MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 264

Episode Date: January 12, 2015

Featuring Rory MacDonald, Johny Hendricks, Matt Brown, Cathal Pendred, John Kavanagh, and Brandon Gibson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Ariel Halwani inside our New York City studio. Thank you so much for joining us on a frigid Monday here in New York City. Fridid Times, January, the heart of it all. Very cold all over the United States, but it's very warm in here. And I hope if you are at home right now or at work, Or somewhere in between, maybe on a commute somewhere. I hope you're checking us out and excited about today's show because you know what? I am as well.

Relatively quiet weekend in the world of mixed martial arts, there was an RFA show. But other than that, not much action. Perhaps giving us time to catch our breath for the next three weeks, very busy three weeks, this weekend. World Series of Fighting, Bellator and the UFC all have events, pretty big events. Of course, we'll talk about those. We know about Connor McGregor in Boston. Sunday. Very interesting turn of events for the UFC because Connor McGregor will be fighting Dennis Siever in Boston. All accounts

right now seem to be that the arena is close to sold out. And the event, at least the prelims, will be going on at the same time as the New England Patriots versus the Indianapolis Colts, which will be taking place just a few miles away at Foxborough Stadium. So there'll be some competition. But if you're worried about media coverage or fan interest, it appears to be that that won't be a problem because most of the tickets are sold out. It's all Connor McGregor week right now. Fox Sports One doing a bunch of new shows about him, and there's one airing tonight, if you're watching this live, 7.30 p.m. Eastern Time.

I have a small part in it's called UFC Rising. It's a beautiful show. I suggest you check it out. And then, of course, next week we have the Sweden event, and then January 31st. It's Nick Diaz versus Anderson Silva. So what are we talking about today on this show? 305. We're going to be joined by Roy McDonald, who of course, you heard me, I believe it was last week, going a bit of a rant about him not getting his title shot. I'll ask him what's up with that and what's next for him. 245, we're going to talk to Matt Brown. He's supposed to be fighting in February in Colorado, but right now he does not have an opponent. So talk to him about that.

And then to complete the welterweight trifecta. In fact, no, we have a quartet of welterweights. 225 will talk to the former welterweight champion, Johnny Hendricks, about potentially getting a thwarty trifect. third crack at Robbie Lawler. And at 205, we're going to talk to Cahall Pendret. Call Pendret in Boston. This man was born in Boston, left around, I think, four years of age. Moved to Ireland, of course, part of that SBG team with both Connor McGregor and

Patty Houlihan, who will also be fighting on that card this Sunday. UFC Fight Night 59. I'm over the numbers, by the way. UFC Fight Night Boston. The numbers are ridiculous at this point. It's a fun card. Uriah Hall right now, it appears as though they're working on an opponent for him, but they don't have one just yet. In fact, just five minutes ago, I reached out to his team to see if you'd want to come on the show.

I don't know if that's going to happen, but he is still on the main card. As of right now, Luis Taylor pulling out and also getting cut as a result, which is kind of rough. At around 145, we're going to go inside the vault. This is a very interesting inside the vault this week. One that I never thought we would actually feature, but very apropos. 125, we're going to talk to John Kavanaugh, our good friend over at SBG Ireland, the head coach there. He's in Boston right now for a very big weekend for his team, for the country, for the island of Ireland. We don't have Skype, so we won't be able to see his hotel robe, but he assures me that he is wearing it.

And in a couple minutes, we're going to be joined by Brandon Gibson, who is the head coach, excuse me, the striking coach of one John Jones. And also, I will remind you that at around 325, we're going to take your questions and comments. So hit us up using the hashtag the MMA hour. That's around 325. And of course, there's a lot to discuss in the world of mixed martial arts, in particular, as it pertains to Mr. John Jones himself, last week when we were on this show, New York Rick and I were arguing about the finer points of his career, the minutiae, if you will, talking about is he the greatest of all time? Will he be the greatest of all time? All this stuff. And that seems like an afterthought, at least right now, because of the following day, Kevin Ioli of Yahoo Sports

reported that John Jones on December 4th had tested positive for the main metabolite in cocaine. And then, of course, as the story unfolded, we found out that the Nevada Athletic Commission probably shouldn't have tested him for cocaine on December 4th, a month before the fight. they called it, according to Bob Bennett, the executive director of the NAC, an administrative oversight, an anomaly. And then they said that on December 18th, their next random drug test, they did not test them for recreational drugs. So then why was he tested? Administrative oversight. And then all this stuff came out about his testosterone to epitestosterone ratio.

He checked himself into a rehab, according to the UFC. Brief statement was put out by John Jones right now. He's not doing any talking. There is a Nevada Athletic Commission hearing scheduled for 4.30 p.m. Eastern time later today, they're going to talk about this, why he was tested, talk about whether or not things like cocaine and marijuana, recreational drugs, which are not banned substance out of competition if they should be banned substances. In competition, as far as Nevada is concerned and the World Anti-Doping Agency Code is concerned, is the 12 hours before fight and any time needed after the fight to collect any sense. samples. Anything more than 12 hours before a fight is considered out of competition. So things like PDs, HGHEPO, all that stuff, steroids, they're all banned in or out of competition. But recreational drugs are only banned in competition, not out of competition. So all those people trying to compare

the situation to the likes of Nick Diaz or Matt Riddle or Julio Cedor Savage Jr. You're not looking at the facts. Those tests happen in competition. Joneses happen out of competition. That's the brief primer here, but let's get into our first guest of the day because he knows a whole lot about this situation, John Jones and everything that we're talking about. I'm talking about Mr. Brandon Gibson himself, highly respected striking coach, part of the team, Jackson Winklejohn, which of course is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He joins us right now on the phone right here live on the MMA hour. Brandon, how are you? Good, Ariel. Thanks for having me. It is a pleasure, my friend. I've wanted to have you on the show for a long

time. So great to have you on today and to kick things off with you. So, you know, let's get right into it. You know John very well. You're a very important part of his team. He's called you his secret weapon. What was your reaction when you found out that, you know, on December 4th, he had tested positive for this? You know, I was sad. You know, obviously I care first and foremost about John as a friend, a father, fiance, son, brother. So I was sad to hear that he called a couple hours before the news was released. He didn't find out until right before himself. And, you know, he was very apologetic about the whole situation to the whole coaching staff.

And, yeah, you know, I kind of wanted to ride that high a little bit of beating D.C. That was a huge accomplishment for us that we put a lot of work in. And obviously, this took away from that, but it definitely brought to a lot of much more important issue that we have to face. When's the last time you spoke to him? I've talked to him twice this week while he's doing his rehab, someone who's going to be outpatient follow-up stuff. So I didn't get too many details on that. But, you know, we just talked more about his process through this, and I'm going to support him through it. You know, it's not my job to diagnose your counsel, John.

All I can really do is be there for him as a friend while he goes through this. Is he still in rehab right now? Um, you know, when I talked to him earlier this week, he was. I haven't talked to him in a couple days. I know he's going to plan on transition to more outpatient stuff and do follow-up treatment for the considerable time being. So as far as today, I don't really know the exact status of it. So, you know, when people hear that, um, that any kind of person, especially a famous person, checks himself into rehab, you think, wow, this is a major problem. To the best of your knowledge, is this a major problem for John Jones? You know, I didn't see any giant signs or signals through camp.

John was probably more disciplined than he's ever been as far as the work leading up to the D.C. He wasn't late for a single workout. You know, I've seen multiple times a day. But, you know, I was focused on his performance objectives, and I didn't really see these signs. But maybe this brings to light some other things that he's going to have to have to have. have to work out. Do you feel as though I kind of went through the brief timeline at the top of the show, do you feel as though he has been wrong by the Nevada Athletic Commission because they are

admitting after the fact that it was an administrative oversight to test him for recreational drugs? It's not a banned substance. I'm not going to get into whether or not, you know, doing this kind of stuff is good or bad for you as just a human being, illegal. We all know what cocaine is. But at the end of the day, they are saying he should not have been tested for this. Do you feel then when you talk about a young guy who makes a lot of money, has endorsements, all that stuff, that he was kind of wrong by them.

This should have never come out. Well, you know, each athletic commission is different, and some of them really follow more HIPAA guidelines. I don't know. I think in my place it wouldn't ever be up to me to disclose someone's private medical history or background or progress of someone that was even in recovery. But I know there's a silver lining to this. You know, I know John's going to come out of this a better person. He's going to come out of it more discipline. So, you know, as far as the NSAC releasing it or not releasing it, whatever,

or even doing it after the fight was over, I don't know how much bearing that holds. I'm just happy that at least John is dealing with it. I was told that John only found out on the Monday after the fight. Is that accurate? Did you guys have no idea this was going on or this was going to be announced that he tested positive leading up to the fight? No, not at all.

Yeah, John had called me that Monday evening and he had just found out and he told us and today, this is going to be released tomorrow publicly and, you know, I'm sorry if this reflects poorly on us and the work we've done. But immediately I was just right into friend mode

and the support mode and, you know, that's what he's going to need most from me right now. what was his demeanor like? Because, you know, we all know he's he has stumbled, he's human, he has made mistakes, public ones in the past, but what was he like when he called you

and told you that news? Somber. You know, and I told him, hey, I'm going to be there for you. I'm going to show a lot of patience through this and stay focused on the objective and the goal of coming out of this. I don't know, without these mistakes.

It's definitely a hard thing to hear just because he's such a good friend. And I know the person on side of John, so it was hard to hear. Are you a little worried? You know, on this show last week, we were debating whether or not he is the greatest of all time right now. And he's so young and he's done so much in such a short amount of time. Are you worried that he might cut off his greatness? Like I threw out a theory last week that if he's able to rebound from this in the short term,

he's going to make a whole lot more money. you know how people like to dissect good guy, bad guy John Jones versus bad guy John Jones, but long term, are you worried that much like many other combat sports stars that he might not fulfill his greatness if he gets involved with all this stuff? You know,

it kind of reminds me of a, like a famous custom auto quote where like nothing's more tragic than seeing a fighter be defeated by himself. You know, and I think when John is focused and disciplined, he is the greatest fighter of his generation and maybe the greatest mixed martial artist of all time.

I try not to think of it in those terms because, you know, as John's coach, I'm always worried about the next practice and the next sparring session and kind of tackling it one workout at a time, one day at a time. But, yeah, I think there's some truth to that. And I don't want to see John ever derail himself. I know he's capable of great things. I know the team are capable of great things.

and if we keep this course on the proper navigation, we can accomplish that. You know, after his win over Daniel Cormier, he was talking about how excited he was to move to Albuquerque full-time because the gut would no longer appear. He'd be in the gym. You know, after a week of completing the fight, he was going to be in the gym.

It was somewhat, you know, it was talked about often that, you know, after a fight, he would go back to upstate New York and disappear. for a few months and then getting that fight, he'd come back to Albuquerque and start to shed those pounds in that gut. Do you feel like now, more so than ever, it is a blessing in disguise that

he is moving to Albuquerque. He'll be around you guys full time and you can help him get back on track? 100%. He's super interested in growing between camps. And as a coach, it's always been a challenge. He goes to New York.

He does come back out of shape and typically the coaching staff and his team, we spend a couple weeks getting him into shape before it really becomes, you know, targeting on what we need to do to defeat whatever opponents up next. So it's going to be awesome to work with him in between camp, and I know his strength and conditioning coaches are excited, and Wingle John and Izzy and Greg are all excited.

And then with that, you know, hopefully we could just continue to get that strong support system he needs is he tackles, you know, whatever issues he's facing here. To the best of your knowledge, has he moved yet, or is he in the process of moving? Oh, no, he's moved here. He's moved here. Okay. He's in Albuquerque right now. He has two places right now, but I know he's looking into consolidating just everything here into Albuquerque.

What's it like for you? I know you started working with John prior to the Rampage fight, right? YouFC-135. and you work with a lot of the top names at Jackson Winkle John. Is it any different when you're working with the Michael Jordan of MMA, the arguably greatest of all time? Do you have to deal with John a little differently, or can you honestly say that you treat all the fighters the same? No, I don't treat all the fighters the same.

It's not because of maybe their status is champion or contender or up-and-com or anything like that. It's just their personalities. He's in a, I think John, out of all the fighters I train is the most artistic. And he strikes me as a musician in a lot of ways where he works much better when he's inspired, when he's motivated. And tapping into John mentally, psychologically, probably takes some greater roles in some of the other fighters. I train more like Tim Kennedy, who's very strategic and wants,

to apply certain moves to a game plan. Not that John doesn't have that, but John's an artist. Were you relieved when you found out that he was moving to Albuquerque full-time? Like, it is a little frustrating to have to start. You're not quite starting at zero when he comes in there because he has those God-given skills, but it's not often where you see a guy start his camp that much out of shape.

Of course, I'm excited. You know, it's incredible what he's accomplished. doing it the way we have done it. But seeing him get stronger and there's definitely areas we need to improve on with John offensively and defensively. So it's great to be able to tackle these things right now, compliment his already incredible skill set, but not having a specific opponent in mind, you know, maybe Gus, maybe Rumble.

But right now it's like, hey, let's just make a better John Jones. And that's what I'm really excited about. And I'm excited for him just as a teammate to help you pushing these other guys. You know, we'll have Alastair coming back soon and Olaaski coming back soon. And we have some great up-and-comer middleweight. So just John is kind of becoming a team leader. So, you know, John's getting, sorry, Ariel, but John's getting older. So, you know, some of these earlier camps in his young champion is easy for him to bounce back in shape.

And, you know, it's not going to be that much easier as he gets older and older. So in maintaining that strength year round will be that much more important for us. So, of course, you focus on the striking aspect of the game. And you mentioned there are still some things he needs to work on. What in particular do you feel like he needs to improve on as far as striking is concerned, offensively or defensively? I don't want to give away all the technical specifics. But there's fights I watch at Johns where he takes more damage than I feel like he should.

and as a coach, that's probably my biggest concern. I want all these guys to win their fights. I don't want them to win it at this super great price that in 30 years we're not going to be able to have a conversation and remember these fights. That's much more important to me. So the less trauma, the less injury all my fighters can take, the better it is for them, for their families,

and for all of our futures. Of course, I'm sure you were happy that he beat D.C., but what did you make of his performance? Did you think it would be a five-round fight? Did you think earlier on, I mean, D.C. won a round, according to most official judges and unofficial judges such as myself want at least one round. I mean, overall, how would you assess his performance in that fight? I thought John did an incredible job. I think there was more pressure on him in this fight than we'd ever faced.

And in D.C., wow, what a great martial artist. You know, we knew we had our hands full. before this fight was even announced he's been on our radar for a long time and a D.C. skill set is amazing. I didn't think we'd be able to finish him. I was thinking it was going to be

a five-round, you know, a grueling pace, a hot-top battle where we'd have to take away some of the areas D.C. was comfortable and, you know, D.C. was king of controlling the pace in a lot of his fights, you know, Barnett and Meir and Henderson. And we were going to have to be the ones to dictate that

pace. I think John did a really good job of that. Not allowing DC to rest, keeping the pressure on him, out grinding him up against the fence. So I was really pleased with the performance. I was pleased with the camp, and I think he applied a lot of the things we really focused on throughout the

fight. Do you have a preference as to who he fights next? I know he's going through a lot of stuff, but everyone's assuming and hoping he does fight again. Would you prefer it's the rematch against Gus of Sin to perhaps shut out those doubters, or do you want a fresh opponent in Anthony Rumble Johnson? Well, you know, I think John wants to fight a lot this year. I think he wants to come out of

this rehab situation stronger. I think he wants to stay more active this year, and especially being at Albuquerque. He just wants to be active. You know, he only fought once last year, so it would be great to see him go three times this year. As far as the opponent, you know, I'm super intrigued with the guts and Rumble matchup. The first Gus with some fight was one of the worst. I don't want to say worse, but it was a rough camp. We were trying some new things. John brought in some new people.

And I just don't know if the discipline was there like we had in fights prior or after that. And then Rumble is a very intriguing opponent stylistically. and I'm always up for a challenge. I know Gus has evolved a lot since his fight with John. I already have notes going on both guys. I'm going to be prepared right after that fight. Whatever happens, we're going to be on it. Are you the one responsible for that cheat sheet that he always talks about?

We saw him showing it. Is that what you are known to bring to the table among many other things? You know, it's always a collaborative effort. Yeah. But I am kind of the record keeper when it comes to that stuff. that's my handwriting. But, you know, I work super closely with Aegee and Greg and Wink, obviously. And as a team of coaches, we all come together so well, especially for John's fights.

You know, Izzy will be at all of our striking classes. I'm at the wrestling practice. Everybody's with Greg. Everybody's with Wink. So that's one thing I love about training John is just working with this team. It's a lot of fun. And I'm curious about your eyes. Are you 30 years old?

almost 33. I'm getting ready to have a birthday here next month. But yeah, relatively young. Yes. Yes, and you don't see a lot of young coaches in combat sports. And correct me, if I'm wrong, you wanted to be a fighter, but you realized, and especially after a serious injury, you realized early on that you had more of a passion for the coaching side of things. But at what point did you realize? Like, what was that that moment where you were like, you know what? And I feel like I would kind of be the same way. I really enjoy that. I mean, not comparing myself to someone on your level, but I can see the same. satisfaction and the greater satisfaction than one can get from molding a fighter and watching him go out there and executing the game plan and winning titles and big fights and whatnot. When did you realize that that was something that you enjoyed doing more than the actual fights? I don't know. I'd say probably my early 20s.

I've been a lifelong martial artist. I started at six years old. I was one of the late 80s karate boom kids, you know, but I was always evolving as martial artist in Albuquerque being such a great fight town. It was always easy to find martial arts. You know, I grew up with people like Holly Home and Diego Sanchez and Carlos Condit. Albuquerque is a small community. And there's really only so many places to work out and practice.

So I think I was fortunate to find Greg and wink at a young age. And, you know, sometimes I look at this, like, if I was a classical pianist, I'd be learning at the highest level. Or if I was a painter, I'd be studying in a great. after that that's where I feel like I have and I always felt like watching Greg and Wink teach it. I saw the passion they put into it. I saw the enjoyment they got out of it. And I found myself, you know, guiding other fighters from a young age. And I did have a pretty serious injury training. I had a tip of fracture like Anderson. And I came to this crossroads. I remember talking with my wife about it like.

I've been walked into a dojo every day after school or work since I was a little boy, and it wasn't something I was ready to give up, and I knew I had a natural leadership capabilities and a lot to offer. So it just seemed like a easy transition. I remember talking with Greg and Lincoln saying, hey, I want to help the fighters. And I said, yeah, absolutely, Brandon. So it started with a kid's class and hoping out from amateurs here and there.

And then, man, it seemed like just a short time later, I was cornered in World Title Fights with Carlos and with John, and just an incredible group to be a part of. And what's it like being either around the same age, perhaps at times younger than the guys that you're working with, you feel like you get that respect that guys like Greg Jackson and Mike Winklejohn get? Absolutely. But it's a surreal feeling at times to be able to work with guys

that I was watching from a very young age and almost idolizing to a point, like Alistair or Andre. But I think my technique and skill sets because volumes where, you know, I'm not BSing my way through this. They come in and they hit Mitz and they see the value I have and the knowledge I have about it all. And they're just as excited to work with me as I am with them.

Two last quick things. The fund never stops for you. I know you were at the RFA event this past weekend. You're going to be in Boston, right? Joby Sanchez is one of your guys, correct? Yeah, young Joe. I'm excited for him. He's taken on to Teke, and Joby took his first UFC fight at super short notice.

It was about 10 days, and we had a close-fought fight with Wilson Hayes. And now I'm excited to see Joe Booth a full training camp and a game plan and strategy going into this for him to make his mark. I was just talking to our guy in New York, Rick, here before the fight, and I feel like most young fighters, like Joby Sanchez, who there seems to be, you know, a lot of promise surrounding them, they only get a chance to fight in the UFC in these short notice opportunities. That's our only shot. And sometimes it must be frustrating, I would imagine, for the coach, because you see them going on this path and then bang, they get that big opportunity 10 days, one week notice, and you have to expedite the whole process and there's the nerves and all that stuff. For you was it kind of mixed feelings. You see this guy that you've been working

with for quite some time, make it to the UFC, but, you know, they come out there, they don't have enough time to prepare for everything that goes into a UFC fight, they lose. And now this is really the UFC debut, if you know what I'm saying. Is that how you feel? I do feel this way. You know, you're so excited for them to get the call, and that's their dream. So there's never any discouragement from our side to say, hey, you know, let's take you down the road.

That offer will still be there, hopefully. But nothing is guaranteed. So we are forced to take these fights at times. And, no, it didn't go our way as far as the victory on his first go-round. But I know it was my job to help him put it all into perspective and keep him hungry and keep him motivated and keep his confidence up. And I think Jovey did a really good job of that night. I think Sunday night at the fight, he'll show everything he's carried with him from that experience. Final thing, this is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the first times that we're hearing from someone involved in the John Jones camp and team.

