MMA Fighting - The MMA Hour - Episode 277

Episode Date: April 13, 2015

Featuring Nate Diaz, Mark Coleman, Chris Leben, Phillipe Nover, Eddie Gordon & Aljamain Sterling in studio, and Marc Raimondi. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello again, everyone. I'm Ariel Halwani inside our New York City studio back in New York. I was in Montreal again last weekend. And everyone is so fired up. Excuse me for UFC 186, I can't tell you just how fired up they are. There is a buzz emanating throughout the great city of Montreal. for that event. Of course, that's one of the big stories of last week. UFC 186, which takes place in less than two weeks' time,

continuing to dissolve in front of our eyes. Rampage Jackson now off the card, but it's still going on. So if you're a fan with the ticket, it's still happening. But we have a long time to talk about that. It was a good time in Montreal, by the way. Happy to be back. The weather outside is amazing. And guess what?

our neck of the woods, now very much in focus for the UFC. In five days' time, the UFC will be in beautiful Newark, New Jersey for UFC on Fox, number 15. What a main event. People ask me, what's the people's main event? That's the people's main event, my friends. Luke Rockhold versus Leotto Machita, it doesn't get much better than that at 185 pounds. Arguably the two best middleweights in the world, not named Vitor Belford and Chris Wyatman. Now, we were supposed to get Jacques, Jaco Re Soza versus Y'Oll Romero. in a four-man, one-night middleweight tournament, if you will. But sadly on Friday, as first reported by our own Luke Thomas,

Yo Romero, pulled out of the card. So it's now Jacques-Rais Soza versus Chris Comozy, a rematch we never thought would happen. Credit to Chris Comozy for stepping up on short notice. I know fans disappointed, and I saw a tweet by Chris Comozy's brother, which I think laid it out pretty well. The same people who are complaining about Chris Komose stepping up on seven days' notice

are the same people who probably would have complained if Jacques Reuzeozo was taken off the card. You can't win sometimes. So kudos to him for stepping up. We'll talk about that as well on this show. We're coming off a very busy weekend in the world of mixed martial arts. One of those rare weekends where WSOF, Beltoe, and the UFC all had events. Friday night, Will Brooks, retaining his Belator lightweight title over at WSOF, Dave Branch, winning in the main event, moving up to 205, Phoenix Jones. That was the big story, of course.

He lost in his WSOF debut. And then how about Saturday afternoon in Krakow, Poland, Mirko Krokop, turning back the clock after two subpar rounds, defeating Gabriel Gonzaga via ground and pound. on TKO, that had to feel good for Mirko Filipovich, a rematch that he has wanted for eight years, probably eating him up inside that that highlight reel being played over and over and over again, him getting head kick knocked out. Bam! He wins. He exercises those demons.

And now it's interesting to see where he goes from here. I'm not so sure that Mirko Krocop is back, but it was fun to turn back the clock on Saturday in Poland. All right. What are we talking about today? as always a lot to discuss we look forward to hearing from you at around 3 30 hit us up the usual way you know it by now we're going inside the vault at around 315 we got two for you i mentioned their names earlier stick around for that a very fun one and uh my first time interviewing the other guy stay tuned for that inside the vault 315 at 225 we're going to be joining

by two fighters in studio, Eddie Truck Gordon, who will be competing this weekend at UFC on Fox 15, and also his teammate at Law MMA, Longo and Wydenin MMA, Al Jermaine Sterling. Both them are going to be in studio. They're both fighting this weekend in Newark. Eddie Gordon coming off that brutal head kick knockout by Josh Saman. Remember, he was knocked out at UFC 181. Sterling hasn't fought since July. Big prospect at 135, looking forward to talking to them. At 205, we're going to talk to Chris Lieben. He has a book coming out in around a few months' time. Talk to him about that, retired life and all that good stuff. How about Felipe Nova returning to the UFC? He's returning to the UFC on May 16th. He's returning to the UFC in their debut show in Manila, the Philippines. Filippe Nova, of course, Filipino descent. Tough eight finalists. Remember Dana White comparing him to George St. Pierre way back when never worked out in the UFC. He gets a second crack in around a month's time. We'll talk to him at 145. We're also going to talk to Mark Coleman at 125,

get an update on his health situation that GoFundMe account and the whole donation thing that was going on with him. Fans donating to him around $45,000 already donated to him. Mark Hunt giving him $5,000, had an infection in his hip. A sad story. His spirit's pretty high right now, all things considered. We'll talk to the hammer at around 125. But first, let us go to the phone lines and welcome in a man who has been killing it at MMAfighting.com.

He has been in Fuego, unbelievable stuff as of late, since joining the team. He has really been a workhorse, and it's a pleasure to work with him. He is our very own Mark Romondi joining us right now via the phone. Mark, are you there? Hey, wow, what an introduction. Thanks, man. I appreciate that. Well deserved.

I'm a little disappointed. I was looking forward to seeing you on the Skype machine, but technical difficulties. as always, rearing their ugly head. So we have to settle for listening to your wonderful voice. You've had a very... Letting my fans down. Yes.

Letting the Mark fans down. No Skype working. Come on. If I said to you, Mark, what was the biggest story of this past weekend with WSOF, Bellator, UFC, all in action, Phoenix Jones,

much-hyped debut, not living up to the hype, at least on Friday. Will Brooks doing his thing. Joe Schilling, also losing. on Friday and then of course Miracle Crocop but you had some other notables

on that polling card as well joined Calderwood losing a very important fight as well what was the biggest story though of the entire weekend in your opinion well I'm probably biased though with this question because I was at Bellatorre Friday night and and a really thing happened where

Andy Foster the executive officer of the California State Athletic Commission opened up pretty much all of the proceedings that the commission does during during you know fight nights he opened it all up to media. So, you know, me and a handful of other reporters were there. We were inside all the commission meetings.

We did a walk-through with the doctors to see what they go through during flight nights. We shadow judge during the fight, and then we sat in on the commission meeting post-flight, and we heard Andy Foster kind of critique the judges and referees, which is a really enlightening experience because for a long time, you know, I think accountability and transparency have been needed with commissions. and that's really what Andy Fletcher did by bringing media and having us, you know, see all that stuff on Friday. So what did you learn?

I mean, was this really an enlightening process in the sense that you're like, wow, I didn't know that you guys have to deal with this? I don't know that you guys think this way. I mean, what was the biggest takeaway, if not, you know, one, two, three things that you learned from Friday? I would say that this was probably one of the top five

experiences of my career. Wow. Because, first of all, I think it's really easy to, to look at the judges and see some of the strange decisions and say, what are they doing? Like, you know, who are these guys? They don't know anything that, you know, what are they talking about? But when you're actually in that position,

and it's just you and the fight, and there's no commentary, there's no Twitter, there's no crowdsourcing to see who, you know, who thinks who won. Yeah. In close rounds, it can be really, it can be really easy to miss things, especially when, you know, California allows a monitor so you can watch that the fights on, like, on TV. But, you know, there are blind spots in the cage, even when you're sitting right there.

It's really hard to see everything that happens. And you don't really have the benefit of infant replay in some cases like fans do. So, you know, there are definite difficulties that are involved. And we kind of got a crash course seminar in judging with John McCarthy, who's obviously, you know, the godfather, Bena referee, the judge. You know, he trains judges and reps. And there were something that I didn't know. I think there's kind of a misconception with aggression and cage control.

Those are only significant factors if effective grappling and effective striking are even. So you don't even look at cage control and aggression unless there's complete even matchup between the striking and the grappling, but between both guys. So it's really all about the damage done in striking and the person who tried to finish the fight with submission. And that's the person that should win every round. And that seems simple, but it's really not. Like, you know, and he used the recent ally Quinta George Mazadal fight as an example of this, where Ayakr was pushing the action. He was more aggressive.

He was throwing more punches. But Masadal, at least in two rounds, was doing more damage, and he was being more, quote, effective in his striking. So, I mean, I think it's very interesting. I think a lot of judges don't actually judge that way, and a lot of fans don't judge that way, but that's the actual proper way to judge. And a cool thing, you know, after the fight for over, Andy Foster, the executive officer of CAC,

actually went over the scorecard and actually took some of the judges to test for what they scored. In front of you guys, you know? In front of you guys. In front of us, yeah, we were there. We saw the whole thing. One of the, you know, most interesting things, that in the second round of the Blyne Roger

versus Joey Beltran fight, Beltran was really laying it on Rogers, and it was really close to being stopped. Mike Beltran was the referee. It was kind of interesting that Mike Beltran was a referee and Joey Biltran was fighting. That's neither here nor there. Conflict of interest, yes.

Perhaps. But Beltran, you know, it was very close to being a stoppage. A lot of people thought it should have been a stoppage. And Andy Fulter actually kind of took Mike Beltran's attack for not stopping that fight, you know, in the second round, where it should have been stopped.

So I thought that was very interesting that, you know, I don't think there's a kind of a misconception that the judges and referees kind of just skate by without any accountability, but at least in California, that's not the case. You know, Andy Foster, and in front of everybody, he lets everyone know, like, you did, you were wrong. What you did was wrong.

He continues to be one of the best commissioners in MMA, in combat sports, I should say. I mean, look what he did at UFC 104, where he tested for urine and blood on fight night the entire card. And how about that? Every fighter passed. Now, let me ask you this. How many fights did you actually judge?

I judged all the main card, and three to them except for one. I didn't judge any of the post limbs. Okay, and how'd you do? Like, did you sit next to the same judge the entire time? No, we all rotated. I sat with Mike Bell, I sat with John McCarthy. I sat with, you know, pretty much everyone that was judging that night. We all moved around to different spots in the octagon, and every different, I shouldn't say,

octagon. Yes, how dare you? Every spot on the cage has a different angle, and, you know, it's not always easy to see what's actually happening. Okay, so you can't talk to the judge while the fight is going on, right? Not while the actual action is happening, but in between rounds, we did discuss things. and I honestly, kudos to them because they welcomed us. And most of the time when judges are in the news, it's bad. You know, it's a bad headline and it's negative,

but they could not have been more professional and welcoming the media and they explained to us what was going on. And I don't know. I think that next time I see a bad decision, I may think differently about, you know, bashing the judge after kind of experiencing what I did on Friday. So how often did your score agree with the, judges score how often did you get a right in that sense

i would say i would say um it varied because friday night had a lot of close fight the one of the most interesting decisions was the the beltrane going back to the beltrane rogers fight where the second round really should have been a 10-8 for beltrane because he almost finished the fight it was so close to being finished it probably shouldn't have been finished it should have been a 10-8 but even after going through you know john mccartie's crash course everyone all the media members there could not pull the trigger on on a 10-8. And what do we always say? What everyone always say on Twitter, you know,

in the media? Got to give more 10-8s. And all of us had the opportunity to do that on Friday, and none of us did it. We could not pull the trigger on it. And I was really interesting, and that was very tough. I didn't pour that at 10-8. I should have. I scored the first round of the Will Brooks, Dave Jansen, fight for Will Brooks. Everyone else had it for Dave Jansen. So I was wrong there.

It's not as easy to look. It's really not. And how often did you notice the judge watching the monitor as opposed to the action in front of him and vice versa? It varies. Every judge is different. John McCarthy really prefers never to look at the monitor. She prefers to see the action and see. He really looked at how the fighter reacts to things that happens that happened. He likes to see, you know, what hurts them?

What does damage? That's really his big, those are like his big buzzwords. and the monitor is really there is kind of like a backup, like you really should be watching the action, but a lot of times, and from what Marcos Rosales actually said in the post-by commission meeting

is that Belpour is actually very hard to see because it's a circular cage. There aren't any angles, so you really can only see maybe about 75% of the cage from where you're sitting as a judge. And then the rest is kind of like a blind spot. So the monitors are, I mean, I think they're necessary, and some states don't allow them, which I think is crazy.

Yeah. In states that don't allow monitors, it's very, very easy to miss things that happen in the fight. But, you know, if someone's kind of, if the grappling is going on in a corner somewhere away from you, it's hard to see what's happening. It's hard to see what's effective and what's not and what's doing damage and who's going for commissions. And it's not easy. It is not easy. Well, this is fascinating stuff.

And I'm assuming you're going to write something about this and kind of lay it all out your experience? Yeah, I'm not sure when it'll be. be published, but probably today or tomorrow. And by the way, are those post-flight commission meetings, at least in California, common? Do they do that every time, or did they do it because you guys were there?

They do it every single time, and I actually overheard one of these at Belator and Fresno back in, I think, January. We were in the, we were in, like, waiting for Scott Coker to come and talk. And I heard Andy Foster talking to some of the judges and heard Dean

and John McCarthy and kind of ask, them what, you know, defend themselves, some of the decisions they made during the fight. And that really got me thinking like, wow, I don't know if every commission does this, but that's invaluable. I mean, pretty much being called out in front of your peers to discuss why you made a decision during the fight. Yeah. That's accountability, you know, right there. So other than Mark Romandie's night out with the judges, I think another big story this this weekend, of course, was the return of Mirro Krocop and him winning. And every time something like this happens, people are prone to say,

Mirroko is back. I can't wait to see him fight this guy, that guy, this guy. Do you subscribe to that, or do you think, okay, you know, he was losing, and you tell me you're the judging master now. He was probably losing those first two rounds. He pulls one out of his hat as great. He got the monkey off his back, all that stuff, but I'm not really so sure that Miracle Krookop is back. No, no, not back.

I mean, what does that mean he's going to be fighting for a tough? No. He's an attraction. He's an attraction. He's a guy that can headline, you know, fight past cards, maybe Fox Sports One card. He said himself, he'd rather say in Europe. And the UFC's running a lot of shows in Europe,

or at least they plan to run a lot of shows in Europe this year. So, you know, he's a guy that can headline. There are a number of heavyweights that he could possibly fight, but, you know, he's not going to be fighting, you know, any of the young and hungry up-and-coming guys. He's going to be fighting the guys like, you know, Antonio, Rodrigo, Nogera, maybe like a Josh Barnett, someone who, you know, from his era, you know, from his prime, you know, years.

There's nothing wrong with that. That's great. Yeah. Wouldn't it to be something, though, a 40-year-old Miracle Kroko. And again, I don't want to go down this route, but wouldn't it to be something if Miracle Krook-op says, I've been waiting for this moment for eight years, I got my opportunity, I exercised those demons, peace out, it's been a fun ride. I've done enough, right? Would that be, wow, wouldn't that be commendable?

It would be commendable, and it probably won't happen. How often do you... I mean, come on. How often do you really see that in the NBA? No, you don't. You win a fight. How many guys, you know, win a great fight? You know, they're on a high.

They're on a winning streak. And they step away. There haven't been many. There really haven't been many. And I don't see it happening with Crow Cop either. I couldn't help but feel sorry for Gabriel Gonzaga. Let's be honest. Gabriel Gonzaga is not fighting in a main event unless he's fighting Krokop.

This story was a nice one to sell and all that stuff. I mean, he has been kind of, you know, subpar as of late. But you can't help but feel bad for the guy. and I don't think it takes away from what he did eight years ago. But there he is with this massive scar on his face. He had just been bloody beat up. It's like, man, did I really have to go through this? You know, like, you kind of took away my moment in a sense.

Like, now there's a rebuttal to that knockout. I don't think it devalues the knockout. I don't think anyone will remember less. They'll probably remember it more at the end of the day than this one because it was a much bigger moment at the time. Krokop was probably fighting for the chance to fight Randy Kattour for the belt. But I don't know. Part of me just really felt bad for him in that moment.

Do you get what I'm saying? I get it saying, but that's how it goes in the fight game. Yeah. And nothing can take away from what he did, you know, in 2007, that last fight. Nothing to take away from that. That was, it's going to go down. It's going down right now is one of the most shocking knockouts in one of the coolest moments in the U.S. history.

And he'll always have that. So regardless of what happened in this fight in Poland on, you know, Saturday morning in the States, Doesn't really matter. I mean, he got it done really when it counted when both guys were in their prime. He derailed near McCroup's career, and no one can take that away from them. The other big story, of course, on Saturday afternoon in Poland, Marina Morose coming out of nowhere, calling out Ioanni and Jacek afterwards, the hometown favorite after she defeated Joanne Calderwood in pretty shocking fashion.

Kudos to Robert Sargent of M.A. rising for letting everyone know that we should not be looking past, Marina, and that, you know, a Joanne Calderwood title shot as perhaps someone. like myself, we're pushing for in Scotland was not even close to 100% going into that fight and clearly it wasn't after the fact. So what do you do now with the

strawweight champion? What do you do? Do you do the Claudia Gedelia rematch? Are you looking at someone else? Because now it's pretty much wide open. Yeah, that's a good question. I think that the most logical answer is to go with Claudia Gavelia. That fight in December was so close.

And I actually want to go back and watch that fight again. after I had the John McCarthy crash court in judging and judged that fight again because the first time around I did have Yandreitou winning. I did. I know a lot of people had Gedelia winning. I think it makes sense to do it again. Right now, the other contenders in the division,

it's a very wide-open division that's still kind of sorting itself out. A lot of the fighters in that women's 115 division have less than 10 career fights, and we don't really know what the hierarchy is outside of, you know, Juana and, like, you know, Carla Esparza and Claudia. I think that it only makes sense to give Gidelia a rematch,

but there are other contenders that are coming up, but pretty much all them are booked right now. So it's a wide-open division, and I really like the division. I think the division has a lot of promise because it's so wide-open. It's kind of the opposite of Women's 135 where there's Ronda Routi, the top, and there's everyone else. This division is like, who knows?

You know, the title can change multiple times any year, as good as the Andrei Chick is, I think it's a really cool division. Yeah, and the rankings really mean nothing. One of my favorite things about following you on Twitter is that you have like these thoughts that just come out of nowhere. Like you're really, I picture you really sitting there contemplating MMA and you just feel the need. It's like, I don't call it hot takes.

They're very innocent and they're all, you know, they're all on point, but it's like, quote, part of me wouldn't mind seeing Marina Morose against Felice Herrig, against the Felice Herrick Page Vand's Ant Winner. I don't know. women's 115 is wide open. And this is like, what time is this? This is at 8 p.m. Eastern, hours after the fight, I just picked you sitting there and being like,

hmm, looking into the distance in your Hollywood apartment. It's like you're really contemplating this stuff. I appreciate it. I have, um, I have like, uh, this like jonesing for, for matchmaking for some reason. I'm kind of like, I'm kind of like an amateur, uh, former man with Joe Silva, where I'm just kind of like thinking about like, what's, what's in the future? future what makes sense. You know, I think that fans do it too. And whenever I tweet like a matchmaking thing, whenever I say like, oh, this person should face this person, I get a

great response from Ben. I think that's what that. I think that's one of the cool things about M.A. is seeing what's next. Like, what's next to this person. That's what everyone's looking at. You know, if someone wins, the first thing you say, well, who's broke up going to fight next? Everyone wants to know. That's one of the questions that I get to ask after every single every single fight, and I think that's kind of one of the cool things about combat sports. When the UFC announced that Chris Komosi would be stepping into fight Jacare Soza on Saturday, what was your immediate reaction? My immediate reaction was like, all right, we kind of know how this is going to go,

but man, you have to give Chris Komose credit. No one else wants to do this. No one else wants to come in and fight Jaceret on short notice. I don't blame them. Jacaray is a killer. Who would want to fight that guy on short notice? But Chris Mosey's done it twice now. So you can't not give the guy props,

but it's kind of a fight where you know what's going to happen. Jokhry is going to get a win over him and is going to move on and fight somebody else. But hey, no one else is willing to step up. And I, for one, really enjoy watching Jokkeret fight. You know, it doesn't matter who the opponent is. I would watch Jokore fight like a mop. It doesn't matter.

So I would be interested in seeing him fight and go to work and then do what he does. in the ground against someone like Chris Comose. I have no problem with watching that. It's not, it's not, I mean, I wanted to see that Romero Jok-Rae fight so bad, but. Yeah, what a bummer. I'll take, yeah, I'll take Jok-Rae against someone

rather than no Jokkeret at all on this card. You wrote an article about this. The Homer and me really wanted to see the Bissing Jacerite fight move to UFC 186. And I hate when people do this when they're just like, oh, yeah, Rock'em-Socom-Robits. Put this guy in there against that guy. I don't care that Bisping's been training for CB Dull.

Who cares? just save the card. Of course, there are a lot of problems involved there, most notably that C.B. Dahlwe would be left without an opponent. But that's the scenario that I like the most. They saved the day, I guess, by keeping Jacquet on the card. Of course, Rampage left that huge void at UFC 186. Are you surprised that the judge ruled in favor of Belator? I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised that the UFC went through with this, and the UFC booked him so soon. I have a hard time believing the U.S. they didn't know there'd be some kind of pushbacker.

I think everyone kind of realized that when they signed Rampage and Rampage said that he decided to terminate his own contract that probably was a little bit fishy. And once Belvoir said that lawyers were going to get involved, I mean, at that point, I don't think anyone was surprised that Rampage was pulled off the car. I thought that the UFC would try to maybe hash it out legally first and then book Rampage instead of having, I mean, they put themselves in a bad position.

They put a guy in a prime spot, in a co-headlining spot, when they didn't know if he was going to fight, for sure. I'm sure they thought that he did, but, I mean, there was legal proceedings going on. So I'm not sure what they were thinking in that regard, but I'm not surprised about that. Speaking of feeling bad, I do feel bad for Demetri's Johnson, because I feel like this is set up to bring all this hate on his shoulders. Like, if he was fighting in the co-main event of UFC 189 or 187, one of those great cards, no one would talk about. about it, and I think a lot of people agree that Horaguchi, you know, whether or not you may think he needs one or two more fights, he's probably the next guy in line with Dotson needing a comeback fight and all that stuff. But now the spotlight is put on DJ because the rest of the card fell

apart, and I feel like he's going to get crapped on and blamed if there are bad pay-per-views and ticket sales and all that stuff. It just doesn't really seem fair. It's not his fault that he's that much better than everyone. It's on his fault that his challengers, you know, don't speak English or don't do any promoting. It just, I don't know. I feel bad. Yeah, I feel bad for a lot of people these days. What can I say? Well, I'm not. I'm here, I guess. I wouldn't feel bad for Demetrius Johnson. Demetrius Johnson is one of the best pound fighters in the world. He's a guy that he values the competition more than the promotion

and more than the marketing and all that other stuff. He's fine. Like you said, by his fault that he doesn't have many top contenders. My problem with that is that they're really letting the division develop and they're not letting, they're not really letting contenders get seasoning and kind of build themselves up, like Goroguchi, you know, in a couple fights, that might have been a legitimate fight. That might have been, you know, really interesting, you know, buildup, but now, you know, he's not ready. I just hope they don't do the same thing with Henry Sejudo because I think Henry Sejudo is the next guy in line that could really, really be, you know, a tough fight for Johnson. I don't want to see him get that

next title shot if Mighty Mouse Bik Tzuarguuchi. I hope they build up to Judo, because he, I mean, he's such a good wrestler, really, you know, an improving striker. That's a really good fight down the line, but don't rush it. You know, don't rush it because there's no one else. You know what I mean? Yeah. No, of course.

