MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 245

Episode Date: September 2, 2014

Featuring Michael Bisping, Matt Mitrione, Ben Askren, Uriah Hall, Referee "Big" John McCarthy, and Sam Caplan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm about to sneeze. It just hit me right there. Oh, God, that's annoying. Ooh. Still fighting that cold from last week. And it just about did me, er. And then I started talking and I lost it. But anyhow, it's great to be here on a special Tuesday edition of the MMA hour.

I know a lot of you love when I say Tuesday. It's like Ralph and the Simpsons when he said, I chew, chew, chew you. That's how we say it where I'm from. So it's a special Tuesday, September 2nd edition of the MMA hour after a wild weekend in Sacramento, California. Holy moly. When have we experienced a UFC weekend like that?

Of course, you know by now, Henna Burow did not fight for the belt. Little known, Joe Soto did and fought valiantly. Lost in the fifth round, T.J. Dillishaw proving once again that he is the very best at 135. Burrow missed weight. Henry Sehudo missed weight. UFC 177 was left with just eight fights total. A lot of time to kill.

It was just bizarre from top to bottom. The whole night. Weird. But we move along now and on Friday in Connecticut, it's a very big night for mixed martial arts. The UFC has a gray card, a card that is way better than UFC 177. On Fox Sports 1, the entire fight card is on Fox Sports 1.

10 fights total headline by Jacques-Aree, versus Musassi, Alster Overeign, Ben Rothwell, Derek Lewis, Matt Mitreone, Michael Keesa, Joe Lozahn, and many others on the Fox Sports One card. And also, Belator is back. Also in Connecticut, 10 miles apart. How about that? The eyes of the MMA world are on Connecticut this Friday. So we put UFC 177 in the rearview mirror, but of course we'll be talking about it on this show. We'll take your questions and comments at around 3.20 p.m. Eastern time. And of course, we appreciate you joining us on this Tuesday. I must say we missed the show yesterday due to Labor Day.

We were off. Labor Day, I believe, is only a North American holiday. But we appreciate your patience. I understand over in Europe, a lot of the fans were focused on deadline days. So, you know, we didn't want to coincide with that. And here we are. It kind of feels weird because it feels like a Monday right now. And then the UFC's on Friday.

So it feels like everything is just out of whack. And I'm a go, oh, my volume is on. Everything's weird. Where am I hearing myself? Do you guys hear that? An echo? Hello, hello? Maybe it's on the TV because I'm hearing myself

and my computer is not on. Weird. Weird happenings. Anyways, we'll fix that in a second. 325. We'll take your questions and comments. Hit us up using the hashtag the MMA hour. Someone's coming to fix this, right?

It's a little annoying. Okay. All right. At around 305, we'll go inside the vault. Excited about this one. I've been talking about this interview for quite some time. So we'll look back at that. 245.

We're going to talk to Sam Kaplan, former Bellator matchmaker, former MMA media member, now a free agent, so to speak. We'll talk to him about where he goes from here. I have been reading and admiring his work for quite some time, and I'm very curious to hear from Sam at 245.

225. We're going to talk to Uriah Hall coming off that win over Tiago Santos at UFC 175. Remember, broke his toe in gruesome fashion

in that fight in Las Vegas early July. We'll talk to him about that. Matt Matrion was supposed to fight on that card, did not, but is fighting this Friday against Derek Lewis. So we'll talk to him at 205,

the return of Meathead, Michael Bisping. He'll step in at 145 to talk about his big one over Cungley, and we're going to try to salvage this Luke Rockhold fight. We need it to happen.

And at 125, joining us from Dubai is Ben Ascran. Ben Ascran coming off a big win on Friday morning. He won the 1-FC welterweight title, and Dana White seems to be warming up to signing him. We'll talk to him about all that and much more at 125. But first, let us go to the phone lines and welcome in our first guest of the day. He is the gold standard when it comes to MMA refereeing. He is the legend himself. He needs no introduction.

and he is, of course, big John McCarthy. John, how are you? I'm good, Ariel. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you very much for joining us. I know you're very busy. Appreciate it. Lots to get to with you. But first, let's talk about last weekend,

not this past weekend, two weekends ago in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Benson-Henerson-Hafel-Dos-Sancho's fight. A little bit of controversy as far as the stoppage was concerned. You were involved. You were the man who made the call. Can you tell us why you felt that was the right call? Well, you know, this is what it comes down to. You know, a referee is not there to make the fans happy.

I am there for the safety of the fighter. And it all comes down to there's many things that we have to live with in our life. But when a fighter goes unconscious in a fight and you're in a position that you see it and you realize he's unconscious, there are times when the fighter can actually hit the ground or be hit again and wake back up. But if you've come in to stop the fight, the fight's over and you're doing it for the safety of the fighter because you don't know, you can't predict the future.

And to sit there and say that, well, you can wait and let that person be out and get hit and see if they come back or see if they stay out and then stop it. That's not what you can do for the safety of the fighter. You've got to make a decision. And when I saw Benson, Benson got hit with several things that hurt him. And Benson is, he's just a tough fighter when he got hit with, he got hit with a left-right hand that hurt him,

and he stood his ground and started firing back. And then he got hurt with the knee that ended up putting him down, and when he tried to get up, he got hit with a left hand, and when he got hit with the left hand, he went unconscious. And I saw him go unconscious, and that was the reason that the fight came to an end, and I would make the exact same decision a hundred times. It's the right thing to do, even though fans at times look at it and go, no, you should have let it go.

You, as the fan, I understand what they want, but you can't have everything. And when you have a fighter in that position, we have fighters that get damaged based upon things that happen after they are unable to defend themselves. And as the referee, there's no referee that wants to be the person that's responsible for that. And I'm not going to let that happen. Is that one of the tougher calls that you have to make those sort of flash knockouts where it seems like the guy goes down and is out for a quick second, but then is reacting in some way where it appears on TV, you know, he grabs onto you or him when you're making the call and fans will, wait, wait a second, he's still in it, he's still in it. I mean, that's the textbook flash knockout when I think of one. Is that one of the tougher calls to make? Because, you know, I watch it a thousand times and I still don't know what's the right call.

And you have to be in there in a split second and make the call and be sure about it. that's exactly and there is no to say perfect chuck ladle fought quentin jackson and he got hit with a shot that put him he was unconscious and i'm going down to stop the fight and he got hit with the next shot and it wakes him up but is it the right call to make to stop the fight when you see the fighter is unconscious yes it's the only call you can make because if you see that the fighter is unconscious and you are not doing something to stop the fight shame on you. You're not doing what your job is. Your job is to be there to protect the fighter when they're unable to protect themselves. And if you can see that he goes out, he's unable to protect himself. Now, Benson's not going to know that he went out.

It's not Benson at all. He has no idea that any fighter that goes out does not realize that they go out. And so if they come back, sometimes they come back and you'll hear them. They're kind of snorting. but they've trained so much that they do things based upon their train. They just go right back into fighting mode, and it's going to happen. But like I said, there's no referee that wants to be responsible for the permanent damage of a fighter based upon them not doing their job, them allowing the fighter to be damaged when they see that they're out and can't protect themselves. What did Benson and or his coaches say to you after the fight in the cage?

because I saw them communicating with you a little bit. Well, you know, Benson was good, you know, and Benson doesn't know. And I've had too many times fighters, you know, I'll stop a fight when they don't even know they were out. And, you know, they were out and everyone sees their out, and it's a good call. But the fighter themselves are like, no, no, I was good. And it's like, watch the tape. Just watch the tape. And that's all you'll tell him.

And, you know, Benson was, you know, he wasn't, he didn't realize he was out. He goes, I was coming. John, I was getting up. I said, Benson, you went out. And he goes, okay, I'll watch it. And his coach, you know, John is a great guy. And, you know, John is, he looks at me, John, he recovers fast. And I said, you know, I talked to him, I said, John, do you want me to let him go on and wait?

And let that next shot be the shot that changes who he is forever. And he goes, no. And there's your answer. I can't be the person that waits on the future. All a referee can be as a person that sees exactly what has occurred and react to what has occurred. I always feel a little uncomfortable when people say this, and let me know your thoughts.

Like they say, exactly what you said about Benson. He's the kind of fighter who recovers fast. This guy has a history of this and that. Correct me if I'm wrong, referees, you can't look at the history, right? You have to call the moment as it stands right there because you can't say in the moment, oh, back when he fought so-and-so in 2010, look what happened. You know, Brock Lesnar came back from this Shane Carwin fight,

So that means every time you have to give him the benefit of the doubt. That's wrong, right? I mean, every fight is a clean sleigh. You can't even think of who's in there, right? No. Brock did come back in the same carwin fight. And was he going to come back into Kane Velasquez fight? Right.

You know, come on. It's a different fight. And, you know, each fight, unfortunately, you know, what we do, what fighting is, you know, it is a different type of animal than any other sport out there. And, you know, I'm not going to sit here and pull punch. is fighting alters people's lives. You know, we have a lot of fighters, be it boxing or MMA, who, you know, after one specific fight, it has altered who they are and the way they can live their life from that moment

forward. And you have to be responsible for taking care of people and making sure that if you can prevent any excessive or unnecessary punishment to occur while that person can be responsible, protect themselves. That is what your responsibility is. My take is, of all the jobs in sports, every sport out there, especially when it comes to officiating, but maybe in all sports, any job, MMA refereeing is the toughest because no other sport involves decision-making as quick as, you know, what you guys have to do, and your decision, your spur-of-the-moment, objective decision affects the outcome of a fight. In the NFL and the NBA, there are moments where a referee can

decided, you know, there's a travel here, but it's more often than not on you guys to determine when a fight is stopped. And I don't see that in any other sport, including boxing. I feel like you guys have the toughest job in all of sports. Do you agree? I would say there's elements of it that make it very tough. You know, let's be honest, in fact, two days before the Benson-Henderson fight, I was officiating boxing. And I officiating boxing in California, and I love boxing. But boxing has elements into it. Let's be honest.

If Benson's fight was a boxing match, he would have gone down, but Dos Angeles is not going to be going after him. He's going to be moving away from him. He's going to see that he's down. I'm going to be calling him down, and he's going to be going to a neutral corner. So there's no extra damage

occurring other than the blow to put him down that is legal. And from that point, it's a possibility in that situation that, Benson could hit the ground, wake himself up, and actually get up in time for me to look at him and take, it's more than eight seconds. You're looking at about 12 to 15 seconds of time to determine, am I going to let this guy continue on the fight? You know, that's what a boxing official has.

He has time on his side to help him with his call. And MMA referee does not have that because our fighters do not back off. They go after. And when they're going after, they're going after someone. that at that moment cannot stop what's occurring and is open to every attack that that fighter goes after them with where serious damage can occur. And that's what we are there to keep from happening unnecessary damage being done to the fighter when you have a reason that has been given to you, that has shown you, I need to stop

to fight because he can't protect himself anymore. By the way, when you go home, do you watch these fights again? Do you say, you know what? I just want to see if I got a right from the TV angles out there. Do you even do that? Absolutely. You go over everything, and you're honest about it. You know, look, I'm going to tell you, you know, have there been things that I've done that I would change?

I tell people all the time. There's fight decisions that I've done that I've gone to the commission and said, you need to change this because I made a mistake. And, you know, that's your job to be honest and to be honest with the fighter. My whole thing with, you know, any situation, be it Benson's or what, a fighter is there to protect himself. He's told to protect himself. And, you know, Benson got caught with a shot to put him out. That's not my fault.

You know, it's not, you know, Benson's fault. It's those and Jos's actions and abilities that made it happen. But what we're there to do is when that fighter cannot intelligence to defend himself or is unconscious, you know as soon as he's out, there is no physical way for him to defend himself. Could he end up waking up with the next punch? It's happened, and it will happen again.

Could it be that that next punch is the one that alters his career for the rest of his life? It has happened, and it will happen again. Which side do you want to be on? I want to be on the side where I can protect him. And so, just to be clear, after you watched it at home, you feel like it was the right call, right?

I'm comfortable. I would make that. I am very comfortable with that. call, I would not change anything I did. Okay. And, you know, obviously we saw you on Saturday in Sacramento. You're still very much a part of the sport. I'm just wondering, by the way, you mentioned the boxing, uh, refereeing, which sport do you prefer working in more, boxing or MMA? Oh, I, there's no doubt. I love, MMA is my sport. I love, I love boxing. But if I, if I had to a boxing show and an MMA show on the same night, you know, and it's not together, I'm going to

take the MMA. Now, here's something that excites me greatly. because you know you've been on this show, we've talked about it, feel very strongly that, you know, the best in the business should be officiating fights in the fight capital of the world. And Kevin Ioli, the respected journalist from Yahoo Sports, reported some time ago that you are back in the good graces of the Nevada Athletic Commission. In fact, you will be back at UFC 178 on September 27th. Is this in fact true?

Kevin is right. I will be back at UFC 178 to work in Las Vegas, Nevada. Yes, sir. This is tremendous news, right? Oh, it's, you know, for me, it's very nice that they even considered me. And I just look at it as it's a great opportunity to go and to work with the best fighters there are in the world, you know, fighting in a place that is to fight capital, they call it. And it's, I'm just lucky that I've gotten this opportunity again. How did it come about?

You know, honestly, Kevin knew about things long before I did because I had no idea. but eventually I received a call from the Nevada State Athletic Commission, and they asked me if I would want to come back, and I said, absolutely, I would love to. And they said, well, we're going to make that happen. So I put out another application and sent that in, and now I'm going to be licensed in Nevada and working there. Occasionally, I can't say how much,

but occasionally I'll be working there and hopefully do a good job for him. Wait a second. You had to apply again? I figured they just be like, are you in? You're in? Okay, great. We'll see you there. You really actually had to apply again?

So, man, you hear stuff from, you know, people all the time about your year, dude, this is government. This is government. And you know what? You have certain things you've got to do. And they have forms and they have regulations and they have things that need to be filled out. So that's your job to fill those out. I believe the last time you were on this show was around a year ago and you were very vocal about the old regime saying that you would never even consider going there as long as they were in power. How do you feel about, you know, the new regime?

Bob Bennett, Francisco Aguilar, you know, they're doing a lot with drug testing. I'm sure you have your finger on the pulse. What do you think about what they're doing as of late? I can only say that everything that I've seen out of what, you know, is occurring there is all proactive and very good for the sport. We need athletic commissions to, you know, be proactive in, you know, you know, you've got a lot of fighters that are coming out and talking about, you know, drug issues and things like that.

And are there guys out there cheating? There are. And, you know, that's going to be the way it is and that's okay. But it is definitely important that an athletic commission is doing everything within its power to keep that to as much of a minimum or to catch the people as they're trying to do it as possible. And everything that I see out of, you know, some of the states now, everything is proactive. They're going after this. They're doing random tests.

All of that is fantastic because it keeps people in. check. It's not going to keep everyone, but a lot of people are going to stop doing things that they shouldn't be doing because they realize this could take my license, this could take my livelihood away. They could keep me from fighting. And, you know, there's situations that are occurring right now that, you know what, there's people, they're not going to fight because no matter what they think, you know, you get caught and then, you're going to have to pay the penalty on that. There's consequences for your actions. Right. And this is exactly what I thought of the commission should be doing is making these things occur and making people pull the line and do things the right way.

Do you have any idea which fights you'll be officiating on September 27th? No, I have no idea. Whatever I get, I get, and I'm happy to have it. Sure. You know, you were, as I mentioned, you were in Sacramento and kind of an ugly weekend for the sport in the UFC because two fighters failed to make weight. They'd even get a chance to step on the scales, Hennon Burrell and Henry Sehudo, and I know you've been a part of this sport for a long time. Joe Rogan, very passionate about this, especially in that interview that he conducted with Henna Burrell. You know, how big of a dilemma, in your opinion, is weight cutting and how serious? I mean, something very bad could happen to a fighter on a very big stage, and thank God we

haven't reached that point yet. But do you feel, do you get the sense that in all levels of MMA that fighters are educated into how serious this process really is on your body? I don't think fighters are truly educated as to exactly what they are doing to themselves. and I mean doing to themselves over the long terms of their life by some of the weight cuts that they're doing. You know, weight cutting is a huge problem in everything that it's involved in. You know, be it, you know, wrestling, MMA, anytime someone is losing the weight that some of these guys draining their body of fluids, the electrolytes, it's a problem for everybody involved, not just the fighter, the promoters, the promotion itself,

because you have situations where fighters don't make weight. You also have situations where fighters are putting themselves at risk in going into that contest because they've done things that they're doing everything in their power to cheat. And I don't mean cheat in a bad way, but cheat the system. The Athletic Commission is bringing forth a doctor, a ringside physician to give this person a physical. They've had this fighter go through all of these medicals already. Then they're going to bring in this ringside physician to give them a doctor. have a last physical to have them checked out, make sure that they're healthy for the contest.

And the fighter is doing everything in their power to make sure that the ringside physician doesn't find anything. It's not like somebody going to a regular doctor, and you go to a doctor and you tell them, oh, yeah, I hurt right here. I have this pain here. I have this, you know, coughing or whatever. The fighter, you know, as soon as the doctor says, how do you feel? Great.

You have any pains? Nope, and good. and they start lying about everything because their whole thing is to get past that ringside position. So the ringside position does everything within their power to figure out, okay, how is this guy's blood pressure? How is, you know, his vital? I can tell that he's depleted based upon these things. And sometimes we have ringside position to say, I'm not going to allow this guy to fight. And they'll draw him out and people get upset.

But the ringside physician is doing that for the health and safety of that fighter because you don't know what's going to occur later on. And we do all kinds of, you know, as a referee, I don't train fighting like I used to. I train understanding people and knowledge of what occurs. And, you know, one of the things that we're getting into with, you know, traumatic brain injuries and all these different things, CTE that's occurring within combative sports, and we're learning a lot. And one of the things that we're learning is we don't get a lot of heavy fighters, fighters that don't cut weight, having traumatic brain injury.

But we do have a lot of lighter fighters who cut a lot of weight. They're the ones that end up being our problem, and a lot of it we're learning is because of the dehydration in them cutting weight. They lose water. They try to replenish the water. They try to replenish the electrolytes in their body. Everything in our body is made of water, basically. And when it drains, it doesn't come back into the same form and function as it was before you drained it. it takes time.

And the weight cutting and the weight process and everything is one of the things that I look at that it's going to be a huge factor in what's going to happen in the future. I think you're going to see an athletic commission starting to change things. You know, the real reason the weigh-in was done a day before was Rayman City versus Duke Kool-Kim back in Las Vegas, you know, at Caesar's Palace, back when they thought that was the same day way in. And so they took away the 15 rounds. They went to 12, and they decided we're going to do a day before a way to try to let them, you know, hydrate and stuff.

But now we have people trying to cut even more weight because of it. And so there's going to be, you know, some studies and things done on how is it that we can help the fighters be safe. And that's really what, you know, that's the Athletic Commission's job, is to help with the safety of this. Because what the fighters are doing, you know, what He and Baha is doing, it's unhealthy for him. It's not only unhealthy the night of the fight, it's unhealthy for him later on. There's things that occur, kidney failure, all these different things that they don't think about that are possible based upon you depleting your body the way they are. How do you feel about the dual wanes?

You see that in some states, notably North Carolina, where they'll weigh in once the day before and then there's another way in to find out that, you know, you can't add X amount of pounds the morning of the fight. How do you feel about that? It's not a bad idea. There's a lot of things, you know, what they're doing in amateur wrestling with, you know, hydrostatic testing as far as, you know, testing people when they're regular and saying, okay, here is what, this is the least that I will allow you to wait for a fight.

Yeah. And telling them, you know, go ahead. Yes, you could probably cut more weight than that, but we're not going to allow it. We're not going to put fighters into brackets and letting them go in, you know, if they want to have a certain time when they can go to a doctor and have that hydrostatic being redone because they've changed the actual composition of their body, and they could actually be a lighter fighter at this point. fine, let them do it the right way, but we've got to put a handle on not allowing people to freelance this in a fashion where it can absolutely affect their health and safety, you know,

both in that night of the fight and later on in life. Great insight, John. Thank you so much for the time. Really happy that you are back in Nevada and everything's A-O-K there and that will be seeing you more in the fight capital of the world and great job in Tulsa. As I said, who am I to, to question the best in the biz, the legend. Who are we to question? So you make the call, I'll stand by it. Thank you very much, Erion.

All right. Thank you. There he is. Big John McCarthy stopping by to talk about a lot of important things happening in the world, the mixed martial arts, most notably weight cutting,

which will continue to be a very important and serious topic, and hopefully nothing tragic happens on a big scale and small scale. We've seen some tragedies happen in the past, and you just hope that men and women learned from history. And Saturday or Friday, I should say, was not a good day for that. Henry Suhudo and Hennon Burau, both not even making it to the scale.

So a tough blow for the UFC, but tougher for them. Hopefully, in the long run, they are okay. Let us move along and welcome in our next guest. He was victorious Friday in Dubai. He defeated Nobutatsu Suzuki to become the one. FC welterweight champion. And then on Saturday in Sacramento, his name came up in some,

in some positive light, perhaps surprisingly to some. So we wanted to talk to him about this. He is joining us right now via Skype from Dubai. There he is. Funky Ben Asking himself. Ben, how are you? Good.

I know you like my eat during your show, so I made sure I grabbed a slice of pizza. Pizza in Dubai. How is that? Well, you know, it's our last night here. I'm excited to go home. We got to see a lot of really fun things.

But just, you know, quick American bite of pizza and making my night a little better. Why are you there several days after your fight? Why did you stick around? Well, you know, one of the benefits, obviously, fighting an organization that's global as I get to travel. And Dubai is a fantastic city, so I stayed around for a few days and got to see a lot of the sites and have a good time. What's it like going all the way to Dubai, you know, preparing for a fight? and then the fight lasts, you know, less than 90 seconds. I don't even think he landed a punch.

I mean, you get, do you feel like, all right, I just, I just, it's a proper payoff. Like, I actually went through all of this for a reason, or does it feel kind of incomplete? Well, you know, obviously anyone who is saying that I liked fighting the five rounds, 25 minutes, they never been in a fight in their life. 25 minutes is such a long time to fight another grown man. I mean, it's really terrible. it's so nice these last few just to get him over nice and quick and easy. I mean, it just makes my life so much easier.

So listen, if it would have been over in 20 seconds, I would have been happy, despite the fact that I get to come all over to Dubai. Were you expecting it to be that easy? Yeah, honestly, I was. I mean, honestly, I thought his ground game was fairly weak, and I could get in there and dominate. But it's still MMA, and you wear four-ounce gloves, and you can kick and you can knee,

and it's a crazy sport. I mean, it really is. So, you know, at the same time, I wanted to be easy, but anything can happen in a fight. And that's one of the crazy things about MMA. I'm not sure if I missed something, but there were some pictures that I saw after the fact where you had your gloves off. And it seemed like, it seemed like your wraps were kind of weird. Had you taken them off at that point? And by the way, I just see your mouth now.

Can you scroll? I want to see your face. You have a great face. There we go. There we go. Yes. Thank you. This wasn't an accident.

This all was planned here. Sure. Sure. What was going on with your wraps? Oh, man, I don't know. I just got this weird thing. I don't like things on my hands like that. So every time I get on in the fight,

I always just rip my gloves off and they didn't have a scissors, so I was just trying to rip my wraps off. Okay. Because I don't know. I feel weird having stuff on my hands like that. I was wondering, I was like, does Ben think that, you know,

that little of his opponent where he didn't actually wrap his hands, just his wrist? That's what it seemed like. Oh, okay. Wrap my hand. I wrap my hands. I just trying to get them off. So that was all well and good. That, you know, that was dominant. You won. But here's the

interesting stuff. On Saturday, after UFC 177, first Damon Martin of Foxports.com, then myself, we were asking Dana White about you. And, you know, I was actually trying to build to it because I first asked him about Rich Franklin. I don't know if you saw the scrum. And then someone cut me off, but Damon picked up where I was going. He asked. And then, again, someone cut us off. So I had to go back to it because his tone completely changed. as it pertained to you. It seemed like he was now actually very open to doing business with you.

And in case anyone missed it, including yourself, I just want to play the quick clip, his answer to the questions about you, and then we'll get your response, all right? Here we go. Here's Dana White talking about Ben Ascran. But Ben Ascran won again over the weekend, really mold his opponent again.

