MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 249

Episode Date: September 29, 2014

Featuring Chris Weidman, Aisling Daly, Sean McCorkle, Kenny Monday, Tim Kennedy, Renzo Gracie, and John Kavanagh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

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

CRM, accounting, inventory, e-commerce, and more. And the best part, O-DU replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost. That's why over thousands of businesses have made the switch. So why not you? Try O-D-O-4-3 at O-D-O-D-com. That's O-D-O-O-O-O-com. It's the mixed martial arts hour with... The mixed martial arts hour back in your life on this Monday, September 29th, 2014.

And I emphasize the end between 2014 because someone on Twitter last week said to me, it's improper. It's incorrect to say 2014. You should say 2014. And you know what? You're probably right. But back in the day, I used to do this pro wrestling hotline thing where people would call in and get the news of the day. I think it was of the day. Maybe it was of the week.

And this was 2001. And I used to say 2000 plus one, which I will admit a little geeky. So what would you prefer? 2000 plus 14 or 2014. I think 2014 is better. So we're sticking with that one. In any event, thank you very much for joining us. Hope you had a great weekend.

What a weekend it was in the world of the UFC. UFC 178, it certainly lived up to the hype, in my opinion. What a great card. In particular, the main five fights that we were all looking forward to. Dominic Cruz, Katsingano, Y'all Romero, Connor McGregor, Donald Soroni, the big winners. A lot of interesting stuff to talk about that happened on Saturday. A lot of interesting stuff to talk about, about the future regarding these five fighters.

And other stuff, of course, happened in the world of MMA since we last spoke. So I'm really excited about this show. We've got a great guest lineup. And, of course, the MMA train rolls along. We've got two events on Saturday. No love for the Jewish MMA fan. Not only did we have UFC 178 Fight Week on Russia Shana. We've got two events on Yom Kippur, the most holiest day of the year.

On the Jewish calendar, two events. Well, I'll be fasting and atoning for my sins. There will be an event in Sweden and Halifax, Nova Scotia, this Saturday. Of course, we'll talk about that later on, but who will be joining us on this show? Well, at around 405, we're going to be joined by John Kavanaugh, who, of course, is the head coach for one, Connor McGregor, the head coach over at SBG Ireland, big weekend for him, as Connor McGregor defeats Dustin Porier in just a matter of minutes. and now all of a sudden everyone's buying the hype. They weren't before, but now they are.

Don't forget who told you first. And of course, Connor was promised to be on this show, but I was told that maybe he won't be able to wake up in time. We'll see what happens in any event. Looking forward to talking to John because he has a big weekend coming up later on this weekend because he has Cahal Pendred fighting in Sweden. He has Gunner Nelson fighting in Sweden in the main event. Patty Hulahan will be fighting over.

in Halifax, Nova Scotia, so SBG very much growing these days and having a very successful year. At around 245, Henzo Gracie, the legend himself, will stop by. He will actually be in studio to talk about his upcoming Metamoros match against Kazushi Sakuraba. November 22nd, Metamoros 5, a rematch of their great fight back in 2000 at Pride. Hensel Gracie, Sakuraba, that is a pretty big get for Meta Moris. The legend himself, Henzel Gracie, will join us in studio, 245. 225 will be joined by Tim Kennedy. Of course, some controversy on Saturday, Y'all Romero,

remaining on the stool an extra 28 seconds going into the third round. And this was obviously coming right after Kennedy Rock Romero. I got a lot of people asking me, you know, I know you're going to ask about the stool, but will you ask about Kennedy holding on to Romero's glove, which led to the flurry at the end of the second round. Of course. Do you have that little faith in me? I can't tell you how many questions I got about this.

What's wrong with you, people? Of course I'm going to ask about it. Chill out. 205, Kenny Monday will stop by. Now coach over at Team Takedown, formerly of the Blacksillians. Also part of the Battlegrounds' MMA pay-per-view this Friday. Of course, the announcers for that show,

Jim Ross, Chalp. Sunning. Sean McCorkle, our old friend, the Kern Jerker, Big Sexy. We'll stop by. He's making a big announcement at 145. And at 125, Ashling Daly, Tough 20 competitor. She'll stop by to talk about the show. She'll be cornering Patty Hulahan in Halifax because John Kavanaugh won't be there and have been wanting to have her on the show for quite some time. So looking forward to having Ms. Daly on the show at 125. Of course, as always, we're taking your questions and comments. So hit us up using the hashtag the MMA hour, and we'll also go inside the vault at around, this one, this one is floatable,

perhaps 345, maybe 420, we'll see, before or after the John Kavanaugh interview, a fun one, and one that relates to this past weekend. First, we're going to be joined by the UFC middleweight champion Chris Wyman, who may have gone Hollywood on us after making his Fox Sports analyst debut this weekend at UFC 178, cast and all, because I believe New York Rick is having some true. trouble finding him. He just texted me. Did you get him, Rick? What's the area code? It's possible I gave you the wrong number. I'm very tired. Here we go. Uh, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, great start. Didn't get, well, it's probably my fault. Whoops. Should I just say it out loud? There we go.

Right number, wrong number. All right, we'll call Chris in a second. Of course, Of course, Demetrius Johnson retained his flyweight title. I said afterwards that he had to look dominant and he was dominant. Why did he have to look dominant? He had to prove that this fighter, this opponent, Chris Carrioso, was not on his level. And that was the big talk going into the fight. Of course, Demetrius was a gigantic favorite, a gigantic favorite going into this fight. The odds very much stacked against Cariasso and Demetrius went in there and he couldn't have a five-round dominant win like he had against Ali Bagahotino.

It just wasn't going to fly, especially after, you know, all those fights leading up to it and the buzz and the fact that people were maybe not looking forward to the main event as much as some of those other fights. He had to go in there and do his thing and do it rather quickly and do it very dominantly. And he did just that. Camorra victory in the second round and he retains his title taken off the rest of the year. I'm told now that we are being joined by the champion himself, Chris the Redeemer Wideman. Chris, are you there? Is that my new nickname? Yes, this is the new nickname.

After you come late on the show, we're giving you your nickname, and we don't care what you think about it. Well, you gave your people over there their own numbers. Yeah, that's true. All right, well, let's get into it because we wasted some time here. First off, what do you think about your Fox Sports Analyst's debut? What was it like being on this side of the fence? Yeah, it was cool.

You know, I think I had a good time. The first day, I was definitely, I was definitely thrown up a little bit. It was like, you know, just a little uncomfortable. It's different. You know, you got people talking in your ear. You have people playing to different cameras. It's just like a lot going on.

You've got the wands are so loud. So there's just so much to think about. I'm not at the fact, smoking test at the beginning of it. So it definitely threw me up a little bit. But by the second day, I did feel a lot more comfortable. I felt like I had some really good segments that I had some not so good segments. But overall, good experience. I would do it again, but I'm not, I don't put it on doing it, you know, as a routine, maybe every once in a while, maybe once a year or something like that.

Is it safe to say, though, that you have more of an appreciation for the media now, for the people who do it, you know, in front of the TV, radio, and whatnot? I mean, it seemed like before you were kind of taking us for granted, maybe now you can appreciate us. No, no appreciate it. No, yeah, that's what I thought. You guys, that's what you want to do for, you know, you should be good at it. I have no appreciation for you. good. All right, fair enough. But I think you did a great job, and as time went on, you got more comfortable, and it seemed like you had a fun time. What did you think of being there in, you know, in Las Vegas,

front row for the Connor McGregor show? Did you enjoy it? Were you blown away? Were you expecting that kind of a following for him? It's absolutely crazy. You know, I watched, you know, I watched when he's called in Ireland, and obviously it was absolutely nuts over there. Just through the TV screen, you could get that feel, like how crazy it must have been to be there. But for him to have, you know, I think he has like three to four fights. UFC. Poirier has like double the amount.

For him to have so much more fans than Poirier, over here in America, I mean, I mean, Americans are in cheering for him, and then you got all these Irish guys coming over cheering for them too. You know, Americans don't, the one country that doesn't really, they don't cheer for them, you know, for their own. You know, they won't just stick with Americans. You know, I feel like Americans need to get better with that. Wow.

And I feel like the smaller countries, other countries, they cheer. They support their people no matter what. The All-American is calling out the Americans. I like it. Yeah, we need to get a little bit more supportive of our people, for sure. I feel like America, we just have so much going on. There's so many people to support that sometimes, you know, America, we really are good at a lot of different things.

You know, there's a lot of great stars and so many different things. And some of the other countries don't have that. So when they get them, but they support them to the death. You know, America, I think we take some of that sometimes. Wow. Strong words from the champions. Speaking of which... Hey, list, I thought, I put all these, you know, in top of the United, anybody from Brazil

is supporting their people. Sure. And if they tell, they're all supporting them. Leanne how much you did, they're all supporting them. I didn't have the full support of America. I had great support. I had great support. I love my fans.

not every American was rooting for me because I was American. If they were rooting for me, they were just a fan of me. There was a lot of fans from America that were cheering for Anderson Silver and cheer for being able to shoot it. Do you think that's a good thing about it? Do you think it's a good thing about MMA that, you know, typically the fans just root for their favorite guy or girl and they don't really, you know, they don't really focus on where you're from.

And you don't often hear the USA, USA chance. You hear them from time to time, but not like in other sports. Maybe that's a good thing. I guess, you know, I guess that they support more of, yeah, exactly, more of the style and what they do, but it's only America that does that, you know, if you're from Germany and what's the guy's name, Seiber? Dennis Seaver. You're a champion for him.

Yeah. You're tuning to watch him. When you're from America, you're not necessarily tuning into just watching America. There's so many of them, too. So it's kind of interesting. Well, I'll tell you what, if you want to become Canadian, we'll accept you with Open arms and we really stick by our guys. So just something to think about.

Now, on the post-fight show, Connor showed up with the belt, and he sat there with the belt. You weren't in that segment, but I know you were right there. As champion, as someone who earned that title and had to go through many fighters to do so and obviously beat the greatest of all time, does that bother you when he just kind of walks around with it as a prop? Not really. I'm not that guy who, like, you know, think of things like that.

No. I mean, the belt is just something. you know, I don't, he's not champion. So for him to walk around with the belt, I thought it was funny. I'm a, I, after this weekend, you know, when I watched him Island, you know, I started kind of, you know, slightly, you know, becoming a fan of Connor, but I wasn't 100%. So that's this weekend. I'm a fan. I love the way he talks.

He's fighting. He's backing it up. He really, he's a full package. It's going to be interesting now to see how he does against, you know, the top guys in the vision. I know where it was, but I like to see him now against, like, a wrestler. Because that seems to me just by watching a type of guy, you know, an American-type wrestler is the guy who's going to give him from trouble. I'm interested to see if they're going to match him up with someone like that.

Yeah, me too. I think that's the big question right now. Okay, let's talk about you. And specifically, I want to talk about Vitor Belford, and, of course, you're not going to be fighting at UFC 181 on December 6. You had to pull out due to the fractured hand. We'll get them a second. But I want to get to the juicy stuff first.

what Vitor Belford told the Brazilian media late last week. He said, quote, I think that all title holders who have more than one injury, the UFC should create an interim title in their divisions. Nobody would lose. Not the fans, not the fighters, not the UFC, only the injured athlete. Injuries are a part

of the sport because we have to train at a high level pace, but hurting himself twice in a row, and that's you, with such little time in his career? Are you kidding me? To me, he just wanted to keep his belt during Christmas and that was the only way, end quote. Did he actually speak this or did he have someone very far?

Well, I don't know how the interview was conducted. It was conducted in Portuguese. This is the translation. I'm guessing it was done, you know, via telephone or in person, but that's just a guess. Why does it matter? This just doesn't sound like him. Maybe it's your voice. Well, also, he said it in Portuguese, so there's a translation, certain words.

But what do you make of the main... I just... What I take from it is if he's just actually looking to talk some smack, he's looking to choose up the fight a little bit, but there's no substance in that at all. This is a guy who he has, he's talking about, I just fought in July. This guy, doesn't make any sense. It's not like I've been off for a year. I just fought in July.

This guy hasn't fought it since November. And I was, I was actually, we were lined up the fight. We were supposed to fight in July, and he had to pull out of the fight. Do we know why he had to pull out of a fight? He's freaking, he failed the drug test. So this guy's failing drug test, and he has the audacity, he's appalled to start talking junk

about me not fighting. He hasn't pushed in November. So what if he gets the belt? What's going to happen with that? So he just makes no sense. That's basically about my. So you just laugh it off. No truth to the rumor that you wanted to keep the belt through Christmas.

You know what? To be honest with you, at this point, I'm going to have a lot of fun. I'm going in there to embarrass him. This is not going to be a close fight. I'm going to completely embarrass him in that cage. I'm going to make him look like an old man who with it away. Did he make him as...

If he looks like, I'm going to try to embarrass him now. Because of this, did he piss you off? It just gave me more of a reason to completely embarrass him. That's it. I'm not truly pissed off. It really honestly doesn't affect me too much, but it just gives me a little nudge to say, all right.

It makes it easy for me to talk. In my mind, I always wanted to embarrass him. but now I'm saying I'm going to embarrass. And when you say embarrassed, like what exactly does that mean? What does that mean as far as Chris Wyman was concerned? I want to completely spoil. Wow.

I want to beat him up standing, I'll throw him on his butt, smack him with his mouth a couple times when he's on the ground, maybe go for submission, make him almost tap, and then let him stand up, beat him up on the feet, take him down again,

just completely just make him mockery of him. Wow. I haven't heard you speak like that before he really pissed you off he didn't piss me off I'm just I'm just I'm very confident

and I just think I want to in this fight the good opportunity for me to just show that I'm heads and tails above the rest of the division I just want to I want to separate myself from the division every single fight I always said that

I always said I wanted to separate myself from everybody else that's always the goal. And so this is a fight. This is a fight where I have to make a point to do that. Let me ask you this. Are you 100% certain that you fought Leotomachita with a fractured hand? Because you told me that it was an old injury.

How can you know for sure that you actually fought that fight with a fractured hand? Yeah, three weeks before the fight, I got an MRI. I was falling with a boxer three weeks before. hit hit a punch and my hand started like obviously was hurting me and I was thinking all right it's gonna go away the next day I'm gonna move my hand I'm like I'm not gonna go the train on this this might be worse than I thought so I went to got an MRI and got an x-ray and x-ray and x-ray came back that it was just a sprain there was inflammation but at the time when I had the injury a lot of times when you hit your hand you're you might feel the pain

and then that different area than where you're actually injury is and that's why I was telling the doctors that I felt out on another part of my hand and where the injury actually was. I kept training. I couldn't hit the pads. I couldn't hit pads. I couldn't spar for those last three weeks. Even in the locker room, I was trying to save it to the locker room. And even the week of the fight, I was actually trying to save my hand to the week of the fight so I could hit pads the way. That's all I really cared about because that's something obviously we do every at the time. And when we got to the fight, I tried to hit pads. And there was all these cap, and it was a very stressful situation. You got to realize I was working out in the UFC gym,

Lorenzo and Dana's personal gym. I have all these camera crews following around in the UOC, you know, some of them work for the U.S.C. And now I'm like, all right, here we go. I'm going to start hitting pads, is my routine, you know, to start, you know, get the rust off. And as I start hanging pads, I threw one jab and felt that I threw a second jab. And I got all these people watched a minute. As soon as I threw a second jet, my hand basically became paralyzed. And it didn't heal, whatever, that spring that I thought it was, wasn't healed.

And now I'm trying to hide it from all these cameras because now I can't punch punch pads. I was a mental midget at that point. I was just like, I didn't know what to do. I couldn't, I was kicking, but my mind, my mind wasn't in the workout. I had more like the thing was like, how am I going to throw off a freaking functional fight? Wow. And basically, so that was like three days before the fight. I couldn't touch, I literally touched it.

So in the locker room, we didn't even hit that. We just, I just moved around. I tried to do some grappling. And I was figuring, figured if I'm going to, it's just a sprain. I figured if I'm going to do it if I'm going to, you know, hurt. I'm going to hurt in the fight. I don't care. A gentleman will get me through it. I'll throw it in the fight. If more damage happens, whatever, after the fight, you get a fit. So whatever, after the fight, you know, I, I'm, my hand obviously was still hurt, and it just

never was healing, never was healing. I got it extra rate again. I got an MRI. I went out to LA, the UFC got me doctors, and they found that it was broken. They said it was an old injury, then we'd go back to my old MRI force through issue for the fight, and they find out it was broken all along. So that's how I know it was broken. Yeah, so it was broken. I had the same fracture I have now through three weeks before the fight. And in the fight... In the hand, it's very hard to see fractures a lot of the time. And I guess they're looking at different spots

where they should have really been focusing that with the MRI. Even though you can see it now, they were focused on the most part because I'll tell them the pain is somewhere else. So I'm not blaming the doctors that people will look at it as much, but yeah, I had a fracture hand. How much it would bother you during the fight? Hey, it's also a blessing in disguise because I would have to pull out of the fight. Right.

If they throw the fracture, I would have not caught Leo of Machita. I think it was a great growing fight for me. Am I happy that I go to Disney Town and get a finish in a hope, but it was a great experience fight for me. I think Leo of Machita is not the best matchup for me, and I thought it was a great fight for me. Yeah, because you always say if you have a full training camp, you'll finish the fight.

You had a full training camp, didn't finish the fight. Now we might know why, but how much did it actually bother? you in the actual fight? Like, were you in a tremendous amount of pain during the fight as well? I have zero excuses. I'm not blaming the other hand. I wasn't able to train and stuff like that,

but during the fight, I don't know if it was adrenaline or not, the fractured hand in. I don't feel it much. So I'm not. There's 100% credit to the Machia. It was a great fight. You look at a guy like Mighty Mouse. He's so active as a champion,

and you've had your bumps and bruises. Do you have any explanation why? I mean, you had the knee, and that was a lingering injury. you now the hand. Do you have any explanation why you're... Yeah, but I mean, I can't, as a bigger guy, they don't get to realize, I didn't, I wasn't like, I haven't

been out for, you know, for my knees, that was a four or six week recovery. I pushed the fight, I literally pushed the fight back, I think, a month. Exactly. So I had a fight that was scheduled in June, and we moved it to July. Pretty sure that's what it was, right?

Yeah. No, it was end of May. It was end of May. So, yeah, they're willing to, They gave me fights, and I think for the bigger guys, I put it, Anthony Silver and Little Machia, these are a huge fight. Money Mouse, there's a lot of promotions that goes into my fights, I think. I think that's why I'm not fighting as much. My injury is, like, so now I have injured hand. I have a cast up for four or six weeks.

So since I've been champion, I've been out a total of two months with injury. So it's not like I'm out for six months, you know, or anything like that. Is it true that you could come back a bit earlier, but it was their idea to make the fight in February because, of course, they already had... Everything's taken up. I would have fought, I would have honestly love... I think I would be good to fight at the end of the December that New Year's Eve fought, but I think everything's booked.

The pay-reviews and the main events are booked. You know, I mentioned to Teno Lorenzo, even February 4th, like the Super Bowl weekend, and they said, you know, Anderson's over, and they have a funny. So I'm getting pushed. um for i'm getting pushed more back than i obviously would like to go i'm gonna i'm gonna be staying in shape and everything but i could have potentially been okay to fight this this this this fight now but the thing is when i get my cast off what if it's not broken then i'm three weeks out you know so i mean what if it's still not fixed that's the problem they can't risk

it four weeks from now i mean three weeks from now i get my cast off and it's still it's fractured you know they have to keep the cast on or two weeks then then i'm in trouble so And then there's time the doctor needs to clear you out. They need two weeks after you take the carousel to actually clear you. So that's the problem. You made that... I know I'm all over the place. No, no.

My green tea's kicking him. No, no. It's great stuff. You made that joke about the TRT and TNT. Are you fully expecting to just see a different fighter out there because he's not on TRT anymore? Well, there's no question he's not going to be the muscle answer. We've always seen V-12,000 look like.

But he's still, you know, he's still going to be, you know, in shape fighter. He's definitely taking the series. He's going to want to prove a lot of people wrong that, you know, it wasn't the TOT that made him a great spider in his last three fights where he's got a little bit. So he's going to have a lot of proof. I can't go out there expecting a bum, which, you know, it's vetoed, man. And this guy has a great career.

He's done a lot of great thing. He's a great fighter. So I'm not going out there thinking I'm facing a bum. I'm going to have a great test in front of me. and I'm even going to expect even more to that. He's always been a guy who's had to kind of hold in from exploding really fast because he's probably going to be afraid of getting tired because he has so much muscle on his body. There's only so much, you know, the lack of the gas is going to fill up the muscle.

The more muscle you have, you're going to get tired of just right. So he's going to have less muscle now, which might make him easy. He might be able to do more things freely without the fear of getting tired. So I'm expecting a tough test. You know, it's going to be different. He's cardio going to be better. So do I, am I going to go out there? I'm going to try to embarrass him, yes.

But I try to do that every fight. You know, I try to completely dominate my opponent. And that's going to be the goal in this fight without a doubt. One more thing before I let you go. The division is very interesting. Jacques-Rae won earlier this month against Gaguer Musassi, of course. Yolo Romero, you saw it in person. First, Jacaree, what do you think of him?

Do you think he should be next in line? You said, Joe Romero versus Jacare? No, no, no, no. Jacques-Rae. Jacare thinks that he's the number one contender, according to his manager. Do you think that he has done enough to be next in line? Or as champion, would you like to see him fight one more time? I don't know.

I don't think anybody should be sitting out. If you think that happens, he should be fighting. I don't, I haven't, like, looked at all the guys in the division and look at the records and their win streets and all the stuff. So I don't know. you definitely know way more than me. I don't keep my eye on the division as much as prior to my I think.

I know he beat Gerard. He beat Musathi. But I don't really know what he did before that. I can't really, you know, I think. So I don't know. I think I know him, Rockhold, you know, the Tim Kennedy-O-Romerow winner was going up there, which was obviously a crazy, crazy outcome.

Who else was up on top? I don't know. Well, I would say those are the, main guys. Jacques Ray has wins over Chris Comozy.

He beat Ocami. He beat Francis Carmel. And just recently he beat Gega Musassi. Romero is a beast.

Of course, you talked about him very well on the Wayans show that this was a guy that you knew about

as a youngster because he beat your hero, Kail Sanderson. Does he concern you at all just because of his wrestling

because of his power or do you think that he has shown some holes in his game? I think he

definitely showed some holes in his but to be honest with you you know when you're at the event you're not sure what really happened but the thing that if you just look at the event

I saw the guy Robin Black that's the guy that's in Canada right he broke it down and he basically said it's 100% of the refs fault the guy was sitting on the school and the time ran out the ref has to tell him to come out if the rep doesn't tell him to come out

oh I think the rep did tell him to come out but he didn't call a fight when Yield didn't stand up right I think something like that. Basically, if you're on that school and you're told the rep tells you stand up,

I'm not sure if he did or didn't, but either way, the guy got 28 seconds extra time, supposedly. Yeah. So you had a minute and 28-second break

when he was completely rocked to Harley stand for that fight. The ending was just absolutely bizarre. I mean, it should have been cold. If you're going off,

you know, Robert Black was saying it, it should have been top. Tim Kennedy should have been the winner. And then next day, know he's getting knocked out. It was very,

I do feel really bad for Tim Kennedy. I'm not 100% I don't really know if it's Joe Romero's fault. I think it might be just the rest of it. Okay, here's the last thing. Quote, look, besides returning well in 2015, my project in the UFC is only one. I won't stop fighting until I get my belt back.

I want to at least try, end quote. That was Anderson Silva last week in Brazil. Do you think there's any chance? They match you up against him a third time? Oh, there's definitely a chance. You know, I don't know. I'm not going on to answer to silver. That's good.

You know, I phone him twice. I would feel bad to even be pulling him out. I just feel like I think he's going to focus on some bigger. I think he should just focus on kind of getting some big money fights and try to get some ws and leave on good note to get on to you. I'm a fan of Ennisper Silva. I don't want to see him. setting these goals from himself

and then his legacy is not what it should be. I want him to end on a good note for sure. All right. Chris, thank you very much for the time. Great work this weekend. Get well soon with the hand, looking forward to your turn. By the way, I didn't ask you this. Do you have a specific date when the fight will be or not yet? No, no specific date, but they said some time

that's not really nothing. No place to set yet. Should be interesting. Probably waiting for MSG. Hey, I just want to say, anybody who supports me out there, I really appreciate it. So keep on supporting. I'm going to keep keeping you guys right. All right.

There is the champ. Thank you very much, Chris. Appreciate it and get well soon. All right, take care. There he is. The one and only UFC middleweight champion, the Redeemer himself, Chris Wyman. Great stuff, saying he wants to embarrass Vitor Belfort. How about that?

Love it. All right, let's move along. As we mentioned, it was a big weekend. for the Irish MMA community. Of course, their man, Connor McGregor, Juan, he defeated Dustin Porier. He shut up a lot of critics, but I know there are still some out there.

And this is a story that has been developing all year long. The rise of Irish MMA. It has been around, but certainly on a national level, it is getting a lot more attention these days, not only because of Connor, but because of many other fighters, notably Kyle Pendred and Patty Houlihan,

who fights this weekend, Gunner Nelson, who's the adopted, Irishman and Ashling Daly, who is on the Ultimate Fighter season 20. It's airing right now on Fox Sports 1. She has not fought just yet. Of course, the whole season is over, but we're only watching now three episodes down. Wanted to talk to her about that and a few other things. So we welcome her in via the magic of Skype. Aschling, how are you? I'm good, thanks. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you so much for joining us. So I know it was late at night, actually early morning Sunday when Connor fought. Did you watch it?

Yeah, I stayed up. It was about 4 a.m. when it was on, but I stayed up all night. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep waiting on that. I was so pumped all day, waiting on it, so excited. So, yeah, I was wide awake by the time it came on. What did you think of his performance? It was awesome. You know, there was doubters, there was haters.

And then there was his team and family who all believed in him. You know, if he says he's going to do it, he does it. You know, you've known him for quite some time. He shows up with the suits now and the same. sunglasses and, you know, the phrases for days. He's very good on the mic. Has he always been like that in your opinion? Yeah, pretty much, yeah.

