MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 244

Episode Date: August 25, 2014

Featuring Rory MacDonald, Luke Rockhold, Bobby Green, Will Brooks, Joe Riggs, Michelle Waterson, and Ben Saunders. 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?

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Wow, what a start that was. Some phlegm involved. It's a little under the weather, my friends, this week. So please bear with me. But this happens when you have little angels running around your house. I think they go around licking things and they come lick me. And at least, you know, we kiss each other. I'm big into the mouth-to-mouth, by the way.

I don't think that's weird as far as, you know, my sons are concerned. spread the love. I mean, it gets a little weird when they come home and there's all these things on their face, you know, like dirt, I see it there, but whatever. I'll bathe in that. Where am I going with all this? I'm not quite sure,

but I'm just letting you know that I'm a little under the weather this week. So please bear with me, but we're not taking a week off as far as guests are concerned or, you know, we're trying to always bring you the best show possible. This is another fun one. And we are coming at you, of course, from our New York City studio. Hello again, everyone.

I am Ariel Hawani, joined in the back by the same crew as per usual. A eventful weekend in the world of mixed martial arts two UFC events on Saturday. Of course, it was also

Titan FC on Friday, RFA. But the big news, Michael Bisping, defeating Kung Lee and Macau, and then what a shocker, Hafael Dos Anjos, knocking out Benson was it a little early?

Was it a not? I'm sure we'll weigh in a little later, but a lot of happenings in the world of the ultimate fighting championship. And then it all leads up to Saturday because UFC 177 is a mere five days away, Sacramento, California. I shall be there. And I'm looking forward to a degree. We'll talk about that card a little later on. But who is joining us on this show?

Well, first things first at 345, we're going to be taking your questions and comments. So hit us up as always using the hashtag DMMA hour or leave us a question or comment in the comment section below at 325. We're going to go inside the vault. You guys like it. We'll keep doing it. A fun one this week. A classic one from a few years back. Looking forward to sharing that one with you. 305, we're going to be joined by Benson Benson, Ben Saunders, who picked up the first Oma Plata victory in UFC history. Saturday night in his return to the UFC, Ben Saunders, coming back in a big way. Looking forward to talking to him at 305. 245. We're going to be joined by Rory McDonald. Of course, he faces Tarek Safedine at UFC fight night. I think that's 52, 53. It's hard to keep count with all these fight nights. But it's October 4th in

Halifax, Nova Scotia. Tickets on sale. And I'm told, by the way, tickets blazing. There's like 100 left. Halifax coming up in a big way as well. I think it's like a 10,000-seat arena, the Scotia Bank Center, and they have sold very well. Perhaps a sign of the UFC coming to a market for the first time, perhaps a sign of Roy McDonald being a big star. Could you imagine if T.J. Grant was also on the card. So that's good news. At 225, we're going to be joined by the Invicta FC Adam Wade champion, Michelle the karate-hati-Waterson. She returns on September 6th. At 205, we're going to be joined by Joe Diesel Riggs. He was supposed to fight in a couple of weekends in Brazil, but that's not happening. you probably know why shot himself accidentally. Bizarre story, we'll talk to him.

145, we'll talk to the Bellator Interim Lightway Champion, at least for now. That is Will Brooks. And at 125, we're going to talk to Bobby King Green. What's going on with him? He was supposed to fight a UFC 178 now, not fighting at UFC 178. But first, let us go to the Skype machine and welcome in our first guest of the day. This man is joining us from Thailand. He is the one and only Luke Rockhold making us some time for us at approximately 12.4 a.m. Tuesday morning in Thailand. Luke, how are you? I'm doing good, you know? Just kicking it, having some pizza with the boys. Just watch some Thai fights. Say hello to the crew. We got, we got Arnold. We got Mike Swig. Wow. This is amazing.

Technology. What a beautiful thing, huh? Beautiful, isn't it? Now, is this like a drunk pizza outing? Is this at the end of a night over there? What are we dealing with here? Outing. This isn't America. They don't even get started until like two o'clock years. Oh, okay. It's not really my style, but, you know, no, we just saw some, watch some Thai fights.

We had a couple guys fighting from A.K. Thailand and came out and supported, now we're having some pizza, and, you know, we're going to go tuck ourselves in a bit. And I saw on Twitter you were hanging out with lions or snakes, tigers. What are you doing over there in Thailand? It was quite the day. Swick took me on quite the tour today. I mean, Cobra's, tigers. A lot of things in it really hasn't ended yet. So, you know, it's going to be fun.

Once I gather all the information, I'll put some picks up and some videos and some fun stuff. It's going to be, it's almost too much to put up. It might take like a week or two to put everything out. Wow. All in one day. Did you drink Cobra blood? I stayed away from the Cobra blood. Oh.

But we did enough things with the cobra. Now we know, you did enough things with the cobra. Enough life-threatening situations. Oh my gosh. Don't tell the UFC. I know, I know Mike is over there. He opened up the A.K. Thailand gym. How is it?

I saw some pictures. It looks great. It looks like the real deal back in San Jose. Man, I tell you the truth. I went by the gym today and I was in awe. It's the best gym I've ever seen in my life. I've never seen a better setup. for any gym in my life, like MMA, it's just from top to bottom.

And then the plans they have going to the future, like they have a restaurant, a sports bar coming in, and all these different amenities. And it's, I mean, if you're coming to Thailand, there's no better place to be at AK Thailand. This is where you should come. I mean, they got the best trainers, the best facility, and everything is just getting better and better.

So, I mean, it's, I really, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw this place and training today was awesome. Wow, that's a great endorsement. Okay, I know we're short on time, so let's talk about Saturday night. In Macau, Michael Bisping picked up a big win. Some would say it was vintage Bisping. He beat up Kung Lee, a fourth-round TKO stoppage, and then had a lot of things to say about you afterwards.

And the last week leading up to the fight, you guys were going back, of course, you were in Macau, of course, but it seemed like you were destined to fight Leota Machita next. Do you want Bisping instead of Machita, given all the things that have happened between you two, and then him winning, of course, now getting back on the winning track. I'd love to shut Bisbing up, and I think we've been going back and forth for so long.

This is the one opportunity I have to do that. You know, I probably won't ever have the opportunity again, so let's do it. Bisbing had a win finally, so I think there's no better time than to step in and let me finish him. And like I said, I made a bet, and I'm not joking whatsoever. I'll finish Bisbing in one round. and I told him that he wouldn't take my bet. The bet was if I finish him in one round, we switch purses. And if I don't finish him in one round, one round, get me, mind me.

He gets my purse, show and win, everything. All he's got to do is run around for one round. Wow. In front of the man, and he wouldn't take it. He was starting to backtrack and make excuses right off the bat. So, I mean, I'm, I'm, uh, man, the man said he got the better of me and beat me up and won our sparring session. If he's that confident that he did that, why wouldn't he take a bet, you know, a, that an extra $100,000 on his paycheck? Couldn't hurt, right?

All he's got to do is survive one round. Where did you confront him to offer him this deal? Ironically, I came down to get coffee the next morning. and he happened to be right there in my track. And his dad and his little friend that he had with him were giving me crap all week. All week and kind of like just saying, Bisbing is going to kick your bud after he beats Kung Lee and this and that. They're constantly in my face and in my ear.

And so he kind of gave me some weird looks. And I couldn't help, but, you know, acknowledge Bisbing and ask him for a gentleman's bet. And then he started accusing me of not being close. Whatever. You know, I really have no respect for Bisming and what he does. And, you know, obviously his people didn't really gain much respect for me either. So, you know, I just, I had to jump on the situation. It was what it was.

But the fact is, he wouldn't take my bet. And, you know, I don't know, like I said, he's confident he got the better of me in training. I'm confident I'll finish him in one round. Obviously, I'm a man of my word. and I'm going to put it on the line. And he's not a gentleman. He's not a man of his word. He's what it is.

We'll put it on. Let's see, Bissing. Let's make the fight. And like I said, I'm still confident in that one round. And if he wants to put his money where his mouth is, let's do it. He said that you were a class list that you made a scene. I mean, was there a shouting involved? Did you guys get into an altercation?

You know, I kept it pretty mellow at first. And I just like, look, I came up. I was like, let's make a gentleman's bet, you know, one round. I'll tell you what, one round. That's all I said. Straight up. He's like, then he started barking and going crazy, telling me how he makes all this much money.

And the problem is that I make this and you make that. And, you know, and then he started just making excuses, really, is what it was. And I just said, look, I don't know. Basically, he's just talking out of his ass. Like I said, you know, if, If his dad and his friend are, like, are in my respect, but they completely were just as classless as Bisman is, and were coming after me the whole time. So, you know, I mean, I'm just, I can't avoid a situation when it's in front of me.

And obviously. What were they saying to you all week? I didn't go out of my way. I kept it pretty plain and simple, and he blew it over the top. And obviously, I'm not going to back down to nothing that that man does. What were his dad and his friend saying to you all week? Just like I said, how. how he's going to kick after he was done kicking uh kungli's butt that he was going to come

from me and put me to sleep and you know beat me up and do that and just just and then you know even even after the fight this little buddy and his dad are like jumping on my back like slapping me on the back and like pointing at me right after the fight's ending and just just laughable laughable stuff so you know what can i say what did you think of his performance were you impressed by it? What? Why is pitter-patter? No.

I'm not impressed by Bidding whatsoever. Nothing he does. He's the most unflexible M.MA fighter I've ever seen in my life. Do you see some of those kicks you through? I did. I just, I mean, he's got a couple of things.

I just, you know, he got the better of Cungley. He got a messed up. Got his eye. I think that I was the downspell of Cungley in this fight. He showed a lot of heart, kept in there. Bisping's tough.

You know, he's decent. In fact, I finish him. You still there? Okay. Just a couple of minutes left with Luke. By the way, how was China? I saw that you were winning a lot of money over there. What were you doing other than talking smack with Mr. Bisping and his little buddy?

Uh-oh. He could be a guest fighter of the week. And then, you know, I like to gamble a little bit. Have a little fun. How much are you up? obviously I like to gamble. I like to make waiters. It's fun.

It makes it exciting for me. Sure. How much are you up? What was that? How much are you up? So have you talked to the UFC afterwards about making this fight? Do you think that they will make it? Because Dana was a little...

He said he was interested, but he did not say 100% that he is going to make this fight. I talked to a few people, and they seem interested, and I think there's a good possibility that could happen. We'll see. We'll see what happens. Obviously, I'm on the road right now, and I haven't been able to sit down and talk with the guys, but I plan on getting back into the States and locking it down and figuring out what's next

and who's next. I've had a couple of injuries, a couple of things I'm working through, but I'm training every day. I had a hard training session today and I'm going to do it tomorrow. And, you know, I'm hungry right now. And I want a fight. And so we'll be figuring out something soon.

You know, I just need a nice full training camp and come back, you know, at the next fight strong and put on a performance. Is your toe 100% healthy? Yeah, my toe is 100% healthy. We lost you again. What do you want from here? Oh, no, I lost you.

I didn't hear what you were saying, so I was trying to make, I was trying to will the answer out of you. What did you say about your toe? Yeah, my toe, man. You want the truth? I want the truth. Here's the truth, man.

The truth is I tore my meniscus about four weeks before the Bush fight, and I had to take a week off and then I ended up, you know, just fighting anyway. And I had surgery about three weeks ago. Oh. Just to repair my meniscus a little bit, just trimmed it. And I'm just, you know, it's moving.

I'm sparring and everything. There's just a couple things that's just waiting for a little bit of swelling to get out. And then I'll be good to go. Oh, I had no idea. So how long are you out for? Like, when could you return? Ideal scenario? I just, you know, I'm maybe a week to three, you know, two to three weeks away from being 100%.

with the knee. Okay. I'm pretty much doing everything right now. I just, some of the loaded positions with my knee and the takedowns and stuff like that, it's just a little, you know, it's not quite at full strength, so, you know, I'm doing everything I can to get it back. But I think December return would be ideal. Two last things. You say you'll finish him in the first round. How do you foresee finishing Michael Bisping if you fight him later this year or early next year? Walking through his pitter-patter and just putting it on him doing what I do. I mean, that's I just don't have respect for Bisbing and his fighting style. I'll take anything he's going to bring with.

You know, I just, you know, after everything that's happened with him, trust me, I'm just going to go in there and look for the kill. And I believe I can finish him in one round. Have you ever? Have you ever felt like this about an opponent? An opponent? I mean, there's a lot of guys I feel like I can finish him one round. No, but I mean, I'm willing to.

It seems like you hate him. I'm willing to raise the stake for business just because I don't. don't like him that much. Right. All right. I wouldn't really do this with anybody else. I wouldn't do this with anybody else, tell the truth. But with Bisming, I really have no respect for him.

And, you know, given what has gone down in the past, I'd like to raise the stakes and put a little more pressure and put a little more, you know, a little more something on for me. It fired me up and really get me going for this training camp. All right. I like it. Luke, really appreciate you stopping by. Thank you so much. Thank you to Mike Swick for hooking us up with your phone.

Please say hello to everyone there. and another plug for AKA Thailand. If anyone wants to learn more about AKA Thailand, where do they go? Is there a website or something? Yeah, AKA Thailand. There's a website, AKATiland.com. AKAa.com. Social media, AKA Thailand, check it out.

It's the best place. You got to come. Thailand is amazing, and AKA is the place to be. Awesome. Thanks a lot. And lay off the cobra blood. It looks a little too nasty. You're too good looking for something like that.

Wait to you see what happened. I'll put some stuff up tomorrow. All right. Thank you, Luke. Appreciate it. Yeah. See it. All right, there he is.

Luke Rockhold stopping by trying to raise the stakes for a potential fight against Michael Bisping saying that if he beats Michael Bisping, saying that if he beats Michael Bisping in a round or less, he gets obviously his purse and Bisping's purse. If he beats Michael Bisping in two rounds, three rounds, and if he beats. If it's a main event four or five, still wins. He's going to give him his purse and... Well, I guess that makes up for Bispin losing the fight because he would get his show money, but not his win money. I have a feeling the UFC will not take this bet, but it is interesting.

It shows how much he dislikes him. Now, last week on UFC tonight, Daniel Cormier was trying to play a reporter, and he reported that Machita versus Rockhold is in the works. Now, I know that it has been discussed, also discussed, by the way, and that's why I threw it out on Saturday. I didn't pull this one out of my butt. Dahlaway versus Machita. And I actually think a lot of people didn't like that idea,

but I actually think it makes a lot of sense. What I do know for sure is that the UFC should not book Rockhold versus Machita. No way. Not with Bissping winning. Not with Bisping looking so good on Saturday. Sometimes you have to go for the grudge match. And those fights are so few and far between these days, you know, involving some of the very best in the UFC. And Bisping, when he's on a role, the world of MMA, the UFC, is a lot more interesting when Michael Bisping is on a role.

The guy is a lightning rod. He is so polarizing. He really knows how to sell a fight. And he did that with Kung Lee. And let's be honest, a lot of people are writing them off. A lot of people did not think that he anything left in him, especially after that performance against Tim Kennedy, and he came out on fire. I do not think that he was dirty in the fight. I didn't think he poked Cungley in the eye. He punched him in the eye, and, you know, those things happened, but it was all within the rules of the game, and he looked fantastic with a finish of Cungley, Cungley looking to be in the best shape of his entire life. Holy moly, Cungley's physique was just outstanding, and bisming with his back against a wall in a must-win situation to remain relevant. I didn't think he was going to

a cut from the UFC, but just to remain relevant at 185, uh, put on a throwback performance, vintage Michael Bisping. It looked very good. It was a great matchup for him, no takedowns. He was on his feet the entire time and was really able to establish his dominance on the feet. It was, it was just a tremendous performance. So now that he, he won and he's what, two and one in his last three, as is Luke Rockhold, you got to make that fight.

And in my opinion, you make Machita versus CB Dalloway. Machita coming off a loss. Machita versus Rockhold is just another fight. It's a great fight. It's an important fight for Rockhold in particular. If he wins that fight, you could say he's the number one contender at 185, but Machita

versus Rockhold is just another fight. Bissing versus Rockhold is a money-making fight. Bissing versus Rockhold is a grudge match. Bissbing versus Rockhold has a lot of emotion. a lot of trash talk and it will only get worse. And maybe for us, only get better, if you know what I'm saying. So that's the fight I would make 100%.

Interesting that he said he injured his knee. I did not know that. So it doesn't sound all that serious, but December, January. If he could get on that card, the December 6th card with Vitor and Wyman, because what we have learned in today's UFC is that timing is everything. You look at a guy like Hafeel dosangos. just beat Benson Henderson, which is a monumental achievement. Benson, in the last 23 to 25, something like that, fights, has only lost to one man, Anthony Pedest. Now, I know he's had

some close fights here and there. But to beat him and to finish him and to do so in the first round is gigantic. But here's the problem. Pedis, Melendez, they're fighting in December. At least we think they are. They have yet to officially announce this. Dos Angeles, is he going to wait that long? Because think about it, the winner is probably going to need a few months to get back, you know, get back to 100 percent, probably going to be a tough fight, I would assume, and then go through a training camp. And you'd think if Pettus is healthy and wins that fight, he'd want to get back in there relatively quickly because it's going to be a year and a half since he last fought. This Saturday, or this weekend, the Labor Day weekend,

will be a year since his last fight. He has yet to defend the title. So is Dos Sanjo's going to wait that long. I think if Eddie Alvarez beats Donald Soroni, you make Dosangios versus Alvarez number contendif right. But then you have Habib Nirmagamadeoff, who's coming back probably in January, who already beat Dosangios. So the point I'm trying to make is, it's very much all about timing in the UFC. You could be on a great run. I mean, look at all the guys we've seen. I mean, we see this all the time. Guys are on a great run, but for whatever reason, the timing doesn't match up. So that's why if you put Rockhold and Bisping on the undercard

or around the same time as Wyven versus Belford, then all of a sudden they might be in a better spot than Jacques, Gerey and Musassi, who are fighting in less than two weeks over in Connecticut. Because Jaceray and Musassi, by the time, Wyven and Belford fight, that's going to be an afterthought. They're probably going to have to fight again to remain relevant.

Maybe. You know what I mean? So Rockhold's injury might actually put him in the best spot possible because maybe he would have had to fight earlier if he didn't get injured, injure his knee, injure his toe, of course, against Tim Boch. Now his timing might work out to be around the same time as the title fight, and that's what it's all about these days. Look at every division, it's always about that.

Timing is everything. Look at a guy like Cub Swanson. Timing didn't work out. He's probably going to have to fight again against a guy like Frankie Edgar. Tyrone Woodley picking up a big win as well, getting back on track, defeating Dung Young Kim in a very impressive. fashion. It seems to be all or nothing with Woodley these days. Either he comes out and obliterates his opponent or puts up somewhat of a lackluster performance. But this was a good one.

And in my opinion, Woodley versus Matt Brown makes the most sense. And I know Matt Brown is coming off a loss, but Woodley was coming off a loss. And he was fighting Dunga Kim. And I know he was a late replacement. But these days, the UFC doesn't stick to that rule all the time. I mean, look at Bisping. Bisping was coming off a loss. Kung Lee was coming off. win. It doesn't always work out that way. And plus, you have to look at a stretch of fights, because Matt Brown had won, what, seven in a row going into the Lawler fight, lost that fight, a very close fight, went the distance, and Woodley's coming off a win, but prior to that he had lost. Not

that long ago he had lost to Jake Shields. You know, had a couple of nice performances in between that, but to me, if you look at the rankings and you look at what makes sense, and also when you consider the fact that Woodley and Hector Lombard are teammates to a degree. They both train at ATT, although Woodley spends most of his time in Missouri at an affiliate gym, I don't think they're going to want to fight each other. I think that's the fight that makes the most sense. Of course, there's also Jordan Mien out there who has gone back on track since that loss to Matt Brown picking up a big win on Saturday defeating Mike Pyle and doing so in the midst of some controversy with his father, Leemian on Friday, getting arrested

and charged with sexual battery for an incident that allegedly took place at the hotel in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and a lot of people, including myself wondering, and for those saying that, oh, this is crazy that, you know, we reported this or M.A. Mia, this is nothing to do with the fight. It has everything to do with the fight. Are you kidding me? Lee Mien is not just Jordan Mian's father. Lee Mian is his coach, his mentor, his trainer. I mean, they are inseparable. And for this to happen a day before the fight, you had to wonder what was going to happen to Jordan Mian. Would he be focused? Would he be, you know, 100% there?

That's a pretty traumatic thing to happen 24 hours before your fight, and he proved that he was focused, defeating Mike Pyle in very impressive fashion and very much a player, in my opinion, at 170s, super young, so many fights under his belt. Watch out for Jordan Meehan. All right, another guy you have to watch out for is a guy who was victorious last month in San Jose, California.

Huge win, arguably the biggest win of his career, and one that, you know, he had to do also in the midst of a lot of things happening outside of the cage. Of course, I'm talking about Bobby King Green. Bobby Green joins us right now on the MMA hour. Bobby, how are you? How are you? I'm doing great.

Thank you very much for joining us. So I got to ask you, you know, I was thinking about you when all this happened with Eddie Alvarez last week. You know, they put him on this card. They put them on UFC 178. They match them up against Donald Seroni. You were supposed to fight Donald Seroni. They bump you off the card after they had changed things up

to put you in a fight against Donald Serroney. Now you're left with no fight at UFC 178. Are you in favor of this? I knew you were coming out right with that. I knew you were coming with that. Why waste time, right? You are. What's that?

You know, there's not waste time to get right into it, you know, I guess so. Obviously, I'm not. Obviously, I have some bad blow with Seroni that I want to get out and get finished, you know. But I'm a company, do, bro. Like, whatever the heck, the business wants to do, business wants to do, because, At the end of the day, I can't be stopped, bro. I'm doing me regardless. You know, so like, I just got to understand that, well, you have to understand that it's just a food chain, you know?

I understand that Eddie's a bigger name. I understand that Taroni's a bigger fish, too, and they want those two guys. They had to super fight. I understand. And I have to play my field, know that I'm still a little fish and still a little guy. I'm just going to hold my little block down, you know? So whoever comes on my block, is getting it. You know, so that's all I can say is that it's just the way it is.

You know, when you've got big fish on play, it's just the way it is. You're going to be able to sit back as part of the food game. Are you a little too humble? I mean, you just defeated Josh Thompson in his hometown. You're undefeated in the UFC. You know, Josh Thompson, top ranked, former champion, was so close to defeating Benson Henderson. You're not a small fish anymore, Bobby.