He actually sent you a tweet on him if you saw he joked. He said, you're just giving out title shots. I'll take one. Will you ever revisit Ben Aspirant at some point? Is this under contract? I think he has a clause in his contract that he could get out of it, if you like if some, there's some calls now, I think,

where he could get out of his contract. Will you ever revisit the Ben Aspirin situation? Yeah. Yeah, I think if he keeps winning and, you know, get a shot over here. Listen, Ben Ascran said a lot of stupid shit, you know, when he left. But I don't care about stuff like that. I could care less about any of that. We'll see how the kid fights, what he keeps doing,

and we'll go from there. You know, I don't, contrary to popular belief, Well, no, I do hold grudges if you're a real. If you're a real idiot, yeah, I'm going to, I'll hold a grudge until the day I drop dead. But with fighters, I don't really do that with fighters, you know? These guys are built different than everybody. They're tough guys, man. This is what they do for a living.

And they're going to say stuff like that. If Tito could come back to the UFC, anybody can come in here. Believe me. Because there's nobody on earth I hated worse than Tito. And Tito came back, you know? Don't have to like them to do business with them. So, Ben, what's your response to that? Yeah, I mean, wow, there's obviously a lot to go into there.

You know, he was quite a lengthy response. I mean, my initial feeling is kind of like, so what? And, you know, I sent that tweet right after, obviously. It was like, and so, you know, it's kind of like, you know, all of us had that, probably that time in high school when we were bullied by the cool group of kids. And then, you know, all of a sudden we did something. And the cool group said, oh, my God. Can you be part of our group?

And some of us, you know, who didn't have very low self-esteem, said, well, you didn't want me the first time. I'm okay. I'm doing all right. And, you know, some other little people just kind of, they run, oh, my God, the cool kids want to be hanging out with me? Yes, please. So, you know, I think it's kind of one of those things.

Obviously, you know, he says I said a lot of stupid shit. Well, I said, I said true shit. So, I mean, if we go all the way back to the start aerial, was, you know, back to the 12, when I made the comment about, he was telling lies about the drug testing issue. And all I said was it can be done. It is done at the Olympic level. And now in 2014, we're seeing they're actually taking those measures to do what I said in 2012.

They're actually taking those measures now in 2014. And they're getting done because they're realizing how rampant performance-enhancing drugs are in our sport. And so, you know, that was the first thing. He made personal attacks towards me when I said that that was a possibility. And that would be the first thing. And then obviously, after that, it was just a whole lot of nonsense. I mean, him saying I'm not good enough from the UFC. I mean, I got more skill in my pinky finger than half the damn guys in the UFC.

I mean, have you seen some of these guys fighting lately? It's just, it's ridiculous. So then on top of that, one FC, I've been so impressed with them since I came over. Obviously, I didn't really know what to expect when I first time with them. But, you know, since then, obviously I've been around them a lot. Victor Cui, the CEO, went to dinner with him and his wife, and they're just so great down-to-earth people. And their business plan, you know, without revealing too much, it's fantastic.

I mean, the easiest thing I can shed light on to you is that UFC has been trying to get into mainland China forever. Now, Hong Kong and Macau, that's not mainland China. So they've been trying for years and years and years. And actually, one FC is doing 14 shows in the next 16 months on mainland China. And, you know, that pretty much got Mark Fisher fired from the UFC because he couldn't get that deal. done and 1FC an organization that's been around for right around two and a half years went and got that deal done. Not in a small way. It's not like they're doing one show in Beijing. They're doing 14 shows on mainland China in the next 16 months. So I'm really in a good spot. I really

am being champion in 1FC. I'm really happy where I'm at. So, you know, it's hard saying I want to go somewhere else. Do I want to prove them the best of the world? Yes, 100%. Do I think I Yes, 100%. Don't want to slap John Hennig's round 100%. But at the same time, I'm not going to get on my knees for Dana White and beg for a shot because I don't need that. And honestly, I would rather retire and go coach my wrestling academies and work with the kids and make less money than have the grovel for my chance like some of these company men in the UFC are doing. It's honestly, as a grown man, it's disgusting to me to see some of the way these guys cater to their bosses. this. So if the UFC called you up right now and said, let's let bygones be bygones, we want to do

business with you. Could you even go to the UFC right now? There has been some talk that you have an out clause, that it's up to you if approached by them. Is that even a possibility? Or do you have to wait for the contract with one of C to expire? Yeah, I do not have an out clause. That's not true. You know, I don't know. Like I said, Victor, the CEO, he's such a down-to-earth cool dude. it's like the polar opposite of Dana White. I mean, you think of Dana White, you think brash, arrogant, says a bunch of crazy shit. Victor's humble, awesome, smart, great businessman. And so, you know, if they made me an offer, I'd go sit down and talk to Victor.

And like I said, I mean, I'm in a great spot. I'm the one-of-sea champion. This organization's going to take off. And, you know, what a lot of people in America don't realize is they're so American-centric is, you know, between U.S. and Canada, the market there is about 400 million people. the market over here is 4 billion people. Right now they have TV deals in 70 different countries, and one of Cs on TV in a billion homes, a billion homes.

So like I said, I'm in a great spot. I'm being treated really well. I think the leadership over here is outstanding. Yeah, obviously, like I said, I want to prove I'm the best in the world, because I think I already am the best in the world. I want to prove that. And I want to fight Johnny. Hendricks, but having the letters of UFC behind my name is not a be-all end-all like it is for some

people. Some people think once they get that UFC, that's it. But I think with having more large organizations in the world, it's going to do great for the fighters, because right now the fighters are being underpaid greatly, in my opinion. And I was one that was able to step outside that box and go find a great paycheck somewhere else than the UFC. But, you know, we see guys like Nate Diaz, obviously, and I don't know what his contract says, not happy. with what he's being paid, and he really, there's no power there. The fighters have no power in the UFC to go negotiate some other deal. You know, it does happen every once in a while, like Gil Melendez situation,

but that's very few and far between. How many fights do you have left on the one-fc deal? It was two years six fights was the deal. Is there a champions clause? Like as long as you're a champion, you have to stick around? No, not. I mean, yes and no. Not to that extent. What do you mean?

Can you elaborate? It does extend my contract, but it doesn't say that I have to be there as long as I'm a champion. Okay. What's it like for you? It seems like every time there's a fight in the UFC and the talent isn't up to snuff, people are like, these guys are in the UFC and not Ben Asking, what's it like for you when you watch the UFC, which is the major leagues of MMA? There's no doubt about that.

And you see people who, in your opinion, aren't even close to your talent. Yeah, it's funny because, yeah, there are some really bad people in the UFC. now. And obviously, the reason being is UFC has greatly expanded their schedule and they've got to provide talent for all of these cards they have on. And some of it, I mean, Ariel, you've been watching fighting for a long time. You know and I know that there's some, even UFC 177, which is a numbered UFC provides some pretty damn bad talent. And so I think it's funny. I just laugh. You know, I love that there are a lot of people in the MMA world fans and journalists alike that they know what the deal is. They know what the drill is. Um, yeah, so like I said, I'm not going to be defined by having three letters behind my name. Uh, and so it doesn't only bother me, I guess. You know, you mentioned that you're happy and all that and I believe you, but you strike me as, you know, obviously you're a pure athlete and you're very competitive and you want to prove that you're the best.

How can you feel satisfied going into these fights? You know, your first fight lasted 421, your second fight, 124. They don't have anyone at welterweight, you know, in the top. 20 or 30. I don't even know if you can name four other welter weights on their roster. I mean, how long can you go like this when you're not fighting even close to the best?

Well, Matt Hume's out there recruiting talent every day. And like I said, they have resources over here and they're growing. So they're going to find fighters for me. And, you know, as far as proving myself, honestly, at 30 years old, I'm at the point of my life where I feel like I've proved myself about as much having to prove himself.

I mean, I won two Hodge Awards. I went to the Olympics, two national titles. I'm 14-10. I'm a Bellator champion, when a C champion. I mean, when you look at those credentials, you got to say, wow. I mean, there's really no other way to put it. I mean, when I was 14 years old, I mean, I had big dreams, but could I have a really, really dream that I was going to accomplish everything I accomplished?

No. So to a certain extent, I'm definitely satisfied. Would I like to have that one shot to prove I'm number one? Yeah, I would. But honestly, like I said, if it's not in the cards, I could retire happy and go. coach kids at my academies and do that for the rest of my life and be perfectly satisfied. Number one right

now at 170 is the UFC champion. His name is Johnny Hendricks. Throughout international fight weekend early July, you were sending out a lot of tweets about him. He was actually on this show shortly thereafter and said he saw some of your stuff, but he did see you in person and you never actually said

much to his face. That crap, I said some, I stopped him. That's a blatant lie. And I didn't know Johnny was smart enough to lie to you. So I was tweeting him. He was about 50 feet away. Never responded. He doesn't want to get into a war words with me because that's going

to end so bad for him. He's definitely... What's your issue with him? Why do you dislike him so much? Well, it's hard to really describe in full effect unless you've been in the wrestling community for a long time. Man, he was just

this, he has won so many matches lucky through college. I'll give you one really good example. just for the viewers out there. He was wrestling my teammate Tyrone Woodley in the Big 12 finals, I want to say maybe 2005, 2006, somewhere in there.

And it was one to one in the third period, right? And Tyrone was in on a shot, and Johnny kept sticking his fingers into Tyron's mouth. Okay? So finally Tyrant bites him, which he shouldn't have done. He really shouldn't have done that. But, you know, when a man sticking his fingers

into your mouth, kind of like, come on. So he gave up a point because he bid him and he lost the match two to one. And it's like, come on. Is that how you're really going to lose? The big 12 freaking finals? Like, it was just, he was just doing sneaky shit like that all the time. So, you know, there was that.

And then obviously the Oklahoma State, Missouri rivalry was strong the whole time I was in college. We beat him when I was a freshman. We beat him twice when I was a senior. So there was obviously that rivalry too. And I did challenge him my senior year for the All-Star Classic. and, you know, the people at All-Star Classic said, you can't do that because you're not in the same weight class. And I said, I don't care.

I'll make this sacrifice. I'll go down and wait. I want to beat this dude bad. And they would never, they never did make it happen. And, you know, a couple years down there, I did hear that was because he turned the match down personally. I can't confirm or deny that fact. But, you know, his allegations that I didn't say anything to him was he walked by me after sending those tweets.

I stopped him. I said, Johnny, go tell Dana, me and you need to fight. and his response, Aaron, I'm not kidding you right now. His response was Dana Who. And at that point, I'm so dumbfounded that he said, Dana Who, like obviously you know who I'm talking about Johnny. Don't be a dummy. I just started laughing, and before I finished laughing, he walked off.

So that was our face-to-face right there. So if he says I didn't say anything to his face, that's the damn lie, and he knows that. Hey, by the way, I got to ask you about this. Your teammate in the 2008 Olympic Games, Henry Sohudo, So tough weekend for him. Doesn't make weight, doesn't even get to the scale on Friday. And his heart, I guess his determination to be an MMA fighter has been called into question.

What's your take on all of this? Because it's not the first time he's missed weight. Yeah, Henry's having a tough time. And I think a lot of it's not putting himself in the right situation coaching-wise. You've got to really put yourself around successful people, especially, you know, I think as you get older and more successful, you tend to lose your drive. a little bit. I think that, you know, a lot of champions have struggled with that. And so, you know, one of the things I did, because I'm definitely, I'm definitely not as motivated.

I was when I was 21 is I surrounded myself with great coaches and great teammates who are all very motivated and excited to be champions and work really hard with me. So I think Henry, obviously, he's best to wait four times in a row now, which is, that's just, it's just unheard of, frankly. You know, he needs to really get himself right and put himself around good people and, and obviously achieved great things in 2008. And I think he could do that again if he gets himself around the right people. When's your next fight? When are you going to fight again?

You know what? I just emailed Matt Hume about it. I asked him. I'm hoping before the end of the year, my contract was from three-fives a year. So I should be able to get another one before the end of this year. And that would put me at 15-0, so that would be really nice. Can you just do me a favor? I mean, for all of us who want to really see you fight in the UFC, can you just cool it on the tweets?

I mean, why do you have to be such an instigator with the tweet to Dana? I mean, we're trying to make this happen here, and you're making you very hard for us. Yeah, I told you, man, I'm not going to grovel. I'm not going to be a kiss-up. It was pretty funny. I think he started, honestly, I think he started with a personal attack before I did. Hey, me and you had an argument. We settled it like men.

Yeah. You know, if he didn't want to meet face-to-face and talk, I would be open to that. I could settle the beef. but I really I have a hard time with with how he treats people and I think I think

you know some people say he's generous and giving and he throws $20,000 down at the black check table as a tip or whatever but you know if you just look at the instance over the year how he's treated his athletes

and bullied him I mean even this last weekend Burrow did he make a mistake yeah he freaking blew it I mean the dude blew it big time and he probably shouldn't be at 135 pounds but the way Dana is threw him under the bus like he was a piece of garbage.

I mean, where's some human decency there? For God's sake. So, and I think we've seen that time after time again with Dana. And so I just think at the end of the day, he cares about his bottom line a lot. And so, you know, he doesn't really maybe care enough for the athletes. And everyone has their personal struggles. I mean, I'm sure, you know, I'm sure Brown's not hanging on the beach all happy as shit he missed wait right now.

He's probably freaking hates his life and just, you know, can't wait until he can redeem himself. So, you know, I do it. I definitely have issues with that part of it. Well, I hope it happens sooner rather than later. We'll see for now. Congratulations on the win on Friday. Looking forward to seeing you back in there. Keep doing your thing.

And thanks for the time, as always, Ben. Appreciate it, especially from Dubai. I appreciate it, Ariel. All right, there he is. Ben Ascran, the new 1-FC welterway champion. Interesting stuff from him, as always. It seems like we were making some progress there on the Ben Ascran to UFC front, but the man is not going to bite his tongue.

sends out that tweet just moments later and well we'll see what happens kudos to dana though i will say you know he has proven this to be true um if there is if there's business to be made business will be made you know they remember tito or t's wearing that t-shirt um i think it was like dana is my my my b word or something before the uh the leader of machita fight at ufc 180 no one not 1-84, UFC 84. Who would have ever thought that Tito would be back in the UFC, and he had

several fights, including main event fights afterwards. You know that he hasn't had the best of relationships with many fighters. If there is business to be made, you'll see them in the UFC. If not, you won't. For the most part, Ben Ascran has been

the exception to that rule right now. I still believe the fight gets done. I believe no one beats him in one FC. I believe that he'll either run through that contract or something will happen. Who knows? Maybe Rich Franklin, who's a new employee over there at 1FC, gets the deal done. But I believe cooler heads prevail, and they recognize that this is a guy who should be in the UFC, who has earned the right to be in the UFC, who deserves to be in the UFC, because you can say right now that 95% of the best fighters in the world are in the UFC.

most of the top 10 fighters, most of them in every division fight in the UFC. And for the most part, I mean, there's certainly exceptions here and there. You know, you think of Michael Chandler, Pat Curran, and a few others come to mind. But for the most part, they're all in the UFC. Ben Ascreen is the exception to that rule. I wonder if Scott Coker, if he was around when Ben Ascran was a free agent, if he would have kept them around. My guess is yes, but, you know, we'll never know.

And right now he's doing his thing over in one. 1FC. So congratulations to him on that. Also, congratulations to Roger Huerta, who won first time in a very long time. He won on Friday morning at that 1FC card defeating Christian Holly. And man, it was good to see Roger Huerta back in the wind call. And the last time he had won a fight was April of 2010 in Belator. Afterwards, he had lost four fights in a row. And, of course, had gone through a lot, ups and downs and whatnot, but Roger Huerta looking good, also looking good, Shinya Yoki winning and successfully defending his lightweight title on Friday morning against Kamal Shalurus. Trying to get in touch with Michael Bisping here. Perhaps I gave the wrong

phone number to one New York Rick. Let me try this out. Just a moment. the beauty... Oh, no. It's supposed to be joining us for the magic of Skype. Michael Bisping. Another fight that we'd love to see. I say we. I speak only for myself,

but I get the sense from a lot of you that you are in agreement. Michael Bisping versus Luke Rockhold, Dana White, saying late last week that they are leaning towards Luke Rockhold versus Yodamachita, which really makes no sense to me. And I don't want to go on a whole diatriate,

tribe here, but how often does it happen where a fight that is two years in the making, two years in the making? Remember, this all started on Spike TV's MMA uncensored when Michael Bisping said that he was the unofficial strike force champion because he roughed up Luke Rockhold while sparring. This has been going on since then. I'm pretty sure Luke Rockhold was still in strike force when this happened. And they've had their ups and downs. You know, they've won, they've lost, and now their timing works out. They're both, you know, they're both on the same path at the same time, both coming off wins. Bisping just defeated, oh, Bispin just defeated Kung Lee.

Of course, Rockhold defeated Tim Boch back in April, but he's been out for quite some time due to the injured toe, due to the injured knee that he told us about last week. so the timing is perfect, and yet for some reason, they're stuck on this Machita fights. Let's try to fix this situation. We go now to the phones. We welcome in Mr. Michael Bisping himself. Michael, how are you? Very well, Ariel.

Thank you very much. How much did I know you? And a few people have complained about this, that I try to remind the fighters too much. I get so nervous that they're not going to show up, and it seems to have bothered you. Did I piss you off? No, you didn't bother me. You're just being efficient. I get it, no problem.

And after all about back and forth, I still fail to log into Skype correctly. What happened? I like to see you. You have a great Skype connection. It was valid. You have a great Skype connection. What happened to your Skype?

I have no idea. I'm going to have a serious word with my teenage son. He's done something to my computer. Oh, man. Not if it's working. I always blame him. God bless him.

He always gets to bless. All right. Well, let's talk about the business. Happy that you're joining us, doesn't matter if it's Skype or phone. We appreciate it very much. So I was going on a bit of a rant there because for the life of me, I can't understand why they seem to be leaning towards

Rockhold versus Machita when we have this fight. Two years in the making, you guys have been going back and forth. There's a great rivalry there. It appears to be very authentic. You're both coming off great wins. I mean, this to me is one of the great no-brainers in UFC history. And yet everyone, but a couple of very important people seem to be on board. What is going on here?

Why aren't they making this fight, it seems? Well, far better for me to speak on behalf of dead and why I just over the land. but Peter, you know, I'm sure they know what they're doing. They've won a very successful business. So, you know, it's their business to match fights. It's my business, the take fight. Regarding Rockhold, obviously, that is a fight that I would like. You know, as you said, it's two years in the making.

He has called me out frequently. You know, after his fight, he's done it on Twitter, social media. He even did it when I was having coffee with my dad last Sunday morning after my fire gets come late, which I think was a bit of a, you know, classless, It was pretty low, to be honest. We're just having a coffee in the morning, and he came over and started talking, you know,

talking a bunch of trash and this and that and challenging me to a fight. And I was like, dude, come on, really? You know, it's Sunday morning. I'm having a coffee. You know, there's a time and a place. So, yeah, certainly that is a fight that I would like. If the UFC choose to match him up with the Machida,

you know, then so be it. It's not like I'm obsessing over Lou Rockold. Yes, I want to fight him. Yes, I certainly do want to punch him in the face. And I certainly feel it's a fight that I could win. And I find that would be good for my career. Obviously, you know, he's since getting knocked out against Vito Felfoy, he's had two good fights and two good wins.

And, you know, he's kind of considered in the top five. So for me, yes, of course, that would be a great fight. But as I said, I'm not upsetting over it. And if he choose to match him up with Machida, then great. You know, hopefully the UFC will match me up pretty quick with somebody else. And we'll maybe do it down the line. but if they offer it, 100% I'm in. Do you think that there may be, I don't know, I'm just throwing out a theory.

Do they think, you know, do you think that maybe they think that, okay, this is a bigger fight, the Machita fight? Or Machita is an easier opponent from me? What are your theories as to why they wouldn't make a fight that both fighters are asking for? It's very rare when two fighters ask for a fight that they don't make that fight. You're trying to put words in my mouth here, I think. You know what, to be honest, I really don't know. It's only been a week since the Kongley fight. obviously leading up to that fight,

all I was thinking about was coming late. Since then, as I said, it's only been a week. I kind of came home and switched my MMA brain off for a little bit, caught up with the kids and things like that. So I haven't really been thinking about it too much. As I said, I'm not upsetting over Luke Rockhold.

I know he's upsetting over me. As I said, in Macau, you know, I think perhaps he wants to tear me out on a day and good for him. He keeps about me all the time. She needs to tweet about me all the time. Every interview he always brings it back to me. So he's got a little bit of,

bit of love for Michael Bissing and who could blame him, quite frankly. But, listen, unfortunately, the love is mutual. You know, I don't think about him 24-7, and certainly this is a fight in McHal. I haven't given him the second bit of thought. But as I said, the UFC won't have this fight. I'm here. I'm ready and waiting. I've got no injuries, and I will fight in ASAP anytime they want.

But you understand fighting. You're the king of selling fights. I mean, you have to recognize that this fight right now, of all the options out there, this is promotional gold, right? I mean, this will make everyone a lot of money. Yeah, I mean, I suppose you could you could say that. I mean, I'm not going to talk about money,

but it's certainly got fan interest. You know, a lot of people want to see the fight. He wants to fight. I want the fight. He called me out publicly after two of his fight, you know, in the octagon. I called him out. I returned the favor in the octagon.

He seems to go back and forth. So, yeah, it would make sense, you know, for sure. You certainly have a fan interest. You can certainly, you know, there's certainly a decent. some backstory to. I imagine it would capture the imagination of a lot of fire fans, and it would be a good fire. So, you know, our styles would make for an entertaining, fan-friendly fires. So, you know, I think it has all the ingredients for a great main event or a great call main event.

You know, I would love the UFC to make the much. But as I said, you know, that's not my business. I'm sure, you know, the guys at the helm, you know, I'm sure they know what they're doing. Right. Good answer, by the way. I'm curious. What did he say to you when you were having, breakfast with your father. Yeah, I'm having a coffee, you know, me and my dad, you know. We're both a bit of a hangover because we'd had a couple of dreams than that before. We're just having a coffee and catching up and whatever. Obviously, I live in America.

He lives in England. So we're just, you know, now all the excitement of the fight and all that stuff was over. We're just having, you're just to chill that conversation, catching up in old times. And lo and behold, he comes walking over, looking a little blurry at himself. Probably still feeling the effect, I'm short, because, you know, I'm sure. during the cold light of day, he wouldn't come up and start challenging somebody to a fight outside of the octagon whilst us out with family members. You know, I certainly wouldn't do that. I'd like to think he wouldn't. So he came over to a big thing, one round, come on, I'll finish you in one round,

and I want your purse. And he started going on about that stupid bet that he does. And I just said, look at the state of you. I said, you protect you leave. I said, go home, sober up, and stop making a fool out of yourself. And he just stood there staring at his coffee, just shouting out more Jones and more, you know, unsavory things. So, and it was pathetic. Unfortunately,

I saw the higher ground, you know, maybe if I was younger, there might have been a situation, you know, where we were having the coffee. But in this occasion, you know,

I took on a five to the night before. I'm a professional. So I just ignored him. I laughed at him. I took the higher ground, but, you know, made no mistake.

I do want to fight that guy for sure. He needs to be taught a lesson. He needs to be put in his place. By the way, what do you make of that bet? Are you down for it if it happens? Well, listen, I've never been finishing one round in my life. I don't know why Lou Rockhold thinks you're going to be the first to do it.

But it's not exactly a fair bet, is it? Let's be honest. You know, my person is a little higher. I've been around a lot longer than Luke Rockholds. So, you know, but I've never been, it's a second. Listen, let's just fight. You know what I mean? The person is there for a reason, and mine is significantly larger than his.

So it's not really a fair bet, but I'll have a gentleman's bet. I'll challenge you to a fight, and the winner takes old. You know what I mean? I've never been finishing one round in my life. I certainly didn't get finishing one round how he did against Belfour. So, you know, he just needs to shut the hell up, really, and focus on his fights. You know what he's doing is hanging out at a pool party. He's cooking tigers balls.

You know, the real question is if he said that a tiger through a pool party after he was done feeling him up, you know. The guy is slowly but surely turning into a bit of a laughing start. Just get back to business, get back to winning fights, and people will take you seriously again. By the way, speaking of your father, I saw you tweet a picture. It was kind of a wide shot.

You're on the cage celebrating. And some way, somehow, I don't know, was he in your corner in that fight? Because there's this picture of him pointing at you. And I got to say, this is one of the greatest MMA pictures I've ever seen, as if he's almost saying, like, look at my son, look at what he has done,

look how proud I am. You know this picture I'm talking about. What a shot. I hope you blow that up because that is one of the greatest pictures I've ever seen in MMA. To be honest, that is actually the plan, yeah. It is a fantastic shot.

