of course, you're closely linked to Ronda Rousey, and you have helped train her, and you've been around her and her mother since, you know, she was a baby,

and she has a big fight coming up, and she has received some criticism as of late for the way she has... I love it. I absolutely love it. I love Rhonda. She's modest and humble. She's the sweetest young lady that ever lived. Her mother, I love her madly. you know, all these arm bars, she learned from her mother who was a world champion in 1984 in judo.

Right. And Rhonda is the best of the best. She has made women, instead of criticizing, I get calls every day. They don't like Rhonda. I says, good, we'll go to the matches and watch her get beat up. Good luck. She's going to be championed for a long time, I think. But she hints at leaving.

And it seems these days like she's not having a whole lot of fun. And that just might be her opponent, Misha Tate, not bringing out the best in her. And she hates her, and I respect that. But do you think she will leave, you know, in her prime and only give us a couple of good years in MMA? Well, you know, Dana, who's a friend of mine, I love him, Dana White. He wants her to do the MMA. I personally wanted to do movie work because as myself, I've done stunt work for 55 years. And although I still work, I'm retired.

And, you know, I, in residuals alone, when they replay it, I make six figures over six figures a year. Wow. Now, when Rhonda gets older, she'll get that $7,000 or $8,000 check every month or whatever. whatever it is. And she's got, I've got lifetime insurance, and you don't get that from MMA, you know? So you want her to walk away soon rather than later? I'm not telling her to walk away from it,

do what is in your heart. But I love her. She's done two great movies, and I think she's got a chance of being a good star and having a good living. What I'm saying is you see a lot of great fighters, and if they get over the hill, what do they do? B.J. Penn, who I think is one of the great former champions,

I guess he doesn't do movie work. He must have a dojo in Hawaii. there's a guy that's great I got a lot of heroes in the martial arts but I want to Randy Couture is one of the best ever at least he does movie works

he doesn't he does movie shows he's a good actor handles dialogue real well and boss Routin is the same way you know he does a lot of movie work so I

It isn't movie work. It's the fact that when you're through, where do you go? Where do you go? Yeah, and that's what Forrest Griffin was saying in our interview as well, trying to tell the fighters that when you're done, don't just be left with nothing. Have something else to fall back on. He is great.

I love to watch him fight. Boy, he'd go all out. Sure. I mean, a fantastic athlete, you know. Gene, unfortunately, we have run out of time, but as I mentioned, such a pleasure for us, and happy anniversary. A great moment in history.

Thank you very much. It's good memories. Yeah, I'm sure. You're my hero. When I get to be your age, I want to be just like you, okay? Thank you so much, sir. All the best. Have a good one.

There he is. The one and only. Judo Gene LaBelle, dropping some knowledge on December 2nd, 1963, his match against Milo Savage, which is considered to be the first, quote-unquote, MMA fight televised here in the United States. United States. He is the godfather of grappling, the toughest man alive. He is Judo Gene LaBelle.

And that clip that you were seeing is courtesy of our friends over at Roots of Fight. If you go on their YouTube page right now, YouTube.com slash Roots of Fight, the mini documentary was just posted, and it's fantastic. Ronda Rousey's in it. Mike Tyson is in it. Our good friend Paul Lazenby, who he himself has done so much in the world of combat sports and movies and television. as well as a stuntman. So they're all featured in, and of course, Mr. Judo Gene is in it as well. Unfortunately, Milo Savage passed several years ago, but it is great, and I do recommend you check it out, and I then do recommend you go to Rootsafite.com and check out that t-shirt that was

just up on the screen. It's a great one. They put out such great stuff, and this is great, and I love, you know, you can call this somewhat obscure, maybe the casual MMA fan wouldn't know about this, but I love that they would take the time to honor. I mean, look at the name. It's Roots of Fight. So they take the time to honor a moment like this in martial arts and combat sports.

There he is, Gene LaBelle versus Milo Savage. This is judo versus boxing over at the fairgrounds, Coliseum in Salt Lake City, Utah. Monday, December 2nd at 8.30 p.m. in 1963. How about that? The guy who's posing in this, put up that t-shirt guy again. It looks like, what's the name? The guy from Adam Levine. There it is.

That's what he looks like, right? I can see it. Come on. I actually wonder, it could be him. No? Could be? Looks like no. I don't think he has those tattoos.

He looks very menacing. He looks like a mix between Mr. Levine and Scala. Remember Scala? I think it was before your time in M.M.A. Yeah. But it is a great shirt. It is a great shirt. And go to root to fight.

right now to check it out. By the way, it is nice to hear from you, Mr. New York, Rick. What happened over there at the beginning of the show? Why didn't I hear the music? It's been bothering me all show long. You're asking the wrong guy. No explanation. Maybe Will. I thought Will already told you. I don't even know. No, he didn't really give me a good explanation. All right. Let's hear it. Go up to the microphone.

Why was there no music? I believe it's the first time in M.M.A. Hour history. Okay. Relay the message. Okay, put the earphones. Well, here you are. Why was there no music? Was it because Luke Barnard, who beat your boy, Andrew Craig, was coming on, and you were trying to sabotage the show? Partially.

So what happened was earlier, we were testing audio on some clips, and you were on a phone call, but you also had a headphone on, so I didn't want you to have to listen to mess around with the audio levels, so I killed it in your headphones and forgot to put it back up. So you were actually being considerate, and then it came back. I was trying to, but, it was the first time, so I'm still, you know, working on it. All right.

Well, now I forgive you. All right, thank you. Keep up the great work, and that's a nice mustache that you're rocking as well. It lights well. It does light well. It matches New York Rick's shirt. New York Rick also wearing a Routteaufeet shirt, I believe. Is that Bruce Lee?

Correct. Bruce Lee. You know, it's interesting. We didn't have time to talk about it, but Gene LaBelle actually taught Bruce Lee grappling. They worked together on the Green Hornet. I mean, Gene LaBelle's taught a lot of people grappling. But I'm not talking about the Green Hornet with Seth Rogen, by the way. Bruce Lee wasn't around for that one.

He was not. But yes, that's a great shirt. Yeah, I mean, Roots of Fight, they make the best combat sports-themed gear out there. They do. I also like Nomaz, our good friends there, but Roots of Fight, they've been, let's be honest, they've been kicking Nomuses' ass lately. I mean, last time Nomos put out a shirt was like 1986. But, yeah, they do great work.

I get a lot of compliments on my pride shirt from Nomaz. You do. You do. I love him. I wish they put out more. Okay, a few things I want to talk about before we get to this weekend, questions and comments. Just want to obviously mention that, you know, we're thinking and praying and pulling for Shane Del Rosario.

Didn't have time at the top of the show to discuss him because it was a little bit of the thrown off due to the technical issues and had to get into Brian right away. But a very unfortunate situation, but one that perhaps is turning for the better. Right now, I mean, by now you know what happened over the past week with him going into sudden cardiac arrest on Tuesday being found by his teammate and friend and UFC flyweight, Ian McCall, being admitted to the hospital in Newport Beach, California. and then there were reports that he had passed away. Those were erroneous.

They were a little too soon, thank God. And now he's still in the hospital. I've been trying to reach out to his manager, Jason House, who has been kind of my link to this story and providing updates, but he has not gone back to me over the last couple of days, and I completely understand that. There have been reports that I've been unable to confirm that he has been making some improvements,

and that at one time, he was on life support and showing no signs of brain activity, and now it is the opposite. Unfortunately, I have been unable to confirm these reports, but I'm hoping that they are, in fact, true. And I can completely understand why they have been, you know, trying to control the information that has been out because at first, from his manager to his coach, I mean, a lot of people were saying that he had passed, and that is very unfortunate. In fact, I even tweeted out that he had passed, and I felt horrible about that.

got it from his manager, and that's why I tweeted out, according to his manager, Jason House. And after seeing his coach, Colin Oyama, also right on Facebook that he had passed, I mean, it was right there. But thankfully, those pieces of information were incorrect. And now here we are on a Monday afternoon, and we are still hoping and praying that he's able to pull through. A great guy. We've had him on the show before. I tweeted out a video about him and his... his spirit and his heart and he has this great relationship with this young girl in California that he is a really great guy and it's a devastating and heartbreaking story and we're hoping that he'll be able to pull through and we want to wish our best to him and his family and want to

give them I know a lot of people keep asking for an update but trying to give them their space but also give you as many updates as possible but right now as we currently stand do know that is in the hospital and not sure what else, what kind of improvements he has made because the information right now is limited. Unless I hear it from his manager, anyone close to him, can't put it out there because there have been enough false reports at this time. But thank God, he is still alive, still fighting as we expect him to, and we hope the best for him. So a sad story, but hopefully one that turns out to be good and we'll be seeing Shane Dow Rosario. Maybe, you know, back in the UFC, back fighting. Who knows?

but we just want them to get well and rebound from this and make a full recovery. With that being said, this past weekend was an interesting one in the UFC. The Ultimate Fighter finale, they crown two new champions as far as the tough competition is concerned, Giuliana Pena, who you heard on this particular show last week, and then Chris Holdsworth, who won the men's contract, and I think they were the two most deserving winners, right? I mean, as far as the competition, they deserved it the most. Would you agree?