Those days are long gone. So I appreciate you being a company man. But I think you need to have a higher self-worth, if you know what I'm saying. Ariel, I don't you're talking about none of that. I don't care about none of that, bro. All I care about is being and doing me and doing me to the max. And I haven't been able to do me just yet because I've been, I felt like been getting thrown around.

I was originally supposed to fight A. With Juryo in L.A., then that car got canceled. Then I got tossed to August 16th. Then I get thrown back to July 27th, so I'm having no time to fight the number three guy in the world. And then I'm getting offered to fight against Mazdo, and then I get changed to Saroni, then I get tossed off the card. It's just like I'm like a rag doll, you know, but I understand it's the business. And I am not, I'm still a little guy. That's all this doesn't happen to Joan.

This doesn't happen to Saroni and all these other guys. Why? Because of the big fish. I'm the little guy and it's a little big thing. I'm just trying to get my money. Stay happy. Let's all do y'all. Have the big show.

I'm not here for all that. I'm here to get my money, do what I need to do for me. And that's it, bro. Like, I'm not even tripping. Y'all do y'all. I'm leaning over here. Leaning.

Life is good. So originally on September 27th, they gave you Mazvedal and then they moved you to Soroni. What did you think of that switch? Like, I know that you and Mazvedal, you were going back and forth. I was looking forward to it,

and you have a history with Soroni as well. Were you happy when you, you had, you know, that situation presented to you. Mazvedo Alto Serroney? Honestly, Madadol's already lost. You know, Madadol's on a losing end of it, and it don't do nothing for me. You know, honestly, we just had some words

and strike force, and I felt like, okay, that's what you want to do? Now we run in the back. What was you saying earlier? So the whole Mazadol thing. I really don't give two shits about Mazadol. Mazzo, it needs to give him another way in to get up in the column some more, you know?

I really don't give. If he want to give, we can get it. but at that same time I got off the Soroni fight which is a bigger fight a better fight I'm gonna go with that okay and what's your issue with Soroni

there seemed to be a bit of an issue there yeah man like again I'm still a little fish but I was even a little or fish at the time when I first came in on my first fight you know

and these guys like Seroni and stuff they feel like they're untouchable so we're at the Expo signing and Seroni is going out he's just the most obnoxious asses asshole I've ever met. And I like the guy. I was a fan of him at this time, you know. So I'm actually,

like, excited to meet the guy. I'm cool with him. I shake his hand, you know, and he's just rude his ass. Oh, no, you don't want to strike with me. You don't have to be a wrestler. I'll make you a wrestler and all this. I'm like, man, I'm cool with your boy. Your boy's my boy. You know what I'm in Valley Flag are cool. And me and Derek Brunson are cool, which are all both from his camp. So, I'm like, it's cool, you know, like, it's all good, bro. I'm just trying to play like the backdoor because I'm the new guy. I'm the new guy on the show. And I don't want to make ways where it's not good for business to make all these ways.

And you're just coming in. You're not, you're still loafers. You can't be sitting here fighting the guys and making a bunch of noise. And you're nobody. You know, they'll kick you right out of this really quick. You know, that John Jones, call me or stuff happens. Oh, you're out of here just like that. If you're not a John Jones or a Comey here.

So he said some racist stuff, bro. He said some random racist stuff like, uh, Like what? We got to check him. We got to check him. You know how black people like to steal. I'm like, what the? What?

And I'm getting hot, yeah, in front of thousands of people. All of these people are here coming to get fun, and they're going, oh, ooh, and ah, you know. Um, his boy, Valley Flags, like, and he had a little bit to drink, just, just like, let it go. Just let it go. I'm like, I'm not tripping, and I'm laughing it off. Like, ha, ha, ha, ha. It's cool. But inside, I'm like, my real, the real dude inside of me is like, man, we don't let that kind of shit go.

You know what I mean? I want to get in this. But at the same time, I'm like, play it cool. Don't make waves. So anyway, there was like a hello kitty bank or some shit like that sitting on the floor. No one exclaimed who it was. We're like, who does this belong to? Who is this belong to?

I guess Donald had left at that time. He comes back. No one has claimed the bank. We put the bank away. Some fan comes up, says she's a hell of kitty fan. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Well, this bank, I think you liked it here. It's like a freaking 50-send bank or something like that, you know?

Well, Donald sees that stuff, runs up to the girl, snatches it out of her hand. Like, oh, like, just like being a nauseous. And I'm like, bro, you don't have to do all that. Like, you could have easily just, oh, that's mine. Or I was given that, that's mine, you know, just respectfully. That was the second issue that I was like, man, this guy's a real asshole. But then the third one was the one that was over the top.

What happened? The third one was the over-the-top issue, which was he was groping every woman in his line. What? You know, the do his signing. Yeah, he's groping these women. And they got husbands, they got fiancys, they got boyfriends, in front of these men, groping them. And I'm like, dang, like, that's kind of, that's a messed up,

because this guy's a nerd, and this guy can't do anything to you, you know. that you're going to do this to him. You know, his girlfriend's cute. He picks, Donald's Ronnie, picks her up, grabs her ass, you know. Oh, starts grabbing on there and stuff. I'm Donald Theroni. I'm like, bro, you can't be doing that. Like, you're going to piss somebody off, you know?

The wrong person is going to get pissed. Oh, what are they going to do to me? Oh, no, what are they going to do to me? I'm like, what the guy's full of himself, you know? So, ever since then I'm like, okay, I see the real person of who you really are, and now I don't like you. And you're disrespecting me, not knowing who I am or what I'm capable of

just because you don't know anything about me. You just figure you're all this, you're Donald Seroni. So now the table is turned and my time is coming and guess who's popping up in my circle, Conno Seroni? It's my time to get back even. God is good. I just let those things just fall in my hands.

I didn't even disrespect them. I didn't even jump up at him. After the whole thing, Valley Slash trying to calm me down, which is his boy. It was like, man, I would, some of the guys that were able to, I would knock his ass out. if I were you. And I felt like I should, but then what would they do for me? Just make my business harder to work with me and make me so harder for the UFC to make me marketable.

Right. So I let it go. But I just knew, put it in my back pocket, I knew there's going to be a certain time or me and you're going to cross past. You don't know it, but it'll be a certain time when we're going to cross past, and I'm going to get even. And it's me getting even. But now I lost that opportunity. Man. I'm still going to wait, and I'm going to get it.

So with all that in mind, you must have been kind of annoyed. I mean, let's be honest, that they took this away. You had the fight that you wanted. Yeah, Dana called me, and he could tell I was a little annoyed, but... Dana called you personally. Yeah, yeah, I told you, like, the whole thing is, like, I'm here to please my company, and I just do what God wants me to do. If it wasn't planned, it wasn't planned, it wasn't meant to be.

And that's what it is, you know, like, whatever the pathway, I'm not picking these opponents. They're coming in front of me, you know? So whoever is meant to be is whoever is meant to be. whoever's meant to be. What did they say to you? He said, what are you doing? I said, get ready

from my fight. He said, well, I'll have something to tell you. And I'm like, he's like, well, how do you feel about fighting Madsville again? I said, that sounds great, but what happened to Soroni? Did he get hurt or something?

He's like, no, I'm pulling your fight. I'm like, what? I have to pull the fight, just like that. That's the thing about the end of day and then straight up. Right. straight like it is.

I have to pull the fight. I'm like, what, I don't know if it's bus why. I have to pull the fight. That's it. He gave me the opportunity of fighting in November

and getting a better opponent. So I'm like, I'll wait to November and I'll get my shot then. Oh, so you had the option to take the Mazadal fight? Yes.

But they had already booked him for Kraus. Right. So I'm just like, okay, is this a big mess. I'm just going to wait for November to get a better opponent. Take some time. time, regroup.

Yeah, yeah. I still felt like, I still haven't got to go to see my brother's grade because I got offered a new fight and stuff, so now I'm going to go see that and do that now. You still have yet to visit it. Oh, yeah. I mean, I got offered a fight right away.

I was still kind of like a little bang stuff from the Josh Thompson fight. We had a stupid kicking war. Right. Because the guy wouldn't stand there and throw some hands. We had a kicking war. He was running. So I had to, like, banged those shins,

and I was trying to get ready to get back in to get this next fight. going because they're like, hey, we need you to fight again. So I'm going to go up there now. When you got the call that they wanted you to fight in September so soon, I was surprised about that because it seemed like after the Thompson fight, considering everything that happened, then moving your fight, of course, the tragedy involving your brother, I was surprised you took the fight. I thought you wanted to take some time off.

Were you 100% down? I did. Yeah. I did. Actually, Mazelah asked for Soroni, and then somehow I get the call and they say, hey, we want you to fight Maddo. I'm like, okay. Yeah, sure.

those what you guys want me to do. I just do what my company has. When they want me to go, I'll go. You know? Where's your brother buried? He's in Blythe. It's about four hours away. Oh, okay, okay.

And I've been dealing with so much other family stuff. I have my own family to worry about it. I have a newborn who's four months years old, you know, I mean, four months. I have all these people that I miss. Like, I don't see anyone when I'm in camp. Imagine being in jail. And all you do is just train, easing train. And so you don't see anybody if we don't speak.

I don't speak to anyone. I don't call anyone. I don't get to see my own son, you know, who's five, six years old now. And I can't even, I don't get down to see that any of that. So I have to catch up. This is me playing ketchup, if I have to take him to Chuck Echee cheese,

and all the different things that I wanted to do with him that I was missing him. So it's like it's a lot to do still. You know, I don't know if you saw this, but Mark Ramundi over at Fox Sports.com wrote an unbelievable profile on you before the Josh Thompson fight. Did you read this article? I hated it.

You hated it. Oh, why did you hate it? Because I felt like he took advantage me. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Mark hit me up and asked me to do an interview. Okay. And I'm like, cool.

You want to do a positive story on my life. Positive keywords. Yeah. So I'm like, okay. If you want to do a positive story on me, I'm just a little bit about me so you have an understanding of why I'm me and why I'm pushing this movement of positivity. There's some negative things that have.

to me that man, he'd say, oh, man, you say, oh, man, there's some really negative things in the world. Let's go for positivity, you know? So I was explaining to him those things that have happened if you read the story. And I didn't, I told Martin not to put stuff down, but I didn't use the terminology off the record, you know? Okay. So that got me already in trouble that. I didn't use that terminology. But I'm like, comments to tell you if you're doing a positive interview, don't mention certain things, detail for detail.

detail. You'd say, I wouldn't say you were out there and you punched the guy with the right hand and then you kicked him while he was down, you know, I'd say it was a very vicious fight, some lot of things happened, someone got hurt. You could, you could reward it right without putting it and making other people get in trouble or making these different things happen. So, I'll explain. So Mark goes and puts in the part about me getting touched by the teacher and it's like you could have said he had a rough life and he had dealt with some things that were tragic but instead he goes to put the detail for detail and now i have an investigation going on with this damn teacher oh i didn't i wasn't ready for this stuff bro i didn't choose

i i didn't even want the world to know about this i wasn't ready for i haven't talked my own family about these issues my own family doesn't know and now the whole world knows and it was like It was just too much, and it was a learning lesson for me to know that I can't trust everyone. I can't be real with everyone because I'm so, like, about being honest. What I say is the real truth. I didn't lie to you about shit. So that's my whole thing. And it just ended up turning so bad.

He took everything I said and made it look so bad. He made it seem like I was, like I was ride around a stolen car and poured a story. or I was joyriding and it was just like, it wasn't even like that. The way he turned it. He made my brother look like this gangster, gangster, you know what I mean, that got shot. And I'm like, you have no idea. You just slandered my brother. My brother was 13 years old when he joined a gang.

13. You tell me what 13-year-old knows the right decision from right and wrong when it comes to hanging out with your buddy. He didn't have a mother and a father. He had a grandmother that died, but it was his mother and father. father. He had no one, and I was gone. I got taken away to another home. So who is his, is his right and wrong person to tell him right from wrong when they know that the house idea, no one loves him and cares about him? So therefore, he went out into the streets and made

a decision at 13 that he did not understand what he was making. And now he had to live this life. And even then, my brother still didn't live that life. He was a family man. He was not about that. was about staying in the house and protecting his family, and they made him look like this negative sting. And I'm just like, I'm blown away that you take the story that you wanted to be positive and make it so negative. Well, I'm sorry to hear that. I didn't want to get into discussion about the article itself

because I didn't know you felt that way. I will say, you know, you are obviously entitled to it's your life, entitled to feel that way. I think Mark is a great writer. Maybe there was a misunderstanding, but it wasn't my point. It wasn't my intention to bring that up. I'm very sorry to hear that, and I'm sure... It's okay.

Like, again, I said, I'm just going to call the truth like it is. I'm going to tell it like it is. I'm going to tell you the truth. The reason I just referenced it was because the only thing I wanted to ask you that was in that article was, there was almost troubling to read that it was put in there that was a hit put out on you. And I just wanted to know if everything was okay. If you're in a good place, if maybe that storm has passed in your life. No, I ain't nothing clear, bro.

Everything's the same as it wasn't for, bro. You know nobody knows what it is to be Bobby Green. Right. telling you, I don't just have this average life of a fighter, you know? My life, as my coaches always tell you, my life ain't about, like, my fight, in about what's in the cage.

That's stuff in the cage and, just cake. If you can see, I'm talking and having fun. What's the real fight? Is these streets with my life that I live to protect my family and my family's families, to protect these people from what's around us. That's the real fight.

How are you able to focus on fighting? I mean, I know it's your job, and how you provide for your family. That's the fight. That's the fight. That's almost... That's the struggle of trying to focus and deal with this stuff. I have to cut off my phone, literally, because why?

Keep going off the hook with people calling me and telling me they got problems. Tell me they need me to do this. They need this. They need that. I need to do this. Have you ever thought about relocating, just starting fresh, starting news somewhere else? That was that support. when now after my brothers died,

but I just recently bought my home out here right before he died. Oh, okay. I bought my home because it was near him. So now I'm in the city of where he's killed. Do you feel safe? No. So why not just try to sell... Why not sell the house and start fresh somewhere else?

There is a certain program or something that I got with the home where you have to be in the home for at least three years for you to clear. a certain, like a program, I don't know exactly what I'm, I don't want to say exactly to be wrong, you know, so, but it's something that you have to be in your home for three years before you can sell or get out of it. So looking back, I mean, are you almost shocked that you even beat Josh Thompson? I mean, I know that you, you just kind of went out there and blocked everything out for a second and fought the guy, but to do that with all this going on in your mind and, you know,

outside the cage, and to actually beat Josh Thompson, looking back, it was less than a month ago, is it almost shocking to you? Because it was kind of shocking to me. Not that I didn't think you could beat the guy, but that you could do it in the midst of all this happening. You know what's more shocking than that? What? Is the way everybody has been about that after the fight. What do you mean? The way everybody, I feel like everybody is viewed the fight and has viewed me as a fighter

now. They automatically think that I'm just mouth now. And I just shit chat and I just talk shit the whole time and I just talk my way through fights. I've never talked that much ever in the fight. But I felt Josh was running, and I was still trying to entertain the people, and I was playing head games with Josh and messing his head up at the same time. So it was a bit of both, you know, entertainment, and it was part of my strategy. So people were like, oh, he just talks, and he just this, and Dana told me he felt Josh win the fight. I talked to Joe, and Joe's like, hey, more punching and less mouth. I'm like, man. And just for it. I went back and watched the fight, and I'm like, Joe Rogan's saying,

um, Josh is winning the fight. It's obvious. He's winning. He's more, he's being more aggressive. He's throwing more. And then I show the punch test. And I'm up 30 punches. Up 30 punches.

With 30 strikes. I'm up 30 in a second round already. And then I go on an eight, like, punched before he even punches back. I'm like, what are people reading? You guys are so worried about it. about what I'm saying, but what am I doing? You know, what is he doing? What is he doing the fight? I swear, I think

the only thing he landed was a head kick, which was toes. I don't think anything else landed, fleshly. So you didn't feel like you got the credit for that win that you deserve? Exactly. I think people were just hating on me and don't understand the fact of what I was dealing

with. I come out on 12 days to fight this guy in the world. Number three guys in the world. You don't even know what I'm dealing with to beat me. bro, I'm just fighting just to stay alive. You don't even know if you had a, one, if you had a half idea of what I go through to be neat, then you together have a little more respect,

but people are just like, they just automatically see my image, they see my outside figure. I'm just because I'm so, I mean, it's brought in a hard world, so I exude a bunch of confidence. I exude a bunch of just all this energy, and people don't understand it.

They go, he's cock, he's arrogant. But it's not that. just that I've been through so much, so I just, I carry all this with me, and you feel it, and some people don't know it, and interpret it, you know, they just go, he's cocky, he's arrogant. I feel like you're in a really good place.

You know, I think, you know, I was privy to those conversations with Joe Silva and Dana White, et cetera. It seems to me like you're getting a little more respect. It seems like people are noticing you, especially since you had to climb the ranks for so long, but no one can change how you feel. I think, and correct me if I'm wrong,

that you have a great opportunity, now with everything that you've been through up until this point and the platform that you are now building for yourself to really help kids who are like you growing up who were maybe lost or going down the wrong path I mean do you do that kind of thing do you talk to young kids do you try to be a role model for them to not make true very true I go to high school all the time I do charities signings different different things to talk to the kids and give back to them and let them know that I know they feel like this is it but there's always a possibility that things can

change, you know. I remember being in school and always thinking like being that nobody. And then someone older always told me like, watch off your nerds, watch off for the kids that were nobody. When I get older, they're going to be someone. They're going to be your bosses. They're going to be your, you know, your, your head, your CEOs, and you're going to have a kiss after those people, you know, because the cool kids, they always had it already. Yeah. And now you're able to give back and be a role model for those kids, which I think is great. And I think it's something that that you should focus on. By the way, you said November,

is there anyone that you think makes sense for you in November? Makes sense? Yeah, that you'd like to fight to really get you into that prime spot at 155. To be honest with you, bro. Theronian, will he be healed in that time? That's why I asked, like, well, I get Theroni again in November. They were like, I don't think so.

You know, like, he's just, the guy's just going to keep running. He's not going to fight, too. I don't know what that is. anybody I want to fight? I don't know. I really don't have, like, a pig, bro. Because, like, if they make sense,

it'd be all the guys that are below him, that don't make sense. Right. I'm like, I want to fight the guys that make me like, oh, let's go in there and get it, you know? I want to, oh, I want to sting you, you know, and that's the Roney.

And that's Norman Park. Those two guys, some of the guys that really have, like a... What's wrong with Norman Park? Norman Park. He's a douche, bro. That guy, he just basically says him,

words to me again I'm a little fish just coming into the industry and you guys are treat me with with with with disrespect and I'm being nothing but respectful to them you know wow it's just funny how people act um basically it was I think it was more of a more of a misunderstanding with Norman Park okay but Norman Park um you say some things there's certain things that you don't talk to like a man you don't say to a man you don't treat a man a certain way because then I thought I'm in a can territory to fight in words you know like I never call a man the B word you know I mean I'd never talk about about a man's wife.

I would never talk about a man's mother. Those are kind of like the rules. You already know as a man not to stay about another man. Because if I do, it's automatic to fight worse. He did that about you? He called me a cocksucker bitch something,

you know? Jesus. You know? It's not very nice. And I'm like, yeah. But he just, I'm like, what did it come for? What was it about? Where did that come from? Where do you show the need to jump out that for? Basically, someone posts both in a tweet and said,

good luck to you both. And I said he's going to need it talking about my opponent Danny Castile. Oh, yeah. He automatically assumed that I was speaking about him. And so he just jumped down my throat.

You boo-woo-woo-woo-woo-woo-whoop. And I'm like, wow, okay. Okay. When I catch you, it's on. You know? Let me catch you, it's on. And the same thing for joining. I'm going to catch you.

Sooner later, it's going to happen. Sooner I'll get you up. Flipping. It's going to crack. Well said. Well, Bobby, we got to go. This, you know, great stuff as always. Always appreciate talking to you.

You're just so honest and open with your thoughts. So definitely appreciate that over here. I wish you nothing but the best. I hope you can, you know, be safe and find some peace and just be able to, you know, keep going in your MMA career. I'm like I said, Error. I'm leaning, bro. I'm chilling.

Okay. After all this, with all this craziness going around me, I'm still chilling, bro. This is nothing, man. It's amazing. You only live one. My brother got killed, man. You only live once. You know, live life every day like a show last.

Bro, don't worry about nobody and what people think about with you and what they're saying. Very well said as well. Thank you very much, Bobby. Looking forward to your return and all the best to you and your family. All right, bro. Thanks. All right, there he is. Bobby King Green with a lot of honest thoughts on what's going on in and outside the cage.

Appreciate his honesty very much. And, you know, again, as I said, I thought that was a great article that Mark wrote, and I think Mark's a really good journalist. So maybe there was a misunderstanding there. It didn't mean for that to be some kind of, you know, hit on Mark's article because I thought it was one of the best I read all year. And I'm fortunate that Bobby feels that way, but hopefully they could patch things up

because I actually thought it presented everything that he was doing in the most positive light possible and just showing what this guy has been through and overcome to get to that point and he ended up winning that fight. So that is that as far as Bobby Green is concerned. Let's move along. let's stick to the 155-pound division because, you know, the Eddie Alvarez situation

affected Bobby Green because it took him off UFC 178. It also affected to a degree Will Brooks. Will Brooks is the interim Bellator lightweight champion, and some people, including myself, thought that they should book Eddie Avarez and Will Brooks if Eddie took that last fight to unify those belts, you recall not that long ago on this very show, Eddie and Will Brooks went back and forth

in what turned out to be a classic confrontation on the MMA hour. Well, now we have Will Brooks on the Skype machine. There he is with his impeccable Skype connection and he's reppping the Chicago Bears. Why?

Why the Chicago Bears, Will? Yo, I'm a Chicago native, bro. I know, but I mean, they're such they're a bunch of losers. They don't win, the Bears. Where you at York, aren't you? It's New York or? Yeah.

Ah, man. How about those jobs? I'm a Bill's fan, so I can't say anything. The only team in the 21st century to not make the playoffs. How about that? Oh, man.

So I know losers when I see him. There's no way you can go. You can't be a Giants fan. You can't be a Bill's fan. It's all bad. It's all downhill. You know, I like your coach very much. You know who Mark Tresman is?