I mean, it's a tough spot and something tells me if he wins in Mexico he will be put on that fast track. But John Dotson coming back is good for the division as well, because I think that's a rematch that a lot of people would get behind. Great stuff, Mark. As always, Thank you so much for the time.

I look forward to that article about judging and your experience on Friday at Bellator. And once again, sorry we couldn't see your face, but your voice, it did it for me. It did. So I thank you. Thanks, man. I'll talk to you soon. There he is. Mark Ramundi of MMAfighting.com.

Let us move along now, and let's welcome in another Mark. Of course, this man has accomplished a hell of a lot more in the world of mixed martial arts, a true legend, first ever UFC heavyweight champion, hall of famer, beloved by his peers. and fans alike. We're talking about the Hammer himself. Mark Coleman joining us right now on the phone. Mark, how are you? Well, I'm doing okay, Ariel.

How are you? Thank you for those kind words. Well, Mark, it is a pleasure to have you on the phone. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. Great to talk to you, as always. I think a lot of fans just wondering right off the top before we get into everything, how are you feeling?

Physically, how are you feeling on this Monday afternoon? Well, I thought you were going to ask me some fight question. We just talked about that later. You went right. you jumped right to my hip, huh? Well, people care about you, and that's a major reason why I think you're in the news. If you'd rather not talk about it. No, I have no problem.

I appreciate it, Ariel. And I was going to ask you, what's the special occasion that you bring in the old hammer on your show because you are top dog, from what I understand. Maybe I'm wrong. It's going to piss a lot of other reporters off. You're probably wrong. You're doing well. But you're doing well, and thank you for having me.

on the show. Basically, I don't want to jab on like I always do too good. I went in for, I got a hip replacement surgery two years ago. It felt great,

but some things went wrong down the line. It popped out five, six times. After that, I did the ultimate fighter show, tough. And it was fine there, and that was a great experience.

But when I got back home, basically, it was just popping out, you know, once a freaking week. And that's, I don't like pain. You know what I mean? My goal was not to get hit and hit the other guy. But so, yeah, I'm basically walking around, scared to bend over, scared to do anything because of this thing.

I finally get back into the surgeon. And, okay, decided he's going to not replace the, whole hip that he did two years ago. He was just going to change the ball and socket, bigger ball, more sturdy, what have you, go from there. Because it did feel like, it did feel great,

you know, until maybe I messed it up or I don't know. But it felt great. And I was out there doing wrestling. I don't know if that was a smart thing. I don't think that was Surgeon's directions. But,

so anyways, He's not a simple procedure, but for this guy, a simple procedure. He's not taking the whole whip out. He's just everything looked good. He's just going to put a ball and sock it back in there, a different one. When he cut me open, basically he saw a big old mess of some sort of staff infection or whatever. And it was everywhere. So change of plans.

he had to, you know, he does six guys in a row, so he's got it all scheduled out. He planned me for about 45-minute procedure, and all of a sudden he's got to take that whole hit up because it's just loaded with infection and put a temporary one in. And now the temporary one I have right now is just, it's just made to help heal and get rid of this infection because, you know, I've known about infections for a long. time. I mean, my buddy, Kevin Randam, and I didn't understand it, but now I do what he went through over the years. That's just unbelievable because, yes, I'm on, and so now they've got a temporary hip in there and basically supposed to lay in the bed and I got a few, few exercises I can do.

The hip's not made for walking, so I can't walk it and repair it and build it up, but hopefully hopefully I got to just had a nurse leave today but my girlfriend Tina has been helping me you know I got three times a day I got to shoot some powerful antibiotics from my arm I got to pick in the arm and I just got to hope that right now it shows that the antibiotic is working and and my levels are going down so I need to get rid of this infection so he can go back in there and put me in a new hip that I can rehab, rebuild, and hopefully you just get back to a relatively normal life because there's a lot of people out there with hip replacements that are doing great.

But I had some complications, and maybe I don't blame nobody. But nobody knows how long that infection was in there. I mean, it could have been in there since the day I had the surgery, but it just didn't really show too many signs of an infection. You know, and there was no, you know, the scars and that, it was swallowed up a little bit, but it wasn't red, the pain didn't set in. And they actually tested me to, before he did this last surgery, he tested me to see potentially there is an infection in there.

It showed up negative, but I guess it showed up negative because my levels were sore. high, it didn't even register or whatever. So he caught me open and changed your plans. Doctor had the next thing, you know, I woke up. It was 5 o'clock. I went in at 10 and I was confused. And I didn't even know he didn't do the surgeries, you know, because I was loopy and whether I found out what it happened.

And basically, yes, I was very emotional. I was all medicated up. I did stupid interviews at the beginning, so I stopped doing them. And I'm just trying to, I got to, you know, right now I'm just different attitude. I'm just taking this like a fight, and I got to fight through this. And I got to just hope the Lord does his work and heals me up so I can get a hip in there and move forward, Ariel. And sorry that was such a long answer. No, no.

And I appreciate it. I appreciate you taking the time to recount it all. I know, again, I know a lot of people are pulling for you, and more to that point, a month ago, your good friend, West Sims, started this GoFundMe account, and you've received $45,360 in donations. One of the notable ones, Mark Hunt, donating $5,000. Did you know about this when he set it up? And what was your reaction when you found out that all these people were willing to, you know, donate to your cause? Well, you know, these are the questions I couldn't have. handle uh i did interviews and uh though they happened so fast and and you know i you don't want to

thankfully a couple interview people didn't even air it because uh i broke up you know i was i didn't know what west was doing i didn't know what he did and then uh we took off so fast it was just so humbling you know i don't i don't know how it's just just I was just so overwhelmed and I don't want to single anybody but you know Mark Hunt man I love the guy

I met him probably about four or five times in Japan and just always happy smile and back then he had a nice big belly that's why he was happy and smiling but he still

you know he still would knock you out but uh I'm just I'm not going to single him out sure sure of course everyone deserves It's, yes, even down to some people donated. I don't know what the minimum was, but, you know, some people put $3 in there, I think, or maybe $5, a lot of $5,000, maybe like some $8 ones. And you just got to think, geez, you know, you know that guy might have needed that more than I do,

because it's just whatever for some reason. hopefully it's been hopefully it's because I've been good to the fans and I like to call them friends because I'm a fan as well but when I meet somebody I try to cheer them good and maybe that's why I did get this response

I know I know you're a very proud man initially were you a little upset you're like you know some people were like I don't need your help I'll figure it out on my own or you know or did you have a different reaction because I could see it going either way Well, of course I'm a problem, man. I don't like to be in this position,

but I put myself in this position. That's the fact. I made some good money, but made some mistakes, and basically I put myself in his position. And I didn't know it was going to be set up. But at that point, I'm in no position to say, I don't want it. Right.

So, proud man, I don't care. I'm grateful, thankful, and, you know, maybe somehow I can return the favor to all these people, every one of them. I just, you know, I just got to make sure I can't send all these messages so many people because I don't even really know, but maybe I can't eventually. But that would take me until I'm dead, Ariel. What's it like for you, Mark? What's it like for you to see your old running mate in pride, a man you fought 10 years ago, almost exactly 10 years ago? Miracle Crow Cop fighting this weekend in the UFC winning. Did you know about that?

Did that lift your spirits at all? Oh, man, I'm a huge fan of all the old school guys. You have to be. You have no choice. And he's one of the few left. And, yeah, when I fought him in pride, he was in his prime, and he flat out woke me, and he felt like he was one of the strongest men I ever touched. But, yeah, it was disappointing for me when he did get such a bad rap in the UFC.

But the guy obviously just loves to fight, and his body's holding up. That's what the beauty of it. His body must be holding up, and he's able to train. And people don't quit when they still know they can knock somebody out. like he did, you're not going to give up. Fighters just don't give up. So I'm glad. I'm just so happy his body's holding up.

I wouldn't call him a good friend, but, of course, I'm a fan of his. And I don't want any time. There's only a few of the older school guys left, and of course I pull for him. But I'm a fan of so many. That must have lifted your spirits, right, to see him do well.

I mean, that must have lifted your spirits a little bit. Yeah, of course it did. A lot of times when my spirits get lifted, I love watching the UFC. You still do? Well, yeah, but I'm not going to deny sometimes it really eats at your heart because you know, you just, you're always going to miss it. I do. I'm not speaking for every fighter, but I think 95% of us wish we were 10 years younger

and could be in there doing it again. But, yes, I watch it. And, uh, um, wow. You know, these guys are amazing. Can you imagine me going a five, five-minute rounder? That wouldn't be a pretty sight. You know, but, you know, one time I did do it, I went 24-word vote, chancet over there in Japan, 24 straight.

So I could have pulled it off back in the day. But these guys go five, five-minute rounds and at the end of the fight there, uh, if there isn't a finish, they're there. they're hardly even breathing. Obviously, we're talking about little guys. Sure. They're, of course, breathing. It's usually probably over, but these guys are just such incredible athletes.

And, you know, I've always backed wrestling, so I might as well throw it on here now. Look at them wrestlers. Yep. Look at them wrestlers, man. Look at just unbelievable. But time will just, everything, everybody had their time, and everybody was worried these wrestlers were taking people down ground and pounding. I remember that time and there and everybody

wanted to change the rules. And I realize just give it time because everybody is going to learn how to wrestle. And now the way I see it is, it's just too hard to take somebody down with no shoes on and slippery. And once you do take a person down,

there's always a way out. So you spend so much energy taking the guy down, maybe you get a little bit of rain control, but that's why it's all stand up. I mean, I'm just impressed how these wrestlers are able to adjust. But now in hindsight, I just didn't really do it enough. I didn't have the proper coaches, or I didn't listen to who I was with.

But these wrestlers are able to adjust for, because it's the same in wrestling. Boxing is the same, similar footwork. Only these guys, you know, I'm just amazed how good they've gotten with their hands, so many of them. Well, the other guys, yeah, the other guys have been doing it. all their life. They're great as well. And, well, I always had a game plan going out there and trading.

But just every time I walked out there, I planned on throwing some punches, but I just seen a pair of legs in front of me, and I couldn't resist taking the guy down and grabbing. You know what I mean? But I had some pretty good

sparring sessions in practice. That was real fun, without the lights on with nobody watching. You know, that's fun. But to do it underneath the lights, I never could pull the trigger. But I hit pretty hard on the ground at least. I didn't lay and pray. Once in a while, I laid and pray because I had to.

But, you know, usually when I went for a rib or something, I was trying to bruise it up. Mark, is there a name or two when you hear he's fighting or she's fighting? The hammer's like, okay, I got to clear my schedule. I need to be in front of the TV. Who really gets you excited these days? I'm definitely not going to single anybody out But there's just so many So many that

You know, and I'm not going to deny I do like the main events You know, I do like watching the main events And these guys are putting together some great cards And well, most of them I would most likely be in front of Would like to be in front of a TV watching You know

But there's always You know I'm not going to single any anybody out, but I tell you what, me and Matt Brown have become pretty good friends here. He's in Columbus. We've done with a podcast together. Yeah. You know, but, but, yes, I love him to death, you know, Matt Brown.

And I think he's fighting Diaz coming up here. Is that official? Yeah, he's fighting Nate Diaz July 11th in Las Vegas. Yeah, that just, I can't wait for that. I mean, that's so interesting to me. And to be, damn, he's got to beat me. Yes, the guy coming up, come on, Matt Brown's going to win this one. He just got, there's one hell of a load.

They're all loaded, but that way class is so stacked, in my opinion. I understand that you recently caught up with your old friend Gary Goodrich. He came to see you, and if that's true, I think I saw a picture of you two together. How's he doing? Well, Gary, he's always got a smile on his face, and, you know, yeah, we were, we were, We got pretty tight after we had our little dance in the Oxicon. We became really good friends. I actually started trying to show him how to wrestle.

But, you know, we haven't seen him starting quite some time, but he had about three or four bookings in Dayton, Ohio, which is 45 minutes from where I'm at. And he got a promoter, and the guy lined him up five or six bookings in the week. So he drove up. And the first thing they did was come down. him and he wanted to see me. Big Daddy wanted to see me, so, and it was nice to see him.

And X, I signed a bunch of pictures, and he insisted I signed a bunch of pictures because he's going to, on his little tour, he's going to try to push him, you know, to raise some money from me, which that's pretty neat. That's pretty neat. But, yeah, we took some pictures, and the thing is, either he shrank, or, and he shrank, I think? I thought I shrank, but I remember Big Daddy being, he claims to be six three, but man, he was looking up at me a little bit, and he couldn't believe, he goes, I don't remember you being this tall. And I said, well, I am standing straight up, Big Daddy, and this is my longer

leg, my left leg's longer than my right leg right now. So, you know, it was just funny, but he just, he was just really looking at him, like, did you get taller? I said, I think you got shorter, Big Daddy, but no, he looked good. He looked good and just good to see him and how's he doing? I'm not really sure. I know he's got his own little injury issues going on. Yeah. You know, I don't know the details, so I don't want to go into it.

But he's got other stuff coming up, too, other injuries that he's going to have to get taken care. But, you know, I'm, you know, I don't want to go into it. But, yeah, I'm concerned about Big Daddy, you know. I want to ask you, Mark, I love the guy. I can understand if you want to keep this private, but I feel compelled to ask because a lot of people brought this up when the news of the GoFundMe thing came out. A lot of people wondering if the UFC reached out to you, if they offered any kind of help at all. Can you comment on that? Well, I've always had nothing but good things to say about UFC.

and, you know, as far as I'm concerned, they took care of me great wiles with them. And then they kept me a part of their organization with the video games and the trading cars, this and that. They didn't, because, you know, if you say some things that are on your mind, like potentially down fry, well, I think it costs downfri, but this guy, he says what's on his mind. but, you know, I think he's a Hall of Famer. But, you know, we'll see what happens with myself. I never had any problems with him. And, you know, Dana White sent me a text.

Actually gave me a call, see how I'm doing. Joe Silva called me. And, you know, I don't know. You know, they're potentially going to try to help me. one of the guys in there we're talking to, I'm trying to get my insurance changed over. Oh. Because it's, yeah, it's about to, it's about to expire,

but they are, they have reached out or offered, I don't know if they're going to put me on insurance or they're just going to help me get insurance, and I got to pay for it every month. I don't know, but the UFC has always been good, but, hey, you know, they want to, They want to help out. That'd be great.

Sure. And I don't like any else, but yeah, I would, I've loved in my career with the UFC because I've always been loyal to them and I love them. And that'd be great, you know. But if not, you know, I don't know what I'm going to do at this point. Oh, so what's the timeline now? You have to wait to see if the infection goes down and then you'll go in for the, for the surgery to fix that hip?

Is that what you're looking at? You have any idea when you might be able to do that so that you can start feeling better and get back on that feet, on those two feet of yours? Well, I'm not sure, but, yeah, my nurse left today and she just told me the specialist reading the red blood cells, red cells, white blood cells, and, well, yeah, basically everything's dropping,

but they were so freaking high they have a long way to drop so they're dropping and everything seems to be going the right direction but I'm not positive when I'm going to be able to get that's the goal is to get rid of the

affection, get this hip out of here, put a new one in there that I'm allowed to rehab and maybe I'll pay attention a little bit better this time and rehab the thing right instead of, I kind of like, I kind of took wrestling as I thought that was rehab my leg, but really, it might have been beating it up, but it sure was fun. I tell you that. I felt young again at that tough show.

Yeah. That was one of the coolest things I ever did, but probably not the smartest thing, but no, hopefully I don't know when they're going to clear me, but right now, basically, this hit they made for walking, and there's pretty much, you know, I got my, um, six, month old baby daughter down there that, you know, I, you know, it'd be nice to be able to pick her up and do this and that. But no, I'm not, I'm not really supposed to do pretty much nothing until the new hip gets

in there and then I can start rehabbing the thing. But this one basically is just temporary and I got a little of these few exercises I do on my back. But, you know, when, you know, the therapist told me, you know, I know, I know you're used to this kind of training, but I can't over train it, man. That's for sure. There's only so much you can do, and my legs always were skinny, but yeah, the atrophy is setting in, especially on the right one, the bad one,

because I'm probably favoring the other left tip. But, oh, geez, man, it'd be a neat pitcher on the Internet if I let somebody see my legs right now, especially with these pantyos on. Well, Mark, I wish you nothing but the best, and I speak for everyone when I say that I know the entire MMA community, you don't need me to tell you that, they are all pulling for you, they hold you in the highest of regard. You gave us a lot of great memories, and it's a beautiful thing what your friend Wes did for you. And, you know, I know that it's probably not the situation you want it to be in, but it's rare to see a community, if you will,

rally around a legend like they have around you. So hopefully you can get through this and everything goes well and you can replace that hip, get back on your feet. We can see you at events. love and life being a big part of this sport because you're a huge part of the sport, a huge part of the history of the sport. The sport wouldn't be where it is without you, without the hammer. So thank you for everything.

Thank you for coming on to talk about it. And I look forward to talking to you very soon in better spirits with more happy things to discuss. Well, you're going to let me answer you. Are you guys about your time short? I went over? No, it's just, you know, I don't want to take up too much of your time.

Like you said, I don't want to underplay how, you know, I didn't, when West did that, and all of a sudden the response, you're right. It was like, uh, uh, I didn't expect that. Yeah. I didn't know about it. And I didn't expect it. And we got definitely boost in my spirits.

And maybe I went from feeling sorry for myself for a few days to this happened. But now there's people out there with a lot worse problems than I got right now. So quick, quit complaint. and I'm just fighting this thing. And, yeah, I hope to be involved with MMA, you know, until the day I die. Thank you, Mark. All the best. We'll talk to you soon.

All right, there. You have a good day. There he is. The Hammer himself. Great to hear from him. And if you want to learn more about that GoFundMe account, it's gofundme.com slash save the hammer. currently $45,365 donated. Pretty amazing stuff.

Kudos to all who donated. All right, let's move along. Let's welcome in a guest who, I would imagine, is a pretty excited man these days. He is back in the UFC. He's getting a chance to fight on the first ever card in Manila in the Philippines. A huge deal for him personally. And he gets to prove a lot of doubters wrong, I would imagine, as well.

I'm talking about Felipe Nova, New York's own Felipe Nova, who fights on May 16th in Manila. He joins us right now on the phone. Felipe, how are you? I am in the best spirits ever. You had a great introduction for me. Thank you. Thank you for having me on the show, man.

This is a huge opportunity coming up for me, and thanks for having me. I can't wait for this event, man. This is going to be good for me. What was it like when you got that call that you were back in the UFC? And not only are you back in the UFC, you're fighting in the Philippines.

Can you tell us what was going to be? going through your mind when you got that call? Wow. First off, I'd like to say that when I got that call, it was my birthday. Wow. In February. And I remember talking to Ali, my manager kind of back and forth, and he was like, I'll let you know, brother. I'll let you know soon.

What would have? What's going on? And I said, man, I woke up that morning. I said, I wonder if I can get an answer, you know, today. And that afternoon, Ali called me, he goes, brother, you're in the UFC. You got a multi-fight deal, and you're fighting in the Philippines. And I said, yes, I was outside. I was jumping up and down. I was walking my dog. And my dog just was looking at me like I was nuts. People in the street, but I was crazy.

I was like doing backflips. So it's an absolute dream come true, man. And, you know, and it's something that I've been working hard for so hard since I got that letter about five, six years ago that, you know, I had my walking papers from the UFC. I made it, I made it, you know, a goal to get back in, man, and I've been on the grind for the last five, six years. So this is a huge, huge opportunity and a gift, you know,

that I'm going to take very serious, that I've been taking very seriously. Let's say there's a fan or two out there who hasn't seen you since that last UFC fight, February 6, 2010. I mean, it's been, wow, amazing. Five years it's been since you last fought in the UFC. Time flies.

What's the difference between this, Felipe, over, and that one? I think before I really got away with just having heavy hands, you know, a decent level jiu-jitsu and zero wrestling. In the last five years I've been training with, I believe, the best in the world. You know, I've been working on my wrestling, my MMA-style wrestling, I've been working on my jiu-jitsu, I've been working on everything, and I'm a completely different fighter, and I'm a lot smarter and a lot more mature now, and it's only going to reflect in the cage.

I think that I was definitely impressed a lot. I think when I was on the show, I was definitely beating people up. When I got to the big stage, I kind of just was like a deer in the headlights. And the jitters got to me. It might have been a little bit. I really don't know. My talent wasn't there, I think. But now, I think that since leaving the UFC and fighting in Bellator and fighting in smaller shows,

and I did win a local belt. And I think I'm primed and ready. you know, I'm training with some of the best in the world right now, and my coaches are the best in the world. So, you know, you're going to see a new improved leaping over out there. Yeah, it's interesting to hear you talk about the show because everyone remembers Dana White comparing you to GSP, even Anderson-Silva. I mean, there was a lot of expectations on your shoulders, and a lot of people were, you know, some were looking forward to seeing you live up to that, and I think maybe some were kind of secretly hoping that you fail. I think that's the society that we live in.

In hindsight, was that was that, was that, was that, was that, was that a, bad thing that happened? Like, do you almost wish that he didn't say those things that there wouldn't have been all that pressure on your shoulders? You know, I think as a fighter, no matter what, we have so much pressure from everything out there, whether it's at home, the media, whether it's, you know, I think Dana said those things because he just wanted to compliment me. And, you know, and I might have taken it to my head where, wow, you know, I'm blown away. And, you know, as a young fighter and with not much experience, I might have said, yeah, maybe I believed it didn't do it too much or, you know, there's so many ways to look back at things

and regret things and stuff, but I would say, you know, if things happen and it's on to the next one, you know, and I, the truth is I'm not anyone else, but we've been over, you know, I've trained with George St. Pierre and I'm, you know, he's definitely a different fighter and he, he beats the crap out of me whenever I sparred him a few years ago, you know, there's no way I'm going to be able to fight his style. So, you know, I'm going to develop my own style, which which I'm really comfortable now in there. And you're going to see the next week in over out there on May 16th. When you left the UFC in February of 2010,

your next fight was in August of 2011, a local show, Who's Your Fight Club? Why did you take so much time off, and what did you do? Well, first off, after my last fight in the UFC, I had terrible neck pain and shoulder pain. You know, I've had that pain, I think, going on for probably about a year, and I finally got an MRI and I had a really bad disc herniation in my neck and I decided I needed to get neck surgery. And it was a brave kind of a brave thing to do because, you know, I didn't, I could have just dealt with the pain, but I said, you know, I went to five different doctors. And I went to an orthopedist who really believed that he can fix me.