It depends on what you mean by deserved. What does that entail? They showed the most promise. They had the best performances. They represented themselves well on the show. I mean, others did as well. But as far as performances are concerned, they knocked it out of the park, right? 100%.

I wouldn't even say deserve because that gives it a sense that they were handed. something, they took it. They showed that they were the best competitors in the house and, you know, they proved that again on the finale. What did you think of the finale? It got a little heat. The, uh, the competition. As far as the fights themselves, I had no problem with it. Last three fights were tremendous, right? I mean, you can't complain about those. Um, what did you think of the, uh, Pennington Monteferey fight? Because at the time, I, uh, I tweeted that I thought it was the fight of the night thus far.

And boy, oh boy, did I piss off a lot of people? Holy moly did I piss off people by saying that. I wouldn't go as far as saying it was fight of the night, but I didn't have as much of a problem with it as everybody else. People seemed to be... They were embarrassed. They were shocked. They were overly critical, in my opinion, of Roxanne.

I didn't think she looked that bad, honestly. I mean, we know Roxanne. We've seen her for almost her entire career. So it's not like, you know, We expected her to come out there and be this kind of freak athlete who overpowers people. She is what she is at this point, and I didn't think it was that bad of performance, honestly. Fight of the night, definitely not, in my opinion. All right, but it wasn't so crazy.

No, I'm with you. I think that people were being overly critical. It was entertaining, right? I mean, I was entertained. I was entertained. She survived the rear naked choke, I believe it was. No, it was guillotine. At the end of the third round, I thought Pennington.

continues to improve as a striker first time with that camp, Mark Fiore. I mean, it wasn't a dud. Okay, maybe it wasn't the fight of the night, but I enjoyed it. No, it wasn't a dud, and I don't think any of the fights were really that bad. We've seen much worse fights and probably worse cards in terms of fighting only. The problem was the pace of that card was absolutely dreadful.

It was the worst product that I've ever seen. The fights themselves weren't the worst, but it was the worst UFC product as a whole. I just, it was too many commercials, too many breaks. It was really tough to get through the entire card, but not because of the fights. I didn't think the fights were that bad, honestly. And it was also, usually the free shows don't end at 1 a.m. Eastern time. Yeah, it went really late.

The main card started at 10, so it was the same time frame as a pay-per-view. I felt the same being there, felt like, wow, because, you know, they would go, they would kind of preview a fight with a package, coming out of a commercial, then go to a commercial, and then go to the intros. And I understand what you're saying. But it felt like just the one thing that I just can't stand about the MMA community. And I love the M&A community. And I would never want to go to any other community, as I've said, on this show.

But the negativity and the snark and the quote-unquote jokes. Like what happened to just like reporting, comment? And I'm talking more about like, you know, not the fans because they could say whatever they want, but the media and the people around the sport, it's just so negative all the time. Why does it have to be so negative all the time? And it's not just UFC. I mean, I think they're way too negative about Bellator,

way too negative. I guarantee you when World Series of Fighting has their event this weekend, there'll be tons of jokes, tons of snark. Why does it have to be like that? I think that's less symptomatic of MMA in particular. That's just Twitter. I think it's the internet. It's how the internet has evolved,

and you'll see that for every kind of, a sport. You'll see that for every kind of big event. Everybody wants to be first. Everybody wants to have the funniest take. And it's, you know, a look at me society. And I don't pretend that I'm not part of it. I grew up in this in this age of technology. And I definitely, I feel compelled to express my opinion on Twitter, whether people are, you know, liking it or not. And I feel it a lot. But why can it just be straight opinion? I'm not talking about you here in particular. But why can't it just be like, I thought this fight was bad because, I thought this fight was good because. Nobody's going to share that. Nobody's going to favor it. It's not going to go viral.

I mean, but regardless of, you know, the justifications for it, I think that's more symptomatic of just the current era than, than MMA in particular. I'm much more aware of it in MMA because that's what I follow most closely. It doesn't, it doesn't irk me as much as it appears to irk you. drives me nuts. Drives me insane. And it's not criticism about me. You can say whatever the hell you want. I saw people criticizing me about the Pennington and Modifery comment.

I really, and I know people say this, I used to care a lot about this. I really truly don't. I just, I hate when I go on my feed, and it's just all negativity, all snark. I mean, they'll never mention it seems like when it's a great moment or a great story, something. It's just all criticism, all the time. And again, I've said it. It drives me nuts when there's a Bel-Tor fight. It's all negativity.

All negativity. Come on. Enough. Enough. You don't always have to be a comedian. You don't always have to be a critic, so to speak, whatever. It just drives me nuts. It drives me nuts.

And yes, I agree with this one guy here. Swiss kin. I don't like the Civil Wyman promo. Oh, boy. We saw that 100 times. You see, I didn't get to see all the stuff that you guys saw, and I didn't see the commercials, but I've seen that promo,

and you know what I don't like about it? It drags. And there's no shift in the music when he knocks him out. Like, it's the same song. It's just, like, there's no changing of the guard. The Hendrix, GSP one was great with that kind of mellow music, but it doesn't work for this one. And I'm not liking the posters, how they're all the same,

where there's one guy point, like, right here, right here. If you notice, Can you see this? Can you see this right here? If you notice, right here you go. Yep. This is 165. If you notice 166, 167, 168, it's all the same format, all the same picture. Look at them. Go look at the posters. Why are they sticking to this?

This one guy punching this way, one guy punching that way. It was nice once or twice, but it's too much. See, I can be critical, but I think that's smart criticism. that's that's that's that's that's um that's thoughtful criticism it's not just being a critic for the sake of a couple of artis you know what I'm saying understood um all right so ultimate fighters in the books there's a very big weekend coming up as I mentioned tons of events one-fc UFC UFC legacy cage warriors and victor World Series of fighting holy moly there's a lot and there are a bunch more pancreas has a show uh KSW has a show

You might even have a question about all of them. Wow. But I want to know. You know, we still have people who like the bets and the picks and things like that. And I do too. And I've been very much into the word and the concept of the parlay. I like the parlay very much. I think it's fun.

Someone had a parley recently. It's definitely a more fun bet than just straight bets. Now, it kind of sucks when your first fight loses and you're pretty much done for the night. But I think this is a perfect time Because the UFC card is great I actually really like this card And I think it's totally flying under the radar And it's a victim of just

You know, a lot of events And you can't, you've got to promote one at a time But I think this is a fun weekend To make a parley Can you make a parley that stretches From one card to the next Or does it have to stick with one card? I mean that that varies by book

But five dimes, the one that we've been using Like the lines for, You can make parleyes across events well that's fantastic I think it would be fun I want to challenge you and this is not like my typical challenge I just want I want you to

to share with us a parlay that stretches from at least three of these cards UFC WSOF and Victa WNFC whatever you want but I think it would be fun to kind of go from one to the next you know what I'm saying

yeah I mean I can do that let me take a look at the lines here and I understand at least I checked last night a lot of the lines aren't out Yeah, there's only lines for UFC That's it But what I can do is

I'll just throw out some people I like And maybe come Wednesday Thursday When the lines do come out I need to tweet I can tweet something out I might even get in on it I don't know if that's legal

So I might won't I won't get in on it But I'll follow along Is it legal? Who knows? I think it should be All this stuff confuses me What do you like? Let me take a look

Well for the lines that are out Nothing is really like striking my fancy. Mark Hunt plus 125, Silva the favorite, minus 155. I think Hunt's

pretty live dog in that one. I think he's going to have a good chance of knocking him out. For that one, I'd probably say when the line for that fight

not going to distance comes out, that's one that you should probably play. Tohuna and Shogun, that's the only other line out from this weekend's action.

Shogun is actually the underd even money and Tehuna is minus 120. What? Shogun is the underdog? I think at this point in his career, that's kind of accurate, honestly. Man, you got to go with Shogun. Shogun is a underdog against Tihuna?