He is a former coach of the Montreal Alouettes of the CFL. Also with you. He's a great guy. Yeah, he's awesome, man. He's been doing a lot of special things with the Bears, man. I think they needed a refreshment at the coaching position. He's bringing everything we need. We just got to get our defense going, man.

All right. Well, we have, you know, a lot of time. talk about the NFL. Let's talk about you here. You're still the interim champion, right? They haven't, have they given you the official title, or are you still the interim champ? Yeah, man, honestly, I don't know what's going on with that I do. Ariel, the way I see is, man, I was born a champion, man. I carry myself like a champion.

I talk like a champion. I walk like a champion. I try to treat people as if I'm a champion, show people respect, treat them with dignity, you know. And I just carry myself with a champion character. So I figure I'm a champion every day of my life. And Bellatory anointing me the official Bellatory champion, and that's something else. But I'm a champion at the end of the day, man.

I ain't worried about nothing. What was your reaction when you found out that they released him with one fight left? And then, of course, Eddie signed with the UFC, so you wouldn't get that shot against him to unify the belts. And, of course, you know, the biggest fight of your career against a big name. What was your reaction when you found out? I really didn't have a reaction, man. Like I said, I just been kind of sitting back and chilling and relaxed and not worried about anything, you know.

So when they announced that Eddie wasn't going to be around, then, you know, I moved on. You know, I started focusing on other things. I had already started focusing on other things just trying to live my life, man. And I can't spend too much time worrying about what Eddie's doing, what Belletra's going to do with Eddie or all these different things. So I kind of just blinked out. But when they made the announcement that he was moving on, on and, you know, it was a shoulder shock for me, you know, it was like, oh, well, you know, it is what it is. Eddie has to do what he feels like is best for him and his family, and I'm pretty sure he's got

another kid on the way or something like that, so he's doing what he feels like is best for himself, his career, and his family, and much respect to him, you know? Were you surprised they did that because they did have one fight left on the contract? Now, you can go either way and say, you know, you don't want to risk him walking away with the belt if he would beat you or Michael Chandler, but were you surprised that they did that and not try to make one more fight for him? No, man, just because I think there was a, there's a lot more going into the whole, like, relationship between Eddie and Bellator.

I know the relationship was still kind of sketchy, you know, and I think the best thing for both sides was just pretty much part ways and go in their separate directions. And I think that's what they did. And that's what makes sense for Bellator as an organization. It makes sense for Eddie as a professional fighter and made the most sense for him as far as his career goes. So just to kind of squash it and just leave it alone and just leave it where it was and just go to separate ways, I just think it made the most sense for everybody. So what do you think, speaking of making sense, do you think what makes most sense for you next is a rematch against Michael Chandler?

It was so close. And also, it's probably the biggest fight that they can make at 155. One of the biggest fights in Bellator right now, right? Yeah, definitely, man. Look, I had said it before. I wouldn't mind fighting Chandler again. And that was, I would have fought him after I beat Alvarez. You know, that's how I felt like it should have won.

I'd fight Alvarez first and then go rematch Jenner. But, you know, with everything playing out the way it did, now it looks like it's just me and Chandler, and I'm not worried about that at all, man. I would love to fight him again and just make it clear that I beat the guy and leave no excuses that he was hurt or he did this or he just wasn't himself and it was a close fight. Or people saying that, oh, he should have won that fight off of one minute.

out of a five-minute round, you know, but it's whatever. I look forward to fighting them again. It's a new era in Bellator, of course. Scott Coker replaced Bjorn Rebony two months ago as the president of Belator. Have you had a chance to sit down with Scott, sit down maybe with Rich Chu and talk to those guys and find out what they think of you and their plans for you? No, I haven't had an opportunity to do that. I'm sure I'll get an opportunity in the future.

Like I said, right now I'm just focusing on me and just taking care of my life and trying to get better as a person and just trying to enjoy this experience, man. And I'm sure I'll meet with those guys in the future. But for now, I'm just doing my part and trying to represent the organization and help them move into a different direction. Just, I guess, be the best lightweight bellatory champion I can be if I am the Belator lightweight lightweight champion, you know? So just trying to do my part, man. Well, you haven't talked to Scott once since he took over? No conversation, no phone call, nothing? No, man, I think he's tried to reach out to me, but our schedules is, our schedule is catch up.

Really? A 10-minute call? Yeah, man. I'm big-timeing now, dude. I know a lot of stuff on my schedule, man. I can't make time for Scott Coker. Look, that's probably the wrong thing to say about your new boss. No, I just think, I think, I think, look, the guy's been busy, man.

into Bellatory, he's trying to get things on, or get his plan on the same page as everybody else, and Spike TV and Viacom and everybody get on the same page. So I'm sure he's busy. There's a lot of other guys on our roster that he needs to take care of. So I'm sure at some point I have a conversation with him. Based on what you know about him and, you know, the hints that he has put out about the new era,

especially in 2015 with less fights but bigger fights. Are you happy with the switch from Bjorn to Scott? You know what, man, I'm not going to say I'm happy about the switch between those two guys. You know, I'm just happy with where the organization is going. It seems like there's a lot of exciting things for the fans and the fighters, you know, and I'm just happy to be a part of it. No matter who it is behind the steering wheel, I just wanted the organization to go in a direction where it's going to put the fighters in a better position

to promote themselves, to build a career, to make names for themselves, and it looks like we're going in that direction. So really, like, it don't matter to me as long as they're doing right by the fighters and by the fans. And, you know, I'm happy with everything, man. What about getting rid of the tournament? Do you like that? No, actually, I'm not, I'm not, I don't know if I'm completely with it or completely against it. I just think there was a, me personally, I think there was a way to use a tournament as, I guess, a talent filter.

one of those things where you are able to bring in young faces, guys who need a little bit of experience, a little bit of exposure, and put them into the tournament. Maybe eliminate the whole, oh, if you win the tournament, you automatically get a title fight. Maybe eliminate that and just use it as an opportunity for guys to get themselves out there, games from experience, work their way up to the ladder,

and be able to fight guys like me or Michael Chandler or David Rickles or say out of why, like the tougher guys in the lightweight division. And I think they could have used it as a tool like that. But, you know, again, I don't control any of that. Scott Coker is a guy behind the steering wheel. He's taking his bus wherever he wants to go. And, you know, he's doing what he thinks is best. So I support whatever they're doing, you know.

You know, I couldn't help but notice on Twitter you were tweeting. And by the way, I think you're a tremendous tweeter. Your tweets are very funny, especially when, Coker took over. It was great. You did some kind of commercial recently with Douglas Lima. It seems like you're getting the love. Are you feeling the love from Beltor? For a moment, it seemed like maybe you felt like you were not getting the love now. Yeah, man. Me and Douglas Lima, we went out and did a little bit for the Dave and Busters or whatever. We did a little commercial for David Busters and that was really exciting to get that opportunity to do that. Yeah, man.

So yeah, I guess I am getting a little bit of love. I think it's probably, because nobody feels like I'm taking shots at the organization anymore. So they're like, now that he's calmed down, maybe we should calm down. And I think everybody's got a better understanding of each other. So I think I'm getting a little bit more love. And it goes both ways, man. I got to show love to get love. You got to show respect to respect.

And I think I've calmed down and I've taken steps to really analyze and recognize what's going on around me rather than just reacting off my person. emotional emotions and things like that. Like I said, I've said 100 times, man, I'm wearing my emotions on my sleeve and my pains on my sleeve and like that in the heartbeat, I'll go zero to 60 and put out everything that I think and everything I have to say. So I'm trying to get better with that. And I don't know, man.

It's just, it's been fun. They're doing me a solid and I'm just trying to do them the same way, you know. I noticed Chandler, you know, he wished Eddie Well, sent out a nice tweet. You didn't do the same. Yeah, no, I mean, I didn't do it. I didn't post anything just because it was just like, it was kind of like, well, you know, it is what it is. I think in previous to this whole thing, I actually did tweet a little while back when I was speculation that they were actually going to make the Chandler Alvarez fight. I had said, look, regardless of anything, I told Eddie, I wish him best of luck in all his future endeavors and things like that.

So I just didn't feel like I needed to go reiterate that. It is like, it is what it is. Like, his life is not my life. Like, you know, he does his thing. I do my thing, you know. It's not like, I mean, Eddie didn't tweet me and say, hey, good luck with the Chandler rematch, you know. So, oh, it's nothing behind that. It's just people doing their thing.

I mean, Chandler is a different dude than me. Like, Chandler is always going to be the guy trying to find a way to make people like him and say the right things. And I'm just not about that life. I'm just, I'm living my life. Eddie's living his life. and good luck to the dude, you know. I wish him nothing about the best, you know. You think Chandler's fake?

I think so. Like, not, I guess I wouldn't use the word fake, but he's very good at saying the right things and make people like him. And I just, I get, you got to play the game. But at the same time, I think what people are looking for is somebody to be real with him. And whenever I hear that dude talk

or whatever I hear him say anything, it's just like, bro, like knock it off, dude. We get it, dude. Like, you're a nice guy. That's great. But, like, just be real with people. Be open about people with things. Like, if you dislike something, say you dislike something.

Don't get on or tweet something about, well, this is the way it goes. And we don't control who we fight. And, like, come on, bro. Stop sounding like a robot. Like, if you dislike something, say you dislike it. Don't get out here and just stop, like, pretending, like, everything is all gravy. If something rubs you the wrong way, open your mouth. If you dislike somebody, open your mouth and say,

you dislike somebody. Don't be, don't pretend like we're all going to like everybody and we're all going to have nothing but nice things to say to each other. It's just not real. It's not life. It's not real life. In a perfect world,

when do you want to fight again? As soon as possible, man. I want to take every chance I get to punch Chandler on his face, you know. Just because, I had a lot of fun fighting that guy. And I felt like the dude didn't pay me very much respect, you know. He kind of like, even after I won the fight, and I get it, like, you never want to lose a fight,

but, like, you still show somebody respect, even if you're supposed to be this, like, overall good guy and this champion, blah, blah, blah, whatever, like, you show me respect. Like, I showed him respect. I was, like, after the fight, I was like, yo, you're Chandler's still a champion, belt or no belt, and I said that on the microphone,

the dude just kind of jumped on Twitter and started coming after me. So if I can, if I could punch Chandler in his face tomorrow, I definitely do that, man. Like, I want to take every opportunity I get to put my foot on that dude's neck. And if we can do it tomorrow, I'd do it. By the way, prediction, Seroni Alvarez. Who do you got?

I think I'm going to go with Alvarez, man, just because he's a getting your face type of guy. He's not going to back down from Seroni. He's going to stay there in the pocket. And I think his boxing is very sharp and his head movement is sharp. And with Seroni, his style, he's very, he's a little bit more patient, methodical. He takes his time. He stalks guys. And I think Eddie's just going to get in there.

turn it into a dirty brawl and from some of the things I've seen with Serrani. He's a nasty fighter, but I also don't know if he's, uh, if he wants to get into brawes anymore, you know, he's trying to change his style. He's trying to be more patient and controlled. And, but I think Eddie's always going to be Eddie and he's going to be wanting to come in a brawl and get in your face and use good boxing and good head movements. So I'm going to put my money on Eddie. And he's got better wrestling also. Interesting. That would be an interesting fight coming up in around a month. Will, great stuff as always. Love the honesty. It's always a pleasure to have you on you and your great Skype connection. I wish you the best whenever you find Michael Chandler, also the best of the Chicago Bears in their upcoming NFL season. Appreciate the time and looking forward to talking to you again soon. Thanks, Matt. I appreciate it. Take care, man.

All right, there is. Will Brooks, the interim Belator Lightweight Champion, in my opinion, soon to be the real Belator. Lightweight Champion. It makes sense. It almost gave him an out. They let Eddie go. They have a champion, so the belt isn't vacated, and he had a win over Michael Chandler. Make the rematch. It makes too much sense. So good luck to him. All right, let's move along now. Our next guest, long-time veteran of the sport, actually won the one-and-only season of Fightmaster. culminated on that Belator show not that long ago. And after that, was actually released by Belator and signed with the UFC. We thought he was going to make his debut in just a couple weeks.

But unfortunately, it has been delayed. We'll get into that in just a moment. We talk about guys who speak the truth and are incredibly honest. We go from Bobby Green, who fits that bill to Will Brooks, who fits that bill. Joe Riggs definitely fits that bill. Great to have him on the show. Joe, how are you? Good. How are you doing me? It's got me on.

Well, a pleasure, as always, to talk to you, Joe. Let's talk about this. Just a couple weeks ago, we got this news that was somewhat shocking that you had accidentally shot yourself. Now, we've seen some video, courtesy of TMZ, of your wounds, which are kind of hard to stomach, but it's glad to hear you are okay. Can you explain to us exactly what happened? How did this accident happen to you?

Well, I was carrying my pistol with me. You know, I've, you know, I've been around guns my entire life. And, you know, I think Effron, Eppernero used my, you know, I didn't see my gun when we were at practice. And he talked about in chamber one end of the round. He came around, you know, when we were at practice, so when I got home after practice, I was taking, you know, I moved my gun, make sure the clips out and nothing on the tube.

And I couldn't get the last round out of the side. So I started to take my gun apart. And as I was doing it, there's a, there's a, you know, a slide pin that it was bent. So that was making the, it was making, it was impossible to get the roundout. So then as I was taking it apart, my finger inadvertently, you know, hit the trigger as I was, I was pulling on it. And then, you know, it went through my hand and it went to my leg. So I wasn't cleaning my gun like a lot of idiots say. And, you know, you know, I wasn't cleaning my gun.

I knew there was a round in there, but when you take your gun apart, you have to have your hand on top of the slide because when you're pulling it off of the pistol, you know, the string is going everywhere, so you have to grab it around and just to just see the bottom of the palm and it was in line of the barrel. So, you know, when it went off, it just hit me there here. Now, I must admit, I know nothing about guns or taking them apart or anything like that. It's a world I know nothing about. So explain to me this. why would you have to take it apart and why would you take it apart with a live round in it?

Well, you have no choice to do it. I mean, the only way I could get the live roundout is to take it apart. Oh. Because there was a, the pin that bent. So when you have a pistol and you cock the back, that usually ejects the live roundout. So the pin would not, it wouldn't go, wouldn't go back far enough to eject the round. So every time every now to come home, I always take my guns and make sure they're unloaded. I don't like having a load of a house or my kids.

Right. So, you know, that's the only way I could get the bullet out is taking apart. So as I was doing that, you know, people who do know about guns, they know what I'm talking about. You know, and actually there's, you know, it's one of the most common injuries when people are taking a gun apart, trying to get a stuck around out of gun and shooting themselves in a man. How long have you been a gun owner for? Oh, you know, a kid, my dad gave me my first firearm when I was, when I graduated eighth grade.

Wow. I mean, it's not something I walked around with it. It was just, you know, a gun and then, you know, I've been around a gun my whole life. You know, my friend, that friend who's a fire on his instructor, had the same exact injury. He was just, he was lucky enough to live through. hand and you didn't have a holo tip and you just has a you know hole in his hand so it just uh you know it's it's more common injury than you think people just thought i was cleaning my gun and be an idiot but you know it's not the case i was i was trying to get a live round out so and in all your years

of owning a gun has this ever happened i mean any kind of strange accident like this ever happened to no no i mean this this has i'll be honest with you um i i mean I wasn't paying, I mean, any time you're around a gun, you should have your, it should have your 100% concentration. Nothing should be taking attention away from what you're doing, especially if you're taking part of a load of gun. And I was in the middle of putting together my UFC contract because it was out of older, and I was putting it back together so I can put it in my file. And so I was doing that and doing something else at the same time. So, you know, for a split second, you know, my finger hit the boy. It should have been on the grip and my finger, as I was pulling it back because I was muscling it.

And, you know, it hit the trigger and, you know, it just, that's never happened before. And it was just, it was a freak accident, you know, that's happened to a lot of people. It just, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't change the experience for anything in the world because it's changed me. How so? You know, man, I mean, it, I mean, I came, I mean, I thought for sure it hit my femoral artery because it was just spraying. I mean, I didn't think I thought for sure I was going to die. Wow. And I said goodbye to my son.

You know, I said goodbye to my life. So I thought I was good. So, you know, when you think you're going to die, it does something to you, you know. I mean, it does, I don't know. It's a weird feeling, you know, that I've been looking up and reading other people went to. But I don't know. It's just deeply changed me to the core, you know, and I really wouldn't change the experience. If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't shoot myself, but the experience was, it's incredible.

So when you were, you know, you were in your house, right? Yeah, I was in my living room. I was just sitting there watching the bachelor and eating some blueberries and putting in the contract together. So you say goodbye to your family thinking that you're going to die? How long did it take for the ambulance to come get you? And when did you start to think, okay, I'm going to survive? Like, for how long were you actually thinking that you were going to die for? I thought I Because I lost consciousness Before the air back Me out of my house

So I was laying there And then my wife was You know Putting her entire You know Her as much like putting her finger In my womb Because she thought

You know my femur was hit And all that stuff And so I just I mean I thought Yeah When you don't feel pain anymore That's not a good thing And it started to not hurt

You know, and I started to want to let go and go to sleep. So, and I know those things are kind of, you know, go in hand with dying. So, you know, I told my wife to get my son and have the bedroom so I could say to bite them. It was something that, you know, if they're very traumatizing for my son, he's having a lot of problems with it, you know, but, you know, I said it to him because I thought I was going. And, you know, it was a sad situation for him. and yeah it's just crazy how old is he he's seven years old

oh my so he saw you there in the most unimaginable pain possible right everybody was asleep in the house and it was only 8.30 but everybody was asleep and nobody even heard it I was running around my house when you think if you shoot yourself

you do something I mean I think if uh you know something like to happen I would be calm cool and collected but I got up my around the house like a chick on the head cut off You know, I laid them with the couch near the room. Like, I didn't know my hand was shot at the spine. Just I hit my leg.

Oh. And I'm like, definitely, just shake it off. And then I'm laying there. And I see blood and hit spurt up. And then I'm like, okay, I should wake up. And then I went to grab the door and the door went through my hands. And I was like, oh, fuck. So then, you know, I, you know, woke her up.

And I was like, Lisa called the ambulance. And I'm having shot. And, you know, I went from there. How much blood did you lose? They had to give me a blood transfusion. Wow. Yeah, it was a, it was called, like, my heart rate went down to about 10 beats a minute, and it was, this is when I went, why I lost consciousness,

because when I lost consciousness, and I came back to it, I figured it was a feeling of any worldly stress that you have, gone, you know, like, it was a crazy feeling, like the feeling of dying was very easy, you know, the feeling of wanting to live and, you know, fight through that pain was a hard one. It would have been very easy to let go and die. But, you know, I just, for a reason, I'm here, I'm alive, and I'm able to fight again, unbelievably. My hand was, I can make a fist.

Yesterday I actually did my first workout, a Jody workout with my legs. So, I mean, the doctors are very, they're astounding how fast and they both can. I'm assuming you had surgery, right? Yeah, three. Three surgeries? Yep. On your hand and your leg? No, they did air and irrigation with my leg,

the exit room was small in the beginning, and then they cut it open and washed all the bullet fragments out. And my hand, those were the surgery. You know, they had to put metal in it and do all the stuff, and, you know, and he's the same doctor. It's the same doctor that did my hand surgery a few years ago. and when he first saw it that night he said you know his career is over

and then after the surgery he said I can't believe it I was able to put it back together we even have a fully forcing hand and he'll be able to fight. So now there's no doubt you will fight again. I'll fight in December I put my life on that. December are you targeting the Fox show

in Arizona? I mean yeah I mean if it's all possible I mean Joe Sullivan hasn't talked about that but I'll be ready to fight in December and whatever show may be. Are you still going to own guns after this? Absolutely. It's not the guns,

it's my fault. Okay. You just have to be more careful. Yeah, I mean, just, I mean, one thing it taught me is, you know, if you're handling a firearm, you know, you never, you get, you show up the respect of, you know, giving your full concentration and

paying attention to nothing else but that. You know, because and could have killed me. I mean, it was, I mean, people, people think, I mean, it was really, really, it was a scary, scary, scary things for my family. And I came really close to death, you know, that forever changed me. And, you know, it was, it happened for a reason, you know. I have a feeling that I was put on the surf to inspire people by overcoming obstacles,

and, you know, and, you know, being a better man from it. You know, that's how a man is the flying is how he comes back from adversity. And I'll come back better from this like I always do. Just curious, why do you feel the need to own a gun? Because this world is a shitty place, and people try to hurt your family, trying to hurt you. Yeah. And that's, you know, I don't walk around with it. Like a lot of little bigs do with their, you know, gun hanging out.

Like, when people see somebody, guns make people feel uncomfortable. So, I mean, I always have my gun, but nobody will ever see it. I'll never use it unless I was going to shoot somebody like myself. You know, I mean, I would never, you know, I'd use it for protection, and that's it. You know, I mean, I use them to hunt as well, but, you know, it's something that I've grown up with. And that, you know, just because I made a mistake of, you know, not, you know, not. doing a certain thing, taking the gun apart, doesn't mean, you know, fire arms bad.

Obviously, there's never a good time for something like this to happen. That's for certain. But with you just getting back into the UFC, your fight getting announced, I mean, it was just days before. What were you thinking? Like, man, what timing? I finally get back to the UFC. I haven't fought on the UFC since 2006.

And then this, of all things happened? I mean, were you thinking that? The unbelievable timing involved? No. If something's going to happen, it's going to happen. I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, I mean, it's, it's, Like, I, a guy is, you know, I mean, I'm the guy, I used to be the guy, you know, I was like, oh, God, because I had a remember I had surgery to put a firefighter after, and then the discergaining of being bad,

and then, you know, then I got some of you seeing this happens. I mean, so, like, I'm, it's always, I always, I used to always be like, why, God, why me, why? And now, I mean, since this has happened, I just, you know, I'm happy that happened, you know, because, you know, I just, I really feel like, you know, because I'm filming from the day I got shot from the moment I step back in the cage and all the things I'm going through. Oh.

And I've got all of it. Because I've got a, you know, there's a film crew that I've been just been following me since they want. You know, and I just think it's meant for a reason because, you know, things like this don't happen for no reason. Where is this going to air? I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know if the UFC will do it, but, you know, I, I, 10 grand in their own pocket that are getting started. And then, you know, I got a, you know, I'm probably going to raise some money to finish the rest. But, I mean, it takes five people to fall in a day. They're filming there right now. And, you know, it's just, you know, my rehab is really, it's grueling. It hurts very badly. And they were there getting my sticky out of my hand. They were there when I made, because I can make a full fist now.