What you see is what you get with Connor. He's always pretty much been like that. But I know how to handle him. I know how to put him back in his place sometimes. Oh, like what? Tell us when you have to do that. You know, I'm quite a quick-witted with my humor and stuff as well. so the odd time Connor might get a little bit big

and you just have to put back in his place a little bit. Maybe he'll start turning up for training on time one of these days. Wow. How late does he get to the gym? If we're supposed to be training at 1.30, Connor arrives at 210. Wow. Is he getting Hollywood? Are you nervous? Are you concerned about this? No, Connor was like that seven years ago. You know, it was around seven years ago that you made your MMA debut. What is it like seeing, you know, like you go to these events now?

we were in Las Vegas, I felt like I was in Dublin all over again, seeing the Irish flags and things like that. We never really had, you know, there have been fighters who have come and gone, but it's never been this kind of invasion with so many of you guys and girls, of course, on, on, on different levels, right? Different weight classes, like you're all over the place. It's really like an army coming to attack everyone. What's it like for you to see this and be a part of it now? To me, it's amazing, you know, this is years and years of hard work. You know, like you said, I made my pro debut about seven years ago, but I'm trying a lot longer than that. And it's just the hard work, finally paying off, you know, we're finally getting

to where we deserve to be, and thanks to Connor and that, you know, he's really, you know, kicked the door in for us. We were working hard over here. We were skilled, you know what I mean? Just nobody was paying attention to us. And Connor has really put us on the map and you know, all the rest of the guys in the gym, like Paddy

and Colin Gunny and whatever, you know, we're doing well, you know, it's just all the hard work is paid off finally and obviously with the great coaching from John and stuff, you know, this army, he's created or finally march. You know, I had the great honor of being in Dublin in July, one of the best events I've

ever covered and attended, and I couldn't help but wonder if you, because you were one of the first Irish fighters that we knew about that was actually doing something and getting some notoriety in women's MMA, and I couldn't help but wonder if you, who had been at the house, in the house at the time, you were on the show, you were cut off from reality. If you had any idea what was going on, like Patty, you know, he gave you a shout out in his post-fight interview. It was this explosion, this coronation. this coronation of sorts

and I just couldn't help but wonder if back in Las Vegas you had any idea this was happening did you have any clue what was transpiring did they let you even watch it? They allowed me to watch UFC Dublin but I had to watch it on delay

so it had already happened you know the fights had taken place so I didn't know how things were going to go but other than that I literally had no idea of anything for all I know like Dublin could have imploded and the fights never took place because I literally knew nothing

they didn't tell me anything but like I said I did get to see UFC Dublin on delay and man that was such a boost in the house like I can't wait for you guys to see that episode I really hope they they show it all because you know I was living there with the guys you know the amount of motion and stuff that was going going through me you know just watching them it was really amazing it was just such a culmination of years and years of hard work you know I was really emotional watching it of course you knew the date so you probably knew that day that it was happening you couldn't watch it was that difficult for you to not be a part

of it definitely. It was hard for me to miss it. Basically it was the biggest event in Irish MMA history and to be such a big part of Irish MMA history myself and not to be part of it was kind of heartbreaking for me. But at the same time, you know, I have my goals and I have my dreams and I need to follow them as well. So I felt like I was doing something good for me and I was just happy for the guys. I had to make myself a calendar to be able to follow the date and times. We had no calendar in the house. So I was, I was chalking it off like prison. Wow, that is unbelievable. They don't even give you a calendar. So, of course, we're three episodes in, and I have mixed feelings about this season thus far because I think the action has been great,

and it's great for the sport. It's a new division. There's a championship belt on the line, the winner obviously gets the title and becomes the new strawaway champion. But some of the other stuff, it's the stuff that we've come to expect from the ultimate fighter, the shenanigans, if you will.

But I have noticed that you thus far haven't been a part of it. you, for whatever reason, are not, you know, getting involved in the drama and whatnot. Three episodes in, grade the ultimate fighter for us. Are you enjoying it? Are you annoyed that there's this much attention on some of the other stuff? What's your take on it? I'm enjoying the action, like you said, you know, the season, I think it's well shot,

it's well put together. To be honest, I think they're focusing a lot more on the American fighters in particular and maybe not deservedly, so maybe the attention. attention is negative attention, you know, people taking their pants off and stuff. Like, why are they shown that? I thought from the way we were sold it was that it was going to be about the fighting and, you know, about us being the best 16 females in the world. But I guess sometimes you have to kind of appeal to a different audience to get the viewership in

and that kind of thing. But, yeah, I'm just there for the fighting, you know. I just keep my head down, get the job done. I have no interest in drama. You know, I just want an easy life. And I tried to keep out of the drama as best as I could in the house. And, you know, some of the girls there, I don't know, maybe they have bad histories or, you know, damaged past or whatever. But some of them don't deal with things all that healthily from a mental point of view.

And, you know, some of them don't treat people very well. So, no, I just kept out of that kind of stuff. You know, I'm a nice person. I'm never going to bully anybody. I'm never going to get involved in that kind of stuff. So each sit around, but that's not my style. You have one of the deepest resumes of the entire cast yet you were one of the last fighters picked. How much did that hurt you? How much did it bother you?

It didn't bother me all that much. I've learned at this stage that Americans tend to be very biased towards other American fighters and never really kind of respect or kind of rate the Europeans on the same level as themselves. So to one point I kind of expected it. And then at the same point, you know, the coaches should have done their research. like you know they obviously hadn't looked me up they obviously hadn't watched any of my fights and you know coming around to watch me fight coaches were surprised so that's on them you know what I mean like I like oh I didn't realize you could fight like that well you chew me you know what I mean

it's not I'm not hiding it's not a secret and like it did give me a little bit of a chip on my shoulder at the beginning but at the end of the day like I said I'm around a long time this is that wasn't my team they aren't my coaches you know that means nothing to me you don't put a jersey on me and by my loyalty. My team's at home in Dublin and they care about me and they know what I can do and that's all that matters to me. You mentioned in the first episode that you had been battling depression and that's why you took a bit of a break from MMA. What exactly were you dealing with? Why did you feel depressed? Depression just strikes for any reason. You know, you can be the happiest person in the world one day and everything has gone perfect in your life and the next day you just feel like life's not worth living. That's the way depression works. It's not that you have to have any specific. civic reason to be depressed.

But it was just like small instance in life like my personal life relationships being lost, this kind of thing and everything just kind of got on top of me and it got to the point where I wasn't dealing with things well and even as regards to MMA

I was still showing up in the gym but I just wasn't enjoying it. I was just going through the motions I'd lost a love and enjoyment for pretty much everything in life at that stage so you know it was time to just take a step back and see what was bothering me and what had gone wrong and I'm where I needed to go to fix myself.

And, you know, there's no, from my point of view anyway, there's no shame or embarrassment to it. You know, I had problems. I took the time off. I got myself together and I'm back and I'm happy and I'm ready to take on the best in the world. And if anybody's listening here who kind of has similar problems, like don't be afraid to talk to anybody. Just get it out there, get out in the open.

You'll be surprised how much weight off your shoulder it feels like. Did the ultimate fighter help you regain it? that love or did it maybe hurt it for a little bit? Like the experience being there? How did it help or hurt your current situation? To be honest, I'd regain the love for MMA, you know, months back. Okay. If anybody saw my performance on New Year's Eve and Cage Warriors and that picture that I had as my profile picture for a while there, and the smile in my face, you know, it's the happiest I've been, you know, that's what I love doing and I have the passion back and I have the love for the sport back. And if anything, the ultimate fighter,

it probably took the wind down my sales for a couple of weeks because it was such a difficult experience. And, like, being around so many people who are so negative, that's really unusual for me. I'm not used to that. My team at home is so supportive. The people around me are so supportive. And if anything, it just made me appreciate my coach

and my team and everybody around me more. You know, I've just been so thankful for everybody. You know, every day I wake up and I'm thanking whoever, you know, know, I don't believe in God, so thank you whoever just I have these good people around me and, you know, I'm just so happy for my team and every day I just feel lucky to have them and lucky to have my coach and the ultimate fighter really just ran that home to me.

To be in a situation where nobody really cares about you, like you have these coaches who at the end of the day aren't your coaches, you just, you know, those times lying about it and now you were thinking, Jesus, like there's, for hundreds of miles, nobody cares about me. Nobody, you know, nobody's bothered about me. And that's obviously a very lonely thing. But then to get home and realize, you know, I have this absolute amazing bunch of people in my life.

You know, I learned to appreciate people so much more from being in the house. You know, when I booked you on the show just a couple of days ago, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about was your trip to Halifax. You'll be cornering Patty Houlihan. Of course, it's a busy day on Saturday for your team because... There he is. We're big fans of the Hooligan. He was on our show a couple of weeks ago.

Of course, it's a very busy day on Saturday, because the head coach over at SBG, John Kavanaugh, will be in Sweden with Cahal Pendred and, of course, Gunner Nelson. So you're going over to Halifax to corner Patty Houlehem. But we just found out last night that Luis Goudnault, who was the opponent for Patty Houlihan, is out of the fight. And as of right this second,

he doesn't have a replacement opponent. Are you still going to Halifax? Were you guys told that there will be a fight on Saturday? Yeah, we're still going to have a replacement. And being honest, we had a feeling Louis would pull out. we knew Louis has a weak mind so we had a feeling that he wouldn't

he wouldn't actually make it to the cage so we're not worried about that we expected this we thought Louis might might bail we didn't think he would bail this late into it that's that's not a cool move to do you know pull out somebody on fight week or whatever Patty's ready

whoever you put him in front of Patty he's just going to take their head off that's it that's the way we fight that's the way we just train for anybody we don't train for anybody in specific We're ready the whole time. That's the way our team works. So no concerns as his coach in this setting,

no concerns about if they throw out a guy who's completely different than him than Louis, right? No, not at all. Patty hasn't been game planning specifically for Louis. Patty's just been sharpening all his tools. And to be honest, I don't think there's a flyweight in the world that could put a hand on Patty. Like, you know, he's going to be the flyweight division's Connor McGregor, and that's the way it is. It seems like you guys have a very special relationship.

tell me about you guys having tea together, and of course he gave you a shout out after his win in his UFC debut. What is it about Patty that you like so much? Why are you guys so close? It seems like, as far as the team is concerned, you two are very tight. He's just a great guy. He's just a fantastic person. Patty is just so charismatic. He's just one of those people that when you're around him, you make you feel good about yourself. He makes everybody feel good. He's just such a positive person. There's absolutely no negativity comes from Paddy and the worst possible situation in the world, he will make some kind of positive from it. And even back from before that, when we started training together, he always respected

me. I never had to earn Paddy's trust or his respect. You know, apparently I don't even remember this, but he turned up one of his first days, MMA sparring, and I beat him up. And from then on, he was just kind of, you know, I got the respect that way. Well, he's always just been 100% behind me. and 100% positive. And I've always been the same towards him. You know, we've been there together since day one pretty much. And we always have each other's back. We always just take care of each other.

We train together. You know, he's the first one to tell me that I'm over-training, and I take a break. And, you know, I'm always bitching at him to put his headguard on so he doesn't get a cup before his fight. And we just take care of each other. You know, it's hard to explain how close we are. You know what I mean?

I was nearly having a panic attack up in a mountain because I'm afraid of height and like he just looked after me were climbing up the mountain and there was ice and it was all sorts of craziness and our guide had abandoned us and he made footprints in the ice so I could follow him so I didn't have to go through the ice

you know just have a super close relationship you know it's it's cool you know he'll be in my corner when I fight in December so that's all I need to is are you the only one that will be in his corner on Saturday and no actually Artham Lobos will be in the corner too. He's flying directly from

Las Vegas to meet us up in Halifax. So there'll be a dream team in Sweden and a dream team in Halifax too. The confidence of the team right now must be very high with what happened in Dublin and now with Connor this weekend. Has it ever been this high? I think the confidence in the team has always been this high. We always believed in

what we were doing. We always knew we would get here. It was just a case of when. So I think just now we're realizing our dreams in front of us And we're as confident if not more confident But we always knew we'd get here You know, we knew we were doing something special Like even from having been on the ultimate fighter And seeing the different training methods used by different coaches

There's nobody doing what we're doing We're really ahead of the core of how we train And the special bonds that we have between teammates And with our coach and, you know, there's nobody has what we have It's a great story. It's been a lot of fun watching it evolve over the last few months. Good luck on the show. I know it happened already, but very much looking forward to your first fight on the show and seeing how far you go on the show. And of course, you know, if you make it all the way to the finale. And of course, good luck in Halifax. It's a beautiful part of the country. I don't know. Have you ever been to Halifax? No, I've never been to Canada. Oh, wow. Well, you know, I'm Canadian. I've never been to Halifax myself. But I hear it's absolutely gorgeous this time of the year. So I know you're not going to have a lot of time to take it all in. because you're there on business. You have a task at hand.

But enjoy it over there. Good luck to both you, Patty, and the rest of the team on Saturday. And thank you so much for joining us. It was great having you on for the first time. Thanks very much for having me on. There she is. Ashling Daly, a competitor on the Ultimate Fighter Season 20, a member of SBG Ireland.

A fantastic story this year. Whether or not you are a fan of Connor or any of these fighters, it's always very cool to see a team kind of rise up a team that, you know, in certain parts of the world, they may have been known. You know, the SBG is not a year old or anything like that, but on this national stage to do what they do, I mean, they were undefeated in July, in Dublin. Of course, this past weekend, they were victorious. They've got a bunch of fighters in both Sweden and Halifax.

It's just, it's one of those stories where, you know, you know about the AKAs and the ATTs and the Blacksillians and Jackson's and TriStar, etc., etc. Fun to see other teams rise up, especially from outside of North America and dominate the way they've been dominating thus far. Great story. In a minute, we are going to be joined by Big Sexy himself, not curtain jerking,

but it has been a while since we were joined by Sean McCorkel. Sean McCorkel just fought recently, not that long ago. Record 17 and 7 lost to Richard White at square ring promotions. Island fights 30 on September 20th. He lost via first round arm bar submission. That was actually his second straight loss. And in total, he's on a bit of a skid, lost five of his last six. The lone victory in that stretch, a win over Marius Puginowski in June of 2013, of course, a former UFC fighter. And, you know, he burst onto the scene with a great victory over Mark Hunt at UFC 119. That was the first fight.

of the night and Mark Hunt's debut and look at Mark Hunt right now. But he defeated Mark Hunt via Arm Bar in just 63 seconds, an amazing win in Indianapolis. This was a guy who used to talk a lot online and gain a lot of attention for himself. And of course, if you watch this show, you know about John McCorkle. He used to do the McCorkel Minute with his buddy Matt Matreone. But that was a fantastic debut at the time he was undefeated and got a big bump, went from the curtain jerker all the way the co-main event of UFC 124, Big Show in Montreal, George St. Pierre versus Josh Kosteck 2. Fortunately, on that night, he lost to Stefan Struve in the first round via TKO, going to lose to Christian Moorcraft in his next UFC fight and then was released from the organization, but went on a run

as well, even fought in Belator, and as of late, has been battling injuries and whatnot. So I wanted to catch up with him. It has been a while since we had Big Sexy on. after Big Sexy, we're going to be joined by Kenny Monday, talk about his switch from the Black Silling to Team Takedown. Interestingly enough, Pat Kern coming off his loss to Patricio Pitbull, went from Team Curran, led by his cousin, Jeff, to Team Takedown heading into that fight, lost the fight, and now he's back at Team Kern after losing the fight.

So a lot of changes going on there. And, of course, we had Chris Wyman on the show earlier, the new main event for UFC 181 is Johnny Hendricks versus Robbie Lawler. There was a report that Johnny Hendricks would only be able to fight around February or March, but that was somewhat inaccurate, according to his coach and manager, excuse me, to be exact, Ted Earhart. Ted told me that they just said that because, like Chris Weidman, they looked at the calendar and the upcoming schedule for the UFC and realized that, that there really wasn't anything available between now and around February and March.

Most of the shows, the big shows, the pay-per-views, all had main events. So that's what they meant. But Johnny Hendricks says he is ready to go. Not quite 100% just yet, but very close to it. And Ted told me that when the UFC offered him the opportunity to replace Wyden as the headliner of UFC 181, he asked him three questions. He said, how's the arm, how's the cardio, and how's the weight? And Johnny Hendricks told him that he'd be ready to fight on December 6.

It's interesting that the UFC really wants two title fights on that card, especially with so many shows. You'd think they'd want to spread the title fights out a little bit, but they want two title fights on December 6, and that's going to be a very busy stretch for the UFC because they have a December 6 show headlined by those two title fights. The other one, of course, Gilbert Melendez versus Anthony Pettis. And then they have December 12th, the tough finale in Las Vegas,

where the champion will be crowned, And then December 13th, it's UFC on Fox 13. And now that card got a whole lot busier and a whole lot more interesting with not only Junior Dos Santos versus Tipe Miochich as the main event, but Nate Diaz is back. Nate Diaz finally back after a contract holdout. He'll be co-main eventing that show against Hafeuio dosangos. And it's a fight that doesn't have the juice that we probably come to expect from a Nate Diaz fight.

It doesn't have the rivalry or the heat that we like in Nate Diaz fights. But I was told that he did not get a new contract. he had been holding out for one. So he said, if I'm not going to get a new contract, I want this. I want a top five guy. Give me a top five guy. And the UFC said, we'll give you a top three guy. They gave him Dosangos, and that was too good to pass up.

So Nate Diaz will be fighting for the first time since November 30th of last year. He didn't fought in that long. By the time he fights, no injuries. It will be over a year since he last fought. And that card is great. Overeem versus Struve. Petriot, Gonzaga, also on the card. So the good thing about, you know, these injuries and holdouts is eventually they all come back.

All right, let's go to line one. Welcome in our next guest. The aforementioned Big Sexy McCorkel is joining us via the phone. Sean, are you there? Yes, I am. What happened to Skype? For some reason, right? As you guys are getting ready to call me, it says I don't have an internet connection.

So no big surprise, right? It's for every kind. You know, I said to you, I said this to you. I said your Skype always sucks. what are the chances that it's going to work? You say, oh, yeah, it's going to work. It doesn't work. It never works.

Yeah. I actually used it this morning, too, to make sure it work. And it might not work. Yeah. I did just fall down my stairs at my house, so that was fun. You fell down your stairs? Like five minutes ago, fill down completely my flight of stairs at my house. I've got, I don't know.

I think I've said, you know, I've got severe with a mini-a-disc on my back because me who was still in my feet sometimes, and I couldn't tell my left foot, and I just got it on the stairs. It was awesome. I was somebody would have recorded it. Are you injured? I mean, I don't know. I feel very good right now, but I was hurt before, so it's hard to tell. All right, well, I know you've been banged up and you're coming off a loss. What's the current health status over there?

I mean, how banged up are you? Well, what I've got, man, and I've had it, you know, you and I have talked privately about it sometime. I've had a 380 disc in my back for some time. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but you had to sign up for a violent care, like everybody's required to. I signed up on the website, and then one day I get a Medicaid card in the mail, which I'm not sure how that works, but now I have like four people insurance, and it's the funniest thing ever, so I didn't even sign up for it.

So I was able to go to the doctor, and it's like really embarrassing if you got to hand them the poor people insurance card. My apology is anyone who has poor people insurance, but I'm one of you guys. But I'm just like, here you go, and I hand them the card because I'm not sure if they'll take it when I went to the doctor, you know. And I've got an MRI, I've got $3.30 in my back. I've had them for a couple years now. I've had a, you know, I had back surgery in 2009, and the same, same discs are out again,

and basically my life sucks now. So it is literally ruining my life. So every time you go to a doctor, they think you're a drug addict, and they think they're just there looking for pain pills. So I've had, I want to say, eight or nine cortisone injections into my spine in the past four months. They haven't helped at all. and their next option is they're going to try to burn the nerve endings off all around my joints at my spine, I guess, which doesn't sound very safe to me. But they said if they do that, you can never feel pain there again,

but then also I have to be very careful the things I do and how I live my life because I can really, really hurt myself, like falling down the stairs. Right, right. Like I said, you just fought, and you were telling me we were talking before the fight. You essentially did not train for that fight at all, right? I think they got in the gym twice. So why did you take the fight? Because, well, okay, originally, Roy Jones Jr.

I was at his promotion down in Florida. I got to meet him. He's kind of like a childhood hero of mine. Got to move him, and they put on it. I mean, they've got a pretty good event down there. It's called Island Fights down in Pensacola. It's in a city that I'm more or less, Pensacola Beach. I spent probably two years of my life there now just vacationing overall.

It's where I always built my kids where I was taking, you know, when I was a kid with my family. So I love it down there. my plan was that I thought over the four months that the cortisone injections were already scheduled I thought well last time that cordon injection that killed the pain immediately so I figured I would be able to do it the fight offer was against the guy that I beat in a minute at Bellator so I figured it even hurt I should be able to beat him you know

didn't want to go out on the loss when I lost the the dry hunting I took for Maris Pugnowski that last one so I figured this would just be my last one I was also able to in the process of, I guess not managing fighters, but kind of managing fighters. I was able to get four of my guys that I manage on the card also. You manage fighters now? Yeah, that's kind of direct from heading, man.

I bought the ledges of fighting promotion, which was my brother's promotion for a long time. I've done about 50 events. It's one of the Midwest largest fight promotions, and bought that from Tim, and was looking at doing, promoting or managing fighters kind of moving into that direction because I've just tired of fighting. tired of just sitting at home. Wait, how much do the promoters laugh when their fighter comes up and says, my manager is Sean McCorkel?

I mean, what kind of reaction do they get? I don't know. I don't know. That's what looks serious to me. It's because if you think about it, I managed it myself and running myself all the way into the UFC pretty much, you know, without ever having a manager and anything like that. Which obviously I got with Monty Cox once I, you know, you got the UFC offer, but I don't know. I don't know.

I usually make everybody laugh all the time. It's either way, except you. You don't really like my sense of humor, although occasionally I'll make you laugh. I think the text message with some of the stuff I ever write you or pictures I send in things. Sure. But, yeah, I'm heading that direction. I really just love M.MA. And I don't really like fighting.

I never did it. You never liked it? Why'd you do it? Man, I was just, I mean, the house with you, my dad would never let me play football growing up. And that's really what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to play in the NFL. And, you know, like, it said, it was too dangerous. And when I sold my business, as you know in 2005 of our very first interview, despite what I told the IRS, for a bunch of money.

And didn't have to work for a long time. But I got tired of everywhere I went, people would look at me. And they'd be like, damn, you're handsome. Why aren't you in Hollywood? No, they would always be like, the first thing I'd ask is, is you play football. That's what people would always ask me. And I was like, no, my day with Lebanon. So you're your size.

You didn't play football. And I always felt stupid. I mean, I played basketball in college for a couple of years, but I always really regretted not using my size enough. athleticism for something, you know. And I was always a big fan of UFC, so when I sold my business in 2005, I started taking a jih Tzu class for fun, and after a couple of classes of a teacher in there told me, he said, you could just really try fight in UFC if he dedicated yourself to it. And I thought he was given me the typical Brazilian jiu-jitsu school thing.

Like, come to my class and wear a G for 10 years, and your whole life will be amazing. So I thought that's the direction. But when I started training with, you know, Chris Lytle and J. Brian, a couple of guys fought in the FC. They thought I could fight in the FC. You know, they were telling me. Turns out they were wrong, but they were way off on that one. But I just wanted to do it, and that's what I mean.

I said, I've always hated to fight. They don't like the competition, but I don't really like fighting. I never did. I mean, I had 12 years of it with my ex-wife. That's what I am. Told somebody the other day that when I was going right to lead me in under Florida, I said, going down there, I said it's just like still being married. I said I'm going on a vacation, and I know I'm going to be a push on my face at some point.

It's kind of how it always was with her. That was a good joke, not even a smile. Well, if you were on Skype, you'd see that I was smiling, even though it's more just to, you know, keep your confidence up because, you know, you've turned this interview into an impromptu McCorkle minute, but I want to be serious. What's it like, though? I mean, I just mentioned the Mark Hunt win. You know, that's your lone UFC win.

What a moment it was, jerking in the curtain back at UFC 119. What's it like, though, to say? see him do what he does now. I mean, it's, it's, it's, does it, does it make you happy that you beat him? Does it make you ask what if? What's it like? I mean, I'm really, you know, happy I beat him. I actually root for him. I'm really, you know, happy that he, uh, that he's done on the streak as I think all of us know that if Mark and I were to fight 10 times, it probably wouldn't go my way more than eight times. Um, no, I'm just kidding me. I think, I think of Mark Hunt and I fought especially, I mean,

now he would murder me, but even at, you know, at my best, if we, if we fought, he's usually going to win that fight, you know? But I'm not going to say it was a stroke of luck because I did break his arm and pull off the long straight arm bar that's ever been pulled off from the bottom in the UFC to my knowledge and still did receive the commission of the night. But... Yeah, what's up with that? That's kind of weak, right? Man, I don't know. I gave CB Dolly a hard time about it every single time I talked to him because he, I mean, his stroke was okay and everything, but I mean, here I was my hometown.

I was the first by the night jerking the curtain in the locker room before. and go out and broke his arm in a minute against a guy who was an MMA legend. So I thought I would get it. But it was okay, though, because I was quite happy with my compensation for my top trading cards. They kind of made up for it. Really? What did you get? Yeah.

I've got trading cards out there. Yeah, I can believe it or not. But I got a check for $7.67 for him last year. Wow. Yeah, and I had to actually go. I wanted to buy him so, you know, I'd have, like, something to remember, you know, for my son or something like that. So I had to go on eBay and spend more for my top trading cards than I actually got paid to be. No one's selling your card for more than $7.

Well, I mean, they're shipping and that's like that's true. Yeah, that's a good point. And I even bought one of the signs ones because they had like 50 cents on. It wasn't worth me signing it again. So. Right, right. But you would think I would at least get one of the signed cards from Pops wouldn't you? Like I thought at least they would just one of the cards, send me a card something. But yeah, when I got checked for $7.67, I was like, well, looks like I won't be working for a few years after all. Yeah. And then, of course, you made it to UFC 124, and that was the co-main event.

One of the most random co-main events of all time, right? I don't know about random. I mean, I thought it was pretty much due to me being awesome on the Internet. Yeah. I don't know if you remember, like, some of my lines, but I said that sometimes I wonder if life is a lower-tier. UFC heavyweight's all it's cracked up to be, and that's when I call Stefan Shrewan ask him. I had a lot of good jokes, sir. I didn't get on the countdown show, which that, I think, was another record.

I was the first person there was the co-main event who was not on the countdown show. Matt McGrown stubbs his toe and it's on the countdown show, but not me. I feel like I don't see you and Matt together. Is there a rift? What's going on? Is he getting too big for you?

Matt is the worst best friend I've ever had. Okay. You don't, yeah, you never hear from Matt. He's never like, I'll go to Las Vegas. I went to Las Vegas one time to help him get ready for a fight, and I'm pretty sure I didn't even see him there the entire five days. I was there one time.

Wow. When I was brought out specifically to help him. get ready. But, no, he's at Miami a lot, man, and now his family moved about two hours here from Indianapolis, like his wife and kids moved up to Lockheed. He had about two hours for me anyway. So they're up there, so he's not really an indie all that often, and I try to avoid sparring with them as much as I can.

So, you know, we do that. But, no, I'm after good guy. I mean, we just haven't, I mean, we lost touch. We just, he's in Miami all the time, and I'm doing whatever it is. I'm getting beat up and torn all the time. So, you know, we're reminiscing a little bit here. because you told me you have an announcement that you want to make about your career. Yeah, I wanted to be the first, you know, like the Michael Sam thing really encouraged me,

like really inspired me, and I'm not coming out like as the first gay MMA fighter, but I do want to come out as the first fighter to be openly homophobic. Oh, stop it. That's not your announcement. No, I mean, I don't have anything against gay people. I'm just afraid of it. This is not your announcement. I don't want to hear this. That was a good joke. No, I actually, believe it. or not, despite my current street, I'm actually going to be stepping down from being a fighter, from being one of the best trash talkers of all time.

This is one of the worst retirement speeches of all time. You're not stepping down as a fighter. You're not a CEO. You're retiring. Say the damn word. Say the R word. Almost said something awesome. But no, yeah, I'm going to be retiring from M&A.

Not that anyone cares, and I've only fought one in the past year. I care. And it went spectacularly. You never cared when I was fighting before. Remember when I was fighting at the FAA, and you were giving me the hardest time about it? No, that's not true. You've been on the...

This is a national show. This is the number one show in MMA, and how many times do you've been on? It hurts us when you're on, but because we liked you for whatever reason, we keep having you on, so don't give me that. I'm pretty sure the only reason people watch the show is hoping I'll be on.

Even sometimes I watch it hoping I'll be on. But I was... I thought you got to put together some kind of montage of my greatest moment. on hearing, you know, or something like that. But then I realized that it would all be way too offensive. But you remember the last time you had me on, you specifically asked me not to make any rape jokes?