So I did a total disreplacement and I did the rehab. And within six to seven months, I had a promontitis. fight after that. I remember I walked into his office, Dr. Shapiro, and he said, you know, you're a fighter, and he's like, man, I'm going to get you back in that cage, man, and I just, I just said, hey, sign me up, let's do this. And he had other athletes that he was working on, and I met them, too. So, you know, in the meantime, I had that one year or more hiatus because I had to rehab my neck. And, you know, and it was definitely a down time in my life, man. I got cut from the biggest organization, you know, my dreams,

kind of shattered, and here I am with like a broken neck, and I don't even know if I'll ever fight again. So, and that was, that was, you know, four years ago, man. So, you know, I've been on the grind ever since, and I have other injuries that I have to rehab as well. So. Did you feel at all a little down on the sport? I mean, like you said, your biggest organization and tough, all those expectations, maybe in a weird way, was that almost a good thing for you to get away from the sport and not have to dwell on the losses and not living up to it all? Because I could imagine. Like you said, I could imagine it was a pretty big bummer to get that letter that you were no longer welcome. Yeah, definitely tears came to my eyes, man. When I, when I,

you know, when I knew it was coming, I knew, I knew it was coming because I took a couple of losses and my performance really wasn't there. I couldn't even hang with the lower level of guys in the UFC at the time. So, you know, I definitely was a depression time in my life. You know, and through adversity, though, you can really see what type of a man, a person, you know, what type of a person that really, you really are because that's, that's when your true color show, when you're at the bottom in your life, you know, and through adversity, I just kept, you know,

I sat down to remember and I, and I wrote things down. And I said, this is what I want in my life. I said, I want to be back in the UFC. I want to be, I continually, I want to be a professional fighter. I still want to be a nurse. I still want to help people. And I still want to pursue my dreams. And I said, no matter, I wanted to do it by 30. but I did it by 31. So, you know, this is, it's been a goal ever since leaving, and it's not like I just went out there and did it.

You know, I actually, like, really grinded it out, and I did it strategically. I looked up who is the best training partners, who are the best coaches, who's giving me, who's on my corner still? After leaving the UFC, you've got to analyze your life and say, you know, who's with me still? Who are my fans? Who are my friends?

You know, and then true color show, and then, you know, And then you start linking up with real coaches and real training partners and a real training camp and guys who just take their time on you and devote time to, you know, I have, I had zero wrestling. And here I'm in the UFC with zero wrestling. But now, I mean, I've been working out with top, top level wrestlers and they're really taking time and powers out of their week to train me, believing in me that I can perform in there. So, you know, it was really, it was a tough time, but, you know, I shine through it. So did you find that a lot of people stood by you, or are you surrounded by a completely different group of people right now?

I would say coaching staff-wise and training partner-wise, you know, I changed up my whole corner. And but training partner-wise, I also change a lot of people up, you know, and it's definitely, you know, it's a different chapter in my life. So, you know, I would say a lot of the fans who really had it out there for me, they're still with me. So I'm so happy about that. That's why I'm fighting in the Philippines because the fans really push it as well. You know, when I was trying to get into the UFC again recently, the hashtag UFC Manila, a lot of my fans just took it over and just were just tweeting about and putting up these pictures about, you know, bring back NOVA and everything.

And that definitely, the UFC Asia team said that they saw that out there. And that was a good feedback. So, you know, I definitely had some loyal fans. Even when I was fighting in Bellator and in the smaller shows, people were kept their eye on me. So, you know. And I know you used to be a part of Hensel Gracie's team. Who are you part of now? Which team are you part of?

I am part of Hensel Gracie team. Okay. But you said you changed your corner. Yeah. You just have different coaches? Yeah, well, before I was actually with my original team before, you know, which was universal defense system, which was. You know, they're a great team, you know, for when I was there at a young age.

But I think to take you into the level of cage fighting, into the world-class level, I had to train with particular coaches like John Denner, which I see all the time, which is George St. Pierre Jiu-Jitsu coach, with Dave Esposito, who's my wrestling coach, who's pretty much coach's brother to the Olympics. You know, with Jason Stroud, he currently has two champions under him. He's got Liam McGarry in Bellator and he's got Marcos Govow and he has boxers, kickboxes, all champions. So those are my three-cornermen and on top of that, you know, I do have a lot of other training partners. And, you know, I train with Frankie, Edgar, you know, twice a week, sparring and wrestling.

So, you know, I mean, like just things like this is just taking my game up another level. Are you still working as a nurse in Brooklyn? Yes, I currently am. I am passionate still about nursing. I think it's a stable career. You know, I think in the last five years, I've also attained some things that I wanted in nursing. I got my bachelor's in nursing, and as well as I got certified in cardiac care. So I'm a registered cardiac invasive specialist.

I help doctors put stents in people's hearts. Wow. It's pretty cool, and you really get to. to save people's lives. I mean, I've seen people come in who are dead on the table and we put stents in and open up their arteries and they walk out of the ICU a week later or a couple of days later and they don't remember anything.

Wow. But I'm cutting back the hours since, you know, this fight was announced. And, you know, after the fight, I'll probably get a couple, a few more hours. But I am full-time as a registrarist in Brooklyn in Cardiacat. Do you ever have a situation where someone comes in and is a fight fan that are like, yeah, I remember you, whatever happened to you. Does that ever happen? Yeah, probably every couple of months.

Oh, really? I get, yeah. Do you hate that? Someone comes in and says, it wants to take a picture of me or something. Do you hate that? Or do you like it? Does it remind, you, because while you were trying to get back to the UFC, I'm wondering if it kind of reminded you of, you know, the fact that things didn't work out. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it was definitely cool. It's nice to get spotted. Sure. You know, and I tell people the truth. You know, I tell people the truth. You know, I tell people of the truth that, you know, I lost some fights and, you know, I'm still working hard. I'm still grinding and, you know, my body's still there. So, you know, I tell people the truth

that I'm, you know, I'm trying to get back in or now that I'm here, I say, hey, you're a nurse, by the way, the UFC fighter now. I try to keep it on the hush now, though, because I just, I just don't want to see people, I might be limping around at work a little too much, or people might see I have a black guy or a bruise, and they're like, what the heck, why is this guy always beat up? And from what I understand, they sent you to the Philippines to do a promotional tour. I believe you were there, Mark Munoz, Frankie Edgar, Uriah Faber. What was that experience like?

I mean, how into UFC and MMA are they over there? Wow. Well, I travel to the Philippines so often. I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, but I go, ever since I was a kid, I was going there. And, you know, every summer for a month or even twice a year. so I know the culture and I consider myself Filipino-American, but this trip was completely different. It was pretty much, you know, five days,

which is kind of tough just flying out there for, you know, four or five days. Yeah. But the people there love mixed martial arts. Really? I've seen from MMA in 2006, 7, 8, it was like just coming in. There was like one or two jit-to-jitsu schools, and now it's like we go back there and in the mall there's an MMA store. I mean, that's, you know, this is huge.

uh... filipinos love combat sports obviously mani paki al is the prime guy over there and the whole nation rest on their shoulders so uh... they love combat sports and munoz is a huge name out there brandon vera who's in one f c uh... you know and at one point i was pretty popular too and there were definitely some fans out there who remember me and uh... and i did some tv shows out there some funny stuff and it was a fun trip it was it was like really really fun

And they didn't give you a cupcake in your return. A lot of people very high on your opponent, Uchul Nam, who is out of South Korea. He's won five in a row, successful in his UFC debut back in March of 2014. He's won eight of nine. How much do you know about him? And what did you think when you got him as an opponent? I was so happy that they gave me this tough guy. I think Uchelnam is a very tough opponent in the Asian circuit.

I think he's a brawler. He's got heavy hands. He's capable of knocking out anyone who's at the end of his punch. So this is a perfect fight for me as far as proving myself that I belong in the UFC. And I think that he has some holes in I can definitely beat him. So he's a beatable guy and he's a gamer. So this is going to be an exciting fight, you know, and the fans are going to love it. And it works out perfectly for you. You get to make your return in the Philippines. And then right after that, you'll get the fight on the card at MS. when they finally legalize MMA here in New York. What a great way to come back, right? That would be an absolute second dream come true. I'm actually right across the street from MSG right now at Enzo. Oh, really? Yeah, so I mean, this is like, you know, this is really my home here.

So I can take the subway. I'll be at MSG in 30 minutes. That's amazing. You know, that would be spectacular. And even at the Barclays. The Barclays, I live in Brooklyn, so the Barclays is about 10 minutes from my house. well it's a great story i'm very very happy for you i think most fans were when they found out that you were brought back to the ufc and and a lot of people remember how much uh you know it meant

you to fight in the philippine so what a wonderful story this is i wish you nothing but the best thank you for coming on i didn't know that you were going to be at the gym so i appreciate you taking some time out of your day and again good luck in that fight really looking forward to it thank you so much ariel thanks for having me and i'll talk to you guys soon again yes absolutely looking forward to it. There he is. Felipe Nova stopping by. A great story that will unfold May 16th in the Philippines. That card headline by Frankie Edgar versus Eriah Faber. And it takes place early in the morning here in the United States on Fox Sports 1. It's a solid card there. They're usually bringing out a good card for their debut in a certain market. And they've been

talking about the Philippines for quite some time. So that's going to be a lot of fun. And around a month's time from now, May 16th on Fox Sports 1. here in the United States. All right, let us move along. Last week, remember we had Forrest Griffin and Stefan Bonner on the show. They were reminiscing about the Ultimate Fighter season one finale, which took place April 9, 2005. So it was the 10-year anniversary, one of the big names that was victorious on that card.

Of course, longtime fan favorite. He retired from the UFC last year. The man joining us right now on the phone. Chris, the crippler Lieben. Chris, how are you? I'm doing well. Great to have you on the show, Chris. You're an MMA radio veteran now.

You have your own show, right? I do, yeah, yeah. UnfilteredMMA.com. And we're on ESPN radio here in San Diego, so not a bad deal. I appreciate you taking... I tell you, I don't mind doing your job, you know, it's a lot easier in getting punched the pace. That's funny.

I was just going to ask you, do you have more of an appreciation for the media? Are you surprised that you like it this much? I mean, what's it like? Sometimes when people cross over, they have different feelings, mixed emotions. You know, honestly, I always kind of jokingly told people only being faster in my hands, my mouth. So, you know, I really don't mind talking. And kind of the format for our show, it's not a... I don't think I'm quite as professional as you are, you know, covering as much stuff.

You know, I just bring some people on and we just kind of sit around and just talk story, you know. Talk story and hang out. and then man, an hour's gone, boom. Yeah. It goes by fast. I remember we last had you on the show, January of 2014. That's when you announced your retirement. What has life after MMA?

And I know you're still involved, you're still a coach. But from an active, you know, competitor's standpoint, what's life after? I mean, do you miss it? Are you content with where you're at? What's it like? Oh, you got to go right out here and go. Yeah, I love, you know what? I mean, I'm still in the sport.

As a matter of fact, I've got my team guys training right now. As soon as I started doing the interview, they start slacking, of course. So, you know, I've got that going. My book just went on pre-sale. That's been a ton of work, you know, this last year, you know, working with my writer Daniel Panicam to get that book done, and we're coming up on finishing it. So, you know, it's really, really exciting.

And then obviously, you know, I get to get the radio show. I think I'm like 29 and 3 as a coach so far, since I've retired. Wow. And that's counting U.S.C. and Bellator veterans. You know, I've got guys fighting in UFC, Belator, and every other show across the country right now. I've got a huge team, you know,

so I'm kind of living the dream. You know, a lot of fighters can't coach. A lot of coaches can't fight. I've always really, really, you know, enjoyed coaching or owning my own gym. I mean, I had only been a team quest for less than a year before I started coaching full time, you know, so it's always been, coaching's always been part of my life and, you know, my calling, you know.

And I kind of feel like, you know, one thing that maybe I did right that we kind of question a lot of these other fighters and you feel like, you know, are they really making the right decision? As I kind of knew, I kind of knew when, you know what, I had my run, you know, I had a little 10-year run, you know, it's good. It's time for me to step away and let the other kids take the line light. So I want to ask you about the book. That's one of the main reasons we had you on today. I know it just went on pre-sale. You can get it on Amazon.com. The name of the book is The Crippler, Cage Fighting, and My Life on the Edge.

Why did you decide to do this? Why write a book at this point in your life? You know, there's just so much there that people don't know. The story's, I mean, everybody's kind of got an idea. Everybody's heard a story here or there. But I really wanted to put something out so that the people would kind of see, you know, what, you know, what my life has been like and what, you know, what I've been through and on.

Ultimately, you know, it's not just a collection of, you know, drunken, you know, debauchery stories, you know, I hope that people can see that, you know, doesn't matter what hands you're dealt, you know, it's how you play your card, you know. And, you know, even though, yeah, I've had my ups and my downs and my struggles, but I always kind of, I always feel like, you can't quit kill me. I always somehow come back and make it back up, you know, and, you know, overcome a ton of adversity, you know, from, I mean, through the day I popped out of the womb, I was facing, you know, major life issues,

you know, and it's been that way my whole life. So, you know, hopefully, you know, if it motivates anybody or people read it and they go, man, well, you know, why, if this guy can get through this, you know, and, I mean, the stuff I got through, you know, I'm not going to say it easy, or I got through it perfectly, but, you know, ultimately, you know, I'm still here. You know, hopefully that'll motivate people or, you know, or at least I can show them what not to do. Was it hard to relive at all? Because I can imagine someone who's experienced as much as you, been through those ups and downs,

A, it's got to be hard to remember everything, but to put it all together, relive it, you know, have to put it on paper to share. What's I like? It's funny, you know, you're the first guy asking me that question, but it's so true. Um, uh, you know, I mean, there's, there's times when I was like, you know, I just don't want to do this. Yeah. You know, it's just, it's, uh, it's emotionally draining, you know, like a lot, a lot of that stuff, man, you know what I'm seeing? You know, kind of let sleeping dogs lie, you know, like, you know, bringing a lot, rehatching a lot of that stuff, you know, it was definitely, definitely hard for me, you know, to go over it, you know, and sometimes, you know, the writer would want to sit there for, for hour after hour working on this stuff, you know, and I'm like, man, I can do it. an hour. I need a break because this is, you know, this is intense. It's intense for me, you know,

because I'm already an emotional person, you know, very, you know, I realize that about myself. So, so we're living this stuff, you know, it's like I feel like I'm there again, you know, so, you know, it was a lot of work, but I think that, you know, a form of therapy as well. You know what I mean? Coming to terms and coming to grips with a lot of it. could you tell us what was maybe the toughest part to relive? You know, a lot of my childhood stuff, like I haven't even told my wife about. Wow. You know, a lot of that stuff, I just really, you know, the first 14 years of my life,

or 13 years of my life were just shitty, basically. You know, so going back there and, you know, reliving a lot of that was just very, difficult. But then at the same time, reflecting on some of the other things that I've done. You know, like I always look at myself as a good person, but then I look at some of these mistakes that I hear,

and I go, man, I'm at, can I cut some of your show? Go ahead. Go nuts. I'm a fucking asshole sometimes, you know, and I, you know, and I mean, that's hard, too, you know,

because you always want to paint this picture of yourself. You know, everybody wants to paint themselves being a great person, a hero, If anything goes wrong, they're always to pick them. You know, in my case, you know, looking back at a lot of this, I kind of, you know, definitely a reality check. Like, man, you're the one that messed up there, not the other guy, you know. Wow.

It takes a lot to come to that conclusion, especially at this day. I mean, you're not that old. You know, some people might realize it at 60, 70, 50, you know, you're a pretty young guy. So I think that's a big, that's a big kudos to you. Well, thanks, man. Yeah. You know, I'm still working every day. You know, it's funny in America, we assume you turn 18 years old and you're all growing up here and adult now.

Yeah, yeah, you know, that's just kind of the way as a society we look at it. But, you know, truthfully, I'm continuing to grow and evolve, and I think I always will be. I almost look at it just the same way I look at martial arts, you know. It's like if you're not growing, you're dying, you're either working to improve or you're, you know what I mean? Or you're dying. You're fading away, you know? So it's the same thing on the mat. I kind of take that same mentality I put towards training to life.

Okay. So more to that point, Chris. You still there? Yes, yes, yes, yes. More to that point. You came up, you were kind of a part of the news cycle recently when a colleague of mine, Chuck Mennonhall, wrote this amazing feature on Jason Thacker.

Did you happen to read it? I did I read it we talked about it a little bit on the show you know I'm not the best I'm not the best reader

so I scared it hit all the highlights you know and stuff talked about it for a while what an intense piece I mean cheese now what did it what did you think of that

I mean you're very much linked to the guy you were his only UFC fight how did that make you feel that stuff honestly like the one thing that thing that really touched me

is the fact that the guy doesn't hold any resentment he doesn't seem to have anything against me he's not mad at me you know and I know that in that case still yeah their perfect example I'm the guy that fucked up you know what I was the asshole

you know in that story you know and you know and he's you know a lot of people kind of want to feel sorry from the guy or whatever but you know I look at it and I go man the guy's handling make of stuff. He's standing up and being a man

and doing what he needs to do with living life. He's living life. He's taking care of his parents, you know. So, I mean, they did the go-fund-me thing, and I think they actually hit their goal for what he needed. So that's, you know, it's awesome. I'm glad that he was at least able to get that out of the piece.

Did you have any? Go ahead, sorry. What's up? Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. Go ahead. Okay, yeah. And, you know, so he seems to have, you know, dealt with all his stuff, you know, well, I would say. Did you have any idea what he had to go through to get to the fight, like that he had to spar Danea White and go through the sort of gauntlet of fighters?

Did you know that was going on? No, I didn't, no. Crazy. And I didn't know, you know, that he was getting beat up in bars afterward. Yeah. apparently he was you know they were so Canadians or so

that was the way he did on the show you know it's terrible thing yeah it is I mean if there's anything you you would say to the guy if you saw him in person what would you say

you know I'd say man young young and dumb you know yeah ultimately you know truthfully at that time in my life if you fell super out of anyone of my friends

you were gonna get you were gonna mess with like you know I didn't realize going on to the show that I had a lot of issues I didn't realize that the people didn't wake up and drink every day. I mean, I've been living in my own world, you know. My family lives in, you know, was in, you know, Telenie Flats in Southeast Portland. You know, I grew up in a more or less than a mess house, you know.

And so I didn't realize that, you know, I was so far, so much different than everybody else. So, you know, definitely, looking back, you know, it's eye opening. And I probably just want to let him know that, hey, man, you know, I've grown a lot. and send, you know, a lot of the stuff that happened on that show is what's made me who I am today. So I wouldn't take anything back. I wouldn't change anything because I truly believe everything happens for a reason, and I believe that for both of us, you know, there was a lot of learning and growth that came out of that first season of the ultimate fighter.

I know you had a little run in the, you know, an MMA party getting to the UFC and getting on the ultimate fighter. You were a very solid 10-1, but if, let's say you didn't get that call for season one, go ahead. Go ahead. I was going to say Taryn Wine, but the shirt-aw had seems you put a loss on my record that's just not true the other day. I can't believe it. I tried to email him. I don't know why. Ridiculous. I did this show

for Paul Herrera called Hitman. Okay. And this was before MMA was legal in California. So, Cail actually fought Babilu on it and stuff, and none of those guys have the fight on their record.

He didn't count it. But they suddenly put the fight on my record. I can't even remember the guy's name of a black belt jihitsu instructor from Tiki's gym. And somehow, you know, I beat him up the whole fight. The referee goes, don't worry, buddy, you won that fight. They can raise his hand because the winners are predetermined to the cops are right there. They can't come in. The cops are saying if you raise the wrong person's hand,

then it's an actual fight, and we're going to break the show up, right? So guys are getting knocked out, they're waking them up, and then raise their hand. And now Sherdog is going to put this loss in my record. Can you believe that? So I'm looking at your record right now. I just see one loss prior to going to the UFC. That was to Joe Dersen. I don't see any.

Maybe they took it off. No, they must have took it off then. How about that? It was on there. I emailed them. Great news. It all worked out. But I was just wondering, what would you think you would have done if you didn't get on the show,

and let's say Griffin Bonner doesn't happen, the UFC dissolves? I mean, what would, and you had a very long career? What would Chris Lieben have done in 2008, 2009, 2010? What do you think would have became of your life? Not a clue. Not a clue, man. I mean, if it wasn't for wrestling, I would have never got through high school. And if it wasn't for fighting, what I would have done,

I don't know. I mean, I put all my eggs in the one basket. You know, I never looked back. I never thought of doing anything else. You know, I remember I fought my first fight, you know, and I walked home. I told my girlfriend at the time, I said, you know, I'm going to quit going to college, da-da-da. And great, you can stay home. I said, no, I'm training every day.

So then I moved, you know, obviously that relationship didn't work out. You know, I moved into my best friend's mom's basement for $200 a month and just worked just enough to pay rent. and then trained, you know. So, I mean, I would have done something in the sport. I would have been a coach or, you know, you know, fight in any show that I could. Obviously, you know, the UFC blew up and everything kind of worked out in that way. So, you know, it's amazing how things work out in the end.

But all my chips were in one way or another. You know, MMA was what I was put here on this planet to do. And how's your life going now? I mean, are you clean, sober, do you feel healthy? How are things? Yes, I am. I'm good. I'm actually still regularly going to counseling and treatment.

I haven't took a pain through in about three and a half years now, you know? Great. You know, from that, I mean, I still have some of my social issues with emotion. You know, I have people say something. It hurts my feelings. I'll react. I have those issues still, you know. I'm working on them.

But ultimately, you know, I'm working on them. you know, I've been a wonderful marriage, and, you know, I have a great job. I got a lot of things going through me. Shit, man, I can't complain. Okay, last thing before I let you go, give us a name or two that you're really excited about. One of your students, you say that you're rolling right now as a coach, and that's great to hear. Who are we really excited about? Ian Butler, he's one of my guys.

Fights in Bellator. You know, they do a huge job for going. He actually grew up here homeless in San Diego, so he's got quite an amazing story himself. They're doing like the Belator pre-countdown thing for him next week's year, so I'm really focusing on him right now. Justin Jones, another one of my guys, just had a, just fought in the U.S. Unfortunately, he lost that decision. I don't know if I agree with it, but, you know, still it's a very, very talented fighter.

and then I got a couple other Belcher guys, and I got just a bunch of great amateur and lower-level pros. It's a really, really good team. You know, we're one big family. That's great. Great to hear. Again, the name of the book coming out is the Crippler, Cage Fighting and My Life on the Edge.

You can pre-order it right now. Just go to Amazon, type in Chris Lieben. It will come up, and it officially comes out January of 2016, but like I said, you can get it now. So do check that out. I will be checking it out. look forward to it very much. Chris, thank you so much for taking some time out of your day. Get back to the gym and your guys. I appreciate it very much, and I wish you all the best.