And they've seen everything, you know, so. It's cool. I'm a very private person when it comes like that. But, you know, they're in their house, every aspect of my wife they see. And by the way, I haven't talked to you since you resigned with the UFC, but how did all that happen? Because you won Fightmaster, you're coming off a win.

One would think that Beltor would want to have you around, and I know you didn't particularly love that experience, but how did you get Belator to release you, or why did they release you, and then how did you resign with the UFC? Well, I've kind of, you know, I've been in terms of Joe Silver for a lot of years, and he knew that, you know, I've been, I haven't lost in a long time, but I've been a Bellator, and he knew of Bellator's contracts were notorious for holding guys for a long time. But, as you know, they went through a change recently, and some fighters, their contracts,

or kind of no-envoid with the new thing they were doing. Oh, really? So, yeah, I mean, I can't, I mean, I've had a contract with Bellator that I can't really disclose, you know, why. Okay. But, you know, I'm very grateful to them for giving the opportunity to fight and fight master and, you know, give me the platform to revamp my career. But at the end of the day, I thought it was in my best interest, it seemed a war. So you were happy that they, you didn't want to stick around, right?

I can't answer that. Okay, fair enough. Upon returning to the UFC, if it is in Phoenix, on, I believe it's December 13th, off top of my head. It's sometime in December. Yeah. Yeah. Is there anyone that, Tiago was a fun fight, but anyone that really excites you about a big return to the UFC, a big return fight, any name that comes, you know, to your mind? You know what? I don't know. There's a lot of them, man. There's a ton of them. Obviously, you know, I like to play Jordanine together. Yeah, I like me because when I fought him, I wasn't training. I wasn't doing any of that stuff.

You know, Jordan's on the tear. I'd have to do it. I'd have to, you know, put together a few wins to get in his bracket. But, you know, he's a guy that, you know, when I fought him, I had no idea who he was. I was at a shape turd. but no business being in the ring at that time. So I like to fight him, you know, fight people that, you know, when I was having mental issues and doing things in my career, I like to fight people like that, you know, get wins back that I've given away. Well, it's great that you are going to come back to the UFC. It's great that you're going to fight again.

And it's amazing to think that you're just, you know, 31, you're about to turn 32 because you've been around for so long. Did you always know in the back of your mind? Did you always know you'd come back to the UFC? Did you know that this would all work? out in some way and you'd be back in the big leagues? Did you always believe that? I mean, I knew when I, I made a choice when I went to the lab that I was going to,

it was right for the five dash. I was going to retire. I knew I was going to win that. And then I knew I was going to fight at the level that I'd been able to fight at. I knew everything was, you know, my stars were in one for everything to come together. But when I finally with Bellator, I knew that the contracts were very, you know, They were very hard to get out of. And then, you know, what happened?

What then happened? And, you know, it kind of led me to it, tell led me to what happened. Because if I wouldn't have been with the UFC, I never would have got shot. You know, I wouldn't have been doing that stuff. So everything happens for a reason, man. And I think, I don't want to come back from this.

I mean, when you almost die, because another thing I think about is a lot of times I wouldn't let my hands go because I'm afraid of if I told this, I might have caught. A lot of veterans, they overthink stuff. and that was going away more than my last few years of my fighting, I started getting better and better with that. And now coming close to death like that, what else is going to be afraid of?

You know? I mean, I let it go with nothing. I mean, there's nothing to be afraid of. So I think this will make me even better with fighting than I used to be. Two last quick things. Obviously, a very famous story involving someone in the world of sports accidentally shooting themselves is Plaquescoe Burris, although that happened in a public setting,

and he obviously went to jail for that. Because this happened at home, I don't know what the laws are in Arizona. Do you face any kind of criminal charge for this? No, I mean, he was a boo. You know, he was carrying a gun because he was, you know, a dog, and he wasn't hearing my gun with a license firearm that I bought, that was registered with the state of Arizona.

And I was in my home doing, I mean, I was doing nothing illegal. Okay. Even if I was, I mean, at a phone, I would never be taken apart, a load of guns around people or doing anything like that. I was, you know, so completely different. That guy, you know, I mean, I don't know the circumstance on how he shot himself, but I'm sure it wasn't, you know, like what I did. And, you know, Benson Henderson has been talking, you know,

very highly of you as a coach, and it's clear when watching his fights, you're in his corner, you do a great job. You weren't in his corner this past weekend. I did see you send him a message out there before the fight. and he lost the fight in somewhat controversial fashion. What do you think of the finish? The stoppage, I should say. Well, I mean, John's reps a ton of my fights,

and he's never made a bad call. At the end of the day, you know, John thought, you know, that he was going to take unnecessary punishment. You know, Benson has an indombalt fear. He can come back from anything. So I do think of the fight would have been let go, and what it would have not been to stop. Benson, you know, would have been able to gain of consciousness.

But, you know, I just, I feel, I feel terrible that I wasn't there for him and able to train within Fortress fight. You know, I just, I mean, I feel terrible for Benson, you know, but he'll, he'll, just like, I mean, he could, Benson comes back from, coming back from things in life, you know, better. Just every loss that he's had to come back better. Yeah. This will be no different.

Benson's a special man. Well, Joe, very happy to hear that everything's okay, that you're going to make a full recovery. You're going to be able to fight again, return to the UFC. That's a great story. You coming back to the UFC was very happy for you. I told you in private you always were very nice to me as I was coming up, and I know you wanted to come back. So really appreciate that. And very happy to hear, most importantly, that your health is going to be okay and you'll be able to recover. So all the best to you. Good luck with the recovery and good luck getting on that card in Arizona and December. I think that would make for a great story. Thank you. I appreciate it. And one more thing. Throughout this entire thing, this was a very painful experience physically and still didn't take any pain to us. Just want to let you know.

Well done. Well done. Well done. Thanks for having me on, but I appreciate it. All right, there he is. Joe Diesel Riggs, happy to hear that everything's okay with him. All right, let's move along now. As I mentioned at the top of the show, Invicta is back. They are back on September 6th. It's their very first show on UFC Fight Pass, and he may be. main event features Michelle Karate-Hadi-Watterson against Yasuko Tamada and her first title defense as the 105-pound Invicta champion, and she joins us right now via the magic of Skype. There she is. Michelle Waterson. Michelle, how are you? I'm great.

I had to rush home because I bet I'd have time to get ready, but the heavy weights took a little longer this morning in practice, so practice then late. But I made it. Okay, well, I'm sorry to keep you waiting, and I appreciate it very much. for joining us and rushing home that that means a lot to us. By the way, you mentioned the heavyweights. Is everything okay over there? We hear all these rumors about Overeem and Arlovsky.

What's going on? What's the drama Jackson Winklejohn these days? There's no drama. You know, some days you just don't get along with your brother and sisters and other days you do. You know, sometimes you get hit a little hard, you know, and it is what it is. It's training. Everybody is there to do the same thing. And sometimes somebody, you know,

gets the better end of the stick on one day than the other. Right. I saw Overeem rocking a karate-hadi t-shirt, so it seems like you two are getting along. You know, everybody at Jackson's are super sweet, and they're so supportive when it comes to all of us coming up. So, you know, all of them are rocking my stuff, and we're going and we're training together. So it's a good camp. So everyone's very excited to see you back.

It has been a while. Last time you fought was April of last year when you won the title against Jessica Penae. I mean, what has this past year and a half been like for you? You've been inactive. After the biggest win of your career, arguably the fight of the year, you were getting a lot of love for that win, and then you sit on the sidelines with so much uncertainty involving in Victa. How frustrating was that? Very frustrating, but I think I have to take that part of my life and then use it as a challenge and stuff.

as an obstacle to kind of over time because I felt like before trained for my fight camp and then I take a break and then when I found out I had another fight then I then I train again and I needed to if I wanted to be a champion if I want to stay a champion I have to realize that you have to be a fighter all the time you know if this is going to be my career I have to when I don't have a fight it has to just be in my blood and I have to be I have a passion about it because I want to fight not because I have a fight ahead of me. Did you ever think about, you know, leaving Invicta, trying to get a fight elsewhere, just to

remain active? You know, I have all the things in the world with Shannon, and I know that she had big things coming up, and, you know, she just kept reassuring me that she had our best interest at hand, and so I never thought about leaving Invicta. I just think about having another baby. Oh, wow. I mean, it's hard. You know, I have a family.

and I probably could have had a baby. Yeah, you could have. I mean, because my daughter's three now. I would have two kiddos, and they'd been three years apart, and then I would have, I still would have been able to continue my career, but that's just not the way my cards are set up, and so you kind of just got a roll with the punches, and, you know, I'm grateful that I was patient enough to wait for this deal.

I think it's going to explode. So, just to confirm, you do want to be a mother again, right? I do. I mean, it's just, my husband's pretty content with just the ones. Oh. But if, you know, it's just in the cars, and not any time soon, because I just feel like I just kind of scrape the surface as far as my MMA career goes. But I would love to have another show. Well, it does feel to me, like, you know, at first, at the beginning of your career, you have one of the better nicknames in MMA. It just kind of rolls off your tongue. It's very memorable.

And at first, some might say, oh, you know, she's, you know, she's, you know, she's, you know, was kind of a gimmick. Oh, karate-hadi, you know, your story about how you started and everything, somewhat well documented. But now it feels like you are getting respect as a legit MMA fighter, one of the best in the world. Do you agree with that? Do you feel like it's kind of turned from just like a gimmick fighter with the cool nickname

or the memorable nickname to actually one of the best in the world? Now, you're actually getting that respect from the community. Would you agree? I hope so. You know, I put a lot of time and effort into my skills and my ability as a fighter. And, you know, it's something that I struggle with. And, you know, I think at the end of the day I kind of come to terms with myself, and I know in my heart that I'm a fighter, and kind of that's all that matters to me. If somebody wants to watch and fight, because my nickname's a karate-hattie, go for it, you know.

But I'm pretty legit in the cage. Did you ever think about getting rid of the nickname? These days, people are changing their nicknames, and I'm not in favor of it. I'm wondering if you thought about maybe outgrowing the nickname. No, no. I think it's pretty catchy karate, honey. Yeah, I would keep it. Pretty karate mommy.

Farati mommy is a good one too. A totally different connotation, but I think you should stick with yours. I don't like when people choose their own nicknames. It's been happening a lot these days in MMA. No, you know, I think it's stuck, and it's a pretty cool nickname. I don't mind it. Who gave you that nickname, by the way? Well, when I was working at Huitters, I was doing a bikini shoot.

and this guy who on the website called the kini.com Oh, yes. And all these girls and each girl had a thing. It was like the Cush and Russian and the fan fanatic and he found out that I did

karate and he was like, hey, can I put it on my website? I want to call you the karate hauntie and do like your bikini shot at you and I was like, yeah, sure. And this was before I even had a the amateur fight.

And then so when I went to turn pro, the promoter asked, the promoter asked if I had a fight name, and I told him no. And he Googled my name, and Karate Hadi was the first thing that popped up. Ah. And it is stuck. Yeah.

You know, Jessica Penae tried out for the Ultimate Fighter. I believe she's on the show. That's what we're told, although the season starts in two weeks. Did you think about trying out? I know it's not your weight class, but just to get in there? You know, it was pretty tempting.

All those deals are highly competitive And it's going to be a great season I can't wait to see it But I just I didn't I mean there were some temptations But I think I was I'm at a different point in my life right now With my family and having the bells I think there's still some things I feel like I need to poop

Within Vigda and my 105 title I wonder if there were any moms on the show I mean it's got to be tough to leave your kid for six or so weeks, right? It breaks my heart to drop off a daycare every day. But, you know, sometimes the sport

requires sacrifice, and I think if you're a mother in this board, you just have to teach your children like that's what it is in the last year's doing, you know, sacrifice for like for the is in the small picture.

know, in the bigger picture, you're trying to see great things, you know. You know, it's funny. I have a two and a half year old boy, and earlier today I was on the internet this morning and he was on my lap and I was on our website, MAAfighting.com, and he just said to me, what are you looking at? MMA and I was like, wow, he actually knows what this is now. And so I'm wondering, you have a three-year-old girl and her mom is a fighter. Does she understand exactly what you do?

Like, does she get it? Yeah. She knows when Mommy says I'm going to work, that I'm going to the gym. My last fight, actually, she was just starting to talk and kind of comprehending. And she was at my fight. And after the fight was over, we got in the car. We're kind of just winding down from like everything that had happened. And my daughter was going to be so, I'm really mad.

And I was like, no, not really, baby. That's my job. I have explained to her that, you know, we both getting in there to do the same thing. I was an upset. It was just my job, you know. But it was kind of funny to see her reaction. Will you let her watch the fight live? Yes.

You have no problem with that. Even, you know, like if you get, you know, punch in the face or something, you're okay with that. She's been into all my fights since she's been born. Oh, wow. Well, how old was she when she went to your first fight? 10 months. Oh, my gosh. All right.

Because, you know, there are some people who, recently someone told us this, who they only let their kid watch after the fact because they know what's going to happen. But you have no reservations. No, and she's going to love me no matter what. She's going to love me whether I win or I lose. And I think that the fact that she's there kind of takes away some of the pressure, you know, like it's just another day at work. You know, and if you want to realize that, then you can really slow and allow yourself to be in the moment. And that's what I'm all about these days. It seems like this is a big deal, Invicton Fight Pass.

It seems like the UFC is really pushing you very hard. I mean, you had a media day in Vegas. They brought you out to the office. They've really zeroed in on you as one of the stars of Invicta. What's it like getting the UFC experience? Because this is rare to have this when you're not in the UFC, but you're still kind of being treated like a UFC fighter. Yeah, I feel like the UFC. is like my older brother and they're kind of watching out after me.

It is great, though, you know, they really do take care of their fighters and I think it's going to be a great partnership. And, you know, hopefully represent Invictor Well and we just get bigger from there. Are you hoping that you become sort of like the Ronda Rousey of the 105 Division and force them to introduce that weight class as well. Is that your goal to get in the UFC? I'm hoping I can become the karate-hadi of UFC. Okay.

Well, you know what I mean, right? To almost like be, you're so dominant and so successful and popular that they are forced to bring you in there. You know, I would be lying in fact that I wasn't a goal of mine. Right. I think everyone would want to be in the UFC. By the way, during that time off, you appeared on American Ninja Warrior. I tuned into this, and I blink for a second and I almost missed the whole thing. What happened there?

Well, oh, man. I'm pretty bad. It was bad. I think I'd psych myself out. The course is way harder

than I think you give those people credit for I mean these guys between day in and

down like we do for this course and the course you know beat me and you know

I have no excuses if I'd like to redeem myself next to hopefully put a little bit more effort into my training did you

underestimate the course did you not take it seriously? You know, I know that it had a lot of upper bodies and a lot of upper body things and give myself enough time to become comfortable with the course, I don't think. I totally start training two weeks out and I just don't think that was enough time. Yeah. I mean, and by the way, I don't mean to make light of it.

I probably would have lasted, you know, 0.3 seconds. I mean, I totally would have bombed. So kudos to you for actually trying out. How did you even get the idea to do this? was it dodson well yeah i mean he's a he's a ninja yeah he's so athletic and acrobatic and even him like you know even he has uh got disqualified from the thing and it's just there's so anything stacked against on the course they don't start filming until the sun goes down they don't let the fast with the course the cameras are there um but uh yeah you know john dodson

out and tried out. And I've always been a fan of any type of something that involves ninjas. Right. So, I mean, we still had to sell at the time. It's just kind of one of those things like, man, I wonder how I would do. So, you know, I put a little audition tape together and threw it in there. And I figured why not keep myself active while I was inactive. It also looked like it was freezing. Was it really cold?

Oh, my God. Yeah. It was so cold. it was middle of May and I stopped driving out to Denver and it was snowing. Oh my. That must have affected you too.

I mean, you're all kind of stiff. It's cold, right? You're uncomfortable. Yeah. I'm trying to make excuses for you. If you want to hear, but... I'm sure.

What was it like? So it happened in May and then it aired like a few months later. That must have kind of sucked that you had to like, you couldn't get rid of the whole thing. You had to actually like let it drag on and right?

And everyone's wondering how you did. kind of annoying, right? I think I was kind of disappointed in myself, and I wanted to do better. I wanted to kind of represent the MMA world a little bit better. I feel like a lot of mixed martial arts fighters are pretty well-rounded at least, and I wasn't able to represent, so kind of let my MMA teams down, you know? Well, you have a chance to do that on September 6th. Let's quickly talk about Tamada.

She's making her Invicta debut. coming over from Japan. What do you know about her? What do you expect from her? I expect her to come and come forward. I don't think she fights any other way. She's playing him off with Southpah. She's put it back and forth,

and she's never been finished. And so I'm excited to take it to her, and I think it'll be fun to fight Southpah. I have that spot, you know. Do you feel like this is a bigger deal than some of your other fights? Like, all the attentions on you, your first title defense?

Like, are you starting to feel that pressure now that we're around, you know, two or so weeks away from the fight? I try to get the butterflies, and then I just kind of remind myself that it's not fighting, fight night yet, you know? And so, but the butterflies are good, I think, and it keeps me sharp. And I just have to remember that at the end of the day, you know, you know, fight to fight and we're not going to meet together at the center of the cave and whatever happens happens.

Do you typically get very nervous on fight day? It goes in ways, I think. You know? It's just like waiting a life by roller coaster, I think. Yeah. I think only a select few people really understand what you guys go through. But I'm looking forward to it. It all goes down September 6th.

Long overdue, the return of Invicta on Fight Pass Headlining Act, Michelle Waterson. Best of luck to you, Michelle. Thank you so much for joining us on the show. Appreciate you making the time. And good luck on September 6. Can't wait for it. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

There she is. is the karate haughty herself, Michelle Waterson, defending her Invicta, Antimweight, I was going to say UFC Antomweight title, the 105 pound belt on September 6th. That's a big deal for Invicta as they make their debut on UFC Fight Pass. Here we go. I've got to give something here to Mr. New York Rick. Curious to see how the product looks on Fight pass. Curious to see if they do anything different. Obviously, they're promoting them.

I think maybe more than other people expected or most people expected. As I mentioned, they brought Michelle out for a media day. If you go to UFC.com, you see them all over the place. And that's why I think this deal for the Invictive fighters and the Invictor organization is maybe, well, it's not maybe, is better than your typical TV deal, unless it's, you know, a home run TV deal, because at least you have the UFC machine pumping you up. And that helped W.C very much. You know, Strike Force was kind of a lame duck by the time all that happened. But if you get the UFC machine

behind you, pumping you up, promoting you, it can do wonders. And I think that's why this is a good deal. We don't know about the financial aspect of the deal and how much they're making off the deal, but at least from a marketing and promotional standpoint, it's a financial standpoint, it's a great opportunity for them, and they're really pushing Michelle more than anyone on this particular card. It's going to be interesting to see when Cyborg fights for them, how much they push her, given their history with Cyborg. But for now, September 6 is a big one for them, their first offering on Fight Pass. And it comes a day after a very busy night in the world of combat sports with both the UFC and Beltaire, on the same night in the same state, September 5th, the UFC at Foxwoods in Connecticut, and Belator Mohegan's son, UFC with a great card.

Musasi versus Jaceret 2, Overeem versus Rothwell, Lewis versus Mitriona, a great card, and that is in a little over a week's time, week and a half or so. On October 4th, the UFC has a double header like they had this past weekend. They've got a show headlined by Gunner Nelson versus Rick Story that's airing on Fight Pass here in North America. That is from Sweden. And then in Halifax, it's Rory McDonald versus Tarik Sack. a very big night for the Walter weights. And right now we have a half of that headlining act on the line right now. Roy McDonnell joining us on the MMA. Rory, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you very much for joining us. You know, I said at the top of the show

that the tickets are selling amazingly for this card. I mean, just very few left, almost sold out already. I know you were there last week in Halifax for the press conference. Did you get the sense that Atlantic Canada was just jonesing for the UFC, because this is great. Yeah, I believe it's the first time USC's coming there. So, you know, I think anytime a UFC card comes to a big Canadian city for the first time,

everyone is dying to come out. You know, I'm ready to put on a good show for them. So I think, yeah, there's a lot of energy for people of the city. Some might be surprised to hear that this is your first time headlining a show. because you've been in big fights, you've been around for a little bit now.

Does it feel any different? The fact that this is a main event, like you feel like, oh, I really have to produce. You always want to produce, but when you're the headline, everything is based around you, it's a little different, right?

I don't really feel any extra pressure, to be honest with you. I mean, a fight-to-fight, in my mind. And that's all I really focus on. All the television stuff and the marketing is, you know, it's just a show to me. The reality of the situation is that it's going to be a fight, and I've been it many times. He called you out.

This is a fight that he wanted. He came on this show. He went on other shows. He said he wanted to fight you. What did you think when you heard that Tarik Safedian was asking to fight you and almost campaigning for this fight? I didn't really hear too much about it. I just kind of got a call from the U.S.D and said that's who they want me to fight next.

So I said, sure. but you know I think there's a lot of guys that ask for fights with me for some reason so I don't know I don't really care I think it's a good thing

because you know I think very soon I'll be at the very top of the hill I'll be the king of the hill and you know everyone will be getting for me so I mean it's a good thing

that people want to fight you you know in this business why do you think that is why do you think they're asking for you I don't know I don't know do you take it as a compliment I don't really think about it

to be completely honest I mean my focus is to be fighting for the championship I don't really care about people who are you know ranked below me or whatever I just want I want the belt

and if other people are calling me on it if that's their focus you know that's on them you're still not consuming the MMA media right no no interest I guess that's why you don't know

that these people are calling you out sometimes I hear about it like from like you know I'll be like talking to someone oh did you hear about this and this I'm like oh no I didn't hear about that you know were you holding out hope because that win over Tyron Woodley in Vancouver

was so dominant and so impressive a lot of people thought that it was your best performance in the UFC were you holding out hope that you would get a title shot even though they were you know they were calling that Matt Brown Robbie Lollah fight number one contender, but you never know what happens in this sport. Did you think you might steal it away from them?

It was a possibility. I mean, I really didn't put too much hope into it. I was just kind of going with the flow. I have to do what I have to do when I fight, and that's all, that's within my hands. It's similar to my control. And, you know, I try to put on the best performance as I can and try to get to that spot. I think I'm inching my way close.