What's the message? What's the message for his fans and for the doubters for everyone involved about John Jones where he stands right now in his career? You know, I am confident that he's going to come out of this stronger than ever. I think he's going to be more disciplined than ever. I think he's going to really make the most of Albuquer deep. his home. And we're not going to have to call it a comeback. I think John's next fight, we're going to see an even greater John Jones on what we saw

with the D.C. fight. I think he's going to continue to fight off these temptations and become a stronger man through all of this. Thank you very much, Brandon. Appreciate it. Best of luck to you this Sunday. And obviously, if you speak to John, best of luck to him as well. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for having me, Ariel. I appreciate it. there he is. Brandon Gibson, one of the best young coaches in mixed martial arts, part of Team Jackson Winkle John in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A tough week for John Jones coming off that amazing performance against Daniel Cormier, and hopefully sooner rather than later, we will hear from him as he attempts to rebound from all of this and continue on his winning ways. A brief update on the story that we talked about early in the show.

Uriah Hall has found an opponent, Fox Sports.com, reporting that he will, will face Ronald Stollings, the choir boy. A former strike force fighter had a cup of coffee with strike force. He is 12 and 6. His most recent fight in November of 2014, he lost to Tim Williams. Prior to that, he had won three in a row. Very rare to see a fighter coming off a loss. Get a shot in the UFC, but short notice fight, that's how it goes. So Ron Stallings versus Uriah Hall is the fight. Hopefully it stays together. All right, let's move along from from one young coach, one great young coach, to another, a man who is on fire these days,

and he has a very big weekend coming up. Once again, this Sunday in Boston, Connor McGregor, his guy going up against Dennis Siever, also Patty Houlihan and Cahal Pendret on the card. Of course, we're talking about the head coach over at Straight Blast Jim Ireland, the one and only John Kavanaugh joining us right now. John, how are you?

Hey, how's it going? I just heard that news there about your ride. I was actually trying to get that fight for Chris Field, so I guess that's not happening. Yeah. Congratulations to the other guy. I hope he does well. Before we get to all of that, I'm a little, you know, at this point,

I'm happy to have you on the show, but it's our fault. Our Skype isn't working. It's become somewhat tradition at this point to have you on the show via your hotel room in your bathroom. Can you at least maybe send out a tweet, a picture that we at least know that you are, in fact, you know, staying true to the script here and wearing the robe as we speak? As soon as I get off there, it's the first thing I'm going to do. I appreciate it.

And I'm going to command those well, just so you. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, you know, that wasn't part of the plan, but I appreciate the extra effort. Thank you for that. How close were you to getting Chris that fight? Well, I just let them know that. I mean, Chris is here.

He's in great shape of the minute. I was just pushing for it. I thought it would have been a very exciting fight. You know, the both kind of kickboxers, both kind of fan of fighters. And Chris had a – Chris liked to look at that. And, you know, it would obviously be a great opportunity for him. him to win against someone with a lot of momentum behind him, like you're right. But, well, I guess the matchup made more sense for him.

I guess at this stage it would have been in Hartford and to get all the visas and stuff for Chris. But he was buggered me for him and he wanted it, but there you go. And by the way, correct me from wrong, he has a fight. Chris has a fight coming up in February. He was on the ultimate fighter. Why didn't he ever get another shot in the UFC? Just the way I worked out at the time, I guess. but he's with a great organization now, Obama and the UK,

and he has a good matchup in February, so he's been on a great run in the gym the last couple of months. He's really found his love for training again, and he's had a nice step up in a skill level, and I'm looking forward to seeing what he puts together now on a run in 2015. All right, so let's talk about this Sunday. You are back in Boston.

This time you're not part of the prelims. You are the main event, and of course you have Pendred and Hulah, on the card as well. We're the main event the first time as well. Well, the people's main event. And you know what? In my opinion, that's even more prestigious.

So let's set the record straight. I appreciate you noticing that. But what's the difference? Because I was just reading actually a blog post that you wrote for Joe, joe. The website over in Ireland, and you said that the first time around in Boston in August of 2013, it kind of caught you off guard, the reception that you guys got from the people. what's the difference this time as opposed to the first time? Well, you know, it's almost like comparing what he called the octagon jitters for a fighter on his first time and the second time.

That was my personal first experience of walking out of something like that. I just had never felt that before. We didn't actually know it'll afterwards. It was a blackout treatment, but still to walk in, the lights come on. And I'm not sure. I think there was about 12 or 13,000 people in attendance that night. And I just had never heard a crowd like that. I didn't face Connor at all, but for me, it did catch me for a second or two,

and then I got focused again. But since then now, we've had obviously the UFC Dublin event, which kind of blew that one out of water, but this looks set to blow both of them out of water because, as far as I'm aware, it's pretty much a full house, and over 10% of the tickets are gone to Ireland, and now obviously we have a lot more momentum behind us. It's the main event. I have two other guys in the card, so it's going to be another historic night on this journey. And I screwed up. That blog post wasn't for Joe's for the score.I.E. Correct?

Score.com. Yeah, why didn't you correct me? You're giving up... You know, I actually was thinking that you're wrong, but it was like, Ariel's never wrong. I don't want to correct them, and that looks stupid, so... It's hard to keep up with all these websites blowing up over in Ireland, but I don't give out free plugs here. I mean, Joe's great and all, but we've got to give the plug to the right outlet. So I apologize to the good folks over at the score. It was a great write-up, so I do suggest everyone checking it out. You tweeted it, or... earlier. What's it like for you to walk around, Boston? I've seen some pictures from both you and Connor and seeing his face on all these posters. I mean, is it somewhat surreal to be seeing this outside of Ireland?

100%. It's very strange. Even just getting in a taxi and I didn't really notice until it was just about to get in and then on top of it is one of those roof signs and it's, it's Connor staring at me honestly and it's, and then you're just walking around and every post box needs to have them on and I dropped into a pub on my first night here and there was a big poster on the wall and I actually went up to the bar to get around and the guy was like, how are you, John? I was like, hello?

He's like, yeah, how's Connor looking? I'm like, yeah, yeah, the guys are going well and I got a free round of beers off it, so it's wow. It's finally starting to pay off. Things have changed, right? Yeah, a lot different from the first trip, put it that way. Honestly, now.

Did you, and he talks about envisioning things, did you really ever imagine this? I mean, this is, uh, this is a, pretty, I mean, this is what they talk about when they talk about Meteoric rise. To get to this point where you're headlining a show, it's not for the belt or anything like that, it's, in my opinion, somewhat of a showcase fight in a huge arena, an NBA, NHL arena outside of Ireland, where you're all over the place. People are coming up to you.

Did you really envision that in less than two years? If I'm being honest, no. I didn't know that. We were just busy working away in a little small gym in Dublin. and just taking European fights and, you know, that's just how it was going. I'm not a really, what are you going to do in a year from now type guy.

I'm just focusing on today and then tomorrow seems to look after yourself, but to be actually here and just to see how it's come on and it seems to be, I can't turn on a TV channel around staring at me. It is definitely, it's definitely very cool,

but it's a fairly surreal experience as well. They premiered the documentary that aired about Connor heading into the Boston fight. It's called The Notorious that the good lads over at the severe MMA worked on, I believe was on RTE. Am I getting that right?

RTE in Ireland? How about that? And there's a great scene there where Connor is asking you when to put on body lotion. He's in the shower and he asks you, is it before or after? He doesn't quite understand.

And now look at him. He's wearing these custom-made suits. I mean, is that in a nutshell I'd love you to actually see that unit that we're in then. When I actually moved into that unit, there was a tree grown in the middle of it, an actual tree. And it's just crazy how it come. My mother was down helped me paint them. My brother and family, and we just about got it together.

And then that scene there, I don't know why, but Connor always used the women's sharers in my chimneys. I guess we tried to keep the women's shower a little bit nicer than the men because they don't really care. So Connor seems to drift into the women. He's always the last one in the gym. It's not like he's going in there and kicking girls around like that, but he tends to use that. And it was a tiny little room, freezing cold, and then, yeah, the job of the coach is a little more than teaching martial arts.

Let's put it out of the way. I loved it. I love how he called upon you to explain this to him. And by the way, now you're in a new venue, right, a state-of-the-art venue. No, we've definitely taken a big step up yet. It's a lot more. What would you say? a lot more cleasing on the eye, and it's warm, dry, and clean.

And my mother comes down now. She never stepped foot in the gym before it is, because she didn't just thought they were always filthy. But we have a much more kind of commercial gym now, I guess, and it's a lot more comfortable environment to be training in. I'll get back to your parents in a second, but just to touch on that scene, is that, in a nutshell, a slice of how much this guy has changed? Like, he has really come a long way. I mean, on the surface, we know how he has changed. I mean, he has a lot more money, and he's on top of the world. he's hanging out in the Fertita Suite, all that stuff.

But was this a guy who, you know, when he started out, I mean, it was that simple. He wasn't exposed to these things, these finer points of, like, body lotion and all that stuff. I mean, he really has come a long way, right? Yeah. Yeah, I guess the short answer is yes, but it's funny. I remember there was a little video clip I saw of Use 2 Talk, and you were saying something like, what you think of my suit? And he had like a little 10-second breakdown of that.

You're mixing some patrons wrong with another. I don't know. Do you remember this? Of course, of course. In Ireland. Yeah, yeah. So that just kind of made me smile. And even the other day we're in the airport, we're coming over here.

And we were talking about something to come up about sponsorship deals. And he just rattled off the difference between an endorsement-only deal or getting equity in the company deal. And all these words that I really don't think he could have defined 12 months ago or 18 months ago. he's, but that's how he's been about everything, you know, when he puts his mind to something, when he went off and, you know, when he was dealing a lot with his knee, and he came back with, I would, I would challenge any physiotherapist to try and, try and and beat him on knowledge of knee rehab at this stage. And now he's liked that with business, and he's like that when he's, he's kind of lost himself now in taekwondo and taekwondo techniques.

And whatever he does, he does it over the top. And I'm glad now his focus is on, on positive things like this. Well, was there ever a point where you said, Connor, we need to check ourselves here. We can't forget what we did to get to this point. It's getting a little too much. It's getting too big. All the stuff that's happening around you. It's all great, but we can't let this, you know, affect us in a negative way.

Was there ever that moment where you had to, you know, in using a term that we used here, check yourself before you wreck yourself? If he was, you know, obviously there's been some headlines lately about maybe people going off central line a bit but for Connor it's always being just getting more obsessed about training and that's

that's all I've seen so it's only being positive you know he's not he's not like that about having a big group around him and crazy partying and stuff like that he's quite actually a quiet person believe or not outside of outside of the media circles he's not really into

going out with groups of guys and stuff like that he's more just with a girlfriend or a very small group of people so yeah, the stuff that's grown and gotten bigger all of it has just been positive, so I just fan those flames. Have you noticed a lot of leeches, a lot of people trying to capitalize on his

his good fame and fortune? Of course, a lot of people trying, none succeeding. Like I said, he's incredibly private person and I think there's about 20 people on his contact list on his own. It's just not a worry so I don't worry about it.

He only has 20 people on his phone? Well, I'm very small anyway. I'm probably an exaggeration, but my point being is that he's not, it's not like when he's at home, he's out with 100 people, or he's hiring someone to walk along, and I'm just saying,

you're the champ! Crocodile. It's just not who he is. Back to that documentary, there's a scene where you guys are in Las Vegas, you're training at Syndicate, and you tell the crew that it's important to mix things up,

get different looks, train with different people where you don't know what they're going to throw at you. But correct me if I'm wrong, I mean, that was going into the Holloway fight, Brandau fight, Porier fight, and I want to know about this fight as well. You stayed local, right? So why did you do that for that fight and try to get different looks and, you know, last three fights stay local? I'm not sure what the question is. Like when we were training for this fight, we stayed in Dublin? Yeah.

Yeah, well, I mean, all the fights we've either been in Dublin or Iceland and then go. somewhere for the last 10 days, you know, and here we've done the same. We're out here for the last 10 days, and we're training at Peter Welch's gym, the legendary boxer out here, and we have a few new bodies out there to move around within the lead-up. But, no, the process has always been the same. We've kind of swapped back and forward between doing our, whatever you want to say, those last six or eight weeks in Ireland or in Iceland. But they're the only two places that we go for that length of time.

and then it worked out when we were in in Vegas that time we dropped into Synege for some training there wherever we are, you know, one time I know when he was on the zone in Los Angeles, he dropped into Eddie Brawold's Templano and was rolling around there. So, you know, we're always trying something new. No Iceland for this camp, though, right? No Iceland for this one.

But I think Gunny is probably going to be up in February and March and we'll probably all go over there for that one. And then it's a little, you know, You know, we sort of just free baller. Like, you know, that's just how it worked at this time. It's nothing at crazy set and stone. Like, it's definitely here at this time, definitely there the next time. We just sort of roll with it and see which way it works out best.

And for this particular one, I just think it was better to do it in Dublin. You mentioned your mother earlier. When you told her early on that this is what you want to do with your life, you want to be a coach, what was her reaction then and has it changed at all now? Now that you're this big star in Ireland and you have all these great fighters on your roster and you've helped shape them. I mean, these were homegrown guys. How does she treat you differently?

Has it changed? I mean, has she been supportive from day one? Has she changed along the way? What's it like with your mother? Well, I probably love people heard the story already, but I'll say quickly, when I graduated 12 or 13 years ago, I was a degree in engineer, and I opened up my first gym,

and we call the shed now. It's a very small little unit. It was, you won't even imagine, like a two-car garage. That's basically what it was, with the roof falling in, freezing cold. I had to use the laneway outside for a toilet. It was not very pleasant to me and about 20 guys just beating each other up. And the first time my mother came down to see it, she just cried.

She thought I was throwing away my life, you know. What the hell are you doing five years of university for to end up doing this? Fast forward to when she was in the AM, her and my dad came along to watch USC Dublin. And at the end of it, he said, it was the greatest night of their life. Wow. Never felt so proud. So now my mother's my biggest fan. And, you know, she comes down to the gym once a week with slapjacks or scones.

That's amazing. And it's a real family kind of team now. You know, my mom and dad are actually, I find them out here for the Boston fight. And they go to the mall now, and they're huge fans. Yeah, it's a real positive thing now. And by the way, I feel like I've read a lot about you at this point. I've never heard that story, so don't sell yourself short. Okay, I thought...

It's a great story. Well, maybe I missed it along the way, but that's great. What's it like seeing your mother cry when you decide that this is what you're going to do, and she has those fears and doubts? What's that like for you? Did you start doubting yourself? Yeah, it was hard to take, and, you know, my dad as well was trying to talk me out, but I can completely understand where they're coming from now.

I look back, you know, I guess I was 24, 25, and, you know, back then, you've got to realize even the UFC wasn't all that big. It was, you know, I forget even what UFC it was. We're talking USC 35 or something or 40. So there was no, it wasn't like I could say to myself, okay, if I really do this well, and I can bring up some fighters maybe in a decade or two that's going to be a career in this.

But that wasn't my goal. That wasn't my motivation. My motivation wasn't that I was going to have money or anything like that with this. It was that I was doing something that I, I loved. And if something would come along with that,

it was great. At the time, I had to do, I was a dancer five nights a week, and I was doing some building the work at the weekends,

and then I was training all day, but I loved it. Hold on second. Oh. I get my door knocked. I swear to God, there be you.

Hello? All right, go ahead. Stop that in there. Sorry about this era. Oh, no problem. This is the beauty of live radio.

Cheers. Thanks a lot. What do we get? Is that room service? I keep stealing my do not disturb sign. Oh, my. I think it's cold, but I can't prove it. But every morning I get the door hammered down by Lakeisha or something like that.

And they keep baraging in to try and tidy my room. And then I get a new do not disturb sign dropped up. And then the next morning it's gone again. I'm sure it's called or Chris, but I have to set up a camera or something to try and catch them. Are you one of those guys who doesn't like people cleaning your room? because I also noticed in that documentary, your room, the one that you were sharing with Connor was a bit of a mess.

With all due respect. It's probably not top of my priority list. Are you one of those guys that doesn't like anyone coming into your room for the entire duration of your stay? Because I know people like that. I don't mind. Like, you know, the do not the store sign is there and then, because I go up kind of late

because, you know, we're training every night at 10 o'clock and then I don't get asleep until pretty late. And then I like to, you know, stay in bed, 11 or 12, and then get up, And then I'll take the sign off and go off for the day, and then they can do what they want. But it's, first of all, the hotel room, I don't know what's going on,

but it seems to be the sound of a jackhammer going off the whole time. I don't know whether it's construction outside, or it's the, what you call it, the AC, the air conditioning and the heating. It's really loud, so it's keeping me up all night. I barely drift off. And then you don't even knock the door with a hand. They're not going with a key, so it's this real kind of high-pitched knocking on the door.

I'm screaming at them to go away, and then the head pops in. It's upset me. I'm not going to lie. I'm going to speak to Colin, Chris, later on. I know it's those fuckers, or those guys, take the sign off my door. I would imagine the days of sharing a room with Connor are over. No, his girlfriend B is over, so he's next door to me,

and I'm here, and then the lads Chris and Cottle are down the hallway and Patty and Asher over here as well. Okay, so let's go to this fight here. I think I had a brief private conversation with you when this fight was announced, and I was like, well, what's the point of this thing? I mean, this is a guy who, in my opinion, you know, he's below in the rankings of, you know, when you talk about Dustin Poirier,

he's below him, Dennis Siever is. Yes, he's a veteran, but I didn't understand the risk here. I mean, of course, it's a showcase fight, main event, it's in Boston, all that stuff, but in my opinion, after the Porier fight, you can easily justify giving him the title shot. But you had a different take on things. Why did you feel okay with this fight? Well, yeah, I've seen that online. I've lost the point of this fight.

Well, the point of this fight, he wins, you get the title fight. That seems a pretty good incentive to me. And also, he gets paid very well for it. So if those two things don't get you up in the morning, and I'm not sure what will. I know where you're coming from. Maybe there's arguments made if you're looking at this purity from an Olympic sport, kind of amateur sport level,

about facing different people, et cetera, et cetera. But the reality is it's going to be an interesting fight. it's going to be an exciting fight. You know, you've got two guys are more strikers than grapplers. And, well, there's no other way to say. Like, Dennis is there to make Connor look good. He's going to get cleanly knocked out,

which will set up a nice highlight rail and set up a nice main event's pile fight in Ireland in a couple months' time. Would you agree, though, that this is a showcase fight? I mean, even the promotion has been very one-sided. I'm being honest I think devolving in showcase fights I thought Dustin was going to make Conner look great

I did see some other reporter had kind of seen the things I'd seen some fight analysis I agreed with him in the lead-up to it he kind of broke down to some style whereas everybody else is telling me this is going to be as tough as fight with life and this could happen and Dustin has these skillsets

but in the back of my mind I was like this is clearly being set up to make Conner look good that's what I thought and that's what happened. I thought the same of the Brando fight. I thought that he was going to be a showcase fight because the old the old one they kind of look great

or he makes them look bad. I don't know which way is the way to say it, but I don't think it would matter of having Cubs Swanson I would have called a showcase fight. It's just different. When they're facing Conner, it's just different. Is Josealdo a showcase fight?

That's the fight I'm looking forward to. That's going to be an excitement. fight and fight. I do think it's, obviously, I think Connor's going to win that, and I do think it's going to be the first time. It's a new type of opponent for Aldo. It's not a new type of opponent for Connor, and that will be the difference in that fight, but we can, we'll chat about that in the battle, getting closer to somewhere when it's a few days out. Fair enough, but I just, I got to know, I mean, who has he fought Connor that resembles Josealdo? Well, just on the European circuit, we have a lot more strike and orientated opponents,

and not necessarily I'm talking about fights, but we have a lot of high-level strikers that would be coming in and out of the gym, and it's nothing new to Connor to face someone like that, whereas Aldo has faced a bunch of guys that are more wrestlers learning how to strike, and after one of two exchanges, they start shooting from the other side of the octagon. He's not going to have that advantage on Connor. He's not going to intimidate him when the strikes, and he's the one that's going to be on the back foot and he'll be the one that's turning into a grappler pretty soon. So famously, Connor said that he thinks the fight will last two minutes, but then you've

come up and up the ante, you think it's going to be around 60 seconds, right? I just don't, I'm just from honestly analyzing both and looking at some different ways that he could go down, I just think unless Dennis really pushes the grappling quickly, it's going to be in the first exchange. He's a tough guy, but he's getting close to 40. He's been in a lot of wars. Cobb kind of landed not the cleanest shot, and he had him all over the place.

But to go against someone that hits, he's by far the hardest hitter in division. I think he's the hardest hitter in a few divisions, not only that one. So to go against someone like that and to be about a foot shorter than him and have no real ability to close distance. It's a terrible matchup.

Is there anything at all that he does that concerns you? Anything? Well, look, Matt Serran, GSP, you know, there's examples of this in M&A and examples of this in All Sports. He's a powerful man, and if things were to land and if he used to get into his rhythm, of course, there's dangerous. He's not there for no reason, and he's fought everybody's been in the U.C. for a long, long time. So, of course, there's dangerous.

and it's not. Every time we talk about this kind of thing and give predictions, it's always like, oh, you're overlooking them, you're too confident. It's not. It's just that you're asked the questions. You give it honest answer. This is my honest answer. Can't something go wrong? Well, you could slip on a banana peel walking into the cage.