Tehuna looks to be the more athletic, more aggressive, more hungry fighter at this point. I'm not ready to write him off just yet. Fair. And if it does stay standing, it's not like, you know, that's not. not Shogun's wheelhouse. And I don't see any reason why it shouldn't stay standing. I would probably stay away from that one because my instinct, say, Tohuna's going to win relatively easily just based on how Shogun has looked recently.

But since it's going to stay standing, most likely, Shogun's definitely got a good shot. So I'd probably stay away from now. It is weird that Shogun is even fighting on a free card like this and completely flying under the radar. Yeah. Anything else? His stock is down right now.

Well, those are the only ones with lines. Oh, okay. I mean, looking at the card, Mizugaki over Fan, that's kind of a lock. If I'm going to tweet out a party, he's, Mizugaki is probably going to be a part of it.

No love for Namfran. I don't see any ways he wins that fight against Mizugaki. I think fan is a fantastic personality and a really, really tough fighter. There I say he's fantastic. P-H-A-N-Tast. but I don't think he has any advantages in that fight I would play Mizugaki

The line's probably going to be pretty outrageous Bader over Perosh That's another one I'd lean heavily toward Bader But the line's probably going to be pretty much in his favor Can I say something other than the Mark Hunt fight I'm looking forward to this fight more than any fight this weekend I just love Anthony Perosh I mean how do you not love this guy

The Flying Hippo coming off that knockout He's unbelievable His interviews are great He's like the most unlikely UFC fighter. Remember, he got into the UFC one week's notice against Miracle Crow Cop back at UFC 110. And he's fighting Ryan Bader? This is fantastic. I love that fight.

Yeah, it's fun. It's very fun. In Australia, to booth. I think that card is fun. It's going to be a good card. It's a great card. In terms of betting, I mean, I'd have to see the lines, but probably if I'm going to do a parley involving that card, it's probably be Mizugaki because he seems pretty likely.

I wonder who will be the favorite in the Pat Barry, and I hope Pat Barry made it. I mean, he's still probably in transit. He was very worried about his flight last week, but the Soa Palleli versus... It's probably going to be close. That's a fun fight. That's a fun fight. Hopefully Soa is healthy. I like that fight.

I was very much looking forward to the Alex Casares versus Mitch Gagnon fight, but unfortunately that's been taken off the card. Alex Garcia making his UFC debut. I'm interested in seeing that. So those are a few fights, but what about Saturday? And by the way, what are you going to watch? Invicta, World Series, or nothing? Watch them all.

That's how I do. All, baby. Oh, yeah. Which card do you like better? I'll be honest. I love Invicta. I've said this before on the show. Sure, sure.

I've seen all the cards. Invicta's probably going to be my favorite of the night. Those cards always deliver. But Caleb Starns is fighting for World Series fighting. How about that? No, that kind of just... It's kind of flown under the radar. Nowhere.

Yeah, because of the whole... Canadian thing, but Nick Newell, that's also... I mean, that's another one that, like, if you're going to parlay, Newell's probably a good bet. Carrion. Also known as Caracanian. Caracanian. That's a good fight.

Georgie Caracanian versus Lance Palmer of Team Alpha Male, looking to extend their winning ways and cement the fact that Dway is, in fact, the coach of the year, fighting for their first featherweight title. Jesse Taylor versus Elvis Mutapcich in their middle-weight. That's a close one. I think, wait, no, odds are now for that.

If I remember last time, the odds were relatively close. Yeah, because they were supposed to fight in September than that whole pill, weird situation in New Jersey. But I'm okay with it. I'm not too torn up about the fact that the Anthony Johnson,

my Kyle fight, has been taken off the main card. didn't really care too much about that that fight but evict does a good card too that's a great card three title fights three title fights yes I know but I just think the whole online

the pay-per-view it's just it's hurting them right now they need to figure that out I mean that's you know and also for them to shannon nap is the financial backer I mean you need more than you know no disrespect someone needs to come in

and help them out somebody tweeted out something funny I forget who it was but they said you know she's the president She's the owner. She's the matchmaker. She's probably working the cameras. She's probably refereeing.

Yes. Yeah, she needs to offload a little bit. But I mean, as far as the product, I've had no complaints about any Invicta card I've seen. Okay, so by Thursday, you'll give us a parlay. I'll give something. How many fights? How many fights in this parlay? Could be one from each.

Could be two or three from each? Give me something fun. It'll be fun. I'll make a good one. It won't be just saved. it'll be something fun. Okay, and a couple more things before we get to the questions. A good friend of mine, Ben Popper, who fights,

who works for the verge. He writes for the verge, which is the sister's side of ours. He has a great feature coming out about Mr. Nick Newell. And so check that out. That will come out before the fight on Saturday night. A lot of people asking me, I don't think this will come up in the questions because it can't.

came out not too long ago. A lot of people asked me about Nate Diaz's pay, why he made so much less. Don't put too much stock into that. You know what I'm saying? People get paid more than what is reported. And speaking of the Diaz brothers, how about this? I squash my beef with both of them this weekend.

You saw Nate and I embrace on Fox Sports 2, and then I saw Nick Diaz backstage after the event, and we hugged. We actually hugged. We spoke, and I can confirm, you know, because Dana White said in July that he wanted to slap me. He did not slap me. And we had a very nice conversation. We exchanged pleasantries, and it was great.

It warmed my heart. I was very happy to see him and squash whatever issue we had. And I told him how I felt about him and how I felt about his brother and congratulated him. And it was very nice. And I'm very happy that that is behind us. Let me jump in here for one second. Okay. Now, was the hug, like the hug that Nate Diaz gave.

gave you right before you did the interview. Yes, that was a, you know, that was a Stockton hug. It wasn't your, your typical, you know,

warm embrace, but coming from them, it was, it meant the world. And actually, Nick was, he, he was with some other guys,

and he bumped into John Anick and Kenny Florean, and they talked, and I didn't look him in the eye, just looked away. I didn't want to create a commotion. I didn't want to create any kind of issue. I just looked away and he stuck his hand out like this, both arms, open arms, to give me a hug.

He said, come here. Tug it out. Let's talk. Touching. It was very nice. So as far as I'm concerned, I think as we approach the end of the year, all my beefs have been settled. It's true.

Diaz brothers were good. Tito Ortiz were good. Ben Asperin were good. I hope I don't have to add Ronda Rousey to that list. But I think we're good. Over the last two years, you've really knocked them off. I've really knocked them off. So please, no more beefs.

I want to be friends with everyone. Okay, let's go to the questions. All right. Speaking of the Diaz brothers, our first question. Oh, wait, wait. Before we get to the questions, let's tell the people what's at stake. We'll do it before the Twitter questions. These are from the website.

Sure. What's next for Nate Diaz? How impressed were you with his domination of Maynard? I was so impressed with Nate Diaz. as I said on the Post Fight show, which New York Rick actually crapped all over, right? You didn't like that post-fight show. Let me set the record straight. You said it.

I'm not a fan of the open format, three hosts sitting there. Sure. You know, let's bring in our buddy and talk about, oh, I used to train with you, and now you're sitting next to me. Now you're just being a hater. You're being like the people on Twitter. I mean, you couldn't be happy about the fact that I was on the post-fight show. I was sitting there in a director's chair alongside Anik and Florian. Let's not even talk about those directors chair.

How you look like you're on a baby high chair, kicking your legs back and forth. Anyway, I was very impressed. I thought it was his best performance since that stretch that he had against Gomi, Saroni, Jim Miller. Remember, those were the fights that got him a title shot. And let's be honest, a lot of people were doubting Nate Diaz. He did not have a good performance against Benson. He did not have a good performance against Josh Thompson. Comes back and T-KOs, Gray Maynard on the feet.

in the first round, came out like a man possessed. He looked so good. And let me tell you, usually I have to sit in the back and watch the fights on a small monitor. And it's fun. I have no problems with it. And I get to talk to the fighters. But for this fight, because I was going to be on the post-fight show, they actually brought me to literally, like, I'm sitting, right here where, you know, the end of this table is. I was that close to the cage.

And to see the fight from that vantage point, I can't remember the last time. I think the last time I watched a fight in its entirety. In the arena, sitting down, was BJ Penn Nick Diaz. Because ever since then, doing the Fox stuff, it just hasn't worked out. And that's fine. I'm not complaining. I'm happy not stepping foot inside the arena because I'm doing fun things backstage. But I got to watch this one up close to personal.