I'm right there, you know. So, you know, I'll fight whoever I have to fight. It proved that I'm the best. Did you watch the Lala Brown fight? Yes. What did you think of it? What do you think of Lola's performance? Did you think it was enough to get another title shot,

considering he just got one in March? It was a good fight, you know, and he just beat, like, Ellenberger pretty badly. He's been impressive, so, I mean, I'm not going to take anything away from him. He's a great fighter, and hopefully I'll get another fight against him. him in the future too. You know, I'm not going to argue the UFC decision on who they want fighting next for the belt, but, you know, I really believe that I am the best, and when I get that shot,

I'm going to make a statement, and I'm going to be holding that belt for a long time. I'm pretty sure the last time you were on this show was right after the Lawler fight. You had a very honest and real interview about just wanting to get back to your old self, and, you know, getting about the loss and everything like that. Do you still think about the loss, or are those two wins, Maya Woodley, have they completely erased that from your system? I try to live in a moment,

and I learned from my losses. You know, part of your career as an M&A fighter, and I felt that I've grown from my two losses in the UFC, and it's been a positive thing. I know that I'll have a better... All my fights since then, and my fights going forward will be better. What was the difference between that Roy McDonald against Lawler

and the one that fought in the last two fights? Because you've really put it all together as of late, kind of going back to before the Lawler fight. So what was the difference? Was it just a bad night for you? No, I mean, I had a bad count. My focus wasn't in it. And, you know, if you're not focused at the top level of the sport,

these guys are going to make you pay. And, you know, I was comfortable with, I was just training the way I was comfortable with and, you know, I wasn't really pushing myself. It was my fault. At the end of the day, I didn't work hard enough. And Rob came out and he had a good fight. We had a close fight.

And, you know, I really believe that when I rematch him, it's going to be another great fight, but I'm going to come out on top. Tarc Saffidine, former Strike Force Welterweight Champion, has, he's really turned his career around since losing to Woodley, although he's been very inactive, only fought once in the UFC since Strike Force was absorbed,

had a nice one in January, but injuries have kind of slowed him down. All that being said, have you been watching him? Are you impressed with the guy? Do you think he is a top Walterweight contender? Yeah, I definitely have a lot of respect for him.

You know, he's a great fighter and definitely excited about this matchup. I feel like, you know, we're going to put on a great show. And I'm looking to have another dominant performance. You know, as always, it's with Michael Wood, and I'm training very hard

and taking them really serious. I noticed on Twitter, maybe not all that recently, but somewhat recently, you changed your Twitter icon to a lion. Why did you do that? I'm in the hunt mode,

you know, Ariel. Yes. I feel, like, right now in the last couple fights, you know, focused and, you know, I'm there, I'm there for the kill, you know, I'm coming for that belt and I'm going to demolish everyone I have to to get, get to that point. You know, I've been meaning to ask you this question. I heard a story, and I want you to clear

it up for me. Someone told me, somewhat recently, that, you know, the UFC gives you the option to pick out your walkout song, right? And someone told me that they were sending an email to someone who they believed to be Roy McDonald, but it wasn't you. And this guy was picking out these, like, wacky walkout songs for you. And it was only recently that they figured this out, and you picked out your real walkout song. Is this true? Yes. This is a funny story.

Okay, what happened? I moved from Colonna to Montreal, and I changed my phone number. So the person who got my old number, the person who is dealing with the walkout music, his name is Jason. It doesn't just do the walk-out music, but he was the one contacting me, and he didn't get my new number. So he had my old one, and he texted, hey, Rory, what's your next entrance music? So this guy apparently pretended to be me because he knew who I was, and he was picking my entrance music. And I was like, every time I tell me what to fight, I'm like, why the hell is this playing? You know, I didn't pick this, you know?

It was so weird. Not that I really care. I mean, it's not like the biggest deal for me. It's just music, you know, whatever. But, you know, it's kind of frustrating, you know. It was like weird. Like Joe Rogan making fun of me for, like, my music. I'm like, oh, man, this sucks, you know, a little bit.

And then one day, I can't remember what the fight was, but Jason comes up to me and he's like, oh, man, I'm sorry, we can't play such and such a song. And he named the song. I was like, what are you talking about, man? I think it was like a nickel back song. And he's like, you said you wanted this song when I texted you. I'm like, dude, I never said that.

And he's like, I'll show you. He showed me. I'm like, dude, that's my old number. Who are you talking to? So he calls the guy who he's like, dude, this is not Roy McDonald's. You're faking. He's like, oh, yeah, I'm just a fan. I was just pretending.

Oh, my. Yeah, so he was just a fan, and he was picking my entrance music for a few years. So when you were getting to the events, did you ever think, like, hey, at what point should I tell them what my song will be? And then that would kind of lead to them understanding that it wasn't you picking these songs. Did you ever think of that? Because I can imagine you walking out and being like, well, this is not my song. I hate this song. And kind of putting you in a weird place.

I don't know. It's not really the biggest thing on my mind that week. I don't even think about it. It just kind of happens. It happens. Someone asks me what song you want to say it. And that's kind of the end of the thought. of it, but

I don't know, it was, it's a funny thing that that happened. It's nice that I've actually being able to choose my music now. Did you ever get in touch with the guy who has your old number and asking why he was doing this? No, no, but Jason did, and he said,

I'm just a fan, you know, and that. And now I'm wondering, what's most interesting about this is that I heard that you started picking your own song prior to the UFC 167 fight against Robbie Lawler. And that song struck me as somewhat odd.

I mean, I'm no, you know, song snob, you know, these hipsters. Okay. But it was a Rihanna song, I believe. We found love. Did you pick that song? Yeah. Yeah, I think I did it. I like that song a lot.

It didn't seem very Roy McDonald-esque. I like lots of different music. You like what? Sorry? I like plenty of different music. Okay. Was that the first time you were able to pick your song? I can't remember.

You're not the... Are you the kind of... Oh, no. The first one, the first one was... Again, Shane Mills, I picked a Tupac and Biggie song. So you go from Tupac Biggie to Rihanna, We Found Love. What was the message behind that song, the Rihanna song? And then I think I went to Metallica after that.

I don't know. So it's all over the map. But the Rihanna one kind of sticks out. Oh, we found love. It just seems a little bit out of left field. It's just music, man. It's just me. You're not trying to send a message or anything like that.

No. My message is when I fight. Right. By the way, a good friend of yours, Mike Ritchie winning on Friday. Do you think he's done enough to warn another look in the UFC, or do you think he should still hone his craft a little more on the regional scene, so to speak? You know, honestly, I watched that fight, and that's the best I've ever seen my fight. I really, I knew he had the potential to fight like that.

He's top-level guys. And, you know, now that he's got his focus back, he's ready. You know, he's ready for the UFC. You know, if he carries that kind of focus into a big fight from the UFC, he's going to do a lot of damage. And I've seen it for a long time. He did say to me, he made a promise. He said he will finish every opponent outside the UFC,

and this one went the distance. So should I hold him to that? Yeah, bust his balls about it a little bit. Well, I mean, maybe that's the reason why he shouldn't go back into the UFC. see, he didn't hold up his end of the bargain. Come on, you can't, you can't do that. The guy was in the ER broke up. I don't even know how long, but...

What happened? The guy was... I don't know, do you see the fight? Oh, the other guy. Okay, I thought you man, Mike Ritchie was in the ER. No, no. He hurt the guy real bad. It was a devastating fight. Hey, what's going on with all your... I don't know if this is the right word, term to describe these vehicles, ATVs. It seems like you're roughing yours up. I mean, I'm a little nervous and you're putting your body in harm here.

Yeah, I'm not doing it right now. I mean, I'm trained for my flight, but sometimes I go a little fast on certain things, yeah. Did you rough it up recently? You tweeted a picture. It's not like I had to do a lot of digging to find this out. Yeah, I tore apart on an axle on a side-by-side.

Did you get into an accident, or you were just going too fast or you were reckless? No, it wasn't too fast or anything. I hit a boulder going down a trail. I wasn't even going fast that time. And the boulder was hidden under some tall grass on the trail, and it just tore it. It was pretty close pretty good.

Do you do this in Montreal? This was in B.C. Oh, okay. And one last... I have a motocross bike in B.C. or in Montreal. But where do you go do this in Montreal? Montreal? You can go with lots of trails here.

There's a sandpit I like to go to in a construction site. Oh. And there's a few different motocross track. Well, don't tell the UFC. I think they probably know. Yeah, they probably know. I don't do it when I have a flight bus.

One more thing before I let you go. Bitcoin. Is it kind of going down? I heard you know, we talked about this briefly in Vancouver. you're a big Bitcoin guy. I feel like the phenomenon is going down. Am I wrong? It goes up and down. Yeah, it's very volatile.

So, you know, you can't predict where the market's going or anything, but, you know. Are you still into it? Oh, yeah, for sure. What if you said to, what if the UFC said to you, we'd want to pay you money, we want to pay you in Bitcoin. Would you be okay with that? At the present moment, probably not. At certain times, why not? Yeah, sure.

Because, at the present moment, because it's down? Yeah. Can you describe, like, in one sentence what exactly Bitcoin is? Because I still don't understand. Actually, me. Hello? Oh, no. Did we lose him?

I'm here. Oh, oh, there you go. Did you not hear me? No, I missed you. You cut out for a second. I said maybe it's not a bad idea if I got Bitcoins now, because if the prices below, I might get more. And then if a price rises, I'd make money off of it.

Yeah, buy low, sell high, right? Definitely. But can you describe, for those that don't know, including myself, in a sentence, what exactly is Bitcoin? Okay. I think it's decentralized cryptocurrency is, like, the best way to say it. I'm not I'm not super good with

explaining it well there's lots of YouTube videos explaining how it all works and all that thing is government it's not

it's not governed by any central bank or any government agency or anything like that so there's no taxes on it you could buy anything with it

you know people send millions of dollars they transfer money with it because the fees are extremely low compared to like going through a bank. So it's pretty interesting. Who introduced you to it?

Fraud's a hobby. Oh, really? Wow. Yeah. Wow. And every morning you go on a website and check if it's up or down? Yeah, pretty much. I have an app on my phone. Oh, is there like an official Bitcoin app?

No, there's a lot. There's like Bitcoin tickers. You know, you can check the price and certain markets. like on certain exchanges and things like that. And how much do you, or is this too personal of a question, like how much do you own? At the moment, I only have like three. Three? Yeah, I mean, I buy a low still high, right?

Oh, okay. Well, yeah, I don't know exactly what three means, but can you buy things with that amount? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think at the moment, let me check one second. Okay. I'll tell you how much three is worth. Because three doesn't sound like a lot, but again, I don't really know. It's not, I mean, it's not.

I mean, one Bitcoin right now is basically around like $5.65. Oh, okay. So you have like around like $1,600 or so dollars? Yeah, it's around there. And then there's also things like like like coin. It's a lot cheaper, you know, all kinds of things. There's a lot of different cryptocurrencies, but Bitcoin is like, the leader, you know, it's, you know, it's like the dominant currency right now of them.

And when you want to buy this, do you actually give someone money? I mean, is it legit? Is it legit? Is it like, is it all kosher? Oh yeah, it's completely legit. It's very interesting. Wow. It sounds interesting. All right. Fascinating stuff. I'm going to ask the UFC if they don't mind paying you in Bitcoin for your next fight, if that's okay with you. I actually asked if I could use walk out or put it on my banner. My, I think it's called a CV code or something like that. Oh. And I wanted to put it on my banner.

And basically people could take a picture of your CV code and send you Bitcoin over. It's just so cool. But it didn't work out, you know. Did they say no? Yeah, it didn't know. It was like a last minute thing, you know? are you going to do it for this fight? I don't think it's allowed, you know?

Oh, that's too bad. Yeah. Well, I appreciate the time. Great stuff, as always, Rory. Looking forward to the fight, October 4th, you versus Tarek Safedian in Halifax. If you want to go to the fight and you're in Halifax, there aren't a lot of tickets left,

so I do suggest snagging them while they are still available. Best of luck to Rory, and thank you very much for the time. Thanks, buddy. All right, there he is. Rory McDonald, big fight for him. A big fight for him. for the Walterweight Division. And, of course, a big day for the Walterweight Division on October 4th.

As I mentioned at the top of the interview, Gunner Nelson and Rick Story go toe-to-to-toe in Sweden. That fight airing on Fight Pass, Roy McDonald, versus Tarek Safedine airing on Fox Sports 1 here in the United States. Great stuff with the walkout music. How about that? Finally confirmed that story that I've been wanting to ask him about for quite some time. All right, let's move along. One of the big stories in a very busy day for the world of the UFC was Ben Saunders coming back to the UFC and not just coming back, winning in his return to the UFC and not just winning, pulling off the very first Oma Plata submission victory in UFC history. Think about all the fights, all the submissions, all the years, 20 plus years, the UFC has been around. No one has ever done what Ben Saunders did and has returned to the UFC on Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Had to talk to him about it.

so he joins us right now on the MMA hour to do just that. Ben, how are you? Doing great, man. I'm doing great. Happy to be here. Well, congratulations to you. I saw that you were on, I believe it was the U.G, and you said, if I died today, I'd be happy.

I'm a happy man. I made it back to the UFC and I pulled off what no one has ever done. Does that best describe what you're feeling right now, just over the moon, cloud nine, and then some? No, for sure. Absolutely, man. I also wrote that before flying flying back, I believe, and pretty much I hate flying. I tell myself, it's a good day to die every time I get on a plane just in case.

Oh, so you were getting a little emotional there? What? No. No, no, no, no. I think I wrote that in my hotel room before flying, going to the airport. I was just joking, but as far as dying on the airplane. Right, no, I obviously, I understand that, but you want to put yourself out there, and it was great.

I love what you wrote, and you had talked for some time that you wanted to get back into the UFC. You got back into the UFC, and they gave you a very short-noticed fight. I mean, you had just a few days to prepare for this fight. Were you okay with that? Were you, you, you know, 100% not as far as, like, injuries and whatnot, but just, like, were you in shape going into this fight? No, definitely, man.

definitely, I was good to go. I was happy to be there. It was great opportunity. And, you know, I've said it before, what I'll say to get, man. Thank you to Joe Stover, you know, Dana White and Lorenzo for just giving me the opportunity. The biggest thing going out there was just to make sure that, you know, I just wanted to prove to them that it wasn't a bad decision to bring me back. And, you know, I wanted to do my best to, you know, kind of like,

always put on a great show for the fans. Did you ever lose hope that you would return to the UFC? Did you ever kind of say, you know, it might not happen for me? There was a time, man, that it was kind of reaching there. You know, things had a little dark. I almost thought about retirement, but, you know, at that point, it was really just, kind of along the lines of I fight for me

you know I fight because I love to do it and you know I was basically putting at that point of time I was putting in a spot where I didn't believe that I was going to be able to venture out

and and really make that happen again so I was like if I'm not going to be able to make this happen or even get the opportunity. You know, I'm just going to go to kickboxing, man. I'm going to, I'll leave M&A and just move on and do that.

So when did you think about retirement? Not to get too crazy into this, man, but it was between, you know, some stuff going on between me and Bjorn and Bellator and the way, you know, the way that she wanted to kind of play his system and play. game and it was not what I signed up for you know I never in a million years

thought I was going to take me four years to get back to the UFC and um you know for legal reasons like I said I'm not going to get too much into it but it just pretty much seemed like there wasn't a way out

and uh it was it it was never my dream to uh to stay with them for the rest of my career and in my opinion that was his that was his you know

idea of or his hope did the UFC come calling earlier and they prohibited you from signing with them? I mean I did I did they did ask me after my first Bell tour debut you know they they hit up home

Dan Lambert and wanted to know whether or not I was in contract. Unfortunately, at that time, I was. But, you know, all I'll say is, you know, from what people can tell other people's stories, like I said, I'm not going to go on to details about mine for legal reasons, but from what people have seen through other stories of other files in contractual disputes and whatnot. You know, the powers that be over there

wanted to play a weird game that wasn't what I signed up for, man. It wasn't what I got into this game for. You know, I also felt in a way, me and Eddie Alvarez were kind of a different, a little bit of a different breed. I mean, obviously, I think he was even at a different level because he was like a top five in the world when, you know,

he, or top five or top ten in the world when he ended up going with Bellator. But, man, I already had an established name, too, you know, for tough sick and everything the UFC is done for me. So it was kind of like I can kind of get from a business perspective if you guys are trying to hold on and play some weird game with the talent you personally yourself brought up and built. But to play it with people that were kind of in the game before you even were around, it was, it was a different, it was, I don't know, man, I can't even explain it. It brought anger, depression. It was just, it was bad, man.

Feltore themselves, man, the actual company, I'll say this time and time again, man. They're so good, amazing people that work for them. The roster is filled with talent. You know, I wish them nothing but the best. I think getting rid of Bjorn, and it seems like they got rid of a lot of people that, in my opinion, were the bad the negative energy

coming from Belator making pretty bad decisions that were either maybe pissing people off or it it was causing issues and I think I think they kind of clean out they

they listen to people, they listen to stories and I think that with Scott Coakers you know now in charge and the new things that they're doing over there. I think it's going to be a great company. And, you know, I'm very happy for everyone over them.

So, you know, you left Bellator and you last fought for them in September 2013. You recently signed with Titan, and you never actually fought for Titan. They let you go to, you know, they kind of did the exact opposite from what was happening, I guess, with Belator. And they let you go when the UFC came calling. how thankful are you are that they did, you know, I guess, stay true to their word because they do say that they have the Zoufowal Clause. They could have said, and I think they have a thing in their contracts that allow, a clause that allow you guys to leave if you get a deal from UFC. But if it's within 30 days of a fight, they can say no, but they didn't say that. So how thankful are you that they didn't say that?

Extremely thankful, man. Are you surprised they did that, given what you had been through? Are you surprised a promoter actually did something nice? Yeah, man, coming from where I came from, I was a little, I was definitely, you know, a little shocked about it. But I think, I think that that was really good on their part to kind of let the world know what kind of company they're striving to be. Yeah. You know, things happen in the fight game that, you know, are 100% out of people's control. and the same thing went with Titan.

You know, I wish nothing but the best for them. I wish nothing but success for them. You know, they had, you know, some unfortunate situations occur as well. You know, they had main events get canceled and shows have to get postponed and moved. And, you know, I was kind of playing the waiting game with them as well. And, you know, I didn't take it, I didn't take it personal.

like, you know, especially because, you know, the company, with their kind of company, it's not like they had all the resources in the world to make shows happen no matter what could occur. But, you know, I was trying to fight in April. Then it was supposed to May. Then it got changed to June 20th. And then August 22nd, they got put on in. again.

So, you know, that, I say, that was just circumstance. That was just, you know, you're playing, and when you're playing an M&A, man, things happen. And I think that's also why they understood. They're like, you know, they understood that I've been ready to go. And things that, things have just, you know, circumstances have just arose and things are falling the way they have, by no means on their being their fault. You know, if main events get pushed back and dates and scheduling that's messed up.

You know, that game, we've kind of got to roll with it. And once again, we're in a predicament, and, you know, it really sucked that things fell through for me. And that's why, man, once again, I can't even say it, man. I thought I was out of everything, and then, you know, to have the UFC come in and back up, man. It's just, oh, it's amazing. And then, I mean, you can't write a better script than this one. You coming out, you winning, and then, you know, you pull off a submission like that.

And at the beginning of the fight, have you seen the fight on TV again? Yeah, when we're in the back room after the fight, yeah, we got to see it replay. before the main event, which was for Kimmelhaus also. Yeah, and they were talking on the broadcast how, you know, it was kind of clear that his game plan, Chris Heatherley's game plan, would be to take you down. And he did take you down rather early, and you went into, obviously, Jiu-Suitzum mode.

You had Eddie Bravo in your corner, and I'm wondering, were you going for the Oma Plata? Because at first, I mean, you were showing off the rubber guard, and it seemed like you were going maybe for a triangle, and then the Oma-Plaida presented itself, but were you thinking Oma-Plaida the whole time? it was, I mean, most things with Jiu-Jitsu, it's kind of like you have

stepped paths and destinations and whatever's kind of given along the way you take. But we were working at, we were working that pretty much, it was, you know, it was mission control to crackhead control to basically double-arming

triangle. I had the opportunity to do arm bars and chose some there as well, but we kind of were down with the game plan of, let's just try to elbow the hell out of them. It's if we can finish the fight from here with elbows.

And, you know, when I started to actually get some elbows in, you know, once again, Jiu-Jitsu, he chose his path, he chose his direction, and we just kind of roll with it. He chose to, he didn't like the elbows to the dome too much, so we popped

his, you know, he squeezed and popped his head out back and that's when we you know I switched it up to the umapata and while in the umapata I was you know I was actually thinking you know okay

try to fly them out should I stay here then you know immediately I'm around the hip making sure stop the roll stop the roll if he does roll at least we come up on top if anything worst case scenario

we can ditch it and just stand back up but then I remember Joe Rogan going over the basically it's like an S grip or a gable grip around the neck and it's like a vicious neck crank from there so I'm thinking trying to get that um but it wasn't it wasn't easily accessible um any bravo was screaming to go around the right arm in an S grip or gable grip to uh to finish the plata but i felt uh I felt when I was letting go of of his hips he was tripodting up

which in turn basically means okay this dude's definitely going to try to roll and just try to get out even if he's in that position so went back to the hip and let go to the hip and you know he wasn't

he wasn't he wasn't tapping to a regular homophilett so I flound him out went to the wrist and finish it there I like it seemed to me like you were actually looking over at Eddie and listening to him as it was all unfolding. Is that correct? Absolutely.

That's great. That's exactly what was going on. Did you have any idea that there had never been an Oma Plata victory in the UFC? I had an opinion, like, you know, I thought that might be possible. But I wasn't 100% for sure, whether or not if that was accurate. I know that I never saw it. Right. Once, I mean, at what point did you know you had him?

Did you know right away? Yeah, I was pretty tight, man. The second I got through it, I can tell with my legs. You know, when you do something for so long, you just know when you're in a great spot, and you can feel the pressure. And I definitely felt and knew that I had it. The only thing I knew is I've been there before.

For instance, my fight was solid. I was there before and I just got way too carried away and trying to really force something that doesn't need to be forced. So it was all about patience, you know, making sure that I control him, maintain position, flatten him out before, you know, eventually getting the finish. Can you put into words what it felt like when you realized that he tapped? It almost seemed like you were getting emotional. How can you describe that moment? Man, I didn't know what to do. I was excited.