All right. Thanks, Carol. Watch you. There he is. The Crippler himself, Chris Lieben. Now an author. Check out the book, The Crippler, Cage Fighting in My Life on the Edge. Great stuff, some great characters to start the show, and let's keep that train rolling along. In a minute, we're going to be joined in studio by two of New York finest. The man who won Tough 19, Eddie Gordon. Remember him? Eddie Gordon, the truck. Great win in the finale of Tough 19

last July. That was a great weekend for Team Longocera. They had Chris Wyman defeating Leotamacita on Saturday night in Las Vegas and then the following night, Eddie Gordon won the ultimate fighter. Tremendous stuff. He'll be in studio. He's in action this week.

weekend in Newark, New Jersey against Chris Dempsey and also in studio, one of the rising stars in the UFC's bantamate division. Al Jermaine Sterling was a huge fight on Saturday also in Newark, New York, New Jersey, UFC on Fox 15 against the veteran, Kami Zugaki. What a big opportunity that is for Mr. Sterling. We're going to be joined in studio by both of those guys. In a matter of minutes, we just have to reconfigure some things here in the studio. You know the drill. So while we do that, check out the road to the octagon for UFC on Fox 15. Unfortunately, it's still included. It includes, Yo-Romero, I don't know if you'll even get to that, because we'll do this pretty quickly here. That's how late in the game they found out about his injury.

But these are always very well done, always gets you very excited for the card. And, of course, the main event is pretty spectacular stuff. Luke Rockhoe versus Leon Machita. So check that out, and then we'll be back in a minute right here on the MMA hour. You live once. And why not live to be great? Don't live to be good. But the objective

major is, is to think that one day I'm going to be champion now. I believe

I'm the best in the world and I'm just going to go out there and prove it. I'm better than this guy better than

anybody in 145. I'll fight anyone anywhere anytime. He wants to fight and that's what I'm going to do. I know I'm going to bring hell

with me. I'm going to keep going. I need that belt. I respect him. But when he come fight night, the respect

and disappear for 15 minutes. To do my better, it's when I do my better no fear. My focus is to

break the confidence of his man. I'm a guerrero of your man,

that I want to have to get a bit. Who pass there probably to fight

for another for the ring. I'm going to steal a show. I'm going to

take this from my own and I'm going to get my title shot. On the 28 of April And I just want to have been in my bass.

On April 18th, six of the UFC's most elite contenders will assemble as Newark, New Jersey, hosts one of the biggest UFC fight nights ever held live on Fox. In the thrilling main event, a potential shot at UFC middleweight gold will be on the line. As Lyoto Machita, the UFC's foremost karate master,

and one of the most innovative mixed martial artists of all time. Squares off against former Strike Force middleweight champion, Luke Rockhold. His extraordinary athleticism, both on his feet and on the ground, make him one of the most versatile and powerful contenders in any division. It's that! It's that! Luke Rockholm!

The night's stellar co-main event will feature two more top middleweight contenders looking to steal the show. In the menacing forms of Jacqueray Soza, Hailed by some as the greatest Jiu-Jitsu artist in M.MA history. A Cuban Olympic wrestling silver medalist Yuel Romero, whose recent flurry of dominant knockouts have given opponents nowhere to hide. And it's all over! In a third thrilling matchup, a pair of featherweights intent on further ascending the UFC's most stacked division will go to battle.

As Cubs Swanson, one of the UFC's most electrifying fighters, looks to wield his world-class boxing and extraordinary finishing instincts. And that's going to do it! Against fearless young gun Max Holloway, whose five consecutive wins have cemented his status as one of the division's brightest rising stars. For each contender, as they're ready to converge on New Jersey from around the globe, the stakes have never been higher, the pressure never more intense, and the importance. implications of victory never greater. Unbelievable! As their road to UFC fight nights begins.

Born and raised in a California city famous for its waves, Luke Rockhold begins his day with a familiar routine. Growing up, Santa Cruz, California, it's a beautiful place. In the off season, when I wasn't wrestling, I was surfing and skateboarding. Surfing was huge for me. Luke Rockhold's caliber of surfing was strong enough that he considered going pro like his older brother Matt. Last time we surfed, I got staples in my head.

Got a nice gash. What, five staples? Oh, what? What? And on this day, the tour joined by longtime friend Nat Young, Pro Surfing's 2013 rookie of the year. I think surfing, that's a credit with a lot. It was a big part of my life.

That's why I really learned how to take pain and punishment and get back up and go for it again. Today to get waves like that with nobody else around except for your good friends and your brother, it's pretty special. It's pretty darn good. He got better old today and that's not something that anyone can do. It was always a far-out dream to be a professional surfer. I got pretty good and I liked it, but I love fighting. There's just something about it. Six-foot-3 Luke Rockbold has an extraordinary knack for ending fights, including stoppages of his last three opponents in a mere ten and a half total minutes.

Finishes where he displayed both his world-class submission technique and high-caliver striping. Oh, a headkick, fish be able to move within range of a UFC title shot. For Rockold, a return to the gym means training with two of the UFC's very best. Heavyweight champion Kane Velazquez and former U.S. Olympic wrestler, as well as current top light heavyweight contender, Daniel Kornier. I think we have the best team in the world. We have Kane Velasquez the baddest man on the planet, heavyweight champ of the world.

Been kicking my ass for the last eight years. He's the hardest guy to hit in the gym. He's so fast, and he hits hard. And then bringing on D.C. when he first came in the gym, we had a pretty rough sparring match, and we just sat in the corner and just chin up, hands down, and just started winging them at each other. That was a sign of a little bond, right, that little friendship.

That guy is gifted with everything. You know, he can fight. He's got good looks. He's got a smart mouth, too, you know, so I love any chance I get to punch him. 350 miles to the south, Rockhold's legendary Brazilian opponent can be found enjoying the Southern California lifestyle and looking right at home in the city that he adopted three years ago. The Oto Machita debuted in the UFC in 2007 and became a sensation. We're trying to get the knee.

Got one, got two, six, for a left. Nice! Nice! ...in seven straight en route to the light, heavyweight time. He's down! He's down! And it's all over! In October 2013, the lean 6'1 Brazilian dropped to middleweight

and immediately secured two impressive victories. And subsequently succeeded in giving the divisions champion Chris Wyatman the toughest fight of his career. But Cheetah again, including a brilliant fourth round, round in a closely fought contest. Machita's quest for a rematch resumed five months later, when he returned to the Octagon with a 62-second dominant performance against C.B. Dalloway. A win that has the immensely talented Brazilian once again focusing his mind and body

on becoming only the third UFC fighter to hoist gold in multiple divisions. To me, to work, this, fortaleces my spirit, fortaleces my body. At a few I go go to in the prairie, justin' just to just to I'm going to be what I'm going to

focus on what I want. But the objective is is, thinking that one day I will be champion, I don't want to think much there in front

look to look so, so look for me is a moment important. I'm a guy that I train every day, independent, since when I was

So this makes prepared to fight with anyone in any moment. While his opponent trains with heavyweight champion Kane Velazquez, Machida trains with a man who staked his own claim to the title of Baddest Man on the Planet. When Velazquez was sidelined last year due to injury, interim champion Fabricio Verduen. I know Lyoto, I've got a long time, is my good friend. I trained in him a long time. Now I train here in OFC Geno with him.

We do a preparation physical, many times, together. Verdu is a guy that is super-alegre, super-engracred. He's a guy that's a very that favors a lot of the rendiment. He's a very discipline. Maybe just one or two more fights. He has got the belt for sure again.

It's a moment, now that it's a look, but, with, in the same in the same I want a chance for the Cinturon. Since moving to the United States in 2012, Liotto the Dragon, Machita has conquered many obstacles. But one thing that can still vex the karate master is the notorious challenge of perfecting a second language.

Well equipped today, as you can tell. Yeah, you are. We are here in America, and we want to fit in in America culture. We have English class twice a week. It's hard because we are old. We move it to the United States. But I think we are getting there.

But I think we are getting. getting better. Yes, S. Makes sense. To be persistent. To be persistent. To not give up. You know, even if someone says no, you keep going.

They say no again, you keep going. You can use that in many different situations in life. Fabula was very persistent girlfriend. Yeah, that's a really good example. That's why we are together. She insists a lot. To learn something new outside the octagon, it's very important to make me a better fighter. I like to push myself.

I like to challenge myself. I think it's important to challenge my brain, to learn something new. Matita's thirst for knowledge continues inside the gym as he summons a renowned jiu-jitsu master Hennar Gracie to help Fort Rockhold's vaunted ground game. Luke is an amazing athlete and incredible grappler. So he brings a lot of jiu-tuts, a lot of submission skills. So it's going to be tough, you know, but we're teaching Liotto somewhat of an anti-jiu-jitsu, how to basically be good enough at Jiu-Jitsu to not let Jiu-Jitsu work against him. Now, open a caldial a little,

get, right. Oh! Yes! I think this is going to be one fight where we're really going to see Lioto's ground game and the evolution of his jiu-jitsu in the Octagon. Good, good, go. Goa, go. We'll pass a pen and we'll pass up to serve the braces.

This is a lot that everyone has to see because it's a lot of two lenders topes, really, that were champions of... I know that he's a loter, a guy more a guy who has a great one more, but, like, these are things that I try not to be very much. With this my opponent, I have more experience and I have much a want to be to become the champion. I'm very calm, I'm very well prepared,

This victory is my. No, it's a victory will be my. But Chita and Rockholds share much in common, including confidence and close-knit families. I grew up in a big family. We're all pretty close. Try to involve them and be around them as much as possible. I've never seen your dance.

Yeah, you either shadow box or you dance. My little sister, Lee, she's about five years younger. I mean, she just had a newborn, so I got a new baby niece, Delilah. That's definitely brought. brought us all a little closer. Family can always keep you grounded. You know, people will jump on your bandwagon,

but you know, that's what family's for. You can't always get away with everything. How'd boy, all the way through. All the way through, keep going. Turn around. I don't think anybody in the sport works hard with me and smarter than me. When it's focus time, there's no one

that dedicates more of their time and energy in the right direction than I do. You got it, now that's perfect. I think 85 is like the perfect division. Anyone could beat anyone on any given day. That's what pushes me and inspires me to better myself every day. I don't want to be in a weak division. Good, Luke.

Outta boy. Slow down. Time and attention. Once I have an opponent across from me, trying to take what I've worked for my whole life and all my dreams away from me, it just motivates me. There you go, lock it in right there. That's perfect. Try to take your hips to the ceiling. My fight with Liotto, Liotto is a legend.

He's one of the best of all time. He's right there in his prime. I love it. I can't wait to get in there with him and show them what I got and show the world what I got. You see me in there, I've kind of been a different guy the last few fights. I found the mindset to relax and it's not to be too aggressive. Just let things come and see things.

Once you start calming yourself, you can reach those next levels. There's a recipe to beat everybody. I have the recipe to beat Leoto. I have a lot of weapons that he's never faced. I believe myself, I'm going to go out there. I'm going to put a statement on him. I'm going to finish Leotamachita. For half a decade, one of mixed martial arts most remarkable fighters

has made a home for himself in one of the world. All right, back on the mixed martial arts hour. That was the Road to the Octagon, courtesy of our good friends at Zufa LLC. UFC on Fox 15. It is this Saturday, Newark, New Jersey, Prudential Center, the Rock, across the river here in New York. We can't have MMA, at least for now. Hopefully that will change. I know these two guys would love to be on the first ever card in New York City.

I'm talking about our guests in studio right now. We got Eddie Truck Gordon, who won the 19th season of the Ultimate Fighter, and Al Jermaine Sterling, one of the very best bantam weights in the UFC right now. How about this? Two members of Longosera in studio. Huge. Welcome, guys. We're happy to be here, man. You seem happy. You seem very excited. Even making weight, we're happy. Yeah. Is this a pain? Was it annoying to come out here? No, never annoyed to come out, come see you, but water loading is annoying. What do you mean by water loading when you say water loading? Drinking lots of water. If I can drink 80 pounds of water in the next week. And you have to do that? It makes the cut a lot easier. Keep the body hydrated.

So this way you're not sucked out for the fighting bit or put on a heck of a performance at the rock. Do you do the same, Algeman? No. I actually find that a lot harder on the body for me. I don't know. I'm a little bit, well, a lot smaller than truck. So for me to do the water load, I can't drink two gallons, three gallons of water. And one day, it's just impossible. Are you guys friends? Unfortunately, not. It's my neighbor, man. Oh, really? He's a town away from him. My kids actually play for his town, so I get a lot of flack from the Freeport guys.

My kid's playing for you to know, but it's like home now, right? Yeah, pretty much. You said I ask you this because I've seen you guys with each other a lot lately. I saw that you were at a Nick game, right? You were sitting courtside. My man, New York Rick said he sat right next to you guys at a judo tournament here in New York. You guys were like BFF traveling the country, or at least the city. That's it, man.

We got to keep our small Knick communities together, man. And, dude, this guy's a stud, man. I've been talking about Aljo for a while now, and I'm happy that he's going to get the recognition he deserves because there's no doubt in my mind. He's, you know, right there at the pecking order for the next belt. What was it like being at the Knit game? Front Row, you were hanging out with Roy Hibbert, right?

Yeah, that was actually pretty cool. I think the whole thing with that was it actually really felt like, you know, we were, you know, celebrities. Like, I was like, yeah, finally getting recognition like we actually deserve, I think, You know, doing the kind of sport that we do. We have Roy Hibbert coming over to us telling us that he looks up to us. He knew who you guys were. We're looking up to him.

Like, you look up to us? Really? It was cool. Definitely, definitely cool, man. Like going, you know, being able to travel and go to Ireland, when you go to another country and you see the response and the way that the fans treat you and take care of you, he's like, we need this to be legal in New York because, like, we deserve this in our whole state. It's like the recognition is second to none.

Okay, let's talk about you here for a saying is the last time I think a lot of people saw you was UFC 181. Not a memorable night for you. That was pretty hard to watch. I mean, it was a brutal knockout. How are you feeling now? I'm sure you're good, but I mean, just mentally, you know, when you come back from a fight like that, there's a lot, I'm assuming, on your mind.

You need to exercise those demons, right? Do you still think about it? You know what, man? I'm very competitive, man. That bothered me for a while. I think I just got over it probably five minutes ago, getting over the train. But realistically, you know, Matt, I'm fortunate enough to have the best people around me. Like, Matt went over.

He talked to me about things. Ray spoke to me, and I can't even, you know, talk about how much it helped have an ally Quinta on my team being able to talk me through that in that whole situation because you get down on yourself, you're pissed off, you're mad, but you always got to look at the losses of learning experience. Like I feel like I learned a lot from that. Matt said it best. He's like, if I was getting my butt kicked the whole entire fight, we got to start from ground

zero and kind of fix everything. But that's why M.A. is so exciting at any given moment, you know, the fate can change. You just saw what? Merka, Crow Cop. Sure. Gazzag, again, dominated two rounds and then finishes the guy. So it's all taught me a lot. My aggression and my best attribute hurt me that fight, and now I'm ready to change it,

and I'm not going to be gun-shy. I'm pumped. I'm excited to rewrite history come Saturday. Hard to watch? I watch it a few times. It's hard to watch, but you know what? I'm over here, man. I'm a competitor.

I've been competing my whole life. And to me, it's the ultimate truest sport because there's no excuses. I can't say, well, my teammate missed a block. This guy missed a shot. You know, it was on me. I made a mistake. You know, credit to Josh Salmon, he capitalized on it. And he was a better man for 10 seconds.

And that's out of the cookie crumble. But I'm ready to come back and make a statement this fight. Were you watching that live? What's it like to see your friend, you know, on the receiving end of something like that? I mean, it was tough. Like, how do you react? Put us in your shoes. Because us as fans, journalists.

I mean, it's like, oh, and then you kind of move on to the next one. That's the way he goes. but this is personal for you, right? Yeah, you know, we had the whole, pretty much the whole bargain, you know, riled up and going crazy. We had them pretty much put every single channel on the show, on the fight, and, you know, shit happens, man. Yeah. And that's pretty much, you know, just kind of went quiet, and, I mean, what can you expect? You know, that's pretty much how it was.

It's not really much. Did you take time off afterwards? Yeah, well, you know, let me tell you something. Like, after it happened, I was literally fine. I was back in the arena by the finale. Wow. And I feel like the commission protects us for myself because athletes ask them competitions.

Like I want to go back in the gym that same week and just start working. And they gave you the medical suspension. So I took some significant time off and then spar for what? I think like 60, 90 days, something like that. Okay. And that actually helped me. Like, you know, talking to Chris, he said, you know what, sparring? Don't worry about it.

Work on those little intricate details that you kind of overlook when you're training for a fight. When you're doing this, you're so focused on, you know, making adjustments. is this and that. He's like, go back to the basics, do things that you often don't do footwork, this, that. And I feel like it helped me a lot. Like, I've seen the difference just sparring this camp versus, you know, two, three, four months

ago. Because you had that time to work on those little things. That time to work on, you know, the boring stuff, you know, like the footwork. Nobody wants to do footwork. Nobody wants to do regular combos. I was a wrestler, man. Like, nobody wants to go back and wrestle. You want to kind of do the new, the new fresh thing. But I went back

to my roots, went to the basics, and I'm fortunate that I have the best coaches I feel in the game with the most experience. And that's the fight game. And I'm just ready. I can't wait to erase that because Dana White says it best, man. You're as good as your last fight. Right. So with one fight, I could change all of that.

And for you, Al Jermaine, I mean, the last time we saw you was July. It's been quite some time since we saw you in action. Yeah, I was kind of upset about that because you actually went all the way to Dublin instead of coming over to cover one fight. I know. Well, it's funny you say that. Right. Because it was the same week, right? Yeah, I heard you on the show.

He was like, yeah, you know, I got to pick and choose, and I'm going to go to Dublin and see Connor. I was like, freaking Connor. It was a big deal, man. You were there, right? I was sorry. Dude, let me tell you. That arena, I became Irish that weekend.

This man, how many fans and people were buying you drinks? They were treating you like a king over there. You just won the show, right? This guy was, you and your buddy, who had never flown before in his life, he was scared shitless going on that plane. Yeah, I was his first flight. John, John flew. Oh, yeah?

Oh, my gosh. Let me tell you something. That arena was insane. Yeah. That's how it's going to be, but triple full once we get to MSG. Could you imagine, like, several longer guys, Chris, me, Al, Al, Joe. Dude, there's a ton of guys, man, that place will be electric. But you fought on that car on that Wednesday.

I remember it was a great performance, but you kind of feel like now people have forgotten a little bit. Like, you have to remind them because it's been a while. Yeah, of course. And I say this thing, about this sport, you've got to kind of stay active. If you're not active, you're easily forgotten. It's like out of sight, out of mind. And that's kind of how I felt. You know, I was getting ready to keep the momentum going with the gang young fight.

Then I got hurt with that. I kind of jumped the gun a little bit too fast, trying to get back into training. And I started hitting two days too soon, and my hand wasn't ready for it. And that set me back. And then I got ready for November. Then I get off the plane and they're like, yeah, about that contract with that guy. Yeah. They took the contract back from him.

And I was kind of just hanging out there. And I was like, you know what? I was in Australia, and I was like, dude, how often do we get to go to some place like this, you know? I'm like, I'm in the land down under right now, you know? So with that experience, just being a seat, I just said to myself, you know, it's kind of frustrating, but you tell yourself, you know, you keep working, stay motivated, and this is going to be the reward. You know, you get to see places you never been, travel the world, and all based on your hard work and your labor. That was such a weird thing, because I remember it was actually happening during our show. You're tweeting out like, oh, I'm about to go on the plane, and we're getting news that the fight might not happen, and then you land and you find out that you have no fight? Yeah. And that's like a 20-hour trip.

Yeah, 22. What was your reaction? The joke was I slept just about the entire trip there. Alan Bowman, that was the running joke. I slept the entire plane ride. But yeah, I mean, when I got off the plane, I was like, dude. But then Shelby said he's got something worse. He's going to try to get me something as soon as he can.

And hopefully, I thought they were going to get me a local, but you can't just throw any local guy in there, obviously. But whatever, you know. That fight didn't happen. Now we got this one, a bigger name, a bigger stage, platform got Fox. God didn't get it done. Yeah, and also you were supposed to fight Manny Gamburion on this card, right?

Yeah. And you got to Kemi Zugaki. I think maybe a bigger name more highly regarded right now, I mean, he just came off that loss, but were you happy about the switch? For me, what I really wanted to do, my ideal game plan in a perfect world was for me to kind of build my name up, build the hype around the fights,

these kind of fights, you know, the high profile fights where people actually want to see there's more anticipation for that fight. You know, I think just coming for two fights and then two fights fall in through and then people not see me it's kind of like well you know Mizugaki's ranked six and whatever but this kid is kind of like you know no one really knows who I am yet I mean the skill set is there for sure I think with any of those guys in the top ten but like I said I think the hype being built around the fight would have been a lot greater and there would been more excitement behind this fight I think but I'm happy either way

I think after this I show what I can do and move from there how old are you right now 25 years young 25. I don't know. I can't keep track, man. You just say I'm never going to 29, but I'm 31 now. 31, father of two. Father of two, yeah.

Father of two. I want to get your take on this. I want to play you a quick clip of Mr. Sterling here. Oh, a funk master. And I want to know what a 31-year-old father of two thinks of this clip.

Can we put it up here? This is Al Jermaine, courtesy of... We have it, right? Is this a tweeter? Four weeks out, and I'm shredded already, baby. I'm out to show you that a little son.

Look at this guy. This is on your Instagram. What is going on? Look at this guy. And then just going, what is going on? Is that just a typical night for you? Yeah, I felt good, man. I was home.

I took my shirt out. I was cleaning my room. And I was like, dude, I looked at the mirror. I was like, I'm freaking shredding right now. I only got cut. I think it was three more weeks before the fight. I was like, yeah. I don't know.

I just felt good. And you just put on that music. The music was already going. It was just going. You know what? I got to record this. This is epic cleaner. That reminds me of my kids, but, you know.

Yeah. One thing that Aljo and my kids got in common, they both got shredded bodies. I tell Aljo all the time. If I look like that, I'll never wear clothes. I'm like, listen, forget about it. I'll be walking around half-needed. You have to work for 185, right? Oh, my gosh.

Let me tell you. I have abs for like maybe an hour and a half. I'm like, I got to keep that. That's my goal, though. I'm done getting big. I'm a big boy, man. I get pretty wide. How big do you get?

Like when you're right before starting to get into a camp, so now you've indulged and all that stuff, how big do you get? I get as big as 2.34. Wow. Yeah, I get it up there. I like pasta, man. Yeah. It's a gift of the curse.

It runs into the team. That's true. Exactly. Oh, yeah, right? How much is he weighing these days? I saw him. I actually said not to talk about this. Otherwise, he's not to pay you a visit.