Of course, things can go wrong. But I just don't see it going that way. I see it going the way I said. What do you say to the people who say that the UFC has protected Connor, that he hasn't fought a wrestler, all this stuff? What do you say to that? I don't really have that to say. I think it's a, I think it's a fan's job to either criticize or applaud, you know,

depending on if you like the fighter or not. And then it's a coach's job to train a fighter, and it's a fighter's job to fight. And if we all do our jobs, everything goes well. So, you know, what am I going to say? If you look at someone like John Jones, he's not only he beat everybody, he seems to beat them in their own area of expertise. And yet he's still, as fans,

Yeah, well, the next guy will beat you. You haven't fought this guy. You haven't fought that guy. So that's great. I think the worst thing that could happen to fighter is that fans go, you know what? I've enough to see him now. There's nobody that can beat him.

So bring on someone else. So it's a blessing that so many guys are looking forward to the day Connor fights X-style. And, you know, as Ali used to say, half the crowd are there to watch me. Whop, ask him half the crowd are there to watch me. Get my ass whoop. but all of the crowd there bought a ticket and are paying no wages. 2014, what a year was for you and your team, and you guys were on a role?

I mean, Dublin was arguably one of the greatest moments in European MMA history. Of course, Irish MMA history. You said your parents called it one of the best days of their life. But, you know, you were on that role, and then we come to October, and it seemed like all that good luck, at least for a brief moment, stop because you had Gunnar Nelson lose, Patty Houlihan lost, you know, across the goal. Globe in Halifax. Carl Pendret had a very tough fight.

What was that like for you? I mean, you had that great stretch. So long, you guys seemed invincible. And then on the same day, you had two very tough losses. What was that like for you? Of course, the purpose of competition is to win. There's no two ways about that. So to have a loss is a setback, and it's never a good day.

But when you're into you and you're fighting at this level, you've got to know that, You know, we're not going to run through everybody. That's just how it is. I have a big team. I have a lot of fighters, and I hope a lot more get in. Shout out to Paul Redmond, the friend of the gym. He gets trained by my friend Andy Ryan.

Just after being signed as well. So, you know, a lot of Irish people, a lot of people coming in, and there's going to be tough fights like that. In saying that, I think Gunner's fight was quite close, and it was against a fantastic fighter. I've been a fan of story for a long time. still went to distance. It was a close one on Patty as well.

I went to distance as well. We've taken a lot from it. I tell my kids in my classes that we win or we learn. We've had a lot of wins, but we've had an opportunity to learn now. Learn from those losses. Pick yourself up and go at it again because it's a bit of a myth to say to somebody

that the road to success, the road to the belt, wherever you want to say, is a straight path. It's going to be, there's losses along the way, there's fails along the way, stumbled along the way, but the difference between the champion and also ran is that they take those losses and they learn from them and they keep moving forward. Did you notice a lot of people celebrating that stumble where, you know, you've had the success for so long, and, of course, there are going to be people are jealous and doubters, haters, all that stuff. Did you notice them coming out of the woodwork when you guys stumble briefly?

Yes, of course. Yeah. I'm sure any time we, in the future we have losses, wherever, people are rubbing their hands. for that opportunity to, I guess, moment of glee where he'll get to tweet me something mean or something like that. But I don't spend too much time worrying about that or if it does happen. I don't. Like I tell my guys, whether we win or lose on a Saturday night on Sunday, the small group of people that mariters will have the same feelings.

They're still going to love us and they're still going to support us. It's nice to have, you know, at this stage, I guess, tens of thousands of people talking about it's either in a positive or in a negative light, but it really doesn't make any difference to the 20 or 30 people that each of my guys has close to them. And it's them that we're, it's for ourselves and for them that we're doing this, that we're on this journey for. Okay, so before I let you go, I always love getting your predictions because it reminds me a lot of Freddie Roach, honestly, because you are so blunt. And you seem to have this great ability to call your shot, even when a lot of people might say, well, this is a little too confident. But you guys do a great job of calling your shot. So we know how you feel about Conner's fight.

What are you expecting to see from the Penderd fight and as well, Patty Hulahan? Yeah, okay, well, I guess we'll keep the tradition of, so I'll make my predictions. Sure. Let me see. I would say, I like the way Call's opponent kind of comes to fight and comes to look for the finish himself. So I think the fact that it's going to be a nice open fight like that, the last one was a little bit. just didn't get a flow going, but I think this one's going to have a much better flow. I can see cold, possibly getting a choke of some sort finish.

Not exactly sure of what, but I'll go with choke in round two. All right. And what about Patty Houlihan, who I also read on that blog of yours from Thescore.i.e. that you almost feel like the loss in his last fight was somewhat of a blessing, because it kind of, you know, it erased all that talk now of being undefeated and keeping that street going, right? Yeah, you know, it's a burden for anybody to keep. Well, I'd say almost anybody like I don't have no effect on going anywhere to the other, but there's not too many humans like him on the planet.

But I do see a kind of a refreshed looking party, just that kind of, that's behind them now. He had an opportunity to he took some time off and, you know, spent time with family, and he just come back to the gym. I just saw a sort of a new approach to him. And I am very excited for this fight. This guy is another tall guy. He seems like a pretty decent striker. He's got interesting techniques.

He'll look kind of wild. I think Paddy is a slightly cleaner fighter. But anyway, I could see that one being, I think it's actually going to be the same as the Pender's fight. I can see Patty getting a submission victory. choke victory, maybe in the first round. Patty Huland versus Shane Howell, Cull Pendred versus Sean Spencer.

We can't forget Norman Park. I know he's from Northern Ireland, but close enough, at least for our purposes, against Glysson T-Bow. And then, of course, Connor McGregor versus Dennis Siever. Final question to you, John, have you been told that if you win on Saturday in the main event,

excuse me, Sunday, it's weird to say Sunday, if you guys win that main event fight against Dennis Siever, that there will be a stadium event headlined by McGregor versus Aldo in Ireland later this year. That's the big rumor. Have you been told that? To be honestly, this is like Connor kind of more deals with them than I would.

I've got a big team. I've got a big gym. I'm not so much involved in that kind of management stuff. You know, Connor has a manager. I just, I know that this fight on Sunday, I've read Dana saying that if he wins this fight, he gets the title fight. I know that there's,

There's talk of some of the big football stadiums here have certain dates booked off. I've had people get on to me to say that they've rang them, and apparently there's bookings made on certain dates that the stadium won't say what it's for, but it's not for a soccer event anyway. So there's a lot of rumors going around. It's exciting times, but I can't see why it wouldn't happen. It just makes sense because he will sell out 90,000 tickets in an afternoon in Ireland now. people have no idea what it's like

for him and for the rest of it in Dublin and Ireland right now. Just the level of momentum that's gone and the whole country going crazy for this sport now. So I just kind of visualise how it wouldn't happen.

Well, first things first, this Sunday, Fox Sports 1, Connor McGregor versus Dennis Siever. John, always a pleasure. Great to catch up with you before these fights. I want to see that picture just to make sure. You don't have to show us the underneath the shot.

you know, just the surface shot will suffice. And I look forward to seeing you and the team out in Boston in a couple of days. Best of luck to you guys. Yeah, I'll bring over my motor key. Yeah, you can say hello to my man. I would love it. I would love nothing more. Thank you, John.

All the best. There he is. John Kavanaugh, SBG, Ireland, talking about a big weekend for his team this Sunday in Boston. Now we're talking about Dennis Siever, and we'll get into him a little later on a little more. But, you know, this fight reminds me a lot of. UFC 127. Remember UFC 127, George Soderopoulos versus Dennis Siver in Australia. George Soderopoulos had won eight in a row.

He's from Australia, of course, and everyone thought one win and you're getting a title shot. Now, of course, wasn't on the scale that this fight against Kahnne McGregor is, but a lot of people were dismissing Dennis Sever in that fight, if you recall. A lot of people thought Soderoplas wins. He's going on to the title shot. This is a showcase fight, right for him? Well, that brings us to Inside the Vault. I want to go back to UFC 127, February 27, 2011.

Post-fight, Dennis Siever, defeated George Soderopoulos, the unanimous decision, a dominant win, and it halted Sartoroplas's run. And by the way, Sartoropas has not won since then. He's lost five in a row. He had won eight in a row, then lost to Dennis Sever on February 27, 2011. We spoke to Dennis after that big win. It reminded me a lot of this situation.

Could we see a replay of that come Sunday? That would be a much bigger shock. It would be one of the biggest upsets in UFC history, in my opinion, given the way things have all shaped up here. But I want to go back, go inside the vault, and look at our post-fight interview with Dennis Seaver from around four years ago. Here it is.

Ariel Halwani post-fight at UFC 127 alongside Dennis Seaver, who defeated George Sateropolis tonight. And Dennis, congratulations on a big win. A lot of people were not picking you to win. very big underdog how good does this one feel? Yeah, that's a super for the moment I'm the luckiest guy in the world and unfortunately a lot of people here in the UFC

have estimated me and I hope I could improve myself here with this fight against George Zaraublas. Did you feel as though you were being served up to George? This is his home country, he's very close to getting a title shot and that a lot of people weren't respecting you and thinking this was just sort of a stepping stone fight for George? Yeah, that's just a feeling was just a step-in-state fight for George. Yes, unfortunately I had this feeling too, but I hope with this fight I could improve myself and that is not true that I'm bad.

I'm a bad, you know what I mean. You rocked him in the first round. How close do you think you were to finishing him in that first round? Yeah, it was very on the bottom, but on the border, I always knocked him out, understand, but I was not sure. I was not sure whether I get him on the ground. That's the reason why I got back to his stand-up. You're known to be such a great striker, but your take-down defense in this fight was fantastic, and he clearly wanted to try to take the fight to the ground.

Talk about how you've developed such a good take-down defense. Of course, I know that George wanted to get me on the ground for his jujitsu, and that's why I trained with a lot of good wrestlers to complete my wrestling skills on the ground. and my take-down defense, it works. So now that, obviously, he has this loss on his record and you just beat him, do you feel as though you should be in the discussion

for potentially maybe one or two fights away for fighting for the title? I think that I will get a two camps, then I think that I'll even find a team. It could be possible. So if I win one or two more fights, it could be possible that I will get a title fight. Anyone you want next?

Whoever wants to fight against me, I'm ready for that. I will fight against anybody. Okay, Melvin Gilar or, you see, Ross Pearson again. Yes, and maybe, may not. Why not? That would be nice. Well, congratulations on this win.

A huge one for you, your biggest in the UFC. We look forward to what's next. Thank you. So there you have it. Dennis Siever four years ago. Pretty amazing, right? same spot. Kind of the same questions that you would ask him

if he beat Connor McGregor, of course, it would be a much bigger upset. Stakes a lot higher. Bigger spotlight on the fight, that wasn't a main event. But in Australia, guys on a big winning streak, we're talking about if he wins,

he gets a title shot, and then Dennis Siever going out there in the 155 pound division. You notice him talking about lightweights when I asked him what was next. Not known to be a great interview. I never thought I'd do a classic Dennis Severe interview, but I couldn't help but notice the similarities between this situation and that situation. That was four years ago, almost exactly four years ago, a little less than four years. And now here he is again being talked about as a

stepping zone, as a guy who's being served up, all that stuff. And if he can win, if he can pull off the upset, holy moly, would that be big? That would be gigantic. I mean, even look, and I know, at first I will admit, I was like, well, this fight doesn't really make all that much sense. But now I've kind of warmed up to it. Nothing wrong with the showcase fight. Very boxing-esque. That's the draw. That's the guy who needs one more win to get into the title picture. There's nothing wrong with it. As far as the promotion is concerned. One guy speaks English very well, the other one can't speak English at all. So there's not much you can do on that front as well. Now, as we were talking about with John Kavanaugh, it's a big weekend for his team.

SBG Ireland, Patty Hulahan, Connor McGregor, and our next guest at this time, this is a very personal fight for our next guest because he has wanted to fight in Boston, wanted to go back to Boston for quite some time. We will get into that and a whole lot more right now with Carl Pendred, who meets Sean Spencer in the featured Fox Sports One prelim fight. Carl, how are you? I'm good, Ariel. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you very much for joining us.

So you're in Boston right now. You've been there since Thursday, correct? Yeah. to arriving on Thursday of last week, when was the last time you had been in Boston? It would have been one of us four years of age. I think it was 1990. So it's been a long time, 23 years. And you were born there, right? Yeah. I'm born there. I live, born here, I lived in four. You know, we lived in summer, they'll just, so we're just outside the city. So pretty amazing coming back now for this. Can I ask you a favor? Are we on speaker phone right now?

No? Really? No. Okay, now maybe it sounds a little better. We'll fight through it. We just had John on the phone, and by the way, he accused you of a very serious crime. Are you aware of this?

What? I was just, I just tuned in towards the end of his interview. What did he say? He suspects that either you or Chris Fields are taking off his do-not-disturb sign because he keeps getting people knocking on his door when he's putting that sign up, and he thinks it's either you or him.

Is that accurate? It's about us, but that sounds like a good idea, so I keep that going. All right, so we know that when the UFC wanted to, well, when they were coming back to Boston just a couple of years ago, of course, when Connor was on the prelims, that was something you wanted to be a part of. You were told, and we had you on this show, you were told if you win your last fight, in Cage Warriors, you were getting that shot, that debut in Boston, of course, you get a chance to come back home and fight in front of your fellow countrymen, right? because you are, of course, an American citizen as well. You didn't get that opportunity. You had to go through the ultimate fighter. When you realized that you weren't getting that opportunity,

how big of a blow to your ego, how devastating was it that you weren't getting that shot? Yeah, it was pretty devastating. I wasn't certain that I was going to get in the Boston card because I think it was about 10 weeks after my fight with Chey Mills, but I was pretty certain that I would at least be signed up to the O.C. And I was hoping once I was signed, I could make a case for that.

that Boston fight because like it is now it would have meant a lot to me but it didn't happen and look there's anyone that that gets anywhere in in any career profession always has to take a few blows

a few knocks and you just got to pick yourself up and keep going there's always roadbox you want to succeed you just got to keep going and that's what I did I went down the tough route I just figured if the contract wasn't going to be

handed to me, I'll go out and just get it myself. Was it hard? Sorry, go ahead. No, go on. Was it hard to watch that event knowing how much it meant to you and that it was back and bought all those stuff and you had your

friend on the car? Was it hard for you? I wouldn't say it was hard for me. I watched it. It was great thing, Connor Wayne, but I think there was a little bit of just disappointment in me watching it. I really had it in my head that that was going to happen. I knew.

I knew, like, the U.S.C. had announced their schedule towards the start of the year. They announced that they were going to Boston in the summer. I just got in my head, look, that's where I want to be. I knew I was within-touching distance of the U.S. contract, and I just thought, that's the perfect opportunity for me to go back. I believe in my head it was going to happen. What have the last few days been like for you? Of course, you're there.

You're a man on a mission, And you're focusing on the fight. At the end of the day, I would imagine, it doesn't matter if this fight is taking place in Boston or Antarctica. But you're back home, and this is a sentimental thing for you. What's it been like? Have you allowed yourself to look around, smell the roses, do some sightseeing, or are you focused on the task at hand? Look, our hotel is in the city, so I've explored the city a little bit from there. There seems to be a reminiscence or familiarity with the city even walking around.

I can remember some part. even though I lived in the suburb, so I'm really looking forward to that the reminiscing is really going to happen after the fight. I'm trying to stay focused. My whole family are coming across. You know, my parents who obviously lived here. One of my younger sisters was born here and lived here as well.

So, you know, after the fight, they're all staying for about a week after the fight. We're going to travel around, you know, visit the places we lived, to visit the play school. I went to visit the hospital. Me and my sister were born in and kind of take that tour. So I'm really looking forward to that. That's kind of the highlight of the trip

after the fight for me and my family. It's kind of going to be a special event. Are you feeling more pressure as a result of all this going into the fight? No, not at all. I mean, I'm here in Boston. There's no pressure. I made my UFC debut in Dublin.

And I didn't feel any pressure without it. I know it sounds. cliche, but I put pressure on myself on my own biggest critic. So anything that comes from anyone else just doesn't seem to affect me. I don't care what people expect me.

I don't care if they expect me to win or if they expect me to lose. It's all irrelevant to me. How would you characterize 2014 for you? Because you finally got into the UFC, but it wasn't the easiest path. I mean, even in that fight against Mike King, you took

some shots and what made it all that more impressive and you got the bonus was the comeback. I mean, it was an amazing comeback, one of the very best in UFC history. Then your last fight, I mean, it was a split decision and somewhat controversial. It was a very close fight, I'm sure, a lot closer than you thought. Are you tired of these close fights? Do you want to get some

quick ones out of the way to prove to people that you are a top contender in this division? Yeah, that was my plan going into the last fight. It was my first fight for the USA at Welterweight, and I really wanted to make a statement. No one was more disappointed with that fight to myself. I wanted to go in and

take my opponent out really quickly and unfortunately he didn't transpire that way. He fought very defensively and very negatively only two shots when I came forward he didn't seem to want to attack at all so it made it very difficult for me. You know but I suppose you've got to adapt to the situation as best I could

but I think in this fight now I've got you know stylistically a much better opponent it's a step-up in competition for my last appointment, which is what I always want. As long as my career has gone in the direction, I want it to, every fight is a step-up. So I'm very confident going on this fight.

I think I can make that statement. I wanted to in my last one, and this guy isn't going to be backing up the whole time. I'm liking your Twitter persona as of late. You're very outspoken, you're very entertaining follow. your follow, your handle is Twitter.com slash penderid MMA. And recently you did a fantastic job of generating some press and some attention for yourself when you said,

you hinted that you would be CM Punk's first opponent. I can't tell you how many people came up to me and said, is this guy, I mean, even people who don't know anything about M.A. This Irish guy, Cawful, is he going to be fighting CM Punk? That was brilliant stuff right there. You must have enjoyed every second of that. Yeah, it was amazing Every

Every fighter on the roster Was calling out of CM Punk And I let it slip I may have or may have Not been contacted about a fight with him In Dublin So it caused quite a stir But I didn't

I didn't develop it any further But Twitter That's the fun thing about Twitter It's a great tool It's a great promotional field And it's fun when you call it stir like that It was amazing how many people were just eating out of your hand. Did you think it would become that big a deal?

No, I knew it would turn a few heads, but I didn't think it would get that crazy. I mean, my Twitter was blown up on my Facebook page. It was even getting messages on my Facebook page from all these CN punk fans that were telling me I was going to get my ass kids. And then there was articles being written about it left, right, and center. and the wrestling fan base seemed to cling onto it more so than the MMAs. There was a lot of wrestling website were reported and stuff. It was a very good fun to be honest.

Are you one of these people who thinks this is bad for the sport, all that stuff? No, I think it's absolutely fantastic for the sport. I think the guys that are complaining about it need to get their head screwed on. This guy is a massive personality. he's huge in the United States, a big fan base. And the sport and the people in it are only going to benefit from him.

He's going to get a lot more eyes onto the sport. Like I said, I think he's going to be one and done, but that's here or there. For that one fight, there's going to be a lot of new people watching it. And I think he might take a lot of some of the fan base and wrestling that might not watch. UFC will tune in

and then maybe become fans. And like I said, one guy is going to win the lottery. Might be made, might not be me, but at the big fight for whoever gets that. Something tells me you're a little too experience for fighting a guy like that, who's own-known doesn't have much experience, but you never know. Why do you think he's won and done, by the way? Well, I definitely am too experienced from. I think anyone in the U.S.E really is.

is, you know, it's the top one percentile of MMA fighters in the world are based in the UFC and, you know, he's coming in at the top. Like I said, I've no qualms with that. He's coming in and he's only going to do good for the sport. He's going to lose his fight and people will just say, well, you know, he was a rookie, he came in and he gave it his best. Like I said, don't see any problems.

problem for it. I don't think there's going to be going to be any problems there. He'll be one and dawn and leave his mark on the sport by bringing some more fans to us. You know, I was just talking to John about this, your coach, John Kavanaugh, about the, actually you were fighting on that day, October 4th. Your team

SBG, you guys were on a role, of course you had that great night in Dublin back in July, and then October 4th wasn't the best day for you guys as far as the UFC's concern. You won a very close fight, but then you had Patty Hoolhen lose, and you also had Gunner Nelson lose.

When you came back to the gym, what was the vibe like? You know, you guys had been on such a role, confidence, at an all-time high, and then there was that brief stumble. What was the like as opposed to when you guys were rolling? You know, we didn't feel like it was a big stumble. I mean, we took a couple of losses. You have to remember, the week before, Connor fought some poor A and won spectacularly in the first round. So that was still amongst the team.

So basically in two weeks we went two and two. As an MMA team, you have weeks like that. You know, you have your weeks where you have eight guys in a local card and win eight fights. And then you have your days where you have a mediocre result like two and two. But considering we went two and two in two weeks, and that's a bad day for us that shows how good our team is, because that's as bad as it gets.