At the same time, hell, I almost felt like crying because of all the four years it took me to get back there, man, and everything that I've been through. Hell, man, it's been a year since my last fight in general. So it's just been a very, very long, long year. You know, just basically all the ups and downs and everything, it's worth to unfold the way it did. It was every emotion all at once.

I don't really know what that was to do, man. I was just, like, do I scream like, ah, like out of anger and excitement, or just smile and indulge or fucking cry from insanity, man. It was unbelievable. Well, I thought you handled it very well, because you had your moment, but you also went and checked on him. And that showed a lot of, you know, sportsmanship in class.

So I think you handled it very well. I noticed afterwards that you tweeted out a picture of a pepperoni pizza. I love pizza. That pizza looked amazing. How did it taste your celebratory pizza? It was so awesome. And it was delicious. And it was so late there that the only thing else that was available was like McDonald's.

And I was like, that is the worst. Like, I thought that I was going to have to, you know, eat nothing, eat maybe some of the healthy food that I still had in my hotel room, something like that. But there was a Papa John's, I guess, still okay. We were able to order it. And it was also so, it was so late by then, man. We were starving that I pretty much ate in the entire, we got two prizes.

I pretty much ate an entire part myself. Well, you certainly deserved it. So now you're back in the UFC. You got a bonus, too? I mean, what a return. This is storybook stuff. I also, and correct me if I'm wrong in that post, I believe you alluded to the fact that

they had been filming a documentary about you and it's going to culminate in this moment. Is that accurate? Yeah, man. Yeah, we've been doing a vaccination for pretty much the past two years, you know, kind of showing up and downs of basically what I've been going to

throughout that time. and I can tell you, man, this is getting the craziest ride of my life. And, man, I'm just, I'm just very grateful. I think that we got a lot of it, you know, on film, and I'm looking forward to them bringing the production together. Anybody that want to check out what it's about, you know, you can see the trailer and everything.

You can go to IAMBenzhondries.com and see the... details, see if you, you know, you can, you can also, you know, just shoot the, shoot the address out, let people know about it, and it's a project we've been working on, and see how you can get involved as interested. Far be it for me to tell you how to, you know, produce your documentary, I have a hard time believing you'll have a better ending than the one that happened on Saturday. I mean, that's, like I said, that's storybook stuff, so that seems like a pretty good place to end the whole thing.

I think people would say, like, isn't that how the movie warrior ended? Kind of, yeah. If you got like an Ovalata or something like that on the movie. That's crazy. It's unbelievable that you had a documentary filming at the time and that it would culminate in that. Final thing, when do you want to come back?

When do you want to fight again and keep this train moving along? Man, right now, man, I just want to take a week off, not think about fighting, not think about training. I've pretty much been in training camps since January. I helped Tiago Alves for his fight against Seth, and that started in February. I even helped Tyrone Woodley for his fight. We fought on the same night. That was so crazy, man. Yeah. That is so crazy. I'm so happy for him. And I just need to take a week off, man, let my body, let my mind just kind of forget about

everything that I've been, you know, been doing. And then, and then, and that is that. That, the game, man, back to the ground, looking forward to the future. Well, very happy for you. Congratulations on getting back into the UFC and pulling off, you know, maybe the unthinkable, an almost plot of victory in the UFC. Very rare. Never happened before

until Saturday night. You deserve that bonus. You deserve that pizza. Looking forward to that documentary as well. I will definitely check that out. And looking forward to your next fight, Ben. Congratulations. No, thank you guys again. All right, there he is. Killabee. Ben Sonder is back in the UFC in a

very big way and pulling off what no one has ever done before in the UFC. That's great stuff. So congratulations to him and looking forward to his next fight. He had been doing good things in Bellator. Unfortunate to hear what happened, but you've heard those stories before now with the Belator fighters. Obviously a new era now with Scott Coker releasing Eddie Alvarez, showing some good faith, telling the world that this is a new era. They made the right call, in my opinion. We talked about that on the MMA beat on Thursday. Titan as well doing the right thing by letting Ben go to the UFC, even though he was supposed to fight within 30 days.

So that is pretty cool stuff from a couple of MMA promoters. We don't get to say a lot of good things about them sometimes because sometimes they don't do the best things, but those were two really good things. So kudos to them, both Scott Koker and Jeff Aronson and Lexuickman over at Titan Fighting Championship. All right, that does it for our interviews this week. I appreciate everyone some really great. stuff this week. Really enjoyed the show as far as the interviews are concerned, some really

honest and interesting discussions. So let's move along now to Inside the Vault, our third week doing this, and it seems like people are enjoying it. And actually, somewhat surprising to me, people hearing or watching interviews for the first time. I thought most of the people watching the show had seen this stuff, but apparently not. So let's go back now to July 2010. If you recall, back at UFC 108 in Las Vegas, a boxer by the name of James Tony showed up at the post-fight press conference and started hounding UFC President Dana White. He said he wanted him to put his money where his mouth was. He wanted a fight in the UFC. Later, we find out that he had some financial trouble.

Maybe that's why he wanted the fight. But James Tony was making a very big pitch to get in the UFC and have that classic boxer versus MMA fighter match. And that campaign rolled along and it continued for several weeks until Dana White said yes. Remember they had that meeting. There was this like leaked footage that came out, security footage, all that stuff. And finally the UFC booked James Tony versus Randy Couture, UFC 118, Boston Mass in August of 2010. And this was a fun fight obviously because of who James Tony was. This was no schmuck from the world of boxing.

This is a guy who had some big wins, champion, et cetera. against Randy Gattour, in many ways, the face of the UFC for a long time, Captain America, the natural, all that stuff. So it was MMA versus boxing in Boston, Massachusetts. Prior to UFC 116 in July of 2010, the UFC brought James Tony to the event. That was taking place in Las Vegas. You recall, it was Brock Lesser versus Shane Carwin. And they brought him out on the Friday the day before the fight. And they had him do some interviews. We had a chance to interview, James Tony, and it turned out to be one of the more bizarre interviews I have ever conducted. Tony was all over the place, and he really did a great job. You know, the fight didn't turn

out to be all that great, but he did a great job of selling himself in a kind of boxing classic way. I mean, they have to be their own promoters and take matters, you know, take matters into their their own hands and really push the fight because that's what they do in boxing. They are their own promoters. And he brought that world to the world of UFC. And that was very much on display when I spoke to him in July of 2010, right before UFC 116. A very bizarre all over the map interview, but honestly, it was, it was hilarious. It was a lot of fun to do. Here's my interview with James Tony from July 2010, and then we'll talk about it after it's all said and done. Check it out. Ariel Hawani in Las Vegas, Nevada with the boxing champion turned UFC rookie James lights out Tony who faces Randy Couture this August live on pay-per-view UFC 118. James, how are you?

Good. How about to so? I'm very good. I'm very excited to talk to you because I have a lot of questions for you. The first one is, why are you coming to M.A? What do you have to prove you've done so much in your boxing career? Why did you make this decision? I have to fight. And plus, you know, I can't get a bite. Here I am one of the Renairway champions. I can't get the other. champions to fight me or anybody else for most. So, you know, then when I heard that Dana White said, M.M.A. Fighters are better than boxers. I have to put a hold to it. You know what I'm saying? So that's what we're here.

Did he ever say that, though, because I've looked through the archives, and Dana is a boxing fan. I do not remember him ever specifically calling you out or calling boxers out. He didn't call me a better. He called a boxer out. People were telling me this, and so when I heard that, you know, I had to step up to the play for boxing. I represent boxing. I represent an old school. That's me. So give us the thought process here.

You then decided to sort of like stock him, right? I remember seeing you at UFC 107 in Memphis. You showed up here in Las Vegas as well. Why did you decide to do this? And do you think if you didn't do that, he would have never signed you? Yeah, he wouldn't worry about getting signed. No, I don't care about getting signed by nobody.

You know what I'm James Tony. My thing is just, I heard he used to Twitter, telling people on Twitter. If James someone wants to see me here, come here. You know what I'm saying? So I did what he. And I just did what he didn't think I was going to do. And when I showed up, it kind of shocked him a little bit.

And like I said, it's no animosity with me and Dana White. No, no, no. Me, he's a good dude. I love it. I love the UFC. I'm always a big fan of it. But, you know, when you're a simple amount of you're saying that you're better than somebody else, I got a big problem with that.

You know, so here I am to rectify it. Well, there's a video online of you guys having a meeting before you signed with the UFC. And you said some terms that a lot of people, have used to raise red flags that you might not know a lot about MMA. You said something like a side check kick. And correct me from wrong, I don't think that really exists in terms of, you know, moves. So what's the deal? How much do you really know about the sport?

I don't know nothing about the sport. To tune in August 20th. Y'all found out how much I know about the sport. You're not going to tip your hand. Tune in August 20th, pay you a $59.95, whatever you got to pay for it. Tune in Washington. See how much I know. Who have you been training with?

Who has helped you, you know, learn the game of MMA? I've got my dad, King Moe, Masasi. A couple of the guys are Antonio McKee. So I've been working with some good fighters and good athletes, some excellent people. Is it true that you tapped out, King Mo? You asked King Mo. He said it. Well, it happened.

I ain't going to like to you. What kind of submission maneuver was it? First. It was a what? Red-naked choke, baby. Really? So obviously you know, uh, judicious. to you, you're wrestling? I don't know. I don't know

just you. I don't know wrestling. All that I know how to do is fight. Period. And how about when they offered you Randy Gattour as an opponent? Was that the fight that you wanted, or did you rather perhaps fight someone else? Hear this guy over here? Y'all hear this guy over here.

Do I rather fight somebody else? Anybody? Do I rather fight anybody? Man, look, I told him, when first came to the UFC, I don't want to fight. Now these bombs, no undercar fighters, I want the best. I want this man right here. But he was sick.

I didn't know that. So then I said, how about Chuck, Chuck, whatever, in him, and Chuck Delle. He was sitting a little scared, nervous. I won't go ahead and then. You know what I'm saying? And then Simba. I mean, Kimba, where we call?

Kimba's Life. They ain't one with that. So then, but Chicago came up. Chudel said, well, I'm on a walk with James Tonin and baptized him to the U.S. Fine. Let's do it. No problem. Now, fans out they don't like me, that's too goddamn bad.

Because after August 1, 8th, I really ain't going to like me because I'm going to show you our so-called legend. A guy with 12 losses is a legend. Ain't that bitch? Obviously, he is a legend. He's one of the greatest to fight. Obviously, you're a you're a tour fan, right?

No, I am not. You must be because you're... I'm neutral. I'm the opposite. Well, he's in the UFC Hall of Fame. He's won multiple titles in different weight classes. See, that's why y'all sport is so messed up. Like boxing,

NFL, NBA, you have to retire for five years to be considered on Hall of Fame. This guy has never retired. He's already the heart fan. Y'all got the s'clock. But you know what? I'm gonna clean it up.

Well, I don't know if we want to get into a boxing versus MMA debate because... We can do that. We want you because you're going to lose, man. You're going to lose. You're going to lose, period. You're saying boxing is better than M.M.A. All day. I'm telling you that right now.

What you want to do about it? I don't represent the sport. August 20, find out. But James, one more question for you, if you don't mind. You are obviously facing Randy Gattour. I guess you have no more. But I got questions about the game plan, James. This is the spot, right?

Here. This is where we're doing the interview, my man. Should we follow him? Let's follow him. Let's have a talk with James. Right over here. Have a seat right next to him. James, a good friend of yours, David Hay says you're delusional for fighting in M. He's gay. Okay. Is that the fight that you're... Is it Randy then, David? It can be Randy, David, or the bitch-girl sisters.

It don't even matter, man, because you know what I said. If David, he's... He's going to fuck me by now. Now, we could have fought October since, but he decided to fight for Ali Harrison. But you know, I'm not even thinking about him. You know, if he got to go out of the way and talk about James Toni, damn, something wrong with him. Okay, let's... My mind's on Randy Coutre. He's a great fighter.

I ain't got no... I don't got no animosity in the country. He's a great fighter in the sport. But come August, it's just totally bidden. I'm going to kick his ass. Are you carrying around a doll of Randy Couture? I saw you holding something earlier. You want to take home with you?

No, no, I just want to see it because I'm not sure if it was Randy or for someone else. He mad. I can see he and Randy Couture friend. He upset about this shit. I'm very offended over the potential of you messing with Randy Couture's doll. If it is Randy Couture's action figure, is it? Oh, look at that. Looks like he's got a purse and a dress. That is Randy. Now, this is, have you been, you know, practicing your maneuvers on this doll, or is this just to sort of make fun of him? Oh, that's a good one. Okay, let's finish on this. Let's finish on this.

Dana White has said that he does not know now why he signed you. And he actually was on a Washington, D.C. radio show earlier this week with Luke Thomas and said that he calls this, he considers this a freak show fight. What do you make of that? Man, the only free show I got to treat my legs. So whatever, man. So I don't even think about that, man. Whatever he, whatever. I don't know, Dana White's on.

He's a good dude with me. We're cool. It doesn't confuse you? You mean, confused what the f***? Like I'm blind? No, I mean, does it confuse you that he would sign you and then say something like that? They don't confuse me for nothing. I'm going to handle my business.

That's a problem. All he can do, he can think what he wanted to want to think. That's cool. Side show, side show, slideshow, whatever you want to call it. Tune in, tune in. Everybody, August 1, 8th. Get your bucks up. Go to go to, all your friends get to go to one house or stay in a separate house.

I prefer separate houses. Or do it in 59.5. And you're not in it for just one fight. You want to have an actual career in the UFC. Let me tell you something. After I knock out, Randy Gattourer, the real heavyweight title, the real heavyweight boxing title on October or November, come back and fight in the UFC in January or February. It doesn't matter.

I'm a dude. I'm a two-sport athlete. The oldest man ever to do that. Any final words for MMA fans, boxing fans, James Tony fans, Randy Couture fans, anything you want to say to them before we go? Yeah, have a good day. Thanks, James. Looking forward to it. UFC 118, the debut of James Lights Out Tony

against Randy, the natural Couture. I can't wait. I'm burning up right now. I should be home training. But, you know, I'm going to be here with you guys. Love it. Hollis your boy, lights out. August 28, Boston.

Bean Town. Here we come. All day. Can't wait. Matter of fact, they might close Boston down for a day because everybody from Detroit coming up in that mud. It's going to scare you all way. Roll, baby.

We done? We done. We done. Cut. There he was. James Tony. I miss that guy. It's funny, I had three encounters with James Tony. He was actually on this show one, so I guess four encounters.

The first one was at UFC 101 when he crashed my post-fight interview with Dana White. This whole thing started kind of right then and there. They used that clip on the countdown show for the UFC 118 fight. The third, the second time was. this interview that you just saw. The third time was right before the fight on the Thursday before the fight in August in Boston at the Media Day at the Fan Expo. And check that one out as well. It's on YouTube. James tried to take the mic away from me. And I told him that was the number one rule. You never give up the mic. And we had this little, I guess you could call it, this tug of

war over the mic. Eventually, I said, okay, fine, you can have the mic. And then he walked away. And the interesting thing about that was he made a, I mean, look, I always thought that he was kind of playing it up. I mean, he said some pretty hilarious things there, Simba and all that stuff. Freak show between his legs, everything. It kind of looked like he was having fun and promoting, but he actually really got pissed. I mean, he was really upset afterwards and was yelling and telling me to leave. This is after the third interview right before the fight, and it kind of got a little, I don't know, it got a little, it got a little hairy there for a second. I remember it.

In fact, I think I was actually wearing this shirt during that interview, I think, now that I remember it. And then he was on the show sometime afterwards, and he ended up losing that fight, of course, at UFC 118. In three minutes and 19 seconds, he lost via submission, armed triangle choke. It was not a great performance. And I believe he kind of tapped in the air. He didn't really know how to tap. I love when he said, when I asked him what kind of submission he got King Mo on. he said the reverse. It was great. Everything about it was great. It was a freak show, but it was kind of fun. And he brought an interesting element to the UFC for a few months there. Never fought again in MMA. I believe he didn't even get all that much money from him because the IRS took it. That was the story that came out. He was in some financial trouble, but he did steal the show. And I remember BJ Penn at the pre-fight press conference being so excited. BJ Penn fought Frankie Edgar lost to Frankie Edgar.

in that rematch, being so excited that James Tony was there and kind of selling James Tony as well, that this was a big deal. It was an interesting time, and the UFC got some heat for it, but they definitely got a lot of attention for it as well, and the UFC won, and James Tony came and went. So that was this week's installment of Inside the Vault. Appreciate it very much. Appreciate you guys enjoying it, and we'll keep doing it until you stop enjoying it. I'm having fun kind of reliving these interviews, because I forgot a lot about them as well, and I'm enjoying that some are being introduced to them for the first time. All right, let's go to the questions, comments,

before I lose my voice completely this week. Do we have any of those, Mr. New York, Rick? Nope, not this week. All right, great. Of course we do. What do we got? What do we got? I mean, it was a busy weekend.

How are you feeling over there, first of all? You know, it was okay. I'm okay. I feel the voice kind of... All of a sudden, you really... The voice really, right? The voice really went. Also, I feel like if you've been noticing,

I've been trying to clean my nose. There's a lot of stuff that comes out of this nose. There's a lot of mucus. It produces a lot. And I've been trying to do it very subtly. Like I'm talking to these, like, ah. But rest assured, there's a lot. I actually just washed my hand.

So there isn't as much mucus on it than there was not that long ago. But, you know, this stuff happens. One day when you have kids, God willing, you'll understand that it is with pleasure that I carry this cold around. And don't worry, I'm not contagious. although whoever deals with cleaning this up or talking into this mic, I would quarantine it after the fact. Thanks. Yeah, my pleasure, Will. Oh, by the way, before we get going, I wanted to say this at the top of the show,

and I forgot when I went into that little diatribe about getting sick, next week we are off on Monday, but we're on on Tuesday. It is Labor Day here in North America, so we will be honoring that. And how do you honor that? well, you don't work. And we'll be back on Tuesday, the very next day. Same time, 1 o'clock Eastern time, 10 a.m. Pacific, 5BST. I get very confused about the GMT and the BST,

but I'm pretty sure it's 5 BST, and that's what most of the UK and England and that part of Europe, where most of our fans are. So we don't have a show on Monday right after UFC 177, but we're back the very next day. Same time, same place, all that good stuff. Put in your calendars. Put in your calendar.

First question about Habib Nirmagamadov. Did Dos Anjos' knockout on Henderson make Habib Nirmagamadov the number one contender in the UFC lightweight division? Well, again, as I said earlier, I think timing plays a factor in all this. But yeah, I mean, he beat Dos Anjos rather convincingly. Now, I could see them maybe doing Saroni versus or Sironi Alvarez winner versus Nirmagamado if the timing works out, but this is where it gets kind of weird. Remember, Dosangos beat Soroni a year ago in Indianapolis. So I could see a weird scenario transpiring where Seroni beats Alvarez, and then he might be

the number contender. We've already forgotten about the Dosangos fight, which kind of speaks to the fact that DeRsandios, for the most part, has been someone under the radar. He doesn't have as many fans of Soroni. He doesn't market himself as well, et cetera, et cetera. But that could happen. I mean, I feel like a lot of people have forgotten about that. I bet you, and I haven't checked this out, I bet you the UFC rankings have Soroni over Dosangos.

Let's see. Let's see. There you go. Soroni four, Dosangos five. How is that possible? What happened a year ago? How is that possible? Explain that to me.

Do you think he should be above him? I don't, but I can see how it would happen is the activity level. Seroni's been staying busy and earning his wins. So since that fight, damn, he has been busy. It's only 4-0 since that fight. I mean, that's, it has to be a combination. The rankings have to be a combination of who's staying busy and who's winning. Now, I would probably keep Dos Anjos ahead of him because of what you said.

He has a win over him and there's nothing more, there's no more proof needed than that to see who should be ranked higher. but in terms of who gets a title shot, I think that the activity is much more relevant in that case. And I think that it's unfortunate that that matters so much, but it has to. It's the only way because these belts have to get defended, and especially right now where some of them are on the shelf for a while. So Dos Andros is 2 and 1, Soroni's 4-0.

I still think that he has a win over him. and the only loss was to Nirmagamatov in that stretch. But also, Saroni's a more sellable person. Yeah. In terms of title shots, I think Saroni's activity and his personality make it much easier to make a case for him. But in terms of ranking, I would definitely have Dosangos ahead of Saroni. Let's just say we don't know what's going on with Nirmagamadov. If Alvarez beats Saroni, then I would do Alvarez Dosangios, number one contender,

maybe around the same time, like maybe January, around the same thing. time the title fight so they can all coincide. But Normaga Madoff is the X factor there. I could be wrong, but isn't he scheduled to come back in around January? He is. I mean, but, you know. No, certainly. I know that a million things could happen between now and them, but I think that is the time frame

that we were given back when he got hurt. Yeah, it's an interesting time, no doubt. And then you also have, you know, T.J. Grant, very close to coming back in the mix. I mean, obviously he's not going to get an immediate title shot, but maybe it's Grant versus Dos Anjos. That's a great fight. Yeah, so there are a lot of options.

Those Sanjos winning definitely opens things up because Benson, you know, he had lost to the Pettus twice and he was kind of in that weird spot where you don't want to put him necessarily against the top contender because you don't want to knock him off because you're not going to give him another title shot. And now he lost, creating a new contender. So it really opens things up at 155. Okay, our next question about the UFC removing the judge at Fight Night 48.

What is your take on the fact that the promoting organization did that mid-event. The UFC acted as its own commission, but should they maybe have not done that, knowing that the conflict of interest between the promotion and the commissioning organization. On the other hand, man, the grammar on this making it tough.

Basically, what do you think about removing the judge at Fight Night 48? Well, let's be clear. The UFC, when they act as their own governing body, their own commission, that's a conflict of interest right off the bat. If you want to call it that, because I have been saying that I think sometimes the UFC should just act as their own commission because they blame others.

They blame the government or they say, oh, Nevada or California, why do they do this, that? Why do they put these judges or these referees? Well, take matters into your own hands. Of course, in North America, you can't do that. That's the law. You have to abide by the commissions and do what they say and play by their rules. Now, when they go overseas and there are no commissions, just to be clear, because it seems like people still don't understand this. I was getting questions about this after Dana said it on Saturday.