It was just amazing to be that close. And I think the fight should have been stopped at least five to ten seconds earlier. But that being said, I was blown away by Diaz's performance, the way he came back, and I even enjoyed his post-fight interview that much. more. It was fantastic. I loved it. I loved everything about it. So congratulations him. Does anyone ask about Gray Maynard? Next question will be about Gray. And we'll have a question about his post-fight interview. Okay. Our next question, should Gray Maynard retire? Should the bully retire for the sake of his health? He's 34 and starting to look like Chuck during his decline, suffering worrisome

knockouts in three of his last four fights. Nate does a lot of things, but a power puncher isn't one of them. And that's one thing I also wanted to mention. This is a guy. Let me go back to his record for a second. I mean, TKO... What's the last time you TKO someone? Roy Markham. Roy Markham at UFC 111. Right?

Yeah, that was the last time. It doesn't have a lot on his record. So it's a great point. And you know what? I didn't realize Graham Maynor was 34 years old. Wow. Three of his last four fights have ended via knockout,

and he was on the wrong end of those knockouts. actually right here is where it really all started right in back to me. I don't know if you could see it, the Frankie Edgar fight at UFC 136. And that knockout was so perfect. And it landed so flush. Remember him? And prior to that, I'm not even sure if he's ever been knocked down prior to that. I mean, Gray Maynard had a very tough chin, was a very tough guy to knock down.

And ever since then, he had the Guida fight. It wasn't a great fight. But he won. Let's not take it away from him. ever since then his chin has been suspect and i would like to see him walk away uh those are three really really brutal knockouts um t j grant one of course of course i i always feel weird about telling an athlete went to walk away it's it's it's none of my business who the hell am i to give him advice but just from a uh an outsider watching him i don't want to see someone

get knocked out like that in a span of two years, three times. It's a lot. I mean, there's a few things here. First is I think Gray's chin is still pretty strong, just proven by the fact that he's never actually unconscious. He's always... Man, I saw those eyes. I saw the way he was after that.

And also, Nate Diaz, T.J. Grant, and Frankie Edgar aren't known to be knockout artists. Agreed. And it's worrisome that he's being, you know, rocked like this. But, you know, there's points where guys start to have their lights turned out and go out instantly. And Gray's still, you know, he's still not getting his lights turned out completely. It's worrisome and I don't want to see that happen. But I think it's not like other cases that we've seen before. And the other thing is, you know.

Two knockouts in two minutes. They both happen around two-minute mark of the first round against guys who aren't known for their knockout. In no way am I advocating that, you know, this is a good thing or, you know, he should continue to fight with the style. I'm just saying that maybe his chin, maybe this is who he was before. And up to this point, he's been much more of a wrestler. And he hasn't had his chin tested in that way. Now he's much more willing to stand with guys, and he's paying the consequences for that. Good point.

Why is he not using his wrestling as much? This fight, did he even try for a take down? Well, he had early success. He got Diaz down initially. Oh, he did, that's right. And I thought that's how the rest of the fight was going to look. Yeah. But then he stood up and started slugging with him.

But, you know, that one time when he took him down, I mean, Diaz kind of helped them out. Sure. Sort of pulled guard. Well, the Diaz brothers are not known for their takedown defense. But they do that. And I actually respect that. They just say, okay, come. Come to the ground.

I'm just not as ready to say that, you know, this is some kind of symptom any much more than I would say maybe this is, you know, what his chin was. and always will be. And it's still not a, it's, it's still worrisome. But I'd say that if he returns to his style, I think he can still have success. But he is, you know, he is getting older and, and you don't want to see somebody take that kind of damage. And it's, it's, the opponents that he's facing are the best guys. Sure, he is fighting the best of the best.

But is Graham Maynard going to want to climb the ladder at this point? had a couple of title shots. Unfortunately, so close to defeating Frank Yeager, UFC 125, even at 136 in that first round, so close. Great fighter,

great guy, has had some injuries, changed his life, he's a father now. I mean, that was just, it was tough. It's hard to watch.

And I think my point, my thing is I'm just trying not to retire somebody before they're ready to retire. Sure, that's tough. It's a tough thing for him to deal with. We'll see what happens.

Next question. So what did you think of Nate Diaz calling Gilbert, Gilbert Melendez, that is, and himself, the number one and number two lightweets in the world, and also calling out Thompson and Pettis saying they're going to beat their asses, and it's their division being Diaz and Melendez. Well, obviously, I don't agree. I think that Anthony Pettis is the best lightweight in the world. I think that you can make the case for Gilbert being number two over Benson Henderson. I think they're 2A and 2B. and I think if they fought, you know, 10 times, it could be 5-5 or 6-4 for one of the other. I haven't watched the fight in a while, but I did think way back in April that Gilbert, oh, so slightly won the fight. I mean, Nate, bless his soul, he lost to Josh Thompson. He lost the Benson. He's not going to fight Gilbert Melendez. So there was a great post-fight interview. I love when he said he was hungry and needed to get out of there

and didn't really want to talk to John Attic anymore. I loved everything about it. It was great. That's why we love the Diaz brothers. That's them in a nutshell right there. But I don't agree. And by the way, I don't expect him to say this is the fourth and fifth best lightweight in the world. I don't expect it to say that either.

They're definitely in the top 10. They're definitely in the top five. They're in the top five. I'd say that. But they're not one and two. Our next question, the Khorasani versus B. Blanco DQ, did you agree with the DQ decision from the ref? In my opinion, it is really hard to judge what is an intentional foul in MMA.

That's the thing. That's the thing. And how about this? My good friend J.B. Globe M.M.A. just tweeted a picture of him watching us in France on his iPad with fusili pasta and cheese and tomato sauce and some kind of breadstick. That is an unbelievable picture right there. It almost looks like he's in a restaurant. Please update me on this situation because the tablecloth is like the checkered Italian tablecloth.

and that's pretty cool if you're watching us in a restaurant. But anyway, and we appreciate you joining us from France. Bonsoir. So, Akira Khorasani, I felt horrible for him and his team. His coach, by the way, Roger Mamadav actually runs Williamsburg MMA, which is literally a two-minute walk from where I live. So, you know, I felt bad, especially you have a long training camp. He had been out with an injury.

You come back in what's like the 30-second fight and your nose is broken. He tweeted a gruesome picture. of his nose. I have a hard time, you know, saying what is intentional or not because, I mean, only one person can truly admit that, and that's Maximo Blanco. Now, he does have a history of these things, and it was very clear, you know, I heard Shuhara say to the referee that he was on his way up. It was pretty clear. I mean, this was not Ross Pearson, Melvin Galard. It was pretty clear that, you know, he was a downed opponent. So, honestly, I didn't have a huge problem.

DQ, give the other guy the win. Could it have been a no contest and say it was unintentional? I guess, but it seemed pretty clear to me that he was a downed opponent. What do you think? Sorry, headphone issue. Did you ask me what I thought of the DQ? Yeah, because I was saying I thought it was pretty clear that he was a downed opponent, and there was no gray area there like the Ross Pearson and Melvin Gleard fight.

And remember, let's not forget, this happened. very quickly. It's tough to truly say what's intentional or not, but it looked to me like it was clear he was down. I feel like there's situations where somebody tries to time it so that when they are getting up, that's when it lands. And

I don't think it was intentional in the sense that he was like, oh, his hand is down, let me ignore this, let me knee him in the head. I think it was more what I'm talking about where he was trying to time it so that his hand was just coming up because literally milliseconds later is when

the hand does come up and he would have been it would have been a legal knee. So I think that this is a case where the DQ was warranted because he had his hand down at the time it was starting to be thrown. And there's there's really no leeway. I think that it should be a DQ. But I don't think it was intentional in the sense that he was trying to get away with something or intentionally harm Akira. The weird thing is is saying intentional or not, but I do think that when someone gets blasted like that and it is, clearly illegal, that the fair thing to do is to give them the win. I agree. And I think we shouldn't go by the history of no contests being ruled before,

because quite frankly, that shouldn't be a no contest. If somebody, if you view that somebody intentionally ended this fight with a knee that wasn't legal, the other person should win. That's what the rule should be. So citing, you know, no contest in the past or anything like that shouldn't really play into it. It should be a case-by-case basis. In this case, I think it was a DQ. Yeah. Next question. After watching Giuliana Pena and Rikosi fight,

should referees take into account how long is left and around when it comes to stoppages? Props to Mario for not playing, excuse me, for not paying attention to that and prioritizing fighter safety. Absolutely not. They shouldn't pay attention to the clock. They shouldn't care if there is four minutes and 30 seconds left. They shouldn't care if there's a second left, a millisecond left. I mean, the clock means nothing when you're a referee, in my opinion. in terms of the fact that you have to be locked in on the moment and understand that if there's someone in a dangerous position,

there's someone who is close to being finished, you have to be paying attention to that. Then the round ends, then you stop it. But you can't say, I'm going to give her that extra two seconds because the round is almost over and I'm going to give her a chance to recover. No, that's actually being careless. Mario Yamasaki did the right thing. And we don't get to say that much on the show, so we should. celebrate that. That makes a third.

