MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 216

Episode Date: August 29, 2014

Featuring Rener Gracie and Eve Torres in studio, Urijah Faber, Travis Browne, Khabib Nurmagomedov, Chris Leben, Cole Miller, Glenn Robinson, and Kevin Iole. 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 Cudullian and the rest of the Phoenix colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer, but a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever. Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprised his role as Rosco Cudulian in this follow-up to the Audible Original Blockbuster. The Downloaded, it's a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide. Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking, What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?

The Downloaded 2. Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible. Support for the show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk. to each other. Introducing O-DU. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier,

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I'm Ariel Hawaiian Insider, New York City Studio. If you're off today due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day, thank you so much for joining us. And if you're anywhere across this great world of ours, thank you so much for checking in with us on another Monday here in New York City. We're joining in the back, as always, by New York, Rick. Buzzkill Brendan. house not taking the day off. How about that? We got Will there, Alfred's there. Everyone's here today, and it's pretty much just us in here. No one else is in the office slash studio, so it's very nice. It's our little show that we're running, and happy to be here after a weekend where it was

relatively quiet as far as MMA news is concerned, but World Series of Fighting held an event. They crowned their first ever lightweight champion, Justin Gachie, looking very promising. Once again, a dominating performance. Jessica Aguilar, their new Strawway champion, Anthony Johnson winning in his final fight, at least for now, in WSOFWC. How about that? He has no more fights left on that contract, so we'll see where he ends up. And we may get an update on that later on in the show. I'm excited about this show.

There's a lot going on today, so let's get right into it. We have a jam-pack show at around, I don't know, four or so. We're going to take your questions and comments. By now you know the drill. Hit us up using the hashtag the MMA hour. Leave a question on the line. website. We're giving out another box of the tops of cards, and hopefully this time, the person saying who they are is really actually that person. If you recall, last week, we ended the show

with the catfish mystery involving a young lady named Jessica Jung. And then, like, five minutes later, we found out that it was some guy named Robert, probably in his underwear in his basement. But anyway, we gave him the prize, just for the hell of it. Anyhow, we got some more prizes to give out, so hit us up using the hashtag the MMA hour on Twitter. At around 325 in studio, we'll be joined by Hennar Gracie and his fiancé, Eve Torres, the former WWE Diva. They'll be in studio, and that's going to be great.

I'm looking forward to that. Someone is drilling, and my entire desk is shaking right now. That is a wonderful sound. At around 305, Glenn Robinson, the CEO of Authentic Sports Management, aka the Black Zillions, he'll be stopping by to talk about their resurrection, direction as a team. Eric Kleesek,

buzzkilt. Yeah, okay. That's an awesome sound. I hope you guys can't hear it. At around 245, Uriah Faber will stop by to talk about his UFC 169 title fight against Hannan Burrow.

225, Travis Brown. He'll talk about his UFC on Fox 11, fight against Fabrice O'Brien. Is that the main event? We shall see. 205, Cole Miller, will talk about his big win on Wednesday at UFN 35 against Sam, Sicilian,

and then calling out clown boy Saroni. Looking forward to having him back on the show. Chabib Nirmagamadeov at 145, joining us from Dagestan, Russia. Looking forward to that. Is everyone afraid to fight this guy? We'll find out. 125, we'll talk to Chris, the crippler, Leibin.

What is next for him in his fighting career? Hopefully we find out today. But first, let us go to the Skype Machine and welcome in our first guest of the day. He is one of the leading voices in mixed martial arts and boxing, of course. He has been doing this for a very long time, one of the pioneers of MMA journalism.

He is the one and only Kevin Ioli, joining us from Las Vegas. Kevin, how are you? I'm great, Ariel. How are you doing? I'm doing great, and you, of course, are joining us from the fight capital of the world, but I want to challenge you for that title. I think that Montreal is the new fight capital of the world.

With that great attendance they had on Saturday and the HBO boxing event, all the great attendance they have for UFC events, it's time to give up the title. What do you think? Montreal is getting there, but I think the problem is, while you get the biggest MMA events that would go to Montreal, you don't get the absolute biggest boxing event. So Las Vegas gets both. So I think Las Vegas holds onto the title, although Montreal is definitely closing ground.

Okay, I'm giving you a new title, Best Skype Connection that we've ever had in this show's history. This is unbelievable. What are you using over there? It looks like I'm actually sitting next to you in the studio. I've got Cox, believe it or not, and I've got 100 megabit connection. it should be pretty good. It's unbelievable. Well, thank you very much for joining us.

I wanted to have you on the show for a very long time. A lot going on in the world of MMA. Let us start with Montreal's own George St. Pierre. Last week, he caused a lot of ruckus in the world of MMA with some comments that he made about why he decided to leave the UFC right now, calling the UFC a monopoly, saying guys are afraid to speak up, saying that he was enormously disappointed that the UFC didn't stand by him as he was trying to get Johnny Hendricks to do the VAT.

at testing prior to UFC 167. What did you make of his comments? Do you think that it's, you know, a little too late for him? I mean, you walk away and then you say this stuff, or because he's GSP, because he hadn't really abused his power in the past, it still held a lot of weight. Yeah, you know, Ariel, it really kind of bothered me that George waited until he was done. The week that he fought Johnny Hendricks on that Monday, I was up in his suite with him. I had a five o'clock interview that day, and George came out on time for the interview,

then all of a sudden he got pulled away just as we were starting was the drug testing. So, you know, he didn't know when he's going to be tested. So when he came back, we started to talk about the drug testing, and I asked him if there was a problem, and he just would not go there. He refused to really address it. You know, he said, hey, I'm trying to do my part, but he would not address the issue at large. And to me, that's when he had the bully pulpit, everybody in the world. You know, he had the big stage, and, you know, right now he doesn't have that.

So, you know, it doesn't mean his comments, you know, aren't founded, but it's certainly, you know, I'm disappointed in the fact that he waited until after. And then there's evidence that would indicate he's incorrect that the UFC, in fact, did support. So is it possible that he didn't want to talk about it beforehand because he didn't want to create some kind of distraction leading up to the fight? And now that he's free of any obligations, he feels like he can talk about it? Yeah, you know, I don't like to put words in somebody else's mouth. I mean, I suppose that's probably what it was. You know, that's the best I can think of, Ariel. But he knew the facts as they worked out.

You know, like I talked to Lorenzo Fertita multiple times about this. I talked to Mike Murch and Lawrence Epstein, who were also Zufa executives. Georgia's side is not so forthcoming to be willing to talk about it. I'm still trying to reach Rodolf to get his version. But I talked to Francisco Agrilar, who was the chairman of the Nevada Athletic Commission. And he unquestionably, unquestionably sided with the UFC on this and said that they were willing to do any amount of testing that they supported 100% the testing. And they said, we will pay for anybody to be tested as often as you want, randomly, not randomly, whatever you guys want to do. That would undermine George's position quite a bit.

And George went from being interested in being tested by a WADA approved lab out of Salt Lake City. and the results going to the Nevada Athletic Commission to then doing the testing with VADA. And VADA has been in the middle of a lot of controversy for whatever reason on some of these things. But, you know, I think that George lost a lot of heat for whatever reason, a lot of his power by waiting until after he left the UFC to make these comments. What's your take on VADA and guys trying to set this up on their own? Because I think that's what was bothering UFC President Dana White. He was saying that Johnny and George were kind of looking silly going back and forth here when they could just defer to the Nevada Athletic Commission and do it through them.

And I know this happens a lot in boxing as well. So curious as to what you think about VADA and how guys use it right now. And let me explain to a little bit of the difference too so people who don't understand because Johnny Hendricks all throughout that fight talked about, you know, I want to do WADA testing. That's the best, not VADA. And so he had it wrong. He didn't even understand it. But, you know, I think VADA is a fine.

company, and I think their intentions are honorable. It's run by Dr. Margaret Goodman, who used to be the head of the Medical Advisory Board on the Nevada Athletic Commission, and she certainly has the right idea. She wants to get rid of performance-enhancing drugs and sports, as we all do. So, you know, she's given the athletes to stage. But let me first explain what it is. VADA, it's not like there's VADA testing and Nevada Commission testing and WADA testing, it's you follow WADA protocols, the World Anti-Doping Agency.

And whatever lab collected. So there's a lab in Salt Lake City as an example that is certified by WADA, meaning that they follow the procedures that the World Anti-Doping Association puts out so that now when there's competitions, if you follow those, you're following the exact testing that goes on in the Olympics. VADA follows that testing. The Nevada Athletic Commission, their testing wasn't as rigorous, but now when they farm it out to this Salt Lake lab and they say, they call an enhanced testing,

when they're doing that, that is doing WADA testing, that is doing VATA testing, whatever you want to call it. The entity doing the testing is not VOTA. It's not Dr. Margaret Coopman. It is not WADA. It's a lab in Salt Lake or a lab in UCLA or a lab in Montreal, wherever the athlete happens to be. But the testing collection is being done under certified rules by a certified testing collection. agency and then the doping is being tested by a WADA certified lab. So that's a big difference that I don't think a lot of people understand. Do you have any kind of hypothesis as to why this is such a big deal

for GSP now? Because let's be honest, I mean, for the last few years, starting with BJ Penn, a lot of people had accused them of taking some kind of PED. Yes. And he, you know, he kind of dodged those bullets left and right. And now it's such a big deal. Why now? Well, I think, you know, I think he felt bad about it, but I think a lot of it is born out of ignorance of what the testing is. I think he was getting a lot of heat throughout his career, and I think, you know, as he knew, hey, my career is coming down the line, I don't want my career to be tarnished. And who does, right? You know, Barry Bond certainly doesn't want that.

I mean, his career has been tarnished, but he doesn't want that. You know, none of these guys do. So I think, you know, honorable intentions on George's part, hey, I want to try to do my part. You know, he believes he didn't cheat. You know, we can't prove that he cheated. You know, a lot of people look at his body and they say, oh, there's something unnatural there. And, you know, most people don't have that type of body. But, you know, George might be one of the ones that does.

And so I'm not going to accuse George of anything. You know, only he knows. And the fact is, he was willing to undergo the testing through this camp, and he didn't undergo the testing. And he passed all the tests. So, you know, credit to him. You know, he passed all the tests. And he had the same body. He didn't look any different.

You know, I remember one prominent boxer. I don't want to mention his name, but, you know, he was involved in a controversy in terms of PEDs. This was about 10 years ago. And then, you know, he was upset and there was allegations going on. Then he came back and he fought a fight right after and his body looked totally different. That's not the case with George. George looked exactly like he always looked at UFC 167. So, you know, I will take George Edda's word and say he didn't do it.

I think all he's trying to do is protect his legacy. He knew he was near the end of his career, and I think he was trying to say, hey, you know what? I deserved to be in the Hall of Fame. I did all these great things, and I did it on my own with nobody's help. Do you think this is about the UFC and their stance on drug testing, as he said a few days ago? Or is it simply about him getting his feelings hurt over the fact that Dana White called him and Johnny Hendrick stupid and that he didn't stand by him and all that stuff? Because even leading up to the fight, he spoke to LaPress in Montreal and said that he was hurt by that.

So I feel, and Dana said that, you know, after the fact on Wednesday on Fox Sports, one, he said that he was hurt, GSP was hurt because of what he said at the press conference. I think it has more to do about what Dana said in September, October leading up to the fight. What do you think? I think there's a little bit to that. You know, hey, I think, you know, George was a little bit myth that Dana's saying that, but why not speak out? Here's what I think ultimately becomes the problem in a nutshell is not Lorenzo, but Dana's comment.

You know, Lorenzo, anytime anybody's ever spoken to him, And not a lot of the media has access to Lorenzo Furtita like they do to Dana White. You know, Dana is pretty accessible. And, you know, you don't have to be high on the food chain in MMA to be able to get an interview with Dana White. You know, maybe you do more so to get Lorenzo Furtita. But Dana's always, the phrase he uses, I think, really turns off a lot of people. And it turns me off a lot of times is, oh, we're tested by the government, as if that's some rigorous testing. And, you know, people know that's not the case until they start doing this, quote, unquote,

enhanced testing. But these post-fight tests are, you know, you know they're coming, you know what's going on. And I think Dana dismissing it by saying that, you know, irritates a lot of people. And so even I had an impression, hey, you know, they're not really committed to it. Until I spoke to Chairman Aguilar, and I talked to him at length, and I heard, you know, he said, hey, they're willing to do anything, and they're willing to do whatever we want to do. And I've talked to other commissions, and they say the same thing. So the UFC saying, hey, if you want to test every one of our guys on every single card, we will pay for it. And if you want to test them, you know, five times we'll pay for it.

So their issue is simply, we want the results to go not to VATA, which has no regulatory power, or WADA, even, which has no regulatory power in this particular instance, but to somebody who has regulatory power that will discipline the fighters that can then make the proper ruling. And in this case of the UFC 167, George St. Pierre and Johnny Hendricks fell under the jurisdiction of the Nevada Athletic Commission. So, you know, I think Dana's comments that he makes, you know, kind of give out the impression that, hey, maybe, you know, we're trying to pull a fast one and that we don't, you know, we don't care. But I think that they really do based on after I did some reporting and talked to a lot of people about this, hey, they're willing to do the testing and they're willing to pay for anybody who wants it or anybody that the commission asks to have it done. And I think that says a lot. And that's new information that I gleaned in reporting after George's comments. And I think that that, you know, that side hasn't gotten out because Dana doesn't make that point too often. So do you think, based on this information, do you think they will start to do more? And do you think they should start to do more?

Absolutely, I think they should start to do more. I think you know this, Ariel. There's nobody in the media that's more anti-PED than I am, you know, and I have been for a long time. And I right now think that, you know, there should be no TRT. I really am anti-TRT. We can get into that later if you want. But, you know, so I do think they should do more. And I think that the commission is, at least in Nevada, is going to request more.

They're going to go to the UFC and they're going to go to Boston promoters and say, hey, let's do this testing more often. want to do this enhanced testing. The most important thing, if you ask me, Ariel, about this is it has to be random and unannounced. So I think that, you know, like even like the testing we had on 168 for Barnett and Brown, it was great that they did it. But I think to really be the most effective, you know, you know, you just have to go in one day and say, you know what, we want to test and pick a name out of a hat. We want to test your I favor. You know, we want to test, you know, whoever, Matt Brown, whoever the person happens to be that you pull out of the hat, you know, that has to be, and just randomly test them.

And I think if they do that on a regular basis, you will root it out. You can't, they did that with over him and they actually caught him. Keith Kaiser gives him a lot of credit. He did that with over him, and he caught him on a thing. But, you know, if it only happens one time, and if somebody who in the past had allegations of steroids or actually failed to test, then, you know, the average person who hasn't been caught doesn't have as much fear about it. But if you put the fear of God in them and say, we are going to test you, you never know when, you never know where, I think it's not going to

eliminate it, eradicate it totally because guys find ways to cheat, but I think it'll eliminate it to a large degree. I know you said you have yet to talk to GSP, but you did talk to Dana White and Lorenzo Fortita. How would you characterize the relationship right now between the UFC and GSP? Well, I think it's a little bit rocky, as you can imagine. You know, I mean, there, they're disappointed that he made these comments. And, you know, Lorenzo, I talked to Lorenzo much more than I did Dana about this. And Lorenzo said, you know, hey, look, we've had an open line of communication with George. You know, he's been able to pick up the phone and call us, talk to us whenever he wants.

And, you know, he could have come to us in Las Vegas that time and said something face-to-face in a meeting. But he chose not to. And I think that they're mystified why he said all this after, you know, after he kind of had a sabbatical or whatever you want to call it. you know, his retirement, I don't think it's really a retirement, but whatever it is, you know, why did he say this later and why did he not tell them first? You know, their relationship throughout the entire history had been an open relationship where they would speak to each other first as opposed to going to the public. And in that particular case, they went, you know, they went to the, George went to the public first, and I think they're mystified by that.

Do you think he fights for them again? I do. You know, I think he's a competitor. You know, I think he really wants to do it. And I think this will be. blow over and I do think George will fight again. Who comes back first? Anderson Silver or George St. Pierre? I think Anderson's not going to fight again. Really? Yeah, I really don't. I think he's saying that now, but when he goes through it, like what is it for Anderson, what's in it for Anderson to fight?

You know, it's only negative. You know, he's going, you know, he may have to fight his friends. You know, let's just play this out here. Let's say Machita or Jacaree, whoever wins that fight. You know, Anderson feels close with both those guys. If he comes back, that's a big fight in the middleweight division. Does he want to fight that, you know, does he want to fight, you know, Musa Sassy? Does he want to get in those kind of guys?

I don't think he does. You know, I think he wants to be at the absolute top. And I think, you know, I don't think he deserves, nor is he going to get a title shot. You know, he's not that far away, but he still has to win a couple of fights. He got beaten by Chris Wyman twice. So, you know, I don't think Anderson comes back. So I think George will be back first. I want to get your take on, obviously, the Nevada Athletic Commission.

You're in Nevada right now. they announced on, or they made a decision on Friday to not hire an interim executive director to replace Keith Kaiser, whose tenure ends next week. And they're going to go through this whole process. Hopefully around March or April, they'll find someone. First about Keith, do you think that he was pushed out or he left under his own power? I think he was pushed out. Personally, I think he was definitely pushed out.

By who? He claims no. And, you know, I know Keith very well, and he's an honest guy. And, you know, I don't want to call Keith a liar. But, you know, I believe that there was pressure from the boxing promoters, you know, I believe there was pressure from the UFC. I believe on all sides, you know, that there was people that were unhappy with Keith. And I think that they, you know, they put pressure. I know Governor Sandoval got involved.

And after the Mayweather fight because of C.J. Ross scorecard. And that was, and, you know, when you get the governor involved and things at that level, that's not good. And I think ultimately, you know, all that pressure was building up. And there was a lot of people, and I think that, you know, Keith recognized it and decided to walk. Any leading candidates right now that you're hearing about to be the new executive director? You know, it's still wide open. I, you know, I mentioned to you before, you know, I think Randy Gordon, who ran New York's commission as a member of the media now applied and he's going to be considered. A name that I think you should watch is Darren Leibonati.

Darren Leibonauty used to run the Thomas and Mac Center. Now he has a consulting business in Las Vegas. I think he might be a guy that, you know, you can see he's very well known in Nevada, knows everybody. It was actually a kicker on the UNLV football team. And Darren's pretty well connected in Nevada, knows all the people, you know, has a good feel for both MMA and boxing. I think he's a guy to watch. I'm not going to say he's the frontrunner for the job.

A lot of the people that, you know, that are applying for the job are either really strong on boxing or really strong on MMA, but don't have both. And they need to have both. need to have somebody that can get in there that knows boxing, knows the fighters, knows the issues in boxing, but also knows MMA and can deal with that. As I wrote on my column, this is going to be a really tough hire and a really difficult job. If you were in charge, you had the pick of the litter. Who would Kevin Ioli hire? You could pick anyone.

Ariel Hill money. Yeah, I mean, that's a given. Well, if I had the money that I, you know, and I could do it, I mean, unquestionably, Mark Ratner is the guy. But Mark Ratner's not going to do it. So, you know, going after that, I don't, right now, I don't see any one person that I know of that I would say, this is the person. You got to get this person. You know, California just underwent this and they got Andy Foster.

I think Andy's good. Is he perfect for the Nevada job? I don't know, but certainly I don't think he's going to want to leave after just getting, you know, getting the California job. There's no one person out there that I think, you know, fits all the criteria and it would really, you know, be. be perfect for this job. There's a lot of people that are pretty good. The people that I keep thinking of are people that right away when I think

about it, I say, nope, he won't do it, nope, he won't do it, nope, he won't do it, and that's the problem. Somebody asked me about Big John McCarthy, and I think Big John actually would have been a good candidate, but the comments that he made on Twitter, I think really, and I not think, I know, because I talk to people on the commission

and around the commission, those comments he made celebrating Keith's demise, you know, really hurt him. I don't think it's going to hurt him coming back to Nevada as a referee. I do think he will be back. If not at UFC 170, at the next show in Nevada after that. I don't think there's any question. John McCarthy will be back with Keith being out. But I think any candidacy John might have had for the executive director's job, basically was killed by those comments. Final thing, this Saturday, the UFC returns to Fox. It's UFC on Fox 10. It's headlined by Benson Henderson versus Josh Thompson, the co-main event,

if you will, Gabriel Gonzaga versus Steepamiochich, not the strongest offering on Fox in the last two years or so. What's your take on the card? Scale of 1 to 10, how interested are you in this card? I think it's about a 7. You know, I'm always interested in a Benson-Henderson fight. You know, I mean, he's a fascinating guy. And Josh Thompson really intrigues me because, you know,

I think to me he runs parallel with Gilbert Melendez to a large degree. And Gilbert Melendez has this great reputation and people, you know, this great athlete, this great fighter. He's best lightweight in the world, some people say. There's all this raving about Gilbert Melendez. And then people think Josh, you know, Thompson, they think more about him about those crazy comments that he made a while back than they do about his fighting. But did not Gilbert Melendez and Josh Thompson have three unbelievable fights that were just, you know,

nip and tuck. And I think, you know, Josh Thompson isn't given enough credit for how good of a fighter he is. And I think he's going to push Benson Henderson. I think there's going to be a really good fight in that main event on Saturday. And I think the culminate event, you know, is intriguing just because you have Steve Amy Oachish who's coming off a big win over Roy Nelson. I wish he had fought a little more often than he has, you know. I mean, I don't understand that long break. And Gonzaga's coming back up.

To me, Gonzaga is always a guy that, you know, the hole has been less than the sum of his parts. You know, Gonzaga has a lot of good ability. And the fact that he drops, you know, he loses some of these fights is like mind-boggling. And anytime you have Donald Serroney on TV, Ariel, you know, it's good. No complaints about that. So I think it's an interesting card. All right. Well, always a pleasure, Kevin.

You know, we love having you on. Love talking to you. Your insight is second to none. So great stuff on GSP, Nevada, and, of course, this weekend's fight card. We'll see you very soon. Thanks for stopping by. Anytime, Ariel. Much appreciate it.

Thanks for having me. There he is. The one and only, Kevin Ioli of Yahoo Sports, stopping by. Great on Twitter as well. You can follow him, Twitter.com, slash Kevin I is the Twitter handle. A lot of interesting things happening outside of the cage right now in the world of mixed martial arts. Okay, let's move along.

A few weeks back at UFC 168, Uriah Hall defeated Chris Lieben. And ever since that fight on December 28th, we were wondering, what's next for the crippler? Last night, he mentioned he has a new job. And I thought, well, this is a good time to talk to Chris Lieben. So happy that he's able to join us today on the show. Chris, how are you? Doing good. Well, thank you very much for stopping by once again.

We've been wanting to talk to you for quite some time, and I think a lot of people will get to the job, we'll get to everything, but just want to know where do you stand? Because the last thing we heard from you, and I know it was pertaining to the fight, but people were trying to make it out to be a bigger message. You said to your corner, I'm done. Were you talking about the fight or your career on that night?

Well, I mean, at that time I was in particular talking about the fight. But you know what? I think that I think that's pretty much it As far as competing in the UFC I think I may actually be done. You know, it's been just a fantastic, wonderful ride. You know, I've landed more strikes

to anybody out there. Definitely highs and lows up and downs, but, you know, I think I'm starting to realize that, you know, for me, it might be time to kind of make that transition over away from competing and get more on the coaching side of things. So are you saying you're done not only in the UFC

but done in MMA in general, no more fighting for you? Well, you know, if I'm not fighting in the UFC, I'm not fighting. I mean, the bottom line is, you know, I've been with the actual UFC now for almost 10 years, you know, and I really feel like I've kind of grown with them in parallel with them.

And, you know, I definitely don't, you know, in this sport, you're either, You're either moving forward or you're moving backwards, you know. And I just couldn't imagine myself having had so many amazing fights at the UFC and then to be stepping back to a smaller show or something like that. It would just be, it would be so crazy. So, yeah, I think I'm done. Have you talked to the UFC about this?

You know, I mean, I talked with Dana a little bit. You know, we've done some texting back and forth. We've had a couple little conversations. But yeah, and it sounds more or less like everybody's kind of on, you know, the same place I'm at, and kind of where I'm at, you know, is, you know, I really can't be, can't be upset. I've had just a wonderful career, you know, and again, I didn't, I didn't start fighting until I was 21 years old, you know, and that then you could actually get into the UFC win and do well just on being, you know, a tough guy, you know. I was a tough guy. I had some techniques, you know, and stuff. That always worked for me, but, you know, when you're looking at these guys now, like, you're Raya Hall. I mean, they're just a different breed of athlete than I am.

You know, the game has been evolving and changing so much, you know, so, so rapidly, you know, that I'm actually pretty happy that I can say that I was in it for as long as I was in it. You know, a lot of times in the world of fighting guys don't want to leave on a long They're not happy with their performance. Are you content leaving at this point? You know, it's one of those things. I mean, you know, obviously I would have loved to get a victory, you know. I would have loved to have won my last three fights.