The UFC picks the judges. The UFC picks the referees. They do the drug testing. They act as their own commission. They have to do that. And they have very good people in charge. I mean, Mark Ratner, who is the VP of Regulatory Affairs for the UFC, ran the Nevada Athletic Commission. For a very long time, he was one of the most powerful people in combat sports.

And he still is, to a degree. So they don't have just bums doing this. They have people who have a history and experience doing this and are very capable of doing so. Now, when you get, so I've really no problem with that, and I commend them for doing it as kosher as they can. And they catch people, they catch people all the time as far as drug testing is concerned. And they seem to put the best possible people, you know, when they're overseas, they'll put people from England, et cetera, there. But when you do it mid-show, after a string of bad decisions.

The first two fights on Saturday morning were close fights, and they ended in questionable decisions. And Dana White afterwards announced that he had removed one of the judges, a guy by the name of Howard Hughes, from his duties, relieved him of his duties. It's a little strange when it's that direct. You like to think that Ratner, Mike Mersh, the people in that office, that department for the UFC are doing this. And they're not going to Dana and saying,

okay, who do you want to charge? I mean, surely he can have his say, and they're not going to put a Mazagati in there where they don't like him. That's obvious. But the idea, the vision of Dana going, hey, you, you're gone, which is obviously not exactly how to happen,

but it was kind of simplified into that occurrence, is a little strange. It does seem like, all right, where do you draw the line? I think there is a line. I don't think he would cross the line. I don't think many people would disagree that those decisions were completely out of whack. But you'd like to maybe think, or maybe they should have phrased it as, you know, the people in charge, the regulators that we have in charge from our own company decided that this guy was not, you know, fit to judge. Now, why do they put him there in the first place?

That's a different question for a different day. But it comes off as a little weird when you're doing it directly. So, you know, I think there's no. good answer here because they should have removed them, but the fact that they removed them mid-show, it opens up a lot of questions. It opens up

a huge can of worms, and maybe it's not worth it. I agree with you that politically it looks a little weird, but why should we delay improving judging decisions? Why not take him out right away? I would have just I think the way was worded was maybe

a little wrong. Like if they would have said, you know, Mark Ratner, who wasn't there, I believe Mike Mersh was there. I definitely know Mark Ratner wasn't there. He was in Tulsa. But if they said, you know what, you know, the people who are in charge of this came and talked to me, and we all agreed, and let's be honest, I mean, no one disagreed that those were bad decisions. So everyone at home, the armchair, quarterbacks, whatever, would agree those were bad decisions.

But they could have said, all right, we agreed that, you know, this was not the right guy to be doing this. I mean, this was the case of that. So we relieved him of his duties. That's fine. But when it sounds like, all right, you get out of here, go have some popcorn, you're done. when you're like pulling the strings that way, it just opens up a lot of questions. I commend them for doing that. I commend them.

But the way it was presented opens up a lot of questions. Even if that's the case, good. Even if that is the case, even if Dana White walked over, you know, talked to nobody about it and said, you're done? Good. He was making terrible decisions. We should have that. I have no problem with the decision. However it's presented, whoever did it, whoever made the call.

who cares as long as we get, as long as the judging is improved, but good. This is what happens. I agree. The end result was the right result, but what happens is then it leads, I just saw Kevin I know that I didn't read the article yet, but the headline of the article is

why Dana White's latest power play should be caused for concern. So what it does is it leads to criticism like, okay, what are you doing behind it? Okay, you're not being police, you're not being judged, what else are you doing? If there's evidence of something else happening, then fine, then you can make that case. I think the USC has shown that when they do go overseas and they act as the commission, they act on the up and up.

I have no issues. I've never had an issue with that, really. I haven't. And I have been one of the guys who've said they should do it more often than not. But when it's presented like that, that's all I'm saying. You get what I'm saying? It's opening the door for questions. Yes, that's all.

But I think that opening the door for questions is much more, is much preferable. to having bad judging. No matter how it happened, no matter how they present it, no matter what the circumstances, judging is a huge problem, much huger than any speculation that maybe can arise from this

about, oh, what is the UFC doing when they travel overseas? Judging is much more of a problem than any speculation that can come out. These people who are earning wins in the UFC are getting robbed of wins. it's an important thing. These fighters put everything on the line.

And no matter how it happens, who does it, Dana White makes a decision, whoever makes a decision, as soon as they can fix that, this is the best case scenario for me. I think that that was however it comes off, however it came off, it's great. I would love to see more of it. But obviously that can't happen in the U.S. Yeah, or Canada. Combat Sports has a history of, you know, accusations. foul play. This has been happening for years and years.

People have accused boxing promoters, et cetera, et cetera. So everyone jumps on these kind of stories. I don't think there has ever been a serious accusation that the UFC was doing anything improper, not kosher, anything. You know, like anything that could be deemed illegal fixing fight. I mean, no one has really come out.

I mean, think about it. No one has ever come out and even thrown out a crazy accusation like that, you know, fixing fights, all that stuff. So I truly believe that they have the best. interest in mind. I just think sometimes, you know, look, it's your product. It's your fights. Why not control your own destiny? I think to a degree the whole system is out of whack. You know, the whole system of athletic, and you know why it's in place to stop. That's why the Muhammad Ali Act is in place in boxing, and it would be great if there are more things like that

in MMA. It's still a young sport. You know why these things are in place, but sometimes the best people aren't put in place to make the right kind of decisions for the good of the sport. So when the UFC's in charge, you'd like to think they have the best people out there. The question to me is that I'd like to ask, why was he there in the first place? Who decided this guy? If he didn't know what he was doing, who decided that this was the right guy? And should they do a better job of picking their guys? Because I think sometimes there are some weird, I mean, look, they've sent out some guys with questionable pass to these events.

So are they doing? Or is it just that the talent pool isn't that rich? I'm sure it's a combination. But the fact that there was something in place where Dana or whoever else could just remove. move them instantly that, you know. I wonder what that conversation was like. What was the chain of events? Was it just Dana be like, hey, you, get out of here?

Did he tell someone? I mean, gosh. Yeah, I would love to know the real story. And did the guy stick around and have popcorn? Next question. Bisbing versus Rockhold. Bisbing went ahead and called out Luke Rockold after his win. Would you rather see, I think you actually already waited on this,

Rockhold fight Bisping or Machita. If they go ahead and make the Machita versus Rockhold fight, who does Bisping get? It would be a huge mistake if they do Machita versus Rockold. There's just too much there. It's rare when you get those fights that so many people are into. There's a lot of emotion involved, passion involved. You have to make that fight. You agree, right?

Certainly. I want to see it. And it makes sense, too. It makes perfect sense. A lot of people were ready to bury Bisping. He was done after he lost to Tim Kennedy. He looked fantastic. And this is not an unreasonable fight to make.

Not a Bissing versus Rockhold. There's real heat. Bisping has proven that he's still able to compete with this caliber of fighter. And I think that there's no alternative to that fight. You have to make that fight. Now, if I'm Rockhold, I take the Machita fight and run away with it. Really? It does so much more for him.

I don't know, because I still think that a fight put on that kind of pedestal and it will receive so much more attention. It has already received a lot of attention, more so than the Kungle. I mean, if you didn't know better, you'd think that Rockhold and Bisping were fighting that weekend. So if he wins that fight with all that attention, and they'll surely put it in a good spot, And I have no doubt they do the same with Machita, but with that kind of emotion and a payoff, if he does winning around and him talking about the bed

and all that stuff, I almost think that it gives him more momentum than a win over Machita. Win over Machita is great. It's a major feather in your cap. But all that rivalry will lead to a bigger payoff, in my opinion. I think the platform is important, but I think that Machita's performance against Weidman really raised his stock in a lot of people's eyes.

And I think that a win over Machita is looked at as more of you've passed the test and you're ready for a title shot, than a win over Bissping is it at this point. Now, before the loss to Kennedy, I would have said the opposite. But I think that the Machita fight with Weidman was a big step toward that. And I think that a win over Machita means a little bit more right now. And that's why, if I was Rockhold, I would probably fight Machita. Although Bisping stock is up.

Certainly. You don't have to argue with me. Remember, on the beat, I was saying, saying Bisman's going to win. Bisbing's fine. Nothing's going to happen. Did you, in fact, say he was going to win? Yeah.

He did, okay. I mean, he was a reasonable favorite coming into the fight, and rightfully so. But yeah, it's the fight to make, Bizbing versus Rockold. Next question, Tyron Woodley. Where does he go from here? He just blasted a stun gun and made him seem like a brush off the shoulder after coming off a total stinker, bouncing back with a performance like that, has to be good for his career. Where does Tyrone Woodley go from here after delivering a great

Falcon Punch Knockout win for himself and the fans on a top 10 opponent, no less? I got to go with Matt Brown. And again, like I said earlier, I know he's coming off a loss, but prior to that he was on a very long winning streak. Woodley was coming off a loss. Those rules don't always apply. If you look at the rankings, you look who's out there, and you look at the timing, they're both fighting it around the same time. To me, it makes all the sense in the world. Yeah, that's a good fight. I mean...

He's not going to take the Lombard fight. They're teammates right now. They're only going to fight for the belt. Look at the rankings. It makes all the sense. Yeah. Our next question about Asian fighters slash feeder league. What is the deal with 90% of the Asian fighters they put on these cards being so awful?

You run into the odd one with some skill. but for the most part, they don't look so great. Should the USC be looking into setting up a feeder league in China so they don't seemingly have to pick these guys up off the streets? Well, those cards, to a degree, are a feeder league. You know, like it felt like I was watching, like, the amateur portion of the card, and then I got into the pro portion when we got to Woodley.

I mean, the disparity in the talent was just amazing, going from the first eight fights to the last two fights. I mean, you have to understand that MMA in that corner of the world, is not as advanced as it is over here. I mean, it's really not. I mean, it's probably 10, 15 years behind. It's just starting out. And there are guys going over there.

There are gyms opening up, but it really hasn't evolved like it has here just yet. So they're going to seem behind the curve, they're going to seem like they're not as good. This is part of the UFC's kind of one step back, two steps forward approach, where they're going to put on these cards and have these local guys.

I mean, I was hearing from people that were watching some of those fights. I can't remember which one in particular, but there were two guys who were very popular in China, and I think it was on Twitter. Someone was telling me that he was in a bar in Hong Kong. Where should I read that? I forget now.

Bar in Hong Kong, and the people were going absolutely wild for this fight. It meant nothing to us here. I can't even remember what the fight was. And it was just a huge deal there. I think there was a movie hero, star guy involved, whatever. It's just different. They have to

pick different talent, market it different, et cetera, et cetera. Even the way they do those ultimate fighter shows, it's just different than it is here. So it'll take some time, but you have to think that if they are committed to it, which they do seem to be if you listen to Dana White in the Post-Five press conference, it's going to pay off because there are so many people living in that corner of the world. It is so influential. I mean, if it does pay off, there's a reason why Pachiao is fighting over there. There's a lot of money involved, and they're going to invest in it.

So we'll see what happens. All they need is one big name to come out and climb through the ranks a la Connor McGregor. This would be 10,000 times bigger, given how many people live over there. All they need is one diamond in the rough, and then they're on their way. But I was going to ask this question, but I think your anecdote actually kind of answered this a little bit. But shouldn't they be putting on cards with higher level of competition in those territories that are not necessarily. necessarily native to the area. No, because it's a big deal.

Those guys are big names over there. Are they? That's what that... No, they are. Well, yes, I guess your anecdote really answered my question because you said those people were going wild for, you know, some guy that we may not have been interested in or had heard of before. I think they're actually booking it the right way.

You got to put like two or three, four big names at the top, like two fights. And then the rest, you know, put these guys. You can't bring those guys to Vegas. You can't bring those guys to... No, but maybe those guys aren't in the UFC then. But how else do you cultivate them? You start a whole other promotion? You start opening gyms there and start developing talent

that doesn't necessarily have to be on a UFC card at the start, at the jump. Yeah, but then you're starting to do something completely different. Now you're starting to have a minor league system where now you put these fights on fight pass. Oh, that's the same thing? No, but now it's still UFC and you have these guys fight somewhat frequently, and it's on fight pass, so it's not exposed to the world. They mean a lot to the market. It's capped off with a great main event, in this case, a great co-main event as well.

And, you know, look, that arena looked pack. I don't know what the ticket sales were, how much of it was papered or whatnot, but they seem behind it. I mean, no one over there, the hardcore fan, and, you know, we have some that live over there that talk to us, but the hardcore fan will know this isn't UFC caliber and that term has changed immensely over the years. It's not the same. the casual fan will be like, oh, I know these guys. You know, I may have heard of them. They come from this background and they'll be more inclined to watch

than if it was some guy from Tulsa versus some guy from, you know, Saskatchewan. Yep. Next question. Standout performance of the weekend for me was Clay Collard. He puts in parentheses shades of Nick Diaz. What did you guys think? And who was your standout performance?

Man, I mean, Ben Saunders getting the Omo Plata. That was great. Meen with a very nice win over a veteran, again, in the midst of everything happening outside of the cage. I mean, it's hard to go above Hafelde Los Angeles for getting a win over Benson Henderson like that stopping him. Bisping, turning back the clock, Woodley, there are a lot that come to mind. I don't know if I could pick one.

There were a ton of great performance. I don't know if I go with Clay Collar, to be honest. It's not the one that comes to mind. No, not for me either. I thought, you know, it was great. Howless ladies getting back? I mean, to stop Francis Carmel is very tough. Yeah, there were a lot of winners that you could point to.

For me, it's Bisbing just because I've got the sense that people were ready to kind of bury him. But you can't underrate Dos Anjos's win. By the way, I need to talk to Tos Ladies because he keeps coming out the Three Little Birds by Bob Marley. And that might be my favorite talk. Now, I think I said on this show that that would be my walkout song. And I played for my kids all the time. My older son can actually sing it now. And I just love the fact that he comes out to that song.

I don't know what it is, but it makes me love him. It makes me feel like he is my favorite fighter. He does have to cut his hair, though. It's getting to be a little bit like he's hanging on, if you know what I'm saying. Oh, come on. I'm just saying. Speaking of hair. Well, your hair.

Next question. Who are you guys picking in the Dilleshaw Borough rematch? Now that we've seen Ariel's now famous quote, a gazillion times in the UFC 177 commercial. Who do you have in the rematch? How about that when they zoom in on my mouth? It's a little sexual, isn't it? Like, it's a real zoom in.

So, who do you have in the... Hmm. You know what? I'm going to go with Dillishaw. I think this might be a little too... Did you see the UFC 177 countdown show? You didn't, right? I did not.

Some great footage. I don't know how they got this, but some great footage of Borough post UFC 173. him at the airport like soaking it all up soaking his sorrows him back in Brazil

I mean really great stuff I don't know how they got this but it was really great I think it might be a little too soon and I'm not saying from promotional standpoint I'm just saying mentally and all that getting ready for the fight and we saw this with JDS and Kane

and JDS had a fight in between sometimes you need some time to figure things out all that being said Dillishaw at home Dillishaw as good as he looked the first time out. I don't think he got lucky. I'm going to jump on that bandwagon. I'm jumping off the Brawagon, jumping on DeLaghan.

I'm not counting about this time. Whatever the quote was, can you just insert Delishaw's name instead of Barow's? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, he'll leave champion or whatever it was. Penn and Borough will be some crap like that. I don't know why they went. I don't think it's a fair

comparison for Junior Dos Santos and Kane. I think that what this is, what that fight or that trilogy proved was that Kane Velazquez was better and he was hurt in the first fight. That was my impression going into the second fight, and I think that was made pretty clear by the two butt weapons. I think more second going into third.

I thought that might have been a little too soon. Oh, you just, fair enough, but I think that in this case, this wasn't a situation where Dillashaw Barat was heard and Dillashaw shocked him or anything like that. I think that we just saw the coronation, of T.J. Delosha. And I would be surprised if we saw, I think it will be more competitive, but I would be surprised if we saw a beat down from Borough the way that King Velasquez kind of reversed that. I'd be completely shocked. I'm just saying sometimes when you get a beat

down or a shocking defeat, you need some time to go out there, gain your confidence back, you know, get a couple wins under your belt, and then say, all right, now I'm ready. To do it right away might be a disservice to you. I haven't even thought about this for a second, but have there been even cases like that? Did that come to mind immediately where a guy got completely obliterated and then the next fight he was ready to come back and won? And beat the guy who beat him previously? Now let me try and think about it. Yeah, because GSP had a fight in between after losing to Sarah.

There's got to be some. Can't think now in the third hour. Yeah, I'm struggling too. That would be something interesting to look at. But I'm picking Dilleshaw. I think you're picking Dillashaw as well. Picking Dillishaw. This next question, Ariel, what are your thoughts on fighters who have lengthy win streaks,

taking fights on very short notice? Do you get the vibe that the promotion somewhat bullies them into a corner from a spotlight perspective of doing it or facing the consequences? With them taking a fight on seven to ten days' notice as a favor for the promotion, is it smart to risk their rank that they busted their ass to earn? In my opinion, I don't feel comfortable the way the promotion. puts these blindside hits on the fighters, because when they do turn them down,

they sure seem to let the media know about it. Well, first of all, I don't think it really happens all that often where a guy on a really long winning streak who's at the top of the weight class, whatever, gets a fight on 7-10-day-s notice. It happens, you know, 2 weeks, 3 weeks. This has happened before, but 7-10 days seems rather short.

And if a guy does get a shot on 7-10-days notice, it's usually a guy making his debut. All that being said, I do know what you mean. I am almost more offended by fans who say things like, oh, put this guy in. Like, this guy gets hurt. Put this guy in. Like, it's rock'em-sock him robots.

Really? I mean, come on. The way the fans view the fighter sometimes is a little strange. Like, these guys need to prepare. You know, there's so much that goes into it. Sometimes they don't even consider that he's coming. Like, I remember something happened, and everyone was like, put Lombard in there.

And Lombard just pulled out of a fight, the Kemp fight. So there is this rock'em, Sockham robot approach to things. And it's unfortunate that sometimes a guy will be on a role. I mean, a perfect example is Jordan Meen. Jordan Meen looks so good in his UFC debut. He beat Dan Miller. You know, he was rolling. And then he got a quick turnaround a month later against Matt Brown, who was streaking, got beat up, put on the sidelines for a year. And Meen was actually talking after the fact that I wonder if this is where this question comes from. Meen was actually talking after the fact that he felt like that was,

he wouldn't do that kind of thing again. He has to be a little smarter now that he's, you know, in a good spot in the UFC. So hindsight is always 2020. Sometimes you could take a fight on short notice. Remember Chris Lehman coming off a big win against Aaron Simpson, comes back two weeks later and beats Akiyama. Sometimes it can work in your favor

and you continue to roll along. And other times, it could be a mistake. Again, hindsight 2020. I don't think the UFC bullies guys into doing it. You know, some, you know, they offer you the fight, and maybe there are repercussions for turning down a fight or whatever, but I've yet to hear from a fighter who said, you know, the UFC said to them, you got to take this fight or else.

You know, there's kind of maybe some heat there. They give you the cold shoulder, but I don't necessarily think they bully them into doing it. That's just, that's just a product of this game. You have to say no. And look, you know, there are guys. Machita said no. I remember they wanted him to fight Rashad on short notice.

And Dana said that famous line, he wanted Anderson Silver Money. They went with Tito Ortiz. Remember there was a time where Shogun turned down, Glover Tashara, and Dana was down on him. And the point is, all is forgotten. Everyone's friends again. They promote you, and the next time around, you're the best fighter in the world. So in the moment, they may not be happy, but they'll find someone else.

So I think you have to do it's best for yourself. If you feel like you take the fight, take the fight. If you don't, say no. and they're not going to cut you. You're coming off a win. It might put you in a tough fight. Tougher, maybe next time around, you win. All's forgotten.

They promote, I mean, how many cases of guys turning down fights in the moment? It's like this big crisis. And the next time they fight, it's all forgotten and everyone's friends again. So I would not feel bullied or any pressure to take these fights. We have a caller. Do you want to do the caller first or you want to do the Twitter questions? Oh, let's take a break. Let's take a call.

All right. Let's talk to Spencer. Hello, Spencer. How are you? I'm pretty good, thank you. Thanks for taking my call. I just had a quick question. Where you from, by the way?

Oh, I'm from Toronto. Oh, yeah. I'm just wondering if you had any interest in, I know how you do the walk-around with all the fighters and stuff like that, but would you ever be interested in doing some sort of, like, short segment where you'd go to, like, different gyms and train, like, let's say you went to, like, Greg Jackson's gym for a day, and, like, John Jones teaching you certain techniques and stuff.

stuff like that or, you know, John Crouch and like all these other great trainers, would you ever be interested in something like that? Because that'd be really cool. Well, I appreciate that. I think it would be interesting to be a fly on the wall. I don't like the idea of me training with them. I feel like the lines get blurred. It becomes a little too much about me. And that might surprise some who think that it is all about me. I truly don't try to make it that way. Of course, you're doing a show or you're interviewing people. You're going to be involved. but I don't like the idea of come watch Greg Jackson or John Jones or John Crouch train me. I'd rather see Greg Jackson train John Jones.

I'd rather see Greg Jackson train Michelle Waterson, John Crouch, train Benson. Well, I know what the appeal for the listeners would more come from. Because I'm an average guy. A lot of people are every day and they don't really train. And it's not so much like for they want to go see Ariel Hawani. They want to see someone who's maybe coming into it on the same thing. Like, you know what a lot of people, including myself, respect, the way you cover the sport. but it'd be cool to see it from more of a technical, like a technique perspective.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Kind of like, I don't know. Would you like to see me fight? Would you like to see this culminate in my MMA debut? How about that? Well, I don't want to see you get hurt. I just want to see...

I appreciate that. I don't know. Like, someone break down, I'd like kick with you or something like that. You know what I mean? It doesn't have to be... I don't know how to explain it. No, I get your point. I mean, it's a little different because I know in my interviews I talk a lot.

But you remember, Gracey, how is it complaining to you with the post-fight? and just like trying to explain to you about the technique side of things, exactly what he said. I get it. A lot of my interviews sometimes revolve around the stories and things like that, which I think are very important. And sometimes we don't really put the spotlight on the technique, although with Ben Sanders earlier, I don't know if you heard that, he was kind of explaining what he was doing. So I get what you're saying. Trust me, there's so much I wish I could do.