And, yeah, you know, I mean, he was very proud. He's on the apron of the oxygen, as you said. And to answer your question, yes, he was in my corner. He's been in my corner a few times. And, you know, he decided to come out suited and booted. He wasn't rocking the fair of fire shirt. I didn't tell to put it all, but he said, son, I bought myself a nice new suit. I'm wearing my suit.

I'm like, all right, fair enough. So, yeah, he was very proud. And, you know, my dad, when I was a kid, he used to drive me all over. the country and, you know, to help me with my martial arts. So he is very, very proud, and rightly so. I noticed that you gave him a lot of props, but none to mom. I mean, what's up with that? No, no credit.

No, I did, actually. I had to, because my mom and my dad are together. So there's always this back and forth, you know, oh, you told you dad more. You told you mom more. So, you know, I gave him a dozen boss, and I quickly turned around to the camera. I said, oh, lovely mom, by the way, because, you know, hell have no few, like, Kathleen just seems scoring. So, you know, I just get it in the neck.

for about two weeks on the phone. Oh, you thank you father, but you didn't thank me. So, yeah, I quickly remembered the punishment that I would receive, so I quickly gave a better shout out as well. Now, why was your dad in your corner for this fight? I mean, what kind of insight did he have on Kung Lee? He doesn't need an insight on Kung Lee. You know, as a main event, you get four-corner men, you know?

And do you need four-corner men? Not necessarily. To be honest, you know, you probably only need one corner man, you know, but you're allowed three, and if you're a main event, you're allowed four. And sometimes I bring four guys, you know,

but not all the time. You know, as I say, the four guys can't give you instructions. You know, you don't always need that. And, but that, God bless him.

He's been at every fight. He's flown all over the world. Wherever it's been, Brazil, Canada, Europe, Australia, China, he's been there, you know, and he's been there right from the early days.

So it's nice to just have him there and, you know, a bit of recognition and a bit of support, you know? Now, let's be honest. and I'm not suggesting that you never speak honestly, but there was a lot at stake here, right? I mean, there was a lot of pressure on you.

I was one who was saying, I mean, this could potentially be do or die. You would still be a member of the UFC, but as far as your hopes and aspirations to make a run at the title, you had to beat Kung Lee. Looking back, how much of that pressure did you feel in that fight?

Yeah, you're absolutely right. There wasn't a lot of pressure in that fight. And, come on Ariel, you know me better by now. I always tell the truth. You do, you do. Yeah, there wasn't a lot of pressure because, I mean, as I said, leading up to it in every interview I did,

you know, this fire was about me proving to people that I still got it. You know, I took a year off. You know, I had the injury and I came back and it was a disappointing return. And, you know, that's not what, trying to be one of the best things at a towel show. I certainly didn't live up to that.

You know, my last time I got, Tim's interview wasn't very good. It wasn't a good performance. It wasn't crowd-pleasing. And I lost it. So I had to prove to me. myself, prove to the UFC, prove to the paying public, my sponsors,

my management, my family, my wife, everybody that I've still got is that I'm still one of the best and I'm still hungry. And that's why when they offer me coming, I was like, great. He's got a great stylish big match and where we can both throw that to strike and give a fan-pleasing fight.

And obviously I went out there and I did that. You know, I'm still, and as I said, after the fact, I'm capable of better. You know, it was a good fight, it was a good stoppage, it was entertaining, I threw a lot of strides you know But as I said

I'm going nowhere I'm 35 But I'm performing better Now than I ever have done But to answer your question Yes You're right There was a hell of a lot of pressure

Going into that fight What was the difference Between that Michael Bisping Against Cungley And the one against Kennedy Was this just a better styles Matchup Where you

You know A little more back in the groove After having a fight under your belt I mean It looked That looked like vintage Bisping Perhaps one of the best Bispings we've seen

and, you know, you said to yourself, that wasn't a very good Michael Bispying against Tim Kennedy, but what was the difference from your perspective? You know, the difference, really, in hindsight, everything's 2020, of course. I took that fight too soon. I went from sitting on my backside for a year.

I couldn't train. I couldn't do anything to get my heart rate up because it would raise the pressure in my eyes. So I did nothing for a year. I was starting my backside, and then I went to England in January for a month. I did some TV work for the UFC there, and then from there I flew straight to Thailand,

and I filmed the TV show called Stry back for a month out there. And then I got clear, in that process, when I was filming, I saw a doctor in England, and they claimed me to fight. So upon my return, I booked a fight straight away, and six weeks later, I was fighting Kim Kennedy. Now, in hindsight, it was a little too soon, you know, from going a year, from never resting, doing any jiu-jitsu, you know, things like that, doing nothing for a year to find a main event

of a tough fight in six weeks. these time. It was too soon. What I should have done in hindsight was, you know, have a few months, get back in the gym, get wrestling, get sparring, you know, get used to dealing with guys like that. But of course, you know, like always in my life, I was a little too hasted. You know, I was impatient. I wanted to get back in there as fast as possible. I wanted to earn some money again. Obviously sitting on my couch for a year, wasn't generating any income. So I wanted to fight. And you missed the spotlight. You missed this. I mean, this is what I do. I wanted to get back in there. ASAP, I thought it was just the case of shedding a few pounds and getting my cardio up to scratch. What I should have done was get in there and really work on my technique for a while because it had suffered a little, but everybody's got

excuses, you know, and that's mine. I do feel it is legitimate, but whatever, you know, you live and you learn. It feels like, or at least it looks like the eye is getting better over time. Is that accurate? Yeah, my eye's fine now. I mean, the division

is a little impaired from what it was. but I wear contacts and, you know, I can't really tell. So, you know, I mean, obviously, there's still gas inside this, so, sorry, oil inside the eye. With the oil inside the eye, the rest of can never detach. And then when I'm done fighting, they'll remove the oil and things like that. But, yeah, you know, everything's fine on that front. As I said, the vision's really bad, but it doesn't affect me whatsoever when I'm fighting or sparring or anything like that.

So that whole, you know, that whole scenario, that's all behind. you know, that's old news. Hopefully, touch would. You know, obviously you've never fought Cungley before you did a couple of weekends ago, but let's be honest, his physique was called into question. After being in there with him, what did you think? Kosher or not kosher?

Oh, listen, you know, I thought me, listen, I would never disrespect anybody like that. I'm accusing. I would like to think that he just trained really hard and got himself in the best shape of his life because he knew he had a very, very tough. I'll tell you what, the guy certainly generated a lot of power those kicks. My forearms

are still really sore for blocking his kicks. You know, they certainly kept me honest. He threw with a lot of power. He was in great shape, you know, he really was. But I was expecting that. I was expecting the best currently possible. He was coming up a great win against Rich Franklin. And, you know, that's no easy feat.

Rich was a hell of a fighter. It still is. So, you know, I prepared accordingly. Fortunately, he was enough. to do the job. I want to thank all my coaches, in particular, Jason Perillo. And, you know, thanks everybody. But, yeah, you know, I'm assuming come just changing the backside off.

And what about them blood testing you afterwards? You called for this, and then they did it. And I don't think that they are, you know, related. I think they were planning on doing this before. Maybe you just didn't even know. But they announced it, and it was after the fight. Were you okay with that, or would you have preferred it be unannounced? To be honest, I would have preferred it if it was done.

maybe halfway through the training camp. Yeah. You know, I mean, I don't know the details of how things like this work, you know, but I'm sure it only stays in your body for so long. You know, I mean, he had two years from the Franklin fight. So I'm assuming if one was, and I'm not saying come, I'm saying if one was going to do it, you know, taking kind of substance you come off in leading up to the fight, I'm not sure.

So, you know, he's kind of pointless doing it on the night. I mean, who knows? Who knows? You never know. But as I said, it was a great fight, and I don't want to put a negative spin on it by alluding to things like that. You know, let's say I pop for the positive. It was a great fight, and I kicked his ass on to the next one. Talas. I like the laugh. Talas Lately's also called you out.

If you can't get Luke Rockhold, he's on a role. What do you think of that fight? You know, listen, I mean, I'll fight. I've always fought anyone anytime and it plays, and that sounds very, very boring. There's plenty of good fights out there. Tim Bowies just knocked out, but that's the virus.

Who else is that? I mean, yeah, how he's life as you said. To be like, I would prefer someone with the beginning end, you know. League Rockhold is perfect for that. League Rockhold really is to find that I would like,

you know, so I don't know who else there is, actually. And best case in it... Go ahead, sorry? Just a good fight out there. As I said, it's only been a week since my last fight. I was going to go back into the gym.

I was going to go down to a great training center today apart from, you know, you massively disrupted my schedule, Ariel. So, unfortunately, I couldn't do that. But I'll be back in the gym later this afternoon. I'm going to go ahead and some pads and whatnot. And hopefully, I get a match line that pretty soon because I want to be back in the octagon, ASAP, certainly before the end of the year.

Okay, that was my last question. A perfect time. Is there a card or a date or, you know, a month that you really want to get back in there for? I mean, it's just been the end of, what is it, the first or Saturday of September. So we still have plenty of time of this year. I would love to fight again before the end of the year. I'd be pretty disappointed if I did it, to be honest.

So, yeah, I'm assuming my manager and myself will reach out to, you know, the guys out there, Dana, et cetera, and see what they can come up with. I mean, as I said, I'm still hoping I get the Rockhold fight. I would love that fight, feeling that, you know, I want to build on my last performance and keep doing what I do. Well, I hope you get it as well, and I'm going to die trying. because I think it's just crazy to get a fight like that,

have it fall on your lap, and go in a different direction. No disrespect to the other Machita. Great fight. Great fighter just fought for the belt. But this is true. I mean, and by the way, you're both around the same spot.

It's not like it doesn't make sense for you. And I mean, it just, I don't get it. Unless there's something I'm missing and I'm not privy to all the conversations. Right, you know. As I said before, it would be a good fight to be a good fight to watch. You know, believe Rockwell talks a lot of shit, you know.

He knows what. Hey, that's falling session. He got his eyes case, and he knows it. So he's coming out of all this crop. That fight ends one way with me winning. But, you know, listen, UFC is a listening. I would love you to sign it. Everybody wants to see this fight.

I want to see it. Let's do it. But, you know, it's up to that domain. Michael, thank you, as always. Unfortunately, we couldn't see you on the Skype, and I know you always have a great Skype connection, so I was really looking forward to seeing your wonderful face, but we'll save that for next time.

I appreciate you joining us and taking out some time from training. Congratulations. It was great to see you back on the winning track and looking forward to the next one. Well, thank you, Sheriff. For all those that were shudders by not being able to see my fans by the sky. Tune into UFC tonight tomorrow because I'll be co-hosting it with Teddy. So you have to get a good look at it, Ariel. I look forward to it. Fox Sports One. I believe they have a great insider on that show. Oh, excellent. I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure. I've heard some shady things about it. All right. Thanks, Mike.

All right. Take care, guys. Bye-bye. There he is. Fox Sports 1, by the way, 8 o'clock Eastern Time. Tomorrow, he will be on the show with Kenny Florin. Now, of course, on that show, they'll be talking about Friday night in Connecticut. A great card from the UFC headline by Jacques-Are versus Musassie and Alastair Overeign versus Ben Rothwell on a fight. I'm very much looking forward to Derek Lewis, who is undefeated thus far in the UFC 2-0 against our old pal, Matt Mitreone. He joins us right now from Connecticut. are you?

What up? Hey, I do a little buddy. It is great to have you on the show, great to hear from you. So what's Foxwood's like? I've never been there, even though it's only two hours from where I live. What's it like over there? It is isolated. It's a really beautiful and natural scenery, a ton of really pretty green trees.

I bet during the fall, it's a really pretty place to be. But there is not a whole hell of a lot to do here, a little buddy. So you're not very inspired over there? No, I'm sitting in the room. with my teammate, Sean Soriano and De Nello Villa for it. And as soon as we get done, we're going to have the excitement of going to work out.

All right. I'm like a really exciting thing to do. So pretty worked up over, buddy. Well, we appreciate you joining us because I know it's Fight Week and all that. By the way, you mentioned both those names. They are members of the Black Zillions. You're still a Black Zillion, right?

I am and I believe will be a member of the Black Zillions until I retire from getting punched in the face and try to take over your job. But until that time, I believe unless they send me up for adoption, I believe I'm there for good. But you're one of the rare guys who isn't managed by Glenn Robinson, but still a member of the team, right? Yes, that is correct. Gwen and I, we got along really well.

It's just sometimes, you know, you get to split apart and do some other things. But Gwen was a good manager to me, and the camp is really good. And I believe I'm a beneficial member of the camp also. Like, I helped the camp out as well. So, you know, it's a mutually beneficial relationship, and everything goes well. Everything goes well. We all get along really well. And, of course, you are managed now by Adi Atar and the team over at Paradigm.

They do great work. Michael Biss being a member of that team as well. So I got to ask you, because the last time we saw you was Las Vegas. We never saw the payoff. You never actually fought. It was supposed to be against Stefan Strue of UFC 175. He has to pull out of the fight, of course, on just a couple minutes notice. He faints backstage.

We know the story by now. But it has been brought up again as of late because Dana. White posted this video blog just a couple of days ago of what happened behind the scenes. And I got to say, you know, knowing you for quite some time, I mean, the way you handled that and went up to Stefan and comforted him as he was crying and you were just about to fight the guy, how difficult was it to make that switch? I mean, you're in the locker room, you're about to fight a guy, you want to kick his ass, and then there you are two minutes later rubbing his back while he's crying.

How surreal was all of that? you know to be honest with you it wasn't really that difficult I appreciate the kind words and all but we're human beings that's what we are and that was a really hard moment in his life

probably one of the most just code he's ever had to experience to date and as a human being and as a friend like just because I fight him doesn't mean I don't like them so as a human being you need to console somebody like that

that's a really hard place to be I would imagine and it was it just felt like the right thing to do. But how do you shut it off? Because, you know, we talk about fights getting delayed. Oh, you're peeking for a certain date. You were, you were about to go out. I mean, your hands were wrapped. You had your gloves on. You were all checked out by the commission. How do you get off from that high and then just say, all right, you know, I'm going to go watch some

fights? How does your body react to that? This is going to be probably going to be a strange thing to hear, but I don't really get that worked up about fights. Like my, I feel like I don't get that emotional about it. it's more like, oh, you know, okay, it's time to go. But, like, no, we warm up. We get a little worked up over it, but most of the time I say, we'll be back in a couple of minutes, you know, and it's, all right, cool, let's go do this.

It's not, I mean, you don't get worked up if you're about getting a bar fight, you know, you just kind of, you react to it, let it happen. It's kind of the same thing, at least for me it is. It's not really that emotional of a situation. It's business. My favorite part of... Go ahead, sorry.

Go ahead. No, it's good, buddy. Go ahead. My favorite part of the whole clip was you telling Dana White, And I think someone was with him. I don't know if it was Joe Silva. I can't remember. But at first your reaction was, F, you, F, you.

Like, that was your immediate reaction to the boss, man. Why did you react that way? Oh, I mean, you know, you get excited about it. Like, you're, like, you know, like, you're warmed up. And, like, first of all, you're thinking, like, no way, dude. You're kidding around. There's no way. That's never happened before.

I mean, you know, and then you find out, like, and you look at, like, when Joe Silva walked in, Joe, you don't ever see Joe. You don't ever see him before a fight ever. You see him only afterwards at a press conference or if you get a bonus check or if you did something really stupid, you know. And so when he walked in, I looked over at Chris, my mentor, I looked over at Chris, and Chris looked at me and he's like, I don't know.

And so that's when we kind of walked over and that's when Dana walked in right afterwards and said, and I was like, no way, no way. That's you. No way. What did you do for the rest of the night? What did you do? I don't really remember. to be honest. We didn't really do that much. It was, like, we watched the fight for sure.

And then, you know, I think we, you know, it's nice to be appreciated by people. So, you know, went and took some pictures and signed some water grass and sat in the crowd and chilled a little bit. But I think that was really, for the most part, that was it. And then went back and check on Guto, my trainer partner that was fighting the next night. We'll like to check on Guto and make sure he was doing well and just tell him that, you know, that I'm proud of him. I was excited for the world to see what he's going to be able to do. And I think really that, no, I think we went gambling and, little bit. Chris and I threw some dice, and I played roulette. So we kind of sat around and

chilled. My fat friend Wood was around, so we just hung out with him, too. So this is where things get interesting. Oh, by the way, yes? I've got to, I've got to clarify it. My fat friend friend would have told me to specify it as fat with a pH. Oh, okay, okay. Well, then he's very cool. Thank you. This is where things get interesting because the very next night they had the tough finale. And as you mentioned, your friend, training partner, Guto, you know, Sensch, was fighting Derek Lewis. Derek Lewis beats him and then gets on the mic and calls you out, knowing that you just, you know, you were supposed to fight and you didn't get a fight, says he wants a piece of you.

And from what I heard, correct me if I'm wrong, because I wasn't in the actual arena, I was backstage during the interviews, you were very vocal and demonstrative in accepting this fight. Even I heard from one person got up on your chair and said, you know, bring it on. Is that what happened? you know I was I think I was up on the chair dancing like a stripper

actually at the time so and I think that and I couldn't hear him I wasn't paying attention to what he was saying and then and then Dominic Cruz looked back and was like that dude

just called you out and I was like what he said yeah he actually called you out twice and I was like oh hell and I know like no offense to Derek

I had no idea who he was and and so I was like I was like whatever and I said something to Mike Murch about it or whatever. And then, but when I told, one of my fight got canceled,

I told Dana and Joe Silva the night, like on Saturday night, when my fight was supposed to happen, I told them that I'd fight anybody in the world ranked ahead of me as soon as possible. And, you know, and Derek,

Derek wasn't, Derek, is it ranked ahead of me. You know, he's only had two fights in the UFC and I didn't know who he was. So it wasn't a fight I was really interested in, regardless of being called out or not.

And then Joe Silva called up a couple days later and asked me about it, and I told him that I wasn't really that interested in it. and then and then Dana called up a couple you know about 20, 25 minutes later and said, hey, this is a fight that we want you to take. I said, all right, the boss is going to call me. That's what I'm going to do.

How often does that happen? Not very often. Right. See, at that point... Not very often. Unless when you do something bad, right? It was unfortunately I've heard that side a couple of times. So you knew nothing about this guy upon,

I'm sure you did some research upon watching his story. stuff, what do you think of him now? Do you think he's on your level at all? I think I'm going to beat him. You know, I think he's got, he's in the UFC, he's 11 and 2, he's got a good record. You know, he's done enough to get here. That's for sure. So, you know, we'll see, we'll see in a couple of days if he's worth his fault. Like I said before in a couple of interviews, if you're going to call me out by name after a fight,

then you better be worth your assault because you're going to get everything I got. Because I got something to represent now. and I've had a fantastic camp. I've had a great camp. I feel better than ever, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, I'm not going to change much of what I do normally. I'm going to come out there. I'm going to throw heavy leather. And if your face can take it, cool. If your legs can take it, cool.

You know, if we go to the ground, that's where he wins his fights. Yeah, well, good luck. We'll see what the hell happens down there, too. But I think I'm pretty good right now. I think Henry moved, and my turn to partner is back up in Indiana. I think we've all got me pretty good, pretty ready. Was it hard to get up for the fight initially because you didn't want to fight him and didn't know who he was? No, but I'm still not really up for a fight.

I just, I don't get up for it. I don't get up for a fight. I don't really get that excited. You know, at times I get excited about, okay, cool, I'm going to go get paid. Let's go get this thing done. But for the most part, it's still, it's kind of work as usual. He called my name out, but I'm not going to go out there and find emotion, man. I'm not going to, I punch everybody as hard as I can when I punch him.

So it's not only going to punch him extra hard, you know, or kick him extra hard or do some kind of awesome Bruce Lee spend something I don't normally do. I'm liking your vibe very much, just out there in the public, social media and whatnot, the tweets, the family stuff, I really dig it. I got to ask your Twitter avatar is an old lady, I believe she is sewing. What is going on there? What does this mean? You know, I think that's just that woman right there is a microcosm of my internal self,

of my, is that my id, my ego? Is that my id? My internal self right there. Okay. Internally, I think I'm an old lady's sewing, so I think I am. So that's, because I see a lot of fighters. Like last week we had Roy McDonald, he changed his photo to a lion. John Jones has done this as well.

You go with the old lady sewing. Oh, thanks about that. Yeah, that's me. That's who I am. Well, you know, I did have, I had like the trip-top picture of Johnny Depp from leaving Las Vegas, you know, like, like the one from Honduras Thompson. I'm not being in Las Vegas.

What is? What was that movie? The one, what's the one? Hunterst Thompson. Oh, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Yeah, Fear and Loathing.

I had to shoot that picture of Johnny Depp was as Fear and Loathing. It was all psychedelic and a really cool photo. And my name was Daytripper just because I, the photo inspired me, call myself a daytripper. And then I got word from a little birdie, not from the USC birdie, but from another birdie. Like, hey, that picture makes everybody think. you trip on acid on a regular basis. So you should probably take that off and change your name from day tripper. And I was like, oh, that's probably a good thought, I guess.

So I changed it. I was not matured for a while with my picture. But, you know, sometimes you just, even if you're as narcissistic as narcissistic as I am, you get tired of looking at yourself sometimes, bud. Sure. So I decided to let my soul shine. How's the weight these days? Because I also noticed yesterday that you said that they made you sit in the front of the plane

to balance things out. So, I mean, are you packing on a few extra or what? What is that? I have a way to call somebody fat. Excuse me, so we have to bounce a plane out with like 75 other people on the plane and they make me get up and move from the back left to the front right. And I didn't even get to sit in first class. I just moved the fat kid up in the corner.

Brutal. You know, it was, my weight's actually pretty good. It's similar to what it was against Drew. I'll be high 40s, low 50s, somewhere down there. I've been getting leaner. It's not on purpose. But I've been eating a tremendous amount of granola instead of...

instead of kick-cats and twigs bars. So maybe that made a difference. So you go into this fight, you seem to be, as I said, and correct me from wrong, you're in a good place, right? I mean, it seems like everything's coming together for you now. Is there any difference between this, Matt, and the one we talked to, you know, a year ago? Well, you know, the one year ago,

I was in the midst of a handful of really stupid decisions. and stressful life. But I think I shook that quite a bit. And I think, you know, like I said, I'm on a good path. I'm happy. My family's happy. My kids are happy. I've got, you know, a lot of my troubles are far behind me.

And I feel great, dude. I feel really good. And whether it's mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, or whatever it is, I feel great, man. I feel fantastic. And I'm really happy. And I can't wait to go out there. It's unfortunate that Derek Lewis can have to get his ass kicked for it. But I can't wait to go out there and get him.

get paid and put on a great show. That's great to hear. And how about your old pal Halwani attending a fight night event? I always said I'll never miss a Matt Mitrione fight. And now here I am, I'm going to be there in Connecticut. That has to inspire. Hey, I got to tell you this, the fact that you lower yourselves to come hang out, inspiring, and it makes me excited to be part of the USC again.

Wow. Once you can come down to our level and hang out with the, with the, with the, Mr. Robs, you're doing something. And I really appreciate that. Thank you so much for joining us, Matt. Best of luck. Can't wait for the fight. I'm really looking forward to this fight.

And the whole card in general is a fantastic one, as they said. It's a hell of a card, huh? It's a hell of a free card, buddy. Especially, like, being next door to Bellator, too. I don't see how they can pull a crowd in with who we got. So I think it'll be pretty awesome, man. I'm pretty excited. Yeah.

Top to bottom, it's a great card, great main event. Your fight is great, over him, of course. So looking forward to it, and thanks for joining us. I know it was short notice, and you're busy over there, so I appreciate it. I'll see you in a couple days. No problem. Hey, I got one more for you. I know probably running over time. I want to tell you, my friend, teammate, Sean Soriano, is the curtain jerker on Friday night, and I think he's going to put on a hell of a show.

It should be a great easy, and practice, he's a hell of a worker, hell of a fighter, and I think that if he can get off, you guys are going to see something that's very impressive at 145. Yeah, he's fighting a Chas Skelly, who just fought two weeks ago, and if you call him the curtain jerker, in our world, that's a good thing. Remember your old pal, and there he is. Once again, he finds his way into the interview. Sean McCorkal was once the Kernan Jerker. So, hey, that's a good label here. Yeah, you're right.