That'd be fantastic. But, you know, but I haven't. And if I've won the last three fights, I'd probably still be fighting as well, you know. So, you know, anytime you take a loss, you know, that's huge. but it's definitely, as far as I've returned it, it's one of those signs that tells me, hey, buddy, you know, you've, you know, you never, before I'd never lost more than two fights in a row

in my entire career, and now I've lost four, you know. I mean, it's definitely one of those signs that lets me know, hey, you know, don't be upset, but it's time to move on and start doing something different. When did you come to this conclusion? You know, I really didn't say anything to anybody else about it, But, you know, sitting at home and talking with my wife, even before my last fight, I said, you know, if they said, we're going to wait and see how my performance is because I trained and prepared harder than I ever have in my entire life for that fight. You know, I was in great, awesome shape going out, you know.

You know, so I told my wife, but he said, well, you know, we're going to see how my performance is and then, you know, make a decision on what I'm going to do next, depending on that. You know, and obviously the way the fight went, the decision's kind of pretty cut and dry, you know, that I've got a lot of years ahead of me, you know, and I would like that, you know, I still have my head on my shoulders and have a brain when I'm raising kids and do all the other stuff that I want to be part of the longer in my life, you know, and I think, you know, it might just be time for me to, you know, gracefully bow out. And obviously we tip our cap to you and we'll get to the whole career in a second. But on that stool in between the first and second round, when you did tell your corner that you were done, why did you do that? It was a very noble thing. It's something that a lot of fighters can't do. And you've always been known as one of those guys who, you know, no matter what, hell or high water, you're going out there swinging. And it was almost, you know, inspiring to see you do that, to understand that, you know, this fight just isn't going to go my way.

what led to you to do that? Well, you know, thank you for saying that. I mean, I don't think people realize that I was pretty here. I thought the fight was over for a little while. I didn't realize the bell had been stopped. He'd actually done a little damage to me, you know. But that first five minutes was just absolutely horrible. And it was more of the same as far as what my last couple opponents have been doing.

you know, where nobody really wants to, you know, and I understand why, but, you know, they're not going to stand in front of me, toe to toe and just swing like guys used to try before, you know. You know, now I've got, you know, a guy with six or nine inches and reach advantage. It's, you know, definitely a better athlete than I am that's running away from me as fast as he can. It's only going to, you know, hit me with these little shots. You know, and it was. It was one of those things where personally I knew that. you know, the only thing that was going to happen was two more rounds of that

until he really got me upset and I was rushing it and then he hit me with that crazy spinning kick that he does. You know, and I mean, don't give me wrong. I mean, I see that, you know, there's warranted, you know, why he should fight that way, you know, but that's fighting that way kind of drives me nuts and I think I was, you know, definitely some of it was frustration, you know, another part of it was with an inner knowing that, hey, just more of this is going to happen. Um, you know, but having said that, you know, hindsight's 2020, you know, training,

training, with, uh, Totsky, Eric over at a line and having him in my corner, you know, um, you know, I should have trusted that guy. I know he was watching the fight and, you know, it's, it's never the fighter's job to decide when they're done. That's, that's really why you trust and put your, you know, you put your trust in your corner to do, to make that decision, you know, so hindsight being 20-20, yeah, I, I, I really wasn't happy about, you know, looking back and me making that decision. Kind of further showing, you know, that, you know, I'm 33 years old now, which isn't the oldest for a fighter, but, you know, like I tell people, it's not, it's not how old you are,

but it's how long you've been doing it. And I've been doing this game for quite a while, so, you know, I almost feel like both, you know, not only physically and athletically are some of these guys getting greater and greater, but, you know, since I have made all these changes in my life, For some reason, somewhere in my heart, you know, I'm more interested in helping people, you know, training people and helping people move forward than getting out there and fighting to the death, which is a really weird thing to hear from Chris leaving by it. That's kind of true. So if you could do it again, you wouldn't have said I'm done, you would have kept fighting at 168? Yes.

You haven't said the R word. You haven't said retire. Have you officially retired from MMA? You know, well, I think this interview was kind of me making that official announcement, you know. Definitely I wanted to, after the fight, I wanted to go back and reevaluate things, you know, and make sure that the decision wasn't based purely on a motion. That was really what I wanted to do. And now, yes, I can say I've retired from competing in MMA.

You tweeted yesterday that you were super excited that you got your dream. job to be the team coach at Victory, which is the biggest gym in San Diego. Also, you'll be teaching some classes there. Tell us about what you'll be doing there. Is this the new chapter for you? Is this what helped you kind of move on?

And are you going to be, you know, is Chris Leeben the next Greg Jackson, the next Eric Del Fierro? Is that what you want to do? Oh, man. You know, I hope so. Honestly, I've always felt, you know, that I was a good fighter but a great coach. Coaching is something I've done in parallel

my entire fighting career. And, you know, believe it or not, I really, really love, love that side of the sport. I love being able to, you know, inspire and motivate people, help people lose weight, all the great things that go along with this sport and training somebody and getting that, you know, and giving them, you know, everything the sport has done for me. I mean, this sport has totally, completely, you know, changed my life and, you know, sent me down the right road instead of the wrong road, you know. And I love being able to pass that on.

So, yeah, I'm still, you know, I'm training with the team down in the Alliance. You know, obviously, I love those guys, and I definitely want to help everybody down there. But I am going to be picking up some classes at Victory, which is a huge beautiful gym out here. I'm going to be helping out with their team, running their team program down there, and then picking up a couple other classes. And it's really exciting, you know, because it is a big, nice gym that's got a lot of members. So I'm really excited to get down there and make it different. You know, when we said that you were going to come on the show today,

some people were kind of fearing the worst and thinking that you were going to retire, people who are, you know, big fans of yours. And a lot of them were telling me, you know, you're one of the major reasons why they became an MMA fan. When you were on the Ultimate Fighter, you helped build that show into what it has become and really got them hooked on the UFC. Do you ever take a step back and think, wow, it's amazing, you know, what I did on that show, the opportunity that I got to be on that show,

how everything, you know, it might not have looked all rosy while it was happening, but how it really kind of, you know, created this path for you to be the crippler, this, you know, this international star and a huge fan favorite. Now that it's done, can you take a step back and really appreciate what you've done? You never got to tell anything like that, but you truly were, you know, one of the big fan favorites, and one of the guys, a lot of people can say this, one of the guys who got people hooked on this sport. That's a major feather in your cap. Thanks, man.

And, yeah, you know, you're right. It really has been a pretty, it's a pretty crazy ride, you know, and I've definitely been doing a lot of looking back these last couple weeks, you know, and sitting, you know, and looking back and realizing, hey, that first season of the ultimate fighter might be part of what's made the UFC what it is. And then, you know, I kind of feel that I'm part of what made that ultimate fighter what it was. So, you know, that's a huge, you know, a huge thing. And it's crazy, you know, look back and look at those days in the house

and look at the guys that were fighting in the UFC at the time. and where the sport was and how many paper review ratings they were getting. And then the look at everything that happened in the house, the level of fighters and how it continued to grow, and just how big and huge and mainstream the UFC is nowadays compared to where it was then. When you signed up in a million years, did you have any idea it would turn into what it has become,

not just for the sport, but for you? No, no idea. It's funny. I remember telling me, I remember telling us, Dana one time when we were on the first season, you know, yeah, maybe I'll be able to wear this jersey and go to a bar and get a free beer from a guy because he'll see, he'll see my ultimate fighter team jersey. I mean, I didn't have an idea that anybody was even going to recognize me from the show or nothing like that, you know, and now, here it is, you know, 10 years

later, and, you know, I still can't go to the mall or go out to dinner or go anywhere without somebody reminding me I pissed on Jason Backer's bed. That's amazing. Do you have any idea what happened to Jason Thacker? You know, I have no clue. You know, I'd like to hope he's up there in Canada somewhere. He's happy drawing Pokemon figures and living his life. But, yeah, I don't know.

Maybe this announcement will bring him out of the igloo somewhere in Canada, and he can say goodbye to you. Because you two will be linked. You'll be linked, of course, with Bobby Southworth and all those guys, Josh Kosteck, of course. But when you look back, though, you mentioned the ups and down. Any regrets? None.

You know, I mean, yeah, it was a wild ride, like I said, and a lot of times it was really uncomfortable, and I definitely made some decisions that were not very good. But I think all that goes into putting me, you know, because that's the reason I'm in the situation. I'm in now, and I'm who I am right now, and I'm where I'm at right now. And, you know, I think everything really happens for a purpose,

and I feel like, you know, everything was meant to be, and I'm meant to be right here right now, and, you know, all that stuff caused that. So, yeah, I wouldn't change a thing. You dished out some big shots, you took some big shots. I mean, health-wise right now, are you in a good place? Do you feel any ill effects from your fighting career? Well, you know, I mean, I got to make some pains.

You know, there's no... I've been to a lot of battles, you know, so there's no joking about that. But I'm definitely kind of at one of those places where, you know, I've got to make some pains now, and I know it's only going to get worse, you know, so I want to kind of, that's kind of why I want to bow out before I really do have a huge injury, you know, and it is too late, and I've got some of I've got to deal with the rest of my life. The fact of the matter is, you know, it's hard to believe, you know, more fights than anybody in the middleweight division, but I've never had a surgery in my life. Wow. Wow.

You know, pretty lucky all in all. That truly is amazing. and now I know it's very fresh, and I have a feeling I know what the fans would say, but is there one guy, you know, one fight and one place that you wish you could have had before it was all said and done? You know, I've been a couple of my buddies that have been, you know, listen to the web and thinking, you know, the last few days are kind of on the inside circle, always, they're still asking me about that Josh Kossack fight.

If I go back and make that happen, you know. And, I mean, besides that, really, probably not, you know, because there really is no animosity. I mean, everybody that beat me that that day, they were the better man. But, you know, and a couple of years ago, I went to Georgia for sure Josh Kossack, 100%, you know, because I can't stand them. But nowadays, you know, I think, you know, time tears, wall wounds, you know, and we both moved on. And, yeah, nobody really.

You know, you also had some great moments. And if you ask me, and I want to get your take, but I'll just throw mine out here right now, The ultimate Chris the crippler-Leban moment was when you came back on two weeks notice, UFC 116 and defeated Akiyama. When at a point, you know, there was a time, and we didn't really know where you kind of stood. And all of a sudden, you defeat Aaron Simpson. You say that you're on the couch eating pizza and drinking beer. They call you up, and there you are two weeks later in Las Vegas once again.

And you defeat Akiama when a lot of people thought you weren't going to beat him. That, to me, is the ultimate Chris Leban moment. That kind of puts you in a nutshell. What was your favorite moment? You know, definitely, that was definitely one of them. And then obviously, you know, Vandele. That was probably the next biggest one, too, you know, because Fandalay's always been my hero. You know, when I started fighting, I used to walk, you know, walk two miles down to the store where I could buy these bootleg tried videos to watch Fandelay fight and really watch him as what got me into the sport.

So, you know, that win over Vandale was probably for me, you know, that that was icing on the cake. Does this mean the crippler is gone as well? I mean the hair, the nails, all that stuff? Is that sticking around, too, or is he going to the retirement home? You know what? I kind of like the nails, I'll be honest, so that they'll probably stay around. You know, the red hair, we'll have to see, you know, maybe a little bit here and there, but I don't think I'm going to be walking around like a 33-year-old bright red beacon every day.

Well, that's fair. I mean, you are retired. I mean, after all, I do expect you to play shuffleboard or whatever that game is called, you know, with the people in Del Boca Vista in Florida. Two more things before we let you go, Chris, and we definitely appreciate the time. And thank you so much for coming on the show to talk about this. It means a lot. And, you know, I want to congratulate you on a tremendous career. You know, as you, you know, you've been on the show in the past and you've had some unbelievably honest interviews here, you know, without getting into it too much.

Are you in a good place right now? Are you happy? You talk about your wife a lot. We see the pictures on Twitter. leave the sport in a good place. Yeah, you know, I am. I really am happy, and I think that's the biggest thing, you know. I just don't have that mean streak anymore like I used to.

You know, I'm really, I really am in a good place. I'm happy with my life. I have a good life. I'm not angry at anybody. So, yeah, I mean, pretty amazing, but I definitely turn things around. And, you know, we've been staying a lot. We've been continuing to walk down the right road, you know. She's kind of like my 401K.

I've got her in law school down here in San Diego. So, you know, only the brightest in the future for us. That's amazing to hear. Very, very happy to hear that. This is a nice little forum here. A lot of people listening, you can talk to them right now. Anything you want to say to your fans, you had some of the more loyal fans in mixed martial arts. Oh, man.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think one of the things about me was either you loved me or you hated me. Nobody was ever in the middle there, you know. And I absolutely had some of the best fans ever, you know. And a lot of times, you know, when I was down, when I was really bummed after a loss or after I got in trouble, again, you know, those Facebooks and those tweets, you know, from the fans saying, hey, we're still behind you and everything else. You know, those are what gives you the energy to push on to be able to, you know, turn it around and not keep going sorry for yourself and then, you know, change what you're doing and move ahead, you know. So, yeah, I love me.

my fans, man, I'm not going to thank them for, you know, for being behind me, for every fight, you know, and, you know, I hope they understand, you know, when, you know, when it's time, it's time, you know, I want to go out, you know, I want to say, okay, you know, I'm done, you know, I don't want to keep just slowly fading away, and so, you know, appreciate everything that they've done for me, and yeah, thank, thank you. That takes a lot of courage, and that might be the most, the brave thing that you've done in your career, to know when is one, especially in this sport, and with all the glitz and glamour. It's great to hear. I think this is a moment that should be celebrated. Not only were you

one of those guys who drew a lot of people into the sport, there was never a dull moment when the crippler was around. It was great to cover you. I congratulate you on a great career, and good luck in this next chapter now. I think you'll be a fantastic coach. Right on. Thanks, man. Thank you. There he is. The one and only, Chris Levin, on the show, saying the retirement word, saying the R word, walking away from the sport. It was time. Had had lost four in a row, as he mentioned, most recently lost to Uriah Hall. Knew when to say when, even though he regrets it now, I think it was the right call. Knew went to say when between the first and second round against Uriahaw, UFC 168,

and here just moments ago announcing that he was in fact done. He's done inside the octagon. He's done in his MMA career, but he's not done in MMA. He is still going to coach, as he said, victory alliance, still be a part of that team as well. had some ups and downs, as he mentioned. He was on the Ultimate Fighter season one way back when. Long time ago made his UFC debut on April 9, 2005, defeated the aforementioned Jason Thacker, Strange Brew, in the first round via TKO, 135. And at that point, he was 11-1, went on to fight Patrick Cote, defeated him, Edwin Deweese, defeated him.

Jorge Rivera, defeated him. Luigi Firovante. Chris Lieben was on a 1-2-3-4-5 fight winning streak in the UFC alone, not to mention outside of the UFC, heading into the big Anderson Silva fight in June of 2006. He lost Anderson in 49 seconds, but rebounded to defeat George Santiago. And then it was a little bit up and down,

lost a couple to Jason McDonald and Caleb Starns, defeated Terry Martin, Alessio Sicara, then had a big main event at UFC 89 against Michael Bisping, Um, it was, you know, that was the fight where he, uh, tested positive for a PED, came back after a suspension, defeated, uh, actually lost to Jake Roshat, excuse me, then defeated Jay Silva, defeated Aaron Simpson. And that was the big turnaround for him against Yoshihara Akiyama. Defeated Aaron Simpson on June 19, 2010, came back on July 3rd, 2010 to win the fight of the night and to also submit Yoshihara Akiyama with a triangle choke, an amazing scene at you. UFC 116. That was the card, of course, that featured Brock Lesnar defeating Shane Carwin via Triangle Choke for him to come back saying that on that Monday when he got the call after there was an injury while eating pizza and drinking beer on his couch. At that point, Chris Lieben was arguably a top 10 guy. He was on top of the world. Came back a big fight against Brian Stan at UFC 125,

where if memory serves me correct, he may have even been the favorite, or at least it was a lot of buzz surrounding him. Fortunately for him, he lost that fight via TKO, came back, defeated Vandalé Silva, lost to Mark Munoz, lost to Derek Brunson, Andrew Craig, and then most recently, Uriah Hall, we congratulate him on an entertaining career. And one of those guys who was a part of the Ultimate Fighter season one,

who honestly, you know, I got a lot of people telling me that they were drawn into the sport because of that for you. Remember, he pissed on Jason. in Thacker's bed. He called, Bobby Southworth called him a fatherless bastard. They got into this whole heated exchange with Josh Kosteck. The memories now, a little cloudy in my mind, but I believe he was sleeping outside, and they came outside with the hose, and they poured water on him and woke him up. And then he was very upset, punched a hole in the door. It was just part of the drama that was the ultimate fighter season one.

And now here he is after a long UFC career walking away from the sport, we tip our cap to Chris Lieben. All right, let's move along now. And welcome in a guy who's very much talked about in the world of MMA right now. It seems like every day it's as the Habib Nirmagamadov turns. Someone's calling him out. Someone's apparently turning down to fight against him. UFC president Dana White saying that no one wants to fight this guy.

So we thought we must get Habib Nirmagamatov on the phone. we're going all the way to Dagestan, Russia right now, to welcome him in. He's actually being joined by his manager and perhaps the brains behind the team, the Red Fury fight team, Sam Cardin. Sam, are you there? Yes, I am. And we're being joined by Habib, right? Absolutely.

He's on the line now. Okay, great. Well, thank you to both of you for joining us right now. And I know it's a little late out there in Russia, so appreciate it very much. Okay, Habib, first question. And Dana White said last week that he feels like a lot of people are afraid to fight you. Do you believe that to be true? On the past week, Dana White said that many people are afraid of you to fight.

It's true. I think if he said it was, and it was really. And video, too, as he said it's true. I think it's true because, you know, he posted a video saying that as well as he tweeted that comment. Okay, so explain to us what's going on with Gilbert Melendez. The fight was announced, and then Dana White said the fight is not going to happen, at least not for now. What were you told as to why this fight isn't happening? Tell you, please, what you know about boy with Gilbert Melendezza?

First, like, oboeuvred on placas, even, they've even, they've even, but then said that no. What's you saying? What you're saying? I'm, as I, as I see, I think of this shum-mov about this war, and, in the same I think that I'm this boy because I'm 21-0, 5-0 in E.C.

The same, the Glover of Tickshare, 20-20-bued, he won't win. He won't give him a titulny boy. I just, not just, not the title-n't-pitch, I just pray for a victory for the title. And I think that I've deserved it, not only with Smellendezzo, but with Bajum, there's Dijs, Smelendezam,

there's no, there's some of you. I think, if there's some of meh, then you should be more. I mean, there's definitely a lot of noise around this fight. You know, I pretty much get the same news as you guys do from the internet.

I think that I earned this fight. I think I deserve it. Just like Glover Tashara is fighting, he's got a 20 wins, 5-0 in the UFC, and now he's got a title shot, whereas I'm not asking for a title shot at this time.

I think this fight with Melendos makes sense. I think I earned it. I'm 20 in 1 and 0 in U.S.D. So what reason were you given as to why it's not happening? What kind of reason did you, why it's not happening? Well, me said that Melendez and U.S.C. There's some kind of, in the contract or by the money, they didn't have subdued.

And all this situation between them and they're going to to be with me and I've already four months after the after the other

even even it's not that this that's between Melendez's or the against

and I'm I'm I'm I'm ready and and I'm if they're if they want if they're

go out together you know either Melendez or Diaz need to work things out with the UFC I'm ready I'm working out I'm exercising. I'm in top shape. I'm ready to fight. It's been about four months since my last

fight with Hilly. So, you know, I'm ready. They really need to kind of work things out and I want to get started. So after it seemed like the Melendez fight, you know, wasn't going to happen, they turned their attention to Nathan Diaz, and Dana White said that he turned down the fight. And Nate, going back on Twitter, saying that he'd fight anyone anytime, his manager saying that they wanted to be compensated fairly. What was the reason you were given as to why the Nate Diaz fight wasn't happening? Well, after the way not with Nelan's in the war didn't get to say,

Dei said, that, he said, that, he said, that's, then, again, this boy, again, not, because they, his manager,

says he's going to say he's going to talk to, but they can't talk about, on the finance from with UFT. What's,

what's, what's the reason, why this battle still isn't still? I said that they can't do not be in the things like Diaz and Melendez and they're more money and I have no

I have no way to them and they're not going to be to be able to be with me to be in their name because I don't know that I have a name like Diaz or as Melendez in America and the way for me is for them will be a big step in a back. I understand but I understand But it's all the other

and if you're training you're doing to try to, you're to try with the other than boys. If they're both they're both they're going to get to get into

and let's two get. What else do? All right, so you know, it's really, I mean, that's pretty much what I understand is that there's a,

they're trying to work things off financially. I understand that it's going to be a tough fight for them. I don't have, I'm really kind of a no name or I don't have as much of a name in US, right,

now as they do. So I lose a lot to somebody like myself who definitely set them back quite a bit. So I do get that. I do get the business aspect of it. But I think that they should definitely fight. If they say they're willing to fight the best, they should fight the best. If they want, they can, I'll take them both with one to the cage. Wow.

Very bold. If you had your way, who's your dream match for yourself next? Is it Melendez? Is it Nate Diaz? Is it someone we're not talking about? Who would be your pick if they gave you the entire roster to choose from? Kamib, if you'd have you proposed to fight with love at this division, with who you'd preferable to fight with, who would be your nation-to-bella-to-be

to fight? Crome Diaz or Melendezza? Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, I would, I would, I would, I would, because he also five-bored in light in light ways, and I would have five-border. And for me, for them, and for them, too.

And for fans, it was, it was like, like, for example. against the other side of the other side of the other side of the other, with the other, who are the other, or who are the other, or who are, well, I think, could be with Kijckramp to address.

You know, either one of those two or maybe K.J. Grant, I think it would be a really good challenge, it would be a good fight for the fans. You know, a lot of times there's always like this challenge, a fighter, I mean, a striker versus wrestler. So I think that would be a fun fight as well, but, you know, either one of those three guys. You said earlier that you do believe that guys are afraid to fight you.

I didn't ask why, so I'd like to ask why now. Why do you think guys don't want to fight you? Simply because of your name, because you say you're not a big name in America or because of another reason? Why you think that you're in a lot of you? Because you're in a lot of people not quite as well. No, I don't think that many of them. They're not going to fight or not.

Just, I've cloned with a few of boys. And, yeah, now, it said that many of them, you're not. where they're not in the United States of but I don't think it's a lot of much more men's bravely and especially in my own vests. And I'm especially not really not

I'm not really in the moment I think Elie of Lekha is a lot of race because I don't know a big name, but I have a big perspective because I'm

21, 50, 50,000 and it's all the same of always always always I wouldn't go as far as saying that everyone is afraid to fight me. I'm not saying that. I know Dana White has said that the elite of the lightweight division is afraid to fight me. I guess either or not, you know, they don't want to lose to someone like myself who's not as famous

or not as popular as they are. But I'm not going to go as far as saying that everyone is afraid. But I do, I think that, you know, people do see and my results speak for themselves. What do you want to know, I have never been defeated and I have five and I have UFC. but I'm not going to say that everyone is afraid of me. There are a lot of good fighters in the U.S. That is very fair. So one fighter who has stepped up is Michael Johnson,

but via Twitter you said that he's not quite at your level. If you can't get Gilbert Melendez and Nate, why not give Michael Johnson a chance? I mean, as far as the rankings are concerned, you're higher than him, but, you know, Gil and Nate were higher than you. So why not give Michael Johnson a chance if he's the only one stepping up right now?

One of the fighters, who made with him with him to fight with him. On rating, he's lower you, but as you're nearer than you're nearer Mellendezza and Dicester. Why would you not fight with Michael Johnson? I understand. Just, in the same of Michael Johnson in the U.S. did a ballade on the leg.

He was going to win. He was in one-vrode-warot. And he had four or five boughs in U.S.A. But in the same day, in the time of career, for Michael, you know, I mean, well, boy with Michael Johnson, for me, it's not a goal. And if, like, Dias, Grant, Melendez, they don't want to fight,

but me will be to be able to. In fact, I want to watch. I look forward, and I want to be fighters, who are higher me. And my goal is to be Melendez, Grant, or Diaz. Let's give you both of it. My goal is to fight Melendez, Grant, or Diaz, just because I feel that there would be a much of a challenge to me in the fight. I mean, Michael Johnson, you know, I would say that if one of those three doesn't

testify with me, I may have to fight him, but, you know, he has lost in the UFC by decision, by submission. So I don't think he's posing as much of a challenge at this point. So that's pretty much it. You know, right now one of the big stories in our sport is this sort of invasion of Russian fighters, fighters from Dagestan coming over, like yourself, members of your team, the Red Fury fight team, doing so. well in the UFC. All of a sudden in the last

couple of years, it really feels like this has escalated greatly. Why is this happening now? Where are all of you coming from? Where did you all start to kind of come together and go on this run in the UFC? Because it really seems like, yes, there were Russian fighters, there were fighters from that part of the country doing well

in MMA in the past. But it seems like in the last year or so, every month there's a new guy coming over to the UFC going to Belator and doing so well. Why is it happening now? Why, you think, I'm that's a lot of Russia, in

in the most of Dagestan, from the Chichny, from where they came from, and why do you think I'm that's a lot of

many of the newersc, in U.S. in Belatoria, even as the of my team, Rufuri, how would you

that, how would you have it was in? Well, I should, one, two years in Russia, almost

not, manager, you can say, normal. And in the manager, like Sam Carden, many of the players have been able to have the opportunity

to fight in America, in U.S.S. and in Belaher. And, in the territory, in Chichita, in the Kaukas, people live in it, looks at the

time, they're doing and training with the time, very many good prospective of the players, who are still not have been

in BFC, who are still they can't see, I think, even without the end of the world,

and even Maladim, love me gave, and force, and will be storking, and in battle, and not do you know what, I think, that needs a time. Just, just, it has been started, and it

should be able to start, because of the young just an everatine to fight in America. You know, there were always been great fighters. Fighting is part of the culture in Russia and

Dagestan and Chechnie in particular. You know, it's just a matter of not having their proper management. About a year and a half ago, Sam Cardan started bringing some of the fighters like myself, Abla Amaga, and a bunch of other guys. And, you know, it's really just an opportunity that wasn't present before. But now you're going to see a lot of good fighters coming in.