90% of the time we're on a car and we're getting clean sweeps but it was just business as usual we all just got back to it I think you know the guys

who lost going in Patty both of them were unbeat and like John speaking about earlier I think it's only had positive effects and I may have even

taken a little bit of pressure off them having that oversight of the record both out of their name what's life like for you these days and I asked this because you know I was on a show last week in Ireland

it's called Off the Ball, have you heard of it? Yeah, I haven't did. And, you know, obviously, I've never heard of it. I don't live in Ireland. I've only been there once, but, you know, people on Twitter were telling me that it was a big deal that they were talking about, M.A. And I know that after, I believe it was your first win, you were on a very popular radio show over in Ireland, and they kind of threw some uninformed, ignorant questions at you, and it obviously got the fans a little riled up.

Do you feel like the media, the public in Ireland, are a lot more informed? has a lot changed in the last six or seven months, or is there still a lot of work to be done over there? It's a slow process. I mean, some people jumped on board straight away, like media-wise and got up to date with the sport. Others are just learning as they go, and then there's some who just didn't really want to learn about it,

like the interview you were talking about where I was discussing to a popular radio host called Radar people. He clearly made his mind up about the sport before I even came in. He didn't do any research. He said he watched, this was a couple of days. In fact, I think it was the Monday after the event in Dublin. And, you know, I came in. He said he watched the fights yet.

He was asking me, do we even wear gloves? And I didn't know there was any rules and stuff like this. So, you know, you expect someone in the media to do the research after having a guest in will just show the kind of amateur streak in his part but there's always going to be a few people like that

in the media but 99% of the people in the Irish media have really taken on board the sport got involved done their homework and like you saw that day you were on the radio I was also on the radio at the same time on another

national radio station so at the same time there was myself and yourself on national radio talking about MMA. It just goes to show how big the sport has gone. Look at you, counter-programming my big debut on Irish radio. That's not cool. Yeah, we'll have to get the figure to see who do better. Yeah, I'm guessing you did.

What about the way people just come up to you on the street and talk? Like when you say, oh, this is what I do for a living? I mean, you feel like people are a lot more receptive to your line of work. Do you get noticed a lot more? What's your daily life like over there? Yeah, I get noticed quite a bit When I want to have to introduce myself and say what I do I never have to explain it anymore

When I first took up this sport Seven or eight years ago No one in the country knew what it was You know When I said what I did people were asking Oh do you mean like the WWE stuff Stuff like this Those sort of questions don't happen anymore

Then after a while people You don't stop associating with professional wrestling and I thought, oh yeah, cage fighting, that stuff with no-holds-barred stuff, and you still have to educate him. But now it seems like I don't have to educate anyone anymore when I say what I do, they know what it is. And largely down to Connor as well, I mean, we've all done our part, but Connor is you can't really put into words how much of a superstar he is in the country in it right now.

He's probably the most, not just the most popular athlete, he's probably the most popular person in Ireland right now. And he's done major things for the sport, really bought MMA into the mainstream. You know, both with, I would say, in equal parts of his success and also just the person he is, the personality he has. He's done great things for the sport and the people in it. Honestly, did you expect that when you first met this guy, knew him a little bit, trained with him.

Did you expect this? Look, he's always been that personality. He's exactly the way he is. is doing an interview when he's in the gym. So anyone that's ever met him has been fond of him, whether they like him or hate him, they want to hear him speak anyway. So, yeah, I always knew.

Even when we were on the local scene and a camera or a microphone was putting front to him, they always got attention. So I knew once I got to the international stage, it was going to be huge. What can you tell us about this rumored stadium show later on this year? Are you hearing the same thing?

Yeah, I actually have a bit of inside info. Oh, what do you got? Well, one of my brothers, I don't want to go into it too much, but my brother knows someone within the stadiums who works within the stadiums, and I know this date's booked. So I think as far as I know, I don't want to get in true. It's okay, you can tell us. As far as I know, I think definite plans.

preliminary plans are made now and definite plans will be made after this Sunday when everything goes goes as we know will. Are we talking Croke Park? With the two stadiums. Yeah. Crow Park and the Aviva. It looks like they haven't narrowed it down to which one yet. A bidding war?

Pardon? Maybe a bidding war between the two. Maybe a bidding war. I know for a fact that when the UFC approached the stadiums at first, they were a bit tentative. and now they're fighting with these urovert so it's funny how it went well at least it shows they know how much interest there is in this

and how successful it's going to be whether it's Crow Park or the Avivis Stadium it's going to be the biggest UFC event ever held and it's pretty incredible that it's going to be held in a small little island called Ireland with only 5 million people yeah that is pretty amazing

by the way I'm assuming you want to be on that card right yeah pretty that's pretty definite yeah um so let's let's keep the uh the the prediction thing going uh connor says two minutes uh john cavano says a minute he said that you are going to get if my memory serves me correct now a submission in the second round as far as your fight is concerned what do you think what's what's your call you guys are so good of predictions um i don't know i think connor's better at predictions i am i like just let i call up to his room there and ask what he thinks I think I'm going out there. Like I said, I was a bit disappointed in my last fight.

I wanted to keep the momentum going after the praise I got for my comeback performance. In my first fight, I wanted to come out with it just a spectacular one side of performance in my next one. I didn't get the opportunity to do that. I think with the style of my opponent now, I've got the opportunity to a guy that's going to be right in front of me, and I'll be able to take him out in the first round. Cool. Yeah, I'm not even looking to grapple with this guy. I'm going to come straight for him.

If it goes to the ground, I'm just going to start throwing shots. So I'm going to say maybe TKO on the first. I like it. By the way, what was it like being at that park where they filmed Goodwill Hunting and you were sitting on that bench from that famous scene with Robin Williams and Matt Damon? I saw that you posted a picture of that. What was that like for you? Yeah, that's, you know, it was pretty cool.

an iconic scene from that movie and an iconic part of Robin Williams' life. So it was pretty amazing. And, you know, there's loads of graffiti on the bench just of famous quotes from Robin Williams. It's pretty awesome to read, and it kind of highlighted how great of a career that guy had.

I know he was known as a funny man, but he had some great dramatic roles, and a lot of those quotes were on the bench. So I'd advise anyone that's him. Boston for the fight this weekend to get down and take a look at that. It's pretty amazing. Will you be attending a Celtics game? Yeah, I'm going on Friday night with my family the night before the way in.

That's great. I used to go as a kid. I have a few pictures floating around to me in Celtics pajamas and T-shirts and stuff. I think I might have put one off recently on my Instagram. Yes. I can still remember being a Celtic family. So I'm looking forward to to going back there on Friday and soaking

out of all of us. That's great. Well, very happy that you're getting this opportunity. Congratulations on that, but I know the big one is this Sunday. You versus Sean Spencer. Best of luck to you, Cahall. Looking forward to seeing you down there and looking forward to the fight. Appreciate the time here. Thanks, I'll talk to you soon.

All right, there he is. Carl Pendred stopping by a member of the SBG Ireland team, a very big weekend for them as I've been saying all show long. They have three fighters on the Card, McGregor, Patty Hulahan, Kyle Pendred, and of course, Norman Park, who hails from Northern Ireland, is also on the card. He competes against Gleysen Tebow this Sunday, which is a sort of replay, if you will, of that great Dublin event in July. Only difference is no gunner Nelson, but he was

always the he was always the honorary Irishman. He, of course, is from Ireland. Iceland, he fought in the co-main event, but now we have four Irishmen on the card. I can't wait to see that scene and the way the crowd receives these guys. It's going to be very interesting. It's going to be a very interesting week in Boston with the Patriots also in the conference championship and just seeing how the way people respond to Connor McGregor. I'm very curious to see about that. And of course, selfishly, I'm very excited that we finally get another East Coast show. Jeez, Louise, it's been a lot of West Coast stuff. or just really far trips. New York, Boston? I like that. I can live with that. So we're supposed to have Johnny Hendricks on the show.

I'm sure that was very annoying. Apparently, they are having a hard time getting a hold of him. And, of course, I appreciate everyone fighting through our technical difficulties. It seemed like we had a very good stretch there for a while. And then recently things have, I think last week we had a brief hiccup. This one was a little longer. So I apologize if you wanted to obviously check out the Culp Hendred interview. I apologize if you missed any portion of it.

But don't worry, replay will be up right after the show and we'll have everything for you. So these things happen when you do live streaming internet stuff. But we usually have it up pretty soon afterwards. We appreciate everyone sticking with us. and being patient. So, of course, we were talking about the Welterate Division. It's a very interesting time in the Walter 8 Division. It was reported over the weekend by several outlets that Hector Lombard and Rory McDonald

will be taking place April 25th in Montreal. And this excites me for the simple reason that it's great that the UFC is going back to Montreal. Finally, it has been some time. By the time this event happens, it will be over two years since the UFC is back in Montreal. and hopefully we'll see a lot more love to Canada. I know there have been some rumors about an event in Windsor, not happening after all. It's a very interesting time,

and I don't feel that Canadian MMA fans should feel too down. I know for a fact that Canada is still a very big priority for the UFC. They just signed a deal with TSN, which is the equivalent to ESPN here in the United States, and they are not forgetting about Canada. I just think there's been some bad luck as of late, some events that have forced the UFC to look elsewhere. But one would think that it would have been perfect timing to have Roy McDonald fight in Montreal. Of course, he trains in Montreal these days.

He's from British Columbia. All the stars were lining up for the guy. But unfortunately, it appears as though he's not, at least for him, he's not getting a teddy shot, but we'll be involved in a big fight. So we'll talk to him about that in a little bit. And, of course, we're assuming that the next fight now is going to be Johnny Hendricks versus Robbie Lawler for the Welterweight title. And, you know, I want to talk to Johnny about that.

So hopefully we get a hold of him. For now, though, let's go to another guest who is in somewhat limbo because he's wondering what's going on with his next fight. Of course, I'm talking about Matt Brown. It was announced recently that he will not be fighting Tarek Safedin on February the 14. so we want to know what's going on. We have them on the phone right now. We appreciate his time. Matt, how are you?

Matt, are you there? Yeah. Hey, Matt. Thank you very much for coming on, especially a little earlier than we had planned. So everyone asks me, I get tons of questions. I'm sure you're getting a hell of a lot more.

What's going on? February 14th, you don't have an opponent. What can you tell us about the situation? Nothing. I don't know anything. I wish I knew more. You probably know more than I do. How frustrating is this for you?

It doesn't bother me. You know, I mean, I don't really let things like that get to me. I mean, it's just part of the game. I just got to be ready no matter what, you know, whether it's, you know, a championship fight or just, you know, if somebody coming in, I have to be ready to stay either way. So I'm just worried about what I'm doing and get myself completely prepared. And then I'll let everything else take care of itself. Are they telling you that the plan, at least right now, is to still have you fight on that card on February 14th?

I haven't heard any different. Okay. So, yeah, I don't have anything beyond that, actually. Have you heard of names? I know there was some talk, Hector, but that's obviously very soon. Donald Serroney threw his name in the hat, but he's fighting this weekend. Have you heard any names discussed? Because right now you look at the fights that would make the most sense,

there's no name that really jumps out at you as far as an opponent that makes sense. No, I haven't really heard anything, actually. It's literally just been sitting around and waiting and, you know, I talk to my manager about every day, say, hey, you heard anything, if you heard anything, and I haven't heard anything. That's pretty much about what it is, honestly. What was your reaction when you found out that Tarik pulled out of the fight?

Because, let's be honest, he has had some issues with injuries as of late, pulled out of a few fights. What was your reaction to it? I've had so many fights where guys have for what I do to injury that it's just I almost expect it now I mean

I think somebody sent me a statistic something like 75% of my opponents that got hurt has been changed Wow So it's something like that Maybe less maybe more But you know it was a while ago Somebody sent me a statistic

And you might have to double check it you're a stats guy, you probably'll figure it out. Believe it or not, I'm not much of a stats guy, but I get what you're trying to say. I will look into it, though. That is a pretty amazing stat, and I'm sure it's frustrating. Do you take it as maybe a feather in your cap? Like, all right, maybe guys are getting a little banged up, and I can't risk going in there at anything less than 100% against Matt Brown.

No, I mean, it's a brutal sport. Guys get hurt, and I'm sure that that's what's happened. And, you know, every time someone gets hurt, you know, I hear that people seem to message it is all he, you know, hurt his vagina or, you know, he's scared or, you know, this or that. You know, I think it just happens. I mean, it's a tough sport. People get hurt. I think it's just the way the world works. Was that a fight that you were looking forward to?

Did you like that match up? Yeah, I look forward to pretty much any fight. You know, just step in the octagon is well I look forward to. Are you one of these guys that, you know, like right now, do you just care about getting an opponent, or do you want one that makes sense that is, you know, ranked that has, or at this point, you don't care, it could be a guy out of the UFC, you just want to fight on February 14th? No, to be honest, I want somebody to make sense. Okay. I feel, I feel that I've paid my dues, you know what I mean? Sure.

I fought, you know, a lot of these lower guys to get to where I'm out. I feel like I've worked my way up to here. I don't think I've been gifted anything. I think my ranking is due to the hard words that I put in, and I don't feel that that should be jeopardized at this point, you know, by taking a lesser opponent. I absolutely think that I should have somebody in the top ten no matter what. You know, I can't guarantee that's going to happen,

and I can't worry about it if it doesn't happen. But, you know, I absolutely believe. that that's what I have earned. What if they tell you we can give you a top 10 guy, but you're going to have to wait a couple months? Or we can give you a guy who's maybe out of the top 10 or 15, maybe not even in the UFC, which do you prefer? That's a tough question, you know what I mean?

But to be honest, I'd probably rather wait for a top 10 guy. It's like I said, I've paid my dues, you know, I mean? Like the ranking system is, you know, Unfortunately, you know, our ranking is an important thing. You know, it's unfortunate, you know, that this is a business, you know, but that's really what it is. You know, I mean, this is not, you know, we don't just go fight anybody any day. It's not, you know, that's what I did with, I was an amateur.

It's what I did coming up. I feel like I've done that long enough and I've paid my dues and I've earned the spot that I'm at. And I feel that I deserve to be fighting top 10 guys. My last fight, you know, was a close fight. to the current champion. So I know, I feel like I've shown everybody that's where I'm at, and that's where I can be, and I don't deserve anything less. You don't always get what you deserve in life.

I understand that. So I'm not going to complain no matter what happens. You know, I'm a warrior, and I get in there and I fight no matter who's in front of me. But I absolutely 100% believe that I should have a, top thing guy in my next fight, whether that's a year from now or whether that's tomorrow. Speaking of which, is there any particular reason why you haven't fought since July? I know 2014 was very busy for you. Was it just a matter of, you know, you're needing some time off or something else? No, I was pretty beat up after the... A lot of fight had a pretty nasty hand injury.

Okay. Toward the leg in my hand. And that was... You probably remember when... They actually called me to fight Lombards in Australia, and I took the fight over the phone with Dana, but I just left the doctor, actually. And basically nobody else in my camp was agreeing with me. Everybody else said, dude, don't be stupid, don't take that fight, you know, because I literally just walked out of the doctor and had a torn ligament in my hand, and I just assumed that it would have been healed by a fight. but I would have been training with one-handed. So everybody said that's a bad idea

and that was what happened. So what? You accepted the fight and then you called Dana back or your team called them back and said on second thought of something else. Dana called me and said, hey, you want to fight Lombard in eight weeks? I said, yeah, sure, whatever. And then I called my manager and said, hey, Dana just asked me to fight, you know, in eight weeks

and then he had whatever. I don't know what happened after that, you know, basically everybody in my camp was like, what are you talking about? You know, everybody said, you know, don't be dumb and all this and that. So whatever happened, I don't know, ended up not happening. And were you disappointed that, you know, it was taken away from you? You were down to the fight. No, no, no, I mean, I knew it wasn't, you know, the necessarily most intelligent decision to take the fight.

But, again, like, I'm not a, unfortunately, this is a business. and I'm not necessarily a businessman. You know, my job is to fight. If someone calls me and asks me to fight, if Dana called me and ask me to step outside and fight somebody in the street, I will go do it. You know, so that's what I do for a job. That's what I do is I fight people.

So if they ask me to fight, I'm going to say yes. And that's the reason that we have managers and, you know, people within the camp that take care of the, you know, that take care of the, business part of things, you know, and try to give me the best chance of winning. Speaking of that, recently your wife on Twitter was very fired up because as far as the rankings are concerned, Lombard jumped over you because he had just won. And, you know, if this was July, August, or anything beyond in the world of sponsorships, you know, with the Reebok deal,

you make according to where you're ranked. So going from five to six would be a major jump. And you'd even fight. You haven't fought since July. And this fired her up. and, you know, she was expressing her views on the media, doing the ranking and all that. I mean, did you notice this stuff? Did you pay attention to that? And how did you feel about the fact that you were, you know, you were pushed down after not fighting? I remain pretty much indifferent to it. It's something I just can't allow my focus to become on something like that.

Again, you know, that's a part of the business side of things where, you know, we are going to be on a tiered system soon with the uniforms and everything, so the ranking is going to be important on the business side. But I can't allow that to be a part of my thought process. I have to maintain my focus on the goal of hand. That's to win each and every fight. And she thinks about things like that, obviously, you know, and a lot of other people do too.

Is that your sister, Sophia Helwani? Oh, by the way, no, I want to clear that up. That is not my sister. That is not. By the way, that is Megan Fox in the picture. You know, we have good genes, but that's not my sister. I don't know. What should I do about this situation?

It's a little weird that a person is pretending to be my sister. It's creepy. So you have no idea who she even is, then? No, I doubt it's a girl. I bet it's some loser kid. Oh, wow, that's crazy. Creepy. Well, whoever that is, they seem to really enjoy my fights and really think of it.

Oh, okay. Well, I hope they're not terrorizing anyone. That's at least good. At least it's positive stuff. No, no, they're pushing for me really hard. Wow. No wonder you did the show. show today. Thank you.

No. So, you know, everybody has an opinion, you know, and everybody's entitled to their opinion. And, you know, I'm happy that people, you know, there are some people out there pushing for me and support me and, you know, want to see me be higher and do bigger, better things. You know, all I can focus on is my day-to-day grind and do, you know, what I can do to, what I can do to better myself and improve myself and set of my career. you know, the best that I can. That's all I can worry about. I don't worry about all this other stuff, really.

So you don't, like, when you find out about the Reebok deal, that stuff, you don't even try to worry about what this means to you. You just let other people deal with that. I mean, I just, I can't. I mean, it's just a negative energy. You know, if you look at a negative light, I mean, if you look in a positive light, it could be a positive energy, I guess. But, you know, it's just a distraction to me.

I mean, I have one focus. and that's to, you know, be the best that I can be every single day and work as hard as I can work every single day. I mean, that's all I think about. I don't let this other stuff bother me at all. I mean, Dana called me, you know, and told me about the Reebok deal. I think, like, right before, you know, the day before it was going to be announced, and, like, I didn't even discuss it with them.

I was like, cool, whatever. You know, I mean, I didn't ask any questions. How long was that conversation? This is maybe five minutes. Wow. At the most, I mean, again, like, what am I supposed to do? I'm going to sit there, ask a bunch of questions to say, this is bullshit, or this is great or whatever. I mean, there's nothing I can do about it.

You know, I mean, it's, you know, I'm still, whether it's the best thing in the world or whether it's the worst thing in the world, I'm still going to get in there and fight and bang it out as hard as I can, right? Yeah, you know, I'm not going to change what I do. So, you know, hopefully it will, you know, worse out for the best for everybody, but, you know, who knows what's going to happen. You know, I got to put my trust in, you know,

the UFC, they've done a great job with the organization for the past, you know, 20-plus years that it's been around, and they've built it to what it is now, so I've got to maintain the fate that they're going to keep making it a bigger, better thing in their best interest to do so. Yeah, of course. And so prior to the Robbie Lawler fight, you had won seven in a row. And, you know, of course, that fight didn't go your way,

although it was one of the best fights of the year. Prior to that, you had not lost since November of 2011. What was it like feeling the feelings that come with a loss? It had been such a long time for you, such an amazing streak. What was that like? Oh, man. The loss sucks, bro. I don't know.

Yeah. I mean, it is something, you can't even describe it. I mean, you know, like after the fight, everybody said, oh, great fight, you know, you didn't lose any stock, blah, blah, blah. I mean, it just doesn't mean anything, you know. Even Anthony Keatis was backstage and said it was up to me. You know, I've listened to the Chili Peppers forever. I love Chili Peppers, and it was awesome to meet them. But I just lost, and I didn't even care, you know what I mean?

So, I mean, I just can't describe the feeling. I mean, you put so much into it and, you know, every bit of your heart and soul goes into it. you know, I put my, my family kind of, you know, sits back and waits for me to do my thing, and they kind of end up on the side a little bit. And, you know, I put other business ventures on the side, like, you know, have my podcast that I'm doing. And the Great of May debate, by the way, you know, everything gets put on the side. And then the one thing that you were focused on doesn't go your way.