The Curtinjerker is a good thing, buddy. Sean's a good thing, buddy. Sean's going to go out there and do work. I'm excited to watch them. All right. Thanks, and best of luck to both of you. Thanks, Lodge. I appreciate it, buddy. There he is. Matt Mitreone. A good teammate, giving a shout out to his buddy, Sean Soriano,

who faces Chas Skelly, taking this fight on two weeks notice. Faud in Tulsa. Now, here he is, back again. Top to bottom, as I mentioned, Chris Beal on the card. Sapo Natal, Aalai Aquinta, John Maraga, Justin Skagins, Nick Lentz, Charles Oliva, which is a great rematch, Joe Lozahn, Michael Kiesa, Mitreone Lewis, Rothwell, Overeem, Musasi, Soza, aka Jacques Cerey, that is going to be good stuff. All right, let us move along. As I mentioned, before UFC 177, Dana White posted a video blog about, essentially it was showing the behind

the scenes of UFC 175. Two very interesting things about that video blog. There were a bunch, but the two most interesting things, in my opinion. The Mitrione Struff stuff, and, of course, Uriah Hall, and how he reacted to his toe, almost falling off in the middle of his fight, persevering, defeating Tiago Santos, earning the respect of the entire MMA community, and, of course, winning the fight, getting back on track.

I mean, it was just a great night for Yerai Hall. I've been trying for quite some time to get him on the show. Very happy that he obliged, and he is joining us right now, via the phone right here on the MMA hour. Uriah, how are you? What's going on, man? Great to have you on the show. I got to ask you first and foremost. How is the toe?

The toe is pretty much healed up. I would say around 95%. Doctor said no high impact. I've been moving well. I feel pretty good. And just, you know, I've been doing a lot of therapy. So I'm pretty good. I don't recall seeing many interviews with you after the fight.

So I'm wondering, how exactly did this happen? Do you have any idea? Do you know the moment where this injury occurred? Yeah, it was sometime around the first round. I threw a front kick

at the exact same time that he threw a front cake and I just struck a little shift in my toe, but it's strong, but I looked down to kind of see what's going on and I look down

and I realized it was off the side of it, oh, breath. So I just kept going and I just kind of blocked it out and said, all right, I got three more limbs. Let me just keep going. So you noticed right away that something was wrong?

Yeah, I noticed right away when something was wrong. It just shipped. I kept moving on it to see how well I can move, but I didn't realize how I'm pouring one little toe is, which you moved on. Did it get worse? Do you think you actually made the injury worse as the fight went on? I think I did because it definitely shipped a little further out,

and my bone got a little further out. And from the video that they were watching me screaming, I was screaming so much because the toll was so far over, it was hard to get back in the right place. And what happened was they didn't even fix it. I had to go to the emergency room, and it took, like, five doctors. I mean, just kept trying, and, you know, this lady finally got it back, but it was really far over, and it was stuck.

In hindsight, are you somewhat shocked that they let you, you know, continue to fight with that kind of injury? You know what? It's all about body language. Yeah. That's something about my coach is teaching me before the flight just to not, you know, let certain things get to you or show it. And that was one of our training, man. And I just remember the feeling of the pain.

I was like, okay, I'm good. And I just try to stand up to let him know I was fine. And I was hoping it wouldn't stop the fight. But I figured if I can't move and I act like I was okay, you know, they would just say, all right, he's good. It doesn't look like he's been any thing. in all your years of competing in combat sports, have you ever felt anything like that?

I did, actually, back in my room of combat days. I broke my hand around the second round. I was throwing a punch, and I threw a hook or something, and then the bone just kind of stuck out in my glove. I remember trying to make a fist, and I couldn't make a fist, and I just kept, you know, I held them down until the rest kind of spit us back.

up, dance around a little bit. And when I got back to my corner, the first thing I said was, hey, I broke my hand. And he said, all right, well, take your left and throw your right. And I went back out there and took my left to my right and knocked them out. Wow. Which fight was that? That was a Ring of Combat. I forgot what number was, but it was against Song Long the Song.

Oh, I see. Ring of Combat 35, April of 2011. Yeah. You won in the third round. Wow. How many stitches did you need? I think I got around seven. Oh, wow, that's it.

Yeah, it's a seven. Have you seen that clip that Dana posted, and what was it like reliving it? It's tough, man. But, you know, it just kind of motivated me, too. And I used to teach kids, and a lot of the things I taught kids was to proceed through any, you know, circumstance.

No matter what, you know, life is going to hit you and throw you some curveballs. But you just got to get back up, okay, that's it, and keep going. So I just kind of remember being in those, you know, circumstances and training. You know, my old sense that used to push us, man. When we had nothing, he would always say,

you still have stumps in here. And it was just that mindset that was carried. So for me to just block that out, I was like, all right, I've been here before. And I didn't know if you knew my toe was broken, so I kept kicking with it because I figured if you realize my toe was broken, you probably would have stumped on it or took advantage. So I kept people with my foot, but all right, I hope they didn't figure it out.

Perhaps what was most interesting about the whole scenario was, as you know, many people in our sport, including U.S.C. President Dana White, called your heart into question, your determination, your motivation to be an MMA fighter. All that talk has gone away. I mean, after what you did in that cage back in July, no one could question that. Afterwards, once the dust settled and you were able to recover and start to feel better, did that hit you? to like, okay, I finally proved to people in the UFC on the UFC level that you can't question my heart, my desire to be a fighter at all?

Partially it did, but it goes back to say, you know, I know who I am, and in the past, I made some mistakes. You know, it's kind of hard for me to adapt to that, and you tell the level of the UFC, and I didn't just take it in,

and, you know, I was afraid, and I kind of looked at the fear just grasped me, and I guess not being around certain positives, and, like, you know, Chale as much or others, he just either got the best in me, or I just got in my own head.

But, you know, even Chale said it, the only person could beat me and myself, and I just think I'm getting better. And like I said, I've been there before where I hurt myself, so I kept going and forgive me to say, I just went back to the whole screw it phase, or I just said, you know, screw everybody,

screw everything, it's all about me. Did you think of that during the fight? Like, this is a great way for me to prove all these people wrong and shut them up. Did that ever enter your mind? Not at all, man. Because at the end of the day, I'm not doing for anybody.

I'm doing for myself. And that's what a lot of people don't really understand. You know, I get to go in there. When that door locks, no matter how many trainers I have or whatever, I'm in there alone. So if I can inspire in the midst of all this, I feel great because I feel I can uplift someone else's life. And that's how I look at it.

But I really don't care. I mean, people are going to love you, people are going to hate you. But at the end of the day, it's my dream. I'm just trying to achieve it. You mentioned that you were afraid, and that's not a word that we hear a lot in this sport. Everyone's, you know, so many alpha males, tough guys and whatnot. Were you legit afraid to go into these fights?

You were scared about what would happen. You just didn't feel ready. You were too nervous. Can you describe how you were feeling? To be honest, I was mostly afraid of what I would really do to someone. You know, I realized this potential that I carry and this guilt that I carry. I guess people saw a couple episodes of that on the toughhouse, but I was nearly afraid of just letting go and completely demolishing someone.

And, you know, I'm not a killer. I don't know how to kill someone. And some people could say, yeah, I need that killer instinct. And I thought I needed that, but I really don't need it, man. I'm at my best if I can just dismantle you and just take your part. I let you leave that and saying, wow, I guess I'm not that good. That's the competitive nature that I carry. You know, I got beat you up, but I don't have any to kill someone.

So it was hard for me to just unleash that. But, you know, when someone sees that in you, just say you're different or you're weird or whatnot. And I guess I just kind of let all that clever everybody said got in my head. But, you know, it's all about learning and moving forward. In hindsight, do you wish that you weren't on the show? Do you think that if you just would have been signed to the UFC

with less fanfare and scrutiny and all that, things would have turned out better sooner? No, man. The show did wonders for me. Just being that an uncomfortable environment where there was nothing else to do, I took it as a stepping stone to build my character, build myself in my mindset. So it just taught me to be outside my comfort zone.

And a lot of people would talk stuff. Everybody was patient, but unless you've been in that situation before, you have no idea what it's like to be, you know, separated from the world where there's no nothing, no TV, no nothing, and all you have at each other. drama is going to happen because you live with someone you have to fight and compete with. So those small little things are going to escalate, you know, and it was just right where I needed. I was a bad place in my life and I needed that student to just kind of question myself. And some alone time is really good, man.

A lot of people don't have a lot of long time to just reflect or just learn or just build themselves. So I definitely think that the tough out did wonders and re-end up then. What was going on in your life? what's that? You said you were in a bad place in your life. What was going on? I know, there's some personal issues. I rather not share.

Okay. Let's just say I needed to be there at that given time. And I just completely stepped outside my comfort zone. How do you feel about being a part of the MMA community, like the culture that is mixed martial arts? Because you often say, you know, you're not a fighter. You're a mixed martial artist. But yet in the sport, you know, sometimes, like I said, it could be very alpha male-like, a lot of testosterone and trash talking and all this. stuff. Are you proud to be a part

of all of this? I am, you know, and I'm just different and I guess it's just a threat. When something is different, you don't understand it. Automatically you treat it's a threat. Or you think it's weird. And everyone on, you know, a certain van wagon, I'm not,

man, I'm by myself, you know. I don't think a certain way or whatever. I don't, I'm not afraid to go in there at anybody, you know, win or lose, and that's why I look at it. But it's just hard to explain because people think, well, you got to win, you got to win, you got to do this. And in the martial arts world that I was brought up in, winning are losing, you're still gaining something. You win, yeah, you gain something, and you lose, it makes you appreciate the wins more,

but then you go back to the drawing board, okay, what did I do wrong, and how can I, you know, correct myself to get back on that wind street or get better or stronger. But if that's the type of mindset I carry, and that's why it's hard for everyone to see that because I'm just, you know, another way by myself, but I don't mind that, you know. Someone could be across the ring from me and they can have their mentality, they're going to kill them, they're going to do that. I really don't care. You know, I'm just going to go in there and get better.

Which team are you a part of now? What's that? What's your team? Like, which team are you a part of these days? I'm training in range with Martininos in Orange County. Okay, but you do still live in New York, right? Yeah, I'm probably going to make a move out there. Me personally, I like to travel and compete again, you know, whatever.

Like, I go to other gyms and I train too. Because, again, it's just stepping outside my comfort zone. And I go to Black House. You know, I get my ass handed to me and I still go back. And, you know, I get better. I went to Kings. You know, I just like the competitive nature to say, all right, if somebody different, how do I mix up with them?

So for me, it's just grown. For the longest time you were part of Tiger Shulman's, what exactly happened there? I've never been able to figure that out. You know, a lot of people don't know it, and again, it's something that I'm not going to get into. I'm going to write a book someday, though, so I'll talk to that. And then I'll explain everything what happened. But a big part of it is I just needed to leave.

And you look at certain training or, you know, whatever in life, you get to a certain point, and you just either have to move forward. If you don't, you just feel stuck. And a part of you felt stuff. And again, it's more around my surroundings, you know. Like, lately I just find a lot of either fake people or people just come up with a lot of bullshit and you're not there for you. You know, those are your like constituents. And, you know, I'm all about having my confidence around me and my confidence at this day.

You know, people are out of there for me. You're ready to help me deal and I'm not just getting a ride that a van wagon. As soon as you're not doing good, they're the first to be like, all right, I'm out. Well, you're real friends. You know, they're there for you no matter what. Did you get a lot of that after you lost two in a row in the UFC? I did get a lot of that. And even though it was before, you know, when I came out to tough house,

you know, people that I knew who were like, and I really spoke to just come to my life. Like, hey, man, me, I'm like, no, I don't. And it just, it sucks. You know, I see how people are just mistaken. And then they're the first thing that changed. And I'm like, wait a minute, you're the one that changed. You know, where were you when I wasn't somebody.

So a lot of that, you know, It mess with you love it, especially when we're alone. It makes it hard for you to trust people, and then all people can do is just come for their own speculations, and they just have a certain perception of who they think you are. But as long as you know who you are, that's the most important thing. That's why for me is like, I don't really care. If people are going to judge, you're going to say things, but they don't really know you. So then why would you beat yourself up? I only have one life when I get to do this once on this planet.

And at the end of the day, I want to say, you know what, I did it for me, and I did it right. And now are you starting to feel like people are coming out of the woodwork again now that you're back on the winning track? I don't really focus on that and pay attention to that. You know, people come here and there, but I'm just focusing on what I need folks. Right now, it's just getting better. You know, I've got injuries. Still have a couple injuries to actually spurn my ankle before the flight. Wow.

So it was often a knee-eat-and-you-kick. And, you know, he was catching with those low kicks because it was hard to react. But, you know, stuff like that, I just blocked up because I just feel. focus on what's important. And I just move forward. The sprained ankle, did it almost cause you to pull out of the fight? You know what? It wasn't

healing, and a part of my training, we had to run, so I have to modify that by doing biking. But, you know, I had my sports med guy, Melvin, and had fixed me up, like, a day before, man, and he massaged the hell out of it, but it was still giving problems, so I have to, like, put this ankle

brace on it. I remember throwing from same kick, but I just couldn't finish fast and just slowed me down. So when the toe broke, my left ankle was nice, both my feet were pretty much gone. So I said, all right, and I got my hands left. Let me just keep going. But, you know, that was my battle. I thought something I had to brag about. It was just my battle.

So I feel good at the end of the day to say, hey, I made it through all that. By the way, that adversity that you dealt with at the beginning of your UFC career, how much of that can be attributed to changing camps and everything going on? behind the scenes. What do you mean? You know, when you deal with some transition, when you leave a team or people who you have been with for a long time, I mean, maybe that can affect the way you perform, your confidence, there's just some trials and tribulations going on.

I mean, that, you know, a new chapter always brings, you know, new kinds of challenges and whatnot. So I'm wondering if just being a part of a new team, changing camps, et cetera, affected you in any way as a fighter. You know, anything new is always going to be difficult. And when I search camps, and the biggest reason why I pick Rain, Martin Mueness is just such a general good guy. And he reminded me of myself. Really nice guy he took me in.

I actually went out there to just try it out. But he was like, hey, man, you belong here. You should be here. You should train me. I love to train with you. And, you know, he was like, I want to, you know, you're striking to help me. And I was like, do you're wrestling. You want any. So we just helped each other out.

But in any gym, you should be able to. You're always going to have that alpha male. You're always going to have that one section that looks funny or whatever. And sometimes pride, sometimes ego, and sometimes they need it. But I'm at a level where I don't need it anymore. Maybe when I was younger, I needed that to say, oh, there's new blood in the gym, let me build up or whatever or have that territorial mentality. But I'm at a middle level now where I feel more mature where I don't fall into that.

But I'm very comfortable at rain. You know, they're a great guy. They help me. I help them. I get my ass kick. But it's just all about getting better and improving. I'm just focused on what's important. How much longer do you want to do this for?

Well, as long as my buddy told me to go, I mean, you have to any athlete that they're going to say, as long as I want to go, man, it's hard for athletes. Just say I quit. Right. Because, you know, this is something that we put our life into. You know, your body is constantly involved in doing stuff like this, and, you know, you love the competitive nature of it.

You always want to be the best. And at some different point, you want to have to give up the glove, and it's a hard transition to just say, all right, I'm done. And even for people who say I'm done, you know, it's still in their head because, you know, it's a gift,

and it's hard to need away that gift. But for someone who doesn't really do it on our outside watching, it's easy for them to say, all right, man, it's not for you to quit. But as long as I can keep going, man, I'm going to just take as far as I can. Hopefully I can do it until I'm 60.

60. You want to be an active fighter as a 60-year-old? Well, why not? That would be something. You'd certainly blow Randy. you could tour out of the water. By the way, considering the injuries that you're dealing with, like when would be the ideal time for you to come back?

When do you want to come back? I want to get back as soon as I can. Maybe December, looking into that, trying to get us some clear medicals to say I get to go. It's not that, you know, the ensign card would be dope. I was looking to shoot for both because, you know, I felt like I haven't been too active, but I hope by the end of the year or right after.

And to be clear, you said the Anderson card, right? The one in late January? Yeah, that would be sick. Do you have an opponent in mine? I had someone in mine. You know, I find that, man. It's on the paper stuff. What does that mean?

You know, they have some issues. Yeah, I don't want to say here, you know, something that I explained to either my agent or either Joe. And I don't want to say anything on air about it. but it was just a good matchup, and I just thought that it would be great for me to get back in there with. But, you know, they have some issues going on, so we're not going to do that. But, you know, whoever, man. Is this person someone that you have a... Yeah, exactly, whenever, wherever, whatever, whatever.

There you go. Is this someone that you have a personal issue with? I wouldn't say personal issue. I just think that is a great matchup. I mean, for me personally, I like to go up against people that are good and better. And if you're better, you know, I get ass with them or winning or whatever, I still game. If you're good, man, I want to see how well I match up. It's not an ego thing to say, oh, I can beat you.

Hopefully I can, but I just like, I love that competitive nature. If you're good, I want to get there because, to me, it's coming out my comfort zone. I'm not going to, you know, do baby steps or whatever you want to call it. or, you know, it easy fights or whatnot. Why else do it? By the way, one last thing before we go and really appreciate the time.

Great having you back on the show. You mentioned Chale a couple times. A tough time for him, retiring and his issues in Nevada. What's your take on everything that's happened to him over the last couple of months? You know, from that political side, I want to look at that.

She was my friend first, so I always treat that. You know, he's helped me, he's helped me to, you know, get to a level where I am today and turn ways. And that's the chill I know. I don't really focus on all that stuff. You know, everyone does things and people make mistakes. And, you know, you learn from them. You move forward and you can just be better first.

Not everyone's evil, but I don't really pay attention to it. I don't want to say anything. I don't really read the news about it. You know, I saw some stuff about drug testing. I know Chil personally. We were hanging up before I came out to the fight. He's a great guy, and that's how I look at him. He's my friend, so.

Is it possible he might corner you in the future? You know what? I hope he does, because Shell's a man, and he helped me allow him to show. I even told him, too, man. You should go into coaching, man. You're good. He's really good.

And a lot of people won't realize this, but, you know, you take that grappling match you just did. You know, a lot of people saying, oh, yeah, he's this and that, he sucks. Joe went outside his comfort zone, man. That's one of the biggest things you talk to you. No matter what, you still want to grow because you're stepping completely outside your comfort zone.

So even if you lost in that, and I still respect him for doing that because that's a hard thing to do. A lot of enemy fighters, you know, they don't want to do that only because I don't want to look bad. I don't know when I was going with a local guy out here and he almost tapped me out. I was like, shit, I won't look bad.

A local guy pat me out and they're going around there. I beat your riot. So it's going outside of your comfort zone, man. That's a lot of people can't, see. I respect to that. Well, Uriah, glad to hear that you're doing a better. Congratulations on that win. That was a sight to behold, especially the, again, the heart and the perseverance, the termination, all that. Fighting through that injury, a gruesome injury back at UFC 175.

Looking forward to your return, and congrats on the two-fight winning streak. Didn't have a chance to talk to you after the fight. You're doing great things, representing New York very well, and looking forward to the next one very much. Thank you. I really appreciate it. All right, there he is. Uriah Hall stepping up into the... the MMA hour here. Great stuff out of him. And if you didn't see that fight, wow.

What, what a, I mean, if you didn't see the fight, go look at the Dana White video blog that he posted late last week, just his reaction afterwards. They don't show the actual fight, but them working on him in the back and the pain, the agony that he was in, just seven stitches. Pretty amazing. And a big win for him against Tiago Santos. A tough guy now. He has won two in a row.

And I wonder who he's talking about, but nevertheless, looking forward to who they match him up against next. All right. Let us move along. Last guest of the day, very much looking forward to this one. This is going to be very interesting stuff. Way back when, when I started in this crazy world that is mixed martial arts media, one of the top MMA media outlets at the time was a site by the name of five ounces of pain.com. Great site, great reporting, broke news all the time.

Just, you know, you had to visit this site multiple times a day when it was in its heyday. And the face of that site, the brains behind the site, was a guy by the name of Sam Kaplan. And then afterwards, once he moved away from the site, started working behind the scenes in television and whatnot, and most recently was one of the Belator MMA matchmakers. That run ended very recently, late last month. So we thought it would be interesting to talk to him about that experience and just his evolution in the world of mixed martial arts. So we welcome in Mr. Sam Kaplan to the show right now. Sam, how are you? Ariel, it's good to speak with you.

It's been a few years since we talked, you know, on the phone. Yes, it has been many years. I can't even recall the last time we had a chance to chat. So I'm looking forward to this very much. First things first, let's start with today. But I got a whole host of questions for you. And I know you want to announce a couple of things as well. Why did your time at Bellator come to an end?

Of course, we know about this new era, so to speak, but why were you one of the very few, it seems, to leave the company since Scott Coker has taken over? Well, I think, you know, it's a new management, new direction, and, you know, I think if you follow, and I followed, I've followed pro sports for quite some time, and, you know, it's not uncharacteristic when there's a change in ownership

or a change with the, you know, team president that some of the personnel in middle management is often let go. And a lot of times it has nothing to do with merit. It's just the prerogative of the new ownership or the new leadership to bring in people that they've worked with in the past and that they're comfortable with. And I think with the case with the case of Scott Coker, he had a very successful company in Strikeforce that he sold according to published reports for over $40 million. And his primary matchmaker, when he was there, was a gentleman by the name of Rich Two.

And it was Scott's prerogative to bring Rich in. You know, they had worked together for quite a few years and were very successful together. And Scott and I really, you know, hadn't worked together in the past. I mean, we were familiar with each other, but we'd never worked with each other. So, you know, it made a lot of sense for Scott to bring in a guy that he was comfortable with that he knew. And, you know, it wasn't something that was that surprising to me. As soon as that, you know, the change, you know, with the CEO at Belltor's announced, I knew that, you know, there could be another shoe that was going to draw.

and that shoe could be me. So when Scott was brought in and then Rich, you had a feeling the writing was on the wall? Yes. And from what I understand, you weren't the sole matchmaker. Zach Light was also a matchmaker at Beltor, even though for a long time it was dubbed as,

you know, no matchmakers need and whatnot. It was you and Zach running the show over there, right? Yeah, we've always had a matchmaker, and when we started out, it was just me, but the workload was just so tremendous and it just kept growing and growing that Zach was bringing. brought in. I was the VP of talent relations, and Zach came in, and Zach did a tremendous

job, and his workload grew over the years as well, and he's a very key figure there, you know, in the Bellator matchmaking mix for sure. And again, from what I understand, Zach is still a part of the company, and you're not. Why is that? You would have to talk to Scott, but I know that, you know, Zach lives in Orange County. Okay. And, you know, I was a VP of Talent Relations, so, you know, I was in a middle management position, and I think there's a different price tag that comes with that middle management. spot and, you know, Rich was going to come in and definitely, you know, he was going to have, you know, the

clout and the credibility that, you know, someone of a vice president was going to have. So I don't know if there was enough room in the salary structure for two vice presidents, you know, in one department. You know, Bicom definitely has a lot of resources, but it, you know, I think three matchmakers was definitely going to be overkill. And in addition to matchmaking, Zach does a lot of other things. That was very instrumental in helping Belvoir to raise it to, uh, that, uh, that, their attendance. In addition to traveling to all the actual shows for the event, he would go

into city and city by city prior to the shows, maybe one to two months prior, and assemble local undercard and get the grassroots marketing and the grassroots, you know, further going amongst the local MMA communities and really helped sell tickets. And that was a key to Bellator really boosting their ticket sales. Any hard feelings now? Absolutely not. You know, Ariel, I had a great run at Bell tour is four and a half years. I had a tremendous opportunity to match, make over a hundred shows there and learn a lot about this industry and this great sport. I had the opportunity to work on a pay-per-view. I had the opportunity to work on a reality show. So for me, what the opportunity that I was given in this sport by Biacom, Bjorn Rebony, Tim Donahur,

and Spike TV are, you know, those opportunities were a lot more than what a lot of people in this industry get to, get to, you know, encounter. There's a lot of great talented people that want to get into the MMA business and be a part of it, but unfortunately there's not a lot of opportunity. So I'm very grateful for everything that I've had a chance to do. What are you most proud about your time at Bellator? Is there a specific prospect that you sign that turned into a star, a fight, anything that comes to mind?

You know, there's a lot of, you know, a lot of the work that I did there. I'm very proud of and a lot of the work that we did as a team at Bellator. I'm very proud of. You know, I think specifically I could point to, you know, bringing Mike Chandler into Bellator. that was a six-month negotiation process, and he had had a couple fights with Strike Force, but being able to get him to come over to Bellator

and be one of our marquee guys and really develop him and bring him up from a guy who only had three or four fights to the fighter that he is now as a former world champion and a guy that's going to be competing for the world title in Bellator again pretty soon. That was definitely something that I, you know,

am very proud of. And just the general work that we did as a company, You know, there aren't very many, you know, in fact, there really aren't any major companies at this level that have tried to operate in the same space as the UFC that have endured and have lasted. There's been some companies that have done some great shows and done some good things like Strike Force and, you know, several other companies. But Bellator is still going. It's, you know, the longest enduring number two player in the U.S. And, you know, it's been going on for several years and it's going to keep going for several more years, you know, at least and probably years beyond that. What was it like working for Bjorn?