A lot of guys are training specifically for the U.S.C. And when I go training at my gym here, a lot of young guys actually giving me a really hard time. So I think that you're going to see a lot of great fighters coming out of that region. Speaking of Amagov, do you have an update on? Do you think he will ever fight again? What do you think about Atlana Amagawa? You have any of the news?

You think he will be still to fight? I've been to talk with him. I know that he wants to be a family. He's the last two years, he's not been a family. He's almost a year, he's a year ago. He's a year, he wants to be a family. And we see how he progress with, the last one, two years, how he's doing,

how he's from the war he was going to be. I thought, and I thought that he was but he was he was actually he can be in the future to be champion and I think

he will be he will have a clear answer for you yet I spoke with Adeline recently and he has mentioned that he wants to spend a little bit of time with his family at this time he recently, you know, had a son he's about a year old now. year old now. And he wants just to spend a little bit more time because he's been spending a lot of

time in the training camp. So he hasn't had a chance to kind of spend some time with his wife and kid and his mom and dad. So that's his plan at this time. I hope that he will come back just because he's been doing so well in his recent fights. And I think he has a great future at the year. And I'm wondering, you know, there was a video that came out a few months back of a young child wrestling a bear. And a lot of people said it was you wrestling this bear. Was that in fact you in that video? And if you were not in the video, have you ever wrestled the bear before? Aviv, I've never,

recently, you've got to be a little manch, that you've got to be a little man who was with the bearer's with Medvedin. And they'd want to know, if it's you were on this video. And if it's not you, you've ever been to be able to bearding. I was actually, for the video was in the internet, I was noteworthy, because it's my secret, the secret, how I've got to win. I very much

I'm very much with the animals especially, well, before the last my sparring partner was left,

now if Melendez will put him, I'm going to who will choose from him from a partner to be a

partner. You know, I wasn't really happy when that video came off, simply because, you know,

it's my secret training partner, so, you know, I didn't want to give out my secrets like that, but I do

wrestle different animals before my fight, getting ready. So if I end up fighting Melendez, I'll wrestle the line. Wow.

If they're saying, Stan, Stan. Sam. If Diaz and Melendez is going to have to pick a partner of a guy who are. Who? Zajica? Zajika.

Zajika. If they end up not taking a fight, then I'll have to, I'm going to have to take funny as my training partner. So was that kid you? Was that really you? That's what you was.

It was a big video. It's a big secret. It's a big secret. Wow, okay. In a perfect world, when would you like to fight? In terms of the dates or...? Yeah, like what month? When does you want to get back in there? Okay. When would you want to get back in there? Okay. When would you want to have your next day? I'm gonna'am for today. I'm gonna for today. I'm gonna to

that you're going to go to 11th April to do that I would want to to participate and in the first one of the first option for me the most optimal variant. I'm also even if UFC wants. I'm ready to go right now, but

I would say I prefer April 11 as a date, but I'm ready to go whenever you're easy. Okay, final question. Which animal has given you your toughest test? I mean, of all your training with animals, it sounds like you do it a lot. I'm just curious, which animals toughest.

Of all the animals, who are you sparringed, who's to shesley? Well, of all the people

not- for me arele- because I am from I am from I think,

I would want to have to swing with an right now, the toughest one is the

eagle. That's the one I definitely cannot address right now, so that's the goal in the future. By the way, a happy

anniversary to Habib, it was exactly two years ago today that he made his UFC debut, January 20th, 2012. So it's been a great run for him, hoping to see him back inside the Octagon. And honestly, I'm a little disappointed. I was hoping he'd say, in Russian, don't be scared, homie. Maybe he did and you missed it, but that would have been a perfect reply to the Diaz and Melendez camp. Habib, I'm congratulating two-year-old. Two years ago, was my first debut to UFC.

and we'll we'll see you'll see in Octagonia I said I'd say if you'd say you'd say you'd say to you'd be in there in this interview

that's that I'll say yeah say by English tell you what's English what's English say this

you know how say hey say Nate don't be scared of me No, don't be scared me. Say this message, let's say, if he's not, if he's not going to, I'll just be able to be able to speak.

I'll say, Nate? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This match is for Nate, for Melendez. If you guys take this fight, I promise I won't hit you hard. I'll just wrestle you. Fair enough. Thank you so much, Habib, for joining us. I know it's late there.

Really appreciate it. Good luck getting the fight. And Sam, to you, thank you very much for translating and continued success to the Red Fury fight team and to NBC management. You guys are doing a tremendous job. Thank you. All right, there they are. Sam Cardin, the manager for one, Khabib Nirmagamadeov, and Khabib himself stopping by. Kind of telling Mr. Diaz and Melendez to not be scared.

homie. Great stuff there. Looking forward to seeing. And I think really if they can't get the fight, Michael Johnson's stepping up. I'm interested in it. Let's see, he makes a good point as far as Johnson, you know, having a few losses

and whatnot, but he's looked good as of late. And sometimes you've got to take the guy who's calling your number. And right now Michael Johnson is calling his number. While we were doing that interview in a minute, we'll be joined by Cole Miller, who's coming off a big, win over Sam Cecilia, Bellator announcing that the season debut, Bellator 110 on February

28, will feature Christian and Pumbo versus Rampage Jackson on one side of a four-man tournament, and Mikhail Zayetz versus King Mo Lle on the other side of the tournament. That means if Rampage and King Mo win, they're finally going to fight each other. How about that? Winner faces the champion who will be determined when Attila Vey goes up against Emmanuel Newton a unification bout for the Beltaur

Light Heavyweight title. So there we go. We know what is next for Rampage Jackson. Okay, let's move along and welcome in our next guest. He had a big win on Wednesday in Duluth, Georgia, over Sam Cecilia. He is on a role and his post-fight interviews are nothing short of entertainment.

They're very, very fun to listen to. He has been somewhat reinventing himself as of late. You heard him after his last win a few months back. We wanted to talk to him today about his latest callout, or is it really his latest callout? You'll see what I mean. Of course, we're talking about Cole Miller joining us on the line right now. Cole, how are you?

Hey, Ariel. Thanks for having me. It's good to have you back on the show. So congratulations on the win, but I want to fast forward just a little bit and go to the callout because I'm sitting there waiting. I said this before the fight. oh, I'm looking forward to seeing if he keeps up with the column McGruber stuff as you did back in England

and you get the win and then I'm really excited and then you say that everyone knows who you're going to call out and you call out clown boy Soroni. Now we know you've had your issues with him in the past but why didn't you stick on the Connor McGregor train? You know, I think that I made my point with the whole McGregor thing you know, I'll be glad to fight that guy

any day. But I think I just wanted to, you know, raise some people's eyebrows and get them thinking and not just, you know, buy on what this guy's selling, so to speak. You know, I think that, again, you don't get to beat up a 20-year-old and now move to the front of the line and talk trash on all these top 10 guys that work so hard to get where they're at. And then just because you happen to be from a country where we're trying to get fans from now, you know, just because you're from there, don't get to fight all over the title. You know what I'm saying? You got a step, you know, step in place in your spot in the line and work your ass too. So, get where you need to go.

And that is brilliant stuff. And I love this kind of, and by the way, I mean, just on a side note, where, and you've talked before and we'll get to the Seroni stuff in a second, but you seem to be a lot more outspoken now. Where is this coming from? You know, I think I just, I didn't see a lot of stuff that's been bothering me and mixed martial arts. And, you know, there's two sides to, you know, how I feel about MMA. There's my personal career as a fighter, but then there's how I feel as a fan. You know, I was a fan first,

and I do care about this sport and, you know, martial arts in general. And I did notice in a lot of things that have been rubbing me the wrong way into, you know, I feel it's been making the sport kind of decline. And, you know, I want to, you know, I want to, you know, I want to, you know, I want to if I want to speak out about those things. And if nobody wants to listen to me, maybe there are others that people do want to listen to that can reciprocate, you know, what I'm saying, if they feel the same way, and it'll get people thinking. Like what in particular? Oh, like, you know, what we talked about last time with, you know, just how judging overall is affecting how fighters are fighting fights and how coaches are training their fighters to fight

and how that's, how I feel is leading to the decline of martial arts in mixed martial arts. You know, with doing enough to win rounds, you know, to affect the opinions of people that don't even know what they're watching. Is that the only thing bothering you right now? Oh, no, you know, the whole, you know, McGregor, you know, getting to the front of the line, that bothers me. Right. You know, I don't like people, you know, coming into the UFC and, you know, the guy's got the whole fighting Irish gimmick going on. And, you know, he jumps to the front of the line. And a lot of people, you know, I got some people on Twitter and stuff that were like, you know, shut up, you gatekeeper bitch.

And I'm sitting there thinking, that's exactly what I'm saying. Like, I earn my, you know what? I don't even think that that's like a bad thing to say. I've worked my ass off. You know, I've had my ups and downs in my career. And if at that point I'm a gatekeeper, you're damn right, I'm a gatekeeper. And I fucking earn that. You know what I'm saying?

So let me do my job and throw these guys like Connor McGregor in my way so we can find out just how good they are. You know, I never, anybody I ever called out, you know, is I don't call out no easy, easy people. I don't say nothing about guys that stylistically are made for me to walk through. I call hard guys to fight. I say things against guys are going to push me to be a better fighter and step my game up. He also has been calling people out that their styles match well with mine or some guys that are just easy for me to walk through. And you bring up a great point.

I never seen someone really embraced the role of gatekeeper like you just did, but it's great stuff. And now I'm wondering why Soroni now? Because for those who have been obviously following the sport for a long time, we know that you've gone back and forth with him. You've had your moments calling him out. He's called you out. You've talked about your issues.

But why on Wednesday? Why was he at the tip of your tongue? Why did you feel the need to do it then again? Well, honestly, I didn't even know he had a fight coming up this weekend until the other day. I had seen, you know, I checked the UG all the time, and I had saw he had made a comment about dropping down to 145 pounds. and so I was like, perfect. You know, we had our beef, you know, and it's not gone. You know, he just happened to be, you know, on the rise when he came in.

So he got, you know, not that he didn't earn it, but he got a quick run towards, you know, the lightweight rankings, you know what I'm saying? And I was, you know, on a skid at the time, and I dropped down the featherweight and, you know, had a rough start at the beginning. So we weren't, you know, in anywhere. near each other to fight, but I said in some interviews, you know, before my days done here, you know, it's going to happen. So I really just wanted to throw that out there to, you know,

remind him and others, you know, it's not done yet. And, you know, if he needed some motivation to come to 145, you know, because I didn't know if he was just considering it or if it was for sure going to happen, but, you know, that's on the table. What's the genesis of this feud? Where did it all start and why? Honestly, I think it started when I fought Leonard and, you know, I beat Leonard, but I had all the respect in the world for Leonard and other people have beat Leonard and he didn't try to call them. Now, I honestly think that he thinks I'm a mark that I'm just some with some easy guy that he was going to get over on, you know, and I was just some pushover that he could just have an easy fight with.

But, you know, there might have been some guys that beat me, but I'm not an easy fight for anybody. and I'm not just going to stand there while somebody talks about me like that we can fight and we've had a couple you know we've jogged back and forth and had a couple close calls you know behind the scenes and things like that

but you know we haven't been able to get in the cage so when I saw that on the underground where he said in an interview that he was you know concerned dropping down to 135 pounds like hey if you just need a little bit of motivation to cut that weight, you know, here it is.

You fought Leonard in 2007. I'm surprised that this has lasted this long. Well, what it comes down to, I think, is we just don't like each other. Right. And, you know, it's not going to matter, you know, if you respect somebody's fighting style or not. You know, I said it's going to happen, you know, and I stick to my word. And it sounds like the UFC isn't all that keen on him going down to 145.

would you be interested in going back up to 155 to fight him? Yeah, you know, or meet at 150 or something of that nature. You know, if I had known that he wasn't going to come down, I wouldn't have even mentioned his name, you know what I'm saying? But I thought that that was what was going on. And again, I didn't even know he had a fight coming up this weekend. So that's my bad for my bad. No, honestly, I actually thought that you knew he had a fight,

and I thought it was brilliant because now you're going to be asked, he's going to be asked about you all week long. I bet you more people are going to ask about you than his actual opponent this weekend. Yeah, I mean, I guess it kind of worked out good like that too, but, you know, I had not heard that he had a fight. So I was thinking this whole time maybe he was trying to do a test cut, you know, or maybe he's been working on it with a dietitian

or, you know, because it's been a while since we've seen him in action. So I was thinking, man, I haven't heard anything about him having a fight. he must be, you know, training hard and trying to do this test cut to see if he can make the weight, you know? Yeah. So that was my train of thought. Yeah, he's only a fight on Fox,

that small channel that no one gets. Right. You need to check maybe the schedules on the UG as well, and not just the actual forms, which I know you frequent quite often. So, okay, so you got the win. It was a very impressive performance. The last two in a row had been supremely impressive.

What's been the difference for you? I mean, you were coming off that controversial loss to Manny Gamburian. You had the win over Barb Pachevsky. But in the last two, I mean, you could say one can make the case, and I'd love to get your take on this, the two most impressive wins of your UFC career. Like this stretch right now, you maybe have never looked better. Would you agree in? And if so, why is that?

Yeah, I would agree with that. And thanks for noticing. I've been working real hard, and I think that I can attribute it primarily to my coaches. all collaborating. I think that we're all on the same page now, and the way that my wrestling coach, Carmen Barzini, is instructing me. It blends in really well with the way my striking coach, Ketel Kabeas, is instructing me.

You know, and I've been working with my ground coach, Marcos Tomata for, you know, ever since I was a purple belt. So we've, you know, developed a real good, you know, synchronicity there. But, you know, I'd say that that's the thing, is the coaches are all on the same page for how I need to be fighting, and that's affecting how I'm being instructed as a fighter. And my understanding of MMA and bringing all the skills together at the same time has just gotten better.

You know, I've been doing this for 10 years now. If you do something long enough, finally it'll click. So, you know, I think I've shown before in the past that, you know, I do have some good stand-up and striking. And then I've also shown that I do have some good ground. But I think the one thing that was not happening for me was mixing it all together in the fight. And now I'm starting to do that. Now I'm starting to not just land good strikes but avoid strikes.

Now I'm not just starting to, you know, clinch with guys. I'm getting takedowns and I'm stopping takedowns. And I think that that's just, you know, in this past year, like you said, fighting Bart Palashevsky, Ogle, and Gamburian in 2013. And now starting my year off right with, you know, Sam Cecilia. Things are just finally starting to come together. You know, people talk about, I'm just starting, I'm just, I'm finally getting it, I feel like. You know, I felt like 2012.

I've been doing this like nine years or something like, I don't feel I even know what I'm doing in here sometimes. And 2000, where like, I was like, I don't even think I know anything about MMA anymore. It just felt like that. I thought I was a student of the game, and I probably knew a lot, you know, knew more than I was able to do. But, and then other time, I'm just like, I don't think I know anything. And, you know, 2013, you know, I finally started getting that confidence back, and I finally feel like things are just starting to click. I know you were embracing the gatekeeper role, but are you starting to think now that you can go on a run here for the title?

Oh, yeah. I mean, I know I'm a top 10 feather way. You know, when I'm talking about that gatekeeper role, I'm referring to my inconsistencies, you know, the two wins, one loss, two wins, one loss, two wins, one lost. I know if you, no one's going to argue that my skill set is not top ten. You can't tell me that with all the top ten guys that I can't strike or I can't grapple or I can't fight with any of those guys. I feel like I'm like the dark horse. I feel like those guys, none of them, none of them want to fight me. But yeah, I think that I'm a contender.

I think that I've, like you said, I think that I showed some real good performances in 2013, and this is the best that I've ever looked in my career. And that's what I want to do next. I want to fight a top 10 guy. Why do you yell at Dana White after the fight? And I believe you said to him, I'm a top 10 guy, right? Yeah, I'm a top 10 featherweight, you know.

But I want him to know. You know, this was my 16th fight in the UFC. and I know that Dana respects me. I know that Joe Silva and Sean Shelby and Lorenzo and Frank, I know they respect me as a fighter, but I don't want to get overlooked for the next big thing. You know, I feel like I feel like I've always been kind of a late bloomer in life. You know, so just because I've had 16 fights and I didn't win my season ultimate fighter,

I didn't even make it to the past the quarterfinals. And the guys that I've got six losses in the UFC, and none of them were top 10 guys when I fought them when I lost with them. But that doesn't mean that I can't keep going. You know, I'm a constant work in progress, and I'm getting better every day. You've seen that in the past three fights that I had in 2013, and this really solid start to 2014.

And I don't think that, you know, I think that you could make the argument that I do belong in there, with those guys based on those performances. So you tweeted that you did in fact break your hand. I'm wondering, A, which hand is it? Just so we're clear, when did it happen, and how long will you be out for? I broke my left hand.

I broke it in the same spot that I broke my right hand against T.J. O'Brien in 2011. It's the index finger, one of those metacarpals down by the index finger, close to the thumb. In two and a half weeks, I have an appointment to get the cast removed and re-X-rayed to check to see how it's healing. Basically, they said that right now we avoided the knife right off the back because we want to see if it'll try to heal on one piece, but basically it's like eggshells in there right now.

Wow. The fracture is not just one. It's broken off into multiple pieces, but they are close together. and none of them are displaced. You know what I'm saying? So he said it is like eggshells in there, but let's wait three weeks and then re-x-ray. If it looks like it's starting to heal good,

then we'll leave it alone. If it's not looking so hot, then we may have to put a pin in or, you know, look at something like that. So right now you don't know exactly how long you'll be out for? Correct. But what I'm guessing is I'm probably looking at a June fight time Because I figure any kind of broken bone or surgery, unless it's a ligament tear, usually is eight weeks.

And what that means is eight weeks, that's two months to heal. And then you usually need about a month or two months of training to get comfortable again. And then you need a two-month training camp or eight-week training camp. So usually when I get an injury like this, a broken bone or I have to have surgery that's non-ligament and a knee or something like that, you're always looking at six months. That could be around the time that Mr. McGruber comes back. All right. In Ireland.

You wouldn't mind, right? I wouldn't mind at all. Let's take a trip. Yeah, that would be something else. So what are you going to do to pass the time now with a broken hand? Are you able to work out? Are you just going to lay low? I'm going to lay low for a little bit.

That's what my doctor said to do so. But the moment that I'm able to do any kind of physical therapy, I'm going to be doing it. I'm a working man. I like to work for the UFC. I like to fight as often as possible. You know, we talked about that before, too. You know, all the way up until 2013, I've been fighting two times a year.

And that wasn't the UFC's fault. My manager's fault I was injuries all the time. I've had five surgeries since being in the UFC. It sucks. Trust me. So I like to work. I like to make money. I like to make people happy, you know, when they appreciate my fighting style.

So, you know, the moment I can start doing some sort of rehab or something, I'll be doing it. Awesome. Well, heal up very soon. Another great performance. Again, congratulations on that. Another great post-fight interview. You threw me a curveball. I was expecting McGregor.

You went Saroni. You went old school on us. But I predict you'll be talked about a lot this week in Chicago as Saroni does the interviews because a lot of people like to get excited about that stuff, including myself. So great job there. As I mentioned, heal up soon. And we hope to see you back soon rather than later. It's always great. You're so honest. It's great to have you on the show.

All right, Ariel. Thanks, man. There he is. Cole Miller coming off a big win this past Wednesday in Duluth, Georgia, somewhat of a home game for him. And once again, somewhat stealing the headlines with his post-fight interview. Great stuff out of Cole Miller. Hopefully he gets well soon. And again, I maintain that he could main event a show in Dublin against Connor McGregor. I was going to call him, Colin. Connor McGregor, because of the back and forth that has happened between the two over the last few months since he called him out in London just a couple months ago in October, end of October. So great stuff there and hopefully he gets well very soon. All right, let's move along. Excuse me, at UFC 168,

one of the big performances was Travis Brown with a massive, massive win over Josh Barnett, one minute, KO via elbows telling me after the fight that that was only the second time he had ever done that the first time was when he caoed Gabriel Gonzaga earlier in 2013 back in April. Travis Brown is on a role. And then afterwards it came out that he, in fact, was somewhat of a free agent, didn't have a new deal with the UFC, they worked it out. And then they quickly announced that he'll be fighting in Orlando at UFC on Fox 11 in April against Fabrice U.S.

Hever-Dome with the winner fighting Kane Velasquez for the belt. A lot to talk about here. So let us welcome in Travis Hapa Brown, the owner. as he knows by now, of one of the greatest beards in MMA right now. Travis, how are you? Good, man. Let me stop you there real quick. Better playing magic by myself to a computer screen.

This is what I'm doing right now. That's Bishop Gorman wrestling team right now. I'm putting in some work with Frank Mears, Ricky Lundell, and all the guys over here. Wow. You know, we're putting in work making changes to our game already. Wow. Well done. Well done.

So I take it that you saw that interview last. week. Yeah, I saw, I saw, actually my buddy told me about it, and then I just started watching it for a little bit, and yeah, I watched some of it. What did you think of what Josh was saying, and it just seemed like he wasn't giving you all that much credit. He was talking about himself a lot, but never a tip of the cap to you, right? Yeah, you know, and I think that just kind of defines, I feel like that defines him as a fighter,

you know, and he had these 12 steps. and all this other kind of nonsense, when really there's only one step. One thing that you really need to do in this sport. And it's the golden freaking rule, and that is make no excuses. That is it. If you make no excuses, there's nothing holding you back.

People beat themselves in this sport. On that night, on any night, I'm the better fighter. And I 100% I can't believe that of myself, and that's why I went out there and did what nobody else has done in such a short amount of time to a fighter like Josh Barnett. You feel, I mean, Josh is one thing, and sometimes fighters are like that, but you feel like you're getting the respect that you deserve now? You know, that's the thing, is I think people get worried about that. And I think I even told you this, maybe in one of our talks, is that that that's something that I wanted when I was. was when I was really young in the school, when I first got into UFC, people would say,

what do you say? I said, I just, I want to feel like I belong. I want to, I want people to understand that I belong here in the sport. At this point in my career, I don't, I don't care people who think I belong or not, because I'm knocking people out. My performance is speaking for itself. The respect that I get is going to be earned. You know what I mean? And that's the way I look at it. That's just a byproduct. The respect is a byproduct of the performances that you put on. So when you hear Josh, not, give you that credit, do you just, again, do you just chalk that up to Josh, or do you feel like, I mean, like, does it not go through your mind? Like, what do I have to do to start, you know,

getting some credit around here? Yeah, you know, that to me is, again, it's the same, it's the same kind of thing, you know, I feel like he's an, he's an entertainer before he's a fighter, you know, and I think he has that personality. And I think that, and guys that I fought before, they give me respect because they understand, they understand once we get in the cage, once we leave the case, that, you mean, how, the kind of athlete that I am. And so

I get that respect. I don't really care if I get it from Josh, but you know, I think that's more just, that's his personality. And I honestly feel like that's one of the reason why he failed that night. I came up short. You know, after the fact it came out that you were

working on a new contract, you didn't have a new deal going into the fight. Why was that? Typically, a in your position, the UFC likes to sign him to that long-term deal before the fight? Why did you kind of roll the dice and wait until after the fight? Because

it was something that, it was an option that was kind of given to us, you know? It was something where it's like, you know, we see these guys like Roy Nelson who roll the dice, and they go out there and they say, oh, you know, you guys are going to be, you know, eating your words

when I come out here with win and then I'm a free agent. But at the end of the day, you know, that was an option that we took and, you know, it paid out for us. Me and my team are very confident in my ability, especially knowing that we're going to fight Barnett next. You know, that was a gamble that we're willing to take, and it definitely paid off. Based on the story that Dana White said last week, it sounded like you couldn't really meet eye to eye in terms of how much you were worth. So you rolled the dice and after the fact they were like, all right, let's talk and give you what you deserve. Are you happy with what you got now? Very much so.