It just, you can't describe that feeling. It's the worst feeling in the world. I don't even like talking about it. That loss, did it hurt more than the others? Because you were on the streak, you were so close to getting that title shot, was it different than the 10 other ones or the 11 other ones? It was a little different. I mean, some of these other losses, you know, I mean, I just knew that I shouldn't have lost.

I knew that I was way better than the guys that I was fighting. I knew that, you know, it was my first. fault that I lost. The one difference with this fight was, you know, I did fight, you know, the best guy in the world right now. I did give it all that I had. You know, I felt like I really pushed myself in the fight to do the best that I could. I didn't make any stupid mistakes. I did the best camp that I could do. You know, there wasn't any regrets on that side. There's other fights where you have regrets, and that's what really hurts. You know, regret hurts way worse than anything else.

So I don't have any regrets about the fight. Just, you know, just obviously, you know, I wish I could have done, you know, change whatever I would have needed to change. And I'm not even sure what it was that I needed to change. Have you been able to watch it since? Oh, yeah. Oh, you watch it a lot? I thought maybe you just forget about it.

No, no, no, I have to watch it. Yeah. I'm pretty, I'm kind of a nerd in that since I like seeing myself on TV. Yeah, it's fun. I mean, it's cool, right? I mean, I'm on freaking, you know, the main event on Fox. I mean, yeah, you got to watch it. Of course.

Even if it's not just studying the fight, the fact that, like, seeing myself on TV, I'm kind of nerdy, but I think it's cool. I don't think it's nerdy. I think it's just natural. It's weird if you weren't into that. But I feel like I'm a little surprised to hear you say that because you strike me as the kind guy who would just kind of move on to the next one, but it's good to hear that you do take it all in. You're in Colorado right now, right? You're in the Mountain Time Zone?

Yeah. I'm assuming you're doing that because you're fighting in Colorado. So you have made that sacrifice. You've left your family again, and you're there and just waiting in limbo. This has got to be strange. Like, is it tough to get up in the morning and go train without knowing who you're going to fight? No. I mean, I just go ahead and even if I had an opponent, you know, I'd be doing the same thing. I worry about myself. You know, my opponent, I believe they have to worry about what I'm doing. So it's pretty much the same thing.

You know, the difficult part is, you know, like I do a lot of visualization type stuff. I do a lot of, you know, we do a lot of specific type work where, you know, obviously, like if you're fighting this out of Paul, then, you know, you'd be training with out paws and fighting a wrestler, retrained with wrestlers, things like that. That's what makes it difficult is I don't know what training partners to bring in. I don't know who to train with. So really, we're just

focusing on myself and trying to keep the weight low and try to keep everything as sharp as we can be. And so we'd be ready to go anytime against any person. Do you want to ask, you know, the powers that be, do you want to call someone out

to put it as bluntly as possible? Do you want to make a request for fight right now. Gosh, you kind of put me on the spot. I haven't even thought about it, honestly. That's amazing in itself. Yeah. I mean, I haven't, like, not thought about it.

Sure, sure. I haven't thought about calling anybody out, I would say. But, you know, top of your head, I say, fight that makes most sense, fight you want. Is there a name that comes to the forefront? Yeah, I mean, definitely the fight that makes most sense for me. you know, when Conda comes back. I think that's the one that every band wants to see.

And that's, I mean, obviously, that's a great fight for me and for Condit. I think we have a great stylistic match up. But, I mean, you know, I'm not the type to call anybody out. And I know he's the same, you know, we have mutual respect. And, you know, in the top ten, I think, you know, he's the only guy that's out there in limbo. really, same as me. Yeah, I gather that he wouldn't be ready to fight on February 14th coming off the ACL, but hopefully in the near future.

Before I let you go, Matt, you know, you mentioned the podcast. I want to plug it, the great MMA debate. It's on Fox Sports.com. You can get that also on iTunes. And you made some headlines recently when you were talking about CM Punk. Have you softened up on the issue, or are you still not a fan of the signing? Well, I never I wouldn't say that

I'd soften up on the issue I wasn't really like that hard to start with about it. You know, the thing I was saying is like on ESPN they said that I call him a dumb athlete. Well, I didn't call him a dumb athlete. I said that he's dumb to think

that he could compete with UFC level guys in his first fight. And I would completely stand by a statement. If he was standing right in front of me, I would tell him. amount. I mean, how many people walk into our gym all the time? And say, what would you be in the UFC? I'm like, well, you're dumb to think that you're going to be able to do that. You know, I don't care if you're, you know, a cross-fit champion

or gymnastics champion, you know, whatever, you know, unless you were a wrestling champion, not pro wrestling champion, but, you know, like an NCAA champion or something, then I would tell you know, you probably shouldn't even think about it until a few years of training. So I don't know. I mean, it's just so obvious. I don't know. I mean, it's the UFC decision, you know, it's cool. I totally get while they're doing it.

It just seems like it's just blatantly obvious that it's not really about like him being a champion. It's not really about him having, you know, it's not like, you know, we have any reason to believe he's going to have an exciting. fight or, you know, I mean, literally the only thing is he has this name from pro wrestling. And to me, that does not excite me at all. Fair enough.

You know, and I don't know, like, who's he going to fight? You know, like, what are they going to? You know, the only person they could bring here would be someone else that doesn't know how to fight. You know, I mean, it's crazy to me. Like, Brock Lesnar, it did fights outside. How many fights did he do?

He had one. Just one, right? Yeah. So, like, he at least knew, you know, what he had in store, you know what it felt like to be in there. I think, you know, the thing that I was getting at when I was talking about seeing punk was, you know, I think he's going to be in for a big shock. You know, the, when you step in that UFC cage, when they say it's as real as it gets, I mean, that's the truth. I mean, when you walk in there, those lights shining on you and everybody looking at you and there's a dude across the cage that wants to rip your head off, it's a different feeling

than anything he's ever felt before. He's going to have some really deep, dark thoughts that he's going to wish he didn't do. You know, I mean, he's going to – we call it the worm of doubt. He's going to have lots of worms in his head with doubt. Very well said. Well, we'll wait and see on that. also hoping that you do get a fight. Hopefully it's on February 14th.

I appreciate you coming on, Matt, to talk about this. I know you're in limbo, and it's probably not the best topic to discuss while you're waiting for an opponent. So really appreciate your time. Good luck to you. Good luck in training, and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks a lot. All right, thanks, ma'am.

There he is. Matt Brown stopping by. Hopefully he gets a fight on February the 14th. Let's stick with the Walter weights. Let's talk to now the man who fought on the same night as that big CM Punk announcement. Of course, we're talking about the now former UFC Welterway Champion. Looks like he'll be getting a third crack at Mr. Robbie Lawler in the near future. We'll find out a whole lot more about that right now as we talk to Johnny Hendrix, who's on the

phone right now. Johnny, how are you? Doing good. Sorry. No problem. Sorry about earlier. No problem. I know you're a very prompt fellow, so no hard feelings. Appreciate the time. So let's get right to it. Have you been told that you are getting a third crack at Robbie Lawler? Yeah, we have.

Um, you know, and right now, I, you know, I, I really haven't been thinking about a date. What I've been thinking about is getting my, uh, you know, obviously I've been trying to lift some weights, get strong again, and get my body fat down, uh, so that way I can continue to fight at welter weight. Well, are you, because I know I spoke to you after the fight and you were talking about the weight cut and all that. I mean, have you been seriously thinking or did you seriously think about making that move? Well, it was either that or retire, you know what I mean, because that's how bad that weight cut was.

But I came back, I talked to my wife, you know, we sat down, and we said, let's do it. You know what I mean? I feel like I'm still young at this sport. I still want to do it. I still had that desire. You know what I mean? I want to get my belt back. I don't think, you know what I mean?

It sucks because, you know, the last couple of times. of fights has been where it's questionable, you know what I mean? And it's half my fault, you know what I mean? Hell, it's half my fault the reason why it's questionable. And it boils down to weight cut. You know, I mean, I can't blown up to 218 like I normally do, you know, and think that Dolce can get me down to weight, you know. And that's where I'm taking the responsibility I have.

You know, I'm walking around at 95. Wow. I'm getting my muscle mask back, you know, I'm doing the size behind it. You know what I mean? I'm trying to do everything I can to get my body fat. You know, my goal is in a month to be down to 14% or less. And I'm only, I went from 24 to now I'm at 17.

So I'm doing the right steps. And it'll also make it better for me whenever I fight too because it'll have my power back. I'll have a lot of my sting. My coaches are starting to say, man, you feel like. like you're hitting hard again. That makes me happy. And it'll also help with my wrestling and everything. So to be clear, you never thought about going up to 185.

It was either stick with 170 or retire. Well, because I want, you know, here's the thing. I wanted to do some things that Welterweight. You know what I mean? I didn't do everything I wanted to do. Does that make sense? Yes. I want to I want that belt is waiting for me you know and I want to get that thing back and if I do the right things I make the right sacrifices good Lord will and I'll get it back and that's that's my mindset right now and that's sort of the way it was it was and you know yeah I thought about 185 but um

I would have felt like it was unjust. Does that make sense? I didn't quite do everything, because it would still be in the back of my mind, man. You know, there's still this guy, there's still that guy. You know what I mean? And that's sort of the way my head works. Just how bad was that weight cut for you?

Let's just say it won't ever happen again. Okay. If it does, then yes, it has to. I'll have to go 185. be done. I don't think my body can handle another one like that. Was it serious? Like, was it scary at a point where you thought you might not be able to fight?

Well, no, I just didn't think I was going to make the weight. Hell, I'll always be able to fight. You know what I mean? I don't care what happens to me. If I have a fight date, I'm going to fight. I think I've proven that. It was just that I didn't say, if you don't make the weights, then that just looks bad on you. You know what I mean? and that's sort of where we were at.

And I knew that I had to make the weight. I knew I wanted to do this. And like I said, and it boils back to also, I don't want to do that to Robbie. You know what I mean? You go out there and you can't make weight, and that's just not the type of person I am. Have you watched the fight again,

and do you believe right now, a little over a month later, that you deserve to win that second fight? You know, whenever I watch it, Don't get me wrong. I am biased. I try not to be. But, you know, I control, you know, how much time did I control of that fight? You know, I mean, how many of this and that? You know, realistically, there's about three minutes of the fight that I really didn't control. You know what I mean? That I wasn't dictating the pace. I wasn't throwing my combinations. I wasn't doing this. There are some things that I need to work on. You know, we got so caught up on that single leg.

then whenever I get to it, I sort of went to a brain fork where whenever I took him down, it sort of happened. So in a sense, you know, it happened so quickly that my mind was like, oh, I thought, you know, you think that he's going to put up a different fight. You know what I mean in my mind because that's wrestling. You know, whenever I do this, he's going to do this. I'm going to have to transition to this. Whenever it happened, whenever I dumped him, he just fell. and I sort of got caught in the aspect of, oh, it sort of happened with no counterreaction, and my mind didn't switch over to the second move.

So, you know, there's a lot of faults that I did that I should have, that it won't happen again, you know, that I'll make better, I'll clean up. My striking still wasn't as good as I'd like it. You know what I mean? I'm working on that. And again, if I have that weight cut, if I do the weight cut and I get, get myself prepared, like I know I can, I know I'm going to, this next fight, I'll have the cardio, I'll have the muscle endurance to maintain it.

Is it fair to say that at some points in that fight you were fighting not to lose as opposed to fighting to win? No, no, no, not really. I mean, well, realistically, on some of those takedowns, whenever I was getting there, you know, there's accumulation of, there's a cumulative, cumulative things that happened that made me in certain situations. For example, you get him into the clinch and I have a double leg on him, if you try to separate in your heads between his legs,

do you think that's smart against somebody like Robbie Lawler? You know what I mean? Like I sit there, I literally would say, break us. Yeah, I mean, I'm not coming up. You know what I mean? I don't know where his hands are. I don't know where, you know, I know he gets feds, but I don't know where his hands are. He's a very dangerous fighter.

He's a type of guy that could knock you out, you know, even though I've eaten his best, but it's a shot that you don't see coming that can knock you out. So if I break in those senses and I come out, then all of a sudden I'm shooting blind for, you know, maybe a half a second. And realistically, that half a second could be the difference on, you know, getting finished. were you surprised when you were told you were getting a third crack? I asked this question because it was announced prior to the fight that Roy McDonald was next. And I know the fight was super close.

But did you think, wow, you know, I'm going to have to probably go out there, fight someone else, and then get back in line? So with that being said, were you surprised when you got the news that they were going to put Rory on the sidelines, have him fight someone else, and give you the third shot at Robbie Lollah right away? No, because, you know, I've been right where he's. that before. Yeah. That's true. That is true. You, I mean, you're only as good as your last fight.

Yeah, I mean, and our last fight was great. You know what I mean? I think the fans want to see a third fight. You know what I mean? And that's what we plan on doing. And that's sort of my mindset is, you know, if I have to take another one and it's the way it is, well, guess what? It's the way it is.

You know what? but I'm not involved in those negotiations. That's my management's job. And I'm just sitting here thinking, okay, I got Robbie again. We're working for Robbie. I mean, as I'm working for Robbie, I'm also working for myself to improve myself. Because like I said, there's a lot of things I think I could have done a little bit better in that fight. And I can still grow.

You know what I mean? I think I made that separation. I thought from the first fight to the second fight. fight. Just the judges didn't see that. And that's where

I plan on making sure the judges do see it this next time. Does a part of you since you've been there like you said you've been there before,

does a part of you feel a little bit bad for Rory that he was promised something that he's not getting now? You know, in a sense

yes, and then in a sense, no. You know what I mean? In a sense, yes, because, but the way that I looked at it, and, you know, we did interviews and we talked about this, is, hey, it gives me one more chance to improve on my skills.

You know what I mean? It gave me one more chance to get better to where I could have that. You know, I mean, and you fight somebody like, you know, it made, I think it helped me out tremendously, definitely be able to go with somebody like Carlos Condon who just got off the fight with him, you know what I mean? So he's going to be ready for a five-round fight, but I got him in three. You know what I mean? Like those are things that you can sit there and say, okay, hey, he's ready, he's already trained for five-round fight, he's coming off a loss, he's going to be hungrier. So how do you prepare for a guy like this? How do you do this? And, you know, and so those things really, I think, help you in a sense.

You know, we know how much the title meant to you and it was such a long road to get it. And then, you know, you win the belt, you get injured. It's a long road back to being 100%. And then, of course, you know, you know, you know, you win the belt, you get injured. It's a long road back to being 100%. And then, of course, and then, of course, course, you get the fight, and unfortunately for you, you lose it. What has the last month been like? With all that said, you know, how have you digested this? Because I'm assuming in the back of your mind, you never thought that it would be won and done for you as champion. No, I really didn't. And, you know, whenever you sit there and, and I'm not done, you know, and that's the beauty of it, is that I'm still, you know, who cares, like, I care about that fight. But it's not going to, you know, it's not going to be, you know what I mean, like, it is what it is. You just sit there and say, okay, he got the better

of me. He proved to the judges that he won that fight. Cool. Well, it's not the end of me. I'm still developing. You know what I mean? I'm still learning as a fighter. And that's, and it's, that's, that's, that's the important part for me is that as long as I'm still improving and as still as long as I still feel the fire and desire to get out there and fight, then that's the important part for me. Does that make sense? Yeah. Because I know I can get that belt back.

I know I can do what I, what I set my goal to a long time ago. I can get it back. I know I can. I believe I can. And taking nothing away from Robbie Lawler, I know, I know it's mine to win. You know what I mean? And I have to go on there with that attitude because if I don't, I'm already beat. Does that make sense?

And is this in your mind? I mean, is this do or die for you? Like, are you not interested in going through the ranks again if you can't get the belt in the next fight? Oh, no. No. If I, you know, like I said, if I can't get the belt in my next fight and I still wake up and say, hey, I'm enjoying it? Yeah. Then, yeah, I'll run through the ranks again.

You know what I mean? Yeah. There's some good guys there. It's a talented weight class. And by all means, I'll do whatever I have to do to get that belt back. You know what I mean? I just don't want to – here's what I don't want to do. I don't want to believe I can and my body not be able to.

Does that make sense? Because you see it a lot of times in fighters where they're like, man, I know I still have it. I know I still have it. But their body's not able to sustain it. You know what I mean? And they get out there and then the fight, they might lose a close fight, but they're like, man, I should have won that. You know what I mean?

And the next fight gets a little worse, and then it seems like you don't know when it's time to quit. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. Final question for you. Have they told you around when? I mean, we had heard that maybe they wanted this fight to take place in March and Dallas. That would obviously make some sense because the first fight was there, and you are from that area. And, of course, that's not happening now.

Do you have any idea when and where this fight will take place? I do not know. Nothing. Not a clue. Nothing. I've heard from April to July. You know what I mean? Yep.

But I find out what you guys, you know what I mean? You're my sense of intelligence through the MMA world. You know, and here's the thing is if you see something and I see something from your page or you shoot out there, then that's what, you know what I mean? And then I'm like, okay, then I'll move from that. That makes sense. But as of right now, I haven't heard anything really. And that's sort of nice, in a sense, because, like I said, now it really gets me to, I've been lifting weights heavy for the last three weeks. I'm going to continue to do that until I find out that I have a date. And then I'm going to continue that up to a certain point in my camp.

So the more time I get to lift heavy and build muscle back like I used to have, the better is going to be for me. Do you have a preference? Let's see here. We can't get March, so April, May, you know? I mean, you know what I mean? Like that would be perfect because then you can still get two fights in. You know what I mean? Win or lose, I can still get another fight in easy, easily before the end of the year, maybe even two.

Yeah, I mean, if I win the belt and I know I can get at least another one in, maybe two. That makes sense. And that's what I'm always looking at is always trying to stay somewhere. want active, you know, because the more active you can be, the more you're going to want to get into the gym, the more you're going to try to, you know, maintain the body weight and all that kind of stuff. So, again, it always pulls around to, as long as I wake up happy every day, then that's what I'm trying to shoot for. Understood.

Johnny, thank you so much for the time. Good luck in the fight. Congrats on getting the fight. And by the way, I got to tip my cap to you. I thought maybe the tweet of the year of 2014 was the tweet that you had. with your daughters afterwards. And it just, it kind of all put it in perspective. And it was very nice, you know, from one father to another,

it actually kind of made me a little emotional that you would put that out there and still feel, you know, proud to be their father and all that stuff that comes along with being a dad. So I love that tweet very much. It was great to see, great to see that you were still in good spirits and good luck in the trilogy fight. I know a lot of people are looking forward to it. Hi, thank you so much. And thank you for that. Yeah, family's everything.

you know that. And I can't get anywhere without them. So I'm very blessed that I have them in my lives. And thank you again, Ariel. And sorry again that I messed up, dude. I'm really sorry. No problem. Not a problem at all.

Always great to have you on the show, and we'll talk to you soon. All right. Thank you. There he is. Johnny Hendricks stopping by. If you haven't seen that tweet, I retweeted it afterwards. You can see he doesn't tweet all that often, so it's not that hard to go back. I believe he wrote something like, and still their father or something like that.

so he obviously didn't get the end still from Bruce Buffer after the Robbie Lawler fight on December 6th, but great to put everything in perspective. He has a lovely family, and I just love that stuff. That tweet was great. That gets me right in the heart. Really beautiful. So there you have it from one side of the fence.

Hendricks getting the third crack at Robbie Lawler, getting the immediate rematch. That's three fights in a row against the same guy. That's pretty amazing. And the other side of the fence is, as you've heard me talk about on this show, Roy McDonald is not getting the title shot. And there were some reports. I know the people over at Vendetta Fighter, very upset that I didn't credit them at the top.

You know, that stuff is very important to me as well. I don't care all that much for people who, you know, whine and cry about getting that credit. I was just kind of talking in the moment, and I feel like I do a pretty damn good job of giving credit where it is due. And I think we did that on the site. So calm down, everyone at Vendetta Fighter. You guys did report it first. Congratulations, Mazel Tov. I know that stuff is important, but it wasn't something that I did on purpose. I didn't leave you out for any specific reason. I know you guys do great work. So my apologies if you were offended. They reported over the weekend that it's Hector Lombard versus Roy McDonnell. In fact, Dana White's doing a Twitter Q&A right now at the Twitter HQ in San Francisco. And he alluded to that. We'll get to that in a second. But first, let us welcome in our last guest of the day, Mr. Royne McDonald himself. Rory, how are you? Oh, good. How are you?

I'm doing great. Thank you very much for joining us. So, as you know, this has been talked about over the weekend, first reported by a website named VendettaFighter.com. Is it in fact true that you will be fighting Hector Lombard April 25th in Montreal? I agreed to it. That's all I've heard. I haven't got a contract or anything like that. So I agreed to fighting Hector, that's for sure. And what was your reaction when, we'll get to not getting a title shot on a second, but first, just about Hector himself. What was your reaction when you were offered him as the replacement opponent, if you want to call it that? Oh, I'm excited. He's a really good fighter, and, you know, it kind of just makes sense.