I agree entirely. Yeah. If it's five, if it's four, 59 left or one second left, it should be treated exactly the same way. And it was. So props to Mario Yamasaki. Our next question on the tolerance of quote unquote, pouty Ronda Rousey. Hi, Ariel. To me, Rhonda's post-tuff finale interview this past weekend was yet another example of, as Dana

puts it, Rhonda being Ronda. She sat there and pouted and gave some, I don't want. want to be here like answers, as per usual, like a child, instead of acting like the professional champion, grown woman that she is? Do you believe this type of attitude can slash should continue considering she's the face of women's MMA? Well, you know, a lot of people ask me about this, and I have said that I had no problem with the interview, because at the end of the day, this is prize fighting, and character sell. Now, you can't tell me that you don't want to see her fight after watching these interviews. You may want to see her get her ass kicked, but you still

want to see her fight. You're not indifferent to her. And if it was all rosy and it was all, you know, I'm just happy to be here and all that, it would be very boring. And people are almost offended on my behalf that she said those things to me. I've always said it. And I'll say it again. The interviews are a privilege. They don't have to be there. Of course, people ask them to be their producers, UFC and things like that. If they just want to say yes or no, that's their prerogative. I'll never be offended by what someone says to me in an interview because at the end of the day, they are giving us their time. If that's the way she wants to be portrayed, power to her.

I saw this documentary yesterday, 30 for 30, called Nomaz, about Roberta Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard. Roberta Duran was a crazy guy. People were scared of him, but he made things interesting. He was the antithesis of Sugar Ray Leonard. And Ronda Rousey right now is the antithesis of Misha Tate. I'm chalking this up to Misha Tate just bringing out the worst in her. This was not the Ronda Rousey who fought Liz Karmouche.

This was not the Ronda Rousey who even fought Misha Tate the first time. I think she's likable. I think she's typically approachable. I think that she's typically a good interview. She has not been that ever since the Ultimate Fighter experience ended, and we knew that she was going to fight Misha Tate again. I think Misha brings out the worst in her. I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Let's see if this keeps up. Is she being burnt at both? ends? Is she doing too much? Is she doing the movies and the training for the fight and tough and all that? Is it just a little too much for her? We'll find out. But, you know, she has implied that if Katzenegano was the coach, she would not be as worked up. Well, let's find out. If she fights Katzenegano next, let's see how she acts. But right now I'm going to choke, I'm going to chalk it up to her getting, you know, emotional about, you know, her fighters losing. She did not have a good showing. You know, some have also mentioned the fact that the actor Paul Walker, who she worked with on the Fast and Furious film that she filmed recently, that he, you know, unfortunately passed away on Saturday night.

I could totally understand if that affected her. And let's not say that, you know, she's only been acting this way on that night. She's been this way, I mean, in Boston when they did the media screening for the first episode, she was not in the best of moods. I'm going to chalk it up to her not being happy around. Misha Tate, but guess what? This is the fight game. This is prize fighting and character sell. It's why we like the Diaz brothers. Why do we love when Nick shows up to a press conference? And Nate shows up to a press conference and they say, she's telling it how she sees it. I don't think it's an act. And I can't get if, I'm still not sure if she's a genius

or just kind of rough around the edges and she doesn't know that when the camera's on, I should kind of pretend like I want to be there. But either way, I don't really care. because I think people are talking about this fight now more so than the main event. I think that's going to change come mid-December or so. But right now, people are talking about that clip. People are talking about the interview with, you know, Misha and Anick in the middle of the broadcast. And it doesn't bother me. Characters are what this great sport and combat sports are all about.

People like Gene LaBelle, people like Mike Tyson, people like Roberta Duran, people like Hector Camacho. I mean, the list goes on and on. characters are what intrigues us. We don't want PC, Alex Rodriguez, Kobe Bryant, although he's changed a lot. LeBron James, although he's changed a bit. You know what I'm saying? When these guys were criticized a lot in their younger days, because they were just a little too PC. They were two packaged. They had a PR person in back of them playing them like a puppet. Clearly, Rhonda doesn't have that, or she's not listening to those people. But I don't mind. Do I wish she didn't say, oh, you know, I want to go out, you know, I want to be out in the locker room talking to my fighters.

Also, not really, honestly. I thought it was interesting. Wow, no one said that before. She's honest. She didn't want to be there. She told us, and she left. And also, I see a lot of people saying that John kind of dismissed her. That was the plan.

The time had been up. And because she lost, Misha was going to stick around with Julian Pania. By the way, Julianne Pena doing a fantastic job of selling. I want to see Julian Pena fight Rhonda after Misha. The things that she was saying, I mean, she's getting me really into that fight. Maybe they'll mean more pouty Ronda Rousey, as shut your face put it. But I really don't have a problem. What do you think?

I mean, does this bother you? I know I've talked about the double turn and all of that, but I think that at the end of the day, this is who she is. She may say the Kim Kardashian thing, but I think this is who she is. Honestly, I don't think that she's playing a character. I don't mind it. We care. And that's all that they really need.

I feel the same way as, as I said, when people started turning against her on tough and saying, you know, who is this new Ronda Rousey? This is the same Ronda Rousey. I couldn't care less if people don't like her or do like her. It doesn't affect me. I like her being herself. I'd much rather her be herself and me not like her. then like her for not, you know, for being some kind of act being put on and then finding out that that's not who she is. I personally, I like her personality. I don't find it, you know,

off-putting just because it's a realistic character, you know, it's not, it's not, it's not, she doesn't take it too far. It seems like everything's within the realm of who she really is. So I have no problem with it, never did have a problem with it. Pre-tuff, post tough. I like Ronda Rousey. Now, I will admit, I mean, she's changed a little bit. And then I think it's maybe because of her disdain for Misha Tate. What, in what way? Something I mean, when we, when we used to talk about, she was, I mean, I don't think, and I know she's going through a lot, but I don't think that, you know, we would ever get her on our show now. She was very. You don't think we would ever have her on the show? I don't think she would

do an interview? I don't think she would agree to it. I think she's kind of done with the media. I think she's tired of talking to the media. I think she's tired of being asked certain questions. That makes sense to me. Yeah, it makes sense, but I'm saying she's changed. I mean, at the beginning, she was kind of lively, smiley. I mean, when's the last time you saw Ronner Rousey smile in public? Now is that, you know, putting the cart before the horse?

Because if us turning against, or by us, I'm talking about the general perception of her, of people that she hears from, if we've turned against her, And that has led her to change. But she doesn't care. She shouldn't care. She always says she doesn't care about what people think of her. But she has gone on Twitter and sort of implied that she does listen to these things. I just think, you know, she's talking about retirement.

My point is I do feel like her public perception has changed. And people are reacting to her differently, right? I mean, that's a fact. But as long as you care, as long as you still care, it's not the bad kind of heat, then it doesn't really matter. I mean, why are people so worried about, you know, look, I'll tell you this much. The only way she may suffer in all of this is if sponsors don't want to be affiliated with her. If sponsors are saying, you know, this person is not a good representation of our product, and she loses out because she stood to make a lot of money.

She was a tremendous ambassador for the sport. Then it could be a problem worth really discussing on her end and worrying about. But, you know, so that will force her to just. change until that point. Yeah. And who knows if it's happened yet? Who knows if it's happened? But I, and I hope this doesn't come across as like us.

I feel like there's a lot of ass kissing, especially with the Diaz brothers. And, you know, I feel like there's a lot of people who kind of, in some ways, you know, root for them. You know what I'm saying? Well, our next question is just about that. Okay. Oh, wow. But I just want to say, I hope this doesn't come across that way.

But I just feel like it's kind of, it's funny how we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, criticize people for being fake, and then when they shows who they are, we criticize them as well. I agree. It's a fight game. Never will have a problem with Ron Dorsey's personality. Well, you can't say never will. I mean, she's, you know. Okay.