So, I mean, I have one idea in particular that I would love to execute. It's just tough with all the shows and these shows and everything else that I do. It's hard to remove yourself from the daily event schedule, you know, or the weekly event schedule where you can do some of that other fun stuff. But when it's all said and done, I hope to do it all. And that's a great idea. I'll definitely take it into account. Cool. Thanks, Spencer.

Appreciate it. Take care. All right. Let's go back to the questions now. Okay, our first one from Twitter. The Benson Stoppage, Early or No? Okay. You know, I watched it like a thousand times, and that is interesting to know because the referee is watching it just once in real time, very real time. I mean, up close and personal,

he doesn't have that benefit. So you have to remember that when you start scrutinizing these calls. Originally, I thought it was good. I still think it was good. Do I think it was a tad early? Yes. Can I live with it? Do I think it was some kind of robbery or a really bad call? like maybe Boral Faber 2? Absolutely not. I think he was knocked down. I mean, you saw what happened. Do I think maybe a guy like Benson can recover from that,

that he has shown that he can, that you know, that you might want to give him the benefit of the doubt for just a second or two, absolutely. But I can hate on a guy like John McCarthy, who is the best of the best. He's a legend. He knows way more about this sport than I do,

especially refereeing. So I really have a hard time criticizing him on a call that close. I mean, if it's a complete blown call, then it's a lot. obvious, but call that close. I side with him. And I'd like to side with a referee airing on the side of caution and fighter safety and all that. I mean, that's his job. So I can live with it. Do I think it was a tad close? A tad, you know, early? Yeah, but I could totally live with it. I thought it was a right

call, too. This one wasn't on Twitter, but I was wondering if you had a thought on this. I saw a lot of people asking about this. Did you see the Garcia and Magni fight? Yes. Did you, Were you okay with that, or did you find it even controversial in the least bit? No. Why did you? I thought you could make a case for Garcia winning that fight. I thought you could make a case for him winning the last two rounds. I didn't think it was a huge.

I mean, obviously the- People on Twitter seem to think it was a big controversial decision, yeah. As far as my Twitter. Everything was blurring for me. But, I mean, obviously the injury, his leg injury, played a big factor. I thought Magdi, by the way, what a story of this guy. I mean, I thought he was going to get cut from the UFC. He lost a couple in a row.

Now the quickest to get four wins in a calendar year in UFC history really turned things around. I mean, he's not fighting, you know, the cream of the crop, but Garcia is a very good fighter. Garcia is very dangerous. Yeah. And four fights in the UFC is four fights in the UFC. Now, you know, we were making the case that every fight in the UFC is not the same as it used to be. But I think that the opponent T was facing. Yeah.

are four credible U.S.C. wins. So you thought Garcia won? I don't know. I mean, it's tough to say. I've only watched it once. But I think that Garcia definitely, it was definitely closer than 3027. It was definitely closer than that.

Yeah, yeah. There were rounds where he took Magny down and had control, and Magny didn't do much of anything else. Not that you should be able to win by just taking down your opponent and controlling them if you're not trying to do damage. but I think in that case it almost had to be scored for Garcia. So I think you could make a reasonable case. But I just wanted to know your thoughts on that because on my timeline, at least,

it seemed like a lot of people were upset about that one, just as I saw a lot of stuff about the Benson-Henderson. Yeah, it was the people that you follow or who follow you. I mean, they're losers. Unfollowing Ariel. Yeah. Next question. Where does Dos Andros fit in the lightweight title picture?

We kind of talked about this a little bit earlier. I mean, he's there. I talked to his manager yesterday, and he said that they would be interested in the Eddie Alvarez fight if he won. Of course, they're not interested in Soroni because Soroni lost him already. But, you know, it's weird. The whole thing is weird, man. If Soroni wins and Habib comes back, you have, like, this weird triangle.

It's like what happened in the light heavyweight division when Nogara lost to Phil Davis, who lost to Rashad Evans. who beat Nogera. It's like... Since Pettus took the belt, it's been just a roller coaster in that division. That's the worst part about it. It's just kind of stalled, you know?

I really hope that he's able to fight on December 6th and get right back into it because the Q has really... It's really stalled. I mean, the division... And it's not even that. It's like when you get to the top, then there's still time for you to fall back to the bottom. It's almost like you can't really ascend to the top

without that curve coming and you fall right back to the bottom. It's hard to stay on top because we don't know when that title is actually going to be defended. You might be at the wrong, you might be peaking at the wrong time. Like Dos Andros, he maybe never gets a title shot because the belt's not going to be defended

for another seven months, eight months a year. Who knows? This is why I don't want champions coaching tough anymore. It can't happen. So what you're saying is he peaked too early and will struggle to stay on top. Yes. Yes.

Did I say that? Sexually. I know, but did I actually say it like that? No, I said that. I said that. I said that. I said that. By the way, Michael Carroll, the brilliant mind, flip the script, tells me that the total

strikes in the Magni v. Garcia fight, 130 to 27 for Magny. Yeah. I appreciate Michael Carroll. I love the numbers. I love the statistics. But that does not tell the story of a fight. Also, irrelevant anth who's now changed. change his name one more time.

Who you know, I think, is the most brilliant mind associated with M.A. Says Magni Garcia wasn't a huge robbery at all. L.O.L. It wasn't. I agree with him. I think it was a close fight. I think it was a close fight. Not a robbery by any means. You can't be upset with the Garcia loss if you're on that side by calling it a robbery or anything like that.

It was just a close fight that, you know, a lot of people scored one way or the other. But yeah, I mean, the striking statistics are certainly going to be in his favor. Garcia was on one leg, but he was also taking down Magni almost at will at all of round two and early in round three. So that doesn't tell the whole story. You're just the Alex Garcia apologists. Maybe. I do like Alex Garcia, but I'm also very impressed by Magni's run this year. It's been incredible.

Yeah. This is our final Twitter question. Okay. Ariel, is there a story about a fighter in the U.S. that you really have not wanted to publish or cover? If so, what story? Now, I'm not sure I understand the question. I guess it's something that you had a concept for and thought it was a great idea.

And then eventually it turned out to not be such a great story that you wanted to pursue. Or even, let's talk, we could also talk about the... There's something mainstream you disagreed with? Well, this is the way I took the question. There's two ways I take the question. Is there a story like, oh, man, leave me in. That bums me out. Like, I have to cover it.

I don't want to cover it? Yep. Or is there a story that I have that I have yet to make public that kept to myself? I think it's leaning more toward the first. I think your initial instinct was the right one. Like something that maybe you just bummed you out? Yeah. Well, I got to tell you, I mean, I was bummed by the Lee Mian thing.

You know, he's always been very nice, great Canadian. And, you know, I put out this tweet that I received some heat for. and gosh damn it, I'm getting really sick of Twitter, I've got to say. It's really getting on my damn nerves. Well, you follow a bunch of losers. I do follow, no, it's not just that. I got to tell you, the level of idiocy on Twitter these days is at an all-time high. And I wonder if it's like this in all the other sports.

But the level of idiots, just pure losers. And I've come to this conclusion, by the way, trolls, as you want to call them, the kids want to call them trolls are really just bullies. They're cyber bullies, right? But here's the thing. those people, I guarantee you, were just bullied as kids. Sure. And that's the irony in all of this. They feel like this is their way of getting back at society.

But if you've ever met any of these people in person or looked at them or you could tell that they're probably not happy in life. And they feel like this is a great way to get back at people. And it's just so ironic that it would turn out that way. But just the level of idiocy. It's unbelievable. They finally have a voice. That's the internet. Everybody now has a voice and they can hide behind a computer screen.

So I'm sure the level of discourse. in every sport, not just hours, has significantly decreased. But MMA, man, is it like this in all the other sports? I guess if I had to guess it has to be, these guys would know better. I mean, I think it's just like that all over the other. Yeah, it's got to, it's just the internet. It's just how it rolls. But how do you live your life just being so freaking negative and jealous?

The alternative is to deal with the reality of the situation, you know, you're saying they probably have like a depressing life. The alternative is to just face that, which is more fun to be happy or. to be, you know, supportive or positive. All right, so how about, how about I throw out the opposite question? Okay.

Is there anything that you wanted to cover but not been able to? I forgot about the question. Wait, first things first. I will say, I just wanted to clear up the Li Mian thing because it wasn't like I was saying, oh, poor Lee Mian, you know, this is a serious, serious deal.

This is a serious accusation, and he was arrested for it. And he'll have his day in court on August 29th. What I was saying was, you know, there are some people who are just scumbags, and he never came across to me as a scumbag. My point was, I bet you would be very embarrassed, pissed off, upset at yourself if this happened any day. I bet he's extra pissed off, extra embarrassed, extra upset himself that this happens a day before his son's fight. You were getting heat for this? Yes, I was getting heat for this.

That's a little weird. All I was saying was this is a guy who I always... Your personal interaction with him has nothing to do with the... arrest. So you're explaining that. This was a guy who I always found to be very supportive and very proud of his son. I mean, they're every step of the way for his son, right? I mean, he got a son in the sport.

He's still an active fighter, but, you know, they seem to have a very close relationship. And for this to happen, for him to mess up like this, to put himself in this position, whether or not he did all that stuff, I don't know. Who knows the story? But to just put yourself in that position where you are some kind of distraction for your son

a force fight, that's what I was saying. That's all I was saying. What was their objection? Who cares? Who cares? Okay. Back to the... So that was kind of a... I was like, man, I saw that. I was like, ugh.

So what about the opposite? You know, I will say... This comes to mind. It would be fun to try to cover other... To get a chance to go to the more local MMA shows. Like, I'd love to cover an Invictus show. I'd love to... I've never been to a WSOF show.

I've never been to a rage in the cage. a ring of combat. It would be fun to see the lower level, and I don't want to put Invicton that breath. You know what I'm saying. The non-UFC Zufa Strike Force. I've been to Strike Force. I've been to Elite X-E.

I've been to Affliction. I've been to... What else have I been to? Well, yeah, I never been to Beltoor, by the way. Believe it or not. Wow. It would just be fun to cover some of those other events. It's never too late.

Oh, no, no, no. I just, you know, there's not a lot of times, a lot of events, family and things like that. I'd love to be able to cover that. To get to go, you know, that's part of one of my ideas, just to show the other side of MMA, the less seen side of MMA, to see what goes on behind the scenes and how these promotions are trying to make a name for themselves, get a piece of the pie, all that stuff. That would be a lot of fun. Cool.

And you get to see a lot of new fighters, people before. Oh, Cage Warriors is another one that I think does a great. great job, so that comes to mind. That's it. All right. Now, before we go, let's take a look at the odds, if there are any. I've already looked at them, so we can discuss them, though. Why do you look at them?

You mean, why did I look at them? Because I was interested in... You know, we do this kind of thing. Okay, well, I'm not going to not look at the odds every time just to... Oh, that's not very nice. I looked at these quite a while ago. By the way, you really pissed off Michael Carroll. I mean, he is going on a rampage.

I think you need to clear it up with him. All right, so you... I love you. Hit me, hit me, and then you weigh in. Okay. People need the odds. Let's do it. Service to the community.

We are starting with Chris Wade versus Kane Carrizosa. I guess I got that right? Well, if we're going to do this, you might as well pronounce the names correctly, in any event. All right, you tell me how it's pronounced. Chris Wade. Let me tell you something about Chris Wade.

He is one of only four men to win a New York State High School Wrestling Championship and now fighting the UFC. This is courtesy of Mark LaMonica of Newsday. And his opponent. Wait, wait, I'm trying to tell you something. He's from Long Island. Trains with the likes of Ryan LaFlair and Dennis Bermudez. He will win on Saturday night.

Oh, sorry. Who's the favorite? Chris Wade. Chris Wade is a slight favorite. He is minus 120. Okay. So who's the underdog? His opponent.

Well, I can't go. I can't look at. his name because I have best fight odds, but then I'm going to see the odds, so it's going to ruin it. I don't know the whole card off by heart, believe it or not, but I do know Chris Wade is fighting. Our next question.

Our next question. Wow. Our next fight is Joe Soto versus Anthony Burchak. You know, this, again, notice a trend here. A lot of people hating on 177, and I have taken my shots at their idea of putting this fight together, the main event.

but I think the undercard presents some very intriguing fights. I just wish they kept the Demetrius fight. 178 doesn't need that fight and this card really needs it. That was a mistake in my opinion. They should have kept Demetrius on this card. It would have really solidified it. But anyway, Joe Soto, remember, former Belator champion? Anthony Burchack, very interesting story about him.

I'm kind of giving away all my stuff for the way and shows. This is a mistake. Anyway, he's a former MFC champion and his visa. He had a problem. He couldn't fight in Canada. And so they had to strip him over the title. release him and now here he is in the UFC. This is a legit fight. Anthony's a great fighter.

All that being said, I'm going to lean towards Anthony. I bet they pick Soto because he's Beltor champ, right? He is a slight favorite. Ah, BS. But only minus 120 plus 100 for Brochak. All right. Our next one, Ruin Potts versus Anthony Hamilton. Or Ruan Potts.

Anthony Hamilton, another MFC guy. I'm going to go with Hamilton. Yeah, he's a significant favorite. He's minus 200 and Potts is plus 170. I don't really know much about these first three. Hamilton and Potts a little more, but not enough to really gauge anything betting-wise, so sorry folks can't help you out there.

But now we're getting into the part of the card where everybody's name is pretty recognizable, and they have resumes. So first, Scott Jorgensen versus Henry Sehudo. Henry Sehudo, one of only three. Well, now he's going to be the third. Olympic gold medalist to fight in the UFC. How about that?

This is a tough fight for him. Making his UFC debut against Jorgensen, throwing him into the deep waters. I'm going to say they sigh with Jorgensen because he's the vet. He is the underdog. Jorgensen? I mean, he's on a tough streak right now.

But he just won. Before that, he's on a tough streak. Plus 140. Sejudo is minus 160. And also, you have to, usually, I mean, in a case like this, I would favor the superior wrestler. Yeah, yeah, you're right.

It's almost, you know, a given that say Houdo is the better wrestler in this matchup. But that, you know, it is his UFC debut, and Jorgensen is certainly a veteran of UFC, WEC. I would have put this fight on the paper, by the way. It has the potential to not be that exciting. I know, but it's, I mean, I feel like he's sellable. Maybe. Yeah.

Our next one. There's a lot of close fights on this card. Our next one. Lorenz Larkin versus Derek Brunson. Oh, yes. The returning Derek Brunson. Interesting styles matchup with Brunson's wrestling. Larkin's striking.

I'll go with Larkin. Larkin is the underdog. Wow. Now, this one, I believe, has shifted. So let's see who was the favorite starting. Yes. It appears that Larkin started as the favorite, and then became the underdog, and Brunson became the favorite.

So pretty good on your part, rightfully predicting that that would be the odds. What you got in that one? I think Brunson, I think what you touched on, the wrestling is going to be a bit of a factor now. Larkin's take-down defense has typically been better than he showed in his last fight. So I don't think that it's necessary. I think this is, I would probably stay away from this one, betting-wise, to be honest. But if I'm leaning, I'm leaning toward Brunson. our next one.

Yancey Mederos versus Damon Jackson. This is also interesting. Jackson getting the call in nine days notice, the now former legacy featherweight champion moving up to 155.

Man, Nancy Mederos has been in this spot before. He took a fight on short notice against Jim Miller, UFC 172, lost that fight. I'm going to go with Medeiros just because he's been training UFC veteran now,

so I'll say they sided with him. Sorry. Somebody sent me a funny G-chat. Medi-chating in the middle of this? It was actually Will the thrill. Madeiros minus one. What was she sitting right next to you? What's going on?

You sent me a link. Wait a second. Wait a second. This is like passing notes in class. Now you were just caught. What exactly did you say? You have to read it. Well, okay, so I was also going to send it to you,

but I figured Eric can just show it to you after the show. It's an S&L sketch where there's a guy named Scott Jurgensen. It's a Will Ferrell sketch from S&L. Jurgensen? Yeah, not, yeah. I mean, it's close enough. So you did pick Medeiros, correct? Yeah.

He was the slight favorite minus 120 Jackson plus 100. Our next one. I think there's only 10 fights on this car. Carlos Diego Ferreira versus Ramsey Nijum. They're only 10 fights, eh? I like that. It's like a fight pass card. Is there 10 fights?

There's 10. As far as that have odds. I don't know if there's any additional. Five, no, yeah, 10. Okay. Carlos is undefeated. Nijum had a great win. I'm going to say they side with Nijam.

No, he is a significant dog at plus 175. Whoa. That's significant? Ferreros minus 210. Oh, certainly. Plus 175 is significant? Yeah, because that would mean that the favorite is two to one roughly or greater, and he is.

He's minus 210. Oh, I got this one all wrong. And you're almost getting two to one if you pick Nijim. Our next one, I think you'll like this one a lot. Sheena Bazler and Betchko Hay. Oh, yes. The people's main events. This is the people's main event.

Without a doubt. Now, is this the co-main event? No. The co-made event is, well, quote-unquote, co-main event. No, don't quote-unquote. What? Wait, is it the co-main event is Danny Castillo versus Tony Ferguson. Although, I will say, if you have seen 177 countdown, they did a great job selling it, both of them.

I love this fight. I think it's... Go out of your way to watch that. Which one? Can Steele Ferguson? Yes. He's not hating on it. It's not a paper-made event.

It's not. There's no way. All right. I don't want to get into this. We get into this almost every week. Basler and Koh-Hea. It's tough. It is.

This card particularly has a lot of close fights. I'm going to go with... Man, I'll go with Bazler. Coheia. This 140. Bezler plus 120. Whoa, that's super close. She actually...

Basler actually started out as a much bigger underdog at plus 185. and Kohia opened at minus 265. So I think people are, either people are steaming Basler or something else is going on, but people seem to be favoring Basler's experience, which is not that bad a thing to do.

I think that this fight is relatively close, so the people that got her as a big underdog probably got some good value there. Tony Ferguson versus Danny Castillo, the co-main event of the night. Quote of quote. Tough one. You know what?

Wow. You know, it was a good fight. I don't want to take anything away from the fight. I hope that's clear. I'm going to go with Castillo. He's looked good as of late. Wrestling. Sacramento.

I say they favor with him. It's favor him. Ferguson, rather large. Minus 245. Castillo plus 205. Wow. Now, I mean, El Kakouis looked incredible. He has looked good.

In the UFC. He's almost had no hiccups in the UFC. It's hard to... I think this is a closer, fight than that. There might be some value on Danny Castillo here. I think his wrestling, not that El Cuccoe doesn't have good wrestling, but Castillo's much more of the grinding type. He's shown he has power as well. I think this is a closer fight, but I do lean Tony Bergers in on this one. Wow. You know, I got to admit, I haven't even looked at what the odds. Like,

sometimes I am interested in what the odds of the main event are, because I know they were big the first time around. Yeah, so this is an interesting one. Gosh. I guess they have to go with Dilashah, right? Dilloshaw is the favorite right now at minus 150. He started at minus 195, and Barow is plus 130, and he started at... No, I'm sorry.

He did not start at minus 195. He went all the way up to minus 195, and Barow went as high as minus 110, but he is currently 130. So Dillow shot is a slight favorite. And I don't know. I don't know. I would probably stay away from this one as well because I really don't know how hurt Barow was in the first round.

By all accounts, he was pretty damn hurt, and that was one of the big differences in the fight. But I believe in T.J. Delosha. I think that he really is the real deal. So I would lean toward him as well. There's a lot of close fights, not a lot of fights that I have a great lean one way or the other. So I'd probably stay away. Probably pick up some prop bets or anything like that. Ferguson by submission.

with this one on the Count of that show. Maybe it's just because I haven't watched them in a while. But it was less like, it was less gym footage and talking heads telling you how great this fight is going to be and more stories going outside the cage and stuff. So I'm excited to see T.J. Dilloshaw again and see if, you know, he is for real.

And this does present a new era for the UFC coming back to Sacramento without your eye of favor, without Chad Mendez, without Benavides. as they've got Castillo and Dilleshaw, kind of the forgotten guys for a long time at Alpha Mail and the main event and co-mate event. So it's going to be interesting to see how this does

as far as ticket sales and Buzz in Sacramento. I'll be there beginning Wednesday night for our coverage, which actually begins Thursday with the media day, but fly in Wednesday night. All right, that's it, right? That's it. Okay, one more reminder. Off on Monday.

back on Tuesday. So do what you got to do on Monday. We're back 1 o'clock Eastern time, 10 a.m. Pacific on Tuesday of next week. And no beat for a bit. That is correct. We're off for the next two weeks, as far as the beat is concerned, because of UFC 177. And the following week, I will be in Connecticut for the Fight Night Show at Foxwoods. Looking forward to that one. Already confirmed for next week, by the way, Sam Kaplan, the now former Bellator matchmaker, And a longtime MMA journalist, the brains behind five ounces of pain, he is going to be on the show, among many others. So stay tuned for that. Enjoy UFC 177. You can hit my music. Another busy week, as always, in the world of MMA. Who knows what's going to happen between now and then. But one FC is back in Dubai. Shinyayoki versus Kamal Shalurus for the lightweight title.

Ben Ascran also fighting on the card. Roger Huerta, James McSweeney. bad offering from one FC, their 19th offering. That is on August 29th in Dubai. So that would be what, Friday? Yeah. Also, legacy back as well. A fun show.

Really enjoyed it. Thank you very much to everyone who stopped by. Thanks for my voice for sticking around for the most part. Thank you to Luke Rockhold for coming on at midnight in Thailand. Hope they make that fight between him and Michael Bisping. That would be great. Thank you very much to buy. Bobby Greed. Wow. That was interesting.

And wish him the best. Probably kind of gross to hear me sniffling into the microphone. Thank you to Will Brooks. Good luck to him. Hope they make him the real champion in Bellator. He deserves it, in my opinion. All the best to Joe Riggs. Hope he recovers soon. Crazy

story. I thought he was going to die. The heck. That's why I don't own gun. No thanks. Michelle Watterson, all the best to her, September 6 against Yasuko Tamada, 105 pound title on the line. Thank you very much to Warren McDonald. Good luck with the Bitcoin. And thank you very much to Ben Saunders. Congratulations on your big return to the UFC.

Back on Tuesday, off on Monday. Stay tuned for that. Thank you for watching until they say peace. I'm out of you. Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the. right decision makers, a network of 130 million of them, in fact. You can even target buyers by job title, industry, company, seniority, skills, and did I say job title? See how you can avoid

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