So I kind of expected it, and, you know, I'm happy about it. Any, you know, reservations at all about taking this fight? Did you get offered the opportunity to just sit out and wait? He's a very tough guy, very dangerous opponent. Did you think twice about it at all? No, no, I wasn't going to sit out and wait. They didn't offer me to sit out and wait anyway. So, you know, I wanted to fight.

You know, I wanted to fight a good guy like Hector, so, you know, I'll be ready. I think a lot of people would commend you for that. So now let's go back to the actual news of you not getting the title fight. You were in Vegas. They brought you out there for UFC 1-8. a close fight. We're doing interviews afterwards. They announce that you are getting the title shot,

and then they take it away. What was the reason that you were given? I didn't get one. They just said, you're not getting it. That's it. So it was a bit of a waste of my time going there, wasn't it? I'd say so, unless you wanted to see a free show, but you're not the kind of guy to fly out there to Vegas

from Montreal to just go check out a show, right? Yeah, pretty much. And what was your reaction? Obviously disappointed. Yeah, I was a little bit heartbroken, but it's okay. You know, even when I first heard the news that I was promised I was going to get the next title shot, I was skeptical. You know, you can't always believe what you hear. Things change so often in this sport.

You know, it'd be a fool if you believed everything that came out. So I'm not surprised that it happened, but I was pretty sad about it for a little bit. When you were watching that fight and it was so close and the decision was somewhat controversial, there are still some people who think Johnny won the fight. In the back of your mind, were you thinking, uh-oh, this could be it, this could be the way I lose this title shot? Honestly, I didn't even, I didn't. I thought Robbie won the fight pretty clearly in my eyes. I didn't see why they would want a third fight at all.

I figured, you know, they would definitely want me to fight Robbie after that fight. So it didn't work out. Didn't work out like I thought it was. And did you get the call personally, or did someone in your team get the call that you weren't getting the title shot? Um, oh yeah, my manager at the time called me and said that I wasn't getting it. And you didn't say, like, why? You didn't want to speak to them? You didn't want to try to make your case, campaign, anything like that?

Oh, yeah. Obviously, I did, but nothing worked. You know, I was curious about everything. It's kind of just like, you know, you're not getting it. That's it. You know, it's over. You mentioned, you know, feeling somewhat heartbroken. How do you deal with?

something like that. Like, did you, did you not go to the gym for a bit? Were you kind of down on MMA? How did you react to that? No. Just, I guess you just change your mindset, you know? I'm just hungry for the next guy.

I just, yeah, I don't know. I just want to hurt someone. You want to take it out on them, I'm assuming? Yeah, why not? Yeah. Do you even care about the whole title thing now? I mean, were you told, all right,

you take this fight against Hector, it's a no brain you're getting a title shot, have you been made, have they made any kind of promise to you about this situation? About fighting Hector? No, about what beating Hector means. Like, all right, no, no, no, they haven't said anything. And I wouldn't believe them anyway if they did. So who cares?

Right. I can go out there, keep fighting people, and that's it. Do you think it kind of looks a little bad? in another sport, we have the NFL playoffs going on right now. The team makes it to the Super Bowl, no matter how they made it, boring or not,

bad game or not, controversial game or not, they're still in the Super Bowl. But in our sport, it's a little different. You can be promised something and then have it taken away. Do you feel like this makes the sport

look a little bad to have a guy go through the ranks, beat three guys in a year, do everything that was asked, and then they take it away? There's definitely some issues, but I don't have the answers for it. how it could change or whatever, but yeah, I don't agree with all the things that are done.

But, I mean, I'm not in their shoes either, right? Right. So it's hard for me to say. And by the way, I got to ask because I wasn't aware of this. You said you're a manager at the time. Do you have a new management now? Yeah. Well, working on it.

Any particular reason why you made the switch? I know you were with Lex McMahon for a long time, right? Yeah, it just, you know, it didn't. work out at the time we still have a good relationship and stuff like that. Did you watch Hector Lombard's last fight? He just fought a couple

weekends ago. Yeah, I watched it. What did you think of it? It obviously wasn't his best performance, but you know, I don't think people should expect every time

someone is going to be at their best every single time they they have to fight. I have a lot of respect for Hector. I'm going to be training very hard for him, taking him very seriously because he has a serious threat to the division to me. So, you know, obviously his fight, you know,

probably didn't go the way he wanted it, but that's how it goes sometimes. He's a dangerous fighter, though. Would you agree that he's one of the more dangerous guys, you've ever fought? Yeah, dangerous than anybody else in the top five, I'd say. More dangerous, you said? As dangerous.

As dangerous. I would say more dangerous. Yeah, he's not more dangerous. He's a tough fighter, you know? Are you happy that... I guess we'll find out. I guess we'll find out. Yes. If he knocked my head off my shoulders, then yeah. But if he does it, then I guess not, we'll find out.

Are you happy that the fight is in Montreal, that you don't have to travel anywhere? Uh, yeah. Haven't really fought, you know, on my home city before, so it'll be a, feel a bit different. Gosh, I mean, not to harp on it, but man, it would have made total sense that just have the title fight right then and there, right? Yeah, totally. I don't think, uh, from what I heard from the U.S. is they're not having the title fight until at least, like, June or, uh, sorry, July or August or something like that. Mm-hmm. I don't know.

It would suck to have to wait that long. Did it at least feel good because I know people were very upset about this, the reaction online? I know you don't spend a lot of time online, but you did see some of it. Did it feel good to know that a lot of people had your back here? Yeah, yeah, it was quite nice. You know, people were speaking up about it.

I was trying to retweet as much as possible to get the attention of the USC, like, you know, you guys are kind of making a mistake, maybe, and reconsider, but, you know, didn't work. And at no point... I do appreciate it. And no point did you think about calling up Dana White and saying,

hey, man, let me give you the short pitch as to why this makes sense? Yeah, I sent him a couple messages, but he just ignored me. Oh, really? Via what? Text message, DM, what? Yeah, text message. Maybe you have the wrong number. Yeah, who knows, maybe.

Well, I guess what's done is done. By the way, I noticed on your Twitter recently, there's a great video of you going to buy a suit from Fightland and you tweeted to them that you never actually got the suit at the end of the day after all that tailoring, what happened? Yeah, that was an old video, I think, a couple years ago. I was training in New York and they were like, hey, we really want to do this piece. You know, we'll give you the suit after this and that.

I'm like, okay, you know, like, I was kind of busy. I had a flight to catch back to Montreal and I was training there. So I made it work, you know? and all of a sudden never showed up. The suit never came. That was the end of it. Did you pay for it? There was another waste of my time.

Everyone's wasting your time. I know. I got to start fucking knocking people out. Go ahead. Yeah, no, I never got anything. No, I didn't pay for it or anything. Oh. Time waste her.

So all smoke and mirrors, right? I mean, it's... Yeah, trickery. Uh, are you, are we talking to you on your cell phone right now? Yeah. Now, this is, this is your new cell phone, right? The flip phone. I know.

The flip phone, yeah. Is it? You know, we can hear, it's, it's actually, it's quite riveting. We can hear your breath very loud. It's vivid. Sorry. My girlfriend says the same thing. I breathe heavy into the, into the phone.

I'll keep it away. No, I like it. It makes you think that you're going to go out there and, like, Like, you know, you're very intense right now. I like it. It adds to the moment. But I'm wondering what... During the pot, maybe, yeah.

Yeah. How old is this phone? Like, when do you think it was made? I have no idea. I think I bought it at a store. Oh, okay. Because I thought they don't make flip phones anymore. They made this one.

It was in a box and everything. Oh. Now, why did you feel the need to get rid of the smartphone? I'm fascinated by this. I spent too much time. Like, just like looking at the screen and like, I don't know, just, anytime I was bored if I was at dinner with people, you know, I'd be looking at my phone for whatever reason.

Oh, it's, I felt like I was chained to my smartphone. Now I don't feel that. I feel like I just talk to people and I need to talk to people and I'm just living my life. You know, whoever's in front of me and my attention is on that. Not my phone. So did you feel someone liberated? It is nice having the internet everywhere you go. Yeah.

For sure, the access to information, you know, having maps and stuff like that in a new city, having your email, but, I mean, kind of a nice change for a bit. You feel liberated? I guess a little bit, you know, just a more freedom. Honestly, though, was there ever a moment when you were like, man, I wish I had Google Maps right now? This was kind of a mistake? There's been a couple of days, which is like, fuck. man

why did I do this you know I mean at like the airport and like it's coming home from the airport it was a crazy day there it was packed

flights were getting canceled my flight was getting canceled it was just I needed an iPhone in that situation and yeah I had to deal with it but you didn't break

you haven't gone back and you have no plans of going back not at the moment no I'm just staying strong and by the way what was the what was the breaking point

why did you decide enough is enough It was right before I went to Metamoros in L.A. Okay. Yeah, I don't know. I guess I was going to be traveling for a long time, and if I didn't do it right there, then I would just never do it.

So I'd just like jump on it and get it done. Is this one of those phones where you have to press the number three times to get the letter you want to text? Yeah. That is awesome. Yeah. That is awesome. that, but did you enjoy the experience and would you like to do it again?

Yeah, I would do it again. It was pretty cool. Did you have a chance to travel around? You said you were interested in training maybe with Ronda's team. Did you do that after the match? I plan on it, like going all the gyms of L.A. leaping. I was so tired from... I pretty much started training again right after the Saffidian fight for the Metamoros, and I just pretty much slept. like a week. And then I had to go to the next place.

I think I was going to Vegas. I didn't really get a chance to train. I just needed to recover. Another waste of time, right? Yeah, I guess so. I think if I trained, I probably would have got sick or something. Okay. It needed the rest.

So now it's January 12th. Let's assume the fight does, in fact, take place April 25th. When do you start training camp, or do you not believe in this whole training camp thing? Are you ready training? right now for Hector Lombard? Yeah, I'm training. I was training over the holidays, too. I'm always training.

But I'll increase the intensity, and the workload and stuff like that a couple months away from the fight or something. So what's the message now? Don't cry for Roy McDonald, you'll be okay. You're going to make an example out of Hector. What do we tell the people about this whole situation? I don't know.

You know, just keep watching. You're pissed. I have nothing to say. I don't know what to say. I just, you know, I'm just going to keep fighting, you know. Whatever. If there's a belt there afterwards or there's not, I'm still going to go out there. I'm going to fuck someone up.

Has your feelings on all of this changed? I mean, was there a point where you were obsessing about the belt? And now after this, after having it taken away, you're just like, screw it. going to go out there and do what I have to do and that's it? Yeah, a little bit, you know. It makes me a little bit better about the situation. Probably make me think about it in a little bit of a negative light, but I'm a little bit pissed off and that's all I'm dealing with it, you know?

Do you feel like you will use that energy leading up to the fight? Like you won't lose that feeling even before the fight? I don't know. We'll see. I mean, time heals. Great. But right now, as I speak to you, you're still pissed off. Accurate?

Yeah, yeah. I'm motivated, you know. Yeah, I'm hungry. Well, that is great to hear. Rory, I appreciate the time. I know it's not the best of times, but that's a fun fight in Montreal. Looking forward to it very much. And hopefully, if you get through Hector, then you will get what you deserve.

Thank you very much, and we'll talk to you soon. All the best. Okay, buddy. Talk to you later. All right, there he is. Roy McDonald's stopping by. Great stuff from him. Very intense.

You expect nothing less from the guy. You can't help but feel for him. You know, look, if you're Johnny Hendricks, you're going to take the fight. If you're roaring McDonald, you're going to be pretty pissed off. It was made as official as possible, right? But you've got to commend a kid who went out there and defeated Damian Maya, Tyron Woodley, Tarek Safedeed in one calendar year after slipping against Robbie Loller. And now he just says, screw it.

Hector Lombard, of all people, Hector Lombard, who's undefeated at 170, who's one of the more terrifying fighters in the UFC, who a lot of people have said no to. Yeah, sure, give me Hector Lombard in Montreal, no problem. I mean, we don't have to go through the examples, but I think there would be a lot of people out there who would just say, look, I'm going to wait. That's cool. I'll wait, let the guys fight. But the problem is, if they're fighting in around, you know, June, July, they're certainly not fighting before April, right? So it's at least 10 months, at least. Tough for a kid. You know, Roy McDonald, obviously not in his 30s. He is 25 years old. You're going to sit out in the prime of your career, you're healthy, go out there, make money, keep it going. Of course, you're confident

in your abilities. You can't sit on the sideline. So it's a tough call, but Roy should be commended for taking the fight when I think there are a few people out there that wouldn't take the fight. You can't really blame those people too. If you've been working your entire career for that title shot, you can't blame them. But I think at 25 years old, if you have the utmost confidence in yourself,

you keep going. That's a great fight for Montreal. So speaking of that Dana White, Twitter, where is it? New York, Rick, are you there? I'm here. Twitter. What do he say?

He said, he said Connor McGregor could possibly be fighting in a stadium soon yes what do you say he said

Croke Park or Vegas if he wins correct that's correct so there you have it what else do we miss from this impromptu Dana White Q&A trying to think

there wasn't much more interesting stuff that's it what's up with all the head room above you there's all the space tilt that camera down let's see it

you can't move it it's weird no More? Maybe sit up. There you go. I feel like it's not actually moving. It's just moving down and then going back up.

It will require hands other than mine. Maybe just sit up, sit up. I am sitting up. You're sitting as high as you can. I am. Put your neck up. Well, that... There you go.

Yeah, but I cannot stay like this. But it looks better. Not happening. You have to do it. Nope. Jesus. I might even pull the chair down a little bit. No.

I will cut your... you right out of this show. Yeah, so Dana White's Q&A. Yeah, I mean, there wasn't much of anything else. I mean, he touched upon the Rory McDonald's fight. He said, you know, why wouldn't people want to see, let's see, I don't want to misquote him. Let's see exactly what Dana White said.

I thought you were going to pick out the highlights. There weren't many. Well, I see some right now. So then enlighten us. Well, you had the highlights. That was your job. Hit it. Cyborg and Rhonda working on it, but I don't think it will be a catchweight, but anything is possible.

That's interesting. You don't think that's interesting? Sure. Why didn't you mention it? I wasn't glued to it. What do you mean? You just said it was interesting. I wasn't glued to the Twitter feed.

Oh, okay. I guess I misunderstood when you said that you were picking out the highlights. May have. Okay. let's go back um you said dana's doing a twitter Q&A you sent me a link and then i said monitor the dana tweet athon and let me know i'll come to you for the highlights and you what did i say come on bro i'm ahead of you which would lead me to believe that you are doing that yeah that was from the previous thing where i sent you the dana tweet q&A tweet before you asked for it okay in any event

Nothing else? All these tweets I see. Can't read them right now. I guess we'll never know. You'll have to just go see it, people. Okay. What else? Do we have questions? Didn't get shafted. He's fighting Hector Lombard. This is Rory McDonald. And do you really not want to see Loller versus Hendricks again? That was in response to someone probably complaining about the Rory fight. Yep. All right. So there you have it. Looks like it is happening. It's happening.

April 25th, Montreal, although he didn't necessarily say that, but that seems to be the case as first reported by Vendetta Fighter. Okay, what are the questions? John Jones is a superstar with the recent public woes of drug failure and the epic lead-up to 182 plus the victory.

Jones' name has never been bigger in the press. When he overcomes these problems of late, will Jones finally become the star everyone is expected? There's no bad press after all. Isn't he more popular? now than ever. And will this bump in the road? No pun meant, honestly, vault him into stardom. Well, before I get into that, a quick reminder that in around 55 minutes, the Nevada Athletic Commission will be meeting up for their monthly hearing. We will have coverage of that. John Jones isn't

getting punished. There's nothing they can really do, but because it happened out of competition, but they will be talking about out of competition drug testing. And I'm assuming that, the John Jones case will be brought up. So stay tuned for that. As far as John Jones is concerned, I feel like in the short term, if he's able to come back from this, look, the guy had a DUI, and he had a DUI with two women in his car. That's a lot worse than this, in my opinion. Also very dangerous and foolish to drive under the influence. He has been able to rebound from that. Now, I still believe that John Jones isn't as popular and famous as he should be, and maybe these are the reasons why. I think in the short term, people now feel a lot more passionately about the guy. They either

really, really hate him or like him. They're not indifferent. Now they think, look, of course, he's fake. That's why he's doing this stuff. He's a cheater. Who knows what else he was doing? He used illegal drugs, all this stuff. People feel very strongly about John Jones. And that leads to more pay-per-views, more tickets sold. So in the short term, term, it adds to this whole bad guy persona. Now, how serious is this problem? Is it going to cut off his greatness? That's the bigger issue. He's so young that for now he can get away with not taking Gustafson seriously. Now he can get away with, you know, doing some stuff behind the scenes. But once he hits 30, once he starts to really, you know, put some miles on his body, it's going

to catch up to him. It catches up to all of them. Will he cut off his greatness or will he see the light and clean up his act. It's good that he has guys like Brandon Gibson and Greg Jackson and Mike Winklejohn, guys who are really respected in the sport. In particular, Brandon, I can't say enough good things about that guy. Just truly a genuinely great person. Has people like that in his corner, that's very important. Where does he go from here?

Only time will tell. But in the short term, his next fight, especially if it's against Gus ofson, I think will do very well. And all indications seem to be that the Korme fight did very well. second highest rated prelims in the history of Fox Sports 1. Brief history, but a year and a half, highest rated post-fight show in the history of Fox Sports 1, and Dana White himself said that it was trending higher than 750,000 pay-per-views.

So clearly people are interested in this man. And I think now it just puts him under a bigger spotlight, more scrutiny, but that leads to more money right now. So we'll see how he rebounds. But I think in the short term, it's, I hate to call it a positive, but it only increases his stardom, whether that's good or bad, that's up to interpretation. I agree with everything you said, and I disagree with there's no such thing as bad press. I think that that's...

Well, that's just silly. That's false. But in this case, I do agree with you that it's just, you know, it'll raise his profile as dirty as that may seem. Next question. which would you rather see Rumble Johnson beating Gustafin and fighting John Jones for the first time or Gustafsson beating Rumble and having that rematch with John Jones?

I mean, I could see the positives to both. It's fun to see him against a fresh matchup. It's also fun to see him against Gustafsson again because that fight, one of my favorites of all time. It was so much fun. It was somewhat surprising to watch. It had ups and downs. It was a true roller coaster ride.

For a moment, it seemed like Alexander Guston was going to beat him. And now you hear obviously, and I don't think they're making excuses, but that wasn't the best John Jones. So you kind of wonder how he would fight Gustafsson, you know, if he was at 100%, if he did take him seriously. Now he knows how difficult, you know, of an opponent he would be. I think it would probably do better numbers for the UFC if it was Gustafsson.

They have the rematch that they can play up. There's some bad blood there. But, you know, I would be excited about either fight. I see interest in both. I just think from a promotional standpoint, it would probably do better business if it was Gustafsson. He's a bigger star as well, especially in Europe. Yeah. I don't know, which I'd rather see.

I mean, both are going to be fantastic. I do think John would beat Gustafsson more soundly this time. And I do think he would beat Rumble as well. Although I've had a few people who I know have been telling me that Rumble is going to be the guy. So maybe that's a lot. the one. Are these biased people or are these... No, not biased. People predicting. It surprised me quite a bit. Who are these people? Like, people in the know or just fans?

I'm not going to throw it out there in case they're wrong. I don't want them to... No, no, but are these people whose opinion... No, people whose opinion matter. Oh, wow. How about that? So, I mean, we'll see. But... Now, we're not talking about his personal photographer Ryan Loco, right? No. Okay. Because that would be a biased opinion. Yes. That's why I said no when you asked. Okay. I just want to make sure.

No, other people who would surprise me quite a bit. In fact, our very own Chuck Mendenhall was there for one of these occasions. So you can ask him about that. He made a prediction that Rumble was going to be the guy? No, he was there. He was witness to it. Oh, wow. Okay. Next question. Different punishments for different folks.

Question for Ariel, how can the UFC remain fair in treating its money stars like Jones and their use of major narcotics versus letting guys go for bad tweets or pop metabolites hanging around in their system until fight time. It sends a pretty bad message. Out of competition aside, not to mention a huge no-no in the UFC fighter's code of conduct. I wonder how Dana would react if Connor got popped for drugs versus an undercard guy or gal. Look, it's a very good question, and it's not the first time it has come up with regards to John Jones. He had a DUI. Unfortunately, I'm not the one who makes those decisions.

Ultimately, that's the UFC's decision. And these are all very valid questions because there is a code of conduct. And it's pretty clear that, you know, these are things that are violations of the code of conduct. So I don't know what to tell you, man. I mean, I think in every walk of life, favorites are played. And, you know, if you're higher on the totem pole, you're going to get certain things that other people don't get. You know, at the end of the day, I don't think you can have much of an issue with Nevada other than the fact that they made the test. I mean, once the test was done and it was put out there,

they're not punishing him. They can't do anything. They don't have the jurisdiction to do it. But it's very fair to say, well, why didn't the UFC do anything? Why didn't the UFC tell him beforehand? Of course, there was money to be made, and you could say, look, they helped him get into rehab, but they did so after the fight, after the money was made. So, I don't know.