I still squared one in. No. And if you do that at this time, I'm going to hang up on you. No, we won't do that. But tell us, are you emotional about this? I mean, this is the end of an era. This is the end of the big sexy era in MMA. I mean, you say you're going to stick around in the sport. You're going to manage guys.

I'd love to see and speak to these people. But this is a big deal. Are you emotional about it? I mean, not really. I mean, to be honest with you, man, I wanted to, I haven't wanted to fight for a long time. My heart hasn't been in it for a long time. You know, I was just kind of doing it for the money.

It's a little weird. I mean, when I think about it, it's a little, I don't know, I try not to think about stuff like that too much because I try to hide and bury my emotions down deep before I lose it and going to shooting rampage one day. But, no, I don't know. I mean, it's a little sad, man. It's, I don't know, things didn't end up the way.

I mean, in some ways, they ended up way better than I thought they wouldn't in other ways. you know, not to be crying by my back, but once that happened, you know, I probably should have just stopped, you know. But, I mean, when they give you offers, you know, I was fighting in Japan, they offered me, I think it was $30,000 ago, by Satoshi Acii on 30 hours notice. Wow. And I was like, well, I mean, I have to do that. Like, I left right at the moment. You know, like an hour later, you know, Japan, and then they stuck me on 10 grand, so that sucks. Really?

Yeah. I was about to make a big ordeal about it. And I realized they were probably involved with the U-2s, and I should probably keep my mouth shut because they had. had my address. Did you ever take a dive? No, I would, though, for a right amount of money. I actually, when I was talking to one promotion, I don't want to say who, but did I ever take a dive?

What kind of question is that? Well, I mean, look, you of all people, I feel like the nicest. Okay, that's a good thing to say. Yeah. That explains a lot. Yeah, no, I actually told one promoter, I won't say who, but they really wanted their guy to win, and I told them for a hundred grand, I could make sure they want. And they didn't really want to do that.

But in my defense, I've been spending time with Bob Saffet, you know, around then. I'm just kidding. I love Bob. He's a great guy. Hey, any truth to the rumor that you're making this announcement now because of the stricter drug testing in MMA these days? Oh, no. I've been taking steroids a whole career. They haven't caught me.

So I don't think anybody will. Even in the UFC? Well, I was never going back there, I don't think. No, no, no. But you said you were taking it your whole career. Oh, no, never in the UFC. Now, I'm just joking. I've been on testosterone for a long time.

It's about 24 years old. I was taking the testosterone replacement therapy, and I had to go off of it while in the FC because I didn't know you could get a TRT exemption. I had no idea. Actually, if I'm being really honest, which I probably shouldn't, I just went on testosterone proponate while I was in UFC. You switched it to that because that's not detectable in your system

for up to three weeks after. What is that? What is that? What is that? It's a different form of testosterone that's out of your system faster. I just kind of ask my doctor if you could switch me to that. And so I would have to obviously go off of it a month before I thought, you know, which is he's probably never taken testosterone before,

but it is a, you do not feel very good if you, you know, stop taking a month after. But, yeah, everything. Is that illegal? No, it's absolutely 100% legal prescribed and everything to my doctor. It's just a different. You have testosterone sypinate, which is what most doctors prescribe. It's in your system 90 days if you were to be, it's not in your system. just people are so confused on the whole TRT thing.

They'll say that, you know, viewer testosterone was eight times the normal level, and that's not what it is. It's your ratio of testosterone to estrogen levels. It's just a marker to see that you're taking synthetic testosterone, as all that is. It doesn't mean his testosterone level was eight times normal. It means that his ratio was eight times normal,

which gives him no advantage. It does nothing. It just shows that it's synthetic testosterone. You didn't tell the commission, right? No, I mean, I didn't know. I didn't know anything about it. I just knew it was through a doctor, and I didn't know if I was going to tell you. I didn't know if I was going to take it or not, but I thought I'm not going to risk it.

So I just asked my doctor. I looked it up online and what kind of testosterone could I take that would be out of my system, you know, through a doctor, obviously. But I've been taking it for since I was 24. I didn't get the U.S. I didn't get it until I've been taking it. So it's just taking it like I was just taking it like I was just taking it for 10 years. But I didn't even, obviously, I didn't want to bring it up or ask them, hey, I don't take testosterone. So I talked to my doctor and he said if I he could switch it to the testosterone proponate,

which is out of your system. Now every fighter in the world is going to be Googling testosterone proponate trying to get on it. No, they're not the problem. They would never do that. But it's, yeah, it's all your system in three weeks. So I would just go off any kind of, you know, that testosterone a month before I thought and just they weren't doing random testing at the time. But I've had my total testosterone taken.

I want to say because all that matters is your total testosterone level. I've had that taken probably 50 times. I've never had a chat at over 450, which is still on the low end of normal. So no matter how much I think, I'm always still going on low end of normal. And I actually had taken it to the day, it was 46. So that's not good. So I don't know. My body does not produce testosterone at all.

It's a genetic thing. My dad and brothers have the same thing. So the testosterone stuff is just kind of depressing me, to be honest. What are we doing post-fighting now? Are you going to focus on managing? Are you doing other stuff outside of MMA? what are we going to do? Well, I was under the impression you could.

I didn't know you could not manage and promote at the same time. I didn't know that. So my plan was to manage fighters and promote at the same time. You can't do that. Wait a second. You actually can do that in M.MA, even though in boxing you can. There's the Muhammad Ali Act, but there are many guys. There are some very famous guys who do both.

I don't think that you should be able to, but there are many who do this. You know this, right? Well, I was told by the Indian Athletic Commission that you're not allowed to do it. They said that you're not allowed to have a managerial contract. in a promotional contract with a fire at the same time. So being the genius of that I am, I just have a promotional contract with my guys that state if they fight outside my promotion,

they owe me 20% of whatever they get and they have to fight with my permission. Oh. Any big names? Not yet, but I've got to tell you what. I've got a guy who, he's built about like Ellis to Oberyn, but about four inches taller,

and it's absolutely monstrous. I'm trying to sign today. You will be absolutely, I mean, the guy is a monster, and he's been managing his NMA career all wrong, and the Brazilian guy was talking to him, and I think we're going to work out a deal where he's going to fight at my promotion, and we're actually building the right way. What's his name?

I don't know if I want to give it out yet. I don't know. I'm trying to sign him before I do. But no, he is. The dude can fight, man. Like, I was shocked at no one that he knows who he has yet. But he's taking fights. He's been trying for six months.

He started taking fights against high-level guys, you know? And it was just guys that were on their way up. But he is, I mean, he has every tool you can possibly imagine. It was about 6, 8, 25 pounds. I mean, built like the PRT over and whatever you call him. But it's just a, I mean, bigger and stronger. He is just a monster. But he's my biggest one.

I've got some smaller local guys here. Got a kid I'm trying to sign out of Ohio who's 7 and 0 right now. It's 135 pound or so. I'm going to work like that. I mean, I want to take guys from the ground up and, you know, bring them along. Obviously, no one's going to, you know, I'm not going to step in the UFC and start managing guys who already have somebody or steal them away from guys. And I would never do anything.

Monty Cox is my guy, man. I would never do anything to step on his toes in any fashion. He managed a lot of guys. But Monty really is the reason I got my shot in UFC, so I will be forever loyal to him. 100% it cracks me up when I hear people say that stuff about him because he, I mean, he had never lied to me, never dealt in any way even moderately. You know what I mean? I'm honest with me. I mean, he just says he's a great guy all the way around and he's slick. So I always, I'm such,

I'm such a Jew that's a bad choice of words, but I am. Wow. No, I can't. Sorry, I'm not. I'm allowed to say it. But I don't like to, I didn't want to share any of my money if I was married myself, but then I figured out one day that he used money, 80% of 20,000 is more than 100% of 10, you know? So, and he will go out and get your money.

and to hell with the promotion of the right for. So he'll get it. But, yeah, it's a, I know that's the rest of a go, man. I want to bring guys up and kind of doing the way I did. I mean, minus maybe some of the trash talking and racism and homophobic speech. But that was all for fun. I was trying to make people laugh. But, yeah, I'd like to teach guys how to market themselves and build their careers the right way.

I mean, kind of like they did boxers back in the day. I mean, you don't throw a boxer who has promise at 3-0 against a guy who's, you know, 25 and 2. You know what they don't do that. kind of what I want to do with my guys is fine guys, young guys with really good potential and bring them along through my own promotion slowly, and then help them have their dreams come true. So not really as much about being rich, and I was already rich once. I was younger, and it's overrated. I don't know about that, but I wish you the best. Thanks for coming on the show. We've got to run along, but keep us posted on your post-fighting career, the guys that you're

managing, and congratulations on a fine MMA run. You made it to, to the UFC, you got the big one over Mark Hunt, co-main event, all that good stuff. You certainly had an impact. You'll always have a home here at the MMA hour if you are on your, at least somewhat good behavior, and we wish you the best, so keep in touch, all right?

I'm still coming in to see you in the studio also, so don't do that. Also, last thing I wanted to tell you, you know, my plan 100% before my last fight was to announce my retirement on your show and then have the announcement that I was fighting, like, that I signed a fight the next day, and I wanted to say that I got the fireback for being on your show, and I wanted

to really dupe everybody, but they announced it before I could get on. So it really messed me up. Or is that what I'm doing now? Oh, we'll see. All right. Thank you, Sean. All right. Thank you. There he is.

Sean McCorkal retiring from M.MA. Okay, let's move along. As we mentioned, October 3rd, this Friday, one-night tournament. Eight welterweights will vie for a $50,000 contract. It's Battlegrounds MMMA one night, so they're going to have to fight three times to win that check. One of the men involved is the man who we've had on the show before. highly respected in the world of wrestling and mixed martial arts. He's a coach now over at Team Takedown.

His name is Kenny Monday, and he joins us right now. Kenny, how are you? I'm doing good, Ari. How you doing, bud? Good to hear from you. I'm doing very well. So we have a lot to talk about. Let's start first with Battlegrounds.

It's going down. There were a couple changes along the way. I just got a press release about another change, but it's going down, right? Eight fighters, and the winner gets $50,000 this Friday, right? That's right. That's right. You know, it's amazing just to get to a show and not have, you know, a whole lot of things go wrong. So we got a couple things go wrong as far as not really wrong, but just fighters pulling out.

But I think that's kind of normal. But we're on, man, we're on and pop and we're moving. I think it's going to be a great, great night. And we're all excited about it for sure. Who's the favorite? Is there one guy out there that I know as a promoter or someone involved in the promotion, can't pick who you think is going to win, but is there someone who the public or the organization thinks is the, quote, quote,

favorite right now to win the tournament? I don't think there is a favor. I really don't, because you just never know in the fight game. As you know, you never know how the fight's going to go. And especially in this tournament format, you don't know who's going to get through, who's going to, you know, have a great strategy. You know, some guys may try to hold back and, you know, get themselves in trouble, trying to pace themselves.

So it's just hard to say. I think if you look at the betting odds, you know, I don't know who the favorite is. To be honest, I really don't know. I don't know. I can tell you. Who do you think the favorite is? I don't know.

I was just going to say that announced today that Randall Wallace replaced the veteran, David Mitchell, in the eight-man tournament. You know, there are some, you want me to go out on a limb and pick one right now with you here? Yeah, sure.

Absolutely. Why not? You try to get me to do it. Hmm. You know, Jesse Taylor, you know, he's coming off a tough loss. And, you know, he's... Yeah, he's fired up. Yeah.

You know, right now, if I had to pick one, if I'm leaning towards one, you know, for some reason, Brock Larson is just sticking out. Yeah, I'm trying to go for, like, the tough, gritty wrestler kind of guys who are going to try to take the least amount of damage as possible and be able to... You know, those guys have been through tournaments. They know what it's like to fight multiple times. You know what I mean?

I think Ron. I think Ronarro, I think Ron is... Yeah, Juan Carnaro, yeah. He's really... Yep, I think he's really good. This is just background. I think if he can get in and submit guys early, I think that moves in along.

You know, he's very excited about the fight. And so I think he's going to be a tough competitor. But it's interesting. I think, you know, I get calls every day now, and people are so excited, you know, just about the tournament format, you know? So, you know, It's going to be very interesting to see.

I think the world is watching. There's a lot of eyes on us to see how this tournament one-night deal evolves and see how the success of the show. So it's a lot of people that are interested, and it's hard for me to pick a favorite for sure. And the field is Cody McKenzie, Jesse Taylor, Joe Ray, Brock Larson, Luigi Fiorvante, Juan Carrero, Trey Houston, and of course Wallace, who I mentioned earlier. So a lot of familiar names there. And recently you announced that Jim Ross and Chelle Sondon will be calling the fights. How did you get those guys?

That, to me, is maybe the most interesting part of this show. You know, it's amazing. You know, I know, I know Son, and we kind of go back, and the last time I talked to him, he was, you know, very, very talkative. And I think just, I think he's interested. I think we talked to him about, actually, I asked him what he thought about it. He was really, really excited about the possibility.

He said if he could make the weight, he'd get in. But I think just my relationship, too, and I think he's a wrestler, and I think he respects me and thinks a lot about me. So I think he's just wanting to help us out. But I think he's intrigued by the show as well. I was sitting with Chilin. When you first started with the Blacksillians, we were in the lobby. I think we were in Indianapolis, and you were there as well, and he said to me, Ariel, I don't get, I don't get starstruck, but I am starstruck right now.

Seeing you, he said he had a poster of you on his wall as a kid, so I'm not surprised that he would do anything for you and that he would take this opportunity. He thinks very highly of you. I'm sure you know that by now, right? Yeah, I do. I do. And it was actually kind of, it was tough when Rashad, you know, fought him because, you know, I was coaching Rashad in the corner and, you know, seeing him, you know, before the fights and the whole thing. And, you know, so that was kind of a little tricky. But now, he's a great voice. You know, I think he's going to add a lot to the show. And so we're excited to have him. And hopefully we can keep this thing going.

Hit a whole run, home run and keep him part of the deal. So you mentioned, you know, you used to coach Rashad, used to be at the Blacksillians. You're no longer with the Blacksillians. Last time we had you on the show, you were still a part of the team. Now you're with Team Takedown. what happened in Florida? Why'd you leave? Well, I leave. It wasn't my choice. I realize you, I think you probably know.

You know, still, you know, still mystery. I don't know. I think I just wasn't a guy for him. I think I didn't have a problem with the team, the guys on the team. Not that I came to me. No one ever came to me and said there was a problem. I just think with the management, you know, I just felt that I wasn't a guy at form. You know, I don't know. We never, it never set me down to say, look, this is what's happening, you know.

So, you know, I don't know. I'm not going to look in the past. I'm moving forward. I'm in a better situation now, and I'm excited about the future. So I really, I can't speak to what happened or why it happened, you know. But things happen for a reason. And actually, you know, I'm happy to do it. They did.

I'm a better man, you know, through it all. And my family's happy. And we're all, we're good looking forward to the future. Any hard feelings between you and them now? No hard feelings on my part No hard feelings on my part You know we go forward You know

It's a crazy coincidence When I came here And was coaching team takedown Of course I'm coaching Chastagalli And we had them back to back Yeah And then he turned around And had Sean on the 13-day notice

And it just so happened That Pat Curran had been training with us Did his camp here And had a fight the same night You know with Bellator Right So Mark and Tony and those guys went with him for the fight, for his fight, because he was a championship fight.

And then Chas wanted me with him. So this happened that it kind of worked out that way. And I'm glad we got to win. There's no hard feelings. I don't operate that way. You know, I'll serve a mighty guy. So I don't hold grudges, anything like that. you know, and so I just kind of move forward, man, with my life, and, and, and keep it moving, you know.

How did you link up with Team Takedown? You know, I think, you know, I've known these guys, you know, I was in Texas for a while, coaching kids back in from 2000 to 2010, and, so I knew kids, I knew him back in the day when he was coaching wrestling, he was coaching the club team, so I knew him, I knew Johnny Hennishman, Johnny go way back, I know Jared Rochelt, Rochelt, you know, from being Oklahoma State. So I knew those guys and had a relationship with those guys. And then a couple of the owners knew me. And so they contacted me and said, hey, you know,

what do you think about coming down to a team take down and giving us a look and meeting with the coaches and see if there's an opportunity there. So that's kind of what happened. You know, they contacted me. And, you know, and I came down and met with the coaches. and things look good, and we worked out of deal. You mentioned earlier Pat Curran.

He announced last week he's no longer a part of the team. What happened there? He said what now? He announced last week that he was leaving the team and going back to Team Curran. What happened? Well, I'm not for sure. I'm not for sure what happened.

I think, you know, of course, you know, he lost his fight. I don't know if it's the best tied to that or if he just feels like he feels more comfortable at home with his with his cause I'm not for sure what what what his main reason was I didn't really talk to him about it but you know I think you know I think fighters are or you know they're kind of like that I think if he'd have won his fight he probably would have probably got stayed you know maybe he felt like that he wasn't getting what he needed I'm not for sure very I really I'm not for sure I mean, I love the guy.

You know, just had when I was here, I went here very long when he was on his camp, but it's why I couldn't train him. I mean, he's an ultimate professional. He comes in to training every day, ready to work, ready to learn. You know, I really felt like you did some good things when I was here. And, you know, I just think they had a better game plan. I think they had a better game plan. And then the guy executed his game plan.

Pitbull executed his game plan. They're better than Pat did. So I think that's with those guys. level. They're so close. It reminds me of Chandler and Eddie Alarres. Those guys are so close. It's just who has a better day? Who has a better night that night?

I think if you thought those guys 10 times, they'd probably split 5 and 5 or, you know, it'd be close, you know. It's going to always be close. Speaking of Eddie, did you watch this fight on Saturday? Yeah, I did, man, I did. What'd you think?

I just felt bad for him. I just felt like the, you know, his tactics were, I think he had a good first round. and but I think after that he didn't close a distance on, on Cowboy and stay in his face and, you know, made him, I think he kind of fight, sort of fighting Cowboys fight, you know, kind of started backing up, back it up, and they kind of, he just wasn't, he wasn't effective.

And it looked like he got a little bit tired, you know, but Cowboys, a tough guy, he's tough, man. I knew when they announced a fight, that would be a tough first fight for him coming to the UFC. But I think, you know, I think he needed to take him down a couple situations that he did. And I think that's kind of how the fight turned. You know, I think Cowboys is kind of, he's a slow start. I think he just kind of poured it on in the second and third round.

And I think Eddie just didn't have an answer for him. By the way, it's a busy time for you and your new team now. Johnny Hendricks will be defending his title on December 6th. and I'm sure, you know, you've had a chance to talk to him. Will he be ready? Is he 100% healthy or close enough? Yeah, yeah, he's 100% healthy. He's back in training now and starting his camp.

And, you know, Johnny is just a great, great guy to coach. He's great to be in the room with. He's such a leader. He doesn't put himself above the rest of the guys. He's got a lot of young guys on the team. But he just builds those guys. He builds his confidence. He works for them.

You know, so he's really just a great team player. which you don't see it in a whole lot of situations. But his leadership has really grown. You can see it in the gym. And he's always trying to help the guys out. But, yeah, he's immersed. He's totally worked on the plan today on his training schedule. So, yeah, he's going to be ready to go.

That guy loves the fight, man. So, you know, I think when we first heard the fight when, I guess, Chris got hurt, hurt of hand, and they asked Johnny, and, you know, he really didn't hesitate. He asked everyone what they thought, but he was ready to go. He was ready to go with sort of their announcement. And he asked him to fight, he jumped right in. So he's a kind of guy that just loves it, fight, he loves it, train.

And he's just great to have in the room. Well, I look forward to that rematch on December 6th. I look forward to Battlegrounds, MMA on Friday, October 3rd. It's this coming Friday, pay-per-view at 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. in the West. and again, it's a one-night welterweight tournament. A guy who wins this whole thing will have to fight three times

on the same damn night and he'll win also $50,000. Damn night. Crazy stuff and of course, in my opinion, very interesting part of all of this. Jim Ross, the former WWE broadcaster as well as Chale Sunnan

will be calling the fights on pay-per-view so that should be very interesting as well. I wish you the very best with the show, Kenny. Congratulations on the new gig with Team Takedown and good luck. in the training camp for, of course, Hendricks and all your other fighters there.

And we'll talk to you very soon. Appreciate the time, as always. Sounds good, man. Thanks for having me on, and we'll see you soon. We'll see you at the next fight. All right. Hopefully you can come down to Tulsa.

You won't be able to make it. I won't be able to make it. I will not. I will not be able to make it. But in the future, we'll try my best. All right, I got a ticket for you whenever you want to come. Thank you very much. All right, man.

Take care. There he is. Kenny Monday stopping by. Okay, let's move along. As we mentioned at the top some controversy on Saturday. It was a good night for the UFC, a great night for the UFC,

but there was some controversy, especially in the Yuel Romero, Tim Kennedy fight, and especially going into the third round. I'm going to talk about that and a whole lot more with our guests at this time. We appreciate him joining us very much,

Tim Kennedy himself. Tim, how are you? I'm doing great. Thanks. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you very much for joining us. Really appreciate it.

First things first, before we get into the actual fight, of course, you know, it was bloody, really rough fight. Just want to know, how are you feeling physically right now

just 48 hours later? Basically, I'm all right. You know, I'm... You know, honestly, there actually wasn't any damage to me at the end of the second round. Everything just happened

in 30 seconds in the third round. So that's more infuriating than it is anything. So I think I'm a little bit more tipped and bummed off because of,

and bummed out because of all that. Have you watched the fight? I have not yet, no. Do you plan on watching it? Yeah, yeah, when I'm not so emotionally charged about it, you know? Right. So let's talk about the first controversy, if you will. Of course, you rocked him, and it looked like he was in trouble,

perhaps if you had 10 to 15 more seconds in that second round, you would have finished him. And then we get to the period, the one-minute period, between the second and third round. You're ready to go. He's still sitting on the stool. In fact, we find out later it was around 28 seconds that he was sitting on the stool. His corner leaves the cage.

John McCarthy is trying to get them to get him up, and they're essentially not there. They come right back in. They're trying to wipe off his face, and you're saying what the heck is going on here. But in the midst of all this, he is obviously, you know, regathering himself. He's trying to get back in there. He was clearly dazed, and you're, you know, obviously a little bit confused as to what is transpiring here. Did you think once he did not get off the stool that the fight should have been called, or at least he should have been penalized in some way?

Man, I thought the fight was over twice. Really? If anybody's to blame, it's totally me. You know, for the outcome. I think so many just have to step up and be a bigger guy and all this. You know, Dana, no, he cheated. The Nevada Athletic Commission know he cheated. His corner knows that they cheated.

You know, like, they're bragging about it, smiling about it. La Barrios coming up and apologizing. YOL confronts me in the back. Not confronts me. He comes to me to apologize. guys. You know,

like, they all know what happened. It's the oldest trick in the book. And it's like, it's no secret. If this is any other sport, if this is the NFL

or the NBA, you know, like, oh, man, into the fourth quarter, you know, we're going to go in an extra 28 seconds.

It doesn't happen. You know, it's like, it's so, it's beyond unprofessional. It's truly tragic. So, you know,

I thought the fight was ended. I thought when John came in, actually, I thought that was the end of the fight. I thought he was stopping me from hitting him because he was out. and I used stuff up against the cage, and I thought that was the end. So I go back, I see my corner come in, I'm like, yeah, cool, and they bring the stool,

and I'm like, oh, this sucks, what's this about? You know, I'm pointing at day, and they're like, ah, what a big old bonus. And I turn around, and they're working on him, and I'm like, oh, I guess you got out, what is going on? So I'm kind of confused at this point, you know, and then, and then, you know, Greg's like, hey, just get ready for him to swing for the fences. he's going to be dangerous. And, like, what are you talking about? You know, like, is that not being in the fight? He's not, I can see it.

You're sitting there saying no more or no mask, no mask, no mask, no mask to his corner. And then the bell goes, it's a minute. And I'm like, what's going on? I'm pointing at Dana. I'm pointing at the crowd. I'm pointing at the athletic commission. I'm pointing at judges. I walk over there.

Like, what's, it's eternity when you're in a cage. You know, if he gets 28 seconds to recover, imagine if I had an actually 28 seconds in the second round, You know, like, the guy would be walking for a month. But now, John gives an extra 20 seconds and lets him stand up, and, you know, I was gone. I just wasn't even mentally there anymore, and that was a big, huge mistake on my part. You know, I thought the fight was over, not once to twice. And then I rushed in and made, you know, a huge mistake.

So once the third round started, you were still harping on what had just transpired. you were, in essence, you were distracted, right? I was in harping. Yeah, I was gone. I was thinking about that was the end of the fight. You know, I wasn't even thinking about fighting. And who do you... You mentioned that it's the oldest trick in the book.

Do you think that his corner left and said, you know, essentially just sit there and we're going to stall for as long as possible? Do you blame them ultimately, or do you blame John McCart? the referee for not getting in there quicker and getting him up. Because at the end of the day, isn't it the responsibility of the corner to take the stool with them as they exit the cage? That 50 seconds. Everything that they did was calculated and planned,

from the extra baseline to throwing in towels, to dumping bottles of water on the floor, to leaving the stool in there. All of those things. you know, they've been doing it for 50, 50 years. You know, when it all we do, was that 40, 50 years ago? You know, like, that's how pathetic that this is. And the fact that, you know, they're smug about it is even more tragic.

You know, it makes it that much more unprofessional. I think John is the best rest in the promotion. He and her being truly, I have great respect for. He fucked up majorly in my fight. He did the best threat for the world. He got owned that night by a bunch of guys doing shady things. He got played by all three of them, and he just let it happen. You mentioned...

Go ahead, sorry. Before the fight, I told him, I told John, I was like, listen, if I hurt him, he's going to start playing cheap. I promise his corner is going to do it, and he's going to do it? He's like, is this my first date to him? I'm like, no, it's not. I'm just telling you. you know, like when Derek Brunson hurt him, he parts them right in the ball. Not even, not even close, not even like, ooh, do you.

They're like, he aimed and hit him in the dick. You know, so it's like, and he did it with honey marks. So it's not a question. Like, when he gets hurt, he fouls intentionally. So I should have been more ready for it, but I was having John get ready for it. And obviously, what, he wasn't, he got owned. You mentioned the Vaseline, and it was applied by one of the UFC Cutman. So do you think that he was in on it too?

You know, that was one of the things that Dana was so irate about. I just heard John saying, I don't know who applied it. I couldn't see. This is conjecture. There's an assumption on my part. No, you know, like when you say in on it, you mean to intentionally manipulate the time to prolong. Stitch would do that for me. And I consider Stitch a very good friend of mine.

You know, we tried out at U.S.O. tours together, but Stitch wouldn't cheat. You know, at 50 seconds, he would have got up, got out of the cage, and said, go get him, Tim. So if he did, just how pathetic is that? I don't even understand how it's possible that a U.S. employee, in addition to the coaching staff of ATT in addition to UL's, you know, Cuban box coach, that is just layers of unprofessionalism and it's just tragic. I have to ask you about this. Going into the third round, right before that flurry, this has come up a lot, and I'm sure

you probably heard of it if you, you know, on social media or anyone that you know is on social media. It appeared as though when you were just about to land that flurry and in the midst of the floor at the very beginning you were holding onto his glove. Do you remember this at all? No, I saw a picture of it, man. And so I hit him, I know I hit him with a shoulder bump, big right elbow, and that's what started it. And he starts backing up. We're on the opposite end of the cage. So I hit him with that big elbow, he starts, he starts reeling backwards. I'm moving as fast forward as I possibly can to keep up with his retreat.