Very much so. And, you know, and even, you know, I'm going to be constantly proving myself. That's part of this sport. And so, you know, like Dana said, it just couldn't really see eye to eye. And so we took that gamble. We took that shot. We, you know, we came out, you know, in our favor. and the UFC has backed me 100%.

They understand, and they've been great throughout this entire process. I mean, we've got a contract signed so quick, you know what I mean? So, you know, there's no real battling, nothing really going on. They, you know, we took an offer that they gave us, and it worked out great. You know, the UFC, like I said, has always been there to support me, and they know they see the talent that I have, and they see how hard I work, and, you know, they're willing to pay for that. Did it bother you going into the fight that they didn't quite see that

worth right away? No, not at all. I mean, in my entire life, I've always been that underdog. I've always had to prove myself. That's the story in my life. You know, nothing has ever been handed to me. I've never, you know, and when it was handed to me, I didn't accept it. I want to work for something. I want to earn something. Instead, just be given something. That, to me, it makes it so much sweeter when you earn something. And, you know, I would never want the past that I've had in the UFC you know, I would never want anything less. I don't want one fight and then fight for the title. I mean, because I don't feel like you'd earn it that way.

I feel like the way that I fought, the people that I fought, I've earned it. And so when I go and I fight Verdum next for a number one contender spot, I'm going to earn that spot. And when I fight for the title, I'm going to earn that spot. I'm going to earn that title. You know what I mean? And that's me is much sweeter, you know, earned than giving. How much longer after the Barnett fight did they approach you again to offer you the new deal?

Just curious about the timeline. It was pretty much right away. I mean, when I got back to California, I think it was on Monday. You know, I was kind of a little emotional. I posted something where I got home and did this big Christmas for my kids and stuff. And I said, you know, thank you, Dana White, thank you, UFC. You know, you guys have been able to, you know, help me make this. makes this possible for my kids.

And, you know, there was a point in my life, my career, where I had less than $100 to spend on both of my kids for Christmas. Wow. And that was, and I remember telling myself, I remember telling my best friend, I said, this will never happen again. I will not let this happen. I mean, $100 for two kids, for family, for me to spend on my family and friends and everybody, you know what I mean?

And, you know, for me to be able to provide. vibe for my kids like I am now is really a dream come true. How long ago was that? And so he actually called me. He actually called me. I'm sorry, I'll finish it real great. He actually called me on the 30 and was like, hey, man, we're just so happy to have you here, you know, we're going to be working on a deal.

Enjoy your vacation. Enjoy your holidays, you know, all this kind of stuff. And we'll be in touch very soon. And they were in touch within that week. How long ago was that when you only had the $100? 2009, 2010, probably. Wow. So not that long ago.

No, not that long at all. You were an MMA fighter. I was fighting for the smaller shows and, you know, stuff like that. But, yeah, I was, you know, people see, you know, what they see now, but they don't, they choose to not see what it took to get here. You know, I mean, just to be an MMA fighter, I went over $50,000 in debt. You know, I mean, my management really, they supported me. They took the range.

They really helped me. saw with, you know, something worth investing in and they invested in it, and it's paid off for them, you know? In 2010, I had my truck refund. You know what I mean? And there's been so much stuff that I had, so much just crap that I've had to go through to get to this point, you know, and, like I said, man, you know, I would rather earn it than somebody handing it to me, and that's why.

I've had to go through hell. I've been where other people have been, and I can understand where they're coming from, but I won't, I won't, like, you know, I'm tough on those kind of people because I was tough on myself in the situations. And you always have doors that are open for you, but you have to take advantage of them once you're there. So in 2010, you were a 9-0 heavyweight going into the UFC and you won your UFC debut. So around that time, you weren't, you weren't, you know, playing with much. You didn't have a lot to your name, right? Not at all.

I had, right before my first fight with McSweeney, that's when I had my that's when I had my truck repoed. Wow. I was just kind of, you know, living, you know, living where I could at the time. I think I had a very small place, you know, and I was always laid on the rent. I think finally by the time I moved out of that place, I had, I think, like, $1,300 worth of late payment bills because I'm paid the rent late. You know what I mean? So it was just, yeah, it was one thing after another at that point.

point in my life, and it was very difficult. But like I said, I made it through. You know, I didn't want people feeling sorry for me then. I don't want people feeling sorry for me now. You know, you can do it if you put your mind to it. Did you ever think, you know, say, I'm not just, I'm not making enough money here. Did you ever think about quitting? You know, I think the one characteristic that I have is once I make up my mind,

I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it until, I'm either successful or I literally have no other option. And that was, I had already made that mindset signing with the U.S.C. Understanding that, yes, we're going to go through tough times, I didn't think they're going to be that tough. But we went through really tough times. But I knew that I would not give up what I wanted. I would not let that beat me.

You know, I'm not going to let that beat me. I'm going to beat it. If somebody else can do this, I can do it. And I can be successful at doing it. That's my outlook on everything that I do in life, you know. Being a father, being a fighter, being just a man in general, if there's somebody that can do it, I can do it and I can do it better. And, you know, that's how I live my life.

You know, I remember talking to you for the first time at UFC 120 in London in October of 2010, and that was the time that you fought to a draw against Czech Congo. The only real blemish on your record, you were very emotional after that fight, Is this why you were that emotional? Was there so much pressure on you to go on a streak, and did you feel like that was going to set you back? You know, I didn't feel the pressure because of a streak or wins or losses or anything like that, you know.

I felt the pressure because I didn't perform to my best ability. And I also knew that, you know, at that time, that was a difference. I made $8,000 for that fight. It was a difference between $8,000 and $16. And at that point, $8,000 in my life was such a big difference to me. You know what I mean? It made such a big difference.

And I think, you know, my management, it was 2010, the Christmas 2010, because my management ended up sending out presents for my kids because I couldn't really get them anything. Wow. And then now, and I follow you on Twitter and everything, I saw you had a massive Christmas, kind of late Christmas, if you will, with your family. And I believe, correct? It was like 808, right? Wasn't the number 808, the amount that you bought?

Yeah, 808, that's also the area code for Hawaii, so I had to post that. Yeah, that's an amazing thing. Yeah, I mean, three years later, you know, it's changed so drastically, and, you know, that's just, I'm just so happy that I'm able to do that for my family. I notice, and correct me if I'm wrong here, because obviously I wasn't around, you know, your first fight, but I noticed you bring up your, your job. children a lot and you get emotional and you talk about them a lot and they talk about in the countdown shows in the last like year or so you really mention your your two boys a lot is that

i mean is there a specific reason for why you keep doing that yeah because uh you know i i've i've kind of touched based on before is everybody has what that motivation that's going to take them to that next level everybody has it some people just haven't found it yet and maybe some people won't won't recognize it. But for me, like I said, I had a hundred dollars, less than a hundred dollars in 2010 to spend on Christmas. And now I'm able to provide for them. I'm able to do more than that, you know? And, um, and, and for me, that has been, you know, the driving force for the last two years, um, for my success, for my, for my, for my willingness to work as hard as I do, you know, I've had to take myself out of San Diego and do my camps because I know myself good enough

and accepting that, you know, I am a father first and I will never say otherwise. And so with that being said, it's hard for me to be a father and the level fighter that I am now all in the same day. For me, I have to, I have to separate those two. So when I do my camps now, I'm in Albuquerque. I'm away from my friends. I'm away from my family. I'm away from my two boys and that kills me, but that drives me to work as hard as I do because I have, what I said earlier in this interview, I have no excuses. I have nothing holding me back. There's no reason for me to not put in the work that I need to put in in order to be successful.

You know what I mean? So I have no excuses. If there's a man that beats me right now, there is not an excuse. You are the better man. And I have no problem admitting that. The night that I fought Bigfoot, he was the better man. He beat me that night. And that's, you know, no excuses that you cannot have them in this sport.

Otherwise, you'll get hurt. Just two more minutes left with Travis Brown. Incredible stuff. Thank you so much for the time. And I should mention, I did say that the Czech Congo fight was your lone blemish. I forget, you know, it's amazing because it's hard to really say that the Bigfoot fight was a loss. But, you know, it is counted as one. We don't want to take anything away from him.

But it was announced last week that UFC on first. Fox 11. It's you versus Fabrice Radoum. It's a huge fight. Kind of unclear as to whether or not it's the main event, and that's important because we'll determine whether or not it's a three-round or five-round fight. Do you know right now? Is it the main event? I don't know.

I just, I looked on Sherdog and it's me and Burdum as the main event. So, you know, the thing is, at this point, if I do what I'm supposed to be doing, I need to be training for five-round fights every single time. So there's, you know,

that's what I'm training for. That's what we're getting ready for. And I welcome it. I'm ready for it. I've trained for one when I fought big for it, and it was hilarious. I mean, the training for a five-round fight that goes into it, I mean, you don't understand that 10 minutes more in a fight equals, you know, hours and hours and hours of extra training that you have to do because you have to get your body ready for 10 rounds.

Or for five rounds. Right. But, you know, you'd learn about 10 rounds to get ready for those five rounds. You know, he started doubling up on your practice, almost. You fought some big guys as of late, you know, tough guys, Silva, Gonzaga, over him, of course, Barnett. Where do you put Verdume? I mean, do you think he is the best guy, the toughest guy that you have faced this far? Yeah, I mean, you know, he's the next guy in line, man.

And, you know, I build these guys up to be monsters in my mind. You know, I've even dreamt about them beating me. And I told the, you know, I have a mental coach, and he was like, you know, You always, no matter what you do in these practices, in these mental coaching and all this kind of stuff, you always want to picture yourself coming out on top. Well, there's been times where I'm dreaming, and I wake up with the feeling of a disappointment that I've just lost to that person. And I've dreamt about these guys beating me.

And when I do that, I think that already, that gives me more motivation to go out the next day, the next week, and even work that much harder, so I never feel that feeling again. It's amazing. I can feel the confidence oozing out of you right now. It's amazing to talk to you. You know, you say it, but it feels like you are on top of the world. It's a great thing. I love it. Yeah, and I'm not there yet. I'm still working. I'm at the bottom working my way up. That's where I look at it. And you're in Vegas right now, you said?

I'm in Vegas right now. I'm working with Frank and Ricky Lindell. You know, just coming out here, getting some wrestling in, getting, you know, just always improving my game. This is what, you know, getting up to that next level and having that little bit extra income, you know, if you invest in yourself, then nothing's going to be there to stop me. There's no excuses, right? Well, good luck, Travis. First off, you know, congratulations on the win. We told you that when I saw you in Las Vegas. Congratulations on the new contract. That's very exciting. And congratulations on getting that big fight. Good luck. I'm sure I'll talk to you before then, but it's great to hear a little more about you and the road that you have taken to get here because that is an amazing. story and you deserve everything that you are receiving right now. So enjoy it and enjoy the time out in Vegas with the training and all that stuff. And good luck as you prepare for right now the biggest fight of your career. Thank you man. I really appreciate you having me on. Pleasure. There he is. The man who will be facing for B. Superdome, April the 19th,

the UFC returns to Florida. And that's interesting because just less than two years ago, the UFC had an event in South Florida. This time it's around. central Florida, but around South Florida. It was headlined by Demetrius Johnson versus Ian McCall. And Dana White said afterwards that he didn't know if they'd return anytime soon. The attendance wasn't great. It was a Friday night. It wasn't the biggest card of all time. It was a fight night. The co-main event was Charlie Brennaman versus Eric Silva. So it wasn't the greatest fight of all time. But that being said, here they are two years later, less than two years later. later and they're coming back with a huge card.

They've got, as I mentioned, April 19th, Travis Brown versus Fabio Redoom, we don't even know if that's the main event yet. Also, Liz Karmouche versus Misha Tate. So that is what has been announced thus far, and that is taking place at the, what is that arena? It's the Amway Center or something like that.

It's where the Orlando Magic Play. What is it called? The Amway Center. Amway Center in Orlando. They return to Central Florida, I believe. It's the first time that the UFC has ever held an event in Orlando, Florida.

So that's UFC on Fox 11. The UFC returns. UFC on Fox 10 this Saturday. So good timing there. And congratulations once again to Travis Brown for getting that big contract. Now, in a minute, we're going to be joined by Uriah Faber. I'm trying to track him down. Talking to his people, being elusive.

He main events UFC 169 in less than two weeks. It's in Newark, New Jersey. and of course, you know, we had Eric Del Fierro on the show last week. It was supposed to be Dominic Cruz versus Hennon Burao, titled Unification Bout. And unfortunately, Dominic Cruz suffered a groin tear, so he had to pull out of the fight and enter Uriah Faber, who steps up on short notice.

He defeated Michael McDonald, what was it, around a month ago, in Sacramento. So he is ready and willing, and he steps up and gets another crack at Hennon Burow, who he fought at UFC 149. It's not really being promoted all that much that they fought once way back when, but he did fight at UFC,

he did fight him at UFC 149, lost a tough one, a fight that somewhat resembled to degree the Josealdo fight, but he is getting another crack and what's most interesting in my opinion about this is that for a long time, a lot of people like myself

were wondering if Yari would get another shot at the title. And when this was announced, no one even questioned it. This was the number one guy to get that shot. No one deserved it more than him. No one said that he was getting too many, none of that stuff. Your eye of favor deserves this shot at Henna Burrow, and it's great that he's getting it right across the river here in Newark, New Jersey, and he joins us right now via the magic of Skype. There he is. The one and only California kid. I hope you have a lot of those sweatshirts, because it's very cold over here.

Yeah, I've got quite a few, and unfortunately, we're going to be leaving California when it's 70 degrees. This has been like the warmest winter in a while. So going into the cold it's part of the U.S. No bueno. Well, I don't feel too bad for you because you are getting a shot at the UFC

Bantamweight title. I'm wondering when you got that call, tell us about the whole thing. You got the call, your reaction, how did it happen? I'm fascinated by this. I was actually in a meeting for this new company that I'm a part of called the Memory Tag. Another new company. How many companies do you have?

Well, this is somebody's company that I was brought in on. It's a really cool concept. So, you know, we just did a test run out in Hawaii. It's like videos that you can put on postcards and greeting cards and stuff like that. And you can just activate them with an app on your phone. Wow. So I'm actually in a meeting. And when Dana calls, you stop whatever you're doing.

So I had to excuse myself. And I figured it was good news. It was on a Sunday. and Dana's like, here's the situation. Dominic is, you know, screaming. He's really hurt himself. He's going to the hospital right now. He's out.

We're 90% sure. Are you ready to step in in three and a half weeks? And I was like, man, you know, not the ideal situation, but I'm not one to step away from an opportunity. You don't know how this world is going to pan out And so when you get a big opportunity like this, you have to step up and take it. And so it took me a couple of seconds to just say, yep, let's do it. And it was kind of a surreal moment.

And I immediately stepped on a scale and saw where I was sitting and just figured, all right, let's do this thing. How much did you weigh? I weighed about 157. Is that normal for you? Yeah, that's pretty good. I mean, right now I'm sitting this morning. I was about 152, 153.

So you mentioned it's not an ideal situation, but in a weird way, is it kind of good because you're coming off a win? It wasn't too long ago. You don't have to overthink it. You fought this guy already. And you just kind of go in there and you work off instincts. I mean, sometimes when you don't have too long of a break, it sometimes it turns out to be a good thing, right?

I think so. You know, and I think that, you know, you know, You know, the break that I did take wasn't a crazy wild break. I went to Mexico. I was in the ocean, you know, for hours at a time each day. And it was a real active rest. And, you know, I actually had a terrible camp going to the Michael McDonald's fight. I had about three different things that went really wrong in that camp

and was forced to have kind of a peaking process that was a little bit prolonged. I hurt my neck. I hurt my, you know, I had 11 stitches in my forehead. I had eight stitches in my chin. and it was just a bunch of crappy things that happened. So I was actually really rested and felt good, you know, the two weeks after that fight. So, you know, but I don't look at these opportunities. I'm not like a lot of the media is like, oh, this is the last chance, this chance, this is that chance.

You know, I'm not, I don't believe in any of that. You know, I'm about taking every opportunity you get. It's about the journey, not the destination. I'm going to capitalize and seize this big opportunity and become a world champion, man. You talking about these bumps and bruises makes your win over McDonald even that more impressive. And I wasn't sure if that was even possible because that was one of your best wins. Were you ever close to pulling out of the fight? Well, I hurt my neck one day in practice.

I did go scan and look at it. I thought I might have a small fracture. But, you know, as soon as they said it wasn't fractured, I realized it was just, you know, nerves and it was no big deal. then I I never thought about pulling out when something happens right away you don't know how fast it's going to get you know it's going to start feeling better

and the neck start feeling pretty good pretty quick how's the neck right now? It's great I think it's good man No problems at all? No, not at all That's great As you prepare for this

As I mentioned you fought him already Do you even look at that first fight against Brau? Yeah, I'll watch it a little bit. But I knew right after the fight what issues I was having with them. And so I've been working on things, and I've talked to Dominic about it. I mean, not to Dominic to Duane about it. Okay. And, you know, I basically have just to be a different fighter.

And I think the biggest difference between that first fight and this fight is all within my head. It has nothing to do with anything else about what I learned from Borough or this or that. It all has to do with me, and that's a good feeling because I was in a very excited spot for that last fight when Brow and I fought. I mean, I don't think anyone knew who he was. He was an extremely tough fighter. You know, I lost out on some big opportunities to even be put in that situation. and so the morale was not high.

I tried to ignore that, but it was hard. And of course, you were moved. You were going to be on the July 4th card. You moved to Calgary. So it was hard for you to get up for the fight, right? It was for a lot of different reasons, yeah. And you're not one who usually, you know, is lacking confidence or, you seem always very excited for fights.

Was that like the least excited you had been for a fight in a very long time? Yeah, probably the least excited I've ever been for a fight. Really? Wow, and you were still fighting for a belt, though. Yeah, I don't know why. I mean, there's a lot more to it than I care to really get into. I really care to get into. Okay. But, you know, it was, it was at the end of, you know, a rough year for me with my sister

and some other things with my family that were, you know, kind of a burden that I was helping out with. So I was looking forward to after my big fight in July 4th being able to contribute a little bit more to my family. The monetary value of my fight changed dramatically. And the size and the meaning of the fight was so much different. And I had built four months not fighting to be on the biggest card of the year, to fighting Dominic Cruz on... in Las Vegas, and then it kind of just pulled me out and put me on this other card that no one really cared about. And really, you know, the supporting cast was not there for that fight as well, and it was a pay-per-view.

And I realized after that fight, I can't even think about that. I just have to have an attitude of gratitude, not missed opportunities. And that's what 2013 was all about. And that was the biggest difference with the rest of my fights that you've seen since then and the one that you're going to see on February 1st. Of course, this opportunity comes at Dominic's expense. You know, unfortunate news that he had to pull out. I know you've had your history with him.

Do you feel for the guy? I do. Yeah, it's unfortunate. I mean, I don't wish any harm on that guy at all. As far as who, you know, our relationship, it's kind of a weird one. You know, we actually have some communication at times and our cords will do each other,

but don't really like each other very much. So it's a competitive thing, though. I still want to fight the guy, and he wants to fight me, and you don't wish that on anyone. Did you reach out to him after you heard this news? He and I had a conversation. Really? Yeah.

Who reached out to who? He actually text me first, but I've communicated with him before. We were forced, I don't know if you know this story. Yes. But we were forced to work as a team together before our last fight. It was the most bizarre thing ever. And it was like a mishap by the UFC PR.

They had hired some new people. And next thing I know, me, Phil Davis, Rich Franklin, and Dominic Cruz are going to meet some U.S. troops for the Marines. and you know little did we know we were doing a team-building thing where they basically put us through hell for eight plus hours going through the crucible in San Diego, California. We were forced to problem-solve and work as a team to do all sorts of stuff and like, you know, had to be put in front of plaques and members of the U.S. military that had been. died and then do like strenuous competitions and it was crazy man we kind of got thrown into it so we had to we were forced to get to know each other a little bit there so we know each other

and things kind of were a little better for for a second there and then and then uh and then uh and then as soon as we split apart the animosity grew again so um but we've had to communicate throughout throughout the throughout the years but i am fascinated i thought you could know that i thought you'd know that because I know you said you love my book. By the way, I did know that. You mentioned it in the post-fight press conference after the second fight, but I wanted to let you tell

the story for those that weren't there. You mentioned this many years ago how you thought, after the second fight at the post-fied press conference in Las Vegas, you insinuated that the rivalry wasn't as heated as it once was because you said that you had to go through this thing with the Marines and you kind of grew

to like the guy a little bit, right? But for a very short period of time, yeah, we, I mean, I wouldn't say we like were best of friends or anything, but we at least communicated for the first time, you know. Yeah. But don't try to discredit me. I know everything about you. There's some mutual respect there. But I'm fascinated by this story that you tell of him reaching out to you. What did he say to you?

He just said, you know, that he was. Pretty heartbroken by all of his injuries. And, you know, I've had a great year, and he'll be back, made the best man win. Wow. Were you surprised by that? No, not really. I was going to reach out to him also, he just did it first. And I said, I said, to heal up so we can fight, man.

And he said, yep, I will. That's very interesting because he hasn't talked to anyone as you know So publicly this is kind of like the first thing we hear from Dominic And I think it says a lot about him that he would reach out to like that All right so this fight is in less than two weeks Oh go ahead He actually he actually reached out to me before the last time he got injured too Really in person in Las Vegas

We had a discussion too So I mean here's the deal He and I really want to fight each other and it sucks for for both of us to have to put this thing off so hopefully the way it goes down he heals up I beat brow and we fight have you noticed that none of your friends in the media have been talking about you know going to the 149 fight

it was all about last chance this you know all that stuff does he deserve it that hasn't come up at all have you noticed that and and what does that say about you at this point in your career I think it says a lot. Yeah, I haven't really noticed it because, and I didn't notice it back then either as much unless it was like directly asked to me. Right. Which you were one of the only guys that were like directly asking me that and like harping on the conversation. And, you know, I give guys hard time for, you know, looking at things and saying stuff like that.

But you just forget that no one really knows what's inside you as a human being. No one really knows what you're made of and what goes on in your own head and to assume that other people can get an insider's view or know who you are is just kind of ridiculous. So, of course, you know, there's a lot of the history that are not excuses, but in an explanation for me and my own mind of some of the wins and losses that I've had in big fights. but, you know, I got into this sport as a 148-pound guy who didn't have an opportunity to fight at the 135-pound weight class in 2003. You know, I had to fight 155s, and I had to make a stand and say, I'm only going to fight 145s. And then I was forced to stay at 145s for a long time because I was the world champion there.

And like I said, I'll never pass up a great opportunity. and so I've had some tough fights, broken hands, battered legs, all this kind of stuff. My only losses have been in title fights, but 80% of my fights have been in title fights. I was a world champion for many years, and it's not like I have trouble in title fights. I've just fought some tough guys and had some things that have gone my way here and there. Where would you rank this current stretch? Would you say this is the best stretch of your career? Yeah, I'm not really good at sitting back and smelling the roses,

looking at stuff like that. I know after my first loss against Tyson Griffin in 2005, I fought seven times in 13 months. I went 7-0. That was a pretty good stretch. You know, I have to take a look when I'm all said in dead. I'm not done yet, though. You take a step back.

What do you think about, you know, Hannah Brow right now? Is he better today than he was when he fought you at 149? I would say he's definitely better. I mean, I haven't seen things that he's doing tremendously different, but he's getting more confidence, more experience. He's the type of guy. He's a world champion, man. He really is a world champion.

So being a guy that has that mentality and continues to train and get better, he has to improve a little bit or else gotten worse. And no one's beat him. so I'd say he's getting better. Biggest key to defeating him, because right now in the UFC, he looks pretty much unbeatable. I think the biggest key to beating him is not letting him control the fight

and the speed and the distance of the fight. He did a really great job last time of controlling the pace of the fight. He was able to slow me down, who was a fast-paced fighter, and he was able to control the distance, with his reach and his weapons. So I need to get past that and make sure that I implement my game plan and my speed.

And here's the big question. Will Rosie O'Donnell be in attendance on February 1st? Of course, Rosie will be in attendance? And I think she's bringing her son, who's actually wanting to get into MMA a little bit himself. He's a tough kid. And she's hooking me up with the lady that's going to do the cornrows. Oh, wow. My hair's long.

And yeah, Rosie's been a big supporter, and I'm super fortunate because she's a cool chick. You know, I believe in this weird kind of stuff, not saying anything, not making any predictions, but it just feels, you know, it's a Super Bowl weekend, it's close to New York, it's a big stage, it's pay-per-view. Something's in the air here, short notice. I'm feeling something weird. I don't know. I don't know about you. I don't know if you look at those stuff, at that kind of stuff, or look at the stars or, well,

there aren't any stars here in New York, maybe in California. But you know what I'm trying to say. Something seems up here. far as your story and how this whole thing unfolds. Yeah, you know, I'm looking to win, and if that's part of the story you're talking about, then I think you're right. Well, I look forward to seeing you here. Again, bring the warm clothes.

If you need any tips on what to wear, let me know. We'll talk offline. But congratulations on getting the fight, first and foremost, and good luck in the fight. Good luck in the last week or so as you prepare for it. Can't wait for it. You got it, brother. You must have a lot of fighters that back out or flake on your show. this is the most reminders I've ever had from you leading up to an interview.