I mean, there's no answer here. These aren't questions that I can answer. You have a great point. there are certain cases now here's the thing the guys who have gone you know in trouble for for pot or even cut most of the guys who've gone in trouble for pot or cut for pot it was their it was their second or third offense but again that was in competition so it's not the same as the john jones situation but if you get busted with cocaine in your system perhaps they're letting it slide because he wasn't supposed to be tested for it perhaps they

spoke to him, he cleared the air, something. Who knows what's going on behind the scenes? UFC not talking all that much about it, but these are very valid points. And I can't sit here and justify their reason for it because I'm not the one who decided it, but all I'll say is, yeah, these are things that I thought about as well.

Is there a walk of life where this isn't the case, though? Yeah. No, I mean, that's... Your earners are going to be the ones you want to keep around. And, you know, I don't think that the UFC is... is isolated in this circumstance. If somebody in, you know, an organization,

if the boss or, you know, the second or a third in command of an organization did something untort, they would probably be, you know, kept around. And if somebody at the very bottom did something, they'd probably be like, oh, there's all kinds of, this happens every day in life outside of the UFC and outside of MMA and outside of fighting in general. So I don't know why we, I think we know the answer to this question is what I'm saying. People ask this question, but it's a statement.

The statement is, I don't like that the UFC treats John Jones differently than it treats Fighter X on the undercard. Well, tough luck. That's just how the world and every other organization is. Yeah, that is well said. And also in this day and age, can you imagine UFC cuts John Jones? Beltor pick him up yesterday Beltor would drive out the Viacom truck say here's a blind check you pick

what you get to get paid you know like I mean come on they would never do it that's just the facts I mean that would be what a windfall that would be if they just oh John Jones popped for some recreational drugs so now we've got the best fighter

in the world on our on our promotion and by the way I want to make it very clear. I know at the beginning of the MMA beat, you know, I asked Luke a question about this whole situation and I said it was a mistake. I believe that doing coke is a mistake. I believe, I don't believe in these drugs. I don't believe, and I don't want to get too much into this, but I am not glossing over the fact that John Jones did cocaine. I don't do any of that. I've never done it. And I don't believe in it. And I don't think that someone, you know, especially in

his position, should risk their life. You know, you can die from cocaine. I know that's putting in the most simplest form possible, but it's not good for you. That is a fact. So, you know, you can sit here and debate marijuana and its use and all that stuff, but I'm not glossing over it. The facts are, though, that he was tested for something that he shouldn't have been tested for, and then it was made public. So I think if I'm John Jones, I have a bit of an issue with all that. It'll be interesting to see what he does with it, but make no mistake about it. I am not in support of any of this in, out of competition, retired or not. It's not good for you, and I'd rather people didn't do it if you're asking my personal opinion on it.

Yeah. I was just going to say that we're going to talk with somebody asked specifically about that later. So maybe you can. Okay. Elaborate on that a little bit in a minute. Actually, I think it's this question. Oh, right. Ariel, any talk from Malki about pursuing litigation for the release drug test that weren't even supposed to be taken to begin with? Yeah. How does it sit with you as a media member that this kind of thing wasn't released until after several weeks, in fact, the event? So those are two separate thoughts. Start with, um, whether it's Malki or anybody, uh, How do you feel about the fact that these tests weren't supposed to be taken?

And, you know, do you know if John Jones' camp is pursuing anything in that regard? They're not talking on the record right now. They have spoke to me off the record, so I can't, you know, divulge that information. But nothing would surprise me at this point. I think all the cards are on the table, if you get what I'm saying. How do you feel about it? Yeah, you know, I feel a little weird about it. It's strange.

The whole chain of events is a little strange. you know, I kind of feel, even if I'm Daniel Cormier, I would like to know these things. It's a very weird one because... Not the... We'll go to that in a second, but how do you feel about the test being taken that wasn't supposed to be taken? Before we go to the actual timeline of events? Yeah, I have a problem with that. I take issue with that because if someone comes to you and says,

we are here to test you for PDs, all the stuff, steroids, HG, H.G. H.E.P. all that stuff. all right, fine. Now, the whole point of a random test is you're not supposed to know when it's happening, but I think that you should at least be told, you know, what you're being tested for, and then for it to come out after the fight, and perhaps they did him a service by doing that. I mean, they helped him out on that front because it wasn't distraction, but, I mean, I feel like he should have been notified. And how about the fact that it went through the UFC? Yeah. And typically, you know, what I was told was, It was the holidays and it's hard to get in touch with people.

I mean, I have a hard time believing that as well. It's not the holidays when you're getting ready for a fight. John Jones didn't go to Disneyland with his family. I feel like it would be pretty easy to contact him and let him know what's up. And perhaps they contact his team and they say, all right, well, we're going to deal with this. But, you know, he was tested for something he shouldn't have been tested for. So, you know, we're going to fight this as far as it being made public, as far as the ramifications, all that stuff. stuff. But it sounds like it was, you know, it was made public shortly after his team was informed

and he wasn't given a lot of time to fight it. So there are a lot of issues with that. And I don't think we're going to see the end of this story. I don't think it's going to stop, you know, now as it has, you know, it's kind of fizzled as far as the media is concerned. I think it's going to ramp up. And it might ramp up, you know, in just a few minutes at that hearing. But yeah, I have a problem with the timeline. I have a problem with him being tested for something he shouldn't have been tested for. And even the whole thing, I mean, look, I give Nevada a lot of credit for being so open with the media and answering our phone calls and explaining to us and giving us the information that we're asking. But the whole thing about his testosterone, and then for 24 hours, people are going nuts about his testosterone. And then we call them up and they say, yeah, we did the carbon isotope ratio test, which determines whether or not there's any synthetic testosterone in someone's system.

Why don't just say that at the beginning to stop all the speculation? So I give Nevada a lot of credit. They are the leaders as far as commissions are concerned, and everyone looks to them, good or bad. They're trying really hard to get things right. And along the way, they're going to stumble, that's fine. But when you have people's livelihoods in your hands and their reputation, you know, you want to see them be a little more bunded up. And hopefully they're learning from all these lessons.

The Vitor thing, you know, what happened here, Chale, Vandrelay. A lot has happened to this fairly new commission. it's fairly a new regime. So you want to see them learn from all their, you know, their experiences. But yes, to answer all these questions, I do have an issue with it. Yeah, you got it. I mean. But also, by the way, I have an issue with John Jones doing cocaine.

Let's not erase that. But yes. I think that part goes without saying nobody is pro John Jones doing cocaine. The problem is whether we should police these guys' lives or not. And I also have a problem with the whole in competition, out of competition thing. I feel like if you are a month out of a fight in the midst of training camp, working hard, you're in shape, that feels like in competition to me. Am I crazy? Well, I think the differentiation only really matters in this case.

If John Jones popped for steroids, then he still can't fight, correct? Yes. He would be punished. Yeah, so... It's recreational drugs. I think it only matters for recreational drugs. Yes. And in that case, I don't give a poop.

I mean, why not? Do I care if John Jones is doing drugs? You're saying? In competition. I'm trying to say that the window for in competition should be longer. And they're going to talk about that later. I really don't. By the way, if I was sitting here right now doing Coke, I would get in trouble, right?

Sure, of course. it's illegal shouldn't there be something said for that is it my place to do I mean I don't know these are questions I'm not saying yes or no but I can't just gloss over the fact that at the end of the day cocaine is not Advil

you know what I mean I know I get that and I understand the idea of not wanting somebody to be on drugs when they're doing their job or preparing for the job or whatever the case may be but I think that the people who police that should be the people who they're doing the job for,

which is the UFC, in this case. I think they're the ones who should have the stake in John Jones and should care. Me, I honestly don't care. If it doesn't enhance his performance and I don't think this does, it doesn't bother me. Let him do whatever he wants to do. That said, I would hope and plead that he doesn't do drugs, but, you know, that's taking a, you know,

a moral stance. And as it applies to fighting, doesn't bother me one bit. Doesn't bother me if he did it the night before, doesn't bother me if he does it the night after. Now the UFC, they should have a problem. But us, media, whoever else, fans, I don't think it's really our place.

I know what someone's going to say when they see. Like, oh, look at you, oh, hi, mighty, look at you looking down on someone. It's not your place, it's not your business. But that's, that's, that's why I'm here. I don't believe in anything that impairs your judgment, that makes you high. I don't like it.

I don't want anything to do with it. I don't want anyone that I know to have anything to do with it. So that's why maybe my stance on it is a little more harsh than others. But it's not like I'm policing him. I would just rather the star of my organization if I'm the UFC to not be doing it. Yep. Next question. If Dennis Siever beats McGregor.

Oh, wait. There was a second part. When are we getting more Rick's picks? what do you feel is Connor McGregor's ceiling right now as far as betting styles? Don't know on Rick's picks. Hopefully I'll be able to think of something soon. McGregor's ceiling, limitless. We'll have to see how he does against somebody who challenges his style.

What does that mean betting styles? I think he's asking, what's his betting ceiling? Can he be like, you know, this kind of steady favorite, like a John Jones where he's a favorite against everybody? Oh, okay. And then slash his style. Like what's the ceiling on his potential? I don't think there is a ceiling. I think the way this guy learns and adapts to fighting,

where he learns from different styles and takes whatever is good and gets rid of whatever is bad, very brusely like. I think his potential is limitless. But we'll have to see people from different backgrounds test him. I'm assuming he wouldn't be the favorite against Joseo, though. I would not think so, no. I wonder if he was the favorite against Marcus Bremage. He was.

He was. Oh, yeah. Next question. If Dennis Ever beats McGregor, where would you put it in terms of biggest upsets? Would it be bigger than when Sarah beat GSP? Hmm. No, it would not be. And by the way, not even close.

Yeah, what are the odds? I don't think it's, I think it's pretty, you know, McGregor is pretty good. Minus 950 plus 839. Um, yeah, but it should be stated that, you know, these lines are, as I said, these lines are influenced by more than just fight analysis. The entire narrative is, oh, you know, how about Dennis Ever? How about nobody's talking about him? Because he really doesn't have a chance in this.

So that influences it as well. People hear that and they say, why would I bet on this guy? Who the media has to campaign for even mentioning, who, you know, it's a story that he's not being mentioned is probably not somebody you want to. place your money on. I think mathematically this would be a bigger upset than GSP. No, but as far as the history of the sport, I mean, it's an upset because of how good he's looked

and how much stock there is in him and potentially what's at stake if he wins this fight and the answer is no. The magnitude, but no, you can't compare it to a big title fight. GSP looking so good as champion at the time. Yeah, it's not quite there. Connor McGregor is not GSP, and this is not. Sarah GSP.

And I don't even know, it's not even Dillashar Burrell. It's also not. It will, it's, it's, aftermath will be felt and it will reach a hell of a lot more people because of how big of a deal he is,

but resume-wise, I mean, Dennis Siever is, there's no joke, he's a veteran, he's had some big wins, he's been around the block a number of times. It would not, it would not even be top three, I think. No. If you consider all the circumstances, everything around it, it's not.

He comes out there and knocks him out in a minute, given everything that's going into this fight. I mean, it would be shocking. Make no mistake about it. I mean, here's the thing. It would just be shocking because the way it's been promoted. The way that fight would shock me is if Dennis Ever came out and, you know, took a tough,

three-round decision where he outpointed Connor McGregor on his feet and just completely kicked his butt from pillar to post, but didn't knock him out. That would shock me because you would think that Connor McGregor would be able to win that kind of war of attrition. Or, you know, Dennis Ever might catch like a spinning kick to the gut or something like that. Would I be shocked if, you know, Dennis Ever came and knocked him out? Not really. People get caught all the time. It's not that shocking. Would I be shocked if Connor McGregor won a three-round decision rather than knocking Dennis Siever out? Not really. I could even see a situation where Seaver really, really focuses on takedowns, whether he's successful or not. And that's an underrated part of

Severs' game is he likes to mix it up on the feet, but he does like to mix in those takedowns. If he came out and had a takedown-oriented game plan, that wouldn't shock me either, trying to neutralize McGregor's striking. I don't think, I think McGregor's take down defense is pretty good, so I don't see it being successful. But this is not a fight where you can't see a possible outcome where Dennis Iver wins. I don't think that's accurate. That said, certainly I favor McGregor. But I don't think this is, I mean, this isn't even in the territory.

This isn't even in the realm of Sarah GSP or, you know, Dillishaw Barrow, where there were people who were picking Dillishaw, but a lot of them were, you know, riding the high. the feeling of picking that underdog that really had no chance and they had their last dollar on it. But there were very few who were coming out and proclaiming that Dillishal was the next Bantanweight champion. Yeah. I don't see it as being the same. And as I said, not many outcomes in this fight would shock me. So next. As we are on the cusp of the McGregor era, I mean, this says it all, right?

This is why he's a minus 1,200 favorite. with Dana publicly giving him the title shot if he wins in Boston, will you do a walk-in-talk-style interview with Connor as you did in Dublin? Or as his recent comments about doing interviews during weight-cutting put you off, do you plan these well in advance, or do you just go with the flow on the day? I think you do an amazing job each time, and I feel you try and do something different in needing. Wow, a real insider question.

So I guess the question is, all right, if he gets... If he wins, right? If he wins. I don't know. That's super in advance. know what's happening tomorrow. Now, I do think about these things. And of course, we didn't just show up in Dublin and say, hey, we'd like to do this with you. We had to go through the UFC, had to go through his team. I mean, everyone said, okay, including Connor. I have no problem with

him saying what he said. I don't really think he meant it in a mean way. I mean, yeah, the guy's cutting away before a big fight. He'd probably rather do a lot of other things rather than talk to me about his whole, you know, his whole life and his upbringing and all this stuff. But I think deep down, he understands that it's part of the game. Would he rather do it on Monday as opposed to Thursday before the fight? Sure, but can't just go out there six days before. What about Boston? Would I do it in Boston with him, or am I doing it in Boston with him?

Are you? Would you? Almost. You know, no comment. You know I don't like to talk about these things beforehand. But it's not in the works right now. I mean, you can't do them all the time. You have to pick your spots. If you do it all the time, there's not much to talk about.

Of course, I could go three hours of the Connor McGregor if I want, but you have to be smart about these things. And as far as trying to do things differently and unique, yeah, you know, I always try. Sometimes there's not a lot of time or you don't got the right personalities involved. But yeah, I always think. And I put so much pressure on myself to try to bring something different to the table every time it's sometimes it's very nerve-wracking because you want to deliver and I'm my worst critic. all that stuff. But I try. I try my best, and I appreciate you noticing and saying those nice things. So who knows what happens. He has to win the fight and we'll see where we go from there. But right now, no real big thing with him planned for Boston other than the two media days and everything afterwards.

Our next question. Soroni coming in on short notice. Benson holds two wins over Donald Seroni and if he beats him again, does that kill off Seroni as a contender or is it just a blip as it is a short notice fight? Also, what does Benson have to gain with this fight with a win as he won't get a matchup with Pettus anytime soon? Well, he has to keep fighting, obviously. I mean, he's not just going to sit on the sidelines and hope and pray that Pettus loses. So he has to keep fighting. Of course, he was supposed to fight to Eddie Alvarez. I love that fight.

I love this fight as well. This was announced shortly after our show last week. Don Cironi stepping up two days after his win over Miles Jury, taking the fight on less than two weeks' notice. Pretty amazing stuff. And, of course, he has two losses to... Benson Henderson. The first loss, both of them were in WC, but the first one was for the interim title, and

it was one of the best fights I've ever seen. It was so much fun back and forth. They were a lot younger, and that's really where the Bendo name came from, because Seroni had him in some submissions, and he was just, I mean, the way he was torting his body was just absolutely unbelievable, and it looked like

Gumby out there. So look, for Seroni, the guy just wants some money, he wants to make money, wants to be as active as possible, it's a chance, for him to avenge a loss if he loses. Look, he already has losses to Anthony Pettis. So it's not that huge of a deal. He's the kind of guy who just likes to fight.

I think for him, just being active and making money means a lot more than being in the title picture. He's not going to sit out. He's not going to wait for the shot. So it's not something that, honestly, how many more times can he tell us he doesn't overthink these things? For Benson, he just has to keep winning. Remember, he's coming off a loss.

What better fight? Yeah. He has to get back on track. He's already being this guy twice. Confidence, right? He doesn't have to really think about him all that much. He's fought him twice. He's prepared for him twice.

In a way, it's maybe even a gift. It's a gift. If I go to Benson Henderson and say, hey, guess what? Your next fight, it's going to be a high-profile fight against this guy you beat twice. And he's on the best winning streak of his career. And it'll really be great to get you back on track. What do you think? Oh, no, I don't like it.

Of course. It's the best possible outcome for him. Eddie Alvarez is much more of an unknown. Right. And a great fighter and who would have had a full camp to prepare for him. This is the best case scenario. I can't think of a better case for Benson. Now for Seroni, if his goal is to get a title shot, this is probably not the best move.

But as we know, that's not really his goal. Yeah, but if he wins, then it's brilliant. He's even more popular. Yeah, but you probably don't want to go against a guy who beat you twice. if that's your ambition. You probably want to avoid him. And take a full camp. But in hindsight, if he wins,

he looks like a gazillion bucks. He's going to look fantastic. He looks like a genius, and he'll probably want to fight map around. I don't know about genius, because I don't think the planning part of it was really considered. He loves this. He loves this.

This is better than a three-month camp. Come on. It's just insane. He's the perfect guy for this. Nobody is like this guy. Yeah, he's great. Nobody is like this guy. And it all plays, you know,

into the whole cowboy thing, and the fans love him. I mean, he saves the day. And for Benson, it's a high-profile fight card. You're fighting on the co-mate event of a big show that's almost sold out, Connie McGregor, all that stuff. I mean, it's a win-win for everyone involved, in my opinion. Forty for Eddie. And by the way, Eddie was coming in somewhat of a desperate fighter, right?

I mean, he's coming off a loss in his debut. He needs a win here. Very different circumstances. So, it sucks for Eddie. Hopefully he's back. By the way, speaking of Eddie, I don't know if this comes up, but I'd love to see him fight Gilbert Melendez. Now we have a situation.

they're both coming off losses. It's a fight that's been talked about for quite some time. I'd love to see that happen. Our next question. Apparently Anderson gets a title shot if he wins. Does Diaz also get one if he wins? Let's be honest. After Hendrix, he's the only got to promote as the next contenders,

as the next contender, or George St. Pierre, should he make a comeback? After these two guys, you really have nobody. Only nobody's like Rory McDonald, who you like, but I guess the rest of the MMA world would skip that title fight. Wow, look at that. Well, I'll say this about the Anderson thing. I don't feel like that fight, Anderson versus Nick,

I don't feel like that fight needed this stipulation going into it. It doesn't make me more interested in the fight. It doesn't raise the stakes in my opinion, really. I mean, that fight was just so much fun on its own. They're coming back after these long layoffs. Nick hasn't fought in two years, Anderson coming off the injury. I was cool with that fight just being on its own. And then I love the idea of potentially Anderson fighting GSP if he,

Juan and welcoming him back after GSP, you know, left the sport. They're both without belts. Now's the time to make some fun fights. So I was a little surprised or, I don't say I was surprised, but I was like, I don't really feel like this needs to be said. And then when you consider the fact that you have Jaceret and Rockhold and Yoel Romero doing so well, who've been active throughout this stretch, I feel like to a degree it sort of devalues their fights and it may be a little disheartening to them. I'd like to see those guys get title shots as well. We've seen two Wyden Silva fights. I know you're asking about Nick Diaz, but I'm just kind of clearing up my feelings on the Anderson thing. Of course, Anderson versus Chris. Three would do a lot of, you know,

they make a lot of money for the UFC. A lot of people would be into it. Their last fight, the second one, a UFC 168 got over a million pay-per-view by, so you have to look at that. You can't ignore that. But from a pure sport standpoint, and it's probably why I don't run the UFC, I think about things in that way. I don't feel like it needs to be done. I'd like to see Anderson just take some fun fights at this point in his career. So if Nick wins, it changes things a little bit because he's beating Anderson Silva. He hasn't had that title shot at 185.

That would be a huge win, arguably the biggest of his career. But still, you have to feel for guys like Rockhole, Jacaree, and Romero, who are right there fighting at 185 and moving up the ranks. And also with Nick, I kind of feel like I want to see some fun fights for him too. And more so at 170 than 185. I know Dana said that he would be interested in seeing Robbie versus Nick two. That, to me, is a lot more interesting than Chris Wyman versus Nick Diaz, especially from a style's perspective. So I don't even want to talk about title shot going into this fight.

I'll say two things. Let's just enjoy Anderson versus Nick Diaz for what it is. I agree with you. Two things. One, what do promise title shots really mean anymore? Oh, and on top of all that, yes. I mean, we're talking about Rory McDonald's in the question. Sure.

What do title shots actually mean at this point? No. They mean next to nothing. It didn't start with Rory. Yeah, it didn't start with Rory. So I don't think this actually means anything. Now, that said, I'm going to put on my tinfoil hat. Here we go.