I'm trying to grab his collar, you know, get a collar tie. I'm trying to grab his shoulder. I was trying to grab his arm. You know, so I had, you know, if there was a foul there, 100%, you know, encourage you all to go to the commission about it. But, you know, I had, I knew I hit him, I knew I heard him, and I was going after him to finish him. You know, that's what I want to do is finish fights.

And fairly, you know, how they're supposed to be done. And I chased him all the way to the other end of the case. cage, you know, and I landed three or four more uppercuts and across. But there's no intent there. I was just trying to move forward, slow him down so I could hit him. Yeah, I'd love to get your take on it after you watch it because it's just a very brief turn of events, like with around 30 or so seconds left, right when you hit those two big uppercuts, and you're kind of holding on to like the strap of his right glove. And this has obviously caused a lot of people to, you know, to, you know, you're going to, you're say, well, look what led to the flurry, so you shouldn't be complaining about what happened,

but as we know, two wrongs don't make a, you know, right? And these things happen, you know, MMA is a very strange sport in that sense, right? You know, a guy goes for a takedown, grabs the cage. You don't get penalized for it. You just get, you know, told like, hey, don't do that. It's not like football where if you, you know, have an off-sides or penalized for it. So I'd be very curious to hear what you say about it, but you don't have that history of being a dirty fighter. So watching it, I mean, it's pretty clear. But I was curious if you even remember doing it or tried to do it, to be honest. Yeah, no, I mean, I have, I don't remember doing it at all until I shot a picture.

I had no idea that that had even happened. And there's a big difference between, like, me unintentionally trying to hit him and grab him compared to intentionally manipulating the situation. You're like two wrongs don't make a right. Well, one's an unintentional foul and one is a calculated foul. These are dynamically different things. And, you know, yeah. I'm sorry if I grabbed his wrist or his glove,

and I had zero intent to do that. I wanted to knock him out, not by grabbing anything, but by putting my fist in space. And, you know, what do you say to the people who say that the only reason he was rock was because of that? Well, he was rocked because I hit with an elbow from the clamps of the shoulder pump. That's what started everything.

I test my striking coach here in Austin. You know, it's something that would have worked a whole bunch. And I was like, man, you would have been so proud. The thing that started the knockout, the end of what should have been the fight was, you know, that shoulder bump right elbow that you drove with me so often. So, no, it's unfounded. You know, I was just steps away from the backstage area,

and I heard something happen afterwards. He saw, like, a quick find, but you mentioned this earlier. What exactly happened between you and him once you guys got backstage? He comes up to apologize. apologize for what I don't know he comes up and he's just saying I'm sorry

and Lebarrio is trying to like pull him away and I was like don't fucking apologize if you can't get off the stool at 60 seconds that's the end of the fight you got TKOed and you know it you cheated and he's like I'm sorry I'm sorry

his English isn't great he's working on it I'm not I'm there's somewhat of a language there. I was pissed. I was going off. But I was like, if you were T-K-Oed, if you can't get up at 60 seconds, that's the end of the fight. You're knocked out. You know, you don't get to sit there for a minute and a half, two minutes, and get up when you feel like it. That's not how it works. You got knocked out. You couldn't get up. You said no more. That's the end of the fight.

And he was just saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Did you hear him say no mas? Or see him say it? Yeah. Yeah. Twice. From my stool, I was looking right at him because I want to see him. how bad he was. He could barely sit and carry him to his stool. He couldn't stand up, and he's telling his corner, no boss, no boss. Again, that's what I was like, yeah, it's over. You know, and I'm completely confused when John's like, let's go 90 seconds later. What are you planning on doing? Are you going to try to appeal this? Are you going to, are you going to protest it? What are you going to do? I don't know what to do. I seriously don't. You know, I want

that fight. I want to fight twice. He could answer the bell. He was knocked out. He's telling his corner no more. He cheated. He knows he's cheated. Dana know he cheated. His corner, no, he's cheated. The athletic commission, they said he cheated. You know, if I go to the commission and I, like, make an appeal, does that change anything?

You know, it's not going to change what Joe Silva's going to have me do next. You know, if I'm... I don't know. You know, my face hurts right now. I sound like I'm talking through strong because my sinuses are all filled up in blood. So I'm going to go hunting for, you know, a month for the rest of the hunting season. And, you know, maybe have a little better idea of what I should do after that. You know, my management and my coaches are obviously, like, they're more pissed off than I am.

Right. So I don't even know if I'll be able to, like, stop Leo from going crazy on the athletic commission. You know, I don't know if I should need to be the bigger guy, the bigger man, and just, like, let it go and move on. Because, you know, you know, the sport, is it going to change anything? Well, you know, sometimes the UFC books, you know, like Ross Pearson Diego Sanchez, most people thought Pearson wants, so they'll put them in a fight. You know, sometimes they'll book a winner and a winner. They'll kind of act like that that was a win. They'll give you the bonus and things like that. This one's a little different because there was a finish involved and it didn't go to the judges. So it's a very,

it's a very tricky situation. But I want to ask you about what the Nevada Athletic Commission said because Bob Bennett spoke to reporters afterwards and, you know, they asked him, is there a chance this can be overturned into a no contest at least? That doesn't take away from, you know, what transpired in the third round, but just, you know, I guess for for official record keeping's sake, and he said, quote, they're very seldom overruled. The likelihood of an appeal being overturned is very slim. I'm not going to say it's not going to happen, but like I initially said, it would be deferred to our legal department. So it doesn't seem like he's very optimistic, although he is acknowledging that something wrong happened, so it's a little strange, in my opinion.

Yeah, that truly baffled me. You know, they're acknowledging the fact that there are violations of the rules, but they're not going to do anything about it. You know, there's replays. We're the only sport that allows this kind of unprofessionalism, and then acknowledge that it actually happened. So, you know, first, we allow it to happen. That's John McCarthy. And then the Athletic Commission is acknowledging that there are violations of their rules,

and then they're ignoring it. Like, how arbitrary is that? even understand how we could consider ourselves truly a sport. You know, like, we're going to be on what we're on Fox, right? We're supposed to be like this big, huge special sport, but then we let this stuff happen,

you know? I know you know how, like, crazy I am about PDs. Right. It's really shot cheating. You know, it's like, that was my big beef with big things, you know, it's like, how, you know, grab the fans, grab the swords, you know, eye poke, stuff like that.

You know, same thing with athletes, they're using sports and anti drugs. And this was just like another degree of a sport in a pathetic. Is it true that you offer to pay for the drug testing leading up to this fight? Yeah. And what were you told? Yeah. So I said I would pay for VADA.

I would pay through the Athletic Commission for both my opponent and myself to be tested randomly and by blood. I was never tested, and I'm sure you all was neither. Is that because you wanted to make a statement, or do you believe that he is on something? No, I'm not for an accusation towards him at all. I think that the sport has a problem,

and especially my weight class, I think some camps have a bigger problem than others, but all camps have a problem. Jackson's included, ATT, Blacksillians, AKA, all of them. Everybody, nobody can say that they're not, that they're 100% clean team. It's impossible because there's shooters and every one of them, some of them more than others. And I just want a clean sport. I want a fair sport.

I don't want this stuff to happen. I don't want the gloves to change so we can't poke each other in the eye, or it's less frequent. I want I want rest to actually know what to do whether they're getting played by a corner You know, I want athletic commissions to actually follow through on the rules You know, that would be, that would start there, right?

There are three different rules that unquestionably were violated in that fight And the athletic commission is just like, whatever Which rules? The stool one? Which other ones? Well, the ring for past 50

seconds where the corner is supposed to get out putting in foreign objects into the ring which were the towel

water vassylene and the stool and lastly it was not following the commands of the rest um

does this take away which are intentional does this take away your you know like you go in there you prepare for a fight you ask for drug test

it doesn't happen this happens in the fight Does this kind of take away some of your love for this sport? I mean, I know it's very fresh, and there's kind of a, you know, after a fight, there's this period where you need to kind of regroup and maybe take some time away from the sport, but does this make you kind of feel a little down on the sport in general? Yeah, I like super couch right now about the sport. You know, I was like, man, this is my – I've been doing this for 13 years, you know,

and I was kind of in disbelief, like, how can this happen in my sport? And then, like, you know, not that I'm like a Boy Scout or like Goody Tush or anything, but I really try to do the right thing all the time. I try, man, like, real hard. And then it happens to me, you know, it's not like some other fight. It's like there's no karma here, because I do everything I can to always do the right thing, you know, especially in the sport. And then, like, the good guy can't get a break, right? it happens to me. So, yeah, I'm callous right now.

I'm pissed. I'm scarred. I don't know what to do. You still want to fight eventually, right? Yeah, I've got to heal up. Yeah. I'm going to hunt for a month, and I think I'll have a lot better perspective.

Do you want a rematch? Do you want to be in there with this guy? Do you think that's the most fair thing to do? I don't know. If you can fight fair, can't he? I don't know. I don't, I can't answer that, you know. So you'd rather just move on from him?

Oh, yeah. No, not from him. You know, like, right now, I'm bad. He cheated. He cheated in our fight. He got knocked out. And then I took advantage of me reeling. You know, that's horseshit.

Well, Tim, I appreciate it very much. I know these aren't the best circumstances, but really, really appreciate the time. Get well soon. Take some time off, regroup. and looking forward to seeing you back in there in no time, sooner rather than later. Yes, sir. Thank you so much for your time, Ariel.

I really appreciate it. And have a great day. Okay, you too. There he is. Tim Kennedy stopping by. An unfortunate situation and unfortunate turn of events in that, you know, two, three-minute stretch of time. And, you know, it certainly starts. We talked about the glove incident.

It's there. You can see it. And then, of course, what happened in between the two rounds, very unfortunate for everyone involved and curious to see what the UFC does. Do they do a rematch? I mean, there's obviously some bad blood there, obviously, but Tim Kennedy will need some time to regroup, and I think that's for the best, you know,

take some time off, a month off or so, and then kind of figure where he wants to go with this. I have a feeling, though, that going the route of appealing, going to the Athletic Commission will not lead to anything great, for him, at least. It won't lead to a no contest. And really, at the end of the day, what does that really mean, especially in this sport? It doesn't really mean all that much because two, three fights later, people look at, oh, you know, no contest lost.

No one really remembers. It's all about, you know, you want to win that, that win bonus. You want to maybe get, you know, another bonus here or there. You want to go on a winning streak. They want to say, you know, you can't say that John Jones is undefeated. He's not undefeated. Things like that. So it still hurts.

It still lingers. It's still, you know, this black guy on your record. unfortunate. That's all you can really say. And, you know, on a night that was pretty darn positive otherwise for the UFC. Okay, we're going to take a break. In a minute, we're going to be joined by Henzo Gracie in studio. Hendo Gracie, we're going to be joined by a living legend in studio. This doesn't happen often, my friend, so you want to stick around for that. We're going to talk to him about a whole bunch of stuff, including his rematch with Kazushi Sakuraba,

November 22nd at Meta Moris. For now, it was very interesting on Saturday. No Dana White scrum, but you know who did a scrum? Connor McGregor did a scrum. A sign of the times, perhaps. Here's some great stuff from Connor McGregor following his win over Dustin Porier at UFC 178. We'll be back in a second with Hensel Gracey himself. I believe they're priming me to take over.

My man. You like it? Where's the suit from? Have you had it made for you? This is David August. Checked at it. What does that say? I'd like to know.

What does that say? See my goodness. Gee, that's here. That's my initials. You know you've made it when you have your initials on your shirt. Your clothes are tailored by... I have a tailor back home, but this is my tailor in Vegas, David August, who made some phenomenal suits. It is lovely, yeah.

I swear to God I've been staring at it every day this week, cutting weight in, getting the weight down, getting skinny. I'm like looking at myself, my face is drawn in and all, you know what I mean? But I'm just every day looking at this suit and thinking, I can't wait to put this suit on after this fight. This is what I love to do. I love to do. I love to train.

What I love to do was go training, and then after, you know that buzz you get from training and then having fresh, clean, new clothes, like popping the collar off the clothes and then putting them out after that session. So you have that rush of endorphins from your workout and then you're putting on fresh new clothes. There's no better feeling than that for me.

I love doing it at home when I'm in the gym and you best believe I love doing it here on fight night as well. Connor, in Ireland you said that that was the greatest moment of your career. Is this maybe the most gratifying moment because so many people doubted you going into it? You know, again, I don't... It's good that people prove, or I doubt you, you know? But again, I'm just having fun saying, I knew you doubted me,

but really I don't pay too much attention, though I enjoy it, you know? Again, it's about proving people right, proving the people who are with me right, and not paying too much attention to it, but, I mean, it's always a good thing when you say you're going to do something and then you go and do it. It is probably my favorite thing to do it.

Say I'm going to go and do something and then do it. Did you pay attention at the time? The wayans, I mean, it was like being in Dublin all over again, and even today, in the hotel all week with the fans chanting. Are you in the zone so much that you don't hear that, or do you notice all that stuff? Because it's something that we don't see often in the sport. 100% I notice it. Of course, how could you not notice it? Every single person in that building notice it.

When I'm sitting backstage and I'm 25, 20 minutes away from making weight, it's tough. It's tough for me to make better way, you know, but I do it professionally. And then you hear, there's only one. McGrager or Olae, all these songs. This uplifts me, this gets me to that next stage. And of course, you know, I love my country, man. Like I said in the post-fight interview, one of us goes to war, we all go to war.

But at the end of the day, this was a battle. This was one battle, we won this battle, but the war is just beginning. So it's a beautiful thing to have my country behind me. And we will go on. Mumbai, we will win the war. It almost seemed like the fight went too fast for some of your fans.

You know, there was this elation, but it also kind of got kind of hushed. I think they wanted to see you play a little bit. Yeah, I would have liked, I mean, whatever, I would have liked, I felt I fell into one or two shots. I would have liked to make him miss a little bit more, play with him. Like I said, I was going to play off his panic. He landed that straight left, didn't he? He landed that straight left.

It was in on it, but I was all right other than that, you know, but whatever. I'll get back to the gym, and I'm sure we will be speaking again. soon. What was us to do you during the way I took up next thing while he was on the scale

and kind of is that part of the mental worker? Now what I said to him backstage because I had my Ireland flag and I said

how come you have no flag? I said, where's your flag? He said, I don't have a flag and I said, I tell you why you don't have a flag because you ran from your home city you believed your hometown was not good enough.

You believe Lafayette or the place he is from was not good enough so he must move stick. I said that is why you don't have a flag because you don't have a belief in your surroundings. That is the mind of a journey man.

That is not the mind of a champion. And that is what I said to him backstage. And again, I believe that is fact. But again, I'm just playing on stage, having fun. I like to look good. I like the woodbass. I like the flex. You know what I mean?

Whatever. He was flex and I wanted to flex too. It's all fun in games at the end of the day. Did you ever consider pulling out of the fight? I definitely had talks in my head. I'm thinking, I'm coming. I literally, It was like that. It was like that.

How did it happen? I was wrestling and a guy shot in. And I went to sprawl and his whole body came down on the thumb. I literally just crushed it. And I just heard a couple of pops. But it was like that. So of course I'm looking at my fucking thumb like that, four weeks out from the biggest fight in my life.

I'm thinking maybe I will pull out, you know what? I just said I'll just continue. I'll do what I can. And then I'll play it by year. I'd done what I could, iced it, worked on my kicking game, worked on everything else that I could do, and then, like I said earlier, came to Las Vegas, enjoyed that sunshine.

I think honestly that sunshine gave me that little bit of boost, living over here in comfort. I was living in comfort. So I said to myself, I will be okay. And funny enough, when I wrapped it, the way we wrapped it, like I just had a nice and tight, I couldn't actually make a full fist tonight with this hand. It was kind of open because the rap was so big,

but it actually worked, because when I threw something on the pads, Like if I close it right now and do that, I can feel the pain here. But the way it was wrapped, it was kind of like that, so I couldn't feel it, so it was perfect. Did you go to a doctor? Did he tell you that you're okay?

I went to a doctor to get this mold. I went to a doctor to, I went to a physio, a doctor and then he sent me to a physio in the same building. And they gave me this like molded cast, like you could tip it. Because that's ultimately what the problem is. It just needs a little time to be left alone. It's nothing serious.

But every time you put your hand in your pocket and you get this pain, then it prolongs it so I went to the doctor he sent me to this physio in the same building and actually gave me this cast thing but they were trying to send me to an MRI

and I was like and I was paying for it as well I don't give a fuck about no MRI no matter what they tell me in the MRI it's not going to make a difference to what way I choose to go about this and once I have the little cast to protect it from taking knocks

when I'm not doing anything I'm going to fight and that's what happens I got the cast wrapped it up and then carried on Conor, you... No, it's all right. Lorenzo was trying to say to me earlier on, I'm going to go to a hands specialist, do this.

It's brand new, it's a thumb. Honestly, I'll have that little moldy thing. If it gets hard again, I'll just stick the mouldy thing on it, wrap it up and bum. Do you believe, Connor, that you've... Obviously, you'll win the featherweight title very soon, but do you want to create superfights in the UFC by perhaps stepping up to lightweight?

Because you're a huge featherweight, do you want to step up very soon? very soon once you won the belt and get away from the husbands and the journeymen and the up-and-comers? I don't like making this way. I like fighting that light weight.

I fought a lightweight many times in my career. I'm fast that light weight. I come in and refresh that lightweight. It's a different camp. You're more powerful, presumably, as well. It's a different build-up when I'm fighting at lightweight than it is to fighting at Fetterweight. So I'm definitely open to to fighting at Fetterweight, no doubt. I don't feel

oversized by the lightweight. and so definitely. Do you mean your kind of spirit is different when you're at lightweight because you're not having to diet so much? I mean, would your spirit not be different if you go into a steakhouse with your team and they're ordering like 64 ounce riboise,

rare riboys, marbled and delicious, delicious flavors? And it's cooked on the stone. They bring it on a stone so it's actually not even cooked and the stone is sizzling and then you put them, you put like blood. butter on it and it's sizzles and cooksy and then I show up can I have a chicken and can I have some salmon and spinach please that's what I'm talking about yeah I want to shop with these places two weeks ago when I'm fighting be like give me the 64 ounce rib-eye

and I have an extra of plenty some sweet potato mash and I'll also have a dessert that is what I Speaking of that guys, his manager just informed me as a party to go. Thank you so much guys. One last question. Chad Mendes sent me a message for you. He said, Conor, get on a plane to Brazil, go to his third row seat, grab a bowl of Lucky Charms, and witness excellence. What's your response? I don't know, he's a little short ass.

He's a little short ass, whatever. We'll see how the fight goes, but I will be there and we will see what he says when we're face-to-face, man to man. We won't be fate to eye though. We'll be belly button to y'i. button to why. I'd say something else, but I won't go there. Hold on, Mike. Thank you. So there he is. Connor McGregor holding court on Saturday night

after his win in Las Vegas at UFC 178. A great trash talker, but this man was doing it when Connor was in his father's nuttack, right? Yes, yes. Comfortably and warm in there. Yes. Conna is amazing. That guy's a... He talks

and he delivers soon. The one and only, Henzo Gracie is in studio. He will be competing against It's Kazushi Sakuraba, November 22nd at Metamores 5. Before we get into all of that, guys, is his audio okay? All good? Okay. Henzo, thank you so much.

My pleasure. This is a great honor for me. A great honor for us to have you here. So I got a lot to ask you about, but first, you like this guy, right? Yes, yes. You deliver a bidding like the last one that he did. He deserves respect. But what do you think of the suit, the glasses, you have no problem with that?

It's a show, no problem at all. It's a, wherever you feel. comfortable. I always like to be on my spittals and, you know, fighting in there. Then suddenly I had to wear bigger shorts. And as I grew fat, I have to wear those surfing shorts. That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's what it is. You know, a few days ago, before the announcement about Sakurabi, I saw on your Instagram, you're prolific when it comes to social media. Yeah. All hours of the night, when I go on a plane at 5 a.m., you're tweeting. When I go somewhere in the middle of the night, you're Instagramming. And you write these long messages in two languages,

Portuguese and English. It's unbelievable. in Arabic, sometimes in French. Really? Depends to who he goes to... Salam alaikum. Salam alaqa alaqa. Thank you. So, you posted a picture of your fight against Sakuraba,

the submission, right? When you broke your arm. And I was wondering why you were posting it because it wasn't the anniversary, you know, it was back in August of 2000. So I was wondering why, and then we come out with this. How did this happen? How did this whole match come about? It was actually, I got a phone call from my cousin,

Haleck, and he offered me the fight. He said, Kazush Sakrabba may signing up with us. Are you interested? fight him. I say, sign me up. The day they had got that call, I begin training. And how long ago was that? That was probably a month before, the announcement. It was a month before.

Was this something that you wanted, another shot at this guy? My dear friend, if life puts a source in front of you that you can drink again, how can you refuse it? Right. And especially for the fact that I came up short on the last one. So in my head, the winner is the one that win the last one. But you know, Gracie Killer, Gracie Hunter, all this stuff. Like, is this personal?

Again, it's like Connors close. No, it's not. He's a gentleman. He's a great guy. But if I can, I will choke him out. Or I'll break his arm to pay back what he did to mine arm. You know, you work with the World Jiu-Jitsu Expo. Yes.

And they have an event coming up with some great matches. That's your thing. You're the president, right? Yes, yes. So why aren't you competing on that show? I couldn't get in shape on that time. You know, I was, you have to understand. I've been extremely busy.

What are you doing? I begin a pharmaceutical company, something very big, and it's really taken off and working great. And on top of that, I had problems with my family and some stuff that I had to take care of, so I couldn't train. Last time I saw you, I was coming back. Sure, sure.

You know, right after that, my son got sick, and it took me a year, you know, off, anything else that I could do. And now he's much better. He's going to be probably in my corner, telling me what you do. We've been training together a lot, you know, and everything is going great, and I'm ready to kick some button soon, believe it.

After Sakuraba, I'm coming for UFC. You're still going to fight? Oh, hell yeah. Really? Yeah, of course. How old are you now? I'm going to be, probably the UFC will be 48. I'm 47 now.

You know, people who say, okay, enough of this already. You keep telling us you're going to fight. You're not fighting. Are you being serious? I am serious as hell, my friend. Believe it. And if it's... I did ten times harder this past year than fighting.

Really? Yeah. But everything's okay now. And I was able to accomplish. everything, yes, of course. But 48 years old, I mean, with that layoff... You have to understand. It's like you were old as you think you are.

I'm going to ask you to look at my head if you can find one gray hair, you know? It's a great head of hair. And I don't die. I tell you. I don't die my hair. I never did. My mother the other day came to me and asked, son, please tell me this secret.

I say, what secret? She goes, your hair. How do you die your hair so well? I go, Mom, you? Not you. Anybody else, but you. Everyone doubts you. Yeah, yeah.

You know, it's... But do you think you'll be able to convince Dana, a white? How can you not convince if you're fighting even for free? They're not going to make you fight for free. I know. He told me, you know what the offer that he did? He goes, I give you a check for you not to fight.

Wow. And what did you say? I couldn't. I would rather fight for free. That's right. And not only that, you have metamorphous, but you're also competing against Matt Hughes, right? Yes, we have a match in Abu Dhabi. In September next year.

So it's like, since I have to be in shape now for Sakurab. I have to be in shape in September next year. Let's be in shape in the middle and do a job. Do what you have to do. Do what I like it most. So Meta Morris is very interesting because for me, like, you know, I cover mixed martial arts, but I love the fact that they're taking some of these old rivalries

from MMA and bringing it to Jiu Jizu. They have people like Chil Sondon. And on this car that you'll be competing on Rory McDonald from the UFC. Do you like what they've been doing? And of course, it's your family involved. I love it. And this is a very old concept. I fought those when I was a purple belt back in Brazil

in Jiu Jiu Jitsu, you know, and it was always we call us Super Fights, we'd set up the Super Fights Days, and only the best of their weight division and people that had problems between themselves, they would set up a show. You know, it was always a house pack of people, and it was always a success. I had a match with Valid Izmaio for one hour. Right. I had a couple of matches with Jiji, the head of the Alliance, for half an hour. It's like I've been doing this for a long time.

I did those before Jiu Jiu Jitsu was popular. you think this can take Jiu-Jitsu to the next level in America? Because it's never been. Definitely, definitely. I think it's the professionalization of the sport. It's like you have the amateur aspect, where they look for points, and this one you're looking for the submission. In the old Japan, Kimura, when he lost his world title,

he actually fought for over an hour with a very young guy who ended up beating him. And he, I remember, I think he said, and then he called, today wasn't my Jiu-Jitsu that was worse than he is, was my age that was higher than his. And the Jiuzitsu lost to the youth, to the young one. You know, he was much older when he lost that fight. And this was back then. They already had a match like this.

So it was great to see Metamoros bring that back, you know. And to be part of that, since the beginning, when it began, I was already thinking, I'm going to fighting on this, yes. But you have no problem with the rules that it can end up in a draw. Like there are no points, no nothing. You have to win by submission, no problem? Because in reality, it's, there's no need for points. and a match like this.

That's how I grew up. I say in Jiu-Jitsu, how you cannot do is to lose, is to be submitted. So you could be in any situation and work your way out of there. And those fights were the test. Like we had those at the academy sometimes.

We sit down and both went off until one tap. Wow. You know, and I grew up with this. And to me, this is very natural, and I'm glad they brought this in and they make him popular. And it's great when I go there, you see how the hard,

core fans that know what's going on in the arena, you know? Would you prefer, would you prefer no time limit? I would. Yeah? I would. I would. I would love to, because it's, even when you leave with a draw without knowing who would finish who, I would rather know, you know, it's like I told before.

I'm going to die old like everybody else, but, you know, shitting in my pants like everybody else, but knowing who I was, you know? That's right. So, poor, the reality, I don't care. If it was me the submitted one or them, but I would know. Will you wear a ghee? No, gie. No ghee.

Yeah, it's going to be like, I think, a no-gay match. Oh, it is a no-gi, so you're not allowed. Because there's different things. I'm not even, no. I signed, to be honest, I signed the contract and I don't even read it. You don't even know? No, I didn't check the contract. I believe it's no-guie.

It's shorts and a rush guard. What do you prefer? Do you prefer, like, if the rest of your career, you could do these kind of matches or fighting? Which do you prefer, fighting or grappling? I like to measure myself. I was just now a train. training before I came here that's why I was almost late

and by the way you calling me like my grandmother guys all the time well they tell me Brazilian time Henzel Gracie but you know what you've been on the show twice in studio never late right on time so I'm sorry

I'm sorry for doubting you that's prejudice no no no it's not it's a reputation I have a Swiss clock in my body so don't worry about this I'm always on time but I like to measure myself I was just training with my godson

I was with him for one hour rolling and he was telling him that he was going to kick my butt. So it's, to me, every time that I roll, that I train, I feel good. If it's fighting or if it's just training at the academy, I feel good. And I know that I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life, you know. What's the state of the family these days? Because there's always some kind of drama with the family. I mean, how are you with Halleck and that side of the family?

Those kids, I love him. I love her. I used to change his diapers. I remember him. Really? Yeah, very stocky kid. And he kicked Sakurabazazas. Right.

That's right. Gracie that went there and did the job, you know. And this is, I think, what it matters in our family. It's like whatever one comes up short, we build an army that someone can come up and do the job, you know, and I was glad he did. And I love the work that they do. It's like, tell me a family that doesn't have a drama. Right.