Have you been getting flaked on a lot lately, Ariel? No. Actually, in fact, I decided to just remind the heck out of people so that they don't flake on me because I hate promoting that someone's going to be on and then they don't show up. So in fact, we're on like a two-year streak of no one backing out and you are the featured guest. You had the big picture. So you can't back out. So that's why maybe I sent you maybe one or two extra text, but I like to hear from you. I use this as an opportunity to interact, and I just use the show. Yeah, we had some good interactions.

I won't mention all the details, but let me say this. Yes. That's why you're the best, buddy. Thank you. Perfectionist, making sure that everyone's on point, crossing your T's dot in your eyes. Ariel Hwani, baby. Thank you very much. And my mom says...

Are you up from a report of the year? I am. Yes, I am. Have you ever lost that? I have not. Wow. Are you voting for me? Are you voting for me?

I hope I didn't jinx you. I haven't voted yet, but I need to get on it. All right. Well, maybe we'll win at around the same time. Maybe. How about that? All right. Thanks again for all the reminders, dude.

You'd have been on this call without all the reminders. Hey, my mom says good luck to you. She wishes you the best in this fight. She is watching right now. She might be a bigger fan than Rosie O'Donnell. And don't mention it about the reminders. The next time you're on, I'll send double the amount. Oh, great.

All right. Thank you, I saw a cute picture of him. Thank you. I appreciate it. There he is. The one and only the California kid. He returns to action in a matter of days. UFC 169, February 1st in Newark, New Jersey, a huge fight against Henne Barrow for not the interim title, the real UFC Bantamway title.

It goes down at the Prudential Center. Very excited about that. Why? Most importantly, I don't have to travel. I don't have to go on a plane to the fight. I'm very excited about that. Thank you very much to the Super Bowl for coming to the United States. these parts and the UFC moving that fight card from Las Vegas to New Jersey.

Okay, let's go to our next guest. His name is Glenn Robinson. He is the CEO of Authentic Sports Management. You might not have heard of that name because you probably hear of the other name they go by, the Black Zillions, and they are on a role. They're doing great things. It's been one of the great stories in MMA, their turnaround. And for a long time, I've wanted to have Glenn Robinson on the show to talk about that

turnaround and the team itself. So happy he's on the show right now. Glenn, how are you? Good, good. Thanks for having me on. Okay, first things first. Let's get the business out of the way. One of your prize members of your team, Anthony Johnson, had a fantastic performance on Saturday at WSOF, number eight. Is he going to resign with World Series of Fighting? Well, I mean, you know, the World Series Fighting can be good to him, and he has, we're going to sit down and talk to them first.

Ray and Holly and everyone over there been really nice to him. So we're going to sit down and talk to them first and see what the offers and go from there. I mean, what he wants to do now is relax for a few weeks and then we'll meet with World Series of the fighting, see what they put on the table and

see if we can work something out. And hopefully we can, and if we can, we'll see what else is out there for him. Has the UFC expressed any interest in him? Yeah, I didn't feel it was really appropriate to really do anything. since World Trade has been good to him, I didn't really feel it's appropriate to approach anyone or discuss anything in any kind of way until his contract was up and we wanted to give the first shot to them to talk about.

Okay, so there's a chance he may resign with him because the sort of easy pick, I mean, it seems like a natural. The UFC needs 205ers. He's looking very good as of like knocking guys out. It would seem like he would want to go back to the UFC, but you're saying there's a chance here. I'm saying they were going to try to sign with WSO first, and if that doesn't happen, then he's going to go to wherever, you know, what's the right place for him. All right, fair enough.

You know, did you want to say something before I cut you off? No. Okay. In a funny way, Anthony Johnson kind of represents this resurgence that I've been talking about, because he went through his ups and downs, released from the UFC, when he wasn't released, in my opinion, for performance issues, he had the weight issues and whatnot, but still very much a top guy, in my opinion. And that's why it has been so interesting to watch him progress in World Series of Fighting. And, you know, he's had this

resurgence. And for a long time, it felt to me like people were dancing on your makeshift grave. People were celebrating the demise of the Black Zillians. You were on somewhat of a losing streak every time one of your guys fought and then lost. People were celebrating that record. And it seemed like a lot of people were happy about this. And then all of a sudden, one by one, you guys, it seemed to all come together and now you are blazing hot. I'm wondering, first and foremost, did you notice that? Did you get the sense that there were people, journalists, fans, other managers, fighters, that just seemed to relish in this idea that the Blacksillians weren't coming together and were faltering under the bright lights?

You know, life's kind of like a car accident. You know, I was driving back from Disney with my wife and kids a few months ago, and I was spending extra three hours on the road because it was like a fender bender, and everyone had to stop and take a look. So people enjoy seeing other people's demise, in my opinion, and they were taking it as our demise when it was really just a streak of bad luck. Some fights didn't win. The team was getting several.

We were getting the coaching staff right, and I wasn't concerned in the slightest. I knew that we'd get it right. I knew Henry, who was a striking coach, is the best, and I knew that, you know, the right people put in place, that the fighters would get to where they would need to be, and they did. They all, you know, it's a matter of believing in your father.

and the matter of just putting the right steps in place necessary to do its needs for the team. And that's what we did. We got the right coaches. We got the right people in place. We got the right training partners. And teams doing great. One by one, they're all proving the route. Other than the actual losses, did you notice that something just wasn't right and that led you to change things?

Yeah, you know, when you build a new company in the beginning, you're always going to have that. You're going to have those points where things don't completely gel 100%. And there was, I knew that there was some things that just weren't completely jelling, and that's why we took the steps that we did. And so, go ahead. I think we took the right steps. And, you know, I'm always constantly looking at how we can better things. So it's not like I stop looking today, tomorrow.

I mean, as every fight, I say, what can we do better for next fight? What can we change? What can we improve upon? it seems part of the process. It seemed like for a while you had maybe leadership issues, you went through a lot of different coaches, but now you've really settled into this groove with Henry Hoof,

to you mention, George Santiago has kind of taken up this role as coach. He's walked away from the sport to concentrate on that, and I think it's great, Kenny Monday. Is that the team right there? Are those the coaches that everyone has to listen to? Yeah, that's the heart of the coaching

staff. You know, George and Henry have taken over to leadership of the team. Georgia's functions on a lot of the day-to-day as well as the jih Tijuana, game planning, Georgia's a tremendous M.A. experience. And it was really what he wanted to do. And so the team respects him. They listen to him.

They're just happy to, you know, take direction from him. Henry is a leader from the word go. Everything he says, they listen to. I mean, you can see it in the cage when the guys are in between rounds getting advice. He won't let them sit down. You know, so, I mean, they listen to know what he's had to say, and they listen to it, not because they feel they have to, but because they want to and they trust him. And Kenny Monday's resume speaks to herself, and you could see our wrestling is beginning better, so the work is being put in, and Kenny's done a great job in bringing the level of our wrestling up. And, you know, actually, I could break some news on your show today.

Please. If you want. Please. We just signed the latest black zillion. His name is Terrell Fortune. Okay. Why? Torrell Fortune is the number two ranked heavyweight wrestler.

He's on the U.S. national team, and he walks around at 275 pounds, and he looks like a bigger version of a shot. So we're going to get him ready to go into MMA over and get him ready for a big future. But Terrell is just a beast. His legs are like tree trunks. When's he going to debut? you? Well, we just want to get him situated first and get his training up for probably not another four or five months, but Trell two years and Trell's going to be unstoppable.

Are you the one who scouts the guys like that? Do you ultimately decide who joins the team? No, it's a group decision. Everything happens on the team. I sit down with the coaching staff, sit down with George and Henry and Kenny, and we discuss that the person would fit in. It's a culture thing. The person, usually the person will come down and train for a while first, and we just see if everyone gets along and if everyone feels comfortable with one other.

Okay, so I'm wondering, and it's a question I wanted to ask you for a long time, why even get into this sport? I mean, from what I understand, you're very successful in, I believe it's the hardware business, right? Like tools and things like that? Yeah, I sell consumer. We have another, my main company is we sell consumer products. That's what's true and everything else. but look there's been days I will not admit where I seriously that insurance commercial where the guy goes back on the DeLorean to get the better insurance

so there are in days I want to go back in time and kick the remote out of my hand before I've seen my first year of C fight but overall you know I fell into it because of George Santiago uh George's ex-wife was my assistant I got friendly with George and it started from there and it started off just by me helping with a friend and nothing more and fell in love with the sport and really enjoy helping the guys I mean, I take a lot of pride and seeing them go from, like, everyone counted Anthony Johnson now, and now Anthony Johnson is who, you know, who's the better on, you know, who's the better 205 or a free agent at this moment than Anthony Johnson. Right.

So you got into it. Did you get into it, you know, with the idea in mind to create this team and this gym and all that stuff? Or did you just want to help out a couple guys? I just want to help out a couple of guys, and we rented a gym to help him train. And then when I started working with Rashad, he looked. with Jackson's, it's kind of like if people started coming down the train with Rashad and it just grew, it just happened. That really felt like the turning point for you, right? Like once Rashad was available and he needed a place to go, it seemed like you kind of up the ante?

Well, that was the start of it. It was Rashad actually only came into play, like, you know, a couple months after I started helping George and Donello, Jay Zee and area. It was just a couple of months. Right, okay. And if I was helping Rashad from, I was helping Rashad already do some management work. and then he needed a place to train so when they started training together then other people started coming down to train with them

and it just literally just happened it wasn't something I sat down one day and said this is where I'm going to do it just happened if Rashad's not available and none of that happens with Jackson's do you think you ever get into it like you are now probably not I mean Rashad is a very close friend of mine

and he's much more than just a person on the roster and also a big reason why I put the drive behind it. You know, I have a lot of respect for Sean on every level. And so I don't know if it would have, I think without a shot, I can't honestly say if it would have taken to the level of that. Did knowing George's ex-wife, did that introduce you to MMA or were you a fan beforehand?

I was a fan beforehand, and I was already training Muay Thai just for exercise, just to just enjoy it. and then George and I became friendly and just started helping with just odds and then just as a favor like you'd stop in the office and ask me in my opinion on something and it was just very, very innocent really nothing in mind and then it just literally just happened

some people say how did you get it like I could say to you how did you get into what you're doing how did you get into you say well I went to school I don't know if you did it I went to school I want to the journalism how to fall into mixed martial arts just some someday somewhere along the line something happened and this is where you are to do. Right now, authentic sports management, is it a profitable venture for you?

Yeah, I mean, we're not making crazy money. It's very hard to make money managing fighters, but, you know, it's sort of. And then you also own Jocko and F3 nutrition, right? I'm an investor in F3, but Jock I own 100% of and Jock was doing very well. It is doing very well. Yeah. Is it something that you are gearing towards just, like, are non-MMA people? I know it used to be like a surfing company, right?

It started off as a surfing company years ago. We catered a lot of CrossFit athletes. We catered a lot of football players now. We're starting catering more and more people, more more sports, more and more everyday people who want to, you just don't want to feel like an athlete that training CrossFit. It's not just going to pros. And the brand is picking up a lot of skiing, and we're growing every single month.

and it's been great. It's been a lot of fun. And it's, I like building brands and something I enjoy. So, yeah, it's doing well, and I think it's going to just keep getting better. How do you balance all of this? The managing, you know, your previous job, the one that you kind of started all of this, the clothing, all that's out. How do you do all that? I have 40 people here. I work with. 40 people. I thought it was just you and Ryan Loco. Well, sometimes in the day, it's just me and Ryan Loco talking about you.

Did she talk to Ariel lately? Wow. Did you? That's very nice. You get seven notifications from Ariel to be on a show. Hey, wow, everyone's giving me crap about that. Geez, I just like people to be on time. I was listening to you, I'm just joking.

But no, Ryan is a big part of things, though. He's been with us since basically since we started, and, you know, he's part of the family, and he does great work, and he's been a big asset to the Jocko growth, to the to the growth of Jocko with the work he's done. And I couldn't say enough. I couldn't possibly say enough good things about Ryan. He's just a great guy. Are you turning people down now?

I mean, you have, because you're not just, you know, black zillions, so to speak. You got guys, like, you know, from all walks of life now, it's certainly evolved. Are you at the point where you're turning people down? Yeah, we haven't really taken on. Terrell was the first new person we've taken on in a while. And, you know, if we bring on somebody, we want to make sure we can do it. deliver. I don't want to just have a big, big roster and not build to help people. So I want to make sure that whoever's on the roster is someone that we can legitimately do something for,

make their life better and make them feel like, you know, that, yeah, I'm a part of your life, and your life is a little better for that reason. And if I can't do that, I don't really want to be part of it. Is Alastard... Once it gets to be a bigger as if I can't do that, then that's not for me to walk away. Is Alastair Overim still a member of the team? No, Alastair doesn't train with us. Alasah Trains in Thailand. So he's done.

He's welcome back, but he's decided to do this camp in Thailand. And it was a great camp. I talked to him last night, and it was a great camp, and he said he feels fantastic. And he's really in good spirits. So I saw a lot of pictures of him.

It looks great. Coach said he did great. So I talked to all his people over there. And, you know, Alster and I talk them almost every day, do text or however. So there's no issues with Alice and I and just wasn't the right fit for him at that time. And Alice has been in this business a long time, so he knows how he wants to train,

he knows what's right for his body, and he knows what's right for him. So this time going to Thailand, it was right for him, and I support him. Are you still managing him? Yes. So when you say it wasn't the right fit, I mean, do you credit that for the losing streak here? Do you think he just wasn't in his proper element? in Florida? I think the reason he lost his last fight is because they didn't stop a fight soon enough

because I think that in nine other fights out of ten, they would have stopped that fight when Travis Brown's needs buckled. And so, you know, it's always easy to look back and say, Biden and someone would win, but, I mean, he had Travis with 41 punches, Travis' knees buckled went to the ground and they still just kept staring at him. So if that didn't happen, we would be talking about something we wouldn't talk about the losing street. Do you think he'll be back with the team, though, as far as training in Florida, or do you think he's done?

He's welcome. I mean, it's, you know, Alster, we talk about it after the fight. He's always welcome. It's always his home if he wants it to be. But right now, it's not looking past the fight he has a couple weeks. That's the most important thing. And we'll see after that what he wants to do. Have you been told if he loses this fight that he'll be done with the UFC?

UFC hasn't said anything to us, but I have right about it in the Internet. Right. I just want to ask you a couple other questions about some of your guys. Michael Johnson, is he going to get that Nirmagamato fight? I don't believe so. I heard rumors that he's got some agreement to fight someone else. I don't know who. I heard Nate Diaz possibly, but no one told me that person just did the rumor mill. And he doesn't seem to – Kabee didn't want to seem to fight Michael. Right. So Michael's willing to step up and fight anyone.

he really wants to fight somebody, you know, in the higher level of the rankings, and he's performed in his last two fights more than just a little bit. You know, no one was the underdog in both fights. No one expected him to beat Joe was on, but he did a pretty impressive job of beating him. At least he and he wasn't been knocked out since 2009, I think. So, you know, I think Michael's proven himself in this time for him to take the next step.

UFC's going to definitely, They said they're going to definitely try to come the best fight they can. But, you know, it's tough, because top-time guys only want to fight top-ten guys. Right. You know, so it's a very tough job. It's a very tough job because number six doesn't want to fight number nine. Number five doesn't want to fight number six. Right.

So it's very – he has a very tough job. Eddie Alvarez, will his next fight for Belator be his last one for them? I wouldn't definitely say that. No, I mean, we've had some great Tim Danahar at Belator. and I have come somewhat close and really, really nice to your guy. And they've expressed interest in

in, you know, retaining Eddie. Nothing as formal has been discussed or agreed upon. But, you know, we'll see where the future goes. I mean, you know, Tim was instrumental in helping get the deal done with Eddie. So, I mean, I really can't. I wouldn't hold off. I wouldn't, you know, definitely wouldn't say that for sure.

He's not going to be part of Bellator. We'll see what they offer. We'll see what they offer. We'll see what's right for him, and he should be fighting somewhere in the next five months. We'll see how it goes. Yeah, do you know the exact date of when that fight will take place? No, I mean, you know. Now we've been asking ourselves. But it will be on pay-per-view, right?

That's what they told us, yeah. Wow. And Vitor Belfort, is that fight against Chris Wyman going to be in May or July? Do you have any idea? There's still not confirmed. Still not. It's still going back and forth on what date. Oh, okay.

I think the fight wasn't confirmed. No, no. The fight's confirmed, but the date's not often. Okay, do you guys have a preference? Vitor just V-Tor fight tomorrow if he could, so I don't think V-Tor cares. And speaking of not caring, does he mind fighting in the U.S.? No, Vitor doesn't care to fight anywhere. I mean, you know, everyone has a lot of opinions,

but Vitor Belford is the way he is not because, you know, VTor has been nominated for the ESPNs, has him up for an award for his kick against Luke Rockold. and they said it was, you know, the trajectory of the kick and the angle and all that. None of that was taught by TRT, so it's all ridiculous. He trains two, three times a day. He gets up, he's dedicated, even if he's having a entire rough day or a tired day, he pushes through it. And, you know, he doesn't let anything change his focus. He's extremely focused, one of the most focused people have ever met my life.

And that's going to win fights. Well, he'll... No one teaches those kicks that he's doing are not. You know, anything but a ton of... a ton of work. Will he apply for a TUE? I don't believe so. He's not, really? Why not?

It's something him and I have not discussed. He trains with us, but most of it, because he's been in the game so long, everything for him is pretty well set. So Joanna, I think he's probably met his wife before, does most of his day-to-day stuff,

but something that they've talked to me about. But you don't think he will? I don't think he will, be honest. honestly, but it's nothing they talked to me about, so I couldn't even really, I couldn't even really get you straight. Okay, fair enough. Well, Glenn, I want to wish you all the best. I mean, you guys are doing great work, like I said. It's set out on Fox a couple weeks ago. It's one of the great stories, putting in the right guys, getting the team back on track from Eddie to Michael Johnson, Rashad Evans, Tyrone Spung, of course, who we didn't really touch on. You guys are on

fire as of late, and I think you're doing a tremendous job. So congratulations on all the success thus far. I really appreciate it. And good luck in the future to you and the team. Thank you so much, and I really appreciate being on your show. Thank you for giving me a time, and thanks if you need anything, give you a call. All right, there he is. For a text. Okay, I'll send you multiple texts. Glenn Robinson.

No more than three days. Okay. The CEO of Authentic Sports Management, aka the Blacksillians doing great work, and thank you to him for stopping by. All right, we're going to take a quick break because we need to rejigger some things here, because in a matter of moments, we'll be joined in studio by the incomparable Hennar Gracie and his fiance. Eve Torres, you may know, Eve, from World Wrestling Entertainment. She was once a diva over there now, and I don't say that, you know, I'm not calling her a diva.

That's what they call the female wrestlers. Now, they're doing great work, of course, with Gracie Jujitsu and all kinds of other things. Hopefully he has brought me some assayee. We'll find out in a matter of minutes. So while we rejigger things, take a look at this interview that I did with Joe Riggs in Brooklyn, just a couple of weeks ago, less than a couple of weeks ago, one of the more honest interviews I've ever done about boxing Nick Diaz, tax problems, retirement, all that kind of stuff.

Great stuff out of Joe Diesel Riggs. And then in a minute, we'll be right back here with Henner and Eve in studio. All right, welcome back to the MMA hour. Oh, getting some feedback. Okay, there, it's gone. That was, of course, Dana White. He was in Duluth, Georgia last Wednesday following UFC Fight Night 35. Part of that, we heard from Joe Riggs.

Great stuff from him, and he'll be part of Bill. tour season 10 later on this year. But let's talk about the business at hand here. I'm very excited. So excited. This kind of came out of nowhere just last night. The one and only, the incomparable, as I said earlier. Hennar Gracie is in studio, but we're not all that excited about him.

We talk to him all the time. His lovely fiancé, the former WWDiva, Eve Torres, also here. Thank you. Wow. How about this? Thanks for having us both. Worked out well. You guys don't usually do interviews together.

I think this might be our first one, actually. First ever? I think so. I've been in the room when you do interviews. You've been in the room when I do interviews, but we don't really... We've done TV shows. You've done like, you know, E-network, NBC, ABC, CBS, things like that, but nothing this big. I noticed. And I felt like you needed the plug, the rubs, so to speak. Now, she's a TV pro. She's talking into the mic. You're not. Well, I'm just trying to focus on the energy between here. This is very interesting. I know you're shy. You get nervous in front of the cameras. He doesn't like to talk too much. Right. Yeah.

I'm just wondering, because this is a very unique character, by the way. And you're engaged, you're getting married in April. We're getting married in April, correct. How does one live with a character like this? Be honest. Well, you know, what you see, the Henner Gracie you see on YouTube. The Henry. The Henry.

The energy. I will say that's real. That is real. But it's not 24-7? It's not 24-7. There is a side to Henner that he's definitely calm. And he's, I mean, this is a mastermind behind the Gracie Academy, me everything that's happening, this big jiu-jitsu movement.

So that takes a lot of thinking and a lot of internal, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on in there. And he needs his time to, you know, let that all process. So he's a, you know, I deal with him okay. But she said you're the mastermind and I pick up on these things. Does that mean it's all you? It's not your brother. No, here's what's very interesting.

Let's just say this. I'm the, me and he don't know very interesting matching how we work together. A lot of people really don't understand. And they know I talk more when we're on camera together. They're like, man, Henner, shut up, he don't talk sometimes. And I know, and it's just my instinct to just want to deliver and get it out there. And for me, it's like, we just got to get the message across, so I do whatever I can. But the way me and he don't work together is very interesting.

It's like, the best example was we were filming Gracie Combatives, our instructional series, self-defense. And I was showing a technique. We were showing it together, like lesson number 12, some headlock defense. And throughout the whole technique, I was thinking to myself, shoot, I'm talking a lot, but I know I'm missing something. I'm thinking to myself, my dad, I'm going to finish shooting this. And those were all one take, by the way. It wasn't like, oh, cut, do it again. No, it's one takes.

And I thought, I'm going to finish this, and my dad's going to be pissed that I'm missing this detail right now because I'm not honoring the technique that was handed down to the family. And after a 15-minute slice, showing all the techniques, and I spoke probably 80% of the time. At the very end, I'm thinking, I can't think of it. And I'm trying to waste time because I'm trying to get it in. At the very end, he don't says, you guys,

and the most important detail is right here. Sit low and keep your head back to make sure the opponent can't throw your head on the ground. And I didn't tell him I was missing the detail. He didn't know I was stressing about a missing detail, but he knew there was a missing detail as well. So somehow, between us two, everything gets done. And He don't's input is minor, but when it happens, it's game-changing, revolutionary.

And not only that, but I feel like a lot of the ideas that you guys have, start from He don't. Like, He don't is like the one day will say, hey, what if we did this? And then Henner's like, oh, my gosh, you know what I mean? And so. And then he don't forget about it the next day. And then two years later, it comes out.

Exactly. Let's make a DVD series for kids, Henner, where they can teach parents can teach their kids. and then he'll go off to like Costa Rica for vacation, you know, and then I'll just grind it in the lab. So he's very much of an idea guy, and I'm more of an execution guy. And I think if we were both executioners,

like executioners of the missions, it wouldn't work well because we would step on each other a little bit too much. So he kind of, hey, Hanna, do your thing, and I let him have his ideas. But he don't have the idea guy. He comes some good ideas, but he comes to some crazy ideas too. So he needs a filter, but you're the filter. Kind of.

His wife, Victoria, is a great filter as well, and me and Eve and everybody around him. But altogether, a thousand times more good than bad in terms of these ideas that it comes out with. And they're life-changing stuff, really, some big movements, like to keep it playful movement. You know that if you train jih Tzu with us, like you promised to do one day. Yes. You will...

I thought that's why you're here to officially... Because I don't know if you notice this, but I have a black belt. I know. I got it in the mail. Yeah, that's true. And I figured this is all the tape. Adam Sandler got one of those, too. Oh, you did?

Yeah. I finally have something in common with Adam Sandler, other than being Jewish. Okay, I want to know. How did you meet this man? I met... Which version? Which version? Which version, bro?

The best one? The real version. I'll go next. Yeah, I'll have you a first thing. No. Well, I... Okay, I'll start with why I kind of was interested in Jiu-Jitsu, which was that I started on the road with WWE. Right.

And I won the Divorch end of 2007, started on the road 2008. And I had an incident on the road where I was traveling by myself, and I stopped at a gas station. I was traveling through the East Coast, this lovely part of the country. And I stopped at a gas station. I had just got done with the show. I was still on my heels. still kind of dressed up and encountered three gentlemen, not gentlemen, in the gas station, and they started asking me obscene questions and really started harassing me.

I just completely ignored them like they didn't exist and I just didn't acknowledge them. And the more I didn't acknowledge them, the angry they got. And they got aggressive to the point where I dropped everything, ran out of the gas station. They chased, they were following me out yelling obscenities and got in my car, took off and had one of those like breakdown moments. I think every woman has at some point in her life, which is like, okay, that really could have been bad. And for some women, it does get bad. It gets beyond just a close call.