I wasn't a huge fan of that, that, that Newtown conspiracy video that she tweeted out. I don't think someone in her position should do something like that. Sure. I mean, you can have a problem. Okay, I'll say this. I don't have a problem with her being who she is and expressing herself that way. I won't agree with everything she does. I don't agree with necessarily the way she did those interviews,

but I don't have a problem with it. If that's how she wants to do it, more power to her. Not my place. Please don't feel outraged on my behalf because I like that stuff. That tension, I'll take it every day. Here's our next question. We touched on this in bits and pieces regarding fans' obsession with likability. It seems that fans overreact negatively to every little thing that Rhonda does.

Do you see a double standard in the way they react to Rhonda's behavior versus the way they almost celebrate the very similar antics of the Diaz brothers? Sure. I mean, I do think some people criticize the Diaz brothers. I mean, a lot of people criticize the Diaz brothers. But I was referring more to the media. I feel like the media never calls them out. And the media kind of roots for them in a weird way.

There's a lot of celebrating. of the very same things that Rhonda does and the way she acts and portrays herself. And you don't see that for whatever reason. Perhaps because she's a woman and obviously they're men. I do think that fans are maybe a little uncomfortable with a woman acting so rough and tough and they'll be like, yeah, it's cool that a male fighter would do that.

It's very foreign. We haven't seen this before. and we're not really used to it. And, you know, I mean, in women's tennis or women's golf, you don't really see this. So where else do you see, you know, woman athletes acting like this? You don't. And that's why I think it's very, it's something that people need to get used to and wrap their head around. And that's why they react the way they are.

And I don't blame people. Look, let's be honest. She's not acting like the Queen of England, you know. I'm just saying it's the fight game, and I think this stuff is what makes the fight game fun. But I don't begrudge people for feeling like she's unprofessional or acting out of line or rude. I mean, that's you're entitled to your opinion. But and certain people can rub you the wrong way when they're doing the exact same thing as someone else. That happens as well.

But what I wanted to say earlier was I do feel like a lot of people give the Diaz brothers a pass and are very hard on her. And they, for all intents of purposes, do the same thing. they act the same way. What do you mean by a pass? Like what's an example of something? I was reading a lot of things last week and I've read a lot of things. I see and the people,

everyone loves the Diaz brothers, loves them. I mean, people seem to love Ronda Rousey too. She has haters and the Diaz brothers have people who don't like them as well. Her curating is a lot lower than it was this time last year. She's out in front right now. The Diaz brothers aren't. out in the public like Ronda is right now.

When Nick, you know, no-showed the press conference and got pulled from a title fight, the talk about Nick Diaz was not positive. It wasn't a love fest. And I feel like he got criticism in the same way that Ronda's getting now. If Ronda had a conference call,

like that one with GSP and Diaz, you remember that one? A week before the fight when he went off about the pampering and whatnot. If Ronda did the same thing, I guarantee you it would not be received the same way that the Diaz went Diaz was celebrated

again I love that stuff that's what the fight game's all about but I don't think people would have reacted the same way you think it would be more she went on some kind of rant what is she talking about and by the way what Giuliana said about her

about that she kind of lifts her I mean it comes across that way it absolutely comes across that way and I hope I'm not being I'm not confusing you it comes across that way but I still like it because you need good guys and bad guys You need friction, you need tension.

That stuff is what makes... That makes you want to pay $55 on a Saturday night to watch them fight. I guarantee you more people are interested in that fight now because she's acting this way than they were six months ago. And that's why I say, I don't know if she's a genius or not, but it's working. Whatever she's doing is working.

It might hurt her in the pocket later with sponsors. It might turn into Xbox heat, bad heat. I had Xbox go nuts on me on Twitter because someone brought this up, but it's true. It's a term. Xbox heat, bad heat. It's the kind of heat that makes you want to change the channel.

Right now, if you're about to change, if a show's about to come on and you know the Misha Tate and Ronda Rouse you are going to be on doing an interview, I guarantee you, you're not changing the channel. You want to see how awkward it's going to get. You want to see how tense it's going to get. I do. I do as well.

So, I hope that makes sense. Here's our next question. Why do you think Shinya Aoki declined the UFC, and how do you think he'd go in the featherweight division? Okay, so I have information on this. let me go into my text messages. I was conversing with someone at the UFC about this. Last week, the report came out that Shinyeoki turned down a deal from the UFC.

Oh, here it is. What I was told, UFC made an offer. They started talking, and then it abruptly stopped because his other Japanese manager booked him a fight in Japan. Aoki did get an initial offer, but he was booked in Japan. and the talks couldn't continue because he had another fight. So there was no real offer that was turned down.

What I was told from the UFC was that it was kind of taken off the table. Now, here's my question. On all honesty, why do we care? Do you really care to see Shinneioki in the UFC? Yes. Really? I mean, he's one of the top...

Lost Eddie Alvres, lost to Gilbert Melendez. I know they're top five, arguably. Yeah, they're both real. really, really good fighters. At 145, which he didn't look great at, right? How much can he really do? I feel like we still kind of fantasize, romanticize the Japanese fighters from, you know,

dream slash pride, and time and again, they don't deliver when coming to the U.S. I think Shinya Yui is still one of the best. And I mean, let's say, you know, it's like saying, do you still want to see Ben Ascran? I guess not because we haven't seen him up against the guys that you're talking about. But I mean, Ben Ascran is equally one-dimensional in the sense that Shinye-Uki is not going to light the world on fire with a striking. And we kind of know what he is at this point. Ben Asking deserves to be in the UFC way more than Shin-Yoki.

Fair enough. I agree with that statement. but I also think that it's worth, you know, putting him in the UFC and seeing if he can hang. Gilbert Melendez and Eddie Alvarez are incredible fighters, like the best of the best. So there's no shame in him, you know, not being able to beat those guys and still having a decent career in the UFC. Yeah, there's no shame. And first off, I mean, clearly they approached him. and I think it makes sense for their international expansion.

They have an event in Singapore. I mean, clearly there's interest there. How would Jerry was signed? And he also lost pretty badly to Gilbert Melendez. But, you know, everyone's like so up in arms like they let Fador go by. I just don't feel the same way about him. I didn't really see that as much as, I mean, people are much more up in arms about Ben Asker not being in the UFC than anything I saw for Shania. But personally, I think he's still a very good fighter.

I'd like to see him in the UFC, fighting the best of the best. And I think that, you know, he could be pretty good. Also, by the way, he could probably make a lot of, he probably makes a lot more money in one FC. Maybe he wants to, you know, get a few more big pay. I mean, they pay pretty well. He's also a great character to have a round. He's a great character. Yeah, that's true.

I just, you know, feels like a very, I don't know, 2010 story. I see what you mean. You know what he is. He's not changing. Right. And you've kind of seen it already. but I wouldn't mind seeing Shinha. I'd like to see him.

Next question. For Dana White's post, rest in peace, Shane Dosario, tweet, what are your thoughts on Dana White posting that on 1129 and not removing it after his family said, we have a chance, pray for us, etc.? I mean, look, like I said, I was given information from his manager. I know Dana was given information. He doesn't just put this stuff out. I don't know why. I can't answer why he hasn't taken it down. I hated the fact that I put that out there,

and I hated the fact that I had to delete it, but I thought that that was the best thing to do. He had not passed. That's why I made sure to credit his manager with that information. And I just, I mean, I can't tell you how seriously I take that stuff. And that's when it's like Joe Schmoe versus Joe Schmoe in a fight at UFC.

fight night 65 life or death i mean that's on a whole other level times a thousand so i can't tell you how uh upset i was about that i can't speak for dana i don't know why i don't know what information he has it's a very sensitive issue and uh i can't uh i just i can't speak for him i really don't i appreciate the question and uh you know i can't say that i didn't think the same about not only that tweet, other tweets and other stories put out there, but I really have no idea, and I don't even want to speculate because this is such a sensitive issue that it's, I mean, this is way above our pay grade. This is our final question from the website regarding the super packed weekend of fights.

He wants you to rank these six events in order, and this is actually our first tag team question, because we have a second commenter underneath who added that Cage Warrior 60. is also going off this week. Oh, yeah. Our buddy Ulysses Gomez fighting. So we've got one FC, Fight Night, Invicta, KSW, WSOF, the boxing event, and... Oh, yes. A little Brooklyn bash, Polymenejee versus Zab Judah. Okay, rank them? Would one be the

the one I'm most interested in? I guess, right? Okay, well, you got to go UFC first, right? Do you agree? Do you agree? Yep. I'm going to go UFC, WSOF, Invicta, Cage Warriors. I like that fight, main event. I like the Brooklyn boxing match. I'll go that, and then I'll go 1FC, and then I'll go KSW. What do you think?