Because as you know, a very polarizing figure in our sport. What was your experience like? You know, I knew that question was going to come up. And, you know, I want to give a very honest, fair answer. You know, I want to treat the question with respect. And, you know, I also want to treat with Bjorn with respect. So, you know, I don't want to, you know, kind of, you know, I don't want to give a fake answer here. And I'll just be honest and say it was very, the relationship between Bjorn and I was very tense at times.

And that, that tension went both ways. There was some days where, you know, Bjorn. was, you know, very difficult on me. And there's times where I was, you know, a difficult guy for him to work with. It just was a, you know, when you're in the MMA space, you know, at the level that we were operating at, it was, it's very stressful, you know, there's a lot of hours, there's not much downtime. And, you know, there's, you're pretty much consumed by this industry, especially with the

level we were operating at, not too many people, you know, can understand that. But, you know, tensions, you know, would flare up at times. You know, it's because, you know, guys weren't sleeping getting enough sleep. Guys were traveling half the year and not really getting to see their families a lot, and everyone was making sacrifices. And, you know, I think Jordan and I at a certain point became too familiar with each other where, you know, we wouldn't, you know, soft shoe or soft talks, you know, certain things. And we would just come out and, you know, to say how we really felt.

But, you know, but, you know, Bjorn gave me the biggest opportunity. of my life thus far, and I'll always be grateful to him for that. And there are times where we got along great. It's just, I think that the creative process between a promoter and a matchmaker, you know, it is one that, you know, a lot of people don't get to see how the sausage is made, so to speak. But, you know, the end product that Bjorn and I always, I think, produced was a very strong one. We all, you know, to the rest of the company, I think we always put on a professional face.

But, you know, sometimes the creative process, you know, behind the scenes and putting out the end product was a little frustrating intense at times. But, again, you know, Bjorn was a guy that I have a tremendous amount of respect for. He's someone that created a new platform in this industry that didn't already exist and a platform that provided many, many people and fighters in this industry an opportunity to work and showcase their talents that otherwise may have not had that. opportunity and, you know, me being one of those people. What did you make of the decision to let him go and then to bring in Scott Coker? In your opinion, was that the right call? I think the right call was transitioning Bellator to a different format. And if Bjorn wasn't open to making that transition, that, you know, it was definitely

the right move to bring someone in. The tournament format was tremendous for Bellator as a startup when it really didn't have an identity and it was looking to distinguish itself from all the other entities out in the MMA space. But after a while, the tournament accomplished what it was supposed to do, which was to create stars. It created Michael Chandler. It created Pat Curran, Eddie Alvarez, and Daniel Strauss, and a host of other guys.

But at a certain point, those guys, as they get older and their bodies, you know, accumulate wear and care, they cannot go back into a tournament system. So, you know, if you have a guy like Mike Chandler and he's your champion and he's only fighting three to four times a year, every three to four months. He fits into that. But what do you do with a Daniel Strauss or Pat Curran on Eddie Albrez if they're not your champion? You know, they're not exactly dying to go back into a tournament format, but you have so much

brand equity invested into them. You can't just release them and let them go elsewhere. You want to be able to continue to work with them, you know, in a very, you know, premium capacity, you know, in main event level fights. But the torrent format wasn't allowing you to make big fight. outside of World Title fights. And I think that this format is more of a freestyle format. It's what Bellator needs to do to grow and get to the next level,

and I think it's going to work out great. What about getting away from the seasons and doing a show essentially once a month a la, you know, the old Strike Force? Is that the right call? That is absolutely the right call. It's another thing that I really think is going to help the company out. Because, you know, when you're doing 11 episodes back to back like that, it becomes episodic in nature.

You're not really putting on events. You're putting on TV episodes. that are very template. And I remember reading some of the media out there. I think Luke Thomas put out a great honest a while back talking about how, you know, Bellator was just doing shows that kind of blend together, whereas they weren't doing events that kind of stood out

that got people excited. And I think with Scott's vision of what he wants to do, you're going to see those events that really create a critical mass that will drive bigger ratings, drive more media coverage, and more attention from the general public, about the fight and the fight shows that are being produced and promoted. How stressful is it being a matchmaker?

I mean, did you actually enjoy this process? Because I see Joe Silva and Sean Shelby a lot, and sometimes they don't see it. I mean, just look at this past weekend in Sacramento, just crazy things happening. Joe Soto ends up fighting for the belt. And did you enjoy this job? You know what? I loved it.

To me, you know, the fight business, there's no business like it. And as a matchmaker, every day was different from the next. It was never mundane. It was never boring. And that's one of the keys in my life that I've always tried to follow is to live a life that isn't boring and, you know, that isn't the same carbon copy, you know, template over and over again. So I love the job. But, yeah, there are some tremendous obstacles that you face. And there's some very stressful situations.

And Ariel, I'm not telling you anything you don't know. MMA, there's a, you know, in MMA dysfunction is functional. That's, you know, that's the norm. And, you know, there's a lot of great people that I love dealing with on a daily basis. And there was also, quite frankly, some lab jobs that you encounter the kinds of people that you maybe wouldn't normally encounter, say, in a corporate-type lifestyle, just some real crazy guys, you know, managers that would just come out of the woodwork. And, you know, that got stressful at times. But, you know, I love the job. It's so unique.

It's so much fun. You know, I hope to continue in a talent relations-related position in the sport. And, you know, I just love this sport. I think it's tremendous. And, you know, there definitely are some times. where, you know, you lose some hair, your hair goes gray from all the strats, but to me, the upside and the reward, there's nothing like it. One of the things I always appreciated about you when you were in the media was you always

told it like it is. I mean, like I said at the top, when I was starting out, five ounces of pain.com was a must stop. I strive to be that great as far as a site and as far as reporting is concerned, and I truly mean that. Was it tough for you while you were a part of? Bellator, and let's be honest, at times, PR-wise, they didn't have the best reputation, and they were, you know, they were being slam left, right, and sometimes maybe unfairly,

sometimes fairly, sometimes it was kind of in between, and you were now a part of the machine, you were the big bad promoter, so to speak, and you couldn't weigh in on the situation and tell it like it is. Was that hard for you, since you did come from that, that media side? It wasn't hard for me not having a voice and not being able to address criticism directly. it was hard seeing some of the good things and the positive things that we were doing as a team overlooked. And there was definitely some mistakes that we made along the way. You'll never hear differently from me on that. And I'll take full responsibility for some of the mistakes that we made.

But there's a lot of great things that we did for fighters and a lot of good things that we did as far as their treatment. And that really never got that side of things rarely ever got brought up. but you know that's just part of the business that's how you know things work and you know it is what it is and you know our function wasn't really just to go out and you know just do things to appease you know media members and you know maybe get a few good headlines that the the goal was to put on a great product on TV that people could tune in and enjoy weekend and week out as you know recently bellator released eddie alvres he has since signed with ufcs fighting don't serone at ufc 178 one fight left on his deal was that the right call in your opinion

opinion. Yes, it was the right call because, you know, from a pure business standpoint, it didn't make sense to put him in with a guy like Mike Chandler or Will Brooks and give him an opportunity to beat those guys on the way out. Now, might it, would have made sense to maybe put him in with, you know, another guy like a Rick Hahn or someone like that, that could give you a good fight, possible ratings straw and get one more, you know, rating spunk out of them. You know, maybe you could have gotten some play out of that, but that would, you know, any, you know, He wasn't a cheap, you know, he wasn't a cheap date. You know, he has an expensive price tag and he makes what he makes. And I think it was probably the right call not to invest that money in a guy that's not going to be a part of your future. When was the last time that you were a part of the MMA media? Oh my God. It's probably about five, five and a half years. Do you miss it?

I missed having a voice at times. But it was a grind. And I could. Ariel, I can't imagine what you go through now with UFC doing 48 events and, you know, World Cheers of Fighting, doing all their shows and Bellator doing 25 shows. I mean, I remember when we did it, there would be weeks off. You know, there'd be weekends that we could spend with our families and things like that. It just seems like you guys are going every single weekend, and now you're doing multiple shows in a weekend.

I can't imagine what that taste and what that grind is like. So safe to say you're not going back to MMA Media. I might do some things here and there, but I don't think I will ever do anything that was quite ambitious as 5 ounces of pain.com, where I was covering the sport 24-7. You know, there's definitely something I'm going to do media-related, and I guess I can announce that now, myself and Jason Floyd, who does the MMA report.com, we're launching a podcast called the MMA Insiders podcast that we're going to do on a weekly basis, and we're launching that tomorrow. Oh, wow. So that's definitely something media-related that I will be doing. I don't see myself doing what I did when I was running 5 ounces of pain.com. Well, that's cool.

I am a fan of Jason Floyd. I think he does tremendous work. So where is this going to be hosted? Where's the home of this podcast? Well, it'll have several homes, but you can get it at Radioinfluence.com. And also via my Twitter at Sam Kaplan M.M.A. We'll post the show probably a little after 1 p.m. tomorrow. And what, like, what are you talking about?

Is it just the news? interviews, what's the content? Well, we're kind of, you know, putting a target on our shoulders by calling ourselves the MNA Insiders podcast, but I feel like we can deliver in that department. I feel like we're going to be up for the challenge. And, you know, for example, for, you know, this week we have the head-to-head battle between the UFC and Bellator, and I was involved in some of the matchmaking process for the Bellator side.

So Jason and I are really going to try to give an insider's perspective and some behind-the-scenes info on some of the drama that went down behind-the-season info on some of the drama that went down behind and it seems leading up to, you know, this Friday. And, you know, there's going to be some interesting information that we reveal to the audience about some things they may not have known about. Yeah, and this is very fascinating because it's never happened before, especially on this level. I mean, back in the day, pay-per-view versus like an MTV two show, it's happened. Most notably, UFC 139, when it went up against, you know, the Henderson Shogun fight,

number one, when it went up against Alvarez Chandler, number one. But it's never happened like this cable TV versus cable TV in the same. state, no less. Is there anything you could tell us about the matchmaking? I mean, what's your take? Did Bellator do this to counter the UFC? Did the UFC counter Bellator? What's your take on it?

And is there anything? I know you'd want to save it for the podcast, but as far as the matchmaking went, did you do anything differently because you knew you were going up against the UFC? Oh, absolutely. This card is tailored as a head-to-head. You know, it harkened back to the days of WCW versus WVE,

and this really was, you know, an attempt on our part to put our best foot forward to do as well as we could in the ratings. It's not something that Belator asked for as a company. I don't think we wanted to go head-to-head with UFC on a Friday night, especially not in our opener. But, you know, the decision was made by, you know, by the UFC to schedule a show on that date at Foxwoods. And, you know, that there was probably some consideration to maybe not doing the show.

But I think that the wheels had already been set so far in motion that it would have been it would have been tough to cancel. And once we knew we were going to be locked in for that show, we definitely redid our card and made some matchups that we otherwise probably wouldn't have made for that first show and would have tried to have saved for later on in the season. Wow. Like what? You know, Bobby Lashley, you know,

we were talking about possibly debuting him a little bit later. You know, we weren't too sure Bobby was going to be ready to fight that soon, especially because he's having such a good run in T&A. right now and they're doing a lot of tapings and he's very involved with that and he's traveling a lot to do wrestling but I knew I knew that once Scott came in Scott said hey you know we gotta get Bobby on that show

because he can bring a different audience that might not have normally tuned in for the show who do you think wins the ratings war on Friday? My money if I was a betting man would be on the UFC however you know it would

you know if Bell Tours somehow Eats out a win there it wouldn't shock me either I think that the UFC is taking a very big risk in going head to head. You know, the other situation that people will probably monitor is, you know, the attendance. And the UFC is going into an arena,

I believe, that doesn't seat more than 4200. And the Mohican sun where Bellator is going, you know, I think the way it'll be scaled will probably seat $5,500 to $6,000. And from last I heard, ticket sales are going very, very well there. So, you know, I'm sure the UFC might do a bigger gate

if the casino doesn't do a lot of comps. because the UFC ticket prices are higher, but they're, you know, very well, it could be a scenario where more people are in the actual venue for the Beltoe event than the UFC event. What's your take on MMA media these days? I think it's a lot different than when I was covering it, you know, five, five and a half years ago. I think that, you know, there really isn't much to cover outside of the UFC because they're doing so many events. you know, the UFC is the trailblazing the industry. They're the number one company, and there really isn't much need for content outside of covering the UFC.

If you only wanted to cover one promotion, being the UFC, there really isn't any, you know, there really isn't a need to go out and look for other things to talk about and drive, hit to website. You can just sit there and watch UFC and just cover UFC and really not have to focus on anything else. So it's just the UFC has just come in and really flood at the market and has made it tough for, you know, outside competitors to come in and, you know, build their

branding sort of get a foothold in the industry. And the media, you know, a media operation only has a budget to cover so many things. And, you know, the MMA budget for a lot of, you know, a lot of companies out there is only so much. And the UFC, you know, is the number one company, you know, in the industry right now. They drive all the hits and all the traffic. So you're going to put all your money into that. And it really doesn't leave a lot less. for the other promotions that receive coverage.

But as far as the quality of the reporting and, you know, just, I just remember you were one of those guys that you always used to be very tough on these things and strict about them, and you always talking about sources and things like that. You always want it to be right. And just, you know, there's a lot of new reporters out there. There are a lot of new outlets that weren't covering the sport when you were a part of the media core. Do you think it's in a good place?

Is it progressing like you thought it would? or do you think it's moving slower than you thought it would? I'm not, you know, it's a tough question for me to answer because really I know who I know, and those are the guys that I follow. I mean, I follow guys like you and Jason Floyd and Luke Thomas and Josh Gross. I mean, the guys that I am familiar with and trust, you know, I kind of sort of isolate myself only to the guys, you know, and there's other guys that I read as well.

I don't want to offend anyone. But I kind of isolate the more established familiar names, And there could be new reporters out there that are doing a tremendous job, or they could be doing a terrible job. I'm not really sure because I'm just, you know, I haven't had a chance to fall. And I was so busy with Bellator that when I, you know, when I did go out and read stuff, I didn't have a lot of time. So I made sure I focused on the people that, you know, whose opinions mattered the most to me was whose opinions were I was most familiar with that, you know, if I was going to read anything, I wanted to read what they had to say. Five ounces of pain is still around, although it's much different than when you were in charge. What happened there?

I mean, did you just sell it at some point? Did you get tired? I mean, why did you move away from it? You know, it wasn't the kind of thing. I was so busy with matchmaking. Even before I was with Bellator, I was doing some matchmaking for M1, Titan fights and Matrix fights and Philadelphia, and I started to manage some fighters as well.

It just became, you know, a lot of people said, hey, look, it's a conflict. You know, you don't have the time to invest into it and really monitor it, and it's also a conflict of interest. Um, you know, it's the bad is a fighter and work for a promotion and also have a media site. Um, you know, it just, it was, it was tough to balance all of that. So it just got to a point where it made sense to sell it to another company and just move on. By the way, did you agree with the decision to let Ben Ascran go?

We had him on the show earlier, Curries, what you thought about it. That was a tough one. Uh, you know, I thought we should have made maybe a little bit more of an effort to resign him. I know that there was an offer for him to come back, and I know it's been reported that there wasn't, that we didn't want him back. There was an offer to come back, and it was more than he had made for his previous fight with us,

but it was minimal at best, the increase. I thought maybe we should have offered him a little more and tried to retain him, being that he was our welterweight champion. It might not have been enough anyway to keep him around, but I know Ben wasn't happy with the offer that was made, and he felt he was worth a lot more, and I think he got what he was looking for from one FC,

and I'm happy for him for that. But, yeah, I think we should have made maybe made a little bit more of an effort to have retained him. Did you think you were close to getting Gilbert Melendez? That would have changed a lot of things, in my opinion. What did you think? Do you think you were just a pawn in all of it, or did you think you guys were close? I think it would have changed a lot of things, Ariel, and I would say this. If Gilbert Melendez had signed with us, if that had gone through

and the offer had not been matched by the UFC, I think Bjorn still might be, you know, with Delapy. Wow. Why? I think because he, I think, you know, Rampage Jack, we got a lot of, a lot of play from Rampage Jackson. He really changed a lot of things for us and really brought in some new viewers and, you know, increase the ratings a little bit and put us in a position where we could actually, you know, not just talk about doing pay-per-view, we could actually do it.

And I think we needed a couple more guys like that. And I think that had Bjorn gotten Gilbert Melendez and maybe another guy like that of that Ilk, another big ratings driver, a guy that you could put on pay-per-view, a guy that was going to get everyone excited. I think that he would have been able to continue with his vision for the company at least a little bit longer. I think it might have been a validation to the higher-ups that, you know, what Bjorn wanted to do was the right way to go.

And I think by not getting Gilbert, you know, I just don't think we had enough firepower to get the ratings that, you know, no one told me this specifically. This is conjecture in my part. But I don't think we have the ratings and the eyeballs, and I don't think we had a sticky enough product for us to continue with the format that we had been using. Have you talked to Bjorn since he left? I have not. I've spoken to Tim Danaher.

He actually called me a day after him and Bjorn departed Bellator, and he, you know, it was a very nice call and he had a lot of great things to say. And, you know, he's just a classy guy. And, you know, I thanked, you know, him and Jorn are closed. And, you know, I thanked him personally. And I said, hey, if you talk to Bjorn, make sure you thank him as well. I'm just appreciative, but we have not spoken since he had departed Bellator. From what you gather, were they blindsided by this, or did they know it was coming?

I think Jorn probably knew it was coming, and that's speculation on my part. I don't know that, but just, you know, based on my observations and working so close to him, I think he knew that it was coming. I don't think he knew, I would say I think he knew it was a possibility. I don't think he knew it was going to happen when it did, but I could sense that he wanted to, you know, take the company one direction, and Spike and Viacom wanted to go in another,

and that he felt passionate that his vision was the right way to go. And I don't think he was, you know, it was tough for him to buy into the direction that Spike and Viacom wanted to take it. And, you know, George's smart enough to know that, you know, he was no longer a majority owner, and the majority owner called the shots. And I think that, you know, I got the impression that if there was going to be major changes to the format, that was going to be completely different from the company that he started,

that he probably wasn't going to want to continue running, you know, a company that really didn't reflect his vision. Do you agree with the decision to bring back the women's division, this time, 145? I think that, you know, if it draws and gets fans excited, and then the fights are great, then it's a tremendous decision. I think Marluse Poonen is tremendous, and she's definitely a superstar in the women's division. And, you know, there's some interesting names at 45 that Bellator can look at. So I think that anything that Bellator can do to generate ratings and create bigger fan interest is a great decision. And I think that, you know, Scott can carry out his vision with the female division and kind of do some of the things with the females that he did with his Strike Force Women's Division.

That it's going to be a great decision for him. And what about the inevitable Stefan Bonner versus Tito Ortiz fight? As a matchmaker, what do you make of that? I think that's a fun fight. I think that, you know, Stefan is a guy that has been a favorite of mine for many years, and his fights have always been exciting. He's a well-rounded guy, and, you know, he's not exactly young, but he's not exactly too old to come in and compete a little bit at 37.

I think he fits into the Bellator Light Heavyweight Division, which is kind of their marquee division when you've got, you know, the names like Rampage and King Moe and Tito and of course Emmanuel Newton who's their champion, I think Steppen fits right into that and I'm going to be really excited to see that fight. I think, you know, I respect Tito and the career that he's had, but I think if that fight happened, Tito's going to have some problems with Stepan Bonner. By the way, you used to work in production for Showtime.

Do you think they get back into it? You know, that's another interesting question. And I've heard a lot of different things. And, you know, I really haven't talked to anyone there specifically about getting back into the MMA business. But from what I've heard, they absolutely have, you know, a potential interest in doing so.

The stumbling block there has been the inability to find the right partner. I think if the right partner came along, it wouldn't surprise me to see them dip their toe back into the pool a little bit. But, you know, right now there just aren't a lot of viable options. They're not going to do, you know, regional mid-major shows on their network. I mean, showtime is just a tremendous reputation

in combat sports and, you know, they put on some great shows with Strike Force, and, you know, they're boxing. They're really just, the job they're doing with boxing is just incredible, the way they've grown it over the last several years. So they're not going to come in and do shows with mid-majors or regional companies. They want a, you know, prime time player, a best in show type of promotion to come in and partner with. You know, at least that's my perspective on things.

So I think it's something like that came along. It wouldn't surprise me to see them bring MMA back. to their network, but as the way things stand now, I just don't see that happening. All right. So from what I understand, you got the podcast. It is posted tomorrow at 1 p.m. And that's your first episode with Jason Floyd. And I also understand you have another announcement, right?

Well, actually, two more. Two more. Wow. Yeah, I'm definitely going to be staying in the fight game and the fight promotion business. One of the promotions that I started out with as a matchmaker is a promotion here in my hometown of Philadelphia called Matrix Fipes. I'm going back to where it started. And my friends there at Matrix, Jimmy Finn, Jr.,

and the Biglorese brothers, Bill and Rick Bigloress, or Helson, Gracie Blackfelt, and they have an amazing school balance studios here in Philadelphia. They are the founding owners of the company. I've been lucky enough that they're bringing me in as an equity partner, and we're getting back into the fight promotion business with Matrix, and we're going to be doing a show here in Philadelphia in December. So we're really excited about that,

and we're going to have more details coming up in the next few weeks. and we're going to be putting on a big show here for a lot of the local fight scene, you know, people. And also, you know, Ariel, earlier in the interview, I talked about managers and some of the crazy personalities I had to deal with. And, you know, I decided, you know, over the last year to write a curriculum for managers helping them grow their business, help them, you know, increase their level of professionalism. And, you know, I have a new website called FightSeminar.com. And on Saturday, January 17th, in Philadelphia, I'm going to do.

to be hosting a seminar for fight managers. It's going to be, you know, from an insider's perspective, you know, managers aren't going to help out other managers, but I'm someone who's worked on the promotional side of the business. And I've seen a lot of the mistakes, you know, a lot of the mistakes that are being made by a lot of management firms and a lot of managers and some of the positive things that are being done by management companies that are working to great success. And I want to work with, you know, managers and help them grow their business and be successful. many people that want to make a full-time career in the MMA business, but they just don't have that guidance or that insight.

And I want to be a source that can maybe help some managers really change the way they do things and just take their business to the next level. I like it. So, again, you said January 17th, right? And what's the website? Fightseminar.com. And I'll have information and details about everything at my Twitter address. At Sam Kaplan M.A.

And that's Kaplan with a seat. Yeah. And you also have a website which you've been blogging at samcaplin, mMA.com. A couple of interesting posts thus far. So I do encourage everyone to check that out. This has been a lot of fun, Sam. I really appreciate you coming on, and it's been great to hear from you. It's been a while, as I mentioned.

Congratulations on all your work at Bellator. I know you signed some great fighters, put on some great fights, and did a lot of good work. And maybe to a degree, didn't get to flex your muscles as much as you would have like, given the constraints of, you know, the promotion. But, you know, really happy to hear that everything's, going well for you and that you have these other gigs already lined up which is pretty impressive to say the least

and keep us posted on everything I'd love to have you back on the show talking to you the insight is great I'm going to check out the podcast of course love the insight it's been it's been a pleasure sounds great Ariel thanks for having me on I appreciate it all right there he is Sam Kaplan former Bell Tour matchmaker former

MMA media member still a part of the MMA community great insight into the world of mixed martial arts really really enjoyed that so best of luck to and check him out on Twitter, Sam Kaplan MMA, and also Sam KaplanMMA.com. One of the guys who, when I started, was very nice to me, and really, in my opinion, was one of those guys who was doing great work in MMA media. It was actually kind of sad when he left.

I remember when he signed with Pro Elite, and he received a little bit of heat for that because he was kind of working for promotional website, but also running his own website. But this is a guy who broke a lot of news and did it the right way, in my opinion. and there was a void when he left. And happy to hear that he now has a voice to a degree, and I look forward to seeing what he does. So that does it for today's interviews, this week's interviews. Let's move along to Inside the Vault,

and it's kind of funny, this week's Inside the Vault interview, actually is from a time when Sam Kaplan was still around in the world of MMA Media, Five ounces of pain, very much thriving at the time. We go back to May of 2008, and this is just a couple of days before the first Elitexie show on CBS. Now, why do I share this interview this week? Well, I got to admit, on Friday, I received the best gift, the most unexpected gift that I could receive. Really? I mean, this was amazing.