I saw him on that inside the funk video that you had. Holy moly. Super heavy weight? No, not that. What's going on there? I still got him out weighed. Really? He's a stud.

man, I tell you what, there doesn't matter how big he is. When that guy gets on top of you when you're rolling, it's a rock, though. Oh, it's unbelievable. He's, dude, it's, it's, it's, the things he does, I just look at him like, dude, how are you doing it? He just moves and it's unreal. The guy does, what he does? He walks on his hands, he'll go back and forth to the whole entire gym. I'm like, I'm not even trying that.

What's the mood at the gym these days? Because, of course, you have Chris fighting next week. Al is on a role, you know, Ray is doing great things. It just seems like every week another guy is coming out from the team. And for a while, it was just kind of the Matt Serenian. and Ray Longo show, and now we're seeing youngsters come through. What's the mood these days? I mean, do you guys feel like you're unbeatable at this point?

It's a great vibe, man. I can't talk for Aljo, but just to see the things that Al's doing, you know, Chris, obviously, it's just we have a really, really tight knit over there. Like, it's not, you hear it all the time, the cliche, it's not business and his family. We truly say that, and we really mean it. Like, we literally want to see everybody do well. Like, I tell these guys, when I watch them fight, I'm more nervous than when I go into the cage.

My hands are sweating, my feet sweating. I'm like a nervous wreck. I stop going out for fights because when they fight, I can't do it. I can't be around civilians. It's just like, it's just weird. But we truly want to see everybody succeed. You're just riding the wave and the momentum. Whenever a Serolongo guy fight, you don't have to worry about it being a boring fight.

You don't have to worry about the guy not going out there giving it as all. That's just the, the, in our blueprint. It's just the way we train, the way we fight, and it shows up in Octagon. And we truly do care about each other. What did you think of Al's post-fight interview? review a couple weeks ago. I thought it was awesome. I love every second of it.

Is that the real ally, Quinta? Yeah, that's Al. I mean, it's Al in terms of, you know, getting emotionally riled up, but he was, I thought he was 100% right, man. It was like, yeah, man, why the hell are you guys booing him? You know, it makes no sense. It's great fight.

You guys got two warriors who went out there and not lay on each other, not sit on the cage in the entire fight and go for it. Like, seriously, you guys are booing this? I don't know. And it's emotional, man. When you just finished fighting with you, lose draw

you know can you imagine you know you see somebody sticking a little finger at you it's like where is the motion

on the sleeve that's why you know what you see is what you get but what I think people don't realize is that

Al's usually a very mild tempered guy quiet it's like but when that adrenaline going

imagine somebody have a bad in the office and their boss yells at them because they don't fax something or they send

it to the wrong client and something like that and then you have a camera in your face in front of millions of people how you're going to

act and somebody's giving you the finger behind the coffee Yeah. It should have walked over there and told the guy to come out from the crowd. That's what he should have done.

Did you see last week on the show, we had them on. They called up. How about that? We had the two guys who flipped them off calling to the show and apologize. That was cool. That's awesome of them. Actually, I saw that on Al's page. That shows that when the emotions settle down, anybody asks cool heads.

You look at NFL, Richard Sherman. He got popular off of that rant after the San Francisco game. And this guy is a 4.0, what, Stanford grad. It's just, it's emotional. It's sports. It's like when you're putting your heart into something and you give it your all, nobody wants to be booed. Nobody wants to be cursed at it or whatever.

Those two guys, you have to give them a ton of respect for even going into the octagon and performing. Anybody that gets into their, knowing they got a planned fight, at a planned time. It's like, if you think about when you're a kid growing up, if you got a bully picking on you or you, you know, you got to fight after school, you're nervous. Can you imagine two months, three months waiting for that to happen? It's definitely emotional. Al Jemaine, you have an interesting backstory. You went to college with John Jones, right?

Yeah. Same wrestling team? For one year, he transferred over from Iowa, and then he kind of had his, I guess, his, I don't know, fell out, his girlfriend got pregnant. Story thing. Right. Then we kind of, it was weird.

We kind of just, it just randomly happened, kind of just reconnected again in Cortland when I went to school, and it was right down the road. It was kind of just started training together down there. Were you friends? when you were on the team, the rest of the team. Yeah, he actually recorded one of my first college matches. It's actually on YouTube, so I'm pretty funny.

So it's like, I see that, and then now, like, where we both are, and it's like, yeah, it's crazy. Did you think that he would turn in? I mean, probably at the time, you didn't know that you would be a UFC fighter, right? But did he have greatness in him? Was he that kind of guy? No, he was a really slick wrestler. I thought when he first came out, I didn't even know he was, and I came from New York.

I didn't even, I started wrestling in 10th grade, so I didn't really know much, many people that was like considered like oh you should know him you should know him so for me when i transferred over and he transferred over i didn't know who he was and he was just killing guys in the room was like dude like who is this guy this guy's a freaking freak athlete but uh yeah i mean he saw some pitches of him training and i was we we kind of like he kind of showed me some things and i kind of felt like we had similar built like the similar bill i was just like a smaller version it's like weird i hate saying that because people always compares i'm like i try to kind of get away from that comparison sure completely different fighters it's not a bad comparison yeah

Yeah, but that's kind of how it was. Like, he was showing me stuff, and I was able to kind of do the same kind of things. And I saw him doing that. I was like, I always had an interest in it from Forrest Griffin and Stefan Bonner won on the show. And I was like, man, maybe I could probably do something with the sport. I mean, I'm very competitive and I don't mind fighting. So that's the fight that got you into it? The fight that got me.

I mean, I saw, I saw, like, a bunch of the other fights. But that was like the first time I saw it, like, really televised in the whole show. And that's when I kind of realized, like, hey, this is a problem. pretty cool. I just never knew what time it came on and things like that. I was like a little weird kid kind of just all over the place with all kinds of different sports. But then like I said, once I saw him doing it, I asked him how can I get into it and kind of just ship's sail from there. Kind of funny. That was exactly 10 years ago this past Thursday. Did you know that? The 10 year anniversary. And now here you are on the MMA hour. Wow. Look at you big time.

Actually, I had something I had to ask you. Sure, go ahead. Before we can continue this interview, I have to know, are you ready to battle? Am I ready to battle? Are you ready to battle? Is this something pertaining to that dance you were doing earlier? Oh, you saw it. No, no, I'm guessing, actually.

Yeah, that was it. You got it. He got it. This dude is funky. I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't know what. That's why they call you funkmaster.

Not really, actually. It's more because of your wrestling, right? Yeah, my wrestling style, yeah. So what? You do dance battles? I was going to battle you. I went to battle Eric. He didn't want none of this.

Wow. This guy is just, he's a freak. Jack of all trades. That's it. You actually go to clubs and battle people? No, no, no, I'm just joking. I'm just joking. He auditioned for Magic Mike, too, I think. Hey, you got the body.

I mean, I can say that. You show it off very well, right? Yeah, my girlfriend doesn't like that. She doesn't approve. Okay. Well, she should be going to the fight? Yeah, she's going to be there. Yeah, that's pretty cool.

This time, I mean, when you were going to Australia, you probably couldn't have a lot of fans and family and all that. Now you get probably a whole crew from Longassara. The place is going to be nuts. It's going to be electric. It's almost like a homecoming, man. I feel like I started my career in New Jersey, and now I'm coming back. Like, it's cool to fight in Vegas.

It's awesome. But you don't get all your friends and family that can fly out there. You know, money doesn't grow on trees. Sure. So to get a hotel, a ticket, this, that. The only downfall is everybody expects a ticket. Well, I was just going to ask you. Is it a double-edged sword?

Is it a bit annoying in that sense? Yeah. I don't want to say annoying because, like, the fact that, you know, you get a tons of people of supporting you is it's great, but anybody thinks that, you know, your ticket master, you got extra tickets laying around. So it's tough, man. but just kind of kind of navigate those people to the right places to get it. And the feedback, and it's just been awesome.

Like, it's going to be, I think it's going to be, I'm obviously biased, but I feel like this is probably one of the best cards for free in a long, long time. Like, I see like this, this card could have easily been a pay-per-view. So this is going to be the winner of all these fights are going to be the fans. Well, it's actually funny because the next week is a pay-per-view, and this card is way better than it. The UFC 186, no disrespect. That's my hometown, Montreal.

But I got to be honest, this card is better. It's the same. Literally, I feel like there's probably three or four fights that could be on the main event that I would buy and pay for it. Like, I watch almost every single UFC event possible. And there's three or four fights that even being on the card, I'm really, really intrigued to see how it's going to go. What's the deal with John Volante and you guys? I mean, is he a part of the team or is he not part of the team? I don't understand.

I bust his balls about that all the top. Yeah, what's going on? He loves a double dipping or what? I don't understand. He's like the other. He's a double dipper. Step brothers? He's like the stepbrother, Serralongo.

I don't know. But they don't corner him. Serenongo don't corner him, right? But he's still trained. I see pictures of you guys training together all the time. So what's going on? We literally train every single day together. Yeah.

But, you know, I feel like if I was him, it's a win-win for him. He gets great trainers over at Belmore. Keith is awesome. The guys he gets to train with him, Ray and Matt, it's a great deal. It's priceless. So for those that don't know, why do they call you Funkmaster? All right. Real quick.

Yeah. Back in high school, my sprawling sucked when I was wrestling on a mat. I didn't really understand the concept of sprawling. And I just did a lot of weird things. So anytime someone would attack my legs, I kind of get into these weird scramble positions. And most of the time I end up on top. Or if someone gets into a deep shot, I always end up managing to stop him or get behind him, get my two points and score.

And it's kind of been like that. And in college, I mimic a lot of my style of with Ben Ashkin. A lot of his tapes, a lot of his matches online, flow wrestling. I used to go on that. Watch his stuff. study it, write it down, write down what's he doing, what limits he's holding, trying to see what he's doing, and then I go to the

gym and I go practice it, and now you had the birth of the phone master. I couldn't take his name. Of course, yeah, that would be weird. Or maybe homage, as they say. And you were originally with Team Bomb Squad, right? Yeah. And then why did you leave? It was just easier to go back home

financially, not having to pay for all the things I had to pay for up there. And it just made sense, being closer to home, my family, and everything, my girlfriend. And it was actually fun. So was the girlfriend. Yeah.

It was funny because I had it looking for, looking for, we were just talking about this. I had her looking for schools in Cali or Florida or even Georgia. I was like, you know, if things don't work out back home in Long Island, I can't find a place to go to train that. You know, this is why I want to do. You're going to have to go find another school to go to because you're going to go where I'm going or something's going to have to give. Wow.

Damn like that. I mean, the roles have switched. Don't let Aljo fool you. Rebecca's a tough cookie. Wow. She's tough, man. Back then it was like four years ago. I had to really pick what I wanted to do to decide my fate,

where I was going to go and really try to steer my career in the right way. And good thing I had the offer from Chris to come down, and I loved it. So Wyman was one who brought you down? Yeah, he gave me the invite from my third pro-fighter of ring of combat. But I was still up there, still finishing up school. And it would have been tough to do that. So I hit him back up on Facebook, and he told me I could still come down and I came down.

So you didn't know him prior? No, not really. I just knew he was a wrestler. I knew he was. He was cool. And if I saw him, I'd be like, hey, what's up, man? He was just getting into UFC. This was like before he was champ.

So it was pretty cool. And he said, I like your style. You have an open invitation. He's like, no, he actually was like, dude, aren't you from Long Island? I was like, yeah, I'm from Unidale. He's like, what the heck are you doing all the way upstairs? I was like, bro, I'm going to school, man. I wish I could be back home in Long Island.

It's so much easier. but, you know, whatever, I got my degree, so it's amazing, because he recruited you as well. Yeah, pretty much, man. Like, you know, Chris is doing a good job. Yeah, it's a good question. It's literally, you know, I didn't really follow the sport like I do now, obviously, but we ran to each other in the gym. We wrestled together in high school.

That's like wrestling is the link between us. And, you know, he was like my rival in high school. Like, literally, my town is Freeport. He's Bowling. Literally, our high school is in Bowling. His high school is in Freeport. Oh, wow. It's weird.

We know each other's like forever. Like literally his dad used to take this upstate to wrestle in the States. And he's like, what are you doing? Why don't you give this thing a shot? You knew nothing about MMA, right? Nothing. I never. He had to actually explain it to you, correct? Yeah, pretty much.

So it was like, it was weird. I was like, what do you mean? What is this jujitsu thing? He's like, no, but it's good for wrestlers. I was like, that's all I know is wrestling. And then, you know, if you want to learn striking, Gray Longo, if you want to learn judicsu, Matt Seris. So it was like a gift.

It was literally everything worked out perfectly. Most guys, unfortunately, like Al Jiu Langell. have to do trial and error. You know, you hear all these stories. You guys go to one gym, that gym, until you find somewhere that's home. I was lucky that the first gym I ever walked into was home. And I feel like that's huge.

Like, I feel like I have so much to learn as a fighter because I haven't only been fighting in, what, three, four years? Yeah. So, like, the sky's the limit, and I'm in the right place to learn from the best guys of the world. I saw a clip of Longgo on Newsday.com, and he was talking about you, and he was saying that of all the guys who are pros now,

You were actually the slowest learner of the bunch. Is that accurate? Without a doubt. How bad were you? Horrible. I literally, I came into the gym. Were you there during this time or you came after? Nah, this is after.

Okay. I literally came into the gym probably 290 pounds. I was a football. I was a full player. All I did was no football. Went to college, played at Ford University. And literally, I'm like, seeing these guys kick and all this stuff. I'm like, this is weird.

Like, you know, like, who does that? Like, you see a street fight. Nobody's kicking in a street fight. And literally, you know, I started out taking the beginner classes, just with the regular civilians. And I think Valante was fighting at Ring of Combat for the belt. And he was like, I need a wrestling partner. And I was like doing that.

Then I was like, you know what? You're a big body. Just spar. So I was sparring with Chris, Valante, Costa Flupu. So it was like I was getting, you know, I was getting my ass handed to me at first. But I was like, I like this. Like it was weird. Like I think Ray and Eric thought I probably was never going to come back to the gym.

but I truly said I love to compete. I'm getting the best guys in the world, and it's fun. And the rest is history, man. I feel like I came a long way, and I got so much to grow. Like, anybody's going to fight me, they better fight me soon because I feel like in the next two or three years is when I'm going to get close to my ceiling. So I'm just excited.

When did you start to feel like you were in a groove? Like, okay, I'm starting to figure this out. I have confidence. I can hang with these guys. Honestly, I feel like probably after the show, you know, because... Really? That late. Yeah, because I didn't have that many amateur. fights.

Yeah, yeah. So I feel like that's the one thing I do regret not having more amateur fights where it doesn't matter. I just do boxing, kickboxing, whatever, because I just went right to mixed martial arts. Because when you're in a mixed martial arts, if you're comfortable on the ground, you can just make it a wrestling match. Right. Whereas if you're in boxing or kickboxing, you've got to go out of your comfort zone and you're

forced to stand up. I feel like that would have helped in my development a lot more, but being able to, you know, train with Chris every day, I'm getting the best guy in the world. So there's no if and the butts about it. And if anybody knows Chris, he doesn't take an easy on anybody. Like, when you're in the cage with him, you know you're getting, you know you're getting his best. Although you don't have to spar, right?

There's no, Chris knows 110%. Like, that's what he knows. And learning from that, like, that's half the battle, man, is going out there and giving it you all, not even caring about result, just going out there trying to exhaust yourself, give your best effort every single time. And I feel like now I'm just like so much more comfortable.

And that's why I'm just so excited, Because half the fights that anybody's sitting me, like that's not even going to showcase the half of my own skills. So I'm pumped. You struck me as the kind of guy who's not very short on confidence. Like I feel like right away, you were, showed my Connor McGregor. Second time you brought him up, is he on your mind?

I know it's not the same way class. Yeah, you got the posture. Are you cool with that, the Connor stuff? Yeah, Conn's cool. I love it. I like him. You're okay with a guy who promotes himself, show him and all that. You know, there are some people who hate him, right?

That he gets all this attention. Yeah, I can see why, but at the end of the day, you only end the sport for, you know, God knows how long as anything happens to you, you know. I'm not, yeah, I'm going to see. What are you going to say? What are you going to say? Come on, man, what's going on? No, I just reflecting on just thinking about injuries I've had and I'm just like, you know, maybe I should go back and get my master's. Oh, you think about that?

No, not right now, but sometimes when I do get hurt, I think like, man, you know, that could have been. Sure. Could have been it. I'm on the total... I'm on the total opposite spectrum. Like, you know, you start a fight. Like, I was in corporate America. Sure.

I did the suicide. You're still, right? Not no more. Like, now I'm like... You're done. Now I'm done. I'm focusing full-time. Some of my friends think I'm crazy

because I have my Series 7 license. I graduated from a prestigious university with a double major. And they're like, why are you getting in this act now? And I'm about, like, wear a certain tie every day, going into the city, working for, you know, banking. It was all. It was cool and all. But I just...

I feel like I was missing something. Like, I always wanted to compete. I have these weird dreams that I'll be, like, wrestling some way, and it came to fruition. And realistically, I love what I do. Like, I hear guys complaining about pay all the time. Do I feel like we should get more money? Of course, but think about how many people will pay you to go to a gym.

How many people will pay you to go lift weights, and they're paying monthly for that. We get to do something we love. I get to spend time with my kids. Like, that to me trumps anything. When did you say goodbye to corporate America? Probably like a year now It's been a year

Yeah I can't like That was a big part of the show That you were doing this other job They're showing It was after the show After the show After the show After I came home from the show

And I knew I was in the finale I still worked for like two Three months And I was talking I forgot who I was talking to I might have been Al I might have been You know somebody at the gym

Maybe Pat And he was like You know you only get You know it's a short window I could always go back To corporate America But I want to give it My all

You know I want to give it Everything I got And can't say I was on the biggest stage I didn't you know, work my butt off because I think if you don't have, if you don't take this full time and seriously, there's no way you're going to reach your maximum, you know, potential because there's just so much to learn. There's not enough hours in a day to get good at

Jiu-Jitsu, judo, wrestling, boxing, Maita. It's just so many different elements. And for you to commit to it means everything. If five years, six years down the road, I want to go back and be a business manager, go back to banking, I could definitely do it. But I love what I do. And like I said, spending time with my kids, being able to take them to school every day, pick them up, do their homework, and make my training schedule where I'm involved in their life. You know, it's not bad being a PTA dad. Around a year ago, my neighbor... About a week ago. No, a year ago, my neighbor said to me, I work with as a teacher with a UFC fighter.

I won't say her name out of respect. But you're currently a teacher, right? Yeah, I was subbing. I'm still subbing. I just... Substitute teacher. Yeah, when I get closer to the fight, I just stop just so I can really give the last four or five weeks hard. But I do my open-match stuff and I coach there still.

So that's kind of the stuff I still do even when I'm training because it's just something I just love to do is just a part of me. I just like helping the kids. That's just... What age are we talking? High school and middle school. Wow. So they're probably bigger at Alia. Yeah.

Some of them are. And real brats, right? I got to beat them up. Are they brats? The middle school kids, some of them could be a little... Challenge. Yeah. But they want to challenge you, right?

Yeah, yeah. But for the most part, they already know what it is. Do they know who you are? Are they told that you're a UFC fighter? Because I feel like that would, yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like they respect you more as opposed to, because, you know, substitute teacher, that's usually free reign to, you know, cause havoc.

There was one lady. They called me in probably about three weeks ago. And I wasn't doing anything that day. It was my off day. I was like, you know what? I'll come in. She was like, yeah, this class is out of control. The kids are, they're running this lady crazy.

So they called me in to come in and cover. the class. I was like, all right, I came in, they're going nuts. And I'm just like, why are you guys torturing this old lady? And then she's like, she's like writing in referrals and all this stuff. And then one kid is coming up to me and she was talking about my mom. I'm like, wow.

This is really intense right now. So she ended up leading. Eastside high. Yeah, and then I covered it. And then it were good. She was like, yeah, pretty much as soon as I came there, they knew what time was and it was kind of like, I told him it was like, yo, you guys can do whatever you want. As long as you guys aren't jumping through the window and breaking stuff, it's good with me.

So you just let them do whatever that. You're not actually teaching the kids? Well, no, that's subbing. When I'm subbing, if I'm subbing for Fizz-Ed, then I actually put the kids to- Oh, you're subbing like in a classroom here. Yeah, yeah. So you don't get to teach them the curriculum. No, I don't do that.

So what do you do? That hands on stuff. I just sit there. And what do they do? I talk to the kids sometimes. I mean, we talk about life, you know, life goals, life things. Some kids will come up to me and talk about the fights and some of my fights that I've had. But for the most part, if I'm doing Fids-Ed, I'm actually, you know, teaching stuff

or putting them in game playing and things like that. So how long, like when you're brought in as a teacher in a classroom, not phys ed, how long are you there sitting with nothing to do with these kids? Because that feels like it's kind of daunting. It really is. But it's for the entire day. But one period at times about 42, 43 minutes and then. But you have to sit there for the entire day?

Yeah. Not one class. Oh, okay. You move around. Yeah, yeah. So shuffle around a little bit. But if it's in one class, sometimes it's just like these same four walls all day. That's how it is in the corporate world, man.

Being to the bank and you're just like, I'll just like, I'll just like, I'll just, Oh, man, it's just something's missing. Yeah. That's why, again, that's why I say the whole thing with Australia, man. Again, you know, go out there and him going into Ireland. Yeah. It's like, I probably would have never done that ever in my life, you know. I probably, if I wasn't wrestling or training right now,

probably would have stayed home, not go to school, and probably just getting in gangs with, like, my other brothers. Your actual brothers? Yeah, my. They're in gangs. Real brothers. Well, I had one. He was a gang affiliated, and I don't even, you know,

It's weird. I have like a weird mix. I come from a family of 20. Big... 20? Yeah, 20 siblings. Not 20 siblings. 20 of us. 19. Wow. So there's a bunch of us and it's a lot of different personalities, a couple of egos here and there. And just we clash a lot. You know, different moms, all the same dad, but just the way everyone kind of grew up. Did you actually all live in the same? At one time, no, no. The most I think we had at one time was 10 or 10. 10. I think 10. Wow. Still a lot. Yeah, so it got a little crazy and going through high school, we did have like, our little times where we were debating whether or not we were going to join some gangs,

not even some gangs, join a gang. And, yeah, I'm just glad I made the decision not to do that because it was, it would have been a very short, because I'm like, for me, it's like all or nothing, you know? Yeah. So if I went with that, I'd have been guns and blazing to go crazy. Yeah, that's just how I am. Where do you fall? In 19, like, what number are you?