I'm pretty similar in there. I'd say UFC, then Invicta, then WSOF, Cage Warriors and 1FC interchangeable, then boxing and then KSW. All right. But the only reason Invict is not number one is because I think the UFC has more relevance to future stuff, whereas Invict is kind of self-contained. It has relevance in the sense that some of these fighters may be future U.S.C. fighters and things like that. Sure, sure.

No, it's a very good card. Very good. But, you know, I've always said, Nick Newell to me is must-see TV. must see TV he's fighting I'm more interested in Nick Newell fighting than the fights on the evicticter card now the card

you know stacked up against the WSOF card is way better better talent top to bottom but Nick Newell gives it the the edge it needed yep okay all right now

we are going to move on to the Twitter questions okay now tell them what's at stake so Ariel is holding the Ultimate Fight Collection 2013, which features over 200 fights and 50 hours of UFC action that took place from July 2012 to June 2013 in the Octagon. That's from our friends at Anchor Bay. For more information, you can follow Anchor Bay on Twitter

at Anchor underscore Bay. And it's a fantastic prize. We gave one of these away already, and here's the other one. It's like 150 bucks, right? I believe that's the MSRP. Yeah, yeah. MSRP. What does that mean?

Manufacturer suggested retail price. Wow, look at you. Come on, bro. This is at stake. Great holiday present. Who's going to get it? We'll find out in a minute. Let's start with this question.

Do you think Diaz versus Soroni in a rematch makes sense, both coming off wins, not too far apart? No, A, because Soroni is fighting Adriano Martins or Martins and, or Martines, and, And I feel like I just saw that fight, and it wasn't a good one. It was very one-sided. It was a very impressive performance by Nathan Diaz. I was at UFC 141. So, no, I'm not interested.

I could be convinced for this one. Next question. How many fights do you think Giuliana Pena will have to win before she gets a title shot? Oh, look at me in the background. Oh, that's my buddy Kyle, the dreaded Indiana Pacers fan. that's a good question she might be on the fast track this might be like the newer

the early days of the ultimate fighter I'm going to say three and she set she set herself up beautifully but she's not going to get one next and then I think she'll need at least two more after that including the title fight or three

and then a title fight that seems like a lot no I thought you said fast-tracked that's pretty fast for a tough winner That's John Dotson territory. I mean, the divisions are much more shallow. I mean, three fights is a lot in the U.S.C. No, but I could see her fighting like, oh, I don't know. Because not only does she have to win those three fights, but that's a progression.

Yeah, but you don't want to screw it up as well. You don't want to put her in there too early. Two to three, but you can't put her in there too quickly. Now, like I said, I'll gladly watch her versus Rousey next if Rousey wins. I think the beef is fantastic. I love everything about it. but I just don't see it happening. Okay.

By the way, the cameras here are flashing in there is a buzzing noise. Is this going to either explode or stop recording? Everything's fine. Okay. Carry on. Next question. Grant Rikosie, Roxy, and Peggy Morgan show that this year's tough pool was weak. Co-ed Dynamics aside is tough, still relevant.

Did you say dynamics? I don't know, did I? I might have. Dynamics. Yeah, that's a good question. Is tough still relevant? Well, I think it helps develop talent in these circumstances. Women's bantam weight, bantam weights, although only two men made it to the finals.

Middleweight, Walter weight. I mean, now they have the tough nations coming up. It's a lot of tough. It's a lot. And it could be a chore sometimes. And I just don't think it evolves enough. I just don't think that, you know, as I've said this many times, and I don't watch the real world anymore. I've officially graduated.

But at least it changed every season. Different city, different dynamic between the cast members, different jobs. I mean, the shows were very different. These are the exact same. The coaches changing just isn't enough. The only way I will fully get reinvested and tough is if they bring back the comeback season. Because I know these guys, and it's like a tournament, especially if it's for a title shop, but I don't see that happening in this day and age.

that would get me back in it. But if it's just the same old, same old Frank Yeager, BJ Penn, now I think it's good to use BJ on that platform and to put fights that, you know, came out of nowhere or that, you know, aren't, you know, real fights that are people are clamoring to see. That's a good outlet for them. But, you know, like Chale Vanley, it's going to be cool for one or two episodes, but I want to see that fight.

And oftentimes the fight and the feud fizzles by the time we get to the finale. This time with Misha and Ronda, I think it's been okay. But like John Jones and Chela, I felt like the feud fizzled by the time we got to the big title fight. So, I don't know. I think at some point, with so many events now, the fighters are being groomed on the shows. I don't think you need tough as much. It's good to get it. And we know about Jessica Rikosi way more than some of the other women in the UFC and Julia Pena of course. And that's great. That's its best use. But I just don't know if it's needed as much. Oh, yes. Our next question. Thoughts on the UFC online network. Does this further saturate the market?

What price point are you predicting for it? Okay, well, here's what you need to know about the UFC online network. This is what I know right now. There's no official name for it yet. There is no price point. established yet. It is the UFC's answer to Amazon Prime slash Netflix. It's going to be launched within the next month. It will have on-demand fights and live broadcasts. It will also have original programming. The international fight nights like Jimmy Manoa and Alexander Augustus and I hear will be on the network. It will only be available right now to Canada, USA, Australia, and New Zealand, the international tufts will be on the network. You will have access to the entire ZUFA library, UFC, WC, Pride, WFA, not sure about Strike Force, and more shows than ever before will be available. And that's what I know. That's according to the UFC. I think it makes a lot of sense. This is one step closer to running your own network. You can be your own programmer. All 50, 46, whatever, it's going to be fighting. nights, fight events, whatever, they can't all be on Fox and for whatever reason. And some of them,

like the Singapore one is going to take place at a normal time in Singapore. It's not going to be, you know, Sunday morning so they can cater to the U.S. market. So if you're a hardcore fan, you can watch it live or you can watch it on demand. And let's say it's $5. Let's say it's $5 a month. 100,000 people sign up. You give $500,000, right? My math is correct. Hopefully it's not too much. I have no idea what the price point is, but I think it's going to be success. Our next question. And by the way, towards the question,

to answer the question, does it saturate the market? I mean, that remains to be seen. Do I think, I mean, I've already told you what I think about all the fights, but to me, I get the impression for the fans that they're okay with it. I mean, I know the hardcores reach out to me. You know, I'm in this bubble, and I definitely know that people skip more events than they ever did before,

and I think that's a problem. and there seems to be a fight week every week. And what constituted a UFC fighter doesn't mean the same thing, of course. But I think this is gravy for them. They're taking a step back to take a step forward. And I think the international expansion is all about that. They're catering to those markets. So if people in the U.S. and Canada are going to pay for this, it's gravy.

Our next question. Did Keith Kaiser set a precedent that refs have? have the right to view the replay before making a final call in a match. I know he did this on Saturday, and if he did, then it's a good precedent. But correct me if I'm wrong, you were watching on TV. Didn't he tell him that he could look at the replay after he made the final call? It looked like the fight was waved off, but I believe that's what I remember them saying. I believe he can overturn that, no?

If he's allowed to view the replay, I believe he can change that. because it's the same as the call, you know, you make the call and then you look at the replay to see if you're wrong. It's like a challenge. I believe that that's the case where he can go back, view it, decide if his call was correct, and then, you know, determine. Well, if that's the precedent, it's a good precedent. Why not use the replay?

I could be wrong, so tweet in it. But anyway, they should use replay. 100%. It's the exact right thing to do. Yeah. Let's find out if it was the proper call. Next question. Your thoughts on Ben Ascran training with Evolve, will he sign with 1FC? As we sit here right now at 4.59 p.m. Eastern Time, if I were a betting man, and I'm not reporting this, it's a little different on the show, the rules we play by.

But if I were a betting man, I would say yes. It sounds like he is. Victor Cui, who is the president of 1FC, told me that they have some very big news that they're going to announce this week. they have an event, so I wouldn't be surprised if they announce it there. Their Twitter account has been promising some big news. It sounds to me, and I think there's a lot of ego involved here on many levels. I think there was ego from Bellator's part for being upset that he was flirting with UFC and saying outright that he wanted to sign with UFC and they kind of kicked him to the curb. I think there was ego on the UFC's part for not wanting to play by Bellator's rules and take a guy

that they were kind of offering up. And I think there's ego on Ben Ascgrin's part for not wanting to play. to sign with World Series of Fighting after Dana is saying that he thinks he should go to World Series of Fighting, if you know what I'm saying. So I think there's a lot of ego involved here. And I can't lie and not say I'm disappointed because Ben Ascran was on this show and told us that he wants to fight the best. And you can make the case that the World Series of Fighting Welterweight Division is better

right now than Bell Torres' Walterweight Division. And it would have been a big blunder. And I think he negotiated poorly to be – he was so public. he's so honest, and it kind of bit him in the butt, unfortunately. He kind of painted himself in a corner, saying that he wanted to go to the UFC, so he lost leverage from a negotiation standpoint. But he said he wanted to fight the best. Why are you going to one FC?