How I felt it was like, when I saw this, it was like seeing a long-lost friend for the first time in over a decade. For the longest time, and I had mentioned this on this show, for the longest time, I thought that all our interviews from the late great MMA rated.com were gone. When the Wasserman Media Group, which used to own MMA-Rated, as well as many other sites, sold it, sold the parent company of all these websites to some other companies. I don't remember what their name was in November of 2008. Shortly thereafter, they deleted the entire YouTube page. Forget about MMArated.com, which ceased to exist shortly thereafter. They even went as far as to delete the entire YouTube page, which never really made all that much sense to me.

I used to try to find these old interviews. I mean, MMA rated in my time there, and that was my real first job in mixed martial arts media. I had done jerrypark.com, which was my own site, just to get my foot in the door. I didn't care if 100 or 100,000 people went to that site, as long as it was the right 100 people. And I've told this story many times. I started it in October of 2007. I gave myself a deadline until April 1st of 2008. If I could not get a job in MMA media, I was going to go back to TV production.

And come March of 2008, I was pretty much done. I mean, nothing was happening. It was very hard to get my foot in the door. There weren't as many outlets out there, weren't as many shows, et cetera, et cetera. So I started to look for a new job back in TV production. With just a few days left, I was going to stick to this deadline. With just a few days left, though,

received an email, back and forth. We went from mommaradded.com. I told them I wanted the keys to the car. They wanted to do this MySpace of MMA, which I thought was a horrible idea. They had the ability to upload video. I said, we got to do this differently. we got to start doing video interviews.

Mike Flag, stand in front of the camera, not ask questions from behind the camera, just do it a little more professionally, and people will start to come to us, break some news as well. And the site launched in April of 2008. And it only lasted until November of 2008. So what, seven months?

But I thought we did some great work. And we were pretty much on the outside looking in because the UFC wouldn't credential us. They didn't think we were big enough, we were too new, whatever the case may be. We couldn't go to any UFC events. So at the time, and I'll always be very thankful to these people, we were covering Elite XC, the IFL, Affliction, you know, the other promotions, strike force, other promotions that were doing good things, but not the UFC. Still at the time, there were some big stories to cover. I did go to a few UFC events and sit in the stands, bought a ticket and went to some, you know, periphery events like UFC 84, I sat in the stands for that event, but I went to Extreme tour and other gyms. I even hung out outside of the Wands, interviewed Maham Miller in an infamous

interview where he called me Scoot McGillicud. He asked me how I got in. So we were kind of hanging out on the outside. Well, one of the big events that we were able to cover was the first Elite X-C show on CBS. And just days prior to attending the first media event of Fight Week for that show, which was a big deal, Kimbo Slics versus James Thompson, I had posted an interview that I did. for MMRATED.com with Forrest Griffin at Extreme Couture. And this was a very strange interview because he kept putting his hand on my shoulder. And he kept hugging me and interrupting me. And it was just, I guess it was a little awkward.

I thought it was fun, but that's kind of Forrest style. And I remember posting this interview. And I remember MMMania.com reposted it. Took the embed code, put it on their website. And I remember then reading the comments. And this was the first time. I mean, remember, this is May of 2008. I just started doing the video stuff in April of 2008.

this was the first time that I really got a sense for how cruel people can be online. And I started reading the comments. And man, oh, man, did I feel like crap? I felt, I felt like worse than crap. I mean, some of these comments were so mean. Some of them were so insulting. And my feelings, oh, they were just killed. I was so sad.

I was, you know, youngster, sensitive, not the thickest of skin. and it just, it affected me greatly. And I remember reading this the morning of this press conference that was supposed to take place, I believe it was at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square. Kimbo Slices was going to be there, James Thompson, Phil Barroni, Gina Carrano, their opponents, Jared Shaw, Gary Shaw, they're all there. But man, did I feel like crap? At that point, I didn't want to do this anymore.

At that point, I said to myself, this isn't for me. I can't deal with this criticism. How am I going to survive in this? I mean, people are taking shots of me, calling me a weirdo, making fun of my nose, my appearance, my questions, all that stuff. I just felt like lower than low. But I was still going to cover this event. I went with a buddy of mine, John Rathman.

He was just a friend of mine who had a camera. We went to this media day, and I had the opportunity to interview Gina Carrano. And I've referenced this interview on this show before. Again, feeling very down, started interviewing her, had no confidence whatsoever. I didn't think I was worth a crap. I thought I was pretty much done in a few days. My days were numbered because I couldn't pull this off and people didn't like me. And there was a moment in this interview with Gina Carrano where it just got really kind of weird,

but I almost, in my way, I let my guard down, I put my cards out on the table, and I just was honest, as honest as I could be in that moment. And in a weird way, she didn't say much, but she gave me the confidence to keep going. And she reassured me that I could do this. If I just be myself and stop caring about what people think, and I'll always remember that moment, I'll always remember that interview, and I'll always be thankful to her for what she did, maybe unknowingly in that moment back at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York City. And when I found out on Friday that someone had revived this YouTube page for an unknown reason,

I have no idea why this YouTube page is still around. Roger Huerta won, I was looking for my first ever video interview, which was with Roger Huerta in April of 2018, and I just YouTube searched it and it was there. The entire YouTube page was back, the MMA rated YouTube page. What a moment it was. What a pleasure it was to see these old interviews. So I thought it would be only apropos to go back to this interview, which I haven't had the chance to watch in a long time,

which I never had a chance to share with all of you. Me interviewing Gina Carrano of May in 2008, the moment where I said, you know what, screw it, I'm going to go after this thing and I'm very thankful for that. Here it is, me interviewing Gina Carano May of 2008. Ari Hawani in Midtown Manhattan for the Elite XC on CBS Press Conference with Gina Karana. Gina, how's it going? Hi, good, good.

Are you sick of these interviews by now? There's so many leading up to this fight. No, no, there hasn't been that many. I kind of cut off the media for the last year week, so this is just kind of, you know, you got a role with it, man. You get a roll with it. Absolutely. I mean, you're probably one of the few within this whole group that is used to this stuff for all the American Gladiators business that you did earlier this year, right? Yeah, I guess, you know.

I don't know. What does everybody else doing? I mean, the press conference, the media, you're appearing on all these shows. Like, you're used to the limelight now. This is not new for you. Yeah. Well, I don't know if I'll ever be used to it. I'm kind of, you know, I don't know.

I don't ever get used to it. I don't ever get used to being in public or attention. I just kind of, you know, I'm awkward all the time. Right. And apparently so am I, according to the Internet. But anyhow, that's what they say. I don't know. You are not, I'm awkward.

Yes. It's true. Oh, sorry. What do you think? I don't think. I don't think... Did I have, like, an awkward vibe to me? No, but you hold the microphone here really long.

I haven't quite got it down, once to switch over. I see that. I see that. It's good. It's all right. All right. That's my thing. It's my calling card.

Maybe I should stick to radio. But anyways, Gina, let me just ask you... We just hold it, like, right in the middle. Just both speak into it. So, Gina, you were, when we spoke last... You said you were kind of unhappy about, you know, the time that you've had or the lack thereof to train for this fight. Right now, do you feel comfortable with the amount of time that you've had to prepare for this? Yeah, I feel good.

You know, I trained. I trained hard. And I'm just taking whatever I have in there with me and I'm going to do my best. So, you know, next fight will definitely be different. You know, I'll have a lot more time. But this fight, I've got what I got, you know. Final question before I let you go. I messed up the mic thing there again.

But everyone talks about this is huge for MMA, right? first show on network television. I think it's lost on some people that there's actually females fighting on this card and how big that is. I mean, it's taken MMA so long to get to this point. And female MMA fighting has really been around for the last couple of years on the forefront. You're leading the way. Are you surprised that it's happened so quickly to reach the mainstream level? I really am, and I'm really surprised that I'm here, actually. I don't know why I'm standing here, but, you know, I thank God for it, and I'm going to try to do my best. But I think it's amazing. And I think it's awesome that we're here and we're on this show and we're right up there with the guys.

And it's just really cool. So I hope it is huge, but I'm not going to put too much pressure on myself. You know, like this is just another fight, another fighter. And I'm just going to do everything I can to do the best I can. And then from there, you know, St. God's hands. Are we going to see another submission on Saturday? I don't know. Hopefully.

Hopefully. All right. Gina, well, best of luck on Saturday. And we hope for the best for you. Thank you. Thank you. So there you have it. How far we've come talking about women's M.A. Some of my favorite moments from that interview at the beginning, Scala, Jared Shaw, trying to video bomb us and get in the shot. Those god-awful track suits that they made all the fighters wear. You saw her wearing it. Scala was wearing it. I think Phil Broni was the only one who didn't wear it. Maybe even Kimbo Slice as well, but most of them were wearing it. Horrible stuff. Interesting to hear her talk about, you know, this was the first MMA fight on primetime. network television, women's MMA, and now, you know, we have the straw weights coming, of course,

Ronda Rousey doing her thing. If you're wondering, Gina did win that fight against Caitlin Young. She won via second round TKO, Dr. Stoppage. Back then, the rounds were shorter for the women, three-minute rounds. That was in Newark, New Jersey. She improved to 6 and 0 would go on to defeat Kelly Cobald, also on CBS later that year on October 4th of 2008. that was the ill-fated Elite XC heat card headlined by Kimbo Slice versus Seth Petrazzelli

last card in EliteXE history and then she would go on to fight Chris Cyborg the following year and that ended up being her last fight at least for now, Dana White maintaining that the UFC is close to signing her and I got to admit seeing interviews like that, it makes me

nostalgic for that time and it would be fun to see her back even though you wonder can she actually compete eat with Ronda Rousey five years later, five plus years later. But I'll never forget that one. That was a fun one. As you can see, the production quality, not all that great. I think our audio was messed up and it was very dark. But there are some fun interviews to be seen over at YouTube.com slash MMA rated. A fun, innocent time in my MMA reporting career and one that I'll never forget. So thank you, thank you, to the person who revived this. I don't know why you

did it, but I thank you so much, and please do not delete it again. I appreciate it. All right. Let us move along now. Let us take some questions, comments, queries, complaints. What do we got? What do we got, Mr. New York, Rick? No complaints. No complaints. I mean, the internet may have warmed up to you in the years. Oh, yes. Wow. Well, you know what? I'm not so sure about that. No, come on. Do you remember, like, what specifically they were saying that, like, really Okay, if you go back to the Forrest Griffin interview, it's around, I guess it was posted around May of 2008, and we're in the lobby, if you will, or the front area of the extreme couture gym in Las Vegas. And you know how Forrest, when you do interviews with him, like he kind of tries to interrupt and crack one-liners here and there. And I don't know what I was doing or my demeanor, my body language.

I don't know. I thought it was being myself. maybe what I was wearing. I don't know. People just hated it. They're like, this guy sucks. I mean, they had this hatred towards me. This guy is so awkward.

Awkward, awkward. I heard that word. I mean, I've heard that word throughout my entire career. And it was something, to be honest, I've never been called. Maybe a little bit. I got to admit, yeah, maybe a little bit. But to hear it and to read it on, you know, a public forum from people that you don't know, it's a blow to your ego.

I mean, look, even today, and I feel like I've improved a little bit. It's still hard to read that stuff. But back then, when it's the first time, it's like a major kick in the balls. I mean, it is tough. And this is, remember, this is before Twitter. This is before, was Facebook around?

Yeah, Facebook was around, but it wasn't quite at the same level. Certainly Twitter wasn't around. So it wasn't like, I had to go seek it. And I went out there. I will say back in the day, the U.G. was very kind. Now, probably not as much. But that happens, you know, when you reach a certain level, I guess people turn on you for whatever.

and back in the day they were big supporters, but it was these other sites. Ironically now, MMA mania, you know, part of the family here at SB Nation, but I remember MMA mania in particular, they just crapped all over me. Wow, did they hate me. And that was that morning. You know, here's a funny story. This might be a little TMI, but we went to go, I'll never forget that day because of how I was feeling. We went to a production, uh, uh, production, uh, what do you call these places, like a store or a company where you can rent equipment? Oh, yeah, okay. Uh-oh.

This is going to be good. We went to this place, and I ended up clogging their toilet. Okay, so, move on to the questions. It was so bad that it started to overflow. And I got the hell out of there. I told my, we got to get out of here. We got to get it. And this is before we went to the press conference.

So, like, not only was I feeling down about myself. I, like, screwed up this bathroom, and I ended up not returning. I remember I think I didn't end up returning the microphone because I was afraid that they would, like, come after me. It was just a rough time. It was just a rough time. So crap plays a very prominent... Well, I never said what I did with the toilet. I'm just saying, you know, it was a rough time.

All right. Well, I'm sure that was an exclusive story. I don't think many have heard that before. I don't think I've said that one before, no. So let's hit some questions. We've got quite a few. A lot of them in a similar kind of track. Okay.

So, you know, there may be like follow-ups. Some of them are similarly related. Okay. First one. What do you guys believe is next for Henan Barrow? Many members of the media are saying he should move up to 145, and Dana says he won't get a shot at the belt for a while if he stays at 135. If Aldo does defeat Mendez, what do you believe Barow should do in regards to what weight class he fights in?

In parentheses, the champ at 45 would be his teammate, and the champ at 35 destroyed him, and you couldn't make weight for the second fight against him. that's Aldo and Delissel, respectively. Yeah, well, if Mendez wins, I think you have a no-brainer. Aldo finally gets to move up. Burau moves up as well, and everyone's okay and probably a lot healthier. Now, let's just say we're taking this scenario, and Aldo wins. This is what I would do.

I mean, I still think he should move up because this is not a first for him. He's had some trouble missing weight, making weight, all that stuff. But if he is adamant in staying at 135, then more power to him. What I would do is I don't think he should be penalized all that much. I certainly agree with the decision to not give him a title shot. He got a shot and had to pull out 24 hours before. And I think that there's an interesting log jam at the top of the 135 pound division. Two interesting fights coming up.

One at UFC 178, Tkami Zugaki versus Dominic Cruz. The other one, October 4th in Halifax, Huffel, Sunsal, versus Brian Carraway. Let's see what happens there. And he kind of sucks for his Sunsau. If Cruz wins, I would really love to see that fight against Dilshah, especially if he looks good. If he loses and a Sunsau wins, then I give it to a Sunsau. If both of them win, I give it to Cruz, and then maybe we see a Sunsau versus Borough as the next number one contender fight. But I don't think Hannah Barow needs, I mean, guys, a miss weight. And I know this was a bad deal, and I know that, you know, there was a big spotlight on him, was the main event, all that stuff.

but I don't think he should have to go out there and win four fights in a row to get another shot. This is what should have happened to begin with. He should have had to go out there when, you know, two, three fights max, and then he get a title shot. I think one or two max in this case, and then he gets a title shot if he wins them. And by the way, I would like to see him take off six, seven, eight months. You know, I do think that it was too soon. I think Dill Shah, even though maybe he was trying to take a shot at him was correct in his assessment that this was too soon. I think he needs to give himself a break.

remember that fight was three months ago take some time off see what happens in those two fights in particular and then we'll go from there and it's important to remember he as he mentioned himself when he was interviewed by joe rogan he's done this cut a lot of times he's done it you know 30 plus times um and while it is a drastic amount of weight and he has you know not looked as healthy as one might hope um when he steps on the scale this is the first time he's made missed it. And it was because he actually physically couldn't continue. But this is not something that has been a common thing for Henan Brow. I think people are getting carried away with the idea that Nova O'Neo fighters cut a lot of weight, which is certainly a concern. Weight cutting in

general is a concern. But you really can't be too hard on a guy who this was his first time. Certainly, if you're the promoter, you have every right in the world to be angry. This was your title fight. It was a paper view that really hinged upon him competing. But in terms of people calling for him to immediately move up to 145, I'm not so sure I can get behind that. I think he's done all his work at 135. And if he wants to stay in this division and maybe, you know, take a healthier approach to the weight cut, I don't, I don't think that there's any rush for him to go up to 145. Now, certainly it would be healthier for him to go to 145. And I'll go to, too, but too. But this is, and Aldo to move up as well, but this is the sport. This is, this is the environment

that we're in currently. And there will be guys who are going to cut a lot of weight. And Aldo and Barow are not the only ones. There are plenty of guys at 135 who cut a lot of weight. There are plenty of guys at 145 who cut a lot of weight. So until this becomes a bit more of a concern in terms of multiple offenses, I'm not so sure that we can start saying that Henna and Barrow needs to move up to 145. He can definitely change the way he's cutting before we move to something more drastic. Let's not forget, though, that the general consensus seems to be that Barow would be be fighting at 145 if Aldo wasn't there. They're friends. They don't want to fight against each other. And for a long time, they were the best at 135 and 145 respectively. So that's why I think that

there are some, including myself, who would like to see move up if Aldo loses because this is a weight division that he probably wouldn't be in if Aldo wasn't around. You know what I mean? Okay. But he is in this division and he's done incredibly well outside of the one fight against DJ Dilloshal. He has, but it's, look, you get older, it's tougher, you lose, it's tougher. It's just, you know, I think it was a mix of things too.

I mean, he came back very quickly. That part concerns me much more. If, if, until I hear from him that the weight process can't be improved, Because I have a feeling that that was a big part of this, that he just wasn't doing it as well as he could. I mean, for a while, we heard that Daniel Cormier would die if he tried to cut to 205. And now he's fighting at 205. We heard this on a regular basis that because of, you know, the previous situation with the Olympics, it would be unhealthy for him to do it. But the problem, and he said this in the past, was the way he was cutting the weight.

Now he's doing it much healthier. there's ways for for this to be corrected without rushing him into a higher weight class just because you know it was it was the biggest of stages but this happens in the sport um sehudo uh had the same situation happened to him he wasn't in a title fight so obviously uh the spotlight was was not on him as much so hudo should send brow a basket of like those edible arranges i mean he he dodged a major bullet i mean the UFC is still pissed at him probably, but I mean, the scrutiny that he avoided because of Brow is unbelievable. Yeah. But so in summation, we've gone on this for a while, is I don't think that we need to rush him to 145. I think there's healthier ways for him to 135. Now, I don't think that that's the best weight class for his health.

But I don't think cutting weight in general is good for your health, whether it be, you know, not a lot or a lot. I think that the ideal situation is everybody fights in their in their natural weight class, but that's not going to happen. Until the system is changed to that being the case, it's just not going to happen. And we need to let the fighters fight where they want to fight. And I think that 135 is where Henan Burrell wants to fight for now. Two quick things. It's September. I'd like to see him take the rest of the year off.

A, B, let's not forget, hate to bring this up. But Novuniao does have ties to tragedies when it comes to weight cutting. Not all that long ago, Leandro, Sousa. We're about to get into that. He passed away while in the process of cutting weight. So, you know, we can't forget that. So here's our next question. Same kind of track.

Do you think there should be a two-strike rule for missing weight? If you miss weight twice, the UFC automatically moves you up a weight class, or you have to leave the organization if you refuse. First of all, the fighter's health is at risk, and secondly, the UFC almost lost a paper view card if they couldn't get Dillishaw an opponent. Nova O'Niao has a history of fighters making big weight cuts, Aldo and Barow in parentheses. And they also have a death due to a heavy weight cut,

Leandro, Fajow, Sousa. So surely the UFC should make some ground rules when it comes to missing weight. What do you guys think? And then love the show, said it before I'll say it again. Highlight of my Monday. Thanks for tuning in. It's a Tuesday.

Hopefully he's watching or watches us after the fact. You know, I like that idea. They're kind of employing the same sort of thing with Sohudo. Even though his transgressions happen outside of the organization, and they're saying, look, you've missed weight in the past. If you want to stick around, you have to fight at 135 for now. They haven't been as strict with other guys like John Lineker. They were somewhat strict towards Anthony Johnson.

After missing weight horribly against Vitor Belfort, they cut him. And, of course, he lost that fight. I like a three-strikes in your out. Let's just keep it consistent here. And yeah, I like that. I like that very much. I mean, look, things are going to happen. I think if you miss weight three times in the span of your UFC career,

you should be forced to, A, look at what you're doing wrong, and B, fight another division. I mean, you can't be doing this to yourself. Someone has to be accountable for, you know, these mistakes. And at the end of the day, it's just your body that's suffering. You're the one that's suffering. I mean, you might want to get a payday here or there, but you're going to be feeling the effects of this extreme weight cut and what it's doing to your body for many, many years to come. Remember Mike Dolce was on our show after Sousa's death talking about it and what can go wrong? let's be honest, a lot of guys can't afford having someone like Mike Dolcher or any kind of high-level trainer to show them the ropes, to show them how to do it right, because let's be honest, guys are

doing it in all kinds of ways, and probably a lot of them aren't very healthy. You'd think a team like Novo Niao has the right people in place, given the high-level fighters that come out of that camp, but, you know, you never know, and things are different overseas as they are here. People grow up differently, have different methods, et cetera. But I like having a system in place, much like drug testing, you know, you fail once, this is what happens. You fail twice, this is what happens, three times, this is what happens. I like the same kind of thing. So maybe it's once, twice, and the third time, you have to move up to a different weight class. There needs to be set guidelines in place so fighters know what they're dealing with so that they can't be accountable because

if they're just willy-nilly and like, okay, one time this guy gets paid and this guy doesn't get paid and this guy gets cut and this guy doesn't get cut, it's just not consistent. And I think it's better for the sport in the long run if there is a set guideline. Correct me if I'm wrong. I believe I read that there was a fight league in the UK that just has increased the fine. Yes, that was Cage Warriors. A crazy fine. It's like 50% or something?

Maybe not quite 50, but in the 40s. Maybe that could be an alternate solution or both or whatever the case may be. It's highly unprofessional making the way. I hope that money goes to the opponent and not to the promotion or the commission. it does. Now, I, you know, I read this very briefly, but, and it was a while ago, but I believe that it does. And I think that, you know, it's obviously unprofessional. The other fighter made weight. So I agree with you that there needs to be some kind of policy in place for this. Yeah. We'll see. Our next question. Barrow not getting paid. Do you agree with Dana not paying

Barrow his show and weigh money? Obviously Dana doesn't pay him. The U.S. he pays him. Since Borough was in California, giving media interviews and even talking to Joe Rogan on Saturday, shouldn't that count as the show money, or does he need to physically be in the octagon to qualify? Yeah, I mean, his job is to show up to fight, and he didn't do that. By the way, he did not look happy during that interview, right? I mean, he was sitting there with the UFC T-shirt on, just looking miserable. And look, if he banged his head the day before, he was probably a little bit out of it. I don't know how I feel about that.

I mean, certainly he didn't deserve the win money because he didn't win. I mean, that's for starters. The show money thing, it's strange because sometimes, I mean, remember Stefan Strouv? He got paid, you know, at UFC 175. Stefan Trouv showed. He was ready to go out to the octagon. Well, not really. He fainted.

He was ready to go out to the octagon. He made weight the day before. Yeah. It's not the difference. Making weight? Certainly. I mean, that's the half the job. At the end of the day, the problem is,

there are cases, you know, there's, the precedent is, is a little murky because there are cases where, you know, and more power to them. Like, sometimes UFC gives guys win money and they didn't even fight, you know, or win money and they lost the fight controversially, but still technically they lost the fight. In his case, if we're playing by the rules, we're going by the book here, he did not show up. He didn't officially make weight. He wasn't clear to fight. You didn't do your job. It's like me saying, all right, I want to get paid. I don't show up to do my show. But I prepared it. I got guests. I did everything. But no, you didn't do the show. Isn't it the same thing? I think there's a bit of subjectivity that gets involved. And certainly there will be. But for example, the Struve case, the assumption is that it's something out of his control. Now, he can't, you know, he's not responsible for that kind of thing because he had health issues in the past or whatever the case may be. It feels like it was kind of out of his hands. Whereas something like a weight cut, you're completely in control of that. So much. so that this is something that you start months out or weeks out or whatever the case may be,

depending on how you do it, the idea is you're in control of that. It wasn't like Barrow had a heart problem or something like that and then couldn't fight. So I think that that's the key difference there and probably, you know, the determining factor in a lot of the times where somebody doesn't fight but still gets their show and sometimes even win money. Yeah, I don't know. that it feels like he's in control of this and he didn't do his job. Whereas Struve had nothing, you know, he was trying to perform to the best that he could.