I'm the fifth oldest. Fifth oldest, all right. So no one really mess. with you, though, growing up. My older brothers used to beat me up. They did. Wow. Yeah, they beat me up. I mean, we all fought. Brothers stuff, sister stuff, brother and sister stuff. You know, did what big brothers do. And big brothers did to me what big brothers do. Are you close with them now? None of them. I mean, we, we, I have a very weird family. It's very, uh, a lot of moving parts. I say that. I'm more close with my sisters than any of my brothers. I would say I'm

probably close with two of my brothers, but... Are they jealous of you? I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe. I don't know.

I don't want to say... I don't know. What about your parents? I'm easily hated. It's like weird. Why? You do something. You're the bad guy.

You don't do something. You're still the bad guy. So it's like a lose-lose. What about your parents? I don't talk to my dad. You don't? That guy, to me, he's just the worst kind of a person. Why?

He's just not a good... He's just not a good parent. He's good when it comes to saying here, you know, I was here's some money. But besides that, he's not good. What about your mom? My mom, she's, they're both immigrants. So, no of them have their, I don't think any of them had their green cards.

And my mom's more of the, I guess, the affectionate loving type. And she really was there for me when I was a kid. Do you speak to her now, though? I still speak to her. Okay. She lived in New York? Yeah. Oh, okay.

So I see her pretty much, almost every day, every other day. Your mom's an immigrant, too? Yeah, we're both. We're both Jamaica. Oh, that's why you guys are buddies. That's it. You know, like brothers. Yeah.

Same city, same town in Jamaica? I don't even know. You don't even know. I know, I say the country and like, people look at me like, yeah, I never heard of that. Jamaica? I came here when I was young. Not the country, no. Oh, the town, sorry.

Okay, okay, okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like, I came when I was three years old, man. So, like, you know, I had a big family, too. I'm the youngest of six. Okay. So, like, you know, I guess it's just, you know, our culture to have a big family, but I see exactly where Aljo is coming from. Because, like, Unidale has a nice, large size of Jamaican popularity.

So it's almost like, it's almost, I lived in Unitas. there for like, you know, a year or two. So it's, it's tough, man. When you talk about family, like, what he was talking about in his relationship with his dad, like, my dad was the worker. Like, you know, both my parents are still together, but, you know, my dad became more part of my athletic life as I got older, which was a little bit weird. My mother was a school bus driver, hard worker, and she was always there, you know? So it's like you always need one, you know, one side of the spectrum when it comes to parents, but I get it, man. Like, that's why I'm so involved with my kids now because, you know, my dad did a great job supporting for us. And as I got older,

he showed me, you know, that he's there for me athletically as well and academically. But when you're, you know, when you're a kid, you don't realize those things. So I feel like, you know, it shaped me to be who I am. Like, I talk to Chris and some of the guys in the gym. I feel like sometimes it's stressful because I'm just so involved in my kid's life. And they're like, dude, how the heck do you do it? But I feel like, that's, that's the reason I fight. Like, that, that motivates me that that, that, that, that, that, crazy chaos of them running around the gym and coming. It's almost like normal for me.

I saw something on your Facebook page about people are mad at you that you put your kids out. What is that all about? This and this. Like I was a great athlete from my high school, which is Freeport. And they just started like a football program. But my kids, they play because I was working. I was fighting. So if they couldn't get the practice, I needed somebody to help me.

So my mom lives in Uuderdale. And she signed my kids up for Uandale, you know, the football team. And they excelled, man. They were undefeated for two years, like MVP. They were doing, like, really good. And then Uidale played Freeport, and my kids put up some serious numbers against them. I thought about two touchdowns apiece. They did phenomenal.

Like, the coaches and everybody was like, why are your kids playing for them? You live in Freeport, you're a Freeport alumni. I'm like, well, you guys are going to take through the practice? Oh, wow. So it was like a big thing. The real controversy. Yeah, it was like weird. I'm like, guys, they're eight and nine years old.

Like, this is just for them to have fun. And I made a good decision because they got picked to play in the Hall of Fame. game. They're going to Canton, Ohio, traveling. Wow. What's that? It's August 14th to 16th. Well, you go? I'm going 100%. I coach, too, though. So I coach, yeah, I coach for them. So for me, it's like

these kids are learning, you know, discipline, they're learning leadership, and they're doing well with it, so I think I made the right decision. What if they want to be a fighter? I'll do anything. If my kids want to be a musician, whatever they want to do, I'm going to support them, as long as they work their hardest and they give it their all. Whatever they choose to be, they've got to give it 100%.

I don't care. They could be anything. There would be a doctor, lawyer. Anything that's positive that's going to do good for society, I'm all for it, and I'll support them. I was a football player. I went to college. I thought I could be playing an NFL. The job of to say what I was going to do when I grew up, it would be an NFL football player.

But if that's not the route they want to go, they want to be a golfer, tennis, I don't care what it is. I want them to be happy with whatever they're doing. True or false? Master of the chocolate molten lava cake? Accurate? Because I've got to tell you, my favorite dessert.

when I read that, you shot up in my personal rankings. How does one make one of those? I picked up a recipe online. Okay. It's made from scratch. Like everything. From scratch? It made it from scratch.

How often do you make it? I haven't made any in a, maybe in a couple months, just because my dad just came home and kind of just flipped everything upside down. So everything's been kind of a circus. I'm actually just finding a new place to live. Okay. And after this fight, I'm going to be. moving out. So there's just a lot of things going on in my life right now. You're still living with

your mom? No, she actually had to move out. Well, she moved down and then she ended up getting an order of protection against her for my dad. He like made up some stories or whatever. And so she wasn't like allowed to come to the house. The only thing she could do now is visitations for the kids. And so like I said, there's a lot of, there's a lot of crazy stuff in the Sterling household. Are you going to stick around on Long Island? Are you going to stay there? Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm trying to still stay in Unidale. That's what I want to do. I'm a Union-and-Dell guy, man. I want to be in the community, and that's just who I am. Has it been stressful leading up to this fight? It's a big fight for you, obviously.

You know, a lot of people ask me that, because a lot of people know what's going on and stuff, but I don't, for me, it's kind of like, I kind of dealt with him growing up through middle school and high school, and I kind of know all the shenanigans that he does, and he likes to pull another type person he is, and it kind of, it used to rub me the wrong way, and then I kind of just hit, like, a turning point when I was kind of like, nothing this guy could do can faze me, and kind of just, everything he throws that. He kind of just bounces off. If anything is more annoying, it's just like I got to go deal with something because he's, you know, doing something against me and provoking me.

It was just like anyway I can ignore it. I do it. And I mean, stressful, not so much. Like I said, I've been dealing with him for a while. So I know to kind of play the angles and kind of stay in my own lane and avoid people. Okay, back to the cake. Break it down in 30 seconds. Like, how does one make one of these cakes?

What's the key? You need the ramekins. You need a... What's what, what's that? Yeah, I got it. I don't know. Like these little containers that you put in there. Oh, yes, yes, of course.

Yeah, so you need that. Already you lost those. Oh, that God. You need the confection and sugar, all that. You need the eggs. You need the, the, I like how he's just like brushing, confection. I don't know. You're speaking Russian right now.

I have no clue what you're talking about, which is, I love food. I love food. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you got to get the little egg beater thing and the sifter. So when you pull the flour in it kind of like spreads it out and there's so much stuff. And then once you put it in, it only takes about, 30 maybe 40 minutes. The whole process? The whole process. Wow. Then once you put it in the oven, like 450, this way it preheat. You preheat it and then you put it in at 450. Okay.

So once you put it in, it hardens it on the outside. And as soon as it hardens it on the outside, you leave it in for about 12, 14 minutes. Take it out, you slice it and voila. Wow. Wow. That's that's your specialty? That's, that's one of my favorite things. I actually did it for the high school. We did, when I was actually teaching there a lot longer. I think I had a position that my they gave me my own class it was a point one position so I was teaching my own class or whatever

and then what kind of class physette? Okay okay So my own physette class I was a point one What is a point one mean? It's you have one class

every other day Okay okay So that was my class I actually graded them And everything And taught them Good Nice

And things like that So we did that So I'm learning stuff too Yeah yeah Yeah so how about this So when we did that We had like Christmas Christmas break

Coming up And everyone had to come Bring in their own dish Everyone had to make something From scratch Of course Some of the other guys cheating and they brought some of their own things in like from a store but a lot of us kind of made

everything from from scratch and that was my my uh gift to everybody so i brought uh i think i brought in like eight and everyone loved it the whole physizette staff loved it and uh they definitely want me i didn't get to do it this year i did it last year i didn't get to do it this year because of the whole like i said the whole craziness happening at the house and uh hopefully i get to do it this year oh you got to bring it to jib now after everybody's fights over he brings them for the media on saturday everyone will score the fight in your favor. They'll love you. I mean, how about you not even

bringing any to this show today? I know. I can't eat it. We can't eat it right now. By the way. This guy's diet is ridiculous. I can't even talk to him. It gets me,

he's like a genetic freak, dude. This guy will have M&M of the 4 trading. I'm just like, how in the world or... It's insane. McDonald's all that? Do you eat all that? You don't do that? I haven't had that in like three years.

Okay. My body feels so much better without it. Yeah. I don't, like, the smell of it is kind of like, It grosses you out. Once you really kind of figure out what's in it and all that, you don't want it. You still eat? You still eat it?

No, I'm to the point now. I can take my kids to a fast food place and I'm just like, no, no thanks. No thanks. Just because, man, you feel the difference in your body when you perform. I feel sick. Right. Look sick at it. As good as McDonald's fries used to taste to me, if I have one now, I'll just be sick for like a good couple hours.

Yeah, yeah. By the way, you say you're from Union, Yale, but originally are you from Roosevelt? Roosevelt, yeah. Yeah. Roosevelt still dope. You see, I've never been there, but I hold it in high regard. That's where my hero, Howard Stern, is from. Did you know that?

Oh, no, I didn't know that. He was born there. He talks about it often. He was like one of the only white kids at the high school. It's not very popular for white people to live there, right? They're a minority. So he would get me up all the time. Also, the great Dr. Jay is from there, right?

Julia's serving, the basketball player? Take Eddie Murphy by me. Yeah, you're giving me. Yeah, you don't know by your own hometown. I mean, I went there as an elementary school kid until sixth grade, and I, Howard Stern. You know Howard Stern is, right? The greatest broadcaster of all the time. I used to watch a show later. All the time. My mom doesn't even know. I used to watch the show. He used to have some craziness. He had a cartoon about his time in high school in Roosevelt Long Island about him getting beat up and he was a big nerd because he looked kind of funny and all that.

He's a tall nerd. How about that? That's a great claim to fame. That's fair. That's actually, that's pretty cool. You seem pretty excited about it. Yeah. No, he's a cool guy. Like I said, I listen to the show. Sure, sure. A New York legend. Yeah. You guys are on the cusp of being New York Legends. By the way, the last. Last time we had two Longocera guys in studio, right? Okay, well, the first time we ever had two Longocero guys.

Funny story. February 2011, John Volante was about to debut in Strike Force, and he brings a friend with him. I didn't really want to talk to the friend. In fact, I kind of felt bad. I was like, do you really have to talk to this guy? He's not in the UFC. No one knows who he is. Called him Chris Weedman.

And then... I actually watched that show. Loan behold, look who becomes the man. Yeah, I remember that show, actually. So it's actually a good thing for guys to come and... pairs. That's it. This time I wanted both of you on, but I feel like great things are about to come just because

you've been on the show here together. There's no doubt about it. Like, I don't want to swing anybody, but, dude, this is the next champion right here. Next champ. This is, I'm telling, I'm telling anybody now. You heard it here first on this show. This is the next champion, and listen, I feel like this big thing, our whole camp is, I feel like we got four or five guys that can be champion in the UFC.

How far away are we from talking about being in that, you know, Dillishaw-Burau-ter territory? I would have to say after this fight. Really? You're ready for it? I would think so. I mean, there's not much higher to go after Mizugaki, but in your mind, you feel like you're ready for that. Yeah, I just don't.

Like I said, on paper, not even on paper. Just, yeah, on paper, skill set. I think I match up well with any of these guys. But the whole thing, like I said, it would have been cool to kind of build the momentum and the hype behind me a little bit so people could get to familiarize themselves with me before I make that big jump.

But I wasn't getting any fights and it was kind of like, whatever, man. Like the whole thing with Frankie signs, I was told he tore his ACL or something like that. And then next thing you know, like two months later, these guys had a fight against Yuri Arkantara. I'm like, this makes no sense. How on earth did this guy come back unless he didn't get surgery or something or wasn't that bad? It just didn't make any sense to me. But whatever.

But yeah, I wasn't getting any other fight offers, so we just took what we had to take. So if you get past, when you get past Mizugaki, you want to be in that discussion. Yeah, I think it makes sense, especially with everybody being hurt. I think that's the reason why, just because everyone's hard. hurt. Sure. If everyone was healthy and ready to go, then I would say one or two more fights, but I think with everyone kind of out on the sidelines, I think it just makes sense. How do you beat him on Saturday? I think I either choke this guy unconscious or smack him with a head kick. Early, late? How do you foresee it playing out? I'm going to the second round. Okay.

Second round finisher. And how about you? You set the table, right? That's it, man. I'm excited about that. You're going to start things off. Why are you excited about that? Because I feel like I always wanted You can't ask for a better script, you know, fighting in my hometown, getting the crowd going. The way I'm picturing this fight is just to be in his face. Like, I don't want this to go to just judges or decisions. Like, I don't care if it's the first round, knockout, second round, third round, choke, whatever. I just want to just put on a spectacular show. Get everybody fired up for the rest of the card.

And I feel like that's what's going to happen because I just trained way too hard. I don't care who I was fighting. I respect Chris Dempsey. He's a tough guy, blue-collar worker, you know, great wrestler, but he's not going to be. Chris Whiteman. He's not Valenti. Like, I train with the best guys in the world. I get to roll with this. When he says he's funky, he's funky. I get to roll with the best guys in Jujitsu.

I feel like I wrestle with the best guys. Chris and Valante Brodering guys from Hofstra who wrestle in Division I. So I just feel like I train too hard. And you get what you, you know, you put it into it. And I'm going to set the card off on fire. And that's just the plan. There's no doubt about it. I feel like we have a great candidate here for y'all must have forgot. You know, y'all must have forgot.

You remember that Roy Jones song? Oh, yeah, that's that shit going. You know that song? Y'all must have a forgot. I love that song. We have a candidate right here because every card now I have a y'all must have forgot. Someone that we may have slept on, that we may have forgotten about. Like Miracle Crow Cop won the award this past, you know, it comes out of North.

This week, I'm looking at you. I'm looking at Jim Miller as well because I think a lot of people have forgotten about him. He has a big fight. But you can remind people, they may have forgotten that the truck is a beast. You know what? My thing is that it doesn't matter because what's going to happen is whoever in the division, I feel like the 185 is probably one of the stacked its division. UFC but I hate to beat a dead horse but I trained with the best pound for pound guy I'm

saying it now like literally I think Chris no doubt about it is the best pound for pound fighter in the world I get to train with him every day I get to train with Al I get to train with Al Jion I get to train with Matt Sera right it's just you get to get that measures there like these guys they're not training with tougher guys and I'm fighting and they're not sparring when we spars it's just an exhibition fight it's just a sparring session literally there's no different than a UFC fight and I just feel like I'm getting prepared by by the best and every day I'm getting better and like I said if somebody wants to fight me they better fight me soon because in the next few

fights I'm gonna be pretty pretty hard to beat and I'm gonna make a statement this weekend well guys I know it's a bit of a trek to come out here so I appreciate the time very much this is a lot of fun did you enjoy it well I doubt yeah I'll learn some stuff about the funk master over here yeah you know the guy's a professional baker he's baking cakes for everybody after everybody fights that's cool that's a whole new gimmick I should probably do that and bring it to the way ends or something. Yeah. Come out in the whole chef outfit.

I get my M&Ms going, man. I don't know what's up with Mars. Why aren't they talking to me? Sponsorship. Maybe after this. I eat M&Ms. Before I ever fight. I eat M&M's after every fight.

In the locker room? In the locker room? Not right before, but I'll have it like early in the day. Really? What kind? I like the yellow bag. Peanuts. Yeah.

Because of Yuderders out. That's what it is. Why usually all? That's their color. Yellow yellow black. Oh, that's right. How about the Islanders leaving, huh? You guys sad about that?

That's just, it's insane. I just feel like... You don't really care. No, I actually went to my first Islander game. When? Probably about four weeks ago. You grew up in Uniondale. Our first...

We never had... We don't have hockey in Uniondale. Yeah. So expensive, man. We played floor hockey. Right. And that was always fun. If we had a hockey team, I probably would have played hockey.

Sure. But are people sad about it over there? I did. Yeah. But I hope they made it final. It was going to be a mall or something crazy. And I live right there. I live right there.

I live right there. I live right there. Really? Yeah. Well, they have a playoff run. I don't know if you know that. The playoffs are about to start. Both New York teams are doing good, man.

Could you imagine? Rangers Islanders one more time? Why not? I figured it would be great. Maybe they'll keep the Coliseum there, bring them back. Yeah. I just feel as wild. We lost the Jets.

Yeah. The Jets used to be across the street. Now we're going to lose Islanders. It's like, I don't get it. What is it? Taxes are too high in Illinois? Something like that. They wanted to build a new arena, I think, and the city wouldn't step up.

I heard the arena is probably the worst. It is decrepit. I was there. I went to see Frozen on Ice with my kids. Oh, wow. Yeah. I went there to see the wrestling, though. They had Monday night at the comedy.

Oh, yeah, Monday, Ra, yeah. My kids forced me to go. You don't like it. I loved it when they had Legion of Doom, Ultimate Warrior's thing. Like, those are my guys. Like, literally the Steiner brothers because they were wrestlers. Right. That's what it was the best.

But now I can't keep track. I feel like these guys are like fly my night guys. Now I can't even tell you who's the champion. Sure, sure. What you called Lost the Belt at WW. Brock, yeah. Brock lost it. He lost to.

Who did he lose to? Holy molly. See, look at it. Who do you lose to, guys? Who do you lose to? Can you give me a name? Oh, Seth Rollins. Seth Rolanda.

Yeah. Seth Rallon's. There you go. See, I were like literally, but Holococor full Ultimate Warrior, like that was, that was it. That was it. That was it.

Oh, April 1st, 1990. I remember. Wow. See, that's surprised. How about that? But that was like, I was like, that was an even born.

Wait, you probably were ever born here. 80. Okay, okay, fine. I literally used to take paper. I used to take paper. I used to take it on, get the thing, run around, shake the rig.

The good old days. The good old days, indeed. All right, let's make some memories on Saturday. Best of luck to you guys. Really looking forward to it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thanks for having us.

I think it's a great card, like you said. And Chris is actually going to be working with me for Fox. I think he's leaving in the middle to go corner Volante. That's what I was told. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, but so we'll be keeping tabs on you guys. I wish you the best. Thank you very much for coming.

Thanks for coming. There they are. Eddie Chuck Gordon, Al Jermaine Sterling. Follow them on Twitter. You see their Twitter handles. They got big fights coming up. I broke it. I broke it.

You'll buy it. No problem. You have to buy it. Yeah, that's right. We're going to go inside the vault as we say goodbye to these guys and reconfigure the studio. So we have two fun ones for you. We'll go first, April 30th, 2011. I spoke to Sensei Steven Segal.

You guys fans of his? I like Hard to Kill. Hard to kill, right. I spoke to him after Leonardo Machita defeated Randy Kattour at UFC 129. So I thought that was apropos this week. And also, right after that, we'll look at my very first interview with Luke Rockhold. That took place. August of 2009, a young Luke Rockhole,

both of them fighting this weekend, a huge fight in the middle-weight division. So that's inside the vault. After those, we'll be back right here on the M.A. hour. Do not go anywhere. Don't miss a beat. Really? Ariel Hawani post-fight at UFC 129

alongside Master Stephen Sagan once again, and it's the second time we see you in two months. Yes, sir. And the second time, a good friend of yours knocks out his opponent with a front kick to the face. Unbelievable. Thank you. What did you think when you saw you?

I saw that. I saw you celebrating with Anderson. What did you think? Matita is like a son to me. And so is Anderson. We worked very hard on that kick for a long, long time. With Machida Kunay also worked on elbows, punches, Ache-Tabaki, the entering with the feet and knees and stuff.

But I really, really worked hard on that kick, and I wanted him to do that kick. And he wanted to do it, and he knew he could. And he did. So prior to the fight, you guys were talking about the kick. and thinking that you could actually connect on this. That's all we've been talking about, you know, and I was screaming at him, and I think he heard me. I was screaming him, I said, do the kick, do the kick.

When Anderson connected on the kick, did he look at that and say, you know what, I could do the same thing? Well, of course he thought that, yeah. But, you know, with Machidacum, because his wazza is a little closer to mine. We worked on a lot of stuff, but we really worked on that.

How proud are you of him, especially considering the fact he was coming off two straight losses? Amazingly proud. I love the boy and I'm just astounded. Phone is blowing up here. Maybe people that want to talk about the kick, right? Yes. Yes. Now I have to ask you. Is she proud of him as well? Mom, I'm in the middle of an interview and the interview guy wants to know if you're proud of Liotomachida. That's my son.

He's proud as well. I may be screaming, though. And the interview, we're on camera now and the interview man wants to know if you're proud of Lyota Machira. Of course, I heard that. Crazy. Crazy. I heard that too. So I'm going to finish the interview mom and I'll call you back. Everything's okay. Good night.

Kuhnza. Abahite. What does that mean? Daddy, I love you. Okay. Okay. Okay, love you. Love you. Bye, bye, bye.

I have to ask you, after the Anderson Silva kick against Vitor Belford, you talked to us and you explain, there were some people in the MMA community who said they weren't buying what you were selling. I don't know if you saw Bas Rune. A lot of people were saying that you were taking credit for a kick that has been done many, many years ago, and they were showing footage of it, and a lot of people didn't buy it, essentially. And I wanted to get your response to that. I mean, listen, Vito Belfar also said that it was just a lucky kick. everybody has their opinion

some people have sour grapes some people have jealousy I didn't invent anything I modified them in such a way that I think I can make my students and myself in a real fight land them and hurt people you know and that's all I can say

it's the same with my punches you know my punches are a little bit different there are punches that I've learned for a ton of years that I've modified am I the inventive? Am I the inventive? of kicks and punches and anyone done kicks like that? Of course. I'm not saying I invented anything,

and nobody should put those words in my mouth. Do you think this has added to your legacy? I mean, you've been around the martial arts world for so many years, but it seems like in the last couple months, much more talked about and almost sort of connecting that era to this new MMA era, if you know what I mean? Listen, I've been doing the martial arts since I was a baby. I love the martial arts.