You know, go on people's house on the weekend and see what happened between them. It's family. But the beauty of family, you can say whatever you want, you can insult. You can even, in my family. family on that case, we can even hit each other. And the next week, everything is fine. We meet each other like nothing happens. You know, when you were on my show back in November,

you had said some stuff about Hoyce and whatnot, right? Hoyce, I saw him at UFC 167, and he came up to me, he said, hey, and with a look in his face, stop talking about my family. I looked like he was going to break my neck. Yeah, yeah. I might have soiled myself. He's been hoist. People know a hoist very calm, very easy-go.

He's very intense. People don't realize. And a lot of things, he called me a few days ago, very angry. Why? With people in the family. Okay. They're not behaving the way that they should, you know? So he's a great kid, man.

He's a great guy. It's a guy who put us on the map, you know. He was an unbelievable fighter, has a lot of heart, a lot of balls, did his job like nobody else. You know, all the grace should be very thankful to him. And I love him. I know him since we're little. We trained together until he moved to the United States. He was 18 years old.

He was the first one to come. And he kept training here, even when he didn't have training partners to train. He was training and teaching people from 7 a.m. to 9 o'clock at night. So this is how he trained. And I respect him and I love him a lot. It's like I can even be angry at him and stop talking to him for like a year. But if he called me with a problem, and if I have the solution is his. That's family.

That's family. That's what it is. You know, Dana White often says that the Japanese ruined Sakharore Rabba's career. Like, they put him in these bad matchups. They got him beat up. I mean, he stuck around probably a little too long. What's your take on the way his career was handled?

Especially later on, I mean, he was getting beat up and put in some rough spots. You have to understand. Back then, there was no weight limit. It's like, talking of pride, I saw, I fought Kikuta on Pride 2. The weight limit was supposed to be 93 kilos, which is 205. I got there. I was 168, 170. So Kikuta, I go on the scale.

I see my weight. Kikura goes in this tail. And they speak in Japanese, 205, right? 93 kilos. But the scale is facing them. It's not facing outside. And I look at him, I say, this is the most amazing 93 kilos, 205 I've ever seen my life.

It's thick. He was thick. And as I fought him, I end up fighting him for 51 minutes. And in the end, I was able to choke him. And I remember, I said, I never felt a guy with 205, you know, that strong. So they're heavy. I couldn't do nothing to him for a long time.

When we get to Abu Dhabi, he signed up to fight Abu Dhab at 205. When I get there, I see this Japanese come to me and say hi. And try to initiate a conversation. I go, I know this guy from somewhere. Where is he from? Then I look at Kikuta. I couldn't recognize him at 205. That's how big he probably was when he fought me.

Like I couldn't recognize him. His face changed, his body changed, and he ended up being the champion of the Abu Dhabi. He won the Abu Dhabia at 205. So you don't feel like he was mismanaged? It was just part of the time, right? It's part of the time. It was a different, it's like you're talking about,

I was in a meeting before going, a day before they gave me a water that I slept for 18 hours. Really? Which fight was this? That was on Pride 2. Really? Against Kikuta, yeah. You think they put something in it?

For sure, for sure. I was out, you have to understand one thing. You're talking about me tweeting at 5 o'clock in the morning. In Instagram, I don't sleep. I can sleep two hours and a half and I can work and I can think and I can read and I can do whatever I want and I fell 100% if I sleep two hours and a half. If I sleep four hours, I think I overslept. Wow.

You know? And that day I slept 18 hours straight in one shot. And I remember people knocking at the door and I woke up but I couldn't move. out of my bed. Wow. And I never had a sleep like this in my life, in my whole life, you know?

And I couldn't. And he went to the point that they got a person at the front desk to come and open my door. And they came in and they tried to talk to me and I say, I can't get out of the bed.

I can move. I just can't move. But it may have help because the next day I was feeling great. Who do you think did that? You think the promoter? For sure. Really?

The whole organization was on the, the beginning was they could do whatever they want it's like I lost to shungoyama because they gave the even though I bid him the whole fight they gave him the victory because they claim I spat on him so the guy was insulting me the whole fight I spat on him but there was nothing on the room that would say so team Kennedy's complaining about his situation imagine me there's nothing about speeding right because I spat on him they gave the victories to him did you ever confront them about the water I mentioned that but they would say no impossible no

Maybe. Never on and off. But they could do whatever they want. Japan back then was like this. That was the Rings organization. The guy who won rings, he would get up and say, Maeda, Mitsu Maeda. He would go, no, this guy won. He would give the victory.

There's no rap. He would look, scream in Japanese and point his finger. This was in tape. So whoever he pointed was the winner. So you have these situations back then. This was the foundation for what we have today, you know. And I see sometimes a guy like, I love Team Kennedy.

I love his style of fighting, his intensity. He's a guy that every time he fights, I'm there to watch. And I saw him complaining about the Cuban guy sitting down for too long. Yeah, 28 seconds. What do you think about this? You have to understand.

If I was on that Cuban situation, I would do that too. If my fighter was on that situation, I would do that too. I would give him time to recoup. He was almost knocked out on the last 10 seconds, you know? So this is one of the maneuver

the boxers have been using for ages. You see people overthrowing water on the athletes, so they have to dry. They have to dry the floor. That's to gain time. You want to stop with this? Remove the seat. You cannot sit.

It's straight. And when the bell rings, you shoot right off. That's the only way to stop this, you know? But you want to do that? It's going to look in inhumane. Right. You know, it's, it's not sitting to relax,

not sitting to, to rest on that sense. So you tell him to forget it? You have to forget. What about him holding the glove? It's a fight. Part of the game. Yeah.

I wish when I was fighting, I had a hair to grab it. It's like you give, on that moment, it's like a fight for survival. The guy was in a bad situation, him too. You know, and I really think the team is a great guy. Yeah. On every sense. It's like there's nobody with balls and guts. will to train and fight and how hard he works, it's amazing.

You know, but I honestly believe the one who wins, the one who loses, because it only looks ugly. Right. That's the thing. I know he's hurt, you know, and I don't mean nothing by saying that to him. I'm just, I think I'm older than him and I can, you know. I know you've spoken very highly of him in the past. Oh, he's the best.

He's the best. He's like every time he fights, I want to watch. Believe it. Whatever I am, I want to see it. Sounds to me like you don't like the modernization. of MMA. You prefer the old school days. It was more honest. The reality was more honest, yeah.

What do you mean by that? You really found out who's the man? Yeah. There was no doubt. Right. It's like now I was I was commenting a fight. Next to Bass was on WSOF. Oh, yes, yes, yes. I was commenting a fight and clearly one guy won. Right. Clearly.

And we're talking right like he won. The results come was completely. We are completely wrong. They gave a large advantage for the other one. So the people who actually, a lot of times, are there to judge, they are not capable. They are not capable at all. They don't have knowledge.

How do we fix this? You have to train them. You have to train them. And this, I think, honestly, is UFC's obligation. Yeah. They are the ones. What they don't understand, it's like it's a business. It's okay.

You run as a business. But at the same time, you have obligations with the people who follow you, who's around, who's under your umbrella. So you don't want to just criticize after it happens. You want to educate them to make it work. So they are responsible because what other organization is there

to tell the boxing, the sports commission how it has to be run? Nobody. It's them. So they have to tell the rules. They have, you want to see an absurd. One of the fights I brought my wife to come in a, to come in a,

In the backstage with me, she couldn't. Why? That's the question. And she had a pass with her name on. Is this UFC? Yeah. Wow. So it's like my wife has been coming to fights.

Since I was 21 years old. You know, I've been married for 25 years. My kids, my wife, have been in locker room. Next thing you see, no, unless she's training or training, and she cannot train dress like this, she has to leave. You know, and we're talking about a few years ago, anybody could be on the backstage. Sure.

It was completely open. And then when the team became popular, again, the modernization. And then you lose that sense of family. You lose the, today, the coaches, who are the coaches now? It's like, they don't matter. Right. I've seen many coaches win fights, many coaches, because those are the people that came with experience, and they could make a better fight because they will be there.

And all these people that could actually improve people, they are living. If you look today, every, every, it's even funny. You see professional fire, the next thing you see, one fight, he has one corner group, the next fight he has another. Yeah. It's a joke. No loyalty. It's not even loyalty.

It's business. They set up in a business in a way that people out there, it's not important. Let me explain to you. If I don't go with the people that I want, I'm not fighting. I need people that I trust to give me the right directions when I'm in trouble in there, you know? And it's like this was a very important part of fighting. And now they act like it's like they make a cut man walk in with you. So your guy cannot come in and a cut man goes in.

You know? It's like, no, if the cut man goes in, one of your guys has to stay out. So one of your corner men has to stay outside. You know, and we're talking about the same commission that made Box this joke that it is. Box was one of the greatest sport in the planet. And they were able to mess it up. You know, the way that they organize, the way that they steal from the fighters, they steal from the people.

And he ended up, who wants to be a boxer? He comes to the point, who wants to be a boxer now, you know? It's rare, only made weather, nobody else. He's making all the money. Yeah, but. These days, this year, UFC going to do around 48 events. What's your take on that? Is there too much?

It's never too much. Never too much. Believe it. Even a fight on the corner, I stopped to watch. You watch everything? Everything. Everything. Everything.

And what I don't watch, all the paper views I buy, and I record it, and I watch it over and over again. Even like fight past this, that, you watch that? Even the boring ones. Really? Yeah, even the ones that nobody wants to watch. I watch. I enjoy.

I like it. What do you think about this problem? Is it a lot of big problems? I want to get your take because you are a legend. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this weight cutting. You know, with Novuv Niao, Henna, Barow. These guys are, they're really hurting themselves. Back in the day, you didn't have to do that, right?

No. That was an open weight division. Right. It was... If something happens, seriously, this could be a major, major issue in the sport. If the mainstream press finds out what's going on here. It does. They have to be more responsible when they are doing things like that.

You've got to be careful. I've seen people fainting. I help people that faint, fell on their faces. And they're now losing weight inside the bathtub. That's how a lot of people are doing now. And it's extremely exhausting. I've seen people fainting a lot after that. And you can have a problem.

It's like it's the same as weight cutting on bodybuilding back there. A lot of people die. Sure. You know? This could be a big problem. It does. How do we fix it? Guys just need to start fighting at their more, you know, their natural weight, right?

Yes. You could have even agreement. Like, instead of 170, 173, 175, something like this. Really? You don't think we need the hard weight classes? 170, 185, 205. Maybe there's too big of a gap between the weight classes, right? It does.

That's the biggest problem. But at the same time, they don't want five more champions. Sure, sure. That's the problem. Right. Then you have five more. World Champions on us, you know, but they should have. That's the reality. You know, we were talking off camera. You mentioned Gunner Nelson, who's fighting this weekend. Yes. He's fighting on

Fight Pass, and you were about to tell me a story, but I said, save it for the show, because everyone knows, you know, in fact, I was in Ireland for his last fight and I had a chance to talk to his father, Holly Nelson. He was telling me about how he hooked up with you and you took him under his... The Swedish people have ever met in my life. And I met them. I had a call from Sheikh Tarnum. And he asked me, he's... He had a whole group that was going to buy a bank in Iceland. And he asked me to come together because the vice president loves Jiu-Jitsu, the vice president of the country.

So I said, of course, my pleasure. Jump in a plane, boom, took off to meet them there. And the whole group was analyzing all the business aspect. And I was teaching Jiu-Jitsu for the vice president, for the people around. And among those were an amazing kid that I looked, I said, this kid is talent and was Guni. Wow. Yeah. And I start seeing, and I like him so much.

I told his father, I say, look, send this kid with me to New York. Send him over here. I'm going to train him there. He's going to, you know, be unbelievable. He was already, terms of, I always make fun. I say he looks like a white monkey, you know. Even his stance, the way that he stands. He looks like a little gorilla.

Yeah. And his elasticity, his ability to fight and his will, it's like he's unfazed. It's like he's made of ice. It always looks like he just woke up. Yes, yes. I always like he just got out of bed. Yes. And I had a chance to have a good time with them there.

And when we finish, his father sent him here. When I left the country, his father sent him here. And he stayed the first time for six months. Then he went back for like a month. Then he came back for another six months. He ended up spending like almost two years here with us. Training. As he arrived, we signed him up for the word.

He took second in the Brown Belt Division. Wow. You know, and never trained. He never fought with Aguille before. How old? He was young. Like less than 20, you think? Oh, yeah.

Wow. He was less than 20. And then I could see the talent. People like, it's not true. This kid has to have fought before with the Ghi. I say never. And he lost because he didn't know the rule. The guy beat him by an advantage on the final.

Oh, really? Yeah, by a little, if he knew, he wouldn't lose. And with that, he began coming and training and fighting. And then he's a talent. Yeah. He quick pick it up. up and start improving every day and I hook him up with Eric. He started doing more his physical training.

So when's the last time you train with him? It was last time he was here. Recently? Yeah. Oh, wow. It was a bad. Yeah, all the time. I spoke to his father today.

Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. I was just talking to him before I came here. As they're preparing for this big fight, you enjoy what? You think he's a good fight? You think he has what it takes to be a champion? Oh, he does. He does.

That kid is a talent. He has everything to be a champion, man. And I think his fight, his story, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I was talking to his father today. I think he's going to run over him. You mentioned Shik Tainoon.

Of course, your UFC debut was in Abu Dhabi. You have a great relationship. I've never asked you this. How did you even meet him? Actually, he came to the academy in New York. In New York? He just showed up. Did you know who he was?

No, I did not. And the guy told me, oh, there's a student mind coming over there. Could you take care of him? So he came over and he tried to buy geese and stuff. I didn't let him pay because he was coming from a very good friend of mine. Okay. And he roll, he roll a lot, you know, with who, Rico Shiporelli. Okay, yeah, yeah.

RICO went nuts because he couldn't pass his guard. He ended up, elbow him on the face. Wow. So Sheikh Taranu had blood all over his face. And at this point, no one knows who he is. No, he's sitting down there, I go, my man, I love your guard. Beautiful guard. And like your training, he looked at me, he goes like this.

He hit me because he couldn't do nothing and say, yeah, yeah. And then after he invited me for, for, to have lunch the next day. He goes, come to have lunch, and then I'm leaving tomorrow. I say, no problem, I'll be here. I came, it was a group of guys. There's a couple guys that work for him, too. And we sat down in the restaurant, and the restaurant was empty. Like the whole hotel, I didn't realize.

Now I realize the hotel was closed for him. Wow. And I didn't know this back then. And I said, well, there's no buy on this hotel. Must not be good. So we sat in the restaurant. In the end, we're rolling on the restaurant. We push the tables to the side.

You're kidding. Yeah, we're doing moves. and I saw the passion. He loves Jiu-Jitsu. He just loves, you know, and he's a very good technician. People don't realize, you know. And it's very funny when we bring world champions there,

and the next thing you see, he's choking them. Right. And he looked at me like, I wasn't expecting this, you know. And he ended up in the end of the dinner. He goes, I go, look, you're going to miss your flight. It's, you know, where are you living from? He goes New York Airport. I go, you've got to go now.

The traffic is going to be jammed, and I have to teach. And, oh, one more minute. And we keep talking, talking. I say, my man, look. Not even if you have a helicopter on the roof, you can make the flight now. He told me the flight was around 5 o'clock p.m.

He came close to me and goes, Hansel, the Boeing is mine. Wow. It's like, it's not the plane. The Boeing. It was a Boeing. And then I go, what? And then he invited me to come to his country.

And I was lucky to be there. This was 20 years ago. Wow. That was like a village. Like Abu Dhabo was like a small village. I remember my favorite thing was to, sit on the sook and have coconut water and they had special juices, they had a juice that looked like a rainbow.

Okay. They would put different fruits, different colors. Wow. The glass and you put the straw on the bottom and as you drink, you're changing flavors, you know, it was unbelievable. And now they don't have it anymore. I go there, I look for this and I can't find. Wow.

And then I saw Abu Dhabi growing for this time. We became very close friends. We trained together a lot. We actually don't train. Every time we roll, we try to kill each other, you know? It's like, I think I'm the only guy that he feels. feels comfortable enough to go hard, like to try to... And they must treat you like a king over there, right?

I'm treated like a king anywhere I go, man. I'm a nice guy, you know? The only place they don't trick me good is one oak. It's unbelievable. Yeah, what's going on? Since you bring it up, what's the latest with that? Everything is going good. All good?

It's going to be over soon. They just dropped the charges, you know? Yeah, they understand that I was actually right. Right. And they are letting me go, I think. So do you still go there? I may have to clean some park or something like this. You never know.

Oh, really? I just hope I don't have to wear orange. I hate that color because of Sakuraba. That's right. But you don't think there'll be any sort of real punishment, jail time, something like this? I don't know. I'm comfortable. When is the court?

When is the court? When they put them in the jail? It's soon. Next month. Are you nervous? No, not at all. No. Do you still go there?

Where? One oak? I go there, but sometimes. Really? I have a restraining order. I'm not supposed to go. But I, some of the guys that work there, good friends. You still go there.

When I'm driving by, I say hello. Wow. Of course. I can, I can pass me. by my friends without saying hello, you know? Did this cause any problems with your business or anything? Because it was all over the news. No, actually I got more students.

Really? Yeah. It was good publicity. I think it was better than coming to a real. New York Post was good. It was. You were everywhere. New York won.

That week I got like 40 new students. Really? Maybe a lot of people hated that guy that. Yeah, the guy was, he was not an easy fellow, you know. By the way, when did you come to New York for the first time? I was the first time I came to do some videos. This was the videos that I had with Craig Cookak, instructional videos. So it was two years before 95, 93, the first time.

And why did you decide to settle here? I always thought that I would never leave Brazil. You know, I say Brazil is the place that I'm going to grow up and raise my kids here. When I came to New York, I go, this is it. I could easily live here. Because I was such an agglomerate of knowledge, of cultures. and it's like you pass by 27th Street, you have all the Muslims praying on his knees on his Mecca time.

You go up a little to 46, 47, you see all the Jews, all the Orthodox Jews. You have everything. You have little Brazil on 46, you know, my favorite food and my restaurants are all there. You have Korea Town. You have China Town. Little, my man, when I got here, I fell in love.

Really? I said, this is what I want to give to my kids. You know, it's like, I think the most important things you can give them is knowledge. And there's no other place in the world that there's more knowledge than this city. It's like you have access to everything. Anything you want, you're going to find it here. You don't miss Brazil.

You never think about going back there? I miss my friends. I miss them a lot. Right. You know, you miss things that mark your childhood. But I believe you are constantly evolving. And I don't think I'll be back to live there. I'll think my daughter is actually living there now.

Really? Yeah, my youngest daughter is down there now. How old is she? She's 20. 20. She's going to be a fighter? She, no. My mother is making her train now.

She's training everything. Your mother? Yeah, my mother. Her grandmother is making her train. Makes her train every day. She has to learn. Even if she doesn't want to teach or fight, she has to learn. But she's studying Portuguese to do college down there.

Okay. What about your son? Because I saw recently that he got into some kind of fight, right? Yeah, he got in a fight with a couple friends there. He had some, his ass kick a little bit. Really? Yeah. How old is he?

He's 19. Who run? Is he going to be a fighter? Yes. What else? Yes. I mean, maybe you've, I guess it's the last day. Yes, yes, yes.

Not only that, but he likes a lot. Yeah? He likes a lot. Yesterday, we were training until almost midnight. Where? My house. You have a place to train? Yes, yeah.

You're going to come for a barbecue. I would love it. You live in New Jersey, though, right? Yes, yes. Yeah, so, so, so, you know, you look at the, the sort of landscape in MMA, and you're kind of always, you're hovering. The family is always hovering, but I want to get your take on BJ Penn, you know, because I mentioned that, that line.

I've been doing this since you. Yeah, it's, yes, yes. When you saw what he did, what he did against Frankie Edgar and what Frankie did to him and how he looked, did that hurt you a little bit? Was it a little strange to see him go out like that? He did. He did.

I admire him a lot. I like him a lot. It's a great kid, you know? And it's like fighting, to fight MMA you have to have on you. You have to be one to conquer. It's like Frank. I never see nobody like him. It's like he has a fight a year from now.

He's not diminishing his training for this whole time. You know, he'll be training like I was with him in the house when they were both coaching in the UFC house. And I had every day to beat at the gym two hours before, so I could roll and train with Frank. And BGA was taking days off for his crew, yeah. So it's different. It's like, you know, I think BJ is such a talent, such unique,

has unique abilities and unique individual. You know, he was always an unbelievable champion, you know, and he could have done better. For sure he could. In his career? Not in his career. In his career, he did amazing. But some say that he didn't realize his potential

because of what you just said. You have to understand one thing why snakes don't have wings. They'll be very dangerous, you know. And this is the reality. He's such a natural athlete on every aspect that he was very comfortable with that, with not forcing himself too much.

You know, he had such a, his boxing was unbelievable. his flexibility, his Jiu-Jitsu. He was the first American to win to be a world champion at Black Belt Division. He was talent. He was always very talent. Prodigy.

Yes. And that forced him to make technical mistakes. If you look at his fight again against George St. Pierre, you're going to see that he has two triangles on him. But he could never get close to finish. Even though he locked it in, he couldn't. People could never understand why. especially if he was so good in Jiu-Jitsu,

what happened is he was, his whole life, he was so flexible that he stopped developing his hips movement. So when he locked the leg, his hips were not in position. So the details like this made the whole difference. And those details, he missed the day that he changed, you know, because the moment that he went by himself in Hawaii and he started being his own coach, you stop demanding from yourself.

It's the same like when Roger, fought him. He was supposed to be here with me and with me there's no BS. Like I, you say talking about Brazilian time, right? So we had to leave the house at 7 a.m. I went to sleep at 5.30.

At 7 a.m. I'm pulling him out of bed. And there's no excuse that will keep him there. He's going to be on the training session and I'm going to push him for every day he better himself. He knew that he took off. He was in California training there by himself. So you become an

own coach, you don't have nobody pushing you. You need this. And it's funny because George Joina, he goes, no, the black house, he goes, no, he was training hard. I say training hard. Can I ask you a question? Just one question. You have to be honest when you ask, how many times he said to you in a training session like this? That's good. That's enough. The guy was silence. I go, how many times? He goes every time. You know, so these shows, actually, who was coaching who? Right. Who's calling the shots? Yes. You can. being there without having someone

that you respect pushing you forward. Do you think that's a problem with some of these guys? They get to a certain point. It is because it's like BJ is the boss. The gym is his. The house is his. You fly into Hawaii you're training him. So he's the one telling how the music is going to be dance. And the next thing you see, you start getting in a comfort zone.

You know, and you saw BJ because if you look back, BJ was a guy that was drinking the blood. Right, right, right. You remember this? You know, so it's their appetite disappear along the way because he didn't have people that he

respect and admire on the sport to push him that he would want to shine for them

you know it's like you're talking about a guy that went he went to Hawaii he finished all his instructors

he was a purple belt and he was submitting everybody you know so it's like how do you deal with this no I'd love to

see you versus him in MetaMoris yeah it's a different the last interview I had with him, he said the only regret he had in life was to have fought me. Really? That was his regret. That was his regret. That was, yeah. He goes, that's the only thing I regret in my life was to have fought hands.

Why? It's because he won me as a teacher. He never knew. I had a lot of to do with his training because I would be on the phone with my brother half the whole time. And I would tell him, train him like this, do this to him. And B.J. was the precious jewel. My brother had it. Like every time he called me,

he would talk about BJ. And he, back then, the people around dragged him away, took him away. And he never realized that there was actually his original family. That's the people that would support him until this fight. You know, I ask you, where are there people now? Where are they? I didn't see nobody on his corner the last time. Even though he had an amazing corner, the people around him was amazing.

You know, those that he actually loved. and he respect and he grew up with, not that. You think if you were to stay with those people, he could have been better than... 10 times better. Yeah. You would look in a different champion, you know?

So you wouldn't take that match, you versus BJ now? I have nothing against him. Not in fighting, I mean, like in Abu Dhabi, said he metamoras. It's if they offer me and offer him, you know, it's like,

I'm fighting anybody but my mother. Because she's tough. She can still, I don't tell people, she can still beat me up. Yeah, I bet. But I, I would love to see BJ back fighting metamorries and events like this.

It would be unbelievable. It would be great. Yeah, he deserves. He deserves to... That keeps you fighting, keeps you sharp. You know, it's like it's easy to let life make you lazy. To sit in the couch and, you know, and be a judge. Be outside telling how it's done.

Be a critic. Right, exactly. Like all the media, right? Yes. If you could go back, like, I love that build up to that fight and the fight itself was fun. And you've had some great moments. If you could go back to one moment in your... career. When did you have the most fun as a fighter? A build-up to a certain fight, a moment?

It's a, I love it when I fought rings. Okay. That I beat Morris Smith and and I broke the other guys armed, the Japanese. Early in your career. Relatively early. I don't mean, as far as fighting is concerned, not the jih Tijuana. Yeah. What is that? That's, that's in the 90s, late 90s. Yeah, that was 90, 99, something like that. And I was fighting pride and then I left, I fought kings, and then I came back. I beat both in one night, Morris Smith, and I forgot the guy's name, man. Let me get that.

It's escaping me as well. You fought Sakata. Sakata, guys. And he gave me the greatest pleasure ever. He allowed me to break his arm. He allowed you. Yes, he didn't tap. He didn't tap.

How do you feel about that? Because you were in that same, like looking back, would you tell someone not to tap? I can never say that. This is an option that belongs. that belongs only to you. I can never tell you that or ask you to do that. But is it silly sometimes?

Why do people do this? Tell us, like, as a fighter. Why not just happen, you're not going to be out with a broken arm for eight months? There's still a possibility of winning a fight if the arm is not completely out of there. So this shows that you're not quitting. You're not giving up. You know, if you have that chance, you take it. It's like, let's see.

That shows how much you want. You know, I remember my arm was out at Sakuraba, I look at the ref, I go like this. No, no, don't worry, this happens all the time. And Sakurab was the one calling him. Sure. Sakurab, blah, blah, blah, speaking in Japanese problem, like, his arm is broken. Right, right. And I'm like, this, don't worry.

It happens all the time. He goes, you sure, I say, yeah, all the time. But they end up stopped. You knew, though, it was broken, right? I saw, I looked at it like this, and I saw it was completely out. Was that the most pain you've ever had? He hurt a lot, a lot. It's like...

Did you have surgery? No. No surgery? No surgery. No surgery. I put it back, the cast, and I removed the cast the same night, because I knew if stay cast, I could lose the... Sure.

So, two weeks later, I was surfing in Australia, at Bell's Beach, I almost drowned. Really? Yeah. Because you couldn't swim. I couldn't surf. I thought I could surf those waves and it was big. Me, Luca Tala from Gracie magazine.

Okay. And Peter the Bean, you know? So we end up had to paddle for like two hours and a half to get out of the water. Really? Yeah. But you let him break your arm essentially because you didn't have it. Yeah, I felt already going and then I felt when he popped it out. Do you regret it?

No, not at all. That was one of the best moments in my life. Like I said, you're talking about a happiest moment. Why? Because I realized that my mind was stronger than my body. I say, I can't control this. Even though the pain was unbearable, I decide not to do it. That's it.

You know, and you have to understand. My father was tortured by the military government back in Brazil. he was one of the revolutionaries. And I was 10 years old, I said, Dad, but can you put up with a torture? Can you take it? My father look at me, goes, it's extremely tough. People are very coward. They're extremely coward, and they are very cruel.

But he goes, I've seen people that wouldn't quit. He goes, I've seen people take it until they die, and they didn't take, and they didn't quit. And I was, I remember this, I was 11 years old, and my father told me this. And I didn't say nothing. Just look at him and I knew he had admired so much that people that I say, I'm one of those motherfuckers there. I would take it until I die and I wouldn't quit. It was amazing.