And it was nothing about his professionalism was never called into question. And that, I think, is the difference, the main difference. Now, you touched upon this a little bit earlier with a Sunsau and Cruz looming. What gives more merit an arguable split decision win? That's a Sunsau. Or the fact that Cruz never lost the title. I mean, I think the more sellable fight is Cruz, former champion, never lost his belt, similar style, you know, a lot more popular. These things come into play.

I think we need to see what happens. The fights are only a week apart. So let's see what happens. I think the Sunset fight is sellable because he has turned into such a great fighter, especially since dropping down to 135, because he has the win, controversial as it may be, still. a win wasn't all that long ago. I mean, Dilshaw isn't all that removed from that loss, which happened, I believe, last October. But if both of them win, both of them look good, I got to go with Dominic Cruz. That's the fight I want to see. I want to see it sooner rather than later. I think that would be an amazing fight. I agree. I want to see that fight, but it's also worth noting

that while a Sunsau has improved as well, undeniably, the T. J. Dillashaw that fought then is completely different, almost unrecognized. Almost unrecognized. comparable compared to the T.J. Dillashaw that we've seen in the last two fights. He's a completely revamped fighter. And also, he has that championship aura that sometimes I talk about it and it might sound like BS to people, but sometimes it feels like to me it takes guys a little bit of time to develop into a champion, to have that confidence, to have that aura, that swag, as the kids call it. He has that right off the bat.

I mean, when I look at the guy, when I talk to him, he has an incredible amount of confidence. It's the way he conducts himself. The way he was in the cage, dancing with the music and yelling at Buffer. You know what I'm talking about, right? I don't know how to quantify it or how to identify it, but I think he has it, whatever it is. Our next question about the co-main event, Castillo Ferguson. Just wondering how you guys scored that fight, frankly, I thought it was awesome to see Ferguson get rewarded for being active and trying to finish the fight rather than see Castillo get the win for essentially being a wet blanket. Couldn't agree more.

I mean, I don't want to call him a wet blanket. it. I think he did what he had to do. It was, to a degree, wrestler versus striker matchup. But it was very refreshing to see. And remember, we've talked about this before. California State Athletic Commission, led by Andy Foster,

maybe their, you know, their scale skills aren't the greatest because they were stalling a little bit on Friday. But they are putting the right people in place. There's no doubt about it. I believe when I saw him in Sacramento in December, he told me that no one, what do you say? No one above, no one below Purple Belt and BJJ would be allowed to judge any of their fights.

And there are other qualifications as well. But I think he is putting the right people in place. You look at the referees. You know, you got Herb Dean there. You got Big John, Jason Herzog. There was one other guy who was a veteran. I think that was pretty much it. Not a lot of controversies.

So I liked it. And I thought it was refreshing. I mean, not always that, you know, you're on your back. are you losing the fight technically? And I thought they got it right, 29-28. Yeah, I agree. That's how I would score the fight. And there's a difference between somebody who is being completely dominated and controlled when they're on the bottom and somebody who's still being aggressive, trying to land submissions, trying to get back up.

And it was clear that Ferguson was kind of the one dictating, you know, the one pushing toward a finish and trying to dictate where the fight would take place and how it would go. Most of the time that he ended up on the ground, it was by his own doing, jumping and diving for a submission rather than a Castillo takedown. Now, certainly he had takedowns and he did have top control at certain points, but I never got the sense that he was the one who was dictating the pace of the fight and controlling the fight. It felt much more, and on the feet, Ferguson was landing.

Now, Castillo said after the fight to Joe Rogan that he didn't land much, it didn't, you know, it must have been blocked. He wasn't hitting me. But it was certainly clear to my eyes, at least, that Ferguson was doing better on the feet and probably should have kept it there, to be honest, to take the controversy away from it. So what did you think?

Was it a co-main event-worthy fight? Co-man event. Second-to-last fight of the night? Co-man event. All right. Our next question. Do you believe that Bech-Cohea could recreate the rivalry Ronda had with Misha?

Rhonda has already spoken out on Twitter saying she wants to fight her because of Coheya beating two of the four horsewomen and also saying she will take all the horsewomen down. No, I don't think so because, let's not forget, Misha Tate speaks English, had a strong following behind her. And look, I don't mean to be rude or anything like that

or ethnocentric, but that helps. I mean, the most amazing part of all this is that Bech-Coh-Haya is able to generate this much attention without speaking English, essentially with just putting up her four fingers and taking some of them down. I mean, that goes to show that if you do things... What?

She's also got the dance. You know, I actually missed the dance on Saturday, but I heard it was great. I heard it was great. It was something else. I need to find that somehow. She's got charisma. Even though I can't understand what she's saying language-wise, the fight and the personality translates to me.

Yes, but it always helps and it always makes things better when you speak English and you're able to speak to the audience that, for the most part, buying these paper reviews, right? but this is my point. It's amazing that she's able to generate this much attention. When, you know, she's just, she has a smart game plan as far as how she's going to call out Ronda Rousey. It's a good gimmick. It was the right person, right time. Ronda Rousey, she has this team. They're losing. You jump on that bandwagon. You're beating them as well. I mean, it's all very brilliant. I don't think it will be as big as the Misha Tate fight. They can't do a tough series out of it. And of course, Ron Rousey's never going to do that again.

But I think it makes a lot of sense. And all of a sudden, you have, look, if Betch O'Haya was in the UFC right now, Tuesday morning, or afternoon, and she'd beat Julie Kedzee, she'd beat Jessmund Duke, Shana Bezler, and didn't do any of that. We wouldn't really be talking about her like this. Yes, she'd be up there. She'd be impressive. Those are three, you know, relatively big names, but now we're talking about her for a title shot. Let's not forget, I don't even think she's in the top 10. Is she in the top 10 as far as the UFC rankings are concerned? Let me see. She's nine, but I'm pretty sure going into this fight she wasn't. In any event, she's nine and Ronda Rousey's the champion.

I still think that we need to see what happens with Katzangano. She has a very big fight coming up against Amanda Nunes, who's ranked eight. And of course, she had the title fight and has been through a lot, including, you know, injuring her knee and was supposed to get the title shot after beating Misha Tate, not this April, the April before that. And of course, you know, they're not signing Gina Carrano for no reason. So if they do sign Gina Crano, I suspect she gets the first shot. and then Cat, if she wins and possibly one other fight, you know, maybe they do Cat versus Betch, who knows,

but if they're signing Gina and they seem pretty confident at this point that it's going to happen, then she's getting the tell shot right away. And there are options out there for Betch go ahead. Maybe she fights someone like, I don't know, Jessica I. Maybe she fights, again, the Amanda Nunes Zengano winner. There are options out there for her. So let's see what happens. I saw Leslie Smith calling her out.

I still think she's maybe one win away from really being in that discussion, which is unfortunate. I just think the timing isn't going to work out for her at this point. There are plenty of great fights for her, but why delay it? Let's just see it. Because if they're signing Gina Crono for all that much money, they're not going to risk. So maybe it's time to, you know, put that on hold for a little bit. It's a bigger fight. It's a bigger fight. In our world, this is fun. I'd love to see, you know, I'd love to see that fight right now.

I'd love to see the, because I want to see Rhonda fired up. I want to see the Ronda face. I want to see the stare down. you could tell she's annoyed by all of this and she was the one talking about the storyline and all that but it's one of those cases remember we were talking last week sometimes the timing just doesn't work out and you have to go out and fight other fights

like with hafell dos angios and I suspect that I wish there was one more horsewoman for her to fight that the fourth wasn't Marina Shafir in this case that was someone in the UFC who she could fight because then I think one more win would really propel her and would actually align her with Rhonda's schedule Right now she's a bit off. Well, maybe the bookers can just replace, you know,

Marina and put in a somebody in the UFC. Who can we add to the four horsewoman? Maybe Leslie Smith, maybe Jessica I. Holly Holme, though. They would never do that. Who's this little fellow? I probably should have just cropped out the picture. It's too big.

Our next question, is Dana White the only one allowed to call his baby ugly? I recall hearing him make similar statements to this direct quote, on more than one occasion. This is a quote. There's tons of people who want to see Chale Sondon. If you're not one of them, don't buy it. Do you think Dana calling Jonathan Snowden's article

the most disgusting, blanking, despicable thing I've ever seen is justifiable? Has Jonathan crossed the boundaries of proper journalism and offered too much editorial? Well, this is a very complex issue, so I'll try to streamline my thoughts.

I mean, obviously, I don't believe that that is the most disgusting thing he's ever seen. I have a very strong feeling that it's not. Of course, he's a very passionate guy, and if someone's going to write an article advising people not to buy a pay-per-view, it's going to fire him up. I mean, it's not something that happens every day to be that blatant about things. It's going to fire him up. Now, I think that, look, this is how I feel about the whole situation. If you're a beat writer, if you're a member

of a media corps, and let's say you're covering the NBA, and, let's say you're covering the NBA, MLB NFL, any kind of sport. There are times where you're going to be covering some duds. I mean, can you imagine if you were the beat writer for the Kansas City Royals? I know they're having a good season this year, but for the last, you know, 15, 20 years, they've sucked. I mean, they've been horrendous. They've been one of the worst teams in the history of MLB.

Could you imagine if you're sitting there saying to people, you should boycott these games, you shouldn't buy these tickets, you shouldn't watch these games because the team sucks, because management isn't trading for players on deadline day and whatnot? that's not your job in my opinion. That, to me, is crossing the line from journalists to fan. You know, you can report on the comings and goings. You can do interviews.

You can write opinion pieces about the state of the franchise. But once you are trying to rally the troops and convince people to boycott the product, I believe that you've crossed the line. So I can understand why Dana was upset about that article. Again, do I think it was the most disgusting, despicable, et cetera, et cetera? No.

and I think once he calms down, he would probably agree with that. But I could see why that would piss him off. And it's not something... I think that the author could have gone about stating his thesis in a much more professional way. Now, of course, we're talking about someone who I think... I probably think less... I don't think less of anyone more so than this person.

Do you get what I'm trying to say? The lack of respect that I have for this author is pretty amazing. and, you know, I've had my issues with him because I just think he's, you know, a not, you know, a not very professional member of the MMA media if you want to call him a member of that. So, you know, this is not the first time that we've seen these kind of articles, these, these articles that are, you know, just littered with negativity and these kind of stances before. But let's forget about, you know, the source here. I think he could have gone about stating his thesis in a much different way. Also, Dana was fired up, I'm sure, because of the card, because of the criticism that the card had received, and also because he was clearly fired up in the interview that I conducted

with him on Fox Sports One about Dave Meltzer stating that 10 days or so out that the current gate was 550,000. It ended up being around 700,000. That was a bit of an awkward spot for me because Dave is a colleague of mine, whom I respect very much. And quite frankly, I didn't know about his report. He actually didn't have a report. From what I understand, he stated it in a podcast of his. So it wasn't something that I could read. And I don't listen to everything out there. It's just impossible while I do try to consume a lot. So that was a bit awkward because, look, it's a two and a half minute interview. I'm not going to get in there and start

debating this stuff and trying to defend people. When, A, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't prepared with the facts. and that kind of felt like a bit of a tangent that wasn't really an appropriate argument to have in a two-and-a-half-minute interview on Fox Sports One. All that to say that, look, he could say whatever he wants about his baby. It is his baby. And we could say whatever we want about our baby, because it is our baby too. This sport is a sport that we're all a part of. He, of course, has a greater financial investment in the sport,

and he has sacrificed a lot more than any of us. you know, of course, the Fertitas are in that mix as well. So he could feel however he wants, and we can feel however we wants. That's the power of the free press. And I think Chuck Mindenhall wrote a very good article and a professional article about UFC 177 after the fact. And other people have written articles before it and afterwards. It's fine. I mean, you can have an opinion.

It can't always be positive, right? I mean, I think that we put out articles, you know, what to watch and what's at stake and things like that. Luke Thomas does that. Those are all essentially reasons to watch the event. When we do our pre-fight interviews, we're essentially selling the fights. I mean, we're giving people reasons to watch the fights. I don't, you know, personally, I don't like to employ the approach of like, okay, let's crap all over the card and tell people not to watch it.

I think you just put out what you put out. You talk about it as much as you want. You can mention things like co-main event, not coming up, and then people decide for, you know, they decide for themselves. They make that decision. But I don't think it's professional for media to go out there and say, do not watch is boycott it to send a message. I think that's horseshit. To be explicitly clear, though, you do think that it's responsible to say that this card is not up to snuff. You could say that.

Yeah, you can absolutely say that. You could say that this card is not, you know, I've said it on this show. What constitutes UFC caliber isn't the same as it was five, six years ago. Yep. Less fighters, less fights. I mean, there's a lot more people in the UFC these days and the talent level isn't the same. I believe this is part of their approach two steps back, maybe three steps forward in the near future. But times have changed. And, you know, I found it funny to see a lot of people complain, how could the UFC put on this card? Why didn't they cancel this card? First of all, if you know anything about the pay-per-view business, if you know anything at all about the pay-per-view business,

you know you can't cancel a show on 24-hour notice. Paperview companies have already invested in that real estate. they've carved out the time, the satellite time. It would have cost the UFC way more money to cancel this show and the relationships that they would have altered as a result of canceling the show, then if five people would have bought the show. And then you piss off the market, you piss off the arena,

and yes, there could be refunds. But what if you're a kid, you know, what if you're a kid whose dad bought you tickets to see a UFC pay-per-view event and all of a sudden the UFC cancels the show? The only people that could be upset about what happened at UFC 177 are those who bought tickets. No one was forcing you to buy the pay pay per view. No one said you had to watch this show. You had to pay $55.

If you bought tickets, $300 tickets and the card changed drastically, then you could be pissed off. They're the only ones. And I saw all these people who were like personally offended. There are 47 other UFCs this year. A lot of them are free. What did you care? I mean, yeah, the card wasn't as good. We talked about it.

It wasn't as good. The one on Friday, way better. And it's free. why were you so personally offended by this? Did the UFC plan on Borough pulling out? Did they plan on Suhudo pulling out? Did they plan on all these injuries beforehand? Of course not.

They didn't plan on that. In hindsight, they should have kept Demetrius Johnson on the card. We said that before the Borough injury, quote unquote. But, you know, I didn't understand why everyone was so personally offended by this. You didn't like it? Don't watch it. And I know that's something that Dana White says all the time and he may have his motives. But honestly, who's forcing you to watch this?

There are so many cards out there. Why are people so fired up about the UFC? Okay, the product has been watered down. They're charging the same amount for this show as they charge for other big cards. Absolutely. What's the only way to respond to this? Just don't pay for it.

Tell them that way. But I don't think the journalists, the media, should be advising people to do that. Let the fans decide for themselves. Our next one about the GQ article. Did you see that? Oh, well, it wasn't really an article? But yes, the sleazy-y-less people.

It was, wasn't it? It was like, well, it was like more of a graph. I didn't see, I only saw the, what, you know,

other MMA websites had written about it and reported about it. I didn't actually see the physical thing, but yeah, in any case, I thought it was,

oh, I didn't think this, this was what this person is saying. I thought it was totally wrong. Dana does a lot of stuff behind the scenes, was wondering what you guys thought.

Well, this is my buddy. Oh, and it's his birthday. Oh, and it's birthday. Yeah, I know this guy. Oh, okay.

Happy birthday to Wheels 11, or Wheels 11. Yes, Happy birthday to him. Look, I mean, if you look at the people on that top 10 and what they have done, Dana has a point. Yeah. I mean, say what you will about the guy and his past or whatever,

but you look at the people on that list. I mean, there are murderers, you know, rapists. There are racist. I mean, I don't remember everyone on the list. I know Aaron Hernandez was on the list. I know Donald Sterling was on the list. I know War Machine was on the list. Lance Armstrong.

Lance Armstrong, you know, a cheater and a liar. There were some pretty bad people on the list. Yeah. You know, for some reason, the good folks over at Deadspin aren't big UFC fans. I mean, really, let's call it like we see it. Very rarely do they have anything positive to say, and they'll only kind of come out of the woodwork when there's a negative or, you know, a not-so-positive stance to take on the sport,

and in particular the UFC. Nothing really else. And the writer is a guy with ties to debt spin. Now, whether or not this has anything to do with the article, I don't think it has much to do with the article, but it can kind of give you some insight into the source of the article. Given the people out there, you know, this, you could have made a top 10 sleazy, you know, or whatever you want to call it, and have some guys like, oh, people who have done,

you know, you could put like a, I don't know, if you want to do like owners or promoters or things like that. And then it's like, it's okay. but you're putting Dana White, you know, and that's your opinion, fine, but you're putting Dana White in there with racist and, you know, like I said, murderers, rapists and all that. I mean, I think that's pretty laughable. It's insulting, I think.

And he handled it well, for the most part. Although he did say, like, oh, I didn't really pay attention, but he knew everything that was in there. So it's kind of one of those classic situations, but I don't agree with it. Everybody was expecting him to fly off the handle. Yes, yes, kudos to him. And I thought he had a very measured, accurate, response and, you know, I agree. It's kind of ludicrous. But it worked. I mean, people are

talking about that list. It's good, you know, it's good. It brought attention to something that probably wouldn't have gotten that much attention. I guess. Yeah, I mean, that list would have just been, you know, looked at. There's a bunch of scumbags on there and then move on. But, you know, the Dana White thing was particularly talked about. I wonder if that got the most, his inclusion on the list got the most amount of play? If I had to guess, I would say yes. But, you know, obviously, I don't really know. I haven't studied the traffic on Aaron Hernandez. Did you see it anywhere else? No, that's the only thing I've seen it about. But I'm pretty insulated in the MMA world. I don't much follow like NFL writers and media. And I don't know if they were talking about

Aaron Hernandez or cycling and talking about Lance Armstrong and his inclusion. but the Dana thing got a lot of play. Yeah, I just think, I mean, it really stood out. You can't compare that to being a racist. I mean, if you think that, and even if you do, and again, it's hard. I always feel weird about complaining about fighter pay because none of it is made public. You know, the real salaries aren't made public.

But even if you think that, even if you think that he doesn't treat his employees well or the fighters well, how can you compare it to racism and rapists and murders? I mean, I don't know. just seems a bit of a stretch. And also there's, you know, a lot of disparity between owners and players in almost every sport. Not that it's exactly the same system, but there's, you know, there's certainly guys at the top of the food chain and of the pyramid who are making a lot of money. And even though, you know, NFL and NBA players do make a lot of money compared to MMA fighters, their portion of the pie is also very small. and, you know, it seems like it was very pointed.

It was very directed at Dana White specifically. Bias. Yep. Next question. Belator has UFC worried question mark. With both parties scheduled for the same night. Excuse me. It seems each is eager to outdo the other.

Belator is starting its season out with a huge title rematch and packed stars like Congo and Mo on it. They have also taken jabs at the UFC 177 main event with the Soto K-Ovid and have even started doing a countdown show, something they've never done. Likewise, the UFC has stacked their card with name fighters. They also did something completely new by making a full-length countdown for a fight-night card. This has never been done. Dublin doesn't count.

Does Bellator have Dana worried, or does he truly not... Or does he truly not give a crap like he claims? Well, I don't know. You know, it's interesting. I mean, I would think Spike and Fox Sports won care. They want to win. Dana could say what he wants, but I can assure you that the networks want to win, and they may have had a say in all of this,

I want to clear something up because people don't believe me, and this has been confirmed to me from Fox Sports 1. The main card on Friday is from 10 p.m. Eastern Time to midnight Eastern time. Four fights on the main card, not six fights. The prelims 7 p.m. Eastern to 10 p.m. Eastern. That's on Fox Sports 1. That's the UFC card. So some people were saying, and I think this is significant because maybe you want to streamline the main card to get the best.

rating possible. I think it's smart that they put out the countdown show. You know, they haven't had a lot of time to promote that card as opposed to Beltor who has had some time. Their last show was in late July. The UFC has had so many shows that they pretty much are going week to week at this point. Musassi, Jacare is a great fight. Overeem is a big name, Mitreone, all that stuff. I do think that the UFC card is stronger on paper. I think it's a solid Bellator card, but I think that at this point, you know, the UFC being who they are, they need to win. You know, they need to win those ratings. The Fox Sports 1 is a lot younger, and it's in a little less homes.

I think it's in 10 million less homes. Spike TV a lot more established as far as MMA programming is concerned. So I said this when this news came out, I mean, even if Beltor wins, obviously that's a big victory. Even if they're close, I think it's somewhat of a moral victory because of the fact that they haven't been around as long. the UFC needs to do whatever they can in the next few days. And it starts with the countdown show, but especially in the next few days, to let people know that on Friday,

you should be watching our product, the UFC's product. Certainly I agree with that. And, you know, everybody wants to win in any kind of, if you have any competitive spirit, you want to win against the rival, against the competitor. But what's the, let's say they do, let's say Bellator does do better. How do you sustain that kind of win?

Like what is the next? step in, like, can you possibly make your best possible card for every event? I don't think that they have the roster to continue that kind of success in a way that's meaningful. Like, what does the win ultimately mean? Let's say they do outperform the UFC. I just think it's a feather in their cap. You mean, it's not often.

To what end, essentially? I don't think it changes much. I don't think that's my attitude. It's like back in the day, like Sam said, WCWWW. They wanted to win. the night. They were going to, look, I can guarantee you, both them are going to try to spin it, whichever way they can, and say, you know, we won this quarter hour, we won this demographic. I mean, they're going to try to find victories. The end of the day, and they both should. Yeah, yeah, but there's

going to be one rating. This, in my opinion, this means a lot for Bellator because it could, it could show, because this is their, this is their night. They're typically on Friday nights on Spike TV. This is a rare Friday for the UFC. And honestly, I don't know if it's true or not, But I keep asking people behind the scenes, did the UFC do this to counter Belator? And they say this date was there a long time ago. Crazy. Could it be that this is really a coincidence? I don't know.

I think it is. It's crazy. But everyone's saying that, even behind the scenes, and they have no reason to lie. But I do know that, you know, both networks want to win. I mean, there's a reason why Belator is doing a countdown show. And I don't know. And let's be honest. Obviously, this isn't the best UFC card that they could put on because the best would be, you know, Ronda and John Jones, etc.

It's good. It's good as far as fight nights are concerned. I don't even think it's the best Beltor card they can put on. I mean, I don't think those names are their biggest names. Their biggest names are Rampage and Tito. Wouldn't it to be interesting if you had the best versus the best. Now, this is kind of fight night versus fight night. So we'll see where they're at for those mid-tier cards. And I think for Beltor, I mean, if they can get within striking range, 100,000 or so,

I mean, that's a moral victory. And the UFC really wants to win because it's just in that moment. It's like, you know, you have a basketball game between two rivals in February. They want to win, but what does it mean in the grand scheme of getting the title? Not much. Yeah, they're coming to Bellator's home court and they're trying to, you know, prove their dominance and Belator is trying to defend the house. But I just think that so much is being put onto this as if this will be a crucial turning point in some way. I really don't think that there's—

I don't really see that. I see a lot of that. Really? People are talking about this like it's, you know, it's ground zero for whatever is going to happen next. And I just think that, I mean, it's really going to be back to business as usual. It's kind of skewed. Like if everybody puts on their best card and goes head to head, then the most likely the

UFC is going to win that. But it doesn't really, it's not indicative. And you can't parlay that into anything because you can't do that every time out. I think we just missed the days of the UFC counter-programming affliction. And we're longing for some. for some competition, but I don't really get that sense. Oh, I think it's great, though. I love the competition aspect of it.

It's fun, but you really get the sense that, and by the way, Bellator's main card is going to end by the time, you know, at 10 p.m. Eastern. Belator's main card is 8 to 10. UFC is 10 to 12. So does it really, we're not really going head to head. We're going UFC prelims head to head with Belator prelims. Belator main card. You get what I'm saying?

Yeah. If they were going head to head, that would be fascinating. but the meat of both cards, you know, at least the UFC card, definitely is going up there alone, and the Beltaire main card's going up there against a prelims. Very good prelims, by the way,

but still, it's their prelims. So, you know, I don't think it's at, I really don't think it's that, it's an interesting thing. I will be curious to see the ratings. I love this kind of stuff, but I don't think it's that big of a deal. Yeah, I agree with you.

And I don't think the sky's falling for either organization if they lose. And I'm going to watch both. How are you going to do it? And computer and TV. Yeah, there's ways to do it. Next question. Why in the blue hell would they not set up the Rockhold versus Bisbing fight right now?