And so that was an eye-opening experience for me for sure. Well, coincidentally, about a month later, I was talking to my friend Victoria, who I knew from the dance world. We danced on a couple shows together, and we had worked together. Came really good friends, and she invited me to the Gracie Academy. And not only that, and then she says, so she invites me the Gracie Academy, mind you my brother had trained jujitsu in high school. Oh, really? So I knew about jujitsu, and I was like, you know what?

Beginning of the year, let's start, like a New Year's resolution. Let me just do something that's good for me, and let me just start learning something new. And then she invites me to the academy, and then she kind of fits in there, too, like, yeah, and I really want to introduce you to somebody. And I knew she was dating. He don't at the time. He was this amazing man, and she told me all about him. I want you to meet someone. And I'm like, all right, this usually ends up awkward, but fine, I'll come.

So I knew I was going to be introduced to him when I came to the academy. I thought Hidon was going to give me my first private class. Okay. Well, it was not Hidombe. Oh, wow. It was Hedner. Shrewd. Hennar, yes.

He snuck in there. He got me. So my first semi-private class, it was me and a couple of girls in Victoria was there. Give you my first introduction to Jiu-Jitsu. And so he pretty much we met and he mounted on top of me and said, how would you get out of this? Wow. So, yeah. And then I turned bright purple and, you know, it kind of went from there.

Yeah. And is that the real story? Yeah, there are some other details, but for the most part, that's pretty much it. I think that... Did you know who she was? I know who she was. He had already Googled me. The main difference was on her side, she was just kind of brought in.

And in the whole meeting someone, it was very kind of almost kind of, oh, just come by. It was very, like, casual. But on our side, I had commissioned Victoria to do this. Oh, really? Yeah. This was all planned 100%. And Victoria had been with he'd on for, I don't know, six months or even closer to a year. and I said, Victoria, you know, I need to meet one of your friends, you know, and who you got for me,

like, what's going on here? And what are the options? Because Victoria was cool, man. I met her, I was like, man, this girl's pretty cool. She's a, you know, professional dancer, like, on tour. And she doesn't do drugs. She's beautiful. She's, like, super friendly.

Everyone loves her. And I'm like, man, he don't really kind of scored here, you know what I'm saying? And I'm like, all right, Victoria, you have any friends? You know, the typical, typical question. And she, like, takes these requests pretty seriously. Oh, wow. So she was like, well, actually, let me investigate. came back three days later and she was like well I have three options

one of them is married one of them has drug abuse problems and one has a boyfriend and I'm like what help is that for me which one was I was a drug abuse I was kidding I don't want to make sure so she gave three options and I'm like thanks for nothing Victoria and then anyway she came back a little bit later she said her this one you know the one that I had a boyfriend had not had it for six months she's been you know single and I dance with her and this thing and the show and she's amazing and here's my only concern she might be too good for you.

Wow. And when she said that, bro. That's a good friend right there. That was one of the few times where I almost got into like, you know, fight or flight mode, like self-defense. Like that was, but then I thought, okay, if you think she might be too good,

she's perfect. Let's go get her. Wow. So then it was like, yo, bring her in. We'll bring her for a class. It was all planned, you know? And typically I don't mix business and pleasure like that.

But I figured that, you know, if she had an intro class, if she had her first class with Jiu-Jitsu with me, if she didn't fall in love with me right away, she would fall in love with Jiu-Sut, and that would give me time to work the magic over several, however long it took. So what was it? What should you fall in love with first?

It was pretty even. I'm not going to lie. It actually was. I mean, I started training right away. I was like interested in, you know, wanted to continue my training. He took, for some reason, didn't interpret what I did as interest, but because I'm much more internal. Like I watch something. I'm like, wow, that's fascinating.

And I really want to understand this. I want to be good at it. And like, you know, I'm more of like a serious student who looks at it and I'm, okay, I want to do my best. I'm not like, oh my gosh, this is so amazing. You're so cool. You're used to that kind of. I'm used to that. I'm used to that.

Yeah, just melting. Because I didn't give him all that. Just, you know, and he took that as like I wasn't interested when really I was, I'm serious. Yeah, she was super internal. And it took me about, like, about a year after dating and boyfriend girlfriend and her working for the WWE to realize that when, you know, when Eve says nothing, she's madly in love with you. Wow. And when she's like, oh, how are you? She's very cordial and, like, very outgoing.

That means she doesn't really. not that she doesn't care, but she doesn't love you, and she's just being normal. But when she's like, I'm like, Eve, how'd you like the class? She's like, it's pretty good. I did not say that. And that means that she's, you know, the same way, like, you know, preschoolers, like a little, when she was a little girl in preschool and she liked a boy,

she would just beat him up. Oh, okay. That's her way of saying that she loves him, you know? So with this situation, it's just don't care, don't act like you care. And after a year, I figured that out. But once I crack that code, now when she cares, she really does act like it. It's all bets her off. Everything's good.

and we're going to get married and it's going to be happy, and we've got a puppy, and it's all good. We'll get to all that in a second, but when you first met, you were still a part of WWE, right? I was, yeah. What is that like, I mean, to date at WWD? All over the place. I met him, and then about two weeks later is when I started full time on the road. So I had already won the diva surgeon about, yeah, we were, like, dating for like two weeks, and then started on the road full time. So it was about, I was gone about five days a week.

But it was deceived him, because when we started dating, she had a normal life. For two weeks, I was like, okay, this is. a wonderful person. And even in the beginning, I wasn't on the road as much because I was still... So she hooked me while she was around. You see? And then all of a sudden, this crazy schedule. You don't know anybody.

Your schedule's crazy. No, this is crazy. It's it. And you might have heard from some people, but hear it from the source, which is... And the source, meaning me, meaning the person who has to deal with this schedule, not the one who's going, her job, famous all over the world. So every single week, 6 a.m. on Friday is the flight. You get to the airport by five,

latest by five, wake up at four, break her breakfast while she gets ready. You made the breakfast? He did make me breakfast. Annie took me to the airport. Energy sandwiches.com, you guys, energy sandwich.com. Wrap the sandwich and foil to keep it warm. So when she gets in the airplane, she can open it,

eat it, and her neighbors can be jealous. And then they can ask, what is that? And they can tell the whole story, you know. And so making the thing, 6 a.m. every Friday, this happens. We take her to the airport. She goes on a flight. She has a show Friday night, drive 300 miles show Saturday drives a couple hundred miles show Sunday show Monday

on raw Monday night raw show Tuesday Friday night Smackdown come home Wednesday at noon I pick her up at the airport Wednesday afternoon Thursday all day Friday 630 a.m she's gone again for five years five years five years you were together throughout the whole time yes so five years basically my Saturday Sunday was Wednesday Thursday you see so I would take time off working I work like a madman all week and Sundays and you know all day everything but when she's she was home, we would have time together, and it was very interesting to have a relationship like that. I don't know. I don't know how it worked. Is that why you left? Well, yeah. I mean, it was kind of got to a point where I had some priorities in my life and you can't live that schedule as a woman and still

get married and still have a family and all those things. So I had a, you know, I came to that point where I'm like, all right, I have to make a decision here, what direction I'm going to go. And, and obviously I also had another calling, which was the love that I really started to develop for the women's self-defense program that we have and teaching that, and I really wanted to be more involved. So there's a lot of things pulling me in that direction, and it finally just kind of finally went over. Be honest. And I, what? Here's the thing.

She was in there for five years. And I'm thinking to myself, you know, this is cool, you know, like wrestling, even though it goes against everything my family represents for 85 years, I'm in love with her and love prevails, right? Is that a problem for honesty? Oh, huge. It was. Huge.

And for the family? No, you don't understand. Growing up in the gracey. household. There were two things we weren't allowed to watch. Rated our movies and W.W.F. Really? Oh, yeah. It was very bad. It was very bad. Like it would be on the TV and my brothers loved it. We were like, oh yeah, Jake the Snake and this and that, Undertaker. It was like, turn that stuff off. That's Mickey Mouse business. Hoist my dad. Turn that stuff off. That's trash. Because it was offensive. And back then they tried to play it to where it was more. Sure, sure. You know,

they tried to keep it more real in the wrestling. But either way, they wouldn't let us watch it. And we would always sneak it at night and we'd watch it. And what's funny is that, tell about that footage you discovered. Oh yeah. I discovered. I went through all this old family footage. 1880, 7 footage of them in the garage, training all this. Anyways, I turned to one footage, and it's just Henner looking at the camera. I'm Hannah Gracie, World Wrestling Federation Champion. Seven years old. And him and his brother, Halik, go at it.

Go lock up, and they're like just full-on wrestling match in the family room. Just wrestling body slams. Body slams. And my dad's filming it. I don't think my dad made the connection. He's like, yeah, Jiu-Jitsu. Grappo, guys, grapple. And we're, like, fighting each other.

And he likes the fact that we're rolling. Because, you know, in the Gracie household, do want to see kids fighting each other? So he was rolling like, yeah, we got footage to these kids rolling early, but we're doing wrestling, you know? So anyways, it was very taboo to watch and very much again. So when I met Eve, I'm thinking, shoot, this is going to be a, as soon as she told me what she does, and Eve, Victoria told me, and I thought, man, she better be amazing because this is a serious risk to bring her to the household for lunch. Wow. Huge.

So the day came where after three or four weeks dating, I thought, okay, it's time. She has to, eventually, it's going to get real. So I got to bring her to the house. And I, and I took her home. And in my mind, I'm thinking, how am I going to tell my dad that she's a fake, I mean a WWE, wrestler, entertainer. Yes. And I'm like, this is not going to go over very well.

And I'm still, as a kid, seven-year-old trauma has survived. And I'm thinking, okay, I'm just going to say it. I'm going to say, hey, guys, and I kind of make it real lighthearted. I'm like, you guys, so this is Eve, you know, and she's my new friend, and she's training at the academy, and, you know, we're dating and blah-da-da. And she does WWE wrestling, the stuff on TV. And everyone laughed. Ah, it was all good.

problem. No problem. So I had brought this trauma as a child. This is to be careful on to abuse your children because it carries with it. So this is one of those who gets stuck and my dad never even cared. No problem at all. Full respect and, you know, loves her and she's an amazing teacher has helped jutsu grow and has never been an issue at all, you know, from the get-go. But it was amazing how it affected my situation psychologically. What about for you? Because from what I hear, I know some people in the quote-unquote business, it's tough to have a relationship outside of the business, right? For sure. Actually, for me, I actually, that was like my savior, I feel like, like, That's what kept me grounded, what kept me saying it's true.

I had something outside of that world where, whereas a lot of people, because they have relationships in the business, which is, which I, you know, I understand. If you literally, like, if you're stuck on an island with someone, what's going to happen, right? So I had, I had this, you know, outside source to the real world that every time I came home reminded me of, like, what's important and to be grounded and to not focus on the madness that's going on, the politics that may be going on at work. and it also helped me, you know, stray away from any of the, like, the stuff that goes on when you do date in the business. There's all these, all this drama and all that stuff that ensues from that. So I was very lucky I felt like that I met him at the perfect time. And then, you know, of course, at first it's like, you know, all the guys, like try to feel you out. Like you're like the new, whatever, fresh meat there.

And then once they knew, you know, once they knew who I was dating and he started coming around, then it was like, oh, respect, respect, respect. Oh, yeah. Everyone loved Hennar. I made it a point to go to these shows, you know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. How often would you go? Any time I could really. And I was cool.

You know, we made it work, you know? Like I would schedule seminars. I'm like, okay, you're going to be in Chicago? I'm going to schedule four seminars in Chicago and go make a tour of jih Tzu teaching while you guys are there. And we'll meet up and we'll see you at Monday Night Raw. And we would do things like that. And it was pretty regularly. I'd say at least every couple months I would set a seminar when I, because her schedule is a year in advance, they know.

And I would do international stuff with them. I went to Mexico with them, set seminars in Mexico to go to the national. So I did a lot of that. And it got to the point where, you know, once I shook everyone's hand and everyone saw and everyone knew it was. real and, you know, I just, uh, once they found out, you know, the family and where everything came from and, you know, that, uh, if they got out of hand, that there would be some chokes, you know, delivered. It was, uh, it was, uh, did you ever try to convince him to cross over into

your world? No. No. That would just be wasted breath, I feel like. I mean, would you ever do it? Well, so here's, uh, don't mind. You had some, you had some dreams. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. When you live with someone who they come home and all they're talking about is the psychology of the match and the ideas and this and that and how, you know, the perfect. You know, the match and explaining everything. And when they're watching TV, Eve sits down to watch herself or one of the girls on Monday Net Raw or even any match. And she's like this and like rewatching it a week later.

And like she's in front of the match and she's getting all into it. And like, she's wrestling with nobody, but she's watching a match and she's doing her moves. And I'm like, baby, you're not, the match is already over. Everything's going to be okay. Calm down. So when you're around that 24-7 and then you meet all the stars back there and you see how it goes behind the scenes, you're going to have some thoughts. You know what I'm saying?

And it's going to cross your mind. Not that I had any aspirations to do this, but there were days where I woke up. And I'm like, Eve, so I was backstage at the show, and Vince just told me to suit up. And I'm like, I don't know why this is happening. I don't want to wrestle, but they're like, Henner, we need you. Go and get in the ring. And I'm like, all right. And I would go do it.

And it worked out because of the things we learned it. And I watched. And I was like, Henner, Daddy, Long Legs, Gracie. Not bad. So, you know, it was fun. I know. It was really funny. I just told him if you start shaving your legs, it's over.

That's the only problem. Yeah. So how bad is it backstage? I mean, as far as like, you know, saying that you have this guy in your life, like, did you ever have to come and, you know, say, defend her honor or things like that? Or did people respect you? I, I, I defended my honor actually there. You know, I'm very, I'm very good at that. And I don't really play too many games with people.

What about the politics? Is it tough? Politics are for sure tough, you know? It's hard. It was harder in the beginning, for sure, because, you don't have, you know, you know, haven't earned as much respect. Towards the end, it was easy. It was nothing, you know. But in the beginning, it's really trying to figure everybody out,

and you don't know who's kind of arranged with what, and who has power because of this or that. So it was really tough in the beginning. There were times that I was like, I don't know how much longer I can do this. Like, it was mentally and emotionally draining to work with some of the people I had to work with and to feel like, I just felt like, how can you work so hard at something and just try to try your best,

and then it just doesn't matter, you know? And then I got to a point where finally I was like, okay, my hard work finally paid off. And, you know, I was Deva Champion once. and twice and then three times. And I really felt like I finally got to see the fruit of my labor. But it was a while I felt like before that happened. And that can be demoralizing for anyone.

And unlike in your world, someone else is kind of deciding your fate. Like you can be a champion in jiu-jitsu and do it on your own. There's a lot that goes on. Yeah, but let's not get it twisted. That's the same in any large company. You're going to start somewhere and you're going to climb the ladder. And they're going to do as hard as you want, but for political reasons, you're not going to get where you deserve to get.

So this is a very normal thing. The only difference is they're with each other. five days a week on the road in random places in these little isolated groups that are that naturally amplifies, I think, the political drama. You can't go home with the end of the day and just unwind. You're there on the road with the same girls, same people talking about the same things. You may have to have the same, a match with somebody that you don't like for like months in a row, you know? I mean, there's stuff like that. So it was, it was challenging. But it's interesting now that, you know, now that Henry was working with more and more UFC fighters and

they're friends of ours, I see so many similarities. Really? I definitely do. Some similarities. of WWE and UFC. Well, I think in general, I think UFC is, whether they've intentionally done it or whether it's just kind of been the progress of the company, I think they're taking from the ideas of, yeah, now there's a little bit more of like storylines, and there's characters, and there's, you know, the good

guy, the bad guy, and even about how they, you know, their champions become the face of the company, right? So there's some politics behind that regardless, you know, of who they want, and if you do something wrong, they're going to try to punish you and do, you know, put you in a bad situation or whatever, and, you know, there's always stuff like that with

with WWE, I felt like. And a lot of the, and the fact that these UFC fighters work super hard. You know, I feel like that's something I can relate to is working for a WWE. You know, especially when you're champ, oh man, you're doing media like nonstop. So it's not just the matches that you're wrestling. Right. You're doing nonstop media. You know, you're the face of the company.

You're doing whatever you can. And, you know, for free, of course. So, so, and I'm sure it's very similar with, you know, with the UFC and a lot of the fighters now. So it's been a year since you left, right? It's been a year, almost exactly. Yeah, I saw on your Twitter. Someone said, one year, do you miss it? Are you planning on going back or are you done?

No, you know, I actually went back a few. She's done. I went back a few weeks. I went back a few weeks ago for like a one-time appearance. It was a slammy's. I got to present the award. So things like that I'm all about. You know, I still love the company and I still have a lot of friends there.

And I left on good terms. I really left feeling like I felt good about it. You know, I look back and I don't think all these terrible thoughts. I think like, what a great time I had. And so that's good. If it's like a one-time thing, of course, you know, but I just, I can't go back to the road, not with kind of my new lifestyle now that I'm used to sleeping in my own bed. And now that I have a puppy. Yes.

I can't leave him. This puppy, chokie. Yeah. What does that even mean? Oh, choke, like the actual, but it's spelled differently. Well, you know how like there's, I just, I just figured it out. Here's a thing. Yes.

His name is chokie. Yeah. And it's a, it's a Portuguese name. Okay. And it has a Portuguese spelling, which is T-I-O-K-I. Okay. And it's, you know, it's the same way you have. Here's the truth. Hannah wanted to name him Choki.

Like straight up? Like straight up like Chokie. Like, hey, he's got to have a Jiu-Jitsu name. And then Choki came up and I just looked at him with like blank face. Boom, totally blank. And I was like, all right, if we're going to do this, we at least have to make it kind of trendy or different. Exhaughtify the name.

And pretend like it has another meaning, even though it really just is because it sounds like Choke. Yeah. So we gave it the Portuguese spelling, make a little more exotic. Because you know, there's this name Chago. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I used to my friends. So Chago, so Chiago. So, Chio. Choki. Choki.

But you, you, the look on your faces, you're like proud parents. But he or she? He. He has an Instagram, has a Twitter. I don't know, I don't know how that started. Just something. I just didn't want to be, well, I am clearly that girl. Okay.

I'm that girl with the dog who's just like, I just didn't want to flood my Instagram with like thousands of pictures of people being like, all right, Eve, cool, but can we see some pictures of you and what you're doing? And it's just all pictures of my puppy, like, licking my face and all that. So I figured if people want to see cute dog pictures, they can follow him, and then I'll post all the pictures are there. So I can still be my... How much do you miss him? How much do you miss them?

A lot. I can't wait to go home. Well, talk about while you're here. You were just in Connecticut yesterday, and you made some very big news. You on Twitter were teasing people as you like to do as somewhat of a showman. You come out that you were training Triple H and Stephanie McMahon in Connecticut. How did this happen? Yeah, you know, Stephanie reached out to me and I think it's just very smart.

I mean, they're family, they're still family, right? They have three girls, beautiful girls. And whereas most people, they don't opt to learn self-defense. They wait until something like bad happens. And then they say, oh, my gosh, we need to do something to, you know, prevent this from happening again. I think they're just smart. And they say, look, we are high-profile people. We've got three girls that, and they're targets.

You know, they're going to be targets. And so they, she reached out to me and we said, yeah, let's set something up. So Henner and I went out there. I worked with Stephanie all weekend. and she was choking me out by the end of the weekend. Triangle chokes, rear naked chokes, guillotine chokes, arm locks, Kimura's the whole nine. She was a natural. Oh, yeah, she was a natural.

She was so good. And it was just fun to bond with her. Actually, it was really fun. I was super excited when she, like, texted me and wanted to. I was with her, we were in Australia. Yeah, we were in Australia. We were in Australia when Eve and Stephanie first started communicating about the possibility. And Eve worked for Stephanie, and he was almost like her direct boss for this five-year running in the WWE.

and for sure Stephanie was the number one name I heard for those five years. Right. In terms of Henner, this company, it's crazy. There's a lot of things going on. It's hard work. It's very political. But I love Stephanie. Like, she's amazing.

She's beautiful. She's strong. Like, Eve idolizes this woman, you know what I'm saying? Like really, really admires her. And like, to the point where I was like, okay, I get it. You know, she's amazing and you're amazing. You know, that's cool. So, yeah, I had a girl crush on her.

Let's just to be honest. Fair enough. Totally had a girl crush. It's like Stephanie McMahon and Beyonce, you know. I heard their names more than any other names, you know. It's okay. Girls can have girl crushes. Sure, sure. So, yeah, when she was like, you know, excited to do this, I was like, oh, man, this is going to be great.

When she had the first text, Eve was like, yeah, jumping on the bed and was super excited. I may or may not have jumped on bed. So it was really cool, you know, and they set it up. And, you know, when she was like, yeah, we want to get self-defense for the kids and for me. And so I thought, okay, that's cool. And then when she said that, I'm thinking, okay, chances are, since they live together, you know, right, triple H will be there. Who is not a huge MMA guy.

Yeah, he's really not. He's in his business and he's doing his thing. And, you know, and I've met him, you know, at the shows before. And he's always really cordial and very respectful. And you can tell he really liked Eve as well. She's a great employee for the company. And so we got to the house and we got to work with, while she was working with Stephanie, got to work with the kids and three daughters.

And they are just amazing, like these little girls. Yeah, the cutest, nicest, most outgoing and friendly little girls you ever met, you know, and they're three, five, and seven years old. And they're having the time of their lives. and they're doing jiu-jitsu, and I brought them their little geese, and they're all suited up and ready for action. And we trained four hours a day for two days and a half, so we trained this morning as well.

And it was just cool because, you know, Triple H would come in and he would watch the little girls, you know. And at first I'm like, like, shoot, you know. You got nervous, don't I? Yeah, I was like, all right, you know, I got to do this. Just looking down on you. Well, yeah, just making sure. Yeah, he's just sitting there like.

He doesn't know what to expect. He never seen jiu-jitsu, and he's in his world doing his thing. And I know I'm good at what I do. You know what I'm saying? But I know that he's good at what he does. And I know that he had some concerns maybe and, you know, and wasn't some uncertainties. But lo and behold, he was happy.

Yeah. And only him, but Vince actually came by too. Get out of here. I'm just rolling with these kids and this guy walks into the garage and, like, just sitting like a nice, like, wool coat. And I'm like, you know. His leather jacket. Yeah.

I'm like, who is this person right here? And then, of course, Vince, his grandpa showed up to watch them to the granddaughters. Yeah. And her looks up and he's like, oh, hello's her. So it was interesting. you know, but what do he say to you? Because he as well hasn't been a huge fan of, yeah, but again, I've met him, you know, at times. And again, always very respectful, whether it's WrestleMania or these different shows I go to to support and, you know, but it's always in passing, you know,

but now I'm in my element doing my thing, you know, and it was really interesting, you know, so I went all out, you know, I'm not going to lie, I just, I gave it 100% and I'm working with the girls and they're learning fast. So they're, the product is there, the results are there. Yeah, once you see the results, there's nothing you can say, you know. Yeah, so, I mean, Vince is loving it 100%. He's super, he's super, he's, he's super, excited about, you know, the kids, and he was laughing the whole time as I'm doing it. And it was very interesting, you know, for a second, I just, yeah, it was, I just like, man, is he? I think Henner was actually auditioning. I was like, yeah, am I auditioning right now? This guy's

super excited. Like, he was like, yeah, yeah, he's kind of promo for him right there. And I'm like, all right, you know, I'm like, yeah, it was really cool. No, because promo is better than you. Yeah, well, you know, direct them to your YouTube and train with you and and the other rest of the best. So did either them roll? Yeah, so, so anyways, so did, so, so, so, so, Vince rolled. Vince rolled? No, no. Okay, okay, that would have been. He He just wanted to see the grandkids doing. He was there at the house anyways. And so, yeah, I got to roll with Triple H.

And it was really cool, man. He's very natural athlete. And, you know, they all are. And I've rolled with a couple of other guys as well. And it's really amazing. Like, they do this wrestling and their bodies are just so familiar with these natural movement. So they take to it very fast.

And, you know, I got to train with Triple H. And it was amazing. As strong as he was, you know, obviously it's only one weekend, so it's not going to be much. But give me, you know, another couple sessions with him in terms of jiu-tzu. And it's going to be a powerful combination for sure. What's this Matt Hardy choke that she tweeted? Is there an inside joke there? There is.

Oh. There is. Is it too inside? I'll give you permission to tell it. Okay. Even though. Well, she tweeted it out there, so it's kind of fair game, right? It was very funny, actually, that she did.

Tell the true story, too. Okay. And I'll tell the, you know, the generic, the vague version of it. And for those that don't know Matt Hardy. He was, yes, he was a wrestler with WW. Right. And basically, when I first started on the road, and I was on my first overseas. tour. You know, everyone kind of like messes you a little bit. Everyone's testing you out, whatever. And so, um, I'm sure there was, you know, on their end, a lot of alcohol going on.