That's when you do all that. Yeah, that's when I, and then that was on me the whole time. And I saw the admiration that they had when my grandfather fought a Japanese, a war Japanese, Joe Mardi, and my grandfather broke his arm. And the guy fought the whole fight with a broken arm until the point that they had. a draw. When the time was over, they had a draw. It was exactly on the rules of metamor. So this has been happening since... Sure, sure, sure. Look how far? So they fought for like an hour or something like this.

And my grandfather broke his arm and he didn't quit. With a broken arm, he stick his hand inside the belt and they still fought until the end, until he got a draw. I notice when you're talking about your dad, you're getting emotional. Of course, every time. Great man. Yeah. But it's also when you talk about the heart and not giving up and things like that. That's what seemed to trigger it. Yes. You don't give up.

Never. How can you? So what happens? I feel sorry for those who give up. Right. What happens if he has you in a Camorra on November 22nd? Do you think you'll have flashbacks? Give me the pleasure of that pain.

You know, I will put a little vial of vicarine next to my bed and I will look every day and laugh at that shit, you know, before I put one in my mouth. Really? Never taken it? No, never. But do you think you'll have flashbacks? Like, do you almost want to? to be in that moment again to see if you can get out of it, to see if you can...

No, now I can get out. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Now I can get out. I study every single aspect of... How much did it kill you that happened? It was hard, but it's to me, everything is learning. It's a learning process.

No, never. No shame at all. It's like you get caught. Right. It can happen to anybody any day. Did you feel like you were letting down your family because it had been built up as him versus your family? Yes.

I really thought that I could deliver, you know, and the truth is I managed the whole fight. I had everything under control until the last 17 seconds. And I remember I was in his back. He had the Kimura on, and someone screamed to me, put your hooks on. And when I went to put the hooks, that's when I gave him room to stand up.

He stood up, and at the same time, I didn't want to lose the momentum. I tried to spin and throw him to the bottom to make sure that I end up on top. And on that moment, my elbow gave up, you know. And because he hit the ropes. If you see the fight again, when I spin him, he hits the ropes before we land. And that cost me the arm, you know, the mistake costs me arm.

So do you watch the fight? Like, have you seen it in recent, you know, times? No, no, I have it. I have branded in my brain, my friend. Will you even watch it? Every second. I will. I can watch it.

The leading up to it, will you watch it? Is there anything to learn from this? No. It's a fight, right? It's a totally different. It's a fight. Yeah. It's a complete different ballgame. Did you feel like they put too much pressure on you going to?

to the fight the family because it was built up as... No, this is the beauty. My family never... It's like my father never asked me to be a fighter. Like I never did to my son. You know, it's like this is an option. But your mother is doing it to your... My mother does.

My mother says, you have to learn Jiu-Jitsu. That's what my mother does to my daughter. So you have to... You are Grace, you have to go to the academy. All those... And it's amazing because I was trying there for a long time and she completely refused, you know? She didn't want you to do it?

She didn't want to... She didn't let me. I think it's like... When you were parents... they always fight because kids are constantly fighting for freedom. And who's the oppressor? It's the parents. So they constantly, everything you do in your life is to get you free.

It's the day that you move out of your parents' house, the day that you have your life, you become your own boss. So it's like when I try to push her to do Jiu-Jitsu, it's like I'm the oppressor. But the grandmother is a different ballgame. You're talking about the woman who brings the breakfast in bed for her. Who overlooking everything for her? Who's talking secrets and little things of her, you know?

But back then, back in the midst of all this, the Sakarabra rivalry, this was a family rivalry, right? Definitely, definitely. So they weren't talking to you beforehand, you have to go out there and you've got to kick this guy's ass. There wasn't that, you didn't feel any of that. No, they never, they never, they never. Who was in your corner for that one?

I had Ricardo Ahmed, I had a had an unbelievable, Hyan was there, half. We had an unbelievable crew. My brothers were there. But it was, so it was a family. family affair, though. Constantly, yeah. I never fight without being a family affair, you know.

They're always next to me with anybody I fight. Even now, I think when I get there, I'm going to have like five graces on my corner. Yeah, I wanted to ask you, who will help you prepare for him? Ricardo, Omeid is helping me a lot. Gregor, Igor, and Hollis are helping me a lot here in the city. I was just there with Neiman. So we have, like, I have five graces living here with me and, you know, training hard. I have my brother, Hobbeson.

So I'm surrounded by family. I can't stay away from them. Is there a weight limit for this match? You're asking questions, no, that I have to go check the contract. I signed it and send it back, I not even, you know. Did you come back for this because it's Sakuraba? Especially because of Sakuraba. I was like, I was in a tough moment now in terms of training.

I've been working a lot and I was able to push everything out. Since it's Sakurab, I couldn't let go. So if it was someone else, you maybe wouldn't have done it. I would have pushed forward a little more. But since it's Sakuraba, how can I say no? to have a chance to lay my hands on him once more time, you know? And what kind of shape are you in?

I'm getting, I'm starting to feel very good now. So you're going to go into like a training camp? Yeah, I've been doing this straight. That's how I'm doing now. So you feel confident you'll be right. How much do you think you'll weigh? I think I probably will be around 182, 183, 182. And how do you foresee beating him?

Kimura. Yeah, right. That would be nice. That would be nice. For people like me, that's the best kind of stuff. My favorite is, that was the guillotine. I do very tight guillotine. your favorite. I'm very good at it.

I know, but why that in particular do you feel like? I always work with anybody with any weight. So that's the beauty. Like Sam Kimura is difficult to finish short, strong guys. I always have because I have long arms. And with a choke, my friend, there's no, there's no joke. Or you tap or you pass out.

You know, so that was, I was, I made very particular this move, and I'm able to pull it out from everywhere. Considering your age now, and that you're getting, you know, you Do you feel like people view you as an inspiration? Like, do you get people that come up to you and say, why? A lot. A lot.

It's like, it's amazing. What do they say? They get amazed. They realize because, you see, when I was growing up, a guy with 30 was a old man. He referred to a 30 years old, like he was a old man back then. Look at now. 40, the guy is too young. At 30, he's at his prime.

The best athletes are at 30, you know? And it's the concept change. And it's my pleasure to do this. show it that it's like normally life brings you to do something else it's not if you stop training you can be 20 years old it's not gonna you know so that's the reality is the moment that people start having obligations in life they stop they diminish their training so it's not the age not your body like I feel actually better now than I was younger really yeah why do you think that is I don't know man it's like I'm constantly in a good mood I feel good how are you always in a good mood I don't know

does anything you have to understand I step on my dog's poop and I'm laughing You know, like, I don't care. I want to be like this. I grab the shoe and I pretend I'm going to touch the kids. And that's how I am. It's like I can't get pissed. Is it something in you or did you always, like, did you have to become? I was like this.

Really? So I can't just become that way. Yeah. It's, you can. It's like I believe you can. I believe anybody can. It's how you see life. You see, you have to understand.

My whole life, I expected to live inside a Jiu-Jitsu Academy. And my pillow was going to be my Ghi. So this is the expectation that I had in life. anything else came by chance. So I mean, I was born naked and toothless. Look where I am. I have a mouth full of teeth and I'm dressed. So I'm ahead of the game.

I'm far ahead of the game. You're a rich man. Yeah, but too healthy. With the friends that I have, I'm the richest man alive. That's the reality. That's unbelievable. And I think this, you educate yourself.

If you start believing this. What pisses you off? Is there something that really pisses you off? Ah, yeah. People who are not polite. You know, it's like, I'm very polite. And like, like you say, I'm very emotional. sometimes, you know, and the other day I was telling

and I said, how can I get so angry suddenly? And the guy goes, because you're honest. One of my students, I know you for 20 years and you're honest. You are what we see it. So if something makes you, insults you, you show your anger. You don't, and it's true. It's like the day in the one oak.

But the guy was looking at people and telling, oh, you can't come in with your husband. Why not? Your husband can, but you cannot. because you are fat and ugly. Imagine this. So in reality, it's like, I don't care if I go in. I've been there a hundred times. You know, I didn't see the people that I knew normally to get in.

I'm good friends with the owner. But that was such an insult in a sense that it's not to me. I may sometimes be more angry if I see someone getting insulted next to me than myself. you know, because it's like you call me a faggot. It doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother me at all. I know what I am, what I'm not. You know, insult me in certain way.

But I see you doing this to a gay guy next to me. I may hit you. You know, I may take his... And it's funny the other day I saw a guy... I'm driving by. It was a bad traffic. I'm driving by. I see this guy going off in an older lady in a car.

He's out of the car, putting the finger on her face. I pull over. And I just told him. him go right back to your car now. She goes, this bitch hit my car on purpose. I go, nobody hits nobody's car on purpose. She wouldn't break her car to

hit your car. So go back to your car now. Stop being trapped. Stop tracking her. And you have to understand one thing, because what happened on this country? Nobody. It's amazing. Nobody wants to do. There was a very famous case. There was a rape in New York.

Where the woman was raped in an island. And she was screaming for help the whole time. 52 people heard her scream. You know how many people went down to help? Zero. Zero. She was fully raped down there, you know? And even though everybody heard, everybody assumed you're going to take care,

not me. Right, right, right. My man, I hear her scream and I'm there. You know? So that day, when I'm talking and I look at her, I say, are you okay? She couldn't acknowledge me. She, her fear in a strange situation, the guy's being in a strange situation, the guy's being, I'm taking the threat away from her.

The old lady could not look back at me, even though I was defending her. It's such a, you know, that was a very famous situation that happened in Brazil. I'm driving with my wife and my kids in the car. As I'm driving, I see a guy hit a woman.

Hit him. Yeah, he hit her. Yeah, he hit her. Boom. When he hit her, I stopped and I jump to beat him up. When I get there, I had to save him. Because the mob was lynching him. Wow. And this was in the space of 10 seconds.

The people jump out of the bar and they jump on him. When I get there, the guy was an American guy. So nobody spoke English, and they were going to put a being on him. I was able to put, and then I put him in my car, my wife goes. I can't believe you get out to hit him and you drive him home now. I go, you got to do what is right. In that moment, I said, yeah. I say, you don't hit the woman.

Right. You cannot hit a woman. But at the same time, you cannot let the guy be lynch. So I get out to beat him up and end up saving him, you know? That's unbelievable. Yeah. Last question for you. Who's your favorite fighter to watch right now?

Who is a Henzo Gracie fighter, a Henzo Gracie guy or girl? Oh, man, I love them all. It's amazing. I love to watch Ronda fighting, you know. I love a sweetheart is Jessica, Ivo-eye. Oh, she's unbelievable. And I love, you know, all the guy, Guni and. Chris Weidman, George is going to be back for sure.

For sure? Oh, don't count George out. Why are you guys kidding? When's last time he spoke to him? A while back. It was a while back right before he had the surgery. But you think for sure he'll be back? Of course.

No problem. No problem at all. We'll be champion again? Hell yeah. There's nobody to beat him at the 1-7 division, you know? John Jones, these guys, you like watching them fight? John Jones, unique, very unique. You like everybody?

It's, I have the privilege of I admire the unique abilities that each one has it. You know, each guy you just mentioned, has a different body. type, has a different knowledge, has a different speciality. So it's, I love them all. How can I, you know, it's like it's even unfair. It's like comparing the beauty of women. How do you say one woman is more beautiful than the other? It's impossible. We'll be not polite if I mentioned to you. I think she's prettier than this. Right. You're only seeing outside. I love the sport. I love everything about it. I love the people involved. But I will say that unlike other sports, baseball, basketball, we don't honor the history like the other sports. You know, in the World Series, they'll come out in

bring the old players. There's a reason. Why? What's the reason? You all hear that today. Why? I'll tell you. I'll tell you.

I'll tell you. I'll tell you. I want to see the Hensel Gracy's. I want to see the legends of the sport. And not just in a UFC Hall of Fame. There needs to be an MMA Hall of Fame. There needs to be some sort of forum, some sort of place that people can go to learn about your family and what they did.

And I think that's a big problem. And I'd like to see that happen. Do you agree? If you delete the history of the sport has no soul. There's so much going on and we don't. Yes. It's like you saying, how many events? 48, 40.

Yeah. Yeah. So next thing you see, like, I don't know half of this guy is fighting. Sure. I'm sorry, not half, more than half. Right. Three quarters of this whole situation. I don't know who it is.

You know, and fighting is something very personal. You like to watch box when Mike Tyson was fighting. Because you like his aggressivity, you like it. You like the character that was created around him. So when you talk about kind of dressing crazy, he's creating a character. He's creating a persona that we're, represent and will touch you in a way, in a different way, and touches me. Like, I will sympathize more.

Sure. And it's like Machia Valley used to say, it's like when you take over the government, kill right away all your enemies. Because it doesn't matter how good you are to them, they still won't be able to change to your side. So the reality is some people will stick with him, even if he becomes the worst fighter, they will be next to him. Right.

They identify themselves with him, you know. And I think UFC makes a mistake on that sense when he does not understand that the stars are the fighters. It's like we're talking about just UFC. So in reality, the fighters are what brings the people in there. So if the pay-per-view number start dropping, if the audience of people showing up there start dropping, it's because they are not bringing the name of the fighters.

They're not making the fighters know to everybody, like they should. So you want to see the fighters push more as opposed to the brand? Definitely, definitely. That's a mistake, do you think? Yes, of course. Tell me whose organization

that made the fighters too. Right. Who? His own. Mayweather promotions. MMA's built a little differently. Yes. I know what you mean.

But it's like they don't sell that it's an IBF. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah, WBC all this stuff. They don't do it. They have like three or four different ones. The reality is the star is whoever steps on that ring. So they have to promote them and build them to do that, you know?

This is very important. This actually is going to increase the passion that people have for the sport. It's going to increase the attendance. You're going to increase the sales of pay-per-view. And the money comes in, it improves for everybody. What an honor. It's always my pleasure, Paul.

And when we sit down for a beer, I will tell you. You'll tell me, you left me hanging there. I like that. November 22nd, Henzo Gracie versus Kazushi Sakuraba number two. Yes. The rematch.

Metamores 5. It will be on paper view online. You can watch it a member. One day, maybe they'll be on TV. Hell, yeah. It won't take that long, believe it. I have some plugs in that I'll throw towards them. Of course, you and you're connected with everyone.

What about World Jujitia Expo? What's the date again? October 18 and 19. Okay. I'll be there. Long Beach. Long Beach Convention Center and I'll see you guys there. All right.

Good luck. Thank you so much for coming. I was great to see you, my friend. It really means a lot. All the best to you. And I was on time. You see it. You were on time if you need...

Brazil's have a bad rap. Any tips or anything? I'm just 10 blocks from your gym, so I can teach you. We are, brother. I'll come to see you for sure. There he is. The one and only, Hanso Gracie. He's so lucky to have him in studio and a part of this great sport.

We wish him the best of luck. We're going to take a break, reconfigure things. In a minute, we're going to be joined by John Kavanaugh, the head coach at SBG, Ireland. He'll be joining us from Las Vegas for now. The UFC put out a great video clip leading up to the Sweden event. It's called Stories from Stockholm. They produced this wonderfully about some of the great stars coming out. of Sweden these days, so check that out.

We'll be back in a minute right here on the MMMA hour. Ariel Halwani post-flight at UFC 109 with the new number one middleweight contender. Sweden is famous for nice girls and ice bears. The Swedish ballet may be. I'd say IKEA. Meatballs. Hunting. Swedish meatballs.

Vodka. Bjambori. Slotany, Bahamovic. football player. Blonde women. And did I say I was blonde? And now I think we're a bit famous for the women's marathon and the MMA. It's just exploded in Sweden and everybody knows what MMA is.

Sweden is just like 9 million. For us being able to fight against these big nations, the achievement, you know. The world is getting aware of our strength. here and respect us because we've shown that in the UFC, we are unbeaten. Pretty much every fight is make it or break it in this sport, but I mean, now I feel like I really have to make it, so I kind of like that edge of it. So I believe that everyone is going to win the fights, and we will make a statement. And it will make a great night for Swedish MMA.

growing sport. In Stockholm, the All-Star Training Center has produced an enviable team of M.M.A. Athletes. This guy is a beast. The beast from the north. I got a package. It's a t-shirt, somebody made. Who is it? Is it Nicholas? I don't think it's, it doesn't look like Nicholas, but it could be. Yeah. They're too pretty. In October 2014, the Ultimate Fighting Championship is coming back to Stockholm for the third time, and it's said to be a huge night for the All-Stars. The guys are training before a fight coming up on the 4th of October. There's four people that are going to compete.

Thor, Magnus, Illir, and Nicholas. I've been working there, I've been riding them hard. The All-Stars training camp is notorious, notorious. The build-up to the fight is a grueling two and a half month routine of 100% commitment to training, conditioning and diet. I'm in camp right now and it sucks. It sucks. It sucks. Fast guys, come on. Explode up. You know, it's not fun, but as soon as you win you're like, oh yeah, it's totally worth it. It's totally worth it. Don't land on your house. land on your feet, let's go.

We often say, you're like, the training is the hard part. When the fight comes, that's the fun part. One more round, and then we start with a little bit of sparring. We don't believe we're on top of the world. We're always trying to get there, and that's the key to success, I would say. I mean, if you think you're on the top, you're probably on the way down. We're all here to help each other, right?

All here to help each other, or here to work hard. Let's make history on the fourth. All right? Four wins out of four. Alright? So, thank for you all day. Good word. Even though we train hard, we try to help each other.

We help each other by beating each other up. Swedish MMA's most famous son is Alexander Gustafson, light heavyweight title contender, national hero, and one of the most revered fighters on the planet. Even though Alex doesn't have fight coming up, He's here almost every day in helping us, you know, preparing us and giving us advice and stuff like that. Due to injury, Alex will not be fighting in Stockholm this time, but he is the perfect sparring partner for fellow light heavyweight Ili Latifi

as he prepares for his fight against dangerous Polish newcomer Jan Blakovich. Work your way out. Two and a half minutes. Right now Alex is recovering from a knee surgery, so he's doing... is doing a lot. All right, back on the MMA hour if you if you want to watch the rest of that. I suggest checking it out. We put it in the morning report. They did a fantastic job the UFC did of producing this amazing mini documentary about the rise of

MMA in Sweden, really a great job. So I do suggest checking that out. And I want to thank Henzel Gracie for stopping by. I can listen to that man speak for hours. He is something else. so so riveting, so interesting to listen to him speak about his career and everything. And of course, we wish him the best of luck. Metamores 5 November 22nd. All right, one more guest to go on this jam-packed edition of the MMA hour. Let us go back to Las Vegas.

You know, in last week, we were talking about UFC 178 and everything going on. And we had Artem LeBov on the show. He did not get the fight against Dennis Siever, although we will get to that in a second. He was joined by his coach, John Kavanaugh. who made us a promise. We'll see if he lived up to that deal. I believe he is joining us via the magicist Skype. Well, he's back with his bathrobe.

Nothing has really changed. I believe he's joining us from the presidential. Is that correct, John? That is correct, affirmative. Have you changed at all since we last saw you? Or is still the same bathrobe? No, they give me a new one every day. I have a feeling you're never going to go home.

You're just going to open up shop. SBG Vegas. that's an interesting idea but um now dublin's my home but uh i'm leaving in a couple of hours so i'm just enjoying the last few hours of luxury here and i'm off to stock home in a couple of hours to meet up at guinea and cull and get ready to do it all again so before we get to that uh we just had henzel gracie in studio and he knew that you were going to come on and spoke very highly of you and said that you're the man and as of course he's known you for quite some time and he wanted to wish you and the team the best of luck on Saturday. So I wanted to pass that along.

Appreciate that. Thank you. So is it a bit, I don't know, are you tired? Like, do you wish that you had a couple of weeks to enjoy what happened? Because I know emotions were very high on Saturday, but you have a very busy day on Saturday, not only in Sweden, but also in Halifax. Do you wish you had a couple of weeks to regroup a little bit? Not really I'm doing what I love And I love what I'm doing It's not work

It's not hard It doesn't require willpower Or drive If I had nothing to do I choose to do this Right So yeah the more the better I'm really looking forward to seeing

Gunny's a close friend of mine Of course Cole And Gunny's father And all of these guys So I get to meet up at them And the traveling circus continues So what were your thoughts on Saturday. Were you happy with the performance? Of course, it was a quick fight, and you were

victorious, but overall, were you happy with the body of work? Yeah, I don't know if you remember. Me and Artham had a side bet on the shot that would end it, and I got that wrong, so I was a little bit, a little bit peeved at that. Artim got it, we both kind of got it right and we both kind of got it wrong. Well, Artim's call was the left hook, but he said he would do it defensively kind of like how Mayweather like you call it a pull counter where

you pull your head back so to give a target and then you kind of hit defensively. And that's what Artem's call was. Mine was an uppercut done offensively. So stepping in with an uppercut, kind of like how Mark Hunt did it last week. And actually, if you

had thrown the uppercut at that shot, Porre was leaning in I think it would have been a cleaner finish. but it was a hook and I kind of caught up both the temple and wobble and he went down on the end and then he obviously he finished on the ground so yeah we're we're I suppose Artem called the right shot so I'll give him props you know I asked you

earlier last week what's the deal with the hand and there were all these rumors and I guess it comes out that you lie to me you said there was no hand injury what's up with that why'd you lie I thought we were pals. We are, but you know, you still work for the other side, you know, a little bit. So does that mean you lied to me twice? Because you said that both of you would be on the show to celebrate and now you lied

to me about the hand? In my defense, in my defense, Conner's actually away right now getting an emergency dental treatment. Oh, wow. He broke a tooth in the fight. It was actually an existing injury in that Artem, the Russian hammer, broke his tooth and half about a couple of years ago. One of the bottom teeth just split in two.

And we just glued it back on. But it wasn't done properly, I guess. And during the contest, Dustin landed a shot and it came off again. Wow. So he's away in a dental hospital now getting a proper cap put on. So that will be the end of that. It won't happen again. It sounds very painful.

Is he in a lot of pain? It was definitely uncomfortable. You can imagine in the middle of a fight you feel your toot rattling around your mouth. I think he just swallowed it actually. Oh my gosh. But yeah, you know, he's fought through a torn ACL before, so breaking a tooth wasn't going to change anything. But yeah, he's been uncomfortable since. But today it was the earliest we could get to see this.

They have a very good dental surgeon here, so he's going to fix it up. but otherwise I would have gone in and jumped on his bed with the laptop and forced them to say a couple of words. I know there's a lot of people out there that were excited to hear from. So I do apologize for letting you down on that, but it was slightly kind of out of my hands. Well, we'll let you off the hook, but what about the hand? How nervous were you about it? Because he even admitted that for a second he thought about pulling out of the fight. Yeah, I mean, to be honest, we didn't really talk about it.

Like it happened to good, like what feels like quite a while. while ago. I guess it was four or five weeks ago. Yeah. But, you know, you got this, like, little brace put on, and he's been able to, we found a way of wrapping it so that it was protected. And he was able to train almost as much as you would need to. There's always going to be something. And that's why we aimed to train year-round so that when things happen, and I mean,

Cahill almost pulled out his fight with a week to go in Dublin. He got a bad neck injury. Well, 10 days to go. but he was able to rest for the 10 days because he'd been training for a year he wasn't just doing a short training camp just a couple of weeks out from a fight and then if you miss one of those weeks

you're in a bad way because you only give yourself six weeks anyway but if you aim to do this 52 weeks of the year and you have to take a week or two off regardless of it's close to a fight or not it's not it's not as problematic as maybe it is for people who are doing it more

and as kind of a part-time basis so it was never concerning. I know I didn't exactly tell you that, okay, he's wearing a cast on his hand just to keep it protected. But I was being honest and saying it wasn't a problem. Sure. He was using for a start it was his right hand. He's left

handed, so I knew it was going to be a left hand finish. He was able to jab his right hand, his knee be. He was able to grapple. So it was like it wasn't an issue. It was not like he went into the fight and he couldn't use his hand, you know? You know, he was great in the post-fight press conference and the scrum

and all that. The thing that really stood out for me was when he said, I'm cocky in prediction, I'm confident in preparation, but I'm always humble in victory and defeat. And then even afterwards, you reached out to Dustin via Twitter and said to him, you know, you're a martial artist and you're invited and welcome any time to the team. I mean, I think that's one thing that people might miss with you guys. Like, you know, they'll see everything leading up and how confident you are picking your shots. But that seems to be a big part of all of this, just how humble you are afterwards and how this is more of a lifestyle, martial arts, and being martial artists and all that.

Do you feel like that's accurate that some people might miss all of that? Because I feel like that's a big part of what makes all of this so special. Yeah, of course. You know, I was actually talking to my girlfriend, well, my fiancé about this last night, about kind of learning to deal with a bigger public now. Like, it's all quite, still quite new to us. You know, you don't realize when you say something, just how many people are listening to it. And how many people are kicking apart.

And also many people are, it seems to be their day to wake up and try to be offended by something. And waiting for a moment that they can catch you saying something that you don't quite agree with our, you know, we call them haters or whatever, you know, this phrase. But with Connor, like when I relaunched my kids program, we call it the grown gorillas, I actually had them in with me that day to meet all the kids and the parents and to give a talk about what the martial arts life is about and about it being a path of humility because you are humble. every day in the gym. Now, I don't care how good you are in one area. There's someone who can humble you in another area. And we spoke about that approach for the kids growing up in whatever area they wanted to go into their life, whether it was martial arts or whether it was business or being a school teacher

or whatever, to have a humble attitude. Now, don't confuse that with the entertainment industry that is prize fighting. And in the lead up to a fight and, you know, what Connor is saying about his opponents, he truly believes to be true. It's not hype. He's given his opinions. But watch any of his fights. Watch back what happens once the contest is over.

You can watch it in the Dustin fight. It's, you know, help your opponent up, shake hands, bow. And that's it. It's done. You know, you move on to the next one. You know, some people were highlight me in tweets where they're gloating to, you know, to dust. I'm not just dust. I've seen this in plenty of fights.

And we've been on the end of it. When we had a loss, you know, in the buildup, of course you're going to be confident. Of course you're going to say you're going to win. win. And of course on the night, there's a winner and a loser. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's the sport we're in. But you can, you know, on Twitter so can be so raw sometimes, you know, directly messaging a guy and gloating and laughing at him. And this, this person is, you know, is, you know, is devastated for a while. I'm sure Dustin's a good athlete, he'll brush it off and he'll get back on the horse and go at it again. That's, it's something I tell my kids as well. You only fail when you quit trying. You know, there's, we, we, we, We have to get used to winning and losing. Failing is, you know, losing a contest is not a problem. It's not trying again is when you truly fail.

So, yeah, I put a tweet out there just saying, listen, and Connor said the same himself. When the contest is over, it's over. There's no bad feelings. There's no, not chasing the guy, you know, the following week and trying to kick him out when he's down. You congratulate him on his effort and get ready for the next contest. It's interesting that you say that about quitting because at one time, me if I'm wrong. Didn't Connor essentially quit and you had to bring him back?

Yeah, you know, he was a kid. It was a different for very different reasons and a very different time. It's been, you know, we've spoken about that before in the past. You know, actually his mother was here last night. It was kind of fun, Chapmanor again, just kind of

reliving old times. But it wasn't over, losing it, you know, it wasn't necessarily over just losing the contest. Of course. Like I said, he was a young man. It was a different time. But yeah, it is something I push it in the kids' club because I think it's kind of wrong to the way it's done now, especially in the States that everyone's a winner and at a

kid's competition, everyone gets a medal. No, you don't. There's winners and losers. But it's okay to lose. The problem is not losing. When you're trying to become an expert on something, there's a great meme with Hicks and Gracious, I hope it was him that said it, that he's been, he's failed or something. Something along the lines is being submitted more times than most white pelts boy.