They are my life. and many people consider me, you know, one of the great masters in my own field. And many people probably think I'm an idiot that, you know, doesn't know anything. So it's everybody's opinion. All I can say is everybody's entitled to their own opinion. I love the martial arts. I dedicate my life to the martial arts. I devote a lot of time and love to the preserving of the martial arts

and helping my students and my friends. Nobody's paying me to come here. I came here because people asked me to come and asked me to help. I'm giving my heart and the little bit of knowledge I have. Final question. Do you think that now that we've seen two of the best fighters in the world knock their opponent out with that kick, that other fighters are going to try to land it

and land it as precisely as you have taught Anderson and Liotto? I mean, it's not an easy kick to learn. The way we're doing it is not easy. It's very deceptive. But I mean, like I said, with Lioto, we were going over a lot of stuff. Different elbows, different punches, different angles, different angles. All right, back on the mixed martial arts hour.

We cut that short. We have a very good reason. If you're upset, I'm guessing you won't be in a matter of seconds. How about this surprise? Joining us live on the phone right now, there is one guest that in the five and a half years of doing this show that we have been unable to get on the air. One guest.

There's only one name left. And he joins us right now. Nate Diaz is live on the MMA hour right now. Nate, are you there? Yeah, hey, what's up. Hey, Nate, how are you? What a pleasure this is. I'm good. How are you doing? I'm doing great. It's great to have you on the show. It's great to finally have you on the show. I know you're a big fan of the show. Big fan of talking to us. So thank you very much for the time today. Let's get into it. There's a lot to talk to you about. We were just talking about it at the beginning of this show with Mark Coleman. He was very excited about Matt Brown versus Nate Diaz. I spoke to you a little bit of

about this last week. Are you going to fight Matt Brown at UFC 189? Oh, I don't know. I don't know yet. I haven't talked to anybody about the fight. And I haven't been negotiated. So I'm waiting to find out. Can you explain to me what exactly happened there? Because, you know, we came out... What in Mark Coleman today? Would he talk about the fight? Or do you want me get my ass case or do that? What is that? Well, truth be told, he's a big Columbus, Ohio guy. So he was excited about Matt Brown. He said he's very close to Matt Brown. He says he talks to him and watches him all the time.

So he was excited about that fight. He was excited about the matchup and all that. He sounds like he's a Matt Brown guy, but he only had nice things to say. It wasn't like he was rooting for you to fail or anything like that. No, no, I feel you in the same area, probably. Yeah, yeah. But can you explain what exactly happened here? Because it came out, it was announced all that stuff, and then you told me that you never agreed to it. So how was it announced? What happened? Yeah, no. Well, I was told that. I was, the Brown fight we talked about, but they were supposed to work out a deal and figure it all out and negotiate the fight the next Monday. And then I'll sit in it, I never necessarily okayed the fight if I was never negotiated.

So I knew all of a sudden it was like I was getting blown up about the fight. So I think that it's a, that's a great fight. you know, everybody would want to see that fight. I would have just a fight. I think that would be, that sounds like an awesome fight. Like, fight to see, but he's never talked about and, uh, um,

appreciated being, um, it's kind of like, uh, it's like, I'm being, like, uh, forced into a fight, you know, and should have talked to and,

and dealt with fairly. So the fight, like I said, the fight was never negotiated. I just heard about it just like everybody else. and kind of blown out of proportion. But I like the fight. It sounds good.

Sounds great. I don't like the circumstances of the fight. I don't like the circumstances of the fight. I think I deserve better, and he deserves better than to be on the undercard and to be on his big game, big contribution to Mr. Conner McGregor's pocket. I think that they're talking about him. blowing up all these records of being

the highest, typically draw and the highest highest, highest, uh, watch fighter probably because I put me and Matt Brown on the undercard and Robbie Lawler on the undercard. Like,

I don't think that, I think Bobby Lawler should have spoke up a little more about that, too, being on the undercard and, of, of, of a, of a card like that, but,

I don't know. He probably worked out good for him, so I think it's going to be a great card. And I think if I'm going to fight, a great second fight, where a lot of people are going to tune in to see me, fight someone like Matt Brown, is a great player, too.

I think that it should be working a little more towards our end of the deal so that everybody else is, if that makes any sense. So are you saying you would prefer to be the main event? You feel like that fight is big enough to be a main event. You don't want to be on sort of, I don't know if you're on the undercard per se, but below a Connor McGregor fight. Yeah, well, that's what I mean.

Like, I don't, I mean, I'm okay with being on undercard and stuff and whatever, but that's definitely a main event caught fight right there, especially, especially with the fight card that's been going on. It's ridiculous. I just, you know, they're making a humongous car. and like I said, benefiting the main event, and I've got nothing against the main event. That's great for them, but there's circumstances I'm talking about.

They never negotiated. No one ever told me what, where, when, and how I just heard maybe Matt Brown, maybe Anthony Pettish, Anthony Pettish has been, sorry, yeah, and then he just sits him about fighting me. I've been talking about fighting him for a long time. I don't care whether it's Matt Brown. to Matt Brown, the big fight, the prejudice is a big fight,

and neither of the fight I'm looking for. It's big fights and exciting fights. I'm not into fighting boring people, fighting boring fights, and being on boring tech cards, which this one wouldn't be, but I would like to, I would like to know a little bit more

about what I'm doing instead of just, you know, being, being, uh, strong-armed into a fight. You know, I don't need to hear that I'm fighting this guy now. before it even negotiated it worked out.

And now I'm saying, no, that fight is not official. And now it's like, I'm the guy, like, not getting a fire, pulling out of a fight, but, say, that's not the situation at all, because I like the fight. I just would like to be appreciated a little better and make sure stuff's confirmed before it's just blown out of proportion. And so when we spoke about this briefly on Thursday, That was what, like, four or so days ago. Has anything changed?

Has anything, you know, happened since then? Has anyone reached out to you and tried to clear the air? Where do we stand right now with the fight? That's what I'm saying. I haven't talked to anybody. Still. Still? Yeah.

Yeah. If I haven't been, uh, been, uh, it's just, they just have the, you know, they have the push power. They say, I'm fighting as I'm fighting now. So, uh, I don't, I don't, I don't think so. You know, it don't work like that. Maybe with all these other guys out here, but I think that, you know, like Ariel, if you're going to fight somebody next Saturday, I'm not going to just say that you're going to fight somebody.

I seem to be going to show up. I'm going to probably call you and make sure you can show up, right? Right. Talk about it. I don't know. I haven't. But if, if, if, if, if it was dealt with

probably in the circumstances were better, then I'm all aboard, you know, that'd be great, but especially with a fighter like that. You know, those are the fight them trying to fight and trying to fight a guy like Mount Brown and Anthony Pettish, who I thought

was probably going to be the guy fighting, he just lost. The same guy I just lost, too. You know, what's the top guys. And I'm not going to just fight somebody to be having a good old time,

running time go by and fight and fight people. I think it should work out to my benefit and that benefit. And I think a fight with those guys would benefit me, and I think a fight with me would benefit them. So if I could get it worked out, that would be great. If you had it your way, if you could choose, which fight interests you more right now? The Pettus fight, you know,

you guys have had your differences for the last couple of years. years or the Brown fight. I know last year you said you were interested in fighting him as well, but if you had a perfect scenario for you, would you rather Petis at 155 or Brown at 170 next? See, the reason I talked about Brown last year, too, because I watch his fight. I've been watching him a long time. He's been around for a good amount of time, and he's an entertaining fighter. He's one of the best guys to watch him, the O.C., so I'm like, if I'm going to fight somebody, it's going to be someone like that. And it's going to be someone like Petit. also in the opinion does good things, you know.

To me, I think, I mean, if I'm going to fight anybody, you know, money talks, and I think it needs to be worth my while to go out there and fight these guys, and if not, and, you know, I'd rather just, I don't really have time and bullshit around and fire my life away like this, you know. I think, I think whatever fight would be great, but whatever makes a little more sense and the circumstances of the fight, you know? You know, we last saw you in December against RDA,

it came out after that you were injured going into the fight. Does a part of you almost regret going through with it because, you know, it didn't look like yourself, you misweighed, all that stuff, you had to go through the whole thing where, you know, there was, it seemed like some differences with the UFC and all that. I mean, it just didn't seem like a very, enjoyable weekend in Phoenix for you.

Do you regret going through the fight? Yeah, well, that's the same thing that happened with this Matt Brown thing, was the same thing that happened with the last fight. It's not really, you know, it was just kind of like, you're fighting. I'm like, oh, well, I guess I'm fighting. So it's kind of, like, it's all good. That's the fact that already happened.

And I guess, I guess, I don't, I'm not in there being tricked in the fighting anymore. You know, I think I shouldn't have a little more standing. I'm older now. and I'm like I said if I'm gonna fight I think it should be worth of my while not just because

they say I'm fighting not fighting do you want to fight these days more at 170 so you don't have to make that cut to 155 anymore if it's worth it I'll fight at 55

okay I don't have anybody to fight at 55 I fight everybody that's different between me and the whole lightweight division I fight everybody but I was going on 9-year

years now. Yeah. I've been in the U.C. longer than everyone in that probably whole U.S.U.S. right now. Like, probably Diego Sanchez and Grace and Chabal. You know, those are the only guys I could think about have been in there longer than me. So I got probably the most fights in the U.S.C. got anybody in the U.S.C. right now.

And if I'm going to cut out that way and get down to a small size, which I could do, it's got to be worth it. And I think I only had two people to fight, and I have 55 knocked, Anthony Pettis. And Rafael de Sanya's because I lost to him. And all, you know, if he loses, then we could fight too. I'm not trying to hunt down on.

But they don't mean nothing to me. I want to give my losses, my loss off. I want to get that back. And Anthony Predis, you know, he's been around. He's been doing his thing lately, you know. It could be a little more acting and quit, you know. he could be a little more active

and I think that'd be the fight people want to see so that's what I would drop weight for you know no interest no interest in the belt at all that was the belt me but don't mean

much to me I think like I say I want to I want to fight and fight that that matter you know but the both take you know

some boring ass fighter has a belt I don't want to fight that I don't want to fight that fighter I don't want to fight that fighter I don't fight fights that people want to see. And if I'm not going to find those fights, then I'm not going to be fighting, you know?

But some might say that maybe the belt will lead to, like, sponsorship or better contracts, you know, more money, all that stuff. You don't view it that way? Yeah, it might be, but, you know, but whatever, you know. But, whatever, you know. Like, if I can fight,

well, I feel Desonios or, well, I want to fight DesaSanias, So that's a bad one. But if there's some boring motherfucker holding the belt or Anthony Pettish or Josanios, and I'm going to fight them, you know. Right. Rather than a boring person with the belt.

Because if I have any boring fights on my record, then it's probably because those people I was fighting with boring fighters, you know. So I don't want any more boring fights in my career, you know. they shall get and go strong with some good fights. How many more years do you want to do this for, fights? I mean, I'm wondering if you still enjoy the whole thing as much as you did when you first started. You know, I just want to get done when I got it to get done.

I want to, you know, I don't know. I don't even think about it. I just want to have a good opportunity. I want to teach it it if not. to just fight just because I feel like I've already fought enough to just fight because, you know? Mm-hmm.

So if that's good good fights whenever, I'm sure I'll be around how it'll be for longer than most of these fighters, you know? By the way, I think a lot of people might not know this. Just a few rows of back of Ronda Rousey

when she was at WrestleMania set. You and Gilbert Melendez. You were at WrestleMania. What was that like? Yeah, the WrestleMania was cool. You enjoy. Yeah, Gilbert hit me up. He's like, let's go to WrestleMania.

I never been there. I did actually when I had a kid I went and saw The Undertaker. When I was a kid here in Stockton, there was a show. And I went to check it out, and I haven't been since then. So we went there, and I didn't know. It was that crazy at the show. Saw Travis Barker out there and a whole bunch of Ronda Rousey, a whole bunch of other people, so I had a good time.

Did you know that Ronda was going to go into the ring and all that? I didn't know that now. Did you like it? Did you enjoy it? It was crazy. Yeah, it was crazy. We just saw it at high in seven, and they were like 200 kids. The rain stuff, that's pretty crazy. Okay, so I will let you go because I know you're busy man,

and I got to say, I really appreciate you coming on the show here last minute. Where do we go from here? For those wondering, like, you know, because I'm getting questions right now, So, you know, what's going to happen? Where do we go from here with the fight? Are you waiting to speak to the UFC? Do you want them to call you? How do we fix this situation?

Yeah, I don't know. If someone got hold of me, that'd be great. And if not, it's all good, too, you know. I don't need to fight. Like I said, I don't need to fight my life away. I'm all good with not fighting. So if we want to work that out, it'd be great. And if not, I'll be watching and tuning in fights and making sure everything's going good and taking some time off of boxing.

But as far as your concern right now, according to you, you're not fighting Matt Brown at UFC 189. Yeah, no. Just hanging out. So I talk to somebody. Okay. Nate. But I think, like, what would you guys want? What would people want to see?

Who do you want to see Matt Brown fight? If not. If not? Yeah, not me, yeah. So would you like to see him fight? That's a good question. There ain't nobody to fight. There's nobody that he could fight me or he could fight Joe Blow.

I won 70. It benefits him. It benefits him. Who do you want to see Anthony Petits? If not by me, who do you want to see him fight? Well, that was the thing. I wasn't expecting you to go up to 170, so I was kind of set on you versus Petis because there's been that,

that whole thing for so long. I feel like Pettis has more options at 155 because he hasn't fought as many of the guys. Brown has been around a little longer. I feel like he has less options. Who are you going to fight? Who do you want to fight? Maybe.

Here's the thing. Here's the thing. If Soroni beats Nirmagamadeov, probably Nirmagamadeov because they've had some differences lately. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, see?

So it's the running here to be. Yeah. That's boring. He's either going to knock out a Russian dude or Russian dude is going to hold on tight and have a wrong boring fight. There's not much going on, you know? You're not a fan of your Magamatov, right? No, I'm not.

I'm not a fan of boring fighters at all. Right. I think he's going to probably beat DeSanos. Maybe. I think Descanus is a better fighter, but I think that but

like who wants to do that shit you know and then there's Josanos he didn't lose he'll probably fight Petits don't ever want to fight Josani's again that's obviously I heard him on your show

talking about it You listen to the show? Yeah, I listen to that one Thank you and I mean I don't think a lot of them but I listened to that one recently and um so my brownie

had nobody and then anybody man like I'm telling you there's nobody for any of these motherfuckers to fight I want to fight somebody I want to get views

hey check my record too I got more more higher uh we get higher views on the fight than any of these any of these motherfuckers

they're saying that that uh car McGregor is gonna blow these paper views out of the water or whatever I usually find a father

come out of Fox but I have like like 3 million, 2 and a half 3 million, like hell of high, uh, tune in for my fight. So these guys want to fight some people, some million to get them points. They need to take real fights with me. And, uh, besides me, there's no other, there's nobody other people to fight, you know? So, Carmagrake keeps talking about coming up and fighting, uh, keeps coming up and talking about coming up and fighting Joe Sanya. I don't know what that can be for him.

That guy, that guy's got like 10 followers of some shit. And these guys want some real fights and they can call and work it out and fucking put it out. I'm going to fight it. It's the way it's going to be worth it. Did you see when Connor took Aldo's belt? What do you think of that? Oh, shit. I was like, what are you talking about?

Addo's fucked up. His team's fucking up, autos, you know? Why? Because, like, let me tell you, if I had a part of fighting somebody like that, and they were going to, he could get, I made sure one of his guys, You're up in your face. You smack the ass of the floor. You know what I'm saying?

You don't let somebody get. Or just laugh at him. Like, he got an, I've got, he got all bent out of shit when the guy took his belt. He should have just, he should have to, he should have him. But, like, keep the belt. Saying about your ass whooping, you know, I don't let him happen. And you take that home and put me on. You know, I think it was, hey, Connor, he's doing his thing.

You know, he's doing a good job with that. And, uh, I'm not hating on him. I think he's doing a great. great job marking himself. Everybody's forgot who the champion already because because of his shit, the McGregor show. Does it still blow your mind,

by the way, at this point that you're still, you're not ranked, you're not in the top 15 in the UFC rankings? Yeah, they did about on math because I was number three, I was number four when they told me from the rankings. Yeah. And number four.

But I beat Graham Maynard when he was number three. So I was number four. And then they pulled me from the rankings, because they didn't like some stuff, I said. So they pulled me from the rankings, and then I got back in the fight that I found him, and he was number three. So then when I lost number three,

when I was number four before they pulled me out, so when I lost to him, then that should probably make me number five or six. Instead, I'm just wiped away and gone. I mean, that's just back back. Yeah, something like that. I don't know. It's kind of strange to me.

You don't lose a lot of sleep over the rankings, I would imagine. I don't care. A lot of stuff that goes on doesn't make any sense anyway. So, I think that, like I said, I think they should try to do something. You know, make fights people want to see. Not no bullshit fight. So I'm ready to fight, though. When the good opportunity comes, then it's worth the way out of town.

and it's all good summertime. Try, I was the one season just started. Ace Brady's last week of my brother. How'd you do? I did all right. I'm in a new division now. I knew age group, so I'm in an age group with a lot of tougher races. This next couple years, so I've got to step in it up and pick up the pace,

and that's my goal this year to do better in the travel on circuit. My coach, Damien Gonzalez, is in one. for me and calling me and he's like, he gets getting, he doesn't even, he doesn't even, uh, get no attention to fight, fight stuff.

He's talking about getting in there and, oh, yeah. And doing good in the season. So that's my objective for right now, if I'm not going to be fighting. Even if I'm fighting, that's what I'm going to be doing.

By the way, do you think your brother will fight again? My brother? Yeah. I have no clue. We'll have to see. I don't, I don't, uh,

I don't know, what's going on with him. his deals or his, who would he fight right now? Silver, right? If anything. Again? Well, didn't they talk about him proper steroids? Yeah, that's true.

Well, I thought Nick won that fight. You know, a lot of people got he won that fight. Yeah, it is true. That is messed up. Yeah. Yeah, I forgot about it. If anything, no, there'd be anything that, nothing else really makes too much sense. But for that, maybe.

Just keep talking about coming back sometime, I think. Yeah. Yeah, seems up in the air. If any, yeah, he's up in the air, Nick's up in the air, Silver's up in the air, so who knows, I don't know, I can't see anything on here. Sure, sure. No, I understand. Wow. See what happens.

So, by the way, you know, Matt Brown tweeted a photo of a signed contract. You don't have one of those, right? I don't have no contract. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. I don't have a contract. I got a phone call. I don't have any.

I got the Internet. You know what I'm saying? So that's where I find out about most of them. And if someone's not blowing me, I can text message, that I'm fighting, you know. I woke up to that. Or glide. Or glide, right?

Or glide. I love the glide. You know, I only glide with two people. I'm name-dropping here, but I feel like I can. Yeah. You and your bro. It's great. I love it.

I wish more people would use it. You guys should get paid by glide. You know that? No. Oh, yeah? Yeah, that's a great way for communication. I can't. They should pay you guys.

They should pay you guys, because you're such great ambassadors for the app. For glide, huh? I think my brother has a fan glide. He has like some sort of VIP account or something, right?

Yeah, because I'm gliding him the other day. And he's like, hey, if I just stopped riding me on my, on my, on my, what is it, fan pay or, yeah, fan pay glide or whatever. man, I was like, damn, well, you got the same picture, so I'm confused.

I didn't know if it was his. I don't know if people could see that or what, but he's like, Bradman, the other one said deleted his fan one because I was talking to a whole bunch of people I didn't consider just him. Okay, let me ask you this. Rockhold Machita, who do you got? I don't know. Let's watch the friend.

Okay. Okay, fair enough. Will you be watching? I like California. I like California, but, you know. but They're both Californian though these days at least

but I get what you're saying that's Rockhold Yeah but I don't I don't care We'll see what We'll have to hopefully It's a good fight You watch fights

Do you go out of your way to watch fights Um Nowadays you can't Go out of your way Because they're all in your face But yeah watch what's going on Okay

You follow it Yeah For sure All right Well I wish you the best Nate It's been boring Huh

Um I don't think so It has its ups and downs. Sometimes. That's a good way of putting it. You know what doesn't have its ups and downs? This show, which I just found out you watch and enjoy. How about that?

Are you on the show? Am I people watching this show? Do people watch the show? Yeah. I think so. Like a lot, a lot of people? I think so, yeah. I think we're pretty popular.

It's been going on for five and a half years, and we've never had you on. We had your brother on in November. No, December? Yeah, but never had you. You're the last one left. Name the fighter. We've had him on this show. Never had you.

At least like the big-name fighters. Oh. I feel like that's a feather in your cap. Like, you were the last one. Yeah. All right. I gotta go. People are watching this, though.

I know. I'm gonna go. Okay, fine. Fair enough. Nate. All the best. All right, you have a good one. Okay.

Thank you, Nate. Talk to you soon. All right, shit. Nate Diaz. How about that? people are watching. Thank you very much to Nate Diaz for stopping by. Let me fix my headphones.

They're a little wonky here. I'll fix them in a second. That was a lot of fun. Wow, what a way to end the program. We're not done yet, but as far as the interviews are concerned, didn't expect it. It happened. Thank you very much to Nate.

And by the way, I didn't say it earlier. Thank you very much to Eddie Gordon and Al Jermaine Sterling, as well as their manager, Jason Rivera. That was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun to get to know those guys. It's fun when guys come in. You don't know a lot about them. You've never really interviewed them at length,

and you get to learn a lot, especially Sterling. Two guys to watch out for this Saturday in New York, New Jersey. I will be there, and guess what? Way-in show, pre-fight show, post-fight show. Your boy will be hosting. How about that? Way-in show, pre-fight show, post-fight show. If you're not going to be at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey,

I will be hosting it. on Fox Sports 2. They're all on Fox Sports too. Prelims, by the way, are on Big Fox, main car on Big Fox, of course. But the Way-in show, the pre-fight show, and the post-fight show, it will be me, Daniel Cormier, Brian Stan, and the champ, Chris Wyman.

How about that quartet? That's going to be a lot of fun. Finally getting the chance to flex my muscles. They asked me, oh, you nervous, this and that. Yo, y'all must have forgot. I do a three-and-a-half-hour live show every week. To millions. the millions and millions of my fans every single week. That was great. So yeah, I'm going to be

doing that this Friday and Saturday, so I look forward to it for now. Let us answer some questions. We are running out of time. We have a lot to get to here. Listen to your, Rick, are you there? I am here. Just fixing my headphones here. Ah, that sounds a lot better. I feel like I had blocked ears. Well, an eventful show. How about that? Nate Diaz. Incredible. Okay, let's get to it. first question by the way i should say that we didn't get to the luke rockhold interview from inside the vault but uh you could just google it we have i mean i feel like with 18 minutes left in the show people would rather hear us talk about the uh the news and the questions and the comments and go we we had the sensei one yeah it was the better one it's a good one go seek it out

luke rocold from 2009 okay okay held in brooks on the excellent bellator card this friday both Marcyne Held and Will Brooks really shown. What did you think of their performances? Just how much can Bellasur do for these young elites careers? Can you see them being poached by the UFC eventually? Especially Brooks. He is Magnif. Magnif.