This is like something that just happens overseas. Everyone's getting, you know, everyone's drinking. Everyone's, back then, it was even worse because there wasn't, like, the drug policy wasn't fully enforced, whatever. But, um, so basically he starts kind of like trying to play wrestle with me. And like, you know, mind you, I had been training jiu-jitsu for maybe like three or four months. So starts kind of trying to play wrestle with me And I'm kind of like trying to fight back And then for some reason it just clicks in my mind That I'm like, I want to just see if this stuff works

Right? So I like, and not to mention I'm a little bit competitive And I'm a little bit like territorial And a little like aggressive sometimes Just a little, yeah So it basically turns on into like almost like a full-on bar fight Where we're the only people in the in the

In the, you meaning you and the other members of the company Yeah, yeah, only people from the company Are in the lobby in the hotel bar or whatever. Turns in like a full-on bar fight. And I'm like trying to like pull trying. And again, like three or four months. So I really have no idea what I'm doing. Yeah.

She didn't even have one stripe on her white bag yet. Stripe. Blank white. Yeah. And I'm really just trying to pull things out. Like I feel like like I want to use this stuff. I'm going to see if it works. And basically, finally it gets like broken up.

And I checked my eye and he had given me a black eye by accident, by the way. This was all, you know, after. So are you plagued fighting here? Well, here's the thing. Afterwards it was like, there was like, there was. no hard feelings, you know what I mean? But in the time, I was a little bit like, yeah, it was, it was, you know, right, right. So, um, so I get a black eye and I, and I'm like, oh my, and now I turn to rage, like,

boiling rage because I realize I'm a black eye. And you're on tour. So, yeah, exactly. And I, like, just started the company. So I literally sink in a rear naked choke and put my hooks in. Wow. And he goes to sleep. Really?

Yeah. Didn't tap. And he starts, um, snoring. like like literally the whole like you know all the other wrestlers of course like you just got choked out by an interviewer because I was like I was an interviewer back to the day I wasn't even in the ring yet you know so it was just a hilarious thing that happened and and of course like afterwards I was like oh my gosh I'm going to get fired like what just happened like I got you know like let this get the best to be and I'm going to have a black eye and I just choked out one of the wrestlers like what am I

thinking and of course it turns out it was the best thing possible for my career because number one none of the guys ever messed with me again. Yes. And it got this rumor that spread. And of course it switched from like, oh, you choked out, you know, one of the wrestlers to, yeah, she beat him up. And then she broke his arm. And then she, like, you know, it turned into some big story, which I didn't mind, you know. Sure, sure.

So it was a good thing, actually, to do fairly early on in my career. And then everyone, like, would, you know, if any time anyone tests me, like, careful, she chock you out. It's like that thing. And how are you with Matt after that? I mean, did he take a little... Afterwards, the truth is, I don't even know if he remembered the thing that went down. Like it was, you know, but he, he was like, just like, oh, whatever, sure, yeah. It acted like it was funny, you know, but everyone else loved it because they just, you know,

thought it was a funny story, I guess. So what is your role now in the, obviously you're about to get married, but you have an active role in what he's doing, the great to jih Tijuana, if you will, it continues to move along. You're a very big part of it, right? Yeah, yeah, I would think, I believe so. I think, you know, my part is really where it comes in is, is the second half of the world demographic, which is the women, right?

and I think Gracie Jiu-Jitsu's done so much and it's gone so far, but I think it's only reached half of its potential because I think as much as, you know, there's still women training, there's a lot of women now train Jiu-Jitsu, and with all the amazing things happening in women's MMA, I think more women are getting interested in MMA as well. But at the end of the day, I'm not even, my role, I think, is not trying to get women into MMA. I think my role is to try to appeal to the average woman, who maybe doesn't see themselves as an MMA fighter,

but says, you know, maybe I do want to learn how to defend myself and make it seem, make it, you know, just educate women. The fact that, number one, it's possible because like me, I never actually believed it was possible. I just thought, like, what am I going to do against a guy who's much bigger and stronger than I am? And then when I started trained Jiu-Jitsu,

like everything in my mind just changed. It was like, it was like this whole world was opened up to me. And I felt like this is something that every woman in the world needs to understand. Like, I was just, you know, now I want to share it with all my friends. I want everyone to know this. I want everyone to learn. and so I was very grateful that, you know, Henner was so supportive of that. And he found incredible value in that, too, I think, to have a woman, you know, representing

the art as well. You know, they're the best teachers in the world, but at the end of the day, they can't connect with women the same way that a woman can in teaching. So I think that's where kind of my role came in and something that I hope to continue to take it even further, you know, is women learning jujitsu and just women learning to defend themselves, whether they become, you know, know, they start competition or whether they train and get their blue belt or whether, all I care about is that the average woman, the woman who maybe says, no, I'd rather take a yoga class,

or oh, I'm too frail or I'm too old, or I'm too overweight, or I'm too small, that those are the women who get in and try a class and start learning and just experience the kind of confidence that I felt when I started training. And I think it's been huge, yeah. This is the first time you guys venture down this path. Obviously, there was you and your dad and your grandfather, but there was never really a woman. Well, exactly. It was the missing link to the perpetuation of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu on the global scale. You're noticing a difference that it's opening up? Huge difference. I mean, well, I noticed it when she wasn't here. I felt the void because all my life I've been teaching Jitsu and watching my dad teach Jiu-Jitsu and we've taught women's self-defense classes and we've always taught women, you know, women empowered and, you know, before it was called Rape Safe way back when and, you know, we're teaching these women and there's Hedner, Hordion, Hallecker, or whoever else, brothers, Five men stand in front of a group of 50, 60 women.

And we say, ladies, listen up. This is what happens. This is how you have to escape from it. And this is how you should do the move. And then he don't does the move on me. And women are watching thinking, yeah, sure. Sure, he can do it on you. Yeah, the six four super in shape guy.

You guys are fighters, you know what I'm saying? Athletes, whatever. Like, of course you guys can do it. So it was a huge deal. And then, of course, as soon as I met Eve, and it wasn't even like, you know, an aspiration from the get-go. But as soon as I saw how she took to Jiu-Zitsu, I thought, wow, this is huge here,

because, you know, she's passionate for it. She speaks extremely well, and she has a great energy and enthusiasm. And, you know, so we basically put her through a whole instructor training process, and she adopted it as her own. So we couldn't have asked for more. And we've noticed a huge difference. We created the Women Empower DVD program that she's featured on. And not only have, you know, women all over the country sent in feedback saying,

listen, and men saying, hey, Henner, because of the women empowered and because of Eve and your sister Sage, who were on the DVDs, my wife saw that and said that she could do it. So now we're training off the DVDs from home, learning together, husband and wife, practicing these moves. And that would have never happened if it was two guys showing women's self-defense techniques. So they couldn't connect with it. Not to mention the U.S. Air Force last year adopted Women in Power, the women self-defense program that we have. Yeah, it's now called Gracie Defense Systems. And it's basically sexual assault in the Air Force is huge.

It's a very serious problem. And when the statistics came out last year of how bad it was getting progressively worse, one of the men in the Air Force, who was a former student of ours and an instructor of ours, a guy named Thai, he said, hey, they had the Women Empowered program at the Gracie Academy, check it out. They looked into it. They saw Eve doing her thing, and they said, let's do it. So now every other month we travel to Air Force bases, right? And we're going, the next one is Cheyenne, Wyoming, which is in February.

And then we go to Ohio for another one, right, Patterson Air Force Base, and we certify 100 instructors on each Air Force Base in this program, in a one-week, 40-hour course. And with that information, they go and they teach tens of thousands of airmen on the base. They each teach individual little courses. And it's been remarkable. We've been doing that for just over a year now. So it's, you know, the U.S. Air Force. What bigger endorsement could you have for a program to defend against sexual assault?

And it would not, for sure, it would not have been possible and it would not have connected with the potential students out there, if not for her. I feel like this is, you're a lovely couple, great, you know, individuals, intelligent, but you couldn't have, I feel like this couldn't have worked for you, marriage and all that. You needed someone to buy in. I think about that sometimes. Right? Could you imagine if your wife was like a banker or something?

I know my past five, you know, my only four or five, I forgot how many serious relationships I've had in my life, all ended because of Jitsu. They wouldn't buy in. Well, yeah. Well, they would kind of dabble, but they didn't own it. And what ended up happening is there ended up being a kind of this situation where it's Hennar, her, and Jujitsu. You see? And if I would spend too much time at Jiu Jitsu, I would hear it from her. And if I spent too much time with her, I'd hear it from. Right. Jiu-Jitsu. The boss is over there, my partners, and brothers and father. So it was this like weird thing.

And I always felt like I was being stretched and pulled and boom. It was just, it wasn't comfortable. So a year, two years, three years sometimes it would be together. But then it would have to break off because I felt, wow, I just want this tug and pull. And then I met her and she took to it. And now it's like, Henner and Eve, Jiu-Jitsu. Wow. Boom.

It's amazing, bro. It's really amazing. So, and some people are looking at this. Say, yeah, if I own the jitsu business, I too would, you know what I'm saying, get my, my, my, my wife or my girlfriend involved and I would just make her do it or whatever and you know it's easier said than done you know they have to they have to they have to fall in love for themselves you can't fall in love for them but what I will say is this there are what percentage of your viewers do you think are men I'd say pretty good 90% yeah okay of those 90% what percentage you think practice mixed

martial arts and or jiu-jitsu I'd say maybe 40 or so there you go somewhere in there right so that's probably how many viewers right there that's probably 50,000 people 100,000 people More like 10 million, yes, 10, 20 million people, just at 40%. Right. So of those 10, 20 million people, how many of them,

and I know this is I have students of my own who have this problem, have a wife at home, who is having that draw. Where the husband goes to Jiu-Jitsu, the wife is like, come on, come home, the kids, whatever, complain.

And there's this constant battle between Jiu-Jitsu, the house, the husband, the wife, in terms of energy time. And all I'm getting at is the men that are out there who are Jiu-Jitsu fanatics or even mixed martial arts,

but for me, the Jitsu thing who have a wife who is kind of on the outskirts and who either tried it and was unsuccessful with it or who has never tried getting involved in self-defense in this art. You should look into getting them involved because, like for example, what happened this weekend with Stephanie, like she is in love with Jiu-Jitsu. Like she now is like, oh yeah, this is amazing. We're going to bring you guys back. We're going to keep this going.

And she learned so fast. If they're introduced properly and they fall in love with the art, there doesn't have to be that tug and pull anymore. It can be something you do together. not only will it prevent you from breaking apart, but it'll strengthen the bond. Jiu-Jitsu for marriage, jujitsu for relationships.

We have actually a lot of families at the Gracie Academy. It always starts with what? Usually it starts like the kids. Yes, they throw the kids in the class to make sure it's safe. Right. You know what this? They throw the kids for the wolves to see if it's going to be okay. If the kids survives, then the dad will sign up.

Then the dad, right, right. So then the dad signs up. Then the dad, they train for like three, four, five years, right? The mom always dropping off the kid, always coming to watch class. So we're just sitting there. And then finally we have like a free women's empowered seminar or whatever. And we just try, hey, moms like come in and take a class. Just one time.

Just it'll be so much fun. Finally we get the moms in and then what happens. Now everyone's training. The whole family is training together. It's amazing. We're all going to the academy. We've got like Academy families like Flo and Jay. It's great.

It's like the new soccer mom. It's just everybody comes together. But this time she's actually playing soccer is the whole point. She's doing it. So she has a vested interest and it's a family thing. It really brings the family. Because think about it. If your family doesn't have something that you guys,

all do together regularly. You're always going to be apart. Yeah, you're always going here, you're in there. We eat dinner together and we do homework together, but if that's it, if there's no hobbies that connect you beyond just being family members. Now, some people say, oh, you have family, you have to have your own things. You know, you got to have your separate things that you do. And she dances and does her thing and her cardio bar and, you know, her Zumba.

And I do my surfing and I do my skinboarding and I do my workouts and stuff like that. And we have our separate things. But there should be a united hobby, something that brings them together at home. they can watch and care about together. And the thing is, we only started realizing how important this was with Gracie University, with the women-empowered DVD programs, with things that put training in the home, families are getting it and saying, Henner, this is helping our marriage. My kids are doing bully proof, and then my wife started the woman-empowered,

and now we're doing it together, husband and wife, Gracie combatives, women-empowered, I'm teaching her. And we were on the rocks there for a while. It was just not a great marriage. But this is bonding us. So that kind of feedback. True story, yeah. You can't put a price on that.

But there's very specific, I mean, it could either go really right or it can go wrong. And that's the thing. It's like you really have to approach it the right way. Whereas if a man, sometimes a man when he teaches a woman, he wants to say, oh, no, you're doing it. And they almost care too much, right? Oh, you're doing it wrong. This is, you know, and once you get that, it's like, it's not a good, it's not a good thing. Then it becomes more tension.

Have you ever tried to teach your wife something? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Isn't it interesting? It could be tough. Yeah. Very interesting. Why? Because your wife wants to impress you.

She spent her whole life becoming a person that could be perfect for you to have kids and have a family and live happily ever after. So when she's trying to peel an apple, as in my case, for example, or, you know, scoop a papaya seeds out. Oh, wow. Or cut an avocado and chop the seed out of the center. Like, and she's trying to be perfect and do it. And you're here saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, do it. Do it like this. Do it like this. Do it like this. Do it like tutorials and yeah. So, you know, and, and, and, and the avocado is something that really matters and you got to really make sure it's perfect. So I have to intervene. But for something that, like, self-defense or practicing at home, what we suggest is expect nothing, praise everything. Okay, so you show a

technique. Let's say your wife watches the technique on the Gracie University website, and she sees lesson one, and she's doing a trap and roll, and she grabs the wrist incorrectly. You have two options. You can say, no, honey, grab like this. Or you can say, that was amazing. Let's try it again. And then she does it again. That was really good, honey. Let's watch it one more time. And then we plug it in, we watch it one more time, five minutes later. She sees the thumb detail in her own. She fixes it her own next time. So she'll get the details over time. Don't have to correct everything. Now why does the husband want to correct everything? Number one, he wants to show that he knows it all. I'll tell you. I'll tell you. Number one, he wants to show that he

knows better. Right. Number two, and I'm guilty of this with the avocados. Number two is that he cares about her doing the move correctly. Like he's thinking, if I can teach her the move perfectly today, then she won't get sexually assaulted tomorrow. Right. So she has to do it perfectly like Henry and he don't show it on the DVD or like Eve shows it on the DVD. So honey, no, no, no, It can't be like that. It's got to be like this. The problem is if you have that attitude with that approach of instruction. Now, this is for kids. You're going to need that pretty soon. Bullipiff. I'm going to send you the bullyproof. I'm going to send you the bully proof. Oliver. Oliver. Yes. The champ needs bully proof. He's two and a half. He's two. He's two. He's almost two. Typically, we start him around two and a half. Gracie games all the way. Tragie games. Crazy legs. All the fun is games. We'll get him. Thank you.

So, but the most important thing with the kid is what, expect nothing, praise everything so that you think, okay, I need them to do the move perfectly. That's why you want the dad wants the kid to do the move right or the husband wants the wife to do the move right. That's a big picture thought. They got to do the move right, so we got to make sure it's perfect. The bigger picture, as Heedon would say, is that you need them to stay engaged long enough to get the reflexes for it to one day work against that potential threat. And if they're not having fun, they won't stick around. They won't do class number two. If their association is jihitsu means disappointing my husband, my father, whoever, you see?

So when kids go to class and you're coaching them from the sideline, what do they start to associate? Jiu-jitsu learning is an opportunity to disappoint my dad because I do everything wrong. Be careful when you coach from the sideline. That is for all parents. Not just Jiu-Jitsu dads or moms. It's for soccer. It's for anything. If you want them to have fun, don't yell at them from the sideline.

Whenever they do, tell them good job, it's all good. Because the kid only really knows what you tell them. And if you tell them that they're doing a whack job or they're not doing very good, they won't stick in it long enough to get the results that you signed them up for to begin with. I'm done. Everything you're saying is right. This guy is a motivational speaker right here. He is.

He is. Very motivating. I'd love to see what family life is like at home. One last question. I'm running out of time. Why? I've noticed you more at events. I've noticed you more.

You're with Rhonda. You're with Brendan. You're very observant, man. Why all of a sudden? What's happening there? And how much of your time? Because you do all this stuff. You travel.

Sure. And then you have to be there with these guys or girls. How do you balance the two? First, why is it happening all of a sudden? Well, Rhonda, Brendan Schaub, Jake Ellenberger, Leoto, for the primary's retreat. teaching right now. It seemed like a year ago. I never saw you in any event. Well, here's the deal. They're realizing what I've known, you know, about Hedon, for example, for my whole life.

You know what I mean? I've trained with some of the best grapplers and fighters in the world, and no one threatens my life like Hidon does. And, you know, he's not here, but if you ask him, I'm sure he'd say the similar thing about me. And people are realizing that now. You know, for example, Liotto, you know, came to me and was we were rolling and, did the first class. And he just walked in and wanted to do a group class. Leotto came to the Gracie Academy and said, I want to sign up for regular group classes.

Like, I don't have been coach. Like, I don't need the Gracie to like be my personal coach. He was just like, can I just jump into class? You just came into class. And I rolled with them in the class. And then I said, come on, bro, let's do a private class. I'll pull you aside. And we did some stuff on the side.

And we did some stuff on the side. And her, like, this is amazing. Like, people talk about Gracie Jiu-Ju and people talk about, you know, Brazilian Jiu-JU and BJJ. And I never knew there was a difference. but this is what I just felt from you and from Hidon, I want that. I've trained with grapplers all over the world, and no one submits me and threatens me jiu-sitsu-wise like you guys do.

And, you know, he said this to other people as well before, and, you know, and I thought, wow, that's interesting. Like, I've known this about Hidon, but I've never had a chance to train with Liotto to feel that from someone on the outside. And, you know, it was cool to hear that from him who has trained with the top echelon of UFSI fighters in the world. And so he just had, I want to be able to have this jiu-jitsu,

where from every position you're attacking, you're submitting people, you're going for the kill, going for the kill all the time. So they're realizing that. That is a very systematic based approach, very scientific, and you see it in the Gracie breakdowns.

Like, we're not just there blabbing about randomness. Sure, sure. Like, we're isolating very specific things that are happening in these fights, and they're catching on to that, you know, and it just, you know, it took some time. And like everyone, like a fighter role mature, we're maturing as instructors,

and, you know, people are realizing that little by little. And I taught Rhonda three nights ago, Thursday, before I came to Connecticut. it. And I said, Rhonda, like, and I helped her with the last fight, and I'm going to be in Vegas with her for this next one. I said, so how did you hear about us? You know, like, how did this even start? Because she started rolling with heat on it first. And she's like, I saw Gracie Breakdown. Wow. Yeah. She's like, I watched Gracie Breakdown of one of my fights that you guys did. And a lot of people do, like, analysis of my fights. But when I

watch you guys' breakdown of my fight, I learned stuff from your breakdown of my fight. And I thought, okay, that's cool. Like, Gracie Breakdowns are working. Yeah. From, from Rondas to regular people in everyday life, you know, they're encouraging people to take action. And whether it's a professional fighter or someone who's just at the couch at home and sees that and thinks, man, that's MMA, but that's Gracie Jiu-Jitsu within it. And I think that I can do that, you know, and I feel like until you have stepped on the mat, until you've done your first official class, not the informal Gracie breakdown choke at the back stage. Until you've done your official first class, Gracie University or Gracie Academy, the Gracie Breesie Breesie.

breakdowns have not served their most important purpose. Just me. It's all on me now. Well, I'm just saying. I know when I say you, I got the rest of the world. Right, right, right. Okay. Okay. I was hoping that you'd bring the bowl because I saw the picture of... Well, we had it. Here's the thing. Asai is a perishable thing. Sure, sure.

So I got the thing. I put some dry ice. I had the frozen asai bowl. Granola on the side, coconut and dried figs chopped up already. She chops them beautifully. We had the frozen bowl. We got on the plane. We landed in Connecticut. It was melted. Yeah. Naturally. Yes. And if it melted and it's perishable, I had to let it. go. It was honorable how we released it into nature. But the bull had to be surrendered. So what does basically saying you have to come to California? You got to come to the kitchen to feel the Gracie

breakdown. We'll do a special edition of one of these. I would love it. In the kitchen, Asai Bowl. Let me just say this. All the fighters have had it. Right. Rhonda's had it. Who came recently? Richard Norton, the famous martial arts actor Chuck Norris' best brother had it. Richard Norman's helped her house a week ago. Everyone who comes has had it. The problem is it does two things. It's the most revolutionary, nutritional, consumption, experience

of your life. Sure. But it also ruins all chances for future excitement because this is only well, yeah, because it's only exists in one place. And you always have to just compare

from that point. Naturally, you're going to compare. I want it. The best you've ever had. I thought you were going to surprise me. I'm not going to lie, I thought you were going to say you probably would have, but to be fair,

we were literally driving from Connecticut. In the car, I was feeding Henner in the car. Wow. We were rushing here, bro. You said, don't be late. What's up? Watermel.

And you were early. Yeah. We were. We were. We were scared of New York traffic. Very scared. But we made it. Much respect.

This has been a joy. Really appreciated it. Hold on. Let's go. Metamorphous. Yes, yes. Yes. This is from your last Metamorphic.

Yeah. I hope I get another one. I get two black belts. Yes. So you guys, for those who don't know, March 29th, 2014. Just announced. Just announced. My brother Hollick announced it.

Metamorish. three is going down. Eddie Bravo, the Twister, the rubber guard master, Eddie Bravo against Hoyler Gracie. Part two. Yes, part two. It's going down. And people didn't think it's going to down. I think it's in L.A. It's still in California. Yeah. This is the second time they fought. They fought 12 years ago. I was going to say 10. 12 years. Eddie caught Hoyler in a triangle. The family was upset. Well, I don't know. He's kind of been hanging his hat on this win for a long time, right? I think, you know, well, as Hoyler says it in the interview, you know, in his pre-fight interview

that's now available online, the fight hype video, he says, you know, people, a lot of people were upset because they thought it was a fluke, you know, and I don't, you know, my personal opinion is, you know, Eddie's very good, and Eddie is very creative, and he caught, and Hoyler made one mistake, so maybe Hoyler's mistake was a fluke, you know what I'm saying, but the fact is, Eddie is good, you know, and if you mess up, you can get caught. but, you know, if you ask me who's going to win the rematch, you know what I'm saying? Right. Are you calling it?

No. You're not. I'm going to be on the sidelines, just chilling out. Competing? Yeah. No, no, no, no. I'm just there. I'm just there support.

Brotherly support. It'd be huge news. Listen. No? I got a puppy. He's got more important things. Will you ever compete? No.

No. I don't. Well, I guess never say never, but at this point of my life, I feel like, again, the vision is kind of more with the teaching and sharing. Fair enough. I would have to literally be training. every single day, nonstop. It's the same question I get for the UFC and for Metamoros and for everything else.

The reality is I have so much respect for UFC fighters for these competitors who are competing on the world level for Metamoros. These are a professional Brazilian jutsu. They make a living competing full-time. Since I've been around in my whole life, I know that unless you give your whole life to the training for that encounter, you don't just go in there and just do that. You know what I'm saying? It's not you don't just go and casually do that, or at least in my opinion, my personal,

knowing my work ethic and my dedication to this things. So, you know, the teaching has taken such an amount of energy and time and focus because I know there's millions out there waiting to learn. I got to get to them. You know what I'm saying? Because that's my passion. That's what I want to do. And if I don't do it, nobody will. And I just figure if I'm going to put my energy all in that, it's got to be the best in the world at something.

I'm going to be the best in the world that getting people off the couch onto the mat, training jiu-zitsu and all the positive life changes that come with that. If I do that, everyone else can fight amongst themselves and we'll see them at the top. So that's my idea. And it's just, you know, it's where we have to go with it. We've got to do it. Fair enough. Best in the world. like our friends, Diem Punk.

That's right. Yes. Who I'll be seeing later on this week in Chicago. Yeah, he's going to be out in L.A. February 10th is out in the L.A. train as well. Another person who has drank the Kool-Aid, so to speak.

Oh, yes, he has. Yeah, yeah. L. L.S. And him on the assaye bowls, ask him about the bowl. Those guys like, coming to L.A., have my bowls ready.

Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. I know you guys here for a limited amount of time. Much respect, you guys. Everyone out there who's just like, you know, they're thinking about it. They're like, I think Jujutsu might be right for me, and I've seen a thousand Gracie breakdowns,

and I've seen all the MMA hours and all this talk, but you're not sure. It's very simple, you guys. Gracieuniversity.com. Watch the first three lessons. If they're not the best lessons you've ever seen in your entire life, I'll let you choke, heat on for free. Wow.

How about that? It's a good deal. You heard it here first. Thank you very much to Hannah, Eve. Great people, and check them out online. You see the Twitter accounts that's below their names right here. If you want to ask them anything, this man replies, usually in longer than 140 characters,

because it's harsh. Sometimes. So I want to basically replace Father Dog, and Mazel Tov on the, as we say in my country, on the wedding. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. That means congratulations. Yes.