Basically saying, you know, you have to fail a hell of a lot of times in order to become a black belt in jiu-tzu, for example. So in order to become an expert level in any activity, you're going to slip, you're going to fall, you're going to fail countless times. And really, the ones who get to the very, very top are the ones that were not afraid of failing, not afraid of having some, you know, kind of wise ass that was hoping that they'd slip. and then could point the finger and laugh. I saw another good quote. It was someone that said, they didn't fail in their life because, no,

they're not a failure because they failed. They're a failure because they didn't even try. And I think for a lot of people, they don't even try something because they're afraid of slipping. They're afraid of people pointing the finger at them. And what I would say is ignore that. You know, who are these people?

They're doing nothing with their lives anyway. You get out there, don't be afraid of failing, don't be afraid of slipping, don't be afraid of falling. There's a great quote by Thomas Jefferson about It's not the critic that counts It's the man in the arena It's a long quote

I have it up in my gym wall And that's what I try to emphasize with my kids And that's what I try to emphasize my pro fighters as well Is that winning and losing Is all part of the learning experience You guys are on top of the world right now I mean the talk of the mixed martial arts community I was looking at your Twitter

And you kind of respond to some people sometimes Are you getting a lot of that Like that jealousy Especially from your community where you guys have kind of broken through now and aren't just a part of the Irish MMA community, you're doing great things on a global scale. Are you feeling some of that, that heat

from maybe the people that you've left behind a little bit? Very little. I did have a bit of an incident on Twitter recently. I was more annoyed at myself at anything that I let it get to me. It's something I would emphasize in my fighters not to let people's words get to them. And it would never bother,

if someone was to call me names or write mean stuff about me, would never bother me. But it was the fact that was done something about, you know, one of my, it's almost like a family member at this stage. When you say something about a family member, I'm going to come at you like, you know, but not anymore. That was a very rare slip.

You know, I failed, but I'll try again and I won't fail again. So I'll never let that happen again. I even had somebody have a go at my fiancé on Twitter, like nothing to do with my, you know, martial arts career or whatever. But this is, this is part of the game. as Connor says you know as a phrase you have to be bulletproof in this and I kind of had a realization last night well two things one I discovered that block button which is beautiful you just discovered it

I know yeah I never just bothered it really before but but now a hint of negativity towards me or my team or even just a hint to negativity I just don't want you in my universe and you can it's almost like being God you can just like eliminate from your planet like you know they they've no longer any power over you but the other one as well was I realized that I was taking some things to heart because I was thinking well what would make me say that I would only say that about a person if such and such and then I don't know why I didn't occur to me sooner I suddenly realized they're not me

they're not saying it from a point of reference of what I have they haven't gone through what I have they don't know what I know they're speaking from their own point of reference which is different than mine so there's obviously no need for me to take a personal and it seems like a silly realization, but it was actually something that was quite calming to me. And I realized I needed something like that now early on where we're just kind of getting this momentum going because, you know, in the future, for sure we're going to be, get a lot more of this and a lot more people wanting that are rubbing their hands for the moment where we have a slip. And that's fine. That's, that's their life. But, um, look. What do you think they're going to do with Connor next?

I don't know he's he's he's kind of playing around with some different ideas he's saying maybe doing a 155 fight before Christmas I don't really know I guess this is up to for him and Uncle Frank or Big Al

and of course Shelby and Joe Sylva and all of those guys to kind of work out what the next step is I guess the featherweight top the top tier guys are all so close now and there's big contests already on the way so yeah it can go one of anyways

I don't think it's any mystery to say you know it is the entertainment industry and I don't think it's any mystery to say who it is that's getting the most number so it would seem obvious it should be Connor that's next in line regardless of circumstances but who knows

I guess we'll have to kind of wait and see you know, Mendez and Aldo is on pretty soon, so I'm looking forward to seeing that and how old you're top fedaway fights play out. As his coach, do you believe he's ready to fight for the belt? I've said this before. I honestly believed that it's a little bit of a different path that Europeans take to get into the UFC,

and I tell us first fight in the UFC he was ready for the belt. He's made everybody, you know, Holloway did well, kind of surviving the three rounds, even though he had basically one leg, but no one has anybody got out of the first round besides Holloway? No. No. And, you know, Dustin is an excellent martial artist,

but there is a difference when Connor lands, and I always see it. I'm in that corner. I see them walking towards him, and the first shot lands, and the ice get a little bit wider, because he really does hit like a very, like a pro boxing middleweight,

never mind an MMA middleweight, but pro boxers know how to hit different, with different mechanics than your typical MMA guy that just swings his arm and you see that realization and suddenly they're backing off and they start to crumble

and although you know come out from that he's a high level striking background maybe he's the guy that can take some of those shots and be willing to stand there but I'm not sure because I don't think he's been hit this way either

so I believe Conner's being ready for that spot since day one and yeah we're ready to go if Mendez for whatever reason had to pull out I know Connor would be on that, well he is going anyway, so he would jump on in there at a heartbeat's notice.

What do you say to the people who say that he hasn't been tested? He's never fought someone who's a wrestler who's even tried to take him down, that he's been put on this path, you know, there's been a conscious decision to keep him away from those fighters. What do you say to them? I know that whoever he faces,

like if you look at someone like John Jones, He seems to have fought every style. And not only does he beat them, but he tends to drift into their style and beats them. And yet, you're going to have those same guys, those critics that are going to be on this end. Yeah, but he hasn't fought so-and-so. So that's fine. That's their role. That's their job as to always question.

And it's good because it kind of keeps the interest going in the next fight. It would be terrible if one day Connor beat their man. And then everybody went, well, okay, that's it. We don't really want to see him anymore. He's beat all different styles. So there's always going to be a question. He could go in and fight a two-time Olympic gold medalist wrestler and out-wrestle him and beat him.

And then I guarantee on Monday, yeah, but what if you fight the judo guy, and they fight a judo guy and he say, yeah, what if he fights a shell-win monk, you know, there's always going to be some style of fighting that you haven't yet met. And there's always going to be a new fighter on the way up that you haven't yet beat. And that's great. That keeps the entertainment industry going and it keeps me in a job and it keeps me doing interviews with you on a Monday. And long may it continue.

You know, you posted a great video of you wore Connor's suit while he was away, and then you showed him this picture. It's unbelievable. You posted it on your Twitter and his reaction. He seems very confused at first. Was he mad about this, that you were wearing one of his prize suits? I didn't even know Orla was recording that beside me. She's very sneaky with her camera work.

It was great. But, yeah, just on the Sunday he went to L.A. do some and me and art them are kind of sitting around on board and we hadn't actually left the room in about 10 days and then i realized then wait hold on a second let's it was kind of like a pretty woman moment where we're trying on the outfits looking cool so uh it just so happens that i'm very i guess i'm pretty close in size to connor because it it felt pretty damn good and it fitted me pretty damn well i realized that actually the suit i wore costs more on what I have spent on clothes in my last 37 years.

Wow. You know? So I was very, I went out, but I was panicked going out. I was afraid someone was going to bump off me or when I was eating. I had a napkin on my lap. I had a napkin on each arm. I had one around my neck. I had art of feeding me so I could have two hands under my chin. I didn't want to stain it.

I don't think I earned enough in a year to buy a replacement one. But it's pretty cool. People treat you different. They open the door and they call you sir. And we were getting some nice treatment. Was he pissed? Who knows? My girlfriend loved this.

So I might have to invest in one, but it'll be a layaway plan. I'll get maybe the pants first, and they can send me an arm, and then we'll work on it. Was he mad when he found out? Well, you saw his reaction. By the end of the video, he was actually complimenting me. He thought it was, it looked very well on me. So Orlis hinting at him to let me keep it. So who knows?

He's got about, I think he brought about 10 suits on this trip alone. I don't know how many he has a home. Your pose is amazing. Sorry? Your pose in the picture is fantastic. Yeah, did you like that? Yeah, yeah. That didn't have my accident.

We were working on that for a while. I watched Zoolander there and got a few ideas for my blue steel, so it came out. I did actually say online that Patty Hulahan's opponent has been confirmed. Oh, I missed it. Who is it? Yeah, I said I was going to say his name. Oh, yeah, I got it. Chris, Chris Colladis.

As far as I can make out, he's a local guy. I think he's seven and one. So that's who the hooligans next opponent is. How do you feel about this? A change with less than a week. I put him into YouTube, and the best I could do is find an interview with him. I don't see anything of them online. I wouldn't mind seeing like a minute.

I never much more than a minute or so anyway, just to see what stance they have, what kind of movement. I'm not too concerned what exactly what they do. But Patti Hulahan is special. He's something special. And the way he's being training for the July 19, and I'd come out of that with no injury, straight back in the gym,

and now he's got this contest. I think he's going to prove. I admire that guy taking on an 11-0 guy. Oh no, is he 10 and 0 guy In his own 10 Well you're not going to turn down to UFC At the end of the day But still to get in there

And to cut all that weight in these last few days And be willing to face That ginger crazy guy Coming at him with You know, he's one of the few 125ers That can stop you on the feet And also he's got lethal jihitsu on the ground Very submission-oriented groundwork

So I think Ash was on earlier on actually Wasn't she? Yeah So, yeah, Ash, that's who he's fighting because I didn't tell her yet. Oh, very good. There we go. Hopefully he's watching. I was floof for the MMA hour there.

Well, does it bother you that you can't be there with him? Of course it does. I would love to do that. I think Joe Rogan, he's made a joke about the fact that, you know, cell phones are small enough now, cars go quick enough. Let's focus on making vegetables taste like chocolate and teleportation. That'd be ideal for me. I actually kind of had an idea of maybe trying to do corner by Skype. Wow.

Because I could get one of the corner men to hold a phone up, you know, with Skype and watch the round. And then go in during the corner and put like the phone up to Patty's Facebook. I figured that's not going to work. And also it's really not that important because when I go to watch a fight, like when I went to in Connor's corner, when I turned to Artham and own, you know, we do the hugs and then we're going to the corner. and I said, finally, I get to relax. I'm only ever really relaxed when Conner's fighting because I don't have to worry about the opponent.

I'm always worried in the gym and I'm trying to mind people and make sure no one gets hurt. But in the fight, that's the referee's job. So I can actually just chill, relax, and just watch him in action. It's the same way with Patty. He's being trained as best as he could be.

He'll make weight sensibly. He'll rehydrate correctly. And then Ash and Artum will get to sit back and watch the hoolie. going to do what he does. Two last things that we'll let you go. We appreciate the time very much. I know you're very busy. Artem was on the show last week at the time.

He was trying to get that fight against Dennis. Dennis Siever in Sweden. It's not happening. But interestingly enough, the original opponent that they picked for Dennis Siever was turned down by the Swedish MMA Federation. Isn't that strange? The Swedish of all people. Of all people, that's right. Swedish M.A Federation say that his opponent isn't experienced enough.

So what do you think when you hear that? it was a slight bit of um uh you know justification if you want to say in an arrow cry that that um arthur was the much better guy um

you know he's been put in again with another like very pretty record you might want to call it um but somebody posted up the guy in nine opponents all of his opponents barrow one had a 500 record or less um you know so i don't know There's different ways of looking at this. We had a long chat, me, Artem and Sean Shelby on the night, and he gave us some advice on what we should be doing.

So we're going to follow that. We probably did it back in the old days, follow very much any man, any time, anywhere. And it's worked for some and it hasn't for others. And we have to get maybe be a bit more sensible about how we do things. So I'll take Shelby's advice to Harton. And, yeah, we'll take it from there. I hope Artum does get his chance.

He's hopefully get a few fights lined up now and get him in there, if not this year. Maybe next year, next summer, while Conner's defending his belt in the stadium in Ireland. And you're sitting from Roe Art, Ariel, and we'll have Artem in there. Well, I think the good thing is, at least a lot more people know who he is.

He's on everyone's radar, so looking forward to seeing what he can do to get into the UFC. So finally, you're so good of predictions, even though you got the Connor one a little bit wrong, Let's hear the predictions on Gunner, Kahal, and Patty. Of course, you think they're going to win, but I want you to tell us how. How and when? Okay.

Right. I'll go with Gunny first. I actually think it's going to be a TKO stoppage. Wow. So I think that's my prediction for this. What round? I think in the first. maybe midway or near the end of the first round.

Okay. I can see him being stopped with strikes. Cahill, I'm going to go with... I'm going to go with guillotine. I'm going to be very specific on that. Okay. What round? In the first as well.

Wow, okay. Yeah. Patty... No, I have to bear in mind, I've not even... I've seen an interview with this guy. Sure, sure. I don't even know of the Sautau or is he a striker, is he a grappler. I have no idea of what his opponent is.

But with Patty, I'm going to go with triangle in the first. All in the first. Yes. If you get all those right, you'll have to come back for it. We've never had someone on the show three straight weeks. I want to tell you the history of this program, but if you get those right exactly, you might have to come back. Just for a victory.

Break a record. Let's do it. Exactly. John, thank you so much. Congratulations on Saturday. Congratulations on all your success. Good luck this weekend in both Sweden and Halifax. And best of luck to Connor, even though he stood us up here.

Tell him, don't forget about us, all right? I know he's getting big time. But the two, exactly. So that's why I said best of luck to him. I hope he feels better. I know how painful that can be. And he did great. from everything from leading up to the fight and afterwards,

it's been a lot of fun watching the team rise together and all the success that you guys are having. You all deserve it. So I'm very happy for you. You're part of the team, I really like this day. So we appreciate all the help you've given us. Continued success and good luck again this weekend. All right.

All right, there he is. John Kavanaugh, the head coach over at SBG, Ireland. A great weekend for them. And they look forward to another big weekend coming up in just a few days. and if you got all those right, I mean, holy moly. I like hearing their predictions, because they are often right. It's unbelievable. You know, this past weekend, Connor was, in my opinion, it was the people's main event,

and there were a lot of great performances. I really think Dominic Cruz had the performance of the night. I mean, how he did not get a performance bonus is beyond me. It really is. How did he, he was away, and I'm pretty sure, am I right? I'm pretty sure I'm right. He did not get a bonus, or at least one of those bonuses that are on. on the table that we know about. I'm sure he got something

on the back end. But to come back three years later to look how he looked, you know, bobbingen and weevin, the takedown and the finish, which should have been called earlier in my opinion, I mean, he deserved three bonuses for that. It was unbelievable. What he said afterwards, calling them alpha fail, just infusing some

life into that division. Really impressive stuff, and it's the right call, obviously, to make the Dillishaw fight. He deserved a bonus for that. Katzengano coming back. It was, what a story that was, to start off slow, and then to finish Amanda Nunes and to get that title shot, tremendous stuff. Just an amazing, an amazing hour that was between both of them coming back and the emotion involved.

Romero Kennedy was, you know, unfortunately, mired by controversy, a lot of fun, and it was the fight of the night. But, you know, once again, Romero looking strong, I think perhaps, you know, he is susceptible to certain things, but very much a player at 185. And then, of course, Connor and Donald Seroni beating Eddie Alvarez so close to a title shot, and Demetrius Johnson retaining the title. Oh, Cruz did get a bonus, I'm told. Earlier, New Yorkerick told me he didn't get the bonus. So who got the bonuses?

Anyway, he deserved the damn bonus. Point being, Saturday reminded me a lot of one particular post-fight press conference because it turned into the Connor McGregor show. Demetrius Johnson was asked one question at the very end. Chris Carrioso wasn't asked a single question. He was holding court much like a guy we talked about earlier, Chale Sunnan. And it reminded me of Chale, and not the chale that came, you know, to the press conferences later on in his career where it felt a little too stick.

At the beginning, if you remember, post-Ocami at UFC 104, it felt very real. This was a man who was poking the Anderson Silver Bear. He was going to take him down and he was going to do so for the entire MMA community. And it reminded me of UFC 109. It reminded me of when he defeated Nate Marquard. And he wasn't as boisterous. He wasn't as brash. He wasn't as funny as he was later on.

But he had told the MMA community that he was there. He had arrived and that he was a force to be reckoned with. And he was talking trash about Anderson, which no one was doing. And if you remember, when he defeated, Nate Marquard at UFC 109. He had yet to be declared the number one contender, but it seemed like it was a formality that if he got the title shot, he would fight Anderson next. Anderson, of course, was supposed to fight Vitor Belford at UFC 112, but, you know, that didn't happen. He ended up fighting Damian Maya and defeating Damian Mayan, and then, of course, UFC 117 is when he fought Chal Sondon. But I always remember talking to Chal Sondon right after

UFC 109 when he defeated Nate Marquard. This was February 6, 2010, Mandalay Bay Events Center, once again in Las Vegas. And I remember sitting there thinking, wow, this is the birth of something special. And I felt the same way on Saturday watching Connor McGregor. Of course, you know, I never bought into this whole thing that the hype and he needs to prove himself. Felt it, of course, you have to climb the ladder. But I didn't think that he was validated in a sense by defeating Dustin Poria on Saturday. Felt the same way about him before that fight as I do right now.

But just that press conference of what he was wearing and saying, on a pay-per-view stage, it felt like it was the birth of a new chapter and the birth of something special in the featherweight division. And it reminded me of UFC 109. So that's why for this edition of Inside the Vault, we go back to UFC 109. We go back to February 6, 2010, when I spoke to Chelle Sunnan, some great stuff. He sounds different, but in particular, his last line about the ho-down really felt like what Connor is doing now. In a different way, it's not the same. I don't like when people compare Connor to Chale, but it just felt like that moment where we all realized, wow, something interesting is happening here, and it's going to be a lot of fun to watch.

Here's Chale Sunnan, UFC 109 after his win over Nate Marquart. Ariel Halwani post-fight at UFC 109 with the new number one middleweight contender, Chale Sunnan. How does that sound, Chale? That sounds pretty good, man. I'm feeling horrible right now, so I'll take anything to perk me up a little bit. Yeah, you're pretty banged up. Have you ever been this banged up before? No, no. I guess. I got cut in the fight, I got knocked out in the fight, I got choked in the fight. It was a miserable 15 minutes.

I want to take you back to UFC 98. You defeated Dan Miller. You were at the post-fight press conference, and I remember not one person until the very end asked you a question. And you thank them for asking you that question. When the press conference was over, no one wanted to talk to you. You were just kind of ignored. Now, here you are. You got all the questions more than Randy Gature.

The spotlight is on you. This has to feel amazing. I never even thought of that until you said it, but you're right. That is a compliment. I didn't realize I had, but you're... right I did get some good attention today. Okay, so what went right out there for you? What you, everyone, you know, no one really believed when you said that you were just a better all-around fighter than Nate, but you proved it out there. Why did it work so well?

I'll tell you, people don't know what UFC stands for, that the athletes are forgetting. It's the F that's confusing everybody. Some guys think this is the ultimate mid-hitting championships. They think it's the ultimate high-altitude training championships. The ultimate, let me go away in seclusion and eat all the right food for 30-day's championships. This is the ultimate fighting championship. And why these guys are out there swinging a sledgehammer and flipping a tire round, I'm throwing fists at a partner's head, neck, and chest. I'm fighting in practice every day.

And I don't mean that we're sparring hard. I just mean I'm working on fighting things. I'm not spending my time on mental health and Anthony Robbins and screaming the word yes over and over. Not that that's bad. I'm just saying I'm not spending my time on that. If I'm going to work on fighting, I'm going to work on fighting. and when you get in a fight that comes in very handy.

How close were you to tapping out when he had the guietin choke in there? I would never have tapped, but I was very close to going to sleep. I was on my way out. What do you tell yourself in that position? Are you just trying to calm down and not think about it? I mean, what goes through your mind? Oh, please, God, let him let go. Please let him let go.

I mean, that's what I just kept saying over and over. Please let him let go, please. Can you get a breath of air? If you get a breath, you can hang on for five more seconds. if you can get two breasts, you got 10 seconds in you, how long until his arms give out, and then eventually you find a way out of the hole. But it was tight.

Okay, so now you're in that number one contender spot. In April, Anderson Silva's going to fight Vitor Belford. Correct me if I'm wrong here, and if I'm assuming correctly, but you're picking Anderson, or at least you want Anderson to win this fight, correct? I would prefer Anderson one because I would prefer to fight him over Vitor. I think Vitor is the better fighter and the Dane.

You know, I don't truly believe that? Yeah, I truly believe that. Why? Well, Vitor's never lost a fight. fight that was stand-up, not one ever. And I'm a Vitor fan, so I would know. The blueprint to beat Vitor is out there. It's been done, but it's never been done by a stand-up guy. It's been done by a guy that can push him and pull him and pummel him and take him down to the ground and control him. The one weapon that Anderson's missing. This isn't Chale coming out and trying to put

Anderson down every chance he gets. Anderson is fantastic. He's the champion of the world for a reason. I get that. I'm not delusional. But to answer your question, I would rather have Anderson Silva, who's big and tall and has those great big legs, that I can come out and run over, then Vitor. In the weeks leading up to this fight, when you were talking about Anderson, you would always say, you know, you ain't seen nothing yet. I got a lot more on this guy. If you do fight him, what can we expect to hear?

Well, it'll be a verbal. Anderson Silva will be in tears before it's all over. You know, look, there's just a lot out there on the guy. I mean, this guy's no more real than the Loch Ness monster. and if he needs me to expose him, I will. But I'll tell you, the guys in the back know who the tough guy is. If we walk in the back dressing room and Anderson says put on hip-hop and Chale walks in and says, put on country, I guarantee it's going to be a hoe-down.

The guys are going to do what I say. So as far as him being the bully of the playground, well, his 15 minutes of fame is up. All right. So you're banged up right now, but I'm guessing you're very excited to finally get that shot and actually fight again. I think I will be. I'm not right now. I've got to go get some rest. I feel horrible.

All right. We'll let you do that. Congratulations, Chale. It was a very impressive performance. Thank you, pal. Love that Chale. Love that line about the Ho Down. That was classic stuff. And you see what I'm saying. I remember UFC 98 when he defeated Dan Miller. No one asked him a question. And then UFC 109, he was the star of the show. And that's when people really started to realize that there's something special about this guy. And it was very much like Saturday night. Of course, he would go on to lose to Anderson Silva. but that was a really fun time in the world of a main. You know what? I'm starting to notice something as far as inside the vault is concerned.

A lot of them are coming from 2010. I may have peaked in 2010, which is a little bit startling and upsetting. But that was a fun one. I even watched the one, and maybe we'll play that one in the coming weeks after the Okami fight, which was really the birth. The birth, if you must know, happened on this very show because the Okami fight wasn't even on TV. It wasn't even on Spike TV. some of the fights weren't even televised back then.

And he was really pissed off that no one was paying attention to his fight. And on this show, he started to call out Okami and say a whole bunch of stuff. Then he beat Okami and it started to all snowball from there. Got the Marquard fight and the rest is history. So great stuff. And we wish Chale the best of luck as he makes his color analyst debut at the Battlegrounds MMA show this Friday on pay-per-view. Before we get to the questions, just want to say, just read something online

from Kevin Ioli that the very successful boxing promoter, Dan Gousen, has passed away after battling liver cancer. He was 64 years old, and Kevin wrote an obituary about Mr. Gousen on Yahoo Sports. I know we're not a boxing show, but obviously a very influential and successful promoter in the world of combat sports. So just want to send his family our best, and our thoughts and prayers are with them. That is a big loss in the world of boxing. Okay, let us get to your questions and comments. Mr. New York, Rick, are you there? I'm here. What could you possibly be doing right now to where you actually delay response to that question? You didn't see it, but I'm wearing the tricolor right now. Oh, yes. I spun around in the chair for emphasized effect.

Yes. So you have, you have, I now I see it. I see it via delay. You have a acknowledged that you did not have any faith in the Irish, that you, I mean, let's not even talk about our private conversations, how you were dismissing McGregor going into this fight. You had no faith. And not only, you even said no Irish fighter will ever really take that big next step in the UFC. Did you not say that? Did you not say that you felt like the Irish fighters in general? Now I could take the time to address all these lies that you're putting out.

but instead I will take this time to do a rendition of my new favorite song. Oh, let's hear it. There's only one Connor McGregor. One Connor McGregor walking along, singing his song, walking in a McGregor Wonderland. Wow. That goes out to all the fellow fans out there who are with me on the Connor McGregor bandwagon. You're on the bandwagon. On it, I'm driving it.

You see this flag that I'm wrapped in? I see it. There you go. That's from the Sheehan brothers. They gave it to me in Ireland. Thank you for my new favorite thing. How about the fans? A lot of people send me this.

This is from Andrew McGahn, who is a great young reporter for severe MMA. We've talked about them before. They were walking up and down the escalator at the MGM, just singing this song over and over and over again. It was unbelievable. I was looking for you in the behind. but you weren't there. So now you're a believer. Well, let's, let me bring it back.

Let me just walk it back one step. I never thought, I never thought that Connor McGregor couldn't possibly be this good or wasn't this good. I wanted to see him prove it. And hell, he proved it. In terms of, you know, striking alone, he's proven that he's almost, you know, you could say he's one of the best in the game right now. So he proved it, shut me up.

I thought that the fight would go more places, and Dustin Porier would be more composed and be able to take Connor out of his comfort zone, but that proved to not be the case. Connor McGregor is a fantastic fighter, a really legit fighter, and somebody who I think could potentially challenge Jose Aldo or Chad Mendoz. It's going to be interesting.

Let's get to the questions. And by the way, we must mention that for the first time since you joined our show, almost three years ago, has been three years or two years? It's been almost three years. My God. You will not be on the M.A. hour next week. You are deserting us. You're leaving us hanging. It's a little selfish, if you asked me.

Well, I think it's my punishment for this. For this. Yes, your punishment is to go to Hawaii. You son of a. I mean, how guilty do you feel? I mean, you're going to leave? You're going to leave us? Anyway, we've got a great replacement.

Our man, Adam, is he still there? Has he made it this far? No, come on. No, no, it's going to be. I don't even think we'll still back there. Oh. Any response, Will? By the way, you're getting a lot of, you can't even do your apology the right way.

You're getting a lot of hate. Your flag is backwards. How's that? What do you mean backwards? I'm being told the flag is backwards. I can't see you. What does that mean backwards? There's no front or back.

Yeah, but it goes orange, white, and green, right? Is it green, white, and orange? Well, the picture would be backwards if I wore it backwards. Is it backwards? The picture of Connor. Come on. Is it backwards? No, the picture of Connor is facing forward.

I'm told by Michael Carroll, flip the script. Come on, it. It says it right here. The words are spelled out. Well, it depends which side you're looking at it from. But his back to me, it looks good. What's next? Are you going to spit on it?

See that? Is that what? You're going to spit on you? How dare you? I'm going to spit on it. Listen, I'm claiming this. You're claiming it. Let's get to the questions.

Okay. But I'm going to wear this for the whole show. You know what? There. But by the way, you will not be with us next week. I will not. And I will miss everybody, and I will be watching. Fair enough.

First time watching in quite a long time and not being a part of it. It's been years. Yeah. There's no way you'll be watching. I don't blame you. I will be watching. All right. First question.

Was UFC 178 the most meaningful card of the year? Besides living in the shadow of losing the Jones D.C. fight and less than cared about flyweight mismatch, with all the storylines playing out in contenders, was UFC 178 the most important card of the year? I hate when we get too caught up in the events. I saw some people saying, is this the best card of all time?