World Series of fighting tells me they offered him a great deal, a lot of money. Fitch, Berkman, Paul Harris, the new Steve Carl. those four fights are way tougher than anything you're going to get at least right now in one FC you wanted to fight the best it was a step closer to the UFC and you did get screwed because you would have gone from spike TV a million viewers champion to 250,000 viewers on NBC Sports Network non-champion that would have sucked that would have been a step back but if you really want to go to the UFC and you really want to fight the best this is what it's all about for you competition why are you going to one FC and why aren't you taking the path that they are

suggesting. You're getting paid good money. So that's not the problem. Yeah, there's some ego and they're kind of telling you and they said thanks but no thanks, at least for now and maybe some other things. But what is going to one FC going to do for your career? It makes no sense. It doesn't, it doesn't mesh with what he was telling us. So let's see what happens. But from what I'm hearing right now, he's leaning towards one FC. Our next question. Is UFC on Fox 9 the best showcase of lighter weights on a single card ever? I mean, tough to say off the top of my head, but it is a fantastic card. I mean, I'm thinking now, Benevides-Johnson is a great rematch. Can't wait for that. Mendez, Lenz, Michael McDonald, Uriah Fabor, there are a ton of other good ones.

That's just the main card. U.S.C. on Fox 9 is one of the better cards of the year. It was incredible when it had Showtime versus Thompson. Also, Bobby Green, Pat Healy is on that card off the top of my head. So, yeah. Mendez. I said Mendez. Barbosa and Castillo. That is fantastic. Four Alpha Male members on that fight card, Barbosa.

William. Oh, Nama. What? Darren. Yeah, but I think, oh, wait. No. Oh, yeah, he was supposed to fight John Maraga. Now he's fighting someone else.

Who's he fighting? Alp. Tekken Oz Kielich. Oh, you really screwed. You shouldn't even brought it up. That might not be that far off, but it's probably pretty bad. Yeah, it's pretty bad. I mean, I was thinking about this when I selected the question.

I mean, some of those WEC cards were stacked. Yeah, of course. Oh, they're saying best ever, like, period? Yeah. No, but I'd say this is better. Really? I mean, this is kind of, I mean, all these guys are pretty much WC. WEC 48.

Yeah, it was great. Algo Faber. Right. Benson. Ceroni. Mike Brown, Manny Gambirian. Andrew Quani, Roller. Jorgensen, Garcia versus John.

Pettis. That was great. Oh, wow. Mitsugaki. Who did Pettus fight on that card? He fought Carol Lexus. Oh, yeah. Brad Pickett and Demetrius Johnson. Chad Mendez.

Okay, it was better. That was better. That was their pay-per-view. And then 52, 53. I mean, there were some really stacked ones. I mean, current day, this is about as good as it gets, though. Roger Bowling, Abel Trujillo is also on that one, the rematch. MacDanzig, Jolozon.

And maybe, maybe Nick the Tooth versus Lozahn after the event. Hold on one second. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Trying to find these questions here. Did you lose them? Maybe. Are you kidding me?

How many were left? Two or three. Let's see. With a stumble. We start with a stumble. Are they gone? They might be. For God's sakes.

Who are you writing to over here? Hungry guy? Yeah, responding to some tweets. I mean, where are you going to find this? It seems like you're struggling. Oh, boom. Hey-oh. So, our next one, how should an interviewer handle the situation Anik was in when interviewing Nate D.S.?

I thought he did a fine job. I thought he did great. You know, sometimes, and let's not forget, that interview is different than an interview that we're doing here because time constraints, you're in the middle of a cage and an arena. I mean, it's a totally different ballgame. You have someone talking in your ear. I thought he did a fine job. You didn't like it? What did he do wrong?

It was great. I thought it was funny. He was trying to reel him back. Nate didn't want it. Asked a question. It was fun. I had no problem with it. The only thing that I don't like is when they take the mic.

And the UFC guys do a good job with that of holding on to the mic. Don't let him kind of control everything. But you ask your one or two questions. He wants to go, Cole Miller did that. Chale does it all the time. You got to ask what you're going to ask. if they want to take it, that's their time to shine. That helps build character.

So I know problem with Anik, I know problem with Diaz. Just don't let them take the mic. That's the number one rule. Our last question. With the USC's expansion plans, do you think MMA journalism will grow? And any tips for an aspiring MMA journalist? I think UFC, I mean, I don't know if one has anything to do with the other.

I just think the sport is growing. And, you know, it's getting bigger and more people are, interested in it and I think younger people going into journalism school are interested in it and they're aspiring to cover the sport. As far as tips, I get this question all the time. The main tip, there's a couple sub-tips, but the main one is just be different. Work hard, be professional, be different, reach out to as many people as possible. The great thing about this sport is that everyone is so accessible. Back in the day it was on MySpace, that's how I reached out to Fighters. Now it's on Facebook and Twitter.

fighters are accessible be different don't just sit you know at your computer at your blog and write your thoughts about the tough finale and expect people to come read it there are plenty other places more established places they're going to go that's just the nature of the beast but if you talk to fighters and you do good features and interviews and things like that then people will start to notice you just be different be professional work hard work harder and and enjoy what you're doing all right so who wins our fight collection 13 edition from Anchor Bay. I don't remember. I mean, we're past the four hour mark here. I'm going to cycle through him for you. I don't even know where I am. Yes. UFC's expansion plans, MMA journalism.

Yes. Anik and Diaz. Yes. Fox 9. Yes. Ben Ascran and 1FC. Yes. Keith Kaiser and replay.

Yes. UFC Online Network. Yes. Is tough relevant? Yes. Giuliana Pena, title shot. Yes. and rematch for Soroni-D-S.

I mean, I didn't really love any of those. Ouch. I mean, they were good, but I mean, is it worth... I mean, this guy over here, it's an interesting question, but it's Manchester United backdrop. Yeah, chances are it's not a... But, I mean, it could be... Here, let's click it in, let's find out.

I mean... Nope. I'm guessing not. I mean, it says one-love, one United. What do you know about that? I'm guessing not. Okay. He seems to really want it, though. Okay, what else?

Yeah. I mean, Dexter Auburn is an egg. Okay, let's give it to him, and if he is international, then we'll save it for next week. There you go. There we go. Congratulations. Thank you for all the questions.

Not trying to hate on the questions, but I mean, this is $150 right here. You know, you've got to bring it. The website questions were great. Yes, unfortunately, we can't give those out there, but great questions. All right. you can hit my music.

Will it play? Oh, there it is. A great show. We appreciate you guys sticking around. By the way, how about Joshua Sampo? Not getting. They gave Benoit the extra $50,000. This guy's a biology teacher, $40,000 debt.

Just give him the $50,000 for the fight of the night, but don't give him the other guy's bonus. That just is a kick in the balls. Felt bad for him. Great performance, too. Anyway, congratulations to, Chris Holdsworth and Julianna Pena for winning the Ultimate Fighter.

Looking forward to seeing their careers grow in the UFC. I want to thank Brian Melonson for stopping by and wish him the best of luck in his post-MMA career. Hope he does become a judge. That would be awesome. Luke Barnett, great stuff out of him. Follow him on Twitter. Get that man a new car. Best of luck to Paul Daly as he fights

at Bama 14 on December 14th. Good luck to Shannon Knapp with the Invicta number 7 coming up this Saturday night on pay-per-view. Miriam Best of luck to her as she challenges for the Invicta Bantamweight title against Lauren Murphy. Looking forward to that fight. Forrest Griffin, great job from him and great job by the UFC to raise awareness for HIV among young men and women under 30.

And the legendary judo Jean Labelle, congratulations on 50 years since you defeated Milo Savage in the first MMA match, quote unquote, televised here in the United States. Thank you very much to Roots of Fight. check them out on the internet as well. Rootterfight.com. Thank you so much all of you for your questions, comments, all the love. We appreciate it. We'll see you here next week, same time and play. Until they, we'll see me.

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