There it is. Is it possible that all of this, the Anderson Silva title shot talk, and specifically not mentioning Nick Diaz, is established because if Nick Diaz wins, it creates a very funny storyline, should he not get the title shot, where he has a reason to be upset, which always does good box office. And upset Nick Diaz campaigning and complaining about how he beats Anderson Silva and he doesn't get the title shot that was promised to Anderson Silva. And now you have, you know, the disgruntled Nick Diaz that everybody knows and loves.

is it possible that this was an advertising thing, a planned marketing thing? I don't know. Only one person can... Tinfoil hat off. I don't know. I don't know. Who knows?

I just feel like I don't need that stipulation for this fight. It's one of those rare... I agree with you. That's why I'm trying to figure it out. It makes no sense to me. Tattle shots. You know, title shots are a sexy thing to say... But who wasn't in on Dia Silva?

I mean, look, the context, he's sitting there. Dana White's sitting there at UFC tonight. He's being asked these questions, and he throws it out there. It's not like they went out of their way to say it, promote it. We'll see how it's promoted leading up to the fight, but if you came out and told me that the winner of Anderson Silva v. Nick Diaz

would 100% not get a title shot, no matter what they do, I'd still be just as interested and excited for that fight. I don't need the title to be in play here. And I'd like to see guys like Rockhold and Jacaray get a shot at the title. You know, maybe with a few more wins, Anderson. And look, I know both fights against Chris were a little controversial. I still see it as Chris for Anderson's zero as far as rounds are concerned. And I'd like to see him fight some fresh guys.

So, well, we'll see what happens. But after this fight, regardless of what happens, I kind of want to see Nick go back down to 170. Our next question, Will Rory McDonald versus Hector Lombard be the main event for the Montreal pay-per-view? Any idea what it might be? You know, perhaps I should have asked them that question, but I think deep down inside, I know the answer. I don't think it's going to be the main event. You know, the UFC has tried to make a conscious effort to make all pay-per-view main events title fights. Now, of course, Anderson Silver v. Nick Diaz is in a title fight, but more to my point, it doesn't need any titles involved, right? So I would expect some kind of title fight as the main event, especially such a big arena, big market for the UFC. I can see that being the co-main event.

Right now, I don't know what it is. I've heard a couple of options, but don't feel. feel comfortable reporting them right now. Okay, our next question. If Dan Henderson beats Musasi, could you see the potential for a Bisbing versus Henderson too? Oh, wow. I think the buildup would be fun.

Wow. And the winner could get a number one contender fight. I don't know about the second part of the question, but you know, I haven't... Everybody who replied in the comment sections are the same thing, but they don't know about the second part. Sorry, Hydro. See, I didn't even think of that,

because, of course, he has to get in there and win the fight, and that's a tough one against Gagar. But, yeah, sign me up. I love that. All in on that. Bisping Hendo, them going back and forth? Absolutely. I mean, and you get to play that clip over and over and over and over.

And you know how much Bisping hates it and they hate each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It would be amazing. Henderson, his logo is that punch. Yeah. It's a fun logo, but yeah, sign me up. I love it. That's great.

And, you know, obviously they'd be a few away from a contender fight after that. And by the way, Rockhold back in the mix because Rockhold trains with Henderson. He's there right now helping him prepare for. for Gaggart. So you throw him in the mix as well. A pissed off Michael Bisping is a fun Michael Bisping. Our final question from the website, what do you think about CM Punk training at Rufusport?

I think it makes a lot of sense for several reasons. A, it's the best, biggest, most well-known, most experienced gym in his area. Now, I know he's from Chicago. He lives in Chicago, but it's only 90 minutes away from where he lives. He's able to drive there, go home, maybe stay for a couple days, and then go back home. But he doesn't have to move his life. He doesn't have to move his family.

He doesn't have to go to California or New York or anywhere in between. So I think it just makes the most sense. And then you have, I mean, just look at who's there. You have Duke Rufus, amazing striking coach, one of the very best. And I knew that they would settle their differences or whatever differences there were. You got Ben Asgren, Olympic wrestler. Look what he's done with the other guys there.

You have the champ there. You have Anthony Pettis. and then the other guy is coming up, you know, his brother, Sergio, Eric Koch, Chico Camus. I mean, there are a lot of UFC fighters there. It's on an unknown gym. They're not going to treat him like some kind of superstar,

put him on a pedestal and not push him. It just makes all the sense in the world. It's local. It's a great place. He has great striking, great jiu-jitsu, great wrestling. It's a no-brainer, in my opinion. I'm sure, you know, if there was a place 20 minutes from his home, that'd be even better,

but there really aren't that many great. places that have it all in Chicago. So 90 minutes away, it's not all that bad. And I think he made the right call for himself. So, yeah, I have no problem with it. Let's transition to the Twitter questions. What would be a realistic success scenario for CM Punk? I think breaking the top 20 is realistic.

You know, I don't know. I think it's a little too early to say that. It's a little too early to weigh in, really. I think realistic, I mean, he wins a fight, wins two fights. I mean, who knows? It's hard. You know what I mean? I have a hard time.

I don't know what realistic is. So at this very moment, what would you consider a success for CM Punk in the UFC? And that's all that it takes. It has to be that and that only. We don't know what is going to happen. It has to be just win the first fight. That's fair enough. Because if he gets starch in his debut, the interest in the second fight is going to be minimal if not non-existent.

If he wins his debut, the interest in the second fight, be gigantic, will be insane. So it has to be just that first fight. It can't be anything more, and it has to be against an opponent. I mean, Kyle Pender is not going to get CM Punk. There's no chance in hell, nor even near Cahal Pender. It just has to be that first fight. He has to win that first fight, and look kind of good in doing so. It can't just be, you know, his opponent breaks his ankle in the first minute and he wins as a result. It's a look kind of good doing so. So, you know, now he's with a coach. I mean, tremendous striking. coach, great wrestling coach. They have a great jiu-jitsu coach there as well. I mean, let's see now.

Now things are in motion. Let's see where he goes from here. It's going to be a fun ride. I mean, look, forget about who he is, where he's from. You're taking a guy. This has never happened. You're taking a guy with no experience. And he's just a piece of clay. He's a little piece of Plato that my son plays with every day. And they're going to try to mold him into a fighter. They're going to try to get this guy to win a fight in 10 months or so. So it's a pretty cool thing to watch. And then you add to the fact that he's famous and his background, all that stuff, but just the idea of someone who has no experience right now. And if he stepped foot in the octagon right now, he had no business who would not know what to do. I mean, of course,

you know how to survive and fight. Anyone know, you put me in the octagon right now. I know how to throw a punch, but not the right way, not the best way, not the most technical way. So it's kind of, You know, it's kind of unique. We've never seen this before. I say embrace it. Embrace the grind. I agree. Hang tight.

You may have lost our Twitter questions just for a second. Oh, okay, okay, okay. What I would say is, I think getting in the fight is a success. I'd say if he just shows up for the first fight, it was worthwhile, honestly. Because they'll get the pay-per-view buys. he'll have tested himself and, you know, he'll see if it was worth it. And that'll be enough, in my opinion. I think, you know, putting the expectation that he has to win the fight,

that's just gravy at that point, in my opinion. I think they just need the first one and then it's all good. Yeah. I mean, if he loses a close one, you can have a second one. And, you know, he's not looking at it as just one and done, but it has to be justified, right? But that's hit, I mean, his expectations, now, it should be said, his expectations are clearly going to be different than my expectations of what would be a success.

I'm looking at it from what would be a success for this experiment from the UFC's point of view, from, you know, a viewer's point of view, from his point of view, I'm sure he has no expectations other than winning his first fight, winning his second fight, becoming, you know, a contender and winning the championship. If as many have said, and I believe he said, if you're in it for any other reason, you're probably not in it for the right reason. Yeah. But this, I'm looking at it not from his perspective because that's, you know, he's, his, his analysis of himself and his expectations of himself are going to be obviously the most tough out of anybody's. So our final question, once I get it full screened here, is what do you see is the most,

entertaining first fight for Rampage. This person posits Shogun, Henderson, Bader, somebody else. Honestly, none of the above. I'm going to go with Jimmy Manoa. I like that fight because of the styles matchup. It would be a lot of fun. And I like the idea of Rampage fighting a younger guy. And I know he's not, you know, the youngest guy out there on the roster.

But, you know, somewhat unproven, trying to climb the ranks. He's coming off a loss. who Gustafin you were supposed to fight just a couple months ago, I had to pull out. I like that. I don't want to see him go, you know, through the older guys who he's already fought or, you know, has a history with or something like that. You know, I don't want to see the Bader fight again. We saw that.

The Shogh fight is fine, but I kind of want to see Shogun take a bit of a break anyway. So he's filming the Ultimate Fighter. I don't see it happening, honestly. Henderson's not fighting at 205 anymore, at least right now, so I don't see that happening as well. So you look at the rest of the roster, you know, maybe there's the Rashad fight out there. You know, he's supposed to fight Glover Tashara, but Glover pulled out, doing an injury, so maybe that one. But I kind of feel like you want to build up to that if you want to do the rematch again.

So I like the Manoa fight. He's ranked 10. Why not? I kind of want to see Rampage against the familiar phases. Really? Yeah. I don't know. Why put them in, you want to try to build stars, especially at 205.

You need some more names. I don't necessarily want to see Rampage as somebody who's a star builder. Yeah. I don't kind of want to see him in that role. I want to see Rampage fight. So who do you want to see him fight? I'm cool with any of those. Shogun, Hendo.

You want to see Bader again? Well, Bader, I think we could take him at his word that that probably wasn't his best camp. He was probably heard and just wanted to fight in Japan. Looking at the performance, I believe it. We've seen Rampage get beat before, and then that one was something I'm not sure I've ever seen. So I'll take him at his word that that was probably a rough one for him.

Not that I'm thinking he would beat Bader or Bader would necessarily beat him, but I wouldn't be terribly upset at that fight again. I don't have a problem with Manoa, but I'd rather see him up against the guys we saw him who his contemporaries in pride and the guys who are kind of getting long in the tooth that can still put on fights. Yeah, I could see why. You said Rashad, I mean, Rashad's not a spring chicken himself. And I feel like that's more of, that's closer to what I'm talking.

about than really a star maker. No, I know, but, and by the way, I said, I don't want to see the Rashad fight right away. I'd rather build up to that because I think that the rematch could be a very big deal if they're both on a role. I just feel like if I'm building an organization

and I look at a division where there aren't a lot of big names right now, a lot of big players, contenders, you got Rampage there. Look, if he beats Manoa, great. If he loses the Manoa, well, he's still rampage. And now you have a guy in Manoa. I feel like that's the way you should book

these older guys. guys. Yeah, I mean... What's the point in having to knock each other off? It would be fun to watch. Yeah, you always look a little long-term, at least that's the way I see it. What was the fight before John Jones for Gustavson? Was it the Shogun fight?

Yes. Yeah, I guess that's a good example of it. That's exactly it. Rory BJ, same card, right? Yeah. That's the way I feel like the UFC should book these guys. Even Rumble No Gera. That's, you know, those are, like, Ah, Nogara Shogun.

No. Rumble Nogera. Yeah. That makes more sense than seeing Nogera Shogun at this point. I'm saying, though, that's no. Who are we building in that scenario? Rumble. Oh, wow.

No, I thought you were talking about Rampage. Oh, yeah, yeah. Rumble Rampage, I was like completely off the. Rumble, Nogger in July. Oh, okay, okay, okay. That kind of booking makes a lot more sense. I thought you were saying Rampage and Nogera. I was like, what are we talking about here?

That's the same thing. Rampage, Lil'nog, nah. Yeah, you don't want to see that, right? I'm okay with that one. Yeah. I kind of like all these. I'd like to see him with Henderson. I like them to see him with Shogun.

I like to see him with Lil Nog. Bring it. I want to see those. But, I mean, yeah, the UFC probably has other plans. We'll see what happens. I mean, might be Jimmy Manoa, might be somebody else, but yeah, it's maybe down the line. After, you know, let's say he loses.

is that one, then you say, hey, let's do showgun rampage, something like that. That's it for today. How about my man, Big Black, from the MTV show, tweeting to both Roy McDonald and Fightland right now, how many people does Rory got to beat to get that title shot? If he disposes of Hector, got to give him.

If he's tweeting at Rory and Fightland, he should tweet, how many people does Rory have to beat to get that suit? That's true. What the hell? Let's get him that suit, folks. I think it was in Brooklyn where he did that. What's up with that?

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. Didn't he do something similar? Am I thinking of something else? Wasn't there another one where he did that? I know the clip he's talking about, and it was a couple years ago. Maybe Connor you're thinking of. No, no. If it was a, I thought this was a new clip.

Oh, no, it's old. That he was talking about that didn't come out for a while. If it's that one from early in Fightland, then yeah, I remember that one very well. Okay, before we go, let's go through the odds here. You ready? Sure. Tatechi, Matsuda, Joby, Sanchez. Sanchez.

Correct. Matt Van Buren, Sean O'Connell. Van Buren. Incorrect. Charles Rosa Sean Soriano. That's a good one. How does a good one? I'm going to go.

with Soriano, but incorrect. What's the numbers on that one? Minus 137 plus 123. Yeah, that's a good one. By the way, Van Buren plus 158, minus 170 for O'Connell. Frankie Perez, Johnny Case.

Don't know, no clue. Case. Super close as well. Case minus 172 plus 166 for Perez. Shane Howell, Patty Hulahan. Patty. Minus 253 for Patty, plus 231. for Shane Howell.

Chris Wade Jiang Le Penh. Wade. Yes. Great debut at UFC 177 for Wade. Looking forward to his next fight, minus 420 plus 373. John Howard, Lorenz Larkin.

Hmm. I've talked many, many times. Shout out to Michael Carroll about my thoughts on John Howard's fighting style and how it applies to betting. Really? On this show? Yeah, because everybody thinks, you know,

oh, John Howard's going to sit in there and slug, and that's not how he fights at all. So I'm going to go Howard because of the threat of the takedown. Plus 130 for Howard. What? Minus 147 for Lorenz-Largan. I'm all over that. I'm all over it.

Carl Pendred Sean Spencer. That's another one. I'll go Pendred for this one. Wrong. Plus 147, Pendred, minus 155 Spencer. I could see that. A lot of close ones. Well, he didn't look great, let's be honest, in his last fight.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I could see that for sure. Glycen T-Bow-Norman Park. T-Bow. Minus 135 T-Bow Park plus 124. Man, there are a lot of close, interesting fights on this card. Benson-Henderson, Donald Soroni. Benson.

Minus 145 Benson plus 133-Saroni. This is insane. Is anything in the 200s? Conn McGregor, Dennis Siever. Dennis Seaver. Dennis Seaver, all that. Minus 950 right now for Conno McGregor. Is anything over 2 to 1?

Other than that one? Chris Wade, minus 420, plus 373, Shane Howell, Patty Houlihan. And then other than that, it's all at once. That is a nicely matched up card. I like that a lot. Dune's Day Howard, I'm thinking I'm going to put some money down on that one. Wow.

The wrestling. In Boston, by the way. People get it through your head. He's not this guy who's just going to stand there and stupidly trade in the pocket. He throws some punches, uses it to set up a clinch against a cage, or he uses it to set up a single leg. And he just takes people down. I think that's a good... I'm pretty happy with that one.

I think I'm going to pick Doomsday for that. What was Lorenz's last fight? Lorenz Larkin fought in... Sacramento, I believe, against Derek Brunson. Another wrestler. Right there. Derek Brunton. Yeah, what a card.

Nice card. It is a great card. Just letting you know that it kicks off at 6 p.m. on UFC FightPass. Then we have 7 p.m. Fox Sports 1, and then 10 p.m. Fox Sports 1. Expect a lot of promotion during the NFC championship game on Sunday. That's why this card is taking place on Sunday. And by the way, speaking of Fight Pass, shout out to my friends. over at FightPass because they're putting out some great content.

They just acquired all those fight libraries, which we touched on last week. And also they have a new fightography special on George St. Pierre. They do a great job of capturing a slice of these guys' careers. He talks about the, I'm not impressed by your performance quote and how you regrets in all that stuff. So I definitely suggest checking it out. And also the Nevada Athletic Commission hearing will be taking place there in just a matter of moments. You'll be able to watch it on UFC Fight Pass. in just a couple of minutes.

Before I go, just want to mention Beltor 132. That's on Spike TV this Friday. The card, at least the main card, is as follows. Fernando Gonzalez versus Mary Soromskis, Houston Alexander versus Virgil Swicker, Bubba Jenkins versus Georgi Karakhanian, which is an interesting fight at 145 and also at 145. Patricio Pitbull versus Daniel Strauss for the featherweight title.

That should be a lot of fun. And then also on Saturday, Beltor, by the way, is on Friday. World Series of Fighting on Saturday. UFC's on Sunday. So no competition for any of them. We have World Series of Fighting. And the main fight, the one that you need to know about,

is Brian Foster versus Jake Shields, the winner getting a title shot, the winner facing Hussemao Morayaris. I think a lot of people will be interested in Jake Shields versus Husseemar Polyaris. That fight card taking place in Las Vegas. That's on NBCSN. Prelims at 7 p.m.

Main card, 9 p.m. on NBCSN. And then one last note before I go, next week's show is on Tuesday, not Monday, Tuesday, January 20th. Why? Because the UFC's on Sunday, traveling back on Monday. And it's also Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And we're always working during that day. So why not honor it? But that's not the reason why. We're always here typically, but it's because the UFC is doing a show on Sunday and I'll be traveling back. So the show will be on Tuesday right before I head out to Sweden. for UFC on Fox 14. Three straight weeks of traveling,

it should be a lot of fun. Before we go, real quick. Yes. Check out the dope shirt. Dudes at 7thmode.com sent it. All your favorite MMA fighters. I wore it last week, forgot to plug it, go get one.

Pretty cool. Yes. I think there's two that I can't name. I think I can name them. You want to do it real, real quick? Okay, very fast. All right. Start naming them.

Oh, I can't see it. Oh, you can't see it? We can't put it here, right? Um, oh, we can. Okay, there it is. All right, let's go, uh, my left to right. Yeah. Vincent Henderson, Showtime Pettis, Roy Nelson, Uriah Fabor,

Kazushi Sakuraba, Anderson Silva, Mark Hunt, Rampage Jackson, Ronda Rousey, Miracle Krocop, John Jones, Alistar, Overeem, George St. Pierre, Nick Diaz. Now here's the one that I think that's Fitch. You think it's Fitch? I don't know about that. Because all these guys are contemporary UFC guys right now. No. I think it's Frick. Crocop, contemporary U.S.

Well, I guess you're right, you're right. Anyhow, so that's the one I can't get. Chuck. Yeah, Chuck. I think that's Ian McCall. I think so, too, but the hat throws me off a little bit. That's more picket than McCall, but... But it looks like he has the handlebar mustache. It does look like a mustache, yeah. Leiro Mucita, Connor. Now, I think this is Johnny Hendricks. Yes. Yes.

So Fitch and Hendricks are the one we kind of maybe... And McCall, we're on the fence. The rest are no-brainers. I think it's McCall, though, but I mean... And by the way, why does Alster Oveream have... blue gloves on. Pride. I know, but he seems like the bigger over him. No. It's a great shirt, though. Fantastic. Poor Benson-Henderson. The only one who's getting, yeah, kind of rocked a little bit.

What's the website again? It's such an iconic moment. The number seven, t-h-m-O-D-E.com, 7thmode.com. Thanks to James and the team over there. All right. You get my music, Alex. So again, we are off next Monday. We're back on Tuesday. Hope you don't miss us too much, but there will be a lot to digest coming off. UFC Fight Night Boston. Connor McGregor, will he get that title shot? Wow, it is going to be quite the scene in Boston on Sunday night. Of course, if the Patriots defeat the Colts and punch their ticket to the Super Bowl,

I'm assuming there will be a lot of happy people in that arena. And then Conn McGregor is the dessert. Nice fight card. Looking forward to the atmosphere. Looking forward to being there. short flight. Coverage starts on Thursday. Wayans are on Saturday.

It should be a lot of promotion for that all weekend long on Fox, especially during the NFC championship game for wondering why they're doing this. NFC championship game between 3.30 and 630. You're going to be around 50, 60 million people watching that. I had good promotion for both the network and Mr. McGregor himself. I want to thank everyone who stopped by. Thank you to everyone who tuned in. Thank you very much to Brandon Gibson.

for his time. Good luck to him and Joby Sanchez this Sunday. Thank you very much to John Kavanaugh. Great stuff as always. Thank you for tweeting that picture, by the way. That was great. Nice to see you in the robe. Thank you very much to call Pendret.

Good luck to him as he faces Sean Spencer. Thank you very much to Johnny Hendricks. No hard feelings. I always appreciate talking to the former champion. Thank you very much to Matt Brown. Good luck getting that fight. And thank you very much to Rory McDonald. Good luck against Hector Lombard, April 24.

5th in Montreal. Thanks to all of you. If you missed anything, iTunes Stitcher, SoundCloud, and make funning.com, all the good stuff. We'll see you next Tuesday until they say, peace. So I'm out of you. 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. CRM, accounting, inventory, 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

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