Let's relax a little bit. I mean, it was a lot of fun. Best of the year? I don't know, man. Dublin might have been the best of all. all time. Here I am talking about hyperbole. But you know what I'm saying. As far as actual contenders emerging, when's the last time we had legit, two people emerge as number one contenders. We had one person very close in McGregor. We had another one in Yol Romero, super close.

Donald Serroney is super close. I mean, yeah, off the top of my head right now. I mean, let's just think about the pay-per-views. 169, no, 170, no. 171 was good. 171 was good, but still not quite the same. 172, no. 173 had the big moment, but not really. 174, no, 175, no. 176 didn't happen, 177. Yeah, I would say so.

I think so, yep. I concur. I mean, I think it's a no-brainer. That's easily the most meaningful. Next question. Is it time to cash in on the Connor McGregor hype train? The Connor McGregor bubble is really blowing up. Brimage, Holloway, Brandau, and Porier was a comfortable path to the featherweight title.

I don't consider any of these men the featherweight's elite and think a loss in Conner's next fight is likely. That is a legit path. Why do people keep dismissing? You will admit that's a legit path, right? Is it a legit path to the title? Maybe not, but you can't just dismiss. He hasn't been fighting guys. All those guys are still in the UFC.

All those guys had good records going into the fight. Come on. It's nonsense. It's the same thing that was happening with John Jones before he fought Shogun. which was, you know, oh, these guys were, you know, pretty good, but it's time. It's time to admit that even if you were on the fence, I admit to being completely on the fence before this fight, it's time to step back and recognize that this guy is very talented. And UFC title shots are not necessarily always handed out to the guy who deserves it the most.

Cubs Swanson should have fought for the title already. That much is, you know, known. And if he doesn't, you can't be mad because. that's just not how business is done anymore. I could see Connor McGregor fighting for the title, and I think realistically he should and could do very well. The final question, the actual question, is if you were Dana, would you set up the Cash Cow Championship bout

or have him fight again and risk losing his mystique? Well, you know, let's see what happens between Mendez and Lama, Mendez and Aldo. I mean, risk losing his mystique. Eventually, he's going to have to fight for the belt if he keeps winning. You know, they just announced Cups Swanson versus Frankie Edgar, and if Cups Swanson beats Frankie Edgar, man, what a blow that would be to him if he doesn't get a title shot, right?

I think they need to wait and see what happens there. Unfortunately, it's in two months. A little less than two months, but it's in two months. I don't like the idea, by the way, of him going up to 155, like John just mentioned. I want to see him stick around at 145, even though he has a little trouble cutting that weight. Let's see him continue on this path. So, you know, there's all, there's some fight.

Bermudez is coming up against Lamas. If Bermuda wins, that will be, I believe, eight in a row for him. So I don't know. Like I said, I think I said this last week on the show, one win away. I still think he needs that one big win before getting the title shot. So we'll see. That's what I would do, though. Not quite yet.

Not quite there just yet. Our next question. McGregor in Air. Do you think that as Connor McGregor starts to consistently fight upper echelon competitors, He will have to either convince high-level training partners to come to Ireland or be forced to spend a great deal more time training in America. He seems to be very proud to still be training in his hometown, but I can't imagine that he is at a competitive advantage

by staying with the same training partners that he has had cinch cage warriors. I mean, he has such a great connection with his coach and his team. I think this was in the scrum where he talked about this story. Right before he was about to walk out, he was holding his flag. And by the way, it's green, white, and orange. I'm pretty sure that's how I had it before, but now I flipped it because you made me self-conscious of it. In any event, he said, he turned around to Dustin and said, where's your flag? And this was like, I don't have a flag. He's like, exactly.

Why aren't you repring, you know, Louisiana? Well, now he lives in Florida. And his thing was, you know, that's a journeyman right there. I'm a guy who stays at home and I represent my country and I represent my people. And I represent the people who brought me to this point. I'm going to stick with those people. and I just can't see after everything. I mean, you could tell that means a lot to him.

Of course, things can happen. Things can change. People change. But right now, I don't see him leaving. He has a pretty damn good team there. I mean, he trains with Gunner Nelson all the time. That's a pretty great training partner. And there are other great fighters there as well.

I could see people coming to him and wanting to learn from him. But I don't think that he needs to go anywhere else at this point. Why change what has gotten to this point? And also, you could have a home gym and still go train with other people. A little bit here, a little bit there. Yeah. Did Dustin not walk out with the ATT flag? By the way.

I don't know. By the way, we just got a tweet from Connor saying, Ariel, can I come on the show right now? Is this legit? No, this is a bullshit. I just got trolled in any event. This is a fake account. No, no, no, no, but different. It's different, right?

Well, you were just saying, you know, what's his country, but that could be his, you know, what he's reping. I don't know if he did or didn't. I don't know if he did or didn't. I wasn't paying attention to the walkouts that much, but... But the point is, um, why I bring that up. I mean, I'm not trying to say that Connor was right for having the flag or Dustin was wrong. I know, I know what you're saying. But you could tell it means a lot to him, right? And the proof is in the pudding. He's been doing all right so far. I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't think that he would change anything up at this moment. No. Next question. Eddie Alvarez looked to have UFC jitters and all the pre-fight media events, interviews, way-ins, etc.

As well as the embedded V-log series, he did not look relaxed walking into the cage or even after this fight started. How much of a factor was this in his loss to cowboy? I don't know. I mean, this was one of the things I was worried about. I mean, it's a big deal. It's a real thing.

When Daniel Cormier tells you that he had UFC jitters and his UFC debut and this is a guy who has competed in the Olympics, you know it's a real thing. And of course, everyone has built differently. but I'm a big believer, and I know it's not the best way to break down fights or analyzed fights, but I told you this last week. I'm a believer in momentum. I'm a believer in just being comfortable and being in the right mind frame, and just, you know, like, there's these things that happen in the universe that just kind of propel athletes and individuals to rise above. And I feel like

that happened with Connor, and I kind of feel like that happened with Seroni. I mean, he didn't start off very well, and that was a pick-and-fight if there ever was one. I mean, he was very hard to really predict what was going to happen. But you could just tell that he got more comfortable and comfortable. And this was a guy who has been in those situations before big fights and has faltered. And it looked like, at least initially, it was going to turn out that way. And then something just switched in the second, especially the third round. Third round was fantastic for him.

Cowboy Seroni's on a roll. And he has to figure out his thing with Dana White because it seemed like Dana was really pissed at him that he was doing, you know, the wakeboarding and all that on the week of the fight. And I don't blame him. I mean, it's a big fight. he's banging into people, you know, on the lake, that could be potentially disastrous. But that's also his appeal. That's why people love this guy. I mean, he got as big, no joke, he got as big of a reaction from the crowd as Connor. You know, there were a lot of Irish people there, but I don't know if all of them actually went to the fight because the crowd wasn't as

loud as I thought it would be. Soroni is a star. People love Donald Seroni. I mean, his interview got a lot of attention when we posted on the site and all that, and people just love how authentic he is. Anyway, it doesn't answer the question. And who knows, you know, what was going on in Eddie's head. But that's kind of just the way he is. I just feel like Saroni has this momentum. He's comfortable. And that was a big, there was a lot

going. Cowboy Soroni has fought like eight times in the span that Eddie has only fought once. You know, since October of 2012, Eddie Aver has fought once. You know, since, you know, that one fight against Michael Chandler, the rematch. So, you know, being active, momentum, all these things, I think they do play a part.

We've gotten hundreds of questions about this. Yes. Given the video that has come to light, which shows Tim Kennedy grabbing Yol Romero's gloves while inflicting the most damaging blows, do you feel his point is now moot because he committed an infraction first? Do you feel it was significant in any way? Is this fight karma also enough with the immediate rematches? Well, I don't know. I mean, I kind of agree to, it's so tough in MMA.

We've talked about this before. Like, you hold onto the cage, you hold on to shorts. These are infractions, but you don't really get penalized. Now, this was a pretty clear one. He's holding onto the glove, and he's landing some big uppercuts. But I don't feel like one has anything to do with the other. You know, it was also very clear that Y'O. Romero was sitting on the stool for an extra 28 or so seconds and wasn't getting up in his corner left the cage.

didn't take the stool with him, and he was just sitting there and kind of being like, oh, well, I don't know what's going on. I don't really think it had anything to do with the Vaseline, by the way. I just think they left and tried to buy him time, and then there was all this confusion. And I kind of agree with Henzo. You know, it's like these things happen, the glove thing, these things happen in the sport, and if we're going to penalize all of them, we'll be calling fouls left and right. The stool gate, it feels a little more blatant.

a little more like, okay, this is happening. There's, there's evidence of this guy sitting and he's not getting up. And if you can't get off the stool, after a minute, you, you know, either you've retired and the fight is over, you should be deducted a point. I mean, it's clear in the rulebook. It's also clear that you can't hold on to these things, but it's like, I know I'm kind of just speaking here, but I don't think that one has anything to do with the other. I don't think one should be canceled because the other happened. I don't think this is karma for what happened at the end of the second round. I think Kennedy has a legitimate argument to make about the stool,

and if Romero wants to bring up the glove, that is an argument to make as well. But I don't know if either of them have anything to do with each other. Of course, Romero was rocked because of the flurry that landed, but still, he's still breaking the rules by doing that. You get what I'm trying to say? I do. And, I mean, the simplest way to say it is what you said is

they don't offset each other. They're not related to each other, and neither should have been allowed. That's the end of the discussion. There's no black and white answer here. Well, there's a black and white answer in terms of, is this karma? Is this the offsetting? The answer is no. He should not have been allowed to hold the gloves, and Romero should have been T-K-Oed for not getting off the stool.

That's the answer. The part about whether if I poke you and, you know, whether if I poke you and, you know, the eye, you're allowed to poke me in the eye back. The answer is no. Right. It's a foul. The first one should not have been allowed, and neither should the second. And that's the way it has to be refereed.

I do believe that the UFC Cutman is getting some unfair criticism. I mean, I watched it a thousand times. It does put a lot of Azaleen, but I don't think it's, you know, it's obscene. I just think if you watch it, if you watch it, Romero's corner gets up and just leaves him there. And the guy is still dazed. He's obviously exhausted. be like, hey, guys, what about the stool? They just leave them. They just walk out.

And then they ask them to come back in, and everyone's like, what's going on? And they're trying to clean them up. Complete confusion. And perhaps John McCarthy lost control of the moment or should have been on it. But it's very rare that you see this in the UFC these days. Very rare. I know what's happened in the past, and it is somewhat of an old veteran trick. But, you know, that felt a little more blatant, in my opinion, or calculated.

and the glove thing, while wrong and illegal is one of those many things that happens in the, in the flow, you know, like last week, John Anick, last week on the show said, what should Chris Carrioso do, you know, do something to just distort the momentum. And these are things that happen. Look at the Mendez-Aldo fight. These things happen in MMA all the time. It's part of the, the sort of gray area of the sport. You know, in the NFL, like I said, when you go off sides or when you travel in the NBA, you don't always get called on it. It's tough. But I just think they should move on at this point. Either move on or I think an immediate rematch would be a lot of fun because there's that heat there, especially what happened backstage. But I don't know. I agree.

Just move on. Our next question. Regarding Dominic Cruz, he came in like a bat out of hell and absolutely wrecked Mizugaki. I didn't see that coming. But now that we know he's back, is he the favorite against T.J. Dillowshaugh, I think the champ is the underdog. It's tough, man. We only saw him for 61 seconds. By the way, I'm going to change my pick. I do want to see the rematch. Why not? I think that could be like a good fight-night-main event.

Wow, you flip that very quickly. Yeah, yeah. I was thinking about it. No, you know what? Fight-night main event. I'd love to see it. Great fight. Anyway, is he the favorite? I don't know. You're the betting guy. Is he the favorite? Yes. He's the favorite. Wow. How fun is that fight? He will be the favorite. Because I think a lot of it, quite honestly, will be due to the next. narrative of T.J. Delosha is trying to be Dominic Cruz with his footwork, which I've always had a little bit of an issue with phrasing it that way, that Dominic Cruz is like the only one with footwork in MMA and he's necessarily copying him. I think, you know, just adding different movements and different looks in his footwork doesn't necessarily mean he's trying to emulate

Dominic Cruz specifically. But I think a lot of of it is that people have this impression that he's trying to be a mini same same division he's trying to be a dominant cruise 2.0 when I think he's just trying to be an improved fighter and footwork is part of that but I think that Cruz coming back and looking the way he looked never having lost in the past beating guys like demetrius johnson I think he will be the favorite over t. j. j. has said that he's taken a little bit of this guy a little bit of that guy a little bit. This guy, you know, he has definitely said that. What a fun fight that is. I was so blown away by Cruz's performance, just knowing him a little bit and everything he's been through

to come out looking like that, looking that comfortable, that fluid, and the takedown and then the finish. I mean, this is a guy, click me if I'm wrong, and I screwed up because of someone telling me inaccurate information. Got to check your sources, bro. He did. He didn't. He didn't not get a bonus. He did get a bonus, but as far as the UFC is concerned, I mean, he's only had two fights in the UFC leading up to that point. Both were, he won them via unanimous decision. Last time he T-K-Oed someone was Brian Bowles, of course, who couldn't answer the bell. Prior to that, the last time he finished someone in an actual fight was Kenneth Ames in March of 2008. So even before his run is WC and UFC Bantamway champion, he just looks so great.

That's the right call. Kind of feel bad for Hapel's Sunsal because he's fighting Brian Carraway this weekend in Halifax, and all of a sudden the win has been taken out of his sale, and he knows this guy who beat Dillashaw a year ago, and he knows he is probably not going to get a title shot, but it's the right call, no doubt. Final question from the website. How much of the NSAC hearing will be used in the fight will be used, sometimes these are so tough first let me say that

this is regarding John Jones and Daniel Cormeier in the hearing so how much of that fight will be used leading up to the fight I felt like it added a much more realistic aspect to the countdown show John Jones basically sniveling

to the commission and blaming and DC blaming John Jones I feel like the heat in this fight is far from tempered I think the brawl will be showed I don't think the hearing maybe mentioned that they were fined in a quick clip

but I don't think that was a fine moment for either guy. Jones looked like he'd just woken up. DC was fine. He seemed a little nervous, and he admits that, but what's the point? That whole thing. I love the fact that they air those hearings,

but it's great for us, as fans, as journalists, to see everything that's transpiring, but, you know, if I'm the Nevada Athletic Commission, I need to bun things up a little bit because the way they come to these conclusions,

like, I don't know, it feels like it happened 10 years ago, but does anyone ask about Van der Le Silva? No. Van der Le Silva got screwed. There's no doubt about it. He got screwed, in my opinion. He did not deserve a lifetime ban. Now, did he deserve to be punished? 100%. But let's look at Chale Sunnet. Chale Sun popped for two, popped twice. He failed two drug tests, back to back, multiple illegal substances found in his system. He got two years. He got two years. Van der Leel Silva walked away, ran away from a drug test. He has a case to a degree, not like, he was a case. He

license, license, whatever you may think about that, forget about it. How does he get more than Chale who actually failed the test? Even if he would have failed, if Vanley would have failed that test, what would he have gotten? A year, nine months? It's never failed before, yet he gets a lifetime ban. Now, I know you have to say, okay, guys can't be running away. But where do you come to the conclusion that a lifetime ban is in order here? I don't think it's fair.

I really don't. And they just start throwing out these punishments. and the way they discuss things and had the one guy, Bill Brady, asking, you know, how to pronounce Daniel Cormier's name. Y'all, Rassler. You're some kind of rassler.

I mean, come on. The whole thing is, if I'm, I love it. I hope the UFC continues to air those. I hope that we have access to them. I just think that they need to watch those performances because in many ways they are performances and they need to see how they're coming across because they think they're coming across well,

but it's a lot of grandstanding, It's a lot of nonsense, and they need to clean up their act, because the way they're actually coming to these conclusions is showing that they don't really know what they're talking about. There's no precedent. Where did they come up with a lifetime ban? That's unbelievable, in my opinion. And even, like, how they were coming, the whole thing with John Jones,

let's not even get to the Floyd Mayweather thing, how they get to the John Jones and D.C. punishment, and they make them relive the whole thing over and over again. I mean, it's so, there's so much theatrics involved. It's almost maddening to watch. Can't get enough of it. But if I were them, as the gold standard, I think they need to huddle up beforehand

and have some kind of idea what they're going to do. And of course, you want to hear from these people, but they're just coming up with these punishments and these verdicts, willy-nilly. It's crazy. Our first question from Twitter. Is it bad that barely anyone is talking about Mighty Mouse? I don't know if it's bad.

Now it's worth pointing out that this was one of the only questions about Mighty Mouse. I don't know if it's bad. it's just a byproduct of a fight that not a lot of people cared about. There was no heat going into this fight. No one really believed that Carrioso was a true threat to Mighty Mouse's throne. Mighty Mouse has been very active, and one of the bad things about him being active is he's cleaned out the division for right now. I mean, there are some fights coming up and whatnot, but, you know, the top guys have all

fought him and lost him. So I think it's actually smart for him to take some time off, take off the rest of the year, and hopefully a contender, a legit contender, emerges. it's just, you know, it's unfortunate that I really enjoy watching Demetri's fight. I really enjoy, you know, how talented he is, how dominant he is. I mean, look at his results over the last couple years. The guy is not in boring fights. His fights, maybe the most boring one of them all was the Bagotino fight, and he was on PDs. Probably would have finished him if he wasn't on EPO. Look at the rest. All very fun fights to watch. Is he Connor McGregor as far as interviews are

concerned, no, but I think if you talk to him the right way and ask him certain questions, especially out of fight week, like on our show, I think he can be a very interesting guy. But, you know, there are things about 125ers, people have their issues with that and all that, whatever. I think everyone loves a good grudge match. That's what Pori v. McGregor taught us. Everyone likes when there's a little heat, when there's trash talk and all that, and this fight had none.

I bet you if Dotson fights him again, or if, you know, McCall can emerge and there's a story to be told there. who knows who will come through, more people will be interested, but it takes two to tango, and it can all be on his shoulders. He's the champion. I think he needs to be above that to a degree. But Carrie also didn't do anything to get people interested in the fight, and that's why afterwards no one really cares about it. Our next question is Connor McGregor, the biggest star in MMA? I don't know about that. I think that's a little premature. I was actually thinking about this

recently. He's certainly in the top 10, and he might even be close to five, but other people who think right now are bigger stars because of their impact outside of the MMA bubble, yes? What is this based on? What is your metric for this? I'm just looking at who has an impact outside of the MMA bubble. Ronda Rousey. What is impact? Well, I mean, she's being covered by, you know, real sports, HBO, she's on magazines, she's being covered, you know what I mean? No, I do, but, you know, somebody might have a, might have a different ranking based on, you know, who's the biggest. Sure, but this is a question to me. No, I agree. I'm just, I want it to be clear to everybody, you know, when you do give this ranking what it is based on.

I don't have a ranking per se, but I think of other people, you know, I think of Ronda Rousey, and I'm still going to, can I include, you know, the, the Anderson Silva's and the GSPs? I mean, I still think that they have an impact a little greater right now. I mean, let's see how these pay-per-view numbers do. I actually don't think that they will do as well as Connor might think, because I think it was a mistake to build UFC 178 as Johnson v. Carrioso. It should have been either UFC 177. 78 stacked or some kind of, you know, funny word like that because that really describes how good

the card was. Johnson Carrioso doesn't really tell the story of the card, or it should have been Kamikaze versus Mighty Mouse or Mighty Mouse versus Kamikaze, which is a little more unique. That's their nicknames. But Johnson Carrioso might have turned off some people. And historically, the pay-per-view after the Floyd Mayweather pay-per-view, which did pretty well, 900,000 pay-per-view buys, typically doesn't do great. So I don't know. I don't know if we should put that much stock in this one. And I think as he continues to rise, he'll get more and more popular. He's certainly very popular in Ireland. And he certainly has something going for him. Unlike Rhonda and John Jones and all these other stars,

he has a nation behind him. And this is a traveling nation. And it's a very strong connection that they have. They're very patriotic about their own fighters. Ronda doesn't have that. There are people who like Ronda Rousey because they like Ronda Rousey, not because she's American. So it's a little, it's a different level of popularity. But I don't think he's quite there just yet. I think that there are others who will quote unquote move the needle. Anderson, GSP, Ronda comes to mind. Perhaps even, perhaps even Nick Diaz.

I think he's more popular. He's been around longer. I don't doubt that he can get to that point, but I'll put him in my top 10 right now, maybe even top like seven, but not quite number one. Disappointing. Really?

Number one. Do you think, really? BS. Now you're just trying to pander. Do you agree? Very disappointing. You don't agree? No.

he's not number one. But he does have that potential. And, you know, getting that belt, that'll be a big step toward it. If he's a reigning champion and he's still talking the way he's talking, knocking off contenders the way he is, I mean, he's almost impossible to deny. Our final question from Twitter, what's next for Cowboy? He has more than earned a title shot, but there are other people in line. You know, has he?

He lost to Hafeldos Santos just a year ago. And he is coming off a win over, well, lightweight is a mess. Because Dosangos beat Soroni, lost to Chabib. You know, look, the next title fight is December 6th. I have a hard time believing that Serrani is going to wait until after that fight for his next fight. He wants to remain active. So I don't know if a title shot is next for him.

Keep the man busy. Now the question is, who will he fight? Miles Jury? You know, Miles Jury right now, I think the rankings are updated, but what I'm looking at here, according to the UFC rankings, Miles Jury is 8 and Tironi is 5. That's not the craziest fight of all time.

Did he explicitly say he wouldn't wait? Yeah, yeah, yeah, he said November. No. So. That's unfortunate. Well, you think he deserves it? I think he's in the line. I think...

Sure. Habib deserves it the most, in my opinion. Does he? In my opinion, I think he's the most credible challenger, has the best wins, and I think he deserves it. but he's hurt and Cowboys not. I think he's the next one.

Who deserves that shot? You know, that would be a fun fight. And I think a true number one contender fight, but again, don't forget about those Sanjos, he beat. You know, these things happen. It's very hard to have it. Yeah, I know, so it's very hard to keep. So he is a credible, I think he's the number one contender.

I'll tell you, the biggest draw of the bunch is Soroni. He's very popular, and I think people will relate to him very well. But I have a feeling the next time. we see Donald's Troney fight will not be for the belt. I think he... But that's by his choice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very unique in that situation.

I give him a lot of credit. Yeah. It's a lot of fun to watch. He goes out there and it's... It's fun that he's been able to put his demons, you know, mental side of the game was a problem for him. He has stepped up. No longer can we say that Donald Seroni does not step up when it really counts

because he has proven that. Last couple of fights, especially on Saturday. Yeah. He's a slow starter, but once he gets started, you know, all bets are off and you don't take them out early, you're probably going to pay for it with your legs and the rest of your body's health. But, I mean, in that division, I would almost, I would wait if it was up to me. In almost any situation, I would wait, to be honest, for a title shot if I was, if I was near one or promised one. But in that division, there's just too many good

guys for you to be, to stay that active and not get knocked off. It's impossible. Lightweight is too, is too stacked to be a guy who tries to stay that active. If you're truly chasing that title shot, now here's the thing. Seroni says he doesn't give a, you know what, about the title shot. So that, you know, that changes it. But if I'm fighting for a title at lightweight, it'd be tough to get me to take another fight. He'll have to be out for like five months. Get some training in, you know, improve.

Yeah, but he doesn't, that's just not the kind of guy that he is. But yeah, but he doesn't care about the title shot either. So, according, you know, if you take everything he says at face value, he cares more about staying active than getting a title shot. So I think, you know, what he does is pretty clear that he will take another fight. And maybe one day he'll get that title shot. I hope he does. That's it for Twitter. All right.

It's another busy weekend coming up, as I mentioned, Battlegrounds MMA, their pay-per-view on Friday. Jim Ross, Chale Sondon will have the call. Also on Friday, Beltor 127, Daniel Strauss versus Justin Wilkins. Cox in the main event. Carl Prisian also fighting on that card. Rob Emerson, Kendall Grove, some familiar names. And then it's a double header on Saturday. Rick Story versus Gunner Nelson. An interesting card in Sweden, a lot of Swedish fighters, Nicholas Baxter, who's been on this show before our man, Alir Latifie against Jan Blakowicz, who is a highly touted light heavyweight. There aren't that many out there who can be signed by the UFC. And our first,

free agents, so I'm interested in that fight of Karakor Sani versus Max Holloway. It all kicks off at 12.10 p.m. Eastern Time on UFC Fight Pass. Some other interesting fights on the card as well. It's one of those, you know, those European cards with a lot of local flavor. I'm a big Magnus Settemblad fan. That guy's a lot of fun to watch. He's on the prelims, but it's all on Fight Pass. It's four-fight main card, and the main card is at 3 p.m. Eastern time. And then just a few hours later on Fox Sports 1, it's the UFC's debut in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a beautiful part of the world. I wish I could go to that one, but at last I will not be going to that one due to the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur. It all kicks off at 7 p.m. So there's pretty much going to be like an hour break between the end of

Sweden and the beginning of Halifax. So Halifax starts at 7 p.m. Eastern time on UFC Fight Pass, and then Fox Sports 2 prelims at 8 p.m. Some fights to look out for. The return of Nordine Talib, Darren Cruikshank versus Anthony and Joquani is a very interesting fight, especially considering their styles. Olivier Obain Morsier, also fighting from Tough Nations. Patty Hulahan, Rob Fawn versus Mitch Gagnon, that's a fun fight. Elias Theodoro, who was also on Tough Nations, Chad Laprise, who won Tough Nations. And then the two big fights on that card, of course, Hafeel Sunsal versus Brian Carraway

and Rory McDonald versus Tarek Safedin, which we haven't talked a whole lot about on today's show, but I'm sure we will talk about next week after it happens. A hugely important fight at 170 pounds. What a great fight that is, and great to finally see Tarek Saphne back and healthy in the UFC. Very important. I really like that fight a lot.

All right, so that does it for today's show. We will miss New York, New York, next week as he leaves us hanging, but we will be back in better than ever with a replacement. will be like one of those, when there's a strike and we get the replacement team. Not really, we still have the same guys. Yes? Anything you want to say?

I'll miss you guys. Okay. You can hit my music. Close to one of our longest shows ever, right? It's a fun time in M.A. It's good to talk about positive things. It's good to talk about some good news,

some big fights coming up, some big wins recently. Vegas was very interesting, was a lot of fun. and it all continues this weekend once again. Never a break. And I could see if you're a fan and you get that rush from a fight, you could like that. You know, as media people might hate on it from time to time, but if you really love this stuff and you really look forward to it,

having it in your life every weekend, maybe two shows is a lot. But having it come back every weekend and hanging out with your friends and whatnot, especially if you get more UFSI, 178's. That's the plan. You can do 48 shows, but we want more UFC 178s because that was some special stuff on Saturday in Las Vegas. I want to thank Chris Wyman for stopping by. Great stuff from him. Really good stuff. Really appreciate him coming on the show. Best of luck to him. Best of health as well. Best of luck to Ashling Daily on Tough 20 in Halifax as she corners Patty Houlehan. The Hooligan is back.

How about that? Happy Trails to 1 Big Sexy Sean McCorkle as he retires from. from MMA and now enters MMA management. Lookout. Can you imagine contract negotiations, Sean McCorkel and the UFC? Good luck to Kenny Monday at Battlegrounds. All the best to Tim Kennedy. Thank you very much to him for stopping by and hope he heals well. Thank you very much to Henzhou Gracie. Great stuff. Good luck, November 22nd. And thank you very much to John Kavanaugh. Best of luck. Peace. I am out of here. Support for this show comes from Odu. Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? Introducing Odu. It's the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one fully integrated platform that makes your work easier.

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