Yeah, I saw it by our guy James. You see, this is a funny question because, rest assured, Bellator is not letting these guys go. They need these guys. They're pushing Will Brooks very much. In fact, he was at the MTV Movie Awards. I saw him yesterday, looking like a boss. look fantastic.

You know, we're big fans of Will Brooks over here, and it's great that he's finally getting the attention and respect that he deserves, so I don't think that UFC will be able to poach them necessarily. I can see Belator trying to hang on to those guys as long as possible. Held would have been a great addition to that polling card on Saturday afternoon. Great performance. Brooks is a great performance as well. Well, maybe they're next for each other.

Is that possible? Maybe. They didn't really talk about what's next for Brooks after his win over Dave Jansen. I love Jansen's whole juggling gimmick on Friday, but yeah, impressive. I thought the Belator show was solid. The Schilling fight obviously probably disappointing for them. Kind of interesting that Phoenix Jones lost for World Series of fighting and Schilling lost for Belator. Not comparing them as fighters, but they were kind of sort of the special fan attractions on both cards.

Like guys who aren't fighting for the belt anytime soon, but fan favorites, if you want, they both lost. So kind of a blow to both promotions on Friday. But the overall, two pretty entertaining shows. Next question, Phoenix Jones. Oh, there is. Has the hype train left the building? Superheroes don't work on the ground too much. Capes get in the way.

Good one. Good one. And his opponent killed him on the mat. Some of the stand-up exchanges were nice, though. Back to the Batcave to improve takedown defense? A lot of puns. Yeah, that was a pretty big blow. That was a pretty big blow.

It was not a very inspiring performance. You know, he was very confident going into the fight. There was a lot of hype surrounding him. ESPN, all that good stuff, the MAA or, et cetera. And it just didn't happen. Now, I don't say you cut him. Don't kick him out just yet, but they need to build them back up at this point, especially when his opponent, Manuelo wasn't really, you know, the biggest name out there.

So it's not like he can really run with whatever buzz and hype that Phoenix Jones had, Ben Fodor. That was, Phoenix Jones losing, in my opinion, was a bigger blow to World Series of Fighting than Joe Schilling losing for Bellator. our next question crow cop crow cop had a great exciting fight over the weekend but he is 40 years old now do you think he should retire now and go out winning his last fight

or would you like to see more I would love to see the rubber match now they didn't clarify but I'm assuming this is Gonzaga crow cop but don't think it will happen our main man Jason right um UFC's biggest fans on wheels

on four wheels much love and respect to him I kind of said it at the beginning of show that I would love in a perfect world for him to walk away. But again, who am I to tell a guy to walk away? If I'm going to write the perfect story to end his career,

this is a pretty damn good one. Come back to the UFC, beat the guy who beat you eight years ago, exercise those demons. Do it in that fashion? It's tremendous. Do I think he's going to do it? Absolutely not. What do you think? No. Nobody's going out like that. Are you on board with me, or do you want to still see him fight, you know, the Barnets and the Nogaras of the world?

I'd be okay with Crow Crop. continuing to fight. Heavy weights tend to be on the older side as a division and overall. Certainly, he has the mileage and the wars that he's been in add up. But I don't think he's one of the guys who I feel like this is approaching dangerous territory where he's really putting his health at more risk than anybody in particular. So I don't have a problem with Crow Cop continuing to fight. That said, you're certainly right that if he went out like this,

it's the perfect ending. But I don't see it happening and I don't really have a problem with it. On the flip side, he is a name. He's a guy that people get excited about still, a legend. You can't have too many of those. So I don't foresee it.

I'm just saying if I were able to write the perfect ending to Crow Cops' amazing career, it'd be a nice little story. But yeah, I don't see it happening and I could see him fighting perhaps Barnett who doesn't have an opponent. rematch for Ryan Elson. I mean, the Barnett won kind of makes a lot of sense.

It's a good fight. Next for who should be next in line for Yohanna Yanjachechik? It would have made sense to make the Calderwood fight if she had won, but now it seems there is no clear contender in the division. Feels a bit early for Maraz, despite the great performance, with only one UFC fight, but got to respect her efforts in calling out the champ. Yeah, I don't think the UFC would be doing her any favors by putting her in there with young Jacek just yet, but she did a tremendous job,

especially for someone who doesn't speak the language. Wow, she didn't speak Polish, she doesn't speak English, and yet we heard her loud and clear. And Joanna played up to her very well as well. She's brilliant in marketing and all that stuff. We've already covered that. The Calderwood fight, if you follow Joanne on Twitter, you've seen her discuss it a little bit vague,

but it seemed as though she was going through a lot behind the scenes, and it showed. It didn't seem like herself from the get-go. she just seemed out of it, but take nothing away from Marina. That was a fantastic debut, a fantastic performance. Still, I don't want to see your fight for the belt next. I think you have to go to Claudia Gedelia next. You know, don't let Yuan to sit on the sidelines for too long

and have the straw weights figure this thing out. You have a great rematch there. It was controversial. Claudia is considered one of the very best in the division. It makes all the sense of the world. The only downside, maybe, if you want to be a stickler, is that Claudia is actually coming off a loss. But remember, she...

Okay, first we have to wait to see how healthy she is, because that's a serious thing, back injury she's supposed to fight this Saturday. If it's not too bad, then I would do Claudia on that spot. I would put her in there. If it is too bad now, that's a whole other story. She's coming off a loss, but we've seen that before. It was a controversial one to the champion. I'd say make it happen.

That's the one, if she's healthy. Our next question. If Chris Camozy wins and Leoto Machita and Luke Rockhold fight to a draw, is Chris Camozy next in line for a title shot? I mean, this is a crazy question. This is what I think this whole thing means. I think this means that if Luke Rockhold wins on Saturday, he'll be next.

Now, of course, of course, the caveat is, don't forget, if Wydenman loses, you know, a lot of crazy things happen. Wyden loses, he get a rematch, all this stuff. But let's just say Wydenman wins. And Rockhold wins, regardless of what Jacqueray does, I think Rockhold gets the fight. I think that, you know, he's in the main event.

It's a huge win. you can't do much better than beating Machita. Now, if he loses, if Machita wins and Jaucere wins, and Weidman wins, I think you go with Jacques-Reary. Now, the Wydenman-Michita fight was amazing, one of the best fights of last year. But still, something fresh. I think a lot of people, even if it's a win over Chris Komosey, I think a lot of people would be down to see Jacques-Rae fight Weidman. That's a fantastic styles match-up.

He certainly deserves it, former Strike Force champ, et cetera, et cetera. So there are some options here. the Romero thing kind of messes it up, but I'm of the opinion. Look, I'll admit, and I want to hear your take because I know you're a big Jacare guy. At first I was bummed. I was like, no, Jacques-Rae on the card. It really takes something away from it. It felt like a little one-night tournament. And then in my mind, I was thinking, wow, I wonder if they'll put Jacaray in Montreal. It's around the same time, bisming, all that stuff, but of course you have the CB Delaware issue. And then they come out with Comozy. I was given a tip before they announced it. And they said they were going to announced it on TV during the broadcast, someone said it's a rematch. I started looking. I was like, Tim Kennedy? Is he going to fight Tim Kennedy? No, I know he just had a kid and he's kind of semi-retired. Derek Brunson, maybe, that would make sense. I'd even look at Comosey. Because the fight was one-sided, I know his short-nosed, he's not in the UFC, and then they come out with Combozzi. At first, I was like, wow, you know, I don't mind the fight that might. I love a good Rocky story. I love it. But the first

fight was one-sided. Hey, crazier things have happened. So more power to the guy. I wonder if he in fact really was the only guy to campaign for it, as Dana White alluded to, but at least we're getting to see Jacquet in action. And that has to be the silver lining, right? If you're a fan and you bought the ticket, at least your guy is still fighting, better than nothing. Yeah. Keep the guy that the people came to see on the card. But it raises a good question. What does a win like this on short notice do for a guy like Camozzi? Where does that put him in the kind of picture? It's kind of like a picture. It's kind of like when Brandon Vera got that shot against Shogun Hua,

UFC on Fox 4. I remember it was that one-night tournament. And all of a sudden it was Brandon, Vera, Shogunhua, Ryan Bader, Luna, Machita. I remember that mess. Bader lost to Jones. Machita had just lost to Jones in his last fight. Vera was annihilated by Jones when he met him before fighting for the belt. And Shogun lost him in Jones' first title fight.

And they were fighting in this one-night tournament to determine who would be next, the most impressive win, all that stuff. There was no good answer there. This one's a little different, but yeah, I just don't foresee, I don't foresee Brockhold Machita. I mean, I think if Machita, let's say Machita wins and Komosi wins, right? I think you go with Machita. I don't know. I mean, Komosi shoots up.

There's no doubt about it. Does he, though? I feel like we've seen cases where it doesn't work out that way. I think it should. You beat Jacqueray? I think it should. If you beat Jacqueray, you should be in the title picture, but I don't know what the, I don't know what the precedent is for this. But, yeah, it's going to be an interesting fight for sure.

Okay, let's see. What is, what was the last, the finish came at what time? I think it was like four minutes, three minutes, somewhere in that range. The impressiveness was not how quickly in the first round he finished him, but how quickly once he applied the arm triangle that he put Camozy to sleep. Yeah, it was 337 of the first round. Remember, that was a short notice fight as well. But difference is, Camozy was supposed to fight on that card. I believe if memory serves me correct, he was supposed to fight half a on the towel. So he was in fight shape, and he was kind of preparing for a similar fight on Natal and Jokurei on two different levels right now, but similar fighter, and, you know, he was fighting on that date. He knew it. He last fought March 6th of this year. You know, he was released by the UFC after losing to Natal in September, and he's two no since then, but he's fought on local shows. He won the prize FC middleweight title in November and then defended it successfully in March. Two very quick fights, first round finishes.

but he wasn't necessarily preparing to fight this weekend. So that's a different, you know, factor I play as well. My question to you is three minutes and 37 seconds. Does Jacer win before that? Does he do it in quicker fashion? I don't like predicting rounds. I don't like predicting, you know, over, under,

a round and a half, that type of stuff. I'll say Kobozy lasts longer this time. I'll say having been in there with Jacqueray once, he kind of got the experience he needed. I actually agree. I agree. But I don't think he wins the fight, unfortunately. Benson Henderson looks like his campaign to get onto the UFC 186 card didn't work. I was looking forward to Benson versus Jorge Mazzvedal at 170 because of the short notice. On his Twitter, though, he says he got another fight lined up.

Who do you think it is? What division do you think it's in? Yeah, I don't think it's going to be Benson versus. versus Masvedo 170. I don't think it's going to be Benson at UFC 186 in Montreal. I know some fans. We're excited about that. Right now, let me play, you know, when you see me on UFC tonight and all that, and I'm officially reporting things, I come with the information.

I'll tell you where I stand right now, as far as Benson-Henderson, I'm moving my hands a lot here. I tell you where I stand right now with Benson-Henderson, from what I'm hearing, the latest is that more than likely it will be the Michael Johnson fight. But that has yet to be made official, yet to be announced all that stuff. I could see it happening around July from what I've been told. look, I'm not on the wire right now. I'm not talking to people, but that's the last time I checked in on Benson Henderson.

I wanted to report about him last Wednesday, but it wasn't 100% just yet. So my news might be or my information might be a little, but it's not going to be 186. And last I checked, it seemed like more than likely it was going to be Johnson at 155. So we'll see what happens there. And again, remember, Johnson was campaigning for that fight. He agreed. He's down to fight anyone. I know Jeremy Bader reported, which I can't confirm that he does have one fight left on his contract,

so it makes a lot of sense. I mean, Benson-Henderson's stock has never been higher than it is right now. He wins this fight. He cashes in big time, in my opinion, becomes a very interesting free agent in the world of MMA. So we'll see what happens. I foresee his fight happening sooner rather than later, by the way. And if it does happen in July, let's just say I wouldn't be surprised because, remember, I challenged him to the basketball game in July,

and of course he's not going to fight around that time. So curious that he would find him out. Just saying. We're moving on to Twitter questions. Does Nick Newell's victory over Condon return him to must-see TV status? You know, I don't know. It didn't feel the same this time around.

Of course, he was coming off that loss to Justin Gachey in July. It had been quite some time since we saw him. Wow, it felt like forever. He had the biggest smile on his face. He did what he had to do. But it didn't quite. feel the same. You know, it was a solid decision win,

but it didn't have, it didn't leave the same. Did you feel the same? Do you agree with me? I don't know how to really put my finger on it, how to describe it, but it didn't quite feel the same. No, I mean, yeah, I don't know how to describe it either. I mean, the fight with Gachi was incredible, showed a lot of heart, and that was a great back and forth fight.

This one, I mean, you know, there'll be performances like this. I'm sure he wasn't thrilled with, you know, with the victory. It wasn't his most dominant performance. But sometimes you just got to get it done and he got it done. You know, when he fought Gaichi, he was undefeated. There was a lot of buzz. He was fighting for the belt. And, you know, it didn't go away.

And he was dominated by a better fighter at the time. Now we see how he rebounds. He needs to get some momentum. I hope that he's not injured or anything. He could get back in there relatively soon. I know that's been kind of a problem for some of the World Series of Fighting Fighters, but, you know, I think he needed some kind of finish, some kind of submission. Of course, with him, you know what he's dealing with, and that's part of the appeal,

that's part of his story, and the fight was just kind of there. So not taking any time the guy fights, it's amazing, it's an unbelievable story. It's one of the best stories in MMA. But it didn't feel like must-see TV like we had called it in the past. That's all I'm saying. I don't think any of the fights. And maybe that's a good thing. I don't know.

Well, I don't think any of the fights from here on out are going to be, that way anymore. Maybe. But that doesn't mean he can't have, you know, a great career, eventually be champion, anything like that. But I don't think, I think the undefeated streak and getting up to that point was where you could sell it as must-see TV. But now that he's lost, I don't think that the same shine is there anymore.

Now, if he becomes champion, I think that that may return that kind of shine. But until that point, I don't think people are. are going to be tuning in as vigorously. Yeah. Next question, or a final question, rather, from Twitter. Is UFC 186 one more injury away from being canceled? Should it be canceled, in your opinion? Well, it depends on the injury.

I mean, it depends on who gets injured. If it's a lower-level guy, no, if it's Demetrius. I don't know. I don't even want to talk about that. Should it be canceled? No. And I'll tell you why. I know there are people who have tickets.

I know there are people who are excited. You see, I feel very strongly about UFC 186, almost like biased in a sense. I hate that this has happened to a Montreal card. It's been so long since there's been a big show in Montreal. And Montreal is an amazing fight town. Montreal's been supporting MMA since long before the UFC was a player in Canada. You know, Montreal was the mecca of MMA before Dana White was calling it that. Montreal was the mecca of MMA in Canada 100%, before Ontario was legalizing show.

shows. TKO, Stefan Patri, all that stuff. I mean, all the best. And even guys who are outside of Canada made a name for themselves in Montreal. And it bumps me out, look, I was, I was kind of down on the card when it had T.J. Dilshaun Barrow on it. I was down on the card when Roy McDonnell was fighting Hector Lombard in the co-main event. Rampage was on the card. It didn't feel like a card that belonged to Montreal. And now, of course, we know what happened to it. So it's disappointing. It's disheartening. But look, let's, let's, I want to try to be positive about UFC. 186. And if you're going to be in town, one more thing to get excited about on the Friday morning. I didn't mention this last week. On the Friday morning before the show, April 24th, at 8 a.m.

8 a.m. So get your sleep on Thursday. I'll be hosting a panel about the business of MMA. It's something that the Jewish Congress, what is it, the JCC, damn it. I don't even, JCC, what's the stand for? The Jewish Congress of Canada? I believe that's the, the Jewish Congress of Canada. what it stands for. This organization in Montreal asked me to host this panel, and I had to put together the panel. So I got David Lozzo, Tom Wright, and Forrest Griffin. We're going to be speaking to people.

It's a breakfast, $30. Downtown, the Plaza Hotel in Montreal. I've tweeted the link to it, Facebook did all that stuff. And, you know, meet and greet. You can meet all the guys. I think it's going to be a lot of fun, talking about the business and the rise of MMA and the state of mixed martial arts in Canada. We'll talk to that to Tom Wright.

about that and also Forrest Griffin will be there. David Loazo just opened a gym in Montreal. That's a reason to come to Montreal for UFC 186. You don't get that at every single card. So I hope a lot of people who listen to this show will be there. It's open to anyone. And yeah, it's a bummer, but it sucks

when they cancel cards because, look, there's a lot of fighters who have been preparing and have big fights. You know, there's Thomas Almeda on the card, and Sarah Kaufman has been waiting for a fight for a very long time. Alexis Davis looking to rebound. Eve Jebouin, looking to get back on track as well.

John McDessie's on the card. Of course, Michael Bisping and CB Dalloway, Kioji Horaguchi. I'm trying to get us excited here. There's stuff to get excited about. So let's try to be positive about it. And, well, we'll have a lot of time to do that next week on the show. For now, it's all about UFC on Fox 15.

It's this Saturday, New York, New Jersey. Luke Rockhold versus Leota Machita. Let me ask you one question. Yep. You probably know about the last. line the page manzan fight right no i haven't looked at it but i if i had to guess i would say that page is a favorite crazy minus 132 plus 118 no that's not crazy all right but i think yeah i mean i think there's some there may be some value there on on felice but um it doesn't

shock me and you know a lot of times these these you know people don't want to admit somebody's talent just because they're young and attractive or whatever the case may be before they prove it, but maybe she is as good as that line would say she is. So we'll see. Gordon Dempsey. Gordon's got to be the favorite. Correct. Brandau Hedis. Brandau.

Correct. Sullivan Means. Means. Correct. Sterling Mizugaki. Huh. Damn. Um, come on, man.

Misugaki. I'll bring you no underdogs now. Sterling, minus 258. Mizugaki. That's interesting. Okay. You're not down. You're not down with Sterling.

It's not that I'm not down with Sterling. I would have expected Mizugaki to be the favorite, but okay. Anderson Valante. Anderson. Correct. Um, minus 258. Now, this one, I'm not going to go out and say these people's main events. I'm not going to get crazy, but it's probably the fight that I'm most,

interested in outside of Rockhold, Machita, OSP, Patrick Cummins. I'm fascinated by this fight. I love this fight. What's OSP's last fight? Is that the knockout of Shogh? Yeah, yeah. I'm going to say Cummins because of his wrestling. Mm-hmm. Our main man Cummins. But I think the line will be close. Yeah, minus 123 plus 114. Yeah, that makes sense. Whoa. How about this?

Okay, well, I just gave it away. What? Daryush Miller. Well, yeah, then your reaction would make me think that Daryush is the favorite. Did you think that? No, I would have thought Miller. Daryush is the favorite. Minus 172, Jim Miller plus 160.

Yeah, I would have thought Miller is the favorite. Wow. That might be an interesting one to bet on for an underdog, for sure. Wow. And then Van Zent, Herig. Now, Daryush's last performance was very good. He looks fantastic. Jim Miller.

Jim Miller, by the way, number one candidate, you almost forgot, of course. I mean, holy man. Even now. Max Holloway, Cub Swanson. Cub close minus 144 plus a lot of close

line so far a lot of close okay how about this one jacqueray camozy stop it no but just just try to guess the line oh I think I saw it on Twitter

I think it's like something like minus 1200 or something for jacqueray and like plus minus 1100 plus 926 yeah are you surprised it's that close

and I'm not trying to be an A-hole here but just consider no no I don't you think it should be that's about right I think yeah and finally Rockhold Machita.

Rockhold. Rockhold. But, yeah, Rockhold. Very close. Minus 133 plus 123. A lot of under minus 150 fights. A lot of less than two to one fights. A lot of close fights, it means.

You know, Miller, Daryush seemed pretty close. Van Zand Herrick. That's a good card. Rockhold. Yeah, very well matched, it seems, at least according to the betting lines. That's one of the closer main events. OSP, close. Sterling Mizugaki, I think, was close.

So, yeah. This is year four of the UFC on Fox relationship, but they waited for such a good card to roll me out as host. Is this the best one? I don't know about that. It's pretty damn good, from top to bottom. Especially when Romero was on it. It was freaking awesome.

Romero Jocchere? I mean, Eddie Gordon, tough winner. I know he's coming off loss. He's the curtain jerker. Yeah. I don't think there's any fight where you don't know the fighters. Yeah. I mean, the Fox main card is great.

You know, let's just pretend Romero was on it. But the prelims, because the first three fights that I mentioned, Sullivan Means, Brando, Hedes, Dempsey Gordon, those are fight pass. But then the next four are on Fox as well. It's not FS1 or anything like that. And those are legit fights. Mizugaki Sterling, Falante Anderson, Cummins, St. Prue, and Miller-Dar-Uge.

All very good fights. all foxworthy in that sense I remember they did this I think it was last year it was no it was in yeah it was in San Jose and the prelims were on Big Fox and they weren't really foxworthy to be honest these ones

I'm fine with telling someone to watch this this is all high level stuff it's good card yeah so that's this Saturday I'll be there and if anyone's there as well there's open workouts Wednesday in New York UFC gym and then the media day is Thursday and then the Wands are in Newark I love it

It's a home game. I ain't going nowhere. No planes for me. That does it for us. We have run out of time, my friends. No more MMA talk this week. So let us say goodbye. You can hit my music.

What a fun show. I love when things come out of nowhere. And the show gets a little better as the day goes on. Mark Romandie, thank you very much for stopping by and talking to us about judging an MMA. We didn't mention a certain name. and that's going to be the case around these parts for quite some time. If you don't know what I'm talking about, consider yourself lucky. Mark Coleman, all the best of him.

Great to hear from him. We wish him nothing but good health and good times in the future. And hopefully he can get past this point and get that surgery and be able to thank everyone who has helped him out. Amazing stuff. The beauty of M.A. Once again, this community that we talk about really coming through for the hammer. Congratulations to Felipe Nover for getting back into the UFC. Great to hear from him as well.

One of our own, Brooklyn's own, Felipe Nover, returning May 16th in Manila. Good luck. All the best, Chris Lieben. Good luck with that book. Check it out on Amazon. You can pre-order it right now, as I said. I bet there's a lot of great stories in that thing. Thank you very much to Eddie Gordon and Al Jermaine Sterling for stopping by in studio.

wish them the best this weekend. Gordon versus Dempsey, Sterling versus Mizugaki, great hanging out with them, getting to learn more about them, and a big weekend for New York MMA this Saturday. And of course, thank you very much to the one and only Nate Diaz. Hope all works out. Thank you so much for stopping by. That was amazing stuff. Nate Diaz finally on the M.A. Hour.

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