The sheer amount of heat that is emanating from that proposed bout is enough to bring a smile to the most painfully uninterested of figures. Even Musasi probably cracked a smile thinking about the lead up to a Rockhold versus Bisbing fight. Yes. Please tell me you have some intel for why they want to feed Rockhold to Machita and Kaibash. Yes. That's hilarious pairing. You're forgetting, Lindsay, that as a psychiatrist, I was a professional twice over. What is that? Is that a quote? That's from Arrested Development.

Usually, isn't that stuff italicized? Yes, I think that this person might have copied and pasted it because there were multiple comments and I think they... That's a lot of work. Honestly, I don't have the answer for you. I can tell you this. When I saw Dana White backstage, I said, I asked him, what in the blue hell? What in the blue hell? How is this even possible?

Are you trolling us? And I hate using that word. but I feel very passionate about this right now. This is the fight that is two years in the making. They've been going back and forth. It's falling in the UFC's lap. They're around the same spot. I mean, let's even look at the damn rankings.

Rankings. Silly rankings. Rockhold five. Bisping 8. Big whoop. They're both coming off wins. Again, a win over Michael Bisping will do more in my opinion for Luke Rockhold

than a win over Liotomachita because of the culmination of all the hype, all the buzz, all the trash talk. Michael Bisping sells a fight like no other, and he gets that passion out. He really does. He does a tremendous job of it. And I think this will do wonders for Luke Rockhold if he wins.

And if Bisping wins, it obviously do wonders for him because Rockhold is ranked above him. A fight against Machita is a big fight. Don't get me wrong. It will also do great things for Rockhold, but it will just come and go. It will be, you know, it'll kind of be like Jacaree Musassi. Great fight.

Watch your mouth. No, but is the world, I mean, there is passion involved. or look at what he fought on fight pass. I mean, people are waking up early. There is passion involved in a Michael Bisping fight. He gets that out of you. Look what he does, you know, with, look what he did with Belfort. Look what he did with Kennedy.

He does it time and time again, and we could go on and on and on and on. I mean, the guy is able to do this and he does it as well or better than anyone in the UFC right now. This, in my opinion, is too easy to fight to make. It makes too much sense. I don't get it. And I know there's no one who makes total sense for Machita, but Dahlaway is down, Machita is down, just make that fight. If Dahloway can win, you got a new contender.

If Machita wins, he's back on the winning track. He's coming off a loss, and I think that the rules are different when you're coming off a title loss. It's okay to fight a guy coming off a win. But you have Rockhold and Bisping just sitting there, and their timing works out. And again, I think the fight will make a lot of sense for both of them after the fact that they win. it just makes too much sense. The only theory I can come up with

is if they want to do this fight in Brazil and Globo, a big channel with a lot of clout is saying we want this fight. That's the only reason that I can think of making this fight. Otherwise, it makes no sense. It really doesn't. And also, if Machita beats Rockold, then what? Is he going to get a title shot?

No. There are enough guys waiting in the wings, including Jacques-Ré Musassi, who probably deserve a shot before him. But Rock, you see, it's one of the, those things where you don't want to put a guy, like you don't want to put Benavides up there against Linneker because if Benavides wins, then you're not going to give him a title shot. I know he lost twice of the champion, but

you get what I'm saying. But maybe Machita can finally cash in on some of those title shots he was owed before. Yeah, it's old news. That's old news. Great fight. And one day, I would be down to see the fight against Wyman again. But Rockhold Bisping, when you have that true passion, that true hatred, the true rivalry, it's authentic. And it's been going back for a couple years now. and it's it's it's it's just there and both fighters want it i mean this is somewhat unprecedented to not do this fight and i hope it happens i really hope it happens i think it would do wonders for everyone involved including the ufc they need fights like this fights that just transcend the average mama fan but people could get

behind this is that kind of fight yes yes this was a point i was going to raise but now that you actually touched upon it this is so interesting because typically people complain that the ufc is putting people who haven't earned title shots in because of promotional reasons. For example, Chal Sondon, that's the one that everybody kind of likes to go back to, and it's probably the most glaringly obvious one, Chale Sondon fighting John Jones. They like to put guys who maybe aren't ranked as highly or, you know, do better promotionally versus makes more sense ranking-wise. They typically put those fights together, and then the outrage is, oh, this guy doesn't

deserve it or girl doesn't deserve it. I can't believe this. This is an outrage. And in this case, it's a case where they're not putting that together, and now people are upset. Yeah. And that's what makes it so interesting,

because this is like, the UFC always does this, why now? Why are they not putting this one together? But this isn't one of those fights. This fight makes sense. Yeah, rankings-wise, it also makes sense. But my point is that this is like a promotional no-brainer, and for some reason it's not happening.

By the way, someone just sent me the Betch Goya gift. That is amazing. The dance? Yes. Oh, yes. That's hilarious. The best part of that is Big John. I think it was Big John, right?

He's trying to hold her hand while she's still doing the dance. That's what makes it. I like, he gives her the old football pat on the back. Yeah, he's like, good job. Good job. Well done. This is hilarious. It's great.

Anyways. If you haven't seen it, go find it. I've said my piece. I think, dare I say. It would be promotional malpractice to not make that fight. All right. Here's the last few ones from the website. The UFC rankings don't include Eddie Alvarez,

but he obviously should be on the list. Where would you put him? What if he beat Soroni? I say he's top five right now. And by the way, I'm down with not putting him there in the UFC rankings before he actually fights in the UFC, just for the record. If he beat Soroni, well, Seroni is number five. Tough one.

You know, ahead of him, Gilbert Melendez, fighting for the belt. Nirmagamadov, Dosangos, Benson. And I kind of put him around five, to be honest. You know, I'd put him in there. I certainly put Dosangos over Benson, Yuan, but... And if he beat Saroni? I put him five. I think I'd put him five.

You know, I don't know about Nirmagamatov. He's kind of up there, but he did beat D'Ossandro. It's one of those things where you may not have a lot of big wins, but you have that win over the guy who just came off a big win, so naturally he has to be above him. Given all that, I think, five. Unless something crazy happens, I think I would put them around four or five. The importance and expectations of tough 20, that's the entire question.

And the next one is what UFC weight class after the straw weight would be a possible contender for a new weight class in the UFC. For women? It could be any, it seems. Well, I mean, as far as tough 20 is concerned, I can't say much, but I have seen the first episode and I really enjoyed it. I really did. And I do suggest you checking it out, especially if you've checked out of tough. I didn't really watch anything of Tough 19, to be honest. I watched a little bit of Tough 18, didn't watch much of Tough 17.

You know, we've talked about Tough Adnauseum on this show. I do suggest checking it out. For a couple reasons, you'll know why come September 10th. That's when it debuts on Fox Sports 1. Not just saying that because I work for Fox Sports 1. Honestly, I think they did a great job with the first episode. And again, 16 of the best. They're going for the belt.

it's a lot different this time. It feels like we're not seeing, you know, watered down divisions on display here. We're seeing, you know, the true 16 or so of the best. I mean, there are some who aren't in there. Of course, there's some more in the UFC. There are some who are outside of the UFC like Jessica Aguilar. But these are great fighters. And the reward is they're going for the belt.

They're already in the UFC. So they're not fighting for a contract. I think it's important to see what the ratings are. because they haven't been great on Fox Sports One, and it's part of the evolution of that channel and the growth of that channel. But you want to see if, A, remember, on Tough 18, the women's fights did a lot better than the men's fights.

So you want to see if that trend continues. And if you want to see if, all right, if the stakes are higher, are more people watching. So let's see what happens there. And of course, you're introducing a new division with new stars, new faces. You want to get them out there to the most amount of people as possible. I'm into this so far.

There are a couple of things I would change, but let's talk about it after the first episode airs. Definitely suggest checking it out and giving it a shot. I'm most curious, by the way, with Tough 21, because after doing this, I mean, what more could they do? Other than another comeback season, which they don't seem too keen on doing. It's just...

I feel like we say that every time, though. We've seen and done it all. After 19, it was what can they do for 20, and then they brought in straw weights for the title. I'm still at a loss for what more they... they can do. As for a new division, I don't really see many options out there. I mean, there aren't a lot of great 115 pound men. I do agree with Dana about 125 women. It's kind in between 115, 135, and it will stretch things out a little too much. What about 145 women?

I mean, now that Belator signed a few of those, I really don't think that there's enough. You know, there's cyborg out there. Again, I don't want, I think you stretch, most of the top stars are fighting on 135, I think you stretch 135 out a little too much. So I kind of think they're in a good spot. I mean, they're not struggling to sign talent, and there isn't a glaring division out there that's not in the UFC, right? I mean, I don't see any that are, you know, particularly glaring, like, oh, they need to include this.

Yeah. I think they've got a pretty good set of divisions right now. Yeah. So actually, I would prefer if they stop adding divisions and just focus on the ones that they have now. I mean, I'm not mad at any of the ones they've added. 115 is great. 115's great. 125 before that was great. But it's all a byproduct of doing more shows, right? You want more belts and all that stuff. So, you know, that's why, let's just keep it as it is. Okay, let's talk MMA hour business. Oh, no. What's your take on the whole Bobby Green situation now?

Yes. This person listened to the show live and you asked what his issues were and he answered. I don't understand how you set him up or how things were taken out of context because the audio is there. Have you had a chance to clear the air with him? Well, I'm so happy the audio is there because this is one of those cases where perhaps, you know, after the fact, one could say, oh, you took what I said out of context. I mean, that's what happened to Mark Romundi, who I respect greatly and I don't think did anything wrong. So I'm happy the audio is there. I was a little disappointed that he kind of went on this little Twitter rant and said, you know, that this is why I don't do interviews. I don't necessarily think he took it out on us, but he was kind of reaching and saying like, oh, I didn't necessarily call him a racist.

saying he was doing racist things. I don't know. Anyway, I wasn't interested in getting involved in all that, so I texted him. I said, look, man, I think we were very fair. I think we've always been very fair to you. I asked you questions. You said what you had to say. You know, pretty much own it, and let's move on from all this. And we were cool. And, you know, we kind of left it at that. And he was just saying that, you know, he was getting a lot of heat and people weren't listening to the interview. And I understand that happens. It's going to happen. I thought we did a good job. I'm pretty sure Dave Doyle was the one who wrote the article. I thought we did a good job of recapping his comments and writing a fair article,

and I thought the interview was fair. So, you know, I think we're over that. I was a little bummed. I did reach out to Donald Seroni that night, Monday night, and I said, you know, hey, you know, I know you don't like doing interviews and whatnot, or at least I was thinking this to myself. But he did say this on my show. These are obviously pretty serious accusations.

fortunate. I didn't think he was going to go in that direction. I had no idea that this thing had happened. You know, I'd like to extend the invitation to do an interview to release some kind of statement. I think it's only fair considering the fact that he did on my show. You know, I didn't want to keep this train moving along, but I wanted to be fair and not just make it seem like he's saying something on my show and I'm just leaving it out there and walking away from the situation. He didn't seem so happy with me and ask me, you know, why would I post these comments? You know, if you think that they are, you know, inappropriate or unfair or mischaracterizing him, whatever. And I said, well, I didn't really post them.

You know, he said it in a live interview, and there was nothing I could really do other than ask questions and try to clear the air or bring out the truth as best as possible. And he didn't really respond to that. So I hope he's not upset at us. This is one of those cases that's happened before. It'll probably happen again. People get mad at us for things. say to us.

But hopefully... Shooting the messenger. Yeah, he listened to the interview and you see that we weren't trying to go out there. I think Serony's a great guy. I know he does a lot of good things for a lot of people. I've never heard anyone accuse him of this. Bobby has his story.

And actually someone came up to me and was trying to clear the air in Sacramento. Whatever. That's their issue. And, you know, I just, I wanted to tell Donald that, you know, we had nothing to do with this and we don't think that of him. But, you know, hopefully cooler heads prevail. and he realizes that we were just the ones asking the questions and he was on our show and we had nothing to do with it. Who knows?

Does that make sense? It does. Okay. And, you know, I think it's just a situation where, and people know I love Bobby Green. I'm a big fan of Bobby Green. But I think it was a situation where he just wasn't happy with the narrative of, you know, what was being told. Specifically when he talked to Mark Ramundi, he wasn't happy about that. Maybe he thought he focused on the wrong things, whatever.

the case may be. But that's just how it's going to happen. I mean, not everybody's going to see things the same way. You are going to see them even if you're the one telling the story. And, you know, if people don't listen to the interview or read the comments or read the quotes or, you know, take it out of context, then, you know, what can be done? It's just the nature of the beast. But it's unfortunate that he felt that way.

Yeah. Moving on to Twitter, what's the next step for Joe Soto? Fight on the undercard or get a crack at a top 10 fighter. He did well against T.J. Yeah, you know, a lot of people ask me, where would I rank Joe Soto? And I don't know if I put him in the top 10

because, look, he just walked into that situation. He didn't necessarily do a lot to earn the situation. I mean, look, he was 15 and 2. He had won six in a row, champion in Belator and Tachi Palace. But that wasn't his original fight. His original fight was against Anthony Burchak. And sucks for him.

He didn't get to fight in his UFC debut. And afterwards, he comes home. Anthony did. And his house was robbed, and he lost a lot of prized possessions. So that sucks. It's a horrible weekend for him. But he seems to be handling it well. Hopefully everything is sorted out, and he can find some of his stuff.

I think that they should, you know, they should keep this Joe Soto train moving along because he did perform well under tough circumstances. I would like to see him fight on a main card somewhere, and not get relegated to the, you know, the fight past prelims. I don't think he should be in the top 10 just for hanging in there for four and a half rounds with the champ, especially because the bantamweight division is very tough. I mean, look at the top 10. Casares is 10, Carraway is 9, Johnny Eduardo coming off a big win, Alcantara, 7, Mizugaki, 6,

and then you're getting into the big dogs. But certainly in the top 15, and actually at UFC.com, he is in the top 15. That was somewhat expected, given the way that they rank these things and they get on these hot. after a fight weekend. Easton is 14. He's on a losing streak. Perez 13. Cruz is 12. He's certainly in the 15th to 20 range. And, you know, I wouldn't be against the fight against

Birchuk, who was, you know, MFC champion going into that fight or against a bit of a bigger name, maybe a Francisco Rivera or someone like that, which I think actually makes a lot of sense who's ranked 11. So he did well under the circumstances. He gave him a lot of props, but I don't think he should be, just because he lost to the champion. I don't think he should be in the top five or top 10. because he just so happy to be there. And by the way, I do agree with Bang Ludwig,

and I didn't think about this in the moment, but it is, you know, I did think after the fact, it should have been a non-title fight. It should have been a five-round non-title fight. Give him the guy the main event. If he wins, all right, you know, those suck. I hate non-title fights with champions, but this was a unique case.

If you went and you do a rematch, and then you do it for the belt. But when you didn't do anything to earn the fight, and you just happen to be there because someone pulled out 24 hours before, I don't think you should fight for the belt. It makes the belt seem less special if anyone could kind of just be there

and get an opportunity like that. Very rare, but I think in hindsight, they probably should have done a non-title fight. And I doubt, honestly, I doubt many people who are planning on buying the pay-per-view with Soto v. Dilisha would have backed out if the title wasn't on the line. That's my guess.

Our next question. Is Alistar Overim trying to drop to 205? He's looking very lean, and as we see here. Okay, by the way, he's not 205. He doesn't look 205. Also, pictures are different. He does look lean, but, I mean, he's still huge. I saw him going back and forth with Rumble Johnson.

We'll find out the Wands are Friday at 6 p.m. By the way, I will be in Connecticut at Foxwoods Friday and, actually Thursday and Friday. So the Wains are Thursday at 6 p.m. Eastern Time on Fox Sports 1. You can watch him here online as well. I don't think he's too. 205. I'm going to guess he's maybe around 230, something like that. Is he on the left or the right?

He's actually on the left there. But yeah, I think he was joking with some people when he said he was 215. You know, pictures are weird. They can alter things. He looks great, though. I'm really curious to see how he looks, and I'm curious to see if, you know, he fights differently now that he's a Jackson

Winklejohn fighter, Greg Jackson in his corner, Winklejohn in his corner. I'm curious about it. You know, it's going to be interesting because sometimes fighters change when they, you know, change camps and, you know, they have a certain style. I've just, this is a guy who's done a lot a certain way, and I'm curious to see if he looks different on Friday.

Very curious. Our next question. For your standards, should Ellenberger versus Gasolum be considered a co-main event for a pay-per-view card? Yeah, this is a tough one. This is a tough one. You know, I'm going to lean towards, man, I'm going to lean towards

It's so tough Because I know what you're getting at Look, Gasselam I consider it to be a top prospect He won the ultimate fighter He has looked good For the most part I know Ellenberger's coming off a loss But he is a guy who has co-main evented before

Although he was in that fight Against J Haran that they ended up You know the UFC 151 fight That they ended up pushing back to October After the Jones Henderson And then Jones Sunn fights fell through I'm okay with it co-main event

officially branded by Ariel Halmanian. Gasolm, I'm pretty sure he's undefeated. Let's see. Lohenberger's number eight. Gasolm's number 11. I mean, first of all, you have ranked guys there, right?

Which you didn't have. Yeah, he's 10 and no. He's enough of a prospect. Ellenberger's done enough. I could dig it. All right. I mean, is it the best co-main event? Obviously not.

There have been bigger. Of course. Alvarez Seroni is somewhat of a sexier, bigger fight. But even Overeign Rothwell. But if we're going to put the line at, you know, here and Castile Ferguson, in my opinion, was there, the line's here, there. You see what I'm saying? Here's a line.

There. Then I would put it just above the line. Okay. You get it? Oh, I get it. I don't agree with it, but I get it. Our final question, can you compare the state of the UFC as of a year ago, in parentheses, the best year? I think most people agree that it was a very good year.

It was a very good year for the UFC to this year, parentheses, tough times. You know, this year, I think the injury bug has hit them a little more. I think this time last year we were embarking on a really fun stretch coming up. I mean, think about it. Okay, this time last year, this show last year, post-Labor day or around Labor Day, Pettis had just won the belt. We were coming up on Jones Gustafson, which didn't have the same kind of buzz going into it as it did after the fact,

but still Jones was fighting, and I think there was enough interest in that. You had JDS Kain 3. You had GSP Hendricks. You had Wydenman against Silva 2. You had Rhonda versus Misha 2. I mean, those were some pretty big fights. Now let's look at the fights going into the end of the year.

You have Johnson versus Carriaso. You have Aldo Mendez 2. You have Cain Verdum 1. UFC 181. Oh, is the double header, Belfort Widman and Melendez Pettis. And, well, 82 is actually in early January, and we don't know what's main eventing that. So, I mean, the star power isn't quite there. I think they've been hit by injuries.

They've had some bad luck. I mean, look, the year before, sucked. Remember that year? UFC 149 that year and all the injuries that happened. I mean, uh, that, that was, that was not good. Oh, UFC 151 happened as well. And was that last, was that two years ago? Um, UFC 152 and then once, yeah, yeah, that was two years ago. That was, that was the year before. So that year sucked. So hopefully we're not getting into this like one good year one bad year thing. I don't know.

All the same fighters are still there except for GSP. Anderson's coming back. So it's all the same fighters. And I can't just dismiss it like that because GSP was a gigantic deal for the company. Nick Diaz has gone, though? No, he's back. Well, not this year. Well, yeah, but I'm just saying like, all right, you know, gray skies are going to clear up,

put on a happy face, you know what I'm saying? Mama said they're going to be days like this. At least those people are coming back. at least they're still in the roster. You know, they're having their issues with Nate. They've added Eddie Alvarez, straw weights are coming. Rhonda's a bigger star. I think that it has been a much tougher year

and a less successful year from a business standpoint and a fight's standpoint. But at least those guys are still there. Like if Anderson was gone as well and Nick was gone as well, it would be bleaker. The good part about guys not fighting is that at some point they're coming back. But yeah, this has been reminiscent of two years ago.

And even two years ago, where they've had canceled cards, I mean, two years ago was pretty crummy. Nothing like what happened in Sacramento happened. I mean, 24-hour notice, a guy falls out, and they have to put a newcomer

relatively unknown in the main event. I mean, that was pretty much as bizarre as it got. And in addition to that Henry Sehudo pulling out, too. Well, also the previous pay-per-view. Getting canceled, 176. Rescheduled or whatever. It got canceled. But hey, the good thing about

176 getting canceled, we saw, well, we get to see Musasi Jacare's main event now, a five-round fight. Yeah, that's a good car. So, yeah, it's definitely not on the same spot, but I'm going to remain positive. I'm going to urge all of you to watch MMA on Friday, whether it's

the UFC or Bellator. And I think that better days are ahead. They got to be. This is, uh, it's, who wants to be negative? It wasn't, it wasn't very fun reading all the negativity. I appreciate people calling it like it is and telling it like it is, and things have certainly changed, and at times the product isn't the same and the talent level is the same,

and that's all very true, but I want to remain positive that things are going to change, that things are going to get better, that injuries won't happen as often, etc., etc., etc. Cormier-Jones, I mean, that was gigantic. That was so big. We can't forget about that. And then an injury happens. Ugh. What a bummer. So let me remind you that Friday is a very big day for the world of mixed martial arts because you have Belator beginning at 6 p.m. Eastern Time with a prelim card on Spike.com. A crap load of fights. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten prelim fights.

Holy moly. One name that jumps out, Tam Dan McCrory. Remember him back in the UFC days? Dan Kramer, Brennan Ward, some familiar names. Then you have a four-fight main card, Josh Burns versus Bobby Lashley, Czech Congo versus LeVar Johnson, Dustin Jacoby, who Spike TV loves Justin Jacoby. Boy, do they love that guy. Against King Moe and Pat Curran versus Patricio Pitbull for the Bellator Featherweight title. That's from 8 to 10. Now, over on Fox Sports 1, we've got a pre-show, by the way.

from six to seven. You also have a prelim card from seven to ten. Um, like I said, Chaskelly versus Soriano, Chris Beale, who had a great debut in April, two broken hands. Um, Camozzi versus Sappo. Fan of the show, Ally Quinta versus Haudrigo Dam, John Maraga versus Justin Skagin's, Lens, Olivera, too. And the main card is a really fun one, Lozon Kiesa. Can't wait for that one. Mitreone Lewis, Overeux, Overeux, and, Jacaree versus Musasi. That is from 10 to 12 on Fox Sports 1 Eastern Time. And we have to mention that on Saturday, Invicta is back. And that's on Fight Pass. Michelle the Karate-Hadi-Hadi-Watterson against Yasuko Tamada for the Antemweight title. Michelle Waterson defending that title for the first time.

Also, their vacant strawweight title on the line. And some familiar names, Tanya Evinger versus Edian Gomes, Michelle Uld, the third fight between Tower La Rosa and Robes, Roxanne Madaferi, Peggy Morgan, who is also on the Ultimate Fighter season 18. Veronica Rothenhausler, who was on this show way back when with a flash knockout. She is fighting against Charmaine Tweet, Canadian. Ashley Cummins, who's actually a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Of all places, she is fighting. So an interesting card from them, and that is on Fight Pass, I believe, beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.

So a very busy week in the world of mixed martial arts coming up. upper weekend and it starts on Thursday with a wayance for both Bellator and the UFC. Also, I remind you, this is a Tuesday. We are back Monday, same time and place. All right, that does for us. You can hit my music. Yay, we made it. Busy couple days ahead. UFC tonight tomorrow. Then I go to Connecticut. And then the rest of the typical MMA news stuff to deal with. as well. So one day at a time, my friends, one day at a time. Really enjoyed this show, though. I want to thank everyone who joined us, tuned in, called in, rode in. I want to thank Big John. Congratulations. How great is that? Big John back in Nevada. About time. Another great thing that

the new commission has done. Big John going to be making his long-awaited, much-anticipated return to Nevada on September 27th, UFC 178. Ben Ascran, congratulations on winning the 1FC wealth rate title. I hope that happens, Ben Ascran in the UFC. Contrary to popular belief, I'm no Ben Ascran hater. In fact, I enjoy his work very much, and I'd like to see him fight in the UFC, especially today. It's got to happen. It has to happen.

Sooner rather than later, please. Michael Bisping, congrats on the big win. Hopefully we get to see that Luke Rockhold fight again sooner rather than later. Now, don't let this be Crow Couture. Don't let it be. Matt Matrione, good luck to him on Friday against Derek Lewis. Great to talk to him, as always. Jari Haul.

Happy to hear he's doing well. Looking forward to seeing his return, seeing if you can make it three in a row. And great stuff from Sam Kaplan. Best of luck to him in his future endeavors, podcast, seminars, all that good stuff. Really enjoyed having him on the show. Thank you to all of you. Really appreciate you tuning in. We'll see you next Monday.

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