Good luck, all that stuff. All right, in a second, we will be back to answer your questions, giving out those tops cards. Right now, speaking of training Ronda Rousey, Joe Warren told me a couple of days ago that he'll be training Ronda Rousey as well for that Sarah McMahon fight. Here's that interview that I had with Joe Warren in Brooklyn just a little less than two weeks ago. We'll be back in a second right here on the MMA hour.

So there you have it. Joe Warren at the end of that interview, dropping the nugget that Rhonda, through his management, had reached out to him. Interesting because he has a history with one Sarah McMahon. Of course, we know about his wrestling background, and it sounds like he might be joining the energy himself in helping Rhonda prepare for Sarah McMahon February 28th in Las Vegas. That's UFC 170. You can watch the rest of that interview right now over at mMAfighting.com.

All right, just a few minutes left on the program. trying not to extend the past four hours, which, as you may have heard on the show in the past, I start to deconstruct as a human being once we hit the 5 o'clock Eastern. By the way, New York, Rick, are you there? Yep, I'm here. It's been a fun show today. Actually, one of my favorites in a while, I was just, oh, my gosh. It just hit me that the Knicks were playing a rare Monday matinee game because of Martin Luther King, Junior Day.

Yep. Wow. Let us not speak of that right now. Oh, did you just check the score? Is it bad? It just kind of hit me that I was like, oh my gosh. Anyhow, okay, let's answer some questions. We have the Tops cards, right? Yep, we have the Tops cards from... Who are you typing to right now? Are you busy? Are we interrupting you? Actually, yes, but I will continue to do the read before you interrupted.

2013 U. U.S. Bloodlines out in stores now, celebrating the global phenomenon. That is the U.S. each box, the big box that Ariel is holding right there, contains 10 mini boxes, and each mini box contains five cards that could contain a fighter autograph, a piece of fighter memorabilia or both. So five autographs and five memorabilia cards per box. For more information, visit www.tops.com or Facebook.com slash tops. All right.

And my good friend, Andy Mayer, who is in Florida right now, just texted me that he was so inspired by that last segment, He just signed up for the Gracie Academy in San Diego. He's moving there. So how about that? Hennar, you owe me one. All right, let's answer some questions. Okay.

Scott Cohn, the artist who did the bloodline stuff, the stuff you see in the studio, he's saying you can win the original art for the cards. I'm not sure how. I'm trying to find that out now, but either way, you can win that as well. Website first? What's that?

Yeah, let's start with the website, as usual. Actually, while I bring those up, we got the Roots of Fight underarmor stuff on the desk. Congratulations to our friends at Roots of Fight. Collaboration with Under Armour. How about that? They finally hit the big time. Finally, I kid. They've been the big time for a long time.

Here's a Mike Tyson shirt. Yeah. Iron Mike. And then we have a jack. You know, I tried on one of these. And I'm not just saying this because we're talking about them and we like them. Jesse over there at Root to Fight. The quality is just something else of these.

shirts and this is another Under Armour one. It's Jack Johnson. There you have it right there. So congratulations to them. You can get the stuff over at Under Armour or Rootsafite on their website, rootto fight.com. I think just Underarmor.com. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Okay. Sorry about that.

No, but congrats to them. That's a great collaboration. All right. First question from the website regarding Nick Newell. Ali Abdelaziz said after the event on Saturday that they are looking to book Newell versus Gechee for the next lightweight title fight. Do you think this title shot will come one fight too soon for Newell? I've been thinking about this. I'm kind of going back and forth.

I kind of feel like might as well strike while the iron is hot and give Newell the shot. He is the next, you know, the next biggest guy at 155 in WSOF. But here's my thing. They're going to make their debut on NBC later on this summer, right? I truly believe that that's the fight that should probably, main event or co-main event the show. Can they keep

Newell and Gaichy on the sidelines until then, or do you roll the dice, have Newell fight in, say, March or so if he wins that fight against a step up, then he gets Gaichy. So I could see both ways. All roads need to lead to NBC with Nick Newell. Nick Newell needs to be on that show, in my

opinion. And if he can win one more, more power to them, if you feel like it's too risky, then make the title fight right away, but in a perfect world, I would book him in March against someone, get one more win, and then have him fight Gaichi on NBC this summer. Our next question, thoughts on Anthony Johnson's resurgence. He knocks out Mike Kyle in one round, hasn't missed weight at his new weight class of 205,

and he's 6 and 0 since being cut by the UFC. Is it time for Anthony Johnson to come back to the UFC? I mean, look, in a scenario like this, you're kind of crapping on WSOF. But if you're asking me, does Anthony Johnson deserve to be in the UFC 100%. Anthony Johnson should be in the UFC. He is worthy enough of being in the UFC. He is good enough to be in the UFC. And quite frankly, he was good enough to be in the UFC a few years ago when he was cut.

Unfortunately, he couldn't make weight of 170, missed weight a 185 against Vitor Belfort, and has finally found his home at 205. If he wants to go to the UFC, in my opinion, he deserves to be there. He should be there. It's a matter of, A, how loyal is he to WSOF? They helped him in this resurgence. And can they come to terms? That's the big question.

Glenn said, they'll give WSOF the first shot. But if you're asking me, considering the 205 pound division, considering that they could use some contenders, Anthony Johnson versus Phil Davis, Anthony Johnson versus Shogun, who I mean, all those guys, they could use some guys all of a sudden right now at 205. My guess is he ends up in the UFC. This is a curveball here.

With Benson Henderson being the main event this Saturday, I was reminded of Hsui and Ariel's one-on-one basketball game that never happened. it's the middle of basketball season after the Saturday. Can this still happen? And he's suggesting you tape it. Sure. I mean, that would be unbelievable. I would want it to be put on the record that I beat a former UFC lightweight champion,

a potentially future lightweight champion in a game of basketball in some kind of athletic endeavor. I kind of, you know, move back on that one because he has a fight. You know, I don't want to get something crazy happens to get hurt. I don't want to be responsible for any of that. But I will see him. and as I've told them, I'm usually at most of the events. You can find me. I'm very easy to spot. Let me know when you're around.

After the fight, if he has some free time, NBA All-Star game, I mean, I don't know. You know, they like to do the done contest, the three-point contest, all that stuff. I kind of feel like we're a bit above that. I mean, I don't know if that's something we want to give away for free, T&T, you know, ESPN whatever. Maybe pay-per-view. We could talk about it. But once he is done with Thompson and has some free time, I am obviously willing to discuss the terms, the place.

I mean, for me, it's really anywhere, anytime, any place. For him, he's the one that has all these restrictions. So, again, he knows where to find me. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. Take care of your business in Chicago, and then we can talk. Our next question. BJ Penn is training at Nova O'Niao.

I've seen some shots on Instagram of him and Henan Borough. BJ doesn't look too thin, but he doesn't look bigger than Brow. Return of the prodigal son, question mark. Well, I mean, this is probably a question for you when you saw those pictures, and I know you did. Yep. And it was like a jacuzzi of sorts, hot tub. There were other ones outside of that one. What were you feeling?

I'm excited. I noticed that he looked smaller. Did you? Yeah, I mean, it's not, BJ looked okay the last time he went down to 155. It wasn't like we haven't seen him. been in great shape before. And I don't really put any stock into that. But the fact that he's outside of his comfort zone of Hawaii and training, you know,

with some of the best fighters on the planet, that really... Going back to his roots. Yeah, that really gives me a reason to be excited about his return. At the same time, you know, I'm still a little hesitant. I've been hurt too many times by BJ. Wow. How about that? but you can bet that I will be cheering my face off.

So if you had it your way, you would prefer he doesn't return. No, what? Well, I mean, if he's hurt you, this and that, like, just let it be. Why come back? No one to say when. Yeah, I need to be hurt like that. You want us. You're happy to see him back.

He has to come back. But he has to... Why does he have to come back? He has to perform. Well, I mean, I think BJ Penn still has some fighting him. It's not like... I mean, he has been through some... worse, but I don't think he's been through the

type of ups and downs where he's just been a punching bag his entire career. He kind of still has some fight in him. And I think he deserves to leave on better terms. And I think he will. I think he'll

be motivated for this fight. And I mean, you know, this training camp that he's doing now is proof of that. Is that, you know, he's looking to do something outside of what he's been doing to this point. Yeah, I mean, look, we'll see, with BJ, everyone likes to say, oh, the old BJ's back, this and that, we get all excited.

Let's see what happens. Let's see how the show goes. Let's see how he looks on the show. And then the only annoying thing is that the fight is still like six months away. So I wouldn't put too much stock into what we're seeing in January when he's probably going to fight Frankie in July. It's a long ways away. It's just a good sign that he's outside of... He's out of the comfort zone.

He's back with the guys who he started with. It's all good signs. Next question. Do you think UFC fight passes a serious? attempt to slowly integrate the UFC off of the pay-per-view model or at least get or at least downgrade the amount of pay-per-view events a year. For example, the UFC could limit themselves to four-stack pay-per-view events annually, one-event quarterly. What would be the pros and cons of this strategy if implemented? Honestly, I don't think so. I mean, look at UFC 168. According to Dave

Meltzer, it did around 1 to 1.1 million. Look at, you know, UFC 158 did great with GSP and Diaz. Now, they've had some ones that didn't do all that well. 166 didn't do great, 167 didn't do grade. Now, they don't make these numbers public, but Meltzer says it, I trust them. Again, I do believe you cannot compare FightPass to WW Network. Fight Pass is gravy. Fight Pass really is something that came about within the last year or so, where they had these shows internationally, they wanted to grow the sport internationally, and they said, all right, let's put these local shows on in the prime time slot in England, you know, Poland, China, Singapore, all these places, and we're going to cater to those markets.

And for a while, they didn't even know if those shows would air here in any capacity here in the United States and North America. And then they finally decided that they're going to do it on flight pass, charge people, the prelims, whatever, and it's kind of evolved since then. It's not the WW Network who, you know, WWE has essentially waived the white flag and said, all right, paper views just isn't cutting it. we're going to put these pay-per-views online and bundle them up and you can buy them for $9.99 a month in installments of six months, et cetera. It's a totally different model. Now, it can evolve into that, but the UFC is still making money off pay-per-view and all roads lead to pay-per-view at the end of the day. That's what they're make, if things go well, their most money. They can use TV and other outlets to build to pay-per-view. So right now, I don't see it happening. Could it happen in 10 years? Things

evolve, sure, but let's see how this thing plays out. It could very well change. But right now, it's not WWD network, and it's not them waving the white flag on pay-per-view. These next questions are from Twitter, eligible for the Tops cards. First question, with Jessica Aguilar having such a great showing at WSOF, should the UFC buy her contract for tough 20? I mean, that's a question more for, you know, for WSOF. I mean, they, they, have to be, they have to be, you know, in agreement to do something like this. I asked Ali before her fight, you know, it seemed like the right move when they, they signed her because W, UFC was not in the strawweight business. And then all of a sudden they got in the strawweight business. And that was

one of the, you know, other than 135, probably the best division for women's MMA. So once they got in, it changed everything for WSOF. And I asked them if they were actually going to release her. It sounds like she's not all that interested, at least right now, to go through tough and all that. Maybe she has one to go through the house, and she's playing her cards right, power to her. So right now, I foresee her remaining with WSOF. They've signed three or four women who, Robert Sargent, who runs MMA Rising.com, who I consider to be the leader in all things women's MMA says that they're, you know, they're okay challenges for her.

So I foresee her, you know, being with them for at least, you know, the remainder. I think it's a four fight deal, something around that. So I don't see UFC trying to buy her out. They have 11 women. There are ones like Jessica Panay who announced that she's moving up to 115 from 105 who's going to try out. They'll get their 16 women. They'll be fine without Jessica Aguilar. At some point, she keeps winning.

Her price will only go up. Interest will only go up. I think in some ways this might be a smart play, especially if she doesn't want to go through the house. Our next question with Rampage and Spong fighting on Twitter, is there a possibility of at least one fight collaboration between Bellator and the W. I mean, I don't see it happening. I saw there was a press conference today, a conference call where they announced that light heavyweight tournament that we talked about earlier. Someone asked Bjorn Rebney about the WSOF callout, and he said, I'm interested in our business, not callouts.

It's not happening. Tarant Spong just signed a new multi-fight contract with WSOF. Rampage isn't going anywhere, so they could talk all they want, but the fight isn't happening. At least not anytime soon. Our next question, do you see a jacqueray versus Rockhold matchup in the future? Okay, that's it. That's the question. I want today.

What is that? Oh, he wants. He's on his knees pleading like GSP. But he messed it up. He said, in my GSP voice, I want, oh, today's prize so bad, give it to me. This is your question? This is the question that you asked to get the prize? There wasn't really many questions about Rockhold.

Oh, okay. Sorry, I got you. I thought won that touch. Okay. It's appropriate. I'm not ripping on you for choosing the question. I'm just, this is the best you can do if you want the prize. I think that's a decent question.

I mean, that's just a prediction. Rockhold looked fantastic. He looked as we expected him to look when he defeated Costas Filipu last Wednesday. He was a man on a mission, looked like the old Luke Rockhold, loved what he said afterwards. It was great to see him get back on track. Do I see another fight happening? Absolutely. A, there are still a lot of people, including New York Rick, who think that Jacaray won that first fight.

And in the UFC, sometimes it didn't happen in the UFC, it didn't really happen. And a lot of people didn't see that fight. They're very close to each other. If you ask me what I would do with Luke Rockhold next, well, basically there's a little middleweight tournament going on. Of course, Chris Wyman's going to fight Vitor Belford for the belt later on this year. Then, on February 15th, Gagar Musassi dropping out to 185. He's fighting Loretumichita, who won his 185 debut, October 26 against Mark Munoz. Co-main event is Jacques-Gare versus Francisc-Carmine.

I predict that the guy who looks the best out of those four will get the winner of Wyman versus Vitor Belford. The guy who doesn't get the title shot but does win on February 15th, I think should fight Mr. Luke Rockhold. So if Machita looks great and he's next, then if Jacques Re wins, we might see Jacques-Rockel next. Our next question, does the lack of public support for GSP's comments verify that fighters are afraid to speak out? It's very interesting. You know, I can't sit here and say that fighters are afraid to speak out because, you know, I can't speak for all of them. But I will tell you this. I did speak to fighters who were very much in agreement with some of the things that GSP said.

And in agreement with the idea, the notion that they are somewhat afraid to speak out. I don't want to say afraid, but hesitant. And you can understand where they're coming from. you know, look, if I'm upset with SB Nation, I'm not going to sit here and publicly complain about them, right? I might say things behind the scenes. I might keep it to myself, but it wouldn't be the smartest thing. Now, I'm not, you know, a fighter and people aren't covering me and, you know, putting out stories, things like that. It's a little different, and it's a tougher spot to be in. But I think what he was getting at was you don't have

the freedom to say, all right, if I'm going to say this and potentially burn that bridge, I at least could go here, there, or here. If you're an NFL player and you speak up about your team, which a lot of them don't do, that wouldn't be the smartest thing because you probably won't play. But if you do do that, well, then you have, you know, 29 other teams that you can go play for. It's not quite the same in mixed martial arts. You could go fight for Bellator and you can make money there, but maybe you don't want to fight for Belator. Maybe you don't like, you know, their tournament format.

Maybe you don't like Bjorn Rebney. Maybe you don't like Spike TV. Who knows? and then it's pretty much, you know, World Series of Fighting, not quite there just yet. You can go to one FC, you can go overseas, and then it's pretty much it. So it's a tough spot, and you have to be very careful.

Am I surprised that no one is saying, I agree with your GSP? No. Do I think that fighters are a little hesitant to speak out when they are on the UFC roster? Yes, not only because, you know, it just wouldn't make sense business-wise. It would be somewhat, you know, career suicide to do that.

but look at someone like Tim Kennedy. Tim Kennedy said he can make more of being a garbage man. He wins a couple of fights, and now he's meeting with Danny. He's getting a new contract. He's getting Michael Bisping. So guys speak out sometimes, but for the most part,

I think they're afraid of the repercussions because they don't like what else is out there. I don't think the UFC is a monopoly. I think that the UFC is by far number one. It's not even close. There's a massive gap, a huge gap between number one and number two. And they were the kind of, you know, strong survivor.

they were the last man standing, so to speak, even though there are others. But I don't agree with Dana's $40 billion thing because obviously Bellator doesn't have $40 billion to work with. That's not their budget. Can't say that. But they are out there. And World Series of Fighting is out there and one-fcs out there. If you get released, like Okami and Fitch and other people, you have somewhere to go. It might not be as good as lucrative, but at least they're somewhere. And if that remains, it's not a monopoly. But I do agree, there's a very big fall from one to number two. And I will also say that, you know, in 2014 in mixed martial arts, if you want to be, you know, if you want to be, there was another thing I really wanted to say. And I kind of lost my train of thought because we've approached the four hour mark.

But the basic premise is you need to think twice about saying things publicly. And that's the position that enemy fighters are in. Our next question. will GSP's comments lead to uniform drug testing in the UFC? Does the lack thereof hurt the UFC's legitimacy? Well, you know, look, they do test everyone who is signed. They test everyone when they are in a city that doesn't have, you know, a regulatory body. But those tests are announced.

I mean, they know when those tests are happening. You know if you're about signed with UFC, you know what's going on. If you're going to fight in China, you know what's going on. It's all about random testing. That's the big one. And that's the one that the commissions don't often do because they don't have money, et cetera, et cetera. Kevin Ioli earlier in the show said that they are willing to work with the commissions,

to do more, to do more unannounced testing. That's brilliant. That's great. And they should do more. When Dana keeps saying that they're being tested by the government and, yeah, that may be true, but the government isn't doing enough. And I'm not convinced that they're being tested more or, you know, more, stricter than Major League Baseball. I'm not convinced. I don't think that's true. So they could do more.

If they want to do more, they can. It's just going to cost money. And we'll see. You know, I don't know if GSP's comments in particular will do it, but this is a very interesting time. It's a very interesting time because GSP has never abused his power in the past. GSP has always been the company guy. He's never tried to make headlines. He has one foot out the door. He's not Rampage. He's not Randy's tour. He's not going off into the sunset and they don't need to worry about him. He has one foot out the door and he has one foot still in the door. And they could use GSP. Let's let's not kid ourselves. He's one of if not the biggest star in MMA. So they can't kick his butt. They can't, you know, bury him. They can't just dismiss what he's saying. That's why you see for the most

part the words are being chosen wisely. What GSP is saying is very impactful. We'll see how far he takes it. Is it just a story, you know, of the week? Is it just going to die after, you know, a couple weeks? We'll see. If he keeps going, it's definitely, you know, something worth monitoring and it could be the biggest story of the year and then some. This is our last question. How big will the Super Bowl factor into UFC 169? And then he asked for our Super Bowl picks. So, I don't know. I mean, look, if you don't know, New York slash New Jersey is going to be incredible. There's a Let me see if I can find this. What they're doing in New York, the amount of, I don't know if I could find it,

the amount of events that they're doing from hockey games at Yankee Stadium to Knicks versus Heat, I know, all kinds of college basketball. It's just a, they've truly sacked. I was actually listening to the radio a couple days ago, and they were saying this will be the greatest week in New York slash New Jersey history. Now, what's interesting is every time they mention these things, like I was listening to ESPN radio, they don't mention the UFC. That just shows where we are right now on the sporting landscape. They don't mention the UFC.

It's amazing. Some do, but often they don't. They mention college basketball, the NHL, the NBA, of course, the NFL stuff going on. They don't mention the UFC. I think the UFC will get the rub. I think a lot of guys will be there. A lot of athletes will want to go. I'm not sure if media, extra media is going to go.

That remains to be seen. But I think it was the right move, especially because the Super Bowl is on Fox. And it just makes all the sense of the world. 169 is not on Fox, but the prelims are. It just makes it feel like a big deal. I know Fox Sports 1 is going to be there. I know that they're going to do all their shows there. It's part of the presence.

So I think it makes a lot of sense. I don't think it will make it a bigger, you know, pay-per-view draw. I don't think more people are going to buy it because it's in New Jersey. More people might go to the event. but I think, you know, they come here so, you know, once a year or something, not a huge deal. It's just, it's nice to be a part of it. Everyone, everything involving sports is going to be here. It would have been weird to be in Vegas, in my opinion, especially when it's a Fox Super Bowl.

And then as far as the pick is concerned, I'm going to go with, I feel like, you know, I'm no NFL expert just because my bills are very bad and it's very hard to follow. when they're so bad. The only team, by the way, to not make the playoffs in the 21st century, which is an amazing stat that I'd love to get rid of. But I'm going to go with the Broncos. I like the older guys. I like, I've never been a huge Payne Manning fan, but I think he's respectful and he's always cool with the media, and I just like his demeanor. I like Russell Wilson as well, but I think it's going to be a great story with that Richard Sherman guy and Peyton kind of going at each other, kind of young versus old. Denver fans seem like, good fans Seattle fans seem good I don't know I guess Denver what's what's the pick you got anything

for me I was about to do Ariel don't you bring that weak Broncos pick in here but then you mentioned Richard Sherman and I was like all right the moment's lost sorry um but no I'll go Seahawks Richard Sherman I because of Richard Sherman who's the who's the favor right now I think it's like a one point I'd be surprised really I would be surprised if it wasn't the Broncos but I'm not Sure. But it's like, it's, it's literally one point. It could be one point Broncos. Yeah, I mean.

But that's what I heard is a neutral site. So, yeah. But two cold weather teams. And obviously that will move between now and then. There's a two-week break. But anyway, I mean, I'll go with, I'll go with Broncos now, but I reserve the right to change my pick. How about that?

Nope. No, no. Okay, fine. I'll go with Broncos. Money line. How about that? Okay, let's, let's go through these. I also noticed while we're going through these that one guy favored at three out of these questions.

He has good taste. The same guy. Oh, wow. That guy down there? Yeah. What's his name? Let's see. His name is?

My mouse is being a little weird. You have four new direct messages as well. Garrett Christian. All right, Garrett. Hopefully you are who you claim to be. No, well. I like the, not this one, the one prior to this one. Yeah, I like this one.

I hated my answer. I was all over the place, but I like that question. Luke. I think Luke won something before. UFC Fit. Sorry, Trey. He got one. Good questions.

Yeah, sorry, Trey. But Luke gets the Tops cards. Congratulations. There it is. Thank you very much. The thing I was saying about the art before, Scott tells me, the original pieces of art are one of the things that you can win in that box. So like his art and some other artists' art,

are in those boxes. You can win the original pieces. So that's pretty cool. All right. That does it. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions. Kind of shortened it a little bit today because we knew that we were going to go longer,

but we will show you the love in the near future. And we appreciate everyone stopping by to watch or listen to the show. Alfred, you can hit my music. A fun show on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Let's check in on the next. Have they rebounded or no? It is over.

it is over at MSG, my friends. Well, I want to thank Mr. Kevin Ioli for stopping by. Great stuff out of him. And check him out over at Yahoo Sports.com. How about Chris Lieben? Honestly, I didn't know he was going to do that. That was a surprise to me. I mean, I had my inclinations,

but I did not know that he was going to actually announce his retirement on the show. I appreciate him doing that on the show, and I wish him the best in the future. And congratulations him on a very good career. Thank you very much to, Chabib Nirmagamedov for stopping by. And of course, his manager, Sam Cardan, over at the Red Fury fight team.

Chabib stopping by, it was like 1045 in Russia when he stopped by. So thank you very much to him. And good luck getting that fight that you want. Cole Miller, congratulations on the win over Sam Cecilia. Get well soon, broken left hand. And good luck in your next belt. Travis Brown was fantastic today. I didn't know that story about him and the $100.

is it just great stuff out of Travis Brown. Love the way he started the interview. So congratulations on everything and good luck against Rousseau-Burdum. Uriah Fabor. Also, once again, as always, Uri Favre, bringing it. Good luck against Hannah Burrout, U.S.C. 169. Glenn Robinson, thanks so much for the time. And thank you so much to Hannah Gracie and Eve Torres for stopping by in studio.

Really enjoyed that. A lot of fun. We'll be back next week. Same time and place. Until then, I say pick. Samadale. Support for this show comes from Volkswagen. As the U.S. gets ready to host soccer's biggest moment on a worldwide stage,

Volkswagen is helping people discover new turfs and new ways to play the beautiful game right here in the U.S. From deaf and power wheelchair soccer to beach and futsal, Volkswagen is actively supporting all the communities and teams within the U.S. soccer ecosystem. They're supporting talent from across the U.S. soccer extended national teams and are focused on helping to give these less widely known forms of soccer a platform moving forward. From the pitch to the sand and everything in between, welcome to our turf. Support for this show comes from Chase. If you're a fan of women's sports, you're always looking for ways to get closer to the action.

And your Chase card can get you exactly that. With a Chase card, you can experience more. That means access to presales, preferred seating, and more savings. For more information about how to step in. to a world of more with Chase experiences, visit chase.com slash experiences. Benefits available only to eligible Chase card holders. Deposit in credit card products provided by JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. member FDIC. Terms, conditions, restrictions, and limitations apply.